US Tech Companies Enabled the Surveillance and Detention of Hundreds of Thousands in China (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0179106012
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/09/1124247/us-tech-companies-enabled-the-surveillance-and-detention-of-hundreds-of-thousands-in-china
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/chinese-surveillance-silicon-valley-uyghurs-tech-xinjiang-8e000601dadb6aea230f18170ed54e88
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.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/chinese-surveillance-silicon-valley-uyghurs-tech-xinjiang-8e000601dadb6aea230f18170ed54e88
This is America! (Score:3)
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.
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)
Billionaires who make their money on death like this should have it all taken away
This is distraction Propaganda (Score:2)
Why bring up human rights violations from 2015 when a genocide is on-going in Gaza and on the very day Israel goes to a whole new low: bombing a meeting in Qatar that was to discuss Trump's peace proposal:
> Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry has condemned Israel’s strike on Qatar, saying it shows that Israel is not interested in an agreement to end the war. “The targeting of the Hamas negotiating delegation while ceasefire talks continue shows that Israel does not aim to reach peace, but rather con
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: (Score:3)
Well, IBM also contributed to Nazi Germany technology in WW2:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Re: (Score:3)
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 invol
Re: (Score:2)
Since when did any implementation of communism NOT create its own priveleged ruling class?
In before [1]But that wasn't real communism. [staticflickr.com]
[1] https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52066915381_e62ff79e50_b.jpg