News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps by luckylion on Monday June 29, 2020 @03:18PM (#23681374)
I wonder what's stopping them. Initial investments is likely an issue for small, poor countries, but it can't be an issue for a country like India or Saudi Arabia, and the user base can be "convinced" to use the domestic thing by doing what India does: block foreign services.

It seems more sustainable and much easier to work with if you have your own network, and you don't rely on US-services looking away / Twitter tolerating your stuff.

Re:India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps by puranjay on Monday June 29, 2020 @03:53PM (#23681851)
Will never happen because Indian governments are stuck in an unceasing bureaucratic quagmire. A tech solution, especially one that has to be culturally relevant and edgy to appeal to young people is absolutely beyond the scope of the Indian government machinery.
Re:India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps by est31 on Monday June 29, 2020 @04:56PM (#23682921)
Yeah also note that Russia has its own domestic replacements of the popular American services. They only had to resort to bots etc for influencing American elections.
Re:India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps by huhnmonster on Monday June 29, 2020 @03:35PM (#23681604)
I totally agree with you there, I was arguing from the view of a bad actor, not necessarily a government.

For a bad actor, the cost-reward looks pretty low (if we assume a high initial investment like a couple hundred million dollars to approach our goal of data collection in a shorter timeframe), but for a government that is probably totally doable.