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My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-

My comment wasn't specific to TikTok, but rather OP's assertion that the U.S. is a hostile actor, whereas China is just being China. Regarding TikTok, foreign-owned companies must follow U.S. laws, which are subject to due process. Additionally, they must not pose an imminent threat to national security. For better or worse, the government tends to be tight-lipped about matters of national security and isn't compelled to divulge details to the public. Normally, this is acceptable because we trust our government to act responsibility and in our best interest. Is TikTok a legitimate threat to security? I don't know, and with Trump's tendency to make everything look like a publicity stunt, my trust in the government to use its power responsibly is not very high.

jewelry 6y ago
Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- innagadadavida 6y ago
  There really is no guarantee these things won’t happen to those companies - just like how there is no guarantee that CCP won’t have HKers or Uighurs or Tibet. You just have to be mindful of the authority of nations and hope you don’t get unlucky. This one of the better/saner things this administration has done, if anything, these should have been accelerated to avoid another USSR style Cold War with China.
  - albacur 6y ago
    There actually is a guarantee by the Supreme Court that SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process, because they are independent entities that don't operate as extensions of a foreign government. The same is might be true of ByteDance as well. It's not actually clear that Trump has the authority to ban TikTok. It could just be more bluster.
- albacur 6y ago
  It's not clear that he actually has this power. He's known to misstate things. Also, according to the Supreme Court, SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process under our Constitution. Courts make a distinction between (1) public or privately-owned enterprises, (2) state-owned enterprises that function independently of the state, and (3) state-owned enterprises that function as the alter ego of the foreign state. Companies in the first two categories are entitled to due process under the U.S. Constitution. When it comes to China, there is a blurry line between companies and the CCP, so it's not clear where they fall here.
- Alupis 6y ago
  > Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. I didn't think State Governor's could ban legitimate business activity until very recently either.
  - jquery 6y ago
    I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. It’s absolutely a parallel to TikTok. I don’t know why TikTok is getting so much sympathy.
  - wpurvis 6y ago
    If your legitimate business activity undermines public health it is no longer legitimate until the threat has passed. We fought this out in 1918 as well.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      The problem is determining what is a public health problem. Ice cream parlors? Are they necessary? No, but they're allowed to be open. Hair cutting? Closed. Restaurants to-go food and alcohol? Open. Bars? Closed. Hiking trails? Open. Camping? Closed. Very little makes sense, and almost all of it is political. If the Government wants to prevent you from operating your otherwise legal and legitimate business, they should have to pay you for lost revenue.
      - wpurvis 6y ago
        Can your business take precautions to prevent the spread of an active pandemic? Good you get to stay open. Can your business take precautions, but isn't? You get to close. Does the nature of your business make it impossible to function with social distancing/masks? You get to close. That's how it's been done in my state, and we've done very well compared to the rest of the nation. If we (nationwide) had actually shut down in the beginning instead of half-assing it we wouldn't be where we are now.
vertis 6y ago
The US is not really better for those of us that are not US citizens though. Yes, in theory, US stands for freedom and democracy, but any protections are protections for US citizens, not for Australian or EU citizens. So from a purely rights and spying perspective having the app be a US app vs a China app makes little difference to me (not that I'm young enough to be a TikTok user anyway). As soon as you add 'national security' clauses and hide everything away, you don't really have due process any more. You have two paths. The public one, and the one where it's possible to assert (possibly falsely) that it's a matter of national security.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- glaive123 6y ago
  Apparently you are not aware of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Unlike American companies who receive requests from the U.S. government, ByteDance simply has no recourse when faced with orders from China’s authoritarian government.
  - ptx 6y ago
    US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
    - glaive123 6y ago
      What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile. Taken from the article you shared: "By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails." "Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision in federal court."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
publicola1990 6y ago
That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic. 1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced. 2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the company through trade restrictions, may be able to mandate that this app cannot be used by federal employees while on duty, may be even possible to disallow their usage on federal government premises, but it cannot ask Apple and Google to take an app down from the app stores. 3. If that is the case then we are moving into a government-licencing regime in the US, effectively. That is, you can have your app distributed only if you have the necessary license/authorization from fed government which can be revoked at any moment. I don't think that is the right direction. So to have such special powers for ostensibly national security purposes is undesirable and detrimental to the very system that US is claiming to champion. The whole episode is wrapped up in a frenzy of reactionary whipped up paranoia that is reaching an alarming cacophony considering the commentary here. This is obviously a nuanced matter, and needs to be approached as such, not with a coldwar-era Hollywood Manichaeian dualism.
- glaive123 6y ago
  Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence. It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army commenters. I hope @dang is actively monitoring this.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - publicola1990 6y ago
    The fact is that Apple/Google hasn't found them in serious infringement of anything. The article from CNN seems to echo the view in point 1: "Although leaders like Pompeo have described TikTok as a clear and present danger, many in the cybersecurity community say the reality is more complex. While TikTok could become a clear threat to US security under certain scenarios, they say, the danger is currently largely hypothetical.." https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/tech/tiktok-security-threat/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/tech/tiktok-security-threat/i...

jewelry 6y ago

Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. If it's national security, let out the cat. Otherwise how could people believe if this won't happen to SAP, Volkswagon, Sony next time.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
innagadadavida 6y ago
There really is no guarantee these things won’t happen to those companies - just like how there is no guarantee that CCP won’t have HKers or Uighurs or Tibet. You just have to be mindful of the authority of nations and hope you don’t get unlucky. This one of the better/saner things this administration has done, if anything, these should have been accelerated to avoid another USSR style Cold War with China.
- albacur 6y ago
  There actually is a guarantee by the Supreme Court that SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process, because they are independent entities that don't operate as extensions of a foreign government. The same is might be true of ByteDance as well. It's not actually clear that Trump has the authority to ban TikTok. It could just be more bluster.
albacur 6y ago
It's not clear that he actually has this power. He's known to misstate things. Also, according to the Supreme Court, SAP, Volkswagen, and Sony are entitled to due process under our Constitution. Courts make a distinction between (1) public or privately-owned enterprises, (2) state-owned enterprises that function independently of the state, and (3) state-owned enterprises that function as the alter ego of the foreign state. Companies in the first two categories are entitled to due process under the U.S. Constitution. When it comes to China, there is a blurry line between companies and the CCP, so it's not clear where they fall here.
Alupis 6y ago
> Cannot believe the president has the power without legal battle to ban business activity. I didn't think State Governor's could ban legitimate business activity until very recently either.
- jquery 6y ago
  I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. It’s absolutely a parallel to TikTok. I don’t know why TikTok is getting so much sympathy.
- wpurvis 6y ago
  If your legitimate business activity undermines public health it is no longer legitimate until the threat has passed. We fought this out in 1918 as well.
  - Alupis 6y ago
    The problem is determining what is a public health problem. Ice cream parlors? Are they necessary? No, but they're allowed to be open. Hair cutting? Closed. Restaurants to-go food and alcohol? Open. Bars? Closed. Hiking trails? Open. Camping? Closed. Very little makes sense, and almost all of it is political. If the Government wants to prevent you from operating your otherwise legal and legitimate business, they should have to pay you for lost revenue.
    - wpurvis 6y ago
      Can your business take precautions to prevent the spread of an active pandemic? Good you get to stay open. Can your business take precautions, but isn't? You get to close. Does the nature of your business make it impossible to function with social distancing/masks? You get to close. That's how it's been done in my state, and we've done very well compared to the rest of the nation. If we (nationwide) had actually shut down in the beginning instead of half-assing it we wouldn't be where we are now.

vertis 6y ago

The US is not really better for those of us that are not US citizens though. Yes, in theory, US stands for freedom and democracy, but any protections are protections for US citizens, not for Australian or EU citizens. So from a purely rights and spying perspective having the app be a US app vs a China app makes little difference to me (not that I'm young enough to be a TikTok user anyway). As soon as you add 'national security' clauses and hide everything away, you don't really have due process any more. You have two paths. The public one, and the one where it's possible to assert (possibly falsely) that it's a matter of national security.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
glaive123 6y ago
Apparently you are not aware of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Unlike American companies who receive requests from the U.S. government, ByteDance simply has no recourse when faced with orders from China’s authoritarian government.
- ptx 6y ago
  US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
  - glaive123 6y ago
    What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile. Taken from the article you shared: "By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails." "Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision in federal court."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

publicola1990 6y ago

That additional specious condition on threat to national security is what is problematic. 1. Expert opinion seems to be that the perceived threats indicated in the case of TikTok are vague and over hyped, and there is no concrete evidence produced. 2.Federal Government may not have sufficient authority to promulgate such a ban, even on grounds of national security. May be possible to squeeze out the cash flow of the company through trade restrictions, may be able to mandate that this app cannot be used by federal employees while on duty, may be even possible to disallow their usage on federal government premises, but it cannot ask Apple and Google to take an app down from the app stores. 3. If that is the case then we are moving into a government-licencing regime in the US, effectively. That is, you can have your app distributed only if you have the necessary license/authorization from fed government which can be revoked at any moment. I don't think that is the right direction. So to have such special powers for ostensibly national security purposes is undesirable and detrimental to the very system that US is claiming to champion. The whole episode is wrapped up in a frenzy of reactionary whipped up paranoia that is reaching an alarming cacophony considering the commentary here. This is obviously a nuanced matter, and needs to be approached as such, not with a coldwar-era Hollywood Manichaeian dualism.

glaive123 6y ago
Your point #1 is absolutely false. Please provide evidence of this. There is bountiful public evidence of national security risk. And there is likely MUCH more non-public evidence. It's a good thing HN identified new accounts with green text, because it makes it a little more transparent when someone is creating an account just to spread misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if this thread is full of 50-cent army commenters. I hope @dang is actively monitoring this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- publicola1990 6y ago
  The fact is that Apple/Google hasn't found them in serious infringement of anything. The article from CNN seems to echo the view in point 1: "Although leaders like Pompeo have described TikTok as a clear and present danger, many in the cybersecurity community say the reality is more complex. While TikTok could become a clear threat to US security under certain scenarios, they say, the danger is currently largely hypothetical.." https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/tech/tiktok-security-threat/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/tech/tiktok-security-threat/i...