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Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

• akersten 6y ago
  Under what authority? A dozen paragraphs in the article and not one questioning whether he can actually do this. What would such an executive action look like? An EO to Apple and Google to de-list the app from their stores? Why should they comply? What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere? Sick of media treating this man like a zoo exhibit instead of the advanced persistent threat to US democracy he is.
  • randomfinn 6y ago
    > What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere? I don't think most Android users know how to install an apk, and as far as I know a similar distribution model is not possible on iOS.
    • akersten 6y ago
      Fortnite was a widely successful mobile application for a long time, distributed outside of the app store and with the same audience as TikTok - it's not as hard as it would seem to teach people to sideload.
    • untog 6y ago
      Teens would be able to figure it out within minutes. It’s not difficult, it just isn’t required knowledge for most users (yet?)
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • adelpozo 6y ago
      Which VPN company is public traded? ;)
    • yushuf 6y ago
      I know for iOS you can change the location of your account and have access to download apps outside the US. I wonder if Tik Tok users will do this and download/use the app anyways
    • whoisjuan 6y ago
      It wouldn’t matter. To make it effective the FCC would likely ask all the ISPs and Carriers to block TikTok IPs at the network level.
      • robotbikes 6y ago
        I don't think the FCC will move that fast to do something this drastic but I could be wrong. This whole move will likely anger a lot of people and feel authoritarian because they aren't use to the government censoring the media they consume.
        • whoisjuan 6y ago
          FCC is completely aligned with this administration policies. I think they would totally act fast if asked.
      • akersten 6y ago
        Have US ISPs ever been asked/told to block IPs (or even DNS) before? I don't think it's something the FCC could do, especially since they've abdicated most of their authority over the internet to the FTC. Even still, I doubt they have the authority to do it or the means to impose penalties for noncompliance. Even if they could - what is a TikTok IP? I'm confident their US endpoints are AWS or Google Cloud - good luck blocking those.
        • whoisjuan 6y ago
          I’m pretty sure that at TikTok level you need operate with a VPC and have your own range of IPs. Also ISPs and Mobile Carriers have their own blocking and network redirection methods, like url filtering with transparent proxies, that are used to re-lane traffic based on bandwidth usage. a.k.a putting Netflix on the slow lane
  • justinzollars 6y ago
    > advanced persistent threat to US democracy We are a Republic.
    • casefields 6y ago
      Even more Article 4, Section 4 of the constitution: >The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-iv/clauses/42 https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/inte...
      • barrkel 6y ago
        This was probably more necessary when "democracy" usually referred to Athenian democracy, which obviously doesn't scale much beyond a city state.
    • stygiansonic 6y ago
      If we are being needlessly pedantic, the traditional US definition of a "republic" is a democracy, but just not a direct democracy (I'm not aware of any modern countries that are), which I suspect is what you were trying to point out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy
    • sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago
      In this context, "democracy" is used in the broad sense, meaning the codified national value of self-government by the population. The distinction that there are elected representatives rather than direct votes isn't relevant.
    • barrkel 6y ago
      Republics are democracies. They're just not direct democracies. This might also help: https://mises.org/wire/stop-saying-were-republic-not-democracy https://mises.org/wire/stop-saying-were-republic-not-democra...
  • ve55 6y ago
    China is likely considered by many to be a threat to democracy, which is part of the reasoning behind this
    • akersten 6y ago
      Great, but that doesn't answer my question: What authority does a US president have to tell a US-based software company to not distribute code from its US servers?
      • ve55 6y ago
        Tiktok is not a US-based software company, they're a private company from China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytedance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bytedance There's been precedent set recently with e.g. Huawei: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18216988/white-house-huawei-china-equipment-ban-trump-executive-order https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18216988/white-house-huaw..., but also keep in mind we have dealt with much stronger things in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
        • akersten 6y ago
          > Tiktok is not a US-based software company, they're a private company from China It doesn't really matter, because the app code is repackaged at the Google/Apple level. At that point, it is from US-company to US-consumer. There are no "import restrictions" or customs on code (speech) like there are on hardware.
          • remarkEon 6y ago
            What point are you trying to make here? That the US Government does not have the sovereign authority to determine what companies operate within its borders? Edit: Yeah, instead of downvoting this into oblivion, how about making an argument that the US Government doesn't have the authority to determine what companies operate within its borders.
  • onetimemanytime 6y ago
    My guess: National security as in Huawei https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18216988/white-house-huawei-china-equipment-ban-trump-executive-order https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18216988/white-house-huaw... Let's be realistic, if an app was doing what is alleged here, they should be banned and I'm sure they are provisions to do so without a vote of Congress. Biden campaign was also told to delete TikTok from phones, maybe NSA knows something.
    • akersten 6y ago
      > if an app was doing what is alleged here, they should be banned Yep, I also believe that would be in violation of Google/Apple ToS and they would be happy to ban it. > I'm sure they are provisions to do so without a vote of Congress. I highly doubt it, and I am waiting to be shown otherwise.
      • onetimemanytime 6y ago
        >>I highly doubt it, and I am waiting to be shown otherwise. I showed it to you, Huawei. USA gives a LOT of power to the President, sanctions, bans etc etc.
        • akersten 6y ago
          Preventing the purchase and import of physical equipment into the US is a lot different than preventing the import of code/speech. I fully understand the former is allowed, but I highly doubt the president possesses the authority to do the latter.
          • iso947 6y ago
            The US prevented the export of code/speech for decades, in fact I’m fairly sure it’s illegal to import recordings of certain speech.
          • busymom0 6y ago
            This has been the case since the launch of the App Store. It’s not new. When uploading an app to Apple App Store, you have to do disclosures about cryptography exports.
  • jmcgough 6y ago
    There's a good discussion of his different legal options here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/24/trump-cant-ban-tiktok-free-chinese-apps/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/24/trump-cant-ban-tiktok-f...
    • billfruit 6y ago
      Summary of which seems to be that in general there is not absolute authority available for banning TikTok, but there are some novel/emergency measures possible to put some restrictions on ByteDance, but which are all rather new and untested, some of whose adminstrative rules/regulation are yet only being formulated(they many not be ready for implementation for many months if not weeks), mostly all of which will expose the federal action to be scrutinized by courts if ByteDance decides to goto court.
      • mindslight 6y ago
        If ByteDance goes to court? How about when Apple and Google go to court... A president unilaterally shutting down a foreign business would destroy trust in their centralized app stores. I can't imagine both companies will just nod their heads and roll over. So does Trump really expect TikTok to just disappear like COVID, or is the actual play here to give Trump a strong talking point to fire up his remaining supporters? He'll undoubtedly group constitutionality-litigating Apple/Google with "the left", like everything else that conflicts with his 1850's world view. FWIW TikTok may be problematic, but it's only slightly more problematic than all of the US-based spyware that has apparently been acceptable for the past decade. The rest of the world has just had to live with the US being able to surveil most of their citizens' digital activity. Now there's a whiff of symmetry and the panic bells are going off.
        • floatboth 6y ago
          Apps like TikTok are way less problematic than, like, messengers. If the app is all about publishing things, why is anyone talking about privacy?!
  • dependenttypes 6y ago
    Under the Bernstein v. United States ruling software source code is protected under the 1st amendment, I do not know if this holds true for binaries as well though. I guess if TikTok distributed only its source code and it was compiled by the user the gov would be able to do nothing about it.
    • ISL 6y ago
      If TikTok distributed its source code, people would have a much clearer understanding of things that the app does and doesn't do. One could not inspect the data flow after it left the client, but it would still show far more than we normally see from major social-media vendors.
    • tossaway69 6y ago
      they could just block the servers, no?
  • zelly 6y ago
    > What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere? This is a social network which gains from network effects / usage. A social network only accessible to Android users is a ghetto. The vast majority of young people in America use iPhones. The last time the majority of internet users managed to disobey the government was the heyday of torrenting and Megaupload. That's not going to happen with today's users and today's walled gardens.
    • busymom0 6y ago
      The ban will most likely be network based, not just App Store. So apk will probably be useless.
      • akersten 6y ago
        How would a network ban be enforced? TikTok doesn't even communicate directly with Chinese servers - I block connections to China on my home network, and my kids can still use TikTok on the wifi, so I'm confident there are US servers. I even more doubt that we have the infrastructure in place to do a network-level ban (whatever that would mean) for a single app. It is much easier for me to believe Google/Apple could be strong-armed or sweet-toothed into delisting the app, if it really came down to it.
  • busymom0 6y ago
    Your last sentence shows you are not objective. This is the same thing as Huawei being banned.
    • akersten 6y ago
      > Your last sentence shows you are not objective. Correct, I am not objective on this topic and made no such implication. If we were all simply objective observational automatons, it would make for a pretty sterile comment section. > This is the same thing as Huawei being banned. Someone else said this earlier, and it's pretty different: one is a physical good that goes through customs where there are existing laws that allow for denial of entry. The other is code/speech for which there are no laws granting the executive branch the authority to block.
  • grazhero99 6y ago
    > advanced persistent threat to US democracy I don't see what this has to do with our electoral system. That seems like a rather narrow and emotionally charged stance to take on this issue in my opinion.
    • akersten 6y ago
      The executive branch taking wild swings to impose rules that even congress would struggle to pass through constitutional review, is a threat to the democratic principles on which the US is based.
      • grazhero99 6y ago
        Why would congress struggle to pass it through a constitutional review? Plenty of Trump's EOs have been ruled unconstitutional. He may feel that his authority extends beyond checks and balances, but it doesn't. His attempts to abuse his power have been duly mitigated and stopped about as well (or badly depending on how you look at it) as the last few presidents, as I see it.
        • akersten 6y ago
          > Why would congress struggle to pass it through a constitutional review? Because a computer program is an expression, and the right to free expression is a cornerstone of the first amendment. So broadly, I don't think the government can "ban" an app, no matter who wrote it. This proposition has been tested and affirmed for source code (see DeCSS t-shirt, etc.) but to my knowledge has not been tested for binaries. So, it would at minimum be a new test of whether binary code is as much a protected expression as human-readable code.
          • grazhero99 6y ago
            Ok. That's an argument for why this is unconstitutional, but not for why congress would be unable to declare it so.
  • stale2002 6y ago
    > Under what authority? Under the authority of an executive order. > Why should they comply? Because these are american companies, who make a bunch of their money in america, and they can be fined many millions or even billions of dollars, or possibly even arrested if they don't comply with the orders of the nation that has the most powerful military in the world. > What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere? Probably just fine ByteDance, which has a US presence, and many employees/bank accounts that are in the US. Blatant refusal to follow the law of the most powerful military in the world can be followed up with arrests of employees/executives that are in the US.
    • quotemstr 6y ago
      So you basically reject the overarching principle of limited government? Want to go full Melian Dialogue? The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must? The problem with ruling arbitrarily is that it kills predictability and crushes the spirit. It leads to a state of fear in which nobody wants to invest or go out on a limb, because in an environment where you can be punished for anything, everything is dangerous. That's why I'm personally adamant about requiring a rule before a punishment and why I'm dubious on this recent "let's sanction this one random foreign guy" push.
      • stale2002 6y ago
        > So you basically reject the overarching principle of limited government? It is a good general principle to follow, as a very high level rule. But when a country is in conflict with other nation states, that are not following the same principles as you are, then sometimes a country has to make comprises on their principles in order to not be at a disadvantage. So if China changes a bunch of their own rules, and becomes a much more free and open country, then I would support giving them the benefit of small government/free market protections. Nation states conflicts are messy. And you have to compromise on some of your principles in order to prevent others from taken advantage of you, who do not follow your own principles. > The problem with ruling arbitrarily It is not arbitrary. The USA is in serious conflict with China. And this is one such action that is at least indirectly related to these higher level nation state conflicts.
• bigpumpkin 6y ago
  Let's discuss a technical matter. What's the best VPN to get around this ban?
  • closetnerd 6y ago
    I assume any VPN would do.
    • busymom0 6y ago
      Wouldn’t it depend upon where the VPN is hosted?
      • yanishoss 6y ago
        What it depends upon is not your IP location but in what country your Apple/Google account was said to be made in
  • richardxlin 6y ago
    The content will be different. Most of the content creator will likely leave.
  • tanilama 6y ago
    Without US creators TikTok will be lifeless for US market. The creators will leave nevertheless if majority of the audience can't be reached So no. VPN won't work
    • floatboth 6y ago
      Well.. maybe. On the other hand, when Russian gov tried to ban Telegram, it only got more popular, nobody stopped posting, even government officials continued to use it, grocery chains continued to advertise their support bots, grandparents were asking young people to configure proxies on their phones… the ban was a colossal failure and recently it was unbanned. A smart business can use this kind of ban for a PR advantage, they can make their app into a symbol of resistance.
• in3d 6y ago
  Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016858
• coding123 6y ago
  I think the biggest thing that bugs me is that the American public didn't let Vine grow and make money. Instead we're either banning and blocking TTok or giving China a huge amount of money. I don't like giving China money. Ban them
  • jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    America is dead and we have killed it. Long live China. Long live Russia. Long live Canada. Make way for the 21st century, Americans!
  • softwaredoug 6y ago
    I am sad Vine died, but "American Public didn't let Vine grow" is not accurate. More "Twitter couldn't figure out how to make Vine a thing"...
    • xnx 6y ago
      Like Friendster or Myspace, I think the main obstacle was being slightly too early to market.
  • busymom0 6y ago
    The creators of Vine actually launched a Tiktok competitor few months ago. I think it is called Byte: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/byte-app/id1441800002 https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/byte-app/id1441800002
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• zelly 6y ago
  Hopefully this will raise awareness on PWAs. Hopefully using PWAs on mobile will be normalized by the 18-24 year olds. TikTok's PWA seems intentionally gimped (you can't even search) but I will bet it will suddenly start working once it disappears from the Western app stores. Is there anything TikTok does that the Web Platform + WASM cannot do? (besides spying)
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • irrational 6y ago
    Which platform? Apple (probably intentionally) doesn’t support many (any?) of the core features of PWAs on iOS.
  • astlouis44 6y ago
    This times 1000. PWA's + WASM are the only hope of we have of tearing down the walled gardens that are the modern app stores!
  • quotemstr 6y ago
    If the state can order tech companies to blacklist apps, the state can order tech companies to add certain sites to their "malicious browsing" filters or order ISPs to IP-block arbitrary hosts. The state simply has no legal authority under which it may ban apps. If the big tech companies roll over for this and say "yes, sir", they'll do anything. I'm a huge proponent of regulating big tech companies, but all regulation needs to done under the framework of public and universal rules established in advance, not randomly banning individual apps without proof of wrongdoing or a way to mount a defense.
    • dependenttypes 6y ago
      The state already blacklists certain programs. Pretty much anything that illegally contains copyrighted content or some other form of illegal numbers.
      • 6y ago
• surround 6y ago
  I’m torn. On one hand, we’ve seen how TikTok has been used by the CCP to extend the reach of its censorship, oppression, and surveillance. On the other hand, I’m not sure if the government should be deciding what software we’re allowed to have.
  • busymom0 6y ago
    I think this is a good measure to even the playing field. Thousands of companies are blocked in China. So why not do the same?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • tchaffee 6y ago
      Because we live in a relatively free country where the government doesn't choose what software we buy or use.
      • busymom0 6y ago
        When it comes to national security, similar to Huawei, this can all be done.
        • zerowangtwo 6y ago
          But should it?
        • billfruit 6y ago
          Such naivety on display here, I am alarmed for HN. National security isn't blanket grounds for doing anything. There are limits to president's and executives and even legislatures authority. Arbitrarily nothing can be done in our system. Unless US government probably demonstrates to the public that this measure is required, such a ban cannot be condoned.
        • Udik 6y ago
• croutonwhiskers 6y ago
  Wasn't microsoft trying to acquire tiktok? Why not just let that happen rather than try to do something so extreme? I'm not partial to tiktok at all but this is way to much of a big government move than I feel comfortable with. Isn't this a violation of our first amendment rights?
  • busymom0 6y ago
    First amendment rights don’t apply to foreign companies. I see this as the same thing as banning Huawei.
    • tchaffee 6y ago
      The first amendment is a negative right: it forbids the government from acting. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..." The Supreme Court has historically ruled on a regular basis that most US Constitutional protections extend to non citizens too. Unfortunately the conservatively biased Supreme Court last month decided that interfering with freedom of speech is OK against a foreign company. A loss for freedom and a victory for authoritarianism.
      • xvector 6y ago
        Furthermore, historically our country merely postures about rights. They go out the window when politicians start using words like “national security.”
  • markus_zhang 6y ago
    To lower the asking price further, I think. If you can lower it by a few billions by threatening to use an executive order, someone is going to use that power. Or maybe they just want to ban TikTok and the above conspiracy theory is BS.
  • fiblye 6y ago
    Honestly, Microsoft could purchase TikTok in its entirety and I still wouldn’t believe that it’s anything more than a front for the Chinese government. MS has a reputation for being exceedingly cozy with governments. No matter how they try to spin off or rebrand this product or abandon ties to the old parent company, I’d never trust it as much as something entirely new. If the NSA tried putting out a social media network, nobody would trust it. If they sold it off completely and had zero official NSA employees, nobody would trust it. And rightfully so. TikTok feels the same to me.
• euix 6y ago
  Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence". Now we got the reverse and it's also for ideological reasons (at least at face value). Wonder if WeChat is next. That would be fairly effective in prevent overseas Chinese from communicating with the mainland and a lot of mom and pop businesses that operate through Wechat like the students who buy products for people back in China and advertise and transfer money using WeChat. We'll be back to buying calling cards and dialing telephones, but I guess this is the era of decoupling one way or the other. Maybe people will have to invent some kind of transformer software, like you plug a western chat app on one side and it passes messages through a third party relay to a chinese messaging app.
  • markus_zhang 6y ago
    Ah...calling cards, purchased a lot 15 years ago, and I had to use them ASAP, or their value depreciated quickly.
    • ur-whale 6y ago
      > or their value depreciated quickly.or thor their value depreciated quickly.eir value depreciated quickly. Somewhat OT, but nothing has changed there. Phone plans minutes also become useless after a while.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence". Yes, now it's the US doing desperate acts of authoritarianism out of weakness.
    • hourislate 6y ago
      Have you considered a Chinese App on 10's of millions of phones across the US and the security implications? I would think an adversary like China could very well take advantage of that.
• nan0 6y ago
  Could this be the same as a tit for tat measure like with tariffs? China has banned a lot of US services and forced US corporations to pull content from their stores too [0] [1]. Genuinely asking and want to remain open-minded about this. 0:https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/10-popular-apps-and-websites-blocked-in-china/photolist/76806138.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/10-popular-apps-and-we... 1: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news18.com/amp/news/tech/china-forces-apple-to-take-down-two-podcast-apps-from-its-app-store-2665823.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news18.com/amp/news/tech/ch...
  • dependenttypes 6y ago
    non-amp link: https://www.news18.com/news/tech/china-forces-apple-to-take-down-two-podcast-apps-from-its-app-store-2665823.html https://www.news18.com/news/tech/china-forces-apple-to-take-...
  • magicsmoke 6y ago
    It definitely mirrors the kinds of restrictions China puts on US companies with joint ventures, censorship of sensitive topics, and keeping data on Chinese servers. However, I think why this feels unsettling even if it just mirrors what China's done is because up to now there was a sense that the US has a stronger economy, society, and culture than China, and these restrictions China put on US companies reflected their weakness and insecurity. But now the US is doing what China's done for decades. It shatters that aura of American superiority, implies that China's been right all along on matters of national security, and foreshadows a future where previously sacred assumptions of American democracy become obsoleted by new technology. I'm reminded of hand weavers smashing machine looms during the dawn of the industrial revolution.
    • khuey 6y ago
      Or maybe it just implies that the Golden Rule still exists?
      • magicsmoke 6y ago
        The US seems to have been fine shrugging off the Golden Rule and giving China a pass for decades because it felt like it was the bigger man. Now, we're seeing the US admit that the gap has closed.
• citrus1330 6y ago
  good riddance
  • xvector 6y ago
    I’m not sure I’d call getting rid of our first amendment rights a “good riddance.”
    • citrus1330 6y ago
      It’s an app that China created to spy on and promote degeneracy in other countries
• rydre 6y ago
  If there is any rule of law in the country, this should be against the constitution. If the US does this, they'll be losing a lot of goodwill founders from other countries have about the US. The US is uniquely thought of as a part of every country for business. If you're from third world country but you'd like to do a tech business in the US, you're free to do so without much hurdles by the government. Open competition. No other country is like that. This is what separated the US from the rest of countries like China. You'd dream that in case your startup got big, you'd move to the US, and hire quality engineers/researchers there. You'd like American protection on free speech to protect your company. Your company would not be banned for 'hurting' people. Rule of law. This is increasingly no longer the case. Now the US is starting to feel like China and the EU more and more. Even if China's economy was bigger than the US, the US would still be in a good position because of their appearance and rule of law. When it's going to be similar to China, why not just do business with China first altogether since they're going to be the bigger economy? China is slowly becoming more liberal to founders from 3rd world countries now. While America seems to not notice this right now, China is slowly becoming more open to competition from poorer countries. The difference is stark even compared to 5 years ago. Maybe China might not be so much fair right now to American companies because of a power imbalance where the US is too far ahead on certain things that they feel like after their companies catch up, they want to allow open competition. And they seem to progressing to this trajectory.
  • busymom0 6y ago
    Australia, India have already banned it. UK is probably next too. How exactly is this against the constitution? Was banning Huawei unconstitutional too?
    • postingawayonhn 6y ago
      You're going to need a source for Australia banning it.
    • billfruit 6y ago
      Australia has not banned it. India has banned it through possible dubious legal means wouldn't pass muster in most western countries, which I think ByteDance expects will be lifted sometime in the future, since they haven't gone to court over it, and seemingly engaging in some sort of dialogue with the government over it. India had earlier banned it for sometime over allegations of 'pornography', but that was lifted.
• Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  What are the predictions for which U.S. tech company would be banned by China as retaliation? My top pick is - LinkedIn (Most other U.S. social networks are already banned in mainland China anyways, then again LinkedIn is being used extensively by Chinese to do Business with outside world; So I wonder whether China would dare to pull the plug). Or it may just ban Instagram, Snapchat in HongKong as there is no ban for such U.S. apps in HongKong currently and that technical governance differences with mainland is fast evaporating. But, I wonder whether banning apps in HK would amount to appropriate retaliation in terms of market size.
  • creato 6y ago
    It's ridiculous that you even talk about retaliation in a post where you acknowledge that anything that would be a worthy retaliation is already banned!
    • Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
      I think it's ridiculous to say, China wouldn't even consider retaliation. It has to appease its domestic audience like any other country irrespective of the differences in governance model.
      • creato 6y ago
        Of course China is going to retaliate. That doesn't mean we shouldn't consider that ridiculous.
        • Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
          Of course you can, but the parent didn't call that ridiculous, but me talking about China's retaliation.
    • nfc_ 6y ago
      Apple makes $50 billion in revenues a year from the China market. Would people still buy it's phones if the App store or mobile data was shut-off?
• Lammy 6y ago
  I'm curious what they know about TikTok that isn't public. This seems too drastic for just trade posturing.
  • hoytschermerhrn 6y ago
    Is it really? Have you followed any of this administration’s drama these last 3.5 years?
  • hooande 6y ago
    TikTok is basically a tool of [SOME NATION]'s military intelligence. Not going to say which nation, but this is well known in the security community
    • asutekku 6y ago
      There has been literally zero proof about that as far as i know. If you do have some compelling evidence apart from “the x community knows this”, please share them. The issues risen in the “famous” whitepaper about TikTok’s alleged “security issues” were just pretty much standard fingerprinting that almost all apps do nowadays, like it or not.
      • Lammy 6y ago
        This will never be something that can be "proven" and insisting on seeing proof is just a way to halt discussion of the entire topic.
        • asutekku 6y ago
          If people are going to allege something, I seriously would like to have proof. I’m not defending China in here, but this is not a good direction to go if we have a large number of people speculating and alleging something without a solid proof. Not that it’s anything new.
          • Lammy 6y ago
• jtdev 6y ago
  Zoom should be next.
• Leary 6y ago
  When Trump said he was gonna build a wall, I didn't know it was gonna be a great fire wall.
• shiado 6y ago
  Dems are in a rough spot on this one, it will be hard to attack an action against an app with documented CCP/PLA involvement when they went so hard against FB for their inaction on use of the platform by foreign powers.
  • bluecalm 6y ago
    Why would they want to defend it? Addictive social media app based in China being forced to go is beneficial for everyone. It's even better if you're not the one removing rights so the blame goes to your political opponent.
    • busymom0 6y ago
      https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dianne-feinstein-lauds-china-as-a-respectable-nation-in-senate-committee-hearing/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dianne-feinstein-lauds-c...
• softwaredoug 6y ago
  OK is this legitimately happening? Or is it something Trump randomly spouted out to a reporter?
  • Elidrake24 6y ago
    Welcome to US politics for the past 3 and a half years. It’s a hell of a thing not knowing how serious anything he says means on any given day, imagine being on the other side of his fence when it comes to human rights.
  • Markoff 6y ago
    does it really matter? if they run polls showing public support they can go with it whoever's idea is it
• thinkloop 6y ago
  > Trump’s comments come as it was reported Friday that Microsoft has held talks to buy the TikTok video-sharing mobile app from Chinese owner ByteDance. He's ensuring msft can get them at a good price. Trump is very aware of the power of signaling whether it pans out or not.
• YarickR2 6y ago
  This seals Trump's fate at elections. Young voters will dump him on a blink of an eye
  • busymom0 6y ago
    Most of Tiktok users aren’t of voting age.
    • mark2996 6y ago
      60% are over 18. Granted 18-25 year olds don't vote.
• ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
  Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. In a way this gives Chinese apps an immediate advantage (as some are indirectly calling out in this comment section). If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app. Since social media is mostly a winner take all (or at least has a major snowball affect), this helps the Chinese social media company's grow even bigger. Now you already have one social media app for contacting people in China installed, why not use that app for contacting others?
  • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    That's not super relevant to this case, because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin, which runs the same platform but doesn't share content with TikTok.
    • hibern8 6y ago
      It is still owned by the same company.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • Lammy 6y ago
      International users can still feed censorship classification systems, like with WeChat: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/
    • rumanator 6y ago
      > (...) because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin Seems to me that it's not banned at all, they just release a region-specific version for a specific market.
      • 6y ago
• grazhero99 6y ago
  I'm more worried about the effect this will have on the overall public perception of the TikTok issue than anything else. During a time of such intense civil unrest, when people are letting strong emotions and groupthink guide them in lieu of reason, I have a feeling this that many will be quick to jump on a bandwagon that's unduly sympathetic to TikTok. I think I have a pretty good idea of how the media (both social and mainstream) is going to portray this. They'll suddenly forget about the long list of legitimate reasons why TikTok is majorly problematic, and present it as being something where poor little TikTok is being unfairly targeted by big evil xenophobic Trump. You could make a legitimate argument for why it's unconstitutional or sets a bad precedent for Trump to do this, but that unfortunately doesn't change the one-dimensional way most people are gonna see this.
  • pldr1234 6y ago
    That's my fear too. People have such short memories, and media cycles are too quick. I'm the least fan of Trump, but this is truly one area that the US is taking a stronger stance on than even in my own home country (which I considered more moral, until now).
• mrtksn 6y ago
  There’s ongoing joke about USA becoming large Turkey because all the stuff that we used to say that would never happen in a proper democracy is happening one by one. I know you don’t want to hear it, I know you think that you are exceptional and you are not like the others who ban apps and websıtes but I am going to say it anyway as a record for the future. When Turkey banned YouTube or Twitter of course it was banned to “protect the rights of the citizens”. Theses things always happen for noble reasons. Welcome to the world where the government decides what app or service you can use. I am sure that it’s necessary to keep you safe from these evil foreigners. Could have regulated user data safety but ban is the way to go. The only downside is, we can no longer argue that in a proper democracies governments don’t ban stuff. USA was the example used to demand rights when people were protesting against totalitarian governments and it’s gone. Now the governments would ban Twitter Facebook and everything else when they feel like doing so and will say that it is for national security reason, look even the USA is doing it! BTW, Turkey is preparing to ban Twitter again. Of course it is to preserve the rights of its citizens, it always is. China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Turkey - the usual suspects that ban access, they also ban for the greater good. It is always for national security or to preserver the rights of its citizens.
  • chillacy 6y ago
    Well the US banned Kinder Eggs. I don't necessarily like it but the US has a history of protectionist trade laws.
• Thaxll 6y ago
  So how do you ban an app actually? Yes they could remove the app from the app store but what about the APIs etc...? Also the next TikTok clone is going to be a massive succes.
  • Mistri 6y ago
    Banning the app from the app stores should pretty much kill it from the consumer point of view, which is what Trump is trying to mitigate. I don't see how that won't be effective.
  • plibither8 6y ago
    > Also the next TikTok clone is going to be a massive succes. Instagram has already come up with Instagram Reels. After India banned TikTok, Instagram released Reels to the Indian market within the week, and I've got to say it's pretty darn similar to tiktok, so essentially just capitalising on their already humongous user base and the ban. https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-reels-tiktok-competitor-short-video-us-launch-explainer-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-reels-tiktok-compe...
  • Markoff 6y ago
    i don't think there is very big competition among US ISPs, so just ask few biggest ISPs to block their traffic and it's dead, I don't think kids would go through trouble of setting VPN
• coliveira 6y ago
  The US is acting like a desperate country that has no idea what it is doing. It is evident to the whole world that the US doesn't want to compete at the level of high technology, which is what the Chinese have achieved in the last couple of years. Whenever a country tries to create a fence around it, then it is just displaying weakness. It would be much more constructive for the US to recognize that they're getting behind in the technology game and compete as adults.
  • katbyte 6y ago
    China has more fences then America.. great firewall, banned social media apps...
  • grazhero99 6y ago
    I don't think this is about competition. It's about a belligerent foreign government posing a threat to national security. Now you could argue that's a classic Dubya style ad hoc excuse designed to mask the government's true intentions with this, but I really don't think so. China's behavior is a legitimate threat for which shrugging and saying "let the free market handle it" seems an incredibly dangerous stance to take in my opinion.
    • xvector 6y ago
      China can harm the US with trade regulations much, much more than the US can harm China. Trump is playing with fire here and it’s honestly not very smart. Not when the US has outsourced its industry to China.
      • dannyw 6y ago
        The US also has guns.
        • pinkfoot 6y ago
          So does China.
        • 6y ago
• cromwellian 6y ago
  This will be a huge gift horse to Zuckerberg/Facebook and I have a sneaking suspicion it's a project of Peter Thiel. There are a lot of remedies that could be taken if we suspect TikTok of malfeasance, but a straight up ban? I smell fish.
  • xxpor 6y ago
    If it is a project of Peter Thiel, I would hope that would finally wake everyone up to how bad faith calling himself a libertarian is.
    • cromwellian 6y ago
      Just consider the HUGE conflict of interest if an Facebook board member, and Trump inner circle confidant, had any input into this process.
      • supergirl 6y ago
        where is the conflict? facebook is an america company so the president would be acting in the interest of an american company
        • cromwellian 6y ago
          The conflict is the presidents advisor sitting on the board of the company most likely to benefit from the ban.
    • temp20160423 6y ago
      I disagree. This would prove why big government is dangerous. This is the perfect example of how powerful individuals can leverage governmental power to enrich themselves. He's like Trump, pointing out all these problems while exploiting them to the max.
      • cromwellian 6y ago
        So you're letting him off the hook for hypocrisy? There's lots of other libertarians and non-libertarians playing by the rules and not benefitting from crony capitalism. Are you excusing Thiel for being a total hypocrite (e.g. making his money from government contracts) all the while telling everyone else to be a rugged individualist? Are we supposed to admire looting the government as a kind of 5 dimensional chess, where the profiteers weren't actually grifters, but merely trying to make a philosophical point? You know in security research, there are white hats, who find the exploits, notify about them, and are rewarded with recognition and sometimes bounties. And there are black hats who use the exploits to pillage. These people don't get credit for 'raising awareness' And in my view, Palantir is not a white hat libertarian exercise demonstrating how crony capitalism is bad and how we need smaller government.
• tchaffee 6y ago
  Likely to turn out similar to when the UK banned the Sex Pistols' first album. It will become a must-have item for those in their rebellious teen years.
• civil_engineer 6y ago
  This is 100% Sarah Cooper’s fault. https://t.co/1Mn8nk363f https://t.co/1Mn8nk363f
• rajacombinator 6y ago
  Did Zuck finally learn how to play the game?
  • xvector 6y ago
    Yup. Amazing intervention from Zuck. He has effectively secured TikTok’s userbase. To be a fly on a wall during his backdoor deals with Trump...
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Markoff 6y ago
  he has my full support and should continue with WeChat/QQ to let Chinese taste their own medicine lived for years in China, good luck communicating with anyone outside China legally in other way than through email and some obscure (video) call apps
• siruncledrew 6y ago
  If I had to guess, there’s 2 sides to this coin. On one side, there is the concern over China’s connection with Tiktok and their foreign influence on the US. On the other side, shutting off access to Tiktok allows more domestic control over what mass communication options people have to interact with each other. There’s something to be gained for someone(s) in both cases.
  • nfc_ 6y ago
    The thing is other countries can now use the this precedent to demand domestic control of US social media companies. France may have a the same foreign influence concerns issue with the non-transparency of the FB news feed algo.
• akoncius 6y ago
  TikTok should be banned everywhere, it’s crap app
  • MperorM 6y ago
    Thanks for the insightful comment.
• envy2 6y ago
  This is a terrible development and precedent. Whatever you think of the CCP and the Chinese approach to censorship and tech, building our own 'Great Firewall' and banning foreign apps/services we don't like is not the answer. It just legitimises the Chinese approach and sends us further down the road to a fragmented rather than open internet.
  • pldr1234 6y ago
    Unless there's a third path, there really is no choice but to act in kind.
    • tikwidd 6y ago
      The third path is to not ban anything.
  • glenstein 6y ago
    I think it's reasonable to do for national security purposes, just like I think it's reasonable to disentangle U.S. industries from Chinese companies that pose national security threats and steal trade secrets. So as a matter of principle, at least, I'm fine with it. I can't say I feel great about the wisdom of banning Tiktok in particular, but I won't let that confuse me into disagreeing with the underlying principle.
    • shlant 6y ago
      > I think it's reasonable to do for national security purposes Haven't the most egregious erosions of civil liberties (Patriot Act for example) been implemented using the same argument? Not commenting on the validity of your position specifically, but your reasoning for it seems like it could be applied to just about anything regardless of how well it fits into the idea of a free and open democracy
      • glenstein 6y ago
        >Haven't the most egregious erosions of civil liberties (Patriot Act for example) been implemented using the same argument? Oh, definitely. I think those excesses which have been justified under the pretense of national security have been quite terrible, and I think that they are bad for reasons particular to those cases and arguments. I don't take it to mean we should not have a concept of national security, or that we are so helpless that we can't meaningfully engage in case by case analysis of what to do in specific situations. It could be applied to anything if one isn't willing to distinguish between different cases based on their merits.
• Udik 6y ago
  So what happens from the practical point of view? Is the government going to delete an app from the phones of 80 million people? Really curious to see this one.
  • pldr1234 6y ago
    It would be a legal request via Apple. But from a truly practical point of view, TikTok will just end up replaced by a homegrown version. The real question is, who's homegrown version will be the winner? I believe FB and Snap are both privately working on a replacement. Not sure about others.
    • DonHopkins 6y ago
      I haven't used it so I don't actually know, but what does TikTok do that most of the other existing video apps that TikTok eclipsed didn't already (or don't now) do?
      • logicchains 6y ago
        It's recommendation system is way better. In particular, it lets you tell it "I don't want to see more videos like this", and does a decent job of sticking to that.
• markosaric 6y ago
  Ban Facebook and Google too? Their data collection is so much more powerful. Never seen TikTok scripts anywhere while most apps and sites send your personal data to FB and Google. Pretty much every American is tracked by Google and FB no matter whether they have an account or whether they install their app.
  • pldr1234 6y ago
    Without a credible source to back up your assertion that "their data collection is so much more powerful", this is a pretty empty statement. I also believe that we need to have a healthy concern for Chinese friendly agents/resources acting in concert, even on (or maybe especially on) technical sites like HN.
    • mrtksn 6y ago
      There's a very credible source from 7 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) But "their" isn't Google or Facebook but the surveillance agencies that are directly plugged in. Much like of what TikTok is accused of doing.
  • glenstein 6y ago
    Like the other commenter I'm not so sure it's obvious that domestic data collection is 'so much more powerful' - presumably you can learn remarkably specific things about people via tiktok. And GoogleBook aren't using data collection in service of major world power that is, in many senses, an antagonist to the western world, and we have avenues for oversight/reform available to us that we don't necessarily have with tiktok. That's not to say I think we should ban tiktok, but that contemplation of a ban doesn't bring with it the implication that GoogleBook would need the same treatment.
    • xvector 6y ago
      > and we have avenues for oversight/reform available to us that we don't necessarily have with tiktok Avenues that seem to be working oh-so-well, with the NSA continuing to operate PRISM and hand out NSLs and gag orders?
• mytailorisrich 6y ago
  This is not about TikTok. This is about Trump being desperate.
• vwat 6y ago
  From first principles reasoning, this is a good idea. We don’t ban Chinese websites, books or products. Although we tax their products more now. Apps aren’t like physical commodities. They can be used to gather data, quite invasively, shape and form public opinion in a new and more visceral way, as well as take advantage of exploits. Admittedly websites can do that too, but the scale of adoption of Tiktok makes this a special case. Just by sheer numbers, many important people will be using tiktok, or their families, colleagues and friends. If you ever complained about Russian election meddling, then you are a hypocrite if you don’t support this. What if tiktok was Russia’s? I think some people are getting lost in the politics. The facts: we gain almost nothing by having tiktok around. We lose nothing by banning it, and gain a little bit of buffer against possible threats like election meddling, data mining for nefarious purposes and other things. Completely leaving politics aside, I basically support this.
  • mFixman 6y ago
    > [...] we gain almost nothing by having tiktok around. We gain an outlet or creativity that's particularly fun for teens. You might as well say that we gain nothing by banning skateboards, video games, or rock music. I would agree more with the ban of there was any evidence of nefarious data mining by TikTok. Outside of weird Internet rumors they only seem to collect basic user data and whatever you write in your profile.
    • glenstein 6y ago
      >You might as well say that we gain nothing by banning skateboards, video games, or rock music. I think apps are interchangeable in a way that tangle things are not. Vine was regarded as indispensable, until suddenly it was gone. And people miss it, but those creative energies have been channeled onto other platforms. Tiktok popped up practically out of nowhere. Now Triller is on the horizon, and who knows what after that. >Outside of weird Internet rumors Wowzwers, this does not even come within a country mile of accurate characterization. Tiktok is under investigation for censoring videos to satisfy the Chinese government, they have censored media related to Tiananmen square, have been flagged for 'severe' cybersecurity issues by a cybersecurity firm, and the app is now either restricted or being investigated by numerous countries including the US, India, Taiwan, and Australia.
• Twisell 6y ago
  Not US citizen here. Can someone explain how in a democracy the chief executive can singlehandedly decide to ban a media only a few month before elections? I can't make any sense of that, it seems wrong at so many levels...
  • Mountain_Skies 6y ago
    Congress loves giving away power to the Executive Branch so they don't have to bear responsibility for unpopular decisions. It's likely that at some point Congress gave this power to the president though not necessarily this Congress and this president. Congress is free to take the power back if it votes to do so. Given that even the Biden campaign has prohibited their workers from installing the TikTok app, there isn't likely to be much of a partisan fight over this issue.
    • Twisell 6y ago
      But you have no safeguard against that? I mean here in France when the government or the assembly trie to pass a law that is potentially unconstitutional there is an emergency review process by the "constitutional council" that can veto all or parts of the law that infringe. This process just happened recently because our president tried to pass a "hate law" on social media that was deemed unconstitutional because it had too many unpredictable side effects on free speech principles.
      • rsa25519 6y ago
        > But you have no safeguard against that? We do: the judicial branch.
        • noir_lord 6y ago
          Which is stacked by the party in power. For example the Republican stalling of appointment until they where in power.
          • 6y ago
• jiggawatts 6y ago
  And rightly so. Keep banning their apps and keep banning their web sites. They do it to us. I think it's absurd that there's an Azure and an Azure China. There's a drop-down list where I can pick Australia South East, South India, Japan West, Korea Central... but not China anything. Chinese citizens are perfectly entitled to spin up a web server in Azure, or AWS, or GCP, any time, any country where they have data centres. But.. oh no, we non-Chinese-citizens without a permanent address in China aren't allowed to have the reciprocal ability to create a web server in their country. That might step on the CCP's toes. It might spread dangerous information like democracy! It might compete with their government-run businesses. They might not get their beak wet, you see, and that's a problem. No can do. Gotta play the game, take part in the corruption, or no website for you. Trump talks a lot of talk, but if he really wanted a "fair trade deal", he should just cut them off completely from the Internet. Fuck the great firewall. Fuck dragging people off to "reeducation camps" because they posted the wrong thing online. Fuck banned phrases like Winnie the Pooh. We should all teach these people a lesson: You can't have it both ways. You can't have censorship and profit off of our freedoms. Pick one.
• Razengan 6y ago
  What about Reddit and Riot and everyone else owned or invested in by Tencent and other Chinese companies?
• knolax 6y ago
  It's nice to see the HN crowd drop their facade of caring about freedom.
• linlucas 6y ago
  Now people in the US will have to use a VPN to access a Chinese app. Oh how the turntables.
• quotz 6y ago
  This should be a starting point for a tit-for-tat game where for every western company China bans, the West does the same. And for every stolen IP, we do the same
  • xvector 6y ago
    Yes, let’s turn ourselves into an authoritarian regime banning media and information outlets we don’t like!
• nfc_ 6y ago
  Hopefully this becomes a wake-up call to investors in China tech. Instead of funding another social media app, they should invest in core technologies like semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The success of the STAR market is a good start. Hope the momentum can sustain this decade, then we may see the tables turned.
• Charlie_26 6y ago
  Can some explain to a layman what China has to gain from millions of Tiktok users data? I just don't get it. Emails and passwords?
  • DonHopkins 6y ago
    China is using TicToc to implant Demon Sperm into America's Women by sending Incubus and Succubus Demons to rape them in their sleep and give them the China Virus over the Internet. Or so I've heard.
    • Charlie_26 6y ago
      That's crazy. Amazing what tech is doing nowadays
• osrec 6y ago
  Is the ban driven by the fact that Tiktok users helped boycott the rally at Tulsa?
• resters 6y ago
  The headline should be “US launches great firewall”
• quantum_state 6y ago
  This is an outrageous violation of the rights of people here. We should also wake up and be against this kind of behavior of the government ... first it raised import tax to make things more expensive for us, then it ban apps we can use on our own phone ... all in the fake name of national security, etc., this is exactly a communist government would do! Wake up folks and stand up against!
• KoftaBob 6y ago
  I have yet to hear an explanation of how a TikTok ban would even work here. We’re not authoritarian like China, the gov can’t just tell all the internet service providers to block a website. If we do introduce the legal/logistical mechanism for the federal government to be able to do that, I can assure you they won’t stop at just tiktok.
• fallingfrog 6y ago
  Well there’s a long history of authoritarians banning social media platforms in order to silence dissent.
• fallingfrog 6y ago
  If any other country in the world did this to, say, Facebook, we would denounce them as an illegitimate dictator. Astonishing.
  • stunt 6y ago
    That literally has happened already when Iran banned Facebook and Twitter during protest against election fraud that lead to Ahmadinejad to stay in power for second term. However, Iran banned Facebook merely because it was being used by protesters to share content about police brutality during protest. So I'm not sure if that's a fair comparison. I think governments are realizing that social networks are important strategic service because of the amount of data they capture. Before internet era countries were protecting way less data about their citizens with their teeths.
    • fallingfrog 6y ago
      If you think the he’s banning TikTok for any other reason than teenagers sharing content about police brutality during protests, you really are a mooncalf..
• bayesian_horse 6y ago
  I'm divided about this. Banning TikTok can be seen as censorship and restricting the freedom of its users, some of which are in the US. But it's also clear that TikTok is under the control of the CCP, at least to the extent the CCP wants that to be the case at any given time.
• tonetheman 6y ago
  While a lot these comments are interesting, the real reason our idiot president wants to ban tiktok is because they messed up one of his events. Then he irrationally hates China. He is an idiot.
• dontcarethrow2 6y ago
  Sigh, very hypocritical but I guess we can't let a non-american company siphon our data. I wouldn't mind if we didn't keep yelling 'freedom' and 'free market' every week into the social abyss. But but China does it too you say? They never claimed theirs is a free market did they? Definitely solidifying for me, banning social media apps LMAO! Their minds are only for our feed no? Good proof that we are easily manipulated by feeds. Why not educate for better content consumption? Oh because then we will lose our own influence. So lets remain dumb and stare at screens only approved by our great western lords. Pathetic IC, pathetic.
• FraKtus 6y ago
  We are on HN here, right? Does anybody was able to do a man in the middle inspection to prove that the app is spying on Users? Does anybody did inspect the binary and found a back door in the app? In am working in video and I find that the tool they did develop allowing kids to remix video succeeded were previous startup failed...
  • FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    Want to try that again in English, Chang?
  • instance 6y ago
    There is ongoing research by different companies/people. For example, check out penetrum: https://penetrum.com/research https://penetrum.com/research Got it from this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news_but_tbh_if_you_have_tiktiok_just_get/fmuko1m/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news... It'd be awesome if the reverse engineered code was on Github or something. I found this repo but wasn't able to look deep into it yet, so take with a grain of salt: https://github.com/augustgl/tiktok_source https://github.com/augustgl/tiktok_source
    • FraKtus 6y ago
      Thanks! penetrum has this nice white paper: Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysis_whitepaper.pdf This is their conclusion: "After extensive research, we have found that not only is TikTok a massive security flaw waiting to happen, but the ties that they have to Chinese parties and Chinese ISP’s make it a very vulnerable source of data that still has more to be investigated. Data harvesting, tracking, fingerprinting, and user information occurs throughout the entire application. As a US company, we feel that it is our responsibility to raise awareness of this extensive data harvesting to TikTok’s 1 billion users." There is bad coding in the app but is that enough for the ban? They also seems to get telemetry data, who does not :-)
      • quotemstr 6y ago
• stunt 6y ago
  This is exactly the kind of power that you don't want any government to have. I'm sure we will continue to see more of this happening in the future.
• Justsignedup 6y ago
  This should be through legislative action not the word of an idiot. That's the travesty. Personally I'm okay with banning tiktok but not this way. The way matters.
• spamizbad 6y ago
  My conspiracy theory: Silicon Valley (Facebook) couldn’t compete with TikTok so they leaned on Trump to kill it. The fact that TikTok is a massive hotbed of anti-Trump memes the way Facebook is pro-Trump/anti-Biden is also curious. The national security angle is laughable because we have no such controls over the data held by US companies. Would be trivial for a spy to pipe data out of FAANG to the country they serve - because we have no real privacy laws at the national level. Just look at how a 17 year old breached Twitter. If social media apps are national security concerns then we should treat them like we do typical defense contractors (background checked/nat security clearance for employees, no foreign nationals on board, control foreign investment, export limitations, etc)
  • dangus 6y ago
    My conspiracy theory is that Trump is mad about TikTok kids pranking his Tulsa COVID-19 Death Rally.
    • spamizbad 6y ago
      No question the mere implication of that made this decision easier for him. Don’t worry teens: theres always Reels(tm) your government-sanctioned viral video feature!
• hsnewman 6y ago
  Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy. What could this president argue that he has done that doesn't characterize as the above?
  • guykdm 6y ago
    In many ways the American left is more authoritarian than Trump. It's not black and white, not Trump, nor the Chinese App.
    • wmhorne 6y ago
      > In many ways... Can you list some?
      • guykdm 6y ago
        It seems obvious. Much more support for silencing debate and opposing opinions. Regulation. Enforcing liberal values, such as forbidding discrimination on grounds that are important to them. ext.
  • mc32 6y ago
    Communism and fascism are alike. One has an international perspective, one has a national perspective, but the politics and control are very similar. They both exert control over the economy and culture. Interestingly, Lenin was more internationalist than Stalin. People don’t like hearing this because some still think communism is redeemable despite all evidence to the contrary.
    • crowbahr 6y ago
      China isn't Communist though. They're a socialist leaning capitalist state with single party authoritarian rule participating in ethnic cleansing. That's fascist.
• kristopolous 6y ago
  This could only lose him votes. He's obviously isolated himself from the savvy political operatives that rode him into victory last time. I welcome the continued missteps
  • KineticLensman 6y ago
    > This could only lose him votes Yes, but he has probably decided that the people who are active TikTok users AND Trump voters are not a large part of the base.
    • kristopolous 6y ago
      The young "gamer republican" and the people wooed by flashy Milo types really helped push him over in the rust belt last time. How out of date that sounds now just shows how much he's lost that group. His calculation is wrong. There's a few remaining bowties in the under 30 group but now probably not more than any other time. Lucky for him the democrats are profoundly incompetent and would find a way to trip over their own shoelaces while walking barefoot so it may not matter.
• ojbyrne 6y ago
  Perhaps I'm overly cynical but this doesn't feel like some semi-well reasoned policy based upon control of the app by the Chinese government as much as "they embarrassed me in Tulsa, I want them gone."
• dreamcompiler 6y ago
  How long would it take for a US company to create a TikTok clone? Are there any moats here? Any IP or other barriers to entry?
  • mdorazio 6y ago
    TikTok itself is basically a clone of Vine, which dates back to 2013. The barrier to entry is that China (either Chinese investors or the Chinese government through various puppets depending who you ask) sank a ridiculous amount of money into marketing and attracting users to get it off the ground, and also that it enjoyed a local monopoly in China because similar US apps are banned. There's nothing particularly unique about the tech itself.
• tomsiw 6y ago
  I don't get it. TicToc was and still is operating in US under Chinese control. Now American company (MS) wants to take control over the service effectively ending Chinese ownership and suddenly US president decides to ban the service. Isn't it against American business?
  • bigpumpkin 6y ago
    Wouldn't ban it if Parler acquired it.
• ghjdrt 6y ago
  US should ban every Chinese APP just like India
• nannePOPI 6y ago
  If I were to make a spyware app, the apple store and google store would destroy me. Similarly, google store and apple store have banned apps for political reasons, being right wing or informing people about the evils of the elites. Yet, when it came to the spyware made by the chinese communist party, they played dumb. A serious investigation should begin against Google and Apple, to see what's their endgame and what are their ties with the CCP and other elements working to subvert the american democracy. Of course a man can only dream.
• Sschellbach 6y ago
  This is just pressure to ensure Bytedance sells to Microsoft
• freedomgone70 6y ago
  This makes complete sense, I guess it’s hard to suppress Epstein and black lives matter content when it’s on tiktok. We need to go back to communicating on the tedious YouTube experience and getting 2 views a month if we aren’t linking to a amazing baby stroller that our video unboxing is about. All hail FAANG.
• bookmarkable 6y ago
  They should change the name of the app. The kids would figure it out in 10 minutes and reinstall. Trump would take a couple years to sort that one out.
• praveen9920 6y ago
  With all the threats the company is receiving, any company buying it out might be getting it at give away price. Could this be considered hostile take over?
• wrshpFAANG 6y ago
  If I become president I'm going to ban Apple, any of my competitors, and my enemies. Why? Because I said so/ national security reasons.
• dwd 6y ago
  I don't believe Trump's banning TikTok because of its Chinese connections. I think this is a retalitory action because of its use to mess with his reelection. Brad Pascale got demoted over the Tulsa debacle and this is Trump's way to get back at the TikTok users. While checking my facts, I noticed someone at Forbes was also thinking that its only about Trump as usual and put together a timeline. https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/08/01/is-this-the-real-reason-why-trump-wants-to-ban-tiktok/#530a47ae4aed https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/08/01/is-this-t...
• known 6y ago
  You call it censorship. They call it protecting national security;
• husamia 6y ago
  Why not make a Trump channel to reach young minds to vote.
• ust 6y ago
  Explanation of the current legal structure that can be used to ban/force divestment of TikTok: https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-need-explain-things-your-teenager https://www.lawfareblog.com/tiktok-and-law-primer-case-you-n... In short, a president has substantial powers (granted by Congress via IEEPA and CFIUS) to institute a ban or force a divestment of any company "engaged in interstate commerce in the United States", if "national emergency" or "national security" is involved. So, legally, it seems that president can ban TikTok, under certain conditions (that may not be so difficult to achieve). The link above only explains the current legal framework, not whether banning the TikTok is in itself a good or a bad thing. IANAL, so I can't judge the competence of the presented arguments, but it is written by a respected law professor.