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As a European I couldn't care less about Tiktok spying on me. US companies and NSA do the same. My problem is the unfair competition of Chinese app devs having

• mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Especially when you see the difference of what TikTok shows Russian youth versus Ukrainian youth…
  • viscountchocula 2y ago
    Can you elaborate?
    • mensetmanusman 2y ago
      It’s useful to Russia that the youth aren’t seeing the horrors of war on TikTok like the Ukrainian’s youth are. There is geofenced content control.
• Eji1700 2y ago
  People always treat it as hyperbole but I really think that the point of this is being missed. I don't like when anyone spies on people and think we need much much better data privacy laws for the modern generation. That said, there's a large difference between the US/Europe spying on each other, and a country like China, who (along with the US and Europe) has plans to go to war should they deem it necessary. I will not be shocked if this generation is remembered as the biggest security leak in history.
  • energy123 2y ago
    If we weren't in the Second Cold War against an autocratic near-peer rival, I would be more sympathetic to this "both sides are the same" argument. But given the context, both sides aren't the same as far as my security is concerned. I don't want this rival to control the most powerful information warfare tool ever invented.
• baxtr 2y ago
  As a European, I do care a lot. I don’t want to be spied on in general. No matter by whom.
• lnxg33k1 2y ago
  As a European, I agree with US being cautious about TikTok, you're going to get a bunch of data about people who are young, taking things out of context can make them blackmailable in the future, whenever they're in charge of something. What I don't understand is this hatred of Trump, he was the first one to consider China an enemy, I remember when he started with the tariffs, the whole democratic party went crazy. Trump has been right about many things that now are like normality. I remember the first act of Biden was to stop a railroad strike and causing a environmental disaster the day after
  • shawnz 2y ago
    Trump is a hot headed contrarian and Biden is a people pleaser who maintains the status quo and doesn't rock the boat. That doesn't mean that Trump is wrong to worry about China and it doesn't mean that Democrats think China's dominance is A-OK either.
    • lnxg33k1 2y ago
      I am more keen to consider democrats as contrarian, I don't think they've any idea, rather than "beat Trump", "Trump bad", "There will be no democracy if Trump wins elections"
      • OKRainbowKid 2y ago
        As another European, it seems to me like you haven't given much attention to internal US politics. Trump has (at the very least) repeatedly questioned some foundational principles of democracy. I recommend you check out "Project 2025" - if this prospect doesn't make you worry about the political future of the most powerful nation on earth, then we have a fundamentally different understanding of what a healthy democracy looks like. Democrats (and I don't mean the party) should be worried about Trump and what comes with him.
• doe_eyes 2y ago
  > As a European I couldn't care less about Tiktok spying on me. US companies and NSA do the same. I don't understand this argument. Are you OK with US companies or the NSA doing it? How does one group doing something bad justify not caring about another group doing it? Not to mention, the US is an allied country whose interests overwhelmingly align with the interests of most of Europe. Conceptually, surveillance sucks - but if these are my only choices, I'd much rather have a dossier with the NSA than with their Chinese counterpart.
  • blackoil 2y ago
    > How does one group doing something bad justify not caring about another group doing it? If you have two choices and both behave same on some principle, trying to have a principled stand is futile. > I'd much rather have a dossier with the NSA than with their Chinese counterpart. That's a naive view. For Italians, dossier with Giorgia Meloni or her friends can be far more dangerous than with Xi. By proximity and relevance, they are more likely to be vocal about/active in Italian politics. Also, Italian govt. has far more power to influence their lives than Chinese govt. has. As an Indian, I'll be far more concerned about how much I am tracked by Modi/Indian police/agencies than the Chinese counterparts.
• AlchemistCamp 2y ago
  > ”As a European I couldn't care less about Tiktok spying on me.” That seems insane given that China has been engaged in a proxy war against Europe (via Russia) for the past couple of years.
  • aurareturn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • lazystar 2y ago
      your hyperbole does not contribute to this conversation; it only makes China look worse. please attempt to control your emotional connection to your home country before posting.
      • aurareturn 2y ago
        On HN, if not automatic china bad, it must mean my home country is china. It has come to this. I think TikTok is sorely needed. Maybe HN folks need to use TikTok more since according to them, it’s a machine for CCP propaganda. Let’s get more balanced views here.
    • AlchemistCamp 2y ago
      To be clear, I’m a big admirer of China on a cultural level and I do read and listen to Chinese media (though not TikTok/Douyin). I certainly don’t blame China for divisions in the Middle East and I don’t think I've ever seem that claim here. Those divisions are ancient. Supporting Russia’s revanchist war on Ukraine has undeniably hurt the ability of many western countries, especially in Europe to trust Chinese controlled social media or infrastructure, though.
      • aurareturn 2y ago
        >Supporting Russia’s revanchist war on Ukraine has undeniably hurt the ability of many western countries I don't think China "supports" Russia's war efforts like how the US is sending billions and weapons to Ukraine. They're buying cheap oil (just like India) and ignoring the call for sanctions on Russia from the same entities that have sanctioned China. Why should China follow those sanctions? It makes no sense for China. After all, it's the G7 that has excluded China, India, and other BRICS members. It's G7 that has set out to slow China's growth and their rise in high value exports such as tech. So why should China then follow G7 sanctions? Some perspective is needed. Blame should be put solely on the entities who started the war.
• roenxi 2y ago
  It is worth pausing for a moment to ask who these policies really favour though. I'd contend that the reason why China blocks Western media access is because they want their people to be poorly informed, especially about the weaknesses of the CCP. The policy creates weaknesses in China and makes it easier for them to descend into groupthink. AFAIK they haven't made radical changes to prevent something like the Great Leap recurring, they still have a dangerously centralised system that could cannibalise itself in a 5-year groupthink episode. The reason the West generally doesn't adopt policies like that is because we believe in letting people speak the truth to power and that generally gives us an advantage because we have more overall perspectives and are more likely to organise around the truth. It is challenging to suppress discussions about our own weaknesses and we are aware of where the major problem points are likely to be. Mimicking China's policies restricting access to markets is probably a loss for us. We want asymmetry here, it gives us an advantage. Given that we seem to have/be giving up the industrial edge it is worth holding on to what we have left.
  • aprilthird2021 2y ago
    I haven't heard this articulated yet but it's very convincing. Thanks for sharing
  • wmf 2y ago
    Market access and free speech don't work the same way and I'm not sure why you're conflating them.
    • rfoo 2y ago
      Because if not for a free speech issue you can have market access, today.
      • AmericanChopper 2y ago
        Well this absolutely isn't true. Foreign access to the Chinese market is incredibly restricted. Most businesses require a local partner to operate in China, the capital requirements are incredibly high, corruption is through the roof, and when the local partner or the government rip you off, you absolutely will not have equal protection under the law.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• dathinab 2y ago
  but they don't just spy on you they use that information to manipulate you as much as they can which is most people is a lot more then they think it is like a _huge lot more_, humans are fundamentally quite manipulable especially teens, the main target audience of TickTock well they also can use the information to idk. know exactly when it's the best time to kitnap a kit of someone they want to blackmail, it's not that china hasn't done stuff like that more then just one or two times
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I care a lot about TikTok spying on me because they can then use that information to manipulate speech in our society to serve the needs of the CCP. Speech and exchange of ideas is foundational for democracy and if it is corrupted through hard to detect algorithmic manipulation, it can be destabilizing. I ALSO think the lack of reciprocal market access and the differences between TikTok (its equivalent) in China and the US version are concerning. It’s telling that children in China have caps on how much time they can spend in the app, but the US version doesn’t have any such thing.
• appplication 2y ago
  This is a fundamental misunderstanding. TikTok isn’t being banned by the US government because it’s spying on Americans. It’s being banned because it can be used as an incredibly effective mass propaganda machine. If a foreign adversary directly controls the media your citizens consume, that is a pretty huge risk.