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Comment by chefandy | Hacker News Reader

Rubio told the FT: "It is deeply disturbing that an American company would be actively working with the Chinese military to further build up the government's surveillance network against its own people [...]"

I can see why the US government is perturbed. The more patriotic thing to do would be helping the NSA, FBI, and a bunch of good, old-fashioned American TLAs build up our own government surveillance network against our own people, and maybe helping the CIA and US Military build up its surveillance network of the Chinese people.

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This is absurd. First of all, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.06340.pdf which opens with the intimidating quote: "Spicing up selfies by inserting virtual hats, sunglasses or toys has become easy to do with mobile augmented reality (AR) apps like Snapchat"

Second of all, most universities in China are affiliated with the government; this one just has a snappier name. It would also appear the two individuals in question are grad students at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Third, MS has been and will continue to catch uneducated & poorly-researched flak like this for operating in China in any capacity.

The same tech that turns your face into an alien, complete with facial expressions, can turn your face into a searchable surveillance data point ("Show me all the people who looked unhappy or worried when looking at this propaganda poster").

Who says they aren’t?

Every major corridor is covered LPR and facial recognition by the DEA’s LPR initiative and and CBPs border nexus surveillance programs.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/aclu-dea-docum...

That’s in addition to the wide variety of state, local and private systems.

Microsoft entered into a well publicized partnership with NYPD on intelligence/surveillance stuff back in 2012. They may have lines they won’t cross, but are hardly innocent.

Only civil government can stop the creeping nature of expanding military and paramilitary powers.

Well, yes. Of course they are. I was poking fun at the government's two-faced perspective on a government surveilling their own citizens.

Another Merican thing is to help cause chaos in countries that have adopted ideologies which are not 'democratic.' Nixon would probably give this action a thumbs up.

That wouldn't be more patriotic if by being patriotic you mean helping your fellowmen and not the current establishment.

However, it'd make more sense to help your own establishment vs a foreign one.

MS being a global company, one has to wonder how much MS HQ can prevent other branches from engaging in very lucrative projects like that.

I think your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning today.

The rule of internet sarcasm is at least one person will reply in earnest given a large enough audience.

The "rule of internet sarcasm" doesn't exist, because that implies there is a single rule as opposed to several or none. Excuse you.

Your comment proves the rule, FYI.

I think they meant that as a joke :)

No I was and am completely serious. This is how I go through life.

Wanna come to my party?

I don't understand your comment neither the downvotes. The comment I was replying to was criticizing the government for wanting national companies to help it, which I think is the reality in all countries.

Either way, good reply. /s

Zing!

Also, the government didn't knock Microsoft for not helping spy on U.S. citizens— they were mad that they helped the Chinese spy on their own citizens, which they asserted was morally wrong enough to be considered a human rights abuse. My response was not "criticizing the government for wanting national companies to help it," I was criticizing them for having a two-faced stance on governments surveilling their own citizens.

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