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US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 39 points 2 years ago (15 children)

So NSA backdoors are mandatory but Chinese ones are bad.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Yes. 🤷

    Nobody wants to be spied on by their perceived enemies. Also, how do you expect us to maintain an appropriate level of hypocrisy if we don't constantly do hypocritical things?

    I wish we would go after foreign investment, ownership, and political meddling as much as tiktok

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I would be more afraid of being spied on by the government of the country I live in than by a government from a foreign country. Who do you think is more capable of doing something to you?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    being spied on by the government of the country I live in than by a government from a foreign country

    Ha, that's a decent point. I don't really care for either. I think about these things among others:

    • China has proved they are interested in conflict. They haven't used any kinetic/traditional warfare against anyone lately, though they seriously want to with Tiwan.
    • China has been using nonstop cyber related warfare to conduct espionage, steal trade secrets, position themselves for assisting kinetic warfare with cyber warfare, etc.

    I am not a direct target of these, but China killing the power grid or disabling telecommunications does have the potential to have a huge impact on my life.

    • The US government has used nonstop kinetic and cyber warfare over the last 20+ years.

    The US playing world police doesn't directly threaten my safety, but I definitely would be more worried about the US than China if I wasn't a US citizen.

    The US government spying on me:

    • Super annoying mostly due to the principle of a lack of privacy, regardless of whether I do anything bad or not
    • Becomes a serious problem if I was an active opponent of government policy and elected officials, and the government/leadership deems me a terrorist/insurrectionist/etc.

    Their discretion of what's my free speech and right to criticize the government vs leading insurrection would be more complicated if they were using the NSA to own my life and try to use any excuse to lock me up.

    I guess I weigh what's more likely to be a problem in my current/future life.

    I don't like either of these scenarios.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Yes, governmental surveillance is always bad. But let's not pretend being surveilled by NSA is as bad as being surveilled by the authoritarian government of China.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    it's worse. it's worse because they have the power to arrest me, freeze my assets, or do a hundred other terrible things. the chinese can... uh... find out my sense of humor is immature i think.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    The fundamental fear of TikTok isn't censorship. It's fear of a media outlet that expresses views sympathetic to the Chinese government.

    If Americans are exposed to these views, there is a horrifying possibility that they my agree with them. And if Americans agree with the Chinese government, it's just a matter of time before America crumbles from within.

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