Hacker News Reader

Comment by SpeedilyDamage | Hacker News Reader

> But considering twitter, google, amazon, facebook, twitch, etc are part of US intelligence

Can you cite credible sources for this?

Yes. The actions of chinese, russian and american governments.

All major corporations are state corporations. Especially media companies. It's why china, russia, etc are keen to "protect and control" social media. It's why we are so keen to "protect and control" social media.

Why do you think we are so keen on taking down tiktok? Why do you think the chinese, russians, etc do?

Can you cite any "credible" source that tiktok is part of chinese intelligence? Other than "credible" sources like US intelligence/think tanks/propaganda outlets? It's self-evident that tiktok is, just like every major US tech company.

Do you really need "credible sources" to tell you that major tech/media companies are part of the state apparatus? After what we went through during covid, ukraine war and the anti-china propaganda campaign of the past few years, are you unsure of the role tech companies ( especially social media companies ) play?

I will need to see specific, concrete evidence from a credible source before I start believing conspiracies and "dark world" theories, because I understand how easy it is to fall into a pit of cynicism, presuming everyone is out to get you or that everything is "rigged" or proactively manipulated by a small, covert group of people.

If you don't have any credible evidence to support the specifics of your claim, you should probably just say so. No shame in speculation, but lots of shame in misidentifying speculation as absolute truth.

As for a credible source that TikTok is a threat, I believe FBI Director Chris Wray when he, "asserted that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations."[0]

I also believe Aynne Kokas, professor of media studies and the director of the East Asia Center at the University of Virginia, when she says, "...it's part of a larger Chinese government effort to expand extraterritorial control over digital platforms. So the Chinese government has allowed for and has encouraged Chinese firms to actually engage in national security data audits of any data that's being gathered by a Chinese firm."[1]

Do you have a similarly credible source confirming your claims?

[0] https://apnews.com/article/technology-china-united-states-na...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137076864/fbi-says-china-cou...

Do you really honestly think the FBI is a neutral source that can be trusted when it comes to US - China relations.

If I showed you a Chinese government official claiming Google is a threat to Chinese security, would you take that seriously.

I believe the FBI and UVA and NPR and AP, and do not believe a hypothetical Chinese report when it comes to protecting US interests and reporting credibly.

If you could produce a statement from a Chinese official about Google however, I would be interested in reading it. I suspect you will not find one that says what you claim.

If you're gonna take the US governments word at face value then there's nothing I can say will convince you otherwise

When it's in alignment with many other credible institutions, even mistrust of the US government is hard to justify without specific evidence of collusion.

I personally couldn't care less if TikTok is banned or not, but you have to be naive to think those big tech companies are not involved in the same activities, especially after PRISM.

PRISM was done under warrants or on non-citizens, and never with the consent of the companies involved, so no they're not involved in anything resembling the same way, as far as we know (unless you have specific new information to share from a credible source).

Look up "The Twitter Files by Matt Taibi".

Twitter uncritically and submissively followed directives from FBI and CIA.

I read some headlines that Meta/FB too uncritically and submissively followed the same directives.

That's certainly the narrative Taibi attempted to portray, however it wasn't borne out in the evidence he provided.

There are emails from Adam Schiff directly asking for specific citizens to be censored. No surrounding narrative needed.

There are emails from me to Twitter directly asking for specific citizens to be censored, it's called a report.

Twitter is free to do whatever it wants with those emails, of course, which is why the "Twitter Files" were massively overblown.

Are you sending those emails while on the job as an elected state representative chairing the house Intelligence committee? If you were, that would be an example of a government trying to censor it's citizens by abusing their power and a few of us object to that behavior. You may too one day when it's your voice they are trying to silence.

What's acceptable here as an individual is different from what's acceptable as an elected official with power over the entity you're asking for favors from.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com