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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

#261

Post by innocenat »

MetalGuru wrote: post #193
howlgarnish wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You know that Google used to operate in China until 2010 where it voluntarily* quit Chinese market?

* In a sense that Google didn't want to follow Chinese laws anymore.

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

#262

Post by onetimemanytime »

zmmmmm wrote: post #51
localhost wrote: post #20

Unlike some other commenters below, I don't believe that this is a privacy issue. Instead, I believe that it is a national security issue because TikTok is controllable by the CCP which is ideologically opposed to the United States. The next global conflict will likely be one between the east and the west, with control of information being advantageous to both sides in the conflict. China already blocks the western I…

> Instead, I believe that it is a national security issue Are you uncomfortable adopting that belief with literally no concrete evidence that anything of the sort is actually occurring? I don't know how you reconcile rule of law with such drastic interventions in the rights of companies without evidence of wrongdoing. If anything you can come up with in your most paranoid fantasies can be the basis of shutting down a…

>>Are you uncomfortable adopting that belief with literally no concrete evidence that anything of the sort is actually occurring? OK, I'll assume that you are right. That will change the minute China decides to, and no Chinese court can intervene.

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

#263

Post by wbillingsley »

grawprog wrote: post #221
wbillingsley wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 freedom…

>will not be using information it gathers on US or European citizens in order to defend or promote democratic rights and freedoms globally. And when was America doing this? I seem to recall the last 15 years as being full of America attacking and occupying foreign nations to claim resources.

I really don't think it had much to do with whether they had access to Facebook...

This seems to be getting caught up in general "pro-US"/"anti-US" or "pro-China"/"anti-China" sentiments on the forum. To be honest, I'm not interested in that or getting into general political discussions, though the question of how the tech environment will evolve around the world is very interesting to most of us that read this forum. Someone claimed it was "surprising" that Americans would support their companies operating overseas but oppose alleged data gathering by allegedly foreign-government-linked corporations. I expressed that I'm not surprised by that at all. That matches up pretty well with how I imagine the American public reacting.

Likewise I do think the nature of this allegation is different to national security allegations in the past. So far as I recall, this is the first time a national security risk allegation has been about mass data collection on civilians from the regular operation of an app. Cambridge Analytica is perhaps the closest equivalent, and that got shut down pretty quickly even though it was a company run in another western country.

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

#264

Post by therealx »

Aperocky wrote: post #91
libraryatnight wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't have tiktok but according to anecdotal evidence from family members who do, the propaganda you describe seemed to be people doing stupid things in their bathroom while getting hurt in the process. You'd probably say 'potential' but just think about it, banning something for 'potential'. Is that where we are right now?

The problem is they could pull a Facebook and show certain content to change peoples moods intentionally. It's already proven possible. That said, I'm all for legislation against all social media companies.

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

#265

Post by mantap »

dilap wrote: post #202
bo1024 wrote: post #197

Earlier 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…

I don't think a social network is like a book. It's more like the postal system. TikTok is not saying anything themselves. They are transmitting communications that other people are saying to each other (in the form of short videos).

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

#266

Post by therealx »

pastaking wrote: post #75
libraryatnight wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn’t this be better handled by a more sophisticated solution like some kind of law or governance organization? Banning specific apps is like whack a mole. There will also be other countries with opposing ideological beliefs - we probably shouldn’t want to play whack a mole country by country either.

I agree, and we need something that's equal across the board which will try to handle domestic companies doing things like Facebooks mood experiments.

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

#267

Post by Cthulhu_ »

warbaker wrote: post #183
howlgarnish wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh but it is ok, it's just that there's no good legal precedence for it yet.

Plus it goes against the US's low restrictions and limitations on doing business.

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

#268

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jjulius wrote: post #175
bduerst wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>... Bytedance is a Cayman's Islands company... Sure, it's incorporated in the Caymans, but we all know that that is just a technicality.

Like every other company operating from the Caymans; tax evasion.

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

#269

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Dahoon wrote: post #236
jjulius wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Wikipedia is not a good source one way or the other.

You're not citing a better source either agreeing or opposing the argument made though.

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

#270

Post by jachee »

fuzxi wrote: post #233
bduerst wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

If it does business in China, then it's beholden to Chinese law at the risk of no longer doing business in China.

By that rationale, Apple and Microsoft are Chinese companies.
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