10 ms·

Chinese investment means increased pressure on tech oligopolies* to increase censorship of media critical of China. They've been branching out to increase soft

by surge 7y ago

Chinese investment means increased pressure on tech oligopolies* to increase censorship of media critical of China. They've been branching out to increase soft influence, keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation. Then there's what is currently going on in Hong Kong. Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. It's not a good thing. *edit

1-6 7y ago
How much of it is hype though? Tencent invested $150 million into Reddit but all I read on FP are Hong Kong demonstrations and Tank Man.
- r00fus 7y ago
  The idea is that successful message control will be subtle to imperceptible at first, but through successive actions it will just become commonplace to "not diss China". If Reddit is the "forum of the internet" then it won't matter if it slowly erodes into a Fox News like media presence. It will exert the gravity over other forums through its "reasonability" on non-sensitive topics. Kind of like how most modern politicians don't say anything bad about Israel.
  - kamfc 7y ago
    The shift can influence on easy a admin/mod will ban certain thread and comments if content "diss China". Again, like how the action of Israel is rarely (never) mentioned by politician.
    - sampo 7y ago
      There was a time when r/politics was generally about the US politics. Now it's been almost only "Trump is bad" content for several years.
      - pacala 7y ago
        Incidentally, Trump is the strongest "be wary of China" voice in US politics.
      - w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
        To be fair Trump doesn't inspire the "freshness" neither the fairness of his POV.
goldcd 7y ago
To be fair we've all been using foreign aid, armament sales and all the rest for exactly the same reasons.
- gowld 7y ago
  "We" is the US Government. And people governed by the recipients of that aid are rightly suspicious of the strings attached.
Analemma_ 7y ago
That includes Hacker News, by the way. Now that "YCombinator China" is a thing, sooner or later YC is going to start getting gentle insinuations that they really ought to tone down the criticism of China on that forum site they run, if they want to keep doing business there. Then the insinuations will get not-so-gentle, and at that point either YC China or Hacker News will get the bullet.
- leroy_masochist 7y ago
  Meh...PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chinese certainly know this. I'd bet that PG/sama have thought about this set of issues, and they probably have their redlines drawn, but are probably also not advertising them, as is strategically prudent.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chinese certainly know this. Absolutely nobody but a very select few people would care. YC is not even on the radar of lots of tech start-ups or their founders, the world is a lot larger than what you might think from hanging out here. And that's with full knowledge of the sea change that YC has brought for founders and the absolutely incredible number of companies it has generated, there are still many more people - and founders - in the world that have never heard of YC compared to those that have.
    - leroy_masochist 7y ago
      > Absolutely nobody but a very select few people would care. Are you kidding me, it would be on the front page of the Journal. People would care after that.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        The typical news cycle lasts about 48 hours. People have no problem remembering what 9/11 was all about because it was the top item for over a year. Now ask them in what year it was and see if you get the right answer. If YC has to stop doing business in China, it will be a very momentary blip and China will most definitely not change course because of a PG blogpost.
dcolkitt 7y ago
Not that this isn't a valid concern, but is there really any evidence that this is happening in Silicon Valley? Hong Kong's a different matter because of just how comparatively dominating and close by the mainland Chinese market is compared to the tiny city state. But in the US tech sector, the Chinese market is at best an after-thought. We're also living through probably the strongest seller's market in history when it comes to venture funding. My guess is that in most situations if a fund like Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content, they'd get laughed in the face as the founders just walked next door to the next VC firm on Sand Hill Road. (Disclaimer: I'm not a SV insider by any stretch. So take these speculations on my part with a big grain of salt...)
- ben_jones 7y ago
  As someone who just spends a lot of time in engineering slack channels, comments seem to alternate every other day on how hard or how easy it is to raise money. I've been through fund raising once (~5 years ago) as a small-time founder and can't help but believe the reality is somewhere in between gold-rush and desert.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    If you're an SV sweetheart it's easy. Otherwise it depends on the business.
  - thwythwy 7y ago
    are these public channels?
    - ben_jones 7y ago
      Gophers, hangops, Google Cloud Platform, to name a few.
- fragmede 7y ago
  (I don't have access to the actual article due to WSJ paywall.) > Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content I assume you are referring to Tencent's recent investment in popular social media site Reddit, during their $300mm series D, at a $3B valuation, so they've already taken the money, whether they will laugh across across sand hill road is another question. There is not yet direct evidence, of such censorship having yet occurred, but once it does happen, could any outsiders prove censorship beyond a shadow of a doubt? Give it time, first, for corporate censorship to become normalized on the English areas of the site, before pro-Hong Kong viewpoints become demonized, and Chinese mainland views propagate. Like, honestly, weird memes of shirtless Putin on horseback. This is coming around especially as censorship in the US is also slowly becoming normalized. Try saying the phrase global climate change/warming as a government scientist. And then watch the people that try to justify it.
KorematsuFred 7y ago
Is this very different from Americans though ? Americans have forced all nations to treat Iran as a terrorist state when it is very friendly to rest of the world compared to Saudi. Saudi Barbaria exists only because of Americans. Can we say with certainty that American money isn't coming to other countries with strings attached ?
- megous 7y ago
  Friendly? With all the bomb and assassination plots? Not friendly to Europe. https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1137831840188948485 https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1137831840188948485
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    It was a Lebanese group. In that sense America is linked to every tyrant in Middle East, ISIS etc. America has always been the agressor in Iran relationship.
  - KorematsuFred 7y ago
    The entire news article appears like typical american hitjob. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iranian state is linked to this man, heck no evidence about Hezbullah either. At any rate none of this is different from what Saudi citizens have been doing for years in Europe and USA.
  - amphibian87 7y ago
    Even extremist Shia Iranians, from what I have read and heard, view Wahhabi Sunnis as radical.
- umvi 7y ago
  Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are dystopian oppressive tyrannies. I don't think any western nations should be "friendly" to such countries that so openly and proudly trample on basic human rights.
  - blisterpeanuts 7y ago
mbesto 7y ago
> Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. Agreed. I've said this before and say it again - if a Chinese acquirer is willing to buy your company for a much higher multiplier than their Western counterparts then there is an obvious reason.
bouncycastle 7y ago
> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Note that the rest of the world has also moved on, when we say "China" we also mean the one ruled by the government in Beijing, which makes the whole situation more complex.
- ardy42 7y ago
  >> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation > No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Tell that to the currently-ruling Democratic Progressive Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party#Policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party#P...): > The current official position of the party is that the "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is an independent and sovereign country whose territory consists of Taiwan and its surrounding smaller islands and whose sovereignty derives only from the ROC citizens living in Taiwan (similar philosophy of self-determination), based on the "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" in 1999. It considers Taiwan independence to be a current fact, making a formal declaration of independence unnecessary. It is a more complex situation, but your view is dated. Taiwan has to maintain the fiction that it still supports a one-China policy, because to do otherwise and declare independence would invite Beijing's wrath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan#PRC's_condition_on_military_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan#PRC...
  - bouncycastle 7y ago
    Yes, the narratives keep on changing and there are various political camps that have different opinions because... politics. I had no idea my view was dated, thanks! I guess the pendulum swings back and forward every number of years. But to get to the main point about the "Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation", there's definitely no overwhelming consensus yet, even by the Taiwanese themselves, that their government should form an independent country!
Bombthecat 7y ago
Everyone knew that and we saw it already several times in action....
qbaqbaqba 7y ago
American corporations don't need a special encouragement to increase censorship whatsoever. Google has been censoring searches in China for ages.
thefringthing 7y ago
Even Taiwan does not recognize Taiwan as a separate nation. Its position is that the Republic of China still exists, is the only legitimate state in all of China, and that its seat of government in Taiwan. There is a growing movement in Taiwan to give up on this claim and instead pursue an existence as a de jure, rather than merely de facto independent nation.

by surge 7y ago

1-6 7y ago

How much of it is hype though? Tencent invested $150 million into Reddit but all I read on FP are Hong Kong demonstrations and Tank Man.

r00fus 7y ago
The idea is that successful message control will be subtle to imperceptible at first, but through successive actions it will just become commonplace to "not diss China". If Reddit is the "forum of the internet" then it won't matter if it slowly erodes into a Fox News like media presence. It will exert the gravity over other forums through its "reasonability" on non-sensitive topics. Kind of like how most modern politicians don't say anything bad about Israel.
- kamfc 7y ago
  The shift can influence on easy a admin/mod will ban certain thread and comments if content "diss China". Again, like how the action of Israel is rarely (never) mentioned by politician.
  - sampo 7y ago
    There was a time when r/politics was generally about the US politics. Now it's been almost only "Trump is bad" content for several years.
    - pacala 7y ago
      Incidentally, Trump is the strongest "be wary of China" voice in US politics.
    - w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
      To be fair Trump doesn't inspire the "freshness" neither the fairness of his POV.

goldcd 7y ago

To be fair we've all been using foreign aid, armament sales and all the rest for exactly the same reasons.

gowld 7y ago
"We" is the US Government. And people governed by the recipients of that aid are rightly suspicious of the strings attached.

Analemma_ 7y ago

That includes Hacker News, by the way. Now that "YCombinator China" is a thing, sooner or later YC is going to start getting gentle insinuations that they really ought to tone down the criticism of China on that forum site they run, if they want to keep doing business there. Then the insinuations will get not-so-gentle, and at that point either YC China or Hacker News will get the bullet.

leroy_masochist 7y ago
Meh...PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chinese certainly know this. I'd bet that PG/sama have thought about this set of issues, and they probably have their redlines drawn, but are probably also not advertising them, as is strategically prudent.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > PG writing a blog post entitled "Why YC Is Quitting China" would cause plenty of tsoris in Beijing, and the Chinese certainly know this. Absolutely nobody but a very select few people would care. YC is not even on the radar of lots of tech start-ups or their founders, the world is a lot larger than what you might think from hanging out here. And that's with full knowledge of the sea change that YC has brought for founders and the absolutely incredible number of companies it has generated, there are still many more people - and founders - in the world that have never heard of YC compared to those that have.
  - leroy_masochist 7y ago
    > Absolutely nobody but a very select few people would care. Are you kidding me, it would be on the front page of the Journal. People would care after that.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      The typical news cycle lasts about 48 hours. People have no problem remembering what 9/11 was all about because it was the top item for over a year. Now ask them in what year it was and see if you get the right answer. If YC has to stop doing business in China, it will be a very momentary blip and China will most definitely not change course because of a PG blogpost.

dcolkitt 7y ago

Not that this isn't a valid concern, but is there really any evidence that this is happening in Silicon Valley? Hong Kong's a different matter because of just how comparatively dominating and close by the mainland Chinese market is compared to the tiny city state. But in the US tech sector, the Chinese market is at best an after-thought. We're also living through probably the strongest seller's market in history when it comes to venture funding. My guess is that in most situations if a fund like Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content, they'd get laughed in the face as the founders just walked next door to the next VC firm on Sand Hill Road. (Disclaimer: I'm not a SV insider by any stretch. So take these speculations on my part with a big grain of salt...)

ben_jones 7y ago
As someone who just spends a lot of time in engineering slack channels, comments seem to alternate every other day on how hard or how easy it is to raise money. I've been through fund raising once (~5 years ago) as a small-time founder and can't help but believe the reality is somewhere in between gold-rush and desert.
- driverdan 7y ago
  If you're an SV sweetheart it's easy. Otherwise it depends on the business.
- thwythwy 7y ago
  are these public channels?
  - ben_jones 7y ago
    Gophers, hangops, Google Cloud Platform, to name a few.
fragmede 7y ago
(I don't have access to the actual article due to WSJ paywall.) > Tencent tried to force an Internet startup to censor their content I assume you are referring to Tencent's recent investment in popular social media site Reddit, during their $300mm series D, at a $3B valuation, so they've already taken the money, whether they will laugh across across sand hill road is another question. There is not yet direct evidence, of such censorship having yet occurred, but once it does happen, could any outsiders prove censorship beyond a shadow of a doubt? Give it time, first, for corporate censorship to become normalized on the English areas of the site, before pro-Hong Kong viewpoints become demonized, and Chinese mainland views propagate. Like, honestly, weird memes of shirtless Putin on horseback. This is coming around especially as censorship in the US is also slowly becoming normalized. Try saying the phrase global climate change/warming as a government scientist. And then watch the people that try to justify it.

KorematsuFred 7y ago

Is this very different from Americans though ? Americans have forced all nations to treat Iran as a terrorist state when it is very friendly to rest of the world compared to Saudi. Saudi Barbaria exists only because of Americans. Can we say with certainty that American money isn't coming to other countries with strings attached ?

megous 7y ago
Friendly? With all the bomb and assassination plots? Not friendly to Europe. https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1137831840188948485 https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1137831840188948485
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  It was a Lebanese group. In that sense America is linked to every tyrant in Middle East, ISIS etc. America has always been the agressor in Iran relationship.
- KorematsuFred 7y ago
  The entire news article appears like typical american hitjob. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iranian state is linked to this man, heck no evidence about Hezbullah either. At any rate none of this is different from what Saudi citizens have been doing for years in Europe and USA.
- amphibian87 7y ago
  Even extremist Shia Iranians, from what I have read and heard, view Wahhabi Sunnis as radical.
umvi 7y ago
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are dystopian oppressive tyrannies. I don't think any western nations should be "friendly" to such countries that so openly and proudly trample on basic human rights.
- blisterpeanuts 7y ago

mbesto 7y ago

> Chinese investor cash is effectively Chinese government investment. Agreed. I've said this before and say it again - if a Chinese acquirer is willing to buy your company for a much higher multiplier than their Western counterparts then there is an obvious reason.

bouncycastle 7y ago

> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Note that the rest of the world has also moved on, when we say "China" we also mean the one ruled by the government in Beijing, which makes the whole situation more complex.

ardy42 7y ago
>> keep news sites and Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation > No, they don't want to be a separate nation. It's a more complex situation than that. Taiwan considers itself as the Republic of China, where they consider the government in Beijing to be illegitimate, and reject communist rule. Tell that to the currently-ruling Democratic Progressive Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party#Policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party#P...): > The current official position of the party is that the "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is an independent and sovereign country whose territory consists of Taiwan and its surrounding smaller islands and whose sovereignty derives only from the ROC citizens living in Taiwan (similar philosophy of self-determination), based on the "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" in 1999. It considers Taiwan independence to be a current fact, making a formal declaration of independence unnecessary. It is a more complex situation, but your view is dated. Taiwan has to maintain the fiction that it still supports a one-China policy, because to do otherwise and declare independence would invite Beijing's wrath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan#PRC's_condition_on_military_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan#PRC...
- bouncycastle 7y ago
  Yes, the narratives keep on changing and there are various political camps that have different opinions because... politics. I had no idea my view was dated, thanks! I guess the pendulum swings back and forward every number of years. But to get to the main point about the "Olympic committee from recognizing Taiwan as a separate nation", there's definitely no overwhelming consensus yet, even by the Taiwanese themselves, that their government should form an independent country!

Bombthecat 7y ago

Everyone knew that and we saw it already several times in action....

qbaqbaqba 7y ago

American corporations don't need a special encouragement to increase censorship whatsoever. Google has been censoring searches in China for ages.

thefringthing 7y ago

Even Taiwan does not recognize Taiwan as a separate nation. Its position is that the Republic of China still exists, is the only legitimate state in all of China, and that its seat of government in Taiwan. There is a growing movement in Taiwan to give up on this claim and instead pursue an existence as a de jure, rather than merely de facto independent nation.