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Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

reuters.com

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Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#181

Post by peacefulhat »

dilap wrote: post #126

It's strange how so many in the US have adopted the mindset that it's important, for national security, to deny its citizens access to foreign social networks. Previously, when China did the same, this was widely viewed as an unfortunate restriction their freedoms -- the actions of an intrusive, authoritarian government. Now that the US is itself considering doing the same, many in the west have suddenly adopted the…

I can understand this attitude in the general public but it’s completely bizarre from HN engineers. Expect more more optimism for FBI/NSA backdoors in encryption next.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#182

Post by jjulius »

judge2020 wrote: post #88
revnode wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shutting down a company It's not a company. It's a division of a foreign government. That was the point being made. If it was an independent company, none of this would be happening.

https://www.bytedance.com/en/#corporate-structure ByteDance Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok LLC. (US) Legally it is indeed a company and not controlled by the CCP, but exactly how much of its US operations are conducted and directed by non-US citizens on non-US soil is unknown.

This post is going to be similar to my other two comments in this thread.

First, it being incorporated in the Caymans is a technicality. ByteDance's headquarters are in Beijing[1] and they don't speak of a Cayman Islands office. In addition...

> As with many Chinese companies, the company has an internal Chinese Communist Party committee serving the party members among the employees, with vice president Zhang Fuping serving as its Party Committee Secretary. It also has a strategic partnership with the Ministry of Public Security for the ministry's public relations efforts, and joint ventures with a state-run publisher in Beijing and media firm in Shanghai. ... It has garnered public attention over allegations that it worked with the Chinese Communist Party to censor and surveil content pertaining to Xinjiang re-education camps and other topics the Party deemed controversial. [2]

[1] https://www.inputmag.com/culture/tiktok-weirdly-tries-to-sug...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#183

Post by warbaker »

howlgarnish wrote: post #163
Retric wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries including China do block US companies on national security grounds. National security is very much a double edged sword.

US companies operating in China need to follow Chinese laws, including those on censorship. Google etc are blocked because they are hosted outside China, and are not willing to cooperate in China. What I find bizarre about the Tiktok ban is that they are being banned essentially on executive whim: as far as I can tell, there are no concrete allegations, much less evidence, that they're violating any US laws.

So, it's ok for China to ban Google because Google refuses to help with censorship and propaganda, and because Google doesn't want the Chinese govt to be able to spy on its citizens.

But it's not OK for the US to keep out spyware. Heck, retaliation for China's banning of Google etc would be sufficient justification for banning TikTok on its own.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#184

Post by p1necone »

judge2020 wrote: post #88
revnode wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shutting down a company It's not a company. It's a division of a foreign government. That was the point being made. If it was an independent company, none of this would be happening.

https://www.bytedance.com/en/#corporate-structure ByteDance Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok Ltd. (Cayman) -> TikTok LLC. (US) Legally it is indeed a company and not controlled by the CCP, but exactly how much of its US operations are conducted and directed by non-US citizens on non-US soil is unknown.

Technically correct, but you're almost as guilty of being dishonest as the comment you're replying to saying it's "not a company".

A lot of companies are incorporated in the Cayman Islands, or in Ireland, or other tax havens, but we don't generally refer to them as Cayman companies or Irish companies.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#185

Post by HeyZuess »

tatrajim wrote: post #35
nkozyra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how those are analogous. Shouldn't you be complaining that a Chinese court didn't temporarily block the Apple ban?

Precisely. There is no legal remedy in China for cases such as Apple's, a situation that the Hacker News et al. communities blandly accept in silence while valorizing attempts by ByteDance and WeChat to game the US system for profitable access. Why the Western world accepts as legitimate the products of a closed society that relies on ubiquitous censorship and withholds free access to the outside world through a nati…

> Why the Western world accepts as legitimate the products of a closed society that relies on ubiquitous censorship and withholds free access to the outside world through a national firewall is hard for me to fathom. I have lived in China, South Korea, and Taiwan off and on for decades and believe the people of PRC deserve better.

I agree, people of many countries deserve much better. However restricting trade, sanctions, undermining diplomatic relationships etc rarely do anything other than harm the citizens of the country. It's difficult but not impossible to tell someone off while doing the same thing yourself.

As far as national security goes, the US has a checkered history of interfering with other countries.

As far as the rights of citizens within a country again a checkered modern history.

As far as political manipulation .... etc etc, I think you get the picture.

I am not saying the US is as bad as China, but some of their actions would surely deserve reprimand as well. But I doubt the US is sitting there and doing this for the "concerns" of the residents of these countries.

Now in the case of TikTok, I think this is a great case for protection of data in ALL countries. GDPR is a good example of this.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#186

Post by warbaker »

sudosysgen wrote: post #158
MattGaiser wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...is really no different from the US, is it? It is enormously different in that it is judicially reviewable (if not in need of an outright warrant) and the USA is a country where there are limits on government. This post, specifically the "judge temporarily blocks" is proof that the USA is a fundamentally different country. > Also: if you believe everything called "communist party" is "communist", you definitely h…

Are there actually real limits on government in the US? If the Democrats and Republicans agreed that they wanted to do something, would anything stop them? The US government is already unconstitutionally doing what you say that judicial review prevents, and the partisan (by design) Supreme Court simply refuses to take the case. So much for judicial review. There is no check for power, only balances of power. And powe…

Are you seriously equating the two govts? Consider that, because hackernews/YC is a US company, your post is read by everyone who cares to see it.

Consider what would happen if you decried the powers of the CCP on a China-based platform. Consider what would happen to you, personally, if you did so while living in China.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#187

Post by jjulius »

bduerst wrote: post #150
llboston wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All major internet companies in China, including ByteDance, have CCP branches [1]. CCP would be crazy not to use TikTok data. 1 https://www.jenniferzengblog.com/home/2020/8/5/bytedance-hea... [edit] added source.

*Subsidiaries. Bytedance has TaoTiao inside China, which shares TaoTaio user information with the CCP, the same way that Apple has Apple Guizhou, which shares iCloud data with the CCP. Neither Bytedance, or it's TikTok subsidiary, exist inside China, so there's no reason to suspect data sharing with the CCP without evidence.

>Neither Bytedance, or it's TikTok subsidiary, exist inside China...

Please stop spreading FUD.

> The spokesman says Mayer will continue to live in Los Angeles, but will "travel frequently to Bytedance’s headquarters in Beijing, as well as TikTok’s major offices in New York, London, Japan and India." There's no mention of any trips to the Cayman Islands, though.

https://www.inputmag.com/culture/tiktok-weirdly-tries-to-sug...

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#189

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

yibg wrote: post #112
devwastaken wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any business with china is a national security issue. There's plenty of evidence to the level of dictatorship in China. It's your responsibility to look at its history and make reasonable conclusions from it. If you want some sort of smoking gun evidence you're not going to find it, unless you somehow have a security clearance in China good enough to gain knowledge about their operations. It's a Chinese company, they…

Let’s not pretend this is anything other than just plain old geopolitics with TikTok caught in the middle. Going by “national security” reasons most countries should ban Facebook and google, not to mention amazon, Microsoft, oracle, Cisco etc. since the us government has already shown willingness and ability to spy on anything they can get their hands on, including foreign heads of state. Allowing US controlled socia…

The immediate security issues are more with WeChat but TikTok gives them a social graph of Western youth documenting their foibles. These are all prospects for future moles when they get jobs in sensitive positions.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#190

Post by llboston »

bduerst wrote: post #150
llboston wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All major internet companies in China, including ByteDance, have CCP branches [1]. CCP would be crazy not to use TikTok data. 1 https://www.jenniferzengblog.com/home/2020/8/5/bytedance-hea... [edit] added source.

*Subsidiaries. Bytedance has TaoTiao inside China, which shares TaoTaio user information with the CCP, the same way that Apple has Apple Guizhou, which shares iCloud data with the CCP. Neither Bytedance, or it's TikTok subsidiary, exist inside China, so there's no reason to suspect data sharing with the CCP without evidence.

You probably don't know how CCP branches work. All government branches, state owned companies, and major internet companies in China have CCP branches. Especially in the government and state own companies, the head of the CCP branch is actually the real person in charge.
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