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To be fair, you can say any company operating in a specific country works under the influence of that government. Many US companies run or ran warrant canaries

To be fair, you can say any company operating in a specific country works under the influence of that government. Many US companies run or ran warrant canaries for this specific reason.

taneq 8y ago
Absolutely, if you're concerned about interest/influence from foreign nations you need to consider the country of origin of, well, everything.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> you can say any company operating in a specific country works under the influence of that government This collapses the continuum of the rule of law into a false binary. Americans and foreigners alike can successfully challenge the U.S. government in independent courts. None of those elements exist in China.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  what is it with people these days having a desire to reduce everything in the world to a binary yes/no, true/false, is/isn't situation?
- endorphone 8y ago
  How is the FISA court independent? The US government can strong-arm corporate partners to do virtually anything they want, and can not only threaten jail if you ever talk about it, they cloak the whole thing -- even for the most banal thing -- as classified so it's impossible to contest. This seems like pretending there is nuance that there simply isn't. The system is a charade around the reality that US intelligence has virtually identical inroads to US corporations.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > How is the FISA court independent? While FISA courts are technically under the judicial branch, I agree they’re an affront to the rule of law. Most cases don’t go through the FISA courts, however. In China, everything goes through the equivalent of a FISA court. (Arguable worse, since China’s courts report to the party.)
  - mlazos 8y ago
    Of course there is nuance, many times the Chinese government owns parts of these companies, they have zero choice. In the US corporations have much more power to resist the government. At the very least corporations can lobby Congress to get beneficial reform passed, in China it is all entirely opaque.
  - ajdlinux 8y ago
    Sure, the FISC isn't amazing from a rule-of-law and transparency point of view. But it's still a court made up of judges whose day jobs are serving in the regular courts, and if you compare the amount of public literature, legal analysis and news reporting on the operation of FISA and the US natsec apparatus in general to China...
helloindia 8y ago
"Hundreds of Chinese companies have revised their corporate charters to allow a deeper management role for the Communist Party, a sign the ruling party is tightening its control over the private sector." . "Changes include acknowledging a central role for the party and establishing internal party committees to be consulted on important decisions. Some stipulate that corporate chiefs also serve as the heads of in-house party organs. Despite the Communist Party's dominance over the Chinese state, it is unusual for publicly listed businesses to explicitly give the party a role in decision-making, much less write it into their charters." https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/More-companies-are-writing-China-s-Communist-Party-into-their-charters https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/More-companies-are-writing-...
londons_explore 8y ago
Most of the big US companies embed US laws into their practices abroad too. For example, making and distributing pornography with children is legal in about 20% of the world, yet no US-based international social media sites allow it, even the ones with an 'adult' focus. We can't expect companies in other countries not to embed their host countries laws and customs into their products either.
- pluma 8y ago
  Of all the laws you had to pick the ones about child porn to make your point? I think you'll have a better time making the argument by talking about how US-based social media sites treat female nipples as pornographic. That said, your argument breaks down because unlike e.g. cloud providers, social media sites generally have no incentive to have isolated regional data centers that would allow hosting content that would be illegal to host in the US (as the way I understand the laws, mere possession of child porn is already illegal even without intent to distribute). There are good reasons for child porn to be illegal even without taking US laws into account (e.g. that it usually depicts child abuse, that it's by definition non-consensual and that it violates the victim's right to their own image and their right to privacy). Arguments exist why certain things should or shouldn't be considered child porn (e.g. fictional drawings/renderings) or how those laws should be enforced. Also some jurisdictions may not have specific laws against child porn but consider it illegal because of other, more general laws (see above). A quick google search[1] suggests that most of the countries that don't consider child porn illegal likely also consider many things legal others would rightfully (i.e. there's plenty of evidence to back this view up) consider child abuse (e.g. FGM, child marriage, child labor, etc). So even without US laws I bet most companies would prefer taking the ethical stance of not permitting every "legal activity" for users in those countries. [1]: https://www.icmec.org/press/despite-increase-in-global-child-protection-laws-many-countries-still-do-not-consider-child-pornography-a-crime/ https://www.icmec.org/press/despite-increase-in-global-child...
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    I deliberately chose a law most people strongly agree with to make the 2nd half of my argument stronger - if you can't expect our companies to change their policies to be inclusive of things acceptable in other countries, you shouldn't expect companies from other countries to do the same in the other direction (eg. offering strong privacy, which is also illegal in many places).

To be fair, you can say any company operating in a specific country works under the influence of that government. Many US companies run or ran warrant canaries for this specific reason.

taneq 8y ago

Absolutely, if you're concerned about interest/influence from foreign nations you need to consider the country of origin of, well, everything.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> you can say any company operating in a specific country works under the influence of that government This collapses the continuum of the rule of law into a false binary. Americans and foreigners alike can successfully challenge the U.S. government in independent courts. None of those elements exist in China.

jimjimjim 8y ago
what is it with people these days having a desire to reduce everything in the world to a binary yes/no, true/false, is/isn't situation?
endorphone 8y ago
How is the FISA court independent? The US government can strong-arm corporate partners to do virtually anything they want, and can not only threaten jail if you ever talk about it, they cloak the whole thing -- even for the most banal thing -- as classified so it's impossible to contest. This seems like pretending there is nuance that there simply isn't. The system is a charade around the reality that US intelligence has virtually identical inroads to US corporations.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > How is the FISA court independent? While FISA courts are technically under the judicial branch, I agree they’re an affront to the rule of law. Most cases don’t go through the FISA courts, however. In China, everything goes through the equivalent of a FISA court. (Arguable worse, since China’s courts report to the party.)
- mlazos 8y ago
  Of course there is nuance, many times the Chinese government owns parts of these companies, they have zero choice. In the US corporations have much more power to resist the government. At the very least corporations can lobby Congress to get beneficial reform passed, in China it is all entirely opaque.
- ajdlinux 8y ago
  Sure, the FISC isn't amazing from a rule-of-law and transparency point of view. But it's still a court made up of judges whose day jobs are serving in the regular courts, and if you compare the amount of public literature, legal analysis and news reporting on the operation of FISA and the US natsec apparatus in general to China...

helloindia 8y ago

"Hundreds of Chinese companies have revised their corporate charters to allow a deeper management role for the Communist Party, a sign the ruling party is tightening its control over the private sector." . "Changes include acknowledging a central role for the party and establishing internal party committees to be consulted on important decisions. Some stipulate that corporate chiefs also serve as the heads of in-house party organs. Despite the Communist Party's dominance over the Chinese state, it is unusual for publicly listed businesses to explicitly give the party a role in decision-making, much less write it into their charters." https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/More-companies-are-writing-China-s-Communist-Party-into-their-charters https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/More-companies-are-writing-...

londons_explore 8y ago

Most of the big US companies embed US laws into their practices abroad too. For example, making and distributing pornography with children is legal in about 20% of the world, yet no US-based international social media sites allow it, even the ones with an 'adult' focus. We can't expect companies in other countries not to embed their host countries laws and customs into their products either.

pluma 8y ago
Of all the laws you had to pick the ones about child porn to make your point? I think you'll have a better time making the argument by talking about how US-based social media sites treat female nipples as pornographic. That said, your argument breaks down because unlike e.g. cloud providers, social media sites generally have no incentive to have isolated regional data centers that would allow hosting content that would be illegal to host in the US (as the way I understand the laws, mere possession of child porn is already illegal even without intent to distribute). There are good reasons for child porn to be illegal even without taking US laws into account (e.g. that it usually depicts child abuse, that it's by definition non-consensual and that it violates the victim's right to their own image and their right to privacy). Arguments exist why certain things should or shouldn't be considered child porn (e.g. fictional drawings/renderings) or how those laws should be enforced. Also some jurisdictions may not have specific laws against child porn but consider it illegal because of other, more general laws (see above). A quick google search[1] suggests that most of the countries that don't consider child porn illegal likely also consider many things legal others would rightfully (i.e. there's plenty of evidence to back this view up) consider child abuse (e.g. FGM, child marriage, child labor, etc). So even without US laws I bet most companies would prefer taking the ethical stance of not permitting every "legal activity" for users in those countries. [1]: https://www.icmec.org/press/despite-increase-in-global-child-protection-laws-many-countries-still-do-not-consider-child-pornography-a-crime/ https://www.icmec.org/press/despite-increase-in-global-child...
- londons_explore 8y ago
  I deliberately chose a law most people strongly agree with to make the 2nd half of my argument stronger - if you can't expect our companies to change their policies to be inclusive of things acceptable in other countries, you shouldn't expect companies from other countries to do the same in the other direction (eg. offering strong privacy, which is also illegal in many places).