Tik Tok is a national security threat
twitter.com
twitter.com
- GPS Location
- Wifi connections
- Social graphs (phone contacts, as well as inference through locality)
- Dynamic Social interests (how long you watch a video, what videos you tend to watch the most, adapts over time)
- There's a keylogger in the in-app browser
- They are able to influence certain ideas (i.e. propaganda) because they control your feed and can target propaganda and a near personal level
This is a lot of important information that has a lot of power. But you come back and say
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
So I just want to make sure that we connect the bridge. The privacy angle and propaganda angle are one in the same to the privacy community. It is the information gathered that is used to dictate the dopamine hit/propaganda. We need to be clear about these being being part of the same system or else people mindlessly state "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." Data collection is about influence. After all, what are ads if not attempts to influence you? (ads don't just sell products either. Another common misconception)
While there is the concern about invasion of privacy the nuance of the conversation is that the invasion of privacy erodes our free will as it is used to influence us. Obviously there's a complicated part of what is good and bad influence but surely we can agree that influence from a foreign nation that doesn't have our best interest in minds is not a good influence.
Why do you think this is true? Do you not believe that foreign entities attempt to influence adversaries?
To flip your statement on its head, I (as a US/Western citizen) can influence Google, which influences the US/Western world. (I can protest Google, I can elect representatives that will go after them, etc. We've even seen this done) But as an American I cannot influence the CCP which also influences the US/Western world.
(You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct)
Do you honestly think China uses more propaganda on American than the US government does on its own people? Meanwhile, Google literally controls the flow of information, while knowing your location and browser history.
> You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct
Doubtful. Google is US intelligence.
Let's also recognize that Uber is not collecting data on what you watch and what social activities you participate in. Google and Meta are much better examples than Uber. But Google and Meta have also not captivated the attention economy of people the same way as TikTok has. You go after the worst offenders and it is clear that TikTok is the worst offender before you include the foreign aspect.
How is it "clear"? TikToks functionality in this matter seems to have barely scratched the surface of what Meta, Google and Twitter had been doing for years.
sure about that? How about these "social activities"
https://money.cnn.com/2014/11/25/technology/uber-prostitutes...
The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.
1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
You're over thinking it. All you need to do is put your thumb on the scale. Creating chaos/division is far easier and often more effective than directed influence.
Honestly I think that's why propaganda is so effective. People think of it as "Uncle Sam needs you to join the war effort" (which is propaganda) but it is more commonly "all politicians are corrupt". Which may even be true or mostly true. But the effect of such a claim is a distrust in your entire society. That's pretty effective propaganda and gets people to fight instead of working collectively.
Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
> is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate?
Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions)
If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize.
It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
What kind of nonsense comparison is this good lord.
Sum total, zero.
To clarify, is the concern
(a) that the videos are chosen by a third party organisation not the user,
(b) that the third party in this case is TikTok under pressure from CCP, instead of, say, Google under pressure from US Government, or
(c) both.
IMO, the so-called user should be in control of choosing videos, not treated like a test subject^1 by third parties, i.e., "tech" companies, trying to profit from data collection and advertising services.
Consider that without the data collection, e.g., metadata, the "automatic video selection service" provided by the "tech" company would not work very effectively. It must be targeted. And for that, data collection is essential.
IMO, "data privacy", despite the name, is not simply a matter of whether a person desires to have "privacy", it is a matter of whether a person wants to voluntarily give data to a "tech" company at no cost to enable effective targeted manipulation for the benefit of the company's customers, i.e., commercial or political advertisers, and consequently the company.
I'd go further than you and say it's not even important that it's controlled by the CCP. An unlimited supply of the most interesting 30-second videos in the world is dangerous regardless of who's determining "interesting."
I've come to appreciate quality over quantity, substance over fleeting enjoyment, and setting limits on how much I spend on yt, etc.
It's similar to doom-scrolling reddit after the Ukraine war started, or Covid or George Floyd...2-3 months of my life I literally couldn't put my phone down, not that I could affect or add to the conversation, or change anything. Just FOMO, I guess.
This though could lead to less overall production from America as a whole which could in micro-economic ways impact overall gdp, growth, dominance, etc, --and that's not considering what possible "pushes" they could give you to "think" one way or the other, as Americans are so easily manipulated by single sources they 'deem' truthful, but probably really aren't.
Every social media is founded on an algorithm, and they are all black boxes. TikTok constitutes unique challenges (if they want to dumb people down, they can), but most of the criticism is true of every platform.
Obviously, I'm speculating, which doesn't necessarily help anything nor is true, but... my gut is with you.
Right now the EU is feeling the shock of giving Russia control over its fuel needs. Something that many people thought could happen but at least in that situation Russia does not have the ability to directly influence the EU's citizens. If it could influence minds directly, Russia could be confident that it would win the conflict. Tik Tok is that influencing machine that can be used against the US. We need to do something before it becomes a problem.
a) Forcing the sale of ByteDance to a US company (remember, they almost did this during peacetime anyways, just because)
or
b) Outright blocking it and ensuring its allies do the same
Sure, either option is a Situation, but I would imagine the US threatening to effectively take over or block what is one of China's premiere/world-known tech companies is a large enough negotiating chip that it gives the US leverage, too, and at the same time ensure China does not interfere too much.
* proceeds to spend whole day reading HN and doomscrolling Twitter instead * ;-)
However, for me, I believe I have much more control over US governance decisions than I do over Chinese governance decisions and therefore a little more control over what US companies can do versus Chinese companies.
Better to be controlled by a large corporation that, by explicit design, acts like a psychopath and will direct you to destroy the very fabric of your society if this increases “engagement” more often than not.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/20/tiktok-is-giving-teen-girls-to...
We already have laws that restrict majority foreign ownership of traditional media, why cant we extend it to new media?
Would it make any difference if it was a US owner? The real problem here is more basic: 80B americans have 20% of their free time centrally controlled. This a health and social problem, whoever owns the corp.
Man, those CCP folks are just really, really good! They knew I'd be an inherent skeptic! Yes, or perhaps you are just anti-china conspiracy theorist.
I'm open to changing my mind on the subject, but I have not seen a single iota of evidence on the matter.
If there's a world war 3, you better believe the powers will be USA, Western EU, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, NZ, (maybe India), (maybe israel), against China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, maybe Brazil, et al.
I don't say this because they're communist, etc. I like aspects of communism, I say this because they rule like the book 1984 is a guidebook, not a work of fiction.
Asking to satisfy my constant hunger for alternate-history/possible-future worldbuilding.
HN: *squint eyes*
Sometimes nested in two or three layers of reaction videos.
This is just plain old protectionism.
Pretty easy to imagine what would happen if a party official said "please promote content that is divisive or favors pro CCP propaganda".
I can't imagine the CEO of Binance saying no to that, and the ability to detect changes to a black-box recommendation algorithm are non-existant.
Apple is fully capable there, of course.
The US Gov't has asked both to stop carrying TikTok on app stores multiple times, and it's still there.
I don't think anyone wants TikTok gone other than people who don't use it or who see how much data is collected. TikTok is something of a cancer, and like cancer, it has zero incentive to stop. metastasis is TikTok's entire purpose.
Google sort of does compete via YouTube, but YouTube is still the top dog and serving a different niche. I don't see TikTok's rise stealing market share from YouTube nearly as much as it is stealing from Instagram and Facebook.
I guess my point is that neither app store owners have any real incentive to ban TikTok. It would hurt both companies by way of pissing off users far more than it would benefit them by nudging users to their own services.
why the hell are big businesses so scared of China? money? these businesses should be put down if money allows a foreign and malicious entity to strongarm them. absolutely despicable.
> why the hell are big businesses so scared of China? money? these businesses should be put down if money allows a foreign and malicious entity to strongarm them. absolutely despicable.
China has Apple by the balls: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/technology/china-apple-ip....
I think Apple is doing the right thing here by not playing favorites, and instead instituting App Store policies designed to protect user privacy regardless of which country a given service hails from.
And Apple would be harmed by blocking TikTok. It's one of, if not the most popular social media app on the App Store. Banning it hurts Apple because it would mean users who like TikTok now have incentive to move to another platform.
The Chinese tech sector, including TikTok (which is a distinct western entity anyway, the Chinese app is called Doujin) faced comparatively little oversight, and regulators usually aren't exactly competent. Chinese entrepreneurs navigate laws and regulations just like they do everywhere else, with the added difficulty that they tend to be even more confusing than anywhere else. There is no mastermind sitting in a dark room smoking a cigar controlling entire sectors of the economy, because only the tech companies actually know how to operate themselves, same as anywhere else.
The government in China considers its own tech sector to be a competing power center, not some extended arm of the party, which is why they brought the hammer down on significant parts of the industry recently, wiping out ungodly sums of money in the process. You don't do that to an asset. Chinese tech tends to attempt to skirt the rules (usually for its own benefit) whenever possible.
From 2020:
https://rankingdigitalrights.org/index2020/spotlights/china-...
And two years later:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62544950.amp
Remember, if you can be arbitrarily thrown in jail for pissing off the state then you can be damn sure that you’re going to going to find out what the state does and does not want you to do.
ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming has stated on the record that he will ensure his products serve to promote the CCP’s propaganda agenda.
Companies that refuse, such as Alibaba, are stripped of their power and their leader (e.g. Jack Ma) literally disappear for months.
Read more about what happened with WeChat as well: https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...
where has he said this on the record?
Here is the full text.
Apology and reflection 今日头条的朋友们： Dear friends of Jinri Toutiao: 我真诚地向监管部门致歉，向用户及同事们道歉。 从昨天下午接到监管部门的通知到现在，我一直处在自责和内疚之中，一夜未眠。 I earnestly apologise to regulatory authorities, and to our users and colleagues. Since receiving the notice yesterday from regulatory authorities, I have been filled with remorse and guilt, entirely unable to sleep. 今日头条将永久关停“内涵段子”客户端软件及公众号。产品走错了路，出现了与社会主义核心价值观不符的内容，没有贯彻好舆论导向，接受处罚，所有责任在我。 Jinri Toutiao will shut down once and for all its “Neihan Duanzi” app and its public accounts. Our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values, that did not properly implement public opinion guidance — and I am personally responsible for the punishments we have received [as a result]. 自责是因为辜负了主管部门一直以来的指导和期待。过去几年间，主管部门给了我们很多的指导和帮助，但我内心没有真正理解和认识到位，也没有整改到位，造成今天对用户不负责任的结果。 I am responsible because I failed to live up to the guidance and expectations supervisory organs have demanded all along. Over the past few years, the regulatory authorities have provided us with much guidance and assistance, but in our hearts we failed to properly understand and recognise [their demands]. Nor did we properly rectify the situation, which led to the present failure to be responsible to our users. 自责也是因为辜负了用户的支持和信任。我们片面注重增长和规模，却没有及时强化质量和责任，忽视了引导用户获取正能量信息的责任。对承担企业社会责任，弘扬正能量，把握正确的舆论导向认识不够，思想上缺乏重视。 I am responsible also because I failed to live up to the trust and support placed in me by our users. We prioritised only the expansion of [platform] scale, and we were not timely in strengthening quality and responsibility, overlooking our responsibility to channel users in the uptake of information with positive energy. We were insufficiently attentive, and in our thinking placed insufficient emphasis on our corporate social responsibility, to promote positive energy and to grasp correct guidance of public opinion. 同时，我也辜负了投入无限热情和心血打造了这款产品的同事。产品出现这么大的问题，停止服务，我有领导责任。 At the same time, I failed my colleagues who invested such boundless enthusiasm and hard work to create this product. For such major problems to emerge with the product, and for service to halt, I bear leadership responsibility. 3月29日央视报道我们的广告问题后，我不断反思自己以前的想法，反思公司现在的做法，开始大力推进公司员工提高意识、改进管理、完善流程。 On March 29, after China Central Television reported problems with our advertisements, I engaged in steady reflection over my previous ways of thinking, reflected upon the company’s current methods, and began an energetic campaign among our staff to raise their consciousness, improve management and streamline processes. 我是工程师出身，创业的初心是希望做一款产品，方便全世界用户互动和交流。过去几年间，我们把更多的精力和资源，放在了企业的增长上，却没有采取足够措施，来补上我们在平台监管、企业社会责任上欠下的功课，比如对低俗、暴力、有害内容、虚假广告的有效治理。 My background is engineering, and my originating idea in starting this business was to create a product that would facilitate interaction and exchange among users worldwide. Over the past few years we have invested more energy and resources in the growth of the company, but we did not take the proper measures to improve supervision of the platform, and we did not adequately do our homework in terms of effectively controlling such things as low-row, violent and harmful content, and fake advertising. 我们作为一家十八大后快速发展起来的创业公司，深知公司的快速发展，是伟大时代给的机会。我感恩这个时代，感恩改革开放历史机遇，感恩国家对于科技产业发展的扶持。 As a start-up company developing rapidly in the wake of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, we profoundly understand that our rapid development was an opportunity afforded us by this great era. I thank this era. I thank the historic opportunity of economic reform and opening; and I thank the support the government has given for the development of the technology industry. 我深刻反思，公司目前存在问题的深层次原因是：“四个意识”淡薄、社会主义核心价值观教育缺失、舆论导向存在偏差。一直以来，我们过分强调技术的作用，却没有意识到，技术必须要用社会主义核心价值观来引导，传播正能量，符合时代要求，尊重公序良俗。 I profoundly reflect on the fact that a deep-level cause of the recent problems in my company is: a weak [understanding and implementation of] the “four consciousnesses” [of Xi Jinping]; deficiencies in education on the socialist core values; and deviation from public opinion guidance. All along, we have placed excessive emphasis on the role of technology, and we have not acknowledged that technology must be led by the socialist core value system, broadcasting positive energy, suiting the demands of the era, and respecting common convention. 我们必须重新梳理我们的愿景。我们说，要做全球的创作与交流平台。这就要求我们必须保证所“创作”与“交流”的内容是积极向上的、健康有益的，能够给时代、给人民带来正能量。 We must make a renewed effort to sort out our vision of the future. We say, we want to make global platform for creation and conversation. This demands that we must ensure that the content of “creation” and “conversation” are positive, healthy and beneficial, that they can offer positive energy to the era, and to the people. 我们必须重新阐释并切实践行我们的社会责任：正直向善，科技创新，创造价值，担当责任，合作共赢。我深刻地认识到，企业的发展必须紧扣时代和国家发展主旋律。 We must renew our understanding and enactment of our social responsibility; upright and good, innovative technology, value creation, taking responsibility, cooperation and mutual benefit. I profoundly recognise that the company’s development must stick closely to the era and to the main theme of national development. 今天，监管部门、公众和媒体指出了公司存在的问题，是对我们的善意提醒和有力鞭策。我跟我的同事们将立即着手改变，改变自己的思想，改变我们的做法。 Today, supervisory organs, the public and the media have pointed out problems in our company, and this is well-intentioned reminder and an encouragement to us. I and my colleagues will work immediately to bring about change — changing our own thoughts, and changing our methods. 一、将正确的价值观融入技术和产品 Introducing correct values into technology and products 1、加强党建工作，对全体员工进行“四个意识”、社会主义核心价值观、舆论导向、法律法规等教育，真正履行好企业的社会责任。 1.1 Strengthening the work of Party construction, carrying out education among our entire staff on the “four consciousnesses,” socialist core values, [correct] guidance of public opinion, and laws and regulations, truly acting on the company’s social responsibility. 2、强化各业务线履行社会责任的制度化机制化，将其列入业务考核范围。 1.2 Strengthening implementation of systems and mechanisms for social responsibility in various business activities, bringing them into the scope of business assessment. 3、进一步深化与权威媒体合作，提高权威媒体内容的分发，保证权威声音有力传播。 1.3 Further deepening cooperation with authoritative [official Party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official Party] media voices are broadcast to strength. 4、强化总编辑责任制，全面纠正算法和机器审核的缺陷，不断强化人工运营和审核，将现有6000人的运营审核队伍，扩大到10000人。 1.4 Strengthening the editor-in-chief responsibility system, comprehensively correcting deficiencies in algorithmic and machine review [of content], steadily strengthening human operations and review, raising the current number of operational review staff from 6,000 to 10,000 persons [carrying out content review]. [Translation omitted here for section on management of online communities] Finally, I again express my apologies to supervisory organs, and to the friends who care about us. 我们理应做得更好。我们一定会做得更好。 We ought to do better. We will definitely do better. 我们真诚地期待社会各界帮助和监督我们的整改。我们绝不辜负大家的期望。 We earnestly await help from various parts of society in supervising our rectification. We will not disappoint everyones’ hopes. 今日头条创始人、CEO张一鸣 Jinri Toutiao founder and CEO Zhang Yiming. 2018年4月11日 April 11, 2018
I just ate...ergo, there's no world hunger...
I do not aspire to be Dan Price. That is all.
Is this what you are suggesting?
As opposed to a billion people spending 20% of their free time scrolling through a Facebook feed (back when Facebook was a thing).
Honestly, the more these issues get raised, the more it's clear that there's really no difference between a government and a corporation except one spends money and the other makes money.
We have been slowly moving into a post-Democratic version of globalism for decades. Consumerism is not a bulwark against oppression, and we've mostly only had the illusion of choice or control in our political process, with oligarchs deciding everything rather than the "δῆμος". Totalitarian empires have been the dominant model of human civilization for the past couple thousand years; there's no reason to believe it wouldn't continue. China will be leading the new global status quo, which will combine heightened entertainment with heightened totalitarianism. Orwell was a prophet, a century early.
The only reason they’re really saying it’s a national security threat is because of how big it’s gotten. What about Facebook? I would say Facebook represents a far greater threat to national security than TikTok.
Anyways, want to clarify a couple things:
- All of the information presented is accurate. And the questions are fair.
- I am not defending FB or other tech companies broadly. I'm pro data locality.
- China is an authoritarian mass surveillance state that forcibly squashes detractors and limits individual freedoms. The US has made many mistakes, but it still doesn't come comparably close to this.
- Please for the love of God don't compare me to Dan Price. Please? lmao.
The middle east and south america begs to differ. The whole world still has du deal with the results of the US war on drugs and war on terror.
Who made China so powerful in the first place? Don't remember China being a democracy when they became the world's workbench.
EDIT: previously hyperbolic
Even if they know behavior of people, how is it even a national security. People generally don't send message over tiktok, so with your logic we should be blaming facebook/google more.
Also, we should be holding liberal values and make same rules for everybody.
With your logic facebook/google all should be labeled national security in Europe.
"The US has made many mistakes,"
Are you really trying to justify the US mistakes by bringing in China? How many countries have China ever invaded compared to US. How many times China have stolen oils from other nation? China have done all wrong things to their own people and US has done more wrong thing to other people. So, your argument doesn't hold water.
"Freedom" Well, I agree US has more freedom. Freedom has different shades. But, being able to walk without fear of guns is also important to me. Being able to walk without seeing sexual assault in every room of school is also equally important. When I first came in US, the first instruction was "Don't walk alone during night time".
Simple example: visual media has to be edited to remove excessive depictions of death.
Which specific US regulations is TikTok currently violating, and where is the hard evidence to support that?
Answered in the article.
I'd be interested to know what kind of reception this has had in the US, given the reputation of tiktok, regardless of however it actually is for privacy and security
The truth is that every cell phone is a tracking device, and the US government loves this. The only thing they're upset about is anybody other than themselves having all this tracking device data. So when a China-based company gets a hold of it, they're upset, but they can't really articulate why they're upset, because it would amount to an admission of how much they love their precious surveillance economy/state. Instead they just sort of stammer and sputter about "US Data".
I feel a certain Schadenfreude about this situation.
The great firewall of china prevents American "weapons" from running rampant on Chinese citizens. Meanwhile America has no digital border, so Chinese weapons are able to run rampant on us. If you ask just about anyone "Is it ok for China to store bombs in our cities, while they prevent us from putting bombs in theirs" the answer is obvious.
Despite this America has chosen a "one internet" strategy to prevent the balkanization of the internet and generally has an anti-protectionism strategy.
The far more interesting question is "despite the obvious national security risk posed by TikTok, why might it be preferable to not block it?"
I remember when the CCP was evil for bringing up this firewall and how repressed all their citizens were and how we should be happy because we live in a free and open society blah blah blah
And now firewalls are good, because apparently now apps are "national security threats", interesting.
Weathervane morals at its finest.
If there is a market for domestic video-based social networks, then it should be low-hanging fruit for a US-based provider to offer a competitive product. If there isn't then the market has spoken, and consumers have voted with their attention.
There aren't any other interpretations that don't deprive the invisible hand of the market from delivering providence to consumers. These are rational actors making voluntary choices. Foreign policy should simply stay out as any intervention is necessarily a market distortion. If market actors are consuming it, it's good definitionally.
It was called Vine, and we let our monopolists buy it and shut it down.
That's a lazy thing to say. It's obvious that TikTok is qualitatively different from the perspective of the US and its allies.
It's like this: a gun in my hand could be a threat to me because I could accidentally shoot myself in the foot; but that's very different threat than a gun in the hand of a mugger who's pointing it at my head.
For those of us not in the US, it's not that different. We are always at the mercy of tech companies from a foreign power.
That may be true, but the OP tweet (https://twitter.com/zachtratar/status/1571595169207812096) is referring to Americans specifically, and even for non-Americans, it's different for American-allied countries vs. ones with a more adversarial relationship. I don't think Americans would be concerned about TikTok if it were based in the UK or Italy, for instance.
Though it's not outside the possibilities of a nation, it's still very hard.
No, it's lazy to say that your assertion is obviously true rather than arguing for it. It's an easy thing to do when you're part of a government-led crowd.
You missed the point. Analogies aren't a one-to-one mapping between every aspect one situation and another, and you're going to have trouble if you interpret them that way. In this case, you picked on a feature that doesn't map to the situation under discussion to make an inflammatory suggestion.
To spell it out, very, very clearly: the analogy only demonstrates that "who holds the thing" is important for assessing a threat from a particular perspective. The US holds "[Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter]" (which are all banned in China) and China holds TikTok (which is not banned in the US).
Maybe check your internal biases on why you chose one which includes murderous intent.
They don't want to kill us per-say, but they don't mind getting their hands dirty as long as the ends justify the means. In a battle over geopolitical, technological and militaristic superiority, killing one's enemy can happen.
Propaganda. You can tell because China has never said that it intends to invade Taiwan, and you have no inside information. Propaganda is what makes you think you have inside information.
> the US is committing to defend the 23 million people there from invasion.
That's not propaganda. As far as I can tell, it's as much a declaration of war as if Xi said, on video, that the would commit the Chinese military to defend Florida if there were any US effort to prevent DeSantis sending immigrants out of Florida on buses.
China is not a submissive or weak country. I would honestly be surprised if they didn't start preparing to invade Taiwan (or as they would say, to send troops to Taiwan) ASAP after that interview.
edit: We can have WWIII, but it will be the US, BJP, and various poor authoritarian Eastern European states vs. everyone else. It'll be like WWII, except we can be the Axis this time. Hitler was as surprised as anyone that we weren't in the Axis last time.
All the anti-tiktok takes seem to be rooted in sinophobia and nationalist sour grapes. I don't like megacorps slurping my info up, but these conversations seem to have huge blinders around what has become standard practice for American web companies - especially when handling the data of foreign users.
And merely pointing a fact that China is an authoritarian state is NOT sinophobia, and please don't use arguments like that to try to shutdown discussion.
I've also seen myself few big-tech companies throwing literally hundreds of millions of dollars at ways to protect their infrastructure from USA government eavesdropping on their infrastructure. That's just not a possibility in an authoritarian state.
And if you don't see reasons why giving very powerful, authoritarian regime full access to huge amount data about people is a problem - well, history books can show you some.
A few big tech companies have spent hundreds of millions keeping the state out of their databases, which probably gets billed to their PR budgets. Most tech companies do not put up such a big fight. Some court the state to get sweetheart deals, and the public has no basis for feeling confident that covert access wasn't an unpublicized provision of those deals.
The US federal government can quite easily throw me in prison or destroy my livelihood if the right person/corporation with enough institutional clout had a grudge against me (see Steven Donziger, US lawyer who has been imprisoned for trying to hold Chevron accountable for illegally polluting in ecuador).
Why should I, a US citizen who has no business need to travel to China currently, worry about the CCP's authoritarianism more than the US govts?
I'd never heard of him so I did.
>In 2014, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in Ecuador was invalid because Donziger had achieved it through offenses against legal ethics, including racketeering, extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, judicial bribery, coercion, witness tampering, and arranging for expert's reports to be ghostwritten.
Your statement is correct but you left out that he tried to hold the accountable by many, many illegal means.
To compare him to a dissident in China who simply dissapears ome day with no explanation is beyond disengeneuos.
If the BLM protests happened in China, those protesters would all be in jail.
It's the long cultural game that is probably being played that might or should have you worried. It's been happening for 10-15 years to US social media companies by outside and inside forces and it seems to have become a detriment to society in certain ways. Now think of a Facebook or Instagram that's directed by a (more) authoritative government against a culture that it's in opposition to. What does that look like in 20 years?
If you ever run for office or hold a position of national security interest, your personal data will be a great source for blackmail or honeypot operations.
If you are of the opinion that the US government’s past behaviour has been a bad thing then you should be absolutely horrified by the CCP’s track record.
One is used to hearing these types of nonsense points being made in high school by kids trying to be provocative and contrarian but it getting to a supposedly "rational" community makes me think the community has been infiltrated by Chinese agents or other special interest groups astroturfing.
As I see it, in the U.S. the corporations have completely subverted the government whereas in China the corporations are afraid of the government.
I am not sure why private interests controlling governments is less scary than governments controlling private interests?
The U.S. lays claim to all data say Google stores about me, even the ones stored outside the U.S. As an European, the U.S. is much more likely to reach me if they wanted than China.
I am not sure why the U.S. model is better than China's. Perhaps we in the West would do better to admit it's two sides of the same coin.
One is used to hearing these types of nonsense points being made in high school by kids trying to be proactive and contrarian but it getting to a supposedly "rational" community makes me think the community has been infiltrated by Chinese agents or other special interest groups astroturfing.
Astroturfing accusations are intellectually lazy and against the community guidelines of this site.
When this happens in an authoritarian state, it is business as usual, the scope of collection is not considered, and dissenting opinions quickly disappear.
That’s the difference.
Lots of slang terms get used, and the discussion continues.
At any major tech company, not even internal networks are considered to be safe, and things are encrypted to sometimes paranoid levels, that's costing A LOT (not only in processing power, that's nowadays less of an concern, but with a much increased complexity of their infrastructure).
And before you ask - major threat model they target is governments sponsored hacking.
The US is not perfect, but multi-party democratic states have mechanisms for checking and balancing misuse.
The reality in authoritarian states is that misuse is done quietly and without dissent.
Curious, are you referencing IBM and The Holocaust?
If you're okay with FB/Google/Twitter sharing all of the data they have on you with the CCP, there's not a big difference.
China is magnificent at long term thinking.
I presume you aren’t part of the crowd on HN/Reddit who are (still) upset that Russia used social media to “influence” the 2016 election? Imagine if say, a certain Asian country had detailed information about the habits and desires of millions of Americans, do you think they could do something similar in a future election?
And yes, maybe everyone is lying to you, and the NSA is doing it already. Maybe they already have radios in your microwave building a database of your breakfasts. We just don't know.
But at the end of the day I know a lot of people at Google and 100% of them would push back on governments requests as hard as humanly possible, and there would absolutely be whistleblowers if this was happening. I'm just not going to equate the two.
"Lawful", sure, in the sense that the secret FISA court approved it, and while that's blatantly unconstitutional the supreme court decided that no-one has standing to bring that case unless they can prove that they were themselves being secretly surveilled. I bet everything that TikTok does is lawfully compelled as well.
> Goog/FB don't really have a choice in complying if they want to continue to exist and do business in the USA.
Sure, but again, how's that any different from TikTok's situation?
Make your own conclusions who is the scariest here.
> ...I don't like megacorps slurping my info up, but these conversations seem to have huge blinders around what has become standard practice for American web companies - especially when handling the data of foreign users.
That's the wrong question for the context. This is a question about "nation-X national security," not personal tech privacy that's generically concerned with data collection and ads.
"So? Our country also has such agents on our streets. Worrying about these others is xenophobic. Besides, our country is just as corrupt, we are in no position to judge."
But what should we non-Americans make of this? Depends on your relationship with China vs. US. Personally, I view FB/Google/Twitter with less, but still plenty, of mistrust. US govt influence is a big factor, but not the only one.
If you imagine that the CEO of Binance has any ability to prevent the CCP from weaponizing TikTok, then I have a bridge to sell to you
The same way we figure out anything else - learning and experience. Ultimately, there have been a bunch of cases of people like us having their lives ruined by the USG, and not so many cases of the CCP doing the same (and none for people who didn't go to China or have family ties there, AFAIK).
> There is evidence of foreign governments meddling with US civilian affairs. It seems like this is exactly the attitude they would try to cultivate.
There is also evidence of the US government meddling with US civilian affairs, and I suspect they deploy a lot more and a lot more effective propaganda to cultivate the attitudes that they want to see.
If the data is dangerous, no one should be allowed to collect, store and sell it. It shouldn't be allowed for only those in the favor of the US federal govt.
If Tetris was one app that reported data directly to Putin, I'd be uncomfortable with that too.
The rest are sending all your data to the US.
Thats the difference.
What data does the CCP have? The people I follow? The kind of videos I like to watch. My favorites? Videos I "liked"? How exactly is this a national security threat?
I'm all for pushing back against the CCP but it's not clear what "data" they have
In this scenario, it would be a lot easier to setup a honeypot thanks to all this additional information. In some cases, even blackmail you if you have a private TikTok account that's been linked back to your real identity.
I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP keeps a dossier on high profile figures in various countries as part of their influence operations.
What's the difference between TikTok and any other site in its ability to associate IPs with your posts? How exactly would TikTok take advantage of your video viewing or posting data to set up a "honeypot" or do blackmail? Any plausible example would be fine.
They're upset about China having this data, but don't want to admit that they have it themselves. This is why all the public discourse on this topic is so utterly incoherent.
Now imagine a machine learning model doing this instead of humans, it could infer so much more information about how you think and how your brain works based off of that data and do even more harm. Ever thought about buying something and an ad for that casually pops up in your feed? It is going to be similar to that, but instead of ads for a product it could be some misinformation that could cause paranoia (just an example).
If this is so easy, how can we tolerate Youtube, Facebook or Google, especially with their connections to government?
viewing this as a National Security issue has some truth to it, but how on earth do you sell that to the public without decapitating yourself? “oh, it’s dangerous when centralized players hold influence over the masses, of which i am a part? so we’re going to ban everyone engaged in wielding this type of influence over me, right? oh, we’re not? we’re only banning the foreign one? US policy makers must not care about me at all then! US policy makers must not have my best interests in mind.”
dunno how they wiggle out of this one.
I'm against any types of censorship. If you value freedom, you cannot implement practises of enemy.
To be clear... I'm not social media user, because of many ethical and technical issues that they have. And I know about them because I'm able to find that information or practically reproduce. With regulations, I wouldn't.
As a Canadian, a lot of the arguments about why TikTok is a national security threat come off as extremely US-centric. If applied consistently these ideas result in each country having its own social networking companies.
As for other nations I strongly believe there is a real difference between more free and very much non free nations.
But to your original point I'd have no problem with raising the issue of if apps should even be able to gather all this data... but again that's after the issue I raised is resolved.
If TikTok is this good at figuring out your general interests, it can probably figure out your political leanings as well. And tailor your content accordingly, in a way that furthers the interests of China. Whether that be by increasing/decreasing propensity to vote, increasing outrage, planting false narratives, etc.
I (not a kid tho) started using tiktok a few months ago and it was kind of good content mixed with algorithmic crap but what stood out to me was that I was getting an unproportional amount of anti tesla videos.
Like people wiggling parts in the interior and compairing them to their own chinese EV cars like MG. Multiple different accounts.
New Tiktok challenge: pinch the sunset from a hilltop - combination of timestamp and known astronomical reference allows calculation of altitude allowing remarkably detailed topographic map around population centers
New Tiktok challenge: trying on all of my shoes - good proxy for calculating disposable income and thus mapping economic activity
New Tiktok challenge: how many flowers can I find in my backyard - reasonable proxy for determining both long term climate and recent weather activity in an area
New Tiktok challenge: trying on my boyfriend's uniform - estimate number, location, and rank distribution of military units
Nation-state level actors with millions upon millions of videos to analyze should not be underestimated.
Let’s skip all of the hand wringing and get to the conclusion here.
everything about it says to me it was supported by military/government programs from early on and it was obvious to me that anything that powerful came with strings....
I saw Facebook turn into a monster....and it still doesn't have the data access that tiktok gets.....
On the privacy side, If lawmakers really cared about TikTok data ending up in China, I’m sure congress could pass a powerful privacy law modeled off the CCPA or GDPR. This hasn’t happened so I’m assuming it isn’t considered a very serious national security threat.
On the content side, I don’t think the world has a very good model for regulating algorithmic content streams. The biggest risk is also the hardest problem to tackle
Meta ended getting restricted in Russia and branded as "extremist" due to some ugly story with moderation rules and hate-speach.
All this is generally considered as a backwards decision and is criticized both in Russia and in the West.
I wonder when will we see the same for TikTok in the US and how would it be implemented. AFAIK, Trump had threatened to ban TikTok during his last presidency, but how would it be implemented practically? It seems that previously the US had only restricted internet by undelegating/seizing domains, but that would be scandalous for an international corporation. Nationalization maybe? It seems that had already "partly" happened with that Trump incident - TikTok had to restructure a bit and let a few American investors in, strings attached.
In any case, this situation is a boon for America's competitors, as it is a yet another demonstration of America's integrity failing.
What can China do with the data and attention of 80 million Americans? How about practically anything they want. They haven't used it yet.
For many of us in the rest of the world, it turns out this scenario of "foreign power in control of the tech and data we use daily" has been a reality for ages. It's just that the foreign power wasn't China.
Now, you could say that's bad in itself, but at the end of the day, extremism is often far ight Americans using their free speech to talk to other far right Americans. Right up until they storm the capitol.
What can they do with it?
This is terrible, but its also karma.
Can we turn the hyperbole up to 11?
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/02/tiktok-blacklivesmatter-cens...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/28/tiktok-sa...
[3] https://qz.com/1788836/targeting-tiktoks-privacy-alone-misse...
[4] https://stratechery.com/2019/the-china-cultural-clash/
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...
The CCP is getting this data, and they have significantly more carte blanche to do nefarious things than US government officials do.
If the us tells my government that I am a terrorist, I am getting my door kicked in at 3 a.m.
Unless you travel there, China is a pointless waste human potential.
Most other communities just go along with nihilism about democracy because it is in vogue to pretend we are another authoritarian regime. Nice to see the nerds haven't given up :)
Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue.
All these comments do not address this at all, and seem to do their best to ridicule a valid concern.
Obviously the issue is that the data from TikTok is required to go to the Chinese government as do the algorithms.
China has clearly benefitted from the West, by all the money and IP that we have given it, by the products we purchase. Now, the Chinese are biting the hand that feeds it, by becoming an ally of Russia. By actively looking to undermine the West. To deny this is to deny reality,unless you are saying all the reports on how the Chinese are doing this is "fake news."
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-chin...
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, said “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,”
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The difference between TikTok and all Chinese apps is that the government essentially owns all companies, whereas in the West, this is not the case. Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant.
Furthermore, I believe China will be seeking to invade Taiwan soon, and take over all their chip-making technology. Their population and economy is crashing, so now is the time to invade Taiwan.
To just dismiss these concerns about TikTok out of hand, without any discussion, is clearly wrong.
This entire thread seems like it was written by the CCP sleeper HN users.
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Also, as noted by trident5000 below, China has access to all USA users of TikTok., but the USA or anyone else doesn't have access to Chinese users of TikTok. That's just one more issue to add on, and I'm sure there are others, too.
Please omit this sort of low-quality, evidenceless* insinuation from your posts to HN. The site guidelines specifically ask: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you or anyone want to know why we have this rule, many years of explanation can be found via https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
* An opposing view does not count as evidence. This community is large and has a ton of people who come by their opposing views perfectly honestly, as I'm sure do you. Insinuating otherwise is hands-down the laziest internet trope there is, and by far the one that most corrupts discussion quality. You can make your substantive points without that, so please do.
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Edit: actually, since you stooped to outright slurs elsewhere in the thread, I've banned the account. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32904793.
Or even US people believing their data can be misused more by their own government, than a country they will never visit.
Also, my data on Fb/Google is much, much more personal than whatever TikTok has on me.
Being underestimated is to China’a advantage.
Another thing is that, Americans don’t see the effect of soft power and cultural imperialism because it has often been American culture and technology being exported elsewhere. Tik Tok is an example of a successful export by China, and it likely won’t be the last.
That bit about Western governments can only access the data through search warrant is not strictly true. The US have gotten around their own laws by such things as, purchasing consumer data on the open market without a warrant, or making agreements with other government intelligence agencies to obtain domestic surveillance data through a foreign ally’s foreign surveillance program.
It's disingenuous to believe that western government agencies are fully transparent and always require a judge's warrant and in general don't engage in espionage activities - the USA are especially competent at this.
Perhaps people are just sick and tired of these weekly fear-baiting threads about Tik Tok, but who am I to comment on this mass hysteria incited for the sole purpose of hatred and conflict?
But I'm curious in general, would a site like HN ever attract state actors, or even corporate collusion (from a fortune 500 for example, founder asking friends for upvotes or friendly comments I've seen). It's an honest question, I can picture twitter and facebook and these massive dau number sites attracting psyops type stuff. Does it happen on the scale on HN and other "popular" sites that are still niche compared to the big ones? Does Ravelry have multinational threat actors posting? It would be interesting to understand that whole ecosystem
These are all privacy issues, but they're not national security issues. What's the exact concern here? TikTok being able to create voice and faceprints of US citizens? So can Snapchat or FB Messenger; and I would hope no CIA spy (the only people the CPC would actually care about) has a TikTok account.
What else? The CPC using TikTok to push pro-China or pro-Russia propaganda? Pro-Russia content was banned from TikTok, and TikTok isn't known for its popular pro-China videos. Promoting pro-Trump "propaganda" to "subvert" the U.S.? Trump is banned from TikTok. Where's the "subversion"?
This is an international community. We are not all Americans, and some of us react to the words "national security" as the town dwellers in the boy who cried wolf.
There are tons of HN guideline violations all over this thread @dang.
No, what about people who dont believe american propaganda?
"minimize the threat against the West by China. Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue."
The "west" is not a country. Who is being menaced here? The "west" (what countries are the west exactly? Bolivia is in the Western Emisphere, and they are more aligned with China than with the american Empire.) By "West" do you actually mean the NATO military alliance?
"Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Snowden is laughing his ass off!
"By actively looking to undermine the West."
Again, what do you mean by "the West"? The Western Emisphere? Developed countries? The Imperial Core? The NATO military-imperialistic-warmonger alliance?
I will tell you the regions of the world that don't benefit from the West, and the exploitation it produces: the whole of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Russia. Those are vast regions of land where billions have been historically EXPLOITED, SUBJUGATED and ENSLAVED by "The West". Fuck the west! It should completely be undermined and destroyed, to be replaced by a socialistic, humanistic and civilized society.
As long as "The West" and the wars, bloodbaths and constant bombings, coups, civil wars, guerrilla fighting and exploitation they promote exists, that cannot be achieved.
Quoting the director of the Kissinger Institute! You cant make this shit up. Is just too funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meWM8d4Uz7Q
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It's a fascinating video in the sense that you can clearly tell that this COO is hiding information.
I mean it's so blatant I am surprised the platform is still up and running, anywhere in the West to be honest.
How it would be dealt with is a different story. I see different Admin would take different approaches, the wait won't be too long.
We need to start by banning these god awful threads. Then we move onto TikTok, then onto gutting Meta and Twitter.
When China said Gmail/Facebook/Instagram... was a security threat, USA called it censorship, so now they're in a pickle
And it is obviously a security threat, but USA does not care as long they're the ones spying the world, and their own population
Also USA is much more prone to foreign interference, like their drones using cellular data in foreign countries to kill people, elections, blackmail, etc...
So as an European I would say.. fight fight fight!
No one wants to become China but USA/UK/EU/AUS... are slowly becoming more authoritarian anyway. Maybe some competition will make them wake up and remember what they used to stand for
I also think that the use of infinite scrolling is unethical.
Facebook and Twitter drive user engagement differently as they have discovered that illicting negative emotions makes their offerings more "sticky".
Then there is their algorithm. It's good. Extraordinarily good. One day they will tweak it to sow narratives that the US or western governments find offensive and I'm guessing this is the real reason for it being a "national security threat".
How did Oracle get its start, remind me? https://gizmodo.com/larry-ellisons-oracle-started-as-a-cia-p...
The tracking technology used to help target advertising is a perfect tool for use by repressive regimes and organizations of any size or scale.
Offline caching and sharing of content in a distributed fashion, where it isn't possible to get real-time location data, for example, is one possible route around this problem. Perhaps it's time to revisit the Memex concept, and make computers personal again.
The trouble I see is that because of it's utility it seems unlikely to go away. But also, what is the difference between being made to believe something via for example via a persuasive essay and a TikTok video, if the intent and result of both is the same?