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TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

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Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#281

Post by smokelegend »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #246
karmajunkie wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i think these are ideas worth considering, what I think is the answer is perhaps staring us in the face: put regulatory limits on the amount and kind of data that apps and websites can collect. The real problem with tiktok is not the CCP; it seems likely in my mind that our own government has equally nefarious techniques at play in other countries, and I think its unfair to single out a single company over this…

You would have to make it illegal to show different content to different users. Get rid of "the algorithm" and every website becomes a simple catalog of content. I also think if you do any moderation of content, you lose your "common carrier" status and become a publisher, responsible for any content you publish.

Thought experiment,

Anyone every consider making a social media site/app like fb, tiktok, insta, twitter, where the user can control the algo, and or have sum input of the algo, in so much that the user can "control" what they see, still have ads [company gets paid] but the user can control those ads to a certain degree...[sort of like brave browser][but for social media]

Just wondering, not saying data collection is good, but perhaps, if it were more transparent and interactive, people would be more accepting to using and capitalizing on their own data. Value for value, the user gets to decide what data to share, and the company gets to push ads based on known algorithm unique to each user's approved data metrics... perhaps this already exists???

Is this a pipedream? Or a yes, yes, "if you build it, they will come" life changing moment? I need to know, it is important I change my outfit if it's the latter, athletic shorts and a tshirt, (in my opinion) don't convene much confidence when shopping around for angel investors... ;)

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#282

Post by ssnistfajen »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #133

Half of the comments in this thread sound like they were written by CCP propaganda chatbots. A dead giveaway is the failure to address the topic at hand and immediately deflect to "but the USA does XYZ too!" No one is disputing such a claim, but that's also not what we're talking about here.

And you are preemptively accusing without proof against users who are simply voicing their opinions like everyone is allowed to do here. Why are you attempting to act like an arbiter of legitimacy when you are clearly not one?

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#283

Post by EntrePrescott »

quandrum wrote: post #89
nova22033 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government, like the US government or any other large national government, is not monolithic. In what meaningful way does one part of the Chinese government differ from another part of the Chinese government? Isn't Xi basically the supreme leader for life now?

Xi is head of state as president, but not head of government (like King of England). Li Qiang is head of government as premier and is chief executive of the Chinese government. If you ask a Chinese citizen what their biggest problem is, many of them would say too much federalism. Individual provinces have more individual authority than even US States and most controversial policies (1 child, social credit, lockdowns)…

> Xi is head of state as president, but not head of government (like King of England).

Uhm: the king of England (which incidentally happens to be king of quite a number of other territories that have yet to fully emancipate themselves from monarchy) is NOT the head of government in any of the the territories he is king of, but merely the head of state… which in constitutional monarchies is a rather formal show pomp role with very little political power. Conversely, the head of government in the UK with actual executive power is the Prime Minister, not the king.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#284

Post by lazyeye »

robocat wrote: post #154
lazyeye wrote: post #128

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

[flagged]

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#285

Post by krainboltgreene »

roywiggins wrote: post #178
janalsncm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s not any less illegal to protest your regional government than the central Chinese government.

There was (is?) a whole thing where local governments would kidnap people trying to petition the central government to crack down on some local government wrongdoing. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/world/asia/chinese-petiti...

It's weird to read pieces like this from the NY Times when I watched it happen in Portland and the same media basically brushed it off.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#286

Post by ssnistfajen »

axxto wrote: post #278
threeseed wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is asking you to choose which story to be more outraged about. Just that you really should stick to the topic at hand. Otherwise why not bring up that car accidents are a much bigger problem than social media.

"Condemning the actions of a foreign government" and "condemning similar actions by your own government" seem a little more related and on-topic than "social media and car crashes". And in my own personal opinion, that's especially true if those questionable actions by your own government overshadow any other similar effort both in scope, size and funding by several orders of magnitude when compared to the rest of th…

The obsession about shills directly stems from the Red Scare which remains part of the core programming of Americans ever since. The CCP employes lots of commentators on domestic social media to enforce government narrative, but there is no evidence they are doing the same on English-speaking forums posing as grass root users. Native-level English skills are rare to come across in China, and anyone with that level of knowledge can easily find better paying jobs than this. LLMs may change that some day, but they won't be the only one deploying LLMs to attempt to influence online opinion.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#287

Post by ssnistfajen »

bostonwalker wrote: post #189
kelipso wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. Dump all the US instances into the memory hole. Only bring it up when China does it. When you bring up how US does it too, it's "whataboutism". Have to say it's a great strategy for maintaining a narrative.

Would China allow US to spy on hundreds of millions of its citizens everyday? Answer: no, reference the Great Firewall.

Your misunderstanding of what the GFW is for perfectly demonstrates why people like you don't deserve to have your opinions on China taken seriously.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#288

Post by efitz »

There are two main problems with social media, as it exists today:

First, the company that operates the social media system, has access to data that exposes extremely personal information about the users, sometimes directly, and sometimes through inference based on user behavior. This naturally attracts parties that might benefit from this information, originally advertisers, but increasingly nation states. Personally, I think the solution to this involves both privacy legislation, and legislation that dramatically restricts what foreign entities can do in the United States, but I acknowledge this is very controversial.

Second, the algorithms that the social media site uses to decide what content to presented to users is extremely susceptible to manipulation and to causing undesirable side effects. Even if the site operator is benign, the algorithm might magnify, extreme or emotional content in order to maximize engagement. We have seen this for several years now. And, of course, the site operators may choose to amplify messaging that they like or suppress messaging that they don’t. This may seem great if your values align with the site operator, but remember that operators change, e.g., Twitter. And of course, the site operator might be hostile to your values, e.g., TikTok. I think that the solution to this problem is actually much easier than the solution to the first problem. The solution to algorithmic problems is to make the algorithm opt-in. For example, when you join a social media site, you initially might be presented with the option to use company, curated prioritization, or to use time and subscription-based prioritization. However, social media sites should be encouraged or perhaps forced to allow community curated, prioritization, and allow community members to opt into, a community feed versus the company curated feed. I think we would see a small number of users and communities who would quickly come up with their own curated feeds, that would be popular with like-minded individuals.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#289

Post by [deleted] »

threeseed wrote: post #268
woooooo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Chinese, hi. The US is collecting vastly more data from our social media companies and using it to launch drone strikes that actually kill people. Nobody is outraged by this, it's "normal". Why should I be more outraged at this story?

Nobody is asking you to choose which story to be more outraged about. Just that you really should stick to the topic at hand. Otherwise why not bring up that car accidents are a much bigger problem than social media.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#290

Post by ok123456 »

bequanna wrote: post #279
ok123456 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't "enslave" people for being from the wrong ethnic group. These claims are a fiction of Adrian Zenz. The US actually "enslaves" people from the wrong ethnic group at Guantanamo.

How many people are at Guantanamo? The answer is about 30 people vs. about a million innocent Uyghurs in Chinese internment camps. All of the things I mention are easily verifiable by credible sources while you are (for some reason) parroting CCP taking points. Hmm…

All of these "verifiable" claims all originate with one man and have no evidence.
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