Government Surveillance on Chinese vs US made phones (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by tapdattl@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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Question that I've been mulling over recently: My threat model dictates that I'm more likely to be surveilled by the US government than by the Chinese government. We can also assume that the Chinese government is not going to cooperate with the US government in any investigations of potential activist activity.

Would it not be best, then, to use a Chinese-made phone that, even though we know that information is going to China, we can also assume that any backdoors in the system are unknown to the US Gov?

I'm interested in everyone's take on this.

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[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

What do you mean by China not caring about the individual? Are you referring to how they center the working classes over private interests?

[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml -5 points 2 days ago

In America the justice system leans strongly in favour of the defence (unless you're poor, but we'll put that aside for now). In China and east Asia more generally the justice system leans towards maintaining social harmony even if it means a higher risk of convicting the wrong person.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This seems more like orientalism than an actual thing. The US is set up that way because it values capitalists above all else as a capitalist country, and this system puts them above the law.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

In America the justice system leans strongly in favour of the defence (unless you’re poor, but we’ll put that aside for now)

Neat trick the tankies hate: the West is perfect if you just say that the biggest counterexample is irrelevant!

There's definitely an algorithm that decides if any arbitrary algorithm will halt or not (unless you feed its own source code back into itself, but we'll put that aside for now).

[-] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm explaining the cultural difference, not judging one as better or worse. America is more individualist and China is more collectivist.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026

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