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FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

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Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#361
post #133
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I feel this is as much a failing of of mobile OSs as anything else. As long as we have an environment where ad networks think it's desirable to collect this kind of information it's going to get collected, whether by TikTok or ad networks. Apple at least attempt to limit what data is accessible by apps, Google is less incentivized to do so. It's not much help to "ban TikTok" while the ad networks run wild.…

Maybe the governments should force mobile OS to provide absolute zero information about anything to apps. If the apps can't get anything they can't leak anything.

Then your phone will be a quite useless device.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#362

Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China. From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people…

It's easy to believe that until the top dog is on top of you

It is your data they are collecting, not some other dog's.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#363
post #335
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever it needs to do becomes different based on how your country is governed. China has unelected* leaders that at least in theory holds only Communist ideals. While flawed, in a republic at least you get to vote for your leaders, and thus choose what ideals you like the best. Of course republicanism or democracy does not preclude a country from committing horrible acts, but they are cleaned up much sooner, and th…

In the US, you are expected to uphold the line that brings you donors. That makes leftist parties non-viable. That’s not such a big difference from the Chinese situation as you’d think, except in direction.

The CCP:

-- Put a million Uighurs in camps

-- Persecutes followers of pretty much all religions --- Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong, etc

-- Flat-out censors anything that offends them in the slightest

-- Puts whoever they want into detention with no kind of due process, from small-time activists to billionaires

-- Harvests the organs of (not previously dead) prisoners

-- Had drones peering into apartment windows during the latest COVID lockdown, broadcasting the literal message "control your soul's desire for freedom"

-- and of course is an autocracy in which Xi Jinping has absolute power

The USA is far from perfect but one thing we learned from Trump in 2016 and Bloomberg in 2020 is that money isn't everything in American politics. The parties do have major differences and bad actors can be held accountable.

I'm not American, but this equivalence that some people like to draw between the governments of China and the USA drives me crazy.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The USA ranks 26th for median wealth Wealth is also a function of age - older people tend to have more - and that ranking is not normalized by such extraneous factors. The US is number 2 by median income, and number 1 for median disposable income, both of which are pretty important, especially to younger people that want cash flow to enjoy life.

Out of curiosity, where did you get these numbers from? I’m not from the US, but what I do read and see on the internet is that people in the US also have a lot of debt (education, medical, and of course credit) I’m surprised that even for median disposable the US is number 1. But then again, maybe it’s a case of the internet being drowned out by a vocal minority?

I was also surprised, but it seems to be true. Wikipedia lists the median disposable income after adjusting for local prices (PPP), and USA is first on that list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#366

Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China. From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people…

> I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player Are you sure? Several months ago I've woke up to learn, that my country start to kill civilians of other country with bombs, missiles and shelling, to become "top player". And, what is even worse, many of my fellow citizens support it. Now I'm trying to leave this country for some other, which don't have ambitions to be top-player but don't kill civilians and…

Всё будет хорошо скоро - мир меняется быстро, и есть возможность работать в любом месте ты хочешь.

Счастливо тебе, и если тебе надо помочь, послай мне dm, не знаю что могу делать, но могу стараться помогать.

Прости за мой плохой русский, меня научали мальчики когда я жил в Украине на обмене в средней школе.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#368
post #33

Lots of folks here arguing that the focus on TikTok is unfair, given the data collection practices of domestic corps like Facebook. From a privacy point of view, this argument is well-founded, but I think it's tangential to the argument TFA is making, which is: this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk. I get it. We want corps to stop hoo…

> this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk.

How were Snowden revelations of USGBigtech relationship materially different from what's happening here? Maybe it was less transparent?

Any "woke" person can see the cognitive dissonance here. It's all fine that you use the geopolitical rivalry argument but not if you try to paint one side of the argument as "free" and "liberal" and "subject to rule of law" when it's clearly not the case

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player Are you sure? Several months ago I've woke up to learn, that my country start to kill civilians of other country with bombs, missiles and shelling, to become "top player". And, what is even worse, many of my fellow citizens support it. Now I'm trying to leave this country for some other, which don't have ambitions to be top-player but don't kill civilians and…

>> I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player > Are you sure? Would you rather have someone else / some other country (other than the US) be the hegemon? If so, who? And are they willing to do it?

No top player.

And many top players.

MAD, as insane as it may sound, actually works. Everyone being fearful of massive retaliatory strikes keeps everyone in line. You get all sorts of bad behavior when nations have no fear of massive retaliatory strikes.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how many shootings happen in the US and so many victims being little children in schools, I find it odd that you think it's a great place to prosper when being shot at is a real life threat esp. for those who can't even protect themselves. As an outsider, to me the American society doesn't seem like a sustainable one. And it corroborates the fact that so many Americans are emigrating out of America.

While any school shooting is a tragedy (and imo we do clearly need stronger gun control in the US), they are extremely rare statistically. https://www.city-journal.org/school-shootings-horrific-but-s... “the annual odds that an American child will die in a mass shooting at school are nearly 10 million to 1, about the odds of being killed by lightning or of dying in an earthquake”

There's clearly a strong opposition against gun control in US, so the fact that the media is downplaying the shootouts by comparing it to natural disasters is not surprising.

But keep in mind, while Americans find it to be a commonality, it's rare to see news like this in other parts of the world: "...but students don’t need the active-shooter drills now conducted in over 95 percent of the nation’s schools..."

Active shooter drills? In schools? You folk live in a first world country but act like you are living in an active warzone

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