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The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

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Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#321

Post by fhrow4484 »

uniqueuid wrote: post #61
karp773 wrote: post #20

The very fact that not a single western social network is permitted to operate in China is a sufficient reason to ban TikTok in America.

That argument makes no sense, because we do not want to mirror other countries. Instead, there are substantial arguments about freedom of speech and accountability. Even though they are messy, they are what we need to apply here because they are a legally binding framework that we built over decades. By the way, I found Levitski and Ziblatt's book "How Democracies Die" [1] a pretty good treatment of these issues of b…

> That argument makes no sense, because we do not want to mirror other countries.

Tit-for-tat is literally how agreements around the world works.

"Reciprocity treaty" if you want to make it fancy sounding, but it's just "tit-for-tat" for Taxes, Tariffs, Visitor visa & rules, etc.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#322

Post by scohesc »

II2II wrote: post #76

There are a couple of things we have to be careful of in these discussions: one is that the US has strong motivations for (economic) protectionism. We should be focussing on evidence of wrongdoing, not innuendo. The second is how the accusations are being made. Too much of it reeks of borderline racism and there seems to be an uptick in outright racism against Chinese people. Remember, it is acts of the Chinese gover…

There's no racism to be found - why do people conflate issues with the way the Chinese _government_ chooses to operate with the Chinese _people_ themselves?

The Chinese government technically owns TikTok - No doubt in my mind profile/algorithm data is being sent overseas for processing and manipulation by the Chinese government.

The Chinese government uses strategies that span _decades/centuries_ to influence countries. They can do that because they don't have to rip and replace governments/officials on regular election cycles - that's the way their government works and why some people consider Democracy to not be a great government structure - a separate tangent to go down.

The Chinese government creates/purchases a social media app that happens to attract easily influenced children/teenagers/adults, cater content directly for them to keep them on the platform for as long as possible, with the _very real_ potential for the Chinese government to influence people through algorithm manipulation, which app users don't even realize.

Don't get me wrong, it's equally as harmful when Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat does it - it's just that China studied this formula and has likely adapted it to be used as a form of cultural/government warfare against enemy countries - without even putting boots on their soil.

Distract as many minds as possible, feed them information that tells them the US/Canada/Europe isn't as "free as people say", deliberately promote key cultural "wedge" issues to emotionally enrage/depress people and eventually you have a population in 50-100 years that welcomes the Chinese government into their country because there is no cohesive American identity anymore able to stand against aggressive foreign influence/interference.

I'm not saying this is the sole purpose and goal of TikTok, and I'm not saying it's the _sole_ thing China is doing to "take over America!" - but it's a multi-faceted approach to foreign interference that nobody seems to even consider or think about. See - Belt and Road initiatives, foreign spies in high political positions influencing US politics, committing corporate espionage to steal trade secrets and technologies...

Yes, I'm also sure the USA does all of these things - personally, I'd rather have the USA doing these things instead of China, since I have more of a chance of influencing what the US is doing with our data rather than a country on the opposite side of the globe operating without recourse to western law.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#323

Post by zip1234 »

pjc50 wrote: post #81
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surveillance isn't the primary issue. INFLUENCE OPERATIONS is. China's ability to direct content to achieve their strategic goals, and to do so at a very granular level, is too great a risk. Its not the only property with this capability (cough, 4chan/pol/, cough), but its by far the largest.

Aren't influence operations free speech? (thread locked after 1,397,957 comments)

There is no right for foreign governments to have free speech in the US. If they are outside of the US they do not get US rights.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#324

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #313
clashmoore wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm an American who uses TikTok for entertainment. I don't think it's utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue. Even hearing these threats that China is possibly surveilling me - what do they get that other social media apps like Instagram get from me? From the FBI it sounds like the national security threat is that China may use it alter my feed to influence me or take over the control of my Apple phone? Ha…

Reposting from another comment [0], but there are at least three reasons you should be concerned what happens with your TikTok data: 1. Shaping and manipulating minds. Eg, show healthy, educational, intellectual content to Chinese users, and unhealthy, addictive, emotional, short-attention-span-inducing content in US and foreign markets (already happening [1]). 2. Train AI that can be used for analyzing and further m…

The reason for #1 is that China has regulations on what content can be shown to children. The US could pass similar regulations, but chooses not to. This isn't TikTok's or China's fault.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#325

Post by zip1234 »

soup10 wrote: post #19
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

Not sure that US really wants to set a precedent of protectionism when so many large US technology companies operate globally.

Reciprocal protectionism is much different than unilaterally doing it. Also, the Chinese gov has clearly taken an aggressive and adversarial stance against the US.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#326

Post by pessimizer »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

> sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules?

That won't work because China will just follow the rules. How would that hurt China?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#327

Post by extrememacaroni »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

Ah yes, rules. For China. Which now decides pretty much most of the content that the western world's children see. TikTok is part of it, them acquiring gaming companies is another, and there's likely even more ways in which China is gaining control of what we're consuming.

I bet China's going to be like "guys we can't do this anymore, they just updated their terms of service with this brand new rule so we can't proceed with the head-in-toilet challenge operation".

China is pretty smart, you trying to do the same thing in their country would be impossible. Guess why?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#328

Post by pessimizer »

kube-system wrote: post #185
jasonlotito wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China isn't going to listen to your rules And then they are banned. Not because they are China or TikTok, but because they break specific rules we hold everyone to.

Espionage is covert by definition, and is already illegal. Spies break foreign laws as a part of their job description, and yet, they still exist.

This is a great argument for expelling all Chinese people, people of Chinese descent, people who have said anything nice about China, and people who have never said anything nice about China but I think are hindering our competitiveness against them.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#329

Post by pessimizer »

solardev wrote: post #139
jasonlotito wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China isn't going to listen to your rules And then they are banned. Not because they are China or TikTok, but because they break specific rules we hold everyone to.

You won't be able to tell when they're not following the rules.

We won't be able to tell when they're not following the rules that are not important enough to impose on domestic companies?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#330

Post by mizzao »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #198
angio wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American companies are allowed to operate in China, as long as they follow local regulation. If TikTok behaviour is concerning (it is, like google/facebook/etc are also concerning), then introduce regulations that protect users' privacy and only then ban TikTok.

The local regulation is to parter with a Chinese company to operate the service. Giving that company a substantial percentage of revenue.

And the ability to steal a substantial amount of your IP and start a copycat across the street.
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