US Tech Companies Enabled the Surveillance and Detention of Hundreds of Thousands in China (apnews.com) 29
An Associated Press investigation based on tens of thousands of leaked documents revealed Tuesday that American technology companies designed and built core components of China's surveillance apparatus over the past 25 years, selling billions of dollars in equipment to Chinese police and government agencies despite warnings about human rights abuses.
IBM partnered with Chinese defense contractor Huadi in 2009 to develop predictive policing systems for the "Golden Shield" project, AP reports, citing classified government blueprints. The technology enabled mass detentions in Xinjiang, where administrators assigned 100-point risk scores to Uyghurs with deductions for growing beards or being aged 15-55. Dell promoted a laptop with "all-race recognition" capabilities on its WeChat account in 2019. Thermo Fisher Scientific marketed DNA kits as "designed" for ethnic minorities including Uyghurs and Tibetans until August 2024.
Oracle, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Intel, NVIDIA, and VMware sold geographic mapping software, facial recognition systems, and cloud infrastructure to Chinese police through the 2010s. The surveillance network tracks "key persons" whose movements are restricted and monitored, with one estimate suggesting 55,000 to 110,000 people were placed under residential surveillance in the past decade. China now has more surveillance cameras than the rest of the world combined.
IBM partnered with Chinese defense contractor Huadi in 2009 to develop predictive policing systems for the "Golden Shield" project, AP reports, citing classified government blueprints. The technology enabled mass detentions in Xinjiang, where administrators assigned 100-point risk scores to Uyghurs with deductions for growing beards or being aged 15-55. Dell promoted a laptop with "all-race recognition" capabilities on its WeChat account in 2019. Thermo Fisher Scientific marketed DNA kits as "designed" for ethnic minorities including Uyghurs and Tibetans until August 2024.
Oracle, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Intel, NVIDIA, and VMware sold geographic mapping software, facial recognition systems, and cloud infrastructure to Chinese police through the 2010s. The surveillance network tracks "key persons" whose movements are restricted and monitored, with one estimate suggesting 55,000 to 110,000 people were placed under residential surveillance in the past decade. China now has more surveillance cameras than the rest of the world combined.
This explains the Silicon Valley ideology hybrid (Score:2)
They want to be libertarian and sell to whomever they want, but they also sort of like technocratic communism. Guess it's true that the beliefs of companies reflect what their customers believe.
Re:This explains the Silicon Valley ideology hybri (Score:5, Informative)
Well, IBM also contributed to Nazi Germany technology in WW2:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:This explains the Silicon Valley ideology hybri (Score:5, Interesting)
American Publicly Traded Corporations, by definition, are about bringing value to the shareholder.
You cannot bring value if you turn down lucrative business opportunities, be it fascist, nazi, or authoritarian.
A business can only have strong ideals if its owned by a single private owner who doesn't mind being the activist, or if the public corporation is pressured to NOT do this (as in many american businesses would have loved a lucrative german contract until 1939 when our beloved England got involved.)
American techbro FAANG companies were anti-Trump, until it became apararent that Trump held the reigns, and now they are totally pro-Trump. Its not that they are inherently right or left wing, MAGA or egalitarian...they want to make money and will suck the blood of whoever seems to hold the ability for them to continue to make money wherever money is to be made.
As many have been saying for decades (or even a century or more), this will not change and should not be shocking or a suprise to anyone.
PS - think tech is bad? look at chemical companies, or pharmaceutical companies, or even the military companies. They all want to chase the holy dollar above any ideals.
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Yeah but let's be perfectly honest here, while there were bad actors like IBM before, there was some restraint provided by investors, or at least the desire to no scare them away or face shareholder driven ousting of the board etc.
Passive investing - has been the major contributor to the "whatever brings asset growth or enables dividends to the shareholders this quarter" vision of fiduciary responsibility and corporate governance should look like mentality.
When the people who buying stocks directly controll
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You cannot bring value if you turn down lucrative business opportunities, be it fascist, nazi, or authoritarian
Publicly held companies are NOT required to do business with any government that comes knocking, and in some instances are explicitly forbidden from selling items to certain governments by U.S. law.
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If I'm reading the fine article correctly the trade in technology enabling the surveillance seen today in China has been going on since at least 2000, but started meeting restrictions in 2019 when the CCP was caught abusing Chinese citizens with technology from the USA. That's closing the barn door after the horses have bolted. But then that's not likely a fair assessment, hindsight is 20/20.
I'm fairly certain that there were signs going back to before 2000 that indicated that the CCP was not exactly kind
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History doesn't repeat but it will rhyme. Part of me doesn't want to see war but another part does since that was the only way to put an end to aggression from Germany, Japan, and Italy. After the war they became free (or at least "freer") nations. Well, we did see Germany and Korea divided so not a complete success. I'd say much of that lies with not recognizing the threat Russia posed at the time. We should not be trading anything with China right now, they are not our friend. The problem is that cutting off trade to prevent further abuse of Chinese by the CCP could be the last straw that leads China to declare war.
WW2 could have been prevented, but the march toward war was inevitable once Hitler stole complete power. That is to say, I don't think it is too late to avoid a global war, but we certainly have to work hard to ensure we don't result in a global war. Trump seems content to let the world be more and more dominated by three global powers - the U.S., Russia, and China (and maybe the EU as a 4th, but time will tell). They don't seem to much care about South America or Africa, except perhaps the Middle East.
I a
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Sad but true. Always the same crap with the human race. Greed rules supreme.
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Since when did any implementation of communism NOT create its own priveleged ruling class?
In before But that wasn't real communism. [staticflickr.com]
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I'm guessing that saying "in before"
Thank goodness I live in a country where saying that doesn't put my life or liberty in jeopardy.
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I'm guessing that saying "in before"
Thank goodness I live in a country where saying that doesn't put my life or liberty in jeopardy.
If you live in the US, then I suggest that you take a good, hard, critical look at what you just wrote.
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Centralized corruption has so far prevented communism from being implemented pretty much anywhere.
This brings a question: given human nature, is there any way to prevent all the corruption, so that communism or democracy or a federated republic could be purely implemented? If you don't have one, then we're just playing No True Scotsman. Greed is a part of human nature, emerging at differing levels and expressions across individuals in the population, but it cannot be hand-waved away in practical philosophy.
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This is America! (Score:4, Interesting)
So long as they were profitable while doing so, no one will have a problem with it. After all, profit must come before all other concerns.
This is the problem with fetishizing profit and greed. We've lifted the sociopaths up into positions of power because they're the best equipped to set aside compassion, human decency, and concerns for environment or their fellow man. We can't suddenly pretend that the end result of that is a shock. It no longer matters how many are hurt by the actions of the business world. It only matters if it generated a profit while causing that hurt.
I wish we lived in a better world, where compassion and concern for others rose above the need for profit. But in this world, these companies will not be held to account for what they've enabled, because they made money while doing it. And greed is our only god.
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So long as they were profitable while doing so, no one will have a problem with it. After all, profit must come before all other concerns.
I would guess that depends on those seeking short term profits vs long term profits. Consider how two different people might think on that. We can have the blue-haired (with a reference to Good Morning, Vietnam) "woman in comfortable shoes" and how they'd think about profit. On the other hand is the profit motives of the neatly dressed husband and father. Would not people with a family think long term? Now, consider how differently these two might vote.
This is the problem with fetishizing profit and greed. We've lifted the sociopaths up into positions of power because they're the best equipped to set aside compassion, human decency, and concerns for environment or their fellow man. We can't suddenly pretend that the end result of that is a shock. It no longer matters how many are hurt by the actions of the business world. It only matters if it generated a profit while causing that hurt.
Wait, I thought we we talking about the "evil capi
Just like IBM and the Holocaust (Score:1)
...Business relations between IBM and the Hitler regime continued uninterrupted in the face of broad international calls for an economic boycott...
On April 12, 1933, the German government announced plans to conduct a long-delayed national census.[2]:54 The project was particularly important to the Nazis as a mechanism for the identification of Jews, Roma, and other ethnic groups deemed undesirable by the regime. [IBM subsidiary] Dehomag offered to assist the German government in its task of ethnic identific
And they're poised to do the same on home soil (Score:2)
Heil Trump!
Blame the owners (Score:2)
This is distraction Propaganda (Score:2)
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Or possibly, both things can be bad and of serious concern...
It's like IBM all over (Score:2)
IBM was ecstatic to provide Germany with tabulating machines. Doesn't seem to have affected them. Same with this.
New evil, same as the old evil (Score:2)
Palantir has picked up the evil baton and will do so much worse and make so much more money in the next decade...
Spreading freedom and democracy (Score:2)
By selling weapons to warlords and now tools for the surveillance state.
Why spread democracy when war and strife is more profitable?
Not to mention Lavender and Where's Daddy (Score:1)
.. used to murder Palestinians.
SHAMEFUL.