this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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No, the problem is Chinese-aligned whataboutism, a hallmark of tankie bullshit. People deflect to American spying to justify Tiktok's spying, as if people aren't already mad at Meta, Google, Amazon, and the rest spying on them. On the individual level, one is letting anyone "get away" with spying, so saying Tiktok should "also" be able to get away with spying is complete bullshit. We can be mad about all of these companies spying at us at the same time.
Have you seen anyone respond to criticism about Facebook's tracking policies with "oh but Tiktok also tracks you so you should be okay with this?" Because I sure haven't, but it comes up all the time when people discuss Tiktok. It's just so disingenuous... allow people to discuss topics, we'll get to shitting on Facebook and Google too, don't worry. Detracting every Tiktok convo to that just makes you appear as if you're trying to shove their wrongdoing under the rug.
And if you're talking about foreign policy, western social medias are already blocked in China out of the same national security concerns that's behind a potential Tiktok ban. It is extremely dangerous to allow foreign, especially hostile powers to influence your society through the algorithms of a social media, because they have a very clear incentive to make your population elect the worst possible people and sow chaos. This is why a lot of non-western-aligned countries block western social medias, and this is why the west should also block non-western social medias. It wouldn't be unprecedented.
Which is why I wouldn't blame Brazil if they banned American or otherwise western-aligned social medias. But I'm sorry, "we fucked around with others and therefore we shouldn't ensure our own national security" is a completely lunatic take.
It really isn't a strawman. There are two ways you can interpret the above meme:
Interpretation #1 is one of the coldest takes possible on the internet. Read the room, no one was excusing American companies of spying, and plenty of people are mad about Meta, Twitter, and the rest. Hell, the whole reason most of us are here on Lemmy is because we grew tired of more corporate social medias. The meme format here implies that the point expressed is controversial, and interpretation #1 is objectively non-controversial, so the meme is either stupid or that's not what it's saying.
And interpretation #2 is exactly what you just called a strawman here. It's complete lunacy and borderline bootlicking to suggest that we should allow other companies to also spy on us. And why exactly? Just because you want to see that team "win", at the expense of all of us losing even more?
But I have to think you're going with interpretation #2, because of this:
If those coups weren't related to social media, why bring them up? We're discussing social media here. This only makes sense if you're playing the us vs them of geopolitics, and like, just don't.
In the end, we want none of these companies to spy on us. And unlike domestic companies or those headquartered in allied countries, social media companies in hostile countries not only pose a risk to individual privacy, they are also a national security risk. Which is why China bans western social medias, and why the west should also ban Chinese social medias. Both of these measures are a net benefit, and neither of these measures precludes taking action against domestic or allied social medias -- but unlike Bytedance, which is a Chinese company, western regulation can be enforced far easier against western social medias, and the same can be said about Chinese regulation regarding Chinese social medias.