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Comment by Uhhrrr | Hacker News Reader

It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.

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Apps track information of all kinds about you and it’s not hard at all to link this data to your real world identity. Even just the search and watch history would be a goldmine for any foreign (or domestic) spy program, especially if you consider what was discussed in the Snowden leaks.

“The case for harm has not been made” Do you think the American government would say publicly “we know China is exploiting this data because that’s exactly what we do and China is even worse than us.

This is true for any app, and tracking people who watch stupid videos is not useful for national security.

The Snowden leaks were bad because they showed Americans spied on without warrants. This is about users who for better or worse install the app intentionally.

I'm glad you agree that the US government has not actually made the case for harm.

> The Snowden leaks were bad because

The Snowden leaks were bad because they exposed a lot of 100% legal, directly part of their charter activity by the NSA, like monitoring the communications of foreign leaders and other non-US persons.

This is incorrect: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN25T3CJ/

"n a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"

This article is unrelated to what I was talking about; you should go back and read both what I said (specifically who I mentioned being targeted for surveillance) and the article you linked (specifically who is mentioned being targeted for surveillance).

Ah, you are saying they were bad because they let foreign nationals know that the NSA was doing its normal mission. But I don't think that part would surprise anyone.

This bill was never about data privacy. If it was, they’d say something about data brokers and idk ban data brokers from selling Americans’ data to the Chinese.

It’s a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign interests.

Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.

Are those owned by China?

Why does the source matter to you?

Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can establish a new global hegemony.

A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?

Because the content is funny dance videos. I don't think you can get to global hegemony with that.

I live in Asia and have seen pro-chinese propaganda being repeated by some people, mass influence by nation states is a real thing

People repeat propaganda when it appeals to them, but any marketer can tell you customers are fickle.

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