Senators ask US intel to determine whether TikTok poses national security risks

[mindslight]

This is morosely funny, because the responsible community viewpoint has been tilting at windmills for over a decade about the pitfalls of centralizing webcrapps. Which has been ignored due to a blindspot from just being subservient to US business interests, as so much of US culture is.

But now that China has appeared on the scene with a modicum of influence, everyone flips their shit! For some reason people couldn't just reason abstractly about the implications of centralized control, but instead assumed the controllers will be benevolent up until they became "too foreign".

I don't look forward to the likely results though. I think it's going to be more top-down control from DC to SV (it's the only thing they understand, after all), as opposed to any sort of movement to get back to making secure software rather than untrustable services.

[maximente]

i for one completely trust the US intelligence agencies to make the right decision here. i'm glad that our elected Senate is leveraging the unelected, but best and brightest (or so i am frequently told) members of this country to make these decisions.

this is late-Byzantine empire/Venice type stuff.

[deepVoid]

An app used by young people to post silly videos definitely poses a severe national security risk[1][2].

[1]https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340216

[2]https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/10/24/tiktok-most-popul...

[scohesc]

It is when it's owned by a country who has the specific goal to influence other countries.

It makes it easier when the people in that country who use the app are very easily impressionable children.

[ganoushoreilly]

The argument isn't crazy when you consider the ability to control and manipulate messaging. It's not different than investigating RT or other foreign funded media.