US government accuses TikTok of being a mouthpiece for the Communist Party(npr.org)
npr.org
US government accuses TikTok of being a mouthpiece for the Communist Party
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/26/917134452/new-doj-filing-tiktoks-owner-is-a-mouthpiece-of-chinese-communist-party
111 comments
It looks more and more like a negotiation battle. Trump can ban it within an hour for the most part but hasn’t. If you didn’t think this was true, all you had to do was watch college football on Saturday and see the numerous TikTok “download before Sunday” ads.
A judge put a stop to the ban.
The judge gave the illusion of actually stopping the ban. It's for show. Do you really think that Trump was like, hey I'm going to ban this TikTok app due to national security reasons and then a judge in California was like no you can't do that and he just sat on his hands about it?
There's way more going on behind the scenes here than is apparent. Trump could within the hour, literally within the hour, ban TikTok and nobody could really do much until/unless Congress decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, in America we've given the president too much power under the guise of national security. For that I blame Congress, of course, because whenever their team is in power they conveniently forget about restricting presidential authority.
With that being said, I do want to see Chinese social media companies banned from the US until/unless US companies can operate in China freely. There just isn't really a reason to let them operate here.
There's way more going on behind the scenes here than is apparent. Trump could within the hour, literally within the hour, ban TikTok and nobody could really do much until/unless Congress decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, in America we've given the president too much power under the guise of national security. For that I blame Congress, of course, because whenever their team is in power they conveniently forget about restricting presidential authority.
With that being said, I do want to see Chinese social media companies banned from the US until/unless US companies can operate in China freely. There just isn't really a reason to let them operate here.
I do wish they would show us some examples. I would not be hard to convince that CCP would like to brainwash Gen Z into being sympathizers. Some of the interviews I've see with protestors who don't have a clue about the real roots of what they're protesting for has me a bit skeptical of some of the white protestors for BLM. The black youth seem to be much more informed on what they're protesting for. A lot of the white kids just seem to be angry at the world.
You can't expect only the oppressed to fight for their own freedom.
A lot of white people also recognize what a fucked system we've created for people. Centuries of injustice. The reactionary identity politics is extremely harmful.
As a PoC I'm happy to have non PoC allies in this fight. I welcome them. And will make this fight our fight.
A lot of white people also recognize what a fucked system we've created for people. Centuries of injustice. The reactionary identity politics is extremely harmful.
As a PoC I'm happy to have non PoC allies in this fight. I welcome them. And will make this fight our fight.
TikTok is filled to the brim with hate and, from my perspective, anti-American rhetoric.
My partner uses it and shows me a lot of these things. "All buildings matter" trended on 9/11, and yesterday there was a large group of young, voting-aged adults joining a pact to not vote.
I'm disheartened by a lot of the stuff I'm seeing on TikTok. Then again, I have the same reaction to Twitter.
If China can tweak the knobs and radicalize our youth, then this is extremely dangerous. I think it's impossible to say whether or not this is just emergent network behavior or if it's selectively being curated. If the administration had evidence, though, I think they'd be talking about it.
Edit: the repeated downvotes for saying anything about China don't give me confidence. Why not offer a rebuttal instead? I haven't said anything controversial.
Edit 2: Flagged too, huh? Is having an open and frank discussion dangerous? I'm an earnest contributor acting in good faith. This isn't the right way to go about things.
My partner uses it and shows me a lot of these things. "All buildings matter" trended on 9/11, and yesterday there was a large group of young, voting-aged adults joining a pact to not vote.
I'm disheartened by a lot of the stuff I'm seeing on TikTok. Then again, I have the same reaction to Twitter.
If China can tweak the knobs and radicalize our youth, then this is extremely dangerous. I think it's impossible to say whether or not this is just emergent network behavior or if it's selectively being curated. If the administration had evidence, though, I think they'd be talking about it.
Edit: the repeated downvotes for saying anything about China don't give me confidence. Why not offer a rebuttal instead? I haven't said anything controversial.
Edit 2: Flagged too, huh? Is having an open and frank discussion dangerous? I'm an earnest contributor acting in good faith. This isn't the right way to go about things.
As a Chinese, I'm pretty sure it is the case. TikTok has a lot of content. Chinese government can be selective which to "monetize" - and generally they good for both government and TikTok. When you can control what people see, what people post, you control the people. Politicians' wet dream comes true.
Tiktok’s algorithms and moderators were known to censor Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, Falun Gong [0], Uighur sympathizer [1], Hong Kong protests [2], and (as another commenter points out) the ugly, poor, or disabled [3].
Their moderation guidelines banned contents “endangering national security” or deemed “uglification or distortion of local or other countries’ history” [4].
It’s just another CCP mouthpiece.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/tiktok-says-it-doesnt-censor...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks...
[3] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...
[4] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-once-again-come...
Their moderation guidelines banned contents “endangering national security” or deemed “uglification or distortion of local or other countries’ history” [4].
It’s just another CCP mouthpiece.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/tiktok-says-it-doesnt-censor...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks...
[3] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...
[4] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-once-again-come...
Even if they didn't, they cannot prove it because nobody can know or nobody can inspect. It's always safer to assume that they're having bad intention rather than good.
@dang the headline on the page (as well as the <title>) now refer to TikTok's owner. That seems like an important distinction.
The memorandum says "its founder and CEO has publicly affirmed that ByteDance is a mouthpiece for the CCP in that it is committed to promoting the CCP’s agenda and messaging."
One of the claims I’ve read about is that there’s fear that Beijing could use TikTok to “brainwash kids”, which I thought was a crazy thought...until I read about how the FDA had to issue a warning begging kids not to do the “Benadryl challenge” they saw on TikTok because it was sending them to the ER.
There's also like a massive amount of false news, hate and vitriol being spewn. No joke, 4chan on average is milder with its "fg" and "n", than what I've seen on local TikTok. Kids can't recognize that, I am quite convinced it could be influencing someone to be worse, especially someone young.
I think the argument is that that's not a problem specific to tiktok, it's a problem of social media in general...
Which is 100% true! But the key difference here is... we’re sitting here talking about regulating Facebook and Google, and I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States.
But if we assume that employees at FANG don't want bad things to happen to the US and verifiably bad things are happening to the US on those platforms, then the null hypothesis is that a Tiktok that also doesn't want bad things to happen to the US will also have an equally large number of bad things happening to the US regardless. To disprove the null hypothesis, you would have to demonstrate that Tiktok has a statistically significant increase in the amount of badness it's causing to the US per unit of attention which is difficult to do when the baseline amount of badness is already so high.
Maybe we should focus more on decreasing that baseline so we can actually figure out if foreign companies are doing bad things to the US out of malice or indifference?
Maybe we should focus more on decreasing that baseline so we can actually figure out if foreign companies are doing bad things to the US out of malice or indifference?
With respect to China and Chinese social media companies I'd rather be much more careful. There's a reason they don't let US social media companies operate in China.
Yeah, but many of the reasons why China doesn't want US social media companies in China are also the same reasons why the US shouldn't want those same companies in America, namely that they're unregulated loose cannons who are fine with causing social division and strife if it only increases their bottom line.
Why would Tiktok need to maliciously harm the US when just their simple act of seeking profit is already doing enough work to harm the US without the need for any malintent? It's like wondering if the open sewer dumping into your town's water supply might also have gluten in it when you're gluten free.
Why would Tiktok need to maliciously harm the US when just their simple act of seeking profit is already doing enough work to harm the US without the need for any malintent? It's like wondering if the open sewer dumping into your town's water supply might also have gluten in it when you're gluten free.
Well then why should the US have yet another social media app coming into the country and causing harm?
Because the badness is roughly per unit of attention so if Tiktok is taking people's time away from Twitter/Facebook/IG etc. it's not clear that the sum total of badness is increasing.
> I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States.
What makes this "the key difference"? I think you can safely say the same about Chinese tech companies. VPN usage is higher among tech-literate people for obvious reasons, and while having access to uncensored information doesn't necessarily instill love for the US, wanting "bad things to happen to the United States" is a pretty extreme level of nationalism.
I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese tech employees in China had a more positive attitude with respect to the US than Chinese tech employees in the US, due to "the grass is greener on the other side"-type effects.
What makes this "the key difference"? I think you can safely say the same about Chinese tech companies. VPN usage is higher among tech-literate people for obvious reasons, and while having access to uncensored information doesn't necessarily instill love for the US, wanting "bad things to happen to the United States" is a pretty extreme level of nationalism.
I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese tech employees in China had a more positive attitude with respect to the US than Chinese tech employees in the US, due to "the grass is greener on the other side"-type effects.
I agree, but what matters is the power structure and who’s in charge. I wish I could say I honestly believe Zuckerburg cared about anything. Because I can’t, and maybe just because the world can burn because of one person’s disposition, regulation is needed.
Is the US also banning YouTube because kids did the Tide Pod Challenge and ended up in the hospital?
That isn’t what I’m saying at all. I’m just making an observation that kids that much more susceptible to “brainwashing” or at very least mimicking stupid things they watch online than I could have suspected.
I mean kids are bored af with this pandemic situation... So tiktok has become many teens only social outlet.
TikTok often push me TikToker's news reporting like explaining the trade deficit, pretty much blames everything on U.S. for being jealous of China's growth. I never get pushed with opposite opinions. So, yeah.
I installed TikTok for the first time the other day. I didn't follow any accounts and this is a notification I got (trying to get me to engage) this morning: https://imgur.com/a/1TxGpgq
Those types of stories are great fodder for the CCP propaganda engine on how stupid Americans are and we're just lucky to be the lead world power right now and are just talent-less yokels who got here randomly.
Stories like that have existed for quite a while without any need for the CCP.
I find this quite strange and short sighted.
I see my kids look at TikTok all the time. I don't really see how you could spread propaganda through 5 second dances and jokes. Especially since peers are doing that.
I would think the Party influence on Hollywood and other entertainment such as Computer Games would be way more disturbing. Injecting propaganda into a real story seems way more effective. Especially when you fully control the medium.
I see my kids look at TikTok all the time. I don't really see how you could spread propaganda through 5 second dances and jokes. Especially since peers are doing that.
I would think the Party influence on Hollywood and other entertainment such as Computer Games would be way more disturbing. Injecting propaganda into a real story seems way more effective. Especially when you fully control the medium.
I've been using TikTok on and off for the past six months, at first because I was interested in seeing what you can find on the site.
It's mostly teenager dancing stuff, yes. If you start liking political content you'll get political content too. I've found there's a lot of pro-China, both soft-power "look how pretty the countryside is" stuff and straight up Uyghur denial. There's also a decent amount of anti-China activism on there as well, though.
It's mostly teenager dancing stuff, yes. If you start liking political content you'll get political content too. I've found there's a lot of pro-China, both soft-power "look how pretty the countryside is" stuff and straight up Uyghur denial. There's also a decent amount of anti-China activism on there as well, though.
Most communist propaganda I've seen is not 1920s "agitprop" style posters with workers and farmers waving red flags and inviting you to impale your capitalist boss on a bayonet. IMHO, that only exist to make the target audience believe that anything else is not propaganda or is not effective as such.
E.g. several people at my work (engineers with degrees) seem to absolutely trust everything they hear on "comedy" talk shows. And not only trust, but eager watch all new episodes and discuss between themselves at work. Those cannot be propaganda because it's just a joke, dude?
E.g. several people at my work (engineers with degrees) seem to absolutely trust everything they hear on "comedy" talk shows. And not only trust, but eager watch all new episodes and discuss between themselves at work. Those cannot be propaganda because it's just a joke, dude?
1. It can be used as propaganda to make Americans look stupid an capricious.
2. They can get information on kids now to be used against them in the future as blackmail (and similar) when those same kids become politicians. Say what you want about the Chinese but they are great at long-term 5, 10, 20 year plans.
2. They can get information on kids now to be used against them in the future as blackmail (and similar) when those same kids become politicians. Say what you want about the Chinese but they are great at long-term 5, 10, 20 year plans.
I don't mean to be hostile but I think you are clueless. A lot of what shows up on tiktok and gets promoted can have a massive influence on what it's users begin to deem ok. And as kids grow they are far more likely to form opinions based on their peers than parents.
Dances may have been tiktoks start but the shift to shortform videos on a specific topic in rapid succession meets the criteria of propaganda. Particularly if they are humorous or provide a dopamine response.
China much like twitter and facebook and youtube has complete control over what their supposedly "unbias" algorithms direct users to. It is trivial to push propaganda between dances and jokes. Swaying public opinion has never been easier than in the social media age.
Dances may have been tiktoks start but the shift to shortform videos on a specific topic in rapid succession meets the criteria of propaganda. Particularly if they are humorous or provide a dopamine response.
China much like twitter and facebook and youtube has complete control over what their supposedly "unbias" algorithms direct users to. It is trivial to push propaganda between dances and jokes. Swaying public opinion has never been easier than in the social media age.
Who cares? The US governement lost all credibility.
No it hasn't. However, it probably has with you. If you believe the CCP over the US government then I think you might want to go over to your local Chinese consulate and have some interesting conversations with the People's Party.
Tiktok/ByteDance was interviewing pretty furiously in the Bay Area last year. All around I heard good things about the process.
An interesting thing about their interview process is that they often required a night time slot for at least one round.
This was because many teams had their direct manager or VP in mainland PRC, which has a 15 time hour difference.
An interesting thing about their interview process is that they often required a night time slot for at least one round.
This was because many teams had their direct manager or VP in mainland PRC, which has a 15 time hour difference.
12 or 13 depending on daylight saving time, never 15 hours.
Bay Area (PST) to China Standard Time is 15 hours ahead during summer, 16 in winter.
Or -9 (+1d). There are much worse time zone overlaps.
I’ve seen plenty of U.S. military personnel posting TikTok videos while browsing the app. Many of them are casually posting their experiences of reserve duty life but I’ve seen a couple taken from outposts in Syria.
Why is this tolerated if the U.S. Gov has major concerns about the PRC’s having access to TikTok’s data?
Why is this tolerated if the U.S. Gov has major concerns about the PRC’s having access to TikTok’s data?
Yeah I'm surprised it isn't a misdemeanor (or whatever the military calls it) for a milserv person to appear in a tik tok video at all or even have it on their work or personal device.
Anyone being actually anti US military (as opposed to the modern, polite, war is bad guys, rhetoric) get completely railed on and abused in Tik Tok.
The irony of this entire shitshow is TikTok was skewered for not being open enough to political content in the west, leading to regional moderation changes that made politics and risk of influence possible on the platform. If TikTok was allowed to operate like Douyin in China - largely apolitical - then much of current worries could have been averted. Chinese style censorship can be useful and complementary to existing partisan platforms. Sometimes you want an apolitical space for impressionable demographics. Overall I still find TikTok pushes less politics to my feed for my interests.
I'm anticipating a future where foreign platforms like TikTok are just webapps and can't be banned without implementing great firewall. What will countries do then.
I'm anticipating a future where foreign platforms like TikTok are just webapps and can't be banned without implementing great firewall. What will countries do then.
How does this even matter now when TikTok has successfully partnered with Oracle? They are now free to operate.
> Trump said he gave a deal to save TikTok involving companies Oracle and Walmart his tentative blessing, but an agreement never materialized, as the U.S. firms and ByteDance appear at odds over a number of details, including what firm would hold the largest stake in the new company. TikTok acquisition talks are ongoing.
It's still very unclear, these companies would be part of the Pre-IPO investment and the new govt is also about to come.
that's not true the deal is still in flight. The USA government has to review it and it's contracts in a final form as do the CCP reps.
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If it happened long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, it is more like the satellite released by the Soviet Union. They can do something that the USA cannot.
The trouble is it is a) a networked world and hence this is not just radio it sent and b) it is one sided as any innovation can be profited by non-Chinese in Chinese man unless the ultimate winner is China.
Big trouble and how it struggled or lost to China is details. Not sure it can win. I will pray it can. Just so one sided how can it win. WHO, UN, WTO, IP ... in fact it is not the wake up call from Hong Kong. But it might be too late.
The trouble is it is a) a networked world and hence this is not just radio it sent and b) it is one sided as any innovation can be profited by non-Chinese in Chinese man unless the ultimate winner is China.
Big trouble and how it struggled or lost to China is details. Not sure it can win. I will pray it can. Just so one sided how can it win. WHO, UN, WTO, IP ... in fact it is not the wake up call from Hong Kong. But it might be too late.
Any insight as to why they would back up to some place like Singapore instead of just some other datacenter in the USA? Seems inefficient and likely a loophole for CCP to easily get access to it. Pull up a mobile datacenter and dump it on 18-wheeler-net and then ship that back on a slow boat to China
I mean it s not like they could be a mouthpiece of any other party
The evidence that TikTok is a mouthpiece for China, according to NPR's account of the Commerce Department memo (I still need to read it myself):
1. Bytedance employs 130 Party members.
2. The party members had a rally with Communist salutes and pledges and such.
3. Bytedance's CEO once apologized over an app that the authorities shut down because, as far as I can tell, the memes were too dank.
The first two are normal for big Chinese companies, though I suppose one could say that just means all Chinese companies are propaganda outlets. The third one...yes, if authorities go after a company in any country you will generally see leadership either challenge the decision or apologize, this isn't even unique to authoritarian countries. In other words this sounds like generic natsec scare tactics where you could insert the name of any Chinese corporation rather than anything interesting.
1. Bytedance employs 130 Party members.
2. The party members had a rally with Communist salutes and pledges and such.
3. Bytedance's CEO once apologized over an app that the authorities shut down because, as far as I can tell, the memes were too dank.
The first two are normal for big Chinese companies, though I suppose one could say that just means all Chinese companies are propaganda outlets. The third one...yes, if authorities go after a company in any country you will generally see leadership either challenge the decision or apologize, this isn't even unique to authoritarian countries. In other words this sounds like generic natsec scare tactics where you could insert the name of any Chinese corporation rather than anything interesting.
isn't like 10% of chinese population party members? How many employees has Bytedance in total?
That’s true and if you are willing to extrapolate by connecting family relationship, you are basically implying most of the Chinese people can’t be trusted.
And THAT is a dangerous claim that mixes Chinese people and the ruling government/party.
And THAT is a dangerous claim that mixes Chinese people and the ruling government/party.
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party) the CPC has 91,914,000 members in 2020. Which is around 6.5% of the population of the PRC or around 1.2% of the world population (assuming around 7.8 bil people).
Byte Dance has around 30k employees in total (world wide) according to https://craft.co/bytedance so by random sampling we would expect 350 employees to be CPC members.
So if they have 130, that would be less than you would expect from complete random sampling all over the world.
Of course that's a naive approach in many ways.
Byte Dance has around 30k employees in total (world wide) according to https://craft.co/bytedance so by random sampling we would expect 350 employees to be CPC members.
So if they have 130, that would be less than you would expect from complete random sampling all over the world.
Of course that's a naive approach in many ways.
bytedance has 70k employees right now
Let's assume TikTok is the mouth piece of Chinese propaganda. Why aren't we doing anything about another mouthpiece that we already got confirmation that it is being used by both our and foreign intelligence.
Is that one accepted because it benefits the president? What kind of leader of free nation would accept something like that?
Is that one accepted because it benefits the president? What kind of leader of free nation would accept something like that?
Just because they talk about it being a free country doesn’t mean much
What’s the math of your time economy look like?
You’re a servant of their economy. Any challenges to that, it’s slower police responses, more austerity, and strongman bashing figurative genitals on TV all day to prove his grit
Why don’t we do anything about it? Because we’re entitled to our stuff!
Technology is just your salon.
The level headed man is the scourge of modern times.
My iPhone is the same as Buffets. I can be distracted the same. I can’t get the same healthcare to stay alive.
That’s the reality of your nation.
What’s the math of your time economy look like?
You’re a servant of their economy. Any challenges to that, it’s slower police responses, more austerity, and strongman bashing figurative genitals on TV all day to prove his grit
Why don’t we do anything about it? Because we’re entitled to our stuff!
Technology is just your salon.
The level headed man is the scourge of modern times.
My iPhone is the same as Buffets. I can be distracted the same. I can’t get the same healthcare to stay alive.
That’s the reality of your nation.
Is this a free form poem?
"Walking round the land of the free, yelling 'free for who?'"
What other mouthpiece/personal data sink is on 100 million American devices? You start with the 800lb gorilla not the 10 spider monkeys who are there for support and logistics.
Expanding on (1):
It is important to explain to HN readers the reality of CCP membership.
You can consider it the equivalent of national honor society in high school in the US and various honor societies in college, but with membership dues you must pay. Membership is symbolic and people must attend mandatory propaganda classes which they don't take seriously. Why would they do this? Because this is the way to get into many leadership roles in government.
So CCP membership is driven by capitalist motives.
I personally am friends with quite a few CCP members. I assure you they are critical of the government and have no insight into what the leadership is doing.
CCP membership in itself means little. Really depends on how high up an individual is within the party.
You can consider it the equivalent of national honor society in high school in the US and various honor societies in college, but with membership dues you must pay. Membership is symbolic and people must attend mandatory propaganda classes which they don't take seriously. Why would they do this? Because this is the way to get into many leadership roles in government.
So CCP membership is driven by capitalist motives.
I personally am friends with quite a few CCP members. I assure you they are critical of the government and have no insight into what the leadership is doing.
CCP membership in itself means little. Really depends on how high up an individual is within the party.
This squares with my experience as an exchange student in China. Once I went on a hiking trip organized by the Communist Youth League (as a non-member, obviously) and when I told some friends about it, they were surprised because their only interaction with the CYL was paying 2 cents a month in membership dues. They didn't even know there was supposed to be anything more to it... (The reason they gave for being members in the first place was that all students with good grades were encouraged to join.)
That’s the truth, I don’t know why you are downvoted. Point is at the moment it’s infeasible to use the CCP membership to infer if a person or organization works for CCP. It’s a deadly dangerous door to open because the next step is to inspect the direct family affiliation to CCP. Given the proliferation of CCP members, it’ll be affecting over half billion people and effectively you are telling most Chineses in America that they are suspects. It’s not too different from terminating the diplomatic relationship and worse, effectively you are saying Chinese people ~= CCP by the connection to members
In the US people either under estimate the size of the CCP or act as though it is an egalitarian group of people where everyone has access to all information and is briefed on strategy. The CCP doesn't vote on its strategy among all of its members.
Most things that we see as controversial or dangerous when it comes to the CCP aren't even apparent to most CCP members.
Joining the CCP isn't generally a decision to turn a blind eye for personal gain. It is difficult to comprehend just how much China controls the flow of information to its citizens (and the ordinary CCP members).
We must distinguish between CCP leadership and the ordinary members. The average CCP member is no evil person and is unaware of any evil acts being committed.
Now you might wonder why people don't investigate rumors they hear from Western media (even if the sources are banned): - Western media tends to attack Chinese culture and pride, attack ordinary Chinese - The Chinese government refuted the news and any contradicting sources are blocked. - Approval of how the country is run is generally high. Han Chinese and other groups are doing as well as never before. (And they truly don't know that there are people who are not being treated well.)
Most things that we see as controversial or dangerous when it comes to the CCP aren't even apparent to most CCP members.
Joining the CCP isn't generally a decision to turn a blind eye for personal gain. It is difficult to comprehend just how much China controls the flow of information to its citizens (and the ordinary CCP members).
We must distinguish between CCP leadership and the ordinary members. The average CCP member is no evil person and is unaware of any evil acts being committed.
Now you might wonder why people don't investigate rumors they hear from Western media (even if the sources are banned): - Western media tends to attack Chinese culture and pride, attack ordinary Chinese - The Chinese government refuted the news and any contradicting sources are blocked. - Approval of how the country is run is generally high. Han Chinese and other groups are doing as well as never before. (And they truly don't know that there are people who are not being treated well.)
Thanks for the clarification. It seems like a lot of the boom in Chinese industries is because of them adopting capitalistic policies (although maybe not publicly).
Saying that TikTok employs 130 CCP members doesn't mean much. How many Republicans and Democrats do a typical American company employ?Maybe they don't talk about politics at work in China either?
Being a CPC member is a bit more involved than being registered Democrat or Republican. And the article specifically points to them having a chapter at Bytedance. Again, this is normal in China, but it’s not really comparable to anything here.
Last I heard Republicans and Democrats weren't involved in the systematic genocide of an ethnic minority.
America supports Israel financially, politically, and with military support. Israel is genociding Palestinians right now.
And you have constant bombings of civilians in the Middle East.
And you have sanctions on Venezuela and Iran which lead to many many civilian deaths.
And you have constant bombings of civilians in the Middle East.
And you have sanctions on Venezuela and Iran which lead to many many civilian deaths.
Not anymore
That’s silly, of course you can point to things American governments have done that the average voter wouldn’t feel personally responsible for. Many Democrats would accuse the current administration of trying to carry out a genocide against Latin American immigrants, and both Obama and Trump are guilty of countless crimes against humanity overseas.
If you're referring to ICE I would still take my chances being incarcerated in one of their detention facilities over a Uighur concentration camp. Much more likely to get out alive and not sterilized.
That wasn’t the comparison I was making, it was about whether a rank and file Republican non-politician would feel personally responsible for ICE’s actions if they are ever found to be criminal.
An apt comparison would be the West‘s war on terror. In terms of civilians killed I highly doubt that they are anywhere near our numbers.
What? How is this in any way comparable? Being a registered Democrat doesn’t make you an agent of the government...
Although heavily redacted, part of their claim is that US user data is stored on servers leased by a PRC state owned enterprise located in Virginia (China Telecom?).
TikTok has repeated said American user data is safe because it's stored in the US, and it would never give data to the PRC government. This arrangement could (depending on the specifics) be a circumvention around both of those promises.
Maybe it’s not nefarious, but certainly not good optics.
TikTok has repeated said American user data is safe because it's stored in the US, and it would never give data to the PRC government. This arrangement could (depending on the specifics) be a circumvention around both of those promises.
Maybe it’s not nefarious, but certainly not good optics.
I think the evidence is that any Chinese company is under the umbrella of the omnipotent CCP who do as they please. Placing 100 million (and growing) US persons' location, likes, dislikes, contacts, and sms messages in the hands of the CCP on a silver platter is why this is happening.
Trump, not "US"
Igorvelky(1)
"The Trump administration, however, did not offer any direct evidence that TikTok's U.S. data has ever been assessed by Beijing officials."
I.e. the usual smoke and mirrors.
Why should they reveal confidential intelligence? Does any government ever really do? Its stupid to do so.
Its tiktok job to show and prove that the suspicion is not the case.
Its tiktok job to show and prove that the suspicion is not the case.
> Why should they reveal confidential intelligence?
Because it is in their economic interest for people to believe that and they are in a large trade dispute with the origin country.
So without any proof this is essentially trade war propaganda.
Because it is in their economic interest for people to believe that and they are in a large trade dispute with the origin country.
So without any proof this is essentially trade war propaganda.
Is it? The US legal system is supposed to operate under the assumption of "innocent until proven guilty."
> Why should they reveal confidential intelligence?
From my point of view the US administration lost a lot of credibility during the last months & years => they might be right, but at this point stating something like this without presenting proof is not enough anymore.
From my point of view the US administration lost a lot of credibility during the last months & years => they might be right, but at this point stating something like this without presenting proof is not enough anymore.
Even with Iraq they at least bothered to fabricate one.
In terms of TikTok what kind of secret thing they could possibly hold in addition what they are already saying?
It's not like to get that information they used a new spy satellite that trump shared image from agree assassination of Soleimani allowing to identify it, or disclosing that Israeli intelligence knew about planned operation by Islamic State and many other disclosures [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_o...
In terms of TikTok what kind of secret thing they could possibly hold in addition what they are already saying?
It's not like to get that information they used a new spy satellite that trump shared image from agree assassination of Soleimani allowing to identify it, or disclosing that Israeli intelligence knew about planned operation by Islamic State and many other disclosures [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_o...
Weapons of Mass Destruction
The US government- Trump plus his cabinet- consists of nut cases who make up stuff for imaginary enemies. Perhaps this will stimulate college students who notoriously do not vote to get out and vote for their lifestyles.
The whole ban is so gross. It's clearly politically targeted to deplatform Trump critics all while firing people up about China.
For those that aren't familiar. TikTok is pretty ubiquitous in the under 21 crowd while being practically unused by older people. It's sort of like when young people fled to Twitter and Instagram to get away from their parents on Facebook. It's basically the next Twitter for that age group.
TikTok (the community, not the company) is also quite critical of Trump. For instance, the buying up of rally tickets a few months ago so he would show up to an empty political event was organized on TikTok and we know that it pissed Trump off [1].
That level of age and political specificity in their audience makes it easy to target them for their ideas.
This type of laser focused ban on specific conpanies (rather than, say, disallowing data to be stored in China or banning Chinese owned companies from operating) reveals the nakedly political motivation behind this action. "China is bad" is just the excuse here. It's really about banning a popular meetingplace for a political demographic opposed to Trump.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-...
For those that aren't familiar. TikTok is pretty ubiquitous in the under 21 crowd while being practically unused by older people. It's sort of like when young people fled to Twitter and Instagram to get away from their parents on Facebook. It's basically the next Twitter for that age group.
TikTok (the community, not the company) is also quite critical of Trump. For instance, the buying up of rally tickets a few months ago so he would show up to an empty political event was organized on TikTok and we know that it pissed Trump off [1].
That level of age and political specificity in their audience makes it easy to target them for their ideas.
This type of laser focused ban on specific conpanies (rather than, say, disallowing data to be stored in China or banning Chinese owned companies from operating) reveals the nakedly political motivation behind this action. "China is bad" is just the excuse here. It's really about banning a popular meetingplace for a political demographic opposed to Trump.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-...
While i dont think the threat from the CCP is something that can be reasonably boiled down to nothing more than made up Trump antics as you seem to imply, you do raise a relatively good point about targeting specific companies as opposed to an all out ban on Chinese tech companies in the US.
Its not that there isnt something to it but i would agree that his handling of the situation is poor and ineffective. For instance, rather than risking thier intel on TikTok specifically, they could try spreading awareness about the Belt and Road Initiative for instance which went from 60 something pledged countries in 2018 to ~138 pledged cpuntries in 2019. Simple, immediate, effective. No need for divisive identity politics.
Its not that there isnt something to it but i would agree that his handling of the situation is poor and ineffective. For instance, rather than risking thier intel on TikTok specifically, they could try spreading awareness about the Belt and Road Initiative for instance which went from 60 something pledged countries in 2018 to ~138 pledged cpuntries in 2019. Simple, immediate, effective. No need for divisive identity politics.
Also a possible trigger: Sarah Cooper lip syncing him on TikTok and getting possibly "higher ratings" than he.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Cooper
See: "Satirical videos"
The major impact exactly as he promoted light in the lungs and disinfectants in the body as the treatment:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/14/trump-lip-sy...
For him it's all about his ratings. The reality show continues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Cooper
See: "Satirical videos"
The major impact exactly as he promoted light in the lungs and disinfectants in the body as the treatment:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/14/trump-lip-sy...
For him it's all about his ratings. The reality show continues.
Ha, really? I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
> "China is bad" is just the excuse here.
Wait. "China is bad" is not necessarily an excuse, it might be an end in itself. Populism needs enemies and threats to find and maintain support. By demonizing China (as it did previously with immigrants, BLM protesters, Iran, etc.) Trump effectively injects fear in the political discourse and creates the need for a savior with a strong attitude. Which is himself, of course.
Readers of HN are heavily leaning to the left and naturally very far from Trump's voters demographic, reflecting California's and the US's tech workers predominant political sympathies; but I see that the fear and distrust of China has taken solid roots and I wouldn't be too surprised if some of them ended up voting republican, driven by the fear that a democratic president could be less resolute against China. Such is the power of creating enemies.
Wait. "China is bad" is not necessarily an excuse, it might be an end in itself. Populism needs enemies and threats to find and maintain support. By demonizing China (as it did previously with immigrants, BLM protesters, Iran, etc.) Trump effectively injects fear in the political discourse and creates the need for a savior with a strong attitude. Which is himself, of course.
Readers of HN are heavily leaning to the left and naturally very far from Trump's voters demographic, reflecting California's and the US's tech workers predominant political sympathies; but I see that the fear and distrust of China has taken solid roots and I wouldn't be too surprised if some of them ended up voting republican, driven by the fear that a democratic president could be less resolute against China. Such is the power of creating enemies.
HN readers are not so friendly to pro-China comments or even those thread that tells the reality in China that they don’t want to believe
HN readers lean left? Most of us shut up about politics while on a tech site. Maybe people that lean left like to shout about it everywhere they go...
It’s also failed to actually do anything about Tik Tok for months despite having committed some blatantly illegal acts that have reduced the government to little more than a PRC style ruling party. I guess actually solving the stated Tik Tok problem would prevent the daily headlines that are distracting from those same record deficits.