Comment by dirtyid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dirtyid | Hacker News Reader

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Because China doesn't ban US internet platforms, US internet platforms choose not to comply to PRC laws, which domestic PRC companies has to abide. Facebook/Twitter left because they couldn't/wouldn't censor calls of revenge killings during 2009 minority riots in PRC. It wasn't until NZ shooting and FB role in Rohigya genocide years later that political culture changed globally/domestically in US enough for FB to up the moderation game, around the time they wanted to re-enter PRC market. Except their employees protested and killed the initiative.

Flip side is Bytedance/TikTok bending backwards to follow US laws, because Douyin is used to dealing with PRC regulatory bullshit, meanwhile their employees just want to make money instead of undermine company expansion plans with geopolitical culture wars. Like it's not hard, follow the law in the country you operate in and be competitive. TBH that really leaves some Google services, a lot of western platforms simply can't hack it against PRC competitors for domestic PRC market.

And when US companies attempt to obey Chinese law and are banned anyway? Nice to know that Apple was given "equal legal consideration" in China in 2016 when its iBooks store and iTunes movie store were suddenly ordered shut after six months of operation. Oh, wait. . . they weren't given any legal recourse at all and the Obama administration did nothing about it while Silicon Valley grandees kept conspicuously silent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...

And? Laws change... PRC updates law to ban foreign publishers, ergo ibooks/itunes got killed. US also has national security negative lists that they use to kill China Telecom in US.. who followed US laws until it got updated. But Apple rolled with the punches are still doing great in PRC. If US laws wants to mandate TikTok to remove some service segement, Bytedance will also comply. Like they're doing with Oracle data siloing under CIFIUS. TikTok is rolling with the punches like Apple did in PRC because you know... they understand following local laws is business 101.

>But Apple rolled with the punches are still doing great in PRC.<

But not allowed to sell books or films, apparently too corrupting of the delicate moral sensibilities of the Chinese people.

You make a good point about how laws might and should change. A return to the wisdom of the Ming period trade with Japan seems in order: a strict tally-trade quota system, based on transparent reciprocity.

One university student for one university student. One streaming service for one streaming service. One telecom for one telecom. One chip for one chip. Disruptive at first, perhaps, but eventually both fair and salutary.

The days of casual forbearance of 骗老外 attitudes belong to a halcyon past for China.

> too corrupting

Why sponsor foreign propaganda? No surprise foreign NGO crackdown, dismantling of CIA network, exposing how many CCP bureaucrats were being bribed by US intelligence around this time.

> strict tally-trade

Is this going to be a "fair and salutary" arrangement where PRC high tech exports don't get sanctioned on geopolitical whims and US networks has their portion of huawei gear, roads their portion of Chinese cars, US tech stack has their portion of Chinese IP. If so, sign PRC up. I imagine limiting outbound students alone is good for PRC brain drain.

> If so, sign PRC up

Glad we agree. The reciprocity should also include internet packets bit for bit and farm land ownership, acre for acre.

This is an intelligent and informed response.

Bytedance/TikTok are ignoring US law, as we saw in the news last week.

>ignoring US law,

They didn't. The entire Project Texas / Oracle / CFIUS agreement is in process of implementation. The drama is over China-based staff accessing data while working on Project Texas (to silo US data/traffic), even though Chinese nationals were not on the United States Technical Services team. The ultimate concern is China-based staff will have access to protected US data/traffic after and the effectiveness of implementation. No laws were broken, but doubt whether Bytedance efforts would effectively prevent access. No laws were broken.

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