Sometimes it is. Especially, if an adversary is bad to you, you should not be good to him. You should be equally bad, or sometimes worse.
That's how wars are won. Those who are nice to enemies because of "values" get crushed by the ruthless opponents.
Or to put it another way, should the US also ban/censor Chinese art and cinema within it's borders?
Every little thing the West does is already played up in China and spun as an intentional attack aimed directly at China because the West wants to destroy China. Usually this is conveyed in news broadcasts set to a backdrop of video of various US military exercises.
A lot of the support the Chinese government enjoys comes from people in China generally seeing the country as much better off than it was a few decades ago, and a sense of nationalism and conflating the government, country, and people as one. An attack on China is an attack on all of us is an attack on me.
Whatever you do in retaliation is just building the public and political will, or even public demand, within China for them to take harsher measures or escalate things further.
Despite the government's efforts, the populace is not exactly entirely isolated from the outside world. There are many people who, while maybe not fully distrusting of the government, definitely smell something fishy. They're curious, and they want to and are able to learn more.
Heading into the 2030s, China itself is already forecasting China's going to enter a period of negative population growth. Combined with a variety of cultural forces, this could be even more impactful than in some other countries. And it will only get worse with time. "Better off than we were a few decades ago" may soon become clearly untrue to a lot of people. The government knows this is coming and is trying to prepare by strengthening their grip.
I think a smarter long term move here would be to just... not. Let them yell at the clouds. Make whatever information we can freely available to the curious in any way we can. Welcome those that want to embrace Western values with open arms. Model the world that we think is best.
Rather than giving China the government the tools and ammunition needed to unify the people and rally them behind China the government... let's just wait. When the people feel the government is failing them, instead of leaving them feeling isolated and vulnerable... let them see they have somewhere else to turn.
Or, y'know, escalate this towards an economically and politically unstable nation of 1.5 billion people who think the West is the cause of all of their woes and see how it all shakes out. That'd definitely show everyone we have the biggest dick.
US social media is banned in China because it doesn’t comply with local censorship laws, nor because it is American. They impose the same censorship on local individuals and organisations too.
Then there is no need to find another excuse that might be offensive.
Obviously not probably an issue with social networks, but mindlessly banning something just because somebody else banned something seems like a recipe to be tricked.
In short, it's only hypocritical for one of those countries.
In both cases though, for normal citizens your own country and it's companies are far more dangerous than some random country halfway across the globe.
"USA is a free country" does not refer to China. "The free world" does not refer to China.
https://www.wired.com/2009/06/despite-army-order-some-bases-...
this is exactly the same as what China does with their gfw, they allow american apps to divest and be owned by a chinese company.
1. China asked American SNS companys to 'obey Chinese laws', which mostly refer to content control and data ownership, these companys refused, China didn'tforced them to sell 2. Are you sure to play the 'same as what China does'? hey, we are a totalitarian, authoritarian, dictatorial regime, are we same? think twice
Microsoft and Tesla accepted the same rule
You can understand it as the US gov requiring TikTok's data must be hosted by Microsoft in the US
2. Did I say that? No. I am opposed to the tiktok ban
really? > https://www.bbc.com/news/36938812 > https://www.heritage.org/international-economies/commentary/...
Let me tell you a cruel fact - Uber is completely unable to compete with Didi. You have no idea how fierce the competition in this industry in China is.
Uber died before it grew up in China
From your article:
> If Uber had become a commercial success in China, Chinese authorities ultimately would have clamped down to protect their domestic competitors.
> firms that do occasionally find success often face headwinds from Chinese regulators who limit their access to the domestic market.
> Didi naturally had state-backed funding, receiving a significant cash infusion from China's large sovereign-wealth fund.
> "Uber China" sought local investors. The hope was that, with local investors, the Chinese operation would be spared some of the hamstringing restrictions typically imposed on foreign businesses.
China is well-known to have intense domestic favoritism. Not sure where the profit is in denying that, given your own sources seem to clearly state it and even name a number of channels through which the state puts their thumb on the scale, not just regulatory but also through financing.
> *If* Uber had become a commercial success in China, Chinese authorities ultimately *would* have clamped down to protect their domestic competitors.
classic demonizing and loser's execuse
> firms that do occasionally find success often face headwinds from Chinese regulators who limit their access to the domestic market.
every other demestic companys face headwinds from Chinese regulators, just like I mentioned above, and Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft, they all in same situation, some of them couldn't handle this so they leaved, some stays
Also, DiDi once were banned more than 2 years by authorities, it survived
> Didi naturally had state-backed funding, receiving a significant cash infusion from China's large sovereign-wealth fund
The 'STATE-BACKED' is a typical word used by certain people, it's just some kind of gov investment funds, there're dozens and invested thousands private companys, it's a Socialism country, it's called socialism, what do you expect? Didi is not even a state-owned enterprise. And is this equals to "force to sell"?
> some of the hamstringing restrictions typically imposed on foreign businesses.
Bruh
> China is well-known to have intense domestic favoritism.
That's true, and? many Chinese people also have intense domestic favoritism
BTW, Apple is losing market share in China. However, take it easy, I don't think Apple will be sold to Huawei. Moreover, Apple is produced by Chinese and Indian, why bothered?
We don't?
I just typed https://www.baidu.com into my browser bar, hit enter, and their page loaded.
You can still go to the mobile web version; but that doesn't give the same level of access to devices and data that an app does.
I'm saying we don't hack them with the goal of driving them out of the American market, which is what happened to Google's PRC operations.
paradox of intolerance and all that..
Imagine if Japan owned all the Newspapers in the run-up to WWII.
That's not to say China is the only one with propaganda.
Media has always been a force for controlling popular opinion, but in the age of social media it's going to new extremes. There are forces that try to control how you see the world on all social media platforms and do so to attempt to shape your opinions of the world and modify your actions.
You can visibly see Reddit has been completely taken over by bot, shills, and other controlled accounts. There is no sincere, real human opinion posted on the front page.
Even HN is not immune. "Bad news" has long been forbidden here, and there is a range of topics that, even when heavily upvoted by the community, tend to disappear within minutes.
Such as? Disappear as in getting flagged?
Sarcastically chuckling about the state of the city as a long time resident gets the ban hammer.
It is really quite something.
Is it true that women unknowingly engage in Eugenics when choosing to procreate only with tall men in large numbers?
Or another test:
What happened to Epstein's video tapes stored in his NY mansion and why were the people in them not prosecuted?
Think about it...
Anyone that's going to be a senator in the next 12 years (at minimum) is already on Grindr if they were ever going to be.
Obviously they don't have the same leverage when they're otherwise going to be shut off in a few days.
Do you think that there is a price at which they would be willing to sell it?
China doesn't want USA doing that, and banned their social media. USA doesn't want China doing it because they've been doing it all over the world to everybody since Radio Free Europe, and likely before.
What do you mean by "Chinese perspective"? Do you mean people's genuine opinion or the official government talking points?
Speaking of China influence I keep getting these stories on my social media feeds: Isn't this overpass, road, or this building, or this city in with lots of LED lights in China just great? China is the future, and so on!
https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-g...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/13/tiktok-...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/16/tiktok...
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest...
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2024/3/...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/business/tiktok-israel-ha...
People have said it before but the clear internet is increasingly under Israel's influence. X's have silenced so many Palestinian accounts.
Western social media have platforms that allow states to censor content, and they have to comply. Under the guise of misinformation ofcourse.
I think they would probably refuse to sell in a situation where they had reason to expect the ban to persist (for different reasons), but in this case they probably didn't even consider selling when there's a high probability they'll be back legally operating in the US within a year.
Beyond this, there's the matter of enforcement and implementation. The former is discretionary and the latter is not specified by the bill. An effective ban would effectively require the creation of a Great Firewall of China type mechanism to effectively implement (which is what I thought this law was always a sort of 'trojan horse' for). Otherwise the "ban" will be trivially sidestepped by using a web app, downloading an APK from their site/mirrors instead of the marketplace, etc. Let alone things like VPNs! As Chinese companies are increasingly banned from the US, we're likely to see more adversarial setups where these companies will make no effort to prevent US customers no matter how much the US government madly gesticulates, though again with the current administration said gesticulation will not even happen in the first place.
The law (PAFACA) doesn't directly apply to TikTok, but only to TikTok's ownership by ByteDance, due to ByteDance being a corporation located in a foreign adversary nation. Foreign corporations are not protected by the first amendment as domestic corporations are. Case law clarifying separate first amendment protections for domestic vs foreign entities such as Citizens United v FEC (2010) and Bluman v FEC (2011), already established the precedent for this.
>I don't think it's all quite as clear behind doors as you seem to believe it was in front of them
Did you watch the hearing or read the transcript? The opinions of the majority of the justices on both sides, including the chief justice, were not ambiguous. As referenced in the hearing by the justices, the first amendment only applies to communication on the platform, not the ownership of the platform. Given that TikTok's parent company is ByteDance, and as the first amendment does not apply to foreign corporations as it does to domestic corporations, which multiple justices pointed out, the law is not in conflict with the first amendment. The law is referred to as the "TikTok ban law", but it doesn't ban the platform explicitly, it only bans its ownership by a foreign adversary located corporation, which are not protected by the first amendment, which is how the law avoids a conflict with the first amendment while potentially still effectively banning the platform.
Don't trust regular media to give you fair assessments of this case. ScotusBlog generally has excellent and impartial analysis of cases from experienced lawyers, and this is no exception. [1] They described the overall court as skeptical of the claims. Skeptical does not mean fully in bed with one side or the other, but simply that - skeptical. It's also important to bear in mind is that hearings are, by their very nature, off the cuff. And the implications (or factualness) of what the justices believe may change as they consider the implications of a decision, and factualness of their assumptions.
Again the thing I would say is that if this was an obvious case, the justices would not be waiting to the last second. My guess is that we'll probably see an announced delay+injunction on Friday.
[1] - https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/supreme-court-skeptical-o...
"Some justices, however, were unconvinced that the law necessarily raises a First Amendment issue. Justice Clarence Thomas asked Francisco how a restriction on ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok created any limitations on TikTok’s speech.
Justice Elena Kagan echoed Thomas’s skepticism. If the law only targets ByteDance, which does not have any First Amendment rights because it is a foreign corporation, she asked Francisco, how does that implicate TikTok’s First Amendment rights? TikTok can still use whatever algorithm it wants, Kagan observed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also appeared to agree at times. The law, she simply requires ByteDance to divest TikTok. A shut-down by TikTok, she suggested, would be the consequence of ByteDance’s choice not to do so.
Other justices appeared persuaded by the government’s invocation of national security concerns. Chief Justice John Roberts observed that, although Francisco contended that TikTok is a U.S. company, Congress had concluded that the “ultimate company that controls” TikTok is subject to Chinese laws, including an obligation to assist the Chinese government with intelligence work. “Are we,” Roberts queried, “supposed to ignore that?”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted the government’s contention that China is using TikTok to access information about millions of U.S. citizens, and in particular young people, and could in the future use that information to try to recruit spies or manipulate future U.S. officials. That “seems like a huge concern for the future of” the United States, Kavanaugh observed."
She was, at times, being overtly mocked with quotes from judges like, "That's your best argument is that the average American won't be able to figure out that the cat feed he's getting on TikTok could be manipulated, even though there's a disclosure saying it could be manipulated?" Prelogar in general found herself struggling to defend the claim that the attempted ban was based on data access and not content (which would be unconstitutional), why there were no alternatives if the claims were based solely on data access, and the implications for any other foreign company that has access to user data (which is basically all of them). TikTok was met with some tough questioning but generally responded competently.
[1] - https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/12/majority-of-court-appears...
[2] - https://www.techpolicy.press/transcript-us-supreme-court-ora...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-17/tiktok-ba...
Yet his opinion was almost entirely critical of the arguments that justified such. And it also seemed to include misinformation (unless it happens that I'm misinformed) suggesting that the TikTok app could access "any data" - a term which he himself put in quotes and also italicized - about anybody in a user's contact list. He said it included, but was not limited to photos and personal information. And this leaking of data of non-consenting users was apparently a significant part of the case. I'd be beyond surprised if the Android/Apple APIs bleed any substantial amount of information through contact access alone.
Interesting times we live in, as always!
Um, what? There is zero chance that ByteDance could get a fair price for TikTok. VC calculations can be disregarded, TikTok as a platform is more valuable than Facebook. How much money would it take for Zuckerberg to sell FB to a Chinese company?
The fact that ByteDance is opting for a shutdown instead is a huge PR stunt, and their unwillingness to sell under the circumstances kinda proves their whole First Amendment claims are made in bad faith. Something deeper is going on, and it's not about your social security number.