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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

#231

Post by josephv »

azinman2 wrote: post #122
ianleeclark wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's just opportunism, then? Condemn the other; refuse reflection. Or am I misunderstanding you?

I can’t say what India’s motivation is for sure. Maybe there’s a credible threat in a way that Facebook isn’t. Maybe it’s just anti-Chinese fervor. But saying anything outside of India should be treated the same is not taking into account geo-politics and individual country’s behaviors.

Coordination with the US means jobs and economic opportunity for both sides. Coordination with China means gunfights and border tension.

It's pretty simple if you don't try to extrapolate everything to logical extrems. India and US is ally, India and China is rival. Full stop, it ends there. KISS

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

#232

Post by ehsankia »

systemvoltage wrote: post #177
ngold wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem with banning Spyware regardless of the country of origin.

The parent comment isn't talking about spyware. Imagine if US.app and China.app were both clean, no spyware. If China subsidizes and allows China.app to have access to their domestic market but bans US.app, while US allows China.app to rake in billions of dollars in revenue in the US - this is purely an economic fairness and global trade issue. There is no sane defensive argument against this. Chinese market is 1.3 b…

The reality is closer to

"Imagine if US.app and China.app were both spyware"

But India only banned the China spyware and left the US spyware roam free. If they truly cared about spyware, many other apps do similar stuff, scooping just as much data.

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

#233

Post by StreamBright »

foepys wrote: post #169
chrischen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The China censors things so we should too stance just seems to strengthen their position of censorship...

Quite the opposite. China (the country, not China the economy) is investing billions into developing tech companies to surveil their citizens. Those apps are all centrally controlled by the Chinese government. They can freely suppress discussions without you ever knowing. Hell, they don't even need to censor it but only need to make it less discoverable. As soon as those apps reach the western hemisphere (or just any…

I know something similar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

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

#234

Post by NicoJuicy »

claudeganon wrote: post #112
chrisco255 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people abuse the word fascist these days. What makes India fascist? And how does that compare to the economic model of China? Is China fascist?

India is not fascist. The Hindu-nationalism promoted by the BJP and used to degrade and direct violence toward other ethnic groups is a fascist ideology. They never really have tried to pretend otherwise: > In 2004, when now-Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, school textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board portrayed Hitler as a hero, and glorified fascism. The tenth-grade soc…

You are blaming India for things against Muslims while selectively ignoring China is imprisoning a couple of millions?

Lol

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

#235

Post by pyuser583 »

ianleeclark wrote: post #161
saltedonion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately No, I get this, but here's the thing: YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of. There are material consequences if YouTube doesn't keep in line. What this means is that a status quo that pleases advertisers will be maintained. It's every bit propaganda as dropping leaflets, but you can't…

The concern is the coordination between Chinese foreign affairs/security services and the commercial sector.

For US-based firms, that’s simply not the case.

Yes, YouTube needs to make sure Nike is happy. But Nike didn’t just kill two dozen Indian soldiers.

Certainly there’s privacy related concerns with US companies - as with Chinese companies. But nobody had accused the DoD of manipulating YouTube search rankings.

If the DoD wants to conduct a YouTube propaganda campaign, they can buy advertising like everybody else.

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

#236

Post by NicoJuicy »

briandear wrote: post #49
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.

I agree, however India has a bureaucracy that makes running and starting businesses over there extremely difficult. As well as aggressive tariffs and Byzantine legal processes. China can be a difficult place, but nothing seems to approach India when it comes to paperwork and the dismal speed at which things get done.

Well, except getting your money out of China is also very hard :)

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

#237

Post by quantummkv »

kalesh wrote: post #202
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?

Because the Chinese government cannot directly alter the content and rankings in AliExpress to immediately spread out it's propaganda directly to easily impressionable teenagers in the form of audio visuals.

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

#238

Post by no_wizard »

ianleeclark wrote: post #178
no_wizard wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest difference is motives, as long as we are making the assumption you mean private corporations that aren’t proxies for their respective government(s) A private company will optimize profit, all things being equal. Sometimes this means it’s product/platform can be used to disseminate possibly dangerous information, but it also can be regulated in response. Another government? Not so easy Only way to really asser…

> Sometimes this means it’s product/platform can be used to disseminate possibly dangerous information, but it also can be regulated in response. I don't think this is true specifically in the case of America. Who are you going to get to actually grapple that beast of a multi national? Yeah, lots of people talk about it, but politics ultimately requires a degree of consensus. When you have investors calling up their…

Never intended for this to mean it was easy or anything. As you noted already it isn’t always. However this also admits it can be done as I mentioned too.

You can’t pass legislation that makes another government open itself up to transparency though. That’s the fundamental difference

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

#239

Post by yifanl »

takeda wrote: post #149
braythwayt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tiktok is clearly a data vacuum masquerading as a social media platform For any value of "TikTok," including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, iMessage, gmail, &c.

I know (and in fact use) non-standard apps for Facebook and Reddit (they are superior IMO), does TikTok contain one?

I can agree that allowing alternate clients is a step further than what Tiktok provides, but alternate clients are still piping your data into their vacuum.

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

#240

Post by zxienin »

India China have military asymmetry, in favor of later.

In such scenario, it is not difficult to imagine, that India use whatever strengths it has, to compensate for this asymmetry.

India is a big digital market. Consumerism is being weaponized. One can debate if this indeed is the driver or not. Yet, a statement has been made.

Boycott of Chinese physical goods is not as straightforward as digital ones. Low hanging fruit, to make a statement.

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