You have to be aware, that many people here are not from USA, and their/our first thought is, that facebook and many others do that too. So for many of us, a foreign entity already has access to our conversations, content, and all the same data now china has from tiktok. For americans it might be different, since until now, it was only their three-letter agencies checking up on them (which technically is even worse, since chinese have a lot less access to those people if they start causing trouble than the local US agencies), and now it's someone else too.. but for "the rest of the world", it's just another country doing the same as has been done before by americans.
If you're bothered by social networks having access to a lot of very personal data, you're late to the game... if you're bothered because it's a different country, then welcome to the club.
> if you're bothered because it's a different country, then welcome to the club.
The issue is which country has access to our very personal data, not simply a "different country". There are many countries whose citizens would trust a foreign government ahead of their own.
Let's say you're an american... and that you're plotting some anti-government movement at home. Which is more problematic... china knowing that, or your own government knowing that?
I live in a small eu country... and as in most other eu countries, any weird request from china (for extradition or whatever) would just get ignored... if US asked... well, just look at assange.
> Let's say you're an american... and that you're plotting some anti-government movement at home. Which is more problematic
Okay and for the hundreds of millions of us who are not, do we prefer our govt knowing about us or the CCP.
I’m not a fan of the USG by any means - I have many many criticisms of the govt and I’ve participated in protests. To put contemporary USG and CCP in the same league is crazy talk.
How is that compared to 20 years ago? Did it get better or worse?
I in no way support the chinese political system, but the one we have in the west (EU for me), made average rent higher than an average pension while buying is impossible for a huge percent of people due to overinflated prices. I used to live in a communist country (still live here, just the country doesn't exist anymore), and out of all the bad things they did, atleast they knew how to build affordable housing.
> and now it's someone else too.. but for "the rest of the world", it's just another country doing the same as has been done before by americans.
As someone from Europe, I strongly disagree. There's a HUGE fucking difference between China having our (western) data compared to the USA. Unsure why you'd even make such a silly argument.
Yes, because you live in the west. Again, that's not true for the rest of the world. I for sure would rather prefer China reading my stuff than the US if I was still living in the middle east, for example.
Why? If you say “fuck Biden” nothing is gonna happen to you. If you say “fuck Xi” then you better hope you never travel to China. There’s a massive difference between east and west and what you say on the internet.
Perhaps change the example to someone in the Middle East saying, "fuck the US" or "down with the US", versus "fuck Biden". I don't think the person from the Middle East would necessarily have an easy time traveling to the US either. In the end there's just different "trigger" words that would make traveling to different countries more difficult.
I'm pretty sure I can say fuck China and still travel there if I live in the middle east unless I'm a particularly vocal critic I guess. Saying down with the US can get you on a no fly list too by the way, if you live in the middle east. And whatever I say about China won't get me droned which is absolutely not the case for the US.
If I say that I was affiliated with Al Qaïda? In any case it is much more likely to get droned by the US than by China, no matter how unlikely it is in the absolute.
What? Are you linking to the fallacy you yourself just used? I was talking about the middle east, so that's a pretty weird deflection. I guess it's fine if the US invades middle eastern countries and drones civilians as long as they are on Taiwan's side? What
You asked if you said you were Al Qaïda. You’re saying “I’m part of a terrorist organization” and expecting not to get flagged?
I’m talking about disagreeing with the government. If you called out Biden for being worse than trump and he touches children and sniffs their hair. Nothing will happen to you. If you did that to Xi. You would end up in a reeducation camp.
But you’re like “how come I can’t claim to be part of a terrorist organization and then still travel to America”
If I say death to America, unironically and openly from Syria or Yemen or most of the middle east I'll absolutely get flight restricted. My example about saying that I was part of Al Qaïda was about getting droned, not just get on a no fly list.
Again, from the middle east the US is a much bigger threat. China isn't, at all. There is no denying that and no amount of "but you have free speech in the US!!" Matters in this context
Of course I am familiar with PRISM. It did not have backdoor access to social media. And that was sort of my my point. If you have a reliable source to the contrary, I would be happy to see it.
It had direct access to Facebook content before it got encrypted for transit. How is that not backdoor access to social media? That sounds exactly like what it is alleged TikTok has.
If you're bothered by social networks having access to a lot of very personal data, you're late to the game... if you're bothered because it's a different country, then welcome to the club.