Amazon’s big-ticket series Expats, set and filmed in Hong Kong, is not available for viewing in the city despite being billed as a worldwide release. The first two episodes of the drama, starring Nicole Kidman and directed by The Farewell’s Lulu Wang, were released on Friday but listed as “currently unavailable” for viewers in Hong Kong. The series, based on a 2014 novel, The Expatriates, focuses on the lives of three American women in Hong Kong. The production of Expats had been largely welcomed by authorities. In 2021 Kidman was…
Tag: Amazon
Job cuts and falling shares: how did it all go so wrong for the US tech sector?
Amazon announced 18,000 job cuts, Apple’s share price fell below $2tn (£1.7tn) and there was more bad news from Tesla: it has been another tough week for big US tech firms. But this has not been a one-off. The ongoing drama at Twitter since its takeover by Elon Musk in October has taken place against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, retrenchment from aggressive expansion plans and China’s disruptive transition from Covid lockdowns to rocketing case numbers as restrictions ease. In fact this week’s events have been a continuation of…
Chinese behemoth Pinduoduo to take on Amazon in US – with even worse labor practices
Americans addicted to Amazon could soon be wooed by a Chinese tech giant most of them have never heard of. Pinduoduo is planning to expand its reach to the US next month, according to reports in Bloomberg and Reuters. The company is known for delivering goods at rock-bottom prices – while putting its employees through conditions that a prominent labor activist says should horrify Americans. Described by its founder, the former Google employee Colin Huang, as a cross between “Costco and Disneyland”, Pinduoduo has ridden a wave of meteoric Chinese…
Alexa whistleblower demands Amazon apology after being jailed and tortured
A whistleblower who exposed illegal working conditions in a factory making Amazon’s Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese authorities. Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon’s popular Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices. Now, after spending two years in prison, he is appealing to the higher courts to clear his name. He has taken the difficult decision to talk publicly, despite being aware of…