I don't get it either. Whenever someone uses the words "the West" I cringe because because every goddamn privacy invasion has come from our friendly American overlords. Who I might ad are not just like us.

> I cringe because because every goddamn privacy invasion has come from our friendly American overlords

Exactly! It seems that the propaganda machine is still rolling heavy.

There is a big difference. An open, democratic government can be peacefully corrected. A closed, totalitarian government cannot be. If the chinese and russian governments were open, then we could worry less about them.

Western governments operate mass surveillance programs seemingly without any public open oversight or democratic input.

The United Kingdom has more CCTV activity than any other European country, per capita. No-one bats an eyelid. They have also been using facial recognition to find people in the crowd with a really poor rate of success. No one seems to batter an eye lid, China does the same and everyone is going crazy.

The big difference is that you can say President USA is this and that and nothing will happen to you. But speak badly of the Chinese government and you would end up in a shithole for life. Or worst. Or say something bad about the N Korean leader for example. This is totally different.

With totalitarian governments, you never know.

Look what happened to Alexei Navalny.

Look what happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal in UK?

Again, I am not saying the other governments are saints, but I feel you have much more options in democratic countries.

> Look what happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal in UK?

The UK is Russia's poison playground so in this instance it would seem that realistically no one is safe, even if you reside in a democratic country. But then again these were people with major clout or enemies of the state.

I think most people assume totalitarian regime that's interested in at the very least being the economic powerhouse of the world, won't have good intentions with collecting everyone's data.

A far better assumption than: "well others do it too, therefore nothing about it can be more nefarious."

I do not want anyone getting their hands on my data, but in order of regions collected data this is my 'preference': EU >>> US > RU >> CN