Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 847 posts

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

#581

Post by everdrive »

ianleeclark wrote: post #57
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.

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.

> Nation state vs. private corporation is different on paper,

A nation state and a company are different in substance as well. I am sympathetic to the idea that companies (in America) can do more to curtail your freedoms. But, this is only true because of our system of government. In principle, a government can do much more than a company to curtail your freedoms. In practice, this is often less true. (although if you bump into eminent domain, or similar laws, then the government is much more threatening to you.)

We don't have to look far for this theoretical: the Chinese government rounds up people and puts them in camps, and disappears people for having the wrong opinions.

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

#582

Post by danielheath »

Tiltowait-- wrote: post #555
HenryBemis wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube's algorithm suppresses LGBTQ content more than usual Similar story with Tumblr. I had been using Tumblr for a good many years, for non-pornographic use/material (I shoot landscapes and buildings, and I liked the way I could post/group my photos). It pissed me off though when they (Tumblr) clamped down on sexual content, because it really hurt the LGBTQIA+ communities. A similar clamp down on Pinterest also…

Since when did conservatives use Tumblr? Same reason as Facebook: advertisers don't want their ads shown next to controversial content. As a matter of fact, the LGBTQIA+ communities aren't all about sex, and it's homophobic to say they are.

The whole point is that non-sexual content (Eg: references to being gay) got banned as sexual.

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

#585

Post by ccktlmazeltov »

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.

> it is a significant national securities threat

come on...

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

#586

Post by edoo »

kanox wrote: post #577
BobbyJo wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation? Yeah, sure. Baseless? Not really, considering the great firewall and all. Racism? Where?

> Racism? Where? Fascists famously accused foreigners of promoting "degeneracy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art . Parent poster used this term with the exact same meaning and intention.

[flagged]

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

#587

Post by swagonomixxx »

shripadk wrote: post #519
mateus1 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I am not an American. I am an Indian. Stop assuming stuff. And who better to know about expansionism than Indians? We have been colonized multiple times in the past. We know the exact difference between expansion and invasion. An invasion can turn into colonization if the oppressing party annexes territory and sets up a Government of its own against the interests of the people. US hasn't annexed Afghanistan and Iraq.…

> And who better to know about expansionism than Indians? We have been colonized multiple times in the past.

Sure, we can agree that USA's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was not "colonization" technically, in the 1800s sense of the term.

However, what else would you call all out war, military occupation, hanging the president of the country, etc.? BTW, occupation continues until this day, in both of these nations.

> Manifest Destiny is a cultural thing in the United States. It is not official State policy.

Have you read about the history of the U.S in the 1800s? Manifest Destiny may not have been written into the constitution, but it was absolutely the policy of many leaders of the U.S in that era, and calling it "a cultural thing" actually dumbs down what is an extremely powerful idea behind the forming of the U.S as a nation.

> We have a similar cultural quote in India called "Akhand Bharat" where we wish to go back to the time where Bharat was one territory and not divided into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

China has a similar idea with the "One China" rule, and how it basically does not consider Taiwan to be it's own nation. Except, unlike India, it's quite clear than China is willing to invade Taiwan at some point in time (unclear when, but the tensions will never cease).

---

The 1800's style colonization is certainly no longer present, but a variation of it is certainly present, and usually military invasion is not the main tool to achieve domination (however, in the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, it clearly was).

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

#588

Post by ccktlmazeltov »

krn wrote: 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…

the MOST SCARY stuff for me is apps that ask for your photos album permissions (so they can save to it, or upload a picture ). This permission basically gives them access to ALL your photos, including your dick pics, even when the app is in the background.

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

#589

Post by stevens32 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #417
riverlong wrote: post #356

I'm seeing lots of comments about national security-style concerns, and framing this in terms of the recent India-China skirmishes. That all makes sense. Where I think a lot of folks are missing the point is that this is also a tremendous boost to local Indian entrepreneurship. One of the really clever aspects of China's Great Firewall is that it keeps out international competition, which would crush local startups.…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... India’s GDP is much much smaller than most think: its smaller than California’s GDP. That doesn’t seem so bad since they’re so close to other European countries but remember that India’s population is also considerably larger.

Sorry, mind explaining the connection between India's GDP and the parent comment?

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

#590

Post by simplify »

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…

> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately

In China, the government has more power than corporations. In the US, corporations have more power than the government.

Post reply on HN