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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

#201

Post by luckylion »

huhnmonster wrote: post #102
numpad0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Going from what currently seems to be popular: huge botnets that carefully try to curate "real" users from random accounts. Rolling your own (Network that is, like FB or TikTok) seems pretty unlikely regarding initial investments, user base etc.

I wonder what's stopping them. Initial investments is likely an issue for small, poor countries, but it can't be an issue for a country like India or Saudi Arabia, and the user base can be "convinced" to use the domestic thing by doing what India does: block foreign services.

It seems more sustainable and much easier to work with if you have your own network, and you don't rely on US-services looking away / Twitter tolerating your stuff.

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

#202

Post by kalesh »

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.

There is no such thing as ABSOLUTELY right. We don't even know what's actually going on at higher levels in the government. Why isn't Alibaba & AliExpress banned?

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

#203

Post by zpallin »

kumarvvr wrote: post #180
zpallin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, US is not about expansionism. ... wait, what? Since when? You don't think US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are about expansionism? Besides, the concept of expansionism includes economic expansion, not just border expansion.

Iraq and Afghanistan are ecomonic and geopolitical reasons as well. Economic expansion is slightly lesser degrading than border expansion. You may bankrupt a man, he will sulk and move on, but if you occupy his land, he will lash out.

It's still expansionism, and strange to say it's not.

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

#204

Post by raghava »

This news must be seen along with what happened early this year.

https://www.medianama.com/2020/01/223-the-great-indian-firew...

A Great Indian Firewall is shaping up. Now that the sentiment is all "anti-China!", people would celebrate instead of protesting the great firewall.

"Masterstroke!"* - Indian public.

*Basically, anything the current leader does, his PR team and his party spokespersons end up terming "unprecedented" / "masterstroke" / "genius move". Everything seems headed towards hardcore Soviet scheme of things.

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

#205

Post by mav3rick »

kalesh wrote: post #182

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…

Its more to do with the border skirmish.

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

#206

Post by ciarannolan »

blackoil wrote: post #105
chrisco255 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We in the U.S. should have partnered more closely with India in the first place. India is democratic and hold values closer to our own. The CCP not so much.

International Partnerships are not based on values or Democracy/*cracy. China moved to market based economy earlier then India and being an autocratic country the move was swift and efficient. US wanted to befriend China against Russia in 70s/80s. India started late and kept struggling internally because of the democratic values. If values were such important, Saudis wouldn't have been your best buddies.

>[not all] International Partnerships are not based on values or Democracy/*cracy

FTFY.

Think about the "special relationship" among the UK/US that is (definitely was) primarily based on values.

The Saudis are a pragmatic ally, not a values-based one. Both exist.

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

#207

Post by thowme245 »

decon2 wrote: post #181
mytailorisrich wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no Chinese aggression on the Indian border, they are not interning anyone, China is not a police state. It's all in people's dreams.

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

#208

Post by AlchemistCamp »

xster wrote: post #162
mathnmusic wrote: post #80

I think this sort of response was inevitable and will be seen in more and more nations. China bans most of the popular websites and apps (including Wikipedia). The most recent trigger was the border standoff between India and China where Indian citizens could see and read both governments' responses, but Chinese citizens were only told Chinese govt's talking points. This seems like yet another instance of the paradox…

Though if you apply your argument with rigor and reciprocity was in play, more countries should ban american social media which censors geopolitical rivals https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/12/us-pressure-social-media-...

Venezuela, Iran and Syria do censor US media and it's far more extensive than any censorship of foreign media within the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Iran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Syria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Venezuela

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

#209

Post by tshaddox »

saltedonion wrote: post #116
ianleeclark wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are YouTube algorithms open? I don't really see a difference here. Nation state vs. private corporation is different on paper, but I don't see why. They're both going to react to material stimuli to increase their standings.

You have a good point. But TikTok is much more risky, and as as such requires much more scrutiny given existing body of knowledge between how chinese social media / chat companies such as WeChat enforce government censorship and aid in propagating misinformation. This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government p…

> This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government propaganda.

Those people would be even more shocked by the extent to which this is true in the western world as well.

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

#210

Post by thowme245 »

raghava wrote: post #204

This news must be seen along with what happened early this year. https://www.medianama.com/2020/01/223-the-great-indian-firew... A Great Indian Firewall is shaping up. Now that the sentiment is all "anti-China!", people would celebrate instead of protesting the great firewall. "Masterstroke!"* - Indian public. *Basically, anything the current leader does, his PR team and his party spokespersons end up terming "unprec…

> This news must be seen along with what happened early this year.

And why shouldn't we see it in the context of Chinese aggression and TikTok's reported spying?

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