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The End of the American Internet
- zepto 6y agoIt’s a good piece. It’s also worth noting that TikTok is based on AI recommendation, like Facebook and YouTube. It’s in many ways a special case (as they also are) of a particularly pathological kind of Internet that is only really represented by a few companies.
- jariel 6y agoAmerica didn't have a 'monopoly' over anything, because America is not a single entity and there is nothing remotely resembling a strategy or coordinated. China is a little different there. The most poignant artifact from the article relates to the fact that TikTok is a 'first' for America, in that they've had to deal with something for the first time, which is a major foreign entity with different world views on their turf. It's should be added that China/CCP is a dystopian surveillance nightmare with a politicized justice system and effective CCP control of all major companies at least as far as messaging, surveillance and censorship is concerned. But it's worth considering and it's interesting the press has not bee up on in for some time - we're in a 'brave new world' in software and services and it needs to be talked about.
- Aachen 6y agoThis sums up how I feel about the whole tiktok/huawei thing as a European. An interesting part of it not mentioned in the article is how the USA also pressures European countries into applying the same rules. And never for the reason "China has some horrible concentration camp problems that we, as a western country upholding ideals of freedom, want them to change and we need more pressure" but just for their own vague "national security" which to my eyes means economic reasons.
- UweSchmidt 6y agoThe national security concerns are of course real and massive; imagine what you can do if you can reach every single individual of another country with personalized content, and collect the most insanely detailed information on each of these individuals. This is the next level, superseding many/most other means of power.
- wombatmobile 6y agoWhat "insanely detailed" information are you concerned about? Are you as concerned about this "insanely detailed" information being collected by US companies? If not, what differentiates your concern when the information goes to foreign companies?
- HenryKissinger 6y ago> Are you as concerned about this "insanely detailed" information being collected by US companies? No. > If not, what differentiates your concern when the information goes to foreign companies? Because the US govt can be trusted but the Chinese govt can't. America is a liberal democracy seeking world peace. China is an Orwellian nightmare of a single-party authoritarian dictatorship. A world under US dominion (e.g the 1990s) would be a paradise. A world under Chinese dominion would be a living hell. I would rather my data be in the hands of the National Security Agency than the People's Liberation Army. I realize that pro-US views aren't popular on HN, but I couldn't care less. For the record, I have a college degree, I'm in my late twenties, I was raised in a liberal household, I'm a liberal, I have no religious beliefs, and I'm voting for Joe Biden.
- wombatmobile 6y agoHow might this work? Could you detail what information the People's Liberation Army might collect, and how they might use it to enact your fears? Please be as specific as you can.
- free_rms 6y agoA comment from a dude named "HenryKissinger" talking about how the US can be trusted on human rights. Golden.
- 9dev 6y agoHas it ever occurred to you that your picture of the world is absolutely black and white, yet there’s no such thing as absolutes in nature? This isn’t snark by the way, I’d just like to encourage you to take off your star-spangled glasses sometimes...
- kryptiskt 6y agoI wish Europe would have the guts to play hardball with China as well as the US. Why should we allow a Chinese social network when the Chinese market is closed for foreign companies?
- bigbubba 6y agoParticularly American social media companies. Until the EU bans these, I don't think there is much hope for European social media companies which actually respect EU laws and regulations (American social media companies obviously have nothing but contempt for these regulations and will dig in their heels for every inch they're dragged.) Just ban them already. Hobbling these corporations would help Americans too, for whom legislative reform seems like a pipe dream. Anything that harms these corporations abroad will negatively impact their ability to lobby American politicians. That might not be much, but it'll be better than the status quo.
- aerosmile 6y ago"will dig in their heels for every inch they're dragged" - if you owned your own business, would you be welcoming regulation that reduced your chances of survival? So this is clearly written by someone who doesn't run their own business. Fair enough - there are always going to be many more people who receive salaries than those who pay them. "Hobbling these corporations would help" - same as above, zero empathy for people who are trying to pay your salary. Fair enough - it sucks to work hard and watch your employer get rich off of your work.
- bigbubba 6y agoThe filthy rich often don't care about the social externalities of their corrosive businesses because their wealth insulates them from the harm they cause. Don't waste your empathy on Facebook executives.
- aerosmile 6y agoSure, there is a certain number of people out there with more money than is perhaps justifiable. So go ahead and address that. That has nothing to do with imposing regulation on everyone. What does being filthy rich have to do with running a small business, working really hard to make ends meet, and then having to pay $10k to comply with GDPR? What a wonderful idea - let's stick it to Facebook by requiring millions of small businesses around the world to comply with something that most small businesses cannot accomplish on their own. And no, 99.99999% of those businesses are not selling anyone's data, but instead they are simply selling and shipping physical goods using... you guessed it - their customers' personally identifiable information [0], which is so horrible and should be strictly regulated so we can sue those businesses and force them into bankruptcy lest they spend time and money working on this "filthy rich people" trap. [0] https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/shipping-and-mailing/case-studies/mailers-gdpr-compliance.html https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/shipping-and-mailing/case-stu... "You may collect much of that data digitally, but the minute you print it on a piece of paper and mail it to a customer, you have to make sure you have the customer’s permission to communicate about that information with them, and that you’re adequately protecting their data in the process."
- PestoDiRucola 6y ago> China has some horrible concentration camp problems that we, as a western country upholding ideals of freedom, want them to change and we need more pressure I mean, it would be ironic if they would give this reasoning, considering the fact that the US currently has its own version of concentration camps which we, as western countries upholding ideals of freedom, should want to change.
- Aachen 6y agoI'm not actually aware of the USA having concentration camps specifically. I know of some human rights issues, though, so for the sake of argument I'll assume this is a thing. Nevertheless, hypocritical or not, it would be better (from a worldsuck perspective) to decrease these issues in China than to not do that. And isn't the issue much more widespread in China than in the USA? Looking for "concentration camp USA" on DDG, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, it comes up with some site about customs and border patrol stations where refugees are imprisoned in for-profit facilities. Is that what you are referring to?
- lixtra 6y agoI guess GP is talking about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib like prisons. While you can argue if you call that a concentration camp, it’s strange how fast people forget.
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- baryphonic 6y ago> This sums up how I feel about the whole tiktok/huawei thing as a European. An interesting part of it not mentioned in the article is how the USA also pressures European countries into applying the same rules. The US has a treaty obligation to protect (most) European countries militarily, particularly from Russia but to a lesser extent from China and other countries in Asia. This is a partnership of course, and America's European friends contribute, but the bulk is still borne by the US for obvious reasons (gigantic military budget, global deployment, desire to preserve peace between France, Germany and the rest of the continent). All of that is to say, for better or worse, the US feels that it can apply pressure. Brussels may not like it, but Washington knows Europe will choose America to Putin's Russia or Communist China most of the time.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoThe HoloNet was a galactic communications grid that was developed, used and maintained by the Galactic Republic and later by the Galactic Empire. The HoloNet was a near-instantaneous communications network commissioned by the Galactic Senate to provide a free flow of hologram communication and information exchange among member worlds. It vastly sped up galactic communications, which had previously depended on more circuitous subspace transmissions or relays. Created thanks to the Galactic Senate's efforts several thousand years BBY, the HoloNet quickly expanded throughout the galaxy, ending up with at least one emitter/receiver device located on virtually every planet of the Galactic Republic. The Holonet was operational by at least 3954 BBY. During the Clone Wars, the Confederacy created the CIS Shadowfeed, a network of hyperwave transceivers similar to the Republic's HoloNet News channel. During this time, both sides used the HoloNet to broadcast propaganda.
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoIt's said that the long distance to North America was a key factor that greatly restricted the power of British Imperialism in America, and indirectly led to the success of the U.S. Revolution. When the orders from the top decision-makers in the U.K. mainland took months to arrive, efficiency was low. I wonder whether the absence of FTL communication in the universe could be the ultimate physical guarantee of decentralization of political power (which is not possible on Earth) and the protection against universe-wide, total imperial powers.
- Barrin92 6y ago>"This is the first time that Americans have really had to deal with their teenagers using a form of mass media that isn’t created in their country by people who mostly share their values. It’s from somewhere else. That’s compounded by the fact that the ‘somewhere else’ is China, " I don't know why I find this so funny, but I just imagine a completely terrified American family going "honey, you won't believe this, I opened the about page of the app, and it's from 'somewhere else'!" Yeah no shit there's 97% of the world that's not American and they can actually make things. Americans are talking about TikTok as if they've just encountered their first batch of exotic spices travelling along the Silk Road.
- rootusrootus 6y agoThat's a straw-man argument. Most people don't know nor care that TikTok is software made in China. The feds seem to care, but they're playing politics, and there is not much overlap with what Average American cares about.
- treeman79 6y agoMade by China is not such a big deal. China having visibility on personal lives of most us Citizens is a bigger concern.
- syshum 6y agoThis is one thing that always perplexes me, so since you seem to be one of the people that are concerned by this I ask you why? What do you believe china will do with the info gleaned from TikTok data? Personally I am more afraid of my own government than I am of china, See my government has the power to put me in a cage, or even kill me if I defy them. They have a the power to unilaterally declare an "emergency" to put me under house arrest, they have the power to close my business at will.... If china attempted to any of these things to me here in the US that would be an act of war, but when my own government does it that is perfectly acceptable and even endorsed by the courts of this land So why pray tell do believe China is the threat?
- mathraki 6y agoAs a European immigrant who came to the US to be an entrepreneur, I can tell you there are many reasons for the US leadership so far, many of which are still true. My top list: - biggest unified market. This is HUGE. Not like the EU "unified" where you can't even speak the same language, but really unified. This means an early idea has big enough of a market to worth pursuing, among other things. - a culture that values technology, innovation, tolerance for risk - world class academic institutions, by far the most of any other country China may challenge the US in terms of being a big unified market, for sure. Given the geopolitical situation however most likely China's innovation will stay focused on China, and the rest of the world will continue to be led by the US for the reasons above. If China was ever to become democratized and continue its growth trajectory it could truly challenge the US gobally but that may not happen for years or decades. Overall I think we should welcome more innovation, even if the US has to share some of the leadership it had until now. But articles that portray some short of US demise or structural decline are more journalistic clickbait than anything else.
- cmehdy 6y agoChina is five times the US in population. Given enough time, it can just throw people at problems and get there. Notwithstanding the fact that the research and academic works coming out of China, while still facing issues in quality on average, have still been rising in quantity and quality. When the combined US+EU market is less than half the amount of people of your own economy, stumbling upon itself with regulations and inner struggles and disagreements, and you are the single most important builder of things in their world.. I'm not sure democracy is a prerequisite to be able to achieve domination eventually. Sure, average quality of life still isn't on par with the EU or the US.. but then again, they've taken 600 million people out of extreme poverty in the last few decades, they're the single biggest current builder of nuclear power plants, they're developing their own space agency at a rapid pace, and are perfectly fine increasingly making major US businesses bend to their will (in tech, in sports, in the industry, and in bending America's cultural influence in the world through things like Hollywood), and they seriously lock down the innovation and profit so that it circulates internally first and foremost. I'm not saying all these things for the fun of it: I'm from the EU and I live in Canada, so I'm both very much wanting the world to go towards the models that the EU and Canada are trying to achieve (as far as democracies strive to improve themselves, ever-so-slowly sometimes), but I'm also pretty keenly aware of how small those players actually can be when compared to a behemoth with a very long history, a critical mass, and willing to make any necessary concessions to dominate. You don't really need 750 million people when you have 1.6 billion in the first place.
- tompic823 6y agoI enjoyed this article's perspective, particularly its mention of Apple and California acting as the US's de facto privacy regulators. There is one line I don't understand though: > Second, you can no longer assume that the important companies and products themselves are American. Both of these are captured in Tiktok. Is Tiktok an "important" service? I may very well be out of touch, but a social media app used primarily by teenagers to share trendy videos doesn't seem all that important to me. It's important in the sense that it's shaping regulation, but I don't believe that's what the author is referring to when using the word.
- cblconfederate 6y agoHm, isn't it the other way around? In the 90s, the technologies that made the internet boom were things like Linux, Mysql, php, which were created in europe (with great US contributions). . Google wouldn't be able to commoditize its search so easily otherwise. US companies were (and are) great at consumer-facing tec. It's in the past decade+ that the US has become dominant in just about everything tech (largely because of the cloud and mobile). It has also become excessively dominant in the media (outside china), so dominant and centralized that american outrages end up becoming global outrages. When was the last time we saw twitter trends coming from outside the US? There is a war going in on armenia, yet overshadowed by a US debate (before potus got covid, which overshadows tonight's alien invasion). All operating systems that have substantial user base are now made in US. Even the TikTok case is telling. Many european countries do not wish to have bad relations with china, or don't see them as a threat, yet they 'll follow suit in banning it. I think it's the other way around. There is too much americano-centrism in the internet now, and that s a problem because it's being filled with increasingly more numerous and more rigid american rules (gone is piracy, subscriptions for everything, app stores, gatekeepers everywhere). This is a culture that is not fun, and consumers will take note. TikTok is probably just the beginning of people searching for new toys outside america's walled garden.
- giantrobot 6y agoThe Internet boom of the 90s up to the dot com crash was powered primarily by the big Silicon Valley companies like Cisco, Sun, SGI, and Oracle. Linux and the greater LAMP stack didn't become dominant until after the dot com crash. Even then a significant amount of FOSS money/contributions were coming from US companies. Also keep in mind the P in LAMP really meant both Perl and PHP. I'm also really curious when exactly you think popular (in terms of users) operating systems for computers didn't come from the US. Symbian and BlackBerry OS are the only two coming to mind and neither were general purpose OSes. As for American-centric Internet...wow. Piracy is still a thing. Subscriptions are a revenue model in no way unique or specific to the US. Web browsers still exist so I don't see how "app stores" did anything to make the Internet American-centric. Those same web browsers can access websites with no gatekeeping unless you live in an authoritarian state that does gatekeeping for you. Describing the Internet as an American walled garden is, to be charitable, absolutely ridiculous and borderline stupid.
- csb6 6y agoThis is a very American-centric view of things. The author insists that the Internet has up until recently been mostly American, yet admits that the World Wide Web was made in Switzerland. And about most Internet users being American...does the author think Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia first got connected to the internet in like 2012 or something? In the very early days, yes, the Internet was largely in the U.S., but the Internet has been worldwide for a long time, with large amounts of users outside the U.S. The graph presenting the amount of VC money spent in the U.S. vs. abroad makes me think that the author views “the Internet” as tech startups in the Silicon Valley tradition and not anything else. There is a lot more to the Internet than Google and Yahoo and Facebook and friends. American users might not see these parts of the Internet, but they exist and existed. Just because they weren't a hot new SV startup doesn't mean they weren't a valuable and popular component of the Internet. Other countries besides the U.S. have had large, popular sites and apps for decades.
- Udik 6y agoThe point is that the widely used services and applications in the US are either from the US or from countries that are safely within the US's sphere of influence. TikTok is an exception as it comes from a country that is as much outside the US's sphere of influence as the US is outside the sphere of influence of European countries (or of any other country in the world).
- dehrmann 6y ago> [TikTok] is the first time that Americans have really had to deal with their teenagers using a form of mass media that isn’t created in their country by people who mostly share their values. It’s from somewhere else. I wonder how much Vine influenced TikTok/Musical.ly, and if Vine's timing was bad, or if Twitter just really dropped the ball.
- DLay 6y agoTwitter was struggling financially at that time and didn’t have the billions of dollars Bytedance has burned through to reach scale.