7 ms·

Is this point meant to be an argument that the US should ban apps from China because China is banning apps from the US?

philliphaydon 6y ago
china bans all us social media apps, because they want to control the content that Chinese citizens see and remove anything that is negative towards the ccp, etc. No one batters an eyelid. US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. And everyone loses their shit over it.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  > "china bans all us social media apps" Microsoft Teams, Skype, FaceTime all work in China, to name a few. > because they want to control the content that Chinese citizens see and remove anything that is negative towards the ccp, etc. This is true. But that doesn't mean they ban all US social media apps. If you follow their Internet laws (like Microsoft and Apple do) then you are allowed to operate. > US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. This is an assumption. Proof please, because I haven't seen any. Don't get me wrong. I am not against a ban on Tiktok. I'm against a discriminatory ban, based on unproven assumptions, solely targeting the origin of an app. What would be much more fair would be to state: all foreign apps have to go through a security audit to certify that no data reaches any foreign governments. That way you don't have to prove wrongdoing first, and you aren't being discriminatory either.
  - gruez 6y ago
    > > "china bans all us social media apps" >Microsoft Teams, Skype, FaceTime all work in China, to name a few. Calling them "social media apps" is a stretch. Microsoft Teams is designed to be used within an organization, so it's closer to a corporate mail server than facebook. Skype and FaceTime are public, but they don't have the defining features of other social media sites, such as a profile, UGC, or feeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
    - FooBarWidget 6y ago
      By that definition, Whatsapp (which is in functionality similar to Skype) is also a stretch of a social media app. Yet people still call it social media. But why does the exact definition of social media matter here? Let's say that Facebook follows their Internet law and becomes allowed, would you then have a different opinion?
  - philliphaydon 6y ago
    > This is an assumption. Proof please, because I haven't seen any. If tiktok is a US app. And not a china app. Then any content negative towards china would not be removed. Which happens daily. Whole pro china and anti America content stays. That’s propaganda.
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      What's the news about "anti-China” content being censored on TikTok?
      - philliphaydon 6y ago
        Lol it’s a Chinese company and the ceo admitted it censors anti china content.
        justicezyx 6y ago
        Could you provide a link?
        philliphaydon 6y ago
        First link on google for tiktok ceo censoring. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/11/09/tiktok-censors-anti-chinese-content/ https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/11/09/tiktok-censors-a...
    - trasz 6y ago
      So, given that YouTube does the same, it logically follows that Google is a Chinese company? :-D
      - philliphaydon 6y ago
        There’s plenty of anti china / anti America content on YouTube. Other than banning Alex Jones, I don’t agree with YouTube censorship or such.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    by internet law, you mean inserting backdoors for the government to surveil you? Yeah I'm not sure that counts as better than banning. The version of Skype that the free world gets to use is in fact banned in China.
    - trasz 6y ago
      How is it different from Lawful Interception functionality required by law in all telco equipment used in the US?
- manuelabeledo 6y ago
  Would you want the US government to ban Twitter or Facebook for spreading propaganda and/or farm user data? In fact, would you want the US to be more like China?
  - Supermancho 6y ago
    > Would you want the US government to ban Twitter or Facebook for spreading propaganda and/or farm user data? Yes. If there is determined to be harm, I see no reason to protect them. > Would you want the US to be more like China? Governments fulfill similar roles across time and space. It's unavoidable that there is overlap. Please clarify what you are trying to imply.
    - manuelabeledo 6y ago
      > Yes. If there is determined to be harm, I see no reason to protect them. But should the US government, given the current developments, ban Twitter and/or Facebook? That is what I'm asking. Because they are quite literally doing the same as TikTok. Now, is TikTok spying for China? Except for a few reports, there is no proof of it. In fact, the US government would not ban TikTok if they sell their business to US companies. So either TikTok does not spy on their customers for China, or they do, and the US government wants to have control over data illegally harvested. Either way, forcing TikTok hand is not a move made to protect US citizens.
      - Supermancho 6y ago
        > But should the US government, given the current developments, ban Twitter and/or Facebook? Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China. Going from a philosophical question to a current policy question, the existing context has to be taken into account. There is no equivalent reason for banning the apps. > Because they are quite literally doing the same as TikTok. I think they (Facebook/Twitter) are doing very different things from Tik Tok right now. They are certainly a vector for the US states/feds to mine and use data (as has been admitted and demonstrated). In the way the data is available to a government, there is an equivalence with Tik Tok. > Now, is TikTok spying for China? I define spying narrowly. I don't think it's "spying" but the infrastructure of Tik Tok presents an information vulnerability to the USA, which represents a harm. This is the basis of my justification as I am making the distinction. > Either way, forcing TikTok hand is not a move made to protect US citizens. I think it is a move that protects US citizens. The official justification is paper thin Trump revenge tactics (not racism, imo). Given, I give no credence to most of what Trump says, I don't care about the justification anyway.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  North Korea executes tens of thousands of dissidents every year. The Bush administration tries to hold one person without habeas corpus, and all of a sudden the Supreme Court's up his ass. What's the deal with that!
- absolutelyrad 6y ago
  The reason is cultural asymmetry. The US culture is more attractive than the Chinese one to most of the world. America has the image built. China doesn't. It's behind. China will open when their culture is at a similar standing to the US. Of course the image built is breaking down now, but it's still ahead of the Chinese one.
- gizmo385 6y ago
  > US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. And everyone loses their shit over it. Everyone loses their shit over it because it's a direct example of the US government potentially violating the first amendment. They may claim that the app is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is a "national security threat", but they've done very little other than raise the specter of "China" to prove that. Their claims of justification have been met with significant push back and, as far as I'm aware, they haven't provided any meaningful proof of their claims. So yes, it's well-worth it for people to get up in arms about the US government censoring and shutting down access of US customers to a phone app. That's a hugely dangerous precedent to set and one that shouldn't be done lightly.
- rcoveson 6y ago
  We're supposed to lose our shit over it. That's our thing. If a bad government does a bad thing a lot, it doesn't justify our government doing that bad thing even once. In the long run, the asymmetry of US and Chinese citizen's access to each other's culture and products will work in our favor. Liberalism always seems to win, eventually.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  It sucks for Chinese people that china is banning apps. However, I really see no connection between china doing bad things and me being ok with the US doing those same bad things. What is that argument? Like, china executes drug offenders. So, if the US proposed to do the same, but only two or three of them, am I meant to be ok with it because China does it more?
- mrlala 6y ago
  >US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda Have you ever actually used tiktok? How is it being used to spread propoganda? >farm user data LOL. Yeah, please tell me how they are doing anything different than the other billion apps you download on your phone and sign-in through google or whatever. >and is considered a national security threat Because of... why?
  - philliphaydon 6y ago
    Just typing 'propaganda on tiktok' yields many results, youtube videos showing it, articles. https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-parent-company-bytedance-spreads-chinese-propaganda-report-2019-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-parent-company-byteda... That's from last year...
    - mrlala 6y ago
      Your proof is typing 'propaganda on tiktok' into google? Have you typed 'propaganda on hackernews' or on facebook/twitter/reddit or any other social media? Everything in the world is going to have some form of propaganda to some degree. And honestly, having used tiktok a small amount, it seems way less than most social media out here. You generally have to even work hard to find anything that is political, most of it is completely random shit that has zero agenda.
goodluckchuck 6y ago
It points out that China has the executive capacity to act, in a manner that having 94 federal courts - each imposing nationwide orders - has come to hamper in the US. There's always one judge somewhere who'll disagree with a President's actions no matter who the President is and no matter what the action is, simply because there are so so many of them. The SCOTUS noted that they may need to reign-in the scope of lower-court orders, and this just adds weight to the issue. It's particularly important because there's a practical bias. Opponents of an executive action can district-shop, while it is difficult for the Executive to file a declaratory-judgment action in a (perceived to be) favorable jurisdiction. So we end up with nation-wide judgments which differ what what the other districts would have ruled... but the other districts never had an opportunity to rule. Then... since a ruling has been issued, they are largely blocked from ever ruling. However, the SCOTUS is is a bit of a bind, because allowing nation-wide orders works very effectively in general civil / criminal litigation. The problem has seemed to arise mostly in politically-charged issues where the government is a party.
- splaytreemap 6y ago
  The media doesn't care right now because it's only Trump's orders getting baselessly delayed. After four years of Biden getting every single one of his executive orders blocked because the Republicans challenged it in the friendliest lower court they could find, I imagine there will finally be some bipartisan support for fixing this problem.

china bans all us social media apps, because they want to control the content that Chinese citizens see and remove anything that is negative towards the ccp, etc. No one batters an eyelid. US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. And everyone loses their shit over it.

FooBarWidget 6y ago
> "china bans all us social media apps" Microsoft Teams, Skype, FaceTime all work in China, to name a few. > because they want to control the content that Chinese citizens see and remove anything that is negative towards the ccp, etc. This is true. But that doesn't mean they ban all US social media apps. If you follow their Internet laws (like Microsoft and Apple do) then you are allowed to operate. > US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. This is an assumption. Proof please, because I haven't seen any. Don't get me wrong. I am not against a ban on Tiktok. I'm against a discriminatory ban, based on unproven assumptions, solely targeting the origin of an app. What would be much more fair would be to state: all foreign apps have to go through a security audit to certify that no data reaches any foreign governments. That way you don't have to prove wrongdoing first, and you aren't being discriminatory either.
- gruez 6y ago
  > > "china bans all us social media apps" >Microsoft Teams, Skype, FaceTime all work in China, to name a few. Calling them "social media apps" is a stretch. Microsoft Teams is designed to be used within an organization, so it's closer to a corporate mail server than facebook. Skype and FaceTime are public, but they don't have the defining features of other social media sites, such as a profile, UGC, or feeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
  - FooBarWidget 6y ago
    By that definition, Whatsapp (which is in functionality similar to Skype) is also a stretch of a social media app. Yet people still call it social media. But why does the exact definition of social media matter here? Let's say that Facebook follows their Internet law and becomes allowed, would you then have a different opinion?
- philliphaydon 6y ago
  > This is an assumption. Proof please, because I haven't seen any. If tiktok is a US app. And not a china app. Then any content negative towards china would not be removed. Which happens daily. Whole pro china and anti America content stays. That’s propaganda.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    What's the news about "anti-China” content being censored on TikTok?
    - philliphaydon 6y ago
      Lol it’s a Chinese company and the ceo admitted it censors anti china content.
      - justicezyx 6y ago
        Could you provide a link?
        philliphaydon 6y ago
        First link on google for tiktok ceo censoring. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/11/09/tiktok-censors-anti-chinese-content/ https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/11/09/tiktok-censors-a...
  - trasz 6y ago
    So, given that YouTube does the same, it logically follows that Google is a Chinese company? :-D
    - philliphaydon 6y ago
      There’s plenty of anti china / anti America content on YouTube. Other than banning Alex Jones, I don’t agree with YouTube censorship or such.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  by internet law, you mean inserting backdoors for the government to surveil you? Yeah I'm not sure that counts as better than banning. The version of Skype that the free world gets to use is in fact banned in China.
  - trasz 6y ago
    How is it different from Lawful Interception functionality required by law in all telco equipment used in the US?
manuelabeledo 6y ago
Would you want the US government to ban Twitter or Facebook for spreading propaganda and/or farm user data? In fact, would you want the US to be more like China?
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > Would you want the US government to ban Twitter or Facebook for spreading propaganda and/or farm user data? Yes. If there is determined to be harm, I see no reason to protect them. > Would you want the US to be more like China? Governments fulfill similar roles across time and space. It's unavoidable that there is overlap. Please clarify what you are trying to imply.
  - manuelabeledo 6y ago
    > Yes. If there is determined to be harm, I see no reason to protect them. But should the US government, given the current developments, ban Twitter and/or Facebook? That is what I'm asking. Because they are quite literally doing the same as TikTok. Now, is TikTok spying for China? Except for a few reports, there is no proof of it. In fact, the US government would not ban TikTok if they sell their business to US companies. So either TikTok does not spy on their customers for China, or they do, and the US government wants to have control over data illegally harvested. Either way, forcing TikTok hand is not a move made to protect US citizens.
    - Supermancho 6y ago
      > But should the US government, given the current developments, ban Twitter and/or Facebook? Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China. Going from a philosophical question to a current policy question, the existing context has to be taken into account. There is no equivalent reason for banning the apps. > Because they are quite literally doing the same as TikTok. I think they (Facebook/Twitter) are doing very different things from Tik Tok right now. They are certainly a vector for the US states/feds to mine and use data (as has been admitted and demonstrated). In the way the data is available to a government, there is an equivalence with Tik Tok. > Now, is TikTok spying for China? I define spying narrowly. I don't think it's "spying" but the infrastructure of Tik Tok presents an information vulnerability to the USA, which represents a harm. This is the basis of my justification as I am making the distinction. > Either way, forcing TikTok hand is not a move made to protect US citizens. I think it is a move that protects US citizens. The official justification is paper thin Trump revenge tactics (not racism, imo). Given, I give no credence to most of what Trump says, I don't care about the justification anyway.
dcolkitt 6y ago
North Korea executes tens of thousands of dissidents every year. The Bush administration tries to hold one person without habeas corpus, and all of a sudden the Supreme Court's up his ass. What's the deal with that!
absolutelyrad 6y ago
The reason is cultural asymmetry. The US culture is more attractive than the Chinese one to most of the world. America has the image built. China doesn't. It's behind. China will open when their culture is at a similar standing to the US. Of course the image built is breaking down now, but it's still ahead of the Chinese one.
gizmo385 6y ago
> US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is considered a national security threat. And everyone loses their shit over it. Everyone loses their shit over it because it's a direct example of the US government potentially violating the first amendment. They may claim that the app is being used to spread propaganda, farm user data, and is a "national security threat", but they've done very little other than raise the specter of "China" to prove that. Their claims of justification have been met with significant push back and, as far as I'm aware, they haven't provided any meaningful proof of their claims. So yes, it's well-worth it for people to get up in arms about the US government censoring and shutting down access of US customers to a phone app. That's a hugely dangerous precedent to set and one that shouldn't be done lightly.
rcoveson 6y ago
We're supposed to lose our shit over it. That's our thing. If a bad government does a bad thing a lot, it doesn't justify our government doing that bad thing even once. In the long run, the asymmetry of US and Chinese citizen's access to each other's culture and products will work in our favor. Liberalism always seems to win, eventually.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
It sucks for Chinese people that china is banning apps. However, I really see no connection between china doing bad things and me being ok with the US doing those same bad things. What is that argument? Like, china executes drug offenders. So, if the US proposed to do the same, but only two or three of them, am I meant to be ok with it because China does it more?
mrlala 6y ago
>US tries to ban 1 app that is being used to spread propaganda Have you ever actually used tiktok? How is it being used to spread propoganda? >farm user data LOL. Yeah, please tell me how they are doing anything different than the other billion apps you download on your phone and sign-in through google or whatever. >and is considered a national security threat Because of... why?
- philliphaydon 6y ago
  Just typing 'propaganda on tiktok' yields many results, youtube videos showing it, articles. https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-parent-company-bytedance-spreads-chinese-propaganda-report-2019-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-parent-company-byteda... That's from last year...
  - mrlala 6y ago
    Your proof is typing 'propaganda on tiktok' into google? Have you typed 'propaganda on hackernews' or on facebook/twitter/reddit or any other social media? Everything in the world is going to have some form of propaganda to some degree. And honestly, having used tiktok a small amount, it seems way less than most social media out here. You generally have to even work hard to find anything that is political, most of it is completely random shit that has zero agenda.

goodluckchuck 6y ago

It points out that China has the executive capacity to act, in a manner that having 94 federal courts - each imposing nationwide orders - has come to hamper in the US. There's always one judge somewhere who'll disagree with a President's actions no matter who the President is and no matter what the action is, simply because there are so so many of them. The SCOTUS noted that they may need to reign-in the scope of lower-court orders, and this just adds weight to the issue. It's particularly important because there's a practical bias. Opponents of an executive action can district-shop, while it is difficult for the Executive to file a declaratory-judgment action in a (perceived to be) favorable jurisdiction. So we end up with nation-wide judgments which differ what what the other districts would have ruled... but the other districts never had an opportunity to rule. Then... since a ruling has been issued, they are largely blocked from ever ruling. However, the SCOTUS is is a bit of a bind, because allowing nation-wide orders works very effectively in general civil / criminal litigation. The problem has seemed to arise mostly in politically-charged issues where the government is a party.

splaytreemap 6y ago
The media doesn't care right now because it's only Trump's orders getting baselessly delayed. After four years of Biden getting every single one of his executive orders blocked because the Republicans challenged it in the friendliest lower court they could find, I imagine there will finally be some bipartisan support for fixing this problem.