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Comment by nonethewiser | Hacker News Reader

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I don't understand why they don't just make the "reciprocity" argument. The fact that we allow Chinese social networks in the US while they block ours doesn't pass the smell test. To me, this line of argument is easier to rally around as it's more business focused and avoids free speech/national security debates which only serve to muddy the waters

Would you be fine with the same reciprocity regarding car export rules for instance ?

On principle the "reciprocity" card can't be used only when it helps and discarded otherwise.

I think here, the question of reciprocal digital communication and the (free) flow of information is markedly different from the reciprocity of physical goods, as the latter has historically had far stricter entry requirements, regulatory, monetary, or otherwise.

Regarding the former, none of the global players are perfect when it comes to unencumbered access to their respective digital markets, but as Tiktok (and recently Temu) demonstrate, getting a foothold in one may be easier than another.

PRC regulatory requirements for communication is expensive for domestic players, why should western entrants be spared? That's like allowing PRC auto in US on less stringent safety requirements. The reason FB and twitter pulled out in 09 after minority/terrorist attacks was because they didn't have the moderation system in place, while PRC platforms had 10000s of expensive, physical bodies doing the grunt work at the time. Which was prescient, and it wasn't until western platforms started implementing mass moderation post NZ shooting that they started initatives to retner PRC market (FB & Google at least), because they finally spent the money and can now scale it in PRC. It was only internal drama at FB and Google that killed the project. If anything TikTok has to bend backwards harder than US platforms to appease US gov because they don't know what "speech" triggers US politicians, whereas in PRC, western companies just had to say yes to censorship and access requests.

> unencumbered access to their respective digital markets

I wonder about this. Up until recently dominant networks were US native or backed by US companies (e.g. even Spotify for instance has a US office, is traded on the NY exchange and is backed by US cloud services) so we haven't seen what happens when a sheer foreign company gets a foothold in the market. Until Tiktok.

And as Tiktok is getting banned, I get the feeling any other foreign company reaching a dominant position with no US transparency would get the same treatment under national security or any other pretense, with US politicians opining that citizen data getting sucked away isn't acceptable. Especially as the foreign compnay's money doesn't land in their party's pockets the same Meta's or Alphabet's money does.

Except the US still wouldn’t have achieved reciprocity by banning tiktok. China can and does already enact whatever protectionist policies they want including against non tech.

Lets take your auto example: China imposes a 40% tariff on US vehicles, which is extremely high. The US only recently hiked their tariffs against Chinese vehicles to 27%. https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-...

Isn't reciprocity usually applied to tariffs? Hence why bilateral free trade deals need to be struck.

I thought that only authoritarian regimes are blocking foreign medias and that’s a bad thing. At least that’s sth US was preaching. It seems freedom of press or free market is only good when it serves you.

Not really discovering anything new here. Just showing that countries only use values at their convenience.

Is it really worse than insta?

t. Insta user, never had tiktok

Istagram is an American country, so it should probably be considered to be counter to the national interests of any country other than America and maybe America's close strategic allies. Particularly, if you're the leader of a country America considers to be a strategic rival, then you should definitely give serious consideration to blocking American social media.

Personally I think it's bad for America too, but it's unlikely that they're deliberately inflicting damage to America in an act of information/culture warfare. But other countries, particularly America's rivals, would be wise to assume that's what is happening to them.

It turns people into consumer sheep, which is actually a positive for a capitalistic society.

"National interest" doesn't necessarily trump the desires of citizens, and the government can hold multiple conflicting interests at once.

Aka "against national propaganda"

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