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Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

bloomberg.com

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Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#61

Post by valuearb »

wombatmobile wrote: post #16

When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantile history to America. America has never been invaded by foreign gunships and forced to allow foreign merchants to import opium to addict its citizens in order to fix their own countries balance of payments problems. Opium Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opi…

The war of 1812 was fought because Great Britain had spent a decade boarding US ships to impress US sailors into their navy, controlling US trade, and funding Native American attacks on US settlers.

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#63

Post by phasnox »

aphextron wrote: post #42

From the beginning of this I never understood how there could be any legal basis whatsoever for the ban. Apparently that's because there was none.

This looks more like retaliation, because China bans american companies all the time, for much less and for much more despotic reasons.

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#64

Post by scarmig »

londons_explore wrote: post #25
Causality1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are valid concerns. I also think the opposite side of that coin is worth considering. That is to say, should we allow WeChat to gain an even greater foothold on American soil or should we minimize total damage by cutting it off now instead of later? As for me, I believe allowing WeChat to become anything like the structural institution it is in China in any part of the US would be a mistake. Imagine if Google w…

For a long time, USPS was directly controlled by government, yet was also one of the only ways for people to communicate long distance. Government could easily have made laws like "we will read all your mail", or "we won't deliver mail to political enemies". Yet that didn't happen. Why are things turning out differently in the internet age?

> Yet that didn't happen

The USPS did do exactly that. Read about how abolitionists attempted to spread anti-slavery literature through the federal postal system in the antebellum era, and how the post office decided it would suppress those mailings for being supposedly insurrectionary.

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#65

Post by ed25519FUUU »

valuearb wrote: post #36
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their usage of wechat is more likely a liability than a benefit. It gives a foreign adversary visibility into their activities in US. How can they become activist or work for change if their government is monitoring everything they say? Do the Hong Kong protest crackdown not scare anyone else? Now they have an excuse. It won’t look suspicious if they communicate to each other on channels that can’t be monitored by th…

Your arguments is the NSA should monitor them, just as it does us?

Will the NSA make HK protesters disappear?

There’s great alternatives to wechat that are secure by design, rather than spy-by-design, such as telegram or signal.

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#66

Post by gruez »

loceng wrote: post #51
wombatmobile wrote: post #16

When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantile history to America. America has never been invaded by foreign gunships and forced to allow foreign merchants to import opium to addict its citizens in order to fix their own countries balance of payments problems. Opium Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opi…

I had an interesting conversation with a Lyft driver, they were clearly from China from the knowledge/insights they shared. It was their belief that China's populations are much more densely populated, the family unit remaining - parents living with their children and their parents - because the previous generations didn't have pensions to rely on; another pressure I imagine is that I don't believe health care and ot…

How is this related to the opium wars, western imperialism, or the wechat ban?

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#67

Post by gpm »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #49
shiado wrote: post #22

Free speech concerns on an app built by a nation where people have no rights that bans people for bringing up the Tiananmen Square massacre and Uyghur genocide, unreal.

A quick search on TikTok shows that neither of those topics are banned on the platform, and they're not even banned from its autocomplete functionality - start typing either of them and it'll suggest it for you.

This article is about WeChat not TikTok...

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#68

Post by refurb »

onelovetwo wrote: post #30
wombatmobile wrote: post #16

When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantile history to America. America has never been invaded by foreign gunships and forced to allow foreign merchants to import opium to addict its citizens in order to fix their own countries balance of payments problems. Opium Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opi…

So the argument is china was once invaded by foreign gunships (not american) so they should be allowed to ban american companies (Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Netflix & hundreds more) but allowed to operate any company they want in the U.S?

Yeah, that seems like a very weak argument.

It might be helpful to understand why China does what it does. It doesn't really excuse it though.

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#69

Post by Abhinav2000 »

politician wrote: post #47

All sovereign nations reserve the right to regulate foreign goods, vessels, diplomats, currency, and peoples distinctly from their native counterparts. Apps are truly no different.

Exactly. We are in a new cold war, anybody who is naively supporting or defending chinese interests in America needs to wake up

Re: Trump’s WeChat curbs halted by judge on free speech concerns

#70

Post by wombatmobile »

onelovetwo wrote: post #30
wombatmobile wrote: post #16

When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantile history to America. America has never been invaded by foreign gunships and forced to allow foreign merchants to import opium to addict its citizens in order to fix their own countries balance of payments problems. Opium Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opi…

So the argument is china was once invaded by foreign gunships (not american) so they should be allowed to ban american companies (Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Netflix & hundreds more) but allowed to operate any company they want in the U.S?

That's a different argument to the one you are inferring. Both arguments could benefit from more context.

Boxer Rebellion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

Eight-Nation Alliance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance

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