Tim Wu: A TikTok Ban Is Overdue (nytimes.com) 138
Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, writing in a column for The New York Times: Were almost any country other than China involved, Mr. Trump's demands would be indefensible. But the threatened bans on TikTok and WeChat, whatever their motivations, can also be seen as an overdue response, a tit for tat, in a long battle for the soul of the internet. In China, the foreign equivalents of TikTok and WeChat -- video and messaging apps such as YouTube and WhatsApp -- have been banned for years. The country's extensive blocking, censorship and surveillance violate just about every principle of internet openness and decency. China keeps a closed and censorial internet economy at home while its products enjoy full access to open markets abroad. The asymmetry is unfair and ought no longer be tolerated. The privilege of full internet access -- the open internet -- should be extended only to companies from countries that respect that openness themselves. Behind the TikTok controversy is an important struggle between two dueling visions of the internet. The first is an older vision: the idea that the internet should, in a neutral fashion, connect everyone, and that blocking and censorship of sites by nation-states should be rare and justified by more than the will of the ruler. The second and newer vision, of which China has been the leading exponent, is "net nationalism," which views the country's internet primarily as a tool of state power. Economic growth, surveillance and thought control, from this perspective, are the internet's most important functions. China, in furtherance of this vision, bans not only most foreign competitors to its tech businesses but also foreign sources of news, religious instruction and other information, while using the internet to promote state propaganda and engage in foreign electoral interference.
For many years, laboring under the vain expectation that China, succumbing to inexorable world-historical forces, would become more like us, Western democracies have allowed China to exploit this situation. We have accepted, with only muted complaints, Chinese censorship and blocking of content from abroad while allowing Chinese companies to explore and exploit whatever markets it likes. Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to China's online companies. From China's perspective, the asymmetry has been a bonanza that has served economic as well as political goals. While China does have great engineers, European nations overrun by American tech companies must be jealous of the thriving tech industry that China has built in the absence of serious foreign competition (aided by the theft of trade secrets). At the same time, China has managed, to an extent many believed impossible, to use the internet to suppress any nascent political opposition and ceaselessly promote its ruling party. The idealists who thought the internet would automatically create democracy in China were wrong.
For many years, laboring under the vain expectation that China, succumbing to inexorable world-historical forces, would become more like us, Western democracies have allowed China to exploit this situation. We have accepted, with only muted complaints, Chinese censorship and blocking of content from abroad while allowing Chinese companies to explore and exploit whatever markets it likes. Few foreign companies are allowed to reach Chinese citizens with ideas or services, but the world is fully open to China's online companies. From China's perspective, the asymmetry has been a bonanza that has served economic as well as political goals. While China does have great engineers, European nations overrun by American tech companies must be jealous of the thriving tech industry that China has built in the absence of serious foreign competition (aided by the theft of trade secrets). At the same time, China has managed, to an extent many believed impossible, to use the internet to suppress any nascent political opposition and ceaselessly promote its ruling party. The idealists who thought the internet would automatically create democracy in China were wrong.
Ornage Man Bad (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ornage Man Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, there is at least an even chance you are entirely serious.
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Today I learned that using "Orange Man Bad" in lieu of an actual rebuttal is somehow a superior position.
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When you're suffering from TDS, you'll hallucinate a world more to your liking.
Re:Ornage Man Bad (Score:4, Funny)
I have a family member that suffers from hallucinations. Hers don't leave behind evidence in both video and tweet form, though.
Too much free speech considered harmful? (Score:3)
Please don't propagate AC FP trollage Subjects. I admit that it was quite possibly intended as a joke based on the spelling error, but if so, then what was AC afraid of? Becoming known as a funny person?
Having said that, it's also possible that AC was thinking about the real issue here. If America is destroying itself through too much free speech, then what is the solution? Should divisive lies and slander and baseless provocations have equal or even superior "free speech" standing in competition with the t
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Me? I'm hopelessly confused. (Hence all the questions.) I am sure that "communism" today does not mean what Marx thought it meant.
You're confused because you believe what it says on the package. Stop that. China says it's communist, but it isn't. Communism involves a lack of currency or a class system.
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I don't think that I would disagree with that that, but the vocal critics are so insistent that China is "communist" and it's a VERY BAD thing. I don't think I'm confused on that part of it. They're just managing to be more ignorant than me, which takes some effort.
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Lots of people have a lot to say but it's not necessarily a good idea to listen to them.
China is fascist, not communist. By definition(s).
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simply direct the results to the legitimate property
And what if the property isn't legitimately available?
Let's say, for instance, that I want to teach my children about historical racism, and show them Disney's Song of the South. That is legitimate fair use. But Disney no longer wants to be associated with that property and has pulled it from any and all legitimate sources. But I can still download a torrent of it.
So in your hypothetical, what is google supposed to do here? Deny me my fair use rights and enforce Disney's copyright for them? Google are not
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You seem to be confusing various aspects of the topic together. The simple part is about the super-greed of Disney as protected by law. It doesn't matter how much Mickey Mouse deserves to die or be moved to the public domain (a fate worse than death to Disney Corp), the law is clear and on Disney's side and the google has to obey the law. For the sake of gathering eyeballs, YouTube does not care about the law and is trying to profit from rampant abuse of copyright even though the solution is obvious. Most o
As a card carrying Democrat it's suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
a. Young voters, who lean left, have been organizing on Tik Tok.
and
b. There's nothing to prevent Facebook from selling their data to China, nor will there be given how profitable it is and how lobbying works.
Banning Tik Tok smells of the digital equivalent of Nixon's Drug War.
As for the whole "Orange Man Bad" thing, well, there's this thing called pattern recognition. It should've kicked in around the time he send armed goons in cammo to pull random people into unmarked vans and it should've kicked into overdrive when he started dismantling the post office and then openly admitted it was to prevent his opponents from voting.
Seriously, Orange Man is Bad, and I don't understand how or why we're still debating that. It's like we've all become so afraid of partisanship that we won't criticize... I won't even call this bad behavior he is literally running a fascist playbook right now. Seriously, look up the 14 points of fascism and he hits every. single. one.
All that said, the problem is probably the scale of it. Nobody really wants to believe our democracy is slipping away by inches. It's too much to take in.
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It should've kicked in around the time he send armed goons in cammo
They were in uniform and identified as Federal officers. The only thing they lacked was name tags, and that was due to rioters doxxing anyone and everyone they could.
to pull random people into unmarked vans
Only if you define "random" as "rioters caught in the act of rioting."
and it should've kicked into overdrive when he started dismantling the post office
The USPS has openly stated it has enough money to operate well into 2021, thus none of the current budget kerfuffle has anything to do with the election...other than the Postmaster General stating the USPS cannot guarantee mail-in ballots can be delivered within the time fra
There were in cammo and either covered up (Score:3)
There's multiple videos of them pulling people into the vans for doing nothing. My personal favorite was a guy drawing a chalk line around a federal building to let protesters know "stay on this side or the Gestapo will arrest you".
Also, they didn't read Miranda and didn't charge anyone with anything. They were doing "Catch & Release" because they're trying to stir up trouble and to get people used to the idea of a Federal Police. There's a paper Bill Ba
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There's a paper Bill Barr wrote about doing just that from 1989 floating around the net.
You've said this like a dozen times, yet you've not once provided a link to the paper. I'd like to read it. I've searched for it and found nothing, so don't tell me to "just Google it". Provide a link, please.
If you refuse to, I guess we'll just have to chalk this up as another one of your frequent fabrications.
No. (Score:2)
To anyone who made it this far in the thread SpankiMonki is either an alt-right troll or a foreign actor hoping to interfere with the election. Not sure which, and frankly it doesn't matter. You can learn to spot these pret
So, no link to this "paper" of yours? (Score:2)
At every turn I spoke of video. You say "a paper" because that's the standard rhetorical trick of alt-right troll and Russians. Your handlers told you to ask for a paper and you didn't even really understand why
SMH and ROTFLMAO! Your words are right there in black and white for everyone to see! Jesus, here's what you said:
There's a paper Bill Barr wrote about doing just that from 1989 floating around the net.
Rhetorical trick? JFC, you said there was A PAPER ON THE INTERNET. I asked for a link to it. You respond by saying I'm an alt-right stooge of the Russians. Unbelievable. You're embarrassing yourself, and you apparently don't even realize it.
To anyone who made it this far in the thread SpankiMonki is either an alt-right troll or a foreign actor hoping to interfere with the election.
Why in the world would an alt-right troll want to bring "a paper" into public view that would hurt Trump? You're making ZERO sense. If th
I hope you're being paid (Score:2)
Blah blah blah (Score:2)
Sure, pal. I'm a white nationalist under Russian control who's a threat to democracy and is being paid to post here in order to interfere with the election - all because I dared ask you for a link to a paper you've blabbed about on multiple occasions. You're seriously disturbed.
BTW, you frequently post more in 48 hours than I do in a week. 90% of your posts are political, and repeat the same tired talking points over and over and over. LOL, if anyone's getting paid to post here, it's you.
But keep on p
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Facebook isn't owned by the Chinese government.
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I know when you stop to think about the claims, exactly in what way are Chinese corporations exploiting us in ways that US and other western corporations do not exploit us. Make no mistake about setting precedent. Once the US starts banning foreign corporations so other countries will follow suit. They can not copy the government of China, even though they very much want to but they can stick it right back to US corporations should the US government start banning foreign corporations that outcompete and are
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because :
a. Young voters, who lean left, have been organizing on Tik Tok.
and
b. There's nothing to prevent Facebook from selling their data to China, nor will there be given how profitable it is and how lobbying works.
Banning Tik Tok smells of the digital equivalent of Nixon's Drug War.
As for the whole "Orange Man Bad" thing, well, there's this thing called pattern recognition. It should've kicked in around the time he send armed goons in cammo to pull random people into unmarked vans and it should've kicked into overdrive when he started dismantling the post office and then openly admitted it was to prevent his opponents from voting.
Seriously, Orange Man is Bad, and I don't understand how or why we're still debating that. It's like we've all become so afraid of partisanship that we won't criticize... I won't even call this bad behavior he is literally running a fascist playbook right now. Seriously, look up the 14 points of fascism and he hits every. single. one.
All that said, the problem is probably the scale of it. Nobody really wants to believe our democracy is slipping away by inches. It's too much to take in.
Just the quote against the censorship. Not sure I fully agree with all of your points, but I know I disagree with the censors without even asking why they can't respond to you with any substance. My primary reaction is in the longer comment I wrote, but I'm still considering the "Heads we [America] get to continue winning, tails you [China] must start losing" argument that seems to underlie your position.
Go look up YouTuber Beau of The Fifth Column's (Score:2)
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Who is Beau of the Fifth Column and why should I care?
Hard core libertarian / lefty (Score:2)
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Ugh. I tried listening to his "pulling from Germany and slogans".
And honestly, I don't find it or him compelling. "Reassigning troops from Germany will increase militarization of Europe because Germany will have to uphold her commitments to NATO."
And??? Isn't the point to have other nations solve their problems without 'Murican Freedom Fries? Europe should be shouldering bulk of the burden in defending Europe. Just like any nation has a duty to maintain their own defense. A great way to get the US out of th
Libertarians are hypocrites or fools (Score:2)
What? You [rsilvergun] again?
Actually only responding on the "small government" issue, but mostly because "small government" was the Catch 22 of the GOP (even before it collapsed into the GOT). If you support big business, then you are opposed to small government. They are linked closer than Siamese twins. Actually, even the GOT is clearly a pro-big-business gang, though there is some confusion because the GOT does want to cut the parts of the government that interfere with Gawd PROFIT. From the perspective
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May I ask for clarification on "GOT"? I haven't seen that before except in reference Game of Thrones.
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Gang Of Trump. Successor to GOP.
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Ah. Thanks.
Beau isn't the type of Libertarian you're used to (Score:2)
The type of small government he's advocating for borders on Star Trek. The idea is a world of hyper competent Citizen Soldiers who are capable of being self sufficient while also capable of responding to the needs of everyone.
He's also clever enough to know it's a pipe dream in the near or even long term and advocate for solutions to problems now. You won't see a lot of his hard core
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Most people in the Star Trek world are just people. For the most part we only see members of Starfleet. When we see other people they are usually useless and in the way, except for the occasional exceptional individual... who is generally pushed into Starfleet. The Star Trek world is extremely socialist, and a meritocracy. They are at least halfway to communism.
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most people that call themselves libertarians aren't all that concerned about liberty.
FTFY. Let's not conflate the idea with the idiots that use it as an excuse for anarchy.
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Re:Ornage Man Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, in China only 3000 people died because the CCP developed a medicinal CCP Koolaid.
According to Xi the Pooh who murders anyone who disagrees with him
It's actually quite possible China's deaths (Score:5, Informative)
China also is pretty authoritarian, to the point where they could lock down a _lot_ harder than we could or would even with a Democrat in charge. That can obviously be a bad thing (e.g. it's possible quarantines were used to disappear undesirables) but it does have the side effect of making it possible to rapidly control a pandemic.
China also did a better job of paying people to stay home than the US did. Again, not because they're communist (they're not, anyone who tells you China is a communist country is selling you something) but because for all their faults they do tend to follow science more than the US does.
And before you shout about how they downplayed the virus initially, I said "more than the US does". That is an insanely low bar...
Tit-for-tat (Score:3, Insightful)
Thinking that we have to appease bad-actors who won't give 'us' the same treatment is simply foolish. Advocates for this kind of thinking seem to believe that China will become more free if we give them everything they want and nothing in return. Or perhaps it's calculated rather than merely stupid or naive: they know perfectly well that appealing to the west's liberal freedoms benefits China without benefiting the west.
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Advocates for this kind of thinking seem to believe that China will become more free if we give them everything they want and nothing in return. Or perhaps it's calculated rather than merely stupid or naive: hey know perfectly well that appealing to the west's liberal freedoms benefits China without benefiting the west.
Working with China even if they aren't playing "fair" likely has little to do with a desire to make them a freer society, and even less to do with wanting to benefit China. It is because western companies feel they can make more money if they work with China than if they don't. And they will rarely be looking more than a few years in the future to determine if it will eventually backfire because the stock options driving their bonuses don't look further than that.
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Mod parent up.
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How would a ban functionally work? (Score:2)
The only way I can think of is for Apple/Google to ban the apps from their app stores, which would ban them technically for the majority of users. Would both stores also automatically uninstall the apps from phones? Does the government have authority to order those companies to comply with such a directive? Do TikTok and weChat have standard web interfaces that would be unaffected without some type of nationwide firewall? I am genuinely curious from people who have more knowledge than I do, the whole thing
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I can't figure out your point, even in context and even after following your link.
Confusion might start with your sig? Whatever you said, there's no "all" that is thinking "it", and even intelligent people might want to express emotions, which sometimes calls for profanity. (Then again, you can look at The Naked Lunch for an example of too much (emotionless) profanity.)
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Yes, the federal government has authority over trade between states including foreign ones.
As for the technical implementation I doubt anyone has a technical blockade in mind here. Their US arms close down, businesses can't buy ads from them, nobody can help you get them or else they'd be assisting breaking the law. There are all sorts of goods and services which are illegal.
I don't think anyone is talking about literally blocking your 14 year old from being a sideloading idiot. They might well be talking a
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Yes, the federal government has authority over trade between states including foreign ones.
Since this whole thing came up I have wondered the same thing as the OP. It's not that I doubt that the federal government has this power, I just don't know if the executive branch does without an act of congress. It wouldn't surprise me if there is some regulatory power the executive branch could use as a result of a previous act of congress, but I haven't heard what that is (admittedly, I haven't done much investigation).
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There is at least one pretty solid example actually that gives pretty much sweeping economic authority to the President in current circumstances. He was testing new waters when he used it for sanctions but only mildly, this law was an expansion on a previous mechanism that had been extensively used for trade sanctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act
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Political (Score:2)
It's not posturing (Score:4, Interesting)
Young people are organizing politically on Tik Tok. Maybe not the best place for it given it's ties to China but here we are. Where ever young folk organize politically you'll find the American Right Wing there to break it up.
That's because young folk & the Right Wing have never gotten along. It takes a certain amount of old age and bitterness to make an ideology that constantly looks to the past palpable. But as South Park pointed out the Prequels really weren't all that good...
Not particularly (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia seems to have mainly influenced Paul Manafort [usatoday.com] and the Trump campaign. Trump still hasn't addressed Putin putting bounties on our troops heads, instead relying on the news cycle to bury the story (which it helpfully did).
As for China's influence on America, wake me when Trump forces China to divest ownership in our meat industry. Wake me when they stop letting Chinese buy up all the houses in my city (driving up prices drastically). Wake me when Tencent isn't dominating our video game industry.
We completely ignore Chinese influence where it matters. Tik Tok got hammered because, like I said, young folks are organizing there and the right wing doesn't get along well with the young.
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There is little risk of China influencing them as it would become painfully obvious if they did.
Maybe. China has operated a concerted propaganda campaign in the US for the last two decades, but it's unlikely you've noticed, or done anything about it, despite how obvious it is.
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The issue here is China is being used as a pretext for Trump to go after some of his political opponents (in this case politically organized young people). Just like Drugs were used before that.
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You're downplaying the necessity of addressing international issues because of your own domestic political views--in particular your dislike of one particular politician/party. [Again.]
The situation with China is very different in comparison with the vast majority of countries, and it needs to be rectified for myriad reasons. Just because an idiot [Trump] is the one pushing for it doesn't make it wrong to do in general. He will twist anything possible to be for his benefit-- so why not take it as a win that
Not in the slightest (Score:2)
To be clear, I don't want Tik Tok banned because I want young people organized politically, and right now Tik Tok is doing that. I want young people organized
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I'm on board 100% with everything you said in your first paragraph here. TikTok definitely shouldn't be the focus. I just don't see it as a negative having one less company directly sucking money from the US to China, and I think young people have plenty of other places to organize. Thanks for replying.
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The issue here is China is being used as a pretext for Trump to go after some of his political opponents (in this case politically organized young people).
Yeah, but that's just a front for the lizard people, so don't keep your eye on the wrong target.
Double standards. (Score:1, Interesting)
Before anyone thinks anything negative, I dont agree with all these spying stuff.
That said, I find interesting that TikTok gets banned, yet Facebook rule the world, specially knowing what Snowden has revealed, we can all be sure that Facebook and all others are providing all our data to all of our 3 letters agencies.
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Exactly my thoughts. I don't think Tik Tok falls under any significant national security concerns though, that part of the action seems like a farce. Invoking national security might be the primary thing enabling Donald to block Tik Tock and other Byte Dance properties in the US.
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"That said, I find interesting that TikTok gets banned, yet Facebook rule the world, specially knowing what Snowden has revealed, we can all be sure that Facebook and all others are providing all our data to all of our 3 letters agencies."
Lets not create some kind of false equivalence between our agencies and China's. That's is right up there with a serious equivalence between us and Nazi Germany... except the Nazi's share all the same worst crimes with China but nowhere near the death toll.
China is trying
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"That said, I find interesting that TikTok gets banned, yet Facebook rule the world, specially knowing what Snowden has revealed, we can all be sure that Facebook and all others are providing all our data to all of our 3 letters agencies."
Lets not create some kind of false equivalence between our agencies and China's. That's is right up there with a serious equivalence between us and Nazi Germany... except the Nazi's share all the same worst crimes with China but nowhere near the death toll.
China is trying to brainwash your kids into hating personal freedom and democracy. Not our implementation of these things but the concepts themselves. Damn right that is political, that is everything we the people fought and bleed for, not just in the United States but also in France and throughout Europe as we cast aside the aristocracy and rose up to demand our own voice in our governance. Some things are a lot more serious than R vs D or the current love of hating Americans (fueled in small part by Chinese sockpuppets I might add). In the process they may well gain information to use as leverage against you and our officials.
The domestic problems with intelligence agencies and privacy violating tech companies (whether colluding or not) are big issues as well but not entirely the same issue.
Your points are all valid, but at the same time, you are confusing the main point (how TikTok is getting hammered because its stealing data from users) and twisted towards something else.
I dont see China using TikTok to brain wash anyone (Well, not directly anyways) and in my experiences, the little time I used the app, only saw silly videos from people. I pretty much saw the same thing with Vine and Instragram.
Lastly, once again, not making excuses for china or as you called it, chinese sockpuppet, but jum
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"jumping from TikTok to the political and humanitarian mess that china is, is a hell of a jump."
In the UK it would be a hell of a jump, the US, Germany, etc but China has government and economic structure wherein their corporate entities are effectively just tendrils of the state. I'm not saying the rest of those places don't protect interests or fudge lines sometimes but in China anything allowed to grow that large is essentially a part of the government. That isn't even sketchy or some crazy conspiracy it
No, lets (Score:2)
We got a very small number of the worst excesses under control in our borders. And based on what I've seen in Portand, OR we'
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... for example?
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"You people who are against racism are just like, poseur conformists, man."
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China is trying to brainwash your kids into hating personal freedom and democracy. Not our implementation of these things but the concepts themselves
I don't get how this is their plan with TikTok, which (as far as I can tell) is basically a platform for free and artistic expression by and for "the youths".
What are they going to do? I find it hard to imagine scenarios in which TikTok can be used to brainwash - like, how long will it last as a platform if it suddenly starts only surfacing videos that show kids marching in a line singing communist propaganda, or whatever?
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You see this with financial institutions too, with the US having a 'special relationship' with all those banks based out of NYC and getting
So every other country should ban social media... (Score:1)
...not native to their own country?
What a stupid idea.
Especially when you consider this whole farce was launched by a US company hiring a Russian Marketing company to run ads in order to convince the US government that they should buy their social media monitoring product because Russia was interfering?
Idiotic.
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Social media controlled by a central entity with data collection should probably be banned altogether. But banning China is hardly the same thing as banning any social media company that isn't native. China uses these things as tools of their state to push an agenda that is antithesis to humanity (assuming you think having some sort of say or freedom in life is important to you). Their agenda is certainly contrary to the most important principles of pretty much the entire free world.
Free trade models (Score:1)
Models of free trade predict that even if the other country has barriers, open trade is still a net benefit for the free-trading country. In other words, retaliation doesn't pay.
This had often been cited by economists to justify living with lopsided trade.
However, the models mostly focused on numbers and don't or can't take into ac
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Models of free trade predict that even if the other country has barriers, open trade is still a net benefit for the free-trading country.
I assume there's a point where it isn't a net benefit?
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Nope. Even if the other side accepts no imports whatsoever, the GDP numbers come out ahead for the free-trader. It's counter-intuitive, I agree. But, lopsided trade does affect the other "indirect" factors I mentioned.
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Hardware too? (Score:2)
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If Apple was a Chinese firm, yes.
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Foxconn is Taiwanese. They just have factories in China (among other places): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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“There’s a strong request from Apple to its clients to move part of the iPhone production out of China”
Old and new? (Score:3)
The actual old vision was things like Compuserve, Minitel and similar walled gardens, so let's not use vague, relative, indefensible words to distinguish between open vs. heavily censored.
yeah, right ... (Score:2)
an overdue response, a tit for tat, in a long battle for the soul of the internet
so it's not about openness or freedom of information, but a battle for the "soul" of the internets. fought by denying freedom of information.
take a nap, genius, you must be exhausted.
Become more like us. Have allowed (Score:2)
Yes I'm sure China is thanking you for allowing them to exist. How very gracious of you.
Perhaps you want to start an Opium War while you're are it...
Welll....... (Score:2)
Banning it, possibly. Banning foreign ownership of it... that's probably one of the least deleterious parts. And Tiktok is hardly alone as an application that deserves such a ban. Any application which collects data about the user and transmits it to a non-local device without explicit request at the time of transmission should be banned. Like Facebook, and Google, Or any other site which does the equivalent of cookies on a non-local (to the user) basis.
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"We're better than that." Meaningless phrase attached to whatever idea one wishes to promote.
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Well, we could choose to "let them know" with words, or we could choose to limit the freedom of our own citizens. It sounds like you're in favor of the latter. I would disagree.
"We're better than that." Meaningless phrase attached to whatever idea one wishes to promote.
It has meaning. What's part of that sentence do you not understand?
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We're better than that.
You're right. We are better than that. And that's exactly why we let the situation slide for decades.
It's time to fix that, though. How we fix it is up for debate.
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But hey, if you want to argue for restricting American freedom, go for it. You have every right to, and I won't pout, stamp my feet, and say, "it's not fair". I'll just disagree with you.
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correction: .. the regulations of banning speeches which their government thinks causing social unrest.
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In China, media companies are allowed so long as they play by China's regulations and laws. It doesn't really matter which country. In the US it appears that if the company is Chinese owned, even if the company is playing by US rules and regs., they will be banned under the Trump admin. This is why Tim Wu's argument doesn't quite work, and is talking about two different things. The reasons for banning are quite different. One would be considered discriminatory, based on nationality and race, while the
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I upmodded hackingbear's comment as +1 Insightful specifically because it quite clearly lays out Party's arguments for why the PRC should be free to impose any conditions they choose on users of "their" internet, and the rest of the world - and especially the USA - should MYoB.
I, personally, disagree with the validity of every argument he proposes, and challenge every false equivalency he draws in the above. I see the Party following exactly the dissent-suppression strategy Plato advocates in The Republic:
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it quite clearly lays out Party's arguments for why the PRC should be free to impose any conditions they choose on users of "their" internet
You're committing hyperbole
Maybe you should start learning Chinese and reading real Chinese news like this one [toutiao.com] and the comments underneath. Perhaps you will find these "conditions" are not as strict as you imagine.
and the rest of the world
hyperbole again
- and especially the USA - should MYoB.
Yeah the rest of world should sanction the USA for the factual violations of human rights of the black people, Latino infants [apnews.com], and prisoners [theatlantic.com]. Unfortunately, they can't because the USA has monopolized most important aspects of the whole modern world.
I, personally, disagree with the validity of every argument he proposes, and challenge every false equivalency he draws in the above. ... the Party following exactly the dissent-suppression strategy
1) looks like circular argument wi
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Oh man, I wrote quite a response but then the site freaked out and it's lost.
Suffice it to say, you are clearly squarely in the category of "brainwashed Chinese".
I lived over there for quite a while [and read Chinese just fine, thanks], and it's every bit as bad as the Western media make it out to be [in terms of thought/speech suppression].
I'll only re-type one bit of my response:
the rest of world should sanction the USA for the factual violations of human rights of the black people
Can you point me to an example where Black people, in particular, are being actively persecuted in the US?
Meanwhile, Muslims are
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Yeah the rest of world should sanction the USA for the factual violations of human rights of the black people, Latino infants [apnews.com], and prisoners [theatlantic.com]. Unfortunately, they can't because the USA has monopolized most important aspects of the whole modern world.
"And in the United States, you are lynching Negroes" [wikipedia.org]
Pure whataboutism.
If you think that guy was hyperbolic, I will one-up him: China is the greatest threat to freedom globally. China is a dystopian nightmare and we're going to have to suffer some economically or else we will become ensnared in their restrictive bullshit.
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... they obey the regulations which their government thinks causing social unrest.
It's rather convenient that the discussion topics "causing social unrest" just happen to be things that could embarrass [and maybe even depose] the sole political party with power in China. Don't you think?
Re:Symmetry (Score:4, Insightful)
But when the CCP oppresses Hong Kong and other regions around it and around the world, that's a human rights violation and a serious problem.
Re:Symmetry (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still an internal China affair: whether we like it or not, and I certainly don't, by law Hong Kong is part of China.
People living there are still granted freedom of speech by virtue of China's membership in the UN. The security law in HK is being used to suppress that right of free speech. If China has a problem with that right, they're welcome to leave the UN.
China has never had an expansionist stance
LMAO! That's why they're literally building islands in the ocean to expand their territory, right?
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Then either you apply this moral compass to anyone, or to nobody.
Yes, I'm suggesting the rules apply equally to anyone/everyone.
It's all a clash of excusive economic zones because the sea is filled with islands.
Hmm. I swear I remember seeing a map at some point showing that it would otherwise be international waters, but I can't find that right now. (Maybe I imagined it somehow.) Regardless, it's clear that China's claim is extending far from their coast into a region much closer to numerous other countries. See map here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/t... [npr.org]
Building islands to claim areas in the territory where there's already a legal dispute seems pretty
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I have never claimed the US has done nothing wrong. So, yeah... Thanks for pointing out the obvious? Good job. Your 5 RMB is in the mail.
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China has never had an expansionist stance: China is no Russia or Turkey,
China has an expansionist stance now, read the news, you ignoramus.
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