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US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

reuters.com

741–750 of 769 posts

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#741
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your argument is predicated on the idea that banning TikTok is censorship. It's not. My take is that the elite was shocked the American youth is vaning in their Israel support and that they want algorithmic feeds that are sionist. Simple as that.

I really need to coin the phenomenon of when people attribute the reasoning for something happening as being due to the current thing they care about. I see it so often. Some sort of specific confirmation bias.

Are you refering to me or 'the elite'?

I think some sort of 'bias' is the term. Narrative bias? Opportunity bias?

'China' was the main reason but Gaza tipped the scale, I would say.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#742
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say you don't "support this version of reality", and yet you've put up a compelling argument for it. If the Chinese government benefits from TikTok's ability to influence Western minds, then right, they may prefer the company dies than lose that capability. If they aren't running influence campaigns on TikTok that targets Americans, then they should be fine with a sale to a fully-non-Chinese owner. Sure, they los…

China’s potential usage of the app for influence campaigns (propaganda, if you will) is a near certainty. I just do not agree with characterizing these operations as culture destroying to the US, or to the West. I have no qualms about suspecting the CCP of using TikTok’s massive cultural reach to push/suppress narratives they find beneficial/hurtful, I am just skeptical of how much cultural eradication can occur. Bot…

I'm fairly certain the CCP is already doing this pushing topics that affect traditional national interests while making it magically seem "viral", and successfully mobilizing their user base to vehemently _defend_ the platform with the addiction of an alcoholic. If I name the issues here, I'll trigger said users, but it's not hard to see it as a non-consumer of the platform.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#743
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not aware of any other platforms that have been banned, without also having criminal cases opened. Are there any?

What does that have to do with it? The mechanism doesn't really matter, as long as it's legal, which courts have so far ruled it is.

Typically we expect people or companies who commit crimes to be subject to different levels of oversight than those that don’t.

So, Enron commits a ton of crimes and gets rightfully destroyed. I would be less enthusiastic about Congress passing a law to do the same thing to Ernst and Young despite no criminal proceedings.

I’m surprised that’s surprising.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean KGB, or what? I’ve lived for almost 30 years in post-Soviet space and never once I saw “we’re good, they’re bad” propaganda from the West. What I did see is an order of magnitude difference in income, quality of life and rights that people have. So yeah, fuck Russia, fuck KGB and platforms that assist them with doing their dirty work.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi... For example. The big difference is that China hoovers up a lot of information from cheap security cams and online appliances in the West, and I'm fairly sure the West doesn't do that to China. As far as media management, PR, propaganda, whatever, I don't see a lot of difference between the regimes. The West profiles its own citizens for both commercial a…

>The big difference is that China hoovers up a lot of information from cheap security cams and online appliances in the West, and I'm fairly sure the West doesn't do that to China.

why?

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#745
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Plenty of Teslas on the street in China but no Chinese cars on the street in the US. Lets see what the next chapter is; as you said reciprocity is key ...

If you want to use that analogy, a big reason Chinese cars aren't in the US is because the Chinese government heavily subsidizes their car production, which would lead to unfair price competition with other carmakers. If you want true reciprocity there, China would either need to stop subsidizing their carmakers, or the US would need to add heavy tariffs to their cars to level the playing field.

You realize the US bailed out their auto companies and heavily subsidize EVs right? it's like you're using "reciprocity" to mean US win China lose or something

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean KGB, or what? I’ve lived for almost 30 years in post-Soviet space and never once I saw “we’re good, they’re bad” propaganda from the West. What I did see is an order of magnitude difference in income, quality of life and rights that people have. So yeah, fuck Russia, fuck KGB and platforms that assist them with doing their dirty work.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covi... For example. The big difference is that China hoovers up a lot of information from cheap security cams and online appliances in the West, and I'm fairly sure the West doesn't do that to China. As far as media management, PR, propaganda, whatever, I don't see a lot of difference between the regimes. The West profiles its own citizens for both commercial a…

It's wild that you think the west doesn't do this, or wouldn't do this.

I think the west absolutely hoovers up everything they can from video and social feeds worldwide.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#747
post #494
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the exact same question being asked around the global - how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's.

You cannot. But in US you have elections every 4 years wheres in Russia or China both Putin and Xi are "elected" for their lifetime. Does it tell you anything ?

it's the same in the USA as it is elsewhere. you just have the illusion of picking someone here.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#748

> it would "not directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok" by Apple or Google users who have already downloaded TikTok. But it conceded the prohibitions on providing support "will eventually be to render the application unworkable." I have a technical question with regards to this. Typically, censorship* investigation efforts (from academia or elsewhere, such as OONI, Apernet etc.) have tended to focus on non-Ame…

Would killing .ipa/.apk distribution not suffice? PWA still sucks, no one knows how to deal with .apk let alone invalid signed .ipa, I think it'll effectively prevent any app from going mainstream. Which is crazy but I suppose okay just this one time?

If tiktok popularizes PWA install it will be a great tradeoff

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#749
post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and even with those names listed out I don't really understand what category you're pointing at. Your list includes the sitting president and president-elect of the country, who do of course have quite a lot of power. Do I think that TikTok has more power than Rupert Murdoch? Probably not, Murdoch owns a wider variety of media even if he doesn't have any single dominant app. More power than Richard Sackler or Bil…

As a myth- and truth-maker I'm sure Bill Clinton outweighs TikTok by a huge margin. Compare speaking out against his recent theocratic and genocidal outbursts with speaking out against some stuff on TikTok, one can get you fired from middle class positions of authority, like teaching at universities, the other is perfectly safe unless it also goes against US elites.

I don't know what "theocratic and genocidal outbursts" you're referring to, but it's completely untrue that criticizing Bill Clinton can get you fired from teaching at a university. I'm not sure where you could have gotten the idea that it's rare or dangerous to criticize politicians in the US.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one single other country that we trade with that has an official policy that it owns another country we trade with, and insists that if we say out loud the other country is a country it means immediate war?

Taiwan has an official policy that it owns the mainland

This is hilariously a result of China's view. China's claim is that Taiwan is part of the still civil warring China, and should be re-integrated. Part of that strategy is an insistence that OTHER countries need to parrot this claim, including countries like the US that recognize Taiwan as an independent entity. The "oneness" of China is vitally important.

The claimed story is that Taiwan is worried if they abandon the "one warring China" policy and openly state they are Independent, that will aggravate China and cause them to push their claim harder, and maybe lead to war.

Taiwan having such a policy is directly because that's the policy China wants everyone else to claim. Notably, Taiwan has taken zero effort to produce a military capable of doing any over-water invasions, which would be absolutely necessary if they actually wanted to do that. Unless you think Taiwan would rely on the USA to invade China for it, which I do not think the US ever wants to do. Our explicit strategy is to own all the islands around China (including Taiwan) and basically blockade China in all but name.

China meanwhile DOES build a military to take over Taiwan, explicitly, including systems designed to sink our carriers and practice targets in the desert. Strictly speaking I'm not concerned about China wanting a viable means to sink our Navy, as China doesn't want to starve to death if we could blockade them, but the buildup around the capability to take Taiwan betrays that it is not a defensive posture.

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