Scot Dutchy wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:That's because you are frothing. And you have, indeed, created numerous straw men. You might debate me about the former, but about the latter there is no question. You have repeatedly made up positions for me for which you have no basis, and which are contradicted by previous posts I've made in the thread. I've been encouraging you to read it for this very reason.

You dont have to encourage me to do anything. Bloody arrogance.

But that is often the style you see here from people across the pond. Even when they come here they are still the same.

Until they realise the difference in the two societies then it is a completely different tune.

You are the one that started bitching and frothing.

And the reason why they chose to point out Apple rather than all the other companies doing the same thing is because...

Exactly what Apple said! What a surprise.

And that's a good reason for them to give all the other companies a pass because...

Who is starting to froth. My poor Apple.

I don't see any of the other companies that do this same sort of thing mentioned in this article, do you?

Oh what a shame just mentioning Apple. I wonder why?

I think it would be acknowledged/addressed if the goal of the article was stopping companies from abusing their labor force, or even making people aware of the true nature of this problem. As it stands, it's just an excuse for the frothers to froth.

Then again, I don't expect news companies to do the right thing any more than I expect big corporations to do the right thing, so regarding the article and what it covers: no surprise here.

Who mentioned frothing?

Hey look, more! I'll go get you a bunch of napkins.

Call this debating or just childish insulting?

Hey look, a straw man! There's the sort of presumptuousness and weakness of position I expect from your posts

So, going to provide any evidence for your statements? Or will previous clobberings on this subject stand?

I'm particularly interested in this "white company" thing you've rectally extracted.

This from a person who could be bothered even to watch a 3.5min video.

If you say so. I don't spend my time watching programs about Apple, I guess only folks who like to froth about them do that.

Well at least you are honest

I'm With Stupid wrote:I don't think Apple ever claimed to be a particularly moral company (beyond the usual PR crap of normal companies). It did come up during Steve Jobs post-death sainthood that he cancelled all of Apple's charitable activities. I don't remember anyone claiming they were a whiter than white company.

Not that it's relevant. As if noy being hypocritical would make worker exploitation more palatable.

Equally, I think the idea that this criticism has anything to do with their Americaness is ridiculous. Obviously British and American companies get more scrutiny from the English language media. That's only natural. But I don't see anyone attacking them for their nationality. If anything they attract a certain amount of extra publicity because of the evangelical nature of some of their users as well as the fact that they're popular amongst creative liberal types. There's an element of "see, they're just another evil corporation."

Scot Dutchy wrote:Really your childishness is astounding.

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:Really your childishness is astounding.

Irony meter. It exploded.

If that's the most substance you can produce, I'm done with you. Let me know if you actually feel like addressing any of the points. If not, I'm going to do like every other smart person on this forum does and ignore your vapid posts.

SafeAsMilk wrote:
But that brings me to my question: do you really think that publicizing single companies has actually helped with the problem of worker exploitation? Perhaps to some degree, but I think it allows people to ignore how widespread the problem may actually be. Say creative liberals are outraged and stop buying Apple products. Will the contractors clean up their acts for all the other companies that use them? Or will they just put a band-aid on it and wait until it blows over?

Why Apple's (RED) campaign is so important | Computerworld
http://www.computerworld.com/.../why-ap ... portant....
Nov 24, 2014 - Apple's latest campaign to raise money for AIDS treatment comes at a critical tipping point in the struggle against the disease.

Apple and other global companies can no longer avoid scrutiny anywhere they operate, from activists, investors, governments, and journalists. Ma Jun, a Chinese environmental activist and founder of China's Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, pretty much singlehandedly caused Apple to address problems in its supply chain by bringing them into the public spotlight.

Worker suicides at Foxconn, Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner, in recent years focused attention on the company's long hours, unsafe conditions and packed living quarters. Apple joined the Fair Labor Association earlier this year, the first technology company to do so.
The FLA's subsequent investigation found at least 50 breaches of Chinese labor laws as well as the code of conduct the group signed with Apple.

Many of the most damning critiques of Apple's worker conditions rely heavily on data and examples brought to light by Apple itself.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-1 ... pany-.html.

'We Blew It': Nike Admits to Mistakes Over Child Labor ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1020-01.htm
Oct 20, 2001 - The multi-billion dollar sportswear company Nike admitted ... "Of all the issues facing Nike in workplace standards, child labor is the .... Martin was "known" to them, protesters blocked roads, Twitter raged, questions remained.

Apple - Job Creation
https://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/
80,000 employees worldwide; 50,250 in the U.S., nearly two-thirds of ... as our full -time staff, including health insurance and the employee stock purchase plan.

307,239
current jobs ranging from engineering to manufacturing to transportation

50 states
with full-time Apple employees

291,270
iOS app economy jobs

I'm With Stupid wrote:I don't think Apple ever claimed to be a particularly moral company (beyond the usual PR crap of normal companies). It did come up during Steve Jobs post-death sainthood that he cancelled all of Apple's charitable activities. I don't remember anyone claiming they were a whiter than white company. Not that it's relevant. As if noy being hypocritical would make worker exploitation more palatable.

Equally, I think the idea that this criticism has anything to do with their Americaness is ridiculous. Obviously British and American companies get more scrutiny from the English language media. That's only natural. But I don't see anyone attacking them for their nationality. If anything they attract a certain amount of extra publicity because of the evangelical nature of some of their users as well as the fact that they're popular amongst creative liberal types. There's an element of "see, they're just another evil corporation."

Apple Is Paying Almost No Taxes On The $102 Billion It Has Stashed Offshore: Report

On Tuesday, Cook is expected to testify on behalf of Apple as part of a Senate committee hearing targeting companies that move money overseas in an aim to lower their tax bills. Cook told the Washington Post last week that he plans to ask Congress to lower the corporate tax rate on overseas profits companies bring back home. Large U.S.-based multinational companies currently have $1.9 trillion stashed offshore.

willhud9 wrote:^ Is the definition of frothing. It is also chalk full of strawmans since SafeasMilk never said we should not criticize apple or draw attention to it. Just that Apple is the brunt of a lot of objection that seems to stem from an irrational hatred of the company for no better reason than it is American. Now why is that Scot...no wait....already know the answer.

Teague wrote:

willhud9 wrote:^ Is the definition of frothing. It is also chalk full of strawmans since SafeasMilk never said we should not criticize apple or draw attention to it. Just that Apple is the brunt of a lot of objection that seems to stem from an irrational hatred of the company for no better reason than it is American. Now why is that Scot...no wait....already know the answer.

People don't hate apple because it's american lol. They can't stand them because they're pretentious wankers.

aban57 wrote:

Teague wrote:

willhud9 wrote:^ Is the definition of frothing. It is also chalk full of strawmans since SafeasMilk never said we should not criticize apple or draw attention to it. Just that Apple is the brunt of a lot of objection that seems to stem from an irrational hatred of the company for no better reason than it is American. Now why is that Scot...no wait....already know the answer.

People don't hate apple because it's american lol. They can't stand them because they're pretentious wankers.

And because of their closed-system policy, and because they sell their products 100$ too much

willhud9 wrote:I have an iPhone. I got it for free on my phone plan and only pay $60 a month for unlimited talk and text and a decent data plan.

Apple 'deeply offended' by BBC investigation

Apple has said it is "deeply offended" by a BBC investigation into conditions for workers involved in manufacturing its devices.

Rules on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were routinely breached, the Panorama programme witnessed.

In a staff email, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said he knew of no other company doing as much as Apple to improve conditions.

But he added: "We can still do better."

Panorama's editor Ceri Thomas said he stood by the programme's journalism.

He said the team had found an exhausted workforce making Apple products in China, as well as children working in extremely dangerous tin mines in Bangka, Indonesia.

"While Apple did confirm earlier this year that it gets tin from Bangka, it had never been confirmed whether illegal tin was entering their supply chain," he said.

"We got the first evidence of this on our trip.

"We told Apple what we had found almost two months ago. Although Apple was happy to give us a non-attributable briefing, we were disappointed that the company wasn't prepared to explain its position on camera."

Rianto
Panorama found little to stop the tin mined by children ending up in Apple's products
Mr Williams' email, published in full by The Telegraph (and reproduced below), was sent to around 5,000 Apple staff in the UK.

"Panorama's report implied that Apple isn't improving working conditions," he wrote.

"Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth."

He said he wanted the email to offer "facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their programme".

He wrote that he and Apple chief executive Tim Cook were "deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way".

He added: "We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

Apple had declined to be interviewed for the programme.

'Appalled'
The email goes on to outline some of the efforts Apple has made to improve working conditions in its various factories across China.

The Panorama film showed exhausted workers falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Mr Williams said Apple had undertaken an audit of working hours.

Panorama secret filming
Secret filming showed exhausted workers falling asleep while at their stations
"Several years ago, the vast majority of workers in our supply chain worked in excess of 60 hours, and 70+ hour work-weeks were typical.

"After years of slow progress and industry excuses, Apple decided to attack the problem by tracking the weekly hours of over one million workers, driving corrective actions with our suppliers and publishing the results on our website monthly - something no other company had ever done.

"This year, our suppliers have achieved an average of 93% compliance with our 60-hour limit."

It also explained how the firm supports moves to address the issue of illegal mining in countries such as Indonesia.

In the Panorama programme, children were seen mining for the tin typically used in devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The process can be extremely dangerous - miners can be buried alive when the walls of sand or mud collapse.

The programme spoke to 12-year-old Rianto who was working with his father at the bottom of a 70ft cliff of sand.

He said: "I worry about landslides. The earth slipping from up there to the bottom. It could happen."

Pegatron has said it will look carefully at the BBC's claims
In the Apple staff email, Mr Williams said: "Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what's going on there.

"We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies.

"Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds smelters accountable so we can influence artisanal mining in Indonesia."

He concluded: "We know there are a lot of issues out there, and our work is never done.

"We will not rest until every person in our supply chain is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve."

Macdoc wrote:Once more...this is Apple extending their influence to COMPANIES THEY DO NOT OWN......

Editorial: the world revolved around Apple, Inc in 2014
By Daniel Eran Dilger
Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 02:08 am PT (05:08 am ET)

snip

Hot air blows in a fresh direction

Journalist Daisuke Wakabayashi of the Wall Street Journal finally admitted that "the story line" he and his colleagues been actively promoting throughout 2013 (that Apple's "formidable growth had petered out and Samsung Electronics Co. was eating its lunch") was completely backwards, an upside down concoction of false reports that contradicted everything that was actually happening in the industry. Well, at least he passively admitted "the story line" was false.

It is extremely unusual for business journalists to admit they've gotten the story wrong. Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times similarly passively admitted they had fabricated a false story about Chromebooks in education, for example. There will apparently never be an actual correction.

The way sites like CNET and Reuters cover Apple, one could build a career around simply pointing out how disastrously wrong and twisted their reporting is. In fact, several people could stay busy doing just that.

The authors of knuckle dragging hit pieces (like the BBC's recent blaming of Apple for all social ills around the planet, even those with very little connection to Apple) will continue, but mainstream journalists have appeared to wake up to the reality that Apple is the primary innovator in consumer electronics, the only company with any real concern about workers' rights and environmental issues, and virtually the only PC and phone maker that can consistently earn sustainable profits.

It's hard to not understand that when faced with the reality that Apple earns 86 percent of the handset industry's global profits, while being the only company to take any real action to improve the status quo in a sea of cutthroat penny pinching manufacturers that revolve around free software.

In 2014, the world's journalists, investors and software developers all collectively discovered they'd been disastrously wrong about Apple in 2013. And with good reason.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

Macdoc wrote:Once more...this is Apple extending their influence to COMPANIES THEY DO NOT OWN......

You say that like it's an unusual thing that should be congratulated, when in reality, it's the minimum we should expect of companies trading in our countries. I expect Apple to ensure that their supply line is clean in the same way that I expect De Beers to make sure there aren't any children mining their diamonds, regardless of whether the company doing the dirty work is a different one.

Macdoc wrote:

Once more...this is Apple extending their influence to COMPANIES THEY DO NOT OWN......