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Comment by pizza | Hacker News Reader

You really need to explain your point more thoroughly.

- "allow WeChat to gain an even greater foothold on American soil" - does this mean have more users?

- "minimize total damage" - it would be good if you articulated the damage being done

- "Imagine if Google was as controlled by and as much of a cheerleader for the US government as WeChat is for the Chinese" - according to Julian Assange, https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

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Google employees being fans of the person who lost the Presidential election doesn't make Google a cheerleader for the government.

Google was an active collaborator with the state, on not just intelligence gathering but on soft-power influence-pushing (according to that article).

Maybe they have lost some influence in the current administration (maybe not), but Facebook has by all appearances been eager to take their place.

The US government can’t be seen openly wielding large internet companies for its interests. But any modern state needs to. And so it does it within the paradigm of the West: public denial, private understandings.

The difference between China/Wechat and US/FB/Google is one is out in the open, and the other is covered by a fig leaf.

Yes. A ban now will be less disruptive than a ban later when WeChat has far more American users. The damage I refer to is the damage to to the lives and habits of WeChat's current American and immigrant users caused by WeChat's removal.

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