ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location • Hacker News Board

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#11

Post by Xeoncross » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

It's not even tikTok really, it's WeChat or any other CCP monitored social media company.

I'd love to have a tikTok not controlled by the CCP (or KGB for that matter).

You know, a platform where saying something against the government doesn't result in prison time or death.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#12

Post by partiallypro » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

I actually liked the Trump method, which was to force them to sell the US arm to a US company and sever it from the Chinese. I don't know why that never came to fruition; it looked like it was nearly a done deal (Microsoft was the leading bidder.) Making a competitor from scratch would just open up the userbase to another state actor, though it could give a window for a Vine return.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#13

Post by bayindirh » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

When US bans something to protect itself, that’s OK, but when another country does it, it’s a suppression of free speech and freedoms and whatnot.

Doesn’t this sound a bit off?

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#14

Post by rvz » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

Like I said before, TikTok must be fined in the billions for abusing the privacy of its users. This is not the first time that they have done this but now it is clear that they have admitted this.

They have been caught once [0] and have been caught again this year [1] and lied about accessing the sensitive data of its own users [2], [3], [4] and admitted it here. Clearly the fines in [0] and [1] are extremely low and the fine must increase in the billions since these are repeated privacy violations and haven't learned anything from it.

There is no excuse for billion dollar fines for TikTok.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-pr...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-childre...

[2] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans

[3] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-pe...

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#15

Post by idontpost » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #13

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

When US bans something to protect itself, that’s OK, but when another country does it, it’s a suppression of free speech and freedoms and whatnot. Doesn’t this sound a bit off ?

[dead]

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#16

Post by thomasahle » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

ironyman wrote: post #4

https://www.vox.com/recode/23453786/tiktok-bytedance-cfius-d... Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner argues that even if there is nothing wrong with Tiktok it ought to be banned because it gives China a crucial edge in the development of AI tools that American companies don't have. China is able to freely access Western markets but not the other way around. > Finally, there’s the fear that China will be…

> That’s an advantage the US won’t have because [its social media apps are banned in China and] because there aren’t laws that would compel social media companies to hand over data just because the government wants it.

Wait, why would it be an advantage for creation of AI in the US if social media companies (or company) could be more easily compelled to give our data to the government? Given that it's the social media company we are expecting to produce the AI anyway.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#17

Post by adamsmith143 » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #13

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

When US bans something to protect itself, that’s OK, but when another country does it, it’s a suppression of free speech and freedoms and whatnot. Doesn’t this sound a bit off ?

Intent matters. The reason why China bans foreign social media is much different than the reason we would want to ban TikTok.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#18

Post by idontpost » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #12

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

I actually liked the Trump method, which was to force them to sell the US arm to a US company and sever it from the Chinese. I don't know why that never came to fruition; it looked like it was nearly a done deal (Microsoft was the leading bidder.) Making a competitor from scratch would just open up the userbase to another state actor, though it could give a window for a Vine return.

[dead]

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#19

Post by medellin » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #13

kranke155 wrote: post #6

Yeah. Ban TikTok, have an American company make a clone. Why is this insanity allowed ? China doesn’t allow Western social networks. Why do we allow our strategic enemy to have software on our phones? End this madness. Stop the sale of Chinese tech in the West, period. It’s all backdoored. (if you think they are interested in “co-living” go talk to the Kremlin on how that went. China is bidding its time but their int…

When US bans something to protect itself, that’s OK, but when another country does it, it’s a suppression of free speech and freedoms and whatnot. Doesn’t this sound a bit off ?

Little different when the CCP is ok the board of the company and controls its decisions. Look at what happened to Didi when they did one thing without consent from them. I don’t think you are comparing the same things.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#20

Post by Xeoncross » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

zug_zug wrote: post #7

I feel like this is talking out of both sides of the mouth. If the issue is that corporations aren't following data privacy laws, build the privacy into the tool at the software/ecosystem level (e.g make signup without true name / phone number / IMEI a legal requirement, signup without location sharing a legal requirement) then it'll be impossible to track journalists for both Chinese and American companies.

Forget corporations, I'm concerned about what the governments are doing with this data to harm people (especially those under their own jurisdictions).

ByteDance isn't the problem, the CCP controlling it is.