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Comment by spectramax | Hacker News Reader

> TikTok user posted a video that included the image of Osama bin Laden, resulting in an account ban in line with TikTok's policies against content that includes imagery related to terrorist figures.

The chinese government has started to classify protestors of Hong Kong as terrorists. What good are these policies where the core definition of the law itself is left for interpretation by the Chinese government?

The whole enterprise of China and their principles are just... absurd. The elephant in the room is complete authoritarian control by a uncontestable leader, but let's bikeshed about company policies. What company policies, if they only rest on the stilts built by the CCP?

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Because clearly only West is allowed to decide who is terrorist and who is not.

Now, that I think of it - yes. You're right. I can't trust the Chinese government at all. To the CCP, anyone who criticizes the government is a potential terrorist.

What is Edward Snowden, then? Will he be greeted with open arms when returning to the USA, or immediately end up in a black site? He criticized the real government of the USA, not the sham you see on news media.

Edward Snowden is newsworthy because he is one person; he is the exception.

The CCP categorizing tens of thousands of its own citizens in Hong Kong as terrorists and a million plus in the western part of the country as potential terrorists isn't even remotely the same thing.

https://theintercept.com/2014/07/23/blacklisted/

What about the 1-3 million people in Chinese concentration camps (excuse me, "re-education camps")?

1-3 million? That seems like a pretty big range of uncertainty. What are your sources?

This estimate gives 1.5 million [1], this gives 1-3 million. [2][3]

[1] http://www.jpolrisk.com/brainwashing-police-guards-and-coerc...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-concentrationca...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/world/asia/trump-china-ui...

For perspective on that number, there are 2.2 million African Americans in prison camps.

First, that number is simply incorrect. It is about 1/4 of that number.

Second, while America has a serious prison issue (the highest incarceration rate in the world? really??), the current state of affairs of African-Americans isn't really comparable to the treatment of Uighurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practioners.

Fighting whataboutism with whataboutism. Nice.

He also leaked a lot of documents that he wasn't supposed to. He didn't just criticize the government in isolation either.

So did Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon papers.

> > > What is Edward Snowden, then? Will he be greeted with open arms when returning to the USA, or immediately end up in a black site?

> > He also leaked a lot of documents that he wasn't supposed to.

> So did Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon papers.

Daniel Ellsberg wasn't a contractor at the NSA either, though he "was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years."[0]

I doubt Snowden will be so lucky as to share Ellsberg's fate of all charges being dismissed "[d]ue to governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering"[0].

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg

Ellsberg himself has specifically defended Snowden, saying Snowden "made the right call" in fleeing the country [0] and "would not get a fair trial" if he returned [1].

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel...

> Ellsberg himself has specifically defended Snowden, saying Snowden "made the right call" in fleeing the country [0] and "would not get a fair trial" if he returned [1].

Hence my assertion of:

> I doubt Snowden will be so lucky as to share Ellsberg's fate ...

Yes, I'm agreeing with you and providing additional substantiation as to why a reader should believe you that Snowden would be unlikely to share Ellsberg's fate.

Edward Snowden is not currently listed as a terrorist or belonging to a terrorist group according to the US government. Here is the official list - https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/

Yes, the CCP hit the nail on the head by putting over a million muslims in concentration camps. Oh and Falun Gong practitioners + Tibetan monks were simply sleeper agents.

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