Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nesco | Hacker News Reader

Why shouldn’t Europeans do the same with US social networks then?

If they feel their relationship with the US is similar to the US's relationship with China in the relevant ways, then they absolutely should do the same. My understanding is that they don't feel that way, generally speaking.

They do in fact impose less extreme controls on data from these platforms, that lesser extremity presumably reflecting their lesser perception of the US's use of that data as highly dangerous, as compared to the US's perception of China.

>My understanding is that they don't feel that way, generally speaking.

US tech companies currently getting slapped around with large fines in the EU for similar infringements of privacy etc.

That is a much lesser punishment than what the US is doing in this thread. A fine that is a small but non-insignficant percentage of annual revenue is a measured response when you want to punish bad behavior but allow businesses to still operate within the jurisdiction.

Restricting business operation altogether is a response a country gives when they see the other party as extremely adversarial, which is a few orders of magnitude above what EU fines are to Big Tech.

Big difference

> Why shouldn’t Europeans do the same with US social networks then?

We’re not your foreign adversary? (If we are, we shouldn’t have an obligation to defend you.)

This bill permits TikTok’s sale to a European owner. It just bans its ownership by a foreign adversary country.

You're not a foreign adversary - you're a colonial overlord. If a European or other US 'ally' nation attempts to act against American 'national interest' their government is swiftly toppled - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the...

More often they don't get elected at all due to coordinated media campaigns influencing elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_United_K...

The US Army literally have an entire army unit dedicated to running propaganda campaigns on social networks internationally. It's ludicrous to suggest this isn't employed to impact political and social policy in 'friendly' nations. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op...

That being said, there are worse things than Pax Americana. I'd certainly rather living under US influence than CCP. I'd be the first to argue that NATO has prevented another war in Europe. But lets not deny the reality on the ground.

You're making some extremely strong claims, with minimal evidence. I don't deny that the CIA can be pretty nasty to 2nd and 3rd world governments, but claiming the US is a "colonial overlord" over our European allies is just not true. The first priority of our European allies is domestic politics; just like us, everyone wants to get re-elected. Sometimes domestic politics push countries towards the US, sometimes they pull them away. Countries like Hungary and Turkey make diplomatic trouble for the US, and we don't launch coups against them. The US would love it if Germany built up a decent military, but Germany isn't because the political will just isn't there. Between the 60s and the 90s, France literally left NATO. Europe in general has been extremely slow to scale up artillery production to support Ukraine (the US has been better, although but not by much); if the US had as much power over Europe as you think we do, we would have just told Europe to up production and they would have. But this did not happen.

Gangs also offer to "defend" local businesses from other gangs.

And friends offer to help friends. Enough of this nefariousness.

I am afraid there are no such thing as "friends" when it comes to international politics...

Not Europe, but around 2015, Russia passed a law requiring foreign companies to store data on servers in the country. Then banned LinkedIn in 2016 [0], and tried to get Twitter and Facebook to comply in 2017-2019 [1]. All of which were met with ridicule from many people in the US (IIRC from article comments and reddit).

IMO, somewhat similar situations - popular social media, known for data gathering, based in another country that is viewed as a geopolitical and/or ideological opponent and is often villified.

0: https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/17/technology/russia-linkedin-...

1: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/russia-tries-to-...

1) wouldn't blame them if they did 2) we are in this military alliance called NATO; if you are depending on each other for military help, you're not thinking about social media based threats

I'm under the impression they already do. There are lots of data collection rules that US companies have to follow. This I see as an alternative to outright banning. I'm sure Facebook, et. al. are audited by EU agencies to make sure they are in compliance.

I think the reason for the outright ban is more due to it being a Chinese product. China isn't known to be very transparent.

There has been a lot of attempts with multiple iterations (see https://www.burges-salmon.com/news-and-insight/legal-updates...).

Sadly European intelligence services actually want US to spy on their citizen in order to gain access to the data legally.

They should, and viewed in a certain light that is what the GPDR and DMA are trying to achieve— make room for native companies.

Not necessarily making room for native companies, as the Silicon Valley giants have adapted. But they enforce certain rights, for example privacy, and if US companies (not just social media) do not want to comply they are forced to leave the EU. Some newspaper websites are not visible from Europe for that reason.

They're welcome to if they think it's worthwhile.

Europe is concerned about the influence and data-collection of American tech companies, and would be fully justified in doing something similar.

If they feel there is a sufficient security threat posed by US based social media/apps, then I see no reason why they shouldn't.

But its pretty clear that the security threat posed by US based services vs certain others is starkly different, especially since the US is generally seen as a beneficial/friendly state.

The US legislation applying to TikTok specifically applies to companies that are considered foreign adversaries. As far as I'm aware, with the exception of possibly Russia and Belarus, the US is not considered to be a foreign adversary by European nations.

OP wasn't arguing that.

They should and I wish they would!

We totally should to be honest, the social network is the most harmful tech of all time, from various spectrums.

I can't imagine who would genuinely ask this- and it's suspiciously plastered in every single thread on this topic. Think hard! In which way is Europe and the US's relationship different than China and the US's relationship?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com