SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the read-the-writing-on-the...apps? dept.
US will ban WeChat and TikTok downloads on Sunday
The Commerce Department plans to restrict access to TikTok and WeChat on Sunday as the Trump administration's executive orders against the two apps are set to take effect.
The Department said Friday that as of Sunday, any moves to distribute or maintain WeChat or TikTok on an app store will be prohibited. Apple and Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
While users who have already downloaded the apps may be able to continue using the software, the restrictions mean updated versions of the apps cannot be downloaded.
The restrictions targeting WeChat are more extensive. Beginning Sunday, it will be illegal to host or transfer internet traffic associated with WeChat, the Department said in a release. The same will be true for TikTok as of Nov. 12, it said. (The Trump administration is currently weighing a proposal involving ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent, and Oracle, designed to resolve the administration's national security concerns related to TikTok; the deadline for a deal is Nov. 12.)
Previously:
Singapore Becomes Hub for Chinese Tech Amid US Tensions
Approval for Oracle-TikTok "Trusted Technology Provider" Deal Imminent
TikTok Plans to Sue the Trump Administration Over Ban
TikTok: Trump Will Prohibit Transactions with Bytedance Beginning September 20
President Trump Threatens TikTok Ban, Microsoft Considers Buying TikTok's U.S. Operations[Updated 2]
India Bans TikTok, WeChat, and Other Chinese-Owned Apps
TikTok and 53 Other iOS Apps Still Snoop Your Sensitive Clipboard Data
Investigation Claims United Arab Emirates Uses The ToTok App To Spy
Lawmakers Ask US Intelligence to Assess If TikTok is a Security Threat
Bytedance: The World's Most Valuable Startup
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:26AM (1 child)
This is your last chance! Offer only good through Saturday! Get your WeChat and TikTok apps before they are _All Gone_.
See the stuff your gubmint doesn't want you to see. Say the things your gubmint doesn't want you to say.
(Tiny Print)
Offer only necessary in the USA. Data rates may apply. Offer not approved by three-letter agencies.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EETech1 on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:21AM
No download required!
https://www.tiktok.com/en/ [tiktok.com]
Although I'd love to see them post the .APK there for download too:)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:37AM (29 children)
Here is blatant actual censorship enforced with that gun to the head called the federal government but I predict crickets as usual from the don't tread on me crowd.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:57AM (1 child)
Because you thought the US of A hadn't gone full 1984 yet?
I'll tell you how this would have been handled in a democratic country: if TikTok or WeChat are Chinese intelligence trojan horses and threats to national security, the administration should have gone to court, presented the evidence, and the judge would have ordered both companies shut down.
Here, the way it was handled was, Orange Man issued a dictate. Notice that it's the same root as the word "dictator".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 19 2020, @12:50PM
It's actually an Executive Order, and it can be surprisingly toothless depending on what is being ordered. In this case, I do believe the executive branch has nominal control of the police state, so they can do things like freeze accounts - until overruled by a judge. I recall an Executive Order to build a wall, but that office can't order funding, so the only wall that got built was by other people with actual control of funding who chose to listen to the order - doubtlessly releasing their funding in a pork trough fashion.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:36AM
FACT: TikTok is NOT banned in America [bitchute.com]. Stop posting fake news.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Username on Saturday September 19 2020, @10:21AM (4 children)
How is it censorship? It's not limiting any kind of speech.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @10:32AM
Oh so money is speech but media isn't?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday September 19 2020, @03:39PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @03:49PM
The same way that closing a newspaper is. These are communications platforms and people are using them for a reason. The specific kinds of speach on them may not be available in other places. On top of that, the contacts you have there may not be readily accessible elsewhere. Similar to this site, it's doubtful that the essential folks that post here would all show up at the same place to post. As a result, closing the site by the government would effectively be censorship.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday September 20 2020, @05:38AM
If nothing else, it is another example of your government interfering with the basic right of "Freedom of Association" without being able to associate with others, your freedom of speech is toothless. Imagine being locked in solitary and allowed to say whatever you want.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @10:52AM (3 children)
Hey, YOU're the ones who thought that putting a psychopath-con-man-child-molester in the White House would make things better.
You made your bed, morons. Now sleep in it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:28PM (2 children)
Because Hillary would have been so much better? She's a warmonger and she had the audacity to whine about men calling her out on taking a college spot that meant that some young man probably got drafted. She's a psychopath and I fail to see how her corruption is somehow better than Trump's corruption. Or Biden for that matter, he'll do things that the GOP only wishes they could do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @03:05PM (1 child)
You just want to have sex with Hillary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @01:39AM
Yeah, you're right. I want her to dominate me while droning my ass with a strap-on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 19 2020, @01:50PM (2 children)
Who are the good guys in this? The Chinese government spies upon and censors WeChat.
A ban is dumb. It won't work, and antagonizes China. The real solution is to provide a superior alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @03:21PM
Already have those: telegram, line, kik. The problem is the ecosystem. If your friends are mostly Chinese in Mainland China, you'll get WeChat and TikTok (although, obviously, both are eating into the US market).
Of course the ban won't work 100%. The point is 1) reduce market share; 2) reduce further money flow implemented within TikTok (ads) and WeChat (WeChat pay)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:40PM
So what? How much freedom do American companies have to operate in China? Censorship, forced minority joint ventures, forced technology transfers.
What I expect Bytedance to do is go through the courts. They probably have to wait for the executive order to take effect for them to have standing, but that is what the courts are there for to decide.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:08PM (1 child)
Stop being such a hyperventilative ass. Trump makes all sorts of invalid executive order that are overturned by the courts, as this one will be. The only reason he does this is not that they think it will be successful, but he's trying to make the case that he's "tough on the Chinese, not like that soft Biden guy.' This is just signaling to his base (I can't imagine that it will sway any fence straddlers, if there are any to be had at this point), but I will admit that really don't understand what 40% of the people see in him to support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:52PM
That, and he probably has a financial interest in Oracle.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:14PM (1 child)
Crickets from the democrats in congress too? Or the candidates?
Fascism in the US? Book burnings, prison, we're used to it [wikipedia.org]...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:03PM
Redundant
Well! Democrat moderators are certainly speaking up! There must be a different standard for them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:20PM (9 children)
This effects chinese-americans. They're used to getting around china's firewall. Having do sideload an apk downloaded from outside of the country is not censorship. Dictating inventory a store can have is something the government does. I'm sure you don't know about this, since you've always enjoyed your cuban cigars purchased at your local walmart.
censorship this is not. you should look up what censorship is. it would be censorship if you weren't allowed to post about it - like in this post.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:53PM (7 children)
Yeah, that's censorship. I don't hear much of Trump's "opposition" speaking up about it either. Guess it's not a partisan issue. Is that a good thing?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:19PM (6 children)
No, because this is for a business, not for a person. Businesses have restrictions on what they can do, and it's not censorship. Just like a business hosting or transferring child porn traffic is illegal. Censorship is making something legal unavailable. Making something illegal unavailable to be provided by a business entity is not censorship.
I guess in your world shutting down a company seeding torrents of copyrighted movies or classified information is censorship. You need to look up what that word means.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:24PM (5 children)
Censorship is censorship. The only issue worth discussing on the matter is how to circumvent it. The politics is uninteresting.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 20 2020, @08:25PM (4 children)
censorship is censorship. which means removing things that are legal. this is not allowing a business to deal with things that are illegal. preventing 7-11 from selling cocaine and guns with the serial filed off is not censorship. neither is banning a business from distributing traffic for an app that's illegal. for the same reason a business cannot legally distribute or host malware and viruses.
it's very obvious you don't know what censorship is. the removal of data that is illegal is not censorship. it's enforcing the law. if tik-tok were not in virus/trojan territory, and hosting it would still be illegal - that would be censorship. however wechat/tiktok is in the same category as botnet software and rootkits.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 20 2020, @09:08PM (3 children)
I don't care what you think it is. It just needs to be overcome, through multiple channels, backups, peer to peer, whatever it takes. Can't let other people decide what I can see and hear.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday September 20 2020, @10:16PM (2 children)
It's not about what you see. It's about the definition of censorship. A Business making illegal things available to their customers is not censorship. You are free to see and hear what you want. Distributing malware is not legal for a business to do. Preventing a business from doing so is no censorship - it's enforcement of existing laws.
Again, I understand that you think preventing stores from selling cocaine is censorship. the dictionary does not care what you think.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 20 2020, @10:37PM (1 child)
How you want to define censorship is of no concern to me. I am only interested in the security of communication, that there can be no disruption, and even tracking if possible.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:07PM
so blocking a business from distributing insecure malware that tracks you, makes communication insecure and somehow also tracks you. Hence is censorship. I got it. Do you have velcro shoes? I bet you do. shoerace so hard. you rove me rong time.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday September 20 2020, @05:26AM
It will affect Chinese-Americans, but the only way it effects them is if the app ban forces more mixed couples to get busy in bed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @06:50AM
That's the Big Beautiful Wall of America. Now, if only the Mexicans would pay for it. (grin)
---
Payback for Tulsa, eh?
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:05AM (4 children)
SoylentNews is next! We are on the watch list! Violent old farts like Runaway, code-monkey anarchists like TMB, total Nazis like VLM, Sulla, Eth, and khallow! Damn right they will becoming for us next, because of all the Chi-coms on this sight! Members like exaeta, hemoglobular, Francis, gweg_, and fistulacrack. We are so hosed! If anyone has anything they would like to say to aristarchus, before the Trump Regime shuts us down, do it now, or forever hold your piece, which I imagine you were going to do anyway, but the symbolism is important. Fare well, and prosper, Soylentils.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:32AM
Not to worry, you can still access your favorite TikTok videos as animated GIFs, like this one [gfycat.com].
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:33AM (1 child)
If only TMB would have codes an App for S/N, they'd have something to ban.
But I guess writing Apps for mobiles in PERL... in spite what his fishing penchant may suggest, maybe he's not that masochistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:58AM
One can only hope. The preservation of the world resides in the incompetence of evil. PERL may save us yet?
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:15PM
@aristarchus please see my essay: https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"... Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. So, while in the past, we had "nothing to fear but fear itself", the thing to fear these days is ironically ... irony. :-)"
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @08:38AM
Okay, so just download it on any other day of the week besides Sunday. *taps head*
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:34AM
Imagine a organ concert. A large, modern concert hall, audience sitting in chairs, the musician sitting behind keyboards, performing classical music. And behind him, a man, standing in place, but constantly stepping: right, left, right, left, right, left.
So this is the state of modern Internet. There was a time when these men, stepping in sequence during play, were present in all organ concerts, they were pumping air to bellows. Since 1950s, organs were of course modified to use electric motors and these men sometimes called "kalikants" had to change their jobs.
So they did not protest like cab drivers when Uber was going in. Or like hotel owners when couchsurfing appeared. They had to go as when electric motor was running, their stepping was aimless.
And in the Internet, we have exactly this. We have these men, aimlessly stepping in place because they were always stepping in place. Understanding why they were stepping in place is out of question in our "freedom of thought".
These stepping men are the papers, which are available and publishable by the kind allowance of blessed publishers, like in 18th century.
These men are remote learning with lectures which are streamed only in specific hours, while the server can store thousands of them for playing when students want and when they understand best.
These men are dictators doing artificial wars to censor software because their backdoors are more important than others, at least they think that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:19AM
How is this a problem?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:34AM (2 children)
TikTok is for Democrats to look for dancing children that can be abducted and harvested for adrenochrome. Banning TikTok is necessary to protect our children.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday September 19 2020, @12:24PM
Poe's Law
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 19 2020, @12:52PM
So, that's what happened to the leadership...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @01:59PM
N/T
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @03:17PM (3 children)
Beginning Sunday, it will be illegal to host or transfer internet traffic associated with WeChat, the Department said in a release. The same will be true for TikTok as of Nov. 12, it said.
It's practically my duty to host *and* transfer internet traffic associated with those apps. Fuck the US president. Let's see him stop me.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday September 19 2020, @04:46PM (2 children)
Yeah, exactly... How the heck do they expect to enforce a ban on specific traffic?
They really want to try to enforce a Great Firewall of USA somehow??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:46PM
Wouldn't be the first time. During the war against Yugoslavia, the Clinton government insinuated that US companies should cut off traffic from Yugoslavia. I thought at the time it was designed to keep the US propaganda pure. After some hesitant actions back and forth, the operators did not obey.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @11:51PM
Gives new meaning to "Trump's wall".
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @02:10AM
LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
GO FUCK YOURSELF, DISNEY. FUCK YOUR NIGGER LAND AND WORLD.
FUCKING NIGGER CHEWBACCAS GANG RAPING NIGGER JABBA THE HUT
(Score: 2) by progo on Sunday September 20 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
In New Jersey, I accessed the Play Store just now and clicked "Install" on WeChat's page. It asked me which device to install it to, and I aborted. (I don't trust WeChat.) Can anyone confirm the Department of Commerce got the censoring they wanted?
(Score: 2) by progo on Sunday September 20 2020, @07:20PM
https://www.thewrap.com/judge-blocks-trumps-wechat-download-ban/ [thewrap.com]