[seanmcdirmid]

Reciprocity is a great idea. It takes the emotion out of the decision: we don’t allow X from Y because Y doesn’t allow X from us. It makes sense for trade at least.

Then there is no need to find another excuse that might be offensive.

[protimewaster]

It also lets somebody else make your decision for you, though, which is probably not a good strategy.

[seanmcdirmid]

If you can’t make a decision always, it works out. Besides, this is a simple reciprocal trade sanction, which are rarely so straightforward. No one in China is seriously going to admonish the USA for banning TikTok when even China blocks it (since it allows content banned in China), while most Americans who would care probably don’t vote.

[protimewaster]

It seems like an approach that begs to be gamed, though. Country A bans something, Country B reciprocally bans the something. Years later, Country B realizes it's at a severe disadvantage because County A has hoarded all the something and now there's a something shortage in Country B that was planned and executed by a Country A.

Obviously not probably an issue with social networks, but mindlessly banning something just because somebody else banned something seems like a recipe to be tricked.

[seanmcdirmid]

It took us 5 years to go from “let’s ban TikTok” to actually banning TikTok. I don’t think it’s going to be very exploitable, and it’s not like China where Facebook works one day and then just doesn’t (China doesn’t publicize what it bans and for what reasons, even a list of banned sites is orobably considered a state secret).

[lmm]

If you made a literal mindless robot to reciprocally ban anything another country banned, yes, that would probably be exploitable. Normalising reciprocal bans and applying even a little bit of human oversight seems fine though.