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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

#191

Post by kunfuu »

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.

I read a bit about that. The claim that Google was blocked due to unwillingness to follow Chinese laws isn't true.

Be noted that China is not a country under rule of law.

When Google was blocked, there was no primary legislation stipulating that online content shall be censored in whatsoever way. There were vague administrative rules (secondary legislation) with questionable applicability. Today, there is only one piece of primary legislation with a section on online censorship in China, but this section targets ISPs only, not content providers.

EDIT2: corrections

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

#192

Post by FpUser »

pessimizer wrote: post #174
FpUser wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what prohibits any three letter agency hiring some intermediary and do the same thing on Facebook for example?

> hiring some intermediaries There's absolutely no need. Facebook cooperates with three-letter agencies, and we expect them to.

You seriously think that if one of those decided to influence election (for a greater good of course) you would expect direct cooperation of FB in the matter?

I'd think that the guilty party should be prosecuted for doing things like that.

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

#193

Post by MetalGuru »

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.

Do you honestly believe that geopolitics don’t play a role in China banning US tech companies? You think China would allow Google if it censored search results?

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

#194

Post by nostromo »

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…

It'd be better if Chinese companies could freely operate in the American market and American companies could freely operate in the Chinese market.

But China blocks American companies from their market, or extracts unfair concessions from them. So the US should do the same until they change their practices.

It's similar to how countries that want peace still need militaries -- that isn't a contradiction because militaries can help achieve peace. Similarly here, if you want free and open markets, you need to punish bad actors, like China, through things like sanctions.

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

#195

Post by MetalGuru »

jjulius wrote: post #182
judge2020 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is this being downvoted?

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

#196

Post by p1necone »

You know you don't have to argue about who's in the wrong here? It's okay to accept that both the USA and China are in the wrong, not everything has to be a fight with a winner.

China for having uncomfortable amounts of government control/vision over the data and operations of Chinese social media companies.

And the USA for singling out Tik Tok seemingly arbitrarily, and banning it for "national security" reasons without going into any detail about what they are or what evidence they have for them. (And it potentially violating 1A rights, being inconsistent with treatment of other foreign companies etc etc).

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

#197

Post by bo1024 »

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…

Note there is a difference between saying one thinks TikTok is a national security threat to the USA, and saying one thinks the U.S. government should ban it (or so on). It's tempting to base your opinion of whether TikTok is a threat on how much you (dis)like authoritarian responses, but that's a logical fallacy.

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

#198

Post by dilap »

unethical_ban wrote: post #167
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 have not read detailed reports, but just HN commentary and the reddit post that revealed the amount of data collected from phones. Trump's narcissism notwithstanding, the natsec issue with these apps isn't that US citizens are communicating with others, including foreigners. It is that they are installing what may very well be Chinese government spyware on their phones, with detailed tracking and keylogging. FWIW i…

Yes, that is another argument made against TikTok, separate from the argument I was responding to.

But it's also worth addressing.

As near as I can tell, it is unfounded; there is almost no evidence to support it. The one potentially shady thing I know of that TikTok got caught doing was checking the clipboard every second, which it no longer does. TikTok's explanation is that it was an anti-spam feature. I know of no network analysis showing they were sending back the clipboard contents, or that they are sending anything other than normal analytics.

(Also, as an aside & for what it's worth, I personally think the data collection of Facebook is far worse than anything alleged against TikTok. They require you to provide your real name, they encourage you to give tons of other personal info, & they use trackers to tie your fb profile to your browsing history on non facebook websites. Then they sell targeted access to this profile to any advertiser that cares to pay, as their primary business model.)

(As a second aside, if TikTok is somehow gaining access to more personal info than standard analytics stuff, I would view that, for iOS devices at least, as a security flaw. I'm not that familiar with Android, but I assume the same applies there.)

Lastly, if TikTok is doing something nefarious, the proper way to handle it in a country ruled by laws is to have laws against the nefarious activity and prosecute the company for violation of said laws.

The president waking up one day and declaring TikTok bad and banning it is ridiculous, authoritarian behavior.

IMO :-)

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

#199

Post by stale2002 »

pcbro141 wrote: post #179
mdorazio wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a poor argument, including the sarcasm. Pornhub is a Canadian company. Last time I checked, Canada was still a democratic country with an ideology roughly aligned with that of the US.

We're going to have to look at their investors very strongly. Many people are saying they're being funded by China. Maybe they are maybe they aren't, but it could be a national security threat if China is funding them. We have the best porn, that I can tell you. America First!

> maybe they aren't

They aren't though.

Sarcasm, to attempt to make a point just comes off as disingenuous trolling, by the way.

You would be better served by directly trying to make your point, instead of phase your "argument" in the way that you did.

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

#200

Post by p1necone »

p1necone wrote: post #196

You know you don't have to argue about who's in the wrong here? It's okay to accept that both the USA and China are in the wrong, not everything has to be a fight with a winner. China for having uncomfortable amounts of government control/vision over the data and operations of Chinese social media companies. And the USA for singling out Tik Tok seemingly arbitrarily, and banning it for "national security" reasons wit…

There's another argument to be had about whether Chinese spying is "worse" than western spying because it's officially legitimized by the policies of the Chinese government. And whether it's also "worse" because China is more authoritarian and oppressive with it's own citizens.

I'm making an assumption here that because of these two things it's mostly generally accepted that the Chinese surveillance state is "worse" than the USA surveillance state (and I largely agree with that take, but figured I should still state my priors here in case this isn't uncontroversial).

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