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Comment by cudgy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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