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I think one of my biggest frustrations with tech right now is how credulous they are with regard to China vs USA arguments. I see it on HN regularly. I am not

I think one of my biggest frustrations with tech right now is how credulous they are with regard to China vs USA arguments. I see it on HN regularly. I am not saying the China shock was fake, or state surveillance is fine, or that they don’t exploit migrant workers, or that their currency manipulation and financial repression were/are good. I just think we should be skeptical that national security arguments are motivated by virtue, especially when “the good” is largely confined to what’s good for USA tech

afavour 10mo ago
I don’t know. In a way I don’t think it matters if China are currently actively engaged in altering the opinions of Americans, what matters is whether they can. And an unknowable algorithm absolutely gives them the power to. IMO the bigger problem is that national security is only part of the problem. An unknowable algorithm controlled by the Ellisons is not necessarily less dangerous than one controlled by China, the motivations are just different.
- biophysboy 10mo ago
  Yes, and the counterfactual scenario (Ellison or anyone else) does not even preclude foreign manipulation. Other platforms demonstrate this daily
xp84 10mo ago
Regardless of where you stand on American politics, it is just plain bad for all Americans for China to advance its geopolitical ambitions. This is not a left versus right thing. China being unchallenged in the world will spell a quality of life decrease for us in the West. They are not “the good guys.” You’re free to see both parties as ‘neutral’ in alignment, but you still don’t want to have to be the losing party when they come into conflict. My point is China is not going to be sharing any of what they gain with Americans, even the ones who cheer for them - it’ll in fact be coming at your expense. The CPC having a direct feed into the brains of every Gen Z and younger American is trivially easy to exploit - and there is a 0% chance that they won’t do so next year when they will likely invade Taiwan. If China is in control of TikTok, they’ll boost a ton of propaganda, supposedly people “from Taiwan” who greet the PLA as liberators, explaining how Taiwan being independent is actually oppression, and how they’ve always considered themselves part of the PRC, only evil politicians were keeping them apart. And they’ll make sure to suppress all media that exposes the violence on the ground. Finally, they’ll boost content urging Americans to protest US involvement and to sabotage the military, such as by chaining themselves to ships, etc. Ryan McBeth has made a ton of videos laying out how this will work, and he does a better job than I have of explaining this. TikTok is a cyberweapon.
- azemetre 10mo ago
  I'd buy these arguments if America was a place that cared about its citizens and not a country that lets a small group of very elite, very rich, people ruin the lives of tens of millions of Americans subjecting them to poverty to make a buck. The last war China was involved with was 1979 compared to America, today mind you, that is on the cusp of invading Venezuela because Rubio has a moronic axe to grind. It's really hard to not see the facade for what it is: rich people are upset that their world order is collapsing. Frankly who care? Give me universal medicare, universal childcare, and public higher education then maybe, just maybe, I might start to care about all this stuff that only seems to make people lives worse not better.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - downrightmike 10mo ago
    China has used resources to buy alliances with developing countries, like pretty much all of Africa, which they leveraged at the UN to have the communist party recognized. Sadly you have to start caring for things to get better first.
    - azemetre 10mo ago
      America has used this same time period to sell out jobs to the lowest bidder, decimate its manufacturing industry to make a quick buck, is willing to sell "critical" tech to "enemies" to make a buck, make billions off of profiting from people's misery. Why am I suppose to care that people in Africa are pushing for better worker rights and decolonialization? Because the executives as Nestle might make slightly lower money? That big tech can't extract more blood minerals? Boo hoo, it's not like this has ever benefited American citizens writ large. Also the UN is worthless, if this is suppose to scare people you might lose your hat come election night in 2026.
      - b3ing 10mo ago
        The companies sold out the jobs, not our government, but it hasn’t done much but make us keep blaming the poor or “colored” folks.
ch2026 10mo ago
> or state surveillance is fine, or that they don’t exploit migrant workers, or that their currency manipulation and financial repression were/are good. can you clarify if you’re talking about China or the US?
- biophysboy 10mo ago
  Heh, good point. I would say the internal migration of Chinese Foxconn workers is a bit different from our situation. But there are parallels
  - spencerflem 10mo ago
    Have you seen what ICE is up to?
    - biophysboy 10mo ago
      Yes it is extremely evil. I was just saying domestic migration is a different thing than cross border migration. Different kind of exploitation, different kind of scapegoating
a456463 10mo ago
Regardless of country, citizenship, "national security" arguments are always bad faith if pushed by the relevant "nation state"
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
dfxm12 10mo ago
Make no mistake this isn't about protecting US citizens, it's about consolidating power around conservative billionaires. It's not just limited to Tech. The Ellison family are media moguls. The Ellisons just want to gain more power, whether we're talking money or the ability to manufacture consent. They bought this opportunity from Trump: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/09/oracle-invested-millions-in-government-influence-before-winning-a-major-stake-in-tiktok/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/09/oracle-invested-mil...
xnx 10mo ago
Yes. Equally/more likely that Instagram/YouTube are embarrassed and mad at how swiftly TikTok came in and made a much better and more popular product.
- Flatterer3544 10mo ago
  They built upon a French product, every change in the French product was adopted by a copycat (app by tiktok creator). Every attempt to ban the copycat app on Google store by the French was useless, since a new copycat app would pop up the next second. So it's not like tiktok is some new innovation. What they did is still amazing, but malevolent, but credit where credit is due.
  - xnx 10mo ago
    Wow, I'd never heard this. What French product?
    - Flatterer3544 10mo ago
      The french product was called Mindie, the start of endless short videos with music, the reels, and the copycat was chinese musical.ly (later bought up by Bytedance). Mindie failed because they got attacked by copyright claims by the big US tech, which obviously the chinese copycat was immune to, since China.
      - xnx 10mo ago
        Interesting. I wonder if any of the Musical.ly creators ever saw Mindie. https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/16/from-a-failing-product-to-a-successful-video-sharing-app-mindie-raises-1-2-million/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/16/from-a-failing-product-to-...
      - throw4r56u3e 10mo ago
        This sounds like revisionist history.

afavour 10mo ago

I don’t know. In a way I don’t think it matters if China are currently actively engaged in altering the opinions of Americans, what matters is whether they can. And an unknowable algorithm absolutely gives them the power to. IMO the bigger problem is that national security is only part of the problem. An unknowable algorithm controlled by the Ellisons is not necessarily less dangerous than one controlled by China, the motivations are just different.

biophysboy 10mo ago
Yes, and the counterfactual scenario (Ellison or anyone else) does not even preclude foreign manipulation. Other platforms demonstrate this daily

xp84 10mo ago

Regardless of where you stand on American politics, it is just plain bad for all Americans for China to advance its geopolitical ambitions. This is not a left versus right thing. China being unchallenged in the world will spell a quality of life decrease for us in the West. They are not “the good guys.” You’re free to see both parties as ‘neutral’ in alignment, but you still don’t want to have to be the losing party when they come into conflict. My point is China is not going to be sharing any of what they gain with Americans, even the ones who cheer for them - it’ll in fact be coming at your expense. The CPC having a direct feed into the brains of every Gen Z and younger American is trivially easy to exploit - and there is a 0% chance that they won’t do so next year when they will likely invade Taiwan. If China is in control of TikTok, they’ll boost a ton of propaganda, supposedly people “from Taiwan” who greet the PLA as liberators, explaining how Taiwan being independent is actually oppression, and how they’ve always considered themselves part of the PRC, only evil politicians were keeping them apart. And they’ll make sure to suppress all media that exposes the violence on the ground. Finally, they’ll boost content urging Americans to protest US involvement and to sabotage the military, such as by chaining themselves to ships, etc. Ryan McBeth has made a ton of videos laying out how this will work, and he does a better job than I have of explaining this. TikTok is a cyberweapon.

azemetre 10mo ago
I'd buy these arguments if America was a place that cared about its citizens and not a country that lets a small group of very elite, very rich, people ruin the lives of tens of millions of Americans subjecting them to poverty to make a buck. The last war China was involved with was 1979 compared to America, today mind you, that is on the cusp of invading Venezuela because Rubio has a moronic axe to grind. It's really hard to not see the facade for what it is: rich people are upset that their world order is collapsing. Frankly who care? Give me universal medicare, universal childcare, and public higher education then maybe, just maybe, I might start to care about all this stuff that only seems to make people lives worse not better.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- downrightmike 10mo ago
  China has used resources to buy alliances with developing countries, like pretty much all of Africa, which they leveraged at the UN to have the communist party recognized. Sadly you have to start caring for things to get better first.
  - azemetre 10mo ago
    America has used this same time period to sell out jobs to the lowest bidder, decimate its manufacturing industry to make a quick buck, is willing to sell "critical" tech to "enemies" to make a buck, make billions off of profiting from people's misery. Why am I suppose to care that people in Africa are pushing for better worker rights and decolonialization? Because the executives as Nestle might make slightly lower money? That big tech can't extract more blood minerals? Boo hoo, it's not like this has ever benefited American citizens writ large. Also the UN is worthless, if this is suppose to scare people you might lose your hat come election night in 2026.
    - b3ing 10mo ago
      The companies sold out the jobs, not our government, but it hasn’t done much but make us keep blaming the poor or “colored” folks.

ch2026 10mo ago

> or state surveillance is fine, or that they don’t exploit migrant workers, or that their currency manipulation and financial repression were/are good. can you clarify if you’re talking about China or the US?

biophysboy 10mo ago
Heh, good point. I would say the internal migration of Chinese Foxconn workers is a bit different from our situation. But there are parallels
- spencerflem 10mo ago
  Have you seen what ICE is up to?
  - biophysboy 10mo ago
    Yes it is extremely evil. I was just saying domestic migration is a different thing than cross border migration. Different kind of exploitation, different kind of scapegoating

a456463 10mo ago

Regardless of country, citizenship, "national security" arguments are always bad faith if pushed by the relevant "nation state"

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

dfxm12 10mo ago

Make no mistake this isn't about protecting US citizens, it's about consolidating power around conservative billionaires. It's not just limited to Tech. The Ellison family are media moguls. The Ellisons just want to gain more power, whether we're talking money or the ability to manufacture consent. They bought this opportunity from Trump: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/09/oracle-invested-millions-in-government-influence-before-winning-a-major-stake-in-tiktok/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/09/oracle-invested-mil...

xnx 10mo ago

Yes. Equally/more likely that Instagram/YouTube are embarrassed and mad at how swiftly TikTok came in and made a much better and more popular product.

Flatterer3544 10mo ago
They built upon a French product, every change in the French product was adopted by a copycat (app by tiktok creator). Every attempt to ban the copycat app on Google store by the French was useless, since a new copycat app would pop up the next second. So it's not like tiktok is some new innovation. What they did is still amazing, but malevolent, but credit where credit is due.
- xnx 10mo ago
  Wow, I'd never heard this. What French product?
  - Flatterer3544 10mo ago
    The french product was called Mindie, the start of endless short videos with music, the reels, and the copycat was chinese musical.ly (later bought up by Bytedance). Mindie failed because they got attacked by copyright claims by the big US tech, which obviously the chinese copycat was immune to, since China.
    - xnx 10mo ago
      Interesting. I wonder if any of the Musical.ly creators ever saw Mindie. https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/16/from-a-failing-product-to-a-successful-video-sharing-app-mindie-raises-1-2-million/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/16/from-a-failing-product-to-...
    - throw4r56u3e 10mo ago
      This sounds like revisionist history.