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Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

politico.com

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Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#21

Post by kibwen »

coldpie wrote: post #19
mschuster91 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

If we agree that that's bad, why do we allow Facebook to do it? Why not craft a ban on the bad behavior, which would then necessarily also preclude Tiktok from doing it?

Sure, let's do it. I haven't seen anyone defending Facebook's own shitty behavior here. If you mean why don't politicians do it, the answer is corruption (lobbying).

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#22

Post by graypegg »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok? I think they could censor victories and raise losses or fabricated stories, sow doubt at a minimum. Make dead american soldiers trend. Whether we like it or not, most teens get news from tiktok. At a maximum they could brick 150 million phones, use them to ddos, use them to hack/disrupt, etc. steal b…

They could data-mine for the kids of generals and colonels, see when daddy (or mommy) wasn't home until 2am, and infer that something big's happening. They could see on some nobody's kid that lives one town over from the base that traffic has been heavier or lighter at a certain date, just from watching the kid dance down the sidewalk. Tiktok's like having a spy camera that floats around randomly, taking pictures. 99…

I guess the other side of the coin is asking if they even need TikTok to do that. Yes, TikTok incentivizes self-surveillance but if we weren’t using TikTok, there would be another competitor to fill that niche.

Just because the data isn’t housed within your jurisdiction, doesn’t mean it isn’t accessible to you given enough effort.

There’s entire companies who have products solely used to process data off public social media and create dossiers on people. [0] No row level access required.

[0] https://cellebrite.com/en/cellebrite-smart-search

Not to say it doesn’t obviously make things easier, but the issue is more complex than what some politicians seem to think it is. “Ban TikTok = stop china doing bad things with foreign data”

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#23

Post by lukev »

I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does, and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too.

Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#24

Post by gardenhedge »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #13
lawlessone wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the content there... i don't think they are getting anything good...

TikTok is the worst "brain junk food" platform I've seen. Sometimes people forward me videos from TikTok that have some horizontal video at the top (the one you are supposed to watch, apparently?), and then completely unrelated video game footage as the vertical "background". I don't know if it is intended to hook into some sort of attention hack where they abuse the fact that humans are stimulated by movement and co…

It depends on what you look at. The algorithm learns and basically mirrors your interests. Look at crap and it means you're crap. For example I get great gardening tips, DIY videos and learn something every swipe

/s

I completely agree with you. It's junk! But expect to see my first paragraph as a common rebuttal.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#25

Post by croes »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok? I think they could censor victories and raise losses or fabricated stories, sow doubt at a minimum. Make dead american soldiers trend. Whether we like it or not, most teens get news from tiktok. At a maximum they could brick 150 million phones, use them to ddos, use them to hack/disrupt, etc. steal b…

They could data-mine for the kids of generals and colonels, see when daddy (or mommy) wasn't home until 2am, and infer that something big's happening. They could see on some nobody's kid that lives one town over from the base that traffic has been heavier or lighter at a certain date, just from watching the kid dance down the sidewalk. Tiktok's like having a spy camera that floats around randomly, taking pictures. 99…

And all of a sudden privacy and data protection are important.

Maybe the USA and China should sign a data protection agreement and call it Safe Harbor or so.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#26

Post by bloomingeek »

All the comments so far are great, and for me, understandable. What gets me is why China would poke the US government for all these months? What is it that our government isn't telling us? Is it an advantage for China to alienate one of the largest economies on Earth? Does China realize that to wake up the average American "bear" is a really bad idea, especially in these crazy political times?!?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#27

Post by vkou »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok? I think they could censor victories and raise losses or fabricated stories, sow doubt at a minimum. Make dead american soldiers trend. Whether we like it or not, most teens get news from tiktok. At a maximum they could brick 150 million phones, use them to ddos, use them to hack/disrupt, etc. steal b…

> The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok?

If you're directing your peace-time policy based on a hypothetical worst that can be done in war-time, you're going to have really insane peace-time policies. If war were to break out tomorrow, we might want to institute a draft, I guess we should start drafting people now?

Nobody would blink twice if TikTok were turned off during a war so I'm not seeing how that hypothetical is relevant to anything.

I'd expect phone lines and internet cables to be turned off during a war too, but I'd be absolutely insane to demand that we cut them now, because of some hypothetical harm that might come if a very particular kind of shooting war between two nuclear powers (that somehow does not end in nuclear war) broke out.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#28

Post by gardenhedge »

coldpie wrote: post #19
mschuster91 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

If we agree that that's bad, why do we allow Facebook to do it? Why not craft a ban on the bad behavior, which would then necessarily also preclude Tiktok from doing it?

Because the US government has more authority over Facebook than it does for a Chinese tech company.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#29

Post by voisin »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could data-mine for the kids of generals and colonels, see when daddy (or mommy) wasn't home until 2am, and infer that something big's happening. They could see on some nobody's kid that lives one town over from the base that traffic has been heavier or lighter at a certain date, just from watching the kid dance down the sidewalk. Tiktok's like having a spy camera that floats around randomly, taking pictures. 99…

Yep. Everything that is physically possible becomes a possibility, limited only by their creativity.

> Gather mac addresses that are nearby. Maybe your neighbor is a general and your phone can snoop when they are around.

Would this be possible from an app within either iOS or Android?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#30

Post by wyldberry »

vkou wrote: post #27
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #12

The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok? I think they could censor victories and raise losses or fabricated stories, sow doubt at a minimum. Make dead american soldiers trend. Whether we like it or not, most teens get news from tiktok. At a maximum they could brick 150 million phones, use them to ddos, use them to hack/disrupt, etc. steal b…

> The way I see it is this: If war were to break out between the US and China right now, what could they do with tiktok? If you're directing your peace-time policy based on a hypothetical worst that can be done in war-time, you're going to have really insane peace-time policies. If war were to break out tomorrow, we might want to institute a draft, I guess we should start drafting people now? Nobody would blink twice…

There's never been a more ripe time for a third axis to open up stretching and bankrupting America. In America, and the west, we think often in terms of binary peace/war. This is not the same philosophy shared by those who wish to replace America as the world power.

It's good to have the frameworks in place to execute these things when we need them and it's my opinion that we will need them in the next five years.

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