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Comment by jpk | Hacker News Reader

Lots of folks here arguing that the focus on TikTok is unfair, given the data collection practices of domestic corps like Facebook. From a privacy point of view, this argument is well-founded, but I think it's tangential to the argument TFA is making, which is: this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk.

I get it. We want corps to stop hoovering up our data because they can use it to manipulate us with advertising, and they can mishandle it such that other bad actors can exploit it. I'm with you, this is a valid concern that we should address. But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist.

I don't think it's reasonable to wait for general regulation of social media corps while TikTok continues to do its thing, particularly if targeted action against TikTok is politically viable.

Edit: typo

View on HN

> this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk.

How were Snowden revelations of USG<>Bigtech relationship materially different from what's happening here? Maybe it was less transparent?

Any "woke" person can see the cognitive dissonance here. It's all fine that you use the geopolitical rivalry argument but not if you try to paint one side of the argument as "free" and "liberal" and "subject to rule of law" when it's clearly not the case

China is not the US.

China's kompromat and industrial espionage policies differ from those of the US.

It is off base to compare while ignoring intentions and impact, because they're Very different countries.

It's only off-base for citizens of the US. For other countries, there is no material difference between what either is doing. Except that one of them has a track record of extralegal assassinations, of course.

What? One is a democracy and one is a dictatorship.

Not only a democracy, but a constitutional republic with an independent court and military, both of which are sworn to uphold that constitution and all the human rights it enumerates.

We don't always succeed at that, but at least we have that as our society and government's guidestar, and legal and political processes for self-correcting.

The Communist Party has exactly zero of any of that, and an ideology entirely oriented around justifying getting and keeping power by any means necessary.

It looks like you've missed the past 10-20 years of history. You are a "party" supporter not a human rights(i.e privacy) supporter

> You are a "party" supporter

How do you mean exactly? I'm not sure how you can draw that conclusion from what I said. Politically I'm an independent, there's no real home for me any US political party.

You support the U.S government rather than specific policies. That makes you a party supporter on the international stage.

In this particular case you support U.S oversight over personal data rather than personal privacy(i.e banning data harvesting).

It's like saying it's fine for the Democrats to harvest personal data because they have a better track record than the republicans and after all "you" are democrat so being part of this select group makes you feel safe from a potential abuse. The sensible/right thing to do would be to ban the data harvesting.

Oh, to clarify, I don’t support the US government per se, but any constitutional democracy with limitations on power, checks and balances, etc. Also in the great hierarchy of things I absolutely support personal privacy over any government and/or corporate control of its citizens’ data. Banning of data harvesting, or at least the right to opt out, right to encryption, self-sovereign identity, etc. But I also believe it’s far more likely to actually achieve that in a democracy than under a totalitarian government.

>> But I also believe it’s far more likely to actually achieve that in a democracy than under a totalitarian government.

Yeah but instead to ask for a ban on data harvesting "you" complain only about China avoiding the elephant in the room. As it's said: Lead by example!

Let's ban this data harvesting and make this a discussion about individual rights not China social app rise or U.S domination(though the meta apps). That's why I said you are playing "party" politics. Yeah China is bad but why should I choose the lesser evil instead to do the right thing?

I really hoped that China being a rough actor could actually bring something good to the whole world as we have to reevaluate our trust model: Why should I trust a foreign company, a local company, my gov or a foreign gov to harvest all this personal data. Why do they need all this data and they use it?

I think the EU digital market act and GDPR is a step in the right direction not selectively banning certain apps that do not align with the interests of a small government or an over reaching gov such the U.S. We have to fight for our rights not the exclusive rights of super governments to invade our privacy.

But as it's well known the U.S didn't mind undermining other democracies(i.e Iran's 1953 coup) and supporting dictatorships. It's really more about "interests" and as it happens sometimes U.S interests and democratic rights align but sometimes the opposite is true. We shouldn't put our data in the hands of any government. I would say thay banning international data harversting is a good thing. Next: ban national data harvesting as well

'National security risk' is all the FCC is arguing; they're not arguing that these data collection practices are bad in themselves, only that they're bad if it happens in a way that strengthens a foreign government.

If the data exists 99% of the work is already done though.

It is extremely easy for a government to infiltrate into these organizations and get their hands on it, it has happened at Twitter [1], for instance.

So, yes, the problem IS data collection in the first place.

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-twit...

It doesn't have to be extremely easy, and it isn't extremely easy at every company. Twitter's security was bad, worse than it should have been for their size/ data footprint.

I do agree that data collection is at the core of the problem, but Twitter really should have done a better job.

Read the article,

No amount of "security" is enough for an actor who wants to do this and has privileged to the data. This is almost impossible to out-engineer, if you think a company like Twitter cannot solve "such an easy problem" you're being naive.

Not really sure what your point is. I did read the article. I didn't comment on TikTok, which would be legally required (and I am sure compliant, although they deny that in the article) to hand data over to the Chinese government. I commented on Twitter, which was hacked by amateurs, and absolutely could have been considerably harder as a target.

My point is, you only need a rogue CTO (most of which have no actual idea of how technology works, i.e. an amateur) and it's over; or you know, any of the 10,000s of engineers currently employed on your favorite FAANG company.

Weird point, I don't really get it.

The "nationality" of a company is basically irrelevant here. Foreign governments could obtain this data from an "American" company in numerous different ways.m The most obvious vector would be a subpoena, but they could also negotiate payment for the data or infiltrate the company.

There's a shitload of data for sale from brokers. So foreign governments might not even need much from a company like FB. Perhaps just enough to confirm the validity of data purchase from other sources.

It's not irrelevant to the FCC, a United States federal organization. I don't think any brokers are selling "execute code on 10s of millions of US citizens' phones" to foreign entities, and if they were I suspect the FCC would have something to say about it.

Data brokers are absolutely, 100%, verifiably selling data collected by large american tech companies and selling them to foreign actors. See: Emerdata for one example. Yeah, the FTC makes attempts to take on these companies, but only if they find out about their activities, and even then, only years after the fact.

> I don't think any brokers are selling "execute code on 10s of millions of US citizens' phones" t

The difference is that when we hear about that being done extrajudicially, it's a scandal.

We have a system where due process is required. Sometimes authorities break those laws. But the system and culture is nonetheless there and for a reason.

The US isn't rounding thousands (millions actually?) of civil, political, religious, and other kinds of dissenters and imprisoning, reeducating, or killing them.

That's kind of a big difference here.

The CCP has mandatory seats on the bytedance board and wants a copy of all the data so they can target people.

Spying is bad, murder is next-level bad.

Stop it all, but start with the bigger issues first.

Sure they are.

> The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

~ John Erlichman, Nixon's Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs

And decades of those policies have left the US with close to eight times the prisoners per capita of China. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Prison...

And the US has no problem executing prisoners, and in fact unlike China has no problem executing someone for crimes committed while a minor (only the US, Iran, Pakistan, and Somalia do this).

And that's before even getting into the extrajudicial politically motivated killings like Fred Hampton's murder, the MOVE bombing, or the recent odd proclivity of Ferguson and BLM protest organizers to "kill themselves" by hanging in a public tree, or "shooting themselves" in the head and then torching the car that they were in.

Does the US have dissidents?

Half the US seems to be dissidents depending on who you ask - but they aren't being rounded up and sent to reeducation camps or having their organs harvested.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...

Wow, half of the US population are dissidents. Is that what they call themselves? Is that what the government calls them?

Or did you just make it up and it's a word reserved for people in nations you hate?

What an odd reply, suddenly I'm the bad person and I 'hate' people because I want to save them?

Dissidents = "Disagreeing, as in opinion or belief"

The government in power decides who this is and then acts against them according. The CCP just happens to use lethal force on a massive scale in this regard.

Edward Snowden?

The Chinese government can't do anything to me though, while the US government can... So who should I fear more?

Both, but protect the most vulnerable first

Speak up for those who can't

Saying I should fear both is like saying I should fear dying in a car accident and being mauled by kangaroos.

The Chinese Government can't do anything to me unless I go there. Meanwhile my own government here presents an ever-present real life danger on multiple fronts. I still don't exactly fear it, but at least I know which is more likely to do me harm. Or for that matter, to do harm to others with my tax dollars.

The 'they do it too' is fallacious. Does TikTok pose a threat? If the answer is yes, then request to remove it from app stores is justified.

You gotta remember a lot of people on HN work for, and already drank the FAANG kool-aid.

There's plenty of "us good them bad" kool-aid without FAANG influence.

Who would you rather give a theoretical copy of all of your digital information? Assuming both have equal access to non-digital you.

The notion which myself and others have problem with is that the US Federal Govt and the CCP are entities which we should be treating with a similar level of trust and care. The CCP has proven time and time again, be it from their refusal to cooperate with studying the source of COVID, or their continued systematic genocide of the Uighur population, that they are not a political institution which can be trusted or respected on the world stage.

This isn't to say that the USG should be admired or emulated, far from it, but as someone who's neither Chinese nor American, I think it's an objective truth that most people in the world fared better under 20th century American-hegemony than the worldwide Sinicization which the CCP has made clear is its aim.

Americans pick and choose which media to listen to. And the media across the spectrum is aligned on one thing: China Bad, US Good. However, if you listen to NPR, it _does_ matter that we're locking up immigrants in the South. But did you hear that NPR story about Uyghur genocide? Then you look for other non-American affiliated publications on the matter and they are slim pickings. Why does the United States focus so much on China? And yeah, it's mostly to manufacture consent.

I actually think it's naive. Sure if military personnel or state department use TikTok that can create security risks, but the same is true with any other social media network.

The additional data that TikTok tries to gather from the mobile OSs is insignificant compared to what you can get from videos that people take willingly.

Russian soldiers use VK, that doesn't stop OSINT researchers tracking them down on there.

Military personnel is not what this is about, it's about the data of all the citizens in the US. It's about manipulating public opinion, sowing divide or a thousand other options.

But shouldn't that concern go the other way? If the Chinese government is dictating content policies of TikTok, that should obviously be a concern, but I have not seen this alleged.

Granted collecting say interest data based on viewing figures would be a precursor (I suppose it's likely that TikTok could figure out if a customer leaned left or right politically). But again that's not what the complaint is about.

It's also hard to ignore that TikTok's responses are at face value reasonable (such as evaluating touch patterns to identify bots... that's obviously something they have to do given the predominance of bots on social media platforms).

I mean, TikTok can manipulate public opinion and access to information more easily than that, by simply artificially demoting/promoting certain content — no user data needed.

Eg. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49826155

Even without the government dictating content policies, the threat is still there. Take how the Chinese government has addressed the exact same concern from their side. That is to say, they've banned US social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and who's to say if it's solely because of the allegations that those platforms follow US government dictations.

A forseeable future is one where Americans are using VPN to access Tik Tok and then we see some government officials clamoring for an American version of the GFW.

> It's about manipulating public opinion

Do you think Facebook, Twitter and Reddit should be able to do that?

Dunno, but China blocks all of those.

So if they do, it's fine to add another entity to the list?

China does not need to do anything for that, we will to it to ourselves freely with out reservation, they just have to sit back and enjoy the show

Certain adversarial govts have happily participated in the past/ are happily participating

The US government is a foreign government for 96% of the people, not to mention that its own citizens don't control it much.

The USA is a democracy. Arguing otherwise is the pot calling the kettle black.

Not to disagree with you but it might also nice to nuance that statement. Being a democracy isn't an either/or proposition. It's more of a continuum.

There are some internationally recognized standards what constitutes a democracy, and the USA fits some and not others. For example, the USA wouldn't meet the criteria for democracy to be considered for EU membership, in the unlikely event it would apply for that.

The main sticking point is that it practices capital punishment, together with countries such as People's Republic of China and a handful of African countries. Intralegal execution of minors being especially problematic. Several treaties on international criminal law concerning war crimes is not recognized and its citizens are unlikely to ever be subject to the Geneva convention.

The second important point is the lack of an independent legal system. High ranking judges gets hand picked by politicians, in a very literal way. (Which is something that has also has happened in for example Poland. This is widely regarded as a loop hole in the EU democratic criteria. A country could not have been considered for membership under those conditions, but there is no jurisdictional power against reneging on that policy post membership. Subsidies gets frozen, but that's about it.)

I can't vote in american elections. Being a democracy is no solace to the people for whom the US is a foreign government.

Then maybe your country should designate American social media companies national security adversaries.

When one does that, America usually is punitive against your nation in retaliation.

Examples?

The US is at best an "illiberal democracy"[1]. But it's probably worse than that. Effectively, the US has no opposition party, the ruling party being superficially divided into two nominal parties which agree on 90% of policy and which use their control over the electoral machinery to exclude opposition parties.

Recently, major changes of governmental policy that affect millions of people have been made by an unelected body of officials who have lifetime terms. You may have even seen it in the news.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy

I don't see how an Iraqi should care that the US is a democracy, really.

Arguing otherwise is me not being a functioning democracy?

While I would love to take that on I am genuinely puzzled by what you mean. “No one can question American democracy because they don’t have a better one?” Sorry but if that’s it that’s a dumb take.

The US is a Constitutional Republic, Arguing otherwise is showing ignorance of governmental structures.

A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s. I'm amazed that it is still repeated 20 year later. Saying the US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic is like saying a car is not an automobile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

>> This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s.

Actually no, it comes from far earlier in our history that that, GOP may have had it has a talking point not sure, and dont really care, but the GOP is not the origination of this

>Saying the US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic is like saying a car is not an automobile.

No, not all Republics are democratic, and not all Democracy's are republics.

The US has every very very limited elements that are democratic, and at our founding even less so then today. At the founding only the House was democratic everything else was not. IMO we need to go back to that, less democracy would be good

When I was growing up in the 80s, everyone knew the US republic was a form of democracy. Are you arguing that it isn't? I never heard the phrase, "The US isn't a democracy, it's a republic" until around 2000s; the first part being completely wrong, but the second part being right.

>A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s.

What? No, this is not a recent talking point, it's the core philosophical difference in this country since day 1. The names of the parties Republican & Democrat aren't just random words, they represent the philosophical differences in where the bulk of the power in government should rest (the republic being the system with input from the people, or the democracy being the direct will of the people).

Republicans generally believe direct democracy is dangerous and instead rely on the framework of the institutions of our Republic to act as guiderails preventing potential mob rule and other acts of capriciousness. The people get their say, within reason.

Democrats generally believe all power and decision making should come directly from the people, and the systems should be more fluid. They don't see them as guiderails they see them as unnecessary constraints on the people. The people get their say, and their will is done.

I would never argue that our politicians of each party believe in this fully, nor the voters for that matter. But this is a huge philosophical difference that predates the early 2000's by a couple hundred years. It's been a talking point since before our Constitution was drafted.

> The names of the parties Republican & Democrat aren't just random words, they represent the philosophical differences in where the bulk of the power in government should rest

No, they don't. Also, the two original parties were the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson, Madison, et al., and the Federalist Party of Hamilton, Adams, etc al.

Both, BTW, favored what is, I modern terms, a democratic republic and a representative democracy, though the Federalists initially favored a stronger central seat of power and the Democratic-Republicans favored a weaker central seat of power, though the bigger divide quickly became over foreign policy.

The Republicans weren't a major party until after the Federalist Party collapsed leaving a brief period of unstable one-party domination, then the D-Rs fractured, leaving the Democrats and Whigs in the Second Party system, then the Whigs later collapsed and the Republicans and the Democrats formed the Third Party system with the most critical initial issue being over not abstract form of government but slavery. While the identity of the two major parties has been the same since, their political alignment has changed several times; we’re now in what is generally regarded as the Sixth Party system.

Your post has the tone of disagreeing with what I said, yet never actually does.

The names of the parties change over the years, and the ideologies shift. But we have essentially always had one major party pushing to put more power directly into the hands of voters and another major party wanting to conserve the power in the established governmental frameworks.

The two current parties are no different in that regard. Democrats want to abolish the Electoral College and run government from Ballot propositions (direct democracy in action). Republicans are against those things and want to shift more power to the states of the Republic.

My understanding is that the Democrats want to leverage a strong federal government to various aims (welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, regulation, etc) while the Republicans want a smaller federal government and give the power to the states. This divide is about power of the federal government vs power of the states, or the Jeffersonian / Hamiltonian divide.

You've shown examples of where the Democrats want more direct democracy, so there's that too. I don't know if this is a recent phenomenon or not. I've never known the Ds to make much about it either way until you mentioned it.

the US is a dictatorship disguised as a democracy..the dictators happen to be those with the most influence and $ which then they hand down generations..no 1 person has ever ruled the world, they are just the main face of the whole...both rep and dem are influenced by the same "shadow" entities..so it doesn't matter who wins from either side they all respond to the same people

>where the bulk of the power in government should rest

You are thinking federalism vs anti-federalism. That was Jefferson and Hamilton. The federalists won a long time ago, mainly through the interpretation of the commerce clause. Recent decisions by the SCOTUS is pulling back on that a little bit.

>Republicans generally believe direct democracy

Nowhere did I say the US was a direct democracy, I think that's what's tripping everyone up. I'm arguing against when people say the US is a republic and not a democracy. That is incorrect. If they had said direct democracy, I would agree with them. To say the US is a republic and not a democracy when every position of power in government was either elected, or appointed by someone who was elected, is incorrect. The democratic process is obvious.

>Democrats generally believe all power and decision making should come directly from the people, and the systems should be more fluid. They don't see them as guiderails they see them as unnecessary constraints on the people. The people get their say, and their will is done.

I don't see any evidence of this in modern politics. Which democrat has mentioned implementing a direct democracy?

>You are thinking federalism vs anti-federalism.

Nope. At least not exclusively. The party's change over the years but we have essentially always had one party pushing for more direct democracy, and one party pulling against. A rose by any other name is still rose, but the philosophical idea of Republic government vs Democrat government is always there. And it's the key difference in the two parties.

>I don't see any evidence of this in modern politics. Which democrat has mentioned implementing a direct democracy?

The entire State of California is constantly riddled with ballot propositions, which is direct democracy in many case overturning the work done by their own representative legislature. And California is essentially a one party state so there is no one else to share the blame.

Federally, I can't go a week without reading about yet another proposal to eliminate the Electoral College and use a popular vote for President.

So if you're not seeing any evidence of it, where are you looking?

>The entire State of California is constantly riddled with ballot propositions

Ya, I was thinking federally only. California is its own animal and they do put a lot of things to vote, so you certainly are right with this example.

>Federally, I can't go a week without reading about yet another proposal to eliminate the Electoral College and use a popular vote for President.

That's just people complaining when their candidate doesn't win. If their candidate won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, they wouldn't let out a peep about it I'll bet. Democrats won't actually remove the electoral college because they use superdelegates to ensure the party can put its thumb on any candidate's scale (see Bernie v Clinton and Bernie v Biden).

>So if you're not seeing any evidence of it, where are you looking?

I'm talking about actual politicians proposing actual legislation and recruiting votes in the senate/house, not just lip service from the stump. They don't do it because it doesn't actually benefit them.

That's not true either though. I can't even count how many Democrats have publicly supported the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and most blue states have officially passes legislation signing on to it. https://ballotpedia.org/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Com...

Wow. Thanks for enlightening me. I hope this happens, I don't care for the use of superdelegates to the benefit of the party over the people's will.

It will happen the day after Kamala Harris (or another democrat) wins the presidential election despite loosing the popular vote.

Most GOP states will then instantly forget their principled support for the electoral college and join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to kill it.

We know this because in 2000 the George W. Bush team thought it was (contrary to what happened) likely to win the popular vote but loose in the electoral college, and had prepared a legal fight against this scenario.

The differences and potential compromises between various democracies and republics were discussed and debated quite at length when the original US governments were iterating toward the Constitution. It's certainly not just a 20 year old GOP talking point.

The founders were well aware that what they were creating was a republic AND form of democracy. To argue otherwise is silly.

They were aware that the House of Representatives was modeled to be sole aggregated voice of the people. The House is the totality of US democracic input.

And the senators were appointed by the state governors who were also democratically elected. The president was democratically elected via the electoral college. Justices are appointed by the president who was democratically elected and the senate who were appointed by democratically elected governors.

Again, to say the US is a republic and not a democracy is incorrect. It is both, just like a Civic can both be a car and an automobile.

There's a similar comment here that's dead. People love to complain about the US not being democratic, but when you point out that they're correct and the US is in fact not a democracy and not democratic it gets downvoted.

Because it's a lazy boring way to try to detail a thread. You're arguing something that the other people aren't even saying . Anyone with a half working brain who's gone outside in the last 20 years understands colloquial use of words.

They're saying they want to live in a more democratic place. We're saying the US isn't and won't be that place. It's an actual, incompatible disagreement on how much individual people should affect the government not just a debate about wording.

Colloquial misuse of the word only sets people up for disappointment when they find out that a government they call a democracy isn't one.

You seem to think yourself the arbiter of language, when you are not:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

This is about as useful as arguing about communism vs socialism, you may be right, in the typical HN pedant way, but all that does it make dumb threads dumber.

> The USA is a democracy.

I'm not sure it is as black and white as you suggest.

If you were to create a time machine and bring an ancient Athenian to the modern day US, the Athenian would not recognize the US system of government as, democracy. With the exception of jury trials and referendums, the demos do not directly engage in governance.

The US doesn't even allow the majority of the population to select those who perform the actual governing. E.g., a person from Wyoming has much more representation in the Senate than a person from California.

And, for the president, the population votes, but the winner of this election is not the one who got the most votes from the population, it is the one with the most electoral college votes. Again, the Wyoming voter gets more representation with one elector per less than 200K Wyoming residents, and only one elector for over 700K California residents. It is how the US got Bush "W" and Trump even though they both lost the vote of the demos.

With all the money in elections, even if there were majority representation, the US would still have moneyed interests dominating politics.

Some argue that the US is an oligarchy:

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

Ok. Put a stop to TikTok and allow US companies to vacuum up our data. China then hacks those companies servers or installs agents within the companies and gets the data anyway. Security threat not avoided.

None of these companies should be allowed to store and abuse the sensitive information people divulge when using many of these services.

Again, I agree, "We want corps to stop hoovering up our data because they can use it to manipulate us with advertising, and they can mishandle it such that _other bad actors can exploit it_."

My point is, if finding the political will required to stop TikTok is easier than it is to regulate data collection more generally, we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Yes, we are in agreement. I was responding to the comment “But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus …”. My point is that they are all a concern and plugging a few holes in the privacy dam will not prevent China from getting the data. I’d be very surprised if China does not already have 100’s even 1000’s of agents working in US tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Furthermore, almost all of the devices and many of the chips we use to run apps are built in China. Why is the FCC not concerned about that?

Meta is bad, Tiktok is worse.

It is folly to think that "Install Chinese government spyware on a phone" is the same level of effort as "Force the Chinese government to work on advanced persistent threats and install massive exfiltration malware on some of the most secure networks on the planet".

Well said. Between "voluntarily install garden-variety malware on your devices" and "force the CCP to spend massive amounts of time and money on exploits that they could otherwise use against their more important targets", I'll take the latter.

Or even just buy the data from data brokers. What you're highlighting is what makes TikTok different: there is a foreign adversary that is a major player in the attention economy. Observing is one thing, influencing is completely unacceptable. Especially in a post-truth society.

Is the data the issue? Or is it ongoing interference with the algorithm that pushes content to users that's the real issue? Tweaking what the users see affects those users far more than just selling their data to make money.

Yes, the hoarded data is per se dangerous. It should not exist, as in, it should be very illegal to collect and retain. That goes for non-tech companies that do similar things, like credit card companies.

[EDIT] That is, things like credit card companies selling your purchase history. Obviously they do need to retain some of that information to operate, but they shouldn't be able to sell access to it or use it for any other purpose. Ditto banks, magazines selling subscriber lists, all that crap. Should not be legal.

Yes, that is a concern as well. There is a threat from three primary vectors: data, algorithm, and hardware. All can be used for nefarious purposes with hardware being the most fundamental and scariest threat of all.

this isn't just about data collection. china should not be allowed to become a tech power. producing a popular social media app with advanced machine learning counts as that. china should be allowed to produce our widgets and mind its place, we can't allow a communist country and a potential global competitor to America to advance past that.

>china should not be allowed to become a tech power

Whoops, a bit too late for that.

Agreed, these complaints about hypocrisy are nonsensical. If a serial killer locks his door at night for fear of being murdered, he’s not a hypocrite. On the contrary, his evil deeds have made him wise to the dangers of the night.

Why do Americans think they represent the world? Your adversary is not our adversary.

> Why do Americans think they represent the world?

I don't claim to.

The context is: US regulators arguing for operational restrictions of a foreign-to-the-US company on the basis of being controlled by an adversary of the US.

If you have any insight from a place with friendly relations with China, you're welcome to share it.

Does America “represent the world”? No.

Does America represent the national security strategy of essentially all of Europe, most non-Chinese nations in Asia, and much of South America?

Absolutely, and to pretend otherwise is to be dreaming.

If you’re not in one of those areas then you are correct that your adversary is not our adversary. But it’s pretty statistically likely you are, and in that case the two are linked.

You’re welcome to return the trillions spent on your defense, of course, and set up your own naval strategy and naval supply chains to defend your trade routes.

Pretty sure the FCC is saying it should be removed from US App stores.

don't use American products and it won't be an issue!

It's more that America is also a foreign government that exploits our data for surveillance or espionage to many of us.

This is almost certainly Facebook just lobbying to get mindshare back from TikTok. It's great for the US government too, who probably already has unfettered access to everything Facebook collects on its users. If US users go to TikTok, Facebook loses money, and the US gov't loses easy access to all that sweet sweet data. So probably Facebook doesn't even have to lobby too hard for a statement like this to come out from the FCC. Whether or not it's true doesn't even really matter. Do you want your personal data flowing to the CCP or the US gov't & Facebook/Instagram? Both seem like really bad choices to me. The only good choice is not to use any of these services at all.

Honestly, if some government needs to have my data, and I can't reasonably prevent it, I would be more than happy if that's some government on the other side of the planet without practical means to put me in jail, torture, and influence to do things that can harm me and my friends and family.

Being spied by Russia, no problem. Being spied by China, no big deal either. But being spied by the USA or EU controlled entities can pose a life thread to any EU citizen.

US citizens have it only a bit better, since they are at least protected from the EU, and only their own government has power upon them.

How often do you hear about US citizens being disappeared for making a critical comment about their leader?

What is the difference to the consequences of the CloudAct?

>plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist.

You should interrogate your assumption that the government inside the state lines is less "adversarial" to everyone's interests than the one outside state lines, even at a level of geopolitics.

The government is the one deciding what adversarial means here. Of course they’re not going to label themselves or domestic companies they regulate national security adversaries.

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