Hacker News Reader

Comment by cjtrowbridge | Hacker News Reader

Every part of your argument is more true of Facebook, Google, and Amazon than TikTok. Platforms like Facebook actively sold the ability to influence US elections while enabling genocides around the world. TikTok has never done anything like that. Your argument is just baseless sinophobia and misdirected rage that would be more accurately aimed at American companies.

View on HN

I’ll be frank, I have many Chinese friends, some I would count as my best friends and even they are convinced that tiktok could weaponized by CCP for malevolent purposes. I have nothing against the Chinese people but I do have a problem with their government (as many Chinese nationals and diaspora do as well). And I would not put anything beneath them especially when it is a win at all costs situation on economic and geopolitical front.

Interesting, how Americans have a hard time getting over American exceptionalism, but people from other countries can always make some concessions. It's as if the most brainwashed countries on the planet are such a criminal group: North Korea, Israel, the USA, Britain.

At least China is not only right-wing (right-wing socially).

> And I would not put anything beneath them especially when it is a win at all costs situation on economic and geopolitical front.

So, America?

Yea great point. If everything about the reality of the story was completely different; then the argument would make sense.

Is there an equivalent of Godwin's law for "sinophobia"?

Is there a Godwin’s law for the opposite? Check your sibling comment and your own. Both reacting negatively to any one that doesn’t bow down to US interest vs China. As if one side has to be picked.

If you’re American or Chinese you don’t really get to pick your side

Are you claiming Americans and Chinese have no agency on this topic? All humans have some level of agency.

I mean we shouldn’t say tiktok has not done anything “like that”. That’s a vague term. Tiktok has done a ton of bad stuff like other big tech. They’re all bad. Tiktok less so only because it’s less impactful and powerful so far.

I'm convinced half the comments are just Chinese bots. It's all the same talking points about how "we totally can't ban these tool developed by our adversary because they would just be so hypocritical!".

Regardless of how you spin it, you're putting foreign corporate interests above US national interests, and so you deserve as much stock in your opinion as what Putin thinks America should do.

We are one people in the end. Borders are divisions. Nations are divisions. I’m an American who puts everyone’s interests in mind. I don’t see why me not putting US interest above makes my opinion equivalent to Putin’s. A terrible man.

That's exactly it. You're not interested in America's interests, and in this case that means you're putting the designs of an adversary first. Consequently when it comes to matters of American interests and national security, your desired outcome here aligns exactly with a terrible man like Putin.

And to be clear, even from a globalist perspective, undermining the US to the benefit of China doesn't seem like a great ends for the US.

I’m American. I don’t have to be a slave to nationalism. I have agency. You are gaslighting by making up stuff like “if you’re not with us you’re against us”. The whole reason that’s a saying is because we know that’s not actually true. That’s a naive way of looking at the world.

I’m not a globalist, so that’s irrelevant to me.

Yes something very odd at work here.

>Regardless of how you spin it, you're putting foreign corporate interests above US national interests, and so you deserve as much stock in your opinion as what Putin thinks America should do.

One can easily make the case that a lot of American rights potentially undermine US national interests. What is your plan to deal with this reality?

Based on your argument it sounds like you are not a fan of a lot of America's founding principles that err on the side of freedom and liberty.

If China can really break your adhesion to the US constitution and its hard won amendments with a silly app, you may have already lost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com