[HN Gopher] FBI chief says TikTok 'screams' of US national secur...
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FBI chief says TikTok 'screams' of US national security concerns
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 71 points
Date : 2023-03-08 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| dcl wrote:
| What's wrong with a simple reciprocal policy, if they don't allow
| foreign owned/controlled social media in their state, we don't
| allow theirs here.
| rr888 wrote:
| Now you know what it feels like to be the rest of the world
| relying on American tech companies.
| ouid wrote:
| The rest of the world, which for simplicity's sake we'll call
| the EU and china, have fairly powerful protections in place. EU
| law applies to companies operating in the EU, and China
| effectively bans all foreign apps. If Chinese businesses were
| not de facto arms of the Chinese state, and we had the
| diplomatic resources to investigate and prosecute chinese
| companies serving american citizens under american laws, then
| it might make sense to leaev well enough alone.
| jpgvm wrote:
| China does not ban foreign apps, that is pure misinformation.
|
| I think lack of success of foreign apps in China comes down
| to a much simpler dynamic. Foreign apps are simply not
| launched concurrently in China and optimised for the Chinese
| market from the outset. The exception to this are mobile
| games titles which are generally overly optimised for the
| Chinese market if anything and generally fail to succeed
| outside of it.
|
| This results in Chinese clones of said new foriegn
| app/service appearing very quickly and gaining dominance
| before said app can "expand" to China. By the time that
| happens, if it does, they have to compete with an established
| service that is language and culture native.
|
| Essentially if you aren't launching in China day one and have
| a great understanding of the -very- competitive Chinese
| Internet platform economy you are screwed before you even
| start.
| ouid wrote:
| China blocks all sorts of apps, what the fuck are you
| talking about?
| jpgvm wrote:
| No application is banned from operating in China if they
| are willing to follow the rules. Generally speaking
| companies like Google just don't like the rules so they
| don't operate there.
|
| The US has many laws that cause apps to be pulled from
| the App Store or forcibly be shutdown by hosting
| companies (even non-US entities!).
|
| Why is it different when the laws are from a different
| country?
| simonsarris wrote:
| No, China blocks everything from Snapchat to Spotify to The
| New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. They not only
| block apps, they block news sites, forums, streaming sites,
| and even many Wikipedia pages. It's batshit to claim its a
| simple dynamic of culture.
| legitster wrote:
| It's kind of funny to me that almost everyone I talk kind of
| knows TikTok is bad, but in a way we really don't know what to do
| with.
|
| It kind of makes me appreciate that there were lots of times we
| banned things after they crossed an arbitrary line of danger.
| Alcohol was fine until hard liquor was invented. Child work was
| expected, until factories came along.
|
| In a way, I almost think of TikTok as a reverse Opium War. Opium
| was already a not uncommon vice in China until the British
| introduced much more potent strains. TikTok not being
| fundamentally different than the other tech that preceded it,
| just a more potent version.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Alcohol was fine until hard liquor was invented
|
| If I catch your drift correctly you might want to read up on
| the history of distillation, and in particular the chronology
| thereof.
| legitster wrote:
| I know distilling goes back to antiquity but I was only
| thinking of the emergence of consumer drinks in the
| 1600-1700s. Specifically era of the London Gin laws.
|
| I think in particular it's fascinating because this was
| before people really measured or understood alcohol content
| and they really had trouble figuring out why some drinks
| needed no real restrictions and yet others could destroy
| lives.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nearly all the time, those specific alcohol restrictions
| were based in classism or racism, ie, "the poors drink that
| so it must be the cause of all of society's ills, but
| expensive wine is obviously good for me!"
| legitster wrote:
| Well, except hard alcohol _is_ an order of magnitude more
| dangerous than wine or beer. And before public
| drunkenness became a problem, gin was actually the
| preferred drink amongst the elite for a time.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Does the danger not lie in the dosage? Is the actual
| chemical make-up of hard liquors more dangerous?
|
| I understand that it's _easier_ to consume greater
| amounts of alcohol when it is in higher concentrations.
|
| Surely a person drinking a mix drink containing 2 shots
| in an two hours cannot be more dangerous than someone
| gassing 6 beers in an two hours, right?
| coenhyde wrote:
| I didn't interpret the OP's comment to suggest a specific
| order of invention, but an order of adoption / influence in a
| society.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| And the order of adoption was hard liquor came after
| prohibition
| luckylion wrote:
| > Alcohol was fine until hard liquor was invented.
|
| Alcohol is no longer fine?
|
| > Child work was expected, until factories came along.
|
| Doesn't that more have to do with the rising household income
| (thanks to productivity gains, I'd imagine) and school
| availability, so people could afford to let their children go
| to school instead of needing every hand to keep the family
| afloat?
|
| I've never actually used TikTok, what makes it so much more
| potent than other products?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > Alcohol is no longer fine?
|
| Parent is clearly referring to Prohibition
| legitster wrote:
| Or even just social norms around day drinking or drinking
| age etc.
| djkivi wrote:
| Or: "No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our
| health"
|
| https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-
| of-....
| falcolas wrote:
| Opinion: Informing of the dangers of something is not
| prohibiting something.
| luckylion wrote:
| That was hundreds (or thousands, depending on how you look
| at it) of years later though, and more a reaction to
| religion, not new alcoholic potency.
| cwkoss wrote:
| The deep state whining about TikTok is the pot calling the
| kettle black.
|
| I think a lot of people would agree that Twitter and Instagram
| are worse for users.
|
| Twitter is a bunch of bullying and wrath, Instagram is jealousy
| and avarice: extremely effective at manufacturing insecurity.
|
| America has been colonizing the world via dominance in online
| industry for the past 20 years and "winning the war for data".
| Tiktok is a symbol of the end of this trend and american
| nationalists hate the idea.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Absolutely do not like the precedent this sets.
|
| If anything, apple should remove it from the App Store, and I
| will get mad at apple and think it's an overreach.
|
| The government making noise that they should be able to ban apps
| from our phones is a step too far.
| ouid wrote:
| preventing the mass exfiltration of american data seems like
| something that the government has absolute authority over. If
| Tiktok cannot prove that they are not doing that, then this is
| no different from the health department shutting down a
| restaurant.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Seems like it would violate the first amendment. Government
| can't really restrict my speech.
| verdverm wrote:
| The government regulates imports and exports, this is not a
| free speech issue
| ouid wrote:
| If the chinese government asks you to spy on your
| neighbors, I would hope your "right to do so" is not
| protected by the first amendment.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| spying on the behalf of another country is already
| regulated
| ouid wrote:
| Yes, but the point is to convince the parent comment that
| it _should not be_ protected speech.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Is that is what is happening with TikTok? Me spying on my
| neighbors? I don't even use TikTok and have never set up
| an account, but it seems like it is overreach without
| firmly and publicly stating and proving the national
| security threat. Until then, it's a free speech issue in
| my book.
| somenameforme wrote:
| This is nothing like a restaurant being shut down. In normal
| enforcement, parties are innocent until proven guilty. An
| inspector comes, sees where you are violating rules and
| regulations, and gives you an overall assessment. In this
| case TikTok's guilt is being assumed based on zero evidence,
| and they're being asked to prove a negative.
|
| Prove you don't have a little invisible gremlin, made of dark
| matter, named Kabuzu floating just above your right shoulder.
| And now prove it to people that are dead-set in the belief
| that you do, regardless of what you say. This is why the
| presumption of innocence is such an important part of any
| rational system of justice.
| ouid wrote:
| There is no presumption of innocence because it is not a
| person being charged with a crime. It is a corporation.
| More than that, it is a corporation that cannot be audited
| because it lives in a state hostile to US interests.
|
| As a person, you do not need to prove your right to exist,
| but an entity that only exists at the whim of the
| _democratic_ government in which it operates most
| definitely does.
| verdverm wrote:
| Was it not China that set the precedent by effectively banning
| many Western apps?
| advisedwang wrote:
| China also sets the precedent of suppressing speech and
| political dissent, executing a large number of prisoners and
| other horrors. We shouldn't follow their precedent!
| thepasswordis wrote:
| The United States is better than China.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| They also actively commit genocide, so that is now okay too?
| jpgvm wrote:
| China doesn't ban apps, even US made ones.
|
| Instead they mandate that apps that operate in China must
| follow Chinese regulations, privacy laws and of course
| provide access to Chinese agencies as requested.
|
| Many American companies have decided they aren't interested
| in operating in the Chinese market if they have to do so
| under these rules. That is completely their choice and
| completely reasonable if you have moral issues with how the
| Chinese government operates their market.
|
| Meanwhile many American companies like Microsoft for instance
| are happy to comply with said regulations in order to gain
| access to the market.
|
| I don't think the regulations the Chinese impose are
| protectionist (like what the US is talking about doing) but
| they definitely are morally queasy for some, especially the
| censorship and government access rules.
|
| So the whole "American companies are banned in China" is
| mostly nonsense AFAICT.
| winddude wrote:
| > Instead they mandate that apps that operate in China must
| follow Chinese regulations, privacy laws and of course
| provide access to Chinese agencies as requested.
|
| And how do they do that? With the threat of banning / not
| allowing them to operate.
| tzs wrote:
| That applies equally to domestic apps and foreign apps.
| jpgvm wrote:
| The laws are stated. If you publish an app the the App
| Store that violates US law you can be sure it's taken
| down pronto as well.
|
| TikTok isn't violating US laws, they just want it removed
| for "national security reasons".
|
| The US has plenty of better options to deal with this
| like applying broad data privacy legislation such as what
| EU and China have enacted, creation of a regulator to
| enforce this and inspect entities to ensure they are
| playing by the rules etc.
| monksy wrote:
| The US screams of lack of privacy protections of our own data and
| unchangable identities. Why they're pointing to just tiktok is a
| farce.
| bmarquez wrote:
| Yeah, it's like people have forgotten that Snowden revealed a
| direct link between NSA and big tech via PRISM.
| falcolas wrote:
| It's worse than that. State governments are actively using
| their quasi-legal (they haven't passed the judicial tests yet)
| powers to force social media to help prosecute their
| citizens...
|
| And they're hiding behind "the chinese government is worse".
| Yeah, they're terrible. Prosecuting women for seeking health
| services is also terrible.
| brutusurp wrote:
| So does Facebook, and Instagram, and Ring cameras, and iRobot
| vacuums, and voice assistant devices such as Alexa...
|
| Where's the government to protect us? Where's the FBI? Are they
| working inside these companies? Is there a clear conflict of
| interest?
|
| 2023: "We Found 28,000 Apps Sending TikTok Data. Banning the App
| Won't Help." - https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-ban-joe-
| biden-28000-apps-sdk-data...
|
| - https://www.techuntold.com/dangers-of-instagram/
|
| 2022: "Amazon likes to collect an enormous amount of data on you.
| Things like: records of your shopping habits, Alexa search
| requests, the TV shows you watch and when you watch them, the
| music you stream, the podcasts you listen to, when you turn your
| lights on and off, when you lock your doors, identifiers such as
| your name, address, phone numbers, or IP address, your age,
| gender, your location, audio and visual information like those
| Alexa-requests or photos you take, the names and numbers of
| people listed in your contacts. The list goes on and on and on."
| - https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/amazon-...
| - https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/amazon-alexa-device-don...
| - https://www.ventasdeseguridad.com/en/2022110822789/news/ente...
| "Ring has a history of not protecting users' privacy. At one
| point they reportedly stored customer data--including video
| recordings--unencrypted on an Amazon cloud server and employees
| could access any of this data. There have also been reported data
| leaks and concerns that the Ring Doorbell app is full of third-
| party trackers tracking a good amount of personal information
| that Amazon Ring doesn't disclose." 'It was reported that in May,
| 2022 Amazon's patched Ring's app for Android due a "high-
| severity" security vulnerability that could have allowed hackers
| to access personal information, location, and camera recordings.'
| - https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/ring-
| vi....
|
| 2021: - https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/03/alexa-skill-
| vulnerabilities/ -
| https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/986005820/after-data-breach-e...
|
| 2019: - https://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-anyone-a-ring-
| camera-1840070640 -
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2019/04/19/alexa-is-lis... -
| https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/252462588/A-r...
|
| 2018: - https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-security-
| breach-50-mill...
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| Ha, for sixty, seventy, eighty years, most reasonable Americans
| have been saying all the three letter agencies "scream" power
| trip.
|
| For my money, I haven't seen an app that so easily allows normal
| people use copyrighted music -- you know, the stuff everyone
| hears and is blared at us until we like it -- to express
| themselves.
|
| If the data loss is such a terrible security threat, why is
| everyone using operating systems that enable it in the first
| place? Because the FBI only warns of threats that leverage the
| terribly insecure systems we all use to oppose the FBI's
| political projects.
|
| It's a problem, it's just not a problem the FBI has credibility
| to warn us all about.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| All social media is a national security concern, because it is
| known to cause (not just be associated with) decreased mental
| wellbeing.
| mlnhd wrote:
| Is the US going to set up a Great Firewall to block tiktok.com?
| How is this going to work?
| christkv wrote:
| Banned in app stores and it will die.
| pavlov wrote:
| Almost everybody has TikTok via either Apple's or Google's app
| stores. So it's very easy to block the distribution of the
| program.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Raising a daughter I cannot help but wonder if a social media ban
| till 16, 18 or even 21 year old wouldn't be a net positive for
| society.
|
| I am more concerned about my daughter shaping her view of the
| world through social medias than doing other age-restricted
| activities like watching porn or drinking beers.
|
| It might be impossible to enforce completely but forbidding the
| platforms to host content made by teenagers would probably help
| reduce the interest for teenagers and some of its negative
| psychological impacts. It would probably also motive schools to
| implement policies to stay "social-media free".
| falcolas wrote:
| Why can't you (any parent, really), as her concerned parent,
| implement such a ban?
| it_citizen wrote:
| When all of her friends communicate through social medias,
| she will feel excluded if she is the only one without it.
|
| It is the same problem as, when younger, all my friends had a
| phone and I hadn't. Except much worse because social media
| really became a big part of the social and cultural life of
| teenagers.
|
| I don't believe a ban would be effective unless it also
| applies to her social circle too. I know in some rare
| schools, parents organized themselves to all commit to not
| let their child use social medias. That might be another
| lead, but unlike a formal ban, it won't deter platforms to
| attempt to attract and retain the attention of our kids.
|
| I think in the meantime, the best approach is probably trying
| to limit her time using it, making her internalize the
| negative consequences, and try to limit the content she
| posts.
| falcolas wrote:
| I think that when the suggested alternative is having the
| government outlaw social media for everyone (in an
| arbitrary age group), it'd be better to coordinate with
| your daughter's friends' parents.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Its a lot easier if they can still communicate with their
| friends. Sadly that happens a lot more on social media.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Just like america's style of "NO BOOZE UNTIL 21" while building
| a stupidly pro-getting shitfaced culture results in new college
| kids who have extreme levels of binge drinking, a complete ban
| with sudden access at a certain age will just leave us with
| kids suffering from horrible and debilitating addictions to
| social media right as they leave the home.
|
| Maybe educate your kids in media literacy, and engender in them
| an understanding of high quality media vs low quality media, or
| how social media should be considered like a giant bucket of
| ice cream: Tasty but really bad for your health.
| [deleted]
| it_citizen wrote:
| I come from a place where it is easy to get booze at 14, and
| where it is legal to drink at 16. Our teenager drinking
| culture is pretty much the same as in the US, probably worse:
| binge drinking, people sleeping on the sidewalk, dick
| swinging of "who can drink more", it is a real source of
| pride to be drunk from thursday to monday.
|
| I don't think bans are the main driver of the alcohol
| problem.
|
| What a well-designed ban might achieve is reducing the
| attractiveness of the platform by prevent platforms to host
| content made by other teenagers, which is one of the main
| reason to be on social medias at that age.
|
| But you are right, educating her is the best I can do. And
| then pray that she will be an easy teenager.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Social media is more dangerous than alcohol. 21 is probably the
| minimum age to permit it.
| jfengel wrote:
| TFA is light on quotes, but it seems to come down to "China could
| feed misinformation to users". That's the most concrete claim
| I've seen.
|
| I'd buy that it could happen, but I'm still not sure it's worth
| "screaming" about. We get plenty of misinformation, and
| disinformation, via US-owned channels.
|
| One could imagine a sinister plot where they develop a detailed
| model of you and use it to concoct the perfect disinformation
| campaign targeted at you, engaging enough so you don't shut it
| off, subtle enough that it isn't obvious and annoying. It's not
| impossible; even mediocre targeting tools have led to some pretty
| impressive targeted propaganda campaigns. What could they do with
| the information that is currently useful enough to make it a
| near-addiction?
|
| And yet, it seems unlikely to me. The alternative is "they're
| making a ton of money", which seems a perfectly ordinary thing
| for them to do. That sinister plot seems to hinge on a lot of
| things going in their favor, like TikTok users not just moving on
| to the next shiny thing that catches their attention.
|
| Maybe the FBI has more reason to believe that this really is
| China's plan than they can let on. But it really looks to me just
| like they beat us at our own game, selling entertainment, and
| doing it on the cheap.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I think it's plausible that the deep state feels threatened by
| Tiktok because it is out of reach of US misinformation
| campaigns: Tiktok has the power to counterprogram against
| falsehoods spread by US officials.
|
| We've seen how cozy Twitter is with the state. I wonder if any
| US propaganda falsehoods have been corrected by Tiktok already
| or if this a just a threat to national orwellian potential.
| kart23 wrote:
| i don't understand how everyone was super worked up about russia
| influencing the election through facebook, but now that a foreign
| power literally CONTROLS the platform, people aren't concerned
| about it.
|
| fwiw, I'm not that concerned about either platform. I just think
| people who claim one and not the other are being inconsistent.
| hammock wrote:
| The US government, specifically people who have high-level access
| to classified intelligence, has insinuated a lot about TikTok but
| has not revealed any specifics about what the concerns are. Would
| love to see a reveal of substance, or something, literally
| anything.
|
| Right now it just feels like agitprop
| TheBlight wrote:
| Agree. I've never used the app but I'm curious about what these
| threat vectors are. But it's never discussed. It's just
| nebulously "bad."
| belltaco wrote:
| A live example
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23522808/tiktok-
| journali...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| One concrete badness IMO is the black box algorithm of it.
| It's controlled semi-directly by the CCP, and they openly use
| a different algorithm and different filters in china vs the
| US, and not just for cultural reasons. Letting the CCP put
| it's fingers on the scale of what gets fed to millions of
| impressionable teens is just as stupid and dangerous as
| letting facebook continue to do so, with the only difference
| being Zuckerburg isn't a nation-state actor who is openly our
| rival. There is a lot of possible power for China to attempt
| to utilize in TikTok, do you really think they won't?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The one mentioned is that the Chinese could potentially use
| TikTok to control the narrative about a topic. Which is true,
| but it's the kind of thing everybody else does all of the
| time.
| legitster wrote:
| The actual national security concern is probably for state-
| sponsored psyops.
|
| We know Russia was able to pump a bunch of psyops campaigns
| into Western social media, most NATO governments now have
| dedicated branches that root out this kind of information.
|
| But Russia's programs were really obtuse and relatively easy to
| trace. On the other hand, TikTok is all about flooding people
| with niche content areas. And content is consumed so much
| faster that it propagates quicker. And keep in mind TikTok is
| still state-sponsored by China despite the algorithm being _so
| addictive that it is banned domestically_.
|
| My tinfoil hat is that US officials have reports that the
| Chinese state is having influence on the American news cycles,
| but doesn't want to admit that it's made its way already into
| news media and politics issues.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Your post can also be used as an argument for how
| disinformation claims are being weaponized. Hamilton 68 was a
| key figure in the Russian disinformation stuff. They claimed
| to have pinpointed hundreds of Russian bots and used this to
| create an interactive dashboard, headed by a former FBI
| counterintelligence official, enabling real time tracking of
| the latest "Russian disinformation." It was repeatedly
| referenced by both the media and high level politicians
| alike. This included Adam Schiff, The Washington Post, The
| New York Times, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and many more.
| Mother Jones ran at least 14 articles on their "research"
| alone.
|
| The problem is that this was, itself, all complete
| disinformation. Their "Russian bots" were largely made of
| normal, and very real, conservative Americans. [1] Many were
| of substantial note, including authors, lawyers (one had
| published a book on the constitution), news editors/hosts,
| and more. So you ended up in this zone where anything
| conservative individuals were talking about was immediately
| claimed to be Russian disinformation, which was equated with
| fake news. But you'll never see anything about this in those
| same news sites that ran stories based on the disinformation.
| Nor is their any grand demand that we shut down Hamilton 68.
| In fact you can still find their dashboard on the "Securing
| Democracy" page. [2]
|
| So normal genuine conversation was being censored under the
| guise of 'securing democracy against state sponsored
| disinformation' while major examples of genuine
| disinformation, which did (and continue) completely distort
| democracy, remain completely ignored. Very little of it has
| anything to do with integrity, security, or safety. It's all
| petty politics. And supporting the government banning apps,
| with no proven misdeeds, is one heck of a nasty precedent.
|
| [1] - https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105
|
| [2] - https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/
| legitster wrote:
| I feel like this is missing the forest for the trees. The
| whole point of misinformation campaigns is to draw in real
| people. You wouldn't engage in astroturfing if you didn't
| think actual humans would show up.
|
| I haven't heard about Hamilton 68 but I can't seem to find
| any verification about it. It also seems narrowly focused
| on bots and not the hundreds of professional (human!)
| trolls and hackers that countries like Russia (and others)
| employ.
|
| I will grant you that the "fake news" problem was a
| completely separate issue and largely domestic: https://www
| .npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50... We
| should be clear when we talk about "misinformation" we are
| talking about things that are materially true! Just
| weaponized. Russia hacked both the DNC and the GOP, but
| only leaked the DNC emails. Nothing was made up! We were
| just given a _selective_ and unfair version of the truth.
|
| Honestly, I consider myself a somewhat conservative leaning
| myself. But foreign countries are engaging in these psyops
| programs believing them to be effective (as is our own
| government)! So I think it would be incredibly naive to let
| foreign agents with ulterior motives run free through our
| systems under the guise of political speech.
|
| I want my political trolling to be domestically produced!
| favaq wrote:
| It's the Huawei story all over again.
| jpgvm wrote:
| i.e we don't want to compete so lets just ban the foreign
| competitor we don't want to compete with.
| falcolas wrote:
| We just usually call them tariffs and duties.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| A competitor under full control of Chinese government that
| owes its birth to a full copy of Cisco firmware deposited
| by Cisco with said government as a condition for entering
| Chinese market.
|
| That Huawei or is there another one?
| jpgvm wrote:
| Technology transfer isn't illegal, Cisco was happy with
| the commercial arrangement. More importantly Motorola
| before them which is who really kickstarted the Chinese
| electronics manufacturing sector.
|
| I wish it was more common actually. Imagine if we shared
| technology more freely in exchange for reciprocal
| benefits. For instance Australia (my home country) has a
| wealth of natural resources yet very little high-tech. We
| should leverage China's dependency on our raw resources
| to obtain technology transfer to enrich our country in a
| mutually beneficial way.
| ashwagary wrote:
| Part of the fear may be that any compelling case made against
| tiktok could strongly serve the purpose of getting US social
| apps banned from the rest of the world for the same reasons.
| advisedwang wrote:
| TikTok is a threat in many ways:
|
| * The extent to which TikTok tailors content, normalization of
| over-simplified content, ease of creating content and other
| factors make it great for radicalization. As well as extremist
| groups, this applies to more regular protest movements and
| generally an active citizenry, which is not in the interest of
| the feds.
|
| * It has encouraged regular crime and idiocy. For example it
| spread knowledge of the Kia/Hyundai ignition bypass, and is
| full of pseudomedical nonsence.
|
| It also serves as a useful scapegoat.
| dry_soup wrote:
| You might as well be describing YouTube or Twitter
| ismokedoinks wrote:
| Not that I have any deep subject matter knowledge but I agree,
| it feels like app store McCarthyism
| yamtaddle wrote:
| ALL of these sorts of social media programs are terrifyingly-
| capable spying platforms. It'd be weird if we _didn 't_
| regard one controlled by a foreign adversary as a threat. I
| think the domestic ones are, too--but they feed info to US
| law enforcement and intelligence and are making lots of
| money, so we can't crack down on those, I guess.
| eatonphil wrote:
| McCarthyism was primarily a political thing by politicians.
|
| The FBI chief being discussed here, Wray, is a political
| appointment but not an elected politician so hopefully the
| appointment shields them from politics. Nevermind that the
| DoJ tries pretty hard to be independent of the President. But
| beyond that, this particular chief was appointed during the
| previous administration of a different party. And has served
| in both party's administrations.
|
| I have no position on TikTok, but Wray saying this is not
| really comparable to McCarthy.
| advisedwang wrote:
| The FBI chief is and has always been highly political. J
| Edgar Hoover was a extreme anti-communist and was
| investigating suspected communists, infiltrating CPUSA and
| creating blacklists at the exact same time that McCarthy
| was conducting his hearings.
|
| In fact the McCarthyism acticle on Wikipedia has a whole
| section about the FBI. The FBI was deeply involved in
| McCarthyism.
| lehi wrote:
| Something being _political_ does not require it to be
| _partisan_. Joseph McCarthy worked hand in hand with then-
| FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and Wray was appointed by a
| president who also tried to ban TikTok.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Sure, but being kept on by an administration of the
| opposing party goes a bit to show that he is also not
| particularly partisan.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I feel like the FBI has politicized quite a bit since
| Comey.
| ourmandave wrote:
| I have to think it's along the lines of the Strava fitness app
| data used to create a heat map of the positions of US military
| personnel.
|
| Only a lot, lot worse.
| warner25 wrote:
| I believe this is the answer. I'm a career military officer,
| but without any inside knowledge, and the most troubling "red
| team" ideas that I've read involve an adversary targeting our
| troops and families in their ordinary lives at home, where
| we're soft targets. Troops accept the fact that they might be
| told to put themselves at-risk overseas, but they expect that
| their spouses and children will be safe in their own
| neighborhoods, that their utilities will keep working[1],
| that their identities and bank accounts won't be stolen, etc.
|
| We go after terrorists and insurgents the same way by
| learning their social networks and patterns of life. I'm sure
| that we _wish_ we had stuff on our adversaries like the data
| from the OPM breach[2], the Strava fitness data, or the kind
| of data that TikTok can collect on their phones.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34474946
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Managem
| ent...
| HashThis wrote:
| Their big concern is NOT data stealing. That is a small thing.
|
| They are very worried about the US citizen population saying
| they are DONE with Lobbyists and congress selling out. US
| Citizens are done with the GDP being stolen via rigged
| industries (pharma, 2008 crisis, Medical, taxes, etc.) US
| Citizens starting to all agree together on TikTok, enables
| citizens to galvanize into a united front.
|
| The US Gov needs to control US citizens, by banning them. This
| is why US intel services have removed 100% of US citizens in
| militia community groups people from Facebook. 100% have their
| facebook accounts have been shut down. They can't shoot people
| over facebook. The gov's risk is that people see many other
| citizens galvanize that they find congress w/lobbyists
| effectively stealing GDP.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm very concerned that the US government will set a precedent
| for regulating what apps citizens are allowed to use.
|
| I definitely agree about the risks and banning it from the
| devices of the govt officials makes sense but banning access to
| an app screams "the Chinese/Russian/Turkish way of governing has
| won, freedoms are no more".
|
| I hope the US takes the EU approach and regulates what data is
| collected and transmitted where instead of walking the
| totalitarian route. In case you haven't notice,
| FB/Instagram/Twitter etc. are the same as TikTok from the
| perspective of Non-Americans(>%90 of the world) and TikTok just
| happen to be a first for Americans.
|
| I've been living in Turkey for some years now and I promise you,
| it's not fun. Do you know that it has been 2 weeks since Turkey
| banned country's most popular(and earliest, dating back to 1999)
| social media for no other reason that they suspect anti-
| government activity by the operators because they think it is not
| natural to have concentration of anti-govt views? That's where
| you are headed.
| ashwagary wrote:
| >Do you know that it has been 2 weeks since Turkey banned
| country's most popular social media for no other reason that
| they suspect anti-government activity
|
| After seeing how the Patriot Act was passed then abused, one
| should be very weary of any free speech limiting precedents
| being set.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Whose speech would be limited if the US banned TikTok?
| mrtksn wrote:
| TikTok users. Tens of millions of them. Notice that TikTok
| is a social media app which created a numerous new art and
| social movements. That's why TikTok videos are actually
| dominating Instagram too. There are many people who got
| famous on TikTok.
|
| Techies often forget that the numbers in the analytics
| screen means human beings. "The tech" is deeply
| psychopathic industry unfortunately, they can't grasp the
| pain their actions can cause on people.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Without TikTok, I don't have speech?
| trevoristall wrote:
| You're arguing in bad faith, the point is that limiting
| access to speech platforms is not in the interest of
| citizens and only serves the government.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > You're arguing in bad faith
|
| I'm using the Socratic method. I don't have TikTok so I'm
| shocked to learn that I haven't been able to express
| myself.
| colpabar wrote:
| Why not just make your points and engage with its replies
| like everyone else does? No one gains anything from your
| attempts to get people to say what you want them to say
| so you can "gotcha" them.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Why not just make your points and engage with its
| replies like everyone else does?
|
| Why are you infringing on my freedom of speech right now?
| I'll discuss this topic in the civil manner that I
| prefer.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| It's strange to assume that freedom of speech means
| freedom from criticism.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Where do I claim that it does?
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| > Why are you infringing on my freedom of speech right
| now?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Why not just make your points and engage with its
| replies like everyone else does?
|
| My reply was half made in jest but it's ironic they're
| crying about freedom of speech while telling me the
| correct way to discuss my ideas.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| That's not bad faith. Your argument is bollocks -- free
| speech in action. And it was not impacted by using or not
| using TikTok.
|
| Were TikTok to be banned, that comment would still exist.
|
| Likewise, I'll post a video about it... to youtube, to
| vimeo, to wherever.
| mk89 wrote:
| > I'm very concerned that the US government will set a
| precedent for regulating what apps citizens are allowed to use.
|
| Totally different topic, but it was said the same about covid
| regulations, how we were becoming like China, how lockdowns
| were supposed to limit our freedom etc.
|
| We're basically back to the same old, and our freedom is
| "back".
|
| I believe that the US government for the first time is really
| challenged by something and they don't know how to regulate it,
| because it goes fundamentally against the doctrine of freedom
| of speech etc. "The West is now blocking apps?"
|
| EU regulations are nice and all, but GDPR is so easy to break,
| and from time to time you pay the fine, all good. In the
| meantime, tons of data about your citizens go away. Can you ask
| for that data back? It's gone. That's why this is so hard to
| regulate. And the right to be forgotten, well, prove
| it...especially in the cloud, if the application servers are
| hosted in a cloud provider owned by or government-friendly.
|
| As I mentioned in a previous post, scandals concerning EU/US is
| just pure political BS to sell newspapers. Even if there are
| regulations, it's "acceptable" if from time to time a company
| breaches that "trust". It can even be convenient up to a
| certain point (but I don't work in governments etc., this is
| just the way I see it).
|
| EDIT: the only time they probably did something similar was
| against piracy/p2p/blocking emule and all that :) but we all
| know money moves mountains
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You seem to be making several points here which as far as I
| can tell boil down to the following:
|
| - the COVID pandemic reduced some of our freedoms, but now
| they are back.
|
| - GPDR is not perfect regulation. It has holes that let bad
| behavior sneak through.
|
| RE: Your first point. This is an apples to oranges
| comparison. COVID restrictions were never anything unusual -
| the CDC has had legal authority to enforce quarantine for a
| very long time. It used those powers ascribed to it by law,
| and then stopped doing so when it was no longer needed.
| That's not at all what this thread is about, which is the
| government deciding that certain applications are
| unacceptable for it's citizens by fiat.
|
| RE: Your second point. The EU has much stronger protections
| under GPDR than if it didn't exist. The answer to an
| imperfect regulation is not to abandon the regulation, it's
| to improve it. That's why we have a process to build new laws
| or change them. To solve problems. It's like saying the
| problem with your car is that it is low on oil, so instead of
| refilling the oil you decide to just walk.
| mk89 wrote:
| > the CDC has had legal authority to enforce quarantine for
| a very long time.
|
| I am not living in the US, however in Europe it was hell.
| And it was decided by the governments from each country. If
| I recall, some regulations became even EU-based, like
| traveling. We're still West, although a bit more east :) It
| was not about an application you have on your phone, true,
| but governments are the ones paid for seeing the long term
| vision: if citizens die (because of covid) or there is a
| national security issue (because another country is milking
| your citizens' data), you have to do something about it.
| This is why I compared those two topics, albeit different.
| For me there is no loss of freedom in either case, but I
| can understand those who feel their freedom taken away.
|
| Regarding the second point, I love the fact there is the
| GDPR. And like you I agree it must be improved. The
| question is: what can you do in this case? We're talking
| about bit and bytes flowing through cables. How do users
| make sure that companies are respecting the laws? It's
| basically impossible. And that's when governments become
| aggressive: we need our whatsapp, ... we need to stop
| tiktok...and all that talk that might seem from unfortunate
| (fascist) times.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > EU regulations are nice and all, but GDPR is so easy to
| break
|
| The good thing about it is that you give them a chance to
| comply and ease your concerns. If they fail to do so, you
| then you can ban them for actually failing to do something
| instead of being Chinese or making you nervous or something.
| This makes all the difference.
|
| It's all about freely operating within the rule of law or
| leaving it to some bureaucrats gut that some app can be
| dangerous.
| mk89 wrote:
| > The good thing about it is that you give them a chance to
| comply and ease your concerns. If they fail to do so, you
| then you can ban them for actually failing to do something
| instead of being Chinese or making you nervous or
| something. This makes all the difference.
|
| That's what US is doing, if I got it right. Tiktok
| apparently is not playing by the rules, hence a ban. Not
| today, maybe tomorrow... who knows.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Which rules?
| finfrastrcuture wrote:
| The technocrats in Belgium are really leading from the front
| across industries when it comes to rational, forward-thinking,
| and - most importantly - both pro-competitive and consumer
| friendly regulations.
|
| Agree with other comments that GDPR isn't perfect, but at least
| its a start! I work in Finance, and their regulation around
| things like Open Banking (e.g. PSD2) is great. Of course they
| have their bad aspects, but overall they level the commercial
| playing field and protect consumer freedoms. I worry the US is
| letting legacy industry dominate the development of our
| financial (and other industries') infrastructure for short term
| incumbent gain but long term societal and commercial detriment.
| winddude wrote:
| > I hope the US takes the EU approach and regulates what data
| is collected and transmitted where instead of walking the
| totalitarian route
|
| Even if they do, how do you enforce it? The way I see it all
| paths of enforcement lead to a ban. I would bet a lot of money
| that tiktok is already in violation of several of the patchwork
| of laws that protect US online privacy.
|
| And it's not just tiktok it's the thousands of shity games/apps
| owned partially by tencent.
| jkubicek wrote:
| I don't see why this couldn't be regulated in the same way
| that HIPPA protects our health information.
|
| Onerous regulation and business-killing fines have the added
| bonus of making the collection of personal data extremely
| unappealing. This is a case where the threat of regulation
| and enforcement has a strongly positive chilling effect on an
| industry.
|
| And, if you're in an industry that must collect personal
| information for whatever reason, it's still possible and
| legal.
| ShrimpHawk wrote:
| The core issue is their use of data, if you enact laws to
| curb that behavior then that covers not only tiktok but the
| "thousands of shity games/apps owned partially by tencent".
| If they continue to break the rules then you ban them and any
| other that is not complying; including domestically owned
| companies like facebook that harvest your data and use it to
| influence elections undemocratically.
| amelius wrote:
| > "the Chinese/Russian/Turkish way of governing has won,
| freedoms are no more"
|
| Banning foreign apps != allowing only state controlled apps.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Not directly, but this feels like a slope that could become
| very slippery.
| jumelles wrote:
| The slippery slope argument is a fallacy.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| It's only a logical fallacy in the form if p then q; if q
| then r if then ... so on until the end point you're
| arguing towards. To say that history informs us that a
| particular hill easily becomes slippery is not a logical
| fallacy.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It's a fallacy whenever someone argues from it. Like the
| GP, they are literally arguing from a SSF and no one
| believes that's what it is. Beyond the pale.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| To quote the original comment:
|
| " I'm very concerned that the US government will set a
| precedent for regulating what apps citizens are allowed
| to use."
|
| Since US law is based on precedent, it is not
| unreasonable to say that allowing the government to
| legislate which apps are available to US persons could
| lead to creeping powers to regulate apps more broadly.
| All of post 9/11 security law is practically a national
| park of slippery slopes.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Oh okay, if they only ban a subset which you agree with it's
| not state controlled apps. Got it, very logical.
|
| Other logical conclusions:
|
| Banning LGBT apps != allowing only state controlled apps.
|
| Banning pro-Trump apps != allowing only state controlled
| apps.
|
| Banning abortion clinic apps != allowing only state
| controlled apps.
|
| Banning gun related apps != allowing only state controlled
| apps.
|
| Banning climate activist apps != allowing only state
| controlled apps.
|
| Banning Fox news apps != allowing only state controlled apps.
|
| How do you people even rationalise this in your head?
| falcolas wrote:
| If apps are banned solely for their nationality, and not the
| uniqueness of their functionality (spying, law enforcement,
| etc), then yeah, it kinda does.
|
| "Only countries on our approve-list can deploy social media
| apps in our country."
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| Well, we already know there's state involvement in the tech
| sector, and I don't know of any big tech companies with
| warrant canaries.
|
| From 2013 -
|
| "Court rules NSA doesn't have to reveal its semi-secret
| relationship with Google"
| (https://macdailynews.com/2013/05/22/court-rules-nsa-
| doesnt-h...)
|
| "NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers
| worldwide, Snowden documents say"
| (https://perma.cc/VY62-7WX5)
|
| "Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans"
| (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/confirmed-nsa-
| spying-m...)
|
| The US doesn't want to compete on level field. It feels it
| "owns" modern mass data collection and surveillance, and it's
| more peeved that it doesn't have access to other markets'
| data than it cares about any purported espionage.
|
| My bet is placed. China won't open its data to the US, so
| these bans will continue to escalate. However, any market
| that does share collected data with the US (or allows US
| companies to carry out this collection in their markets) will
| somehow "not be a threat" to privacy or national security.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| An app being 'state controlled' is not an inherently good or
| bad thing. It's what the app _does_ that is important. Does
| it collect data? Does it transmit data to foreign
| governments? Does it store data locally? Does it permit any
| kind of control of the device?
|
| It's easy to say certain apps are bad. It's hard to say _why_
| they are bad and address the root behavior. This is a case
| where taking the easy road has obvious unintended future
| consequences. Taking the hard road helps every citizen of
| this country, and not just with apps controlled by foreign
| governments.
|
| We need data security and privacy legislation. We do not need
| creeping totalitarianism. It's easy to see which road goes
| where.
| quantified wrote:
| Wouldn't regulating data privacy just shift the banning to
| business behaviors instead of consumer behaviors? It's
| still banning of choice to what the government says.
|
| (Said with tongue in cheek. Help explain where the
| reasoning is wrong, though. The majority of people would
| rather get free apps with heavy surveillance attached than
| pay for anything in money or inconvenience, why is Tiktok
| different than everyone who sells the data to brokers who
| then sell it to everyone?)
| bakugo wrote:
| > I'm very concerned that the US government will set a
| precedent for regulating what apps citizens are allowed to use.
|
| This wouldn't be nearly as big of a problem if Apple & co.
| didn't have full remote control over what software you are or
| aren't allowed to run on your device that you paid for and
| supposedly own.
| walterbell wrote:
| Tiktok hired people associated with multiple governments, were
| they able to improve the situation?
| https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-tiktok-pipeline-why-tikto...
|
| _> the threat to completely shut down its platform, subsided
| only after TikTok began appointing Western officials to important
| positions within its organization, thereby giving the state
| considerable influence over the content and direction of the
| app._
| [deleted]
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I still don't understand the "national security concerns" from
| TikTok. It seems there's two:
|
| 1. The CCP has access to video-view and location data 2. The CCP
| can manipulate video streams to push a narrative
|
| For #1, isn't TikTok mostly just a bunch of teenagers dancing?
| Who cares if the CCP access this data? Also, couldn't the CCP
| just purchase this same/similar data from a thousand other data
| brokers? For #2, pushing a narrative pretty much defines social
| media apps these days, for better _and_ for worse. So, why is it
| so bad on TikTok or when the CCP does it? Heck, Fox News is
| constantly parroting Russian propaganda, yet no one is talking
| about banning the channel. What makes TikTok /CCP so much worse
| that the app needs to be banned?
|
| I honestly don't understand what makes TikTok so much more
| threatening than what's already going on. What am I missing?
| legitster wrote:
| > Also, couldn't the CCP just purchase this same/similar data
| from a thousand other data brokers?
|
| Contrary to popular belief, data-broker data is generic and not
| very good. Knowing that you are a 30s male who likes beer is
| not as useful as, say, finding out you are a high ranking
| military official and what remote locations you visit in the
| US.
|
| > #1, isn't TikTok mostly just a bunch of teenagers dancing?
|
| How quickly TikTok understands your preferences and feeds you
| content you like is _scary_. And it 's designed to send you
| down niche rabbit holes. You may start watching construction
| videos, but within an hour you may be watching a nurse tell you
| pharmaceutical companies are trying to kill us but set to a fun
| dance.
| kornhole wrote:
| These claims about Tiktok have been used for years, and the data
| collection is not much different from other corp/state social
| media apps. I assumed the motivation was around information
| control, but as researched here,
| https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-tiktok-pipeline-why-tikto...,
| the company is well influenced by NATO intelligence now. The
| cognitive warfare landscape is evolving. I am really not sure
| what the justification is at this point. Perhaps they want fewer
| platforms to control, the architecture is not conducive to the
| level of control they desire, the FBI is not aligned with
| agencies controlling Tiktok?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's hard to see a public Senate Intelligence Committee hearing
| on worldwide threats to U.S. security as anything except blatant
| propaganda, which makes this feel like propaganda warning us that
| the evil enemy may use propaganda to control our opinions.
| yehudalouis wrote:
| I don't think the FBI cares about TikTok, to be honest. It seems
| like we're entering a period of posturing against the Chinese,
| using implicit 'sanctioning' methods: - Banning TikTok - Accusing
| them of the COVID lab leak theory - Posturing with Taiwan
|
| Seems were just building a substrate for... something. Not to
| sound too conspiratorial. ;)
| timcavel wrote:
| [dead]
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