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A starvation strike in progress at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino is protesting labor exploitation, latest AirDrop limitations, App Retailer censorship, and extra.
Since early December, Chinese language worldwide college students and activists have held solidarity vigils at Stanford, Berkeley, and San Jose. Two starvation strikers have additionally located themselves at Apple Park, the corporate’s company headquarters.
Han Wang, a Chinese language pupil who attends the College of Southern California, started his starvation strike on Monday. He has solely accepted water and can preserve the strike for so long as his well being permits, based on the San Francisco Examiner.
Wang is asking on Apple to cease labor exploitation at its Foxconn iPhone plant, take away AirDrop time limitations to iPhones, cease censorship on the Chinese language App Retailer, and publicly take a stance on China’s persecution of Uyghurs.
VK, the opposite starvation striker, advised Axios that their demonstration was impressed by the “white paper revolution,” a sequence of protests in China the place folks maintain up clean items of paper to protest censorship, COVID lockdowns, and Chinese language President Xi Jinping.
“Privateness and freedom of speech is the inspiration of a democratic society,” he stated. “The world together with American shoppers are usually not joyful that Apple has bowed all the way down to the [Chinese Communist Party].”
Protest objectives
Alleged labor exploitation at Foxconn is among the many subjects of protest. In November, a whole bunch of staff rioted on the Apple provider’s iPhone manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou.
They protested meals and circumstances that had been a part of China’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns. Following the riots, Foxconn apologized and stated pay issues had been a “technical error.”
Foxconn additionally stated that it communicated with the affected workers and was doing what it might “to actively clear up the considerations and cheap calls for of workers.”
The activists at Apple Park are additionally protesting Apple’s latest modifications to AirDrop. Initially launched in China and rolling out to iPhone customers worldwide within the upcoming iOS 15.2 launch, it units a time restrict for the “Everybody” setting.
The “Everybody” setting, the main target of the 10-minute restrict, signifies that anybody with an Apple gadget can obtain one thing via AirDrop. Earlier than the change, the “everybody” setting was everlasting till toggled by the consumer.
Critics claimed it was finished to impede protesters who could share anti-government supplies via AirDrop. Though Apple made the change earlier than protests in China began, it did not announce it or publicly remark till it stated it was rolling out the change to all customers.