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Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy. This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to
by throwaway237289 3y ago
Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy.
This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US.
Any other way to look at this is naive.
- xxpor 3y agoNation State realpolitik is security.
- asylteltine 3y ago[dead]
- fullshark 3y agoI think it's both. You don't think it's possible TikTok usage data is being accumulated for prominent Americans and/or their children for the purpose of intelligence gathering? I'd actually be surprised if it wasn't happening.
- basisword 3y ago...what 'intelligence' would they be gathering though? What actionable intelligence could be cleaned from someones TikTok viewing habits?
- fullshark 3y agoOff the top of my head you could potentially find closeted homosexuals, who could be leveraged. Edit: Not to mention location data alone is valuable. The entire intelligence community runs on information, all of it has some value.
- rchaud 3y agoTiktol doesn't use location unless you explicitly turn it on. It also asks for storage access only if you click the download button.
- lancesells 3y agoName, age, location, politics, device, amount of time spent, interests, etc. The easiest actionable thing would be propoganda of some sort, but there's a chance of a lot of smart people working on something that I can't imagine. I'm not saying this happening, but looking at Youtube and Meta, it's not hard to imagine.
- itishappy 3y agoIt's an election year. Intelligence can include things like your political affiliation and level of engagement, and can be (ab)used by targeting specific areas/demographics with supportive/decisive content. Think Theil's Palantir, but controlled by a foreign government.
- catskul2 3y agoCan you really not imagine how a nation state could get valuable intelligence by having an intimate knowledge of how a large portion of another nation states population is thinking?
- rightbyte 3y agoYou can like ask people in the street? Oracle runs TikTok anyway in the US, right? The danger with TikTok is inherent to all these algorithmic feeds. It is like, bad for you. People get mentally ill from them.
- mathgorges 3y agoQuite a lot! There are articles ad infinitum about how specifically tailored the TikTok algorithm is for many users. I certainly think that knowing very specifically what a substantial portion of a county/market’s population is interested in qualifies as intelligence. How effectively you make that information actionable is up to the creativity of your intelligence/advertising apparatus.
- RobotToaster 3y agoI'm sure how terrible American teenagers are at dancing is vital intelligence information.
- angryasian 3y agoxenophobic nonsense.
- dang 3y agoYou've been breaking the site guidelines a lot lately. Can you please not? I recognize that you're representing a minority point of view and I know how frustrating that can be (believe me, I know). But if you keep breaking the site guidelines, we can't suspend moderation because of that. Also, it's not in your interest to do this because it makes your comments less persuasive and indeed gives people an easy reason to dismiss them. So if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Past explanations here in case helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20contrarian%20-dynamic%20view&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Also, in case it's helpful, here is a list of moderation posts I made for a user who was in a similar position a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod https://news.ycombinator.com/chinamod. It's old(ish) now but the principles are all still the same.
- angryasian 3y agoI remember when HN was actually intelligent conversation without the political nonsense. you should be ashamed
- dang 3y agoThis perception has been around almost as long as HN itself has: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
- angryasian 3y agoexplain to me how this isn't all xenophobic ? If any of this was real or legit all users would be clamoring for data privacy laws, not a forced sale of some fake boogey man bs. If you're a mod then please why are you allowing for this. Half this xenophobic speach and anti chinese rhetoric is worse than calling it out.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoYou know they can both be true simultaneously, right? It’s a perfectly well understood fact that our nations use businesses, and literally every other avenue possible to spy on and propagandize each other’s populations As a result, each nation has to counter that it does so mostly privately, but sometimes very publicly. This is all part of the totally broken, absolutely run by children, international relations system. It’s exceptionally mundane and exceptionally bad for all citizens as a result. However it’s great for business. So you’re not going to see a change until citizens demand different international economic, political, communications and relations structure that isn’t based on competition.
- rusty_venture 3y agoWhat's your point? China literally has a nationwide firewall to prevent Western ideas from entering the minds of its subjects. Why should we throw open our digital borders to Chinese influence campaigns? "The supreme art of war is to defeat the enemy without fighting", e.g. to undermine Americans' faith in our democratic institutions, to gain the ability to compromise our critical infrastructure, and to influence our politics. All explicitly stated goals of both Bejing and the Kremlin, and the misinformation and distraction campaigns carried out by Russia in the last presidential election are about to ratchet up again. I don't believe we should be making these objectives any easier for our ideological rivals.
- cherryteastain 3y agoThe point is that the West painted itself as the defender of freedom, democracy and free markets. Going beyond, it claimed that (in the post Reagan/Thatcher era) that free markets are a prerequisite for being a rich country. Yet, the moment free markets became inconvenient, the west dropped that narrative and went full protectionist. As a result, China gets a propaganda victory in the eyes of non-Western nations. All things considered, it's a minor problem for the US/West. Just looking like hypocrites. Compared to, say, the 2003 Iraq war it's a nothingburger.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> looking like hypocrites This is the paradox of tolerance [1]. It’s a worn discussion and far from hypocritical. In any case, I’d rather be right than consistent. Particularly when it comes to the survival and wellbeing of our people and allies. More pointedly when the other side is a dictatorship. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- cherryteastain 3y agoThat's the exact argument e.g. Turkey used to ban Wikipedia/Youtube/Twitter etc. Make of that what you will.
- AniseAbyss 3y agoWhat propaganda is TikTok pushing? Besides if your country is strong enough you should be able to shrug it off. France recently put the right to abortion in the Constitution despite American media.
- jstarfish 3y ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US Yes. Would you have been offended when during the Revolutionary War we restricted British propaganda? German and Nazi propaganda in the World Wars? Soviet propaganda in the Cold War? Let’s reverse the roles. How thrilled would we be if we could have had a propaganda arm active and accepted in Nazi Germany or the CCCP? If we had person-by-person profiles of interests and affiliations for every person in Russia or Iran?
- which 3y agoI wouldn't be offended but we didn't really do any of that, at least not as a systematic government effort. We required registration of foreign agents which the government used as a basis to stop Nazi propaganda newspapers when they didn't register. But they had the option to register. Sputnik radio is registered and broadcasting today in the US. The strict interpretation of the Espionage Act that Wilson et al wanted was later overturned.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoWe absolutely restricted distribution of state-controlled news. We didn’t block it. Same as, even if ByteDance refuses to divest, this bill wouldn’t block TikTok from being accessed on the web. It’s just taking it out of American app stores and off American hosting services.
- hellojesus 3y agoWhat do you think will happen when all Americans start side-loading it?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> What do you think will happen when all Americans start side-loading it? We will have a new debate. Nobody wants to kill TikTok. There is simply way too much money in it.
- contrarian1234 3y agoIs there any evidence it's been used for propaganda? I don't use TikTok a lot, but it seems very non-political (maybe it's my filter bubble). The real cesspool of hatred and madness is Facebook - but of course Congress doesn't care too much about that. As far as I remember from the previous elections the Russian bots were operating on US based platforms
- catskul2 3y agonon-political is political. Do you imagine that there aren't people making political TikToks? Or that non-political themes don't affect politics? Or that bubble control doesn't affect politics?
- contrarian1234 3y agoSorry, what? How are my dancing Korean girls and cat videos affecting politics?
- itishappy 3y agoYou're focusing on them instead of politics. "Panem et circenses" is a political tactic.
- contrarian1234 3y agoGosh, no politics in my relaxing doom-scrolling video app. Is it some nefarious plot to pacify the evil capitalists.. or wait... maybe they just know what consumers want?
- itishappy 3y agoDoesn't have to be a ploy or even intentional, but if boomers watch Fox while zoomers watch dancing... that has political implications.
- colpabar 3y ago
- Manuel_D 3y agoAnother way to look at it is the fact that China does not let American social media in its market. Why should America give China access to it's markets when that's not reciprocated?
- nova22033 3y agoTikTok is banned in China.
- Manuel_D 3y agoBut ByteDance, TikTok's owner, operates it's own analogous app in China, Douyin
- est 3y agoWhich means Tiktok was banned.
- Manuel_D 3y agoTikTok is Douyin with a different coat of paint. They're near identical apps run by the same company, ByteDance. It's not banned in China, it just has a different name.
- dotancohen 3y agoAnd different content, which is what matters.
- spacecadet 3y ago[flagged]
- mathgorges 3y agoEvery useful idiot is one kind interaction away from being a useless critical thinker :)
- spacecadet 3y agoSeriously? Definitely not true.
- partiallypro 3y agoUS national security adversaries are platform neutral. If TikTok is banned, they'll just put more resources into the things that aren't banned. Twitter is owned by Elon Musk, who by all accounts spouts Russian propaganda daily, and changed the algorithm to where it makes up a solid 50% of my "For You"...and I have yet to see many, if any, Republicans or Democrats saying we should ban it, or even yank Elon's security clearance, or sever his government contracts. I don't see how you can have it both ways. TikTok shouldn't be banned, and if it is, it could eventually open the door for US owned companies without "direct" ties to also be forced "divest." Some of Facebook and Twitter's biggest investors are not exactly US allies. To me, it's a slippery slope. The "tit for tat" argument also falls flat to me, the US shouldn't try to mimic being China. China's attempts to wall itself off from the world have hurt it more than helped it. If we really wanted to address this, we'd just have legislation on personal data in general, not this company targeting nonsense; but we'll never do that because Facebook/Twitter/Google/Microsoft/etc all have their hands lining the pockets of plenty of lobbyists in DC. They just maybe don't realize, or care, at the moment that eventually their own allegiances will be called into question.
- codedokode 3y agoBut if Western people are generally not dumb, are patriotic and think rationally, they won't believe foreign propaganda, and so there is no need to ban TikTok, right?
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago> think rationally Not teenagers, TikTok's main target
- hellojesus 3y agoThankfully parents were invented to regulate them.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoDo you think the govt. has zero responsibility in the welfare of our nation's children? If a foreign adversary attacks, can parents alone protect their children? Let me get this clear: 1. you don't want govt to act for children because "parents", 2. you don't want govt to act for adults because they are "rational".
- hellojesus 3y ago> 1. you don't want govt to act for children because "parents" > 2. you don't want govt to act for adults because they are "rational". Yes. This is absolutely correct from my perspective. Parents have agency over their children. They are there to guide or, if necessary, inact tyrannical laws. Adults have agency. Nobody is a victim of TikTok involuntarily. Adults are making a choice to use it or allow their children to use it. From what exactly is the government saving US citizens by banning TikTok from the app store, or more generally? And how can we be sure that this banning power won't expand over time?
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoBy your logic, we should remove all regulations? (As parents can have agency over children and adults have agency) > From what exactly is the government saving US citizens by banning TikTok from the app store, or more generally The CCP accessing their data. The CCP pushing propaganda by silently altering the recommendations. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.... https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/07/26/tiktok-chinese-propaganda-ads-europe/?sh=6143330d203d https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/07/26/tiktok-ch...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DebtDeflation 3y agoIt's not even just about propaganda. Watch Tik Tok videos in China and it's all young people helping the elderly, learning job skills, and doing other socially virtuous things. Watch Tik Tok videos outside of China and it's all videos of kids stealing cars, eating Tide pods, and pranking people in Home Depot.
- bradleybuda 3y agoTikTok shows you what you want to see. I see a lot of musical covers, dumb jokes about the Dune films, standup comedy clips. I don't know what first ~20 videos a brand new account with no history sees but this caricature of TikTok (Tide Pods? really?) is pretty outdated.
- andrewla 3y agoJust to be clear, is this based on your own experience, or did you just see a video or news article (or other piece of propaganda) making this claim?
- rstuart4133 3y ago> Watch Tik Tok videos in China and it's all > Just to be clear, is this based on your own experience, or did you From https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68554075 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68554075: As is the case with other social media platforms, TikTok is banned in China.
- rany_ 3y agoI mostly get some science videos and old comedy sketches. It will just recommend content you're into, same as any other social media network.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Brybry 3y agoI think forcing a sale of TikTok is fine -- after all China effectively does the same thing for all US companies in China. But H.R. 7521 gives power to handle more than TikTok. (g)(3)(B) [1] certainly looks to me like it can be used by any President to pressure or outright censor many foreign sites and apps. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text#H30F851352C8742008517E40B7ECC561D https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...