It is because China is the enemy. When it's Facebook or Google strangely it's never an issue. Moral is always a facade for international economic war. And some people fall for it.
While most people on HN would agree that they would like more regulation of their data on FB and Google, these are largely still separate actors from the US government. You can even indicate that something like Cambridge Analytica is starting within a party, rather than the actual governing body.
There is too much sharing, IMO, without a doubt. That being said, they are not near synonymous as TikTok is.
Data regulation, privacy, influence through exposure are real issues worldwide. Tiktok has a raised profile due to its closeness with a governing state body.
The thing is that "government = bad" is typical American mindset. As another non-US, non-Chinese citizen, the fact that those megacorporations are independent from the government makes it worse, not better.
At least governments respond to their people (especially in the case of democracies, much less so for authoritarian governments, but they still have to worry a minimum to avoid revolution). Corporations respond to profit only, everything else be damned.
When Facebook starts opening concentration camps, I'm likely to agree with you.
> especially in the case of democracies, much less so for authoritarian governments, but they still have to worry a minimum to avoid revolution
What do you think is more likely to still be relevant in 100 years from now, China or Facebook? I think a 'revolution' is more likely to affect Facebook than China
> When Facebook starts opening concentration camps, I'm likely to agree with you
I wonder. If your product is used to recruit soldiers, spread propaganda, disseminate hate speech, and organize and deploy said concentration camps or their equivalent, are you liable and culpable? If you've known for years and done next to nothing about sectarian violence and genocide, are you still blameless? When moderation could have been hired and trained for an immaterial amount of profit? SEA wages are notoriously low in dollar terms. Poorly implemented machine learning models don't suffice to halt genocide. Greed, ignorance, malevolence, sloth, arrogance. Take your pick.
If a security hole was found in Google and in the US government, which do you think would respond in a way that would make that less likely to happen in the future?
It is that government having data which allows for influence of people == destruction of democracy as the government is supposed to reflect the will of people rather than the other way around. It is an incredibly short path to: autocracy, oligarchies, dictatorships, etc.
Just because the chinese oligarchs give themselves government titles and the US oligarchs do not is no reason to believe they're not the ones in control.
That being said they are also highly disparate with a variety of motivations and are incredibly hard to whip (using this the way its used in congress) into directions that are nuanced. Things like "we wanna make more money" "regulations/unions are bad" ofc oligarchs in the US manage to see eye to eye on, but anything further nuanced - that class discipline - is harder to achieve in the US than China
Not just PRISM: Apple has actually been (presumably) forced to not publish e2e encryption software that the feds didn't want deployed, an example of prior restraint that is blatantly unconstitutional.
I think there's a difference between a private company having my data and an adversarial government. The company has a clear motive, profit. They're lawful neutral. An adversarial government may be chaotic evil. I don't know why this isn't obvious.
Wasn't everyone freaking out just a few years ago when Russian government was manipulating people with political groups on Facebook? And that's even with Facebook's earnest effort to prevent these things. With this company, there's a direct tie in with an adversarial government.
Yes, ideally I don't want anyone to have my data, but lets not pretend Zuck and CCP are the same thing
> Wasn't everyone freaking out just a few years ago when Russian government was manipulating people with political groups on Facebook?
Yes, if by everyone you mean Americans, because their country was the target. There are many countries where media has been manipulated by the CIA, too.
I'm the opposite. I would much rather have the CCP have my data then a US based company like FB. Unless I travel to China, what are the CCP going to do to the average American with their data? Whereas, in the US, the data could be used in the future to prosecute me for my political views or whatever with law changes.
The CCP could be actively trying to get you hate your neighbor and spread disinformation. That could be a byproduct of either group, but it is more likely to be an explicit goal of CCP. Here's a gem from the WHO in January 2020. This was almost certainly known to be a lie to the CCP based on their actions at the time
> Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.
Yes, private companies like blackwater, shell, bp, dutch east india, coca cola, nestle, amazon, or facebook never participate in fascist propaganda campaigns or organize coups, hire mercenaries to kill unionizing (or just competing) workers, murder, or steal. And facebook didn't promote lies and propaganda during the pandemic at all /s
The CCP is at least very indirectly accountable to their own people and holds their country's long term interests in mind even if they do not care about the people and hold the usual abhorrent views of authoritarians towards minorities. This is extremely evil, but pales in comparison to an unaccountable corporate entity with what little human oversight it has steered by a combination of narcissists, neofuedalists and literal apocalypse cultist theocrats.
I agree about the contradictions and hypocrisy but the answer can be much more pragmatic:
> As a non-US, non-Chinese citizen, is there something that makes TikTok espionage and Facebook not? Or is it just "china scary"?
There's problems with US big tech and TikTok but the case against TikTok is easier to push through.
There's nothing wrong with patching the first of many holes in your roof and starting with the one easiest to get to.
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My primary emotional and ethical driver is to point out my own government (the US) not living up to its marketing material, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't support eliminating a vector for another (openly autocratic) government to meddle with my country as well.
Edit: distinguish my reply to prior comment from my ramblings about my reply.
"Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States. Seizures of fentanyl sourced from China average less than one kilogram in weight, and often test above 90 percent concentration of pure fentanyl."
Presumably, if the CCP wanted to do so, they could put an end to the groups shipping this deadly substance into the United States.
>Presumably, if the CCP wanted to do so, they could put an end to the groups shipping this deadly substance into the United States.
Presumably, if the United States wanted to do so, they could put an end to the groups shipping this deadly substance from the China.
Just changed the wording a little to show the bias in this sentence. Why do think China would be more successful than the U.S. in prohibiting illegal drugs?
This is assuming manufacturing is being done by large groups... but it usually is. Manufacturing tiny amounts is much much harder than importing tiny amounts.
This just isn't true for anyone but die hard nationalists. The average citizen has no reason to care what country their products and services are coming from. It's better that the world trade and communicate beyond borders. Calls for banning Tik Tok are coming from people afraid of fair international competition.
