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Comment by cabirum | Hacker News Reader

People should start thinking twice before using US-controlled platforms/services/anything.

Have to wonder how long before non-US alternatives pop up and the US loses control of this industry segment. There are already regional alternatives to many of the US's biggest tech companies, so international alternatives might be next. How long before there's a tiktok of Google, where US and western consumers go to a Chinese or Russian source without even considering what the US companies have to offer anymore. Obviously companies in those countries will have their own local biases, but mostly on matters internal to those countries that aren't typically relevant to US and western users.

It is unfortunate, but US shot itself in the foot by proving that it is not willing to be a neutral third party, which it was perceived as in the 90s.

There's a balance though. You might have more power if you're perceived as neutral, but actually using power is inherently non-neutral

They (social media companies) were given an ultimatum: censor or be broken up. It's almost explicit in the Congress/Senate hearings.

Do you have a source? I really want to read up on this.

The US hasn't been a neutral third party in any worldwide matter since WW1. The U.S's foreign policy is aggressively selfish (which is good for US citizens)

I agree with everything but the last part. Invading Iraq got 6,000 Americans killed and did nothing to help US citizens outside of a corrupt few.

That's hard to determine, I think. The wars aren't isolated actions that make or lose money, they're embedded in a frame work, that, at large, has probably been very beneficial. More influence, better trade deals, technological dominance, economic advantages. The average wage in the US is significantly higher than in most of Europe, so average citizens probably do profit.

It's good for owners of defense industry companies. For the average citizen it's probably a net loss. The Iraq War alone cost about $6,300 per US citizen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

Every state is selfish, it's one of the fundamental principles of foreign relations. Even when states are altruistic (e.g. the US Centers for Disease Control doing epidemic surveillance and distributing Ebola vaccines in Africa, or sending foreign aid to poverty-stricken countries) ultimately it's for self-serving reasons. The global system is essentially anarchism.

This is sadly under appreciated. Realpolitik is as essential to understanding geopolitics as supply and demand is to understanding microeconomics.

You say US-controlled, but I can't think of a country that would be better than the US in this regard. European countries are not the biggest fans of free speech. And then you have China, Russia, etc. which are even worse.

Perhaps there will be more than one, then. There will be different ideologies which will be protected and different ones which will be censored on each one of them. In total there might be more freedom of speech.

A teacher in high school told us: to the question "which newspaper should I read?" the answer is "not one single newspaper".

With federated protocols (like Mastodon) you don't need to trust a third party country. All countries can be part of the same universe, but each one controls their own data.

... unless they want to reach people. Try publishing an app while avoiding the AppStore and the PlayStore - your audience will be fairly limited. Same thing if you're a politician (especially one not currently in office) and an US-controlled service happens to be popular in your country.

On the other hand, though, I doubt that much of this is actual government influence. Most of these actions are probably done based on the personal biases of the moderation team of the platform. These are surely a bit influenced by whatever opinion the current government tries to push, but they will not necessarily align with the current agenda. And this is not really an US problem; in fact, in terms of government influence on private companies, the US is probably one of the better countries.

> And this is not really an US problem; in fact, in terms of government influence on private companies, the US is probably one of the better countries.

Only because influence typically goes the other way around in the US. But you're talking about a country whose banking system derives most of its value from government guarantees.

https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/bank-guarantees/

I don't want to say the US is great, it isn't. The point is no country is great. A company residing in a country will always be somewhat dependent on that countries government and all of them have some form of subpoena, some form of secret agency or some politicians shoddy enough for backroom dealings. But some countries are worse.

My usual tip in these situations would be to use something under control of a government which does not have much interest in your dealings, but as a politician you're in the unfortunate position that a) basically any country will have a basic interest in your dealings or at least be very close to a superpower that does and b) you'll have to go out and seek your voters, which does not leave you much choice.

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