Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement on Thursday that Apple CEO Tim Cook’s hypocrisy on human rights is “stunning.”
Cook delivered a keynote address at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) conference in Washington, DC, last week. During the speech, he repeated a longstanding claim that Apple believes that privacy is a “fundamental human right.” He attacked a “data industrial complex built on a foundation of surveillance” and urged companies to improve their users’ privacy.
Carr said that Cook’s words rang hollow as he largely ignored the company’s own conduct in China.
Carr said that Cook’s words “in Washington founder upon the harsh reality of Apple’s conduct in China:”
Apple CEO Tim Cook waves as he arrives for the Economic Summit held for the China Development Forum in Beijing on March 23, 2019. (NG HAN GUAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“We should no longer look the other way when global corporations stand shoulder to shoulder with authoritarian regimes,” he added. In his letter to Cook, Carr noted the many ways that Apple has enabled the Chinese government to censor apps and allowed the government to infringe upon Chinese citizens’ privacy:
… your company was continuing its well documented campaign in Beijing of aggressively censoring apps that the behest of the Communist Party of China. In fact, as the New York Times previously reported, “Mr. Cook often talks about Apple’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators, his company put the data of its Chinese customers at risk and has aided government censorship in the Chinese version of its App Store. Or as the Asia director for Amnesty International once put it: “Apple has become a cog in the censorship machine that presents a government-controlled version of the internet …. If you look at the behavior of the Chinese government, you don’t see any resistance from Apple — no history of standing up for the principles that Apple claims to be so attached to.”
…
China is not becoming more open or bending towards freedom because Apple is doing business there. Far from it. Chian is cracking down on individual liberty at an accelerating clip. Look at Hong Kong. Look at Xinjiang. … Continuing to partner with brutal regimes like Communist China only provides them with tacit — if not explicit — support and emboldens those bad actors. It provides them with a veneer of openness and legitimacy, while allowing them to surveil individuals and limit their human rights.
Carr also slammed Apple for allowing China to censor the Voice of America app and demanded to know if Apple will allow Chinese citizens to have access to the app through its App Store in China.
Rachel Bovard, the policy director for the Conservative Policy Institute (CPI), said, “The companies who claim they must be immune from public policy so they can save use from China are actually in bed with China. Example eleventy billion.”
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