What you need to know
- Attorney General William Barr has blasted U.S. tech companies.
- He says some corporations have been "too willing to collaborate" with China.
- He named Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has accused U.S. tech companies of being "too willing" to collaborate with China and the CCP.
As reported by Reuters:
U.S. Attorney General William Barr took aim at Hollywood companies, including Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) on Thursday as well as large technology firms like Apple, Alphabet's Google and Microsoft Corp over company actions with China.
Barr reportedly said that "Corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple have shown themselves all too willing to collaborate with the (Chinese Communist Party)," and also criticized Hollywood for censoring films "to appease the Chinese Communist Party."
Speaking at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan, he said "I suspect Walt Disney would be disheartened to see how the company he founded deals with the foreign dictatorships of our day."
Barr also spoke about how, whilst U.S. tech companies tend to focus on their next quarterly earnings report, the CCP "thinks in terms of centuries and decades." He criticized America's big tech companies for allowing themselves "to become pawns of Chinese influence."
Regarding Apple specifically, Barr postulated that Apple's iPhone wouldn't even be sold in China "if they were impervious to penetration by Chinese authorities." Essentially, Barr is accusing Apple of somehow giving the Chinese government some kind of backdoor access to iOS that it doesn't give to America. Apple has repeatedly and publicly stated that it cannot create a backdoor to iOS security without irreversibly compromising the security of iOS.
Barr said that U.S. tech companies should "stand together" against the CCP's "corrupt and dictatorial rule."
