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Comment by nullifidian | Hacker News Reader

>there’s nothing hypocritical about both using and blocking an exploit

If by exploit you meant the general capabilities granted such app's popularity, then in my opinion it is at least somewhat hypocritical for a nation who's motto partly is basically(or was, I'm not sure as of right now) "free trade and free speech"

>and I can immediately see how this could be used to identify and recruit potential assets or improve psyops.

So should all cross border internet companies be banned by all the countries since cross border activity inevitably "exfiltrates" some data on the populace across the border, which could be used adversarially?

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This isn’t a free speech debate. This isn’t a Chinese newspaper being banned. This isn’t a US citizen being blocked from expressing themselves. This is a software product. The US also regulates products like arms and drug shipments without being labeled hypocritical. Free trade doesn’t mean all or nothing.

As a member of this community, you should already know that mobile apps generate certain types of data that distinguish them from “all cross border internet companies,” and whether or not you’re willing to acknowledge the unique geopolitical context of this particular app, neither of the above can be ignored in any productive, nuanced discussion about TikTok.

>This isn’t a Chinese newspaper being banned. >This isn’t a US citizen being blocked from expressing themselves.

ACLU and EFF consider the Montana ban unconstitutional. So it's about free speech, at least partly.

>This is a software product.

Code == speech argument has been used many times. No settled case law so far as far as I know.

>mobile apps generate certain types of data that distinguish them from

Then make a law that regulates the exchange of this kind of data for all foreign companies. Instead we have the CFIUS commission being used to arbitrarily regulate a particular foreign company, which theoretically doesn't even need to have US presence to function, and it looks very close to the Chinese-style protectionism.

>unique geopolitical context of this particular app

The unique geopolitical situation is that US companies influence (and siphon data) the entire world(the degree of US government's influence on that influence is beside the point, and is a very complex issue), but the US refuses to be influenced(and have data siphoned) by a potential adversary even at the "app where teens dance" level.

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