
Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants - JumpCrisscross
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/technology/why-the-world-is-drawing-battle-lines-against-american-tech-giants.html?emc=edit_dlbkam_20160602&nl=dealbook&nlid=65508833
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barisser
I found this article really frustrating.

The US government forces American tech companies to spy on users, so US
companies are to blame?

These services are so useful and well-liked around the world that they should
be considered a threat?

The author is amazingly willing to accord French bureaucrats the right to
regulate the cultural consumption of Frenchmen. How is this defensible? Should
we knock Netflix because it makes it harder for French social engineers to
impose their preferences on their own citizens?

Companies like this don't come out of Europe for a reason.

~~~
pjc50
The article starts by asking you to view things from another perspective. It's
not asking you to "knock" Netflix, it's inviting you to consider the point of
view of people who do.

American media is subtly hegemonising. All media carries with it the culture
of those who produce it, but US media also carries a very strong assumption of
"defaultness": that everyone is a (mostly white) American at heart. What
effect does this have on the viewer, especially on kids who grow up with a
diet American cartoons and action movies? The normalisation of American values
in the use of violence to deal with threats and crime. Kids learning US (view
of) history instead of their own local history. People learning American
alongside their own language, while Americans (and Brits) don't learn another
language: that makes the cultural exchange more one-way. Americans don't have
to worry about French culture seeping in and erasing American cultural values,
notwithstanding the occasional panic about "freedom fries".

If you're not American, you run the risk of becoming an underrepresented
minority even in your own country. The problem is even worse for _local_
ethno-linguistic minorities such as Gaelic and Welsh in the UK. Ironically
France is only as homogenous as it is due to centuries of centralisation and
standardisation deliberately driving out regional linguistic variation.

The popular HN view is probably going to be that minority languages can and
should "fail in the market" and die out, leaving only English. Like endangered
species. But with every language dies a culture and a literature.

~~~
verroq
The irony is that for there to be diversity there must be protectionist
policies and xenophobia to preserve it.

~~~
ComodoHacker
Policies maybe, but not necessarily xenophobia. Xenophobia starts where
multiculturalism fails. IMHO European multiculturalism has failed not in its
idea, but in its implementation.

~~~
stcredzero
_Xenophobia starts where multiculturalism fails. IMHO European
multiculturalism has failed not in its idea, but in its implementation._

Then implementation of multiculturalism is always in a state of partial
failure. I guess it always has "bugs?" Intolerance always seems to seep in,
even from the most vocal proponents of tolerance. In fact, there seems to be a
correlation between how stridently one advocates tolerance and how much
intolerance seeps in with it.

~~~
ComodoHacker
Yes, there will always be some intolerance, whatever the "norm" and
"deviation" are. Let's see it as a necessary part of diversity, which in turn
is a necessary part of evolution.

Even xenophobia, as an extreme form of intolerance, has its roots, often far
in the past, when it was somehow relevant for that particular society.

------
LamaOfRuin
The article fails to mention some of the most significant events that have
happened in this space: Google news fights.

Multiple countries have tried to force Google to pay to continue operation of
Google News. Google was willing to simply stop operating Google News in those
countries, rather than paying for the privilege. It turned out that the media
companies needed Google more than Google needed them, and they worked quickly
to get back to the prior situation (which is what Google wanted).

~~~
tobias3
The best part is that the media companies are now explicitely licensing the
content to Google (for free). Google competitors won't have those licenses and
won't have the market power to get them for the same conditions, so they made
it harder for Google competitors.

------
georgeecollins
This is a bit overblown. Amazon doesn't have the retail sales of Walmart even
in the US. Walmart has been able to dictate to manufactures rules for
packaging and distribution for a couple decades now. Somehow we survived and
now they are being disrupted. Europe may be "vulnerable" to US tech companies
but it is not clear they will be as successful in China, India and other parts
of the world.

~~~
JPKab
Of all of these companies, Amazon will be by far the most disruptive to these
other countries.

The key difference here is that Amazon slowly built and perfected their model
here in the USA, allowing domestic competitors time to adapt to the ever
growing efficiency and disruption brought by Amazon.

Amazon can then take this perfected model and drop it like a bomb in other
countries. (Not that they haven't already done so in certain segments, but
wait until Amazon Fresh hits some of these countries)

Eventually, even the US is going to face a HUGE disruption with the advent of
self-driving trucks. As bad as that will be in the US, it will be worse in
Europe, where wages for truckers are much higher and will incentivize
replacement. I predict that Europe will be much, much later to approve self-
driving vehicles than the US will for these reasons.

------
wonder_er
I see four parties in play, but the author describes only two:

1\. Foreign governments

2\. American government

3\. American companies

\----Not mentioned in the article----

4\. Foreign citizens

5\. American citizens

Groups 3, 4, and 5 are more-or-less aligned.

Groups 1, 2, and 3 have more conflict than anything else.

Since American companies are doing an end-run around control, governments are
frustrated. I'd never expect otherwise, and I wish the American companies all
the luck.

~~~
HillaryBriss
Maybe 4 and 5 are not quite so aligned? In democracies, governments should
still be viewed as instruments of the voters to a significant extent.

Significant quantities of French voters have supported a government that tries
to preserve and extend the French language and culture. In some ways,
countering the influence of a large American company and the culture it
imports can be seen as a legitimate expression of French voters, n'est-ce pas?

~~~
zanny
> governments should still be viewed as instruments of the voters to a
> significant extent.

At least in the US at the federal level, certainly not.[1]

[1]:
[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)

~~~
HillaryBriss
Does that mean the presidential election's outcome won't make a significant
difference for the vast majority of Americans, that whoever is elected -
Sanders, Clinton, Trump, et al - will basically administer the Federal
government the same way?

~~~
zanny
I wouldn't say that. The president has a tremendous amount of international
influence, and they have control over federal departments and the military to
direct a significant amount of their behavior.

They just aren't the people that will change campaign finance reform, build
walls, or raise the minimum wage. That is kind of what congress does. So you
could elect any president and only see legislation they want passed because
either they bargained with the other party in congress or their party had a
majority in it already to pass the legislation.

It is only force of habit that most people expect the president's party to go
with their policy ideas in congress. If Bernie were president, for example,
you would _not_ expect the Dems or Reps in congress to ever support him on
anything, because hes anti-establishment.

~~~
HillaryBriss
The study's abstract says, among other things, ".. economic elites and
organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent
impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based
interest groups have little or no independent influence."

Toward the end the study notes: "When the preferences of economic elites and
the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of
the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically
non-significant impact upon public policy."

At the national level, US democracy is an illusion.

~~~
jaccklimet
[http://navimumbaiescorts.in](http://navimumbaiescorts.in)

------
narrator
The reverse is also true. The U.S recently prevented Intel from selling $1
billion worth of chips to China [1], so China is getting to work developing
their own supercomputing chips on their own tech.

[1].[http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/05/us-supercomputer-chip-
ban-d...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/05/us-supercomputer-chip-ban-
delayed.html?m=1)

------
sievebrain
Don't mix up France and Europe. Yes, the EU tends to dance to France's tune,
but their attitudes are not universal or even dominant throughout the Europe.

~~~
hodwik
Are you saying that the rest of Europe is less anti-America/anti-Capitalism
than France?

~~~
sievebrain
Absolutely!

~~~
hodwik2
That's good to know. A lot of what we hear about European opinions are by way
of France.

------
maxxxxx
I am not sure I agree with the specifics but I think generally it's healthy
for the world to keep multi-national companies in check. So even if it's a
stupid law that blocks multinationals the effect will be positive in my view
if it fosters a local tech scene.

The big Silicon Valley companies are already killing a lot of innovation so
it's better to stop them from reaching more dominance.

~~~
sievebrain
How are they killing innovation?

~~~
maxxxxx
I would say the iphone was a total innovation killer. Apple restricts ideas to
only things they like. Maybe we wouldn't have such polished phones but we
would have more interesting ideas emerge.

------
arca_vorago
I hope that people will learn that the fact the giants are so big is what the
core problem is, even for American citizens. For example, the filter-bubble is
real and dangerous, along with operation mockingbird (I'm sure under a new
name now) propaganda pushes, and the giants become useful mediums for things
like pretending a war or invasion is OK or the banks "need this next bailout
of 200zillion dollars".

What we need is to move to decentralized platforms not controlled by any one
company of person or government. Centralization is a weakness, not a strength,
and decentralization is a strength. These are fundamental lessons of the
internet, and it's high time we made sure the fresh geeks who didn't live
through the 90's cryptowars are taught it's lessons.

FOSS is where it's at, and I am convinced RMS will be seen a visionary to
ahead of his time to be fully understood or appreciated in the capitalist
society he spawned in.

When Microsfaceboogleslapple Brain interface comes out and everyone starts
plugging in, I will either be using the GPLv6Brain or nothing at all.

------
verroq
The world is slowly learning from China.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Learning how to have slaves for population?

How noble of them. Not really.

~~~
chrischen
I lived in China. Can confirm I was not a slave, at least not in the sense
that America had black slaves.

~~~
guard-of-terra
But are you prevented from visiting a wide range of websites?

That is them deciding for you what you can and can't do. If you're not Chinese
citizen then it's your choice being there. But if you're a Chinese citizen
then all choices are made for you, what qualifies you as a slave.

~~~
lbebber
Of course not being able to access a website you want (and censorship in
general) is not good, but comparing that to slavery is absolutely ridiculous.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Not being able to make choices for yourself is slavery.

Slavery is not about hard work or poor conditions. There were plenty free men
who had it harder and some slaves that led cushy life.

Slavery is about not being a master for yourself.

~~~
jza00425
By your definition, i am pretty sure that you are a slave.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I happen to be, since I live in a country on par with China.

------
chmike
France is a souverain country that uses his legitimate right to create laws
that protect french peoples culture, health, etc. It is more recently after
companies that use unethical tricks to not pay taxes to the country. This is
stealing the french people. Considering the brutality and souless behaviour of
creditors to Greece, the behavior of the French souverain country against tax
frauds is perfectly legitimate and regretable necessity.

I whish Americans had more consideration and respect for foreign countries.

------
mayneack
Aside from taking China's approach to block external services, if a company
doesn't have any physical presence in a country (shipping products, office,
.fr domain), do they really have any recourse to force the country to do
anything? Is there any reason for google to not just shut down google.fr and
let french people use google.com. Assuming the media companies are cool with
it, is there any reason why netflix would be required to change their behavior
in france if they're just using the US version of it?

------
nitwit005
The French would have far fewer complaints about these companies if they were
French, even if they behaved in exactly the same way.

The concerns are real, but the underlying issue is that having foreign firms
succeed over local ones upsets people. One needs only listen to how often the
politicians mention that the companies are American.

------
panzagl
I say we take it further- France should have to support movies in Languedoc
and Alsatian and Breton as well. Surely the French nation can only benefit
from such diversity. After all, New Guinea has 6000 languages surely such
diversity of thought has them only minutes away from conquering the world...

------
known
1\. Impose tax on corporate revenues, not profits

2\. Regulate market capitalization of corporations

~~~
tremon
3\. Profit?

------
jackmaney
Just once, I'd love to see one of these tech companies call these ridiculous
bluffs.

"Fine. You want to try and force us to carry local French TV, and fully pay
for the production of said local TV programs? We will be cutting off all
Netflix access to France, effective immediately."

It would take less than ten minutes for these cowardly bureaucrats to cave.

