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The WTO allows China to ban American social networks - which would otherwise be required to be allowed under its general principle of parity - because of its "p

by benced 2y ago

The WTO allows China to ban American social networks - which would otherwise be required to be allowed under its general principle of parity - because of its "public morals" exception (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/g4_e.htm#G.4.2 https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/g4_...). I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.
- vitorgrs 2y ago
  And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well. That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have. If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.
- dluan 2y ago
  in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does
  - nmfisher 2y ago
    That was the case when I was living there, but I've read a lot of people saying that VPNs aren't nearly as effective any more.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      I was never good at VPNs. We would find one that worked, they wanted a one year subscription up front and...then they would stop working. I assume most VPNs in China are just a scam to make some shady money. Who are you going to complain to, the Chinese government?
      - insane_dreamer 2y ago
        China would try to block them so you had to find new alternatives. I used one for years that stayed up, but yes it was often frustratingly slow. You had to really make an effort, and most people aren't going to do that, and then there's the language barrier.
    - chrischen 2y ago
      My experiences before was that they were doing some machine learning to detect my socks proxy and slow it down eventually. Last visit I went to China a few months ago I found my Wireguard VPN running at full speed. Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.
  - Aunche 2y ago
    Every Chinese person a Westerner may talk to has a VPN, but you can't compete with Chinese-owned social media without the other 90% of the population. Also, China has been very aggressive with VPN throttling and random outages, since the pandemic.
    - dluan 2y ago
      depends on time and place. its true that now there is less dependence on foreign internet and you can now be fully decoupled from english internet with the number of domestic apps. most people only use a VPN now just to access email (e.g. gmail, university), if they even need to at all. and yeah, if youre in beijing during a congress, then VPNs will be slow. but its trivial to set up and use a VPN, even my 88 year old grandma has one.
- jeremyjh 2y ago
  So...what? We know they've disabled it and they know we know. We can just call it a ban.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Perhaps the GFOC must officially support an app via allowlisting, so that it's banned unless it's allowed by inaction, which is effectively the same thing. Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access. I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    VPNs are unreliable and frustrating to use. They were never really solution for anyone I knew while living in China, especially for 4K video
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      Ouch. When I was there last 20-some years ago, high-speed interest was just becoming a thing and internet cafes were everywhere. Getting access to the outside world then was also a pain. For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers? Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.
      - insane_dreamer 2y ago
        > China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.
        hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
- benced 2y ago
  This is unfortunately a common tactic of the Chinese government (see their recent dealings with Lithuania). I do not believe a trade barrier not being explicitly stated is a barrier to bringing a WTO case though.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  They could operate there if they submitted themselves to Chinese government censorship (aka "local laws"). Google pulled out because it refused to. Facebook really wanted to (Zuck even made a trip there to talk to Chinese officials) but ultimately decided (correctly) that doing so would greatly hurt it in the US/Europe. Same for Twitter (pre-Elon).
  - thanksgiving 2y ago
    No, it should just work. I can understand having to abide by China PR laws if you have actual money transactions on the mainland but if all my customers are outside China PR and all I'm doing is making my website available to the people in China PR assuming I'm not breaking any laws, my website should be available to users in China PR. I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that? But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      You can still be breaking “public safety” and “consumer protection” laws if the CCP doesn’t like your content.
    - connicpu 2y ago
      If all you do is open your website to china and don't perform any transactions in the country you're gonna have a hell of a time with your business model. All of these websites rely on advertisers to make money.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      China isn't a rule of law country, they admit that they don't even aspire to be a rule of law country, calling it an imperialistic western ideal not compatible with eastern culture. There is no way your expectation can be satisfied.
      - 2y ago
- a_random_canuck 2y ago
  “Officially” is meaningless here. The blocking exists, and it is at the direction or under the control of their government. They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck. This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.
  - b112 2y ago
    Indeed. And this solidifies their control, because anything may be illegal at any moment.
- ngcc_hk 2y ago
  That is as silly as argument as it is. We know what the game china played and it is not because of technology. Really someone can “hack” the technology. But if one pretend to sleep, you cannot wake them up easily.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawayq3423 2y ago
  I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law". The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    The laws don’t exist. China has a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc…so actually writing a law that censors the internet isn’t very feasible. The official class just controls the courts (no judicial review allowed) so can do whatever.
    - throwawayq3423 2y ago
      Isn't that a distinction without a difference? If the constitution isn't upheld by rule of law, what does it matter what is says?
- chottocharaii 2y ago
  These kinds of comments are legally ignorant. I’m always taken aback by these kinds of “but actually” comments on HN that ‘correct’ another user without any regard to how the law would be applied.
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    I read the persons comment differently: reading between the lines I see them saying that the Chinese government finds other ways to work around the rules in bad faith.
- jdjshdvegj 2y ago
  Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.
- deviantbit 2y ago
  You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network. One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.
  - basch 2y ago
    I don’t have a no YouTube and Roblox policy at my house. However, mysteriously they usually arent working. It’s a lot less contentious that way
  - raincole 2y ago
    You didn't read the parent comment right then. Let me paraphrase it: Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working. They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.
    - deviantbit 2y ago
      I don't remember if they announced it or not. I've been there a total of 4 times over the past 15 years. There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime. Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it. There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available. Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave. This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form. She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on. I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- troll_v_bridge 2y ago
  From facebooks perspective it’s always been official
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end. The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them. When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.
- robot_no_421 2y ago
  This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted websites and drink whatever propaganda you want. You just can't use TikTok to find it anymore. Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet. Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.
  - bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
    Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore. The distinction you make isn't going to convince any one.
    - starfallg 2y ago
      Nothing you can't do before has been affected, given that you were never able to post anything on TikTok that would be seen in China. It is not accessible in China, as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.
ken47 2y ago
It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
coin 2y ago
Furthermore, TikTok itself is banned in China. The counterpart in China is Douyin, which has limitation for minors, like mandatory STEM videos and limited hours during school days.

by benced 2y ago

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.

vitorgrs 2y ago
And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.
- tivert 2y ago
  > And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well. That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have. If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.
dluan 2y ago
in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does
- nmfisher 2y ago
  That was the case when I was living there, but I've read a lot of people saying that VPNs aren't nearly as effective any more.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    I was never good at VPNs. We would find one that worked, they wanted a one year subscription up front and...then they would stop working. I assume most VPNs in China are just a scam to make some shady money. Who are you going to complain to, the Chinese government?
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      China would try to block them so you had to find new alternatives. I used one for years that stayed up, but yes it was often frustratingly slow. You had to really make an effort, and most people aren't going to do that, and then there's the language barrier.
  - chrischen 2y ago
    My experiences before was that they were doing some machine learning to detect my socks proxy and slow it down eventually. Last visit I went to China a few months ago I found my Wireguard VPN running at full speed. Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.
- Aunche 2y ago
  Every Chinese person a Westerner may talk to has a VPN, but you can't compete with Chinese-owned social media without the other 90% of the population. Also, China has been very aggressive with VPN throttling and random outages, since the pandemic.
  - dluan 2y ago
    depends on time and place. its true that now there is less dependence on foreign internet and you can now be fully decoupled from english internet with the number of domestic apps. most people only use a VPN now just to access email (e.g. gmail, university), if they even need to at all. and yeah, if youre in beijing during a congress, then VPNs will be slow. but its trivial to set up and use a VPN, even my 88 year old grandma has one.
jeremyjh 2y ago
So...what? We know they've disabled it and they know we know. We can just call it a ban.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Perhaps the GFOC must officially support an app via allowlisting, so that it's banned unless it's allowed by inaction, which is effectively the same thing. Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access. I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  VPNs are unreliable and frustrating to use. They were never really solution for anyone I knew while living in China, especially for 4K video
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Ouch. When I was there last 20-some years ago, high-speed interest was just becoming a thing and internet cafes were everywhere. Getting access to the outside world then was also a pain. For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers? Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      > China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.
      - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
benced 2y ago
This is unfortunately a common tactic of the Chinese government (see their recent dealings with Lithuania). I do not believe a trade barrier not being explicitly stated is a barrier to bringing a WTO case though.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
They could operate there if they submitted themselves to Chinese government censorship (aka "local laws"). Google pulled out because it refused to. Facebook really wanted to (Zuck even made a trip there to talk to Chinese officials) but ultimately decided (correctly) that doing so would greatly hurt it in the US/Europe. Same for Twitter (pre-Elon).
- thanksgiving 2y ago
  No, it should just work. I can understand having to abide by China PR laws if you have actual money transactions on the mainland but if all my customers are outside China PR and all I'm doing is making my website available to the people in China PR assuming I'm not breaking any laws, my website should be available to users in China PR. I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that? But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    You can still be breaking “public safety” and “consumer protection” laws if the CCP doesn’t like your content.
  - connicpu 2y ago
    If all you do is open your website to china and don't perform any transactions in the country you're gonna have a hell of a time with your business model. All of these websites rely on advertisers to make money.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    China isn't a rule of law country, they admit that they don't even aspire to be a rule of law country, calling it an imperialistic western ideal not compatible with eastern culture. There is no way your expectation can be satisfied.
    - 2y ago
a_random_canuck 2y ago
“Officially” is meaningless here. The blocking exists, and it is at the direction or under the control of their government. They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck. This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.
- b112 2y ago
  Indeed. And this solidifies their control, because anything may be illegal at any moment.
ngcc_hk 2y ago
That is as silly as argument as it is. We know what the game china played and it is not because of technology. Really someone can “hack” the technology. But if one pretend to sleep, you cannot wake them up easily.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwawayq3423 2y ago
I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law". The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  The laws don’t exist. China has a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc…so actually writing a law that censors the internet isn’t very feasible. The official class just controls the courts (no judicial review allowed) so can do whatever.
  - throwawayq3423 2y ago
    Isn't that a distinction without a difference? If the constitution isn't upheld by rule of law, what does it matter what is says?
chottocharaii 2y ago
These kinds of comments are legally ignorant. I’m always taken aback by these kinds of “but actually” comments on HN that ‘correct’ another user without any regard to how the law would be applied.
- andsoitis 2y ago
  I read the persons comment differently: reading between the lines I see them saying that the Chinese government finds other ways to work around the rules in bad faith.
jdjshdvegj 2y ago
Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.
deviantbit 2y ago
You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network. One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.
- basch 2y ago
  I don’t have a no YouTube and Roblox policy at my house. However, mysteriously they usually arent working. It’s a lot less contentious that way
- raincole 2y ago
  You didn't read the parent comment right then. Let me paraphrase it: Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working. They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.
  - deviantbit 2y ago
    I don't remember if they announced it or not. I've been there a total of 4 times over the past 15 years. There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime. Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it. There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available. Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave. This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form. She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on. I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
troll_v_bridge 2y ago
From facebooks perspective it’s always been official

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bdd8f1df777b 2y ago

The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end. The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them. When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.

robot_no_421 2y ago
This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted websites and drink whatever propaganda you want. You just can't use TikTok to find it anymore. Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet. Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.
- bdd8f1df777b 2y ago
  Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore. The distinction you make isn't going to convince any one.
  - starfallg 2y ago
    Nothing you can't do before has been affected, given that you were never able to post anything on TikTok that would be seen in China. It is not accessible in China, as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.

ken47 2y ago

It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

coin 2y ago

Furthermore, TikTok itself is banned in China. The counterpart in China is Douyin, which has limitation for minors, like mandatory STEM videos and limited hours during school days.