14 ms·

TikTok and WeChat: Curating and controlling global information flows

122 points by hardmaru 6y ago

angio 6y ago
I think people reading the article should familiarize themselves with ASPI [0]. Their funding comes from: Embassy of Japan, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Thales Group, and Raytheon Technologies. I would take everything they write with a grain of salt since they have a huge conflict of interest in pushing a new cold-war rhetoric. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_In...
- deepstack 6y ago
  I think CCP is a concern, however that is currently just in China. Which mean whatever china is doing with internet should be prevented in every where else.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  Their sponsors also include Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. who would likely prefer not to escalate the ‘new cold war’ since it would hurt their profits.
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    Not really. Facebook is quite publically trying to get Chinese social media banned simply to avoid the competition. Microsoft is directly benifiting from the promised TikTok ban by potentially getting TikTok US for a much lower price.
  - dis-sys 6y ago
    No, as clearly listed on ASPI's official website, Google, Microsoft, Oracle are sponsors of ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC), they are not sponsors of ASPI itself. ASPI sponsors and ICPC sponsors are listed separately on ASPI's official website for a reason. https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors
    - abc-xyz 6y ago
      Their annual report does not make this distinction: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2019-10/ASPI%20AR_18_19_acc.pdf?KUIH5L_aiOUu4hm96FaCXmN2cqEv5Do8= https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2019-10/ASPI... But it’s really besides the point. Instead of attacking the authors or their sponsors, perhaps we should focus on the content instead. What’s happening here would be equivalent to me attacking you or the parent (and vice versa) for having a comment history pushing CCP talking points.
- xster 6y ago
  the ASPI is also behind the Uyghur forced labor story a month ago. But if you go to the actual paper and download the PDF https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale, then one by one click through the primary source and Google Translate it, it's just mainstream Chinese news and social media contents about reducing unemployment, out-of-province workers and multi-ethnic social events re-"narrativized" to mean forced labor. Also a couple of criticisms from Australian elected officials themselves https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be... https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/theres-more-china-debate-lackeys-versus-stooges-0 https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/theres-more-... on the ASPI who still defends the Iraq War, Syrian regime change war and argues that the west should have went to war in Ukraine. There's a longer editorial version of the criticism here: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nato-arms-industry-cold-war/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nat...
  - godelski 6y ago
    Chinese officials called them "reeducation camps" to western reporter. I cannot imagine that Chinese officials would be oblivious to the fact that "reeducation camps" and "concentration camps" are synonymous in Westerners' minds. If not, then it is a surprising and huge blunder. No matter what is happening there, even what officials have officially shown western media, crosses our moral boundaries. The optics of putting adults in 24/7 education centers, that are gated (and doing the same to kids), is not seen as an okay thing to do.
    - xster 6y ago
      > If not, then it is a surprising and huge blunder. Ya, no disagreements there. The Chinese government has zero PR capabilities. Every response from their foreign ministry's spokesperson to a leading question sounds like a painful mea culpa. > No matter what is happening there, even what officials have officially shown western media, crosses our moral boundaries. Who is "our" in this case? It doesn't seem to include the U.N. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/china-says-reached-broad-consensus-with-un-after-xinjiang-visit-idUSKCN1TH00T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/china-say... or Organization of Islamic Cooperation https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250 https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250. Not that any of them have more PR power than China either.
yorwba 6y ago
> This report recommends (on page 50) that governments implement transparent user data privacy and user data protection frameworks that apply to all social media networks. Sounds like a good initiative. Unfortunately, I expect most social media networks to resist that kind of regulation. Except maybe for TikTok and WeChat, since regulation would be better for them than the total ban they're facing.
claudeganon 6y ago
> Governments should require that all social media platforms investigate and disclose information operations being conducted on their platforms by state and non-state actors. Disclosures should include publicly releasing datasets linked to those information campaigns. I thought the point of social media networks was so that governments can conduct surveillance and information campaigns.
- dennis2 6y ago
  ye
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  I thought the point of social media networks was so that anyone who pays enough[1] can conduct surveillance and information campaigns[2]. [1] It is claimed that "enough" could be under the corporate coffee budget. [2] They might pronounce conducting these activities as "using custom and lookalike digital insights to create meaningful audiences and reach your business goals" however.
dennis2 6y ago
ok im actully going to fave this
Aperocky 6y ago
It seems the US (and Australia) is hell bent on banning Wechat, if they think this is going to win any minds of wechat user, they're just dead wrong. People use wechat to communicate with their family and friends, just like how people in the west use facebook, except more. Imagine if you are a Chinese person overseas, all of your family and friends are on wechat, then one day BAM it's all banned. Would you be thankful for US government for 'saving your personal information from CCP'? The day that Apple removes Wechat from appstore is the day they sell their last iPhone in China. You can't live in China without it, simple as that. It essentially replaces phone numbers.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  The purpose is not to win the minds of Chinese citizens. There’s little that can be done to counter a lifetime of propaganda, even more so when its citizens obtain most of their information from heavily censored platforms controlled by the CCP.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > The purpose is not to win the minds of Chinese citizens. There’s little that can be done to counter a lifetime of propaganda, even more so when its citizens obtain most of their information from heavily censored platforms controlled by the CCP. Actually, that's probably the only good justification for banning WeChat. If someone's views were formed by propaganda, when you disconnect them from their reinforcement, they'll probably at least mellow with time. The point to point communications features of WeChat can mostly be replaced, but less so with the social media aspects. IIRC, the CCP spends considerable effort trying to maintain influence over the Chinese diaspora (for instance, by getting control of foreign Chinese-language newspapers), though this effort pales in comparison to their domestic efforts.
- _hzw 6y ago
  > The day that Apple removes Wechat from appstore is the day they sell their last iPhone in China. You can't live in China without it, simple as that. It essentially replaces phone numbers. No. I will just buy iPhones for my parents and start using iMessage. I simply cannot wait to see WeChat got banned in Europe. Disclaimer: a Chinese living in Germany.
throwaway4good 6y ago
From the website: "This report recommends (on page 50) that governments implement transparent user data privacy and user data protection frameworks that apply to all social media networks. If companies refuse to comply with such frameworks, they shouldn’t be allowed to operate. Independent audits of social media algorithms should be conducted. Social media companies should be transparent about the guidelines that human moderators use and what impact their decisions have on their algorithms. Governments should require that all social media platforms investigate and disclose information operations being conducted on their platforms by state and non-state actors. Disclosures should include publicly releasing datasets linked to those information campaigns." Yes. If we could get Google, Facebook etc. to do this. That would be great. Thanks, signed someone in Europe.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  Sounds nice, unfortunately “independent audits” will be done by 2-3 companies closely tied to the establishment (just like how strategy consulting is done by 3 companies and finance audit is done by 4 companies).
- free_rms 6y ago
  It's a security think tank for a five eyes country. The problem with WeChat is that they don't get access.
  - 49531 6y ago
    Yea I really don't know how people can take this information seriously; it is just so on-the-nose.
- hank_z 6y ago
  I actually thought about something like this and came up with a solution. Please excuse me for being naive. It's blockchain technology. We can build a social media based on blockchain technology, makes the history of content in social media unalterable and transparent. Users are not allowed update contents they have posted but the authorities. Any content removal request from the authorities will be carried out automatically but broadcasted to all users. Hence the authority can have full control of the social media and have transparency implemented.
throwaway4good 6y ago
https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors
mola 6y ago
Somehow these social media giants from the west would be allowed to collect crazy amount of data on their users, but tiktok would be deemed illegal. If there was a real concern for users privacy and safety this would've been taken care of awhile ago. All this is just war drums that try to seem like privacy concerns. US corporate greed gave China a platform for world domination by offshoring everything. Now that the tiger is loose, us plebs need to go to war for them. Bah.
- stelonix 6y ago
  Just wish there was a place like HN but with people who see the bullshit in imperialism. This is the place I come for rational discussion but when it comes to geopolitical issues, the globalist/western propaganda is rampant. Being from a country that has always been under US interventionism makes it unnerving. Lots of the people here, even if more (copy)left leaning, when it comes to geopolitics they just believe the western anti-communist koolaid; which is the reason I refrain from commenting anything that goes against the "commom sense" western propaganda.
  - VamosArgentina 6y ago
    I'm in a similar situation but generally try to rationalize our different opinions, even if it won't result in us agreeing. I think it has value
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    Don't let the downvotes discourage you.
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    The problem is the US doesn't have a monopoly on imperialism anymore and is not the only country pursuing questionable practices with respect to technology. A lot of critics of US policy changes on topics like this one have their own set of blinders on when it comes to this fact. You end up seeing a weird kind of cognitive dissonance in comments as a result. It's generally best to avoid this trap by either talking about what the likely end results will be (fragmented web ecosystems bounded by per-country restrictions) or to talk in country-neutral objectives (no country should allow massive data collection and privacy breaches in apps, regardless of their place of origin).
wombatmobile 6y ago
Who is the ASPI? The Australian Financial Review says: The think tank behind Australia's changing view of China The Department of Defence-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute has become a flashpoint in the breakdown of consensus in Beijing. https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be...
- free_rms 6y ago
  "Defense-oriented Think Tank Hypes Up Chinese and/or Russian Threat"
knolax 6y ago
When I saw "curating and controlling global information flows" I honestly couldn't tell if they meant that as a bad thing that TikTok was doing or a good thing that Western governments should be doing. I made fun of the concept of doublespeak when I first read 1984 but I think I get it now.
ImAlreadyTracer 6y ago
I have so many Chinese friends that want me to get Wechat. Should I get it? Im worried about it's connections with the CCP though.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  Chinese here. I don't get your worries. Yes your conversation will be monitored. But you know that. And let's face it, 99.9% of your conversation won't be political (I'm just making an educated guess here; I don't know you), nor about sensitive subjects. If you want to talk about sensitive subjects, you can always ask those friends to get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects. For the 99.9% of fun, personal conversations that are about cat photo sharing, pizza recipes and the latest celebrities, Wechat is not a problem. CCP really doesn't care about those, they just care that nobody on Wechat causes trouble (by their definition of "trouble"). When do you accidentally say something considered not OK, the worst that happens is that the message gets deleted. They don't go after people unless you're instigating mass protests or something like that. You won't get advertisements about CCP propaganda. Unless you subscribe to those channels yourself.
  - rtx 6y ago
    Agreed, though anyone planning to visit China and vocal against CCP should not use it.
  - jariel 6y ago
    This is terrible advice. Everything you put in there, the CCP will use to learn about you, your connections, your friends. And what is a 'sensitive subject'? AI? NLP? Software? Portland Protest? Donald Trump? "When do you accidentally say something considered not OK, the worst that happens is that the message gets deleted." This is a really odd thing to say. 1) "When you accidentally say something" ... what kind of ridiculous world is that? 2) "Worst case, deleted" - obviously there are far worse things that can happen. " get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects." Yes, do that for everything.
    - 6y ago
swiley 6y ago
People are pushed into these awful chat apps by the anticompetetive behavior of smart phone OS vendors. The next time you argue for the merits of walled garden app stores think about the damage cooperate controlled chat app servers and curated feeds have done to the internet and the public.
godelski 6y ago
There's some important distinctions that come up with every single time we talk about Chinese apps, so I want to lay them out (disclosure: American). And can we just stop going through this literally every single time? 1) FAANG does this too: - I complain about that and so do many others here. Expect these people to also be upset about WeChat and TikTok. Anything else would be hypocritical. It is the same fight. We know. Stop the whataboutism. - While FAANG often willingly shares data with the government and the many eyes, it is not unfettered. We've been making gains in the privacy regime and some of these companies are starting to say no (i.e. come back with a warrant). - There is a difference, although slight (but meaningful), between a distribution of companies having my data vs a centralized body that controls all regulation. 2) They're just going after China: - There's a difference between your own government having your data and a foreign government. Especially when tensions are escalating between them. - See above where gov doesn't have unfettered access (not true in China). - We're complaining about FAANG too, it just isn't relevant in a conversation about TikTok and WeChat and derails the conversation with whataboutism. 3) What about xyz app? - Same reason we complain about Facebook over other apps. Scale matters. Of course we're going after the app with a billion users before we go for an app with 100k users. 4) Zuckerberg just wants to make a WeChat (super app) alternative: - See 1.1. I'll complain about that too. Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot poll. No way. 5) Something about government involvement ipso facto bias. - If you aren't looking for bias in every source that you read, what are you doing? Read, analyze, internalize. Every source has a bias. They define specific interests. Bias does not mean false. It is not a coup de ta. Yes, we should be aware, but people aren't bringing it up for the same reason we don't bring it up in literally every conversation: because we're aware and it often doesn't serve as a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Can we actually discuss the article now?
BTCOG 6y ago
Facebook is banned in China so there's no use in driveling over whether or not Facebook should do this or that, or Google should do this or that (Google also being banned in China) This is simply the US copying China this time. I support banning all Chinese apps. Let it begin.

122 points by hardmaru 6y ago

I think people reading the article should familiarize themselves with ASPI [0]. Their funding comes from: Embassy of Japan, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Thales Group, and Raytheon Technologies. I would take everything they write with a grain of salt since they have a huge conflict of interest in pushing a new cold-war rhetoric. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_In...

deepstack 6y ago
I think CCP is a concern, however that is currently just in China. Which mean whatever china is doing with internet should be prevented in every where else.
abc-xyz 6y ago
Their sponsors also include Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. who would likely prefer not to escalate the ‘new cold war’ since it would hurt their profits.
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  Not really. Facebook is quite publically trying to get Chinese social media banned simply to avoid the competition. Microsoft is directly benifiting from the promised TikTok ban by potentially getting TikTok US for a much lower price.
- dis-sys 6y ago
  No, as clearly listed on ASPI's official website, Google, Microsoft, Oracle are sponsors of ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC), they are not sponsors of ASPI itself. ASPI sponsors and ICPC sponsors are listed separately on ASPI's official website for a reason. https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors
  - abc-xyz 6y ago
    Their annual report does not make this distinction: https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2019-10/ASPI%20AR_18_19_acc.pdf?KUIH5L_aiOUu4hm96FaCXmN2cqEv5Do8= https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ad-aspi/2019-10/ASPI... But it’s really besides the point. Instead of attacking the authors or their sponsors, perhaps we should focus on the content instead. What’s happening here would be equivalent to me attacking you or the parent (and vice versa) for having a comment history pushing CCP talking points.
xster 6y ago
the ASPI is also behind the Uyghur forced labor story a month ago. But if you go to the actual paper and download the PDF https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale, then one by one click through the primary source and Google Translate it, it's just mainstream Chinese news and social media contents about reducing unemployment, out-of-province workers and multi-ethnic social events re-"narrativized" to mean forced labor. Also a couple of criticisms from Australian elected officials themselves https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be... https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/theres-more-china-debate-lackeys-versus-stooges-0 https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/theres-more-... on the ASPI who still defends the Iraq War, Syrian regime change war and argues that the west should have went to war in Ukraine. There's a longer editorial version of the criticism here: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nato-arms-industry-cold-war/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/26/forced-labor-china-us-nat...
- godelski 6y ago
  Chinese officials called them "reeducation camps" to western reporter. I cannot imagine that Chinese officials would be oblivious to the fact that "reeducation camps" and "concentration camps" are synonymous in Westerners' minds. If not, then it is a surprising and huge blunder. No matter what is happening there, even what officials have officially shown western media, crosses our moral boundaries. The optics of putting adults in 24/7 education centers, that are gated (and doing the same to kids), is not seen as an okay thing to do.
  - xster 6y ago
    > If not, then it is a surprising and huge blunder. Ya, no disagreements there. The Chinese government has zero PR capabilities. Every response from their foreign ministry's spokesperson to a leading question sounds like a painful mea culpa. > No matter what is happening there, even what officials have officially shown western media, crosses our moral boundaries. Who is "our" in this case? It doesn't seem to include the U.N. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/china-says-reached-broad-consensus-with-un-after-xinjiang-visit-idUSKCN1TH00T https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/china-say... or Organization of Islamic Cooperation https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250 https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250. Not that any of them have more PR power than China either.

yorwba 6y ago

> This report recommends (on page 50) that governments implement transparent user data privacy and user data protection frameworks that apply to all social media networks. Sounds like a good initiative. Unfortunately, I expect most social media networks to resist that kind of regulation. Except maybe for TikTok and WeChat, since regulation would be better for them than the total ban they're facing.

claudeganon 6y ago

> Governments should require that all social media platforms investigate and disclose information operations being conducted on their platforms by state and non-state actors. Disclosures should include publicly releasing datasets linked to those information campaigns. I thought the point of social media networks was so that governments can conduct surveillance and information campaigns.

dennis2 6y ago
ye
082349872349872 6y ago
I thought the point of social media networks was so that anyone who pays enough[1] can conduct surveillance and information campaigns[2]. [1] It is claimed that "enough" could be under the corporate coffee budget. [2] They might pronounce conducting these activities as "using custom and lookalike digital insights to create meaningful audiences and reach your business goals" however.

dennis2 6y ago

ok im actully going to fave this

Aperocky 6y ago

It seems the US (and Australia) is hell bent on banning Wechat, if they think this is going to win any minds of wechat user, they're just dead wrong. People use wechat to communicate with their family and friends, just like how people in the west use facebook, except more. Imagine if you are a Chinese person overseas, all of your family and friends are on wechat, then one day BAM it's all banned. Would you be thankful for US government for 'saving your personal information from CCP'? The day that Apple removes Wechat from appstore is the day they sell their last iPhone in China. You can't live in China without it, simple as that. It essentially replaces phone numbers.

abc-xyz 6y ago
The purpose is not to win the minds of Chinese citizens. There’s little that can be done to counter a lifetime of propaganda, even more so when its citizens obtain most of their information from heavily censored platforms controlled by the CCP.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The purpose is not to win the minds of Chinese citizens. There’s little that can be done to counter a lifetime of propaganda, even more so when its citizens obtain most of their information from heavily censored platforms controlled by the CCP. Actually, that's probably the only good justification for banning WeChat. If someone's views were formed by propaganda, when you disconnect them from their reinforcement, they'll probably at least mellow with time. The point to point communications features of WeChat can mostly be replaced, but less so with the social media aspects. IIRC, the CCP spends considerable effort trying to maintain influence over the Chinese diaspora (for instance, by getting control of foreign Chinese-language newspapers), though this effort pales in comparison to their domestic efforts.
_hzw 6y ago
> The day that Apple removes Wechat from appstore is the day they sell their last iPhone in China. You can't live in China without it, simple as that. It essentially replaces phone numbers. No. I will just buy iPhones for my parents and start using iMessage. I simply cannot wait to see WeChat got banned in Europe. Disclaimer: a Chinese living in Germany.

throwaway4good 6y ago

From the website: "This report recommends (on page 50) that governments implement transparent user data privacy and user data protection frameworks that apply to all social media networks. If companies refuse to comply with such frameworks, they shouldn’t be allowed to operate. Independent audits of social media algorithms should be conducted. Social media companies should be transparent about the guidelines that human moderators use and what impact their decisions have on their algorithms. Governments should require that all social media platforms investigate and disclose information operations being conducted on their platforms by state and non-state actors. Disclosures should include publicly releasing datasets linked to those information campaigns." Yes. If we could get Google, Facebook etc. to do this. That would be great. Thanks, signed someone in Europe.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago
Sounds nice, unfortunately “independent audits” will be done by 2-3 companies closely tied to the establishment (just like how strategy consulting is done by 3 companies and finance audit is done by 4 companies).
free_rms 6y ago
It's a security think tank for a five eyes country. The problem with WeChat is that they don't get access.
- 49531 6y ago
  Yea I really don't know how people can take this information seriously; it is just so on-the-nose.
hank_z 6y ago
I actually thought about something like this and came up with a solution. Please excuse me for being naive. It's blockchain technology. We can build a social media based on blockchain technology, makes the history of content in social media unalterable and transparent. Users are not allowed update contents they have posted but the authorities. Any content removal request from the authorities will be carried out automatically but broadcasted to all users. Hence the authority can have full control of the social media and have transparency implemented.

throwaway4good 6y ago

https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors https://www.aspi.org.au/sponsors

mola 6y ago

Somehow these social media giants from the west would be allowed to collect crazy amount of data on their users, but tiktok would be deemed illegal. If there was a real concern for users privacy and safety this would've been taken care of awhile ago. All this is just war drums that try to seem like privacy concerns. US corporate greed gave China a platform for world domination by offshoring everything. Now that the tiger is loose, us plebs need to go to war for them. Bah.

stelonix 6y ago
Just wish there was a place like HN but with people who see the bullshit in imperialism. This is the place I come for rational discussion but when it comes to geopolitical issues, the globalist/western propaganda is rampant. Being from a country that has always been under US interventionism makes it unnerving. Lots of the people here, even if more (copy)left leaning, when it comes to geopolitics they just believe the western anti-communist koolaid; which is the reason I refrain from commenting anything that goes against the "commom sense" western propaganda.
- VamosArgentina 6y ago
  I'm in a similar situation but generally try to rationalize our different opinions, even if it won't result in us agreeing. I think it has value
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  Don't let the downvotes discourage you.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  The problem is the US doesn't have a monopoly on imperialism anymore and is not the only country pursuing questionable practices with respect to technology. A lot of critics of US policy changes on topics like this one have their own set of blinders on when it comes to this fact. You end up seeing a weird kind of cognitive dissonance in comments as a result. It's generally best to avoid this trap by either talking about what the likely end results will be (fragmented web ecosystems bounded by per-country restrictions) or to talk in country-neutral objectives (no country should allow massive data collection and privacy breaches in apps, regardless of their place of origin).

wombatmobile 6y ago

Who is the ASPI? The Australian Financial Review says: The think tank behind Australia's changing view of China The Department of Defence-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute has become a flashpoint in the breakdown of consensus in Beijing. https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-behind-australia-s-changing-view-of-china-20200131-p53wgp https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/the-think-tank-be...

free_rms 6y ago
"Defense-oriented Think Tank Hypes Up Chinese and/or Russian Threat"

knolax 6y ago

When I saw "curating and controlling global information flows" I honestly couldn't tell if they meant that as a bad thing that TikTok was doing or a good thing that Western governments should be doing. I made fun of the concept of doublespeak when I first read 1984 but I think I get it now.

ImAlreadyTracer 6y ago

I have so many Chinese friends that want me to get Wechat. Should I get it? Im worried about it's connections with the CCP though.

FooBarWidget 6y ago
Chinese here. I don't get your worries. Yes your conversation will be monitored. But you know that. And let's face it, 99.9% of your conversation won't be political (I'm just making an educated guess here; I don't know you), nor about sensitive subjects. If you want to talk about sensitive subjects, you can always ask those friends to get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects. For the 99.9% of fun, personal conversations that are about cat photo sharing, pizza recipes and the latest celebrities, Wechat is not a problem. CCP really doesn't care about those, they just care that nobody on Wechat causes trouble (by their definition of "trouble"). When do you accidentally say something considered not OK, the worst that happens is that the message gets deleted. They don't go after people unless you're instigating mass protests or something like that. You won't get advertisements about CCP propaganda. Unless you subscribe to those channels yourself.
- rtx 6y ago
  Agreed, though anyone planning to visit China and vocal against CCP should not use it.
- jariel 6y ago
  This is terrible advice. Everything you put in there, the CCP will use to learn about you, your connections, your friends. And what is a 'sensitive subject'? AI? NLP? Software? Portland Protest? Donald Trump? "When do you accidentally say something considered not OK, the worst that happens is that the message gets deleted." This is a really odd thing to say. 1) "When you accidentally say something" ... what kind of ridiculous world is that? 2) "Worst case, deleted" - obviously there are far worse things that can happen. " get off Wechat and on a different channel, specifically for those subjects." Yes, do that for everything.
  - 6y ago

swiley 6y ago

People are pushed into these awful chat apps by the anticompetetive behavior of smart phone OS vendors. The next time you argue for the merits of walled garden app stores think about the damage cooperate controlled chat app servers and curated feeds have done to the internet and the public.

godelski 6y ago

There's some important distinctions that come up with every single time we talk about Chinese apps, so I want to lay them out (disclosure: American). And can we just stop going through this literally every single time? 1) FAANG does this too: - I complain about that and so do many others here. Expect these people to also be upset about WeChat and TikTok. Anything else would be hypocritical. It is the same fight. We know. Stop the whataboutism. - While FAANG often willingly shares data with the government and the many eyes, it is not unfettered. We've been making gains in the privacy regime and some of these companies are starting to say no (i.e. come back with a warrant). - There is a difference, although slight (but meaningful), between a distribution of companies having my data vs a centralized body that controls all regulation. 2) They're just going after China: - There's a difference between your own government having your data and a foreign government. Especially when tensions are escalating between them. - See above where gov doesn't have unfettered access (not true in China). - We're complaining about FAANG too, it just isn't relevant in a conversation about TikTok and WeChat and derails the conversation with whataboutism. 3) What about xyz app? - Same reason we complain about Facebook over other apps. Scale matters. Of course we're going after the app with a billion users before we go for an app with 100k users. 4) Zuckerberg just wants to make a WeChat (super app) alternative: - See 1.1. I'll complain about that too. Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot poll. No way. 5) Something about government involvement ipso facto bias. - If you aren't looking for bias in every source that you read, what are you doing? Read, analyze, internalize. Every source has a bias. They define specific interests. Bias does not mean false. It is not a coup de ta. Yes, we should be aware, but people aren't bringing it up for the same reason we don't bring it up in literally every conversation: because we're aware and it often doesn't serve as a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Can we actually discuss the article now?

BTCOG 6y ago

Facebook is banned in China so there's no use in driveling over whether or not Facebook should do this or that, or Google should do this or that (Google also being banned in China) This is simply the US copying China this time. I support banning all Chinese apps. Let it begin.