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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

I am curios how this will play out because I believe this has nothing to do with privacy or Chinese spying. Instead congress is being lobbied by Facebook[1] and co to remove a competitor from the playing field that is currently eating their lunch.

One scenario I can see is that the US will ban TikTok while the EU will implement much stricter privacy rules which would need to be adhered by TikTok and all the other (Instagram, Facebook etc). Effectively making the whole reason the US is going to ban TikTok moot.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/faceboo...

EDIT: Spelling

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I'm hoping that this will result in banning excessive data collection by not just TikTok, but also Facebook and others. Why single out TikTok? Only because it's Chinese?

Yeah pretty much just because it's Chinese. China doesn't allow American internet companies access to their market either though.

Microsoft's Bing is allowed, because they apply the same censorship as local companies. That's a barrier to entry into the market (need to hire lots of censors) but not a competitive disadvantage (because everyone else also needs to hire lots of censors).

American politicians who want to copy Chinese policies to retaliate for unfair treatment of American companies would be retaliating against American citizens for unfairly having First Amendment rights when Chinese citizens don't.

I doubt American citizens would be banned from accessing TikTok. It would just be banned from app stores and CDNs, presumably if they sideload or visit the website they will be able to access it.

I think this would effectively drop the usage (maybe not to 0 but enough to allow other social services to come back on the stage). Most people don't know how to sideload or don't want to sideload anything out of app store, the webpage version is unwieldy to use.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/12/google-ch...

> Google said the cyber attack originated from China and that its intellectual property was stolen, but that evidence suggested a primary goal was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

How many Chinese human rights activists use or used Hotmail?

Quite a lot in the old days. Microsoft is a well-known brand in China. Grandma and grandpas are repeating stories of Bill Gates during 00s, they don't know who tf Sergey is. There are very minimal Mac users, so computer = PC = Windows + Office = Microsoft.

That doesn't mean tech-savvy human rights activists used Microsoft's HotMail over Gmail.

Human rights activists are not tech-savvy.

> China doesn't allow American internet companies access to their market either though.

Google and Facebook both used to operate in China. The government of China told them to start censoring certain content. US lawmakers did not like this and warned the companies not to comply with Chinese rules. So the companies left China to keep the US side happy.

So to be clear, there was active pressure from the highest levels of US government for American companies not to build products in China that could be used for censorship.

The revisionist history is wild.

Why did you leave out the cyberattacks on Google against CCP's opponents?

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13beijing.html

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/12/google-ch...

See this is one of the advantages of having an open society. Google is not censored in the US and we can look up the history of Google being forced out of China.

I think the main thing, from a govt perspective, is that a popular social network not under the influence of the government is a real live-wire. The US wants to ban Tik Tok for the same reason that China bans Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

If it was actually about privacy or whatever, they would simply ban the privacy-violating practices, not the app itself.

>US wants to ban Tik Tok for the same reason that China bans Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Except once again, PRC doesn't ban US services, they force them to comply with PRC laws that has onerous moderation overheads. And these services refused back when SV was riding high on free speech, aka low cost moderation.

IMO US wants to ban Tik Tok because they can't implement broad content/privacy rules like in PRC. Whether due to tech lobbying, because it's politically difficult, or it's politically inconvenient - US platforms implementing elevated standards will ripple expectations and costs across global markets where they operate.

Also keep in mind that even PRC hasn't tried to force of sale US companies due to national security. Require joint ventures / ramp up costs, sure. With Oracle deal out, TikTok can't even operate in US the same way iCloud can operate in PRC.

Thanks, good points.

Though it's not as official as in China, major American social networks are increasingly heavily moderated, and increasingly do work closely with govt and close-to-government entities to enact desired moderation (censorship, if you prefer) policies.

They do this "voluntarily", but it's not clear they could actually decline w/o suffering consequences.

This is perhaps somewhat less true at Twitter post-Elon aquisition. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

That's half the story. The other half is that it's under the influence under an antagonistic authoritarian government. If tiktok were a japanese app, this would play out very differently.

OK, let's run with that:

Let's say TikTok becomes a fully-fledged US company.

Is that actually something under the US government's control? I mean...will the US government actually do anything substantive to reign in the privacy violations of an American company?

Yeah, right...

You remember the whole Snowden thing where all the US social media companies have NSA backdoors? Guess which government has backdoors into TikTok.

In other words, it's less a user privacy issue and more a national security issue.

...because the US government having a backdoor into Facebook isn't a national security issue?

Because that isn't remotely the case. A backdoor exists for everyone, or it doesn't exist.

It’s probably a national security issue for China, but they already banned Facebook.

How do you enforce privacy laws with foreign entities? They can just lie and say they’re compliant. Not sure if courts in China care

At that point, Apple/Google would be forced to remove them from app stores since it would violate laws.

Because I'd want someone to do this for me, the word you want is "moot". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot

I don't get why people can't just admit that banning tiktok would be a step forward in protecting privacy. It's only one app, sure, but it would be one less app collecting everyone's data. It's also extremely popular in america, so it is probably collecting a lot of data.

The US passing legislation that would protect user data likely won't happen for a long time. The US banning tiktok seems like it may happen soon. I think most people agree the former is more ideal, but wouldn't the latter also be a good thing?

For what it's worth, I really hate most social media and the general landscape of "free" products/services that make their money by selling your data, and I do hope one day we have laws that strictly regulate who can sell what, or just ban the practice entirely. But that includes tiktok, so it being banned would be a good thing in my book.

I agree with the assessment[1] that even if it isn't illegally collecting data it should be banned because it gives China a crucial edge in the development of AI tools that American companies don't have. China is able to freely access Western markets but not the other way around.

[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/23453786/tiktok-bytedance-cfius-d...

Congress is also being lobbied by TikTok. I've noticed three main opposition points here.

- It's to protect US tech giants

- It's Sinophobic

- Privacy laws for all tech would be preferable

These all deflect from the reason there is a hearing today: Concerns regarding the handling of US user data by a large company with ties to the Chinese communist government.

Your third point, strict privacy laws for all, would protect American devices from the CCP, no?

Maybe. China also wasn't supposed to have access to US TikTok data but they do. What makes you so sure that they would obey some new privacy law? As much as I'd like better privacy laws, why should US tech giants be punished for what TikTok is doing?

In that case they would be banned under the new law, the same way any other company would.

Because the privacy abuses are privacy abuses, regardless of their country of origin? If Google is already properly respecting their users privacy they won't be affected by a strong privacy law - except we know that they aren't, and therefore we should be cleaning house instead of singling out Tik Tok.

The privacy abuses aren't the issue. Privacy abuses of US citizens by an (increasingly hostile) adversary is the issue. How many years do you think it would take to pass sweeping privacy legislation/overhaul? I think the privacy legislation path is letting perfect be the enemy of good. It's a way to kick a can down the road and possibly never address the specific issue of TikTok. It sounds great. If it were easy I'd pick that path as well.

So what should Europe do? Ban US and Chinese companies?

I thought we don't want a great firewall like China because you know "freedom", yet we are running down this path.

The US and Europe are not adversaries but partners.

They only part in which they are partners is the common enemies. However when it comes to economic benefits or anything not related to the enemies they will stab each other in the back to serve their own interests. From trade embargos/tarifs to spying on each other.

I disagree and think that's a bleak and depressing assertion that shows your bias.

Your perception is contrary to history, which has shown multiple trade wars against the US and EU, as well as repeated scandals with the US spying on EU officials and even invading EU member state territory against their consent.

Europe is a vassal of Global American Empire (GAE)

That's insulting and disrespectful to Europe.

I don't think so.

When I go to a bank here in Switzerland as a Swiss and ask to open a bank account I am asked if I have an US Citizenship. I am not asked if I have a Russian or Chinese or any other Citizenship. Why is this? Because the US has forced regulations down Switzerland throat with threats of preventing Swiss banks from using the USD.

In many other European countries there are US soldiers stationed. How many French or British military bases are there in the US?

Privacy alone is not enough. How would you ensure the recommendations are not pro-CCP?

Imagine if TikTok were owned by Russia and videos that are pro Ukraine being throttled.

Given China's history of hacking Gmail accounts of folks in the US, this is probable.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/12/google-ch...

Yes, I’m sure the CCP is going to adhere to US privacy laws.

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