They are both security risks. The difference is the SA oligarch has already successfully infiltrated our national security and installed himself in a position of power so we can't do anything about it anymore.
Honestly the way he did it was pretty perfect. Create technology and weapons and R&D for the country you want to infiltrate, ingratiate yourself to it's people, government, and military. Then start throwing money into politics to buy yourself a spot on the cabinet.
This is a game any bad state actor with a huge wad of cash can play thanks to Citizen's United.
They are all problematic. My disagreement with the removal of TikTok is that it should not stop with TikTok. Meta's apps are an absolute nightmare. Google, Xitter, Amazon, etc., they all need to be curbed when it comes to data collection.
Data brokering needs to be made illegal or VERY tightly regulated.
they all need to be curbed when it comes to data collection.
The problem with TikTok isn't data collection, though. The stated concern of the US government is that TikTok may be used to inflict foreign influence (ie, Woke Mind Virus Communism).
That is, incidentally, why the flood of users to RedNote has been so funny. TikTok's got a bunch of edgy western Zoomers doing "Did You Know Capitalism Is Bad Sometimes?" infographics in between dances. RedNote is just straight up "China Is The Best Country In The World" nature channel style hagiography.
The US pushed millions of Americans out of the frying pan and directly into the fire.
Yes, the ban of TikTok has been more about lip service than actual protections for Americans.
The real solution is passing a comprehensive law that fines/bans any app/platform that is opaque about its influence from governments and its data sharing with governments. But who in Congress today has any appetite for real solutions!
I had written about this to my reps and their response was a non response - TikTok bad.
Of note, there is no evidence the government concern is founded.
I mean, if that’s the question you want answered…
X uses a native browser controller when you open a link, so the app can’t see what you do in there.
Whereas TikTok uses a managed webview… which they have been caught injecting keyloggers into.
Back in the olden days, we called this a cross-site scripting attack.
Seems like meta were trying something similar with thier replacing all links in Facebook messenger with thier fbrpc://facebook/nativethirdparty?app_id Links, but seems like they gave up on it because it was all broken.
Yup. They’re all dangerous monsters.
IMO, it doesn’t even matter who’s worse, cuz they’re all bad enough they should all be subject to aggressive regulation with the goal of establishing safe interop off-ramps for people to stop using the services or at least use more trustworthy clients.
In my estimation, TikTok is worse, but that’s not even what the ban is about. It’s because China is spying instead of the US. That’s not a reason to defend TikTok though, or to oppose the government’s decision — cuz they were accidentally right, for the wrong reason.
Finally a reasonable answer that isnt propaganda or stupidity
Because tiktok data goes to China, and China is a competitor/geopolitical adversary to the USA. If tiktok was russian, it would be the same story. Besides, tiktok has been proven to be by far the worst data miner you can download from an app store.
Not just a data miner, it has some crazy capabilities that are malicious even by the standards of social media phone apps, which were already explicitly malicious. If I remember right, it can download custom code to augment its capabilities per-target, and has encryption to attempt to thwart any attempt to analyze it, which are both pretty unusual amounts of effort to spend from the POV of "we just want to gather your advertising data and listen to your microphone all the time" which are pretty standard things.
That’s just AB testing, downloading over https, and having DRM. Every app on your phone does this, but it sure sounds scary when framed that way.
Every video game you have does the same thing too.
You’re doing the same thing Republicans do when they go into great detail about food ingredients to make salt sound scarier than it is.
Edit: You better also remove this foreign controlled app, targetted at children, that can download new code outside of the app store updates
Ok, so Bytedance does exactly what Microsoft, Google and Apple do. Got it.
All 3 can and do run arbitrary code on their platforms. All three share your data with third parties. All three encrypt stuff in their codebase and especially google tries it's hardest to break networking standards just to obfuscate what their code is doing.
In a surprisingly Reddit-esque move, Lemmys best answer is buried below emotionally charged nonsense
China buys a ton of data from Zuck and Musk and a lot of other people.
The reason it’s being banned is for cutting out the middle man.
If they actually cared about our data going to geopolitical rivals they’d pass comprehensive privacy protections regardless of where the company is headquartered.
And the PRC have been caught repeatedly running influence campaigns over social media platforms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamouflage
China: bad. X/Musk directly and openly interferes in UK and GER politics : move along, nothing to see.
Its such a bullshit argument. Don't be the pot blaming the kettle.
We should ban ALL socials. All. Everything becomes an echochamber after 1-2 years filled with bots, algorithms and Ai. Nothing is trustworthy anymore.
Source?
Sea lions?
Messenger is worse by far. This is a verifiable fact just from the permissions requested. The Dunning Kruger in this thread is comical.
Redditors just turn their brain off when TikTok is the topic
I find it funny that if TikTok was sold to an American it wouldn't be a security risk anymore.
Exactly. I find it hilarious how some of these people conclude that China ONLY gets our data because of TikTok, when our own government and on soil companies sell and shares our data as long as the other (China even lmao) buy it from them. No issues as long as they get money, but if they don’t get the money, it’s “national security” risk.
They would then be under US jurisdiction, that's the issue with TikTok, the US can't for them to comply with any laws, current or future.
because then they'd be subject to all the bullshit the feds do and required to comply.
Maybe both are bad?
"Facebook should be under incredibly strict regulation or killed outright" is also a position I'm fond of.
The Cambridge Analytica story explains how much I distrust Facebook.
Tiktok aren't giving Trump loads of money
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The CEO has a prominent seat at Trump's inauguration.
Yep. Which means TikTok gave Thumper a load of dough and TikTok will be allowed to continue operating here. Zuck is probably not happy since he'd also given him a load of dough to get rid of TikTok.
pops corn
A fatal mistake for companies who want to do business in the US
That's not relevant to the argument about how they could be dangerous for national security.
Trump made saving TikTok a campaign promise.
It's the Democrats pushing the TikTok ban, Trump loves TikTok.
Edit: Trump originally was the big driver for banning TikTok yes, but since his election win saw a big swing in the younger vote that's being attributed to TikTok his stance has switched and I'll put money on the ban being dropped the instant he gets in.
Trump started this whole thing.
If I recall correctly, it's a lie being pushed that he won amongst the younger generation when he actually did not. I believe the last thing I read is that he lost the young vote by 11 points. So that's a lie that he's pushing for some reason or other.
Let's compromise on it being bipartisan.
It's not, there's no evidence that it is, and even if the Chinese were trying to get all of our data they could buy it for far less trouble and expense from any of the American data brokers happy to sell it. They don't need an app to obtain our data, they just need money.
The influence argument is similarly baseless. Cambridge Analytica demonstrated that existing American social media capabilities already permit foreign interference in American public opinion. TikTok is remarkably expensive to run, and the influence campaigns that they could run on Facebook would be much less expensive.
TikTok is competing with American social media companies. It's no better or worse than any other social media company, but because it's not based in the US it's labeled a national security risk. We're happy to let any company collect and sell personal information, so long as they're based in America.
Serious answer: because it's owned by a US citizen and is operated and HQ'd in the US, so the the US government has effectively full control over it and can monitor it.
That's not a lot better from an end user privacy and security point. But is wayyyyyyyyyy better from a national security standpoint.
Same reason China wants it.
national security
lol
Technically the two divisions of the law banning TikTok and any company which sends US Citizens data to an adversarial nation, both passed at the same time, say nothing of citizenship.
When the courts say TikTok has to divest from Chinese ownership, they don't mean heritage. They mean owners and operators who literally live and work exclusively in China.
They are all a security risk
Well, the TikTok lawyers kinda said the quiet part out loud during their SCOTUS brief:
Mr. Francisco contended that the government in a free country “has no valid interest in preventing foreign propaganda” and cannot constitutionally try to keep Americans from being “persuaded by Chinese misinformation.” That is targeting the content of speech, which the First Amendment does not permit, he said.
It's not a great look for your app when your argument before the Supreme Court is "yeah, we're a propaganda machine for a hostile foreign power, but free speech says you can't stop us. Neener neener."
that’s not what they’re saying, they’re saying even if they were chinese propaganda, it would be protected under the first amendment for americans to read what they want and make their own decisions….
but, nice 4th grader logic you got there.
The issue for common people regarding tiktok is more along the lines of foreign adversaries obtaining personal information of the users or using it to spy on the government. The idea that chinese propaganda would be in any way a threat is absurd and shouldn't even need to be defended in any way. "America bad" is hardly a hot take and they don't need to spread any lies to get that point across.
They are assholes, sure... but are they wrong?
I mean, yeah? Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are inalienable rights, sure, but they're generally intended to extend to citizens. Not foreign governments.
There's a big difference between a Chinese citizen here on a green card going around saying they love China and a company running an active misinformation campaign on orders from their government.
It's no different than how the government tried to crack down on Russian election interference. Turns out, hostile nations running psyops campaigns is bad.
Just something to think about when it comes to the influence social media has on society
TikTok has already transformed how Americans communicate, influencing language and behavior in ways that may have broader implications. The Chinese government, known for using censorship and language control to maintain social order and suppress dissent, leverages euphemistic language as a tool for manipulating public opinion and silencing critical discourse.
Phrases like “unalive” for suicide or “grape” for rape dilute the meaning and impact of language, making it easier for powerful entities to control narratives and obscure uncomfortable truths. This process, known as “language laundering” or “semantic bleaching,” strips words of their emotional weight and original meaning, making it harder to address sensitive or urgent issues effectively.
This trend has extended beyond language to visuals, with people obscuring letters or censoring words in pictures and posts—using terms like “s**cide” or “r*pe.” While this may help users navigate algorithms designed to suppress certain keywords, it completely erodes the clarity and impact of critical conversations.
The normalization of this behavior on TikTok has permeated Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and other social media platforms, spreading a culture of diluted language and indirect communication. These practices hinder meaningful discourse, desensitize users to serious issues, and ultimately make it more challenging to engage with sensitive topics in a direct and effective manner. Recognizing and resisting this shift is essential to preserving the integrity of public discussions and fostering authentic engagement.
You're attributing to TikTok what has been happening for years before even Vine came into existence and is actually a different issue: corporate-owned platforms cracking down on uses of those words as they're not "advertiser friendly" and don't "encourage a safe and fun space" or whatever. TikTok is in no way special here
It was already incredibly common to censor these words, grape for rape goes back at least 15 years to when WKUK were making their rounds. Unalive on sites like YouTube go back at least to 2018/2017 en masse if not earlier
It's mainly because words/phrases such as: murder, suicide, rape, human trafficking, forced prostitution, child sexual abuse, etc can get you banned on those platforms. Don't blame the people who work around, to discuss important but heavy subjects, blame the algorithms and report -happy users who for some weird reason, are opposed to these topics being discussed. Probably perpetrators or enablers imo not who knows?
This was never about national security. It’s about money. Most of congress owns Meta stock and meta lobbied the fuck out of trying to get the app banned. It’s extremely annoying that people buy this crap about national security.
Ask yourself when in the history of our country did 85% of congress agree on something? 85% of these fuckwads agreed that banning this app is more important than literally anything else. Stopping school shooting, fixing our economy, providing affordable healthcare or housing, are all not important.
Ask yourself when in the history of our country did 85% of congress agree on something?
Patriot Act and other government spying laws of course.
Look, the problem isn't China getting your data.
The problem is they're not paying a US oligarch for it.
Because Musky has conned America into thinking he's a smart good American.
$5 says Elon or Meta buy TT and turn it into yet another GOP echo chamber.
You seem to think that it is for sale, Byte Dance has repeatedly said they will not sell. I also belive the PRC passed a law that would outlaw exporting the algorithom to the new owner
No need to buy anything when they already live rent-free on Lemmy.
Money.
Where the money is going.
Hey now. China's not short on money. This is the other big problem with America.
If Elon Musk was a black South African with a social media company interfering in our elections and sabotaging our national interests here and abroad, I assure you that it would also be in the crosshairs of a ban.
No.
No one can explain.The cynical answer is that the people who run the government like the South African because he helped them win elections.
Easy, you have a very different idea of what the "nation" in "national security" and "national interests" is than they do.
It doesn't have to be our biggest problem for us to want to fix it. We can fix other problems as they come.
Also, server location. If TikTok reorganized in the USA it wouldn't be banned, they know that and still chose to go under.
Tiktok is owned by Oracle in the US and has servers in Virgina and California.
Lmao
Can someone explain why the author is censored in this screenshot? Isn't it public already?
Copyright violations are fun
Simple. The South African has a vested interest in keeping the US extant so that he can rule it. The CCP does not share that same interest.
Lol. Capitalists don't think beyond quarterly profits, they'll strip out the wiring and doom the country and the planet for a quick buck.
TIL I have something in common with the CCP.
China is an authoritarian government that is able to take direct control of any Chinese company. Like, explicitly. More or less all Chinese companies should be treated with suspicion.
Musk is a shithead but not, to our knowledge, an agent of a foreign hostile government. Turning twitter into a place that promotes hate speech is legally protected free speech, although specific statements that provoke violence may not be protected. Contrary to popular belief, there are many exceptions to free speech.
Musk is a shithead but not, to our knowledge, an agent of a foreign hostile government.
Correct. On Monday, he's going to be an agent to a domestic hostile government.
Almost all Lemmy users who happen to be in the US have been blessed so far with a government that generally is okay-ish, has some justice built in, and leaves them alone as long as they're not doing anything wrong. I think that might be about to change, and they're about to experience a China-style "you really have to be careful not to cross the powerful people" system instead.
Yeah, Musk seems much more interested in enriching himself than working for any government. It's in our biology to want more more more. His thing is wealth. He wants more more more wealth. Probably all he cares about is becoming the world's first trillionaire.
What do you think the American government does if/when they nationalize a business?
Serious question: do you consider it worse to be tracked and profiled by a foreign government or your own?
I actually consider it way worse when my domestic country is doing it. What is a foreign country gonna do with the information on me? Very little. What can the domestic do? Quite a lot.
Goes to show how little
most peoplelaw enforcement have a fundamental understanding of the US Constitution given how popular your comment is across social media.
Comparing the two isn't useful. They are both bad and should be either shutdown or regulated.
America bad ooga booga. Really they both should be banned lol. Like yall slinging shit at each other when they both should be gone. Great use of energy Lemmy
💲
I suspect its being banned because of people using it in public without headphones or earbuds. I was submitted to that experience for an hour+ in a waiting room one time and now I fully supported the ban to prevent it from ever happening again.
I wish you were right, but you're not.
Did you tell them to turn off the fucking speaker?
Come on, this is easy. He's white, that's obviously why.
Facebook has been abusing our data to undermine elections and stoke genocide for longer than tiktok has existed. No US government officials are calling for a FB ban either.
It's supposed to be rich white guys undermining our democracy and national security.
Because he paid for his influence while China is not. They are “stealing data” they have not paid for and are competing with the NSA/FBI/CIA without sharing.
Because white.
because they might interfere with the elections. oh wait...
He's not Chinese.
Or so he says.
More specifically, he isn't sending all of the data to servers in China.
No, he's just a beneficiary of apartheid. Even Patrick Bateman knew we needed to end that.
That South African oligarch is a US citizen though and it hasn't been shown that he works in the interest of South Africa and South Africa isn't on the list of enemy countries.
Would you also want to prevent all naturalized citizens from owning a business?
If they are trying to influence the govt to benefit themselves, I'm against anyone owning a business.
Yoo shut yer mouf, ya hear!
Jokes aside. Yeah, I've got no answer.
Edit: I do love the middle finger people are giving by hopping off TikTok (basically being shut down for being a Chinese company) and running to redd (a Chinese company) hahahahahha
Then getting banned from RedNote for posting pro-LGBT stuff and the like lol
Yeah... that's a good point lol
Banning the one mentioned is partisan
It's more of a financial security concern from the aligarchy POV.
The security at risk is that of the white tech monopoly my friend
They know how much control they can assert of the population through controlling social media. They're not about to allow anyone else to use that, if they can help it. Also, it'll dilute their messaging, even if it wasn't as problematic as something like tiktok.
It makes sense the second you stop presuming any good faith.
Interesting to see "technofeudal" entering liberal discourse
It's true that both are security risks, and that Tiktok is even worse in general, however other proprietary social networks are also BAD and the proprietary algorithms behind them can all be used for massive user manipulation (control what they see, when they see it, and what they don't see, combined with tons of personal and psychological data about each user). That said, another factor that might be overlooked is that it also depends on how easy a target something is. An app by a foreign government that could be used to manipulate citizens is a much easier target for "banning". There's probably much less legal obstacles in the way in this case, and less resistance against it.
I'm really curious what you thought this added to the conversation.
They're banning it because ChInA sCaRy
Bc CHYNA
It's because money money money, nomnomnom
The govt isn't getting money from it?
The government can't control the narrative with it. Specifically the tipping point when they decided to ban it was when they realized people were free to call the genocide in Gaza a genocide without the US being able to overwhelm the platform with pro-Israel propaganda.
The problem with tiktok, x, or even red note is that the government ends up with an alternative to their narrative. They can't have any of that.
A good example is Israel/Palestine genocide. They lost the narrative war, people woke up. It's very difficult to put them back to sleep.
A lot easier to just ban the platform. Security is just an excuse/tool to do so.
One's run by a white guy .... the other is Asian
When it comes to choices in North America ... it always goes to the white guy
If we were in a commercial passenger jet at 30,000 feet and the pilot and co pilot suddenly died and the crew had to choose who should fly the plane .... they'd think twice about the 300 Asian passengers and instead choose the only white guy in first class.
It has nothing to do with security. It has everything to do with controlling speech and maintaining management of public narratives. This became an urgent issue for the oligarchy when they lost control of Israel genocide discourse. This is what fascist states do. They are just getting started.
bc china
Because communism le bad.
twitter is american based, only america can subpoena their servers….
with tiktok, china can mess with their serversDoes OP think governments only face one issue at a time?
I guess if words don’t mean anything the Elon Musk is whatever you declare him to be
Because at least in America when a Billionaire buys a company they can kick the Feds out the were manipulating and suppressing information for 8 years.
Because Zuckerberg spent a lot of money bribing Congress into this opinion. And everyone in Congress owns Facebook stock, so TikTok is a security threat to their portfolio balance.
Edit: Another provable fact being downvoted by people who read too much Tom Clancy and don't understand how vulnerable all apps are.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is owned by the CCP. Why make it easy for foreign governments to spread agit-prop in your country If you don't have to?
I don't see how videos of capybaras falling asleep is influencing me to overthrow the US government
oh man, we are watching different sleepy capybara videos then
Fuck tiktok. Go do the bare minimum of research& you'll find out for yourself.
I'm going to respond as if you posted this in good faith.
How about you cite your claims and pull people out of potential filter bubbles?
When I search for stuff I don't find information that leads me to the same conclusion as you. Clearly we're operating on two different sets of facts.
So instead of posting the most nearly useless kind of comment possible, educate and enlighten.
- The Chinese would benifit from a worse US, the "south african" is actually an American, in the same way African American citizens aren't African, they're Americans from Africa. As a side note it is funny but also depressing to see how legitimately racist leftists are so long as it doesn't exactly match a very specific arrangement.
- TikTok is brain rot
- TikTok has an arguably wider reach than X
- TikTok's target demographic is more susceptible to manipulation
I think 2,3, and 4 are correct but...
African-Americans aren't personally from Africa, but Elon Musk was literally born in Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
African-American usually refers to descendants of America's black slave trade. They are not Africans who moved to America. We don't call dutch born American emigrants Dutch-American. We call them Dutch. We don't call Chinese born American emigrants Chinese-American. We call them Chinese. Their nationality or continental heritage is usually how they are referred to. Calling Musk an African-American is by a long way, more racist than calling him unamerican.
The only thing you're fighting for here is being correctly bigoted.
It's basically irrelevant that the owner of a company like X is an American from South Africa. If you took this same criticism and applied it anywhere else it would be immediately refuted and invalidated as simple bigotry.
There is an obvious difference between TikTok and X and if you're trying to compare them like this and just use "south african owned" to connect it to "chinese" you're being disingenuous, even stupid, and really I can only assume you're being this dumb intentionally.
Breathtaking. However did you say that with a straight face?
Yes. Do you have anything of substance to contribute?
