[HN Gopher] Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for...
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Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to
divest
Author : vyrotek
Score : 354 points
Date : 2024-04-24 15:59 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| skilled wrote:
| I think the biggest effect of this is going to be that a lot of
| creators are about to lose a lot of money that they were
| generating from sponsorships: whether above or below the table.
|
| But most will slowly migrate to other platforms due to
| uncertainty (users _and_ advertisers), though it remains to be
| seen exactly to where.
|
| Maybe Snap? YT Shorts is bad, as are most other "shorts as a
| feature" platforms where discovery UX is terrible.
|
| Just speculation for the time being as we need to see what
| ByteDance decides to do. Can't recall the exact article but I
| think they do plan to fight this decision.
| yreg wrote:
| Why not to instagram?
| skilled wrote:
| Haven't looked into it. What is the discoverability and does
| it come close to TikTok's algorithm?
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I don't know if it's the lack of content or what, but doing
| the same searches on Instagram usually return garbage. And
| their algo refuses to understand that I want to see
| music/books/movies reels instead of girls dancing almost
| naked.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Why do people believe that TikTok will stop functioning? That
| is not the intent, and is not the likely outcome. TikTok will
| just not be owned by a Chinese company.
| skilled wrote:
| That's not how people think in a time of crisis and ByteDance
| will need to be swift in their response/decision if they want
| to retain users.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The same tiktok? I highly doubt any sale will come with the
| algo, which is literally the bread and butter on what makes
| Tiktok so great and better than the competition. For users
| who only surf the FYP, the quality is set to seriously
| decline.
| lispisok wrote:
| Maybe I'm ignorant but can somebody explain to me how the federal
| government can just ban TikTok? If I create an app or business
| can the feds just decide to ban it and it's over?
| mik1998 wrote:
| It's a bill of attainder, which is unconstitutional in the USA.
| May or may not be struck down in court.
| imzadi wrote:
| No it's not. China doesn't have any civil/constitutional
| rights in the USA.
| troglodynellc wrote:
| The constitution makes no reference to citizens with
| regards to what congress can and cannot do. Nearly all
| these things are couched with "congress shall pass no law"
| -- the focus is restricting the behavior of congress rather
| than the citizenry.
|
| This is a totally bunk argument. If you want an argument
| that _does_ work against the constitution, SCOTUS ' "empty
| shell" or Lysander Spooner's "Constitution of no authority"
| are of far more weight, but have more disturbing
| implications (e.g. You can disregard it completely; our
| system is precisely the "odious arbitrariness" the founders
| denounced).
| Aloisius wrote:
| It's not. A bill of attainder declares a specific person
| guilty for past actions and punishing them - thereby denying
| them the right to a judicial trial.
|
| While this bill does refer to a specific organization, it
| doesn't punish them for past actions, but rather constrains
| _US_ companies in the future. That is perfectly ok as shown
| in cases like _Huawei v. United States_ or _Kaspersky Lab,
| Inc. v. DHS_. Like Kaspersky, it 's "prophylactic, not
| punitive."
| legohead wrote:
| They are claiming a national security threat.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| They can ban foreign companies and products, they can't do the
| same to Americans they would have to regulate/restrict the
| category of business
| jMyles wrote:
| The state can pass whatever legislation it wants; we've seen
| convincingly that constitutional restraints are not
| substantially motivating (although the strongest evidence for
| this in the current week is not this bill, but the legislation
| surrounding the ongoing surveillance regime(s)).
|
| But the bigger question is the literal one you've asked: how
| the federal government can just ban TikTok?
|
| What makes the government think that they can stop packets at
| some arbitrary line in the sand, when every indication in the
| history of the internet shows the opposite?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| They aren't going to stop packets. They are going to prevent
| TikTok from doing business in the US. No apps in the App
| Store, no ads from American companies, etc. no money from
| American customers.
| jMyles wrote:
| ...but doesn't this just seem completely delusional?
|
| They were unable to stop drug cartels. And drug cartels
| need a highly centralized and sophisticated organization,
| and need to ship a physical product across a border.
| echoangle wrote:
| Just blocking them from the iOS AppStore would probably
| drop users by 50%, and that's pretty easy to do.
| sickofparadox wrote:
| Congress has extremely sweeping authority to dictate interstate
| and international commerce. Article 1 Section 8 of the
| Constitution:
|
| "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes,
| duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for
| the common defense and general welfare of the United States;
| but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout
| the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United
| States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among
| the several states, and with the Indian tribes; "
| kshacker wrote:
| So are you saying no apps can ever be banned?
|
| Whether right or wrong, whether politically motivated or not,
| it has gone through the house, senate and president which is
| not a small thing.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Calling it a "TikTok ban" is sort of inaccurate, but
| unfortunately that's how the media and politicians have
| referred to it. The act doesn't ban TikTok; it bans TikTok from
| having China-based owners (in this case the Chinese company
| ByteDance). The act requires the China-based owners to sell
| TikTok to non-China-based owners or cease operations in the US.
|
| I'm guessing Congress justifies its authority here based on
| national security. The bill refers to "foreign adversary
| controlled applications".
| jbverschoor wrote:
| And the whole ban originated from TikTok, hence the name
| henryfjordan wrote:
| Whether it's a "ban" or not gets into "ship of theseus"
| territory. The company as it exists is not allowed to
| continue existing. A new corporate structure with new owners
| is required or the app will be banned.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| Congress and the president can pass whatever law they want.
| Anyone can also challenge it in the courts, and the Supreme
| Court is the highest court in the USA.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| What would give you the impression that the government cannot
| ban a business?
| greenish_shores wrote:
| For example, how would they address it? Govt banning services
| of ByteDance Inc.? They will change their name. Services of
| company headquartered at 11 Example Street, ExampleTown, PRC?
| Change their headquarters. Services using given logo? Modify
| the logo. Services using given brand name? Change it
| slightly. IP address range? Domain name? And so on.
|
| Internet service by one company is not trivial to address in
| a "ban". Unlike, for example, a chemical molecule. At least
| they have the experience in specifying and addressing that.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Cringey coder perspective. These ideas may avoid the letter
| of the law. They don't avoid the spirit of the law. You
| will be punished for trying such lame evasion efforts. You
| can't hide hundreds of millions of users.
| greenish_shores wrote:
| More like system architect's one.
| LordKeren wrote:
| You will find that few large US companies are looking to
| provoke the federal government. Apple, Google, ISPs, cloud
| providers, etc. will all be compelled by this law.
|
| They have to store the data somewhere and it much more
| likely that they will sell than engage in value killing
| whack-a-mole with federal agencies
| Aloisius wrote:
| We have a rather large amount of experience with sanctions
| and people trying to evade them.
|
| I think we might be able to manage to identify a company
| with hundreds of millions of users trying to mask
| themselves by... changing their name.
|
| It's not like we're going to firewall them off. The bill
| bans distribution of the app in the US app stores and US
| companies from offering any kind of internet hosting
| services related to the app.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > For example, how would they address it?
|
| The same way that the government addresses most issues.
| They tell people not to do something, and if they refuse
| then they get fined, their assets frozen and confiscated,
| and eventually people are arrested.
|
| Bytedance would have to withdraw all its assets and
| employees from anywhere in the west to escape the
| consequences.
| LordKeren wrote:
| Unequivocally yes. The legislature of the United States
| government can pass a bill to ban your business.
|
| This is also overwhelmingly likely to go unchallenged by the
| court system due to the provision being passed with
| overwhelming bipartisan support.
| axus wrote:
| Importantly, this was a law passed by Congress and signed by
| the president. A fair vote by all the representatives of a
| Republic should be able to do anything constitutional. And
| what's constitutional can also be amended by a large majority.
| segasaturn wrote:
| 99% Invisible recently introduced me to the political concept of
| Noticeably Improving People's Lives (abbreviated as NIPL), which
| refers to how politicians get votes by making visible, positive
| improvements to people's lives. Not only is this bill bad policy
| (does nothing to protect people from foreign surveillance and
| violates free speech), its shit politics. All it's going to do is
| make the 150m Americans who use TikTok angry. So I am pretty
| baffled by US politicians insistence to go down this route.
| martinky24 wrote:
| You claim that this bill "violates free speech". Can you expand
| on that? That's... quite the claim to just throw out there
| without any references.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Today's issue of Platformer explains it as the following:
|
| >The Supreme Court has previously held that Congress can't
| ban foreign propaganda, including propaganda from China. In
| Lamont vs. Postmaster General, the court considered a law
| that required the postmaster general to detain "communist
| political propaganda" sent through the mail. The Post Office
| was then required to send the addressee a card asking whether
| they wanted the propaganda to be delivered, in what the court
| ultimately ruled had an unconstitutional chilling effect on
| speech.
|
| https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-ban-bill-senate-legal-
| cha...
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's obviously not the same situation so blindly assuming
| that precedent means the same outcome is wrong.
|
| In particular TikTok is not being "banned" based on
| content, so it's likely strict scrutiny will not apply.
| orwin wrote:
| US version of "free speech" is that the congress cannot make
| a law that prevents someone from speaking. It was an example
| of extreme freedom (i don't have the English translation, but
| basically a freedom that supersede other freedoms, its
| philosophy 101 or close to that)
|
| It's less true now, starting from when the mafia used this
| freedom to threaten judges and jury (Basically, when 80% of
| people think "full freedom of speech is stupid in this
| particular case", the US government will effectively suppress
| it).
|
| I've talked with someone who argued that it effectively never
| truly existed, and gave me a lot of pre-prohibition examples
| i can't remember, and even a few from pre-civil war era, that
| targeted white people (which was surprising because most of
| the other did not), but i don't know if i trust him, and
| don't really know US history well, so if you're interested,
| you should research it yourself and not trust what i just
| wrote (which is basically, "Yes, No, It's complicated and i
| don't really know". I'm such a helpful person :/)
|
| [edit] Not saying if it's good or bad btw, extreme freedoms
| are a cultural foundation of the US, and in my opinion define
| the country.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| My girlfriend not zombifying herself for 3 hours a day
| noticeably improves her life and my life
| jMyles wrote:
| ...but is that among the likely outcomes of this?
|
| If she is so zombified by TikTok, won't she just continue to
| use it? Why would she comply with the ban?
|
| Moreover, even if she does, there are many other nearly
| identical sources of zombification. Won't she use fall prey
| to those instead?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yeah - interpreting this as a "People can't use tiktok
| anymore" bill is wrong. It's a "Bytedance can't own tiktok"
| bill.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| All the analysts I've seen discussing this have stated
| that "China is highly unlikely to allow this", so it is
| being treated as effectively a ban.
| jMyles wrote:
| ...but even if Bytedance turns their nose up at this
| (which they won't, because they want to be in good
| imperial standing), why would users care?
|
| They'll take 20 seconds to install one app to route
| around the ban, and then forget about it.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| exactly. Nothing changes if TikTok is sold, and even if it
| ends up banned in the US, she would be zombified by
| Instagram or whatever else people flock to
| mateo1 wrote:
| She will just do it on Instagram reels now. I wish They were
| banning all short format video platforms and black box
| algorithmic suggestions. But obviously they aren't.
| cagenut wrote:
| the single most explanatory fact about america's political
| behavior, generally over the last 20 years and most acutely
| today, is this graph:
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fszq_PSWIAUwaWw?format=jpg&name=...
|
| the average age of a congress person (house and senate) has
| gone up by one year, per year, for roughly 20 years.
|
| that tells you that the "normal" organic churn of the past
| simply stopped dead in its tracks. we have been ruled over by
| nearly the exact same set of 50 somethings as they have slowly
| turned into 70 somethings. one very narrow cohort has held onto
| power so long they personally turned us into a gerontocracy.
|
| this is why the tiktok ban is such a priority despite the fact
| that it has no constituency at all in the electorate. they
| don't really represent today's electorate, they represent 20
| years ago's electorate that's finally had enough of this
| internet bullshit.
|
| congress is _supposed_ to be a lagging indicator of popular
| will by design, its just that for the last 20 years we 've been
| increasing the incremental amount of lag by roughly one year
| per year, so we've been effectively in stasis.
| corimaith wrote:
| Well, you probably voted in a congressman who voted in favour
| of this... And while there is a vocal segment of a population
| who might oppose it, there also plenty of comments in this
| very thread who support it. How do you know this isn't an
| enactment of the popular will here?
| Thiez wrote:
| Apparently there are 150 million users in the US. If even a
| small part of the non-users oppose a ban, that's about half
| the population (especially since we can exclude small
| children).
| patrickmay wrote:
| This is one of many reasons why we need congressional term
| limits. Three terms in the House, two in the Senate, then go
| live under the laws you made.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I'm kind of in favor of term limits (though I would make
| them a bit longer) but there are surely some downsides,
| like increasing campaign spending and this the influence of
| money in politics.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Nine months kicks the can down the road past the election. I
| doubt that's a coincidence.
| mondobe wrote:
| At least we know who _both_ sides will blame for any real or
| imagined election interference.
| willio58 wrote:
| I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of
| cash.
|
| Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and
| rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data
| being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a
| company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a
| Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yes, we're okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the
| goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans
|
| with a ban being the fall back outcome
| Brybry wrote:
| I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't
| be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very
| specific set of criteria in the law). [1]
|
| There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-
| American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North
| Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/8038...
|
| [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick
| the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.
| frameset wrote:
| I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole
| and then putting down their novelty mallet.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The schlep never ends, it just ebbs and flows, always in
| constant tension. Stay engaged and involved in the
| political process.
| frameset wrote:
| Princeton University study: Public opinion has "near-
| zero" impact on U.S. law.
|
| https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Congressional Representation: Accountability from the
| Constituent's Perspective
|
| Abstract: The premise that constituents hold
| representatives accountable for their legislative
| decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and
| legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies
| of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a
| handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We
| provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability
| at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-
| call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006-18),
| and link them to constituent's perceptions of their
| representative's votes and their evaluation of their
| representative. Correlational, instrumental variables,
| and experimental approaches all show that constituents
| hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation
| increase in a constituent's perceived issue agreement
| with their representative can improve net approval by 35
| percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are
| heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue
| agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level,
| resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro
| studies.
|
| Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the
| electorate that, although not hyperinformed and
| hyperrational, is one in which constituents are
| sufficiently attentive that the majority can and does
| hold their representatives accountable for the decisions
| that they make on important pieces of legislation."
|
| https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/Ansolabeher
| eKu...
|
| Verification Materials: The materials required to verify
| the computational reproducibility of the results,
| procedures and analyses in this article are available on
| the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse
| within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at:
| https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM
| afiori wrote:
| They passed a law that allows the executive to ban
| companies with little to no evidence, I doubt that the US
| government will forget about this power
| falleng0d wrote:
| And they shouldn't. China has been doing that for years
| and it has been very bad for the western world. This is
| basic game theory. How about China stop being an
| adversary and allow US companies to settle in their
| country without needing a chinese owner and having its
| IPs stolen?
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| Yes, the American government is comfortable with American
| companies having deeper access to American data than foreign
| adversaries.
|
| It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid
| little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been
| made.
| marcofiset wrote:
| It's a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign
| interests.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or
| Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Are those owned by China?
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Why does the source matter to you?
| hhjinks wrote:
| Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign
| adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US
| to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can
| establish a new global hegemony.
|
| A more interesting question; why _doesn 't_ the source
| matter to you?
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Because the content is funny dance videos. I don't think
| you can get to global hegemony with that.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| I live in Asia and have seen pro-chinese propaganda being
| repeated by some people, mass influence by nation states
| is a real thing
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| People repeat propaganda when it appeals to them, but any
| marketer can tell you customers are fickle.
| eureka-belief wrote:
| Apps track information of all kinds about you and it's not
| hard at all to link this data to your real world identity.
| Even just the search and watch history would be a goldmine
| for any foreign (or domestic) spy program, especially if
| you consider what was discussed in the Snowden leaks.
|
| "The case for harm has not been made" Do you think the
| American government would say publicly "we know China is
| exploiting this data because that's exactly what we do and
| China is even worse than us.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| This is true for any app, and tracking people who watch
| stupid videos is not useful for national security.
|
| The Snowden leaks were bad because they showed Americans
| spied on without warrants. This is about users who for
| better or worse install the app intentionally.
|
| I'm glad you agree that the US government has not
| actually made the case for harm.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > The Snowden leaks were bad because
|
| The Snowden leaks were bad because they exposed a lot of
| 100% legal, directly part of their charter activity by
| the NSA, like monitoring the communications of foreign
| leaders and other non-US persons.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| This is incorrect:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN25T3CJ/
|
| "n a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of
| Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless
| telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of
| Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign
| Intelligence Surveillance Act"
| meepmorp wrote:
| This article is unrelated to what I was talking about;
| you should go back and read both what I said
| (specifically who I mentioned being targeted for
| surveillance) and the article you linked (specifically
| who is mentioned being targeted for surveillance).
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Ah, you are saying they were bad because they let foreign
| nationals know that the NSA was doing its normal mission.
| But I don't think that part would surprise anyone.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Is China really a foreign adversary?
|
| I get that we aren't best buds with china but they are also a
| huge trade partner with the US. Bigger than many countries
| which we have friendlier feelings towards.
| j0ba wrote:
| YES
| cogman10 wrote:
| What sort of adversarial actions have they taken against
| the US?
|
| The most recent one I can think of is responding with
| tariffs against the US after we put tariffs on their
| solar exports.
|
| Beyond that... the Korean war I think was the last time
| we were any sort of direct/semi direct conflict with
| them. And Taiwan is the touchiest aspect we have with
| them.
| goliathDown wrote:
| What type of company does China keep? Last I checked,
| they were pretty buddy-buddy with Russia, and North korea
| on an estranged leash. If we know other countries fund
| terrorist organizations for intent of undermining western
| influence, is it that big of a stretch to say China is
| probably doing the same thing?
|
| You can't use 'direct conflict' as a measure in this type
| of game. Russia has done damning harm to american
| politics, but its not clear how to measure that effect.
| eureka-belief wrote:
| Large scale hacking of US companies, IP theft,
| brinksmanship regarding issue of Taiwan (backed by real
| incentive to follow through) where have you been?
| caeril wrote:
| > Large scale hacking of US companies
|
| This is a solid point. What most people don't get is that
| despite the enormous investment the CIA, NSA, and DoD
| Sigint have made into their offensive security teams,
| most of their budget is dedicated to Friday team-building
| activities, Bowling Nights, and Foosball tables. The US
| definitely does not hack anybody.
|
| "Everyone but FVEY are the super evil hackerz" is a
| childish, head-in-the-sand position to hold in the modern
| geopolitical climate. Everyone is hacking everyone, and
| China is not some sort of unique Bad Guy in this regard.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Agreed, but if you're going to play whataboutism, then
| you surely understand that China does not allow US
| companies unfettered idealogical access to their
| populace, so why should we grant them as much?
| j0ba wrote:
| I mean.. are you really not aware that the US and China
| have an adversarial relationship? Both countries
| embedding spies, industrial espionage, trade wars, soft
| power projection, etc etc. Power is a zero-sum game.
| axus wrote:
| What kind of power do you mean? The military, economic,
| and industrial power of China and United States have both
| been increasing, it doesn't look like "zero-sum".
|
| US and China choose to act this way, but they could stop
| harassing each other without affecting their own power
| bases.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Chinese backed threat actors have basically hacked into
| every major Fortune 50 tech company and stolen R&D.
| pphysch wrote:
| Where is the evidence that they are backed by the Chinese
| government?
| heinternets wrote:
| There's articles all over the place about it if you look.
| For example:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apt31-ch
| ine...
| xxpor wrote:
| They're actively undermining our interests all over the
| world. What else are they but an adversary?
|
| Just look at the situation in the Philippines at Second
| Thomas Shoal. They're actively baiting the US.
| pphysch wrote:
| > They're actively baiting the US.
|
| How about we don't take the "bait" in the South CHINA Sea
| that is thousands of miles away from even the furthest
| abroad US territory (Guam)?
| walthamstow wrote:
| This is quite a naive take with regard to US global
| hedgemony. They don't have 11 aircraft carrier groups for
| nothing.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Is China really a foreign adversary?
|
| I can't imagine what else we would call them. Also,
| turnabout is fair play. You can't run a company in China
| without giving up ownership and abiding by a number of,
| often draconian, rules. This isn't a "ban", it's a "You
| can't be owned by China" law. Given what China requires I
| find that completely reasonable.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Legally speaking, yes
|
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/sub
| p...
| edm0nd wrote:
| Yes, China is the number one threat to the US and we've
| been at war with them for the past decade+, both an
| economic war and cyberwar.
| zavertnik wrote:
| > Is China really a foreign adversary?
|
| Yes, they are officially recognized as a foreign adversary.
| They're the first country listed:
|
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/sub
| p...
| curt15 wrote:
| What foreign ally steals terabytes of data about top-of-
| the-line weapons programs like the F-22 and F-35?
|
| https://www.sandboxx.us/news/the-man-who-stole-americas-
| stea...
| swatcoder wrote:
| WWII gave the US opportunity to dramatically expand its
| Pacific sphere of influence right to China's shores and
| borders. At that time, China was largely turned inward,
| modernizing and recovering. But China is no longer in that
| condition and openly signals that they're ready to start
| asserting their own influence over the region.
|
| Further, the escalation of NATO/Russian tensions, the war
| in Ukraine, and resurgent Gaza conflict, have all
| contributed to a specific window of opportunity for China
| to act as these each spread US readiness thinner than at
| quieter times.
|
| This has all unequivocally and openly set China as an
| adversary to the US until that "sphere of influence"
| conflict is resolved. They're not hiding it, the US is not
| hiding it. There's no question about this except among
| people who just happened not to be paying attention to
| what's going on in the region.
|
| We can hope (perhaps too optimistically) for a gradual
| diplomatic reorganization or deescalation without hot trade
| or military conflict, but the whole world is preparing --
| on many fronts -- for more confrontational scenarios.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Is China really a foreign adversary?
|
| Only in election years.
| password54321 wrote:
| Even the current tensions at the South China Sea alone
| where a war could break out is a pretty good sign that they
| are. In fact China is probably the biggest threat to the US
| but Israel will make you think it is Arabs as they continue
| to use the US for its own goals.
| matsemann wrote:
| But to me it's more scary what American companies and
| government can do with that data towards me. China having it
| doesn't affect my unless I'm going there.
| j2kun wrote:
| There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example,
| but part of the democratic process is making progress where and
| when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict
| American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Not letting foreign governments control media in your country
| is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the
| intelligence agencies know more than we do about what
| involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or
| debate are just for show.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Not letting foreign governments control media in your
| country is definitely a thing that governments do
|
| Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just
| offered one option out of many. The fact that the option
| China offered was widely preferred over those made by US
| companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open
| internet where we can get access to information from
| companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from
| accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked
| from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > Except that china never controlled media in the US
|
| Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes
| money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.
| autoexec wrote:
| That doesn't mean that China controls the media, it means
| the US companies that do control media care more about
| money than anything else. Just like most US companies do.
| They don't bow down to China, they only worship higher
| profits. If some other country paid them more money to
| insert Winnie the Poo into every movie than the money
| they make from China by inserting maps with the Nine-
| Dash-Line or giving a Chinese actress a cameo they'd be
| doing that instead.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs
| of cash.
|
| Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people
| off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing
| whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and
| the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?
| seydor wrote:
| I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts,
| they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using
| instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and
| if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok
| Kiro wrote:
| I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto
| format of Instagram nowadays.
| okdood64 wrote:
| YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for
| TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and
| discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.
| hipadev23 wrote:
| > but it's not a Chinese company
|
| Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made
| available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor
| agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way
| too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US
| populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing".
|
| Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who
| can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I
| think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.
| dralley wrote:
| TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little
| stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling
| their congressmen.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call
| congress to 17+.
| afiori wrote:
| Notifying users that a service they use is about to become
| illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress
| was afraid of.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| To be cynical that sounds exactly like the "manipulation"
| they are most afraid of.
| hhjinks wrote:
| Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the
| interest of the CCP is _not_ the manipulation Congress is
| afraid of? In what universe?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Man you are just pushing one bad faith argument after
| another in this thread aren't you?
|
| If the product wasn't something that people truly loved,
| would the callers have had that level of commitment to
| follow through?
|
| Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd
| presume the answer to be NO.
| hhjinks wrote:
| Bad faith argument? It's not even an argument, it is a
| literal factual recounting of something that literally
| happened.
| jntun wrote:
| > Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in
| the interest of the CCP
|
| This is not a factual statement. It is a statement that
| contains something resembling a fact, however it is still
| just your subjective opinion.
| hhjinks wrote:
| I'll relent and admit that some of the people might
| _knowingly_ have acted in the interest of the CCP,
| because you _surely_ cannot be saying that it is not in
| the CCP 's interest to avoid TikTok's divestment.
| genrilz wrote:
| If I were a tech company who's service was about to be
| made illegal, I would certainly tell my users about it
| before I was shutdown. It would be pretty rude to
| suddenly cease function on them without letting them know
| why, and I think most users would like to know in advance
| of the service shutting down.
|
| This could be interpreted as CCP manipulation, but what
| else did you expect them to do?
| dgfitz wrote:
| It doesn't worry you that china already has that much sway
| over people, especially children?
|
| No, in this case it was OVERT manipulation, not covert. The
| important word, however, is: manipulation.
|
| I am so floored by comments in this thread either denying
| or not caring about literal brainwashing by a foreign
| adversary of the US.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| So the great harm is that Congress gets called when they pass
| a bad bill?
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| I think the fear goes: today this is high-urgency spin
| about a bill which is demonstrably capable of affecting the
| behavior of hundreds of thousands. Tomorrow this is high-
| urgency spin about whatever TikTok wants, who can be more-
| or-less coerced to publish lots of things that would be
| detrimental to the US.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| This supposes that teens care about East Asian border
| disputes as much as they care about the funny dance app,
| which I find doubtful.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| They learned from Musk and his " _If X dies because of
| advertiser boycotts the world will know and they will judge_
| ". Ironically _the world knew and did not care_ in that
| instance haha.
| goliathDown wrote:
| Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a
| difference between a media company housed in the UK or France
| versus China or Russia.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly
| supported.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since
| forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the
| largest source of media consumed by children (which
| incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have
| been stopped a long time ago.
|
| People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening,
| but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm
| in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for
| hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of
| videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The
| people pushing this are also using western platforms, but
| they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end
| soon enough.
| autoexec wrote:
| > The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media
| since forever.
|
| Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally,
| or for other countries besides china. I can access media at
| www.abc.net.au just fine.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| Well BBC has a division called "BBC America" which
| distributes their content in the US, which itself is
| jointly owned by AMC and anther US company called BBC
| Studios. I do not know anything about the details of this,
| but I imagine there were regulatory considerations when
| setting this up.
|
| But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign
| influence is not a new idea and has been something people
| were worried about even over a century ago.
| autoexec wrote:
| I don't think that concern is entirely unwarranted, I
| just don't think it's justification for censorship. If
| TikTok were violating US laws and refusing to comply
| that'd be one thing, but "Kids prefer an app made by a
| company in China" isn't really good enough.
|
| It's very strange that our government doesn't care that
| our phones are made in China, that damn near everything
| for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're
| constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality,
| covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde,
| yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?
| terr-dav wrote:
| > so we are just... okay with that?
|
| We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with"
| doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though,
| the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread
| discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can
| at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state
| surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this
| psychic imprint of the American people."
|
| What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be
| sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| It's just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still
| be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned
| jMyles wrote:
| It seems to me that the most likely outcome is that some money
| will opaquely change hands and that TikTok will remain available,
| either because of a shell game divestiture or because of a policy
| change. There's just too much money at stake.
|
| But even if that doesn't happen, and the US state starts to
| regard TikTok as banned, what makes anyone think people will stop
| using it?
|
| Many western resources are banned in China, and it seems that the
| primary effect of this is simply the proliferation of tools to
| subvert the ban.
|
| One thing I don't understand, at a high level: how, despite the
| overwhelming evidence to the contrary, can anyone believe that
| the internet will shape itself around the whims of legacy states
| on anything but very short timescales?
|
| There is no case of successful censorship of this nature, let
| alone with such a large and popular resource. Conversely, there
| are many, many cases of failed attempts at censorship, even by
| the largest and most powerful states and corporations in the
| world.
|
| Is there some reason to believe that this trend will very
| suddenly reverse?
| THENATHE wrote:
| The thing about China banning stuff is that it is sponsored by
| the whole government, so every ISP in China is forced to comply
| with the ban. In the US, unless all of the ISPs are forced to
| ban tiktok at a network level, the ban will essentially be on
| new downloads I'm sure.
|
| If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban
| doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more
| platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of
| the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate
| the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of
| water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling
| boil kind of thing.
|
| If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real
| chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see
| big statements all the time about how people slightly younger
| than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is
| frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that
| are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the
| basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and
| similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech
| people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them
| learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are
| going to see the total death of the platform because most
| people don't really know how to do anything technical on a
| phone or computer anymore.
|
| Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until
| something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift
| will be just to a different platform rather than a different
| societal state of mind.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Keep in mind the politicians who pushed this stuff are so old
| they still think in terms of physical assets and not digital.
| By banning something they think its like blocking a ship
| entering port. We will have to see how things play out but if
| ByteDance moves faster to circumvent rules than the government
| can update the rules they might be able to establish a
| consistent loyal foothold no matter whatever the government
| will do.
| yayr wrote:
| If I read the bill correctly, any entity with an at least 20%
| chinese ownership stake (by a person or company) falls under this
| law...
|
| What are the other 2nd and 3rd order effects of this?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I guess I implicitly assumed that TikTok was the poster child
| for a more general / sweeping legislative push. Consider tech
| companies, startups, etc, operating under Chinese funding
| either directly or indirectly.
| btown wrote:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...
| is the relevant text of the bill presented to the President.
| It's restricted to companies with 1M+ MAUs that allow users to
| create profiles and share content, and only then if the
| President makes a public notice and public report to Congress
| of that determination for a specific company.
|
| Covered countries are here:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...
|
| In theory, this could be used more broadly. Not a lawyer, but
| there's a reading that it would give a president the ability to
| unilaterally force divestiture in companies that have as little
| as a "choose your username for your online account"
| functionality. It's unlikely to affect B2B supply chains,
| though. Presidents have many existing tools at their disposal
| anyways if they want to disrupt those.
| dwnoble wrote:
| Fun fact: according to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...,
| tiktok.com has been blocked in mainland China since 2020.
| jMyles wrote:
| And yet, at least anecdotally, it is very widely used, along
| with virtually every other resource that that Chinese state
| regards as banned.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| I think they meant the US domain tiktok.com is banned. TikTok
| itself is not banned in CN, and its web presence there is
| likely available at the respective CN domain. I'm guessing
| it's tiktok.cn, but I'm not checking so I take no
| responsibility if it's a phishing domain.
| United857 wrote:
| The Chinese equivalent is DouYin, douyin.com
| jMyles wrote:
| Yeah, I think you're correct.
|
| ...but seriously: The Chinese state pretends that Wikipedia
| is banned in China. Does anybody seriously think that
| Chinese people don't use Wikipedia, like every day?
|
| Routing around a ban of this nature is so utterly trivial,
| and the primary audience of TikTok is strongly integrative
| of demographics which are digital natives accustomed to
| subverting such bans (heck, they got almost universal
| training in this area by having to jailbreak their school-
| issued tablets).
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Does anybody seriously think that Chinese people don't
| use Wikipedia, like every day?
|
| surprised as you may be, the vast majority certainly do
| not use Wikipedia
| TeaBrain wrote:
| Douyin as someone else mentioned is the Chinese equivalent
| to TikTok and it has completely separate content. The
| international TikTok content (not US specific) is not
| available in China.
| jMyles wrote:
| > The international TikTok content (not US specific) is
| not available in China.
|
| These comments are very confusing to me. Why is half this
| thread pretending that the Great Firewall is effective?
|
| Do y'all not have friends in China? Contacts who visit?
|
| Do they suddenly drop off the face of the earth? Of
| course not, they install a VPN and carry on, and
| communicate with you via all the normal media.
|
| The Great Firewall is really just a means of forcing
| people not to acknowledge what they know, and to only
| publicly speak about the censored version of history and
| politics.
|
| But it's no more effective than any other internet
| censorship (which is to say, it is trivially bypassed).
| TeaBrain wrote:
| I never said the content would be impossible to access
| given the use of a VPN. The comment I responded to
| implied that they thought TikTok would be available
| simply by using a Chinese domain name. Granted, Douyin
| does have a Chinese domain name, but it does not have the
| content on TikTok.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Why is half this thread pretending that the Great
| Firewall is effective?
|
| It's extremely effective. Just because a very small
| fraction of the population 1) know how to use a VPN, 2)
| are willing to pay for it, and 3) bother to use it,
| doesn't mean the GFW is ineffective. The CCP doesn't need
| 99.99% efficiency rate, 95% is plenty to control their
| population.
|
| Source: myself, many years living in China.
| jMyles wrote:
| I've never lived in China.
|
| But you're saying that 95% of people refrain from reading
| resources that are not served by The Great Firewall?
|
| That seems like a huge, huge stretch.
|
| I've never met a Chinese person whom, when the topic came
| up, hadn't read about, for example, tiananmen square, in
| a method contrary to the wishes of the CCP.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Tiktok is indeed banned in China.
|
| Douyin is owned by the same company but not the same
| platform. It is subject to Chinese gov censorship (like all
| media in China), while Tiktok is not (therefore banned).
| ok123456 wrote:
| Shouldn't the US prove it's better than China by its self-
| consistent actions with its espoused virtues of freedom of the
| press?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| The self consistent actions could just be "tit for tat"
| responses to the behavior of others. Does China allow free
| reign of American companies within its borders? No? Then
| China doesn't get that right either.
|
| Regardless, TikTok isn't going away, it is just changing
| owners. How does that have any effect on freedom of the
| press?
| ok123456 wrote:
| What if they don't want to change owners? Why should a
| global company from Singapore do what US politicians want?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Then...don't? No one is forcing them to, they just can't
| do business in the US if that is their choice.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
|
| TikTok can decide to not sell, in which case it's banned,
| or it can sell, in which case it's not.
| falleng0d wrote:
| I hope they don't. Then I will finally give a smartphone
| to my kids.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| All of our global companies do what China wants to
| operate there, and what they ask is a lot more onerous
| than to spin out a separate entity for local operation.
|
| At least the US is trying to protect the privacy of its
| citizens in this case. The CCP meanwhile required Apple
| to prevent Airdrop from functioning properly in China in
| order to stop the spread of information between protest
| groups.
| j0ba wrote:
| Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs.
| China.
| Thiez wrote:
| So you're saying the USA is better and thus it never needs
| to be compared in any aspect related to 'freedom'? That's a
| nice way of never having to challenge your assumptions.
| j0ba wrote:
| No, I'm saying what I said in OP
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Holy fucking strawman, Batman!
| ok123456 wrote:
| Actually, it does.
| falleng0d wrote:
| Sorry but this is about China, the bar is that low.
| ok123456 wrote:
| No. It's about whether or not we're hypocrites regarding
| freedom of the press and freedom of speech, as well as
| the overall freedom of business.
| kube-system wrote:
| Meh, foreign tech companies still can't even operate in
| China. The only way even things like iCloud exist there
| is because Apple literally handed it over to be owned and
| operated by the Guizhou government.
| mminer237 wrote:
| The Bill of Rights does not inherently apply to non-citizens.
| There's nothing stopping the people from running TikTok
| without government oversight. The only problem is that a
| foreign adversary controls it. This really is not comparable
| to China's restrictions.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Yes, it does Yamataya v. Fisher and Yick Wo v. Hopkins. And
| that protection extends to commercial entities: First
| National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Certain aspects of it do, but it doesn't as a whole. See
| _United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez_ for the precedent
| that the Fourth Amendment doesn 't totally apply to non-
| citizens. The Supreme Court hasn't specifically ruled on
| the First Amendment, it's hard to imagine that they would
| say hostile nations have an inalienable right to publish
| as much propaganda as they want in the US.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Even assuming that exception is taken up, it would be
| difficult to prove in a court that TikTok is using its
| editorial control to publish propaganda beyond what other
| social media platforms do quiescently.
|
| Propaganda is what advertising is. Should the courts
| restrict companies from their ability to advertise?
| mistermann wrote:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/qvecmj/sneakiness_a
| nd_...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Looks like the wumao's have made it to HN :)
| ok123456 wrote:
| who?
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| Funny list. I'm curious why something like swiggy.com, a food
| ordering and delivery platform is there. Do they even operate
| in china?
| kube-system wrote:
| To protect local competitors (and local control)?
|
| > Do they even operate in china?
|
| If they were going to, they won't now.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| probably a tit-for-tat against India banning a lot of Chinese
| services back in 2020
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| blocking is not always that fine-grained; there are tons of
| IPs/domains blocked that have nothing to do with China
| paxys wrote:
| TikTok is branded as Douyin in China. The international version
| is the one that is blocked.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| No, it's not just a rebrand.
|
| Douyin, like all social media in China, is subject to
| government censorship. Tiktok, like Google, FB, IG, etc., are
| not and therefore banned in China.
|
| That's why they are two completely separate platforms.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Last time this was discussed during the Trump admin it was going
| to be Oracle that TikTok would be divested to, I wonder if that
| will still be the case now
| mrtksn wrote:
| From the world where the USA was the bastion of free speech which
| was condemning countries like Turkey for blocking social media to
| a world where the USA blocks social media. I guess when the
| reasons are about money(i.e. Chinese block American companies)
| its all good because it can't be about national security since
| the countries who used to block American social media were
| condemned for doing it in the name of national security. Or is
| it?
|
| Anyway, this bothers me so much. It wouldn't take that much time
| before every country adopts the China/North Korea model once the
| USA leads the way, because you know, other countries also have
| national security concerns. Maybe the Spanish or Irish will want
| to protect their citizens being indexed by the US for their
| support for Palestine? Who know, banning apps is a thing now.
| Maybe soon all country-to-country communications will need to go
| through monitored cables with keys provided for inspection(maybe
| businesses can get an exception with acquiring a license?).
|
| We are progressively sliding in a segregated world and it is a
| scary world because the tech to control all the communications is
| in place.
|
| I wish the USA took the EU model where its free but regulated.
|
| The desire for control over communications and the support by the
| people disgusts me. You will end up finding out that the
| Chinese/North Korean way of doing things is not going to provide
| you with security or prosperity.
|
| Very sad day.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| TikTok will continue to function as normal. This is only a ban
| if bytedance does not divest, which they will.
| Thiez wrote:
| What makes you say that? What do they possibly have to gain
| by selling their main product?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| They gain the full value of the product rather than the
| lower value it will achieve under the future ban.
| Thiez wrote:
| They get a possible future competitor and due to the
| forced nature of a potential sale are unlikely to get a
| fair price. Realistically they will not sell.
| FredPret wrote:
| You complain about the USA regulating TikTok and then you wish
| it followed the EU model, which is more regulated?
|
| The EU is inching closer to effectively banning US social media
| companies with their prohibitions on ads anyway. We may see
| region-specific social media at some point.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Regulated means a framework of doing business, its not a ban.
| For example, the government can decide that car from now on
| have to use lead-free gasoline. That's not ban on cars, it
| means that from now on the cars should run lead-free.
|
| EU isn't banning American social media, its banning certain
| practices and if the American social media companies want to
| do business they simply don't do these things and they will
| be fine. Unless, you know, forcing Meta to sell to Luxotica
| or something.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| TikTok isn't banned, it is merely required to not be owned
| by a Chinese company. It's possible this results in a de
| facto ban but we don't know yet.
|
| Similarly, other regulations may become so onerous as to
| result in de facto bans. There's not really a sharp
| distinction.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Not to be owned by Chinese today, not to be owned
| American/EU/UK etc. in the years to come around the
| globe.
| hmm37 wrote:
| In the EU all social media companies have to comply to the
| same rules. This is normal "regulation". China also regulates
| all social media companies on whether or not they are willing
| to censor speech or not. This is also called normal
| "regulation" as it applies to all social media companies. No
| single social media is selected out and discriminated
| against.
|
| On the other hand, US is regulating Tiktok AND pretty much
| only Tiktok, which is breaking no laws except now this new
| one where part of its ownership is Chinese. This wouldn't
| look as farcical if the US forced facebook, twitter, etc. to
| comply with privacy issues, etc.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The US is requiring social media to not be owned by China.
| That seems to be a consistent rule for all companies.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Can't wait the not to be owned by USA/EU/UK rules spread
| out like wildfire.
|
| It will be especially interesting when Trump admin starts
| getting its way next year. The USA fucked up badly by
| pivoting into being fake China.
| hmm37 wrote:
| Yes. It's the Chinese exclusion act all over again. We
| already been through this historically. Essentially a ban
| on race/ethnicity vs practice.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Chinese exclusion act all over again...a ban on race
| /ethnicity vs practice_
|
| This is an incredibly bad-faith comparison. People of
| Chinese descent aren't being discriminated in any way by
| this bill. In the same way China blocking Google isn't an
| act of racism, this is putting restrictions on a foreign
| state which is acting belligerentlyt towards us.
|
| We required American companies to stop doing business
| with the Nazis when we went to war with them. (Though not
| a moment sooner.) That wasn't racism, it was strategic
| sense.
| hmm37 wrote:
| It's not a bad-faith comparison at all. There's nothing
| about Tiktok's practice that is necessarily illegal as it
| follows basically the same business model as all other
| social media companies. It is only that it has a Chinese
| shareholder amongst its shareholders, and therefore must
| be ban unless this Chinese shareholder sells his share.
|
| We aren't at war with China, nor are we close yet.
| Although it seems like people do want to move closer to a
| war and seem to hype China as some existential threat to
| the USA, and therefore try to justify such ideas. This is
| despite the fact that historically China has pretty much
| never used its navy to try to attack another nation
| except for basically (Japan), and that was when the
| Mongols had seized control of the nation about 800 years
| ago. China has throughout history basically repudiated
| the Mongols' methods and violence, and the Mongol ruled
| dynasty was considered one of the shortest in Chinese
| history because of this. Moreover one of the reasons why
| the Mongols did not succeed in conquering Japan was
| because the Chinese did not give the Mongols seafaring
| ships, and the keels were too flat to be stable in the
| ocean, despite the fact that China did have the
| technology for stable ships. This meant that the Chinese
| ships that were sent to Japan to attack easily capsized
| and the Mongol soldiers on them drown.
|
| China blocking Google isn't China blocking Google because
| it is a US company. China is blocking due to the fact
| that Google doesn't censor. When Google tried to reenter
| the Chinese market, it was blocked and criticized from
| TWO different sources (1) Various US government officials
| and congressmen; (2) Google's own employees. Google
| acceded to pressure from the US, not China.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only that it has a Chinese shareholder amongst its
| shareholders, and therefore must be ban unless this
| Chinese shareholder sells his share_
|
| The issue is the Chinese state's involvement. (TikTok's
| CEO perjuring himself about this didn't help [1].)
|
| > _We aren 't at war with China_
|
| They are, under U.S. law, a foreign adversary [2].
|
| If we were at war with China, we'd be talking about
| sanctioning ByteDance. Not merely removing it from app
| stores if it can't find a non-Chinese buyer.
|
| > _historically China has pretty much never used its navy
| to try to attack another nation except for basically
| (Japan)_
|
| Historically America has never used its space force to
| attack anyone. Meanwhile, China literally invaded and
| annexed Tibet in 1951 [3] and continues to use no
| uncertain terms about its intentions in respect of Taiwan
| [4].
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/
| 30/tikt...
|
| [2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part
| -7/subp...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_
| the_Peo...
|
| [4] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-drops-
| peaceful-reu...
| flohofwoe wrote:
| TikTok is currently also under heavy scrunity in Europe.
|
| In any case, it's just tit for tat, pretty much all western
| social media platforms are banned in China, why should Chinese
| social media platforms be treated differently in the western
| world?
| mrtksn wrote:
| >pretty much all social media platforms are banned in China,
| why should China have free reign in the western world?
|
| This is so out of touch that its hard to comprehend. Is it
| maybe because the supposedly fee people should have the
| freedom to choose what to use? Unlike you know, the Chinese
| or North Koreans? Fuck Chinese government, its not something
| that the "free" world implements. Stop copying the Chinese
| government.
|
| Is "freedom" only about businesses in the USA? What happen
| people's freedoms?
| nova22033 wrote:
| https://berthub.eu/articles/spice.jpg
| wumeow wrote:
| For everyone here having the vapours over this, note that the US
| government also prohibits more than 20/25% foreign ownership of
| radio/tv stations and airlines, and has for almost 100 years.
| It's going to be ok.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Good point. I wonder how did Murdoch (Australian) end up owning
| Fox News?
| myroon5 wrote:
| He switched to American citizenship in 1985 for that:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
| waihtis wrote:
| Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity's survival, or at least an
| extremely potent gateway drug to it.
| nadermx wrote:
| This is Idiocracy
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| This is forcing the US government to show their true colors.
| throwaway35777 wrote:
| What exactly is their intention?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Banning content that is both critical of the government and
| extremely popular with younger people
|
| There's a lot more leftist/anticapitalist content (and
| political content in general) on tiktok compared to youtube
| shorts and instagram reels.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Is there more of that type of content? Or is it pushed up
| by the tiktok algorithm more than other social media? I
| don't think this is the case, but you are not in a
| position to state that categorically.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I don't think you'll ever be able to get a straight &
| correct answer to that question, but I don't think it
| really matters, because the effect is the same.
|
| I and every friend I've talked to about tiktok has seen
| much more political content on tiktok than other short
| video apps.
| encoderer wrote:
| You don't think it matters whether you are viewing the
| authentic crowdsourced views of your countrymen, or the
| boosted political propaganda of an adversary?
|
| Really?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're arguing with me, I never ascribed
| merit or claimed it was good or bad
| encoderer wrote:
| Gee I wonder why that is.
|
| Who owns the damn thing anyway?
|
| Oh right. Communists.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't
| ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If
| the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be
| sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away.
|
| It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant
| distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in
| general comments here on HN.
|
| To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just
| clarifying what the actual content of the law is.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be
| available in the Country unless the company divested from US
| interest, would we not call it a ban?
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called
| a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on
| this question.
|
| If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down
| then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's
| just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of
| speech of TokTok users.
| RIMR wrote:
| "Forced sale" is interesting, because it assumes that a
| Chinese company would allow itself to be forced to sell. If
| TikTok refuses, the government either has to admit that
| they have no power to force a sale or actually ban access
| to the service, or they have to start demanding that app
| stores remove the app, and DNS providers stop resolving the
| website, and that ISPs start blocking the IPs. This would
| become a complete shitshow pretty much instantly.
| dpflan wrote:
| It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response
| framing it like that rather than giving the technical details
| that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| If by glossed over you mean put in quotes in the title and
| made clear in the first sentence of the article.
| dpflan wrote:
| Sure, raise that to the original commenter.
| LordShredda wrote:
| This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their
| main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't
| stupid and knows what they want to happen.
| importantbrian wrote:
| Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X
| billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from
| refusing to sell and getting banned.
| kube-system wrote:
| We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Why would the company convert their main product into a
| competitor?
|
| Thats easy to answer.
|
| The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of
| billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment
| would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.
|
| Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in
| those markets as they'd have sold it off.
|
| So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to
| instead have their investment become worthless.
| ralfd wrote:
| But would a new US-Tiktok not try to expand globally?
| Original-China-TikTok would then compete with US-Tiktok in
| Europe and elsewhere.
| stale2002 wrote:
| No, because "original tiktok" has a different name in
| China and doesn't compete significantly outside of China.
|
| The tiktok that you know about is the international app
| that already doesnt compete with the rest of bytedance.
| wavemode wrote:
| I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that
| perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it".
| If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure
| of reading, not a failure of media reporting.
| THENATHE wrote:
| The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced
| to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay
| relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind
| of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took
| the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is
| bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do
| they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
| SnorkelTan wrote:
| It originally started in china as short video sharing and is
| quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market
| success. I'm spacing on the name.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I believe it's Douyin
| brfox wrote:
| I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any
| large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a
| monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company
| which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no
| longer have Chinese owners?
| grumple wrote:
| China has signaled that they would block a sale.
| blodstone wrote:
| Which makes the case of china interference seems more
| plausible now.
| Spivak wrote:
| No it doesn't, were the roles reversed with say Facebook
| the US wouldn't think twice before blocking the sale.
| ericmay wrote:
| In the case of a role-reversal here Facebook was just
| banned in China from the start. There was never a sale
| opportunity in the first place.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Facebook was just banned in China from the start.
|
| It was not. It was only banned in 2009 after it was
| allegedly used to organise protests that escalated into
| deadly race riots in Xinjiang.
| Spivak wrote:
| You're focusing too much on the what and not the why.
| Banning all foreign business in certain market segments
| to protect your domestic industry is fine (because it's
| all countries) Banning Chinese businesses because we're
| imposing trade restrictions with China is fine (because
| it affects everyone). Hell banning specific companies
| because they don't comply with local laws is fine too
| (because it's the same rules for everyone).
|
| Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a
| Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China
| doesn't do this to us. As a general rule US companies can
| operate in China and US companies are allowed to own
| stake in Chinese companies.
|
| To me this is an escalation of the fair-weather, "I don't
| like you, you don't like me but we can still be
| professionals when it comes to mutually beneficial trade"
| attitude we've had.
| timerol wrote:
| > Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a
| Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China
| doesn't do this to us
|
| Unintentionally funny comment when positioned next to its
| sibling about this exact thing happening to FB in a
| targeted way back in '09
| malfist wrote:
| The US would not block the sale.
| danieltanfh95 wrote:
| It is already well known that tiktok ai models and
| algorithms trained on Chinese citizen data is non-
| exportable, so tiktok will never be able to sell to a non-
| chinese entity.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It really isn't, it's not in anybody's national interest to
| allow other companies to force a sale. It would set a
| terrible precedent where any Chinese tech company could see
| their Western/International operations get captured and
| therefore cause major loss of expected returns.
| danieltanfh95 wrote:
| Just because it doesn't say "ban" doesn't mean its not one. It
| is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained
| on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to
| sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain
| the model etc.
|
| The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US
| market.
| wmf wrote:
| So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to
| remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better
| and better!
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > they also have to remove the addiction algorithm
|
| Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is
| going to be more than willing to put in place their own
| addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American
| social media and other adjacent tech companies have
| implemented them.
|
| I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this
| will _improve_ the app seems naive.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Not really.
|
| A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY
| better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter
| tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on
| purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare
| against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind
| maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with
| every reason to wager to a far lesser degree.
|
| Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on
| something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat
| on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis,
| but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an
| actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic
| terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's
| best interest).
| interactivecode wrote:
| The US social media seems to be encouraging nationalism
| and conservatism. Which Im also not to happy about. It
| seems to be creating more unrest in the west rather than
| strength progress and unity.
|
| China might not even need to influence the west through
| tiktok, meta and friends seem to be doing plenty of it
| themselves. None of it seem to be making us progress
| forward tbh
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I give TikTok _negative_ benefit of the doubt though.
| Nobody can prove if the stream of craziness is organic or
| a result of Chinese propagandists tuning the algorithm,
| but I 'll believe it's the latter every time. Could I
| even afford not to? It's just game theory at this point.
|
| > _None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh_
|
| The Nirvana Fallacy is when you reject the better of two
| outcomes because it's not good enough compared to some
| mythical optimum.
|
| In this case, the optimum could be some social media
| service that "strengthens progress and unity" or it could
| be a total ban on social media altogether, both of which
| seem pretty mythical. :p
|
| I believe organic, chaotic derangement is better than
| extrinsic, targeted derangement in magnitude and outcome.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive
| disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the
| content that US youth consume en masse seems worse
| than...just about any alternative.
|
| Someone like Facebook wants the algorithm to show
| addictive content that generally isn't super offensive to
| the average person. Someone like the CCP wants the
| algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes
| "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases
| division in Western countries.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| > increases division in Western countries
|
| I'm not convinced anything on TikTok is more divisive
| than any other social media platform. And Reddit seems to
| be filled with a lot more tankies than other platforms.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive
| disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the
| content that US youth consume en masse seems worse
| than...just about any alternative
|
| How is it worse than making disseminating disinformation
| illegal? The law as written lays bare the true motivation
| - it's not about fighting disinformation ("inauthentic
| user activity" has been detected across _all_ social
| networks for the purposes of disinformation). It almost
| certainly is about protecting American companies from
| competitors with better AI algorithms. The legislature
| has telegraphed that the tech /potential for abuse are
| not problems by themselves - ownership by a Chinese
| company is what they take issue with.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > increases division in Western countries.
|
| I don't see how people can say this with a straight face
| knowing that American adversaries operate almost in the
| open on Facebook. You don't need to control the platform
| to control the message. That's what social media
| companies sell!
| winternett wrote:
| I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to
| be honest... All of the algorithms only end up working
| against the entertainment and educational factor of it all
| anyway. I'm thoroughly convinced that the social media
| mega-platforms have all moved out of algorithms to just
| pushing sponsored ads all day. Many of these ads repeat far
| too often every time I log in, and it's been making me want
| to ban all the apps anyway...
| EasyMark wrote:
| I just don't we'll ever see bans of social media working
| in the USA if the company is from here, at least not for
| the next 15 years, SCOTUS will most likely shoot down any
| attempts to do any serious regulation of social media
| except for maybe people under 18.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media
| to be honest
|
| I'm afraid that's not goign to happen in the US.
| Politicians never let a disaster go to waste: had the
| will been there to regulate social media in general, the
| hysteria around TikTok would have precipitated it.
| Instead, we got a law specifically targeting TikTok and
| ignoring other SM.
| EasyMark wrote:
| nah, that would be left up to tiktok, the CCP, and the
| buyer of the company, if there ever is a buyer and the CCP
| would even permit it.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Kind of reinforces the allegations of being CCP owned and
| compromised and not an independent entity. If you have poison
| pill provisions.
| RIMR wrote:
| There are plenty of US companies that are authorized to use
| government-funded patents, that would prevent them from
| transferring ownership to foreign owners. This isn't a
| "poison pill" conspiracy, this is standard export control
| for state-funded technology.
| EasyMark wrote:
| They could work on a "good enough" algorithm that is
| basically already in public/open source domain when they sell
| it. 80% of its value is captive audience and "cool factor"
| with younger users.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Of course the CEO is going to say that, because they don't
| want the law passed. When the chips are down, it's a lot less
| likely that just pull out than that they take the money from
| one of the many salivating buyers.
| RIMR wrote:
| If TikTok is in bed with the CCP as much as Congress says
| they are, think about the actual cause and effect of their
| different options.
|
| If ByteDance sells TikTok to US owners to satisfy the
| requirement, they give up control of a successful platform
| developed inside of China to a self-declared adversary that
| already controls most of the world's social media
| platforms, representing a significant loss to China as they
| attempt to compete online.
|
| If ByteDance ignores the demand to sell, the US government
| has obligated itself to prevent its citizens from accessing
| one of the most popular social media apps in existence,
| something that the affected users will be extremely angry
| about, and will likely make claims of state censorship.
|
| If I were China, and my goal was to leverage TikTok to do
| harm to America, I would choose the option that turns US
| citizens against the government over the option that
| transfers power from China to the US.
| Aloisius wrote:
| The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners.
|
| It bans American companies from providing services that
| distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps
| substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries.
|
| TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.
| cute_boi wrote:
| What about iphone?
| Aloisius wrote:
| They're free to host their website which iPhones can access
| from CCP headquarters too.
|
| Heck, they could post their IPA or source code if they
| wanted. This law isn't what prevents users from
| sideloading.
| temporarely wrote:
| Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the
| app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this
| ban business motivated me to download it the other day.
| groggo wrote:
| Give it a try. It's weird, fun, educational, stupid. It's
| whatever you make of it. Is it also whatever China wants
| you to make of it? Maybe. But they could do the same thing
| with news, TV, or movies.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US
| owners_
|
| Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already
| said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while
| ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban.
| The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest_
|
| Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for
| example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual
| circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese
| owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores.
| Their website still works without any circumvention. Not
| banned. Even in the worst case.
| nemothekid wrote:
| 1. You are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be
| forced to sell", but "the website will still be available".
|
| 2. I am looking forward to seeing the justifications that
| will be trotted around once the USG torpedoes net
| neutrality and bans the website
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you are moving the goalposts. Now it 's not "they will
| be forced to sell", but "the website will still be
| available"_
|
| Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even
| represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban?
|
| The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we
| take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain
| seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly
| sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal
| to provide services to Americans (or more draconian,
| which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it
| illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the
| executive.
|
| What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-
| Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake
| or distribute this from non-American servers and via the
| internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like
| saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they
| arrived after it closed.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even
| represent in this metaphor?_
|
| It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to
| sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still
| available.
|
| It's an effective ban because the CCP has already said
| they will not allow a TikTok sale. Congress _knows_ there
| 's no recourse for ByteDance. They aren't going to hand
| over the IP to a non-Chinese entity. If France said they
| were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French
| national we would call it a ban.
|
| > _Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned
| from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed._
|
| The irony about this is that China has the same exact
| policy in the mainland, but no one argues whether or not
| Google is banned in China. Google used to be in China!
| China said Google had to censor some topics or they
| wouldn't be allowed to do business in China. Google opted
| to leave.
|
| _Nobody_ sits around pontificating that it technically
| wasn 't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow
| Chinese law on censorship.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to
| sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still
| available_
|
| These are both true, though. Again, if you want to see a
| ban, look at how Facebook is treated by China.
|
| But fair enough, people are using the term "ban"
| inconsistently. I wouldn't say anyone's moving the
| goalposts as much as we're using an ambiguous term
| interchangeably.
|
| > _If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA
| sells to a French national we would call it a ban_
|
| This is tautology. You literally said if Sally were to do
| X to Andy unless {}, then X = X.
|
| > _Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically
| wasn 't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow
| Chinese law on censorship_
|
| You can't go to Google.com in China. You will be able to
| go to TikTok.com and access its content freely after it's
| been, per your definition, banned. From a free-speech
| perspective, that seems material.
|
| I get your point from a free-trade perspective. This is
| obviously not a free-trade bill. Maybe that's where the
| discussion is losing traction...
| cwyers wrote:
| Why are you framing this in such a way that treats one party
| as having agency and the other party as being immovable? The
| US is not banning TikTok, they are posing stipulations
| towards its use and you believe the CCP when they say they
| won't comply with those stipulations. But why is that a ban,
| versus "the CCP refuses to let TikTok comply with US law?"
| nemothekid wrote:
| Do you consider Google banned in China? The CCP had
| stipulations for Google's continued business in China. It
| was unable/unwilling to follow them, so Google left
| (voluntarily, infact).
|
| I've never seen anyone argue that Google isn't technically
| banned in China. It's clearly a ban when China does it.
| cwyers wrote:
| Do you consider companies that refuse to comply with GDPR
| banned in the EU?
| nemothekid wrote:
| Yes. Is this even a contentious point? Despite the fact
| EU hasn't bothered to null-route an application that
| doesn't comply, they will impose onerous fines.
|
| And what do companies do that don't want to comply to
| GDPR? They ban EU users. You can use the search bar here
| to find countless people talking about being banned.
| There's no ambiguity - there's only ambiguity when it
| comes to TikTok.
| devmor wrote:
| I don't recall the GDPR being created specifically to
| target one company that politicians disliked.
| paulddraper wrote:
| It's mostly a first mover thing.
|
| If I purchase a car with low gas mileage, and then the EPA
| requires cars to have minimum gas milage, that "bans" my
| car. Even though technically, I could figure out some way
| to rebuild it to comply.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant
| distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and
| in general comments here on HN.
|
| That's because:
|
| * Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational
| headline.
|
| * Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical
| purposes.
|
| * Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the
| details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know
| what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.
| remarkEon wrote:
| The US has already done this with a different company, _without
| passing a law_ [1]. I don't know what else to say, other than
| the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually
| _is_ being manipulated by Beijing and that 's why they're
| making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case.
| Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these
| senior business executives and that would be that.
|
| Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and
| "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking
| Congress did something wrong here.
|
| [1]
| https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06...
| rfoo wrote:
| Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they
| don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15
| years ago.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| what happened 15 years ago?
| YoumuChan wrote:
| I guess Google's exit from China.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just
| some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other
| companies also on the clock?
| autoexec wrote:
| It's not just tiktok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting
| _Americans_from_Fore...
|
| Does yandex have an app or use cloudflare?
| hot_gril wrote:
| Hmm, but it gives the US President the ability to decide
| who is targeted, so one way or another it seems like TikTok
| is treated specially.
| jtriangle wrote:
| It bans American companies from providing services that
| distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps
| where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20%
| ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been
| determined to be a foreign adversary.
|
| It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to
| _any_ company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if
| the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can 't be distributed,
| maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban,
| it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.
|
| There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to
| this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be
| weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even
| own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests
| devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want
| banned, for much the same reasons.
|
| Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate
| politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a
| law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the
| potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.
| pakyr wrote:
| > So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit,
| reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US
| company.
|
| Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do,
| obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively
| ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that
| company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is
| the only company written into the bill by Congress that
| doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the
| report.
|
| > the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get
| things banned that they don't even own yet
|
| Only if the president believes they should be banned.
| jquery wrote:
| 1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something
| that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer.
| Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power
| over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry
| Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death
| penalty.
| pakyr wrote:
| Sure, that's a valid concern to have, and I'm not saying
| the bill is a great idea. I'm just pointing out that
| there's nothing automatic about the process and the clock
| to divestment wouldn't immediately start ticking the
| moment a company crosses 20% Chinese ownership. The
| person I was responding to said the bill could get
| weaponized by the CCP to ban things via the threat of
| them acquiring more than 20% ownership, but that's not
| how the bill works.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Lol, queue china writing a clear document on all the US stock
| their citizens and companies own. Just to mess with the USA.
|
| Anything they sell just gives them more money to buy more
| ownership.
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| Is this going to impact Riot Games' games (League of Legends,
| Valorant), the wildly popular American video game company
| which is owned by Tencent?
| jtriangle wrote:
| If the current president decides that they're a threat to
| national security, then yes.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Tencent also owns 40% of Epic Games, which wants its own
| AppStores on the mobile OSes.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"passing a law that looks good in news headlines"
|
| It does not look good at all. It just shows that they have no
| trust in their own citizens. And maybe for a reason.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from
| having Chinese owners.
|
| My prediction: China would _absolutely_ throw away a few
| billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that
| preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning
| it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would
| cause a huge uproar.
|
| It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers.
| It's that popular.
| jquery wrote:
| Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban
| was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses
| TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be
| enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I
| don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are
| extremely passionate about the app.
| groggo wrote:
| I'm not genz but I use tiktok. You need to give it a try.
| All of the comments on here from people who don't use it
| are bizarre.
|
| We can be skeptical, but not afraid of foreign owned media.
| mistermann wrote:
| > All of the comments on here from people who don't use
| it are bizarre.
|
| 100% agree.
|
| I would say this offers some insight into the real reason
| they want to ban TikTok.
| onjectic wrote:
| If I were China this is the move. I'm suspect this is the
| intention of the bill from the US end as well.
| christkv wrote:
| There is another possibility. TikTok exits the us market.
| mhardcastle wrote:
| For what it's worth, "play money" betting site Manifold is
| currently at a 69% chance of sale versus 31% of shutting down.
|
| https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-...
| ok123456 wrote:
| What about no sale yet they continue to operate because the
| ban is not enforceable either legally or technically?
| schoen wrote:
| For example, if they (or some party that's directly
| targeted like Apple or Cloudflare) gets a U.S. court to
| enjoin enforcement of some of the provisions.
| partiallypro wrote:
| If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live
| there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your
| house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from
| living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's
| just a forced sell.
| drooby wrote:
| China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell.
| And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law.
|
| Hmm I wonder why..
|
| I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be
| removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have
| another successful social networking platform, and they would
| like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.
| superkuh wrote:
| >app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet
| hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that
| enable distribution of TikTok in the US
|
| So just install it like a normal application instead of using an
| "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on
| my personal website I would be breaking the law?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| I hope they improve their website so it won't even need an app.
| And make it easier for external apps to upload content to the
| platform.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This little blurb is not the actual law, so it's not worth
| considering what it means. You'll have to read the text of the
| law with a lawyer to see how clear it is. Even if the letter of
| the law leaves a little room for interpretation, think about
| what you would be trying to prove because I think the courts
| will agree that the spirit of the law is clear.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal
| website I would be breaking the law_
|
| Yes, provided you are doing it in a way "through which users
| within the land or maritime borders of the United States may
| access, maintain, or update such application" [1]. (It would be
| perfectly legal to go to TikTok.com, however.)
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521... _SS 2(a)(1)(A)_
| Klathmon wrote:
| Why would tiktok.com be allowed?
|
| The bill itself says:
|
| > The term "foreign adversary controlled application" means a
| website, desktop application, mobile application, or
| augmented or immersive technology application that is
| operated...
|
| So the website is explicitly included in that
| ipaddr wrote:
| Iphone users are out of luck.
| metalcrow wrote:
| Anyone who is legally knowledgeable know how this works? The
| text says "It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute..a
| foreign adversary controlled application by carrying
| out..internet hosting services to enable the distribution", and
| it specifices that this includes source code. But
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States
| specified that the publication of source code was protected by
| the first amendment, so the government would need a compelling
| reason to prevent that publication. Is there a conflict here?
| Is preventing the publication of an apk likely to withstand
| court scrutiny?
|
| EDIT: My best guess currently is that the government is
| claiming there is a compelling state interest, that of national
| security, and that is why they should be allowed to ban the
| publication of this app and it's code. And even if it were to
| go to the court the courts don't like telling the government
| was is and isn't national security related, so they would
| probably just ok this.
| api wrote:
| Hopefully it'll be sold to someone who will ruin it and we'll
| have one less addictionware monstrosity ensnaring millions of
| people into mindlessly scrolling through schlock.
|
| Unfortunately that leaves Instagram, which is in many ways worse.
| Maybe Elon Musk can buy that one and destroy it next. He already
| did us a solid by ruining Twitter.
| ok123456 wrote:
| I won't stop using it.
| jjordan wrote:
| You won't have to, but if an actual ban went through, and an
| iPhone is your only means of connection, you would be truly
| SOL, because Apple's captured ecosystem only allows users to
| run what Apple will permit.
|
| We need open ecosystems and access to full root-level control
| of our devices by default. Accept no substitutes.
| dantheman wrote:
| Don't use an iphone if you don't like it, don't use tiktok if
| you don't like it. It's really very simple, the government
| has no role in either case.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if an actual ban went through, and an iPhone is your only
| means of connection, you would be truly SOL_
|
| No, you'd just go to the website.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Tiktok website is limited. You can't even change your
| display name.
| wyldfire wrote:
| They wouldn't necessarily have to keep it that way.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Correct me if I am wrong but this only limits people who
| already haven't downloaded the app yet? People who already
| have the app wouldn't just have it forcibly uninstalled from
| their phone right? I have had apps that didn't make it to the
| 32 -> 64 bit transition stay on my phone when my apps get
| transferred from phone to phone.
| superkuh wrote:
| >app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet
| hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that
| enable distribution of TikTok in the US
|
| So just install it like a normal application instead of using an
| "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on
| my personal website I would be breaking the law?
| THENATHE wrote:
| Yes. Hosting it for personal use would not be a crime, but
| distributing it would be. Additionally, even if people were to
| get it from you without you getting in trouble, they would all
| have to use a VPN to even begin to see anything, which is past
| the capabilities of most of the populace currently, which would
| make hosting it and distributing it via sneakerware basically
| useless.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...
| anonuser1234 wrote:
| US companies are not allowed to fairly compete in China. I think
| that reason alone is justification.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| It's funny how many of the comments here have really no idea
| the level of restrictions that are on US (or European)
| companies who want to operate in China (not just manufacture
| for export).
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Crazy, all the spying we do and we can't provide any definitive
| proof of anything yet we're jumping to banning a company. Looks
| like all that red scare stuff isn't a thing of the past, eh? And
| we all get to suffer for it. From losing a platform, to facing
| shadow bans with no recourse, to laws being passed that continue
| to stamp out our civil liberties to the point that we forget they
| were even there, what's it all for?
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| China can and already has used tiktok to influence the U.S.
| population. Just because the US spies a bunch doesn't mean we
| shouldn't protect our best interests.
| blackoil wrote:
| You misread OP. With all spies they should have found some
| evidence of CCP trying to influence.
| tempestn wrote:
| They may well have done. It seems a lot of lawmakers moved
| toward the opinion of banning tiktok after receiving
| classified intelligence briefings.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| As a non-american (Canadian) citizen, I'm genuinely
| curious why this evidence can't be made public? Wouldn't
| that be a far better way to end this debate and un-
| fracture opinions?
| chamsom wrote:
| Please cite a well written study to back up your claim that
| is not an opinion piece or some state sanctioned message,
| from any country.
| j0ba wrote:
| I'm writing one right now, just waiting on the CCP to get
| back to me with their internal communications and commit
| history at tiktok which will prove this.
|
| /s
| chamsom wrote:
| You contradict yourself by asserting "arbitrary action X,
| which will prove this" implying the party is guilty by
| mere speculation about unknowns.
| j0ba wrote:
| I never implied the party is guilty, although my
| prediction is that they are.
|
| My point is that it's impossible to prove what the
| commenter was asking for.
| chamsom wrote:
| "which will prove this" is not a prediction, it's an
| assertion of absolute truth.
| goliathDown wrote:
| That's a bit of a ridiculous standard. Mostly because I
| don't think China is liable to hand out the records they've
| been gathering to cross check findings from other study.
| chamsom wrote:
| You don't need records conduct research if a specific
| message is being spread on TikTok against chance, to at
| least _back up_ an unsubstantiated theory -- even if not
| practical in the court of law.
|
| For anyone who uses TikTok regularly, it's evident there
| frequently political content that outright contradict's
| China's positions, spreading unfettered through the
| platform.
| goliathDown wrote:
| Even if there is zero evidence supporting an influence
| campaign on the platform, the ease of collecting user
| data or spying on users is something I would expect an
| active adversary to do. Like it or not, China and America
| are at odds with each other, and it's almost silly to
| assume that China would not be exploiting a successful
| tool for their own means.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| They sent a push notification to every American user asking
| them to ask their congressman to not ban tiktok.
| Thiez wrote:
| That's hardly the subtle influence that we're all
| supposed to be afraid of. If that's the only example you
| cas come up with... that's not a strong case.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| That's overt influence showing they aren't afraid to use
| their muscle. Of course they're willing to use more
| subtle messages.
|
| The same govt that screwed the entire world with Covid-19
| will use tiktok for nefarious purposes. This isn't a
| stretch.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Does this count?
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinese-Wang-
| Xia...
|
| How does someone do data collection on how the Chinese
| government weaponizes a social media platform? That would
| almost certainly involve Tailored Access Operations (or
| whatever they are calling offensive cyber warfare these
| days), not only of questionable legality but definitely
| compromising the sort of Tactics/Techniques/Procedures you
| _REALLY_ don 't want made public.
| autoexec wrote:
| As if US apps don't influence the population of other
| nations. Should every US company be required to divest in
| every other nation where they have users?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Came here to say this. The US owns Apple and Google, both
| of which are tremendously more influential than TikTok
| could ever hope to be. Turnabout is fair play.
| Grazester wrote:
| Google is banned in China and China is already taking
| steps to limit use of Apple hardware
| autoexec wrote:
| Google left China because they didn't want to play by
| China's rules. Whatever their motivations, I'm glad
| google stood up to them, but we're not even accusing
| China of refusing to follow any particular US law. I
| don't think the US getting our own version of the Great
| Firewall of China is a good thing.
| Aloisius wrote:
| And TikTok is free to leave if they don't want to play by
| our rules that companies with large numbers of American
| users can't be substantially owned or controlled by a
| foreign adversary and still do business with US
| companies.
|
| Also, who said we're going to firewall them?
| luckydata wrote:
| see, this is what is great about soft power. If you use
| it right who is not straight up an enemy will probably
| give you a lot of leeway as long as mutually beneficial.
| China is... not doing that.
|
| The Tik Tok ban is years late and I don't know why any US
| citizen could not understand why it's the right thing to
| do, unless on the payroll of the Chinese government.
| autoexec wrote:
| Not on the payroll of the Chinese government here, and I
| still think it's terrible for congress to tell us what
| software we're allowed to run on our own devices or to
| prevent us from accessing media from other countries.
|
| If TikTok were breaking US laws and refused to comply
| that'd be one thing, but that's not the case. They say
| their just worried about "influence" which is beyond
| hypocritical and not really grounds for censorship.
| Should they ban websites hosted in other countries next?
| corimaith wrote:
| Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the
| future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China
| politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of
| free speech will matter then? We've already seen implicit
| pressure to censor Taiwan or Hong Kong.
|
| Like it or not, your freedom to access whatever software
| you wish is only really possible because you have a state
| that is capable of resisting foreign pressure to allow
| you to do so. This move is very much part of that
| removing leverage from an explicitly illiberal group.
| Paradox of Intolerance and so forth. You can pridefully
| choose to reject that, but I don't think your freedoms
| will last very long then.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the
| future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China
| politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of
| free speech will matter then?
|
| I don't think that having access to websites and media in
| China, alongside all the websites and media from
| everywhere else on Earth, will result in us electing
| congressmen who are secretly working for China. There is
| zero evidence that TikTok is making that happen. There's
| no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube.
| What good is it for us to voluntarily give up our
| freedoms in order to keep the China boogeyman from taking
| them from us?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _There 's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and
| youtube._
|
| Apple has LGBT+ and BLM wallpapers on the phone by
| default. TikTok only reaches everyone with TikTok
| installed (and even then, only those that actually uses
| the app). Apple reaches _everyone_ with an iPhone with
| its propaganda.
| luckydata wrote:
| they probably should and they already have. Everyone
| defends their interest to the extent they can, the only
| difference is the USA has more leverage.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| They use Meta systems to do the same thing? What is special
| about Tiktok?
| j0ba wrote:
| They control what is boosted on tiktok
| JohnMakin wrote:
| Do you have any evidence of that?
| j0ba wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-
| white/2023/01/20/tik...
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This is a common practice on social media sites and is
| not evidence for your claim.
| tedivm wrote:
| We should block the behavior, not target specific companies
| or groups because we don't like them. If influencing our
| elections is bad (and I agree it is) then we should ban
| corporations from influencing our elections. If we think
| collecting and aggregating a bunch of data on people is bad
| we should ban that, rather than picking a single company to
| ban from doing it while allowing a bunch of others too.
|
| I actually truly believe we should do this- a GDPR style bill
| for the US that protects people's right to privacy and limits
| corporations ability to influence our governments. The fact
| that we know how easy it is for companies to do this but are
| just upset that a specific company is doing it tells me we're
| approaching this in the wrong way.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| How could we ensure that ByteDance follows such a law? It's
| unlikely they would let us perform the necessary level of
| auditing.
|
| I'm not against such a privacy law but I think it's
| orthogonal to the TikTok issue.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Did anyone claim anything happened that would require
| definitive proof? The argument was that a Chinese company
| having that kind of ability to reach US citizens is too
| dangerous in and of itself to let it stand.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| But assumes that american companies having that power is not.
| _That 's_ the red scare part.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| There's ample evidence of China and other countries
| attempting to influence American events using social media
| and other means.
|
| It's not a red _scare_ if it is true. And it 's not a _red_
| scare because China isn 't being targeted here because they
| are Communist - they are being targeted because they are a
| geopolitical adversary. Russia would be treated in the same
| manner if some killer app came out of there, and they
| aren't Communist.
| j0ba wrote:
| American companies are subject to US law and US citizens
| are protected by US law. What's the equivalent protection
| China provides?
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Shadow bans.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| You're misconstruing the argument. American citizens don't
| elect Chinese politicians, I don't want the Chinese
| government to have my data. I don't want the American
| government to either, but at least I can vote for my
| American government.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| This gov't must really make you feel safe then. I
| remember people saying Bush made them feel safe. That
| played out well. You know what makes me feel safe? Making
| my own decisions.
| luckydata wrote:
| this comment is either naive or in bad faith. I wonder how
| a moderately educated person can miss the difference
| between a propaganda machine operated by a geopolitical
| enemy and a for-profit company operating within the
| framework of national laws are different.
|
| You can't miss that if you're even half smart or don't have
| an agenda.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I guess I'm somewhat of a consequentialist here because I
| haven't so far seen much of a practical difference
| between these two things.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| As a US citizen I have recourse against action by US
| companies and the government through both courts and the
| electoral process. What recourse do I have against action
| by Chinese entities?
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| From what I understand it's not just about spying. The Chinese
| Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive the algorithm
| is that the Chinese version of the app focuses on showing
| higher quality content (quality as judged by them).
|
| So if they know it's harmful, they have an interest on showing
| low quality content to the western audience and possibly
| psychologically and intellectually affect an entire generation.
| pphysch wrote:
| > The Chinese Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive
| the algorithm that the Chinese version of the app focuses on
| showing higher quality content
|
| This is pure conspiracy theory. You think the nation that
| produces and loves Grand Theft Auto needs a relatively
| puritan foreign country, where certain depictions of death
| are restricted in media, weed and porn are totally illegal,
| to push such debauchery on the American people?
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| They were the first ones to do it at scale. Before, you had
| to seek out the debauchery. TikTok is saying, don't worry,
| we have hundreds of scrollable hours waiting for you, just
| keep scrolling.
| pphysch wrote:
| Twitter, Instagram, Reddit also are infinitely
| doomscrollable, with equally if not more inane content.
|
| Vine hit the American streets long before TikTok before
| it was killed by mismanagement.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Vine had no where near as good of a recommendation
| algorithm as TikTok. Reddit for over a decade relied on
| self-curation and upvoting to determine what to show you.
|
| TikTok curated content without the need for a user to do
| anything else than scroll. You can have a remarkably well
| personalized TikTok experience without liking, following,
| or saving any content.
| Thiez wrote:
| Clearly you've never visited tumblr back in the day. They
| had both doomscrolling and a CSAM problem.
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Whenever I open YouTube in Private mode, I get nonstop soft
| porn material. US companies are doing enough harm all on
| their own.
| autoexec wrote:
| I doubt being offered whatever youtube's version of 'soft
| porn material' is counts as "harm". There are clearly
| concerns over disinformation and outright lies with tiktok
| which we've seen can have hurt people, and I can understand
| that, but the same can be said for every other social media
| platform in use which makes singling out the one popular
| Chinese platform seem pretty suspicious.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| OTH, western social media platforms cannot operate in China,
| why should Chinese social media platforms be allowed to operate
| in the western world? Even without the whole "spy angle" it
| makes a lot of sense, trade wars like this happen all the time
| also between western nations. If China opens up their market,
| things can be reconsidered.
| mchanson wrote:
| There are a lot of things China does which limits US reach
| within their country that the US, as a more free society,
| would not be a good fit for the US.
|
| This seems to me to be one of things we probably should not
| have done.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| About damn time. We should reciprocate any bans China has on US
| companies.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US. I certainly would not
| sell to a competitor. And I'd probably do a licensing deal for
| the content with a new entity without US based shareholders.
| sgt wrote:
| This is your perfect time to sell the crap before it goes
| stale. Come on, have we learned nothing?
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Maybe I just value not being bullied over being rich.
| kenjackson wrote:
| If you leave the US then you've accomplished what they
| wanted anyways. And now you're much poorer for it. The
| upside is you feel like you did it on your terms or
| something?
| encoderer wrote:
| How can they do that without upsetting the record labels?
|
| They get a free pass to use licensed music because it's a huge
| marketing channel for the labels. Lose America and that goes
| away.
| afavour wrote:
| Then you'd be wasting a huge amount of money for no good
| reason. If TikTok gets banned Meta will probably vacuum up the
| audience with Instagram Reels. It would be posturing with no
| real purpose.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| From Bytedance's point of view that's correct but the Chinese
| gov. would almost certainly interpret giving in to this as an
| incentive for Washington to ask "which sell off are we going
| to go for next". You'd effectively send the signal that this
| is a winning strategy to simply acquire Chinese firms by
| force. Beijing would almost certainly prevent that sale.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| If Reels was any good wouldn't it have become a meaningful
| force in its own right by now? As it stands from my point of
| view it is mostly stolen recycled week old TikTok content.
| That TikTok "magic" is made on their platform because of what
| their algorithm rewards. Meta does not have that "magic".
| afavour wrote:
| My point is that if Reels doesn't have to compete with
| TikTok any more (because it shuts down) then that would be
| a good thing for Meta.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I see where you are coming from but we have to consider
| why TikTok became so good in the first place and can that
| really be replicated in a vacuum? Look at X, once they
| got taken over, others tried to step up (Mastodon,
| BLueSky, threads). They all obviously grew...but the
| winner was nobody. People just stopped using that
| category of app altogether in favor of a different
| category (discord) or nothing at all.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing
| they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent
| with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing
| burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that
| their own government is a problem.
|
| They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access
| the servers in China directly.
|
| I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to
| realize the government effects them and can directly ruin
| things they enjoy. I want young people to be more involved in
| politics and to vote.
| afavour wrote:
| > I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people
| to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin
| things they enjoy.
|
| Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the
| dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical
| competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Sure, I guess. That's a very loaded question about a
| complex issue so I'm not sure how to answer it. But I can
| say, despite the complexities of that issue, my higher
| ideals are:
|
| I want people to be more involved in politics and I want
| more people to vote. Wanting more people to vote is a safe
| side of history to be on I think.
|
| I also want people to be able to access the content and
| information they choose. If that is the content and
| information on TikTok, who am I to deny them? I believe in
| free speech, morally (I say _morally_ because, yes, I know
| the 1st Amendment doesn 't apply everywhere, _morally_ ).
| greatwave1 wrote:
| "alter the mindset of the population" is such a vague
| boogeyman. Literally anyone with an internet connection has
| the capability to "alter the mindset of the population".
| afavour wrote:
| Not at scale. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hysterical
| about it, but to me it seems indisputable that media
| companies (and this covers TV companies, newspaper
| companies when you go back far enough) have the ability
| to alter how a significant section of the population feel
| about a topic. A single person with an internet
| connection does not have the same power.
| greatwave1 wrote:
| Yes at scale. There are individuals who run social media
| accounts that reach hundreds of millions of people every
| month.
|
| You can amass more reach and influence than many of the
| biggest TV stations / newspapers of the previous
| generation with nothing more than an internet connection.
| afavour wrote:
| > There are individuals who run social media accounts
| that reach hundreds of millions of people every month.
|
| And who holds the levers to that reach? The social media
| companies. If they want that account's posts and I be
| less visible to users they'll be able to do it in a
| heartbeat (and have!)
| greatwave1 wrote:
| Sure, I'm not disputing each social media company has the
| ability to alter public discourse.
|
| My whole point is that there are literally billions of
| entities (everyone on Earth with an internet connection)
| who also have the ability to alter public discourse at
| scale. Hence why it's a vague boogeyman... the phrase
| "alter the mindset of a population" could be used to
| describe anything from a Orwellian propaganda machine to
| a Mr. Beast video.
|
| In the 1990's, you could've claimed "Tetris is a software
| product developed by a geopolitical competitor (Russia)
| that has the capability to alter the mindset of the
| population" and you would've been right, but it would've
| been a silly thing to get worked up over.
| briffle wrote:
| Yes, but that would also mean realizing the dangers of
| social media apps owned by American companies and our
| allies also being able to alter the mindset of the
| population, which is a great thing.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I don't even think you need to cook up possibilities as
| complicated as "psyop."
|
| It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate,
| that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual
| have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin
| this week" etc.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| There's so many ideas about what TikTok's purpose is. By
| "psyop" I mean, if the purpose of TikTok is to influence
| the general mindset of the American populaton, then they'd
| throw a big tantrum and rile people up.
|
| As you say, another possible purpose is that TikTok is used
| as a source of data and intel. I suppose it is a fine
| source for that, but also, if that's all China really
| wants, they can probably just buy most of that data on the
| shadowy data markets. The US Government shows no signs of
| stopping our personal data from being sold.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Gen-Z is already a pretty rockstar generation having seen
| their older Millenial siblings grow up post 9/11 and then get
| totally screwed in the 08 crash only to then graduate
| themselves into a pandemic and a market that is valuing their
| debt laden college skills less by the day. They started off
| cynical and so far have been a lot more active than
| Millenials when they came of age. They might be the group
| that finally enacts meaningful change. It is too early to
| tell though but I remain optimistic.
|
| Hopefully the scars from Gaza remain with them and they take
| a different stance with Israel. A TikTok ban killing off one
| of the most desired career paths of this generation (TikTok
| influencer) will have a lasting impact on them when they take
| the reigns.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US_
|
| This is economically irrational to the tune of tens of billions
| of dollars. If Beijing truly does this, it somewhat cements the
| argument that TikTok was a CCP policy tool.
| brentm wrote:
| I think it is reasonable that Beijing will not allow any sort
| of sale just for posture purposes. They don't want to be see
| as forced by Washington to do something and they care less
| about private economic outcomes than we do here, at least on
| the surface.
| mamonster wrote:
| Depends. If you model this as a reputation game, depending on
| who is the sane and who is the crazy sender, the PBE might
| might be a pooling equilibrium(i.e makes sense to build the
| reputation of being a predatory firm).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _makes sense to build the reputation of being a predatory
| firm_
|
| To what end? It isn't going to placate the hawks in
| America. And it's likely to inflame them elsewhere, _e.g._
| in Europe. The only way you can position it as a win is
| within China 's domestic politics, where it would save face
| for Xi and his acolytes. (Hence, the inefficiency of
| dictatorship.)
| mamonster wrote:
| I wasn't making a concrete case(I have no idea what is
| either in U.S gov's or Xi's head), was just making the
| point that when you allow for signals with costs and
| subsequent belief updates then setting multiples of
| billions of dollars on fire may be economically rational.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > The only way you can position it as a win is within
| China's domestic politics, where it would save face for
| Xi and his acolytes.
|
| do not discount the importance of this; much of CCP's
| actions revolve around its survival
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| USA seems to make around 10-15% of their users, and is probably
| a big source of income. Purely for the economics, this would be
| lousy idea. Especially as a cut-off from the USA could
| influence other markets, including losing them too. EU has some
| movement too, they probably will watch very close what will
| happen there and act accordingly.
| intellix wrote:
| if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western
| products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their
| own variants. If they want to run around free-range without any
| restriction with their own products then they should respond by
| loosening restrictions in their own country.
|
| This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US,
| lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?
| themgt wrote:
| The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our
| free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were
| just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb
| mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall
| would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're
| copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works
| great.
|
| I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.
| j0ba wrote:
| Nonsense. A free and open system does not require foreign
| adversaries to be given free access to manipulate and control
| the population. That's not an open system, that's pure
| stupidity.
| tristor wrote:
| > The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was
| our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that
| we were just going to wait around for China to realize their
| dumb mistake
|
| That story worked out fine until US companies started sending
| all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted
| in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy:
|
| 1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's
| manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base
| in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the
| world certain things can be feasibly made.
|
| 2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which
| helped to drive their economic engine.
|
| 3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a
| reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese
| clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch.
|
| The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps
| information out of China that the government wants kept out
| of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents
| pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are
| not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese
| government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced
| policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success
| despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's
| economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.
| gretch wrote:
| We're copying china's tactics wrt CHINA specifically (and
| other foreign adversaries)
|
| This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the
| world
|
| Reciprocation is rational and good
| falleng0d wrote:
| Sorry but reciprocation is not copying. This is basic game
| theory. A 'tit for a tat'.
| 23B1 wrote:
| There's no irony in realpolitik.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern
| liberalism (indeed, in international realism, liberalism is
| antipodal to realism which is realpolitiks namesake), so
| the irony persists.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Reciprocation is actually the policy more likely to get China
| to open up. As long as they can impose rules on US companies
| with impunity, while we stand back and give them free reign
| in our market, they have a zero likelihood of compromising.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm
| concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason.
| The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been
| urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in
| Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own
| reasons.
| tonymet wrote:
| China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding
| ourselves to.
| paxys wrote:
| Free trade and reciprocity agreements don't depend on a
| country's political leanings. You either play ball with the
| world or you don't. Can't have it both ways.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > Can't have it both ways.
|
| You definitely can. International trade has never been a
| fair field, power balance will be the most impacting
| element in the deal you get.
| paxys wrote:
| And this is the US exerting its power (which it should
| have done a long time ago).
| notresidenter wrote:
| China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most
| capitalist country nowadays !
| HaZeust wrote:
| Ha - I'll bite. How is it the most capitalist country
| nowadays? It's HEAVILY state-sponsored mixed-market, if
| anything.
| xdennis wrote:
| Tit for tat is the bar for all international relations.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger.
|
| Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate
| national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s
| where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a
| rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive
| approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about
| forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are
| bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime
| levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing
| PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an
| embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia,
| filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to
| the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US.
|
| The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because
| they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's
| interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and
| it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a
| rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe
| was back in 2022.
|
| The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is
| what it's appropriately doing here.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| what happened in Europe in 2022?
| mistermann wrote:
| [delayed]
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| If your not banning tiktok for it's ownership opacity... ban it
| for destroying attention span and training people into being
| mindless content consumption robots.
|
| We regulate cigarettes and heroin this is a much bigger problem
| than people give it credit for.
|
| It's an even worse problem if a bad actor is using it subtlety to
| influence a population.
|
| It doesn't matter if ByteDance or FB are doing this they should
| both burn to the ground for the damage they have done to the
| Internet and society.
| GardenLetter27 wrote:
| They have a year though, and this will certainly go to the
| Supreme Court.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| The response to this news is interesting, very negative and many
| straw man arguments are being posted. Makes me wonder if China
| bots are out in full effect at this news.
| slg wrote:
| >The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled
| Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations
| bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
|
| Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is
| incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics.
| Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add
| it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation
| that is more popular.
| encoderer wrote:
| No, in the house they voted on this bill by itself and it
| passed overwhelmingly - 360 to 58
| slg wrote:
| And that wasn't expected to happen in the Senate. Also that
| is the vote total for this bill, not the previous one that
| passed the House last month.
| encoderer wrote:
| getting a clean up/down vote on a bill is pretty rare (as
| you said yourself) so it's strange to critique this bill
| when it actually had one.
| meepmorp wrote:
| The previous House vote was 352-65, so not much different.
| darknavi wrote:
| It was a series of bills
| avn2109 wrote:
| Besides the "unrelated legislation" thing, this is just such
| blatant corporate welfare for the American BigCo's that will
| buy Tiktok. Microsoft and Google are absolutely salivating at
| the thought of buying their way into a major social network in
| 2024, and not only will the Feds not go after them for
| antitrust, they'll actually greenlight it in advance and
| mandate the sale. Big tech lobbying money well spent!
| Aloisius wrote:
| The legislation doesn't require American ownership.
| trevoragilbert wrote:
| Historically this is just how it works. You want law x passed
| and I'm ambivalent about it, I want law y passed and you're
| ambivalent about it. We both need each other to pass either of
| them, so we agree to pass both as part of a larger law. This
| isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 1800s. As
| early as the decision to make DC the capital we've traded goals
| through compromise.
|
| The process does get abused and I get frustration over those
| instance. For this one in particular, there are thematic
| similarities that can reasonably fall under "national security
| concerns".
| henry2023 wrote:
| "it's ok because it has always been like this" is both a
| fallacy and a really bad argument.
| trevoragilbert wrote:
| It's not a fallacy if one of the complaints is "routine
| practice in American politics." It's directly pointing out
| that it isn't routine by accident, it's routine by design
| from the beginning.
| slg wrote:
| >It's directly pointing out that it isn't routine by
| accident, it's routine by design from the beginning.
|
| That isn't a defense of the quality of the practice.
| Something can have a bad "design from the beginning".
| slg wrote:
| There is no reason a compromise needs to be formalized into a
| singular piece of legislation. Doing it this way helps
| politicians avoid accountability because it gives them
| plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific
| provisions of the overall bill. I think that is ultimately
| worse for our political system than making passing
| legislation more difficult.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability
| because it gives them plausible deniability to say they
| didn 't support specific provisions of the overall bill_
|
| Whose position on this bill, in the House _or_ Senate, do
| you think is unclear?
| slg wrote:
| People's positions on the bill are the one thing that is
| known. The problem is that it allows politicians to avoid
| accountability on the individual issues within that bill.
| A vote on this doesn't tell you directly whether a
| politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Taiwan. It just tells you
| whether they support this specific bill.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _A vote on this doesn 't tell you directly whether a
| politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you
| whether they support aid to Taiwan._
|
| In the House, these bills were individually voted on. (In
| TikTok's case, twice.) In the Senate, pretty much
| everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine,
| Israel and TikTok. (Taiwan hasn't been particularly
| contentious.)
| slg wrote:
| >In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views
| known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok.
|
| There is a reason I used the word "accountability". There
| is difference between talk and action and accountability
| is about making sure the two align. "Made their views
| known" by itself is just talk that can easily be
| obfuscated. A voting record is an action and we shouldn't
| allow politicians to distance themselves from that action
| with a simple "it was part of a larger bill".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we shouldn 't allow politicians to distance themselves
| from that action_
|
| Again, we have an actual case on hand. Who is distancing
| themselves from anything? Whose position--in talk and
| votes--on each of these issues isn't abundantly clear?
| slg wrote:
| >Again, we have an actual case on hand.
|
| Which is the disconnect here. I criticized a general
| practice of which this is an example while you are
| focusing exclusively on that one example.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I criticized a general practice of which this is an
| example_
|
| But it's an example that clearly disproves the point. The
| accountability you describe is a communication, not vote
| structuring, problem.
| slg wrote:
| Politicians lie which is why communication alone can't be
| trusted the way actions like voting can.
| brentm wrote:
| It's either this way or pass nothing ever. Unless the country
| tilts away from basically 50/50 with two parties that
| constantly try to undo the other there are few options to get
| anything through congress.
| dantheman wrote:
| I think I'd take pass nothing ever...
| brentm wrote:
| That's a reasonable take but I think practically things
| need to get done for government to function.
| suyash wrote:
| Tell that to China, it's worst over there, no reason given just
| a great firewall ban shows up for your app/service. They have
| banned so many popular services there for decades, it's time
| for other countries to do tit for tat.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I'm more interested in maintaining my own freedom & not
| further hindering freedom of the Web than spiting the Chinese
| government. I understand passions may be high when it comes
| to China, but do please consider these tradeoffs, because I'm
| not sure what this does to Chinese government in the grand
| scheme of things, but now the US government has a framework
| and precedent to stop me from using apps.
| stefan_ wrote:
| This was an amendment that was individually voted on
| cvoss wrote:
| Well, they're not completely unrelated. The TikTok issue and
| the defense spending issue are both framed as national security
| concerns.
|
| But secondly, I don't actually mind this aspect of the US
| political process. It's part of compromise and negotiations
| which are indispensable in an environment where not everyone is
| on the same page about what's important.
| linearrust wrote:
| And the media will provide cover by calling it the tiktok bill
| to distract the people from the $60 billion given to ukraine
| and $26 billion given to israel. Wonderful isn't it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Can 't actually get support for the legislation you want?
| Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of
| legislation that is more popular_
|
| This bill was individually voted on by the House and sent to
| the Senate in March [1]. There it was deliberated in committee
| and re-drafted [2]. The House, on Saturday, passed it
| separately from the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan votes [3]
| (alongside Russian asset forfeiture and restrictions on Chinese
| financial institutions that do business with Iran). It was then
| bundled in the Senate for an up-and-down vote.
|
| This was absoloutely not an omnibus slip-in.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-vote-force-
| byted...
|
| [2] https://www.politico.com/live-
| updates/2024/03/14/congress/ca...
|
| [3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/8038...
| tmaly wrote:
| Regardless of what side you are on about this, it will be used
| to chip away at the liberties of American citizens. Look at the
| Patriot Act or the FISA wiretap laws. They told everyone it was
| only for foreigners, but it is impacting Americans.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...
| option wrote:
| Controversial, but right move by US.
| waihtis wrote:
| Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity's survival, or at least an
| extremely potent gateway drug to it.
| afavour wrote:
| If that's the argument then you need to regulate social media
| as a whole. Instead this is specifically geopolitical intrigue
| rather than any care about the mental health of the American
| people.
|
| Microsoft/Meta/A conglomerate of record labels(?) will buy
| TikTok and it'll continue to exist just as it does today.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What would be interesting is a cap on followers. Would change
| the platform into being more social and less influencers
| driven.
| waihtis wrote:
| > you need to regulate social media as a whole
|
| No, actually we dont. There is no divine mandate that
| requires us to do that, especially in a scenario where the
| geopolitical rival is using our credulity to their advantage.
| vezycash wrote:
| Didn't Democrats kick against it when Trump made the same move?
| linearrust wrote:
| Biden signs bill into law giving $60 billion to ukraine and $26
| billion to israel.
|
| Isn't that what the bill actually does. The tiktok part is just
| legal distraction as it punts the tiktok issue to the next
| administration.
| gretch wrote:
| > Isn't that what the bill actually does
|
| The bill actually does multiple things, and it's okay to talk
| about the components in isolation.
| cljacoby wrote:
| As I understand the bill is solely focused with the national
| security implications of ByteDance being China-based, and not the
| social impacts of short form video platforms on mental health,
| attention span, etc. Good news for Instagram Reels.
|
| I also wonder if this goes through, does this set a precedent for
| enforcing similar divestment expectations for any companies
| operating in China. Is this isolated to social media platform, or
| could this also eventually extend in to other industries like
| manufacturing?
| LordKeren wrote:
| The government already forced Grindr to be sold back in 2019 ,
| so this isn't a new precedent.
|
| The only difference is scale and user base -- and this time
| around it was even included in a bill.
|
| The Government has a long history of interfering with foreign
| businesses in the name of national security. Feds have blocked
| sale of infrastructure like ports many times
| autoexec wrote:
| I get why they did it, but it's disappointing to have congress
| decide what software we're allowed to use. I wonder if China or
| other countries will do the same for US apps now.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US
| apps now.
|
| Is this sarcastic ?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
| autoexec wrote:
| The Great Firewall of China was a horrible idea when they did
| it. We don't need to make the same mistake in the US.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If TikTok users start connecting directly to servers in
| China via tiktok.com (or whatever), I predict the US will
| move towards a national firewall as well.
| LordKeren wrote:
| China has banned innumerable pieces of software. They banned
| YouTube more than a decade ago
| viscanti wrote:
| > I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US
| apps now.
|
| China has been doing this for a very long time, to keep US apps
| out of the Chinese market (or forced IP transfers to Chinese
| companies) so that Chinese apps can thrive. There's no room for
| them to retaliate because they've already gone as far as they
| possibly could.
| junon wrote:
| They literally already do, I'm not sure what rock people have
| been living under but whenever I read comments like this it
| feels like misinformation campaign material given how common
| knowledge it is that China regulates foreign apps, internet
| traffic, and data.
| skullone wrote:
| China already bans many many western companies and services.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| Now let's get Facebook/Instagram and Twitter banned from EU/Asia
| since they are owned by US companies
| NickInSF wrote:
| American social media is already banned in China. TikTok is
| also banned in China in favor of the state-controlled Douyin.
| pelorat wrote:
| So, press F for Bidens re-election campaign I guess?
|
| Watch every republican and jump on this (even though they support
| it).
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively
| bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with
| doing the same for them.
| bink wrote:
| I should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China.
| This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress
| can choose winners and losers in the market and even force a
| sale of a foreign company to an American company. That's the
| type of action taken by Russia and China that is rightfully
| condemned.
|
| I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe
| pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-monopoly legislation
| that removes the danger rather than playing whack-a-mole with
| whatever company has attracted the most attention at the time.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China_
|
| We do. TikTok.com won't be blocked here the way Facebook and
| Google are in China.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If TikTok tells users "our app is being banned, so just use
| the website instead", I predict America will move towards a
| national firewall.
|
| Let's see, it will be interesting to look back on these
| comments in a decade.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If TikTok tells users "our app is being banned, so
| just use the website instead", I predict America will
| move towards a national firewall_
|
| Sure, yes, it can always get worse. The point is it
| isn't, and we're nowhere close to false comparisons with
| the CCP.
| LordKeren wrote:
| The forced sale of Grindr already demonstrated this precedent
| bink wrote:
| As I recall Grindr was sold to a Chinese company without
| going through a legally required review process. That's a
| bit different than a Chinese company providing their own
| service in the US.
| duxup wrote:
| No my reasoning would simply be applying the same rules that
| China applies to US companies for social media.
|
| Good for the goose...
| deciplex wrote:
| > This would effectively set the precedent that the US
| Congress can choose winners and losers in the market
|
| No it wouldn't, as that precedent is already set. And, not
| only do they choose winners, but individual members of
| Congress freely profit off those choices.
| qp11 wrote:
| The US is a weird ass country cause everything has been
| privatized. The banks, insurance, energy, water, food,
| health, telcos, the railways etc etc
|
| Very few countries across the world do that. Govts usually
| own a chunk of the largest firms in strategic sectors and
| have seats on the board. Look at Boeing/Airbus ownership and
| the outcomes. Its just easier to influence large corps when
| you own them. If you don't own them then Boeing is the latest
| example in a long line up of large corps, showing everyone
| how they skirt whatever law and regulation the govt passes.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Just because some other country suppresses what content their
| citizens see doesn't mean we should too.
|
| I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like
| the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.
| duxup wrote:
| My basis is simply a tit for tat trade situation. Roughly the
| same situation for Chinese social media companies as they
| would apply to American in China.
|
| Content is really unrelated.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I think from a trade perspective that makes a lot more
| sense.
|
| The part that's hard for me to ignore is the fairly overt
| statements from reps that they don't like the content:
| https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1782920301052911713
|
| It's possible for something to be providing valuable news
| and perspective and also be controlled/manipulated by an
| adversary. Sorta like a broken clock being right twice a
| day.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I don't think those reps would like much of the
| internet if they ventured outside wherever they usually
| go. But they're also your typical bombastic / silly
| statements where they're throwing anything at public that
| sticks.
| falleng0d wrote:
| This is not about suppressing content. ByteDance will be able
| to sell the company and even profit from it.
| danieltanfh95 wrote:
| They wont be able to, because their main product, the AI
| model and algorithms, are trained on Chinese citizen data,
| thus marking it as non-exportable. This is already well
| known, which is why the bill states to divest instead of
| outright ban just to play pedantry. Tiktok has announced
| that they will take it up to the courts and leave the US in
| the meantime.
| barryrandall wrote:
| What improvements should Americans expect to see in the next 6-12
| months?
| gretch wrote:
| Probably exactly zero given that's the basic clock for
| divestiture to even happen
|
| > The company has an initial nine months to sort out a deal,
| though the president could extend that another three months if
| he sees progress.
|
| But I do hope to see improvements in the next 5 years. I'd like
| to see less trends around destructive behavior: eating tide
| pods, destroying/defacing property, harassing others.
|
| The algorithm should not be unbiased. We must take manual
| intervention to hinder the destructive tendencies in human
| behavior
| Liftyee wrote:
| Honestly might benefit the US if TikTok gets shut down. Short
| form content is an endemic attention parasite.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The bill doesnt ban shortform content.
| nme01 wrote:
| This shows that values such as "freedom of speech" are only key
| words used to enforce US policy in other countries. For such a
| long time it was advocated that free speech is an important thing
| and good in and on itself. Now it turns out the free speech is
| good only as long as it's US who dominates the information
| market.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| How is this an attack on free speech? What individual is
| getting punished for their speech by the government? There is
| hardly a lack of spaces online for you to say just about
| anything.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Google and Meta have limited what political content they'll
| show to you, feels like a pretty clear attack on something
| the establishment doesn't like but justifying it with the
| boogey man of communism:
| https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240737627/meta-limit-
| politic...
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Your response has absolutely nothing to do with the first
| amendment. If a private company wants to limit discussion
| on their platform they can. Facebook is not a right. If
| it's limiting the speech you don't like, leave.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| The most overused argument. I wonder if you'd feel the
| same way if every bank decided to ban you. Or every
| grocery store.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| If you go into a grocery store or a bank and harrass
| people or behave badly, you will get banned. Try getting
| a bank account if you have a felony for bank robbery.
|
| There was a guy who received a lifetime ban from Safeway
| for driving through their garden displays and breaking
| windows in their stores.
|
| The US does ban people from using banks. See also: list
| of specially designated nationals, etc.
| dantheman wrote:
| I think it shows that politicians are short sighted and immoral
| - nothing new there. Freedom of speech is still incredibly
| valued and constantly fought for.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| "Now"? The US and state governments constantly try to violate
| free speech. Texas, Florida, and California all had major laws
| truck down for 1st amendment violations in the past year. And
| it's been like this since the first Adams administration
| ipaddr wrote:
| Freedom of speech is right for an American citizen not a
| foreign country or entity.
|
| Regardless free speech for Americans is already dead. Remember
| when they took away rights from groups you didn't care about?
| Now it's your turn.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Freedom of speech is a moral ideal that exists despite the
| intricacies of US law.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is as much immoral as it is moral. It's a neutral idea
| like stopping on a red before a right turn. Some places it
| is deemed right and other places wrong. You might always
| stop even if laws forbid it or you might not stop.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Okay. My point is someone made an argument about "freedom
| of speech" on moral grounds and then you cite a legal
| gotcha "well, legally that doesn't apply to the whole
| world". You're right, but the legal gotcha doesn't matter
| when arguing over morals (or "immorals").
| hobotime wrote:
| TikTok made the mistake of making life difficult for the party.
| Boosting pro-Palestine voices has consequences.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| The idea of banning Tik Tok or forcing Bytedance to sell it has
| been cooking for much longer than the current Israel-Palestine
| drama, it would have happened anyways
| hdlothia wrote:
| https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
| nickthegreek wrote:
| dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40145963
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| Why target TikTok only? They should ban any Chinese social media
| app or network, and that should remain in effect until China
| agrees to open its domestic audience to Instagram, Google,
| Facebook, X, etc.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _should ban any Chinese social media app or network_
|
| The law permits the President to similarly designate any entity
| that meets the law's thresholds for a covered company [1]
| controlled by a foreign adversary [2].
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521... _SS 2(g)(2)_
|
| [2] _Id. SS 2(g)(1)_
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| Thanks for highlighting the language. I fear it's not being
| framed as that, though, and there will be another battle in
| the court of public opinion for the next TikTok.
| SamPatt wrote:
| This just proves that some principles (such as free speech) are
| only upheld conditionally when those in power feel they don't
| actually threaten their control.
|
| Actions speak louder than words.
| efitz wrote:
| I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative.
|
| My biggest problem is that it's too narrowly targeted.
|
| I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints
| and working with China (and some other countries) required whole
| or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation.
| So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate
| our infra, and had to manage everything through contracts.
|
| Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced
| and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our
| encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer
| lists etc. We had to build independent systems just for China to
| prevent sharing information about non-China based customers and
| employees. Where we couldn't do that, we had to build filtered
| replication "diodes" to prevent data leakage.
|
| China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring
| local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their
| national interest, why can't we return the favor when we feel
| it's in our interest?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >China and other countries do far worse to us than just
| requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that
| is in their national interest, why can't we return the favor
| when we feel it's in our interest?
|
| This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given
| an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-
| Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West
| when it comes to Israel and current times are no different.
| Tiktok has allowed nearly more access to whatever footage is
| capable of sneaking out of the warzone whereas Meta platforms
| tend to suppress. (ex: they recently auto-defaulted a
| restriction on political content without informing their
| users).
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| TikTok amplifies whatever is in China's interest to amplify.
| Today, it happens to be voices opposed to Israel. Tomorrow,
| it could easily be the opposite. The goal is to generate
| geopolitical chaos to veil other actions (Taiwan, South China
| sea, Chinese migrant injections into Panama...).
|
| A society's strength comes from its unity of will and
| resolve. Social media can be used to attack that unity... and
| has, not just by China.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _TikTok amplifies whatever is in China 's interest to
| amplify. _
|
| So just like the other platforms, but for China instead of
| the US? (aka: "It's bad when you do it, not when we do
| it").
| Aloha wrote:
| I dont know that I would be making that claim about other
| platforms - there is something unique, pervasive and
| opaque about TikTok and how they try to drive engagement.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| That's putting words in my mouth.
|
| All social media with attention management may be
| weaponized and has generally proven to be unhealthy for
| society. TikTok happens to be actively worse for a number
| of reasons, one of them being that it is designed to be
| so.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| If Biden wants instagram to show you pictures of ponies,
| the best he can do is go to congress and get funding to
| run an ad campaign on instagram to show people ponies.
|
| If Xi wants to show you ponies, you'll see them all over
| tiktok tomorow.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _If Biden wants instagram to show you pictures of
| ponies, the best he can do is go to congress and get
| funding to run an ad campaign on instagram to show people
| ponies._
|
| Usually it's just enough to have specific soft guidelines
| and more general incentives ("nice government
| contracts/tax cuts/etc. you've got there. You don't
| really want to offend us, do you?") and companies get the
| message and do the "right" thing. Everybody C-level exec
| which wants to have a nice career and not draw a target
| on their back, wont challenge things.
|
| Even better, fund "independent" fact-checking bodies and
| NGOs to pop up, and use the wider network of journalists
| and pundits to bend the rest into shape. Things like that
| are decentralized in these here parts, what do you think
| we are, like those centralized authoritarian communists?
| Though, if all else fails there can always be "Twitter
| Files" style dealing.
|
| In the end, we the people see those ponies (or we don't
| get to see the animals they don't want us to see) whether
| it's Xi or Joe. Just different approaches.
| arandomusername wrote:
| That's not really true.
| https://reason.com/2023/07/28/biden-white-house-
| pressured-fa...
|
| One exmaple of many. If Biden doesn't want you seeing
| something, the white house will put pressure on social
| media companies to censor it.
| Aloha wrote:
| I'm not seeing any issue with those voices finding a space
| elsewhere say on X/Twitter - believe me, I see enough of the
| slop over from it.
|
| The level of direct control the US Government has over US
| Social Media platforms pales in comparison to the control
| China has over TikTok.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Why not both? As it stands X platform is run by a
| pathological liar that has cozied up to the ADL to get the
| activist Pro-Israel community off his back. Many users many
| not prefer to use that platform because of these issues.
| The more options for people the better. What people seem to
| be forgetting is that TikTok is not the only market player.
| To single them out is absurd in this context.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Saying the word "cis" is enough to catch a ban on Twitter.
| Somehow in America, uncensored only means that far right
| white supremacists can say n**er freely.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| After all there's even a scotus case this term about the
| government merely "suggesting" that social media act a
| certain way.
| hhjinks wrote:
| >TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically
| marginalized on pro-Western platforms
|
| This has to be substantiated, because it seems blatantly
| absurd on its face. Are you saying TikTok is an anti-western
| platform? That, in and of itself, justifies the divestment,
| considering the owner, no? Furthermore, what "pro-western"
| platforms are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from
| TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| It allows you to see content typically hidden on other
| platforms. There should be freedom of choice. Its not like
| TikTok is the only game in town so if you are that
| triggered by the content that is on there then you should
| just log onto Meta platforms and leave the settings to
| restrict certain political posts that they quietly pushed
| to the "ON" setting.
| hhjinks wrote:
| I asked you to substantiate it, not repeat exactly the
| same point again.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| There is so much content supporting this thesis with a 5
| second google search.
|
| [1]:https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-
| promises/...
|
| As I have mentioned above and in other replies. Meta
| platforms has quietly introduced a filter for certain
| political topics that was pushed to their user base with
| no notification.
|
| [2]:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/meta-limit-
| some-fa...
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _I haven 't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly
| on discord or reddit, for example._
|
| You only need to compare TikTok to it's US rival Reels. A
| majority of the pro-palestine is suppressed on Reels. The
| loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to access
| content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
|
| [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-
| promises/...
| hhjinks wrote:
| > The loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to
| access content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
|
| Meta's arcane moderation decisions apply to other
| platforms than their own? Go to reddit, to youtube, or to
| twitter, and you can find the most vile, unfiltered
| opinions on Israel and Palestine known to man.
|
| Americans aren't missing out on any content at all. The
| only thing that will be destroyed is China's fast lane to
| American eyes.
| valec wrote:
| are you serious? reddit is perhaps the most astroturfed
| platform on the planet.
| hhjinks wrote:
| Please, for the love of God, can people _please_ stop
| making me pry their point from their hands? _What_ about
| astroturfing makes reddit, a platform where you can build
| your own walled garden, a platform where you cannot find
| content that isn 't filtered through US hegemony?
| nashashmi wrote:
| Try posting something on israel and palestine. it will
| get less views. Try doing a post like good morning. it
| will get more views!
| hhjinks wrote:
| The Israel/Palestine conflict is routinely at the top of
| massive subs like /r/news and /r/worldnews, two
| subreddits with diametrically opposed views on the
| conflict.
| nashashmi wrote:
| [delayed]
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Not the most unbiased source, let's be honest
| autoexec wrote:
| > Further, Chinese government officials would show up
| unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required
| access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and
| employee & customer lists etc.
|
| This happens in the US too and has been happening for a very
| long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) only when
| it happens to US companies they get gag orders and/or paid off.
| (see
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/ve...
| and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-att-
| cooperated-... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-
| federal-government... and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)
|
| The content on tiktok is a problem, but there's nothing on
| tiktok that isn't also on facebook/reddit/twitter/youtube. The
| difference is that when the servers are in China the US
| government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.
| Aloha wrote:
| While I'm not always thrilled that about the amount of
| monitoring United States Government does, as a United States
| Citizen, my government is at least marginally accountable to
| _me_ - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can
| choose to elect representatives who will change it.
|
| I can't say that about China, certainly not to me as a United
| States Citizen, and not even really to Chinese Citizens
| either - which is why it's another thing entirely when a
| foreign government is doing this level of monitoring on
| United States Soil.
|
| China is welcome to monitor its own citizens on its own soil
| to the extent it desires - and monitor communications in and
| out of China - they're however _not_ welcome to do that level
| of monitoring on United States Soil on anyone who resides
| here - at least not without the explicit consent of the
| United States Government.
| autoexec wrote:
| > While I'm not always thrilled that about the amount of
| monitoring United States Government does, as a United
| States Citizen, my government is at least marginally
| accountable to me - if enough of us are bothered by this
| policy, we can choose to elect representatives who will
| change it.
|
| On the other hand it's our own ostensibly accountable
| government that we have to worry about violating our
| freedoms, abusing and misinterpreting this data, targeting
| innocent people, etc. If China has this kind of data they
| still have no power to throw me in prison (provided that I
| stay out of China) and very little impact on my day to day
| life. I'm still not happy about them collecting my data,
| but I have much less to fear from it.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > my government is at least marginally accountable to me
| - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can
| choose to elect representatives who will change it
|
| Except https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/china-is-
| using-tikt...
|
| Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign
| influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your
| government has to you.
|
| > and very little impact on my day to day life
|
| It doesn't until it does at which point it would be too
| late & you're dealing with damage instead of preventing
| harm.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Not sure why you're discounting the potential for
| foreign influence campaigns from reducing the
| accountability your government has to you.
|
| I don't discount that potential. I'm certain it exists.
| I'm also certain that it exists on youtube and facebook
| and twitter and reddit and will continue to influence US
| politics long into the future. Yet the US government has
| never once spoken about banning facebook and youtube or
| any other platform doing exactly the same things as
| TikTok, they're focused only the threat of the one
| Chinese platform while allowing China, Russia and anyone
| else to influence Americans though US owned platforms.
| They're even fine with letting China influence Americans
| using TikTok as long as TikTok is owned by a US company.
|
| I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a
| threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed
| by youtube or twitter. I don't see how taking away our
| freedom to access/use a Chinese platform that isn't
| violating any US law and isn't doing anything different
| than similar US platforms are doing is really helping to
| protect us here. Congress telling Americans what software
| we can have installed on our own devices, and preventing
| us from accessing platforms in other countries seems much
| more likely to lead us down a slippery slope than one
| Chinese owned social media platform being allowed to do
| what all the US owned platforms are doing.
| coupdejarnac wrote:
| You'd probably change your tune if you actually saw all
| the propaganda being pushed on Douyin and other Chinese
| social media.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| China collecting data is not the reason it was banned,
| and is largely a diversion meant to derail conversation
| about tiktok. The threat of tiktok is that the Chinese
| government has direct control over what content it's
| users consume.
|
| American social media is motivated by money. Chinese
| social media is motivated by state power.
| autoexec wrote:
| > The threat of tiktok is that the Chinese government has
| direct control over what content it's users consume.
|
| The same can be said of every single website hosted in
| China, but they aren't (yet) banning all Chinese websites
| or all content hosted in any other countries. Why not?
|
| The vast majority of the content US citizens view on
| TikTok was created by other US citizens and that content
| is no different than the content available on youtube or
| any other social media platform. Certainly China can
| influence what types of content people see (and they've
| done a lot of messed up stuff in the past like filtering
| out "ugly, poor, and disabled" people's videos) but it
| isn't as if they can flip a switch and start only showing
| children dancing to "The East Is Red" and expect to keep
| their popularity. There seems to be no evidence that
| TikTok is any more manipulative or dangerous than any
| other social media platform. Youtube is just as happy to
| push extremist content to increase engagement but nobody
| is talking about banning them.
| nailer wrote:
| > The same can be said of every single website hosted in
| China, but they aren't (yet) banning all Chinese websites
| or all content hosted in any other countries. Why not?
|
| I imagine the US audience for tiktok is larger than all
| chinese websites combined.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'm not very comforted by the idea that our government
| won't censor content from other countries as long as we
| aren't looking at it. If the content is legal, it should
| be allowed.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Th difference is that none of those platforms have an
| interest in the toppling of western powers.
| autoexec wrote:
| And yet every one of those platforms allows China,
| Russia, or any others who do want to topple western
| powers abuse them. They know their algorithms push the
| most extremist divisive content it can find to drive
| views/engagement and they know full well that while
| they're stuffing their pockets with cash they're also
| threatening our mental health, our safety, and our
| democracy. US owned social media platforms might not be
| dead set on ending America, but they'll happily help that
| along if it'll increase next quarter profits and they
| don't have to pay more humans to moderate or fact check.
| apex3stoker wrote:
| I think the issue is that China can use TikTok to run
| publicity campaigns to sway the voters into supporting
| policies or political candidates they like. They can do
| it more effectively with executives residing in China.
|
| The US government won't be able to do the same thing with
| the two party systems and with more checks and balances.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Well in the US the gov doesnt do it themselves directly
| but instead pays russians to do it for them. I guess the
| chineese werent willing?
| nemothekid wrote:
| The problem with the TikTok ban is that it is now, as a US
| citizen, it is exceptionally more difficult to consume
| content that is not filtered by US hegemony. The
| Israel/Palestine conflict was an eye opener because on
| every other platform, pro-palestine content is actively
| suppressed.
|
| It's also strange that Americans are uniquely afforded this
| privilege and many consider it a natural right, but don't
| consider that their relationship with TikTok is same
| relationship the rest of world has with Meta. French
| citizens, despite the GDPR, have no recourse for
| accountability when it comes the US government.
| idrisser wrote:
| Totally agree and that's why X and TikTok are so precious
| when the US gov's propaganda is omnipresent on all other
| social networks (not even talking about traditional
| media...)
| nashashmi wrote:
| The failure of anti-israel suppression of speech on
| Tiktok is the main driver for this bill. Yet, everyone
| keeps saying it is a China problem. it was bundled with a
| war spending bill. That says loads about the importance
| and burial of information this carries.
| phatfish wrote:
| I can't tell if this is serious or not. Do Americans know
| there are sources of information other than social media
| apps?
|
| Just watch Al Jazeera on Youtube if you want the
| Palestinian side.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't use TikTok, so I'm not particularly worried about
| the Chinese government using it to spy on me. What I _am_
| worried about is the Chinese government using TikTok to
| launch influence and misinformation campaigns against US
| citizens.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Do you feel it's possible to get information that isn't
| filtered or influenced by the US government?
|
| Aka how confident are you that the information you are
| getting today is honest, accurate and not influenced in
| any way? That you get the full picture, the good and the
| bad?
|
| While I do feel like my personal views are more aligned
| with the US / west. I'm not convinced im getting balanced
| information. Its a little naive to suggest that only our
| enemies are doing propaganda.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > Chinese government using TikTok to launch influence and
| misinformation campaigns
|
| That is not what anyone is concerned about. The US tried
| to get Tiktok to suppress pro-palestine information
| against israel. Tiktok effectively said they are not
| doing any manipulation of promoted info, even in favor of
| israel.
|
| congress resurrected a ban for it. The recent uni
| protests helped in doing that.
| wumeow wrote:
| > The difference is that when the servers are in China the US
| government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.
|
| Except that TikTok's data, or the main copy of it at least,
| resides in the US, so the evil US govt theoretically already
| has access to it. That's not the motivation for this bill.
| autoexec wrote:
| I know they've said they would plan to store American's
| data on US-based servers, but wouldn't promise to stop
| sending data back to China or keep ByteDance from accessing
| it. I'm not sure that the US government having _exclusive_
| access to this data enough to make them go this far.
| packetlost wrote:
| It's not about access to the data, it's about access to
| controlling or influencing the content that users see.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I know this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban. Maybe
| Musk will buy it for pennies ona dollar and will turn my TikTok
| feed to my Twitter feed, which is full of lunatics, conspiracy
| theories, racist, dog whistle racist, conman and Tesla boys.
| Maybe Zuck will buy it and will start showing hot girls, meals
| and tourist attractions like they do on Instagram?
|
| Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the
| global TikTok that I love. Hopefully.
|
| But this is not my main concern, my main concern is that you
| people act like everything is about business and the users are
| just cattle.
|
| 0 regards about the fact that lots and lots of people love this
| app. I'm one of them because its the last place on the internet
| where it feels like I'm not supposed to be outraged or spending
| money all the time. It feels like the old internet for me.
|
| Also, if the American users are lost, I will loose a lot of
| great content.
|
| I'm appalled that people here on HN have no ability to realize
| that they deal with real people and not only numbers in the
| analytics and the bank.
|
| It almost feels like there's no sense of identity here, no sese
| of persons who must have freedom to use and consume whatever
| they want.
|
| The argument goes "The Chinese are banning our social media
| companies, why would we do the same?". Why don't you rephrase
| it as "The Chinese communist part controls what apps and media
| the Chinese citizens can consume, why we don't control what
| Americans consume?".
|
| Can you really not see that taking away a product that people
| use is not only about companies? Are you really that blind to
| see that you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating
| China?
|
| Chinese government is not the ideal form of governance, please
| stop trying to be like China. Have some sense of personal
| freedoms.
| Aloha wrote:
| I've watched people end up radicalized by content on TikTok -
| in ways that twitter, facebook, youtube, et al doesn't seem
| to do. You end up seeing the opening for a rabbit hole, and
| then suddenly you're very deep into said rabbit hole.
|
| I get your concerns over loss of something you enjoy - but
| the content is steerable enough by algorithm and addictive
| enough that a little twiddle of the knob, and suddenly a
| bunch of people believe some very harmful and hard to
| eliminate untruths.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Really? People get radicalised on the American social media
| all the time. Then go shoot people, all the time. Numerous
| shootings were organised on 4Chan&similar. What did your
| radicalised ones did may I ask? I hope it's more than
| having the "wrong" opinions on hot topics.
|
| Can we please stop admiring China, Russia, DPRK and other
| similar countries where having the "wrong opinions" is
| considered radicalisation?
| kelnos wrote:
| If those wrong opinions are actively harmful to others
| and/or lead to policy decisions that are actively harmful
| to others, then maybe "radicalized" still isn't the
| appropriate term, but I hope we can agree it's a bad
| outcome.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What are examples of harmful opinions that harmed others?
| trafficante wrote:
| Remember about a decade ago, when you'd read about
| YouTube's algorithm creating an "alt-right pipeline"?
|
| Without making any judgments on the alt-right label, it was
| absolutely a real thing. Many documented cases showing how
| a fresh account could go from "Sesame Street, cooking
| videos, and CNN" on the default feed - and, within ~10
| relatively innocuous clicks down the suggested video rabbit
| hole, the home feed would be full of Alex Jones tier stuff.
|
| TikTok is heavily reminiscent of the old YouTube. Just
| taking a few steps down the Free Palestine recommendation
| road will get you into "Happy Birthday, Uncle Adolf" videos
| (hyperbolic, but only slightly).
|
| I don't blame certain parties for getting rather nervous
| over that. But I wish we could have some honesty from
| elected officials about why TikTok is suddenly such a
| pressing issue again.
|
| Whatever happens, I hope they've learned from YouTube's
| earlier mistakes. In trying to break the alt-right
| pipeline, they ended up breaking the entire recommendation
| engine for years (tbf it's a lot better now).
| Aloha wrote:
| I think the short form content inherent to TikTok - in
| some ways makes it worse than old YouTube was, because
| its multitudes of different people making the same or
| similar points - its more reinforcing.
|
| That said I otherwise agree with you 100% - I saw folks
| get sucked down you YouTube pipeline then, and I've
| watched people get sucked down the TikTok one now, I got
| one person in my life to switch to FB reels, because I
| would correct the purported facts in each video and they
| found that annoying.
|
| Agree (even if it is hyperbolic) on the yellow brick road
| model of radicalization.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Do you remember the bin laden reactions that surfaced on
| tiktok? That was radicalization that the US attempted to
| suppress after 9/11.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _I 've watched people end up radicalized by content on
| TikTok - in ways that twitter, facebook, youtube, et al
| doesn't seem to do._
|
| QAnon, birthed in 4chan and largely disseminated to Boomers
| through Facebook isolated people and convinced a large
| number of people to stage a coup on the US government. I
| can't tell if you missed the QAnon craze, or you are
| intentionally being ignorant. I can't think of a single
| TikTok trend that comes close to the level of
| radicalization of QAnon.
| metamet wrote:
| QAnon was massive on TikTok in 2019/2020, to the point
| that TikTok took measures to address it, blocking
| hashtags and banning accounts.
|
| There seems to still be a large conspiratorial rabbit
| hole on TikTok that still leads to QAnon influencers
| (using more generalized hashtags and catch all
| conspiracies).
| nemothekid wrote:
| QAnon related topics were banned in July/Aug 2020 and
| became community guidelines violations. Facebook did
| nothing about QAnon until post-January 6th.
|
| Given the demographics of those most heavily influenced
| by QAnon, it's ridiculous to imply that Tiktok had even a
| 10th of the influence of Facebook wrt to QAnon.
| p_j_w wrote:
| So what you're saying is TikTok actually took action
| against the most dangerous conspiracy movement the
| country has seen in our lifetimes while other American
| companies left it alone? And I'm supposed to be pissed at
| TikTok and support them being banned?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban_
|
| It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com
| will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply
| saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese)
| buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and
| U.S. app stores.
|
| > _you can 't claim being "the free world" by imitating
| China_
|
| Good thing we're not.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Right, will be interesting if France demands that Instagram
| be sold to LVHM, UK demands that Twitter be sold to Virgin,
| Spain demands that Shopify be sold to Inditex, Turkey
| demands that Snapchat be sold to Erdogan's son-in-law or
| else. Totally not banning though, simply be removed from
| the AppStore if fail To sell.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _will be interesting if France demands that Instagram
| be sold to LVHM_
|
| Or else be removed from French app stores yet remain
| available online? Without being sanctioned or blocked?
|
| ByteDance's CEO perjured himself in front of the Congress
| [1]. Meanwhile, you can't Google the 1989 Tianamen Square
| massacre in China because (a) Google is blocked, as in
| actually blocked, and (b) the very term is blocked.
|
| There are reasonable objections to this bill. Claiming
| we're stooping to China's level is not one of them.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/
| 30/tikt...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Does the legislation in fact specifically require sale to a
| US buyer, rather than a non-China buyer? Like EU buyer
| wouldn't fly?
|
| Oddly, the articles I've seen don't feel the need to
| specify there. Seems like a big difference to me, and
| requiring sale to specifically US buyer seems rather more
| of a takeover.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Does the legislation in fact specifically require sale
| to a US buyer, rather than a non-China buyer? Like EU
| buyer wouldn 't fly?_
|
| No, you are correct. Thank you. It must simply be no
| longer controlled by a foreign adversary [1]. (And yes,
| the term foreign adversary is defined in law [2].)
|
| An EU, Gulf or Indian buyer would be totally fine if done
| in good faith, _i.e._ without being a front for Chinese
| interests.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521... _SS 2(g)(6)_
|
| [2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part
| -7/subp...
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| I think people are reticent to admit that unfettered globalism
| (especially in the internet which was meant to connect the
| world) is bad and has serious security implications. It
| should've been obvious retrospectively, but folks were lulled
| by a sense of post-soviet optimism.
| segasaturn wrote:
| >and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can't
| we return the favor when we feel it's in our interest?
|
| By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more
| like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian
| governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and
| democracy", if that reputation even still exists.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I view it like trade. They block our social media there, we
| block theirs here. EU did the same when we put tariffs on
| their steel or something.
| jtriangle wrote:
| And eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
| tomatokoolaid wrote:
| Yes, at least half blind. But an eye for nothing but
| complacence often results in two eyes for nothing ... and
| handing your adversary full advantage.
| hot_gril wrote:
| That saying applies to things you cannot take back, like
| blinding someone, not trade agreements. It's also like an
| eye for 200 eyes at this point. Tit-for-tat (or some
| softer variation) is pretty standard diplomatic protocol.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Sure, but can you take back banning a social media
| platform? Very likely not, because even if you did, it'd
| still be ruined by a massive loss of users/ad
| partners/etc.
|
| Realistically, what we needed is comprehensive user
| privacy legislation, which would prevent anyone from
| spying on us, including our own government. Likely the
| reason that did not happen is because our government
| enjoys access to our user data for various things.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It would cause damage that can be mended, same as how
| restricting steel trade would definitely hurt or bankrupt
| some companies caught up in it.
| xdennis wrote:
| So trite! Without reciprocal actions there is no
| incentive for change.
| eganist wrote:
| > By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be
| more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating
| authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation
| for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still
| exists.
|
| There's a wild difference between unfettered access to a
| company's assets, systems, networks, data, etc. vs policywork
| to simply require that companies be owned _at the very least_
| by a country that isn 't either Russia, China, North Korea,
| or Iran.
|
| Yes, I did read the bill. They did specifically single out
| ByteDance presumably to make sure there wasn't a way
| ByteDance could claim they weren't under Chinese influence.
| But they made a point of calling out Foreign Adversary
| Countries and pointed to
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872 in doing so.
|
| Bill raw text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-
| congress/house-bill/815/...
| turquoisevar wrote:
| I see variations of this argument pop up in this debate, which
| always confuses me.
|
| I'd expect the takeaway to be "That's bad, so we shouldn't do
| it" instead of "Hold my beer and let me show you how we can
| follow their example."
|
| I always thought that the point was to _not_ be like
| authoritarian countries.
| j2kun wrote:
| > follow their example
|
| Nothing about this is following their example. It's saying,
| "if you do the bad thing we won't let you operate here."
| brigadier132 wrote:
| > I always thought that the point was to not be like
| authoritarian countries.
|
| No, the point is to not give authoritarian countries a free
| pass.
|
| This is like saying we shouldn't put people in jail for
| murder because it's effectively kidnapping and that would
| make us like them.
| elfbargpt wrote:
| Is there any evidence that the content on TikTok isn't a result
| of the beliefs and interests of its users in America?
| AbstractH24 wrote:
| What does this mean for their US employees, their job security,
| and even office morale?
| onepremise wrote:
| I think people are conflating way too many issues here with
| politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies.
| The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or
| even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers
| and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute
| power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been
| spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country.
| TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused
| and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are
| all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that
| allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The
| difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are
| very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and
| splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think
| there are many that leverage the platform for income and have
| been quite successful off it. I still think it should be
| moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other
| and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or
| sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors
| that are not Allies to the US.
|
| What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-
| federal-courts/educational-re...
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I wonder if Ellison and Elon could swing a deal for it.
| onepremise wrote:
| I think people are conflating way too many issues here with
| politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies.
| The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or
| even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers
| and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute
| power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been
| spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country.
| TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused
| and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are
| all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that
| allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The
| difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are
| very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and
| splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think
| there are many that leverage the platform for income and have
| been quite successful off it. I still think it should be
| moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other
| and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or
| sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors
| that are not Allies to the US. What Does Free Speech Mean?
| https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
| autoexec wrote:
| TikTok isn't violating any US laws. If the US outlawed
| 'spreading disinformation to polarize politics' they'd have to
| ban youtube/facebook/twitter/reddit too. Do you think we should
| block all websites in China and Russia? Should we block their
| IP space entirely? We used to say that censoring the internet
| was something that only happened in Evil countries like China.
| We'd poke fun at their Great Firewall, but to preserve our own
| hypocrisy the US has decided to join in on the internet
| censorship game. Now congress is telling you what software
| you're allowed to install on your own hardware.
|
| I think it's better to have freedom. As an American I should be
| able to view any media from any country I like as long as that
| media doesn't violate US law. Americans should have the freedom
| to use any software written in any country they like. In this
| case, we lost freedom to censorship and Democracy did nothing
| to stop it.
| btown wrote:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/... -
| the relevant section of the final version of the bill.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I wonder how effective being banned would really be at slowing
| down usage?
|
| Across various threads there's a lot of info on how large & what
| a revenue source the US is for TikTok, and an assumption that
| that goes away. But do people think the ban would be 100%
| effective, that no one would workaround? Would TikTok accept the
| ban or try to help people work around it?
|
| I kind of want to see an example of the US trying to control
| things at out. It's probably not enough for ByteDance, but if
| they could retain 20% of the US in spite of the ban, that'd be a
| pretty big cultural victory, would be an impressive way to show
| up congress.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| It is finally time for the Year of Linux on Mobile? Probably
| not lol but maybe this will push people to learn how to
| sideload or "tiktok install services" might crop up to do so.
| Maybe this might force Apple to open up iOS also if enough
| users go to sideloaded Android to get their tiktok fix.
|
| Correct me if I am wrong but Didn't Epic also get removed from
| the Android and Apple stores? They are still going somehow
| though.
| cwyers wrote:
| I feel like if TikTok didn't want this to happen, they should
| have not had their CEO commit perjury in front of Congress.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Or literally having the Chinese embassy lobby on their behalf
| [1]. I guess we can laugh now that we're on the other side of
| this ham-fisted fiasco.
|
| [1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/17/china-lobbying-
| tikt...
| Spivak wrote:
| Are we reading the same articles? The Forbes story is just
| suggesting that there's a possible interpretation of their
| statements as lying and your link is saying that China wants
| TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm -- and of course
| they do, for the same reason the US would resist huge chunks
| of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off.
| There's no actual evidence of anything.
|
| Like I'm ready to get out the pitchforks but this is just
| weird FUD.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Forbes story is just suggesting that maybe they lied_
|
| Yes, lying under oath is called perjury.
|
| > _your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain
| owned by a Chinese firm_
|
| Say a foreign country were considering banning Lockheed
| Martin. And the U.S. ambassador picked up the phone--not to
| fellow diplomats, but individual legislators--to argue
| against it. Do you not see how the fact that this rose to
| the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-
| economic factors at play?
|
| > _US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable
| companies being sold off_
|
| It's been happening in Russia for the past two years. The
| cases where it rises to diplomatic incident are not
| strongly correlated with value as much as strategic worth.
| Spivak wrote:
| > rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes
| there are non-economic factors at play
|
| You mean the exact thing that happened with Facebook
| during the transatlantic data sharing agreement dispute
| because of the CLOUD act? Do you assume it's because the
| US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America
| propaganda? Even worse it was because Facebook said it
| was technically impossible for them to not store some
| data on EU citizens in the US.
|
| > It's been happening in Russia for the past two years
|
| Yes, _because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia_. It
| 's not at all the same thing when we chose to force our
| own businesses to pull out or sell. Do we not remember
| the time when Github (along with every other company)
| couldn't do business in Iran?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do you assume it 's because the US is secretly
| manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda?_
|
| No, but there absolutely were IC concerns, as well as
| trade-integration ones between allies. Non-economic,
| politically-relevant factors. In that case, not
| necessarily all adversarial.
|
| > _because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia_
|
| We sanctioned _certain_ Russian entities. Russia
| responded by seizing American and European assets. There
| were no U.S. sanctions on _e.g._ Danish beer made in
| Russia [1].
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/business/carlsberg-
| russia-bus...
| no_exit wrote:
| I thought the punishment for Congressional perjury was a
| lucrative think tank sinecure, America's really changed lately.
| autoexec wrote:
| Who hasn't lied to Congress at this point? Facebook did it,
| Amazon did it, the oil industry did it, Betsy DeVos did it, the
| director of the CIA did it, EPA Chief Scott Pruitt did it, Big
| Tobacco did it. How many of them faced any real consequences?
| Balgair wrote:
| I'll admit, I never really thought that social media primarily
| revolving around dancing teens would ever be a front in the
| Second Punic War... err, sorry, second cold war.
| nunez wrote:
| Does this mean that Cheetah Mobile apps are also going to be
| purged from US app stores? That would be a huge net benefit if
| so.
|
| What does this mean for the INSANE number of Chinese-owned IoT
| companies that sell products in the US that store some data in
| China?
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| The Chinese shills and bots are out in full force in this thread.
| Crazy to see.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| So are the pro-american bots. You can literally watch the vote
| counts go up and down in near realtime and as far as I know
| they don't follow the Reddit style of obfuscation. There aren't
| many topics where I tend to see this on HN so its fascinating
| to watch.
| wumeow wrote:
| Good lord, it is _so_ bad.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| It's the first time I've seen what definitely looks like wumao
| comments on HN posts.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| Genuinely don't see them (this is the 20th post I'm on or so?)
| Is it further down? Also, just out of curiosity, is bots ironic
| or not. I don't really see any reason for a government to send
| literal bots to Hacker News. Pretty sure changing our opinions
| aren't worth that much.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Will be nice to see how this going to be implemented. Good luck
| with that.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| seriously, tiktok canibalizing ad revenue at bigtech so they
| ban it? how is that not communism?
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Pray tell, what do you think communism is?
| AvieDeckard wrote:
| Socialism is when the government does stuff. The more stuff
| it does, the more socialist it is. And when it does a real
| lot of stuff, that's communism.
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| banning competitors?
| astrange wrote:
| They aren't banned. Their owner ByteDance is banned from
| owning them.
|
| (TikTok is banned in China though, so it'd be fair if
| they were banned.)
|
| Anyway, Chinese communism doesn't ban competitors.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Destroying competitors is just about the most laissez
| faire capitalist thing imaginable.
| notyourwork wrote:
| This is because of ad revenue?
| cranberryturkey wrote:
| yes, tiktok is stealing all the ad revenue from facebook,
| twitter, google, etc.
| astrange wrote:
| It's because having a large media company controlled by the
| CCP is obviously bad and their CEO was clearly lying when he
| testified about it.
|
| That and after Congress had already concluded it was being
| run in a way bad for teens' mental health, TikTok put up a
| dialog on launch saying they'd get banned unless all their
| users called in about it, so all the teenagers with bad
| mental health called in and said they'd kill themselves
| without TikTok.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Communism is where government owns the businesses. Businesses
| being in charge of govt. is called 'corporatocracy'.
| astrange wrote:
| Pretty easily since it's happened before (Grindr) and nobody
| noticed.
| vyrotek wrote:
| @dang, Am I imagining things or did something unusual happen with
| the ranking of this submission? Shot up and then dropped despite
| votes and comments.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| You'd have to know how many people have downvoted this to know
| that for certain.
| sethammons wrote:
| He has previously said that there is governing logic in place
| to put the breaks on rapidly progressing stories to act as a
| dampener on potential contentious posts
| kevingadd wrote:
| Threads with comment counts vastly exceeding their upvote count
| historically get suppressed, it's an anti-flamewar mechanism.
| Not sure if it's still in effect, but it would have applied
| here based on the # of upvotes.
| paulcole wrote:
| Are any other companies going to have to divest as a result of
| the bill?
| majani wrote:
| Asset seizure over data that mainly contains mindless
| entertainment? This is a new low for the US as a business
| environment in my opinion.
| beretguy wrote:
| But isn't China spying through tiktok?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index....
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| TikTok? what's the goal exactly? looks like this goes beyond
| China, what other laws do they want to pass? China spying on
| people having fun dancing and cooking!
|
| https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-
| spies...
|
| https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-
| ci...
|
| https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m.
| ..
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-
| spie...
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11562433/Facebook-r.
| ..
|
| Should the world ban Swift, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter,
| Instagram, YouTube? Where is CISCO, CISCO?!
|
| And finally, should the world ditch the USD?
|
| Reciprocity, at what price? :)
| czbond wrote:
| Wouldn't you as a government rather control your own citizens
| through mindless entertainment and algorithms than a foreign
| government? This isn't about China per se.....
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Can someone explain why the previous "ban" was blocked but this
| wasnt? As I recall TikTok filed for an injunction and they argued
| it was unconstitutional (violated the 5th ammendment) and the
| injunction was granted. Then Biden rescinded the executive order
| and it ended there.
| timerol wrote:
| As I understand it, the unconstitutionality of the initial
| executive order was based on the balance of power in the US
| government. Doing this kind of thing by executive order is not
| allowed. Doing this kind of thing by passing a law through
| Congress is allowed. The Constitution gives a lot of power to
| the legislature, especially given the interpretations of the
| Commerce Clause over the history of the US.
| droptablemain wrote:
| If China passed a similar law, I wonder what the U.S. state dept.
| would say about it.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Uh, Google was kicked out of China for not censoring search
| results, Meta and others are blocked for not submitting to
| censorship. This is tame by comparison.
| droptablemain wrote:
| Kicked out for not complying with rules vs. being forced to
| sell.
| jmbwell wrote:
| From what I understand, Google, YouTube, the web site that used
| to be called Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook are all
| banned in China already.
|
| So I suspect the state department would say something like,
| "the state department recommends banning TikTok."
| droptablemain wrote:
| I suspect the state dept. would say China banning
| Facebook/Twitter, etc. is an example of it being a "bad" or
| "totalitarian" "regime."
|
| But the U.S. banning Tik-Tok? Why that's just good ol'
| democracy at work!
| danieltanfh95 wrote:
| It is maddening to see people who usually are pretty serious and
| mature turn into zombies parroting whatever political propaganda
| the state decides to push out this year.
|
| Some key facts:
|
| 1. Tiktok isn't allowed to sell because their AI models and
| algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items
| have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a
| well known fact by the people pushing for the bill.
|
| 2. The bill was only passed since it was shafted into a bundle of
| other more urgent bills that have to pass.
|
| 3. Not all American media companies are banned in China. Some
| refuse to comply with local laws and pulled out. For example,
| Apple and Microsoft complied. However the competition in China is
| immense and not every business can survive the capitalistic
| competition.
|
| 4. While there were talks about the ban, it was not until the
| overwhelming amount of Pro Palestinian content that led to the
| heavy push for the ban.
|
| 5. The US is a relatively tiny market for tiktok, so tiktok is
| likely to just pull out.
|
| What I think:
|
| 1. The date set for the sale is highly political, and IMO its
| meant to weaponise Gen Z against the democrats.
|
| 2. Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and
| that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Agree strongly w/ this post. The irony of the comments claiming
| that TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool is that TikTok is one
| of the only major social platforms that isn't totally
| controlled by Western propaganda. Reddit, Facebook, X etc. will
| all ban and downrank you for anti-Western wrongthink.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the official CCP talking points.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| any time you see a post talking about "compliance with local
| laws" when it comes to media companies, as if it were some
| sort of zoning or worker safety compliance issue, you know
| where the talking points are coming from :)
| abvdasker wrote:
| It's genuinely remarkable to witness the Democratic Party spurn
| their base of young people for no discernible gain. Who exactly
| is the constituency for this legislation other than China
| hawks?
| extr wrote:
| Don't really see what any of this has to do with the core
| objection that via TikTok a foreign nation, a global power, has
| the ability to directly and completely opaquely manipulate
| american voter at an unprecendented level.
|
| Would be insanely easy to identify swing counties/demographics
| and slightly tweak their algorithm to influence votes. You can
| be sure some chinese data scientist has already run the numbers
| on this (if not already experimented on it at a state/local
| level). I don't really feel comfortable with the CCP having
| that level of control.
|
| > Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and
| that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
|
| Not saying that the popularity of pro palestinian content is a
| psyop. But if it were, how would you even know? Maybe it's not
| a psyop today but they pulled the right levels to make it go
| viral, and now it's an organically driven flywheel? Maybe it's
| all organic and I'm fearmongering. The point is there is no way
| to know, or ever find out. Chinese datacenters can't be
| subpoenaed.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I disagree with all of these points except the first one. #3 is
| particularly misleading: 1) Apple and Microsoft are not media
| companies, and 2) cute how you said "local laws" instead of
| "government censorship". This reads right out of a CCP
| handbook.
| icar wrote:
| Given the recent law in the US to give the NSA full access to
| user data without court order, forcing Tiktok to be owned by a US
| company makes more sense.
| wumeow wrote:
| It does not force US ownership. Read the bill.
| jtriangle wrote:
| You're right, it's "US ownership or get banned".
|
| Not just tiktok either, this will wind up applying to many
| companies.
| wumeow wrote:
| > US ownership or get banned
|
| Wrong. Read it again very carefully.
| jtriangle wrote:
| I've read the complete bill at every stage of it's
| development.
|
| It places substantial fines on American companies who
| provide services that distribute, maintain or update any
| sufficiently popular apps where a company is
| headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share
| of the company held, in a country that has been
| determined to be a foreign adversary.
|
| So sure, it's not "banned', it's just that they're made
| completely inaccessible to US users because nobody is
| going to be ok with paying substantial fines in order to
| allow it on their networks/servers/app stores.
|
| You do realize that, in english, we often use shortcuts
| to refer to things right? If something is "effectively" a
| ban, we just call it a ban and move on, because our
| language provides many, many facilities to improve
| efficiency. You being pedantic is, remarkably,
| unpleasant, and speaks poorly of your overall level of
| social adjustment, specifically because you are using the
| very language you speak incorrectly as you do so.
| wumeow wrote:
| You said it required US ownership. It does not, it
| requires ownership by a non-foreign-adversary, which is
| every country in the world except 6. I'm being pedantic
| because the law is pedantic, and I am tired of people
| catastrophizing over a law they have not understood and
| that is similar to laws that have been in place for
| almost a hundred years (radio/tv stations, airlines).
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| it doesn't have to be owned by a US company; it just can't be
| owned by a Chinese company (or another country deemed
| adversarial to the US).
| eganist wrote:
| The raw text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-
| congress/house-bill/815/...
| themagician wrote:
| Honestly, the loon who lit himself on fire the other day might
| have been onto _something_. The bill that the President just
| signed seems like an attempt to alienate at least 50% of voters
| under 30. It almost feels like the current administration is
| trying to give people a reason to vote for the other guy.
| hall0ween wrote:
| I interpreted it differently. That Biden was putting national
| interests ahead of reelection interests. That said, I should
| caveat that I tend not to read US based news cause it's a
| cesspool of outrage based clickbait.
| jquery wrote:
| I don't use TikTok, but I strongly disapprove of this. Feels like
| we've stooped to China's level when it comes to free speech? All
| this has done is validate them banning Google and Facebook.
|
| What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security
| concerns, but this feels like total overkill.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| They already banned Facebook and Google. We should reciprocate
| everything they do to us.
| latentcall wrote:
| Why?
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I hope this will show the severity of threats countries face from
| social media and that things are no longer business as usual.
|
| Every European country /and/or EU/ECC as a block, as well as
| every other nation or block, should follow this up as soon as
| permitted to have all social media apps operated by a foreign
| country be subject to the same legislation.
|
| TikTok will have to sel to the US, Netherlands, France, Germany,
| Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
|
| That will of course also go for all other social networks as
| well. The threats this bill highlights are universal to all
| social media operated outside the control and ownership,
|
| Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will
| either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or
| they will need to be sold to every country they wish to operate
| in.
|
| Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause
| to protect their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation
| from foreign owned social networks.
|
| From a geek perspective this would be great. We would get smaller
| entities that would need to interact with each other in so far as
| that would be possible or attainable.
| vizzier wrote:
| De-facto international antitrust, I like it.
| malfist wrote:
| I believe this would be de jure, not de facto.
| paulddraper wrote:
| It wouldn't be explicitly anti-trust, but that would be the
| practical effect.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp,
| will either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States
| or they will need to be sold to every country they wish to
| operate in_
|
| TikTok can sell to a French, Hungarian, Indian, Brazilian or
| even Iraqi person and be in compliance with this bill's terms.
| It doesn't require American ownership, it forbids control by a
| foreign adversary.
|
| If the EU and U.S. passed legislation subjecting all tech
| companies to these rules, the only ones who would have to do
| anything are those owned _and controlled_ by a foreign
| adversary state.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Correct. _Any_ other country on earth, other than:
|
| * China
|
| * North Korea
|
| * Iran
|
| * Cuba
|
| * Russia
|
| * Venezuela
|
| Could sell it to Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia,
| Afghanistan, Belarus, etc.
| josu wrote:
| What about Hong Kong?
| Moto7451 wrote:
| That's very much China.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Honest question: what's stopping them from being
| transferred to a Belizean shell company owned by a company
| in Delaware with a board full of puppets who blindly do the
| bidding of the previous owners? Do the CxOs need to be
| replaced? Are Chinese senior staff members being replaced?
| Low level staff? What concrete changes are going to be made
| that will change their behavior?
|
| I oppose this bill because it doesn't seem to do anything
| to address the actual threats posed by social media. After
| all, foreign adversaries openly operate on Facebook. Why
| isn't Zuckerberg being forced to divest? Either all social
| media is a threat, and that threat needs to be addressed,
| or this is all theater meant to satisfy the population
| without tackling the actual issues (if we are honest, the
| same politicians pushing for this bill benefit from social
| media influence) .
| Marsymars wrote:
| > what's stopping them from being transferred to a
| Belizean shell company owned by a company in Delaware
| with a board full of puppets who blindly do the bidding
| of the previous owners?
|
| What stops the puppets from ignoring the previous owners?
| throw310822 wrote:
| > it forbids control by a foreign adversary.
|
| At least this vindicates the choice all the countries that
| consider the US an adversary and have blocked US social
| media. While the US has always characterised the block as the
| hallmark of illiberal regimes.
| roody15 wrote:
| Hmm not sure I agree. It can be helpful to have access to
| social media that contains perspectives outside of the control
| of the country you live in. Sure will it be slanted or even
| outright propaganda ? Yes but this is still okay as we can
| teach people to critically think and make their own decisions.
| The idea that our "government" will curate content and sanctify
| what is true is simply dystopian.
|
| Citizen these social media sites and these news sources are
| safe. We have curated this list for your safety and that of the
| community at large.
|
| Geez things have gotten bad in a hurry :(
| noqc wrote:
| >this is still okay as we can teach people to critically
| think and make their own decisions.
|
| This is a nice fantasy but it fails to a number of
| intractible social problems. Children aren't taught
| skepticism because parents don't want their children to be
| taught skepticism. You would need to use force that you do
| not have access to in order to even attempt the solution you
| are proposing.
|
| Second, implicit in your argument is that people would be
| responsible for thinking critically about every fact that
| they believe. This is just too much work, the human strategy
| _requires_ trust, and we have massive incentive structures
| called societies whose main job is to facilitate that trust
| through the establishment of systems of incentives. This
| complicated system of incentives has been demolished,
| wholesale, by social media, and we 're not going to adapt
| fast enough to avoid serious damage.
| hot_gril wrote:
| We solved this by disallowing children from voting. Kids
| these days eventually learn not to trust anything they read
| on the Internet.
| kalupa wrote:
| hard to see that we "solved" this, regardless of who's
| allowed to vote
| dgfitz wrote:
| > Children aren't taught skepticism because parents don't
| want their children to be taught skepticism.
|
| Say huh? Where on earth did you pull this "factoid" from?
| vundercind wrote:
| This is 100% true in a scary-large proportion of
| Protestant religious households. I don't even mean the
| nuttier end like the Quiverfull folks or whatever, but
| much more common somewhat-more-religious-than-median-
| Protestant sorts, attending relatively normal churches.
|
| Source: I ran which quite a few of that sort as a kid.
|
| It could also be true of other religious groups (it
| definitely is with the _even nuttier_ end of Protestants)
| like Catholics and Muslims or what have you, but that's
| the part I have experience with, and that's a _lot_ of
| people. They don't live in San Francisco or New York or
| Boston or Seattle, mostly, but they exist in numbers.
| FpUser wrote:
| >" Yes but this is still okay as we can teach people to
| critically think and make their own decisions."
|
| Politicians will commit seppuku the minute it happens in
| their country. Independently thinking populace is their worst
| nightmare.
|
| Luckily for them most people do not do that.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| IMO the issue isn't that content should be censored and we
| shouldn't see ideas from other countries. It's perfectly fine
| to have an official CCP account post CCP positions anywhere.
| It's less fine when the CCP account claims to be Jeff from
| Iowa and it's even less fine when the platform is controlled
| by the CCP and certain topics or opinions hey amplified by
| the platform's algorithms. I'm not sure the latter happened,
| but we cannot even know and have to trust an actively hostile
| actor.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Ironically, this sort of internet sovereignty is exactly what
| China has been preaching for years (though its so-called World
| Internet Conference), and of course has the most advanced state
| of the art implementation (aka Great Firewall) to ensure it. It
| likely didn't envision that this philosophy might one day come
| back to bite one of their own :)
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Great Firewall
|
| This is what sovereignty looks like to you? It looks like
| totalitarianism to me.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Sovereignty is really just a fancy word for "do whatever
| the hell we want" made to sound noble.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I think that was the point being made. ;)
| flawn wrote:
| Both are more close to each other than you think. Just
| different semantics but speaking of the same
| gleenn wrote:
| The US allows nearly everything and is now blocking one
| thing. China is almost exactly the opposite. They aren't
| the same.
| gverrilla wrote:
| Regarding social media, US allows nearly everything
| because nearly everything is made there. Or might I say
| "allowed"? China is the same: they allow everybody in, as
| long as they play by their rules. The main difference is
| US being responsible for many massacres worldwide, and
| China being chill. Worth mentioning the incarceration
| data comparison aswell..
| collegeburner wrote:
| No, small states do not have the same rights as large ones. You
| may disagree with this but I don't see any point in pretending
| it's untrue. Large countries have more sway and matter more to
| everyone, including but not limited to operators of social
| platforms. Losing half your userbase hurts much more than
| losing a hundredth. I also doubt that the U.S. would force a
| sale of a social app based in the Netherlands, France, Germany,
| Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
|
| I wouldn't particularly blame Gabon or Vietnam if they wanted
| their primary media outlets operated by nations that are at
| least vaguely friendly to their values. They are free to
| attempt to force a sale and ban it when those apps inevitably
| do not comply.
| npteljes wrote:
| >Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same
| cause to protect their citizens from the surveillance and
| manipulation from foreign owned social networks.
|
| Next up, we could migrate government systems away from foreign
| IT software and services. The FOSS world has plenty of capable
| offerings, and it's not as if the choices were made on
| technical merit in the first place. I'd love to see Free
| Software and open standards being taught in schools, and being
| used in government.
| astrea wrote:
| Yes and while we're at it, we should simply relinquish control
| of these companies to the government. Perhaps any company
| remotely journalistic in nature. For safety of course.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China
| country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there?
| Away from NSA/SS/FBI scanning and FISA courts. That would seem to
| be the best of all worlds for ByteDance if they could make it
| hard to audit the potential company and if the court challenge
| fails to have the whole thing dismissed as unconstitutional.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _wonder if they couldn 't sell to a more "friendly" to China
| country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of
| there?_
|
| It only counts if "the President determines, through an
| interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign
| adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by
| a foreign adversary" [1].
|
| So presumably if a pair of Hungarian millionaires show up and
| place a bid, there would be additional questions.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521... 2(g)(6)*
| moneycantbuy wrote:
| good, not only is it malware/spyware, the chinese government can
| shape the beliefs and behaviors of > 100,000,000 americans at the
| flip of a switch. albeit users are idiots for giving their
| attention in the first place. and because capitalism = god, will
| probably end up selling to the saudis.
| electriclizard wrote:
| What are the logistics for this? Does ByteDance clone their repo
| and make America the owner?
| ein0p wrote:
| Reciprocity is a thing. I'm sure it won't be difficult to suggest
| that certain US businesses operating in China "need to have
| Chinese owners" too. So I predict this will badly backfire.
|
| But on the whole I'm in favor of any and all laws undermining the
| mind cancer that is "social media", irrespective of who controls
| it, worldwide.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| They already do that.
| beambot wrote:
| This action is reciprocity. X, YouTube, Facebook, New York
| Times & hundreds of others are already blocked in China...
| warbaker wrote:
| Forcing the sale of TikTok _is_ reciprocity. Facebook, Google,
| etc. are already banned in China. This is the CCP's policies
| backfiring.
| ein0p wrote:
| I mean reciprocity not just on the de-facto government
| propaganda outlets like US-controlled social media and search
| engines, but on the more tangible things related to all sorts
| of manufacturing and access to the vast and still growing
| Chinese markets.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| They already do, for the most part, require a JV that is
| majority owned by Chinese. That has been around for a long
| time. (This is if you as a foreign business are operating
| locally and selling to Chinese consumers. If you're just doing
| your manufacturing in China and exporting abroad, you're in a
| different category.)
|
| Plus, foreign social media are blocked altogether unless they
| submit to Chinese government censorship.
|
| So there's not much that can backfire.
| ein0p wrote:
| >> So there's not much that can backfire
|
| Why does this sound like "famous last words"?
| devhead wrote:
| we'll see what the courts say with this. American government used
| to decry "the great china firewall" yet here they come all
| holding hands to raise up an American one, against the American
| people. This is not a Ban on TikTok, it is a blockage and
| suppression of our freedom of speech, and to freely associate.
|
| The US government suddenly can find common grounds to do
| something and it's to restrict US? no thanks.
| GreedIsGood wrote:
| If the US wants to argue reciprocity then it should in a trade
| bill.
|
| Requiring TikTok to sell is an overreach by the state. It will
| leads us on a path where companies will be strictly regional.
|
| Not a fan.
| ddp26 wrote:
| I looked into this, and here's what I think will happen [copied
| from another thread where I posted this]: -
| ByteDance will challenge the ruling in court (>95%), but they
| will lose (80%) - They then will succeed in selling
| TikTok US to a US company, despite what ByteDance execs and China
| are saying (75%) - The sale will be for $30-50B (CI
| 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to
| be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X.
| - Walmart and Oracle won't compete to buy it this time. Microsoft
| or Amazon are the top contenders, also quite likely is a
| consortium led by someone like Steven Mnuchin.
|
| Rationales for the above in https://github.com/varunaai/tiktok-
| ban
| josu wrote:
| >The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include
| important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-
| based company, likely Snap or X.
|
| Why replicate it? Can't ByteDance license the IP to the US
| company?
| nashashmi wrote:
| it will have to be bought by a US company. The US company will
| have to be connected to the govt. The gears are already turning
| to make sure it happens just like they planned. Why else is
| Steve interested??
| luyu_wu wrote:
| The thing that ticks me off is that there hasn't been conclusive
| evidence that actually justifies this ban. I'd be perfectly happy
| if the CIA came out with documents of how the data goes to China,
| but all I've seen is evidence to the contrary (e.g. servers in
| US, headquarters in SG etc). If I'm wrong, I'd gladly look at
| some linked articles of course.
| RIMR wrote:
| There isn't really any evidence of the supposed threats we've
| heard about from Congress. It's pretty much bog-standard
| sinophobia / anti-communist scaremongering.
| coffeemug wrote:
| If any ideology or regimes espousing it have earned
| scaremongering, it's communism.
| AlphaSite wrote:
| If nothing else the ban on foreign ownership of Chinese
| companies alone feels like it justifies some reciprocal action.
| No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China, but the
| reverse is not true.
| bogdan wrote:
| Exactly. It's unclear whether the primary goal of TikTok
| regulation is to genuinely safeguard young users or to
| prepare the public for further restrictions on other Chinese
| companies. Regardless, given China's advanced development
| beyond what many in the West perceive, I think it's important
| for western countries to start taking protective measures.
| TikTok is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
| aragonite wrote:
| > No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China
|
| Not true taken literally, obviously; not true if taken as
| saying "only JVs are allowed" either. According to the
| Department of Commerce
| (https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=China-
| Establishing-a...):
|
| > A large majority of new foreign investments in China are
| WFOEs [wholly foreign owned enterprises], rather than JVs. As
| Chinese legal entities, WFOEs experience greater independence
| than ROs, are allowed exclusive control over carrying out
| business activities while abiding by Chinese law and are
| granted intellectual and technological rights.
|
| Also (https://arc-group.com/china-company-setup/):
|
| > WFOE refers to a limited liability company that is 100%
| invested, owned by foreign investors, and independently
| operated. Almost 60% of foreign-owned companies are WFOEs,
| making it the most adopted business type. Famous
| multinational companies such as Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and
| General Electric are all examples of WFOEs.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| I've seen this point scattered throughout the thread, and it
| seems quite popular. I don't particularly take issue with it
| since market reciprocity obviously makes sense, but I'm not
| sure that this bill should tag itself as national security in
| that case!
|
| Small note: Many US companies do operate in China with large
| margins (Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, NVidia, etc). There's
| been a Wikipedia article cited a through times throughout
| this thread with a complete list of blocked domains! Just a
| minor nitpick, thanks for the thoughts still.
| _sword wrote:
| There's some research here that the NYTimes cited in an article
| on the topic of TikTok deplatforming certain topics
|
| https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
| ok123456 wrote:
| This report is very laughable. It looks at the number of
| posts with the same hashtag between Instagram and TikTok as a
| simple ratio.
|
| An alternate conclusion is that Instagram is censoring topics
| that don't align with the "Consensus" in Washington and
| artificially boosting content that does. Why is there
| literally no content on Instagram about the Gaza war, yet I
| get up-to-date news and reports on TikTok?
| cowsup wrote:
| There's no evidence one way or another. TikTok's servers are in
| the US, but, even if we audit their entire outbound
| connections, or get a warrant from their ISP to confirm no
| traffic has ever gone out to China... There's no surefire way
| of saying that an employee didn't just plug their laptop into
| the server, download data, and then ship it off to China later
| on.
|
| Both the US government and TikTok/ByteDance are unable to prove
| their claims, and likely, neither one ever could. Even if
| TikTok showed 100% evidence that they've never done that, the
| US government would know that there's nothing stopping TikTok
| from doing it at a later date.
|
| This legislation is the US government deciding that the risks
| are too great, and so they're willing to take the gamble and
| shut down a company that's potentially done nothing wrong.
| "Innocent until proven guilty" is typically reserved for the
| judicial system, but this is a legislative decision; it'll be
| an interesting court case to determine if the US legislators
| are able to make these sorts of decisions outside of the
| judiciary.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| Thanks! This actually makes a lot of sense to me. While I'm
| not sure I agree with the 'guilty until proven innocent', I
| understand more about the motivations.
| neverokay wrote:
| McCarthyism is back in style.
| sevmedna wrote:
| Some ex-TikTok employees say the social media service worked
| closely with its China-based parent despite claims of
| independence https://fortune.com/2024/04/15/tiktok-china-data-
| sharing-byt...
|
| Ex-ByteDance Exec Claims TikTok Gave Communist Party 'God User'
| Status https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-political-china-communist-
| god-use...
|
| American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/23/american-tik...
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| If this amount of effort is going into protect us from TikTok,
| then why not protect us from every other Social Media company
| that is tracking us.
| dogman144 wrote:
| The thing is evidence came out 4-5 years ago that CCP directed
| TikTok to steer engagement algorithms to further PRC foreign
| policy goals which tldr meant inflame US users via purposely
| divisive content served up via TK.
|
| You are wrong, and linked articles from US intel community have
| been available for years.
| luyu_wu wrote:
| Thanks for linking the articles...
| cm2012 wrote:
| It's as simple as a trade war issue. They banned our social
| media, we ban theirs. Fair is fair.
| whyenot wrote:
| US lawmakers are deeply concerned that TikTok _might_ exploit
| some of the data they collect on their users,
|
| ...yet they turn a blind eye to the _fact_ that GM not only
| collected driving data on their users, apparently in some cases
| without consent, but they sold it to others, including auto
| insurers, who used the information to increase the insurance
| rates of those who were spied on.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Since we are already being controversial, can we simply ban or
| regulate all short videos -- similar to the duration cap the
| Chinese government put up for gaming for people less than 18? My
| wife has been doom scrolling for hours every day.
|
| At least get something good in return. Even if Tiktok decides to
| leave US, there are a whole lot of other short video apps that
| can fill in the blank.
| throwaway69123 wrote:
| China should retaliate and ban all US ownership of chinese
| companies
| FpUser wrote:
| They can make web client and show middle finger. If this happens
| the US will be forced to block domains and VPNs.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Not entirely sure what evil thing the CCP is doing with the
| TikTok data that I like cat videos.
| resters wrote:
| There is absolutely no justification for the US copying CCP
| policies. This is an embarrassing day for the US.
|
| Tiktok has been the only place to see videos about police
| brutality and one of the main places to see the movement
| supporting the Palestinian cause.
|
| I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| What separates the United States from the E.U, North Korea,
| Canada, China and Australia is that the government nor monopolies
| have the right to prevent American citizens from viewing or
| reading what they want.
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