Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/06/doing-business-with-tiktoks.html
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Never used Tik Tok. I’m damn sure going to use it now.
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I’m sure Ivanka is going to give up her Chinese patents and business interests in 5…4…3…2…
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A little while ago, Boing Boing was raising the alarm about the security issues with this app. https://boingboing.net/2019/12/14/tiktok-owner-bytedance-launche.html I’m not in favor of anything Trump does, god knows, but . . . this sudden shift in tone is very weird.
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Well as we all know, it’s impossible for TikTok’s security to have problems and for Trump retributive executive order to be ridiculous. Those are two things that are 100% fundamentally opposed to each other.
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Do you think China is the threat right this second to people in the US or this administration?
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Absolutely not what I’m saying. But telling that you immediately ended up on that binary dichotomy.
It just might be a bit more intellectually honest to admit that, regardless of Trump’s stupidity (which is considerable), TikTok is also a problematic app from a security perspective.
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. . . this second? Perhaps not. Between now and November? Absolutely.
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More than Trump? China isn’t trying to take away my rights to bodily autonomy.
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Except insofar as they interfere with our elections in order to get Trump elected, yeah.
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Where is the evidence for that? Russia has been doing this, but is more interested in causing chaos than anything else. The right wing in this country would likely set up a white supremacist theocracy.
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I am absolutely and 100% against a white supremacist theocracy. And I’m certainly not right wing. I’m just saying that it seems a little odd to ignore all of the nuance here and just imagine “Trump did it, so it’s bad.” Granted: Trump is a horrid human being and I will be quite happy to see the last of him when he’s kicked out of the White House in January (I hope). But this whole “TikTok is bad” no wait, “TikTok is good” thing seems a little dishonest.
I suspect it’s neither good nor bad. It probably has security risks – so do most apps, not least among them Facebook. But if you think that those risk represent a national security risk, which, a few weeks ago, I thought most contributors to BB did, then it might be a good thing to see it cut off from its Chinese roots. If that’s no longer what people think, it’s probably worth thinking about why that change in opinion has occurred and if it’s based on any new evidence.
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It’s still a distraction. At this very moment. They are trying to take over the country. RIGHT NOW.
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What strikes me is this seems even more broad than what he threatened to do. This, if I understand correctly, criminalizes using it, or at least paying for it/profiting from it.
So not only do we have his decree of it not being used, having it blocked, whatever, now he could use it to arrest or somehow legally intimidate Americans, right? Another hammer to pound people with, perhaps?
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Doing business with communist China for the sake of cheap, exploitable labor and non-existant environmental regulations still okay.
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If you ask me, I highly doubt that Trump knew what TikTok was until his Tulsa rally was sabotaged by young users, who were subsequently praised by Trump’s political opponents like AOC.
Like any other decision he’s made, this action is fueled less by actual security concerns than by his regular, predictable tantrums.
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Where in the article does it say TikTok is good?
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Well, I guess the only logical counter by the Chinese is to impose sanctions on Trump and family.
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The app may be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party
Well, the app being used to result in an arena in Tulsa being empty when Trumpty came to town probably did benefit the Chinese CP …
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Seems like TikTok going to the WTO could get some serious sanctions on the US by members.
Aren’t his “cut of sale” statements, with this deadline around when the supposed sale happens be considered something like extortion?
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