Trudeau government bans TikTok from operating in Canada

Instead of the laser focus on TikTok as a threat, it would be better for the US and Canada to have real data protection laws that would apply equally to TikTok, Meta, Google, Apple, and X. What the EU has done is far from perfect but it bans the worst practices. The Chinese can buy all of the information they want on Americans and Canadians from ad brokers, who will happily sell them everything they need to track individuals' locations.

Perhaps the way to get anti-regulation politicians on board with this is for someone to do what was done to Robert Bork and legally disclose lots of personal info on members of Congress/Parliament, obtained from data brokers and de-anonymized.

> "Most people can say, 'Why is it a big deal for a teenager now to have their data [on TikTok]?' Well in five years, in 10 years, that teenager will be a young adult, will be engaged in different activities around the world,"

I’m technically Gen-Z (but just barely) and this is something that really worries me. It’s become increasingly normal in recent times to share absolutely everything online but I’ve got a pretty grim feeling that this isn’t gonna end well. People don’t realize that the AI’s being trained on your data today will act as an internet history that you can never delete.

To be clear, they're not banning the app, they're banning ByteDance from having offices in Canada

I believe there is a legal concept at play here. If a company has an office - a physical presence - within the country, then it has what is called “mind and management” in the country. The mind and management doctrine gives the company certain rights within Canada that presumably the security folks don’t want them to have.

The public will probably never find out the scope of ByteDance’s operations in Canada for the Chinese government, but if it follows the same arc as other Chinese operations in Canada, I expect it is far more pervasive and frightening than one might expect. This isn’t about the app. This is about the offices.

If there are actual "national security concerns", they should rule that TikTok data of Canadian citizens needs to be stored within Canadian borders and can only be accessed by Canadian employees. This ban (removing the company's presence from the country while keeping the app active) ensures the exact opposite.

Looking forward to Ireland following suit, and then logically following through and also banning Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Facebook, Pornhub, Netflix, Disney, Spotify, etc.

For too long these foreign companies have been "shaping public opinion" - to quote a sibling comment here, who I think accurately sums up at least some of the reasoning behind this kind of development.

In case there's some ambiguity here - I am being sarcastic. I hope Ireland doesn't do that. I have strong issues with some of the above platforms and companies, but governments getting involved like this is nothing to be cheered.

This kills a bunch of software engineering jobs in Vancouver for like what?

Now the company can continue to operate. Canada has no hold on them. Canadian jobs lost. What is the gain?

This is quite possibly the stupidest ban I've ever heard.

They should insist that the data doesn't leave their borders; this is the opposite of a ban. They're insisting on having all their user data leave.

Government being stupid. Imagine that.

I have nothing but disdain for TikTok and the CCP but this seems like a very misguided approach.

Being open and willing to accept foreign media (even when it's of low quality or propagandistic) is an advantage of genuinely open societies.

Bad speech can be countered with more speech, and media from western countries can easily be seen on VPNs in countries with heavy censorship. Bans only play to more repressive societies who can claim equivalence.

A better approach is to monitor the activity and narratives promoted and counter them. Chinese propaganda is usually ham handed and low quality anyway.

Not going to lie, I find it amusing the double standard where we all know through multiple whistleblowers and courts that the US government spies on virtually every person on this planet (including world leaders like Angela Merkel) yet it's such a concern that the Chinese government allegedly spies on random Joes dancing in their bedroom.

As an European those double standards and American exceptionalism (the idea that common laws and rules do not apply to US) will never cease to bother and annoy me.

This might be related to CANCON rules. If TikTok can’t have Canadian offices then they can’t qualify for Canadian content.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_content

Everybody needs to read Manufacturing Consent [1].

A big part of that is how the media is used to push a particular narrative. Every US tech company plays ball with the US government and moves in lockstep with US foreign policy.

The threat of Tiktok (to Western governments) is that allows users to see things that other platforms bury, downrank, outright block or otherwise censor.

A big example of this was the train derailment in East Palestine, OH [2] last year. I reember for at least a week seeing things about the chemical spill, the evacuations and the smoke from the burn (which was visible from space) and I saw absolutely nothing on mainstream media.

You see this in the last year where what's happening on the Middle East manages to get out on Tiktok in a way it really doesn't on IG, Youtube or Facebook [3]. Information simply cannot be tolerated to move as freely as this, hence the scare campaign about Chinese control of Tiktok.

That's why you don't see any effort to, say, have a data protection regime. The goal is to control what you're allowed to see.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

[2]: https://www.wired.com/story/east-palestine-ohio-train-derail...

[3]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

Canadian here. Disappointed by the lack of transparency. First, no corporation should be unilaterally shut down without a clear explanation provided, including facts & evidence (which would normally come to light during due process).

Second, if the company is as dangerous as they say, they are doing a huge disservice to citizens by withholding that information and handicapping our ability to make an informed choice about using the app.

Pushing their operations out of Canada also reduces their accountability footprint to subsequent lawsuits or legislation.

This is a weird half-measure and I have trouble making sense of it.

> Citing national security concerns, the federal government has ordered TikTok to shutter its Canadian operations — but [Canadian] users will still be able to access the popular video app.

> "It is important for Canadians to adopt good cyber security practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country's laws apply."

I am sure that Canadians will totally do this.

TikTok does to the Canadian people what the rulers of Canada do to its people. That's why the govs are mad at TikTok: they can't ban its methods, for it's the same methods the govs use to fool their peoples. TikTok simply identifies your fears, likes and dislikes, and plays on them. It can divide the populace into two sample groups and run an A/B test on them.

However that's not the endgame. I believe the current phase is simply gathering data and creating personal profiles accurate enough to imitate humans. With a bit of progress in AI those imitations will be used to create videos on the fly, tailored to each user. Those videos won't be limited by laws of physics or common sense, and this will give them an impressive insidious power.

“Bans ByteDance” might be better wording.

Not a single mention of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...

Interesting timing on that one...

"Your starting date is April 24, 2024 so that means that 270 days later would be January 19, 2025."

Anything to read into the timing?

Where is China …which could demand access to the data of TikTok's U.S. consumers through Chinese national security laws… different to the USA in that context?

If you're wondering how bad the situation is regarding young men perception of reality, take a look at genz reddit and at the hottest post of SubredditDrama (the one that talks about genz reddit). On one hand, we should do something at a societal level to prevent young guys go into the red pill rabbit hole. On the other hand, TikTok being banned is a big deal, and I can't say whether it will pay off or not, but sure as hell I hope it does

Edit

On a second read (it's been a long day) they're closing offices but not banning the app, my comment is worthless. But feel free to check out the genz subreddit and get appalled but what's being said there

Title should be "Canadian government": it doesn't matter who is in which seat, if the government does something, that's the government doing something..

2dough needed legislative click bait to get it he sanctioned a tiny sub entity of ticktock,rather than say the Canadians protesting his natzi loving ass it worked,sort off kind of like tumpy getting ellected the day before,which was only out of frustration from not bieng able to vote for Kim Dong Bong,or putin the actual sentiment,as demonsrtated on capitol hill's in a country near you is too rip the whole mess out and start over

> "in wake of national security review of popular social media app"

Where is the outrage then?

It's prudent for any country to ban products that are not legal in the country that controls their design and production.

TikTok is blocked in China because it's deemed to be harmful to their citizens.

This seems like political theatre. Recently, Trudeau claimed that he has direct evidence against members of the opposition party engaged in "foreign interference" with China[1] There are also allegations by others that members of his own party have also been implicated. And yet he refuses to release the names, or elaborate on any of these allegations for the public.

Essentially, he's using China to distract from his own policy failings at home.

[1] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-says-he-has-list-of-...

So is Tucows stuck paying the rest of the lease?

step.1 Close their branch offices. step.2, So the app would stores Canadians' information abroad. step,3 Banned app,end.

They should do Xitter and Reddit next.

From the article:

"I'm not at liberty to go into much detail, but I know Canadians would understand when you're saying the government of Canada is taking measures to protect national security, that's serious."

In other words, Canadian government saying, "Just trust us, bro".

Ban Trudeau

If they only had remote workers this wouldn't be a big deal. Shame on you tiktok for making everyone return to the office.

As a Canadian I’m just left wondering what scandal the Liberals are trying to cover up now.

should ban X too - it’s a rats nest of disinformation bots and brainwashed idiots.

Why all the handwringing about TikTok, but not about X?

Nobody seems to talk about the whale in the room which is the concept of short videos, aka digital crack cocaine and the ad business model, aka good old brain washing.

People worry about 'data exfiltration', but that is exactly what these products are - collect data about the users and sell it to advertisers.

Where the servers are located is of very little consequence in my opinion.

Yeah, I mind that 'my data' (whatever that might be) is stored on a communist hard drive and there's a brain washed data scientist running ideological queries through it.. The issue is not the ideology, but the fact that someone is running queries through my data collected while I'm using the digital drug to later manipulate me.

Hell yeah, screw TikTok and the horse it rode in on.

(Canadian founder in unrelated domain)

The CIA controls TikTok's censorship. Trudeau is doing this since Trump may change the US gov's censorship to no longer push a left agenda. Then political right Canadians that get censored in 2024 won't get censored in 2025 and beyond.

Therefore, surprise, surprise, Trudeau censors it now the day after the US election.

Yes, this data is for American and Canadian companies to collect and sell!

The Canadian government needs to gain control over the internet before the internet outcompetes the Canadian government...But every effort to impose totalitarianism will be mocked, resisted, & rejected. The Canadian government is cooked.

Same goes for the U.S, if citizens are banned from using an app you don't live in a democracy.

social media platforms are an arm of state. as much as i distrust this government and its motives, there is every reason to treat the company as a front for CCP policy.

that said, banning their operations appears to remove any legal leverage the govt might have with the company while still dealing with the app being installed everywhere, which seems clumsy. with less than a year left in office the govt probably doesn't have any remaining runway for strategy, so this may just be posturing. there are a lot of ways to look at it.

cynically I might speculate there could be a domestic surveillance/interception rationale for making them close their operations, as the app is a full communications platform and if it backhauls to a domestic regional data centre, the federal agencies need warrants to do interception and would have to give their monitoring tech to the chinese company on their premises, whereas if the traffic is international, they can do mass interception using their existing mandates.

The problem with this type of banning is that from the Chinese perspective it is equivalent to slapping on tariffs for cars. It sends a signal to them that Western countries can't compete on a fair playing ground.

Now I am not dismissing they are using algorithm to manipulate what users see, but doesn't our social networks do the same thing? Yes, China also bans our social networks. But I can't help but see we are no better.