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

The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 430 posts

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#201

Post by clashmoore »

piva00 wrote: post #163
clashmoore wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm an American who uses TikTok for entertainment. I don't think it's utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue. Even hearing these threats that China is possibly surveilling me - what do they get that other social media apps like Instagram get from me? From the FBI it sounds like the national security threat is that China may use it alter my feed to influence me or take over the control of my Apple phone? Ha…

You are oversimplifying the issue. It's not about having your birthdate, it's about capturing data about your tastes and preferences over time to feed into a profiling model. It's a way to capture data to use inference models to understand who you actually are, your tastes and personality. Yes, Instagram/FB/Meta do the same, Google does the same, the difference is that Meta and Google are not the government or, worse…

The article mentioned the company sharing birthdates which is why I used it myself.

I'm just failing to understand why China using whatever data TikTok has on me to understand my tastes and personality is a national security issue for the United States.

The fear seems to be that China could tweak a US citizen's feed, based on their profiling, to inject Chinese propaganda?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#202

Post by bpodgursky »

est wrote: post #174
samatman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, rather, evidence (as though we needed it) that Myspace isn't a social network.

Explain Linkedin.com then? It also works 100% well in China.

You can't commit corporate espionage against US companies without getting a job first.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#203

Post by hnrodey »

bbzealot wrote: post #95
hnrodey wrote: post #65

Trump: TikTok is a national security threat! America: XENOPHOBE! Biden: TikTok is a national security threat. America: SHUT IT DOWN!

You’re claiming that a relevant amount of Americans accused Trump of being Xenophobe due to his remarks on TikTok. Do you have any source to back that claim?

Your google works the same as mine.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#204

Post by computerfriend »

II2II wrote: post #76

There are a couple of things we have to be careful of in these discussions: one is that the US has strong motivations for (economic) protectionism. We should be focussing on evidence of wrongdoing, not innuendo. The second is how the accusations are being made. Too much of it reeks of borderline racism and there seems to be an uptick in outright racism against Chinese people. Remember, it is acts of the Chinese gover…

There is absolutely no hint of racism.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#205

Post by lzooz »

lm28469 wrote: post #88
Tenoke wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously entertainment. It could additionally be other things, how Top Gun is both entertainment and propaganda or bar drinking is both entertainment and has health risks. The math might come to the risks being higher than the benefits but pretending people aren't entertained by it ironically suggests that you might be more radicalized or brainwashed than TikTok users supposedly are.

> It's obviously entertainment. it's not obvious to me at all, in France it's used by islamist organisations to push for communitarianism and separatism, I don't call that entertainment https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/de-youtube-a-tiktok... https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/111122/ados-en-abaya... https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2019/10/23/de-la-propa...

I'd blame France for their immigration policies more than I would blame a platform full of user-generated content

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#206

Post by 2devnull »

CyanBird wrote: post #147
Xeoncross wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global rules for user privacy would be fantastic! But lets start by simply banning the most criminal organizations first. If the KGB, CCP, or any other group known for imprisoning and killing literally millions of people is running a social network we need to block it right away. Bytedance has forced CCP members on their board and you can bet the government uses the user data, behavior data and biometrics to help squ…

> But lets start by simply banning the most criminal organizations first NSA and cghq have tapped onto the global fiber optic systems on a global scale and see spying on every single person on the planet with dragnet systems alongside as you say biometrics, and that includes US citizen data. Where does that fall into?

That falls into “whataboutism.”

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#207

Post by p0pcult »

LexGray wrote: post #183
zug_zug wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the connection to China? Is there a belief that China was slower at removing these videos that an American firm would be? Because that's the substantive question.

The main connection I believe is exploiting xenophobia with he goal of internet gatekeeping. There are always those wary of outside influences destroying local culture. Still, even if they are the best at removing videos, they are also the best at breeding new issues which go viral before they are even recognized as a threat and siloing that content so only people vulnerable are exposed. A second possibility is that…

Interesting point, but if the goal is a balkanized internet, and the means is exploiting xenophobia, doesn't that implicity prove that China is adept enough at using TikTok to stoke racial animus to justify the shutting down of TikTok?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#208

Post by SuoDuanDao »

krageon wrote: post #82
pjc50 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh can we not have targeted-by-nationality bans and instead have .. rules? If Tiktok the app is performing surveillance, ban surveillance by apps . All of them. Or make it technically impossible to escape its little sandbox, and let people have their entertainment.

We can't have rules that aren't governed by nationality, because the US basically only sees nationality. TikTok is called "an issue" not because of what it does, why it does it or how it does it. It is called that because of who is doing it. As such, we can expect all this racism couched in careful political language to continue and keep continuing.

I was with you till the r-bomb. Racism may be one consequence of US-China relations, but the proper r-word for the US celebrating Meta's data harvesting while condemning TikTok's is realpolitik.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#209

Post by deltarholamda »

soup10 wrote: post #19
darkteflon wrote: post #12

Utterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmi…

Not sure that US really wants to set a precedent of protectionism when so many large US technology companies operate globally.

Why shouldn't the US be protectionist? The country does not exist for the benefit of large technology companies.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#210

Post by xvector »

2devnull wrote: post #206
CyanBird wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But lets start by simply banning the most criminal organizations first NSA and cghq have tapped onto the global fiber optic systems on a global scale and see spying on every single person on the planet with dragnet systems alongside as you say biometrics, and that includes US citizen data. Where does that fall into?

That falls into “whataboutism.”

I would say it falls into "pointing out hypocrisy."
Post reply on HN