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Comment by Para2016 | Hacker News Reader

Para2016

I'll take the troll bait. So if the US military does it then it's perfectly fine?

No, but the narrative being pushed is that China is creepy and authoritarian for using the same tech and doing the same things everyone else is.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems every day similar articles are hitting HN’s front pages .

One significant/important difference between the US and China is you likely won't be able to criticize the program in one country vs. the other.

You can only criticize it, if you're made aware that it's happening. There are cities in the US that have deployed facial recognition technologies without anybody except the mayor (and police) knowing. Not even the city counsel knew. Most of the US was not aware to the extend that they were/are being monitored until Snowden revealed it.

> Predictive policing technology has proven highly controversial wherever it is implemented, but in New Orleans, the program escaped public notice, partly because Palantir established it as a philanthropic relationship with the city through Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s signature NOLA For Life program. Thanks to its philanthropic status, as well as New Orleans’ “strong mayor” model of government, the agreement never passed through a public procurement process.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

The local chapter of the ACLU is in an office building across the street from City Hall in New Orleans. I think it's fair to say nothing comperable is the case in any major Chinese city.

> "using the same tech and doing the same things"

This post on HN would then be a great place to post links supporting that thesis.

There's really two ways that can be read.

One is "in China it's a dystopia, watch out and see how it happens because it could happen here". The other is "in China it's a dystopia, not here. Our bird-cameras are blueish-grey, not greyish-blue".

The second-order reaction is to watch out for people who exaggerate the small differences.

Facial recognition to identify passengers on public transit or anyone caught on a police officer’s body camera is mentioned in the article. Everyone else is not doing that. Everyone else does not have concentration camps and re-education facilities for Muslims and other rural cultures in mainland China. You are delusional to suggest that China is a victim of the free press. It’s the other way around.

> Everyone else is not doing that.

The US is. Let's not pretend that it's not happening, or try to justify it because a "good" gov't is doing it vs a "bad" one. Freedom, and rights, are becoming more and more of an illusion. For some reason, we've become conditioned to think it's only bad when the other guy is doing it and we're justified, somehow. It's wrong, period, and the outcome will not justify the means. It never does.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/22/amazon-is-selling-facial-...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

https://theintercept.com/2018/05/11/predictive-policing-surv...

https://www.apnews.com/b11e4bca11e548d3af7a63f24e348c6f

UK has been doing the same thing for the last 10 years...

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/face-recognition-police-uk-s...

Your ability to be blind to a challenge to your convictions is impressive in its own way.

Personal attacks, such as you posted here and in your comment upthread, are not allowed on HN and will get you banned here. Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome either.

Please edit these things out of your posts to HN and follow the site guidelines, even when someone else is breaking them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My attack was neither personal nor "nationalistic". It is against the HN guidelines to respond to comments that you find inappropriate:

> Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

What conviction? China is an authoritarian state, I’m not disputing that at all. My only conviction is that these articles are upvoted based on anti-Chinese sentiment, not on any real basis for learning something. Especially considering tech like drones and facial recognition aren’t being used by China any differently than how other countries like US, UK, etc. use them.

The US, UK and other countries are using facial recognition to round up and re-educate ethnic groups? You have invented a lie of convenience and sold it to yourself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-m...

Is the U.S. military turning this technology against its own citizens.

The US military from what I've seen takes Posse Commitatus fairly seriously.

Even the Director of the NSA will tell you that!

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