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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

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.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  "The Chinese Government is bad." "We should enact policy similar to what the Chinese Government does." Not sure if I agree.
  - throwaway29812 4y ago
    Oversimplifications to this degree aren't helpful. A specific policy should see a specific response, no matter who you think is "bad".
throwaway29812 4y ago
> it doesn't really capture any more than what Google/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Linkedin all would Yes it does. A lot more. > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/19/tiktok-has-been-accused-of-aggressive-data-harvesting-is-your-information-at-risk https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/19/tiktok-ha... > What’s different about the way TikTok collects data? > TikTok’s data collection methods include the ability to collect user contact lists, access calendars, scan hard drives including external ones and geolocate devices on an hourly basis. > “When the app is in use, it has significantly more permissions than it really needs,” said Robert Potter, co-CEO of Internet 2.0 and one of the editors of the report. > “It grants those permissions by default. When a user doesn’t give it permission … [TikTok] persistently asks. > “If you tell Facebook you don’t want to share something, it won’t ask you again. TikTok is much more aggressive.” > “The application can and will run successfully without any of this data being gathered. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting,” it concluded. And that's besides the point. All social media gathers data, it matters what they do with it. TikTok by law cannot refuse a data request from the CCP, a government that has used digital tracking to locate and imprison people. TikTok's CTO even quit over the fact that when he tried to stop TikTok from leaking data back to the CCP, he couldn't: 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 none of this matters to you, fine. If you trust an authoritarian government more than a democratic one, ok. Just don't pretend all actors in this play are the same.

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.
UncleMeat 4y ago
"The Chinese Government is bad." "We should enact policy similar to what the Chinese Government does." Not sure if I agree.
- throwaway29812 4y ago
  Oversimplifications to this degree aren't helpful. A specific policy should see a specific response, no matter who you think is "bad".

throwaway29812 4y ago

> it doesn't really capture any more than what Google/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Linkedin all would Yes it does. A lot more. > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/19/tiktok-has-been-accused-of-aggressive-data-harvesting-is-your-information-at-risk https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/19/tiktok-ha... > What’s different about the way TikTok collects data? > TikTok’s data collection methods include the ability to collect user contact lists, access calendars, scan hard drives including external ones and geolocate devices on an hourly basis. > “When the app is in use, it has significantly more permissions than it really needs,” said Robert Potter, co-CEO of Internet 2.0 and one of the editors of the report. > “It grants those permissions by default. When a user doesn’t give it permission … [TikTok] persistently asks. > “If you tell Facebook you don’t want to share something, it won’t ask you again. TikTok is much more aggressive.” > “The application can and will run successfully without any of this data being gathered. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting,” it concluded. And that's besides the point. All social media gathers data, it matters what they do with it. TikTok by law cannot refuse a data request from the CCP, a government that has used digital tracking to locate and imprison people. TikTok's CTO even quit over the fact that when he tried to stop TikTok from leaking data back to the CCP, he couldn't: 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 none of this matters to you, fine. If you trust an authoritarian government more than a democratic one, ok. Just don't pretend all actors in this play are the same.