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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

#421

Post by pphysch »

kortilla wrote: post #314
pphysch wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is usually enough to placate Westerners. Even if, say, the "different sides" are just different heads of the same snake, which is often the case. The only two political parties in the US, for instance, differ remarkably little in terms of foreign policy and labor rights. Headlines in major US media will virtually never indicate there is any significant room for debate here. The public is satisfied with the f…

Yet youtube is filled with Marxist and socialist material. Major news networks talked about UBI during the Democrat primaries. We’re talking about what information is available in the US, not which policies have a chance in the current popular opinion.

> Yet youtube is filled with Marxist and socialist material.

YouTube is filled with virtually everything imaginable. Do you have the numbers and relevant comparisons to back this claim?

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

#422

Post by ravingraven »

class4behavior wrote: post #409
ravingraven wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a joke. The "western world" created PRISM and Five Eyes and has been meddling in elections in the third world for almost a century. Additionally, what do you define as the "western world", because by some measures it includes some actually fascist governments like e.g. Saudi Arabia. A) Having democracy does not correlate with having transparency and freedom, this has been de facto proven. B) If the "western w…

Ah, people love to trivialize comparisons and disregard all context, especially intent. By analogy you're basically equating tortute in order to prevent the detonation of a bomb to torture in order to detonate a bomb. Yes, ethically all sides are compromised but as things stand they are by no means all the same. Also, no one included SA as part of the West.

>By analogy you're basically equating tortute in order to prevent the detonation of a bomb to torture in order to detonate a bomb.

I really can not see how I am doing this. Care to illustrate?

>Also, no one included SA as part of the West.

Fair enough.

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

#424

Post by dathinab »

ravingraven wrote: post #364
dathinab wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. But YouTube is not controlled by an authoritarian fascist-like government which has a world view in direct opposition to what you could refer handwaveingly as "western" and is currently pushing to become the dominant power in the world. If you furthermore consider how bad the "western world" (mainly Britten and the East India Company) had treated it in the past, some aspects of the Chinese culture and the…

This is a joke. The "western world" created PRISM and Five Eyes and has been meddling in elections in the third world for almost a century. Additionally, what do you define as the "western world", because by some measures it includes some actually fascist governments like e.g. Saudi Arabia. A) Having democracy does not correlate with having transparency and freedom, this has been de facto proven. B) If the "western w…

> refer handwaveingly as "western"

There is a reason why I used the word hadwaveingly.

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

#425

Post by drevil-v2 »

bad_user wrote: post #242
mathnmusic wrote: post #80

I think this sort of response was inevitable and will be seen in more and more nations. China bans most of the popular websites and apps (including Wikipedia). The most recent trigger was the border standoff between India and China where Indian citizens could see and read both governments' responses, but Chinese citizens were only told Chinese govt's talking points. This seems like yet another instance of the paradox…

The paradox of tolerance is bullshit though, as it's not based on empirical evidence. It's just armchair philosophy used as justification for intolerance by intellectuals, the mental gymnastic people need to get over their cognitive dissonance. AFAIK Plato came up with it to justify autocracy. That says it all actually.

It explains cancel culture perfectly though.

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

#426

Post by im3w1l »

stickfigure wrote: post #282
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…

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 signifi…

All American companies move in lockstep. We see one company after another pull out of facebook advertising very quickly last week. They work together as a group with a consistent goal.

This week we saw one social media platform after another ban the same people. The North American cartel moves together as one, once again.

You can host your own videos but if you do expect to be banned by paypal and mastercard and visa. Because all north american companies are just different faces of the same underlying entity.

Chinese companies offer real competition to that. Chinese companies are very good for my political freedom.

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

#427

Post by krn »

kanox wrote: post #413
krn wrote: post #360

A reddit user, who claims to have reverse-engineered the TikTok app[1], concluded: > TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device... well, they're using it. > For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikT…

> > If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device... well, they're using it. For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. I find this unconvincing and reddit comments are not trustw…

> I find this unconvincing and reddit comments are not trustworthy at all.

You should probably read the original comment on reddit, not just my summary of it. I found it to be extremely detailed and technically convincing, even though it's still hard to determine the level of its trustworthiness.

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

#428

Post by jialutu »

For anyone interested, here is the US National Security's view on the current standoff between China and India, from China's strategic perspective:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/06/chinas-strategic-assessmen...

Seems these repercussions are already put into consideration.

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

#429

Post by kevincox »

sniperjzp wrote: post #228
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

This is funny, can you elaborate how come a ranking algorithm is a national security threat? It reminds me of the time when Google/FB/Instagram/Twitter still worked in China, Chinese govt used the same excuse to ban big tech social platforms.

Propaganda is powerful. If China wanted to send a message to change public opinion around the world tweaking the recommendation algorithm to do that would be a very helpful tool.

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

#430

Post by kevincox »

akshaybhalotia wrote: post #103
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

Very interesting. I would like to know more about this thought. Is the problem, let's say, with: - the country of origin, so if this was the exact same app from US it would have been less harmful, or, - the amount of time people spend on it, so if people spent time on something like facebook it would have been less harmful?

I think it is the sum of the two. They don't want the Chinese government to have that much influence over their population.

It is an extreme move, but I see the logic behind it.

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