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Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

I get that this is a thing - isolating one specific app for very specific reasons. I am honestly surprised it's a thing though - shouldn't all unapproved apps be disallowed from government devices? Whether Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pornhub or whatever - unless you have specific reasons such as e.g. PR position, shouldn't all these be relegated to your private device?

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Phones are managed by an employer. Government phones are managed by the agency that issues them. What the law does is ensure that all agencies do not have tiktok. Pornhub will also likely appear on banned app lists, but they didn't feel it necessary to make a law.

One interesting side effect, is that tiktok might now be bereft of government content, which sounds dry, but includes a lot of NASA's work.

I know it's not the point, but Pornhub doesn't really have apps that could be banned. All they have is an apk for Android, no iOS at all. It's probably due to porn apps having been banned on the app stores since forever.

most apps are just UI's for websites anyways

Yes, but with the difference, that this website will be now always open and able to track and send data wherever, even when you don't use it.

To your second point -- I assumed that there would be an exception for government content, but my cursory reading of the bill (as a non-lawyer) suggests that... maybe there isn't. The only exceptions are for "law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security researchers."

I suspect that many government agencies with a presence on TikTok don't use TT directly but rather are using some PR/communications service or another to connect with it. In that case, I guess this wouldn't inhibit those agencies' ability to put content on the platform.

(For the curious, page 2001 - https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/JRQ12192...)

they will just contact it out

Yeah agreed - why does a government issued phone or device need anything more than what is necessary to perform their job? They are compensated enough to have a separate non-work phone.

Perhaps it is not known ahead of time what software is needed to complete a job. Who decides what is necessary anyway?

I would imagine that a recon-related use case for having TikTok installed will be excluded from this bill.

What about webmarketers in government? And doesn’t the government have covert influence operations?

"And doesn’t the government have covert influence operations?"

I would assume that shady illegal operations are not really affected by regular laws.

My work provides my phone and pays for the data plan. But I am allowed to put anything I want on it.

It is bizarre that this required a law when as a private sector employee I can't even use Apple Notes on my work computer.

This doesn't require a law. Government agencies already can manage which applications are used on their devices.

You have to expand your imagination to how many millions of us government employees there are and hiw many separate IT departments and government devices there are (and expanded to what private employees actually count as using government devices)

It’s crazy complicated and while you could expect, say, FBI employees or those with security clearances to have already strict controls on their devices… there are lots of others out there, hundreds or thousands of separate entities controlling the rules on devices.

Making it a law puts the role have one source everywhere, not subject to the judgement of an enormous number of organizations.

Yes. I’ve been surprised that this is getting so much attention since every federal organization has a “no unapproved software” policy.

Where does one get this hub app? What about browsers? Most social media apps could very easily be used via mobile web browsers. If I had a company, I would not block Ticktok but would judge those who put that shit on a company device.

This is in practice how it works, you're debating semantics.

I think about the time tiktok was instrumental of making a joke out of president Trump's rally.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/after-trump-ra...

Facebook emotion experiment on users. It was facebook but it can easily be tiktok.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930

TikTok admitting to finding and firing employee that spied on reporters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by...

And I can go on and on.

The banning of tik tok as a social network is not unwarranted. It can be used to influence users and gather data. It makes sense to keep it under some control since we can never know how much influence foreign government agencies have over it.

It should be and needs to be a thing.

Hang on, your second example of why TikTok should be banned is because Facebook did some bad things? And your third example is because TikTok fired people who abused their position?

Whereas Facebook actually *did* psychological experiments on users according to your link, and Facebook has inappropriately used user data. When is Facebook going to be banned?

That Facebook admitted it doesn’t mean TikTok isn’t doing it without admitting so.

Of course not.

The links just don't back up their position. I don't care about banning TikTok, it's more the unevenness because "China evil". As for admitting it, Facebook has required whistleblowers to expose the terrible things they have done.

TikTok has not done anywhere near as much damage to the US as meth and guns individually, but you just don't see the same effort put into solving either of those two problems.

Agree with the fb one but not this one.

> because TikTok fired people who abused their position

Or tiktok decided doing it and when found out they throw some low-rank employees. Same as setting some impossible targets and then firing employes for bribery and other illegal behaviour.

I suspect that the role of the CCP in TikTok's management plays a significant role.

The CCP is less directly involved with Facebook.

(Though I'd be more than happy to see Facebook destroyed entirely.)

This is part of the new Cold War and you can expect this kind of Red Scare thinking shaping US policy in the decades to come.

I thought the US Constitution prohibits laws that target only one person or corporation:

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

https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/can-congres...

If Congress bans TikTok they have to ban all apps like TikTok. Maybe they claim it is for national defense? But what business does not have some relation to national defense? Are they going to ban all engineering that originates in China? Passing a more general privacy law and providing funds for enforcement of it would have been a better way to address this.

I haven't been able to find the actual text of this law, but if it's written like the other 'TikTok ban' legislation I've seen -- they don't technically ban TikTok by name. The ones I have read are actually a ban on "social media services of that are based in or have a controlling parent company located in one of [x] countries" or something to that degree.

Although headline writers have boiled that down to "TikTok ban".

It was part of a (very big) amendment [1] ("NO TIKTOK ON GOVERNMENT DEVICES") to H.R. 2617 [2]

I really enjoy the transparency our government has but it could still be a lot better. Finding the final text of bills, especially before a bill is passed and when our voices might still matter, can be more difficult than it should be.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-168/iss...

[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2617

How is Congress choosing not to allow a free app on devices they purchase even remotely a punishment?

What's the actual harm to TikTok beyond the fact that they cannot monetize government employees?

This is simply wrong from every angle. The government isn't stopping anyone from using TikTok, they're stopping people from using it on devices the government has purchased and maintains. You're free to have your own device and watch whatever you want with whatever app you want.

But moreover, the constitution has exactly zero language that says "you can't pass a law to block apps on government owned devices for legitimate security concerns unless you block every other app that might also be a security concern so that it's fair." in the same way that the first amendment doesn't say the government can't pass a law blocking pornhub on government issued laptops.

Hell, the government could simply say "too many federal employees are wasting time on TikTok" or "this is fucking with our VPN" or any number of other things and pass a law to block it. You have no right, as a government employee, to use your business device for whatever purpose you want. That's never been the case.

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