January 22, 2023

"One of the biggest problems with TikTok is knowing what the biggest problem with TikTok is."

"Most TikTok hawks have focused on the surveillance of user activity that the app could conduct and the user data the company can access, or what could be called information collection.... Many experts believe that information manipulation, including censorship of user posts as well as the dissemination of propaganda and disinformation, is actually the greater threat TikTok poses.... The right way to approach TikTok is the right way to approach all foreign investment: assess a company’s susceptibility to undue influence from an adversary; gauge the likelihood that susceptibility will lead to a specific harm; and determine whether the government can reduce that likelihood through measures short of an all-out ban. The same goes for global trade generally. The United States should promote the dynamism and prosperity that result from international exchange, curtailing it only in cases of glaring need."
 
From "Don’t ban TikTok. Make it safer for the country" by the Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

21 comments:

Jersey Fled said...

I get nervous when government tries to make things safer.

rehajm said...

If WaPo is saying it…

Now I have a pretty good idea what the Chinese have been greasing everyone in Washington for. Had to grease every leftie in Washington to do it but still….

BIII Zhang said...

If Jeff Bezos is pushing for this, then it is good for Jeff Bezos ... not the United States.

We need to tell our homegrown oligarchs to f*ck off with these spying apps.

BIII Zhang said...

And by the way, the "threat" of Tik-Tok isn't foreign governments using it to source their propaganda into the United States from abroad ... the biggest threat of Tik-Tok is what the US government would and probably already is doing with it against the interests of American citizens and in violation of their Constitutional rights.

Our own government is the biggest threat to us.

Blastfax Kudos said...

Wait a minute doesn't China have a huge indirect interest in the Washington Post?

Mike Sylwester said...

Some Republicans are behaving stupidly about TikTok.

This current stupidity reminds me about Democrats' stupidity about Russians buying Facebook ads during the USA's 2016 election.

MadTownGuy said...

"The right way to approach TikTok is the right way to approach all foreign investment: assess a company’s susceptibility to undue influence from an adversary; gauge the likelihood that susceptibility will lead to a specific harm; and determine whether the government can reduce that likelihood through measures short of an all-out ban."

TikTok's source country is an adversary and should be so treated.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

With only 14 days left in office, Trump didn't get that kind of... love and understanding from WAPO's editorial board.

InterLink

gilbar said...

"Don’t ban TikTok. Make it safer for the country"
by the Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

Make it safer? For which country? Ours? or Theirs?

Big Mike said...

Reasons to bar Tik Tok from the workplace include (1) it is a time-waster and (2) it is owned and operated by an entity that is infamous for industrial espionage, which could readily use the byte stream to inject a novel form of spyware or other malware via steganography. Time wasting is not an issue on a personal computer, but might it be possible to inject malware that identifies potential targets for bribery of blackmail? Seems reasonable from where I sit.

Ban it.

Quaestor said...

The Editorial Board of The Washington Post writes, "Don’t ban TikTok. Make it safer for the country."

Translation from Inner Party Newspeak: Banning TikTok means banning one of Big Brother's most effective proletariat control mechanisms. Far better than an outright ban is the selective censorship of any opinions or information contrary to INSOC goals and policies. Let the proles hear us and no one else.

n.n said...

Free the Uighurs.

Michael said...

"Make it safer for the Country" would be fine if anyone knew how to do that reliably. And if the safer-makers were incorruptible.

Scotty, beam me up... said...

The Chinese version of internal use in China is programmed differently and used differently by their citizens than what TikTok is doing in the US. Yes, the Chinese government is collecting data on US users of the software and most likely they can insert malware onto computers with the app installed if they want to. Currently, the biggest threat is its AI algorithms that can project subliminally what the Chinese want to manipulate the young people in the US. Doing this can indoctrinate / influence the developing minds of children in our country, along with far lefty teachers, to create conflicts in the longterm in the United States population. An example is planting transgender thoughts into children in its AI selected videos (with the public schools also doing this), screwing up the kids for life. Another example is subliminally and overtly planting Marxist ideology into the kids’ heads along with the public schools doing it openly to destroy our Capitalist system and our democratic republic.

Remember, the Chinese are not our friends. They are constantly working to militarily, economically, and intellectually undermine the world in order to be the ultimate controller of the world. If Covid-19 was not developed as part of a biological warfare plan (I believe it was as they were hard at work modifying the virus when “it just happened to jump species coincidentally” down the street at a wet market according to them), rest assured they are developing pathogens to use against countries who would resist them.

alanc709 said...

kind of interesting what things the party of censorship isn't interested in censoring.

Jupiter said...

"gauge the likelihood that susceptibility will lead to a specific harm;"

Let's apply this logic to the Gutenberg press ...

Jupiter said...

"TikTok's source country is an adversary and should be so treated."

Hmmm... I am starting to develop a viewpoint in which this is an antiquated notion. An "adversary" to whom? To the conspirators who have executed a coup d'etat against the constitutional government of my homeland? Sounds like my enemy's enemy.

Jupiter said...

More and more, I find myself asking, why is it that America's "freedom" so often finds itself needing to be defended in distant places? Does Russia's freedom need to be defended in New Jersey? Does Nigeria's freedom need to be defended in Buenos Aires? It really seems like our freedoms are the only ones that require military occupation of the entire world for their safety. Does noticing this put me on the same side with Noam Chomsky? God help me.

BIII Zhang said...

It should also go without saying that since the Washington Post (Jeff Bezos) wants the government to make Tik-Tok "safe for the country" that it is not NOW safe for the country.

Leland said...

What’s disgusting about WaPo editors opinion is they don’t want to ban TikTok because of the problems with it doing things beyond what the user maybe aware, but that WaPo editors want it manipulated by government to do what WaPo editors want it to do. I bet if asked, that would include banning certain content creators.

PM said...

Don't ban it because that might help Twitter, the greater evil.