Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing | Hacker News Reader

Oracle’s TikTok deal accomplishes nothing

theverge.com

Used the app for a few days, and realized that keeping TikTok out of the hands of US tech companies is best for the users.

1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

2. (Most important) copyright hunters will have a harder time ruining the experience.

3. Includes the ability to DOWNLOAD videos! (this blows my mind. I mean, consider the cat and mouse game google and others play to make video downloads difficult/impossible)

Yeah. This kind of interface problem is absolutely mind blowing to me. iOS especially always feels almost dumb enough to be unusable to me in comparison with my computer. For example, the other day I just wanted to download an Mp3 to my phone so I'd be able to play it at night with the cellular network turned off.

It ended up taking almost an hour to figure out. Downloading a file to the filesystem is nigh impossible on iOS, and there are no native apps which helped with the problem. I had to jump from questionable app to questionable app until one would let me "paste a youtube link in" which eventually worked; albeit, it still won't let me play my new song in the native music app! It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

> It feels like user hostility and it surprises me that this behavior doesn't drive more people wild.

It does. The issue is that the alternative brings its own set of user hostile behaviour. At least this devil I already know.

This may not be your point, but I want to point out the VLC app on iOS provides a target for saving files, including mp3, for offline playback.

https://ytmp3.cc/ provides a general purpose online youtube to mp3/mp4 conversion service with no fee or registration.

If you have Spotify, you can also do this through offline syncing, but it's annoying to figure out. Less dodgy than this solution, though.

https://support.spotify.com/us/article/Listen-to-local-files...

Spotify has pretty low-level access to playing music on iPhones.

Try using a mp3 or whatever as a ringtone or alarm tone. Laughs We don't do that around here. I'm not even sure you can buy extra ringtones from the app store. Think different. And with different I mean e unison.

You can definitely buy ringtones, you just have to remember that the iTunes music store exists first. I haven't bought anything new on there in over a decade, so I'm waking up to music from High School still.

I made my own ring tone the other day because I recorded something I wanted to use. It's possible. Monstrous pain, but possible. You have to convert it to AAC, then import it to iTunes then sync it over. It was about the same effort of getting a ringtone on my feature phone in the early/mid 2000s. That seems insane to me these days.

I’m not sure exactly what you tried, but it’s actually quite easy to download a file to the Files app.

As a quick sanity check: use something like YoutubeToMP3 [0] to generate an audio file. Then, clicking the URL of that MP3 will prompt a download modal that will save straight to the Downloads folder in Files - right from Safari.

[0]: https://ytmp3.cc/

I would love this to be the case. If it really is this easy then I have failed my job as the head technologist of.. well, my family.

This is the interface I'm presented with when I open a .mp3 file in a web browser [0]. None of the available options prompts me to any file system access or the "Files" app. I've diven deep into the settings, permissions, and other menus to no avail. Am I missing something obvious?

[0]: https://imgur.com/2HKrCSz

Looking at the title bar of the app, it’s clear it isn’t Safari or even a web browser proper - what app are you using?

He also might have deleted the Files app.

Ha! You guys have a good eye. I opened it in the browser with FB Messenger, however the sharing/saving actions presented are the same when I use iOS Safari or iOS Chrome. And unfortunately, I do have Files installed.

Maybe what I'm experiencing is just an unfortunate consequence of not having upgraded my aging iPhone 6 yet.

> 1. Registration not needed - without nagging. First thing Microsoft would have done is to require signup to use.

The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

MS own LinkedIn ... I think you'd be surprised.

TikTok makes people dance and smile.

LinkedIn... uh, LinkedIn...

Yeah, no. Not surprised.

I’m not a fan of this take. I think dancing and smiles is a great way to veil something more dangerous. I’m not saying tik tok specifically is doing so but just because something looks like a toy doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous underneath.

>The account-less app alone tracks way more than what microsoft could ever track with all their account systems.

I'm using TikTok lite.

TikTok only requested STORAGE permission when I wanted to save a video. That's all.

Tubemate - one of those youtube apps requires: Read phone state and location permissions. Won't launch without it.

I'll take, what is internet cookie for 1000 alex

There are still a ton of things Android apps can use to track you without permission. [1]

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141...

Those are big issues for Android. What about IOS? As far as i know there is no persistent ID an app can grab from the OS.

iOS is very restrictive and Apple has actively been working to thwart fingerprinting techniques, so you'd have a hard time going about getting something reliably unique.

If you are targeting older builds, there is stuff like this which is pretty neat [1].

[1] https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2019/papers/405.pdf

Correct me if I'm wrong but on Android wouldn't an app have access to all files if storage permission is enabled?

Not anymore.

It's still the fact for the vast majority of phones. That Storage Scope feature it's not even enabled by default, and only for Android 11, which isn't even released.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/stor...

Apps can still request the legacy behaviour (i.e. accessing all files on your phone). No thanks.

Provide some evidence for that statement, please.

Is there anyone that comes out worse from the U.S. + China TikTok saga than Kevin Mayer?

He left leading Disney's streaming division after being passed over for CEO to become Bytedance's COO and CEO of TikTok, only to leave three months later during the company's toughest time.

Now we learn Bytedance isn't actually selling its operations to Oracle and the the most valuable startup in the world marches on to market dominance without him. Huge reputation hit.

This might just save Bytedance/TikTok. Any word on when they will go public?

Their TikTok app sort of has first-mover-advantage in the new realm of AI-recommendation-engine that actually is worthwhile. Their AI algorithm is the key.

Netflix and YouTube uses the same algorithm for video recommendations, but to be honest, that implementation is not as relevant in adding more value to those companies.

I'm an avid tt user but frankly their algo is little more than "show them videos from their area". They used to allow you to ignore videos from certain users but the feature was retired. Their recommendation engine is on the same level as youtube's and probablt not as good as spotify's algo.

As I've said before: try using tiktok and tapping "not interested" on any food video that comes up. After a month of doing this they will still show you food videos in the fyp.

Their feed is extremely edited by their moderators and AI has very little to do with it.

Was there ever any information on what specifically made him leave? I can't imagine he was completely unaware of the fact that there are tensions around TikTok and that it would impact his job.

It does SOMETHING.

It paves the way to normalizing corruption from the highest level in America. This means businesses with US operations (US businesses as well as foreign businesses) will forever be aware of this corruption and try to curry favor with the highest levels. If they don't curry favor, they will find other ways or simply avoid the American market. This means America is now more like third world democracies than a real pioneer of freedom.

Thus, the deal accomplished something that forever scars business in the US.

Like Joker said; "it's about sending a message."

> That makes it less of a sale and more of a glorified hosting deal. It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else. [from the article]

Trump is in every way no different than a 3rd world dictator. And this is just yet one more way.

It's not Trump, it's presidential powers.

Over time, the congress has 'delegated' more and more powers to the president making the US more and more a revolving dictatorship.

Too true. In most other countries, no one office holds this much power.

Exactly. It's a handout to Trump's buddy Larry Ellison, and it screws perceived political opponent Google by canceling a big existing cloud contract. Trump has to love everything about this deal. But that isn't the worst part.

The worst part is that this screws the future of the open internet by establishing precedent for segregating everything by country. The US was probably the biggest force supporting a global network without borders. Now that's all hypocrisy. The future of the internet is clear, if it wasn't before: Great Firewalls around every country. It will be really bad for Silicon Valley as a whole and that's yet another reason for Trump to love this deal. He's building a wall on the internet too.

The current government being Ellison-friendly probably helps this deal over some other possible configurations.

Maybe the opposite is true? Ellison being administration-friendly acted as a stalking horse and gets the deal because it doesn't really change TikToc's business, but makes for a campaign press-release.

I don't understand why the Verge is framing this as likely to be approved. It seems like the Gov't. told Bytedance to divest from US Operations, Bytedance refused to divest and instead set up this trusted tech partner thing, which means that no IP will be change hands and control will still be maintained.

This deal seems not to meet the requirements set out by the US Gov't. Have the goalposts been moved or will this deal be rejected?

Ellison is a large donor to the Trump campaign, so they're probably willing to move the goalposts for him.

It will be approved, the goal was to put it in a place where the US government (read: trump goons) could control and monitor it, and Oracle is such a place. Larry Ellison is a huge trump donor so there’s zero chance it gets held up.

So this is basically telling China:

Hey we know you're spying using TikTok. Share the tool you use to spy so we can see, too.

China said: OK fine but you can only spy on your own citizens. Plus we also still get to.

Is that right?

yes but not just spy, they're eager to use the algorithm for propaganda purposes. Having it run by a trump loyalist is the outcome they wanted, they're going to turn it into Fox News for gen z.

This is such a weird take as someone who is on TikTok and really enjoys it. The app is a just mirror for your interests with an insanely good discovery system. Whatever you like and interact with it shows you more of and it tests the waters occasionally to try and find new things you might like.

My TikTok is cooking, home decor, gardening, fashion, makeup, pop punk music, longboarding, bullet journaling, and mental health.

Like you could be right that TikTok will change for the worse maliciously but such a change would kill what makes it worth using.

Not saying that they're trying to do the same thing, but couldn't you also imagine someone saying the same thing about FB before the revelations over the past few years?

It would be pretty easy for the algorithm to be nudged a little so that you start seeing more and more mental health tiktokkers who suggest that your mental wellness would be improved if you started reading about qanon, or long boarders who also like to talk about putting immigrants in concentration camps.

I'm sorry if I'm daft just are you jokin or not?

I think it's like boiling a lobster.

They won't transfer you immediately to a boiling pot of water. They will simply turn up the heat on the pot you're in, slowly but surely. Pretty soon you'll be sitting in a hot tub but you're already addicted to the fun of the app.

There were no goalposts.

The deal saves face for the president, and moves American business culture a step in the direction of China's.

I would like to understand if Oracle gets to see the user data. If yes, that might be a good deal for them because the data, especially at such large scale, is very valuable.

In this case, they would not need TikTok's algorithms, as they can develop/train their own from TikTok's data.

If Oracle can not see the user data, then it's just a glorified hosting deal, as people mentioned.

I mean that’s still a pretty good deal for Oracle since they could use a high-visibility customer that uses Oracle’s cloud.

And eliminates TikTok from Google cloud.

> "It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."

If you're in ByteDance's shoes, this sounds like a perfect counteroffer to the US government position. If you believe the US concern might be more politics than governance, you offer a solution that gives a political win with minimal operational impact.

It actually accomplishes the 1-2 goals of the operation:

* Political win for Trump being "hard on China"

* Paycheck for Trump's donor Ellison

Let's not pretend that there was any legitimate national security threat coming from the funny video app. That was and is a yellow peril fantasy from the outset.

You’re very wrong on the security threat. I think people just like to dismiss anything if Trump also said it. Nobody should be using TikTok and we have said this for a while.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-funda...

One of your sources is literally just a competitor making baseless accusations.

China can just buy people's data from any data broker in the US. Oracle sells people's credit card data. Mobile providers sell people's location data. What unique security threat does Tiktok pose that isn't already possible through use of cash and legal channels.

These allegations apply to virtually every social media SaaS.

You're fooling yourself if you think this TikTok debacle is anything but an desperate assault on a foreign company by sinophobes and competitors. And Trump's capitulation confirms that!

You’re fooling yourself if you think this is somehow racist.

It varies from person to person. Many people are legitimately miseducated about topics like China, communism, etc. and buy into the absurd "comic book villain" canards because that is all that Western corporate media exposes them to.

However, others come from a genuine belief in Western (white Anglo) racial/political supremacy and see the peaceful rise of China as an existential threat to that concept of supremacy and Western civilization. Which is equally absurd.

Neither of those. You also have a questionable definition of peaceful. Are you not familiar with the human rights issues that still exist?

I keep seeing posts like this but they don't go into detail. What sort of data could they be getting, and why would they want it? Is the Android sandbox ineffective?

As if US based companies dont snoop on data at all, dude big G and F has more data about anyone than any other company in the world.

Wishful thinking, but I hope ByteDance could somehow make Lary Ellison miserable out of this. Now that would be Justice.

Nothing except Larry Elison being able to say "Heeeyyy... How do you do, fellow kids?"

Didn't Oracle get founded to supply the CIA with data management technology?

"That makes it less of a sale and more of a glorified hosting deal. It lets Trump say he’s solved the problem but doesn’t do much else."

This is exactly the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about the deal.

As others have pointed out this deal is absurd. Its not about user data its about manipulation of the US populous through unknown algos by the Chinese Communist Party. They're all over western social media as well with cells and bots. Both things should be dealt with.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com