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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If they were really concerned about privacy, they would strengthen privacy laws. Adopt a GDPR like framework with opt-in consent and force platforms to implement a GrapheneOS like model with mock permissions and scoped consent. Banning apps is just a veiled attempt to appease other interests.

You mean like the DPDPA [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Personal_Data_Protecti...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#472

It's a shame that it's come to this. I feel that all arguments that TikTok is unhealthy or spyware and bad for our general public are valid, but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their…

> but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever

...well most of those service are banned in China.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#473

Bottom line is: it is reasonable for governments to exercise control over the information environment their citizens experience, especially when social media has such potential to sow chaos and instability. Look at how the US internet fuelled the fires of the Arab Spring / HK protests / Jan 6th / Any number of colour revolutions in Europe. Even today, we see X being used as a platform to encourage protests against go…

It seems you are being downvoted, but I see this similarly. Elon musk applying pressure in German elections or UK politics via X/Twitter is basically exactly the problem with foreign interests controlling your social media; so I kinda hope the ban does set an example for other countries. Maybe, once the inflammatory platforms like X & Facebook are banned in the EU, then we can also get a social network that is not fu…

I think EU will not ban these platforms but mired them down with never ending stream of lawsuits, and eventually force a withdrawal - similar to how some US companies don't serve EU due to GDPR etc. A proper firewall should create the space for domestic services to re-emerge - and yes, we have a chance that these could be democratic from ground up. Lets hope so.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#476

It's a shame that it's come to this. I feel that all arguments that TikTok is unhealthy or spyware and bad for our general public are valid, but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their…

> This serves only to enrich our American tech monopolies

I suspect many people see that as a worthy cause. They may not understand what it implies, but dammit, they don’t want none of that foreign spyware.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#477
post #141

Apple and Google created individual APIs to serve up phone number, contacts, exact location, device model, time zone, clipboard data, photos, files, and cookies to 10 million different random app developers to harvest to their heart's delight. US government passes law against just one of them for using said APIs. Are they going to fix the root of the issue, or just play whack-a-mole forever?

Congress should ban operating systems is a hell of a take.

If you're going to be ridiculous why stop there? Why not say the OP is implying all electronics should be banned?

Or are you arguing that no operating system can exist without tracking and sharing all of this data?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#478

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…

Chase Hughes: "Manipulation Playbook: The 20 Indicators of Reality Control" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AN2wY4qAM

But there is no big conspiracy. Just a lot or small ones.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#480
There's an interesting cognitive bias in the western media that tends to define freedom of the press (and freedom of expression) as exactly what is perceived as freedom in this side of the iron curtain.

Libgen domains are "seized", and tiktok "goes dark", but of course other countries "censor" porn or news outlets.

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

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