China Archives - Desk Chair Analysts

What is time? No, really! Can someone explain it to me?! It appears that Blizzard (a subsidiary of Microsoft) and NetEase have come back together. This means Chinese Overwatch players can see how much crap they’ve been missing. I feel like it’s been longer than its been, though.

On Tuesday, Blizzard announced that its games were making a return to China this summer. The games were gone for nearly a year and a half when negotiations between Activision Blizzard and NetEase broke down in January 2023. Now Microsoft has stepped in to mend the fence between all companies involved.

Returning Blizzard’s legendary games to players in China while exploring ways to bring more new titles to Xbox demonstrates our commitment to bringing more games to more players around the world.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer

While nothing specific was shared, this quote hints at more than just Blizzard games will be heading to China in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Game Pass product specifically for the country or at least bring game streaming.

Only time will tell.

Source: IGN

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House bill doesn’t protect your data, just restricts the selling of it

MajorLinux — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 19:49:30 +0000

Time and time again, people have been calling on their elected officials to do more to protect their online data. And, with each call, it falls on deaf ears as these politicians continue to make money from people who profit on said data. Then, out of nowhere, comes a popular app that collects little data and draws Americans from American made apps. Fear campaigns insue, politicians become more racist than usual, and bills become introduced. One of those bills just passed through the US House of Representatives with no pushback.

Let’s talk about House Bill 7520

This bill is known as The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act. This bill was introduced to prohibit the selling of an American citizen’s data to America’s enemies, namely Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.

I almost feel like I’ve seen these names before. In fact, I have. These are the same countries that were named in the recently House-passed TikTok ban (but don’t tell anyone it’s a ban). This one is dealing with a bit of pushback as some folks don’t want to see it go through for a myriad of reasons.

However, HR 7520 saw none of that. All 414 members of the House voted to pass this bill. And that’s rare. The House had 95 votes at the time of writing this and they’ve only unanimously agreed 5 times.

But let’s not go out celebrating yet. Remember that the bill only restricts who the data can be sold to. This doesn’t stop data brokers from collecting all the data and selling it to only God knows who. This means that anyone from a country we do business with could totally flip the data to people we don’t.

Again, the best method to protect our data in the US would be to stop the collection of the data in the first place. But our elected officials will never listen to us.

I mean, we’re six months into arming a country to ethnically cleanse another. They weren’t listening to begin with.

Source: The Verge

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DOJ urging the sale of TikTok instead of ban

MajorLinux — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:41:35 +0000

This TikTok ban nonsense is starting to get out of hand. As the US government fears the Chinese boogeyman is stealing all of our data, it appears nobody has really thought of a better solution. People like Steve Mnuchin and Bobby Kotick have put their hats in the ring to buy TikTok to save it from being banned. And it appears the DOJ has a keen interest in seeing it stay around in US hands.

DOJ convincing Senators to back bill

According to Bloomberg, it appears that the Department of Justice is having some very hush-hush meetings with US Senators. You see, while the US House of Representatives have passed the bill overwhelmingly, it doesn’t seem the Senate will. The DOJ is trying to convince Senators to pass the legislation that would force TikTok’s divestment from ByteDance instead of an outright ban.

The concern about this bill from the US side of things is that six months (the amount of time given to TikTok should the bill pass) is too short a time to find an owner and do all the regulatory things.

Meanwhile, ByteDance has said that it will not be forced into a sale. In the app, TikTok has urged users to call representatives and share good stories about the app. It has also talked up the privacy angle that keeps being brought up. Not only ByteDance, but many other publications note that TikTok does not collect much information. It maintains that the information collected “is routinely collected by companies in order to provide access to online services.”

Unlike some of its competitors, TikTok does not require users to disclose their real names, does not ask users about their employment or relationship status, and does not request that U.S. users disclose their precise geolocation information.”
statement from ByteDance via Bloomberg

As many people have been saying long before TikTok became a thing, nationwide data privacy laws need to be made to protect users’ data. However, the US government has no interest in doing that because it wants your data. The fact that the DOJ has now gotten involved further solidifies the argument. The DOJ and law enforcement in general has always wanted to get at your data. They continuously fight against your right to have encrypted devices to protect yourself and your privacy.

When they tell you who they are, believe them.

Source: 9to5Mac

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Bobby Kotick interested in buying TikTok

MajorLinux — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 22:03:32 +0000

Time is running out for TikTok. One figure stands out to try and save the social media app from oblivion. That man…is Bobby Kotick!

Yeah, not who I want, either.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Kotick has been floating the idea of buying the company to Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. They were at a dinner last week when it was brought up with Zhang Yiming, the Executive Chair of ByteDance. According to WSJ, a deal like this could go for hundreds of billions of dollars.

For those who may not know, Kotick is the former CEO of Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard was just acquired by Microsoft in October 2023. Kotick stepped down as CEO at the end of 2023.

Kotick’s interest in buying TikTok comes as the app will see a “ban”. This is thanks to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” that has just passed the US House of Representatives and is now waiting on the Senate. If it passes the Senate, President Joe Biden has agreed to sign it into law.

A move like this would not be a great move for US users of TikTok. Having someone like Kotick in control of the company could allow for the US government to get easier access to its citizens’ data. This is something they can easily do with social media sites based in the US like Meta and Twitter.

Everywhere I look, this is turning into bad situation.

Source: Engadget

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Tech Talk Thursdays Episode #109 (03/07/2024)

MajorLinux — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 03:06:24 +0000

https://youtu.be/o9Zj87iBJhc

Tech

Gaming

Please check out the shows live on Twitch, Thursday at 8:00pm ET!

If there are any topics you’d like to see covered, email us at ttt@majorshouse.com or join the MajorsHouse Discord server!

You can follow us at:
@MajorLinux
@SynxiecBeta
@kevikevshow

Sub to the audio podcast here

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TikTok is again the Chinese boogeyman to American lawmakers

MajorLinux — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 17:05:24 +0000

Allow me to be bold for a few seconds. I feel that I have read more about US foreign policy and other countries’ socio-economic structures more that the people making our laws. Now that can be a huge inaccurate claim depending on who we think is actually responsible for making US law. But let’s assume its the actual congresspeople and not the staff or lobbyist who I do feel are more intelligent than them, you, and me. The people who get to sit and make speeches about who America’s enemies are in the age of the internet can barely use the internet. It’s why it makes sense that they are afraid of TikTok and why they’re trying to ban it again.

It’s been a while since anyone really talked about it, but the US Congress is ready to open up a recently closed wound. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party leaders, chair Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) have introduced a new bill. The bill is called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. With 19 congresspeople on board, this bill would make distributing apps from ByteDance, like TikTok, illegal unless the app no longer is a part of the company.

Once this goes into effect, app stores and hosting services that distribute such apps will incur a civil penalty. This will continue to happen until the app again severs ties from its Chinese ownership. The cost of the fine will be determined by multiplying the amount of US users that “accessed, maintained, or updated” the app by $5,000.

Included is a process that will allow the president to say other apps should be covered under this law that originate from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

While the bill names ByteDance specifically, it was crafted to make sure it wasn’t specifically targeting the company. For instance, there is a part in the bill that let’s ByteDance avoid a ban if it divests within 165 days. There is also a process that can be applied to other apps if needed.

It is necessary to remind people that TikTok has stated that US data is not stored in China and have been working to make sure it stays as far away from China as it can. That’s not helped lawmakers as they are afraid that data can be accessed by ByteDance employees under the influence of Chinese National Security laws.

I would like to pose another way of looking at this if we strip the capitalist nonsens from it. It was made clear to me by the names of the countries that would possibly have apps removed. Keep in mind that the countries named were or still are Communist run. While Iran was never really a Communist state, there were strong ties between it and the USSR and now between it and Russia.

As the current US government continues to operate under the boot of Capitalism, naturally states that oppose it along with Western Imperialism would but heads. The longer these nations keep the US out, they are our mortal enemies here in the West.

Also, TikTok isn’t really helping the West win an important PR war. While it is interesting to see that TikTok is an app to keep foreign meddling from happening here in the US, foreign meddling is indeed happening in the pockets of our politicians. With products like Pegasus from The NSO Group making child’s play to get access to our devices, why isn’t Israel a part of that list.

Oh, wait! It’s because the US needs Israel and its technology to oppress people with its brand of freedom and democracy.

Source: The Verge

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