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This disproportionate focus on China is being used as a distraction from the all encompassing surveillance currently run by the NSA, GCHQ and Google, Facebook a

by throw2016 8y ago

This disproportionate focus on China is being used as a distraction from the all encompassing surveillance currently run by the NSA, GCHQ and Google, Facebook and others which is a far bigger and ongoing threat to democracy and citizens here. China's actions are limited to China. There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies or protests against the NSA. This forum itself has its fair share of apologists for surveillance capitalism. Where are the protests in front of Google and Facebooks campuses and in Washington? So if people don't care about these issues at home how can they care about them in China? This is simply not credible or serious. China's actions don't impact you, your governments and companies here do. In the absence of any mainstream activism, just singling out China for outrage and anger is duplicitous and comes across as motivated more by politics than any genuine concern for the issues.

gurkendoktor 8y ago
> China's actions are limited to China They're not, see the comment by ardy42. > There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies or protests against the NSA There are plenty of encryption projects around here, and I would not describe the HN crowd as pro-NSA or even pro-Facebook. Keeping Google insulated from the influence of the Chinese market seems at least somewhat realistic as an activism goal. Separating Google from the US gov't is simply impossible. (EU citizen here, if that makes a difference.)
394549 8y ago
> There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies Wut? It's obvious that's not true at all, and really easy to prove. Just read this NY Times article from yesterday, about how privacy activists got a law passed in California to reign in those same SV companies: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-privacy-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-....
- throw2016 8y ago
  This only proves the point, the whole perspective of the nytimes piece is a lone 'accidental' activist fighting against the system facing pushback at every stage. Where are the software engineers of SV who work for these companies and implement these programs in the activism, where are the dissenters, where are all the folks who are outraged about China on every article? Without mainstream activism against surveillance capitalism, NSA surveillance, secret courts, secret processes and secret orders surveillance will become a dragnet few will be able to escape from. How can we hold China accountable for the same things we are doing? The least that can be done by the tech community is try to get Snowden back with full honors, but like Assange he lies discarded with zero activism, and even demonized in some sections of the press as a 'traitor' and here we pretend to care about these things.

gurkendoktor 8y ago

> China's actions are limited to China They're not, see the comment by ardy42. > There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies or protests against the NSA There are plenty of encryption projects around here, and I would not describe the HN crowd as pro-NSA or even pro-Facebook. Keeping Google insulated from the influence of the Chinese market seems at least somewhat realistic as an activism goal. Separating Google from the US gov't is simply impossible. (EU citizen here, if that makes a difference.)

394549 8y ago

> There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies Wut? It's obvious that's not true at all, and really easy to prove. Just read this NY Times article from yesterday, about how privacy activists got a law passed in California to reign in those same SV companies: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-privacy-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-....

throw2016 8y ago
This only proves the point, the whole perspective of the nytimes piece is a lone 'accidental' activist fighting against the system facing pushback at every stage. Where are the software engineers of SV who work for these companies and implement these programs in the activism, where are the dissenters, where are all the folks who are outraged about China on every article? Without mainstream activism against surveillance capitalism, NSA surveillance, secret courts, secret processes and secret orders surveillance will become a dragnet few will be able to escape from. How can we hold China accountable for the same things we are doing? The least that can be done by the tech community is try to get Snowden back with full honors, but like Assange he lies discarded with zero activism, and even demonized in some sections of the press as a 'traitor' and here we pretend to care about these things.