Hacker News Reader

Comment by inconceivable | Hacker News Reader

... so just ban it already. this is getting tiring as we're in the 3rd or 4th year of this nonsense.

They don't want to ban it. They want to be pass an Orwellian surveillance bill and Tiktok is being used as a boogeyman.

In lieu, they'll take TikTok's subservience in giving them access to the data, as with all the other social media companies. It's the one reason I think my data is SAFER in TikTok than in Facebook. If the NSA had a backdoor into it like all the others, they wouldn't care.

Who is "they"?

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s686/cosponsors along with I assume intelligence organizations.

If you ban all spy apps, the app store would be empty. Heck, as soon as you see the first add in an app, you should know you have been spied on.

It wouldn't be empty, it would look like F-Droid, which has thousands of user-respecting apps.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/

I'd argue you just ban apps from countries who wouldn't allow such an app in their region. US social media apps are not allowed in China... seems fair to do the same just on that basis.

It's not that easy in the global world.

The owner of TikTok is ByteDance, an American company. Would you ban them?

Also, Apple produces in China, under the jurisdiction of the CCP. Would you also ban them?

Those two examples are obvious, but when you look at the typical international megacorp structure, it becomes quickly much more difficult.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com