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US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

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Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#201

Post by SR2Z »

Auracle wrote: post #174
Jensson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CCP doesn't control any of those, so they aren't national security issues. Edit: And in non American countries where US influence is a national security issue they are already adding similar laws or putting in similar pressure to ensure USA can't influence their people as much.

Let’s say Meta started really pushing stuff to encourage teens to not join the military. What then?

Public outrage and then a rock-solid 1A defense for Meta, since it's an American company controlled by American citizens?

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#202

Post by SR2Z »

Reki wrote: post #172
Clubber wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”. No, the kid gloves are off because "they are not democratic." It's like being nice to the weird kid in school and the weird kid steals your lunch. No more being nice to the weird kid. Also, consider if they were democratic, we might not be having the grievances we are currently having.

So how do you explain our relashionship with countries like Saudi Arabia? Because forget the bully, thats like being friends with the school shooter.

Because geopolitics is a game where ALL the players are sociopaths and Saudi Arabia is basically too small for their government's admitted craziness to even register.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#203

Post by SR2Z »

croes wrote: post #134
brigadier132 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is following a tit for tat strategy. Which European companies has the US forced to divest their holdings to justify the action you're proposing?

Tit for tat? When do European governments get private data about US citizens like the US get per CloudAct?

Plenty of European governments have intelligence-sharing agreements with the US, so I'm not sure what your point is here.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#204

Post by licebmi__at__ »

Clubber wrote: post #155
licebmi__at__ wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western powers still make deals with authoritarian/non-democratic states. At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”.

>At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”. No, the kid gloves are off because "they are not democratic." It's like being nice to the weird kid in school and the weird kid steals your lunch. No more being nice to the weird kid. Also, consider if they were democratic, we might not be having the grievances we are currently having.

Let’s be real. The kid gloves would be off for any country, democratic or otherwise, that tries to compete on economic throughput and global influence with the US.

Unless you’re trying to argue that the rapid economic growth happened because they are not democratic, the idea that democracy has any relevance on US relations is laughable propaganda.

If the countries were really school kids, then I might accommodate for the idea that the school bully actually believes that he’s no longer nice to the weird kid because he’s weird. But even if some US citizens are childish, countries are not school kids.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#205

Post by SR2Z »

sschueller wrote: post #200
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we are friends/allies and not adversaries? You're over complicating it by ignoring the glaring differences in relations with Europe vs China.

Friends/allies don't spy on each other. [1] For one second imagine the outrage that would have occurred if it were the other way around. The US does not operate in the interest if the EU. It will always be "America First" and if that means fucking over a European country or all of Europe, they will. I don't blame them for this as it is in essence their job to protect them selves but Europe needs to realize that even…

> Friends/allies don't spy on each other.

Allies spy on each other THE MOST. Where do you get this idea that they don't? That's how they stay allies: by knowing each other, they can actually trust their interests are aligned.

Literally EVERY embassy is used as a post to station spies from the guest nation in the host. It's an open secret, and spying is tolerated between allies up to some point - and that point is necessarily secret.

You are applying a very human-centric idea of morality to large, stable countries. If they were people, they'd be perfect sociopaths - hyperrational and emotionless, driven only by shared interests and never "friendliness."

> The US does not operate in the interest if the EU.

The United States operates in the interest of the EU all the time - but only because as powerful liberal democracies, their interests (seeing a peaceful world with freedom of trade and ever-tightening global economic integration) are aligned.

A world where the US reneges on Article 5 of NATO is a world where Europe was already pretty screwed, because that would imply that one or both of these two ceased to be liberal democracies.

> In fact the US has recently claimed that UN Security Council resolutions are non-binding to the outrage of most UN members. [2]

UNSC resolutions are non-binding for permanent members because each permanent member has a veto. There is no way to pass a resolution without the consent of the permanent members, and the US made it very clear that its abstention was only because the resolution was a moral point and had no concrete requirements (peacekeeping forces, sanctions, etc.). The US has vetoed all the attempts with CONCRETE requirements outright.

Any "legal experts" who say it's binding are dodging the point: this is a moral resolution and the US doesn't give a damn about saving Israel in the court of public opinion anymore, since Netanyahu has stopped even pretending that he's trying to minimize damage. This resolution does not compel the US or Israel to do anything since there's no mechanism to enforce their compliance.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#206

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

mschuster91 wrote: post #46
api wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They realize that engagement farming not-actually-social media is toxic brain rot.

It's more like, they don't want any place on the Internet that's a social network allowing uncensored exchange between Chinese people and the Western sphere of influence.

Very good observation, I wonder if that's exactly how they think.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#207

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

gklitz wrote: post #38
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

I can see what you mean. Europe should force the US to divest from Facebook and have it transferred fully to European owners.

No, because Europe and America aren't that different in terms of how they want to organize their societies.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#208

Post by Clubber »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #204
Clubber wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At this point is naive to think that the grievances with china are because “they are not democratic”. No, the kid gloves are off because "they are not democratic." It's like being nice to the weird kid in school and the weird kid steals your lunch. No more being nice to the weird kid. Also, consider if they were democratic, we might not be having the grievances we are currently having.

Let’s be real. The kid gloves would be off for any country, democratic or otherwise, that tries to compete on economic throughput and global influence with the US. Unless you’re trying to argue that the rapid economic growth happened because they are not democratic, the idea that democracy has any relevance on US relations is laughable propaganda. If the countries were really school kids, then I might accommodate for…

I think if you look past the last few news cycles and back into the 70s and especially the 90s, you'll better understand what our strategy with China has been.

>I think the hopes were that China, once prospering in the global marketplace as a big player, would turn democratic. Over the last decade or two, we've come to realize the opposite has happened and the Western powers are adjusting.

Which part of that do you disagree with?

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#209

Post by derelicta »

Clubber wrote: post #140
CBarkleyU wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West was greedy and saw a trillion dollar opportunity in welcoming China into the WTO in 2000 and gave China massive leeway (this is my opinion, and probably not a majority opinion). In my opinion (only speaking for Germany, as I follow mostly the politics here) nobody was very keen on asking questions and making demand when the Chinese were producing our shit for pennies on the dollar but buying our premium Merc…

I think the hopes were that China, once prospering in the global marketplace as a big player, would turn democratic. Over the last decade or two, we've come to realize the opposite has happened and the Western powers are adjusting. Of course Western companies have made a lot of money off China with cheap labor and massive marketplace, so it wasn't entirely an altruistic endeavour.

China is already democratic tho. They have workers congress on the national level, plenty of people's assemblies on the provencial and city level. They also have consultative assemblies for business issues.

Citizens are very satisfied of their government, despite some of its excesses, unlike so called western democratic governments.

Their material condititons are as good as in Europe, at least for most folks.

Just because you do not directly elect the president of your government doesn't make you less democratic. Switzerland doesn't elect its government by universal suffrage, neither does the UK, or the EU. Their democratic model is just different.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#210

Post by derelicta »

Gormo wrote: post #186
kgdiem wrote: post #124

This is really difficult for me. I have an app that is available in every country except for China because it isn’t allowed to be published there. In that vein it seems fair and probably doesn’t go far enough — Chinese citizens are free to publish whatever they want in the US while we’re severely restricted on conducting trade in China. On the other hand, I’d love access to that market and would prefer trade negotiat…

The US isn't China, and our government is explicitly prohibited from attempting to censor or otherwise curate public media.

And yet it does.

Ever wondered how all those fancy action movies got their tanks just like that?

Cuz they had to beg the US gov for them; they are pretty much free to use under the condition that you do not critize the government's foreign policy or the army itself.

So if you want to make a war movie that is critical of the government, good luck.

And thats just one example; there is much more regarding all the "experts" send on television to talk about this or that country that happens to be at odd with the Washington dictatorship.

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