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On July 20, 2020, GreatFire wrote to all 13 members of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, requesting a thorough examination into Apple’s practice of censorship of its App Store, and an investigation into how the company collaborates with the Chinese authorities to maintain its unique position as one of the few foreign tech companies operating profitably in the Chinese digital market.  

This letter was sent a week before Apple CEO TIm Cook will be called for questioning in front of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law. The CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook will also be questioned on July 27, as part of the Committee’s ongoing investigation into competition in the digital marketplace.

This hearing offers an opportunity to detail to the Subcommittee how Apple uses its closed operating ecosystem to not only abuse its market position but also to deprive certain users, most notably those in China, of their right to download and use apps related to privacy, secure communication, and censorship circumvention.

We hope that U.S. House representatives agree with our view that Apple should not be allowed to do elsewhere what would be considered as unacceptable in the U.S. Chinese citizens are not second class citizens. Private companies such as Apple compromise themselves and their self-proclaimed values of freedom and privacy when they collaborate with the Chinese government and its censors.

苹果在涉及西藏的审查方面有着悠久历史。 2009年，据计算机世界网透露 ，与达赖喇嘛有关的几个应用程序在苹果的中国区应用商店中不存在。这些应用的开发者未收到他们的应用被删除的通知。当面对这些审查制度时，苹果发言人只是说该公司将“继续遵守当地法律”。

2017年12月，在中国的一次会议上，当被问及与中国当局合作审查苹果应用商店时，蒂姆·库克 宣称：

“所以你的选择是参与进去，还是站在局外，吼叫着事情应当怎样？我自己的看法非常强烈，你得进入赛场，因为没有任何东西会从局外发生改变。"

自苹果公司首次因与中国当局合作以遏制已被边缘化的声音而被批评的十年间，情况发生了什么变化？苹果继续严格遵守中国当局的审查令。蒂姆库克什么时候会期望他的公司能帮助在中国带来积极的变化？

根据生成的数据 https://applecensorship.com，Apple现在已经审查了在中国应用商店中29个西藏的热门应用程序。关于新闻，宗教研究，旅游甚至游戏的西藏主题应用程序正在被苹果审查。最下方附有完整的审查应用列表。

“苹果的领导力隐藏在他们审查应用程序以遵守模糊的'中国当地法律'的借口，但他们的行为缺乏任何透明度。通过从中国苹果应用商店删除藏文和其他许多应用程序，苹果阻碍了藏人获取信息和自由表达自己的能力，这是国际法下的一项基本人权。“ TibCERT（西藏计算机应急准备小组）的响应协调员Dorjee Phuntsok说道。 他们与GreatFire合作对被屏蔽的应用程序进行了分析。

   2019年1月，GreatFire推出了applecensorship.com。在那时，GreatFire联合创始人马丁约翰逊指出：“苹果公司在其透明度报告中没有分享有关应用商店审查的信息 - 该项目强制透明度。蒂姆库克可以随心所欲地说苹果在中国做了或没有做什么，但 applecensorship.com 提供了可以实际看到苹果实施审查原始数据的途径。

分析苹果在中国审查的iOS应用程序

有许多应用程序由藏人或为藏人制作，苹果正在审查中国区应用商店中的许多应用程序。了解某些应用程序被阻止的方式和原因以及这些决策背后的基本原理非常重要。为了解这一点，TibCERT（西藏应急准备小组）对在中国应用商店中被审查的藏文应用程序进行了分析。该研究使用关键字搜索藏文应用程序，然后使用GreatFire提供的应用程序审查平台。

TibCERT分析了119个以藏语为主题的iOS应用程序。使用“西藏”，“藏人”，“达赖喇嘛”，“佛教”，“藏传佛教”，等关键词搜索苹果应用商店时，可以找到下面列出的应用程序。这些应用程序分为五大类：“宗教或文化”，“媒体/政治”，“娱乐”，“工具”和“教育”。

最新的 数字版权企业责任指数排名 就公司和政府需要做些什么来提出建议，以改善全球互联网用户的人权保护。数字版权排名（RDR）旨在通过为公司尊重和保护用户权利制定全球标准和激励措施，以促进互联网上的言论自由和隐私权。

在他们的2019年责任指数中，RDR着眼于24家世界上最重要的互联网公司在言论自由和隐私方面的政策，并强调了那些尚需努力和已经取得改进的公司。 RDR指出：

透明度不足使私人政党，政府和公司本身更容易通过网络言论滥用权力，并规避责任。

特别是，该报告强调了苹果如何滥用其网络言论的权力，并在中国指出这一点。根据该报告，苹果公司在面对政府当局提出的要求时，并未披露其从App Store中删除内容的数据。

虽然[苹果]披露了有关政府限制帐户请求的数据，但它没有披露有关内容删除请求的数据，例如从苹果应用商店删除应用程序的请求。苹果公司对其影响言论自由的政策和做法讳莫如深，这让它的排名低于此类别的所有其他美国公司。

该报告为政府提出了明智而感性的建议。然而，这些建议还强调了与中国政府进行这些讨论是多么的困难。

RDR 建议政府要求公司的透明度并保持透明度。中国当局采取相反的做法 - 他们不希望在这些问题上保持透明度，因为它突显了他们不希望公众了解的信息。当局不希望公司透明，他们可能直接指示Apple不发布他们正删除的内容列表。

苹果可能真的认为他们必须遵守中国的法律条文。或者他们也可能愿意分享有关App Store中被审查内容的信息，但有碍于被中国当局束手束脚。苹果还可能会利用这种情况作为他们打击中国言论自由的掩护。无论Apple的真实动机如何，透明度都能够并已经被强加给他们。

在2019年1月，GreatFire发布了 applecensorship.com。该项目监控Apple在公司运营的每个市场中对App Store的审查。应用程序的可用性测试由网站访问者进行。截至今天，用户生成的测试已经确定了 超过1100个 在中国应用商店中不可用的应用。在中国受审查的应用程序包括那些涉及宗教，新闻，隐私和翻墙的应用程序。通过审查有助于规避审查限制的应用程序，苹果确实的让中国人无法自由访问信息。苹果的中国用户或许认为他们买到的是一流的设备 - 但可以肯定的是，该公司将他们视为二等信息公民。

RDR建议苹果对言论自由的限制保持透明，并公布有关公司因政府要求而删除内容所采取行动的数据。我们邀苹果审核我们在 applecensorship.com 上公开发布的数据，并根据中国当局的指示突出显示已删除应用的情况。

苹果对中国区的审查行为敞开了大门 - 但这似乎只是冰山一角。

Last week Twitter came under attack from a DDoS attack orchestrated by the Chinese authorities. While such attacks are not uncommon for websites like Twitter, this one proved unusual. While the Chinese authorities use the Great Firewall to block harmful content from reaching its citizens, it now uses DDoS attacks to take down content that appears on websites beyond its borders. For the Chinese authorities, it is not simply good enough to “protect” the interests of Chinese citizens at home - in their view of cyber sovereignty, any content that might harm China’s interests must be removed, regardless of where the website is located.

And so last week the Chinese authorities determined that Twitter was the target. In particular, the authorities targeted the Twitter account for Guo Wengui (https://twitter.com/KwokMiles), the rebel billionaire who is slowly leaking information about corrupt Chinese government officials via his Twitter account and through his YouTube videos. Guo appeared to ramp up his whistle-blowing efforts last week and the Chinese authorities, in turn, ramped up theirs.

via https://twitter.com/KwokMiles/status/863689935798374401

It’s been three years since Eric Schmidt proclaimed that Google would chart a course to ending online censorship within ten years. Now is a great time to check on Google’s progress, reassess the landscape, benchmark Google’s efforts against others who share the same goal, postulate on the China strategy and offer suggestions on how they might effectively move forward.

Flowers left outside Google China’s headquarters after its announcement it might leave the country in 2010. Photo: Wikicommons.

What has Google accomplished since November 2013?

The first thing they have accomplished is an entire rebranding of both Google (now Alphabet) and Google Ideas (now Jigsaw). Throughout this blog post, reference is made to both new and old company names.

Google has started to develop two main tools which they believe can help in the fight against censorship. Jigsaw’s DDoS protection service, Project Shield, is effectively preventing censorship-inspired DDoS attacks and recently helped to repel an attack on Brian Krebs’ blog. The service is similar to other anti-DDoS services developed by internet freedom champions and for-profit services like Cloudflare.

Facebook is considering launching a censorship tool that would enable the world’s biggest social network to “enter” the China market. Sadly, nobody will be surprised by anything that Mark Zuckerberg decides to do in order to enter the China market. With such low expectations, Facebook is poised to usurp Apple as China’s favorite foreign intelligence gathering partner. If the company launches in China using this strategy they will also successfully erase any bargaining power that other media organizations may hold with the Chinese authorities.