
Senators ask US intel to determine whether TikTok poses national security risks - nickthegreek
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/24/tiktok-raises-national-security-concerns-congress-schumer-cotton-ask-federal-review/
======
mindslight
This is morosely funny, because the responsible community viewpoint has been
tilting at windmills for over a decade about the pitfalls of centralizing
webcrapps. Which has been ignored due to a blindspot from just being
subservient to US business interests, as so much of US culture is.

But now that China has appeared on the scene with a modicum of influence,
everyone flips their shit! For some reason people couldn't just reason
abstractly about the implications of _centralized control_ , but instead
assumed the controllers will be benevolent up until they became "too foreign".

I don't look forward to the likely results though. I think it's going to be
more top-down control from DC to SV (it's the only thing they understand,
after all), as opposed to any sort of movement to get back to making _secure
software_ rather than _untrustable services_.

------
maximente
i for one completely trust the US intelligence agencies to make the right
decision here. i'm glad that our elected Senate is leveraging the unelected,
but best and brightest (or so i am frequently told) members of this country to
make these decisions.

this is late-Byzantine empire/Venice type stuff.

------
deepVoid
An app used by young people to post silly videos definitely poses a severe
national security risk[1][2].

[1][https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340216](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340216)

[2][https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/24/tiktok-most-
popul...](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/24/tiktok-most-popular-app-
explained)

~~~
ganoushoreilly
The argument isn't crazy when you consider the ability to control and
manipulate messaging. It's not different than investigating RT or other
foreign funded media.

~~~
rootsudo
This angle is correct - since moderators and admin are located in China it is
not hard to censor material, create dissent and appeal to a Chinese propaganda
model.

From the article that I suspect many did not read: "lawmakers questioned
TikTok’s data-collection practices and whether the app adheres to censorship
rules directed by the Chinese government that could limit what U.S. users see"

Metadata, GPS location, Camera/Photos and Videos can also leak information
about people, specfically children/teens of high ranking officials.

"And the lawmakers said that TikTok could be a “potential target of foreign
influence campaigns like those carried out during the 2016 election on
U.S.-based social media platforms.”"

Is this fear different than what China says about USA tech like
Google/Apple/Microsoft? Nope - same. They treat it differently and force
companies to comply with their laws and rules.

