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

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101–110 of 401 posts

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

#101

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

So does ends justify means ?

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

#102
I think it's easy to say the ban doesn't make sense when it is perhaps a preventative measure. We have seen social networks take over others many times in terms of popularity.

If TikTok and WeChat's usage becomes more widespread in the voting population of the US, they would have a lot of influence by controlling what kind of content its users sees; e.g., FB has been criticized many times for this, namely performing psychological experiments on its users

I recall this quote by former KGB informant Yuri Bezmenov:

> The main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. Only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage and such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures ... or psychological warfare

The difference between TikTok and WeChat and FB/Google/Twitter is obvious: the former are to some degree controlled by China and the latter are private entities.

I understand there are services part of WeChat that are essential to users, so I would hope there is a good compromise here. I don't see why the communication component of the app can't continue to exist but WeChat is a lot more than a chat app.

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a sovereign nation, as an abstract entity, can do, is distinct from what its executive leader can do. The only time they happen to coincide is, by definition, in the case of autocracy.

I think there is a strong case to be made that WeChat is, as a practical matter, a public minister as defined in Article 2. Therefore, the executive has the right to refuse their presence in the US. All Chinese companies operate under the direction and control of the CCP; we can arrive at the conclusion that a company is a public minister if companies are people, and they act at the behest of their home government. h…

There absolutely is a case. I was not meaning to imply that there wasn't. I was meaning specifically to address the idea that the rights of a sovereign nation can be invoked to decide whether any particular action legal under the laws of the United States.

As long as the USA remains a country that is bound by rule of law rather than rule of dictate, one can't reasonably argue with due process simply by invoking the fact that the USA is a sovereign nation, because the US government is comprised of more than just its executive leadership. The executive branch is bound by laws as drafted by the legislative branch and interpreted by the judicial branch.

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

#104
post #38
post #8

Good. I didn't think the WeChat ban made much sense to begin with. Sidenote, I've noticed more and more people joining Telegram to evade a potential WeChat ban. I wonder if they're going to stay on Telegram.

>Sidenote, I've noticed more and more people joining Telegram to evade a potential WeChat ban. I wonder if they're going to stay on Telegram. Isn't the whole point of using wechat is its large chinese userbase? AFAIK telegram is banned in china, so I'm not sure why that'd be the logical choice.

If WeChat and all US-China apps are banned due to the conflicting US and Chinese policies on communications control, those Chinese users don't matter anymore because they have no options.

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

#105
I think the best way to do this would be American Congress passing a law giving President power to directly "Ban equivalent companies of other countries, which ban American companies on their respective jurisdiction". This is full of subjective opinionated law to pass, but at least courts would have some ground to held the bans. Courts are good at deciphering "intent" of the law.

This ban is effectively a Tit-for-tat. Thats it.

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more accurate to say the US had a temporary (1 decade) diversion from the norm of "Benign Neglect"[1] which pissed off Americans to the point they sought explicit Independence. China has a much longer cultural history of being "self contained" (and suspicious of outsiders) which was deeply reinforced in the 19th century Opium Wars, etc. 1 - http://community.weber.edu/weberreads/salutary_or_benign_neg...

Yep. A better analogy would be if the US had lost the revolutionary war, and was subjected to a century or more of British mercantilism, which they were only now starting to recover from.

Is the claim that British mercantilism caused all of this? The Qing dynasty had many problems, the British being one. The Taiping rebellion killed millions, Japanese imperialism further weakened the empire, losing their own colonial status over Korea - we can go on as the events cascade. To solely blame British mercantilism is to drive a wholly western narrative for what was not.

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

#107
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't need to try to understand the effects of mercantilism. They were subject to the same draconian economic policies by the British Empire. This is largely what prompted the American Revolution. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies#Economic_pol...

I think it's more accurate to say the US had a temporary (1 decade) diversion from the norm of "Benign Neglect"[1] which pissed off Americans to the point they sought explicit Independence. China has a much longer cultural history of being "self contained" (and suspicious of outsiders) which was deeply reinforced in the 19th century Opium Wars, etc. 1 - http://community.weber.edu/weberreads/salutary_or_benign_neg...

The American colonies were subject to mercantilism for 170 years before the American Revolution started. To suggest that the American colonies weren't subject to foreign gunships forcing trade policies upon them is simply a ridiculous statement. The American colonies were prevented, by force, from trading with the French, Spanish and Dutch. The British Empire captured New Amsterdam in 1664 in the Second Anglo-Dutch War and renamed it New York. Just because the British Empire's economic policies escalated in the decade leading up to the American Revolution doesn't mean that is either where mercantilism began or ended. Please don't belittle American history, there are far more parallels than you may realize.

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

#108

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…

How long is China going to put on the mantle of victimhood over events 160 years in the past?! By that standard surely Korea can complain endlessly about China and Yuan Shikai lording it over their kingdom in the 1880s, and the Czechs can cry over their subjugation for centuries by Austria-Hungary, etc. etc. In 1949 Mao Zedong famously declared "China has stood up." Apparently though he meant, "We're such a weak peop…

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

#109
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this case, the executive has the authority to ban things based on national security. And if that power isn't properly applied, the courts will intervene. What "autocracy" are you referring to?

An executive in conflict with the courts is an unstable government and an autocratic tending executive.

On the contrary, if the courts are powerful protectors of rights they'll inevitably come into conflict with the executive. I'd like to see a touch fewer conflicts than American presidents tend to get into, but if I saw no conflicts I'd conclude that the courts just have no power to stop the executive from doing what he'd like.

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

#110
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.

> no rights This is not true. > Uyghur genocide This is a lie being spread by far right fundamentalist Adrien Zenz that the U.S. media had eaten up.

Are there any Uyghurs in China who dispute what's happening in China?

Is the video fake?

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