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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

#341

Post by bawolff »

tommymachine wrote: post #334
bawolff wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part i dont get - zoom also has ties to China. Everyone focuses on tiktok which is kids making stupid videos, but zoom which almost certainly has massive amounts of highly sensitive info going through it, seems to raise very few eye brows comparatively.

When you look at the amount of data one would have to sift through to find anything valuable, it’s a pretty big difference between TikTok & Zoom. Put simply, TikTok saves & distributes short video content. Zoom streams long video chats. The potential for gathering psychological data would be far higher with TikTok, and the barrier for entry far lower.

We have computers that can automatically make transcripts. I'm sure china knows how grep works.

Are you seriously suggesting that its easier to gather psychological data from short videos than it would be from therapy sessions held over zoom? Why would that even be more valuable to china than the traditional industry espinoge that would be trivial to extract over zoom. Hell, why would you expect that short videos made for the express purpose of trying to gain popularity would be more telling about someone's personality than their candid work interactions?

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

#342

Post by howlgarnish »

tooltalk wrote: post #282
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.

>> ... 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."

You're tautologically correct (TikTok is banned because TikTok is banned!), but that still doesn't answer the question. Put another way: if whatever Tiktok is doing represents a categorical privacy/security threat, then why aren't they banning all apps that engage in said activity, instead of just Tiktok?

I suspect the answer is that Tiktok is just doing the same as Facebook etc, and that's unacceptable only because the mined data might go to China.

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

#343

Post by jahaja »

fastball wrote: post #290
jahaja wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wasn't?

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

#344

Post by CraigJPerry »

donkeyd wrote: post #296
CraigJPerry wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scrol…

Theoretically, CCP could abuse location services to track movements of military personnel and civilians in a war. Since FB isn't Chinese, that is less of an issue for large scale surveilance. Also, if the Chinese had a zero day that they could exploit by pushing a malicious TikTok update, they could get root access to these phones and use them for surveillance on a large scale. Sure, this is all hypothetical, but it'…

No thats strava fitness app with documented cases of this. If this was the concern, you’d see a lot more concern over fitness tracker apps that log routines and times.

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

#345

Post by rsha256 »

SifJar wrote: post #299
CraigJPerry wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scrol…

Facebook allows anyone to purchase targeted messaging, but it's an American run company which likely makes the difference - there is likely a perception (real or imagined) that FB will be willing & able to combat "enemy" messaging. In regards to the value of 60 second funny videos to share messaging, part of the strength here may be exactly because it's a platform for short, funny videos; as long as the ideas being c…

exactly people don't realize the subtle implications from watching tiktoks — they do impact you and your thoughts and in any case China censors so much

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

#346

Post by CraigJPerry »

dfischer wrote: post #332
jhardy54 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok is the generation that is most malleable to propaganda in a way that can undermine an entire generation Citation needed. Come on.

Every statement doesn’t need a citation. Come on. Propaganda is real. If you don’t think that all social networks are mechanisms to imprint minds you’re either idealist or compromised. Yawn to the downvotes. Keep them coming. Your naïveté is plain.

So why not focus on Facebook? Why not do something meaningful, anything, with a company which is actually beholden to us law? Seems like targetting the biggest bang for buck would be a good place to start and THEN move on to others, no?

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

#347

Post by LadyCailin »

searchableguy wrote: post #339
donkeyd wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, CCP could abuse location services to track movements of military personnel and civilians in a war. Since FB isn't Chinese, that is less of an issue for large scale surveilance. Also, if the Chinese had a zero day that they could exploit by pushing a malicious TikTok update, they could get root access to these phones and use them for surveillance on a large scale. Sure, this is all hypothetical, but it'…

Ban all Chinese apps?

Yeah. I don’t buy this argument until they ban all Chinese apps. As far as I can tell, it’s just a way to cut off younger voter’s access to information that is critical of Trump. And that’s a generous reading.

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

#348

Post by dfischer »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #346
dfischer wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every statement doesn’t need a citation. Come on. Propaganda is real. If you don’t think that all social networks are mechanisms to imprint minds you’re either idealist or compromised. Yawn to the downvotes. Keep them coming. Your naïveté is plain.

So why not focus on Facebook? Why not do something meaningful, anything, with a company which is actually beholden to us law? Seems like targetting the biggest bang for buck would be a good place to start and THEN move on to others, no?

It’s not mutually exclusive. Facebook is complicit. TikTok however is specifically a unique entity on its own. The demographics that use it are of critical interest to persuade additionally the data is directly at risk of being used as information warfare on increasingly elevated state cyber warfare tactics.

Follow the trail of information. Look into what’s going in across the stack hardware to software to networks. There’s a massive shift the past couple years.

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

#349

Post by fit2rule »

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…

I think Americans should be very, very careful about calling for 'smoking gun evidence' of state oppression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

It is highly duplicitous to be sabre rattling over perceived ideological differences, when America's own ideology is couched in immensely contradicting - nay, hypocritical - failures to conduct state affairs according to International law.

>It's a Chinese company, they have privledges, not rights.

This is also true of American companies, especially those with a trillion dollar profit motive in the military-industrial endless-war market.

Be very, very careful about what doors you open with statements such as this:

>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

We know all too well how tightly wrapped up in its deep state secrets America's own heinous crimes against humanity are .. and if you are so sure of your own states innocence that you feel warranted in calling for other states' downfall for similar reasons, you must surely be willing to discuss America's own human rights abuses in a similar light.

No? Then the moral authority you claim does not exist.

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

#350

Post by 082349872349872 »

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…

It makes sense according to the Sith Rule of Two.

Other countries historically accompanying the US in the top GDP pair included the soviet union and japan, so no surprise that today china would get the two minutes hate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_largest_h...

(right now I'd say india is too underdeveloped and too important a part of Oceania, but assuming the US remains in a position to believe it embodies power two or three decades from now, we'll see if india gets the hate, too.)

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