Microsoft Statement on TikTok • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#111

Post by mistermann » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #84

mistermann wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying this went viral, but I did encounter it while just normally browsing TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor/video/686526224212490... I think the US has more than a few skeletons in its closet that they'd prefer remain there, so having a means of exerting control over popular platforms seems like plain old common sense.

The same sort of content (including many re-hosted videos) is available on his Twitter page, so I'm not sure this is evidence for anything.

The ask was:

> I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy.

I posted an example of a video that is critical of the US government including its foreign policy. This seems like reasonable evidence that one can find videos critical of the US government including its foreign policy on the TikTok platform.

Noteworthy is that TikTok is a distinctly different platform than Twitter in many ways. One might even go so far as to say that it's possible that TikTok may even have the possibility of being a more influential platform than Twitter, particularly for certain demographics such as young people, who often have impressionable minds and openness for new ideological beliefs.

A potential example of the power of ideological beliefs might be observing that intelligent, rational people in a forum will downvote someone who literally provides an example of what someone else asked for. Imagine what sort of mass behavior modification could be achieved with an ongoing campaign designed by people who have a deep understanding of human psychology, leveraging the capabilities of a platform like TikTok that is well proven at propagating memes.

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#112

Post by apta » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #20

> We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security? > combatting disinformation There you have it. I've seen TikTok videos go viral being really critical of the US government including its foreign policy. The kind of video that would just be invisible or outright banned from Youtube…

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?

It's quite obvious since the CCP has control of it. I'd question anyone who doesn't seriously believe that the CCP is waiting for the right moment to exploit the information from TikTok and similar apps, if it isn't already.

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#113

Post by newen » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #51

ericmay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main issue is this: The US views Chinese social media apps as being able to spread criticism (and most likely propaganda) and the US can’t do likewise in China, so they’ll just not let Chinese social media companies operate in the US until that changes. There will be 0 official, influential Chinese social media companies operating in the US on a permanent basis until the CCP let’s US social media companie…

Have you seen the anti-US sentiment being stoked on TikTok among our nation's zoomers? " All buildings matter " and " all days in September matter " are just two recent memes from the past month. TikTok is doing a lot of harm to our national image. Zoomers that I know don't think it's important for the US to have a lead in tech and that we commit atrocities worse than China. It's pretty alarming that we're being mani…

Zoomers have not been living under decades of Cold War propaganda. Maybe older folks should re-evaluate all of their assumptions about geopolitics hammered into their brain through decades of propaganda before venturing into criticism about the Zoomers and their view on things.

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#114

Post by newen » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

peacefulhat wrote: post #85

There's a Reuters article that claims the Chinese government prefers TikTok close US operations like in India than go through with a forced sale and asset transfer, and they're willing to use heavy-handed policy to make Bytedance do what they want. Makes sense. Acquisitions should not be made under the barrel of a gun from the US government. It will be very harmful to the Chinese economy if more companies are require…

Yeah, it's like US companies buying UK companies and then massively profiting off them. Why should China subsidize startup costs for a company and then sell it so the US can make massive profits off it? It doesn't seem to be in their interests.

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#115

Post by WillPostForFood » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

divbzero wrote: post #50

WillPostForFood wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security? Everyone who believes Facebook was used to influence the 2016 election should believe TikTok poses a similar threat. I'd agree that the threat is overblown, but many serious people, in good faith, seriously believe it.

Current US intelligence officials [1] are among those serious people who seriously believe that social media is being used to influence American elections. [1]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/china-election-interference...

I believe that social media is being used to try to influence American elections, whether it actually being influenced is unclear, and I believe overblown. I've been party to enough multi million dollar brand campaigns to know the results are hard to measure, often less than believed, and generally a waste.

Re: Microsoft Statement on TikTok

#116

Post by superfrank » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #101

superfrank wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security? I think they are in the sense that they're collecting massive amounts of user data about their users and I believe they wouldn't hesitate to share that data with the Chinese government if asked. On the flip side, I also think their threat to our national security is being made a bigger deal than it actually is by politicians who have an anti-Chi…

I see this argument about Grinder having data that is blackmail material, but it seems less clear to me that the TikTok data itself would be that interesting if it all became fully public. Though I say that as someone who has never used the app, and I'm not sure about other data concerns besides blackmail (maybe troop deployments?)

I don't use the app either, so I don't know the specifics, but I assume it has similar data collection to something like Instagram, so using that as my mental model I can think of a few things:

- I'm sure it collecting location data. In the past people have used data from apps like Strava to actually trace and map the layouts of military bases, so I'm sure you could do something similar.

- I believe the app has messaging as well which could contain private or sensitive data

- In that same vein, I know plenty of people who send things through snapchat and instagram that they definitely shouldn't (think military members taking pictures on base where they shouldn't to try and impress people or devs taking pictures in meetings with sensitive data in the background)

- You could use the app to sow discontent or push propaganda by showing or hiding certain content to certain locations or social groups

- You might (BIG MAYBE) be able to track certain high profile through the location data of their friends or family or running facial recognition on all videos

Some of the things I listed may not be feasible and I'm sure there are things you could do with the data is not listed. The things I listed aren't meant to be concrete examples that I'm saying we should worry about, but rather examples of ways that the data they have can be used in unexpected ways.