• Aatube
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    2 months ago

    I feel like the US would ban selling vital data to big enemies, and getting info from ByteDance is free.

    • queermunist she/her
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      112 months ago

      The US doesn’t ban selling data, though. China can buy whatever it wants just as easily as harvesting it from ByteDance.

      And I’d hardly call running an entire social media enterprise “free”. If it’s a torjan horse, it’s an entirely unnecessary one.

      • Aatube
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        2 months ago

        Internet coverage of that topic is surprisingly limited for what seems to be an easily-thought-of national security risk…

        ByteDance’s capitalist entrepreneurs run the enterprise for them, and they can extort data out, yes, for free.

          • Aatube
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            2 months ago

            Again, China does not run the company, they just own the leash on the private entrepreneurs who do. That’s one of Deng’s benefits for implementing capitalism. (mildlyinteresting: the word capitalism isn’t capitalized)

            • queermunist she/her
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              2 months ago

              China has a massive stake in the company. It’s a huge investment for them. Hardly “free”

              • Aatube
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                2 months ago

                It’s a one-time fee that also earns money back compared to the continuous payments to buy from other sources.

                • queermunist she/her
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                  2 months ago

                  Assuming China doesn’t have to spend literally any other money, even though countries are constantly investing in infrastructure and security and material to assist the business.

                  But also, literally not free. My point stands.

                  • Aatube
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                    2 months ago

                    You won’t just stop the maintenance if TikTok didn’t exist. It’s not like all China cares about is data.

                    Your question was “why would China get data from TikTok when they can just buy it from Meta”. If China didn’t get the data from ByteDance, ByteDance still incurs the maintenance fee. So no, that is not the expense of getting the data.

        • queermunist she/her
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          102 months ago

          The executive order is specifically targeting data brokerage, a practice that is shockingly unregulated. There is no federal law that oversees the collection of and sale of the most intimate details of our lives. And when data is sold to countries of concern, it can become a national security issue.

          It’s good the bare minimum is being implemented… though it’s weird how two months have passed without updates.

          I must point out that this only concerns data being sold to Russia or China, ie, it’s just security theater. I would like to see some restrictions on data being sold to anyone, including so-called US allies. Israel, in particular, collects data on American Palestinians who contact family back in Palestine and uses this to feed its AI that generates kill lists.