Linked List: June 11, 2020

Thursday, 11 June 2020

Apple Pulls Pocket Casts and Castro From Chinese App Store 

Sam Byford, The Verge:

Pocket Casts tells The Verge that Apple didn’t provide specifics on which content violated Chinese law upon request, instead suggesting that the team reach out to the Cyberspace Administration of China directly. The app was removed around two days after Apple contacted the developer. China represented its seventh biggest market, Pocket Casts says, and it was considered to be growing.

Castro, another iPhone podcast app, was also recently pulled from China’s App Store. The developers say China made up 10 percent of its user base, although it accounted for a smaller percentage of paying subscribers. Apple didn’t provide Castro with specifics on what content fell foul of Chinese regulations, either.

Apple’s own Podcasts app remains available in China, but its built-in directory of podcasts has been heavily censored to comply with Chinese law.

Overcast is architected in a way that makes the app dependent on overcast.fm servers to be useful, and those servers have been blocked by the Great Firewall for years, so there’s no need for China to ban the app.

Apple Reveals WWDC 2020 Schedule 

Basically no surprises here. The keynote is Monday June 22 at 10 am PT, and the Platforms State of the Union (the technical details keynote) is at 2 pm PT. Same as usual.

Engineering sessions:

June 23 to 26 — Starting June 23, developers will have the ability to learn how to build the next generation of apps with more than 100 technical and design-focused sessions helmed by Apple engineers. Videos will be posted each day at 10 a.m. PDT and will be available in the Apple Developer app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, as well as on the Apple Developer website.

So they’ll roll out sessions throughout the week, as usual, with each day’s batch released at 10 am.

One big question I’ve had is how they’ll do one-on-one labs. Sounds like it’s basically a lottery:

Developers will be able to request an appointment with the Apple engineers who helped build the latest advances in Apple platforms, offering one-on-one technical guidance and in-depth details on how to implement new features. Developer Labs will be open to Apple Developer Program members as space is available.

No word about Apple Design Awards.

Zoom Closed Account of U.S.-Based Chinese Activist 

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, reporting for Axios:

The U.S. video-conferencing company Zoom closed the account of a group of prominent U.S.-based Chinese activists after they held a Zoom event commemorating the 31st anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre, Axios has learned. […]

A Zoom spokesperson confirmed to Axios that the account had been closed “to comply with local law” and said it had now been re-activated.

Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have reactivated the US-based account.

If you’ve been paying even vague attention to DF these past few months you know I think Zoom is sketchy and untrustworthy in numerous ways. But one of the foundational reasons for this mistrust is that Zoom has strong ties to China. They employ hundreds of engineers in China, and were flagged for routing calls (that did not involve participants in China) through servers in China.

Now they shut down a U.S.-based account claiming it was “to comply with their respective local laws”. That makes no sense. Clearly Zoom closed the account to comply with Chinese law.

Trump Shot/Chaser Numero Dos 

The president tweeted the following (nonsensical capitalization sic, of course):

It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom.

James Fallows:

I believe he genuinely does not realize that Generals Bragg, Hood, and Benning all commanded forces that fought against troops of the United States Army.

(You can argue about whether these should be re-named. But he seems to think they are part of the “History of Winning”.)

Pretty hard to claim their part in the “History of Freedom” either, given the cause they were fighting for.

Trump Shot/Chaser Numero Uno 

Trump campaign sends shot to CNN:

President Donald Trump’s campaign is demanding CNN retract and apologize for a recent poll that showed him well behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

The demand, coming in the form of a cease and desist letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker that contained numerous incorrect and misleading claims, was immediately rejected by the network.

“We stand by our poll,” said Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman.

CNN general counsel David Vigilante provides the chaser:

To my knowledge, this is the first time in its 40 year history that CNN had been threatened with legal action because an American politician or campaign did not like CNN’s polling results.

To the extent we have received legal threats from political leaders in the past, they have typically come from countries like Venezuela or other regimes where there is little or no respect for a free and independent media.

The response just gets better from there, pointing out that Trump’s pollster is this guy.