This is the real issue.

TikTok was shut down because of clueless bureaucrats and political games, not because of any specific threat. If there was a real risk posed by China why are they idly allowing millions of people to migrate to Xiaohongshu, which is even more strongly controlled by China?

What bureaucrats?

It was banned because of a law passed by Congress. Representatives aren't bureaucrats.

It was always BS though. AOC did an interview where she explains (what should be obvious to anyone), that US Gov had no proof whatsoever beyond trying to point at that Chinese law (much like Section 702 in the US), that makes TikTok seem risky.

Except that TikTok isn't legally a Chinese company, and isn't really under their jurisdiction.

Chinese companies like to be under the control of the Chinese government no more than big American companies like to be overly exposed to the US... Thus Apple being based in Ireland and keeping most of their profit outside of the US.

Absolutely and verifiably false, again! There are numerous data points that prove that the CCP exploits the TikTok algorithm to influence western views towards a pro-eastern bend. See my comment history for references. The close-doored national intelligence briefing that the senate got about the way the CCP manipulates the algorithm and on how TikTok is a national security threat resulted in a 100-0 vote in favor of banning TikTok. When do you get 100% of the senate to agree upon anything, ever?

TikTok was a threat, and will remain a threat until it’s divested from or shut down.

And the USA wants only fb and google to be able to tell them what propaganda to push. It's all a propaganda war, it's not about propaganda-vs-real news.

Parable of the Talents seem very appropriate the fourth reich has created lil fiefdoms no difference whatsoever to each side

The position of governments in society, and thus the kinds of solutions they are biased towards, tend to be similar.

It's funny seeing things like US Gov trying to control free speech, while being restricted by the Constitution.

They do still manage via back-channels.

There's also the Section 702 angle... US can get all US social media to spy on non-US citizens without anything in the way of legal pushback.

US citizens have rights. Non-US citizens, do not.

I think the problem with TikTok under their audited, non-interference under their Project Texas is... That they might not easily hand over data, or suppress views that US Gov isn't a fan of.

Which will change once TikTok is owned by a US company.

They have all the US data on Oracle servers, with Oracle having the responsibility to monitor all access and make sure that no Chinese entity can get access.

All algorithms are monitored by Oracle such that only user actions can determine what they see.

The Pro-Palestine thing that TikTok refused to suppress at US Gov's command, is not "China promoting Eastern causes", it's Americans taking a position that the government wants suppressed.

Thus Biden being forced to cave and at least pretend that he was sorta pro-Palestine towards the end of his Presidency... Which he stopped caring about once Democrats had lost and it no longer mattered what Democrat voters think for the time being.

We all know that's b.s. after the leaked audio recordings from TikTok meetings describing how US user data is still accessed from China.

> "Everything is seen in China," said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting. In another September meeting, a director referred to one Beijing-based engineer as a "Master Admin" who "has access to everything."

The idea that Oracle can prevent Chinese employees from accessing data when the servers are running code written by ByteDance on bare metal and the US team literally reports to the Chinese one is, frankly, ridiculous.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...

You can call them Zionist financed representatives

Hahaha how do you like the weather they're controlling?

They'll probably (justifiably) try to ban Xiaohongshu, too, if it gets anywhere near TikTok's reach in the US market.

TikTok ban plan may actually snowball, because now China thinking about their soft power and opening their internet to the world. The 16th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress actually talked about this.

They have a lot of companies with very large consumer, and their market is saturated already. Time to expand to the rest of the world.

This is being talked about in real life as we post on HN: the new administration has a different opinion on this https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn0y51z7wedt

(I am guessing that there will be a deal floated for Elon to buy TikTok in a few weeks)

It's doubtful if he can pony up another $50 billion.

Although, if TikTok's earnings can cover the payments on the loan, it could be possible.

China itself? Russia that has been blocked from all western services? Any non-US/western company?

Its not shut down, your president made it available again without a single change. And it was only a geoblock to begin with. By that logic it can't be that bad?

Not quite. At least in iOs, you can't redownload it, so if you uninstall it or change phones, no more TikTok. Also, Apple will be blocking any updates to the app for US folk.

Apparently, the executive order was illegal

Who cares what political stunts the US is currently going through? Except for the ~4% of the world who happens to live there, the rest of us tend to choose tools based on either what others around us use, or what we've found to work best for us.

If that happens to be an editor from China instead of US, I don't know what difference that would make? Both governments in those countries are crazy about spying on both their own citizens and everyone else, and have their corporations under surveillance.

As long as the editor doesn't send opened files/files from my drive to some remote backend, I couldn't care less about the nationality of the developers.

> As long as the editor doesn't send opened files/files from my drive to some remote backend, I couldn't care less about the nationality of the developers.

Is this sarcasm? Isn’t that exactly what the editor has to do to do its job? How else would the AI stuff work? It’s not running on-device, right?

then you should install everything that comes out of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran

I mean, I have some stuff from China, some of the stuff from there is cheap and high quality, so why wouldn't I? I don't know of many consumer products from Russia, North Korea or Iran. I'm sure if there was something from those countries that I really wanted, I'd buy it.

Edit: Actually I do have a product that is kind of Russian, Flipper Zero. I'm don't remember if I bought it before they moved the company to the US though, or while it was based in Russia.

> As long as the editor doesn't send opened files/files from my drive to some remote backend

I see your point but in this particular case, I think it needs to send the opened files to a backend for processing