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TikTok Plans To Add 10,000 Jobs in US as Trump Admin Considers Banning It (cnn.com) 75

Posted by msmash from the for-what-it-is-worth dept.
TikTok said Tuesday that it plans to create 10,000 jobs in the United States over the next three years, a substantial increase from the roughly 1,400 employees it currently has in the country. From a report: The announcement comes as the company faces mounting criticism over its handling of user data and its ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance. "These are good-paying jobs that will help us continue to build a fun and safe experience and protect our community's privacy," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNN on Tuesday. TikTok said it has already tripled its US workforce this year, and the new jobs will be based in California, Texas, Florida and New York -- focusing on areas including sales, content moderation, engineering and customer support. The jobs announcement is part of a wider game of defense that TikTok has been playing to meet allegations by policymakers that TikTok poses a national security risk. The move also appears to follow a tried and true playbook for tech companies: when under fire, play up the job creation potential. Lawmakers including Sens. Chuck Schumer, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley worry the company's user data could ultimately find its way to the Chinese government.
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TikTok Plans To Add 10,000 Jobs in US as Trump Admin Considers Banning It More

TikTok Plans To Add 10,000 Jobs in US as Trump Admin Considers Banning It

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  • You had one job... (Score:3)

    by bobthesungeek76036 ( 2697689 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @08:47PM (#60317035)

    TikTok Plans To Odd 10,000 Jobs...

  • Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

  • Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @09:00PM (#60317073)
    10,000 jobs doing what???

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Spying.

    • Obviously, they're just doing odd jobs...

    • Twerking hard or hardly twerking.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @10:53PM (#60317415)
      They would never have created 10,000 jobs. They will just use this as propaganda when TikTok gets banned "Your government has just thrown away 10,000 potential jobs!"

    • What do the current 1400 people do?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Experimenting with "artificial intelligence", of course.

      • Good news is they aren't building a self-driving car. That's how your know when a Web company is doomed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Advertising and brand management. TikTok is the ideal platform for ads, the entire thing is 10 second videos and people don't even bother skipping them because by the time they realize it's not worth watching it's almost over anyway.

      It's also great protection from Trump. If he tries to ban TikTok now he will be accused of destroying 10,000 jobs.

      • It's also great protection from Trump. If he tries to ban TikTok now he will be accused of destroying 10,000 jobs.

        Those 10,000 jobs don't even exist, and if they did, who cares? Certainly not T.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thomn8r ( 635504 )

      10,000 jobs doing what???

      Exactly. They know that Trump would pounce on the opportunity to claim he's created a single job. They don't even actually have to create the jobs - just keep the charade going until he tweets about it, and then it will be forgotten. Prior art: see what happened with Carrier

    • Exactly my question. Are they planning to open up more production lines or go to three shifts a day or something?
  • Headlines are hard. or perhaps herd. hord? Now I am reminded of gnu hurd.

  • 10,000 007s cried out in pain and then went silent (Score:3)

    by Joviex ( 976416 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @09:05PM (#60317087)
    And no Boffins were harmed.

  • It's not about TikTok (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @09:15PM (#60317109)

    It's time to stop looking at this as an issue with one particular or another. This issue impacts any and all companies connected to China. Your root level access is useless against a court order. The same thing applies in China. The manufacturer and developers themselves have their own hardcoded root level access to their products. The issue is actually quite simple, any Chinese company or citizen is bound by Chinese law to fully assist the Chinese government with all espionage efforts.

    This is a matter of Chinese law and it is bounds anyone with a connection to China no matter where they are in the world. It does not matter where the company or citizen is located. If there is a connection to China, they can and will be forced to cooperate with any and all requests for access to data of interest.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/0... [cnbc.com]
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]

    From a technical perspective the company would hand over design schematics or their own keys to the CCP. This means that the CCP has access to customer data as if they were the company itself. Being China there are no checks and balances such as warrants and your not going to challenge this in a court of law. Once the CCP has an interest they can and will exploit any access they can to gain even more access.

    Most access for most products will simply use manufacturer hard coded access such as private keys. If you have any Chinese app or hardware, assume that the CCP has any and all data that passes through that device or network. You would be a fool to do otherwise.

    If your working on something like a rack mount router than you have bigger issues. Chinese manufacturers can simply install hard coded access using a range of options. This access doesn't have to use a traditional access method such as a handshake, it could be as simple as noise on the line in a predefined pattern or special malformed packet that activates hidden hardcoded functionality. This model means that Chinese manufacturers can offer up all the hardware to independent labs that someone wants and it will all come up clean. Your testing in a lab is worthless.

    You cannot do anything about the Chinese government or law. All Chinese hardware and software products are owned by the CCP and cannot be trusted. There is literally no compensating control that can make their products trustworthy at any level or resolve this issue.

    • I don't care who has my data- it is all up for sale at the right price. I want the right to purge it, and get $1000 or so per incident when I find its not Google sold its election voter intent data to a research firm. Ok they say its stopped, but the directors of the research collation firms are still in business, selling to those who have cash. They are many ways to exfiltrate data... I prefer EU data protection , plus some large fines. Now the Chinese may be in trouble if they cannot satisfy EU law. US f

  • Economic Imperialism (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frank Burly ( 4247955 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @09:18PM (#60317123)

    It is interesting how China has managed to leverage the size of their domestic market to entice American tech firms to give up their intellectual property rights, and America entertainment and sports to give up their right to free speech. Now they are trying to create public support in America for their own companies by promising jobs. Maybe they can hire some of the Wisconsinites who didn't get one of those Foxcon jobs.

    I wonder if this is how all those African countries feel.

    • Maybe they can hire some of the Wisconsinites who didn't get one of those Foxcon jobs.

      Foxconn is not a Chinese company.

      China had nothing to do with the promises made to Wisconsin.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cylix ( 55374 )

        Depends on who you ask.

        China seems set on Taiwan getting folded into the mainland.

        • China seems set on Taiwan getting folded into the mainland.

          Perhaps. But in the meantime, the CCP has no control over Taiwanese corporate relations with Wisconsin.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      US sports was censoring and pandering to conservative Americans long before it added Chinese interests. Remember when Kaepernick was punished for taking the knee, something they recently apologised for?

      • Playing to your base is something most people do. The vast base of football is more conservative. But taking a knee is not about conservative vs liberal. Its saying fuck-you-america while i make millions pissing in your Cheerios. The vast majority of vets see themselves as more conservative than liberal at least on issues of patriotism. Disrespecting the national anthem, or burning a flag is like saying their sacrifice means nothing, all the while pissing in your Cheerios. So people complained. A LOT of peo

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Thing is they took the knee and it didn't fix anything, so then you got protests and now the same people are trying to ignore those as well. When you fight so hard against civil rights you can't really expect the victims to care much about your feelings, you are a lost cause to them.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 )

            taking a knee to protest police brutality is like slapping your hairdresser to protest over-prescribing ADHD medication. The "police" are not a federal entity, nor does the anthem in any way represent the police. The Anthem is the poem titled "The Defense of Fort McHenry" written by Francis Scott Key, put to music. Its the lyrical telling of the bombardment of a US town, whereby men, women, and children risked life and liberty to ensure that the flag on their rampart stayed standing as a sign of no surrende

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              You correctly identify that taking the knee was not protesting the anthem, and then go on about how it's wrong to protest the anthem.

  • And they all will be h1b visa entrants from the Communist party of China. Oh boy. Creating jobs is more important than your freedom. Welcome to Generation Zero. Or is it is Generation DUMB!
  • Oh you mean they did not even create jobs....

  • Espionage Pay to Play Scheme (Score:5, Interesting)

    by atxlakeshore ( 5429432 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @10:31PM (#60317345)
    Tik Tok has just put a price tag on the value of their espionage operation.

    This is a foreign corporation that has publicly stated it is willing to buy access despite intelligence and military warnings from multiple countries about China leveraging Tik Tok for public opinion shaping and data collection. China has already gathered dick pics from every gay/closeted politician and diplomat in the west by purchasing Grindr. When the U.S. government's Committee on Foreign Investment finally intervened a few (years too late), Grindr's owners simply funded a shell investment firm in the US to 'buy' the app so that they complied with the letter of the CFIUS order. Then, to troll the U.S. government further, the 'new' owner applied for a $1 - $2 million small business loan funded by the Coronavirus relief package. Source: https://www.metro.us/exclusive... [metro.us]

    Some analysis has indicated China may own roughly a third of the global personal VPN market through shell corporations. Source: https://www.computerweekly.com... [computerweekly.com]

    Now watch to see who in U.S. government decides to support Tik Tok's access. Those who do step forward to approve will go well beyond 'collusion'. California's governor and delegation seem to be the weakest link. Hopefully I'm wrong about that, but they're extremely cozy with China.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      By that logic we should shut down Facebook and Twitter. Russia uses them to attack our democratic processes and influence our populations. It looks like they have actually managed to destroy the UK without launching a single missile, just with propaganda and influence.

      • There's no equivalence. In one instance you have companies that have root access that have used it for the purposes of espionage, and the gay thing maybe blackmail? Although if you're dumb enough to use dick pics... Very differently, Facebook, etc., you have normal user accounts saying stuff and things, but not running spy ops, at least not beyond seeing who twats what.

  • Someone needs to proof read these headlines.

  • Generating stupid dance video clips maybe? Or possibly tiktok can open their office next to the FoxCONn factory that created all those jobs too.

  • Should that be the only metrics or do we need to look at harms and benefits of the product?

  • ... they can just log in again.

    Or log in with a new name. Unless the admin bans by IP address and reconnecting the router is not an option. Though in any case, a VPN or zombie proxy will do the job.

    If it is worth it. Their admin seems to have configured very short ban times, which often seem to run out before the user even was actually logged out He also seems open to eog bribery.

  • TikTok is just trying to put a tag on the worth of their intelligence operation [slashdot.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Yup, it's a blatant bribe. If you were still on the fence for any reason about their guilt, look no more.

  • Stop pissing about ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @04:12AM (#60317913)
    Tik Tok should just rent a few floors in a couple of dozen Trump hotels for the next two years, paid up front and get it over with.
  • 10,000 people to protect user privacy ? Right. 0 seems a lot more private.
  • They can use all the empty space at the Wisconsin Foxconn site for offices!
  • Foxconn, Jack Ma, SoftBank and so on. Cop out those conditions the projections based on changed. No shit. Same as me winning the lottery and doing lots of altruistic stuff. Anyway if TiKTok can create even a fraction then more than welcome just no ridiculous strings attached like no Pooh bear memes and the like.

  • GUILTY!!! Because they can, with a bribe attempt.

    In what world would any foreign social media be safe for security, let alone a hostile foreign dictatorship which has a slave population and engages in genocide of its own people. Hell, I consider our DOMESTIC social media companies a security risk.

  • The arrogance being that a country of 300 million could change the culture of a country of 1300 million across an ocean of distance, a language barrier, and in the face of a hostile government uninterested in liberalization. And now we've got a crap ton of nominally private businesses doing nominally innocuous things interspersed with a few hostile actors and few mechanisms to tell them apart. So well be chasing phantoms for the next twenty or thirty years.
  • Thats A LOT of people for just an app...

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