530 comments here without the clickbait headline (fcc versus fcc commissioner): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483</a>
Lots of folks here arguing that the focus on TikTok is unfair, given the data collection practices of domestic corps like Facebook. From a privacy point of view, this argument is well-founded, but I think it's tangential to the argument TFA is making, which is: this data collection done by a foreign government and exploited for surveillance or espionage is a national security risk.<p>I get it. We want corps to stop hoovering up our data because they can use it to manipulate us with advertising, and they can mishandle it such that other bad actors can exploit it. I'm with you, this is a valid concern that we should address. But I think TikTok's specific case warrants additional concern because it's all that, plus it puts a geopolitical adversary in control of the data, countless devices, and a media channel central to the current cultural zeitgeist.<p>I don't think it's reasonable to wait for general regulation of social media corps while TikTok continues to do its thing, particularly if targeted action against TikTok is politically viable.<p>Edit: typo
This seems an intractable mess.<p>- Our phone hardware and operating systems are intrinsically insecure.<p>- There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure
it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation)<p>- All social media companies are doing it, leading to jeers of "hypocrisy!"<p>- All governments play the same games, reducing the arguments to
"Whose side are you on?" That's effectively meaningless in a
globalised world. The consequence is more nationalism and an ever
more fragmented splinternet.<p>- The only proposed solutions amount to more authoritarian,
controlling and regulatory responses.<p>What can we do?<p>There is a solution. Stop protecting these companies. Burn down
WIPO. Tear up practically all "intellectual property" laws. Revoke
millions of patents. Repeal all DCMA type laws regarding reverse
engineering. Kick trademark and brand protection law to the curb.<p>The real problem is gargantuan monolithic, captive audiences that
exist because incumbent monopolies enjoy protectionist measures that
amount to a giant international trade racket.<p>Creating a real market that forces radical interoperability would
solve many of the problems we see today. Who would care about TiKToK
or Facebook if they were one of 500,000 small "Social Apps" that
connected to a standardised international network.<p>Hell, we could even give it a catchy name, like "The Internet".
Not the FCC, this is one FCC commissioner's statement. He's not the chair, nor is he part of the majority party, so you can probably read this as a political statement.<p>Republicans had a chance to ban TikTok during the last administration. They did not do it.
My concern seems to be different than that of most expressed here. Companies collecting too much information is a problem, sure, but that's not what deeply worries me when it comes to social media generating/consuming platforms like Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Especially those that algorithmically decide what to show users.<p>Foreign countries controlling what information a coming generation is exposed to is IMO much more concerning than collecting and profiling (of course also troubling, but a slightly different league). There is little oversight into what bubbles are formed, who is fed what, etc.<p>Want to create division in a foreign country? What better place to start than on social media and malleable kids.<p>This applies equally to TikTok as Facebook, for different reasons. I don't trust TikTok because of CCP, and Facebook because everything is for sale.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Carr_(lawyer)</a><p>Lawyer that opposed net neutrality and now voicing his disapproval of apps built by the China.<p>Sounds like he's making a play to become a career politician using his version of what 'ok authoritarianism' is.<p>I'd like to see someone actually prove a security risk rather than hypothetically posing it. I.e. show me 1000 tiktok downloaded videos run through a program with their metadata something of strategic importance to a nation state (like the location of nuclear missiles haha).
"TikTok is said to collect “everything”, from search and browsing histories; keystroke patterns; biometric identifiers—including faceprints"<p>How can they even collect browsing history or biometric identifiers on Android? Isn't browser history stored in the browser's private storage space, or am I being naive here?
The thing people are missing when they say "naturally foreign government collecting data is a security risk" - is that by US openly admitting this - they are signaling to all other countries allowing US tech companies to operate there that they should be firewalling because it is a security risk.<p>World is > US and China, Europe, SA, Africa, the rest of Asia - this is a clear cut message "you need to have your social networking in-country to prevent others from compromising you".
Red flags ever since it was "breaking news" in the infosec community that TikTok collects "all information." It's sad at this point how much of a slave humanity is to vanity and social media. Social media is a higher risk to humanity than Climate Change.<p>> When challenged if the CCP has seen any non-public user data, he said, “We have never shared information with the Chinese government nor would we […]<p>Such easy misdirection. Never shared, doesn't mean CCP doesn't just injest it. Most people don't have the ability to understand how information works in tech anyway. I don't blame them. We're in a situation that's way worse than "the 1%", it's the 0.001% that know how information technology works.<p>As an aside...<p>I can't tell if it is a comedy, tragedy, or thriller when the story-line that ends up creating AGI most likely will be an Intelligence Agency. With all the data collection they're doing and prediction, they may even already have invented it decades ago.
One interesting aspect of this case is that, should Apple and Google follow through and force TikTok off their App Stores - many people will feel quite "disenfranchised" due to the popularity of the App.<p>This would force many who would otherwise never think about the consequences of these walled garden ecosystems and their lack of control, to suddenly have to do so.
The other side of the coin that I experience in my circles is parents and people just don't care. Everyone I talk with about pretty much says the same thing along the lines of 'if they want to look at my diddly Doo this then they're most welcome too'.<p>A lot of people generally really don't care a hoot about this stuff.
What disturbs me is that it seems to be taken as a given that a piece of software running on our computers can even be “banned” in the first place. This statement would have no fangs if we could run any software we liked on our devices. But we’ve gone so far down the walled garden path that the implication seems to be “removed from app stores” => “no longer running on US customers’ devices.” Regardless of what you think about TikTok in particular, or about the benefits of walled garden platforms, this is a chilling omen of things to come.
Genuine LOL.<p>Uncle Sam asking the 2 great censors of the west to get rid of the most popular app in their stores, so that the east will cease competing with said Uncle on who gets to brainwash their citizens. Gold.<p>Whichever way this goes, one of these parties loses big, which is a good thing for us humans.
As much as the US government does questionable and bad things (and it does), the CCP is worse. The US still has at least the semblance of the rule of law. There is still some separation between corporations and the government.<p>Corporations in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy in a way they just aren't in the West. The US government can also be replaced. That's why China and the US just aren't equivalent here and why something like Tiktok is of greater risk and concern than any US Big Tech app or platform.<p>Yes, US law enforcement can get access to, say, messages. There's a process for that. Some of it is pretty questionable (eg FISA court, pen registers, NSLs) but at least there's a process. I don't for a second believe that US intelligence has a firehose of everything posted on Twitter and Facebook just because I don't believe the US government has the storage capacity required.<p>Secondly, China is completely protectionist about access to its market. There are Chinese versions for every app and platform. China uses access to its market as a giant carrot to exact concessions from Western companies but they're chasing a phantom: China will never let any Western company "win" in China.<p>Part of getting access to China is playing ball with the CCP, which means giving access to data on a whole level above the US government. It means enforcing the Great Firewall and, for example, censoring mention of the Tiannamen Square massacre.<p>Trade needs to be recipricoal so if China restricts access to the Chinese market, I see no issue with Western countries responding in kind.<p>The threat model for something like Tiktok is a whole lot worse than any Western equivalent.
Well, I would say Social Media are unacceptable security risk instead of TikTok. Chinese gov generally can't do anything in US compared to US government, so personally I think facebook is more risky.<p>We need better privacy and social media reform instead of targeting tiktok. Also, why should we listen to Brendan Carr who shouldn't be able to speak for entire FCC. He is from Ajit Pai who takes lobbies from Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. Looks like they are worried that their accomplices can't steal more data than tiktok. Lastly, the funny thing is Facebook was asking me for photo and phone number for verification which I denied.
I agree, but from where I'm sitting (Europe) the exact same thing goes for many US based companies. Not that we have an alternative, and at least you can easily get by without TikTok (I haven't even visited it, ever).
I think this is a dangerous move from the US. If this goes forward I can see an increasing number of countries banning all US social media. Specially since we know very well how close of a relationship they have with TSA and other US intel bodies.<p>Are we going to see a future where every country/economic block has their own separate social media/search engines like China and Russia?<p>It's is an attack on users freedom but it could also be a big economic opportunity for those who decide to foster their own internal technological ecosystem.
Tiktok is an app that, in my opinion, is only popular because SV lost interest in building social media apps for young people after Snapchat. Facebook made a (successful) play for older users but lost the youth. That's fine in the short term: Those older users have more spending power and your advertisers will appreciate that. But it does mean competitors can eat you from the "bottom up" and make you look like a Dinosaur.
1. On reading the article it seems like Tik Tok VP, Head of Public Policy has reasonably refuted all allegations with satisfactory explanation.
2. This comes conveniently at a time when Tik Tok is poised to overtake Google for search traffic in 18 to 30 age group.
As usual, the jokes on the public. No one gives a flying fuck about our privacy.
I wonder if people could accept their personal/private data is a good/service if the government established it in law. So far this has been dealt with as an ethical/moral thing - thinking of ethics review boards in research. Though the low-lying “legal fruit” is probably just EULA regulation and enforcement.<p>“My data, my attention, my choice!”?
Again[1], the headline is false. It is only a single FCC commissioner that has taken this position, not the FCC as a whole.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tiktok-fcc-1.6505269" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tiktok-fcc-1.6505269</a>
In another few years if continue to see such polarisation, the Internet will be much more fragmented. Not just China vs the World. It will be China, Russia, India, USA and to some extent Europe, African and South American nations.
By this logic we should also get rid of Discord? It is basically owned by Tencent (aka, is also owned by China).<p>I am not sure what makes the most sense from a foreign policy perspective. But we should be careful about our selective attention.
Understandable but funny that US Americans start to care about data regulation only once the Chinese government is involved.<p>Asking the stores to remove one app won't do it though, time to adopt EU-like regulations.
Quite right.<p>It's perfectly fine for our governments and corporations to work together to collect our data.<p>Western ethics dictate that its NOT ok for Eastern governments and corporations to work together and collect our data. That's a security risk.<p>For the individual, the analysis is clear. All government involvement is a security risk. The are all immoral, and seek ever greater control and power.<p>This is nothing about security (either represents an insecure position for the individual). This is about which government has greater power and control over individuals.<p>It's all so filthy...
Good old protectionism. Really nothing new to see here.
And let’s be honest, the Chinese are guilt of the same stuff.
It looks like the long age of globalization is going into a pause now.
Thankyou @dang for allowing this conversation. I appreciate your desire for inquisitive civilized debate<p>Which inversely correlates with the importance of the debate to the participants. We see it in this thread<p>But I don't want to avoid important topics to people for the sake of civility, rather I would like, as is happening here, for those topics to become the best places for people to learn inquisitive engagement
Weird, i'd have hoped they'd regulate the entire market, not just tiktok because it is chinese.. a huge missed opportunity, almost some sort of racism over here, even though the word is very strong, i feel like targeting certain kind of people is weird to me, why just TikTok?.. now that i think about it, what other social media is foreign? that's an interesting question
several people here arguing that data collection by CN via TT is worse than by US via FB b/c CN is totalitarian. but wouldn't I as a privacy conscious person prefer my data to be collected rather by a foreign agency not cooperating with the domestic agencies? or to put it bluntly - why would I as a German care about what China knows about me?
The US uses "security risk" as an excuse to force TikTok to store data and code on US servers, so they can collect this data and learn how TikTok works and has become so successful.<p>Now that they have what they need, they use the same excuse for market protectionism, trying to remove TikTok so US alternatives can take its place.<p>A tactic well-used by the US.
Surely the biggest problem with any social media is the ability to influence it's users and promote or demote certain content more than the data collection in itself. We should probably be careful allowing any other nation having the potential to influence public opinion if the last few years are anything to go on.
I don't follow this at all. I agree that TikTok should probably be removed from App Stores, but they are not doing anything that Facebook is not also doing. If you remove one, you have to remove the other.<p>To me, it sounds like our government is just trying to play favorites with domestic evildoers.
Imagine >50% of US teenagers were highly engaged with the CCP's education program, an explicit surveillance and propaganda tool.<p>Now instead imagine that TT decreased the ranking of content by 10% that went against the agenda of the CCP. Users, the government, and creators never know.
Tit for tat <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-f...</a>
I think if USA can access chinese data it is a fair game. But one way data traffic, one way influence … it will kill USA in the long term. If information is important any one way street even if one put in sone caution protection is still one way.
Every year more young people reach voting age. Soon(now?) banning TikTok will be politically infeasible, at least until the natural tide of social media makes it unpopular.
Just a reminder, this is who we wanted to put in control of the Internet.<p>As an aside, what? Is this an opinion? Like... Is the FCC just dumping their shower thoughts on the internet?
I think TikTok's competition with Alphabet and Meta for digital ad space is healthy for market but security is the most important for users. At the end TikTok will be open sourced because there is no other way to guarantee 100% security instead of going full open source.<p>I remember Bill Gates once said in one of his interviews that Microsoft showed the source code of Microsoft Windows to various governments around the world in order for them to review it because they were afraid of NSA surveillance. Maybe that's the way for TikTok instead of going full open source but who knows.
Can someone explain the capturing "keystroke patterns" part? Are they saying the app is somehow capturing keystrokes while other apps are running?
Security a part the occidental world need to protect his market from unfair competition. If Facebook is blocked on china why we have to make TikTok prosper?
Title is misleading - This wasn't a statement made by the FCC.<p>It was made by Brendan Carr, who works for the FCC, but the request is not an official FCC request.
At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy internet kooks, social media has been the greast psyops experiment known to man. The CIA has tried manipulating the populations of foreign nations since its creation, but could never have dreamed of something as effective as social media. Only problem for US folks, it has been much more effective against US citizens. It's so effective, the masses think you're a nutter for even mentioning it. The people are being played with emotionally like toys at the whim of anyone that wants to play.
A bit hypocritical but it's still mostly correct.<p>Also, China is not the US.<p>This is a Giant Thing.<p>China would never, ever, ever allow US companies to have direct influence over their media, so even by basic tit-for-tat rules, this is reasonable.<p>Moreover, even from a 'trade' perspective, if China does not allow such social media apps from US over there, which denies US companies that Ad revenue, the same should be applied in reverse. No sense in letting TT get Ad revenue, it should go to some entity playing by the same rules US, Europe, Japan etc.
This will quickly fall below the fold, but: TikTok saved my life.<p>It woke me up to a profoundly different worldview than the one we've been raised with in the west. That's what this is really about, not privacy. Or more precisely, yes security is a concern, but I can't believe that's the only reason, because we've all been lied to so many times that all I hear now is the establishment crying wolf.
Why Apple wont be blocking TikTok anytime soon.<p>In previous, less enlightened times, this might have been seen as treason.<p><a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chinese-authorities-apple-ceo-signed-275-billion-deal-with-them" rel="nofollow">https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chine...</a>
I think content platforms recommendation algoriths should be regulated and be open for scientific and mental health review.<p>I mean here brilliant computer engineers build content platforms that are virally additive to the brain. The platforms track every users movement and decision, yet there is zero regulation! What could possibly go wrong here?
> but the annoying part is that the same rules don't get applied across<p>Yeah! Why do I have to sponsor hires who happen to be not legal citizen. I have to hop all these hops to hire while your local grocery store doesn't have to sponsor anyone! So annoying /s obviously
It is unacceptable that it took this long for people to realize this.<p>Google and FB and beholden to US regulations, and have shown zero evidence that they would defy Uncle Sam. They aren’t the same thing at all.<p>Ban TikTok now. China banned our apps decades ago. What is taking us so long?
Just the tail wagging the dog. Little c conservatives, including neoliberal democrats, are chomping at the bit to prevent a non-US company from controlling social media because they’re using it as a tracking system via the NSA and for the dual purpose of propaganda since Facebook’s Chief Exo Officer is friendly and/or “very friendly” with several authoritarians in both major parties.<p>They don’t want the possibility that another country could be doing this, even though there’s no evidence China is doing this, like Snowden unleashed for the USA. They could solve this with a law requiring data on US citizens be stored in the USA but then that’ll fuck up 5 eyes agreements for them and they can’t have that.<p>Personally: burn them all down, I would be fine with this happening because we need to eliminate all social media, period.
I would be more concerned that a country that does not like America now has a direct line of communication with virtually every American with a cell phone under 20 now.
It's just American exceptionalism and protectionism.<p>Same for trying to ban Turkey selling drones, Europe using Huawei, Europe buying Russian gas instead of American LNG, etc.
Come on you guys don't think the US has made a deal with ByteDance during the Trump years. US data most likely will go through US owned data cables the NSA can spy on. The rest is just fud to make sure the next social media app will be a US one.
Are media apps and their data collection policies even under the FCC's purview? This seems like an FTC thing at best.<p>As far as I can tell, this is just some random commissioner (who also wants to get rid of net neutrality and Section 230) making a political statement, and nothing more. Yes, you should be worried about big companies collecting your data. Yes, you should be worried that the CCP has a direct line to VERY influenceable kids. Both of these are legal; the first amendment guarantees the right to publish propaganda that is potentially bad for national security. If you want to stop propaganda, start investing in education, Congress.<p>I don't see how TikTok is doing anything out of the ordinary here and why they should be specifically targeted. Everyone is doing the same things they're doing. I get that the US is scared that China is going to replace them as "the superpower". Getting rid of some social media app is not going to change that. We're closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. We lost this battle decades ago, and it's too late to stop it.<p>I really feel like this is a token stance against China and not a whole lot else. They won't stop buying our soybean exports if we take a hard line against TikTok, whereas they would if we took a hard line stance against stealing American intellectual property or invading Taiwan, which is the problem we're actually worried about. So nothing changes, but when Commissioner Carr runs for some political office (his term is up next year, and I'm guessing Biden isn't going to re-appoint him), he has some token "I did a thing" to point to. (And knowing his political affiliation, "I hurt people that aren't white" is probably a good selling point for his candidacy. Sad that such a thing is true in 2022.)<p>If someone wants to do something about this, Congress should make some laws. "It's illegal at the federal level to bypass device privacy protections to sell ads." or "It's illegal for a US company to help law enforcement track users." or "We don't import goods from countries that have concentration camps that kill ethnic minorities." This will never happen. Congress loves it when companies bypass device protections to sell ads, and they demand that companies like Apple break the security on their devices to aid law enforcement.<p>Finally, if the FCC really wanted Apple and Google to delete an app from the app store, I doubt that posting a poorly-researched rant to Twitter would be how they go about doing it. I'd be surprised if Tim and Sundar even read this letter.
I think a part that is missing from the "national security" aspect is not just the data harvesting, in particular what you can do with it: manipulate the narrative.<p>Maximize division, influence elections, spread misinformation, censorship, the like. Already happening in US-owned social networks, imagine what China can do on a China-owned network.
Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China.<p>From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people in your nation are behaving, especially when you consider how much data about sensitive information might be getting onto tiktok, like videos made by military service members on bases, videos showing gaps/issues/etc in infrastructure, or at ports and other locations.<p>As for me, I'm an American and it is in my best interests that USA stays top dog. I didn't immigrate here to downgrade lol, so I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player.
So it is no different or in fact even worse than Facebook, as expected and as found in this security analysis. [0]<p>From [0]:<p>> The above code taken from the TikTok APK, shows the collection of cellphone data, specifically the IMEI of the cell phone. The IMEI number of a phone is literally created to identify the phone.<p>> We at Penetrum believe that everyone should have the right to know what data is being harvested by companies and would like to give our readers a clearer understanding of what happens when you download the mobile application TikTok. From our understanding and our analysis it seems that TikTok does an excessive amount of tracking on it’s users, and that the data collected is partially if not fully stored on Chinese servers with the ISP Alibaba.<p>So essentially, a 900GB data breach at Alibaba suggests that TikTok user tracking data which ties hundreds of millions of users has been exposed out in the open to be used by criminals, and scammers. This is nothing new or surprising as I have already questioned a TikTok fanatic about the excessive tracking in this app but decided to deflect with more whataboutsims. [1]<p>On top of that denial from their own users, all this tracking was made possible due to TikTok's spyware and their mass collection programme, with the additional fact that TikTok staff in China DID have access to US data after lying and denying it. [2]<p>So something that is even worse than Facebook is hardly <i>'The best thing to have happened to the Internet.'</i> [3] Especially when TikTok was found to do even more invasive tracking than Facebook with sending biometrics, IMEI numbers and voice prints, and is <i>required</i> to give up and funnel all this data and traffic to the China and the CCP meaning it is another honeypot surveillance tool luring in the sheep to willingly give up all their data and they <i>cannot</i> be trusted.<p>TikTok should get either a massive fine in the billions just like Facebook did or it should be totally banned until it is verified to rid of its invasive data collection just like what India did recently. Failing to comply, it should get both.<p>[0] <a href="https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysis_whitepaper.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://penetrum.com/tiktok/Penetrum_TikTok_Security_Analysi...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28137000" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28137000</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access" rel="nofollow">https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-war-in-ukraine-to-russian-users-1.15921522" rel="nofollow">https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-wa...</a>
I don't have a horse in this race at all, but the annoying part is that the same rules don't get applied across the board. Everything they're accusing TikTok of - from data harvesting to the government having access to said data - is true for western companies as well and that should be the problem. Not the fact that the data is now in the hands of the Chinese but that the data is being collected at all provided to the government.<p>The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government. We had this discussion after the Snowden leaks and nothing changed whatsoever. Back then it was the US government and the US gov had the chance to change the rules so this could not happen. Now they're up in arms because other governments do the exact same thing. It's really annoying.<p>Ban every app that collects "problematic" user info. Make the collection itself illegal, give users control about their data but don't argue that the practice suddenly becomes problematic when others do it.
Whatever society or country will realise first that they have to raise their youth so they will be able to withstand the lure of social media, regardless what company makes it, will become the leading society in the world in 50-100 years.
I am shocked that nobody has mentioned that aside from the privacy and national security concern related to data collection, another major issue is that the chinese can literally program our Youth. They can run psychological programs, influence campaigns.<p>TikTok is an ominous name. It's literally creating tics in teenagers. TikTok also seems like a psychological weapon, which is a ticking time bomb until the Chinese take over the world (their stated goal)<p>Tic defined as "an idiosyncratic and habitual feature of a person's behavior." Yesterday, Tucker Carlson (bad man) did a segment on the difference between American TikTok and Chinese Douyin. It's clear that the Chinese are curating the algorithms differently. Douyin content is made to be good for society, whereas TikTok content is degenerate. The algorithm is everything.<p>China has every incentive to push our young people to be mental cases and TikTok has the potential to do this.<p>For example, TikTok is likely speeding up the rate at which teen girls experience rapid onset gender dysphoria. A teen may be confused about who they are, they watch one or two videos related to the topic, then they are sent down a rabbit hole of this content.<p>I am happy to see the FCC of this administration speaking out. TikTok was going to be banned by the last administration but this administration put a stop to that in their effort to roll back all of Trump (bad man) policy.
The way I see it is that the main difference between FANG and TikTok is that the FANG companies do not have any incentive to sow distrust and division in the United States through highly targeted propaganda, however, TikTok being effectively controlled by the CCP does.
Apple's data in China is handled by China government affiliated entity <a href="https://technode.com/2018/01/10/apple-icloud-guizhou/" rel="nofollow">https://technode.com/2018/01/10/apple-icloud-guizhou/</a> . China's typical play book in tech field is to have the original products banned and have their own copycat flourish.
This is dangerous political rhetoric which sets the stage for all sorts of tit-for-tat regulation that seeks to optimize for the protection of local companies (in this case, Meta/Facebook/Instagram, which have the world's largest face database and have consistently violated laws + lobbied against them).<p>Imagine what would happen if a Chinese regulator decided that Tesla's telematics stack was a massive national security risk? One random comment from some loser trying to build a political career (like this guy) and you'd see the stock go through a small crash.<p>The capture of American bureaucracy by paid interests is going to be the downfall of the country. Michael Lewis has been talking about this quite a bit recently, and will apparently make this the subject of his next book. I hope everyone reads it.