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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#361

Post by pandemic_region »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #323
jandrewrogers wrote: post #308

A point I think most people don’t understand is that the government interest in TikTok has little to do with exploiting user data per se, a lot of other companies do that. The issue is that TikTok is somewhat unique in being aggressively weaponized in currently very active “grey zone” conflicts. This has been an open secret in national security circles but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone…

>but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone conflict is, what it looks like, or why it matters. Education?

College degree here, I have no idea what it actually means.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#362

Post by paweladamczuk »

red_admiral wrote: post #343
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Grey zone conflict" sounds a lot like our powers are upset they don't have the level of control over information that the adversary has. They want to be the ones to censor, suppress, and promote, rather than another country. The goal isn't more open access to information.

I think it's more the other way round, that they don't want others to have the same powers they do? If you control the "last mile" infrastructure, you have a pretty good idea what's going on. If you control the mobile network, you can track everyone, and flash their baseband processor if you like. (see also: concerns about Huawei equipment in our internet infrastructure) The documents that Snowden released confirmed…

> and flash their baseband processor if you like

Could you please give some source on that info?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#363

Post by matsemann »

sidcool wrote: post #270
jchook wrote: post #257

Unreal. Land of Freedom bans Social Media app that runs on US servers, on its own terms, with censorship teams staffed by dozens of ex-US State officials[1]. Amazing that Congress will see bipartisan action on this issue before any of the other much more important issues. It absolutely destroys criticisms of China banning Facebook, etc. 1. https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-ru...

Wasn't the concern of data being siphoned off to China? Even India has banned it. Where does freedom come into picture here?

I feel the same concerns for which US bans tiktok are valid for EU and fb/meta/x/twitter/google.

How do we know they're not siphoning our EU data to the US, or controlling what the algorithm shows us to influence politics?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#364

Post by [deleted] »

daemoens wrote: post #231

The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1] The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines. [1] https://a57.foxnews.com/st…

[deleted]

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#365

Post by openplatypus »

Now let's do the same with X (South African foreign adversary) and Meta (Aliens from planet Gooblidook).

Yes it is a joke. But whether it is outsized influence of foreign power or uber rich nutter, what's the difference...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#366

Post by surfaceofthesun »

red_admiral wrote: post #343
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Grey zone conflict" sounds a lot like our powers are upset they don't have the level of control over information that the adversary has. They want to be the ones to censor, suppress, and promote, rather than another country. The goal isn't more open access to information.

I think it's more the other way round, that they don't want others to have the same powers they do? If you control the "last mile" infrastructure, you have a pretty good idea what's going on. If you control the mobile network, you can track everyone, and flash their baseband processor if you like. (see also: concerns about Huawei equipment in our internet infrastructure) The documents that Snowden released confirmed…

In the US we allow significantly more spying on foreigners than US citizens. That’s not as controversial as domestic spying.

Look at the backlash against the US government trying to clamp down on Covid misinformation with a national emergency declaration [1]. There’s exactly zero reason to expect the CCP has an incentive to behave differently, especially when there’s effectively no way for companies to push back in China.

And no that doesn’t excuse the nonsense some US administrations get up to. Like undermining the effectiveness of the Chinese covid vaccine [2].

There is already evidence of pressure being applied to ByteDance by the CCP for data on Hong Kong citizens [3].

So it would be silly to think that: 1) data for different TikTok users is more or less difficult for the CCP to access based on their specific locations (technically or practically) And 2) the CCP has more respect for foreigners than Western governments do.

———

1 - https://hms.harvard.edu/news/whats-stake-us-supreme-court-ca...

2 - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi...

3 - https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#367

Post by Vegenoid »

jmkni wrote: post #344
jandrewrogers wrote: post #308

A point I think most people don’t understand is that the government interest in TikTok has little to do with exploiting user data per se, a lot of other companies do that. The issue is that TikTok is somewhat unique in being aggressively weaponized in currently very active “grey zone” conflicts. This has been an open secret in national security circles but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone…

You mention “grey zone conflicts” then opine that people don’t know what that is…then don’t actually explain what it is!

This is the very top of the "Description" section of the Wikipedia page for "Grey-zone (international relations)"[0]:

> Use of the term grey-zone is widespread in national security circles, but there is no universal agreement on the definition of grey-zone, or even whether it is a useful term, with views about the term ranging from "faddish" or "vague", to "useful" or "brilliant"

It goes on to say:

> Grey zone warfare generally means a middle, unclear space that exists between direct conflict and peace in international relations.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey-zone_(international_relat...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#368

Post by pixelatedindex »

sirisaysgpt wrote: post #327
firefoxd wrote: post #294

This morning I felt the urge to download TikTok for the first time. I did, but I didn't bother creating an account. There is a passage in the book Life of Pi, where Pi's family is gathered and ready to leave India for Canada. And his mother does something out of the ordinary: > The day before our departure she pointed at a cigarette wallah and earnestly asked, "Should we get a pack or two?" > Father replied, "They ha…

There is a statement from India’s information technology ministry, after 20 Indian soldiers died during border skirmish with China. When India banned TikTok in 2020 [0] > Chinese mobile apps were stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data. > The compilation of such data, and its mining and profiling by elements hostile to India is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measure…

India is also an authoritarian government, is that something to celebrate? Also it is hilarious that they complain about TikTok but when you live in India, you realize that half their mobile phones themselves are from Chinese manufacturers. Some of them have Indian manufacturing units but it doesn’t take much scrutiny to realize that this is all political theater.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#369

Post by WA »

rented_mule wrote: post #221

What's to stop TikTok from serving their website from non-US servers to all comers? Using it in a browser is not as smooth as an app, but there must be apps out there that are nothing but a WebView to URLs on a single domain (like you can do in Mac Safari with File... Add to Dock...). Submitting / watching videos wouldn't be that different. It seems to me the only recourse the US would have is building The Great Fire…

Laws don't care about technical aspects. ByteDance must comply with the law, meaning, they need to stop offering the service to US citizens, no matter where the servers are hosted, for example, by geofencing their product. If they don't comply, they risk fines. They can only ignore this if they don't care about doing business with the US ever again and their owners never want to set foot in the country again.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#370

Post by t-3 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #340
jandrewrogers wrote: post #308

A point I think most people don’t understand is that the government interest in TikTok has little to do with exploiting user data per se, a lot of other companies do that. The issue is that TikTok is somewhat unique in being aggressively weaponized in currently very active “grey zone” conflicts. This has been an open secret in national security circles but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone…

You mean, Romania?

That one appears to be an own-goal by an opposing party: https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
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