8 ms·

The new satanic panic.

by VLM 4y ago

aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
tarotuser 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway29812 4y ago
  Citing the very real and horrible history of ethnic discrimination to dismiss valid criticism of an authoritarian state is odd. It's also exactly what the CCP does. https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1464891227694850049 https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1464891227694850049 https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stopasianhate-chinese-diaspora-targeted-by-ccp-disinformation-campaign/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stopasianhate-chinese-dias...
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Looking narrowly at Tiktok, it doesn't really capture any more than what Google/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Linkedin all would. And regulators and orgs are OK with those systems hoovering up all the data they can. But when Tiktok showed up, it's the "China Restaurant Syndrome" all over again, with breathless scares about the evil Chinese stealing our data! Yes, China is a communist party-led state, according to the CIA world factbook. Yes, they have terrible abuses in their own history. Yes, they tamp down dissent via black-bagging and other abuses. Yes, they have and continue to do a genocide on the Uighurs (Muslims) in the country. The US peoples (separate from the government) also has a pretty bad case of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment. It was only a few days ago that some 50ish year old white lady stabbed an Asian 18 year old Indiana University student on the city bus, while stating to police “it would be one less person to blow up our country”. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/us/indiana-university-student-stabbed-race/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/us/indiana-university-student... This isn't a case of whataboutism. What the Chinese government are doing to their own people is abhorrent, and likely worthy of being charged with crimes against humanity. AND people who hate Chinese for being Chinese heritage are also just as wrong. (And while we're at it, the USA has done its share of abhorrent stuff that it too should be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.) It may be simple to color every situation with black or white. But there's a great deal of nuance here. Why isn't UT-Austin also blocking Google or Facebook and related properties? Is that because they're USA based companies? Why only Tiktok? Because where I am, it appears to be founded in Sinophobia, pure and simple.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      He's trying to suggest that you are a Chinese agent who should be imprisoned. This is based on your "odd" opinions and your way of making arguments "exactly like the CCP does."
      - throwaway29812 4y ago
        I personally would care if my own rhetoric matched that of a government committing human rights atrocities against civilian populations on a scale not seen since WW2, but that's me. And your attempts to put words in my mouth about "Chinese agents" is showing your paranoia, and has nothing to do with me.
    - flappyeagle 4y ago
      I would be more sympathetic to this line of argument if the CCP weren't currently banning every single US-based social network. Reciprocation is the only sensible response. This shouldn't be about race, or even data. It should be about trade policy.
      - filoleg 4y ago
        Well, CCP is an extremely authoritarian state, and plenty of their constituents would love to be able to access western apps/services. The cool thing is that US, for all its faults, is not like that, and shouldn't aspire to be like that. If the US constituents want to access TikTok, they should be able to, unless it poses some actual danger. An example of such danger would be what led to the recent ban on Huawei equipment in the networking infra, which I fully support. But TikTok ain't it, and this is just pure "well those nasty guys did this nasty thing, so we are gonna do the same nasty thing because uhhhh they did that thing!"
        flappyeagle 4y ago
        Access to foreign goods and services is mediated by US foreign policy and trade policy. These are tools to be used to advantage our home country in the context of global competition. Aspiration needs to be balanced against the realities of dealing with a powerful adversary.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Is it possible to say anything positive or even neutral about China without a comment like this? Do you respond to every mention of the US with links of all the war crimes? Can you address the content of the comment you're responding to? Can you demonstrate that TikTok causes more harm than MSG?
    - throwaway29812 4y ago
      > Do you respond to every mention of the US with links of all the war crimes? If the private companies in question was complicit and potentially had a role in these crimes, yes I would. But to highlight your false equivalency, private industry in the US doesn't obey the US government, despite what the bizarre TwitterFiles PR campaign by right wing operatives is trying to tell you.
      - snapcaster 4y ago
        So what did TikTok do specifically?
        throwaway29812 4y ago
        That question is answered by what we know. TikTok has the ability (and have been caught) tracking specific American citizens (journalists) https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-accessed-user-data-company-probe-finds-11671734031 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-acc... TikTok as a Chinese company cannot refuse data requests on behalf of the Chinese government. TikTok's top security official resigned over this reality: https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/15/tiktoks-chief-security-officer-steps-down-amid-increased-scrutiny/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/15/tiktoks-chief-security-off... If you are naive enough to think an authoritarian government obsessed with digital surveillance would simply not use the largest data gathering tool on persons in the world, I don't know what to tell you. Considering what we know what they use their connections to Chinese companies for (theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents-link-huawei-uyghur-surveillance-projects-report-claims), it's fairly easy to connect the dots. People who are determined to not accept this reality won't expect it, i'm not going to play the "give me more proof" game if no proof will ever do.
- 1MachineElf 4y ago
  Fact #1: Certain dishes from specific Cantonese and Vietnamese restaurants will reliably give me a migraine and induce sleepiness. Fact #2: The existence of Fact #1 does not make me a racist. Everyone in the food industry invested in savory food has a motive for tainting safety research on MSG. It happened with the sugar industry [0]. Unlike sugar, MSG can hide behind lots of alternative names, like yeast extract, natural flavors, etc. so the truth is easier to obfuscate. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  How does a food ingredient have anything to do with a CCP surveillance app? Reach harder.
Aaronstotle 4y ago
Why should the US allow the CCP to have free rein over user's data when the CCP bans US Tech companies from operating in China for the same reason?
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Why shouldn't it be up to the user? Who asked the government? This is not how the Internet was supposed to work.
  - bena 4y ago
    Would you rather know if it was up to the government or not know? Because the case with TikTok is that we do not know what the Chinese government is going to do with whatever it collects from the app. Or even if they do. Or anything really. Now, while I think banning TikTok's traffic on the campus network is more of a stunt than anything worthwhile. I do see the argument from banning TikTok and just about any other non-essential app from government issued mobile hardware. That's an area where you'd want to have as little possible surface area exposed as you can.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      This is about banning access to TikTok for client devices of a campus network. It has nothing to do with banning the TikTok app on government-issued phones.
      - bena 4y ago
        I can imagine that that's the argument they're coming from. So comparing and contrasting the situations isn't out of line.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      If you don't like TikTok or are concerned about the Chinese government collecting information on you, those are excellent reasons for you not to use TikTok. But what do your preferences have to do with the freedom of other people?
throwaway29812 4y ago
Interesting comparison. What part of TikTok giving data on US persons to a government that uses digital surveillance to intern political enemies and undesirable ethnicities resembles a panic rooted in a religiously motivated paranoia? https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/tech/tiktok-china-data/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/tech/tiktok-china-data/index.... https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-accessed-user-data-company-probe-finds-11671734031 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-acc... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents-link-huawei-uyghur-surveillance-projects-report-claims https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents...
dylan604 4y ago
Just start playing a bunch of stuff backwards on TikTok and watch the whole backmasking debate rise from the ashes
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
It's not a panic when it's clear as day this app is used for surveillance purposes
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  So is Google Search, but few are calling for banning that.
  - xeromal 4y ago
    My parents peeping into my personal info and my neighbors down the street peeping into my personal info are two different things.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Sure, but neither Google nor Facebook are your parents. And a US citizen has much more to lose if their private data is being shared with the US government than with the Chinese government.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    Oh you're right.. Fuck it, I may as well just install a camera in my bathroom and live stream it. /s
  - throwaway29812 4y ago
    Did Google turn over data to a government to help track that person down, arrest them, and intern them in a political reeducation camps ?
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Almost certainly. They definitely turned over data to the US government to help them locate and connect people of interest (see Edward Snowden's revelations), some of which was very likely used to incarcerate people. Whether you consider incarceration equivalent to re-education is debatable. I find it quite likely that they also did this for other governments with less scruples about human rights. Either way, pretty sure no US citizens have been incarcerated in political re-education camps in the USA because of data shared with any government by either Google or Tik Tok or anyone else.
filoleg 4y ago
I absolutely despise how easily a lot of people on HN who were (justifiably) mocking the whole "think of the kids" (Patriot Act and many previous online censorhip attempts come to mind) can be baited into doing a full 180 and using variations of the exact same excuse to do the exact same thing.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  You realize Tik tok is owned by the CCP right?
  - filoleg 4y ago
    Yeah, and those opposing Patriot Act were clearly anti-american terrorist sympathizers, while those opposing CISPA and other online censorship bills were all just supporting crimes against children and were probably secret pedophiles themselves. /s Do you realize that core principles matter, regardless of who is on the other side, right? That's the whole point of them. Back in the day, the ones on the receiving end were those opposed to the Vietnam war, and they persevered despite the government and the popular sentiment being against them (being accused of hating the america, being communism sympathizers, etc.) If we didn't hold those core principles dear, regardless of those protestors being "anti-american", imo we would be worse off.
  - 7sidedmarble 4y ago
    > You realize Tik tok is owned by the CCP right? Absolutely amazing how 'national security' can just turn off all that personal liberties crap as long as the 'national threat' resonates along your political lines.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      And then people on HN and Reddit and Twitter and elsewhere gasp "how were people so short-sighted and stupid to support Patriot Act back then, unlike us, who are so smart and enlightened". The current situation is the prime example of how, except it isn't even comparable to the shock of 9/11 that people experienced back then.

The new satanic panic.

by VLM 4y ago

The new satanic panic.

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

tarotuser 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwaway29812 4y ago
Citing the very real and horrible history of ethnic discrimination to dismiss valid criticism of an authoritarian state is odd. It's also exactly what the CCP does. https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1464891227694850049 https://twitter.com/nathanlawkc/status/1464891227694850049 https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stopasianhate-chinese-diaspora-targeted-by-ccp-disinformation-campaign/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stopasianhate-chinese-dias...
- tarotuser 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Looking narrowly at Tiktok, it doesn't really capture any more than what Google/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Linkedin all would. And regulators and orgs are OK with those systems hoovering up all the data they can. But when Tiktok showed up, it's the "China Restaurant Syndrome" all over again, with breathless scares about the evil Chinese stealing our data! Yes, China is a communist party-led state, according to the CIA world factbook. Yes, they have terrible abuses in their own history. Yes, they tamp down dissent via black-bagging and other abuses. Yes, they have and continue to do a genocide on the Uighurs (Muslims) in the country. The US peoples (separate from the government) also has a pretty bad case of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment. It was only a few days ago that some 50ish year old white lady stabbed an Asian 18 year old Indiana University student on the city bus, while stating to police “it would be one less person to blow up our country”. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/us/indiana-university-student-stabbed-race/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/us/indiana-university-student... This isn't a case of whataboutism. What the Chinese government are doing to their own people is abhorrent, and likely worthy of being charged with crimes against humanity. AND people who hate Chinese for being Chinese heritage are also just as wrong. (And while we're at it, the USA has done its share of abhorrent stuff that it too should be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.) It may be simple to color every situation with black or white. But there's a great deal of nuance here. Why isn't UT-Austin also blocking Google or Facebook and related properties? Is that because they're USA based companies? Why only Tiktok? Because where I am, it appears to be founded in Sinophobia, pure and simple.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    He's trying to suggest that you are a Chinese agent who should be imprisoned. This is based on your "odd" opinions and your way of making arguments "exactly like the CCP does."
    - throwaway29812 4y ago
      I personally would care if my own rhetoric matched that of a government committing human rights atrocities against civilian populations on a scale not seen since WW2, but that's me. And your attempts to put words in my mouth about "Chinese agents" is showing your paranoia, and has nothing to do with me.
  - flappyeagle 4y ago
    I would be more sympathetic to this line of argument if the CCP weren't currently banning every single US-based social network. Reciprocation is the only sensible response. This shouldn't be about race, or even data. It should be about trade policy.
    - filoleg 4y ago
      Well, CCP is an extremely authoritarian state, and plenty of their constituents would love to be able to access western apps/services. The cool thing is that US, for all its faults, is not like that, and shouldn't aspire to be like that. If the US constituents want to access TikTok, they should be able to, unless it poses some actual danger. An example of such danger would be what led to the recent ban on Huawei equipment in the networking infra, which I fully support. But TikTok ain't it, and this is just pure "well those nasty guys did this nasty thing, so we are gonna do the same nasty thing because uhhhh they did that thing!"
      - flappyeagle 4y ago
        Access to foreign goods and services is mediated by US foreign policy and trade policy. These are tools to be used to advantage our home country in the context of global competition. Aspiration needs to be balanced against the realities of dealing with a powerful adversary.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  Is it possible to say anything positive or even neutral about China without a comment like this? Do you respond to every mention of the US with links of all the war crimes? Can you address the content of the comment you're responding to? Can you demonstrate that TikTok causes more harm than MSG?
  - throwaway29812 4y ago
    > Do you respond to every mention of the US with links of all the war crimes? If the private companies in question was complicit and potentially had a role in these crimes, yes I would. But to highlight your false equivalency, private industry in the US doesn't obey the US government, despite what the bizarre TwitterFiles PR campaign by right wing operatives is trying to tell you.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      So what did TikTok do specifically?
      - throwaway29812 4y ago
        That question is answered by what we know. TikTok has the ability (and have been caught) tracking specific American citizens (journalists) https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-accessed-user-data-company-probe-finds-11671734031 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-acc... TikTok as a Chinese company cannot refuse data requests on behalf of the Chinese government. TikTok's top security official resigned over this reality: https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/15/tiktoks-chief-security-officer-steps-down-amid-increased-scrutiny/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/15/tiktoks-chief-security-off... If you are naive enough to think an authoritarian government obsessed with digital surveillance would simply not use the largest data gathering tool on persons in the world, I don't know what to tell you. Considering what we know what they use their connections to Chinese companies for (theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents-link-huawei-uyghur-surveillance-projects-report-claims), it's fairly easy to connect the dots. People who are determined to not accept this reality won't expect it, i'm not going to play the "give me more proof" game if no proof will ever do.
1MachineElf 4y ago
Fact #1: Certain dishes from specific Cantonese and Vietnamese restaurants will reliably give me a migraine and induce sleepiness. Fact #2: The existence of Fact #1 does not make me a racist. Everyone in the food industry invested in savory food has a motive for tainting safety research on MSG. It happened with the sugar industry [0]. Unlike sugar, MSG can hide behind lots of alternative names, like yeast extract, natural flavors, etc. so the truth is easier to obfuscate. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...
mikrotikker 4y ago
How does a food ingredient have anything to do with a CCP surveillance app? Reach harder.

Aaronstotle 4y ago

Why should the US allow the CCP to have free rein over user's data when the CCP bans US Tech companies from operating in China for the same reason?

CamperBob2 4y ago
Why shouldn't it be up to the user? Who asked the government? This is not how the Internet was supposed to work.
- bena 4y ago
  Would you rather know if it was up to the government or not know? Because the case with TikTok is that we do not know what the Chinese government is going to do with whatever it collects from the app. Or even if they do. Or anything really. Now, while I think banning TikTok's traffic on the campus network is more of a stunt than anything worthwhile. I do see the argument from banning TikTok and just about any other non-essential app from government issued mobile hardware. That's an area where you'd want to have as little possible surface area exposed as you can.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    This is about banning access to TikTok for client devices of a campus network. It has nothing to do with banning the TikTok app on government-issued phones.
    - bena 4y ago
      I can imagine that that's the argument they're coming from. So comparing and contrasting the situations isn't out of line.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    If you don't like TikTok or are concerned about the Chinese government collecting information on you, those are excellent reasons for you not to use TikTok. But what do your preferences have to do with the freedom of other people?

throwaway29812 4y ago

Interesting comparison. What part of TikTok giving data on US persons to a government that uses digital surveillance to intern political enemies and undesirable ethnicities resembles a panic rooted in a religiously motivated paranoia? https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/tech/tiktok-china-data/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/tech/tiktok-china-data/index.... https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-accessed-user-data-company-probe-finds-11671734031 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-employees-improperly-acc... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents-link-huawei-uyghur-surveillance-projects-report-claims https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents...

dylan604 4y ago

Just start playing a bunch of stuff backwards on TikTok and watch the whole backmasking debate rise from the ashes

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

It's not a panic when it's clear as day this app is used for surveillance purposes

tsimionescu 4y ago
So is Google Search, but few are calling for banning that.
- xeromal 4y ago
  My parents peeping into my personal info and my neighbors down the street peeping into my personal info are two different things.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Sure, but neither Google nor Facebook are your parents. And a US citizen has much more to lose if their private data is being shared with the US government than with the Chinese government.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  Oh you're right.. Fuck it, I may as well just install a camera in my bathroom and live stream it. /s
- throwaway29812 4y ago
  Did Google turn over data to a government to help track that person down, arrest them, and intern them in a political reeducation camps ?
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Almost certainly. They definitely turned over data to the US government to help them locate and connect people of interest (see Edward Snowden's revelations), some of which was very likely used to incarcerate people. Whether you consider incarceration equivalent to re-education is debatable. I find it quite likely that they also did this for other governments with less scruples about human rights. Either way, pretty sure no US citizens have been incarcerated in political re-education camps in the USA because of data shared with any government by either Google or Tik Tok or anyone else.

filoleg 4y ago

I absolutely despise how easily a lot of people on HN who were (justifiably) mocking the whole "think of the kids" (Patriot Act and many previous online censorhip attempts come to mind) can be baited into doing a full 180 and using variations of the exact same excuse to do the exact same thing.

mikrotikker 4y ago
You realize Tik tok is owned by the CCP right?
- filoleg 4y ago
  Yeah, and those opposing Patriot Act were clearly anti-american terrorist sympathizers, while those opposing CISPA and other online censorship bills were all just supporting crimes against children and were probably secret pedophiles themselves. /s Do you realize that core principles matter, regardless of who is on the other side, right? That's the whole point of them. Back in the day, the ones on the receiving end were those opposed to the Vietnam war, and they persevered despite the government and the popular sentiment being against them (being accused of hating the america, being communism sympathizers, etc.) If we didn't hold those core principles dear, regardless of those protestors being "anti-american", imo we would be worse off.
- 7sidedmarble 4y ago
  > You realize Tik tok is owned by the CCP right? Absolutely amazing how 'national security' can just turn off all that personal liberties crap as long as the 'national threat' resonates along your political lines.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    And then people on HN and Reddit and Twitter and elsewhere gasp "how were people so short-sighted and stupid to support Patriot Act back then, unlike us, who are so smart and enlightened". The current situation is the prime example of how, except it isn't even comparable to the shock of 9/11 that people experienced back then.