[transcriptase]

>everything Chinese is spying on you

When you combine the modern SOP of software and hardware collecting and phoning home with as much data about users as is technologically possible with laws that say “all orgs and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work”… how exactly is that Sinophobia?

[ixtli]

its sinophobia because it perfectly describes the conditions we live in in the US and many parts of europe, but we work hard to add lots of "nuance" when we criticize the west but its different and dystopian when They do it over there.

[transcriptase]

Do you remember that Sesame Street segment where they played a game and sang “One of these things is not like the others”?

I’ll give you a hint: In this case it’s the one-party unitary authoritarian political system with an increasingly aggressive pursuit of global influence.

[nyrikki]

One is disappearing citizens for political speech or the crime of being born to active duty parents, who happened to be stationed over seas.

Anyone in the US should be very concerned, no matter if it is the current administration's thought police, or the next who treats it as precident.

As I am not actively involved in something the Chinese government would view as a huge risk, but being put on a plane without due process to be sent to a labor camp based on trumped up charges by my own government is far more likely.

[transcriptase]

And if you were a Chinese citizen would you post the same thing about your government while living in China? Would the things you’re referencing be covered in non-stop Chinese news coverage that’s critical of the government?

You know of these things due to the domestic free press holding the government accountable and being able to speak freely about it as you’re doing here. Seeing the two as remotely comparable is beyond belief. You don’t fear the U.S. government but it’s fun to pretend you live under an authoritarian dictatorship because your concept of it is purely academic.

[habinero]

My dude, I know multiple white people in LA who are terrified their Hispanic spouses might not come home one day, because masked agents are grabbing people and disappearing them.

The president threatened to deport a legal citizen who won the primary for mayor in NYC. He's tried to send the military after civilians.

He's sued and extracted payment from media companies who said things he didn't like. We do not have a free press.

We're fully as bad as China. I don't know what your criteria for "authoritarian dictatorship" is but it doesn't appear to be reality based.

[ceejayoz]

> I’ll give you a hint: In this case it’s the one-party unitary authoritarian political system with an increasingly aggressive pursuit of global influence.

Gonna need a more specific hint to narrow it down.

[immibis]

> In this case it’s the one-party unitary authoritarian political system with an increasingly aggressive pursuit of global influence.

This could describe any of the countries involved.

[standardly]

> one-party unitary authoritarian political system with an increasingly aggressive pursuit of global influence.

The United States?

[wombatpm]

Global Bully maybe. The current administration has no concept of soft power, otherwise they would have kept USAID

[observationist]

There's no question that the Chinese are doing sketchy things, and there's no question that US companies do it, too.

The difference that makes it concerning and problematic that China is doing it is that with China, there is no recourse. If you are harmed by a US company, you have legal recourse, and this holds the companies in check, restraining some of the most egregious behaviors.

That's not sinophobia. Any other country where products are coming out of that is effectively immune from consequences for bad behavior warrants heavy skepticism and scrutiny. Just like popup manufacturing companies and third world suppliers, you might get a good deal on cheap parts, but there's no legal accountability if anything goes wrong.

If a company in the US or EU engages in bad faith, or harms consumers, then trade treaties and consumer protection law in their respective jurisdictions ensure the company will be held to account.

This creates a degree of trust that is currently entirely absent from the Chinese market, because they deliberately and belligerently decline to participate in reciprocal legal accountability and mutually beneficial agreements if it means impinging even an inch on their superiority and sovereignty.

China is not a good faith participant in trade deals, they're after enriching themselves and degrading those they consider adversaries. They play zero sum games at the expense of other players and their own citizens, so long as they achieve their geopolitical goals.

Intellectual property, consumer and worker safety, environmental protection, civil liberties, and all of those factors that come into play with international trade treaties allow the US and EU to trade freely and engage in trustworthy and mutually good faith transactions. China basically says "just trust us, bro" and will occasionally performatively execute or imprison a bad actor in their own markets, but are otherwise completely beyond the reach of any accountability.

[ixtli]

I think the notion that people have recourse against giant companies, a military industrial complex, or even their landlords in the US is naive. I believe this to be pretty clear so I don't feel the need to stretch it into a deep discussion or argument but suffice it to say it seems clear to me that everything you accuse china of here can also be said of the US.

[rvnx]

The main difference is that ChatGPT and Google directly captures the conversations. Here they capture only the conversations legally at high-risk, so even less conversations than the “good privacy” US LLM providers themselves.

[drawfloat]

Your president is currently using tariffs and the threat of further economic damage as a weapon to push Europe in to dropping regulation of its tech sector. We have no recourse to challenge that either.

[pbhjpbhj]

>there's no question that US companies [...]

You don't think Trump's backers have used profiling, say, to influence voters? Or that DOGE {party of the USA regime} has done "sketchy things" with people's data?

[Vilian]

USA does the same thing, but uses tax money to pay for the information, between wasting taxpayer money and forcing companies to give the information for free, China is the least morally incorrect