7 ms·

I am highjacking your comment to express my confusion about this dispute. Not that it exists, but on what grounds it exists. Has TikTok done something that is m

by mongol 6y ago

I am highjacking your comment to express my confusion about this dispute. Not that it exists, but on what grounds it exists. Has TikTok done something that is materially different and worse from what, for example, Facebook has? Or is it only that they do similar things, but they originate from China?

ponker 6y ago
Trump is down 10+ points in the polls. That’s what this is about and TikTok only needs to run out the clock to the 2nd week of November at which point this whole thing will go away for them.
- shrimpx 6y ago
  Yes Trump is probably using this as political leverage, but the US being concerned about Chinese govt possibly spying on Americans using Chinese companies dates back to the late 2000s. Cynically dismissing it as a Trumpian fluke masks the prior art/implies there’s no issue whatsoever. Edit: clarification.
  - pm90 6y ago
    That by itself doesn't mean that decision making in this case is not being influenced by political concerns of the current POTUS (rather than being driven by long term geopolitical interests of the nation).
  - ponker 6y ago
    Yes, China vs. the US is 50 years in the making, but Trump’s interest in the issue is 0% policy, 100% politics.
- bleah1000 6y ago
  I think you need to update your knowledge of the polls, as much as you may dislike Trump, he isn't down by 10+ points any more. Regardless, the media has convinced people that only the Republicans and Trump want to see something done about TikTok, but, in fact, there are plenty of Democrats who are also wary of TikTok. Maybe they don't want an outright ban, but they want something done. But since that doesn't garner as many clicks, there will be a bunch of stories claiming it's a bad idea because Trump did it. There are real reasons we should be worried about the CCP right now. If you track the news, you'll see lots of people being found to be CCP spies and charged. There is a big problem with the CCP having spies and/or people friendly to the CCP in government and academia. Don't let your hatred for Trump blind you to the fact that the CCP is rapidly becoming an issue.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Rapidly becoming an issue? The US has been ignoring China’s burgeoning power for 50 years and allowed US CEOs to get gazillion dollar payouts by shipping American manufacturing jobs to China. That doesn’t change the fact that 1) an isolated spasm against TikTok accomplishes nothing if not part of a broad and permanent portfolio of initiatives, 2) whether Trump wins or loses this election he doesn’t give a shit about anything but his own political and financial fortune, and is too dumb, too lazy, and too corrupt to actually lead this soft power war. If you think Donald Trump is up at night worrying about China exfiltrating the data of US teenagers data... I can’t help you but please wear a mask.
    - michannne 6y ago
      Vitriol aside, I suggest you adopt a more objective view of politics, instead of allowing your personal emotions to guide your view of governmental affairs. For one, TikTok is not the target, it is just the first domino of many, intended to lay the groundwork of how the government will deal with similar cases in the future. Secondly, you should at least make an attempt to not project your personal bias onto others - unless you somehow have firsthand knowledge of what goes on in the mind of the president, I'd hesitate to take you seriously, especially considering your implication that the half of the country that voted for him relates to dumb, lazy, and corrupt people. Finally, I have no idea what keeps Trump awake at night, but it is clear to not only to him, but also Xi Jinping, the military establishment, and intelligence agencies, the subversive capability of Chinese intellectual labor and services. Whether or not they'll pull the trigger on utilizing those capabilities is yet to be seen, but I imagine it must be stressful knowing that at any time, a foreign government can capture insane amounts of data on every US citizen who has the app, and their intentions will likely not align with ours.
      - ponker 6y ago
        Sure sure, 5D chess, and the verbal nonsense oozing out of him on camera and on Twitter has no relevance to his 250-step master plan. Yep yep yep I’m waiting with bated breath, what I think is most important is making sure he figures out just what pizza parlor it is.
shrimpx 6y ago
The stated issue is that TikTok may share American user data with China and that there’s not any real way for the US to prevent this possibility. So it’s seen as a national security issue that the Chinese govt could track Americans. TikTok has insisted that there’s no way that user data could be shared with the Chinese govt but I think US regulation bodies and intelligence do not buy it.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  No one with a brain believes it. When the government tells you to so something and the legal system allows it, you do it.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  Sure, but then can all apps that share data with China? Make it clear what apps need to do?
- gamingkebab 6y ago
  Is the national security concern that high-profile Americans such as members of congress, high ranking US military or executive branch officials are exchanging classified state information across Tiktok? Or is the national security concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give up their data to Chinese authorities? So China has 1.4 billion people to data mine on using a minority-report-like data warehouse mega structure in the like of which the world has never seen before, and all of those people are in their own jurisdiction. Assuming that’s the kind of infrastructure the Chinese government can build and is fully operational, why would they justify the time, cost, and energy required to fetch what meme someone’s looking at from overseas and risk damaging their already shaky reputation with their biggest trading partner? Even if there’s a conspiracy and they cared about what your phone number was or where you lived, what could they do with it? Yes clearly the most plausible theory is that they’re kidnapping Americans from their homes in broad daylight. Or perhaps covid was synthesized in a lab so next year Americans will be getting biological super weapons mailed to them. Or maybe 5G is a mind control device that’s hiding the truth from all of us, the truth that you can parse html with regex. Anyways, we have a presidency largely based on putting pressure on China with a proven history of reactionary measures would, make a reactionary anti-china measure for the sake of supporting a partisan policy right before the November election. There are obviously a lot of shady things we are seeing surfacing from the Chinese government that warrant further investigation, and there are diligent people are on the ground right now trying to push through the secrecy of that government. But with Tiktok, it’s a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in irrational fear that’s being used as a political tool.
fierarul 6y ago
There can be only one super power with global social media companies.
kube-system 6y ago
They operate under the rules of a powerful political jurisdiction which is not particularly friendly to the US. Here's a simplified version of how the government thinks about it: If Facebook has data on a government employee, it's not a big deal, because Facebook stores that data in the US, and is friendly to the US, and if they do anything bad, they ultimately answer to the laws and regulations of the US government. These things are not necessarily the case for TikTok data. This is pretty much the first time that a service operated under the laws of a US rival has become popular in the US.
- 2rmm 6y ago
  Why hasn't this been a problem for Zoom? If somebody has data about government employees or even recordings of meetings then it is Zoom, not TikTok.
  - netsharc 6y ago
    The joke is, kids/K-Pop fans communicated on TikTok to "prank" Trump by buying tickets to his rally and not showing up, making him look bad, and 10 days later Trump started roaring about the app. Of course Fox News, etc, claim "this Chinese app is subverting democracy", etc, but IMHO they were just using it to communicate...
    - michannne 6y ago
      I would hope the majority of people who are aware of international affairs do not think so lowly of the American people, so dimly of American government, and so shallowly of international politics, that they'd believe our president would (or be allowed to, for that matter) coordinate a government-wide subversion campaign with far-reaching consequences over a prank
      - modalkb 6y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290910
threeseed 6y ago
a) China is a de-facto dictatorship, with no independent press or judiciary, who is right now committing mass genocide with the Uyghur muslims and has a long history of kidnapping both citizens and non-citizens abroad e.g. in Hong Kong and Australia. b) TikTok has been collecting a LOT of data including your personal details, contacts, location, WiFi networks etc. It's not just stupid videos it was everything they could get which on Android at least is a lot. c) Given the history with previous Chinese owned companies and with overseas companies operating in China there have been requirements that data is made accessible to the government. China right now monitors users behaviour online and kidnaps them for "re-education". We should not be giving them the tools to keep doing that.
coliveira 6y ago
Of course, Facebook has done much worse for much longer, but they're doing it for the US. And Americans are very afraid that the Chinese will eat their lunch around the world on technology too. That's why they're so clearly frantic about this.

by mongol 6y ago

ponker 6y ago

Trump is down 10+ points in the polls. That’s what this is about and TikTok only needs to run out the clock to the 2nd week of November at which point this whole thing will go away for them.

shrimpx 6y ago
Yes Trump is probably using this as political leverage, but the US being concerned about Chinese govt possibly spying on Americans using Chinese companies dates back to the late 2000s. Cynically dismissing it as a Trumpian fluke masks the prior art/implies there’s no issue whatsoever. Edit: clarification.
- pm90 6y ago
  That by itself doesn't mean that decision making in this case is not being influenced by political concerns of the current POTUS (rather than being driven by long term geopolitical interests of the nation).
- ponker 6y ago
  Yes, China vs. the US is 50 years in the making, but Trump’s interest in the issue is 0% policy, 100% politics.
bleah1000 6y ago
I think you need to update your knowledge of the polls, as much as you may dislike Trump, he isn't down by 10+ points any more. Regardless, the media has convinced people that only the Republicans and Trump want to see something done about TikTok, but, in fact, there are plenty of Democrats who are also wary of TikTok. Maybe they don't want an outright ban, but they want something done. But since that doesn't garner as many clicks, there will be a bunch of stories claiming it's a bad idea because Trump did it. There are real reasons we should be worried about the CCP right now. If you track the news, you'll see lots of people being found to be CCP spies and charged. There is a big problem with the CCP having spies and/or people friendly to the CCP in government and academia. Don't let your hatred for Trump blind you to the fact that the CCP is rapidly becoming an issue.
- ponker 6y ago
  Rapidly becoming an issue? The US has been ignoring China’s burgeoning power for 50 years and allowed US CEOs to get gazillion dollar payouts by shipping American manufacturing jobs to China. That doesn’t change the fact that 1) an isolated spasm against TikTok accomplishes nothing if not part of a broad and permanent portfolio of initiatives, 2) whether Trump wins or loses this election he doesn’t give a shit about anything but his own political and financial fortune, and is too dumb, too lazy, and too corrupt to actually lead this soft power war. If you think Donald Trump is up at night worrying about China exfiltrating the data of US teenagers data... I can’t help you but please wear a mask.
  - michannne 6y ago
    Vitriol aside, I suggest you adopt a more objective view of politics, instead of allowing your personal emotions to guide your view of governmental affairs. For one, TikTok is not the target, it is just the first domino of many, intended to lay the groundwork of how the government will deal with similar cases in the future. Secondly, you should at least make an attempt to not project your personal bias onto others - unless you somehow have firsthand knowledge of what goes on in the mind of the president, I'd hesitate to take you seriously, especially considering your implication that the half of the country that voted for him relates to dumb, lazy, and corrupt people. Finally, I have no idea what keeps Trump awake at night, but it is clear to not only to him, but also Xi Jinping, the military establishment, and intelligence agencies, the subversive capability of Chinese intellectual labor and services. Whether or not they'll pull the trigger on utilizing those capabilities is yet to be seen, but I imagine it must be stressful knowing that at any time, a foreign government can capture insane amounts of data on every US citizen who has the app, and their intentions will likely not align with ours.
    - ponker 6y ago
      Sure sure, 5D chess, and the verbal nonsense oozing out of him on camera and on Twitter has no relevance to his 250-step master plan. Yep yep yep I’m waiting with bated breath, what I think is most important is making sure he figures out just what pizza parlor it is.

shrimpx 6y ago

The stated issue is that TikTok may share American user data with China and that there’s not any real way for the US to prevent this possibility. So it’s seen as a national security issue that the Chinese govt could track Americans. TikTok has insisted that there’s no way that user data could be shared with the Chinese govt but I think US regulation bodies and intelligence do not buy it.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
No one with a brain believes it. When the government tells you to so something and the legal system allows it, you do it.
kmonsen 6y ago
Sure, but then can all apps that share data with China? Make it clear what apps need to do?
gamingkebab 6y ago
Is the national security concern that high-profile Americans such as members of congress, high ranking US military or executive branch officials are exchanging classified state information across Tiktok? Or is the national security concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give up their data to Chinese authorities? So China has 1.4 billion people to data mine on using a minority-report-like data warehouse mega structure in the like of which the world has never seen before, and all of those people are in their own jurisdiction. Assuming that’s the kind of infrastructure the Chinese government can build and is fully operational, why would they justify the time, cost, and energy required to fetch what meme someone’s looking at from overseas and risk damaging their already shaky reputation with their biggest trading partner? Even if there’s a conspiracy and they cared about what your phone number was or where you lived, what could they do with it? Yes clearly the most plausible theory is that they’re kidnapping Americans from their homes in broad daylight. Or perhaps covid was synthesized in a lab so next year Americans will be getting biological super weapons mailed to them. Or maybe 5G is a mind control device that’s hiding the truth from all of us, the truth that you can parse html with regex. Anyways, we have a presidency largely based on putting pressure on China with a proven history of reactionary measures would, make a reactionary anti-china measure for the sake of supporting a partisan policy right before the November election. There are obviously a lot of shady things we are seeing surfacing from the Chinese government that warrant further investigation, and there are diligent people are on the ground right now trying to push through the secrecy of that government. But with Tiktok, it’s a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in irrational fear that’s being used as a political tool.

fierarul 6y ago

There can be only one super power with global social media companies.

kube-system 6y ago

They operate under the rules of a powerful political jurisdiction which is not particularly friendly to the US. Here's a simplified version of how the government thinks about it: If Facebook has data on a government employee, it's not a big deal, because Facebook stores that data in the US, and is friendly to the US, and if they do anything bad, they ultimately answer to the laws and regulations of the US government. These things are not necessarily the case for TikTok data. This is pretty much the first time that a service operated under the laws of a US rival has become popular in the US.

2rmm 6y ago
Why hasn't this been a problem for Zoom? If somebody has data about government employees or even recordings of meetings then it is Zoom, not TikTok.
- netsharc 6y ago
  The joke is, kids/K-Pop fans communicated on TikTok to "prank" Trump by buying tickets to his rally and not showing up, making him look bad, and 10 days later Trump started roaring about the app. Of course Fox News, etc, claim "this Chinese app is subverting democracy", etc, but IMHO they were just using it to communicate...
  - michannne 6y ago
    I would hope the majority of people who are aware of international affairs do not think so lowly of the American people, so dimly of American government, and so shallowly of international politics, that they'd believe our president would (or be allowed to, for that matter) coordinate a government-wide subversion campaign with far-reaching consequences over a prank
    - modalkb 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24290910

threeseed 6y ago

a) China is a de-facto dictatorship, with no independent press or judiciary, who is right now committing mass genocide with the Uyghur muslims and has a long history of kidnapping both citizens and non-citizens abroad e.g. in Hong Kong and Australia. b) TikTok has been collecting a LOT of data including your personal details, contacts, location, WiFi networks etc. It's not just stupid videos it was everything they could get which on Android at least is a lot. c) Given the history with previous Chinese owned companies and with overseas companies operating in China there have been requirements that data is made accessible to the government. China right now monitors users behaviour online and kidnaps them for "re-education". We should not be giving them the tools to keep doing that.

coliveira 6y ago

Of course, Facebook has done much worse for much longer, but they're doing it for the US. And Americans are very afraid that the Chinese will eat their lunch around the world on technology too. That's why they're so clearly frantic about this.