What Does Trump Have Against TikTok?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Tik Tok is unique in the granularity and sheer scope of what it captures, and it is stored on Chinese servers that are legally compelled to make any and all data available to the CCP with no oversight or warrants or anything of the sort.
Are non-Chinese surveillance dragnets (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.) capturing every bit of data imaginable about every nationality's children or adults more palatable?
Just like China, the US is doing whatever it can to maintain its superpower status, and its allies and enemies in check. And it's obvious these days that the US is willing to use the exact same measures that they criticized in the past when they were employed only by China.
You can't do any of that in China.
Of course not.
Not to mention independent organisations like ACLU, EFF etc. who have been very vocal about trying to abolish the FISA process entirely.
Again none of this would remotely happen in China. We've seen first hand what happens to the media and dissenters in HK.
And that there is the problem from which no argument about checks and balances can recover.
Which is why real democracies don't allow secret courts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...
Apologies, I didn't mean to sound condescending.
> Your leg to stand on is that TikTok's (China's?) "shit" smells the worst as such "we" have the moral high ground.
That isn't the point, really. It's just that TikTok is in a whole different league. A quote from the Reddit comment I've linked prior:
> For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.
> The world isn't binary and not being the worst doesn't make you good.
Nobody said that. The issue is that TikTok is "essentially malware that is targeting children".
And pointing that out doesn't suddenly make me a fan of Facebook. Your point is a false dilemma.
> But I see a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that prevents you from even looking further than "they're worse so we must be good".
I'm not American but German.
The comparison is disingenuous because it makes it look like the current US based social media scene is as harmless and unassuming as a cup of water. When they appeared they were the ocean. What they were doing then was just as unacceptable as what TikTok is doing now. And they were still "shoved" down our throats with the same tricks of the trade TikTok is using now. We just raised our baseline and the unacceptable became acceptable.
How about if we say it's like a sea to the ocean? They still "just don't compare" but both are able to easily drown the world's population and for a ship on that water for all intents and purposes they're the same.
Let's not delude ourselves, this isn't about "too much data is being collected" or the gratuitous "but but but children" remark. Between all the US-based big-tech companies and the NSA/Five Eyes, the US has enough data to blackmail children for decades to come (see? the children argument works both ways). No, the problem here is that someone other than the US is doing it and could get an upper hand.
Facebook and Alphabet have probably collected more info about the people of the world than any other companies in existence and all of it can/is being shared with intelligence services if demanded. Isn't this collecting an ocean of data about your children? [0] I could dig up 1000 stories like that. But you're not worried because you were educated that some countries doing it is OK and China's explicitly not on that list.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tiktok_reversing/comments/i3d9qw/so...
I feel like this is the tech equivalent of QAnon...
To be clear, I don't think Facebook is any better than Tiktok. But I've seen zero actual evidence it's any worse. Frankly, the whole thing stinks of sinophobia dressed up as privacy pearl clutching...
Edit: and if you want an actual analysis with real evidence and data:
https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626...
"As far as we can see, in its current state, TikTok doesn’t have a suspicious behavior and is not exfiltrating unusual data."
America has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions.
China has a blanket policy of supplying all data to the state at its request, and there is no independent judiciary or other means of appealing this process.
Instead of Whataboutism, consider looking into why every major nation in the world (bar a few heavily reliant allies) are turning on China as the extent and nature of their policies and intentions has become impossible to ignore. Xi is a large part of this strategic turn in what was already an Orwellian dictatorship - read about his geostrategic goals.
Don't deflect. I'm not the one using whataboutism, you are: "US surveillance is ok because the scale is smaller than the Chinese one". And even that's debatable, US has global reach in collecting data.
As a European the "scale and nature of what is captured" by the US via big-tech companies (or the NSA) is "COMPLETELY different" from what happens in the EU. EU "laws about data protection are completely different". EU "has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions". So I'll put it this way: for a European the US surveillance state looks more or less the same as how the Chinese surveillance state might look to the US.
So let me rephrase it: for me the US is what China is for you. You are doing to others what China is doing to you. But when you're doing it you find a strong sense of righteousness in it and anyone who doesn't agree with you is the enemy.
Many also hold this narrow view that between 2 things you must agree with one and disagree with the other. A common misconception that if you reject one option you must embrace the other. Please understand, I can disagree just fine with both what China and the US are doing. I'm giving you an outside perspective of the issue which might better help you understand how perception of something changes once you realize the baseline doesn't have to be you, it can actually be higher. You'll probably agree with me that when it comes to surveillance and privacy the EU is probably better positioned to make a moral judgement.
PS I'm not American or in America.
The point was generic so I'd say it stands. And the particular point was that most views are relative to where you're looking from but everybody states them in very absolute terms. You set your baseline at what you're comfortable with and take that as absolute reference. I was just trying to show you that that's not the case.
Putting it more simply, if you support the absolute idea that TikTok is bad, and their US operations should be forced to sell and be under US control, then the idea that Facebook or Google are bad and their EU operations should be forced to sell and be under EU control is just as true. Very few people see it like this as such the logic of the discussion is fractured. Without reconciling that fracture first every discussion looks like this [0].
[0] https://pics.onsizzle.com/our-blessed-homeland-their-barbaro...
Um, not in the slightest. There is no united front in the US regarding foreign relations. Trump is left to his own devices without the backing of Congress. That is far far from "doing whatever it can".
TikTok is pretty inane, what do you think they can find out that's detrimental; how do you think the data will be used that is malicious?
In a few cases even non-Chinese citizens whose friends became "reachable" for the Chinese government.
TikTok would be an excellent source of information for this practice.
Examples:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/fbi-chief-china-threa...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-wray/china-coer...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/12/you-could-end-...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/21/china-government-threats...
When 17 year olds can “own Twitter” and Facebook just budgets 9 figures for data collection compliance fines, are you sure there’s a bright line distinction in the world that’s not “let’s all agree we’re not the terrible/hated/untrustworthy other”? Is the problem that another sovereign country could coerce a company to provide a service that Facebook provides for money?
1. Chinese companies are extensions of the state. This is not true to the same degree for US or European companies; and
2. China deliberately restricts access to the Chinese market so no foreign company will "win" there. It will always be a Chinese company. This is why companies kowtowing the China is so pointless.
Trade is about reciprocity. Separation from the state is a national security issue. China is not playing by the same rules as everyone else is. The only shocking thing about this is that it's taken what is otherwise the worst president in America's history (and someone who, with his family, should probably all be in jail for various reasons) to demand reciprocity and to point out the obvious.
Yet the carrot of the Chinese market remains for Western companies and those companies have pressured (if not outright bought) their governments to play along in a completely rigged game they cannot win.
The Internet never was "Global", it was always soft and sometimes hard controlled by the US. Now that other countries are applying the same recipe and "winning" all of a sudden that's a problem.
And it really is a problem, but it was a problem since the very beginning of the Internet, or do I need to mention the RSA backdoor, the Windows kernel backdoor, the amazing health of the ECHELON project even decades after the cold war ended?
That administration might be out of office as soon as January 2021.
Edit: Comment submitted before title was changed. Title was originally: "Banning TikTok suggests that the US no longer believes in a global internet."
The US should continue to be part of the global group of countries with the idea of an open internet vs copying China's great firewall practice.
I realize this is hard externally with Trump and perhaps internally with Pai but they do not represent the majority
And people who think this is exclusive a Trump, right-wing position are seriously misguided. It's bi-partisan and will definitely continue under a Biden presidency as well.
Are you suggesting USA has that?
Edit: this post was originally titled “Banning TikTok suggests that the US no longer believes in a global internet” and that is still the main idea of the article
The first thing China did was putting up the Great Firewall.
Reciprocity is overdue and important.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/team-bidens-policies-on-chin...
Whoever the next President is will not be soft on China.