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But neither of those problems are addressed by a TikTok ban. If privacy legislation was enacted and it banned TikTok as a result the conversation would be very

But neither of those problems are addressed by a TikTok ban. If privacy legislation was enacted and it banned TikTok as a result the conversation would be very different.

ethbr1 2y ago
Forcing TikTok to divest from mainland Chinese control absolutely solves the second, in TikTok's case. That there exist other problems is not a justification for inaction on this particular problem.
- trescenzi 2y ago
  If you consider TikTok a “Security-sensitive system” that seems to be such a broad category as to be useless. I guess we should stop using any and all Chinese produced software systems then? Which isn’t an unreasonable opinion but again it feels like a different conversation than “ban TikTok”.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    You don't consider a massively deployed app, on a majority of mobile devices, via which blackmailable individual profiles can be assembled "security-sensitive"? I'd absolutely consider Meta to be security sensitive. And Microsoft. And Google. And Netflix.
    - lossolo 2y ago
      > blackmailable individual profiles can be assembled What does that even mean in this context? Have you used TikTok before?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > What does that even mean in this context? TikTok's CSAM problem is well documented [1]. Disposable idiots are a necessary asset for any intelligence operation. Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show" [2]. [1] https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tiktok-under-federal-investigation-for-child-sexual-abuse-material-csam/ https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tiktok-under-fede... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam
        lossolo 2y ago
        > TikTok's CSAM problem is well documented [1]. Your link doesn't say anything about TikTok? > Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show" What? How is that connected to "blackmailable individual profiles"? How can they blackmail me? Please explain. You mean like "I see you watch cat videos so now go revolt against your government or I will tell everyone you watch cat videos?", this is the blackmail part?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How can they blackmail me? Please explain They may not be able to. But it sure would be helpful to have a list of people in likely financial distress with addresses close to military installations. Such a person may not ask questions if given a job offer from an influencer or whatever to take selfies around town.
        lossolo 2y ago
        > people in likely financial distress with addresses close to military installations Sure, that's possible, but I think it's a bit of a stretched argument. Can't you target people like that on Facebook with ads? Can't you buy data about these people from U.S. data brokers? Can't you already access this data publicly because people share it openly on social media?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Can't you target people like that on Facebook with ads? Can't you buy data about these people from U.S. data brokers? Ads have too low of an SNR--you'll blow your cover before getting anything useful. Buying works, but (a) you'd need to be careful about hiding your intentions and (b) it's never going to be as high fidelity as the direct data stream. (Think of the amount of unique data they got from their copy-paste hijacking alone [1].) Having the data yourself means you can silently query high-fidelity real-time data on a third of the American population. That's difficult to replicate. Again, if you need a familiar bogeyman, consider what the NSA would ask Meta to do if Instagram weren't banned in China. [1] https://lifehacker.com/is-tiktok-really-recording-everything-you-copy-in-ios-1844165091 https://lifehacker.com/is-tiktok-really-recording-everything...
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      I'm curious what netflix behavior you imagine would ever be blackmailable? "You watched Red One, and we'll tell you employer and wife about it unless you ..." How does this work?
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        Frequency of datapoints is the main difference between Netflix and TikTok. If TikTok can infer something about a person, then Netflix can also infer it.
        PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        That's like saying that if an LLM can function by being trailed on 10B words, it can work by being trained on 10k words.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Except they've just spun up different apps accessing the same data, and also people are flocking to alternatives even more connected to China's Intel apparatus than TikTok allegedly was, because fundamentally a shit ton of Americans don't trust their government. And IMO, they're right not to. We could shut all of this shit down if we actually wanted to, but that means going after American companies too, which they won't. They want to have the cake and eat it too: outlaw foreign spying on American users without outlawing domestic spying on American users. They want to make it so China can't do exactly what social media et al does in America, to Americans. Americans are not stupid: they are perceiving this. They know they are being manipulated, perhaps by China, perhaps by the U.S., definitely by dozens if not hundreds of private enterprises, likely all fucking three. On one hand, the American government's priority is the security of America and her citizens, but on the other, we have an entire segment of the economy now utterly dependent on being able to violate citizen's privacy at will and at scale. Surveillance capitalism and foreign surveillance are effectively interoperable. You can't kill one without killing the other. Edit: And even more on the personal front, for your every day Joe: this is completely stake-less. "Oh China is spying on me!" big fucking deal. The NSA was caught spying on us decades ago, and by all accounts, they still are. Google AdSense probably knows my resting heart rate and rectal measurements that it will use to try and sell me the new flavor of Oreo. We accept as a given that our privacy is basically long gone, not only did that boat leave the pier, it sailed to the mid-Atlantic, sunk, and a bunch of billionaires imploded trying to check out the wreckage in a poorly made submarine. I don't fucking care if China is spying on me too, that's just a fact of my online existence.
  - airstrike 2y ago
    People are not flocking to other more Chinese apps. A handful of people are. You're not seeing new signups to Instagram or YouTube because a lot of people who are on TikTok already had accounts on those platforms.
    - VectorMath 2y ago
      Little Red Book/RedNote is the #1 app on the App Store, followed by Lemon8 at #2. Duolingo reported a 216% increase in parties interested in learning Mandarin[0], people are actively boycotting the likes of Meta/Google[1], and many content creators have set up shop there (albeit with a much smaller following)[2]. It’d be disingenuous to write off these effects. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in-u-s-users-learning-chinese-amid-tiktok-ban-and-move-to-rednote/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in... [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-facebook-instagram-users-delete-accounts-policy-changes-rcna187480 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-faceb... [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-refugees-flock-chinas-rednote-2025-01-14/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-...
Aunche 2y ago
Privacy legislation only works because companies have to worry about whistleblowers leaking violations to the media, which would cause them to be fined. China can disappear any whistleblowers and has full control over their media. If CCP compromising TikTok is proven despite this, then it's over for TikTok anyways and fines are irrelevant.

But neither of those problems are addressed by a TikTok ban. If privacy legislation was enacted and it banned TikTok as a result the conversation would be very different.

ethbr1 2y ago

Forcing TikTok to divest from mainland Chinese control absolutely solves the second, in TikTok's case. That there exist other problems is not a justification for inaction on this particular problem.

trescenzi 2y ago
If you consider TikTok a “Security-sensitive system” that seems to be such a broad category as to be useless. I guess we should stop using any and all Chinese produced software systems then? Which isn’t an unreasonable opinion but again it feels like a different conversation than “ban TikTok”.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  You don't consider a massively deployed app, on a majority of mobile devices, via which blackmailable individual profiles can be assembled "security-sensitive"? I'd absolutely consider Meta to be security sensitive. And Microsoft. And Google. And Netflix.
  - lossolo 2y ago
    > blackmailable individual profiles can be assembled What does that even mean in this context? Have you used TikTok before?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > What does that even mean in this context? TikTok's CSAM problem is well documented [1]. Disposable idiots are a necessary asset for any intelligence operation. Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show" [2]. [1] https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tiktok-under-federal-investigation-for-child-sexual-abuse-material-csam/ https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tiktok-under-fede... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam
      - lossolo 2y ago
        > TikTok's CSAM problem is well documented [1]. Your link doesn't say anything about TikTok? > Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show" What? How is that connected to "blackmailable individual profiles"? How can they blackmail me? Please explain. You mean like "I see you watch cat videos so now go revolt against your government or I will tell everyone you watch cat videos?", this is the blackmail part?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > How can they blackmail me? Please explain They may not be able to. But it sure would be helpful to have a list of people in likely financial distress with addresses close to military installations. Such a person may not ask questions if given a job offer from an influencer or whatever to take selfies around town.
        lossolo 2y ago
        > people in likely financial distress with addresses close to military installations Sure, that's possible, but I think it's a bit of a stretched argument. Can't you target people like that on Facebook with ads? Can't you buy data about these people from U.S. data brokers? Can't you already access this data publicly because people share it openly on social media?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Can't you target people like that on Facebook with ads? Can't you buy data about these people from U.S. data brokers? Ads have too low of an SNR--you'll blow your cover before getting anything useful. Buying works, but (a) you'd need to be careful about hiding your intentions and (b) it's never going to be as high fidelity as the direct data stream. (Think of the amount of unique data they got from their copy-paste hijacking alone [1].) Having the data yourself means you can silently query high-fidelity real-time data on a third of the American population. That's difficult to replicate. Again, if you need a familiar bogeyman, consider what the NSA would ask Meta to do if Instagram weren't banned in China. [1] https://lifehacker.com/is-tiktok-really-recording-everything-you-copy-in-ios-1844165091 https://lifehacker.com/is-tiktok-really-recording-everything...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    I'm curious what netflix behavior you imagine would ever be blackmailable? "You watched Red One, and we'll tell you employer and wife about it unless you ..." How does this work?
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Frequency of datapoints is the main difference between Netflix and TikTok. If TikTok can infer something about a person, then Netflix can also infer it.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        That's like saying that if an LLM can function by being trailed on 10B words, it can work by being trained on 10k words.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Except they've just spun up different apps accessing the same data, and also people are flocking to alternatives even more connected to China's Intel apparatus than TikTok allegedly was, because fundamentally a shit ton of Americans don't trust their government. And IMO, they're right not to. We could shut all of this shit down if we actually wanted to, but that means going after American companies too, which they won't. They want to have the cake and eat it too: outlaw foreign spying on American users without outlawing domestic spying on American users. They want to make it so China can't do exactly what social media et al does in America, to Americans. Americans are not stupid: they are perceiving this. They know they are being manipulated, perhaps by China, perhaps by the U.S., definitely by dozens if not hundreds of private enterprises, likely all fucking three. On one hand, the American government's priority is the security of America and her citizens, but on the other, we have an entire segment of the economy now utterly dependent on being able to violate citizen's privacy at will and at scale. Surveillance capitalism and foreign surveillance are effectively interoperable. You can't kill one without killing the other. Edit: And even more on the personal front, for your every day Joe: this is completely stake-less. "Oh China is spying on me!" big fucking deal. The NSA was caught spying on us decades ago, and by all accounts, they still are. Google AdSense probably knows my resting heart rate and rectal measurements that it will use to try and sell me the new flavor of Oreo. We accept as a given that our privacy is basically long gone, not only did that boat leave the pier, it sailed to the mid-Atlantic, sunk, and a bunch of billionaires imploded trying to check out the wreckage in a poorly made submarine. I don't fucking care if China is spying on me too, that's just a fact of my online existence.
- airstrike 2y ago
  People are not flocking to other more Chinese apps. A handful of people are. You're not seeing new signups to Instagram or YouTube because a lot of people who are on TikTok already had accounts on those platforms.
  - VectorMath 2y ago
    Little Red Book/RedNote is the #1 app on the App Store, followed by Lemon8 at #2. Duolingo reported a 216% increase in parties interested in learning Mandarin[0], people are actively boycotting the likes of Meta/Google[1], and many content creators have set up shop there (albeit with a much smaller following)[2]. It’d be disingenuous to write off these effects. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in-u-s-users-learning-chinese-amid-tiktok-ban-and-move-to-rednote/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in... [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-facebook-instagram-users-delete-accounts-policy-changes-rcna187480 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-faceb... [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-refugees-flock-chinas-rednote-2025-01-14/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-...

Aunche 2y ago

Privacy legislation only works because companies have to worry about whistleblowers leaking violations to the media, which would cause them to be fined. China can disappear any whistleblowers and has full control over their media. If CCP compromising TikTok is proven despite this, then it's over for TikTok anyways and fines are irrelevant.