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That's not what films are for, it's just what they have become. The kinds of stuff you'd watch to chill after a long day of work. Chinese censorship has successfully bled into the "free world" through Apple.Īpple wants you to just keep producing mind-numbing, entertaining, boredom-fighting films, as long as it doesn't question the world we live in, as long as it isn't actually informative and upsetting. So get this: an American can't make an American documentary criticizing China, for an American audience, if Apple is the producer. You're not just censuring it in China (like YouTube or Facebook), you're censuring it everywhere, for everyone. And what is your first rule about that? No China. But now you've gotten involved in film production, which is a powerful art form that can help change the world, get information out to people in ways that no other medium can. Yeah yeah, whatever, you just make electronics, whatever. There's a point where you can say "yeah but I don't want to get involved in the politics of another country". If Russia was their manufacturing partner, Apple would be as anti-gay as it can be. Not because they believe in it, but because it benefits them financially. Apple's main customers are young, modern-thinking open-minded people who are in majority pro LGBT, no wonder Apple is openly supporting gay rights. But when it doesn't, you do the opposite. Because when it happens to benefit YOU financially, you say the right things. To say that you're a pro human rights, pro-environment, modern-thinking company to show that you stand on the good side of the ethical scale, while openly participating in the censorship of genocide by an all-powerful communist dictatorship is just totally hypocritical. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't upset you to your core. I'm sure Hitler would not have allowed documentaries about concentration camps either, it makes perfect sense. I mean of course, it makes sense that China would be upset if Apple did that. So if someone wants to make a documentary about concentration camps in China, Apple won't allow it because it has to lick China's butt.
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The full report about the Gawker show development and Tim Cook's intervention is available to read at The New York Times.
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As early as 2018, when Apple's original programming production got underway, company executives reportedly gave guidance to some show creators to "avoid portraying China in a bad light." In addition, Sunday's NYT report claims that Eddy Cue, Apple's senior VP for internet software and services, has informed Apple TV+ partners that "the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China."Īs the report notes, Apple has explained its "corporate red lines" to creators before. In 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cook killed off a Dr Dre biopic "Vital Signs" after being troubled by the show's scenes depicting drawn guns, sex, and drug use. This isn't the first time we've heard about Apple executives influencing Apple TV+ content development. Notably in 2010, it was Gawker-owned Gizmodo that got its hands on an iPhone 4 prototype that had been accidentally left in a bar by an Apple employee. Gawker, it seems, is making trouble again.Īs the report notes, Apple had a fraught relationship with the now-defunct media company. And now, the show is back on the market and the executive who brought it in, Layne Eskridge, has left the company. He expressed a distinctly negative view toward Gawker, the people said. Cook, according to two people briefed on the email, was surprised to learn that his company was making a show about Gawker, which had humiliated the company at various times and famously outed him, back in 2008, as gay. Sources told the publication that Cook was "surprised" to learn Apple was making the show and emailed an Apple executive to express his "distinctly negative view" towards the project. Called "Scraper," the series was reportedly pitched by two former Gawker staffers, Max Read and Cord Jefferson.Īccording to a New York Times report on Sunday, however, Apple scrapped the show after Cook heard about its development. An Apple TV+ series chronicling the rise of controversial blogging network Gawker Media was reportedly canned after Tim Cook learned about the project and intervened, according to a new report.Įarlier this year, Vanity Fair claimed Apple was in the early stages of developing a series about Gawker.
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