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Why we are suing the Administration

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Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#141

Post by summerlight »

francesca wrote: post #77
darawk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China bans plenty of US apps and services. Facebook, for instance. They are exactly comparable.

If you comply with China's laws you can operate there. These US companies just don't want to deal with that.

I saw this logic on HN frequently, but it's significantly flawed. It can be meaningful only if those two nations are completely independent to each other, which is a contradictory to the premise. Otherwise, there will be fairness escalations. To avoid such situation, modern global diplomacy and free trade already have developed a framework to minimize the friction and ensure a minimal level of fairness.

The problem is that China's legislation and jurisdiction are in a complete control under a single political entity, CCP and its laws are deliberately designed to be ambiguous to allow arbitrary interpretation in favor of CCP. Also, don't forget that CCP's constitution is on top of PRC's constitution.

Obviously, this situation is not acceptable in the the principle of free trading as CCP is blatantly exploiting this political system to discriminate foreign companies and effectively violate the principle of national treatment. In order to join the global free trade system, a long time ago China promised to change its political and economical practice at least minimally compatible to other states. I think the previous presidents till Hu Jintao might keep it in their minds but unfortunately Xi Jinping doesn't seem so.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#142

Post by ThomPete »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #71
ThomPete wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not really why they are worried about TikTok, it comes back to the issue of the CCP and and that China defacto owns TikTok which means that information can be harvested. This is G5 controversy all over. The brainwashing part is just noise. The real concern is real given Chinas history.

Yeah, but like the CCP don't really care about TikTok/ByteDance. Or at least they didn't, until this happened. They would care about Tencent or Alibaba, but ByteDance isn't big or important enough for the party to care.

Oh they care. A lot. They care about anything that gives them access to western data so that's just wrong. They care quite a lot about TikTok as it provides a potential backdoor (given that the CCP defacto owns bytedance)

That's the problem.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#143

Post by ThomPete »

simion314 wrote: post #92
ThomPete wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats not really why they are worried about TikTok, it comes back to the issue of the CCP and and that China defacto owns TikTok which means that information can be harvested. This is G5 controversy all over. The brainwashing part is just noise. The real concern is real given Chinas history.

I mean FB has a lot of information about users, have you seen how you are tagged in the ads ? Any private person can target any subgroup and we know that FB transferred this data to different companies in the past, the probability that some government somewhere that wanted the FB data does not have it yet (maybe a bit outdated) is Zero. Let's assume you block all applications that are suspected of relations with CCP…

That's not the point.

In the US we have rule of law, we have rights. There is no rule of law in china only rule of the party. FB and Twitter er scrutinized, this would never happen in China.

That's the very very very big difference here.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#144

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

ThomPete wrote: post #142
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but like the CCP don't really care about TikTok/ByteDance. Or at least they didn't, until this happened. They would care about Tencent or Alibaba, but ByteDance isn't big or important enough for the party to care.

Oh they care. A lot. They care about anything that gives them access to western data so that's just wrong. They care quite a lot about TikTok as it provides a potential backdoor (given that the CCP defacto owns bytedance) That's the problem.

The sources I'm familiar with (mostly the FT) claim otherwise.

See for example: https://www.ft.com/content/0c42dc7c-b927-477a-90b7-a202bbe4b...

Or also this: https://www.ft.com/content/61988d2d-4c95-4a35-8273-d6980af04...

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#145

Post by ThomPete »

m0zg wrote: post #57
ThomPete wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about fake news it's about data access.

It's about both, really. Data is darn near useless by itself. But from data you can easily infer things like age, gender, political affiliation, income and education level and so on, which can then be _easily_ used to swing an election.

I am not taking about the data I am taking about access to the data and the devices. This is G5 controversy all over again. It's a trojan horse which can be used by the CCP. There is no ability to take them to court for misuse, no opposition media.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#146

Post by bwb »

throwawayinfo wrote: post #132
Tarq0n wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely an element of this at play. This was stated pretty explicitly in the case of Grindr, a dating app for gay men. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-...

Eh... in some parts of the US there is still a stigma against being LGBT. Grindr being foreign owned means opening up the possibility of people (who aren't ready to come out) being blackmailed. And that's clearly a national security threat and different from wanting data profiles on everyone.

In some ways it is kinda funny in a dark way, as our inability to accept people for how they are is a national security threat :).

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#147

Post by fvv »

I think that free world should ban every company that comply with china censorship, here we are not talking about something like explicit content, or violence censorship which belong to cultural differences, here we are talking about not being put in jail because you say publicly that tibet should be free. or because you try to report abuse and suppression of the ruling class

this type of free speech should be guaranteed to anyone and reinforced with the non-violent marginalization of those who struggle to take away fundamental human rights, the ban of a society under the control of this regime is the least I expect from a state that wants to enact these rights. talk about what you want (here you can do it) talk about rights in the west etc ... (here you can do it) there (in china) you are just on another level, compare them if you want .. here you can do it .. but try to go there ..

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#148

Post by camillomiller »

threeseed wrote: post #67
camillomiller wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge amount of smart people in the U.S. seem to completely forget this when it comes to China. Everyone's so effectively brainwashed to think that China = bad that you can't even start any type of complex conversation about such a multifaceted topic.

It's because China regularly does things that Western countries simply don't do. For example right now we have an Australian citizen who is being held for no reason and with no ability to purse it through the judiciary because there isn't one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/china-australi... Or you know that small issue of the mass-genocide that is happening in Xinjiang.

This is what I’m talking about. You just give for granted that America = good, China = bad. Should we start listing everything the US has done since the Vietnam war that has never been regarded as genocide (although it was) and nobody has ever paid for? Or all the other shenanigans American administration and agencies have been continuously involved with?

Out of the top of my head:

- guantanamo bay and waterboarding.

- toppling all sorts of South American sovereign government when the CIA would see fit.

- Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia from 1970 to 1975

- occupying foreign territory with the intent of making war on terror while seizing natural resources and destabilizing entire regions in the Middle East

I’m just saying: savior and champion of the free world my ass. Which is why the US should not be reserved any benefit in comparison to China when it comes to human rights and freedoms. We’re talking about a Western society LITERALLY built on slavery, whose entire prison system has been conceived as a continuation of forced labor.

Once this is settled, and the idea that America in inherently superior to China from an ethical standpoint is set aside, well then maybe we can properly talk about geopolitics.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#150

Post by koheripbal »

fvv wrote: post #147

I think that free world should ban every company that comply with china censorship, here we are not talking about something like explicit content, or violence censorship which belong to cultural differences, here we are talking about not being put in jail because you say publicly that tibet should be free. or because you try to report abuse and suppression of the ruling class this type of free speech should be guaran…

My opinion is that the only realistic solution is a broad offering of many many social media apps, so that people can choose between them.
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