The situation is a lot different. The U.S. and China are not similar politically and socially, at least not yet. As a case in point, note that U.S. companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, and Youtube are blocked in China, whereas people in the U.S. (and elsewhere) are free to access services like WeChat and Baidu.

What's more, Europeans are free to develop their own social media platforms, and in fact I wonder why they haven't been more successful to date; there's plenty of software talent and cultural depth in Europe. It would be great to see more competition.

Your comment frustrates me a lot, especially the second part.

Not because you're wrong, but because any competition that comes up in Europe gets bought by the giants to the west, usually before they're globally known though sometimes not; I'm sure it's not entirely unknown that Skype was purchased by Microsoft at least, that was a pretty big player at the time.

In terms of general tech companies there's loads, including Shazam, iZettle, Momondo, Gamesparks, spider.io, Mojang, Apiary, Sparrow etc;etc; 52 by Apple/MS/Google in the years 2011-2016.

I'm honestly surprised Spotify remains.

A European social network has a really high barrier to entry compared to the US ones, sure, but all that meets them if they're successful is an acquisition- or at least that does seem to be the case with most European tech startups.

To your first point: I think the closeness with the CCP and closedness of the country would be fine points, my general feeling is that the US is a lot more clandestine with their methods (Snowden wiretapping of google revelations notwithstanding: most orders in the US come with stipulations that you're not allowed to speak of them).

Regarding the "openness", I feel like the US is battling it with Sinophobia, I mean, based on the former Presidents words at least; rather than an outright ban as the Chinese are doing.

What do you think?

Spoiler Alert: All governments capable of collecting data are doing so.

I don’t like _anyone_ doing mass surveillance but, as a European who also likes EU far from perfect attempts to curtail it, I do sigh when people think there isn’t a vast difference between US corporations and the CCP. At a bare minimum Facebook etc exist within a relatively free society with laws and elections and freedom of speech. It’s a question of degree and the degree is huge.

One difference might be that China is actively committing genocide

This would carry more weight if nearly every consumer good in the US wasn't made in China. It's very difficult to avoid giving money to the Chinese economy for ethical reasons at this point.

Yeah, I agree that the big stink and fear is way overblown. So's the censorship! That's why I'm seeing so much engagement with my Winnie the Pooh themed channel /s

Every country spies on every other country. The difference is that the US does have some amount of democratic oversight, rule of law which applies to everyone, reasonably functioning courts, separation of powers, basic commitment to humanistic values, etc.

None of this is perfect and you can aim a lot of criticism at various aspects, but I do think the differences are pretty fundamental and do matter.

I'm American. I'm a heavy libertarian and you are absolutely right, the US government is probably doing the same thing with local social media corporations.

This does not mean I believe we should give the US the same treatment as the CCP. The CCP openly enslaves people of other races and does not respect basic human rights.