> The differentiator here is national security,

Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook, and most US companies. As Snowden showed, most of them have a history of wire fraud.

China did ban Facebook, as did Russia and North Korea. Countries where Facebook is not banned are largely allies of the US.

Don't forget that The EU is currently considering banning Facebook if changes to privacy and data security aren't made.

https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/ban-on-facebo...

https://news.yahoo.com/facebook-instagram-face-europe-ban-16...

The EU authorities themselves are not banning Facebook, per se, despite the headlines - the threat to remove Facebook from the European market comes from Facebook/Meta, because they don't want to comply with the expected upcoming order preventing them from transferring EU data subject data to the US. The thing that the EU officials are preparing could be described as a ban on data transfer, although it's really an order to comply more correctly with an existing law (the GDPR) rather than a new obligation. But it's not a ban on operating in the EU.

If Facebook kept EU data subject data in the EU, or even if they use Standard Contractual Clauses to transfer it to different third countries without the same kind of problematic surveillance laws that the US has, there would be no issue.

What does the fact that we are allies change? This is espionnage in any case and the US has shown that they do not miss a beat when it comes to stealing information from us.

We would be doing the same of course if we were not much weaker and if our products were actually used over there.

If a major war occurs in the near future it won't be between the EU and the US. This lowers the risk of US companies hold EU data.

Also, don't be one sided on this. The EU countries also spy on the US.

> If a major war occurs in the near future it won't be between the EU and the US. This lowers the risk of US companies hold EU data.

I do not understand. What does a war has to do with the fact that countries spy on each other without rest? Merkel's phone was bugged by the US - not something nice you do to an ally, right? (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055)

> Also, don't be one sided on this. The EU countries also spy on the US.

I am not and this is exactly why I wrote the second sentence. Our capacities, unfortunately, are way lower.

Well, allies can ask friendly governments for information on their own citizens without violating and of their own privacy laws. So it can be useful as a circumvention tool for them.

>> The differentiator here is national security,

> Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook, and most US companies.

Like many sibling comments have already pointed out, many do.

But the answer to your statement is "no." You're trying to pull an oversimple rule out of a pithy comment and neglecting other important distinctions. It's not just a black/white distinction like foreign country vs. domestic, but more more nuanced one like enemy country vs adversary country vs neutral country vs allied country vs domestic. The answer to the question "should country X ban Facebook for national security reasons" will be different for different countries based on their context.

> Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook

In case you hadn't heard (I presume you have, us being on HN and all), there is some movement within the EU towards that end

Blatantly false. Completely unrealistic. Additional regulation towards privacy perhaps - affecting all similar (American, Chinese, European etc.) platforms. But not an outright ban.

Facebook threatening to close their site in Europe because of regulations is not the same as EU banning them.

> There is a risk Europeans won’t be able to use Facebook after the Irish data protection agency (DPC) doubles down on stopping data transfer between the US and the E.U.

https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/eu-moving-closer-to-faceboo...

I dunno, "stopping data transfer" sounds like a ban by another name to me.

EU countries are banning Google already. Never say never

No, that's not the case.

Judiciaries in multiple EU member states have judged Google to be breaching EU regulations (in regards to Google Analytics). That is not a ban; Google is welcome to do business in the EU if they observe EU laws and regulations.

Probably, yes. Though it also depends on the country. I would be more OK with Canada having my data than China or Russia.

>Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook, and most US companies. As Snowden showed, most of them have a history of wire fraud.

If you assume equivalence between (1) Facebook and Tiktok and (2) the U.S. and China's data collection practices.

And I don't think those are equivalent, and therefore it's not necessary to treat the dissimilar cases the same.

It's much more valuable to them as a data source on others. So they try to rely on training and forbidding their own personnel from using such things. I assume the tik tok app has more security concerns than the platform itself.

Rubbish. China is less of a threat to anyone outside the US than the government inside the US.

If the FCC clarified their stance and highlighted very specific threats, I might be swayed but only if it was demonstrated that the US government isn't doing exactly the same thing.

All opaque data harvesting of public platforms, no matter who collects it, is bad.

Your example is garbage as well. In both situations you highlighted you have something that you don't have in face of data harvesting...choice. You can decide whether or not to give your banking password to a stranger or your wife. You usually have no choice when it comes to data harvesting...because usually the data is harvested out of the backdoor of a platform by selling it on.

> China is less of a threat to anyone outside the US than the government inside the US.

Why do you believe this, and based on what evidence? By “anyone outside the US”, are you referring to the population of China? What US threats are you referring to, and why do you believe they’re worse in the US? While the US has ample room for improvement, as do all countries, there’s a fairly wide range of serious humanitarian issues that are documented and indexed by a large number of people globally, and there seems to be very little disagreement about how China compares to the US on various censorship and freedom rankings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices

That's... not a great analogy. I trust my wife a lot more than I trust Mark Zuckerberg (or Xi Jinping).

Statistically, (and not knowing your wife), you’re a lot more likely to get sent to the poor house because of your wife than Mark Zuckerberg.

Because it's US vs China and companies like Meta/Google/Twitter are already treated poorly in China? Ppl are already asking these kind of questions even long before this, why should we allow companies such as Tiktok while so many 'Western' tech companies are banned in China?

Are they? Which companies are those?

You must be living under the rock if you don't know many products has been banned in China for many years, notably but not restricted to Facebook, Google, Twitter. https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/10-popular-apps-and-we...

Apple's data in China is handled by China government affiliated entity https://technode.com/2018/01/10/apple-icloud-guizhou/ . China's typical play book in tech field is to have the original products banned and have their own copycat flourish.

They are already NOT playing fair.

What? Am I not allowed to question this ridiculous claim?

Are you referring to the claim that there are western tech companies blocked in mainland China? This is a well known fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...

You should inform yourself of basic knowledge.

Yes but the United States government trusts Mark Zuckerberg more than Xi Jinping.

Isn’t it that they can get access to all of Facebooks data on request, but not so with TikTok? I doubt trust comes into it.

Of course they do - they work together. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zqEvQKO5_gM

I trust Xi more than Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg doesn't disappear people or put them in camps

OTOH, Xi has never imprisoned me for posting satire.

Has Zuckerberg?

Internet ban = imprisonment and a human rights violation according to certain HNers lmaooo

The US government is not your wife no matter where you live

>> It's like the difference between sharing your bank password with your wife vs. some dude you aren't very friendly with who has a history of wire fraud. "Treat everyone the same" is not a workable policy.

> The US government is not your wife no matter where you live

You're missing the point by taking the analogy too literally.

The issue is the data practices and propaganda capability. TikTok is supposedly a threat because Chicoms, but Facebook has no problem selling access to Russian influence operations.

Maybe the issue is abusive social networks hoovering up data with no controls and no regulation.

More like a progression from monetizing attention (questionable), to political manipulation (already awful), to domestic government overreach (Texas), to hostile nation targeting specific people for coercion/malware (national security).

> It's like the difference between sharing your bank password with your wife vs. some dude you aren't very friendly with who has a history of wire fraud. "Treat everyone the same" is not a workable policy.

This is exactly right.

> The differentiator here is national security

Because no one can hack Facebook and get that data anyway? hell, maybe they don't even need to

Cambridge Analytica showed you don't need to hack. You just need to be a developer and have keys to the kingdom with a "gentleman's agreement" that you won't do anything hinky with the access you've been granted.

No need to hack, if you have the right connections and enough money you can buy anything from the US gov, the US gov has access to all data and non US citizens have no rights.

Except the "wife" here also has a habit of stealing from the family and of wire fraud.

Not a good analogy. As a private citizen, my own national government having my private data is far more of a threat to me than Daddy Xi or Mr. Putin. Those two and their spooks are an ocean away. The local government is the one I need to live under.