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Silicon Valley’s Vast Data Collection Should Worry You More Than TikTok

217 points by jrepinc 6y ago

MattGaiser 6y ago
When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure. When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. When the tech companies actually start censoring aggressively and hunting people down(rather than just removing enough to satisfy angry people), then sure. One problem is the data. The other (larger) problem is how each controlling entity wants to use the data. Google wants to sell ads. They don’t care about your porn preferences, whether you have a mistress, or whether you do drugs. Maybe the ads approach is obnoxious, but that is all it is. They want to sell stuff, not take over the world. The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. And even if both countries required the same absolute cooperation from their tech companies, governments In the West are very limited in their ability to take the kind of actions against their citizens that the Government of China can. The US Government isn’t even allowed to tax a newspaper excessively, yet alone throw the editor in jail for running critical content.
- xvector 6y ago
  Comments like this demonstrate a severe lack of understanding around how intelligence today in the US works, especially in a post-Snowden world. Our government routinely performs dystopian forced mass-surveillance of citizens accompanied by gag orders. > When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure. > When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases. The NSA, however, can and will use data they collect on you against you. The US government is no stranger to this, where COINTELPRO [1] used the results of domestic spying to try to put an early end to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The US has caused demonstrable harm to citizens via surveillance yet you seem to support it compared to the less dangerous alternative out of some misplaced sense of patriotism. > When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. Have you not heard of PRISM? The NSA? National Security Letters? The US routinely can and does force companies to give up information on citizens in the form of dragnet surveillance. One way to do this is a National Security Letter [2]. > Google wants to sell ads. They don’t care about your porn preferences, whether you have a mistress, or whether you do drugs And neither does the CCP. Neither does the NSA, actually, unless they want something from you and to force you to do something. > The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. Welcome to participating on a global scale. The US isn't the only country allowed to be a superpower. It's probably not good if China surpasses the US, but the US also doesn't have anywhere close to the moral high ground w.r.t. domestic surveillance as you mention. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [2]: https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters
  - diryawish 6y ago
    The US absolutely has the moral high ground compared to any communist country and it’s not even fucking close.
    - sacredcows 6y ago
      Take care of the education of your poorest citizens, stop orchestrating coups, stop imprisoning black men en masse, give people single-payer healthcare. Then we can talk about moral high ground.
      - sidlls 6y ago
        While bad, not one of these rises to the level of genocide and oppression that form the core of China's tactics to control its population and exert influence abroad, and, yes, that does mean from a moral perspective the US is better. "Terrible" is still better than "inhumane".
      - emptysongglass 6y ago
        I'm really sick of this. The Verge's article [1] is the yardstick for just how far America's own self-hatred will go. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable but that so many Americans have bought wholesale into its fantasy. If you were to gather up the prison industrial complex and the tens of thousands failed by privatized healthcare, it would be a drop in the bucket. The CCP's orchestrated intent to scrub out 2 peoples and their religions from the face of the earth on their way to a 3rd complete, divisible nation (Taiwan) has not been seen since Nazi Germany. This is the scale of atrocity and disrespect for the basic right of a human being to say, "I am who I am", we are dealing with at this very moment in human history. Please, please, consider that however tough things are in the US for very many people, it can change with a vote. That is a democracy, however broken and fragile. [1] https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-information-nationalism-online-propaganda https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-informatio...
        6y ago
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure Google based information is probably part of the Disposition Matrix, though that's unlikely to end with just a bag over your head. >When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. So what do you think of something like Elon Musk openly admitting to furthering a coup to secure resources? Is it only a problem with intellectual property? >When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. This isn't the case?
  - gentleman11 6y ago
    Elon musk furthered a coup? Any references to that?
    - longhairedhippy 6y ago
      Not the op but I'm betting they're referring to this: https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1607170043110/united-tesla-company-widespread-condemnation-of-elon-musks-bolivia-coup-comments https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1607170043110/united-tesla-co...
  - sidlls 6y ago
    > Google based information is probably part of the Disposition Matrix, though that's unlikely to end with just a bag over your head. While bad, this isn't remotely the same either in scope or scale as China's similar issues. In the US you end up in this matrix if you're perceived to be a legitimate, real, prone-to-violent-acts threat. In China you end up in their "disposition matrix" if you say anything negative about anyone in favor. > So what do you think of something like Elon Musk openly admitting to furthering a coup to secure resources? Is it only a problem with intellectual property? What makes you believe Musk? > This isn't the case? No, it isn't. At least nominally some kind of additional oversight, e.g., via a FISA warrant, is required. Now, none of the above is meant to imply that operatives and agencies adhere to the rules 100% of the time. They do serve to mark a distinct, clear difference between the US and China, though, because at least in the US if/when these agencies and operatives are caught there are legal repercussions to face. In China there aren't any because these agencies and operatives' actions would just be standard operating procedure. It makes a difference.
- gentleman11 6y ago
  > When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure Google actually did attempt to participate in that via Project Dragonfly. Users searches would be correlated to their ids and sent to the government, which is actively surveilling people in order to decide who to suppress. Many of these are minorities who end up with bags over their heads in those concentration camp drone videos. The employees revolted so strongly the project was cancelled. > When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure Tech companies sometimes sue to be allowed to disclose the secret requests that are made of them. Since 9/11, it’s been a lot harder to say no
  - plusCubed 6y ago
    > The employees revolted so strongly the project was cancelled. Exactly - the buck stopped at company leadership beholden to internal/public reputation, rather than a central authoritarian government with the power to make you disappear.
    - skummetmaelk 6y ago
      In a non democratic system citizens can revolt peacefully against such policies. A company is hardly better. Google could have decided to let the unhappy employees go. Most of them would probably have stayed and wiped their tears with their comp anyway.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  The threat in the US is not from the government, it is from the private sector. The issue is not what Google wants to do using access to your personal data (sell ads), it is what Google's customers (not users) want to do with access to your personal data. Government is supposed to keep the private sector honest, so to speak. With weak government, and a private sector with single entities that have more data about citizens than government, the risk is arguably greater. There are reasonable limits placed on government in the US, but those limits do not apply to the private sector. Comparisons of China to the US make some sense when based on size, but if ignoring size, comparing the US to China on the issue of digital privacy and propaganda seems strange assuming one is trying to illustrate that the US is some sort of high benchmark. It is arguable there are other countries where citizens are enjoying greater digital privacy and more freedom from propaganda than in the US. It would seem to make more sense to compare the US to those countries.
  - aripickar 6y ago
    Google’s customers want to serve you ads so they could buy your products. There’s nothing that they could do to you that is remotely on the scale of what Data Collection in China is capable of doing to you.
    - skummetmaelk 6y ago
      Being able to swing public sentiment by showing the right people the right set of "ads" carries a lot of power.
      - cromwellian 6y ago
        How about being able to swing public sentiment by a) funding a massive 50 cent army b) censoring any information the state does not want you to see c) jailing anyone who say the wrong thing with their data d) controlling pretty much your entire life through the social credit system You guys are drawing lots of false equivalences. Streamers in China have been 'disappeared' for weeks for offenses as harmless as singing the national anthem badly, or saying nice things about Taiwan. When tech companies start doing this, maybe we'll have an equivalence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTXb6bEMfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTXb6bEMfI
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  That could be because in the US (and even more so in the UK) the biggest newspaper and media owner is more likely to own the government than the government is to own the newspapers and the media. As for demanding security cooperation: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-security?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-...
- deleted 6y ago
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- cblconfederate 6y ago
  Tu quoque type of arguments are useless when you re the world's leading power (and want to keep being so)
  - bassman9000 6y ago
    They're not when to contender is a totalitarian dictatorship with proven disdain of human rights, and ever extending cyber-aspirations.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  > The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. I am not sure how this distinguish CCP from any other power nation's government, and warrants unlawful ban on a private company's APP.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    There is no such thing as a private company in China in this context, except in name only. The government is deeply enmeshed in these tech companies' products, from requiring real verified names to censorship and other draconian policies. The notion that there are big tech companies in China operating outside the CCP's influence is, charitably, naive.
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      > The government is deeply enmeshed in these tech companies' products, from requiring real verified names to censorship and other draconian policies. This simply has no factual evidences, let me give you examples: One claims CCP install party committee in all companies, and those committee controls major personnel appointment, and other critical managerial activities, etc. As we inquired, there is no open report whatsoever about such powerful "committee"... The person then gave a link of a old USSR organization [2]. For all we know CCP is about as different than USSR than US is to USSR... As for the Chinese internet law [3], does not apply to company like TikTok, which explicitly does not allow mainlander to join the network. See [4], "Important: TikTok checks your cell’s SIM card at startup and if you are using a Chinese SIM it will block the access."; there is no way the company voluntarily to bend to a law that it has no obligation to comply... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016881 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24018111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24018111 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law#:~:text=This%20law%20was%20enacted%20by,on%20a%20company's%20network%20operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law#:~.... [4] https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/
  - 6y ago
- notatoad 6y ago
  >When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. is this not exactly what a national security letter (NSL) is? the government can demand anything of a tech company, including that the company not tell anybody about it, as long as they claim it's for reasons of national security.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    1. The request cannot include content. So your messages need a warrant. 2. The company can challenge it in court and have it reviewed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
    - manquer 6y ago
      In theory they can challenge in FISA court yes, FISA court has denied less than 0.1% of the warrant requests in 30+ year history. It is rubber stamp court. I am sure such rubber stamp processes exist in China as well. The fact you cannot even mention that you received a NSL forget the scope and nature of actual request, and entire secretive nature of the court proceedings and no plans to every unseal this data, canary declaration being the only way to even tell your customers. If I said this happened anywhere else you will say that country is repressive.
- mnm1 6y ago
  Please provide examples of US citizens who have never been to China being abducted by the Chinese for searching the wrong thing. Or is this just your own delusion?
  - afpx 6y ago
    I’ve had too many Chinese business contacts mysteriously “commit suicide” for it to be coincidental.
    - mnm1 6y ago
      Chinese contacts who have never been to China. Fascinating.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Some introductory coverage of China's international kidnapping campaign, which affects foreign citizens, is available here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r... "Oh," but you might be tempted say, "that wasn't just for a Google search! And many of those who are citizens elsewhere? Like the Chinese government, I don't believe that citizenship is valid." You will of course understand that the parent poster did not phrase the matter in those specific terms, and that in any event this is not a comfort. Google may have more of an opportunity, but Beijing has a stronger motive.
    - mnm1 6y ago
      These are all Chinese people the article is talking about. It's quite obvious that using Chinese apps as a Chinese person is dangerous. That's not what I asked about and certainly no reason to ban the app in America.
      - fennecfoxen 6y ago
        ahem > "OH," BUT YOU MIGHT BE TEMPTED SAY, "THAT WASN'T JUST FOR A GOOGLE SEARCH! AND MANY OF THOSE WHO ARE CITIZENS ELSEWHERE? LIKE THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT, I DON'T BELIEVE THAT CITIZENSHIP IS VALID." YOU WILL OF COURSE UNDERSTAND THAT THE PARENT POSTER DID NOT PHRASE THE MATTER IN THOSE SPECIFIC TERMS, AND THAT IN ANY EVENT THIS IS NOT A COMFORT. thank you
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  I am sure if the Internet were around during the Holocaust, people will fight against bringing it up by bringing up things like segregation, lynchings etc. in the US (definitely huge problems and evil, but nowhere as evil or large scale as the holocaust).
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    Why wouldn't they bring up the war crimes and unrestrained murder of civilians instead? People seem to have a very romanticised view of the allies. We were the victors so we gloss over the horrors committed by our own hands. Civilian causalities in Germany and Japan was about 12 million people. 6 million died in the Holocaust.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
      Ok? And America and most of Europe and Russia would have very much liked to not ever have a second world war at all. Russia lost over 16 million of their own people ffs.
- sirmoveon 6y ago
  My shit don't stink kinda argument. The majority of the arguments defending the US by comparison, to me comes as propaganda. If you are a patriot American you should be using the Chinesse situation as leverage to get better accountability and transparency from the gov instead of trying to point out how other governmnets are just worst.
  - amurthy1 6y ago
    Sure but the title of the article is saying one is worse than the other, so it's fair to refute that. No one is arguing the US situation is perfect and we shouldn't also seek to make that better.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Look, there's a reason China gets the brunt of our ire, and it's not because US based companies are particularly laudable. It's more that China is notorious for its international campaigns to infiltrate foreign institutions, surveil its diaspora, its dissidents, and its political enemies, and use tools like blackmail and threats to apply pressure, using any means possible, to achieve its policy goals, often on foreign soil. China is also noted for its campaigns of systematic repression. When you are in the business of rounding up an ethnic minority for genocide, it does tends to color the discussion. You can arrange words that make the US and China sound morally equivalent, but when you actually look into it to compare the realities in detail, you see how vapid and empty this approach is.
    - sirmoveon 6y ago
      Yes, yes. CCP China very bad. But US bunch of hypocrites, historically speaking. In my opinion, this is a great opportunity for the world to use the situation as leverage to keep them both accountable, rather than defend one over the other.
    - newen 6y ago
      The US does all of these things. Remember the CIA? One million Iraqis killed by the US. What is that if not genocide. Currently, civilians are being killed by the US every day with their bombings. More civilians being killed every day by their sanctions. It’s genocide.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > When the tech companies actually start censoring aggressively and hunting people down(rather than just removing enough to satisfy angry people), then sure. You don't need the qualifier here. "Just removing enough to satisfy angry people" is mob rule, and is genuinely problematic, even if it's not on the same level as dissidents getting bags over their heads.
- yibg 6y ago
  I’m less worried about google and the US governments influence on people in the US and more worried about the pervasive data collection combined with us government action in people outside the US and not protected by the same laws. The US government is pretty constrained inside its borders, it’s definitely not constrained outside.
- xg15 6y ago
  Yes, and when any of that happens, you can present your rightful indignation, but this will be rather useless because it will be too late to do anything meaningful to change course.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post rhetorical rants to HN. They don't fit with curious conversation, which is what we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
yalogin 6y ago
Why restrict it to silicon valley? Aren't there data collection companies all over the country? Many of them are not visible to the public as they don't offer any public facing functionality, so they get to do anything they want and there is no hope of them getting twitter shamed either. The only answer is a federal level law. To be fair, the article says this but the title somehow calls out Silicon Valley.
- whydoyoucare 6y ago
  Article headlines typically reflect the author(s) implicit biases.
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
  > Why restrict it to silicon valley? 1. Silicon Valley is a metonym and does not exclusively refer to the companies in it. 2. Silicon Valley is where the most important and powerful new-era data collection companies are.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Perhaps because the largest data collecting companies are situated in the Bay? The article mentions FANG as key examples, but literally says "Oppose It All".
devmunchies 6y ago
Nice. Tiktok playing the media to focus on american companies. Hiring ex-disney exec Kevin Mayer was the right move. How about worrying about all big government/business collecting data.
- deleted 6y ago
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mooneater 6y ago
You never know who is going to buy who, data leaks and hacks are rampant. Over time this adds up. So its safest to assume any digital data anywhere will eventually be in the hands of any significant actor who really wants it. Its just a matter of how long it takes to get there.
m0zg 6y ago
The fact that the US press is willing to carry water for the Chinese Communist Party worries me more than Silicon Valley data collection, TBH.
- seneca 6y ago
  This is Jacobin Magazine, an openly socialist publication. You shouldn't take their position as an indication of anything with regard to typical media. I don't value much of what Jacobin has to say, but I would be more worried if there weren't voices able to say these things. You won't see an analog to this in China.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Mainstream press is quite willing to carry water for the CCP as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinese-ambassador-cui-tiankai-blaming-china-will-not-end-this-pandemic/2020/05/05/4e1d61dc-8f03-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinese-ambassador-c...
    - seneca 6y ago
      I have no love for most of our media and find it deeply corrupt, but that is an opinion piece and is clearly labeled as such. Not saying your wider point is wrong by any means though.
  - lukewrites 6y ago
    Jacobin describes itself as socialist, not communist. > Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.
    - seneca 6y ago
      Thanks, I've edited the comment to reflect the correction.
- what_is_this 6y ago
areyouserious22 6y ago
What are the odds that any article from a right wing magazine would feature on Hacker News? Zero. And yet this article happily living within the rest on the front page.
- dang 6y ago
  Plenty of "right-wing magazines" have had articles on HN's front page. Please do some research before posting like this. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
spanhandler 6y ago
Silicon Valley's data collection should worry most US citizens more than TikTok's, yes, totally, 100% agree, break them all up, ban all that crap, burn it all down, yes, I am with you. ... but one hopes data collection concerns aren't the real reasons for going after TikTok, but instead that it's part of tit-for-tat action aimed at getting China to accept and enact more aspects of the bargain for joining the global free-market economy, rather than just the parts that help it. They've chosen "defect" for like 2.5 decades, which I'm pretty sure was basically expected to happen back when they were allowed to join the club, but had better not be tolerated indefinitely.
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
  > part of tit-for-tat action aimed at getting China to accept and enact more aspects of the bargain for joining the global free-market economy The President has spent his term undermining such concepts.
  - spanhandler 6y ago
    I'd say his actions on Chinese trade have been the closest thing to a coherent policy he's had on anything whatsoever, actually. His other trade actions have been, uh, scattershot, to put it very nicely, yes, and I doubt you could come up with an assessment of his presidency as a whole negative enough that I'd disagree with it.
- deleted 6y ago
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dicomdan 6y ago
Great, now we have Jacobin articles pushed to the top page of HN. Breitbart next?
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Do people consider Jacobin to be far right? If so that's a hilarious misreading
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    They're self declared socialists. And not medicare for all type socialism. They hold just as disgusting an ideology as breitbart.
    - mempko 6y ago
      Really like what? Any links to a disgusting article?
      - missedthecue 6y ago
        Admiring obituary for the founder of National Bolshevism. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/eduard-limonov-obituary https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/eduard-limonov-obituary They're a propaganda piece, not a news outlet. Just a propoganda piece promoting murderous ideology, and it's even named after murderers who teamed up with slave owners.
        what_is_this 6y ago
        And they operate in a country founded by slave owners
        missedthecue 6y ago
        That certainly doesn't help things does it?
        6y ago
k00b 6y ago
Nice try, China /sarcasm
brandonmenc 6y ago
False dilemma. Both are worrisome, but the window for dealing with domestic problems is much longer.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  False False Dilemma. The article doesn't present data collection as an either/or situation, the article takes the position that it's all bad regardless of origin.
lukewrites 6y ago
The headline seems to be getting a more attention than the content of the article; that's disappointing, especially here on HN. It seems like the author is expressing opinions that others in the comments also hold: > We should be worried about private companies and governments potentially collecting data on millions of unsuspecting people and censoring content they don’t like. But those based in China represent just a sliver of that threat. > The answer isn’t to dismiss the potential menace of China’s surveillance programs, or to cheerlead for a rival set of tech oligarchs who simply happen to live in California and speak English. > We should broaden the concerns and criticisms of TikTok and its relationship to China to tech firms more generally, and push for an across-the-board guarantee of online privacy and free speech for all of the world’s people, whether they’re more worried about being tracked and manipulated by people in the United States or China. A bit utopian? Sure, but as so many here have already pointed out, this is Jacobin ;)
thebeefytaco 6y ago
While I don't trust silicon valley or China with my data, there's a big difference between US corporate interests and that of communist China.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  What are the differences then? And why do you think CCP has control over TikTok? Edit: What are you implying here? Some CCP members are having party activities inside a private company. Are they plotting a plan to force Mr. Zhang Yiming to spy on US teenagees? Or are they just doing the typical CCP "study" activity to learn the retheroic from Mr. Xi? Who are these guys, are they senior executives in the company? Or random employees who are CCP members. In the end, what do you want to get from the picture, depends a lot on your prejudice.
  - jimbobimbo 6y ago
    RE: Why? https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1291879371461070849 https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1291879371461... for example. "More than 130 employees at ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing application TikTok, are part of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee embedded in the company. Many of the employees work in management positions, an internal document reveals." https://m.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/tiktoks-parent-company-employs-ccp-members-in-its-highest-ranks_3451561.html https://m.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/tiktoks-parent-company-e...
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      Again, what do you want to derive from the fact? Associating CCP is a crime? Note that there is only one party who claims to be totally devoted to serving people. That's CCP. Can I claim that these CCP members are helping bytedance to better serve it's customers, and help curbe the greedy capitalists from infringing Chinese citizen's privacy? Or are they finally granted power over the bytedance company? I.e., are they organized to study Mr. Xi's thoughts, or trying to dictate the company's policy etc.
sien 6y ago
This is why the US is going after TikTok. It's social media that the US can't access and a foreign government can. The Europeans and the Indians who both have social media markets big enough to support their own should play the same game that the Chinese and the Americans are. That is, if there is any indication that foreign governments can access the information and that your own government cannot they should ban the social media application, search applications and mail applications and build their own. Right now there are effectively two countries in the world that have big internet companies. The US and China. It appears that China's protectionism in the internet has worked. It also appears that the US is practising similar protectionism in regard to TikTok. It's not completely unreasonable from either party. The next step is that the other potential majors, the Europeans and the Indians do the same. It might even make a more interesting world. European and Indian TikToks, Googles, Facebooks, AliBabas and so on.
- DevKoala 6y ago
  The EU has already started protecting their citizens with GDPR.
  - sien 6y ago
    That's a very good point. It would be interesting to see if the NSA care about it.
    - DevKoala 6y ago
      Whether the NSA cares about it or not doesn’t matter because the data controller can still be sued for collecting the users data if the users opt out. The controller has the motivation in this sense to comply. My point is that if the USA is monitoring citizens from EU, it isn’t through American businesses that intend to comply with GDPR.
- basch 6y ago
  I'm a broken record, but this is a great time to modularize "social media" and break it apart into a sub/pub protocol, an interoperability protocol, a client, a data store, standard data sets, data portability, and a sorting algorithm (including anti-evil, spam etc.) Splitting whatsapp or instagram from facebook is a fools errand. A client should be something much more agnostic, that anybody can use on any platform. The platforms would need to agree to an smtp/http like protocol allowing a person to upload and download data. Nations seeking sovereignty can be more protective of data stores and ranking algorithms, BUT as end users, WE would benefit from being able to plop different ranking algorithms between the data set we are connected to, and client we use to view. If I dont like my client, ranker, data provider etc, I can swap out the component, WITHOUT losing my friends or access to my own graph. Innovation can happen independently at the client and ranking levels, new winners can rise and fall more naturally, where everybody isnt "stuck" with the lowest common denominator default. In my view, anything else will continually lead to a few titans owning the whole network stack and graph, and governments can peruse antitrust and security angles all they want, but the same problem will just keep happening as long as they incentivize isolated proprietary silos over choice.
jimbobimbo 6y ago
Data collection by domestic companies worries me, but it's much easier to control/litigate/regulate issues domestically than abroad, especially if we're dealing with geopolitical adversaries.
fredliu 6y ago
I'm risking losing a limb for saying this, but I would be much more comfortable if the EO clearly stated the main reason for the TikTok and WeChat ban is a retaliatory tit-for-tat against China's long time behavior of banning US tech companies operating in the Chinese market, which sounds like the main reason why many here support this ban. Whether or not that tit-for-tat behavior leads to a net benefit for the US is up for debate. But the fact the EOs cite "national security", "privacy violation", etc. as the main reasons for banning makes you wonder "are those the real reasons behind this ban?" If they are, then questions raised by OP's article is perfectly legit, and makes the ban look either misplaced or hypocritical. If the ban really is tit-for-tat, what's stoping the EO from just saying so? Honestly, this whole situation makes the White House/Department of State look like they don't even believe those allegations themselves, which weakens their ground in any legitimate discussion around"national security threat" , "privacy violation" etc.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  This is simply guity by association. No matter what TikTok does, just because it's created by a Chinese domestic company, then all the political will are aligned behind the idea to automatically assume guilty, with even the slight trace of proof of the claimed misconduct. Then there is guilty by association on China/CCP, based on their association with communism. Which by all accounts is largely nothing but name nowadays. CCP itself looks more like a capitalism organization than a communism party, on the spectrum from communism to capitalism. But most time, one random netizen wholeheartedly claims that CCP is evil, just based on it having communism in the name. Then anything Chinese people doing are tainted as well. Like I was called associated with Chinese government in [2], because I stated that "五毛" is being used too abusively, and "government hired net moderator" is probably better [3]. For god's sake, I am now routinely worried my future at this country, just because I come from mainland China... [1] https://legaldictionary.net/guilt-by-association/ https://legaldictionary.net/guilt-by-association/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494968 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494950
  - fredliu 6y ago
ejz 6y ago
I suppose that this is consistent with Jacobin's worldview, wherein the US government is morally similar to the CCP. But for the rest of the rational world this just doesn't compute.
cblconfederate 6y ago
> they happen to be situated in Western countries They happen to be situated in USA specifically. It's the world's traffic relay. For Europeans, the best strategy is to arbtirage between the two poles in this new Cold war. Some data goes to the US, some to China, this is useful when either of them becomes too demanding.
Uhhrrr 6y ago
I've been trying to figure out why there's so much heightened concern over TikTok. Is it possible that the NSA and other Five Eyes can't spy on its messaging? EDIT: Or maybe just that they're worried about that possibility in the future?
- creato 6y ago
  I really doubt it has much to do with messaging at all. It's more about the ability to disseminate and control messages the public sees, especially in a "narrowcasted" way. Political forces in the US are constantly trying to influence facebook and twitter's content control policies. What does that look like when it's the CCP doing it? Think creatively here, it's not just going to be Chinese flags overlaid on everything. Just amplifying stupid/criminal/vulgar/etc. content (more than the internet already does) could have a subtle but significant negative effect.
  - Uhhrrr 6y ago
    Worse than World Star HipHop?
mnm1 6y ago
Isn't this obvious? What's China going to do with an American's data? Mine it and store it. What can the US do with the data it grabs from US companies? Land you in jail or worse. What can other US entities do with that data? Raise prices. Blacklist you. Sell it to other companies to do the same. Sell it to the government to put you in jail. Unless someone has ties to China or lives/visit China, the Chinese can't do shit. They could have a data breach as can anyone, but I bet they have better security practices and worse consequences for disclosure (so nations can't get proof of the data collection) than any US entity. This should all be quite obvious.
zarkov99 6y ago
Ah yes, as an American, I should be more scared of Google than the benevolence of the CCP. That makes sense. Thanks Jacobin for such an unbiased take.
- dredds 6y ago
  1 - "China vs America AI Race" by Eric “If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear” Schmidt. (note: all AI requires "spying", a-la Tesla Autopilot, smart-watches etc) 2 - Eric Schmidt's Pentagon Offensive: "..through his own venture capital firm and a [$15] billion fortune, Mr. Schmidt has invested millions of dollars into more than half a dozen defense start-ups.. The former Google C.E.O. has reinvented himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex. [1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-versus-america-ai-race-pandemic-by-eric-schmidt-and-graham-allison-2020-08 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-versus-am... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-p...
  - zarkov99 6y ago
    Could you elaborate on what your point is? I am an American and I trust the American government to look out for my interests a lot more than I do the Chinese. In fact I have no problem at all with Schmidt's efforts to accelerate AI usage in our military.
    - mtrovo 6y ago
      I'm not the OP but do you understand that the American companies also operate in other countries right? WhatsApp, IG, FB, YouTube is used globally and after Snowden revelations I'm pretty sure they can be used to look out for your interested as a US citizen, not that this is aligned with my interests as a non American citizen.
    - dredds 6y ago
      Watch "A Good American" (doco) and let me know if "the govt" (parts thereof) have citizen's best interests at heart. AI in the wrong hands (MIC) has been a warning in countless films. Competing with China's Military by weaponizing AI is not the solution to a problem. It's "becoming what you fear". We've seen SV employees protest the moves their corporations are making (facial recog, lethal robotics, etc) so Eric taking this out of Google into "startups" is really skirting around the perception issue (ie. PR of doing "evil").
natalyarostova 6y ago
These US is just as bad as China hot takes are so stupid.
- what_is_this 6y ago
  I don't think "as bad" is the point. It's not a moral discussion, who is doing the spying is irrelevant. The article literally says "Oppose It All". "Silicon Valley and the NSA would love us to think that it’s who does the spying, not the spying itself, that’s the real problem."
bassman9000 6y ago
Although there’s no hard evidence, there is more than a good chance that the data TikTok collects is, at the very least, accessible by the Chinese government. As this ProtonMail report points out, not only does TikTok’s privacy policy assert the right to share information with members of its “corporate group,” which would include its parent company, but ByteDance’s CEO has already promised to “further deepen cooperation” with official party media, on top of the ideological censorship it has already engaged in on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What’s more, a 2017 law lets the Chinese government force companies to secretly hand over data, including data on foreign citizens. Again, because of all the places, it's most tiring to have to repeat this in HN: [...] ByteDance’s CEO has already promised to “further deepen cooperation” with official party media, on top of the ideological censorship it has already engaged in on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What’s more, a 2017 law lets the Chinese government force companies to secretly hand over data, including data on foreign citizens.
peacefulhat 6y ago
I can understand a layman bashing Chinese companies for alleged spying but any engineer should know better if they're not interested in addressing similar issues in American companies and government. I think the best way would be to require all software products to be open source (the source-available flavor, not duplication), and additionally create a culture that refuses to accept invasive tracking. A more ambitious approach would be to create a corps of engineers that develop high quality open source alternatives to the current tech stack with privacy as a paramount value - at bare minimum a new OS and browser. Dunno if either would be successful but this jingoism about which country's apps are more intrusive is obfuscating the problem.
anm89 6y ago
Jacobin Mag worries me more than silicon valley.
product50 6y ago
Whoever the author is, I hope that he doesn't have a Uighur relative in Xinjiang in jail trying to get reformed and a friend in Hong Kong trying to free the country. If you were in China, you couldn't even write an article criticizing Tiktok like here the author here is writing an article criticizing SV. Have some perspective.
euix 6y ago
Who has potentially more leverage over you? Which entity or agent can apply coercive forces to you? Worry about that person or organization.
messick 6y ago
Geez, people are really going the extra mile trying to justify something that 100% happened because Trump heard about how the TikTok Teens ruined the Tulsa rally.
AniseAbyss 6y ago
Its really simple: Silicon Valley makes the US a shitton of money and keeps the US a superpower. You will not get Americans to give it up. You will not get any US politician to slay the golden goose.
TheBobinator 6y ago
"Trump’s latest gambit to distract from his monumental mismanagement of the pandemic response" This is why I don't read articles like this. 2nd sentance in and we're bashing the president for what purpose exactly?

217 points by jrepinc 6y ago

When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure. When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. When the tech companies actually start censoring aggressively and hunting people down(rather than just removing enough to satisfy angry people), then sure. One problem is the data. The other (larger) problem is how each controlling entity wants to use the data. Google wants to sell ads. They don’t care about your porn preferences, whether you have a mistress, or whether you do drugs. Maybe the ads approach is obnoxious, but that is all it is. They want to sell stuff, not take over the world. The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. And even if both countries required the same absolute cooperation from their tech companies, governments In the West are very limited in their ability to take the kind of actions against their citizens that the Government of China can. The US Government isn’t even allowed to tax a newspaper excessively, yet alone throw the editor in jail for running critical content.

xvector 6y ago
Comments like this demonstrate a severe lack of understanding around how intelligence today in the US works, especially in a post-Snowden world. Our government routinely performs dystopian forced mass-surveillance of citizens accompanied by gag orders. > When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure. > When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases. The NSA, however, can and will use data they collect on you against you. The US government is no stranger to this, where COINTELPRO [1] used the results of domestic spying to try to put an early end to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The US has caused demonstrable harm to citizens via surveillance yet you seem to support it compared to the less dangerous alternative out of some misplaced sense of patriotism. > When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. Have you not heard of PRISM? The NSA? National Security Letters? The US routinely can and does force companies to give up information on citizens in the form of dragnet surveillance. One way to do this is a National Security Letter [2]. > Google wants to sell ads. They don’t care about your porn preferences, whether you have a mistress, or whether you do drugs And neither does the CCP. Neither does the NSA, actually, unless they want something from you and to force you to do something. > The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. Welcome to participating on a global scale. The US isn't the only country allowed to be a superpower. It's probably not good if China surpasses the US, but the US also doesn't have anywhere close to the moral high ground w.r.t. domestic surveillance as you mention. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [2]: https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters
- diryawish 6y ago
  The US absolutely has the moral high ground compared to any communist country and it’s not even fucking close.
  - sacredcows 6y ago
    Take care of the education of your poorest citizens, stop orchestrating coups, stop imprisoning black men en masse, give people single-payer healthcare. Then we can talk about moral high ground.
    - sidlls 6y ago
      While bad, not one of these rises to the level of genocide and oppression that form the core of China's tactics to control its population and exert influence abroad, and, yes, that does mean from a moral perspective the US is better. "Terrible" is still better than "inhumane".
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      I'm really sick of this. The Verge's article [1] is the yardstick for just how far America's own self-hatred will go. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable but that so many Americans have bought wholesale into its fantasy. If you were to gather up the prison industrial complex and the tens of thousands failed by privatized healthcare, it would be a drop in the bucket. The CCP's orchestrated intent to scrub out 2 peoples and their religions from the face of the earth on their way to a 3rd complete, divisible nation (Taiwan) has not been seen since Nazi Germany. This is the scale of atrocity and disrespect for the basic right of a human being to say, "I am who I am", we are dealing with at this very moment in human history. Please, please, consider that however tough things are in the US for very many people, it can change with a vote. That is a democracy, however broken and fragile. [1] https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-information-nationalism-online-propaganda https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-informatio...
      - 6y ago
boomboomsubban 6y ago
>When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure Google based information is probably part of the Disposition Matrix, though that's unlikely to end with just a bag over your head. >When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. So what do you think of something like Elon Musk openly admitting to furthering a coup to secure resources? Is it only a problem with intellectual property? >When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. This isn't the case?
- gentleman11 6y ago
  Elon musk furthered a coup? Any references to that?
  - longhairedhippy 6y ago
    Not the op but I'm betting they're referring to this: https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1607170043110/united-tesla-company-widespread-condemnation-of-elon-musks-bolivia-coup-comments https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1607170043110/united-tesla-co...
- sidlls 6y ago
  > Google based information is probably part of the Disposition Matrix, though that's unlikely to end with just a bag over your head. While bad, this isn't remotely the same either in scope or scale as China's similar issues. In the US you end up in this matrix if you're perceived to be a legitimate, real, prone-to-violent-acts threat. In China you end up in their "disposition matrix" if you say anything negative about anyone in favor. > So what do you think of something like Elon Musk openly admitting to furthering a coup to secure resources? Is it only a problem with intellectual property? What makes you believe Musk? > This isn't the case? No, it isn't. At least nominally some kind of additional oversight, e.g., via a FISA warrant, is required. Now, none of the above is meant to imply that operatives and agencies adhere to the rules 100% of the time. They do serve to mark a distinct, clear difference between the US and China, though, because at least in the US if/when these agencies and operatives are caught there are legal repercussions to face. In China there aren't any because these agencies and operatives' actions would just be standard operating procedure. It makes a difference.
gentleman11 6y ago
> When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure Google actually did attempt to participate in that via Project Dragonfly. Users searches would be correlated to their ids and sent to the government, which is actively surveilling people in order to decide who to suppress. Many of these are minorities who end up with bags over their heads in those concentration camp drone videos. The employees revolted so strongly the project was cancelled. > When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure Tech companies sometimes sue to be allowed to disclose the secret requests that are made of them. Since 9/11, it’s been a lot harder to say no
- plusCubed 6y ago
  > The employees revolted so strongly the project was cancelled. Exactly - the buck stopped at company leadership beholden to internal/public reputation, rather than a central authoritarian government with the power to make you disappear.
  - skummetmaelk 6y ago
    In a non democratic system citizens can revolt peacefully against such policies. A company is hardly better. Google could have decided to let the unhappy employees go. Most of them would probably have stayed and wiped their tears with their comp anyway.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
The threat in the US is not from the government, it is from the private sector. The issue is not what Google wants to do using access to your personal data (sell ads), it is what Google's customers (not users) want to do with access to your personal data. Government is supposed to keep the private sector honest, so to speak. With weak government, and a private sector with single entities that have more data about citizens than government, the risk is arguably greater. There are reasonable limits placed on government in the US, but those limits do not apply to the private sector. Comparisons of China to the US make some sense when based on size, but if ignoring size, comparing the US to China on the issue of digital privacy and propaganda seems strange assuming one is trying to illustrate that the US is some sort of high benchmark. It is arguable there are other countries where citizens are enjoying greater digital privacy and more freedom from propaganda than in the US. It would seem to make more sense to compare the US to those countries.
- aripickar 6y ago
  Google’s customers want to serve you ads so they could buy your products. There’s nothing that they could do to you that is remotely on the scale of what Data Collection in China is capable of doing to you.
  - skummetmaelk 6y ago
    Being able to swing public sentiment by showing the right people the right set of "ads" carries a lot of power.
    - cromwellian 6y ago
      How about being able to swing public sentiment by a) funding a massive 50 cent army b) censoring any information the state does not want you to see c) jailing anyone who say the wrong thing with their data d) controlling pretty much your entire life through the social credit system You guys are drawing lots of false equivalences. Streamers in China have been 'disappeared' for weeks for offenses as harmless as singing the national anthem badly, or saying nice things about Taiwan. When tech companies start doing this, maybe we'll have an equivalence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTXb6bEMfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTXb6bEMfI
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
That could be because in the US (and even more so in the UK) the biggest newspaper and media owner is more likely to own the government than the government is to own the newspapers and the media. As for demanding security cooperation: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-security?hl=en https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-...
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cblconfederate 6y ago
Tu quoque type of arguments are useless when you re the world's leading power (and want to keep being so)
- bassman9000 6y ago
  They're not when to contender is a totalitarian dictatorship with proven disdain of human rights, and ever extending cyber-aspirations.
justicezyx 6y ago
> The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. I am not sure how this distinguish CCP from any other power nation's government, and warrants unlawful ban on a private company's APP.
- sidlls 6y ago
  There is no such thing as a private company in China in this context, except in name only. The government is deeply enmeshed in these tech companies' products, from requiring real verified names to censorship and other draconian policies. The notion that there are big tech companies in China operating outside the CCP's influence is, charitably, naive.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    > The government is deeply enmeshed in these tech companies' products, from requiring real verified names to censorship and other draconian policies. This simply has no factual evidences, let me give you examples: One claims CCP install party committee in all companies, and those committee controls major personnel appointment, and other critical managerial activities, etc. As we inquired, there is no open report whatsoever about such powerful "committee"... The person then gave a link of a old USSR organization [2]. For all we know CCP is about as different than USSR than US is to USSR... As for the Chinese internet law [3], does not apply to company like TikTok, which explicitly does not allow mainlander to join the network. See [4], "Important: TikTok checks your cell’s SIM card at startup and if you are using a Chinese SIM it will block the access."; there is no way the company voluntarily to bend to a law that it has no obligation to comply... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016881 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24018111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24018111 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law#:~:text=This%20law%20was%20enacted%20by,on%20a%20company's%20network%20operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law#:~.... [4] https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/ https://www.saporedicina.com/english/access-tiktok-china/
- 6y ago
notatoad 6y ago
>When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. is this not exactly what a national security letter (NSL) is? the government can demand anything of a tech company, including that the company not tell anybody about it, as long as they claim it's for reasons of national security.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  1. The request cannot include content. So your messages need a warrant. 2. The company can challenge it in court and have it reviewed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
  - manquer 6y ago
    In theory they can challenge in FISA court yes, FISA court has denied less than 0.1% of the warrant requests in 30+ year history. It is rubber stamp court. I am sure such rubber stamp processes exist in China as well. The fact you cannot even mention that you received a NSL forget the scope and nature of actual request, and entire secretive nature of the court proceedings and no plans to every unseal this data, canary declaration being the only way to even tell your customers. If I said this happened anywhere else you will say that country is repressive.
mnm1 6y ago
Please provide examples of US citizens who have never been to China being abducted by the Chinese for searching the wrong thing. Or is this just your own delusion?
- afpx 6y ago
  I’ve had too many Chinese business contacts mysteriously “commit suicide” for it to be coincidental.
  - mnm1 6y ago
    Chinese contacts who have never been to China. Fascinating.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  Some introductory coverage of China's international kidnapping campaign, which affects foreign citizens, is available here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r... "Oh," but you might be tempted say, "that wasn't just for a Google search! And many of those who are citizens elsewhere? Like the Chinese government, I don't believe that citizenship is valid." You will of course understand that the parent poster did not phrase the matter in those specific terms, and that in any event this is not a comfort. Google may have more of an opportunity, but Beijing has a stronger motive.
  - mnm1 6y ago
    These are all Chinese people the article is talking about. It's quite obvious that using Chinese apps as a Chinese person is dangerous. That's not what I asked about and certainly no reason to ban the app in America.
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      ahem > "OH," BUT YOU MIGHT BE TEMPTED SAY, "THAT WASN'T JUST FOR A GOOGLE SEARCH! AND MANY OF THOSE WHO ARE CITIZENS ELSEWHERE? LIKE THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT, I DON'T BELIEVE THAT CITIZENSHIP IS VALID." YOU WILL OF COURSE UNDERSTAND THAT THE PARENT POSTER DID NOT PHRASE THE MATTER IN THOSE SPECIFIC TERMS, AND THAT IN ANY EVENT THIS IS NOT A COMFORT. thank you
cscurmudgeon 6y ago
I am sure if the Internet were around during the Holocaust, people will fight against bringing it up by bringing up things like segregation, lynchings etc. in the US (definitely huge problems and evil, but nowhere as evil or large scale as the holocaust).
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  Why wouldn't they bring up the war crimes and unrestrained murder of civilians instead? People seem to have a very romanticised view of the allies. We were the victors so we gloss over the horrors committed by our own hands. Civilian causalities in Germany and Japan was about 12 million people. 6 million died in the Holocaust.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
    Ok? And America and most of Europe and Russia would have very much liked to not ever have a second world war at all. Russia lost over 16 million of their own people ffs.
sirmoveon 6y ago
My shit don't stink kinda argument. The majority of the arguments defending the US by comparison, to me comes as propaganda. If you are a patriot American you should be using the Chinesse situation as leverage to get better accountability and transparency from the gov instead of trying to point out how other governmnets are just worst.
- amurthy1 6y ago
  Sure but the title of the article is saying one is worse than the other, so it's fair to refute that. No one is arguing the US situation is perfect and we shouldn't also seek to make that better.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  Look, there's a reason China gets the brunt of our ire, and it's not because US based companies are particularly laudable. It's more that China is notorious for its international campaigns to infiltrate foreign institutions, surveil its diaspora, its dissidents, and its political enemies, and use tools like blackmail and threats to apply pressure, using any means possible, to achieve its policy goals, often on foreign soil. China is also noted for its campaigns of systematic repression. When you are in the business of rounding up an ethnic minority for genocide, it does tends to color the discussion. You can arrange words that make the US and China sound morally equivalent, but when you actually look into it to compare the realities in detail, you see how vapid and empty this approach is.
  - sirmoveon 6y ago
    Yes, yes. CCP China very bad. But US bunch of hypocrites, historically speaking. In my opinion, this is a great opportunity for the world to use the situation as leverage to keep them both accountable, rather than defend one over the other.
  - newen 6y ago
    The US does all of these things. Remember the CIA? One million Iraqis killed by the US. What is that if not genocide. Currently, civilians are being killed by the US every day with their bombings. More civilians being killed every day by their sanctions. It’s genocide.
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AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> When the tech companies actually start censoring aggressively and hunting people down(rather than just removing enough to satisfy angry people), then sure. You don't need the qualifier here. "Just removing enough to satisfy angry people" is mob rule, and is genuinely problematic, even if it's not on the same level as dissidents getting bags over their heads.
yibg 6y ago
I’m less worried about google and the US governments influence on people in the US and more worried about the pervasive data collection combined with us government action in people outside the US and not protected by the same laws. The US government is pretty constrained inside its borders, it’s definitely not constrained outside.
xg15 6y ago
Yes, and when any of that happens, you can present your rightful indignation, but this will be rather useless because it will be too late to do anything meaningful to change course.
dang 6y ago
Please don't post rhetorical rants to HN. They don't fit with curious conversation, which is what we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yalogin 6y ago

Why restrict it to silicon valley? Aren't there data collection companies all over the country? Many of them are not visible to the public as they don't offer any public facing functionality, so they get to do anything they want and there is no hope of them getting twitter shamed either. The only answer is a federal level law. To be fair, the article says this but the title somehow calls out Silicon Valley.

whydoyoucare 6y ago
Article headlines typically reflect the author(s) implicit biases.
TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
> Why restrict it to silicon valley? 1. Silicon Valley is a metonym and does not exclusively refer to the companies in it. 2. Silicon Valley is where the most important and powerful new-era data collection companies are.
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Perhaps because the largest data collecting companies are situated in the Bay? The article mentions FANG as key examples, but literally says "Oppose It All".

devmunchies 6y ago

Nice. Tiktok playing the media to focus on american companies. Hiring ex-disney exec Kevin Mayer was the right move. How about worrying about all big government/business collecting data.

deleted 6y ago
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mooneater 6y ago

You never know who is going to buy who, data leaks and hacks are rampant. Over time this adds up. So its safest to assume any digital data anywhere will eventually be in the hands of any significant actor who really wants it. Its just a matter of how long it takes to get there.

m0zg 6y ago

The fact that the US press is willing to carry water for the Chinese Communist Party worries me more than Silicon Valley data collection, TBH.

seneca 6y ago
This is Jacobin Magazine, an openly socialist publication. You shouldn't take their position as an indication of anything with regard to typical media. I don't value much of what Jacobin has to say, but I would be more worried if there weren't voices able to say these things. You won't see an analog to this in China.
- m0zg 6y ago
  Mainstream press is quite willing to carry water for the CCP as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinese-ambassador-cui-tiankai-blaming-china-will-not-end-this-pandemic/2020/05/05/4e1d61dc-8f03-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinese-ambassador-c...
  - seneca 6y ago
    I have no love for most of our media and find it deeply corrupt, but that is an opinion piece and is clearly labeled as such. Not saying your wider point is wrong by any means though.
- lukewrites 6y ago
  Jacobin describes itself as socialist, not communist. > Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.
  - seneca 6y ago
    Thanks, I've edited the comment to reflect the correction.
what_is_this 6y ago

areyouserious22 6y ago

What are the odds that any article from a right wing magazine would feature on Hacker News? Zero. And yet this article happily living within the rest on the front page.

dang 6y ago
Plenty of "right-wing magazines" have had articles on HN's front page. Please do some research before posting like this. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

spanhandler 6y ago

Silicon Valley's data collection should worry most US citizens more than TikTok's, yes, totally, 100% agree, break them all up, ban all that crap, burn it all down, yes, I am with you. ... but one hopes data collection concerns aren't the real reasons for going after TikTok, but instead that it's part of tit-for-tat action aimed at getting China to accept and enact more aspects of the bargain for joining the global free-market economy, rather than just the parts that help it. They've chosen "defect" for like 2.5 decades, which I'm pretty sure was basically expected to happen back when they were allowed to join the club, but had better not be tolerated indefinitely.

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
> part of tit-for-tat action aimed at getting China to accept and enact more aspects of the bargain for joining the global free-market economy The President has spent his term undermining such concepts.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  I'd say his actions on Chinese trade have been the closest thing to a coherent policy he's had on anything whatsoever, actually. His other trade actions have been, uh, scattershot, to put it very nicely, yes, and I doubt you could come up with an assessment of his presidency as a whole negative enough that I'd disagree with it.
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dicomdan 6y ago

Great, now we have Jacobin articles pushed to the top page of HN. Breitbart next?

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
Do people consider Jacobin to be far right? If so that's a hilarious misreading
- missedthecue 6y ago
  They're self declared socialists. And not medicare for all type socialism. They hold just as disgusting an ideology as breitbart.
  - mempko 6y ago
    Really like what? Any links to a disgusting article?
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      Admiring obituary for the founder of National Bolshevism. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/eduard-limonov-obituary https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/eduard-limonov-obituary They're a propaganda piece, not a news outlet. Just a propoganda piece promoting murderous ideology, and it's even named after murderers who teamed up with slave owners.
      - what_is_this 6y ago
        And they operate in a country founded by slave owners
        missedthecue 6y ago
        That certainly doesn't help things does it?
      - 6y ago

k00b 6y ago

Nice try, China /sarcasm

brandonmenc 6y ago

False dilemma. Both are worrisome, but the window for dealing with domestic problems is much longer.

GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
False False Dilemma. The article doesn't present data collection as an either/or situation, the article takes the position that it's all bad regardless of origin.

lukewrites 6y ago

The headline seems to be getting a more attention than the content of the article; that's disappointing, especially here on HN. It seems like the author is expressing opinions that others in the comments also hold: > We should be worried about private companies and governments potentially collecting data on millions of unsuspecting people and censoring content they don’t like. But those based in China represent just a sliver of that threat. > The answer isn’t to dismiss the potential menace of China’s surveillance programs, or to cheerlead for a rival set of tech oligarchs who simply happen to live in California and speak English. > We should broaden the concerns and criticisms of TikTok and its relationship to China to tech firms more generally, and push for an across-the-board guarantee of online privacy and free speech for all of the world’s people, whether they’re more worried about being tracked and manipulated by people in the United States or China. A bit utopian? Sure, but as so many here have already pointed out, this is Jacobin ;)

thebeefytaco 6y ago

While I don't trust silicon valley or China with my data, there's a big difference between US corporate interests and that of communist China.

justicezyx 6y ago
What are the differences then? And why do you think CCP has control over TikTok? Edit: What are you implying here? Some CCP members are having party activities inside a private company. Are they plotting a plan to force Mr. Zhang Yiming to spy on US teenagees? Or are they just doing the typical CCP "study" activity to learn the retheroic from Mr. Xi? Who are these guys, are they senior executives in the company? Or random employees who are CCP members. In the end, what do you want to get from the picture, depends a lot on your prejudice.
- jimbobimbo 6y ago
  RE: Why? https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1291879371461070849 https://mobile.twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1291879371461... for example. "More than 130 employees at ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing application TikTok, are part of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee embedded in the company. Many of the employees work in management positions, an internal document reveals." https://m.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/tiktoks-parent-company-employs-ccp-members-in-its-highest-ranks_3451561.html https://m.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/tiktoks-parent-company-e...
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    Again, what do you want to derive from the fact? Associating CCP is a crime? Note that there is only one party who claims to be totally devoted to serving people. That's CCP. Can I claim that these CCP members are helping bytedance to better serve it's customers, and help curbe the greedy capitalists from infringing Chinese citizen's privacy? Or are they finally granted power over the bytedance company? I.e., are they organized to study Mr. Xi's thoughts, or trying to dictate the company's policy etc.

sien 6y ago

This is why the US is going after TikTok. It's social media that the US can't access and a foreign government can. The Europeans and the Indians who both have social media markets big enough to support their own should play the same game that the Chinese and the Americans are. That is, if there is any indication that foreign governments can access the information and that your own government cannot they should ban the social media application, search applications and mail applications and build their own. Right now there are effectively two countries in the world that have big internet companies. The US and China. It appears that China's protectionism in the internet has worked. It also appears that the US is practising similar protectionism in regard to TikTok. It's not completely unreasonable from either party. The next step is that the other potential majors, the Europeans and the Indians do the same. It might even make a more interesting world. European and Indian TikToks, Googles, Facebooks, AliBabas and so on.

DevKoala 6y ago
The EU has already started protecting their citizens with GDPR.
- sien 6y ago
  That's a very good point. It would be interesting to see if the NSA care about it.
  - DevKoala 6y ago
    Whether the NSA cares about it or not doesn’t matter because the data controller can still be sued for collecting the users data if the users opt out. The controller has the motivation in this sense to comply. My point is that if the USA is monitoring citizens from EU, it isn’t through American businesses that intend to comply with GDPR.
basch 6y ago
I'm a broken record, but this is a great time to modularize "social media" and break it apart into a sub/pub protocol, an interoperability protocol, a client, a data store, standard data sets, data portability, and a sorting algorithm (including anti-evil, spam etc.) Splitting whatsapp or instagram from facebook is a fools errand. A client should be something much more agnostic, that anybody can use on any platform. The platforms would need to agree to an smtp/http like protocol allowing a person to upload and download data. Nations seeking sovereignty can be more protective of data stores and ranking algorithms, BUT as end users, WE would benefit from being able to plop different ranking algorithms between the data set we are connected to, and client we use to view. If I dont like my client, ranker, data provider etc, I can swap out the component, WITHOUT losing my friends or access to my own graph. Innovation can happen independently at the client and ranking levels, new winners can rise and fall more naturally, where everybody isnt "stuck" with the lowest common denominator default. In my view, anything else will continually lead to a few titans owning the whole network stack and graph, and governments can peruse antitrust and security angles all they want, but the same problem will just keep happening as long as they incentivize isolated proprietary silos over choice.

jimbobimbo 6y ago

Data collection by domestic companies worries me, but it's much easier to control/litigate/regulate issues domestically than abroad, especially if we're dealing with geopolitical adversaries.

fredliu 6y ago

I'm risking losing a limb for saying this, but I would be much more comfortable if the EO clearly stated the main reason for the TikTok and WeChat ban is a retaliatory tit-for-tat against China's long time behavior of banning US tech companies operating in the Chinese market, which sounds like the main reason why many here support this ban. Whether or not that tit-for-tat behavior leads to a net benefit for the US is up for debate. But the fact the EOs cite "national security", "privacy violation", etc. as the main reasons for banning makes you wonder "are those the real reasons behind this ban?" If they are, then questions raised by OP's article is perfectly legit, and makes the ban look either misplaced or hypocritical. If the ban really is tit-for-tat, what's stoping the EO from just saying so? Honestly, this whole situation makes the White House/Department of State look like they don't even believe those allegations themselves, which weakens their ground in any legitimate discussion around"national security threat" , "privacy violation" etc.

justicezyx 6y ago
This is simply guity by association. No matter what TikTok does, just because it's created by a Chinese domestic company, then all the political will are aligned behind the idea to automatically assume guilty, with even the slight trace of proof of the claimed misconduct. Then there is guilty by association on China/CCP, based on their association with communism. Which by all accounts is largely nothing but name nowadays. CCP itself looks more like a capitalism organization than a communism party, on the spectrum from communism to capitalism. But most time, one random netizen wholeheartedly claims that CCP is evil, just based on it having communism in the name. Then anything Chinese people doing are tainted as well. Like I was called associated with Chinese government in [2], because I stated that "五毛" is being used too abusively, and "government hired net moderator" is probably better [3]. For god's sake, I am now routinely worried my future at this country, just because I come from mainland China... [1] https://legaldictionary.net/guilt-by-association/ https://legaldictionary.net/guilt-by-association/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494968 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23494950
- fredliu 6y ago

ejz 6y ago

I suppose that this is consistent with Jacobin's worldview, wherein the US government is morally similar to the CCP. But for the rest of the rational world this just doesn't compute.

cblconfederate 6y ago

> they happen to be situated in Western countries They happen to be situated in USA specifically. It's the world's traffic relay. For Europeans, the best strategy is to arbtirage between the two poles in this new Cold war. Some data goes to the US, some to China, this is useful when either of them becomes too demanding.

Uhhrrr 6y ago

I've been trying to figure out why there's so much heightened concern over TikTok. Is it possible that the NSA and other Five Eyes can't spy on its messaging? EDIT: Or maybe just that they're worried about that possibility in the future?

creato 6y ago
I really doubt it has much to do with messaging at all. It's more about the ability to disseminate and control messages the public sees, especially in a "narrowcasted" way. Political forces in the US are constantly trying to influence facebook and twitter's content control policies. What does that look like when it's the CCP doing it? Think creatively here, it's not just going to be Chinese flags overlaid on everything. Just amplifying stupid/criminal/vulgar/etc. content (more than the internet already does) could have a subtle but significant negative effect.
- Uhhrrr 6y ago
  Worse than World Star HipHop?

mnm1 6y ago

Isn't this obvious? What's China going to do with an American's data? Mine it and store it. What can the US do with the data it grabs from US companies? Land you in jail or worse. What can other US entities do with that data? Raise prices. Blacklist you. Sell it to other companies to do the same. Sell it to the government to put you in jail. Unless someone has ties to China or lives/visit China, the Chinese can't do shit. They could have a data breach as can anyone, but I bet they have better security practices and worse consequences for disclosure (so nations can't get proof of the data collection) than any US entity. This should all be quite obvious.

zarkov99 6y ago

Ah yes, as an American, I should be more scared of Google than the benevolence of the CCP. That makes sense. Thanks Jacobin for such an unbiased take.

dredds 6y ago
1 - "China vs America AI Race" by Eric “If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear” Schmidt. (note: all AI requires "spying", a-la Tesla Autopilot, smart-watches etc) 2 - Eric Schmidt's Pentagon Offensive: "..through his own venture capital firm and a [$15] billion fortune, Mr. Schmidt has invested millions of dollars into more than half a dozen defense start-ups.. The former Google C.E.O. has reinvented himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex. [1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-versus-america-ai-race-pandemic-by-eric-schmidt-and-graham-allison-2020-08 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-versus-am... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon-google.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-p...
- zarkov99 6y ago
  Could you elaborate on what your point is? I am an American and I trust the American government to look out for my interests a lot more than I do the Chinese. In fact I have no problem at all with Schmidt's efforts to accelerate AI usage in our military.
  - mtrovo 6y ago
    I'm not the OP but do you understand that the American companies also operate in other countries right? WhatsApp, IG, FB, YouTube is used globally and after Snowden revelations I'm pretty sure they can be used to look out for your interested as a US citizen, not that this is aligned with my interests as a non American citizen.
  - dredds 6y ago
    Watch "A Good American" (doco) and let me know if "the govt" (parts thereof) have citizen's best interests at heart. AI in the wrong hands (MIC) has been a warning in countless films. Competing with China's Military by weaponizing AI is not the solution to a problem. It's "becoming what you fear". We've seen SV employees protest the moves their corporations are making (facial recog, lethal robotics, etc) so Eric taking this out of Google into "startups" is really skirting around the perception issue (ie. PR of doing "evil").

natalyarostova 6y ago

These US is just as bad as China hot takes are so stupid.

what_is_this 6y ago
I don't think "as bad" is the point. It's not a moral discussion, who is doing the spying is irrelevant. The article literally says "Oppose It All". "Silicon Valley and the NSA would love us to think that it’s who does the spying, not the spying itself, that’s the real problem."

bassman9000 6y ago

Although there’s no hard evidence, there is more than a good chance that the data TikTok collects is, at the very least, accessible by the Chinese government. As this ProtonMail report points out, not only does TikTok’s privacy policy assert the right to share information with members of its “corporate group,” which would include its parent company, but ByteDance’s CEO has already promised to “further deepen cooperation” with official party media, on top of the ideological censorship it has already engaged in on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What’s more, a 2017 law lets the Chinese government force companies to secretly hand over data, including data on foreign citizens. Again, because of all the places, it's most tiring to have to repeat this in HN: [...] ByteDance’s CEO has already promised to “further deepen cooperation” with official party media, on top of the ideological censorship it has already engaged in on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What’s more, a 2017 law lets the Chinese government force companies to secretly hand over data, including data on foreign citizens.

peacefulhat 6y ago

I can understand a layman bashing Chinese companies for alleged spying but any engineer should know better if they're not interested in addressing similar issues in American companies and government. I think the best way would be to require all software products to be open source (the source-available flavor, not duplication), and additionally create a culture that refuses to accept invasive tracking. A more ambitious approach would be to create a corps of engineers that develop high quality open source alternatives to the current tech stack with privacy as a paramount value - at bare minimum a new OS and browser. Dunno if either would be successful but this jingoism about which country's apps are more intrusive is obfuscating the problem.

anm89 6y ago

Jacobin Mag worries me more than silicon valley.

product50 6y ago

Whoever the author is, I hope that he doesn't have a Uighur relative in Xinjiang in jail trying to get reformed and a friend in Hong Kong trying to free the country. If you were in China, you couldn't even write an article criticizing Tiktok like here the author here is writing an article criticizing SV. Have some perspective.

euix 6y ago

Who has potentially more leverage over you? Which entity or agent can apply coercive forces to you? Worry about that person or organization.

messick 6y ago

Geez, people are really going the extra mile trying to justify something that 100% happened because Trump heard about how the TikTok Teens ruined the Tulsa rally.

AniseAbyss 6y ago

Its really simple: Silicon Valley makes the US a shitton of money and keeps the US a superpower. You will not get Americans to give it up. You will not get any US politician to slay the golden goose.

TheBobinator 6y ago

"Trump’s latest gambit to distract from his monumental mismanagement of the pandemic response" This is why I don't read articles like this. 2nd sentance in and we're bashing the president for what purpose exactly?