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Everything you've said may be true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism. I mean, just read it: > I like to remind people of shit li

Everything you've said may be true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism. I mean, just read it: > I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. Why do you feel the need to bring up China when someone talks about the US govt spying on their online activities?

walrus01 8y ago
I think the distinction is that the United States treats "spying on online activities" as a signals intelligence/passive gathering system and methodology. The US government doesn't arbitrarily regulate BGP4 tables and IX points, run a GFW like system on all international submarine cables (though traffic may be passively tapped by the NSA), require licenses for http daemons, or forcibly install spyware on citizens' phones. The active measures taken by the Chinese government are pretty much the opposite of the US/Five Eyes' SIGINT approach to things. I do not agree with either, and think that both should be highly publicized, and awareness raised. However I think that the Chinese method of police state social control is on a whole other magnitude of "fucking with the Internet" than what is possible in the US with constitutionally/bill of rights protected freedoms.
- markdown 8y ago
  Again, everything you've said may be true.. is true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism. I mean, just read it: > I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. Why do you feel the need to bring up China when someone talks about the US govt spying on their online activities? China is an order of magnitude times worse than the US. I'm not sure why you feel the need to keep arguing that point when I already agreed. But none of that is relevant when someone is complaining that they don't like their own US govt spying on them, "passive" or otherwise. For you to bring up China in that context is whataboutism.
perl4ever 8y ago
"Everything you've said may be true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism." The initial topic of this thread is China, not the US, so it seems to me that criticizing China cannot, by definition, be whataboutism in this particular context. I'm not personally inclined to dismiss things as "whataboutism" as though it were an automatic debate ender, but if you do, then you have to restrict your discussion to China's sins in this thread.
- markdown 8y ago
  I'm not talking about this thread or the discussion in this thread, I'm talking about this: > I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. In January, the US Senate passed a bill to renew the NSA’s warrantless internet surveillance program for six years with minimal changes. If walrus01's friends had brought up that topic at the time, it sounds like he'd have defended the program because China is worse. Whataboutism.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Maybe? Calling out hypothetical whataboutism of someone else is like whataboutism squared on your part, though. Hyper-whataboutism. Meta-whataboutism. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

walrus01 8y ago

I think the distinction is that the United States treats "spying on online activities" as a signals intelligence/passive gathering system and methodology. The US government doesn't arbitrarily regulate BGP4 tables and IX points, run a GFW like system on all international submarine cables (though traffic may be passively tapped by the NSA), require licenses for http daemons, or forcibly install spyware on citizens' phones. The active measures taken by the Chinese government are pretty much the opposite of the US/Five Eyes' SIGINT approach to things. I do not agree with either, and think that both should be highly publicized, and awareness raised. However I think that the Chinese method of police state social control is on a whole other magnitude of "fucking with the Internet" than what is possible in the US with constitutionally/bill of rights protected freedoms.

markdown 8y ago
Again, everything you've said may be true.. is true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism. I mean, just read it: > I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. Why do you feel the need to bring up China when someone talks about the US govt spying on their online activities? China is an order of magnitude times worse than the US. I'm not sure why you feel the need to keep arguing that point when I already agreed. But none of that is relevant when someone is complaining that they don't like their own US govt spying on them, "passive" or otherwise. For you to bring up China in that context is whataboutism.

perl4ever 8y ago

"Everything you've said may be true, and yet your comment is still a perfect example of whataboutism." The initial topic of this thread is China, not the US, so it seems to me that criticizing China cannot, by definition, be whataboutism in this particular context. I'm not personally inclined to dismiss things as "whataboutism" as though it were an automatic debate ender, but if you do, then you have to restrict your discussion to China's sins in this thread.

markdown 8y ago
I'm not talking about this thread or the discussion in this thread, I'm talking about this: > I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. In January, the US Senate passed a bill to renew the NSA’s warrantless internet surveillance program for six years with minimal changes. If walrus01's friends had brought up that topic at the time, it sounds like he'd have defended the program because China is worse. Whataboutism.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Maybe? Calling out hypothetical whataboutism of someone else is like whataboutism squared on your part, though. Hyper-whataboutism. Meta-whataboutism. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.