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Yeah, only domestic companies and our government is allowed to spy on us with impunity.
Just frustrating to watch how short sighted this whole tiktok scare thing has been. It brought the data privacy problem to the forefront, and every effort was made to completely disregard privacy as a whole and focus on the China aspect instead.
This is the goofiest culture war debacle I've seen. I'm very ancient so I remember parts of the Satanic Panic, I remember the scare about Mortal Kombat and Doom making kids into murderers, I remember scares about Jackass and knockout games and now we're at scary phone apps. At least back then these reactionary freaks could point at something with at least the veneer of being scary. Satan, video games with blood everywhere, Johnny Knoxville tasering someone in the balls. It's still goofy to get upset about those, but at least it's got the outline of a basic argument.
What is it now? The scary lipsync videos are gonna make your kids into Chinese communists? Good, I hope they all read "On Contradiction" by Mao. I fully expect a tiktok style red army by this time next year or I'm gonna be disappointed.
Also if this is supposed to protect kids then all social media should be banned for kids. That stuff is brain rot and kids deserve better
I don't get why you draw parallels here. The reactionaries are against veneer-of-spooky pieces of media because of moral outrage bullshit. Media literacy is a thing. Nobody is going to believe in dragons or Satan.
The US government is against big China-controlled media platforms with loads of US users because platforms can control which kind of content users see. You can exert a lot of control over people if you show them only one point of view and make them think this is the majority.
I think the US has enough of a problem with home grown radicalized conspiracy nuts, but banning a China owned TikTok is still a very different move than banning D&D would have been.
There is soft power in controlling a platform with a lot of people. Just look how TikTok used it to organize a massive campaign via hijacking TikTok feed to inform them about potential ban and redirect them to their representatives. During conflict, it can be used more nefariously. But them singling out TikTok while not doing anything against their domestic platforms does make it hypocritical and make people question their motives.
massive campaign via hijacking TikTok feed to inform them about potential ban and redirect them to their representatives
Holy shit that is so fucking funny
Any app or any business that is being largely impacted by legislation will ask their customers to push for a favorable outcome. I've seen American businesses ask their customers to call Congress about one thing or another a bunch of times. This isn't "nefarious" or "hijacking a platform" it's normal business behavior
Literally all of Big Tech did this a few years ago with SOPA/PIPA and that stuff. People are acting like this is some crazy unheard of thing like they just figured out what the internet is a few months ago.
Under capitalism, profit is revered. However, if you make too much profit, a less profitable company gets to buy you for cheap because your skin is the wrong color.
This has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with controlling access to data gathering tools. I don't think either nation has the best interests of the people in mind, but don't strawman this. Is very easy to criticize the actual thing that's happening.
This is in the process of trying to fire up another Yellow Peril. Access to data and profit might be the driving factors, but so is creating a new enemy class to scapegoat. Just look at how the media talks about China and how anti-Asian hate has been rising in recent years. Of course race is a factor because you need race to create a racial enemy.
It's about power, not about race. International politics is always about power. I don't get how some people don't understand that. You're right that many people are creating a scapegoat out of China, but (the intelligent and influential ones) aren't doing it out of racism. It might be racist, but they don't buy it, they're only selling it. It's about solidifying power and controlling means and methods. That's always the case for governments, no matter when or where.
If TikTok was owned by a German or English corporation, would it be facing this kind of scrutiny? Of fucking course not, don't be dense.
No, because they'd share the information with the US. Just like China doesn't allow US corporations into China. Don't be dense.
And I suppose the reason all of the euro countries share information with each other and don't let China into their special club is just a natural phenomenon? Completely arbitrary and random?
Not random for sure. They are a seperate power structure. The US does share some data with China, and also western countries don't share a lot of data with each other as well. All nations are constantly spying on each other. It isn't infrequent you hear about some NATO country spy being caught spying on some NATO nation. Governments are about control, and they'll try to increase that control with any method possible.
TikTok stores American data via Oracle. They also have servers in Virginia and Singapore.
Sure, you have to store data with some locality so round trip times aren't horrible. It doesn't mean anyone has access to it or control over it.
Oracle is an American company so they can get searched by the government at will. The government has access to TikTok data around as easily as the PRC does, it's just a matter of corporations being able to grab a profitable asset & create Anti-China sentiment.
There's no way in hell that data isn't encrypted. That'd be very poor handling of data, and probably illegal in most places, at least the EU. Just because data is on a server doesn't mean you access it with access to the server. Sure, the videos and stuff are probably raw, but any PII is almost certainly encrypted, or it should be if it isn't.
non-hexbear/non-lemmygrad user handle
ridiculous kindergarten-tier reasoning
like pottery
"waaahhh they're only DISPASSIONATELY SELLING the racism, they don't actually feel it in their hearts!"
First of all that's irrelevant
Second of all your work almost always becomes your personality to some extent so you're almost certainly wrong
And you're better, right? No. You aren't. I'm on hexbear fairly frequently. I don't have any issue with hexbear or lemmygrad. I'm just not ignoring the fact all these nations do this. China has an almost exclusive ecosystem, yet somehow when the US does it it's racism? No. It isn't about race. It's about control. This apiea to China, Russia, and the US, and any other power in the future or past. Anyone who has the capability to gain control also has disposition to exploit their control. You don't gain control without that.
Except it isn't actually the same. Bytedance can give the US government all the control literally everything they asked for and it hasn't been enough, because ultimately that is not what it's about.
literally half your political establishment (meaning 70% of the whites) like Russia for no other reason other than them being white
LOTTA WHITE NOISE IN HERE
Yes it's about power. And the powerful use racism to get or keep power. So it's about both.
Back in your cage, weirdo.
If the application is not divested, entities in the United States would be prohibited from distributing the application through an application marketplace or store and providing web hosting services.
I wonder if TikTok could continue to exist at the same level of popularity as an app that you download from their website, instead of using the app store?
Can you side load IOS apps? (Genuinely curious)
If no, then that's a big nail in the coffin. They could try and make it a web app, but that's not gonna be a smooth transition.
I think Europe recently forced the matter, but I think you can't in the US.
I wish they just wouldn't sell, and tiktok would go down forever in the US
Biden signing this into law would cause him to hemorrhage zoomer voters. I think he’s arrogant enough to do it.
Dems: "Young people don't vote anyway!"
(Record youth turnout for Trump)
Dems: "AH, well, nonetheless..."
So which app will be the new cool thing after Tiktok?
TikTok owned by a company owned by a company owned by a company owned by China.