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Comment by unclebucknasty | Hacker News Reader

>let an adversary control the information flow to a huge portion of the population

It is mind-numbing that we made it this far without very serious consideration of this point. I've frankly just never understood it, especially given what we know about the power of algorithms to define reality at scale.

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Conversely the EU needs to ban the FAANG companies

Absolutely. Any country that doesn't ban foreign social media is behaving foolishly. This is true whether it's American social media in Europe, Chinese social media in America, or American social media in China (actually, they're ahead of the curve in this regard.)

I'm not naive with regard to even friendly nations jockeying for control of the information space.

But there is something uniquely irresponsible about letting foreign adversaries run algorithms on your populace.

The EU is partially reining in the abuses of those companies (and more should be done), but this shouldn't be equated to TikTok and what China is doing.

FAANGs aren't state-controlled and Europeans do have access to the American market.

Personally I think whether something is state controlled or not matters less and less the larger corporations get. At the end of the day it still comes down to a large power imbalance between these entities and average consumers and citizens.

> Personally I think whether something is state controlled or not matters less and less the larger corporations get.

Except in China where the CCP (the only party that can control the government) has seats on the governance boards of every large company or outright owns others. Companies only exist there with the approval of the CCP (the government). There's no court in China that can overrule the CCP's leadership so effectively the CCP is the final arbiter of what is legal or not.

The US government doesn't sit on the board of Apple or Google. If Apple sued the government over something they could actually win their case and the government would be bound by the court's decision and both parties could appeal that decision.

I'm not saying the system in the US or EU is perfect but it is a very far cry from the system in China. Large companies are literally state controlled no matter how big they are.

And as an average citizen, how does that change anything to me? Whether some government stooge or some corporate stooge tells me to go fuck myself, it makes not one bit of difference in the end. Both are far too powerful for me to fight and take on. Especially when government policy is mostly decided by corporate money these days anyways.

FAANGS took part in illegal surveillance programmes in the past and they are required to share data with the american government. It doesn't make any difference if they're state owned or not, their complicit.

> FAANGs aren't state-controlled and Europeans do have access to the American market.

When it comes to war-related issues they might as well be controlled by the US Government, the "private entity" thing is just a cover. Yes, in essence, Putin was right a few years ago when he said something like "the Internet is a CIA project".

I think the CLOUD Acts essentially make them proxies of the state.

FAANGs are more powerful than state-controlled in many cases. They can change politicians, change economics easily.

I could see an argument for social media co's but Apple? Why?

Tax evasion? Not made in the EU? Not made within EU human rights standards?

On the first point, EU courts overturned the ruling on the landmark apple tax decision (that said, I also agree the global tax system is awful and favors bigco's). What phone is made in the EU? When I lived there the most popular devices were Apple and a variety of Chinese and Korean brands, none of which were produced in the EU. Which are made within EU human rights standards? I've never heard this claim before about Apple products.

As a US business, they are required by law to share any data they have with the us governement. They were also part of PRISM so they have 0 credibility about protecting EU citizens' data.

What law are you referring to? I'm pretty sure no such law exists. The US government can't request any data as they please. EU governments can and do request data as well since US companies operate in EU countries.

It's the CLOUD ACT. An EU entity's data stored in the EU can be requested without going through an EU court, which is insane.

I do believe it is because of e.g. Twitters TPP program and other programs that allow the US govt to exert control over "our" social networks.

>Twitters TPP program

That returns absolutely nothing when searched for yet seems intriguing. Please elaborate.

It's because if we start critically examining this, even from perspectives of foreign adversaries, we might also look, similarly, inwards.

Trillion dollar companies and economies exist today because of our aversion to looking inwards when it comes to information flow and privacy.

> It is mind-numbing that we made it this far without very serious consideration of this point.

Simple: because no one want(s/ed) to piss off China too much.

Effectively, the West has been at war with Russia and China for years now. Industrial espionage, rampant IP theft, frauds and forgery in supply chains that yield no intervention by the Chinese government, cyber attacks by actors at least supported if not outright financed and ordered by the governments, holding people hostage [1], undermining of democracy by financing and supporting far-right and separatist movements, undermining of free speech by extortion [2] or by threat campaigns [3], threatening and following through with sanctions on anyone willing to support Taiwan [4], the list is long and doesn't even include the crimes both nations have committed against humanity both domestically and on foreign soil.

But since China has managed to grab up a lot of the world's cheap production and the politically extremely well connected automotive industry has their largest growing market in China, politicians have long been way too silent on even calling China (and Russia) out, much less actually punish them in return or declare the official state of war that both countries completely deserve.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58687071

[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/7734158/china-pressure-activists-...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57647418

[4] https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1612407/latvian-mp-...

>no one want(s/ed) to piss off China too much.

Agreed. See also NBA retractions, John Cena hostage-video apology, influence on Hollywood messaging, etc.

All of these are products of companies wanting access to Chinese markets, and it's a nauseating sellout of values for profit.

Aside from Taiwan, and Xi, are there other formal restrictions to placate Chinese government?

Of course, commercial companies always need to please their customers, so that's an entirely different topic. You cannot blame the firms who avoid stereotyping Chinese people. Because the customers are going to be mad.

> especially given what we know about the power of algorithms to define reality at scale.

That it's a completely ineffectual bogeyman?

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