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Comment by DrBenCarson | Hacker News Reader

Here’s why I’m okay with it: China doesn’t allow American social media either

China is not a role model for America.

China doesn't allow open social media for its citizens for the sole reason that it's bad for the stability of the CCP's dictatorship regime, not because it's bad for the people or the country.

Hey I'm curious about this point of view—would you mind elaborating on what specifically justifies it in your mind? Is it because it's akin to a trade war and we're responding to their 'import restriction' with our own? Something else...? Thanks!

Yes pretty much, China and the US are mutually acknowledged adversaries

I view it as the CCP stating American media cannot be trusted. In that case, why should the US trust Chinese media?

So America is the same as China and Americans should not fight for the freedoms they enjoy. By the way American social media platform are not banned in China rather Chinese people access to information outside China is restricted if an american company following all the laws of China would open an app it would not be stopped any more than a Chinese app both would have to follow the same laws. In the US it's a different law for US apps vs Chinese apps which I think just tells you the US government is owned by corporations.

China didn't invent the transistor or the internet either, because they do stupid shit like clamping down arbitrarily instead of just telling the losers to try harder.

Artificially suppressing competition is the most anti-capitalist and anti-American thing I've ever seen, no matter how shitty this particular app may be.

Under what circumstances would you consider it acceptable to ban apps from a geopolitical adversary?

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don't like seeing apps delivered exclusively via stores that can implement these daft bans, ecosystem taxes etc.

also ignore people yapping about China being such a huge adversary when the 2 countries do close to a trillion USD yearly in trade, it's all lip service to get their competition killed unfairly so they don't have to innovate or an attempt to scare the govt/some LPs into funding their most often useless faux-nationalist bullshit without oversight.

Would you consider it acceptable to ban these kinds of apps if we were in military conflict with these countries just as we were in conflict against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan?

> it's all lip service to get their competition killed unfairly

I think that you'd have a point here if we were talking about a country that allowed their citizens unfettered access American social media apps but China does not do that.

If seems foolish to play by a set of rules that the other side does not. This isn't competition in a normal sense.

no because if there was ever real armed conflict, the list of higher priority action items would make this app banning nonsense look exactly as silly as it actually is today

Media companies can’t be owned by non-citizens either (see: Rupert Murdoch’s journey to become a US citizen)

All ByteDance has to do is sell for a generous valuation

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