IMO the data privacy angle is not super important. There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway.
- GPS Location
- Wifi connections
- Social graphs (phone contacts, as well as inference through locality)
- Dynamic Social interests (how long you watch a video, what videos you tend to watch the most, adapts over time)
- There's a keylogger in the in-app browser
- They are able to influence certain ideas (i.e. propaganda) because they control your feed and can target propaganda and a near personal level
This is a lot of important information that has a lot of power. But you come back and say
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
So I just want to make sure that we connect the bridge. The privacy angle and propaganda angle are one in the same to the privacy community. It is the information gathered that is used to dictate the dopamine hit/propaganda. We need to be clear about these being being part of the same system or else people mindlessly state "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." Data collection is about influence. After all, what are ads if not attempts to influence you? (ads don't just sell products either. Another common misconception)
While there is the concern about invasion of privacy the nuance of the conversation is that the invasion of privacy erodes our free will as it is used to influence us. Obviously there's a complicated part of what is good and bad influence but surely we can agree that influence from a foreign nation that doesn't have our best interest in minds is not a good influence.
I'm far more worried about Google. Google is practically unavoidable, and has connections to US Intelligence who can actually harm me. I've never used TikTok, and if I had it's not like the CCP can do anything to me anyway so I wouldn't care as much.
> it's not like the CCP can do anything to me anyway so I wouldn't care as much.
Why do you think this is true? Do you not believe that foreign entities attempt to influence adversaries?
To flip your statement on its head, I (as a US/Western citizen) can influence Google, which influences the US/Western world. (I can protest Google, I can elect representatives that will go after them, etc. We've even seen this done) But as an American I cannot influence the CCP which also influences the US/Western world.
(You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct)
>Why do you think this is true? Do you not believe that foreign entities attempt to influence adversaries?
Do you honestly think China uses more propaganda on American than the US government does on its own people? Meanwhile, Google literally controls the flow of information, while knowing your location and browser history.
> You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct
> Do you honestly think China uses more propaganda on American than the US government does on its own people?
That's not what we're discussing. We're discussing if China uses propaganda on American population. That's it. You don't have to make it a competition. You don't have to move the goal post.
> Meanwhile, Google literally controls the flow of information, while knowing your location and browser history.
I don't think anyone complaining about TikTok's influence also isn't actively complaining about Google's influence. You can check my comment history if you don't believe me. You can even see how much I advocate for tools like Signal. Don't create a false dichotomy.
> Google is influenced by many intelligence agencies from many different countries but mostly the US.
it really is just the foreign aspect of it. the meta apps, google apps, uber, etc all do the exact same things. They just aren't owned by a foreign nation
I think this is rather naive. I agree that the foreign aspect is an important component but let's also recognize that TikTok's success is because they are so successful at this data collection and manipulation. There's two reasons to target TikTok specifically. 1) Foreign influence 2) they are top dog.
Let's also recognize that Uber is not collecting data on what you watch and what social activities you participate in. Google and Meta are much better examples than Uber. But Google and Meta have also not captivated the attention economy of people the same way as TikTok has. You go after the worst offenders and it is clear that TikTok is the worst offender before you include the foreign aspect.
> But Google and Meta have also not captivated the attention economy of people the same way as TikTok has. You go after the worst offenders and it is clear that TikTok is the worst offender before you include the foreign aspect.
How is it "clear"? TikToks functionality in this matter seems to have barely scratched the surface of what Meta, Google and Twitter had been doing for years.
Instagram wasn't much different back when it was a new thing. I don't remember Facebooks launch that good, but somehow I have an impression that it was just as addictive, until people got used to it and got bored.
have you used both? Instagram has improved over the years but TikTok still blows it away. it's an infinite feed of visually attractive bullshit that you can scroll through smooth as butter—the ultimate cyberdrug.
Meta, google, uber, etc should be considered equivalent to hostile foreign powers and there are 194 countries in which they report to foreign intelligence service.
I would be more comfortable with all that collection if it remained in China, a far away government that has much less control over me than my own. However, the data they collect is shared with and used by the same domestic corporations and government agencies.
What a naive thinking. Of course China has control over you through TikTok.
What if they will modify an algorithm to make you vote for right people that they want you to vote? You’d think that they don’t have any control over you when in fact you’ll be used as their useful idiot
I am not a product of any corporate or government controlled social media. However if I had to be one, being influenced by China rather than US corporations seems better. The two US parties have no substantive difference on economic and foreign policy. So I can't see why the CCP would care which one wins which election.
Yeah, better to be influenced by Chineese, then start to belive what you see, then start to think how they want you to think, and then vote for people they want you to vote.
Perfect useful idiot, congratulations.
We are all useful idiots to different extent in this system. I have become less useful and less idiotic as I have grown wiser. I am less worried about Chinese propaganda and manipulation than the domestic sort which is much more powerful and impacting to my life.
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.
The data is what makes them so good at keeping you on their platform, yes. But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at, is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
> 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
> If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences
You're over thinking it. All you need to do is put your thumb on the scale. Creating chaos/division is far easier and often more effective than directed influence.
Honestly I think that's why propaganda is so effective. People think of it as "Uncle Sam needs you to join the war effort" (which is propaganda) but it is more commonly "all politicians are corrupt". Which may even be true or mostly true. But the effect of such a claim is a distrust in your entire society. That's pretty effective propaganda and gets people to fight instead of working collectively.
Exactly. The way you get people to eventually adopt a whole new paradigm is by nudging them one tiny bit at a time, seek to change like 1% of their world view — whatever the lowest hanging fruit you can find.
Rinse and repeat, slowly as culture changes. Over many years, decades.
One generation later, the then-normalized world view can be diametrically opposed to what it had been for centuries, in many regards, even core aspects.
Such socio-cultural phenomena rarely last beyond 3-ish generations in history, though. More like 25 years. Usually the whole thing collapses under its own contradictions (not without friction, sometimes violent). But beyond a certain time under the spell, and/or if experienced too young, most people don't come back (not fully, not really). To this day you may hear old US politicians still believe old US propaganda (now all but officially acknowledged as such) that they simply can't shake off their world view.
It's one of those things that, when pushed too far for too long, society only moves on once most people who lived under that era have passed away, and new unaffected generations take over.
> Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok.
> Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
Except that in one case, it's a foreign actor interfering with the domestic political process, and in the other it's a domestic actor arguably exercising their first amendment rights.
Facebook is foreign to me, and my country has no first amendment, we only allow their constant spying because we are part of the five eyes and it is beneficial for us to let the yanks do whatever the hell they want to us.
Where in the Constitution does it say that the First Amendment only apply to citizens living in the country? It does not. Within the US, China or its representatives have exactly the same First Amendment rights as anyone else.
The First Amendment is broken, unfortunately, and the result is that a fire hose of paid, anonymous lies drowns out hard-won truths.
Don't get me wrong - the Framers were brilliant men, but two hundred years have gone by.
> Where in the Constitution does it say that the First Amendment only apply to citizens living in the country? It does not. Within the US, China or its representatives have exactly the same First Amendment rights as anyone else.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. If it protected foreign subversion as a constitutional right, it would be such a pact, therefore it doesn't.
Boosting propoganda, censoring, and surveilling whilst acting as a utility and forcing people to sign up to participate in society is neither free nor speech.
They are manipulating the population and arguably infringing on rights that all free individuals should have (had the bill of rights not been written before mass media and the internet).
> But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at
> is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate?
Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions)
If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize.
It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
My comparison is not at all similar to the way you are describing it. I'm comparing "TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate." to the advertising control and capabilities of FAMANG etc.
YouTube ALREADY does on their homepage what TikTok COULD do.
Not only what videos are shown, but also what videos /topics are suppressed, which is also a useful tool for swaying public opinion as Meta has demonstrated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698
"IMO much more important is that the videos that are show to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hist are controlled by the CCP."
To clarify, is the concern
(a) that the videos are chosen by a third party organisation not the user,
(b) that the third party in this case is TikTok under pressure from CCP, instead of, say, Google under pressure from US Government, or
(c) both.
IMO, the so-called user should be in control of choosing videos, not treated like a test subject^1 by third parties, i.e., "tech" companies, trying to profit from data collection and advertising services.
Consider that without the data collection, e.g., metadata, the "automatic video selection service" provided by the "tech" company would not work very effectively. It must be targeted. And for that, data collection is essential.
IMO, "data privacy", despite the name, is not simply a matter of whether a person desires to have "privacy", it is a matter of whether a person wants to voluntarily give data to a "tech" company at no cost to enable effective targeted manipulation for the benefit of the company's customers, i.e., commercial or political advertisers, and consequently the company.
I agree that we're focused on the wrong danger. The same way we tried to push the marijuana narrative toward physical harm when the real danger was in co-opting our goal system.
I'd go further than you and say it's not even important that it's controlled by the CCP. An unlimited supply of the most interesting 30-second videos in the world is dangerous regardless of who's determining "interesting."
Short-form videos are evil by themselves. As someone with ADHD, if you allow yourself to get sucked in, its hard to move or jump out of it. Hell, watching en enjoyable tv show feels like work, i.e. too long.
I've come to appreciate quality over quantity, substance over fleeting enjoyment, and setting limits on how much I spend on yt, etc.
It's similar to doom-scrolling reddit after the Ukraine war started, or Covid or George Floyd...2-3 months of my life I literally couldn't put my phone down, not that I could affect or add to the conversation, or change anything. Just FOMO, I guess.
This though could lead to less overall production from America as a whole which could in micro-economic ways impact overall gdp, growth, dominance, etc, --and that's not considering what possible "pushes" they could give you to "think" one way or the other, as Americans are so easily manipulated by single sources they 'deem' truthful, but probably really aren't.
Absolutely true; but, for example, YouTube search results also employ a variety of finely tuned parameters that uprank or downrank certain videos, with zero transparency or oversight. YouTube Trending and Twitter Trends are heavily editorialized, and nothing shows up before it is manually approved by an employee. You might have even seen Twitter "trends" that, when you click on them, only show you 5 tweets by a single verified Twitter account, and nothing else; no discussion is shown. Twitter Search results (the "Top" tab) show popular tweets mixed in with 60-likes tweets, to prevent you from accurately gauging "the mood" or the predominant opinion. These companies feel perfectly entitled to decide what you'll see.
Every social media is founded on an algorithm, and they are all black boxes. TikTok constitutes unique challenges (if they want to dumb people down, they can), but most of the criticism is true of every platform.
I'm totally with you on this. Who doesn't want to control global influence marketing? Prioritize certain content in certain locations, boost their economies...
Obviously, I'm speculating, which doesn't necessarily help anything nor is true, but... my gut is with you.
Data gathering does have its dangers. But giving a not so friendly power the ability to directly influence your citizens is the real danger. There is no way to minimize that other than to have control over the whole enterprise.
Right now the EU is feeling the shock of giving Russia control over its fuel needs. Something that many people thought could happen but at least in that situation Russia does not have the ability to directly influence the EU's citizens. If it could influence minds directly, Russia could be confident that it would win the conflict. Tik Tok is that influencing machine that can be used against the US. We need to do something before it becomes a problem.
Unlike the EU/Russia, though, the US is not geopolitically dependent on China for social media like the former is energy. If the US were embroiled in such a conflict with the China, the US would have no problem
a) Forcing the sale of ByteDance to a US company (remember, they almost did this during peacetime anyways, just because)
or
b) Outright blocking it and ensuring its allies do the same
Sure, either option is a Situation, but I would imagine the US threatening to effectively take over or block what is one of China's premiere/world-known tech companies is a large enough negotiating chip that it gives the US leverage, too, and at the same time ensure China does not interfere too much.
People need power to live through winter / cook. Russia cutting off power can cause death. Cutting off tiktok may push a few emos over the edge but not really comparable.
I can't tell the last time I sat and watched a movie or a series. You work, go to the gym, hop out of the shower and start scrolling and when you look up, 2 hours have passed. It's insane.
The difference is China is used as a bogey man. IMO it's a distraction from what's truly important--that all social media platforms are manipulating us. The part where one has Chinese lineage is irrelevant to the problem.
i don't think it's irrelevant if you are a US citizen and believe that you have some control over governance. If a non-US citizen, I can see why one might not care as much. Or a US citizen who believes that gave no political say.
However, for me, I believe I have much more control over US governance decisions than I do over Chinese governance decisions and therefore a little more control over what US companies can do versus Chinese companies.
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
Better to be controlled by a large corporation that, by explicit design, acts like a psychopath and will direct you to destroy the very fabric of your society if this increases “engagement” more often than not.
the mind control is already there. how many teens were doing the tiktok specific elaborate vacant eyed lipsynced dance routines on social media before tik tok?
Exactly, Tiktok can algorithmically identify a few 100k persuadable voters in a few battleground states and feed them the political viewpoint they favor. Thus CCP can influence our elections. Its easy do this in stealth and there is no way to prove from outside that it happened!.
We already have laws that restrict majority foreign ownership of traditional media, why cant we extend it to new media?
Would it make any difference if it was a US owner? The real problem here is more basic: 80B americans have 20% of their free time centrally controlled. This a health and social problem, whoever owns the corp.
People like to say this with basically no evidence. It's basically a conspiracy theory at this point. In fact, I've had TikTok videos, in the app itself, claiming the same thing.
Man, those CCP folks are just really, really good! They knew I'd be an inherent skeptic! Yes, or perhaps you are just anti-china conspiracy theorist.
I'm open to changing my mind on the subject, but I have not seen a single iota of evidence on the matter.
The evidence is in the way the CCP treats private companies (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.), it really doesn't take much logical thinking to realize that at any point the black-box algorithm can change on the whim of a party official.
Btw, could you please also stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that as well, and this in the guidelines too.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Google and Facebook would LOVE to have TikTok banned because TikTok is eating their lunch right now, attracting advertising money at a rate that is an existential threat to them both.
They've hurt many in Ukraine by siding with Russia. I for one support Ukraine and in that way they could be seen as an enemy. Also anything resembling fascism in the least bit should be demonized, CCP/Russia are ruled by fascists as are the majority of their allies (read: dictatorships/military ruled countries aka non democratic/republic/parliamentarian countries).
If there's a world war 3, you better believe the powers will be USA, Western EU, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, NZ, (maybe India), (maybe israel), against China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, maybe Brazil, et al.
I don't say this because they're communist, etc. I like aspects of communism, I say this because they rule like the book 1984 is a guidebook, not a work of fiction.
That part is one of the things that makes all of it extra funny. By everyones content from each platform ending up on all the other platforms, they get subjected to a different set of ranking algorithms. The ones that spread beyond one platform have managed a weirdly difficult bit of Darwinism.
I don't get it. Don't you want to live in a country with more freedom than China? Why is China restricting what their citizens see online an excuse for the US to do so?
It comes from the fact that the CCP is not above committing genocide on its own citizens, or disappearing high profile figures who are critical of the party line.
Pretty easy to imagine what would happen if a party official said "please promote content that is divisive or favors pro CCP propaganda".
I can't imagine the CEO of Binance saying no to that, and the ability to detect changes to a black-box recommendation algorithm are non-existant.
Still, I don’t want to enable the CCP propagating with their explicit authoritarianism without the modicum of checks we seem to have available here. Whatever hurts them is good for me. That being said what they’re doing seems to be effective, they’ve essentially lifted all 1 billion of their people out of poverty in the span of 20 years, it really is an incredible achievement.
Google is fully capable of banning them on Android.
Apple is fully capable there, of course.
The US Gov't has asked both to stop carrying TikTok on app stores multiple times, and it's still there.
I don't think anyone wants TikTok gone other than people who don't use it or who see how much data is collected. TikTok is something of a cancer, and like cancer, it has zero incentive to stop. metastasis is TikTok's entire purpose.
Google sort of does compete via YouTube, but YouTube is still the top dog and serving a different niche. I don't see TikTok's rise stealing market share from YouTube nearly as much as it is stealing from Instagram and Facebook.
I guess my point is that neither app store owners have any real incentive to ban TikTok. It would hurt both companies by way of pissing off users far more than it would benefit them by nudging users to their own services.
Instagram/Facebook are cloning TikTok features as fast as they can, and lots of creators are putting out their stuff on all 3.5 platforms (TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram/Facebook).
my point is that even though apple is not harmed by blocking TikTok, they still refuse to do it.
why the hell are big businesses so scared of China? money? these businesses should be put down if money allows a foreign and malicious entity to strongarm them. absolutely despicable.
> my point is that even though apple is not harmed by blocking TikTok, they still refuse to do it.
> why the hell are big businesses so scared of China? money? these businesses should be put down if money allows a foreign and malicious entity to strongarm them. absolutely despicable.
For what reason should Apple ban TikTok but not Facebook or Instagram?
I think Apple is doing the right thing here by not playing favorites, and instead instituting App Store policies designed to protect user privacy regardless of which country a given service hails from.
And Apple would be harmed by blocking TikTok. It's one of, if not the most popular social media app on the App Store. Banning it hurts Apple because it would mean users who like TikTok now have incentive to move to another platform.
I didn't say that Facebook or Instagram should not ban tiktok. you imagined that I said that.
I've only mentioned Google and Apple because those are the two major app stores that the FBI has asked to cease distribution of the TikTok app, which is what actually creates the videos that get played on Instagram and Facebook.
stop imagining arguments that people don't make.
someone who does not speak out for or against something is NOT an explicit statement of the opposite, for crying out loud.
> I didn't say that Facebook or Instagram should not ban tiktok. you imagined that I said that.
I'm struggling to even comprehend this sentence. I never said or imagined that you said "Facebook or Instagram should ban TikTok", that doesn't even make sense. I said Apple and Google have no reason to ban TikTok because TikTok does not compete with them. They have nothing to gain except pissing off users, so why would they do it?
I asked "Why should Apple or Google ban TikTok but not Facebook or Instagram". All three are equally guilty of harvesting user data and using it to drive ads and content. You need to explain to me what TikTok is doing that is both different from its competitors, and what makes that illegal.
> For what reason should Apple ban TikTok but not Facebook or Instagram?
I misread this as you asking me why apple should ban tiktok while Facebook and Instagram should not ban tiktok.
so go ahead and use your multiple accounts to downvote me more, ok?
mistakes are not permitted here, or I'd be able to go back and edit after 2 hours. the last thing I want to do when arguing with someone on the internet is go back and check my spelling and grammar and interact more with the person I have had zero pleasant interaction with, which is why i did not catch the mistake.
Well you see... supporting a democratically elected candidate for American president is a reason to be banned. Supporting a communist, one party state currently engaging in genocide is not, apparently. Because money.
Having worked in the Chinese tech sector I have honestly no idea where this cartoonish idea comes from that the Chinese government magically runs every tech company in the country. I seriously question if anyone who says that has any personal experience with the country at all. This is some strange techno-orientalism where Asian governments apparently have superpowers nobody else possesses. Does anyone here think the American government is physically able to own or run every technology company or even one?
The Chinese tech sector, including TikTok (which is a distinct western entity anyway, the Chinese app is called Doujin) faced comparatively little oversight, and regulators usually aren't exactly competent. Chinese entrepreneurs navigate laws and regulations just like they do everywhere else, with the added difficulty that they tend to be even more confusing than anywhere else. There is no mastermind sitting in a dark room smoking a cigar controlling entire sectors of the economy, because only the tech companies actually know how to operate themselves, same as anywhere else.
The government in China considers its own tech sector to be a competing power center, not some extended arm of the party, which is why they brought the hammer down on significant parts of the industry recently, wiping out ungodly sums of money in the process. You don't do that to an asset. Chinese tech tends to attempt to skirt the rules (usually for its own benefit) whenever possible.
Ah yes, “magic” and “cigar-smoking masterminds“, those two classic implements of state control. What’s actually of concern is the legal and regulatory environment and the way it is deployed/abused:
Remember, if you can be arbitrarily thrown in jail for pissing off the state then you can be damn sure that you’re going to going to find out what the state does and does not want you to do.
Apology and reflection
今日头条的朋友们：
Dear friends of Jinri Toutiao:
我真诚地向监管部门致歉，向用户及同事们道歉。 从昨天下午接到监管部门的通知到现在，我一直处在自责和内疚之中，一夜未眠。
I earnestly apologise to regulatory authorities, and to our users and colleagues. Since receiving the notice yesterday from regulatory authorities, I have been filled with remorse and guilt, entirely unable to sleep.
今日头条将永久关停“内涵段子”客户端软件及公众号。产品走错了路，出现了与社会主义核心价值观不符的内容，没有贯彻好舆论导向，接受处罚，所有责任在我。
Jinri Toutiao will shut down once and for all its “Neihan Duanzi” app and its public accounts. Our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values, that did not properly implement public opinion guidance — and I am personally responsible for the punishments we have received [as a result].
自责是因为辜负了主管部门一直以来的指导和期待。过去几年间，主管部门给了我们很多的指导和帮助，但我内心没有真正理解和认识到位，也没有整改到位，造成今天对用户不负责任的结果。
I am responsible because I failed to live up to the guidance and expectations supervisory organs have demanded all along. Over the past few years, the regulatory authorities have provided us with much guidance and assistance, but in our hearts we failed to properly understand and recognise [their demands]. Nor did we properly rectify the situation, which led to the present failure to be responsible to our users.
自责也是因为辜负了用户的支持和信任。我们片面注重增长和规模，却没有及时强化质量和责任，忽视了引导用户获取正能量信息的责任。对承担企业社会责任，弘扬正能量，把握正确的舆论导向认识不够，思想上缺乏重视。
I am responsible also because I failed to live up to the trust and support placed in me by our users. We prioritised only the expansion of [platform] scale, and we were not timely in strengthening quality and responsibility, overlooking our responsibility to channel users in the uptake of information with positive energy. We were insufficiently attentive, and in our thinking placed insufficient emphasis on our corporate social responsibility, to promote positive energy and to grasp correct guidance of public opinion.
同时，我也辜负了投入无限热情和心血打造了这款产品的同事。产品出现这么大的问题，停止服务，我有领导责任。
At the same time, I failed my colleagues who invested such boundless enthusiasm and hard work to create this product. For such major problems to emerge with the product, and for service to halt, I bear leadership responsibility.
3月29日央视报道我们的广告问题后，我不断反思自己以前的想法，反思公司现在的做法，开始大力推进公司员工提高意识、改进管理、完善流程。
On March 29, after China Central Television reported problems with our advertisements, I engaged in steady reflection over my previous ways of thinking, reflected upon the company’s current methods, and began an energetic campaign among our staff to raise their consciousness, improve management and streamline processes.
我是工程师出身，创业的初心是希望做一款产品，方便全世界用户互动和交流。过去几年间，我们把更多的精力和资源，放在了企业的增长上，却没有采取足够措施，来补上我们在平台监管、企业社会责任上欠下的功课，比如对低俗、暴力、有害内容、虚假广告的有效治理。
My background is engineering, and my originating idea in starting this business was to create a product that would facilitate interaction and exchange among users worldwide. Over the past few years we have invested more energy and resources in the growth of the company, but we did not take the proper measures to improve supervision of the platform, and we did not adequately do our homework in terms of effectively controlling such things as low-row, violent and harmful content, and fake advertising.
我们作为一家十八大后快速发展起来的创业公司，深知公司的快速发展，是伟大时代给的机会。我感恩这个时代，感恩改革开放历史机遇，感恩国家对于科技产业发展的扶持。
As a start-up company developing rapidly in the wake of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, we profoundly understand that our rapid development was an opportunity afforded us by this great era. I thank this era. I thank the historic opportunity of economic reform and opening; and I thank the support the government has given for the development of the technology industry.
我深刻反思，公司目前存在问题的深层次原因是：“四个意识”淡薄、社会主义核心价值观教育缺失、舆论导向存在偏差。一直以来，我们过分强调技术的作用，却没有意识到，技术必须要用社会主义核心价值观来引导，传播正能量，符合时代要求，尊重公序良俗。
I profoundly reflect on the fact that a deep-level cause of the recent problems in my company is: a weak [understanding and implementation of] the “four consciousnesses” [of Xi Jinping]; deficiencies in education on the socialist core values; and deviation from public opinion guidance. All along, we have placed excessive emphasis on the role of technology, and we have not acknowledged that technology must be led by the socialist core value system, broadcasting positive energy, suiting the demands of the era, and respecting common convention.
我们必须重新梳理我们的愿景。我们说，要做全球的创作与交流平台。这就要求我们必须保证所“创作”与“交流”的内容是积极向上的、健康有益的，能够给时代、给人民带来正能量。
We must make a renewed effort to sort out our vision of the future. We say, we want to make global platform for creation and conversation. This demands that we must ensure that the content of “creation” and “conversation” are positive, healthy and beneficial, that they can offer positive energy to the era, and to the people.
我们必须重新阐释并切实践行我们的社会责任：正直向善，科技创新，创造价值，担当责任，合作共赢。我深刻地认识到，企业的发展必须紧扣时代和国家发展主旋律。
We must renew our understanding and enactment of our social responsibility; upright and good, innovative technology, value creation, taking responsibility, cooperation and mutual benefit. I profoundly recognise that the company’s development must stick closely to the era and to the main theme of national development.
今天，监管部门、公众和媒体指出了公司存在的问题，是对我们的善意提醒和有力鞭策。我跟我的同事们将立即着手改变，改变自己的思想，改变我们的做法。
Today, supervisory organs, the public and the media have pointed out problems in our company, and this is well-intentioned reminder and an encouragement to us. I and my colleagues will work immediately to bring about change — changing our own thoughts, and changing our methods.
一、将正确的价值观融入技术和产品
Introducing correct values into technology and products
1、加强党建工作，对全体员工进行“四个意识”、社会主义核心价值观、舆论导向、法律法规等教育，真正履行好企业的社会责任。
1.1 Strengthening the work of Party construction, carrying out education among our entire staff on the “four consciousnesses,” socialist core values, [correct] guidance of public opinion, and laws and regulations, truly acting on the company’s social responsibility.
2、强化各业务线履行社会责任的制度化机制化，将其列入业务考核范围。
1.2 Strengthening implementation of systems and mechanisms for social responsibility in various business activities, bringing them into the scope of business assessment.
3、进一步深化与权威媒体合作，提高权威媒体内容的分发，保证权威声音有力传播。
1.3 Further deepening cooperation with authoritative [official Party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official Party] media voices are broadcast to strength.
4、强化总编辑责任制，全面纠正算法和机器审核的缺陷，不断强化人工运营和审核，将现有6000人的运营审核队伍，扩大到10000人。
1.4 Strengthening the editor-in-chief responsibility system, comprehensively correcting deficiencies in algorithmic and machine review [of content], steadily strengthening human operations and review, raising the current number of operational review staff from 6,000 to 10,000 persons [carrying out content review].
[Translation omitted here for section on management of online communities]
Finally, I again express my apologies to supervisory organs, and to the friends who care about us.
我们理应做得更好。我们一定会做得更好。
We ought to do better. We will definitely do better.
我们真诚地期待社会各界帮助和监督我们的整改。我们绝不辜负大家的期望。
We earnestly await help from various parts of society in supervising our rectification. We will not disappoint everyones’ hopes.
今日头条创始人、CEO张一鸣
Jinri Toutiao founder and CEO Zhang Yiming.
2018年4月11日
April 11, 2018
Having worked in the Chinese tech sector I have honestly no idea where this cartoonish idea comes from that the Chinese government magically runs every tech company in the country. I seriously question if anyone who says that has any personal experience with the country at all.
Reading through that thread and then a bit more of his twitter, just seems like yet another wannabe Dan Price style philosopher, acting like the enlightened person residing at the center of every debate. None of his arguments are particularly concerning or unique considering how much every other company lobbies and evades governments.
The thing that bothers me the most about TikTok is how it's allowed to operate with little restriction in the US but US-based companies do not have nearly the same level of freedom to operate in China e.g. fb is banned in CPP).
That is essentially a meaningless statement. If there was a Chinese law that stated foreign companies had to turn over 90% ownership to the government, your statement would still hold true.
If someone's house rules are so strict that nobody wants to hold game night there, yet this person loves playing in other people's (far less restrictive) homes, how long before we stop inviting them?
In terms of adult game nights (or potlucks, parties, etc.), the standard etiquette is everyone takes a turn playing host (since there is some cost incurred/liabilities playing host).
Would you feel entitled to attending such social gatherings, even if your house rules are so vastly different than everyone else's they dissuade anyone from coming?
Also, anthropomorphizing, China is not my friend. More like arch rival, perhaps even nemesis. Canada can come over whenever.
I feel it's similar to how medical experiments, and production is done in China, which would be unlawful in the original country. I think everyone just exploits as much as they can.
> 80 million Americans now spend 20% of their free time scrolling through an algorithmic content experience owned by the Chinese Government.
As opposed to a billion people spending 20% of their free time scrolling through a Facebook feed (back when Facebook was a thing).
Honestly, the more these issues get raised, the more it's clear that there's really no difference between a government and a corporation except one spends money and the other makes money.
We have been slowly moving into a post-Democratic version of globalism for decades. Consumerism is not a bulwark against oppression, and we've mostly only had the illusion of choice or control in our political process, with oligarchs deciding everything rather than the "δῆμος". Totalitarian empires have been the dominant model of human civilization for the past couple thousand years; there's no reason to believe it wouldn't continue. China will be leading the new global status quo, which will combine heightened entertainment with heightened totalitarianism. Orwell was a prophet, a century early.
I don't really understand how this is any different from any other social media platform besides the entity your data is being sent back to. Is the Chinese government really any worse than Google, Meta, etc.? I think if you really feel passionately about this specific instance, then you should also feel the same passion about any other social media platform that collects your data and does with it what they please.
In theory, as a US citizen, I have some control over the government oversight of Google, Facebook, etc., probably much less over TikTok. So while I can feel angry and frustrated with what the Googles and FBs do, I also believe I have a little more power, whereas I feel a bit more powerless over TikTok.
It isn't. It's just fearmongering and deflection of a serious issue with datamining companies having free reign to act as unethically as they so desire onto the scary foreigners.
This is hilarious. Social media is a threat to national security. The Internet is a threat to national security. People have a desire to be seen and see others. So long as we have that desire, and the Internet makes it possible, there will always be a TikTok.
The only reason they’re really saying it’s a national security threat is because of how big it’s gotten. What about Facebook? I would say Facebook represents a far greater threat to national security than TikTok.
Hi, uh.... OP here (from twitter). Didn't realize someone posted this! And honestly I was expecting like 20 likes total.
Anyways, want to clarify a couple things:
- All of the information presented is accurate. And the questions are fair.
- I am not defending FB or other tech companies broadly. I'm pro data locality.
- China is an authoritarian mass surveillance state that forcibly squashes detractors and limits individual freedoms. The US has made many mistakes, but it still doesn't come comparably close to this.
- Please for the love of God don't compare me to Dan Price. Please? lmao.
This whataboutism whack-a-mole in the comments trying to equate China to the US is tiring but it seems to be necessary to not give lurkers the impression that this is the consensus
Tiktok generally collects the data like video watch list, duration etc. How is that even a national security?
Even if they know behavior of people, how is it even a national security. People generally don't send message over tiktok, so with your logic we should be blaming facebook/google more.
Also, we should be holding liberal values and make same rules for everybody.
With your logic facebook/google all should be labeled national security in Europe.
"The US has made many mistakes,"
Are you really trying to justify the US mistakes by bringing in China? How many countries have China ever invaded compared to US. How many times China have stolen oils from other nation? China have done all wrong things to their own people and US has done more wrong thing to other people. So, your argument doesn't hold water.
"Freedom"
Well, I agree US has more freedom. Freedom has different shades. But, being able to walk without fear of guns is also important to me. Being able to walk without seeing sexual assault in every room of school is also equally important. When I first came in US, the first instruction was "Don't walk alone during night time".
IMO if TikTok can operate in the US, then Twitter, FB, etc. should be allowed to operate in China. It's the lopsided (potential) to influence the other market/populace that doesn't sit well with me.
No, china requires specific strictures so such companies don't allow free speech that contradicts the party's communist doctrine or social aims. America is a free country so we don't require that. Problem is, this gives china influence over America but not the other way around. This is a bad thing both because it's asymmetrical and because America at least tries for freedom while china is a force against. Stop making these nonsense "both sides" arguments pretending china and America are equivalent.
You're question isn't relevant. America has a more permissive regulatory environment because we believe in freedom. A company can be a natsec threat without violating regulations and saying "but they didn't break any rules" is not a strong rebuttal to "maybe we should make rules to stop shady behavior at the behest of hostile foreigners". Are you arguing this is not possible?
tik tok in America should be run by an entity with no chinese control. the china company should be required to enter into a joint venture with an American tech company but can keep a profits interest. it must share all IP. kinda like y'all chinese do to us already. make sure the communists have no control over what Americans see.
I'd be interested to know what kind of reception this has had in the US, given the reputation of tiktok, regardless of however it actually is for privacy and security
People would take this whole situation more seriously if it weren't always discussed in such evasive terms as "US Data". What data, exactly?
The truth is that every cell phone is a tracking device, and the US government loves this. The only thing they're upset about is anybody other than themselves having all this tracking device data. So when a China-based company gets a hold of it, they're upset, but they can't really articulate why they're upset, because it would amount to an admission of how much they love their precious surveillance economy/state. Instead they just sort of stammer and sputter about "US Data".
I feel a certain Schadenfreude about this situation.
Tik Tok is a garbage dumpster filled with junk. It’s no more a threat than an empty can of tomato soup. It is hated because it can’t be bought and controlled by Facebook as it’s a China company.
A lot of the sentiment in this thread makes it clear that Social Media (Google/FB/TikTok) is a tool capable of exerting power, a weapon.
The great firewall of china prevents American "weapons" from running rampant on Chinese citizens. Meanwhile America has no digital border, so Chinese weapons are able to run rampant on us. If you ask just about anyone "Is it ok for China to store bombs in our cities, while they prevent us from putting bombs in theirs" the answer is obvious.
Despite this America has chosen a "one internet" strategy to prevent the balkanization of the internet and generally has an anti-protectionism strategy.
The far more interesting question is "despite the obvious national security risk posed by TikTok, why might it be preferable to not block it?"
I remember when the CCP was evil for bringing up this firewall and how repressed all their citizens were and how we should be happy because we live in a free and open society blah blah blah
And now firewalls are good, because apparently now apps are "national security threats", interesting.
These aren't just ideas, these are adversarial fingers on the scale, particularly in a country that has a nearly 50/50 schism. Then there are the intelligence possibilities.
There is potentially geolocation, timing information, visual information, identifier based information, text scraping based information, artifact information, and social graph information. When and where a person sleeps, commutes, works, and vacations. Who shows up in my pictures and contact list, potentially how close those relationships are. What types of devices might show up on my network. It's possible to potentially connect a TikTok account to other public accounts based on links, shares, text, or other content. I don't now what an apps ability to scrape through photos on a phone in the background is, but even a hash on every photo could be used to identify anyone who has a non public photo on their phone. Direct messages are their own treasure trove. You might be able to fingerprint the device or collect version information which might make landing a vulnerability on a particular target easier.
If I gave you the TikTok database and a function that will control what shows up in peoples feeds, I don't think it's very hard to imagine ways to create civil unrest, promote a friendly politician, identify military members, identify politicians, identify politicians children, diminish trust in public institutions, increase hopelesness/depression, drive up hatred to outgroups (people of a different gender race or sexual preference), or drive up hatred towards police.
We are living in an age where the ideas of objective truth and intellectual authority are gone. Nuance is dead. Everyone can choose their own reality. Presenting emotionally satisfying, yet ultimately destructive realities to people seems like the type of thing that can become quite problematic.
As a side note, from an ideological point of view, I am against banning TikTok, but it's hard not to see that it is the pragmatically correct thing to do. Certainly if China were to invade Taiwan, I think pragmatic concerns would exceed ideological ones.
We've had only approximately 1700 years of totalizing orthodox hegemony with the advent of heresy in late antiquity. Most of human existence hasn't been under the thumb of such world views. I'm sure we'll survive. Such a fear isn't based in a plurality of of worldviews - it's the fear of no longer being able to assert the dominant worldview.
If there is a market for domestic video-based social networks, then it should be low-hanging fruit for a US-based provider to offer a competitive product. If there isn't then the market has spoken, and consumers have voted with their attention.
There aren't any other interpretations that don't deprive the invisible hand of the market from delivering providence to consumers. These are rational actors making voluntary choices. Foreign policy should simply stay out as any intervention is necessarily a market distortion. If market actors are consuming it, it's good definitionally.
> [Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter] is a national security threat.
That's a lazy thing to say. It's obvious that TikTok is qualitatively different from the perspective of the US and its allies.
It's like this: a gun in my hand could be a threat to me because I could accidentally shoot myself in the foot; but that's very different threat than a gun in the hand of a mugger who's pointing it at my head.
> For those of us not in the US, it's not that different. We are always at the mercy of tech companies from a foreign power.
That may be true, but the OP tweet (https://twitter.com/zachtratar/status/1571595169207812096) is referring to Americans specifically, and even for non-Americans, it's different for American-allied countries vs. ones with a more adversarial relationship. I don't think Americans would be concerned about TikTok if it were based in the UK or Italy, for instance.
I’m pretty sure the Snowden leaks made it clear how the US chooses to treat its allies. So no, to anyone outside the US, Tik Tok isn’t substantially different from Facebook.
Then build your own. I mean it... good luck. You should absolutely advocate for your countries to limit their influence, and perhaps ban them from your country. Best of luck, but as an American, there's little I can do, unless you want me voting in your elections.
I'm sure you realize it's not that easy to "build your own" (for whatever tech, social network, internet, computers, etc). You don't have a head start and there are powerful forces working against you, both internal and external.
Though it's not outside the possibilities of a nation, it's still very hard.
I completely understand having divested myself of facebook, twitter and google and the like. I think if more nation states engaged, they would have more power than individuals or groups. Look what happened to parler, gab, and truth.
> That's a lazy thing to say. It's obvious that TikTok is qualitatively different from the perspective of the US and its allies.
No, it's lazy to say that your assertion is obviously true rather than arguing for it. It's an easy thing to do when you're part of a government-led crowd.
> China is a national competitor, not an enemy who intends to kill us. Sinophobic propaganda has been unfortunately effective on too many people.
You missed the point. Analogies aren't a one-to-one mapping between every aspect one situation and another, and you're going to have trouble if you interpret them that way. In this case, you picked on a feature that doesn't map to the situation under discussion to make an inflammatory suggestion.
To spell it out, very, very clearly: the analogy only demonstrates that "who holds the thing" is important for assessing a threat from a particular perspective. The US holds "[Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter]" (which are all banned in China) and China holds TikTok (which is not banned in the US).
> Its your analogy. If you think it is misleading, maybe you should have chosen a different one.
It's not misleading, you just read too much into it. It's like quibbling with an analogy about "Alice and Bob" because your name isn't Alice or Bob.
> Maybe check your internal biases on why you chose one which includes murderous intent.
If someone is making an analogy about threats in general, it's silly to expect them to find a different a threat that's different but also exactly the same as the one being discussed. Analogies are used to highlight a particular aspect, and usually that means picking something that is different but very clearly highlights that particular aspect.
Again, to spell it out, very, very clearly: a gun is an easily understood threat that almost everyone understands can be held by different people. It is a good object for illustrating how a threat changes based on who "holds" it.
They want to be THE de-facto global hegemon. They've stated this time and time again. It's literally in their name (Middle Country).
They don't want to kill us per-say, but they don't mind getting their hands dirty as long as the ends justify the means. In a battle over geopolitical, technological and militaristic superiority, killing one's enemy can happen.
China is preparing to invade Taiwan in the coming decade and the US is committing to defend the 23 million people there from invasion. What part of that is propaganda?
> China is preparing to invade Taiwan in the coming decade
Propaganda. You can tell because China has never said that it intends to invade Taiwan, and you have no inside information. Propaganda is what makes you think you have inside information.
> the US is committing to defend the 23 million people there from invasion.
That's not propaganda. As far as I can tell, it's as much a declaration of war as if Xi said, on video, that the would commit the Chinese military to defend Florida if there were any US effort to prevent DeSantis sending immigrants out of Florida on buses.
China is not a submissive or weak country. I would honestly be surprised if they didn't start preparing to invade Taiwan (or as they would say, to send troops to Taiwan) ASAP after that interview.
edit: We can have WWIII, but it will be the US, BJP, and various poor authoritarian Eastern European states vs. everyone else. It'll be like WWII, except we can be the Axis this time. Hitler was as surprised as anyone that we weren't in the Axis last time.
Here's you complaining about "horrifying virulence of Ukrainian nationalism", before the further invasion, definitely nothing about the soon to be start of Russian killing of Ukrainians.
>> China is preparing to invade Taiwan in the coming decade...What part of that is propaganda?
> Propaganda. You can tell because China has never said that it intends to invade Taiwan, and you have no inside information.
Uh dude, they repeatedly make it clear the option to invade is on the table, and they've even withdrawn a previous promise not to send military occupation forces. And if you haven't been paying attention: a little more than a month ago they conducted live-fire exercises that looked a lot like practicing for a blockade of Taiwan.
That's all out in the open. "Inside information" is not necessary.
Can't think of a bigger dissonance between most people and a typical HN commenter than this. Its a good intersection of infosec and geopolitical nerdom in general, but mostly it allows programmers to think that their expertise has bearing on something so seemingly serious and huge, when their work doesnt usually give them that opportunity. So I understand the fervor that way only because it just can't all be the typical superiority dynamic presented here a lot with layman's consumption habits, its just so extra with anything about software and China. I hope you guys get a fight worth your time one day.
Can anyone point to something that TikTok is doing that FB/Google/Twitter aren't already doing, that we should be concerned about?
All the anti-tiktok takes seem to be rooted in sinophobia and nationalist sour grapes. I don't like megacorps slurping my info up, but these conversations seem to have huge blinders around what has become standard practice for American web companies - especially when handling the data of foreign users.
My standard response - I see a really big difference between private corporations operating under rules of democratic government (with both of them being bad in many ways) and state sanctioned company, operating under the rules of an authoritarian regime.
And merely pointing a fact that China is an authoritarian state is NOT sinophobia, and please don't use arguments like that to try to shutdown discussion.
I've also seen myself few big-tech companies throwing literally hundreds of millions of dollars at ways to protect their infrastructure from USA government eavesdropping on their infrastructure. That's just not a possibility in an authoritarian state.
And if you don't see reasons why giving very powerful, authoritarian regime full access to huge amount data about people is a problem - well, history books can show you some.
The US government has become much more authoritarian since 9/11 and nationalism is on the rise.
A few big tech companies have spent hundreds of millions keeping the state out of their databases, which probably gets billed to their PR budgets. Most tech companies do not put up such a big fight. Some court the state to get sweetheart deals, and the public has no basis for feeling confident that covert access wasn't an unpublicized provision of those deals.
The US federal government can quite easily throw me in prison or destroy my livelihood if the right person/corporation with enough institutional clout had a grudge against me (see Steven Donziger, US lawyer who has been imprisoned for trying to hold Chevron accountable for illegally polluting in ecuador).
Why should I, a US citizen who has no business need to travel to China currently, worry about the CCP's authoritarianism more than the US govts?
>(see Steven Donziger, US lawyer who has been imprisoned for trying to hold Chevron accountable for illegally polluting in ecuador)
I'd never heard of him so I did.
>In 2014, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in Ecuador was invalid because Donziger had achieved it through offenses against legal ethics, including racketeering, extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, judicial bribery, coercion, witness tampering, and arranging for expert's reports to be ghostwritten.
Your statement is correct but you left out that he tried to hold the accountable by many, many illegal means.
To compare him to a dissident in China who simply dissapears ome day with no explanation is beyond disengeneuos.
If the BLM protests happened in China, those protesters would all be in jail.
Read two paragraphs down in the wikipedia article you copied that from: " In 2015, Guerra testified to an international tribunal that he had lied and changed his story multiple times in the RICO trial. Guerra admitted that there was no evidence supporting the allegation that Donziger bribed him or paid him for delivering a ghostwritten judgment, and that large parts of Guerra's testimony in the RICO case were either exaggerated or untrue."
Kaplan is a very pro-corporate judge and the appeals court has ruled against his overreach already. I'd take his analysis with a large grain of salt, but there is certainly a lot of fog of war in this case.
I think Chevron paying their witness (Guerra) $12k/mo is quite suspicious and Kaplan did not object to that witness' testimony. Certainly encourage more people to follow this case - it's pretty interesting (and a bit scary IMO) to see how it is playing out.
It's not like there's never been an individual activist who's prevailed over a large corporation. It happens often enough that the "fog of war" is not the normal. He also was jailed for refusing to provide the other side access to evidence through the process of discovery. In this case, the unedited footage from the film he produced which already had evidence of questionable behavior edited out after it's debut.
The "fog of war" you're citing seems a lot to me like a guy who may be right but has used dishonest means to "prove" his case.
> Why should I, a US citizen who has no business need to travel to China currently, worry about the CCP's authoritarianism more than the US govts?
It's the long cultural game that is probably being played that might or should have you worried. It's been happening for 10-15 years to US social media companies by outside and inside forces and it seems to have become a detriment to society in certain ways. Now think of a Facebook or Instagram that's directed by a (more) authoritative government against a culture that it's in opposition to. What does that look like in 20 years?
Edit: And I think we should all be very worried about Google, Facebook, etc. These domestic corporations are too big to have any morals. The employees might but the machine is just a machine.
Why should I, a US citizen who has no business need to travel to China currently, worry about the CCP's authoritarianism more than the US govts?
If you ever run for office or hold a position of national security interest, your personal data will be a great source for blackmail or honeypot operations.
> If you ever run for office or hold a position of national security interest, your personal data will be a great source for blackmail or honeypot operations.
And obviously no US company would release such information to your political opponents, their ethics are pure. It takes a dastardly CCP plot.
This is textbook “whataboutism” where instead of responding to the points being made you switch out to an attack on an opponent who has done something similar in the past.
If you are of the opinion that the US government’s past behaviour has been a bad thing then you should be absolutely horrified by the CCP’s track record.
> I don't think I've ever seen the term "whataboutism" used except in cases where the accuser wants to dismiss an argument but can't refute the point.
No you have that backwards, you’re the one dismissing the original argument by attempting to replace it with a different, inverse one.
Are you going to respond the the original points or just complain about me calling you out for using a conversation tactic favoured by Russian propaganda?
This prevailing argument on hackernews that "American and China are equally authoritarian regimes" is patently absurd.
One is used to hearing these types of nonsense points being made in high school by kids trying to be provocative
and contrarian but it getting to a supposedly "rational" community makes me think the community has been infiltrated by Chinese agents or other special interest groups astroturfing.
There's no "prevailing argument"—these are divisive topics with people on every conceivable side—the community is large. Jumping to overgeneralization about it is a marker of a low-quality comment, so please avoid that.
Also, please don't break the site guideline which asks you "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
The problem is, to many people around the world it is hard to describe the U.S. as democratic.
As I see it, in the U.S. the corporations have completely subverted the government whereas in China the corporations are afraid of the government.
I am not sure why private interests controlling governments is less scary than governments controlling private interests?
The U.S. lays claim to all data say Google stores about me, even the ones stored outside the U.S. As an European, the U.S. is much more likely to reach me if they wanted than China.
I am not sure why the U.S. model is better than China's. Perhaps we in the West would do better to admit it's two sides of the same coin.
This prevailing argument on hackernews that "American and China are equally authoritarian regimes" is patently absurd.
One is used to hearing these types of nonsense points being made in high school by kids trying to be proactive and contrarian but it getting to a supposedly "rational" community makes me think the community has been infiltrated by Chinese agents or other special interest groups astroturfing.
AT&T Room 641A has entered the chat. [1] Our government already spies on all of our telecom, the private companies are also complicit (be it by force or by choice (ex Oracle). I do not think the US is much different that China with the exception of the government not owning the companies at hand.
When this happens in a room in the west, it gets a Wikipedia page and people regularly post about it online and argue about whether the scope of the collection under law is appropriate.
When this happens in an authoritarian state, it is business as usual, the scope of collection is not considered, and dissenting opinions quickly disappear.
Im not sure I follow. I think this happens to every company in an authoritarian state currently, not having a room like this would be the oddity? They collect everything by default, like we do, we just try to keep it secret?
That is simply not true, there are tens of thousands of pages of law and regulation governing how those agencies must collect data.
The most notable and relevant to this discussion is FISA which has been amended by Congress at least a dozen times. This is certainly not a topic that doesn’t come up in Congress.
I counter this with what Snowden leaked. And watching the head of the NSA lie to congress about data collection. [A] FISA is a rubber stamp, no one will give up this power (and I don't blame them). [1] [2]
It's VERY different - not only corporations know about it, but they fight with that form of a passive surveillance.
At any major tech company, not even internal networks are considered to be safe, and things are encrypted to sometimes paranoid levels, that's costing A LOT (not only in processing power, that's nowadays less of an concern, but with a much increased complexity of their infrastructure).
And before you ask - major threat model they target is governments sponsored hacking.
I think these companies speak out of both sides of their mouth on this topic. And varies greatly depending on the level you are speaking with. An example I would state is Eric Schmidt, I believe he had a very cooperative relationship with the US Government, but also spoke against mass surveillance. (I also think that is just the nature of the role when you are in his shoes.)
> And if you don't see reasons why giving very powerful, authoritarian regime full access to huge amount data about people is a problem - well, history books can show you some.
Curious, are you referencing IBM and The Holocaust?
Exactly. The CCP doesn't have jurisdiction over me last time I checked. Although that might be a growing concern as China strengthens relationships with other countries.
I'd argue that's not true, though. They don't have legal jurisdiction over you, but they could potentially have digital or social jurisdiction over you and your environment, and that's possibly just as bad. Think manipulation of your local government, throwing elections in favour of pro-CCP candidates, and spreading pro-CCP material out to social media and the people around you becoming sympathetic to their cause.
That's the wrong argument because if they infiltrate the local government then they will have access to locally collected data and won't need tiktok.
Access to tiktok data gives China surveillance over US that could help in case of future conflicts, just look what Ukraine has done to Russian soldiers using insecure communications.
> I'm more concerned about my government having my data instead of a far away government tbh.
I presume you aren’t part of the crowd on HN/Reddit who are (still) upset that Russia used social media to “influence” the 2016 election? Imagine if say, a certain Asian country had detailed information about the habits and desires of millions of Americans, do you think they could do something similar in a future election?
I'm a full blown social media abolitionist. I'm upset about the propaganda wars conducted online. I'm frustrated by the difficulty of filtering through Russian, Chinese, and CIA propaganda online in order to understand history or current events. I do not think that Russia, China, the US, or private companies should have such capabilities.
There's a point here at which you have to just rely on your priors, but there's just a world of difference between Google and FB sharing data the US government requests on individuals via court orders, vs the CCP hoovering up data on every single user and using them to build a single giant social credit database.
And yes, maybe everyone is lying to you, and the NSA is doing it already. Maybe they already have radios in your microwave building a database of your breakfasts. We just don't know.
But at the end of the day I know a lot of people at Google and 100% of them would push back on governments requests as hard as humanly possible, and there would absolutely be whistleblowers if this was happening. I'm just not going to equate the two.
I do think they are obeying the letter of the legal mandates and have a social graph of all non citizens who have ever been to the US, or interacted with anyone from the US. But not US citizens, no.
As a general rule, the sharing occurs only as compelled by lawful court order. Goog/FB don't really have a choice in complying if they want to continue to exist and do business in the USA.
> As a general rule, the sharing occurs only as compelled by lawful court order.
"Lawful", sure, in the sense that the secret FISA court approved it, and while that's blatantly unconstitutional the supreme court decided that no-one has standing to bring that case unless they can prove that they were themselves being secretly surveilled. I bet everything that TikTok does is lawfully compelled as well.
> Goog/FB don't really have a choice in complying if they want to continue to exist and do business in the USA.
Sure, but again, how's that any different from TikTok's situation?
To answer my own question - the in-browser keylogger story was concerning to me. If it was actually transmitting the within-browser keystroke data back to tiktok servers, that would be quite concerning... except that I already avoid their browser like the plague because it sucks, so I just retype URLs into my default browser in the rare cases I want to follow a link in someone's profile.
> Can anyone point to something that TikTok is doing that FB/Google/Twitter aren't already doing, that we should be concerned about?
> ...I don't like megacorps slurping my info up, but these conversations seem to have huge blinders around what has become standard practice for American web companies - especially when handling the data of foreign users.
That's the wrong question for the context. This is a question about "nation-X national security," not personal tech privacy that's generically concerned with data collection and ads.
"A foreign country is amassing spies and rumour-spreaders on our streets!"
"So? Our country also has such agents on our streets. Worrying about these others is xenophobic. Besides, our country is just as corrupt, we are in no position to judge."
But what should we non-Americans make of this? Depends on your relationship with China vs. US. Personally, I view FB/Google/Twitter with less, but still plenty, of mistrust. US govt influence is a big factor, but not the only one.
Nothing honestly, but FB/Google/Twitter are under the authority of the United States government. Thus it is less of a threat to the US government, which is what it means to be a national security threat in this context.
This type of comment is popping up everywhere. I think it's a bit naive and simple. I would add selfish, but it might be more than that. If the CCP uses the data against your government and its people in order to pursue its interests, isn't it possible that your well-being could suffer? Even if that is not the direct intention? Further, isn't it possible that, while your government indeed has more power over you, a side effect of your government successfully satisfying their interests could be an improvement in your well being? How can you be so sure the biggest threat is your government?
I'm not so sure one way or the other, I'm just curious how you are. There is evidence of foreign governments meddling with US civilian affairs. It seems like this is exactly the attitude they would try to cultivate.
> If the CCP uses the data against your government and its people in order to pursue its interests, isn't it possible that your well-being could suffer? Even if that is not the direct intention? Further, isn't it possible that, while your government indeed has more power over you, a side effect of your government successfully satisfying their interests could be an improvement in your well being? How can you be so sure the biggest threat is your government? I'm not so sure one way or the other, I'm just curious how you are.
The same way we figure out anything else - learning and experience. Ultimately, there have been a bunch of cases of people like us having their lives ruined by the USG, and not so many cases of the CCP doing the same (and none for people who didn't go to China or have family ties there, AFAIK).
> There is evidence of foreign governments meddling with US civilian affairs. It seems like this is exactly the attitude they would try to cultivate.
There is also evidence of the US government meddling with US civilian affairs, and I suspect they deploy a lot more and a lot more effective propaganda to cultivate the attitudes that they want to see.
To be more specific, I am concerned about addressing surveillance-ware on a nationalist basis because it strengthens the political power of domestic surveillance-ware.
If the data is dangerous, no one should be allowed to collect, store and sell it. It shouldn't be allowed for only those in the favor of the US federal govt.
I'm sorry this is ridiculous. While I am very concerned about things such as learning the Biden administration colludes with fact checkers at facebook and dictates which accounts to ban at youtube and such... comparing that with the overarching censorship of the CCP is a false equivocation.
I realise that the Chinese Communist Party would like to label any questioning of their activities as 'sinophobia' but it's not so. The CCP is one thing and the Chinese people are another.
For US citizens like me it is 100% being even more uncomfortable with the CCP having data and influence over so many US citizens than I am about Google/Facebook/Amazon and the US government. I would rather we had data privacy on every front. But if I have to pick one that bothers me more, since I am a US citizen, I am most uncomfortable with the CCP.
If Tetris was one app that reported data directly to Putin, I'd be uncomfortable with that too.
I'd be amazed if at this point the CCP hasn't figured out it can have a lot of influence over the western intellectual class just by running tons of clandestine HN accounts. If people are that concerned about Russian hacking, why not Chinese when it's even more in their best interest?
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
If you have an actual response to the points they're making, please share. Otherwise this comment doesn't contribute anything productive to the discussion at hand.
Yeah, my bad. But I can't delete the comment for some reason, not sure why I can't even if it is flagged. You think it'd be ok to delete a comment that doesn't follow the rules.
One does not "accidentally" write an entire series of baseless accusations derailing the conversation, only to say "oops" when the response is universally negative.
Correct, I wrote that accidentally, I erased that real fast, like 1 minute later, but for some reason, people can still see it, I guess.
It was not a Ninja edit, just a mistake that I corrected a minute later but I don't know, maybe there's some kind of automatic feed that sends the post out to everyone?
What data does the CCP have? The people I follow? The kind of videos I like to watch. My favorites? Videos I "liked"? How exactly is this a national security threat?
I'm all for pushing back against the CCP but it's not clear what "data" they have
Imagine one day you run for office, or hold a position with national security interest.
In this scenario, it would be a lot easier to setup a honeypot thanks to all this additional information. In some cases, even blackmail you if you have a private TikTok account that's been linked back to your real identity.
I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP keeps a dossier on high profile figures in various countries as part of their influence operations.
> In this scenario, it would be a lot easier to setup a honeypot thanks to all this additional information. In some cases, even blackmail you if you have a private TikTok account that's been linked back to your real identity.
What's the difference between TikTok and any other site in its ability to associate IPs with your posts? How exactly would TikTok take advantage of your video viewing or posting data to set up a "honeypot" or do blackmail? Any plausible example would be fine.
It's location data, but none of the US Surveillance State wants to admit this.
They're upset about China having this data, but don't want to admit that they have it themselves. This is why all the public discourse on this topic is so utterly incoherent.
Let me be the devil's advocate here, they basically have a map of your interests and likes and things that grab your attention. I am not saying China is going to do this, but if a malicious actor wanted to abuse this data, they could potentially craft curated videos that feed your biases using your interests and potentially make you believe any propaganda they wanted.
Now imagine a machine learning model doing this instead of humans, it could infer so much more information about how you think and how your brain works based off of that data and do even more harm. Ever thought about buying something and an ad for that casually pops up in your feed? It is going to be similar to that, but instead of ads for a product it could be some misinformation that could cause paranoia (just an example).
the thing is that from the individual’s point of view there’s nothing new about this. at one point Google/YouTube held this influence over me. later, FB did. now ByteDance does (if i was a TikToker). in all these cases i’m about equally passionate in reducing the amount of power that other party has over me. doesn’t matter if it’s local or foreign.
viewing this as a National Security issue has some truth to it, but how on earth do you sell that to the public without decapitating yourself? “oh, it’s dangerous when centralized players hold influence over the masses, of which i am a part? so we’re going to ban everyone engaged in wielding this type of influence over me, right? oh, we’re not? we’re only banning the foreign one? US policy makers must not care about me at all then! US policy makers must not have my best interests in mind.”
Why not to explain to public why privacy matters and what real consequences are if you don't care and constantly doomscrooling?
I'm against any types of censorship. If you value freedom, you cannot implement practises of enemy.
To be clear... I'm not social media user, because of many ethical and technical issues that they have. And I know about them because I'm able to find that information or practically reproduce. With regulations, I wouldn't.
It’s not, yet. Until there’s actual proof of the CCP pushing propaganda onto western users we can talk but otherwise it’s just incumbents upset they can’t compete.
If another nation bans outside social media networks ... I see no reason that we shouldn't do the same to those that operate from that nation. The amount of data available is just too much to hand over in a one way relationship.
Wait, but it would be ok for a Chinese company to gather data on US citizens as long as our companies could gather data on Chinese citizens? What about countries that are not China or the US? Those are all one way relationships when it comes to Facebook/Twitter.
As a Canadian, a lot of the arguments about why TikTok is a national security threat come off as extremely US-centric. If applied consistently these ideas result in each country having its own social networking companies.
That seems like something you consider after you get past what i described.
As for other nations I strongly believe there is a real difference between more free and very much non free nations.
But to your original point I'd have no problem with raising the issue of if apps should even be able to gather all this data... but again that's after the issue I raised is resolved.
Imagine an actually-good version of the Russian "influence operations" in the US (where they bought a couple hundred thousand worth of Facebook ads for the 2016 election to run shitty memes that didn't even sound like they were written by native speakers).
If TikTok is this good at figuring out your general interests, it can probably figure out your political leanings as well. And tailor your content accordingly, in a way that furthers the interests of China. Whether that be by increasing/decreasing propensity to vote, increasing outrage, planting false narratives, etc.
Well, it's undeniable that they are more competent than Facebook in this domain; the proof is in the pudding. So in your terms, you're trading an incompetent domestic influence operation for a competent foreign one. Hard to see how that's a good trade for the US.
Yeah. The main thing that bothers me is that the media isn't discussing any generalized data protection reforms as a response to this - the story is "data collection is only scary because it's china doing it."
It's not just collection though. If China had access to everyone's credit card purchase info (they probably already do, but whatever), that's "data collection". But with TikTok they also have an obvious mechanism to directly affect behavior using the data they collected. That's not something you could easily do with just demographic or financial info alone.
Consider the potential for espionage when you have the up-to-date social graph, voice/facial scans, home/work/hangout addresses, phone number + email, and browsing interests of thousands of government employees of an adversarial foreign power.
I (not a kid tho) started using tiktok a few months ago and it was kind of good content mixed with algorithmic crap but what stood out to me was that I was getting an unproportional amount of anti tesla videos.
Like people wiggling parts in the interior and compairing them to their own chinese EV cars like MG. Multiple different accounts.
New Tiktok challenge: get as big a crowd of people together as you can for this dance! - reasonably good approximations of number of people in a given area or organization
New Tiktok challenge: pinch the sunset from a hilltop - combination of timestamp and known astronomical reference allows calculation of altitude allowing remarkably detailed topographic map around population centers
New Tiktok challenge: trying on all of my shoes - good proxy for calculating disposable income and thus mapping economic activity
New Tiktok challenge: how many flowers can I find in my backyard - reasonable proxy for determining both long term climate and recent weather activity in an area
New Tiktok challenge: trying on my boyfriend's uniform - estimate number, location, and rank distribution of military units
Nation-state level actors with millions upon millions of videos to analyze should not be underestimated.
New tiktok challenge: going through my pantry to show the chinese government how much non-perishable food I have
New tiktok challenge: seeing how much of the interior of this building I can map
New tiktok challenge: demonstrating my physical fitness level
New tiktok challenge: how many different angles of the presidential motorcade can I film
Yes, China can gain intelligence from other sources like spy satellites. I would likewise describe chinese spy satellites as a potential us national security threat.
Ok, so how about the Terms of Service are just honest and we see if everyone still agrees? Personally, I'm happy to trade my psych profile for that sweet sweet content.
I have always had a bad guy feeling about tiktok. It never seemed right to me how it grew so quickly. It screams of privacy concerns even beyond what Facebook was doing and came after years of public scrutiny and general contempt for those kinds of privacy nightmares.....
everything about it says to me it was supported by military/government programs from early on and it was obvious to me that anything that powerful came with strings....
I saw Facebook turn into a monster....and it still doesn't have the data access that tiktok gets.....
The biggest risk is chinas potential future influence over the content being pushed on TikTok. This is also where the law is least prepared for regulation.
On the privacy side, If lawmakers really cared about TikTok data ending up in China, I’m sure congress could pass a powerful privacy law modeled off the CCPA or GDPR. This hasn’t happened so I’m assuming it isn’t considered a very serious national security threat.
On the content side, I don’t think the world has a very good model for regulating algorithmic content streams. The biggest risk is also the hardest problem to tackle
I remember some years ago I saw the same rhetoric on Meta's (Facebook) services in Russia.
Meta ended getting restricted in Russia and branded as "extremist" due to some ugly story with moderation rules and hate-speach.
All this is generally considered as a backwards decision and is criticized both in Russia and in the West.
I wonder when will we see the same for TikTok in the US and how would it be implemented. AFAIK, Trump had threatened to ban TikTok during his last presidency, but how would it be implemented practically? It seems that previously the US had only restricted internet by undelegating/seizing domains, but that would be scandalous for an international corporation.
Nationalization maybe? It seems that had already "partly" happened with that Trump incident - TikTok had to restructure a bit and let a few American investors in, strings attached.
In any case, this situation is a boon for America's competitors, as it is a yet another demonstration of America's integrity failing.
Do note this situation is maybe new for Americans, i.e. people from the US.
For many of us in the rest of the world, it turns out this scenario of "foreign power in control of the tech and data we use daily" has been a reality for ages. It's just that the foreign power wasn't China.
Would it surprise you that people in some countries in the world (I don't mean China or Russia, mind you) would consider the US as adversarial at times?
like adversaries before, china isn't forcing america to treat it as an adversary. it's just the military-industrial complex needs a reason to continue building capacity now that the war on terror is over. the war on terror replaced the cold war, the cold war replaced world war 2. it will continue this way until the next global imperial power sets to tune that america will dance to.
BS. China has said themselves they're preparing to invade Taiwan in what will be a bloody war. Would you prefer deterring that or letting another Ukraine happen?
The US may have similar national interests to my country, but that hasn't stopped them going after individuals in my country - with a lot more effectiveness than if China tried the same thing.
to me your argument sounds like that fraction of the Ukrainian population telling his neighbors, "Russia has all of our personal information, and the US also has our personal information. SaMe tHIng amirite!?"
sadly, you believe it, for now. Not saying you don't have a point, saying that it doesn't fall under the heading "national security threat" no matter what country you're from.
I'm sorry, China is not to the US as Russia to Ukraine. Your comparison is ridiculous.
The US backed coups d'etat and interfered with democracies in my part of the world, so you're wrong: it's very much a matter of national security for us.
I have it on good authority that the US and Ukraine are women and that China and Russia are rapists who are blaming the victim by denying the US and Ukraine their agency and gaslighting them. That's why it's a genocide, I think.
This isn't about research, it's about preconception. You imagine that you've got 80 million Americans watching cute dog videos and you can find some algorithm to feed them communist propaganda or whatever. In reality what happens is you start fucking with their cute dog videos and they all immediately turn off. What made Facebook and Youtube dangerous is they enabled a pre-existing trend to just slowly trudge further into the extreme and insane. Yes, there are highways to hysteria. But they're embedded in humans and reinforced by algorithms, you can't just pick the way you want to go. The far right on facebook isn't really distinguishable from talk radio, because it's reinforcing not creating.
Now, you could say that's bad in itself, but at the end of the day, extremism is often far ight Americans using their free speech to talk to other far right Americans. Right up until they storm the capitol.
Why are they worried? If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear! Or does that only work when the Americans are spying on everything we say and do both online and off?
I agree it's a huge security threat but framing it as data privacy issue is a distraction from the real concern which is top-down censorship. People think of TikTok as pure algorithm but that's wrong, the algorithm is manipulated directly by the CCP. They've censored BlackLivesMatter[1], blocked a teenager discussing China’s genocide in Xinjiang[2], blocked a video of Tank Man[3], Hong Kong protests and Houston Rockets basketball team[4]. TikTok guidelines censor Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, and the Falun Gong[5].
The whatabout-ism regarding American companies doing similar stuff can be explained by that great quote, “in the United States the journalists are so powerful they can throw politicians in jail, in China the politicians are so powerful they can throw journalists in jail.”
The CCP is getting this data, and they have significantly more carte blanche to do nefarious things than US government officials do.
At least China doesn't seem to be out-right mass murdering people around the globe with explicit approval and support of its population. Or at leas the population being complicit by not taking the justice in their hands when they are able to.
I am glad hackernews has not fallen to the nihilism that most other platforms have when clearly attacked by foreign agents or special interests astroturfing and using whataboutism.
Most other communities just go along with nihilism about democracy because it is in vogue to pretend we are another authoritarian regime. Nice to see the nerds haven't given up :)
Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents, looking to, on the surface, minimize the threat against the West by China.
Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue.
All these comments do not address this at all, and seem to do their best to ridicule a valid concern.
Obviously the issue is that the data from TikTok is required to go to the Chinese government as do the algorithms.
China has clearly benefitted from the West, by all the money and IP that we have given it, by the products we purchase. Now, the Chinese are biting the hand that feeds it, by becoming an ally of Russia. By actively looking to undermine the West. To deny this is to deny reality,unless you are saying all the reports on how the Chinese are doing this is "fake news."
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, said “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,”
.
The difference between TikTok and all Chinese apps is that the government essentially owns all companies, whereas in the West, this is not the case. Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant.
Furthermore, I believe China will be seeking to invade Taiwan soon, and take over all their chip-making technology. Their population and economy is crashing, so now is the time to invade Taiwan.
To just dismiss these concerns about TikTok out of hand, without any discussion, is clearly wrong.
This entire thread seems like it was written by the CCP sleeper HN users.
.
Also, as noted by trident5000 below, China has access to all USA users of TikTok., but the USA or anyone else doesn't have access to Chinese users of TikTok. That's just one more issue to add on, and I'm sure there are others, too.
> Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents, looking to, on the surface, minimize the threat against the West by China.
Please omit this sort of low-quality, evidenceless* insinuation from your posts to HN. The site guidelines specifically ask: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
* An opposing view does not count as evidence. This community is large and has a ton of people who come by their opposing views perfectly honestly, as I'm sure do you. Insinuating otherwise is hands-down the laziest internet trope there is, and by far the one that most corrupts discussion quality. You can make your substantive points without that, so please do.
But this conversation is about what the US should do about TikTok - it is specifically in the US context.
Also, there is a big difference between how US companies operate, and the circumstances in which they share data, and how a Chinese company operates.
A parallel is that Google pulled out of China because China demanded Google censor search results (and account security issues). You could easily retort that Google censors all their search results anyway, but there really is no comparison between what China demands and what some believe Google does anyway.
> No, we're just non-US people not seeing the difference between US agencies forcing FB/Google etc to hand over our data, or China forcing TikTok.
As a non-US person, I think you didn't get the point: the US agencies can only ask for data, but the Chinese agencies can push whatever software changes they want.
In other words, if China attacks Taiwan, there is nothing from stopping them of changing TikTok algorithm to deprioritize all the user content critizing its actions.
It could even make it look like the entire TikTok is supporting China just by promoting "the right" user content.
> Facebook has admitted to suppressing speech in Thailand and the US.
> Twitter and reddit openly do it during election season to sway votes and opinions globally.
Could you provide any reputable sources that claim that such things were done under the direct request from the US agencies? Or is this your personal interpretation?
The linked thread discusses how tik tok represents a natsec threat to America specifically. Whether y'all europeans think American bigtech is a natsec threat to non-American countries isn't really a concern right now.
The US companies collecting and sharing all this personal data is terrible. However, the CCP's use of personal data is another level.
If a citizen or visitor to the US criticizes the government in any way; nothing happens to them. The CCP on the other hand is quick to arrest and silence any party within their jurisdiction which is critical of the government.
Literally millions of people have died because of the CCP's tight grip on the country and strong-handed end to any opposition. Ask the uighur muslims about this.
Your other posts to this thread were bad enough, and I already replied once. But this sort of slur is beyond the pale and not allowed on HN, so i've banned this account.
I think people in the West forget that Imperial China was a kind of superpower in the past, and the Chinese people have neither forgotten that they are capable of it back then and are capable of it now.
Being underestimated is to China’a advantage.
Another thing is that, Americans don’t see the effect of soft power and cultural imperialism because it has often been American culture and technology being exported elsewhere. Tik Tok is an example of a successful export by China, and it likely won’t be the last.
That bit about Western governments can only access the data through search warrant is not strictly true. The US have gotten around their own laws by such things as, purchasing consumer data on the open market without a warrant, or making agreements with other government intelligence agencies to obtain domestic surveillance data through a foreign ally’s foreign surveillance program.
> I think people in the West forget that Imperial China was a kind of superpower in the past, and the Chinese people have neither forgotten that they are capable of it back then and are capable of it now.
Indeed, here is an article that explains some of that history
I understood this, but that's not the issue. The issue is that the USA does not have direct ability to order those companies to surrender their data. It's a different thing completely.
> Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant.
It's disingenuous to believe that western government agencies are fully transparent and always require a judge's warrant and in general don't engage in espionage activities - the USA are especially competent at this.
Comparing the level of intrusion of a dysfunctional government (USA) with a full blown dictatorship (China) is even more disingenuous. If you think I'm wrong look at the wisdom of the masses: why nobody wants to emigrate to China?
I'm not comparing, the comment I replied to is. I just pointed out that it is, in practice, wrong that western government agency do need judicial warrants to acquire corporate data.
And yet the difference remains. Imagine if the NSA didn't have to hide their likely illegal activities and they were instead their explicit, public and legal goal. The CCCP is proudly the worst case scenario for the NSA.
They aren't being disingenuous, because they clearly know it. They just don't care because disrupting basic civilized discussion via dehumanization is literally their task.
What real harm can they do with this data though? You do have to opt in if you consume their service, so if you're really worried about what influence it has on you, you can opt out. I mean, I know that you and I and everybody else would rather be entertained by companies that aren't tracking us, like TV used to do, but that ship has sailed... they're going to track us, so we just have to figure out what the real potential harm is and protect against that.
The purpose of the algorithm is to provide content "for you". If you have not used tik tok I understand why you would not see the issue. Tik tok users quickly are lead into a "reality" based on what content is shown. You can sow division or push narratives quite easily if you control these algorithms in ways you cannot on facebook/twitter/etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would assume that it could help tremendously with PSYOPs.
If you could identifying some target group, like those easily influenced about a particular topic, then videos could be recommended to try to push them towards some perspective about that topic. I would even claim that the user generated content varies enough that the need for planted/sponsored videos would be rare.
I don't think it's remotely controversial to claim that they have the majority of the eyes of the US youth under their control [1]. I doubt there's ever been another time in history where a foreign, not-so-good-relation, government has had anything close to this level of direct, push, access to another countries population.
Lets flip it. If the most viewed media company in China were US based, partly owned by the US government (as ByteDance is by the CCP), I think we can all assume that a three letter agency would be using it to their advantage. They use our own companies to their advantage. China is demonstrably similar, in this way. But, China would never allow that scenario to happen.
Nothing says calm and rational discourse like preemptively silencing dissenting opinions by branding them via baseless accusations.
Perhaps people are just sick and tired of these weekly fear-baiting threads about Tik Tok, but who am I to comment on this mass hysteria incited for the sole purpose of hatred and conflict?
As has been pointed out, claiming "agents" is basically cop-out as opposed to making a substantive point
But I'm curious in general, would a site like HN ever attract state actors, or even corporate collusion (from a fortune 500 for example, founder asking friends for upvotes or friendly comments I've seen). It's an honest question, I can picture twitter and facebook and these massive dau number sites attracting psyops type stuff. Does it happen on the scale on HN and other "popular" sites that are still niche compared to the big ones? Does Ravelry have multinational threat actors posting? It would be interesting to understand that whole ecosystem
They don't have to be CCP agents to ignore this whole TikTok concerns. People are usually ignorant, open for manipulation are prefer easy solutions and answers more than real ones (but complicated). So after your long list of arguments lots of people would answer "LOL, Twitter & FB bad" or "China is far away, I don't care what they have on me" or even "I'm no one, they won't manipulate me because I'm not important" (with this one they ignore that one person is in fact not important, but 80 millions of not important manipulated people are really important for propaganda war or even to elect proper people after slowly but patiently changing what should they think with such "safe" tiktok videos)
The CPC has TikTok data, and the US (through PRISM) has iCloud, Microsoft, GSuite, Facebook, and now likely Snapchat too. Separately to PRISM, the NSA intercepts data at the backbone level, which is for example how they could get every last byte of data Google has by tapping the network links between Google's datacenters (the "MUSCULAR" program). The "search warrants" are rubber stamps. The NSA's MARINA program collects metadata on everyone in order to do "patterns of life" analysis; this explicitly includes U.S. citizens because "metadata is not considered data" by section 702 of the FISA Amendment Act. The U.S. has also been documented to have infiltrated various peace groups/activist groups. Is the U.S. government a national security threat?
These are all privacy issues, but they're not national security issues. What's the exact concern here? TikTok being able to create voice and faceprints of US citizens? So can Snapchat or FB Messenger; and I would hope no CIA spy (the only people the CPC would actually care about) has a TikTok account.
What else? The CPC using TikTok to push pro-China or pro-Russia propaganda? Pro-Russia content was banned from TikTok, and TikTok isn't known for its popular pro-China videos. Promoting pro-Trump "propaganda" to "subvert" the U.S.? Trump is banned from TikTok. Where's the "subversion"?
It may be a US national security issue, in that the US secret agencies do not get access to everything the rest of the world creates.
This is an international community. We are not all Americans, and some of us react to the words "national security" as the town dwellers in the boy who cried wolf.
"Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents"
No, what about people who dont believe american propaganda?
"minimize the threat against the West by China.
Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue."
The "west" is not a country. Who is being menaced here? The "west" (what countries are the west exactly? Bolivia is in the Western Emisphere, and they are more aligned with China than with the american Empire.) By "West" do you actually mean the NATO military alliance?
"Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Snowden is laughing his ass off!
"By actively looking to undermine the West."
Again, what do you mean by "the West"? The Western Emisphere? Developed countries? The Imperial Core? The NATO military-imperialistic-warmonger alliance?
I will tell you the regions of the world that don't benefit from the West, and the exploitation it produces: the whole of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Russia. Those are vast regions of land where billions have been historically EXPLOITED, SUBJUGATED and ENSLAVED by "The West". Fuck the west! It should completely be undermined and destroyed, to be replaced by a socialistic, humanistic and civilized society.
As long as "The West" and the wars, bloodbaths and constant bombings, coups, civil wars, guerrilla fighting and exploitation they promote exists, that cannot be achieved.
Russia. Those are vast regions of land where billions have been historically EXPLOITED, SUBJUGATED and ENSLAVED by "The West".
The Russians have done quite a good job of exploiting their own people, no need for the West's assistance there. Example: Perestroika. You'd think a resource-rich country with some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet (and arguably THE wealthiest person on the planet by a great distance if rumors of Putin's actual net worth are true) wouldn't have trouble providing the basics to its people....but over 20% of the country doesn't have access to indoor plumbing. That's totally the fault of the big evil "West", now isn't it?
It's against the site guidelines to use HN for political/ideological/nationalistic battle, and your account seems to be doing a lot of that.
We ban accounts that use HN primarily for this—regardless of what they're battling for or against—so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this, we'd appreciate it. You've also posted good comments, so I don't want to ban you.
Note this guideline too though: "Don't be snarky."
Par for the course. Hey did you actually scan from top to bottom, left to right? Might have seen something interesting.
Dude in particular the cockroach comment on http://fgemm.com came out so...so very fine, I'm so happy with it. Ended up pulling the stunt, not pictures of me but pictures of a deleted memory from my metamorphosis, I hadn't seen that magic card or remembered its name in 22 years. And then it was lobotomized, and then I flashed on it in the moment. Quite pleased with that.
At a simpler level, it's a travesty that TikTok is allowed to operate in the US when Google, Facebook, Twitter et al are banned in China. Trump had the right idea in seeking to ban it, until he reverted to type and turned that into a shake-down instead.
A ton of apps and sites and businesses in the US collect a ton of information and sell it to data brokers. Even many state governments give or sell plenty of personal data to data brokers, such as voter data and driver's license data.
There is little to no regulation of the data broker business.
Stopping Americans from using foreign owned apps over fear that foreign governments will get too much personal data seems pointless because those foreign governments can just buy data from American data brokers.
You can't realistically expect to have personal data largely unprotected within your country and at the same time expect to keep that data within the country.
Yes it does. If someone complains about somebody else doing the exact same thing they are doing, then the issue isn't with the action but the "somebody else", aka racism.
FBI, and beurocrats want to control the discourse,
and pick favorites which candidates Americans get. It's harder to do that when platform is foreign.
Still perhaps the best thing for Americans to have an alternative main stream source of information.
Platforms should not get to do view point discrimination and censorship.
Pendulums swing, and public opinion matters..the law will follow.
TikTok is the best app of its type, and for the first time USA being beaten by a foreign country to develop an international successfully app. Also one of the first times China developers catered for an outside audience. Obviously this has huge implications and the USA is quite offended
When China said Gmail/Facebook/Instagram... was a security threat, USA called it censorship, so now they're in a pickle
And it is obviously a security threat, but USA does not care as long they're the ones spying the world, and their own population
Also USA is much more prone to foreign interference, like their drones using cellular data in foreign countries to kill people, elections, blackmail, etc...
So as an European I would say.. fight fight fight!
No one wants to become China but USA/UK/EU/AUS... are slowly becoming more authoritarian anyway. Maybe some competition will make them wake up and remember what they used to stand for
I am convinced that TikTok is addictive to a subset of the population by using the same methologies that video gambling machines employ - colour, movement, dopamine fluctuations and ease of use.
I also think that the use of infinite scrolling is unethical.
Facebook and Twitter drive user engagement differently as they have discovered that illicting negative emotions makes their offerings more "sticky".
Then there is their algorithm. It's good. Extraordinarily good. One day they will tweak it to sow narratives that the US or western governments find offensive and I'm guessing this is the real reason for it being a "national security threat".
Twitter is also a national security threat for similar reasons. It's tempting to say that advertising supported internet services in general, devolve into them.
The tracking technology used to help target advertising is a perfect tool for use by repressive regimes and organizations of any size or scale.
Offline caching and sharing of content in a distributed fashion, where it isn't possible to get real-time location data, for example, is one possible route around this problem. Perhaps it's time to revisit the Memex concept, and make computers personal again.
I think this is it, the benefits of collecting from and sending to a person is valuable to advertisers as well as governments for similar reasons and applications, namely engineering consent.
The trouble I see is that because of it's utility it seems unlikely to go away. But also, what is the difference between being made to believe something via for example via a persuasive essay and a TikTok video, if the intent and result of both is the same?
