• airportline@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    This is only great news if you are Mark Zuckerberg and you want a near-monopoly on social media.

    • maplebar@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      TikTok could have sold to an American company (read: a company that we can hold legally accountable for bad things that their product does) and made billions of dollars in the process. They chose not to, for some reason, and thus knowingly opted to face a ban in the United States. Those were the options and they knew it.

      As I understand it American companies doing business in China almost always have to go through a Chinese company in order to operate legally and make products available to the Chinese market. Platforms like Facebook are already banned in China and must be accessed through a VPN because they don’t play ball with the Chinese regime, so why should it not be reciprocal?

      Until TikTok is being managed and operated by a company that can be held legally accountable here in America, they are nothing but a security threat and a backdoor for the Chinese government into every cell phone of every person who is dumb enough to install that shit. Is that what the people want to hear? Probably not, but it’s the truth.

      I wouldn’t install TikTok on my phone any sooner than I’d install RedStarOS on my PC, because the implications of using a proprietary, closed source application with ties to the Chinese regime should be fucking obvious to anyone with bare minimum technical knowledge. Likewise, I wouldn’t blame a Chinese person for being skeptical of Microsoft Windows or X.com for their close relationship with the American government. To think otherwise is just not smart.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      7 days ago

      You are aware that no western social media is allowed in China, are you not?

      • mlg@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Are you implying we should firewall free internet like china?

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          7 days ago

          No. I’m implying that in general, international trade works by shared openness or shared closeness. If one country or economic region puts an import tax on something, the reciprocal thing is likely to be taxed by the opposite partner.

          I was responding to someone saying “oh this just creates a monopoly for Zucks” when in fact the Chinese social companies have a monopoly in China (an ENORMOUS market) because our products are blocked over there.

          So what we are doing is in line with the norm in international trade.

          • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            Is anyone else besides China doing this? Cannot really call it international norm if 1 country is doing this.

            • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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              7 days ago

              I don’t think I’ve explained my point very well, or you’ve misunderstood what I’ve said.

              My point is all international relationship is tit for tat. Since China chose to block western social media, it’s not unreasonable for the west to block Chinese social media.