This is disappointing yet expected from the executive.<p>What's more disappointing is watching the thunderous applause from technologists here and elsewhere as software is outlawed which is not otherwise illegal and is not being litigated as illegal. We should not cheer on the restriction of any software on nationalistic terms. Content is one thing, physical equipment another, but algorithms should be borderless. Most in the community disagree with encryption export restrictions, why can't they similarly disagree with software import restrictions? 2A groups recognize slippery slope precedents, why can't technologists?<p>If the content/data is being harvested and/or managed illegally, then make that illegal and/or prosecute under that pretense (even if the evidence is subject to national security non-disclosure). Otherwise, it's obvious this is political posturing at the cost of digital freedom. It should be as widely condemned as government surveillance has been.<p>(reposted from the now-buried <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515461" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515461</a>)
A telling quote comes to us from the Commerce Secretary, via reporting by the New York Times:<p>"""What they collect are data on locality, data on what you are streaming toward, what your preferences are, what you are referencing, every bit of behavior that the American side is indulging in becomes available to whoever is watching on the other side."""<p>Well, shit. If that's the concern, I hope nobody's told them about blogs, YouTube, or the Internet.
Can Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Google Chat, Slack, Discord, and others operate freely in China?<p>If the answer to that question is no, then we should treat Chinese apps the exact same way that China treats American apps. Otherwise we're just getting hilariously abused.<p>Edit: It's called reciprocity. The US can operate a free market and trade with other countries that also operate free markets. We cannot, and should not, allow the US free market to be abused by foreign governments. If China does not want American companies to operate in China the US should reciprocate. Otherwise we're just being taken advantage of. It's not a violation of American free market principles. Just look at the whole fiasco with AirBus subsidies. The US should only engage with foreign governments that respect free trade.
"""While the threats posed by WeChat and TikTok are not identical, they are similar. Each collects vast swaths of data from users, including network activity, location data, and browsing and search histories. Each is an active participant in China’s civil-military fusion and is subject to mandatory cooperation with the intelligence services of the CCP."""<p>It's funny that they're saying that like Room 641A isn't public knowledge.<p>Of course, when it's the NSA cloning data out of AT&T to spy for Uncle Sam, it's the <i>good</i> spying. ;)
I have conflicted feelings about this but I do think that the 'spin' is poor. China doesn't allow Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. behind the great firewall. Why not just say we are blocking their pseudo-government social apps to be at economic/market access parity. It seems accurate and fair. Spinning it as national security, while potentially true (really don't know), seems like an unnecessary narrative.
Salient points here:<p>---<p>As of September 20, 2020, the following transactions are prohibited:<p>1. Any provision of service to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code, or application updates through an online mobile application store in the U.S.;<p>2. Any provision of services through the WeChat mobile application for the purpose of transferring funds or processing payments within the U.S.<p>As of September 20, 2020, for WeChat and as of November 12, 2020, for TikTok, the following transactions are prohibited:<p>1. Any provision of internet hosting services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;<p>2. Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;<p>3. Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.;<p>4.Any utilization of the mobile application’s constituent code, functions, or services in the functioning of software or services developed and/or accessible within the U.S.<p>---<p>That last piece especially is quite concerning, and seems like a clear overreach of federal authority, no? Don't know that I've ever seen execution of software alone as an enforceable offense, and as written it seems to outlaw even opening up the app if you previously have it downloaded.
From the related NYT article [1]:<p>> <i>The prohibitions raise the question of whether Google and Apple, the major operators of American app stores, could sue the administration.</i><p>> <i>Tech companies have made clear that they don’t like the idea of blocking apps without a more organized policy process, and have suggested that they see this as a First Amendment issue, said Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.</i><p>> <i>Mr. Segal said it was not entirely clear why the administration had chosen to go after these two Chinese services, and not other similar ones. “A lot of it just feels to me to be improvisational,” he said.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/trump-tik-tok-wechat-ban.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/trump-tik-tok-we...</a>
It's not just a ban on import, but also a ban on execution! It's insane overreach.<p>The government should have the power to manage armies, fiscal policies, and so on, but giving the State the power to decide which algorithms I should be allowed to run on my own computer is insane.
To all the people pontificating about who they'd rather have spy on them:<p>This isn't about spying. This is about money and trade relations with china. The fact that the business in question has a side effect of spying is nice but it's not the primary motivator. TikTok is the first Chinese tech platform to strike it rich in the US and the administration sees itself as trying to give them a dose of their own medicine.
The basis for this order is a statute that targets financial transactions, 50 USC 1702[1]. But the order claims to bar "provision of hosting services" and even "peering" after 9/20. This seems to plainly contradict Section 1702(b) of the statute which says the president has no authority to restrict "personal communication...which does not involve a transfer of anything of value" or importing or exporting "whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission...any information or informational materials[.]"<p>Expect a quick legal challenge.<p>If I were a government lawyer working on this, I would like to think that I would honor my oath of office and tell the President "sir, you don't have the authority to do this" rather than "yes sir, let me scour the US code for something that can be stretched to fit this," but this administration seems to be systematically purging anyone that doesn't follow the party line.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702" rel="nofollow">https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702</a>
> The President has provided until November 12 for the national security concerns posed by TikTok to be resolved. If they are, the prohibitions in this order may be lifted.<p>Not seeing this bit being discussed elsewhere. The whole Oracle deal may not be dead after all.
I'm really confused about why the adminstration is doing this right before the election, seems like annoying a bunch of young people is a great way to get out the democratic vote.
If this stick, it could be very bad for Apple. This is something that can make lots of people switch off of iPhones. Millions of Chinese abroad probably want to have sideloading WeChat as an option
I remember when I was laughing at countries like Kyrgyzstan or Kenya or wherever, which "shut down the internet" for students taking exams or because the president for life decided it was a danger to public order. The arbitrariness and 3rd world country-ness of it all.<p>Now I'm not laughing so much.
When the US imposes tariffs on other countries, like Canada, we expect Canada to reciprocate.<p>Reciprocal countermeasures are crucial for discouraging the original activity, whether it be tariffs or bans on foreign internet service companies.<p>Thus, in response to the CCP's effective ban on foreign companies, we should absolutely expect India, the US, and other countries to reciprocate.<p>Failing to reciprocate would only serve to encourage actors to engage more in the activity (whether it be tariffs or bans on internet services), and in this case lead to a more greatly fragmented internet.<p>Just as reciprocal tariffs protect the free flow of trade by discouraging further tariffs, here, the US reciprocating CCP bans protects the free flow of information on the internet.
From a policy perspective, the states HAS to say this.<p>Wisdom of the particular policy aside, once a country makes a really bold demand - "do X or we'll do Y" - they can't back down without losing a tremendous amount of credibility. If you don't follow through on your threats, they're meaningless; if your threats aren't meaningful, only action is. Action is more expensive, so it costs you more to accomplish a goal, so you can accomplish less.<p>I happen to think this particular policy is unwise (dude, you need allies, and you think Europe won't help you regulate tech? C'mon), but the US has committed. Barring judicial intervention, it would be more unwise to back down now.
Once again, we see "national security", which used to mean "public safety", being switched out to mean "state security": security of the government itself.<p>They'd like there to be a monopoly on bulk surveillance of US persons: only companies friendly (or who can be forced to be friendly) to the US military are allowed to do it.<p>Censoring people to further state security is abhorrent, and is yet another reason why businesses will increasingly choose to domicile outside of the US market. It's ridiculous that they can impose these sorts of heavyhanded restrictions on US companies.
Once again we confront the terrible consequences of large corporate powers (e.g. App Store signing) being able to, in an instant upon legal demand or other state threat, function as a government censorship department.<p><a href="https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/" rel="nofollow">https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/</a><p>This is a huge ticking time bomb: insofar as the government can order large, centralized corporations to block, censor, alter, or otherwise impede your person-to-person communications, it's only a matter of time before it's a direct issue for health and safety, whether it be disaster, unrest, or war.<p>Sure, it might be illegal, or might get unwound in court in the weeks or months or years to follow. But in the meantime, you're cut off from friends, family, and information, and your family might not survive the disaster or crisis that triggered the government demand long enough to have the wrong turned right in court, much later.<p>This is an existential threat to a free society. The state must not be able to pick up the phone and have your communications tools shut off in bulk.<p>What happens when there's a wildfire or a natural disaster or a war and the military demands that Facebook disable Messenger and WhatsApp and that Apple disable iMessage in a certain region, on national security grounds?<p>We built a network designed to survive a nuclear war, and then somehow recentralized all of the node-to-node communications edges in an overlay network, squandering that whole benefit.
I'd much rather have strict privacy laws enforced with fines & bans than this type of ban by fiat.<p>It would also be much less of a geo-political issue if it had the weight of law instead of just policy behind it: Pointing to a specific violation of law is much easier to justify than a vague sense that something with the app & data collection is not right. (and statutes can be much more consistently applied than vaguely justified ad-hoc policies)
Banning WeChat especially affects how average Chinese citizens view the US, and the overall effect is worse relations with China. In terms of bad actors, this will just create more of a black market, causing people who must do business with China to use apps and methods that they are less familiar with, enabling scammers.
I wonder whether it is possible to build TikTok as a web application so US citizens can use TikTok web application instead of TikTok mobile application? You know, Netflix has a web app and a mobile app.<p>Of course, I'm aware that US could block the tiktok web URL.
What good is temporarily banning TikTok if Oracle and Walmart are taking majority ownership?<p>The user base will see the headlines that it’s being banned and then they’ll move to a rival service again like they did during the first scare. Especially since Triller just poached TikTok’s most popular creator, Charli D’Amelio, earlier this week. That coveted preteen demographic might never come back. It’s poisoning the well for Oracle.
Would be nice if we could turn this into an argument over data portability. If there was a service an app that migrated data out of TikTok to a clone service, I'd switch. Imagine if users could easily move their posts, photos, friends, etc. out of Facebook to another system.
I’m reading a lot about reciprocity. I don’t really know about international trade, does anyone have other examples where US reciprocity includes banning (specifically, not because they are breaking a law) certain goods? And are there examples of consumer goods amongst them?
Is tiktok web getting the ban hammer as well, will US implement their own great firewall in response. Wonder if the future is more native web apps to circumvent app store layer, which erode US control over mobile ecosystem.
I fear they honestly wont stop at app banning now that it has a precedent and apparently lots of people are cheering for it, like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_</a>... poem:<p>"First they came for chinese apps, but I didn't speak up for I didn't use chinese apps.[...]
Then they came for E2E apps..."<p>Honestly this all could be mitigated if we had less dependency on app stores, if iOS could send notifications from mobile Safari, WeChat could just migrate to PWA and its most loyal users would follow.<p>It seems like yesterday (it was) that people on HN were supporting a digital boomer equivalency of not allowing notifications because the web apparently must always be a document serving thing just cause, and a UX problem of websites asking a lot for notification must be met with removal of the function.
A lot of people in this thread are missing the important context behind all of this, which is that China has been declared an adversary to the US. It's not just your average case of data privacy issues. It's an issue of a hostile foreign adversary that is collecting data on users and utilizing these platforms as propaganda tools.
So thinking beyond their stated reasoning - which doesn't make much sense unless they do something similar to facebook and co, which they won't - makes me wonder.<p>With this administration everything is overtly political and typically defensive and/or misdirection.<p>* To ban something 'from China' appeals to his base.
* Tiktok was used to 'humiliate' the president at his Tulsa 'comeback rally'
* Trump is having 'issues' with Twitter and to a lesser extent Facebook and other social media. They are marking and removing posts for example.<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/08/01/is-this-the-real-reason-why-trump-wants-to-ban-tiktok/#3960f9a44aed" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/08/01/is-this-t...</a><p>Perhaps the larger theme here is to fire a warning shot at Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent Google. If you mess with us and don't do what we want - we can and will shut you down. Because 'national security'. Does that seem a leap? Not really because foreign entities (in particular Russia) actively and successfully use social media, against US interests.<p>Is this good? No. It's <i>really</i> bad. This is classic Trump - distracting, destructive, coercing, nonsensical, abusive and chaotic. With even a small amount of thought it can be seen to be smoke and mirrors.<p>A strong argument can be made that social media is a big problem in the US, for a variety of reasons, including national security. That this step is <i>nothing</i> to do with trying to fix that, and everything to do with the failing and flailing administration.
TikTok’s interim CEO Vanessa Pappas asks Facebook and Instagram to support their litigation against Trump’s executive order:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/v_ness/status/1306956276761415681?s=21" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/v_ness/status/1306956276761415681?s=21</a>
I have no doubt that had TikTok been a Russian app and its ultimate stakeholder were the Russian government, some of you here would have no problem with the ban. I am really tired of the double standard.<p>But most importantly, what the US is applying is plain and old-fashioned Reciprocity trade rules. It is a completely valid and accepted course of action. If China closes its market to US-based social network companies, then the US should do the same. It happens everywhere and you don't see people screaming bloody murder because of it.<p>In my opinion, it is about time. Not only we are creating a disadvantage to our local companies (FB, Whatsapp, etc), we are inviting a hostile agent to openly collect information on our citizens. I understand that some here want a more stringent policy concerning privacy and data collection. I think it is a fair point, but it is not mutually exclusive here.
I've been suspicious of Trump's motivations on Tiktok ever since the story came out about teens using tiktok to disrupt a Trump rally in June <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/tiktok-trump-tulsa-rally/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/tiktok-trump-tulsa-r...</a>
Chinese American relations should be reciprocal, we should treat them the way they treat us. If our apps and services cannot operate freely in their country, they should not be allowed to abuse our country to collect data for their intelligence operations. I’m very confused why so many on HN are so pro China, despite it being the poster child for genocide and human rights abuses.
> it will be illegal to host or transfer internet traffic associated with WeChat".<p>I hope people realize how dangerous these developments are.
I think there are legit issues with the CCP having access to massive amounts of US user data, particularly from WeChat.<p>But the Commerce order does not highlight the risks, moreover, they don't bother to give specific examples of concern.<p>The gov. should do a much, much better job at illustrating specific scenarios, cases, impacts, outcomes in order to legitimize the action.
This is why app stores and locked platforms such as Apple's are dangerous. Users are going to have difficulty installing banned apps. Sure, wechat and tik tok are basically spyware but this is just the beginning. Pretty soon other apps are going to follow. One day signal might be on the list.
> Tencent is the world's largest video game vendor, as well as one of the most financially valuable companies. It is among the largest social media, venture capital, and investment corporations. Its services include social network, music, web portals, e-commerce, mobile games, internet services, payment systems, smartphones, and multiplayer online games.<p>Is it any wonder /at all/ why the US Federal government, and every single competitor in the US is worried about them?<p>Chinese Government is Tencent is Wechat, Fortnite, PubG along with many other Game&Tech companies.<p>Allowing more influence in our markets, by the Chinese government is a /horri-bad/ idea; period.<p>Blah blah blah, tech companies. Blah blah blah, open markets.<p>You DO realize how large a threat to open markets the Chinese State is, right?<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/chinese-hackers-taiwan-semiconductor-industry-skeleton-key/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/chinese-hackers-taiwan-semicondu...</a><p>Right?!?!?