US Opens National Security Investigation Into TikTok (reuters.com) 30
The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner ByteDance's $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, Reuters reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: While the $1 billion acquisition was completed two years ago, U.S. lawmakers have been calling in recent weeks for a national security probe into TikTok, concerned the Chinese company may be censoring politically sensitive content, and raising questions about how it stores personal data. TikTok has been growing more popular among U.S. teenagers at a time of growing tensions between the United States and China over trade and technology transfers. About 60% of TikTok's 26.5 million monthly active users in the United States are between the ages of 16 and 24, the company said earlier this year. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals by foreign acquirers for potential national security risks, has started to review the Musical.ly deal, the sources said. TikTok did not seek clearance from CFIUS when it acquired Musical.ly, they added, which gives the U.S. security panel scope to investigate it now.
You misunderstood "free". (Score:2)
No, not free from harm, like repression.
Free *to* harm and repress.
Free Markets sure are expensive (Score:2)
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"Free markets" do not exist. There are competitive markets and non-competitive markets. The worst kind of non-competitive market is, in most cases, the government-created monopoly.
that's just like your opinion (Score:1)
man
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Politicians having power to influence the market enough to make them worth lobbying/bribing to exert force against your competitors is the very antithesis of a free market.
What you're describing is a regulatory failure due to corruption of the regulatory body (government). The entire point of wanting a free market is that, despite its flaws and warts, it's
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In the same stroke that they complain about government corruption, they demand that government increase its power to fix it.
The fix is the minimization of the effects of government corruption, which can only be accomplished by minimizing the power of government. If lobbying government wasnt worth hundreds of billions of dollars, there wouldnt be billions of dollars in lobbying.
Whenever you hear a politician harping on about "windfall/record profits" the full translation is "I am seeking lobby doll
Trevor Noah nailed this one (Score:2)
What's the worry, they're going to learn our dance moves?
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NSA wants to spy on American teenagers.
"Send nudes." Same as the sick fucks at the TSA.
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Some will later work for the CIA, US gov, US mil.
Their actual past in the USA can't be hidden later.
The CIA and MI6 like to create fake pasts for NGO, tourists, embassy workers, medial experts, people of faith to enter other nations with fake educations.
The "dance moves" with trilingual skills is something the CIA would like to use but not have found before use decades later.
The Onion reports ... (Score:2)
I'm not sorry. This is a joke. Real life is a joke. Gather around and collect your nooses, the show is officially over. Let's start a new planet. Ba-dum ... tiss
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Honk honk!
Ke$ha will be upset (Score:2)
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I'd think Lady Gaga would be the first to start the investigation of Ke$ha's song "Tik Tok" for sounding just a bit too similar to "Just Dance".
On that note, how popular is Ke$ha's music in TikTok videos?
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I think she'd be very pleased with an investigation - no such thing as bad publicity.
What a joke (Score:2)
So an app that is purely for jokes and funny videos can threaten the biggest superpower in the world. If this is not a joke, we must have wasted trillions of dollars for the cybersecurity and military industrial complex.
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You are actually on to something with your comment, however; I believe the 'super power' behind this witch hunt is Facebook with the attacker being the US Gov.
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That open and friendly person who is not shy. Who can talk to people and in front of many people.
Give them a fake ID and CIA work in Chain awaits.
Unless China has the face and finds their actual US past vs the cover story the CIA created for them.
As a side note (Score:4, Informative)
Tik-Tok was a character introduced in the eighth Land of Oz book in the series written by L. Frank Baum. The 14 original Oz books were passed down to me by my father and I also have several first editions of the sequel Oz novels written by Ruth Plumly Thompson.
Just a little useless but hopefully interesting factoid.
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Had you elaborated on the character in said book, and had that elaboration tied into the subject matter at hand... yeah, that would have been interesting. But alas, the only thing interesting in your very short story is the fact that your dad passed something down to you. Your dad loved you very much.
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Here, let me add some more useless information...
Tik and Tok were powerful rings found in the Labyrinth of the Minotaur expansion for Dark Age of Camelot. They were often used in character gear templates.
I read those all as a kid (Score:1)
they're in the public domain, someone should make Oz online, it was fuckin awesome.
Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Meanwhile, facebook allows politicians free reign to say anything, even outright lies, and literally sells data to anyone with money. This rhythm that we're all in, in the US, isn't rhythmic at all, which has become the rhythm.
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>> Meanwhile, facebook allows politicians free reign to say anything
I'm not sure you're aware of what you're arguing. I personally like the Facebook/American approach: let free speech be free speech. If we want to punish companies that censor content, that's better than rewarding companies that censor content.
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I'm not arguing. I'm pointing out the conflicting propaganda, in an effort to point out the reality of our country being run by monopolistic corporations. The line of reasoning that's being used to defend their actions against tik-tok, isn't being used against facebook.
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If we want to punish companies that censor content, that's better than rewarding companies that censor content.
I agree, but that's not what's happening here.
If we want to punish companies that censor content (tik-tok), that's better than rewarding companies that censor content (facebook). What you're saying doesn't match the reality at hand. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
Facebook is literally filtering "free speech" for all who aren't a politician. But if you're a politician, then even your lies are accepted. In return, the government is allowing facebook to sell private data to anyone with money, regardless o
Dossiers and comrpomat (Score:4, Insightful)
The chinese are building dossiers and collecting compromat on today's youth and tomorrow's american leaders.
we are straight fucked. they are playing an exceedingly complex long game.
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