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FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

• unityByFreedom 4y ago
  Not the FCC, this is one FCC commissioner's statement. He's not the chair, nor is he part of the majority party, so you can probably read this as a political statement. Republicans had a chance to ban TikTok during the last administration. They did not do it.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • elliekelly 4y ago
    It annoys me that these headlines keep falsely attributing his statements to the FCC as a whole. I hate TikTok and I tend to agree that it’s a security risk (so, too, is Facebook, IMO). But this guy has it out for TikTok solely for political reasons and in order to please Trump.
    • encryptluks2 4y ago
      To be fair, and I'm not fan of Trump, but if Trump hypothetically supported something good... like let's say universal healthcare, a lot of Democrats would oppose it just because Trump supported it.
      • jfengel 4y ago
        I don't see any meaningful way to talk about that hypothetical. Much of what Trump says is chosen specifically to enrage people, and Democrats in particular. Even if he chose to support, say, universal health care, it would be buried in so much deliberate harassment that there would be no way to arrive at a workable plan. The suggestion is so counterfactual that I just can't address it one way or the other. He achieved very little legislatively because he didn't really want anything except to anger people. The one thing he achieved is by appointing people to a lifetime office that isn't subjected to checks and balances -- and that accomplishes everything he might want.
        • zaroth 4y ago
          Perhaps the real world example of this is the price transparency laws that Trump pushed through. Whether democrats were staunchly against it, I don’t actually recall.
          • jfengel 4y ago
            Democrats were all for it. California has had a similar rule since 2004. Biden has been pushing hospitals to implement it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/12/health-202-biden-says-he-enforce-trump-era-rules-requiring-hospitals-post-their-prices/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/12/health-20...
      • whateveracct 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure if Trump supported universal healthcare, people would get on board. The problem is 1) very few of his actual policies were good on the face of them and 2) even some of the milquetoast stuff he did had unsavory motivation. Realistically, any theoretical universal healthcare proposed by Trump would probably have strings attached that further eroded the functioning of the federal government (which is a common theme between pretty much all R legislation).
      • MisterBastahrd 4y ago
        No they wouldn't. There'd be a lot of Republicans who would be running around telling everyone how universal healthcare is actually a good thing now, but any Democratic concerns would mostly be tied to quibbles with process and taxation, not the healthcare itself.
      • tzs 4y ago
        Before Trump won the Republican nomination for 2016, during one of the debates against Rubio and Cruz and whoever else had not yet dropped out Trump actually brought up universal healthcare as a reason to support him over Cruz and Rubio, saying we'd get it under him and not under them.
        • unityByFreedom 4y ago
          Damn, I found this hard to believe so I looked it up [1], and you're right. It's like when Lois says "9/11" and everyone goes wild [2]. > Mr. Trump, you have said you want to appeal Obamacare. You have also said, quote, "Everybody's got to be covered," adding, quote, "The government's going to pay for it." Are you closer to Bernie Sanders' vision for health care than Hillary Clinton's? > TRUMP: I don't think I am. I think I'm closer to common sense. We are going to repeal Obamacare. > (APPLAUSE) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/06/transcript-of-the-feb-6-gop-debate-annotated/#:~:text=Mr.%20Trump%2C%20you,to%20repeal%20Obamacare https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/06/tr.... [2] https://youtu.be/Rm3d43HLyTI?t=37 https://youtu.be/Rm3d43HLyTI?t=37
• jsiaajdsdaa 4y ago
  However putting this data in the hands of FAANG is no problem at all, and totally can't end up in any nefarious hands.
  • flyinglizard 4y ago
    Sorry for stating the obvious, but for US authorities having the world’s data in the hands of an American company is a strategic asset, having it in the hands of a Chinese company is a strategic liability.
    • mnd999 4y ago
      Indeed. It’s surprising this isn’t coming from the CIA or the NSA. But then maybe it is.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • pavlov 4y ago
    “We must not do anything about recent thing that is very bad and unpredictable because of this other thing which is also quite bad but we’ve been learning to manage it for 15 years”
    • waffleiron 4y ago
      However instead of regulating everyone, banning one player and leaving the opportunity for others (including new players) to continue "bad thing" is not a good solution, is it?
      • pavlov 4y ago
        Meta is already extremely regulated, both by governments and externally managed processes like the oversight board. If TikTok were an American corporation that played by the same rules, it would be a massive improvement.
      • 4y ago
• legalcorrection 4y ago
  Stupid article and headline. Not the FCC, an FCC Commissioner.
  • space_fountain 4y ago
    Yep, and a member of the out of power party as well
• fbn79 4y ago
  Security a part the occidental world need to protect his market from unfair competition. If Facebook is blocked on china why we have to make TikTok prosper?
• technick 4y ago
  Ya know what they say... "Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one gets filled first."
• snehk 4y ago
  I don't have a horse in this race at all, but the annoying part is that the same rules don't get applied across the board. Everything they're accusing TikTok of - from data harvesting to the government having access to said data - is true for western companies as well and that should be the problem. Not the fact that the data is now in the hands of the Chinese but that the data is being collected at all provided to the government. The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government. We had this discussion after the Snowden leaks and nothing changed whatsoever. Back then it was the US government and the US gov had the chance to change the rules so this could not happen. Now they're up in arms because other governments do the exact same thing. It's really annoying. Ban every app that collects "problematic" user info. Make the collection itself illegal, give users control about their data but don't argue that the practice suddenly becomes problematic when others do it.
  • montag 4y ago
    "I don't have a horse in this race, but (impassioned rant about what the horses should do, which ones should win or lose, and why...)" As consumers, we do have a horse in the race. I would cheer for the horse with fewer regulations, but that's just me...
    • snehk 4y ago
      I meant that as in "I don't use their apps" and it doesn't affect me whether they're available on the app stores or not.
    • biohacker85 4y ago
      I don't see the contradiction. You can have a strong opinion about something without being affected by its outcome.
  • _8j50 4y ago
    American companies working against national security will be held accountable. A Chinese companh working against american national security will be celebrated at home instead.
• cute_boi 4y ago
  Well, I would say Social Media are unacceptable security risk instead of TikTok. Chinese gov generally can't do anything in US compared to US government, so personally I think facebook is more risky. We need better privacy and social media reform instead of targeting tiktok. Also, why should we listen to Brendan Carr who shouldn't be able to speak for entire FCC. He is from Ajit Pai who takes lobbies from Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. Looks like they are worried that their accomplices can't steal more data than tiktok. Lastly, the funny thing is Facebook was asking me for photo and phone number for verification which I denied.
  • kadoban 4y ago
    > Chinese gov generally can't do anything in US compared to US government, so personally I think facebook is more risky. More risky? Probably pretty easily. There is legitimate risk though, especially depending on who you are, where you work, who your family is, etc.
  • mesh 4y ago
    >Chinese gov generally can't do anything in US compared to US government, so personally I think facebook is more risky. The Economist discussed this last week: >The bigger, underappreciated problem with TikTok is the chance it offers China to manipulate what the app’s vast foreign audience sees. TikTok has gone beyond sunny entertainment to become a major news platform. Open the app and among the songs and skits you may see Supreme Court protests or a flailing Boris Johnson. A quarter of American users say they consider TikTok to be a news source. In countries with weaker mainstream media the share is as high as 50%. >That makes TikTok’s Chinese ownership a serious worry. The Chinese government actively meddles in domestic media; four years ago it shut down another popular ByteDance app, unamused by the subversive jokes being shared on it. TikTok’s content moderators are outside China. But the app’s algorithm is nurtured in Beijing. A tweak here or there could give more traction to videos questioning covid-19’s Chinese origin, say, or blaming nato for the war in Ukraine. Because each user gets a personalised feed, tampering would be hard to spot. >TikTok insists no such meddling has taken place. But a company vulnerable to bullying by an authoritarian government obsessed with media manipulation is clearly a risk. Anyone who considers this paranoid should consider China’s record in Hong Kong. Without new safety mechanisms, Western countries might one day have to shut TikTok down. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/07/07/whos-afraid-of-tiktok https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/07/07/whos-afraid-of-...
• tedk-42 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer) Lawyer that opposed net neutrality and now voicing his disapproval of apps built by the China. Sounds like he's making a play to become a career politician using his version of what 'ok authoritarianism' is. I'd like to see someone actually prove a security risk rather than hypothetically posing it. I.e. show me 1000 tiktok downloaded videos run through a program with their metadata something of strategic importance to a nation state (like the location of nuclear missiles haha).
  • worthless-trash 4y ago
    You're asking for the impossible as 'anyone' is not tiktok. We as individuals don't have access to that data, only tiktok does.. so we as individuals can't prove this to you. Edit: Removed ask to share all personal data, because its bad form.
    • epolanski 4y ago
      Pretty sure that European users data has to be hosted in Europe and there are serious limits on the info you can get outside. I know that this is one of the reasons why TikTok has highly invested in Ireland.
      • fragmede 4y ago
        The other being that Ireland is advantageous to incorporate in for tax purposes?
      • Gwypaas 4y ago
        There are some provisions for getting data out but they all rely on guaranteeing the same level of protection as GDPR does. This also runs afoul with the CLOUD act since due to that American companies can't store data inside the EU and be compliant. https://www.imy.se/en/organisations/data-protection/this-applies-accordning-to-gdpr/transfer-of-data-to-a-third-country/ https://www.imy.se/en/organisations/data-protection/this-app... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
• suction 4y ago
  Whatever society or country will realise first that they have to raise their youth so they will be able to withstand the lure of social media, regardless what company makes it, will become the leading society in the world in 50-100 years.
• ec109685 4y ago
  530 comments here without the clickbait headline (fcc versus fcc commissioner): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483
  • unityByFreedom 4y ago
    Huge difference, I agree. Also, old news.
• jmfayard 4y ago
  Understandable but funny that US Americans start to care about data regulation only once the Chinese government is involved. Asking the stores to remove one app won't do it though, time to adopt EU-like regulations.
  • croes 4y ago
    And at the same time they try to get data of european citizens through scams like Privacy Shield and Safe Harbor.
• paulv 4y ago
  Can someone explain the capturing "keystroke patterns" part? Are they saying the app is somehow capturing keystrokes while other apps are running?
  • liversage 4y ago
    In the article the TikTok spokesperson explains this: “It’s not logging what you’re typing. It’s an anti-fraud measure that checks the rhythm of the way people are typing to ensure it’s not a bot or some other malicious activity.”
    • paulv 4y ago
      That...seems completely reasonable to me.
      • unityByFreedom 4y ago
        Your typing cadence may be another bit of identifying personal info. Not to mention they could be lying or "not know" what their tech is really doing. Wouldn't be the first time.
        • paulv 4y ago
          They also have access to a lot of other metadata (IMEI, IP address, OS version, MAC address, email/phone number that you signed up with, etc) that they could combine with data from brokers to identify you as well. I'm not saying that they should be collecting this data, to be clear, just that, from everything I've read, it doesn't seem like they are doing anything uniquely untoward. I'm hoping there's something I'm missing.
          • unityByFreedom 4y ago
            > it doesn't seem like they are doing anything uniquely untoward. I think it's best to assume if it can be used against you, it will. That's why we pushed back on Apple's CSAM plans to scan images on the device. Does anyone remember how we even know TikTok is tracking keystrokes? It's because Apple updated their security to notify users when the clipboard was activated by the app, and TikTok was doing it for every keystroke.
• XiS 4y ago
  "TikTok is said to collect “everything”, from search and browsing histories; keystroke patterns; biometric identifiers—including faceprints" How can they even collect browsing history or biometric identifiers on Android? Isn't browser history stored in the browser's private storage space, or am I being naive here?
  • eloisius 4y ago
    Probably means browsing within the app. Although the fyp is the meat of it, you can also browse topics and hashtags.
  • netsharc 4y ago
    Browsing history: many apps (like reddit, Instagram) have their own browser in the app so they can track it, and they nag you to use their app when you open their website. Biometric identifiers, I'm guessing mostly facial features: if you take a selfie/self-video with TikTok (which millions of people do) they can just take the data from there.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • worthless-trash 4y ago
    IIRC you can use the android shared webview to determine if a site is in cache on the system by measuring access times.
    • daenz 4y ago
      Sounds similar to a timing attack[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_attack
      • worthless-trash 4y ago
        Very similar... Inferring data through response time.
• jpk 4y ago
  Lots of folks here arguing that the focus on TikTok is unfair, given the data collection practices of domestic corps like Facebook. From a privacy point of view, this argument is well-founded, but I think it's tangential to the argument TFA is making, which is: this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk. I get it. We want corps to stop hoovering up our data because they can use it to manipulate us with advertising, and they can mishandle it such that other bad actors can exploit it. I'm with you, this is a valid concern that we should address. But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist. I don't think it's reasonable to wait for general regulation of social media corps while TikTok continues to do its thing, particularly if targeted action against TikTok is politically viable. Edit: typo
  • croes 4y ago
    What is the difference to the consequences of the CloudAct?
  • epolanski 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • subroutine 4y ago
      I think it'd be fair (maybe not fine) if China were to allow, say, Facebook to operate in China if Tiktok can operate in the U.S.
      • DocTomoe 4y ago
        They can - if they follow Chinese laws. Which Facebook is unwilling to do.
        • subroutine 4y ago
          In that case I have no problem with the U.S. banning tiktok until China relaxes its laws.
• Linda703 4y ago
  [dead]
• trasz 4y ago
  Disgusting.
• moomoo11 4y ago
  Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China. From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people in your nation are behaving, especially when you consider how much data about sensitive information might be getting onto tiktok, like videos made by military service members on bases, videos showing gaps/issues/etc in infrastructure, or at ports and other locations. As for me, I'm an American and it is in my best interests that USA stays top dog. I didn't immigrate here to downgrade lol, so I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player.
  • germandiago 4y ago
    Which takes me at why we have to be rivals (we people in countries), because government are rivals and monopolize trading and resources for themselves? It is very stupid that we passively accept those rules and let them drag us like that into things of this nature. I am really (I am european) pissed off by the fact that someone decided we needed a war with Ukraine when we do not have anything for/against Russia or Ukraine in principle and they start to make pressure to all private business, etc. to make them do what these people want us to do. Literally in Spain I saw even bad press for people selling clothes (Mango) or yoghurts (Danone) just because they kept selling those products to normal Russian people. So govts can sell/send weapons to Ukraine with our taxes and without our permission at the same time they encourage and point to private company doing regular business so that they stop selling there? Seriously? I really do not accept that, I want to have friends from wherever, go with whoever and do business with whom I deem appropriate without asking permission to anyone. If I am not selling intelligence for spying or weapons, what is wrong? I really do not get it.
    • int0x20 4y ago
      • 4y ago
• jollybean 4y ago
  A bit hypocritical but it's still mostly correct. Also, China is not the US. This is a Giant Thing. China would never, ever, ever allow US companies to have direct influence over their media, so even by basic tit-for-tat rules, this is reasonable. Moreover, even from a 'trade' perspective, if China does not allow such social media apps from US over there, which denies US companies that Ad revenue, the same should be applied in reverse. No sense in letting TT get Ad revenue, it should go to some entity playing by the same rules US, Europe, Japan etc.
  • jmfayard 4y ago
    It's not even hypocrisy, they believe there are not bad things but only bad people doing it. Like in the Harry Potter book where slavery is not bad per se, only when done by bad people. If Harry Potter owns a slave that's fine because Harry is good.
  • bsaul 4y ago
    the symmetry in anticompetitive practices is actually the only good reason i see for banning the app. Hiding behind pretexts to make it seem based on law will only add an absurd legal precedent to app developers.
    • jollybean 4y ago
      The legal reasons are legit. 'Foreign Governments' are not 'Our Government' and of course China is not the US. That matters. I suggest that the 'deal' should likely involved localized data and internal controls, with oversight, so that the CCP just doesn't have operational access to the data. Companies at a certain scale have regulatory requirements, it's just like in other industries.
• numair 4y ago
  This is dangerous political rhetoric which sets the stage for all sorts of tit-for-tat regulation that seeks to optimize for the protection of local companies (in this case, Meta/Facebook/Instagram, which have the world's largest face database and have consistently violated laws + lobbied against them). Imagine what would happen if a Chinese regulator decided that Tesla's telematics stack was a massive national security risk? One random comment from some loser trying to build a political career (like this guy) and you'd see the stock go through a small crash. The capture of American bureaucracy by paid interests is going to be the downfall of the country. Michael Lewis has been talking about this quite a bit recently, and will apparently make this the subject of his next book. I hope everyone reads it.
  • clarionbell 4y ago
    They already do that. China is notoriously strict about information control, hence minimal presence of western social media and tech companies on their market. Like when Google refused to comply with censorship. They've got clipped almost immediately[0] and haven't recovered to this day. And no, there was no appeal, no political process or way to get around it. If anything, America is lagging behind rest of the world in regulation, and is letting foreign companies get away with things that would get them banned in rest of the world. Another example would be ongoing EU crusade against media piracy. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010%E2%80%932016:_Giving_up_search_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#2010%E2%80%932016...
• moonchrome 4y ago
  The thing people are missing when they say "naturally foreign government collecting data is a security risk" - is that by US openly admitting this - they are signaling to all other countries allowing US tech companies to operate there that they should be firewalling because it is a security risk. World is > US and China, Europe, SA, Africa, the rest of Asia - this is a clear cut message "you need to have your social networking in-country to prevent others from compromising you".
  • simmerup 4y ago
    I honestly think that should be done anyway. For example, if Britain blocked Facebook for not being consumer friendly what would we really lose? Facebook would be recreated over night. The profits would be kept in country. And in addition, we might have a slightly better barrier against the American culture seeping into the country. Sure, we could lose some app integrations but if the internet was more segregated API standards would be developed to mitigate this.
    • dmw_ng 4y ago
      Ofcom are slowly getting their teeth back with upcoming regulation (3 decades late IMO), but in answer to "what would we really lose?", we'd likely suffer immediate tit-for-tat responses from the US if we attempted to meaningfully regulate or partition our media from theirs again. I don't think anyone who has spent much time thinking about it sees the Russia/China/Iran firewalls as a bad thing, but we aren't them and we can't regulate our media in the same way.
      • simmerup 4y ago
        Right of course, completely forgot about the possibility of starting a trade war.
    • moonchrome 4y ago
      That's ridiculous - for a lot of people I know number one use case for Facebook is keeping in touch with people that move away - very often out of country. Rebuilding social network would take a long time, having it country specific would be pointlessly limiting. Chunking up internet between countries would be going down further into isolationism for GB since they aren't even a part of EU anymore.
• aaron695 4y ago
• gorbypark 4y ago
  What ever happened to Oracle buying Tik Tok in some western markets? Did that ever happen?
• jossclimb 4y ago
  "Only Americans are allowed to spy on other Americans!"
  • sschueller 4y ago
    Or Europeans...
  • dijit 4y ago
    Sets a good precedent for us Europeans and those in Oceania
  • ampgt 4y ago
    Yes. Because when Americans “spy on” other Americans they have to abide by the fourth amendment. China does not.
    • SapporoChris 4y ago
      >Because when Americans “spy on” other Americans they have to abide by the fourth amendment. Thank you, I had a good laugh: Snowden, Amazon Ring, Social Media, many many more. I sincerely hope that you do not honestly believe that Americans 'have to' abide by the fourth amendment. It's violated with ever increasing frequency and while enforcement is prevalent in some areas it is absent in others.
      • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        Can you similarly name the Chinese programs? Read about them in a free press, or at least dissident blog posts? Do you enjoy being able to discuss these things freely without worry of being arrested?
• keyme 4y ago
  Genuine LOL. Uncle Sam asking the 2 great censors of the west to get rid of the most popular app in their stores, so that the east will cease competing with said Uncle on who gets to brainwash their citizens. Gold. Whichever way this goes, one of these parties loses big, which is a good thing for us humans.
• rvz 4y ago
  So it is no different or in fact even worse than Facebook, as expected and as found in this security analysis. [0] From [0]: > The above code taken from the TikTok APK, shows the collection of cellphone data, specifically the IMEI of the cell phone. The IMEI number of a phone is literally created to identify the phone. > We at Penetrum believe that everyone should have the right to know what data is being harvested by companies and would like to give our readers a clearer understanding of what happens when you download the mobile application TikTok. From our understanding and our analysis it seems that TikTok does an excessive amount of tracking on it’s users, and that the data collected is partially if not fully stored on Chinese servers with the ISP Alibaba. So essentially, a 900GB data breach at Alibaba suggests that TikTok user tracking data which ties hundreds of millions of users has been exposed out in the open to be used by criminals, and scammers. This is nothing new or surprising as I have already questioned a TikTok fanatic about the excessive tracking in this app but decided to deflect with more whataboutsims. [1] On top of that denial from their own users, all this tracking was made possible due to TikTok's spyware and their mass collection programme, with the additional fact that TikTok staff in China DID have access to US data after lying and denying it. [2] So something that is even worse than Facebook is hardly 'The best thing to have happened to the Internet.' [3] Especially when TikTok was found to do even more invasive tracking than Facebook with sending biometrics, IMEI numbers and voice prints, and is required to give up and funnel all this data and traffic to the China and the CCP meaning it is another honeypot surveillance tool luring in the sheep to willingly give up all their data and they cannot be trusted. TikTok should get either a massive fine in the billions just like Facebook did or it should be totally banned until it is verified to rid of its invasive data collection just like what India did recently. Failing to comply, it should get both. [0] https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysis_whitepaper.pdf https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysi... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28137000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28137000 [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484 [4] https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-war-in-ukraine-to-russian-users-1.15921522 https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-wa...
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  i think the issue here is doubts that tiktok isn't sharing some (or all) of it's data with prism/nsa or whatever the successor(s) is.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• medv 4y ago
  Ahhh, nice. Free market, healthy competition.
• blackoil 4y ago
  In another few years if continue to see such polarisation, the Internet will be much more fragmented. Not just China vs the World. It will be China, Russia, India, USA and to some extent Europe, African and South American nations.
  • cowtools 4y ago
    I think you underestimate the ability of users to punch holes in the firewalls.
• hit8run 4y ago
  Same goes for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and all other Meta products.
• nivenkos 4y ago
  It's just American exceptionalism and protectionism. Same for trying to ban Turkey selling drones, Europe using Huawei, Europe buying Russian gas instead of American LNG, etc.
  • butlerm 4y ago
    Turkey is a member of a military alliance with the United States and sources parts from other NATO members as well. If they were not a part of NATO, the U.S. would have little or no say about who they sold drones to. I think if you asked Turkey they would probably rather remain in NATO.
• okamiueru 4y ago
  My concern seems to be different than that of most expressed here. Companies collecting too much information is a problem, sure, but that's not what deeply worries me when it comes to social media generating/consuming platforms like Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Especially those that algorithmically decide what to show users. Foreign countries controlling what information a coming generation is exposed to is IMO much more concerning than collecting and profiling (of course also troubling, but a slightly different league). There is little oversight into what bubbles are formed, who is fed what, etc. Want to create division in a foreign country? What better place to start than on social media and malleable kids. This applies equally to TikTok as Facebook, for different reasons. I don't trust TikTok because of CCP, and Facebook because everything is for sale.
  • roca 4y ago
    I strongly agree with this. It's a dangerous tool, and it's easy to imagine the CCP seizing that tool in an emergency.
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Why do you care so strongly about the nationality of the boot on your neck, rather than that the boot is there at all?
    • okamiueru 4y ago
      I wouldn't really say that the nationality is all that important. Just what my prejudices say. CCP tend to stifle opinions they dislike. Russia tends to fund divisiveness in the west. Facebook and US companies in general do whatever makes them money entirely devoid of any moral compass. Google sometimes can be gamed due to either carelessness or ineptitude. In any case, and as mentioned, mostly prejudice, is the answer to your question.
• verisimi 4y ago
  Quite right. It's perfectly fine for our governments and corporations to work together to collect our data. Western ethics dictate that its NOT ok for Eastern governments and corporations to work together and collect our data. That's a security risk. For the individual, the analysis is clear. All government involvement is a security risk. The are all immoral, and seek ever greater control and power. This is nothing about security (either represents an insecure position for the individual). This is about which government has greater power and control over individuals. It's all so filthy...
• nonrandomstring 4y ago
  This seems an intractable mess. - Our phone hardware and operating systems are intrinsically insecure. - There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation) - All social media companies are doing it, leading to jeers of "hypocrisy!" - All governments play the same games, reducing the arguments to "Whose side are you on?" That's effectively meaningless in a globalised world. The consequence is more nationalism and an ever more fragmented splinternet. - The only proposed solutions amount to more authoritarian, controlling and regulatory responses. What can we do? There is a solution. Stop protecting these companies. Burn down WIPO. Tear up practically all "intellectual property" laws. Revoke millions of patents. Repeal all DCMA type laws regarding reverse engineering. Kick trademark and brand protection law to the curb. The real problem is gargantuan monolithic, captive audiences that exist because incumbent monopolies enjoy protectionist measures that amount to a giant international trade racket. Creating a real market that forces radical interoperability would solve many of the problems we see today. Who would care about TiKToK or Facebook if they were one of 500,000 small "Social Apps" that connected to a standardised international network. Hell, we could even give it a catchy name, like "The Internet".
  • Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation) Yes there is: Don't Anything that is not fully and obviously intentionally completely public is e2ee and inaccessible outside of the user's device. Information that is provably necessary for providing a paid service can be collected and kept until the second it is no longer necessary so long as the process is publicly documented. Any weights, faux anonymized data or similar derived from the pii must also be deleted.
    • 8organicbits 4y ago
      I think that's far to vague to be workable and sounds incredibly expensive (unless everyone uses those loopholes). Storing data on user's devices isn't great, it takes up storage space (adding cost) and relies on the user to manage the backups (which lots of folks don't do). Users also switch between devices, so you'd need some sort of cross-device syncing or something. e2ee implies that the data can only be decrypted by the user's key. If the user loses their key, they lose data access. Since keys are user managed you need to deal with user support/education and build interfaces to support key management. e2ee isn't something you can bolt on an existing system. This sounds quite expensive to implement, so you'll shift significant funds away from other development (destroying innovation). If today I'm running a Django site that allows users to message each other, do I need to change from my server-side template rendered system to a client-side rendered system? For loop holes, I'd expect people to claim that they can't rely on device storage, need to support multiple devices, need to support customers who can't manage keys, perform heavy-weight rendering that would consume too much device battery and run slowly, etc. These ideas are very 2020s focused. As the software industry evolves, would we need to convince politicians to allow us to use better technology that challenges assumptions we have today?
• peacefulhat 4y ago
  TikTok is so popular I bet banning it would cause widespread social unrest and violence.
  • biggu 4y ago
    TikTok was banned in India. People just moved to Youtube and Instagram
• pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Red flags ever since it was "breaking news" in the infosec community that TikTok collects "all information." It's sad at this point how much of a slave humanity is to vanity and social media. Social media is a higher risk to humanity than Climate Change. > When challenged if the CCP has seen any non-public user data, he said, “We have never shared information with the Chinese government nor would we […] Such easy misdirection. Never shared, doesn't mean CCP doesn't just injest it. Most people don't have the ability to understand how information works in tech anyway. I don't blame them. We're in a situation that's way worse than "the 1%", it's the 0.001% that know how information technology works. As an aside... I can't tell if it is a comedy, tragedy, or thriller when the story-line that ends up creating AGI most likely will be an Intelligence Agency. With all the data collection they're doing and prediction, they may even already have invented it decades ago.
  • uejfiweun 4y ago
    You may want to google search "Sentient Program NRO". Yes, they've had some type of AI for quite a while, and they've openly admitted to it.
    • pyinstallwoes 4y ago
      Kind of gives legitimacy to this weird thing I found a while back: https://postquantumhistoricalretrospective.blogspot.com/p/timeline-to-post-quantum.html https://postquantumhistoricalretrospective.blogspot.com/p/ti... heh. Eerie that it is a bingo on the satellite claims.
      • pyinstallwoes 4y ago
        And then this: 1. https://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html https://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-tra... 2. https://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html https://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes... 3. https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll/051719/F-2018-00108_C05113691.pdf https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/ForAll... Yowwiee.. Thanks for the "dot" to connect. Sheesh.
• foverzar 4y ago
• u1tron 4y ago
  Just delete the TikTok company
• lizardactivist 4y ago
  The US uses "security risk" as an excuse to force TikTok to store data and code on US servers, so they can collect this data and learn how TikTok works and has become so successful. Now that they have what they need, they use the same excuse for market protectionism, trying to remove TikTok so US alternatives can take its place. A tactic well-used by the US.
  • InCityDreams 4y ago
    Other examples?
• rand49an 4y ago
  Surely the biggest problem with any social media is the ability to influence it's users and promote or demote certain content more than the data collection in itself. We should probably be careful allowing any other nation having the potential to influence public opinion if the last few years are anything to go on.
• dragonelite 4y ago
  Come on you guys don't think the US has made a deal with ByteDance during the Trump years. US data most likely will go through US owned data cables the NSA can spy on. The rest is just fud to make sure the next social media app will be a US one.
• anonyfox 4y ago
  I can foresee all the hipsters literally dying in the streets.
• zidad 4y ago
  Ah so when it's about Chinese app the US is all of a sudden concerned about their citizens privacy, check!
• helen___keller 4y ago
  Every year more young people reach voting age. Soon(now?) banning TikTok will be politically infeasible, at least until the natural tide of social media makes it unpopular.
• pleb_nz 4y ago
  The other side of the coin that I experience in my circles is parents and people just don't care. Everyone I talk with about pretty much says the same thing along the lines of 'if they want to look at my diddly Doo this then they're most welcome too'. A lot of people generally really don't care a hoot about this stuff.
  • ricardobeat 4y ago
    It’s easy to not care if you don’t get the full picture. The data in question is not “your diddly doo”, but the aggregated diddly-doos of 200 million people and the insights and power it provides.
    • verelo 4y ago
      Again, did i say i don’t care? Are you trying to be constructive here or should i refer you to Reddit? Exception handling matters. Your attitude towards these edge cases is likely damaging the argument that you and i both seem to agree on: allowing anon reviews is healthy, freedom of saying what you feel to be fair and true is important. The issue as i see it is if companies ask to let themselves self regulate via moderation of some form, yet allow damage to occur as that’s important to their business model, they have to expect courts and eventually public sentiment to shift perspectives. This is why i say, the attitude of not handling these exceptions well is dangerous and likely damaging to the objective of freedom of expression. The model needs improving to protect privacy yet prevent damage to private individual and businesses. News papers have been publishing retractions for hundreds of years, if it wasn’t for this their business would also have died long ago.
      • ricardobeat 4y ago
        Sorry but I think you’ve read my comment wrong - this writing style may not be popular everywhere: "you" in my previous comment is figurative, interchangeable with "one", as in "one may think...". It's not referring to you in particular. Rephrasing, I think people don't care because they are only thinking of their own "personal secrets", and don't realize the big-data aspect of this type of data collection (which is understandably a bit hard to grasp for people outside of tech). Their lack of concern is simply a reflection of the lack of perspective, not a valid counter-argument to privacy protection - needs a lot longer legs to become a position worthy of consideration.
• elzbardico 4y ago
  Good old protectionism. Really nothing new to see here. And let’s be honest, the Chinese are guilt of the same stuff. It looks like the long age of globalization is going into a pause now.
• eh9 4y ago
  But it’s ok when Meta literally influences domestic and global elections…?
• jacquesm 4y ago
  I agree, but from where I'm sitting (Europe) the exact same thing goes for many US based companies. Not that we have an alternative, and at least you can easily get by without TikTok (I haven't even visited it, ever).
  • mrex 4y ago
    The same thing doesn't go for many US based companies. What US law requires US companies above a certain minimal (~50 employees) size to "hire" government employees to supervise their operations at the innermost layers? What US law makes all US corporate intellectual property and information legally owned by the government? Google barely even complies with subpoenas.
• acd 4y ago
  I think content platforms recommendation algoriths should be regulated and be open for scientific and mental health review. I mean here brilliant computer engineers build content platforms that are virally additive to the brain. The platforms track every users movement and decision, yet there is zero regulation! What could possibly go wrong here?
• Kukumber 4y ago
  Weird, i'd have hoped they'd regulate the entire market, not just tiktok because it is chinese.. a huge missed opportunity, almost some sort of racism over here, even though the word is very strong, i feel like targeting certain kind of people is weird to me, why just TikTok?.. now that i think about it, what other social media is foreign? that's an interesting question
• lazyeye 4y ago
  Why Apple wont be blocking TikTok anytime soon. In previous, less enlightened times, this might have been seen as treason. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chinese-authorities-apple-ceo-signed-275-billion-deal-with-them https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chine...
• evv 4y ago
  By this logic we should also get rid of Discord? It is basically owned by Tencent (aka, is also owned by China). I am not sure what makes the most sense from a foreign policy perspective. But we should be careful about our selective attention.
• ok_dad 4y ago
  Just the tail wagging the dog. Little c conservatives, including neoliberal democrats, are chomping at the bit to prevent a non-US company from controlling social media because they’re using it as a tracking system via the NSA and for the dual purpose of propaganda since Facebook’s Chief Exo Officer is friendly and/or “very friendly” with several authoritarians in both major parties. They don’t want the possibility that another country could be doing this, even though there’s no evidence China is doing this, like Snowden unleashed for the USA. They could solve this with a law requiring data on US citizens be stored in the USA but then that’ll fuck up 5 eyes agreements for them and they can’t have that. Personally: burn them all down, I would be fine with this happening because we need to eliminate all social media, period.
• fleddr 4y ago
  I think a part that is missing from the "national security" aspect is not just the data harvesting, in particular what you can do with it: manipulate the narrative. Maximize division, influence elections, spread misinformation, censorship, the like. Already happening in US-owned social networks, imagine what China can do on a China-owned network.
• EToS 4y ago
  First they copy our intellectual property, and now our flossing techniques!
• ianai 4y ago
  I wonder if people could accept their personal/private data is a good/service if the government established it in law. So far this has been dealt with as an ethical/moral thing - thinking of ethics review boards in research. Though the low-lying “legal fruit” is probably just EULA regulation and enforcement. “My data, my attention, my choice!”?
• jliptzin 4y ago
  How do we know this is not just Facebook lobbying the FCC to get tiktok pulled from US app stores?
• jmyeet 4y ago
  As much as the US government does questionable and bad things (and it does), the CCP is worse. The US still has at least the semblance of the rule of law. There is still some separation between corporations and the government. Corporations in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy in a way they just aren't in the West. The US government can also be replaced. That's why China and the US just aren't equivalent here and why something like Tiktok is of greater risk and concern than any US Big Tech app or platform. Yes, US law enforcement can get access to, say, messages. There's a process for that. Some of it is pretty questionable (eg FISA court, pen registers, NSLs) but at least there's a process. I don't for a second believe that US intelligence has a firehose of everything posted on Twitter and Facebook just because I don't believe the US government has the storage capacity required. Secondly, China is completely protectionist about access to its market. There are Chinese versions for every app and platform. China uses access to its market as a giant carrot to exact concessions from Western companies but they're chasing a phantom: China will never let any Western company "win" in China. Part of getting access to China is playing ball with the CCP, which means giving access to data on a whole level above the US government. It means enforcing the Great Firewall and, for example, censoring mention of the Tiannamen Square massacre. Trade needs to be recipricoal so if China restricts access to the Chinese market, I see no issue with Western countries responding in kind. The threat model for something like Tiktok is a whole lot worse than any Western equivalent.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • sudosysgen 4y ago
    The US has no rule of law for national security consideration in other countries. As a non US citizen the US government in practice has no due process consideration if they wish to spy on you, torture you, or kill you. Corporations are an extension of the state in this process, as we have learned thanks to Edward Snowden. They have no choice but to facilitate the use of state power on foreign nationals. As a non-American I don't see the difference for me. If you are an American all you're saying is "only my government should spy on me".
• parkingrift 4y ago
• coffeeblack 4y ago
  Isn’t that what Trump said three years ago and was labeled “racist” for it?
  • xwdv 4y ago
    Yes. I think this is one of the topics Trump was spot on about but because of his reputation he was ignored. TikTok should have been banned and the United States would have been better off for it.
• tsegratis 4y ago
  Thankyou @dang for allowing this conversation. I appreciate your desire for inquisitive civilized debate Which inversely correlates with the importance of the debate to the participants. We see it in this thread But I don't want to avoid important topics to people for the sake of civility, rather I would like, as is happening here, for those topics to become the best places for people to learn inquisitive engagement
• publicola1990 4y ago
  This seems to very similar to seeking a bill of attainder. Why should federal government infringe on individuals right to install apps.
• ok123456 4y ago
  First Juul and now TikTok. It's like Biden is trying intentionally to lose everyone under 30.
• mrkramer 4y ago
  I think TikTok's competition with Alphabet and Meta for digital ad space is healthy for market but security is the most important for users. At the end TikTok will be open sourced because there is no other way to guarantee 100% security instead of going full open source. I remember Bill Gates once said in one of his interviews that Microsoft showed the source code of Microsoft Windows to various governments around the world in order for them to review it because they were afraid of NSA surveillance. Maybe that's the way for TikTok instead of going full open source but who knows.
• kleton 4y ago
  Tit for tat https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-f...
• bjt2n3904 4y ago
  Just a reminder, this is who we wanted to put in control of the Internet. As an aside, what? Is this an opinion? Like... Is the FCC just dumping their shower thoughts on the internet?
• duxup 4y ago
  If US or other nations can’t run a social media app in China, I see no reason the US or other nations should allow China to do it in their country.
  • mbg721 4y ago
    It's less true in the modern world, but traditionally, "The US" doesn't run any kind of business. It's like the anecdote where Gorbachev saw a supermarket and asked which government official was in charge of making sure it was stocked.
    • duxup 4y ago
      The US runs hardly any businesses… and yet it clearly matters to China if the business is Chinese regarding if you get to run a social media company locally… It still matters.
      • mbg721 4y ago
        China and the US are converging to a disturbing (to me at least) degree, in the sense that the big-player companies are intertwined with the national government; the US is kind of in denial about that.
        • duxup 4y ago
          "converging" It's not like that hasn't already been a part of history for a long time. More or less just depends on your POV. I do think that how it works from nation to nation is very different.
          • mbg721 4y ago
• programmarchy 4y ago
  Could be an enormous opportunity for a US-based TikTok clone to thrive.
• drvdevd 4y ago
  One interesting aspect of this case is that, should Apple and Google follow through and force TikTok off their App Stores - many people will feel quite "disenfranchised" due to the popularity of the App. This would force many who would otherwise never think about the consequences of these walled garden ecosystems and their lack of control, to suddenly have to do so.
  • RobbieGM 4y ago
    As stupid as the idea is I'm hoping it happens for this reason. Maybe people will realize the importance of truly owning their devices. It would be pretty ironic if that were to happen over TikTok, though.
• Shreedinger 4y ago
  1. On reading the article it seems like Tik Tok VP, Head of Public Policy has reasonably refuted all allegations with satisfactory explanation. 2. This comes conveniently at a time when Tik Tok is poised to overtake Google for search traffic in 18 to 30 age group. As usual, the jokes on the public. No one gives a flying fuck about our privacy.
  • butlerm 4y ago
    Considering that TikTok is a government controlled corporation (and all businesses in China effectively are) I don't know why anyone should be particularly inclined to trust their representations on this matter if they cannot be independently verified. It is in China's national security interest to deny the existence of any of this kind of data collection and analysis, especially in China.
    • aaomidi 4y ago
      Literally every company is a government controlled company.
• pdabbadabba 4y ago
  Again[1], the headline is false. It is only a single FCC commissioner that has taken this position, not the FCC as a whole. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tiktok-fcc-1.6505269 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tiktok-fcc-1.6505269
• api 4y ago
  They're not wrong. Now add Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, ...
• bastardoperator 4y ago
  How? What data? I don't even have a name associated with my account and used a google phone number to sign up...
• intrasight 4y ago
  I am curious of people's opinion of the likelihood that the app stores take any action.
  • tjpnz 4y ago
    The companies running the app stores are taking a cut of the ad revenue. They won't do anything until it becomes illegal not to.
• spamizbad 4y ago
  Tiktok is an app that, in my opinion, is only popular because SV lost interest in building social media apps for young people after Snapchat. Facebook made a (successful) play for older users but lost the youth. That's fine in the short term: Those older users have more spending power and your advertisers will appreciate that. But it does mean competitors can eat you from the "bottom up" and make you look like a Dinosaur.
• dylan604 4y ago
  At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy internet kooks, social media has been the greast psyops experiment known to man. The CIA has tried manipulating the populations of foreign nations since its creation, but could never have dreamed of something as effective as social media. Only problem for US folks, it has been much more effective against US citizens. It's so effective, the masses think you're a nutter for even mentioning it. The people are being played with emotionally like toys at the whim of anyone that wants to play.
• babypuncher 4y ago
  I don't follow this at all. I agree that TikTok should probably be removed from App Stores, but they are not doing anything that Facebook is not also doing. If you remove one, you have to remove the other. To me, it sounds like our government is just trying to play favorites with domestic evildoers.
• peanut_worm 4y ago
  I would be more concerned that a country that does not like America now has a direct line of communication with virtually every American with a cell phone under 20 now.
• ngcc_hk 4y ago
  I think if USA can access chinese data it is a fair game. But one way data traffic, one way influence … it will kill USA in the long term. If information is important any one way street even if one put in sone caution protection is still one way.
• d8tltanc 4y ago
  Apple's data in China is handled by China government affiliated entity https://technode.com/2018/01/10/apple-icloud-guizhou/ https://technode.com/2018/01/10/apple-icloud-guizhou/ . China's typical play book in tech field is to have the original products banned and have their own copycat flourish.
• thekyle 4y ago
  The way I see it is that the main difference between FANG and TikTok is that the FANG companies do not have any incentive to sow distrust and division in the United States through highly targeted propaganda, however, TikTok being effectively controlled by the CCP does.
  • itsgrimetime 4y ago
    > he main difference between FANG and TikTok is that the FANG companies do not have any incentive to sow distrust and division in the United States through highly targeted propaganda I'm not sure I agree with that, maybe TT could have incentives to _actively_ sow distrust and division, but I think it's fair to say that FANG companies are doing this today, driven mostly by maximizing ad views & creating negative feedback loops where we get echo chambers
• jmpman 4y ago
  My TikTok feed is filled with Chinese propaganda. Although it hasn’t been weaponized yet, it’s a huge threat. Get rid of it.
• mupuff1234 4y ago
  Title is misleading - This wasn't a statement made by the FCC. It was made by Brendan Carr, who works for the FCC, but the request is not an official FCC request.
• ArrayBoundCheck 4y ago
  > but the annoying part is that the same rules don't get applied across Yeah! Why do I have to sponsor hires who happen to be not legal citizen. I have to hop all these hops to hire while your local grocery store doesn't have to sponsor anyone! So annoying /s obviously
• tginart 4y ago
  It is unacceptable that it took this long for people to realize this. Google and FB and beholden to US regulations, and have shown zero evidence that they would defy Uncle Sam. They aren’t the same thing at all. Ban TikTok now. China banned our apps decades ago. What is taking us so long?
• fupimeng 4y ago
  How do you define unacceptable? Please shown evidence or stats.
• kvetching 4y ago
  I am shocked that nobody has mentioned that aside from the privacy and national security concern related to data collection, another major issue is that the chinese can literally program our Youth. They can run psychological programs, influence campaigns. TikTok is an ominous name. It's literally creating tics in teenagers. TikTok also seems like a psychological weapon, which is a ticking time bomb until the Chinese take over the world (their stated goal) Tic defined as "an idiosyncratic and habitual feature of a person's behavior." Yesterday, Tucker Carlson (bad man) did a segment on the difference between American TikTok and Chinese Douyin. It's clear that the Chinese are curating the algorithms differently. Douyin content is made to be good for society, whereas TikTok content is degenerate. The algorithm is everything. China has every incentive to push our young people to be mental cases and TikTok has the potential to do this. For example, TikTok is likely speeding up the rate at which teen girls experience rapid onset gender dysphoria. A teen may be confused about who they are, they watch one or two videos related to the topic, then they are sent down a rabbit hole of this content. I am happy to see the FCC of this administration speaking out. TikTok was going to be banned by the last administration but this administration put a stop to that in their effort to roll back all of Trump (bad man) policy.
• jrockway 4y ago
  Are media apps and their data collection policies even under the FCC's purview? This seems like an FTC thing at best. As far as I can tell, this is just some random commissioner (who also wants to get rid of net neutrality and Section 230) making a political statement, and nothing more. Yes, you should be worried about big companies collecting your data. Yes, you should be worried that the CCP has a direct line to VERY influenceable kids. Both of these are legal; the first amendment guarantees the right to publish propaganda that is potentially bad for national security. If you want to stop propaganda, start investing in education, Congress. I don't see how TikTok is doing anything out of the ordinary here and why they should be specifically targeted. Everyone is doing the same things they're doing. I get that the US is scared that China is going to replace them as "the superpower". Getting rid of some social media app is not going to change that. We're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. We lost this battle decades ago, and it's too late to stop it. I really feel like this is a token stance against China and not a whole lot else. They won't stop buying our soybean exports if we take a hard line against TikTok, whereas they would if we took a hard line stance against stealing American intellectual property or invading Taiwan, which is the problem we're actually worried about. So nothing changes, but when Commissioner Carr runs for some political office (his term is up next year, and I'm guessing Biden isn't going to re-appoint him), he has some token "I did a thing" to point to. (And knowing his political affiliation, "I hurt people that aren't white" is probably a good selling point for his candidacy. Sad that such a thing is true in 2022.) If someone wants to do something about this, Congress should make some laws. "It's illegal at the federal level to bypass device privacy protections to sell ads." or "It's illegal for a US company to help law enforcement track users." or "We don't import goods from countries that have concentration camps that kill ethnic minorities." This will never happen. Congress loves it when companies bypass device protections to sell ads, and they demand that companies like Apple break the security on their devices to aid law enforcement. Finally, if the FCC really wanted Apple and Google to delete an app from the app store, I doubt that posting a poorly-researched rant to Twitter would be how they go about doing it. I'd be surprised if Tim and Sundar even read this letter.
• beaunative 4y ago
  A regular person is way more at risk with their data collected and analyzed by their own government than a foreign one.
• gverri 4y ago
  I think this is a dangerous move from the US. If this goes forward I can see an increasing number of countries banning all US social media. Specially since we know very well how close of a relationship they have with TSA and other US intel bodies. Are we going to see a future where every country/economic block has their own separate social media/search engines like China and Russia? It's is an attack on users freedom but it could also be a big economic opportunity for those who decide to foster their own internal technological ecosystem.
  • mullen 4y ago
    > Are we going to see a future where every country/economic block has their own separate social media/search engines like China and Russia? You are way too late to this part of the discussion.
• unixbane 4y ago
  ...or just don't use some fisher price app designed for children, for military communications?
• 2-718-281-828 4y ago
  several people here arguing that data collection by CN via TT is worse than by US via FB b/c CN is totalitarian. but wouldn't I as a privacy conscious person prefer my data to be collected rather by a foreign agency not cooperating with the domestic agencies? or to put it bluntly - why would I as a German care about what China knows about me?
• archagon 4y ago
  What disturbs me is that it seems to be taken as a given that a piece of software running on our computers can even be “banned” in the first place. This statement would have no fangs if we could run any software we liked on our devices. But we’ve gone so far down the walled garden path that the implication seems to be “removed from app stores” => “no longer running on US customers’ devices.” Regardless of what you think about TikTok in particular, or about the benefits of walled garden platforms, this is a chilling omen of things to come.
  • TingPing 4y ago
    This is only a problem on iOS devices of course.
    • Siira 4y ago
      Yet.
• zackmorris 4y ago
  This will quickly fall below the fold, but: TikTok saved my life. It woke me up to a profoundly different worldview than the one we've been raised with in the west. That's what this is really about, not privacy. Or more precisely, yes security is a concern, but I can't believe that's the only reason, because we've all been lied to so many times that all I hear now is the establishment crying wolf.
• flerovium 4y ago
  Imagine >50% of US teenagers were highly engaged with the CCP's education program, an explicit surveillance and propaganda tool. Now instead imagine that TT decreased the ranking of content by 10% that went against the agenda of the CCP. Users, the government, and creators never know.
• bioinformatics 4y ago
  Imagine if Donald said that