alt Hacker NewsI can't stop the influence of it on my life by not using it. Perhaps it's not as straightforward as it seems to you.
China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes. Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems.
You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner? Like, I hate all those guys so much that we're going to make everything they want at whatever price they want to pay ...? In the past it might have been possible to argue they were anti-American in their politics; like opposing democracy, or rounding up nationals, ... but USA does as badly (worse?) on those things.
What it looks like is China was 'winning' the trade balance and USA's billionaires decided to take a break from raping teenagers to throw all the citizens on the fire to try and leverage their position to bring in fascism as a means to enriching themselves even further. Go USA, eh.
> I can't stop the influence of it on my life by not using it. Perhaps it's not as straightforward as it seems to you.
Yea but you can stop what would be 80+% of the influence on your life by not using it. It is very straightforward.
> China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes.
China (and other malicious actors) have demonstrably leveraged social media platforms to inflame tensions, create anti-American and anti-Western sentiment, and more. With platforms like TikTok they were able to more directly influence content, they understand the algorithm that is used, &c.
But let me put it to you from a different angle. If you don't think China was or could have been using TikTok to influence Americans and westerners in general, then I'd suggest the US had nothing to do with, oh, idk, the Arab Spring. :)
> Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems.
Well they have other platforms for that, social credit score, TVs on every corner, &c. Much safer for me to have it American controlled so I don't have an authoritarian Chinese communist party trying to influence me or anyone around me, or further inflaming tensions for their own gain.
> You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner? Like, I hate all those guys so much that we're going to make everything they want at whatever price they want to pay ...? In the past it might have been possible to argue they were anti-American in their politics;
Well it's not just Americans and Canadiens, it's the EU too. The strategy was to leverage incredibly cheap labor (slave labor in some cases) and loose environmental restrictions to start manufacturing cheap goods and then move up the value chain. Inherently there's nothing to wrong with the approach (minus the slave labor and all of that), but as China continued to do so they did so while also undercutting competitiveness from other countries and blocs. They artificially devalue their currency, they routinely broke WTO rules so much so that other countries said to hell with it. The EU for example has historically tariffed Chinese products. Why? Because if they don't then local industries in the EU with long summer vacations and all of these nice things would be out-competed and out of business.
This isn't really controversial or anything. It's pretty well known, and from an American standpoint the point of view with respect to China is rather bipartisan.