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Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

I heard on a podcast yesterday a suggestion that the reason the intelligence community doesn't like TikTok is that, unlike with Twitter, Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc, they can't just hand a warrant over to ByteDance get the data they want. If there's one thing the intelligence community hates, it's not getting the data they want.

Back in the previous administration, I figured this was all a temper-tantrum being thrown by an executive who got embarrassed when outsmarted by a bunch of kids. It may have started like that, but somehow in D.C. everyone's been convinced of the danger a foreign-owned social-media network poses. I'm still not sure I get it...

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TikTok has a US business presence and definitely can be subpoenaed for information.

This is not something you have to speculate about, they clearly outline the process for law enforcement to get information: https://www.tiktok.com/legal/page/global/law-enforcement/en

I think OP is talking about the backdoor, full access that US companies give agencies like the NSA. Not subpoenas.

TikTok has a US business presence, their US user data is stored in the US. All of this is subject to US jurisdiction and court orders. TikTok can't tell US marshalls and federal agents to take a hike if they show up at TikTok's US headquarters with court documents--their leadership can be arrested and their servers seized.

PRISM w gag order preventing USA companies from publicly discussing it

> they can't just hand a warrant over to ByteDance get the data they want

Of course they can. Bytedance is keeping American TikTok data in the U.S. The problem is that it's also filtering out to China.

You know what's the thing intelligence community hates even more? Giving data on the silver plate to the adversaries.

I'm still unconvinced that tiktok holds much data that is valuable to any government. As a node in the information tree it might have some marginal utility but my understanding of tiktok is that the data primarily is how much you enjoy cat videos. Maybe the chinese government can work out your sexual orientation, or that you are anti communist, but this is only a problem if you live in China.

Even if the data is valuable, as far as I know there are no backdoors available to tiktok that aren't available to other apps (e.g any tencent game). The security model at the os level seems to be the proper place to ensure privacy, and the witch hunt against tik tok seems to only exist because it is popular.

> they can't just hand a warrant over to ByteDance get the data they want

Are there any examples of ByteDance refusing to hand over data in response to a warrant?

It’s not the warrant data they want. It’s the absolute access to all data anytime just by asking.

When they can't compete on a level playing field, they tilt the playing field in their favour.

The only way this ends: They keep tipping until they fall off.

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