this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Late Stage Capitalism
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I've heard them talk about it a lot. It's always in the context of government surveillance. They make sure to point out that the bad guy countries have mass surveillance run by the government. When private corporations are watching people's every move it's just freedom in action.
I've always found this extremely funny because we know for a fact that all western companies share their data with western governments. So, the only actual difference is that this data is also sold to any private interests willing to pay for it. Looking at it from this perspective, you have far more data privacy in China than you do in the west.
Exactly. And it's the same thing when they fearmonger about Chinese companies like TenCent. Sure, tiktok may or may not collect data (same as every other company) but I'd be a hell of a lot more worried about a US based company or a local company using that data maliciously. Even if I did say the magic anti-china copypasta spell, it's not like China's government would have any ability to do anything about it. Whereas if I said things that the US government considered threatening, I could very well have cops knocking on my door, what with my country being a US vassal and all.
Right, the government people should be worried about is the one that has agency over them.