[close04]

> a totalitarian surveillance dragnet capturing every bit of data imaginable about American children

Are non-Chinese surveillance dragnets (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.) capturing every bit of data imaginable about every nationality's children or adults more palatable?

Just like China, the US is doing whatever it can to maintain its superpower status, and its allies and enemies in check. And it's obvious these days that the US is willing to use the exact same measures that they criticized in the past when they were employed only by China.

[threeseed]

You can file a freedom of information request or launch a lawsuit to contest a policy. You can be a whistleblower and leak illegal or immoral policies to media organisations. Or as an individual you can push journalists to investigate. Or launch an online campaign to draw attention to a particular issue.

You can't do any of that in China.

[pinkfoot]

Can your company legally tell me how many FISA warrants and NSL letters they received in my FOIA request?

Of course not.

[threeseed]

FOIA obviously doesn't apply to everything. But in the case of FISA it is overseen by an independent judiciary and all of the deliberations and controversies were widely covered by the independent press.

Not to mention independent organisations like ACLU, EFF etc. who have been very vocal about trying to abolish the FISA process entirely.

Again none of this would remotely happen in China. We've seen first hand what happens to the media and dissenters in HK.

[pinkfoot]

> FOIA obviously doesn't apply to everything

And that there is the problem from which no argument about checks and balances can recover.

Which is why real democracies don't allow secret courts.

[meragrin_]

> the US is doing whatever it can to maintain its superpower status

Um, not in the slightest. There is no united front in the US regarding foreign relations. Trump is left to his own devices without the backing of Congress. That is far far from "doing whatever it can".

[Wolfenstein98k]

The scale and nature of what is captured is COMPLETELY different, and American laws about data protection are completely different.

America has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions.

China has a blanket policy of supplying all data to the state at its request, and there is no independent judiciary or other means of appealing this process.

Instead of Whataboutism, consider looking into why every major nation in the world (bar a few heavily reliant allies) are turning on China as the extent and nature of their policies and intentions has become impossible to ignore. Xi is a large part of this strategic turn in what was already an Orwellian dictatorship - read about his geostrategic goals.

[close04]

> Instead of Whataboutism

Don't deflect. I'm not the one using whataboutism, you are: "US surveillance is ok because the scale is smaller than the Chinese one". And even that's debatable, US has global reach in collecting data.

As a European the "scale and nature of what is captured" by the US via big-tech companies (or the NSA) is "COMPLETELY different" from what happens in the EU. EU "laws about data protection are completely different". EU "has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions". So I'll put it this way: for a European the US surveillance state looks more or less the same as how the Chinese surveillance state might look to the US.

So let me rephrase it: for me the US is what China is for you. You are doing to others what China is doing to you. But when you're doing it you find a strong sense of righteousness in it and anyone who doesn't agree with you is the enemy.

Many also hold this narrow view that between 2 things you must agree with one and disagree with the other. A common misconception that if you reject one option you must embrace the other. Please understand, I can disagree just fine with both what China and the US are doing. I'm giving you an outside perspective of the issue which might better help you understand how perception of something changes once you realize the baseline doesn't have to be you, it can actually be higher. You'll probably agree with me that when it comes to surveillance and privacy the EU is probably better positioned to make a moral judgement.

[Wolfenstein98k]

I didn't "deflect", the topic was Chinese surveillance and censorship.

PS I'm not American or in America.

[close04]

> PS I'm not American or in America.

The point was generic so I'd say it stands. And the particular point was that most views are relative to where you're looking from but everybody states them in very absolute terms. You set your baseline at what you're comfortable with and take that as absolute reference. I was just trying to show you that that's not the case.

Putting it more simply, if you support the absolute idea that TikTok is bad, and their US operations should be forced to sell and be under US control, then the idea that Facebook or Google are bad and their EU operations should be forced to sell and be under EU control is just as true. Very few people see it like this as such the logic of the discussion is fractured. Without reconciling that fracture first every discussion looks like this [0].

[0] https://pics.onsizzle.com/our-blessed-homeland-their-barbaro...

[hh3k0]

Please educate yourself on the matter:

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...

[close04]

The condescending tone was completely unnecessary given that you failed to even comprehend my point. Your leg to stand on is that TikTok's (China's?) "shit" smells the worst as such "we" have the moral high ground. A slightly less smelling "shit" is shit nonetheless. The world isn't binary and not being the worst doesn't make you good. But I see a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that prevents you from even looking further than "they're worse so we must be good".

[hh3k0]

> The condescending tone was completely unnecessary given that you failed to even comprehend my point.

Apologies, I didn't mean to sound condescending.

> Your leg to stand on is that TikTok's (China's?) "shit" smells the worst as such "we" have the moral high ground.

That isn't the point, really. It's just that TikTok is in a whole different league. A quote from the Reddit comment I've linked prior:

> For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.

> The world isn't binary and not being the worst doesn't make you good.

Nobody said that. The issue is that TikTok is "essentially malware that is targeting children".

And pointing that out doesn't suddenly make me a fan of Facebook. Your point is a false dilemma.

> But I see a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that prevents you from even looking further than "they're worse so we must be good".

I'm not American but German.

[close04]

> It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.

The comparison is disingenuous because it makes it look like the current US based social media scene is as harmless and unassuming as a cup of water. When they appeared they were the ocean. What they were doing then was just as unacceptable as what TikTok is doing now. And they were still "shoved" down our throats with the same tricks of the trade TikTok is using now. We just raised our baseline and the unacceptable became acceptable.

How about if we say it's like a sea to the ocean? They still "just don't compare" but both are able to easily drown the world's population and for a ship on that water for all intents and purposes they're the same.

Let's not delude ourselves, this isn't about "too much data is being collected" or the gratuitous "but but but children" remark. Between all the US-based big-tech companies and the NSA/Five Eyes, the US has enough data to blackmail children for decades to come (see? the children argument works both ways). No, the problem here is that someone other than the US is doing it and could get an upper hand.

Facebook and Alphabet have probably collected more info about the people of the world than any other companies in existence and all of it can/is being shared with intelligence services if demanded. Isn't this collecting an ocean of data about your children? [0] I could dig up 1000 stories like that. But you're not worried because you were educated that some countries doing it is OK and China's explicitly not on that list.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091006

[CarelessExpert]

You mean educate myself with a post from an anonymous random Redditor who never actually proved any of their claims?

https://www.reddit.com/r/tiktok_reversing/comments/i3d9qw/so...

I feel like this is the tech equivalent of QAnon...

To be clear, I don't think Facebook is any better than Tiktok. But I've seen zero actual evidence it's any worse. Frankly, the whole thing stinks of sinophobia dressed up as privacy pearl clutching...

Edit: and if you want an actual analysis with real evidence and data:

https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626...

"As far as we can see, in its current state, TikTok doesn’t have a suspicious behavior and is not exfiltrating unusual data."