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India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

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Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#281

Post by puranjay »

luckylion wrote: post #201
huhnmonster wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from what currently seems to be popular: huge botnets that carefully try to curate "real" users from random accounts. Rolling your own (Network that is, like FB or TikTok) seems pretty unlikely regarding initial investments, user base etc.

I wonder what's stopping them. Initial investments is likely an issue for small, poor countries, but it can't be an issue for a country like India or Saudi Arabia, and the user base can be "convinced" to use the domestic thing by doing what India does: block foreign services. It seems more sustainable and much easier to work with if you have your own network, and you don't rely on US-services looking away / Twitter t…

Will never happen because Indian governments are stuck in an unceasing bureaucratic quagmire. A tech solution, especially one that has to be culturally relevant and edgy to appeal to young people is absolutely beyond the scope of the Indian government machinery.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#282

Post by stickfigure »

ianleeclark wrote: post #161
saltedonion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good point. But TikTok is much more risky, and as as such requires much more scrutiny given existing body of knowledge between how chinese social media / chat companies such as WeChat enforce government censorship and aid in propagating misinformation. This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government p…

> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately No, I get this, but here's the thing: YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of. There are material consequences if YouTube doesn't keep in line. What this means is that a status quo that pleases advertisers will be maintained. It's every bit propaganda as dropping leaflets, but you can't…

These are not even remotely equivalent things.

Advertisers are not a homogeneous block. YouTube et al can afford to piss off some advertisers; if they're pissing off all advertisers, the material is probably extremely objectionable to most humans.

I challenge you to point out an example of content that has been banned from youtube because it offends advertisers, that you really think the banning of which is a significant issue. There's no shortage of material on YT hypercritical of Goldman "Vampire Squid" Sachs.

Whereas there is a long litany of material banned from Chinese networks for obvious political reasons. Furthermore, if you don't like YT's policy, you can use other video sharing sites or even gasp host your own videos. Try doing that in China and see how long it takes for men with guns to show up.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#283

Post by mda »

tshaddox wrote: post #209
saltedonion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good point. But TikTok is much more risky, and as as such requires much more scrutiny given existing body of knowledge between how chinese social media / chat companies such as WeChat enforce government censorship and aid in propagating misinformation. This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government p…

> This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government propaganda. Those people would be even more shocked by the extent to which this is true in the western world as well.

Is it though? At least you can see different sides, different voices.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#285

Post by puranjay »

kerkeslager wrote: post #154
baybal2 wrote: post #11

Almost all (except 1) are Chinese made. I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with this https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-has-intruded-423-metre...

The Sino-Indian border dispute is one of the most frightening things going on right now. Two nuclear superpowers are fighting with "rods and swords"[1], restrained only by, well, restraint . Covid and police violence are bigger issues right now in my opinion, but a nuclear war could get worse than either one quite quickly. That said, I'm glad to see this not getting much press coverage in the US. The political discou…

Personally, as an Indian, I don't see this situation escalating too much, especially not anywhere close to a nuclear war. Indian and Chinese leadership is mature enough to understand that a serious conflict will hurt both their ambitions. Plus, neither can really afford a war right now.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#286

Post by dang »

We've changed the URL from https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1635206 to an article that adds a bit of background. If there's a better article, we can change it again.

The site guidelines call for original sources, of course (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but press releases (especially corporate ones) are a bit of a grey area because they tend to leave out important context, if not outright mislead.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#287

Post by dmix »

phoe-krk wrote: post #280

Clash of Kings? That online game? Why?

Clash of Kings is owned by a Chinese company called Elex-Tech aka "Beijing ELEX Technology Co". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Kings

Not to be confused with the more popular "Clash of Clans" which is owned by a Finnish company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Clans

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#288

Post by sloshnmosh »

Here in the USA, Android phones with pre-installed Chinese malware and unremovable rootkit (fota/Over-the-air firmware update app) is given out to our most vulnerable citizens and disabled veterans through the government assistance “Lifeline” program.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#289

Post by wsc981 »

Not completely related I guess, but ...

I recently bought an LG phone for mobile dev (LG V30). I need to enable developer mode to properly use this device for development. I am able to set the device in developer mode, but there is no way to select transfer protocol over USD with connected computer.

I worry this device might be hacked and this device is modified to prevent people from removing any hacks. I am also not able to do a hardware reset using the instructions I can find on internet.

On the other hand, this could just be some weird Android bug. But I think it's all quite suspicious.

By the way, part of the OS (e.g. the first menu shown after doing a soft reset) are not in English, only in Korean (I think). Also a bit weird imo.

Either way, these weird experiences with this device made me a lot more worried about security.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#290

Post by RobertoG »

pyuser583 wrote: post #235
ianleeclark wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately No, I get this, but here's the thing: YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of. There are material consequences if YouTube doesn't keep in line. What this means is that a status quo that pleases advertisers will be maintained. It's every bit propaganda as dropping leaflets, but you can't…

The concern is the coordination between Chinese foreign affairs/security services and the commercial sector. For US-based firms, that’s simply not the case. Yes, YouTube needs to make sure Nike is happy. But Nike didn’t just kill two dozen Indian soldiers. Certainly there’s privacy related concerns with US companies - as with Chinese companies. But nobody had accused the DoD of manipulating YouTube search rankings. I…

I don't know, I still remember how, in a poll before the invasion of Iraq, a majority of Americans though that Saddam Hussein was connected to the 11S attacks.
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