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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

#491

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.

Same reason the EU should ban Facebook and Google right?

It's like comparing Apples and Oranges.

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

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube isn't controlled by an authoritarian fascist-like government - it is run by the fascist-lite corporate oligarchy which runs the US. The US may not be as bad as china in some ways but that doesn't absolve them from responsibility.

I'm from a western country and I know for a fact that homicide rate in US is 6 times worse than China (6/100,000 in US VS Maybe US has some problems on its own...

Even if the quality of these data sources were comparable it still wouldn't be relevant to this conversation. Career criminals killing eachother in major cities has nothing to do with foreign surveillance and human rights.

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

#493
post #360

A reddit user, who claims to have reverse-engineered the TikTok app[1], concluded: > TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device... well, they're using it. > For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikT…

> There's also a few snippets of code on the Android version that allows for the downloading of a remote zip file, unzipping it, and executing said binary.

If these claims are true, a remote state actor can now take over 40% of young American's phones.

Imagine if they decided to shut off everyone's ability to communicate. That would be an incredible capability to possess in the event that they wanted to launch an attack or distract us. (I'm not saying that they would, but that we should be wary of the possibility.)

This is incredibly dangerous.

Furthermore, this does not seem like an accident in TikTok's design. This app is very well put together. Given the expertise involved, I can't see this as an "oops, we didn't know" oversight with respect to either alternative design choices or platform rules. It feels very deliberate.

Google should ban this app immediately for breaking the terms, and US legislators should make a law prohibiting it outright.

We have to do some more due diligence to make sure these claims are valid, but if they do turn out to be true, then we have some very serious issues to consider.

This is one of the few instances where I'll admit that I wish Facebook or Twitter had an answer for this.

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

#495
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about the "special relationship" among the UK/US that is (definitely was) primarily based on values. Which values? Atheism? The welfare state? Well defined social classes? The royal family?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship It's always disappointing commenting on HN only to get reddit/twitter "zinger" replies.

You entirely missed my point: I'm not questioning the existence of a "special relationship", I'm asking if it's based on "values". What values does the US share with the UK more than with most other western countries?

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

#496
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not even remotely equivalent things. Advertisers are not a homogeneous block. YouTube et al can afford to piss off some advertisers; if they're pissing off all advertisers, the material is probably extremely objectionable to most humans. I challenge you to point out an example of content that has been banned from youtube because it offends advertisers, that you really think the banning of which is a signifi…

All American companies move in lockstep. We see one company after another pull out of facebook advertising very quickly last week. They work together as a group with a consistent goal. This week we saw one social media platform after another ban the same people. The North American cartel moves together as one, once again. You can host your own videos but if you do expect to be banned by paypal and mastercard and visa…

A few high profile companies deciding to stop advertising on Facebook is not "All American companies move in lockstep". Thousands of companies still advertise on Facebook, and Facebook is still doing fine.

Tell me what kind of videos you'll be banned by payments companies over, please. Because I used to run the (at the time) biggest BDSM porn company on the internet, and yes we took credit cards.

There is no "North American cartel". There are no chemtrails either.

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

#497

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.

The same can be said of companies like FB and GOOG. They operate black boxes with little scrutiny from society.

Imo they are even worse than TikTok since they are actively being used by decision making bodies in nation states. The amount of classified information those companies are privy to is mind-boggling. Political parties, NGOs, companies, private citizens - they all store their information on servers belonging to American companies.

If you consider that they also run on operating systems made by American-owned companies who don't really care that much about privacy, it's even scarier.

China isn't the boogeyman here. The United States is.

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

#498
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is it coincidental or incidental to their border dispute actions?

that may have escalated it but I think this was coming and honestly Chinese companies being in Gov's lap called upon itself.

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

#499

This is a right move, in my view. Chinese infiltration takes a myriad of forms and data collection is one of the biggest. And those apps form a basis for click-of-the-button hacking. And ordinary users will find it very very difficult to determine if an app is Chinese made or not. And the Chinese govt. will have it's fingers in everyone of them, one way or the other. What I do worry now is that since China has been e…

How long will it take China to rebrand these apps under a different name ?

TikTok tried and that tactic didn't seem to work.

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

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is not. US invading Iraq and Afghanistan was not to expand its territories. You can argue that the invasion was based on false information that Iraq had WMDs or Afghanistan harbored Taliban (which in turn sheltered Osama bin Laden) or you could say that the invasion was to topple dictatorial regimes or you could say that US invaded these countries for oil. Whatever explanation you give it doesn't amount to expansi…

This is bonkers and absolutely doublethink.

I guess you Americans are not familiar with ideologies like the Big Stick Policy and Manifest Destiny. (coined 1845).

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