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Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

Would this really work? Between side loading, and VPN, this might just force an entire generation of people to learn about block avoidance

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Nationwide bans do work. Tiktok was banned in India even though it was quite popular here. After ban its usage almost flat-lined within days.

I think an app like that needs a lot of mass and momentum and side-loading and VPN are limited to a very few savvy users.

I've played with some of the competitors* and nothing else has the responsive UX, or algorithm or the critical mass of creators. The only thing I haven't tried is Snapchat.

* Triller, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Byte, Clash, Likee, and Dubsmash.

The app is more of a "like to have" more than a want or need. So it would seem people would migrate elsewhere with no big loss (with exception of so called "influencers" who parallel parasitism than productivity.

Not to mention the security nightmare of teens everywhere googling "how to sideload TikTok" and following whatever the first result says to do.

Actually, if I was China and wanted to spy on US citizens, I do this

- Release an "official" version of TikTok APK with sideloading instructions, which no longer has to pass app store scrutiny and oh, btw, make sure you allow the app to install software, so it can "update itself"

- Start a bunch of VPNs under a bunch of made up company names and pay Youtubers to vouch for them and give them away for free

Congratulations, NOW China has ALL your data!

Yeah but they have the data of the 15 guys running android who are willing to side load apps instead of the data of the 1 billion monthly active users.

Kids are smart with tech. Take away their TikTok and it won't be 15 guys anymore.

It's probably good enough to shift people to competitors. When it gets that much harder to use, a lot of people will go to Facebook/Instagram/whatever, and if enough of them go then network effects will bring the rest.

It's a win-win situation really isn't it? If the ban works young people are shielded from corrosive mind addling junk. To the extent it fails they learn to circumvent patrician censorship. Hard to see any downsides.

> If the ban works young people are shielded from corrosive mind addling junk.

Have you even tried Instagram reels or YouTube shorts? They are the same if not even worse.

What happening here is that the US tasted its own medicine of foreign tech influence for the first time. The US government always complained when other countries put limits on their companies, yet now they are doing the same, heck unlike the EU they are completely banning it!

If tiktok was american or European, no body would've bat an eye.

> If tiktok was american or European, no body would've bat an eye.

That's because most Chinese companies are subservient to the Chinese Communist Party, whom are doing all within their power to undermine the West. Influencing young people is just one part of that. Is there something wrong with calling it out and preventing it, or should we just let them manipulate opinions?

No, but don’t for a second pretend that banning a single app will shield young people “corrosive mind addling junk”.

You seem to have missed the point that TikTok is different, being effectively controlled by a communist regime. This is not about “corrosive mind addling junk”. It is about preventing meddling by a dangerous, communist regime. They manipulate their own people, so don't for a second think they don't manipulate foreigners too.

Merely putting chocolate milk on a somewhat higher shelf will substantively discourage buying. Making it difficult to find pirated media increases demand for subscription services. Making it so you have to follow a slightly off-beaten path to sideload apps means no company wants to do it, because difficulty works.

So it could work.. but.. what would stop another company from making another TikTok? Would you then have to ban that one too?

If it isn't a Chinese company (or Iranian, Syrian, North Korean, Cuban), the national security concern doesn't exist.

Interesting, so it would be determined that a social media app produced by one of those countries would be considered a national security threat, and for that reason, that is why it's blocked.

That still seems largely unenforceable… TikTok is a very simple app, it could be recreated over a weekend. I don't want the Chinese to have my personal data anymore than the next person, but I also think it's a fools errand to try to play whack-a-mole with these kind of things.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

> TikTok is a very simple app, it could be recreated over a weekend.

No, TikTok depends on paid humans to rank videos, creating that culture to get good results isn't trivial at all.

The key is -

(1) Is this company controlled by a foreign government? (Yes, ByteDance does whatever the CCP tells them to do)

(2) Is that government an adversary of the US, and has that government used US data against the US? (China has done this many times).

TikTok cannot be recreated in a weekend, at least not at scale.

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