14 ms·

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 vie

• 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.
        • DocTomoe 4y ago
          Trying to legislate other countries? You are aware that sword cuts both ways, right?
          • butlerm 4y ago
            The U.S. can ban Tiktok within its own borders (for whatever reason) without making any attempt to legislate the rules for Tiktok in any other country.
          • subroutine 4y ago
            Why do you have such a hard on for China or tiktok? As it is, the sword only cuts one-way. A Chinese social media company gets unfiltered access to western markets and populace but China wont allow the same in return. That's not a fair deal; so I say ban tiktok until China decides western social media companies can operate inside China with the same level of freedom that tiktok operates outside China.
          • stale2002 4y ago
            Other countries are already trying to control US companies. Thats already the situation. So there is no need for you to bring it up, as a possibility, when it is already happening.
  • matthewmacleod 4y ago
    Literally the opposite of what the parent said.
  • jpk 4y ago
    No, it's not fine, and I said as much.
  • Cederfjard 4y ago
    This comment doesn't seem to understand what the parent was saying or engage with their argument at all? 1. No it's not fine that American companies are threats to privacy and so on, and it should be dealt with. 2. However TikTok is a special case in that in addition to the above, it presents a national security risk (to the Americans), so it's reasonable to treat it differently and with more urgency.
    • rightbyte 4y ago
      > it presents a national security risk (to the Americans) In what way. Surely there is a shutdown button to press if TikTok go rouge. Dissidents should rather use the social networks the gov. or establishment wants to ban than the one they control (e.g. FB).
      • Cederfjard 4y ago
        > In what way. There's some discussion about this in the article. > Surely there is a shutdown button to press if TikTok go rouge. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "going rogue". The idea is that the company is already closely connected to the Chinese government. Are you saying the Americans should wait until they have undeniable proof that the data is being used for the political purposes of the CCP? Would they even be able to find that out (and if they did, would they be able to tell the world how?)? > Dissidents should rather use the social networks the gov. or establishment wants to ban than the one they control (e.g. FB). That makes some sense, sure, but we're not talking about security from the perspective of dissidents, we're talking about national security from the viewpoint of the government and the mainstream population, which is the one you'd expect the FCC to act according to.
      • iosjunkie 4y ago
        I would assume the fear is the PRC is gaining troves of data on individuals interests including politically divisive issues. This insight could lead to undue influence on the American population during elections or times of war.
      • macintux 4y ago
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• jmfayard 4y ago
  The US government is a foreign government for 96% of the people, not to mention that its own citizens don't control it much.
  • cowtools 4y ago
    The USA is a democracy. Arguing otherwise is the pot calling the kettle black.
    • AustinDev 4y ago
    • sudosysgen 4y ago
      I don't see how an Iraqi should care that the US is a democracy, really.
    • revscat 4y ago
      [flagged]
      • shrimp_emoji 4y ago
        >how can the United States be a democracy when the “demos” have no say whatsoever in their own governance? They do have a say. How do they not? (But keep in mind that 89% of them would disagree with your politics.) >Where that government puts up roadblock after roadblock protecting itself from the influence of any but the obscenely wealthy? Compared to where, actual oligarchies like Russia? Your metrics are uncalibrated af. >I am Gen X. For around five decades now I have voted. It has never affected my life positively. Congrats, you've apparently been privileged enough to not benefit from Obamacare or the drawdown of the Afghanistan war, or ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell", or the overturn of Trump's transgender service member ban, or the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act, or the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, or the halt on federal executions, or the recent reductions in unemployment, etc. To you, these things were unnoticeable blips in an uninteresting history because you were never in the unfortunate positions that apply, like someone on welfare, someone in the military, etc. >Roe v Wade overturned You got this because all of the people who voted Republican got it (since the Republicans packed the Supreme Court with three conservative judges). So, for them, the system worked. Also, it gets funnier: Roe v Wade, if you read its Wikipedia article, was considered a pretty bad ruling, and some predicted that how poor it was opened the door for overturn later. Meanwhile, in the decades that the Supreme Court let it languish, like a hazardously-perched kludge giving women everywhere abortion rights, Democrats failed to vote for actual legislation protecting abortion rights as they should have. That's why "you got" Roe v Wade overturned. On the plus side, a strong majority of Americans support abortion, so it shouldn't be difficult to vote for legislation. The only thing that could mess that up is silly, entitled, nihilist attitudes like yours. >But hey, we can get rid of the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling. Just not to investigate cops for being Nazis. Unhinged.
• janekm 4y ago
  I actually think it's naive. Sure if military personnel or state department use TikTok that can create security risks, but the same is true with any other social media network. The additional data that TikTok tries to gather from the mobile OSs is insignificant compared to what you can get from videos that people take willingly. Russian soldiers use VK, that doesn't stop OSINT researchers tracking them down on there.
  • roberttod 4y ago
    Military personnel is not what this is about, it's about the data of all the citizens in the US. It's about manipulating public opinion, sowing divide or a thousand other options.
    • janekm 4y ago
      But shouldn't that concern go the other way? If the Chinese government is dictating content policies of TikTok, that should obviously be a concern, but I have not seen this alleged. Granted collecting say interest data based on viewing figures would be a precursor (I suppose it's likely that TikTok could figure out if a customer leaned left or right politically). But again that's not what the complaint is about. It's also hard to ignore that TikTok's responses are at face value reasonable (such as evaluating touch patterns to identify bots... that's obviously something they have to do given the predominance of bots on social media platforms).
      • bcherny 4y ago
        I mean, TikTok can manipulate public opinion and access to information more easily than that, by simply artificially demoting/promoting certain content — no user data needed. Eg. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49826155 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49826155
      • bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
        Even without the government dictating content policies, the threat is still there. Take how the Chinese government has addressed the exact same concern from their side. That is to say, they've banned US social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and who's to say if it's solely because of the allegations that those platforms follow US government dictations. A forseeable future is one where Americans are using VPN to access Tik Tok and then we see some government officials clamoring for an American version of the GFW.
• shusaku 4y ago
  Agreed, these complaints about hypocrisy are nonsensical. If a serial killer locks his door at night for fear of being murdered, he’s not a hypocrite. On the contrary, his evil deeds have made him wise to the dangers of the night.
• therealasdf 4y ago
  Why do Americans think they represent the world? Your adversary is not our adversary.
  • jpk 4y ago
    > Why do Americans think they represent the world? I don't claim to. The context is: US regulators arguing for operational restrictions of a foreign-to-the-US company on the basis of being controlled by an adversary of the US. If you have any insight from a place with friendly relations with China, you're welcome to share it.
  • throwaway6734 4y ago
    don't use American products and it won't be an issue!
  • phpisthebest 4y ago
    Pretty sure the FCC is saying it should be removed from US App stores.
  • FreqSep 4y ago
    Does America “represent the world”? No. Does America represent the national security strategy of essentially all of Europe, most non-Chinese nations in Asia, and much of South America? Absolutely, and to pretend otherwise is to be dreaming. If you’re not in one of those areas then you are correct that your adversary is not our adversary. But it’s pretty statistically likely you are, and in that case the two are linked. You’re welcome to return the trillions spent on your defense, of course, and set up your own naval strategy and naval supply chains to defend your trade routes.
• cudgy 4y ago
  Ok. Put a stop to TikTok and allow US companies to vacuum up our data. China then hacks those companies servers or installs agents within the companies and gets the data anyway. Security threat not avoided. None of these companies should be allowed to store and abuse the sensitive information people divulge when using many of these services.
  • jpk 4y ago
    Again, I agree, "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_." My point is, if finding the political will required to stop TikTok is easier than it is to regulate data collection more generally, we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.
    • cudgy 4y ago
      Yes, we are in agreement. I was responding to the comment “But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus …”. My point is that they are all a concern and plugging a few holes in the privacy dam will not prevent China from getting the data. I’d be very surprised if China does not already have 100’s even 1000’s of agents working in US tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Furthermore, almost all of the devices and many of the chips we use to run apps are built in China. Why is the FCC not concerned about that?
  • fragmede 4y ago
    Is the data the issue? Or is it ongoing interference with the algorithm that pushes content to users that's the real issue? Tweaking what the users see affects those users far more than just selling their data to make money.
    • cudgy 4y ago
      Yes, that is a concern as well. There is a threat from three primary vectors: data, algorithm, and hardware. All can be used for nefarious purposes with hardware being the most fundamental and scariest threat of all.
• Mindwipe 4y ago
  It's more that America is also a foreign government that exploits our data for surveillance or espionage to many of us.
• 627467 4y ago
  > this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk. How were Snowden revelations of USG<>Bigtech relationship materially different from what's happening here? Maybe it was less transparent? Any "woke" person can see the cognitive dissonance here. It's all fine that you use the geopolitical rivalry argument but not if you try to paint one side of the argument as "free" and "liberal" and "subject to rule of law" when it's clearly not the case
  • qzx_pierri 4y ago
    You gotta remember a lot of people on HN work for, and already drank the FAANG kool-aid.
    • bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
      There's plenty of "us good them bad" kool-aid without FAANG influence.
  • honkdaddy 4y ago
    The notion which myself and others have problem with is that the US Federal Govt and the CCP are entities which we should be treating with a similar level of trust and care. The CCP has proven time and time again, be it from their refusal to cooperate with studying the source of COVID, or their continued systematic genocide of the Uighur population, that they are not a political institution which can be trusted or respected on the world stage. This isn't to say that the USG should be admired or emulated, far from it, but as someone who's neither Chinese nor American, I think it's an objective truth that most people in the world fared better under 20th century American-hegemony than the worldwide Sinicization which the CCP has made clear is its aim.
    • fariszr 4y ago
  • judge2020 4y ago
    'National security risk' is all the FCC is arguing; they're not arguing that these data collection practices are bad in themselves, only that they're bad if it happens in a way that strengthens a foreign government.
• jliptzin 4y ago
  This is almost certainly Facebook just lobbying to get mindshare back from TikTok. It's great for the US government too, who probably already has unfettered access to everything Facebook collects on its users. If US users go to TikTok, Facebook loses money, and the US gov't loses easy access to all that sweet sweet data. So probably Facebook doesn't even have to lobby too hard for a statement like this to come out from the FCC. Whether or not it's true doesn't even really matter. Do you want your personal data flowing to the CCP or the US gov't & Facebook/Instagram? Both seem like really bad choices to me. The only good choice is not to use any of these services at all.
• tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  Honestly, if some government needs to have my data, and I can't reasonably prevent it, I would be more than happy if that's some government on the other side of the planet without practical means to put me in jail, torture, and influence to do things that can harm me and my friends and family. Being spied by Russia, no problem. Being spied by China, no big deal either. But being spied by the USA or EU controlled entities can pose a life thread to any EU citizen. US citizens have it only a bit better, since they are at least protected from the EU, and only their own government has power upon them.
  • throw10920 4y ago
    How often do you hear about US citizens being disappeared for making a critical comment about their leader?
• scotuswroteus 4y ago
  >plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist. You should interrogate your assumption that the government inside the state lines is less "adversarial" to everyone's interests than the one outside state lines, even at a level of geopolitics.
  • colinmhayes 4y ago
    The government is the one deciding what adversarial means here. Of course they’re not going to label themselves or domestic companies they regulate national security adversaries.