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U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#321

Post by mindslight »

shawnz wrote: post #315
mindslight wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being disingenuous. Your assertions apply in some narrow senses, but are seemingly inapplicable to the overall situation. For most of society, webcrapps are currently the de facto town square. A clique of companies has obtained the position of censoring the vast majority of interpersonal speech, period. But sure, there are practical angles in the US where, for example, if we could shift the popular focus to Fr…

> It helps nobody to push a stubborn idea that there is some strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500. There is a huge distinction. Facebook doesn't have a military to enforce their policies. They might be the defacto town square but it's only convenience and network effects which make that true. If there was enough dissatisfaction with the way they are running things then they could be gone tomorrow. That's no…

> Facebook doesn't have a military to enforce their policies

You're merely restating this assumed division in terms of a specific. Facebook has much less business need to deploy the military than say Exxon or United Fruit, but they still have the ability.

> only convenience and network effects which make that true.

Sure, but how does that make it any less real? The ability to move between states does not invalidate gripes about your current state government. Witness the volume of user complaints. If leaving were a continually-visited fictionless choice, they would have simply left.

> That's not comparable to [the] kind of censorship

They are of different magnitudes, but they're certainly comparable. I'd much rather be subject to Facebook's censorship regime that CCPs. But they're both censorship regimes - if we don't want the former to grow closer to the latter, then it behooves us to compare them.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#322

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

headsupftw wrote: post #300
nostromo wrote: post #30

I would support a wholesale ban on Chinese acquisitions of American companies until American companies are allowed to acquire Chinese companies (or otherwise operate in China). These ridiculous double standards from China are not free trade, and we should stop pretending it is.

So are you saying that currently American companies are NOT allowed to acquire Chinese companies or operate in China? There are a few instances where that's true (there are also a few instances where Chinese companies are not allowed to acquire U.S. companies or operate in the U.S.) but you said "I would support a wholesale ban on Chinese acquisitions of American companies". So again are you insinuating that at this…

Below are a few relevant figures. I see the claim repeated often that foreign companies can't operate in China. The sales figures of American companies paint a different picture.

  Company - Sales in China - Share in China
  Apple     $44.8 billion    19.6%
  Intel     $14.8 billion    23.6%
  Qualcomm  $14.6 billion    65.4%
  Boeing    $11.9 billion    12.8%
  Micron    $10.4 billion    51.1%
  Broadcom  $9.4 billion     53.7%
The list goes on. S&P 500 firms had nearly $160 billion in sales in China in 2018.

1. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trade-war-watch-these-are-...

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#323

Post by bllguo »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #184
quaquaqua1 wrote: post #169

I am an American-born man of Western European descent. My girlfriend is a Chinese passport holder here on H1B. I am an anarchist. I absolutely do not understand why there is so much hate for Chinese people, Chinese companies, or the Chinese government. Literally everything has flaws, and Western Europe and USA have plenty of them. If you are not willing to say "China does xyz but actually also my country does somethi…

This line of discussion seems a bit off the topic of the thread, but I want to respond to you. Based on your last paragraph, it seems to me like it should be pretty clear why there is so much hate for the Chinese government and the companies that act as agents for Chinese government censorship and oppression policies. There are many Chinese nationals suffering and dying in concentration camps _right now_. Am I oblige…

Of course it's possible to distinguish being against the CCP and being against China! But it's equally as naive and disingenuous to claim that none of the anti-China attitudes in the US are rooted in xenophobia. You can't seriously believe this? The country has discrimination issues with Asian-American _citizens_ for goodness' sake.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#324

Post by root_axis »

mindslight wrote: post #314
root_axis wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most of society, webcrapps are currently the de facto town square They're not public squares though, they're privately owned webservers, they don't become nationalized just because they're popular. That's like saying the dive-bar in your local town is the de-facto town-square because everyone meets there after work. Those individuals made the free choice to interact in a privately owned establishment thus they…

As I said, disingenuous and dismissive. One can use your framework to justify anything USG or state governments do, under a theory that citizens have assented to a contract by being physically present. Clearly, overall constructive behavior matters.

I think the disingenuous and dismissive labels more aptly apply to you for not addressing any of my specific points and your totally absurd suggestion that my reasoning can "justify anything USG or state governments do, under a theory that citizens have assented to a contract with such restrictions by being physically present"... and you're attacking me as disingenuous?

The combination of your low effort dismissal and attacks on my intellectual honesty makes me think this conversation is not worth the effort. Have a nice day.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#325

Post by quaquaqua1 »

crematoria wrote: post #273
quaquaqua1 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are saying is that if I punch your child, you should punch mine back as the proper response. There is no need to harm the second child-- you have to deal solely with the person who threw the first punch in a legal, rational, and fair way.

The problem is that the Chinese government has almost total control over Chinese apps, so American citizens are rightly afraid that Chinese apps might serve as vehicles of Chinese government propaganda. It's totally okay for both America and China to ban whatever foreign stuff they want, though, and both of them have very good reasons to do so.

>Chinese government has total almost total control over Chinese apps

I agree. But watch what happens when you post something bad about an influential person on an American app. The feds pay attention to you more and lean harder on you. The end outcome is the same.

>Ban foreign content

How can we live in a world where it's ok for any government to decide what you can and can't see

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#326

Post by LudwigNagasena »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #253
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the parent comment suggesting that you don’t have to worry about it.

Then what exactly is the purpose of the comment? It's plainly being used as justification and deflection, like all whataboutery.

To express the feelings of non-Americans that find it funny how Americans didn’t care about other countries when the US did the same thing to them as China is doing to the US now.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#327

Post by root_axis »

sinkelfink wrote: post #307
root_axis wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? So what?

In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship. When there's no meaningful space between corporate power and government power, it doesn't make much difference whether the guy silencing your dissent is Mark Zuckerberg or William Barr. America most definitely has such a system. And when independent candidates run for office and can't get their message out for being shadow banned, and th…

I reject the idea that ownership of one of the most popular websites in the world is comparable in power to the threat of force that underpins the legal authority of the most powerful military in the world. I think that assertion is extreme and that you need to present some strong evidence to explain why popular websites are comparable in power to the justice department.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#328

Post by rshnotsecure »

dang wrote: post #296
rshnotsecure wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com is run by M5 Hosting out of San Diego. M5 Hosting is also known as M5 Computer Security out of San Diego. These firms are a strange choice for a place like YCombinator to host I think.

That insinuation is so obscure that I can't even guess what you're insinuating. It's a small hosting company with good support. It's a nice fit with the spirit of this community. I have no idea what alternate names they have.

There copyright page hasn’t been updated since 2003...

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#329

Post by CharlesColeman »

yorwba wrote: post #318
CharlesColeman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the "hate," if it can even be called that, is for the Chinese government and the CCP. > You may only hate the government... Hate is actually not a very good word to describe the situation, IMHO. I only used it because the GP did, but I quoted and questioned the choice. If I had to describe it, I would say it's moral disapproval coupled with a recognition of incompatible goals that requires some kind of response. >…

> I find that a bit hard to square with the support of Chinese things by the same group, like the Tiananmen Square and Hong Kong protests (for instance). I can only guess, but it could be explained by mentally categorizing Uyghurs, Hong Kongers and even Tiananmen protesters as "not Chinese." I don't think it's so much racism as a binary "us vs. them" classification system that expresses itself as the opinion that "th…

> I can only guess, but it could be explained by mentally categorizing Uyghurs, Hong Kongers and even Tiananmen protesters as "not Chinese." I don't think it's so much racism as a binary "us vs. them" classification system that expresses itself as the opinion that "the Chinese" should be punished for oppressing ...

That could be in some cases, though what you're describing sounds more like a government leaders/enforcers vs. liberals/oppressed minorities classification (which also leaves a big gray area). The people sympathize and feel allied to the latter group, so the "us" includes a lot of Chinese people, so it's not so much Chinese vs not-Chinese.

I think I've seen similar comments, but I usually interpreted it as a mess of lazy or imprecise language, because often the complaints could only apply to a narrow group even though the person is using some broad term like "China" or "Chinese."

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#330

Post by sinkelfink »

asveikau wrote: post #247
hnuser77 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some teachable moments about the soft censorship system are when 1) it misfires, like when a teenager stands around on video with a smile in the general vicinity of a Native American man and has his reputation immediately smeared by multiple national networks and thousands of other highly credentialed professionals, 2) when a dozen major online platforms and infrastructure services "independently" ban the same person…

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