[HN Gopher] Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might of...
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Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
Author : kjhughes
Score : 758 points
Date : 2025-01-17 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Link to opinion:
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf
| numbsafari wrote:
| The interesting bits from the text[1], relative to the now
| flagged sibling
|
| -----
|
| (3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.--The term
| "foreign adversary controlled application" means a website,
| desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or
| immersive technology application that is operated, directly or
| indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or
| affiliate), by--
|
| (A) any of--
|
| (i) ByteDance, Ltd.;
|
| (ii) TikTok;
|
| (iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in
| clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary;
| or
|
| (iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by
| an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
|
| (B) a covered company that--
|
| (i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
|
| (ii) that is determined by the President to present a
| significant threat to the national security of the United
| States following the issuance of--
|
| (I) a public notice proposing such determination; and
|
| (II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30
| days before such determination, describing the specific
| national security concern involved and containing a classified
| annex and a description of what assets would need to be
| divested to execute a qualified divestiture.
|
| -----
|
| The way I read this is that Congress is bootstrapping the law
| with its own finding that ByteDance, Ltd/TikTok are Foreign
| Adversary Controlled Applications, but then, in (3)(B), the
| President is responsible for determining any other entities
| this law should cover given previously stated parameters (what
| they mean by "covered entity" here), using the procedure it
| then provides.
|
| I believe that addresses the concern about this being a "Bill
| of Attainder".
|
| Edit: Obviously IANAL, but it also doesn't appear that this
| issue of this being a Bill of Attainder was raised by TikTok,
| nor was it considered in this opinion. Perhaps they will do so
| in a separate action, or already have and it just hasn't made
| its way to the court(?), but if it were such a slam dunk
| defense, you think their expensive lawyers would have raised
| it.
|
| [1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521...
| hedora wrote:
| This analysis seems reasonable, but I think the simpler
| explanation blatant corruption, since the legislation is
| moving judicial responsibility from from the judicial branch
| to the legislature and president, and a great deal of money
| is involved.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I think the simpler explanation blatant corruption, since
| the legislation is moving judicial responsibility from from
| the judicial branch to the legislature and president
|
| I mean, that's true of basically all administrative
| agencies.
| Gormo wrote:
| But with the reversal of _Chevron_ , this will hopefully
| be somewhat corrected.
| Gormo wrote:
| > I believe that addresses the concern about this being a
| "Bill of Attainder".
|
| The definition of "foreign adversary controlled application"
| in the bill is explicit in including either (a) this specific
| list of organizations, OR (b) other organization that might
| meet certain criteria later. I'm not sure how the existence
| of (b) addresses the concern that (a) amounts to a bill of
| attainder.
| andrewla wrote:
| The Supreme Court has made only very narrow rulings around
| Bills of Attainder.
|
| To me this bill seems problematic on that front in two
| directions. One is that it explicitly names a target of the
| ban. Secondly, it grants the president power to arbitrarily
| name more. Similar to how a King can declare certain Subjects
| be Attainded on His Whim.
|
| But the petitioners (TikTok) did not raise this issue so the
| court did not have to decide on it. Instead they focused on
| the first amendment issue, which seems like a loser -- there
| is no speech present on TikTok that the law bans; any content
| on TikTok can be posted to red-blooded American apps like
| shorts or reels so the speech itself is not affected.
| raverbashing wrote:
| And it was an unanimous decision. When was the last time we had
| those for such an impactful decision I wonder?
| kyrra wrote:
| Regularly, you just don't read about them as they don't make
| news headlines.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| "impactful decision" is key here.
| kyrra wrote:
| Many/most scotus rulings are impactful. They are just not
| all controversial.
| dataflow wrote:
| "Impactful" might be counting your chickens a little too
| early. Let's see if it has any impact. The next POTUS might
| just ignore it, or some other shenanigans might be used to
| work around whatever the imagined impact was.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| The majority of Supreme Court decisions are unanimous,
| including on major issues. The recent trend of divided
| opinions is relatively new.
| hb-robo wrote:
| The kids flocking to another Chinese app just to avoid using
| Reels, Shorts, or whatever abomination is on X continues to be so
| funny to me. Looks like a long game of whack a mole starting.
| ok123456 wrote:
| https://www.xiaohongshu.com
| diggan wrote:
| Am I missing something obvious, or is that only available in
| one language? How do American teenagers use that?
|
| Don't get me wrong, I consumed American media and played
| American video games before I understood English, so clicking
| around eventually led you down some path.
|
| But isn't most of that content meant to be consumed by people
| who understand the language said content is made with?
| ok123456 wrote:
| You install the app, and can set the language.
| internetter wrote:
| While this is true, the translation is quite poor and not
| all parts of the app are translated.
| ok123456 wrote:
| It's good enough.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Given the slop people are dealing with, I'm sure some
| people feel right at home.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Mostly just lots of translation. Lots of American and
| Chinese users are putting translations directly into posts
| and comments to make it easier for others.
| taylodl wrote:
| The funny this is American teens may start learning
| Mandarin as a result of this ill-advised ban, which is
| _exactly_ what the US government doesn 't want!
| ok123456 wrote:
| xswl
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| If this motivates any significant portion of the populace
| to learn one of the hardest languages to learn (In the
| West), I'd see that as a justification alone.
| internetter wrote:
| > Am I missing something obvious, or is that only available
| in one language? How do American teenagers use that?
|
| It's to spite the United States Government. And it's
| hilarious.
|
| https://social.coop/@eb/113829092915144918
| electroly wrote:
| They're detecting Americans now somehow and setting the
| language to English by default; I didn't have to change the
| language. The translation looks pretty rushed but it's
| enough to navigate the app. The community guidelines are,
| notably, still only in Mandarin.
|
| The posts are largely subtitled in both Chinese and English
| regardless of the spoken language. Comments are often in
| both languages, but if not you can click Translate.
| diggan wrote:
| Any parent (and even us non-parents who've spent a lot of time
| around kids) know that the best way to get teenagers to stop
| doing something, is to start doing it yourself. If you forbid
| them to do something, it's basically inviting them to try their
| hardest to do it anyways.
| ok123456 wrote:
| There are tons of people over 30, 40, 50 even over 90 on
| TikTok.
| Etheryte wrote:
| That's true, but proportionally they're a vast minority.
| echelon wrote:
| The algorithm segregates based on physical features, which
| can make sure they don't see one another with frequency.
|
| It's known to use facial recognition to boost videos of
| "beautiful people".
|
| https://www.dexerto.com/tiktok/tiktoks-algorithm-
| prioritizes...
| ok123456 wrote:
| Not true at all. I see people of all ages.
| hellojesus wrote:
| It is likely targetted at specific demographics.
| ok123456 wrote:
| 12-year-olds probably aren't getting the same 10-minute
| videos of auto insurance adjusters taking exceptional
| calls that I am. But they might if they're precocious.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I'd be very surprised if anyone on TikTok is getting 10
| minute videos on anything.
|
| I'd still be surprised, but less so, I'd auto insurance
| adjusters are taking the time to make short form content
| aimed at the 40+ audience.
| ok123456 wrote:
| https://www.tiktok.com/@claimslife1
| echelon wrote:
| Lawyers are getting in on it too. It's a major form of
| marketing for them now.
|
| - Law by Mike (10M subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/meJA30cglvo
|
| - Legal Eagle (3.5M subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lgT4iZ9BYF8
|
| - Ugo Lord (1.9M subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I77J6n72Oto
|
| - Attorney Tom (500k subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kgLTqx2UFUk
|
| - Mike Rafi (300k subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/znQgK6God2w
|
| - CEO Lawyer (24k subs):
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RzqBiKLZNy4
|
| Law by Mike puts some pretty incredible production value
| into their videos.
|
| Sharing YouTube links because TikTok web isn't great and
| the links will likely stop working in a few days.
| daeken wrote:
| I watch at least 2-3 10 minute videos on TikTok daily,
| and a large number of 5+ minute videos! There's an
| amazing amount of good content, and once the algorithm
| hones in on what you care about it gets surfaced for you.
|
| Can't say I have insurance adjusters on my FYP, but I
| think that speaks to the power of the algorithm's
| targeting far more than it does the lack of content.
| diggan wrote:
| Are those people also making posts like "I'd rather get
| shot by Mao than use Instagram Threads/Reels" right now?
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Yeah... People just hate being told what they're not
| allowed to do.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It's a very American attitude to rebel against the
| tyranny of the government, after all. Something about
| taxation without representation?
| daeken wrote:
| 37 here and: yes.
| thiagoharry wrote:
| Sure. People older than 30 also dislike when the
| government tries to censor their access to some media.
| est wrote:
| PG just wrote a blog, it shows the history of how
| students in the 1960s holding Mao's Red Book (pun
| intended) was the origin of the "woke" thing.
| krapp wrote:
| PG is full of shit. "Woke" originated within the black
| activist community and culturally goes back as far as the
| 1930s. It got adopted and became mainstream within the
| white liberal progressive community through the
| popularity of black music artists and social media in the
| late 20th century. It has absolutely nothing to do with
| Mao's Red Book or communism.
| est wrote:
| OK forget the "woke" thing here, let me rephrase, does
| the "1960s Berkeley protests" have a connection with
|
| - Mao's Red Book, and
|
| - the BLM/metoo/woke thing in the 2020s?
| krapp wrote:
| Maybe you could tell me what connection you want me to
| see?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| This is how I got mine to stop saying slay, preppy and sigma.
| The look of horror and cringe on their face when I say crap
| like "skibidi ohio rizz" in front of them and their friends,
| is a chef's kiss.
| bartread wrote:
| This is exactly why I've started slinging gen alpha lingo at
| our daughters: even doing it jokingly makes them cringe
| enough to stop using it themselves.
| Clent wrote:
| Slay. No Cap, Fanum Tax that Skibidi.
| myko wrote:
| Interesting that most of this "gen alpha" slang are
| phrases used by Black Americans for years
| alyandon wrote:
| I do this to my son as well and I have to admit it is
| unreasonably effective.
| xnyan wrote:
| The big one is called RedNote, and it's actually fairly well
| done.
| hb-robo wrote:
| Oh, wasn't meant at any dig in terms of quality, I don't
| believe in that kind of characterization. Besides,
| ostensibly, Chinese developers have been much more successful
| in this space and seem to deliver better products. I just
| wouldn't know myself as I stay off of shortform video
| platforms.
| NickC25 wrote:
| The irony of Americans flocking to a CCP-approved app whose
| Chinese name is translated to "little red book" is just a bit
| too on-the-nose. For those who don't know, Little Red Book is
| _also_ the literature spread during the Cultural Revolution
| in China that was a collection of quotes and sayings by
| Chairman Mao.
|
| There's gotta be a joke in there about the communists selling
| the capitalists the rope the capitalists eventually hang
| themselves with. But, I digress.
| gambiting wrote:
| The meme I'm seeing everywhere is that with so many Americans
| joining RedNote, Americans are discovering how much Chinese
| people are paying for healthcare, food or property, and
| Chinese people are discovering things like 40 hour work weeks
| and actually having a holiday from time to time - so now the
| question is whether US or China bans it first.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Does China not have holidays? Us isn't great there with a
| total of 7 federally recognized holidays.
| gambiting wrote:
| The 666 workweek(6 days a week 6 am till 6pm) is
| definitely real in some companies and it's a big problem
| with work culture especially in tech. But in general I'm
| sure they do holidays.
| gs17 wrote:
| China also has 7 main federally recognized holidays.
| Although, one interesting thing they do is "weekend
| shifting" where they move the official work days near,
| e.g. the Spring Festival so that people get a full week
| of holiday (at the cost of a longer workweek or a one-day
| weekend right before/after it): https://en.wikipedia.org/
| wiki/Public_holidays_in_China#Weeke...
| nujabe wrote:
| Can confirm. I had no idea about RedNote till my 18yo niece
| sent me a link to download it.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Under a million kids moving over to RedNote for a week or 2
| means nothing. There is no whack a mole. Tiktok algo is the
| sauce, nothing else has the sauce. People enjoyed the sauce.
| skyyler wrote:
| Xiaohongshu has better sauce than youtube shorts or instagram
| reels.
|
| Using Chinese social media is cool now.
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| For a 1MM kids, not for 169MM others. They will go where
| there is the least friction which is likely a Meta or
| Alphabet product.
| skyyler wrote:
| >They will go where there is the least friction which is
| likely a Meta or Alphabet product.
|
| Fortunately, I think you're wrong about this. American
| children will be saying mandarin catchphrases before they
| start using Instagram Reels.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Just not if you're gay.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| By all accounts, RedNote is hugely gay, with many people
| talking about how it's full of gay Chinese folks looking
| to connect with people.
| skyyler wrote:
| Misinformation. I've seen plenty of gay people on there.
| Including myself and my partner.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| "the sauce" is for the audience to figure out. The sauce was
| disgusting to me, but that didn't matter to those 100m
| consumers.
|
| And yes, this begs the question of "when does something
| become a matter of national security". 10 million? A million
| moving over before the day of reckoning isn't a small thing.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| the sauce = tiktok's algorithm. The audience doesn't figure
| that out, the company delivering the videos to you does. So
| far, no one else seems to have even come close. GenZ are
| proactively against Zuck, so that's even a bigger hole for
| Reels to overcome. Rednote doesn't have the algo people
| want and its interface isn't in English. It cost zilch for
| those kids to make a RedNote account. They are literally
| making it a meme. They wont be there in 2 months when no
| one else is there, and the joke is over. RedNote will have
| even more heavy handed moderation than TikTok as it is
| currently sharing its userbase with Chinese citizens.
| RedNote is not an answer to any of the underlying wants or
| desires of the Tiktok community except for a extreme
| minority of the TikTok userbase who are rallying against
| the US govt/Meta. Personally, I think the ban is within the
| power of the US government to do but do recognize the very
| real concerns and view of those who think the government
| shouldn't have done this. The incoming administration is
| free to seek to undo this if they want, but it can and
| should take an act of legislation to undo.
| xnx wrote:
| > Tiktok algo is the sauce, nothing else has the sauce.
|
| Tiktok algo is nothing special:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-
| alg...
|
| The volume of interaction data from good interface design and
| huge user base is the core of the success.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Counterpoint: Reels, YT Shorts
| xnx wrote:
| Reels and YT Shorts are definitely worse, but I would
| attribute that to not having the same content to even
| show and not having the same amount of data because of a
| much smaller audience than to having an inferior
| recommendation system.
| est wrote:
| > Tiktok algo is the sauce
|
| What makes you think the Bytedance chefs who cooked the sauce
| wont join the Redbook company? Their HQ were both located in
| China anyway.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Even if that could occur, they don't have time to hire,
| design and implement it before their window of capturing
| the wave is over. RedNote is in a right place wrong time
| situation that would be in a worse position that Tiktok was
| in for scrutiny since we already had the house the data
| here legal battle with Bytedance.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It isn't really whack-a-mole though, because despite the media
| coverage there is no "TikTok ban bill." Instead it's a "Hostile
| nation can't own majority stakes in media companies in the US"
| bill, and this SCOTUS ruling sets the precedent that can be
| enforced on as many entities as required.
|
| On a more amusing note the Chinese did NOT expect a bunch of
| Americans to show up on RedNote, and they're not thrilled so
| far. It seems that sharing details of how to organize labor
| unions, protest against your government, 3D print weapons, and
| so on wasn't what they were hoping for either. There's
| allegedly talk of them siloing off the new joins from abroad.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| So how big does Rednote need to be to "majority stakes in
| media companies in the US"? I don't like this ruling at all,
| but it feels very American to see another looming threat and
| say "well, I'll just wait until it gets too big to deal with
| it".
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It qualifies already, but I really doubt it's going to take
| off for many reasons. It isn't TikTok, the CCP has a much
| heavier hand there (ask the kids who ran into a 48 hour
| review period for their posts), and frankly I don't think
| the CCP is going to appreciate a bunch of mostly young,
| leftist teens sharing their ideas with Chinese people. The
| reaction to "Here's how you can organize a union/3D print a
| gun" has been hilariously predictable.
| ajross wrote:
| The Red Note nonsense _is just a meme_ , somewhat fittingly.
| First, because the only place you see coverage of all the "kids
| flocking" is... on TikTok itself. It's always a red (heh) flag
| when your source for big important events comes only from the
| affected parties.
|
| But secondly because Red Note is subject to exactly the same
| regulation as TikTok, for exactly the same reason. There's no
| protection or loophole there, this app is just a district court
| injunction away from a ban too. Literally no one cares, they
| just love to meme.
| vehemenz wrote:
| I think it's a troubling sign that American cultural decline is
| much broader and deeper than Trumpism.
| hb-robo wrote:
| Kids are born into a world where the last generation is
| already essentially locked into lifetime servitude, the world
| is burning, and the "adults in the room" are a circus. How
| could they not indulge in alternatives? What is there to look
| forward to, identify with, or love about this place?
|
| Culture thrives when the people are able to live meaningful
| lives.
| diggan wrote:
| > Although Trump could choose to not enforce the law
|
| Ah, clever to leave it up for bribes from ByteDance.
|
| > The nation's highest court said in the opinion that while "data
| collection and analysis is a common practice in this digital
| age," the sheer size of TikTok and its "susceptibility to foreign
| adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive
| data the platform collects" poses a national security concern
|
| What is the point of these "rules and regulations" and "the
| nation's highest court" when the president could decide just not
| to enforce them?
| ericmay wrote:
| > Ah, clever to leave it up for bribes from ByteDance.
|
| I agree. And the bribery already started when the Trump
| campaign found itself doing very well on engagement in TikTok.
| The CCP had already started the bribery before the election in
| a bid to maintain influence over the US while halting American
| influence in China.
|
| The Biden administration I believe said they won't enforce the
| law starting Sunday, leaving it to the incoming administration
| to enforce. It'll be wildly popular for Trump to save TikTok,
| so I expect he'll do it without forcing a sale.
| nottorp wrote:
| > What is the point of these "rules and regulations" and "the
| nation's highest court" when the president could decide just
| not to enforce them?
|
| Good question actually.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| The president is in charge of executing the law. It's in our
| system of checks and balances. I'm choosing to speak at an
| extremely general level, of course, but that is the answer to
| your question.
| diggan wrote:
| Specifically, I think it's "take care that the laws be
| faithfully executed" (Art. II, SS3).
|
| Does that mean "If foreign companies don't like our laws,
| they can pay to have them adjusted"? Seems not very faithful,
| but I hardly understand that word anymore it feels like.
| krapp wrote:
| It means whatever SCOTUS decides it means, unless and until
| they decide otherwise.
| nottorp wrote:
| So can Trump legally ignore this SCOTUS or not? :)
| krapp wrote:
| I mean, SCOTUS also decided nothing a sitting President
| does in their official capacity while in office can be
| considered a crime even if it breaks the law so yeah.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| The logic behind such a ruling is nonsensical. Imagine if
| a president, in his/her official capacity, started
| murdering political rivals. In other countries, that's
| considered a dictatorship and should be stopped. But in
| America, that's completely legal according to SCOTUS. In
| fact, that was one of the questions asked by the
| justices!
|
| Apparently, committing crimes with absolute immunity is a
| necessary part of the presidential office. Without such
| protections, they'd be afraid to do things like
| extrajudicial drone strikes (Obama) and internment camps
| (FDR). Oh, wait.
|
| I hate to "Poe's Law" this tangent, but most people
| forget that Hitler's rise to power was also completely
| legal. Just change the constitution and get the judiciary
| to side with you, and you can do anything. It's
| terrifying.
| ImJamal wrote:
| The president can just not enforce a law.
| nottorp wrote:
| Why are they called laws then? :)
|
| Does the US have a different definition for everything?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| From your second line, the answer is mostly no. Why are you
| assuming otherwise? Who is paying what to who?
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Ah, clever to leave it up for bribes from ByteDance._
|
| News story from yesterday, "TikTok CEO expected to attend Trump
| inauguration as ban looms":
|
| *
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/...
| diggan wrote:
| Veering off-topic but I don't understand how there isn't
| wide-spread protests/riots right now in the US. Is the
| working/middle class just accepting all of this, even when
| it's apparent the government is being sold for quick cash?
| hb-robo wrote:
| They can't afford not to accept it, honestly. They need to
| work so they don't die.
|
| "A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that
| 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck" "71.93% of
| Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less
| in Savings" https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-
| paycheck-to-pa...
| philk10 wrote:
| they think they are going to get cheap eggs and bacon
| rhgwfa wrote:
| Massive propaganda. Bannon has been brought in line and has
| fully recanted after his comments about Musk:
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/14/bannon-second-
| trump...
|
| A couple of Trump forums focus on distractions like the
| California fires and delete comments about working class
| rights. The same forums that were full of workers' rights
| just until before the election.
|
| Breitbart has nothing on immigration and displacement of US
| workers. It celebrates the (alleged, Trump claims a lot)
| phone call between Trump and Xi.
|
| So unless the MAGA crowd goes to the capitol to protest
| against Trump this time, you won't hear anything anywhere.
| hb-robo wrote:
| Incredible stuff, really.
| taeric wrote:
| This is largely a non-starter, though? He can't choose to have
| it not be a law, he could choose to selectively enforce it.
| Where selective enforcement is assumed to be no enforcement
| from your post. But he could, as easily, use it to punish any
| company he doesn't like that is somehow in breach of it.
|
| And this ultimately puts it in a place where you have to assume
| that it will be enforced against you. Right?
| oorza wrote:
| Where was this line of thinking when it was Obama ordering the
| DEA to not enforce marijuana laws? Where is this line of
| thinking when it's a city that chooses not to enforce dog breed
| restrictions?
|
| The enforcement of law being separate from the passage of law
| is a key plank in a functioning democracy, it's one of the
| safety valves against tyranny.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Trump has a history of accepting bribes. Past history with
| this is very relevant. Let me know if Cleveland mayor is
| accepting bribes for pitbulls.
| zaphar wrote:
| While I find it entirely plausible that Trump's character
| is such that he might accept bribes I am aware of no
| credible evidence that he has ever done so.
| nottorp wrote:
| I doubt those events made it to HN, and the questions are
| obviously from people outside the US who thought that
| 'Supreme' means 'Supreme'.
| taway999111 wrote:
| >> What is the point of these "rules and regulations" and "the
| nation's highest court" when the president could decide just
| not to enforce them?
|
| What is the point of freedom of speech and freedom of press
| when we can just shut down any apps not touting the mono-party
| lines?
|
| people in the us finally found a real public square to talk,
| and it is being shut down against the spirit of everything the
| US purports to stand for.
| diggan wrote:
| > What is the point of freedom of speech and freedom of press
| when we can just shut down any apps not touting the mono-
| party lines?
|
| I agree with you, and wouldn't agree with a TikTok ban either
| if it affected me.
|
| But how does that change anything about what I wrote?
| deltaburnt wrote:
| This isn't a new problem.
|
| "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| From what I've heard, not enforcing the ban doesn't really
| work. Apple/Google would be liable if the law does get
| enforced. So unless they've gone completely insane and want to
| give Trump a threat to wield over them for his whole term,
| they'll surely act as if it's being enforced. The term on the
| law is 5 years too, so even if they do have perfect trust in
| Trump never changing his mind, they have to worry about the
| next President deciding to enforce it too.
| ddoolin wrote:
| FWIW, this has driven many users to RedNote, which is even more
| Chinese in every way, regardless of whether it's even the same
| kind of platform. I doubt it would ever be anywhere near the same
| numbers as TikTok (assuming ByteDance didn't sell off) but it
| does illustrate the trouble with this i.e. cat-and-mouse game.
|
| Edited for word choice.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| It asserts how critically powerful platform media is now and
| that the government sees it as an essential part of managing
| their citizens
| ddoolin wrote:
| I agree. I'm not sure if I think all of this is good or not.
| Even if you, a gov't, didn't have an interest in managing
| your citizens vis-a-vis some platform, it doesn't mean other
| govt's don't have that interest, so maybe there's some
| validity to it in that case. But all of that raises even more
| questions, like "so what?" and "to what end?"
| cwillu wrote:
| It's not ostensibly, it's an app completely focused on china;
| did you mean a different word?
| ddoolin wrote:
| Probably. I didn't know that about it when I used that word,
| but a sibling comment also confirms this, so thanks for the
| correction.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| This is very misleading "news" and it doesn't illustrate
| anything, a bunch of users installed rednote out of protest,
| but this is a fully chinese app with 100% chinese content and
| 99% of users will move to youtube, instagram, etc
|
| Fake news.
| bbno4 wrote:
| Looks like you have never used TikTok or RedNote.
|
| Chinese users are starting to caption their videos in
| English. American users are posting regularly.
|
| It is the number 1 app in my country right now, because of
| the TikTok ban.
|
| Look up the playstore and you will see. Download it for
| yourself and you will see.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| According to CNN, roughly 700,000 people have installed
| Rednote--though that figure only represents those who have
| tested the app and doesn't necessarily reflect sustained
| usage. By comparison, TikTok is said to have around 110
| million users in the United States, meaning 700,000
| installs amount to less than 1% of TikTok's user base.
|
| Meanwhile, YouTube's user numbers in the U.S. are estimated
| at 240 million, but it's unlikely to gain many new
| downloads since almost everyone already has the app.
|
| In my view, it's unrealistic to think Rednote will replace
| TikTok.
| shock-value wrote:
| I don't think anyone thinks RedNote will replace TikTok
| -- it's potentially subject to the same ban after all.
|
| But it illustrates the general dissatisfaction among
| TikTok users with the other mainstream US social content
| platforms.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| So what number do we determine it to be a matter of
| national security? 10 million? 50 million?
| senko wrote:
| > 700,000 installs amount to less than 1% of TikTok's
| user base.
|
| 700k in how much time? RN tops the (Play Store) charts
| here (EU/Croatia) as well, and anecdotally there's a lot
| of word of mouth growth. Even though TikTok will not get
| banned over here.
|
| > It's unrealistic to think Rednote will replace TikTok.
|
| Possibly, but it does have a foot in the door. It doesn't
| look like they were ready for western audience so remains
| to be seen if they can seize on the opportunity.
| riskable wrote:
| Considering that RedNote doesn't allow LGBTQ+ content or
| "too much skin" to be shown (women-only policy BTW) I don't
| think it'll end up being very popular with today's TikTok
| crowd.
| glurblur wrote:
| It does allow LGBTQ+ content actually. There are tons of
| it on the platform. It's just it doesn't "explicitly"
| allow it, if that makes sense.
| eddieroger wrote:
| A non-trivial number of videos I've seen this week mention
| also being able to find the creator of said video on Rednote.
| It is also the number 1 downloaded app in the US iOS store
| this week. The news may be a logical extreme, but it's not
| fake.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Having a non-trivial number of videos is not the same as
| being the replacement platform. Youtube is also being
| spammend with tiktok users uploading old content. The idea
| that after the dust settles the majority of 110 million
| tiktok users will end up using a tightly censored chinese
| social media platform rather than moving to obvious
| alternatives such as instagram and youtube seems very very
| unlikely.
| shock-value wrote:
| Rednote has been shown as the top free app (per Apple's own
| App Store in my device at least) for going on a week, so the
| magnitude may be larger than you imply.
|
| Also, having tried it myself, the algorithm works much like
| TikTok whereby it learns to show English speakers English
| content pretty quickly.
|
| Also the general consensus among people who have used IG and
| TikTok (I personally don't use IG) seems to be that the
| former does not at all substitute for the latter,
| particularly in terms of the subjective "authentic" feel of
| the content (IG often said to be lacking the community feel
| of TikTok).
| galleywest200 wrote:
| This may be because RedNote is going to "wall off" US users
| from the Chinese ones:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-
| wall...
| glurblur wrote:
| I don't think that's going to happen. The party official
| seems to be positive about the event overall based on
| their press release recently. IMO it's going to the
| opposite direction, where they try to get more foreign
| users on the platform and have them stay there. If I were
| a CCP official, I would love to have more soft power by
| having everyone on a Chinese platform.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Anecdotally, I can tell you that everyone in my kid's
| circle of friends at school moved over to it within the
| course of a week.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| I will bookmark this and come back in 6 months. I have seen
| too many "platform X is replacing playform Y" hype cycles
| to write long essays about this.
| shock-value wrote:
| I explicitly stated in a different comment that Rednote
| will not replace TikTok. I don't think anyone seriously
| believes that. It's subject to the same ban after all.
|
| The interesting aspect here is rather the magnitude of
| dissatisfaction that a large percentage of users feel
| towards the other mainstream US social content platforms.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, it's the same with the "millions" of users moving to
| bluesky or reddit moving to lemmy. A bunch of people go there
| and eventually come back.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I feel like the protest move to RedNote will be short lived.
| The censorship there is draconian - if you say even the
| slightest thing that offends the CCP on red note, you get
| banned. See this discussion on the subreddit for TikTok (https:
| //www.reddit.com/r/TikTok/comments/1i2wll3/how_to_not_...).
|
| Something I read that's interesting - RedNote changed the
| English name to cover their actual name - the Chinese name is
| little red book, as in the red book of Mao (not sure if true).
| gs17 wrote:
| > the Chinese name is little red book, as in the red book of
| Mao (not sure if true)
|
| That is the Chinese name of the app (although I've heard
| mixed reports on if "little red book" as a term for the book
| actually common in China). The founder claims it's because of
| the founder's "career at Bain & Company and education at the
| Stanford Graduate School of Business" which both use red, but
| I'm pretty sure it's a pun on his name also being Mao.
| mplanchard wrote:
| If it reaches more than 1 million monthly active American
| users, it too can be subject to the same scrutiny under the law
| in question.
| est wrote:
| It runs and operates outside US. How exactly would you
| enforce the ban? Seize the domain?
| mplanchard wrote:
| I don't know the details of this app's corporate structure,
| but if it's developed here and user data stays here it
| would not qualify under the act. Based on the context of
| your and other comments I assumed it was also a foreign-
| controlled app
| est wrote:
| The REDnot is not a "foreign-controlled" app, it's a
| foreign app, and it does not target the US market. The US
| citizens _chose_ to use a non-US app. How would US
| enforce a ban? Send marines to Shanghai and capture CEOs?
| mplanchard wrote:
| Oh I misread your comment (read /inside/ rather than
| /outside/ for some reason), but obviously the same way
| they're going to ban tiktok? Make it illegal for the app
| stores to host.
| chis wrote:
| ... the same way tiktok is being banned? It is going to
| be removed from the app store
| gs17 wrote:
| REDnote is explicitly "Xiao Hong Shu Guo Ji Ban ", or
| "Little Red Book International Version" and is in English
| in US app stores. It's definitely targeting non-Chinese
| users.
| seventhtiger wrote:
| It's targeting Chinese users abroad. The entire
| interface, and all the content, is Chinese only it hasn't
| been localized for anyone.
| gs17 wrote:
| The interface also has English as an option, although
| it's not well done.
| glurblur wrote:
| That's because it's only added recently. It's mainly used
| by overseas Chinese and mainland Chinese, also, until
| recently.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| They will levy fines on google and apple if they don't
| remove it from their stores.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _runs and operates outside US_
|
| ...same as TikTok. Removed from app stores.
| marknutter wrote:
| Sure, guy, and Bluesky will become the new Twitter.
| skyyler wrote:
| A lot of my friends have stopped using twitter and have
| started using Bluesky.
| ellisv wrote:
| The ruling isn't surprising, although I almost expected Alito or
| Thomas to dissent.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| From the oral arguments it was immediately obvious that Alito
| and Thomas had already decided their opinion --- as had the
| other judges, frankly. They were very skeptical of the
| ByteDance/petitioner's argument. The Act at issue was written
| in a very specific way to neuter a lot of their points.
| Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the US Government, is also an
| extremely good SC lawyer in oral arguments. A Per Curiam
| decision is not surprising at all, most people who follow the
| court were expecting it.
| ellisv wrote:
| I think it is often the case that the justices' opinions are
| already established, based on their lines of questioning.
|
| In the way that Gorsuch wrote a separate concurrence, I
| expected Alito or Thomas to want to broadcast a particular
| message to their audience.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Regardless of one's view on the outcome, this case is a reminder
| that textualism as a legal philosophy stands on shaky ground.
| This case is decided not on some strict analysis of the words
| written by a legislator, but on the court's subjective view that
| there is a compelling national interest (which in turn seems
| based on speculation about the future, rather than a factual
| analysis of events).
|
| Textualism might give the court some useful definitions, but it
| is after all still called, quite literally, an opinion.
| dralley wrote:
| What exactly is your issue with this, as a textualist?
|
| >[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce
| with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with
| the Indian Tribes; . . .
|
| This is foreign commerce. It falls under the explicit
| jurisdiction of Congress.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Well gosh, that sentence makes it seems like Congress could
| do anything!
|
| However, this case is about something else. The opinion
| states that there is a first amendment interest, but that
| interest is secondary to a compelling national security
| interest that, in the court's view, is valid. That may or may
| not be correct - but it is a subjective interpretation.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| >that sentence makes it seems like Congress could do
| anything!
|
| Yeah, it's the perhaps most powerful clause in the
| constitution. A large number of laws are formed like
| "[actual law ...] _in commerce_. " That is the hook needed
| for a lot of laws to be constitutional. Technically those
| laws only apply to interstate or international commerce.
|
| There are even supreme court cases discussing this:
|
| >Congress uses different modifiers to the word "commerce"
| in the design and enactment of its statutes. The phrase
| "affecting commerce" indicates Congress' intent to regulate
| to the outer limits of its authority under the Commerce
| Clause. [...] Considering the usual meaning of the word
| "involving," and the pro-arbitration purposes of the FAA,
| Allied-Bruce held the "word 'involving,' like 'affecting,'
| signals an intent to exercise Congress' commerce power to
| the full." Ibid. Unlike those phrases, however, the general
| words "in commerce" and the specific phrase "engaged in
| commerce" are understood to have a more limited reach. In
| Allied-Bruce itself the Court said the words "in commerce"
| are "oftenfound words of art" [...] The Court's reluctance
| to accept contentions that Congress used the words "in
| commerce" or "engaged in commerce" to regulate to the full
| extent of its commerce power rests on sound foundation, as
| it affords objective and consistent significance to the
| meaning of the words Congress uses when it defines the
| reach of a statute.[0]
|
| [0] Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105 (2001)
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/532/105/case.pd
| f
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Yeah, it's the perhaps most powerful clause in the
| constitution.
|
| Only because the Court _wants_ it to be, so they can play
| Calvinball.
|
| Marijuana grown, sold, and consumed entirely within one
| state? Still interstate commerce!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The original sin was _Wickard_ , which found a farmer
| "growing wheat to feed animals on his own farm" was
| subject to interstate commerce "reduced the amount of
| wheat he would buy for animal feed on the open market,
| which is traded nationally, is thus interstate, and is
| therefore within the scope of the Commerce Clause" [1].
| The court even noted that the farmer's "relatively small
| amount of production of more wheat than he was allotted
| would not affect interstate commerce itself," ruling that
| "the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers"
| acting as he did would.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This seems true... many many thousands of farmers
| combined consuming their own self grown wheat, would
| produce noticeable effects on interstate commerce.
| Specifically wheat markets, futures, etc...
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| I think the meaning of the commerce clause is pretty
| explicit in the constitution. The existence of
| unreasonable interpretations of the commerce clause
| doesn't change that the commerce clause on it's own, just
| with a simple reading of it, isn't powerful. Also worth
| noting that at least one textualist, Justice Thomas,
| dissented in that case, exactly because of textualism.
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| Honestly, it seems completely irrelevant that a simple
| reading of the commerce clause isn't that powerful. What
| matters is how things are applied, and what precedents
| have been established. As applied the commerce clause is
| immensly powerful. As layman we can whinge about how
| words have been twisted, but in terms of things i can
| personally influence it means exactly nothing.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| Whoops, "doesn't change " should be "doesn't mean." I
| think the simple reading actually is pretty powerful. It
| just says "[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To
| regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the
| several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" There aren't
| many qualifiers there except notably intrastate commerce.
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| > Yeah, it's the perhaps most powerful clause in the
| constitution
|
| It's worth noting that many conservative lawyers and
| activists have been calling for a more limited
| interpretation of interstate commerce, as a way of
| shifting power away from Congress to individual states.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| This is about as much foreign commerce as it is me buying a
| Xiaomi phone.
|
| I know there's court precedent, but corporations aren't
| people. It's yet another Chinese platform that Americans use
| to communicate with other western companies.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _corporations aren 't people_
|
| Corporate personhood is irrelevant to this case.
| parineum wrote:
| > > corporations aren't people
|
| > Corporate personhood is irrelevant to this case.
|
| Further more, "Corporations are people" implying
| corporations have rights isn't related to corporate
| personhood and is based on a (often deliberate by
| opposing politicians) misinterpretation of the phrase, as
| spoken by Mitt Romney.
|
| What Romney was saying and what is true when he said
| "Corporations are people" is confusing because people
| interpret it as "Corporations are persons" which is not
| what he, or the case law he was referring to implied. The
| singular of the phrase is much more clear, a corporation
| is people.
|
| The whole case was about a group of people pooling their
| funds to make a movie about Hilary Clinton being bad and
| the court found that the people still had free speech
| rights when acting through a corporation to pool their
| funds and so political donation limits didn't apply as
| long as no political campaign was involved. Hence, Super
| PACs having to say that the campaigns their supporting
| aren't involved with the campaigns.
|
| It's actually an incredibly complicated and nuanced
| situation and the decision is equally so.
| LordGronk wrote:
| Damn and here I was looking forward to the day when I
| could finally marry Lockheed Martin
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I was looking forward to the day when I could finally
| marry Lockheed Martin_
|
| You can't marry a child or your cousin (in most states),
| that doesn't mean they aren't people.
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| Funnily enough, as per Mitt Romney, the TikTok ban was
| done because it had too much anti-Israel content
|
| See
| https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1787288209963290753
| bloomingkales wrote:
| That's an incredible behind the curtains slip. I wonder
| if the media will pick this up.
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| Seeing how it was made May 2024, seems like they didn't
| want to highlight the connection.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| >This is about as much foreign commerce as it is me buying
| a Xiaomi phone.
|
| Isn't that obviously foreign commerce?
| Imnimo wrote:
| Whether Congress has jurisdiction here is not at issue. The
| court is deciding a different question, which is whether the
| ban would violate the first amendment. We look at their
| ruling:
|
| >We granted certiorari to decide whether the Act, as applied
| to petitioners, violates the First Amendment.
| Aunche wrote:
| What does this have to do with the First Amendment? How
| would this be different from an antitrust ruling that
| requires Alphabet to divest Youtube, but Alphabet decides
| to shut down Youtube instead?
| psunavy03 wrote:
| The Supreme Court can only rule on cases brought to it.
| And in those cases, they are ruling on specific points of
| law which one party believes that a lower court
| misapplied. In this case, the parties asked the Court
| specifically to review whether a TikTok forced
| divestiture (not a ban, a forced sale) violated the First
| Amendment.
| titanomachy wrote:
| > The Supreme Court can only rule on cases brought to it.
|
| That might be technically true, but if (1) you're the
| lawyer representing a party in an important case, (2)
| you've already appealed that case up to the highest
| appelate court and lost, and (3) you think there's _any_
| chance that the Supreme Court might change the ruling in
| your favor, then wouldn 't it basically be professional
| malpractice to not petition for certiorari? Of course,
| they only accept a tiny percentage of the petitions they
| receive.
| nullifidian wrote:
| >What does this have to do with the First Amendment?
|
| Because obviously changing the owner-editor of a media
| outlet has everything to do with their editorial policy.
| The SCOTUS just said that censorship is ok (and forcing
| the change of the editor is censorship, there is no doubt
| about it), as long as it's against another state's
| editorial preferences potentially having a significant
| audience in the country.
| Aunche wrote:
| The government doesn't care about the editorial policy so
| long as if it's not managed by a foreign adversary or
| proxies of a foreign adversary, which obviously fall out
| of scope of the First Amendment. This is consistent with
| the wholly uncontroversial indictments of the owners of
| Tenet Media who allegedly conspired with Russia.
| Meanwhile, the commentators on the channel, such as Tim
| Pool and Dave Rubin, claimed to have had full editorial
| control over their content that just so happened to align
| exactly with Russian propaganda, yet they were free to
| go.
| Imnimo wrote:
| The argument from TikTok is:
|
| >Petitioners argue that such a ban will burden various
| First Amendment activities, including content moderation,
| content generation, access to a distinct medium for
| expression, association with another speaker or preferred
| editor, and receipt of information and ideas.
|
| Sotomayor expands on this in her concurrence:
|
| >TikTok engages in expressive activity by "compiling and
| curating" material on its platform. Laws that "impose a
| disproportionate burden" upon those engaged in expressive
| activity are subject to heightened scrutiny under the
| First Amendment. The challenged Act plainly imposes such
| a burden: It bars any entity from distributing TikTok's
| speech in the United States, unless TikTok undergoes a
| qualified divestiture. The Act, moreover, effectively
| prohibits TikTok from collaborating with certain entities
| regarding its "content recommendation algorithm" even
| following a qualified divestiture. And the Act implicates
| content creators' "right to associate" with their
| preferred publisher "for the purpose of speaking."
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| It's opinion regardless of the specific legal philosophy. Each
| philosophy makes decisions about what kinds of information,
| sources, context, etc are considered to form the "correct"
| interpretation. Those decisions are opinions.
| ellisv wrote:
| I'm no fan of textualism but I don't think it had much to do
| with this case.
|
| SCOTUS didn't have much to work with aside from level of
| scrutiny. They defer to Congress regarding national security.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| That's actually my point. I don't think strict textualism
| really has anything to do with any case. As soon as you say
| it's the rule of law that drives every case, you find
| yourself somehow interpreting an awful lot.
| vehemenz wrote:
| It's not really speculation, though. Certain aspects of the
| intelligence relationships between the US and China are highly
| asymmetrical already.
|
| For example, Chinese nationals can enter our country and gather
| information on our infrastructure, corporations, and people
| with relative ease because English is prevalent, and foreign
| nationals have, with the exception of certain military/research
| areas, the same access that US citizens have. On the other
| hand, foreign nationals in China are closely monitored and have
| very few rights, assuming they know Chinese, are physically in
| China (Great Firewall), and know how to get around in the first
| place.
|
| China has unfettered access to our media ecosystem, research,
| patents, etc., and they do their best to create an
| uncompetitive/hostile environment for any other country to
| attempt the same on their territory. Some of this has to do
| with trade--to be fair, these are intertwined--but the
| situation regarding intelligence is bleak.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Yeah it's funny MAGA still wants to encourage more H1b from
| China because you know apparently Americans are smart enough
| and are lazy. (Thanks for your vote though we will get rid of
| trans migrants!)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Textualism might give the court some useful definitions, but
| it is after all still called, quite literally, an opinion.
|
| I don't think you understand SCOTUS' decision here. They are
| not banning TikTok. Congress is doing so (actually forcing a
| sale of TikTok or be banned). They are simply ruling whether
| Congress acted unconstitutionally by doing so. In other words,
| if they overrule Congress, they would have to show how
| Congress' ruling contravenes the Constitution, when the
| Constitution grants Congress the authority to regulate commerce
| and decide matters of national security.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Congress isn't banning TikTok either. The law says US
| businesses can't work with TikTok. TokTok is choosing to shut
| down to try and force the issue politically. TikTok can
| choose stay running, the app will still be on your phone, no
| IP addresses are being blocked. The laws impact comes from
| choking off revenue and marketing (access to app stores).
| souptim wrote:
| "We're not banning your business, we're just cutting the
| water and power and changing the locks oh and also we
| burned down the entire building and salted the earth so
| nothing will ever grow again."
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| You're right, though it's effectively a ban on the iPhone
| because the only way to get apps is through the Apple
| Store; but yes, it's not like the app itself will stop
| working, or there will be some IP block, by order of
| Congress.
| massysett wrote:
| Could TikTok work through a browser? I can get to
| Facebook and YouTube through my iPhone Safari browser.
| Indeed I buy Kindle ebooks through the iPhone Safari
| because the Kindle and Amazon apps won't let me make
| purchases.
| rounce wrote:
| Yes, it has a web version.
| rayiner wrote:
| You misapprehend what textualism is. It does not say that every
| legal case can be decided by interpreting written law. It is
| merely a philosophy of how to interpret written law when its
| meaning is what's at issue. What American lawyers call
| "textualism" is how most continental european courts interpret
| written laws. It would hardly merit a label, if it wasn't for a
| long history in the 20th century of jurists departing from
| written law in making decisions. In this case, there is no
| dispute about what the written law means. It's about applying a
| pre-existing legal concept, the freedom of speech, to
| particular facts.
|
| Another example that highlights the distinction: Justice
| Gorsuch, one of the Supreme Court's preeminent textualists, is
| also one of the biggest proponents of criminal rights. Those
| cases similarly involve defining the contours of pre-existing
| legal concepts, such as "unreasonable search or seizure."
| Nobody denies that such questions are subjective--in referring
| to what's "unreasonable," the text itself calls for a
| subjective analysis.
| intermerda wrote:
| > Textualism is a formalist theory in which the
| interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the
| ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is
| given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law
| when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or
| significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of
| the law.
|
| Textualism in modern context is a tool used by conservative
| justices used to uphold laws that serve business interests
| and conservative causes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Another example that highlights the distinction...
|
| No, that just highlights the hypocritical picking-and-
| choosing they do to justify it. Gorsuch is a textualist when
| he wants to be, just like the others.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Do you understand that the word "unreasonable" would be a
| subjective analysis and that this would be the textualist
| recommendation? The text itself calls for a subjective
| analysis. And therefore doing so would be the textualist
| position.
| lolinder wrote:
| For anyone curious to dig into this more, the terms to read
| up on are "common law" [0] vs "civil law" [1].
|
| Common law is basically just the US, UK, AU, and NZ. Outside
| the anglosphere it's mostly civil law.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)
| tptacek wrote:
| Not to wave anybody off an interesting rabbit hole, but is
| that the germane difference here? My understanding: common
| law features a relatively smaller "source of truth" of
| written law, and relatively more expansive and variably-
| binding jurisprudence, where judge decisions set precedent
| and shape the law. Civil law writes almost everything down
| ahead of time.
|
| I guess civil law gives you less room to explore ideas like
| "living" statutes and laws that gain and change meaning
| over time; if there was such a change, you'd write it down?
|
| Regardless: whether you're a textualist or realist, in the
| US you're still operating in a common law system.
| mplanchard wrote:
| This was a unanimous decision. The only points where Sotomayor
| and Gorusch disagreed with the majority decision was whether
| TikTok's operation qualified under strict scrutiny for first
| amendment considerations, but both agreed that even under
| strict scrutiny, the law would have survived the challenge.
|
| Much of the decision is indeed based around an analysis of the
| words written by the legislature.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| What are you talking about? The decision was unanimous.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment
| arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and
| protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda
| in the USA. Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet
| Publication s were legal to publish, print and distribute in
| the USA.
|
| What changed now?
|
| Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the
| Government can say to someone that their speech is not allowed.
|
| Looks like a major erosion of first amendment protections.
| ls612 wrote:
| Individuals can bring Pravda into the USA that is protected
| speech. But Congress could ban Pravda from doing business in
| the US same as it can ban or sanction any other foreign
| business.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| What Sotomayor said is irrelevant; she's one of nine
| Justices. What is in the opinion is what is controlling.
| int0x29 wrote:
| People have rights to speak within reason. Governments don't.
| The Chinese government shaping content is not protected. The
| law notably does not ban individual content.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| Are they banning any TV channels from hostile countries?
| RT, for example can be watched by Americans without
| restriction.
| samr71 wrote:
| They will soon!
|
| Lmao these people are rubes. It's like every other bs
| "national security" argument.
|
| Expect Yandex, VK, RT, Sputnik, SCMP, etc. to be banned
| as well under similar pretenses.
|
| "Comrades! We can not let these Western dogs infect our
| proud Soviet minds with this 'Radio Free Europe'!"
| derektank wrote:
| RT is required to register as a foreign agent in the US
| and is required to disclose information regarding its
| activities in the country or be subject to civil and
| criminal penalties for non-compliance. So I would not say
| it's able to operate without restriction.
| daedrdev wrote:
| They can if they choose to do so. Its not trademark law,
| just because a government doesnt do something doesnt mean
| it cannot do something
| parineum wrote:
| > Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the
| Government can say to someone that their speech is not
| allowed.
|
| > Looks like a major erosion of first amendment protections.
|
| It's not an erosion because it was already true and has been
| true for centuries.
| zacharyz wrote:
| The justices seem to have argued that eliminating a platform
| for speech does not inhibit your ability to voice that speech
| on another platform, so is not a violation of the first
| amendment. I think this is an important outcome and really
| goes against what many so called "free speech absolutists"
| would argue.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Because the law bans the operation of software by a foreign
| adversary. It does not ban speech.
|
| Legal precedent holds that source code (the expressive part
| of software) is speech, but that executing software (the
| functional part) is not speech. Even when the operation
| conveys speech, the ban is on the functional operation of the
| software, so the First Amendment doesn't apply.
| AJ007 wrote:
| It seems like everyone missed the analogy of TikTok being
| like a Soviet newspaper, but the better analogy was like
| Tiktok being a tracking device, which transmitted your
| exact location, along with a microphone and video camera
| provided by the Soviet. The hardware may be Apple (made in
| China, designed in California), but the software extends
| the hardware usage to the software provider. I'm not sure
| there was any era of US history which the law would have
| permitted that.
| ruilov wrote:
| they found some of the arguments compelling and acknowledged
| that the law may burden free speech. But they also found that
| the law is not about speech, it's about corporate ownership.
| In these cases the court will often (not always) defer to
| congress / the state.
| kube-system wrote:
| > a compelling national interest (which in turn seems based on
| speculation about the future, rather than a factual analysis of
| events).
|
| I keep seeing this claimed, but these aren't hypothetical
| risks. China has managerial control over ByteDance. China has
| laws that require prominent companies to cooperate in their
| national security operations, and they've recently strengthened
| them even more. China has already exercised those powers to
| target political dissidents. This is the normal state of
| affairs in Chinese business; this is how things work there. It
| isn't like the west where companies have power to push back, or
| enjoy managerial independence.
| 9cb14c1ec0 wrote:
| Let's not forget that the US government has forced US
| companies to secretly hand over user data for "national
| security" purposes. Anyone who denies that China does similar
| things either doesn't know how the world works or is
| consciously denying reality.
| kube-system wrote:
| As do countries on every continent.
|
| But China is a bit different in that they don't simply have
| the authority to request data, they have the authority to
| direct management of the company.
| dttze wrote:
| Guess how many US intelligence operatives work within
| corporations to do the exact same thing.
| kube-system wrote:
| I can make guesses about a lot of things, but I know for
| a fact that what Chinese law requires is materially
| different than what US law requires.
|
| Regardless, "someone associated with the government got a
| job at your company" is entirely different in consequence
| than "the government _requires_ you to have government
| interests on your board "
| corimaith wrote:
| Rather I think this a good example of how people go through the
| steps of delegimitizing institutions if it dosen't agree with
| their opinion. If the Supreme Court's opinion is "shaky" then I
| guess the Pro-TikTokers would teetering on pole in the middle
| on the ocean.
| ruilov wrote:
| I'd use the term 'originalism' rather 'textualism', but you
| have a point. For 1st amendment cases, the court hasn't (yet)
| tried to use their new fangled originalist methodologies. In
| fact justice Gorsuch wrote separately in the Tiktok case to dig
| on the levels of scrutiny.
|
| I think it's understandable, in a Chesterton's Fence sort of
| way - they better make sure that if they're going to start
| using a new methodology, it works better than what they use
| now, (these weird judge-created levels of scrutiny), but
| there's so much 1A precedent that is hard to be confident.
|
| For 2nd amendment, they have used 'originalism' already. There
| isn't nearly as much precedent in that area, and so they were
| able to start more or less from scratch.
| skobes wrote:
| "Shaky" compared to what?
|
| Isn't the inquiry made MORE subjective by incorporating
| extratextual considerations?
|
| Or do you just mean that textualism is oversold, and delivers
| less than it advertises?
| andrewmg wrote:
| Since I'm a reasonably well-known textualist, I'll bite:
|
| First, the court was not asked to reconsider the meaning of the
| First Amendment. In the US, we generally hew to the rule of
| "party presentation," which generally provides that courts will
| consider the parties' arguments, not make up new ones on their
| own.
|
| TikTok's claim was that application of the statute in question
| to it violated the First Amendment's clause that "Congress
| shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech." The
| Supreme Court has considered the interpretation and application
| of that clause in...well, a whole lot of cases. TikTok asked
| the court to apply the logic of certain of those precedents to
| rule in its favor and enjoin the statute. It did not, however,
| ask the court to reconsider those precedents or interpret the
| First Amendment anew.
|
| Since the court was not asked to do so, it's no surprise that
| it didn't.
|
| Second, as noted, the court has literally decades' worth of
| cases fleshing out the meaning of this clause and applying it
| in particular circumstances. Every textualist, so far as I'm
| aware, generally supports following the court's existing
| precedents interpreting the Constitution unless and until they
| are overruled.
|
| Third, even if one is of the view that the Court ought to
| consider the text anew in every case, without deferring to its
| prior rulings interpreting the text, this would have been a
| particularly inappropriate case for it to do so. A party
| seeking an injunction, as TikTok was, has to show a strong
| likelihood of success on the merits. That generally entails
| showing that you win under existing precedent. A court's
| expedited consideration of a request for preliminary relief is
| not an appropriate time to broach a new theory of what the law
| requires. The court doesn't have the time to give it the
| consideration required, and asking the court to abrogate its
| precedents is inconsistent with the standard for a preliminary
| injunction, which contemplates only a preview of the ultimate
| legal question, not a full-blown resolution of it.
|
| Fourth, what exactly was the court supposed to do with the text
| in question, which is "abridging the freedom of speech"? The
| question here is whether the statute here, as applied to
| TikTok, violates that text. Well, it depends on what "the
| freedom of speech" means and perhaps what "abridging" means.
| It's only natural that a court would look to precedent in
| answering the question. Precedent develops over time, fleshing
| out (or "liquidating," to use Madison's term) the meaning and
| application of ambiguous or general language. Absent some
| compelling argument that precedent got the meaning wrong, that
| sort of case-by-case development of the law is how our courts
| have always functioned--and may be, according to some scholars,
| itself a requirement of originalism.
| h1fra wrote:
| Supreme Court only likes when data is stolen locally by good US-
| based corporations
| briffle wrote:
| Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is
| supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of
| information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for
| displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do
| it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from
| all threats, foreign and domestic?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I don't think any big business sees protection of its users as
| a solution to anything.
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole case turns on foreign adversary control of the data.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| Exactly, these are hostile political actors interfering in
| our country. This is also why Facebook and X should be banned
| everywhere except the USA.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Meanwhile, it's perfectly fine for foreign adversaries to
| use American social media to interfere with American
| events. Anything for that GDP.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| Good point. Social media accounts should only be
| available to people who live in the country where the
| company is based. Then there's no need to ban Facebook
| and X elsewhere.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| ... and also the USA, too.
| muglug wrote:
| Right, Congress was shown some pretty convincing evidence
| that execs in China pull the strings, and those execs are
| vulnerable to Chinese government interference.
|
| As we've seen in the past couple of weeks, social media
| companies based in the US are also vulnerable to US
| government interference -- but that's the way they like it.
| ok123456 wrote:
| They have?
|
| They released a Marty Rimm-level report citing that pro-
| Palestinian was mentioned more than pro-Israeli content in
| ratios that differed from Meta products. This was the
| 'smoking gun' of manipulation when it's more of a sign Meta
| was the one doing the manipulation.
| tptacek wrote:
| The opinion today has almost nothing to do with how
| content is controlled on the platform; the court is very
| clear that they'd have upheld the statute based purely on
| the data collection issue.
| ok123456 wrote:
| That report was pivotal during the vote for the law and
| belies the actual interests.
| tptacek wrote:
| The court addresses that directly, and every member of
| it, despite agreeing on little else, disagrees with you.
| derektank wrote:
| I don't know what Congress has said but there absolutely
| is evidence that TikTok has been used to spy on users for
| political reasons. A US based engineer claims that he saw
| evidence that Hong Kong protestors were spied on in 2018
| at the behest of a special committee representing the
| CCP's interests within ByteDance. This is not surprising,
| most major corporations within China maintain a special
| committee representing the government's interests to
| company executives
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/6/7/china-spied-
| on-ho...
| ok123456 wrote:
| The DHS does that in the United States.
|
| Every major social media and dating application has a law
| enforcement portal. This was documented in BlueLeaks.
| derektank wrote:
| Do law enforcement portals provide current location
| information? There's an extended history of the TikTok
| being used to spy on the location of user devices
|
| https://archive.ph/kt0fY
| ok123456 wrote:
| Yes, in some cases. Grindr is the most obvious one.
| derektank wrote:
| Okay, that's because Grindr users choose to publicly
| share their current location; that's the point of the
| app. Governments having an API that lets them access data
| that users publicly share seems substantively different
| from governments having access to private information,
| obtaining that information by subverting internal
| controls at TikTok and ByteDance intended to keep it
| private. I think anyone not arguing for arguments sake
| would acknowledge that
| ok123456 wrote:
| Most apps coerce their users into sharing location
| information. That's why they released apps and did not
| just use progressive web apps in the first place.
|
| But, this is done under the guise of commercial
| interests, usually advertising, so it's okay?
| Zigurd wrote:
| You are assuming a lot about supposed evidence nobody has
| said anything specific about. One shouldn't also assume
| people in Congress know how to evaluate any evidence. Nor
| justices, based on the questions they asked.
| tptacek wrote:
| As a matter of political science and public choice
| theory, the legislature is the branch of government most
| trusted to collect information and make these kinds of
| deliberations.
| coldpie wrote:
| You might buy that, but I don't. Unless they can actually
| put forward publicly compelling evidence of a national
| security risk, this can only be seen as a handout to
| Facebook by the government. This saga just gives more
| evidence that the US government exists primarily to serve
| the interests of US's oligarch class. Aside for those
| oligarchs, it does nothing to serve US citizens'
| interests.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Would you call Marjorie Taylor Greene a qualified and
| trusted investigator for the american people? I sure
| wouldn't. Talking about what the legislature is supposed
| to be is irrelevant. What the legislature actually is is
| relevant.
| morkalork wrote:
| Congress members speak of space lasers and weather
| control... I'm not sure they're competent as a whole.
| Actually, it reminds me of the Russian guy that always
| spouts nonsense about nuking UK into oblivion, and that
| theory that he's just kept around to make the real evil
| people look sane.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Good thing Mr Zuckerberg is a shining beacon of
| independence from the US government.
| tptacek wrote:
| He's not a formally designated foreign adversary, at
| least not yet.
| jack_pp wrote:
| The difference is you can easily prosecute Zuck
| jeffrapp wrote:
| Easily? No. Within the bounds of the US Constitution,
| yes.
| coldpie wrote:
| No. Zuck is very securely within the class of citizens
| that is immune to prosecution within the US.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I'm sure he's bending at the knee right now because he
| feels very secure and just had a change of heart about
| everything precisely one month after the election.
| coldpie wrote:
| Is he bending the knee, or dropping the mask? The
| billionaire+ class rightly sees this as their big
| opportunity to seize power for the next several
| generations, removing worker and consumer protections and
| enshrining themselves as essential parts of the
| government.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Why is this true of Zuck but was not true of SBF?
| coldpie wrote:
| He was just a dumb get-rich-quick kid, he didn't have any
| political power. Zuck has spent the past 2 decades
| gathering money and power.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| How did SBF manage to be the #2 Democratic donor in 2022
| without accruing any political power?
| eptcyka wrote:
| By being a moron.
| kccoder wrote:
| Gigabillionaires with immense influence don't get
| prosecuted.
| navi0 wrote:
| Is X vulnerable to Chinese government interference because
| its American executive has other business interests in
| China at stake?
|
| I'd argue the TikTok remedy should be applied to X, too.
| tartoran wrote:
| This should be applied to all social media.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Media flat out.
| kube-system wrote:
| No, X doesn't have a corporate governance structure that
| requires Chinese government control, because it is a US
| company.
|
| Companies in China (and especially those of prominence)
| have formal structures and regulations that require them
| to cooperate with the government, and sometimes require
| the companies to allow the government to intervene in
| operations if necessary.
|
| It is not possible for a CCP official to show up to a
| board meeting at X and direct the company to take some
| action, because that isn't how US corporations work.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| A CCP official could show up at a Tesla board meeting and
| announce they're going to seize Gigafactory Shanghai
| unless Musk takes down some content on X. There doesn't
| seem to be much of a difference.
| kube-system wrote:
| Tesla is quite notable as the _only_ foreign automaker
| which China has allowed to operate independently in
| China. All of the rest of them were forced to joint
| venture with 51%+ control being handed over to a Chinese
| domestic company. So, really it 's pretty surprising that
| they haven't done that even before Musk owned X.
|
| But regardless, there is a huge difference between a
| request and actually having managerial authority -- the
| most obvious being that someone with managerial authority
| can simply do whatever they want without trying to compel
| someone else. Also, X, being subject to US law, must
| comply with that no matter what consequences Musk is
| threatened with. So, any threats may have limits in what
| they can practically accomplish.
| yard2010 wrote:
| That's the way I like it for my children. Pardon the
| demagogue. The US, being the awful mess it is is still 100x
| better IMHO than the chinese government. It's the lesser
| evil kind of thing and honestly the reason I believe that
| democracy is 100% THE way to go. Things can only get US
| level nefarious with democracy. Far from perfect but much
| less evil.
|
| The only problem with democracy is that it's so fragile and
| susceptible to bad non-democrat actors intervention, which
| is more of an awareness problem.
| souptim wrote:
| If you think the US is immune to authoritarianism...
| samr71 wrote:
| Do people not remember 2020-2021?
| hedora wrote:
| That can't be it. Facebook sells the same data to foreign
| adversaries including China and Russia. The most famous
| incident involved the British company Cambridge Analytica,
| which used it to manipulate election outcomes in multiple
| countries:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook-
| Cambridge_Analytica...
|
| Edit: Apparently it's not common knowledge that this is still
| happening. Here's a story about a congressional investigation
| from 2023:
|
| https://www.scworld.com/analysis/developers-in-china-
| russia-...
|
| And here's a story about an executive order from Biden the
| next year. Apparently the White House concluded that the
| investigation wasn't enough to fix the behavior:
|
| https://www.thedailyupside.com/technology/biden-wants-to-
| sto...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/americans-
| person...
|
| Edit 2: Here's a detailed article from the EFF from this
| month explaining how the market operates:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-
| ads-...
| tptacek wrote:
| I assure you, if you read the opinion, that is indeed it,
| and the objection you raise about other instances of data
| collection not being targeted is addressed directly.
| paganel wrote:
| > That can't be it. Facebook sells the same data to foreign
| adversaries including China and Russia.
|
| I'm not sure they do that anymore, not in the current
| geopolitical climate and not with the DC ghouls having
| taken over the most sensitive parts of Meta the company
| (there were many posts on this web-forum about former CIA
| people and not only working at the highest levels inside of
| Meta).
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| CA wasn't data being "sold"
| hedora wrote:
| This is arguing technical definitions. As of this week,
| foreign intelligence agencies transfers money that
| eventually ends up at Facebook, and they get the data in
| return.
|
| They can claim this is not a sale if they want, but it's
| still a sale. Drug dealers make similar arguments about
| similar shell games where you hand a random dude some
| cash, then later some other random dude drops a bag on
| the ground and you pick it up.
|
| Since Facebook was first caught doing this during the
| Obama administration, it's hard to argue they are not
| intentionally selling the data at this point.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And the difference is that the US government can tell them
| to stop doing it.
| coldpie wrote:
| Facebook's owners & their peers have a massive amount of
| control over public policy, so no, I don't think the US
| government _can_ tell them to stop doing it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yet the government convinced both Facebook and Twitter to
| suppress both the Hunter laptop and information about the
| Covid vaccines that we all know is true now - that it
| doesn't prevent the spread of Covid and that immunity
| wears off.
|
| I'm not anti-vax. I've been shot up with Covid vaccines
| more often than I can count and I was early in line for
| the J and J one shot and I took an mRNA booster before it
| was recommended by the US once I started reading it was
| recommended by other country's health departments.
|
| But where we are now is totally the fault of Biden and
| the Democratic establishment.
| coldpie wrote:
| No argument here. Most Democrats, including Biden, and
| all Republicans serve at the whims of Facebook's owners
| and their peers. Hence the enormous handout to Facebook
| in this decision.
| bloodandiron wrote:
| I think you would be hard pressed to come up with any
| evidence for your assertion. First of all the UK is not a
| foreign adversary (quite the opposite). Secondly Facebook
| didn't sell data in that case, it was collected by
| Cambridge Analytica via Facebook's platform APIs (as
| described in your own link). In general Facebook doesn't
| sell data, their entire business model is based on having
| exclusive access to data from its platforms.
| zo1 wrote:
| This whole Cambridge Analytica thing is such a nothing
| burger - I have yet to be given a concise reason how it was
| anything other than targeted advertising. Something that
| happens day-in, day-out a billion times over on all our
| "western" platforms in the form of ads. And no, the fact
| that this data wasn't "consented to" doesn't mean anything
| other than being a technicality. If anything, I'd chalk the
| whole thing up to anti-Trump hysteria that happened around
| that time.
| benreesman wrote:
| That may be true in a legal sense (and my reading of that is
| the same as yours).
|
| My interpretation of the parent's comment is that we have
| pretty serious (and dubiously legal) overreach on this in a
| purely domestic setting as well.
|
| As someone who has worked a lot on products very much like
| TikTok, I'd certainly argue that we do.
| tptacek wrote:
| The short answer here is that directly addressing a threat
| from a foreign adversary formally designated by both the
| legislative and executive branches long before the
| particular controversy before the court affords the
| government _a lot_ more latitude than they would have in
| other cases.
| benreesman wrote:
| I'm not sure anyone is disputing that, certainly I'm not.
|
| There is an adjacent point that many of us feel is just
| as important, which is that there is evidence in the
| public record (see Snowden disclosures among others) that
| there is lawbreaking or at least abuse of clearly stated
| constitutional liberties taking place domestically in the
| consumer internet space and has been for a long time.
|
| Both things can be true, and both are squarely on topic
| for this debate whether on HN or in the Senate Chambers.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| It's still completely legal for Meta to sell that user data
| to Chinese owned companies. So no security is provided by
| this change. I see it as theatre.
| xnx wrote:
| I thought this too, but I think there's a new law for this
| as well: "In a bipartisan measure, the House of
| Representatives unanimously pass a bill designed to protect
| the private information of all Americans by prohibiting
| data brokers from transferring that information to foreign
| adversaries such as China" https://allen.house.gov/news/doc
| umentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=...
| tptacek wrote:
| People keep coming up with other avenues by which China
| could get this information, but the court addresses that
| directly: the legislature is not required to address every
| instance of a compelling threat in one fell swoop.
| echelon wrote:
| There are so many reasons.
|
| - China can access military personnel, politically exposed
| persons, and their associates. Location data, sensitive
| kompromat exfiltration, etc.
|
| - China can show favorable political content to America and
| American youth. They can influence how we vote.
|
| - China could turn TikTok into a massive DDoS botnet during
| war.
|
| - China doesn't allow American social media on its soil. This
| is unequal trade and allows their companies to grow stronger.
|
| - China can exert soft power, exposing us to their values
| while banning ours from their own population.
| rusty_venture wrote:
| Thank you for this concise and comprehensive summary. The
| DDoS threat had never occurred to me.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| _China can show favorable political content to America and
| American youth._
|
| American culture has been such an influencing force on the
| world due to our conduits, movies and music. TikTok is a
| Chinese conduit, and I do believe this is happening. Our
| culture can be co-opted, the Chinese had John Cena
| apologize to ALL of China. They can easily pay to have
| American influencers spin in a certain way, influencing
| everything.
| doug_durham wrote:
| China can benefit without doing any influencing. It can
| simply mine the vast amount of data it gets for sentiment
| analysis. Say they want to be more aggressive against the
| Philippines. They can do an analysis to gauge the potential
| outrage on the part of the American people. If it's low
| they can go ahead.
| o999 wrote:
| So China blocking US social media is justified for the very
| same reasons?
| likpok wrote:
| China has blocked US social media for years (decades
| perhaps?). I don't know if they've explicitly said all
| the reasons, but "social stability" is a big one.
|
| As an aside, TikTok itself is banned in China.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| It seems pretty bold to assume that Google, Facebook, Amazon,
| X, etc aren't adversaries. Foreign or otherwise.
| tptacek wrote:
| The case turns on the fact that China is _formally
| designated_ a foreign adversary. The statute doesn 't allow
| the government to simply make up who its adversaries are on
| the fly, or derive them from some fixed set of first
| principles. There's a list, and it long predates this case.
| mindslight wrote:
| Yes, there is a distinction there. The issue is that it's a
| small part of the overall problem when looked at the larger
| scale. The overarching issues of political influence at odds
| with individual citizens, hostile engagement-maximizing
| algorithms, adversarial locked-down client apps, and selling
| influence to the highest bidder are all there with
| domestically-incorporated companies. The government's
| argument basically hinges on "but when these companies do
| something really bad we can force domestic companies to
| change but we can't do the same for TikTok". That's
| disingenuous to American individuals who have been on the
| receiving end of hostile influence campaigns for over a
| decade, disingenuous to foreign citizens not in the US or
| China who can't control any of this, and disingenuous to our
| societal principles as we're still ultimately talking about
| _speech_.
| prpl wrote:
| Why do you care if a chinese company is banned from business in
| the US? All sorts of american companies are banned from doing
| business in China
| taylodl wrote:
| Because we're looking at the Big Picture and seeing how
| they're figuring out how to dismantle our First Amendment
| rights.
| gambiting wrote:
| First Amendment Right is only for American citizens, no? If
| you're a visitor to the US for example, you don't get the
| First Amendment protection against anything, you're a
| guest. Why doesn't the same principle apply to a foreign
| company? I don't see how banning tik tok affects your first
| amendment rights or first amendment rights of American
| companies - maybe you can explain?
| galleywest200 wrote:
| The constitution applies to everyone within the borders
| of the country, not just citizens. Tourists still get due
| process, can say what they want, cannot be forced to
| house american soldiers in their hotel, etc.
|
| No idea if this applies to companies, but foreign
| visitors do get protections.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _The constitution applies to everyone within the
| borders of the country_
|
| Minor clarification that some parts specify "citizen"
| (e.g. voting). Others specify "person" or "resident" or
| the like, which would be anyone within the border.
| cathalc wrote:
| Legal aliens absolutely have the same First Amendment
| rights as citizens.
| gambiting wrote:
| Right, I guess I'm wrong about this then.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| The Constitution binds the activity of the government,
| individuals are irrelevant. Congress is forbidden from
| passing a law that violates the inalienable rights of
| humans, freedom of speech and association being one that
| is conveniently enumerated in the first amendment.
|
| You will not find anywhere in the text that limits this
| to citizenship (with the sparse examples of the concept
| of citizenship coming up being things like eligibility
| for presidential office). The purpose of the Constitution
| is to spell out the abilities of the government, and one
| of the things it is expressly forbidden from doing is
| passing laws that curtail peoples' ability to communicate
| or associate.
| gambiting wrote:
| Doesn't the right to bear arms apply only to citizens
| too?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Also, the oligarchs just want us to use their crappy social
| media sites. This sets the stage for making competition
| illegal in some ways.
| dayjah wrote:
| First Amendment rights do not extend to corporations under
| foreign (adversarial) government control. Simple as.
|
| This amendment to the constitution was rewritten a few
| times, each time more clearly stating that it applies to
| "the people".
|
| From: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-
| 7-1/ALD...
| onionisafruit wrote:
| To me it seems like it could be a first amendment
| violation against Americans who want to speak via tiktok.
|
| This is a very weakly held opinion, and I don't know if
| the opinion addresses this.
| taylodl wrote:
| The People chose to use TikTok as their free press. The
| US government has banned a tool The People were using for
| speech. The government utilized a specious argument of
| "security" in denying The People to their free press
| comprised of TikTok. The government provided _zero
| evidence_ of national security being compromised. If
| anything, the US government has called into question how
| _they_ are using data from US-based social media
| companies such that we may now expect reprisals from all
| around the world - maybe that 's what they wanted?
| dayjah wrote:
| Programs like Prism [0] certainly lend credence to the
| idea that this ban reflects the US' own behavior in terms
| of how it uses data. However Prism was markedly different
| given it collected data vs being a dial the government
| can turn to produce a given outcome in the consumers of
| the content.
|
| All of the congressional hearings over the past ~15 years
| demonstrates how business in the US is still pretty much
| governed by the rule of law. I'm of the opinion that
| there isn't some shadow cabal working with Musk and
| Zuckerberg to control our minds. However we know that the
| CCP absolutely manages what the public can consume, so
| personally while I'm no fan of heavy handed government
| intervention in business, this ban seems like "a good
| thing" to me. We must protect the short, middle and long
| term prospects of our population -- it's a fundamental
| duty of the federal government to do so.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/07/google-
| faceboo...
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| I agree that evidence would be nice, but let's not
| pretend TikTok is simply a 'speech platform' for 'The
| People'. It is an app on your mobile phone collecting
| data about you and making it available to a foreign
| adversary and feeding you content controlled by a foreign
| adversary.
| prpl wrote:
| Ridiculous statement. You must believe they should have
| political speech then? Maybe they should be able to donate
| to elections or even vote too? Why stop at corporations?
|
| If they want speech, they should reside in the US, not just
| own a piece of a company that does.
|
| The rights enforced inside the US are very generous
| compared to most countries and many apply to both legal and
| illegal residents, but restricting some rights, especially
| political ones, is crucial to have a sovereign state
| p_j_w wrote:
| The constitution is very clear on which parts apply only
| to citizens. The first amendment is not one of them.
| itishappy wrote:
| I'd prefer neither nation ban companies they don't like but I
| only have a voice in one.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Why do you care if your car gets stolen when people in China
| get their cars stolen every day? Well because they are taking
| something away from _me_
| Spunkie wrote:
| Unless you work directly for the US government in some way,
| you are perfectly free to get on a VPN and continue using
| tiktok. And unlike your chinese friends, you don't even
| need to break the law to do it.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I don't have Chinese friends or use TikTok personally, I
| was just addressing the stupid question
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| If we banned all Chinese business with America, America would
| hurt a lot more than China. Our plutocracy made sure of that
| fact decades ago.
|
| I care becsuse I hate hypocrisy. Simple as that. They'll
| sweep Russian activity under the rug as long as it's done in
| an American website. This mindset clearly isn't results
| oriented.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Where were you for the last 10+ years when China was
| blocking all social media from the US but the US wasn't
| blocking it? Or does hypocrisy just apply to the USA? It
| seems like you have some kind of agenda unrelated to the
| pure concept of hypocrisy.
| prpl wrote:
| Slippery slope fallacy. We aren't banning all chinese
| companies just like they haven't banned all US companies
| panki27 wrote:
| Data = Money, the rest is capitalism
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The US occupies a new office downtown. China wants eyes on a
| specific room, and the choice spot for monitoring it is someone
| else's apartment. This person happens to own a bakery also in
| town, and it sort of seems like the apartment is a reach for
| them as it is.
|
| Now in your feed you get a short showing some egregious
| findings in the food from this bakery. More like this crop up
| from the mystical algorithmic abyss. You won't go there
| anymore. Their reviews tank and business falls. Mind you those
| posts were organic, tiktok just stifled good reviews and put
| the bad ones on blast.
|
| 6 months later the apartment is on the market, and not a single
| person in town "has ever seen CCP propaganda on tiktok".
|
| This is the overwhelmingly main reason why Tiktok is getting
| banned.
| cwillu wrote:
| What in the tinfoil hat of god...
| hb-robo wrote:
| > This is the overwhelmingly main reason why Tiktok is
| getting banned.
|
| Because people are writing Orwell fanfiction?
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I cannot tell if this comment was made seriously or as a
| satire of unhinged conspiracy theories.
| itishappy wrote:
| Why just TikTok? Are American corporations immune from
| coveting thy neighbor's possessions?
| dralley wrote:
| For the same reason Grindr was forced to sell to a non-
| Chinese parent, the risks of putting some apps /
| information in the hands of strategic competitors is too
| high. If a domestic company tried to blackmail people with
| their sexual history, they face domestic legal
| accountability. China does not.
| tptacek wrote:
| Jurisprudentially? Yes.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Why is "The Chinese Communist Part is more dangerous than
| Meta sharholders" such a hard thing to grasp?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Because Facebook destabilized our nation in 8 years far
| more than any claims of modern CCP wrongdoings to the US.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Now imagine what would have happened if Facebook was
| owned by Russia.
| itishappy wrote:
| Why should it be? What does ByteDance want that isn't
| also valuable to Facebook?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Facebook is a company owned by public shareholders.
|
| ByteDance is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
|
| What facebook and ByteDance want at their core are very
| different things.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| The destabilization of the United States and the end of
| it's status as the worlds richest and most powerful
| country?
| Hasu wrote:
| Is it more dangerous? Facebook has done more harm to the
| average American than the Chinese Communist Party has.
|
| More dangerous to the US government? Yes, that's true.
| thomquaid wrote:
| Do you have any evidence at all or just fear, uncertainty,
| and doubt?
| wormlord wrote:
| That's an interesting hypothetical, I have another one.
|
| Imagine you're a country with natural resources. Private
| industries want those resources. Suddenly the US media is
| flooded with fabricated or exaggerated stories about the
| country written by NGOs and Think Tanks. Suddenly, out of
| nowhere a coup happens in the country with the stated
| intention of "liberalization" and "democratic reforms". The
| country goes through shock therapy and structural adjustments
| as it takes on mountains of IMF loans to enter the world
| markets-- it has to sell off control of all its national
| resources and industries to American companies. The life
| expectancy plummets.
|
| Oh wait this isn't a hypothetical this is just actual US
| foreign policy.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| South Korea seems to have done fine.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's bad because China has different interests than the US.
| Imagine if a war breaks out in Taiwan and they send targeted
| propaganda to members of the US military.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Aka because we're the "good" guys
| luddit3 wrote:
| In preventing a country from being invaded, yes, we are.
| like_any_other wrote:
| This is a common criticism in these kinds of discussions,
| but no, protecting oneself from foreign influence and
| threats does not require a moral high-ground, just as
| locking your front door doesn't.
| ssijak wrote:
| For some reason I can't reply to "luddit3" below you. But
| he should check a list of countries that started the most
| wars and invasions in the last 150 years and which one tops
| it easily.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _countries that started the most wars and invasions in
| the last 150 years and which one tops it easily_
|
| What is the list? Does WWII count as one war, or do we
| could belligerents individually?
| yard2010 wrote:
| There is no good, just bad and kill-it-with-fire kind of
| evil. You choose bad you get a bad life. You choose the
| other you get literally hell. One government harvests and
| sells the organs of its healthy population[0][1][2] and the
| other makes some people feel sad.
|
| Ironically, the "good" guys here allow you to talk shit on
| the internet about them while the "bad" guys would catch
| and harvest my organs someday for writing this comment.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_F
| alun_... [1] https://chinatribunal.com/ [2]
| https://theowp.org/reports/china-is-forcibly-harvesting-
| orga...
| spencerflem wrote:
| The USA has more prisoners than China and far more per
| capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_
| by_incarce...
|
| And funnily enough, just had a state try to pass a law
| making prisoners get to "choose" to donate organs for a
| reduced sentence https://apnews.com/article/organ-
| donation-massachusetts-stat...
|
| But point is, no love for the CCP but this sort of
| jingoistic take sucks. China is not "literally hell"
| kube-system wrote:
| Self-interest doesn't require moral justification.
| njovin wrote:
| Then China would just fall back to bombarding them with
| propaganda on one of the other large social media platforms
| that are prone to both known and unknown influence.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| They would be within their rights to do that. But then they
| would have to compete with other participants in the
| discussion. On TikTok they can ensure there is no such
| competition.
| alonsonic wrote:
| The magnitude of the attack is not comparable. One thing is
| being a bad actor in a network owned by someone else where
| you can get monitored, caught and banned. Versus owning the
| network completely and amplifying messages with ease at
| scale. The effort needed and effectiveness of the attack is
| extremely different.
| Aunche wrote:
| Domestic based social media platforms can be pressured to
| comply with demands such as the DOJ's investigation into
| Russia's 2016 disinformation campaign on Facebook. Likewise
| social media platforms based in a foreign adversary would
| be pressured to comply with demands of that foreign
| adversary.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everyone has
| different interests from everyone else. That's not a
| sufficient reason.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You are free to have that our opinion but our elected
| government disagrees with you. It's not the job of the
| court to adjust laws based on personal preference of HN
| commenters.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Yes but there are Reagan's interests and Hitler's
| interests. You have no choice but to pick the lesser evil.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Sorry, While I understand that there are degrees of
| interest misalignment, I'm not sure what Hitler's
| interests refers to in this context. Hitler is deceased
| so it's unlikely his interests are relevant in a
| discussion about TikTok.
| Zigurd wrote:
| US-made missiles are blowing stuff up inside Russia because
| Russia invaded a treaty partner who gave up their nukes in
| exchange for a security alliance with the US. And yet Russian
| apps are in our app stores. Nobody needs to imagine.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _yet Russian apps are in our app stores_
|
| Major social media apps? Chinese apps are still in our app
| stores, just not TikTok (as of Sunday).
| Zigurd wrote:
| It took me less than 15 seconds to find that VK, which is
| a major social media app in Russia, is in the Google Play
| store.
| gkbrk wrote:
| Compared to Tiktok with ~100 million American users, VK
| is essentially irrelevant and not even worth wasting
| court time about.
| secondcoming wrote:
| The only Russian app I'm aware of is Telegram. What other
| Russian apps might people be unwittingly running?
| segasaturn wrote:
| I would argue that Telegram is a much, much larger
| security threat to the average individual American than
| Tiktok. Except they comply with government search
| warrants and don't enable E2E encryption by default so
| they are useful to the American National Security
| Establishment and get to stay.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| No servers in Russia. Given Pavel's prior history it
| seems unlikely that he would cooperate with Russian
| government. Plenty of other criticism of telegram is
| warranted but it's probably not a tool of the Russian
| government.
|
| Edit: related https://hate.tg/
| orangecat wrote:
| _And yet Russian apps are in our app stores._
|
| There are no Russian apps that collect extensive data on
| hundreds of millions of Americans. (And if I'm wrong about
| that, the US should absolutely force divestiture of those
| apps or ban them).
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >a treaty partner who gave up their nukes in exchange for a
| security alliance with the US
|
| If it wasn't ratified by the senate then we didn't enter
| into a treaty, I really don't understand why this is so
| hard for people to understand.
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Wouldn't banning the collection of this confidential data
| provide a better solution? Meta could still turnaround and
| sell this information to Chinese companies.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Meta could still turnaround and sell this information to
| Chinese companies_
|
| Let them collect and ban this. Difference between Meta and
| TikTok is you can prosecute the former's top leadership.
| p_j_w wrote:
| > Let them collect and ban this.
|
| As if this would get banned.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| That's funny. How big of a check did Zuck just write to
| the Trump inauguration?
| cmiles74 wrote:
| My preference would be a law that bans some specific
| activity (i.e. the collection of some set of data that
| should remain "private"). From there it would be
| straightforward to establish when an application (like
| TikTok or Instagram) was collecting this data and they
| could be prosecuted or their application banned at that
| point.
|
| This banning of TikTok because of "national security"
| leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Might the next
| application banned on these ground be domestic? It's
| unsettling, in my opinion, to see this precedent set.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > China has different interests than the US
|
| Define the US here. Is it the government, the people, the
| business interests of the private sector?
|
| Each one of those has different interests, often competing
| ones.
|
| In any functional nation the people's interests should
| prevail, and it seems to me that any information capable of
| swaying the public's opinion is informing them that their
| interests are being harmed in favor of other ones.
| derektank wrote:
| Your question is irrelevant because none of the parties
| you've listed have interests that are aligned with the CCP,
| assuming you're referring to the people as a whole.
| Obviously there are specific individuals whose interests
| are aligned with China's government but laws in a democracy
| aren't meant to make everyone happy, they're meant to meet
| the interests of the majority of people
| flybarrel wrote:
| | meet the interests of the majority of people
|
| I wonder how do you know "the interests of the majority
| of people" is to ban Tiktok...
| derektank wrote:
| That's not what I said, I said that the interests of the
| majority do not align with the interests of the Chinese
| government. That seems self evident to me but YMMV
| nthingtohide wrote:
| Don't you know, China is the new enemy of the US. That's
| what the elites in the US have decided and that is enough
| to be considered as the will of the people.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > none of the parties you've listed have interests that
| are aligned with the CCP
|
| The interest of the people is to have a peaceful
| coexistence and cooperation with China, while the
| interest of the military-industrial complex is to keep
| the tension high at all times so that more and more money
| is spent on armaments.
|
| Who do you think the US government will favor in the end?
|
| Who has more power to determine the result of the next
| elections, considering that to run a presidential
| campaign you need more than a billion dollars?
|
| No citizen gains from war except the few that sell
| weapons and want to exploit other countries.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Crazy take, More likely the US or it's allies goes to war and
| they try to play up sympathy with the target.
|
| Nobody wants China to take Taiwan, that's not something its
| possible to convince people of
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Im not so confident about that. Attenuating isolationist
| policy in the face of Taiwan is the easiest, but I can see
| anti-ROC propaganda in the mix.
| r_klancer wrote:
| > Nobody wants China to take Taiwan, that's not something
| its possible to convince people of
|
| It's not about convincing them to _want_ it but rather
| about sowing doubt and confusion at the critical moment.
|
| David French's NYT column last week starts with what one
| might call a "just-plausible-enough" scenario:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/opinion/tiktok-supreme-
| co... (gift link, yw).
| chpatrick wrote:
| For the same reason you're okay with the US military being
| present in the US and not the Chinese one.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| Domestic governments shouldn't let hostile foreign governments
| the ability to exert soft power over 1/2 of their population.
| Hence why China banned all USA based tech companies from
| operating there.
| tptacek wrote:
| The opinion is mostly not about control over recommendation
| algorithms; it goes out of its way to say that the data
| collection is dispositive. Check out Gorsuch's concurrence
| for some flavor of how much more complicated this would be
| with respect to the recommender.
| thiagoharry wrote:
| And this is why most countries should ban Facebook, Twitter
| and US social media.
| qwezxcrty wrote:
| As a Chinese grown up within the Great Firewall, now I began
| to really feel all the hypocrisy around the matter of
| "freedom of Internet". It seems the block of Facebook and
| Twitter in China is surely justified at the very begining,
| for the same "national security" grounds. China have exactly
| the same amount of reason to believe the US is stealing data
| or propelling propaganda by social network.
|
| It seems there are indeed things that can override citizen's
| free choice even in the "lighthouse of democracy and
| freedom", and CCP didn't make a mistake for building the
| firewall. My need to use Shadowsocks to use Google instead of
| Baidu or some other crap was simply a collateral damage.
|
| Of course, the Chinese censorship is way more intensive, but
| this act makes a dangerous precedent.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| TikTok is also blocked by the GFW in China, so this puts
| the USA on par with blocking it also. Weirdly enough,
| Douyin isn't banned, specifically, so you should still be
| able to use it in the states.
| est wrote:
| Tiktok is not blocked, bytedance chose not to list its
| app on Chinese appstores and blocks +86 phone
| registration.
|
| tiktok.com links were available in China.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| So if you use the American app store to install TikTok,
| it works just fine, even for the falun dafa content?
| Interesting. I've heard that tiktok.com is actually
| blocked by the GFW, so even if you have the app, you
| still can't view content without a VPN, but I guess I can
| check for sure in a few months.
|
| Obviously the USA doesn't have a GFW, so they can't
| actually block tiktok, just ban it from the app store and
| prevent business from resolving in the US around it (e.g.
| paying content creators).
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| The funny thing is that when China did that, it was
| unanimously condemned in the Western world as an
| authoritarian move, and often use as an example of why China
| was a dictatorship with no freedom of speech, etc. But now
| it's actually the normal thing to do?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from
| all threats, foreign and domestic?
|
| Indeed, but at the point we are in history the steps to get
| _that_ done - aka, copy the EU GDPR and roll it out federally -
| would take far too long, all while China has a direct path to
| the brains of our children.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| But it's fine for Russia as long as it's through an American
| corporation.
| kube-system wrote:
| The concern isn't broadly that "social media companies have
| data". The concern is the governing environment that those
| companies operate in, which can be coopted for competing
| national security purposes.
|
| This isn't a consumer data privacy protection.
|
| The concerns here are obvious: For example, it would be trivial
| for the Chinese military to use TikTok data to find US service
| members, and serve them propaganda. Or track their locations,
| etc.
| zug_zug wrote:
| > But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it?
|
| China blocks
| facebook/twitter/instagram/pinterest/gmail/wikipedia/twitch and
| even US newspapers.
|
| So clearly they _don 't_ think it's okay for a US-company to do
| it (and are at least an order magnitude stricter about it)...
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| China doesn't have a constitution like America's.
|
| Edit:
|
| Obviously, China has a constitution, but the freedoms
| enumerated there are not the same as those in America's. And
| those that are enumerated are pointless (like North Korea's
| constitution).
|
| My point is that there's an inherent hypocrisy in saying
| we're more free than them, but then doing a tit-for-tat
| retaliatory measure. How can we be more free when we're doing
| the same things the other side is?
| ok123456 wrote:
| So what? If you believe in liberal values (with a small l),
| like freedom of speech, you lead by example.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The "example" being banning things for nebulous reasons?
| If anything this is the US following China's lead in
| restricting what software their citizens can access.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If you believe in liberal values (with a small l),
| like freedom of speech, you lead by example_
|
| America is ridiculously pro free speech. That doesn't
| mean we must then tolerate libel, slander, fraud, false
| advertising, breach of contract, _et cetera_ because
| someone screams free speech.
|
| The Bill of Rights exists in balances, and the First
| Amendment is balanced, among other the things, with the
| nation's requirement to exist. That doesn't mean the
| Congress can ban speech. But it can certainly regulate
| media properties, including by mandating maximum foreign
| ownership fractions.
| greenavocado wrote:
| > America is ridiculously pro free speech
|
| Except for one group of people which have made any
| criticism of them carry legal consequences
| ok123456 wrote:
| Yes. They made it illegal even to stop buying their
| products!
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Oh, which group did you have in mind?
| ok123456 wrote:
| The ones you can't boycott, divest, or sanction and hold
| a public sector job in many states.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Why won't you say it out loud?
| ok123456 wrote:
| I'm trying not to derail the conversation by saying the
| state of Israel, and its lobbying apparatus.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _one group of people which have made any criticism of
| them carry legal consequences_
|
| Jews? You know we have other federally-protected classes,
| correct?
|
| If you're referring to Israel, no, there aren't legal
| consequences for criticising Israel. Half of the vocal
| minority of the internet is constantly up in arms about
| Israel.
| ok123456 wrote:
| 30+ states have anti-BDS statutes that make it a crime to
| criticize Israel.
| nashashmi wrote:
| You mean make it a violation to boycott israel
| ok123456 wrote:
| A boycott is a form of protest.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It does, actually https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsre
| gulations/201911/20...
| salviati wrote:
| Are you aware of this Wikipedia page? [0] I think you
| should motivate why you believe that what is described in
| that page should not be called "constitution". Or
| articulate why you believe that thing does not exist. Or at
| least motivate your statement. Where does it come from?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_China
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China has a constitution mostly like America's, freedom of
| speech, religion, press are enshrined even more strongly
| than in the American constitution. What China lacks is
| judicial review and an independent judiciary, so the
| constitution has no enforcement mechanism, and so is
| meaningless. The Chinese government as formed has no
| interest in rule of law.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Not exactly.
|
| The Chinese constitution, in addition to endowing rights,
| also endows obligations.
|
| So while you have things like: > Article 35 Citizens of
| the People's Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of
| speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and
| demonstration.
|
| You also have things like: > Article 54 Citizens of the
| People's Republic of China shall have the obligation to
| safeguard the security, honor and interests of the
| motherland; they must not behave in any way that
| endangers the motherland's security, honor or interests.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It doesn't matter because the law is completely at the
| mercy of officials to interpret and enforce. A Chinese
| court was once asked to clarify contradicting
| interpretation from officials, and they got seriously
| beat down for it because it isn't the job of the
| judiciary to tell the officials how to interpret law. The
| only way an officials ruling is overturned is if their
| boss (or someone up the hierarchy) disagrees.
|
| Compare this to the Supreme court, which is supposedly in
| Trump's hands, ruling against Trump twice on this tiktok
| ban alone (the first to kill his executive order, and the
| second to not pause the law to wait for him to take
| office).
| mrtksn wrote:
| If US wants to imitate China, they should imitate its
| industry not its restrictions to freedoms.
|
| The ideal world order isn't the one where Chinese can't find
| out what happened on Tiananmen square and Americans can't
| find out what happened in Gaza. That's a very shitty
| arrangement and I am shocked that the Americans are picking
| that as their future.
| airstrike wrote:
| Luckily nobody needs TikTok to find out what happened in
| Gaza.
| mrtksn wrote:
| very true, everything started on the seventh and ended
| thanks to the strength of the new American president and
| now it's all fine again as it was before the seventh. no
| need for political movements or anything, lets
| concentrate on the more positive things as Musk said.
| airstrike wrote:
| Your words, not mine
| est wrote:
| The problem is, the world does't need meta/google/twtr
| either. The bill would eventually backfire US internet
| companies so bad.
| airstrike wrote:
| I don't understand what this has to do with US companies
| at all. It's about foreign companies.
| walls wrote:
| The government makes Meta and Xitter suppress Palestinian
| content, they can't do that to TikTok, so it's being
| banned.
| airstrike wrote:
| This is demonstrably false as the discussion about
| banning TikTok predates the current conflict in Gaza by a
| long time.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Why do you think that Bezos and Zuckerberg have seen the
| light with the elections if the US government has nothing
| to do with these private enterprises?
|
| Twitter and Meta are foreign everywhere else, everywhere
| else except China TikTok is foreign as well and
| apparently they all lick their respective governments.
| airstrike wrote:
| And if Twitter and Meta are found to be interfering with
| national interests in foreign countries and get banned or
| reeled in due to that, how is that a bad outcome for the
| world?
| mrtksn wrote:
| it is a bad outcome because it means everyone is locked
| in their propaganda locality and theres no one to break
| the narrative. IMHO it's beneficial to have a global
| network as we are living on a planet with artificial
| borders.
| airstrike wrote:
| Less propaganda is always better. Less foreign propaganda
| doubly so. There's no benefit in a plurality of
| propaganda.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Exactly how I expect things to pan out. Some 10-15 years
| ago the countries with dictatorships had the idea that
| they need to control the discussions on internet, now it
| is the US. I expect it to have cascading effect as
| Twitter, FB, Instagram etc are all foreign companies with
| known associations with the US government and
| intelligence and ban those everywhere fir national
| security reasons.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| > The ideal world order isn't the one where Chinese can't
| find out what happened on Tiananmen square and Americans
| can't find out what happened in Gaza.
|
| I don't see how this law banning a social media site brings
| us at all closer to a world where Americans cannot get
| access to accurate information about major global
| conflicts. This is so far down the imagined "slippery
| slope" as to be absurd. In fact, I'd strongly argue that
| this law would achieve the opposite. If you're relying on
| Tik Tok for accurate information like this, then you are
| opening yourself to echo chambers, biased takes, and
| outright propaganda. There are many excellent sources out
| there in America freely available and easily accessible.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Simple: editorial preferences.
|
| Remember how Musk decided that after the elections
| Twitter will prioritize fun instagram of politics?
| SonicScrub wrote:
| If your concern is editorial preference, then wouldn't a
| social media application explicitly controlled by a State
| apparatus be a concern?
|
| I fail to see how anything going on at Twitter is
| relevant to what I mentioned. Does Twitter shifting its
| content priorities somehow make the plethora of
| excellence sources unavailable?
| horrible-hilde wrote:
| I agree with this sentiment. tit-for-tat, also anyone who
| slams into our infrastructure should pay up for the repairs
| and the inconvenience.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| FWIW facebook was blocked in 2009, after ETIM (East Turkistan
| Islamic Movement) (allegedly) used it to organise the July
| Urumqi riots, and facebook refused to follow Chinese law and
| cooperate with the police to identify the perpetrators.
|
| Whatever you think of the law of the PRC, they applied it
| consistently, Facebook was blocked for doing something that
| would get any Chinese company shut down.
|
| Tiktok is getting blocked in America for doing what American
| companies do.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Whatever you think of the law of the PRC, they applied
| it consistently_
|
| Chinese courts are explicitly subservient to the party.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| That doesn't address my point, do you believe the law was
| applied inconsistently in this case?
| ok123456 wrote:
| So are American ones, apparently.
| alberth wrote:
| This is being positioned as a national security issue that a
| foreign government has so much influence over the US public
| (and data on people if they want, like geolocation, interests,
| your contacts, etc).
|
| Note: I'm not saying I either agree or disagree ... just
| pointing out the dynamics in the case being made.
| ellisv wrote:
| Legally, the national security component is relatively minor
| to the case. It's played up to be the justification for the
| law but SCOTUS doesn't really get to decide whether that is
| good justification or even correct.
| alberth wrote:
| > The nation's highest court said in the opinion that while
| "data collection and analysis is a common practice in this
| digital age," the sheer size of TikTok and its
| "susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with
| the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects"
| poses a _National Security Concern_.
|
| FTA
| orangecat wrote:
| _SCOTUS doesn 't really get to decide whether that is good
| justification or even correct_
|
| They do, and they did. From the ruling:
|
| _The Act's prohibitions and divestiture requirement are
| designed to prevent China--a designated foreign adver- sary
| --from leveraging its control over ByteDance Ltd. to
| capture the personal data of U. S. TikTok users. This ob-
| jective qualifies as an important Government interest un-
| der intermediate scrutiny._
| ellisv wrote:
| My point was that SCOTUS didn't review whether there was
| a compelling national security interest or not - they
| didn't review any of the classified material, etc. SCOTUS
| didn't consider whether or not it was good or meaningful
| policy, they simply accepted the national security
| argument which more-or-less required them to uphold the
| DC court's application of intermediate scrutiny.
| DrScientist wrote:
| Indeed - if the US is _this_ afraid of a popular social network
| under foreign control then every country outside the US should
| be petrified.
|
| And domestically in the US - citizens should be demanding the
| dismantling of the big powerful players - which ironically the
| US government is against because of it's usefulness abroad.....
| ( let's assume for one moment, despite evidence to the
| contrary, that the US government doesn't use these tools of
| persuasion on it's own population ).
| mbrumlow wrote:
| > if the US is this afraid of a popular social network under
| foreign control then every country outside the US should be
| petrified.
|
| They are and have been.
| alonsonic wrote:
| This is exactly why China controls the internet and any
| company with a presence there.
| realusername wrote:
| I have no horses in the race but if you justify a Tiktok ban
| in the US because of a foreign influence, you also do justify
| a Facebook ban in the EU on the same arguments.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Thus why Facebook is blocked in China, but not in the EU,
| since we have a much less adversarial relationship with
| them.
| realusername wrote:
| I'm not sure how long it will last with Zukerberg and
| Musk openly threatening the EU.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Interestingly, just saw this in my RSS feed:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/european-
| union-o...
| mbrumlow wrote:
| I thought it was less about the data and more about the control
| China had on what Americans saw, and how that could influence
| Americans.
|
| If China could effectively influence the American populations
| opinions, how would that not be bad?
| ossobuco wrote:
| If the reality of things, the simple truth, is able to
| "influence" Americans does it really matter who brought that
| truth up?
|
| Do you prefer Americans to be ignorant about certain topics,
| or to be informed even if that comes at the cost of reduced
| approval for the government?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| What if, and hear me out, China didn't limit its propaganda
| to the truth?
| ossobuco wrote:
| Sounds like a great opportunity for the US government to
| inform the people on what's the actual truth. You say
| Americans don't believe their government anymore? I
| wonder why...
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Do you think the truth is, like, inherently more
| compelling than lies? If Americans don't believe their
| government anymore, how is their government supposed to
| use China's lies to highlight the truth?
| ossobuco wrote:
| I'm saying the government should focus on regaining the
| trust of its citizens, rather than censoring dangerous
| opinions.
|
| That trust wasn't lost because of foreign propaganda, but
| because of the government own lies.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Specifically, US citizens can see what's happening in
| Palestine
| rwarfield wrote:
| Because for all of Mark Zuckerburg's flaws (or Elon, or
| whoever), America is unlikely to go to war with him?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Of course not. He's already winning the war and "The People"
| have no voice in that matter.
| afavour wrote:
| Because China is a rival geopolitical power and the US is...
| us.
|
| It's a national security concern. I get that there's a lot of
| conversation and debate to be had on the topic but the answer
| here is very straightforward and I don't understand why people
| are so obtuse about it.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Not everyone on HN is a U.S. national. Many are Chinese
| nationals. So the discussion here has conflict of interest
| depending on one's allegiance
| alex_young wrote:
| So a US court should make decisions not in the US interest
| because people in other countries use some software?
| bushbaba wrote:
| No. The U.S. court should make decisions in the U.S.
| interest. But this HN thread represents people from
| around the world who may not share the U.S. interest at a
| personal level. Leading to remarks which are trying to
| sway US opinion.
|
| In a way, this thread could very well be monitored and
| commented on by a non US nation state
| afavour wrote:
| > no good answer on why its bad for a company that is
| supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of
| information on us,
|
| In the context of a discussion on a US-specific ban on
| TikTok I'm taking the "us" in OP's post to mean people in
| the US. If you aren't in the US the ban doesn't apply to
| you so the discussion is irrelevant.
| gkbrk wrote:
| HN is literally banned in China [1][2]. And since VPNs are
| also illegal in China, they're breaking the law if they are
| here. I doubt they'd break the law if they had such a
| strong allegiance to China.
|
| [1]: https://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=news.ycombi
| nator....
|
| [2]: https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com
| Xeronate wrote:
| and no chinese nationals work in the US. oh wait yes they
| do. and in my experience the majority plan to return to
| china after making enough money.
| corimaith wrote:
| This has never been a significant barrier for savvy
| Chinese to post outside the Great Firewall.
|
| International Steam is also banned in China yet we
| curiously see the majority of users nowadays use
| simplified Chinese.
| ep103 wrote:
| Right, its because a law should be passed regulating this
| sort of data for the good of all citizens, but our congress
| can't / won't pass that, so they only stepped in when it
| became an obvious national security concern.
|
| It'll come back as an issue in a less obvious manner next
| time, and every time until they pass such a law.
|
| Which, imho, won't happen while our overall political
| environment remains conservatively dominant.
| bryant wrote:
| Yeah it's not even a point of view that requires nuance; it's
| pretty clearly a matter of US interests v. adversarial
| interests. Anecdotally, a lot of people that struggle to
| understand this are also squarely in the camp of assuming
| that the US is doing data collection solely for nefarious
| purposes.
|
| Except:
|
| * the US performs these activities (data collection,
| algorithm manipulation allegedly, etc) for US interests,
| which may not always align with the interests of individuals
| in the US, whereas
|
| * adversarial foreign governments perform these activities
| for their own interests, which a US person would be wise to
| assume does not align with US interests and thus very likely
| doesn't align with the interests of US persons.
|
| If a person's main concern is living in a better United
| States, start with ensuring that the United States is
| sticking around for the long run first. Then we can work on
| improving it.
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| It seems like two different arguments if you s/US/multi-
| national-corporations/g in that sentence. I don't have that
| much faith that multi-national-corporations interests align
| with US (or China for that matter).
| bryant wrote:
| They're headquartered in the US with substantial US
| ownership, which is the same logic applied to Tiktok.
| Zuckerberg's pretty heavily rooted in the US with no
| obvious inclination to leave, and you can see the effect
| that the change in administrations is having on his
| steering of Meta as a whole.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| The thing is, doing it domestically is also a national
| security concern. We know that data leaks and breaches don't
| only happen, they are commonplace. Banning TikTok but
| continuing to allow domestic social media companies to amass
| hoards of the same kind of data without any real oversight is
| like saying, "Sorry, you can't have this on a golden platter,
| the best we can do is silver."
| swatcoder wrote:
| It's not leaks and breaches that are the immanent concern
| here. The concern is deep, adversarial manipulation of
| public sentiment -- a psyops asset that gives a competing
| nation significant leverage as they pursue ends that
| challenge established US interests in the Pacific.
|
| You don't have to agree that protecting those interests is
| worth the disruption to the global market, free speech
| ideology, etc. But to engage in the debate, you need to
| recognize that this is the core concern.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| But it's cool for Elon Musk to do it to get Trump
| elected, or zuck to do it for who knows what aims (but
| certainly expanding his own influence and power)
| jjulius wrote:
| >The concern is deep, adversarial manipulation of public
| sentiment -- a psyops asset that gives a competing nation
| significant leverage as they pursue ends that challenge
| established US interests in the Pacific.
|
| I share the exact same concern about "deep, adversarial
| manipulation of public sentiment" from US-based
| corporations running algorithmically-generated designed
| to addict consumers, and also believe that everyone needs
| to recognize _that_ core concern as well.
|
| _ALL_ of it needs to die.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Great. Get that law passed. The question of
| constitutionality doesn't preclude _expansion_ of the
| ban.
| jjulius wrote:
| _Woosh_
| kingraoul wrote:
| > The concern is deep, adversarial manipulation of public
| sentiment
|
| You mean letting U.S. citizens see the flour massacre
| video on a platform where the security state can't ban
| it.
|
| This bill languished for years until that happened.
| deaddodo wrote:
| I can see information on this specific event on
| Wikipedia, CNN, Youtube, etc right now; all "western-
| controlled". It's also available through Al-Jazeera,
| Reuters, and other foreign sources.
|
| You have an interesting and unique definition of "state
| censorship". Almost like one defined by a bias inherently
| interested in letting _specific_ foreign interests
| continue to proliferate under the guise of an emotional
| appeal.
| kingraoul wrote:
| Raises eyebrow I'm talking about watching the video. And
| surely you understand the content moderation will be
| different once the cat is out of the bag.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Are we forgetting the psyop happens on every social media
| problem? Internet research agency in st petersburg says
| otherwise.
| owlbite wrote:
| That's not forgetting the ability for them to just straight
| up 100% legally purchase a lot of this information from
| data brokers.
| mplanchard wrote:
| This was made illegal in April, 2024:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7520
| monocasa wrote:
| Not all data brokers are US based; they can still buy all
| of this information practically.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Tiktok was banned primarily for influence, secondarily for
| data.
|
| The influence is what law makers care far more about.
| Remember what Russia was doing on facebook in 2016? Now
| imagine that Russia actually owned facebook at the time.
| afavour wrote:
| > "Sorry, you can't have this on a golden platter, the best
| we can do is silver."
|
| Right, and silver is better than nothing.
|
| I think many of us on HN would agree that US social media
| companies having the means to manipulate user sentiment via
| private algorithms is a bad thing. But it's at least
| marginally better than a foreign adversary doing so because
| US companies have a base interest in the US continuing to
| be a functional country. Plus it's considerably more
| difficult to pass a law covering this domestically, where
| US tech giants have vested interests, lobbyists and voters
| they can manipulate.
|
| So yes, a targeted ban against a foreign-owned company
| isn't the ideal outcome. But it's not difficult to see why
| it's considered a _better_ outcome than doing nothing at
| all.
| hammock wrote:
| You're not wrong that domestic threats exist as well. But
| perhaps the biggest thing to know that may help you
| understand, is that the national security apparatus
| operates within the paradigm of what is called 5GW, or
| Fifth Generation Warfare[1]. 5GW is all about information,
| and a foreign adversary controlling the algorithmic news
| feed of 170 million Americans for an average 1 hour a day
| is important in that context.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_warfare
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm still not sure I understand the national security
| concerns around 17-year old nobodies publishing videos of
| themselves doing silly dances. Or the "metadata" those 17
| year olds produce. Are people sharing nuclear secrets on
| TikTok or something (and not doing the same on US services)?
| philipbjorge wrote:
| I haven't followed this closely, but I assumed it was
| related to a foreign entity having the ability to hyper-
| target content towards said 17 year olds (and the entire
| userbase in general) -- A modern form of psychological
| warfare.
| miah_ wrote:
| Like Cambridge Analytica (who used Facebook to do exactly
| this for the 2016 election).
| owlbite wrote:
| The concern is they won't be 17 forever. 5/10/20/30 years
| down the line some small portion of these kids are going to
| hold important jobs, and some of them will have worthwhile
| blackmail material in their tiktok history.
| ryandrake wrote:
| OK, wild. It's farfetched, but at least the "blackmail"
| angle makes a little bit of sense. Still strangely
| targeted. There are a lot of other apps where people are
| making "potential blackmail" material.
| startupsfail wrote:
| Blackmail. Information. They could be kids of someone with
| access/high clearance or get it themselves in a few years.
| echoangle wrote:
| You can still push a particular group of those 17-year olds
| pushing specific views to influence elections. As long as
| some proportion of the electorate watches stuff on TikTok.
| afavour wrote:
| > the national security concerns around 17-year old
| nobodies publishing videos of themselves doing silly dances
|
| C'mon, we can have a more informed conversation than that.
|
| TikTok is an entertainment platform the average young
| American watches for more than an hour a day. Videos cover
| just about any topic imaginable. We just had an election.
| Is it really so impossible to imagine a foreign power
| adjusting the algorithm to show content favorable to one
| candidate over another? It's entirely within their power
| and they have every motive.
| ryandrake wrote:
| So why a single product? Young people watch content from
| way more than a single app. And reportedly (from my kid)
| they are all just moving over to a different Chinese
| content-sharing app. If we're worried about "foreign"
| influence, shouldn't we be blocking all non-US sources of
| information that young people might watch and be
| influenced by? It looks pretty ham-fisted to just target
| one of those sources.
| fumar wrote:
| How are kids discovering a new Chinese-owned app? Is it
| through Tik Tok? Could the Tik Tok algo be biased towards
| China over US based companies?
| ryandrake wrote:
| How did they find TikTok originally? Or Snapchat, or all
| the other silly apps they use? We're all being bombarded
| with marketing and advertising every day. Maybe this new
| app is good at marketing and the product itself is as
| good as TikTok, who knows, I don't use either of them.
|
| The TikTok ban would have been the perfect opportunity
| for any number of competing US social media apps to swoop
| in and offer TT's current users a replacement, but they
| seem to have all failed to address that market.
| coldpie wrote:
| The trouble I have is that Facebook & X do this, too, and
| their owners are similarly unaccountable to US law, but
| we aren't we banning them. If this law were applied
| equally, I'd be all in favor. Instead it is transparently
| just a handout to Facebook to remove a business
| competitor. That sucks, big time.
| afavour wrote:
| I share that concern. But I also recognize that passing
| an equivalent law for domestic social media networks
| would be considerably less likely to pass. Perfect as the
| enemy of good and all that.
| coldpie wrote:
| But this is worse than good: it's giving Facebook & X
| _even more control over the discourse_ by removing a
| competitor.
| afavour wrote:
| I work from the basic principle that a foreign,
| government-controlled adversary having control over
| discourse is worse than a domestic company having the
| same, despite strongly disliking both.
|
| Just at a base level, Facebook, X, etc are staffed by
| Americans who have a vested interest in the country
| remaining functional. The CEOs of those companies are,
| though it's very unlikely, arrestable. Can't say the same
| for TikTok.
| coldpie wrote:
| > Facebook, X, etc are staffed by Americans who have a
| vested interest in the country remaining functional. The
| CEOs of those companies are arrestable.
|
| I suspect this is our fundamental disagreement. I
| disagree with both of these statements. Facebook's & X's
| executives have a vested interested in power and money
| for themselves and their peers. These oligarchs are in
| practice above the law, just like China's and Russia's
| oligarchs are. This decision only gives them even more
| control. It's bad for those US citizens who are not in
| the oligarch class.
| afavour wrote:
| You disagree that Facebook's employees have an interest
| in America remaining a functional country?
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't think Tiktok will bring about the end of America
| as a functioning country. I do think Facebook's
| executives have an interest in gaining control for
| themselves at any cost, up to & including the end of
| America as a country if that is the most profitable route
| for themselves.
|
| Put another way, I think China & Facebook's execs are
| about equal in terms of danger to US citizens (I'd
| probably give the edge to Facebook's execs, since they
| have direct control over US policy, but we're splitting
| hairs here). So banning one but not the other is a crappy
| situation, because it concentrates that power even
| further.
| eckesicle wrote:
| Because it's used to influence elections worldwide. Most
| recently the first round of the Romanian elections were won
| by an unheard of pro-Russian candidate who ran a
| disinformation campaign on TikTok, allegedly organised by
| the Kreml.
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-
| romanian-...
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/calin-georgescu-romania-
| elec...
| segasaturn wrote:
| Do you have any proof that the Chinese government played
| a role in his campaign? Because the 2016 United States
| election was possibly influenced by disinformation
| campaigns on Facebook, yet there is no ban and Zuck is
| taking an even more lax approach to moderation than
| Tiktok.
| jmorenoamor wrote:
| I understand that, but, you can run that campaign on
| Instagram, Twitter, or wherever your target audience is,
| right?
| eckesicle wrote:
| Both those entities are within regulatory reach of the US
| administration.
| ericd wrote:
| I think this underestimates how popular TikTok is with
| 20/30 year olds.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I don't understand why people are so obtuse about national
| security being an excuse. Do we really believe the Chinese
| are going to infiltrate by way of tiktok when they can hack
| into our telecom networks or any significant figures
| individual machines? This is about neutering our biggest
| global economic threat.
| echoangle wrote:
| National security doesn't have to mean they use the app to
| take over the devices it is installed on. It can also be
| used to spread misinformation or blackmail people.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Oh. Like what our domestic social media company let
| happen with Cambridge Analytica? Glad our government is
| so focused on this one. Great work.
| deaddodo wrote:
| This is the argument that a group of toddlers make when
| one of them gets caught with their hand in the cookie
| jar. "Yeah...yah....but Mrs. Spangler, I saw Sally steal
| a cookie last week". OK, cool....your friend is stealing
| one now _and_ currently has their hand in the cookie jar.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Terrible comparison. China hasn't been caught doing
| anything nefarious with Tiktok whereas Facebook was
| caught red handed. The problem is a tiktok ban is based
| on speculation and playing on the fears of the american
| people. The irony is the story is pitched as China using
| tiktok to program a bunch of american monkeys, meanwhile
| our own government is programming us with "china is the
| adversary"
|
| Sally stole a cookie from the cookie jar and now the
| teacher is pointing at the fat kid and not letting him be
| in the classroom alone with the cookie jar. Just bc he is
| fat.
| hhjinks wrote:
| This reads like a denial of the existence of hybrid
| warfare. Why _wouldn 't_ China use TikTok to sow negative
| sentiment about the US?
| redserk wrote:
| Plenty of negative sentiment already on US owned
| platforms, it gets the clicks and the clicks pay the
| bills.
| TravisPeacock wrote:
| Economics, prestige, etc. It's worth a lot to China to be
| competing with the US in social media / Internet stuff.
| China (and Russia) have been pushing a narrative that the
| US operates on two sets of rules for them vs everyone
| else.
|
| The US is happy to invade countries and turns a blind eye
| to Israeli aggression but Russia or China want to do it
| and they are met with sanctions etc. The last bastion of
| American exceptionalism was how it's a free market and
| values free speech and free competition.
|
| There was a national security threat but the US walked
| right into it: China is making a move for the top spot as
| global hegemon. It's recruiting other countries to say
| don't work with the US, work with us instead. The US
| flinched. Ralph blew the conch and all the kids just
| installed RedNote .
| empath75 wrote:
| RedNote falls afoul of the exact same law and will
| probably be banned soon after TikTok.
| TravisPeacock wrote:
| Except that's not the point at all. The US just proved to
| the world that it doesn't care about competition and it's
| citizens (in some number) have rejected the concept of
| "National Security" by switching to a more explicitly
| Chinese company.
|
| That's a blow to hegemony that will have lasting
| consequences.
| ericd wrote:
| I'd assume the concern is more swaying public opinion,
| sowing division to make us incapable of unified political
| effort, or even to destabilize us, things like that, not so
| much infiltrating networks - they already manufacture much
| of that equipment.
|
| If I understand correctly how it works, it's a
| propagandist's dream, building personalized psych profiles
| on each person. You could imagine that it'd be the perfect
| place to try generating novel videos to fit specific
| purposes, as well - the signals from this could feed back
| directly into the loss functions for the generative models.
|
| I think politicians' efforts to regulate tech are generally
| not great, but I think this one is pretty spot-on.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I think we are already cooked on unifying political
| effort and destabilization. We don't need help from China
| on this.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > Do we really believe the Chinese are going to infiltrate
| by way of tiktok when they can hack into our telecom
| networks or any significant figures individual machines?
|
| The allegation is that it's used to spread misinformation
| and affect public sentiment, not for infiltration.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Because US social media companies have sold data to foreign
| adversaries when then used it to attempt to influence
| domestic matters
| JAlexoid wrote:
| This law is dumb, because in no way does it prevent the exact
| same data to be collected, processed by a US entity and then
| transferred to China.
|
| I suspect that it's not about data being transferred, but the
| fact that TikTok can shape opinions of Americans... which US
| companies do a lot, without any oversight.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| You suspect that? It is the literal stated reason for it.
| mplanchard wrote:
| It is a separate law from the one passed in April, 2024,
| which makes what you're talking about illegal:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7520
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| Because personal data about US citizens is up for sale to
| more or less whoever wants it, and the US government doesn't
| seem to have a problem with this otherwise.
|
| Which makes it seem far more plausible that the real national
| security capability that is being defended is that of the US
| gov to influence narratives on social media. And while even
| that might be constitutional, it's a lot less compelling.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Laws don't have to solve all of the potential problems that
| may exist in order to be valid (this is one of the things
| they talk about in the decision).
|
| However, there is another law that made sale of data to
| foreign adversaries illegal, passed in April 2024:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7520
| BlarfMcFlarf wrote:
| X or Facebook isn't "us". If we had any reason to believe
| there were or were even likely to be strong effective
| democratic controls over their ability to manipulate public
| sentiment it might be different. But as it stands, it feels
| more like local oligarchs kicking out competitors in their
| market: "the US population is _our_ population to manipulate,
| go back to your own".
| Eextra953 wrote:
| Because it's not clear what the national security concern is.
| With weapons or infrastructure, it's easy to understand how
| they can be used against the U.S., but with a social media
| platform, it's harder to see the threat. The concern really
| seems to lie with the users of TikTok.
|
| So what's the issue? That people living in the U.S. and using
| TikTok might be influenced to act differently than how the
| powers that be want us to act?
| miah_ wrote:
| Surely China can just buy all the data that's being collected
| by US companies and sold. So whats the difference here?
| yibg wrote:
| I think one of the issues is the details of the national
| security risk hasn't been articulated well. I haven't
| followed this in detail, but from what I've seen in
| summaries, news articles etc is just a vague notion of a
| theoretical risk from an adversary, with no details on
| exactly what the risk is, or if there is an actual issue here
| (vs just a theoretical issue that can happen at some point).
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Not only is it straight forward it has long precedent. We've
| long limited broadcast licenses for instance.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| But US companys sale all info about users anyway to anyone
| (just see today GM) and you accept in between often to over
| 800 cookies on websites. If thats ok, whats the difference.
| Why is it ok a website does include over 800 cokies?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Foreign propaganda bots are just as present on US social
| media, and US social media amplify them just as much.
|
| So where exactly is the meaningful difference here? I don't
| see it.
|
| The actual difference is that US does not see the money from
| Tiktok, and blocking tiktok is a convenient excuse to give
| _their_ propaganda platforms a competetive edge.
|
| Actually doing something about the fundamental problem of
| foreign influence through the internet would basically
| destroy sillicon valley, and no politician wants to be
| responsible for that.
| pc86 wrote:
| Because they're trying to ignore the national security aspect
| to talk about tracking generically. Which is a valid argument
| and a good discussion to be had, but it's irrelevant in this
| context.
|
| If the US was going to get into a legitimate hot "soldiers
| shooting at soldiers" type of war with any country, China is
| extremely high on that list. Maybe even #1. Pumping data on
| tens of millions of Americans directly into the CCP is bad.
| Putting a CCP-controlled algorithm in front of those tens of
| millions of Americans is so pants-on-head-retarded in that
| context it seems crazy to even try to talk about anything
| more general than that.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Because the Chinese are openly hostile towards the United
| States and its interests, whereas American companies have a
| vested interest in the U.S. and are beholden to its laws.
|
| I don't know why realpolitik is so hard for technologists to
| understand, perhaps too much utopian fantasy scifi?
| alonsonic wrote:
| The idealist and optimist part of technologists tend to block
| the understanding of the rather simple practicalities at play
| in geo politics.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| It is really amazing to see so many replies here of people
| who do not just disagree with the ruling but completely deny
| the principles at play exist.
| Spunkie wrote:
| I've honestly never seen so many stupid people making
| stupid arguments on HN before.
|
| Nothing but lazy disingenuous arguments who's only purpose
| is to bait conversations for replying with even lazier
| whataboutisms.
|
| Either the brainrot has really set in for these people or
| we are being flooded with ai/bots.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Yes. Or both.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Or mutually-supporting fires, a death-spiral of agitprop
| fueling already bent values.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| What is stupid in these replies to me is that people
| seemingly think the interests of american companies and
| the american working class are somehow aligned.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| It's possible to recognize both that
|
| (a) American companies' business interests don't fully
| align with the needs of their users or the general
| public,
|
| and that
|
| (b) the Chinese Communist Party's objectives --which
| include weakening, destabilizing, and impoverishing the
| United States-- are even less aligned with the interests
| of American citizens.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Stupid false dichotomy.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Computer touchers awash in luxury beliefs.
| gspencley wrote:
| While I agree with you about domestic policy, I'm not sure why
| it's inconsistent or hypocritical to deal with an external
| threat posed from those who want to destroy or harm you.
|
| The details specific to China and TikTok are kind of moot when
| talking about broad principles. And there is a valid discussion
| to be had regarding whether or not it does pose a legitimate
| national security threat. You would be absolutely correct in
| pointing out all of the trade that happens between China and
| the USA as a rebuttal to what I'm about to offer.
|
| To put where I'm coming from into perspective, I'm one of those
| whacko Ayn Rand loving objectivists who wants a complete
| separation between state and economy just like we have been
| state and church and for the same reasons. This means that I
| want nothing shy of absolute laissez-faire capitalism.
|
| But that actually doesn't mean that blockades, sanctions and
| trade prohibitions are necessarily inconsistent with this world
| view. It depends on the context.
|
| An ideal trade is one in which both parties to that trade
| benefit. The idea being that both are better off than they were
| before the trade.
|
| This means that it is a really stupid idea to trade anything at
| all at any level with those who want to either destroy or harm
| you.
|
| National security is one of the proper roles of government.
|
| And I don't think you necessarily disagree with me, because
| you're saying "we should also be protected our citizens from
| spying and intrusions into our privacy" and yes! Yes we
| absolutely should be!
|
| But that's a different role than protecting the nation from
| external threats. You can do your job with respects to one, and
| fail at your job with respects to the other, and then it is
| certainly appropriate to call out that one of the important
| jobs is not being fulfilled. Does that make it hypocritical?
| Does it suddenly make it acceptable for enemy states to start
| spying?
|
| By all means criticize your government always. That's healthy.
| But one wrong does not excuse another. We can, and should,
| debate whether TikTok really represents a national security
| threat, or whether we should be trading with China at all (my
| opinion is we shouldn't be). It's just that the answer to "why
| its bad when China does it but it's right when it's done
| domestically" is "it's wrong in both cases and each can be
| dealt with independently from the other without contradiction"
| Vanclief wrote:
| The comparison isn't even close. TikTok's relationship with the
| Chinese government is well-documented, not "supposed". They are
| legally required to share data under China's National
| Intelligence Law. The Chinese government has also a track
| record of pushing disinformation and find any way to
| destabilize Western democracies.
|
| Douyin (The Chinese Tiktok version) limits users under 14 to 40
| minutes per day and primarily serves educational content, while
| TikTok's algorithm outside China optimizes for maximum
| engagement regardless of content quality or user wellbeing.
|
| US tech companies pursuing profit at the expense of user
| wellbeing is concerning and deserves its own topic. However,
| there is a fundamental difference between a profit driven
| company operating under US legal constraints and oversight,
| versus a platform forced to serve the strategic interests of a
| foreign government that keeps acting in bad faith.
| gs17 wrote:
| > Douyin (The Chinese Tiktok version) limits users under 14
| to 40 minutes per day and primarily serves educational
| content, while TikTok's algorithm outside China optimizes for
| maximum engagement regardless of content quality or user
| wellbeing.
|
| This isn't true, at least not for adults' accounts. I've
| watched my girlfriend use it and the content was exactly what
| she watched on TikTok, mostly dumb skits, singing, dancing,
| just all in Chinese instead of half in Chinese. It also never
| kicked her off for watching too long.
|
| I was told a similar story about Xiaohongshu, where it was
| supposedly an app for Chinese citizens to read Mao's
| quotations (through the lens of Xi Jinping Thought) to prove
| their loyalty. Then I saw it for real and it's literally
| Chinese Instagram.
| drawkward wrote:
| Judging by your karma and registration date, you spend some
| time here on HN. There have been _lots_ of good answers why;
| they are the many prior discussions of this topic.
|
| You are just seeming to ignore them for whatever reason.
| legitster wrote:
| > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from
| all threats, foreign and domestic?
|
| Maybe. But there is a huge constitutional distinction between
| foreign and domestic threats. And the supreme court was pretty
| clear that the decision would be different if it didn't reside
| with a "foreign adversary".
| jack_pp wrote:
| Check out the scandal in Romania, some guy that had less than
| 5% in polls got 30% because of tiktok. Other candidates had
| tiktok campaigns too but probably didn't use bots.
|
| Social media is a legitimate threat to any countries democracy
| if used wisely. It is dangerous to have one of the biggest ones
| in the hands of your enemy when they can influence your own
| countries narrative to such an extent.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| For me the biggest scandal in Romania is that they threw the
| people's choice to the trash just because he didn't show up
| in polls... a few months after banning another candidate,
| Sosoaca, for, and I cite textually, "calling for the removal
| of fundamental state values and choices, namely EU and NATO
| membership".
|
| Note that from the little I know about both Sosaca and
| Georgescu, they both look like dangerous nutjobs that should
| not rule, but if I were a Romanian I would be more worried
| about a democracy that removes candidates it doesn't like for
| purely political reasons (not for having commited a felony or
| anything like that) than about them.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I'm no lawyer and can't be arsed to do the proper research
| but for Georgescu to be able to declare he had 0 campaign
| spending while everyone knows that the tiktok campaign cost
| 20-50 million euros is insane to me.
|
| If they aren't already prosecuting him on this I guess
| technically it's legal but such a weird loophole in the
| law. Any spending towards promoting a candidate should be
| public knowledge imo. EDIT: he was claiming bullshit like
| GOD chose him and that's how he got that good of a result.
| I guess his God is the people in the shadows that made his
| tiktok campaign lol
|
| > For me the biggest scandal in Romania is that they threw
| the people's choice to the trash just because he didn't
| show up in polls
|
| I think they did it for many reasons but not because he
| didn't show up in polls.
|
| Top ones are:
|
| - PSD didn't advance in the second round and they had the
| leverage to pull it off
|
| - Georgescu was clearly anti-NATO so maybe the US pulled
| strings
|
| - Danger of having a president with Russian sympathies
|
| - He was claiming that he didn't spend a single dime on the
| election while everyone in the know knows that his tiktok
| campaign cost sever million euros
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I mean that the only evidence that his votes came from
| the TikTok campaign is that he didn't show up in polls
| and unexpectedly obtained a great result. So they
| automatically assume the delta between expected and
| obtained votes are people manipulated by the TikTok
| campaign (which apparently are assumed to have become
| some kind of zombies whose opinion doesn't count).
|
| Out of the fourth reasons you list at the end, only the
| fourth is not pure authoritarianism (why wouldn't people
| in a democracy be free to elect a president that dislikes
| NATO or likes Russia if that is their will?). Campaign
| funding fraud has happened in many Western countries but
| typically it's handling by imposing fines, maybe some
| jail time, but definitely not cancelling the result of an
| entire election.
| jack_pp wrote:
| I'm not naive enough to believe we live in a true
| democracy. IMO this cancelling was good for 2 reasons :
| first I believe Georgescu is a nutjob, second.. if there
| was any doubt that we don't live in a true democracy now
| it's pretty clear.
|
| And considering the level of education of most of the
| Romanian population I believe having "true" democracy
| would destroy the country. I understand this may not be a
| popular opinion but I'm trying to be realistic here lol
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I actually sympathize with all that. Over the past few
| decades, I have slowly become increasingly skeptical
| about true, unfettered democracy being the best form of
| government. In the past, although the level of education
| probably was worse than now, the fact that people got
| their news from rather centralized sources controlled by
| elites acted as a "nutjob filter". With social networks,
| we are witnessing what should be the true power of
| democracy (people electing candidates in spite of what
| the elites think), but it can easily create monsters.
|
| I just wish the Western world would drop the hypocrisy in
| this respect, and stop claiming to defend more democracy
| than it actually does. A relevant problem is that
| democracy is often used as an easy excuse to keep people
| content. Singapore is a hugely successful country in most
| respects, with better quality of life than most Western
| countries, but we shouldn't take example from it because
| we have democracy! China is constantly growing and
| improving the quality of life of their citizens, is still
| behind most of the West in that respect but on the path
| to overtake us, but it doesn't matter, we have democracy!
| Maybe if we weren't constantly claiming the moral high
| ground, when as you mentioned our own democracies are at
| most relative and the difference with more authoritarian
| countries is a matter of degree; we could be more self-
| critical and focus on actually fixing things.
| disharko wrote:
| optimistically, this is the first step towards banning or at
| least forcing more transparency for all algorithmic feeds.
| there's absolutely similar concerns about the leadership of
| American companies being able to sway public opinion in
| whatever direction they choose via promotion or demotion of
| viewpoints. but it's only been possible to convince those with
| the power to stop them of the danger from China, because while
| probably none of the companies have "America's best interests"
| at heart when tuning their algorithms, it's much clearer that
| China has reason to actively work against American national
| interests (even just demoting honest critique of China is
| something to be wary of)
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Clearly the US government would like only US companies to
| collect this kind of data. Eliminating the biggest competitors
| for companies like Google, X and Meta is likely just the icing
| on the cake.
| skirge wrote:
| my wife can yell at me and spend my money and my neighbour
| can't, because you know different case
| amelius wrote:
| In addition:
|
| * US data brokers can still sell data to foreign companies (out
| of control of US and thus indirectly to Chinese companies).
|
| * Chinese companies can buy US companies (thereby obtaining
| lots of data).
|
| If we killed user-tracking, then that would solve a LOT of
| problems.
| mplanchard wrote:
| > US data brokers can still sell data to foreign companies
| (out of control of US and thus indirectly to Chinese
| companies).
|
| This is false. It was made illegal in April, 2024:
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7520
| amelius wrote:
| > (...) to North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran or an entity
| controlled by such a country
|
| This is very limited and will not prevent indirect sales
| (like we now see happening with Russian oil for example).
|
| It is also why I said "indirectly".
| mplanchard wrote:
| Yeah it could be broader for sure, would prefer it to be
| an allowlist rather than a blocklist, but the presence of
| a workaround doesn't make banning something pointless,
| and as the SC pointed out in their decision, a law does
| not need to solve all problems in one fell swoop in order
| for it to be valid.
| amelius wrote:
| I just wish we could ban user-tracking (and data brokers)
| entirely so we wouldn't have this problem to begin with,
| or at least not to the current extent.
|
| Keeping the data securely inside our country is never
| going to work if China can simply open their wallet and
| spend billions of $ to obtain the data.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Totally agree, and have written my congresspeople several
| times asking them to push for such legislation
| ajkjk wrote:
| It sounds like you have ignored all the answers and then you're
| saying there's no good answers?
|
| If you want to convince someone they're not good answers you
| would have to at least engage with them and show how they fail
| to be correct/moral/legal or something. Pretending they don't
| exist does nothing.
| epolanski wrote:
| Not only that, but there's no evidence at all that Tik Tok's
| been feeding China any data. None.
|
| Whereas we have proof and evidence that US agencies can access
| data about citizens from anywhere else in the world without
| even needing a court order.
|
| Everybody forgot already US spying on Merkel's phone?
|
| But that's okay, because America is not bound to any rules I
| guess. Disgusting foreign policy with a disgusting
| exceptionalism mentality.
| afavour wrote:
| > there's no evidence at all that Tik Tok's been feeding
| China any data.
|
| Because China's political system applies absolutely no
| pressure for transparency.
|
| > Whereas we have proof and evidence that US agencies can
| access data about citizens from anywhere else in the world
| without even needing a court order.
|
| Something we know about because the US political system has
| levers that can be pulled to apply pressure for transparency.
|
| You'd have to be very naive not to think that the Chinese
| government has an interest in controlling what US users of
| TikTok see. Whether they actually _have_ or not is a somewhat
| useless question because we 'll never know definitively, and
| even if they haven't today there's nothing saying they won't
| tomorrow.
|
| We _can_ say that they have both the motive and capability to
| do so.
| monocasa wrote:
| > Something we know about because the US political system
| has levers that can be pulled to apply pressure for
| transparency.
|
| We know most of it because of whistleblower leaks.
| afavour wrote:
| Otherwise known as a lever within the US political system
| that allows for transparency.
|
| No free press, no whistleblowers.
| monocasa wrote:
| I'm mainly thinking of Snowden, who wasn't afforded
| whistleblower protections, and who mainly distributed
| through foreign media like Der Spiegel and The Guardian.
| epolanski wrote:
| > You'd have to be very naive not to think that the Chinese
| government has an interest in controlling what US users of
| TikTok see.
|
| Just because something has been repeated in the news 20000
| times, it doesn't make it true without evidence.
| Speculation is just it: speculation.
|
| As far as I've seen, it's not Chinese company spying on me,
| it's US ones, it's not Chinese companies hacking Wifis in
| all major airports to track regular citizens, it's US ones,
| it's not Chinese intelligence spying on European
| politicians, it's US ones, it's not Chinese diplomacy
| drawing the line between rebels/protesters, good or bad
| geopolitically, it's always Washington, it's not Chinese
| intelligence we know of hacking major European
| infrastructure and bypassing SCADA, it's US one.
|
| The elephant in the room is US' fixation for exceptionalism
| and being self authorized to do whatever it pleases while
| at the same time making up geopolitical enemies and forcing
| everybody to follow.
|
| I don't buy it, I'm sorry. I don't particularly like the
| Chinese system, I don't particularly love their censorship,
| and I don't particularly like their socials on our ground
| when our ones are unable to operate there (unless they
| abide to Chinese laws, which are restricting and demand
| user data non stop, something they are very willing to do
| in US though).
|
| My beef is with American's exceptionalism and with the
| average American Joe who cannot see the dangers posed by
| the foreign policy of its own country. The US should set
| the example and then pretend the same, instead it does
| worse than everybody and cries that only it can. It's
| dangerous.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Not only that, but there's no evidence at all that Tik
| Tok's been feeding China any data. None.
|
| Yes there has been. TikTok admitted to it. They were tracking
| journalists.
|
| This is not a mere accusation. Instead the company admitted
| to it.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-
| by...
| myrmidon wrote:
| 1) You can not protect users from being influenced by the media
| they consume-- that is basically the very nature of the thing.
|
| 2) This is not about protecting _users_ of the app, this is
| about preventing a foreign state from having direct influence
| on public opinion.
|
| It is obvious to me why this is necessary. If you allow
| significant foreign influence on public opinion, then this can
| be leveraged. Just imagine Russia being in control of a lot of
| US media in 2022. Or 1940's Japan. That is a very serious
| problem, because it can easily lead to outcomes that are
| against the interests of ALL US citizens in the longer term...
| plorg wrote:
| SCOTUS explicitly avoided ruling on this justification, and
| it seemed at argument that even some of the conservative
| justices were uncomfortable with the free speech implications
| of it.
| redserk wrote:
| That justification also seems like it quickly can be used
| to shutdown access to VPN services hosted elsewhere like
| Mullvad.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| It's not a top down broadcast and the SCOTUS has a hard
| time wrapping their head around 250 individual people
| receiving individualized content with no oversight or
| necessity for accuracy.
| perbu wrote:
| I think the question "What is Tiktoks speech?" was raised.
| And the answer, "the algorithm" didn't really strike home.
|
| So I read it like they didn't interpret this as a free
| speech issue at all.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Isn't that already happening? Fox news parroting russian
| talking points to sow division among the working class
| population of this country? Why is that fine? Because they
| get Rs in power in the process?
| x0iii wrote:
| There's no room for equality and fairness when it comes to
| global political rivals especially when there's stone cold
| evidence of mischief.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Where in that CNBC article does it say that it's fine for US
| companies to do that? I don't see that anywhere, yet that's the
| point you're claiming is being made.
| knowitnone wrote:
| same reason China forbids or controls US companies operating in
| China. This is just tit-for-tat.
| knowitnone wrote:
| ever hear of election tampering?
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I think you have no good answer to this, you should do some
| soul searching.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Plenty of good answers have already been put forward. But in
| case you're asking in good faith, here are the two main ones:
|
| 1- It's in the interest of the US government to protect its
| interests and citizens from governments that are considered
| adversarial, which China is. And unlike other countries, the
| Chinese government exercises a great deal of direct control
| over major companies (like ByteDance). If TikTok was controlled
| by the Russian government would we even be having this
| conversation? (Ironically most Americans are freaked out about
| Russia, but when it comes to global politics, China is the much
| greater threat to the U.S.)
|
| I think social media in general - including by US companies -
| does more harm than good to society and concentrates too much
| power and influence in the hands of a few (Musk, Zuck, etc.) So
| this isn't to say that "US social media is good". But from a
| national security standpoint, Congress' decision makes sense.
|
| 2- If China allowed free access to US social media apps to its
| citizens then it might have a leg to stand on. But those are
| blocked (along with much of the Western internet) or heavily
| filtered/censored. TikTok itself is banned in China. So there's
| a strong tit-for-tat element here, which also is reasonable.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Ironically most Americans are freaked out about Russia, but
| when it comes to global politics, China is the much greater
| threat to the U.S.
|
| China benefits greatly from the rules based order that
| America spends considerable effort to maintain and uphold.
| They would prefer a different rules based order than the one
| America would prefer, but they're better off with than
| without and recognize that.
|
| OTOH, Russia does not. They prefer chaos.
|
| China is definitely the stronger threat. But Russia is a
| greater immediate threat because they're only interested in
| tearing things down. It's easier to tear things down than to
| build them up, especially if you don't care about the
| consequences.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > But Russia is a greater immediate threat
|
| I disagree; and it's the dismissal for the past 13-14 years
| of China as an immediate threat which is what has in part
| allowed China to become such a large longer-term threat.
|
| > They would prefer a different rules based order than the
| one America would prefer
|
| I would put it differently: China wants its own global
| hegemony instead of the U.S.' -- and that's understandable
| (everyone wants to rule the world). But if the U.S. doesn't
| want that to happen then it has to take steps to counter
| it.
| est wrote:
| > government to protect its interests and citizens from
| governments that are considered adversarial
|
| That's the exact reason why Communist China setup the
| firewall in the first place. Good luck.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The two are vastly different.
|
| The GFW doesn't just block websites/networks/content that
| is controlled by adversarial foreign governments, but all
| websites/networks/content which the CCP is unable to
| censor. The GFW is about controlling the flow of
| information to its citizens from __any__ party not under
| the CCP's control.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > If TikTok was controlled by the Russian government would we
| even be having this conversation?
|
| Yandex got fragmented into EU bits and Russian bits.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/23/russia-
| yandex-...
|
| The head of VK is subject to sanctions
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/26/22951307/us-sanctions-
| rus... (but it appears that Americans are still free to use
| VK if they want to?)
|
| > (Ironically most Americans are freaked out about Russia,
| but when it comes to global politics, China is the much
| greater threat to the U.S.)
|
| American-backed forces are fighting the Russian army itself
| in Ukraine. Implied in all of that is a desire to not have US
| forces fight them directly in Poland.
| hedora wrote:
| Those are answers to a different question.
|
| The US companies continue to feed the same information to the
| Chinese, even though the Federal government has been trying
| to get them to stop for almost a decade (I cite sources
| elsewhere in this thread).
|
| So, all of your arguments apply equally to the big US owned
| social media companies.
|
| Since the ban won't stop the Chinese from mining centralized
| social media databases, the important part of the question
| is:
|
| > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from
| all threats, foreign and domestic?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > won't stop the Chinese from mining centralized social
| media databases
|
| that's not the issue; the issue is control of the network
|
| > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens
| from all threats, foreign and domestic?
|
| No. In the US government's view, its responsibility is to
| counter potential foreign threats -- and not just foreign,
| but adversarial (this wouldn't be an issue for a social
| network controlled by the UK or Japan, for example) --
| which would include a highly pervasive social network
| controlled by a foreign government that is the US' largest
| adversary.
|
| As for whether social media companies in general are good
| or bad for American society, that's a completely separate
| question. (I tend to think they do more harm then good, but
| it's still a separate question.)
| walls wrote:
| > If China allowed free access to US social media apps to its
| citizens then it might have a leg to stand on.
|
| So now the US should just do everything China does? What
| happened to American ideals protecting themselves? If free
| speech really works, it shouldn't matter that TikTok exists.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| I agree with point #1, but then this ban should also include
| the US controlled sites - having the main office in the US
| doesn't mean the data is any more secure, or that the
| products do less harm socially.
|
| For point #2, this seems like you're saying "they don't have
| a leg to stand on, and we want to do the same thing". If we
| don't support the way they control the internet, we shouldn't
| be doing adopting the same policies. I don't think
| governments should have any ability to control communication
| on the internet, so this feels like a huge overstep
| regardless of the reasons given for it
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Re #2 -- while there is a tit-for-tat element here, forcing
| a sale of TikTok or removing it from the App stores, is
| still worlds apart from the type of censoring of
| information that the Chinese government engages in. So it's
| not a case of "we want to do the same thing". If you've
| lived in China (I have) you'll know what I'm talking about.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| Good clarification - I'm not saying we're adopting all
| the same policies, but it is a step in that direction,
| and I think we need to have a clear line saying we never
| do anything close to that. Similar to the "first they
| came" poem, this could be used to justify further
| expansion of this power, and that poem does start with
| "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak
| up because I wasn't a communist"
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Agreed that there's always a risk that something like
| this sets a precedent for abuse of power to control
| information by the US government. And we know that the US
| gov is not beyond spying on its citizens (Snowden, NSA).
| However, there are still fairly robust safeguards in
| place in the US by virtual of the political structure, to
| make this much less likely to happen. Those same
| safeguards make it unlikely that while Trump and Elon
| would almost certainly exercise the degree of control
| that Xi has if they could, they are prevented from the
| worst by the structure in place.
|
| The problem in China is that there weren't strong
| safeguards to prevent a totalitarian control (CCP is
| supposed to be democratic within itself in that leaders
| are elected, though it's all restricted to party members,
| of course), and when Xi came into power he was able,
| within a few years, to sweep aside all opposition,
| primarily through "anti-corruption campaigns". So he now
| has a degree of control and power that would be a wet
| dream for Trump. (And you should see the level of
| adulation in the newspapers there.)
|
| Now in the US we have a separate problem, and that is we
| have a system where unelected people like Elon and
| Zuckerberg, Murdoch, etc., exercise a tremendous amount
| of influence over the population through their policies
| and who are pursuing a marriage between authoritarian
| politics and big business (by the way, there's a term for
| this, it's called "fascism"). That is a serious problem
| -- but it's separate from the TikTok issue and shouldn't
| be used to discount the dangers of the CCP having control
| over a highly popular social network in the US.
| GoldenMonkey wrote:
| It's about psychological manipulation of Americans. TikTok is a
| completely different experience in China. Social media
| influences us in negative ways. And the Chinese government can
| and does take advantage of that.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Two extremely obvious reasons:
|
| First, it's a national security issue for a company controlled
| by the CCP to have intimate data access for hundreds of
| millions of US citizens. Not only can they glean a great deal
| of sensitive information, but they have the ability to control
| the algorithm in ways that benefit the CCP.
|
| Second, China does not reciprocate this level of vulnerability.
| US companies do not have the same access or control over
| Chinese users. If you want to allow nation states to diddle
| around with your citizens, then it ought to be a reciprocal
| arrangement and then it all averages out.
| flybarrel wrote:
| Back in the early stage of social media, US companies had the
| choice to operate in China as long as they comply with the
| censorship and local laws. Had they chosen not to quit China
| market at the point, they would have been probably huge in
| China holding major access over Chinese users too. (How would
| Chinese government react to that is something we never get to
| see now...)
|
| I keep seeing argument regarding "China bans social medias
| from other countries". It's not an outright ban saying that
| "Facebook cannot operate in China", but more like "Comply
| with the censorship rules or you cannot operate in China".
| It's not targeting "ownership" or "nation states". e.g.
| Google chose to leave, while Microsoft continues to operate
| Bing in China.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Good point, but still that's not reciprocity. Allowing the
| CCP to fine tune their propaganda at American citizens
| while US companies have to comply with heavy handed
| censorship is not a fair trade.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| It is, and if this a stepping stone to that conversation,
| that's a good thing. Great even. If you expect to have
| everything at once, you'll make no progress.
| fumar wrote:
| Why would you want an outside nation to have an outsized
| influence America's social fabric?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXsPU25B60 Chomsky laid out
| manufacturing consent decades ago and while his thesis revolves
| around traditional media heavily influencing thought-in-
| America, the influencing now happens from algorithmic based
| feeds. Tik Tok controls the feed for many young American minds.
| jelly wrote:
| Action against Tiktok doesn't preclude action against US
| companies
| llm_nerd wrote:
| The rational for why TikTok should be banned in the United
| States is precisely the same rational why Xitter, Facebook,
| Instagram, et al, should be banned in other countries.
|
| Meta, Musk, and others have no right or grant to operate in the
| EU, Canada or elsewhere. They should be banned.
| nthingtohide wrote:
| US benefits from Tiktok ban. US benefits from its social
| media not being banned in other countries. The calculation is
| pretty clear to me.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Yes, all of them should be stopped from doing it. And end Third
| Party Doctrine. I 100% agree.
| o999 wrote:
| Because US is not really a free country.
|
| It is obviously way better on this matter than China, but in
| principle, liberties are selectively granted in US and in
| China.
|
| The TikTok ban topic has been stale for long time before it
| became the main harbor for Pro-Palestine content after it
| became under censorship by US social media thus depriving anti-
| Palestine from controling the narrative, effectively becoming a
| major concern for AIPAC et al.
|
| Data collection is more of a plausible pretext at this point.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Every country has "selective liberties", that is not a very
| meaningful criterion.
| o999 wrote:
| Liberties are not granted to everyone equaly [?] Some
| liberties are [equally] denied.
| lvl155 wrote:
| Why do we need a good answer? Does US need to be a good guy on
| some made up rules? Post Soviet collapse, US could have just
| taken over a bunch of territories. We don't alway need to be
| some faithful country when the rest of the world is always
| messing up asking for millions of Americans to spill blood. I
| think RoW take US goodwill for granted. We don't need to play
| nice. That's not how competition works.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| This is essentially a whataboutism argument...
| timcobb wrote:
| > But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it?
|
| It's not perfectly fine, but you need to start with companies
| of foreign adversaries first.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| It's perfectly fine for a South African immigrant to do it, I
| really don't understand the problem either.
| prpl wrote:
| You don't understand the difference between a non-resident
| corporation under control of an adversary and a naturalized
| citizen?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I do, but there is no data or evidence supporting said non-
| resident corporation is under control of an adversary, so
| why should I believe anything the government claims? If
| you're going to talk about security, just stop, nearly
| every component in your phone is produced in China, and you
| still use that everyday.
| prpl wrote:
| At the very least they have an export ban on the
| "algorithms" which is why they won't sell, and chinese
| control, especially under Xi, is well documented, so I
| don't know what kind of smoking gun you'd expect. It'd be
| more unusual if there was a laissez faire position by the
| government.
|
| Regardless, assembly of an iPhone with Taiwanese, Korean,
| and Japanese components in China is not the same as mass
| surveillance as a service.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I asked for evidence or even some data, show me something
| that can verify anything you're saying beyond a
| reasonable doubt. You can't, you're basically
| regurgitating talking points on topics neither of us
| really know anything about. I'm not saying I'm against a
| ban, but "China evil" shouldn't be good enough for a semi
| intelligent society.
|
| In terms of algorithms, most US companies refer to that
| as intellectual property. Google doesn't sell their
| search algorithm to other search engines so I don't think
| your point makes any sense. Companies keep their IP
| secret for a reason, they don't want competition digging
| into their profits. What US company isn't engaging in the
| same completely legal behaviors?
|
| My point about the phones is that China like America can
| target any electronic like the US was doing 20 years via
| interdiction. If we look at the NSA ANT catalog,
| specifically DIETYBOUNCE, everything they accuse China of
| is stuff we practically invented.
|
| edit: Also I just purchased a M4 Mac mini, shipped
| directly from China.
| trothamel wrote:
| There is a rule of law issue here.
|
| Say, for example, congress passes and the president signs a law
| that says that product sponsorships in videos need to be
| disclosed. If a US company (or a European, Australian,
| Japanese, etc) country violates that law, we're pretty sure
| that a judgement against them can change that behavior.
|
| China? Not so much, given their history.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| The problem is framing information access as a threat. It is
| not and that's fundamentally not a First Amendment positive
| stance. If I want to gorge myself on Chinese propaganda it's my
| right as an American.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| Because it's not the TWEAKING of the content tho tis the
| problem. It's the ability to manipulate individuals using fake
| or altered content.
|
| Not sure why this is a hard one to understand but with the
| ability to individualized media, you can easily feed people
| propaganda and they'd never know. Add in AI and deep fakes, and
| you have the ability to manipulate the entire discourse in a
| matter of minutes.
|
| How do you think Trump was elected? Do you really think the
| average 20 something would vote for a Republican, let alone a
| 78 year old charlatan? They were manipulated into the vote. And
| that is the most innocuous possible use of such a tech.
| jdlyga wrote:
| People don't fully understand what is at risk of being lost here.
| Science, history, and technology tutorials, practical life skills
| like cooking, budgeting, mental health, chronic illness, trauma
| recovery, creative expression, small businesses, home repair,
| friend groups, communities, and many people who make their living
| on TikTok. Losing TikTok means losing a massive ecosystem and all
| of its connections, knowledge, and content. It's like a library
| of books vanishing, or a large city disappearing off of a map.
| silverquiet wrote:
| This is always the risk of building your castle on someone
| else's land (or cloud).
| chipgap98 wrote:
| You honestly believe most of that hasn't already be re-uploaded
| to other platforms and more of it won't be re-uploaded over the
| next month?
| carstenhag wrote:
| Yes, I believe so. It's way easier to upload something on
| tiktok with captions, voiceovers etc than on YouTube. You can
| have real communities instead of random channels.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| a lot of chronic illness sub communities are bad and would be
| good to lose, just like cryptic pregnancy fb etc - they trigger
| latent mental illness in people
| mtlynch wrote:
| For those not in the know, why is cryptic pregnancy tiktok
| bad?
|
| I'd never heard of it, and from what I understand, it's a
| hashtag people use to share stories of how they found out
| they were pregnant late in the pregnancy because they didn't
| have pregnancy symptoms. But I don't understand why that
| would be bad for people to share/consume.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| having trouble finding articles about this but there is a
| common associated mental illness
| https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/women-who-claim-to-
| have...
|
| at least in the facebook groups i have seen, this ^
| describes the _majority_ of participants
| triceratops wrote:
| TikTok isn't going away and the content isn't going away. It's
| just not accessible in the US.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| We have an archiving institution for stuff like that. Relying
| on a private business to maintain a catalogue is nonsense.
| sksrbWgbfK wrote:
| It's insulting to compare libraries to TikTok.
| oorza wrote:
| And for every video of quality on the platform, there's one
| that's blatant political propaganda, one that's blatant
| conspiratorial misinformation, one that's sexualizing children,
| etc.
|
| It's a mixed bag. It has no more to offer than any other social
| network. Less, some might argue, because of how easy it is to
| crosspost to the other video networks.
|
| The only way this is different from the loss of other social
| networks, Vine most closely, is the government is shutting down
| the site and collapsing the ecosystem rather than private
| equity.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| There are plenty of other places they can upload that content.
| codingdave wrote:
| Popular sites come and go. It has admittedly been a few years
| since we had a big shakeup of where people go to doomscroll,
| but this is not a paradigm shift -- it is just a chance to see
| who picks up the slack. It is mildly interesting speculating on
| whether an existing site will absorb it or if something new
| will come along. And it is possible TikTok will just keep
| running. But either way, people gonna make content, people
| gonna consume content.
| ajross wrote:
| No one is deleting data. You just can't run the app in the US
| anymore. If someone cares to archive this junk, they can just
| do it from Australia or wherever.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Why do you call it junk? Is everything on YouTube junk,
| because there are some really bad and fake prank jokes? Is
| everything on here junk, because some people don't have the
| best intentions?
|
| Seriously, even in Germany the public opinion about tiktok is
| so much influenced by people not even having used the app
| even once (seen some of the good parts of it).
| ajross wrote:
| Meh. If it were worth archiving then someone would be
| trying to archive it. Nothing the US law is doing would
| prevent that, even from within the US. If you're really
| concerned, then start working with ByteDance or archive.org
| or whoever to _actually_ preserve the data instead of
| whining that somehow it will be "lost" because you can't
| install the proprietary reader app from within the USA.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Is no one downloading the best content?
|
| I download all my favorite YouTube videos because inevitably
| some disappear.
| xnx wrote:
| Not sure it's the best, but I've got 240K downloaded so far.
| ragnese wrote:
| We also risk losing so much utter nonsense and false
| information that I'm not at all worried. You want to learn
| history and science? Buy some (vetted) history and science
| books.
|
| The number of times I had to correct my step-son when he
| repeated something he "learned" on TikTok is disturbing.
|
| Unimportant example: He "learned" from a TikTok video that the
| commonly repeated command of "Open sesame!" is actually "Open
| says me!". That's not true, and all you have to do is read the
| story "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" to know that the story
| actually hinges on the fact that the secret word is the name of
| a grain/plant.
|
| Another example: He "learned" that the video game character,
| Mario, is not saying "It's a me, Mario!" with an Italian
| accent. He "learned" that he is actually saying some Japanese
| word, like "Itsumi Mario!".
|
| One more: He "learned" that "scientists" now think that "we"
| originally put the T-Rex fossils together incorrectly and that
| the animal's arm bones are actually backwards, and should be
| reversed to reveal that the T-Rex actually had little chicken
| wings instead of small arms. Anybody who has seen how bone
| sockets fit together knows that's nonsense.
|
| Forgetting the political theory and morality of the ban, I say
| good riddance to the constant firehose of bullshit and lying
| morons on that app.
| jMyles wrote:
| Nothing will be lost. It will be trivial to access this
| content, obviously. The internet has gotten extremely adept at
| routing around censorship.
| 65 wrote:
| All of these points apply to YouTube, which has arguably higher
| quality content on all of those things.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I believe Biden says his admin won't enforce the ban, as they
| only have 1 day left in office after it goes into effect.
|
| Trump has signaled he doesn't support the ban, and wants tiktok
| under american ownership. The legislation allows the president to
| put a 90 day hold on the ban too.
|
| So my guess is that this isn't over yet.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Do you think Apple, Oracle and Google are going to thumb their
| noses at the law?
|
| Trump initially championed the ban during his first term
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| For one day? Maybe.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-
| executi...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly57kxkmrxo
|
| Apparently Trump did well on tiktok during the last
| election, and ByteDance (and everyone else) knows that
| Trump plays favorites.
| flutas wrote:
| > The legislation allows the president to put a 90 day hold on
| the ban too.
|
| Only if there is an in-progress divestiture and only before the
| ban goes into effect.
|
| Aka, TikTok/Biden would have to announce a sale is in process
| and Biden would have to enact the extension before the 19th.
| stefan_ wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of misinformation around this, no
| surprise given the TikTok user base..
|
| The law targets _other companies_ that would be breaking the
| law if they continue providing services for a China-owned
| TikTok past the ban date. The statute of limitations is five
| years, past a Trump presidency. No, an executive order can not
| cancel a law. Google, Apple & co would be exposing themselves
| to a lot of uncertainty and risk, and for what?
| shmatt wrote:
| Maybe someone smarter than me can explain - how both Biden and
| Trump can hint or announce they wont enforce the law. Signed laws
| upheld by the Supreme Court can be filtered out by the President?
| News to me.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| the law doesn't ban tiktok it just grants discretion to the
| president to ban tiktok
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The law makes it illegal for Oracle, Apple and Google to
| continue doing what they are doing. It does in fact make it
| illegal for some companies to operate with TikTok. The
| president can use this law in the future on other companies
| controlled by foreign adversaries to divest or face a ban.
| est wrote:
| Just curious, so if the POTUS decides to fine Tiktok, how
| would Tiktok pay? Because banks can't accept Tiktok
| transactions.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The companies still take risk not obeying the law. Most large
| publicly traded companies will not task the liability risk
| based on a wink and a nod.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| They've announced that they won't enforce the fines required by
| the law. But yes, selective enforcement of laws is legal --
| it's how prosecutorial discretion works.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Congress writes the law but the executive enforces the law.
| They can choose not to enforce the ban.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| It's really quite funny to read the timeline in the opinion.
|
| Essentially, Trump started the TikTok ban, Biden continued it,
| and Congress finally put it into law. And now both Trump and
| Biden, as well as Congress, are shying away from actually
| enforcing the ban.
|
| * In August 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order
| finding that "the spread in the United States of mobile
| applications developed and owned by companies in [China]
| continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and
| economy of the United States."
|
| * President Trump determined that TikTok raised particular
| concerns, noting that the platform "automatically captures vast
| swaths of information from its users" and is susceptible to being
| used to further the interests of the Chinese Government.
|
| * Just days after issuing his initial Executive Order, President
| Trump ordered ByteDance Ltd. to divest all interests and rights
| in any property "used to enable or support ByteDance's operation
| of the TikTok application in the United States," along with "any
| data obtained or derived from" U. S. TikTok users.
|
| * Throughout 2021 and 2022, ByteDance Ltd. negotiated with
| Executive Branch officials to develop a national security
| agreement that would resolve those concerns. Executive Branch
| officials ultimately determined, however, that ByteDance Ltd.'s
| proposed agreement did not adequately "mitigate the risks posed
| to U. S. national security interests." 2 App. 686. Negotiations
| stalled, and the parties never finalized an agreement.
|
| * Against this backdrop, Congress enacted the Protecting
| Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
| mplanchard wrote:
| 2025, despite all this going on for four years, Gorusch
| complains bitterly about having had to rule on the case in less
| than a fortnight
| est wrote:
| A simpler explaination, politicians were worried that Tiktok
| may influence mit-term and presidential elections, but it turns
| out a good place to run campaigns.
|
| Then Gaza happened.
| suraci wrote:
| Ouch
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| The whole thing, including Biden setting the deadline for
| literally the last day of his presidency, strikes me as
| extremely odd. I have no idea what the real story is here, but
| it very much seems that what is happening is not at all what it
| seems.
| dralley wrote:
| It isn't a "ban" except that TikTok would rather shut down than
| sell, forgoing billions of dollars in the process.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| From pure PR perspective, it is a win for China; sometimes it
| is not about the money. US used to be much smarter those kinds
| of optics.
| taylodl wrote:
| US used to be much smarter in general. Now that Trump is
| starting a 2nd term on Monday, the world over now realizes
| the US is comprised of a bunch of imbeciles. We've lost our
| prestige, and we'd been trading on it for a long, long time.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I lean heavily Democratic when it comes to social issues.
| But let's be honest, everyone knew that Biden was losing
| his mental faculties.
|
| The last time we had _two_ smart candidates was 2012.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| So the answer was... Elect in a president who long lost
| his mental faculties. Okay.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The Democrats loss fair and square. They should have
| spoken up a lot sooner. Everyone on the inside knew that
| Biden was incompetent. If they had a real primary would
| Kamala ever have been the nominee?
|
| The Democrats lost strongholds like Miami of all places.
| The dumbest thing they did was go against the tech
| industry who have always been their biggest supporters.
| Would Republicans go after Evangelical Christians or the
| NRA?
|
| They gave people no reason to support them.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| To say that Miami was a democratic stronghold is not
| really accurate. They've leaned Democrat recently, but
| the margins haven't been that high, and they've been
| decreasing for a number of elections now.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| > The Democrats loss fair and square.
|
| Yes, because of how ignorant much of the population is,
| correlating lower grocery prices with whoever was in
| office at the time.
|
| > They gave people no reason to support them.
|
| Given how bad the alternative was they were the only
| rational choice.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Not sure why this is so complicated --- blame the DNC and
| party elites, not the population that voted for Trump.
|
| If the DNC was trying to win, they would have never let
| Biden run for re-election, and then they would have never
| let Harris become the candidate without a primary.
|
| The Democrats literally told the US population Trump was
| going to destroy democracy in America, and then created a
| situation that enabled him to win in a landslide.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Supporting your argument:
|
| From a left leaning publication
|
| https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/12/opinion/opinion-
| renee...
|
| And from the WSJ (I don't know how the paywall bypass
| works. I pay for Apple News and read the entire article).
|
| The WSJ is right leaning when it comes to business. But I
| find it to be fair and not Trump worshipper
|
| https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bidens-bitterness-came-back-
| to-b...
|
| When it all comes down to it. Biden was no better than
| Trump. They both are old folks who put their own desires
| above what is best for the country.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Yes, Biden was a horrible president. History will
| document it as so.
| krapp wrote:
| The Democrats didn't lose because Harris didn't get a
| primary. Literally no one but Republicans who would never
| have voted for her to begin with cared about that.
|
| Democrats lost because they keep triangulating and trying
| to appeal to centrist Republicans who either don't exist,
| or would never vote for them regardless. If Harris had
| distinguished herself from Biden by taking a firm stance
| against the Palestinian genocide - which was the _single
| issue_ much of her base cared about - she would have won.
|
| Also, Trump didn't win in a landslide. It was a close
| election, and Trump definitely won the popular vote, but
| the margins were still about 51% to 49%.
| dralley wrote:
| >Democrats lost because they keep triangulating and
| trying to appeal to centrist Republicans who either don't
| exist, or would never vote for them regardless. If Harris
| had distinguished herself from Biden by taking a firm
| stance against the Palestinian genocide - which was the
| single issue much of her base cared about - she would
| have won.
|
| Everyone thinks that their one particular issue was the
| crucial one, but all the data shows that the issues that
| actually mattered were A) inflation and B) the border /
| immigration / crime / perception of disorder.
|
| The only two Dem Senators that underperformed Harris were
| Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The rest of the
| downballot had been running hard centrist on the border
| for much longer and with less baggage, and guess what,
| they did better.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| << The Democrats didn't lose because Harris didn't get a
| primary.
|
| I can't tell if this is some weird cope, satire or honest
| to goodness opinion.
|
| << It was a close election, and Trump definitely won the
| popular vote, but the margins were still about 51% to
| 49%.
|
| Just like the previous sentence fragment. Narrow facts
| are true, but manage to completely miss the picture.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You realize that some of those Trump supporters voted for
| a Black man with a Muslim sounding name - twice?
|
| Kamala didn't lose in Miami of all places because of her
| stance on Palestine. Nor did she lose every swing state
| for that reason.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Democrats didn 't lose because Harris didn't get a
| primary_
|
| The point is Harris would have been replaced in a
| primary. Democrats needed a candidate who could call
| Biden out on his failures, namely, not taking inflation
| seriously (Manchin said so!) and completely flubbing it
| on the border.
|
| > _If Harris had distinguished herself from Biden by
| taking a firm stance against the Palestinian genocide_
|
| She would have lost worse in Pennsylvania and maybe
| picked up Michigan and had absolutely zero effect
| anywhere else because foreign policy wasn't a material
| factor in this election. (It was a loud factor. But not
| in an electorally relevant way.)
|
| I get the impulse to do this. My pet war was Ukraine. But
| neither was actually voted on because Americans don't
| tend to think about foreign policy unless we're actually
| at (or about to go to) war ourselves.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| The world realizes the USA is no longer messing around,
| that's all. If anything, we've only gained prestige in the
| last couple months, we're finally getting stuff done...
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| Hmm? That is a rather bold statement bordering on
| bluster. Could you elaborate? The move shows something,
| but I am not certain it can be interpreted this way.
| dralley wrote:
| >sometimes it is not about the money.
|
| Yes, that's precisely the argument of the pro-ban faction.
| _China doesn 't allow TikTok in China_. It's not about the
| money, it's about control over a medium that can be exploited
| for influence, or at the very least the effects of that
| platform on its audience.
|
| It's silly to pretend like ByteDance are acting on principle.
| Go post an LGBT meme or refer to Lai Ching-te as the
| "President of Taiwan" on Red Note and see how long that
| lasts.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| Sure, but parent's argument was focused on ad revenue and
| wondering why TikTok chose to forego that revenue ( which
| presumed that most US entities would bend to such demand,
| but failed to consider non financial considerations ).
|
| edit:
|
| << Go post an LGBT meme or refer to Lai Ching-te as the
| "President of Taiwan" on Red Note and see how long that
| lasts.
|
| China does not pretend to give lipservice to freedom of
| speech. US does. That is why its population needs to hold
| its government accountable.
| kickopotomus wrote:
| You say that as if they only operate in the US. The US
| represents less than 20% of their user base.
| curiousllama wrote:
| I mean, it was a ban when China did it to Facebook, no?
| wnevets wrote:
| Where is reels, reddit and shorts gonna get all of its most
| popular content from now?
| xyst wrote:
| AI generated slop, of course
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Sounds like we have our answer. Have China flood the internet
| with "content". American scrapers train on it. Now we can ban
| LLM use on American websites, compromised by China!
| timeon wrote:
| Most Reddit is just Twitter screenshots. There are few from
| BlueSky now but that is pretty recent.
|
| But there is also lot of OC rage-bait.
| gregopet wrote:
| I'm sure the other countries are watching this and considering
| what the US is doing with their data in its apps.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Sadly they won't, that's just one more reason for e.g. the EU
| to censor more social media on the grounds that one of their
| """allies""" does it too.
| epolanski wrote:
| EU is among the most restrictive legislations when it comes
| to data leaving European ground already.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Oh look: https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2025/01/european-union-o...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They dont need to wonder. The US is constantly operating media
| propaganda campaigns around the globe interfering with
| elections and promoting coups.
|
| Democratic outcomes that don't agree with our politics are
| officially deemed illegitimate, even if the elections are
| certified as fair.
|
| It would be crazy to believe the US is somehow shy about
| running psyops when we openly arm rebels and bomb countries.
| kube-system wrote:
| Other countries that were concerned about this started blocking
| websites of their adversaries decades ago.
| xeromal wrote:
| TikTok is banned in China. We're just joining in
| mplanchard wrote:
| And they're right to. In the news today:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/european-union-o...
| charonn0 wrote:
| Sure. It's a reasonable concern regardless of what country is
| doing it or having it done to them.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Right?
|
| I'm a Canadian. Almost every major Canadian newspaper is owned
| by American ideologically-conservative hedge funds, the only
| variance is how activist they are in their ownership. Our
| social media (like everyone's) is owned by Americans, men who
| are now kowtowing to Trump.
|
| And meanwhile, Trump is now incessantly talking about annexing
| our country. The Premier of Alberta is receptive to the idea.
|
| So, how should a Canadian federal government responsibly react
| to that?
| fidotron wrote:
| By the given reasoning every official at the EU wonders why they
| ever allowed Google, Facebook or Twitter to exist.
|
| This is balkanization.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| They have been wondering about that for many years quite
| explicitly.
| fidotron wrote:
| Yeah, I think WhatsApp in particular makes Facebook
| impossible to remove, but I fully expect X to get hit with a
| banhammer.
|
| The bizarre episode with Elon this week really didn't help
| given it appears his whims trump any sense of rules or basic
| decency.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| The US has a lot of leverage on Europe, so I don't think it
| will happen any time soon.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| The US forcing the EU to unban Twitter and Facebook would
| be the ultimate overreach needed to solidify the
| plutocracy American society has become.
| taylodl wrote:
| Maybe they'll cite this ruling as part of a reconsideration?
| rwietter wrote:
| Exactly, Americans want to voice their opinions whenever a
| foreign country considers banning or regulating an American
| social media platform. It's a clear double standard. The U.S.
| government banning foreign companies is fine, but when a
| foreign country bans an American company, it's called
| censorship or something like that?
| drawkward wrote:
| My representatives represent me, my country, its citizens and
| its government. They specifically _do NOT_ represent foreign
| entities.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Given the controversy over this, they clearly do not
| represent "the people". I think that's a big part of the
| issue.
| drawkward wrote:
| Clearly, huh?
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2024/09/05/support-f...
| p_j_w wrote:
| The ban only has 32% support from the US public. This isn't
| happening because the government is representing its
| citizens.
| drawkward wrote:
| how many oppose the ban? hint: it is less than 32%.
|
| what percentage of americans vote for a given president?
| hint: it is less than 32%.
| empath75 wrote:
| An EU controlled app would be allowed in the US as none of them
| are foreign adversaries.
| fidotron wrote:
| > none of them are foreign adversaries
|
| From the US side it may look like that, but the EU doesn't
| see it that way.
| ttrgsafs wrote:
| But the US is a foreign adversary of the EU who has ruined
| the EU economy in the last three years and wants to wrestle
| away Greenland.
|
| Half joking, but the US performs corporate espionage in the
| EU and certainly takes compromising material on EU
| politicians whenever it can get it.
|
| The slavish adherence from EU NPC politicians (they are
| mediocre and no one knows how they manage to rise) to US
| directives has to have some reasons. Being compromised is one
| of those.
| empath75 wrote:
| EU governments also spy in the US. Any government that
| isn't spying on their enemies and allies both is
| incompetent.
|
| The reason that the EU "adheres to US directives" is mostly
| just a legacy of WWII and the Cold War, you don't really
| have to posit any kind of nefarious espionage scheme to
| explain why European countries want to stay connected to
| the US economy and military.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Until we ban Denmark as an "adversary" because they won't
| just hand over Greenland. Or Mexico for setting tarrifs
| against us (because we declared tarrifs first).
|
| Lovely precedent we just set here.
| sidibe wrote:
| Yup I'd be ok with banning TikTok because all of the US web
| services that are banned China, but this makes it seem like
| every country should have their own everything
| mrighele wrote:
| Officials at the EU should first wonder why there is no
| European equivalent of Google, or Facebook, or Twitter, or
| Tiktok (the list could continue forever).
|
| Even if it where, such a company would not find the same
| obstacles in entering the American market as in would in China.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| No matter what you think of this ban, the court is obviously not
| the right place to solve it. It is completely unsurprising that
| this is a unanimous decision because foreign trade is one of the
| few powers expressly given to the federal government in the
| constitution:
|
| >[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce with
| foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the
| Indian Tribes;[0]
|
| (The actual law may not have relied exclusively on the Commerce
| Clause, you would have to read it to find out. But from a high
| level there is nothing stopping congress from regulating any
| instance foreign trade.)
|
| [0]
| https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8...
| xeromal wrote:
| Congress passed a law banning it. Where else would you solve
| it?
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| In congress, with another law.
| throwkja wrote:
| America has the right to ban since china banned all American tech
| companies from operating in their nation but this means America
| could never ever talk about freedom of doing business bs
| vehemenz wrote:
| China bans US businesses because it has an autocratic,
| ethnocratic government. The US is banning a Chinese business
| for obvious national security reasons.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Not too obvious to me unless there's some actual evidence of
| any of these claims of "China takes American data".
|
| They take as much data as any of the various other
| manufacturing processes we outsourced over the decades.
| vehemenz wrote:
| If you're comparing outsourcing, mutual trade agreements
| that benefit both countries, to intelligence gathering,
| copyright/patent theft, media influence, etc., you're
| probably not going to arrive at a serious position here
| (not to mention the downvote).
| suraci wrote:
| I need to print this sentence out, frame it, paste it on the
| Tiananmen's wall.
| mrighele wrote:
| Answering tit-for-tat is fine, even if the thing being done
| is bad in itself (e.g. waging war is bad, but should a
| country not use weapons to defend itself when invaded?). If
| else US and in general the West should have acted earlier: if
| American companies where free to operate in China and
| influence its people I doubt this ban would have been
| enacted.
| Pidaymou wrote:
| I'm not sure about that... They'll surely continue to use
| buzzwords "freedom","democracy" for their geopolitics seo.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Any country has the right to this kind of ban, that's what
| national sovereignty is all about.
|
| A different issue is whether doing it is the right decision or
| not.
|
| And another issue is the hypocrisy. When China did it, the
| unanimous opinion from the US (both the official stance and
| what one could hear/read from regular people, e.g. HN comments)
| was that such bans were authoritarian and evidence that there
| was no freedom of speech in China. But now suddenly it's a
| perfectly fine and even obvious/necessary thing to do...
|
| Being neither from China nor from the US, this paints the US
| (who have benefitted a lot from riding the moral high horse of
| free market, etc. for decades) in a quite bad light.
|
| Should the EU ban US social networks for pure economic reasons
| (so we roll our own instead of providing our data and money to
| US companies, which would almost surely be good for our
| economy)? The argument for not doing it used to be that freedom
| should be above domestic interests, one embraces the free
| market even if some aspects of it are harmful because overall
| it's a win. But the US is showing it doesn't really believe in
| that principle, and probably never has.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| So they were right about banning the US social media platforms
| then, right? Because according to this court opinion, having
| foreign social media is a menace to national security. It's
| funny to see Americans argue _for_ a great firewall lol.
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| This makes it easier for those 170M users to find new homes with
| President Musk's X or any of Zuck's advertising products.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This whole thing is both silly and unsurprising.
|
| Everybody knows the fearmongering about Chinese control and
| manipulation is a smokescreen. The real reason is that Tiktok
| doesn't fall in line with State Department propaganda [1].
|
| It's noteworthy that SCOTUS sidestepped this issue entirely by
| not even considering the secret evidence the government brought.
|
| That being said, it's unsurprising because you can make a
| strictly commerce-based argument that has nothing to do with
| speech and the First Amendment. Personally, I think reciprocity
| would've been a far more defensible position, in that US apps
| like Google, FB, Youtube and IG are restricted from the Chinese
| market so you could demand recipricol access on strictly commerce
| grounds.
|
| The best analogy is the restriction on foreign ownership of media
| outlets, which used to be a big deal. Back in the 1980s and
| 1990s, US companies would defend themselves from foreign
| takeovers by buying TV stations, for example. That's basically
| the premise of the movie _Working Girl_ , as one (fictional)
| example.
|
| Politically, the big loser here is Biden and the Democratic Party
| because they will be (rightly) blamed for banning a highly
| popular app (even though the Congressional vote was hugely
| bipartisan) and Trump will likely get credit for saving Tiktok.
|
| [1]: https://x.com/Roots_Action/status/1767941861866348615
| cryptonector wrote:
| We don't know that the secret evidence was that TT doesn't
| promote U.S. propaganda. We can surmise, but speculation can be
| wrong. Besides, the justices might simply have revealed that
| secret evidence, had it really been just that. But they claim
| they didn't even consider the secret evidence. Unclear whether
| they took a peek, but they say they didn't consider it.
| belorn wrote:
| An implementation detail that might be interesting is that the
| discussed method of the ban is to use the same ISP block that is
| used for torrent sites (and other websites).
|
| This may be a bit of relevance when talking about how banning a
| website get applied through the legal system.
| hedora wrote:
| That's a good point. Apparently VPN popularity is already
| exploding in states that PornHub had to block.
|
| Maybe we will finally get the decentralized computer network we
| thought we were building in the 1990s (as a combination of
| software overlays and point to point unlicensed wireless
| links).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| trump finally got the (fire)wall he wanted
| DanAtC wrote:
| What ISPs blocks? American ISPs don't block anything. The US
| government prefers to seize domains and hosting.
|
| We're not (yet) like the UK or EU where rights holders can
| click a button and have IPs blocked without due process.
| nickelpro wrote:
| That's not how the law works.
|
| The law levies fines against distributors of the app, it
| doesn't ban possession or block the operation of the app
| itself.
|
| Ie, Google and Apple are forced to delist TikTok or face heavy
| fines
| xnx wrote:
| I'm not sure how many dimensions this chess game is being played
| in, but if I were a lawmaker I would be wary of unintended
| consequences.
|
| Overall, I view this is as an admission to US populace and the
| world that the US is a weak-minded country that can easily be
| influenced by propaganda.
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| > Overall, I view this is as an admission to US populace and
| the world that the US is a weak-minded country that can easily
| be influenced by propaganda.
|
| That is quite a silly assumption to make
| legitster wrote:
| TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media
| app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently
| banned in China for being too addictive.
|
| There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was
| traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger,
| more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
|
| Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social
| media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the
| beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| I wish it were a reckoning for social media, but reading here
| shows there's plenty of people here who are passionate about
| "China bad" and see this only through that one lens. And they
| seem to think it is strictly about TikTok.
| epolanski wrote:
| As an European citizen I'm very uneasy with US-based services
| having my data and I nuked everything from ages bar LinkedIn
| and HN.
|
| The hard part is de-googling.
| pc86 wrote:
| The is a completely legitimate and not uncommon viewpoint.
| But is it relevant in the context of this thread?
| miroljub wrote:
| Yes.
|
| What is China for Americans, for us Europeans, is the
| USA.
|
| Some argue that it's even worse for Europeans because the
| Chinese military and government can't reach you while in
| the USA. And there is no safe place for Europeans from
| the US government, unless they move to China or Russia.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| As I understood your post: You said the US is worse
| because "Europeans" are willing to relocate to the US.
| And also that China is better because they are not likely
| to relocate to neither Russia nor China.
|
| Is that correct?
| akovaski wrote:
| This is an incorrect understanding of what they wrote.
| It's not about Europeans relocating to the US or
| Americans relocating to China.
|
| They're saying (that other people are saying) that in the
| US, you are safe from the Chinese government/military. In
| the EU, you are not safe from the US government/military.
|
| Also note that the claim is not that the US is worse than
| China for Europeans. The claim is that the US is worse
| for Europeans than China is for Americans.
|
| The last part about relocating is saying that you can
| only be safe from the US government/military in China or
| Russia.
|
| Based on extradition agreements, this conclusion seems
| true enough on the surface. And maybe US military bases
| in Europe play a role as well. But this is a thread about
| national security concerns via social media, and I think
| it's hard to make a broad and definitive conclusion due
| to the wide variety of soft and hard powers that
| countries exert internationally.
| epolanski wrote:
| I think that it's a bit overblown.
|
| But it's a problem when your biggest ally treats you like
| an ally, says you're living off him militarily and
| spies/hacks you non stop.
|
| China is not a military threat to Europe, it's literally
| on the other part of the globe. It's only a threat to US
| geopolitical ambitions.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Oh come on. The US is in a military alliance with most of
| Europe. And hasn't banned any European apps from
| operating. And has similar democratic and human rights
| policies.
| stcroixx wrote:
| The US and most of Europe share a military alliance. The
| US and China are adversaries.
| krunck wrote:
| > The hard part is de-googling.
|
| But it's worth the effort.
| jagermo wrote:
| even harder is finding a payment system that is not US-
| based and broadly accepted (no, not crypto).
|
| I do have some hopes for a digital euro and, maybe, maybe,
| even Wero. But i fear it will never take off because too
| many players are involved and there is no clear marketing
| strategy to get it to people.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
| epolanski wrote:
| I don't understand the argument here, Tik Tok would maximize
| their monetization in US but not in other markets?
|
| I don't buy it.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Think of it like consumer protection laws - Ford has higher
| safety requirements for the vehicles they sell domestically
| than they do for those sold in Mexico. Thus, it could be
| argued that they are not maximizing their monetization of the
| US market by cutting out expensive safety features that
| consumers don't pay extra for.
|
| China is wise to have such laws to protect their citizens.
| dockd wrote:
| > algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China
|
| Sounds like they tried.
| legitster wrote:
| Corporations in China all operate at the behest of "the
| people" (aka the party). If the government thinks a product
| is damaging or harmful to society, it can be taken off the
| market without any legal mechanisms necessary.
| bdndndndbve wrote:
| Unlike in America where... they say it's a national
| security threat and vote to remove it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they say it 's a national security threat and vote to
| remove it?_
|
| From app stores and American hosting. Only if Bytedance
| doesn't sell TikTok to _e.g._ a French or Indian or
| American owner. TikTok.com will still resolve (unless
| Bytedance blocks it).
|
| China literally blocks information.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Only the control by a foreign adversary part is being
| threatened in the US, not the algorithmic opium part
| twisting the minds of the population. They're two
| different things. The US so far has no qualms with it if
| an American is in control of the strings. That's where
| China differs.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _The US so far has no qualms with it if an American is
| in control of the strings. That 's where China differs_
|
| Legally, there is no issue with TikTok being Japanese,
| Korean, Indian, Saudi, Polish, Ugandan, Brazilian or
| Mexican. Just not owned by a foreign adversary country.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Yes, thank you. I've updated the earlier sentence from
| "foreign control" to "control by a foreign adversary".
| It's indeed the fact that China is a geopolitical enemy-
| to-be that's the problem.
| ryandrake wrote:
| But, they're also something like our third biggest
| trading partner. China is like a Schroedinger's
| Adversary: Simultaneously an adversary and a friend,
| until you ask a politician and the wave function
| collapses and he picks one.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Simultaneously an adversary and a friend, until you
| ask a politician and the wave function collapses and he
| picks one_
|
| Which politician argues China is a friend?
|
| We bought Soviet oil in the 1970s [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_trade_of_the_
| Soviet_...
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Don't fool yourself or fall for the propaganda: China is
| hardly an adversary -- just look at how much money we
| send them and how many goods they send us. If they were
| truly an adversary we'd be treating them like we do
| Russia.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If they were truly an adversary we 'd be treating them
| like we do Russia_
|
| As you said, we trade with them extensively. We didn't
| tighten the screws on Russia until it actually invaded
| Ukraine. Until Xi actually invades Taiwan, it's
| profitable to pretend.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Chinese ships LITERALLY just cut 3 undersea cables in US
| allied countries to mess with us.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Oh maybe we should do something about that and actually
| treat them like an adversary.
| herval wrote:
| Any country has mechanisms to ban products the government
| deems as bad. I think the point is those are much more
| liberally used in China vs in the US, not that the US
| would be unable to do it
| toss1 wrote:
| 1) A single party apparatus determines something must be
| removed, and by fiat it is immediately removed
|
| 2) Multiple agencies investigate and make a determination
| that a real threat exists, the threat and measures to
| resolve it are debated strongly in two houses of Congress
| between strongly opposing parties, an passes with bi-
| partisan support, the law is signed by the President,
| then the law is upheld through multiple challenges in
| multiple courts and panels of judges, finally being
| upheld by the Supreme Court of the country. And no, this
| is not yet a situation where the country has fallen into
| autocracy so the institutions have all been corrupted to
| serve the executive (I.e., not like Hungary, Venezuela,
| Russia, etc.).
|
| If you think these are the same... I'll just be polite
| and say the ignorance expressed in that post is truly
| stunning and wherever you got your education has deeply
| failed -- yikes.
| nthingtohide wrote:
| America uses economic sanctions and bombs.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Where is TikTok not maximizing monetization? If you mean the
| GP's comment on China's ban on the algorithm originally used
| then you are missing a critical aspect of that: It wasn't
| TikTok's choice to stop or decrease monetization there.
|
| Also, even if they were differently monetizing by region, you
| are also missing the non-monetary reasons this might happen:
| Manipulation & propaganda. Even aside from any formal policy
| by the Chinese govermnent self-censorship by businesses and
| individuals for anything the Party might not like is very
| common. Also common is the government dictating the actions a
| Chinese company may take abroad for these same efforts in
| influencing foreign opinions.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Frankly, I'm not sure what these comments even mean. Douyin
| (Chinese TikTok) has the same level of brainrot content,
| except with some restrictions (political and societal level
| stuff). Chinese kids are as much addicted to it as Western
| kids to TikTok/IG, from what I've seen.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I am a farmer, I grow tomatoes. The ones I sell to large
| markets, I use pesticides, herbicides, petrochemical
| fertilizers, etc etc. The ones I grow for my own consumption
| and for sale at the local market -- those get organic compost
| and no chemical treatments.
| xnx wrote:
| I am a customer. I eat tomatoes. I choose which tomatoes to
| buy on my personal preferences.
| btbuildem wrote:
| This presumes that:
|
| 1) I sell to you my special and cherished resource. You
| may live in the fever dream of "market rules all", but a
| cold surprise may come that not everyone does.
|
| 2) You can afford what I sell - especially if political
| winds blow so that your benevolent rulers choose to
| impose 1000% tariffs on my good tomatoes
|
| 3) That you even _know_ there's a difference, and that
| tomatoes come from a farm and not the store or a can.
| wumeow wrote:
| I remember trying out TikTok and realizing in horror that it
| was a slot machine for video content.
| se4u wrote:
| Have you seen YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. Lol
| wumeow wrote:
| They copied TikTok.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I don't know about Shorts but Instagram has solved the
| addiction problem by ignoring signals like the user tapping
| "not interested" or scrolling past videos quickly. They
| just show junk.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| > The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China
| for being too addictive.
|
| Source? I could only find this.
|
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti...
| afavour wrote:
| > That same year, Douyin imposed a 40-minute daily limit for
| users under 14. Last year, Chinese regulators introduced a
| rule that would limit children under age 18 to two hours of
| smartphone screen time each day.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-
| china/story?id=108111...
| p_j_w wrote:
| That's not at all the same as banning the algorithm.
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Maybe the "community notes" model isn't so bad after all
| afavour wrote:
| It's not the same, no. I provided the link because it's
| what I assume the OP is referring to.
|
| Limiting use to 40 minutes is not a ban but it still
| shows a view that extended exposure to it is harmful. To
| turn it on its head, if more than 40 minutes is viewed
| harmful for Chinese youth, why not American?
| jfdbcv wrote:
| You know they did that with video games too.. Should we
| do that here?
|
| https://apnews.com/article/gaming-business-
| children-00db669d...
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| It's a clear sign the international version of TikTok,
| because of it's addictiveness and content, would never be
| allowed for a single minute in China by the people that
| know the most about what it is, and what is does.
|
| What more do you need to know?
| dv_dt wrote:
| If it was a legal requirement for Chinese apps in China,
| and this is the path for societal heath then why not pass
| that law for all social apps in the US?
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Blanket content bans are the stuff of dictatorships, but
| restricting access to demographics that could be most
| harmed by it (children for example) is a good idea, and I
| wish the US would look into it.
| croes wrote:
| That limit is independent of the used algorithm.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| How would you know? If you have only a certain time-
| window, you may need another kind of algorithm to retain
| addiction interest day-over-day.
| croes wrote:
| I mean the limit is for all social media, the algorithm
| doesn't matter.
| legitster wrote:
| https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-
| china/story?id=108111...
|
| Anecdotally, I have heard from people who lived in China at
| the time that there was a significant shift in content a few
| years back.
| cma wrote:
| The whole country had a shift though, they implemented
| gaming and entertainment regulations and video sites like
| bilibili went from $153 to a low of $8 a share.
| herval wrote:
| China didn't go after TikTok _alone_ - they reportedly
| went after anything deemed too addictive, including
| limiting the time spent on games. It was very clearly
| aimed towards reducing digital addiction (which is
| something us in the West still try to ignore as an
| epidemic)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _China didn 't go after TikTok _alone__
|
| Because it was never there. Bytedance never launched
| TikTok in China.
| herval wrote:
| it's called Douyin. It's the same product, the same way a
| Mexican Coke is the same thing as an American Coke, and
| both are produced by the same company (Coca Cola).
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Mexican Coke is different though. It doesn't use HFCS.
| herval wrote:
| Precisely. Like TikTok and Douyin.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| Except your analogy breaks as they are not the same
| product.
| herval wrote:
| Except they are
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Yes it does. The US product called Mexican Coke doesn't,
| but Coke in Mexico does.
| cma wrote:
| It would be more like Coke was Mexican owned and HFCS was
| outlawed in Mexico. Then Mexican Coke used sugar and the
| Coke they exported to America used HFCS. And America
| said, hey, you're not consuming the same Coke you send
| here: we're going to ban you if you don't sell to us and
| our plan is to keep making HFCS Coke once we buy you. You
| were also hurting Pepsi (Facebook/Twitter), who also only
| plan on ever using HFCS.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's called Douyin. It's the same product_
|
| It's a similar product. We don't have any server-side
| code so we don't know.
| herval wrote:
| did you read the rest of the sentence or
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The analogy to Coca Cola? Let me make another comparison:
| the 737 Max with one AoA sensor was made by the same
| company that only sold the one with two in America.
| niceice wrote:
| The entire app is banned. They use a different one called
| Douyin.
| slt2021 wrote:
| I dont think tiktok app is banned because of algorithm,
| because bytedance created and maintains both Doyin and
| Tiktok.
|
| I think it is form of compartmentalizing Internet and
| social networks, to keep Chinese internet and social media
| separate from the US.
|
| the red book app, where tiktok refugees are flocking to
| right now, also want to introduce geofence and
| compartmentalize Chinese users and US users separately
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Tiktok is banned completely in China because it doesn't
| not have the agressive filtering and CPP propaganda in
| place to operate in China. The CPP can not allow Chineze
| citizens to engage in an open exchange of ideas with
| eachother or with the citizens of other free nations, for
| obvious reasons.
| skyyler wrote:
| >because it doesn't not have the agressive filtering and
| CPP propaganda in place to operate in China
|
| Do you believe that all Chinese media is part of a
| propaganda machine?
|
| Do you believe the same of American or French media?
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Yes. No.
| gkbrk wrote:
| You cannot operate a TV channel, a radio station or a
| newspaper in China without running everything through CCP
| first for approval. You won't find a single news report
| critical of the CCP because of this.
|
| Every social media app or website in China is required to
| ask for your real name and ID number, and implement any
| censorship requested by the party. If you post something
| that rubs the government the wrong way, your identity is
| readily available.
|
| I don't believe this level of content control, censorship
| and user prosecution is there for all American media. And
| if it were, you are allowed to set up your own channel or
| social media app in America to be the exception.
| skyyler wrote:
| >Every social media app or website in China is required
| to ask for your real name and ID number, and implement
| any censorship requested by the party. If you post
| something that rubs the government the wrong way, your
| identity is readily available.
|
| I didn't know this. Do you have any reading on the
| subject you can recommend?
| gkbrk wrote:
| I don't have anything handy, but a quick search turned
| these up.
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_real-
| name_system_in_C...
|
| - https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/10/1086366/chi
| na-so...
|
| - https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202310/31/WS6541068aa31
| 09068...
| grahamj wrote:
| Yes. No.
|
| (Although that No is getting a bit blurry with US social
| media bending over for commander cheeto)
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| You are making a distinction without a difference. China
| knows TikTok is harmful, which is why it allows it's
| export and bans domestic consumption. Think of it like a
| drug.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-
| betwe...
|
| "It's almost like they recognize that technology is
| influencing kids' development, and they make their domestic
| version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the
| opium version to the rest of the world,"
| the_clarence wrote:
| His comment is obvious propaganda
| ritcgab wrote:
| > The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China
| for being too addictive.
|
| Source?
| cj wrote:
| TikTok itself is banned in mainland china. Do you need much
| more of a source?
|
| Yes, you could say Douyin is available in place of TikTok,
| but have you asked yourself why they have 2 separate apps?
| One for mainland China, and another for everyone else?
|
| Another source (see the section "How is Douyin different from
| TikTok?"): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/business/china-
| tiktok-dou...
| yyhhsj0521 wrote:
| So is Wikipedia. Otherwise Chinese people just cannot stop
| reading all those wiki pages about that fungi that only
| grow on a certain volcano in French New Guinea. How
| addictive!
| jfdbcv wrote:
| Isn't this comment quite reductive?
|
| There are many reasons why there are two separate apps and
| not necessarily related to how addictive the algorithm is.
| The "source" you linked gives one such reason:
|
| > Like other social media services in China, Douyin follows
| the censorship rules of the Chinese Communist Party. It
| conscientiously removes video pertaining to topics deemed
| sensitive or inflammatory by the party, although it has
| proved a little harder than text-based social media to
| control.
|
| Also have you used Douyin? It's really feels like basically
| the same thing.
| miroljub wrote:
| >> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in
| China for being too addictive.
|
| > Source?
|
| The same source as everything Covid related: Trust me, bro.
| kccoder wrote:
| > Trust me, bro.
|
| Are you referring to the completely scientifically-
| untrained "bros" who were touting ivermectin and other
| treatments or cures with little to no scientific evidence
| of efficacy?
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social
| media app ever created.
|
| What nonsense.
|
| > The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China
| for being too addictive.
|
| "Apparently"? Tiktok was forced to separate itself into a
| chinese version and the non-chinese version by the US because
| we didn't want "da ccp" controlling tiktok.
|
| > There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was
| traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger,
| more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
|
| There is no historic symmetry. Unless china invades the US and
| forces americans to use tiktok. Like britain invaded china (
| opium wars ) and forced opium on china's population.
|
| What's with all the same propaganda in every tiktok/china
| related thread? The same talking points on every single thread
| for the past few years.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| What viewpoint is your use of "da ccp" supposed to disparage?
| whateveracct wrote:
| I think people (Americans) who view China as a geopolitical
| rival/enemy of the United States?
| herval wrote:
| how did Britain force the Chinese population to consume
| Opium?
| se4u wrote:
| I don't know if you are just ignorant about history and
| unwilling to Google, or if you are making the point that of
| course British did not force feed opium to the people.
|
| What is very well established is that the british fought a
| war , literally called the opium war by Western historians
| themselves with the main objective of keeping their opium
| distribution into China open after the emperor banned it
|
| Their action was akin to if some majority owner of Purdue
| pharma invades US and forces US government to "keep the oxy
| market open" while letting "people make their own
| decision".
| talldatethrow wrote:
| Tbh, what you describe sounds nothing like forcing opium
| on a people. If mexico invaded and started making meth in
| the US, or started sending even more meth into the US
| than they do now by totally taking over the border, I
| would not begin taking meth.
| herval wrote:
| exactly.
| adolph wrote:
| >> Like britain invaded china ( opium wars ) and forced
| opium on china's population. > how did Britain
| force the Chinese population to consume Opium?
|
| The Chinese government of the time had banned opium and the
| British worked to bypass that, eventually with governmental
| force.
| herval wrote:
| I'm not saying Britain didn't do something _against the
| will of the goverment_. I'm just questioning OP's
| nonsense that individuals were forced to consume Opium vs
| not forced to consume TikTok - in both cases, clearly
| nobody was forced. And in both cases, it's products made
| to be addictive.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > > TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social
| media app ever created.
|
| > What nonsense.
|
| Obviously experiences will vary, but I think this is actually
| pretty well-established.
|
| Not many studies, but here's one:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9486470/
| tmnvdb wrote:
| "Tiktok was forced to separate itself into a chinese version
| and the non-chinese version by the US because we didn't want
| "da ccp" controlling tiktok."
|
| You're talking about Propaganda but you are spreading
| straight up fake news.
|
| ByteDance initially released Douyin in China in September
| 2016. ByteDance introduced TikTok for users outside of China
| in 2017.
|
| There was no "split", let alone one "forced by the US".
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > There was no "split", let alone one "forced by the US".
|
| There was no split? You wrote: "ByteDance initially
| released Douyin in China in September 2016. ByteDance
| introduced TikTok for users outside of China in 2017."
|
| You say there was no split while explicitly proving that
| there was split? You're not that stupid are you?
|
| Why do you think "tiktok" was created in 2017 when
| bytedance already had douyin( aka tiktok ) in 2016?
|
| Why is there a "tiktok" for china and a "tiktok" for
| everyone else? Because the "tiktok in china ( duoyin ) was
| influenced by the chinese government and to appease the US,
| bytedance branched off tiktok from "douyin".
| tmnvdb wrote:
| I doesn't have anything to do with "appeasing" the US,
| the Chinese version is heavily filtered and tilted
| towards CPP prefered activities and worldview, such a
| platform would never work on the international market and
| they know it.
|
| And it obviously is not a split if they are seperate apps
| from the beginning. Why do you lie so much btw?
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > I doesn't have anything to do with "appeasing" the US
|
| No. It had everything to do with it. How can you say that
| when tiktok is getting banned? Even after bytedance bent
| over backwards to appease the US?
|
| > the Chinese version is heavily filtered and tilted
| towards CPP prefered activities and worldview, such a
| platform would never work on the international market and
| they know it.
|
| Sure. But nothing prevents tiktok from catering their app
| to other nations differently. You do realize that most
| nations get different versions of tiktok, facebook,
| youtube, etc right?
|
| > And it obviously is not a split if they are seperate
| apps from the beginning.
|
| But they weren't separate apps from the beginning. Your
| fellow bot/propagandists wrote: "ByteDance initially
| released Douyin in China in September 2016. ByteDance
| introduced TikTok for users outside of China in 2017."
|
| If someone is born in 2016 and another person is born in
| 2017 are born in the same year? Are they the same person?
|
| > Why do you lie so much btw?
|
| Everyone can read this thread and see that you are lying.
| Not me.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| > "You do realize that most nations get different
| versions of TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, etc., right?"
|
| That statement is misleading, as the differences between
| these platforms across various countries are typically
| minor--mostly due to copyright restrictions--so users can
| still access roughly 99% of the same content. This
| situation isn't remotely comparable to TikTok's China-
| only counterpart, Douyin, which exists in a separate and
| completely different ecosystem. I suspect you're aware of
| this, yet you brought it up anyway. What is your
| motivation for such dishonesty?
|
| > "No. It had everything to do with it. How can you say
| that when TikTok is getting banned? Even after ByteDance
| bent over backward to appease the US?"
|
| Could you explain exactly what the United States did
| before 2017 that caused ByteDance to launch a separate
| app for every country outside of China (not just in the
| US)? You seem to be muddying the waters by referring to
| this potential 2024 ban, but that obviously can't be the
| reason ByteDance created a separate platform for every
| non-China country back in 2017.
|
| > "But they weren't separate apps from the beginning."
|
| Actually, they were. Douyin is geo-restricted to China
| (requiring a Chinese phone number to register) and was
| never accessible to users outside the country. This
| restriction was put in place to limit the information
| available to Chinese users, clearly separating Douyin
| from TikTok right from the start.
|
| > "Everyone can read this thread and see that you are
| lying. Not me."
|
| Well, I certainly agree that everyone can read this
| thread and make a judgement on who is more honest.
| leptons wrote:
| Stepping into this pile of....
|
| > Even after bytedance bent over backwards to appease the
| US?
|
| In 2017 when TikTok was launched, there were no US
| government rules towards it, there were no demands made
| by the US government about TikTok - that part is the
| absolutely wrong part of your argument. You either didn't
| know that, or you are lying about it. Either way it's
| misinformation.
|
| ByteDance didn't do anything to appease the US in 2016 or
| 2017. Bytedance offering Douyin for China, and a separate
| app TikTok for other markets is specifically about
| controlling the content that people see _in China_.
| TikTok is banned in China because content on TikTok isn
| 't as filtered and strictly controlled in the same ways
| that China's government wants it to be for their own
| people - TikTok was specifically made for markets outside
| of China for this reason. _The US had NOTHING to do with
| that, it is strictly about China controlling China 's
| population with Douyin_, or more specifically, not losing
| control of Chinese people by allowing anti-China videos
| to appear in Douyin. It's far easier for China to control
| the narrative they want if there are two separate apps
| that essentially provide the same user experience. The
| Chinese government controls TikTok, and I have not seen a
| single anti-China video in my wife's TikTok feed, so I'm
| willing to believe that they do have some control over
| content in the US too.
|
| I hope that's not too complicated for you to understand.
|
| >> Why do you lie so much btw?
|
| >Everyone can read this thread and see that you are
| lying. Not me.
|
| The other person is not lying. You may not be lying, but
| you really don't have your facts straight.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Tiktok was forced to separate itself into a chinese
| version and the non-chinese version by the US because we didn
| 't want "da ccp" controlling tiktok_
|
| No. TikTok was forced to put its data on American servers
| [1].
|
| Douyin was launched in 2016 as musical.ly, and is unrelated
| to U.S. pressure. (EDIT: Douyin was launched in 2016, TikTok
| in 2017. Musical.ly was acquired in 2017 and merged
| into/basically became TikTok. TikTok has never been in
| China.)
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-moves-us-user-
| data...
| sureglymop wrote:
| Musical.ly was not China only and I knew musical.ly before
| it was the predecessor of tiktok. From how I recall it, it
| had mostly American users. Was the split during the
| rebranding?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Was the split during the rebranding?_
|
| Musical.ly was acquired by Bytedance in 2017 and merged
| into TikTok in 2018 [1]. TikTok itself "was launched
| internationally in 2017" [2].
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191005154207/https://be
| ebom.co...
|
| [2] https://chinagravy.com/what-is-douyin-an-
| introduction/
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| > The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China
| for being too addictive.
|
| Apparently?
|
| What's the obvious about it?
| jmyeet wrote:
| That might be true but it's irrelevant. Why? Because that's not
| the issue the government tackled. Arguing "national security"
| with (quite literally) secret evidence is laughable. Data
| protection too is a smokescreen or the government would've
| passed a comprehensive Federal data protection act, which
| they'd never do.
|
| It's hard to see how the government would tackle algorithmic
| addiction within running afoul of First Amendment issues. Such
| an effort should also apply to Meta and Google too if it were
| attempted.
|
| IMHO reciprocal market access was the most defensible position
| but wasn't the argument the government made.
|
| That being said, the government did make a strictly commerce-
| based argument to avoid free speech issues. As came up in oral
| arguments (and maybe the opinion?) this is functionally no
| different to the restrictions on foreign ownership of US media
| outlets.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Does anyone have any link to some docs explaining how it works?
| xnx wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-
| alg...
|
| Like Facebook, the "algorithm" is nothing special. TikTok
| made some smart design decisions that collect more
| interaction data that legacy social sites like Instagram and
| YouTube. They use that data to effectively recommend content.
| xnx wrote:
| You could substitute anything you don't like (gambling,
| alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports,
| reality TV) for "social media" in the above and it makes as
| much sense.
| dizzant wrote:
| > TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive gambling
| app ever created.
|
| > Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that
| gambling is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be
| the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these
| platforms.
|
| Not really. TikTok isn't a gambling app.
| iaseiadit wrote:
| The comparison here is a slot machine: you pay a a few to
| play, you pull the lever to play, you win a prize.
|
| Here, the payment is your attention, you swipe to the next
| video to play the game, and the prize if you land on a good
| video is a small hit of dopamine.
| cratermoon wrote:
| It's a variable reward dopamine hit generator.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Everyone's losing their collective mind about people
| watching videos on a platform not approved by our
| oligarchs, while there's an epidemic of people racking up
| gambling debt from the sudden prevalence of DraftKings and
| other mobile sports betting apps.
| root-user wrote:
| At least in circles I frequent, people are pretty upset
| with the state of sports betting too. Feels like lots of
| things are pretty crappy these days, simultaneously
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| There can be more than one bad thing at a time.
| jprete wrote:
| The GP's statement doesn't work with reality TV or televised
| sports. Both of those are produced with a lot of human
| effort, and the cycle time for new content is way too large
| to form addictions.
|
| Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive and
| frequently are not set up to be in the best interests of the
| users.
| smallstepforman wrote:
| " Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive
| "
|
| There are billions of casual drinkers / gamblers / gamers
| who do not show any sign of addiction. I'm really tired to
| hear the same nonsense repeated again and again. Do a
| pyschology study of any casino employee that spends 40
| hours a week in a gaming venue, or any manufacturer of
| gaming devices that professionally play games 40 hours a
| week, and none of these employees exposed to so much
| gambling / drinking are addicted.
|
| Psychology studies have not established that these items
| are "addictive", because if they were, they would be banned
| all over the world. Nowhere in the western world are they
| banned, ghey are regulated for "fairness". There are some
| individuals that throw the word addiction around without
| justification, please dont be one of them.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Alcohol is literally physiologically addictive.
| Withdrawal symptoms include seizures and death. Of course
| these things are known to be and recognized by
| governments as addictive. Addictive things aren't always
| banned. Here's a US government page discussing alcohol
| addiction from an organization the government has
| dedicated to raising awareness of the adverse effects of
| alcohol, including addiction:
|
| https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-
| addicti...
|
| You also basically observed that the people _selling_ the
| addictive thing don 't get addicted, which is sort of
| obvious. You don't get addicted by being near e.g.
| alcohol and providing it to others. You get addicted by
| regularly drinking it.
| rounce wrote:
| Casino employees are typically barred from gambling at
| the venue they work at or others within the same
| ownership group, often not even at venues under different
| ownership within the same geographical area as their
| employer.
|
| Scientific studies have established nicotine is addictive
| yet purchase and smoking of cigarettes is legal in most
| countries.
| monicaaa wrote:
| I've learned that moderation is key to avoiding their
| harmful effects. It's easy to get caught up in the
| thrill, but understanding how these systems work is
| crucial. For instance, gacha games often rely on the same
| reward mechanisms as gambling, making them equally
| compelling. Exploring resources to stay informed can help
| reduce risks. For example, I came across a review on Wild
| Cash x9990 DEMO by BGaming at https://wildcashx9990.com/
| which offers insight into gaming mechanics. Since the
| site itself doesn't allow gambling
| xnx wrote:
| > doesn't work with reality TV or televised sports. Both of
| those are produced with a lot of human effort
|
| Those two types of content are about the cheapest TV to
| produce. Per second of video produced (counting all the
| unpopular content), short videos might be more expensive,
| but the costs are very distributed.
| jprete wrote:
| Totally fair. I was thinking more in terms of the rate at
| which people can consume it; if your primary interest is
| following a sport, or current reality-TV shows, you can
| only consume content as quickly as it is released.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Yes? The person you replied to was pretty explicit in drawing
| a comparison to vices like gambling and alcohol, which are
| indeed usually regulated. Gacha games are also being
| recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such.
| p_j_w wrote:
| > Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled
| gambling and regulated as such.
|
| Where are they being regulated at all?
| ndriscoll wrote:
| https://screenrant.com/lootbox-gambling-
| microtransactions-il...
|
| There was a bill introduced in the US that didn't go
| anywhere. Of course gambling has recently been heavily
| deregulated in the US so I suppose we can't expect much
| to be done about gambling in video games right now.
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
| bill/162...
|
| I vaguely recall it in at least one of those state bills
| to regulate social media for kids (listing it as an
| addictive behavior that's "harmful to minors" or
| whatever), but can't find specifics. I don't know whether
| something has passed anywhere in the US.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Amusingly, Apple and Google might be the first serious
| regulators of those.
|
| https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootb
| ox....
|
| "Verifying Loot-box Probability Without Source-code
| Disclosure"
|
| Just read the abstract
| jerf wrote:
| "anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games,
| convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV)"
|
| Respectively, heavily regulated, heavily regulated, poorly
| regulated but really has to toe the line to not fall into the
| first bucket, fairly regulated (with shifting attitudes about
| what they should be, but definitely not _unregulated_ ),
| probably only a problem because this is "gambling" again
| lately and has been regulated in the past and I suspect may
| well be more heavily regulated in the near future, and people
| probably would not generally agree this belongs in the list.
| xnx wrote:
| Good points. I would welcome a discussion on ways social
| media (however defined) should be regulated to mitigate
| harms. Hopefully, that would put the perceived harms in
| context of other harms we regulate.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| One way could be age limits and more stringent
| verification of age for all social media platforms.
|
| Another way could be limiting feed algorithms to
| chronological order only.
|
| Another could be limiting what data can be collected from
| users on these platforms. Or limiting what data could be
| provided to other entities.
|
| Who knows if these are the best ways to regulate social
| media, but they would like help mitigate some of the
| clear harms.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| I love to drink. Absolutely adore it. Putting on a great
| recors, open 2 bottles of wine and call 10 different people
| during the span of 4 hours. I wouldn't trade it for social
| media any day of the week. I am drinking right now actually
| paulg2222 wrote:
| I get you. The techies in here won't, they think it's fun
| to drink liquified cereal waste.
| root-user wrote:
| This is a vibe and I'm here for it.
| miroljub wrote:
| > Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that
| social media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be
| the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these
| platforms.
|
| Come on. We all know that TikTok was banned because the US
| regime couldn't control it.
|
| If they really wanted to ban vice, they would have banned
| Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and their kin a long
| ago.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _TikTok was banned because the US regime couldn 't control
| it_
|
| The law is fine with TikTok being owned by a Nigerian.
| miroljub wrote:
| Well, Nigeria is or can be controlled by the USA. China is
| an independent country.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Nigeria is or can be controlled by the USA. China is
| an independent country_
|
| Take a step back and consider how ridiculous this is.
| Every country in the world other than these six [1] is
| controlled by the U.S.?
|
| [1]
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-B/chapter-
| VII...
| ramoz wrote:
| Maybe it was just a genuine outlet for interconnected
| entertainment compared to other platforms. American's have
| always sought similar entertainment since the dawn of the
| 'couch potato.' Now we can go back to consuming curated
| narratives/influence on our good ole traditional grams and
| tubes.
| keybored wrote:
| I think that's besides the point given the entity that is
| banning it. It's because it's Chinese. An equally addictive
| Western-made app would not have been banned.
|
| And generally speaking as a culture we are too liberal to ban
| things for being too addictive. Again, showing that it is not
| relevant in this case since it will not inspire bans of other
| addictive (pseudo) substances on those grounds.
| croes wrote:
| It's not about the algorithm but about the owner of the
| platform.
|
| The same algorithm in US possession isn't a problem.
| srameshc wrote:
| Well said. Only if we start looking at both of these issues
| separately, owner and algorith and deal with each one
| appropriately.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Indeed, it's all protectionism. They want the money to go to
| American companies instead. Why do you think the EU, which is
| generally far more aggressive about these things, has not yet
| banned TikTok? It's also the same reason Huawei are thriving
| elsewhere but banned in the US. It's all just trying to
| protect their big companies with deep pockets.
| ruthmarx wrote:
| EU is always slow. They felt browser choice was an issue 0
| years after it stopped being one, and then freaked out
| about cookies also 10 more more years later when it wasn't
| really an issue. Data tracking is an issue, sure. Not
| cookies though, not anymore.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It wouldn't be the same algorithm, it would suppress pro-
| Palestine content more aggressively as Meta does. The US's
| problem is with the algorithm
| lolinder wrote:
| What needs to happen is that all of these platforms need to be
| straight up banned. TikTok is getting picked on because of its
| ties to China, but why is it better for Zuckerberg or Musk to
| have the capabilities that are so frightening in the hands of
| the CCP?
|
| The US social media billionaire class is ostensibly accountable
| to the law, but they're also perfectly capable of using their
| influence over these platforms to _write_ the law.
|
| One plausible theory for why the politicians talk about fears
| of spying instead of the real fears of algorithmic manipulation
| is because they don't want to draw too much attention to how
| capable these media platforms are of manipulating voters,
| because they rely on those capabilities to get into and stay in
| power.
| tevon wrote:
| Because if Zuck or Musk does something bad with said power,
| we can do something about it.
|
| We can't really jail the CCP. Additionally, Zuck and Musk
| don't have armies to back up their propaganda. We shouldn't
| let foreign powers own the means of broadcast...
| jayknight wrote:
| >Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their
| propaganda
|
| But they're about to have all three branches of government
| to back it up.
| lolinder wrote:
| Who is we, though? I can't do anything about it. Can you?
|
| The people who can do something about it are the people who
| are already in power in the US. They understandably don't
| want to share with the CCP, but most of them came to power
| by manipulating enough voters into voting for them. They
| stay in power by ensuring that enough voters continue to
| want to vote for them. Which means that someone like
| Zuckerberg or Musk has an insanely inordinate amount of
| influence over whether these people who are in power stay
| in power.
|
| Yes, I think it's marginally better that that influence
| remain out of the hands of the CCP, but I would rather that
| that influence not exist at all. It's too dangerous and too
| prone to corruption.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| _Who is we, though? I can 't do anything about it. Can
| you?_
|
| Isn't this true for literally all problems in a
| democracy? Do you have a better solution?
|
| Hopefully we'll get AGI soon and it'll take over and rule
| as a benevolent overlord. Short of that, everything in
| your comment feels like it has always applied to every
| societal problem, and always will.
| slt2021 wrote:
| US is not a democracy in a strict sense, it is more like
| plutocracy (people with money have the power).
| - the electoral college where winner takes all, so
| minority opposition vote is always suppressed -
| gerrymandering that dilutes and suppresses the minority
| opposition vote - oligopoly of two parties -
| unchecked financial influence by allowing unlimited
| funding via PACs - legalized lobbying/bribery
| - influence of special interest groups - the
| influence of legal system with expensive lawyers (that
| only rich can afford)
|
| this all indicate that it is people with deep pockets who
| have all the power
| lolinder wrote:
| > Isn't this true for literally all problems in a
| democracy? Do you have a better solution?
|
| Create a level playing field where money does not amplify
| speech. Our existing democracy is basically a spending
| contest with a very small component of eloquently
| persuading voters to vote against their own interest. The
| richest of the rich have voices and can manipulate the
| platforms on which others express their voices, and so
| those rich people either pick the victors or become them.
|
| For democracy to survive we have to get past the idea
| that a "free market" approach to speech leads to
| democratic outcomes. It doesn't, it leads to plutocratic
| outcomes, which is painfully obvious on both sides of the
| aisle right now. Americans haven't had a true
| representative of the people in generations.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > Because if Zuck or Musk does something bad with said
| power, we can do something about it.
|
| We can? Like what? What's the chance of that happening?
|
| > Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their
| propaganda.
|
| I'd like to note the seating arrangements published for the
| upcoming presidentia inauguration ceremony.
| victorvation wrote:
| The TikTok CEO will also be sitting in the same row as
| Zuck, Musk, and Bezos.
| walls wrote:
| So what you're saying is, freedom of speech doesn't really
| work?
| kccoder wrote:
| Perhaps algorithmically weaponized "speech" by bad actors
| with bad intentions, especially controlled by
| adversaries, doesn't work, and was wholly unpredicted or
| accounted for by the founders.
| leptons wrote:
| Zuck and Musk already have done bad things with their
| power, and continue to do so. No real consequences so far.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Under what reasoning should these be banned?
|
| I, personally, have views that would lean towards being
| labeled by HN users as supporting a "nanny state" (at least
| far departure from younger libertarian phase), but even I
| struggle with a "why" on banning these platforms in general.
| ksynwa wrote:
| > this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to
| scrutinize these platforms.
|
| Could not be more wrong. "Society" is not deciding anything
| here. The ban is entirely because of idelogical and geopolical
| reasons. They have already allowed the good big tech companies
| to get people hooked as much as they want. If you think you are
| going to see regulation for public good you will probably be
| disappointed.
| slt2021 wrote:
| agree, it was just a shakedown and money grab.
|
| some US oligarchs wanted to buy tiktok at deep discount while
| it was private, and make money off of making it public
| company
| bko wrote:
| Why would it be sold at a deep discount?
|
| About 45% of the US population uses TikTok and 63% of teens
| aged 13 to 17 report using TikTok, with 57% of them using
| the app daily
|
| Hell of a product, there would be a crazy bidding war for
| that kind of engagement
| burnte wrote:
| In a fire sale the seller has no leverage.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| The seller doesn't need any leverage if there are many
| interested buyers
| sulam wrote:
| If you have to get a sale done, it will absolutely create
| a discount on the price. This is regardless of the
| interest -- all parties know you have a time limit. Yes
| you may still do a sale quickly and the price may still
| be at a premium to your last funding round or whatever
| you want to use as a mark to market, but it will be at a
| discount to what you could have gotten.
| slt2021 wrote:
| if US government says who is allowed to buy and buyers
| collude (by pooling financial and political capital
| together) they can easily not fight a bidding war and
| lowball instead
| swatcoder wrote:
| Can you give an example of how the most eligible buyers
| might collude in a way that benefits them all equally, so
| that this would happen?
|
| For me, it's very hard to conceive of any concrete way
| that would work. It's a brand, some partnerships, and a
| network of users that would all go to whatever buyer, and
| would give that buyer a huge benefit over their existing
| domestic competitors. So under what circumstances would
| those domestic competitors allow that instead of
| aggresively trying to secure it for themselves?
|
| I'm open to believing you, I just don't see what you have
| in mind.
| slt2021 wrote:
| only very few rich people can mobilize financial and
| political capital to pull off tiktok purchase.
|
| Larry Ellison (since he is CIA/MIC friendly and tiktok is
| already running on Oracle cloud)
|
| Zuck has too much conflict to acquire tiktok, but other
| oligarchs like Musk/bezos/gates can pull it off, given
| their recent meetings with Trump
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only very few rich people can mobilize financial and
| political capital to pull off tiktok purchase_
|
| Why do you assume only a natural person can buy TikTok?
| Why do you assume you need political capital?
|
| The law doesn't provide that much executive deference in
| enforcement.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Elon musk is an example of acquisition of global social
| network. Political capital is needed because the tiktok
| question is politicized heavily (national security as a
| reason).
|
| Plus FTC will review the acquisition process as well.
|
| Do you have a counter example?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _FTC will review the acquisition process as well_
|
| Why?
|
| > _Political capital is needed because the tiktok
| question is politicized heavily (national security as a
| reason)_
|
| This is entirely meaningless. You don't need political
| capital to maintain the _status quo_.
|
| > _Do you have a counter example?_
|
| To your hypothetical? My example is the law. FACA is
| tightly defined. Bytedance needs to divest to a non-FAC
| to return to the _status quo_. Trump could do _something
| else_ to fuck with them. But that's true of anyone
| anywhere.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Hart-Scott-Rodino Improvements Act requires FTC to
| approve all large M&A deals + DoJ needs to do antitrust
| review
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-
| guidance/gui...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| HSR is incredibly routine and politically insulated. It's
| closer to a filing than actual review.
| slt2021 wrote:
| except when the government decides to intervene and
| reject the transaction. See, this seems like routine, but
| ultimately it gives the government an option to cancel
| transaction they dont like and they can always cite some
| bogus reason like "national security" and use racist
| pretext like ethnicity of the CEO or whatever
| Larrikin wrote:
| Why do they need to benefit all equally?
|
| Campaign with the president, offer large amounts of money
| to the presidents campaign, donate huge sums to a small
| inauguration party, and then just be picked to get it at
| a deep discount. The entire point of bribes is that
| corruption let's you get away with things at a lesser
| cost. You just screw over everyone else except for the
| bribe receiver.
| xnx wrote:
| How would that collusion work?
| slt2021 wrote:
| syndication. Pool political and financial capital
| together to win the bidding from smaller less connected
| buyers, and share the final ownership
| xnx wrote:
| That seems like it would work, but how would they portion
| out the final ownership? Maybe the person who bid the
| most could get the most shares?
| slt2021 wrote:
| Rich people can always find a common ground and negotiate
| deals among themselves, its what they do every day.
|
| As a rich person I'd rather get 30% of tiktok with 99%
| certainty by committing 30% of capital needed, rather
| than 100% of tiktok with 30% certainty and committing
| 100% of capital needed.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if US government says who is allowed to buy_
|
| It doesn't. The courts do. TikTok could be sold to a
| Hungarian businessman. As long as it can't be proved they
| aren't controlled by China, they should be allowed to
| reenter app stores.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| Are the courts not US government? Do you think there
| isn't any collusion between Supreme Court and the other
| branches of government?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are the courts not US government?_
|
| Generally speaking, we tend to refer to governments in
| countries with independent judiciaries as being separate
| from their courts. The same way we refer to the
| government in parliamentary democracies separately from
| their parliaments. (Or governments separately from a
| country's people, even though one is a subset of the
| other.)
|
| > _Do you think there isn 't any collusion between
| Supreme Court and the other branches of government?_
|
| Not super relevant here. This SCOTUS barely upheld the
| ban with Bytedance as the owner.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Because if the Chinese government actually is using it or
| plans to use it as a propaganda tool there is no amount
| of money they would accept. The fact that it wasn't sold
| to a US company offers credibility to the fact that the
| product is useless to China if it's controlled by a US
| company and they wanted to keep the data they learned
| about addiction to themselves. Also probably wanted to
| build some outrage among young users for the government
| banning their favorite app
|
| The sell or be banned part, instead of just banned, was
| most certainly lobbied for by the US social media
| companies hoping to get it on the off chance it had
| served its purpose, wasn't as useful as China had hoped,
| or the slim chance they really did just want Americans to
| copy dance trends.
| anon7000 wrote:
| Yeah, the ban is interesting because it's happened before
| (company being forced to sell or leave), but never to a
| product used at this scale. There are allegedly 120M daily
| active users in the US alone. That's more than a third of
| Americans using it _every day_.
|
| While many have a love hate relationship with it, there are
| many who love it. I know people who aren't too sad, because
| it'll break their addiction, and others who are making really
| decent money as content creators on it. So generally, you're
| exactly right. "Society" is not lashing back at TikTok. Maybe
| some are lashing back at American social media companies (eg
| some folks leaving Twitter and meta products).
|
| But if we wanted to actually protect our citizens, we'd enact
| strong data privacy laws, where companies don't own your data
| -- you do. And can't spy on you or use that data without your
| permission. This would solve part of the problem with TikTok.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| While data privacy laws would be good, I don't see how it
| would help with TikTok since they have no reason to
| actually follow the laws when CCP comes calling.
| coliveira wrote:
| The US gov will do nothing to regulate US owned social
| networks because they're doing for free the work that the
| government wants to do itself: collect as much data as
| possible from each individual. The separation between Meta's
| collected data and government is just one judicial request
| away. That's why the US gov hates other countries having this
| power.
| awongh wrote:
| It can still be both- in the sense that once a precedent is
| set using the these additional ideological and geopolitical
| motivations as momentum, maybe there will be an appetite for
| further algorithm regulations.
|
| As a tech person who already understood the system, it's
| refreshing that I now often see the comment "I need to change
| my algorithm"- meaning, I can shape the parameters of what
| X/Twitter / Instagram/ YouTube / TikTok shows me in my feed.
|
| I think there's growing meta-awareness (that I see as
| comments within these platforms) that there is "healthy"
| content and that the apps themselves manipulate their user's
| behavior patterns.
|
| Hopefully there's momentum building that people perceive this
| as a public health issue.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| These bans done for political purposes toward public
| consent for genocide (ie see ADL/AIPAC's "We have a big
| TikTok problem" leaked audio, and members of our own
| congress stating that this is what motivates the
| regulations) won't lead to greater freedoms over
| algorithms. It is the opposite direction - more state
| control over which algorithms its citizens are allowed to
| see
|
| The mental health angle of support for the bans is a way
| the change gets accepted by the public, which posters here
| are doing free work toward generating, not a motivating
| goal or direction for these or next regulations
| awongh wrote:
| Yea, it might be naive to think the government will act
| in the interest of the consumer (although it has happened
| before)- but at least maybe it'll continue the
| conversation of users themselves....
|
| THis situation is another data point and is a net good
| for society (whether or not the ban sticks).
|
| Discussion around (for example) the technical
| implementation of content moderation being inherently
| political (i.e., Meta and Twitter) will be good for
| everyone.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _bans done for political purposes_
|
| You want a political body to make decisions apolitically?
|
| > _mental health angle of support_
|
| This was _de minimis_. The support was start to finish
| from national security angles. There was some cherry-on-
| top AIPAC and protectionist talk. But the votes were got
| because TikTok kept lying about serious stuff [1] while
| Russia reminded the world of the cost of appeasement.
|
| [1] https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/76E76
| 9A8-3ED...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| I know the state didn't do it or say they did it for
| mental health purposes, I'm responding to the reasons
| given here for supporting these regulations
|
| BTW you're the one who cast doubt on me for suggesting
| UnitedHealth is incentivized to raise prices to get
| around profit caps, which turned out to be exactly the
| case despite your sense-making of the rules in place:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716428
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you 're the one who cast doubt on me for suggesting
| UnitedHealth is incentivized to raise prices to get
| around profit caps, which turned out to be exactly the
| case despite your sense-making of the rules in place_
|
| Sorry, could you link to my comment?
| grahamj wrote:
| By "this" I think they meant this moment in time rather than
| the ban being a result of societal scrutiny.
| rayiner wrote:
| The Tik Tok divestment law was passed by overwhelmingly by
| both houses of the duly elected Congress. At the time, a
| majority of Americans polled supported the law, while a
| minority opposed it: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/more-
| support-than-oppose-tik....
|
| In a democracy, this is how "society decides" what's in the
| "public good." This is not a case where legislators are going
| behind the public's back, hiding something they know they
| public would oppose. Proponents of the law have been clear in
| public about what the law would do and what the motivations
| for the law are. There is nothing closer to "society decides"
| than Congress overwhelmingly passing a law after making a
| public case for what the law would do.
|
| Yes, they're doing it for "ideological and geopolitical
| reasons"--but those things are important to society!
| Americans are perfectly within their rights to enact
| legislation, through their duly elected representatives,
| simply on the basis of "fuck China."
| ranger_danger wrote:
| 100% agreed, unfortunately. There is truth in sayings like
| "the customer doesn't know what's best for them"... I think
| because they are often simply not informed or intelligent
| enough.
| rayiner wrote:
| Most people are sufficiently informed and intelligent.
| They simply don't (1) care about the things you care
| about; or (2) don't agree with you that your preferred
| approaches will bring about desired outcomes.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > Most people are sufficiently informed and intelligent.
|
| Sorry but I don't believe this in the slightest.
| SequoiaHope wrote:
| This may in some ways be technically correct, but it is
| also true that in a democracy, the elite make decisions
| with the support of the people through manufactured
| consent. This process involves the manipulation of the
| populace through mass media, to intentionally misinform and
| influence them.
|
| One could take the position that this process is so flawed
| as to be illegitimate. In this case it would be a valid
| position to believe that society had not fairly decided
| these things, and they were instead decided by a certain
| class of people and pushed on to the rest of us.
|
| See: A Propaganda Model, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky:
| https://chomsky.info/consent01/
| rayiner wrote:
| That's the notion of "false consciousness" that Marxists
| trot out to justify why they're right even though people
| don't agree with them. It's a tool for academics to
| justify imposing themselves as right-thinking elites who
| know better than the unwashed masses.
| SequoiaHope wrote:
| I disagree strongly with any authoritarian rule, but it
| is probably correct that the masses don't actually know
| the best way to run society. That doesn't mean we need to
| impose rule, it means we need to understand manufacturing
| consent (which is a distinct concept from false
| consciousness and well supported by the facts), it means
| we need to combat manufactured consent and better educate
| people.
| tptacek wrote:
| What interventions could you not justify using this
| logic?
| user3939382 wrote:
| More specifically the ban is because of the platform being
| used to support Palestine. There are public recordings of
| congressmen openly and plainly saying so.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Many other platforms have been used for that for even
| longer, and none of them are in danger of being banned. I
| don't think this is the real reason, if there is even a
| singular reason.
| nosefurhairdo wrote:
| I believe the singular reason is that TikTok is
| controlled by the CCP and they use it as a tool to
| further increase political and social division by
| manipulating the algorithm.
|
| This is evidenced by the fact that ByteDance could've
| sold TikTok in the US for a huge amount of money to
| comply with the recent legislation, but the Chinese
| government won't allow the sale. They aren't interested
| in the money, which to me sounds like they only ever
| cared about the data and influence.
|
| Side note: I used Perplexity to summarize the recent
| events to make sure I'm not totally talking out my butt
| :). Just a theory though, happy to be proven wrong!
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Exactly, even when banned in the US, TikTok (though a lot
| less valuable business) can still be used to do influence
| outside the US.
|
| If it was a business they would have sold it.
| colordrops wrote:
| First, they are american platforms, and already do a lot
| of filtering. It's not easy to ban an American platform
| either, and there is more leverage to twist their arm.
|
| Second, how does your comment change the fact that there
| are multiple politicians on record saying this is why
| they are going after tik tok?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| That's because "being hooked" is not why it is being banned.
| It's banned because people are hooked on it _and_ an
| adversarial foreign power has the ability to use it for their
| own gain.
|
| Which is why a viable solution for TikTok was selling it to a
| US company. If it was just about the population "being
| hooked", a sale would not be an acceptable outcome.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| > They have already allowed the good big tech companies to
| get people hooked as much as they want
|
| To sell you shoes. Not for whatever nightmarish future
| application of this technology and relationship between
| private sector and the state represents: https://www.theguard
| ian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| From a geopolitical perspective, this issue about 3 items:
|
| 1) Influence- TikTok gives the CCP significant direct influence
| over the views of Americans.
|
| 2) Data- TikTok collects massive amounts of data on 100s of
| millions of Americans. Opens many avenues for spying, extortion
| of influence, etc.
|
| 3) Reciprocity- Foreign tech companies are essentially banned
| from operating in China. Much like with other industries, China
| is not playing fair, they're playing to win.
|
| Insofar as TikTok has offered a "superior" product, this might
| be a story of social media and its double edge. But this far
| more a story of geopolitics.
| lvl155 wrote:
| Nail in the head with reciprocity. I think the US honored its
| end of the bargain over the past four plus decades since
| China started manufacturing goods for US companies. China
| clearly benefited since they are now the second largest
| economy. Along the way China grew ambitious which is fine but
| they made an idiotic policy error in timing. They should've
| waited a couple more decades to show teeth.
| xnx wrote:
| 0) Protectionism- TikTok is eating Meta's lunch. Meta can't
| make a social app as good as TikTok in the same way GM can't
| make a car as good a value as BYD.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I won't say that isn't relevant; when you're building a
| coalition you don't say no to allies. But it was a cherry
| on top of a well-baked pie. Not a foundational motivation.
| xnx wrote:
| True, but I'd say that in this area (vs. manufacturing
| where tariffs can be applied), it's more
| taboo/embarrassing to admit how dominated Instagram was.
| Reels is the cheap knockoff of the genuine article.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's more taboo/embarrassing to admit how dominated
| Instagram was_
|
| Where? Stockholders have been vocally livid about it.
| swatcoder wrote:
| That certainly plays some role in why domestic social media
| companies haven't stirred up resistance to the ban, but is
| more like #50 in terms of geopolitical strategy.
|
| The domestic companies lost some attention share to TikTok
| sure, and a ban or domestic sale would generally be in
| their interests, but it's not like they were about to be
| Myspaced. They've remained among the most valued companies
| -- presently and in forecasts -- even while it was "eating
| their lunch"
| xnx wrote:
| > it's not like they were about to be Myspaced. They've
| remained among the most valued companies
|
| It hasn't been an overnight switch, but the trajectory
| did not look good for US companies. TikTok was even
| eating into TV viewing time. There's a fixed amount of
| attention and TikTok was vacuuming it up from everywhere.
| luma wrote:
| Much like Google was eating the lunch of everything in
| China and the CCP, in response, made it essentially
| impossible for them to operate.
|
| This is not new behavior between the two countries, the
| only thing new is the direction. US is finally waking up to
| the foreign soft power being exercised inside our own
| country, and it isn't benefiting us.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Google was eating the lunch of everything in China and
| the CCP, in response, made it essentially impossible for
| them to operate.
|
| Google was operating in China until 2010 when they got
| banned because they stopped censoring search results.
| Other Western search engines like Bing continue operate
| in China.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| They also got their source code stolen by Chinese state
| hackers. The word "hostile" doesn't begin to describe
| their experience operating on the mainland.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| This is just a different bias on point 3, reciprocity. BYD
| benefits from state subsidies and state sponsored
| intellectual property theft on an industrial scale. See
| again, point 3.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >Meta can't make a psyop as dangerous
|
| We should treat social media as the addictive, mind
| altering drug it is, and stop acting like a free market
| saturation of them is a good thing.
|
| China having their more potent mind control app pointed at
| the brains of hundreds of millions of people is not
| something to celebrate.
| soramimo wrote:
| Bravo, perfect summary of the issue at hand.
|
| It'll be revealing to see which political actors come out in
| favor of keeping tiktok around.
| fidotron wrote:
| > 1) Influence- TikTok gives the CCP significant direct
| influence over the views of Americans
|
| More to the point: it removes the ability of the existing
| American establishment to monopolise the viewpoints presented
| to Americans.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Americans are already quite free to seek a broad range of
| domestic and foreign viewpoints. Chinese citizens, on the
| other hand, are not. At all.
|
| The key point here is that an algorithm can invisibly nudge
| those viewpoints, and a foreign adversary controls the
| algorithm.
|
| Insofar as your claim is that powerful people and
| institutions care most about power, I agree. It's very
| telling that TikTok would shutdown instead of divest.
| (Meanwhile, U.S. companies have routinely taken the other
| side of the deal in China: minority stake joint ventures in
| which "technology transfer" is mandated. AKA intellectual
| property plundering.)
| fidotron wrote:
| > Americans are already quite free to seek a broad range
| of domestic and foreign viewpoints.
|
| The reality is they live in an establishment controlled
| media bubble, that is itself full of propaganda.
|
| Being free does not mean free to live in a lie
| constructed for the benefit of someone else, it means
| being free to live in reality, and that freedom is being
| denied to Americans. At least the Chinese are aware of
| their reality.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I can navigate my browser to Al Jazeera, RT, or Xinhua
| without interference. Meanwhile, China has a national
| firewall imprisoning its netizens. So, while most
| Americans opt to live inside filter bubbles, they are
| free to escape if they so choose. Not so for the citizens
| of China, who live in the iron grip of the CCP.
|
| That's to say nothing of censorship. I can post "f** Joe
| Biden" on any social platform in the U.S. Meanwhile, a
| Chinese netizen compares Xi to Winnie the Pooh and gets a
| visit from the police. And their post never sees the
| light of day.
|
| These aren't differences of degree. They are differences
| of category.
| fidotron wrote:
| Americans live in a society lying to them by omission.
| You have to have learned AlJazeera, RT or Xinhua exist,
| because they're not going to be shown to you by normal
| channels, and you almost certainly go on a watchlist if
| you visit too much.
|
| The whole point is to remove anything that may cause a
| passive media consumer to question what is presented to
| them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _You have to have learned AlJazeera, RT or Xinhua
| exist, because they 're not going to be shown to you by
| normal channels_
|
| They've each run ads on billboards in New York. I
| distinctly remember Xinhua's in Time Square.
| fidotron wrote:
| Recently?
|
| Al Jazeera America closed down some years ago. (2016
| apparently).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Definitely after 2016, but before Covid.
| fidotron wrote:
| At the risk of a tangent, were Xinhua seriously fishing
| for a US audience? Or was it more kudos from the
| billboard?
|
| My parents used to be addicted to Al Jazeera, then some
| unspecified incident occurred and we were never to speak
| of it again. All very strange.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _You have to have learned AlJazeera, RT or Xinhua exist,
| because they 're not going to be shown to you by normal
| channels_
|
| Al Jazeera is widely known across the country, and during
| the time I had cable television was available in every
| city in which I lived.
|
| RT is available over-the-air on free regular broadcast
| channels in some American cities. You can't get less
| restricted than that.
|
| You speak like someone who's never even been to the
| United States.
| fidotron wrote:
| Al Jazeera America stopped in 2016.
|
| RT America was removed from most services as of 2022 and
| hasn't been broadcasting since.
|
| This is changing in the wrong direction and you are
| getting less free over time.
|
| > You speak like someone who's never even been to the
| United States.
|
| You speak like someone who's never left it.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _You speak like someone who 's never left it._
|
| Darn it, then decade I spent in Asia and the 100+ trips
| to Europe and the Middle East didn't prepare me for the
| rapier banter of some rando on the internet.
| fidotron wrote:
| Dishes it out but can't take it?
|
| How appropriate.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Both AJ and RT are widely available online. Your bar of
| "American cable networks must grant licenses to broadcast
| hostile foreign state propaganda" is one that no other
| country abides by.
|
| In fact, even the idea of allowing CNN or BBC to
| broadcast into people's homes in Russia is so laughable,
| I don't know why you even brought it up, or what your
| point is.
| fidotron wrote:
| > In fact, even the idea of allowing CNN or BBC to
| broadcast into people's homes in Russia is so laughable,
| I don't know why you even brought it up, or what your
| point is.
|
| No one's talking about availability in Russia except you.
|
| And to add some substance about why AJ and RT can be
| accessed I will quote another commenter who put it better
| than I did: "The reason you can is that very few people
| actually do. As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the
| US suspects it might have some real competitor in
| controlling the narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's
| the right thing to do, but it's worth taking note that
| it's how things are."
| throw310822 wrote:
| It doesn't matter what media are available as long as you
| manage to control their impact- that is, the vast
| majority of your citizens don't really watch them. The
| moment one becomes impactful, you can shut it down citing
| dangerous foreign interference (and it's true!).
| throw310822 wrote:
| > I can navigate my browser to Al Jazeera, RT, or Xinhua
| without interference
|
| The reason you can is that very few people actually do.
| As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects
| it might have some real competitor in controlling the
| narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's the right thing
| to do, but it's worth taking note that it's how things
| are.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Yes the categories of "our glorious leader" on one side
| and "their wretched despot" on the other. The categories
| of "our objective news" and "their state propaganda".
| "Their brutish enforcers" vs "our noble police".
|
| You have to accept that the era of American
| exceptionalism is over and we'll all be measured by our
| actions rather than the dreamy stories told.
| w0m wrote:
| > It's very telling that TikTok would shutdown instead of
| divest.
|
| TBF; The CCP passed laws that likely make it illegal for
| TikTok to sell/export that kind of information (the
| algo). They can't divest without also neutering the
| sticking power of the service.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| And why did the CCP pass those laws? Perhaps bc they
| understood it would block divestment, acting as a poison
| pill to would be acquirers, thereby forcing foreign
| governments to fight their own public in outright banning
| TikTok.
| w0m wrote:
| DingDingDing. Ignoring actual value of the ban - I fully
| expect Trump to save US TikTok to avoid the bad PR
| associated.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Trump to save us TikTok to avoid the bad PR
| associated_
|
| He can just blame it on Biden and use his time
| productively.
| davidcbc wrote:
| > The key point here is that an algorithm can invisibly
| nudge those viewpoints, and a foreign adversary controls
| the algorithm.
|
| Compared to all the other algorithmic social media in
| which domestic adversaries control the algorithm.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Yes, exactly, finally you get it. Because yes, China is
| worse.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It doesn't have to be either /or. You should be skeptical
| of US spy agency behavior, and still recognize the threat
| of Chinese influence via psyops algorithm to the United
| States.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| > More to the point: it removes the ability of the existing
| American establishment to monopolise the viewpoints
| presented to Americans.
|
| There is no evidence this exists.
| jagermo wrote:
| 1) to be honest, when I see how russia, Iran and other states
| influence all other networks (especially when it comes to
| voting), not sure how tiktok is worse than all of them - just
| think of Facebook & Cambridge Analytica https://en.wikipedia.
| org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
|
| 2) yes, that is an issue.
|
| 3) fair point.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Cambridge Analytica had zero effect on the 2016 elections.
| It was the mother of all nothingburgers. I encourage all
| who see this comment to dig into the truth of that case.
|
| The huge difference is that while foreign adversaries run
| influence networks on other social media platforms (and are
| opposed and combatted by those platforms) TikTok (the
| platform itself) is controlled by the foreign adversary
| (the CCP).
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| It was more a proof of concept. If that could be done on
| a small scale, why not a large one?
|
| And elections are decided by margins, pushing them even
| slightly has massive, irrevocable consequences.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Russia illegally spent something like $100,000 on political
| ads. Thats basically nothing compared to aggregate
| political spending.
| epolanski wrote:
| Meanwhile US channels this propaganda money through no
| profits.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Yup exactly the same thing is happening only with money
| laundered through nonprofits and political pacs. Once its
| there the same buy data and place ads & influence is
| completely legal - which makes the singled out ban on
| TikTok at odds with the stated purpose of it
| mjparrott wrote:
| It is mind blowing to me that this fact is not widely
| understood. A mountain was made out of a molehill. $4B
| was spent in 2016 _. $12B in 2024_. Yet $100,000 somehow
| is believed to have made any difference whatsoever.
| Literally 0.0025% of the total in 2016.
|
| *Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/political-ad-
| spend-nearly-...
| seizethecheese wrote:
| This is, of course, because both USA political parties
| run their own propaganda machines
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| 1. This was a scandal for FB, not a feature.
| w0m wrote:
| > 1) Influence- TikTok gives the CCP significant direct
| influence over the views of Americans.
|
| There is no credible argument that the CCP doesn't directly
| control the alg as it's actively being used for just that in
| tawain/etc.
|
| Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have
| clear direct access to influence 170m americans, an entire
| generation - completely unfettered? Incredible national
| security implications. Bot farms can influence X/Meta/etc,
| but they can be at least be fought. TikTok itself is the
| influence engine as currently constructed.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| > Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have
| clear direct access to [...] americans
|
| Apparently, American users want this? Approximately 700k
| users have joined RedNote, a Chinese platform. It's out of
| the frying pan and into the fire for Americans.
| w0m wrote:
| For perspective on the the root issue, that number seems
| incredibly high, and it's still only ~.5% of estimated
| active American TikTok users.
| hwillis wrote:
| > Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have
| clear direct access to influence 170m americans, an entire
| generation - completely unfettered?
|
| As the SCOTUS said itself:
|
| "At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle
| that each person should decide for himself or herself the
| ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration,
| and adherence." Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC
| w0m wrote:
| Functionally; as TikTok is a known/controlled mouthpiece
| for the CCP - it's infringing the first amendment rights
| of the foreign govt within US borders?
| dmix wrote:
| > TikTok collects massive amounts of data on 100s of millions
| of Americans. Opens many avenues for spying, extortion of
| influence, etc.
|
| you can buy all of that from data brokers
| hwillis wrote:
| It's not even about them:
|
| > If, for example, a user allows TikTok access to the
| user's phone contact list to connect with others on the
| platform, TikTok can access "any data stored in the user's
| contact list," including names, contact information,
| contact photos, job titles, and notes. 2 id., at 659.
| Access to such detailed information about U. S. users, the
| Government worries, may enable "China to track the
| locations of Federal employees and contractors, build
| dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct
| corporate espionage."
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf
|
| It seems farcically ridiculous to me to ban the app because
| it somehow could let china blackmail CEOs.
| fidotron wrote:
| They have had legit unintentional problems with apps like
| Strava: https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-
| military-bases-f...
|
| What ZTE were up to was way more nefarious, but couldn't
| be done with just apps.
| bsimpson wrote:
| It has blown my mind how "free Palestine" has become a meme.
| That war started with a bunch of terrorists
| kidnapping/raping/murdering college-age kids at a music
| festival, and college kids around the world started marching
| _in support of_ the perpetrators.
|
| At some point, I realized that I avoid social media apps, and
| the people in those marches certainly don't.
|
| I know that there's more to the Israel:Palestine situation
| than the attack on the music festival, but the fundamental
| contradiction that the side that brutalized innocent young
| people seems to have the popular support of young people is
| hard to ignore. I wonder to what degree it's algorithmically
| driven.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| The government doesn't care about addictive anything, this is
| about control and access. If they cared about life or citizens
| in general they would fix healthcare and maybe introduce any
| kind of gun control. This is the same government that was
| slanging cocaine in the 1980's...
| wry_discontent wrote:
| Multiple reps publicly said TikTok needed to be banned
| because they couldn't control the narrative around Gaza as
| easily. TikTok is the only platform I regularly see content
| about Gaza fed from the algorithm.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| You mean people are waking up to these atrocities and are
| displeased? Sounds like freedom of press to me...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I'd be interested in a source for that.
| westernmostcoy wrote:
| https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-
| city/2024/05/06/senato...
| seventhtiger wrote:
| https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-
| mike-g...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/13/tikt
| ok-...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/16/tik
| tok...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-
| palest...
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-
| post/2024/3/...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/business/tiktok-
| israel-ha...
| nashashmi wrote:
| https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-
| mcca...
|
| "enormous threat to U.S. national security and young
| Americans' mental health ... capable of mobilizing the
| platform's users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing
| actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to
| the president's desk immediately."
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| I disagree that social media is a vice. There's nothing
| inherently wrong with better communication. Although it's hard
| for me to see the value (or appeal) in TikTok.
| ulbu wrote:
| nothing inherently wrong with fentanyl either. not a strong
| argument.
| lolinder wrote:
| What aspect of modern social media contributes to better
| communication? We're not taking about WhatsApp here, we're
| talking about algorithmic infinite scroll feeds.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| Just on Facebook I can see what all of my old high school
| friends are up to. I can instantly send anyone a message. I
| can find things buy that people are selling. I have a
| community of people who are into the same obscure hobby.
| That's just off the top of my head.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to
| scrutinize these platforms.
|
| I think politicians have scrutinized american social media and
| they're 100% fine with the misery they induce so long as they
| are personally enriched by them.
|
| > There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was
| traditionally used in China
|
| TikTok isn't anywhere near as destructive as opium was. Hell,
| purely in terms of "mis/disinformation" surely _facebook and
| twitter_ are many times worse than TikTok.
|
| Surely the appropriate modern parallel is fentanyl.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| I'm with you except for the last sentence.
|
| What's happening to TikTok is not a good proxy for the
| trajectory of social media companies in the US, esp Meta.
| They've got plenty of tailwind.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
|
| I think the government could fix it with a screen time limit.
| 30 mins for under 18's, and 1 hour for everyone else, per day.
|
| Maybe allow you to carry over some.
|
| After that, it's emergency calls only.
| Aurornis wrote:
| It's still weird to me to see tech website comments calling
| for extreme government restrictions on technology use.
| Limiting adults to 1 hour of screen time per day across
| social apps? That's a call for an insane level of government
| intrusion into our lives that is virtually unheard of outside
| of extremely controlling governments.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Americans have faced so little strife domestically that they're
| unironically comparing social media addiction to the Opium Wars
| mhalle wrote:
| Note that the Supreme Court decided the argument based on
| national security grounds, not content manipulation grounds.
|
| Justice Gorsuch in his concurrence specifically commended the
| court for doing so, believing that a content manipulation
| argument could run afoul of first amendment rights.
|
| He said that "One man's covert content manipulation is
| another's editorial discretion".
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Be that as it may, I think a large percentage of the
| opposition don't buy this natsec reasoning at all. You could
| use that excuse for anything, like mass surveillance via the
| Patriot Act...
|
| EFF's stance is that SCOTUS's decision based on national
| security ignores the First Amendment scrutiny that is
| required.
|
| > The United States' foreign foes easily can steal, scrape,
| or buy Americans' data by countless other means. The ban or
| forced sale of one social media app will do virtually nothing
| to protect Americans' data privacy - only comprehensive
| consumer privacy legislation can achieve that goal. Shutting
| down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization
| based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national
| manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that
| the US has previously condemned globally.
| accrual wrote:
| I don't buy it either. Entire generations are growing up
| without expectations of digital privacy. Our data leaks
| everywhere, all the time, intentionally and otherwise.
|
| I think it's more about the fact that users of platform are
| able to connect and share their experiences and potential
| action for resolving class inequality. There's an entire
| narrative that is outside of US govt/corp/media control,
| and that's a problem (to them).
| InTheArena wrote:
| China doesn't need Tiktok for opium. They have the real thing
| as well.
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-fentanyl-pipeline-and...
| warner25 wrote:
| The fentanyl pipeline is what came to my mind as well;
| another thing exported from China to the US to disastrous
| effect on the well-being of many Americans.
|
| To be fair, trying to consider the other way around, I wonder
| what Chinese people could point to as disastrous stuff (in
| terms of the well-being of their population) coming from the
| US.
| the_clarence wrote:
| Why are people upvoting this.
| liontwist wrote:
| Internet loves those public school history fact references.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice
|
| I don't think this is true. Everyone that is reading this forum
| might even be too strong. The majority of people happily eating
| the pablum up as the users of TikTok can't even tell the
| blatantly false content from just the silly dancing videos.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The symmetry for opium is fentanyl which China senda to the US
| by the ton.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I think TikTok and social media in general is much more
| insidious than opium, because it is hard to know if you are
| using an addictive product, or what product you're even being
| sold (like if you are being sold a subtly manipulated
| information diet). For example, it just came out that TikTok
| staff (in the US) were forced to take oaths of loyalty to not
| disrupt the "national honor" of China or undermine "ethnic
| unity" in China and so on. TikTok executives are required to
| sign an agreement with ByteDance subsidiary Douyin (the China
| version of TikTok) that polices speech and demands compliance
| with China's socialist system. That's deeply disturbing but
| also undetectable. It came out now because of a lawsuit.
|
| See this for more https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42739855
|
| EDIT: the link above doesn't work for others for reason, so
| here is the source story:
| https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| That's a great analogy.
| JimmaDaRustla wrote:
| "Too addictive" is such a nonsensical way of saying "accurate".
|
| Nicotine being legal but TikTok is not tells you everything you
| need to know about government wanting to control the
| "addictiveness" of social media.
| tmaly wrote:
| I am surprised someone has not attempted to reverse engineer it
| or make something very similar.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| << Second, I am pleased that the Court declines to consider the
| classified evidence the government has submitted to us but
| shielded from petitioners and their counsel. Ante, at 13, n. 3.
| Efforts to inject secret evidence into judicial proceedings
| present obvious constitutional concerns. Usually, "the evidence
| used to prove the Government's case must be disclosed to the
| individual so that he has an opportunity to show that it is
| untrue."
|
| Good grief.. I clearly wasn't following it closely, but even the
| fact that this could have become a thing ( SCOTUS ruling using
| 'redacted' as evidence ) is severely disheartening.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > but even the fact that this could have become a thing
|
| So you're upset that the Biden admin attempted to sway the
| court with secret evidence. But any admin always could behave
| in that way, and nothing you can do can stop that. The fact
| that the court decided to ignore that secret evidence should be
| comforting. Sure, nothing forces the court in the future to
| stick to that, but this is always true as to everything.
| mrkramer wrote:
| US should ban all Chinese software apps and services as long as
| CCP does not allow Google and Facebook to operate in China. As a
| matter of fact not only Google and Facebook but all the Western
| internet social apps and services should be allowed in China. We
| want equal opportunity and equal rights for business. This way it
| is not fair play, it is botched market economy.
| est wrote:
| US should ban the Internet. Lets have huge LAN parties in every
| country instead!
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I'm in!
| suraci wrote:
| Come on, we are Communist China
|
| don't be like us
| MaxHoppersGhost wrote:
| Thank goodness! I don't know how anyone thinks this isn't a good
| idea for America.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Not sure if sarcastic or not, I'll bite. If tiktok infringes
| some kind of data privacy laws, punish them. If the data
| privacy laws of the US are bad, improve them.
|
| But this? Just because some... not so bright soldiers use
| tiktok to upload videos of their base? What else is there so
| bad it requires a total ban? It seems like hypocrisy to me,
| when Meta, Google, X also have similar data available and also
| don't want to adhere to for example EU laws.
| pr337h4m wrote:
| Do you think a Great Firewall of America is a good thing?
| Because that is what this ruling enables.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Do you think TikToc is a net positive for the world or the
| US?
| yibg wrote:
| Isn't that the same argument used by China for why the GFW
| is needed? The US allows all sorts of things that can be
| argued as net negative (e.g. smoking).
| yyhhsj0521 wrote:
| It is not. But not banning it for geopolitical reasons is a
| net positive for everyone.
| jMyles wrote:
| It is a net negative.
|
| Attempts at intervention by legacy states over the
| evolution of the internet (which will obviously fail on
| sufficiently long time-scales) are also a net negative.
|
| Two net negatives do not make a net positive.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Market intervention through administrative measures is never a
| good thing for any country.
| lugu wrote:
| I am wondering why, can you develop?
| ritcgab wrote:
| If you don't know why, you don't need to know why.
| kirkbackus wrote:
| In this case, the necessity of this law is proof that
| American companies are incapable of producing an app that
| can compete with Tiktok.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Great twitter thread analyzing the Supreme Court decision from a
| former Congressional Staffer who now leads a think tank doing
| tech-focused policy work:
| https://x.com/marcidale/status/1880274466619691247
| rvz wrote:
| The clock is still "tiking" for TikTok.
|
| As usual, the digital crack / cocaine addicts of this generation
| are now running to Red note for their next fresh hit in less than
| 48 hours.
|
| Nothing's changed. Just a new brand of digital crack / cocaine
| has overtaken another one who's supply is getting cut off by the
| US.
|
| Although a fine would be better than an outright ban as I said
| before.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Looks like India set the way here. Wonder what it holds for US
| India relations.
| est wrote:
| china banned US apps like since forever.
| russdpale wrote:
| Good, now do it for the rest of them, from linkd-in to facebook.
| elzbardico wrote:
| This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used
| social network across the world WITHOUT american content.
|
| Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our
| regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly
| popular outside Russian speaking countries.
|
| Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a
| social network has global reach but without american content.
|
| Will it keep being a english first space? Will it survive/thrive?
| How the content is going to evolve? What does this means in terms
| of global cultural influence? Will we see internationalized
| Chinese content dominating it? Will this backfire for the US?
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Instagram and Facebook is more popular outside the US and China
| than TikTok.
| schroeding wrote:
| At least in Germany, for Gen Z, Facebook is quite dead and
| Instagram co-exists with TikTok, both with >70% of the cohort
| [1] using them. There is no clear winner. Anecdata, but for
| freshmen, TikTok is _way_ more popular.
|
| TikTok-based social media campaigns also e.g. managed to
| unexpectedly swing an election in Romania (for Georgescu, was
| later annulled).
|
| [1] https://www.absatzwirtschaft.de/tiktok-vs-instagram-ein-
| verg... - sorry, I only found a German source
| gunian wrote:
| Why do you think Instagram is immune from being used in
| social media based campaign? The only difference between
| TikTok and Instagram is the recommendation engine they use
| schroeding wrote:
| ... I do not think that it's immune? I don't see where I
| implied this, sorry if I was unclear. ^^'
|
| This specific campaign was done via TikTok, though, and
| had massive impact, which shows that TikTok has heavy
| usage and is popular, outside of the US and China.
|
| (I'm not American, I have no horse in this "ban foreign
| TikTok" race. :D)
| gunian wrote:
| Sorry me neither english no good the thing I'm trying to
| understand why do you think they used TikTok over YT
| shorts or Instagram Reels? What makes it better suited
| from a coding POV usage numbers suggest comparable MAUs
| for all three
| schroeding wrote:
| That it was done via TikTok was widely reported by news
| outlets on all sides of the political spectrum where I
| live.
|
| Why they've done it via TikTok - I simply don't know. :D
|
| Maybe better discoverability via the For You page?
| gunian wrote:
| aw man disappointing was hoping someone had a dataset for
| rating discoverability, platform bias etc tired of news
| from all spectrums :)
|
| maybe next Christmas if I'm not on the Santa naughty list
| schroeding wrote:
| Yeah, actual comparable hard data would be nice, agreed
| :D
| raincole wrote:
| > This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used
| social network across the world WITHOUT american content.
|
| For whom? UK users?
|
| TikTok users who use the Chinese version are not consuming
| content from US creators. They won't notice this ban at all.
| zapzupnz wrote:
| > For who? UK users?
|
| Literally every TikTok user from around the world? There's
| more than just the US, UK, and China, y'know.
| Retric wrote:
| 2/3 of the global population doesn't speak English.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| TikTok content is mostly visual. My YouTube shorts are
| frequently foreign language with AI subtitles.
|
| Also, TikTok is banned in India and--ironically--China
| [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
| Retric wrote:
| A valid point, but I doubt people are going to notice if
| "clips of people slipping on ice" suddenly exclude
| Americans post 2024.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| There will be a small category of content that will
| disappear. For instance, my fyp was full of Chinese
| fashion content (by choice) so I'm sure there are other
| categories of content that non-Americans consume that are
| American. Whether it's Movies or Music or whatever.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| As their first language, perhaps
| Retric wrote:
| That's at all, there are only ~380 million native English
| speakers.
|
| Of that 1/3 (of the global population) a significant
| percentage have extremely limited skills, though the
| threshold is above knowing a few random words.
| adriancr wrote:
| > Including people who speak English as a second
| language, estimates of the total number of Anglophones
| vary from 1.5 billion to 2 billion
|
| wikipedia. You are a bit off...
|
| As for native you have US+UK+Canada+Australia+NZ+Ireland.
| So more then your 380M.
| Retric wrote:
| ~47 million Americans aren't native English speakers
| having immigrated from a non English speaking country.
| adriancr wrote:
| Source?
| Retric wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_immigration_s
| tat...
| adriancr wrote:
| > aren't native English speakers
|
| Where does it state this?
|
| Do you assume that all immigrants are non-native english
| speakers?
| Retric wrote:
| By coming from different country their native language
| (IE what language they heard as infants) more closely
| resembles that country than America. Note I said 47
| million and there are more than 47 million immigrants.
|
| There are also some native born Americans to immigrants
| who also don't have English as their first language and
| People born in China whose first language is English, but
| that's ever smaller refinements on a specific estimate.
| adriancr wrote:
| [flagged]
| Retric wrote:
| [flagged]
| adriancr wrote:
| You made this statement which is wrong:
|
| > ~47 million Americans aren't native English speakers
| having immigrated from a non English speaking country.
|
| Your link says 46M total which includes native speakers.
| So it does not state how many non-native speakers. (not
| that it would matter as most would be proficient english
| speakers, just pointing out you're exagerating and your
| numbers are wrong)
| Retric wrote:
| Link is showing slightly outdated data as is common on
| Wikipedia, but the breakdown by country is what's
| important.
|
| "About 47.8 million immigrants in 2023"
| https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-immigrants-are-in-
| the-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| My family immigrated. We're native English speakers from
| India.
| Retric wrote:
| So immigration had zero impact on your family being a
| native English speaker. And again 47 < 47.8
| adriancr wrote:
| [flagged]
| Retric wrote:
| The question of your native language is answered long
| before any of what you're talking about here. A 20 year
| old isn't time traveling to have different parents when
| they take an exam.
| switchbak wrote:
| Who cares if they're native English speakers or not, as
| long as they can converse in the language?
| Retric wrote:
| shortrounddev2 who brought the topic up without knowing
| the numbers.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| If they are native English speakers, then how do they
| have extremely limited skills?
| Retric wrote:
| I added clarification, but "that 1/3" refers to my prior
| mention of 1/3 as in 1/3 of the global population.
| edoceo wrote:
| American education.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| There are only about 400 million native English speakers.
| You can't just add up the population of English speaking
| countries, because that excludes immigrants living in
| these countries, and people born there who did not learn
| English as their first language.
|
| As for people who learned it later, even in Europe, only
| about 40% self-identify as being able to speak English.
| If you visit places like China or Indonesia, you'll soon
| notice that very few people know more than a few basic
| words in English once you leave the tourist areas.
| whoistraitor wrote:
| IMO first-or-not is moot. It's estimated that around one
| billion people speak English to a reasonably fluent
| level. Included in that is many of the commonwealth
| countries in which English often holds second spot as a
| lingua franca (eg. India). It's an incredibly global
| language.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I don't think anyone disputes that it is an incredibly
| global language. I certainly don't.
| permo-w wrote:
| this is horseshit. Canada, the US and the UK alone have -
| minimum - 400 million. Australia has 25 million, Ireland
| 5, New Zealand 5, then there's the Anglophone African
| nations, plus a lot of the Carribbean. Nigeria on its own
| likely has 100 million native speakers of English
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| As I've said, you can't just sum up populations. About
| 20% of the US population are immigrants. A lot of them
| won't speak English as their native language.
|
| Only about 60 million Nigerians speak English. Hausa is
| the most commonly spoken native language. Just because
| English is the official language doesn't mean that it's
| people's native language.
|
| I'm not just making stuff up. The 400 million number is
| from The Ethnologue, a source which linguists generally
| consider as reliable.
| permo-w wrote:
| I'd like to see their working for that number. Let's say
| we subtract 20% from Canada + the UK + the US, we get
| ~320 million. add Nigeria and Uganda and you have easily
| 400 million. That's without Australia, Ireland, New
| Zealand or any of the African or Caribbean countries.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| There aren't that many native English speakers in Nigeria
| and Uganda. To me, it looks like your back-of-the-
| envelope calculation will come pretty close to 400
| million.
| Retric wrote:
| > You have easily 400 million
|
| No you don't:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Nigeria
|
| ~60 million people in Nigeria speak English out of 230
| million people, but that 60 million isn't almost
| exclusively native speakers.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Have you been to Nigeria?
|
| Not all Nigerians can speak English. But there are a lot
| who can. It honestly _felt_ about 50 /50 to me. And I see
| some other commenters saying that 60 million Nigerians
| have some ability to speak it. (But you need to think of
| that like if I was to say 60 million Americans have some
| ability to speak Spanish.)
|
| However, even for those with some facility with English,I
| don't know that I'd classify it as their native language.
| lelanthran wrote:
| That doesn't sound accurate. Did you mean as a first
| language?
| Retric wrote:
| > first language?
|
| 1/3 of the global population is at all, there's only 380
| million native English speakers.
|
| US, UK, Canada, Australia is where you find the bulk of
| native speakers. In say Germany or whatever they may
| become fluent but it's relatively rare for German parents
| to be speaking English to each other in casual
| conversation next to an infant's crib.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there's only 380 million native English speakers_
|
| Not how a _lingua franca_ works.
|
| There are 1.5 to 2 billion English speakers [1]. By far
| the largest number of people to speak a single language.
| Most of them are in America [2]. (If you count English
| learners, No. 2 is China [3].)
|
| [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-
| today/articl...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
| speaking_world
|
| [3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236986651_Th
| e_stati...
| Retric wrote:
| Being fluent is a different question, you can dream in
| English without it being your native language.
|
| first language = A first language (L1), native language,
| native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a
| person has been exposed to from birth
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_language
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yes, we understand what a first language is. You should
| understand why that's irrelevant to this discussion.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| You know, they weren't the one to bring it up and their
| point seems to have consistently been that the majority
| of the global population does not speak English.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Plurality of the world (25%) and a larger plurality of
| the internet-connected world (37%, [1]) speak English.
| (Granted, most of TikTok's market now probably doesn't
| speak English.)
|
| [1] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/pages/stat/de
| fault.a...
| Retric wrote:
| Which was my original comment...
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > majority of the global population does not speak
| English
|
| > Plurality of the world ... speak English
|
| Sorry, what point are you trying to make?
| ANewFormation wrote:
| CIA gives 18.8%, so about 1.5 billion. [1]
|
| But this number is dubious as it's largely from self
| response. Here [2] is a list by country. So 25% of Thais,
| 50% of Ukrainians, 50% of Poles, and so on "speak
| English."
|
| In the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and
| introduce themselves that is probably true. But "my name
| is Bob" maketh not a common tongue. If we narrowed it
| down to the percent of people that could hold a basic
| conversation, the number would plummet precipitously,
| likely leaving Mandarin at the top.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_
| languages...
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_
| English-s...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the number would plummet precipitously, likely leaving
| Mandarin at the top_
|
| 70% of Chinese speak Mandarin as a first language [1].
|
| > _the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and
| introduce themselves that is probably true_
|
| This is English learners. If you count English learners,
| a third of Chinese speak English and a majority of the
| internet-connected world.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China
| herval wrote:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-
| spoken-l...
| coltonweaver wrote:
| A quick search seems to confirm this. A few sites list
| the number to be around ~1.3 billion people who speak
| English at all, with around ~360-380 million being native
| speakers. For example:
| https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-
| eng....
| gkbrk wrote:
| English is literally the most commonly spoken language in
| the world. No language in the world will fit your
| criteria if you want more than two thirds of the global
| population to speak it.
| Retric wrote:
| Why would that criteria matter when what we are
| discussing is the impact when you remove a country's
| creators from a platform?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why would that criteria matter when what we are
| discussing is the impact when you remove a country's
| creators from a platform?_
|
| That country's creators belong to the largest native-
| speaking bloc of the most-commonly spoken language
| (native or not) in the world.
| Retric wrote:
| Actual numbers of English speakers already captured that
| info. Saying there's no other language that comes close
| doesn't change anything here.
| nfw2 wrote:
| I think they meant that because content is siloed already
| by language barriers, the only ecosystem that would be
| affected by the removal of US users is the English-speaking
| subsystem.
|
| That said, the English-speaking world clearly extends well
| beyond the US and English commonwealth countries nowadays.
| Also, a lot of videos don't have any dialogue and can also
| cross the language barrier.
| tbeseda wrote:
| > TikTok users who use the Chinese version
|
| The what now? There are no Chinese nationals using TikTok.
| It's banned there. Like it's now banned in the US.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Douyin is TikTok. Before all the drama started, it was the
| same software powered by most of the same backend servers.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Douyin is a fundamentally different product. Different
| content, less addictive, etc.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Ah yes, USA, UK and China. The 3 countries that exist.
| 8note wrote:
| its fantastic for canada
| graeme wrote:
| Tiktok is actually surprisingly national in how it serves its
| content. If you're outside the US you don't see most American
| accounts except the ones that go very viral.
|
| Edit: I should clarify. This might mean most content you see is
| English, if you're interested in English content. However it
| matters where the video was geographically uploaded from. If
| you upload a tiktok video and check the stats you'll see most
| views are from your region or country.
|
| Tiktok shows videos locally, then regionally and then finally
| worldwide if yoo have a big hit.
|
| It would be interesting to know what fraction of the English
| content people see is posted geographically from within
| America.
| fouronnes3 wrote:
| The question is, was this a conscious human design decision
| or did the algorithm learn to do that by itself?
| moralestapia wrote:
| You don't deserve the downvotes from the immature peeps
| around here. Your question is 100% valid.
|
| I would lean for the latter, the simple explanation may be
| that people just prefer local content.
| jrflowers wrote:
| Considering the algorithm did not crawl out of the
| primordial ooze unbidden by man I am going to guess the
| former.
| markeroon wrote:
| The recommendation engine is at least partially learned
| so it's fairly likely that it's the latter
| svnt wrote:
| Why is that the question? If it learned to do it by itself
| it still is being allowed to do it by humans.
| mrbungie wrote:
| The algo learned "by itself", but humans set a objetive to
| optimize and then implemented it to do so as well as it
| they could.
|
| So essentially both I guess?
| dayjah wrote:
| Source?
|
| My anecdotal evidence of watching TikTok usage on others'
| phones while riding subway systems in Paris suggest there's
| plenty of English-language content out there.
| permo-w wrote:
| in Morocco most of the adults speak French and Arabic, so
| when they need to speak to an Englisher they get some kids
| over to help because they all speak English from TikTok
| MasterScrat wrote:
| This hasn't been my experience, using TikTok from
| Switzerland, I almost exclusively see English language, with
| a focus on my interests
| pepinator wrote:
| Switzerland has just 8 million people, which are divided
| into two big language groups. And most people speak (or at
| least understand) English. So, it's natural for the
| algorithm to converge to content in English.
| Pooge wrote:
| > And most people speak (or at least understand) English.
|
| This is wrong. In cities where there's a lot of tourism,
| they _might_ understand. Most Swiss people only speak
| their local languages (German or French). As for those
| living in Ticino, they tend to be better polyglots.
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| That doesn't match my experience.
|
| About 40% of all Swiss inhabitants speak English at least
| once a week [1].
|
| Anecdotally, I can't think of a single acquaintance
| younger than 50 years old that doesn't speak fluently.
| Everyone in Switzerland learns English at school for at
| least five years. Most even for seven years.
|
| Some of my German speaking friends even talk in English
| to French speaking people, even when both have learned
| the other's respective language at school.
|
| [1]: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/bev
| oelkerun...
| Pooge wrote:
| > Everyone in Switzerland learns English at school for at
| least five years. Most even for seven years.
|
| We learn the other's respective language for 7 years,
| too. Yet, as you pointed out, people speak in English
| because there is no willingness to learn and apply the
| other's language.
|
| Some of my friends speak English fluently, but I have a
| very hard bias as I work in IT. My whole family doesn't
| speak any language other than French. Most of the people
| I've been to school with don't come close to speaking
| English casually. None would watch an English content
| creator.
|
| Due to the shared heritage between the English and German
| languages, perhaps it's different in the German-speaking
| region. If you ask someone slightly complicated English
| questions, they might not be completely lost - after all,
| some words share the same etymology. But Switzerland is
| absolutely not an English-speaking country _at all_.
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| No, I wouldn't say it's an English-speaking country
| either. No one talks in English to their peers that are
| from the same language region.
|
| But yes, I can mostly speak of the German-speaking part.
| People generally have little problems switching to
| English, and are used to speaking as well.
| Pooge wrote:
| Would you say this is also true of Swiss living in more
| rural areas? And among older people, too?
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| This is just a feeling, and I am still speaking for the
| German part only, but I think age matters less than
| urban/rural.
|
| Many older people I know have no problems communicating
| in English when they're abroad.
|
| Would be interesting to have the BFS statistics split by
| age group and region as well...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I met plenty of people in Lausanne who didn't speak
| English, or at least didn't want to speak English (it is
| hard to tell, and anyways, it doesn't really matter). I
| visited Montreal shortly after my 2 year stay in Lausanne
| ended and I was surprised on how multi-lingual people
| were there.
| paulg2222 wrote:
| It is not German, but Alemannic.
| Pooge wrote:
| I'm sorry if this sounds offensive or derogatory. But as
| a Swiss person, I've never heard anyone call it
| "Alemannic". Whether it be foreigners, Swiss-French
| speakers or Swiss-German speakers, everyone called it
| "German".
| slater wrote:
| Probably making a distinction between high german and
| swiss german.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German
| computerthings wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German
|
| > Swiss German (Standard German: Schweizerdeutsch,
| Alemannic German: Schwiizerdutsch, Schwyzerdutsch,
| Schwiizertuutsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart, and others;
| Romansh: Svizzers Tudestg) is any of the Alemannic
| dialects spoken in the German-speaking part of
| Switzerland, and in some Alpine communities in Northern
| Italy bordering Switzerland.
|
| All Swiss-German is an Alemannic dialect, not all
| Alemannic dialects are Swiss-German, is how I'd interpret
| that.
| epolanski wrote:
| Lived in Switzerland and this is really not true.
|
| What I've learned is that since Switzerland has 3
| official languages (German, French and Italian) children
| and teens at school focus on learning one of the other
| two regions they are not from.
|
| In particular this leads to French and Italian cantons to
| be moderately fluent in each other's language. Strikingly
| when I lived in Lausanne, more people knew Italian than
| English. English was really not on their radar (plus, add
| that francophones are kind of elitist when it comes to
| languages and don't really like to consume content that
| is not in french).
|
| In German speaking Switzerland proficiency in English was
| still subpar from most of the rest of Europe when walking
| in a shop or going to a restaurant.
| secstate wrote:
| Not to derail, but when I was in Switzerland, I found the
| German Swiss to be far more elitarian about NOT learning
| French, than the other way around. And French Swiss being
| a minority, they kinda got treated as other or less-than
| in the bulk of Switzerland. But all German Swiss are at
| least willing to try English, while the French Swiss tend
| to avoid English, so maybe that's where the vibe comes
| from?
| oblio wrote:
| For both you and OP, first of you, thank you for
| "elitarian", but even after reading the definition, I
| still think you both meant "elitist".
|
| And even though I probably tend to agree with both of
| you, it's kinda funny to blame French or German speakers
| about being elitist against English speakers, of which
| native speakers are notoriously monolingual :-)
| epolanski wrote:
| I don't blame anyone, I'm Italian and I'm fluent in
| French, English and Polish besides Italian.
|
| I'm just saying that in the French part of Switzerland
| English wasn't a given among any generation and it
| neither was common in the German/Italian parts too if you
| exclude the expats.
|
| And yes, francophone tend to be very elitist about
| consuming exclusively french content, regardless of them
| being from France, Switzerland or Belgium.
| sschueller wrote:
| Switzerland has 4 official languages and English is not
| one of them.
| financypants wrote:
| i mean, we all have the algorithm tailored to what we want
| to see, so the parent comment here is kind of a moot point,
| right?
| datavirtue wrote:
| I joined TikTok and was immediately barraged with naked
| young girls. Haven't been back since.
| crucialfelix wrote:
| It depends what you interact with. I tried it fresh today
| and it quickly decided I'm a Berliner muslim who likes
| Nigerian food because I lingered for a minute on something.
| That interest graph is very fast and volatile.
| sushid wrote:
| Uhh... that's kind of how these algorithms work. I presume
| you interact (i.e. don't scroll past) with a lot of the
| English posts. It's going to index on that and show you
| more English content. When I'm abroad, I might see a few
| posts in their native language but the algorithm will
| revert to showing English posts about the city/country once
| it realizes I'm not really jiving with Portuguese posts,
| for example.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Canada and potentially the UK are gonna be having the biggest
| shock I guess. Potentially Australia too?
| the_clarence wrote:
| If its like Reels (I dont use tiktok) as soon as you are in
| France its only French content. Same for youtube.
| runjake wrote:
| As an American in the US, I get quite a bit of foreign and
| foreign language content under For You.
|
| This is the inverse to the situation you describe but it
| makes me doubtful that non-US don't see a lot of American
| content.
| graeme wrote:
| The algo bends to your interests. But it's trivial to test
| the default reach if you ever post a video. They show stats
| for viewer location.
|
| You can even find guides by people trying to make their
| phone seem american so they can reach us audiences.
| spandrew wrote:
| I believe the algo is somewhat timezone based, too.
|
| Very common for ppl to be served Chinese or asian influencer
| content after 12pm (EST). So common, in fact, most of the
| western users begin posting "whelp, time to go to bed!"
|
| The majority of the content feels regional, though.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I've never used tiktok... Do you mean 12AM (midnight)? Or
| are people commonly in the habit of mid-afternoon naps?
| IncRnd wrote:
| 12PM is Noon. Did you mean Midnight?
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| TikTok is surprisingly national at the surface level, but it
| is all coordinated back with the parent China based entities
| (ByteDance, Douyin, and the CCP), so that even if it is
| national, it upholds China's national interests. See the
| story at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42739855 for
| more details. But basically, TikTok executives had to agree
| to let ByteDance monitor their personal devices, swear oaths
| to uphold various goals of the CCP ("national unity"
| "socialism" etc), report to both a US-based manager and a
| China-based manager, uphold the CCP's moderation/censorship
| scheme, and so on. It is REALLY aggressive and unethical, but
| also reveals how subtly manipulative the entire system of
| TikTok is.
| ghfhghg wrote:
| Your link doesn't appear to work
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Oh weird - it works for me. Maybe the discussion got
| banned somehow? Here is the underlying story:
| https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-
| oaths...
| TaurenHunter wrote:
| https://archive.is/4Y8w5
| gunian wrote:
| Do you think it would be possible to show this
| programmatically? As in scrape n posts from TikTok and
| Reels and show the first displays CCP tendencies?
|
| Or is this like a general US freedom China dictator logic
| Kkoala wrote:
| My experience is that it serves you the content that you
| spent time watching and engaging with.
|
| And it's quite easy to steer it towards a certain topic if
| you want to
| jmyeet wrote:
| First, I still don't think the ban will actually happen. The
| current administration will punt the issue to the next and
| Trump has already signaled he wants to save Tiktok, whatever
| that means. That might be by anointing a buyer that he
| personally is an investor in. Tiktok may choose to still
| shutter in the US rather than being forcibly sold.
|
| But there's a biger issue than loss of American content should
| this come to pass: the loss os American ad revenue for the
| platform and creators. A lot of people create content aimed at
| Americans because an American audience is lucrative for ad
| revenue. If that goes away, what does that do to the financial
| viability of the platform?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Trump has already signaled he wants to save Tiktok_
|
| Trump can blame Biden and move on.
|
| > _If that goes away, what does that do to the financial
| viability of the platform?_
|
| Bytedance makes most of its money from Douyin.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| He has a major donor that owns part of TikTok. He'll save
| it for corrupt reasons, ignore the real concerns about it,
| then move on.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _He has a major donor that owns part of TikTok_
|
| He has a major donor who owns part of _Bytedance_.
| They're not losing their investment with this ban.
| NickC25 wrote:
| He also has a major donor who owns Meta, and a major
| donor who owns Twitter/X.
|
| He also has a daughter who is the only American to hold
| patents in China without having to license IP to a
| Chinese company.
|
| We are about to see some strange mental gymnastics out of
| 1600 Penn.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Anyone with significant financial interests in China
| should not be able to represent the US in confronting
| China.
|
| And yet..
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| 1. Then why is that investor so aggressively against the
| forced divestment? (not a ban)
|
| 2. Bytedance will certainly lose value if its main
| product loses one of its main markets.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| A worrying angle is that Elon is essentially subservient to
| the CCP because of Tesla's presence in China. Remember when
| Tesla signed a pledge to uphold socialism at the behest of
| the CCP a couple years back? It's also why Elon - who claims
| to uphold free speech, capitalism, democratic values, etc -
| will NEVER say anything negative about China. If Trump is
| close to Elon, and Elon is easily influenced/controlled by
| the CCP, it really undermines the independence of US
| leadership. I am concerned this next administration will be
| soft on China in all the wrong ways, including not enforcing
| a ban that has been legally instituted and upheld unanimously
| by SCOTUS.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Or Indian content. It will probably end up getting banned in a
| lot of places over time.
| hintymad wrote:
| > This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used
| social network across the world WITHOUT american content.
|
| China has had such social networks for a long time. Their Weibo
| and Xiaohongshu are two prominent examples. Weibo started as a
| copycat of Twitter, but then beats Twitter hands-down with
| faster iterations, better features, and more vibrant user
| engagement despite the gross censorship imposed by the
| government.
|
| My guess is that TT can still thrive without American content,
| as long as other governments do not interfere as the US did. A
| potential threat to TT is that the US still has the best
| consumer market, so creators may still flock to a credible TT-
| alternative for better monetization, thus snatching away TT's
| current user base in other countries.
| myrloc wrote:
| Are Weibo and Xiaohongshu used widely outside of China? Given
| the names alone I'd imagine their adoption is fairly limited
| to China.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Xiaohongshu is generally known as RedNote outside of China.
| logancbrown wrote:
| To directly answer the question, Rednote is not generally
| used outside China, and the point about these apps being
| representative of "global" social media apps is false.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| RedNote was #1 on the App Store download list for a
| couple of days.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/chinese-app-rednote-
| hits-1-i...
| drakythe wrote:
| That's an extremely recent development caused by the TT
| shutdown looming.
| xmprt wrote:
| So was this app at one point in time:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/9/21058399/david-dobrik-
| disp...
|
| It's called Dispo. You probably haven't heard of it
| because it became almost irrelevant a few weeks after
| launch. #1 on the app store doesn't mean a whole lot.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| How many of those downloads originated in China? Genuine
| question, I read the article and it doesn't say. Apple's
| App Store is available in China, and China's population
| alone could be skewing those numbers.
| SXX wrote:
| App store top apps are per-region. And China one likely
| even running on completely different infrastructure
| because CCP.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Yes it's called a meme and it won't last.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| It received some popularity among TikTok refugees from
| the US and subsequently also from around the world by
| users who got curios about what the fuzz was all about.
| dluan wrote:
| Xiaohongshu is used by a lot of huaqiao outside of China.
| It has a sizeable overseas userbase, but it also has 300M
| total users.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| To their point, almost exclusively Chinese overseas until
| the recent memeing.
| ameister14 wrote:
| Which is honestly weird. It's Little Red Book, not Red
| Note, in reference to Mao's little red book.
| hintymad wrote:
| Yeah, if "widely used" means that multiple nations and
| cultures use the service, then they are not widely used.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Xiaohingshu is widely used outside China... by Chinese.
|
| My experience in the UK is that the whole Chinese community
| is on it for anything (discussions, classifieds...) instead
| of Facebook, Insta, etc.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Looks like it's getting a lot of TikTik refugees now
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2475l7zpqyo
| deepsun wrote:
| Re. copycats -- VK was also a blatant copycat of Facebook,
| down to copy-pasted CSS styles.
| kgeist wrote:
| The very first versions, IIRC. Now they have diverged
| completely.
| gklitz wrote:
| > creators may still flock to a credible TT-alternative for
| better monetization
|
| Seems people are already mass migrating to Rednote. I'm not
| sure how that plays out though.
| hintymad wrote:
| Yeah, me neither. Some analysis said the absolute number is
| large but the percentage is still small. And the migration
| is more about protesting. Xiaohongshu will need to come up
| with better monetization schemes too.
| whycome wrote:
| How will YouTube shorts, and instagram stories pivot? They
| already aren't seen as true rivals, but maybe they can change
| or spinoff a third brand. The gold in TR has always been its
| algorithm. Maybe they can fake it. How easy will it be to
| circumvent via vpn? Will other English content on tt skyrocket?
| Eg uk and Canada.
| redserk wrote:
| YouTube Shorts is terrible. YouTube clearly wanted to have
| some answer to short-form video but without putting much
| effort into it.
|
| Instagram Reels is a bit better but it feels very "sanitized"
| and fake.
| epolanski wrote:
| I'm really at loss at how bad Google is at algorithms
| considering how pioneering they have been in selecting
| engineers based on their algorithmic skills and their
| immense contributions to the whole ML sector.
|
| I can let Spotify play on its own for hours and it will be
| just right...Even with songs I know nothing about, it's
| just very good.
|
| I tried Tik Tok once and I could see how easily it could
| pick content.
|
| But Youtube and Youtube Music are a disaster. Youtube Music
| is a decent service, but it's hard to get suggested
| anything really.
|
| Youtube Shorts are a disaster. Sure I like the Sopranos, I
| find some Joe Rogan's interview interesting and sure I like
| the NBA, but that's virtually all it feeds me, even if I
| start scrolling away to other topics.
| glenstein wrote:
| >The gold in TR has always been its algorithm.
|
| Yes, but it's also singularly focused on its core experience
| rather than being a bolted-on experience that is confusingly
| blended into an ecosystem where it's not the primary
| experience.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| Is TikTok big in Europe? Is Europe big on social media?
| SSLy wrote:
| yes on both
| cm2012 wrote:
| India also just banned TikTok, I wouldn't be surprised if bans
| became widespread outside of America with any country worried
| about China's geopolitical power.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It will take ages for that to happen. AFAIK the "ban" only
| really removes it from app stores, I don't think it even
| requires store owners to force it off of phones that have
| downloaded it already.
| OKRainbowKid wrote:
| It probably prevents them from distributing updates though.
| rtkwe wrote:
| True enough but I don't think that will be fast either. The
| main reason to update would be features and they can keep
| the old version of any APIs up to support US customers.
| Other than that the only reason they would have to update
| is any breaking changes in Android/iOS which are a lot
| rarer these days afaik since they're both so mature as OSs.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The data must be hosted in the US. Oracle will have to
| shutdown their servers.
| jhaile wrote:
| Although TikTok has said they are gearing up to shut the
| service down.
| glenstein wrote:
| I wonder if it's more of a deactivation pending XYZ, with a
| readiness to flip the on-switch back on if there's a policy
| change in the U.S. (which it seems like there might be).
| toephu2 wrote:
| Remember, TikTok has also been banned in the largest country in
| the world by population for years now..
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| It's been banned in both of the largest countries.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| If a US-based alternative appeared which not only substituted
| performatively, but also monetized creators and influencers
| enough to put everyone else to shame, people could not help but
| notice and migrate there in droves.
|
| It would be pretty cool if there was a respectable capitalist
| with enough money, or if that won't do it then a bigger more-
| respectable political organization or something, and Tiktok
| would be nothing but a memory of how things used to be before
| they got better.
|
| Think about it, a social force or financial pressure strong
| enough to reverse unfavorable trends, _even after they have
| already gained momentum_.
|
| And all it takes is focusing that pressure in an unfamiliar
| direction that could probably best be described as "anti-
| enshittification".
|
| I know, that's a tall ask, never mind . . .
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'd worry that such a platform would be used to reverse
| social trends unfavorable to the owner, instead of social
| trends unfavorable to society in general.
|
| It also seems... sort of bad if an individual has the ability
| to be strong enough to reverse a social trend, right? So we
| basically would have to expect one of the trends they should
| reverse to be... their own existence. In general it is
| unreasonable to expect individuals to be so enlightened as to
| work against their own existence, I think.
| glenstein wrote:
| This is why I can't wait for Loops to enable real
| federation, because it distributes this over a number of
| instances and isn't putting all the eggs in one basket.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >such a platform would be used to reverse social trends
| unfavorable to the owner,
|
| Could very well be why Tiktok appeared to begin with, as
| the original owner's mission.
|
| You're right, anyone who replaced it would most likely have
| the same mission.
|
| Otherwise,
|
| >expect one of the trends they should reverse to be...
| their own existence.
|
| Yeah, that won't happen.
|
| Very few could afford it anyway, probably only the usual
| suspects.
|
| Ah, so Confucius say "Enshittification will be its own
| reward".
|
| I guess that's as enlightened as things are going to get :\
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Until trump lets it sink, tgis is mwaninvless.
|
| Cash bribes are how laws are define now. Is america avaluable
| audiemce?
| vondur wrote:
| Well, India has already banned Tik-Tok, now the US is. It looks
| like some European countries are giving it the side eye. This
| may be the beginning of the end for it.
| franczesko wrote:
| Some other countries banned tiktok too, e.g. India
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| And China!
| toddmorey wrote:
| Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset
| about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it
| will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters
| (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad.
| Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping
| life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the
| platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure category perhaps.
|
| (I'm asking about the lived experience outside of the political
| questions around who should decide what we see / access
| online.)
|
| EDIT: Thank you for the replies! Interesting. I'm still
| wondering if most people use TikTok just for passive
| entertainment? I don't love Youtube, but it's been a huge
| learning and music discovery resource for me.
|
| The only thing I get sent from TikTok are dances and silly
| memes but I don't have an account.
| scinerio wrote:
| Not a content creator and use it regularly. My algorithm is
| mostly silly stuff, music, etc. I'm not convinced there's a
| discernible risk to national security, and as someone with a
| lot of libertarian views, I think the ban is an overstep by
| the US government.
|
| The "sticky"-ness is real, but many will flock to the TikTok
| copies in other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X,
| anyway.
|
| Regardless, I enjoy the platform. It's fun to reference the
| viral sounds/trends on the platform with other friends that
| use it.
| Ateoto wrote:
| I'm pretty upset about it honestly. TikTok's algorithm has
| always done a fantastic job of providing interesting clips in
| a way that Facebook and Instagram has never been able to
| provide. I will say that upon a new account, it's mostly
| garbage, but it quickly learned what I was interested in and
| what I would tend to engage with. It also does this while
| showing me considerably fewer ads than the meta platforms.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Seconded. My experiences were similar.
|
| That said, the algorithm got noticeably worse after 2021.
| Maybe because of the TikTok shop. I've categorized around
| 3,000 clips into different collections (with 600+ being in
| "educational") but that fell off over the last few years. I
| would be a lot more upset about the ban if they had
| maintained quality, but now I'm like well, whatever.
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| > I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage
| TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad.
|
| A sense of relief _may_ be a coping mechanism. I 've heard
| laid-off colleagues inform me they felt relief in the
| immediate aftermath; granted, the lay-offs were pre-announced
| before they communicated who would be "impacted", and it was
| at a high-pressure environment; but the human mind sometimes
| reacts in unexpected ways to loss outside of one's control.
| Rationalization is a mechanism for ego defense.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I have a lot of Japanese friends and travel between Japan and
| here frequently. TikTok is huge in Japan and a lot of my For
| You Page is content trending in Japanese spheres. I don't
| live in Japan so being able to plug into Japanese media is a
| very, very convenient thing.
|
| I'll probably continue trying to use the app if possible
| since I mostly connect with Japanese content, but I will say
| there's also a fun world of Japanese creators who straddle
| the English and Japanese speaking words who are about to lose
| an outlet to the English speaking world, and I feel really
| bad for that too.
|
| The "algorithm" is also just so much better than Reels and
| others. I spent an afternoon of PTO training my algorithm a
| couple years ago and it's been great ever since. My partner
| and I share TikToks with each other all the time and. we
| shape each other's algorithm and interests. Reels fixates too
| much on your follows and Youtube Shorts is honestly a garbage
| experience. Both platforms really reward creators building
| "brands" around their content rather than just being
| authentic or silly. I treat Reels as the place for polished
| creators or local businesses who are trying to sell me
| something and TikTok as the place for content. I find that I
| get a lot less ragebait surfaced to me than I do on other
| platforms, though I admit my partner gets more than I do. We
| both skip those videos quickly and that has helped keep this
| stuff off our FYP.
|
| An important thing to remember is TikTok was one of the first
| platforms that was _opt-in_ for short-form content. Both
| Reels and Shorts was foisted upon users who had different
| expectations of the network and as such had to deal with the
| impedance mismatch of the existing network and users who didn
| 't want short-form content. TikTok's entire value proposition
| is short-form content.
| spandrew wrote:
| They'll be on RedNote within 2 weeks.
|
| Other's have said it; but TikTok was such a nice format for
| media. It emphasized what the creator can provide its users;
| what content was legit; entertaining, informative, etc.
|
| Whereas Instagram and FB are more about personal "branding".
| You post the best version of yourself and it's rewarded with
| engagement. Where on TikTok the emphasis is on the content;
| even creators I follow and have seen dozens of videos on I
| couldn't tell you what their account name was.
|
| On TikTok you put up or you were shut up.
|
| The experience, in the end, was always on point for shortform
| content. Nothing else like it exists; and I don't think
| American tech can make it because they benefit too much from
| being ad networks. _Maybe_ YouTube shorts.
| toddmorey wrote:
| I've heard the algorithms for YouTube shorts are much
| worse. Most people have said the best thing about TikTok is
| how well it learns the content you want to see.
| oblio wrote:
| > The experience, in the end, was always on point for
| shortform content. Nothing else like it exists; and I don't
| think American tech can make it because they benefit too
| much from being ad networks.
|
| How does TikTok make money?
| toddmorey wrote:
| I feel like they were really headed the product promo /
| integrated shopping route.
| glenstein wrote:
| I've found something like a very efficient sorting into
| communities of shared interest, and something egalitarian in
| being able to see people with 0 views and get reactions from
| them.
|
| It's by contrast to say, Youtube and X, where The Algorithm
| (tm) sustains a central Nile river of dominant creators and
| you're either in it or you're not.
|
| That said, I think the political questions are rightly the
| dominant ones in this convo and those color my lived
| experience of it.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| TikTok has replaced Reddit for me (I can expand more on why I
| stopped using Reddit, but it's not related to TikTok) in
| terms of "checking what's up on the internet" or as Reddit
| would put it "Checking the homepage of the internet".
|
| I trust TikTok's "algorithm" to give me quick and
| entertaining short-bits about what's going on, what's
| interesting, etc. It learns what I'm into effortlessly, and I
| appreciate how every now and then it would throw in a
| completely new (to me) genera or type of content to check
| out. Whenever I open it, there is a feed that's been curated
| to me about things I'm interested in checking out, few new
| things that are hit or miss (and I like that), and very few
| infuriating/stupid (to me) things.
|
| Its recommendation engine is the best I have used. It's
| baffling how shitty YouTube's algorithm is. I discover
| YouTube channels I'm into form TikTok. Sometimes I'd discover
| new (or old) interesting videos from YouTube channels I
| already follow from TikTok first. For example, I follow
| Veritasium and 3Blue1Brown on YouTube but I certainly haven't
| watched their full back catalog. YouTube NEVER recommends to
| me anything from their back catalog. When I'm in the mood, I
| have to go to their channel, scroll for a while, then try to
| find a video I'd be interested in from the thumbnail/title.
| And once I do, YouTube will re-recommend to me all the videos
| I have already watched from them (which are already their
| best performing videos). Rarely would it recommend something
| new from them.
|
| On TikTok, it frequently would pull clips from old Veritasium
| or 3Blue1Brown videos for me which I'd get hooked after
| watching 10 seconds, then hob on YouTube to watch the full
| video. It's insane how bad YouTube recommendation algorithm
| is. Literally the entire "recommended" section of youtube is
| stuff I have watched before, or stuff with exactly the same
| content as things I have watched before.
|
| Here is how I find their recommendation algorithm to work:
|
| YouTube: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video?
| Here is that video again, and 10 other "brisket smoking
| videos". These are just gonna be stuck on your home page for
| the next couple of weeks now. You need to click on them one
| by one and mark "not interested" in which case you're clearly
| not interested in BBQ or cooking. Here are the last 10 videos
| you watched, and some MrBeast videos and some random YouTube
| drama videos.
|
| TikTok: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video?
| How about another BBQ video, a video about smokers and their
| models, some videos about cookouts and BBQ side dishes, a
| video about a DIY smoker, another about a DIY backyard
| project for hosting BBQ cookouts, a video about how smoke
| flavors food, a video about the history of BBQ in the south,
| a video about a BBQ joint in your city (or where ever my VPN
| is connected from), etc. And if you're not interested in any
| of those particular types, it learns from how long you spend
| watching the video and would branch more or less in that
| direction in the future.
|
| Another example is search. Search for "sci fi books
| recommendations":
|
| YouTube: Here are 3 videos about Sci-Fi books. Here are 4
| brisket smoking videos. Here are some lost hikers videos
| (because you watched a video about a lost hiker 3 weeks ago).
| Here are 3 videos about a breaking story in the news. Here
| are 2 videos about sci-fi books, and another 8 about brisket.
|
| TikTok: Here is a feed of videos about Sci-Fi books. And I'll
| make sure to throw in sci-fi book videos into your curated
| feed every now and then to see if you're interested.
| toddmorey wrote:
| This is a really good writeup. Thanks for posting it.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I'm pretty upset about it and I am not a creator.
|
| I'm not just upset because I have a general dislike of being
| told I'm an idiotic, addicted, communist stooge who is easily
| brainwashed. I am used to folks telling me that- it started
| when I was writing anti-war editorials in the early oughts,
| so there is nothing new in that.
|
| What I regret is that I have been following a number of
| quite-good political discussions on the platform, with a
| nicely diverse group of interlocutors.
|
| While the discussion generally leans far left, there are many
| flavors of that left:
|
| not a lot of tankies, mostly just people between "dirt bag
| left" and "black panther party", lots of women, BIPOC, trans
| folks, academics, working people, indigenous folks, queer
| folks of all stripes, activists, and folks who just don't
| like authority.
|
| Those conversations had been very hard to come by on Yt, Ig,
| or Fb.
|
| I think it's the response format for videos. I don't think
| it's worth bothering to speculate about other reasons, though
| I did note that several legitimate left news sources were
| shuttered in 2020 when Meta and Tw started their political
| purge.
|
| Anyhow, I know that folks in the US have very little regard
| for political autonomy, so I am not surprised that this
| happens, and compared to the carceral state and the happy
| ecocide of the planet this is a very little thing. But I will
| still miss it.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably
| upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me
| why it will sting for you?
|
| I like living in a country where the government does not get
| to decide what I'm allowed to read/watch/see. The TikTok ban
| chips away at that in a meaningful way.
|
| I value this above most other concerns, including vague
| worries about "Chinese spying".
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| How about WeChat, little red book, ... in fact the mainland
| version of tt, ...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I presume the US market is the dominant target market for ads /
| influencing, a quick google search suggests it is 75% of the
| global spend. So the other issue is not just losing US
| influencers but all influencers will take a haircut. I don't
| know how much of popular content is paid for by such revenue
| but taking a 75% haircut could put a real damper on content
| producers - especially those who make it a full time job. I
| don't know if that'll make it better with an increase in
| proportion of more organic content. I personally don't use
| TikTok - I waste enough time on HN.
|
| There is an additional separate issue that influencer is a
| coveted 'career' for many children (~30%), so not only would it
| wipe out many jobs it'll kill their dreams. I guess like
| cancelling the space program at a time when kids really wanted
| to be astronauts.
|
| I think there is a lot wrong with society and TikTok is part of
| it - but that's a much longer discussion for some other time.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > it'll kill their dreams.
|
| They can dream new dreams. I didn't become an astronaut--and
| realized I didn't actually want to become one, either.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Sometimes dreams are all they have - especially if they're
| young.
|
| I think we have to understand the reality that the economy
| today is not what it once was, not even close. I think a
| lot of people are looking to the influence trade since they
| see the corporate / political / economic future as failing
| them and they want to carve out something on their own
| while the getting is good and while they still can. Sure
| some just want to be famous but others appear to have a
| very realistic view of their prospects both as an
| influencer and elsewhere.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| But how viable is it? There's 47 active astronauts and
| millions of children have dreamt of becoming one.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Well the Astronaut dream clearly wasn't viable,
| influencer isn't viable for 30% of the population but it
| could be viable for a much bigger proportion.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| A _lot_ of creative people were doing very well on
| TikTok. It made the careers of a huge number of indie
| writers.
|
| When I say "made" I mean "Earning six or even seven
| figures."
|
| Crafts and art services were also doing well. And certain
| influencers, obviously.
|
| It pretty much took over from Insta, which Meta somehow
| managed to shoot in the head with some of their algo
| changes.
|
| So - politics aside - that community is pretty unhappy
| about this.
|
| Dealing with this is going to be interesting insight into
| Trump's leanings.
| logicchains wrote:
| Hopefully the US tech industry is not so schlerotic that
| they're unable to clone it and offer a competitive
| alternative. Given TikTok has demonstrated there's a huge
| amount of money to be made in that space. Although given how
| awful Google Shorts and Reels' recommendation algorithms are
| in comparison, maybe there really will be no replacement.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| You'd think with all the H1Bs the US is importing some of
| those could bring in some recommendation engine expertise.
|
| The truth is that the recommendation engine is power and
| people drawn to power in the US were too quick to abuse it
| driving out the old hands - and once institutional
| knowledge is lost it's hard to get back.
| HankB99 wrote:
| This was covered in a recent podcast. Apparently TikTok
| classifies videos on many more factors than e.g. Youtube
| and other US companies. China can do this because they have
| a cheap pool of many users who can perform this activity.
|
| The podcaster felt that with AI capabilities getting better
| day by day (maybe - that's another discussion) that this
| multi factor classification could be automated. It seems
| not to have been done yet AFAIK.
| bjourne wrote:
| If so, good riddance. The good point of TikTok is that the
| videos appear genuine and wholesome. Not the hyper-optimized
| for monetization crap YouTube Shorts show you. I much prefer
| the videos with kids goofing around on icy streets over the
| American narrator telling me some bs about some great
| baseball player.
| Conscat wrote:
| > but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking
| countries.
|
| Can't really disagree, but it's my favorite place to pirate
| fonts. Typing out site:vk.com <thing I want> feels like a real
| life cheat code.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > This is going to be an interesting experiment:
|
| Unclear. Biden and Trump both have stated that they will
| decline to enforce this law.
| gunian wrote:
| I don't think it will survive because non American cultural
| exports are not quite there yet you have to be born outside the
| US to understand the reach of Hollywood/cultural export as an
| opinion shaping tool
|
| But then again Telegram survived and they had to resort to
| kidnapping the CEO so if it does survive the US pretty much
| gifted that space to a geopolitical adversary
|
| But I'm pretty sure Langley/MD folk thought about this and are
| betting on it not surviving
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| > Will we see internationalized Chinese content dominating it?
|
| This is a weird fantasy, but it brings up an interesting point.
| The _complete_ lack of Chinese influence on global pop culture.
| Especially when compared to Japan or Korea, countries with a
| fraction of the population but many, many times the influence.
|
| I wish the CCP didn't wall off their citizens from the rest of
| the world in the name of protecting their own power. Think of
| the creativity we are all losing out on.
| glenstein wrote:
| For better or worse, I think CCP has long been on the
| backfoot in international propaganda just because what passes
| for persuasive narratives in authoritarian contexts falls
| flat to global audiences fluent in western entertainment and
| media culture.
|
| Of course they have modernized, but most actual influence
| obtained thus fair (e.g. international olympic committees
| covering up investigations, stopping the NBA from venturing
| criticisms) has come from projection of soft power rather
| than being on the cultural cutting edge.
| djtango wrote:
| As someone who wants to learn Chinese, I think about it all
| the time. Watching Chinese shows just isn't as fun for
| whatever reason. I was telling my wife the other day I have
| met so many people who credit Friends for why they can speak
| English.
|
| That's soft power right there.
|
| I've had to resort to watching anime on Netflix with Chinese
| dubs - anime is good because people actually talk slower and
| usually use simple language. When I watched Three Body
| (Chinese version) the dialogue was impenetrable lol
| wordofx wrote:
| Taiwanese shows are better if you want to learn Chinese.
| They speak clearly and don't speak fast like China shows.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I'm resentful for not having BYD here to offer affordable
| vehicles. The vast numbers of people who are now boxed out of
| the middle class could desperately use the help of a vehicle
| that doesn't cost them $700 a month.
| swatcoder wrote:
| What do you mean by "global pop culture" here?
|
| I've never considered there to be one, although I'm open to
| the idea.
|
| It's easy for me to recognize an Ameican pop culture or an
| Anglo pop culture, and the favor each show for certain
| imports over others, but those don't seem nearly so universal
| as your usage of "global pop culture" suggests.
|
| Latin, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, French, Indian/South Asian,
| etc each represent huge "pop culture" markets of their own
| but also each have their own import biases.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| > The complete lack of Chinese influence on global pop
| culture
|
| The CCP has tried to get their culture out there, it just has
| not been successful at the visually obvious scale of Japan or
| Korea. But their culture is definitely getting out there, and
| I think we often don't spot the Chinese influence on
| something unless some journalist finds out and writes an
| article about it.
|
| Some of their influence is leveraged in business deals, with
| several movies being altered by the demand of the CCP, and
| these changes persisting in worldwide releases, not just the
| Chinese-released version of the movies.
|
| Some of their influence is leveraged in video games- Genshin
| Impact is a famously successful Chinese game. There are some
| competitive Chinese teams in various pockets of e-sports too.
| Tencent also owns several video game developers, and
| occasionally uses their influence to change parts of a game
| to please the CCP.
|
| There is a Chinese animation industry (print and video), and
| occasionally they get a worldwide success. I remember being
| surprised when I found out that "The Daily Life of the
| Immortal King" was Chinese- you can tell it isn't Japanese
| but lots of people guess that it is Korean.
| petre wrote:
| True that. My wife watched a few Chinese dramas, but they're
| quite boring compared to k-dramas or japanese shows. I find
| them annoying and full of propaganda. Only the historical
| ones are borderline interesting. Also the CCP crackdown on
| celebrities didn't help.
|
| By contrast, there's now a very good k-drama with Lee Min-ho
| happening in space or the _Gyeongseong Creature_ horror drama
| with Park Seo-joon.
|
| I did see some good Chinese movies, mostly out of Hong Kong.
| Wong Kar-wai directed a bunch of good ones but they all
| predate Xi's regime and the takeover of HK.
|
| One of my favourite contemporary artists is Ai Weiwei, who
| has gone missing in 2011 only to finally reappear four years
| later. I understand he now lives in Portugal. Got his book on
| my night stand, _1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows_.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Or perhaps you haven't encountered Chinese content because of
| soft suppression of the content from within the US bubble
| matthest wrote:
| I don't buy this narrative, even as a Chinese American.
|
| There are a ton of viral videos on YouTube about people
| travelling the most beautiful parts of China. Free for
| everyone to consume.
|
| Chinese movies/shows just kind of suck, especially compared
| to the quality of Kdramas and anime.
| n144q wrote:
| Do you have any concrete examples of Chinese culture
| elements as popular as anime that is "supressed" in the US?
| matthest wrote:
| As a Chinese American, this is the real reason people don't
| know about China.
|
| To be honest, most of the movies/shows China creates sucks.
| They're Marvel-esque CGI fests with awful storylines.
|
| Meanwhile, Japan and Korea are creating awesome media.
|
| The whole narrative about the US gov trying to "hide" China
| isn't really true. There are a ton of viral videos on YouTube
| about how great China is. And we welcome Chinese immigrants
| every year.
|
| The real problem is that China itself doesn't execute when it
| comes to soft power.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| I think you are a bit too premature: China has at least
| one(usually dozens) competitor for _literally_ everything
| America has. You just don 't hear about everything in the US.
|
| Think of any industry and there is probably a Chinese
| competitor that is trying.
|
| Tesla -> BYD
|
| Google -> Baidu
|
| Starbucks -> Luckin Coffee
|
| IMAX -> China Film Giant Screen or maybe POLYMAX
|
| Finally Disney -> Possibly Beijing Enlight Pictures
|
| They released an animated film Ne Zha in 2019 that according
| to wikipedia was "the highest-grossing animated film in
| China,[16] the worldwide highest-grossing non-U.S. animated
| film,[17] and the second worldwide highest-grossing non-
| English-language film of all time at the time of its release.
| With a gross of over $725 million,[18] it was that year's
| fourth-highest-grossing animated film, and China's all time
| fourth-highest-grossing film.[19]"
|
| [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_Zha_(2019_film)
|
| Some great info here [2]:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2J0pRJSToU
|
| Ok I'll admit part of the reason people don't hear about
| these companies is that they are still too half baked. But
| look at BYD, they started off producing junk but this Chinese
| mindset of grinding and rapid iteration has put them to be
| super successful today. Why couldn't that kind of happen with
| their Disney competitor?
|
| Another thing that might be happening is the literal closing
| off of the world into two spheres. Western US led and Eastern
| Chinese led. As we are seeing with BYD, they are taking over
| all the non western markets(and some western as well) but the
| US has essentially slammed the door shut on them (they
| haven't actually but made it impossible to enter with their
| tariffs). Maybe the Disney competitor will take hold in the
| non western aligned world?
|
| Honestly its a shame they are not open or democratic. The
| idea of watching or even being part of a rising country that
| is building their empire is fascinating to watch. Will they
| collapse due to demographics or these fundamental issues like
| communism or will they make it? Unfortunately for many
| people, the only option is to stick with the US and work to
| keep the ship afloat as there is no place for them in China.
| ec109685 wrote:
| "Chinese movies" are popular in Vietnam for example, so not
| fair to say they have no global reach.
| peoplenotbots wrote:
| There are such products. Outside of America whatsapp is a
| dominant social app but its use internally is almost mute
| despite being an american social app.
|
| Tiktok america is over 50% of tiktok revenue I think that more
| than anything else would choke out growth world wide.
| adamanonymous wrote:
| > Will we see internationalized Chinese content dominating it?
|
| TikTok does not exist in China, they have their own version --
| Douyin -- that complies with their more stringent privacy laws.
| TaurenHunter wrote:
| Orkut was one American social network that barely had any
| American content because it was taken over by Brazilians.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| Can someone ELI5 how/why this is legal?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| One of the few federal powers in the constitution includes
| "control over foreign commerce". Somehow a Chinese website is
| now "foreign commerce". China bad.
|
| I think that covers it.
| 65 wrote:
| Does this only apply to TikTok or any other "foreign adversary"
| application that collects user data?
|
| What's stopping another version of TikTok from being created,
| effectively defeating the purpose of banning a single app?
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| It doesn't defeat the purpose. You can just make a new ban.
| There would be less friction since there is already an example.
| mplanchard wrote:
| You could have read either the law or the decision, linked in
| the comments here, to get the answer to this question.
|
| From the decision:
|
| > Second, the Act establishes a general designa-
|
| > tion framework for any application that is both (1) operated
|
| > by a "covered company" that is "controlled by a foreign ad-
|
| > versary," and (2) "determined by the President to present a
|
| > significant threat to the national security of the United
|
| > States," following a public notice and reporting process.
|
| > SS2(g)(3)(B). In broad terms, the Act defines "covered com-
|
| > pany" to include a company that operates an application
|
| > that enables users to generate, share, and view content and
|
| > has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. SS2(g)(2)(A).
|
| > The Act excludes from that definition a company that oper-
|
| > ates an application "whose primary purpose is to allow us-
|
| > ers to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel in-
|
| > formation and reviews." SS2(g)(2)(B).
| 65 wrote:
| This still doesn't really directly answer the question in
| plain English.
|
| So would that mean Red Note would get banned as well?
| mplanchard wrote:
| If it gains more than 1 million active users and the
| president deems it to represent a potential threat, yes
|
| Edit: assuming they, like tiktok, refuse to divest to a
| company based in the US
|
| Edit: also assuming it is a foreign company. I've never
| even heard of it prior to this comment section
| RobKohr wrote:
| By this reading, and since Trump is sworn in on the 20th, it
| is really up to his discretion as to whether the tiktok ban
| remains.
|
| He probably should let it stand for a day or two, and then
| drop an executive order to make it not banned and thus be a
| hero to all those who use it.
| mplanchard wrote:
| That's not quite correct, b/c the above only applies to
| companies _other_ than TikTok /ByteDance, which are called
| out explicitly in the Act.
|
| However, there is an open question as to whether Trump will
| choose to enforce the law.
| fourside wrote:
| It's very difficult to recreate the network effects of an app
| like TikTok. If it were easy, Zuckerberg would have already
| done it.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden
| administration, upholding the Protecting Americans from Foreign
| Adversary Controlled Applications Act which President Joe Biden
| signed in April.
|
| Glad to see when it comes to protecting tech monopolies the
| wisest among us are in full agreement.
|
| Silly things like a right to a speedy trial are up for debate
| though.
|
| I think this is a massive over reach. You can argue to restrict
| social media to those over 18, but Americans should have a right
| to consume content they choose.
|
| What's next, banning books by Chinese authors? Banning Chinese
| Americans from holding key positions in social media companies,
| after all they might have uncles in the CCP!
|
| Follow the money. TikTok is an issue for Facebook, BYD cars are
| an issue for Tesla.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| This is great news!
| xyst wrote:
| I can agree to an extent that TT (and social media in general) is
| an addictive app and harmful to youth and society in general.
| Spend enough time on these types of apps and suddenly your
| worldview is just whatever the TT algorithm pushes to you.
|
| It's not entirely unprecedented either. There was the case of FB
| and Myanmar/Burma which strongly promoted military propaganda.
| This unfortunately lead to violence against Rohingya.
|
| But the argument is very weak in my opinion, and wouldn't be a
| reason to outright ban it. Prohibition never works.
|
| The only thing that does work is fixing our society. In the USA,
| we have increasing wage disparity, increasing homelessness,
| increasing poverty, food scarcity, water scarcity, worsening
| climate change related events (see Palisades fire...), and a shit
| ton of other issues that will remain unsolved for at least the
| next 4 years.
|
| Yet leadership is doing almost nothing to address this.
| Neoclassical economics and neoliberalism have outright ruined
| this country. Fuck the culture war the billionaire class is
| trying to initiate.
| xnx wrote:
| > I can agree to an extent that TT (and social media in
| general) is an addictive app and harmful to youth and society
| in general.
|
| You could say this about Fox News, scratch-off lottery tickets,
| Cocomelon, or anything you don't like.
| medhir wrote:
| In a more functional democracy we would see that mass data
| collection of any sort, by any company (foreign or domestic), is
| a national security risk.
|
| Have witnessed first-hand the threats by foreign state actors
| penetrating US-based cloud infrastructure. And it's not like any
| of our domestic corporations are practicing the type of security
| hygiene necessary to prevent those intrusions.
|
| So idk, the whole thing feels like a farce that will mainly
| benefit Zuck and co while doing very little to ultimately protect
| our interests.
|
| We would be much better off actually addressing data privacy and
| passing legislation that regulates every company in a consistent
| manner.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| It's questionable what a more functional democracy would
| actually do, since there hasn't really been one in history.
| There's been other forms of democracy, but they've all had
| their flaws, and none of them so far have acted in the
| interests of all the people in that country.
| medhir wrote:
| I mean, however flawed the EU may be, I think they are
| earnestly trying to protect the average person from the
| current paradigm of abusive data collection. Perfect can't be
| the enemy of good.
| Always42 wrote:
| Isn't the EU trying to ban encryption? Do you really think
| they give a crap about average person
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| That is blatantly wrong.
|
| The EU has been trying to ban encryption for the last 3
| years so that it can read all your text messages, listen to
| your conversations and monitor the images you send to your
| loved ones/friends without requiring a warrant from the
| authorities, therefore granting them an unlimited access to
| everyone's private life without offering any possible
| recourse.
|
| The EU's pro-privacy stance is a just a facade, they want
| as much data as the US government, they just don't want to
| admit it publicly.
| medhir wrote:
| ok, that's fair, I totally blanked on the anti-encryption
| stance.
|
| I still think having something on the books for general
| data protection is a net good, as it forced all the
| biggest US-based companies to at least _start_
| implementing data privacy controls.
| sobellian wrote:
| I am not an "America bad" type of fellow, but US democracy is
| clearly reaching a local minimum. I suspect "never more
| functional" is an idea with which even your representative
| would disagree. There are multiple major issues that Congress
| should have addressed decades ago and instead they've only
| become more intractable. The country is more than its
| government, but the core democratic component, Congress,
| simply gets very little done. I do not think it can go much
| longer before some series of events forces broad compromises
| and realignment.
| dmix wrote:
| Everyone obsesses about the US president but congress has
| had a terrible terrible approval rating for decades now.
|
| https://external-
| content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Claiming that "mass data collection" by our own government is
| inherently a natural security risk is not an assertion based on
| rational evidence.
| cush wrote:
| It's absolutely a risk because these databases are
| unregulated honey pots. They're a total liability
| rayiner wrote:
| > In a more functional democracy we would see that mass data
| collection of any sort, by any company (foreign or domestic),
| is a national security risk.
|
| You obviously don't mean "democracy," but some other word. We
| don't see mass data collection as a problem because most
| Americans don't care about privacy. The only reason this Tik
| Tok thing is even registering is because of the treat of China,
| which Americans do care about.
| 34679 wrote:
| There's nothing preventing China from buying mass data from
| Facebook or one of the many data brokers. This is about
| censorship and the ability to control public narratives.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Yes there is. Facebook has never done anything like this
| and never would, that's what is preventing it.
| 34679 wrote:
| Facebook has never sold user data?
|
| LOL
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582
| senordevnyc wrote:
| _" We have to seriously challenge the claim by Facebook
| that they are not selling user data," commented Damian
| Collins MP, chair of the UK Parliament's Digital,
| Culture, Media and Sport Committee. "They may not be
| letting people take it away by the bucket load, but they
| do reward companies with access to data that others are
| denied, if they place a high value on the business they
| do together. This is just another form of selling."_
|
| Not defending what FB did in your example, but when you
| have to start redefining terms in order to make your
| argument, you're on shaky ground.
| duxup wrote:
| I'd be fine with a general rule that if China (or anyone) places
| limits on US social media that effectively limits / bans them...
| same goes for Chinese social media platforms. Done.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Everybody already moved to red book and are starting to recognize
| that the US is just an aging colonialist with nothing to offer
| the future
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/hXe9HsWslW
|
| The GenZ folks (including my kids) that I interact with on a day-
| to-day basis are much happier on that application and they're
| starting to realize that the US is not what it pretends to be
|
| That doesn't mean any place is better (though possible) it simply
| means people started finally realizing the truth of the United
| States
| vehemenz wrote:
| China is an ethnostate. What does China offer the future to
| anyone who's not Chinese? Chinese nationals in the United
| States have substantially more rights than they do in China.
| greenavocado wrote:
| China has 1.4 billion people. Americans can learn from them.
| xdennis wrote:
| You use colonialist as a slur, but China has literal colonies
| in Tibet and the Uyghur land.
| jrockway wrote:
| I have mixed feelings. The Supreme Court did the right thing; the
| democratically elected government did decide upon a ban, so it
| should likely continue as was made law.
|
| I am not sure that banning forms of media feels good. The point
| of free speech is to let everyone say their thing and for people
| to be smart enough to ignore the bad ideas.
|
| I am not sure the general population of vertical video viewers
| does part 2, however, so I get the desire to force people to not
| engage. The algorithmic boosting has had lots of weird side
| effects; increased political polarization, people being
| constantly inundated with rage bait, and even "trends" that get
| kids to vandalize their school. (My favorite was when I asked why
| ice cream is locked up in the freezer at CVS. Apparently it was a
| TikTok "trend" to lick the ice cream and then put it back in the
| freezer, so now an employee has to escort you from the ice cream
| area to the cashier to ensure that you pay for it before you lick
| it. Not sure how much of this actually happened versus how
| companies were afraid of it happening, however.)
|
| With all this in mind, it's unclear to me whether TikTok is
| uniquely responsible for this effect. I feel like Instagram,
| YouTube Shorts, etc. have the potential to cause the exact same
| problems (and perhaps already have). Even the legacy media is not
| guilt free here. Traditional newspapers ownership has changed
| over the years and they all seem pretty biased in a certain
| direction, and I am pretty sure that the local news is
| responsible for a lot of reactionary poor public policy making.
| (Do I dare mention that I think the whole New Jersy drone thing
| was just mass hysteria?)
|
| Now, everyone is saying that regulating TikTok has nothing to do
| with its content, but I'm pretty sure that's just a flat-out lie.
| First, Trump wanted to ban it because everything on there was
| negative towards him. Then right-wing influencers got a lot of
| traction on the platform, and suddenly Democrats want to ban it
| and Trump wants to reverse the ban. It's pretty transparent
| what's going on there.
|
| I agree with the other comments that say if data collection is
| the issue, we shouldn't let American companies do it either. That
| seems very fair to regulate and I'm in favor of that.
|
| The best effect will be someone with a lot of money and media
| reach standing up against app stores. I can live with that.
| tuan wrote:
| This seems like a bandaid, maybe the real national security is
| that US companies cannot build a product that can compete with
| TikTok.
| 65 wrote:
| I don't really agree with this line of thinking if you consider
| the addictive part of TikTok.
|
| Imagine the US legalized and exported meth. All of a sudden,
| the US is "competing" because everyone is hooked on drugs. We
| had Opium wars in a somewhat similar vein as the social media
| wars.
| suraci wrote:
| Hahaha
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| The sitting president of the United States of America was banned
| by almost every major AMERICAN company, and even some Canadian
| companies (Shopify), yet we're going after Tiktok.
|
| No Chinese ever banned the sitting president of the United
| States.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Company banned user who fragrantly and continually violated
| TOS, regardless of who they were... the horror!
| xdennis wrote:
| These are the tweets he was banned for:
|
| > The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me,
| AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a
| GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be
| disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!
|
| > To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the
| Inauguration on January 20th.
|
| Twitter said the first tweet "is being interpreted as further
| indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate
| an 'orderly transition'" and the second is "being received by
| a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the
| election was not legitimate".
|
| So they banned him because they wanted to not because of TOS
| violations. If you can interpret "I will not attend" as "It's
| illegitimate" you can interpret anything as anything and ban
| anyone for any TOS provision.
| DudeOpotomus wrote:
| TikTok is fun but it has degraded into a commercialized mess of
| copycats, IP theft and scams.
|
| Like everything else that is commercialized on the internet. It
| has a lifespan of a few years before it becomes unusable to all
| but the meek and the ignorant.
|
| A new service will emerge and replace it within months. The truth
| is their algorithm is about as complicated as a HS algebra test.
| Zak wrote:
| I'm surprised TikTok isn't trying to push a web version, hosted
| outside the USA as an alternative to shutting down. While it
| would be difficult for a new social media service to gain
| traction that way, TikTok has a huge established audience.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I wonder about that: wouldn't the law force internet providers
| to blanket block any and all web versions of TikTok?
| Zak wrote:
| I don't think so. It probably stops them from using US-based
| CDNs to host content, but that only makes it less efficient,
| not inaccessible.
| hiq wrote:
| Isn't https://www.tiktok.com exactly this?
| Zak wrote:
| Sort of. In a mobile browser, it almost immediately tries to
| get me to download the app, which is the opposite of
| _pushing_ the web version in a marketing sense. _Pushing_
| would be telling app users that the app will become
| unavailable soon and they should use TikTok on the web.
| xnx wrote:
| > I'm surprised TikTok isn't trying to push a web version,
|
| They have a web version that's surprisingly capable. Not sure
| if tiktok.com will be blocked on Sunday.
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| TikTok is also banned in China. For the Chinese market, Douyin is
| there from the same company ByteDance. Americans need to
| understand this decision is not an emotional one but for the
| nation, just like the opposite party does for its nation.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| > this decision is not an emotional one but for the nation,
| just like the opposite party does for its nation
|
| I'd argue that it is an emotional decision for both, and it
| does seem ironic that the US would be following China in
| restricting a platform that people see as a major tool for free
| speech. Whether you agree with that or not the optics are
| terrible, and the users are very aware of it. If this is really
| a big concern then they would also ban
| facebook/instagram/snapchat, but they aren't being included in
| this, despite having a worse track record.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat are not functionally owned &
| operated by an unfriendly foreign government that would have
| incentive to destabilize the USA via civil unrest by
| influencing our algorithms.
| randomcatuser wrote:
| Theoretically that can happen. But functionally, that
| hasn't happened - and in fact, the primary incentive is for
| that _not_ to happen (bad business, etc).
|
| I think there would need to be some basis in fact for these
| claims, right?
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| They are owned and operated by unfriendly actors with no
| allegiance to the government - they just need to be
| profitable. If there was a publicly owned and operated
| alternative I would feel better about that, but for example
| Facebook has been shown to experiment with their algorithm
| and increase depression rates in the past. If the argument
| is that the US should own/operate it then I'm not opposed
| to that because we could remove the profit incentive, but
| then meta/snapchat would have to become parts of the
| government instead of independent companies, and with them
| already being global I don't see how that would actually be
| implemented. Right now the proposal is to continue letting
| them do all the harm and data collection, so the reasoning
| for the change doesn't match up with the actions being
| taken.
| mjparrott wrote:
| The US government protects Facebook, and is what enabled
| them to become they company they are today. There are
| plenty of examples of their loyalty to the US government.
| They make back doors available and allow the US
| government to moderate content. Seems like they are very
| aligned!
| nobunaga wrote:
| Well actually, you can argue facebook/twitter etc are
| causing harm to the US. Just look at its impact
| oneverything from politics to misinformation.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Direct from the horse's mouth:
| https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
|
| "enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans'
| mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese
| Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform's users
| to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must
| pass this bill and send it to the president's desk
| immediately."
| Funes- wrote:
| I'd love to see what a global ban for TikTok, WhatsApp,
| Instagram, YouTube, and X would look like. Even better: massive
| breakdown of iOS and Android installations. Just for a couple of
| weeks, then revert to the nightmarish status quo we live in. Now
| _that_ would be an interesting experiment. The change in people
| 's behavior would be palpable for those fourteen days, I bet.
| It'd be so much fun.
| gekoxyz wrote:
| We got something similar with social interactions during covid
| lockdowns (if your country had those). Btw i feel like people
| would go literally MAD, I can see it when just WhatsApp
| crashses for just a couple hours (doesn't happen often but I
| remember people's reactions when it happened). You can get a
| feel of what it would do for yourself by getting a dumbphone
| and limiting yourself from accessing social media.
| Funes- wrote:
| >You can get a feel of what it would do for yourself by
| getting a dumbphone and limiting yourself from accessing
| social media.
|
| I already do that. It's the most alienating and pessimism-
| inducing thing. I'd just love to see a world where people
| aren't hunched over, staring at a screen for 90% of their
| waking life.
| switchbak wrote:
| > It's the most alienating and pessimism-inducing thing
|
| Not using a smart phone makes you feel like that?
| Funes- wrote:
| Have you tried going to a classroom full of young adults
| like yourself in the last eight to ten years, without
| using one? I did, for years. You'll feel like there's no
| point in trying to socialize with anyone most of the
| time, as there's a huge barrier between them and
| yourself. Even when the phones aren't physically
| involved, people are way, way less social now than back
| then. Engaging in spontaneous conversations or
| interactions with people you aren't really familiar with
| is something that isn't seen in a positive light as much
| anymore. It's even panic-inducing or seen as ill-advised
| for many people, in environments that should be very
| conducive to such things, and safe for them to take place
| (college, for instance).
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Ah, so it makes you feel like that _because_ of the phone
| use and antisocial tendencies of others. That makes
| sense.
|
| I'm truly worried for us.
| switchbak wrote:
| I'm haven't been in the young adult category for a few
| years now :)
|
| What you describe fills me with really bad feelings. I
| truly feel bad for all that the younger generations are
| missing, and what we're losing as a species.
|
| I'm still holding out hope that we'll see a bit of a
| social antibody reaction to the corporate takeover of the
| social sphere. I see some hope amongst younger folks, but
| it's pretty dire, and your descriptions make me less
| hopeful.
|
| Tech is fun to play with, sure, but if the cost is that
| we lose our humanity when in each others presence - well
| I'd rather throw most of it in the trash. We're
| unconsciously throwing away much of what it means to be
| human - and all for the sake of some corporate profit.
| It's like a social suicide.
| nthingtohide wrote:
| Daniel Dennett was strong proponent of alternative information
| distribution mechanisms in case of internet goes down for
| everyone. We haven't even studied such scenarios.
| Funes- wrote:
| I'm a strong proponent of alternative information
| distribution mechanisms _within_ the Internet. An "anti-
| normie" kind of channel of information. Hell, up until the
| web 2.0 came along, the Internet was exactly that for the
| most part.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| People would just switch to a different service.
| anthomtb wrote:
| I have trouble lumping those 5 services together. Maybe its
| something to do with me being a middle-age American male?
|
| Instagram/X/TikTok: Hot garbage. Good riddance. Ban them and
| this country is a better place.
|
| Whatsapp/YouTube: Actually quite useful. The former for real-
| time global communications. The latter for visual how-to's of
| all kinds (bicycles, home maintenance).
| ttrgsafs wrote:
| So what are the real dangers?
|
| - Frying teenagers' brains with short attention deficit videos.
| That one seems logical, but others are doing it, too.
|
| - Political indoctrination.
|
| - Compromised politicians who can be blackmailed: The big one,
| but a certain island run by the daughter of a certain
| intelligence agency operative was largely ignored.
|
| - Corporate espionage: Probably not happening on TikTok.
| Certainly happening in the EU using US products.
| jetrink wrote:
| Look at what foreign adversaries are already actively doing:
| working to turn Americans against each other. Social media is
| the perfect tool to spread discord. Russia has troll farms that
| create fake news stories, manipulated photos, and incendiary
| memes targeted at both sides of the political spectrum. They've
| even orchestrated in-person protests and counter-protests to
| those protests, though those efforts have been less successful.
| Now imagine that instead of merely using fake user accounts to
| this end, an adversary controlled an entire social network,
| including its algorithm and its content guidelines and could
| tailor manipulative content on an individual basis.
| spencerflem wrote:
| Or, equally as importantly, imagine if US oligarchs used to
| be doing that and can't as effectively anymore.
| suraci wrote:
| funny many of us(Chinese) also believe that online disputes
| and the moral decay of teenagers are all part of a conspiracy
| by the US.
|
| It's possible that we all wrong or we all right about it, or
| one of us are right
| spencerflem wrote:
| US Govt has a lot more limited say on what content is pushed or
| neutered.
|
| Content relating to the genocide happening in Palestine for
| example, is much more restricted on US sites.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| This is ban is only because US has no control over the content
| and organic anti Israel content was not censored like it was in
| all other us social platforms.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Banning an app because of China's threat only makes you resemble
| China itself.
| Frederation wrote:
| Good riddance.
| adriand wrote:
| What I love is that apparently tons of Americans are signing up
| for a different Chinese social video app whose name is being
| translated as "Red Note". I would love if the end result of this
| was another several years of congressional drama about a
| different Chinese app.
| tmnvdb wrote:
| Why would you love that?
| bn-l wrote:
| He's using sarcasm
| ethagnawl wrote:
| It would likely lay bare just how much any of the TikTok
| detractors actually cared about privacy/security concerns
| versus cultural ones.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| Sometimes it's fun to watch chaos unfold. It's subjectively
| entertaining
| adriand wrote:
| Someone wrote, "Because it's punk rock" and I think that sums
| it up. It's an act of rebellion.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if the end result of this was another several years of
| congressional drama about a different Chinese app_
|
| No need. If it's Chinese and has more than 100mm (EDIT: 1mm)
| users, Commerce can designate it a foreign-adversary controlled
| application and designate it for app-store delisting.
| abeppu wrote:
| I think the threshold is way lower than that? The "Covered
| Company" definition mentions 1 million monthly active users
| for at least 2 of the 3 months preceding some determination.
|
| Also, I wonder who is the foreign-based "reviews" site that
| lobbied for the exclusion clause immediately following that?
|
| https://www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ50/PLAW-118publ50.pdf
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Hmm, SS 2(g)(2)(b) been there since the start [1].
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7521/BILLS-118hr75
| 21ih....
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's even better than that. "Red Note" is the softened version.
| A more direct translation is "Little Red Book."
| rs999gti wrote:
| > "Little Red Book."
|
| As in Mao's Little Red Book -
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34932800
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Can't confirm as I don't speak Chinese but Sharp China
| podcast says this is a mistranslation, and that the word
| for Mao's little red book is not the same as the Chinese
| name for Rednote
| wat10000 wrote:
| If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Chinese nickname is
| "Treasured Red Book." It's just a coincidence that the
| English nickname happens to match the literal translation
| of this app's name. Still hilarious.
| bn-l wrote:
| It's a clone being inorganically pushed to fill vacuum.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Why do you love this?
| petsfed wrote:
| Because if this sequence of events (one allegedly Chinese-
| government controlled social media app is banned over
| apparent ties to the government, so all of its American users
| immediately switch to _another_ Chinese app whose name can be
| translated as "Little Red Book") happened in a movie, a
| reasonable person would balk at how ludicrous and on-the-nose
| the whole thing was.
|
| It feels like a joke, and if you can somehow create enough
| space to actually see the humor in it, its kind of funny.
| runjake wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it would be more a quick "Add this app to the
| TikTok court order".
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| What's interesting is that RedNote doesn't have the same level
| of segregation as TikTok, so the US and China users are having
| a lot of interesting interactions. Assum the app doesn't get
| banned, it'll be interesting to see if the experiences get more
| silo'd
| alickz wrote:
| I think it would be a good thing if average Americans and
| Chinese interacted more
|
| Maybe then we will see we are all more alike than we are
| different
| DoodahMan wrote:
| seems like a dangerous idea if you're Uncle Sam or the CCP.
| dogs and cats may realize they in fact enjoy living
| together. one can hope though, eh?
| filoleg wrote:
| I am afraid this might not last long. There is no official
| announcement yet for now, to be clear, but still[0].
|
| 0. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-
| wall...
| nneonneo wrote:
| The most literal translation of Xiao Hong Shu is "Little Red
| Book", which recalls the famous book of quotes from Mao Zedong:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...
| mullingitover wrote:
| Except that's not what Mao's book was/is called in China,
| it's a label the US applied to it. In China it's better known
| as Hong Bao Shu (Hong Bao Shu) "The Red Treasure Book" or
| simply "The Red Book".
| switchbak wrote:
| Honest question: why would an American consciously seek out
| multiple Chinese apps on purpose?
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| To be punk rock. The main reason I see thrown around is most
| younger users don't care if China has their user data and
| understand that the government is banning it for their own
| selfish reasons (money).
| azinman2 wrote:
| You state that the US gov is banning it for money as if
| that's a fact. I'd love to see the evidence for that.
|
| The irony is that China bans essentially all US social
| media. I guess these users don't care a ton their selfish
| bans?
| johnny22 wrote:
| I read it as that's how they think of it. It doesn't
| actually matter if it's true or not.
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| OP didn't say "for money".
|
| As per Mitt Romney, it was banned because TikTok
| contained too much anti-Israel content (remember, the
| push for the ban became really strong very soon after Oct
| 7 when the genocide began)
|
| Source:
| https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1787288209963290753
| slt2021 wrote:
| Freedom.
|
| Americans want freedom of speech without interference from
| the US government.
|
| TikTok was banned because of sharing anti-zionist videos
| documenting the genocide of Palestinians.
| switchbak wrote:
| Americans turn to a dictatorial psuedo-communist
| government that has direct control over this social media
| platform so they can get MORE freedom?
|
| I call bullshit.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Chinese social media has pretty transparent upfront
| censorship regime: dont criticize CCP, adhere to One
| China Policy, dont push LGBTQP+ propaganda, everything
| else is allowed.
|
| Americans on red book are surprised to see the actual
| life in China and are shocked how different it is from
| american MSM propaganda about China, you can find plenty
| of these threads on Twitter how tiktok refugees are
| amazed by how brainwashed they were by US mass media
| switchbak wrote:
| Ok, so besides not being able to talk about these
| immediate 3 third rails, we're completely free to talk
| about anything. What a perfect platform for free speech
| idealists to flock to.
|
| What in the actual hell, why wouldn't they go to one of
| the various other free sites that isn't controlled by
| such an obvious bad actor? Unless of course they don't
| care at all about that and they're really being quite
| dumb.
|
| And yes, of course real life in China is different than
| that displayed in corporate US media. Real life in
| France, Australia, Nigeria and Svalbard are all different
| than what is displayed there too. None of that makes it a
| good idea to be so outrageously stupid as to adopt such a
| platform.
| a2tech wrote:
| Apparently currently they're posting tons of 3d printed gun
| content. People are weird.
| slt2021 wrote:
| if China has US consumer's data they can do very little harm
| as they lack enforcement. So its not a big deal to use
| Chinese owned social media app.
|
| US however, if it has data on US users, has all the means to
| cause harm to US users, starting from censorship and
| persecution.
|
| UK and Germany for example are jailing people for social
| media posts
|
| https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-
| you-...
| zwirbl wrote:
| >... jailing people for social media posts
|
| More like jailing people for inciting riots by repeatedly
| and vehemently posting proven wrong information. Freedom of
| speech is great and all, but you are advocating for freedom
| from consequences
| slt2021 wrote:
| This is such a slippery slope. If I post on my social
| media that I hate my government and its policies - it
| should be protected as political speech.
|
| You cannot jail people for their thoughts. Unless a
| person is physically present in public and is inciting
| violence in person, they do not violate anything
| switchbak wrote:
| That seems decidedly short sighted to trust your enemy more
| because your own governments also do harm.
| slt2021 wrote:
| it signifies lack of trust from US citizens in their own
| government that lied non-stop for decades and kept
| brainwashing them with one false narrative (like Iraqi
| WMDs) after another
| corimaith wrote:
| Isn't Red Note planning to segregate based on IP to prevent US
| Influence from those TikTok refugees? The original CN users
| aren't exactly happy with the newcomers either, and the TikTok
| refugees themselves are getting quite a culture shock with
| regards to cultural attitudes to LGBQT or even basic "leftist"
| activism like strikes and collective bargaining
|
| Anyways, those alternatives are not so algorithmically driven,
| and especially if it's forcing actual user interaction and
| discussion that certainly would be good for Americans to
| understand what the mainland Chinese are really thinking and
| saying domestically. Because if you go to the actual main
| discussion forums like Weibo, oh boy it's not going to be
| pretty.
| Pete-Codes wrote:
| Everyone has been in denial - this was always the most likely
| outcome.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| Surprised some American billionaire hasn't thrown 50 Milly into
| like 5 clones of tik Tok to see which one takes off?
|
| there should be an easy pivot to an American equivalent but there
| hasn't been?
|
| Or has there?
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments
| compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to
| print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA.
|
| Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications
| were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA.
|
| What changed now?
|
| Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the
| Government can say to someone that their speech is not allowed.
|
| Looks like a major erosion of first amendment protections.
| blindriver wrote:
| First amendment rights is the only argument that I agree with
| keeping TikTok alive. However if there is proof that China is
| manipulating the algorithm to feed the worst manipulative
| content to Americans then I do think there's a national
| security concern here.
| p_j_w wrote:
| There are no carve outs for national security in the First
| Amendment.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The SCOTUS opinion does not rely on a national security
| interest to justify itself, merely that the ban is content
| neutral and thus is subject to intermediate scrutiny.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| What does intermediate scrutiny mean?
| nickelpro wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_scrutiny
| smt88 wrote:
| Yes there are. The First Amendment is limited by compelling
| government interest, which (in practice) means it can be
| fairly arbitrarily by SCOTUS.
|
| https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/post/what-the-first-
| amendmen...
| Spunkie wrote:
| This is an especially superficial take, sure the
| Constitution says nothing about national security but
| reality sure does...
|
| Any person that has ever gotten a security clearance has
| given up some of their first amendment rights to do it and
| if they talk about the wrong thing to the wrong person they
| will absolutely go to jail.
|
| And as always the classic example of free speech being
| limited still stands. Go yell FIRE in a crowded movie and
| see how your dumbass 1st amendment argument keeps you out
| of jail.
| xigency wrote:
| Bit of a non-sequitor here but the classic example of
| yelling 'Fire' in a theater has me thinking about public
| safety. Obviously there have been many crowd-crush
| related injuries and fatalities throughout history. But
| we've also come a long way since the 1800's or 1900's
| with fire drills, emergency exits, etc.
|
| It almost seems like any hazard or danger from a false
| alarm (intentional or otherwise) should be the liability
| of the owners or operators of a property for unsafe
| infrastructure or improper safety briefing.
|
| Anyway, I don't expect that to appear as a major legal
| issue, given this is primarily used as a rhetorical
| example.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech".
|
| First ammendment protections have no National security
| caveats.
| kube-system wrote:
| That is completely false. There are many exceptions to the
| first amendment which the court has decided _don 't_
| abridge the freedom of speech.
|
| A classic example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th
| reatening_the_president_of_t...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The courts can say anything they want, and they did...
| but then, so could the authors of the First Amendment,
| and they didn't.
| kube-system wrote:
| I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make, but
| the law _is_ whatever congress has passed, whatever the
| courts have interpreted, and whatever the executive
| executes. People who read the Constitution and make up
| their _own_ interpretation clearly missed the part about
| the separation of powers and the role of the judiciary.
| croes wrote:
| Lets face the truth, the user get what they want, no need to
| manipulate.
|
| Just look at US social media sites. It's not like they push
| MINT content, do they?
| parineum wrote:
| Bytedance was trying to make your argument. The ruling is
| that the first ammendment doesn't apply and that was always a
| stretch for Bytedance as illustrated by the unanimous
| decision.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Because this is not about the first amendment? This just
| happens to be a company that runs a social network. Congress
| regulates commerce with foreign nations and made the decision,
| as it has in many other cases, that a foreign nation can not be
| the beneficial owner of TikTok. TikTok then made no effort to
| divest, giving away the game if you want, and predictably lost
| this challenge.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The arguments presented to the SCOTUS and the opinion itself
| are totally contained within the context of the First
| Amendment. No one is even arguing about anything other than
| the First Amendment and the exceptions permitted to that
| amendment.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Well, yes, because that is the only hope TikTok had - to
| claim it was targeted _because of the speech on TikTok_ ,
| and not because this is a very boring case of regulating
| commerce, which as said is well established and has lots of
| precedent. And their expensive lawyers made it happen, when
| they should have been looking for buyers. And then SCOTUS
| unanimously said nah.
| nickelpro wrote:
| SCOTUS fully agreed that the law violates the First
| Amendment as written, it wasn't even a question at any
| level from the district court on up.
|
| The decision was balanced on strict or intermediate
| scrutiny. At the distict court level it was observed that
| the case should probably be decided via intermediate
| scrutiny, but they upheld the ban under strict scrutiny
| due to "national security concerns".
|
| The SCOTUS didn't bother with strict scrutiny or national
| security, and decided that the correct analysis was
| intermediate scrutiny and that the ban merely needed to
| serve a compelling government interest (which regulation
| of applications controlled by foreign adversaries meets).
|
| It's entirely about speech, the only question in the
| entire case as decided at the district and SCOTUS level
| was speech. Whether the government should be allowed to
| violate the 1st Amendment due to compelling interest is
| everything the case turns on.
|
| Personally, I think using intermediate scrutiny here is
| wild.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Even under strict scrutiny the law survives. Thats what
| the district court held. So that point doesn't even
| matter.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| TikTok doesn't do speech. Users on TikTok do speech. Banning
| TikTok doesn't prevent any users from printing / distributing /
| disseminating their speech.
|
| The first amendment doesn't have any provision regarding the
| potential reach or enablement of distribution of the speech of
| the people.
| cududa wrote:
| That last sentence needs to be taught in every civics class.
|
| They could have a week of the teacher repeating that single
| sentence for the entire period
| gmd63 wrote:
| Agreed. TikTok allows people to speak into the app, and to
| receive speech, but the act of organizing and strategically
| disseminating the speech is not speech -- it's societal scale
| hormone regulation and should be controlled for the health of
| the national body. It's wild that so many people are up in
| arms about TikTok when it is a Chinese app that is banned in
| China, where apps are heavily restricted.
|
| For anyone who does consider these algorithms speech, I
| challenge you to share a single person at any social media
| company who has taken direct responsibility over a single
| content feed of an individual user. How can speech exist if
| nobody is willing to take ownership of it?
| Cookingboy wrote:
| >the act of organizing and strategically disseminating the
| speech is not speech
|
| It is, and the court acknowledged that editorial control
| _is_ protected speech.
|
| The ruling was made based on data privacy ground, not First
| Amendment Speech ground.
| joshfee wrote:
| The case law around editorial control is at odds with
| most platforms' section 230 protection, which makes the
| fact that TikTok argued that its algorithm _is_ speech
| pretty different from how most platforms have argued to
| date (in order to preserve their section 230 protections)
| gmd63 wrote:
| I've understood that social media companies deliberately
| do not identify as editors because they don't want to be
| responsible for generated feeds of users. Is this wrong?
| This is why I'm asking to see evidence of a specific
| person from a social media company taking direct
| responsibility over a user's consumed content.
| whattheheckheck wrote:
| "You can drive anywhere you like..." as they take away the
| super major highways owned by foreign adversaries and leave
| the ones bending the knee to USA national interests.
|
| It seems incredibly logical from a state perspective. Sucks
| for users who can't choose to use a major highway without it
| being owned by an technofeudal oligarch. That statement holds
| true regardless of any platform. What were those blockchain
| people up to again?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _an technofeudal oligarch_
|
| Like the CCP?
| lupusreal wrote:
| I'm not bent out of shape over the tiktok ban, but you've got
| me wondering. Do newspapers do speech? Or is it the editors
| and columnists who do speech? Could a newspaper be shut down
| by congress if the law didn't say anything about the editors
| and columnists, merely denying them the means of
| distribution?
| tayo42 wrote:
| Newspaper is probably a bad example because the first
| ammendment specifically calls out protecting the press
|
| > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
| the government for a redress of grievances.
| lupusreal wrote:
| That's kind of what I was thinking w.r.t. _"first
| amendment doesn 't have any provision regarding the
| potential reach or enablement of distribution of the
| speech of the people."_
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| No, because "the press" isn't just "the editors and
| columnists".
| nickelpro wrote:
| There weren't any laws passed banning Soviet associated
| agencies from publishing based on chain of ownership. Nothing
| to do with SCOTUS.
|
| Read the opinion, the law was upheld on intermediate scrutiny.
| It doesn't ban based on content, it bans based on the
| designation of the foreign parent as an adversary. Since it's
| not a content ban, or rather _because_ it 's a content-neutral
| ban, strict scrutiny does not apply.
|
| Without strict scrutiny, the law merely needs to fulfill a
| compelling government interest.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| The motivation was based on content, so the actual text of
| the law shouldn't matter. Such acts have been overturned
| before (see the Muslim ban) based on motivation.
| nickelpro wrote:
| Speech and immigration are completely different areas of
| the law, there's no useful legal point of comparison in
| this context.
|
| The motivation is largely irrelevant to the analysis of
| this case. What matters is what effects the law has and
| what services it provides the government.
|
| So for example, the law technically doesn't ban TikTok at
| all, but rather mandates divestiture. However, the timeline
| wasn't realistic to manage such a divestiture, so the court
| recognized that the law is _effectively_ a ban. The effect
| is what matters.
|
| Similarly, the law provides a mechanism for the President
| to designate any application meeting a set of criteria a
| "foreign adversary controlled application". The court
| recognizes that the government has a compelling interest in
| restricting foreign adversaries from unregulated access to
| the data of US citizens, and the law services that
| interest.
|
| The law represents a restriction on freedom of expression,
| TikTok is banned, but the law also represents a compelling
| government interest. To determine the winner of these two
| motivations, the court has established various thresholds a
| law must overcome. The relevant threshold in this case was
| determined to be Intermediate Scrutiny, and a compelling
| government interest is sufficient to overcome intermediate
| scrutiny.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| > The motivation is largely irrelevant to the analysis of
| this case. What matters is what effects the law has and
| what services it provides the government.
|
| Let's agree to disagree.
| creddit wrote:
| Because there is no "TikTok" ban and never has been.
|
| There is a "TikTok cannot be controlled by the CCP" law. TikTok
| is completely legal under the law as long as they divest it.
| However, in a great act of self-incrimination, Bytedance (de
| facto controlled by CCP) has decided to not divest and would
| rather shutdown instead.
| pradn wrote:
| > "de facto controlled by CCP"
|
| Where is the evidence for this?
| derektank wrote:
| Committees representing the interests of the Chinese
| Communist Party exist inside of most major corporations in
| China. It would not be possible to operate a company like
| ByteDance without acquiescing to government interference
|
| https://www.seafarerfunds.com/prevailing-winds/party-
| committ...
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-
| china-o...
|
| > However, like most other Chinese companies, ByteDance is
| legally compelled to establish an in-house Communist Party
| committee composed of employees who are party members.
|
| > In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law,
| which requires any organization or citizen to support,
| assist and cooperate with national intelligence work. >
| That means ByteDance is legally bound to help with
| gathering intelligence.
|
| I would say yes.
| barbazoo wrote:
| https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/12/5-things-to-know-
| abo...
|
| I found the first three alone quite compelling:
|
| > ByteDance is Closely Connected to China's Military-
| Industrial Complex
|
| > ByteDance is Bound by Chinese State Surveillance Laws
|
| > ByteDance's Board is Beholden to Beijing
| kube-system wrote:
| China's economic reform didn't quite embrace capitalism the
| same way many other places did. Their businesses still
| inherently do not have the same managerial independence
| that many have come to expect as normal in the rest of the
| world. While Chinese businesses are allowed to have some
| private control, the government still exercises control
| over "private" businesses when they decide they are
| important or large enough.
|
| Imagine if all Fortune 500 companies were required to have
| Trump appointees on their boards. That would sound crazy
| here, but that's how things still work in China.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| As evidenced that TikTok would rather shut down than
| continue to print money in the US
| xdennis wrote:
| You can read about it here:
| https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/are-private-chinese-
| companie...
|
| You can read the full "Opinion on Strengthening the United
| Front Work of the Private Economy in the New Era" here[1]
| in English, though I suspect you don't need the
| translation.
|
| Excerpts from what the Party says openly:
|
| > Strengthening united front work in the private economy is
| an important means by which the Party's leadership over the
| private economy is manifested.
|
| > This will help continuously strengthen the Party's
| leadership over the private economy, bring the majority of
| private economy practitioners closer to the Party
|
| > Strengthening united front work in the private economy is
| an important part of the development and improvement of the
| socialist system with Chinese characteristics.
|
| > Educate and guide private economy practitioners to arm
| their minds and guide their practice with Xi Jinping's
| Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a
| New Era; maintain a high degree of consistency with the
| Party Central Committee on political positions, political
| directions, political principles, and political roads; and
| always be politically sensible. Further strengthen the
| Party building work of private enterprises and sincerely
| give full play to the role of Party organizations (Dang Zu
| Zhi ) as battle fortresses and to the vanguard and
| exemplary role of Party members.
|
| > Enhance ideological guidance: Guide private economy
| practitioners to increase their awareness of self-
| discipline; build a strong line of ideological and moral
| defense; strictly regulate their own words and actions
|
| [1]: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-
| public/publi...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The Chinese government directly owns shares of ByteDance.
| It has representatives of the government working in the
| company ensuring it takes the "correct political
| direction":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance#Management
| cbg0 wrote:
| It's common knowledge that the CCP has a lot of control
| over various companies registered there:
| https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-
| role...
|
| The above is based on a linked research paper but the
| numbers may actually be much higher as it can't really
| account for proxy ownership, various CCP committees
| influencing these companies, state banks providing loans
| only for companies that play ball, etc.
| arp242 wrote:
| And even if it wouldn't directly have fingers in the pie,
| it's an authoritarian state, and it always has de-facto
| control over anything it decides to control. The state
| can always just waltz in like a mafia boss: "nice outfit
| you have here, would be a shame if anything were to
| happen to it..."
|
| While more democratic nations are not entirely flawless
| on this, the separation of powers, independent judiciary,
| and free press do offer protections against this, as does
| having a general culture where these sort of things
| aren't accepted. Again, not flawless 100% foolproof
| protections, but in general it does work reasonably well.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Where is the evidence for this?_
|
| "Another way the Chinese government could assert leverage
| over a deal involving TikTok would be by exercising its
| "golden share" in a unit of ByteDance. In such an
| arrangement, the Chinese government buys a small portion of
| a company's equity in exchange for a seat on its board and
| veto power over certain company decisions.
|
| In 2021, an investment fund controlled by a state-owned
| entity established by a Chinese internet regulator took a 1
| percent stake in a ByteDance subsidiary and appointed a
| director to its board."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/17/us/tiktok-ban-
| suprem...
| patmcc wrote:
| What if Congress passed a law that said "The New York Times
| must shut down unless all foreign owners divest"? That's
| effectively impossible for a publicly traded corporation. Is
| that just a ban, in practice?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Except this isn't a law against any foreign owner, just
| specifically a foreign owner that is essentially the #1
| geopolitical adversary of the US.
|
| A large part of the US-China relationship is zero-sum. If
| America loses, china wins, and vice versa. That
| relationship is not the same for, say, the US-France
| relationship.
| patmcc wrote:
| Ok, replace my sentence with "The New York Times must
| shut down unless all Chinese foreign owners divest"; does
| that change the analysis?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Yes, because the NYT is a publicly traded company. And it
| is majority-controlled by a single American family - the
| Sulzbergers. I'm not sure you could argue that a Chinese
| national owning a single share of NYT stock could have
| any kind of sway on the operation of the company. Could
| the same be said for the relationship China has with
| TikTok?
| zamadatix wrote:
| The ban is not rooted in the concept ByteDance has a
| minority of investors who are Chinese citizens so any
| comparisons framed around that concept will not change
| the analysis. The reason for the ban, agree with it or
| not, is the perceived control and data sharing with the
| Chinese government made possible by many things (mainly
| that they are HQ'd in that government's jurisdiction and
| then have all of these other potentially concerning
| details, not that they just have one of these other
| details).
|
| If the NYT were seen as being under significant control
| of and risking sharing too much user data with the
| Chinese government then it would indeed make sense to
| apply the same ban.
|
| Personally, I'm still on the fence about the ban. On one
| hand having asymmetry in one side banning such things and
| the other not is going to be problematic. On the other
| the inherent problems of banning companies by law. Such
| things work out in other areas... but will it work out in
| this specific type of example? Dunno, not 100% convinced
| either way.
| patmcc wrote:
| >>>mainly that they are HQ'd in that government's
| jurisdiction
|
| ByteDance is; TikTok is not. TikTok is headquartered in
| USA and Taiwan. Why is that not part of the analysis? The
| CCP can control/influence ByteDance, the US can't do
| anything about that. But it could do a number of things
| to prevent ByteDance control/influence on TikTok, and it
| jumped directly to "must divest".
|
| Congress could have passed a law banning TikTok from
| transmitting any user data back to ByteDance/China, for
| example. Why not do that, if that was the actual concern?
| glenstein wrote:
| Well, reporting as recent as April of 2024 suggested that
| Bytedance is able to access tiktok user data despite
| Operation Texas. And generally speaking, we have seen
| enough in the way of (1) security breaches and (2) leaky
| promises not to disclose data either to govts or 3rd
| party data brokers, only for those reassurances to fall
| flat. I would even go so far as to say that professions
| to uphold trade agreements or international agreements
| are uniquely "soft" in their seriousness from China in
| recent history.
|
| Guarantees of insulation from bad actors from major tech
| companies unfortunately are not generally credible, and
| what _is_ credible, at least relatively speaking, are
| guarantees imposed by technology itself such as E2E
| encryption and zero knowledge architecture, as well as
| contextual considerations like the long term track record
| of specific companies, details of their ownership and
| their physical locations.
| patmcc wrote:
| The reporting I found (from the Verge) was that an
| employee of TikTok (in America) would email spreadsheets
| to executives in China, and other similar cases of US
| employees having the actual access to data and passing it
| along to other folks in China.
|
| This all suggests to me that the 'Operation Texas'
| technical controls were actually in place and pretty good
| (or dude in China would have just run some SQL himself),
| and what isn't in place is hard process control to
| prevent US workers from emailing stuff to China. Which,
| you know, is exactly what Congress could pass a law to
| deal with.
| glenstein wrote:
| >Personally, I'm still on the fence about the ban. On one
| hand having asymmetry in one side banning such things and
| the other not is going to be problematic.
|
| I wouldn't worry about that, as FB, twitter, reddit etc
| are banned in China. To the extent that we _want_
| equilibrium here, banning Tiktok would reprsent a step
| toward parity.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| _draft published by mistake_
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Well, yes. Just like you're allowed to say who your
| biggest enemy or your best friend is, even if your
| biggest enemy or best friend don't feel the same way
| about you.
|
| Anyways, who do you think China would say their #1
| geopolitical adversary is?
| ppqqrr wrote:
| As far as i can tell, the Chinese care mostly about
| building and investing. They're aware that the US sees
| them as their "number one enemy" (what a childish,
| irresponsible way to refer to a nation of a billion,
| mostly innocent, people), and that the US has maintained
| its global domination since WWII by political
| assassinations, bombings, proxy wars, and half-assed
| failed invasions.
|
| My advice? Stop using words like "geopolitical adversary"
| to mask what you really want to say. This is life, not a
| chessboard.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Please tell me what I really want to say, since you
| apparently know me better than I do.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| That's what the China hawks want you to believe, it's not
| just a lie but a shameful, war mongering lie. And they
| will increasingly use that lie to shut people up, shut
| apps down, until we have no choice but to believe that
| the Chinese want us dead and we them. It's textbook
| propaganda and you're spreading it.
|
| China and the US have been in a massively successful,
| mutually beneficial global economic partnership for
| decades. Zero sum my ass. Take a peace pipe, make friends
| not war.
| corimaith wrote:
| Have you gone to Zhihu or Weibo and read what the Chinese
| are saying there about you guys? Here's a top thread on
| there with 12,000 likes - https://www.zhihu.com/question/
| 460310859/answer/2046776391
|
| >I might as well make this clear.
|
| >Now, regarding the international situation, The biggest
| wish of most of us Chinese is that the United States
| disappears completely and permanently from this beautiful
| earth.
|
| >Because the United States uses its financial, military
| and other hegemony to exploit the world, destroy the
| peace and tranquility of the earth, and bring countless
| troubles to the people of other countries, we sincerely
| hope that the United States will disappear.
|
| >We usually laugh at the large number of infections
| caused by the new coronavirus pandemic in the United
| States, not because we have no sympathy, but because we
| really hope that the United States will disappear.
|
| >We usually laugh at the daily gun wars in the United
| States, not because we don't sympathize with the families
| that have been broken up by shootings, but because we
| really hope that the United States will disappear.
|
| >We usually laugh at Americans for legalizing drugs, not
| because we support drugs, but because we really hope that
| the United States will disappear.When we scold American
| Olympic athletes, it's not because we lack sportsmanship,
| but because we really hope that America will disappear.
|
| >We make fun of Trump and Sleepy Joe, not because we look
| down on these two old men, but because we really hope
| that the United States will disappear.
|
| >We Chinese are hardworking, kind, reasonable, peace-
| loving and not extreme. But we really don't like America.
| Really, if the Americans had not fought with us in Korea
| in the early days of our country, prevented us from
| liberating Taiwan, provoked a trade war, challenged our
| sovereignty in the South China Sea, and bullied our
| Huawei, would we Chinese hate them?
|
| And that's what Chinese netziens agree without
| controversy on one of their biggest social media sites.
| What about the CCP here? Well if we look at Wang Huning,
| Chief Ideologue of the CCP, he is explicitly an
| postliberal who draws from the Schmittian rejection of
| liberal heterogenity, which he sees as inherently
| unstable, in favour of a strong, homogenous and
| centralized state based on traditional values in order to
| guarantee stability. And if it that's just internally,
| how do you think a fundamental rejection of heterogenity
| translates to foreign policy? So yes, whether you think
| China is a problem, China certainly thinks you are a
| problem.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| bro literally citing chinese facebook comments ;) if you
| started taking pissed off internet comments seriously
| we'd have to go to war with every country in the world
|
| look man, i'm not saying china is some heavenly force of
| justice. but the thing about peace is that it's bigger
| than both sides, and it's maintained by the grace of
| those who understand that often the real threat isn't the
| enemy, it's your fear of the enemy.
| corimaith wrote:
| >it's maintained by the grace of those who understand
| that often the real threat isn't the enemy, it's your
| fear of the enemy.
|
| But how do you know that? Do you any such examples of how
| the CCP or China is dicussing politics amongst themselves
| to support that claim, their ideological leanings and
| papers or their own national strategies?
| senordevnyc wrote:
| That might be true, and yet it's also true that enemies
| are not just a fictional concept, and letting them have
| undue influence that weakens your society probably isn't
| a good idea.
| popinman322 wrote:
| It's always very interesting to see people pull out
| threads with low like counts (like 12k) and claim that
| central idea of the post is widely held.
|
| We're talking about platforms with tens of millions of
| users; wide appeal is at least a quarter million likes,
| with mass appeal being at least a million. A local-scale
| influencer can gather 10-30k likes very easily on such a
| massive platform.
| corimaith wrote:
| Do you disagree then that's not a sentiment widely
| reflected within Chinese social media? I simply gave an
| example for brevity, other answers are similar, I would
| encourage people to actually go in and read themselves
| here.
| gunian wrote:
| Why argue we are on HN scrape US and China social
| networks. Have at least a 100 million posts from each. Do
| sentiment and topic extraction.
|
| If it is based on one post I'm sure i can find a Reddit
| post talking about how non white people should be slaves
| it's the internet lol
| glenstein wrote:
| >It's always very interesting to see people pull out
| threads with low like counts (like 12k) and claim that
| central idea of the post is widely held.
|
| In what context is 12k likes a low amount? To me this is
| reminiscent of arguments I heard from neocons that global
| anti-Iraq war protests, the largest coordinated global
| protests in history at the time, counted as "small" if
| you considered them in absolute terms as percentages of
| the global population.
|
| I think it's the opposite, that such activities are tips
| of the proverbial iceberg of more broadly shared
| sentiment.
|
| It would be one thing if there were all kinds of
| sentiments in all directions with roughly evenly
| distributed #'s of likes. I'm open to the idea that
| _some_ aspect of context could be argued to diminish the
| significance, but it wouldn 't be that 12k likes, in
| context, is a negligible amount. It would be something
| else like its relative popularity compared to alternative
| views, or some compelling argument that this is a one-off
| happenstance and not a broadly shared sentiment.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| That was the us policy for 20 years under the assumption
| that political liberalism with follow economic
| liberalism. It has not. This is also no one sided. China
| is preparing for conflict with the US so we must also.
| Yes hawks can push a country into war but so can doves.
| krunck wrote:
| Or the US is preparing for conflict with China, so China
| must also. But actually it's probably a two way feedback
| loop between the two of them that the ignoramuses that
| run each country love because it makes their jobs
| exciting and, probably, profitable.
| sabarn01 wrote:
| All powers are mutually antagonistic and it prudent to
| prepare to confront each other. As long as thoes efforts
| are equally matched and neither side is prepared thinks
| it can gain an advantage the peace is held as it held
| during the cold war.
| whatshisface wrote:
| How does banning TikTok defend Taiwan?
| sabarn01 wrote:
| Information warfare is a domain of war in the 21st
| century.
| glenstein wrote:
| The Scotus case linked to here by others has noted the
| possibility of tying networks of contacts to Tiktok user
| profiles, and network mapping political groups in Taiwan
| can be leveraged to support any number ventures to
| disempower the island's democracy-favoring majority.
| alexjplant wrote:
| > China and the US have been in a massively successful,
| mutually beneficial global economic partnership for
| decades
|
| Past performance is not indicative of future results.
| China is now grappling with sluggish GDP growth,
| declining fertility, youth unemployment, re-
| shoring/friend-shoring, a property crisis, popular
| discontent with authoritarian overreach (e.g. zero COVID
| and HK), and increasingly concentrated power under
| chairman-for-life Xi. Their military spending has hockey-
| sticked in the past two decades and they're churning out
| ships and weapons like nobody's business. He realizes
| that the demographic and economic windows of opportunity
| are finite for military action against Taiwan (and by
| extension its allies like the US and Japan). The Chinese
| military's shenanigans in the South China Sea with
| artificial islands, EEZ violations, and so forth in
| combination with Xi's rhetorical sabre-rattling in
| domestic speeches don't paint a pretty picture.
|
| Before somebody like this poster calls me a "war-
| mongering [liar]" or something similar let me point out
| that this is the opinion of academics [1], not US DoD
| officials or politicians. I have nothing but reverence
| for China's people and culture. I'd love to visit but
| unfortunately it's my understanding that I'd have to
| install tracking software on my phone and check in with
| police every step of the way. This type of asymmetry
| between our governments is why this ban has legs.
|
| With the gift of hindsight I think it's safe to say that
| neoliberal policy (in the literal sense of the term, not
| the hacky partisan one) is a double-edged sword that got
| us to where we are today. To say that the US-China
| relationship is sunshine and puppies is ignorant of the
| facts.
|
| [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/04/china-war-
| military-taiw...
| dmoy wrote:
| > I'd love to visit but unfortunately it's my
| understanding that I'd have to install tracking software
| on my phone and check in with police every step of the
| way.
|
| Uh, what? I've never encountered this in my trips to
| China.
|
| You do have an ID scanned (like literally, on a
| photocopier) when you check into a hotel.
| stcroixx wrote:
| Do you dispute the persecution of Uyghurs in China? The
| UN, US Dept. of State, House of Commons in the UK and
| Canada, Dutch Parliament, French National Assembly, New
| Zealand, Belgium, and the Czech Republic?
|
| This is not a government to be friends with. It's time we
| go our separate ways from the CCP.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| I do not dispute it (in fact if you have good sources on
| the latest goings-on about this issue I'd appreciate it).
| But to say that it's cause enough to excommunicate the
| CCP and go to war... is hypocrisy of the highest order,
| when we ourselves clearly fund and condone massive
| atrocities as long as it's someone else's hands. Road to
| peace is not paved with blood, do not be confused. Peace
| comes from boring communication work: talking, arguing,
| hashing the problems out, day in and day out. Shutting
| the door is the first step to a tragedy, always.
| stcroixx wrote:
| I don't advocate war, but I'd prefer a relationship
| similar to Russia or North Korea. No trade whatsoever. No
| trade with nations that trade with China.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| Well, to a large extent, the reason Russia and North
| Korea are hopeless backwaters ruled by petty dictators
| and filled with suffering... is precisely because nobody
| would trade with or invest in them. And when they
| predictably fall into dysfunction and despair, they end
| up threatening everyone's peace. You reap what you sow.
| We need to do better.
| azan_ wrote:
| That's completely wrong. All of Europe heavily traded
| with Russia, and Germany even wanted to base their green
| transformation plan primarily on trade with Russia.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| By which point, Russia was already in the hands of a
| dictator. Too late and too little, as they say. But yes,
| obviously, every country deserves a large share of blame
| for its own situation.
|
| Either way - even if I concede this, my point stands that
| starving nations and denying them development isn't a
| great long term strategy for peace.
| krapp wrote:
| My person in deity do I need to go down the list of
| genocides and atrocities the US has either participated
| in or funded in its long and bloodsoaked history? It's a
| long list but it ends with the billions of dollars in
| weapons, aid and personnel we sent to help Israel try to
| wipe out the Palestinians.
|
| This isn't an attempt at whataboutism here, no one is
| denying that what China is doing to the Uyghurs is
| terrible, but the US and its allies have no moral high
| ground to stand on _at all_ in this regard.
| glenstein wrote:
| I want to believe you, but arguments like this are so
| simplistic that it's profoundly disappointing. It is
| simultaneously the case that they are extensive trade
| partners and that there's ongoing harassment in the South
| China Sea, the horrifying takeover of Hong Kong and the
| increasingly chilling situation in Taiwan, or the
| harassment of expat dissidents who have fled to the West.
|
| To say nothing of extremely adversarial cases of
| increasingly aggressive hacking, corporate espionage,
| "wolf warrior" diplomacy, development of military
| capabilities that seem specifically designed with
| countering the U.S. in mind, as well as the more ordinary
| diplomatic and economic pushback on everything from
| diplomatic influence, pushing an alternative reserve
| currency, and an internal political doctrine that
| emphasizes doubling down on all these fronts.
|
| I don't even feel like I've ventured an opinion yet, I've
| simply surveyed facts and I am yet to meet a variation of
| the Officer Barbrady "nothing to see here" argument that
| has proved to be fully up to speed on the adversarial
| picture in front of us.
|
| I think what I want, to feel reassured, is to be
| pleasantly surprised by someone who is command of these
| facts, capable of showing that I'm wrong about any of the
| above, and/or that I'm overlooking important swaths of
| the factual landscape in such a way that points to a safe
| equilibrium rather than an adversarial position.
|
| But instead it's light-on-facts tirades that attempt to
| paint these concerns as neocon warmongering, attempting
| to indulge in a combination of colorful imagery and
| ridicule, which for me is kind of a non-starter.
|
| Edit in response to reply below: I'm just going to
| underscore that none of the facts here are in dispute.
| The whataboutism, insinuations of racism, and "were you
| there!?" style challenges (reminiscent of creation
| science apologetics) are just not things I'm interested
| in engaging with.
| ppqqrr wrote:
| Have you been to China? Know anyone from there? Or is
| your opinion on what they deserve based entirely on TV
| headlines? Do you relate to them as humans? That's what I
| need to see before I take anyone's condemnation of any
| group of people seriously.
|
| I'm disputing none of the facts you raise, I just don't
| think it's reason enough to label the entire country as
| an enemy state and shut the door like a petulant child.
| Especially in light of the horrifying atrocities that we
| ourselves are funding.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This is the reason right here. If TikTok was owned by
| North Korea, this wouldn't be controversial.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What if Congress passed a law that said "The New York
| Times must shut down unless all foreign owners divest"?_
|
| This already exists in some ways. Foreign companies are not
| allowed to own American broadcasters. That's why Rupert
| Murdoch had to become a (dual?) American citizen when he
| wanted to own Fox television stations in the United States.
| twoodfin wrote:
| That's what the question of strict scrutiny vs.
| intermediate scrutiny vs. rational basis is about. The
| courts would have to decide the appropriate level of
| scrutiny given the legal context and then apply that to the
| law as written.
|
| Your hypothetical clearly implicates the _Times_ ' speech,
| so intermediate scrutiny at least would be applied,
| requiring that the law serve an important governmental
| purpose. I think that would be a difficult argument for the
| government to make, especially if the law was selective
| about which kinds of media institutions could and could not
| have any foreign ownership _in general_. The TikTok law is
| much more specific.
| btown wrote:
| For those interested,
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47986 is a
| relatively approachable overview of these guidelines.
|
| It's interesting to read the full TikTok opinion https://
| www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf and
| search for "scrutiny" and "tailored" while referencing
| some of the diagrams from the overview above. It's a good
| case study of how different levels of scrutiny are
| evaluated!
|
| (Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
| User23 wrote:
| IANAL, but my lay opinion is that thanks to the foreign
| commerce clause this would be a matter of rational basis.
|
| So quite likely Congress could craft such a law and have
| it hold up, if it could show that foreign control of the
| NYT (which is incidentally the case) posed a national
| security concern.
| twoodfin wrote:
| IANALE, but any time the exercise of fundamental rights
| is being constrained, I understand intermediate scrutiny
| is the floor.
| jcytong wrote:
| I think the equivalent would be if New York Times is
| somehow owned by Tencent and given that the Chinese
| government uses golden shares to control private companies.
| In that case, I think it's fair game to force NYT to divest
| or force them to shutdown.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_share
| Cookingboy wrote:
| >owever, in a great act of self-incrimination, Bytedance (de
| facto controlled by CCP) has decided to not divest and would
| rather shutdown instead.
|
| How is it self-incrimination? That logic doesn't work.
|
| 80% of TikTok's users are outside of the U.S., why would they
| sell the whole thing?
|
| And the law is written in a way that there is no value to
| just sell the American operation without the algorithm, they
| have to sell the whole thing, including the algorithm, in
| order for there to be a serious buyer.
|
| It's technology highway robbery. Imagine if China told Apple
| "sell to us or be banned", we'd tell them to pound sand too.
| Wheaties466 wrote:
| from what I know the bids that have been put in place are
| just for the US operations and there are some bids that
| dont include the algo as a part of the deal.
| chollida1 wrote:
| No one is asking them to sell the entire company. Just the
| US arm.
|
| Not sure that changes much but you seem to be talking about
| non US users, which wouldn't fall under this ruling.
| hobom wrote:
| The West told plenty of its companies, through public
| pressure or laws, that they have to divest from Russia, and
| they did. Rationally they recognized that selling their
| assets is financially more lucrative than just closing
| their operations and making 0$. Now why would an
| corporation which alleges to not be controlled by a
| government refuse to sell and forego billions in income,
| even though it is against the interest of their
| shareholders?
| randomcatuser wrote:
| The divestiture clause is just a red herring -- sure, that
| sounds perfectly fine. But you can substitute it (in the
| future) with anything.
|
| In the future, the owners of a free press will be permitted
| to operate if and only if there is board seat made out to a
| CIA member. Unions will be permitted to congregate _as long
| as they register with the Office of Trade Security_
|
| All in all, a huge blow to the potential power of individual
| rights (essentially goes to the Founding Fathers' point that
| having a list of rights set in stone is NOT the end-all, be-
| all, it's who decides the rights that count)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There is a "TikTok cannot be controlled by the CCP" law_
|
| It's also not a ban on the content. It's a ban on hosting and
| the App Store. TikTok.com can still legally resolve to the
| same content.
| hintymad wrote:
| Exactly. And what puzzles me is that the evidences offered by
| the Congress was quite speculative, whether it's about data
| collection, content manipulation, influence of Chinese laws,
| or the potential future threat. Yet ByteDance chose not to
| argue about the evidence, but to argument about 1A.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| It would have been great for ByteDance to IPO TikTok in the
| USA, it has had plenty of time to do so, it would have made
| lots of people boatloads of money, Chinese and Americans
| alike. Even Snapchat, which had similar levels of pervasive
| arrogance, IPO'd.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Yes. The Chinese government probably lost its citizens
| around $100b by not allowing TikTok to sell.
| encoderer wrote:
| When you think of it as enough money to give a $100 bill
| to ~everybody in china, wow. That's quite a bit of money.
| callc wrote:
| Any amount of $$$ earned by CCP will not be easily passed
| down to citizens.
|
| I'd be interested if there's any objective measure of how
| much a countries money is passed down back to its
| citizens or hoarded by people in power. Is there any such
| measure?
| dmix wrote:
| Even if the money from the IPO itself doesnt go to
| directly to random citizens it still pumps a ton of money
| into their economy providing capital for other
| investments in new markets creating jobs, spending on
| goods/services by the company, hiring internally (IPOs
| always allow companies to expand), etc etc. That money
| doesn't just sit in a giant pile being unused, like
| Scrooge McDuck's gold pile.
|
| Not to mention the training and development it would give
| a whole new class of people in China to operate global
| businesses.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| So, you could say that that sweet large scale mind
| control is apparently worth more than $100b to them...
| hintymad wrote:
| In the late 80s and early 90s, the foreign-exchange
| reserves of China was less than a billion dollars. The US
| government could spend $50M to negotiate a lot of things
| from China, like having a war with Vietnam even though it
| was Soviet who was behind Vietnamese government.
| Nowadays, Chinese government could easily say fuck this
| $100B. Papa can afford it to call your bluff.
|
| It's great that an entire nation can gain wealth through
| hard work and good strategic decisions, at least in some
| way. But it hurts me that the US lost its way in the
| process by losing so much manufacturing capabilities, to
| the point that we can't even adequately produce saline
| solutions, nor could we make shells or screws for our war
| planes cheaply.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| You don't put your treasure for sale, at least not when
| you have extracted its value first.
| corimaith wrote:
| If you look at the people defending TikTok, if you ask
| similar questions they won't try to defend it either, it's
| an immediate switch to whataboutism with regards to native
| US tech companies or arguing that the US Gov is more
| dangerous than the CCP.
|
| But all that only just confirms the priors of the people
| who are pro-Ban. And unfortunately it's about justifying
| why we shouldn't ban TikTok, not why we should ban TikTok.
| They can't provide a good justification for that, the best
| they can is just poison the well and try to attack those
| same institutions. But turns out effectively saying "fuck
| you" to Congress isn't going to work when Congress has all
| the power here.
| sweeter wrote:
| This is just hypocrisy baiting, this isn't a real analysis
| at any level. They didn't bring ANY evidence for them to
| argue against, it was purely an opinion by the state that
| there could exist a threat, which again is not supported by
| evidence, true or not. America has a lot to gain by
| controlling tiktok and one American billionaire will become
| a lot richer, that's all there is to it. I mean both
| candidates used tiktok to campaign while wanting to ban it.
| It's just a ridiculous notion and even they know that.
|
| "Oh you love hamburgers? Then why did you eat chicken last
| night? Hmmm, curious... You are obviously guilty"
| firesteelrain wrote:
| There was evidence and it was discussed in the ruling by
| the Supreme Court. Please read it.
|
| For example, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/
| 24-656_ca7d.pdf
|
| Gorsuch pg 3
| gunian wrote:
| Can you link it here would be super grateful
|
| It's super interesting to see the custom code in TikTok
| not in Reels that can enable this not into politics but
| the algo would be cool to look at
| firesteelrain wrote:
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.12271
|
| https://kvombatkere.github.io/assets/TikTok_Paper_WebConf
| 24....
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04086
|
| https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-76520
| -0_...
|
| https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/ijsss/article/view/
| 566...
|
| https://github.com/SyntaxSparkk/TikTok
|
| https://www.deeplearning.ai/the-
| batch/issue-122/?utm_source=...
| gunian wrote:
| Saw the GitHub thing a while back I meant comparatively
| TikTok vs Instagram vs YouTube where they differ / are
| the same etc
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I updated with the paper comparing how TikTok is beating
| FB
| gunian wrote:
| All I'm getting from these is TikTok has a better
| recommendation engine? Am I missing something?
|
| Has anyone scrapped all three to show for a newly created
| account there is significant difference in topics or
| something like that?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| The academic research is scarce.
|
| This is the next one I found (from a high schooler
| though)
|
| https://www.jsr.org/hs/index.php/path/article/view/2428
|
| It doesn't look like a well researched area in terms of
| academia. I am not an expert in this so don't know why
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Do they do this with other bans, like those against
| network hardware? Other countries sell their goods here
| at the American government's leisure. It's always been
| this way.
| glenstein wrote:
| >And what puzzles me is that the evidences offered by the
| Congress was quite speculative, whether it's about data
| collection, content manipulation, influence of Chinese
| laws, or the potential future threat.
|
| I think in a national security paradigm, you _model_
| threats and threat capabilities rather than reacting to
| threats only after they are realized. This of course can
| and has been abused to rationalize foreign policy
| misadventures and there 's a real issue of our institutions
| failing to arrest momentum in that direction.
|
| But I don't think the upshot of those problems is that we
| stop attempting to model and respond to national security
| threats altogether, which appears to be the implication of
| some arguments that dispute the reality of national
| security concerns.
|
| > Yet ByteDance chose not to argue about the evidence, but
| to argument about 1A.
|
| I think this is a great point, but perhaps their hands were
| tied, because it's a policy decision by congress in the
| aforementioned national security paradigm and not the kind
| of thing where it's incumbent on our govt to prove a
| specific injury in order to have authority to make policy
| judgments on national security.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| The evidence and reasoning by Congress was all "non-
| justiciable" by the courts.
|
| Congress looked at some evidence and made a decision. That
| is their purview and our checks-and-balances do not allow
| the courts to second-guess Congress like that. They can
| look at the "how" of the law, but not the "why".
|
| Specifically the court looked at "what is congress' goal
| and is there any other way to achieve that goal that
| doesn't stop as much speech" and there isn't, but they
| can't question the validity of Congress' goals.
|
| So there's no point in Bytedance arguing any of it, at
| least not in court.
| nashashmi wrote:
| It doesn't label ccp. It denigrates four countries as foreign
| adversaries. And then allows the president to remove any
| company located in those adversaries.
|
| Kaspersky was banned this way. Tiktok was hard coded in the
| law to be banned. The law allows for sale. It doesn't enforce
| sale.
| collinstevens wrote:
| it's more specifically ByteDance must divest. The effects
| that happen because of a divestment by ByteDance, such as
| TikTok losing access to "the algorithm", are just incidental.
| The oral arguments for the case are on YouTube and are worth
| a listen.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Separately, it's hard to get upset about this when China
| absolutely does not allow similar foreign ownership of large
| apps in their country. Look at all the hoops, including
| domestic ownership requirements, required to sell saas or
| similar in China.
| 34679 wrote:
| That would be like telling Facebook to "divest" from the US
| government. Which, in this case, means ignoring all
| government requests for data and censorship. Facebook
| obviously cannot do that.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Not really. There is no analogous concept in the US of the
| CCP's relationship with large companies.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 1) TikTok was already theoretically a US company, but the
| strings were being pulled by the parent org in China.
|
| 2) US and China regulatory burdens and rule of law aren't
| equivalent, and I'm not going to grant that equivalency.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Vaguely like that.
|
| Ostensibly, the US government honors the 1st and 4th
| amendments, and only restricts speech on the platform in
| rare instances where that speech is likely to incite or
| produce imminent lawless action, and only issues warrants
| for private data which are of limited scope for evidence
| where the government has probable cause that a crime has
| occurred.
|
| The accusation is that the CCP and Bytedance have a much
| more intimate relationship than that, censoring (or
| compelling) speech and producing data for mere political
| favors. Whether or not this is true of Facebook's
| relationship with US political entities is up for debate.
| gunian wrote:
| Cross the US government and see how fast that turns into
| shadow bans, your loved ones getting tortured, someone
| else working with your SSN, dummy up and fish, imprisoned
| algorithmically etc you won't even have to cross them
| just be guilty by association
|
| No horse in this race as both horses hate and will
| trample me but just saying lol
| glenstein wrote:
| Of all the arguments in all directions, by far the least
| compelling have been the ones that attempt to both-sides
| equivalences between the U.S. and China on question of
| free speech and democratic norms. It's not that there's
| no offenses on the U.S. side, it's just the game of
| whatabouting reeks of JV debate team sophistry that is
| very discouraging to engage with.
|
| The single party domination, the great firewall, the
| authoritarian surveillance are without comparison in
| scale and I think that has to be among the explicitly
| agreed upon facts that sanity check any conversation on
| this topic.
|
| Edit since I can't reply to the comment below: all the
| examples mentioned below appear to involve the very
| equivocation between differences in scale that I spent
| this whole comment talking about, or attempt to equate
| past vs present, or are too vague to even understand the
| nature of the comparison, and collectively are so
| disorganized and low effort that they are degrading the
| focus and quality of the conversation as a whole.
| gunian wrote:
| Ughyhur Camps vs Reservations/Slavery/Jim Crow/Internment
| Camps/Operation Paperclip
|
| lingchi vs waterboarding/black sites
|
| NSA vs Great Firewall
|
| provincial one party system vs micro nation based two
| party system both favoring the rich
|
| TikTok vs Instagram/YouTube
|
| when both sides consider you sub human kind of easy to
| compare them without emotion :)
|
| but truly curious where have the facts been
| misrepresented? I would expect this on Reddit but not on
| a site like HN tbh
| gunian wrote:
| lol @ the edit
| creddit wrote:
| This is completely incorrect. Divestment in this context
| means the selling of an asset by an organization. You
| cannot "divest" in this sense from a government. That's
| nonsensical.
|
| The equivalent in Facebook (Meta) terms would be China
| requiring Facebook, if it wished to continue operations in
| China, to sell the Chinese Facebook product to a Chinese or
| other, as to be defined by China, non-American entity. In
| some sense this is already the case.
| gunian wrote:
| Wait is it actually controlled by the CCP? Did they present
| evidence for policies implemented by TikTok directed by the
| CCP?
|
| Does divest in this context mean sell it to a non Chinese
| owner?
| hujun wrote:
| quote from tiktok's webiste https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-
| myths-vs-facts/: ``` Myth: TikTok's parent company, ByteDance
| Ltd., is Chinese owned.
|
| Fact: TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd. was founded by
| Chinese entrepreneurs, but today, roughly sixty percent of
| the company is beneficially owned by global institutional
| investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and
| Susquehanna International Group. An additional twenty percent
| of the company is owned by ByteDance employees around the
| world, including nearly seven thousand Americans. The
| remaining twenty percent is owned by the company's founder,
| who is a private individual and is not part of any state or
| government entity. ```
| glenstein wrote:
| Bytedance is HQ'd in Beijing and required by law to comply
| without exception with national security requests.
| archagon wrote:
| So why is Apple being forced to evict a free app from their
| store?
| olalonde wrote:
| You could say that about all the American tech companies that
| are banned in China. They just have to comply with Chinese
| law and will be unbanned. For example, Google, unlike
| Microsoft/Apple, chose to withdraw from China rather than
| comply with Chinese law.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment
| arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and
| protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda
| in the USA.
|
| > Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet
| Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the
| USA.
|
| That was explicitly brought up in oral arguments by the court,
| and the response by the US Gov was: "The act is written to be
| content neutral."
|
| The court's opinion explains that they agree the law is
| "appropriately tailored" to remain content neutral. Whether
| it's "enemy propaganda" or not is, in their view, irrelevant to
| the application of the law. TikTok can exist in America, _using
| TikTok_ is not banned, the owner just can 't be a deemed
| "foreign adversary", which there is a history of enforcement
| (to some degree).
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| Like such cannot be enforced for example against foreign
| radio stations or print publications.
|
| Then how do court justify that it stands in the case of an
| app.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| As I understand, a print publication can't have a business
| entity in the US if it's owned by a foreign adversary.
| Given that, an American could still travel to the foreign
| country themselves and bring an issue back. That would be
| similar to side loading apps.
|
| In order to comply with the law, Apple and Google cannot
| distribute the app because it is deemed to be unlawfully
| owned by a foreign adversary; that's the ban. But anyone
| who wants to get it through other means can still do so.
| Presuming that's how it works, it doesn't seem to be
| logically different from radio/print media.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| Soviet Life Magazine for example was printed and sold in
| the US by the Soviet Embassy.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That makes me curious about the details; it's worth
| noting that the Soviet Embassy's physical location would
| be Soviet sovereign land that is licensed to them by the
| US so long as they are allowed to maintain an embassy
| presence. If people go onto the embassy to buy the
| magazine, they are literally traveling to a foreign
| country to buy it.
| gabeio wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Life
|
| According to Wikipedia (yes I am linking directly to it
| and not a source, sorry to all of my teachers.) it seems
| that the magazines were distributed by news stands in
| many major USA cities, you did not need to go to the
| Embassy. But it also go on to note that this was because
| of an inter-governmental agreement which muddies the
| water. E.g. "Was it because of the agreement or because
| of the constitution and we just _said_ it was because of
| the agreement."
| empath75 wrote:
| That something is allowed doesn't mean that it's
| guaranteed in the constitution.
|
| In that particular case, it was a result of an agreement
| with the Soviet government that allowed us to publish
| Amerika magazine in the USSR.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_(magazine)
| arp242 wrote:
| I don't really know the exact legal situation surrounding
| this, but the viewpoint that in the past Soviet
| propaganda could be freely distributed in the US a rather
| curious viewpoint. The US government spent decades
| chasing down (alleged) communists, both using hard power
| and soft power, and many were effectively silenced, and
| many more never even dared to speak up.
|
| So whatever the exact legal situation was the time, a
| free speech utopia where even enemies of the US had free
| reign did not exist. De-facto free speech was
| significantly more restricted on this topic.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > Like such cannot be enforced for example against foreign
| radio stations or print publications.
|
| If the law and acts calling for their divestiture were
| deemed "content neutral" then they could. But an app, with
| algorithmic profiling, delivery, and data capture, for the
| purposes of modeling and influence, is not the same as a
| radio station or a publication, so it would probably not be
| easy or even possible to the SC's standards to write a
| content neutral law in that way. But they have deemed that
| with apps like TikTok, when done so carefully, it is
| possible and divestiture can be enforced _neutral of
| content_.
|
| We don't need to stick our head in the sand and act like
| TikTok is the same as a print publication.
|
| The SC's decision, and Gorsuch's opinion in particular, is
| carefully written to not fundamentally rewrite the First
| Amendment, I'd urge you to read it.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| This case was not about speech. It was about a vehicle for
| speech having a high risk of being used for espionage and
| PSYOPS. If TikTok was the only vehicle available for people to
| post on the internet, then maybe the First Amendment argument
| would hold water.
|
| This decision doesn't tell people they can't speak any more
| than, say, shutting down a specific TV station or newspaper
| which has been used for money laundering or which is
| broadcasting obscene content.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The case is entirely about speech, and the various levels of
| scrutiny that apply to laws that violate the First Amendment.
| You should read the decision before commenting on what was
| argued and decided in said decision.
| paxys wrote:
| Creating and distributing in the USA, sure. That is allowed.
| This is why the government isn't regulating Chinese content on
| Instagram, for example.
|
| The issue here is that TikTok "content" (aka the algorithm that
| decides what content you get to see) is created abroad and
| controlled from abroad. The data collected by the app goes
| abroad. So then it becomes an import/export issue, and the
| government can and does regulate that.
|
| This is why the government has already agreed to letting TikTik
| be run by a US entity. You can have the same content and same
| algorithm, just kept within the borders of the USA.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| The first amendment doesn't apply here. You can say whatever
| you want anywhere else on the internet. You can print what you
| want anywhere you want. You can distribute what you want
| anywhere you want. Bytedance refused to sell TikTok so it's
| being shut down. They could divest, but they didn't.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| That is not the point of the First Ammendment, it is that
| Government cannot stop anyone from
| saying/printing/dissemination of content.
|
| So question if government has power to do so.
|
| Can they ban RT? Or even the BBC, if the government found it
| wise to do so?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _first amendment doesn 't apply here_
|
| It absolutely does. (It's in the opinion.)
|
| It just isn't the Wild Draw 4 some people imagine it to be.
| You can't commit fraud or libel or false advertising and
| claim First Amendment protection. Similarly, there are levels
| of scrutiny when the government claims national security to
| shut down a media platform.
| kopecs wrote:
| > It absolutely does. (It's in the opinion.)
|
| The opinion actually assumes without deciding that First
| Amendment scrutiny applies, so I don't think it
| "absolutely" does. (But yes, it probably does and Sotomayor
| and Gorsuch would decide as much)
| tw18328 wrote:
| Print media is different. It is much more exhausting to read a
| newspaper because critical thinking circuits are automatically
| engaged.
|
| You are more removed from the content because everything is in
| the physical world. And even within a single newspaper there
| are so many different topics that it is hard to be in a bubble.
|
| The Internet automatically leads to bubble creation, 200
| character messages and indoctrination.
|
| It is more like loudspeakers they had in villages during Mao's
| tenure blaring politically correct messages. Or like the
| Volksempfanger (radio) during the Nazi era. Interestingly, many
| of the most destructive revolutions happened after the
| widespread use of radio.
|
| Of course the Internet isn't nearly as bad, but most people are
| completely unable to even consider a view outside of their
| indoctrination bubble.
| throwaway199956 wrote:
| As far as first ammendment it does make no difference if it
| is print or voice or online service.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Like you can just go read the opinion. It goes into detail on
| exactly this question and is easy to understand.
| ruilov wrote:
| The replies here seem slightly off base. The Court acknowledges
| that 1s amm. free speech issues are at play. A law can regulate
| non-expressive activity (corporate ownership) while still
| burdening expressive activity, which is the case here. In such
| instances, the Court grants Congress more leeway compared to
| laws explicitly targeting speech. It checks that (1) the govt
| has an important interest unrelated to speech (it does), and
| (2) the law burdens no more speech than necessary (arguable,
| but not obviously wrong)
| DangitBobby wrote:
| My reading of it is they didn't bother to take the motivation
| of the law into account (suppression of speech), and only
| took the law "as written" to decide.
|
| > We need not decide whether that exclusion is content based.
| The question be- fore the Court is whether the Act violates
| the First Amend- ment as applied to petitioners. To answer
| that question, we look to the provisions of the Act that give
| rise to the effective TikTok ban that petitioners argue
| burdens their First Amendment rights...
| kopecs wrote:
| The quote you posted is about if the exclusion of platforms
| "whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product
| reviews, business reviews, or travel information and
| reviews" means the law is content-based, but the Court is
| saying that provision is irrelevant because TikTok brought
| an "as-applied" challenge (and not a facial one) [0] and
| that provision doesn't change how it applies to them. So
| they are looking at the parts of the law (and the
| congressional record supporting them) which actually cause
| TikTok to be subject to the qualified divestiture.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_challenge
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Right, I'm saying they based it on on the "text" of the
| law, instead of the motivation.
|
| At what point in the ruling did they wonder what
| motivated the effective ban? "5 why's" it, so to speak.
| Did they ever say, "because X, Y, and Z, it is clear the
| intent of the law is not to prevent speech of certain
| parties"?
| kopecs wrote:
| > Right, I'm saying they based it on on the "text" of the
| law, instead of the motivation.
|
| Sure, although they do discuss TikTok's challenge to the
| motivation ("Petitioners further argue that the Act is
| underinclusive as to the Government's data protection
| concern, raising doubts as to whether the Government is
| actually pursuing that interest"). I just don't think the
| quote you had stands for what you were saying.
|
| > At what point in the ruling did they wonder what
| motivated the effective ban?
|
| Above is at page 15. Also, I think you're probably
| looking for the paragraph starting with "For the reasons
| we have explained, requiring divestiture for the purpose
| of preventing a foreign adversary from accessing the
| sensitive data of 170 million U.S. TikTok users is not 'a
| subtle means of exercising a content preference.' Turner
| I, 512 U. S., at 645." (at 12).
|
| I saw elsewhere you likened this to the Trump muslim ban.
| I don't think that comparison is apt. The First Amendment
| issues there were not decided by the 9th circuit in the
| first one ("we reserve consideration of [First Amendment
| religious discrimination] claims until the merits of this
| appeal have been fully briefed." State v. Trump, 847 F.3d
| 1151, 1168 (9th Cir. 2017)) the stay there was issued due
| to likelihood of success on the merits wrt due process
| issues; I don't know offhand about the second one; and
| the third attempt was upheld.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I appreciate the thorough response. So they speak to the
| motivation in part being "preventing a foreign adversary
| from accessing the sensitive data of 170 million U.S.
| TikTok users", but not at all the portion of the
| motivation to "prevent the CCP from having a megaphone
| into 170 million attentive US TikTok users" (my words).
| Did they omit that this was likely a motivation, or
| contend that it wasn't.
|
| Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42742762
| for this same thread
| kopecs wrote:
| I think this is discussed at length in part II.D (starts
| at the bottom of 17). I would write more but I have spent
| too long already on this thread :)
|
| I would be a bit careful about trying to liken motivation
| for something like an EO to a law though; many members of
| congress voted to pass the exact language in the final
| bill, and they might not all have agreed with _why_. So I
| would put to you that the text itself is the primary
| thing one should consider, especially more in the
| legislative case than the executive one.
| ruilov wrote:
| they talk more about the motivations of the law in part D.
|
| The "exclusion" referred to in this quote is not the
| exclusion of tiktok. The court is responding to one of the
| arguments that tiktok made. Certain types of websites are
| excluded from the law, and (tiktok says) if you have to
| look at what kind of website it is, then obviously you're
| discriminating based on content.
|
| the court is saying that this would be an argument that
| this law is unconstitutional, period. That's a very hard
| thing to prove because you need to show that the law is bad
| in all contexts, and to whoever it applies to, very hard.
| So tiktok is not trying to prove that, that's not how they
| challenged the law - instead tiktok is trying to prove
| something much more limited, ie that the law is bad when
| applied to tiktok. It's an "as-applied" challenge. In which
| case, the argument about looking at other websites is
| irrelevant, we already know we're looking at tiktok. As the
| opinion says "the exclusion is not within the scope of
| [Tiktok's] as-applied challenge"
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I'll copy what I said in another comment:
|
| > At what point in the ruling did they wonder what
| motivated the effective ban? "5 why's" it, so to speak.
| Did they ever say, "because X, Y, and Z, it is clear the
| intent of the law is not to prevent speech of certain
| parties"?
| ruilov wrote:
| part D. "The record before us adequately supports the
| conclusion that Congress would have passed the challenged
| provisions based on the data collection justification
| alone"
| DangitBobby wrote:
| This is belied by the lack of laws (and lack of
| provisions in this law) preventing American companies
| from collecting data and selling to the highest bidder,
| including China.
| ruilov wrote:
| from the opinion: "[Tiktok] further argue that the Act is
| underinclusive as to the Government's data protection
| concern, raising doubts as to whether the Government is
| actually pursuing that interest"
|
| ie what you're saying...the Court replies:
|
| "the Government need not address all aspects of a problem
| in one fell swoop...Furthermore, as we have already
| concluded, the Government had good reason to single out
| TikTok for special treatment"
|
| Congress can solve one problem without needing to solve
| all problems.
| cataphract wrote:
| You mean Sottomayor and likely Gorsuch acknowledge the 1st
| amendment issues at play. The rest just assume it without
| deciding.
| ruilov wrote:
| agreed
| nashashmi wrote:
| The justices said this was not about first amendment. It was
| about security and securing the users in the country
| DangitBobby wrote:
| And what specifically is causing the security issue. Is it
| speech?
| wyre wrote:
| Privacy
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I'm not buying it. They don't care about privacy
| violations for any American companies.
| accrual wrote:
| It's about controlling the narrative. A broad group of US
| citizens use TikTok to discuss social inequality, class
| warfare, and other topics that would give people,
| individually and collectively, more power and US
| billionaires have no say in it.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| To oversimplify:
|
| You can say whatever you want on a telephone call.
|
| BUT:
|
| The telephone network is regulated. Your cell phone must comply
| with FCC regulations. You personally may have a restraining
| order that prohibits you from calling certain people.
|
| IE, if a phone is found to violate FCC rules, pulling it from
| the market has little to do with the first amendment.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| If these FCC rules were designed specifically with the intent
| to suppress speech of certain parties, they could be found in
| violation of your first amendment rights if challenged. IMO
| the ruling does not bother to examine whether the motivation
| of drafting the Act was to suppress speech.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| The FCC doesn't make rules based on who owns the telephone
| though.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Actually, they kind of do.
|
| > US bans sale of Huawei, ZTE tech amid security fears
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63764450
|
| This was an FCC rule
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment
| arguments compelling?
|
| Apparently the owners of the operation are not US citizens
| operating in the USA and don't have any first amendment rights
| because that's part of the US Constitution and doesn't apply to
| other countries.
| adrr wrote:
| US has banned foreign ownership of TV/Radio stations for over a
| 100 years.
| sophacles wrote:
| The entire notion that there's a free speech angle here is a
| disingenuous red herring by Tik Tok to muddy the waters.
|
| Speech is in no way being limited or compelled - you can say
| the exact same thing on dozens of other platforms without
| consequence. You can even say it on tik tok without
| consequence. You can even publish videos from tik tok in the US
| just fine.
|
| This law is about what types of foreign corporation can do
| business in the US, and what sorts of corporate governance
| structures are allowed.
| joejohnson wrote:
| This is false. There is absolutely content on TikTok critical
| of the US, Israel, western businesses, etc that is boosted by
| TikTok's algorithm and effectively censored or hidden on many
| American-owned social networks,
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Because it has the option for selling
|
| If the option wasnt there, it would have stricter first
| amendment scrutiny
|
| They could have still banned it other ways though
|
| and the first amendment aspect is also torn apart in other ways
| in the court ruling
| cryptonector wrote:
| > But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment
| arguments compelling?
|
| Read the decision. They thought the act was content-neutral,
| and they thought that the espionage concerns were sufficient to
| reach a decision w/o having to involve the First Amendment.
| Gorsuch and Sotomayor weren't quite so sure as to the First
| Amendment issues, but in any case all nine justices found that
| they could avoid reaching the First Amendment issues, so they
| did just that.
| geuis wrote:
| Text publications don't run software that reports to
| adversarial countries.
| submeta wrote:
| We all know the Elephant in the room, that Israel's genocide in
| Palestine led to lots of criticism on Tik Tok, and that led the
| Israel lobby to push a Tik Tok ban.
| tradertef wrote:
| Yes, the "we have a Tiktok problem" statement is proof of that.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Wait, where's the Facebook/Meta ban? Is unlawful data collection
| only unlawful if it's done under a foreign adversary? I guess not
| to the US Government where their interests align with adversarial
| data collection practices against its own people.
| nickelpro wrote:
| Facebook / Meta are not controlled by a foreign adversary as
| designated by the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary
| Controlled Applications Act". Thus they cannot become subject
| to the distribution restrictions designated by that law.
|
| The core factor in the law is control by a foreign adversary,
| it's not a law that outlaws data collection.
| dawnerd wrote:
| 60% of Bytedance is owned by outside of China investors. I
| fail to see how that makes it controlled by China.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The law does not care about who financially owns the
| company, only about designations of control made by the
| president (along with a 30 day notice).
|
| The law actually skips this step for ByteDance / TikTok and
| directly adds them to the list of "Foreign Adversary
| Controlled Applications" along with the enactment of the
| law.
| patmcc wrote:
| The argument is that China has a
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_share in Bytedance;
| that despite only owning (on paper) 1% or whatever, they
| still have effective control over the whole company, if
| they so desire.
|
| (I don't know if that's true, but it strikes me as
| plausible)
|
| edit: you can make an analogy to e.g. Meta - Zuckerberg
| doesn't strictly own a majority, but he does have very
| strong control because of the particular corporate
| structure.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I know, I was pointing out it's not really about data
| collection because we allow manipulative practices with our
| own people. We are our own worst enemy. Meaning government
| and corporations want that power over our people. They are
| protecting interests that run counter to the will of the
| people.
|
| I support any ban on social media platforms because control
| of the public's data belongs in the hands of individuals.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It's not about data collection, it's about being able to
| manipulate viewpoints based on that collection and access to
| people's eyeballs.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| I think in the future people will look back at kids on social
| media, like we look back at kids smoking cigarettes.
| cyclecount wrote:
| This is like paying doctors to say only evil foreign cigarettes
| cause cancer. Buy American!
| the_arun wrote:
| Thousands of US content creators were earning on TikTok. Now they
| need to migrate over to other alternatives. Also this is a
| reminder for all content creators to always plan for failovers.
| Though I would assume most them already are on multiple
| platforms.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| Not at all the case except for the largest ones. It is hard to
| grasp the distribution capacity of TikTok. It WILL put your
| content in front of people interested in it. It's crazy good at
| that. Also, a lot of money came in from the live streams within
| the app.
| maeil wrote:
| Many people here upset about this.
|
| Here's what recently happened in Romania, all through TikTok.
|
| Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country, waged
| an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by getting
| their chosen candidate elected. Without TikTok, this would not
| have happened. I have talked about this with Romanians who
| concur.
|
| In the real world, there are two responses to this.
|
| 1. "Tough luck, it's too late now, should just stand by and watch
| the country get taken over".
|
| 2. "Ban it and future popular big platforms controlled by a
| foreign adversary".
|
| That's it. We'd all love for something inbetween. It's not
| happening, all such options would end up becoming 1). That's the
| state of the modern day world.
|
| The facts that
|
| A. They seem to rather abandon the app rather than receive tens
| of billions by selling it
|
| B. "The Chinese government also weighed a contingency plan that
| would have X owner Elon Musk acquire TikTok's U.S. operations"
|
| C. The remaining mountains of evidence that it is a CCP tool
|
| Mean that the arguments of Congress here are valid and this is
| the right decision. It _is_ a tool directly controlled by a
| foreign adversary, for geopolitical, not profit-oriented,
| purposes. This is nothing like the PATRIOT act or other moves by
| governments that claim "protect the children" or "protect
| against terrorism" for some ulterior motive of surveillance or
| worse. It might be a rarity, but in this case the claims by
| Congress are factual and a sufficiently good reason.
| cyclecount wrote:
| This is laughable, even with your depiction of the events. The
| candidate in question (Georgescu) had a very popular platform,
| and was supported by a large bases or Romanians on the left and
| right.
|
| He was, however, opposed to further expansion of NATO.
|
| If these ideas are too scary to let general public even
| consider, then democracies have to step in and censor the
| media. And that begins by banning TikTok, the largest platform
| where a narrative like this can bypass the existing power
| structures.
| abeppu wrote:
| > Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country,
| waged an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by
| getting their chosen candidate elected.
|
| But in the US, Russia also has waged enormous disinformation
| campaigns on US-based social media networks. Taking the problem
| of foreign (dis|mis)information, election interference, etc
| seriously requires that we do more than ban one network based
| on the ownership of that company. After TikTok gets shut down,
| Chinese influence operations can still use Twitter/X, Meta,
| Reddit etc. We need better tools and regulations to make these
| campaigns visible stoppable in real-time, rather than just
| banning one network while leaving up multiple other vulnerable
| networks. This ban is political theater, where the US can act
| like it's doing something while not having to address the
| harder parts of the problem.
|
| > A. They seem to rather abandon the app rather than receive
| tens of billions by selling it
|
| I think this is weak evidence of them being a mostly political
| tool. Valuations based on their actual use are well above what
| anyone has actually offered to pay. And disentangling US
| operations from the rest of TikTok would not be straight-
| forward; do you merely cleave it in two? Given network effects,
| would cutting off the US component to sell it make both the US
| and non-US portions less valuable?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/15/tiktoks-us-unit-could-be-wor...
| xdennis wrote:
| What you're really complaining about is that too many people
| agree with Georgescu. The way mainstream media works, only a
| few candidates get air time so there's little competition.
| Georgescu was able to build a following on the alternatives so
| the election was suspended (without motivation) and new
| regulations put in place to make sure no un-approved candidate
| stands a change.
|
| They were so busy banning Sosoaca and demonizing the best
| candidate (Simion) that they forgot about Georgescu.
|
| We were already a laughing stock for banning a candidate
| (Sosoaca). Now we've suspended democracy and postponed the
| election 'til kingdom come.
| suraci wrote:
| Are we that good already?
|
| Thrilling
| DoodahMan wrote:
| one would think the ranking member on the House Intel Cmte - my
| very own Rep - would agree with you, given how he'd be _way_
| more privy to such things than you, me, talking heads on TV,
| etc. yet he disagrees and cites free speech concerns [0][1].
|
| in my mind none of these reasons add up. if this were truly
| about influence ops on social media we would not have blinders
| on for our own platforms' role in them. remember Cambridge
| Analytica and the 2016 campaign, or Facebook's role in the
| Myanmar genocide? or more-recently the ops Israel ran?
| furthermore if this were really about our data, we would again
| not have blinders on. the CCP can still purchase our data as
| we're all up for sale given our lack of data privacy/protection
| laws.
|
| as such i tend to side with my Rep: this is bunk, and the
| pretexts flimsy. i believe the answer is to focus on education
| - critical thought particularly - and enacting data
| privacy/protection laws. i do not believe that would lead to
| 1).
|
| now will that happen? i'm doubtful tbh. our own govt loves the
| fact that we're up for sale, for it allows them to side-step
| the need for a warrant. have a great weekend.
|
| [0] https://www.ctinsider.com/columnist/article/tiktok-ban-
| jim-h... [1] https://himes.house.gov/2024/3/himes-statement-on-
| protecting...
| commandlinefan wrote:
| As a free speech absolutist, I hope that what comes out of this
| is a completely anonymized, uncensorable alternative. We've
| gotten the arbitrary censorship walled garden social media sites
| mostly because until now there hasn't been any particular reason
| for most users to step outside of them.
| fsflover wrote:
| You mean PeerTube? Perhaps it could also be combined ith I2P.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Exactly - there are technical solutions, they just rely on
| mass uptake in order to work.
| IntrnlCmplrErr wrote:
| I think many have tried but face an uphill battle of unless a
| significant majority is willing to relocate, the prevailing
| content will be things that are deemed undesirable/bannable on
| other platforms, which distracts potential users.
|
| Having a completely decentralized solution also comes with the
| issue of future governance. If a single entity controls the
| direction (even if the spec is open and you can host it
| yourself), then it's not decentralized. If you end up with a
| consortium then you'll face the same issue of email, innovation
| is hard to spread as you need multiple actors with competing
| interests to agree.
|
| If your vision is having multiple entities providing different
| experiences tailored to individual taste, they might start
| consolidating and effectively forming several disjoint
| platforms.
|
| p.s.
|
| The web can be said to be decentralized but it's dominated by
| large players all the way from hosting to browsers. If all
| three major browsers don't agree on your proposal, it's
| effectively dead. Who's to say entrenched players won't arise
| in your vision of a decentralized social media?
| daedrdev wrote:
| just think a tiny bit about why that would be a bad idea
| kube-system wrote:
| Nah, centralized apps have won because mass appeal and market
| momentum hinges on factors almost entirely other than an app's
| technical architecture.
| max_ wrote:
| I disagree. People just need to build a good social
| networking protocol.
|
| Email for example can be thought of as a social networking
| app but it's really decentralised.
|
| While you can ban Gmail, it's really hard to ban Email.
|
| Something like AT Protocol would be what it would like like
| or activity pub.
|
| But so far, they are all so bad.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think that's at odds with what I said. If there's a
| good decentralized protocol that gets momentum, good for
| it. But, the interests that build social media apps well in
| terms of what is successful in the marketplace, usually
| chose not to do that because it isn't in their interest to
| do so. They spend a lot of money on marketing, driving
| engagement, etc, and most don't want to share it.
|
| Email is a bit of an outlier because it gained critical
| mass before the web was predominantly commercialized.
| curiousllama wrote:
| We have that. Welcome to the World Wide Web.
|
| We all walked into the walled gardens and went "ooh, looks
| mighty nice in here!"
| Pxtl wrote:
| > completely anonymized, uncensorable alternative.
|
| So a fountain of child sexual assault material?
| xnx wrote:
| What happens to the copyright on these videos?
| wslh wrote:
| I only take this as a geopolitical decision. Not saying that the
| US couldn't do that (like any other country) but adding arguments
| that also apply to other social media apps as well is, IMHO, FUD.
| btbuildem wrote:
| It's hard not to see this as a continuation of the American
| corporate interests controlling the media their population
| consumes. TikTok I think has the largest share of American's
| attention out of all the social media?
|
| Doesn't seem to matter which clown flaps about in the wind at the
| oval office, control of the narrative holds a steady keel for
| decades. This is the same story, in a new medium. Sure, as the
| "sides" in culture wars take turns "ruling", certain things are
| allowed or disallowed. The real consequential stuff, ideas and
| patterns that would lead to the empowerment of the working class
| vs hoarders of capital -- all the back to basic education,
| critical thinking, civic engagement, and the implicit/explicit
| deprioritization of any and all that in favour of obedient
| consumerism.
|
| With the "new" tech they've discovered they can really shape
| people's opinions, tweak the emotional charge to make people act
| in such unconsidered ways, en masse, against each others' and
| their own best interest -- of course they'll hold on to that at
| any cost. It's unprecedented, though not unimagined.
|
| I wonder what will fill this space. Over all the rises and falls
| of the various blinking nonsense, I've never really seen people
| go -back- to an app / service / etc. They all just wither away as
| the next new things comes up.
| zavertnik wrote:
| > It's hard not to see this as a continuation of the American
| corporate interests controlling the media their population
| consumes.
|
| Do you find the natsec argument to be compelling considering:
|
| > TikTok I think has the largest share of American's attention
| out of all the social media?
| hunglee2 wrote:
| China's vision of the Internet turned out to be more prescient
| than we realised at the time. Everyone is going to their own
| Great Firewall. In hindsight, it will seem crazy that we ever
| allowed media platforms to be controlled by foreign governments -
| especially ones which like to seed revolution, social unrest and
| regime change
| cryptonector wrote:
| This law does not impose a Great Wall on the Internet in the
| U.S.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| If what TikTok is doing is dangerous when TikTok does it why is
| it safe when everyone else does it?
|
| This is theft, pure and simple. The government-industrial complex
| is trying to steal this app. The private side wants to make money
| and the public side wants yet another way to control narratives
| on social media much the way President Musk does on twitter.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| The key issue here now is: The future, freedom, international
| policy etc of you US guys no longer depends on democratic
| structures in ANY way whatsoever.
|
| Who pays Trump most, wins. Who does what Musk wants, wins.
|
| From what I know, there is no second Oligarch-run corrupt country
| that would come close to this. This is worse than China and
| Russia combined.
|
| Sorry, not meant to bash our US HN friends at all, just an
| observation from another western country targeted by MuskTrump
| that has yet to follow the US lead (which they will), so we still
| have some time left to be in shock and awe about what is going on
| on your side of the pond for a while.
|
| FFS.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Commenting on your own posts sucks, but let me add:
|
| The current status of insanity is that the US is threatening to
| invade a EU country by force to annex it to be able to exploit
| natural resources and gain a strategic military position.
|
| Again, let me repeat, as very clearly a lot of people are now
| completely numb to insanity and just filter it out:
|
| THE US IS THREATENING TO INVADE A EU COUNTRY. YES. SERIOUSLY.
|
| Was US Headlines for one day, now drowned in other madness
| already.
|
| Anyway, you won't have any democratic say on this anyway, so
| let's just gamble:
|
| Jeff Yass will bribe Trump heavily, and Trump will then lift
| the ban next week, no matter what his Supreme Court sock
| puppets want.
| null0pointer wrote:
| What does this shutdown mean for US employees of Bytedance? Will
| they shut down their US offices or continue business as usual
| working from the US but only serving users outside?
| MrPapz wrote:
| If the youth of the rest of the world keeps using it, the US
| culture attention will be replaced by something else.
|
| This might be another step in the US journey of losing their role
| as a superpower nation to become just another country.
| nthingtohide wrote:
| Your concern about losing the dominant culture status is
| useless. Recent geopolitical situation clearly shows soft power
| is useless. Hardpower is where everything is at.
| Prbeek wrote:
| A globally used social media app without American narrative and
| propaganda. A huge loss for American soft power.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Maybe. Network effects are strong, though. I wonder how much
| losing access to the US market sets back TT's financial &
| competitive positions
| tboyd47 wrote:
| You mean the young people now on Rednote complaining that they
| can't buy groceries?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I love all the comments saying that the Supreme Court doesn't
| understand the first amendment.
| xnx wrote:
| It would be interesting to see TikTok go full scorched earth and
| become a mega pirate movie, music, TV, streaming sports site.
| deadbabe wrote:
| That will never work. The TikTok audience doesn't have the
| attention span to support such long form content.
| xnx wrote:
| As long as it supports split-screen with Subway Surfers.
| etblg wrote:
| Funnily enough there are full movies uploaded on TikTok split
| up in to parts, they come across my feed every once in a
| while.
| xnx wrote:
| Exactly. Why not make it official? I feel like split up
| movies peaked awhile ago ("chop chop movie boy"), but is
| now limited to live video with a person in the foreground.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I've seen these too on Instagram and TikTok, but usually
| it's some tense part of a movie and the scene encourages me
| to basically go watch the whole movie, which then turns out
| to not be as great as that one curated clip.
| dluan wrote:
| rumors are that XHS wont region split, in which case this is
| setting up to a monumental event in the evolution and future of
| the internet. words can't really describe how big of a decision
| this is going to be.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| That's the opposite of what I've heard
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall...
| dluan wrote:
| Arstechnica quoting a random reddit poster is not the same as
| the people I've been talking to lol
| glurblur wrote:
| Yeah, from my other reply
|
| > I don't think that's going to happen. The party official
| seems to be positive about the event overall based on their
| press release recently. IMO it's going to the opposite
| direction, where they try to get more foreign users on the
| platform and have them stay there. If I were a CCP official,
| I would love to have more soft power by having everyone on a
| Chinese platform.
| skyyler wrote:
| >There has been no official announcement that such a change
| is coming, but Reddit commenters speculated
|
| You may want to read more than the headline next time.
| blast wrote:
| Can you explain further? Sounds important but I don't
| understand.
| dluan wrote:
| I jobbled down some thoughts a few days ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42690618
|
| But in a nut shell I think we're seeing outcome #2 play out,
| which has huge ramifications for the Chinese internet.
| Essentially this could become a precedent for all Chinese
| apps moving forward, and essentially the great firewall
| slowly dissolving. Trends have been slowly going that way
| with Bilibili, Douban, Kuaishou, etc, being more open to
| foreigners. There's still a lot to play out over the next few
| weeks as Trump assumes office and Tiktok CEO attends the
| inauguration. But there is just too much to comment about
| this entire situation, and most people who aren't Chinese or
| have experience with the great firewall are not going to
| comprehend just how monumental this whole ordeal has already
| been, and will be.
| computerex wrote:
| Free speech.
| ezfe wrote:
| Could TikTok develop a web app and direct users to it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yes. TikTok.com is legal as long as it isn't hosted here.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Kinda funny we have a president that can and will just ignore the
| Supreme Court and laws
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Yeah! If China wants our data they'll have to buy it from data
| brokers like everyone else!
| zombiwoof wrote:
| This is just a roundabout way for Trump to get bribed
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Very sad moment for the united states. Banning an app because the
| users are too critical of israel/support palestine, and they
| cannot control it.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| It sounds like they are just banning it from new installs on app
| stores, won't people just browse to the URL to use it?
|
| The distinction between apps and websites seems arbitrary to
| me... especially since a huge fraction of apps seem to be
| effectively just a browser window with a single website locked in
| full screen.
|
| I have never before used tiktok, but just now as an experiment I
| opened it in a browser and scrolled for a minute- I had no
| problem accessing an apparently endless stream of mostly young
| women jumping up and down without bras, and young men vandalizing
| automobiles.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Tik Tok said they'll fully shut down. They'd rather go dark now
| than have a slowly-degrading experience, since users won't be
| able to update the apps.
| hbn wrote:
| Why would the experience degrade because US users are
| disappearing?
|
| There are countries other than America.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I think they just mean fully shut down in the US, as
| opposed to trying to serve existing US users as best they
| can.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| It makes sense to shut down the app in the US immediately
| rather than be unable to update it- but does that necessarily
| mean they would also shut it down outside the US, or access
| directly via the website?
| joshfee wrote:
| I think the easiest answer to follow for "why is this not
| prevented by free speech protection" is "the fact that
| petitioners "cannot avoid or mitigate" the effects of the Act by
| altering their speech." (page 10 of this ruling, but is a
| reference to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Broadcasting_System,_In...)
| curiousllama wrote:
| That's a great point. Hadn't thought about that angle
| yobid20 wrote:
| Simple answer. A chinese owned company has no such rights or
| protections. Free speech does not apply. The law also does not
| censor content (so no free speech violation anyway). The law
| simply bans the distribution of the app on marketplaces stores
| for reasons stated (national security). Big difference.
| nilsbunger wrote:
| This is a limitation on foreign control of TikTok, not a
| limitation on speech. TikTok can stay in the us market if it
| eliminates the foreign control
| hintymad wrote:
| Since the ban is about not allowing app stores to host TT, can TT
| build its own App Store to offer the download of its app, given
| that Apple has to allow other app stores?
| Wingy wrote:
| Apple doesn't have to and doesn't choose to allow alternative
| app stores outside of the EU.
| msie wrote:
| Somehow people shilling for Russia can operate unimpeded in this
| country.
| chaseadam17 wrote:
| If US users continue to use the app via VPN, will that hinder the
| CCPs ability to weaponize it? If so, this outcome may be a good
| middle ground.
| curiousllama wrote:
| The whole thing with social media is network effects though.
| The added friction of a VPN, though small, is just so much
| larger than "click download, open app"
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| You won't need a vpn. TikTok isn't getting blocked. It's
| getting delisted from the App Store. The app will still be on
| your phone.
| dluan wrote:
| This is not a good outcome, this is Meta shooting itself in the
| face.
| account266928 wrote:
| Surprised not more people are tying this to the Uber-Didi
| situation. IIRC it was a big complicated mess, but e.g. (this)[ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_Peopl...]
| seems to imply that e.g. Uber would have to use Chinese domestic
| servers subject to auditing, etc. Upshot is eventually Uber
| stopped dumping billions to try to get a foothold, and eventually
| divested their Chinese operations.
|
| (Also later Didi got kinda screwed imo right after their IPO in
| IMO a retaliatory move by the Chinese gov). So, is this TikTok
| ban one more shot in a new form of economic warfare? Is this type
| of war even new? Again, IMO, I think in instituting this law,
| this kind of stuff was on at least some of congress' minds.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| Didi/Uber was more complicated than just data stuff.
|
| At a high level, chinese tech culture is an insane no holds
| barred cage match with very little legal structure to protect
| IP or employees or anything and most companies who enter fail
| at participating in this.
|
| Didi did a lot of corporate espionage and sabotage at uber
| china. They'd have "double agents" working for uber they'd pay
| to f stuff up. This type of thing is not practices in america
| because it is extremely illegal, but it was fine in China at
| not something that uber could do "back" to didi. There were
| people on the uber china fraud team paid by didi to tip off
| fraud networks on how to fraud. In the last year in china, they
| moved a ton of important work back to US offices because the
| china office was "compromised".
| account266928 wrote:
| It is a lot more complicated, and I agree with the vibe of
| your comment based on some readings, but couldn't find much
| regarding sources about the sabotage. I found [this
| article](https://www.digitalaoban.com/why-uber-failed-in-
| china/), and I also found another by searching "IMEI FRAUD
| UBER DIDI SIM CARD", (but that other article was literally
| copy pasted from the first) (couldn't find sources from the
| first) (I have some hurtful things to say about tech
| journalism but this website is too polite for that) Again,
| don't really doubt, but more sort of wondering where you
| sorts get primary information from.
| n144q wrote:
| The comment does not read like made up, so my guess: first
| or second hand information.
| sircastor wrote:
| My wife and I are split on this, though neither of us are regular
| TikTok users.
|
| I keep coming across elected officials who are apparently briefed
| on something about TikTok, and they decide there's a reasonable
| threat regarding the CCP or some such. The idea that the CCP
| could drive our national conversation somehow (still murky)
| bothers me.
|
| My wife feels like this is the US Government trying to shut down
| a communication and news delivery tool.
|
| While I don't agree with her, I don't think she's wrong. It seems
| all the folks who "have it on good authority" that this is a
| dangerous propaganda tool, can't share what "it" is.
| ok123456 wrote:
| They make up lies that they tell them in the SCIF.
|
| It's just theater.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| If the President had over Meta and X the sort of control the
| CCP has over TikTok, Instagram and Twitter would be banned in
| most countries. The only reason this is debated so much here is
| we're (in my opinion correctly) very cautious about free
| speech.
| jayzalowitz wrote:
| I believe theres a related argument that congress might be
| making here, idk.
| mattrick wrote:
| The owner of Twitter/X is about to be in the president's
| cabinet. And the owner of Meta is clearly cozying up to the
| incoming administration with their new "anti-woke" policies.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| The owner of X is _in_ the government.
| thehappypm wrote:
| In what way? He's basically just a friend of Trump
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| In the most literal way possible.
| mplewis wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Ef
| fic...
| natdempk wrote:
| > It seems all the folks who "have it on good authority" that
| this is a dangerous propaganda tool, can't share what "it" is.
|
| No need to speculate too hard here, there are plenty of
| examples of censorship on TikTok:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok
|
| Censorship is a form of propaganda, and even the very
| obvious/reported examples we've seen reported over the years
| are pretty bad. And you have to assume that there is more going
| on than is actually reported/noticed, especially in subtler
| ways. It's also just obvious it's happening in the sense that
| the Chinese government has ultimate control over TikTok.
| dmix wrote:
| I tried to find a "Censorship by Youtube" wiki but couldn't
| find one. Only one documenting the censorship OF youtube
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube.
|
| I don't see a section on their main wiki either, even though
| YT is pretty notorious for deleting stuff, even political
| stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
| Bjartr wrote:
| > The idea that the CCP could drive our national conversation
| somehow (still murky) bothers me.
|
| Even if all the CCP can do is modify how often some videos and
| comments show up to users on tik tok, there's a chance that
| level of control could have been enough to instigate the whole
| jump to red note we're seeing. After all, the suggestion
| originated within tik tok itself as the videos talking about it
| (and the comments praising it) went viral. Sure everyone was
| primed to do _something_ with the deadline approaching, but it
| 's entirely possible that the red note trend isn't an
| organically viral one, but a pre-planned and well executed
| attempt to throw a wrench in the works.
|
| red note's infrastructure seems to have had no problems
| absorbing millions of new users at the drop of a hat, cloud
| scaling is good, but that kind of explosive growth in mere
| days, when unexpected, often results in some visible hiccups.
| Maybe the engineers are just that good, or maybe they had a
| heads up that it'd be happening.
|
| Utter speculation on my part, but I've found it interesting
| I've not come across anyone else mention the possibility.
| squarefoot wrote:
| You don't destroy what can give you even more power by
| controlling it. Trump/Musk/Zuck plan is to control it, not
| destroy it: the army of teens willing to be inundated by
| propaganda just to keep using it is too appealing to ignore, and
| China will happily trade that control for something (less/no
| tariffs?).
| hotstickyballs wrote:
| If TikTok is just in the business of earning money they would've
| sold.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Who are they actually supposed to be selling to? Given the US
| has pretty active antitrust for now, I can't really think of
| anyone who has both the money and expertise to run it and would
| be allowed to buy it.
| thehappypm wrote:
| An easy solution is to spin off TikTok to its own company and
| then that company IPOs.
| sunaookami wrote:
| TikTok _cannot_ be sold because the algorithm cannot be sold
| under the export control laws enacted by China.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Bits that can't be exported can be recreated by the new
| owner, most likely with material differences anyways not just
| because the new owner might not be able to recreate the
| original faithfully but because they might not _want to_.
| mips_avatar wrote:
| It's a bit disingenuous for Mark Zuckerberg to go on Joe Rogan
| and say that the Biden administration is anti Meta/anti America,
| when congress passed this bill to shut down TikTok.
|
| I don't love that TikTok is run by a Chinese company (thus giving
| way too much control to the Chinese government), but Meta builds
| such garbage experiences in their apps. There really needs to be
| a real competitor to Meta.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| Biden has said he won't enforce the ban and Trump has said he
| will keep TikTok from going dark. Shou is attending the
| inauguration. Ivanka and Kai are posting actively on TikTok. It
| is not going anywhere.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I'd be stunned if Trump saved TikTok, that would be really
| inconsistent with his anti-China rhetoric, which is one of the
| consistent policies he has.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| He may be anti-China, but he's even more anti-Biden.
| aunterste wrote:
| This would have been a great opportunity to regulate and prohibit
| massive data collection on mobile phones, by writing a law that
| requires the platforms (iOS,android) to architect differently and
| police this aggressively. Takes care of a lot of the TikTok worry
| and cleans up ecosystems from location tracking/selling weather
| apps as well.
| JimmaDaRustla wrote:
| There's no compelling argument or evidence of data collection
| with TikTok, to my knowledge. Theres more evidence of data
| collection and aggregation with American platforms than TikTok.
| Additionally, TikTok is operated independently within the USA
| and hosted on American servers. I think if there's any
| opportunity to regulate data collection, TikTok seems to have
| positioned itself defensively and seems to be distant from
| being used as an example. The only thing that seems to matter
| with this ban is that TikTok is mostly owned by a Chinese
| company.
|
| I'd love to be corrected, but I haven't been provided any
| evidence or information that suggests this ban was justified at
| all.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I met someone who did some high-level work for ByteDance. I
| asked them what they thought of the worries that TikTok was a
| CCP spying instrument.
|
| They said ByteDance is as disorganized as any other big tech
| company, and it would be approximately impossible for them to
| discretely pull that off.
|
| It's easy to see "CCP" and think bogeyman, but it is
| interesting to think about how achievable it would be to pull
| off something shady at Google or Facebook, and apply that
| same thought process to ByteDance.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| Given the Cambridge Analytica scandal, why wouldn't it be
| achievable at Facebook, let alone TikTok.
|
| The CCP could mandate that the TikTok algorithm display
| certain types of political content, then further mandate
| that any criticism of the CCP be limited, especially
| discussion of the said censorship. Most users wouldn't know
| about it and leakers at ByteDance wouldn't be able to
| change that. It's not the US - they are punished in China
| in a way that doesn't happen in the US.
| cryptonector wrote:
| None of the litigants proposed that, and neither did the act in
| question. The court doesn't usually address matters outside the
| controversy in question, so it's no surprise that they didn't
| here.
| redler wrote:
| Prediction: We'll hear that magically Truth Social has sourced
| sufficient funds that will enable it to make an offer for TikTok.
| jrflowers wrote:
| The silliness of the ban itself aside, it is wild how casually
| the whole "both chambers of congress passed a law and that law
| was upheld by the highest federal court but maybe it won't be a
| law if one guy decides he doesn't like it" thing is being treated
| by the media.
|
| It is like "Does America have laws?" is a 3 minute section of
| Good Morning America between low-carb breakfast recipes and the
| memoir of a skateboarding dog.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| > but maybe it won't be a law if one guy decides he doesn't
| like it
|
| Are you talking about a presidential veto? What are you saying?
| jrflowers wrote:
| No. The opportunity for a presidential veto in our system
| happened in April of last year.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-
| what...
| DangitBobby wrote:
| You've ruled out my only guess, but you still haven't
| explained what you're talking about!
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Biden will probably not enforce the ban (no fines) and
| Trump will likely continue that non-enforcement,
| essentially nullifying the will of Congress and judgement
| of the court.
| kshacker wrote:
| I think Biden talk is a nothing burger. You need time to
| enforce things. Ban goes into effect on the 19th. Do they
| send out violation notice on 19th (Sunday), 20th (Monday
| and holiday and transition day) or 21st (first working
| day) when Biden administration does not exist.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I don't understand, why wouldn't they send it out on the
| 19th? Because it's Sunday? Laws aren't weekday-only last
| I checked.
| kshacker wrote:
| Yes. Not all offices are open on weekends. Of course
| armed forces are of course police are working but should
| all agencies be open every day? And are they? Check your
| neighborhood. Post office may be open on Saturday but not
| Sunday and definitely not on MlK day. Check the city
| hall. Check the bill payment in-person windows. Check the
| social security agency.
|
| Some problems such as LA fires require immediate
| response, some problems require an escalation mechanism
| and many others can be dealt during regular business
| hours.
| dgfitz wrote:
| A law was passed with a date attached to it, and it is
| very high profile. My local post office has nothing to do
| with anything.
|
| Stop.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I think the point being made here is that many offices,
| including but not limited to your local post office, are
| closed on Sundays. They were not saying that your
| specific local post office is integral to enforcing the
| TikTok ban.
|
| Is there a section in the text of the law that says that
| enforcement has to happen outside of normal office hours
| or do you just assume that's the case because the law is
| being talked about in the news?
| warner25 wrote:
| I think the idea is that Trump wields enormous
| (unprecedented?) control over the members of his party,
| and thus effectively controls both houses of Congress for
| at least the next two years. I assume he'll quickly get
| whatever legislation he wants sent to his desk for
| signature. I'm wondering how long it takes before the
| Senate invokes the "nuclear option" on what still
| requires a filibuster-proof majority to pass.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| He has a one seat majority in the House. That means he
| needs actual complete buy in from every single Republican
| house member to pass something if the Democrats
| completely oppose it.
|
| He had more than that during his last term, so this term
| should be harder to get things done then last time.
| warner25 wrote:
| Good point - I didn't realize that the new majorities are
| more narrow than they were in 2017 - but my observation
| is that he has more _control_ now over these more narrow
| majorities. In 2017, there were still a lot of "Never
| Trump" or at least "old establishment" Republicans, and
| the party had its own brand and ideology that was
| distinct from Trump. That no longer seems to be the case.
| And the degree to which he can deploy an angry mob
| against any Republican that stands up to him, threatening
| primary challenges or worse, seems totally unprecedented
| to me.
|
| I say this as a registered Republican since the Bush era
| who has never voted for Trump. I don't feel like anyone
| in the party represents me anymore.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There only needs to be one Republican in the house who
| doesn't like the bill, and we already know that Trump
| doesn't do even a little bit of bipartisanship (nor I
| doubt he will start in this next term).
|
| He only has a couple of years to pass bills also, it is
| unlikely that the Republicans retain control of the house
| after the next midterm (unless Trump is popular).
| warner25 wrote:
| I'm seeing 219 R to 215 D, by the way, and the one
| remaining vacant seat will probably go R again. Unless
| I'm interpreting something incorrectly(?), it doesn't
| look like a one-seat majority. Still more narrow than it
| was in 2017, as you said, but not quite that narrow.
| 63 wrote:
| The power in question is the president's power over the
| executive branch of government, e.g. the department of
| Justice. If the president orders it, the department of
| Justice could choose to feign ignorance and simply not
| fine any offending parties under this law. Obviously this
| is an immense power that should be wielded with the
| utmost care but at this point I'm not sure anyone cares.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The headline on HN was updated, but it's in the key points on
| the article:
|
| > _Although President-elect Donald Trump could choose to not
| enforce the law..._
|
| Which is ridiculous. It's the executive branch's function to
| "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" [1]. The
| president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the law.
| There's some debate over whether this applies to 'enforcement
| discretion', in that the president doesn't have infinite
| resources to perfectly execute the law and some things will
| slip through, or whether the president can decline to enforce
| a law that he believes to be unconstitutional before the
| supreme court declares it to be so.
|
| In theory, no, the president can't simply decline to enforce
| a law, congress would then be able to impeach and remove him.
| In practice, though it happens a little bit all the time. And
| even if this was black and white, I don't know that there's
| anything that the incoming president can do that the incoming
| congress would impeach him for.
|
| [1] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3
| -5/...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_S
| tat...
| mcmcmc wrote:
| Can they not impeach him for being a convicted felon? Kinda
| the definition of "high crimes"
| yieldcrv wrote:
| The DOJ isn't involved in that so no
| warner25 wrote:
| Who is "they" in this sentence? You mean the Republican
| majorities in both houses of Congress who (nearly) all
| have their seats at this point only because they appealed
| to Trump's mob of followers? He _could_ be impeached for
| all manner of things, but (as the parent comment said) I
| don 't know what it would take for these Republicans to
| do it.
|
| When he first took office in 2017, I figured that it
| would happen within six months. Given that he was
| impeached twice, I was almost right, but it didn't happen
| until Democrats won the House. Even most of the "old
| establishment" Republicans ended up backing him. Now
| there are none of those remaining.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I missed that, there was another post which was just the
| ruling itself and not an article, I thought that's what
| this was and never read the article.
| troyvit wrote:
| > The president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the
| law.
|
| I had to look up how they handle marijuana laws since that
| has the _look_ of the DOJ doing just that.
|
| 'In each fiscal year since FY2015, Congress has included
| provisions in appropriations acts that prohibit DOJ from
| using appropriated funds to prevent certain states,
| territories, and DC from "implementing their own laws that
| authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation
| of medical marijuana"'[1]
|
| So in that case it's Congress that prohibits the DOJ from
| enforcing a federal law. So your point stands in that the
| DOJ may not be able to unilaterally decide not to enforce a
| law, but apparently congress can sort-of extort them into
| ignoring laws? Oh America.
|
| [1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12270
| diob wrote:
| As with anywhere, laws are toothless without enforcement.
|
| In some cases, they are enforced ruthlessly on one group of
| people, and not on others. This is a feature, not a mistake, by
| the way. Well, a feature for those with power, not normal
| citizens.
|
| The real question is:
|
| "Does America have justice?"
|
| It's not a recent one either. The issue of select enforcement
| of our laws has been around as long as I can recall, and before
| I was born. It's not even unique to the United States.
|
| What I find most upsetting as part of the normal citizenry, is
| that rather than taking things to court and finding that the
| laws need changed, they tend to go the route of charges dropped
| or pardons when the laws affect them.
|
| I would have less of an issue with the rich and powerful folks
| avoiding prosecution if they at least did it in a precedent
| setting way for the rest of us.
|
| That's the injustice.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Of recent note in the "no" column for the "does America have
| justice" question, a convicted felon escapes all consequences
| because he is president elect.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| What sentence have others with the same conviction faced in
| the past? Without that comparison, it is not a "no".
| ruilov wrote:
| it may be toothless but will they have an effect?
|
| You're Apple or Google's lawyer - the CEO asks, should I take
| Tiktok down from the app store. What do you say?
|
| Otoh there's a law and civil penalty. On the other, Trump
| says he won't enforce. Statute of limitations is 5 years, and
| the liability will exist whether Trump enforces or not. In 5
| years, there will (may?) be a new president. On the other
| hand, trump saying he's not going to enforce may give us an
| out if we're ever sued over this (we just did what the Pres
| told us to do...).
|
| Hard call, I give > 50% that they take it down whatever Trump
| says.
| keiferski wrote:
| Knowledge of civics among the media is unfortunately not much
| higher than the average person, which is a real failure
| considering that they are supposed to be an entire "estate" of
| democratic society.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
| nashashmi wrote:
| _"I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat
| colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is
| an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young
| Americans' mental health. This past week demonstrated the
| Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform's
| users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The
| Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president's desk
| immediately."_ [1]
|
| [1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-
| mcca...
|
| U.S. national security: "mobilizing the platform's users to a
| range of dangerous, destabilizing actions"
|
| And give me a break on "young Americans' mental health".
|
| This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized
| by CCP" and was harming young people's health.
|
| The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes
| me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| _The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers
| makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent._
|
| Or they knew it would get them nowhere because they
| understand precisely how unpopular pro-Palestine sentiment is
| among lawmakers.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Both Biden and Trump have said that they will not enforce this
| law. So not just "one guy", but two :)
| epoxia wrote:
| It is one. The other one is already out the door and just
| said "your problem not mine".
| iaseiadit wrote:
| This is just checks-and-balances at work, is it not? It's by
| design.
| 63 wrote:
| What checks remain to counter this power? Impeachment?
| Constitutional amendment? As I understand it, if the
| president chooses not to enforce a law, then the only real
| recourse Congress has is a massive escalation that requires
| an extremely high level of cooperation. I'm not sure it was
| ever intended for the executive branch to simply ignore the
| other two branches and unilaterally decide how to run things.
| Personally I think willfully refusing to enforce the law of
| the land should be an impeachable offense but I guess that's
| not how it works.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| The judicial and executive branches are checks on the
| legislative branch. The entire point of a check is that it
| can't be overridden. If the judicial branch determines that
| a law is unconstitutional or the executive branch
| determines that it should not be enforced, than that's it;
| it's dead.
|
| The legislative branch can try again with another law, but
| if it doesn't change whatever made the law unconstitutional
| or detrimental to enforce, than the relevant branch will
| keep it dead.
|
| The only condition in which the judicial branch regularly
| forces the executive branch to enforce laws is when the
| executive branch tries to legislate through selective
| enforcement; then the judicial branch will give an all-or-
| nothing ultimatum, but even then not enforcing is an
| option, just not selective enforcement.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Wait until you hear about how one ordinary guy on a jury can
| nullify a whole law. Our system is geared to err towards
| enforcing fewer laws.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Creating three branches of government that all have to agree
| that a law should exist (legislative) is constitutional
| (judicial) and should be enforced (executive) has proven to be
| an excellent method of keeping bad laws from negatively
| affecting us. Despite being seemingly simple on the surface,
| it's created a process a bit longer than what a single
| Schoolhouse Rock video can teach us, and it's too much for
| legacy media to handle.
|
| Maybe they only learned from the aforementioned Schoolhouse
| Rock video, because they seem especially bad at understanding
| anything outside of the legislative branch. Not only does the
| legislative branch need to pass a bill into law for it to
| become a regulation, without objection by the judicial branch
| to its constitutionality, but the executive branch needs to
| write that law into a federal regulation, and the legislative
| branch can reject any new regulation they believe doesn't
| comply with the law, as can the judicial branch, who can also
| reject the regulation if it isn't constitutional as written,
| even if the original law that created it was.
|
| It's no wonder that legacy media's wild misunderstandings of
| how laws and regulations work only get a small snippet of time,
| between their more entertaining and feel-good stories that
| drive viewership and revenue.
|
| Fortunately we are no longer stuck with just legacy media, so I
| recommend finding a news source that actually knows what they
| are talking about. I've found the best bet is to get news from
| outlets and aggregators that specialize in a specific topic,
| shielding them from the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, and forcing
| them to publish news that is actually correct.
|
| This is why I come to Hacker News for my tech news aggregation.
| For political news, my favorite so far has been The Hill,
| especially for videos like their Daily Brief and Rising videos
| published on YouTube. I'm open to more, so if anyone has any
| recommendations, let me know.
| atarian wrote:
| TikTok should just build out a PWA. That would be a huge fuck you
| to this whole situation.
| scinerio wrote:
| How?
| keiferski wrote:
| An interesting angle to this whole drama that I haven't seen
| discussed much: in the creator industry, TikTok is known for
| being significantly harder to make money from your content, as
| compared to YouTube. For various reasons, content just makes much
| more money on YouTube than it does on TikTok.
|
| I do wonder what will happen if TikTok users migrate to YouTube
| shorts, and if that will change this.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Not hard to see how this will play out.
|
| Trump will get a bribe from them and it will be opened.
| baggachipz wrote:
| > but Trump might offer lifeline
|
| Is this the same guy who wanted to ban TikTok 4.5 years ago? Just
| asking.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executi...
| portaouflop wrote:
| Ah the land of free speech and freedom of the press.
|
| Not even in Europe we have such crackdown on freedom while
| Americans scream censorship because nazi symbols and certain
| phrases are illegal in Germany.
| joering2 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challeng...
| sunaookami wrote:
| >Not even in Europe we have such crackdown on freedom
|
| Telegram?
| JimmaDaRustla wrote:
| How very "land of the free" of America
| smm11 wrote:
| Wasn't the idea Trump's in the first place?
| nashashmi wrote:
| Here is what Chairman McCaul said: "I was proud to join 352 of my
| Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-
| controlled TikTok is an _enormous threat to U.S. national
| security and young Americans' mental health_. This past week
| demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing
| the platform's users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing
| actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the
| president's desk immediately."[1]
|
| The U.S. national security angle identified is "mobilizing the
| platform's users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions".
| And give me a break that they actually care about "young
| Americans' mental health". This bill was about pro-Palestine
| content ... "being mobilized by CCP" that was harming "young
| people's health".
|
| The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes
| me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent. I went through the
| testimonies given and it was DAMMMMMNNNN weak. Three issues were
| identified by me: The Bill suddenly declares "non-aligned
| countries" to be "foreign adversaries" but there is no declared
| war so how can they be adversaries already; The Bill declares
| anyone facilitating the company including through the transfer of
| communication is in violation of the bill but that is a freedom
| of speech issue which they did not bring up but instead brought
| the ban as a FoS issue; The Bill labels TikTok and ByteDance as
| companies to be sold [to an aligned state] or banned entirely but
| that is the only company being single-handedly called out and I
| don't know how to say this but that sounds like some form of
| discrimination and unsubstantiated claim of threat. They could
| have done a better job at the SCOTUS.
|
| [1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-
| mcca...
| pessimizer wrote:
| The next Supreme Court decision will be them deciding if
| disagreeing with the TikTok decision is sufficient grounds for
| being censored.
|
| Public disagreement with the TikTok decision could lead to
| legislative pressure, which would add support to the pressure
| campaigns of Chinese lobbyists and diplomats, or of other
| organizations that are funded or donated to by Chinese people or
| people of Chinese descent. This could either result in new
| legislation being passed that nullifies the ban, or pressure the
| Executive into failing to enforce the ban.
|
| Either of those outcomes would, in effect, allow the user data of
| Americans to be accessed by the government of China. Disagreement
| with the TikTok ban would in and of itself aid America's
| adversaries.
|
| Besides, disagreement with it implies that America unduly
| restricts speech, when we're supposed to hate China because China
| unduly restricts speech. That's a clear case of creating a false
| equivalence in order to foment discord, which again is material
| support to China's goal to monitor American's communications and
| corrupt the minds of America's children.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| This outcome is worse than I could have ever conceived:
|
| 1) People have valid concerns about TikTok. TikTok will remain,
| and those concerns will remain.
|
| 2) People have valid concerns about free speech. The law that
| tramples free speech stands and is upheld by the court.
|
| 3) People have valid concerns about unfair and unequal
| enforcement of laws. The law will be blatantly and openly ignored
| for political reasons.
|
| Literally everyone loses. What a clown show.
| miningape wrote:
| Yeah this is why I don't like the "tit for tat - they banned
| facebook, insta, etc." argument.
|
| We're supposed to be better than them, but we stoop to their
| level.
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war
| with China.
|
| They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's
| regulatory organizations including the treasury department.
| Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data
| in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by
| abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities.
|
| Yet people are arguing that we should allow the people who did
| that to continue to install apps on millions of Americans phones.
|
| I can't tell if people just don't know that this is happening, or
| if they take their memes way too seriously. I sort of wonder if
| they don't know it's happening because they get their news from
| Tiktok and Tiktok is actively suppressing the stories.
| quantumsequoia wrote:
| > Tiktok is actively suppressing the stories.
|
| Is there any evidence of this? FWIW, I saw plenty of tiktoks
| talking about the China hack
| adamanonymous wrote:
| There is no evidence. This is just blind speculation. 95% of
| the population just doesn't care about telecom cybersecurity.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I agree the evidence is weak, and circumstantial, but it is
| not true that there none. Quick overview of some of it
| (which includes critique of it):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| Yeah i shared with relatives by taking a screenshot of a
| tiktok to show them the news
| archagon wrote:
| Respectfully, I should be able to install whatever the fuck I
| want on my phone. Regardless of which apps I choose to rot my
| brain with, neither the US nor Chinese government should have
| any say in it, period.
|
| If a red line is not drawn, websites will be next, then VPNs,
| then books. And then the Great Firewall of America will be
| complete.
| gpm wrote:
| I agree, you should be able to install whatever the fuck you
| want.
|
| Google and Apple shouldn't be helping China get you to do
| that, by hosting and advertising it in their app store
| though*. Oracle shouldn't be helping China spy on Americans
| by hosting their services.
|
| This isn't a law against you installing things on your phone.
| You're still free to install whatever you want on your phone.
|
| *And if there is a valid first amendment claim here, it would
| probably be Google and Apple claiming that they have the
| right to advertise and convey TikTok to their users, despite
| it being an espionage tool for a hostile foreign government.
| Oddly enough they didn't assert that claim or challenge the
| law.
| wan23 wrote:
| For most people the Venn diagram of things that are
| possible to install on your phone and things on the app
| store is a single circle.
| gpm wrote:
| That's not a problem in my mind.
|
| I'd agree that forbidding individuals from installing it
| would be an overreach, because it would be a more
| restrictive step then is reasonably necessary to
| eliminate the legitimate government interest of counter
| espionage.
|
| I don't think that the governments actions here are more
| restrictive than necessary for that. The fact that they
| make some legitimate actions more difficult is completely
| acceptable (inevitable even).
|
| For most people the Venn Diagram of cars they can
| acquire, and road legal cars, is a single circle. The
| government mandating all cars, even those driven solely
| on private property, be road legal would be an absurd
| overreach. At the same time they have no obligation to
| make it easy to acquire non road legal cars just because
| their legitimate regulations have happened to make that
| difficult.
| archagon wrote:
| The problem is that the rhetoric around this law _from its
| promoters_ is that of an app ban, not a business sanction.
|
| The government currently has no ability to yank a binary
| from computing devices en masse, but the technology to do
| so is already mostly in place. (See Apple's notarization
| escapades in the EU, for example. I think Microsoft is
| working in a similar direction, too.) I have a sickening
| feeling that this is only step one, and that the government
| will eventually mandate the ability to control and curate
| all software running on desktop and mobile devices within
| the country for "security" reasons. The national security
| goons are salivating at the prospect.
| gpm wrote:
| I believe Google Play does actually have the ability to
| remove apps if it wants to, intended for malware.
|
| If the government were to mandate that they use that
| feature, or Apple use that feature, especially to prevent
| future side-loaded installs, I'd be much more sympathetic
| to the overreach arguments. But that's not what they did.
| Rather this is a narrow law that prevents these companies
| from assisting in wide scale espionage. The fact that
| they could do some other bad thing doesn't mean the thing
| they did is bad.
|
| The courts use phrases like "narrowly tailored to achieve
| the governments legitimate interest" to describe the
| balancing test here...
| postoplust wrote:
| If TikTok turned out to be State sponsored spyware, would you
| reconsider?
|
| I support your slippery slope argument. I wonder where your
| red line is relative to "state sponsored spyware" and
| "typical advertising ID tracking" or "cool new app from
| company influenced by an adversarial super power".
| empath75 wrote:
| You can still install the app on your phone. Tik Tok just
| can't do business in the US any more.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Websites and books are already being banned in the US. Ask
| anyone who can no longer access PornHub or who has seen books
| being removed from libraries.
|
| But it's not about what you install, or even what you say.
| It's what you're told and shown. The US _and_ China want
| control over that, for obvious reasons.
|
| Meta has been 'curating' - censoring - content for years.
| TikTok is no different. X isn't even trying to pretend any
| more.
|
| The cultural noise, cat videos, and 'free' debate - such as
| they are - are wrappers for political payloads designed to
| influence your beliefs, your opinions, and your behaviours,
| not just while consuming, but while voting.
| umanwizard wrote:
| A library choosing not to carry a book isn't a ban. The
| government making it ILLEGAL for anyone to distribute the
| book would be a ban. As far as I know that is not happening
| anywhere in the US with some extremely narrow exceptions
| like CSAM.
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| > Respectfully, I should be able to install whatever the fuck
| I want on my phone.
|
| Like every other right, your freedom ends where other peoples
| freedom begins. You can install whatever you'd like on your
| phone... unless it prevents others from exercising their
| rights. That's how we all get to stay free from the "might
| makes right" crowd.
|
| Joining your phone to a botnet belonging to a hostile foreign
| power might very well prevent others from enjoying the very
| rights you're trying to preserve.
|
| You have a point about avoiding the slippery slope though. I
| do hope that the deciders are taking that risk seriously.
| archagon wrote:
| Nobody has thus far provided any evidence of a "botnet."
| stevenAthompson wrote:
| Sometimes we aren't the boss and we don't get to see the
| evidence. That doesn't mean there isn't any.
|
| Can you think of any reason a government engaged in
| cyberwarfare might want to ensure there was informational
| asymmetry? I sure can.
| archagon wrote:
| OK. Has the government indicated that there _is_
| classified evidence?
| gpm wrote:
| Yes. It was even submitted to the court here ex-parte
| (without letting TikTok see it), though the court
| apparently declined to consider it.
|
| What exactly it says... obviously we don't know.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| To me, the 'profiles on the next generation of leaders,
| throughout their formative years' argument is stronger
| than the botnet one.
|
| I don't particularly trust Google or Apple to firewall a
| malicious and determined nation-state actor (0 days being
| 0 days), but it seems lower probability than the
| technically trivial data collection.
| swat535 wrote:
| I think a democratic nation is well within its rights to
| restrict its citizens access of certain systems.
|
| There is no such thing as unlimited liberty, especially with
| regards to systems under control of hostile nations such as
| China and Russia. Would you be comfortable allowing mass
| release of unrestricted Hamas / ISIS, Russian propaganda
| content to North American teenagers? National security is a
| real thing and geopolitics always play a critical role in
| people's lives.
|
| One could perhaps argue that we must educate our citizens
| better, however I think rather than being naive, it's better
| to implement realistic regulations (within _democratic_ means
| of course) to contain the threats.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| We just don't care. We know the all the American TLAs are on
| our phones, so what's a few more Chinese ones? It's a problem
| for Washington war wonks to freak out about, not teens in
| Omaha.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Oh we care. I care way, way less about an American company
| with my data over the CCP.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| I've heard it put that, if you're not a government
| official, having your own government spy on you could be
| more consequential than a foreign one.
| abduhl wrote:
| Lots of people think this way and, to be honest, it
| speaks more to the inability of the thinker to consider
| the realities of the US's current relationship with
| China. A good thought experiment is whether you think the
| people of Crimea or Donetsk would prefer having the
| Ukrainian government spy on them instead of the Russian
| government and whether this preference changed in 2014 or
| 2022.
|
| It's easy to have a gut reaction that your own government
| has a greater impact on your life than a foreign one, but
| that does not reflect the reality that 1) the US
| government is generally benign in that it historically
| has not abused its power over citizens; 2) the Chinese
| government has; and 3) the US and China are going to war
| one day, and China might win.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _1) the US government is generally benign in that it
| historically has not abused its power over citizens; 2)
| the Chinese government has_
|
| And before someone hops in with Kent State, Tuskegee
| trials, et al., let's set the comparison bar at order-of
| x00,000 to x0,000,000 citizens killed by the government.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Death
| _to...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > the US government is generally benign in that it
| historically has not abused its power over citizens
|
| To the extent this is maybe remotely arguably defensible,
| it is only so because the US has historically defined
| internal subjects who it wished to abuse most intently as
| non-citizens (or even legal non-persons), including
| chattel slavery of much of the Black population until the
| Civil War, and the largely genocidal American Indian wars
| up through 1924. But even in those cases you still have
| to ignore a _lot_ of abuse in the period after nominal
| citizenship was granted (for Black Americans,
| _especially_ , but very much not exclusively, in the
| first century after abolition of slavery).
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why?
| noman-land wrote:
| Those teens in Omaha will eventually become voting adults in
| Omaha and then will eventually come into positions of
| leadership in both the public and private sector. I can
| guarantee that 0% would appreciate being blackmailed or
| unknowingly used as pawns in spycraft. Teens in Omaha may not
| understand the full scope of what it means.
| square_usual wrote:
| Can you definitively point to something TikTok collects
| that can be used for blackmail that _isn 't_ collected by
| any other social media app?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Why is it okay that it's collected by any?
|
| And furthermore, why is it okay that it's collected _AND_
| owned by a company based in a country not subject to the
| rule of law?
|
| "Facebook does it too" isn't a reason not to be worried
| about TikTok.
| filoleg wrote:
| > And furthermore, why is it okay that it's collected AND
| owned by a company based in a country not subject to the
| rule of law?
|
| Because I, as an adult, decided that I am ok with sharing
| my personal data within their app in exchange for getting
| to use the app.
|
| As long as I am not sharing personal data of other people
| (who haven't consented to it like I did) or some
| government/work/etc info that I have no right to share, I
| am not sure how this is anyone else's business.
|
| P.S. I would somewhat get your argument if it wasn't
| TikTok but something that could theoretically affect the
| country's infrastructure or safety (e.g., tax preparation
| software or a money-managing app or an MFA app for secure
| logins). But all personal data on me that TikTok has is
| purely my own, has nothing critical at all (all it knows
| is what i watch and do within the app), and has zero
| effect on anyone or anything else.
| noman-land wrote:
| No, they all collect the same level of blackmailable
| stuff. They shouldn't ban TikTok, they should ban all
| data collection and get rid of the third party doctrine
| altogether. But China is sort of an active adversary to
| the US right now so banning it is a heavy handed method
| that will probably mostly work to prevent mass
| indoctrination from a rival and also prop up ailing US
| social media companies. The US govt _wants_ mass
| indoctrination and blackmail material on people, it just
| doesn 't want China to have it.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Please give an example of something that someone would be
| ashamed of or blackmailed by that goes through their
| TikTok?
| abduhl wrote:
| Hopefully we'll ban those too. The first step is always
| the hardest, so you should always look for the easiest
| path (which in this case is banning a foreign government
| from controlling a social media app).
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Teens don't understand the full scope of what anything
| means: that's practically the definition of teenager.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| This is like saying that you don't care about free speech
| because you don't have anything to say right now. It's no
| where close to being a justification.
| glenstein wrote:
| >I can't tell if people just don't know that this is happening,
| or if they take their memes way too seriously.
|
| Exactly. Everyone is having fun bidding adieu to their Chinese
| spys. And I think they're losing sight of the fact that there's
| abundant reporting on harrassing expats and dissidents
| internationally, pressuring countries to comply with their
| extradition requests, to say nothing of jailing human rights
| lawyers and democratic activists and detaining foreigners who
| enter China based on their online footprint.
|
| Most of the time I bring this up I get incredulous denials that
| any of this happens (I then politely point such folks to Human
| Rights Watch reporting on the topic), or I just hear a lot of
| whataboutism that doesn't even pretend to defend Tiktok.
| divbzero wrote:
| Do you have links to the Human Rights Watch reporting that
| you reference?
| abduhl wrote:
| Not a link to the Human Rights Watch report; however, at
| oral argument this was stated by the US government
| (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2024/24-656 @ 1:58:32):
|
| Elizabeth B. Prelogar: And the one final point on this is
| that ByteDance was not a trusted partner here. It wasn't a
| company that the United States could simply expect to
| comply with any requirements in good faith.
|
| And there was actual factual evidence to show that even
| during a period of time when the company was representing
| that it had walled off the U.S. data and it was protected,
| there was a well-publicized incident where ByteDance and
| China surveilled U.S. journalists using their location data
| --this is the protected U.S. data --in order to try to
| figure out who was leaking information from the company to
| those journalists.
| glenstein wrote:
| Here's one from October of last year:
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/09/japan-chinese-
| authoritie...
|
| And here's their overall 2025 page on China which details,
| among other things, harassment of critics based out of
| Italy, detention of U.S. based artist, and even harrassment
| of protestors in San Fransisco.
|
| https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-
| chapters/china
|
| I think their suppression of criticism on Uighur forced
| labor has also encompassed harassment of extended support
| networks people from the region as well, but that's just
| off the top of my head and not necessarily on that page.
| areoform wrote:
| The TikTok ban is security theater through and through.
|
| Chinese spy agencies don't have to make an app that millions of
| American teens use to harvest data on them. American companies
| have been doing the job for them.
|
| They -- just like the FBI, NSA, American police departments and
| almost every TLA -- can just buy the data from a broker,
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admi...
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government...
|
| The brokers don't care. They'll sell to anyone and everyone.
| And the people they sell to don't care either. They'll process
| and re-sell it too. And on and on, until it ends up in the
| hands of every interested party on Earth, i.e. everyone.
|
| So don't worry, the Chinese already have a detailed copy of
| your daily routine & reading habits. Just love this new world
| that we've created to make $0.002/click.
|
| EDIT -- if it makes you feel any better, the Chinese are doing
| it too!
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/chineses-surveillance-state-is-s...
|
| > The vendors in many cases obtain that sensitive information
| by recruiting insiders from Chinese surveillance agencies and
| government contractors and then reselling their access, no
| questions asked, to online buyers. The result is an ecosystem
| that operates in full public view where, for as little as a few
| dollars worth of cryptocurrency, anyone can query phone
| numbers, banking details, hotel and flight records, or even
| location data on target individuals.
| noman-land wrote:
| For anyone reading this who is knowledgeable about this
| topic, where, specifically, can a regular citizen buy
| personal data about people from data brokers?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| https://www.acxiom.com/customer-data/
|
| https://www.epsilon.com/us/products-and-services/data
| arilotter wrote:
| It's unlikely you can. They're generally only willing to
| set up corporate deals to sell data in massive bulk. You
| could buy a domain name, set up a decently real looking
| website with a corpo looking email, then go to any broker
| like https://www.acxiom.com/customer-data/ (not affiliated,
| first one i found on google) and do the whole corporate
| dance of signing a contract to get what you want.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| It's this - anyone saying otherwise simply does not know, or
| is pushing some kind of an agenda. I fully believe some
| people in the US government buy the whole "security" angle,
| but it's very obviously bogus. So is the idea of selling it -
| china is very protective of chinese user data, there's no way
| they are going to trust an american investor to play by their
| rules, even if a serious price was offered, which it hasn't
| been. this entire thing feels like theater, honestly.
| ericmay wrote:
| TikTok is being banned because of the algorithm, not user
| data. Though that's a nice side benefit.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| That's theater too - at least without acknowledging the
| clear harm that american algorithm does as well. The
| logic simply doesn't add up, unfortunately - I am for
| banning all social media apps.
|
| Like foreign adversaries can already run influence
| campaigns on american media platforms, often, the
| american ones will even cooperate with it. It's just
| theater. They dont need tiktok to do whatever people are
| saying the reason is.
| ericmay wrote:
| It's not theater. Just calling something security theater
| isn't an argument and the fact that Congress passed
| bipartisan legislation to ban it after internal security
| briefings should at least cause you to question your
| assumption.
|
| The other key point you are missing is that we can ban
| one app and then ban/regulate others later. You don't
| have to do it all at once even if all organizations were
| engaging in the same behavior.
|
| Even more - the process and legislation required to just
| ban/regulate Meta or other American tech companies for
| example is more difficult not just because of the actual
| legal apparatus required to make it happen, but because
| of economic considerations and jobs and such too.
| Further, no doubt the CIA, NSA, and FBI all but have
| offices at Meta headquarters. They might be engaging in
| activity or influence campaigns we don't like - but
| that's for us to figure out, not some other country.
|
| TikTok is just some random company that doesn't matter
| outside of engaging in activities we don't like and we
| choose to allow it to do business in the United States as
| we see fit.
|
| As casually as we can decide to allow it to do business
| in the United States so too can we revoke that
| permission. We do this all the time. We recently stopped
| Nippon Steel from buying US Steel. TikTok isn't anything
| special.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| That's a convenient fig leaf.
|
| There are 2 separate problems: - Lack of US
| privacy legislation - Security-sensitive systems and
| infrastructure owned by competitor nations
|
| The existance of a different problem is not a justification
| to avoid progress on the original one.
|
| PS: Curious how many total comments there are on this
| article. Either everyone is 3x as likely to comment on it as
| usual or something else is different. Ijs.
| trescenzi wrote:
| But neither of those problems are addressed by a TikTok
| ban. If privacy legislation was enacted and it banned
| TikTok as a result the conversation would be very
| different.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Forcing TikTok to divest from mainland Chinese control
| absolutely solves the second, in TikTok's case.
|
| That there exist other problems is not a justification
| for inaction on this particular problem.
| trescenzi wrote:
| If you consider TikTok a "Security-sensitive system" that
| seems to be such a broad category as to be useless. I
| guess we should stop using any and all Chinese produced
| software systems then? Which isn't an unreasonable
| opinion but again it feels like a different conversation
| than "ban TikTok".
| ethbr1 wrote:
| You don't consider a massively deployed app, on a
| majority of mobile devices, via which blackmailable
| individual profiles can be assembled "security-
| sensitive"?
|
| I'd absolutely consider Meta to be security sensitive.
| And Microsoft. And Google. And Netflix.
| lossolo wrote:
| > blackmailable individual profiles can be assembled
|
| What does that even mean in this context? Have you used
| TikTok before?
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Except they've just spun up different apps accessing the
| same data, and also people are flocking to alternatives
| even more connected to China's Intel apparatus than
| TikTok allegedly was, because fundamentally a shit ton of
| Americans don't trust their government. And IMO, they're
| right not to.
|
| We could shut all of this shit down if we actually wanted
| to, but that means going after American companies too,
| which they won't. They want to have the cake and eat it
| too: outlaw foreign spying on American users without
| outlawing domestic spying on American users. They want to
| make it so China can't do exactly what social media et al
| does in America, to Americans. Americans are not stupid:
| they are perceiving this. They know they are being
| manipulated, perhaps by China, perhaps by the U.S.,
| definitely by dozens if not hundreds of private
| enterprises, likely all fucking three.
|
| On one hand, the American government's priority is the
| security of America and her citizens, but on the other,
| we have an entire segment of the economy now utterly
| dependent on being able to violate citizen's privacy at
| will and at scale. Surveillance capitalism and foreign
| surveillance are effectively interoperable. You can't
| kill one without killing the other.
|
| Edit: And even more on the personal front, for your every
| day Joe: this is completely stake-less. "Oh China is
| spying on me!" big fucking deal. The NSA was caught
| spying on us decades ago, and by all accounts, they
| _still are._ Google AdSense probably knows my resting
| heart rate and rectal measurements that it will use to
| try and sell me the new flavor of Oreo. We accept as a
| given that our privacy is basically long gone, not only
| did that boat leave the pier, it sailed to the mid-
| Atlantic, sunk, and a bunch of billionaires imploded
| trying to check out the wreckage in a poorly made
| submarine. I don 't fucking care if China is spying on me
| too, that's just a fact of my online existence.
| airstrike wrote:
| [delayed]
| slg wrote:
| > American companies have been doing the job for them.
|
| This right here is the answer. People just don't care about
| this type of privacy because they assume some American
| company already has their data. Combine that with us being
| two generations removed from the Cold War and the average
| TikTok user doesn't see any reason why the owner of this
| specific data being Chinese matters and frankly I'm
| sympathetic to that argument. If you live in the US, someone
| like Musk is going to have a greater influence on your life
| than the Chinese government and I see no reason to trust him
| any more or less than the Chinese government. So any
| discussion of this being a matter of national security just
| rings hollow.
| antasvara wrote:
| I worry less about the data and more about how a _lot_ of
| kids, teens, and young adults get their news from TikTok
| (and social media in general).
|
| That's the real value of TikTok. Having the eyeballs of
| young people and being able to (subtly or not) influence
| their perception of the world is valuable in a way that
| massive amounts of data aren't.
|
| I do also worry about this with Musk, but I also
| acknowledge that taking away social media ownership from a
| foreign company is different than taking it away from a US
| company.
| scoofy wrote:
| I mean let's not pretend that an app on the vast majority of
| peoples phones isn't a non-trivial vector for a zero-day
| attack.
|
| If there is an invasion of Taiwan, I don't think it would be
| unthinkable that everyone's phones being broken wouldn't be a
| major tactical and political advantage of shifting the US's
| priorities and political will in the short run.
|
| Sure, it burns the asset in the process, but I mean... this
| has been a priority for an entire century.
| 8note wrote:
| i dont think fhats the right attack? the influential use of
| tiktok sould be sharing propaganda like the US did about
| the iraq war "we did it and the taiwanese people are
| excited to be liberated and reunified with china"
|
| along with details about how the US has no defensive
| alliance with taiwan, and that the US does not need to
| intervene
| gloflo wrote:
| I doubt it is about data. It should be about digital heroin
| and psychological warfare.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| Yeah it's simply an incredibly powerful way to influence US
| youth in ways that are favorable to the CCP.
|
| I don't understand how or why this is hard for people to
| grasp? It's no different than Radio Free Europe being
| secretly funded by the CIA, except it's even more powerful.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Radio Free Europe was covertly funded by the CIA into the
| 1970s, but your comment should say "having been" instead
| of "being", because its current funding is not a secret:
| that comes from the US Agency for Global Media, an openly
| acknowledged part of the US government.
| suby wrote:
| I am in favor of banning TikTok, but not strictly because
| they harvest data. I am far more concerned about them
| manipulating people on a large scale, I think TikTok is an
| effective tool for manipulating public opinion and I have no
| doubt that they're actively engaged and consciously engaging
| America in a form of psychological warfare. We are facing the
| very real threat of a military conflict with China, I do not
| want the Chinese government in this position of power.
|
| I frankly don't understand why I keep seeing on social media
| people like yourselves push the idea that it's okay because
| other companies are also harvesting the data. It is obviously
| not about the data. It is about China being in a position to
| manipulate information flow.
| mrandish wrote:
| > just buy the data from a broker
|
| A surprising (and funny) example of this is how the open-
| source intelligence community and sites like Bellingcat used
| purchased or leaked data from private Russian commercial data
| brokers to identify and track the detailed movements of elite
| Russian assassination squads inside Russia as well as in
| various other countries. They learned the exact buildings
| where they go to work every day as well as who they met with
| and their home addresses.
|
| Volunteer open-source researchers also used these readily
| available data sources to identify and publicly out several
| previously unknown Russian sleeper agents who'd spent years
| quietly building cover identities and making contacts in
| Western countries.
|
| To your point, if volunteer internet hobbyists can use
| commercial broker data to identify and track elite Russian
| assassins and undercover sleeper agents, having direct access
| to Tiktok data which Tiktok sells to anyone through brokers
| anyway, doesn't seem like much of a strategic advantage for
| the Chinese government.
| gunian wrote:
| This sounds super cool where can I get/buy this data? Would
| be a fun dataset to mess around with
|
| Any idea why it is unidirectional? If the data is openly
| available why can't the Russians track US/Ukrainian agents
| the same way?
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Not just about data harvesting though.
| pizza wrote:
| How can you call Americans naive when over and over again for
| the past 2 decades there have been non-stop news stories about
| how the US Gov spends insane amounts of effort ensuring the
| technology Americans use is not fully secure? Maybe you should
| understand that the public can actually recognize
| Machiavellianism.
|
| edit: before you downvote me, how many of you remember:
|
| - Bullrun
|
| - PRISM
|
| - Dual EC DRBG and the Juniper backdoors, that too also were
| exploited by secondary adversaries
|
| - FBI urging Apple to install a backdoor for the govt after the
| San Bernardino shootings
|
| - the government _only recently_ mandating that partnered zero-
| day vendors must not sell their wares to other clients who
| would then target them against Americans
|
| - Vault7
|
| - XKeyscore
|
| - STELLARWIND
|
| - MUSCULAR
|
| etc.?
| henryfjordan wrote:
| I can think that China is up to no good with my data and still
| be mad at my own Govt for doing the exact same thing. The
| outrage is not that TikTok is banned, it's that Zuckerburg is
| doing the exact same harms to America that China is alleged to
| be doing, but only 1 app is banned. Hence people flocking to
| Rednote rather than using Reels.
| bjourne wrote:
| > They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's
| regulatory organizations including the treasury department.
|
| Please cite your sources. After decades of watching American
| propaganda, we know all too well that it is trivial to make up
| shit from thin air and have a large segment of the population
| eat it up.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/20241007181947/https://www.wsj.com/politi.
| ..
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/us/politics/china-hack-
| tr...
| jampekka wrote:
| NYT would of course never back erroneous allegations by US
| officials on geopolitical matters like these.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| I'm tempted to say: what's the point if you've preemptively
| disregarded it as made up "American propaganda."
|
| But here you go anyway:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon
| m3kw9 wrote:
| People are now using Rednote, so what's new?
| latentcall wrote:
| I think the fallout from this is many Americans like myself
| don't see China as our enemy. Based on the recent RedNote
| phenomenon, Chinese citizens don't see it that way either.
|
| Maybe the uniparty in the USA should make it a priority to
| improve the life of everyday Americans and not Zuck and Elon.
| Young people don't care who the establishment is warring with
| because they know the establishment doesn't represent them,
| they represent themselves.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > Yet people are arguing that we should allow the people who
| did that to continue to install apps on millions of Americans
| phones
|
| This paternalistic framing is the disconnect between you and
| those opposed to the ban. The idea that it's TikTok insidiously
| worming its way onto American phones like a virus. In reality,
| people download the app and use it because they like it. This
| ban will, in effect, prevent people from accessing an
| information service they prefer. You must acknowledge this _and
| argue why that is a worthy loss of autonomy_ if you want to
| meaningfully defend the ban to someone who doesn 't like it.
|
| If it helps, reframe the ban as one on a website rather than an
| app. They're interchangeable in this context, but I've observed
| "app" to be somewhat thought-terminating to some people.
|
| For the record - I would totally support a ban on social media
| services that collect over some minimal threshold of user data
| for any purposes. This would alleviate fears of spying and
| targeted manipulation by foreign powers through their own
| platforms (TikTok) and campaigns staged on domestic social
| media. But just banning a platform because it's Chinese-owned?
| That's emblematic of a team-sports motivation. "Americans can
| only be exposed to our propaganda, not theirs!" How about
| robust protections against all propaganda? That's a requirement
| for a functional democracy.
| abduhl wrote:
| Sure, but why can't my teenager smoke cigarettes?
|
| The point of my response is: sometimes you have to be
| paternalistic, and the federal government doesn't need to
| meaningfully defend the ban to someone who doesn't like it
| because those people don't matter. They meaningfully defended
| the ban to the courts.
| triyambakam wrote:
| > I can't tell if people just don't know that this is
| happening, or if they take their memes way too seriously.
|
| I would say both at the same time
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| So, should we also ban Chinese companies Alibaba, Baidu, Haier,
| Lenovo, Tencent, and ZTE from operating in the United States?
| Why just TikTok (Who is ironically also banned in China)?
|
| And should Israeli companies, like those associated with NSO
| Group, face similar scrutiny after reports of their tools being
| used to hack U.S. State Department employee phones?
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| Yes
| EasyMark wrote:
| I am of 100% of the same opinion as you. I have told people for
| years about the cyber warfare going on and that we're losing
| it, and they just don't seem to care and want that serotonin
| hit and ignore the rest. I also want curbs on other social
| media, but TikTok and the war of China against the US on the
| internet is in a league of its own. The CCP are no doubt
| funneling the data to their servers, and no doubt have plans
| for further damaging our youths' minds through brain rot of
| tiktok diverting them from far more productive activities.
| There's a reason CCP has strong curbs on similar apps regarding
| young people in their nation.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| They know it's happening, but their lives have been shit since
| the 1990s, and they just watch the U.S. gleefully spends
| billions to annihilate innocent people in Gaza for 15 months.
| They understand from this that their country is run by psychos
| who want them dead, so all the jingoistic grandstanding that
| works so well on journalists and Congressmen has zero weight
| with actual Americans.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Yet people are arguing that we should allow the people who
| did that to continue to install apps on millions of Americans
| phones
|
| Who are "the people who did that" - Byte Dance or China as a
| whole? If it's the latter, I'm afraid there are still plenty of
| apps made by Chinese companies like, DJI, Lenovo, and thousands
| of IoT apps to control random geegaws via WiFi or BT.
| greenavocado wrote:
| > They hacked all of our major telco's
|
| Can I see the evidence?
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| I mean this won't happen. The TikTok CEO is invited to Trump's
| inauguration.
| curvaturearth wrote:
| Good news for everyone. Get off these endless scrolling trash
| providers
| agosz wrote:
| This will ultimately benefit the current Big Tech incumbents.
| Tiktok was gaining ground rapidly on advertising money and I
| wouldn't be surprised if there was lobbying that stifled the
| competition.
|
| Instead of banning TikTok, we should be trying to compete with
| them and make a better product that wins customers over. It's sad
| to see the US becoming more authoritarian and follow China's
| example.
| svara wrote:
| Good riddance, do the other social networks next!
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