
The TikTok ban and the openness trap - kirillzubovsky
https://unintendedconsequenc.es/tiktok-ban-openness-trap/
======
IfOnlyYouKnew
There is always a reason why it might be a good idea for some government to
prop up this and cut down that industry. The temptation is obvious, which is
why people sometimes start believing in 5-year plans and great leaps forward,
or enjoy Sim City.

Arbitrary action such as this is a sign of weakness: of economic weakness, and
the fear to no longer be good enough to be the single biggest winner of free
trade the US was for most of the 20th century. It's also a weakness of the
law: of institutions competent and empowered to specifically define and
litigate harmful behaviour, within the existing confines of law, such as due
process. Instead, it's executive fiat, directed against foreign companies that
have no lobby powerful enough to protect them, and coming from an office where
nobody bothers to ask for reasonable explanations, because (last weakness) the
guy is incapable, uninterested, and really just completely devoid of any
understanding of the rule of law.

Americans already are losing as much as China is from this action. But its
only in mindless entertainment that people won't complain about because they
fear being mocked for enjoying such things. But if it works, the hits will
start creeping closer, and you now need to make sure to stay not just on the
right side of the law, but also the far-right side of politics.

Meanwhile, China isn't going to change for economic reasons: countries from
cuba to North Korea to, for the longest time, the USSR have not budged in the
face of sanctions. A country in the process of cutting off the lifeblood of
its status as a superpower of science and entrepreneurship, just because
people in rural counties that have never seen a foreigner have decided they
don't like them, should really be in a good position to understand how
powerless economic interests are against ideology and jingoism.

~~~
pessimizer
China isn't going to change for economic reasons because it is extremely
successful economically. I wonder how the American psyche will be able to
withstand the transition from demanding arbitrary sanctions on China for
humanitarian reasons to demanding that China stop their sanctions on the US,
also for humanitarian reasons.

~~~
xref
Is calling for the release of a million Uyghurs from re-education camps an
“arbitrary humanitarian reason”?

------
someperson
Why doesn't anybody talk about AirDroid "Remote access & File" which has over
100 million downloads and was developed by China-based Sand Studio. That app
has complete access to a huge number of Android devices and suffers from far
greater Chinese Communist Party data access issues than other Made In China
applications.

At least currently, AirDroid is a FAR greater threat to global security than
TikTok is.

~~~
andreilys
I’m more interested in the ways you can subvert a nation covertly by adjusting
the algorithm.

Up weighting/down weighting content that exacerbates a rival nations problems
or promotes the virtues of its own

~~~
someperson
Delivering content curated by Chinese Communist Party approved algorithms and
censorship on what may become a core part of world pop culture is definitely a
powerful piece of soft power. It's no exaggeration that any app delivering
content to young people several hours a day may one day rival Hollywood in
cultural influence.

But AirDroid gives you full remote access to your Android device through a web
browser. Including messages (reading/sending/receiving), camera (taking
photos/videos, and accessing existing photos/videos), and __full access to
files __. It 's used widely (even by corporate IT) to transfer files between
Android devices and PCs over Wi-Fi.

It's a very functional app with remote access to millions of devices, and just
like Huawei there are of course a steady stream of major security
vulnerabilities. These may be plausible-deniable "bugdoors", or just sloppy
practices introducing major vulnerabilities than happen to be exploitable by
independent researchers and nation states.

The issue is that it's developed by a company based in China and thus very
closely linked with the Chinese Communist Party and given what we know about
the CCP, it's almost certainly regularly being used by the Ministry of State
Security and People's Liberation Army for to exfiltrate specific highly
valuable files eg, private messages, VPN and SSH keys.

It seems strange there's no debate on banning AirDroid when it poses a far
greater immediate threat than TikTok.

------
chrischen
> Even the ACLU seemed to be both against and for a Tiktok ban in recent
> tweets: “Banning an app like TikTok, which millions of Americans use to
> communicate with each other, is a danger to free expression and
> technologically impractical.” But the prevented free expression on Tiktok,
> noted above, is a great danger too. And since when does the ACLU care about
> technological impracticability?

> Another ACLU tweet: “To truly address privacy concerns with companies like
> TikTok, Congress must ensure that ANY company that services US consumers
> cannot hand over our data to any government without a warrant or equivalent.
> Letting the president selectively ban platforms isn’t the solution.” That
> tweet seems to be in favor of the ban and a process for banning other
> companies as well.

Seems pretty clear what the ACLU stance is. Banning TikTok is a political move
that curbs free speech and has nothing to do with protecting speech. This is
because we have domestic apps that not only can, but are, doing the same thing
(Instagram silently dropping kamalaharris.info messages for violating
"Community Standards").

If we ban the techniques that curb free speech instead, seems more in line
with the argument of protecting free speech.

------
Vmody2
This story is still developing, but I think a forced buyout or outright ban is
shortsighted.

The underlying fear is the impact that a foreign entity will have on our
political and social fabric (because America has _never_ done that before).
It's a valid concern, especially after Cambridge Analytica. But TikTok falls
into the same regulatory challenge forces that can impact change through
social media platforms. Building a better framework is a long term solution
that encodes into law American values, transparency, and constraints by the
legislative branch, not precedent set by the executive branch.

At the same time, every time there is a major hearing against big tech, it's
always disappointing.

------
someperson
The article neglects to mention that Zoom video conferencing is largely
developed in China (due to doing its R&D there). This point tends to start
flame wars, but it's worth mentioning.

~~~
kirillzubovsky
It's a valid point. They are probably doing R&D there because it is much
cheaper than doing it in US. There was news somewhere that Zoom was moving all
servers to US, and chances are they will have to move some development here as
well, if they want to avoid being directed by the Chinese government.

The point about China R&D is a good one, and of course something to consider
for other companies now and in the future. After all, he explains that Google
was not banned in China, until Google put some operations into the country.

I think the article isn't trying to cover all the basis, but rather highlight
that there are many difference ways to look at this problem.

------
Firebrand
>“While the news about Microsoft’s potential acquisition of TikTok was a huge
relief for its American users, it was received poorly on the Chinese internet,
with many calling Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s founder and CEO, a ‘spineless
traitor’ and a ‘despicable coward,’ among other insults.”

Seems like Weibo users are just as inflammatory and insufferable as Twitter
users. Probably just as irrelevant too.

~~~
haecceity
That's because Zhang Yiming is a big fan of American free market. Now they're
mocking him because the free market he loves is not tolerating him. Gotta
admit it's pretty funny.

~~~
switch11
yeah, it is super funny

have to feel bad for the guy

he basically was taking over the world

And now he's getting kicked out of the biggest market on the planet

------
blululu
Without getting into the political aspects of this issue, I really appreciated
the sophistication of this article. The author was able to provide a nuanced
perspective that generalized into a meta-commentary about media and culture in
general. For instance, the author's point that US based media/commentators
should consider how their Chinese counterparts are talking about the issue is
really important for understanding this issue and similar cross cultural
concerns, and sadly it is all too often overlooked.

------
justicezyx
This is a more level-headed description of the situations and their
background.

But I think it's still missing the point:

* There isn't a legal process of banning TikTok.

* The current process is overly politicized.

It's not that there isn't legitimate reasons to motivate banning TikTok. It's
that such reasons cannot legally justify such action.

Of course there is presidential executive power to do that. But that should be
used as a less common mechanism. Not on this minor issue.

My conclusion: The whole situation is out-of-proportional because of politics.

~~~
throw22459
One other issue is that China did not just outright ban Google or Facebook or
Twitter.

The Chinese government gave these companies a chance to stay, as long as the
complied with the censorship laws.

Google was going to re-enter the Chinese market again with Project Dragonfly,
but they backed out due to bad publicity.

~~~
remarkEon
>but they backed out due to bad publicity.

And if they hadn't, I would hope that this discussion we're having would
include what sanctions Google should face for not backing out. I'm having a
hard time following how folks in threads related to China are not seeing that
this game is being played by two players with completely different
understandings of the rules. Player 1 spends an inordinate amount of time with
the rule book, complaining to others that player 2 isn't playing fairly.
Player 2 continues taking territory knowing that by the time player 1 realizes
it's not about following the rules - it's about winning - it'll be too late.

~~~
justicezyx
> what sanctions Google should face for not backing out

What are the sanctions?

I am not aware of firms doing business to China are punished by any sovereign
nations?

> this game is being played by two players with completely different
> understandings of the rules

What do you mean by different understanding of the rules?

I thought here China and US do have different rules, and firms are facing
different rules when they operate at these 2 nations. How and why that leads
to different understanding of (the same set of) rules?

> Player 1 ... Player 2

Who are these corresponding to China and US?

I am fairly exposed to the complexity involves in the sino us relationship
both economic and political. There certainly isn't systematic imbalance in
terms of one government is playing by rules and the others don't.

~~~
remarkEon
>What are the sanctions?

There are none right now, that's my point. But if PRC is going to co-opt US
companies as they implement other strategies to become global hegemon in 10
years time, it's perfectly appropriate to ask questions about whether or not
American companies should play party to this - and whether or not the American
government should do anything to stop or reverse the trend.

>What do you mean by different understanding of the rules?

>Who are these corresponding to China and US?

I'm not really convinced you're arguing in good faith if your null position is
that the US and China are behaving the same way in international markets.
There's mountains of evidence to the contrary, going back 30 years.

~~~
justicezyx
> your null position is that the US and China are behaving the same way in
> international markets.

Of cuz they are not behaving the same way. But the issue is: are they behaving
in the framework of law?

------
roenxi
The free market will create the greatest amount of wealth from a given amount
of resources. Resisting the market will result in less wealth. But maximising
wealth isn't the only strategic goal when dealing with China. The Communist
party leadership are scary people.

China was wise not to let American tech companies have free access to their
markets. America would be wise to reciprocate. Data is much more valuable in
aggregate than it is to individuals and keeping it in house seems like it
would be worth the costs. Europe has started to adopt a similar strategy of
blocking data egress (via GDPR) and that makes sense to me too.

~~~
tangjurine
>The free market will create the greatest amount of wealth from a given amount
of resources.

What do you mean by this? Most free markets have a significant amount of dead
weight loss.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
> Most free markets have a significant amount of dead weight loss.

This tends to be moved into "externalities" and doesn't affect the direct
recipients of wealth. It does affect things like quality of life, environment,
etc.

------
swiley
A better ban would be on platforms that force you through a single
organizations servers. That would solve lots of problems the internet has.

------
SexyNightWatch
What I found most funny about the situation is that Trump and people alike
blame TikTok (at least partially) for their (for the lack of a better word)
embarrassment. Is it not a known fact that our current president is hated by
many? I don't need China to tell me that.

~~~
verdverm
Most politicians are hated in the US. I believe congress has a much lower
approval rating and the media even lower. 40-20-10 as a rough ratio if memory
serves me well

~~~
sukilot
That's very misleading.

Congresspeople have high approval from their own constituents. Everyone hates
_other_ district's congresspeople.

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-
congress-...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-own-
representative.aspx)

~~~
verdverm
The numbers you show confirm my statement, I was talking about congress, the
legislative branch, on the whole. The point is that we do not approve of our
government and media organizations by and large.

------
jariel
The author is diminishing the bigger picture geostrategic issues such as
trade, security, influence and state control.

This has little to do with 'expression or values' \- they are hardly part of
he equation.

TikTok is a 'large Chinese company' which means it has deep ties to the
government. TikTok users were apparently partly responsible for screwing up
Trump's rally. I don't actually believe China was behind this, nor are we sure
how much said users had an effect, but the fact that this is plausible is a
very, very serious concern.

Authoritarian states are getting really, really good at controlling
information, it's much more effective than nuclear threats.

That most of us happen to loathe Trump (who as far as I am concerned would for
TikTok to ban negative videos of him if he could get away with) is besides the
point.

The 'tit for tat' issues are not issues of 'values' \- they are mostly issues
of trade asymmetry, and there are very legit concerns there.

The notion that one state could have so much information about another state
and act coherently on that in the context of a fairly aggressive, almost
Imperial plan, is something we're going to have to contend with very soon.

Edit: I should add that values/freedom of expression do matter of course, but
they are absolutely not the driving factors underlying this issue. Arguably
not even part of the equation at this point.

~~~
anniefrost
There are literally thousands of apps that do that, but they were targeting
TikTok?

This is a political and economical move, if this is how US and Trump wanted it
to be, by forcing another company to sell into another local company then it
would be a forced acquisition and this would make other companies to
reconsidered to invest or build their company in the US.

By this rule, other country in this case China could also enforced banning on
services and products into their market with the reason of "Security,
Influence and State Control"

