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Comment by euix | Hacker News Reader

Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence". Now we got the reverse and it's also for ideological reasons (at least at face value).

Wonder if WeChat is next. That would be fairly effective in prevent overseas Chinese from communicating with the mainland and a lot of mom and pop businesses that operate through Wechat like the students who buy products for people back in China and advertise and transfer money using WeChat.

We'll be back to buying calling cards and dialing telephones, but I guess this is the era of decoupling one way or the other.

Maybe people will have to invent some kind of transformer software, like you plug a western chat app on one side and it passes messages through a third party relay to a chinese messaging app.

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The point isn't to stop Chinese people from phoning home so a lot of that would be silly. Social media platforms that go mainstream are incredible propaganda and normalization tools, especially when their key demographic is a nation's youth. No one cares about WeChat because it's not nearly as influential in America and probably never will be.

Which isn't exactly reassuring or clarifying of any brightline, so of course this question continues to be in the air — unresolved. Will a stable framework of technological trade emerge between east and west besides "consult your legal oracles"?

It's worth noting the reason axing WeChat would be effective is that every other widely used communication app on this planet is already blocked by China.

every other popular app, you can still use apps which are flying under radar, which you must find by yourself unless you want to use illegal VPN

> Shows how far the balance of power has shifted in the last 20 years back when the Chinese government was banning western products to prevent "spiritual pollution" and "western influence".

Yes, now it's the US doing desperate acts of authoritarianism out of weakness.

Have you considered a Chinese App on 10's of millions of phones across the US and the security implications? I would think an adversary like China could very well take advantage of that.

Good point. By the same reasoning, China should of course ban American apps.

Edit: As they have done. (So don't complain about unfair market access, as they clearly have good reasons. Right?)

China already did that a long time ago.

Don't they already?

I see this line of reasoning often, and frankly, I don’t understand it at all.

TikTok poses exactly the same risk as any other app on the App/Play stores. They go through exactly the same static code review and signing process - conducted by two American companies. Any security risk can be addressed at that point in the pipeline.

Assuming the concern is about “data security” (vs OS level security), I see literally zero difference between a state actor having access to my data, and a third party advertiser. If it’s insecure, it’s insecure - it doesn’t matter who the potential attacker is.

This is a horrible, horrible decision that has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with a horrible president desperately clawing for anything he can to get re-elected.

Right? That's what so unbelievable about this whole argument! Conceivably this is a tech forum where everyone posting should at least be familiar with that. Tiktok doesn't have any secret hacking rights to your system!

> TikTok poses exactly the same risk as any other app on the App/Play stores.

No, it does not. See the research here [1]. TikTok is a data collection engine disguised as a social media tool.

[1] https://penetrum.com/research

That was too ambiguous on my part - to clarify, I meant TikTok has exactly the same potential for risk.

TikTok isn’t doing anything that Facebook and Twitter are doing, or may do in future.

If there’s a technical security risk that we should be worried about, then I am equally worried about every single other non-Chinese company exploiting it.

If this were nation-agnostic, generic data protection laws, no one would bat an eyelid. Couching in terms of hand-wavy national security is just so implausible and blatantly self serving.

> Maybe people will have to invent some kind of transformer software, like you plug a western chat app on one side and it passes messages through a third party relay to a chinese messaging app.

That's what XMPP and matrix is. Self host your own Chinese instance to communicate with people there.

I think overseas Chinese have bigger problems to worry about than Wechat getting banned. Based on the trajectory the world is heading in, we might be seeing Pacific War 2.0 and internment camps in a few decades.

Could be, but we will all be old men by then, and given our profession, probably have a sizable chunk of change in the bank. Those that are vulnerable will be able to vote with their feet and enjoy comfortable retirement in South American or something.

It's the next generation that will truly suffer, because they will belong to neither country and be looked at as potential fifth columns by both.

>we might be seeing Pacific War 2.0 in a few decades

An American-Chinese Pacific War is a projection of American insecurity.

In the long run, without its 19th and 20th century grievances, the Chinese do not care about America. Full stop.

One day the Chinese GDP per capita (currently 8,000 USD) will reach the Taiwanese GDP per capita (about 25,000 USD), the Chinese GDP will triple and nothing America does will ever be interesting to the Chinese again. Except for a Pacific War, which brings no benefit to the Chinese, outside of a few small satrapies.

If we Americans recognize the Chinese tendency is towards isolationism, a tendency with historic precedents, there will be no armed conflicts down the line.

After PRC invades Taiwan. Has a short victorious war vs India, occupies Senkakus. Makes Philippines into vassal state etc.

Any pacific war will be a coalition of India, Japan, US vs PRC war most likely. They really really should stop murdering Indian soldiers, testing Japanese air defense daily, ram everyone’s ship whenever they feel like etc. But they can not stop themselves, because regime is based on nationalistic aggression and “payback” (wtf they are paying India for I do not know)

Ah...calling cards, purchased a lot 15 years ago, and I had to use them ASAP, or their value depreciated quickly.

> or their value depreciated quickly.or thor their value depreciated quickly.eir value depreciated quickly.

Somewhat OT, but nothing has changed there. Phone plans minutes also become useless after a while.

No Westerners actually use Wechat.

TikTok is getting mainstream in US.

That is the difference

Anyone with relatives in china would. That includes westerners.

For what it’s worth, I’m a westerner and have used WeChat.... to order sketchy counterfeit stuff direct from China!

I use WeChat to keep in touch with Chinese friends. It takes up 1GB of space, which is more than any other app on my phone - wish could delete it but don't want to lose these contacts.

Look, this isn’t ideological. This is about Trump being butt hurt. I wish I could put a more nuanced spin on it, but that’s all to this story. TikTok has been a big platform for his critics and he is in a perpetual fight with China. That’s how we ended up here. WeChat is not on his radar and makes no difference to him. It won’t get banned. To be fair, I have a feeling TikTok will simply sue and win since this is blatantly unlawful, but I guess we will see.

What do you base your reasoning that this is just Trump being butthurt on? Because I have a strong suspicion that even though you don’t think the TikTok ban is ideological, your reasoning for that on the other hand is ideological.

The fact that Trump has done literally nothing but the things that benefit him personally his entire presidency? The fact that this is conveniently happening the week the US has posted record shatteringly low economic numbers and every time the stock market or the economy isn’t doing well he does something to distract the media and the public? The fact that we managed to elect a grifter? The fact that the man can’t read anything but his own name, let alone understand nuances of technology or foreign policy? You would have to be blind not to see through his intent. Or willfully supporting that racist as if in a death cult with him.

No banning TikTok isn’t ideological in this case: it’s one of dozens of Chinese apps. No other app is under fire. Yes I am ideological about Trump: I am against corruption and he is bar none the most corrupt president the US has ever had and hopefully will ever have.

Edit: just noticed your username. Dude, not cool.

In your first paragraph, you're supporting your baseless accusation with even more baseless accusations (all speaking in absolutes, and posited as facts! And some of them are so comical I'm not sure how you can seriously make such claims - it's funny you should mention cults, do you realize how you yourself sound?)

In your second paragraph, you're missing that no other Chinese app has 100 million American users. So yeah, no other app is under fire, but no other app matters nearly as much.

As to my username, for some reason I'm not surprised that it's too politically incorrect for you.

You keep using the word facts. It doesn’t seem like you know what it means.

As to your username, it’s not a PC issue. It’s just juvenile to the point where combined with your overall ignorance means there is no reason to take anything you say seriously. I hope some day you grow up.

No. I’ve said facts once. And dismissing my points based on my username is like the lowest of ad hominems. Rather makes you the juvenile one, even if I came up with this username at like 17.

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