1 HN user recommended this documentary1 month2020–2026score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Cited as a vivid demonstration of the scale of Chinese state surveillance, especially in TikTok and privacy debates.
VICE News reporter Elle Reeve investigates China's rollout of facial recognition and mass surveillance technology and what it means for citizens. The report originally aired on VICE on HBO.
“just watch the Vice doc on how China tracks people, it's on a whole another level” (HN, 2020)
For those who are unaware, India banned Tiktok recently: [link] I support this move - in addition to censorship, there are serious consequences of collecting facial features en-masse with no checks/balances, especially by the CCP who probably already has a massive database of non-Chinese nationals. This also applies to any company (Facebook/Apple/etc) but I am significantly more concerned about CCP having this data than any other government in the world. People who are about to present with a counter US whataboutism, they need to first watch the Vice clip on how China tracks people: [this video]
Vice clip on mass facial recognition and tracking in China.
This is far better than having facial recognition data in the hands of CCP. I am not a fan of US gov, but if I had the choice, I wouldn't side with CCP. The genie is already out and we've failed to put laws in place to stop all this data collection way back in 2004. Surprisingly, I feel comfortable with Microsoft having this data. What a world we've created. For those who are skeptical, just watch the Vice doc on how China tracks people, it's on a whole another level: [this video]
Vice documentary on Chinese state surveillance scale.
I believe that Palantir is behind China in surveillence software (especially gathering data about people from public cameras, but of course using GPS data is much easier. Of course the funniest thing is that the name of the surveillence software is SkyNet, because the CEO of the company loves Terminator. [this video]
While I don't condone President Trump's behavior and his approach towards China, and with US losing its place in the world; I find it equally amusing that we in democratic society are willing to kowtow to an authoritarian regime, despite of its overwhelming [1] state of surveillance, Han-supremacy motifs and funding it with more asymmetrical trade policies. Democracy is eroding in front of our eyes and no one seems to care. Hey, at least we can even protest in the west (while getting tear gassed, but not tanks and bullets causing a massacre like 1989). "Take that, America!!!" seems to get people entertained. Not defending America, there are plenty of Americans wanting to say "Take that, China!!!". EU folks are bashing US, US folks are speechless at what their nation is going through, India and China are at arms, Australia has Chinese infestation, Japan is the most Sinophobic country in the world, Taiwan is nervous, Hong Kong is decimated, Eastern EU is going authoritarian, UK is spiraling into isolation, etc. This is not going to be fun to watch. [1] Vice, How China Tracks Everyone: [this video]
Cited as evidence of China's overwhelming state surveillance.
Yeah, I don't doubt it. It could very well have been edited to look like that, either for views or sensationalism. Here is the video if you want to see: [this video]
This has been happening in China since 2018[1]. North Korea is able to oppress its citizens just fine without AI. I don't think recent advances are going to revolutionize government oppression. [1] [this video] youtube version: [this video]
Shows AI-driven surveillance in China already in place since 2018.
I would even say - the general public needs to boycott Zoom and shift to something else that's open. Large scale (never this large in the history of mankind) data collection of facial features across the globe along with other meta data such as name and email address, perhaps a phone number - this is unprecedented amount of data that any government agency would kill to have. Just in a couple of months, the world has given up privacy in a snap. I would say the same thing about Facebook. Look at what we've created: [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
7 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more