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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like that app may have a backdoor https://x.com/d0tslash/status/1878959715033694492
Quite plausible. To what extent can a backdoor escape Android/iOS sandboxing?
Chances of that happening are close to 0.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
3. The government is concerned that having a company that's beholden to a foreign government control the algorithm that feeds the rising generation much of their worldview may not be a good long term plan. This has a passing resemblance to (2), but the key difference is that the government doesn't believe they have control over the narrative on Facebook, they just know that a foreign government doesn't . It's strictl…
Funny you mention Raw Capitalism: It shows a point I like to bring up often that Capitalism and The Free Market are directly opposed. What capital (a fancy word for shareholders) want is an infinite money machine and that is easiest with a monopoly. Hence, banning a competitor that's doing too well in the free market. To the other part, I consider your 3 and my 2 the same, the US doesn't want us getting Chinese info…
noahpinion has a great post [1] on this today and he points out the interesting observations we can make: 1. because it's "Beijing" who is tasked with deciding whether or not TikTok can be sold makes it extremely clear Bytedance is not an independent private company the way it would be the case in the US. They are legally required to obey CCP directives [2] 2. Beijing had every opportunity to sell the application off…
>Bytedance is not an independent private company PRC banned exporting Bytedance algo. By that logic, no US companies are independent private companies due to US export controls. And TBH both points are true. >Grindr Grindr was foreign company acquired by PRC, and sale was reversed by CFIUS. Selling an acquired foreign company is geo/politically different than having your domestic company nationalized/appropriated by…
Chinese state control over private companies is far more pervasive, and less bound by rule-of-law, than that of the U.S. Export controls are not even the H2O molecule at the tip of the iceberg.
> Even PRC has never forced a US company from divesting US ownership
Bytedance is not being forced to divest; they can leave the market, just like Google and many others had to leave China.
Can anyone enlighten me as to what this TikTok ban is supposed to be about? It feels a bit satanic panic from a distance.
The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
Given how easy it is for China to buy US data legally from data brokers and how similar the functionality of TikTok and YouTube Shorts, I feel like the only explanations are: 1. The govt is mad that a foreign company is outcompeting a domestic one Or more likely, given that there are so many other industries that didn't get a ban: 2. The govt is mad that they have control over the narrative on Facebook but do not on…
The big issue isn't data security; it's propaganda. Irrespective of whether the government has control of the narrative on Facebook (I would argue they pretty clearly don't) there is no reason to let a foreign adversary have a deniable propaganda line to millions of Americans. Would we have let the USSR acquire a major television network? And even if you disagree with the national security reasons for disallowing Chi…
Can anyone enlighten me as to what this TikTok ban is supposed to be about? It feels a bit satanic panic from a distance.
I hope this doesn’t sound overly cynical or conspiratorial. My sense is that there’s panic about unfettered access to what’s happening in Gaza on TikTok, which is shaping Gen Z’s perceptions in a way that isn’t deemed acceptable by the political establishment. US-based companies seem to have processes in place - direct or indirect - to suppress the reach of such content.
The government first started talking about banning TikTok in 2018 (under Trump). Ordered them to divest of US interests and prohibited transactions with them in 2020 (under Trump). The latter of which was overturned by the courts.
The current administration took over in 2021, and in 2021 labelled the PRC as a foreign adversary. Discussed the threat to the US through the PRCs control of software applications and teh vasts swaths of information available from their users, directed agencies to find risk mitigation measures, and started a long process of negotiating with TikTok over how exactly it continued to operate.
The act ordering divestment is the inevitable consequence of those talks failing... those talks failed sometime late 2022 or early 2023 (the last proposal under them was in August 2022).
The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
There are so many UI elements on top of video that end up blocking what you're trying to see. There is no way to hide them.
YouTube also destroyed its search.