
In China, consumers are becoming more anxious about data privacy - subsubsub
https://www.economist.com/news/china/21735613-will-impede-governments-snooping-china-consumers-are-becoming-more-anxious-about-data
======
IIAOPSW
As someone who lived in China, I doubt it.

Individual rights and limitations on government power are not taught in
Chinese schools nor ingrained in Chinese culture. Politics is not natural part
of the Chinese conversational diet in much the same way that bread is not a
natural part of their nutritional diet. To the extent that such topics come up
it is pragmatic to a fault. It is always in the context of fixing a specific
problem in the here and now (Eg there is corruption therefore lets purge the
corrupt) and never in the context of a broader political philosophy (Eg how
should we structure the civil service to dis-incentivize corruption). Chinese
ideas on what ought be legal are rooted in intuition for what we would call
natural law rather than study of what we would call natural law.

I can't imagine Chinese people being concerned about the general case of lax
data protection. I can picture a near infinite string of ad hoc outcry over
things like the strawberry adverts.

Anyone from China disagreeing with my observations on your country, feel free
to yell at me. I invite you.

~~~
anontoday126
> Politics is not natural part of the Chinese conversational diet in much the
> same way that bread is not a natural part of their nutritional diet.

What do you mean by natural? Because I hear Chinese people talk about politics
all the time. It's an extremely popular topic and they love to get into the
intricacies of it and compare how current leaders act compared to historical
leaders.

I definitely hear them talk about how society and philosophy influence current
day politics. For example, how different would this political leader be if he
followed the Mozi [1] school of thought.

Of course, I understand Chinese so perhaps that's why? I know that many
Chinese people dislike talking about politics with foreigners. Especially if
they can't speak/understand Chinese.

Also, not to be nit-picky, but mantou [2] and shaobing [3] are both a natural
part of Northern Chinese diets. Of course I guess some people might not
consider them true breads.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantou)

3\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaobing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaobing)

~~~
jhedwards
This is tough because it's mostly anecdotal, but after living in China for two
years (I can speak mandarin) talking about politics in the US was like
suddenly being able to breathe again, it was a tangible culture shock. Sure,
some people liked to talk about society and politics and economic development
especially when it related to China's history, but I can only remember one or
two times in two years that I experienced the kind of completely open
political conversation that we have every day in the US. China is big, so this
could be related to region as well, I was in Hunan.

------
IBM
Boy did Apple skate to where the puck was headed or what? I remember reading
all those hot takes years ago insisting it was a mistake and thinking how
short sighted that was [1][2]. It was also weird because even before the Apple
Watch was announced there was plenty of evidence of their health ambitions, so
it obviously made sense to be strong on privacy and security. Since then
multiple high profile hacks have happened (and are bound to keep happening),
the FBI fought Apple and lost (at least in lower courts), GDPR is being
implemented in the EU, and antitrust regulators are taking a look at internet
business models [3].

[1] [https://dcurt.is/privacy-vs-user-experience](https://dcurt.is/privacy-vs-
user-experience)

[2] [https://stratechery.com/2015/tim-cooks-unfair-and-
unrealisti...](https://stratechery.com/2015/tim-cooks-unfair-and-unrealistic-
privacy-speech-strategy-credits-the-privacy-priority-problem/)

[3]
[https://www.ft.com/content/9376eece-00e4-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c...](https://www.ft.com/content/9376eece-00e4-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5)

~~~
tjoff
From [1]: _The truth is that collecting information about people allows you to
make significantly better products, and the more information you collect, the
better products you can build_

That is a hilariously absurd statement. Collecting data has never been about
making better products.

And apple being pro-privacy is equally absurd, they just haven't gone full
retard and started collecting everything they can. Which I guess is noteworthy
of a company its size today, but don't confuse that with pro-privacy. It is
just what everyone would expect of any sane entity. The climate of today just
means we've set the bar so low that some confuse it for "pro-privacy" to care
the slightest of it's consumers.

~~~
virgilp
> Collecting data has never been about making better products.

That's a strong statement. Especially given that I know for sure data that is
collected __exactly __for that purpose within my company.

~~~
taneq
Maybe you'd consider an alternate statement: "Collecting data is no longer
solely about making better products."

------
b6
Man, it's a strange article. Fraud of every kind is endemic in China. When I'm
in China, it's reasonable to assume anyone who initiates conversation with me
has some kind of scam in mind. Strangers are very wary of each other. It's
common to receive scam texts from people saying they're your dad or your
landlord and to send money to such and such a bank account. I think most
Chinese people have never had the opportunity to use any computer other than
perhaps an iPhone that has not been backdoored/rootkit'd/RAT'd in at least one
way. What would data protection by Chinese companies even mean? They're
already comprehensively cooperating with the CCP.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _When I 'm in China, it's reasonable to assume anyone who initiates
> conversation with me has some kind of scam in mind._

That's pretty much true everywhere else, isn't it now? If a random stranger
you don't know initiates a conversation with you, it's usually because they
have something in mind that quite likely is not in your best interest. I
believe what you called "having a scam in mind" for China is usually called
"salesmanship" in the US.

~~~
chao-
I walk to and from work each day in a large urban downtown in the US, and I
average one interaction each way, each day. Almost none of them are
approaching me about anything involving a scam.

For every 5 people that communicate (other than a nod or polite hello), 4 are
just asking for money, full-stop. That's begging, but not a scam. It's honest,
they ask, I say no, because I don't carry cash. The other 1 out of 5, such as
today, was just a guy who wasn't sure if the bus he was looking for stopped at
the street we were both on. It was about 22:30 and he was worried he'd miss
the last express bus home.

Occasionally someone asks for money for food, and then I offer to buy them
lunch, and most turn it down. Maybe that counts as a scam? But some take me up
on it. So if that's a scam, I'd estimate 5% of people I talk to ask me for
money for food, truly just want money, and have a scam in mind. That's
definitely a minority.

Edit: As additional context, I traveled through China for a little over a
month in 2005, and very much related to the GP's comment. I know the country
has changed massively since then, but I have traveled through a half-dozen
countries, lived in 2 others, and China stands out in that way.

~~~
trextrex
In the few years that I lived in the US, there were at least two occasions
where I have been approached with a somewhat scammy story in different (large)
cities. I'm not saying its endemic in the US, but it does happen.

But compared to China, (a) the frequency of an encounter with a random person
on the street as a pedestrian is significantly lower in US cities and (b) I
imagine the levels of poverty in China were/are much higher, which might be a
factor why scams are frequent?

------
sexydefinesher
I hope this is a turning point in Chinese conscious of human rights

~~~
nathanyukai
That can only happen If China become a stable, developed country.

~~~
castle-bravo
This is a common talking point of the CCP, but it is not the truth. When the
state protects the rights of all people within its borders, those people grow
to trust the state; they choose to work openly with the state and each other
instead of hoarding wealth in secret. A state which does not protect human
rights can not earn the trust of citizens and cannot win their full
participation in developing the country.

~~~
nathanyukai
I'm not saying it's true for all countries, but it is true for China. The
government is putting development as priority instead of human rights, and
since the government is unlikely to change anytime soon, this is the reality.
Only when China is prosper enough, the government may start caring about human
right. It's also a big culture shift, and can take a long time and lot's of
mistakes.

~~~
IntronExon
_I 'm not saying it's true for all countries, but it is true for China._

China is full of people, and people are depressingly alike.

