We should ban TikTok outright from American app stores, until the CCP allows American social media apps. It’s insane we don’t reciprocate.
https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysi...
But there is a pretty good military argument. Giving the Chinese government an easy way in to most mobile devices seems like a rookie mistake.
Ideally, the US should legislate that all code is covered by the GPLv2 or v3 so we can monitor what is going on and be positioned to exercise freedom from Chinese spying. That's be the best of most worlds. The real issue here is, as usual, that we can't see the source code so we don't know what it does.
Same as anti-dumping import taxes.
The issue is we've got a situation with a high quality Chinese option and lower quality western one. Obviously Westerners will be worse off if the high quality option is banned. They all wanted to use that one (otherwise it wouldn't be necessary to ban it). It is obviously making them pick an option they'd rather not.
There is no economic reason to voluntarily make people worse off. It is pure downside.
> Same as anti-dumping import taxes.
They're also on shaky footing and probably make people worse off for little gain. Wikipedia humorously notes that in the EU 98% of the time anti dumping laws are being used to target things other than dumping.
Academics have to be pretty wild-eyed to argue that people need to be protected from large amounts of cheap stuff. I personally can't even imagine their horror. If someone sells you stuff for cheap, buy it for cheap. The market will work it out.
Goods at dumped prices will disrupt local markets and bankrupt local competitors. Then dumpers can raise prices way beyond initial prices to win jackpot. That when „the people“ loose. Local know-how is destroyed, industry ruined… and you end up paying a ton for imported goods.
Personally I don’t think TikTok is „better“. It’s more addictive and has a ton of marketing moneys pushing it forward. Should we not ban cocaine because the masses think it’s a great entertainment?
This truism doesn't really say anything. Things can distort more than one way. If China has distorted markets in its favor, you would certainly want to distort them back toward neutral or to your favor.
> If the US decides to distort markets for ideological reasons the CCP has already won.
Won what?
They are not a god that we have to grovel to, and when markets start to allow things that are detrimental to the health and security of a country and her citizens then the government is absolutely in the right to step in as Sovereign and stop it.
Why would you let an adversary have an intrusive app that can collect infinite data on your citizens and look into your citizens intimate moments and candid conversations?
There's a reason why China doesn't allow American social media in their market. They know how easily it is to spy on citizens.
Most other places are too small of a market to exert that kind of influence and would indeed just be dropped if they tried the same.
This kind of shortsighted thinking has created a world of corporations that relentlessly exploit consumers, often with ruinous effects on wellbeing.
Do you believe the point of government is to protect people from harm? And, do you believe that, for example, making someone addicted to junk food and obese or addicted to their phone for 20+ hours out of their waking time per week are examples of harm?
Not everyone would answer yes to both questions. Some, like the original commenter I was replying to, believe that people should be free to destroy themselves, helped along by the external forces acting upon them.
The government purpose is to make the citizens life better throw away unqualified statements of “nanny state” is just close to barbarism
The market is already unfree. We’re banned from the entire Chinese market. And it will remain asymmetrical until we decide to pick up and walk away.
I don't understand the reasoning on wanting to punish American consumers until Chinese consumers get a better deal
Banning TikTok doesn’t hurt American consumers in any real sense. They can amuse themselves with short form video from any number of providers. Social media is a zero sum battle for your non-sleeping hours at this point.
With your logic, EU and all other government should ban facebook, twitter as there is high probability that US companies supplies data to 3 letter companies.
What is need is good rules and regulations that applies to all companies equally. We live in globalized world.
Tiktok's Android app has been disassembled enough to tell that the built-in browser likely contains a keylogger, but also contains the ability to receive plaintext commands and execute them in the Java VM.
Now realize that tiktok likely has location, camera, photo, and microphone permissions.
Oh yeah, and they've been spending lots of effort on anti-virtual-machine and obfuscation techniques.
A data leak at Alibaba revealed they're collecting: GPS locations, full lists of mobile contacts, SMS logs, IMSI numbers, IMEI numbers, device models and versions, stored app data from previous installations, and memory data.
https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysi...
That doesn't mean much, given that total malware sneaks through Apple's review process a lot.
As a EU citizen: Just have a very close look at Facebook and TikTok and determine if they really follow our laws. If not, fine them into the ground.
if they're consistently not operating within EU law, then yes. Did you expect the opposite?
They have to work like this because freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Chinese constitution. But since China isn’t really a rule of law country, the Chinese government works through it informally, which isn’t very compatible in how western companies can work.
ETIM was using it to coordinate their attacks and Facebook didn't work with the government.
Frankly, it would have happened earlier if it wasn’t for the 2008 Olympics, a lot of face was riding on not blocking western internet services until after the Olympics were completed.
Google claimed China was actively targeting them with cyberattacks, breaking into the gmail inboxes of activists, and other severe problems, despite trying to follow local law.
We are swallowing it hook, line and sinker.
You're reeking of good faith /s
I want to see the studies or even any kind of actual data substantiating this "dumbing down" or even "harm" that doesn't reduce down to teenagers saying and doing stupid shit, as has been done for a good chunk of our species' time on this rock.
1. https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/1...
Salient quote: "64.3% of subjects cited were selling merchandise on their TikTok account related to their TikTok tics or could be contacted for paid appearances."
It's trash. It's not science. In fact, it's offensively not science. What's next, reporting on the supernatural stuff that we see on video sites? By this standard, I find the top 20 or so people on TikTok that report ghost encounters and can get a paper published about how ghosts are real.
Snark aside, if this is the quality of material you are basing your assumption of "ill effects" on, I feel more comfortable in both calling TikTok no different from any other media sharing platform, and characterizing this handwringing about it as tired Luddite-ism, than I did before reading your link.
People in China are certainly free to speak whatever they like. But if they say the wrong thing their genocidal dictatorship will stomp on them hard. Here in America we have means to defend free speech through the use of force, e.g., the courts, and a generally accepted social contract that some (many? I hope) are loath to break: and that freedom doesn't mean other individuals can't or won't react negatively (cf: Musk and Twitter).