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Comment by nknealk | Hacker News Reader

I highly recommend folks listen to recent episodes of Ben Thompson’s exponent podcast where he discusses TikTok and its influence in the USA.

He makes the point that US consumers become subject to Chinese censorship policies when using the platform while China outright bans or heavily restricts American companies from operating (eg google search, Facebook).

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US consumers become subject to Chinese censorship policies under services, media, and entertainment provided by US companies too.

The same is said for non-US consumers, who consume US-made media (Which is consumed world-wide, and has in many places, displaced local media.)

While the US doesn't hard censor media like China, I'd agree there is something of a soft censorship/ignoring of many topics. And, if you think about US based hard restraints, there are certainly onerous restrictions with rules attached to financial services imposed by the US into foreign nations.

The censorship is completely different though, if you want to write "Fuck Donald Trump", or give a detailed account of his crimes on a US platform, it will not be censored. Try the same in a Chinese owned platform about f.ex. something as obvious as Tianmen.

There are some things such as porn that is censored in many areas.

It is certainly different, that's why I was drawing a distinction between hard and soft censorship. No hard censorship in the US, but the soft censorship is maybe more pervasive then you first realize. E.g. I think of the MPAA as a form of soft censorship, and one whose rating system was constrained at times by fairly conservative groups. Are there ways around it, yes, especially today, but not not as much historically. Major media coverage in the US also practices a soft censorship of attention and depth of coverage of certain topics too.

In America speech is censored by American private companies all the time. Racial or anti-semitic speech is often censored thanks for pressure from civil rights groups (i.e. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-bans-white-n...) and from lawsuits (i.e. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47705904)

Twitter has even begun censoring political speech from public figures: "Twitter will now hide — but not remove — harmful tweets from public figures" (https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/27/18761132/twitter-donald-t...)

It is not reasonable compare a company choosing not to host content that hurts marginalized people, with a company being forced not to host content critical of the most powerful people.

I think there's a pretty wide gulf between that and government-enforced censorship, to the point that comparing the two seems a bit disingenuous.

"Twitter has even begun censoring political speech from public figures"

"The FBI will require Twitter to censor political speech from public figures"

I think those two scenarios are eons apart.

It is also disingenuous to refer to hate speech that breaks Twitter's rules as "political speech".

I disagree; I'd even say this is a peculiar blind spot in US political culture. Practically, it's probably easier to have a similar life in a non-US country than to have a similar life while avoiding these big platforms. Yes theoretically the US government has the ability to use violence against you while Twitter doesn't, but that doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the practical impact - people are more worried about the government ruining their livelihood than locking them up, and that's something that Twitter can do just as well.

American private companies aren't forced to censor these things by the government, they are leveraging their own freedom to operate their business with respect to their own prerogatives.

And when these private companies become large enough they become the de-facto public forum.

Why? So what?

> So what?

The eighteenth-century ideal of free speech in a public forum has now become de-facto mediated by private companies acting in their own interest. Some may believe in free speech more rigorously than others (say Reddit, as compared to Facebook). The fact that the government cannot censor speech matters less and less nowadays, given how much speech now passes through private companies' control.

And private companies want their taxes and regulations cut.

> free speech in a public forum has now become de-facto mediated by private companies acting in their own interest

This statement is misleading. Some public internet forums owned by large corporations are mediated by companies acting in their own interest. Nobody is required to use those forums and many alternative forums exist, other individuals or firms are also able to create their own online public forums subject to whatever speech standards they consider ideal.

> The fact that the government cannot censor speech matters less and less nowadays, given how much speech now passes through private companies' controls

This is not true. The fact that government cannot censor speech is as critically important today as it ever was. It doesn't matter that a lot of speech passes through private companies because that is a free choice made by individuals who voluntarily push their speech through those companies and are free to take their speech elsewhere if they desire. Additionally, censorship or moderation is sometimes a desirable feature of a social media product because unbridled free-speech is sometimes abused in a way that is antithetical to the user experience and thus to business prerogatives.

You're being disingenuous. Your assertions apply in some narrow senses, but are seemingly inapplicable to the overall situation. For most of society, webcrapps are currently the de facto town square. A clique of companies has obtained the position of censoring the vast majority of interpersonal speech, period.

But sure, there are practical angles in the US where, for example, if we could shift the popular focus to Free software, We could regain society's Freedom of Speech. Perhaps you're focused on the technicalities because you're trying to work towards that - but talk constructively rather than dismissively. It helps nobody to push a stubborn idea that there is some strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500. Whether the political bureaucracy controls corporations or corporations control bureaucracy, it's all government.

> For most of society, webcrapps are currently the de facto town square

They're not public squares though, they're privately owned webservers, they don't become nationalized just because they're popular. That's like saying the dive-bar in your local town is the de-facto town-square because everyone meets there after work. Those individuals made the free choice to interact in a privately owned establishment thus they are subject to the rules of that establishment, if they don't like the rules they are free to go to another establishment with more favorable rules.

> A clique of companies is now in the position of censoring the vast majority of interpersonal speech, period.

100% false. They are within their rights to refuse to rebroadcast content you upload to the servers they own, but they cannot prevent you from rebroadcasting your content anywhere else.

> We could regain society's Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech existed before Facebook and Twitter, so your suggestion that their business practices have caused free speech to go away is incorrect.

> So perhaps you're focused on the technicality because you want to work towards that - and please do! But state it constructively rather than dismissively. It helps nobody to perpetuate a stubborn idea that there is some kind of strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500

This is pretty hilarious. You're suggesting I self-censor the "technical" truth in favor of your editorialized version of the truth because "it helps nobody to perpetuate a stubborn idea that there is some kind of strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500"... even though there is a very obvious "strict distinction" between the government using the threat of force to censor speech vs a private company operating a platform they own and pay for.

> Whether the political bureaucracy controls corporations or corporations control bureaucracy, it's all government.

So are you saying you want to ban corporate lobbying or that we should nationalize large influential corporations so that we can ensure they function in service of the people instead of share holders?

As I said, disingenuous and dismissive. One can use your framework to justify anything USG or state governments do, under a theory that citizens have assented to a contract by being physically present. Clearly, overall constructive behavior matters.

I think the disingenuous and dismissive labels more aptly apply to you for not addressing any of my specific points and your totally absurd suggestion that my reasoning can "justify anything USG or state governments do, under a theory that citizens have assented to a contract with such restrictions by being physically present"... and you're attacking me as disingenuous?

The combination of your low effort dismissal and attacks on my intellectual honesty makes me think this conversation is not worth the effort. Have a nice day.

There is nothing to address in your points. They are not incorrect per se, but they miss the forest for the trees. We all know that presently "[Facebook] are within their rights to refuse to rebroadcast content you upload to the servers they own". Focusing on how something occurs does not make for a justification of why it should.

> It helps nobody to push a stubborn idea that there is some strict distinction between USG and the S&P 500.

There is a huge distinction. Facebook doesn't have a military to enforce their policies. They might be the defacto town square but it's only convenience and network effects which make that true. If there was enough dissatisfaction with the way they are running things then they could be gone tomorrow. That's not comparable to kind of censorship that, for example, the CCP imposes.

> Facebook doesn't have a military to enforce their policies

You're merely restating this assumed division in terms of a specific. Facebook has much less business need to deploy the military than say Exxon or United Fruit, but they still have the ability.

> only convenience and network effects which make that true.

Sure, but how does that make it any less real? The ability to move between states does not invalidate gripes about your current state government. Witness the volume of user complaints. If leaving were a continually-visited fictionless choice, they would have simply left.

> That's not comparable to [the] kind of censorship

They are of different magnitudes, but they're certainly comparable. I'd much rather be subject to Facebook's censorship regime that CCPs. But they're both censorship regimes - if we don't want the former to grow closer to the latter, then it behooves us to compare them.

In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship. When there's no meaningful space between corporate power and government power, it doesn't make much difference whether the guy silencing your dissent is Mark Zuckerberg or William Barr. America most definitely has such a system.

And when independent candidates run for office and can't get their message out for being shadow banned, and the corporatist candidates are always the number one trending subject, you'll be there to finger wag for not bothering to set up their own world-class content distribution system first.

I reject the idea that ownership of one of the most popular websites in the world is comparable in power to the threat of force that underpins the legal authority of the most powerful military in the world. I think that assertion is extreme and that you need to present some strong evidence to explain why popular websites are comparable in power to the justice department.

I didn't say they were comparable in power. That's an argument I didn't make. I said the result is the same.

The result is not the same since government censorship is enforced through violence whereas corporate censorship is not enforced except within the confines of private property owned by the corporation.

Watch the BBC documentary Century of Self, about Edward Bernays, the founder of propaganda in the US, who learned about psychology from his uncle Sigmund Freud, and happened to be the instigator of modern marketing.

The study and control of group behavior is real. The network of educated and privileged elite is real. The power of the media run by these elite perhaps surpasses that of the justice department. The media can start wars.

You don't like censorship but you want US government to decide what should a certain foreign app show to users?

Soft censorship is more effective than hard censorship as censors. For people who think soft censorship is better, I'd becareful what you wish for.

30 years ago people were scared that questionable US values like puritanism/racism would be exported and enforced via media imperialism.

Shoe's now on the other foot.

I tried to find it but failed. Do you happen to remember the date it aired?

Episode 175

Based on references to TikTok here, https://stratechery.com/ it looks like it’s ep176 https://exponent.fm/episode-176-the-second-estate-era/

What’s the point here though?

America et al also don’t like certain things being published on social media and try stop it from existing on those platforms too.

Do you have an example? The only things I can think of are illegal (like child porn) which everyone should be able to agree should be banned.

Europe is much more relaxed about nudity (exposed breasts in prime time TV are fine) but much more restrictive about violence and gore. Instead US companies enforce US standards on us.

Even child porn isn't an easy subject. Everyone can agree that liking 12 year olds sexually is pedophilia and images about that are child porn. But when we are taking about 16 year olds it's muddier since we are taking about child porn outside of pedophilia.

And that's just (north western) Europe who are culturally very similar to the US.

>But when we are taking about 16 year olds it's muddier since we are taking about child porn outside of pedophilia.

It's not muddier. The issue isn't the nature of the people viewing the content, but the ability of the victim to consent to the creation of the content. There's no muddiness involved here - sexual exploitation of minors for the production of media is not ok.

"Minor" is a very cultural term, the US steps of adulthood at 18 and 21 are more comparable with 16 and 18 in Europe. Also a 16 year old can consent to sex, so why not to images (particularly ones they made themselves and distribute to single persons).

For 12 year olds it's much easier with the "we don't support pedophilia" argument (which has wide support)

Don't be so sure about that, the first amendment is to categorically prevent any discussion of which speech is appropriate. Saying hate speech is restricted or that pornographic images of children are restricted is starting the discussion that was not supposed to start because it always ends in tyranny.

In the latter case, is child pornography probably indicative of a crime? Absolutely. But banning the images and their dissemination is clearly an infringement of free speech. In the former, banning hate speech is also clearly an infringement of free speech. If someone's actions result in violence or death then punish them after, and divorced from the issue of speech; do not place prior restraint on speech.

I can post on Facebook that I disagree with president Trump and he is a liar, try doing the same in China. (Please don't take my comment as a suggestion about President Trump, just trying to make a point).

I bet nobody in China would bat an eye if you called Trump a liar.

There is even an old soviet joke about this.

Was going to reply to the parent with the joke and then didn't bother. Since you mentioned it though...

An American tells a Russian that the United States is so free he can stand in front of the White House and yell, “To hell with Ronald Reagan.” The Russian replies, “That’s nothing. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘To hell with Ronald Reagan,’ too.”

Reagan telling a variant : https://youtu.be/mN3z3eSVG7A?t=111

Mister, we could use a man like Ronald Reagan again.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but in my recent trip to China, I discussed Trump with many local Chinese. Obviously the tradewar is a major topic. I said I share and comment on articles that criticize Trump all the time on Facebook.

They were surprised you could do that...

I am from Russia (sorry, not China) and I am sure that nothing bad happens to me if I write that Trump is a liar (although I don't think anything bad of him).

Also, we are allowed to post photos with breasts (and much more) on our social network Vkontakte.

Now try to acquire a popular social media app in USA.

Yet we got Lil Nas X out of it.

Their censorship algorithm must be broken.

I wonder too if say you tried to advertise on TikTok but your company was not complying with Chinese censorship requests, or you employed an outspoken advocate, or you employed some folks who posted something about Uyghurs on social media elsewhere ... what would TikTok's response be?

I mean, as a Canadian consumer using American social media platforms, we're subject to American censorship policies. Tumblr / Facebook / YouTube being most notable in their filtering of LGBT content and suspending accounts of LGBT users, because of the American governments stance on human sexuality. This argument of who censors makes sense for Americans, but it's more about picking your poison for people from other countries.

What are you referring to, exactly? There certainly is no enforceable law in the United States against LGBT content. There theoretically are restrictions on "obscenity," but they are virtually nonexistent in practice. The only law I can think of that resembles what you're describing in any way is our, indeed, quite aggressive ban on child pornography. And I'm no expert on Canadian child pornography laws, but I'll bet Canada isn't too friendly to that content either.

The theoretical point is true enough, that American content restrictions would generally wind up being exported abroad. The key difference is, however, that we do not actually have Chinese-style content restrictions.

SESTA/FOSTA led to large changes in content moderation strategies for a bunch of sites outsizedly effecting the edges of LGBTQ communities ...

EDIT: Sources in-text since i'm already being downvoted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_...

Pretty much all hate speech is censored on social media platforms. So is calling for or promoting violence against certain groups. Harrassment is also prohibited on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

All American social media censors their users, most people just arent producing that type of content.

> Pretty much all hate speech is censored on social media platforms. So is calling for or promoting violence against certain groups. Harrassment is also prohibited on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Social media platforms censor more than that. Try posting a picture of a nipple on Facebook.

Yes. But GP's comment was about the US government, not restrictions placed on content by American companies voluntarily (or due to pressure from the broader US culture). I agree, of course, the US culture is restrictive in some ways, and this can come through in the practices of US companies (the culture is also quite permissive in some ways). But this is different in important ways from the restrictions being imposed by the government.

Aren't those mainly hidden behind gag orders though? Isn't that enough proof? We can't even tell what was censored presumably for our safety.

Don't think so. We know that there are some allegedly national-security-related takedowns where the government has sought gag orders. We know about them because the companies sometimes object, and the request becomes public. Then there the other types of content being discussed in this thread such as LGBTQ content, adult material, etc. where I don't think there is any reason at all to believe that gag orders would be involved.

> What are you referring to, exactly?

There's a pretty good meme about differences between European and American media take on censorship [0].

It's now locked behind an Imgur login due to being NSFW (over a single nipple), but the basic premise is that US media would censor a nipple away, leaving the person recognizable, while European media didn't take issue with the nipple, but instead censored her face to protect her identity.

Which is a pretty good example of how different cultures prioritize things differently. Scale that up to the reality of the tech space being dominated by US companies, and suddenly US cultural norms largely became established as global norms [1].

Before the Internet, US soldiers stationed in other countries had a very similar effect: They also brought their culture with them, which often was considered way more exotic than anything local. Decades later nobody even much cares or notices how US influenced much of our culture has become in Western Europe.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2f8xmd/nsfw_the_dif...

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-29/the-cleaners-...

To view Imgur NSFW content without logging in, simply add ".jpg" to the end of the URL.

Yes. This is a fair point. I would emphasize, though, that this is about US culture, not US government or law. Interestingly, part of the whole point of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is to maintain a lot of separation between these two things.

> this is about US culture, not US government or law

But these things do not exist in a vacuum.

Ask anybody working on the tech and legal ends of the adult industry and you will hear quite horrific stories about having to jump through so many hoops just for finding a payment provider.

For a while, these used to be www dominating issues, and how they were dealt with in the US, often ended up being the de-facto global standard.

A very recent and relevant example for this is footage out of the Syrian Civil War on platforms like Twitter and YouTube.

Over these past years, whole swats of videos have disappeared on the basis of being tagged as "terrorist propaganda" [0]

In a very similar vein how "Napalm Girl" ended up getting censored as child pornography [1].

By now even Reddit has learned to "selectively forget", as all undeleting/uncensoring sites that used to work, have stopped working.

Just because it's not some US government agency playing the censor, but rather the US government pressuring US companies into self-censorship, doesn't make this kind of censorship any less real in its overall impact.

[0] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-ai-deletes-war-cr...

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37318031

The thing missing from all of this is any actual evidence of government pressure.

From [0]: "YouTube is facing criticism after a new artificial intelligence program monitoring "extremist" content began flagging and removing masses of videos and blocking channels that document war crimes in the Middle East."

From [1]: "Facebook said it has to restrict nudity for cultural reasons."

I'm not saying this isn't important. I'm not even ruling out some sort of indirect and informal government role. (Government policy and culture are intertwined!) But they fall far far short of supporting the false equivalency drawn in this thread ans elsewhere between western companies removing content due to TOS violations, etc. on the one hand, and content being removed literally, and undisputedly (as far as I've seen) in response to direct commands by the Chinese government.

Sorry I may of missed your point? As a lot of right wing commentary (not saying that you are right wing) suggest when talking about LGBTQ they bring up child pornography alot. Why are you doing so as well?

Yes, you missed it. My point is that the US government does not censor LGBTQ content. In fact, it censors very few types of content. One of the few areas it does censor, just by way of example, is child pornography. But this has nothing to do with LGBTQ content--thus my puzzlement over GP's comment.

I don’t know that it has anything to do with the U.S. government, so much as U.S. social norms which sometimes consider mentioning the existence of gay people as a “sexual” topic (and therefore banned, demonetized, or flagged as adult content) even though many aspects of being gay are not sexual.

>we're subject to American censorship policies. Tumblr / Facebook / YouTube being most notable in their filtering of LGBT content and suspending accounts of LGBT users, because of the American governments stance on human sexuality

No, you're subject to corporate censorship policies. Let's not pretend that individual platforms regulating content is the same as government censorship. Please show me how their policies are related to "the American governments stance on human sexuality".

Also, doesn't Canada have a few laws on the books regarding how people are allowed to address other people, specifically, LGBTQ people?

Yes, Canada has bans on targeted gender-based harassment against individuals, not bans on LGBT content.

Let’s not pretend a monopoly regulating content is much different from government.

Oh it is when the entity with a monopoly also has a monopoly on violence a.k.a government. A Uighur detention center, U.S. concentration camp etc. can only enforce their views with threat of violence. It is on an entirely different level of cardinality. To equate them would be to undermine the misery that those that suffer under such extreme regulations of content/thought.

Those aren't being enforced, either! It's not hard to find tweets deadnaming or misgendering a person.

They're taking a fully US-centric approach, treating abortion as a political topic - see https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/restricted... . You can't advocate for abortion in Canadian ads. Which is insane, considering abortion is fully legal here. Going down that list, it's "things that are controversial in America". It's absurd to apply the same policy globally.

> Also, doesn't Canada have a few laws on the books regarding how people are allowed to address other people, specifically, LGBTQ people?

Not really. Canada prohibits hate speech and discrimination against LGBTQ people. The whole "using the wrong pronouns is now a criminal offense" meme was made up by someone looking for something to be offended about/sell books about how PC culture is ruining everything.[1]

People can be sued for discriminating on the basis of gender identity or expression. Repeatedly using the wrong pronoun can be used as evidence of that, but probably has to fit into a larger pattern of behavior. And that's the kind of thing you could credibly sue an employer or business for in the US as well.

1. https://factcheck.afp.com/no-canadians-cannot-be-jailed-or-f...

> corporate censorship policies

Which in a large part with preference tailored to US

Yeah, but not the US government.

Why should a Canadian, or European care about the difference between US government laws affecting the services and media they consume, versus US corporate policies doing the same?

It's a distinction without a difference. They don't have any redress, or ability to influence either US corporations, or the US government, much like how Americans have no ability to influence the CPC.

Would a Canadian have more of an ability to influence a Canadian corporation? I guess I am just confused why it being a US corporation changes the equation verse a corporation from anywhere else.

Tumblr / Facebook / YouTube being most notable in their filtering of LGBT content and suspending accounts of LGBT users, because of the American governments stance on human sexuality.

Facebook removed LGBT pages because the American government forced them? Do you have a link?

People need to be more skeptical about governments (both murican and chinese) and have more faith in fellow human beings. Why is it that US government gets it panties wet at the thought of Tiktok having influence in USA but somehow is proud of he fact that Google or Facebook are global companies ? What is that Tiktok would do to american that Google or Facebook won't do to Indians ?

Google and Facebook not being in China is not necessarily a bad thing. Both the companies are massively popular in India but make no profits off Indians yet. On other than their popularity has made Indians value these companies a lot as employers and every third Google/Facebook engineer in Mountain View is an Indian person. Google or Facebooks adventures in India (and China) if at all are nothing but a huge subsidy being delivered to these upcoming markets at the expense of American consumers.

Say China opens up its markets for Google and Facebook like tomorrow would you be fine with that ? Both Google and Facebook are then going to borrow money from american to build massive data center networks in China spending billions of dollars which may or may not be recovered in near future.

Xenophobia and divergence from free market principles in USA have made other countries better potential successors to Silicon Valley. In near future we will see more and more companies coming up from China. What USA has done with Tiktok is essentially a child like tantrum to scare other investors and chinese companies but very likely US government will end up with an egg on its face.

On one hand you're saying that Xenophobia and divergence from free market principles will make USA lose its edge, but at the same time you are saying China, which is a lot more xenophobic and less adherent to free market principles, will have an advantage...

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