Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#161

Post by whoisjuan » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #153

whoisjuan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn’t matter. To make it effective the FCC would likely ask all the ISPs and Carriers to block TikTok IPs at the network level.

Have US ISPs ever been asked/told to block IPs (or even DNS) before? I don't think it's something the FCC could do, especially since they've abdicated most of their authority over the internet to the FTC. Even still, I doubt they have the authority to do it or the means to impose penalties for noncompliance. Even if they could - what is a TikTok IP? I'm confident their US endpoints are AWS or Google Cloud - good luck…

I’m pretty sure that at TikTok level you need operate with a VPC and have your own range of IPs.

Also ISPs and Mobile Carriers have their own blocking and network redirection methods, like url filtering with transparent proxies, that are used to re-lane traffic based on bandwidth usage. a.k.a putting Netflix on the slow lane

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#162

Post by free_rms » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #155

justinzollars wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading many books on China I learned China values social stability over everything. In its 4,000 year history they have seen the dangers of social instability. We are a very young country and haven't seen what real chaos can look like. (These ideas are from Henry Kissinger's on China, Destined for War by Graham T. Allison and The China Dream by Liu Mingfu)

I've never understood why people espouse China's "4000 year history". The government purged nearly all aspects of traditional Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. If you want to be reminded of China's history, you travel to Taiwan. Even practitioners of Chinese traditional medicine tend to study overseas in Japan.

This is incredibly inaccurate.

You work in tech, right? Ever run this take by your Chinese coworkers? Ask them about their families' connection to Chinese tradition?

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#163

Post by rajacombinator » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

Did Zuck finally learn how to play the game?

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#164

Post by star-trek-fleet » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #155

justinzollars wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading many books on China I learned China values social stability over everything. In its 4,000 year history they have seen the dangers of social instability. We are a very young country and haven't seen what real chaos can look like. (These ideas are from Henry Kissinger's on China, Destined for War by Graham T. Allison and The China Dream by Liu Mingfu)

I've never understood why people espouse China's "4000 year history". The government purged nearly all aspects of traditional Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. If you want to be reminded of China's history, you travel to Taiwan. Even practitioners of Chinese traditional medicine tend to study overseas in Japan.

> purged nearly all aspects of traditional Chinese society

There has been multiple rounds of racial genocide in China's history, some by internal turmoil, and more by external invasion. Yet the Chinese culture survived.

It might sounds incredible, but so many people in such a huge land, have its own life strength.

If you think a political dictator can purge a nation's history tie, in 10 years, without actually killing all the people, then you are certainly underestimate Chinese people's strength and ernacity...

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#165

Post by mindslight » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #94

jmcgough wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good discussion of his different legal options here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/24/trump-cant-ban-tiktok-f...

Summary of which seems to be that in general there is not absolute authority available for banning TikTok, but there are some novel/emergency measures possible to put some restrictions on ByteDance, but which are all rather new and untested, some of whose adminstrative rules/regulation are yet only being formulated(they many not be ready for implementation for many months if not weeks), mostly all of which will expos…

If ByteDance goes to court? How about when Apple and Google go to court... A president unilaterally shutting down a foreign business would destroy trust in their centralized app stores. I can't imagine both companies will just nod their heads and roll over.

So does Trump really expect TikTok to just disappear like COVID, or is the actual play here to give Trump a strong talking point to fire up his remaining supporters? He'll undoubtedly group constitutionality-litigating Apple/Google with "the left", like everything else that conflicts with his 1850's world view.

FWIW TikTok may be problematic, but it's only slightly more problematic than all of the US-based spyware that has apparently been acceptable for the past decade. The rest of the world has just had to live with the US being able to surveil most of their citizens' digital activity. Now there's a whiff of symmetry and the panic bells are going off.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#166

Post by hibern8 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #152

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #106

Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. In a way this gives Chinese apps an immediate advantage (as some are indirectly calling out in this comment section). If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app. Since social media is mostly a win…

That's not super relevant to this case, because TikTok itself is banned in China; Chinese users have to use Douyin, which runs the same platform but doesn't share content with TikTok.

It is still owned by the same company.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#167

Post by fakeslimshady » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #106

Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. In a way this gives Chinese apps an immediate advantage (as some are indirectly calling out in this comment section). If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app. Since social media is mostly a win…

Its a good question, but there actually is a good reason: https://youtu.be/f2srfDwM2sQ?t=307

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#168

Post by magicsmoke » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

khuey wrote: post #147

magicsmoke wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely mirrors the kinds of restrictions China puts on US companies with joint ventures, censorship of sensitive topics, and keeping data on Chinese servers. However, I think why this feels unsettling even if it just mirrors what China's done is because up to now there was a sense that the US has a stronger economy, society, and culture than China, and these restrictions China put on US companies reflected the…

Or maybe it just implies that the Golden Rule still exists?

The US seems to have been fine shrugging off the Golden Rule and giving China a pass for decades because it felt like it was the bigger man. Now, we're seeing the US admit that the gap has closed.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#169

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #2

Under what authority? A dozen paragraphs in the article and not one questioning whether he can actually do this. What would such an executive action look like? An EO to Apple and Google to de-list the app from their stores? Why should they comply? What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere? Sick of media treating this man like a zoo exhibit instead of the advanced persistent threat to US democrac…

> Under what authority?

Under the authority of an executive order.

> Why should they comply?

Because these are american companies, who make a bunch of their money in america, and they can be fined many millions or even billions of dollars, or possibly even arrested if they don't comply with the orders of the nation that has the most powerful military in the world.

> What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .apk somewhere?

Probably just fine ByteDance, which has a US presence, and many employees/bank accounts that are in the US.

Blatant refusal to follow the law of the most powerful military in the world can be followed up with arrests of employees/executives that are in the US.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#170

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:28 AM UTC

zelly wrote: post #35

Hopefully this will raise awareness on PWAs. Hopefully using PWAs on mobile will be normalized by the 18-24 year olds. TikTok's PWA seems intentionally gimped (you can't even search) but I will bet it will suddenly start working once it disappears from the Western app stores. Is there anything TikTok does that the Web Platform + WASM cannot do? (besides spying)

> Hopefully this will raise awareness on PWAs

He's not talking about banning the TikTok app narrowly, but banning TikTok from operating in the USA (which, assuming he's acting under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, could also including either preventing or directing and compelling sale, transfer, etc., of any of their property — or any property in which any foreign person holds an interest.)