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Agreed. All this fearmongering about telegram and tiktok is weird. China can decide what it wants from me- I have no plans to visit or engage with regime; how
by dijit 2y ago
Agreed.
All this fearmongering about telegram and tiktok is weird.
China can decide what it wants from me- I have no plans to visit or engage with regime; however my life is dependent on the US not thinking of me as interesting.
So, the less I give to US companies, the better.
Especially as, being a non-US citizen I have no right to privacy afforded to me in the constitution, and US companies can be forced to comply with the government in secret- much in the same way we consider that China does it to even part-owned China based companies.
- sfink 2y ago> Especially as, being a non-US citizen I have no right to privacy afforded to me in the constitution Say what? Ok, there is no explicit "right to privacy" anywhere in the US Constitution, but that applies equally to citizens and non-citizens. Whatever is in the Constitution applies to everyone regardless of citizenship, with only a few exceptions. And those exceptions don't have much to do with anything you might refer to as privacy. (They're about whether state governments can mess with you. And were I a non-citizen, it's the states that I would be worried about, given that many of them are actively trying to make things harder for non-citizens.) Unreasonable search and seizure, in particular, applies to everyone. The courts have repeatedly affirmed this. Unless you're talking about non-citizens outside US borders, or crossing them? That's much murkier.
- ruraljuror 2y agoThe concern over tiktok is not that Xi’s autocratic regime is surveilling you, but manipulating the algorithms in its large social media market share to foment anti-American (& anti-Israeli) sentiment.
- whatnotests2 2y agoIsreal is doing just fine, drumming up dissent, based on it's behavior alone.
- ilbeeper 2y agoRight. That, and a few hundred million petrodollars
- tracerbulletx 2y agoRussia seems totally capable of doing that just by paying people and using bots.
- ruraljuror 2y agoNo. Not at the scale of Tiktok.
- Sabinus 2y agoIndeed, but that doesn't mean you should expose the youth more to belligerent foreign controlled agitprop information channels.
- roenxi 2y agoWhat is the real risk here? The only thing they can really do is make the case that if China invades Taiwan then the US shouldn't get involved. There problem is they might well be right; if I compare Hong Kong and Ukraine, I'd expect Taiwan would be better off going with the HK model of an "invasion" rather than fighting an actual war with the world's #2 or arguably #1 economy. So I'm not sure what the case is for quelling the message; there are some important issues there to debate. Even if we start with the questionable idea that the US has the moral and physical might to be deciding where the borders are drawn in Asia; it isn't obvious that TikTok would be influential enough to matter. The military-industrial complex lobbyists in the US have a lot of actual power in pushing for war and experience in getting messages to the public.
- _djo_ 2y agoThey may well be right that the people of Taiwan, a country with a democratically elected government, should just lie down and accept a complete and undemocratic Chinese takeover of their country? All because China is saying: "Either you submit to us completely voluntarily, or you submit by force, but you will submit"? That's imperialism.
- roenxi 2y ago
- Woshiwuja 2y ago[flagged]
- voltaireodactyl 2y agoArguable in general, but certainly not if you’re the American government, which is what is being discussed here.
- immibis 2y agoIsn't Israel doing enough to foment anti-Israeli sentiment anyway?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt feels like they're spending more on pro-israel sentiments, and have for decades. A biblical quote about a beam in one's eye comes to mind whenever people go "but china!".
- olalonde 2y agoI'm not sure why influence should be illegal. What about books and movies? Or even schools and universities? American schools are probably the greatest source of anti-American / anti-Israel sentiment in the country. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXm-NYyWEAA1jNs?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXm-NYyWEAA1jNs?format=jpg&name=... If you believe in freedom of speech, you should also accept that people, including foreign people, may try to influence you. China doesn't believe in freedom of speech so they censor foreign sources of influence. Does America really want to go down that path?
- lukan 2y agoBooks are quite static. But dynamic algorithms, targeting exactly you, knowing what mood you have in that moment (by analyzing what you have looked at, liked, disliked), what opinions you have etc. opens up a whole different world of influence possibilities amd I think those possibilities are just starting to get explored with AI. The data is already there.
- hcfman 2y agoThe Netherlands also doesn’t believe in freedom of speech.
- olalonde 2y agoMany countries don't.
- talldayo 2y ago> American schools are probably the greatest source of anti-American / anti-Israel sentiment in the country. Damn the education system, and it's penchant for teaching the history of colonialism instead of a revisionist policy. What's next, after Mandatory Palestine we'll teach our children about the Civil War and slavery too? What an anti-America sentiment, clearly we need our conservative lawmakers to... I dunno, rewrite history for both countries? Teach feel-good cookie recipes instead of international politics? As long as America has anti-BDS laws there won't be any freedom of speech in the first place. Our first amendment rights are currently being suspended by international lobbyists that can't handle their share of due criticism. A shame, considering the US does so well to educate others on it's own embarrassing history, but is threatened with a lawsuit when anyone tries to meaningfully criticize Israel.
- lupusreal 2y agoMy concern with tiktok is that it rots your brain like television, but far more effectively because it's rapid fire content constantly tuned to the individual user to keep them hooked on it. It's an instant gratification machine, effectively a drug, that fries people's attention spans. It has people spending hours a day consuming vapid short-form nonsense, and alters their psyche to make them less effective in other endeavors even when they aren't distracted by the app (particularly school, since it hits children particularly hard.) The medium is the message.
- tiansuyu 2y agoYou dont need Tiktok to generate anti-American sentiments. Just read any news online will do enough harm.
- dghlsakjg 2y agoThe constitution does not exclusively apply to US citizens is the good news. The bad news is that there is no explicit and broad right to privacy in the constitution. You are protected by the fourth amendment requiring a warrant for searches and seizures, but the court has ruled that, citizen or not, if a third party like Meta willingly hands over your info, it’s fair game. L
- tiansu_yu 2y agoJFK asks to take a photo of you when leaving US. Only US citizens can object that based on privacy. Thats the moment you know, as a foreigner, you have no privacy in this country. And honestly, I would not expect America to care for that.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago> So, the less I give to US companies, the better. and all of a sudden, you're interesting.
- talldayo 2y agoYou shouldn't be downvoted, the whole industry ought to know by now that Palantir aggregates multiple international sources of data for sale to American defense agencies. If you're legitimately afraid of America, the internet has few places of refuge.
- nindalf 2y ago> my life is dependent on the US not thinking of me as interesting Why do people engage in this sort of larping, like they're secret agents or intellectuals that may be hunted at any moment by the grey suits in western governments? We know it's not true for this person in particular because one click on their HN profile tells you their real name. I stopped there, but I'm sure there is plenty of additional info available with 3-4 more clicks. If they were really so afraid of government reprisal like this larping suggests, maybe they'd attempt to be at least a little pseudo-anonymous. The actual fact is that 99.9999999999% of us are boring and will remain boring no matter what kind of comments we write on HN. It wouldn't hurt to touch grass once in a while.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> China can decide what it wants from me- I have no plans to visit or engage with regime; however my life is dependent on the US not thinking of me as interesting If you have something of interest to Beijing and you’re doing something shameful or illegal in America, and they have evidence, they have leverage. This is human asset development 101. Most people don’t have skills or information relevant to a foreign state. But some do, and for them being mindful about not giving a foreign adversary blackmail leverage is prudent.
- cryptonector 2y ago"You have no privacy, get used to it!" -Scott McNealy Scott was not saying "you should have no privacy"; he was making a statement of fact. That was nearly two decades ago, and he was prescient and right.
- babkayaga 2y agocleber. but china can blackmail you into working for them. you will have no recourse if it does.
- dijit 2y agoBlackmail me how? By giving information to the people who would have had it otherwise? Hardly a defensible position to blackmail someone from.
- pvaldes 2y agoAnybody that has lots of videos from you could train a deep fake realistic model and create a fake video depicting you committing a major crime. Sadly blackmail is the easier part.
- dijit 2y agoI am failing to understand why I would prefer the US to have the ability to do this over China though.
- pvaldes 2y agoThis depends on if you can vote to change the presidents of US or China or not.
- dijit 2y agoI can do neither.. that's kinda my point. I have super powers on both sides, one can influence the policies and politics of my country much stronger than the other[0]. Why would I choose that side, they don't give me more rights and they don't give me any capacity to complain. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15920618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15920618