[HN Gopher] Journalist writes about discovering she'd been surve...
___________________________________________________________________
Journalist writes about discovering she'd been surveilled by TikTok
Author : isaacfrond
Score : 245 points
Date : 2023-05-05 14:00 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The Internet has been colonized by spies who work for
| corporations and governments, but it's been going on for well
| over a decade, as this article notes:
|
| > "By the time ByteDance was founded in Beijing in 2012, Google
| had been reading our emails over our shoulders, Amazon had been
| watching us shop, and Twitter and Facebook had been mediating our
| messages to friends and foes for years. Indeed, Zhang Yiming, the
| millennial software engineer who set up ByteDance, modeled
| himself and aspects of his new company on Silicon Valley. Zhang,
| who briefly worked for Microsoft before going out on his own, was
| once fond of quoting Steve Jobs and Jack Welch."
|
| It would be highly surprising if the ByteDance-Beijing
| relationship was all that different from the Google/Verizon-
| Washington relationship (2013):
|
| https://www.corpwatch.org/article/verizon-and-google-helped-...
|
| > "Technology companies willingly provided information to U.S.
| government agencies to help the Obama administration snoop on
| reporters from the Associated Press (AP) and Fox news in order to
| ostensibly crack down on leaks that pose a "threat" to national
| security."
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| The implicit claim that, "actually the US and China are the
| same regarding human rights, balance of power,
| authoritarianism, etc." is _by far_ the weakest argument in
| this domain.
| ngcazz wrote:
| It's not, because dialectically the article furthers the
| framing of TikTok and China as uniquely perverse which is
| wrong (cf. the abundance of examples posted elsewhere in this
| thread) and plays into American imperialist/hegemonic
| anxieties
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The only thing I pointed out was that the two 'Great Powers'
| have a curiously similar obsession with spying on domestic
| civilian populations. You added the other issues for some
| reason.
|
| It is true that authoritarian control freaks are my least
| favorite people, regardless of what government they're
| affiliated with - but I don't doubt that the American
| version, given free rein, would rush to introduce the methods
| used in China to control the population.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Nobody cares what you think (except for parents and loved
| ones), they might care why you think it. Sneering at a claim
| isn't an argument.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| It's not about what I think, it's just simply untrue.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I cared. In fairness even less care what you qualify as a
| counter-point
| ajross wrote:
| I think that kind of argument is really muddying the waters.
| Google/Amazon/Facebook[1] _have absolutely not_ been "reading
| our emails over our shoulders" in any kind of human sense. And
| all those companies have extensive policies and enforcement
| structures designed deliberately to prevent the kind of abuse
| detailed here with TikTok.
|
| And it's been decades, and they've really been quite good about
| it. There are _abstract_ arguments about whether that kind of
| data centralization is a good or bad thing, and I think that 's
| fine.
|
| But that's _extremely_ different from "this company actively
| spied on its enemies". And I think we need to treat with that
| distinction and not muddy it. Because if your point becomes
| "Facebook and Google and Amazon are bad too" it becomes
| isomorphic to "oh well, nothing can be done", because in
| practice society is OK with the existing giants.
|
| We shouldn't be OK with active spying!
|
| [1] Twitter is more of an open question right now, certainly
| the promiscuous release of the "Twitter Files" nonsense didn't
| tend to exhibit an institutional inclination toward privacy.
| runtime_blues wrote:
| I find it hard to interpret such whataboutism as sincere.
|
| If you care about these perceived abuses by US tech companies,
| why wouldn't you applaud the outcry against TikTok? At the very
| least, it moves the needle in the right direction. It increases
| the awareness of industry practices and helps flesh out some
| constraints. Even if you're of the mindset that there's no
| practical difference between the US government and an
| authoritarian communist dictatorship that murdered millions of
| its compatriots for having the wrong political views, why
| defend their right to do the things you hate?
| nebulousthree wrote:
| It's because the pot is calling the kettle black and then
| getting annoyed when it is called out on it. It's not that
| complicated, and it doesn't call into question the legitimacy
| of the criticism. It just says: "you've had shit under your
| own shoe this whole time and only now that I got some under
| mine are you complaining about the smell"
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| you're literally describing logical fallacies: _tu quoque_
| and _whataboutism_
|
| in fact, "the pot calling the kettle black" is a textbook
| example of a _tu quoque_ logical fallacy:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_calling_the_kettle_black
| pphysch wrote:
| "Whataboutism" is not a logical fallacy, in fact it is
| the opposite.
|
| "We need to do X because A is bad because it does Y"
|
| "But we also do Y, shouldn't we also do X for us?"
|
| Logic says yes. "Whataboutism" was invented to kill basic
| logical inference, in the context of the bipolar Cold War
| era. Using that term to kill discussion and browbeat is
| anti-intellectualism, pure and simple.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| whataboutism is simply another word for tu quoque, which,
| as previously indicated, is a logical fallacy
|
| indeed, the whataboutism itself is intended to kill
| discussion of the initial topic (in your example, _A
| doing Y_ , not simply _Y_ ), hence why it's a logical
| fallacy, too
| pphysch wrote:
| There's a world of difference between saying "you're a
| hypocrite, stop talking" and adding (uncomfortable)
| context to a discussion.
| [deleted]
| alpos wrote:
| I think people find it insincere because pointing out that
| both parties in question have a problem doesn't change
| anything about the situation or the problems.
|
| It is most often used as an attempt at a defense by calling
| out other guilty parties. Yes, we should like to live in a
| world where anyone calling out a problem or injustice only
| does so from a place of unimpeachable moral authority. But
| we do not live in such a world so we are still left with
| the need to address problems where and when we can get the
| social and political will to do so. Using finger pointing
| as a defense has the effect of making the problem seem
| insurmountable and therefore sapping the will to fix it.
|
| The more genuine admission might be to simply say, "I admit
| I have shit on my shoe, and it does stink; however, if you
| are to hold me to account for that, then I demand you also
| be held to account".
|
| With that approach people have a much harder time seeing
| the complaint as merely a self-defense by way of finger
| pointing and it's much more likely to be taken seriously.
|
| This is where many people in the US are probably at on,
| say, the Trump indictment. Can't really say it shouldn't
| happen, he has almost certainly broken a long list of laws
| for his whole career. But that also shouldn't be the end of
| it, more like "Great start getting a corrupt and lawless
| politician in jail! Who's next on that list? When does
| their indictment begin?".
| archgoon wrote:
| [dead]
| greatjack613 wrote:
| This piece smells like ccp propaganda. @dang
| singularity2001 wrote:
| The hope of a free internet sits rotting in a prison somewhere
| in Britain.
| azinman2 wrote:
| You can always count on HN for whataboutism
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's good to have a broad overview of the subject, don't you
| think? Wouldn't you want to know whether or not the TikTok
| outrage is genuine, or perhaps engineered by other social
| media corporations worried about loss of market share? Maybe
| this is all about economics and 'national security concerns'
| are just the vehicle for expressing that concern (as market
| manipulation is a harder sell?).
|
| P.S. Have you noticed that both Twitter and Youtube have
| adopted TikTok-type formats, in terms of Twitter video feeds
| and Youtube Shorts?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Except it's not a broad overview of the subject, it's
| little factoids that equate bad behavior with other bad
| behavior, except there are many substantial difference
| which are neglected in the conversation.
|
| It is a relevant question to wonder what prompted the
| concerns and bills... is it national security of is it
| economics? That's not what's being questioned, and even
| then there's no good basis to know so it's hard to go
| anywhere other than conspiracy theory.
|
| I actually fully buy that both are plausible and likely,
| but I have no basis for the economics other than Meta's
| lobbying. But the whataboutism always shifts away the
| conversation from the moment at hand by dismissing it all
| as something that meta/google do. We can at face value look
| at the risks of TikTok doing it and understand that they're
| maybe legitimate national security concerns. By broadening,
| we end up just ignoring this completely.
|
| I have noticed the copy cats. The concern from congress has
| been what can the CCP know via TikTok; not what can TikTok
| know as an independent entity. I personally do see the
| control of information and the knowledge of attention being
| a national security risk, which is unfortunate as I think
| they have the better product.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > The Internet has been colonized by spies
|
| That's definitely not you or your deflecting and derailing
| comment which rocketed to the top or the _whatabout_ comrades
| who make it impossible to discuss this topic here.
| gataca wrote:
| Is this an attempt at being edgy? The relationships between the
| companies and their host governments is not the point, its the
| differences between those governments that matters. Just one
| example of the difference is the Chinese government has camps
| for ethnic groups it doesn't like.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _It would be highly surprising if the ByteDance-Beijing
| relationship was all that different from the Google /Verizon-
| Washington relationship (2013):_
|
| No, no it wouldn't.
| duxup wrote:
| Google can push back, US companies can do that, and do do that.
| That system isn't perfect but I'd rather go with apps from more
| free countries than those that are not free.
|
| ByteDance has no choice.
| smolder wrote:
| It's unclear to what extent such corporate pushback against
| the USG is genuine conflict as opposed to theater/PR cover. I
| don't think it's a safe assumption either way. The incentives
| to pretend industry has more independence than it does are
| there, and methods of such deception have been seen before.
| duxup wrote:
| I think it is unlikely we have a conspiracy so vast, across
| a ton of companies that they put up fake legal fights, have
| fake warrant canary notices ... and nobody ever leaks out
| that they're all fake.
| smolder wrote:
| It doesn't require a vast conspiracy, certainly not
| something more vast than the kind of conspiracy that
| Snowden alerted everyone to.
|
| I would guess the truth is somewhere in the middle...
| That there is genuine pushback but also theatrics to
| project independence.
| duxup wrote:
| >It doesn't require a vast conspiracy
|
| It would if we account for the fact that we haven't seen
| any reports of fake legal fights / warrant canaries and
| etc.
|
| >I would guess the truth is somewhere in the middle
|
| I don't understand this phrase, wouldn't that just mean
| the bigger lie / conspiracy wins every argument? How do
| you weigh such things reliably?
| ailef wrote:
| There doesn't need to be any conspiracy. If it's good for
| PR reasons to show they are fighting, companies will do
| it anyway without the need to coordinate.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So they are able to push back?
| Xeoncross wrote:
| > relationship was all that different
|
| It's not the relationships of the parties in control that
| worries me. It's the arrests and abductions of the people that
| concerns me.
|
| Thankfully, posting banned ideas or government critical stuff
| in the US doesn't involve being arrested by the police and
| being held for months or years.
|
| The CCP is a completely different beast, it has no issues
| jailing people for speaking the wrong things, forcing it's
| citizens into reeducation camps, welding them locked into
| buildings and much worse.
| falcolas wrote:
| > posting banned ideas
|
| The Patriot act (and the proposed Restrict Act) would like to
| disagree. Terrorism threats (and using a VPN to circumvent
| app bans as per the Restrict Act) are absolutely enough to
| get you vanished - especially if you're not a natural
| citizen.
|
| And you don't have to look too many years back in time to
| find concentration camps for specific ethnicities.
|
| No, the US is not as bad as the CCP. But it has its own
| issues you can easily find yourself on the wrong side of
| based off your skin color or ethnicity.
| boc wrote:
| What are you talking about? You need to cite sources about
| people in the US getting "vanished" for simply using a VPN.
|
| This is sounding like agitprop.
| falcolas wrote:
| > You need to cite sources about people in the US getting
| "vanished" for simply using a VPN.
|
| The restrict act hasn't passed yet. So no, I can't cite
| anything but the jail time and fines proposed in the
| bill.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We must pass the Restrict Act, because anyone arguing
| against the Restrict Act will have no evidence against
| the Restrict Act until we pass the Restrict Act. Sadly,
| the passage of the Restrict Act will require those
| arguing against the Restrict Act to be jailed for
| Misinformation on Behalf of a Foreign Power if they have
| no evidence. If they do have evidence, however, they will
| be jailed under the Espionage Act.
| yafbum wrote:
| Who has been "vanished"in the US?
|
| Jack Ma was essentially on house arrest for over a year
| after flying a little too close to the sun with his IPO
| plans. Peng Shuai was on house arrest for denouncing sexual
| abuse by a CCP member.
|
| The psychological, widespread chilling effects of these
| high profile "vanishings" has absolutely no commonality
| with the Patriot act (bad as it is).
| 6_6_6_6 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Convolutional wrote:
| The vanishings like the sheriff who had three voter
| registration workers killed in Mississippi are not
| common, it tends to be straightforward extrajudicial
| executions like Fred Hampton. I wouldn't even include the
| car bombing of 25 year old Ronni Moffitt in 1976.
|
| The US police are killing people all the time. In January
| police killed an environmentalist in January, Manuel
| Taran. The US kills and jails political prisoners all the
| time.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Who would be the US's Jack Ma?
| plagiarist wrote:
| I don't believe the US could have a Jack Ma equivalent.
| We are more of a plutocracy than China is.
| yafbum wrote:
| There are about as many billionaires in China as in the
| US.
| coldtea wrote:
| Plutocracy is about whether the billionaires or the
| politicians have the power. Not about the amount of
| billionaires.
| yafbum wrote:
| Well then the power structure in China is much much MUCH
| narrower at the top (1 person for life)
| coldtea wrote:
| That's not the way things are done in the west. Lacking
| absolute rule, you need to achieve similar things with a
| little more subtlety.
|
| Let's say a certain billionare enters politics, and is
| not a party favorite, and against the bipartisan elite
| consensus. Say, they are, god forbid, populist, and
| against job outsourcing, wars, and such.
|
| Media, who loved him for decades, can suddenly start
| covering his every action as if describing the leader of
| the Axis in WWII. Suddenly his associates might start to
| get investigated for things all sides in DC did since
| time immemorial with impunity. Experts might appear day
| and night on TV to give a psychological assessment of
| him. Some high standing people might openly advocate for
| his elimination. Government agencies might join the "good
| fight". Mere tech corporations might decide to ban his
| (the active President's) account.
|
| Others might pay some hack to come up with a bogus
| document binder hack job, a dossier if you will, that
| will feature day and night on the news. And inversely,
| his opponent's son might be news gold, be involved in all
| kinds of shady dealings, and even lose a certain
| computing device, and they're not covered, lest their
| parent is harmed.
|
| Or let's say another billionaire lacks the good taste to
| not antagonize the consensus of the elites and their
| lapdogs in the aspirational classes. Perhaps their
| glowing "let's all kiss the ass of the billionaire tech
| god" coverage changes overnight...
| zyyyyyy wrote:
| The lack of verification of the claims made related to
| the "bogus document binder hack job" doesn't preclude the
| possibility of conspiracy, sedition, etc. actually
| occuring, and the dossier played essentially no role in
| subsequent investigations. He also wasn't exactly anti-
| war. On the campaign trail rhetorically he was, but aside
| from the (disastrous but did need to happen) withdrawal
| from Afghanistan mostly continued the imperialist status
| quo. Iran and Syria are high-profile examples. He is an
| authoritarian populist, yes. I'm not sure why only people
| with money would have a reason to oppose that. The main
| reason people oppose him is he is an ineffective,
| narcissistic leader who did his utmost to personally
| enrich himself, continue to fan the flames of division,
| and forcefully push through fiscal policy that was
| basically the opposite of what should have been
| implemented at the time. It was not all bad, but it is
| hard to find much good. The market does not like
| uncertainty, and a bombastic cult of personality ball of
| teenage angst is not who you want with the levers to the
| world's largest economy.
| [deleted]
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Billionaires are less oppressed in the US than China.
| gmerc wrote:
| bingo. The meta game in the US is to make enough money so
| you don't have any limitations. Money pays for everything
| as we see with Elon.
|
| What a dystopia China is where billionaires can't get
| away with paying a fee in a legal for a few world.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Don't get it twisted here.
|
| The billionaires in China aren't punished for doing
| illegal shit. They are punished for going against The
| Party.
|
| They probably get away with at least as much or more than
| US billionaires as long as they don't ever go against The
| Party.
|
| Don't get the impression they are being held accountable
| for other stuff that The Party doesn't care about.
| yafbum wrote:
| Any billionaire who thinks of themselves as indispensable
| to society and has a highly visible public presence. If
| Musk was behaving towards the CCP half as disrespectfully
| as he does towards the the US political caste, he'd have
| been stripped of his China holdings and locked out of
| that market long ago.
| thiagoharry wrote:
| No, the equivalent in US wouldnt be a capitalist
| billionaire. It would be its opposite: a popular group
| with marxist or communist ideals that menaces the status
| quo and current order. Like the Black Panther Party. And,
| oh, they were disappeared, some of them still are in
| solitary confinenent because the government is afraid
| that they could spread their ideology to other inmates.
| JohnFen wrote:
| But that sort of thing is just murder, not anything
| legally sanctioned by the patriot act. Don't get me
| wrong, I think the patriot act is a travesty, but it
| doesn't go quite _that_ far.
| simplotek wrote:
| > The US police are killing people all the time.
|
| Your comment sounds awfully disingenuous. I seriously
| doubt you do not see the huge difference between
| implementing official policies of extrajudicial
| imprisonments and having a random person murder people
| for their own personal reasons.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| there are several people that have been through gitmo
| that might disagree.
| simplotek wrote:
| What are you talking about? OP did not mentioned any
| example remotely involving Guantanamo bay. Are you trying
| to move the goalpost out of ignorance or cynicism?
| pphysch wrote:
| > Jack Ma was essentially on house arrest for over a year
| after flying a little too close to the sun with his IPO
| plans. Peng Shuai was on house arrest for denouncing
| sexual abuse by a CCP member.
|
| This is straight up misinformation. While both
| temporarily retreated from the public eye for obvious
| reasons, they were not under arrest.
| sva_ wrote:
| Could you let us in on your insider sources who know what
| happened to them during that time?
| pphysch wrote:
| There is no evidence, just speculation, that they were
| under arrest. They both said they were not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
| voakbasda wrote:
| There is sufficient evidence to believe that the CCP held
| a gun to their heads in order to coerce those statement.
| Quite possibly literally.
| pphysch wrote:
| "The CCP arrested an innocent woman, therefore the CCP is
| evil". This is logical, scientific reasoning. Conclusion
| fitted to the evidence.
|
| "The CCP is evil, therefore they arrested an innocent
| woman". This is faith, ideology. Evidence fitted to the
| conclusion.
|
| You are doing the latter.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I would be interested in seeing that if you happen to
| have it available.
| dpratt wrote:
| "They were both temporarily excluded from the public eye,
| but they were not arrested."
|
| Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > While both temporarily retreated from the public eye
|
| > They were both temporarily excluded from the public eye
|
| Retreated and excluded don't mean the same thing in this
| case.
| pphysch wrote:
| Deliberately misquoting to change meaning isn't cool.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You left out: This message was approved by China. Please
| do not harm my family.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I remember thinking about this recently and coming to the
| same conclusion[0]. If Jack Ma was supposedly disappeared
| and placed under arrest while also denying that he was
| ever placed under an official arrest then there's some
| background shenanigans going on by the CCP. Not to say
| that can't happen, just that it's not more likely than
| Jack Ma realizing that he poked a very vengeful bear[1]
| and deciding to lay low. Peng Shuai might be different (I
| haven't encountered information on that case recently
| that comes to mind) but it's fair to assume the same
| thing from her.
|
| Otherwise the CCP _did_ disappear at least one of them,
| which, admittedly, might happen if the appropriate
| decision-makers were willing to put such an operation
| into motion. That just doesn 't really seem so
| significantly more likely than people choosing to retreat
| from the spotlight.
|
| [0] Because I encountered this post:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35775826
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35424678
| gmerc wrote:
| What about generations of people medically experimented
| on and left with no recourse. We discussed that
| yafbum wrote:
| We're talking about the Patriot act... Not "everything
| that ever was wrong with the US"
| falcolas wrote:
| > Who has been "vanished"in the US?
|
| Ghassan al Sharbi
|
| David Matthew Hicks
|
| > The psychological, widespread chilling effects of these
| high profile "vanishings" has absolutely no commonality
| with the Patriot act
|
| The patriot act made it such that accused terrorists
| (including any taken to Guantanamo Bay regardless of
| their origins) have no legal rights under US law. So
| while you're technically correct, I'd disagree on
| principal.
| alpos wrote:
| Note that this does not apply to US citizens. US
| citizens, even those accused of terrorism, still retain
| their legal rights under US law. That is what citizenship
| in any country, is.
|
| Can those rights be violated? Yes, governments do bad
| things all the time. But that is not the same as a
| foreign national participating in Al-Qaeda training camps
| and meeting with Osama bin Laden. No nation on Earth has
| a strong history of giving full citizenship legal rights
| to foreign nationals and/or enemy combatants captured in
| a warzone.
|
| Hicks was also returned to Australia to be dealt with by
| his own government, where presumably he then did retain
| his legal rights as a citizen of Australia. And at that
| point it would indeed be a violation on part of Australia
| if they did not treat him as any citizen of their nation
| should be treated.
|
| All of that said, Guantanamo has still been a completely
| broken and messed up situation. We the people of the US
| owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to hold our
| government accountable for that and not allow it to
| happen again.
|
| It's just if you are wanting to say that the US treatment
| of it's citizens has been on par with China's treatment
| of it's citizens, your case may be better served by
| finding a more direct example.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Can those rights be violated? Yes, governments do bad
| things all the time. But that is not the same as a
| foreign national participating in Al-Qaeda training camps
| and meeting with Osama bin Laden. No nation on Earth has
| a strong history of giving full citizenship legal rights
| to foreign nationals and/or enemy combatants captured in
| a warzone.
|
| You're aware that the US actually kidnapped random people
| because they had the misfortune of using the wrong watch
| type or having the same name as an alleged terrorist,
| right? They didn't "capture enemy combatants in a
| warzone".
|
| > Note that this does not apply to US citizens. US
| citizens, even those accused of terrorism, still retain
| their legal rights under US law. That is what citizenship
| in any country, is.
|
| And also murdered US citizens abroad that were alleged to
| have ties to terrorists, without due trial.
| alpos wrote:
| The specific people referenced in the post I was
| responding to were not US citizens and should not be
| expected to be granted legal rights equal to US citizens.
|
| > Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 by
| the Afghan Northern Alliance
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks
|
| >He was captured in March 2002 by Pakistani forces during
| a raid at Faisalabad, Pakistan. He was held in Islamabad
| for two months before being turned over the United States
| forces.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghassan_al-Sharbi
|
| As I said, they were captured as enemy combatants, in a
| warzone. The circumstances of Sharbi's capture are much
| more questionable. But from the US's perspective, an ally
| turned him over as a captured enemy combatant.
|
| It's all questionable and stupid, of course. But the
| question of their status at the time is relevant to the
| question of whether the US "vanishes" it's own citizens.
| These two were not citizens, so what happened to them
| does not support the case that the US is just as bad as
| China on that point.
|
| No nation on Earth has a history of treating such
| captives as full citizens entitled to the same legal
| rights as it's own people. But maybe that's what we all
| would want. That's a fair point to argue, separately.
|
| However, that is not the point the person I was
| responding to was making. Which is part of why I say the
| examples they offered were ineffective as support for
| their point.
|
| You may find it helpful to practice re-reading and making
| sure you understand the case a post is making before
| responding to it.
|
| You and I clearly agree that what the US did in
| Guantanamo was bad. You and I also agree that the US can,
| has, and may yet still violate the rights of it's own
| citizens as well as the rights of people who are not it's
| citizens, even in situations where it has signed treaties
| with those people's nations. And the US government should
| definitely be held accountable whenever it does something
| like that.
|
| None of that changes the observation that the US's
| failure to give full citizen legal rights to Ghassan al
| Sharbi and David Matthew Hicks, people who were not US
| citizens, does not make a good supporting example to the
| case for the US being just as bad as China about
| "vanishing" it's own citizens.
|
| You are, of course, free to offer concrete examples which
| would better make that case. That is essentially what I
| was opening the door for. But here you seem to be
| responding more to an emotion evoked by how I said
| something rather than the point I was actually making.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| The majority of criminal cases in the USA result in a
| plea agreement. The majority of plea agreements take away
| a persons right to access to the Courts (taking away
| Constitutional protects. They claim that you CAN still
| access in certain constitutional situations but if you
| try both the lower court and Prosecutor will threaten you
| with revoking your plea if you pursue an appeal to higher
| courts. Source: that's how it went down in my situation).
| Plea agreements were unconstitutional for the majority of
| the existence of the USA but somehow later became
| constitutional (even though our system of law are
| required to respect precedence). While for appearance
| purposes some limited constitutional rights remain, for
| all practical purposes anyone convicted via plea has
| their constitutional rights to the courts removed. In
| addition, the Federal Court system only allows 14 days
| from sentencing to file an appeal. 14 days, including
| days being transferred from court to a Federal Detention
| Center to your final destination seems extremely
| unreasonable. Again, it was unlimited until recent
| history, but it was decided it needed to be 14 days for
| financial reasons (too many people were accessing their
| constitutional right to the court and clogging up the
| system).
| stickfigure wrote:
| > Ghassan al Sharbi
|
| _Captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March 2002, al-
| Sharbi was transferred to Guantanamo Bay later that year.
| In 2006, al-Sharbi told a military commission that he was
| a member of al-Qaeda and proud of his actions against the
| United States. Serious war crimes charges were dropped
| against him in October 2008, as it had been found they
| were based on evidence gained through torture of Abu
| Zubaydah. Al-Sharbi had a habeas corpus petition which
| his father had initiated on his behalf; when it reached
| the court in March 2009, al-Sharbi requested that it be
| dismissed. He did not want to pursue it.
|
| Al-Sharbi was held at Guantanamo for twenty years._
|
| The rest of his wikipedia page is not particularly
| flattering. I don't know to what extent the quasi-justice
| system that applies to enemy combatants went off the
| rails here, but I do know that if you're being accused of
| waging war against the United States, maybe chanting "May
| God help me fight the infidels or the unfaithful ones" is
| a bad idea.
|
| > David Matthew Hicks
|
| His story is way too complex to summarize here, but the
| Wikipedia page is fascinating:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks
|
| Say what you will, a lot of legal process (good and bad)
| was applied, and we're talking about a guy who sought out
| and attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He
| spent 5 years in Gitmo. This is not someone who
| challenged a political leader by calling him a funny
| name.
|
| The word "vanished" is a massive over-dramatization.
| gizmo wrote:
| How about Abdulrahman al-Awlaki?
|
| 16 year old American, vaporized by intentional US drone
| strike. For the crime of being the son of an alleged
| terrorist.
| lazide wrote:
| Not defending - but you know what happened to him.
|
| That's the opposite of vanished.
|
| Vanished would be things like
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights] where
| many of the victims were never recorded, and literally no
| one from their lives knows what happened to them - and
| many of the perpetrators have taken the memories to their
| graves, or never knew the victims names to begin with.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I thought from the quotes that you were trying to show
| someone who was held without trial for 20 years based on
| accusations extracted through torture at a black site as
| an example of something bad. Instead, you seem to be
| saying that he asked for it because he was rude. Real
| twist ending.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I'd say that comment goes a bit beyond rude. When you're
| being interrogated, even in US domestic criminal cases,
| the rule is "everything you say can and will be used
| against you". If you're suspected of giving material aid
| to the enemy in wartime, saying "I'm a member of al-
| Qaeda, I'm proud of my actions against the United States,
| may God help me fight the infidels" is the kind of thing
| that will get you convicted - of something.
|
| Did the guy deserve to spend 20 years in Gitmo? Maybe
| not. But if I look into my heart of hearts, I genuinely
| have a tough time feeling too much sympathy. The crazy
| guy off his meds who points a fake gun at police officers
| probably didn't deserve to get shot to death either, but
| that's just what happens.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > And you don't have to look too many years back in time to
| find concentration camps for specific ethnicities.
|
| Two things here.
|
| First, 1945 was a _long_ time ago.
|
| Second, the interment of Japanese-Americans was shameful.
| It was a concentration camp. It was _not_ intended to make
| them "un-Japanese" or to destroy their culture.
|
| What's happening to the Uighurs is different on both
| fronts. It's _right now_. And it 's not just "we'll round
| up these people and put them in a camp to keep them from
| maybe doing espionage for a country that we're currently at
| war with". It's "we're going to completely destroy their
| cultural identity". What China is doing meets the
| definition of genocide (even if they aren't killing people,
| they're killing their ability to be part of "a people").
| What the US did was shameful and was falling far short of
| our ideals as a nation, but it was short of genocide.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > What's happening to the Uighurs is different on both
| fronts. It's right now.
|
| No it's not, it's four or five years ago.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| >What China is doing meets the definition of genocide
| (even if they aren't killing people, they're killing
| their ability to be part of "a people").
|
| What China is doing meets the textbook definition of
| genocide precisely because they are purposefully
| restricting birthrates.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > And you don't have to look too many years back in time to
| find concentration camps for specific ethnicities.
|
| None of the perpetrators of that event are still alive, let
| alone in positions of power. Eighty qualifies as "too many
| years back".
| pessimizer wrote:
| My parents and grandparents lived under Jim Crow.
| ipaddr wrote:
| 80 years ago.. validating parent's post
| falcolas wrote:
| I doubt that Emiko Omori and her surviving contemporaries
| would agree with you.
|
| Emiko Omori is a survivor of the Poston internment camp
| in Arizona.
| stickfigure wrote:
| She's still alive because she was 4 at the time... you
| can't say the same about the perpetrators. There's nobody
| left to prosecute, they're all dead. Ancestral sin is not
| part of the justice system.
|
| Bad things done 80 years ago do not excuse bad things
| done by someone else today. We're not all entitled to a
| turn at mass murder or genocide. That's now how morality
| works.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > No, the US is not as bad as the CCP. But it has its own
| issues you can easily find yourself on the wrong side of
| based off your skin color or ethnicity.
|
| Or traditional religious and political views that do not
| agree with the failed doctrines of the regime [0].
|
| [0] https://catholicherald.co.uk/fbi-spied-on-american-
| catholics...
| lazyeye wrote:
| Ridiculous hyperbole.
| d0mine wrote:
| People were cancelled for much less in US
| dpratt wrote:
| I have very little to fear, on a personal level, from the
| CCP. They may or may not be collecting data on me, and I find
| that distasteful and somewhat scary, but they are not a
| direct threat to my personal liberty, safety or civil rights.
|
| The NSA, CIA and the US intelligence-industrial complex,
| however, is a direct and credible threat to me. Perhaps not
| today, and hopefully not tomorrow, but as history has shown
| us, governments change, sometimes wildly so, in a short
| period of time while still holding the trappings and lip-
| service of their predecessors. If you dismiss the concerns
| about warrantless data collection, tracking, active
| suppression of free discourse and political targeting of
| people who ideologically threaten those in power (no matter
| the political background), well, you just haven't been paying
| attention.
| ipaddr wrote:
| If you run a business, visit or know someone from China you
| will be targeted. If you try to publish an article against
| China and have a high profile your secrets will come out.
|
| But if you are nobody why worry about the NSA, FBI, etc
| they have better people to target
| drevil-v2 wrote:
| Jan 6 protesters might like to disagree. Canadian freedom
| convoy might disagree.
| mint2 wrote:
| "Protesters" aka Jan 6 rioters and insurrectionists
| attempting to overthrow democracy by invading the capital.
| alpos wrote:
| They may indeed like to disagree, as I'm sure anyone who
| has broken the law would and is entitled to. Hence the
| existence of a fair trial and the possibility of a "not
| guilty" plea along with the opportunity to present a
| defense before a jury.
|
| One could argue about the fairness of any trial or set of
| trials, of course, and we should definitely do that and
| work out what we the people think of those trials as well
| as what we want to see in a fair trial.
|
| However, if you are trying to say that what those people
| did was just a protest or just speech, you will need to
| address the actual crimes the people going to jail were
| charged with and convicted of. Otherwise, your argument
| there is not convincing at all.
|
| It's not just free speech when you destroy property, break
| into government buildings, assault cops and government
| employees, actually invade and interrupt a session of
| congress, trespass in government offices, and actually try
| to locate the vice-president with the loudly declared
| intent to hang him.
| zht wrote:
| Those are physical acts of violence?
| hn_throawlles wrote:
| > Thankfully, posting banned ideas or government critical
| stuff in the US doesn't involve being arrested by the police
| and being held for months or years.
|
| regretfully, being poor and in certain parts of the USA is
| sufficient to get sucked up by the system. no ideology
| necessary, just getting caught and loaning money for bail is
| enough to get swallowed by this beast.
|
| i suppose the CCP pays for these systems directly? whereas
| the American way has a distributed system of crony
| 'entrepreneurs' (shoddy lawyers, loan sharks, court
| bureaucrats and so on) all keeping this system of private
| jails and other 'services' and industries built around people
| 'breaking the law'
| anigbrowl wrote:
| While I don't think the US is on the same scale as the CCP, I
| also think you're being a little naive. Expressing the wrong
| ideas or misjudging the time/place to do so can _absolutely_
| land you behind bars.
| Convolutional wrote:
| > Thankfully, posting banned ideas or government critical
| stuff in the US doesn't involve being arrested by the police
| and being held for months or years.
|
| Let me think of groups of people in the US and if they have
| been treated like this - C language programmers...we'll there
| is Julian Assange.
|
| > no issues jailing people for speaking the wrong things,
| forcing it's citizens into reeducation camps, welding them
| locked into buildings
|
| China has more than four times the US population, yet the US
| incarcerates more people than China does. In that context it
| does not sound like much of a knock "China locks up less than
| a quarter of the people the US does!" Well - yes.
| alpos wrote:
| You are completely dodging the other poster's central
| point.
|
| The US locks up more people, but not for wrong-think.
| Instead our country does it for consuming the wrong plants
| at the wrong time, because our systems are still racist in
| various ways, and because we have somehow allowed prison to
| become a for-profit institution.
|
| Those are different problems and they need to be addressed.
| The war on drugs must end, policing culture and policies
| must be corrected, the US prison system must be corrected.
| Other options for dealing more effectively with various
| social and mental health problems must be instituted.
|
| And none of that is the same as what China is doing to
| their people, nor does it absolve China of the wrongs it
| has committed. And it doesn't take the edge off of it
| either. Going to China can still get you locked up for
| reasons you don't understand because you said the wrong
| thing one time and forgot you even said it.
|
| That actually is a more risky situation for most people
| than making sure they are not buying or carrying around the
| wrong plants. That is what comments such as the one you are
| responding to are actually worried about. It's not a raw
| numbers game for the individual, it's a question of "how
| easy is it for me or people I know to go to jail for what
| should be trivial actions?"
| yunohn wrote:
| > The US locks up more people, but not for wrong-think.
| Instead our country does it for consuming the wrong
| plants at the wrong time, because our systems are still
| racist in various ways, and because we have somehow
| allowed prison to become a for-profit institution.
|
| You completely ignored OP's example of Julian Assange, I
| guess?
| te234059494 wrote:
| There's a wide gap of a difference between "publishing
| something that is simply critical of the government" and
| "publishing classified / state communications", including
| massive information dumps of unredacted diplomatic
| cables.
|
| Put it this way, if you can name a country that would not
| react in the exact same manner to the actions that the US
| did to Assange's actions, please let me know. I certainly
| can't think of any.
|
| Wikileaks became very close to Russia in the end,
| anyways, not exactly a bastion of freedom and IMHO
| destroying any credibility Assange had. If Assange was on
| the "other side" and the classified stuff was from
| Russia, he'd probably have been "Novichoked" for what he
| did.
| yunohn wrote:
| [flagged]
| glogla wrote:
| [flagged]
| ericmcer wrote:
| Chinas drug laws are way harsher than US ones. Do their
| citizens not partake in drug use? It is actually a pretty
| interesting question, did the war on drugs work in China?
| They have harsh drug laws but do not have mass
| incarceration of drug users.
|
| "Nowadays, the penalties for being caught with cannabis
| are severe. Offenders run the risk of receiving the death
| penalty for being in possession of just five kilograms or
| more. Additionally, strict sentences are imposed;
| anything from five years imprisonment to a life
| sentence."
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't agree with the death penalty or cannabis
| prohibition, but 'just five kilograms' is about a 27 year
| supply for someone who smokes a couple of joints every
| day. It's not an amount you could have casually, you're
| definitely in it as a business.
| alpos wrote:
| Good questions, for another time perhaps.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> The US locks up more people, but not for wrong-think.
| Instead our country does it for consuming the wrong
| plants at the wrong time, because our systems are still
| racist in various ways, and because we have somehow
| allowed prison to become a for-profit institution._
|
| That's just the _casus belli_ for the arrest - the real
| motivation changes over time. Drug laws have been used to
| target and disrupt various groups from Latinos and
| African Americans to hippies and anti-war protestors.
| First it was about racism and Hearst 's economic
| interests, then about policing wrong think, then it was
| about the tough on crime wave, and now it's largely about
| protecting several lucrative industries.
| alpos wrote:
| I can go with the general feeling here, but to use that
| to put the US's behavior on par with China's,
| specifically with regard to each country's own citizens,
| that is definitely a point that would need some data to
| back it up. Data that is likely hard to get on both the
| US and China.
|
| It seems that line of argument would get much deeper into
| how, how fairly, and on which groups, the various
| countries have tended to apply their laws.
|
| For now I can fully grant that selective enforcement has
| and still does happen in the US. The legal system here
| definitely does leave that possibility open and
| prosecutors are elected officials, some of whom have
| provably gone after certain groups or individuals,
| hunting for a reason to put them in jail.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| US politicians have literally said that their drug laws
| were motivated to attack ethnic and cultural/political
| groups.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-
| rich...
|
| "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House
| after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black
| people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John
| Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April
| cover story published Tuesday.
|
| "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make
| it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by
| getting the public to associate the hippies with
| marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing
| both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,"
| Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid
| their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them
| night after night on the evening news. Did we know we
| were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
| dirtyid wrote:
| >how easy is it for me or people I know to go to jail for
| what should be trivial actions?
|
| Yes and PRC wrong think 99% of time gets you an invite to
| the police station to "drink tea" and sign a paperwork
| not to do it again. Maybe occasionally a write self
| criticism letter. Consequences are about as trivial as it
| gets. It generally takes enormous repeat and public
| offenses that gains popular traction to get
| administratively punished let alone end up in jail for
| the simple reason that PRC doesn't have mass networks of
| for profit prison that incentive internment. It takes
| extraordinary bad luck (i.e. % of become a trending
| author in particularly sensitive times) and to get
| punished / arrested for wrong think on the same level as
| Americans carrying the wrong plant, which is
| statistically a much riskier situation due to how US
| racial prosecution and internment system is incentivized.
| Ask PRC citizen how many people they know has been
| formally punished, even mildly, for wrong think vs
| Americans who know someone jailed for drug offense and
| the numbers will be revealing. In both raw numbers and
| ease of getting fucked over "trivial" offenses, PRC wrong
| think is much less riskier than US drugs. Which is not to
| say PRC wrong think wouldn't stack up poorly compared to
| other "liberal" countries, rather US internment is just
| that messed up.
| alpos wrote:
| >wrong think 99% of time gets you an invite to the police
| station to "drink tea" and sign a paperwork not to do it
| again. Maybe occasionally a write self criticism letter.
|
| That is good to know. And genuinely new information for
| me. Thank you for contributing it.
|
| And the details you offer do help calibrate something of
| an answer to the question you are responding to. Thank
| you also for being a great participant in that
| conversation!
|
| > Ask PRC citizen how many people they know has been
| formally punished, even mildly, for wrong think vs
| Americans who know someone jailed for drug offense and
| the numbers will be revealing.
|
| We should definitely like to have real data on that for
| both countries. It seems difficult to find though. In the
| mean time I take your seemingly first hand experience as
| insightful. Thanks again!
| lisper wrote:
| > the US incarcerates more people than China does
|
| Yes, but mostly because of race, not politics. (Not that
| that's any better, but the underlying dynamic really is
| different.)
| eternalban wrote:
| > the underlying dynamic really is different
|
| Is it? I believe every state, or its establishment, acts
| _forcefully_ to protect against what they consider
| potential existential threats.
|
| Given that the Western states and their establishment are
| atleast 2 centuries ahead of the curve of anyone else in
| terms of modern state apparatus, ideological basis (...),
| it is natural that we will observe distinct patterns of
| oppression and red lines. Most of the emerging powers are
| acutely sensitive to ideological challenges, challenges
| to the legitimacy of the establishment, precisely because
| they are the newly arrived and insecure in their
| position.
|
| Someone mentioned Julian Assange. Why did US and UK come
| down so hard on this guy? Because he represents an
| existential threat: he represents dissident factions in
| their intelligence communities (5 eyes) and that layer of
| the system is central to their maintenance of power and
| they will -not- tolerate any challenges in that area.
|
| So the equations defining the dynamic are identical. We
| just need to plug in the appropriate values for the
| equation's variables.
| lisper wrote:
| > Is it?
|
| Yes.
|
| > I believe every state, or its establishment, acts
| forcefully to protect against what they consider
| potential existential threats.
|
| Of course. But just because they all have this one
| feature in common does not mean that they do not have
| additional features that distinguish them.
| 0000011111 wrote:
| Right the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in
| the Age of Colorblindness is a good primer for this
| concept.
|
| https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChc
| SEw...
|
| Same with this wiki page
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United
| _St....
| ipaddr wrote:
| Where is the harvesting of organs chapter?
| gmerc wrote:
| Didn't we discuss medical experiments on people the other
| day? In the Us? Feeding women and babies radioactive
| substances?
| pessimizer wrote:
| _Black activists accused of sowing discord_
|
| https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2023/05/04/black-activists-
| ac...
|
| > Just because you advocate programs that are not aligned
| with or approved by the U.S. government, siding with anti-
| racist, anti-colonial forces should not make you a target of
| U.S. cointelpro actions, raids on the homes of citizens, and
| humiliating arrests.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Interesting slant, given developments like this[0].
|
| [0] https://catholicherald.co.uk/fbi-spied-on-american-
| catholics...
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Your example is about what exactly? Yes Russia intervenes
| and China does too, you expect it to not be acted upon?
|
| By the way in China as of this month saying something that
| is against national interest is punishable under espionage
| law. If they want they can jail you for using VPN to access
| something outside of great firewall.
| leereeves wrote:
| > indicted on April 18 for allegedly working on behalf of
| the Russian government and Russian Federal Security Service
| (FSB) to conduct a "malign influence campaign" designed to
| "sow discord" and "advance Russian propaganda."
| jonhohle wrote:
| *** Julian Assange has entered the chat
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Julian Assange is not a journalist
|
| https://apnews.com/article/52f4a2f42dba4f6b9afe026e57d51e96
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-
| ass...
| trackflak wrote:
| I'd be surprised if the state _didn 't_ utilise its
| network of media contacts to discredit him.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| So you're just going to assert, in drive-by fashion, that
| these journalists are government shills? Do you have any
| evidence that supports that claim? Do you say that about
| everyone that you disagree with?
| somenameforme wrote:
| It's kind of funny. At first I was going to say, what do
| you expect - a line on his CV 'worked as a medium for US
| propaganda'? But bizarrely enough, that's completely
| accurate. Michael Weiss is editor in chief at the
| 'Institute of Modern Russia.' It's part of Radio Free
| Europe [2], which is literally a propaganda outlet owned
| by the US government.
|
| But the reason I decided to look this up is something
| much more simple than these facts. That Atlantic article
| reeks of state propaganda, and if it's not sending your
| propaganda detector to 11, you really need to get it
| tuned a bit - especially in this day and age. More often
| than not, you're not going to be able to find a link on
| somebody's CV or Wiki or whatever directly tying them to
| state interests, but I mean this just isn't how "normal"
| people think, behave, or write. It's like he's
| _desperately_ trying to convince you of a position, by
| making you believe that thinking otherwise would be
| absurd. Note the stark similarities in style and rhetoric
| to something like this [3] piece from the NYtimes in the
| leadup to the Iraq War.
|
| [1] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Modern_Russia
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Rad
| io_Libert...
|
| [3] -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/irrefutable-
| and-u...
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| [flagged]
| uoaei wrote:
| [flagged]
| Miner49er wrote:
| Just because there's a couple of opinion pieces saying
| so, doesn't mean it's true.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I agree with the points they make and especially like
| _The Atlantic_ article. Do you disagree? Why?
| Miner49er wrote:
| The first article says he wasn't a journalist because he
| wasn't accountable to anyone, and that he didn't filter
| what he published. I think he just didn't have the hubris
| to think he knows better then others what information
| should or shouldn't be free.
|
| The 2nd article doesn't seem to claim he isn't a
| journalist at all. It even says "his own unique brand of
| journalism", which seems to be an acknowledgement that he
| is a journalist.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed,
| they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." - Julian
| Assange
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| I don't think it's at all fair for you to demand high-
| effort rebuttals while putting in no effort on your own.
| You're asking people to respond to thousands of words
| that you didn't write, and you're not even engaging with
| the content of a 100-word reply that you specifically
| asked for.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| My point is this is not something you'd hear a journalist
| say.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We don't license journalists in Western democracies (or
| Eastern ones, for that matter.) That's something that you
| see in places like Zimbabwe or Rwanda.
|
| I do understand that neocons see limitations on domestic
| civil liberties as an arms race that they're losing to
| China and Russia, but this version of the Missile Gap is
| still largely a myth meant to secure the continual state
| financing of military and intelligence contractors.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Not a state-sponsored and state-accredited propagandist,
| you mean?
|
| It might be fair to say that Julian Assange encompassed
| the roles of journalist, editor and publisher in the same
| person, which is perhaps not the optimal setup although
| it's more or less what everyone publishing their work on
| substack does - but that's not a justification of state
| persecution.
|
| It's undeniable that Wikileak's publication of the
| CableGate archive of State Department cables and the
| Vault7 archive of CIA hacking tool documentation was in
| the public interest. Some of the more important
| revelations include that the CIA has tools apparently
| designed for false-flag cyberattacks, that the State
| Department's claim to be concerned about human rights and
| democracy is not reflected in the content of their secret
| cables (which tend to focus on things like oil pipelines,
| arms deals, terrorist financing, economic deals,
| geopolitical maneuvering, etc.).
|
| You might not like it, but it is legitimate journalism as
| the word is commonly defined.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>posting banned ideas or government critical stuff in the US
| doesn't involve being arrested by the police and being held
| for months or years.
|
| I would not be so confident about that, at least until the US
| and other western countries wise up to the CCP's tactics,
| which may be starting. E.g., CCP is running overseas "police
| stations" to intimidate and harrass people oversead, and the
| US FBI finally just arrested two people doing so in New York
| City.
|
| >>TikTok spied on me. Why?
|
| Short answer, is that it, along with every other Chinese
| company, has no choice other than to bend to the will of the
| CCP. Plus, they have no ethical boundaries (other than
| crossing the CCP) in seeking absolute market position, and
| this journalist had done something to threaten that dominant
| position.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1170571626/fbi-
| arrests-2-on-c...
| thiagoharry wrote:
| The Black Panthers and victims of Mcarthism wiuld disagree.
| The current whistleblowers like Snowden also would disagree.
| jacooper wrote:
| And assange.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| For these exact reasons, I'm more comfortable with Xi
| Jinping's cronies spying on my every movement than my own
| government. The Chinese only do that stuff to their own
| citizens and I'm a zero-value target to them. US
| authorities may feel like being petty one day.
| kelipso wrote:
| Seriously. What happened to that whole philosophy that
| the founding fathers had about being wary of our own
| government and the tendency of governments to overreach
| to control its citizenry.
|
| That entire sentiment seem to have disappeared especially
| in the last few years in favor of China-Russia-terrorism-
| whatever new bs hysteria.
| w7 wrote:
| That's too simplistic of a line of thinking.
|
| They've:
|
| "fabricate evidence that the hosts of and participants in
| the meetings to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre
| were supporting terrorist organizations, inciting
| violence or distributing child pornography" [0]
|
| You mention only being concerned about US authorities,
| but have somehow failed to realize they can fabricate
| evidence and send it to US authorities in an attempt to
| reach you from across the pond.
|
| [0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/china-based-executive-
| us-tele...
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| You should do some more research about who China is
| willing to imprison for political purposes.
|
| It is absolutely not limited to Chinese citizens.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spav
| or_....
|
| China absolutely does not limit their abductions to their
| own citizens. If you're in China, you're fair game.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Were they apprehended via corporate spying? I wasn't aware
| of that.
| [deleted]
| simmerup wrote:
| The difference is the US is a country with checks and balances
| of power.
|
| In China when the CCP says jump however, there's no recourse
| falcolas wrote:
| > checks and balances of power
|
| Only in theory, when it comes to National Security Letters.
|
| If you can't prove the government spied on you specifically,
| you can't take them to court to get a check _or_ balance.
| [deleted]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It's important to note that NSLs are an exception rather
| than a rule, and one over which a freely elected body
| (Congress) has oversight.
|
| I'm not sure the same claim can be made about China.
| falcolas wrote:
| An exception used around 10,000 times per year as of
| 2005.
|
| And congress hasn't done anything to reign them in.
|
| And I'll freely admit that China is going to be worse,
| with less oversight. But not only is the comparison a
| fallacy, it's cold comfort for the rest of the world (not
| to mention many non-naturalized American citizens).
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Were they all Americans? How many warrants were served
| for comparison?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The NSA doesn't need an NSL to spy on non-Americans.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You should look that up.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| In the Feds, you have 14 days to appeal your sentence. That
| is not fair access to a check. That time includes transfer
| from the court to a Federal Detention Center (lots of holding
| cell time with no access to a law library), transfer from a
| Federal Detention Center to your final place of incarceration
| via diesel therapy, etc. The USA used to allow unlimited time
| for appeals but that was clogging up the courts, so a happy
| balance between 0 and unlimited time to exercise your rights
| to access to the courts was agreed to, which the American
| Federal justice system determined to be 14 days (fun fact,
| they actually originally tried for a shorter appeal period
| than 14 days).
|
| Edit: Sorry, 14 days for the defendant to appeal. The Feds
| team gets longer (because they have less resources than a
| locked up person I guess, some animals have more rights than
| others in American courts)
|
| https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-2-4000-time-appeal-or-
| petition...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The article seems less about China tracking journalists and more
| ByteDance employees tracking critics. So like the eBay stalking
| scandal, except less severe.
| [deleted]
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| If you hate tiktok, I get it --- I really do. But please just
| know that you're missing out on something wonderful, unique, and
| delightful; in fact, delightful in ways remarkably similar to the
| feeling that https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights gives you.
|
| There's a commonality between HN and TikTok that I haven't yet
| been able to put into words. They're both "bookish". You feel
| like you're exploring. Often times I'll swipe past 6 or 7 memes
| in about 3 seconds, when something incredible catches my
| attention. And it's often incredible in exactly the same way as
| HN: you feel like you've unearthed some fascinating gemstone.
| (And much like HN, it's designed for entertainment, so you can
| waste arbitrary amounts of time if you fall under its spell too
| long.)
|
| I wrote a comment at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34573893 showcasing the
| three lists I was particularly proud of: educational, physics,
| and math. But I have dozens more. There's guitar tutorials,
| handyman repairs, a collection of 18 videos teaching you how to
| tie all kinds of useful knots, art tutorials, cute animals,
| hardcore ML discussions, and everything in between. Someday I'll
| showcase them properly. (Theoretically you can view them on my
| TikTok profile, but I doubt it's presented well:
| https://www.tiktok.com/@theshawwn)
|
| Just know that if you stomp TikTok out of existence, it'll be a
| real loss. It'll feel to me like you'd feel if someone burned
| down HN. And the calls for banning TikTok sound to me how you'd
| feel if Reddit was urging everybody to ban HN.
|
| Now imagine that politicians are seriously considering whether to
| ban HN. That's how it feels to read through the comments here
| about TikTok. The outrage is deserved and understandable, but
| it'll be a real loss if it disappears.
|
| If this comment coaxes you into trying out TikTok, one tip: use
| the "not interested" button ruthlessly. (Long press on a video.)
| The algorithm will dial you in after around 45 minutes, which
| isn't so long. The first experience can feel jarring the same way
| that YouTube in incognito mode looks like a weird dystopian
| universe filled with people screaming at each other.
| thenayr wrote:
| [dead]
| drc500free wrote:
| I tried TikTok for a few hours.
|
| It became clear really quickly that they have completely
| disrupted instagram and snap. The UX is much more communal and
| interactive than either of those, the algorithm lands you on
| your interests faster, and they have massively reduced the
| friction around becoming a content creator rather than just a
| consumer - so there's simply more STUFF there. The videos are
| more ephemeral and imperfect than what you usually see on IG,
| and there's a lot more joy in what's being captured. It really
| is a step change in the ability to build communities around
| shared interests.
|
| Behind the scenes, it's a privacy nightmare and I understand
| the national security concerns that go with PRC tapping
| directly into the id of our electorate. I think PRC is much
| more skilled and subtle about online manipulation than Russia
| is. (I was working on media monitoring when social media became
| strangely fixated on trade deals for just long enough to get US
| involvement in TPP killed - a framework that was only
| significantly different from other trade deals in that it would
| sideline PRC. Once both candidates came out against it, popular
| concern over trade deal nuances disappeared and never returned)
|
| But the hysteria is driven just as much by SV tech knowing that
| they've been lapped and finding common ground with congress for
| purely anti-competitive reasons, as it is by the government
| trying to thread the needle between free speech and ceding
| ground to adversary information ops.
| schimmy_changa wrote:
| > The videos are more ephemeral and imperfect than what you
| usually see on IG, and there's a lot more joy in what's being
| captured. It really is a step change in the ability to build
| communities around shared interests.
|
| ... so far. But with any technology it seems that, once the
| attention goes towards something, money and polish and
| 'Moloch' take over and the magic of amateurs and the joy of
| discovery are lessened. Perhaps TikTok will be different,
| however! It's not inevitable, but just a trend I've noticed.
| drc500free wrote:
| Definitely been a trend that professional content creation
| outperforms once the pros figure out how to game the
| algorithm. TikTok seems pretty resistant, both culturally
| and technologically. The shelf life of any one piece of
| content is so short that it might not be economical to
| invest too much in it. Instead you get a lot of fake
| amateur content, which is at least amusing.
| elijaht wrote:
| To be fair TikTok has been in the mainstream for a couple
| of years (if not more), and still gives that feeling. A lot
| around that seems to be due to the algorithm doing a better
| job of sharing non-high profile accounts (seeding videos
| with a few hundred views, even if the account is new).
|
| The polish/money/influencers are there, but seems to
| coexist/not take over better.
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| I'm good, thanks.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| No. Comparing TikTok to HN is flatly wrong.
| icepat wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I remember reading sillysaurusx comments years way back
| before chatgpt and I reckon it is not the kind of person who
| would get into undermining the community by posting generated
| comments :shrug:
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't think ChatGPT is able to create links like that, such
| as to someone's own profile on another site.
|
| It doesn't read as ChatGPT at all, I took a look at his
| profile and that quote was clearly referring to his profile
| text only.
|
| I'm honestly getting sick of people here claiming a comment
| is ChatGPT spam when it's just a viewpoint they disagree with
| or something.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| (I'm just delighted my profile is working exactly as
| intended. Hopefully my tombstone will engrave something
| that makes people question whether I was a real person.)
| icepat wrote:
| To me this reads as ChatGPT, then edited. They're pretty
| similar in my eyes.
| Kiro wrote:
| [flagged]
| zaphar wrote:
| I don't hate tiktok. I don't hate it's business model or the
| product, per se. I just don't trust any company with strong
| ties to China and the CCP. When a company has those ties it
| changes from a question of whether you trust the company to
| whether you trust the CCP. And I most emphatically do _not_
| trust the CCP. The intentions and desires of the people running
| the company are irrelevant. The CCP has absolutely no problems
| violating those intentions or desires. There is no world where
| you can live in relationship to the CCP and not have your
| reputation permanently entangled with theirs.
|
| If HN was controlled by the CCP I would have the exact same
| concerns and wouldn't be using the platform. The CCP doesn't
| care how useful, delightful, unique, or wonderful your product
| is. They only care about whether they can leverage it usefully
| in some way.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Even if you think HN and Tiktok are similar in content, your
| point here totally glosses over that one is a small community
| of people working on startups and is not monetized and does not
| employ a variety of psychological tools to keep you engaged (it
| actually has anti-engagement features!) and the other is an
| enormous, psychologically abusive, basically state-affiliated
| monetization machine that also collects a shit ton of data on a
| much larger group of people!
|
| Like I get it, you like TikTok, but don't pretend that the
| quality of the content is the thing under discussion here. That
| is a really weird thing to do.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Hehe.
|
| I was on HN when it was around 50 users total. That was day
| two, just after pg made it public. That was small, and yo8
| felt like you knew everyone.
|
| That feeling lasted for a couple years. But inevitably it
| went away. I didn't mean the "hehe" against you, but rather a
| "I wish HN was small." It was a magical era.
|
| Believe it or not, you are precisely as hypnotized by HN as
| you feel I am about TikTok. They're both wonderfully
| entertaining titans.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Again, _extremely_ weird rhetoric. Even at its current
| size, Hackernews is orders of magnitude smaller and
| radically different economically, socially and politically.
| It is absolutely bizarre to compare the two in terms of
| content in the context of a discussion explicitly about
| TikTok 's relationship with political and economic forces.
| t-writescode wrote:
| > Hackernews is orders of magnitude smaller and radically
| different economically, socially and politically.
|
| This presupposes and operates as though TikTok isn't an
| enormous collection of tiny niches. Many parts of TikTok
| are exactly like tiny subreddits where everyone or most
| people know each other.
|
| Equally, some places on TikTok have a _whole lot_ of
| people, like the front page of Reddit.
|
| HN is somewhere larger than small reddit and smaller than
| big reddit.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| So what? What's wrong with being a little weird, eh? All
| the best people are weirdos.
|
| If the idea that there are similarities is so
| unbelievable to you, then so be it. It says a lot more
| about you than about the comparison.
|
| Ah, there I go, letting the angry replies drag down my
| quality. Let's see, what would pg say...
|
| It may feel surprising that there could be similarities.
| But it's not as unlikely as you might think. It does
| however require an open mind, and a willingness to set
| aside the anger.
|
| If you're determined to hate it, no words will change
| your mind.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I mean weird as a polite way of saying apparently
| disingenuous. Your comments seem designed to deflect and
| divert the discussion away from its most salient points
| and into an arena which discussion is pointless (anyone
| can like any content they like, after all, no one could
| possibly dispute your interest in TikTok or that other
| people might find it interesting too). I feel relatively
| confident in suggesting that the issues the article
| points out are rather more important or at least
| important enough to warrant actual discussion.
|
| I'm not angry about anything, nor do I dispute your
| thesis that from a content point of view there may be
| similarities. I just raise the question of how that
| contributes to a genuinely useful discussion about the
| sociopolitical implications of the app.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Ah, I see where we're talking past one another. Yes,
| you're right. My goal was to explicitly set aside the
| sociopolitical implications. Why?
|
| Because there's never any opportunity to talk about
| anything else on HN. One hundred percent of the time,
| it's a big discussion about the political implications of
| TikTok. The only time it shows up here is when it's done
| something newsworthy, and people are (rightly) upset or
| scared about it.
|
| The missing context here is that top level comments
| aren't required to be "on topic" in the sense you're
| saying. Quite the opposite; as dang says, HN is
| consistently contrarian.
|
| All I can say is that I'm never contrarian for the sake
| of being contrarian. That'd be lame, as well as boring.
| I've been a TikTok user for over three years now. This is
| simply a glimpse into that world -- or at least, my poor
| attempt at giving one.
| haswell wrote:
| > _My goal was to explicitly set aside the sociopolitical
| implications. Why? ... Because there's never any
| opportunity to talk about anything else on HN. One
| hundred percent of the time, it's a big discussion about
| the political implications of TikTok._
|
| I'd argue that "setting aside" the implications is a form
| of wishful thinking.
|
| Everything you pointed out can be pointed out without
| discarding the implications or implying that having a
| stance regarding the risks is somehow equivalent to
| wishing HN would be banned.
|
| TikTok is primarily an interesting topic here _because_
| of those implications and because many folks are quite
| willing to pretend the problem doesn't exist as long as
| they get their dopamine hit.
|
| But it is completely compatible with this reality to
| point out that the content can be joyful to experience,
| while acknowledging that the context of that experience
| is a serious issue.
|
| And if TikTok is banned, people won't stop creating the
| kinds of content found there. It'll just move to the next
| big thing.
| haswell wrote:
| I hold no hatred for TikTok, but I don't get your
| argument at all.
|
| You're comparing TikTok and HN in terms of entertainment
| value.
|
| Parent comment is highlighting that there are more
| factors to consider if you want to seriously compare the
| two.
|
| Wanting TikTok gone is _not_ like wanting HN gone, unless
| you believe that the only thing that matters about TikTok
| is its entertainment value.
|
| The entertainment value is what makes it a valuable
| strategic asset to the PRC. But judging it only on that
| entertainment value is the kind of logic that leads to
| acceptance of bills like the EARN IT act.
|
| The underlying details matter, not just the entertainment
| value or supposed safety claims.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Welcome original HN crue. What was life like back then?
| Were the discussions like compared to today?
|
| We've all had that feeling where we start off in a smaller
| group and as the place gets more popular you lose that
| original feeling. Not sure if HN today is comparable to
| Tiktok for many reasons: because this site hasn't really
| changed technology wise, controlled by another government
| superpower.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't use TikTok but I don't know why this is being
| downvoted. It seems reasonable to hear from people in order to
| understand the reason an app is popular.
|
| There is nothing downvote-worthy about this comment. I really
| appreciated reading this perspective, since pretty much all I
| ever hear are the reasons TikTok is bad.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's being downvoted because it has no place in a discussion
| around TikTok surveilling journalists and people that give
| negative PR to the company. Extolling the virtues of TikTok
| in a thread like this is like saying 'Well, Nestle's
| chocolate is actually delicious don't you think?' in a
| discussion around Nestle using slave and child labour to
| create their chocolate products.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I was surprised too. But incendiary topics are often that
| way. All one can do is to try to be substantive and hope for
| the best.
|
| Thank you for sticking up for me, but remember: our goal here
| is to write comments interesting to read. As much as I
| appreciate it, complaints about downvotes never do any good.
| They just stoke the fire.
|
| Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are. Cheers.
| jldugger wrote:
| The framing was not great. "If you hate tik tok, just know
| that it has only wonderful qualities that are impossible to
| hate." You might as well be arguing that nobody should hate
| chocolate ice cream.
|
| ---
|
| If you hate chocolate ice cream, I get you. Just know that
| chocolate ice cream is one of the most popular ice cream
| flavors in the world, and for good reason. It's creamy,
| delicious, and versatile. But why is chocolate ice cream so
| good?
|
| Here are a few reasons:
|
| - Chocolate is a natural mood enhancer. Chocolate contains a
| compound called phenylethylamine, which is a stimulant that
| can boost your mood and make you feel happy.
|
| - Chocolate is a source of antioxidants. Antioxidants are
| substances that help protect your cells from damage. Dark
| chocolate is a particularly good source of antioxidants.
|
| - Chocolate is a source of calcium. Calcium is an important
| mineral for strong bones and teeth.
|
| - Chocolate is a source of protein. Protein is essential for
| building and repairing tissues.
|
| - Chocolate is a source of fiber. Fiber is important for
| digestive health.
|
| In addition to all of these health benefits, chocolate ice
| cream is simply delicious. It's the perfect treat to enjoy on
| a hot day or to satisfy a sweet tooth. So next time you're in
| the mood for something sweet, reach for a bowl of chocolate
| ice cream. You won't be disappointed.
|
| So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy a tub of
| chocolate ice cream today!
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| The fact that people feel TikTok is a bucket of chocolate
| ice cream was precisely why I spoke up. It's a label that
| feels as out of place as calling HN a basket of Twinkies.
|
| There's a grain of truth to it. Both are addictive. HN does
| it so well that the psychological aspects are almost
| invisible, but they're there. That karma counter in the
| upper right is suspiciously impossible to ignore.
|
| Does that erase HN's merits? I don't think so.
| jldugger wrote:
| > Both are addictive.
|
| If this is your takeaway then I picked the wrong
| metaphor. My intent was highlight that people have
| baseline preferences, but the post engages in arguing
| that their tastes are somehow _logically wrong_. I
| thought chocolate ice cream would be the least
| objectionable taste but I guess leave it to HN to find a
| way =)
| stale2002 wrote:
| TikTok isn't actually going to be banned.
|
| What is going to happen, is that even if a ban goes through,
| they will end up just selling the US/international app to a US
| company, then that company will be completely separated from
| bytedance.
|
| This almost happened during the Trump administration.
|
| And this would be a positive result. We get to keep TikTok, and
| all it's "benefits", while the national security concerns are
| solved because it would be US owned, and no longer beholden to
| a foreign adversary.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Sounds terrible, swiping through memes rapid fire until I find
| something that hooks me is textbook addictive behavior and I
| know it will lead me to have poor focus and anxiety in other
| parts of life.
|
| The videos where you "learn" something are extra insidious
| because they convince you that it is a positive use of your
| time. The reality is you will forget 90% of it, it is formatted
| to be entertaining and not educational, and many are outright
| BS.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| And yet, you swipe through 30 HN stories a day. The insidious
| part is that you think it's a positive use of your time, or
| that you learn anything. You'll forget most of it, and
| ultimately it's just entertainment.
|
| If you're quick to point out all the reasons I'm mistaken,
| well... take all of those reasons, put them in a paint bucket
| labeled "tiktok", and give it a stir till you can't see the
| difference. Because as a three year TikTok user, I can't.
|
| We're all addicts. It's a matter of choosing your addictions
| wisely, and not letting their downsides outweigh their
| merits. Discipline tends to be the cure, though that never
| works for me; the only way out is to find a fascinating
| problem to go work on.
|
| Make no mistake: the average TikTok viewer is a lot closer to
| the average HN reader in terms of addictive behaviors than
| we'd care to admit. All of the reasons you keep coming back
| are addictions in disguise. And if this argument sounds out
| of place, there's a way out: it's fine to be addicted to
| learning new things.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I refuse to believe you can't tell the difference between
| TikTok and HN. Just take your argument all the way and say
| that reading a book is the same thing as using TikTok.
|
| Hard Disagree.
| rwalle wrote:
| "you swipe through 30 HN stories a day"
|
| I don't know who does that. I look at titles and decide
| which ones I want to look at. With tiktok, you don't know
| what's coming next, and normally it takes you at least one
| or two seconds to know if it's a video you want to watch.
| Also TikTok content is personalized and there is no end
| blah blah. It's designed to make you addicted.
|
| By the way I have read a lot of interesting/helpful
| articles on HN, many of which are not easy read. Many
| people would agree with me. Also I have read a lot of
| articles with a critical eye and left critical comments
| (like this one), never did that on TikTok.
|
| These are just some basic rebukes of your comment. I can go
| on and on. I think the difference between TikTok and HN is
| very clear. Not saying TikTok is better than HN, they are
| different products, but it's very disingenuous to draw
| parallels between them.
| _jcrossley wrote:
| Call me crazy, but I'd love to see Apple acquire ByteDance.
| They're the only company that I feel the public trusts with
| privacy, have the same level of cachet, operate globally, and
| don't have a social media arm.
| rvz wrote:
| Because like Facebook, it can do that, just because.
|
| It is no better than Facebook and is in fact worse. Given the
| history of what TikTok has done and also has admitted to
| violating the privacy of its users [0] [1] [2] [3] in leaks and
| recordings, it needs to be fined for repeated offenses in the
| billions of dollars just like Facebook was once fined at.
|
| Billion dollar fines for repeated offenses is much better than a
| outright ban and the regulators are never tired of collecting
| money from multi-billion dollar companies.
|
| [0]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
|
| [1] https://edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2021/dutch-dpa-
| tik...
|
| [2] https://www.scmagazine.com/news/privacy/uk-
| tiktok-16m-fine-c...
|
| [3] https://fortune.com/2022/12/22/tiktok-data-privacy-
| blunder-c...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Spying is collecting information for the government. TikTok
| works for the Chinese Communist Government.
| glanzwulf wrote:
| It is collecting information but it's not specifically for a
| government. Facebook and Google also spy on their users.
| Should we ban them too?
| miroljub wrote:
| Yes.
| falcolas wrote:
| To be even more explicit, Facebook and Google collect info
| which the US government can and does request from them.
| See: Transparency Reports from both.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Collecting data and complying with a warrant is not the
| same thing.
| blackoil wrote:
| With secret warrants and secret courts, they can be same
| thing.
| falcolas wrote:
| You're right. But every social media and advertising
| company _do both_ , regardless.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| American companies work for the american government,
| knowingly or otherwise. It has back doors, front doors, and
| side windows into them.
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| inconceivable wrote:
| ... so just ban it already. this is getting tiring as we're in
| the 3rd or 4th year of this nonsense.
| miroljub wrote:
| If you ban all spy apps, the app store would be empty. Heck, as
| soon as you see the first add in an app, you should know you
| have been spied on.
| dublinben wrote:
| It wouldn't be empty, it would look like F-Droid, which has
| thousands of user-respecting apps.
|
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/
| duxup wrote:
| I'd argue you just ban apps from countries who wouldn't allow
| such an app in their region. US social media apps are not
| allowed in China... seems fair to do the same just on that
| basis.
| Entinel wrote:
| They don't want to ban it. They want to be pass an Orwellian
| surveillance bill and Tiktok is being used as a boogeyman.
| calcheng wrote:
| Who is "they"?
| Entinel wrote:
| https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s686/cosponsors
| along with I assume intelligence organizations.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| In lieu, they'll take TikTok's subservience in giving them
| access to the data, as with all the other social media
| companies. It's the one reason I think my data is SAFER in
| TikTok than in Facebook. If the NSA had a backdoor into it
| like all the others, they wouldn't care.
| gmerc wrote:
| Facebooks security teams did the same, as did Uber. Paypal went
| as far as sending critics dead animals
| duxup wrote:
| I think journalists at this point would be wise to maintain
| separate devices for journalistic work / journalistic
| communication, personal life, and research.
|
| That's a pain but I think inevitable:
|
| >On a practical level, my old device was relegated to being a
| dummy phone only to be used for accessing TikTok for work.
|
| Who knows what other apps on their other device are up to...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I think journalists at this point would be wise to maintain
| separate devices for journalistic work / journalistic
| communication, personal life, and research._
|
| When I was a journalist back in the early part of this century,
| the company I worked for issued burner phones and laptops to
| anyone who left the country.
|
| 20 years later, it's probably become standard across the
| industry, and in more scenarios.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think journalists at this point should seriously consider
| living in a different country than they report on, working as
| anonymously as possible, and utilizing a network of unnamed
| sources. Aggressive states aren't going to be deterred by your
| amateur opsec. Your best chance to keep working is not to be
| noticed as an individual.
| duxup wrote:
| I think that would make it difficult to cultivate
| relationships and result in more problems.
|
| Doesn't seem necessary as far as "more free" countries go,
| but maybe necessary at some times.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| We barely get adequate perspective when people live in the
| country, I can't imagine trying to read some reporter talk
| about what's going on in Arizona as they write from
| Argentina.
| archgoon wrote:
| [dead]
| falcolas wrote:
| > Who knows what other apps on their other device are up to...
|
| Probably the same things. That data's worth a lot of money for
| advertisers, both corporate and political.
| duxup wrote:
| I doubt it. This was a pretty specific case of targeting a
| specific individual.
|
| I doubt all the other apps care.
| falcolas wrote:
| Right, we've never heard any news of employees of other
| social media apps targeting exes, reporters, or
| celebrities.
|
| /s
|
| We totally have.
|
| EDIT: I worked for Amazon in customer service back in the
| early naughts. They had an explicit alert set up for most
| celebrities that would basically get a CS rep fired if they
| went in and snooped. It was put in place because people
| went in and snooped.
|
| 20 years later, and more information about our lives is
| entrusted to these sites. It's absolutely happening at all
| of these companies. If it isn't happening, it's because of
| new policies and procedures resulting from prior incidents.
| bombcar wrote:
| If I were a TLA for any country of any magnitude (talking
| something larger than the Vatican) I'd have a number of
| agents working as CS reps for the various big companies.
| It'd be worth burning one to get info, and you'd likely
| not even need to burn if the target wasn't on the short
| list of celebrities.
| falcolas wrote:
| High rewards vs. risk, to be sure. And it's not as if CS
| reps are not in demand, so any "burned" asset could
| easily be re-used. It's not as if their reason for being
| fired would be communicated anywhere.
| duxup wrote:
| I doubt all their other apps are doing that. That was
| what I was responding too.
|
| Targeted spying on a specific journalist /= general data
| collection. There's an important difference.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I think that's good advice for everyone. I tell new hires we
| own your phone when you add any of our accounts to it and
| recommend using work devices for anything work related if
| privacy means anything to them. Some listen, some listen later
| when they get wiped because they clicked a phishing email and
| IR has decided a purging fire is necessary.
| helij wrote:
| How does adding Slack and Outlook for example makes a company
| own your phone?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It doesn't literally, but many companies have policies that
| use of comopany accounts on devices is consent to physical
| inspection of the device, data on the device, and other
| things as determined necessary by the compnay for legal,
| security, compliance, or other reasons, making ownership a
| useful cautionary metaphor.
| m463 wrote:
| Used to be when leaving a company (voluntarily or not) if
| you had some company apps on your (personal) phone they
| could wipe the device.
|
| I personally don't think people should put work apps on
| their personal phone ever.
| helij wrote:
| I am finding it hard understanding how this can be done
| if you have work email and Slack apps installed on your
| phone.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I'm surprised they don't do this already. It's pretty basic
| opsec.
| duxup wrote:
| >I'm surprised they don't do this already.
|
| Maybe some true professionals but I'm doubtful most serious
| journalists really put much effort into it.
|
| Here we have an example of a journalist who thankfully
| learned ... but didn't really know.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The real kernel is that the FT at least has someone on
| their cyber security team who was able to recommend and
| implement the change.
|
| Journalists shouldn't have to be cyberopsec experts.
|
| Journalists absolutely should have access to such
| expertise.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| > Journalists shouldn't have to be cyberopsec experts
|
| They had better be at proficient in regular opsec if
| handling sensitive sources, and opsec includes cyber
| these days no?
| duxup wrote:
| >Journalists shouldn't have to be cyberopsec experts.
|
| I don't know about experts, but I don't think they can
| afford to think they can just install any old app... open
| emails, etc.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Defining "any old app" is a pretty nuanced decision
| nowadays.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > Journalists shouldn't have to be cyberopsec experts.
|
| I disagree. Especially if they are covering geopolitical
| or highly monetised industrial topics.
|
| They are basically spies working for the public. Spycraft
| shouldn't be optional for them.
|
| Sure, a journalist covering celeb fluff doesn't need it,
| but one covering China, Russia, big pharma etc are
| automatically a target. This article is an excellent
| example.
| userforcomment wrote:
| I was surprised that when you share a TikTok video on
| whatsapp/anywhere, it generates unique URL link that can be
| traces back to your account. This company definitely has "we need
| more data" culture.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Two things: 1. you can get around that by using
| the actual TikTok link on the website, not the app
| 2. It's by design. People who know each other probably like
| similar things, so it facilitates in the surprisingly
| effective, accurate and narrow niches that people can
| find themselves in.
| Taurenking wrote:
| Instagram, Twitter and probably a lot of other companies do the
| same. They need to be able to track links on dark socials
| johnea wrote:
| Because, they can...
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| TikTok (and Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp (if they are really
| spying on our private WhatsApp conversations) knows I (my IP
| addresses/my device identifiers/my browser fingerprints) like
| memes.
|
| I don't get the big deal?
|
| They know my age and where I live, which is public information
| via sites indexed by Google for a large percentage of the
| population.
|
| My phone knows where I go due to GPS + cell phone towers. This is
| published via a "location service" to every app asking for it
| (and given permission) on my phone.
|
| Apple knows what I like because they run the operating system for
| both my phone and my laptop. Do they have some form of telemetry?
| Probably.
|
| Google knows what I like because I use their browser and they run
| my Gmail/other services I use from them. Do they have some form
| of telemetry? Probably.
|
| How is this a TikTok problem?
| duxup wrote:
| Generally speaking: How is it not all those companies problems
| ... including TikTok?
|
| Are you just trying to hand wave for TikTok here?
|
| As for the article, the situation in the article is very
| specific to that person.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > The story claimed ByteDance employees accessed two
| reporters' data through their TikTok accounts. Personal
| information, including their physical locations, had been
| used as part of an attempt to find the writers' sources,
| after a series of damaging stories about ByteDance
|
| They got her location. What else?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I know tiktok is spying on me too, I'm pretty sure at this point
| they know I love cat memes.
| petee wrote:
| Title is "TikTok spied on me. Why?", though it was originally
| posted this way, the replacement title isn't better
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| zodo123 wrote:
| It seems odd to me that short of the nuclear option (removing the
| app from stores), no one has suggested revocation of the device
| permissions that TikTok is shown to abuse. Following something
| like this, it feels entirely reasonable for Apple/Google to reply
| "Submit an update to your app that removes all use of location
| permissions within 30 days."
| nicce wrote:
| The reason is purely political.
|
| U.S. could create privacy laws which were equal to every
| company but there is no will.
|
| Comply with laws or get banned, applying every company.
| [deleted]
| briffle wrote:
| agreed, look at the top comment thread, its full of political
| discussions about why its okay for one country to do
| something but not the other...
|
| The real solution is that we should all have privacy. Encoded
| in law, with serious penalties. and that no country should be
| able to do what is described.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| How long do you think such a sweeping privacy law would
| take to plan, write, and pass? Do you think they'd get it
| right? What might the fallout of such a law be?
| nicce wrote:
| It will take couple years, but many global companies have
| already faced that with Europe's GDPR legislation. Only
| problem with GDPR is, that fines seems to be too low.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Not banned, but sued out of existence (not a meaningless
| $100m fine). Breaking app store policy gets you banned;
| breaking US law gets you eliminated.
|
| edit: for US companies, at least
| 1-6 wrote:
| It takes a spy to know a spy.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-05 23:01 UTC)