US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days • Hacker News Board

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#961

Post by chub500 » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

zb1plus wrote: post #670

factsaresacred wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me Extremely naive view. China is a totalitarian state that can compel its companies to hand over all private data if asked. In your rosy "presumption of innocence" scenario, by the time they're proven guilty it's too late. This is preemptive measure that is a prelude…

Funny, both the USA [1] and Australia [2] can compel its companies to hand over all private data if asked and regularly exploit the security systems of their own companies with little to no due process to obtain data on people. Nation-states interests are disjoint from those of its people. We need global unity, not petty tribalism if we are to make the world a better place for all. The internet can be a powerful tool…

> Nation-states interests are disjoint from those of its people.

This is literally the opposite of what is true in a democracy. Of the people, by the people and for the people. You can be cynical as hell, sure, but that will require significantly more justification and evidence to make such an incredibly broad assertion.

To give a clear example: why does the US get data from Apple, Google? To catch criminals. Why does CCP do the same?

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#962

Post by beaunative » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #847

jdietrich wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US? The US gains very substantial economic benefits from being an attractive place for international companies to do business. Foreign investors know that when they invest in America, they're getting a stable regulatory environment and a reasonably trustworthy civil legal system. If America decides to undermine that trust for short-term gain, there will be…

I highly doubt China has more levers then the US when it comes to a trade war. China can't feed itself past subsistence level without imports. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-feeding-china/ China runs on oil just like every other modern economy, and they have pitiful amounts locally. They are the largest importer in the world and they absolutely need it to keep flowing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemen…

China can feed itself. It doesn't have to be beyond subsistence level.

China runs like every other country on oil, but a large part of that demand for oil is to produce for the rest of the world. You need to calculate the actual domestic demand for oil and related products rather than total demand. The US can supply its energy domestically, but what if the US have to reopen the factories once closed to make other products? Will the oil be fluent? Oil isn't just the thing you put in your car. You'd be surprised how many of our modern products need oil (plastic, fabric etc).

Of course, those statements are made under the same assumption that there are only China and US in the world, or that the whole world go in to isolationist status. I'd rather not make any argument here, but to suggest somehow China's continued survival depended upon the global market while the US's doesn't is nothing more than an illusion.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#963

Post by beaunative » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

unishark wrote: post #602

api wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But having the president order arbitrary punishment without proof of guilt (what happened to presumption of innocence?) looks like a dictatorship to me. It is. There's a faction in the US that believes the US has to have a dictatorship to compete with China. We've been here before. The USSR looked like an unstoppable juggernaut until the late 1960s / early 1970s. Like China they started from a state of relative bac…

> During the Cold War there were always factions in the USA and Western Europe who argued that we must become more like the USSR. The right pushed for more militarization and executive power, while the left pushed for more central management and central planning. They were really pushing for "right" and "left" variants of the same thing: a vertically integrated totalitarian system like the Soviet state. Even without…

Any one who participate in politics stands to win for the government to have more power.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#964

Post by whateveracct » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #565

whateveracct wrote: post #5

Instagram Reels is launching at a "convenient" time.. . . ..

AFAIK , tiktok's demographic (teenagers) is no way going to do the same things on facebook . It's probably going to be a new company (Franken-Vine maybe)

People said the same thing about IG Stories but now I'd say those Stories are bigger and more mainstream than Snapchat's.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#965

Post by beaunative » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #870

ookdatnog wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you claim to stand for free trade, you can't go along in these protectionism wars without losing a lot of credibility and, along with that, soft power.

I stand for free trade, but it's not "free" when trading with a country that doesn't share our values. How someone can advocate for a minimum wage or health and safety protections for a European or US company, but then turn around and advocate trading with a country with no such protections baffles me. There is no outcome except that our economy will become disadvantaged while at the same time encouraging the erosion…

This isn't free trade. There would be no point of other countries existence if they share same values. The reason so many countries exists is because they don't share the same values. The US famously fought its independence war because it doesn't share british values where there is no delegation even paying taxes for colonies

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#966

Post by peacefulhat » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #685

tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

> Would WeChat or TikTok exist if western chat and social media apps were given total access to Chinese markets???

WeChat caters to the needs of Chinese users. As far as I know, WeChat invented integration of payments in messaging apps and Western apps like Messenger and iMessage copied that. I don't think the Western apps have QR payments, which is very important to Chinese. And I don't think a Western app would have come up with the group hongbao exchange feature.

TikTok doesn't have a surviving American equivalent so, yes. Definitely it would exist.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#967

Post by beaunative » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #685

tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

Google's dragonfly would allow it to operate in China. It didn't because of domestic pressure, not the Chinese government. There used to have a huge debate of that here on Hackernews. It would not be fair to say that China banned Google for protectionism reasons. At least for China, the government have a standard, a list of censorship requirement to follow. There are things a company can do to operate in China. While here now at the US, it's protectionism that targeted a specific company without doubt. I'd hardly call that the rule of law, would you?

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#968

Post by dumbfoundded » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #957

dumbfoundded wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing is that WeChat can exist in the US. In fact it does. It just doesn't get any traction except with Chinese Nationals communicating with their families. It's kind of absurd to think that platforms that literally dominate every single country in the world like Google and Facebook wouldn't similarly dominate in China if they were just allowed. TikTok is the first Chinese social app that's had any success…

> It's absolutely crazy that Chinese companies can compete fairly in Western markets yet the Chinese government can close their markets to Western companies. The actual state of affairs is that Western companies do much more business in China than vice versa. It's been that way ever since China began opening up in the 1980s. There are more theoretical barriers to trade in China than in most developed countries, but t…

I agree with much of your argument in general but you seem to skew the reality of the situation in a very big way. China is the second largest economy in the world. By GDP measures, they have a long way to go but all of that wealth and control is in the hands of a very small group of people. As a nation-state, China is extremely powerful and should be held to exactly the same standards as other powerful nation-states. From the perspective of foreign policy, the state of development is derived from the ability of a country to project power. China can absolutely do this.

Given China's autocratic government, the conflation of economic and government interests is impossible to separate. This makes protectionist policies of China a dire risk to the West. The ability of social media in particular to undermine democratic elections should now be clear. The simple unregulated profit motive of Facebook has proved harmful enough. A Chinese controlled Facebook equivalent in the United States would be disastrous.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#969

Post by lern_too_spel » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #633

logicslave12 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumbstruck that we wouldn’t allow an adversarial country collect data on all of our citizens locations? And potentially more?

Where’s your outrage over PRISM, which is magnitudes worse?

What exactly do you think PRISM is? https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-...

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#970

Post by zalkota » Fri, Aug 07, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #685

tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

China doesn’t allow many western companies to operate in China. Why should the US allow Chinese companies to operate in the US?? This is an outrage that we should not allow. They steal our intellectual property, create state funded companies that are given monopoly access to their markets, and then unleash their stolen products on the world market. And if American or other western companies try to compete on the grou…

This is correct, thank you for this reply.