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Comment by drchopchop | Hacker News Reader

In the spectrum of "evil", I'd rather an NSA run by American citizens to have my data than the Chinese government. I can, in theory, at least elect representatives to change the policies of the NSA. I have no such power over China, and China is actively censoring and repressing citizens who even mildly criticize the state.

How are those the same?

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I'm the opposite. I'd rather China have my data then the NSA.

China has less incentive to go after me, and what are they gonna do to me? It's not like the United States will extradite their own citizens to China or anything like that.

The United States could easily use my data to come after me at some point, if they decide to. They could make my political viewpoints illegal (like the McCarthy Era) and find evidence of my views from my data and throw me in jail or worse.

Same as all of the accusation of 'shills' that points to whoever post anything that can be remotely construed as 'pro-China'

Seriously, I don't think CCP cares about you enough to pay people who write good English (not so easy to find in China, surprise!) to try to influence your opinion on an online forum.

I don't think CCP cares about you enough to pay people who write good English (not so easy to find in China, surprise!) to try to influence your opinion on an online forum.

It's not a theory, it's been documented. I believe the New York Times was the most recent publication to run an article about it.

plz link.

The Americans might charge you with sedition - the Chinese will rob you. ... but the second is way more likely than the first so you're trading evils.

Look at it from a different angle of giving data to China gives them more power and reduces the power of the US. It may not matter a ton in your lifetime, but maybe your kids will see China as the world superpower, imposing its value system onto the world. I'd prefer the US remain the top dog because while not perfect, I like the value system of the US more than I do China.

Do you currently believe that the US remains the uncontested "top dog" currently in 2020?

Of course, militarily, economically, politically. China is having some of their worst years in decades. The US is doing great, just look around you

Have you been to both of the countries this year?

It's exactly the opposite, at least for 2020.

Eh. There’s a long list of moral bankruptcy even before trump. We operate literal concentration camps for children here and I don’t see these breathless articles in the international press about that.

We operate literal concentration camps for children here

Holocaust survivors would find your hyperbole disgusting.

Some actual holocaust survivors do. (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-holocaust-survivors-res...)

Some actual holocaust survivors do not, and consider it similar to their lived experience, not hyperbole. (https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/06/19/a-d..., https://www.thedailybeast.com/holocaust-survivor-yes-the-bor...)

This is a point of record; no need to hypothesize.

Wait you’re saying Jews aren’t a monolith?

I’m a Jew raised by Holocaust survivors. Why do I have a feeling you’re not really acquainted with anyone from that demographic?

China's already a world superpower imposing its value system onto the world.

You beat that by having a better value system, and in theory, The value system in the United States is one of freedom of speech and association. If the government has to tell Americans that they can't use a particular messaging system, it's going against that value system. Does one's value system win if one compromised it to get there?

Maybe we should look into things like being able to manufacture frickin masks 8 months into a pandemic, then we can double back and worry about kneecapping rivals.

Here's a scenario: You get into elected office, or you get a job working with sensitive information. You don't think it's even remotely possible that you could be blackmailed?

Do you mean the intelligence community of the US or China? Because both would be applicable.

TikTok doesn't add anything to the dataset that's already out there. Nearly every US citizen worth blackmailing has already had their data stolen by foreign actors because of lax security controls. Also, people put up plenty of blackmail worthy material in public as it is. Foreign actors who want to blackmail people could not have purpose built a tool better than Facebook.

>China has less incentive to go after me, and what are they gonna do to me?

This is oblivious to what's actually happening. It's quite clear that the CCP's objective is to extend their internal thought controls globally, by any means available - economic extortion, blackmail, bribes, etc. Just because you don't live in China doesn't mean you're safe from this.

One recent example is using economic extortion to prevent NBA managers from criticizing the regime. They do that kind of thing publicly and privately all over the world.

CCP is gathering data on everyone in the world into a giant training database for their AI, which they'll then use to discover and target people for further thought control - politicians, citizens in positions of influence, etc. If not opposed, it will create an incredible chilling effect on free speech throughout the world.

In the West, not only can we elect reps to change laws to protect us from this, we have a mostly independent judiciary to strike down unconstitutional laws or to hold organs of the state like NSA and CIA accountable. CCP has none of that - no free elections, and their courts are an organ of the CCP, not independent.

If the world doesn't push back on this hard right now, it will only get much worse. How many times do we have to learn not to appease authoritarians? They see appeasement as weakness, and it only emboldens them.

> I can, in theory, at least elect representatives to change the policies of the NSA

Please let me know which representatives have 'reducing power and increasing accountability of the NSA' as part of their running platform in the upcoming election so I know who to vote for. I'll even compromise with 'bring back net neutrality', 'use of encryption as a universal right', or GDRP-level protections of consumer data.

Can Europeans say the same, or should they block Google and Facebook?

> ... or should they block Google and Facebook?

Probably yes? :)

Don't we just end up with a balkanized internet? A Euro-net, US-net, China-net?

I guess Canada goes in with Euro-net?

Well, what else do you suggest doing with companies literally damaging humanity? eg Facebook (easily qualifies), Google (somewhat)

This is already happening.

Europeans are free to say the same, or negotiate acceptable GDPR-style data protection standards with the countries that receive their data (which in many cases has already happened).

EU have already ordered Facebook (and others) to restrict data sent from EU to US. If US started banning EU tech companies (like China are doing) then it would of course make sense for EU to do the same to US tech companies.

This is of course unlikely to happen as EU and US fairly operate in the free market.

Of course they should. Google and Facebook can be an invaluable source of intelligence information and threaten national security.

Why? As someone in the US the NSA can have me arrested, CCP can’t.

Instead, the CCP can say "it'd be a shame if the US authorities found out what you're doing, but if you share some of your company's confidential documents with us then we won't tell."

What CCP can collect through apps like TikTok cannot even remotely be compared to what US Government knows about you if you are using Google Mail, Google Maps (collects your location data), Android, Facebook etc.

The point is that it is naive to claim that a foreign government will have no power over you.

you think tiktok does not/can not collect your location data? You think all groups of people are equally trustworthy? You think it's better to have to trust more groups of people rather than fewer?

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