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TikTok Banned on All Canadian Government Mobile Devices (apnews.com) 42

Canada has announced it is banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices, reflecting widening worries from Western officials over the Chinese-owned video sharing app. From a report: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it might be a first step to further action or that it might be it. "I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices," Trudeau said.

"I'm always a fan of giving Canadians the information for them to make the right decisions for them," he added. The European Union's executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure. The EU's action follows similar moves in the U.S., where more than half of the states and Congress have banned TikTok from official government devices.

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TikTok Banned on All Canadian Government Mobile Devices

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  • Why is this "news"? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    Why would anyone want TikTok on a gov't issued device anyhow? Sure, internet detectives would need access to search out internet baddies, but outside of law enforcement, why would say a forest ranger (mounty?) or tax collector need access?

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      It's a video hosting site. If some forest ranger* or tax collector** wants to post a quick "HOW TO" video for public consumption, this could be one place to do it.

      *This is what can happen to you if you feed the bears.

      **This is what can happen to you if you don't feed the tax man.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > If some forest ranger* or tax collector** wants to post a quick "HOW TO" video for public consumption, this could be one place to do it.

        If the plan is to avoid TikTok as much as possible because it's being used for nefarious purposes by foreign gov'ts, why would you want to post a video there? Use YouTube instead (where the Nation of Google snoops you up.)

      • Government issued devices are the same as company devices, people should not be using them as personal devices. If said park ranger wants to post a video on how to not get eaten by a bear he can whip out is own phone and post it not use the device with potential access behind government firewalls. Also there are people and divisions whos job it is to post stuff like that and they will have the devices and access they need to do that, some rando ranger doesn't need to be posting random facts for internet poi
      • It's a video hosting site. If some forest ranger* or tax collector** wants to post a quick "HOW TO" video for public consumption, this could be one place to do it.

        IMHO this is part of the problem. All government agencies have a web presence and government content should be posted there. If that process is inefficient, the answer is not some third-party app, the answer is to review and fix the internal process.

    • First it gets banned from government devices, which seems reasonable enough because the employees/elected officials don't own the devices. Then it might get banned for everyone [cnn.com], because once the ban hammer is out of the bag, every problem starts looking like a nail.

      Of course, the proposed ban of TikTok for everyone relates to the situation in the USA. I'm not familiar enough with Canada's politics to know if they'd follow the USA's lead on this.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        This sounds like the classic Slippery Slope fallacy. Slippery Slopes do happen, but needs specific evidence for sliding itself, not as a default assumption.

        • This sounds like the classic Slippery Slope fallacy.

          It ceases to be a fallacy when the government straight up admits they're already working towards it. Other times it's implied when the politicians have made their positions on the issue at hand abundantly clear.

          More often than not, the slope does turn out to be slippery. Just look at California's gun laws (Hell, I own a semi-automatic pistol which would be illegal to purchase in California), or the states that started out banning gender-affirming care for minors and then moved on to adults [thehill.com].

          In fact, I'd pr

          • It's not a fallacy if it is about something that is real.

            My above comment outlining what is happening with China and Canada (never mind the hostage diplomacy that China has used recently against Canada).
            https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]

          • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            > It ceases to be a fallacy when the government straight up admits they're already working towards it.

            There's millions of words that thousands of people in "the gov't" say. With enough cherry-picking you can produce evidence of just about any trend or intent you wish to paint. One cannot tell from a given snippet if it's a fluke or trend.

            > or the states that started out banning gender-affirming care for minors and then moved on to adults.

            It became a right-wing fad to focus on such, usually driven by F

          • No it is a fallacy because the government can decide what software they want on their devices. And guess what? So can every business. Every business device I have used was locked down as to what software could be installed. This behavior goes back a long time. But to you, those jack booted thugs removed Minesweeper off Windows and would not let me install it again; what about muh rights!
        • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

          by hmmmmmmm ( 6504254 )

          What are you talking about. Plenty of congressmen have already been making bills to ban Tiktok from all US phones, etc. Universities have already banned connections to tiktok servers despite being supposedly the bastion of freedom of speech.

          The US is a mere shell of its former self.

      • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @04:03PM (#63331029) Journal

        You are right, you know nothing of what is going on up here, but I'll fill you in.
        Numerous news stories from main stream media/newspapers are coming out about how Chinese operatives were actively engaged in influencing the last Canadian federal election. There were around 10 Members of Parliament that were elected that they were actively helping; specifically Liberal Party of Canada MPs which is the party of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister. This was anything from running smear campaigns in areas of some cities that are virtually all Chinese, and all done in the Chinese language in areas and localized to try to ensure that that nobody except Chinese expats would see. The Chinese consulate in Vancouver operated a secret CCP police station in Richmond BC, and I understand another in the Toronto area. The people that worked out of there were used to intimidate and influence the Chinese community with things like threatening relatives still in China, to acting as counter protester thugs at pro Hong Kong democracy rallies. There is even evidence that some used to coercion to force recently minted Canadian student originally from China to vote for some of the candidates preferred by China.

        CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the 'Canadian CIA') had brought this up to the government and the PMs office, but the PM is denying this. There are apparently leakers in that org that have been talking to the Globe and Mail (USA comparison: NYT or Wash Post) and telling them what they found out and what they told the government. Other news orgs are digging in now, and it is getting deeper and deeper.

        Also, around 2015 before he became PM, Justin Trudeau said on camera (in response to a question about which foreign government he admired most), "I admire China's basic dictatorship and how they can quickly change policies..."

        So now I think, this is some sort of smoke screen to throw people off and appear like he is tough on China. Trudeau has a long history of outright lying about very important matters and has been cited by the ethics commissioner at least 3 times, for things that shall we say could help influence a politician, but in such a major way it made the news and should have resulted in anyone with any moral compunction to resigning. Of course he is still trying to deny this Chinese election result issue, but it's getting thin. The saddest part is, the opposition parties keep electing party leaders so bad that they make it impossible to vote for them for most of Canada. Here are some links:

        Trudeau Praises China's Basic Dictatorship [youtu.be]

        Look at this search result about Chinese election interference... just way too many to pick from [google.com]

        We Charity Scandal - the only people "WE" paid to speak were Trudeau's immediate family members, then he gave them an untendered $1B (with a B) contract [wikipedia.org]

        Changing laws to let a massive engineering firm escape criminal prosecution for international bribery (and violating international treaties) [nationalpost.com]

        'We know where your parents live': Hong Kong activists say Canadian police helpless against online threats [www.cbc.ca]

        Trudeau is actually pretty dirty in my opinion, but the alternatives are even more incompetent.

        • Very enlightening, thank you. Regarding the CCP police stations and expats, in the Netherlands there's one such station in Rotterdam, to which expats are regularly invited for a talk. China denies operating police offices on Dutch soil.
          • Yeah, that's pretty disgusting. We need to find a way to be done with China until they straighten out. There's 8 billion people in the world. It worked just as well with 6 billion, so if we cut them and Russia out of day to day, it probably wouldn't hurt that much. There are other places to make chips. And if we step up automation we can even bring that back to the west at no added cost. Certainly it would add jobs; jobs making chips that aren't here now.

          • Also, his government is certainly why the USA, Australia, and the UK excluded Canada from a pacific defence group, and why Canada is not trusted so much in the "F I's" intelligence group anymore.

      • by jezwel ( 2451108 )

        First it gets banned from government devices, which seems reasonable enough because the employees/elected officials don't own the devices. Then it might get banned for everyone [cnn.com], because once the ban hammer is out of the bag, every problem starts looking like a nail.

        Of course, the proposed ban of TikTok for everyone relates to the situation in the USA. I'm not familiar enough with Canada's politics to know if they'd follow the USA's lead on this.

        TikTok are already working on a USA specific version of their app in the seemingly likely event that their parent company is banned from supplying to the US:

        https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/1/17/23552716/tiktok-ban-cfius-bytedance

    • Why would anyone want TikTok on a gov't issued device anyhow?

      How else are China, Russia, the USA, the EU, et al. gonna get data from Canadian govt. employees phones? Ha ha! Stopped them there, right?

      On no, wait. They can still by the data from Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, et al., either directly or via dodgy 3rd party brokers.

    • This IS big new because of this:
      2019 Canadian election interference by China [globalnews.ca]

      This is something like Turdeau's 10th scandal and might even be bigger than blackface or his stupid wardrobe choices on a trip to India because it may have changed election results. By banning TikTok he's simply attempting to distract and deflect the issue of him being briefed by CSIS (think of it as Canadian CIA) that Chinese agents were actively interfereing in the Canadian election, but chose not to take any action because it

  • The Canadian Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Remember how the media painted Trump as a paranoid tyrant-wannabe when he tried to have TikTok banned? And now everyone realizes he was right about it. And about everything else, basically. At this point, only complete morons trust the media to not be massively biased and dishonest.

    • Remember how the media painted Trump as a paranoid tyrant-wannabe when he tried to have TikTok banned? And now everyone realizes he was right about it. And about everything else, basically. At this point, only complete morons trust the media to not be massively biased and dishonest.

      The problem with Trump's attempted ban is that his motives weren't credible.

      He was always obsessed with trade deficits, trying to strong arm other countries into one-sided trade deals, and trying to look tough on China. So when he talked about banning TikTok everyone, quite reasonably, viewed that through the lens of him wanting to hurt a Chinese company.

      When your default strategy is to politicize, polarize, and create controversy then every decision you make becomes politicized, polarized, and controversia

    • by Corbets ( 169101 )

      It’s still a ridiculous action for any non-governmental actor to take (e.g. private companies probably don’t need to follow these governmental bans), and probably even for most of government users as well.

      TikTok is being alleged to have data privacy issues in the same way that Facebook or Google do. They are not alleged to have cybersecurity implications. The concern derives from the Chinese government being able to potentially analyze your TikTok viewing habits.

      I get it. For some government wor

  • Uh, let's just stop and back up a second. This shouldn't just be allowed to slide by.

    "I'm always a fan of giving Canadians the information for them to make the right decisions for them,"

    Everything from Bill C-16 forcing compelled speech to the disastrous response against Canadian truckers, I'd love to sit and watch Trudeau doublespeak-shit explain that statement again.

    Shit, he's so good he imported the Streisand Effect and turned Jordan Peterson into a God by trying to destroy him. Hell of a bullshit brag about Canadians making decisions while you were busy dismantling freedom of choice.

    Let me grab my po

    • >the disastrous response against Canadian truckers

      You mean the lame, barely mentally competent people who were stirred up and funded by a handful of wealthy right-wingers from Canada and the US who were allowed to occupy the capital for an embarrassingly long time because they were mostly harmless before everyone had enough and the PM took steps to shut them down?

      The ones who were waving Nazi flags and tried to burn down an apartment building?

      The disastrous response was in not arresting the wingnuts as s

      • No, I mean the continued harassment towards protestors with not just terminating employment, but ostracizing them from public services. Go ahead. Go home to the paycheck-to-paycheck family and tell them again how a frozen bank account is no big deal. Tell the small business owner kept alive by trucking filing bankruptcy that too.

        Oh, and way to entirely dance around my main fucking point. Go defend Trudeaus doublepseak. Justify that bullshit brag about him always being a "fan" of providing decision-maki

        • "Protestors" don't deface monuments and commit arson.

          At best they were mentally ill people manipulated for political purposes. At worst they were a bunch of assholes who should be excluded from society.

          Damn right they're ostracized, they earned it. Some want the right to wander around spreading disease, others were nazis, some were both. None of them belong in civilization.

  • by RMH101 ( 636144 ) on Wednesday March 01, 2023 @07:52AM (#63332471)
    gov devices should be managed: just like any normal company, why aren't they applying mobile device management policies to control what's installed on them?

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson

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