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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

Just like last time this came up, what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking? I'm no fan of TikTok nor of the CCP and its asymmetric corporate warfare, but the executive branch must not be allowed to invent its own laws.

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I think preventing the CCP from accessing private data of American citizens probably falls under normal statecraft actions

Agreed, and "espionage" is a fine answer, but that raises the question of why they haven't gone as far as explicitly saying "espionage".

I think this is a bigger problem, from the article:

> Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.

Is influencing political processes illegal?

Is that something we want a foreign borderline hostile state to be doing?

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Likely because it'll become a political football, as everything these days does. "Biden took away your TikToks!" "Here's 23 articles about sad influencers who lost their accounts!"

If they’re worried about the data being lost, ban and enforce bans on collecting that information by everybody. I’m more concerned with google having that information than China (China doesn’t give a shit about me, google has a lot of surface area to affect me)

It's funny how when some other country blocks access to eg. facebook, we're immediately talking about how undemocratic that is, how people should protest, etc.

I'm not sure what data exactly tiktok collects, but i'm pretty sure it's not a lot more than what facebook does.

what private data are they getting? the data american citizens publish on tiktok?

Data which can distinguish a citizen's political leanings so they can serve the proper content to influence elections, harvested just through the data from their viewing habits

Cambridge Analytica showed that you need surprisingly little* data to learn how to influence people.

* still a lot

This is a weird example where we are handing our adversaries something, and they are quietly stockpiling it. And we have no idea what they are doing with it, but it's just kind a weirding out our foreign policy experts.

The executive branch is responsible for foreign policy and national security.

This issue is about a hostile foreign government being in a position to manipulate the internal communications and political debate in the US. So it's more in the realm of foreign policy and national security rather than US corporate law.

(Surprising to see this comment downvoted - why?)

> The executive branch is responsible for foreign policy and national security.

That doesn't mean they can or should have power to ban any company, communication or program just because of a vague and weak phrase of national security.

By similar logic they should be able to just lock up foreign citizens because they might be doing something nefarious for their states. No --- this is what rights are for, and the rule of law still applies.

Many imports are banned or heavily tariffed at the whim of the executive branch, I don’t see how this is any different.

Can you give an example? Sanctions against a country or a particular industry are not the same category as "fuck this one company in particular".

Very related ban of Huawei, ZTE tech: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/13/17686310/huawei-zte-us-go...

It was known that these companies actively work with the CCP against US interests, which is the same thing happening with TikTok now.

That's a bill that went through congress, and it only applies to the government's own use of those company's products (which I agree with on several fronts).

Carr is calling on congress to craft a bill, so that's in line with this. The situation is different there because the threat is different - the greatest threat from China is if they have a backdoor to US gov devices. The greatest threat with TikTok is (from the article):

> Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.

I don't think you realize the scope of this part from the article linked, "In the end, Congress decided on a measure that will essentially ban the US government or anyone that wants to work with the US government from using components from Huawei, ZTE, or a number of other Chinese communications companies." The "anyone that wants to work with the US government" is incredibly broad and effectively banned them from our telecom industry and many others.

Here's another article > On Sunday, May 19, 2019, Google publicly declared that it would be complying with Trump’s Huawei ban. Interpreting the language of the order, Google determined that the proper course of action would be to cut Huawei off from Google’s suite of digital products. [...] Not long after Google made its announcement, other US-based companies followed suit. This included Qualcomm, Intel, Arm, Microsoft, and many more.

https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-google-android-ban-9...

Executive branch put Huawei on doc's entity list, which means US businesses can only interact with Huawei in limited situations with explicit licensing from the export control folks.

They could put a tariff on TikTok.

This is not a claim they are breaking the law. This is publicly asking Congress to change the law.

> what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking?

The last time this came up there was none [1]. Commissioner Carr's interview appears to be him asking the Congress for such statute.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok_v._Trump

> must not be allowed to invent its own laws

Well actually; Delegation of Legislative Power.

It’s from China and involved with the CCP, I think that’s reason enough.

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