Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#331

Post by xondono » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #304

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress loves giving away power to the Executive Branch so they don't have to bear responsibility for unpopular decisions. It's likely that at some point Congress gave this power to the president though not necessarily this Congress and this president. Congress is free to take the power back if it votes to do so. Given that even the Biden campaign has prohibited their workers from installing the TikTok app, there is…

But you have no safeguard against that? I mean here in France when the government or the assembly trie to pass a law that is potentially unconstitutional there is an emergency review process by the "constitutional council" that can veto all or parts of the law that infringe. This process just happened recently because our president tried to pass a "hate law" on social media that was deemed unconstitutional because it…

While it seems quite absurd, most governments make this kinds of decisions.

For instance, France has used similar tactics when rumors of Pepsi buying Danone came to light.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#332

Post by Neekerer » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:10 AM UTC

winstonmanor89 wrote: post #269

949throaway2020 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What "real chaos" has "China" (which is, by the way, nowhere homogenous) seen that we have not seen? This is ill-informed and easily proven wrong. I'm no China apologist, but the Chinese have suffered the worst human disasters in history. Let's go down the list of top 10 anthropogenic disasters by geometric mean death toll and count the causalities in China [1]: 1. 2nd World War estimated 70 million dead, 17.5 milli…

Uhh what about European or the Middle east or any other part of the world

What about them? GP is conveying the scale of just wars, this isn't including natural disasters that have ripped through China. What are some comparable things to happen in europe and the middle east?

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#333

Post by jasonlfunk » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

t1kt0kaway wrote: post #154

busymom0 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a good measure to even the playing field. Thousands of companies are blocked in China. So why not do the same?

Because I (a citizen) might want to access the information provided by this service. I (an individual) would be happy to see TikTok banned, along with Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/etc, because I see them as vain wastes of time with a sinister twist. But I've also met teenagers, and even been one! So I can guess how they might respond to a government-imposed ban on a new and interesting vice. And I (a citizen) am deeply…

But it isn’t about you not knowing something, it’s about the Chinese government knowing things through TikTok.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#334

Post by nmfisher » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:18 AM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #137

dragonwriter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence". Yes, now it's the US doing desperate acts of authoritarianism out of weakness.

Have you considered a Chinese App on 10's of millions of phones across the US and the security implications? I would think an adversary like China could very well take advantage of that.

I see this line of reasoning often, and frankly, I don’t understand it at all.

TikTok poses exactly the same risk as any other app on the App/Play stores. They go through exactly the same static code review and signing process - conducted by two American companies. Any security risk can be addressed at that point in the pipeline.

Assuming the concern is about “data security” (vs OS level security), I see literally zero difference between a state actor having access to my data, and a third party advertiser. If it’s insecure, it’s insecure - it doesn’t matter who the potential attacker is.

This is a horrible, horrible decision that has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with a horrible president desperately clawing for anything he can to get re-elected.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#335

Post by linlucas » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:20 AM UTC

flywheel wrote: post #265

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strikes me the same as Ballmer's reaction to the iPhone launch laughing at the perspective of such a device to gain any market: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

You replied with nonsense. The fact is China is good at one thing: ripping off other countries inventions. Name one high tech thing in the last 1,000 years invented in China - no, not iteration, but INVENTED. Since gunpowder, China has stagnated.

Huawei has more 5G patents than any other company. By far.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#336

Post by iso947 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #315

rsa25519 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you have no safeguard against that? We do: the judicial branch.

Which is stacked by the party in power. For example the Republican stalling of appointment until they where in power.

Thus surely showing it’s not stacked by the party in power?

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#337

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

robjan wrote: post #221

free_rms wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's... literally true, you can look up photos of turtle shells with characters etched into them on Wikipedia. That doesn't mean they're perfect or blessed but they've definitely been there the whole time.

I'm not going to get into a debate, but Traditional Chinese characters are only really used in Hong Kong and Taiwan these days.

Simplified Chinese characters are just that... simplified versions of the traditional characters. In fact, many don't change at all from the traditional version to the simplified version.

It's a change, and one that history purists tend to not like, but definitely not a culture-breaking change or something that breaks links to the past. There are still a lot of ancient pictograms left in the simplified characters, a lot of connections to concepts, ideas and views from past millennia.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by georgeburdell » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #270

baddox wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people with much more “intolerant” (restrictive) diets than halal and kosher, and yet, those don’t “win.” This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power.

> This is an extremely simplistic explanation with, I suspect, very little predictive power. A fitting note for every idea Taleb has ever had.

Is it? In his book, Black Swan, he mentions his hedge fund, which did quite well during the peak of Covid https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/taleb-adv...

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#339

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

iso947 wrote: post #336

noir_lord wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is stacked by the party in power. For example the Republican stalling of appointment until they where in power.

Thus surely showing it’s not stacked by the party in power?

Well, showing that it's stacked by a combination of the party in power in the Senate and the one in power in the Executive; the earlier description would have been more clear with reference to which power centers were being referred to. The Republicans used being in power in the Senate to block appointments until they also held Executive power.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#340

Post by pell » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

La1n wrote: post #314

pell wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You commented this twice already as some sort of universal truth. But in fact the region known as modern-day China had one major conflict after another like they occurred in any other region in the globe. Also what does it mean to "maintain" civilization when at least 45 million people died under Mao due to famine, overwork and state violence? Is putting Uighurs in concentration camps "maintaining" civilization?

>at least 45 million Not at least, 45 is on the high end of estimates https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

From your own Wikipedia link:

>Frank Dikötter, Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the author of Mao's Great Famine, estimated that at least 45 million people died from starvation, overwork and state violence during the Great Leap Forward, claiming his findings to be based on access to recently opened local and provincial party archives.