[HN Gopher] Leaked TikTok docs show effort to downplay CCP assoc...
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Leaked TikTok docs show effort to downplay CCP association
Author : cspliego
Score : 66 points
Date : 2022-07-27 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| silverPoodle wrote:
| Nitter Link: https://nitter.it/stokel/status/1552232881212104704
|
| Linked article from Twitter thread: https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-
| master-messaging-pr-playbook-chin...
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| From the Gizmodo article, some statements from TikTok:
|
| > "There's a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The
| reality is that the TikTok app isn't even available in China."
|
| Yes it is, it's just called Douyin there. It's got different
| content but due to the language barrier none of that would be
| interesting in western markets anyway.
|
| > "We have not and will not share user data with the Chinese
| government, and would not do so if asked." TikTok used this one
| in response to BuzzFeed News."
|
| Right, A Chinese company standing up to the CCP. Good luck with
| that. Remember Jack Ma? I wonder if he does.
|
| I agree this doc doesn't really prove they do associate with the
| CCP either. This is just spin doctor stuff, the stuff they want
| us to beieve. But it doesn't prove whether that's true or not.
|
| But this is the thing, in China every company follows CCP rules.
| It's just how things work over there. _Especially_ with social
| media companies because the CCP is really worried about citizens
| organising themselves. They take a lot of control over those.
|
| I'm sure in the western world with "National Security Letters"
| things work the same way. But at least there is some kind of
| oversight and people speaking out. No I don't trust Facebook or
| Google any more than I trust TikTok and I minimise the use of
| services from either. But at least Facebook and Google are from a
| country I'm more morally aligned with.
|
| PS: I don't even use TikTok because I know I will hate the
| service. I hate the whole 'funny videos' category and videos in
| general. I don't even use YouTube much. But I was considering
| buying a Pico 3 headset before.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| > No I don't trust Facebook or Google any more than I trust
| TikTok and I minimise the use of services from either. But at
| least Facebook and Google are from a country I'm more morally
| aligned with.
|
| Funny, I feel oppositely - Live in the USA, probably never
| going back to PRC, am not "overseas Chinese" and don't have
| family in vulnerable jurisdictions (though maybe those include
| some less developed African and Asian countries not just PRC).
| So if the CCP wanted to make trouble for me it would be a large
| and probably unsuccessful effort (real trouble meaning beyond
| remote/online harassment). Whereas if the US government wants
| to make trouble for me, _even if_ they follow the letter of the
| law re: procedural due process and I eventually prevail, it is
| likely to be a very bad experience.
| mrandish wrote:
| > Right, A Chinese company standing up to the CCP.
|
| It's not a matter of if they willingly do it (or even knowingly
| do it). The only rational position is to assume that any data
| which is a) desirable for intelligence or competitive reasons,
| and b) located in (or transits through) China, Russia or any of
| the western 'Five Eyes' countries is being intercepted. This
| remains true whether the company agrees or even knows about it.
|
| The only weird thing is that _all_ the companies (including
| FAANG) don 't just come out and say this. Hell, they can even
| add that they do their best to secure their data and that 'to
| their knowledge' it's not happening but knowing the
| capabilities and history of large state actors, it would be
| naive not to acknowledge their systems may be compromised. The
| only difference between western based companies and
| China/Russia based companies is that the western ones _may_
| mostly be intercepted for intelligence purposes and less
| frequently for extra-judicial (warrantless) domestic law
| enforcement.
| rvz wrote:
| It has been irreversibly admitted. We can see that this trojan
| horse is getting blown up before it has hit the public markets.
|
| Just like the lies they said about accessing US data from China
| after yet another leak [0], no sentence can be believed from them
| at all and like Facebook, they should be fined in the billions.
|
| [0]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
| Kukumber wrote:
| The more i read about it, the more it feels like the leak is not
| a leak and the narative is being fabricated
|
| Either china has no security at all, or "some people" are
| actively spying on them and trying to hack them
| trasz wrote:
| It's quite obvious that certain country is trying to
| manufacture support for war, same way it did with Middle East.
| logic_beats_pro wrote:
| Russian too right? Or was 4 years of Russiagate just a funny
| coincidence
| nickv wrote:
| Is there anything actually interesting in these? It seems like
| it's just a document that formalizes talking points for main
| issues/questions they get. Talking points they've actively used!
|
| I don't get why this is salacious. That TikTok PR thinks about
| these things? That TikTok PR tries to get people in the company
| aligned on how to respond? Thats what PR does. It'd be WAY
| weirder if they didn't.
|
| If this document had "The Chinese Government reads all of your
| posts", I'd say there's something here. However, all this doc
| that says is stuff like "our CEO is American" and the only leaked
| out info is basically "The daily spending limit is $1000."
|
| Watergate, this ain't. Yawn
| d0mine wrote:
| I thought there were plans to force Tiktok to sell its American
| assets for peanuts and no data leaves US (only US corporations
| are allowed to spy on US citizens).
| nimbius wrote:
| the real issue with tiktok is faang hasn't been able to buy or
| bury it despite hourly content scrapes to Facebook and YouTube
| shorts, same with huawei and the telecom giants. you can
| certainly play on the red scare sentiments of americas
| octogenarian bureaucrats however.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Its pretty pathetic that american companies cant compete with
| tiktoks social media dominance (because they are too busy
| optimizing for maximum ad engagement over user experience)
| and so are trying to engage in a xenophobic propaganda
| campaign instead of just giving some product managers the
| power to override decisions by the ad dept.
|
| Instagram has a horrible ux, and they accept that because
| they'd rather chase dollars than user satisfaction. There is
| no moat around tiktok, it's just stubborn hubris.
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| TikTok is a national security threat. It's more than just
| hubris.
| cwkoss wrote:
| all of social media is a national security threat, we
| just handwave away the dangers of domesticly owned social
| media because of excessive trust in the state and greed
|
| facebook could extort billions out of its users using the
| data its already sitting on. they could also monetize
| that data by selling it to foreign intelligence. we've
| seen evidence of them doing similar things in the past,
| seems naive to expect they will never turn more evil,
| especially if they face a recession
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(page generated 2022-07-27 23:02 UTC)