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US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#371

Post by krn »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

> if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way

It can be a real threat to national security[1]:

> Thursday's order alleges that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," such as location data and browsing and search histories, which "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -- potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."

It has nothing to do with other Western nations. It's about protecting your citizens from aggressive foreign states that operate based on completely different values.

I would consider going even further, and banning all Chinese researchers from the top US schools[2]:

> Seventy-one institutions, including many of the most prestigious medical schools in the United States, are now investigating 180 individual cases involving potential theft of intellectual property.

> Almost all of the incidents they uncovered and that are under investigation involve scientists of Chinese descent, including naturalized American citizens, allegedly stealing for China.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-orde...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/health/china-nih-scientis...

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#372

Post by chrisco255 »

knolax wrote: post #363
shripadk wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those companies are free to operate in China if the comply with Chinese law. Which will never happen. The Chinese know that Western companies would never want to comply with the Chinese law because the law was purposefully designed in such a way as to benefit the totalitarian regime. So they were forced to quit China. This is nothing but an indirect ban. This is very common actually. For example: India imposed a 20…

Microsoft complies with those laws just fine. Bing, Windows, Office are all available there.

Windows and Office are neutral applications. They're not social communication or information platforms. And hardly anyone uses Bing in China.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#373

Post by boudin »

jjeaff wrote: post #348
puranjay wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping Volkswagen from lobbying Germany to ban Teslas because all the cameras in it pose a "national security risk"? This is, by all account, a shortsighted move

The fact that we are allies with Germany and that the US probably buys a lot more from Germany than Germany buys from the US. With China, well, they are already blocking lots of American software companies so this would be more of a proportional response than anything else.

This is not proportional at all. That you agree or not on Chinese laws is one thing, having to abide to the country laws makes sense. Being a us company doesn't grant a bypass card. To abide to an arbitrary decision based on nothing because the company is chinese is something quite different. The Chinese government would do this on Apple, for example, i'm quite sure it would create quite an outrage.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#374

Post by _y5hn »

osrec wrote: post #317
thewarrior wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats how world wars break out.

I dismissed it as mere hyperbole in 2016 when people suggested this to me. Now I feel it has a significant probability of actually happening. Also, I recently watched a documentary on the start of Nazi Germany. The parallels with current political movements are astounding. Fake news, discrediting experts, ignoring protocols, validating xenophobia, using disasters to grab more power - we've seen it all before.

The problem is "nobody" alive now has actually witnessed WW2.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#375

Post by nmfisher »

karterk wrote: post #77
voisin wrote: post #25

Is there any precedent for a president to do such a thing? I am completely astonished and dumbstruck that everyone is ok with this.

Because many US companies have been at the receiving end of unfair trade practices, copyright theft and blatant IP violations from the mainland. It's good that we are finally doing something about that.

And do you realize that, by imitating China's practices, the rest of the world now puts you in the same bucket as China?

A vindictive, capricious country where millions of dollars in investment can be wiped away under the flimsiest of excuses in one pen stroke, by a single petty man, desperately seeking domestic political approval.

I spent much of my life defending the USA's policies and practice, but this may well be the last straw.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#376

Post by dannyw »

echevil wrote: post #370
paxys wrote: post #91

None of these Chinese companies would have grown to what they are today without intense government-enforced protectionism at home, and until China agrees to compete on a fair playing field I'm perfectly fine with them all being banned outside of their firewall. Would China ever agree to let Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Messenger etc. or any new startup operate freely and make money there? It shou…

How so? Google operated in China for more than a decade and never got a major market share, and they already did fairly well compared to others. Facebook was largely unheard of after being available in China for many years before finally got banned in 2010. Amazon has been operating in China forever but is basically irrelevant to most Chinese. Most American companies did terrible job in localization and I see no chan…

As a Chinese expat, Google China (back when it was operating) was multiple times slower than Baidu and would get blocked by the GFW arbitrarily frequently.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#377

Post by CameronNemo »

krn wrote: post #371
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

> if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way It can be a real threat to national security[1]: > Thursday's order alleges that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," such as location data and browsing and search histories, which "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -- potentially allowing Chi…

The source you linked contains no concrete evidence that TikTok poses a greater risk to national security than similar US based social networks.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#378

Post by boomboomsubban »

donw wrote: post #337
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

The US lost that near-monopoly years ago. Broadly speaking, I think we're witnessing the birth of three distinct global powers. One is centered on the US, and consists (broadly) of Canada, Mexico, the rest of Latin America, the Commonwealth nations, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Taiwan. An American civil war would destabilize this to a large degree, so we'll have to see if that plays out. Edit, since people seem confused…

>Another is centered on Germany and France, and controls Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East.

These countries are trying to get Facebook to pay a regional tax, not rebelling against sixty years of NATO. I don't understand how you can consider them a distinct global power from the US, and I'm unclear what these non-contested regions you think are part of their base.

Re: US to ban transactions with ByteDance and WeChat in 45 days

#380

Post by villahousut »

krn wrote: post #371
tannhaeuser wrote: post #324

I don't get it. It's US companies standing to loose their stronghold (near monopoly) on social, advertisement, and other forms of monetizing the web if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way, as in "we're welcoming social networks and free speech as long as it benefits the US and can be searched without warrant." Quite predictably, governments all over the world will be pressurized to question…

> if the US creates a precedent for "national security" in this way It can be a real threat to national security[1]: > Thursday's order alleges that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users," such as location data and browsing and search histories, which "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information -- potentially allowing Chi…

I'm using Tiktok on my iPhone and I can't even find an option to allow access to my location? I'm pretty sure any Apps can't access my browsers or search history either..?
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