US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns

Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by Wowfunhappy on Friday September 18, 2020 @02:47PM (#24520485)

So, separate from the Trump Administration's actual motivations (which I think are at best vague and at worst petty retaliation), I thought this NY Times editorial made a pretty strong case in favor of banning these platforms:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opinion/tiktok-wechat-ban...

TikTok and WeChat benefit from being the only social networks that can be accessed from all of the largest internet markets in the world. And the only social networks that can do that are... the ones from China. When the US is permissive, and China is not, China gets to write all the rules.

This gives China the ability to effectively export their restrictions on speech around the world, as they have shown an eagerness to do. If you want to be a global social network, you have to play by China's rules, globally.

I'm not personally convinced that banning these platforms is the right move, but I think the case is legitimate, and it's certainly a major problem.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by kelnos on Friday September 18, 2020 @03:50PM (#24521173)

I agree. I too am not sure that these sorts of bans are the right move, but China's relentless restrictiveness vs. most of the rest of the world's openness cannot be good for the rest of the world.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by ApolloFortyNine on Friday September 18, 2020 @09:40PM (#24524060)

I agree with this, social media is most often won by the service reaching the most users. Wechat is the only app you can use to chat with people living in China, and to (easily) chat with home when in China. So why have two apps installed, when one works everywhere?

It's bad enough that the Chinese market is already a bubble (foreign companies need a Chinese partnership to enter), yet the Chinese companies can freely operate in the western world.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by vbezhenar on Friday September 18, 2020 @03:12PM (#24520770)

Imagine that Russia bans Facebook because of those reasons. Do you think that would be a good move?

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by mdorazio on Friday September 18, 2020 @03:45PM (#24521126)

Considering that China already did ban Facebook along with quite a few other US-originated apps, I'm not sure what your point is here.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by kelnos on Friday September 18, 2020 @03:51PM (#24521189)

Doesn't Russia have VK, and isn't it the most popular site in Russia? FB is certainly popular in Russia, but it's not like people there wouldn't have another place to go if FB were banned.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by failuser on Friday September 18, 2020 @06:18PM (#24522422)

The sort of people that use Facebook in Russia know their way around a ban.

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Re:US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns by xorcist on Saturday September 19, 2020 @04:00AM (#24525947)

Nobody disputes that China is already playing this game.

That is true in many areas. The questions is what a liberal democracy should do.

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