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Blackmist ,

Yes but TikTok only let the evil Chinese spy on you, while the others only allow good old Uncle Sam to spy on you.

Ah who am I kidding, they’ll all hand your data over to any old cunt.

caveman ,

Makes me remember when UK and France invaded China and forced then to commercialize opium and destroy their country:

“The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain. It was triggered by the Chinese government’s campaign to enforce its prohibition of opium, which included destroying opium stocks owned by British merchants and the British East India Company. The British government responded by sending a naval expedition to force the Chinese government to pay reparations and allow the opium trade.[1] The Second Opium War was waged by Britain and France against China from 1856 to 1860, and consequently resulted in China being forced to legalise opium.”

Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

baseless_discourse ,

Excuse me, but I have a hard time seeing how is these two events are related?

NorthCountryHermit ,

Unless they’re implying that Chinese software will fail and bow down to “western software”, I’m not seeing a link either.

caveman ,

Hi, UK forced China to get their country destroyed, and no an UK-derived country is complaining that China is destroy them.

baseless_discourse ,

So in your analogy then Britain is the now China, and now U.S. is the then China? And TikTok is the opium released by China? Hence TikTok should be banned, if U.S. have the power to do so?

caveman ,

Apart from “should be banned”, you got my analogy right.

I mean if they ban it they are being hypocrites

baseless_discourse ,

fair, thanks for explaining.

GarbageShoot ,

Social media addiction is not quite the same thing as opium addiction

caveman ,

Of course not, but can also make people unproductive and by guiding the content you can make the whole population acquire stupid behaviours

GarbageShoot ,

I think you’re really misevaluating the (non)equivalence between how you’re crippled as an organism by opium addiction vs just having your attention fucked up by tiktok

caveman ,

Yes, of course.

In this case, what UK+France did to China at that time is much worse than what China is doing to the US now.

So it would be much more hypocritical if UK followed suit

isthereanydeal ,

Isn’t spotify European?

othon_xxd ,

No, owned by Meta aka Facebook

isthereanydeal ,

Well actually IS mostly owned by europe entitities and individual shareholders. Only the founders and some europe capital mamooths had +50% of it

jackpot ,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

discord is also largely chinese btw

NorthCountryHermit ,

Regardless of what country “controls” it, Discord is bad for many other reasons as well.

tfowinder ,

Lol, so true

Zerush , (edited )
@Zerush@lemmy.ml avatar

Spying on user data is a constitutional right of US companies, what are the poor going to live on when they can’t traffic with your data, or when a disgusting red communist company steals their bread? A little more proper patriotism, guys. Bad enough that the EU is cutting the wings of this companies, therefore also don’t use EU apps to make America great again.

sooper_dooper_roofer ,

“we will harvest your DNA and put a literal implant into your brain” melon-musk

so-true

caveman ,

Just install an alternative app Store like Aurora or install it directly from TikTok sites.

For open source projects, you can also use Obtainium or F-Droid

CindyTheSkull ,
@CindyTheSkull@hexbear.net avatar

Oh really? This ban won’t effect people who use (for example) F-Droid to get the app?? That’s great to hear tbh. Hopefully this stupid ass decision will have the effect of turning more people on to FOSS stuff more than it will actually prevent people from using TikTok.

caveman ,

I don’t think they will put it on fdroid, because it has to really be open source to be there, but there’s certainly other app stores which will have it.

How can a ban be enforced? It’s always thru Google app Store or IP, and you can always bypass both.

In Aurora Store there’s TikTok. You can install aurora store here:

aurorastore.org

In Worst case you can try finding the official tiktok .APK install somewhere

CindyTheSkull ,
@CindyTheSkull@hexbear.net avatar

ok, thanks for the info. I don’t know a lot about how this kind of thing works (clearly), I just try to use and support FOSS and “piracy” whenever possible.

Eyck_of_denesle ,

It’s really hard to bypass ip bans. Tik tok in India has been non existent since the ban.

caveman ,

You can use VPN (paid or free) for instance and if the ban is really badly done even by changing the DNS server (which is free) access can be restored.

Eyck_of_denesle ,

Nope. You can’t access tiktok through vpn in India. You need a patched/modded app. I live in India and I’ve tried doing that. It’s a non-existent platform here. Bans will affect user engagement.

caveman ,

As a curiosity: how do the system know if you are in India? You said VPN doesn’t work so it’s not thru IP address. What’s it then?

MonkderZweite ,

Aurora displays currently no app, be it anonymous or with login. Anyone knows why? I need it to reinstall my banking access app, dammit.

caveman ,

Aurora sometimes malfunctions. Try reinstalling it

MonkderZweite ,

Thanks, i use APKupdater for now.

CCMan1701A ,

What about them ISPs?

FriendBesto ,

A VPN and OpenWrt?

Darkrai ,

Then the VPN has your data, and also your ISP depending on how secure your setup is

lemmylem ,

LibreCMC and MullvadVPN?

Mastengwe ,

Imagine spending the time and effort to make that perfect whatabout meme you spent all day thinking about- only to have people tell you that all of them should be shut down.

W_oOo_ke_3333 OP ,

Your disabled mum did it, i just stole it. Retard

csm10495 ,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

I would say make laws about data collection, usage, etc. instead of banning TikTok.

Heck, fix more important problems like income disparity, hunger, homelessness, healthcare, our wasteful spending, so many things more important and yet we’re wasting time on TikTok.

I don’t think people think this is a good use of time.

Seriously, it’s government overreach and ignoring freedom of speech, etc.

thatKamGuy ,

We can agree that there is at least a slight difference in having your own (or a friendly nation’s) Government tracking you, versus allowing a competing nation to have direct access to over half of the adult US population (as per their recent push-notification stunt), as well as a robust collection of their interests and preferences.

There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland (Meta, Google, etc.); in favour of self-developed alternatives. This is just treatment in kind; it’s not an outright ban, rather a forced sale to prevent more of that user data falling into dubious hands.

csm10495 ,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m not really ok with that type of anti other country behavior in (edit to add the word: almost) any case. Heck, I want cheap Chinese EV options in the US too.

Make government (and other) tracking opt-out-able by law. That is the law we need. Not this bs version.

This current bill literally sounds like it’s written by American companies to squash a foreign competition. You know Facebook, YouTube, etc. are biting at the teeth for more users (and ad revenue) of short form content; especially if TikTok users scattered to other platforms.

Once again: give users the freedom to chose what they want. This is a government overreach.

KomfortablesKissen ,

Yes, there is a difference. Having your own government spy on you is way worse because it has the monopoly on violence over you. No one protects you from that. But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.

There is a reason for the outrage when PRISM came out of the closet.

thatKamGuy ,

But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences That’s what this is, though.

Take a step back and consider for a moment the absolute mayhem TikTok was able to cause through one single push notification to their US user base (>170m, over half the adult population). That is not a power that should be wielded lightly, and definitely not one in the hands of a foreign adversary ready, willing and capable of weaponising it at their whim.

Think of the power that affords them to put their finger on the scale when it comes to the critical upcoming Presidential election, not just directly - but through slight manipulations of the algorithm to engage one political cohort and disenfranchise another.

KomfortablesKissen ,

My point was that there is some institution on your site of that standoff. This will not be the case if you have to fight against your own government. So it’s better to have to fight a foreign government, rather than one’s own.

TikTok is a dangerous influence, yes. I wasn’t trying to argue against that. But then, so are Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and similar social media. Maybe even all social media.

Other than fighting with shortsighted regulations I don’t know how one would fight such an influence other than widespread education of the people. But that would make them more resilient against any propaganda.

threshold_dweller ,

But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.

Oh, like stopping a forogn government from influencing people through a popular app. huh. Good point.

KomfortablesKissen ,

Yes, my point is in this scenario there is a heavy hitter (government) on your site, which makes it a better sutuation than to let your government just prey on you.

Although I would put this under the “try to” category. In my opinion it’s way better to regulate methods rather than names. Then again I would not know how to implement this thought in this scenario.

veniasilente ,

because it has the monopoly on violence over you

I’ve been hearing this one going for a while, where does it come from? Sounds like a corpofascist slogan.

KomfortablesKissen ,

Probably a bad translation from German. Maybe a better translation would be “force” instead of “violence”. It means only the police is allowed to use force.

veniasilente ,

Still can’t understand the point of it. Like, is the state ordering that civilians must be defenseless in the face of crime, for example? But yeah in general it just sounds like the usual “I am the Senate” fascist kind of takeover and control of power.

KomfortablesKissen ,

It means pretty much that, I would say. The reasoning is that in the case of a conflict you have to solve it by involving police and advocacies ( I think this is the right word ). The senate is only involved in setting the ground rules for the conflict in front of a judge.

Of course, there is stuff like self defense (so one is not completely defenseless), but anything like revenge is heavily pursued.

oatscoop ,

There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland

I’m not at all saying what the USA is doing is right, but I find it hilarious Beijing is upset about it.

“It’s only OK when we do it!!!”

Gabu ,

Keep spamming, maybe you’ll astroturf successfully at some point.

GarbageShoot ,

???

Gabu ,

Look at their post history

GarbageShoot ,

I now have done so and, uh, looks like they’re just posting 2 me.

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.

Tartas1995 ,

Because it isn’t new nor special.

Apps are a Service and services have been and are regulated for decades now and the system have been always arbitrary as fuck.

In the case of TikTok, the west, as a military alliance, should be concerned due to the nature of current valid Chinese laws and the implications of it.

And e.g. facebook has proven that they don’t like to stick to rules about how to handle data. In case of TikTok, this could easily have bigger implications for e.g. the American military.

turkishdelight ,

Well, you can expect China doing the same. This kind of behaviour triggers retalliation.

solarvector ,

You might look into the apps they have already banned.

the_crotch ,

They were blocking the bulk of the internet via their great firewall before mobile apps were even a thing

FunkyStuff ,

The current situation over in China still allows internet users to easily access services like Facebook or YouTube through VPNs, it was more of a measure of digital protectionism to allow local development of IT companies, online business, etc. If China wants to do similar censorship in response to these measure, they very well could still crack down on VPNs.

Tankiedesantski ,

If it’s really about the military as you suggest then the extremely easy solution is to order service members not to use Tik Tok.

Passing a specific law to compell the sale of one specific company is arguably some sort of Bill of Attainder, which I’m sure ByteDance’s lawyers will be argueing as soon as Biden’s pen touches paper.

Tartas1995 ,

…wikipedia.org/…/Restrictions_on_TikTok_in_the_Un….

Well look at that. And no, that isn’t enough from a military perspective. Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.

Tankiedesantski ,

Most of those bans are organizations saying that employees can’t install TikTok on organization issued phones and computers, which is not at all comparable to an overall ban? My work doesn’t allow me to play video games on work computers or drink on work property, but that’s not at all the same as a law banning all video games and alcohol.

Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.

Yeah one problem with human and civil rights is that they tend to have negative effects on the defensive abilities of a nation. War would be so much easier if you could just arrest all the peace protestors, or hold suspected enemy agents without trial, or force people to work without pay in defence industries, or force women to give birth to more people so you can conscript more soldiers.

So let’s just do away with free speech and habeus corpus, reinstitute slave labor and force women to pop out lots of kids. Then Germany can defend itself again, just like the last two times.

Tartas1995 ,

Aren’t you misunderstanding my point a little bit? My point isn’t that the e.g. us should ban TikTok or that national security is the most important thing ever. My first Point was that there is a national security incentive to ban TikTok in ways that e.g. Facebook doesn’t have, but like you expressed obviously there are other consideration to be made. My first Point was just that TikTok is not like Facebook from an us national security pov. Then you spoke from a ban for service members, to which I simply pointed out that there is one to some degree, especially important as there is a ban on private devices in some environments. Deployment can be reason for the ban. In other words, your suggestion is already in place to some degree. My 2nd point about Russian propaganda is also strictly about the fact that “national security” doesn’t end at the government employee line and suggesting that is ridiculous.

As you might have realized, I haven’t expressed any desire to ban TikTok. That is because I am not in favor of a ban. I am just able to argue a perspective unlike mine own and think it is necessary when people treat Facebook and TikTok the same. Do you think china doesn’t care about where their software is coming from? Do you think no one is avoiding e.g. check point firewall due to e.g. gil shwed and his story with unit 8200?

Kedly ,

At least google gives me an invaluable map program

FiniteBanjo ,

I don’t think 23andme and TikTok are even comparable to the rest of the list.

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