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Reality is that while China blocks Facebook, Google, etc and smartly props up their own clones, it’s “aghast” at the American protectionism and xenophobic behav

Reality is that while China blocks Facebook, Google, etc and smartly props up their own clones, it’s “aghast” at the American protectionism and xenophobic behaviour. How dare the Americans block a Chinese app?! China is not a democracy. It’s not interested in fairness. China is playing the long game. Just like the wars of the past were fought with little toy armies of a few thousand knights and noblemen marching into each other’s countries until someone decided to conscript their whole nation into battle, the West is fighting allowing China to pilfer its technology, wreak the environment, and compete with state backed organisations. Wanna compete with Huawei? Good luck sending in your company noblemen, China is sending their whole nation behind it.

Aperocky 6y ago
There's a difference, facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China, and Google voluntarily quit so it doesn't have to comply to censorship law. Meanwhile Tiktok has a US branch and is complying with laws in the US. China has a restrictive internet where if you want to operate, you have to comply with a certain set of rules that are unsavory to say the least. Facebook, Google decided to not bother instead of complying to those rules, but they very well could have, Bing and Amazon is in China. Tiktok's US branch did not violate any US law and its being prosecuted with administrative action, which is why your equivalence is false - The actual equivalence would be to make laws that enforces ownership for social media companies and make them store their content in location. And enforce those laws, like China did.
- baby 6y ago
  I don't think you realize how impossible it is to enter the Chinese market... Google wasted a ton of money trying to enter the US market (I recommend watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg), and Facebook did too. Look at how it went for Uber. If you want to give an example of a US company that is doing much better in China, it's Apple, and the sole reason is that everybody who works for the Chinese government owns an iPhone. BTW I was living in China when Facebook got banned, it was in 2008 when it started becoming popular outside of the US. Nobody saw it coming, and obviously there was no way for Facebook to go back into that market once the CCP decided against that.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    There's probably a way, register facebook.cn and allow censors to censor content, store everything in a data center somewhere in China, people has to use ID to register, etc. At which point it doesn't make much sense to operate in China. This is also precisely why TikTok is not available in mainland China, because it doesn't meet those standards.
    - baby 6y ago
      tiktok is available in mainland China, it's called douyin
  - typ 6y ago
    > the sole reason is that everybody who works for the Chinese government owns an iPhone. Not only that, a large portion of iPhones are manufactured in China, which sustains enormous supply chains and jobs there.
  - lambdasquirrel 6y ago
    There are plenty of American companies that are doing fine in the China market. The automakers, Starbucks, even Disney does okay. Apple is doing alright, supposedly. Tech companies don't do well because they tend to be staffed by people who 1. rebel against authority and 2. think that the liberal / anarchist parts of Western culture are the best way of doing things. What Uber did pissed off people in San Francisco, so it's small wonder the authorities would come down hard on them in China. The word on the street is that people in China thought Googlers (and American software engineers by extension) were a tad insufferable and arrogant. One ought to be warned, that being arrogant is a surefire way to get people to beat you at any cost. And to be clear, I fit in that category myself. At some point, I got off the high horse as far as China-this, China-that. Why? Partly because it didn't really seem important anymore, and partly because a lot of things that you can criticize China about, the U.S. has done as bad, and I don't like being hypocritical to that degree. You know what politicians like to do when things aren't so great? Point fingers at someone who's "worse." So really, in my view of things, FB and GOOG not succeeding in China would be a small price to pay for actually paying attention to things not right in the U.S.
- AlphaSite 6y ago
  Aren’t there restrictions that the companies need to be 51% owned by local interests? And issues with IP transfer, etc.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Precisely, that's what I'm talking about, if you think the US should adopt the same restriction, maybe ask your representative to pass such a law then.
  - holografix 6y ago
    Do you think it’s a coincidence Xiaomi keeps producing very good smartphones and other tech?
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      Do you think it's a coincidence that after iPhone 4 all smartphone looks more or less the same?
  - croes 6y ago
    These restrictions are gone. China changed their laws.
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      Citation? In all markets, or just in select non-essential ones?
      - croes 6y ago
        https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9aca6c56-fe41-4e93-9c62-944994f1d892 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9aca6c56-fe41...
    - kube-system 6y ago
      They have decreased in scope but they are not gone.
- holografix 6y ago
  I get what you’re saying, it’s a very smart point of view. China has enacted absurd, oppressive laws which it interprets conveniently in favour of the party when it wants. However it wants to enjoy all the freedoms awarded to the rest of the western democratic and capitalist world, defended by their laws. It’s the old communist adage: Socialism for other, private property for me.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    > interprets conveniently in favour of the party when it wants. When the laws are written in such away you don't have to interpret it. Western companies that follows those laws like locals are fine - e.g. Apple. Apple Store/Cloud in China store all their info in Guizhou and presumably with agreed access for government on demand, just like all local businesses.
- mikemotherwell 6y ago
  I wonder under what circumstances this ban is acceptable. I'm no expert on international law, but even if the charges are Trumped up (pun intended), espionage / security concerns are very likely on the list.
- tanilama 6y ago
  > facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China This is not true: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607992/facebook-allowed-china-censorship-ban-hangzhou-zuckerberg https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607992/facebook-allowed... Facebook attempts to open an office in China, but gets shutdown one day later. Ofc, this is China so nobody knows the reason why. Second, Chinese internet regulation is as opaque as its other operations, compliance with law is on the surface, they are tens of special government approved certificates to obtain if you want to actually operate there, like this one: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E8%A7%86%E5%90%AC%E8%AE%B8%E5%8F%AF%E8%AF%81 https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E8%A7%86%E5%..., which is approved case by case and notoriously hard to get, basically make it impossible for foreign company to operate in China. So no, China's internet doesn't have only have a set of rules that once you comply you get a pass. It is mired in layers of regulations and bureaucracy that without guanxi, you can't crack it no matter how willing you are.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    > Ofc, this is China so nobody knows the reason why. I'd assume facebook know? Also your link does not seem related quote(Facebook opens a subsidiary in China, a breakthrough for the banned social media platform)
    - tanilama 6y ago
      There is the follow-up you requested: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17612162/facebook-technology-subsidiary-blocked-china-censor https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17612162/facebook-technol... > The sudden rejection stems from a disagreement between Chinese authorities, the source told the Times. Local officials in Zhejiang, an eastern province that houses Alibaba’s headquarters, gave Facebook the initial permission, but the Cyberspace Administration of China, Beijing’s internet regulator, had not.
- colordrops 6y ago
  You are completely mistaken if you think simply complying with local laws will allow you to succeed in the Chinese market.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    I don't think that, nor do I think that is true anywhere on this planet.
    - eddieplan9 6y ago
      Parent’s keyword is “allow to succeed”, not “succeed”. I always warn people about false equivalence when it comes to China. The laws and rules in China are not the same concept as laws and rules in the West. There are implicit rules or 潜规则. The rules and laws are only there to make things look legit. There are very few places on earth where you can be forced into citizenship so you can be deprived of consular access and be dealt with using the convenience of Chinese rules and tools[1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sentences-bookseller-gui-minhai-to-10-years-in-jail-11582614876 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sentences-bookseller-gui-...
      - strogonoff 6y ago
        This is insane. China abducts a Swedish citizen; recognizes and prosecutes him as citizen of China, denying Sweden access to the trial (note that China does not even have double citizenship); when concerns are raised over violations of Vienna treaty on consular relations—and hey, by this logic China can abduct anyone anywhere—China declares that (I am not joking) consular relations are on hold until COVID-19 is resolved. How on Earth is anyone OK with this?
        aliswe 6y ago
        It's not like he is wholly unrelated to China, though. This is kinda similar to Davit Isak and probably numerous other people
- kube-system 6y ago
  Yeah, the “certain set of rules” that many western companies have followed are sometimes no different in result than what is being asked of ByteDance. It is fair to ask whether the US should be engaging in these tactics (I don’t think we should), but the suggestion that the US is doing something on a level that China wouldn’t is just false.
- Jugurtha 6y ago
  >There's a difference, facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China, and Google voluntarily quit so it doesn't have to comply to censorship law. Meanwhile Tiktok has a US branch and is complying with laws in the US. >China has a restrictive internet where if you want to operate, you have to comply with a certain set of rules that are unsavory to say the least. Facebook, Google decided to not bother instead of complying to those rules, but they very well could have, Bing and Amazon is in China. Is that an accurate portrayal of events? Google did attempt to get into China more than a decade ago, and more recently with Dragonfly[0] which was shut down after word got out. As for Facebook, one cannot look at all the relationship strengthening between its CEO and Xi Jinping and not think there is nothing behind that. The point is that to say that Facebook and Google voluntarily quit or didn't even bother because of the reasons cited in the comment surely could be improved for accuracy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
- dicomdan 6y ago
  This is pure disinformation.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > Tiktok's US branch did not violate any US law and its being prosecuted with administrative action Seriously? That was already in 2019: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-million-over-alleged-violation-child-privacy-n977186 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-millio...
  - mikechen233 6y ago
    This case it's fine. There is a due process. Hard evidence is brought forth, court ruled in according to law. Where is the due process for handing the sentencing that prevents tiktok from transaction with US persons in the first EO. White House also gets to define transaction as whatever they want. Salary to US employees? App store listing? Ad transaction? White House can play tiktok however they please.
- m0zg 6y ago
  > facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China It actually did attempt to do that, pretty hard. Zuck even learned quite a bit of Mandarin Chinese and spoke in it in China to students during a publicity tour. He's not stupid, he knows there's a lot of money in China. But Xi is also not stupid, so he's not going to let a US media company to have unimpeded access to almost all of his subjects, which it could then algorithmically brainwash. So it was not to be. Google didn't "voluntarily quit" either. It quit because it discovered it's being spied on and had its IP stolen - both of those things are a fact of life for any significant Western company operating in China. So yea, forgive me for not shedding a tear for TikTok.
riq_ 6y ago
> "fairness" The world is more complex than that. China is not "bad" because it is not a democracy. China is "bad" because it competes with the USA. There are other countries that are not a democracy an that are allies with the USA, like Saudi Arabia. But they are "good", apparently. And also, just remember that the USA only supports the democracies that are aligned with the way of thinking. Just do a bit of research and see what happened to South America in the 70s' and 80's... and more recently to Bolivia. Also, most of the products that you use today were built, at least in part, in China.
- echelon 6y ago
  > The world is more complex than that. China is not "bad" because it is not a democracy. China is "bad" because it competes with the USA. China is bad because it is a horrific human rights abuser without democratic elections. You march to the beat of the CCP drum or you're removed. You're also severely disadvantaged if you aren't Han Chinese. The Uighurs are being systematically exterminated, and they're not the only ones that suffer. The US isn't perfect. Our immigration laws and history of racism, sexism, and homophobia leave much to be desired. But we're not a dictatorship and we're a net force for good. I'd rather be a US citizen than a Chinese one. Most of the world recognizes that China is becoming worrisomely powerful, and we've collectively decided that we need to put them back in check. Thankfully Xi is flexing all of China's muscles in an early show of strength, which has gotten the world's attention. Nobody wants totalitarian China to be the dominant superpower. Xi played his hand early, and now the walls are about to cave in. As impressive as China's domestic capabilities look, they have an aging population with a huge gender imbalance that will bite them in a few short decades. If the world decouples manufacturing and supply chains from China over this same time period, China is going to have significant problems. They're not as self-sufficient as they look. They're an importer of energy and food, and without exports they won't be able to sustain their growth internally. The world is trying to knee-cap China, and it makes sense.
  - asddubs 6y ago
    it feels like you haven't really responded to the post you're replying to. the point they were making is that if that's what this was about, that standard would be enforced against saudi arabia as well.
mindslight 6y ago
What China thinks about app blocking is irrelevant. The issue is about what fellow Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the western world think. Censoring apps is a massive departure from our own values, and compromising the values our society is built on just to race to the bottom with China will lead us to ruin. If black box content editorialization is a problem, let us push back market wide instead of picking on lone targets for being more overtly unaccountable.
geofft 6y ago
I don't care if China is aghast at American protectionism and xenophobia. I'm aghast, because as an American citizen, I'm interested in fairness and I hate protectionism and xenophobia, and that's what I think America is about. If you're telling me that neither this nation nor any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure, and that we have to fight unfairness with unfairness, you're telling me that my loyalty to America itself is misplaced.
- asddubs 6y ago
  if you're interested in fairness, your loyalty probably is misplaced
  - kube-system 6y ago
    On the global spectrum of fairness, the US is inarguably top-tier. The US is often compared to other western nations, not because they are so different, but because they are very similar. The top 15 or so countries are all neck and neck, but there’s a big wide field behind those ones.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  At the end of the day the gleaming platitudes of Americanism (the stuff about fairness, equality etc) start to bump up against the reality of geopolitics. It's an unfair game, and pretending that China will eventually embrace what could colloquially be referred to as the Western approach to setting up markets like this is naive at best and dangerous at worst. It's not that your loyalty is misplaced, it's that I think you've misunderstood the game being played here.
  - geofft 6y ago
    Sure, so - what does the American approach have to recommend it? Why shouldn't I leave for China, the apparent winning team?
    - chillacy 6y ago
thesausageking 6y ago
Whatever your stance on if TikTok should be banned, it's concerning that the CEO of their largest competitor is able to dictate government policy to potentially remove them from the market. And Facebook is the only large tech player with this direct access to the Whitehouse. The decision should be based on what's best for the US and for the market as a whole; not what's best for Facebook.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  > what's best for the US and for the market as a whole; not what's best for Facebook. I'd say Facebooks view is the difference is only temporary, much like China's view on the world
croes 6y ago
So because China doesn't play fair the west doesn't play fair too? So the west becomes like China? Guess China wins because the have proven that the west isn't any better than them. We fell into their trap.
- dx87 6y ago
  "Turn the other cheek" sounds nice in grade school and self-help blogs, but you can't just let yourself get taken advantage of in order to maintain some arbitrary moral high ground.
  - croes 6y ago
    It has nothing to do with moral high ground. It's about being the better alternative and about and free markets. But now everybody knows the US will play dirty to protect their it predominance. The way the US acted against Huawei and TikTok showed what could happen to anybody who opposes the will of the US. Even the EU now is looking for alternatives for the IT tech giants. The trust is gone.
    - frequentnapper 6y ago
      No, it shows that the US will no longer tolerate state subsidized corporations from supplanting other corporations trying to play by the rules.
      - croes 6y ago
        Come on, the US an playing by the rules? The used Echelon to help Boing winning a contract against Airbus. The EU only stopped the investigation because 9/11 happend.
croes 6y ago
BTW this is about Facebook. Zuckerberg is just killing a competitor. This has nothing to do with freedom, it's about money. Just like Epic vs Apple.
3747yreur 6y ago
I don't really see how most of this is actually relevant to TikTok or all the drama surrounding it. The point of western societies is that certain things like art and speech are considered worthy of bestowing protections upon. TikTok is a platform that mixes speech and art and it's immensely popular with American youth who aren't allowed to advocate for themselves politically due to age. Why is it alright to block their access to a platform with these properties simply because it's politically convenient, especially when many of these same youths also use TikTok as a medium for artistic expression?
snowwrestler 6y ago
American values are way more important to the success of the U.S. than whether we have the #1 social media app in the world or whatever. The U.S. rose to its current position by being a nation of values and principles--by sticking by them even through tough times, and encouraging their adoption elsewhere. That's the real long game. And right now we're losing it... actually no, this isn't something we can lose to someone else. We're forfeiting it. We're abandoning our best advantage. We can't beat China by becoming China. And more to the point, China does not have to lose for the U.S. (or anyone else) to win.
tempsy 6y ago
What does this have to do with Zuck? My issue with this story (if it's indeed true) is that the motive for"stoking fears" was entirely self serving and has nothing to do with selflessly advising the government on some blind spot. If you recall just a few years ago he was speaking at Chinese universities, getting photo ops in front of Tiananmen Square, and even asked Xi to name his unborn baby! He was all in on fawning over China when he thought there was a chance Facebook could "get in" and then took everything back as soon as he realized it was impossible.
Traster 6y ago
Countries sent small armies into battle for good reason - until the industrial revolution sending 1m men into a foreign country would have involved the overwhelming majority of those men starving to death due to lack of supplies.

Aperocky 6y ago

There's a difference, facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China, and Google voluntarily quit so it doesn't have to comply to censorship law. Meanwhile Tiktok has a US branch and is complying with laws in the US. China has a restrictive internet where if you want to operate, you have to comply with a certain set of rules that are unsavory to say the least. Facebook, Google decided to not bother instead of complying to those rules, but they very well could have, Bing and Amazon is in China. Tiktok's US branch did not violate any US law and its being prosecuted with administrative action, which is why your equivalence is false - The actual equivalence would be to make laws that enforces ownership for social media companies and make them store their content in location. And enforce those laws, like China did.

baby 6y ago
I don't think you realize how impossible it is to enter the Chinese market... Google wasted a ton of money trying to enter the US market (I recommend watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XImsSgdr4fg), and Facebook did too. Look at how it went for Uber. If you want to give an example of a US company that is doing much better in China, it's Apple, and the sole reason is that everybody who works for the Chinese government owns an iPhone. BTW I was living in China when Facebook got banned, it was in 2008 when it started becoming popular outside of the US. Nobody saw it coming, and obviously there was no way for Facebook to go back into that market once the CCP decided against that.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  There's probably a way, register facebook.cn and allow censors to censor content, store everything in a data center somewhere in China, people has to use ID to register, etc. At which point it doesn't make much sense to operate in China. This is also precisely why TikTok is not available in mainland China, because it doesn't meet those standards.
  - baby 6y ago
    tiktok is available in mainland China, it's called douyin
- typ 6y ago
  > the sole reason is that everybody who works for the Chinese government owns an iPhone. Not only that, a large portion of iPhones are manufactured in China, which sustains enormous supply chains and jobs there.
- lambdasquirrel 6y ago
  There are plenty of American companies that are doing fine in the China market. The automakers, Starbucks, even Disney does okay. Apple is doing alright, supposedly. Tech companies don't do well because they tend to be staffed by people who 1. rebel against authority and 2. think that the liberal / anarchist parts of Western culture are the best way of doing things. What Uber did pissed off people in San Francisco, so it's small wonder the authorities would come down hard on them in China. The word on the street is that people in China thought Googlers (and American software engineers by extension) were a tad insufferable and arrogant. One ought to be warned, that being arrogant is a surefire way to get people to beat you at any cost. And to be clear, I fit in that category myself. At some point, I got off the high horse as far as China-this, China-that. Why? Partly because it didn't really seem important anymore, and partly because a lot of things that you can criticize China about, the U.S. has done as bad, and I don't like being hypocritical to that degree. You know what politicians like to do when things aren't so great? Point fingers at someone who's "worse." So really, in my view of things, FB and GOOG not succeeding in China would be a small price to pay for actually paying attention to things not right in the U.S.
AlphaSite 6y ago
Aren’t there restrictions that the companies need to be 51% owned by local interests? And issues with IP transfer, etc.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  Precisely, that's what I'm talking about, if you think the US should adopt the same restriction, maybe ask your representative to pass such a law then.
- holografix 6y ago
  Do you think it’s a coincidence Xiaomi keeps producing very good smartphones and other tech?
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    Do you think it's a coincidence that after iPhone 4 all smartphone looks more or less the same?
- croes 6y ago
  These restrictions are gone. China changed their laws.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    Citation? In all markets, or just in select non-essential ones?
    - croes 6y ago
      https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9aca6c56-fe41-4e93-9c62-944994f1d892 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9aca6c56-fe41...
  - kube-system 6y ago
    They have decreased in scope but they are not gone.
holografix 6y ago
I get what you’re saying, it’s a very smart point of view. China has enacted absurd, oppressive laws which it interprets conveniently in favour of the party when it wants. However it wants to enjoy all the freedoms awarded to the rest of the western democratic and capitalist world, defended by their laws. It’s the old communist adage: Socialism for other, private property for me.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  > interprets conveniently in favour of the party when it wants. When the laws are written in such away you don't have to interpret it. Western companies that follows those laws like locals are fine - e.g. Apple. Apple Store/Cloud in China store all their info in Guizhou and presumably with agreed access for government on demand, just like all local businesses.
mikemotherwell 6y ago
I wonder under what circumstances this ban is acceptable. I'm no expert on international law, but even if the charges are Trumped up (pun intended), espionage / security concerns are very likely on the list.
tanilama 6y ago
> facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China This is not true: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607992/facebook-allowed-china-censorship-ban-hangzhou-zuckerberg https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17607992/facebook-allowed... Facebook attempts to open an office in China, but gets shutdown one day later. Ofc, this is China so nobody knows the reason why. Second, Chinese internet regulation is as opaque as its other operations, compliance with law is on the surface, they are tens of special government approved certificates to obtain if you want to actually operate there, like this one: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E8%A7%86%E5%90%AC%E8%AE%B8%E5%8F%AF%E8%AF%81 https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E8%A7%86%E5%..., which is approved case by case and notoriously hard to get, basically make it impossible for foreign company to operate in China. So no, China's internet doesn't have only have a set of rules that once you comply you get a pass. It is mired in layers of regulations and bureaucracy that without guanxi, you can't crack it no matter how willing you are.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  > Ofc, this is China so nobody knows the reason why. I'd assume facebook know? Also your link does not seem related quote(Facebook opens a subsidiary in China, a breakthrough for the banned social media platform)
  - tanilama 6y ago
    There is the follow-up you requested: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17612162/facebook-technology-subsidiary-blocked-china-censor https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17612162/facebook-technol... > The sudden rejection stems from a disagreement between Chinese authorities, the source told the Times. Local officials in Zhejiang, an eastern province that houses Alibaba’s headquarters, gave Facebook the initial permission, but the Cyberspace Administration of China, Beijing’s internet regulator, had not.
colordrops 6y ago
You are completely mistaken if you think simply complying with local laws will allow you to succeed in the Chinese market.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  I don't think that, nor do I think that is true anywhere on this planet.
  - eddieplan9 6y ago
    Parent’s keyword is “allow to succeed”, not “succeed”. I always warn people about false equivalence when it comes to China. The laws and rules in China are not the same concept as laws and rules in the West. There are implicit rules or 潜规则. The rules and laws are only there to make things look legit. There are very few places on earth where you can be forced into citizenship so you can be deprived of consular access and be dealt with using the convenience of Chinese rules and tools[1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sentences-bookseller-gui-minhai-to-10-years-in-jail-11582614876 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sentences-bookseller-gui-...
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      This is insane. China abducts a Swedish citizen; recognizes and prosecutes him as citizen of China, denying Sweden access to the trial (note that China does not even have double citizenship); when concerns are raised over violations of Vienna treaty on consular relations—and hey, by this logic China can abduct anyone anywhere—China declares that (I am not joking) consular relations are on hold until COVID-19 is resolved. How on Earth is anyone OK with this?
      - aliswe 6y ago
        It's not like he is wholly unrelated to China, though. This is kinda similar to Davit Isak and probably numerous other people
kube-system 6y ago
Yeah, the “certain set of rules” that many western companies have followed are sometimes no different in result than what is being asked of ByteDance. It is fair to ask whether the US should be engaging in these tactics (I don’t think we should), but the suggestion that the US is doing something on a level that China wouldn’t is just false.
Jugurtha 6y ago
>There's a difference, facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China, and Google voluntarily quit so it doesn't have to comply to censorship law. Meanwhile Tiktok has a US branch and is complying with laws in the US. >China has a restrictive internet where if you want to operate, you have to comply with a certain set of rules that are unsavory to say the least. Facebook, Google decided to not bother instead of complying to those rules, but they very well could have, Bing and Amazon is in China. Is that an accurate portrayal of events? Google did attempt to get into China more than a decade ago, and more recently with Dragonfly[0] which was shut down after word got out. As for Facebook, one cannot look at all the relationship strengthening between its CEO and Xi Jinping and not think there is nothing behind that. The point is that to say that Facebook and Google voluntarily quit or didn't even bother because of the reasons cited in the comment surely could be improved for accuracy. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
dicomdan 6y ago
This is pure disinformation.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Tiktok's US branch did not violate any US law and its being prosecuted with administrative action Seriously? That was already in 2019: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-million-over-alleged-violation-child-privacy-n977186 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-millio...
- mikechen233 6y ago
  This case it's fine. There is a due process. Hard evidence is brought forth, court ruled in according to law. Where is the due process for handing the sentencing that prevents tiktok from transaction with US persons in the first EO. White House also gets to define transaction as whatever they want. Salary to US employees? App store listing? Ad transaction? White House can play tiktok however they please.
m0zg 6y ago
> facebook did not attempt to run its social media business in China It actually did attempt to do that, pretty hard. Zuck even learned quite a bit of Mandarin Chinese and spoke in it in China to students during a publicity tour. He's not stupid, he knows there's a lot of money in China. But Xi is also not stupid, so he's not going to let a US media company to have unimpeded access to almost all of his subjects, which it could then algorithmically brainwash. So it was not to be. Google didn't "voluntarily quit" either. It quit because it discovered it's being spied on and had its IP stolen - both of those things are a fact of life for any significant Western company operating in China. So yea, forgive me for not shedding a tear for TikTok.

riq_ 6y ago

> "fairness" The world is more complex than that. China is not "bad" because it is not a democracy. China is "bad" because it competes with the USA. There are other countries that are not a democracy an that are allies with the USA, like Saudi Arabia. But they are "good", apparently. And also, just remember that the USA only supports the democracies that are aligned with the way of thinking. Just do a bit of research and see what happened to South America in the 70s' and 80's... and more recently to Bolivia. Also, most of the products that you use today were built, at least in part, in China.

echelon 6y ago
> The world is more complex than that. China is not "bad" because it is not a democracy. China is "bad" because it competes with the USA. China is bad because it is a horrific human rights abuser without democratic elections. You march to the beat of the CCP drum or you're removed. You're also severely disadvantaged if you aren't Han Chinese. The Uighurs are being systematically exterminated, and they're not the only ones that suffer. The US isn't perfect. Our immigration laws and history of racism, sexism, and homophobia leave much to be desired. But we're not a dictatorship and we're a net force for good. I'd rather be a US citizen than a Chinese one. Most of the world recognizes that China is becoming worrisomely powerful, and we've collectively decided that we need to put them back in check. Thankfully Xi is flexing all of China's muscles in an early show of strength, which has gotten the world's attention. Nobody wants totalitarian China to be the dominant superpower. Xi played his hand early, and now the walls are about to cave in. As impressive as China's domestic capabilities look, they have an aging population with a huge gender imbalance that will bite them in a few short decades. If the world decouples manufacturing and supply chains from China over this same time period, China is going to have significant problems. They're not as self-sufficient as they look. They're an importer of energy and food, and without exports they won't be able to sustain their growth internally. The world is trying to knee-cap China, and it makes sense.
- asddubs 6y ago
  it feels like you haven't really responded to the post you're replying to. the point they were making is that if that's what this was about, that standard would be enforced against saudi arabia as well.

mindslight 6y ago

What China thinks about app blocking is irrelevant. The issue is about what fellow Americans, Europeans, and the rest of the western world think. Censoring apps is a massive departure from our own values, and compromising the values our society is built on just to race to the bottom with China will lead us to ruin. If black box content editorialization is a problem, let us push back market wide instead of picking on lone targets for being more overtly unaccountable.

geofft 6y ago

I don't care if China is aghast at American protectionism and xenophobia. I'm aghast, because as an American citizen, I'm interested in fairness and I hate protectionism and xenophobia, and that's what I think America is about. If you're telling me that neither this nation nor any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure, and that we have to fight unfairness with unfairness, you're telling me that my loyalty to America itself is misplaced.

asddubs 6y ago
if you're interested in fairness, your loyalty probably is misplaced
- kube-system 6y ago
  On the global spectrum of fairness, the US is inarguably top-tier. The US is often compared to other western nations, not because they are so different, but because they are very similar. The top 15 or so countries are all neck and neck, but there’s a big wide field behind those ones.
remarkEon 6y ago
At the end of the day the gleaming platitudes of Americanism (the stuff about fairness, equality etc) start to bump up against the reality of geopolitics. It's an unfair game, and pretending that China will eventually embrace what could colloquially be referred to as the Western approach to setting up markets like this is naive at best and dangerous at worst. It's not that your loyalty is misplaced, it's that I think you've misunderstood the game being played here.
- geofft 6y ago
  Sure, so - what does the American approach have to recommend it? Why shouldn't I leave for China, the apparent winning team?
  - chillacy 6y ago

thesausageking 6y ago

Whatever your stance on if TikTok should be banned, it's concerning that the CEO of their largest competitor is able to dictate government policy to potentially remove them from the market. And Facebook is the only large tech player with this direct access to the Whitehouse. The decision should be based on what's best for the US and for the market as a whole; not what's best for Facebook.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
> what's best for the US and for the market as a whole; not what's best for Facebook. I'd say Facebooks view is the difference is only temporary, much like China's view on the world

croes 6y ago

So because China doesn't play fair the west doesn't play fair too? So the west becomes like China? Guess China wins because the have proven that the west isn't any better than them. We fell into their trap.

dx87 6y ago
"Turn the other cheek" sounds nice in grade school and self-help blogs, but you can't just let yourself get taken advantage of in order to maintain some arbitrary moral high ground.
- croes 6y ago
  It has nothing to do with moral high ground. It's about being the better alternative and about and free markets. But now everybody knows the US will play dirty to protect their it predominance. The way the US acted against Huawei and TikTok showed what could happen to anybody who opposes the will of the US. Even the EU now is looking for alternatives for the IT tech giants. The trust is gone.
  - frequentnapper 6y ago
    No, it shows that the US will no longer tolerate state subsidized corporations from supplanting other corporations trying to play by the rules.
    - croes 6y ago
      Come on, the US an playing by the rules? The used Echelon to help Boing winning a contract against Airbus. The EU only stopped the investigation because 9/11 happend.

croes 6y ago

BTW this is about Facebook. Zuckerberg is just killing a competitor. This has nothing to do with freedom, it's about money. Just like Epic vs Apple.

3747yreur 6y ago

I don't really see how most of this is actually relevant to TikTok or all the drama surrounding it. The point of western societies is that certain things like art and speech are considered worthy of bestowing protections upon. TikTok is a platform that mixes speech and art and it's immensely popular with American youth who aren't allowed to advocate for themselves politically due to age. Why is it alright to block their access to a platform with these properties simply because it's politically convenient, especially when many of these same youths also use TikTok as a medium for artistic expression?

snowwrestler 6y ago

American values are way more important to the success of the U.S. than whether we have the #1 social media app in the world or whatever. The U.S. rose to its current position by being a nation of values and principles--by sticking by them even through tough times, and encouraging their adoption elsewhere. That's the real long game. And right now we're losing it... actually no, this isn't something we can lose to someone else. We're forfeiting it. We're abandoning our best advantage. We can't beat China by becoming China. And more to the point, China does not have to lose for the U.S. (or anyone else) to win.

tempsy 6y ago

What does this have to do with Zuck? My issue with this story (if it's indeed true) is that the motive for"stoking fears" was entirely self serving and has nothing to do with selflessly advising the government on some blind spot. If you recall just a few years ago he was speaking at Chinese universities, getting photo ops in front of Tiananmen Square, and even asked Xi to name his unborn baby! He was all in on fawning over China when he thought there was a chance Facebook could "get in" and then took everything back as soon as he realized it was impossible.

Traster 6y ago

Countries sent small armies into battle for good reason - until the industrial revolution sending 1m men into a foreign country would have involved the overwhelming majority of those men starving to death due to lack of supplies.