TikTok seemed to run off of Alibaba Cloud (from what I read which may be wrong) so it's an interesting move to buy Cloud Services from Google. I probably read this as a way of strengthening the case that they're an "American" software company since they run on the same infrastructure as any SV startup.
This deal was signed in May 2019, before the questions about Chinese control over TikTok had really come to the forefront. There's a decent chance that it's simply about Google giving TikTok a better deal, or other infrastructural features like global availability.
Pretty sure in 2019 if [Chinese company] offered to pay Google a bunch of money for cloud services, Google would take it. Unlike in China, large US corporations don't act as an extension of the government, so China being a rival superpower to the US wouldn't be terribly relevant. Not that the US in general avoids trading with China either.
justicezyx isn't saying Google would turn down a Chinese company's business. justicezyx is saying a Chinese company cannot become popular among US consumers. I don't exactly agree with that argument, but we should at least understand what the argument is.
I agree Chinese companies are basically branches of government if that's what you are saying however I also think the relationship between corporate USA and the federal government is a lot closer than most people realise.
Huawei (a Chinese company) was paying Google a bunch of money in 2019 until they were banned by the government. You may argue that this was justified for national security reasons, but the decision was ultimately up to the whims of the president, and not subject to any sort of actual process or oversight by elected officials.
The US government and corporations are basically one and the same. The USG will extend deals that favor corporations. China is an "enemy" to the extent that it will harm the profitability and flexibility of US corporations or the military empire that supports US market dominance.
To think that a country half a world away would factor into calculations in any other way is a misunderstanding of great power politics. There is no military threat to anything a normal person would consider domestic interests.
> The US government and corporations are basically one and the same.
Not really. Corporations and the government fight about all kinds of stuff, like encryption, and handing over private information about their users. Companies try to buy influence through lobbying, sure, but that's a far cry from 'basically one and the same'.
This is a mere tactical disagreement. The government and the security state are extensively intertwined to an extent that the place where one begins and the other ends is hard to distangle given the revolving door of employees and defense contracts.
The extent to which the buisness community as a whole has the ear of the government vs the people is evident given the extremely large disagreements between public opinion polls and implemented policy. If corporations want something, they don't always get it, but if the people want something and corps disagree the people almost never get it.
Study:
Gilens and Page. "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens". American Political Science Association. 2014. pgs. 564-581.
What's causing it is clear: the community is divided and people have different opinions. This has been the case for a long time, so it's no sudden inrush. There's natural fluctuation, so it sometimes can feel that way.
I posted about this a lot in the last couple of days. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835613 and the subthread underneath it (which you'll have to uncollapse). You can find other explanations at:
The evidence is extremely clear, by the way. If we'd found any undue influence, we'd say so, but the private data confirms what's already clear from the public record (if you look at other users' commenting histories): people just disagree. The voting patterns don't show anything that the commenting patterns don't.
Hmm interesting. These other people not only seem to disagree but seem to rely on different facts entirely. Perhaps there’s ongoing external disinformation campaigns and many are simply misinformed.
Regardless of whether accusations of spying are true, I think these moves (including pulling out of Hong Kong) will do nothing. The politicians and a large part of the public have already decided Tiktok is guilty, with no way to prove innocence. A ban is just a matter of time.
According to Chinese law, the government can quietly demand any information they want on anyone. A warrant in China? Hah.
All they have to do is say "Give us the data stored on GCP host" and TikTok is legally obligated to comply.
To be fair, it's not much different than in the United States unless the data belongs to a US citizen, which is why many companies are attempting to domicile cloud data in their own country.
The Chinese National Intelligence Law applies to any and every company operating in China right now, including Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, etc., not just TikTok.
Ironically enough, Google is one of the few major tech companies that can't be compelled to hand over information to China.
There is some difference though. You can turn off iCloud and then device lock an Apple phone and make it rather secure. No such option exists for an Android phone. I agree with your general idea though, but I want to nuance. Apple gets too much credit for their privacy efforts, and Google gets too little shit.
Apples efforts only look good compared to Amazon, Google and Microsoft, but that's because they are so bad.
Android does not have an iCloud equivalent, so naturally Android is not going to have a setting to disable sharing cloud data with the Chinese government. Google Drive doesn't work in China because Google isn't kowtowing the way Apple is.
Just a small correction, Facebook is also not in China, IIRC.
It lead to some truly fantastic moments with Zuck grandstanding while every other company was being bashed for bowing down to China last year. Truly bizarro world.
The subsidiaries of these companies are subject to the intelligence law and whatever data these subsidiaries owns. If apple keeps US data away from the apple subsidiary in China then Apple is physically impossible to hand the data to Chinese government
Apple keeps data in China. [1] They specifically made the move because of China's National Intelligence Law. [2]
>To comply with the law, for instance, Apple announced that it would transfer the operation of iCloud in Mainland China to a government-sponsored data company named Guizhou-Cloud Big Data.
Tiktok' parent is bytedance is incorporated in Cayman islands. It has a US and a Chinese subsidiary. Chinese subsidiary runs douyin is subjected to the intelligence law. The US subsidiary runs tiktok and is managed by US employees and is not subject to the same law. The intelligence law would be problematic if bytedance is incorporated in China but it's not. The data and the code for tiktok is stored in the US and Chinese subsidiary cannot view that data.
>The intelligence law would be problematic if bytedance is incorporated in China but it's not. The data and the code for tiktok is stored in the US and Chinese subsidiary cannot view that data.
But the issue is that bytedance is still physically located in China, and is probably subject to CCP pressure. eg. "it'd be a real shame if your beijing offices were shut down because of fire code violations". Or they go straight to the CEO and demand that they backdoor their US servers or he gets sent to the gulag. According to wikipedia, the CEO of TikTok reports directly to the CEO of Zhang Yiming, so there isn't really separation in terms of control.
>The US subsidiary runs tiktok and is managed by US employees and is not subject to the same law.
Which leaves us with the question as to whether or not the government cares what the law says or whether they would back down if employees in China said they can't easily hand over foreign data.
I was thinking about the volume of the data and the type. But yeah they probably could easily obfuscate it. Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy it at that rate though? Am I missing something?
Unlike Zoom which is an American company (and everyone feels like they need to pull an Andrew Yang and try extra hard to prove their American-ness for some reason), unless I'm mistaken I don't think TikTok really made any effort to "appear" "American". ByteDance might have downplayed their Chinese-ness and worked more than typical Chinese companies to cater to American audiences (like hiring Disney CEO in the same way Huawei has an America CSO), but I don't think they're making the case that they're an "American" company.
I'm not sure I understand your reference to Andrew Yang. Every presidential candidate I've seen in the late 20th and 21st century has gone overboard in showing their American-ness. What makes Andrew Yang stand out?
In that he specifically called out Asians to out-american others to prove their Americanness. For illustration picture Obama calling on African Americans to do more to prove that they're Americans.
Why would it matter if it's an American or Chinese company? It's a sad world where we need to decide about company, product, person, idea, book or whatever based on their perceived country, colour, race, ideology, ...
"I really think the act of making and doing things is the salvation of our crumbling society. It has to be as someone commented over lunch -- creation is the opposite of destruction."
I remember our high school history teacher taking us to an aviation museum in Toronto. They had a section of the plane out on display and it was a beautiful piece of work.
But I'll never forget the way the tour guide described the story of the arrow and the hurt in his voice as he recanted the decision to scrap the plane.
For that generation of Canadian aviation geeks, it was truly a gut punch.
There's currently a full-size Arrow replica on display in Toronto, at the Canadian Air and Space Museum. I haven't gotten a chance to go there yet, but the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa currently has an original nose section on display, which I believe is the largest surviving piece. I can attest to the later being a very good aviation museum all around; I recommend it to anybody who's interested in that sort of thing. The nearby Diefenbunker museum is also very cool if you're interested in cold war stuff.
I have a personal theory that Reddit is a great source of startup ideas. There are many communities that have special behaviours that can be a source of inspiration for such ideas. A good example is /r/borrow where you can take a loan from another person in the community. But targeting niche subreddits is a very good strategy :)
I've noticed it makes sign ups super easy which is great if you're building a new service and want to get users fast.
But what I wrestled with is the verification of the user on the server side after they've signed up (Apple suggests doing a daily verification of each user that uses Sign in with Apple) and also the annoyance of setting up trusted domains to be able to email your users.
Overall, it's great for users and for privacy but gosh it's a nightmare to setup for developers. Hopefully, Apple can somehow make it more seamless for developers in the future.
His argument is to reduce mobility in the short term to combat the uncertainty and unknowns associated with the Coronavirus. The R0 (reproductive ratio) of the virus is increasing and it’ll probably take longer to know how much havoc it’ll reap.
It’s unclear to what level the paper is referring (reduce flights on a global level, between cities in China or people leaving areas where the contagion started)
So this is something a lot of us have struggled with and I think it happens when your goals aren't aligned with your work.
So what are your goals right now out of work? What is your workview and your lifeview. Find the intersection between those to get a good idea of what you want to accomplish in your life.
After coming up with those, try and tabulate the things you do at work where you have the most energy and the stuff you do at work that engages you the most. Hopefully, there are things in that list that give you some energy or engagement. If there is, do more of that and tell your manager to help you move towards doing more of that work. If there isn't, ask yourself what you want to learn. If you can't learn that on your current team, switch to a position/team where you can learn that. If your company can't provide you with those opportunities, then it might be time to find something new.
Startups are super rewarding but there are many unknowns and you have to do a lot of vetting to find the right ones. Even then, you could be wrong. If your goal is to start a company, then it might be the right route to go.
TLDR: Try and understand your goals in life and what you enjoy doing day to day before jumping ship to a startup. Your safety net will allow you to do that :)
I don't know why your comment is being downvoted. This is the usually the root of work frustrations I have seen people have (including in startups).
If your goal is to achieve public acclaim And recognition, you will do things differently vs. say a goal of work on intellectually stimulating things vs. say controlling the decisions in a company. I have a colleague who once got a kick out being the one to sign the cheques of major celebrities who endorse our brands and you'll have a different kind of career path if that's your goal vs. say the kicks a financial trader gets.
Problems usually happen with job satisfaction when either goals aren't clear or you're optimizing towards conflicting goals.
If anything, I think there's a lot of value for having people broadcasting on a community level.
In the era of the internet and hyper-connectivity, we've lost that sense of community and having local broadcasters that don't work for companies and don't have corporate agendas is a step towards restoring it.
The available local broadcast frequencies just need to be shared by people in the community and there has to be a strong sense of accountability for mess ups
