You say I'm naive, I say you've been had by jingoistic propaganda. You are more concerned about a foreign boogeyman, I'm more concerned about the one that's governing me.
The US government has shown, time and time again, what it will do with power once it uses it.
You think he changed because he was worried about either admin? I think he changed because he sees the outcome of an election as an endorsement of his beliefs by the populace.
You use these words like they are axiomatically evil.
Like, "it's a foreign project"... so is my Nintendo. Are you afraid or worried about foreign things? A lot of the world does a lot of things better than the U.S.
"It's a communist party project"... first of all, plenty of great communist projects out there, and the Chinese communist party is really only a very very narrow slice of communism so your brush is absolutely over broad. But second, so what? What do you own that didn't pass through China in some capacity?
"It's a psyop"... it's an app with funny videos on it. I think you need to set that tinfoil hat down and pause a bit. Does it have a different cultural root used to moderate it? Sure! Are they making moderation decisions I would make? No. Does that make it psyop? Of course not. Don't be absurd.
"Why would an adult not hit someone when that someone hits them?"
Some people believe that not retaliating stops cycles and systems. Some of us have principles beyond the very childlike, "well, they did it first".
If you believe state censorship is bad, you should oppose it when it is deployed, even if it's deployed against someone you think is also bad.
Like, I think using slurs is bad. I oppose using slurs, even against people I loathe. I have a principal, and I do not violate that principle even if it would hurt people I would consider my opponents.
Same here. My commitment to my principal that "state censorship is bad" far outweighs any feelings about China.
Do they? Do they actually? I'm not sure the U.S. has control sufficient to exercise meaningful jurisdiction, even if it exists on paper. Big companies have too much influence in Congress and with politicians to be meaningfully reigned in in practice.
I see this thought posted frequently. It makes no sense to me... what power could China exert here that wouldn't also be a bad power for anyone to exert? Surely, if they started exerting power on their platform in ways people didn't like, people would leave, right? And also, what's the path to pressure bytedance by the ccp?
It all just smacks of protectionism and isolationism to me.
The US government has shown, time and time again, what it will do with power once it uses it.