US To Blacklist Chinese AI Company SenseTime Over Xinjiang Ahead of IPO (ft.com) 37
The US will put SenseTime, the Chinese artificial intelligence company that specialises in facial recognition software, on an investment blacklist on Friday, the same day that it prices its Hong Kong initial public offering. From a report: The action against SenseTime, which Washington says enables human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, will be part of a package of sanctions against a number of countries to mark Human Rights Day, according to three people familiar with the decision.
The US Treasury will place SenseTime on a list of "Chinese military-industrial complex companies." In June, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that barred Americans from investing in companies on the list, following a Trump administration policy intended to tackle national security threats. The decision to blacklist SenseTime will coincide with the last day of the Democracy Summit that Biden has convened with more than 100 countries. The US president held a virtual meeting last month with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, in which they discussed ways to ensure that tensions between the countries did not veer into conflict. But Biden has stressed that he will not stop criticising China over human rights abuses.
The US Treasury will place SenseTime on a list of "Chinese military-industrial complex companies." In June, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that barred Americans from investing in companies on the list, following a Trump administration policy intended to tackle national security threats. The decision to blacklist SenseTime will coincide with the last day of the Democracy Summit that Biden has convened with more than 100 countries. The US president held a virtual meeting last month with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, in which they discussed ways to ensure that tensions between the countries did not veer into conflict. But Biden has stressed that he will not stop criticising China over human rights abuses.
In our own human rights violation (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought we weren't supposed to call it that anymore, lest the rioters tear apart the data farm.
Aren't we supposed to call it a "blocklist" now?
Re: (Score:2)
Is it actually called the blacklist or is that just something the FT made up? TFA is paywalled but don't these things usually have some more convoluted name? The Chinese call their something like the List of Unreliable Companies.
Anyway, fuck these guys. They make tech that tries to determine the race of a person from video.
Re: (Score:2)
TFA has it as blacklist as well. Guess political correctness in coding hasn't hit the journalism schools yet.
Who else should US blacklist? (Score:1)
Should they blacklist Aramco for enabling the Saudi Arabia's government to commit human rights abuses? Should they blacklist companies like Lockheed, Raytheon and Boeing for enabling certain countries to commit illegal wars and war crimes?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> the justification in this case was "national security threats" which is different from human rights abuses.
I'm not sure I follow you.
The Chinese company is blacklisted because it's also part of the commission of, or used in ways that enable, human rights abuses.
Seems that's what the parent's list of US companies do. And directly for Lockheed, Raytheon and Boeing, to name just a few.
Whatever those companies claim about their product, they definitely also enable and are used to commit human rights abuses
Re: Who else should US blacklist? (Score:1)
There is a difference between âoeenablingâ and âoecommittingâ human rights abuses.
By extension of you paying taxes, you too have enabled human rights abuses, but that doesnâ(TM)t mean you have actively gone and made software that identifies people of a certain race (in this case Uyghurs), tested it on slaves you have acquired from the government. That is what this company did.
Itâ(TM)s likely this software was built on open source image classifiers, so by your definition, we sho
Re: (Score:2)
The United States thinks it can contain China's growth and influence. Whether or not it's true, the problem isn't whether or not the USA can but the fact they think it's acceptable.
Welcome to the world. The question is always whether or not someone thinks they can get away with something. There is no absolute standard of morality.
I have to say, I'm equally disappointed in my own (Canadian) government for going along with the Olympic diplomatic boycott nonsense. Yes, there are human rights issues in China. There are human rights issues right here in Canada too.
So is your government currently engaging in genocide?
Re: (Score:1)
The US certainly commits genocide. In fact every bomb they drop was throwing someone in an "oven".
I didn't ask about the US, and your characterization is stupid. The US was built on genocide, but then so was Canada, and I didn't ask about that either. The US hasn't engaged in wholesale genocide in... well, probably only decades to be fair, but that isn't the question either. Please try to stay on topic.
Re: This is not going to end well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This message brought to you by the good Comrade # 209961 of the People's Cyber Bullying Division.
Re: This is not going to end well... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The United States has killed 63 million of its own undesirable and unwanted citizens in the last 49 years alone
[citation needed]
between the death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion.
Oh, you're a loony.
Re: (Score:2)
Citation is the Guttmacher Institute Numbers on abortion, the Department of Justice numbers on the Death Penalty, and (for the least) Oregon Health Authority's numbers on euthanasia.
To me, the people who are FOR these three items are the loonies- they're the ones unwilling to share the planet with other members of their own species.
And that's not even getting into our war dead over the last 50 years- which would add another five or six million to that total, if you include collateral damage.
Re: (Score:2)
The United States, Canada and China have been actively engaging in genocide for the last 5 generations. Some are just better at hiding it from the general public than others, almost all the developed nations have active population control programs of undesirable genomes.
Re: (Score:1)
The US in the 1980 also boycotted the Olympics, stating that USSR was committing war crimes in Afghanistan. Then 20 years later they were raining bullets and bombs on the same guys that they were supporting stating that they were terrorists.
US has absolutely no moral standing whatsoever. The US uses human rights issues as a mere political weapon, not as a standard they actually care about, so something they even try to uphold for themselves. Last year, the US took a well known terrorist organization the
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, there are human rights issues in China. There are human rights issues right here in Canada too. This is just an attempt at justifying the escalations that are coming.
Wow! Talk about False Equivalence!
At least ONE MILLION Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in the Xinjiang internment camps since 2017. The Chinese government has subjected Uyghurs to widespread abuses that include forced sterilization and forced labor.
Please tell us what human rights issues in Canada come anywhere close to that in scope.
Re: (Score:2)
The treatment of the indigenous population. It's actually remarkably similar to what China is doing. And yes, that's very bad. While Canada has at least begun acknowledging how bad they were, China is still behaving as if its all just fine and dandy to rape, murder and imprison people just because they are not Han Chinese. It's not and a firm statement of disapproval is the right thing to do. Holding the Olympics in all kinds of murderous and criminal states that are actively still committing crimes instea
In our own human rights violation (Score:1)
How do Chinese companies exist and why do they IPO (Score:2)
China is a communist country. They should have a centrally planed economy, and none of these companies should need to IPO, since the government should own them all.
I honestly don't understand any of this
Re: (Score:2)
You visit China anyone middle class and above will tell you they are capitalists.
Communism? That's something that those crazy people do up in Beijing. Pretty much the way normal people in the U.S. view Republicans. Unfortunately they are influential and make the rules, but they like money same as anyone else so they can be influenced themselves.
So the rules allow things like corporation and public securities markets and lawsuits and all the rest. But things are decided differently in their one-par
Meanwhile, in other international news (Score:2)
Administration officials have suggested that the U.S. will press Ukraine to formally cede a measure of autonomy to eastern Ukrainian lands now controlled by Russia-backed separatists who rose up against Kyiv in 2014.
Re: Hypocrites (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)