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Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able t

Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. In a way this gives Chinese apps an immediate advantage (as some are indirectly calling out in this comment section). If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app. Since social media is mostly a winner take all (or at least has a major snowball affect), this helps the Chinese social media company's grow even bigger. Now you already have one social media app for contacting people in China installed, why not use that app for contacting others?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
That's not super relevant to this case, because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin, which runs the same platform but doesn't share content with TikTok.
- hibern8 6y ago
  It is still owned by the same company.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Lammy 6y ago
  International users can still feed censorship classification systems, like with WeChat: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/
- rumanator 6y ago
  > (...) because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin Seems to me that it's not banned at all, they just release a region-specific version for a specific market.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It's banned in the relevant sense, that users of TikTok aren't getting any kind of network effect from the Chinese userbase.
    - quicklime 6y ago
      According to this site, it’s actually banned in China: https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ I’m guessing that the international tiktok hosts content that wouldn’t be allowed on China, and the CCP isn’t interested in having the workload of censoring the rest of the world’s content.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      Regionalizing a service is not the same as banning. It's not dependent on "the relevant sense", it's just plain outright wrong. By your measuring stick Netflix and Amazon Video and even YouTube would be banned because they split their service into separate markets, with some content not available somewhere else. At most you could argue censorship, but that's about it. Heck, region-encoded DVDs weren't a form of ban, don't you agree? Tiktok is the same exact service with region-specific restrictions, primarily motivated to comply with local jurisdictions. That's it.
      - orestarod 6y ago
        Those bans have to do with IP rights. Regionalising of social media is effective censorship, since it's not that there are localized versions, it's that accessing outside versions and people, information and ideas in them is banned. If there was mere regionalising, they would be able to access the non localized version too, if they wished.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Then Netflix is banned in the relevant sense in my country since I cannot get the same experience an American does. Look, shit on tiktok all you want, hell I installed both tik-tok and wechat and I uninstalled them within 1 day when I noticed how Orwellian they were. I only ask to some westerners commenters to not be disingenuous, because Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and virtually any other big American company has given carte blanche to the NSA to get on their data. Also spare me the tired " this is whataboutism" argument.
justinzollars 6y ago
After reading many books on China I learned China values social stability over everything. In its 4,000 year history they have seen the dangers of social instability. We are a very young country and haven't seen what real chaos can look like. (These ideas are from Henry Kissinger's on China, Destined for War by Graham T. Allison and The China Dream by Liu Mingfu)
- khuey 6y ago
  This is a typical orientalist take. Most of the world is well aware of "the dangers of social instability".
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Yeah, if you speak of a nation as an single individual, I've got news for you, you're doing it wrong.
  - justinzollars 6y ago
    > This is a typical orientalist take. Yes. As I mentioned these ideas are not mine but advanced by 3 books which explain the Chinese perspective. These books are bipartisan and multinational and explain this principal. * Henry Kissinger's on China (Republican) * Destined for War by Graham T. Allison (Democrat - Joe Biden recommended book) * The China Dream by Liu Mingfu (Chinese PLA General)
    - khuey 6y ago
      You should look up what "orientalist" means before embracing the label. It is not a compliment.
      - justinzollars 6y ago
        Liu Mingfu is a Chinese PLA General residing in China.
- brbsix 6y ago
billfruit 6y ago
But this measure isn't bring contemplated from that motive, it appears, the whole narrative is about some perceived threats to national security, which most analysts think is over hyped and only 'theoritical'.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Just as China hides market intervention and protectionism behind ideological control; the US hides economic interventionism and protectionsim behind national security. The defence budget of the US is in large part the gov's R&D budget and national economic programme. 'National Security' is now its headline for its international economic programme.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Well, in a fantasy world that may be the case. In the real world this is little more than just another politically motivated maneuver that will do little to undo the damage caused to the world and Western interests vis a vis China of the US withdrawing from the TPP.
- cma 6y ago
  The motive is teens pranked Trump's Tulsa rally, using TikTok.
  - quarterdime 6y ago
    I cannot believe that with over 500 bewildered comments yours is the only one to make this obvious connection. I have a difficult time forming any other conclusion than yours. I agree that an executive order would be a direct response to TikTok users trolling him at Tulsa. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. These TikTok users already won round 1 (Tulsa) and this would mean war.
fakeslimshady 6y ago
Its a good question, but there actually is a good reason: https://youtu.be/f2srfDwM2sQ?t=307 https://youtu.be/f2srfDwM2sQ?t=307
tanilama 6y ago
That is actually fair enough. The Chinese internet censorship isn't only censorship, it is also protectionism under disguise. There is no reason to offer market access to the Chinese companies when China refuses to reciprocitate
- mola 6y ago
  You could always that American companies expansion abroad could be considered imperialism. Let's just stop beating war drums.
  - winstonmanor89 6y ago
    Yes, no war drum needed, just be bilateral, they ban our shit, we ban there shit. They open their market, we open our market. Easy.
    - topicseed 6y ago
      The problem is that if they had opened their market to foreign corporations, their own "shit" like you say, would never have been as great and strong (at least locally) as it is now. If you open your market too early and don't protect your own elements, they will get crushed and you will be at the mercy of other powers. Look at the UK, look at Germany, look at the EU... Having to please two superpowers and doing so bending backwards.
      - specialist 6y ago
        When should China open their domestic markets to foreign competition?
        pinkfoot 6y ago
        Is Telsa, never mind Buick and VW not at least some evidence that they have?
chillacy 6y ago
Reminds me of a Taleb article I read: Most Intolerant Wins https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
- baddox 6y ago
  There are people with much more “intolerant” (restrictive) diets than halal and kosher, and yet, those don’t “win.” This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    > This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power. A fitting note for every idea Taleb has ever had.
    - georgeburdell 6y ago
      Is it? In his book, Black Swan, he mentions his hedge fund, which did quite well during the peak of Covid https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-advised-universa-tail-risk-fund-returned-3-600-in-march https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-adv...
      - keiferski 6y ago
        Not quite sure that COVID counts as a Black Swan event, at least according to his own definition. From Wikipedia: The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: 1. The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). 3. The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs. From your article: Taleb, in a March 30 interview on Bloomberg Television, said a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak was predictable and investors who weren’t hedged paid the price with steep losses. What’s impossible to predict is the timing of such an event, he said, which is why insurance must be in place at all times. So essentially his "big idea" is the concept of insurance? That doesn't quite qualify as intellectually significant to me.
dirtyid 6y ago
>unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China They're not. Bing has been in China forever. Western platforms could always compete in China if they assent to domestic censorship laws like every Chinese platform. That's "fair" considering how onerous and costly compliance is. Western platforms simply have not invested in the necessary mass human moderation until the last few years, after confronted with the same violence that forced Chinese platforms to lock down post 2009 minority riots. Hence why Facebook and Google was open to engineering Chinese compliant versions after improving their moderation infrastructure following failed revolutions, genocides, mass shootings. The reality is TikTok operates in US under US laws like how Bing operates in China under Chinese laws. There's nothing inherently unfair. The issue is asymmetric vulnerability due to fundamentally different governance systems. US could never leverage even western platforms operating legally in China to undermine China due to Chinese content controls - see China deleting diplomatic tweets on Chinese social media. But China can potentially leverage TikTok operating legally to undermine US. But instead of transferring TikTok to US ownership, which is merely anticompetitive, Trump decides to ban via executive action which is... upright undemocratic. That said, it's totally justifiable on security basis. But just remember China-hawks in current admin have no problem becoming the thing they wish to fight. That's what Americans should fear.
- executive 6y ago
  Bing is a social media company?
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    It's effectively an information dissemination platform. The point is, any online service must comply to Chinese Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission. Facebook and Twitter were blocked - not banned, the distinction is important - when they failed to filter out requests for retaliatory killings after 2009 minority riots. This isn't controversial, you want to operate in a country, you comply to relevant laws and regulations. Unregulated tech is facing push back domestically and abroad now, the era of US tech exceptionalism is ending as countries seek silo-ed data and control over media in domestic spheres. China was prescient on this point. This is why TikTok has no problems bending backwards trying to appease US regulators, because it's use to doing so in China. That's the irony of it all, Chinese tech companies have no problem following regulations abroad, but US companies just can't seem to.
baddox 6y ago
> it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. It’s weird to point out this double standard but then apparently take the side of both countries banning foreign media companies.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  Why give China access to our domestic market when they refuse to give us access theirs? What do you propose then?
  - kjksf 6y ago
    The issue here is that it's a president arbitrarily destroying a company. If the Congress (the actual body meant to crate laws) decides to create a reasoned, comprehensive law to level the playing field with Chinese companies, then they should do it. What shouldn't happen is this kind of impulsive decision making that arguably abuses the emergency powers of the presidency to block an app that allows people to film themselves and post those recordings. If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is.
    - pupdogg 6y ago
      I disagree. The definition of "arbitrarily" states: "on the basis of random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". I think the President's decision is based on reason and is not a random choice or a personal whim as much as it might seem to some. Now, why is that? Well, it became public yesterday that Microsoft was in talks with TikTok to acquire them. Though every business decision by big players like Microsoft may seem like a calculated risk, no one can predict the future. In this scenario, that risk is clearly foreign state infiltration. Keep in mind, we're in 2020 and morse code is no longer a thing. Due to the uncertain nature of what this deal might bright about, the President reasoned that it was appropriate from him to take this executive action to protect national security interests. I do believe that if Microsoft can sell the government on mitigating or completely removing any risk exposure that this deal might bring, that the ban will be lifted. Again, this is just my opinion.
addicted 6y ago
To the extent it’s “unfair” it benefits western countries. They get the best of all worlds. The Chinese are relegated to using whatever is available in their country whereas western citizens can use whatever is best in the world. So yes, it’s extremely unfair on the Chinese people.
re6tor 6y ago
The message that would trascend from such an action is that our vision of how a society should work was no better than the one in China. The West always believed their ideals and principles around "democracy" and "freedom" were superior to those of the CCP. Now the West also needs to ban <X> (in this case, a social media platform) to function and is no better than its rival. If anything, this would prove the CCP was always right when it applied such measures in the past. This sets a scary -albeit interesting- precedent.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  Bigger than the reciprocity problem is that TikTok is operating under Chinese law and thus its American userbase's social media exposure, or a part thereof, is controlled by the CCP. Not good idea.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  > If anything, this would prove the CCP was always right when it applied such measures in the past. It does no such thing. China was given market access under the precise promise of the Chinese would likewise open their own markets. They did not do that. Then they explicitly started banning American companies, conducting unfair trade practices, and more. All we're seeing now is a long await readjustment to reciprocity. Your logic is bizarre. If two parties were in a Mexican stand off, and both agreed to put down their guns only for one to not actually put them down, then the other party that put their gun down can pick it back up just fine. That other party IS better than it's rival because it acted in good faith, and it was it's rival who was deceitful.
Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
I agree it's unfair, but when you defend something for moral reasons or claim to have a moral high ground, you should stick with it even if it's unfair, right? The West has always said that the Chinese bans to Western social media and tech companies were authoritarian and antidemocratic. How is this less so?
- skissane 6y ago
  > The West has always said that the Chinese bans to Western social media and tech companies were authoritarian and antidemocratic. How is this less so? Policy A: "Any social media platform that refuses to censor opinions the government doesn't like is banned" Policy B: "Foreign social media platforms are only allowed to operate in our country if our own social media platforms are allowed to operate on the same terms in theirs" Can you see why Policy A is antidemocratic but Policy B isn't? One reason why is that Policy B is viewpoint-neutral – the ban has nothing directly to do with what viewpoints the social media platform allows or disallows, it is simply demanding regulatory reciprocity ("We won't ban yours if you don't ban ours"). Whereas, in Policy A, the ban is part of the government trying to control which opinions are allowed to be expressed, which is anti-democratic. (I haven't heard a clear explanation from the Trump administration of what their reasons for banning TikTok are. It is possible those reasons include Policy B, it is possible those reasons are completely unrelated.)
  - saimiam 6y ago
    I won't torture your POWs if you don't torture ours. I won't nationalize your assets in my country if you don't nationalize my assets in your country. I will ban your books if you ban mine. "I will x if you will also x" makes you reactionary and gives agency to someone else to act on your behalf.
    - skissane 6y ago
      It is standard behaviour in international trade though. “If you ban our products from your country, we’ll ban your products from ours”. Suppose hypothetically, that the EU banned imports of Australian wine, why would it be “reactionary” for Australia to respond in kind by banning imports of EU wine?
rakkhi 6y ago
Be pretty funny if China says yes you should definitely ban it. We only allow Douyin in China. We would never allow Tik Tok. If you want we have some firewall technology we could sell you...
moksly 6y ago
This is a good point and it’s easy to get caught up in it. Because it makes perfect sense. One of the reasons the west has graduated toward freedom and a more free society is because it worked better in the long run. You can go back and look at how the government letting people do business rather than banning them lead to rises and falls of empires because rich families would simply relocate to the free countries rather than stay a place where the king might decide not to pay or perhaps even to seize their wealth. You see it to day as well to some extent, with rich Chinese and Russian oligarchs not in favour of the regime trying to move to the west. Of course things have changed a lot since the East Indian Trading company, kings and what not. So maybe protectionism works better in a global market interconnected. Maybe the Chinese model is simply the future for us, but probably not. Personally I hope for a more GDPR styles approach to social media in general. There is no doubt China is spying through TikTok, and that’s bad, but I don’t really want Facebook or Google to sell my information either.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  One of the reasons the west has graduated toward freedom and a more free society is because it worked better in the long run I notice your use of the past tense there; it did work well for the West but the situation in China is very different - they have been able to leapfrog to a Western level of technology without having a free and open society. So the rules are different now. The real test is now, starting at the same level, who can sustain it and who can pull away.
- velox_io 6y ago
  Did Tik Tok even explain why they were capturing and transmitting clipboard contents? (unfortunately not the only ones doing it) It's a little like inviting someone round for dinner and catching them routing through you things taking photos. They should probably be blocked and not invited around again. I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned GDPR. Yes, it was a huge amount of hassle and a lot of work (inspiring many memes). However, it did make people realise how much of their data was being used. GDPR's implementation was pretty poor. Like how every website is legally required to tell users they use cookies, which is pretty redundant as there are many ways to track users and cookies are just one of them. It made very little difference to likes of Google and Facebook, who know where you are, who your friends and colleagues are what you like, what you like to buy and even what you are thinking at times - now that scares me! GDPR had a lot of potential but it has been lost in it's current form. Cookie warnings seem like something a politician would do, not something someone with any real understanding of data security. Very little has changed especially for the big players. Hell Google Chrome was recently caught collecting data when in incognito mode. A Google spokesman stated "Incognito mode in Chrome gives you the choice to browse the internet without your activity being saved to your browser or device" - that doesn't make it ok to collect the information and send it to themselves. It's pretty deceptive and this is recently, long after GDPR was introduced. PS: The comparison to the East India Company (EIC) is a good one. The CCP is very much like the EIC (ironically it was the EIC supplying the opium for the opium wars). They have their own military, have a huge amount of power politically, openingly admits to using underhand tactics and breaking laws to enforce monopolies, as they are virtually untouchable.
ZeroGravitas 6y ago
This "winner takes all" aspect of social networking seems like exactly the kind of thing that government regulation and/or clever technical design should be used to prevent, to ensure continued competition in the market. If it stops Chinese corporations getting an advantage great. But it seems ublikely to happen while US companies have the advantage, and once they start to lose it, it will probably be too late.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  I don't see a way for government regulation to restrict social media companies from gaining market dominance. Even splitting doesn't help. You can try to split the main social network off from some other profit-generating activities, but they would probably start those up again, after some time. You can't split the social network, because then users of the smaller parts just join the bigger part again. Currently we don't know how to do it, except encourage new companies to rise.
wslh 6y ago
> it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China. It is not about fairness it is just about power. It always struck me how people in one nation can apply a single issue to defend his nation when there are many other issues that invalidate the argument about the fairness of his own nation actions.
throwaway2474 6y ago
> If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app If you want to talk to someone in China, you have to use WeChat and have your entire conversation mined by the CCP. There’s no encryption and no alternative. The writing has been on the wall for years that the US will be left with no choice but to blacklist Chinese apps in the same manner.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  As far as I understand it, WeChat is less useful as a means of disseminating misinformation or other social media manipulation, whereas the problem with TikTok is less about potential surveillance. Thus it may make more sense to ban TikTok than WeChat. And always assume the CCP is listening to unencrypted communication. In fact, they are probably mining our comments in Hacker News.
eru 6y ago
It is unfair: unfair to the Chinese people whose access is censored. Adding an extra wrong on top, doesn't make a right.
bayesian_horse 6y ago
There are good arguments for banning or boycotting TikTok. Lack of reciprocity is one of the weakest, I think.
blue52 6y ago
I've talked to people in China using encrypted messengers that are obviously not made in their country.
jwilliamson 6y ago
Western social media that complies with Chinese laws (like LinkedIn) are allowed to operate in China.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

That's not super relevant to this case, because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin, which runs the same platform but doesn't share content with TikTok.

hibern8 6y ago
It is still owned by the same company.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Lammy 6y ago
International users can still feed censorship classification systems, like with WeChat: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/
rumanator 6y ago
> (...) because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin Seems to me that it's not banned at all, they just release a region-specific version for a specific market.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It's banned in the relevant sense, that users of TikTok aren't getting any kind of network effect from the Chinese userbase.
  - quicklime 6y ago
    According to this site, it’s actually banned in China: https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ I’m guessing that the international tiktok hosts content that wouldn’t be allowed on China, and the CCP isn’t interested in having the workload of censoring the rest of the world’s content.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    Regionalizing a service is not the same as banning. It's not dependent on "the relevant sense", it's just plain outright wrong. By your measuring stick Netflix and Amazon Video and even YouTube would be banned because they split their service into separate markets, with some content not available somewhere else. At most you could argue censorship, but that's about it. Heck, region-encoded DVDs weren't a form of ban, don't you agree? Tiktok is the same exact service with region-specific restrictions, primarily motivated to comply with local jurisdictions. That's it.
    - orestarod 6y ago
      Those bans have to do with IP rights. Regionalising of social media is effective censorship, since it's not that there are localized versions, it's that accessing outside versions and people, information and ideas in them is banned. If there was mere regionalising, they would be able to access the non localized version too, if they wished.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Then Netflix is banned in the relevant sense in my country since I cannot get the same experience an American does. Look, shit on tiktok all you want, hell I installed both tik-tok and wechat and I uninstalled them within 1 day when I noticed how Orwellian they were. I only ask to some westerners commenters to not be disingenuous, because Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and virtually any other big American company has given carte blanche to the NSA to get on their data. Also spare me the tired " this is whataboutism" argument.

justinzollars 6y ago

After reading many books on China I learned China values social stability over everything. In its 4,000 year history they have seen the dangers of social instability. We are a very young country and haven't seen what real chaos can look like. (These ideas are from Henry Kissinger's on China, Destined for War by Graham T. Allison and The China Dream by Liu Mingfu)

khuey 6y ago
This is a typical orientalist take. Most of the world is well aware of "the dangers of social instability".
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yeah, if you speak of a nation as an single individual, I've got news for you, you're doing it wrong.
- justinzollars 6y ago
  > This is a typical orientalist take. Yes. As I mentioned these ideas are not mine but advanced by 3 books which explain the Chinese perspective. These books are bipartisan and multinational and explain this principal. * Henry Kissinger's on China (Republican) * Destined for War by Graham T. Allison (Democrat - Joe Biden recommended book) * The China Dream by Liu Mingfu (Chinese PLA General)
  - khuey 6y ago
    You should look up what "orientalist" means before embracing the label. It is not a compliment.
    - justinzollars 6y ago
      Liu Mingfu is a Chinese PLA General residing in China.
brbsix 6y ago

billfruit 6y ago

But this measure isn't bring contemplated from that motive, it appears, the whole narrative is about some perceived threats to national security, which most analysts think is over hyped and only 'theoritical'.

mjburgess 6y ago
Just as China hides market intervention and protectionism behind ideological control; the US hides economic interventionism and protectionsim behind national security. The defence budget of the US is in large part the gov's R&D budget and national economic programme. 'National Security' is now its headline for its international economic programme.
- addicted 6y ago
  Well, in a fantasy world that may be the case. In the real world this is little more than just another politically motivated maneuver that will do little to undo the damage caused to the world and Western interests vis a vis China of the US withdrawing from the TPP.
cma 6y ago
The motive is teens pranked Trump's Tulsa rally, using TikTok.
- quarterdime 6y ago
  I cannot believe that with over 500 bewildered comments yours is the only one to make this obvious connection. I have a difficult time forming any other conclusion than yours. I agree that an executive order would be a direct response to TikTok users trolling him at Tulsa. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. These TikTok users already won round 1 (Tulsa) and this would mean war.

fakeslimshady 6y ago

Its a good question, but there actually is a good reason: https://youtu.be/f2srfDwM2sQ?t=307 https://youtu.be/f2srfDwM2sQ?t=307

tanilama 6y ago

That is actually fair enough. The Chinese internet censorship isn't only censorship, it is also protectionism under disguise. There is no reason to offer market access to the Chinese companies when China refuses to reciprocitate

mola 6y ago
You could always that American companies expansion abroad could be considered imperialism. Let's just stop beating war drums.
- winstonmanor89 6y ago
  Yes, no war drum needed, just be bilateral, they ban our shit, we ban there shit. They open their market, we open our market. Easy.
  - topicseed 6y ago
    The problem is that if they had opened their market to foreign corporations, their own "shit" like you say, would never have been as great and strong (at least locally) as it is now. If you open your market too early and don't protect your own elements, they will get crushed and you will be at the mercy of other powers. Look at the UK, look at Germany, look at the EU... Having to please two superpowers and doing so bending backwards.
    - specialist 6y ago
      When should China open their domestic markets to foreign competition?
      - pinkfoot 6y ago
        Is Telsa, never mind Buick and VW not at least some evidence that they have?

chillacy 6y ago

Reminds me of a Taleb article I read: Most Intolerant Wins https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

baddox 6y ago
There are people with much more “intolerant” (restrictive) diets than halal and kosher, and yet, those don’t “win.” This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power.
- keiferski 6y ago
  > This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power. A fitting note for every idea Taleb has ever had.
  - georgeburdell 6y ago
    Is it? In his book, Black Swan, he mentions his hedge fund, which did quite well during the peak of Covid https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-advised-universa-tail-risk-fund-returned-3-600-in-march https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-adv...
    - keiferski 6y ago
      Not quite sure that COVID counts as a Black Swan event, at least according to his own definition. From Wikipedia: The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: 1. The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology. 2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities). 3. The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs. From your article: Taleb, in a March 30 interview on Bloomberg Television, said a pandemic like the coronavirus outbreak was predictable and investors who weren’t hedged paid the price with steep losses. What’s impossible to predict is the timing of such an event, he said, which is why insurance must be in place at all times. So essentially his "big idea" is the concept of insurance? That doesn't quite qualify as intellectually significant to me.

dirtyid 6y ago

>unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China They're not. Bing has been in China forever. Western platforms could always compete in China if they assent to domestic censorship laws like every Chinese platform. That's "fair" considering how onerous and costly compliance is. Western platforms simply have not invested in the necessary mass human moderation until the last few years, after confronted with the same violence that forced Chinese platforms to lock down post 2009 minority riots. Hence why Facebook and Google was open to engineering Chinese compliant versions after improving their moderation infrastructure following failed revolutions, genocides, mass shootings. The reality is TikTok operates in US under US laws like how Bing operates in China under Chinese laws. There's nothing inherently unfair. The issue is asymmetric vulnerability due to fundamentally different governance systems. US could never leverage even western platforms operating legally in China to undermine China due to Chinese content controls - see China deleting diplomatic tweets on Chinese social media. But China can potentially leverage TikTok operating legally to undermine US. But instead of transferring TikTok to US ownership, which is merely anticompetitive, Trump decides to ban via executive action which is... upright undemocratic. That said, it's totally justifiable on security basis. But just remember China-hawks in current admin have no problem becoming the thing they wish to fight. That's what Americans should fear.

executive 6y ago
Bing is a social media company?
- dirtyid 6y ago
  It's effectively an information dissemination platform. The point is, any online service must comply to Chinese Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission. Facebook and Twitter were blocked - not banned, the distinction is important - when they failed to filter out requests for retaliatory killings after 2009 minority riots. This isn't controversial, you want to operate in a country, you comply to relevant laws and regulations. Unregulated tech is facing push back domestically and abroad now, the era of US tech exceptionalism is ending as countries seek silo-ed data and control over media in domestic spheres. China was prescient on this point. This is why TikTok has no problems bending backwards trying to appease US regulators, because it's use to doing so in China. That's the irony of it all, Chinese tech companies have no problem following regulations abroad, but US companies just can't seem to.

baddox 6y ago

> it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. It’s weird to point out this double standard but then apparently take the side of both countries banning foreign media companies.

chaostheory 6y ago
Why give China access to our domestic market when they refuse to give us access theirs? What do you propose then?
- kjksf 6y ago
  The issue here is that it's a president arbitrarily destroying a company. If the Congress (the actual body meant to crate laws) decides to create a reasoned, comprehensive law to level the playing field with Chinese companies, then they should do it. What shouldn't happen is this kind of impulsive decision making that arguably abuses the emergency powers of the presidency to block an app that allows people to film themselves and post those recordings. If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is.
  - pupdogg 6y ago
    I disagree. The definition of "arbitrarily" states: "on the basis of random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". I think the President's decision is based on reason and is not a random choice or a personal whim as much as it might seem to some. Now, why is that? Well, it became public yesterday that Microsoft was in talks with TikTok to acquire them. Though every business decision by big players like Microsoft may seem like a calculated risk, no one can predict the future. In this scenario, that risk is clearly foreign state infiltration. Keep in mind, we're in 2020 and morse code is no longer a thing. Due to the uncertain nature of what this deal might bright about, the President reasoned that it was appropriate from him to take this executive action to protect national security interests. I do believe that if Microsoft can sell the government on mitigating or completely removing any risk exposure that this deal might bring, that the ban will be lifted. Again, this is just my opinion.

addicted 6y ago

To the extent it’s “unfair” it benefits western countries. They get the best of all worlds. The Chinese are relegated to using whatever is available in their country whereas western citizens can use whatever is best in the world. So yes, it’s extremely unfair on the Chinese people.

re6tor 6y ago

The message that would trascend from such an action is that our vision of how a society should work was no better than the one in China. The West always believed their ideals and principles around "democracy" and "freedom" were superior to those of the CCP. Now the West also needs to ban <X> (in this case, a social media platform) to function and is no better than its rival. If anything, this would prove the CCP was always right when it applied such measures in the past. This sets a scary -albeit interesting- precedent.

bayesian_horse 6y ago
Bigger than the reciprocity problem is that TikTok is operating under Chinese law and thus its American userbase's social media exposure, or a part thereof, is controlled by the CCP. Not good idea.
onepointsixC 6y ago
> If anything, this would prove the CCP was always right when it applied such measures in the past. It does no such thing. China was given market access under the precise promise of the Chinese would likewise open their own markets. They did not do that. Then they explicitly started banning American companies, conducting unfair trade practices, and more. All we're seeing now is a long await readjustment to reciprocity. Your logic is bizarre. If two parties were in a Mexican stand off, and both agreed to put down their guns only for one to not actually put them down, then the other party that put their gun down can pick it back up just fine. That other party IS better than it's rival because it acted in good faith, and it was it's rival who was deceitful.

Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago

I agree it's unfair, but when you defend something for moral reasons or claim to have a moral high ground, you should stick with it even if it's unfair, right? The West has always said that the Chinese bans to Western social media and tech companies were authoritarian and antidemocratic. How is this less so?

skissane 6y ago
> The West has always said that the Chinese bans to Western social media and tech companies were authoritarian and antidemocratic. How is this less so? Policy A: "Any social media platform that refuses to censor opinions the government doesn't like is banned" Policy B: "Foreign social media platforms are only allowed to operate in our country if our own social media platforms are allowed to operate on the same terms in theirs" Can you see why Policy A is antidemocratic but Policy B isn't? One reason why is that Policy B is viewpoint-neutral – the ban has nothing directly to do with what viewpoints the social media platform allows or disallows, it is simply demanding regulatory reciprocity ("We won't ban yours if you don't ban ours"). Whereas, in Policy A, the ban is part of the government trying to control which opinions are allowed to be expressed, which is anti-democratic. (I haven't heard a clear explanation from the Trump administration of what their reasons for banning TikTok are. It is possible those reasons include Policy B, it is possible those reasons are completely unrelated.)
- saimiam 6y ago
  I won't torture your POWs if you don't torture ours. I won't nationalize your assets in my country if you don't nationalize my assets in your country. I will ban your books if you ban mine. "I will x if you will also x" makes you reactionary and gives agency to someone else to act on your behalf.
  - skissane 6y ago
    It is standard behaviour in international trade though. “If you ban our products from your country, we’ll ban your products from ours”. Suppose hypothetically, that the EU banned imports of Australian wine, why would it be “reactionary” for Australia to respond in kind by banning imports of EU wine?

rakkhi 6y ago

Be pretty funny if China says yes you should definitely ban it. We only allow Douyin in China. We would never allow Tik Tok. If you want we have some firewall technology we could sell you...

moksly 6y ago

This is a good point and it’s easy to get caught up in it. Because it makes perfect sense. One of the reasons the west has graduated toward freedom and a more free society is because it worked better in the long run. You can go back and look at how the government letting people do business rather than banning them lead to rises and falls of empires because rich families would simply relocate to the free countries rather than stay a place where the king might decide not to pay or perhaps even to seize their wealth. You see it to day as well to some extent, with rich Chinese and Russian oligarchs not in favour of the regime trying to move to the west. Of course things have changed a lot since the East Indian Trading company, kings and what not. So maybe protectionism works better in a global market interconnected. Maybe the Chinese model is simply the future for us, but probably not. Personally I hope for a more GDPR styles approach to social media in general. There is no doubt China is spying through TikTok, and that’s bad, but I don’t really want Facebook or Google to sell my information either.

goatinaboat 6y ago
One of the reasons the west has graduated toward freedom and a more free society is because it worked better in the long run I notice your use of the past tense there; it did work well for the West but the situation in China is very different - they have been able to leapfrog to a Western level of technology without having a free and open society. So the rules are different now. The real test is now, starting at the same level, who can sustain it and who can pull away.
velox_io 6y ago
Did Tik Tok even explain why they were capturing and transmitting clipboard contents? (unfortunately not the only ones doing it) It's a little like inviting someone round for dinner and catching them routing through you things taking photos. They should probably be blocked and not invited around again. I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned GDPR. Yes, it was a huge amount of hassle and a lot of work (inspiring many memes). However, it did make people realise how much of their data was being used. GDPR's implementation was pretty poor. Like how every website is legally required to tell users they use cookies, which is pretty redundant as there are many ways to track users and cookies are just one of them. It made very little difference to likes of Google and Facebook, who know where you are, who your friends and colleagues are what you like, what you like to buy and even what you are thinking at times - now that scares me! GDPR had a lot of potential but it has been lost in it's current form. Cookie warnings seem like something a politician would do, not something someone with any real understanding of data security. Very little has changed especially for the big players. Hell Google Chrome was recently caught collecting data when in incognito mode. A Google spokesman stated "Incognito mode in Chrome gives you the choice to browse the internet without your activity being saved to your browser or device" - that doesn't make it ok to collect the information and send it to themselves. It's pretty deceptive and this is recently, long after GDPR was introduced. PS: The comparison to the East India Company (EIC) is a good one. The CCP is very much like the EIC (ironically it was the EIC supplying the opium for the opium wars). They have their own military, have a huge amount of power politically, openingly admits to using underhand tactics and breaking laws to enforce monopolies, as they are virtually untouchable.

ZeroGravitas 6y ago

This "winner takes all" aspect of social networking seems like exactly the kind of thing that government regulation and/or clever technical design should be used to prevent, to ensure continued competition in the market. If it stops Chinese corporations getting an advantage great. But it seems ublikely to happen while US companies have the advantage, and once they start to lose it, it will probably be too late.

bayesian_horse 6y ago
I don't see a way for government regulation to restrict social media companies from gaining market dominance. Even splitting doesn't help. You can try to split the main social network off from some other profit-generating activities, but they would probably start those up again, after some time. You can't split the social network, because then users of the smaller parts just join the bigger part again. Currently we don't know how to do it, except encourage new companies to rise.

wslh 6y ago

> it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China. It is not about fairness it is just about power. It always struck me how people in one nation can apply a single issue to defend his nation when there are many other issues that invalidate the argument about the fairness of his own nation actions.

throwaway2474 6y ago

> If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app If you want to talk to someone in China, you have to use WeChat and have your entire conversation mined by the CCP. There’s no encryption and no alternative. The writing has been on the wall for years that the US will be left with no choice but to blacklist Chinese apps in the same manner.

bayesian_horse 6y ago
As far as I understand it, WeChat is less useful as a means of disseminating misinformation or other social media manipulation, whereas the problem with TikTok is less about potential surveillance. Thus it may make more sense to ban TikTok than WeChat. And always assume the CCP is listening to unencrypted communication. In fact, they are probably mining our comments in Hacker News.

eru 6y ago

It is unfair: unfair to the Chinese people whose access is censored. Adding an extra wrong on top, doesn't make a right.

bayesian_horse 6y ago

There are good arguments for banning or boycotting TikTok. Lack of reciprocity is one of the weakest, I think.

blue52 6y ago

I've talked to people in China using encrypted messengers that are obviously not made in their country.

jwilliamson 6y ago

Western social media that complies with Chinese laws (like LinkedIn) are allowed to operate in China.