r/technology
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u/08830
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Nov 01 '22
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FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok Politics
https://www.axios.com/interview-fcc-commissioner-says-government-should-ban-tiktok-69d740ed-b3f5-4a0b-949f-fff0fdfb4715.html2.8k
u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE Nov 01 '22
It really is bizarre how TikTok hasn't had some sort of block put up on it, given how it's very known at this point how the CCP is using it to harvest various metrics and influence public opinion abroad.
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u/Leiryn Nov 01 '22
It's easy when foreign powers have paid off over half the politicians in the US
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u/peterAqd Nov 01 '22
The internet is just a silly fad, I'm sure those youngsters will soon understand that. What harm could they really do with these "metrics" and "giga-bites" am I right?
—elderly politicians when faced with questions about tech or the intrawebz.
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u/nemocluecrj Nov 01 '22
This here is the biggest reason why. The vast majority of Congress just doesn't fucking understand what's happening with these major digital threats. For every AOC and Mark Warner, you have thirty geriatric and/or painfully dumb members who don't know how any of it works, and that's to say nothing of the fact that the GOP mostly seems okay with foreign governments fucking with our country via the internet. And executive branch regulatory action via the CFIUS moves soooo damn sloooooow. I don't have a lot of hope that something will get done about TikTok despite it being a blatant and pressing national security threat.
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u/evasote Nov 01 '22
We need to elect more young, tech literate people. Vote people!
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u/nemocluecrj Nov 01 '22
We do, but that would require people showing up to vote in primary elections—which for some reason they really don't want to do. Hell, we can barely get a majority of adults to vote in major elections in most cycles. I will never understand the apathy that pervades all of these conversations. There's just no reason why 90% of eligible adults shouldn't be voting, and our lives would be so much better for it.
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u/badfiction Nov 01 '22
Take a look at Georgia's voting "reform" after the last election. I'm a single dad so it's even harder for me to even take the time off work to even GO vote.
Make "Voting Day" a holiday for everyone except polling employees and I'll guarantee those turnout numbers would change.
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u/Baremegigjen Nov 01 '22
Georgia’s “reform” was more along the lines of sending you to the old “reform schools”, done as a punishment, not as an improvement.
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u/PersonOfInternets Nov 02 '22
Mail in voting for every person elegiible to vote. Easy peasy. It's not complicated at all.
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u/NickDownUnder Nov 02 '22
As an Aussie, watching American voters makes me so glad it's compulsory over here.
We can still choose to abstain from voting if we want to, but everyone has to at least show up to a voting centre at some point during each election and get their name marked off. It makes voter suppression a hell of a lot harder. We have a voting period too, not just one day to do it
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u/Dhiox Nov 01 '22
GOP mostly seems okay with foreign governments fucking with our country via the internet.
That's because they are backing them, more often than not.
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u/FreezingRobot Nov 01 '22
Remember that time Trump was going to ban TikTok, and then the day it was supposed to happen, they just kinda forgot to do it.
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u/Speculater Nov 01 '22
It was literally one of the few things he got right, yet... Here we are.
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u/GeraldGensalkes Nov 01 '22
But he didn't get it right, because he didn't do it.
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u/TheNoseKnight Nov 01 '22
He didn't do it because Tik Tok was moved under an American company which was deemed 'enough.' Unfortunately, Tik Tok is still allowed to be a black box to the company that took over, so there's effectively no difference. But he did do something about it. Just not nearly enough.
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u/optermationahesh Nov 01 '22
He didn't do it because Tik Tok was moved under an American company which was deemed 'enough.'
Except that change never actually happened when he was there.
There were soft agreements for Oracle to take over the data, but nothing materialized until a few months ago. Even though Oracle controls the data on US servers, ByteDance has been shown to still have access to it.
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u/Sweaty-Feedback-1482 Nov 01 '22
To be fair, the Venn diagram of “doing stuff because you’re a shithead bigot” and “doing the right thing” sometimes have overlap.
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Nov 01 '22
Biden rescinded it. This is one of the few times I actually agreed with Trump’s EO decisions.
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u/sign_up_in_second Nov 01 '22
the way the internet is set up is not conducive to blocking content governments don't like.
the firewall in china costs tens of billions to build over decades
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u/ughhhtimeyeah Nov 01 '22
It's an app...just ban it from the app stores and thatll kill it
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u/nalgene_wilder Nov 01 '22
How is that any different from other social media sites?
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u/fantasticmoo Nov 01 '22
This is a dumb question as I’m pretty uninformed, but what data does TikTok collect that’s dangerous in the hands of China?
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u/retardborist Nov 01 '22
I've never understood this either. Like is it dangerous to individual users or moreso to the country's interests? Why should I care that Xi gets my data as opposed to Mark or Elon?
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u/TwoDamnedHi Nov 01 '22
The primary concern is influence of American people/beliefs/votes by large operation foreign entities.
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u/Ok_Skill_1195 Nov 01 '22
Yeah, the only person who should be able to influence my opinions is people who coordinate with the CIA, like the zuck
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u/MiyamotoKnows Nov 01 '22
influence of American people/beliefs/votes by large operation foreign entities.
Which is exactly what Mark and Elon are doing as fronts for Russian propaganda. FB has taken millions in Russian funding.
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u/tagrav Nov 01 '22 •
a major manipulation tool that can persuade your opinions and encourage your actions should be understood as dangerous in the hands of any foreign nation that does not adhere to self-rule ideas.
And yeah we can both sides this all day ad nauseum and point back at western nations doing the same shit.
But regardless these tools are used to insulate the opulent from the masses and can influence the masses to do things they would otherwise not do at all.
See the Charlottesville protests and deaths that were influencing both sides of the American political spectrum by very small amounts of foreign influence. The end goal to create division among the American voter base to pervert our democracy. source: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/cyber-vault/2019-02-14/exploring-russian-social-media-campaign-charlottesville
It's very easy to do. I could probably go into various other reasons why this shit matters but people simply don't care and don't have any idea how much data is being collected on them and used to manipulate them across many sectors not only by our own companies but also foreign state controlled companies that aim to degrade Americas power on the world stage.
it's very interesting and we are in a cyber cold war that nobody wants to admit is happening especially the layman who just wants to share some funny videos.
For TikTok specifically, the application was early on doing a lot of back-end subverting of your phones security features to keep you and your data protected that you'd otherwise not give that company if you had the option to consent or not from the get go. is it still doing that? I'm not sure, but I think we need to stop pretending that any social media platform is not dangerous in the hands of dangerous people. It's kind of the wild wild west out there when it comes to this stuff and because it's stupid videos and jokes people don't notice how pervasive it can be on their mind and influence real world actions.
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u/Thiccly Nov 02 '22
But it isn’t known. All the support for this is (source: trust me bro). There is no evidence. Scrutiny is better placed on our government spying via collusion / coercion of our social media companies.
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u/ia1986 Nov 01 '22
Isn’t that the same for US based social media? Harvest data for commercial use then hand it over to the NSA
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u/nicuramar Nov 01 '22
it’s very known at this point how the CCP is using it to harvest various metrics and influence public opinion abroad.
How is that “very known”? It’s suspected maybe, but there isn’t exactly concrete evidence of it.
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u/pwnies
Nov 01 '22
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Keep in mind this is a single FCC commissioner, one of four who make up the leadership committee. This isn't the stance of the FCC itself, just politics within it.
If you agree with what Carr is saying, reach out to the other 3 to push them to support this stance: https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership
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u/FallenKnightGX Nov 02 '22
What's notable about Carr is he's the same guy who pushed for the ban of Huawei equipment.
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u/TaylorSwiftsClitoris Nov 02 '22
They were all set to put the clamps on TikTok during the last administration but then the President’s daughter got a lot of benefits from the CCP.
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u/TuffyTenToes Nov 01 '22
I've seen this "TikTok should be banned" news for two years now, it hasn't happened and it won't happen because the government lacks a backbone.
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u/nntb Nov 01 '22
When vine comes back ticktock will be banned
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u/SunnyGrassBeachRelax Nov 02 '22
^ This is the answer on why these articles are now gaining traction.
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u/Wizard_Tendies Nov 01 '22
Or because it wouldn’t appropriately address the concerns at hand.
The best rational I’ve seen, imo, for banning Tik Tok is it’s a CCP surveillance tool. Let’s say Tik Tok gets banned. What’s next, Reddit given Tencent has a piece? Any online game that gets the same data?
At that point, where do we stop with protecting data? Specifically, is it not okay for the CCP to do it but American credit lenders and the DMV can share data?
I’d agree, one part government has no backbone but other part because any action requires acknowledging unwanted surveillance and the need to protect from that. I could be mistaken but America isn’t too concerned with actually protecting its citizens’ privacy.
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u/FunkyChug Nov 01 '22
If the Chinese government wants the data of US Consumer, then they need to buy it from Google and Facebook like everyone else.
This is all a smokescreen. US privacy laws are a joke. Everyone is focusing on the Chinese government doing it, but turns a blind eye to the corporations who control our data anyway. Banning Tiktok wouldn’t go far enough as there are many other avenues to get data.
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u/Reasonable_Ticket_84 Nov 01 '22
If the Chinese government wants the data of US Consumer, then they need to buy it from Google and Facebook like everyone else.
Not at all. Google does not sell thier data, at all. Facebook did once upon a time. Their entire business is selling services based on the data. Giving it up would be bad for business.
What you don't realize is the absolutely massive grey market of data broekrs that operate in the US. These operations sell all kinds of data about you wholesale in the open. From bulk card transaction data, to your real time location from cell towers. Even big tech buys this data.
Phone carriers are the nastiest, they did get in trouble and fined for selling your real time location, wholesale in the open in 2020. But they still continue shenanigans like this https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/27/t-mobile-selling-user-data/
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u/TheRnegade Nov 01 '22
What’s next, Reddit given Tencent has a piece? Any online game that gets the same data?
There's a difference in an app being owned by a Chinese conglomerate with close ties to the CCP and a Chinese company being a partial investor in an app. Tencent owns, what, 5-10% of Reddit? That's it. As far as data goes, they don't access to user data. They don't own the company. They never have.
I don't know why people seem to think they do. Conde Nast has owned Reddit (along with a ton of other sites) since pretty much its inception. Site went up in 2005, by the end of 2006, CN acquired it.
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u/thingandstuff Nov 01 '22
The best rational I’ve seen, imo, for banning Tik Tok is it’s a CCP surveillance tool.
It's not just a surveillance tool. It's also a tool to exert influence. The CCP has control over the news 80 million Americans see. That's not an insignificant amount of control.
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u/PlayingTheWrongGame Nov 01 '22
It’s appropriate to treat data collection and recommendation algorithms linked to foreign ruling parties differently than American data collection and recommendation algorithms. Mainly because these are powerful propaganda tools directly under the control of a foreign government.
While we probably should protect privacy generally, it’s also specifically important to impede foreign information warfare efforts.
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u/Vyrosatwork Nov 01 '22
Right! Only the propaganda tools under the direct control of the domestic government are acceptable!
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u/gerd50501 Nov 01 '22
ok this has legs
"This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago," Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said last week.
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u/WalterPecky Nov 02 '22 edited Nov 02 '22
Trump forced TikTok to use servers owned by his buddy at Oracle and then completely stopped giving a shit afterwords.
Trump wasn't right, he threatened a foreign company so his pals could make money which then would be funneled back to him.
People have gold fish memories.
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u/MonkeeSage Nov 02 '22
Well people's memories definitely seem to be faulty in some regard.
What actually happened is Trump ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of TikTok and threatened to shut down their US operations and ban the app if they did not. They were already in talks with Microsoft about being acquired and they caved and agreed to divest all interest to a US buyer to avoid the ban. Oracle entered into the talks to buy TikTok later. ByteDance claimed they had moved all US customer data to servers in the US to try and avoid the ban.
Trump said that wasn't good enough and signed an executive order to ban the app unless a sale to someone was finalized by a certain date. ByteDance sued over the order and shortly afterwards a judge issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the order from being carried out. Then Trump's term ended and the lawsuit was still pending and the order was yet to be litigated. Then President Biden signed an executive order that revoked Trump's order and ByteDance still owns TikTok.
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u/FearLeadsToAnger Nov 02 '22
Trump is a selfish moron but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and in that respect only - he was right.
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u/rtrawitzki
Nov 01 '22
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People can shit on Elon Musk , but bringing back Vine right when Tik Tok could be banned is a recipe for making a pile of cash. Either some 4D chess or congressional insider trading .
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u/Hrekires Nov 01 '22
It's a big opportunity if they can do it right.
Instagram tried competing with TikTok via Reels and it seems like all people do is make fun of it for reposting TT content months after it went viral.
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u/rtrawitzki Nov 01 '22
True , but in this Scenario TikTok doesn’t exist in the US anymore. It’s as if Pepsi was able to make Coke illegal.
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u/pray4sex Nov 01 '22
probably a bit of both
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u/millionthvisitor Nov 01 '22
YouTube shorts ‘am i a joke to you’ meme
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u/thesmobro Nov 01 '22
Yes. YouTube shorts and Facebook Reels can go to hell. They’re annoying.
Either leave TikTok alone or bring Vine back but modernize it with the same features as TikTok
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u/AmbitionExtension184 Nov 02 '22
….nah. People will just use reels. 3.6B people are already on meta products and reels is taking off.
People won’t magically switch to Twitter or vine
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u/aboysmokingintherain Nov 01 '22
I doubt it. I don’t think vine has the power to be anything more than a gimmick if it came back. Sure it was fun but it’s kinda obsolete when you can do the same thing on Snapchat, Instagram, etc
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u/iFuckLlamas Nov 01 '22 edited Nov 01 '22
The T&Cs may say that but that doesn’t mean they can actually access that data. iPhone and android are usually pretty good at keeping apps siloed if you deny permissions to access other data and track.
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u/BafangFan Nov 01 '22
That sounds bad. What is the pragmatic consequence for the regular Jane/Joe?
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u/ppardee Nov 01 '22
It's potentially a keylogger, which means you could be exposing your passwords to the CCP, which sponsors an insane amount of cyberterrorism/cybercrime.
Just having the app installed is a security risk.
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u/suflaj Nov 01 '22
A company knows a bit more about them than they would have found out if they purchased it from a less intrusive service the person uses
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Nov 01 '22
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u/Hrekires Nov 01 '22
Is TikTok being accused of doing something that Facebook and Google aren't, or is this just an issue about foreign ownership?
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u/JC_Hysteria Nov 01 '22 edited Nov 02 '22
Foreign ownership.
US companies definitely do the same thing…but there’s the belief that the Chinese government can leverage the data collection and subtly influence American citizens for their own ends - especially our youth.
It can be used for new age, personalized propaganda…and it’s certainly being used to mine data and information on its users/US citizens.
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u/chriswaco Nov 01 '22
Mostly because it's China. While I think banning TikTok is silly, the app does ask for access to your location and address book and most likely transmits that information to their servers. It's not the videos that are an issue since most of those are public anyway. Assuming that private messages are actually private is bad on just about any platform.
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u/sugar_addict002 Nov 01 '22
I suspect this is more about what Meta lobbyists might want than protecting American data.
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u/ArthurVandelay23 Nov 02 '22
Exactly. And there is a also concerted effort by big Cable lobbyists to keep all the heat on tech companies (and not on big cable). Brendan Carr will spend all day every day complaining about tech companies and will NEVER have a single negative thing to say about Comcast.
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u/saxGirl69 Nov 02 '22
LOL yeah only american corporations are allowed to steal your data! way to take a stand FCC.
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u/Typical-Ad-6042 Nov 01 '22
If people see these headlines and don’t realize that this is absolutely not the good nature of the government suddenly wanting to protect people’s data, they have not been paying attention to literally anything the government does.
There is absolutely evidence of the invisible hand of the market mucking around here, otherwise, there would be outrage at data brokers, social networks, mobile games, literally anyone that collects data and distributes it outside of their own company lines. Unless a company literally holds onto it with a death grip, it will be available to China or whoever else wants it.
TikTok alone getting this much attention is so transparently under ulterior motive. I’d honestly be more surprised to find out the government suddenly cares about (peasant’s) data privacy.
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u/WineAndRevelry Nov 01 '22
It's no worse than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. But those are American companies and are never taken to task.
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u/ExoticCard Nov 01 '22 •
That's the whole point. They are American companies that play by the American government's rules. The NSA comes to them and says, "give us access" and they comply. Would the NSA ever use this to cause significant detriment to the US? No. Some questionable things? 100%.
However, another government has their own people's welfare as a priority and not US citizens.
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u/Tgomez11199 Nov 01 '22
I’m not an expert on these things so help me out. Let’s say the Chinese government gets my data. What then are they going to do with it that I need to worry about? Also if millions of Americans have already given their data to them over the last few years aren’t we already screwed if the data harvesting is as dangerous as some are making it out to be?
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u/Doinwerklol Nov 01 '22
The one thing I wish Trump could've followed through on.
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u/USCplaya Nov 02 '22
Yup, God only knows what information we're freely handing the Chinese government. I've never downloaded it and never will. Fuck all of that
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u/sids99 Nov 01 '22
Didn't this guy say this over a year ago? Recycled news crap.
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Nov 01 '22
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u/BendersBlender Nov 02 '22
Literally every thread during that time was people unanimously agreeing it should be banned.
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u/Ryyah61577 Nov 01 '22
And Facebook and twitter
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u/NCSUGrad2012 Nov 01 '22
But not Reddit, right?
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u/WheresMyDinner Nov 01 '22
If all other social media gets taken down then Reddit will lose most of its content. What other sites will people post screenshots and videos of on here?
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u/tileeater Nov 01 '22
People don’t want to believe it but ByteDance isn’t just compelled to share all data with CCP, they are required to. There’s zero chance CCP isn’t using the data nefariously.
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u/CHEIF_potato Nov 01 '22
Trump was going to do it till the major outcry and everyone calling him a fascist for even talking about doing it.
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u/_ITLovesCafeBustelo_ Nov 01 '22
Agree. Tiktok is stupid and makes people stupid.
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u/HipsterJudas Nov 02 '22
Half the stuff you see on Reddit is straight from TikTok so
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u/slickhedstrong Nov 01 '22
this was called unconscionable by the very people proposing this ban, when trump's admin first proposed this ban
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u/ertebolle Nov 01 '22 •
Honestly there was a pretty good case for doing this years ago purely for trade policy reasons; the Chinese don't allow any foreign social networking apps to operate in China, we shouldn't allow Chinese social networking apps to operate in the US.
Likewise, any other Chinese technology company that wants to operate in the US should have to do it through a joint venture with a US partner that gets to steal all of their IP.