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Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

reuters.com

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Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#421

Post by gabaix »

fit2rule wrote: post #349
devwastaken wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any business with china is a national security issue. There's plenty of evidence to the level of dictatorship in China. It's your responsibility to look at its history and make reasonable conclusions from it. If you want some sort of smoking gun evidence you're not going to find it, unless you somehow have a security clearance in China good enough to gain knowledge about their operations. It's a Chinese company, they…

I think Americans should be very, very careful about calling for 'smoking gun evidence' of state oppression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It is highly duplicitous to be sabre rattling over perceived ideological differences, when America's own ideology is couched in immensely contradicting - nay, hypocritical - failures to conduct state affairs according to International law. >It's a Chinese company, they…

I don’t read OP has making claims about the US having a higher morale ground.

It is pretty accepted no government has the higher morale ground. You can dig enough in any past or present to find evil or good.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#422

Post by veer-chah »

localhost wrote: post #20

Unlike some other commenters below, I don't believe that this is a privacy issue. Instead, I believe that it is a national security issue because TikTok is controllable by the CCP which is ideologically opposed to the United States. The next global conflict will likely be one between the east and the west, with control of information being advantageous to both sides in the conflict. China already blocks the western I…

In free world, let the Govt of country spell out the security/propaganda issues with this app,but leave the choice to their citizens.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#423

Post by gabaix »

dvdkon wrote: post #331
causality0 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the replies from Chinese nationals on HN defending TikTok. Even they don't pretend you can say anything you want there. Their argument is "How much time would you really spend discussing Tiananmen or criticizing the CCP? Is it really worth losing contact with your friends or colleagues who use TikTok and WeChat?" In my opinion, absolutely. Stop it now before it gets too powerful to ban. WeChat already has 19 mil…

Maybe if freedom of speech on social media platforms is an issue (it is, in my opinion), there should be laws regulating it that would apply to any businesses operating in the US, not just ad-hoc executive orders of dubious objectiveness.

That’s an excellent idea. The issue is there is also soft censorship through algorithm tweaking. A law like this should require third party auditing of the companies.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#424

Post by tester34 »

_fx6v wrote: post #417
tester34 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that zoomers are more likely to be influenced by social media than boomers or millenials?

I don’t think they’re any less or any more other than the potential net vectors exposed. A boomer typically has traditional media as a source of information which shapes their world view. These channels have their own programming and narratives. The zoomers are entirely on internet platforms which has a higher degree of manipulation. Every single person is mined against. Every single person gets optimized against. Th…

>If the typical “hacker” can launch a botnet with GPT2 and automate conversation and thread demographics based on interactions putting a “group” into a human in loop pattern with a goal ... imagine what state actors are doing.

It scares me everytime I think about it how little $$ you need in order to reach e.g Reddit's front page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAkUs3urrg

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#425

Post by belorn »

vkou wrote: post #378
belorn wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US could tailor laws that would have the same effect, but would that actually change the situation? As an example, they could make it illegal for all video hosting companies operating in the US to censor videos on Taiwan, Tienanmen and Tibet.

> As an example, they could make it illegal for all video hosting companies operating in the US to censor videos on Taiwan, Tienanmen and Tibet. Which would probably run afoul of the first amendment. Freedom of speech requires freedom to refrain from speech.

They could define it as discrimination against people from Taiwan and Tibet. It looks very similar to discrimination based on national origin, especially if the company does not recognize the nation sovereignty.

But even if that would fail, I am sure that a team full of lawyer could find something which would be incompatible with Chinese law.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#426

Post by thaumasiotes »

nostromo wrote: post #194
dilap wrote: post #126

It's strange how so many in the US have adopted the mindset that it's important, for national security, to deny its citizens access to foreign social networks. Previously, when China did the same, this was widely viewed as an unfortunate restriction their freedoms -- the actions of an intrusive, authoritarian government. Now that the US is itself considering doing the same, many in the west have suddenly adopted the…

It'd be better if Chinese companies could freely operate in the American market and American companies could freely operate in the Chinese market. But China blocks American companies from their market, or extracts unfair concessions from them. So the US should do the same until they change their practices. It's similar to how countries that want peace still need militaries -- that isn't a contradiction because milita…

> But China blocks American companies from their market, or extracts unfair concessions from them. So the US should do the same until they change their practices.

This needs a little more motivation. 19th-century China (and indeed, early 20th-century China) systematically broke the feet of all upper-class women, preventing them from ever being able to walk normally. But I don't think the primary reason we don't do that is that China stopped doing it.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#427

Post by thesz »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #287
localhost wrote: post #20

Unlike some other commenters below, I don't believe that this is a privacy issue. Instead, I believe that it is a national security issue because TikTok is controllable by the CCP which is ideologically opposed to the United States. The next global conflict will likely be one between the east and the west, with control of information being advantageous to both sides in the conflict. China already blocks the western I…

Surely Facebook’s a bigger issue than 60 second videos since any bad actor can target messaging at susceptibile users and no one will know. This just seems like yet another case of Republican double speak. Say one thing do a different thing that just coincidentally happens to grab power over others. Also, what is the method of using a 60 second video platform to share messaging with a crowd who will immediately scrol…

Actually, it is not.

I am not R or D, I am Russian programmer who lives in Russia and likes to read.

One of things I've read already long ago is about priming: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5266685/

Showing one different pictures change walking speed, at the very least. And effects can last as long as year: http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/files/staff/Bob/mkwyer-JCP-2014-24...

TikTok, being a massive analytical (see other discussions at HN) and priming platform, allows for quite interesting effects on the humans to be discovered and/or tested.

Facebook is primarily text which is low bandwidth and it goes through higher thinking. TikTok is high bandwidth from the start and is primarily analyzed using much older parts of brain.

I do not like Facebook (don't have account) and I vehemently hate TikTok.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#428

Post by rbg246 »

localhost wrote: post #20

Unlike some other commenters below, I don't believe that this is a privacy issue. Instead, I believe that it is a national security issue because TikTok is controllable by the CCP which is ideologically opposed to the United States. The next global conflict will likely be one between the east and the west, with control of information being advantageous to both sides in the conflict. China already blocks the western I…

I do agree with a number of your points but what about mobile phones built by Chinese companies, what about all apps developed in China. How do you know what is and isn't CCP controlled?

Just seems a slippery slope, or how do you know if an American app isn't funnelling data to CCP.

The problem is mobiles open us to such attacks.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#429

Post by mantap »

peacefulhat wrote: post #388
mantap wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only bizarre if you consider ByteDance as some plucky startup that is being repressed by USA. If you consider it to be under the thumb of the Chinese state then blocking it seems to be the best action to preserve free speech. Will TikTok remove Chinese propaganda on their platform, how would that conversation even go at their offices? Can we trust that TikTok will not in future censor things that China finds unc…

Is this a hypothetical? I don't believe you've tried TikTok if you think scrolls are filled with Chinese propaganda.

Plenty of western companies have been forced to apologize for listing Taiwan as a country. China recently passed a law in Hong Kong that makes criticism of the regime a crime world wide. There's also the whole overwatch debacle.

China does not care about free speech, nor does it pretend to. Allowing a popular forum for speech to operate out of China is dangerous.

Re: Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads from U.S. app stores

#430

Post by christocracy »

donkeyd wrote: post #296
CraigJPerry wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely Facebook’s a bigger issue than 60 second videos since any bad actor can target messaging at susceptibile users and no one will know. This just seems like yet another case of Republican double speak. Say one thing do a different thing that just coincidentally happens to grab power over others. Also, what is the method of using a 60 second video platform to share messaging with a crowd who will immediately scrol…

Theoretically, CCP could abuse location services to track movements of military personnel and civilians in a war. Since FB isn't Chinese, that is less of an issue for large scale surveilance. Also, if the Chinese had a zero day that they could exploit by pushing a malicious TikTok update, they could get root access to these phones and use them for surveillance on a large scale. Sure, this is all hypothetical, but it'…

> so no clue if they actually use location services

The iOS app doesn’t request Location permission.

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