Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 116 posts

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#51

Post by kodah »

dontbenebby wrote: post #36
advisedwang wrote: post #10

As always, remember that there are several FCC commissioners. When you see a headline about one commissioner, you aren't seeing the FCC decide something, you are seeing the politics within the FCC play out. In fact statements like this typically mean the opinion given is not the overall direction of the FCC, because if it was a majority opinion they wouldn't need to be playing to the media and would just be enacting…

>As always, remember that there are several FCC commissioners Do they vote along party lines too? I know at the FTC under obama, anything BCP the GOP would oppose. (It seemed extremely weird since up until that point the people who'd be the most civil had been the libertarians, an awkward alliance since the millenials have all known since middle school that money is just pieces of paper.) It's a shame the French or w…

It can be. The Obama and Trump administrations definitely installed captive individuals. Appointment can, and probably should be, taken away. We don't need an FCC that flies by the whims of an administration. There's a lot of agencies that statement applies to though. The downside of such a take is that agencies are inherently derivative of the powers Congress gives them, so offering the president appointments is really their attempt to balance power between the branches.

The real root cause is that presidents are often working hand in hand with Congress and who is really shut out is the people because Congress, regardless of the party in power, often does not reflect the will of the people.

Also, kinda odd you're daydreaming about lobbing people's heads off. Maybe don't do that.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#52

Post by josephcsible »

emkoemko wrote: post #2

i agree, plus China doesn't play by the same rules they ban a endless list of sites/apps from outside of China then copy the product to be used and profited from inside China and out..

Maybe a reciprocity rule is what we need: ban foreign companies from operating in the US whenever an equivalent US company wouldn't be allowed to do the exact same thing in the foreign country.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#53

Post by abeppu »

I think we should separate the concerns being raised:

- If the FCC is concerned with how user data is handled, great! But instead of ad-hoc bans on specific companies, let's introduce some rules or laws which apply across the board. This both removes the appearance of a targeted and capricious ban on a Chinese company (which this seems like), and set clear rules of the road going forward.

- If the FCC is concerned with non-transparent manipulation of political speech or pushing perspectives preferred by foreign governments, that's great! It's a little weird and late to focus on China given that it seems we haven't really addressed the documented Russian interference, but sure. Again, let's have a somewhat more systematic approach than just 'ban TikTok', because of course there will be other avenues.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#54

Post by InitialBP »

bishnu wrote: post #8

How would this even work? Get it out of the app stores, fine. But presumably the URL would still be accessible? Likewise sideloading it onto Android devices?

If you removed it from the app stores, a humungous percentage of people would no longer install the app. There will certainly be some tech literate folks who do so, but most people have very little tolerance for technical challenges outside of the norm and would stop at, it's not in the app store anymore.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#56

Post by nicolashahn »

kibwen wrote: post #46
creato wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many imports are banned or heavily tariffed at the whim of the executive branch, I don’t see how this is any different.

Can you give an example? Sanctions against a country or a particular industry are not the same category as "fuck this one company in particular".

Very related ban of Huawei, ZTE tech: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/13/17686310/huawei-zte-us-go...

It was known that these companies actively work with the CCP against US interests, which is the same thing happening with TikTok now.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#57

Post by kibwen »

nicolashahn wrote: post #49
kibwen wrote: post #37

Just like last time this came up, what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking? I'm no fan of TikTok nor of the CCP and its asymmetric corporate warfare, but the executive branch must not be allowed to invent its own laws.

I think preventing the CCP from accessing private data of American citizens probably falls under normal statecraft actions

Agreed, and "espionage" is a fine answer, but that raises the question of why they haven't gone as far as explicitly saying "espionage".

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#58

Post by kibwen »

nicolashahn wrote: post #56
kibwen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example? Sanctions against a country or a particular industry are not the same category as "fuck this one company in particular".

Very related ban of Huawei, ZTE tech: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/13/17686310/huawei-zte-us-go... It was known that these companies actively work with the CCP against US interests, which is the same thing happening with TikTok now.

That's a bill that went through congress, and it only applies to the government's own use of those company's products (which I agree with on several fronts).

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#59

Post by bergenty »

kibwen wrote: post #37

Just like last time this came up, what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking? I'm no fan of TikTok nor of the CCP and its asymmetric corporate warfare, but the executive branch must not be allowed to invent its own laws.

It’s from China and involved with the CCP, I think that’s reason enough.

Re: FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok

#60

Post by legitster »

The whole emergence of TikTok in the US was an almost hilariously slow moving policy crisis. We know it's nefarious, but no one has really figured out a coherent reason of why.

Like, even before it really took off in the states you could read reports of this highly addictive, nefarious platform that the CCP had their fingers all over getting ready to be bottled up and shipped over to the US.

So now that it's here, we've poked and prodded enough to go "yep, that's a Trojan horse all right". But we still don't know what it's for.

Is it meant to push subtle CCP talking points and propaganda? Is this a ruse designed to find and track dissidents? Track rising nascent millennial trends? Lure in important officials to capture or intercept their media habits?

And it could just be a vanity project by high ranking CCP members - showing the West that they can develop technology.

Post reply on HN