[elihu]

> How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?

By filing legal complaints through the ITU (which is a UN agency), probably. I expect some international treaties probably come into play. Basically, China complains to the UN, the UN tells the US they can't provide Internet service in China unless they follow China's rules, and then the FCC tells SpaceX that if they don't comply the FCC will shut them down.

Of course, the US government could just decide to ignore China and let SpaceX do whatever they want. (This is all assuming that SpaceX wants to be the Robin Hood of the global Internet and take censorship from the powerful and give access to the poor and not worry about the geopolitical or economic consequences. They might just want to be a regular internet service provider that follows all the rules in whatever country they operate in and doesn't make waves. They could also just not offer service in China.)

[p2t2p]

That's, easy, just like they do it in Russia - jail time and fines for having Space X antenna.

[fuoqi]

You either intentionally lying or you simply don't know what are you talking about. Not only the law in question only has administrative fines, no jail time, but also it has not been even accepted yet. Also it may not even apply to simple citizens, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26460626

[p2t2p]

That doesn't really matter, the point is that an authoritarian regime has an easy solution. In Russia they may or may not limit it to fines (I'm not sure if it can be converted into criminal charges if you accumulate too many fines?). In China they may go for jail time right away and given China's past performance I don't see that as a too wild assumption.

[elihu]

Enforcement on the ground is one way to do it, but by going through the legal route they may be able to prevent SpaceX or anyone else from even offering a service in China. No need to hunt down rouge dishes in China if the FCC in the United States does not allow SpaceX to violate other country's laws.

It's kind of a weird situation. I mean, it's space, so you'd think you'd be outside of any legal jurisdiction and be able to get away with whatever, but actually satellites and radio communication are heavily regulated and subject to international agreements and treaties.