<i>FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148218" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148218</a> - July 2022 (848 comments)<p><i>FCC commissioner wants TikTok removed from app stores over spying concerns</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483</a> - June 2022 (505 comments)
Can someone tell me what they track that say, google or meta doesn't? I have yet to see anything that is tracked that isn't a part of the internet ad ecosystem invented here in the USA. Yet there's a huge political movement to ban tiktok that seems to center around the idea that the chinese government may be involved. This being a technical forum with a lot of employees from the ad industry here, I'd expect a hell of a lot more data points about what they're taking and why it warrants a ban. Someone please give specifics.<p>Personally, I always act as though everything about everyone is being taken and that's the world we live in now and there's too much money companies are making for anyone to ever protect the data cow. If the US government wants to prevent this then they have to legislate and make rules that turn off the data spigot to US corporations too.
> I am requesting that you apply the plain text of your app store policies to TikTok and remove it from your app stores for failure to abide by those terms.<p>I hadn't thought of this point before. Apple and Google both reject apps from small-time American developers all the time for minor technicalities related to their data privacy rules. Why does ByteDance get to run roughshod over all of the same rules?
Conspiracy theory: I would not be surprised at all if Meta were behind at least some of the efforts to get TikTok banned. After all, if you’re bleeding users to the competition, what better way to win than to relentlessly slander the competition? It doesn’t even much matter if they succeed in getting them banned - sowing FUD about the app is a great first step to peeling off users.<p>Hot take: Meta and Twitter and all the rest aren’t any better. They’re just as unregulated, just as willing to abuse private data, and just as willing to cooperate with governments - not just the US.
Very "not" surprising.<p>Exhibits
(a) "Chinese parent company, ByteDance, planned to spy on the physical locations of specific American citizens using the popular video app's location data"
<a href="https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans" rel="nofollow">https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans</a><p>(b) "More than 50 overseas police stations are operating in Toronto." <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chinese-police-operatives-operating-in-canada-us-says-in-new-court/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chinese-pol...</a><p>(c) FCC calls for a ban. Not their area though: <a href="https://app.finclout.io/t/yjeR3Jd" rel="nofollow">https://app.finclout.io/t/yjeR3Jd</a>
The headline is misleading. One of the five FCC commissioners said this, not “the FCC” as suggested by the headline, and in the same interview that commissioner said “as an FCC official, his own capacity to regulate TikTok is limited; CFIUS, the Commerce Department or the Federal Trade Commission may have greater legal authority over the company” and “he has not met with CFIUS member agencies or the White House to specifically raise the issue”. See <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/tech/fcc-commissioner-tiktok-ban/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/tech/fcc-commissioner-tiktok-...</a>.<p>It’s a guy thinking out loud. He’s an important guy, but on it’s own this changes nothing.
The whole premise that it collects "everything" is FUD and inaccurate:<p>---
TikTok is said to collect "everything", from search and browsing histories; keystroke patterns; biometric identifiers—including faceprints, something that might be used in "unrelated facial recognition technology", and voiceprints—location data; draft messages; metadata; and data stored on the clipboard, including text, images, and videos.
---<p>None of this can be captured due to app sandboxing on any up-to-date mobile OS.
The only one that might have been possible in the past is "data stored on the clipboard" (like many other apps) and even that is not possible anymore since iOS 16 beefed up security there (requires permission).
people didn't listen to warnings against using Zoom whose actions suggest massive incompetence at best and malice at worst. Even government officials have continued to use it. I doubt many people will take the commissioner of the FCC's warnings any more seriously.<p>People will continue to do whatever is most convenient for them no matter how much harm they risk in the process. The more abstract and delayed that harm is the less they will care until they are bit square in the ass by it personally, and even then some people don't learn their lesson the first time. Corporations will simply do whatever makes them the most money no matter who it hurts.
One reason to buy some Meta stocks is that there's a decent chance of a ban on TikTok in western countries.<p>The anti-China, anti-TikTok sentiment is growing. In addition, Meta directly funds negative TikTok PR.
Bytedance lost Russia<p>If they lose the US too thats a significant part of the world, and US action will lead to many other countries replicating the US action
But one said <i>"TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet."</i> [0]<p>Well, I don't think so. It is the exact opposite of that [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484</a><p>[1] <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><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://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-permission-to-collect-biometric-data-on-u-s-users-including-faceprints-and-voiceprints/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-pe...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/26/tiktok-dodges-questions-about-biometric-data-collection-in-senate-hearing/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/26/tiktok-dodges-questions-ab...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans" rel="nofollow">https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans</a>
App stores are a free market. If users don't want to risk their security, they can simply not download the app. On average, the invisible hand of the market and the wisdom of the crowds will choose the best option. If we can't trust markets to work these things out, what can we trust them with?
Just make the data collection itself illegal. Completely and without exceptions. Then ban all apps that don't follow the rules.<p>Everything else is completely hypocritical when there's not a single big US social media app that doesn't do the exact same things.
This is a conflict between the “customer is always right” mentality among US corporations and claims by a single FCC commissioner—not he entire board. And consumers have spoken by adopting TikTok in big way. Unless many other government officials decide to intervene, Apple/Google won’t do anything. The Biden Administration has been proactive in challenging China in many ways (eg the recent actions on chip companies and employees). But they have chosen to not touch TikTok, possibly bc they recognize they TikTok is far more popular than any politician, Republican or Democrat.
Trump already attempted to ban TikTok in 2020, but he backed down.<p>Besides the direct security concerns, giving the CCP such access to the hearts and minds of America's youth does seem like a risk to me.
I am a late comer to TikTok (was curious after a recently reported news article on the potential booting/sale of TikTok back in the Trump days). All it shows me is large breasted women and “crystal polishers” (which I never knew was a thing). Everyone uses fake names - it’s not like Facebook where people offer up their real stuff. I’m kinda confused around where the security problems are.
Much more reasonable reason to remove that trash from all stores is that it leads to mental and intellectual degradation and often generates hardly endurable levels of cringe.