19
US government allowed and even helped US firms sell tech used for surveillance in China, AP finds (apnews.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/politics@sh.itjust.works
comment fedilink hide all child comments
 

U.S. lawmakers have tried four times since September last year to close what they called a glaring loophole: China is getting around export bans on the sale of powerful American AI chips by renting them through U.S. cloud services instead.

But the proposals prompted a flurry of activity from more than 100 lobbyists from tech companies and their trade associations trying to weigh in, according to disclosure reports.

The result: All four times, the proposal failed, including just last month.

Under the cloud services loophole, Chinese companies barred from accessing cutting-edge chips can use Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services overseas instead to train their AI models. Microsoft and AWS also both advertise the capacity to store video surveillance footage on their cloud services for Chinese customers.

no comments (yet)

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
there doesn't seem to be anything here
27 comments in c/til@lemmy.world view that post
[–] [S] 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The Trump administration has been arguing since 2019, that the reason China has such an upper hand in the AI race is allegedly because their surveillance state also enabled mass data collection, which then enabled them to feed the surveillance data into AI and gave them the competitive edge.

If we want to "win," we will allegedly have to just accept the same level of surveillance without any regulations. However, because our tech will have "baked in American values,"™️ we don't need to worry about our surveillance state ending up like China's. You know, the kind with surveillance tech that this AP investigation found Silicon Valley built and the U.S. sold to China?

Seems kind of hard to swallow all of this patriotic duty bullshit given we all know what the baked in values of men like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp really are.

2025: Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention and surveillance in China, internal documents show

2025: Palantir CEO Says a Surveillance State Is Preferable to China Winning the AI Race

2025: Palantir CEO slams ‘parasitic’ critics calling the tech a surveillance tool: ‘Not only is patriotism right, patriotism will make you rich’

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

    I can't stand all the conservative war hawks who are hellbent on going to war with China and divert any peripheral conversation around it to "China Big Bad and Hate Freedom" and yet those same people traffic in or at least support the defense tech circles selling China the vitally necessary technology to oppress its people. This is all a risk board game to these losers where we are automatically the good guys and the point is to profit off of fear to sell more war and I can't stand it.

    How many conservatives here on lemmy have wasted my time detailing how evil China is and yet not a FUCKING peep on this...

    Evil lives in systems not countries and conservative warhawks traffic in the same evil China does as this article emphatically underscores.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

    I mean, tbf there are a handful of shadowy government oligarchs in China who are big bad and hate freedom. They're working with our shadowy government oligarchs in America who are also big bad and hate freedom.

    If anybody questions why they're allowed to do this shit, and how this actually helps the country, Chinese oligarchs will accuse Chinese citizens of being unpatriotic parasites, and American oligarchs will accuse American citizens of being unpatriotic parasites. "Patriotism," is weaponized by both countries to enable and protect the blatant abuse of civil liberty/human rights, and we're all supposed to believe this is all for the greater good. Cuz if you don't...

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    Yeah I am not disputing that China is part of the problem.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    I think it's important to distinguish the problem isn't China or the United States. It's the men like this that exist all over the globe, and play with people's lives like pieces on a Monopoly board so they can profit, then claim they're only doing it as a selfless act for the greater good of their country.

    Meanwhile they spread the narrative that anyone who questions them or stands in their way is a selfish parasite obsessed with individualism. What kind of backwards, brainwashing, paternalistic cult leader fuckery is that bullshit?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Google, microsoft and apple have been loyal dogs for china for many years. This has been public knowledge for at least a decade if not two.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 child)

    But if the U.S. is already working with our competitors then why do we need to worry about winning the new cold war AI race? /s

    Military Keynesianism

    But where Keynes advocated increasing public spending on socially useful items (infrastructure in particular), additional public spending is allocated to the arms industry, the area of defense being that over which the executive exercises greater discretionary power.

    They're so right, democracy, and freedom are incompatible. How can they truly be free to do whatever the fuck they want, and treat earth like their own personal playground, if all of the "parasitic critics" are allowed to have any say about corporate leeches exploiting the planet via government hand outs contracts? Thank God, we have our elite leaders (both technocratic and traditionalist) here to save us from our own impulsive and selfish decision making.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago*

    "If we already have enough resources to completely eradicate poverty from the planet, then why do we still fight over resources."

    Because war and conflict is good for making money.

    To answer your question we DONT need to worry about winning the AI race, because there is no such thing. Its just a made up concept that allows companies to claim handouts from the US government under the guise of protecting national security/interests.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (14 children)

    川普同志万岁

    习主席万岁

    世界上两个最好的同志 Happily Ever After!

    (同志 can translate to "comrade" or it can be used as "gay"/"gay person", lolz. Wassup, my fellow 同志 😏)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Why bro typing in Chinese 😭🙏

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago*

    Its a joke about authoritarianism. I was going for a thing where like the news goes: "trump wins presidency" then in comments people typing "congratulations" in Russian, as a joke that trump is owned by the Kremlin, but this in this case, it's where he colludes with CCP and therefore make it ironic since he was the one that was like "China Bad" in the first place...

    I guess I have bad sense of humour

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (11 children)

    Using gay as an insult is homophobic.

    Also why come at Xi? Are there any specific policies and actions you don't like?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (10 children)

    Peak irony for a supporter of a regime that is against LGBT rights and actively engages in censorship of gay people in media.

    Xi is member of CCP and the PRC tyranny. Xi deserves death.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (9 children)

    Do you think promoting hostility against China advances the struggle of LBGT+ people in China? It reads like zionists using Palestinian LGBT+ rights to justify actions that hurt LGBT+ Palestinians the same as cis-het Palestinians.

    The LGBT people I talk to on xhs tell me not to opine on the political aspect, so I don't.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    Do you think promoting hostility against China advances the struggle of LBGT+ people in China?

    Do you think promoting hostility against America advances the struggle of LBGT+ people in America?

    🤔

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago* (5 children)

    Well it certainly advances the struggle in the global south where America funds right-wing dictatorships who use LGBT+ people as a scapegoat for societal problems.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    Are they really any different then?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Yes? What democraticly elected government has China replaced with a rightwing dictator? Is China actively trying to do that in Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela right now?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    China may not actively be doing that or may not have replaced democratic governments with dictators, but it does have a history of assisting already reactionary governments in suppressing left wing uprisings: Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I mean yeah, they're no USSR when it comes to internationalism, but being willing to sell arms to literally anyone, even things the US refuses to sell, while a valid criticism on its own, is qualitatively different from what the US does.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] -1 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    hostility against China

    反共不等于反国

    反政府不等于反人民

    中共不代表全世界的华人

    你这些西方人只靠翻译软件才能看懂这些字，你没权插手讲关于中国的事，尤其是你像你这样支持独裁的“白猴子”。

    Also, nice modlog: https://archive.ph/J0en8

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago

    Unless you can explain how you're advancing the struggle of LGBT+ people in China by providing hostile evidence to westerners that ultimately gets used to justify hostile foreign policy and random violence against asian people, all I see there is comprador shit.

    Thanks for noticing btw, pissing off a powermod and a zionist is a badge of honor.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent