Leaked Documents Reveal What TikTok Shares with Authorities – IN the U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Leaked Documents Reveal What TikTok Shares with Authorities – IN the U.S.

theintercept.com

IMO this article is missing some critical info. It handwaved away the circumstances under which the data was handed over (subpoena? Warrant? Because a cop called and asked nicely?)

Assuming the data is being handed over as the result of relatively targeted court orders this doesn't seem notable to me (aka "give me the phone number tied to this account that made a video looting a store" as opposed to "hand over the data of everyone in Portland during this week")

gosh I think people forget the basics: it's not Chinese people are bad, US people good. Even if tiktok has good people, and US gov. has bad people, the behavior as a group doesn't follow.

What matters is the political system. is it geared so that no one entity gets all the power? is it geared so that politicians will have to think twice before doing abhorrent things? are people in power replaced with just the right frequency to prevent long-term corruption?

US as a political system has all of them. Even though you guys say "look some US news outlet says Trump is sit", the fact that you guys can hear that news FROM a US news outlet shows FREEDOM of PRESS. And if Trump is sht, the political system of US will ensure that he won't stay in power. And its

On the other hand, CCP ("China") doesn't have that system. Its courts, the Army, the Police, the media, the internet... everything is owned by The Party. So it doesn't have actual separation of power, and the whole communication is blatantly owned by the party --- so it can conveniently and openly block messages that are negative to those in the power.

Anyway, it seems US is opting to "quietly watch" the comm, because it's an extremely useful tool in catching crime orgs and foreign spy rings. But due to its political system and the resulting backfire, US gov has to be careful to be discreet about its use.

And then... there's China, which goes straightly to "hey you send something bad for some higher up. Come to police station to have some tea!"

It's not because one system is better than another, merely a relative relationship, that it's a good system overall. That depends on the criteria used. I think you know that, yet your comment reads a bit like 'hey there's much worse things out there so don't complain'. Don't forget e.g. PRISM. Even if CCP does things objectively worse, and the US in theory has a political system as you described, that still did happen and is not exactly 'good'.

The whole argument is exactly that it is time to engage that checks and balances mechanism and stop Trump before US turns on its own Firewall. Posts like this are parts of that mechanism.

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