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would you not make the same argument for google?
by chii 4y ago
would you not make the same argument for google?
- BobbyJo 4y agoDoesn't Google not operate in China for just this reason?
- crmd 4y agoGoogle is banned in China
- asimpletune 4y agoIf you’re china then absolutely
- runjake 4y agoYes, but Google is on our, well "my" side. I would expect an "adversary" nationstate, like China, to respond with similar alarm.
- SkyMarshal 4y agoChina has, they’ve banned most Western social media.
- hunglee2 4y agonot quite true, most Western social media companies withdraw from China market in order not be subject to govt request for information
- salt-thrower 4y agoGoogle is on nobody’s “side” but their own. They’re an amoral bureaucracy trying to make money. Nothing more or less.
- runjake 4y agoHence my use of quotes.
- Sebb767 4y agoDepends on what you do. As long as you don't plan on visiting China, them knowing your sexual orientation, whether you do drugs is or where you were is pretty irrelevant, while it might be quite interesting for you government (and therefore Google, if you're in the US).
- andreilys 4y agoExcept when it does matter, say for example you become a politican or work in a corporation that has valuable IP. All of the sudden, private details about you can be weaponized and used as blackmail in order to carry out the will of a state actor. It really doesn't take much creativity to think about how this information can be weaponized against you.
- Sebb767 4y agoThat's why I said > Depends on what you do. It's not great if a foreign intelligence has data on you, but depending on your threat scenario, it _might_ be better than your government having it.
- aurelius83 4y agoIs Google an American company?
- itake 4y agoHow many of their employees in critical roles are not American citizens?
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoI swear this is a trick question... but they are headquartered in America, yes.
- earth_walker 4y agoI could have sworn they were Irish just a few years ago...
- dspillett 4y agoMany would, yes. But Google can use the “but we are an American company, so you are threatening to harm American industry” argument and can afford to pay for a large army of lobbyists to push that agenda if America tries to reign them in.
- kube-system 4y agoThe legal environment is wildly different. Google doesn’t have an internal board of government officials controlling it. All large software companies in China do. Google doesn’t operate in China for this reason. Apple divested their cloud operations to the Guizhou government for this reason. In the US is it normal and routine for corporations to dispute government demands. In China, If you don’t play ball with the party, your company ceases to exist and you are put behind the great firewall.
- theplumber 4y ago>> In the US is it normal and routine for corporations to dispute government demands. But we already know that's just somescreen and the U.S gov/NSA gets the data. Poor Snowden ruined his life for almost nothing.
- kube-system 4y agoThe difference is that there is a non-zero amount of friction in the US. We also know that many companies in the US say “no” and have the legal ability to do it. For example, when the FBI asked Apple to unlock a phone for them, they said no, and they never did. In China, your company doesn’t say “no” because the CCP members forcibly installed on your company’s board always vote “yes”. And in fact, the CCP holds the iCloud keys for all Chinese iCloud users. (As well as the entire data center)
- AlexandrB 4y ago> The difference is that there is a non-zero amount of friction in the US. This kind of statement should always end with "for now". Data lives forever, laws change. Just take a look at Roe v. Wade and how formerly benign data now has potential legal implications for users.
- orangepurple 4y agoThankfully we have a statute of limitations for many legal matters