by scanr on 7/19/22, 6:31 AM with 847 comments
by ec109685 on 7/19/22, 6:57 AM
by jpk on 7/19/22, 7:07 AM
I get it. We want corps to stop hoovering up our data because they can use it to manipulate us with advertising, and they can mishandle it such that other bad actors can exploit it. I'm with you, this is a valid concern that we should address. But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist.
I don't think it's reasonable to wait for general regulation of social media corps while TikTok continues to do its thing, particularly if targeted action against TikTok is politically viable.
Edit: typo
by nonrandomstring on 7/19/22, 8:12 AM
- Our phone hardware and operating systems are intrinsically insecure.
- There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation)
- All social media companies are doing it, leading to jeers of "hypocrisy!"
- All governments play the same games, reducing the arguments to "Whose side are you on?" That's effectively meaningless in a globalised world. The consequence is more nationalism and an ever more fragmented splinternet.
- The only proposed solutions amount to more authoritarian, controlling and regulatory responses.
What can we do?
There is a solution. Stop protecting these companies. Burn down WIPO. Tear up practically all "intellectual property" laws. Revoke millions of patents. Repeal all DCMA type laws regarding reverse engineering. Kick trademark and brand protection law to the curb.
The real problem is gargantuan monolithic, captive audiences that exist because incumbent monopolies enjoy protectionist measures that amount to a giant international trade racket.
Creating a real market that forces radical interoperability would solve many of the problems we see today. Who would care about TiKToK or Facebook if they were one of 500,000 small "Social Apps" that connected to a standardised international network.
Hell, we could even give it a catchy name, like "The Internet".
by unityByFreedom on 7/19/22, 7:36 AM
Republicans had a chance to ban TikTok during the last administration. They did not do it.
by okamiueru on 7/19/22, 8:07 AM
Foreign countries controlling what information a coming generation is exposed to is IMO much more concerning than collecting and profiling (of course also troubling, but a slightly different league). There is little oversight into what bubbles are formed, who is fed what, etc.
Want to create division in a foreign country? What better place to start than on social media and malleable kids.
This applies equally to TikTok as Facebook, for different reasons. I don't trust TikTok because of CCP, and Facebook because everything is for sale.
by tedk-42 on 7/19/22, 6:54 AM
Lawyer that opposed net neutrality and now voicing his disapproval of apps built by the China.
Sounds like he's making a play to become a career politician using his version of what 'ok authoritarianism' is.
I'd like to see someone actually prove a security risk rather than hypothetically posing it. I.e. show me 1000 tiktok downloaded videos run through a program with their metadata something of strategic importance to a nation state (like the location of nuclear missiles haha).
by XiS on 7/19/22, 7:01 AM
How can they even collect browsing history or biometric identifiers on Android? Isn't browser history stored in the browser's private storage space, or am I being naive here?
by moonchrome on 7/19/22, 7:24 AM
World is > US and China, Europe, SA, Africa, the rest of Asia - this is a clear cut message "you need to have your social networking in-country to prevent others from compromising you".
by pyinstallwoes on 7/19/22, 8:17 AM
> When challenged if the CCP has seen any non-public user data, he said, “We have never shared information with the Chinese government nor would we […]
Such easy misdirection. Never shared, doesn't mean CCP doesn't just injest it. Most people don't have the ability to understand how information works in tech anyway. I don't blame them. We're in a situation that's way worse than "the 1%", it's the 0.001% that know how information technology works.
As an aside...
I can't tell if it is a comedy, tragedy, or thriller when the story-line that ends up creating AGI most likely will be an Intelligence Agency. With all the data collection they're doing and prediction, they may even already have invented it decades ago.
by drvdevd on 7/19/22, 1:34 PM
This would force many who would otherwise never think about the consequences of these walled garden ecosystems and their lack of control, to suddenly have to do so.
by pleb_nz on 7/19/22, 9:35 AM
A lot of people generally really don't care a hoot about this stuff.
by archagon on 7/19/22, 6:10 PM
by keyme on 7/19/22, 7:34 AM
Uncle Sam asking the 2 great censors of the west to get rid of the most popular app in their stores, so that the east will cease competing with said Uncle on who gets to brainwash their citizens. Gold.
Whichever way this goes, one of these parties loses big, which is a good thing for us humans.
by jmyeet on 7/19/22, 11:30 AM
Corporations in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy in a way they just aren't in the West. The US government can also be replaced. That's why China and the US just aren't equivalent here and why something like Tiktok is of greater risk and concern than any US Big Tech app or platform.
Yes, US law enforcement can get access to, say, messages. There's a process for that. Some of it is pretty questionable (eg FISA court, pen registers, NSLs) but at least there's a process. I don't for a second believe that US intelligence has a firehose of everything posted on Twitter and Facebook just because I don't believe the US government has the storage capacity required.
Secondly, China is completely protectionist about access to its market. There are Chinese versions for every app and platform. China uses access to its market as a giant carrot to exact concessions from Western companies but they're chasing a phantom: China will never let any Western company "win" in China.
Part of getting access to China is playing ball with the CCP, which means giving access to data on a whole level above the US government. It means enforcing the Great Firewall and, for example, censoring mention of the Tiannamen Square massacre.
Trade needs to be recipricoal so if China restricts access to the Chinese market, I see no issue with Western countries responding in kind.
The threat model for something like Tiktok is a whole lot worse than any Western equivalent.
by jossclimb on 7/19/22, 7:34 AM
by cute_boi on 7/19/22, 6:51 AM
We need better privacy and social media reform instead of targeting tiktok. Also, why should we listen to Brendan Carr who shouldn't be able to speak for entire FCC. He is from Ajit Pai who takes lobbies from Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. Looks like they are worried that their accomplices can't steal more data than tiktok. Lastly, the funny thing is Facebook was asking me for photo and phone number for verification which I denied.
by jacquesm on 7/19/22, 10:07 AM
by gverri on 7/19/22, 5:45 PM
Are we going to see a future where every country/economic block has their own separate social media/search engines like China and Russia?
It's is an attack on users freedom but it could also be a big economic opportunity for those who decide to foster their own internal technological ecosystem.
by spamizbad on 7/19/22, 2:35 PM
by Shreedinger on 7/19/22, 1:52 PM
by ianai on 7/19/22, 11:05 AM
“My data, my attention, my choice!”?
by publicola1990 on 7/19/22, 12:06 PM
Why should federal government infringe on individuals right to install apps.
by pdabbadabba on 7/19/22, 2:00 PM
by jliptzin on 7/19/22, 11:51 AM
by blackoil on 7/19/22, 7:57 AM
by evv on 7/19/22, 10:51 AM
I am not sure what makes the most sense from a foreign policy perspective. But we should be careful about our selective attention.
by jmfayard on 7/19/22, 6:58 AM
Asking the stores to remove one app won't do it though, time to adopt EU-like regulations.
by verisimi on 7/19/22, 8:11 AM
It's perfectly fine for our governments and corporations to work together to collect our data.
Western ethics dictate that its NOT ok for Eastern governments and corporations to work together and collect our data. That's a security risk.
For the individual, the analysis is clear. All government involvement is a security risk. The are all immoral, and seek ever greater control and power.
This is nothing about security (either represents an insecure position for the individual). This is about which government has greater power and control over individuals.
It's all so filthy...
by elzbardico on 7/19/22, 9:46 AM
by tsegratis on 7/19/22, 11:47 AM
Which inversely correlates with the importance of the debate to the participants. We see it in this thread
But I don't want to avoid important topics to people for the sake of civility, rather I would like, as is happening here, for those topics to become the best places for people to learn inquisitive engagement
by Kukumber on 7/19/22, 10:18 AM
by 2-718-281-828 on 7/19/22, 5:55 PM
by lizardactivist on 7/19/22, 8:53 AM
Now that they have what they need, they use the same excuse for market protectionism, trying to remove TikTok so US alternatives can take its place.
A tactic well-used by the US.
by beaunative on 7/19/22, 5:26 PM
by rand49an on 7/19/22, 8:53 AM
by babypuncher on 7/19/22, 3:15 PM
To me, it sounds like our government is just trying to play favorites with domestic evildoers.
by flerovium on 7/19/22, 6:17 PM
Now instead imagine that TT decreased the ranking of content by 10% that went against the agenda of the CCP. Users, the government, and creators never know.
by kleton on 7/19/22, 12:31 PM
by ngcc_hk on 7/19/22, 3:21 PM
by intrasight on 7/19/22, 2:27 PM
by helen___keller on 7/19/22, 9:17 AM
by bjt2n3904 on 7/19/22, 1:09 PM
As an aside, what? Is this an opinion? Like... Is the FCC just dumping their shower thoughts on the internet?
by mrkramer on 7/19/22, 12:14 PM
I remember Bill Gates once said in one of his interviews that Microsoft showed the source code of Microsoft Windows to various governments around the world in order for them to review it because they were afraid of NSA surveillance. Maybe that's the way for TikTok instead of going full open source but who knows.
by paulv on 7/19/22, 7:00 AM
by fbn79 on 7/19/22, 6:48 AM
by mupuff1234 on 7/19/22, 3:42 PM
It was made by Brendan Carr, who works for the FCC, but the request is not an official FCC request.
by dylan604 on 7/19/22, 2:38 PM
by jollybean on 7/19/22, 7:16 AM
Also, China is not the US.
This is a Giant Thing.
China would never, ever, ever allow US companies to have direct influence over their media, so even by basic tit-for-tat rules, this is reasonable.
Moreover, even from a 'trade' perspective, if China does not allow such social media apps from US over there, which denies US companies that Ad revenue, the same should be applied in reverse. No sense in letting TT get Ad revenue, it should go to some entity playing by the same rules US, Europe, Japan etc.
by bastardoperator on 7/19/22, 2:25 PM
by zackmorris on 7/19/22, 6:12 PM
It woke me up to a profoundly different worldview than the one we've been raised with in the west. That's what this is really about, not privacy. Or more precisely, yes security is a concern, but I can't believe that's the only reason, because we've all been lied to so many times that all I hear now is the establishment crying wolf.
by unixbane on 7/19/22, 5:48 PM
by lazyeye on 7/19/22, 10:27 AM
In previous, less enlightened times, this might have been seen as treason.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chine...
by gorbypark on 7/19/22, 7:29 AM
by acd on 7/19/22, 10:15 AM
I mean here brilliant computer engineers build content platforms that are virally additive to the brain. The platforms track every users movement and decision, yet there is zero regulation! What could possibly go wrong here?
by api on 7/19/22, 2:19 PM
by EToS on 7/19/22, 11:02 AM
by ArrayBoundCheck on 7/19/22, 3:51 PM
Yeah! Why do I have to sponsor hires who happen to be not legal citizen. I have to hop all these hops to hire while your local grocery store doesn't have to sponsor anyone! So annoying /s obviously
by hit8run on 7/19/22, 8:03 AM
by programmarchy on 7/19/22, 1:33 PM
by tginart on 7/19/22, 3:52 PM
Google and FB and beholden to US regulations, and have shown zero evidence that they would defy Uncle Sam. They aren’t the same thing at all.
Ban TikTok now. China banned our apps decades ago. What is taking us so long?
by fupimeng on 7/19/22, 3:56 PM
by ok_dad on 7/19/22, 10:56 AM
They don’t want the possibility that another country could be doing this, even though there’s no evidence China is doing this, like Snowden unleashed for the USA. They could solve this with a law requiring data on US citizens be stored in the USA but then that’ll fuck up 5 eyes agreements for them and they can’t have that.
Personally: burn them all down, I would be fine with this happening because we need to eliminate all social media, period.
by anonyfox on 7/19/22, 9:19 AM
by peanut_worm on 7/19/22, 3:18 PM
by medv on 7/19/22, 7:56 AM
by nivenkos on 7/19/22, 8:09 AM
Same for trying to ban Turkey selling drones, Europe using Huawei, Europe buying Russian gas instead of American LNG, etc.
by technick on 7/19/22, 6:49 AM
by peacefulhat on 7/19/22, 8:14 AM
by dragonelite on 7/19/22, 8:54 AM
by jrockway on 7/19/22, 4:43 PM
As far as I can tell, this is just some random commissioner (who also wants to get rid of net neutrality and Section 230) making a political statement, and nothing more. Yes, you should be worried about big companies collecting your data. Yes, you should be worried that the CCP has a direct line to VERY influenceable kids. Both of these are legal; the first amendment guarantees the right to publish propaganda that is potentially bad for national security. If you want to stop propaganda, start investing in education, Congress.
I don't see how TikTok is doing anything out of the ordinary here and why they should be specifically targeted. Everyone is doing the same things they're doing. I get that the US is scared that China is going to replace them as "the superpower". Getting rid of some social media app is not going to change that. We're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. We lost this battle decades ago, and it's too late to stop it.
I really feel like this is a token stance against China and not a whole lot else. They won't stop buying our soybean exports if we take a hard line against TikTok, whereas they would if we took a hard line stance against stealing American intellectual property or invading Taiwan, which is the problem we're actually worried about. So nothing changes, but when Commissioner Carr runs for some political office (his term is up next year, and I'm guessing Biden isn't going to re-appoint him), he has some token "I did a thing" to point to. (And knowing his political affiliation, "I hurt people that aren't white" is probably a good selling point for his candidacy. Sad that such a thing is true in 2022.)
If someone wants to do something about this, Congress should make some laws. "It's illegal at the federal level to bypass device privacy protections to sell ads." or "It's illegal for a US company to help law enforcement track users." or "We don't import goods from countries that have concentration camps that kill ethnic minorities." This will never happen. Congress loves it when companies bypass device protections to sell ads, and they demand that companies like Apple break the security on their devices to aid law enforcement.
Finally, if the FCC really wanted Apple and Google to delete an app from the app store, I doubt that posting a poorly-researched rant to Twitter would be how they go about doing it. I'd be surprised if Tim and Sundar even read this letter.
by bioinformatics on 7/20/22, 12:45 AM
by fleddr on 7/19/22, 11:01 AM
Maximize division, influence elections, spread misinformation, censorship, the like. Already happening in US-owned social networks, imagine what China can do on a China-owned network.
by moomoo11 on 7/19/22, 7:15 AM
From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people in your nation are behaving, especially when you consider how much data about sensitive information might be getting onto tiktok, like videos made by military service members on bases, videos showing gaps/issues/etc in infrastructure, or at ports and other locations.
As for me, I'm an American and it is in my best interests that USA stays top dog. I didn't immigrate here to downgrade lol, so I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player.
by ok123456 on 7/19/22, 12:08 PM
by rvz on 7/19/22, 7:34 AM
From [0]:
> The above code taken from the TikTok APK, shows the collection of cellphone data, specifically the IMEI of the cell phone. The IMEI number of a phone is literally created to identify the phone.
> We at Penetrum believe that everyone should have the right to know what data is being harvested by companies and would like to give our readers a clearer understanding of what happens when you download the mobile application TikTok. From our understanding and our analysis it seems that TikTok does an excessive amount of tracking on it’s users, and that the data collected is partially if not fully stored on Chinese servers with the ISP Alibaba.
So essentially, a 900GB data breach at Alibaba suggests that TikTok user tracking data which ties hundreds of millions of users has been exposed out in the open to be used by criminals, and scammers. This is nothing new or surprising as I have already questioned a TikTok fanatic about the excessive tracking in this app but decided to deflect with more whataboutsims. [1]
On top of that denial from their own users, all this tracking was made possible due to TikTok's spyware and their mass collection programme, with the additional fact that TikTok staff in China DID have access to US data after lying and denying it. [2]
So something that is even worse than Facebook is hardly 'The best thing to have happened to the Internet.' [3] Especially when TikTok was found to do even more invasive tracking than Facebook with sending biometrics, IMEI numbers and voice prints, and is required to give up and funnel all this data and traffic to the China and the CCP meaning it is another honeypot surveillance tool luring in the sheep to willingly give up all their data and they cannot be trusted.
TikTok should get either a massive fine in the billions just like Facebook did or it should be totally banned until it is verified to rid of its invasive data collection just like what India did recently. Failing to comply, it should get both.
[0] https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysi...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28137000
[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484
[4] https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-wa...
by snehk on 7/19/22, 6:49 AM
The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government. We had this discussion after the Snowden leaks and nothing changed whatsoever. Back then it was the US government and the US gov had the chance to change the rules so this could not happen. Now they're up in arms because other governments do the exact same thing. It's really annoying.
Ban every app that collects "problematic" user info. Make the collection itself illegal, give users control about their data but don't argue that the practice suddenly becomes problematic when others do it.
by jsiaajdsdaa on 7/19/22, 6:41 AM
by suction on 7/19/22, 6:55 AM
by legalcorrection on 7/19/22, 6:44 AM
by u1tron on 7/19/22, 8:25 AM
by coffeeblack on 7/19/22, 11:41 AM
by trasz on 7/19/22, 7:09 AM
by eh9 on 7/19/22, 10:06 AM
by mouzogu on 7/19/22, 7:37 AM
by zidad on 7/19/22, 9:14 AM
by jmpman on 7/19/22, 3:38 PM
by duxup on 7/19/22, 1:21 PM
by kvetching on 7/19/22, 4:32 PM
TikTok is an ominous name. It's literally creating tics in teenagers. TikTok also seems like a psychological weapon, which is a ticking time bomb until the Chinese take over the world (their stated goal)
Tic defined as "an idiosyncratic and habitual feature of a person's behavior." Yesterday, Tucker Carlson (bad man) did a segment on the difference between American TikTok and Chinese Douyin. It's clear that the Chinese are curating the algorithms differently. Douyin content is made to be good for society, whereas TikTok content is degenerate. The algorithm is everything.
China has every incentive to push our young people to be mental cases and TikTok has the potential to do this.
For example, TikTok is likely speeding up the rate at which teen girls experience rapid onset gender dysphoria. A teen may be confused about who they are, they watch one or two videos related to the topic, then they are sent down a rabbit hole of this content.
I am happy to see the FCC of this administration speaking out. TikTok was going to be banned by the last administration but this administration put a stop to that in their effort to roll back all of Trump (bad man) policy.
by thekyle on 7/19/22, 3:39 PM
by d8tltanc on 7/19/22, 3:33 PM
by numair on 7/19/22, 7:16 AM
Imagine what would happen if a Chinese regulator decided that Tesla's telematics stack was a massive national security risk? One random comment from some loser trying to build a political career (like this guy) and you'd see the stock go through a small crash.
The capture of American bureaucracy by paid interests is going to be the downfall of the country. Michael Lewis has been talking about this quite a bit recently, and will apparently make this the subject of his next book. I hope everyone reads it.