So it's neither unrelated or a generic tangent, as it relates to intellectual property theft. It's beyond question both that China as a country is known for stealing intellectual property, and that Chinese companies work closely with the CCP.
In the introduction of The Wires Of War by Jacob Helberg, he cites a statistic that estimates that "Chinese theft of intellectual property costs Americans anywhere from $225 billion to $600 Billion every year..."
Yikes. All I see is a comment that teeters on the brink of racism and now you're trying to backtrack.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/beijing-t...
https://qz.com/1788836/targeting-tiktoks-privacy-alone-misse...
CNN likes to pop up a PIP view of what's being broadcast in China when they talk about things that embarrass the Chinese government. When they start talking about Peng Shuai it takes about two seconds before the Chinese broadcast becomes a test pattern.
When's the last time you saw a test pattern when watching a foreign news channel?
Happens a lot in online discussions.
And, in particular, the US government does not either possess or exercise the power over US companies to coerce them to steal IP from other countries - which is the issue under discussion.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29594691
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597691
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596075
Those comments aren't adding nuance, they're perpetuating flamewar. Please don't do that.
Also, to the very point you bring up... recipients of an NSL can file a legal challenge to an NSL which would trigger a judge to have to review the request. NSL's also do not allow the government to request all sorts of data, but mostly direct PII and service metadata. NSLs are problematic but I seriously doubt any comparative limits apply to Chinese agencies' requests for data from ByteDance.
Any attempts to muddy the waters for ideological point-scoring are beside the point. If you want to dig deeper, please bring evidence instead of speculation.
Note the "similar".
You then amended your point to "virtually all large (tech) companies are influenced by governments", which is completely different than similar levels of influence.
Nobody cares that governments have some level of influence over companies - that's a feature, in fact, because some regulation is necessary for markets to work - the issue under hand is exclusively whether the level of control is excessive. (and, in this specific thread, whether "A Chinese company stealing IP" is comparable to "China stealing IP")
That's moving the goalposts.
(the answer to that last question is "yes" - the Chinese government does, in fact, use Chinese companies to steal IP from other countries (including, but not limited to, the US, Japan, and parts of the EU), while the US does not)
It is impossible to have a practical discussion on these issues when one side unironically believes China is a Mordor-esque land ruled by comic book villains. Totally misinformed.
Anyways, the level of influence is similar. If the Washington wants my private data from Google, they will get it. No amount of wishful thinking and handwaving about "well Google could say no, but bytedance will definitely comply because reasons" will change that.
The Chinese government does, in fact, use Chinese companies to steal IP from other countries, while the US does not and cannot.
Irrelevant chaff that you have attempted to throw up: "would be as pedantic about verifying claims" "winning internet arguments" "one side unironically believes China is a Mordor-esque land ruled by comic book villains" (yeah no) "If the Washington wants my private data from Google, they will get it" (also no)
> If the Washington wants my private data from Google, they will get it
> the level of influence is similar
As someone who works with the US government, I can verify that both of these statements are factually false. (and, again, still a diversion from the actual topic under discussion which is governments compelling companies to engage in IP theft)
It is non-trivial (in the legal sense) for the US government to get the data of a single US person, and it certainly cannot do it en-masse, nor force companies to hand over all of their data unencrypted, both of which are things that the CCP can (and does) do. Therefore, the levels of influence are not similar. End of argument.
The CCP is also known to enforce censoring government critical speech on their platforms including TikTok. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...
National Intelligence Law also allows the CCP to request from businesses any data unlimited in scope without a warrant or possible recourse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law_of...
It’s not ideological; one clearly exerts more control than the other, by an order of magnitude. To say the surveillance, censorship, or control on businesses are similar because Google has complied with some government requests (the only evidence _you_ have provided) is naive at best, or disingenuous at worst. Of course the US performs intelligence gathering on its citizens or foreigners for national security. The difference is the scope, oversight, and recourse businesses in the US have.
Donald Trump? Jan 6? Julian Assange? Chelsea Manning? There are countless examples of USG censorship. Just because you don't ideologically agree with the victims does not absolve the act of censorship.
> National Intelligence Law also allows the CCP to request from businesses any data unlimited in scope without a warrant or possible recourse.
Do you really believe that Washington doesn't have this same power? That they will just go "oh well, guess we can't investigate this national security crisis because Google said so". That's clearly ridiculous. Washington has the power and resources to break into datacenters if compelled.
> It’s not ideological; one clearly exerts more control than the other, by an order of magnitude.
It is clearly ideological (a priori, CCP = bad) and you have not demonstrated that one is vastly more controlling than the other.
While I don’t agree with the prosecution of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning was pardoned and censorship of Donald Trump was done by the businesses themselves due to cultural reasons. That had nothing to do with the US Government (of which Donald Trump was running the executive branch at the time). It’s also far different than having all dissent being censored, and as a business being liable for any and all dissent that is not censored on your platform.
> Do you really believe that Washington doesn't have this same power? That they will just go "oh well, guess we can't investigate this national security crisis because Google said so". That's clearly ridiculous. Washington has the power and resources to break into datacenters if compelled.
That’s pure conjecture. In your words, provide some evidence to dig deeper. Either way, Washington having to break into a domestic data center to get their information is different than the law explicitly stating that all domestic business are a part of the national security apparatus and requiring businesses hand anything over no questions asked — the latter of which is “vastly more controlling than the other”.
Chinese companies not only can't say when such requests were made, they cannot reject them either. Every Chinese firm must give all their data to the government, at all times, for any reason (which will remain secret of course).
The fact that you are trying to, as you say, "muddy the waters" (amazing the amount of projection you do) with conflating the two might work as an augmentation tactic (maybe fool a person or two), but logically it is unsound.
proceeds to move goalposts
ByteDance doesn't issue such reports because everyone knows they cannot refuse a request by their government. Any report that says otherwise would be, as you say, "PR material".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...
1. There is a court in the US (called FISA), with procedure and some transparency. Neither exists in China.
2. Requests have been denied, just not that many. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fisa-court-has-onl...) But that proves they have the ability to say no, which is what we are discussing.
3. All of the above can be improved, but shifting the argument to "what's bad about the US system" away from "what China is actually doing" is drifting into deflection.
What does it mean?
China and its large companies don't fear lawsuits the way US corporations do. That's how Jack Ma was able to steal Alipay from Yahoo shareholders and laugh all the way to the bank, there were no consequences to worry about. It's why Yahoo capitulated in dealing with Alibaba as a major shareholder, they knew the end result would have been their ownership stake could just be zero'd out at any time. That's why China can arbitrarily point at Didi and tell them to delist, regardless of what it does to foreign shareholders - there's nothing to worry about, there will be no meaningful consequences.
You can't get at them domestically if they don't want you to, because they're a nation that operates by the shielded, arbitrary dictate of the CCP rather than laws, and nearly everyone is afraid of their retaliation (including the richest corporations in the world like Apple).
Nobody much fears the US will retaliate the way China does. That's why the EU has been pounding US tech companies with mega fines, and wouldn't dare behave that way toward China. It's why the green virtue signalers are so very scared to publicly lambast China, and they'll harangue the US and EU all day. It's why the NBA will intentionally ignore any and all atrocities of China (they're intensely terrified to utter even the slightest of negative words toward China), yet they have almost zero fear of jabbing the US 24/7 - it's because for the most part nobody is afraid of the US.
They even refused to get in touch. Why would they when they have most Swedish political parties in their pocket? And that's in one of the world's least corrupt countries.
Political parties in your pocket literally defines political corruption.