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Comment by data-abuse | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but wonder if other countries are watching these proceedings and wondering about their own national security. The US is concerned about misinformation, blackmail, and influence campaigns, but is the US using the data that FANG has access to do it to other countries? Are they just trying to keep a monopoly on that power?

We can see hints that the US is using these platforms to do that. Imagine the negotiating power the US has to go into a trade deal negotiations with another country. Run an influence campaign to sway the other country's population to accept a bad deal. Use democratic processes to get someone elected who will sign off on the bad deal. End up profiting enormously.

Having free access to show propaganda and misinformation to most of the world is an enormous power.

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It will be far better having US as dominant power than having the axis countries like China, Russia, Iran.

I prefer democracy over dictatorship what about you?

The difference between relation of US companies and government vs Chinese companies and government, US companies often go head-to-head with the government on policies, or they will need "lobby" it, but for Chinese companies, Chinese government have communist party officials directly running the board, Chinese company can only obey the party, look at Jack Ma.

US companies take the data turn it into profit, but scary part of Chinese companies and Chinese government they took the data probably not for profit but for something else, political agenda? or maybe even more worse.

I don't think we know the full extent of what the US does with our data in the cloud.

Congressman trying to re-authorize PATRIOT Act was spied on by the FBI [1]. Google fired employees for abusing personal info [2]. Facebook fired employees for abusing privileges [3]. Twitter insiders spying for Saudi Arabia [4]

Democracy works when the desires of the people get enacted into law. We see more and more that it is not happening. Instead, more power is consolidated to the rich and powerful. How is that happening in a "democracy"?

I think that behind the scenes in the US, a dictatorship of intelligence agencies, wealthy businessman, and monopolistic companies have been developing over the last 20 years. The government and congress is not the boss, but the oligarchs are. They run the show, and its as much of dictatorship as anywhere else in the world. The US propaganda is not calling it that though.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/us/politics/fbi-surveilla...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-fired-employees-abusi...

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-fired-dozens-abusin...

[4] https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-insiders-saudi-arabia-sp...

> It will be far better having US as dominant power than having the axis countries like China, Russia, Iran.

For us in Europe, that's certainly true. For someone in South America where the US had installed some dictator, or funded and trained some paramilitary groups to clear lands for US fruit companies, I don't think that answer is quite as clear.

Let's be fair, the US has installed and supported plenty of dictators in Europe. In Greece, Spain and Romania at least the US has strongly supported the dictators there.

That sounds like a conspiracy theory. It was more like the U.S didn't support democracy in certain European countries(i.e left them to Russia) than to support dictators backed by communist systems.

You don't need to install dictators. You can just continue to get potentially problematic leaders into unexpected accidents until your guy gets voted into power.

> I prefer democracy over dictatorship what about you?

Where exactly would you like to have that? I guess not in South America, or any other country where the US world order was better off with a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Snap out of the stupor, my friend. The US has only one interest in mind and it’s not the interest of democracy, but rather that of the military industrial complex.

You can keep on drinking the cool aid, or actually support democracy, which would make you less keen on the theatrics that the US is struggling to keep up.

I’m not pro China, I believe in the European social democratic post-capitalism, possibly with less capitalism and more social democracy and wealth redistribution. From this perspective, the US is doing worse than China.

You are no pro China but you are pro China. If you want a communist system then go live there. Who wants to live in a society where bad mouthing the system puts you in jail? Or you have to live a lunatic(i.e dictator) at the helm your whole life.

Surely the U.S is defending its interests first but if I have to choose who will influence my life more I will choose the system aligned with my values.

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