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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

> "the Chinese/Russian/Turkish way of governing has won, freedoms are no more"

Banning foreign apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Well, we already know there's state involvement in the tech sector, and I don't know of any big tech companies with warrant canaries.

From 2013 -

"Court rules NSA doesn’t have to reveal its semi-secret relationship with Google" (https://macdailynews.com/2013/05/22/court-rules-nsa-doesnt-h...)

"NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say" (https://perma.cc/VY62-7WX5)

"Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans" (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/confirmed-nsa-spying-m...)

The US doesn't want to compete on level field. It feels it "owns" modern mass data collection and surveillance, and it's more peeved that it doesn't have access to other markets' data than it cares about any purported espionage.

My bet is placed. China won't open its data to the US, so these bans will continue to escalate. However, any market that does share collected data with the US (or allows US companies to carry out this collection in their markets) will somehow "not be a threat" to privacy or national security.

> any market that does share collected data with the US (or allows US companies to carry out this collection in their markets) will somehow "not be a threat" to privacy or national security.

I'm fine with politicians coming up with some politically acceptable reason to ban Chinese apps when the real reason is tit-for-tat economics. I'm sick of China banning outside IP (and in many cases stealing it for themselves). It hurts a lot of us, including game developers.

It's tit for tat. Or tit for tok if you will. My only hope is they apply it consistently to all Chinese IP.

An app being 'state controlled' is not an inherently good or bad thing. It's what the app does that is important. Does it collect data? Does it transmit data to foreign governments? Does it store data locally? Does it permit any kind of control of the device?

It's easy to say certain apps are bad. It's hard to say why they are bad and address the root behavior. This is a case where taking the easy road has obvious unintended future consequences. Taking the hard road helps every citizen of this country, and not just with apps controlled by foreign governments.

We need data security and privacy legislation. We do not need creeping totalitarianism. It's easy to see which road goes where.

Wouldn't regulating data privacy just shift the banning to business behaviors instead of consumer behaviors? It's still banning of choice to what the government says.

(Said with tongue in cheek. Help explain where the reasoning is wrong, though. The majority of people would rather get free apps with heavy surveillance attached than pay for anything in money or inconvenience, why is Tiktok different than everyone who sells the data to brokers who then sell it to everyone?)

Because the data is going to a foreign country instead of staying in America, where it's subject to American over site (see Schrems II in the EU).

If apps are banned solely for their nationality, and not the uniqueness of their functionality (spying, law enforcement, etc), then yeah, it kinda does.

"Only countries on our approve-list can deploy social media apps in our country."

Not directly, but this feels like a slope that could become very slippery.

The slippery slope argument is a fallacy.

It's only a logical fallacy in the form if p then q; if q then r if then ... so on until the end point you're arguing towards. To say that history informs us that a particular hill easily becomes slippery is not a logical fallacy.

It's a fallacy whenever someone argues from it. Like the GP, they are literally arguing from a SSF and no one believes that's what it is. Beyond the pale.

To quote the original comment:

" I'm very concerned that the US government will set a precedent for regulating what apps citizens are allowed to use."

Since US law is based on precedent, it is not unreasonable to say that allowing the government to legislate which apps are available to US persons could lead to creeping powers to regulate apps more broadly. All of post 9/11 security law is practically a national park of slippery slopes.

I see the confusion. I was referring to "this feels like a slope that could become very slippery." having any meaning outside of someone arguing from SSF.

Yes, what I meant was this sort of creeping expansion of US government has historically created slippery slopes.

Exactly, that's definitionally fallistic.

No, it's an appeal to previous examples of the same thing happening.

Slippery slope is the only fallacy where people can simultaneously use it by name, and still claim, "but this time it's true!"

You also need to consider the slope and slipperiness of the status quo.

Oh okay, if they only ban a subset which you agree with it's not state controlled apps. Got it, very logical.

Other logical conclusions:

Banning LGBT apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Banning pro-Trump apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Banning abortion clinic apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Banning gun related apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Banning climate activist apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

Banning Fox news apps != allowing only state controlled apps.

How do you people even rationalise this in your head?

You have to realize the difference between state controlled and state approved. Maybe you don't think there is a difference?

We don't have a "Let's kill the president app" because it is illegal. It's not approved to exist. Does that mean all the apps we have left are state controlled apps?

I'm all in for banning illegal apps. What's illegal about TikTok?

What I say is that define what is illegal and what are the requirements to legally operate a service to address your concerns. That's regulation and means open and free market with safety.

Believing that an App can be misused by your adversaries or its against your interests and banning it is not free market. That's Chinese way of governing. Don't be China, Chinese government is not good.

What's illegal about anything? If you think there's some sort of legal essentialism in objects and actions, then we're coming at this from very different places. Natural law theory is, how to put this, naive. Legal realism too, while we're at it, in the sense that legal scientism is equally hallucinogenic.

Neither of the mentioned China/Russia/Turkey allow only state-controlled apps. They allow everything, but ban unwanted or noncompliant ones.

What does state control look like in your head? Putin sending an email “please disregard your manager’s orders and do this instead”? Such thing has never existed because it is physically impossible to micromanage thousands of companies.

State control is monetary handouts or fines, bans and coercion under a threat of those.

Kinda like you’re staring directly at state control and can’t recognize what you’re looking at.

> They allow everything, but ban unwanted or noncompliant ones.

Banning noncompliant ones is fine, banning the unwanted ones is the problem.

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