Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents, looking to, on the surface, minimize the threat against the West by China.
Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue.
All these comments do not address this at all, and seem to do their best to ridicule a valid concern.
Obviously the issue is that the data from TikTok is required to go to the Chinese government as do the algorithms.
China has clearly benefitted from the West, by all the money and IP that we have given it, by the products we purchase. Now, the Chinese are biting the hand that feeds it, by becoming an ally of Russia. By actively looking to undermine the West. To deny this is to deny reality,unless you are saying all the reports on how the Chinese are doing this is "fake news."
Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, said “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,”
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The difference between TikTok and all Chinese apps is that the government essentially owns all companies, whereas in the West, this is not the case. Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant.
Furthermore, I believe China will be seeking to invade Taiwan soon, and take over all their chip-making technology. Their population and economy is crashing, so now is the time to invade Taiwan.
To just dismiss these concerns about TikTok out of hand, without any discussion, is clearly wrong.
This entire thread seems like it was written by the CCP sleeper HN users.
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Also, as noted by trident5000 below, China has access to all USA users of TikTok., but the USA or anyone else doesn't have access to Chinese users of TikTok. That's just one more issue to add on, and I'm sure there are others, too.
> Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents, looking to, on the surface, minimize the threat against the West by China.
Please omit this sort of low-quality, evidenceless* insinuation from your posts to HN. The site guidelines specifically ask: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
* An opposing view does not count as evidence. This community is large and has a ton of people who come by their opposing views perfectly honestly, as I'm sure do you. Insinuating otherwise is hands-down the laziest internet trope there is, and by far the one that most corrupts discussion quality. You can make your substantive points without that, so please do.
But this conversation is about what the US should do about TikTok - it is specifically in the US context.
Also, there is a big difference between how US companies operate, and the circumstances in which they share data, and how a Chinese company operates.
A parallel is that Google pulled out of China because China demanded Google censor search results (and account security issues). You could easily retort that Google censors all their search results anyway, but there really is no comparison between what China demands and what some believe Google does anyway.
> No, we're just non-US people not seeing the difference between US agencies forcing FB/Google etc to hand over our data, or China forcing TikTok.
As a non-US person, I think you didn't get the point: the US agencies can only ask for data, but the Chinese agencies can push whatever software changes they want.
In other words, if China attacks Taiwan, there is nothing from stopping them of changing TikTok algorithm to deprioritize all the user content critizing its actions.
It could even make it look like the entire TikTok is supporting China just by promoting "the right" user content.
> Facebook has admitted to suppressing speech in Thailand and the US.
> Twitter and reddit openly do it during election season to sway votes and opinions globally.
Could you provide any reputable sources that claim that such things were done under the direct request from the US agencies? Or is this your personal interpretation?
The linked thread discusses how tik tok represents a natsec threat to America specifically. Whether y'all europeans think American bigtech is a natsec threat to non-American countries isn't really a concern right now.
The US companies collecting and sharing all this personal data is terrible. However, the CCP's use of personal data is another level.
If a citizen or visitor to the US criticizes the government in any way; nothing happens to them. The CCP on the other hand is quick to arrest and silence any party within their jurisdiction which is critical of the government.
Literally millions of people have died because of the CCP's tight grip on the country and strong-handed end to any opposition. Ask the uighur muslims about this.
Your other posts to this thread were bad enough, and I already replied once. But this sort of slur is beyond the pale and not allowed on HN, so i've banned this account.
I think people in the West forget that Imperial China was a kind of superpower in the past, and the Chinese people have neither forgotten that they are capable of it back then and are capable of it now.
Being underestimated is to China’a advantage.
Another thing is that, Americans don’t see the effect of soft power and cultural imperialism because it has often been American culture and technology being exported elsewhere. Tik Tok is an example of a successful export by China, and it likely won’t be the last.
That bit about Western governments can only access the data through search warrant is not strictly true. The US have gotten around their own laws by such things as, purchasing consumer data on the open market without a warrant, or making agreements with other government intelligence agencies to obtain domestic surveillance data through a foreign ally’s foreign surveillance program.
> I think people in the West forget that Imperial China was a kind of superpower in the past, and the Chinese people have neither forgotten that they are capable of it back then and are capable of it now.
Indeed, here is an article that explains some of that history
I understood this, but that's not the issue. The issue is that the USA does not have direct ability to order those companies to surrender their data. It's a different thing completely.
> Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant.
It's disingenuous to believe that western government agencies are fully transparent and always require a judge's warrant and in general don't engage in espionage activities - the USA are especially competent at this.
Comparing the level of intrusion of a dysfunctional government (USA) with a full blown dictatorship (China) is even more disingenuous. If you think I'm wrong look at the wisdom of the masses: why nobody wants to emigrate to China?
I'm not comparing, the comment I replied to is. I just pointed out that it is, in practice, wrong that western government agency do need judicial warrants to acquire corporate data.
And yet the difference remains. Imagine if the NSA didn't have to hide their likely illegal activities and they were instead their explicit, public and legal goal. The CCCP is proudly the worst case scenario for the NSA.
They aren't being disingenuous, because they clearly know it. They just don't care because disrupting basic civilized discussion via dehumanization is literally their task.
What real harm can they do with this data though? You do have to opt in if you consume their service, so if you're really worried about what influence it has on you, you can opt out. I mean, I know that you and I and everybody else would rather be entertained by companies that aren't tracking us, like TV used to do, but that ship has sailed... they're going to track us, so we just have to figure out what the real potential harm is and protect against that.
The purpose of the algorithm is to provide content "for you". If you have not used tik tok I understand why you would not see the issue. Tik tok users quickly are lead into a "reality" based on what content is shown. You can sow division or push narratives quite easily if you control these algorithms in ways you cannot on facebook/twitter/etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would assume that it could help tremendously with PSYOPs.
If you could identifying some target group, like those easily influenced about a particular topic, then videos could be recommended to try to push them towards some perspective about that topic. I would even claim that the user generated content varies enough that the need for planted/sponsored videos would be rare.
I don't think it's remotely controversial to claim that they have the majority of the eyes of the US youth under their control [1]. I doubt there's ever been another time in history where a foreign, not-so-good-relation, government has had anything close to this level of direct, push, access to another countries population.
Lets flip it. If the most viewed media company in China were US based, partly owned by the US government (as ByteDance is by the CCP), I think we can all assume that a three letter agency would be using it to their advantage. They use our own companies to their advantage. China is demonstrably similar, in this way. But, China would never allow that scenario to happen.
Nothing says calm and rational discourse like preemptively silencing dissenting opinions by branding them via baseless accusations.
Perhaps people are just sick and tired of these weekly fear-baiting threads about Tik Tok, but who am I to comment on this mass hysteria incited for the sole purpose of hatred and conflict?
As has been pointed out, claiming "agents" is basically cop-out as opposed to making a substantive point
But I'm curious in general, would a site like HN ever attract state actors, or even corporate collusion (from a fortune 500 for example, founder asking friends for upvotes or friendly comments I've seen). It's an honest question, I can picture twitter and facebook and these massive dau number sites attracting psyops type stuff. Does it happen on the scale on HN and other "popular" sites that are still niche compared to the big ones? Does Ravelry have multinational threat actors posting? It would be interesting to understand that whole ecosystem
They don't have to be CCP agents to ignore this whole TikTok concerns. People are usually ignorant, open for manipulation are prefer easy solutions and answers more than real ones (but complicated). So after your long list of arguments lots of people would answer "LOL, Twitter & FB bad" or "China is far away, I don't care what they have on me" or even "I'm no one, they won't manipulate me because I'm not important" (with this one they ignore that one person is in fact not important, but 80 millions of not important manipulated people are really important for propaganda war or even to elect proper people after slowly but patiently changing what should they think with such "safe" tiktok videos)
The CPC has TikTok data, and the US (through PRISM) has iCloud, Microsoft, GSuite, Facebook, and now likely Snapchat too. Separately to PRISM, the NSA intercepts data at the backbone level, which is for example how they could get every last byte of data Google has by tapping the network links between Google's datacenters (the "MUSCULAR" program). The "search warrants" are rubber stamps. The NSA's MARINA program collects metadata on everyone in order to do "patterns of life" analysis; this explicitly includes U.S. citizens because "metadata is not considered data" by section 702 of the FISA Amendment Act. The U.S. has also been documented to have infiltrated various peace groups/activist groups. Is the U.S. government a national security threat?
These are all privacy issues, but they're not national security issues. What's the exact concern here? TikTok being able to create voice and faceprints of US citizens? So can Snapchat or FB Messenger; and I would hope no CIA spy (the only people the CPC would actually care about) has a TikTok account.
What else? The CPC using TikTok to push pro-China or pro-Russia propaganda? Pro-Russia content was banned from TikTok, and TikTok isn't known for its popular pro-China videos. Promoting pro-Trump "propaganda" to "subvert" the U.S.? Trump is banned from TikTok. Where's the "subversion"?
It may be a US national security issue, in that the US secret agencies do not get access to everything the rest of the world creates.
This is an international community. We are not all Americans, and some of us react to the words "national security" as the town dwellers in the boy who cried wolf.
"Wow. This entire thread seems to be written by Chinese agents"
No, what about people who dont believe american propaganda?
"minimize the threat against the West by China.
Clearly TikTok can be a national security issue."
The "west" is not a country. Who is being menaced here? The "west" (what countries are the west exactly? Bolivia is in the Western Emisphere, and they are more aligned with China than with the american Empire.) By "West" do you actually mean the NATO military alliance?
"Western governments can only access data from private companies if they have a search warrant."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Snowden is laughing his ass off!
"By actively looking to undermine the West."
Again, what do you mean by "the West"? The Western Emisphere? Developed countries? The Imperial Core? The NATO military-imperialistic-warmonger alliance?
I will tell you the regions of the world that don't benefit from the West, and the exploitation it produces: the whole of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Russia. Those are vast regions of land where billions have been historically EXPLOITED, SUBJUGATED and ENSLAVED by "The West". Fuck the west! It should completely be undermined and destroyed, to be replaced by a socialistic, humanistic and civilized society.
As long as "The West" and the wars, bloodbaths and constant bombings, coups, civil wars, guerrilla fighting and exploitation they promote exists, that cannot be achieved.
Russia. Those are vast regions of land where billions have been historically EXPLOITED, SUBJUGATED and ENSLAVED by "The West".
The Russians have done quite a good job of exploiting their own people, no need for the West's assistance there. Example: Perestroika. You'd think a resource-rich country with some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet (and arguably THE wealthiest person on the planet by a great distance if rumors of Putin's actual net worth are true) wouldn't have trouble providing the basics to its people....but over 20% of the country doesn't have access to indoor plumbing. That's totally the fault of the big evil "West", now isn't it?
Also, for the most part, it does not really apply to highly-paid workers. Is a worker at Google getting paid $350,000 per year, a brain surgeon paid $1,000,000 per year going to "quiet quit?" No. Not only that but these workers get insane benefits - platinum level health insurance, ping ping tables at work, free lunches and dinners, etc.
"Quiet quitting" is what low paid workers are doing. Inflation going up 20% - why aren't businesses paying workers 30% more (have to take out taxes). Business owner/manager - can't afford it? How is that my problem? You are the owner or manager, figure it out. That's YOUR job, that is what YOU are getting paid to do. Raise prices to your customers to give me a 30% raise. You can't, you say? All of your vendors are raising their prices, and you pay them higher rates - why not your employees? If you don't pay, workers should work 30% less. It is capitalism, after all. You pay for what you get. An employee has a 30% pay decrease because of inflation? Guess what, you get a 30% work decrease. It's only cold business logic.
On top of that, these lower paid workers in lower paid industries get shit benefits. The lowest level where they have to pay $12,000 deductibles for health care, for example. And even then, some scumball business owners will only schedule workers 30 hours per week (or whatever it is) for part time work so they don't have to pay benefits at all to those. And the employee is required to get a second job to get 40 hours per week, resulting in more travel time, no health care, etc.
Most workers never "quiet quit", it's always the management's fault. Either for being dicks, or for being incompetent. Management and owners are the "quiet quitters", quitting on their workforce.
And I have always been a proponent of "minimum wage, minimum effort" like for fast food workers, for example. As a counter example, if you go to a high-end fine dining restuarant where the servers are making $110,000 per year with tips, you will get "maximum wage, maximum effort." Again, this is just business logic. Workers are their own business, why should they maximize their income and minimize work to fit what they are paid? They are correct in their actions.
Now, whenever I write something like this, some ignorant person will write, "Yeah, but if you work hard, you will rise in the organization, I'm glad people don't work hard, less competition for me" and sentiments along those lines. There are two wrong assumptions with this, and if you haven't figured them out, then maybe you don't have very business acumen and should not be in management or ownership. They are:
1) you probably have an excellent intelligence, maybe you are going to Stanford or Harvard or MIT - yes, the world is TRULY your oyster, you can effectively do anything with your life. For sure. But you just take this for granted. There are people who didn't graduate from high school, those who were not blessed with the same DNA as you. Twin studies have shown that 50-80% of intelligence is inherited. So don't flaunt your accident of birth that gave you a high IQ. But there's no way someone with lower intelligence, like 90 to your 135, can do what you do. Not possible. Two of my relatives are great teachers, and can't teach some students at all what you can learn in 5 minutes. For example, they told me that some of their students just cannot learn how to add two 2 digit numbers together, no matter how much time they spend with them.
2) It is impossible for every worker that works hard to advance, even if they were all 100% equal. If every single person in a Walmart store, for example worked equally hard in order to become a store manager making $175,000 per year (https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/business/walmart-store-manage...), how would all 200 or 300 become the store manager for that store??? You say there are other stores they can be promoted to, well, what if every single store had every single worker working equally hard??? It's just impossible. Walmart has 10,500 stores worldwide, and 2.3 million workers worldwide (https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/how-many-people-wor...) if only 25% of employees worked super hard, that means that there are 575,000 employees worthy of being a store manager. That is a .018 chance of getting to be a store manager, even only taking the most hardest workers. If you look at ALL Walmart workers, that is a .00000043 chance of being a store manager.
Sure, maybe YOU can, because you go to Stanford or Harvard and get a degree in business or operations management or supply chain management. But only because you are privileged to be born with the right genetic code, into the right family.
As an example, here's the executive management team for Walmart (keep in mind Walmart is based in Arkansas). You will see there are not too many high school dropouts:
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Doug McMillon
President and CEO
BA - business administration - University of Arkansas
MA - business administration - University of Tulsa.
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Rachel Brand
EVP Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
BA - University of Minnesota
J.D. - Harvard Law School.
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John Furner
President and CEO, Walmart U.S
BS marketing management - University of Arkansas.
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Kelvin L. Buncum
Executive Vice President, Neighborhood Markets, Walmart U.S.
Life isn't fair. Genetic code, privilege, luck, are just not evenly distributed. However the number one factor of employees not getting benefits and livable pay is greed.
It's a cynical and quite moronic idea that someone flipping burgers or carrying inventory would make it their fulfilling life purpose instead of just offering honorable pay and letting them stay a separate entity from your soulless corporation. Pay minimum wage, expect minimum engagement.
I always look at it as if it is my job to disagree and let anyone know about it who needs to know. In a polite and diplomaitic way, the same as any other conversation.
Not voicing one's thoughts can have a dire effect on a business, a division, a group, and/or an individual.
We are all there to voice our disagreements, it's why we are hired in the first place.
I have never had a boss who didn't want my disagreement, my questions, my thoughts. Not once. I've had a lot of jobs. I guess it isn't impossible to have a boss like that, but I think it would be fairly rare. If it did happen to me, I'd figure it out, and then start applying for new jobs, if it was reasonable and possible. If not, then I'd just STFU and keep my head down.
But, I guess this article is for people who don't feel comfortable with being assertive, but then, to me, that means someone is not assertive in everything, including asking for a raise. In this case, you should honestly go to a therapist who specializes in assertiveness training. Truly. It would be a fantastic investment.
Both men and women should be assertive. Both men and women have problems with assertiveness. And I don't mean to sound sexist, but especially women have problems with this. I personally think that is maybe 60% why women get paid less than men, because men are on a whole more aggressive. Not all, but statistically. I don't have published statistics on this, but I do have a ton of anecdotal stories that indicate at least to me that's the case. I've known extremely assertive women and they make as much money and more than men, and I've known women who are not assertive and miss out on raises. Again, it is the same with men, but I think it's more with women that are like this, for a lot of reasons.
One anecdotal story - I was hired the exact same day as a woman who was better than me at the job, I knew this factually from day 1. No doubt. The hiring guy, the owner, said that after 30 days, he would re-evaluate and if he like our performance, would increase salary. On day 30, I was in front of his desk, and he doubled my pay rate. From $60 to $120 per hour. Not bad. 6 months later, this same woman comes up to me and says, "Did you get a raise? How much?" So I said yes, I asked 30 days after he said to ask, didn't you???" She said no. So that means I was paid 100% more than a woman that was way more qualified than I.
To me, that is her fault that she didn't get paid as much as me, a less qualified man. It would be another man's fault, too, if he didn't ask for the raise. She's a fucking grown-ass woman, am I supposed to do everything for her, double-check all her work and her everything? Is the boss? And, I'm sure as there are stars in the sky, if I did, she or some other woman would come at me with the whole "patronizing" and "mansplaining" stuff if I asked stuff like that..."Oh, you don't think women can do what men do? SEXISM." I KNOW there are some other women who would be there on day 30. But I think most women, and a lot, lot, lot of men just to be rewarded for their work without asking, that the bosses should just pay them more and see their contributions. This is what a child does, they expect mommy and daddy to give them things without asking.
I think that "equal pay for equal work" is not entirely accurate. Sure, some is, maybe 5-10%. But I think the real saying should be "equal pay for equal assertiveness and aggressiveness." It is a fact everywhere I've been - Assertive people make more money. "Equal pay for equal work" is so passive and dependent, like an infant. Man up. Woman up. Open your mouth.
I hope no one sees this as "mansplaining" or "sexist". I WANT women, and men, to get paid their full value by being politely and diplomatically assertive in all areas of life, not just work or income.
I'm writing all of this, because maybe you all (women and men) are much younger than I am and you have never really thought of this in depth. Maybe you have thought about it a little but no one has ever been straight up with you.
So go to a therapist for assertiveness training, if you have problems with being assertive. It's probably the best money and time you'll ever spend.
It's clickbait if the headline implies that the person pays 100% of the cost. The title should read, in your way of saying it, "Medical Bills Are $3500, but Most Pay $500 and Insurance Covers the Rest for 85% of Women."
meh. We all are born, eat, sleep, shit, fuck, then we die.
Everything else is just variations on that theme. You like Italian food, and this person likes Amish food, well whoop-de-doop.
People make a bigger deal out of Italian food or Amish food or Istanbullian food because what else are ya gonna do? I'm not saying it is good or bad, but I think I pretty much know almost everyone's story. You're born, you do stuff, then you die. And some will go to heaven, most to hell even though they think they'll go to heaven, and we atheists are just going to die.
.
If you like Bill:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
>Nothing is on Craigslist anymore in my area (Greater Toronto Area). Until about... 5-6 years ago, I could find comparable number of photography, computer, music & kids stuff on Craigslist and Kijiji. Today, Craigslist is a desert, a void, an oasis of empty search results.
I totally agree. There are a few areas where it is still good. Stuff for sale is actually quite good. For example, I got a great microwave oven, almost brand new, for $15.
But everything else is garbage. For example, I go on craigslist to look for an office space, and it is complete and total spammed for Regus, Bannister and other executive office suites. There's utterly no owners renting out space.
The job placements are shit. Everyone is on indeed, or linkedin or anything else.
Advertising...I went to advertise my services a month or so ago on craigslist. I listed multiple times, and all I get is spam from people pretending to be interested. I did that 3 or 4 times before I finally caught on.
All we need to do is invent replicators like they have on Star Trek and we're home free. Just jigger atoms around and we're gold. Plus the transporter where we can just instantly transport anywhere we want to go in the world instantly.
It's all really simple when we finally get that going.
I've typed almost all of my life. And, of course, you start out with block letters in 1st grade.
I thought it was so cool to learn cursive. It was like the first step towards belonging to the adult world.
And like most people, I do most of my communications on the computer.
But, for me, there's nothing like the tactile feelings of writing in cursive on a piece of paper. The soothing flow of the pen, the feel of the roughness or smoothness of the paper on the side of my hand, the smell of the ink and of the paper, the impression or indentation on the paper.
I just adore writing in the cursive script on paper.
Not any old fountain pen, though. A cheap one snags on the paper, and isn't at all pleasant. A good pen (on good paper - like, a nice laid) is certainly a pleasure. But who writes personal letters with a pen, these days?
I've never tried to write with a quill. That must have been a real pain in the wazoo - constantly whipping out a penknife to trim the nib.
Oh, I have. I love fountain pens and writing with them a lot. But those things get ink everywhere, I've never had it when they didn't, so I haven't had one in a while. But I love fountain pens, I've had many of them.
