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Comment by ehhthing | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, but what? You haven't cited anything that shows China cares about using TikTok as a means of influencing foreign countries? You're just spouting rhetoric that is made to fearmonger.

China bans western websites because they don't follow China's censorship requirements. Apple services exist in China, why isn't Apple a national security threat? They're the richest tech company on the planet, and based in the US.

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Because Apple sucks up to China. And they're not a security threat to China because they're controlled by their shareholders, not the government. Shareholders who will not want to throw their entire investment into the toilet.

Tim Cook just went all the way over there to kiss their feet: https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/tim-cook-touts-apples-symbioti...

And he doesn't have a choice. Google took a stand and had to give up its position in the Chinese market. But Apple as a manufacturer will have to give up their entire business if they go against China.

> And they're not a security threat to China because they're controlled by their shareholders, not the government. Shareholders who will not want to throw their entire investment into the toilet.

Bytedance is majority owned by foreign shareholders:

> ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan's SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%.

China is preparing a military invasion of a US Ally (Taiwan) within the next 5 years. They absolutely care about influenceing the US public to oppose military support for Taiwan.

I would go a step further and say that reclaiming Taiwan and triumphing over the US are among the top goals of the CCP.

So the big threat of China having control of Tik tok is that… the people of the us might not support going to war over Taiwan?

That’s a silly reason.

Obviously its alot more than that. Its about having the ability to control public discourse in its favor. A path that could have drastic consequences to those that the chinese government has already decided should be put under subjugation. For starters there are the Tibetans, the Christians, the Uyghurs, Hong Kong's activists, Falun Gong practitions, journalists, etc. Australia already had issues around that when chinese officials were sent after Australian protesters of chinese decent to shut them down. As if they were criminals engaging in criminal acts in a location subject to its jurisdiction. Its not just about Taiwan. Its about who the party deems undesirable. US citizens potentially pose one of the largest obstacles to its foreign policies. Instead of sending armed troops to dissuade them through military intimidation however, they can just put on a demonstration of force and pit us against each other. The abilities that TikTok provides the government are not limited to dissuading the US from defending Taiwan but things like sowing division in democratic countries, curating data to enact targetted propoganda campaigns, curating data to go after political opponents, tracking and hunting of dissident journalists, etc. "Knowledge is power" is the common expression but more accurately, applied knowledge is power and this gives them knowledge that they are applying. This in and of itself is not too different from what the snowden revalations revealed about the US other than perhaps the extent to which compliance is mandatory. However the biggest point of contention is arguably more in how the knowledge is being applied. Should we empower a government that has a track record of kidnapping falun gong practitioners and harvests thier organs or silencing critics that they deem difficult to manipulate or the government that has a track record of racist policing and military intervention over false pretext? If we can agree that the Taiwan issue is not a false pretext and that the average US citizen is better informed about our previously hidden activities abroad and about the social plights of their fellow americans of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds would that be an improvement? I think so and in my opinion a future with that type of US righting its wrongs and setting the example would be preferable to one where they give the reigns to the ccp . even better would be where the reigns were given to the international community as a whole but the details of that are a whole seperate diacussion. i do agree however that the worst possible outcome would be one in which we go to war and somebody pushes the nuclear button out of preassure, insecurity, spite, miscalculation, technological distortions, equipment failure, hacking, manipulations, subversion, extremism, terrorism or any other one of the million things that could go wrong and lead to everyones untimely demise.

>They absolutely care about influenceing the US public to oppose military support for Taiwan.

Soo... where is all this anti-Taiwan stuff on tiktok then? Because I've seen exactly 0.

I’m an American and I’d probably oppose direct military support for Taiwan? Aside from the obvious fact it seems like it could easily escalate into a direct war between the US and China, why is it the USs business in the first place?

The US/UK didn’t do anything to save Hong Kong’s democracy, so I don’t know how much I’d buy the tired “protecting democracy everywhere” approach. Is it just because we have military bases there?

That’s your stance, but look at the comment I was replying to “You haven't cited anything that shows China cares about using TikTok as a means of influencing foreign countries”.

The US (and post WW2 europe) has a long-standing policy of protecting democratic countries against expansionist dictatorships.

WW2 was an battle between two types of nations: democracies and dictatorships that wished to expand their empires. What is playing out in Ukraine and China is no different. If the democratic world shows weakness (e.g letting Russia to take over Ukraine) it threatens the entire democratic world order since suddenly smaller nations are free pickings to expand Russia / China’s sphere of influence.

Even something as benign as adjusting the temperature for Ukraine related content is 100% in China’s interest here. Ukraine cannot defend itself without the support of the US public, and any sign of weakness from the democratic countries will have material consequences.

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