I'm conflicted.<p>TikTok collects data for an adversary at scale. Many complain that the US does the same but that doesn't change the fact that I live in the US. The Chinese government is an adversary of the West whether we like it or not.<p>With that said- It's pretty telling that the FCC only needs to go to Apple and Google. It would be really nice to have some antitrust regulation so that the FCC doesn't have this power.
There are two issues:<p>1) Data collection and algorithmic manipulation. This has been discussed to death, but why you'd let an adversary control the information flow to a huge portion of the population is beyond me. This is obviously a national security issue.<p>2) Fairness in the marketplace. No, I'm not talking about the U.S. marketplace. U.S. tech companies have had their IP stolen and unfair regulations placed on them in China. Why should the U.S. let Chinese tech companies compete in the U.S. marketplace when China doesn't let U.S tech companies compete in their marketplace?<p>I'm not going to feel pity for TikTok.
What are the actual privacy/security issues with TikTok, concretely?<p>Citizen Lab published a report last year - <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2021/03/tiktok-vs-douyin-security-privacy-analysis/" rel="nofollow">https://citizenlab.ca/2021/03/tiktok-vs-douyin-security-priv...</a> - which found that the app does not engage in any overtly malicious behavior:<p>> TikTok and Douyin do not appear to exhibit overtly malicious behavior similar to those exhibited by malware. We did not observe either app collecting contact lists, recording and sending photos, audio, videos or geolocation coordinates without user permission.<p>And if there's any organization I trust about this sort of thing, it's Citizen lab, owing to their groundbreaking work around Pegasus and other APTs.
To me, the interesting question is why a foreign company is doing a better job of understanding what American teenagers wanted than domestic firms with seemingly infinite bankroll to work with.<p>Nobody forced anyone to install TikTok at gunpoint. Presumably, if there was a more compelling domestic product, the kids would go there instead. Why has that product failed to materialize?<p>I know, you can't really set out to manufacture "cool", but maybe we need to get back the spark in this sector. I don't think the existing players are capable of creating an appealing blank-slate social platform. They might have the cash and technical chops, but they have <i>negative</i> social currency. Facebook/Meta's brand is hopelessly tainted: if it's not creepy spying, it's still where Mom and Dad hang out to swap antivax memes. Google might have a little more cool left-- not much-- but they're also attached to such teen favourites as "crappy limited school-provided Chromebook" and "we have 92 chat apps on our phones and still can't reach each other".
The spying worries me less than the influence to be honest. China doesn’t allow the same things on tiktok that tiktok <i>promotes</i> in other countries.<p>There’s a reason for that.
Curious what this app does that other apps don't. In other words, applying the same criteria to other apps what other apps should be removed from the store because they do the same things?<p>You post video in it so the app gets camera and mic access, assuming you give it permission. Can you use it without giving permission? IIRC Apple requires apps to work without permissions?<p>I tried installing it and it requires an account so uninstalled. Not really into TikTok but was able to view in a browser without an account.
Take formal action or don't, but public intimidation is a bizarre action for a government to take. We can't get them to regulate when there <i>are</i> rules, but when there <i>aren't</i>, and US diplomacy has decided to punish a country for some episode of disobedience, a media blitz of press releases.
It's hard for me to interpret all of this ill will toward TikTok as anything but sour grapes from Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (<i>cough</i> Vine) for getting fairly out-competed by an app that's way more fun and innovative than any of their social efforts have achieved in over a decade.
For the sake of clarity, shouldn't the title really be "One FCC <i>commissioner</i> <i>requests</i> Google, Apple remove TikTok<p>As written, the title makes in look like the whole commission is asking for this, and "ask" isn't always a request, sometimes it can be a command (for example a police officer asking for your license and registration when they pull you over).
I'm not a TikTok "apologist" but I think these kinds of concerns about data privacy aren't very useful. At best you're just picking which terrible relationship to be in and which company you're okay with harvesting your data - for whatever purposes.<p>IMO a better use of time and effort would be to create mechanisms that make these kinds of tracking less impactful. We have avenues for technical solutions to these kinds of problems and decentralized systems. Whenever we attempt to spread adoption to them we are often met with the argument that "just using X big company platform is easier".
Why is China an adversary of US?<p>Can someone put into succinct evidences of this statement?<p>To the typical talking point:<p>* IP infringement: there is not much unusual rate of IP stealing from China. Considering the size of Chinese economy and foreign trade ties between China and the rest of world, absolute number of IP infringement cases are not a good indicator of the government's policy.<p>* Coercion of South East Asian nations: This one is a natural demand of a rising super power. Putting it in the perspective of any historical rising of superpower, China has been relatively much more peaceful. Again, the sheer size of China make the absolute number terrifying, but please stay rationale, and don't try to paint China as some sort of arch evil of the west Civilization. After all, the West has been nourished by the Oriental civilization, among them China particularly contributed to the advancement of knowledge and inventions (gun powder, magnet etc.).<p>* Confrontation with US over Taiwan: If you are OK with Texas leaving the union, then you are entitled to support Taiwan independence. Enough said. Pick your side, and stick with it.<p>PS: I am Chinese living in US. And I support the peaceful cooperation between China and US. The 2 nations are the most refined examples of the oriental and western civilizations. It's indeed a tragedy that the finest human civilizations cannot work together. We Chinese living in US, as well as the US people having good exposure in China, are in a good position to amplify the cooperative ties between China and US.
As I get it Carr haven't presented any hard evidence, instead linking to the open publications with various levels of research.<p>Privacy breaking apps must be thrown out. However, this mustn't be decided on the basis of hearsay.
> "At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data."<p>Smells like jealousy to me.
We should start with banning TikTok, and then move on to banning all forms of algorithmic content feeds and behavior tracking for advertising.<p>The reason we know that manipulation via algorithmic content feeds is effective and harmful is that numerous bad actors exploiting the Facebook algorithm have used it to cause real harm worldwide.<p>For the sake of argument, let’s take Facebook at their word that they are merely optimizing for engagement, and the well-documented radicalization spirals that manifest on its platform are the result of clever exploitation.<p>Now imagine that the bad actor wanting to manipulate large numbers of people also had control of the algorithm and all the data.<p>The risk here is blindingly obvious, and we should do something about it before it becomes an even bigger problem.
This is the result of a request in 2020 by two senators to the FTC to investigate TikTok for collecting MAC addresses on mobile computers with corporate OS, e.g., iOS and Android. (Another reason these OS are inferior, IMHO. We cannot chose our own MAC address. Randomisation of MAC address for WiFi is a poor substitute for having the ability to set MAC address to whatever value we choose, random or non-random, i.e., control. "We'll do it for you", with <i>no option</i> to DIY, may be providing a convenience, and only in response to user complaints, but it is also taking control away from the owner of the computer. Corporation controls the MAC address, not the owner of the computer.)<p>The senators were alerted to the issue by the WSJ:<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/tiktok-tracked-user-data-using-tactic-banned-by-google-11597176738" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/tiktok-tracked-user-data-usi...</a><p>TikTok (Musica.ly) was caught violating COPPA rules in 2019 and fined more than double the amount that Disney was fined in 2011, which was the highest fine ever issued for COPPA violations:<p><a href="http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/musical.ly_proposed_order_ecf_2-27-19.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/musical.ly_p...</a><p>There were allegations after 2019 that TikTok was violating the terms of the 2019 injunction and were still violating COPPA.<p>Like Google and Facebook have done in their communications after being caught acting unethically and/or illegally, TikTok rolled out the cosequent changes to their website/app with the accompanying phrase "You are in control".<p>Nothing could be further from the truth. If you were in control, you would disable advertising, for starters. :)<p>When you thought you were controlling tracking by changing your advertiser ID in Android, you were being misled. TikTok had stored your MAC address and could link it to the prior advertiser ID. MAC addresses are PII under COPPA.<p>In 2021, the Dutch DPA also fined TikTok for violating online privacy laws protecting children:<p><a href="https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/sites/default/files/atoms/files/decision_to_impose_a_fine_on_tiktok.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/sites/default/files/at...</a>
The idea of China as adversary as logic for nixing TikTok is funny to me. But when we want a microwave for $29, well there are some things that we can live with.
What bewilders me is that an FCC commissioner is weighing in on this at all.<p>FCC's mandate is to regulate telecom infrastructure - devices, bandwidth allocation, licensing, etc. Nothing at fcc.gov mentions anything about a mandate to regulate content being distributed over that infrastructure. There is a long history of debate over whether FCC using broadcast licenses to enforce decency standards, but this is the first I've heard of them implying that iOS and Android are subject to the commission's authority.<p>If it's a national security issue, it seems that Homeland should be addressing it; if it's consumer fraud over privacy violations, it would be FTC.<p>The letter (which is not on the FCC.gov website, so I found it through the commissioner's Twitter post) doesn't go into that at all, and it seems like pretty significant overreach that a commissioner can demand software companies to choose their customers according to his will.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1541823585957707776/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/154182358595770777...</a>
The headline is misleading. They’ve been asked by a Trump-appointed commissioner to “consider removing” TikTok.<p>I think TikTok is a giant human rights violation for being utterly stupid, but that doesn’t mean the arguments presented here make much sense. This comment is going to be fed as training data to some stupid AI to spit out comments that sound like I wrote them, which I find much more troubling from an intelligence community perspective. I never agreed to this when I joined Hacker News. TikTok users, on the other hand…
Could someone please share some articles on what data TikTok actually collects? In the last year or two, I've seen a lot of concerned commenters, a fair number of news articles have popped up on the topic stating the bad state of affairs, but nothing explaining what <i>exactly</i> this is all about.<p>And I don't know, this crap is so sad, this all is such a misdirected effort. The operating systems must provide the users means to regulate the access to data and device functions instead of laws and committees deciding what apps are <i>not hostile enough</i> to be distributed. What laws and committees must enforce is properly equipped operating systems. Legally enforce full control of the devices, sand-fucking-box everything. Not on this planet, huh?
Is this actually an official request from the FCC? The letter[1] makes it sound like personal grandstanding on the part of the Trump-appointed commissioner rather than an official action by a regulatory agency. If it's the former, the headline is misleading.<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1541823585957707776" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/154182358595770777...</a>
Ah, so the US govt can't stop people from saying something, but can decide what they can't read and watch? Is that how it works?<p>If not, then no one at government agencies should be making such suggestions.
Curious what people think the consequences would be if the US was the only western country locked out of TikTok. Is it a big enough market that the app would lose its influence? Or is the app so popular globally that US entertainers would lose out on the opportunity to build their careers (thinking of the various TikTok “celebs” who have built businesses of varying sizes around the app)?
Carr is against net-neutrality. [1] He's a Trump appointee.<p>It's clear that this is not a principles-based ask to remove a data-hungry application. Carr isn't saying that applications shouldn't harvest this data. He's saying a Chinese company shouldn't be playing the same game that American companies do.<p>Thus, the logical conclusion to "why is Carr making this statement?" isn't necessarily "it's because TikTok does something abnormally bad," but rather political: it's anti-China propaganda.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer)</a>
I think the appropriate action is to force them to fix their privacy policies if there's something incorrect there, and to be clear about what data is collected.<p>After that anyone should be free to know what data is collected and decide to use or delete the app. I mean, if someone wants to use the service, just let them use, it's their personal choice.
I just don't see the issue. This isn't how US companies want to be treated, even when the US govt is acting badly. TikTok doesn't appear to be uniquely different.<p>I also struggle to view China as an adversary. US and China are each other's number one trading partners. We are allies. Why not try to build on that productive relationship?
100% for it - but afraid of the political ramifications. It will be spun as 'cancel culture' and potentially piss off young voters we especially need to turn out.<p>I liked the previous idea of a transfer of ownership which would grant actual legal protections and oversight.
Two points<p>1) There are lots of American soldiers, the majority of these are young people. TikTok could have a real effect on American opsec, in these times.<p>That, of course, also goes for other apps - and should / is probably regulated by the military itself. But it is more worrisome when the app used is owned not only by a foreign company, but a foreign company that's friendly with your current enemy.<p>2) Influence. In the case of any big conflict, the propaganda machine will run at full steam - this means controlling opinions. China has rightly observed that TikTok is influencing on steroids, and at a much higher velocity.<p>When you're very young, and living the dream life by being TikTok famous - getting that rug pulled from under your feet can make you do irrational and desperate things. Such as promoting whatever agenda the owners tell you to.<p>They may not tell this explicitly, but by what content will be shadow banned, and what will be promoted heavily.
In thinking about it, it's actually an opportunity for Google to battle with Apple.<p>Apple has been applying huge pressure to Google on the "privacy" front.<p>Google could ban TikTok and portray itself as caring about your privacy whilst Apple doesn't.
This could end up being an interesting case study for the "that app is so simple, I could build it in a weekend" crowd.<p>People ask why Elon Musk is willing to pay so much for Twitter when the software could be replicated at much less expense - the software isn't the point, the network effect is. It doesn't matter how good your Twitter clone is, if no one is using it, then no one will use it.<p>If TikTok is banned (or can't grow in the US due to being removed from app stores), there's actually an opening for a clone. I wonder what sort of TikTok clone would succeed - one backed by existing social media companies? One that's just like TikTok, or one that introduces some killer new feature?
This is dumb. Don't "remove it from app stores" these are companies doing business is the US and Canada - pass privacy laws that protect people, and then fine the living crap out of them until they comply.
The true reason is that tiktok has triumphed US companies and now US government is getting involved to handle this capitalist debacle. US is doing anything in it's power, even involving government now to somehow overthrow Tiktok's dominance.<p>Same as what happened in Mexico with united fruits company.
I've used TikTok for the past year, it's really not as smart or brilliant as all the hypemasters would have you think.<p>The data it gathers (outside of location, facial recognition, and speech capture) has been really off target for being matched to content. The algorithms across most of these sites are really not useful in building a valid service from what I can gather... Most of the people that use social apps wear out quickly once they realize the level of free work they are doing, and how it goes unrewarded.<p>I personally can do without it, because youtube and other things still exist to host the same exact type of video content, but the entire social app landscape is frought with platforms that are too big to really reward creators with any real growth, and it's overrun with deceptive advertising. I know I sound like I'm jaded, but I've learned some valuable skills in film and editing, so I'm really not.<p>Apps that will win from this point forward will realize that they need to be more niche based, while also integrating into a larger eco system that allows for content to be shared across the Internet, the way the Internet was meant to work... The common tactics of limiting content reach and squeezing creators for ad money are short lived, most of these apps have a huge amount of inactive and outright abandoned user accounts...<p>TikTok is in essence just another video "doom scroller" app, that allows pretty much useless likes follows and shares, it's really put a bunch of suggestive psychology on top of that, but in essence it's the same thing other platforms have been doing just with vertical video and a different UI. It's not replaceable, especially when it takes it's user base for granted and works hard to gather data on users and to manipulate the majority into doing lots of work for them for free (with a really weak creator fund). We can live without it.<p>If there are a hand full of people on the platform that have millions of followers on the same platforms where most of the user base has only hundreds of followers, it's pretty telling that it's a free work exploitation scheme, and it's really the first indication that it's really not going to survive the long haul.<p>As far as the data gathering debacle goes, there is also nothing different happening with many other major social app platforms we all use, instead though, our data is being collected and used against us by private companies across the world instead of by foreign governments. Removing one app won't solve the problem of personal privacy violation. We each need to be a lot more careful about the level of information we share online, and we need to stop being so eager to work online for these greedy and abusive operations for free or it's our own damn fault.
The headline is inaccurate. This is not an official action of the FCC. NYT phrased it more honestly: "An F.C.C. commissioner pushed Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores." <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/technology/apple-google-tiktok.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/technology/apple-google-t...</a>
I spend way too much time on TikTok, and have noticed that the Chinese propaganda is about 2-5% of my feed. It should be removed for that reason alone.
Google and Apple are both deeply connected to China, so I'm guessing the answer will be, in an indirect way:<p>"No thanks, we won't be doing that"