In terms of data laws and the future of the global Internet, I'm wondering how you feel about these issues.
Let's keep the conversation respectful and not try to litigate every geopolitical issue involved. 🙂
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I think that TikTok is a real dump. And they needed to ban it a long, long time ago. Instagram is much, much better in this sense. That's why I don't feel sorry about TikTok. Also, they say that China is spying on us by this app. If so, I think that banning it is a perfect idea. And the people who use TikTok - they can just switch it to Instagram. I have a nice account there. With a lot of followers. I've found where to buy followers on Instagram for a low price and now I have tons of followers.
Tiktok isn't a dump. But influencers have used it a manner where cultural values have been demoralized. For example: India banned it for using it as a political tool to pressurize China. Facebook & Twitter are considering using digital identification. Which means, your privacy is at risk in near future. Any person could just get a fake ID from sites like topfakeid.com/ and sign up with a digital ID on any social media platform with some one's else identity theft?
Should we in Europe ban all US apps and technologies for the exact same reason: That the US government is also snooping on all US-based technology?
In Danish we have a saying: A thief thinks everybody steals.
Huawei comms are banned because the Chinese government could be listening. But we have solid proof that the US government has been caught tampering with Cisco equipment so they could listen in. Should we then ban Cisco and HP for good measure?
Where does this end?
This is political theater, but because the "excuse" being used is privacy related, it's good to see more people talking about it and the increased awareness. Privacy needs to be a major concern across all users of tech, no matter how we get there.
Unfortunately this is primarily a political effort that is going to have dramatic impacts throughout tech if it continues...and it seems to be escalating with the latest Executive Orders.
Everything from a factual (a/k/a someone has done a technical analysis and looked at the apps/data) perspective on TikTok shows a social network that works just like the others (though arguably tracks less data about users). Similarly, technical analysis of their apps shows a lot of common practices that happen regularly on desktop/mobile/web where a ton of telemetry is sent back to the support service.
The only difference is the corporate lineage. The parent company being on a jurisdiction seen as "bad" by another jurisdiction. So it's very much an "this is ok with WE do it but not you" type of situation.
Specific to TikTok, the biggest issues is censorship and that is very much a matter of geopolitics. The American view point of near unbounded free speech is unique in the world. Most other western countries have significantly stronger stances on hate speech. China has officially taken a different approach.
Regardless of your politics, this is the latest collision of the old geopolitical viewpoint smashing into the internet worldview.
Modern tech and commerce is so intertwined, that this type of "ban" (and the subsequent "Clean Network" effort from the US State Department), is going to have so many second and third order impacts that it's almost impossible to full comprehend the true result. Oh, and most tech hardware is manufactured in China.
If you want a cybersecurity & privacy view of TikTok specifically, check out this video on my YouTube channel; youtu.be/cqhtl1OsOxg
If you want a glimpse at how messy this will get, check out the Wikipedia entry for Tencent to see how many companies they are financially involved with (currently exempt from the Executive Order based on a White House statement but for how long?); en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent
It's truly goes back to the 14 eyes. The 14 eyes are group of 14 countries of whom are actively spying till this day and can be avoided at all costs( in terms of their services ). The website privacytools.io is a great resource for those who are truly looking to implement strong privacy into their lifestyle. Privacy is after all a process, not a purchase. To the Tik Tok Ban, it's clearly a violation of privacy, but what truly intrigues me is that people only care about the top apps. It's only the top applications that rise to Fame that get a security audit. There seems to be a correlation between fame and spying.
I am strongly against it. I don't know to much about privacy laws and that kind of stuff but in the case that TikTok gets sold to Microsoft or whatever who's to say those companies won't abuse the app and use it to spy.
I just don't like the idea of the US playing Hero and making Chinese companies look the villain.
Your last point is truly fascinating. At that point, it would be the West vs the East. The USA has an overly inflated ego, since history and the funniest thing is their subjective use of the word, 'World.'
We are the best in the world at (________). Even if that something is only done in the USA. Major League Baseball is only played by US sports teams and the finals is called the World Championship (how ironic). Back to your point, the USA is certainly best in the World at spying and who knows what Microsoft or some other US based company does after buying Tik Tok. Microsoft could certainly use it to its advantage to compete against YouTube, but who knows.
Lastly, I recommend you check out this website to learn more about privacy privacytools.io
This pretty much sums up my thoughts...
It's all geopolitical, or so it seems ... funny though that apparently TikTok might be purchased by a US company (Microsoft?) so that it will continue to be allowed in the US, I wonder if it will then be banned in China? :-)
US companies are selling our infos to the Government.
True. To some degree, the USA doesn't want your info to go China because they want more of it. All these companies are looking to control or have a piece of your life.
I agree completely.
Its political theater.
I haven’t made a decision one way or the other. I think as a free democracy it’s a fine line banning a private company enjoyed by millions for what “could” be.
However, I understand the concern. It does have potential for abuse and the US has consumer protection laws and regulation for a reason. The Chinese Communist Party pasted a law in 2015 that allows the CCP to obtain personal data from Chinese owned companies. That with the reported poor data collection practice TikTok allegedly engages in and the large number of users in the United States does open the potential risk for abuse by CCP.
More about the specific law “In 2015, China passed a National Security Law, which included a provision to give police the authority to demand companies let them bypass encryption or other security tools to access personal data” sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/...
I believe the way they said they would go about the ban would be to make it illegal to engage in business with the parent companies ByteDance and Tencent. Essentially US company’s would have to comply or run the risk of legal action.
If you haven't already, I'd recommend taking a look at this privacy analysis of TikTok. It pretty much put the nail in the coffin that I would never install this app and I warn any of my loved ones about it:
rufposten.de/blog/2019/12/05/priva...
How is this a nail in the coffin? It's standard for any social network and most modern applications. Almost every app (desktop, mobile, or web) sends a massive amount of telemetry back home. Is it right? No. But it's happening everywhere.
If you'd like a more detailed, and tutorial-style analysis, I found this useful: blackhillsinfosec.com/lets-talk-ab...
Others have also intercepted the encrypted request parameters: medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-l...
Personally, I think the ban is a smoke screen for political purposes, as @danieljsummers succinctly points out, they're all pretty much as bad as each other, you choose your poison or you stay away from mobile devices pretty much entirely.
From a theoretical perspective I don't have a huge problem, the CCP blocks numerous foreign internet companies from operating inside its borders for political and economic reasons, and has done for a long time. Not sure the pretext that Trump is using for the ban, but there are real political concerns about Chinese companies and their relationship to the CCP.
So I suspect the actual reason for the ban is probably Trump's xenophobia and having a talking point to rally the base in an election year, not some deep concern about TikTok itself.
That's definitely a valid point. Politics just filters all the noise. If Tik Tok was the predefined recipe for rigging the elections, it's a piece of cake.
If the service is free, the product is you.
Truly somes up every centralized application and service
As ew know, in dev.to there are sponsors. But it does not have a sponsor. How the money comes?
Just wanted to add more information surrounding this situation:
ref
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