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U.S. bans WeChat, TikTok, citing national security reasons
- greenyoda 6y agoPrevious discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24519307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24519307
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- tus88 6y agoHow do you implement this ban. Was about side loading apps. Will they firewall the apps comms?
- paxys 6y agoNice of you to assume that the White House has thought any of this through.
- cbhl 6y agoBy telling the app store owners that they must stop distributing it. https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/09/commerce-department-prohibits-wechat-and-tiktok-transactions-protect https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/09/commerc...
- YetAnotherNick 6y agoDo they have power to ask for arbitrary removal from app store?
- Reelin 6y agoYes. Why would a government (any government) not have the ability to make more or less arbitrary mandates in the interest of national security? It's arguably one of the primary purposes of having a government in the first place. That said, I'm sure there are complex legal criteria in the US that could lead to a lengthy court case.
- sillysaurusx 6y agoThere should've been a provision in the constitution against using "national security" as a justification for anything, or any verbiage along those lines. As Picard put it: "The age-old cry of the oppressor." It's such a beautiful phrase. "National security." Who wouldn't want to help with national security? Are you getting in the way of our nation's security? (A bit unsettled we now live in an era of "It's illegal to download <app to watch cat videos>," even if the national security concerns were true.)
- Reelin 6y agoOn the contrary, I highly value civil liberties but am perfectly happy with the government acting aggressively to protect national security. It's literally in my best interests! Consider that (at an extreme) using the military to repel an armed invasion is most definitely a matter of national security. The authoritarian and the libertarian can both claim "national security" and mean very different things in practice. Ensuring a robust judicial process and having precise definitions for such terminology are both serious issues here. The police are literally supposed to protect the children (and the adults!), but "protecting the children" is hardly desirable. Edit: > (A bit unsettled we now live in an era of "It's illegal to download <app to watch cat videos>," even if the national security concerns were true.) I'm certainly no fan of the current administration, but how is a centralized and widely used social media app not a potential national security threat? For any country, it seems highly concerning to me for either the employees or infrastructure for such an app to be located in any jurisdiction that isn't a close ally. As an example, consider the destabilizing influence that Google could potentially exert by intentionally skewing search results for a specific topic in a calculated and subtle manner. Honestly I'm somewhat surprised that the EU hasn't objected to Facebook or Twitter on these grounds. I suppose they mostly trust us not to meddle in their elections (and us them for that matter).
- thysultan 6y ago...and telling the banks they cannot transact with the parent company.
- draw_down 6y agoCDNs can’t serve content. The app is not too exciting without content.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThis is just a stepping stone. Next comes completely cutting off their servers (sometime in november I believe) from accessing the USA. Sure a few will get around it with VPNs but the young people are easily distracted and will move over to Reels or something else that serves the same purpose.
- ghostcluster 6y ago> Commerce officials said they will not bar additional technical transactions for TikTok until Nov. 12, which gives the company additional time to see if ByteDance can reach a deal for its U.S. operations. "The basic TikTok will stay intact until Nov. 12," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network.
- jonas21 6y ago> "The basic TikTok will stay intact until Nov. 12," Seriously, what does that even mean?
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- eli 6y agoThe people who have the apps installed now can keep using it and it can still talk to their servers. But no new features, no app updates, no new apps, probably can’t negotiate a new data center contract or form a new partnership. But the basic app still works.
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- naringas 6y agoAs a thought expreiment, what if Apple and Google quite simply did not comply? Could they really ignore an executive order? Could they sue the government and get some sort of injuction? How could the government compel them? With fines? With a police raid?
- Taek 6y agoDisobeying a national security order from the federal government typically lands you in jail. Police raids and injunctions are both on the table.
- Nas808 6y agoCould these big tech firms challenge this in court? It seems like a very ambiguous use of "national security reasons".
- ngcc_hk 6y agoGoogle, FB should try in china. Fighting for the freedom of chinese app to be installed in USA land but theirs can’t. It does not fit the freedom for all concept I guess.
- coffeefirst 6y agoYes they can. And they may, but we don't know for sure whether they disagree or care to react at all. Given the administration tends to make decisions based more on xenophobia than empirical evidence and there's good reasons to think these apps have shady data practices, nothing about this situation is clear cut.
- SteveNuts 6y agoWho would go to jail in this scenario
- ponker 6y agohttps://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/06/ubiome-suspends-clinical-operations-after-fbi-raid.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/06/ubiome-suspends-clinical-ope...
- post_below 6y agoIf the ban ends up happening (seems unlikely that they won't make a deal with a US company before the deadline) gen Z in the US will grow up with a better understanding of VPNs and other workarounds.
- e9 6y agoAndroid yes but it’s not going to be that simple to install it on iOS
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoActually, if how Facebook is installed on Chinese iPhones holds the same, they just need to switch their phones over to the Chinese App Store by setting their region, install WeChat, and then set their region back to the USA. Apps from the Chinese and American app stores can easily co-exist, and worked well for me while I was living in China.
- Reelin 6y agoApple would presumably be required to prevent such workarounds to the best of their ability if the ban came to pass. (I'm honestly surprised to hear that China hasn't forced Apple on the issue.)
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoThat China hasn’t been able to force the issue might mean the USA isn’t either. Geographical blocks are super hard to implement without a firewall, I’m betting that the USA will just be happy if it is off the American App Store and not the other ones.
- greencabs 6y agoSounds pretty unlikely. Gen z has a notably superficial confidence with web technology and the patience to go along with that. I am an early millenial and we are the same way compared with gen x. The main difference seems to be confidence. We are very confident, but when we fail we are less likely to have the patience to actually resolve the issue.
- tempsy 6y agoWhy is this the top story right now? Is there anything new here that wasn't mentioned this morning?
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- vijaybritto 6y agoCause everyone is clicking on it? So many from other timezones are just hearing about it
- AlexTWithBeard 6y agoMy pet theory is that's because WeChat is heavily used by Chinese community.
- galacticaactual 6y agoBecause the presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity.
- verst 6y agoThis is the best snark comment today. Nicely done referencing another front page item from today.
- jack_pp 6y agoEveryone says that people will use workaround like VPN's but if content creators can't make any money anymore won't that affect it? I guess there will always be content creators that don't care about money but I'd be surprised if US traffic wouldn't drop by more than 50%
- alfalfasprout 6y agoHN is very quick to criticize the administration (which believe me has a ton to criticize) for this move but also defend China's blocking of international apps.
- taurath 6y agoI remember when the US was the one for a free and open internet instead of a segmented one.
- mathnmusic 6y agoI'd argue that banning apps from non-free and non-open economies encourages a free and open internet by aligning incentives. Really, reciprocity (and the paradox of intolerance) is an implicit expectation in many situations and we need to talk about how to deal with it.
- wyattpeak 6y agoI believe in freedom of speech. Should I stop people who don't believe in it from speaking to encourage alignment of incentives?
- lightgreen 6y agoThis is a false analogy. China doesn't just not "believe" in free speech, it also bans, imprisons, tortures, spies and do other harmful things. Also states are not people. Also there are situations when there are reasons to limit free speech (like war). And so on.
- scarface74 6y agoAnd the US would never torture people? We also have 21% of all people incarcerated in the world with only 4% of the population. The US doesn’t exactly have the moral high ground. As far as believing in free speech, isn’t the current administration trying to regulate tech because it doesn’t like what is being said on their platforms?
- salimmadjd 6y agoThis is very bad news for Silicon Valley. Allow me to explain: As long as TikTok was around any talk of controlling or splitting the big tech could have been diverted by saying if you regulate or break us, China will take over the vacuum left behind. With TikTok not only gone but also will be used as a precedence, big tech have lost the "China will take over" argument. Because the answer would be, no, we won't allow China to fill the vacuum and at the same we are going to heavily regulate you. Whoever is coordinating (if it's coordinated) the future demise and break up of big tech has definitely earned their think tank salary.
- nitinreddy88 6y agoBig Tech is never a good idea (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook) all are same corporate entities.
- stephc_int13 6y agoI think this is good news. When corporations are too big, this cause the same kind of bloat, corruptions and anti-innovative climate as when states are controlled by too powerful bureaucracies. There is a threshold, of course, but unfortunately we've allowed a few companies to go well past this deleterious threshold.
- gundmc 6y agoIronically, you could argue that WeChat is one of the most innovative tech platforms in the last half decade despite CCP ties.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThe sheer amount that it is used for in China is quite fascinating. Too bad the CCP is almost certainly also using it as a means to track and keep their citizenry in line.
- epistasis 6y agoI agree, it would be great for the big tech companies to be split. When was the last time that Google innovated rather than acquired? Maps, gmail, YouTube... Capitalism works best when there's a wide spread of power and wealth is not too concentrated. There can't be proper markets with monopoly or monopsony.
- isx726552 6y agoReminder that Facebook lobbied for this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-stoked-washingtons-fears-about-tiktok-11598223133 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-st... I’d you can’t beat ‘em, ask your buddies in government to ban ‘em, I guess?
- karsten5 6y agoAnd here the opposite where Zuckerberg actively says that Would Set “A Really Bad Long-Term Precedent” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/zuckerberg-facebook-all-hands-tiktok-ban https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/zuckerberg-face...
- IncRnd 6y agoDon't confuse either of the statements with a "belief" he holds. The two statements were to two different audiences. The one stoking fear of his competitor was in Washington D.C. The other was to his own employees.
- mrtksn 6y agoThink of it this way: It can be good for FB as an established company that can incorporate in every country like coca-cola opening local plants that play nice with the local government but still make money and “really bad long term consequences” from an intellectual point of view because it will no longer be possible for a startup to grow globally without the resource necessary to incorporate in every country(which is good for FB since no longer a kid in his dorm can make a competitor and bad for everyone else because a kid in his dorm can no longer make a competitor). So essentially, “go Trump do your thing but I am (personally)very sorry what the Internet has become, must suck to be U“.
- ehsankia 6y agoMakes sense. TikTok is one of the only app who ever came close to dethroning Facebook as the largest social media site. Instagram and Snapchat were the two others. They acquired one, and after failing to acquire the other, they simply cloned all its functionality. They also are in parallel trying to clone TikTok, but obviously getting it banned is far more efficient.
- vgchh 6y agoWhile I wish open internet prevailed, reality is that there are abuses with national security implications. That being said, this won’t be the answer to the national security quagmire. US needs to out-innovate faster than ever before. It’s high time we got our shit together, cut the bureaucracy and leap frog.
- voganmother42 6y agoTarget the web, not app stores Cryptocurrencies for payments
- ffhhj 6y ago> The Commerce Department will not seek to compel people in the United States to remove the apps or stop using them but will not allow updates or new downloads. Don't they have a self-updating mechanism independent from the store? I implemented that on all my apps to make them resistant to Google's rage bans.
- sangnoir 6y agoI guess it's time to install Chinese app stores...
- evian1982 6y agoThis is a very good news. Anything from China is toxic including the chineese virus too.
- publicola1990 6y agoIt seems unreasonable that US government can dictate what apps one can use or not use, and also there is no semblance of a transparent due process being followed for this. Also TikTok has not broken US laws as per US courts. How can the President ban something which is not app/anything which does not run afoul of existing laws? That's why this is essentially an arbitrary move. The national security threat seems a vacuus argument as per many data security analysts, tiktok not being that different from instagram, etc. The president/executive should not have authority to ban anything at all without a legislative process.
- matty22 6y agoHow about let's take the next step and ban the malicious collection of US citizens' data by _US_ companies.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI'm all in for that as well
- simonblack 6y agoWeChat is the 'do everything' app that's essential for the Chinese. No WeChat, no Chinese customer. Looks like Apple is going to lose its Chinese market completely. Without that big market, Apple's future is on pretty shaky ground. (The Chinese market alone is as big as the whole of the West.) That's the law of unintended consequences.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoNot gonna cry any tears for Apple that's for sure. They'll do just fine without the Chinese market.