back to article Foxconn won't sue over fabricated radio brickbats

The Chinese contract manufacturer vilified in the now-discredited public radio broadcast assailing its working conditions may be licking its wounds, but it won't seek redress in court. "Our corporate image has been totally ruined," Foxconn spokesman Simon Hsing told Reuters. "The point is whatever media that cited the program …

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  1. Koios
    Devil

    Damages

    To win any money they would have to prove damages, in this case that their reputation was ruined.

    Everyone already knew what kind of operation they ran. QED

    google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=Foxconn

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Damages

      Yes but the more fuss you make the louder the noise.

      Sensible move to calm things down, count the losses then hit them next year when you can quantify the result.

    2. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Damages

      For those who bothered to listen to the "This American Life" retraction of their Mike Daisy piece, the allegations about worker conditions at Foxconn were basically true, many documented by Apple itself as well as The New York Times. The thing Mike Daisy lied about which caused the retraction, and Daisy admitted to lying about, were his personal experiences. Most of what he originally claimed were first hand experiences in his theater piece were in fact fabrications based on what he had read about Foxconn's operations.

      The the bottom line is that Foxconn would not sue anyway because the allegations are true, and many were in fact documented by Apple itself.

      The retraction can be listened to here and takes about an hour. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anyone else getting tired..

    of El Reg constantly pushing this whole 'employees are treated so terribly in [insert Asian country]' ?

    As people have pointed out time and time again. Any job is better than no job for most of these people. Having worked in the BPO industry in third world countries, I can tell you that factory workers, call center workers, whatever workers have a hell of a better quality of life than those who have no job at all.

    I'd personally work long tiring hours for $3 an hour than die of hunger on the street.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anyone else getting tired..

      As much as it pains me to say, I sort of agree.

      Consumer/public action is not the way to get these issues sorted out, they need to be tackled by governments of those countries concerned. It's not nice to hear of workers being exploited but if the alternative is to watch a family slowly die of starvation I'd take the exploitation.

    2. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Anyone else getting tired..

      See my post above. The allegations were true, as documented by Apple itself as well as The New York Times. What Mike Daisy lied about was his own experiences, most of which he fabricated.

      Again, listed to the retraction and investigation of Mike Daisy:

      http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

      1. Sean Timarco Baggaley
        FAIL

        Re: Anyone else getting tired..

        @The Man Who Fell To Earth: Yes, we heard you the first time.

        Nobody cares.

        Seriously. Nobody cares.

        if they did, there would be no market for the cheap electronic goods manufactured in their factories. But there is, so clearly nobody actually gives as much of a shit as the media would like us to.

        I suspect people are finally learning to 'tune out' all the endless exhortations to take on the responsibility of entire foreign populations for no other reason than that their living standards aren't quite the same as our own. And this is a Good Thing. Every Western nation went through a process of revolutions, civil wars, etc. There were no major superpowers or "developed" nations back then to give us a helping hand in the form of misguided charity. So we had to do it ourselves.

        And we did. The early Victorians thought nothing of sending small children up chimneys to clean them. The later Victorians, on the other hand, thought nothing of building entire new communities, with decent housing (for the time), decent infrastructure—even running water!—and more. And then there were the schools, the creation of a national health service, of free education, of even package holidays. Our ancestors did all that. They built it all, from nothing, by investing wisely. They debated every move. They argued. They chained themselves to railings to obtain female suffrage, and much more.

        Yet now we believe that a nation of 1.6 billion people cannot do this on their own? That they "need" our nannying? That they "need" our help to guide them?

        Stop being so bloody patronising. They're human beings, just like us. They'll work it out. They'll tread their own path and come out of it far stronger than they would if we continue to interfere blindly with their societies. We need to leave them alone to get on with it.

        (Yes, this means some blood may be shed, but Iraq and Afghanistan haven't been exactly bloodless interventions. Neither was the UN's attempts to stop the former Yugoslavia's breaking turning violent. And that's before we get to the likes of Israel and her fractious relationships with her neighbours.)

        1. asdf

          Re: Anyone else getting tired..

          >Yet now we believe that a nation of 1.6 billion people cannot do this on their own? That they "need" our nannying? That they "need" our help to guide them?

          Read up on the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and you get a feel for what their leadership is capable of. I never understood how Mao was such a hero when he is responsible for killing more Chinese than any other person in history.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Anyone else getting tired..

          But you miss the point that the early Victorians were not being paid by the Chinese to kill their small children. We DO have a responsibility to the people we are hiring to do our manufacturing.

          We should be having a debate on what is appropriate/interfering.

          I'll start with an example - "they'll work it out" - In our history working it out was (at least partly) due to unions. The Chinese do not allow unions - do you want us to wait for the Chinese people to overthrow their leaders? Can we not try to persuade the Chinese government to allow workers to unite?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Sean Timarco Baggaley - Re: Anyone else getting tired..

          Easy with your high horses here, lad!

          Your ancestors build all that from nothing, but those colonies they've exploited mercilessly did help them quite well. In case you didn't notice, all those civilized Western countries you seem to admire have some uncomfortable truth to hide. Where were those ships coming from fully loaded with goods and slaves ? If I remember well, one present day superpower just a few centuries ago used to go to Africa, hunt and capture human beings that were subsequently sold on the free market as slaves. And their northern neighbor who now admits that when building a coast-to-coast railway, a Chinese died for every few meters of rail laid down.

          Their wisdom was in how and where to look for (very) cheap labor and resources.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Sean Timarco Baggaley - Anyone else getting tired..

            > If I remember well, one present day superpower just a few centuries ago used to go to Africa, hunt and capture human beings that were subsequently sold on the free market as slaves.

            You clearly DON'T remember well, it was Africans selling Africans to the slave traders at the port, it was far easier and safer to say to the local tribes can we buy some slaves from you? They traditionally used captured enemy's so why not sell them on to the slave ship owners, about the only thing that happened was the numbers of taken as slaves compared to the numbers of killed in tribal warfare went up.

            I am not saying that the white slave traders are innocent, but let's not distort the fact that the trade wouldn't have existed for so long or as easily flourished with the complicity of Africans.

            > And their northern neighbor who now admits that when building a coast-to-coast railway, a Chinese died for every few meters of rail laid down.

            Yes and it was also about the only area they could get any decent payed employment in, Also it's worth noting when the Union rail-road company reached the mountains they expected high casualties with there mostly white workforce, the only reason they avoided it was they merged with the Pacific rail road company because the work was already done. I am not saying they where treated well because quite frankly there where not treated as well as they could or should have been, but the fact is they where not forced into working on the railroad construction but they took the work anyway, even knowing the risks.

            There has been times recently when I have had to contemplate working for minimum wage for long hours, rather than working in a environment I have enjoyed but given the choice between £6.25 a hour or being on benefits I would have worked for the £6.25 a hour thank you very much.

            / annoyed end of a bad day rant.

            1. Fred Mbogo
              Devil

              Re: @Sean Timarco Baggaley - Anyone else getting tired..

              Lovely philosophy there.

              Africans sell their enemies to us so its ok for us to buy them as "it was a gimme, we had to take it". This is NOT a bloody Walmart, you garlic-scented urinal cake.

              Try making that argument to a child slave from Côte d'Ivoire. Being sold as a slave is better than starving? Now their parents won't starve!

              Are you ok with child prostitutes as well? What about Chinese coal miners?

              Nobody is trying to get you to commit suicide because you partake in items made from materials harvested by slaves. They are trying to raise awareness about unethical, immoral and sometimes bloody illegal work practices. You know how I felt after I learned that most cocoa is harvested by child slaves? Whats worse, in this country there isn't a single brand made from ethical cocoa.

              I would keep trying to get through to you but I'm honestly sickened. Thought I had seen everything in the internet. A slavery apologist.

            2. asdf

              Re: @Sean Timarco Baggaley - Anyone else getting tired..

              What a load of right wing horse crap. The slaves are happy ask them eh? These are the kind of arguments that idiot John C. Calhoun made in Amistad. Slavery is great as long as its not you. But to your thinking I guess God loves the plantation owner and his trust fund babies a lot more.

      2. Matt Siddall

        Re: Anyone else getting tired..

        Not that I'd ever encourage anyone to buy apple, but:

        http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/01/30/the-apple-boycott-graphically-explained/

    3. asdf
      Stop

      Re: Anyone else getting tired..

      Starving to death or getting torn to shreds in a old lowest cost unsafe machine are both crappy choices. In addition from children being forced to work in firework factories or common rampant slave labor you falsely assume people always have a choice as well. Trade agreements that do nothing to standardize basic working conditions is virtually demanding slavery and of course the free market will naturally gravitate to the place with the best value from workers (ie until the rest of the world is somewhat developed where workers are exploited the most).

      1. asdf

        Re: Anyone else getting tired..

        http://www.china.org.cn/china/2009-12/01/content_18984184.htm

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1325558/38-children-killed-making-fireworks-at-Chinese-school.html

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Disappointed

    I was wondering what kind of device a 'fabricated radio brickbat' would prove to be - turns out it was a plain old steam powered radio aspersion.

    There was me thinking it would be a new way to transmit calumny via software defined radio.

  4. Kernel

    And the impact on Foxconn will be?

    Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, not a Chinese one - if all the publicity results in electronics assembly becoming uneconomic in China, Foxconn are perfectly free to open plants in the Phillipines (or any other country) to carry out the work.

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