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

UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

texastribune.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 250 posts

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#101

Post by vkou »

guessbest wrote: post #15

> In a statement, a representative from TikTok said they are disappointed by the news. > "We're disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok," spokesperson Jamal Brown wrote. Regardless of you stance on Texas and Texans and politics, the above is a pretty funny…

> We have to protect the integrity of short video apps that are built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers.

So, you're in favor of banning YouTube and most forms of television?

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#102

Post by guilhas »

Nextgrid wrote: post #52
eddsh1994 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data harvesting to China is what these people care about

It's a move designed to garner political points and take advantage of the China-related fear-mongering. They don't actually give a shit about your privacy otherwise they would indeed block Facebook and other equally-malicious US-based spyware operators.

Same for youngs mental health

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#103

Post by bena »

tsimionescu wrote: post #90
bena wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather know if it was up to the government or not know? Because the case with TikTok is that we do not know what the Chinese government is going to do with whatever it collects from the app. Or even if they do. Or anything really. Now, while I think banning TikTok's traffic on the campus network is more of a stunt than anything worthwhile. I do see the argument from banning TikTok and just about any other n…

This is about banning access to TikTok for client devices of a campus network. It has nothing to do with banning the TikTok app on government-issued phones.

I can imagine that that's the argument they're coming from. So comparing and contrasting the situations isn't out of line.

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#104

Post by bena »

ALittleLight wrote: post #92
bena wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather know if it was up to the government or not know? Because the case with TikTok is that we do not know what the Chinese government is going to do with whatever it collects from the app. Or even if they do. Or anything really. Now, while I think banning TikTok's traffic on the campus network is more of a stunt than anything worthwhile. I do see the argument from banning TikTok and just about any other n…

If you don't like TikTok or are concerned about the Chinese government collecting information on you, those are excellent reasons for you not to use TikTok. But what do your preferences have to do with the freedom of other people?

But it's also UT-Austin's network. They should have some say in what traffic the allow on it.

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#105

Post by rapind »

pessimizer wrote: post #67
guessbest wrote: post #15

> In a statement, a representative from TikTok said they are disappointed by the news. > "We're disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok," spokesperson Jamal Brown wrote. Regardless of you stance on Texas and Texans and politics, the above is a pretty funny…

That's pretty easy to do; to characterize nationalist censorship in terms of trivialities. I could literally use being "built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers" to ban television, newspapers, and every social network.

> ban ________ television, newspapers, and every social network…

^ “advertiser supported”.

For the sake of argument, imagine if advertiser supported content was in fact banned in certain places. Don’t you think that non-advertiser supported models would quickly fill the gap?

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#106

Post by supertrope »

Aaronstotle wrote: post #23
VLM wrote: post #7

The new satanic panic.

Why should the US allow the CCP to have free rein over user's data when the CCP bans US Tech companies from operating in China for the same reason?

This is pointless theater. The PRC already has the SF-86 forms for everyone with a security clearance, and our medical histories via health insurance hacks, etc

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#107

Post by vkou »

flappyeagle wrote: post #97
snapcaster wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want your government to behave the same way as the CCP?

Yes. If they launch a missile, send a missile back.

And if they round up and arrest political and religious dissidents, we should do the same? We can't lose the repression arms race to China, after all...

Firing a missile is an external action. This is not an external question, this is a question of domestic information policy. It's hypocritical for a nation championing free speech to have a restrictive domestic information policy.

Re: UT-Austin blocks access to TikTok on campus Wi-Fi networks

#110

Post by jesprenj »

Offtopic, sharing a story:

Our gymnasium pays for fortiguard so that they can block games on the web. This includes lichess.org etc.

This is a country with non ascii latin letters in the alphabet, but despite this many domains were falsely banned for being an IDN homograph attack.

Cracked minecraft clients are stored on a shared network drive and LAN multiplayer can still be played during boring informatics lessons.

Is blocking websites on the european eduroam allowed? I suppose it is ... ?

Post reply on HN