Hacker News Reader

Comment by vachina | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why when China does this it’s always a bad thing. Isn’t the inverse also true i.e. western media influencing and nudging narratives, except that we can actually observe this happening right now. Where do you stand in that case?

View on HN

This one's pretty simple: China is a totalitarian regime that is in direct conflict with western constitutional values. So if influence is aimed at democratic foundations, of course it's a bad thing.

Doesn't banning a social network undermine the democratic principles you mention?

Not if it’s a psy op tool of an adversary.

Not in principle. Practically all democratic systems have provisions to defend against subversion of their core principles. Those provisions may be designed to safeguard institutions, processes such as elections and regulate information flow.

It's important to remember that the US concept of "free speech" as an absolute right is very untypical, and that it also has limits due to being narrow in its scope.

Of course, banning a social network due to arbitrary or without reasons would be against democratic principles. But following democratic and legal principles to openly apply laws and procedures designed to safeguard the state - that's not undermining at all, to the contrary!

Collapse of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in XVIII as form of proto-democracy can be here good case study. It show us how authoritarian systems can exploit democratic system.

No. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

Wow, thanks! I didn't know this phrase [1], but it really nails the concept of self-balance in constitutional democracies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...

I don't see why those principles should apply to a foreign country with malign intentions, they aren't a person nor do they represent a populace given that China is authoritarian.

The spying seems secondary to the influence they can wield by pushing certain stories while burying others.

China is under the rule of the CCP, an authortarian party to which you cannot challenge.

For all democracy's failings, for the mess the US is in, and rise of populist parties in Europe, it is still freedom.

Does the US public have any genuine, identifiable democratic power over the FBI?

Absolutely. The FBI head must be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. Oversight is performed by Congress. He can be fired.

I don't disagree that it is possible in theory, but are there any substantial examples of initiatives genuinely spawned at the general public level changing policy of the FBI? This would be required to upgrade the binary (True/False) proposition from a belief to a fact...but then only as a binary (the FBI could still be 99% beyond the will of the people).

This is technically true, but I wonder in practice. Like, the King of England absolutely has the power to withhold consent on acts of parliament. How accountable is parliament to the King? But replace the King with Congress, and parliament with the FBI.

Ironically, right wing parties in the EU rose thanks to disinformation on american social media. Following this discussion's logic, Facebook and Twitter should have been banned in the EU a long time ago.

> right wing parties in the EU rose thanks to disinformation on american social media.

Citation needed. Last I heard it was mostly attributable to migration over the last couple decades.

If China were pushing a WEF narrative, everything would be okay. Instead they have their own separate agenda that does not dovetail. Look at it this way, if it were Japan or SKorea, we would not be hearing about this from that PoV. That said, even if it were a purely American company, setting aside tracking and all that, it is not a psychological net-positive. It's manipulative and induces poor choices on some. That some is on this side of too much.

For the record, I also think nudging in and of itself is a bad thing and incompatible with democracy. Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi have a great essay on that [1].

[1] https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/23/cognitive-democracy/

I mean, yes, but there’s no communist bogeyman to blame, just our own vanities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com