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

Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 496 posts

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#411

Post by kitteh »

Nbox9 wrote: post #371
Multicomp wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how? Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.

I wouldn’t expect a modern pager to operate on the same technology as older pager. Pagers are a thing and they have there uses. I’ve heard of a physical pager being used to symbolize who is “on call”, and a team of engineers will pass the pager between themselves. I’ve seen restaurants pass out pagers to people waiting for tables. I’ve heard talk about some medical/emergency personal still using pagers. I imagine pag…

Yes, modern pagers do operate on the same tech (pocsag/flex) for the last few decades. And for the most part, are clear text. There are posts on HN about this in the last year.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#412

Post by thereticent »

FireBeyond wrote: post #232
thereticent wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no good explanation except that US healthcare orgs tend to misuse staff and clinical providers. Super-specialized doctor with untold postdoc training in faculty at my academic medical center? You've got to encrypt your personal phone to standard and install several required apps. No it is not expensed.

Apropos of the rightness or otherwise of this stance, I don't think "specialist physicians" typically fall into the category of people who "cannot afford 2 phones".

I agree. Neither do top industry execs, top sales personnel, etc. It seems from most of the comments that even in lieu of a work phone, compensation for a mobile plan is normal and expected most places. I may be mistaken, but the culture of large healthcare orgs does seem to promote an expectation that the employees be more altruistic then would be expected elsewhere, even within the employer-employee relationship.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#413

Post by kitteh »

Multicomp wrote: post #363
xendo wrote: post #228

For the context, as an Amazon employee I’m not required to access email from my mobile. The only app that I need to have is virtual pager and it doesn’t require allowing Amazon to administer my phone. Physical pagers are also an option.

TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how? Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.

Yes there are totally pager networks alive and kicking.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#414

Post by GekkePrutser »

sdoering wrote: post #120
SteveNuts wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised devices enrolled in their MDM would have EVER allowed Tik Tok in the first place.

Believe me - a lot of companies roll MDM just to be able to remotely wipe the device in case it gets lost. A lot of them do not block apps (or remove them).

We use MDM for a lot more than that, though we don't block any apps. And it isn't all about security either.

Some of the things

- Auto app installs: We have a lot of apps people need for work, like the VPN, Outlook, Teams etc. And apps they need for their specific location or job role. The MDM takes care of installing those so the user doesn't have to figure all this out.

- Autoconfiguration: There's a facility called AppConfig where you can push config settings to apps that support it, making things easier on the end user.

- Network (and other settings) configuration: Pushing all the certs people need to connect to our wifi. And we push Per-app-vpn settings for the apps that need it.

- Security validation: Do people not have outdated company apps or OS? Do they have the security app (Lookout)?

- Security settings management: Make sure people have their phone encrypted and a pincode set so important data is not lost in a taxi.

In fact wiping is one of the things that happens very rarely. Especially as we enforce encryption and a decent PIN, it's not as much of an issue anymore to wipe a phone as soon as we can. A lot of users get hung up over our ability to do this, but on Android we can only wipe the work profile anyway (and even on Apple we don't normally wipe the whole device, just the company apps). Unless they call us and ask us to wipe it because they lost it :P But a lot of them seem to think we're just sitting there all day wiping phones for fun.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#415

Post by chillacy »

reaperducer wrote: post #372
catalogia wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guesstimate the average redditor is somewhere in their late 20s to mid 30s. Compared to Congress, that's certainly young. But that's about twice the age of what I imagine the average tiktok user to be (teens.)

The local TV news uses TikTok and mentions it regularly. Not exactly a teen-age audience.

> TikTok has a reputation for being popular with teens. And it is: 27% of its users are between 13-17 years old. But internal data from March 2019 shows that its largest age demographic (42%) is the young adult crowd.

https://blog.hootsuite.com/tiktok-stats/#:~:text=TikTok%20ha....

It looks like the median user is 18-24... but that's still quite young compared to "tv news" watcher where the median age is around 60.

https://capitolcommunicator.com/nielsen-provides-data-on-med...

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#416

Post by ubermon »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #404
che_shirecat wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, like LinkedIn and Reddit? (the site that the "researcher" behind these NYT-cited claims is using) [1] You could run through the toplist of apps and find hundreds that exhibit the same behavior. Not trying to derail this via whataboutism, I just feel like the core HN ethos is lost when we mindlessly repeat the obvious geopolitically-driven narrative here without any critical thinking. What I definitely do understa…

TikTok specifically has ties to the Chinese state apparatus that are concerning, similarly to Huawei. This isn't a blanket statement about Chinese companies in general - just those companies in particular. Specifically, this means these companies' products are likely to be tools of PRC state intelligence and the PRC's foreign-policy directives. The same cannot be said about other Chinese companies and similarly posit…

"The same cannot be said about other Chinese companies and similarly positioned companies in other countries. "

What are other companies? Those that doesn't pose a threat? like those ones only produce cheap toys and clothes?. I think as long as Chinese government remain as independent and "different", anything comes out of there that really challenges current status quo would receive similar criticism like yours, regardless what or how those company behaves. Curious how do you recognize those companies "need to integrate themselves with the CCP/PLA/etc"?

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#417

Post by ubermon »

_abox wrote: post #346
melling wrote: post #342

The email sent to Amazon employees was a mistake. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/amazon-bans-tiktok-emp...

Someone goes through all the trouble of typing that explicit email and it's a mistake? Sounds more like 'pulled after huge feedback'. Though personally I'd agree with this decision. TikTok seems to be a particularly bad apple: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...

Could be some over zealous employees inspired by recent Indian-China conflicts and TikTok ban and decided within their own org to do it without realizing how big of a news it would be.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#418

Post by xwdv »

_abox wrote: post #346
melling wrote: post #342

The email sent to Amazon employees was a mistake. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/amazon-bans-tiktok-emp...

Someone goes through all the trouble of typing that explicit email and it's a mistake? Sounds more like 'pulled after huge feedback'. Though personally I'd agree with this decision. TikTok seems to be a particularly bad apple: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...

You can realize something was a mistake after you’ve done it. I don’t see the issue.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#419

Post by ubermon »

dvt wrote: post #290
taurath wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok isn't imploding, its broadly a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs) afraid of china. The userbase of tiktok is tweens and teens. The best thing those old men could do is legislate system level privacy protections onto IOS and Android so an app can never get the level of info they're worried about.

Just a few days ago, TikTok was banned in India (a huge emerging market). I’d say it’s imploding.

Fueled by a recent Indian-China border conflicts, a political decision.

Re: Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was ‘sent in error’

#420

Post by xxpor »

spelunker wrote: post #376
Multicomp wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how? Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.

Hospitals still often use pagers - they're deemed more reliable than cell phone networks. I don't know if that's actually true or not but there you go.

The big advantage is they're one-way, so their range is much further since you don't need the pager to send stuff back to the tower.
Post reply on HN