This is a terrible development and precedent. Whatever you think of the CCP and the Chinese approach to censorship and tech, building our own 'Great Firewall' and banning foreign apps/services we don't like is not the answer. It just legitimises the Chinese approach and sends us further down the road to a fragmented rather than open internet.
Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
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Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#272So what happens from the practical point of view? Is the government going to delete an app from the phones of 80 million people? Really curious to see this one.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#273Ban Facebook and Google too? Their data collection is so much more powerful. Never seen TikTok scripts anywhere while most apps and sites send your personal data to FB and Google. Pretty much every American is tracked by Google and FB no matter whether they have an account or whether they install their app.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#274This is not about TikTok. This is about Trump being desperate.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#275I'm curious what they know about TikTok that isn't public. This seems too drastic for just trade posturing.
In all seriousness, TikTok's Gen-Z userbase played a big role in a huge embarrassment for Trump recently, and given that there seems no end to his personal vanity and vindictiveness, I would not be surprised if this decision was rooted at least in part in vengeance against its users. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-...
Why would any candidate seek "vengeance" in an election year toward a cohort who will be voting for the first time (in many cases) in 2020 and who seem overall more conservative than the previous generation? It seems way more likely to me that the jester is cover for or distraction from something much more serious, and I'd rather talk about that than feed the jester's personal vanity by interpreting every major world event through orange-colored glasses :)
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#276I'm curious what they know about TikTok that isn't public. This seems too drastic for just trade posturing.
TikTok is basically a tool of [SOME NATION]'s military intelligence. Not going to say which nation, but this is well known in the security community
There has been literally zero proof about that as far as i know. If you do have some compelling evidence apart from “the x community knows this”, please share them.
The issues risen in the “famous” whitepaper about TikTok’s alleged “security issues” were just pretty much standard fingerprinting that almost all apps do nowadays, like it or not.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#277Ban Facebook and Google too? Their data collection is so much more powerful. Never seen TikTok scripts anywhere while most apps and sites send your personal data to FB and Google. Pretty much every American is tracked by Google and FB no matter whether they have an account or whether they install their app.
Without a credible source to back up your assertion that "their data collection is so much more powerful", this is a pretty empty statement.
I also believe that we need to have a healthy concern for Chinese friendly agents/resources acting in concert, even on (or maybe especially on) technical sites like HN.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I highly doubt it, and I am waiting to be shown otherwise. I showed it to you, Huawei. USA gives a LOT of power to the President, sanctions, bans etc etc.
Preventing the purchase and import of physical equipment into the US is a lot different than preventing the import of code/speech. I fully understand the former is allowed, but I highly doubt the president possesses the authority to do the latter.
The US prevented the export of code/speech for decades, in fact I’m fairly sure it’s illegal to import recordings of certain speech.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#279This is a terrible development and precedent. Whatever you think of the CCP and the Chinese approach to censorship and tech, building our own 'Great Firewall' and banning foreign apps/services we don't like is not the answer. It just legitimises the Chinese approach and sends us further down the road to a fragmented rather than open internet.
Unless there's a third path, there really is no choice but to act in kind.
Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action
#280From first principles reasoning, this is a good idea. We don’t ban Chinese websites, books or products. Although we tax their products more now. Apps aren’t like physical commodities. They can be used to gather data, quite invasively, shape and form public opinion in a new and more visceral way, as well as take advantage of exploits. Admittedly websites can do that too, but the scale of adoption of Tiktok makes this a special case. Just by sheer numbers, many important people will be using tiktok, or their families, colleagues and friends. If you ever complained about Russian election meddling, then you are a hypocrite if you don’t support this. What if tiktok was Russia’s? I think some people are getting lost in the politics.
The facts: we gain almost nothing by having tiktok around. We lose nothing by banning it, and gain a little bit of buffer against possible threats like election meddling, data mining for nefarious purposes and other things. Completely leaving politics aside, I basically support this.