
Trump Says He’s Approved Oracle Deal for U.S. TikTok Operations - bigpumpkin
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-19/trump-says-he-s-approved-oracle-deal-for-u-s-tiktok-operations
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cma
Isn't Ellison a big financial supporter of Trump's campaign?

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mindslight
Yup. It's pure nepotism and fealty, including the requirement to pay a tribute
that can be held up by the "leader" in his own honor, similar to the museums
in North Korea where they show off gifts from foreign countries.

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mortdeus
Honestly, I personally think that this is a pretty impressive strategic move
on Trump's part. I mean considering the strong precedence it sets for future
Chinese web app developers who intend to market their products
internationally. I also think it's important to note that this is us just
leveling the playing field in the sense that when we try to market our
products there, we have to essentially do the same thing and build a special
version just for them that the CCP can monitor and censor at will.

With Oracle being in charge of all the backend operations in the US and being
a 10% shareholder I can feel confident that they will ensure that the CCP
won't have the ability to just pick up a phone and gain access to all of our
WeChat information.

But with all that being said, I still have a problem with the idea of any
Government having the ability to access our private conversations willy, nilly
and without any real oversight over the NSA to ensure their investigations are
legit and not spying for profit.

That's why we need to start demanding that end to end encryption becomes an
option we can at least pay for the option to use on all of the major social
apps we use like FB, Twitter, etc.

Idk, at first I thought Trump was probably overstepping his "conservative"
position by trying to step in and regulate the free market in a way where he
is now "picking winners and losers", rather than letting the consumers being
the ones who get to make this decision (which is something I passionately
believe Government should never empower itself to do).

But then after looking into the situation a little deeper, I saw that they
actually have two seperate versions of TikTok. One called Douyin which is
specifically for Chinese users and then TikTok which is for everybody else.

After realizing that they were already operating from a walled off garden that
keeps their people seperated from us and vice versa, I started to see very
little point in having both apps operate from China.

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ineedasername
I don't think it's a great strategic move. It is the US government saying
people can't use a tool that facilitates expression of our 1st amendment
rights because of how the tool's owner uses & shares data.

Objections to how data is used can be solved by law, with needing to do it by
fiat of the Executive Branch. If we don't like how data is going to be used,
make laws the dictate the desired restrictions. Then use the rule of law, not
the rule of man. Formal legal processes, not vague appeals to national
security, would guide any determination on breaches of those laws &
appropriate escalating penalties. It would also have the benefit of not
escalating a user data issue into a major geo-political incident.

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tatrajim
Chinese-owned companies have no right to withhold data from the state.

China National Intelligence Law

Article 7: Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate
with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the
secrets of the national intelligence work known to the public. The State
protects individuals and organizations that support, assist and cooperate with
national intelligence work

[https://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2017_PRC_Natio...](https://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci1800/sources/2017_PRC_NationalIntelligenceLaw.pdf)

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xvector
I’m amazed you could say this without mentioning that US companies, too, have
no right to withhold data from the state.

We have irrefutable gag orders which force compliance with the NSA [1].

FISA warrants are a joke, a rubber stamp at best. Only every 12 in about
33,000 are denied [2].

[1]: [https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-
letters](https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters)

[2]:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intell...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#FISA_warrants)

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tatrajim
Two crucial differences: 1) Chinese law can be used to coerce _indivudusls_
(including presumably tech company execs) to spy for the state. That is
illegal under US law. And uf you're a Chinese student abroad, good luck saying
no to the Public Security tity Office when asked to spy on other students.

2) US law, however evilly applied, requires a modicum of specificity and a fig
leaf of justification. China law has no such need and can appropriate at scale
to its bureaucratic desire (e.g, all IP addresses in Washington, D.C.)

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neom
"Trump said the new company will be hiring at least 25,000 people and making a
$5 billion contribution to a fund dedicated to education for Americans.
“That’s their contribution that I’ve been asking for,” he said."

\- [https://www.fox5ny.com/news/trump-gives-blessing-to-
proposed...](https://www.fox5ny.com/news/trump-gives-blessing-to-proposed-
tiktok-deal-with-oracle-walmart)

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hienyimba
\- 25,000 jobs.

\- $5billion Educational fund.

\- 20% ownership by Oracle and Walmart.

\- Access to codebase by Oracle.

\- Opportunity for Oracle and Walmart to increase stake by further 20% pre-
IPO.

\- New HQ in Texas, US.

I know that people in the US likes to criticize Trump a lot but he sure has
his merits and this is one of them.

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xvector
Merits including forcibly nationalizing foreign IP under vague “national
security” concerns?

Today it’s TikTok, tomorrow it will be Telegram.

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rapferreira
I was really elated to hear TikTok was going to be banned. It is honestly
terrible for culture...

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cripblip
Starts with dance videos, Figures our your preferences pretty quickly and I
have found it very educational, the short format really cuts to the chase, It
has prompted me to learn new techniques in cooking, woodwork, stretching...
positive overall!

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oehtXRwMkIs
I agree, it seems benign besides the surveillance.

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cripblip
Could you expand on this? Does the app have more surveillance/data gathering
than other? Genuinely curious, feeling naive

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xvector
It does not. Spreading conspiracy is exciting and makes people feel smart. If
you use Frida to bypass cert pinning and see what’s sent, TikTok doesn’t
collect anything of note in the realm of social media.

Google (and the NSA by extension, via PRISM) has magnitudes more information
on you.

