Senators ask US intel to determine whether TikTok poses national security risks | Hacker News Reader

Senators ask US intel to determine whether TikTok poses national security risks

washingtonpost.com

15 pointsnickthegreek7 comments

This is morosely funny, because the responsible community viewpoint has been tilting at windmills for over a decade about the pitfalls of centralizing webcrapps. Which has been ignored due to a blindspot from just being subservient to US business interests, as so much of US culture is.

But now that China has appeared on the scene with a modicum of influence, everyone flips their shit! For some reason people couldn't just reason abstractly about the implications of centralized control, but instead assumed the controllers will be benevolent up until they became "too foreign".

I don't look forward to the likely results though. I think it's going to be more top-down control from DC to SV (it's the only thing they understand, after all), as opposed to any sort of movement to get back to making secure software rather than untrustable services.

i for one completely trust the US intelligence agencies to make the right decision here. i'm glad that our elected Senate is leveraging the unelected, but best and brightest (or so i am frequently told) members of this country to make these decisions.

this is late-Byzantine empire/Venice type stuff.

An app used by young people to post silly videos definitely poses a severe national security risk[1][2].

[1]https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340216

[2]https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/24/tiktok-most-popul...

The argument isn't crazy when you consider the ability to control and manipulate messaging. It's not different than investigating RT or other foreign funded media.

It is different in the sense that TikTok does not create any content. It is a platform for other young people to post videos. It is like Youtube where people post and share videos. Yes, people can post political videos and spread disinformation on Youtube, just like on other platform as well. Singling out TikTok for this smells more like protectionism. Facebook has more than 2 billion users worldwide and the US has a population of less than 400 million. The majority of the users come from other nations. According to your theory, Facebook posts severe national security risk to all other countries where Facebook operates because Facebook is a foreign funded and controlled company to other countries.

This angle is correct - since moderators and admin are located in China it is not hard to censor material, create dissent and appeal to a Chinese propaganda model.

From the article that I suspect many did not read: "lawmakers questioned TikTok’s data-collection practices and whether the app adheres to censorship rules directed by the Chinese government that could limit what U.S. users see"

Metadata, GPS location, Camera/Photos and Videos can also leak information about people, specfically children/teens of high ranking officials.

"And the lawmakers said that TikTok could be a “potential target of foreign influence campaigns like those carried out during the 2016 election on U.S.-based social media platforms.”"

Is this fear different than what China says about USA tech like Google/Apple/Microsoft? Nope - same. They treat it differently and force companies to comply with their laws and rules.

It is when it's owned by a country who has the specific goal to influence other countries.

It makes it easier when the people in that country who use the app are very easily impressionable children.

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