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India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

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Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#181

Post by decon2 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #88
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

Covid-19 is biting extremely hard in India. Handling has been very poor so far. Stroking nationalism and pointing at foreign enemies in hard times is a tried and tested tactic.

I agree. Similar to using terrorist attacks to stoke nationalist feelings and distract from demonetization

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#182

Post by kalesh »

I have a conspiracy theory here. Alibaba & AliExpress are missing in that banned list. This seems more like a direct hit on ByteDance rather than China.

Facebook recently invested in Reliance Jio. There have been other investments from Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners etc.

TikTok is a big threat to FB, Instagram & YouTube. ByteDance apps TikTok, Vigo Video, Helo have around 300 million users in India. Facebook user base is 280 million. ByteDance had more apps planned for this year.

Banning BD is a big win for Facebook & Reliance. Government also get's to score a few points in this coronavirus mess.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#184

Post by thowme245 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #132
ppeetteerr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries, people trust their government to do the right thing. If the people in power believe that an app is a security risk, they ban it.

Then people are fucking morons. There are no two ways about it - abusable power will be abused. Hell "security risk" as a rationale is a vague layer to shield from criticism of policies. Since it is implicitly the magical special pleading wand known as "national security".

Easy to call people morons when more than 20% of the people are illiterate and support their government when it's acting in their interest.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#185

Post by foepys »

numpad0 wrote: post #86
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

Since this is HN, what’s the easiest way to roll your own brainwashing machine like Facebook or TikTok? I mean isn’t it going to be fun to plant your own ideas on people...

First, you need a few hundred million dollars.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#186

Post by tanilama »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #107

So if WeChat is basically the only messaging app allowed in China, and WeChat is not allowed to be used in India, is there any widely available platform that Indian citizens can use to chat with Chinese citizens? Making it impossible or at least very difficult to communicate with people in another country seems like it’s only going to make any divide even worse in the long term. Think of the fallout of Facebook filte…

Telegram....

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#187

Post by ciarannolan »

zuron7 wrote: post #152
jumelles wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And blocked in China.

Recently unblocked.

From the Wiki:

>WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, whose main social media service has been blocked in China since 2009.[208] In September 2017, security researchers reported to The New York Times that the WhatsApp service had been completely blocked in China.[209][210]

>According to Time, Sarsenbek Akaruli, 45, a veterinarian and trader from Ili, Xinjiang, was arrested in Xinjiang on November 2, 2017. As of November 2019, he is still in a detention camp. According to his wife Gulnur Kosdaulet, Akaruli was put in the camp after police found the banned messaging app WhatsApp on his cell phone. Kosdaulet, a citizen of neighboring Kazakhstan, has traveled to Xinjiang on four occasions to search for her husband but could not get help from friends in the Communist Party of China. Kosdaulet said of her friends, "Nobody wanted to risk being recorded on security cameras talking to me in case they ended up in the camps themselves."[211]

Are they still putting people in concentration camps for having an app on their phone?

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#188

Post by sdinsn »

sanmon3186 wrote: post #7

This ban is primarily to satiate anti-China sentiment. The global economy is too interwined with China. No country can afford to put a blanket ban on things that matter, without a viable plan-B.

And yet, China bans foreign apps.

God forbid other countries give China a taste of their own medicine.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#190

Post by kalesh »

chrisco255 wrote: post #15
baybal2 wrote: post #11

Almost all (except 1) are Chinese made. I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with this https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-has-intruded-423-metre...

Yeah: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-china/indians-hold-f... China is basically using these apps as spyware.

Our (India) data is already a public property due to security breaches in Aadhaar. What more can TikTok get?
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