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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

#281

Post by Dig1t »

p1necone wrote: post #173
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.

> It's not a company. It's a division of a foreign government. Can you elaborate on this? As far as I can tell this is just not the case, and none of the people saying it are clarifying what they mean.

If you examine ByteDance's structure technically, you are correct that it does look like just a regular company. But just about everything runs differently in China. All major companies in China have CCP party members on their boards who not only influence corporate policy, but are actually _deferred to_ on anything remotely political.[2][3] At the end of the day the party has the final say in any matters that it cares about. There's actually a fundamental difference that many westerners don't understand about China, and it comes from an ignorance of the country's history in my opinion: there is no real rule of law, there is the current will of the party[1]. Obviously there's a ton of whataboutism that you can misdirect here about how the US or other western countries don't follow their constitutions or whatever, but it is fundamentally different, as the differences in the CCP run very deep down to the daily lives of basically every citizen ("show me a warrant" does NOT fly in China, ever).

TLDR; the CCP does whatever it wants whenever it wants, and is deeply ingrained in every major corporation at the highest levels.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s...

[2] https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/politics-in-the-boardroom-th...

[3] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3045053/c...

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

#282

Post by tooltalk »

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.

>> ... being banned essentially on executive whim:

The US Senate unanimously approved a bill banning federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices last month. So there is some consensus among lawmakers that some sort of privacy and/or security threat exists -- it's hardly on "executive whim."

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

#283

Post by avianlyric »

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…

I don’t think the real issue is whether or not the US block TicTok or any other Chinese company. The issue is how they block these companies.

The approach Trump is using is arbitrary, and he seems more interested in engaging in crony capitalism than actually protecting the US.

This approach undermines the rule-of-law in the US, which alongside its democratic processes, is what US holds up as its reason for moral superiority in the world.

If the executive and they rest of the US really cares about this issue, then put legislation through congress. Put those much vaulted democratic process to work, and don’t support executives that seek to undermine those processes.

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

#284

Post by Hokusai »

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

That or the president wants a Friendly social network to manage the news cycle of the election instead of a social network that is not so much influenced by him.

Those who control the news has the power to change perceptions.

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

#285

Post by ygjb »

devwastaken wrote: post #101
zmmmmm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

Ok, but how is Tik Tok a national security issue, but the fact that damn near every electronic device available on the market is manufactured in or out of components manufactured in China doesn't seem to be one?

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

#286

Post by tannhaeuser »

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…

It's neither a privacy nor national security issue. It's the POTUS silencing per decree an alleged pro-Biden voice in upcoming elections, whereas alleged pro-Trump voices by other foreign nations on eg Facebook are welcome. It will become an issue of international free trade on the Internet with the US side as the dominant player standing to loose economically. Why would other foreign nations allow US companies to destroy their publishing and advertising industry when the US market isn't welcoming foreign competition?

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

#287

Post by CraigJPerry »

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…

Surely Facebook’s a bigger issue than 60 second videos since any bad actor can target messaging at susceptibile users and no one will know.

This just seems like yet another case of Republican double speak. Say one thing do a different thing that just coincidentally happens to grab power over others.

Also, what is the method of using a 60 second video platform to share messaging with a crowd who will immediately scroll past anything heavy (or just plain stop using the app) to get to the next funny video? It seems a ultra low effectiveness medium for controlled messaging.

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

#288

Post by slim »

otterley wrote: post #231
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…

China censors the Internet to prevent public information from getting in. The US Government is attempting to restrict the activities of certain Chinese companies to prevent private information from getting out.

what you said just does not make any sense. china does censor information getting out for the same reason us is doing it. us is censoring information getting to "protect the minds of the children from influence" just like china. it's just the way the technology works and the intentions of both parties seem to be the same xenophobic warmongering shit

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

#289

Post by fastball »

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…

You think there isn't evidence that China is already participating in information warfare at an unprecedented scale?

US OpSec is terrible and it's still obvious.

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

#290

Post by fastball »

jahaja wrote: post #106
zmmmmm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This whole shift to China as the new "enemy" is fascinating. Even though Trump is more or less mental, and is recognised as such, he has somehow managed to whip up this new cold war frenzy even among his opponents in the media. I can barely remember any focus on China before Trump. Not saying that there shouldn't be any but it's still interesting how this can spread to the entire country even if the author is an untr…

I don't think you were paying attention.
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