Honestly, this sounds more like a dick-waving contest than a national security issue, from the way it’s being ham-fisted. While there may be legitimate security issues, the timing seems oddly-aligned with the government’s insistence that the Chinese government is responsible for a great number of problems in the US and this right before an election. It smells like blame-passing and extortion, among other things.
Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
211–220 of 677 posts
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#212It's a national security issue. Plus, if you sue the government order from any courts in CA, you will win anyways these days. CA is too liberal to remain in US, I remember they were saying CA-Independence from USA after 2016, I can't wait to support it, but those people somehow did not proceed, very disappointed.
great, then California could take Oregon and Washington as well, since they're "anarchist states" and all. New York would likely follow suit. Colorado would probably join with the west coast, leaving Texas to carry most of what was left of the country. Don't mess with Texas, which is to say that they don't want to be the ones paying for everything. Now we have 3 countries that can feed themselves, pay for what they n…
Putin will absolutely drown in champagne, seeing this unfolding.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#213Earlier 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…
>It's a Chinese company, they have privledges, not rights. Neither Bytedance nor TikTok are Chinese companies. It's true that Bytedance has buildings in Beijing, and a Chinese app (Taotiao) that is a Chinese subsidiary, but Bytedance is a Cayman's Islands company and TikTok doesn't even have servers inside China. For purposes of the Chinese National Intelligence Law compelling the company to share user information wi…
Yet somehow the Chinese government can control the export of their technology and needs to approve any deal with a US company?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-unlikely-approve-ti...
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it would have made targeted advertising on the internet be very hard to develop. The internet existed before targeted advertising, with site-specific advertising based on the interests of a site. Stalking users across sites for the purpose of targeted advertising is a much newer development. I agree that this doesn't align with the US's general approach to this sort of thing. That is a fault with the US's general…
Targeted advertising is a major reason for the Internet’s success. It has allowed many companies to become extremely wealthy and invest back into the ecosystem.
> Targeted advertising is a major reason for the Internet’s success.
It's the major reason for social media's success, not the internet. The internet was successful long before social media.
> It has allowed many companies to become extremely wealthy and invest back into the ecosystem.
What? It monopolized the ecosystem. Not the same thing.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t really know where I stand on the issue, but it is fairly clear how this is a potentially serious threat to national security. Maybe a better solution is allowing the us government unfettered access to source code, algorithms, data collection, etc. Edit - it seems reasonable that if a private company is able to massively influence the countries politics they should be scrutinized more closely. IMO it’s like ha…
if it's a clear threat, the government should have no problem explaining what exactly the threat is. It seems plausible to me that there is a national security threat, but i'm bothered by the government being able to invoke national security as a set of magic words that excuse them from explaining anything further.
The thing is US has its own TikToks: if US bans TikTok, CCP will use its influence to undermine FB, WhatsApp, IG, Snapchat, etc. CCP is pretty much saying: "we know you're spying on the entire world and we want to do the same; if you torpedo our secret submarine, we'll do the same to yours."
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#216Pornhub is a foreign company, perhaps Trump should ban that too. It could be a national security threat for a foreign company to know the porn habits of government officials, they could use that to blackmail military generals and the like. /sarcasm
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.
Last time I checked Saudi Arabia was a fundamentalist, religious kingdom with many known inhumane acts and practices. Yet they control a ton of US companies.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is the national security risk with TikTok?
Propaganda. You don't have to bother making troll farm accounts to spread misinformation and sow doubt when you control the platform and can create and drip content you want into peoples feeds, and you know what they like, you're already serving them an addictive stream of content based on their behaviors.
And i just saw an anti-China anti-ccp video on tiktok yesterday. A number of them last week. I saw pro Hong Kong Independence video too. If the ccp is manipulating public opinion using tiktok, they are doing a terrible job at it. Bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. From a legal perspective it's not subjected to any Chinese laws, including the intelligence law. The tiktok subsidiary is not under Chinese law as well. The management of tiktok is all Americans. And Tiktok is run by American employees, there are 1500 of them. If Chinese government is forcing them to manipulate the algorithm in favor of Chinese, they would have said something in public by now. Also, 2 out of 4 board members of the company is none Chinese. American investor Sequoia and BlackRock owns 40% of the company. They obviously would know if the company is owned by the government right? They also know the day to day operations of the company and they would know if tiktok is being used by the Chinese government for propaganda purposes right?
Honestly, given the amount of smearing and disinformation about China and Chinese government in Western media, I can honestly say the ccp is super weak at doing any kind of PR messaging. Half the world still believes the coronavirus is manufacturered by the Wuhan lab and is released to world as a bio weapon. Even when scientists have repeatedly debunked it as a conspiracy theory. It's almost as if ccp isn't even trying at controlling the public opinion. Just let the rumors fly wild. Back in April, I have seen so many videos about this conspiracy theory on Tiktok. Meanwhile, look at how fox news, PragerU and other conservative media are blaming China and defending Trump for things US scientists, public health experts and policy makers have called him on. Look at how they have attacked Dem cities and Dem leaders while promoting themselves as the just and righteous. This looks more like manipulating public opinion and pushing out propaganda to me.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's fair. Imagine, for example, an extremely convincing book is authored that convinces anyone that reads it that the United States government should disolve itself and its citizens should pledge fealty to China. Quite credibly, the book could be described a national security threat to the US. However, I would still argue that the book should not be banned, and that any country that wants to honestly describe itse…
It's magical thinking to believe that there could be a book that convinces people of something despite being wrong.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#219It'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…
The CCP is waging ideological warfare on Western liberalism. And they’re the aggressor. Blocking a medium for them to wage it isn’t hypocrisy.
Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores
#220It'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's not very surprising.
It is a reasonable assumption that the CCP, which has expressed ideological opposition to the spread of democracy, will not be using information it gathers on US or European citizens in order to defend or promote democratic rights and freedoms globally. It's a reasonable assumption that western governments, who do have an ideological intention of spreading democracy and western-style freedoms, probably would want to promote individual rights and freedoms (and that is why China was wary of them).
How you see a stick depends on whether you think the person holding it will brandish it for or against you.