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From a European perspective, I don't see TikTok as any different from American platforms. America has been caught spying on other countries and interfering with

by nicbou 4y ago

From a European perspective, I don't see TikTok as any different from American platforms. America has been caught spying on other countries and interfering with democracies before.

abirch 4y ago
Completely fair. Why not ban both?
- livelielife 4y ago
  counterpoint: why instead not ban anything? why ban at all? or did you mean why not ban TikTok AND america?? hmmm that's a more interesting proposition
  - abirch 4y ago
    Ban CCP spyware and US spyware. I'm not sure of a country I'd trust with my data, maybe a Swiss company.
    - kvn8888 4y ago
      Ban this, ban that. Lets ban everything I don't like! Lets ban the Statue of David even... It's a slippery slope
      - naikrovek 4y ago
        > It's a slippery slope no it's not. there's no such thing as a slippery slope. ban TikTok. it is a threat.
        livelielife 4y ago
        can I ban you? I feel threatened by your idiocy as exposed from your saying clearly false things like "there's no such thing as a slippery slope."
        naikrovek 4y ago
        there isn't. slippery slopes are a mythical problem. the outcome is either the result of a single decision (not a slope) or a result of multiple independent decisions, any one of which could stop the forecasted unintended consequence (not slippery). read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
        ToValueFunfetti 4y ago
        There's a section of that page dedicated to non-fallacious usage. If a decision makes a subsequent decision more likely, the former is a slippery slope to the latter. There is very little risk that I hurt myself doing cocaine responsibly once. The risk in doing cocaine is that if I do it once, I will be inclined to do it again and so on until I'm a broke addict. If slippery slopes were a mythical problem, I could just commit to doing cocaine only once. If you ban alcohol, private citizens will be more likely to decide to start a criminal enterprise to supply it outside of the law. If someone is running a profitable criminal enterprise, they'll be less concerned about breaking the law in general and more likely to branch out to violent crimes. If slippery slopes were a myth, we could institute prohibition without risking a massive expansion of the criminal underworld. I can't find it now, but I saw a comment on HN the other day where a UK citizen expressed how foolish Americans were for disliking their knife laws. Of course they should ban knives in public- knives account for the majority of homicides in their country. No one in the US could be convinced by that argument until effective gun control made it true. Instituting gun control makes it more likely for citizens and politicians to support knife control. (Whether this is worth it is another matter.) Independent decisions are a myth; every decision is made in the context of the ones that came before.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        The proposed law doesn't ban TikTok, it creates an open-ended, mostly unchecked Presidential authority that is not at all restricted to TikTok. It's not a slippery slope, true, its already the bottom one worries about a slippery slope leading to.
        CodexArcana 4y ago
        [dead]
        naikrovek 4y ago
        I didn't say "pass the proposed law" I said "ban TikTok" and that's what I meant.
        STM32F030R8 4y ago
        Who says there’s no such thing as a slippery slope? I can’t tell if your serious… this is dangerous levels of ignorance.
        naikrovek 4y ago
        no such thing as a slippery slope in this way. either the one decision destroys something (no slope into an uncontrollable outcome) or there are multiple decisions which appear as a single destructive decision (multiple independent decisions, rather than a slope into an uncontrollable outcome) even though any decision could have been the one to stop the unintended effect feared in the beginning. the outcome is always under control. maybe not by someone you favor, but it is always under control. it's literally called "The Slippery Slope Fallacy." "dangerous levels of ignorance" pfft
        CodexArcana 4y ago
        [dead]
- adfm 4y ago
  The Streisand effect? TikTok is sketchy AF, but you don’t ban it. Just have your buddies at Raytheon or Teledyne snatch up the old Vine assets and get cheugy with it.
marvin 4y ago
The question you should ask, as a fellow European, is whether reducing influence from the US government, a stable but somewhat flawed democracy, is worth the price of losing access to US social media. Think in geopolitical terms, with all this entails of long-term divergence in cultural values, trade and other forms of economic compatibility. And whether this judgement is significantly different from whether reducing influence from the CCP, an obviously totalitarian government that does not balk at overtly undermining of democratic values within your own borders, is worth losing access to TikTok.
- luispauloml 4y ago
  I am confused by your questions, honestly. Maybe my English skills are lacking, but could you clarify? Here: - Is it worth losing access to US social media to reduce the influence of the US government? - Is it worth losing access to TikTok to reduce the influence of the CCP? Are these the questions your are asking? I really want to understand your comment because I think the same as the parent commenter. And even though I don't understand what you're try saying, it seems like they are important questions I should ask myself.
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    Yes, that is what they are asking.
  - Initial_BP 4y ago
    I think the previous commenter was implying that one may be worse than the other and trying to get you to reevaluate the idea that you see banning tiktok to be the same as banning US social media because of the differences between the Chinese government and the US government.
    - marvin 4y ago
      Yes. Banning US social media will in my estimation be a net loss for Europe, whereas banning TikTok would be a net win. Subtle US interference and soft power, unpalatable though it may be, is not a real problem for European quality of life even in isolation, certainly not compared to the benefits of cultural exhcange & compatibility, and the following long-term trade and geopolitical cooperation with the US. Whereas interference and soft power from the CCP deliberately undermines multiple core values of our society. It’s pretty damn obvious. I guess to which degree Europe & the EU actually follows democratic values is a separate and very worthwhile discussion; maybe it’s closely related. Certainly looks like that from where I sit, at the northernmost border of the economic block.
beebmam 4y ago
There is a big difference. American platforms are not state owned and controlled, they are independently owned and operated by private individuals. TikTok is state owned and state controlled. On top of that, the communist Chinese state has consistently threatened its neighbors with violent annexation. I think it's a dishonest argument to claim that independent American platforms and state-owned Chinese platforms are equivalent.
- treeman79 4y ago
  US tech companies are not owned by the government, but they are heavily in bed with government.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    When you say "they are heavily in bed with government", can you articulate what you mean? Are you saying that the US government can compel these companies to take certain actions in the same way that the Chinese government can? Like, as in, being able to force the company to give up all of its users' private details? Or being able to force the company to inject malware into their software?
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      The US government can definitely compel US tech companies to give out information on users, they do regularly.
      - beebmam 4y ago
        What evidence do you have for this claim? Are you saying the they can request user data arbitrarily?
        kevviiinn 4y ago
        >But Facebook policy also allows for “emergency requests,” where the tech giant will voluntarily hand over data outside of the legal process when police claim a case involves death or “potential bodily harm.” Increasingly, law enforcement has taken advantage. In 2019, the government made 6,447 such “emergency requests,” compared to 6,000 in 2018 and 3,672 in 2017. Police submitted “preservation requests,” which operate outside of the legal process and preserve user data for 90 days, for more than 110,000 accounts in 2019. https://onezero.medium.com/cops-are-increasingly-requesting-data-from-facebook-and-you-probably-wont-get-notified-if-they-5b7a2297df17 https://onezero.medium.com/cops-are-increasingly-requesting-... I'm surprised you haven't heard of this by now, its been known for years. Of course you can say police will only use it in "real emergencies" but you're not the one defining what a "real emergency" is and cops lie constantly just to get information
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
So do I (French). But I realize that we are not really powerful for a country like the US. Even as the EU. If the US withdrew from NATO we would be in theoretical trouble. If US would like to hurt us economically, our retaliation capacities are weak. All in all we unfortunately depend on the US and have to play along.
- finikytou 4y ago
  we were fine before sarkozy let us back in. actually it has been worse by all accounts after joining back...
- palata 4y ago
  If only the EU could be more united. But of course that's not in the interest of the US...
  - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
    This is not always a matter of not being united - it can be the sheer difference in power. When Donald Trump decided to punish Iran he forced EU companies to retract from Iran as well (despite having contracts there). If we were to not comply, there would be sanctions against EU companies operating in the US. We asked the EU Commission for help on that but ultimately the EU did not have enough weight. So we got off Iran. Note that I am not addressing the human/ethical aspects of operating in Iran, just the economic imbalance between the US and EU
gspencley 4y ago
Then advocate for banning American social media companies in European countries. This type of "whataboutism" keeps coming up every time the news breaks about the USA banning or restricting Chinese tech companies. It misses the point. The point is that EVERY country needs to concern itself with its own national security, local laws and regulations. I wish that every country would embrace freedom, free trade and the open Internet and that we could all just get along ... but those are my personal value judgments being applied. In the current world of foreign relations, countries are going to act according to their own national interests, whatever those happen to be. Each will pretend that it is the one taking the "right" position, and each might behave hypocritically in the moment. The question of who is "right" and who is "wrong" will vary according to your own set of moral principals and beliefs.
- palata 4y ago
  This is not whataboutism. It is a European saying that from their point of view, the tracking in TikTok is not worse than the tracking by the US Big Data. They are not saying that it should or should not be banned. And I do agree: I don't feel more threatened by TikTok than by Big Data.
xii23 4y ago
You don't even need to have an European perspective to realize this. Do you think Facebook, a private company, has any problem with selling (American) data to the CCCP?
- CodexArcana 4y ago
  [dead]
nicbou 4y ago
Adding to my previous comment: If I lived in the US, I'd be far more afraid of how American companies and government entities use my data. It's a far more real and immediate threat.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  Yes it's a fine worry to have on a personal level, but tiktok is a threat at the national level as it threatens the very culture and system of democracy.

by nicbou 4y ago

From a European perspective, I don't see TikTok as any different from American platforms. America has been caught spying on other countries and interfering with democracies before.

abirch 4y ago

Completely fair. Why not ban both?

livelielife 4y ago
counterpoint: why instead not ban anything? why ban at all? or did you mean why not ban TikTok AND america?? hmmm that's a more interesting proposition
- abirch 4y ago
  Ban CCP spyware and US spyware. I'm not sure of a country I'd trust with my data, maybe a Swiss company.
  - kvn8888 4y ago
    Ban this, ban that. Lets ban everything I don't like! Lets ban the Statue of David even... It's a slippery slope
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      > It's a slippery slope no it's not. there's no such thing as a slippery slope. ban TikTok. it is a threat.
      - livelielife 4y ago
        can I ban you? I feel threatened by your idiocy as exposed from your saying clearly false things like "there's no such thing as a slippery slope."
        naikrovek 4y ago
        there isn't. slippery slopes are a mythical problem. the outcome is either the result of a single decision (not a slope) or a result of multiple independent decisions, any one of which could stop the forecasted unintended consequence (not slippery). read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
        ToValueFunfetti 4y ago
        There's a section of that page dedicated to non-fallacious usage. If a decision makes a subsequent decision more likely, the former is a slippery slope to the latter. There is very little risk that I hurt myself doing cocaine responsibly once. The risk in doing cocaine is that if I do it once, I will be inclined to do it again and so on until I'm a broke addict. If slippery slopes were a mythical problem, I could just commit to doing cocaine only once. If you ban alcohol, private citizens will be more likely to decide to start a criminal enterprise to supply it outside of the law. If someone is running a profitable criminal enterprise, they'll be less concerned about breaking the law in general and more likely to branch out to violent crimes. If slippery slopes were a myth, we could institute prohibition without risking a massive expansion of the criminal underworld. I can't find it now, but I saw a comment on HN the other day where a UK citizen expressed how foolish Americans were for disliking their knife laws. Of course they should ban knives in public- knives account for the majority of homicides in their country. No one in the US could be convinced by that argument until effective gun control made it true. Instituting gun control makes it more likely for citizens and politicians to support knife control. (Whether this is worth it is another matter.) Independent decisions are a myth; every decision is made in the context of the ones that came before.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        The proposed law doesn't ban TikTok, it creates an open-ended, mostly unchecked Presidential authority that is not at all restricted to TikTok. It's not a slippery slope, true, its already the bottom one worries about a slippery slope leading to.
        CodexArcana 4y ago
        [dead]
        naikrovek 4y ago
        I didn't say "pass the proposed law" I said "ban TikTok" and that's what I meant.
      - STM32F030R8 4y ago
        Who says there’s no such thing as a slippery slope? I can’t tell if your serious… this is dangerous levels of ignorance.
        naikrovek 4y ago
        no such thing as a slippery slope in this way. either the one decision destroys something (no slope into an uncontrollable outcome) or there are multiple decisions which appear as a single destructive decision (multiple independent decisions, rather than a slope into an uncontrollable outcome) even though any decision could have been the one to stop the unintended effect feared in the beginning. the outcome is always under control. maybe not by someone you favor, but it is always under control. it's literally called "The Slippery Slope Fallacy." "dangerous levels of ignorance" pfft
      - CodexArcana 4y ago
        [dead]
adfm 4y ago
The Streisand effect? TikTok is sketchy AF, but you don’t ban it. Just have your buddies at Raytheon or Teledyne snatch up the old Vine assets and get cheugy with it.

marvin 4y ago

The question you should ask, as a fellow European, is whether reducing influence from the US government, a stable but somewhat flawed democracy, is worth the price of losing access to US social media. Think in geopolitical terms, with all this entails of long-term divergence in cultural values, trade and other forms of economic compatibility. And whether this judgement is significantly different from whether reducing influence from the CCP, an obviously totalitarian government that does not balk at overtly undermining of democratic values within your own borders, is worth losing access to TikTok.

luispauloml 4y ago
I am confused by your questions, honestly. Maybe my English skills are lacking, but could you clarify? Here: - Is it worth losing access to US social media to reduce the influence of the US government? - Is it worth losing access to TikTok to reduce the influence of the CCP? Are these the questions your are asking? I really want to understand your comment because I think the same as the parent commenter. And even though I don't understand what you're try saying, it seems like they are important questions I should ask myself.
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  Yes, that is what they are asking.
- Initial_BP 4y ago
  I think the previous commenter was implying that one may be worse than the other and trying to get you to reevaluate the idea that you see banning tiktok to be the same as banning US social media because of the differences between the Chinese government and the US government.
  - marvin 4y ago
    Yes. Banning US social media will in my estimation be a net loss for Europe, whereas banning TikTok would be a net win. Subtle US interference and soft power, unpalatable though it may be, is not a real problem for European quality of life even in isolation, certainly not compared to the benefits of cultural exhcange & compatibility, and the following long-term trade and geopolitical cooperation with the US. Whereas interference and soft power from the CCP deliberately undermines multiple core values of our society. It’s pretty damn obvious. I guess to which degree Europe & the EU actually follows democratic values is a separate and very worthwhile discussion; maybe it’s closely related. Certainly looks like that from where I sit, at the northernmost border of the economic block.

beebmam 4y ago

There is a big difference. American platforms are not state owned and controlled, they are independently owned and operated by private individuals. TikTok is state owned and state controlled. On top of that, the communist Chinese state has consistently threatened its neighbors with violent annexation. I think it's a dishonest argument to claim that independent American platforms and state-owned Chinese platforms are equivalent.

treeman79 4y ago
US tech companies are not owned by the government, but they are heavily in bed with government.
- beebmam 4y ago
  When you say "they are heavily in bed with government", can you articulate what you mean? Are you saying that the US government can compel these companies to take certain actions in the same way that the Chinese government can? Like, as in, being able to force the company to give up all of its users' private details? Or being able to force the company to inject malware into their software?
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    The US government can definitely compel US tech companies to give out information on users, they do regularly.
    - beebmam 4y ago
      What evidence do you have for this claim? Are you saying the they can request user data arbitrarily?
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        >But Facebook policy also allows for “emergency requests,” where the tech giant will voluntarily hand over data outside of the legal process when police claim a case involves death or “potential bodily harm.” Increasingly, law enforcement has taken advantage. In 2019, the government made 6,447 such “emergency requests,” compared to 6,000 in 2018 and 3,672 in 2017. Police submitted “preservation requests,” which operate outside of the legal process and preserve user data for 90 days, for more than 110,000 accounts in 2019. https://onezero.medium.com/cops-are-increasingly-requesting-data-from-facebook-and-you-probably-wont-get-notified-if-they-5b7a2297df17 https://onezero.medium.com/cops-are-increasingly-requesting-... I'm surprised you haven't heard of this by now, its been known for years. Of course you can say police will only use it in "real emergencies" but you're not the one defining what a "real emergency" is and cops lie constantly just to get information

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

So do I (French). But I realize that we are not really powerful for a country like the US. Even as the EU. If the US withdrew from NATO we would be in theoretical trouble. If US would like to hurt us economically, our retaliation capacities are weak. All in all we unfortunately depend on the US and have to play along.

finikytou 4y ago
we were fine before sarkozy let us back in. actually it has been worse by all accounts after joining back...
palata 4y ago
If only the EU could be more united. But of course that's not in the interest of the US...
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  This is not always a matter of not being united - it can be the sheer difference in power. When Donald Trump decided to punish Iran he forced EU companies to retract from Iran as well (despite having contracts there). If we were to not comply, there would be sanctions against EU companies operating in the US. We asked the EU Commission for help on that but ultimately the EU did not have enough weight. So we got off Iran. Note that I am not addressing the human/ethical aspects of operating in Iran, just the economic imbalance between the US and EU

gspencley 4y ago

Then advocate for banning American social media companies in European countries. This type of "whataboutism" keeps coming up every time the news breaks about the USA banning or restricting Chinese tech companies. It misses the point. The point is that EVERY country needs to concern itself with its own national security, local laws and regulations. I wish that every country would embrace freedom, free trade and the open Internet and that we could all just get along ... but those are my personal value judgments being applied. In the current world of foreign relations, countries are going to act according to their own national interests, whatever those happen to be. Each will pretend that it is the one taking the "right" position, and each might behave hypocritically in the moment. The question of who is "right" and who is "wrong" will vary according to your own set of moral principals and beliefs.

palata 4y ago
This is not whataboutism. It is a European saying that from their point of view, the tracking in TikTok is not worse than the tracking by the US Big Data. They are not saying that it should or should not be banned. And I do agree: I don't feel more threatened by TikTok than by Big Data.

xii23 4y ago

You don't even need to have an European perspective to realize this. Do you think Facebook, a private company, has any problem with selling (American) data to the CCCP?

CodexArcana 4y ago
[dead]

nicbou 4y ago

Adding to my previous comment: If I lived in the US, I'd be far more afraid of how American companies and government entities use my data. It's a far more real and immediate threat.

mikrotikker 4y ago
Yes it's a fine worry to have on a personal level, but tiktok is a threat at the national level as it threatens the very culture and system of democracy.