[HN Gopher] New York City bans TikTok for government employees
___________________________________________________________________
New York City bans TikTok for government employees
Author : mikece
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-08-16 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| cj wrote:
| Honestly, it wouldn't be a terrible move to ban all social media
| apps (or other apps that track movement or activity) from
| government phones.
|
| I'm surprised government-owned devices are allowed any non-
| essential apps at all.
|
| E.g. the story about government / military facilities being
| exposed via army using Strava to track running routes
| (effectively creating a map of the facility)
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same, I used to work for a large aerospace company and I wasn't
| allowed to install anything that wasn't approved and it had to
| be work related in an obvious way. I was surprised it even had
| a browser.
| hedora wrote:
| If you ban too much stuff, people will just carry a second
| device. (The strava thing could have or maybe did happen that
| way).
|
| Regardless, as an employee, putting social media on your
| subpoena-able and hopefully defeatured work device is a bad
| idea.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> If you ban too much stuff, people will just carry a second
| device.
|
| Good! People are free to purchase a personal phone and do
| whatever they want on their personal device.
| TylerE wrote:
| Not good if the 2nd device is always carried, and exposes
| tons of stuff the first doesn't.
| randallsquared wrote:
| That's a problem that has to be solved for separately
| anyway, so driving your employees to have personal
| devices for personal activities doesn't make it
| materially worse.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| > Not good if the 2nd device is always carried, and
| exposes tons of stuff the first doesn't.
|
| There are three concerns here:
|
| Concern 1: Government employees being paid to do work,
| but instead spending time on TikTok. -- yes, a 2nd device
| makes this worse, but certainly banning government
| devices are a necessary (though not sufficient) step
| here.
|
| Concern 2: Confidential government data obtained by apps
| with broad permissions -- solved by moving TikTok off
| government device and onto personal device, as the
| personal device shouldnt have government data on it
| (e.g., tax records, health records, personal records of
| citizens)
|
| Concern 3: ALL data exposed to foreign governments via
| TikTok and other apps - still, banning government devices
| are a necessary (though not sufficient) step here. NYC
| doesnt have jurisdiction over all citizen behaviors, and
| this needs to be decided federally realistically.
|
| Now, if the 2nd decide is a government device also, then
| no problem! TikTok is already banned on the 2nd device
| also. As will be for the 3rd and 4th government device.
|
| If the 2nd device is a personal device with government
| documents, you have a much different problem of why that
| is the case.
| TylerE wrote:
| Consider how handy it would be for a foreign intelligence
| service to know where 75% of cities law enforcement
| agents are in essentially real time. That's the sort of
| vector I'm thinking about.
| gowld wrote:
| It's a fun spy-movie idea, but none of our foreign
| enemies are robbing banks and such.
| TylerE wrote:
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-
| illega...
| pugworthy wrote:
| The Strava example isn't the best, but point well taken.
|
| This is more like people with fitbits or other activity
| tracking devices, not their government-provided devices. I mean
| the only way to make it not show up is to ban ALL devices
| (personal and otherwise).
| elicash wrote:
| I agree with you.
|
| However, one thought I had is that you want to make sure
| government business happens on government phones, and maybe
| people are less likely to do that if they habitually using
| their personal phones during the work day? I'm not saying that
| was the calculation, just thinking this through.
| cj wrote:
| Yea, the ban would be ineffective if it resulted in gov
| employees simply carrying 2 phones everywhere, 1 tightly
| restricted and 1 unrestricted.
|
| Probably better to have 1 phone that's semi-restricted.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| No sandbox is ever going to be truly secure. An enemy
| nation's app on a work phone with access to sensitive,
| maybe even classified data? No no no.
| unsignedint wrote:
| MDM can be set up to allow access to government resources
| solely through employer-owned devices, reducing the utility
| of personal phones for work tasks. If employees intentionally
| bypass this, they may warrant disciplinary actions, just like
| any other breach of workplace policies.
| adolph wrote:
| It seems like once a government employee attains a certain
| rank they create a set of alt email and social accounts to
| conduct off the record business, so two phones is required.
|
| Maybe phones should have a hypervisor and multiple VMs (or
| VPs?) to support this without having to cart around
| additional hardware.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Not all that many government employees even have government-
| issued devices. Almost no one in the military does. The Strava
| thing was from letting people run around with it on their
| personal devices that they happened to use on military
| facilities. Typically, this kind of usage is forbidden, but
| it's kind of playing whack-a-mole to even know what apps are
| out there tracking and mapping location in the first place
| without simply banning military personnel from having smart
| phones at all, at least on site, which is exactly what happens
| at sufficiently sensitive facilities. I actually recall a
| reminder going out that no augmented reality or mapping
| applications were allowed on company property when Pokemon Go
| first came out and I was working for Raytheon, though even that
| only applied to the parking lots and lobbies as you couldn't
| bring a phone into the actual workspaces anyway.
|
| For what it's worth, as far as I recall from when I was in the
| military, which is getting to be a while ago but at least
| Facebook existed, social media apps were definitely not allowed
| on government-issued mobile devices. Unit PR offices did
| maintain Facebook pages, but those were updated from PCs using
| the web interface, not via app. I guess it's a small
| consideration, but something to consider for companies that
| decide to release some web service _only_ as an app.
| amelius wrote:
| Meanwhile, US data brokers still collect and sell all their data,
| and happily to state actors such as the CCP if they open their
| huge wallet.
|
| The only reasonable solution is to ban all user tracking now.
| Zetice wrote:
| Eh, my understanding was the TikTok app collected more and
| different data than say, Facebook or Twitter.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Eh, my understanding was the TikTok app collected more and
| different data than say, Facebook or Twitter.
|
| Whatever data you think is being collected by TikTok/FB/Twit
| is actually being harvested for data brokers and being sold
| to anyone+everyone who wants to pay.
|
| Why could the CCCP do some complicated dance with social
| media companies to get spotty personal data, when they can
| easily buy comprehensive personal data on the unregulated
| market?
| Zetice wrote:
| If you're the CCCP, I think you do both, especially if
| Americans will just install the malware for you, doubly
| especially if they'll actively fight their own government
| when it tries to warn them about the risks.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| That doesn't seem to be nearly the risk as what we have
| now - US data brokers providing unfettered access to
| personal data.
| hedora wrote:
| I doubt they get more info than Facebook. The last time I
| logged in to Facebook, it was to lock down the teacking
| settings. I found out that GM had sold our onstar info to
| them without my knowledge or consent.
|
| Facebook definitely builds shadow profiles, so they have such
| info on you regardless of whether you have an account.
| Zetice wrote:
| Am I misremembering this? I thought a malware researcher
| reverse engineered the iOS app and said it was uniquely
| bad, or something to that effect.
|
| I can't find the link, maybe I'm crazy...
| hot_gril wrote:
| It was uniquely bad in that it didn't encrypt video in
| transit. It'd just send stuff over plain HTTP, making it
| very easy for snoopers to tell what you're watching. More
| of a security thing than a privacy thing.
|
| Vaguely remember this:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/security-
| researchers-ta...
| leotravis10 wrote:
| Yes 1000% this!
|
| Also, TikTok and many other companies can still get user data
| from data brokers and credit agencies which are so unregulated
| that we need laws globally to ban surveillence alltogether.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Sure would be nice for the US to have a comprehensive data
| privacy law instead of the emerging patchwork state by state
| solution or whac-a-mole bans like this.
| edgyquant wrote:
| That's how the US works. The states implement policies which
| act as a series of test cases for federal legislation once a
| majority of states support the law.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Which always struck me as a nice idea in theory but of
| limited use if people can just avoid state-based laws by
| moving interstate or even registering businesses
| interstate. In this case however it makes perfect sense to
| trial it at a state level. Though I'd assume federal
| government agencies, especially those that deal with
| particularly sensitive data, would already have strong
| restrictions on what can be installed on government devices
| anyway.
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| sib wrote:
| >> Which always struck me as a nice idea in theory but of
| limited use if people can just avoid state-based laws by
| moving interstate
|
| That (Federalism) is seen by many (reasonable) people as a
| benefit, not a drawback...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > The only reasonable solution is to ban all user tracking now.
|
| And that would impact tiktok how? The whole reason their is
| extra focus on them is because we can't regulate them effective
| so your solution would amount to nothing.
| amelius wrote:
| > And that would impact tiktok how?
|
| Well, as it stands they would fall under user tracking, and
| thus either would be banned or they would have to change
| their business model and open up to regulators.
|
| And remember, a law does not have to be perfect to serve as a
| deterrent for bad behavior.
|
| > your solution would amount to nothing.
|
| TikTok is only the tip of the iceberg, so a broader law that
| bans all user-tracking (including tiktok) can certainly do a
| lot more than just banning tiktok.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It would mean that apps discovered tracking users illegally,
| would be banned and fined locally.
|
| And that means any money leaving the US, or money entering
| the US, would be eaily seized to pay fines. Everything from
| money paid by app stores, from ads, to renting commercial
| real eatate in the valley, funds being transferred in country
| to pay employees, all of it can be seized.
|
| And the apps can be banned from all apps stores, and even
| eventually a court order to prevent any version from being
| preloaded. Anyone providing binaries could be fined per
| count, IP addresses of servers banned, DNS blacklisted, on
| and on.
|
| Plenty can, and _will_ be done, because that 's where all
| this is headed.
|
| And I might add, the above is "being a nice guy", compared to
| what China does in these circumstances.
| rchaud wrote:
| Considering how often TT badgers you to enable access to your
| contacts or location, I think they would be somewhat
| chagrined by such a development.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > And that would impact tiktok how?
|
| At this point it isn't relevant. What tiktok banners fear
| tiktok is doing - is actually being done by data brokers.
|
| Doesn't it make sense to deal with the actual threat before
| banning the imagined one?
| olyjohn wrote:
| This whole TikTok thing is such a waste of everybody's time and
| energy. And gives everybody this false impression that US
| social media is totally safe to use.
| hedora wrote:
| Does it give anyone that impression?
|
| It gives everyone that I've talked to the impression that the
| US government is transparently bought off by Facebook and
| friends.
| benreesman wrote:
| Can Big Tech / Credit Agencies / Lexus Nexus / etc. sell to the
| PRC?
|
| I'm not disputing you I honestly don't know, but that would be,
| surprising to say the least.
| hangonhn wrote:
| 100% this. Respecting user privacy makes any sort of malicious
| propaganda campaigns that much harder -- be it CCP, Russia, US,
| or private entities. Otherwise we end up just playing whack-a-
| mole and usually after the fact.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I won't even pretend to care about the tracking or see it as a
| national security threat, I just want China-based internet
| companies to get banned from outside markets. "Stones in glass
| houses" when they complain about it.
| noer wrote:
| That's really sad. DSNY has a really good/interesting TT account.
| unsignedint wrote:
| Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that TikTok is banned on
| government-owned devices?
|
| The nuance matters; there's a significant difference between
| banning the app on government devices and extending that ban to
| personal devices owned by employees. The headline suggests a more
| extensive ban, but it's specifically about government-owned
| devices.
|
| Furthermore, I'm puzzled as to why TikTok would be on government-
| issued devices in the first place. Shouldn't a standard MDM block
| non-essential apps by default? Why would they need TikTok on work
| devices, aside from perhaps a PR representative with an official
| presence there?
| madrox wrote:
| The industry has evolved toward blacklisting over whitelisting
| on devices. It reduces IT burden significantly should problems
| arise, and you should index toward trusting people to do the
| right thing.
|
| Overall, this approach is better. When I started in engineering
| back in 2000, it was still a debate as to whether developers
| should have admin on their own machine.
| throwaway3618 wrote:
| Expect this to debate to come back with the growth of cloud-
| based IDEs
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Oh it's still a debate. IT would have it so you can't install
| brew if they had their way.
| NegativeK wrote:
| We in cybersecurity know that you need to have
| brew/pip/npm/whatever installed and you need admin access,
| but it still absolutely _horrifies_ us.
|
| Treating a dev box as anything other than a permanently
| compromised piece of hardware is a recipe for disaster, and
| that applies to our machines where we have to run those
| tools.
| NegativeK wrote:
| > Shouldn't a standard MDM block non-essential apps by default?
|
| Yes.
|
| But there are some (big) assumptions here:
|
| * The MDM (or EDR for desktops) is well managed. * People with
| admin access aren't circumventing it.
| Arrath wrote:
| > Furthermore, I'm puzzled as to why TikTok would be on
| government-issued devices in the first place. Shouldn't a
| standard MDM block non-essential apps by default?
|
| This has been my question every time one of these articles
| about another entity banning TikTok comes up. My locked down
| corpo-phone only whitelists like a dozen apps for me to choose
| to install, largely online banking apps for the big guys, not a
| single social media style app.
| alexjplant wrote:
| > Furthermore, I'm puzzled as to why TikTok would be on
| government-issued devices in the first place. Shouldn't a
| standard MDM block non-essential apps by default? Why would
| they need TikTok on work devices, aside from perhaps a PR
| representative with an official presence there?
|
| Government-owned != government-administered. I'd imagine that
| in many cases petty cash or OpEx allocated on a
| program/office/business unit basis is spent indiscriminately at
| the end of the fiscal year to avoid losing it in the next one.
| Since the equipment is purchased with a credit card and goes
| through Accounting (who probably doesn't have the wherewithal
| or care to tell the IT department about the iPad line item on
| that Best Buy receipt) it isn't CapEx and therefore escapes the
| IT department's line-of sight. These devices probably then get
| used as an end-run around draconian IT restrictions at work
| and/or as de-facto personal devices for the employee and their
| family (the latter of which is probably justified by the
| employee's belief that this is a "perk" that compensates for
| their low compensation or reward for some perceived moral good
| that arises from their work).
|
| I'm speaking completely hypothetically, of course, and
| personally don't think this is appropriate. I bought a
| refurbished iPad with my own money last year for use
| exclusively at band practice.
| adolph wrote:
| MDM might be of two tiers, where those distributed by IT are
| full MDM and those under a "bring your own" policy have more
| limited access (i.e. email/calendar/contacts only). For
| example the iPhone issued to me as a "pager" doesn't even
| have the camera app.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > Why would they need TikTok on work devices
|
| Because it's an information source..? Just about every other
| media app copied the format, but they won't be able to copy
| content.
| theultdev wrote:
| there's no government employee that needs information from
| TikTok to do their job
| Zak wrote:
| Someone who's in a communications or social media position
| likely does, and they should have a dedicated device purely
| for that function.
| DrThunder wrote:
| They don't. There was a time when government eschewed
| social media entirely even though it was available.
| They're not private businesses and I see no reason for
| them to be using social media in any official capacity.
| There are plenty of ways to communicate with your voter
| base that doesn't involve Twitter battles or ridiculous
| Facebook propaganda posts.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It wasn't. It's a knee jerk because of the legislative
| grandstanding on the topic.
|
| Once South Dakota banned it, a gotcha question for a leader is
| "why do you allow Chinese spies to steal government data?"
|
| It's stupid and performative, but that's how it works.
| jahsome wrote:
| For precisely the reasons you listed, this entire article, but
| especially the headline, are safely labeled click bait.
|
| Everything about it is technically accurate but it's carefully
| designed to be misleading so passersby think "that can't be
| right" and click to seek more, or worse, become furious and
| click to figure out who is responsible.
|
| There's also the knock on effect of someone seeing the headline
| in one of their various feeds, and forming an opinion one way
| or another, without having clicked at all.
| asu_thomas wrote:
| "Clicks" are not the purpose. Advertising is. It's ad-bait.
| batch12 wrote:
| The title is the bait to get you to click through to the
| article. Without the click, there are no ads. So clickbait
| seems apt.
|
| Edit: reworded for clarity
| xeromal wrote:
| Click-bait is the common term though so it's stuck around.
| rchaud wrote:
| And they used to call Blackberry antiquated for selling phones
| without cameras to enterprise customers. Different horses for
| courses.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Not a bad idea. Most hedge funds I know also ban it on their
| corporate phones.
|
| Seems like alot of people with very good knowlegde of the
| situation see TikTok as a very real threat to their privacy.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Why would a hedge fund trust any spyware? More like there is a
| political meme trash talking Tik Tok. It is some sort of virtue
| signaling to make a case for siding with the Good Guys in DC. I
| e.g. suspect a lot of big techs layoffs are virtue signaling to
| appease the FED. I believe that the elite operate like this.
| irtefa wrote:
| Free marketing for YouTube Shorts and IG Reels.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Not free. Guaranteed that both Google and Meta have spent a
| significant amount of time and money lobbying for this to (a)
| apply to TikTok (b) not apply to them.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2023/03/23/tiktok-ba...
|
| >"It is no secret that Facebook has been aggressively lobbying
| lawmakers to ban TikTok, as Meta would be the great
| beneficiary"
| rvz wrote:
| I would prefer a multi-billion dollar / euro fine(s) for TikTok
| instead of a ban since it is clear that TikTok was repeatedly
| caught and gotten a slap on the wrist for continuous privacy
| violations of its users [0] [1] [2] and can afford these tiny
| fines for repeat offenses after lying about how its data was able
| to be accessible from overseas [3] [4] [5] in China whilst they
| initially denied it.
|
| It is not some tiny company and it is competing at the scale of
| Meta in the billions of dollars. There is absolutely no defense
| at all either from TikTok or its addicted fans to continue
| creating more excuses or justifications of its privacy violations
| and lies.
|
| Like Meta was fined in the billions by the regulators, the same
| should exactly happen with TikTok. Repeat offenses should climb
| into the tens of billions of dollars.
|
| [0] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans
|
| [1] https://www.scmagazine.com/news/uk-tiktok-16m-fine-
| childrens...
|
| [2] https://edpb.europa.eu/news/national-news/2021/dutch-dpa-
| tik...
|
| [3]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
|
| [4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/02/tiktok-
| te...
|
| [5] https://fortune.com/2022/12/22/tiktok-data-privacy-
| blunder-c...
| edgyquant wrote:
| I would prefer it be banned. Most countries are able to block
| things built by their adversaries and the US needs an
| equivalent
| [deleted]
| hot_gril wrote:
| I don't have to justify to anyone what I do with my own data. I
| don't care a ton about my privacy, and I'm probably in the
| great majority outside of the computer programmer bubble. GDPR
| is just another form of protectionism via obscure standards and
| selective enforcement, which is classic in Europe, except we
| got these fun cookie banners out of it too.
|
| When it comes to TikTok, let's be real, the only reason the US
| or others care is because it's China-based and we aren't
| friendly with them. That's fine, ban it.
| sharts wrote:
| Why not just ban all social media apps and pretty much anything
| that isn't strictly required to do their work.
|
| What kind of nonsense is this?
| rchaud wrote:
| > What kind of nonsense is this?
|
| The "four legs good, two legs bad" type.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| It really goes to show how much value is in these phones to
| everyone.
|
| Google/Apple need to have apps get full access to every ability
| on your phone. Companies need it. Government's want it. Users
| don't care unless it works/doesnt work.
|
| Outside of hacking(which iOS is terrible at preventing), any
| marketing/perception of security/privacy is a charade.
| xnx wrote:
| New York Times gets the headline right: "New York City Bans
| TikTok on Government-Owned Devices"
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/technology/tiktok-ban-new...
| elicash wrote:
| "from government devices" seems important to the title
|
| Edit: also, this article simply re-reports a Verge article:
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/16/23834579/nyc-tiktok-ban-n...
| Props to Engadget for citing their source, but just think that
| the Verge deserves that shout-out here too.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The Verge is a better source and has a more accurate title.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Banning non business critical apps from corp/org devices is
| just good security hygiene. Would probably not even be PR if
| the MDM policy was pushed and when people asked, IT said "no
| non business apps."
| zffr wrote:
| Yeah, this seems completely reasonable IMO.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Government devices should be boring, so I hope they also ban
| facebook.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| Call me cynical, but I think the Tik Tok banning efforts are an
| example of such a successful lobbying effort from the part of US-
| based social media companies. It has yet to be brought to my
| attention what behaviors/patterns Tik Tok employs which set them
| apart from their US-based competitors, and I am in awe of how
| META/Alphabet have some nicely created this wedge based on their
| nationality to use as a cudgel against one of their biggest
| competitors. It smells to me a little bit like the LIV/PGA thing,
| where the Saudi Arabia connection was heavily publicized for the
| upstart tour as a reason to fight against the potential rival to
| the PGA. Then, of course, they merged. Interesting to see what
| the endgame will be for Tik Tok's case.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| > what behaviors/patterns Tik Tok employs which set them apart
| from their US-based competitors
|
| Isn't it based on concerns that TikTok could be spying for
| China?
| ok123456 wrote:
| Based on what? The practices of all these social media
| companies seems the same and is dictated by the capabilities
| of devices and by the market.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I think it's sort of assumed that most large companies in
| China, if not totally controlled by the government, are at
| least heavily involved with it.
|
| So even if Meta or Google are collecting info, it's not for
| the Chinese government (and being US based, the US
| Government has a bit more say in what they do.)
| ok123456 wrote:
| People raise the same objection about American tech
| companies given the open door relationship that seems to
| be between going from the intelligence community to being
| in a position of power in those companies. Should every
| other country ban American tech?
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Sure, but this is a question about an American government
| banning services. Clearly, American governments are not
| concerned that they might be leaking data to their own
| intelligence services. They're doing that on purpose.
| There is nothing out of the ordinary about a government
| banning foreign espionage even though they carry out
| their own espionage. That is basic statecraft, not really
| the gotcha some people on Hacker News seem to think it
| is.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It depends on how much you view the government as a "bad
| guy". Being an American, I would say other countries have
| less to worry about than with the Chinese government.
|
| Of course I don't really know and have no strong opinion
| about places banning TikTok. In general I think it's a
| pretty silly policy.
| decremental wrote:
| [dead]
| remarkEon wrote:
| I think those are the boilerplate concerns. The real concerns
| are that TikTok is a dopamine manipulation system that's
| better than anything Meta et al could even hope to dream up,
| and this system can be/is used to influence public opinion
| and general societal preferences.
| jdeibele wrote:
| None of the US social media companies are allowed in China.
|
| It seems appropriate that a Chinese social media company would
| not be allowed in the US.
|
| Meta and X and Alphabet all would be in favor of that, sure,
| but that doesn't mean it's unfair.
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| [dead]
| tw04 wrote:
| >It has yet to be brought to my attention what
| behaviors/patterns Tik Tok employs which set them apart from
| their US-based competitors
|
| Which of their US competitors voluntarily provide unfettered
| access to their data to the Chinese Military?
|
| https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/03/new-report-reveals-ti...
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/new-zealand-bans-tikt...
| [deleted]
| misnome wrote:
| TikTok provides unfettered data access to the US military?
| [deleted]
| olyjohn wrote:
| You've been fooled if you think that Facebook, Google are the
| ones who would be selling the data. Of course it's not them,
| it's the data brokers who get all the data from all the other
| US companies who are tracking every other thing we do. They
| will sell the data to anybody with money, including China.
| Even if the data brokers said they would never do that, I
| guarantee China can just set up a company in the US and
| straight up purchase the data outright.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| So what your saying is the USA social media companies
| behave completely differently?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Ah hah. But you see as long as there is one layer of
| indirection or more it's completely different. Somehow.
| themagician wrote:
| The issue is not what they are doing but who is doing it.
|
| The scale and scope of applications like TikTok means that
| China can broadcast a message to basically all Americans 16-24
| or so. And not just an announcement... they can use the
| algorithm and the feedback they receive to create groupthink
| for whatever they want.
|
| This would have been an absolute nightmare scenario during the
| Cold War. Imagine the US decides to start a war with China
| over, say, Taiwan. China will undoubtedly try to use TikTok to
| spread anti American sentiment and turn the youth against their
| own government.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > Imagine the US decides to start a war with China over, say,
| Taiwan.
|
| This is such a weird phrasing. The only people threatening to
| start a war is the leadership of China.
| themagician wrote:
| It's really not. The US has a little bit of a history of
| starting wars.
|
| Also, I'm not sure if you're aware, but you might want to
| look up what the US is doing in the Pacific right now. It
| not out territory. It's not our fight. We should be minding
| our own business focusing on our own citizens, not
| militarizing the Pacific and denying a billion people
| access to advanced microchips every way possible.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| So people in Taiwan have no say in what happens to them?
|
| > We should be minding our own business focusing on our
| own citizens,
|
| Yes, and part of that includes highly overdue reciprocal
| actions against a nation that has denied our citizens'
| businesses from flourishing there.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > So people in Taiwan have no say in what happens to
| them?
|
| This is just hiding behind Taiwan unless you're so naive
| that you think that state actors help other states out of
| the goodness of their hearts.
|
| Is it the US calling the shots or not? If so then no,
| Taiwan clearly doesn't have a say since everything hinges
| on the US' power.
| pseg134 wrote:
| In a real sense they do not have a say in what happens to
| them.
|
| The is plenty of aggressions from both sides to go
| around. Everyone wants this eventually, the only dispute
| is when it should go hot.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > Everyone wants this eventually, the only dispute is
| when it should go hot.
|
| "Everyone"? A likely outcome in a war between China and
| the US most of us reading here will end up dead or worse.
| I don't understand what has happened. It is like the
| elites have become mad and people have just stopped
| caring and shut their eyes.
| hot_gril wrote:
| > This would have been an absolute nightmare scenario during
| the Cold War. Imagine the US decides to start a war with
| China over, say, Taiwan. China will undoubtedly try to use
| TikTok to spread anti American sentiment and turn the youth
| against their own government.
|
| But there isn't a war right now. If one were to start, TikTok
| would probably get banned/deplatformed as quickly as RT did
| during the Ukraine invasion.
| mantas wrote:
| Sounds like Vietnam...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Reminder: TikTok also spends on lobbying
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/31/tiktok-bytedance-spent-milli...
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