Tankies failing to comprehend the fundamental difference between an actor who tries to make money off you and an actor trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
Point taken, though it’s still an American company they could crack down upon if they prove too dangerous too.
To be clear: I don’t want to get spied upon by anyone and I don’t use most of the American services for that reason. But obviously domestic bad actors are better than bad actors controlled by a foreign and hostile government
It would be a lot better if Congress could pass a comprehensive privacy bill, but we lack a functioning government so I guess this is the best we can do.
… it’s obvious because a domestic entity is subject to local laws, and can if push comes to shove be shut down or nationalized. A foreign one is essentially out of reach.
Why is it contentious that a government can better curb foreign interference if it is done on a domestic platform? Regardless of how shitty the United States are that’s a simple fact and also practiced by China, only to a much greater extent.
I have no horse in the race, I’m not an American. I don’t know or really care to what extent the corrupt shithole that is America can control its own corporations due to regulatory capture. That’s your own problem to fix.
All I’m arguing is that from the perspective of the us government it makes perfect sense to be wary of foreign influence before its own corps.
Didn’t tiktok just accidentally prove the American legislator’s argument by causing mass calls into the legislators office or something? Endless amounts of people who don’t even know why they are calling, just because “tiktok said so”. Are you telling me that isn’t a disturbing implication?
The existence of the article you’re literally commenting on directly refutes what you’re saying here. Like you’re in a thread because of news that demonstrates that the opposite of what you’re saying here is actually true.
If you need more examples - What happened to Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal? They got banned by congress right? They got shut down? The government stopped them from continuing to manipulate the public?
It’s crazy to me that people such as you unironically believe the position you’re saying that American companies are easier to crack down on.
We are literally seeing concrete proof in action that domestic companies are much harder to crack down on or regulate. They are much better positioned to lobby and are currently using their immense political power to protect themselves while removing their foreign rivals. There isn’t even talk of taking action against them because they are so politically powerful.
Read the other comments, I don’t want to repeat myself for every idiot jumping on the dogpile. Why does every single China fan assume I love the United States and have a blind eye towards their bullshit? I’m not an American.
But I am not accusing you of anything…? Unless you think asking you to check If what you’re about to comment has been commented several times before is an accusation.
It’s okay though I’m just about done arguing over this topic. All responses can essentially be summed up with “but the USA do it too”.
You pretend you are objective, while insinuating the motive of USA companies is solely to make money and advertise, while China is the big baddie “narrative” manipulator, which is some alternate reality bullshit. China is not the country that has done foreign interventions and/or genocides in 100+ countries. Or stuff like the genocide in Myanmar which Facebook facilitated, or the intentional misreporting Reuters did during Tiananmen Square to make it look like those CIA paycheck “democracy” students who burnt PLA soldiers alive first were good people.
Why are you, again, telling me that “the United States do it too”? Does it not compute that it doesn’t have any bearing on this argument?
From the perspective of the United States government it makes perfect sense to be hostile towards Chinese influence before its own platforms. If they wanted to curb foreign interference there, they could, their failure to do so is just a symptom of regulatory capture. That’s the whole argument here.
It doesn’t matter for this argument what atrocities they committed elsewhere or how poorly the country is run in various ways.
Besides, China does the exact same thing itself. All foreign corporations in the country operate under strict regulations or as junior partners to Chinese companies, and can and will be kicked out for much less than what tiktok does. And those corporations are not directly tied to foreign governments as tiktok is.
There is no whataboutism in pointing out your argument is reversed and completely false. Also, “whataboutism” is a dog whistle word used by Westerners for deflection used to abrupt or end the argument when there are no real counterpoints. And since US government loves to demonize their “near-peer competitors” (official term) China and Russia, it is perfectly fair to argue with US in perspective.
will be kicked out for much less than what tiktok does
Tesla car cameras were being used by CIA to spy on Chinese military areas. Tesla got banned from roaming around military areas and still operates and manufactures there.
Imagine spending the time and effort to make that perfect whatabout meme you spent all day thinking about- only to have people tell you that all of them should be shut down.
Is there some way to trick the chatgpt training bots by intentionally mislabeling data? Like can I upload some furry pornography tasteful erotica and label it “AP US history assignment - Civil War”?
At first I thought you were being serious, but I think this is a joke? That Americans don’t care how many companies spy on them as long as it’s not the government?
Which, is laughable because of course the government has contacts at everyone one of these companies and they’d gladly hand over your data then go to court to protect it
No, you're misunderstanding. The Chinese government has significantly more influence and power over Chinese companies than the US federal government has over US companies. People are acting like both are the same, but they are not.
This is sort of true, though it’s hard to make a clear distinction between US capitalists and the US government when the capitalists control the government, and have since the 1776 bourgeois revolution.
It should be a known fact at this point that US companies share all the data the goverment wants, i don’t think the greater influence matters in this case.
All of the US corporate social media platforms are part of the US military-industrial-intellegence complex. Look at their boards of directors and executives. Look at the Twitter Files. Look Hamilton 68.
You're also misunderstanding. I won't deny that US companies seek profit wherever they can, even from unethical sources. I also don't doubt their involvement with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But a company seeking profit through a partnership with the United States federal government is not the same as the totalitarian Chinese government requiring oversight of Chinese companies.
It might not seem like a big difference to you, but it's an important one to me.
If you find it upsetting that the Chinese state imposes its will on the Chinese capitalist class, then you must really like capitalism, where the capitalist class imposes its will on the state.
I'm European and I definitely feel that way. I don't like American spyware, but I trust the Chinese government much less than I do American corporations.
Between August and September 2007 Chinese hackers were suspected of using Trojan horse spyware on various government computers, including those of the Chancellory, the Ministry of Economics and Technology, and the Ministry of Education and Research.[180] Germans officials believe Trojan viruses were inserted in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files, and approximately 160 gigabytes of data were siphoned to Canton, Lanzhou and Beijing via South Korea, on instructions from the People’s Liberation Army.[181]
China does not even spy a hundredth of what USA does. Since Anglos love to quantify everything, it might be a good idea to quantify spying too. 160 GB sounds like nothing to me compared to millions of TBs in Utah datacenters. By your logic, one person who killed one person, and one person who committed a murder of 10000s of people, are equally guilty.
How about I share something from my own country. What I reckon is that only some of my data goes to the US government through Google, Microsoft etc. while the Chinese government controls corporations like tencent much more than the US government controls US corporations. Besides all that, services from Microsoft and Google are much harder to avoid than for example tiktok and Huawei. So the US is getting my data no matter what, I might as well limit how much of it goes to china.
My main reason is I’m an American, China (probably) can’t do shit to me. But here I’m subject to so much shit America can do legally and illegally, with zero repercussions.
If China fucked me in particular over, odds are it would at least spark debate here. If America spied on my messages and stopped me from protesting something, that’s just a Tuesday afternoon here.
The only reason why Congress wants to ban it, is due to pressure from news agencies and the government, because TikTok can’t be controlled by the CIA. You can’t manufacture consent of the people if the content comes from someone else you don’t control.
Spying on user data is a constitutional right of US companies, what are the poor going to live on when they can’t traffic with your data, or when a disgusting red communist company steals their bread? A little more proper patriotism, guys. Bad enough that the EU is cutting the wings of this companies, therefore also don’t use EU apps to make America great again.
So much data to infer from your music tastes. Listening to music about breakup? You had a breakup yourself. Listening to classical music? You’re a top earner. Listening to Eminem? You like mom’s spaghetti.
Is it illegal for Swedish companies to store user data? Is it illegal for them to sell user data? Do they have very strict rules about showing users every time and how data they generate is saved?
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