I don't necessarily blame corporations for this. My point is that we shouldn't look at corporations as agents for freedom. A lot of people seem to be doing this. In the end they will fall in line with whoever is running the country. As long as there is money to be made.
I think as individuals we can never look to either corporations or governments to protect our freedoms in general. We're going to have to look for alignment of interests depending on specific concerns.
In this particular case there is clearly an alignment of interests between users and some corporations - VPN providers. At the same time there is a divergence of interests between the same users and another corporation - Apple.
Similarly, Chinese citizens surely expect their government to protect them from some actions of corporations. For instance, the Chinese government recently banned a lot of health related advertising, because apparently there was too much snake oil salesmanship going on.
The case that triggered this intervention was a complaint by the relatives of a diceased cancer sufferer who had received ineffective treatment following an advert on Baidu. However, the clinic that had advertised that treatment was a government run hospital.
I think this affair shows how complex the alignment of interests can be, even in dictatorships.
> My point is that we shouldn't look at corporations as agents for freedom
It's mind-boggling that this even needs to be stated. Of course we should not. Anyone who does needs to step back and seriously re-examine how they look at the world, because this is an intensely false presupposition.
It's not that strange. The free market/market economy is used more or less as a synonym, albeit incorrectly imo, for freedom. Seemingly to try to make it true by repetition.
Look at any kind of right-wing politician whose random short bio contains "Loves freedom!" or similar. In practice it translates to "loves the market economy and property rights etc", while the same person seldom sympathize with ideas of a living wage, lowering working hours etc.
It's not the case. Show me the law that says that. You can't be there isn't one - it's perfectly possible for companies to take moral stands and many do.
Consider that both Google and Facebook have no presence in China.
Those are exceptions not the rule. I would bet that at least 99.9% of corporations in this country would open up shop in china if it were profitable to do so.
