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Comment by danboarder | Hacker News Reader

My take - if the US is still the "land of the free" then the government should not be banning citizens access to apps.

The idea of politicians in the house and senate (or president) deciding which apps to ban from the app stores will likely lead to similar actions against websites, from the article:

As written, any “website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application” that is “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the National Security of the United States” is covered.

"National security" is a nebulous term that feels like an excuse to ban competitors on behalf of lobbyists at Meta or elsewhere, this is not in the interest of the majority of citizens.

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> My take - if the US is still the "land of the free" then the government should not be banning citizens access to apps.

That's nonsense when phrased so broadly. I mean, your condition would even include apps that, say, drained the user's bank account without authorization. A twee libertarian might insist on that, but practically it can't work (sort of like arachno-capitalism, the Ununoctium of political ideologies).

> As written, any “website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application” that is “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the National Security of the United States” is covered.

You've omitted the "foreign adversary controlled application" language from your quote, which is an important qualification and the omission is misleading and inflammatory.

To your last point, China is on that list though (as a "foreign adversary"). In my view this is a political designation as China is actually our deeply integrated trade partner, manufacturing most of the hardware we are all discussing this on, it seems absurd to label a trade partner as a "foreign adversary" IMO.

To your earlier point, of course if an app is "draining the user's bank account without authorization" Apple or Google will block them, but that is not the job of politicians in Washington.

> In my view this is a political designation as China is actually our deeply integrated trade partner, manufacturing most of the hardware we are all discussing this on, it seems absurd to label a trade partner as a "foreign adversary" IMO.

It's nonsense to consider "deeply integrated trade partner" and "foreign adversary" to be mutually exclusive categories. You can thank the hubris of 90s American politicians for the fact that China is both, and it will take some time and effort to unwind the situation.

> To your earlier point, of course if an app is "draining the user's bank account without authorization" Apple or Google will block them, but that is not the job of politicians in Washington.

No. It's totally within the remit of politicians to ban such apps, just like it's in their remit to make theft illegal and do a great deal of other things. That fact that a corporate pseudo-government might also take a similar action is irrelevant.

> It's nonsense to consider "deeply integrated trade partner" and "foreign adversary" to be mutually exclusive categories.

Fine, but it's also unfortunate that we have corporate-pseudo-government entities (like Meta) lobbying and leveraging the power of actual government against the will of the people through FUD campaigns (see their Targeted Victory contract, for example). Restricting American access to their biggest competitor is arguably corporate-government collusion.

https://fortune.com/2022/03/31/facebook-meta-paid-republican...

Facebook's actions or interests in no way eliminate or excuse the risks posed by TikTok's ownership.

To refrain from action on the TikTok problem to avoid benefiting Facebook is a clear priority inversion.

It's also odd that you were appealing to corporate-pseudo-governments to justify inaction upthread, but now are trying to invoke negative feelings towards of one to justify inaction.

>It's also odd that you were appealing to corporate-pseudo-governments to justify inaction upthread

Not really, it's just "how it is" right now, personally I would prefer open web apps and distributed social networks, but those are niche, with most people using the big apps and social networks.

In a more "open web" world, I could publish and viewers could view anywhere on the planet. China was one of the first to "firewall" their citizens from the open web (likely due to their internal political arguments about national security etc) and unfortunately now I see a bipartisan trend in the USA following the same path, to the competitive benefit of few (at Meta for example, in this case), and given the text of the rule the next targets will be banning of websites based on nebulous/political security arguments for similar competitive advantage of entrenched players.

Anyway, @tivert thanks for the conversation and sharing your take as well!

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