alcoholic_byte

I think some are missing the actual point here: Why does a software/hardware/driver concerned with drawing need to know what wifi-networks are available? That is tantamount to surveillance. An absolute no-go.

Edge is Chrome-based these days unfortunately. And they first leveraged their ad platform to feed people Chrome, then they broke the internet where they could for competitors to gain a greater marketshare to ship this spyware in browserdisguise and now they wanna eat the whole cake.

Hmmm......

Nice spin playing on the hacker ethos here.

Although information is in its name, it gets its full meaning from its suffix. MISinformation is the missing of information or the mis-leading of an audience by spinning purposefully false rhetoric and delivering arguments for a false narrativvve.

It is very closely related to propaganda, but with a different aim. The aim here is not to have someone look good but to destabelize and subvert.

So although it is containing information in its name, neither it nor propaganda can be labeled information.

Who would want to consume lies freely anyways?

Also, nice addendum of the first amendment btw., the right of US citizens to express their opinions is not being curtailed here. It is just a medium that is under scrutiny and, I might add, for a very very good reason.

I would generalize it. With radio, television and newspapers you have national sovereignty.

The internet broadened that and introduced apps. So I would see this as a correction rather than anything else.

No. Feel free to educate me though. Only request I have, nothing older than 30 years please as I feel it may not be relevant any longer and before long we would argue about the antebellum period and what have you not. And it must be large scale.

I know that tactic and the response to this argument is: Two wrongs do not make it right. Just because the they did a wrong the others should be permitted to do it or continue doing it until the other party stops...wink wink? The answer to that is NO. That is whataboutism and a smoke screen.

But let's entertain those smokescreens even just to see where it leads:

The second Gulf war was outright wrong agreed. The hawks had their day and it was a dark one and all that followed because of it. A falling from grace. No argument there. But it is not an argument one should make when arguing over operations done by other countries especially since it is not related and long past and the current subject of discussion is happening right now.

The action movie thing... it is their equipment, they may provide it under any condition as they see fit. I wouldn't want to lend my neighbor a canister either if I knew he chooses to use it to write not so funny stuff in burning letters into my front lawn. I would not be surprised if other militaries would do the same thing if they were to lend their equipment at all.

>Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?

Was that even a real operation?

> There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.

That one is a doozy. The US made it clear that Israel should do more to shield civilians from harm. But let's be clear. Israel and the US are the wrong party to be mad at. If you want to be mad: be mad at Hamas, at Iran for supporting Hamas and at China and Russia for using it in a game of Geopolitical checkers in the UN security council. Without the scourge that is Hamas, who still continue to shoot missiles from South Gaza and who deny a sovereign nation the right to exist, non of this would've happened. Hamas uses the Palestinian people as shields, uses humanitarian institutions(e.g. hospitals) as hide outs and ammunition storages and subverts aide organizations created to help the people in the Gaza strip. They also slaughtered innocent civilians and kidnapped 100s a few months ago. And the people in Gaza should also be mad at their long ago elected inapt and impotent president and their dysfunctional governing bodies. And their inability to face down those terrorists hiding amongst them.(I cannot blame them though, it is a horrid and couraguous thing to do in any circumstance.)

And let's entertain the scenario that the US would step out.... well the entire Middle East would implode or explode like a powder keg. Trade would also suffer considering the shipping routes, oil and other things. And then Iran with Russia's and/or China's blessing would then do evil things... not a very comforting thought either, especially if you give a hoot about religion.

>It's, not profiling, it's culture. You abandon all your safety nets in lieu of a increasingly individualistic society, and then costs of living increases as wages stagnate. The logical conclusion is that you start to become more selfish, and focus more on your own survival and satisfaction, instead of thinking in the larger picture about long term goals or how you can server your community or society.

If that is so altruistic, I am sure a mom from that cultural background would forfeit the future of her child so that another family(maybe her sister's) has a better life ensuring the thriving of their offspring instead. I have known many a people of Asian decent. What you describe is pure idolism. A cliche, a stereotypical, unreflected, reflexive - dare I say romatizised - vision of the Eastern Culture. If it were true, why are so many people migrating then? Away I mean? And what about the wandering workers that are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth? Also, what you are framing as logical is human nature. It is not different based on culture. Only its hue changes. You also left out my point about the generation that lies flat and other remarks.

> In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.

ByteDance is a Chinese company with Bejing's blessing. The whole debate, not just our little discussion here, is framed US-China or West-China.

> Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.

Really? Recall project Dragonfly of Google's ? Does any Chinese company operating in other jurisdictions require a minimum percentage of Chinese shareholders or similar shenanigans?

> The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.

See project Dragonfly again. A lot of companies are interested in the Chinese market. That is all Bloomberg ever raves about when it comes to the Chinese market opening and Earning calls being presented. So the statement that the US(or the west in general) is not caring about the userbase in China is outright wrong. A lot of consumers, biiiiig market. They are just not allowed to touch it or under hefty penalties with big handicaps. And weibo was beaten to the punch, Tiktok wants to become the youtube/whatsapp of the world. Don't try to misdirect here ;) .

> That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.

See my previous reply. I must also add, tongue in cheek, .... or is coerced to leave because of unfair competitive scewing. Amazon is the kingpin of online retail and must be checked in in general. Such a 800pound Gorilla knows what it is doing. So I doubt that would qualify for your argument to begin with.

> Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.

That is a discussion worthy of its own thread and I am not touching it in order to stay focused(nice try though). Let's just say that doing the right thing should be done regardless of the implications because it is worth doing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be smart about it. And reigning in China's delusions of gradeur and Xi's pipedream of wanting a legacy as big as Mao's no matter the cost on the back of millions of people is the right thing. You can't let a bully step over you.

Well a lot of agencies do that out of the box because secure by design is not believed. Trust but verify. You see that when intelligence agents talk about cooperation between partners. So in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't really change things.

The one thing it would change though is that it would make the life a bit harder for cyber criminals(think downgrading tls connections).

And the criteria you talked about, they are open. Called capitalism, and regulations those companies operate under. Along the way that abomination of surveillance capitalism was born though.

Let's be critical here: We should differenciate between spying(passive) and misinformation/manipulation(active)

Mentioning propaganda you choose the latter.

Pray tell what are those campaigns you talk about? If you are posing this question you must have at least some in mind and ready at hand to share.

Your thoughts leave out one thing:

Radio and newspapers(including internet articles here in general) are a one way street. With Tiktok, you not only get access to the users device via the app, but it is also a two way street. Tiktok gets to choose what it feeds you.

And what you describe is also true in a lot of countries(I can choose my medium). However, with newspapers, radio and television what you feed the population is readily visible to anyone. I can turn on the telly to see what is being streamed. This is not the case with an app. Unless the government watches you 24/7 and I doubt that. The costs are prohibitive. The thing that does exist is metadata. If I were to visit terrorist.com or bombmanual.org.uk I would make a list. But watching TikTok all that is being seen is me communicating with content-servers(here the subject that needs to be watched also changes from the user(me) to the proprietor(the company)) from them and protocolling the content of everything watched, unless you break encryption at scale, and monitor everyone is also prohibitive. Not to mention analysis of the content. So Tiktok is the perfect vehicle for subversion of a foreign nation if I want to play for time.

It is about connotation. I play Go against you. You are my opponent or, if it is a tournament, I could also call you my adversary(connotation is a bit stronger, less matter of fact like opponent, more around competition now). After the game, we sit down and have tea and laugh.

Now let's explore the connotation of enemy. Playing Go against you calling you my enemy is outright wrong. However, if you were my enemy, I would not drink tea and have a laugh with you afterwards. I wouldn't even be playing a game of Go against you, but rather trying to do other not so nice things to you.

Such is the nature of connotation. Being erudite helps here ;) .