Maybe. China probably has more official channels to interact with Bytedance but we have hard evidence that the US does the same thing.
FOIA provided a lot of insight into various clandestine interactions between US government agencies and private companies. There are a bunch of NGOs that get almost all of their funding from the US.
We also just reauthorized warrantless wiretapping.
The bigger issue is that Meta doesn't really care. Nobody needs to force them to conform when they can just pay them. As far as Zuckerberg is concerned USD spends just as well as RMB.
More official channels from the authoritarian CCP, seriously?
FOIA requests in the US are a wonderful thing compared to what you're able to do under the CCP's iron grip. I wonder what people could discover of they were transparent enough to allow similar information requests.
Absolutely!
The CPC has board seats on many Chinese companies, including Bytedance.
You can't get more official than that.
The CIA engages in information operations both domestically and abroad. Those activities are often in violation of official US law. So they have to be done covertly and we only find out about it decades later after someone manages to push through a FOIA request.
The fact is that US, Chinese, Soviet (back when that was a thing), British, German, etc are all spying on each other. There's a big spy vs spy thing going on in Africa. The Germans got really grumpy when the US wiretapped their phones a few years ago.
On the surface it may seem like "the authoritarian CCP" is engaging in an extraordinary amount of skullduggery, subterfuge and other clandestine activities but it's just standard operating procedure for any country. Don't take my word for it. There are a bunch of retired US intelligence officers saying exactly the same thing on the record.
Maybe. China probably has more official channels to interact with Bytedance but we have hard evidence that the US does the same thing.
FOIA provided a lot of insight into various clandestine interactions between US government agencies and private companies. There are a bunch of NGOs that get almost all of their funding from the US.
We also just reauthorized warrantless wiretapping.
The bigger issue is that Meta doesn't really care. Nobody needs to force them to conform when they can just pay them. As far as Zuckerberg is concerned USD spends just as well as RMB.
More official channels from the authoritarian CCP, seriously?
FOIA requests in the US are a wonderful thing compared to what you're able to do under the CCP's iron grip. I wonder what people could discover of they were transparent enough to allow similar information requests.
Absolutely!
The CPC has board seats on many Chinese companies, including Bytedance. You can't get more official than that.
The CIA engages in information operations both domestically and abroad. Those activities are often in violation of official US law. So they have to be done covertly and we only find out about it decades later after someone manages to push through a FOIA request.
The fact is that US, Chinese, Soviet (back when that was a thing), British, German, etc are all spying on each other. There's a big spy vs spy thing going on in Africa. The Germans got really grumpy when the US wiretapped their phones a few years ago.
On the surface it may seem like "the authoritarian CCP" is engaging in an extraordinary amount of skullduggery, subterfuge and other clandestine activities but it's just standard operating procedure for any country. Don't take my word for it. There are a bunch of retired US intelligence officers saying exactly the same thing on the record.