Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither Vine nor YikYak was doing $3B in profit/year. TikTok is likely here to stay.
Geez, that's impressive. How do they make money? Ads? Selling data? Or do they have a paid offering?
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TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
141–150 of 151 posts
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#142Intellectual property robbery
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should be playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese spammers already.
> Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. Comment like this lumps tiktok, a privately owned company with the Chinese government with no evidence. It's never about national security but really about US politicians seeing a social network with real reach in the US that for the first time does NOT need to pay to lobby in the US, nor to be responsive to congressional inquiry (as they have been able to do rec…
Is the Chinese cyber threat not real? The United States, Russia and China are the largest producers of state sanctioned attacks by a significant margin. You are painting me as some sort of bigot when in reality I have a perfectly legitimate reason to be concerned. I have every right and reason to feel the way I do. I would support similar sentiment of any Chinese or Russian citizen who uses an American product. They can be cautious too, it won't hurt my feelings. We all make the best decision we can with the information we currently have.
Moreover, my TikTok information has already been compromised which pairs nicely with my SF-86 data that was also compromised with the OPM attacks. Why did I decide to even use the application to begin with you might ask? I chose to because I didn't want to rule out what is otherwise one of the most popular social media platforms in the country because of my own bias. TikTok is by far my favorite social media application I just no longer choose to use it. I will watch the TikTok content that trickles down into YouTube for the time being. I have no means to verify authenticity of your statement that the owner of TikTok is some sort of 'outspoken globalist' who condemns the Chinese government. All the while operating one of the largest growing social media companies based out of a communist country. If the US data is segregated from the Chinese based data centers then why did I start receiving text messages with Chinese characters in it within several days of downloading the application and creating an account? Was it all a coincidence? I would be naive to not believe that it was simply coincidental however it is damning.
Let me make my next point abundantly clear since you made some significant assumptions about my character. My concerns are rooted in a lack of trust with the Chinese government to keep my best interests in mind as a citizen of the United States.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should be playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese spammers already.
If the threat of Tiktok gathering data is so real, then isn't a much better solution, to pressure Google and Apple into improving their security models? That way, nobody can spy on your phone anymore. Or do you think Tiktok is the only and last threat there will ever exist? But nobody's talking about actual solutions. All this looks more like a witch hunt to me.
Absolutely, but you of all people FooBarWidget should know that application security and privacy is a layered approach. This isn't our first run in with each other but I don't expect you to remember me but I will always remember the pseudonym used by the creator of Passenger. However we can find common ground because I believe at the root of all this we both believe in two things 1) the fair and equal treatment of others and 2) our inalienable right to privacy.
Perhaps I should have been more explicit in saying that the Chinese government is of concern, not necessarily the employees or owners of TikTok. But in all fairness, the Chinese government has a stronger ability to enforce their will on private business than seen in other places.
Addressing issues with Google and Apple is a tangential argument that is related but not entirely relevant to the conversation at hand. Why would I think TikTok is the only and last threat that will ever exist? I know that was a rhetorical question but a quite unnecessary one. To be fair, you don't know who I am so you can't make any assumptions of my intelligence or character outside of my comment history here on HN.
This is really an unprecedented situation so I believe it is fair to be somewhat cautious of further committing Chinese grown software into the pockets of tens of millions of US citizens. We are talking about mainland China here, not HK. If this company is so innocent then why did they pull out of HK? The acquisition of TikTok by Microsoft is interesting but why Microsoft? I don't believe Microsoft is doing it out of a sense of patriotism -- they want our data too. It isn't so much a witch hunt but we did get front row tickets to the bidding war on the commoditization of our personal data.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worse than that. The hostilities towards everything China in 2020 are pushing all sorts of Chinese people away, who otherwise would have been supportive of US and liberal values. What baffles me is that nobody knows that this is happening. Nobody is trying to understand how the other side sees it, and to work towards a real solution. Or maybe people are just wilfully blind to this possibility. People are so conv…
anyone with power and wealth in china is dependent on the government, they only have these things because the government allowed them to have and keep it, for now. thus it really doesn't matter how one individual on that side sees things, he sees things the way his side allows him to see. it would be different if people exiled from china and were getting involving once they're in the western world, but to broadcast o…
so here you are dismissing the views of the people in a whole country because their government isn't 'democratic'. This isn't the most ludicrous thing I've heard but It has obviously gone too far. You are essentially denying the rights of anyone who is a Chinese citizen to speak their mind, on the ground it's influenced by the government. And for some reason, a citizen of the US would fear not for speaking anything, which is simply not true. I'm pretty sure there are plenty people who don't speak their true views for the fear of repurcussion even though they hold that view, regardless how unwelcoming it maybe. To suggest we are somehow free of those outside non-debatable coercion would be a dilusion.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for trends, it looks at who you are. I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite games…
There is a solution even to that. That's what the Microsoft sale is all about. That's why Bytedance proposed to sell ALL shares of their US branch. Replace the entire US branch staff with US employees. Vet every line of code. Don't send any data to China. This is the ultimate solution. And yet nobody seems to be interested in this solution. People are still cooking up new reasons to ban Tiktok. Or ignoring the existe…
People should have the right to choose not to use it. Tik Tok isn't a monopoly for obvious reason. That level of government intervention would be unprecedented.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the Chinese cyber threat is incredibly real. The United States should be playing hard ball. The US TikTok systems are compromised by Chinese spammers already.
The situation that we have is that the only person who actually has the willpower to stand up to China (Trump) is simultaneously too idiotic and too self-centered to effectively do so.
This is a laughable statement. You don't need willpower to stand up to China, you need the presidency and the will to do so.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the threat of Tiktok gathering data is so real, then isn't a much better solution, to pressure Google and Apple into improving their security models? That way, nobody can spy on your phone anymore. Or do you think Tiktok is the only and last threat there will ever exist? But nobody's talking about actual solutions. All this looks more like a witch hunt to me.
I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for trends, it looks at who you are. I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite games…
How is that different than what Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc are doing though? Is the worry that China can do something more nefarious with that data than US corporations can?
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for trends, it looks at who you are. I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite games…
How is that different than what Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc are doing though? Is the worry that China can do something more nefarious with that data than US corporations can?
All those are within the reach of National Security Letters.
Re: TikTok and Microsoft’s Clock
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the key data that TikTok is gathering is anything you can really block on your phone. It doesn't ask for your phone number, it doesn't ask contacts, it doesn't ask for access to your messages. Instead, it looks for trends, it looks at who you are. I (18 years old) have used TikTok for about 2 months, before deleting it because it simply got too addictive. In that time it learned what my favourite games…
How is that different than what Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc are doing though? Is the worry that China can do something more nefarious with that data than US corporations can?
and these retards wonder why China blocked all western social media ages ago. This is exactly the reason.