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> Data collection and algorithmic manipulation. This has been discussed to death, but why you'd let an adversary control the information flow to a huge portion

> Data collection and algorithmic manipulation. This has been discussed to death, but why you'd let an adversary control the information flow to a huge portion of the population is beyond me. This is obviously a national security issue. I understand your concern, I honestly do, but Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms (you even made that complaint about China yourself). At least in the EU we're not advocating the complete removal of access to foreign social networks. And that's the real crux of the issue here. You want a borderless internet but only when it's US companies in control. And you don't want government intervention just so long as it's only US companies abusing their position. From an outsider looking in, it all looks a little hypocritical. Which is why I Personally feel the EU approach is a lot smarter: allow other nations to operate equally but put legislation in place to protect consumer rights.

ericmay 4y ago
Which Americans are crying foul? I don’t think many everyday people really care about how the EU regulates tech companies. Ask your parents how they feel, or the bartender next time you’re out. Also the US isn’t an adversary, so it’s different. The stakes are different. The main issue with the EU approach is that they only view surface level compliance.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > Which Americans are crying foul? On this website, many of those with FAANG in their financial portfolio or on their CV. More generally? Virtually nobody.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  There are plenty of anti-GDPR comments any time the subject comes up. Whether they’re FAANG shills or not, they’re numerous and obviously American. It would be interesting to know what their position is when the shoe is on the other foot.
thisarticle 4y ago
Let me know when the EU stops extract bullshit tolls from US tech companies via fines.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
> Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms Who complains? FAANG shills? I haven't heard anybody outside of this site complain about such a thing.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Privacy nhilists, mostly. If Facebook has all my data, and I want to keep using Gacebook, I'm forced into some position about their information policies. I've heard if from a lot of guilty-pleasure Tiktok users, many of who are also Facebook users.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Facebook offers a lot of flexibility in terms of data collection. Look at their privacy settings. They’ve gotten really good. True most people will go with the default. But you have lots of sat, especially compared Reddit. Google is good about this too.
    - lrvick 4y ago
      Saying Facebook and Google are good at privacy now is like saying fast food has better nutrition in recent years. Meanwhile in countries that actually care a lot about privacy with good historical reason, like Germany, have no problem using open source and self hosted services whenever possible, especially at the state level.
      - pyuser583 4y ago
        Are you saying the services like Mastadon have widespread adoption in Germany?
        lrvick 4y ago
        Mastodon seems to have a dramatically higher European userbase than US. That much seems clear from my time on it. Also the German government, French government and others are using open chat systems like Matrix and favoring open source privacy respecting office and documents systems, forgoing giving the US government controlled FAANG companies, who happily have the CIA/NSA as customers, too much control of their internal affairs. My favorite evidence of the radically different culture is going to hacker conferences. Go to Defcon and everyone has a stock Chromebook or a Macbook. The Privacy Village asks everyone to accept the ToS of Discord, Twitch, and Google to participate. It would be a funny joke if it were not so sad. Meanwhile at CCC in Germany... you are hard pressed to find anything proprietary at all from running the conference to the tools of choice of those that attend it. Germans remember well the cost of giving too much control of information to a central party. They have no problem making some UX tradeoffs to have freedom.
threatofrain 4y ago
I don't think Americans would have the same complaints about national security for the EU, nor do Americans have the same level of concern with regards to market fairness in the EU. American relations with China is very different from the EU. Also, I'm not sure the public at large cares much about the competitiveness concerns that big tech companies have with the EU. It's not really a story in the sphere of public conversation.
sha256sum 4y ago
Yes, good for the EU. It's good to approach new problems with new solutions. Americans worship a decrepit ~250 year old document that was never meant to last that long, and will be left behind because of it.
- aeternum 4y ago
  Please no more internet laws from the EU. At least that 250 year old document doesn't require us to click a cookie popup on every site visit.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    GDPR isn’t the only set of data privacy laws in the world. On top of that, many companies are doing a fantastic job at procuring PII through these consent notices. Some of them are downright predatory and give hundreds of companies around the world a mandate to process, store, enrich and sell your private information, including but not limited to things you buy anywhere offline or online, your web history, your location history, your health records, all your social media posts, all your instant messages, everything you’ve ever typed on any of your phones or other mobile devices (except laptops — maybe), and of course any leaked information about you that may be gathered or bought online. All with a single click, in effect permanently.
  - mrsuprawsm 4y ago
    The cookie popups are caused by lazy companies who choose not to comply with the law. It's not caused by the EU.
    - FreqSep 4y ago
      No, it’s absolutely caused by the EU. What you’re seeing, as many have seen in the past, is idealistic laws meeting reality
    - frumper 4y ago
      Lazy companies wouldn’t bother putting a pop up.
YetAnotherNick 4y ago
> I understand your concern, I honestly do, but Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU Even if this statement is true(likely isn't based on the support at least seen online), aren't you supporting the GP? If EU blocks data transfer to US, US would cry and not EU. It is a positive outcome for EU. Similarly, here China could cry and it would be no harm to US.
impossiblefork 4y ago
The problem though, is that that kind of thing doesn't solve problems like those with Reddit and Twitter-- bots, algorithmic manipulation as you mention, hand-picked moderators for critical subforums, or just generally hand-picked moderators can be a tremendous tool for political manipulation. I've heard the unsubstantiated claim that /r/india is covertly run by Pakistanis, which of course, would be a pretty big problem considering the relations between those countries-- but whether or not it's true it's a claim that people can make because it's entirely possible for it to in fact be the case. The problem is that solutions that are in accordance with security needs would interfere with free speech. I see the only path where both free speech and security needs are maintained as some kind of genuinely distributed social network with no central control facilities.
- TurningCanadian 4y ago
  > I see the only path where both free speech and security needs are maintained as some kind of genuinely distributed social network with no central control facilities. You need some central control, otherwise the malicious take over. There are all sorts of malicious behavior that need to be dealt with: spammers, libelers, disinformation spreaders, hackers. You can't expect to offload the responsibility of neutralizing all of that to the users. (We already do enough of that with our centralized networks) The only thing users seem to be able to do is identify out-groups and segment themselves into echo chambers. I'm not thinking of you specifically when I say that I don't understand the fetishization of lawlessness among the tech crowd. You see that with anonymity too: perfectly anonymous systems also give the attackers an advantage. You can go too far in the other direction too though. Nobody wants some bureaucrat approving everything and giving advantage to the well-connected or persecuting based on the opinions expressed. I just wish more thought went into thinking of what rules we actually want than continuously rediscovering why we had rules in the first place.
  - impossiblefork 4y ago
    The way I see it, central control allows malicious takeover. Spammers are certainly a problem, but they are generally controlled by distributed moderation, rather than by centralized moderation. Furthermore, I believe that it is more interesting to know who moderates what how, in order to deal with hostile meta-filtering. Libelers I don't see as a problem. If it is interesting libel, what concern is it to me that it is libel? Disinformation spreaders can't be controlled by a centralized mechanism. Whoever wants to spread important disinformation will acquire control of these mechanisms, and will be willing spend a great deal of money to do so. This in fact the primarily problem I see distributed forums as addressing, and the most important problem. The most important thing is that no one can spread his view without everyone having the ability to contradict him, even the most important and highly person should not be able to so. This is not a view that places hope in lawlessness. It is a view which places hope in order, and an order belonging to ordinary people and not to centralized institutions.
parkingrift 4y ago
> I understand your concern, I honestly do, but Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms (you even made that complaint about China yourself). What? Why do you think American people care that Europeans have better digital privacy laws? And why do you think that those that do care are angry at Europe??
NicoJuicy 4y ago
EU has much more concerns about China than about the US fyi.
- lucky1759 4y ago
  Where do you get your information? This is not even remotely close to being a true statement. The average European doesn't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, and couldn't care less if China invaded it, as long as they keep buying expensive German cars and luxury French handbags. The EU has no interest or capability to do anything in China except make more money. To bring my point home, no EU country even has a navy capable of doing anything in the pacific without extreme US support. US is the only country in the world that cares or has any chance of keeping China in check. It will be a success if EU nations can prevent the EU from collapsing and try not to insult and backstab the US all the time, just like most Europeans are currently trying to do to Ukraine, because Russian gas & oil is more important to them than Ukrainian lives. There's some truth for you.
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    > The average European doesn't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, and couldn't care less if China invaded it, as long as they keep buying expensive German cars and luxury French handbags. How many Europeans have you met personally? Just trying to figure out the sample size for your ”average”, lol. Your comment reads like Russian jealousy. Russians really like expensive German cars and luxury French handbags… :)
  - NicoJuicy 4y ago
    I'm European ( belgium ) fyi. Not really sure what you're rambling about.
  - unionpivo 4y ago
    no offence, I am sure that there are people in EU who don't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, but they are a minority.
rmbyrro 4y ago
> Americans are always the first to cry foul Perhaps an unjust over-generalisation?
RC_ITR 4y ago
>Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms I think Americans cry foul at how feckless the regulations are. Is forcing me to accept cookies really making my life better or the Internet worse?
- jen20 4y ago
  Given that the regulations don’t require that, it’s mostly that companies that choose to do it are making the internet worse because they believe they have the right to harvest personal information.
nswest23 4y ago
I think you're missing the point - this is about 'adversaries' not 'foreign.'

ericmay 4y ago

Which Americans are crying foul? I don’t think many everyday people really care about how the EU regulates tech companies. Ask your parents how they feel, or the bartender next time you’re out. Also the US isn’t an adversary, so it’s different. The stakes are different. The main issue with the EU approach is that they only view surface level compliance.

robonerd 4y ago
> Which Americans are crying foul? On this website, many of those with FAANG in their financial portfolio or on their CV. More generally? Virtually nobody.
mr_toad 4y ago
There are plenty of anti-GDPR comments any time the subject comes up. Whether they’re FAANG shills or not, they’re numerous and obviously American. It would be interesting to know what their position is when the shoe is on the other foot.

thisarticle 4y ago

Let me know when the EU stops extract bullshit tolls from US tech companies via fines.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

> Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms Who complains? FAANG shills? I haven't heard anybody outside of this site complain about such a thing.

fragmede 4y ago
Privacy nhilists, mostly. If Facebook has all my data, and I want to keep using Gacebook, I'm forced into some position about their information policies. I've heard if from a lot of guilty-pleasure Tiktok users, many of who are also Facebook users.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Facebook offers a lot of flexibility in terms of data collection. Look at their privacy settings. They’ve gotten really good. True most people will go with the default. But you have lots of sat, especially compared Reddit. Google is good about this too.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    Saying Facebook and Google are good at privacy now is like saying fast food has better nutrition in recent years. Meanwhile in countries that actually care a lot about privacy with good historical reason, like Germany, have no problem using open source and self hosted services whenever possible, especially at the state level.
    - pyuser583 4y ago
      Are you saying the services like Mastadon have widespread adoption in Germany?
      - lrvick 4y ago
        Mastodon seems to have a dramatically higher European userbase than US. That much seems clear from my time on it. Also the German government, French government and others are using open chat systems like Matrix and favoring open source privacy respecting office and documents systems, forgoing giving the US government controlled FAANG companies, who happily have the CIA/NSA as customers, too much control of their internal affairs. My favorite evidence of the radically different culture is going to hacker conferences. Go to Defcon and everyone has a stock Chromebook or a Macbook. The Privacy Village asks everyone to accept the ToS of Discord, Twitch, and Google to participate. It would be a funny joke if it were not so sad. Meanwhile at CCC in Germany... you are hard pressed to find anything proprietary at all from running the conference to the tools of choice of those that attend it. Germans remember well the cost of giving too much control of information to a central party. They have no problem making some UX tradeoffs to have freedom.

threatofrain 4y ago

I don't think Americans would have the same complaints about national security for the EU, nor do Americans have the same level of concern with regards to market fairness in the EU. American relations with China is very different from the EU. Also, I'm not sure the public at large cares much about the competitiveness concerns that big tech companies have with the EU. It's not really a story in the sphere of public conversation.

sha256sum 4y ago

Yes, good for the EU. It's good to approach new problems with new solutions. Americans worship a decrepit ~250 year old document that was never meant to last that long, and will be left behind because of it.

aeternum 4y ago
Please no more internet laws from the EU. At least that 250 year old document doesn't require us to click a cookie popup on every site visit.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  GDPR isn’t the only set of data privacy laws in the world. On top of that, many companies are doing a fantastic job at procuring PII through these consent notices. Some of them are downright predatory and give hundreds of companies around the world a mandate to process, store, enrich and sell your private information, including but not limited to things you buy anywhere offline or online, your web history, your location history, your health records, all your social media posts, all your instant messages, everything you’ve ever typed on any of your phones or other mobile devices (except laptops — maybe), and of course any leaked information about you that may be gathered or bought online. All with a single click, in effect permanently.
- mrsuprawsm 4y ago
  The cookie popups are caused by lazy companies who choose not to comply with the law. It's not caused by the EU.
  - FreqSep 4y ago
    No, it’s absolutely caused by the EU. What you’re seeing, as many have seen in the past, is idealistic laws meeting reality
  - frumper 4y ago
    Lazy companies wouldn’t bother putting a pop up.

YetAnotherNick 4y ago

> I understand your concern, I honestly do, but Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU Even if this statement is true(likely isn't based on the support at least seen online), aren't you supporting the GP? If EU blocks data transfer to US, US would cry and not EU. It is a positive outcome for EU. Similarly, here China could cry and it would be no harm to US.

impossiblefork 4y ago

The problem though, is that that kind of thing doesn't solve problems like those with Reddit and Twitter-- bots, algorithmic manipulation as you mention, hand-picked moderators for critical subforums, or just generally hand-picked moderators can be a tremendous tool for political manipulation. I've heard the unsubstantiated claim that /r/india is covertly run by Pakistanis, which of course, would be a pretty big problem considering the relations between those countries-- but whether or not it's true it's a claim that people can make because it's entirely possible for it to in fact be the case. The problem is that solutions that are in accordance with security needs would interfere with free speech. I see the only path where both free speech and security needs are maintained as some kind of genuinely distributed social network with no central control facilities.

TurningCanadian 4y ago
> I see the only path where both free speech and security needs are maintained as some kind of genuinely distributed social network with no central control facilities. You need some central control, otherwise the malicious take over. There are all sorts of malicious behavior that need to be dealt with: spammers, libelers, disinformation spreaders, hackers. You can't expect to offload the responsibility of neutralizing all of that to the users. (We already do enough of that with our centralized networks) The only thing users seem to be able to do is identify out-groups and segment themselves into echo chambers. I'm not thinking of you specifically when I say that I don't understand the fetishization of lawlessness among the tech crowd. You see that with anonymity too: perfectly anonymous systems also give the attackers an advantage. You can go too far in the other direction too though. Nobody wants some bureaucrat approving everything and giving advantage to the well-connected or persecuting based on the opinions expressed. I just wish more thought went into thinking of what rules we actually want than continuously rediscovering why we had rules in the first place.
- impossiblefork 4y ago
  The way I see it, central control allows malicious takeover. Spammers are certainly a problem, but they are generally controlled by distributed moderation, rather than by centralized moderation. Furthermore, I believe that it is more interesting to know who moderates what how, in order to deal with hostile meta-filtering. Libelers I don't see as a problem. If it is interesting libel, what concern is it to me that it is libel? Disinformation spreaders can't be controlled by a centralized mechanism. Whoever wants to spread important disinformation will acquire control of these mechanisms, and will be willing spend a great deal of money to do so. This in fact the primarily problem I see distributed forums as addressing, and the most important problem. The most important thing is that no one can spread his view without everyone having the ability to contradict him, even the most important and highly person should not be able to so. This is not a view that places hope in lawlessness. It is a view which places hope in order, and an order belonging to ordinary people and not to centralized institutions.

parkingrift 4y ago

> I understand your concern, I honestly do, but Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms (you even made that complaint about China yourself). What? Why do you think American people care that Europeans have better digital privacy laws? And why do you think that those that do care are angry at Europe??

NicoJuicy 4y ago

EU has much more concerns about China than about the US fyi.

lucky1759 4y ago
Where do you get your information? This is not even remotely close to being a true statement. The average European doesn't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, and couldn't care less if China invaded it, as long as they keep buying expensive German cars and luxury French handbags. The EU has no interest or capability to do anything in China except make more money. To bring my point home, no EU country even has a navy capable of doing anything in the pacific without extreme US support. US is the only country in the world that cares or has any chance of keeping China in check. It will be a success if EU nations can prevent the EU from collapsing and try not to insult and backstab the US all the time, just like most Europeans are currently trying to do to Ukraine, because Russian gas & oil is more important to them than Ukrainian lives. There's some truth for you.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  > The average European doesn't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, and couldn't care less if China invaded it, as long as they keep buying expensive German cars and luxury French handbags. How many Europeans have you met personally? Just trying to figure out the sample size for your ”average”, lol. Your comment reads like Russian jealousy. Russians really like expensive German cars and luxury French handbags… :)
- NicoJuicy 4y ago
  I'm European ( belgium ) fyi. Not really sure what you're rambling about.
- unionpivo 4y ago
  no offence, I am sure that there are people in EU who don't know what Taiwan is, where Taiwan is, but they are a minority.

rmbyrro 4y ago

> Americans are always the first to cry foul Perhaps an unjust over-generalisation?

RC_ITR 4y ago

>Americans are always the first to cry foul when others, such as the EU, put measures in place to curtail the amount of data collection that happens by US firms I think Americans cry foul at how feckless the regulations are. Is forcing me to accept cookies really making my life better or the Internet worse?

jen20 4y ago
Given that the regulations don’t require that, it’s mostly that companies that choose to do it are making the internet worse because they believe they have the right to harvest personal information.

nswest23 4y ago

I think you're missing the point - this is about 'adversaries' not 'foreign.'