US Considering Banning TikTok

[ThePointblank]

US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has indicated that the US government is looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, due to concerns about how Chinese social media companies are handling data about their users:

 

From Reuters:

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-china-pompeo/pompeo-says-u-s-looking-at-banning-chinese-social-media-apps-including-tiktok-fox-idUSKBN2480DF

 

Quote

(Reuters) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late on Monday that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.

 

“I don’t want to get out in front of the President (Donald Trump), but it’s something we’re looking at,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News.

 

U.S. lawmakers have raised national security concerns over TikTok’s handling of user data, saying they were worried about Chinese laws requiring domestic companies “to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”

 

The concerns about TikTok's handling of user data stem from the fact that they are owned by a Chinese firm, ByteDance, which was reported to have cooperated with the Chinese government in censoring and surveilling content pertaining to a number of sensitive topics for Beijing, along with the concerns about Chinese law requiring Chinese companies to assist the government in data collection efforts.

 

Due to these concerns, the app is banned from use on all US and Australian government devices, because of the risk of spying.

 

The app, TikTok was also fined last year by the FTC for violating child privacy protection laws in the US as well.

 

 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

so wait hold up, they wanna ban chinese apps because of data concerns, but they also want a law that bans the use of encryption? or at least gives them a backdoor into anything? hold up. 

[lewdicrous]

5 minutes ago, Ashley said:

so wait hold up, they wanna ban chinese apps because of data concerns, but they also want a law that bans the use of encryption? or at least gives them a backdoor into anything? hold up. 

That's the American way.

[JoostinOnline]

5 minutes ago, Ashley said:

so wait hold up, they wanna ban chinese apps because of data concerns, but they also want a law that bans the use of encryption? or at least gives them a backdoor into anything? hold up. 

Only America is allowed to spy on people.

[pythonmegapixel]

As @Ashley xD and @JoostinOnline have already said it does seem a bit hypocritical. Would this still have happened if it had still been Musical.ly, with offices in the US?

 

However, I refuse to believe that TikTok is having a net positive impact on society and they seem to have a particularly lackluster approach to privacy and child protection, as well as enforcing unpleasant stereotypes and pressure.

 

In other words: good riddance, but not for the claimed reason.

[JoostinOnline]

9 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

as well as enforcing unpleasant stereotypes and pressure.

You realize it's more than that, right?  What you've seen is solely based on your interests or demographic.

 

7 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

In other words: good riddance, but not for the claimed reason.

As a millennial working from home and no social life due to a global pandemic who's only fighting the darkness with TikTok...I disagree.

[williamcll]

Or they could just fine Tiktok for privacy breached. 

[Spotty]

Meh. Let people use the app if they want. Free market and all that. If you ban TikTok it would just create a vacuum that would be filled by another useless app. There's absolutely no reason to ever use TikTok so if anyone does choose to use it then they can sign away their soul data to whoever they want.

[Taf the Ghost]

I'm surprisingly alright with this concept. Nothing of value would be lost.

[CTR640]

The US is really one of the biggest hypocritical continent in the whole world. They considering to ban TikTok but Fakebook is fine? Snapcrap, Whatscapp and Instagram are fine? A law that forces to have a backdoor is fine and banning encryption is fine too? Geebus, you gotta love the dumb tards in the gov.

[MageTank]

11 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

The US is really one of the biggest hypocritical continent in the whole world.

Did we finally annex Canada? TAKE THAT, CANADIANS! USA! USA! USA!

 

In all seriousness, I don't oppose this move, I just wish they'd go all in and enforce it across all forms of social media. We should have the right to know who is using our data and for what purposes. We've seen many times in the past that what they disclose in those term agreements don't exactly reflect the full scope of the data collected, or the full intent behind the use of said data. 

[CTR640]

7 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Did we finally annex Canada? TAKE THAT, CANADIANS! USA! USA! USA!

 

In all seriousness, I don't oppose this move, I just wish they'd go all in and enforce it across all forms of social media. We should have the right to know who is using our data and for what purposes. We've seen many times in the past that what they disclose in those term agreements don't exactly reflect the full scope of the data collected, or the full intent behind the use of said data. 

Which will never ever gonna happen unfortunately... It's also scary they can see all your pictures and other files on your phone if they have access to your phone by "agreeing".

[Lord Vile]

2 hours ago, MageTank said:

Did we finally annex Canada? TAKE THAT, CANADIANS! USA! USA! USA!

 

In all seriousness, I don't oppose this move, I just wish they'd go all in and enforce it across all forms of social media. We should have the right to know who is using our data and for what purposes. We've seen many times in the past that what they disclose in those term agreements don't exactly reflect the full scope of the data collected, or the full intent behind the use of said data. 

Think it's more because they're giving US citizens data to a foreign government and they can't regulate it. FaceBook and google can't do certain things with the data because of US law whereas the Chinese government counldn't care less. Plus they can use data to do things such as interfere in US elections perhaps. 

[BigDamn]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I understand it and hate TikTok (so yay), on the other, let people choose what they want to use. 99% of these people post everything about their lives across multiple social media platforms anyways, so privacy isn't really their concern.

[Velcade]

6 hours ago, Ashley said:

so wait hold up, they wanna ban chinese apps because of data concerns, but they also want a law that bans the use of encryption? or at least gives them a backdoor into anything? hold up. 

Correct.  "It's okay for a government to spy on their own citizens but not okay for a foreign government to do so."

[spartaman64]

china bans facebook and google* omg china is so oppressive US bans tiktok* yeah national security

[Lord Vile]

9 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

china bans facebook and google* omg china is so oppressive US bans tiktok* yeah national security

China bans stuff to supress freedom of information and freedom of speech. Slightly different to stopping a foreign nation mining your citizens data. 

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

China bans stuff to supress freedom of information and freedom of speech. Slightly different to stopping a foreign nation mining your citizens data. 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/08/nsa-tapped-german-chancellery-decades-wikileaks-claims-merkel

[Sir Asvald]

5 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Ban Facebook as well then. Grow a spine

That won't happen because Facebook is buddy buddy with CIA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. I recently watchee the documentary "Terms and conditions my apply" it really goes into detail on how these large social media companies can do the spying for agencies. 

[GDRRiley]

I want TicTok banned for its level of spying and close ties. It also is aimed at kids and doesn’t follow laws. So I want to see it gone. 

[suicidalfranco]

Now... if only they could also shut down facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, reddit (might have missed something along the road), the world would instantly become a better place.

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, suicidalfranco said:

Now... if only they could also shut down facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, reddit (might have missed something along the road), the world would instantly become a better place.

New places would pop up to take their place. To say the world would be better because of *insert thing I don't like here* disappearing is a bunch of bullshit.

[Statik]

5 hours ago, Spotty said:

Meh. Let people use the app if they want. Free market and all that. If you ban TikTok it would just create a vacuum that would be filled by another useless app. There's absolutely no reason to ever use TikTok so if anyone does choose to use it then they can sign away their soul data to whoever they want.

While on one hand I completely agree with the sentiment of "free country, do as you wish", and people should be able to choose the apps/programs they want to use, but on the other hand, do you think that level of freedom should still take prescience, and no action should be taken when companies with direct ties to malicious, communist governments, are manipulating and taking advantage of millions of people, including millions of children?

 

I'm personally a firm believer that burying malicious intent in 5000 pages of a "terms of service" is a bullshit tactic, because 99% of users have no ability or time to read that in the first place. It's purely there to take advantage of readers, and ontop of that the majority of the time, the real things they're doing aren't even stated in the TOS.

 

 

6 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

You realize it's more than that, right?  What you've seen is solely based on your interests or demographic.

 

As a millennial working from home and no social life due to a global pandemic who's only fighting the darkness with TikTok...I disagree.

So you think that because you're bored, the Chinese Communist Party should be allowed to harvest incredible amounts of information on you, and millions of other people (who have no idea, including children), and you should lose all rights to that information, allowing them to do with it whatever they please? Imo that ideology perfectly encapsulated how the majority of the current generation is so naive to believe that since something isn't directly ruining their life at that very second, there's nothing wrong with it and they don't care.

 

  

Just now, Lurick said:

New places would pop up to take their place. To say the world would be better because of *insert thing I don't like here* disappearing is a bunch of bullshit.

While I agree with you, I also feel saying "don't fix companies like google, facebook, etc, because others will just replace it" is also a bullshit mindset. There's options to have "safe" social media, it's just hard to implement because nobody has an understanding of it, and large corporations control politics, so it's a very hard movement to begin.

[Statik]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

China bans stuff to supress freedom of information and freedom of speech. Slightly different to stopping a foreign nation mining your citizens data. 

I think it goes cheaper than that, and their intent behind it. China bans pretty much every non-state ran platform, in an attempt to essentially keep their population from reaching their outside world, so they have total control and domination over their population.

 

Where as the idea of banning malicious apps like Tic Tok is purely to stop powerhouses like China.

[williamcll]

28 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

Now... if only they could also shut down facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, reddit (might have missed something along the road), the world would instantly become a better place.

On the other hand, this means that most chat apps become anonymized. You might not like having imageboards everywhere (it's not an issue for me however).