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Comment by guessbest | Hacker News Reader

> In a statement, a representative from TikTok said they are disappointed by the news.

> "We're disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok," spokesperson Jamal Brown wrote.

Regardless of you stance on Texas and Texans and politics, the above is a pretty funny statement to make. We have to protect the integrity of short video apps that are built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers.

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That's pretty easy to do; to characterize nationalist censorship in terms of trivialities. I could literally use being "built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers" to ban television, newspapers, and every social network.

> ban ________ television, newspapers, and every social network…

^ “advertiser supported”.

For the sake of argument, imagine if advertiser supported content was in fact banned in certain places. Don’t you think that non-advertiser supported models would quickly fill the gap?

People have been lamenting the decline of local news due to craigslist replacing classifieds for a long time.

Yes, in the ad tech industry we called those models "native advertising".

Why isn't UT Austin allowed to block something on the grounds of cyber security?

Why does it have to be nationalist censorship?

But like... what cybersecurity threat is there to using TikTok while on UT wifi?

The concerns with TikTok are always around data collection and propaganda, not it pwning other stuff on the same network with malicious network traffic?

I'm no security professional, but I am familiar with the ultra crap security standards of many institutions. It's really just removing a drop from the ocean of potential risks, but doesn't seem that outlandish given the nature of TikTok and where it comes from.

But like, what risk? I'm serious. TikTok poses no risk to UT's networks.

Well, sure, I think you're right: if the Chinese state wants access to UT-Austin's networks, they definitely have that already, and cutting this out doesn't help anything.

I suppose they're just going along with their new law in a way that buys some political points.

Personally, I'd love it if we banned the damn thing everywhere, but only because I hate the mindless content :)

There is no such potential risks. It is all about politics and propaganda.

"where it comes from" makes it sound like Xi Jinping commandeered an app where teenagers dance as a trojan horse to befall capitalism...

Your fridge was maybe made there too, are you scared a secret radio chip could activate to render your food communist ?

My fridge doesn't curate the thoughts and ideas tens of millions of American youth are exposed to daily

My fridge doesn't send recordings back to a server in China. Nor was it produced there.

It's a nationalist ban.

Whether it's a positive influence on _anything_ is questionable.

But it's not something happening outside politics

Especially given that TikTok will work fine on devices that are connected to the cell network and not wifi. I can't tell what is being protected, exactly.

This is like saying, if students can assault students outside of UT Austin - I don't know why we should ban students assaulting each other inside of UT Austin.

If you believe you're doing the right thing in some cases - you don't give up because you can't do the right thing in all cases.

UT Austin can be in the wrong. I'm just saying - simply because UT Austin banned TikTok doesn't mean they're doing it for censorship reasons. There could be other reasons...

I had assumed they meant the sort of almost public WiFi that any student has access to, which should be cordoned off from anything sensitive.

Coincidentally, in 2005, the same university blocked all emails from a dating site (LonghornSingles) on grounds of spam.

The site filed a lawsuit against the block saying they couldn’t block the site entirely since it complied with CAN SPAM.

A slashdotter compared the argument to “I have a driver’s license and car insurance, therefore I have the right to park on your lawn”.

https://slashdot.org/story/59677

Football's very rules seem to be designed for ad breaks.

> We have to protect the integrity of short video apps that are built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers.

That's a strawman argument, they didn't say any of that

Obviously someone should've just hosted right-wing talking heads on TikTok so that UT-Austin could be sued under Texas' own anti-censorship law:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/texas-bans-onlin...

I’m sure there are plenty of right-wing influencers on TikTok. It’s a service that locks you tightly into an algorithmic bubble once it has an idea of what kind of content turns you on. Alt-right TikTok in Texas must be “interesting.”

Somewhere a TikTok lawyer is writing a frantic email.

> ...should've just hosted right-wing talking heads on TikTok...

That's already a thing... https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-recommendations-far-righ...

They're already there. You just don't know it because the algo creates a textbook filter bubble to keep you happy.

This is one of TikTok's greatest strengths as an entertainment platform (compare to Youtube or whatever). People never see shit they'd be Outraged(TM) at keeping their user experience generally positive, or if not generally positive at least basically never negative.

> We have to protect the integrity of short video apps that are built for advertisers to push products and services through ads and influencers.

So, you're in favor of banning YouTube and most forms of television?

Yes, actually. Ad-support has a demonstrably negative affect on the media it is supporting & distorts the incentives of the platform it is hosted on.

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