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senators were told TikTok is able to “spy on the microphone on users’ devices, track keystrokes and determine what the users are doing on other apps.”
Wow, they’ve just described Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Google’s business model as well, so why not ban these motherfuckers too?
The difference is the US government believes that TikTok is beholden to the Chinese government. When a corporation acts this way it is an invasion of privacy. When a foreign government acts this way it is espionage.
If TikTok is sold to an entity the US government thinks is sufficiently independent from a foreign government, then they can continue spying on users.
Alternatively, they may be able to registers under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. I don't know how that would impact TikTok's ability to operate though.
Not just another country, but a hostile foreign country. If France owned TikTok no one would care. But to the US government, China is in the top 5 of most hostile nations and is definitely the top of hostile nations in terms of world power and reach. It's essentially giving out a LOT of info to what they see as "the enemy". And also it has a lot of potential use to track US government employees like diplomats and high-level military leaders. Even if those people don't have TikTok installed, their kids might.
But if Facebook/Instagram, X, reddit, whoever sell their data to a data broker who has Chinese clients/partners I doubt anyone gives half a shit, otherwise those same safeguards could be employed against TikTok without the need for new federal legislation.
Hostile meaning "not beholden to the American imperialist empire"?
The thing is, the Chinese Government has some serious real aspirations for world domination. They literally want to supplant the US as THE world power. And tik tok is very open exposing US citizens to propaganda if nothing else. On top of that Tik Tok literally admitted that their algorithm was used to try to spy on journalists and track down their sources. They claim it was a lapse of judgement. But that alone has terrifying implications. I don't use tik tok but my understanding is it still has data on me and other people like me because I know several people who use it.
All the other tech companies who are gathering data like this on their users are a problem. And the number of algorithms used by theses companies and their effect on the mental health of the users are also a problem. But the only reason the US government is going after tik tok is specifically because of its ties to the CCP.
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2023/03/24/what-tiktok-knows-you-should-know-tiktok/
Hah, I would assume they mean not beholden to a government that tracks its citizens with facial recognition, data mines its citizens' personal communications to arrest them before they can even organize a protest, and is run by a dictator who literally made it illegal to call him Pooh Bear.
The sphere that America exerts control over is not without its issues and is surely corrupt. But it is nowhere near as corrupt, oppressive, and lacking in individual freedom as China and the other contender for world domination. Unlike China, America has no social credit score enforced by an all-seeing mass surveillance mechanism where VPN's and other attempts to hide from it are strictly illegal. And while many Americans might be racist toward Muslims, the American government does not dehumanize them and force them into labor camps.
Your whataboutism is clearly just a Chinese troll, but I'll leave this comment as a reminder to others reading that there is zero equivalence.
Fuck em, hegemony is cringe and America can go fuck itself with whatever it wants to call "enemy states"
Finally someone who understands the nuance here.
What's bad for the goose is bad for the gander.
The line between corporations and governments is not so clear when it comes to what's in a citizens best interests.
It’s very clear tbh. The US corporations are beholden to a government that at least some of the time does what’s in the best interests of citizens, because it itself is at least somewhat beholden to the desires of its citizens. The exact degree to which those things are true can be blurry, and have at different points in history been more or less accurate.
A hostile foreign government on the other hand definitely, 100% confirmed in every case does not have your interests at heart. There is no one, not a single person in the Chinese government who has your best interests at heart, at any point in time. You have instead of distressingly little power over them, absolutely zero power over them.
The US government believes its hegemony over global surveillance and propaganda is dying. And it has to ban apps as an act of coping over their failures. They expect their puppet states around the world to follow suit.
FTFY
Honestly, Fvck em' both.
I don't think that the government cares much about whether a company is extracting information and using it to sell ads. I do think that they care about whether that company is using that information to target governments.
I think that that position is understandable.
What I am skeptical of is the solution. Is having ByteDance divest going to avoid other ways of accomplishing the same thing? How many popular phone apps are out there that could gather data? How many other media sources can be influenced?
And for that matter, the US only has jurisdiction to the extent that TikTok does business in the US. If something like it were to provide free service over the Internet, not sell ads or whatnot in the US, it doesn't fall under US jurisdiction.
It's under US jurisdiction if it's on the app stores.
The US government could require Apple and Google to block it from going through their stores anywhere on the planet as US companies.
Okay, that may be a valid point, though I don't know what would happen at the polititical level if that actually occurred. If it did, I could imagine China, if the government felt that it were a sufficiently-critical tool, slugging back. Google and Apple also have a business presence in China, so the PRC has similar jurisdiction and could require them to include it, and we'd be looking at a heck of an economic schism or trade war or something.
Actually happening worldwide isn't likely. But Google and Apple would not be able to comply with China in that case. They'd be obligated to leave the market. They're US companies. US Law supersedes any other obligations. And it wouldn't be the first time the US government has forbidden any business with a foreign company.
"If the government felt it was a sufficiently critical tool" is exactly why banning it is a genuine possibility, though. Because the Chinese government does exercise far more direct control of how their companies operate, and that control does make TikTok a very real threat to national security.
If Apple and Google were French companies, for example, though, banning it from the US app stores would still be completely within the government's authority and would be unlikely to create any real tension between the US and France. Telling them they had to ban it globally or be banned from the US probably would, but sovereignty means being able to put some limitations on interactions between foreign companies within your market.
US Law supersedes any other obligations.
Only from in the eyes of the US legal system. The Chinese legal system won't see it that way.
They can place conflicting demands on a company; they don't have to be compatible.
They'd be obligated to leave the market. They're US companies.
They'd be placed under conflicting demands. They might well choose to exit, but it isn't that one set of constraints is superior to another. Look at the current scenario, which is the mirror image of that -- Bytedance is being required to divest. They could divest, or could exit the US market.
Their entire governance is the US legal system. They do not exist outside of it.
Honestly, with the way geopolitics is going right now, outright deglobalization sometime this century seems inevitable. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the current tensions turn into de facto Cold War II, with regional blocs that outright ban any trade or positive discourse about the other side, and hold high profile hearings on dissidents suspected of following the ideology of the other side.
If something like it were to provide free service over the Internet, not sell ads or whatnot in the US, it doesn’t fall under US jurisdiction.
Actually, that's a point where there is precedent to the contrary. The GDPR claims extraterritoriality even if there is no payments involved, if the free services are provided to EU citizens. It enforces it by proxy, mostly through international agreements, like in the case of US companies.
And general motors
Those companies are already based in the US.
healthcare pls
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Apparently it is, since they're worrying about tiktok and not also giving citizens healthcare. One is actually happening, the other, not so much.
I'm a big fan of TT. I will part with it in order to not die due to lack of basic medical care.
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Then why aren't they doing both?
Because they don't want to give people healthcare. They can do both, they choose not to.
I uninstaller tiktok a long time ago due to privacy concerns with it falling in China's hands.
Do other governments use my info? Sure... But they're far less likely to destroy my rights than China is.
I would love an explaination on that last part.
I assume he means China doesn't have the best track record of treating their citizens humanely. At least according to Western standards (I'm not saying they are perfect either).
Maybe they are Chinese?
In that case lets give our friend beyond the great firewall some love
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn are calling for TikTok briefings to be declassified so the government can “better educate the public on the need for urgent action.” The briefings come as support grows for a forced sale of TikTok due to national security concerns around ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the app.
TikTok is a weapon in the hands of the Chinese government, and poses an active risk to our democratic institutions and national security,” Blumenthal and Blackburn wrote.
Last week, in an unusually speedy process, the House passed a bill that would force ByteDance to divest from TikTok or risk a ban in the US.
Efforts to ban TikTok have simmered on the back burner for years and are just now gaining momentum, with some in Congress saying the app poses national security concerns.
Evidence that Americans’ data is shared with the Chinese government is scant, and even after the briefings this week, senators have been cagey about what intel they now have.
Without knowing specifics about what Congress is privy to, it’s hard to assess whether there’s concrete evidence that TikTok is misusing user data and misappropriating hardware — or whether it’s just doing what every other tech platform is.
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