It's got nothing to do with "global internet", it's about a totalitarian surveillance dragnet capturing every bit of data imaginable about American children.
Tik Tok is unique in the granularity and sheer scope of what it captures, and it is stored on Chinese servers that are legally compelled to make any and all data available to the CCP with no oversight or warrants or anything of the sort.
They are pretty well known to go after US-based people (Chinese .. and non-Chinese citizens) by threatening friends and family still living in China, in response to various issues, or simply criticism. For espionage. To force them to return to China. To help them force other Chinese back. To force out Buddhism. And I'm sure that list has not gotten shorter.
In a few cases even non-Chinese citizens whose friends became "reachable" for the Chinese government.
TikTok would be an excellent source of information for this practice.
I'm sure it can be used to narrow down candidates for espionage. It is just more data points to figure out who and what levers need to be pull to provide the necessary incentives.
> a totalitarian surveillance dragnet capturing every bit of data imaginable about American children
Are non-Chinese surveillance dragnets (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.) capturing every bit of data imaginable about every nationality's children or adults more palatable?
Just like China, the US is doing whatever it can to maintain its superpower status, and its allies and enemies in check. And it's obvious these days that the US is willing to use the exact same measures that they criticized in the past when they were employed only by China.
You can file a freedom of information request or launch a lawsuit to contest a policy. You can be a whistleblower and leak illegal or immoral policies to media organisations. Or as an individual you can push journalists to investigate. Or launch an online campaign to draw attention to a particular issue.
FOIA obviously doesn't apply to everything. But in the case of FISA it is overseen by an independent judiciary and all of the deliberations and controversies were widely covered by the independent press.
Not to mention independent organisations like ACLU, EFF etc. who have been very vocal about trying to abolish the FISA process entirely.
Again none of this would remotely happen in China. We've seen first hand what happens to the media and dissenters in HK.
> the US is doing whatever it can to maintain its superpower status
Um, not in the slightest. There is no united front in the US regarding foreign relations. Trump is left to his own devices without the backing of Congress. That is far far from "doing whatever it can".
The scale and nature of what is captured is COMPLETELY different, and American laws about data protection are completely different.
America has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions.
China has a blanket policy of supplying all data to the state at its request, and there is no independent judiciary or other means of appealing this process.
Instead of Whataboutism, consider looking into why every major nation in the world (bar a few heavily reliant allies) are turning on China as the extent and nature of their policies and intentions has become impossible to ignore. Xi is a large part of this strategic turn in what was already an Orwellian dictatorship - read about his geostrategic goals.
Don't deflect. I'm not the one using whataboutism, you are: "US surveillance is ok because the scale is smaller than the Chinese one". And even that's debatable, US has global reach in collecting data.
As a European the "scale and nature of what is captured" by the US via big-tech companies (or the NSA) is "COMPLETELY different" from what happens in the EU. EU "laws about data protection are completely different". EU "has clear rules in place before stored data can be accessed by the state, with few exceptions". So I'll put it this way: for a European the US surveillance state looks more or less the same as how the Chinese surveillance state might look to the US.
So let me rephrase it: for me the US is what China is for you. You are doing to others what China is doing to you. But when you're doing it you find a strong sense of righteousness in it and anyone who doesn't agree with you is the enemy.
Many also hold this narrow view that between 2 things you must agree with one and disagree with the other. A common misconception that if you reject one option you must embrace the other. Please understand, I can disagree just fine with both what China and the US are doing. I'm giving you an outside perspective of the issue which might better help you understand how perception of something changes once you realize the baseline doesn't have to be you, it can actually be higher. You'll probably agree with me that when it comes to surveillance and privacy the EU is probably better positioned to make a moral judgement.
The point was generic so I'd say it stands. And the particular point was that most views are relative to where you're looking from but everybody states them in very absolute terms. You set your baseline at what you're comfortable with and take that as absolute reference. I was just trying to show you that that's not the case.
Putting it more simply, if you support the absolute idea that TikTok is bad, and their US operations should be forced to sell and be under US control, then the idea that Facebook or Google are bad and their EU operations should be forced to sell and be under EU control is just as true. Very few people see it like this as such the logic of the discussion is fractured. Without reconciling that fracture first every discussion looks like this [0].
The condescending tone was completely unnecessary given that you failed to even comprehend my point. Your leg to stand on is that TikTok's (China's?) "shit" smells the worst as such "we" have the moral high ground. A slightly less smelling "shit" is shit nonetheless. The world isn't binary and not being the worst doesn't make you good. But I see a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that prevents you from even looking further than "they're worse so we must be good".
> The condescending tone was completely unnecessary given that you failed to even comprehend my point.
Apologies, I didn't mean to sound condescending.
> Your leg to stand on is that TikTok's (China's?) "shit" smells the worst as such "we" have the moral high ground.
That isn't the point, really. It's just that TikTok is in a whole different league. A quote from the Reddit comment I've linked prior:
> For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.
> The world isn't binary and not being the worst doesn't make you good.
Nobody said that. The issue is that TikTok is "essentially malware that is targeting children".
And pointing that out doesn't suddenly make me a fan of Facebook. Your point is a false dilemma.
> But I see a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism that prevents you from even looking further than "they're worse so we must be good".
> It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.
The comparison is disingenuous because it makes it look like the current US based social media scene is as harmless and unassuming as a cup of water. When they appeared they were the ocean. What they were doing then was just as unacceptable as what TikTok is doing now. And they were still "shoved" down our throats with the same tricks of the trade TikTok is using now. We just raised our baseline and the unacceptable became acceptable.
How about if we say it's like a sea to the ocean? They still "just don't compare" but both are able to easily drown the world's population and for a ship on that water for all intents and purposes they're the same.
Let's not delude ourselves, this isn't about "too much data is being collected" or the gratuitous "but but but children" remark. Between all the US-based big-tech companies and the NSA/Five Eyes, the US has enough data to blackmail children for decades to come (see? the children argument works both ways). No, the problem here is that someone other than the US is doing it and could get an upper hand.
Facebook and Alphabet have probably collected more info about the people of the world than any other companies in existence and all of it can/is being shared with intelligence services if demanded. Isn't this collecting an ocean of data about your children? [0] I could dig up 1000 stories like that. But you're not worried because you were educated that some countries doing it is OK and China's explicitly not on that list.
I feel like this is the tech equivalent of QAnon...
To be clear, I don't think Facebook is any better than Tiktok. But I've seen zero actual evidence it's any worse. Frankly, the whole thing stinks of sinophobia dressed up as privacy pearl clutching...
Edit: and if you want an actual analysis with real evidence and data:
“TikTok is unique...” might be true, but then why is TikTok not the only company targeted by this royal edict?
When 17 year olds can “own Twitter” and Facebook just budgets 9 figures for data collection compliance fines, are you sure there’s a bright line distinction in the world that’s not “let’s all agree we’re not the terrible/hated/untrustworthy other”? Is the problem that another sovereign country could coerce a company to provide a service that Facebook provides for money?
It should be clear to all but the most biased that:
1. Chinese companies are extensions of the state. This is not true to the same degree for US or European companies; and
2. China deliberately restricts access to the Chinese market so no foreign company will "win" there. It will always be a Chinese company. This is why companies kowtowing the China is so pointless.
Trade is about reciprocity. Separation from the state is a national security issue. China is not playing by the same rules as everyone else is. The only shocking thing about this is that it's taken what is otherwise the worst president in America's history (and someone who, with his family, should probably all be in jail for various reasons) to demand reciprocity and to point out the obvious.
Yet the carrot of the Chinese market remains for Western companies and those companies have pressured (if not outright bought) their governments to play along in a completely rigged game they cannot win.
This is pretty much exactly my take on this, down to the assessment that shaking up Chinese trade policy is just about the only halfway sensible thing Trump has done. Are we crazy or has most of the rest of HN somehow missing the point of all this? The discussions about this here have been perplexing.
Most people still fall for the line that Trump only rags on China because he's racist, and think that China's govt is basically the same as other govts.
Why didn't you start with the actions of the US and US companies? Did you forgot about the many FB and Google scandals over the years? or you just don't care because they are your team?
The Internet never was "Global", it was always soft and sometimes hard controlled by the US. Now that other countries are applying the same recipe and "winning" all of a sudden that's a problem.
And it really is a problem, but it was a problem since the very beginning of the Internet, or do I need to mention the RSA backdoor, the Windows kernel backdoor, the amazing health of the ECHELON project even decades after the cold war ended?
Aside from the recent targeting of Chinese companies, what policies has the US put into place which specifically targets internet companies only and makes it difficult for foreign companies to have US customers?
Data protection and privacy is far more important than a global internet. And you need a country with a strong and independent judiciary and press in order for that to happen. China has neither.
And people who think this is exclusive a Trump, right-wing position are seriously misguided. It's bi-partisan and will definitely continue under a Biden presidency as well.
Is it true that we (not HN, but US as a geopolitical entity) have ever believed in a global internet? Seems naive. We’ve believed in the American internet purveyed by America to the world. Countries like China deployed their firewalls precisely because it is largely an American internet out there. Banning TikTok as delivered by a frenemy that sees us as its key rival for the next two hundred years makes more sense with that context.
I disagree with the authors conclusions. All Chinese companies are owned by the Chinese government. China is a horrible regime that murders it's own people, not to mention half the nation is starving while the Politburo lives in fancy houses chauffeured in fancy cars. It is not a great leap to conclude that a nation like that which owns a very popular social media app would not attempt to use it for subversive means.
Belief has nothing to do with it. This is a response to geopolitical realities. There is no virtue in believing in a fiction, even if it sounds nice.
Edit: this post was originally titled “Banning TikTok suggests that the US no longer believes in a global internet” and that is still the main idea of the article
> During the Democrat presidential primaries, Biden called China’s President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a “thug” for having “a million Uyghurs in ‘reconstruction camps’ [sic] meaning concentration camps.
Trump’s fallen for one of the two classic blunders! The first being never put self above the American people but only slightly lesser known: never go in against the TikTok hive mind when RE-ELECTION is on the line!
Tik Tok is unique in the granularity and sheer scope of what it captures, and it is stored on Chinese servers that are legally compelled to make any and all data available to the CCP with no oversight or warrants or anything of the sort.