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Comment by hnlmorg | Hacker News Reader

Well in that case I hope you don't moan when the EU places heavy restrictions on the data harvesting that American companies do.

I get the paranoia around China, I honestly do. I'm not at all unsupportive of the Chinese regime either. But this "one rule for us another for them" principle really needs to stop.

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Why should it stop, as long as nations continue to pose threats to each other and their populations? I support both the US and the EU putting these restrictions in place (until such a time when everyone can be trusted, if ever).

Because it's a cyclic argument that only leads to hostilities. Of course I'm not advocating that if we stop collecting data everyone will suddenly play nice. But that doesn't mean it isn't extraordinarily hypocritical to moan about China and the EU placing restrictions on US companies (as is a frequent gripe on HN) while simultaneously placing restrictions on China and EU firms too.

We need to learn to find a saner middle ground if we're ever to advance as a species.

I see very few (zero?) people groaning about data restrictions set by the EU.

That doesn't mean it hasn't happened on threads you haven't seen. Anecdotally I've seen it happen a lot. Which, uncoincidentally, is also the reason why I mentioned it.

I thought you were saying it's a popular or majority opinion, which I don't believe to be the case. Otherwise, why would it be relevant?

Edit: I guess we can just see if any research has been done. If you trust this source, Americans seem to support (60% supporting versus 10% against) GDPR style data regulations [1].

1. https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/americans-say-br...

That's not the same as saying they support the EU's regulations. Just that they'd support America imposing regulations. The issue being discussed here isn't whether people are in favour of privacy but whether they're in favour of international governments imposing restrictions on the way their home-grown corporations operate.

I appreciate from a high level the two questions overlap in this specific case study. However it's the framing of the question which really matters here, not the practical overlap.

Well first of all with this approach you will lose a lot of friends like EU (and australia, new zealand, south africa and gazillion more allies). US is not such trusty ally as it thinks it is already (ie all the spying on top european leaders, and thats just tip of iceberg).

US needs friends just like everybody else, alone it can project only so much influence. You don't keep friends by screwing them over continuously and having an untrustworthy upper hand over you all the time. And once we're not friends anymore, china may be an attractive alternative, whether you like it or not.

I'm in Europe, so I'm writing this as someone who likes our governments protecting people from American (and Chinese) companies. Very happy to be a big happy family again if things improve.

The companies themselves may moan but I don't think everyday Americans really care what the EU does.

> But this "one rule for us another for them" principle really needs to stop. Why would any nation treat foreign companies equal to their own? I don't see the problem especially when its from an adversary or a nation who's companies are an extension of their government.

> The companies themselves may moan but I don't think everyday Americans really care what the EU does.

I was talking about the commentary I see on HN. I don't think everyday Americans care what China does either, let alone the EU.

It's about maintaining geopolitical advantage, not playground fairness.

You say that but geopolitics rarely feels like it's ascended from playground maturity.

>I get the paranoia around China, I honestly do. I'm not at all unsupportive of the Chinese regime either. But this "one rule for us another for them" principle really needs to stop.

Because they don't operate under the same rules. Tiktok isn't some free market startup at this point. Their CEO is ex Xiami and clearly a party member. I would bet a lot of money the CCP is putting unlimited resources into spreading Tiktok and harvesting data, plus manipulating sentiment of tiktok users.

This is NOT what US based companies do. They don't have government resources, and they sell ads. And the US government doesn't give a shit if snapchat or whoever else destroys facebook. They are not going to bail them out, or help them.

So it's not the same, it's not a fair fight, and in the background what the data is used for is probably completely different.

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