Re:U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisi...
by yorwba on Friday November 01, 2019 @08:21PM
(#21425043)
> "us" includes a lot of Chinese people, so it's not so much Chinese vs not-Chinese.
I fear not everyone realizes that on an intuitive level. People see a bunch of vocal Chinese nationalists repeating government propaganda and get the impression that this is representative of the average Chinese person, leading them to demand that Chinese users be banned from social media, or Chinese students have their visas denied, or whatever measure would solve the issue at hand while simultaneously excluding the Chinese part of "us."
It's maybe a question of defaults, where the knowledge that something is Chinese leads to the suspicion that it must be bad, unless some redeeming quality (such as being anti-government) can be found.
I fear not everyone realizes that on an intuitive level. People see a bunch of vocal Chinese nationalists repeating government propaganda and get the impression that this is representative of the average Chinese person, leading them to demand that Chinese users be banned from social media, or Chinese students have their visas denied, or whatever measure would solve the issue at hand while simultaneously excluding the Chinese part of "us."
It's maybe a question of defaults, where the knowledge that something is Chinese leads to the suspicion that it must be bad, unless some redeeming quality (such as being anti-government) can be found.