
U.S. looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok - theBashShell
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-china-pompeo/pompeo-says-u-s-looking-at-banning-chinese-social-media-apps-including-tiktok-fox-idUSKBN2480DF
======
AbrahamParangi
It is absolutely foolish for any country other than China to allow TikTok
within their borders.

You might fairly ask whether or not it is equally foolish for non-US countries
to use US services. I think that is also a reasonable question, and deserves
reflection.

~~~
Deganta
I'm not from the USA, but if I can choose if the USA, or China gets my data, I
will choose the USA everytime.

Sure, America does a lot of shady stuff, but the situation in China is just
way worse in pretty much every way imaginable.

~~~
pjc50
Yes, although you're more likely to be extradited from most of the West to the
US than to China. So if you're a dissident against the US you may be safer
using Chinese technologies.

~~~
w7euudeheh
What does this even mean? Being a dissident is allowed in the US going by
google's definition. What's not allowed is stealing a bunch of shit and then
giving it away to foreign nations like Snowden did.

------
wiml
What would it mean to "ban" an app? Would they force Apple and Google not to
distribute it? Would they set up a national firewall?

~~~
codezero
Just ask the app stores to ban them. The US couldn’t do anything more
sophisticated right now, and that would solve most of their concerns.

~~~
actuator
Has there been any precedence of US banning an app/website without some clear
violation of law?

~~~
rdlecler1
This is a national security issue.

~~~
vkou
To be crude, I don't think someone in China seeing my TikTok videos is a
national security issue.

This interference with the free market is about politics, not security.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> I don't think someone in China seeing my TikTok videos

Leaving aside mechanisms and policies, this is _not_ about seeing videos, this
is about the invasive amount of information TikTok collects from devices it
runs on.

~~~
vkou
I don't think someone in China getting my GPS history, or my browsing history,
or my mother's phone number is a national security issue, either.

~~~
cthalupa
Yours? Probably not.

But it isn't about you. We already know that social media can be, and is, used
to track details by nation states on all sorts of things, from the movement of
individuals of interest, as well as things such as estimating the population
of military bases, discovering military operations, etc.

A foreign government having access to all of that data for a huge portion of
the population is 100% a national security risk.

~~~
vkou
Then ban military people from using it, problem solved.

This level of paranoia looks more like the Soviet Union[1] than it does like a
free country.

[1] Where you couldn't even buy a map, because heaven forbid, foreign spies
might use them to compromise... National security. They might learn the
distances between the army base, and the hospital, and then who knows what
diabolical plot they may hatch?

~~~
elliekelly
If I’m not mistaken the US Military has already banned the use of TikTok.

------
simonh
All this will do is validate that banning each other's social media apps is a
legitimate thing to do, all you need is sufficient justification.

The usual reason for tit-for-tat trade restrictions is to punish the original
restrictions and try to coerce the other side back to a free trade position.
That can't happen in this case, the CCP will never allow foreign social media
in China, so it would end up with a permanent mutual ban.

Either we believe that freedom of communication is a paramount principle that
should be protected, or we don't and we think it's ok to interfere with it for
'national interest' reasons. Our national interest reasons might differ from
theirs, but we'd still be validating that banning social media is an
acceptable step to take depending on the circumstances. I realise this poses a
problem because letting Chinese social media into our markets creates risks
but if they operate in our markets they have to follow our laws and our
standards. Playing the game their way by their rules is a losing strategy. We
need to get a lot more creative on this.

------
sushshshsh
This is such cancer. I didn't expect that trade wars and centralized app
stores would lead to this, but here we are.

Think back to 1999-- could you imagine if China had made Napster, the USA
would block your access to download and use it? We would all just laugh at how
easy it would be to get around it

~~~
Balgair
Sure, but with Napster I mostly get movies and songs I want, for free. Viruses
too, sure.

With TikTok I get bad choreography.

I don't see a lot of people trying to get around firewalls for that.

~~~
LyndsySimon
That's... actually an interesting thought experiment.

Let's say the US "bans" TikTok. Younger users around the country then install
various VPN clients and learn a bit about security. This in turns leads to an
overall more environment for US security services to perform mass
surveillance.

------
yann_bleu
Well China has banned FB Twitter, Google etc. a decade ago

~~~
ketzu
Many countries have banned some or more services (especially uber and the like
received many bans). But even if others didn't, it seems like a very weak
argument to me.

~~~
realusername
Very few countries have banned to the extent of what the CCP did, walling off
completely their internet. The CCP can't complain to get a taste of their own
medicine here.

~~~
ketzu
> Very few countries have banned to the extent of what the CCP did

That's true, but the start of "they block our apps we should block all of
them" seems to weirdly be china, but the argument is usually presented as a
general obvious conclusion. I am very much in favor of banning apps that
violate local laws and unfortunately that's what china does. So it's more the
laws I don't like, not the ban in general. But this prevents me from accepting
those bans (edit: banning them because they are chinese) in my (non-us)
country.

> The CCP can't complain to get a taste of their own medicine here.

Sure they can. Everyone regularly complains about receiving their own
medicine, including china and the us. But that's not the point.

The point is holding yourself, your nation and other nations to your actual
standards, not to some arbitrary standards of others. I want my government to
enact regulation that benefits the citizens, such as privacy regulations, and
enforce it, I don't want them to use nebulous national security regulation to
do whatever they want.

If possible, it should be clear what the requirements are so people can fulfil
it. I really dislike arbitrarily enforceable laws where possibly everyone is
in violation.

~~~
realusername
> If possible, it should be clear what the requirements are so people can
> fulfil it. I really dislike arbitrarily enforceable laws where possibly
> everyone is in violation.

I do agree with that, these kind of retaliation laws have to be codified and
be precised. But that's not something uncommon outside of tech, countries will
implement trade sanctions if they also face trade sanctions from other
markets. Banning apps owned by the CCP seems a fair approach regarding on how
they behave.

~~~
balola
Does this hurt the CCP? No. It only hurts ByteDance and its investors , which
are mostly private entities; while the CCP gets to gloat that look told you,
they are no better than us.

~~~
realusername
There's no independent large private company in China right now anyways,
ByteDance is controlled by the CCP just like any other large Chinese company
(tech or not).

And decisions like this do help to hurt the CCP, it reduces the reach of
Chinese tech companies.

~~~
balola
The CCP high officials don't really care about anyone but their own relatives
and cronies, while your assumption is mostly right as in the cases like
Alibaba and Tencent, ByteDance isn't exactly like them, it has a kind of
autonomy and internationalization those companies wouldn't dare to dream of.
ByteDance isn't as beholden to the party as those two since it's a startup
capitalized on the app economy, it's growth is organic, didn't rely on
government policies and protection.

In fact ByteDance already has blockbuster app killed by Chinese authorities.

~~~
realusername
All the large companies are used for diplomatic purpose internationally by the
CCP, ByteDance being that successful won't escape it. Basically they will have
two solutions, either move out of China or obey the CCP like the other ones,
there's no option to be independent in China.

And as the private investors, well, they will soon learn how the CCP works...

------
kristopolous
This is more of the protectionism/mercantilism/nationalism stuff. Sure,
there's a B-story for it but it's all seated in revanchist nationalism and a
tropish "suspicious foreigners" framing.

If someone made a villainous fu manchu character people would rightly protest
it as intolerable. Yet when we actually instrument official government policy
based on the same sentiments that the character is based on nobody even
reaches for the pearls to clutch.

Once again, fiction and symbols are somehow more important to the political
imagination than material reality.

~~~
haecceity
> If someone made a villainous fu manchu character people would rightly
> protest it as intolerable.

Asian stereotypes in media is pretty well tolerated.

~~~
kristopolous
it's been toned down enormously. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's as Mr
Yunioshi for instance
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb3gdUrIC4Q))
this used to be common. The Flintstones, for instance
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8lGDLARME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8lGDLARME)
... it was bad ... really bad.

If something like this was made today and the people somehow ended up in court
over it, I'd probably think "well, they saw that coming"

------
blackrock
This sounds like a protectionist move from the United States, than anything
else.

TikTok appears to be the first China technology media company, that can
actually make a dent in the universe.

It wasn’t WeChat from Tencent. Nor anything from Alibaba; I don’t think
they’re in the media space. Nor search from Baidu. Nor Sina Weibo for tweets.

I can’t think of any other Chinese media company, that can actually make an
impact, on the world, just yet.

Perhaps the USA government is trying to kill this fledgling company, while
it’s still small. It still hasn’t reached the prevalence of Facebook or
YouTube or Twitter yet.

The funny thing is, for a while, TikTok was trying to discourage political
content. Just stick to fun dance moves. They tried to tell their users to keep
that vile political stuff to Twitter and Facebook; and then, they got
criticized for censorship. LOL.

------
socrates1998
The CCP bans so many apps, websites and other western technology, so this
seems like a reasonable action just on that alone.

And given how bad TikTok is with user data (mostly minors too), I don't see
how banning it would be a bad thing.

There will be American or western clones within days that replace it.

------
apexalpha
This would be a good moment for the EU to reassess it's dependency on American
apps like Whatsapp.

If even the US starts openly blocking apps because they think it would be
better for a local competitor to fill this part of the market it should be a
wakeup call for the EU.

------
tibbydudeza
Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games ... shall we ban Fortnite as well then and make
all the kids play Minecraft since it is wholly owned by a US company ???.

~~~
john4534243
I think yes. If china is isolating itself from the internet, its only fair to
not allow china to participate in the internet.

------
chenzhekl
If you view digital contents as industrial goods, the internet today which
allows apps, services to flow around the world without much burden (e.g.
tariff, import control) is already a miracle. It's no surprise of countries to
start building "customs" on the internet and that may become a trend
considering the deglobalization happening these years.

------
tester34
Did anyone analyze the traffic sent out by this app and found something not-
nice?

~~~
davidbonachera
Yes, [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-
lawsuit/tiktok...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-
lawsuit/tiktok-accused-in-california-lawsuit-of-sending-user-data-to-china-
idUSKBN1Y708Q)

~~~
myopenid2
This report lack a lot of technical information. What counts as "personal
information"? What did they send exactly? Is sending app analytics count as
personal information? Why don't you hold American software companies to the
same level of rigor?

Case in point, almost all apps on my Android phone snoops on my "personal
information"; Google literally knows where I am all the time; Facebook SDK
snoops on the apps I use, and justify the collection of the data with "better
personalization of services"; WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) vacuuming contacts
off my phone; LinkedIn snoops on my clipboard etc.

~~~
jml7c5
Made a (very) brief scan of the filing. The notable personal information
mentioned: phone/social network contacts, MAC, IMEI, IMSI, device serial #,
browsing history, cookies, "metadata", location. Pretty par for the course.
(I'm not sure "browsing history" and "cookies" is correct, at least on Android
versions after KitKat.) I believe you'd need to give permission for most
(all?) of these before you download the app, or when you run it the first
time.

The filing also makes these claims regarding video uploads:

>Once TikTok users click the “next” button, but before they click either the
“save” or “post” buttons, their videos are transferred from their devices to
the following domain owned and controlled by Defendants: [...]

Not very damning.

\---

In the end, the concern is solely that the Chinese government may have access
to the data, or may be able to upload exploits to users. This may be a
reasonable fear. But people need to stop pretending TikTok's data collection
is somehow worse than that of any other data-hoarding apps (Snapchat,
Facebook, etc).

------
chriselles
Are super-platforms such as FAANG and BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei)
Army, Navy, Air Forces, & Marines proxies on the digital layer?

It certainly seems like the world is bifurcating between FAANG and BATH for
that reason.

------
tanilama
How would this be implemented?

Delisting from AppStore? Or ask ISP to ban tiktok domains? Or both?

~~~
jeswin
In India they did both.

~~~
john4534243
Citation Needed

------
blackrock
How much money is an American teenager or user, making from TikTok?

Is TikTok doing revenue sharing with the content creator?

If so, then this ban is just going to smack these American end users in the
face.

------
bobbydreamer
I like Chinese tiktok "for you" recommendation than YouTube's recommended.
Tiktoks reco is like yeah I will watch that, most of the time I am like
thanks. Keep recommending like this. Youtube is like, algorithm thinks it has
figured me but it's sort of showing me the same old videos like it's new. I
will throw my data to China.

~~~
echaozh
Why should someone expressing their honest feeling get downvoted? Just because
it looks like his sympathetic with the "evil" Chinese?

------
sschueller
So it is not ok for a foreign app the spy on its user but it's perfectly ok
for Google and co to do so? Anyone remember what Uber did with their app and
tracking users? What about the king of tracking, facebook?

~~~
lightgreen
There’s a quite a large difference between Google spying and China spying.
When Google “spies”, users get more relevant ads. When China spies, people get
into “Vocational Education and Training Centers” and other bad things happen.

Chinese spying is like 10000 times worse in practice.

But in theory, when dealing in absolutes, there is no difference, both are
spies.

~~~
apexalpha
Let's be honest: Google has been known to be in bed with the NSA and other
agencies as well. It's very disingenuous to pretend Google only serves you ads
but has no relations to the US national intelligence community but Chinese
apps do.

~~~
chaos_a
the difference is that the US is using spying to stop people from doing
illegal things. China is using spying to silence/monitor anyone who disagrees
with it's government.

Yes, both countries are definitely spying on people via social media apps. But
what they're using it for is different.

~~~
apexalpha
Both governments use spying to stop people from doing things _they made
illegal_ in their countries.

I'm not here to argue the Chinese government is better than the US one. It's
absolutely and unquestionably worse.

But from a perspective in Europe they're both foreign governments that I have
no say in and that are not here for my best interest.

~~~
rydre
If you really have European interests at heart, you would be banning both
American and Chinese apps to give room for your incumbents to rise.

~~~
apexalpha
I've made that argument a few hours ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755863)

------
hprotagonist
Even a stopped clock's right at least once a day.

------
mike503
Trump administration banning an app that has allowed for worldwide social
mobilization against him? No way.

------
reiichiroh
Zoom, WeChat too

------
chvid
You can hear the 8 minute Pompeo interview here:

[https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-pompeo-tik-tok-china-
comm...](https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-pompeo-tik-tok-china-communist-
social-media-spying-fox-ingraham)

Covering a wide range of topics. Mostly it sounded like Pompeo getting ready
for the upcoming election.

------
ikmoss
Will US abolish all other Chinese digital presence including Alibaba etc?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The US government almost certainly doesn't have the power to do that. (It's
not tremendously clear how they'd even be able to ban Tiktok; they'd have a
hard time getting Apple and Google to take it off the app store and an
impossible time convincing Internet providers to block it.)

~~~
coliveira
Since the beginning of the "tensions" with China people keep pushing the same
key: "the government cannot do this, they don't have the authority, the
constitution blah". And every time they have been proven wrong, as Trump has
established travel bans, restricted visas, put people in concentration camps,
imposed tariffs, and who knows what they will do next. People that keep
pretending that freedoms are not eroding are just exercising wishful thinking.

~~~
aww_dang
>Trump has ... put people in concentration camps

Am I missing something here? What are you referencing? I'm not sure I
understand.

~~~
saagarjha
ICE detention camps, presumably.

------
coliveira
Welcome to dictatorship. Government will now start to ban all kinds of apps
they don't want.

~~~
ekianjo
If some apps coming from other countries are riddled with spyware, is that
dictatorship or common sense?

~~~
lightgreen
It is kind of dictatorship. US could achieve the same effect without banning,
eg by forcing stores to display warnings to users about where their data and
what data is being send. That would be a reasonable compromise between freedom
and safety.

~~~
dicomdan
It's like saying we should allow unregulated fentanyl sales on the streets as
long as drug dealers provide a disclaimer to the addicted.

~~~
tlear
Many would argue that yes most definitely we should allow sales of any drugs
people want to consume.

Personally I have no problem with people killing themselves with fentanyl,
meth or whatever. Knock yourself out. State resources are better spent doing
other things. US drug war caused more misery then drugs and most of the police
issues are directly related to laws on drugs they are told to enforce.

------
core-questions
So this is how it's going to happen - with every country banning each other's
social media apps, we will enter into a future of digital borders, limited
speech, and broken international relations. All in the name of making sure
people don't dare think some wrongthink.

~~~
fiblye
I think the issue has nothing to do with it being Chinese, but with the extent
at which it swallows up data on Americans. Why even bother sending spies to
another country and making plans for infiltration when you can get them to
download a full spying suite under the guise of social media?

The problem is this opens a whole new can of worms regarding Facebook and
other American social media. Other countries are equally justified in banning
them for the same reason.

~~~
Cookingboy
>I think the issue has nothing to do with it being Chinese, but with the
extent at which it swallows up data on Americans

But it's A-ok when NSA powered/hijacked/collaborated U.S. social media
companies do the same to the rest of the world?

I'm pretty sure PRISM didn't just get dismantled after Snowden.

>Why even bother sending spies to another country and making plans for
infiltration when you can get them to download a full spying suite under the
guise of social media?

Because espionage involves more than just digging up information that is
_voluntarily_ put out on social media? I mean if you upload the blueprint of a
stealth fighter onto TikTok/Dropbox/Instagram/whatever the fault is yours
don't you think?

~~~
actuator
This is just classic whataboutism. You should be careful of all of these
companies as well. But you can't really equate the rule of law in both the
countries in good faith.

I really doubt criticism of Covid-19 handling lands you in jail in US.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/worl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china-
detains-xu-zhangrun-critic.amp.html)

~~~
Barrin92
>But you can't really equate the rule of law in both the countries in good
faith

Yes you can't because Americans aren't subject to Chinese law. What do you
think is going to happen, the CCP send their best assassin over to get you
because they didn't like your cat video?

You've got more to fear from the FBI trying to get into your iphone if they
suspect you of a crime than a foreign government that doesn't have any
jurisdiction over you.

this is just plain old populism and sinophobia and has nothing to do with
privacy

~~~
cthalupa
>Yes you can't because Americans aren't subject to Chinese law.

China certainly disagrees with you. Just look at the new Hong Kong NSL - it
claims jurisdiction over every person on earth for offenses defined to vaguely
as to be meaningless. This obviously has horrific effects for the people in
Hong Kong - protesters are already being threatened as being national security
threats for having a protest where they did nothing but stand still and hold
up white paper - but also chilling effects for anyone who might ever visit
Hong Kong, the PRC, or any country friendly with or afraid of the PRC,
especially if they have an extradition treaty.

The law had been used to ban pro-democracy books and arrest democracy
activists in Hong Kong within a week of its passing. Piss off the PRC enough
and go on a trip to Thailand, and you might end up in a Chinese prison for the
rest of your life, because article 38 covers any action by any person, no
matter where they are and wether or not it was legal where they were. It was
illegal in Hong Kong, so you're fair game if you're ever within their legal
net.

While the FBI has more power over me day to day, I am not afraid of them
arresting me for being a proponent of free speech or democracy. If I was
someone who traveled more frequently in those previously mentioned countries,
I certainly would be.

~~~
Barrin92
Hong Kong is part of China. Obviously going to China when you're a well known
dissident is playing with fire. But I don't see what that has to do with
banning apps from the app store for regular US users? This isn't actually
news. Their are currently European and American citizens under arrest in
Turkey, or Saudi Arabia say, has the US taken any Turkish apps from the app
store?

Or for that matter has the US currently banned any Russian apps, probably the
most notorious country when it comes to cyber-attacks on the US and arresting
if not even killing dissidents?

It's a total non-sequitur, it's got nothing to do with security. It's an
appeal to the increasingly rabid American population to deflect from covid or
the general state of the country. It's the new 9/11\. Just start accusing
China of random things and hope everything else goes away.

~~~
cthalupa
>Hong Kong is part of China. Obviously going to China when you're a well known
dissident is playing with fire.

Up until VERY recently, you would have zero reason to fear being a political
dissident in Hong Kong. That's kind of what these protests have been about.

For the NSL in specific, the problem is that it's no longer just a 'You can
get disappeared in China', but a 'You can get disappeared in a significant
portion of Asia on China's behest', because there is now a law that applies to
you, even if you're an American citizen, and China has extradition treaties
and huge amounts of power to exert political pressure on other countries.

Two months ago, if I was a vocal critic of the PRC, I could travel to Thailand
without concern. Today, I cannot.

My point was primarily about your comment of "what is the prc gonna do send
assassins?" \- being on the PRC's bad side is dangerous in ways that might not
be readily apparent, unless you plan to just never travel to many countries.

As for whether or not the app could be a national security threat, we already
know social media apps can be used for all sorts of intelligence gathering
purposes. Outside of the obvious, social media GPS data has been used to track
specific people via interactions with others, even if their phone was not
"compromised", it has been used to estimate the number of soldiers stationed
at military bases, and it has been used to detect training and other military
operations. Not exactly the sort of data you want to hand over to a foreign
country.

~~~
Barrin92
TikToks data isn't being handed over to a foreign country as they've gone to
pretty big pains to separate the Chinese business, which is actually on an
entirely distinct app, to the tiktok service precisely for that reason.

And hilariously enough in that GPS case, if I remember correctly the two
offenders were Strava and Fitbit, which are American companies, who happened
to just throw that information out to the public.

If you're concerned about the safety of Americans the point from the first
post still stands, you're more likely to have your elections undermined by
Facebook and CA than by the CCP.

------
Markoff
I wish EU would done some with WeChat

nobody cares really about TikTok, it's childish thing, but amount of data
WeChat harvest is ridiculous and it honestly stops Chinese abroad from
integrating with locals, if they keep communicating again just with Chinese
within WeChat. if they were forced to use proper international apps with E2E
encryption they could discuss whatever they want without sacrifing privacy

I see it here, you have local Chinese living in EU still talking in WeChat
groups under control of Chinese government which knows every word they talk

