[alephnerd]

We are fine operating under highly regulated censorship laws, as American companies operating under India's IT Acts has show.

We are against the DSA because it is a de facto non-trade barrier to American services exports becuase of it's tax implications.

And it's doesn't matter that Trump is in office - a Harris administration would have played hardball against the EU as well, as was seen with the Biden admin perusing lawfare and lobbying to make an example out of Canada for their attempt at a digital services tax.

It's the same reason the Obama admin lobbied hard for the TPP to not include a digital services tax and harmonize with American IP law.

[barbacoa]

Russia, China, Brazil, India -- all have similar censorship systems but Americans don't find it as troubling because those countries aren't part of the same shared cultural identity known as "The West".

[bigyabai]

Americans simply aren't qualified to talk on matters of censorship or surveillance, period. Post-Patriot Act, you are a slave to the NSA with zero legal or technical recourse that would afford you privacy.

Be careful throwing legislative stones from glass houses.

[alephnerd]

Nope. It's because we don't have to pay a digital service tax in any of those countries (except in Russia, where American companies no longer operate due to sanctions considerations). And it's always been about DST [0][1].

No one in the policy space who is able to reach a position to affect power gives a s### about ideology unless it is a deeply personal issue for that person, and for most policymakers (who are overwhelmingly non-technical in my experience), digital free speech absolutism just isn't something they care about at a personal level.

[0] - https://www.ey.com/en_gl/insights/tax/how-taxation-of-digita...

[1] - https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/tax/newsletters/tax-policy-bulleti...

[disgruntledphd2]

> Nope. It's because we don't have to pay a digital service tax in any of those countries (except in Russia, where American companies no longer operate due to sanctions considerations). And it's always been about DST [0][1].

Then your government should pass BEPS Pillar 1, so that this doesn't happen. You can't have your cake and eat it.

[alephnerd]

Why? BEPS Pillar 1 failed at being a DST because it's fairly easily to evade it and it's definitions are fairly permissive.

[disgruntledphd2]

The deal was that BEPS would replace the digital services taxes, and lots of countries implemented it on the basis. However the US has not implemented this (for whatever reason), which means DSTs are back on the table.

From a geo-political standpoint I'd expect to see them pretty soon, especially if the US abandons Ukraine.

[anon291]

Comparing Brazil and India to Russia and China is just retarded.

Also India is more liberal than western Europe in a lot of ways.

For example, French laicite means no display of religious symbols publicly, while India allows a wide variety of religious symbols, having some of the largest mosques, churches and temples in the world

Moreover, in India people openly criticize other religions, while England jails people for such things. This idea that Europe is liberal and no one else is just myopicism

European hubris makes them believe that they are uniquely liberal. European countries can hardly deal with a small number of other cultures.

[disgruntledphd2]

> We are against the DSA because it is a de facto non-trade barrier to American services exports becuase of it's tax implications.

Hang on, firstly what are the tax implications?

Secondly, here's a summary of the DSA: https://www.williamfry.com/knowledge/the-digital-service-act...

I honestly don't see anything particularly strange about it. The only thing I can see that would actually impact any of the businesses is the requirement to provide a complaints procedure.

Note that I worked in one of the major targets of this law (Meta) for many years and I don't see anything there that amounts to a trade barrier to US service exports.

Can you help me understand the concerns here?

Like, to my mind, the DMA is a much bigger deal but US peeps are way more upset about the DSA.

And like, the US runs the Banking Secrecy Act and weaponises the dollar system on a completely regular basis, so I'm honestly flabbergasted that they object to other companies enforcing their laws extra-territorally.

> And it's doesn't matter that Trump is in office - a Harris administration would have played hardball against the EU as well, as was seen with the Biden admin perusing lawfare and lobbying to make an example out of Canada for their attempt at a digital services tax.

Yeah this I agree with.

But unfortunately, because most tech/pharma company profits are booked where the IP is located and this is easy to move, digital services taxes are going to happen over the next decade. I understand why the US government doesn't like this, but it's either that or actual trade barriers to these companies. (And I say this as a citizen of a country that benefits massively from these shenanigans).