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if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their own variants. If they want to ru

if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their own variants. If they want to run around free-range without any restriction with their own products then they should respond by loosening restrictions in their own country. This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?

themgt 2y ago
The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works great. I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.
- j0ba 2y ago
  Nonsense. A free and open system does not require foreign adversaries to be given free access to manipulate and control the population. That's not an open system, that's pure stupidity.
- tristor 2y ago
  > The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy: 1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the world certain things can be feasibly made. 2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which helped to drive their economic engine. 3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch. The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps information out of China that the government wants kept out of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.
  - intrasight 2y ago
    > US companies started sending all their IP over to China That's how capitalism works. And it worked extremely well and to most everyone's benefit.
- gretch 2y ago
  We're copying china's tactics wrt CHINA specifically (and other foreign adversaries) This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the world Reciprocation is rational and good
- falleng0d 2y ago
  Sorry but reciprocation is not copying. This is basic game theory. A 'tit for a tat'.
- 23B1 2y ago
  There's no irony in realpolitik.
  - sudosysgen 2y ago
    The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism (indeed, in international relations, liberalism is antipodal to realism which is realpolitiks namesake), so the irony persists.
    - 23B1 2y ago
      That's... a fair point.
    - alickz 2y ago
      > The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism why do you believe so? i see no reason why rationalism and political pragmatism are mutually exclusive with liberalism. in fact to me it seems they complement each other well
      - sudosysgen 2y ago
        Realpolitik and rationalism are not the same thing. Realpolitik is the idea that politics (esp. international politics) is ultimately dominated by power politics where each actor is trying to maximize their power and self-interest, and is generally an idea of the realist school of politics While that might arguably be compatible with liberalism within a society where there is a relatively benevolent monopoly of power imposing a certain number of rights and rules molding the self-interest of all in such a way as to be compatible with civilization, within the international system there is no monopoly of violence, and therefore norms and rights are contingent on countries not acting purely in their self-interest and therefore to maximize their power. Since modern liberalism is inherently internationalist (arguably since Woodrow Wilson, some called his approach to diplomacy "idealpolitik"), modern liberalism does have to reject realism as a school of thought. The debate between liberalism and realism as it pertains to international politics is the main topic of contention in international relations theory. More generally, you can also argue that liberalism assumes the good faith of powerful people not to destroy the liberal system to maximize their own power, but this is far easier to argue against in the domestic setting than in the international setting.
- mjamesaustin 2y ago
  Reciprocation is actually the policy more likely to get China to open up. As long as they can impose rules on US companies with impunity, while we stand back and give them free reign in our market, they have a zero likelihood of compromising.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  I don’t see this as reciprocation, I see it as a continuation of an existing policy that requires US media to be owned by Americans. I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.
hot_gril 2y ago
I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason. The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own reasons.
- ZoomerCretin 2y ago
  Yep. TikTok is the only major social media app in the US that does not downrank pro-Palestinian content. No one in the US government cared about TikTok until the latest conflict in Israel. This is the only reason for the ban.
  - SeanAnderson 2y ago
    I thought Trump wanted TikTok banned when he was president?
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      Yes he did. Funny enough, he now criticizes this.
      - ngcc_hk 2y ago
        He is one of the best political game player. Look at immigration (he does not allow bipartisan law to smooth the issue out) and abortion (he enabled it but does not want this to be the matter during election year). Agree his policy might many of us not. But player great he is.
  - oooyay 2y ago
    I'm having trouble squaring that with data, since the trends go back to 2020 and 2022: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=Tik%20tok%20ban&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
tonymet 2y ago
China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding ourselves to.
- paxys 2y ago
  Free trade and reciprocity agreements don't depend on a country's political leanings. You either play ball with the world or you don't. Can't have it both ways.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    > Can't have it both ways. You definitely can. International trade has never been a fair field, power balance will be the most impacting element in the deal you get.
    - paxys 2y ago
      And this is the US exerting its power (which it should have done a long time ago).
    - didjxhxhsvc 2y ago
      How can free trade be unfair?
      - makeitdouble 2y ago
        Please define "free trade". I think that's a concept that is thorny enough to merit a word on what we mean by that. I personally don't know what it actually points at (is there any "free trade" ever happening in real life ?), or my naive interpretation would be trade with absolutely no rules, but I assume that's not what you're pointing at.
- notresidenter 2y ago
  China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most capitalist country nowadays !
hackerlight 2y ago
> If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US. The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022. The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.
- atleastoptimal 2y ago
  what happened in Europe in 2022?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hackerlight 2y ago
    Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before this, the European polity were stuck in this "End of History" mindset where great power conflict was a relic from the past and everything could be solved through negotiation and institutions. The sooner laypeople realize we're in the Second Cold War (as the foreign policy types have) the less these kinds of moves (banning TikTok, restricting Nvidia exports to China) will come as a surprise, and you may even start to appreciate them.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > It's become a legitimate national security problem. What is the nature of the risk? > You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox
madeofpalk 2y ago
Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.
- uejfiweun 2y ago
  Give me a break... what, you'd rather just let said totalitarian government pump their propaganda into the US? This is a great example of following your moral principles right off the cliff.
  - loteck 2y ago
    What makes you think the propaganda won't be pumped in if the US app is sold to a different company?
    - uejfiweun 2y ago
      If it's sold to a US company then it will be our intelligence agencies pumping the propaganda, not theirs. Which is an outcome I'm more amenable to, considering that our intelligence agencies generally have more of an interest in the stability of American society than the intelligence agencies of China.
      - madeofpalk 2y ago
        See also - Facebook is American owned, yet that never stopped assertions that it was used by foreign adversaries to pump their propaganda.
    - throw-the-towel 2y ago
      So if it's propaganda either way, then no loss will happen?
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  Tolerance shouldn’t tolerate intolerance.
SuperHeavy256 2y ago
Yes, you are missing something. Because you're seeing tiktok as a product, not as a community of millions of people. There are tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses that are only able to survive because of Tiktok. For a lot of the younger crowd, Tiktok is part of social culture. Cutting out a part of someone's life like that is not a decision that should be taken lightly at all. Peace.
- VHRanger 2y ago
  It's a community of millions of people, but which are seen by the millions is subject to the CCP's algorithm. Just search for "Uighur genocide" and see how many negative Tiktoks you find. Now go on any western social media platform, search for any contentious topic, and notice what's banned. It's not stuff that's harmful to the government (eg. Gaza/Israel topics) it's stuff that advertisers think is harmful (racism, unlabeled porn, etc.). Also, restraining from banning a platform because some people can't be arsed to also post to IG reels or other platforms is their own fault as entrepreneurs.
  - nmfisher 2y ago
    Out of interest, I just tried this. "Uighur genocide" was the fifth auto-completed search result. In the "Top" tab, the first video was a (maybe Chinese) guy saying he never saw any discrimination against Uighurs and maybe Americans should ask about the Hawaiian cultural genocide. The video next to it was from (presumably) Uighur people saying that they were suffering cultural genocide and China was selling their organs. Below that was a snippet from Wikipedia saying that China had been committing cultural genocide against the Uighurs. The prominence of the Chinese guy "denying" the cultural genocide was interesting - I wouldn't assume he's a plant (it's equally likely he's just a rabid nationalist) but the placement of the video does strike me as a little odd. It had 300 likes, but rates higher than the second video which had 5000 likes? Does smell a bit. This is from Singapore, by the way. I assume geography makes a difference.
    - wildrhythms 2y ago
      The Tiktok search ranking does this for every query. There is no obvious rhyme or reason for the sort. There's a filter button to change how it's sorted, but by default I can never figure out what it's doing. I search for "retro pc": 1st result 47k views, 4 months ago 2nd result 457k views, 2 years ago 3rd result 9k views, 1 year ago 4th result 133k views, 1 year ago 5th result 1k views, 5 months ago Make it make sense!
jsutton 2y ago
Terrible take. You want the USA to follow the same policy on speech that Communist China follows?
ThalesX 2y ago
Have you been to China? I've been to China and had no problems using all the things you're mentioning with the help of a VPN. Was it as easy as in Europe? No. Did it feel like a ban? Also no.
- ironick09 2y ago
  Was it a ban? Also yes
  - ThalesX 2y ago
    Were the apps available on the App Store? Also yes.

themgt 2y ago

The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works great. I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.

j0ba 2y ago
Nonsense. A free and open system does not require foreign adversaries to be given free access to manipulate and control the population. That's not an open system, that's pure stupidity.
tristor 2y ago
> The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy: 1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the world certain things can be feasibly made. 2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which helped to drive their economic engine. 3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch. The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps information out of China that the government wants kept out of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.
- intrasight 2y ago
  > US companies started sending all their IP over to China That's how capitalism works. And it worked extremely well and to most everyone's benefit.
gretch 2y ago
We're copying china's tactics wrt CHINA specifically (and other foreign adversaries) This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the world Reciprocation is rational and good
falleng0d 2y ago
Sorry but reciprocation is not copying. This is basic game theory. A 'tit for a tat'.
23B1 2y ago
There's no irony in realpolitik.
- sudosysgen 2y ago
  The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism (indeed, in international relations, liberalism is antipodal to realism which is realpolitiks namesake), so the irony persists.
  - 23B1 2y ago
    That's... a fair point.
  - alickz 2y ago
    > The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism why do you believe so? i see no reason why rationalism and political pragmatism are mutually exclusive with liberalism. in fact to me it seems they complement each other well
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      Realpolitik and rationalism are not the same thing. Realpolitik is the idea that politics (esp. international politics) is ultimately dominated by power politics where each actor is trying to maximize their power and self-interest, and is generally an idea of the realist school of politics While that might arguably be compatible with liberalism within a society where there is a relatively benevolent monopoly of power imposing a certain number of rights and rules molding the self-interest of all in such a way as to be compatible with civilization, within the international system there is no monopoly of violence, and therefore norms and rights are contingent on countries not acting purely in their self-interest and therefore to maximize their power. Since modern liberalism is inherently internationalist (arguably since Woodrow Wilson, some called his approach to diplomacy "idealpolitik"), modern liberalism does have to reject realism as a school of thought. The debate between liberalism and realism as it pertains to international politics is the main topic of contention in international relations theory. More generally, you can also argue that liberalism assumes the good faith of powerful people not to destroy the liberal system to maximize their own power, but this is far easier to argue against in the domestic setting than in the international setting.
mjamesaustin 2y ago
Reciprocation is actually the policy more likely to get China to open up. As long as they can impose rules on US companies with impunity, while we stand back and give them free reign in our market, they have a zero likelihood of compromising.
janalsncm 2y ago
I don’t see this as reciprocation, I see it as a continuation of an existing policy that requires US media to be owned by Americans. I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.

hot_gril 2y ago

I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason. The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own reasons.

ZoomerCretin 2y ago
Yep. TikTok is the only major social media app in the US that does not downrank pro-Palestinian content. No one in the US government cared about TikTok until the latest conflict in Israel. This is the only reason for the ban.
- SeanAnderson 2y ago
  I thought Trump wanted TikTok banned when he was president?
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    Yes he did. Funny enough, he now criticizes this.
    - ngcc_hk 2y ago
      He is one of the best political game player. Look at immigration (he does not allow bipartisan law to smooth the issue out) and abortion (he enabled it but does not want this to be the matter during election year). Agree his policy might many of us not. But player great he is.
- oooyay 2y ago
  I'm having trouble squaring that with data, since the trends go back to 2020 and 2022: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=Tik%20tok%20ban&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

tonymet 2y ago

China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding ourselves to.

paxys 2y ago
Free trade and reciprocity agreements don't depend on a country's political leanings. You either play ball with the world or you don't. Can't have it both ways.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  > Can't have it both ways. You definitely can. International trade has never been a fair field, power balance will be the most impacting element in the deal you get.
  - paxys 2y ago
    And this is the US exerting its power (which it should have done a long time ago).
  - didjxhxhsvc 2y ago
    How can free trade be unfair?
    - makeitdouble 2y ago
      Please define "free trade". I think that's a concept that is thorny enough to merit a word on what we mean by that. I personally don't know what it actually points at (is there any "free trade" ever happening in real life ?), or my naive interpretation would be trade with absolutely no rules, but I assume that's not what you're pointing at.
notresidenter 2y ago
China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most capitalist country nowadays !

hackerlight 2y ago

> If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US. The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022. The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.

atleastoptimal 2y ago
what happened in Europe in 2022?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hackerlight 2y ago
  Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before this, the European polity were stuck in this "End of History" mindset where great power conflict was a relic from the past and everything could be solved through negotiation and institutions. The sooner laypeople realize we're in the Second Cold War (as the foreign policy types have) the less these kinds of moves (banning TikTok, restricting Nvidia exports to China) will come as a surprise, and you may even start to appreciate them.
mistermann 2y ago
> It's become a legitimate national security problem. What is the nature of the risk? > You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox

madeofpalk 2y ago

Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.

uejfiweun 2y ago
Give me a break... what, you'd rather just let said totalitarian government pump their propaganda into the US? This is a great example of following your moral principles right off the cliff.
- loteck 2y ago
  What makes you think the propaganda won't be pumped in if the US app is sold to a different company?
  - uejfiweun 2y ago
    If it's sold to a US company then it will be our intelligence agencies pumping the propaganda, not theirs. Which is an outcome I'm more amenable to, considering that our intelligence agencies generally have more of an interest in the stability of American society than the intelligence agencies of China.
    - madeofpalk 2y ago
      See also - Facebook is American owned, yet that never stopped assertions that it was used by foreign adversaries to pump their propaganda.
  - throw-the-towel 2y ago
    So if it's propaganda either way, then no loss will happen?
cscurmudgeon 2y ago
Tolerance shouldn’t tolerate intolerance.

SuperHeavy256 2y ago

Yes, you are missing something. Because you're seeing tiktok as a product, not as a community of millions of people. There are tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses that are only able to survive because of Tiktok. For a lot of the younger crowd, Tiktok is part of social culture. Cutting out a part of someone's life like that is not a decision that should be taken lightly at all. Peace.

VHRanger 2y ago
It's a community of millions of people, but which are seen by the millions is subject to the CCP's algorithm. Just search for "Uighur genocide" and see how many negative Tiktoks you find. Now go on any western social media platform, search for any contentious topic, and notice what's banned. It's not stuff that's harmful to the government (eg. Gaza/Israel topics) it's stuff that advertisers think is harmful (racism, unlabeled porn, etc.). Also, restraining from banning a platform because some people can't be arsed to also post to IG reels or other platforms is their own fault as entrepreneurs.
- nmfisher 2y ago
  Out of interest, I just tried this. "Uighur genocide" was the fifth auto-completed search result. In the "Top" tab, the first video was a (maybe Chinese) guy saying he never saw any discrimination against Uighurs and maybe Americans should ask about the Hawaiian cultural genocide. The video next to it was from (presumably) Uighur people saying that they were suffering cultural genocide and China was selling their organs. Below that was a snippet from Wikipedia saying that China had been committing cultural genocide against the Uighurs. The prominence of the Chinese guy "denying" the cultural genocide was interesting - I wouldn't assume he's a plant (it's equally likely he's just a rabid nationalist) but the placement of the video does strike me as a little odd. It had 300 likes, but rates higher than the second video which had 5000 likes? Does smell a bit. This is from Singapore, by the way. I assume geography makes a difference.
  - wildrhythms 2y ago
    The Tiktok search ranking does this for every query. There is no obvious rhyme or reason for the sort. There's a filter button to change how it's sorted, but by default I can never figure out what it's doing. I search for "retro pc": 1st result 47k views, 4 months ago 2nd result 457k views, 2 years ago 3rd result 9k views, 1 year ago 4th result 133k views, 1 year ago 5th result 1k views, 5 months ago Make it make sense!

jsutton 2y ago

Terrible take. You want the USA to follow the same policy on speech that Communist China follows?

ThalesX 2y ago

Have you been to China? I've been to China and had no problems using all the things you're mentioning with the help of a VPN. Was it as easy as in Europe? No. Did it feel like a ban? Also no.

ironick09 2y ago
Was it a ban? Also yes
- ThalesX 2y ago
  Were the apps available on the App Store? Also yes.