The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away.
It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.
georgeecollins 8 days ago [-]
A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.
holmesworcester 8 days ago [-]
> A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China.
And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.
"Ban" is completely appropriate shorthand for "ban (unless something highly improbable occurs)."
We can say that Google and Facebook are "banned" or "censored" in China even though China would surely be happy to unban them if they sold their operations in China to a Chinese business. So it is consistent and fair to say that this bill "bans" or "censors" TikTok.
jibe 7 days ago [-]
The bill doesn’t block access to TikTok, it blocks US companies from doing business with TikTok. So it isn’t exactly a ban, or censorship.
If TikTok wants to give up the revenue, they can continue to send propaganda to the US, and kids can continue to watch and make videos.
China blocks access to Google. Whatever you want to call what the TikTok bill does, it is not the same as what China does.
chipdart 7 days ago [-]
> China blocks access to Google. Whatever you want to call what the TikTok bill does, it is not the same as what China does.
China does way more than that. China forces all companies that wish to do business in China to host their data in China in a way that ensures the CCP has complete access to it.
It boggles the mind how some anonymous accounts try to attack the US for interfering with a Chinese company doing business in the US, particularly one which is a notorious security hole, but leave out the fact that CCP's China goes well beyond as a matter of policy.
Georgelemental 7 days ago [-]
It boggles my mind how people look at China's censorship regime and think, "wow we are so far behind in the censorship race, we must move in that direction and start banning things ASAP"
solumunus 6 days ago [-]
The goal is not censorship, this is completely obvious.
riehwvfbk 5 days ago [-]
The US is doing great at achieving this non-goal then.
not1ofU 7 days ago [-]
it boggles the mind that everyone is complaining about tiktok and yet, each of the big cloud providers have data centers in china, hey but dont worry guys, they're physically separated honest
trimethylpurine 3 days ago [-]
If you start a business in the US and you're only adding China DC's specifically for Chinese customers, I don't see why you'd invest more time and money in connecting the CCP to your US DC's.
It would make more sense that Chinese customers would want to host their data in the US not vice versa, and in that case you would treat them the same as American customers in American data centers with the same security in place.
It's the cheaper solution, caters to all customer needs, and doesn't risk your customers' faith.
I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't separate them.
Do you have some reason to believe they aren't or are you just guessing that they wouldn't take precautions? Because in this case, the precautions are actually the easier topology to build, I think.
powerapple 4 days ago [-]
China passed data law after US and Europe, actually very similar law.
Also China does not stop companies to do business with Facebook and Google, if you look up numbers from Facebook and Google, a big chunk ad revenue would come from Chinese companies.
taneq 6 days ago [-]
The U.S. might be doing that, you just don't know because that kind of thing comes with gag orders making it a federal offense to even reveal that any such thing is occurring.
I'm absolutely not defending China's authoritarian regime and overall the U.S. isn't seems less bad, but at the same time it's a bit rich to pretend the U.S. doesn't do the same if it matters.
whatshisface 7 days ago [-]
Telling a business it's free to do something if there's no profit involved is like telling a man he's free to drink whiskey if he can jump over the moon.
mgiampapa 7 days ago [-]
Here comes Elon with another hold my beer moment. Thank god he already wasted billions on Twitter.
Slava_Propanei 4 days ago [-]
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ganeshkrishnan 7 days ago [-]
This bill will force google/apple to remove the tiktok app store listing. It's as good as dead after that with no updates/new installs.
give a dog a bad name and it's as good as dead.
fennecbutt 6 days ago [-]
Nah, people are too addicted. They'll follow steps to install an apk, even if they're nontechnical.
I bet you that would become a thing at school, getting the geekier kids to "install tiktok 4 me pls"
7 days ago [-]
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
China is banned. TikTok isn't banned. You're conflating those to say that TikTok is banned, but your argument is what applies to China, not TikTok.
In the same sense, it's not Google that's banned in China. It's free speech. Google just can't operate without it so it decided to exit the market by refusing to allow CCP access to user data and to implement CCP firewalls.
You can conflate things to make them sound like the same thing. Words can have subjective and loose meaning.
But reality is very complex and very specific and doesn't have any loose meaning. And this is not remotely the same thing.
throwawaymaths 8 days ago [-]
Why is that improbable? Study your history. Merck was nationalized during WWI (that's why there's two mercks).
bouncing 6 days ago [-]
> And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.
Well that’s the crux, isn’t it.
If TikTok is just a business, like ByteDance insists, any business would rather get something than nothing. So ByteDance would sell.
If TikTok isn’t merely a business but rather an organ of soft power, and China blocks a sale, then the suspicions of the U.S. intelligence community are confirmed.
linearrust 6 days ago [-]
> If TikTok is just a business, like ByteDance insists, any business would rather get something than nothing. So ByteDance would sell.
Using that logic, facebook, google, etc are not businesses either since they chose to be banned from china.
bouncing 3 days ago [-]
The stance of the US is that ByteDance has to sell off what is already a separate product (TikTok).
Google, Facebook etc don't have a "Chinese market" product at all, so there's nothing to sell off. If they did have a Chinese market product, worth many tens of billions of dollars, they would very likely sell it rather than spike it.
mrangle 6 days ago [-]
That's weak if common logic. Wealthy people burn a lot of money out of spite, constantly.
Essentially, you are asking everyone to assume that Bytdance does not really have a financial choice in the matter, and therefore financial irrationality is evidence of corruption.
When the reality is that the money may not mean as much to them as you are asking people to assume, and that in lieu of a payout they'd rather not reward a sale to the country that is strong-arming them. Which few with financial flexibility, and a healthy ego, would.
powerapple 4 days ago [-]
ByteDance would sell, but China is blocking it for export restrictions. It does not confirm anything. China is not a business, and it will look bad if US can force ByteDance to sell. You are mixing up ByteDance and China. China is not responsible for returns to ByteDance shareholders.
takeda 7 days ago [-]
> "Ban" is completely appropriate shorthand for "ban (unless something highly improbable occurs)."
It's only improbable if the suspicion is true, and in that case: good riddance.
Also TikTok apparently isn't even allowed in China they have their own version.
hahajk 8 days ago [-]
I didn't see the parent say there was no precedent.
But anyways, I like to hope that the US is better than China. If US citizens are abused while in China, I would be appalled to see Chinese citizens abused in the US as retribution.
johnnyanmac 7 days ago [-]
> I like to hope that the US is better than China.
I lost hope long ago.
himinlomax 7 days ago [-]
There is absolutely no moral ambiguity in demanding fairness in trade. It's actually the highly moral position, see prisoner's dilemma.
Gormo 7 days ago [-]
Trade is conducted by individuals and businesses, not by nation-states. The fact that two parties have agreed to a mutual value-for-value exchange makes it fair by definition, and what is unfair is encumbering some people's commerce in order to serve the interests of some particular political faction.
The proper moral position is for trade to be governed by rational rules that apply consistently regardless of who is trading with whom or what country they are from.
himinlomax 7 days ago [-]
Nations are just as relevant as businesses as abstractions as far as trade is concerned. Free trade across the world arguably only exists because it's made possible by the rule-based order with the might of the US Navy and affiliates to secure it.
Gormo 7 days ago [-]
Nations are abstractions. Trade involves individuals and businesses. Whatever the US Navy is doing to secure overseas shipping lanes doesn't change the nature of that in any substantive way.
himinlomax 7 days ago [-]
Businesses are abstractions. You can't touch a business any more than you can touch a nation.
solumunus 6 days ago [-]
Trade involves individuals, businesses and nations. Government policy always affects trade.
pokepim 8 days ago [-]
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ericmay 8 days ago [-]
I think it would be a poor argument to liken the US banning Tik Tok to US (or other) citizens being abused in China with supposed retaliatory measures.
We don’t need to overly moralize this and somehow find the US on a pedestal with impossible to reach and shifting standards of behavior that are only applicable to the US when it’s convenient for various bad actors and despotic regimes (Putin, Hamas, CCP, Iran, North Korea).
America can be “better” than China without having to accept disadvantages. Likewise China could allow American social media companies to show that it is sincere in being interested in free and fair business. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be regulations but there’s simply no good argument to allow a Chinese social media company to operate in the US without reciprocal activity and nothing, nothing is lost by banning Tik Tok.
chrischen 7 days ago [-]
Actually a free market is one of the main points of America. It’s not a moral argument of its superiority but a practical argument that a free market should result in the best outcome for all.
I still believe in this, and if you look at America’s policies of sanctioning countries like Russia, blocking a business from operating in a country is actually a detriment to that country because they lose access to the benefit that that company provides. Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
I don’t fundamentally believe it’s about fair playing ground or advantages/disadvantages for equivalent US companies in China. The current consensus is really about national security, and having China be able to access data on US people. If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
Furthermore if it did become about fair playing ground for domestic companies then I think it fundamentally misunderstands the free market economic model. The free market would benefit domestic companies. It would strengthen domestic companies to have competition.
ericmay 7 days ago [-]
The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances.
It was framed as a moral argument by suggesting the US should be “better”. At least that was my interpretation. I don’t think arguing from a market perspective really changes that interpretation but instead further weakens China’s lack of allowing American social media companies to operate in China with the same unfettered market access.
> If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
We kind of care and we have been caring more. The problem is that legally it has been difficult to say “go ahead and build or operate your business in the US except if you are China”. Likewise China just blanket applies the rules that it has to entities that want to operate in China.
> Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
It’s also important to remember that some things are more important than profit. The economy and market are just one aspect of a nation. Lowering cost and increasing competition are nice but they are not the point of civilization.
chrischen 7 days ago [-]
> The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances.
Of course in practice that's true, but we also tout free-er markets as something to strive for, especially when it comes to us imposing it on other countries in conflict with their sovereign rights to restrict their own markets.
> So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
I think TikTok is a highly special case, and sort of brings to light the rationale why China decided to ban foreign mega tech corps, especially social media ones. We also saw a backlash when Facebook tried to influence India's elections and politics with a banner on their website. Social media is indeed a special case.
But I think this problem is also similar to the national security vs privacy/encryption battle. We are giving up some of our principles to make our short term lives (national security) easier. Yes, TikTok can be weaponized as an influence machine... however letting it run free could mean developing a more natural resistance to it in the American population (if possible). If we devolve to market manipulation we'll rely on it as a crutch. Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
ericmay 7 days ago [-]
I don’t understand what principals you are suggesting we are “giving up”. Could you elaborate?
> Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
Why go to extremes? You could just argue the opposite and argue why don’t we explicitly allow slave labor, bribery, and dumping?
As soon as you provide an argument against any of those things you can use that same rationale to argue to ban a company like Tik Tok.
dbbk 7 days ago [-]
TikTok in the US is not run by the Chinese parent directly, it's run by a US-based company called TikTok U.S. Data Security
zrn900 7 days ago [-]
> A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China
Every company that complies with the local laws can open any kind of company in China and they do.
The US has to do the same per WTO law as long as Tiktok obeys the US law. And it does. Hence the made up 'national security' horsesh*t to justify the ban - otherwise it would run afoul of WTO rules.
spaceman_2020 7 days ago [-]
To be fair, China never claimed to be the bastion of free market capitalism.
America did. Still does. And now it’s banning and regulating superior products off the market.
xorbax 7 days ago [-]
Just like crack and fentanyl! Let the market decide, cowards.
Although it is fun that it's totally fine for an American company to take the reins and continue on.
This could have been done with emphasis on the way China engineers TikTok/Douyin in each country and the effects on the end users - but that wouldn't make anyone with money or power very happy. The thing it does is fine - merely where the data goes and who pulls the levers is the concern.
The "ban" will change nothing in our society, thank God.
rzz3 7 days ago [-]
Ironically we’d see far fewer overdoses and a lot less drug-related violence worldwide if America would legalize the drugs people are going to take in America regardless of drug laws. You didn’t pick a great example.
xorbax 7 days ago [-]
I think it's great. For both, problem is extremes of apathy to actual consideration of the effects in society and lack of rational regulations.
The important part should be understanding the whys and building access to a robust nonpunitive way out for those who want it.
But the profits of addiction are too important either way.
eric_cc 7 days ago [-]
Can you prove this?
number_man 7 days ago [-]
> America did. Still does.
Where and when did America claim that?
zrn900 7 days ago [-]
When it was forcing every country to privatize everything they had in the last 40 years...
roamerz 7 days ago [-]
It’s banning it because of national security concerns and has nothing to do with capitalism. Honestly though this administration doesn’t seem to take national security very seriously so this will probably fall to the wayside and be enforced with the same vigor as our border security laws - so yeah nothing for them to worry about.
spaceman_2020 6 days ago [-]
Somehow, it becomes a security threat when the product is superior than local offerings
The Biden admin has also been looking to halt BYD sales in the US, citing security threats [0]. BYD’s cars are often cheaper than Teslas and very well reviewed
To be even more fair, America never claimed that free speech and free markets are wrong.
China did. Still does. And now it's begging and suing to keep those freedoms.
codedokode 8 days ago [-]
> You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen
Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?
jrockway 8 days ago [-]
There can only be a finite number of broadcasters because of how radio works, so it makes sense to regulate. (A little bit of sense, not a lot.)
There should be no restrictions on who owns a website. There can be an unlimited number of websites, and every website's "reception range" is the entire planet.
Today's rulemaking pushes us one step closer to a Great Firewall. If ByteDance moves operations entirely to China, what measures will the government enact to prevent people in the US from using it? (It will probably be strong-arming app stores, but that will fail because they can just make it a web app. So the only option will be to have two Internets, one with everything except TikTok, and one with everything.)
It will be interesting if this extends to other apps. Will it be unamerican to play Genshin Impact?
qmarchi 8 days ago [-]
In this particular case, the law targets financial interactions with the company in question. So it wouldn't actually ban the company from serving on the internet, but no US company can knowingly facilitate their services on their servers.
Ex, ByteDance couldn't go to AWS and ask for capacity, nor could they go to Hurricane Electric and ask for Peering.
sillypuddy 8 days ago [-]
If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution, but ownership of corporations is fair game to regulate. It's not uncommon for countries to have foreign ownership restrictions on other industries like banking, utilities, railroads, etc.
chrischen 7 days ago [-]
The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black. If the US has precedent, and this action follows that precedent, then our bitching and whining about Google and Facebook in China previously makes us look really contradictory.
We’ll end up validating Chinese policies all these years if we claim this action has precedent.
If it doesn’t have precedent, then it’s even worse. It becomes a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them (or their practices).”
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
> The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black.
You could say the same thing about China complaining about this. Actually, that's what people would think of first when you mentioned "the teapot calling the kettle back". Frankly, I think people in China are surprised we kept our internet open for so long. Anyways, yes, American is now admitting that they will play by the same rules as China, rather than giving them a pass.
chrischen 7 days ago [-]
What does it matter what China does? If they don’t want our stuff then that’s their choice. I mean, we voluntarily use an economic blockade as a weapon against North Korea, Iran, and Russia, and it is not to their benefits.
My whole second point about joining them is saying that it shouldn’t matter what China does or says. They are hypocrites so we can be too???
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
I mean, if you think like that, then it doesn't really matter at all. Americans aren't so bound to concept of Chinese face that they actually even care about this. Since we don't get face hurt, accusations of hypocrisy are pretty pointless anyways.
chrischen 7 days ago [-]
Saving face is not just about saving face. There's also your credibility at stake. There's only so many times you can invade a country under false pretenses before the international community, or even your own constituency, starts siding with the opposition. I guess also if we really don't have any principles anymore, we'll have devolved back to survival of the fittest principles. At which point we don't need thinkers, just people doing what they can to get what they can all the time. No need to argue or make points. Just fight it out and save some time.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
China said "American companies not welcome in China's internet", well they didn't say it, they just made that the truth. America saying "Chinese companies not welcome in America's internet" 10 years later isn't going to raise many eyebrows abroad. For the most part, people are wondering why it took so long.
> I guess also if we really don't have any principles anymore, we'll have devolved back to survival of the fittest principles.
China has been very clear that the principle should be tit for tat. All of their economic and foreign policy is based on that, from the visas they issue to visitors, the tariffs we exchange on vehicle production, and the foreigners they throw in prison when one of their own is put on house arrest in Canada. This is just a very late counter-reaction to a policy China has held for awhile.
chrischen 6 days ago [-]
It's the sovereign right of any country to be protectionist. Protectionism is actually the default. Open markets is not the default. I'd like to think the open US market is what makes it great, and too much protectionism actually stifles innovation and the robustness of the domestic economy.
seanmcdirmid 6 days ago [-]
The US market hasn't historically been that open. We started this country with tariffs as the only thing funding the government. All the free trade market stuff we have today was carefully negotiated via the WTO, and even then there is a huge bias in supporting allies (remember, when China opened up in the late 90s, it was antagonistic with Russia and actually a US ally since the the late 70s, that is all history now).
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
But we're not. The mantra of the West has always been that government must stfu and let the people talk. Government is charged with protecting that right for the people.
China is a government, so, just like our government, it must stfu.
This is a pretty straightforward protection of the people from government that's very much in line with American ideals.
trimethylpurine 6 days ago [-]
I'm seeing downvoters here. Do you guys mean that people shouldn't have a right to free speech? Or you believe that if we give foreign governments the right to free speech, that they won't use it to silence you? I can think of at least one example that did.
China.
riehwvfbk 5 days ago [-]
It's like this: imagine your neighbor is a raging alcoholic, and you say - he can get drunk and beat his wife, so I should too. And anyone who says this is bad can clearly see that he was the first one to do it.
trimethylpurine 4 days ago [-]
I think it's more like, "we've been telling him not to get drunk and beat his wife. Now he's coming to our house and beating ours."
China is using TikTok to suppress free speech, so I don't see how your analogy relates here.
riehwvfbk 2 days ago [-]
Ummm... we only exactly copied the censorship that China practices? How this flies over people's heads is beyond me.
trimethylpurine 2 days ago [-]
Because we exactly didn't. Look what's flying over your head.
China: censors free speech in China then makes a US speech platform and censors American speech on the new platform. Blocks US platforms in China because they refuse to censor speech for the CCP.
US: blocks China from owning speech platforms because the US doesn't allow censorship and doesn't trust China to stop censoring speech on the platform.
Literally the opposite thing. How you've managed to conflate two completely opposite things is very interesting.
Are you a habitual TikTok user? Or do you work for the CCP?
I'm openly suspicious that you might be getting paid to conflate these very obviously opposite things.
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
How would it validate China? China has made itself a laughing stock hypocrite. It tells everyone how bad free speech is, and then it begs for free speech?
Conversely America is holding to its core values of restricting governments from acting in the political field. That right is reserved for citizens, and is especially protected from government use. America is founded on restricting government so that free speech can exist.
This move firmly reestablishes America as a leader in free speech protection, as it protects citizens speech from influence by government, both domestic, and now, foreign.
themacguffinman 7 days ago [-]
This isn't the US joining China's practices, they aren't cracking down on all foreign ownership, they're targeting China as a tit-for-tat. Tit-for-tat is the right response to a defector like China, the US still cooperates with other cooperators like those in Europe.
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
>If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution
It still wouldn't violate the Constitution. Rights are reserved for citizens. It's perfectly legal to tell TikTok what they can or can't say.
That's not what Congress has done, but it would be legal.
gpt5 8 days ago [-]
Because freedom of speech is less protected (in practice) for foreign entities.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
No because a US person can be called in to answer questions in a court of law or before congress. If the owner is Chinese living in London, where would you even begin ?
heffer 7 days ago [-]
There is always the option to detain them in Canada and maybe, possibly extradite them to the US (or not).
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
That was for breaking sanctions law, but you supported my point. It's difficult.
didjxhxhsvc 8 days ago [-]
Maybe you can expand on what you’re trying to say because freedom of speech is protected afaik.
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
Because freedoms apply to US citizens. It works just fine.
Gormo 7 days ago [-]
Well, no, that's not quite right. Even though we nominalize the concept of 'freedoms' as something that we have (making it possible to conceptualize there being people who don't have them), the actual legal framework in place operationalizes these freedoms as restrictions on the exercise of political power, without qualification.
In other words "freedom of speech" means that Congress doesn't have the power to pass laws that suppress speech itself, regardless of where it comes from. It's not that the first amendment applies to some people (and certainly not that it doesn't apply to others), but that it applies to Congress and limits what laws they can pass without qualification.
trimethylpurine 6 days ago [-]
To clarify further, interpretation of what it means to to be a right of people vs a limit on Congress; FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life is one of many examples where we have to assume SCOTUS interpreted that it's a right of people as there was no congressional action for them to limit in that case. They are clearly protecting people.
These cases go back and forth.
I would argue that it wasn't necessary to spell out that constitutional rights apply to citizens because the law is presumed to defer to common practice in cases where no law exists. That is, laws go back to long before the Constitution and those laws are referred to as common law.
In that sense; the king has lordship of his subjects, and no obligation to subjects of other kingdoms. He collected taxes, and provided protection from foreign threat and justice for his subjects.
Likewise, citizens of China don't pay taxes to the US, they have not that obligation because they are not subjects of the US government. Neither do they have the rights that are afforded a subject thereof.
Congress has no need to clarify that. It's presumed to be the case. That they mention it in certain amendments is incidental, despite the creative interpretations I've read, mostly from immigration proponents. (Not that I'm opposed, I'm an immigrant.)
No doubt, lots of people prefer to interpret this differently, especially when it's a right they need for a specific reason. That's exactly what China is doing here.
They are arguing about why the law should be interpreted in their favor this time. And next time they will argue the other way, as they do against their subjects.
It's up to the judge what it means in each case, but as a generally accepted interpretation, applying US law and protections to a foreign nation without some kind of formal alliance specifying more directly what is provided, is an egregious stretch of the imagination. It's ridicule, at best.
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
Your interpretation might have been right before. But now you're looking at a vast majority bipartisan vote that makes something inarguably clear; China doesn't have those rights as of the most recent interpretation. That's now true, regardless of previous interpretations.
Gormo 6 days ago [-]
That's not the way it works. Bipartisan votes in Congress don't alter the constitution, or expand Congress's own power under the constitution, unless the vote is for a constitutional amendment, which must subsequently be ratified by the states to become effective.
trimethylpurine 5 days ago [-]
Yeah, I didn't say that.
Firstly, they didn't expand or alter the Constitution.
I'm not sure where you got that from. Reading back and I don't see it anywhere.
Stated again, hopefully more clearly; by exercising restrictions on China they've reestablished that China is not "the people" described in the Constitution. So, it's not protected from congressional acts.
And second, they didn't need to do that anyway. Foreign policy is a power reserved for Congress and the President. No amendment ever restricted that power.
See Article 1.
takeda 7 days ago [-]
That's exactly it.
Freedom of speech is my right to be able to bitch about Biden or Trump without having to worry that I'll die in prison.
Freedom of speech is not a right of foreign entities sending me memes about them to manipulate who I will vote for in the election.
There's a law where foreign entities can't own TV or Radio in US. This might be controversial, but IMO it should be updated to also include social media as this is source where people get news from.
alcoholic_byte 8 days ago [-]
I think, also with respect to the comments to this comment, we need to appreciate the minute nature of this scenario and statement.
Journalists and your everyone else enjoys free speech, it must not be curtailed, neither must it be fostered.
While companies as a disembodied judicial entity cannot have speech in the same sense as people of flesh and blood, they can, simply based on their properties, act as an amplifier or muffler.
This requires at least some level of care which cannot be guaranteed if the business is run by a company headquartered in an unfriendly foreign nation which does not allow free speech at all and only allows businesses to conduct international business that is sanctioned.(We have had numerous reports about this now over the past years that foreign investors and companies operating in China are actually competing with the Chinese state there.)
If you don't agree, let's take out China in this argument and phrase it differently:
Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there? (I mean we had Nazi parties in the US around that time, BUT from today's perspective we would agree that such a scenario(the media-outlets) is a clear cut case with the US-government prohibiting it.)
What was better in the 1930's was that the newspaper industry was in the business for the news. They were a news-company.
These days hedge-funds and for profits(not necessarily bad but it takes a turn when it is unadulterated greed by all means necessary( The Atlantic wrote a nice piece about this where Money swoops in buys a newspaper and runs it into the ground and that regularly and at scale, just cannot find the article)). So our position is a bit dire and we have Television and an industry that strives to captivate/capitalize all the attention it can get for a few pennies to deal with these days.
The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
Pair that with the New Silk Road initiative and the Dollar-Imperialism the Chinese government tries to run in the Pan-Pacific region and the picture becomes less welcoming.
Don't get me wrong, there is enough blame to go around for everybody, but I rather have it come from a non fascist entity. That being said, I can go into Washington and demonstrate peacefully(!) against Biden or Trump and I can ask questions about the past. Try doing that in Bejing with respect to Xi or Tienamen Square.(So while we can blame both sides there is still more to one argument than the other, so much for whataboutism) Considering that 'Grandpa' Xi enforced a personal cult around him starting with children's school books(not unlike Putin) and with what goes on with the Uyghur population in China's north, the attempts to strong arm Taiwan , the alignment of China with Russia, the broken promise made to Hong Kong and other items, I have to say that China is fascist and the CCP communist in name only.
The concept of Lebensraum is firmly on the agenda of global and, if you are unfortunate enough, also local politics again.
China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions.(China is less commercially insulated than Russia it appears. Propably one of the reasons China's is a bit softer trying to incorporate time.)
From an economic perspective I totally get that no company wants to have their business taken away, but I doubt Bytedance is just a company. This is just a change in ownership, nothing out of the ordinary. The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership.
That framing, in the light of what I just wrote, becomes highly suspect. Almost vicious, bordering on the willingness to divide and incite. (Which reminds me: Totalitarian regimes like to be part of the regular government bodies but they also like to set up their own counterpart so that they, after having stopped the working of those other bodies (or if they are ousted), still have a viable alternative.)
That is why I welcome this, why I think it is high time, why I hope to see more of these actions globally,
ClumsyPilot 8 days ago [-]
> China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions
This is deeply, deeply wrong - China and Russia are natural opponents, they are two autocracies that deeply distrust each other and do not understand each other’s culture. They will never be like USA and UK.
The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
arduanika 7 days ago [-]
I don't think that GP was asserting that China and Russia are close natural allies. You're drawing some accurate distinctions, but I'm not entirely sure how they relate.
yehat 7 days ago [-]
Oh boy...after the first two paragraphs it gets so wrong I even don't want to start arguing.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
> This is deeply, deeply wrong - China and Russia are natural opponents, they are two autocracies that deeply distrust each other and do not understand each other’s culture
Well Stalin and Hitler were like that too.
Luckily for the world Hitler couldn't stay his hand reaching for Moscow, otherwise the Allies wouldn't have faced a Germany being engaged in a two front war. Also, considering that Putin and XI met during the Olympic Winter Games face to face and that the invasion of Ukraine commenced right after the games as to not affront Xi, depriving him of China's moment in the Limelight is telling non the less. So there must be some mutual understanding. Especially considering that Xi is slavering over Taiwan.
> The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
I wouldn't consider it failure. Opponent is Opponent no matter what.
>Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
The whole world produces weapons. This is a red herring implying that Russia is just doing what Europe does. That is outright wrong.
Europe does not try to forcefully move borders attempting to annihilate a sovereign nation by committing genocide. And I doubt they are bottling Vodka from Russian production in Italy, especially not since the sanctions. Vodka may have originated in Russia, BUT every company can distill and sell it.
Same goes for weapons.
I also doubt that it would get anyone in trouble buying Chinese, otherwise, Me thinks, a lot of people in Russia would be in trouble, especially way out East.
The way you label the War in Ukraine is also ... euphemistically put... and no, they are not like the Brexiteers. Please don't take me or anyone else here a fool.
Britain left the EU because of populism and now they are dealing with the fallout. They have no notion of reviving the British Empire. Putin wants to recreate the UdSSR. He himself declared the downfall of the Soviet Union the single most geopolitical tragedy of the 20th Century.
In short he is a Soviet still in mind and manner.
>China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
Really?
Ask the Philippines, Vietnam or in general countries around the South China Sea, read news articles not penned by the South China Morning Post or read accounts from fishermen there. I am sure that the picture you fine there is totally different. Territorial saber rattling, building of artificial islands trying to stake a claim. China always say they come in peace and that we all should be tolerant, but when you try to see if that sentiment is true, then it is only true for others, for all other situations China comes first. Their recent political statements have become a statement of whataboutism and we are the victims of the bad bad west and we did no wrong ever...
To my mind their vision of the future is a Chinese one where everything non-Chinese is to be treated as second rate at best.
They are not like the west and definitely not better, otherwise the Chinese Government wouldn't have warned against the bad influences of Christmas some months back. Open minded, tolerant... with that message I don't think so. And you are right, their plan is different. Industrial espionage on a very very large scale. And please don't try to white-wash or absolve. They are creating new power plants burning coal at a rate higher than any other nation.
I must also add here that Xi, just like Putin, feels slighted by history. That China's fall from might, from national glory, is bad and that it must reclaim its 'rightful' place. Anyone seeing a parallel here. I might also add that it is quiet telling that no one mentions the great leap forward by Mao dark times ahead indeed.
riehwvfbk 5 days ago [-]
> China's fall from might, from national glory
Haha, haha, ha...
Have you ever been to China? They have made more progress in the last few decades than the whole western world combined. And the west in in a serious decline. If anything that statement should be backwards.
Before you reflexively dismiss this argument and go hit that downwards triangle: what you are saying is China had more glory during the Opium wars than it does now. Surely you can see how absurd this statement is.
arduanika 7 days ago [-]
Good, nuanced analysis.
Also, it's nice to see a bipartisan bill in the national interest. There used to be a saying, "politics stops at the water's edge." Every so often we remember that.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
Thank you.
Yes, I have heard that saying being quoted some time ago.
While I mostly exist on the other side of the water's edge... I am happy and hopeful that that is the case and hope it will continue to be that way and that the circus some politicians yonder the water's edge are putting on stops.
Some things do, and should transcend, political boundaries.
e.g. while I, would I be eligible to vote in the US, would most likely not vote Republican(probably not aged enough yet :D ), I must say that I like this guy https://www.facebook.com/RepZachNunn/videos/this-isnt-a-horr... simply for trying to do the right thing there.
Found it while I was prompted to do some more research due to busying myself with this thread.(and it is not the only report I found... See here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S160061352...) I always thought of it to be some boogie man story made up by Falun Gong or Falun Dafa hanging about the CBD to rope in support. Finding out that it is actually substancial... I think this is my seeing evil moment if I ever had one, and I am only in front of a computer screen in my PJs.
araes 8 days ago [-]
Wall of text, yet this part is interesting.
> TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly
This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
(example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
"Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
> This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
Do you have proof of this? Either in the positive, or the negative (if Chinese kids search for garbage they will be given garbage?)
fragmede 7 days ago [-]
who's searching for things? you just scroll and get whatever the algorithm feeds you
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
You search by "voting" for certain content over other while TikTok probes you. Then it learns and gives you more.
But the materials that are "acceptable" to give to you in the first place is mostly garbage on TikTok and highly curated on the Chinese version.
That's the point.
UberFly 7 days ago [-]
There is a massive lack of garbage on Chinese TokTok. It's not actively injected into society like they do in the American version. It's a propaganda tool in both countries, each having a targeted purpose.
disgruntledphd2 7 days ago [-]
I'd say this is because of the laws in China around what kids can watch rather than some nefarious plot.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
Not just kids, adults. Everyone.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
Amount of text is seldomly a metric for good or bad texts, some stuff needs explaining.
Especially when dealing with matters like this where others do not warrant their positions.
> This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
Really?
Then this investigation should be wrong, but they are a reputable source and I trust them, especially since that is not the only report or the only source.
> "Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
That is THE MOST inhumane and humanity denying thing I have read today.
It does not matter the color of your skin or the cultural background of your upbringing, we all bleed when stabbed and we all feel pain and fear. If that sentiment is still alive in the governing ranks of that country and wide spread we should all be very very careful and worried.
> (example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
A) you would have to notice to be upset
B) that is not how services and the internet work. We could sit side by side and use the same app and visit the same website and could,depending on connection or identifying markers still see totally different content or sentiments being expressed. Considering that we are on HN, I fear you know and you played that card deliberately non the less.
> If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
Search for Tienamen Square inside the GFW and outside and also add the word Massacre to it and observe.
We also see a less politically colored version of this in general dubbed the Search Engine Bubble.
Also, you are free to be annoyed, but if you speak up you might also be 'free' to receive a free political 'reeducation' or sanctions.
ngcc_hk 8 days ago [-]
Do we allow Soviet Union to have …
johnnyanmac 7 days ago [-]
>Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there?
Good idea? No. But the world isn't exactly ran on good ideas. Instead of Nazi germany newspapers they went straight to american broadcast itself and seeped in like a poison.
And the sad part is I don't even blame them. People want to hear what they agree with. Some may be legitmately brainwashed, but I've seen enough examples of individuals shunning the truth to conclude that we're well into a post-truth era.
>The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
It goes back to the root issue, many westerners have long lost that disciplined to be an educated populace, to identify and defend against bias. to will themselves towards what they need to do as opposed to want. a single social media side won't change that.
>The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership.
They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
> It goes back to the root issue, many westerners have long lost that disciplined to be an educated populace, to identify and defend against bias. to will themselves towards what they need to do as opposed to want. a single social media side won't change that.
Really?
That is like saying that Russians are always good at chess or Chinese good at Kung Fu or Japanese good at Karate.
We had this type of rhetoric during the time of the Cold War as well.
Aside from it being profiling let's entertain this:
If what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat. You wouldn't have to introduce a system of snitching and forced conformism via the social credit system(which is less technical than is made out to believe in the west, more like some dada and wify on the bench taking notes) and you wouldn't have dissidents or the need to 'shield/protect' the population from any foreign influence via the GFW.
And onto other parts:
> And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
Really?
It is only a crime, bad if caught and now they have been caught and called out.
Also, how do you measure growth?
Over the past years commercial data from within China has been dubious.
And what is the fastest growing anyways?
Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage. China has a large population and western products are not allowed to participate and e.g. Weibo or tencent are de factor monopolies. I assume it to be similar with Tiktok.
Also, things that are not good for you usually are the most fun.
Think junk food.
There is nothing wrong with that or endulging it it(every once in a while), but, once again, it is nefarious when there is malicious purpose behind it like with Tiktok. A foreign power trying to subvert values and a way of life.
And to answer your question: Yes, given that the Chinese Government is footing the bill they have more clout than their competitors because of that.
> They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
Well, then the ownership does not change.
Their choice, it is their company. They may do with it as they please, but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
johnnyanmac 7 days ago [-]
It's, not profiling, it's culture. You abandon all your safety nets in lieu of a increasingly individualistic society, and then costs of living increases as wages stagnate. The logical conclusion is that you start to become more selfish, and focus more on your own survival and satisfaction, instead of thinking in the larger picture about long term goals or how you can server your community or society.
It didn't have to go that way but that's the direction it went. And I see no initiative to change that.
>f what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat.
In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
>so, how do you measure growth?
As a social media platform? Aquire more users, capture to market share, and increase profit margins. Asia isn't so different from NA/EU in that regard.
Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
>Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage.
The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
>but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
Maybe I can't stop the second coming, but I sure as heck won't have the wool I've my eyes again and get caught up in the petty squabbles.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
>It's, not profiling, it's culture. You abandon all your safety nets in lieu of a increasingly individualistic society, and then costs of living increases as wages stagnate. The logical conclusion is that you start to become more selfish, and focus more on your own survival and satisfaction, instead of thinking in the larger picture about long term goals or how you can server your community or society.
If that is so altruistic, I am sure a mom from that cultural background would forfeit the future of her child so that another family(maybe her sister's) has a better life ensuring the thriving of their offspring instead. I have known many a people of Asian decent. What you describe is pure idolism. A cliche, a stereotypical, unreflected, reflexive - dare I say romatizised - vision of the Eastern Culture. If it were true, why are so many people migrating then? Away I mean? And what about the wandering workers that are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth? Also, what you are framing as logical is human nature. It is not different based on culture. Only its hue changes. You also left out my point about the generation that lies flat and other remarks.
> In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
ByteDance is a Chinese company with Bejing's blessing. The whole debate, not just our little discussion here, is framed US-China or West-China.
> Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
Really?
Recall project Dragonfly of Google's ? Does any Chinese company operating in other jurisdictions require a minimum percentage of Chinese shareholders or similar shenanigans?
> The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
See project Dragonfly again. A lot of companies are interested in the Chinese market. That is all Bloomberg ever raves about when it comes to the Chinese market opening and Earning calls being presented.
So the statement that the US(or the west in general) is not caring about the userbase in China is outright wrong. A lot of consumers, biiiiig market. They are just not allowed to touch it or under hefty penalties with big handicaps.
And weibo was beaten to the punch, Tiktok wants to become the youtube/whatsapp of the world. Don't try to misdirect here ;) .
> That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
See my previous reply. I must also add, tongue in cheek, .... or is coerced to leave because of unfair competitive scewing. Amazon is the kingpin of online retail and must be checked in in general. Such a 800pound Gorilla knows what it is doing. So I doubt that would qualify for your argument to begin with.
> Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
That is a discussion worthy of its own thread and I am not touching it in order to stay focused(nice try though). Let's just say that doing the right thing should be done regardless of the implications because it is worth doing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be smart about it. And reigning in China's delusions of gradeur and Xi's pipedream of wanting a legacy as big as Mao's no matter the cost on the back of millions of people is the right thing. You can't let a bully step over you.
danieltanfh95 8 days ago [-]
Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc.
The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.
kromem 8 days ago [-]
Theoretically they could sell "TikTok" to a US company who then licenses algorithm processing to the Chinese entity, no?
The US entity isn't beholden to the CCP and can decide to switch algorithm providers if they suddenly notice it's getting very propaganda-y, which provides a degree of independent oversight appeasing US concerns while not necessitating actually switching from the current systems.
djur 7 days ago [-]
The law requires the President (i.e. executive agencies) to verify any such transaction, and it specifically calls out "cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing" as subject to review. So they thought about that.
dbbk 7 days ago [-]
"TikTok" in the US is already a US-based company in LA.
galdosdi 7 days ago [-]
I am baffled that any thoughtful person would take a CEO statement at face value without considering incentives.
1) prior to bill passage, convincing the public that they will pull out is optimal as it helps argue against bill, regardless of whether it is at all true
2) but, after bill passage, the incentives are totally different. Pulling out means giving up a billion dollar market that could instead have been sold. The shareholders would be livid.
So I am very skeptical. I have heard CEOs say many things they later were found to clearly never have meant seriously, simply because it was what they needed to say at the time. Like, "we would never do outsourcing or layoffs, your division is totally safe"....
I would think thoughtful HN readers would be just a little less credulous
takeda 7 days ago [-]
Exactly, if they pull out it only means that the fear that it was meant only for propaganda was well justified.
Thiez 7 days ago [-]
That does not follow at all. Perhaps they simply don't want to spin off a future competitor, and decide that selling simply isn't worth that future risk.
EasyMark 8 days ago [-]
They could work on a "good enough" algorithm that is basically already in public/open source domain when they sell it. 80% of its value is captive audience and "cool factor" with younger users.
togg 7 days ago [-]
As I understand TikTok has been investing in building out a U.S. fulfillment center network over the past two years, perhaps a drop in the bucket for them. With this investment and the loads of U.S employees they have I would be surprised if they leave their large (largest?) user base.
WhatIsAModel 7 days ago [-]
This they can actually sell, plenty of fulfillment companies that would be interested in buying. They aren't selling their tech though and I don't blame them, Facebook wouldn't sell to be in China so whatever. However, I am disappointed because we aren't China and shouldn't govern the same. I personally will be voting for any non incumbent going forward (for my remaining time in this country, I'm getting out of here), the current legislature on both sides is insane, dangerous and (obviously) slowly creeping up the road of fascism.
takeda 7 days ago [-]
There's a great book that I think everyone should read:
"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Tim Snyder, it's also is short and to the point (audiobook is 2 hours long) and teaches people what to look for to see when their country slides into authoritarianism and what to do to fight it.
The author also reads it on YouTube if you can't get a hold of it.
Vegenoid 8 days ago [-]
Of course the CEO is going to say that, because they don't want the law passed. When the chips are down, it's a lot less likely that just pull out than that they take the money from one of the many salivating buyers.
RIMR 8 days ago [-]
If TikTok is in bed with the CCP as much as Congress says they are, think about the actual cause and effect of their different options.
If ByteDance sells TikTok to US owners to satisfy the requirement, they give up control of a successful platform developed inside of China to a self-declared adversary that already controls most of the world's social media platforms, representing a significant loss to China as they attempt to compete online.
If ByteDance ignores the demand to sell, the US government has obligated itself to prevent its citizens from accessing one of the most popular social media apps in existence, something that the affected users will be extremely angry about, and will likely make claims of state censorship.
If I were China, and my goal was to leverage TikTok to do harm to America, I would choose the option that turns US citizens against the government over the option that transfers power from China to the US.
djur 7 days ago [-]
Isn't the obvious alternative "split TikTok and sell TikTok USA"?
takeda 7 days ago [-]
aren't they already split and use different app in China vs US. Interestingly Chinese app's algorithm chooses more STEM videos, while Western version just pushes addictive crap.
Jochim 7 days ago [-]
> Interestingly Chinese app's algorithm chooses more STEM videos, while Western version just pushes addictive crap.
That's simply a lie. Douyin is full of the same trash as Tiktok.
8 days ago [-]
Workaccount2 8 days ago [-]
Tiktok isn't in bed with the CCP, it is the CCP.
China is a communist country. State owned industry. The leash they give business "owners" might be long (long enough to fool westerns it's just another USA), but it is still a leash, and they are still under control of the party. No courts, no rights, no lawsuits. Party wants, party takes.
8 days ago [-]
disgruntledphd2 7 days ago [-]
The really funny part about all that is that those bans were a reaction to the last time the US tried to ban TikTok.
jorblumesea 8 days ago [-]
Kind of reinforces the allegations of being CCP owned and compromised and not an independent entity. If you have poison pill provisions.
RIMR 8 days ago [-]
There are plenty of US companies that are authorized to use government-funded patents, that would prevent them from transferring ownership to foreign owners. This isn't a "poison pill" conspiracy, this is standard export control for state-funded technology.
jorblumesea 8 days ago [-]
Companies that are export controlled have military tech. The idea that a social media app would have a poison pill for export control is ridiculous and shows how owned these supposedly independent companies really are.
mike50 7 days ago [-]
ITAR applies to many technologies that are trivial to duplicate or have been redeveloped outside the US to bypass those restrictions. Memory chips hardened for space are subject to ITAR. These memory chips are commercial with lead tape on them.
riversflow 8 days ago [-]
Any non-arms companies in that mix?
throwawaymaths 8 days ago [-]
Merck (not an arms company) was expropriated from Merck.
riversflow 7 days ago [-]
From the Germans, during WWI.
throwawaymaths 7 days ago [-]
Yeah sure. At least WWI Germany wasn't committing two genocides.
mandeepj 8 days ago [-]
> The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.
Nope! He has said - TT is not going anywhere and vows to fight back legally. I was a bit shocked to find court put a hold on Trump’s ban of TT
throwawaymaths 8 days ago [-]
He'll lose, since the US already has done this sort of thing.
So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better and better!
beezlebroxxxxxx 8 days ago [-]
> they also have to remove the addiction algorithm
Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is going to be more than willing to put in place their own addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American social media and other adjacent tech companies have implemented them.
I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this will improve the app seems naive.
mminer237 8 days ago [-]
Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative.
Someone like Facebook wants the algorithm to show addictive content that generally isn't super offensive to the average person. Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
atlas_hugged 8 days ago [-]
It doesn’t sound like you’ve ever used TikTok. I assumed the same thing going in and found quite the opposite. I’m way better informed since I started using it. In some cases by people that were actually involved in whatever event was newsworthy.
Retric 8 days ago [-]
Selectively reducing or excluding some events as not newsworthy while promoting others is observable when using ticktock and the underlying means of propaganda people are concerned about.
For a US example you can simply count the minutes of coverage Fox News and CNN give to various stories for the same basic effect. How much coverage you gives the Russia- Ukraine war can be just as impactful as if you refer to it as a Russian invasion or not.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
At least you think you are way better informed.
I don't use TikTok, but I use Facebook and Google's short video versions. I find just as many anti-CCP as pro-CCP content on it, and...I guess these are mostly TikTok videos because many of them still have TikTok watermarks.
adezxc 8 days ago [-]
Don't take my question as aggresive, but why do you think you're "way better informed" since you started using it? Better informed on what?
Workaccount2 8 days ago [-]
What the algorithm decided to inform them on.
harryp_peng 8 days ago [-]
Have you even used TikTok?
Facebook connects you with the people around you, and TikTok connects you with your favorite people on earth. That's the essence of the product.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
> I’m way better informed since I started using it.
I'm legitimately terrified to know what this means.
logicchains 7 days ago [-]
Presumably it means they base their opinions of Gaza on videos of what's actually happening there rather than on propaganda statements by the IDF.
zo1 7 days ago [-]
I've found way more false news and stuff on TikTok than anywhere else, even about innocuous things and not something serious like a war. It's taken on the form of modern day chain mails in the way it spreads lies, with the participants being the most invested. They all think they're doing citizen journalism yet most of them verify nothing.
Let me not even get started on the deep fakes lurking on the platform.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
Not only is there more false info on Tiktok, the user comes away with high certainty they are being reliably informed. Because accounts popular on Tiktok focus strictly on presentation and entertainment, not anything actual journalists prioritize.
The effect is less informed with higher certainty, and terrible combination for training citizens for actual civil discourse.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
"Jews control the media" isn't an opinion worth debating. Move on
Capricorn2481 4 days ago [-]
It's less that and more brown people aren't humanized, so media is too skittish to call a spade a spade.
zeroCalories 8 days ago [-]
I don't know if I've ever met a tiktok addict that's well informed.
saagarjha 8 days ago [-]
How well informed are people who talk about TikTok addicts, though?
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
Well they know enough to know it's not a reliable source in anyway, so probably better than most?
galdosdi 7 days ago [-]
ok zoomer
takeda 7 days ago [-]
Everyone who you ask will tell you that ads never work on them, yet we all buy branded shit.
I don't see how people can say this with a straight face knowing that American adversaries operate almost in the open on Facebook. You don't need to control the platform to control the message. That's what social media companies sell!
trimethylpurine 7 days ago [-]
That was restricted in previous actions by Facebook, according to Zuckerberg's testimony. So today, you do need to control the platform.
Capricorn2481 4 days ago [-]
> according to Zuckerberg's testimony
Not according to his employees
trimethylpurine 4 days ago [-]
That might be true, but after testimony in front of Congress?
They would have to be bribing the IRS. No way.
I don't like or use Facebook and I hope it dies a horrible death. But I'm also a realist.
Capricorn2481 2 days ago [-]
Why would they have to bribe the IRS?
trimethylpurine 1 days ago [-]
A foreign adversary can't pay Facebook for an ad without using a bank that reports to the IRS.
Capricorn2481 22 hours ago [-]
I don't think the GP was talking about ads at all when referring to foreign adversaries influence on Facebook. They wouldn't need ads. They're doing fine disseminating disinformation already. TikTok does not promote CCP messages through ads, either.
trimethylpurine 3 hours ago [-]
I think they were talking about ads because the comment referred to what they sell specifically.
>That's what social media companies sell!
In any case, without paid ads, their "friend me" campaigns didn't work. There's some research from the FBI on this.
Can't find the link right this second but I'll post back if I do.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
If it has to come down to companies increasing division in Western countries for profit over ideology, then fine. One is a negative externality that can be mitigated, the other is the entire point (therefore cannot be made better).
zo1 7 days ago [-]
They operate everywhere in the open, with college campuses and academia being the most prominent places if you ask me.
alcoholic_byte 8 days ago [-]
But you need to control the platform to siphon user data , have a foothold into everyone's phone and to peddle misinformation and entertainment instead of education (Chinese version operates differently than the non-Chinese one).
There is no greater vehicle to deliver a hooking mechanism to target specific users for spyware upload than an app that is installed on a lot of platforms.
Weechat is one other such tool btw. and that thing behaves strangely compared to e.g. Whatsapp if you install it.
Ygg2 8 days ago [-]
> increases division in Western countries.
To be fair having first past the post voting does wonders for division. No external enemy necessary.
ajmurmann 7 days ago [-]
While this AFAIK only applies to the US, it should be the #1 issue to solve. By a wide margin. It's honestly baffling that not everyone with half a brain is up in arms about it.
shiroiushi 7 days ago [-]
Most people just don't understand basic math.
ajmurmann 7 days ago [-]
Weirdly they understand it well enough to be angry at third candidates spoiling the election, but aren't able to make that last, tiny connection.
Capricorn2481 8 days ago [-]
> increases division in Western countries
I'm not convinced anything on TikTok is more divisive than any other social media platform. And Reddit seems to be filled with a lot more tankies than other platforms.
henrikschroder 8 days ago [-]
> idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
You're right, everyone I know now buys their glycine from Donghua Jinlong instead of using domestic manufacturers. This is clearly not because of the superior manufacturing capabilities of Donghua Jinlong, who are ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified, and whose glycine is industrial AND food grade, but because of an insidious campaign by the CCP to promote Chinese glycine across the entire industry, trying to crush American glycine manufacturing. I demand congressional hearings about what our elected politicians are doing about this threat to American-made glycine!
atlintots 8 days ago [-]
Seeing another DHJL glycine enthusiast here on HN was not on my bingo, but it is a pleasant surprise.
Readers might also be happy to know DHJL glycine is Halal, Kosher, and Reach certified, and more recently, FDA approved as well!
henrikschroder 7 days ago [-]
On a serious note, it's so amusing to me to read the comments of people who hate TikTok, but who clearly haven't used it. They simply have no idea what it looks like and the kind of content that is popular on it.
But they're very certain that it's bad!
Meanwhile, I'm scratching my head trying to understand how my watch history could have any value whatsoever. Cute kittens, shirtless guys chopping wood, sad hamster memes, Sanchez the sleepy racoon, Young Royals edits, some dude eating all kinds of cheese, A bunch of confused Americans in Europe and vice versa, PEDRO PEDRO PEDRO, guys promoting their onlyfans, schwapeepee, and of course Donghua Jinlong content, although it seems to have run its course now.
sangnoir 8 days ago [-]
> Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative
How is it worse than making disseminating disinformation illegal? The law as written lays bare the true motivation - it's not about fighting disinformation ("inauthentic user activity" has been detected across all social networks for the purposes of disinformation). It almost certainly is about protecting American companies from competitors with better AI algorithms. The legislature has telegraphed that the tech/potential for abuse are not problems by themselves - ownership by a Chinese company is what they take issue with.
ladzoppelin 8 days ago [-]
But why is that a bad thing, China has the same regulations on companies not Chinese? Its not "better" algorithms its "weaponized" algorithms designed for specific populations including its own population which I imagine are not as damaging then the ones applied to others. My point is, of course this will be banned if the US gov cannot benefit from it and considered a threat to certain people.
sangnoir 7 days ago [-]
> But why is that a bad thing
I didn't say it was a bad thing - I said there's a better option that wasn't taken. IMO, protecting citizens from bad behavior by domestic and foreign companies is nobler than corporate protectionism. YMMV .
johnnyanmac 7 days ago [-]
>Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative.
Sounds like a skill issue. The Us has decades worth of a head start on the internet and social media. If "the enemy" can just waltz in and disrupt that in a matter of 5 years, I think we have bigger issues on hand.
> Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
Yeah, America has a decade long headstart on that too. We blamed facebook in 2016, we're blaming Tiktok in 2024. How long are we going to deflect this to the internet?
ClumsyPilot 8 days ago [-]
> “socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries
Do you have a single example of a successful Chinese media campaign, disinformation or information - just one?
Because I can name, off the top of my head, disinformation campaigns by Trump (election was stole) , by Israel (bunker under a hospital), by Isis (mass recruitment in western countries), by oil companies (heat pumps don’t work in Britain’s unique climate), by food companies, by Russia, by Greenpeace, by crazy people on 4chan but I cannot name a single message that came out of China and got major public resonance in the west.
robgibbons 7 days ago [-]
CCP is a major pusher of disinformation/propaganda. Look up Dragonbridge. Or how YouTube had to remove thousands of CCP propaganda channels. Or the classic "US Army Covid Origin" story that China pushed when social media came for Wuhan.
China's 50-cent army buys social media accounts, or creates fake personas, to push narratives and abuses reporting/takedown mechanisms to suppress unfavorable posts and channels.
ClumsyPilot 7 days ago [-]
This is major pusher of propaganda?
> Most DRAGONBRIDGE activity is low quality content without a political message, populated across many channels and blogs
If anything, this is a demonstration that their efforts are futile and incompetent, very much non-threat. I’ve seen even 4chan do better
We have multiple actors that push divisive misinformation through bots, much more successfully, and we do not apply any scrutiny to that.
shrimp_emoji 8 days ago [-]
Not really.
A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with every reason to wager to a far lesser degree.
Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis, but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's best interest).
interactivecode 8 days ago [-]
The US social media seems to be encouraging nationalism and conservatism. Which Im also not to happy about. It seems to be creating more unrest in the west rather than strength progress and unity.
China might not even need to influence the west through tiktok, meta and friends seem to be doing plenty of it themselves. None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
shrimp_emoji 8 days ago [-]
I give TikTok negative benefit of the doubt though. Nobody can prove if the stream of craziness is organic or a result of Chinese propagandists tuning the algorithm, but I'll believe it's the latter every time. Could I even afford not to? It's just game theory at this point.
> None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
The Nirvana Fallacy is when you reject the better of two outcomes because it's not good enough compared to some mythical optimum.
In this case, the optimum could be some social media service that "strengthens progress and unity" or it could be a total ban on social media altogether, both of which seem pretty mythical. :p
I believe organic, chaotic derangement is better than extrinsic, targeted derangement in magnitude and outcome.
woooooo 8 days ago [-]
This comment has almost brought me around to supporting a tiktok ban just to remove a leg from the conspiracy theories.
Take some responsibility for Americans posting on social media to other Americans, for the love of god.
lobochrome 8 days ago [-]
Not sure why you're getting downvoted - but I think this is thoughtful and to the point.
The highest ideal American SNS follow is profit. That will generate all kinds of externalities that might be bad for society. Still, at least so far, we've found it to be the least destructive optimization target in modern human history (vs. socialism).
The CCP is clearly tuning the algorithm in the SNS under its control to limit topics it deems undesirable in its goal of an ideal society. Whoever thinks this isn't so bad hasn't experienced an authoritarian state personally or at least highly underestimates the pain and suffering one can inflict.
winternett 8 days ago [-]
I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to be honest... All of the algorithms only end up working against the entertainment and educational factor of it all anyway. I'm thoroughly convinced that the social media mega-platforms have all moved out of algorithms to just pushing sponsored ads all day. Many of these ads repeat far too often every time I log in, and it's been making me want to ban all the apps anyway...
sangnoir 8 days ago [-]
> I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to be honest
I'm afraid that's not goign to happen in the US. Politicians never let a disaster go to waste: had the will been there to regulate social media in general, the hysteria around TikTok would have precipitated it. Instead, we got a law specifically targeting TikTok and ignoring other SM.
winternett 7 days ago [-]
Facebook & Instagram have had tons of Congressional scrutiny over the past decade, the problem is they never really did much to fix issues with the platform as a result.
The mere fact that these social media CEOs are building vast bunkers and amassing billions of dollars highlights the issue that they are literally shoveling value out of these platforms into their own pockets, and those of their investors, while preying upon the instincts of all their users in a deeply psychological manner.
EasyMark 8 days ago [-]
I just don't we'll ever see bans of social media working in the USA if the company is from here, at least not for the next 15 years, SCOTUS will most likely shoot down any attempts to do any serious regulation of social media except for maybe people under 18.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
No social media company would stay in business without the under 18 demographic
cryoes 8 days ago [-]
[flagged]
harryp_peng 8 days ago [-]
Nah, social media is the status quo. It's impossible to 'refrain' from the status quo, unless you invent something an order of magnitude greater.
winternett 7 days ago [-]
Personal web sites have been around for ages. Things worked better before when there was a proper search related to individual web sites and music blogs. There was also a lot less obsession with minute-to-minute updates from artists and scams to get on playlists and for likes and followers.
I'm a musician myself, and social media is totally overburdening the music economy with scams for musicians like paying for ads and bot services just to get visibility. Social Media overall is considered to be a wasteland dedicated to promoting only artificially engineered celebrity music and stories right now in the opinion of many.
harryp_peng 7 days ago [-]
You're right, but to the consumer like me I cherish how I'm able to connect to my favorite individuals like Andrej Karpathy and still learn a lot. I guess most people are likely the same, and spend an awful amount of time daily on this, whether they know it or not.
kyleamazza 8 days ago [-]
Playing devil's advocate: you can't block on native apps, and some mobile web browsers don't have extension support.
Also, please avoid ad-hominem ("hilariously limited intellect"); it overshadows what otherwise would be a valid point (enforcing a ban vs. practicing personal habit, critique on blanket statements, etc.)
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
Google and Meta already have plenty of TikTok-style videos with addictive algorithms, so I don't think we will be much better off if TikTok leaves the market. Kids will just migrate to other competitors.
jonesn11 6 days ago [-]
The algorithm's novelty and recommendation accuracy is so far beyond what other competitors like Google, Snapchat, and Meta have that this seems like a coordinated effort by the private sector to push forth their mediocre products and centralize social media service which I absolutely DETEST. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly announced how far behind Tiktok Meta was. Many years later they are still playing catchup.
Though, the saddest thing is that it seems like the U.S citizens, (i.e ANY of tiktoks 160 MILLION US users) have absolutely no say in the operations,a yet we actually interact with the app not these old people in Congress. The fact that Biden so swiftly signed the bill too makes me frustrated as I want to vote for him, but he keeps doing or okaying things that are counter to my values.
galdosdi 7 days ago [-]
Yeah. Google won this war already by getting Chromebooks into schools, which are mandatorily tied to a Gsuite account and thus have YouTube Shorts, drive, Gmail, etc access.
As a parent, I hate google a lot more than TikTok. I can already block TikTok, but I can't block youtube because the school district mandates it.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
They don't need chromebooks in schools, my kid uses YouTube kids at home (that doesn't include shorts), teens will have their own phone usually, and youtube is already a popular place for them to go, discovering YouTube shorts (if they haven't already), is easy.
But ya, if a teen is otherwise cut off from devices besides the ones they get from school, then you could see that as a weak point, although I don't think that applies to a significant portion of families. For the ones that it does apply to, they probably have bigger problems to worry about than TikTok being banned.
7 days ago [-]
k12sosse 7 days ago [-]
The admins should be able to block YouTube for minors when asked. There's a way to do it but it's by OU not individual user. Fight for it if you want it.
EasyMark 8 days ago [-]
nah, that would be left up to tiktok, the CCP, and the buyer of the company, if there ever is a buyer and the CCP would even permit it.
cryoes 8 days ago [-]
[flagged]
BobbyTables2 8 days ago [-]
Remove the addiction algorithm?
You mean like Facebook, YouTube, and Starbucks?
Riiiggghhhttt…
saintfire 8 days ago [-]
Coffeebourne addiction algorithms?
astrea 8 days ago [-]
Good thing it’s only those evil Chinese making algorithms such as this /s
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
> China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export
Isn't this just another reason to conclude China views Tiktok as a national security asset?
wavemode 8 days ago [-]
I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it". If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure of reading, not a failure of media reporting.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be available in the Country unless the company divested from US interest, would we not call it a ban?
fauigerzigerk 8 days ago [-]
I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on this question.
If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.
RIMR 8 days ago [-]
"Forced sale" is interesting, because it assumes that a Chinese company would allow itself to be forced to sell. If TikTok refuses, the government either has to admit that they have no power to force a sale or actually ban access to the service, or they have to start demanding that app stores remove the app, and DNS providers stop resolving the website, and that ISPs start blocking the IPs. This would become a complete shitshow pretty much instantly.
8 days ago [-]
8 days ago [-]
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners.
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries.
TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.
temporarely 8 days ago [-]
Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.
LordDragonfang 8 days ago [-]
The most essential advice I can give to any new user of TikTok is to be EXTREMELY liberal with the "long press > not interested" feature. The default FYP ("For you page", the algorithmic feed) is initially tuned towards the average teen, with lots of garbage (pranks, half-dressed women, and assorted other trashy content). The algo is pretty good at picking up what keeps your attention, so be careful what you give your attention to.
If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.
roncesvalles 8 days ago [-]
The crux of TikTok's success is that you don't have to "game the algorithm" like in other apps, and it's quite resilient even if you try. It seems to know what's an organic signal and what's an artificial signal.
Most other short-form content recommendation algorithms overfit like crazy (ahem Instagram ahem), and many users trying to bend it a certain way mess it up.
groggo 8 days ago [-]
Give it a try. It's weird, fun, educational, stupid. It's whatever you make of it. Is it also whatever China wants you to make of it? Maybe. But they could do the same thing with news, TV, or movies.
djur 7 days ago [-]
The law doesn't authorize blocking access to servers outside the US.
temporarely 7 days ago [-]
(to the respondents to my op): thanks!
torginus 7 days ago [-]
does that mean that it could be used to basically block any app made by the Chinese?
number_man 7 days ago [-]
I believe so. It's called "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" not "TikTok Ban Act", so it can be applied to apps like WeChat as well.
cute_boi 8 days ago [-]
What about iphone?
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
They're free to host their website which iPhones can access from CCP headquarters too.
Heck, they could post their IPA or source code if they wanted. This law isn't what prevents users from sideloading.
mhardcastle 8 days ago [-]
For what it's worth, "play money" betting site Manifold is currently at a 69% chance of sale versus 31% of shutting down.
What about no sale yet they continue to operate because the ban is not enforceable either legally or technically?
schoen 8 days ago [-]
For example, if they (or some party that's directly targeted like Apple or Cloudflare) gets a U.S. court to enjoin enforcement of some of the provisions.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
Plug pulling is easy technically.
I think plug pulling legally is also easy. Bytedance just doesn't have a strong defense.
ok123456 7 days ago [-]
The defense is the bill of rights.
arduanika 7 days ago [-]
Buzzkill! Everybody else on here was having fun opining that it's 100% certain that China pulls the plug, or conversely that a sale will happen, and you just had to point out that it's an empirical question where nobody can read the CCP's mind. Boo.
rzz3 7 days ago [-]
It’s alarming to me that you think the owners of arguably the most successful social media company in the world would sell it only to appease a single country. It comes off as a typical American perspective of thinking they’re the center of the world. At TikTok’s current global growth rate, they could exceed the entire user base of the USA in just a few months. I’m not sure how that user share corresponds to revenue as I’d assume the US is a lucrative market,but I just don’t see it. And TikTok has directly said they won’t be divesting.
peanuty1 7 days ago [-]
How much of their revenue comes from Europe and Asia though? American users are much more valuable than Greek or Spanish users for instance.
psychoslave 7 days ago [-]
A propaganda tool doesn’t need to be immediately financially profitable though, that’s not their expected main outcome (though I guess that can be a nice bonus).
kranke155 7 days ago [-]
You being downvoted seems to be a reflex of HN hive thinking that a Chinese company could be “just a company”
xvector 7 days ago [-]
The US is typically more profitable than all the other countries combined, as people here have far more disposable income after all expenses, and are more inclined to spend it.
j0hnyl 7 days ago [-]
The advertising market in the US pretty much eclipses the whole rest of the world, so yes the owners are very likely to sell it to appease a single country.
THENATHE 8 days ago [-]
The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
alisonatwork 8 days ago [-]
ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two.
The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream.
The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular.
Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets.
TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it.
At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.
k12sosse 7 days ago [-]
CHINA already has the fentanyl market covered. They'd crush that too.
SnorkelTan 8 days ago [-]
It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.
walthamstow 8 days ago [-]
I believe it's Douyin
8 days ago [-]
partiallypro 8 days ago [-]
If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's just a forced sell.
zappb 8 days ago [-]
That’s similar to eminent domain, a right granted to the government in the constitution.
partiallypro 7 days ago [-]
Eminent domain requires a fair price and it's for public infrastructure. This isn't, this is just an app.
LordShredda 8 days ago [-]
This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.
kube-system 8 days ago [-]
We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.
LudwigNagasena 7 days ago [-]
Because it was more than a mere ban, AT&T was dissolved.
kube-system 7 days ago [-]
AT&T corp was not dissolved in the '84 breakup. It continued to exist, providing long-distance service, but didn't operate any local exchanges.
importantbrian 8 days ago [-]
Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from refusing to sell and getting banned.
apendleton 8 days ago [-]
It wouldn't be 0 dollars, though; the majority of their users are apparently outside the US. So the question is: how does the amount you could get by selling a US-inclusive Tiktok compare the potential future earnings of a US-free Tiktok? If the market prices it accurately, you'd sort of expect the former to be higher (a US-inclusive version seems obviously more valuable), but maybe they think the market undervalues them, or maybe prospective buyers would smell blood in the water because of the deadline and try to low-ball, etc.
stale2002 8 days ago [-]
> Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor?
Thats easy to answer.
The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.
Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off.
So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.
ralfd 8 days ago [-]
But would a new US-Tiktok not try to expand globally? Original-China-TikTok would then compete with US-Tiktok in Europe and elsewhere.
stale2002 8 days ago [-]
No, because "original tiktok" has a different name in China and doesn't compete significantly outside of China.
The tiktok that you know about is the international app that already doesnt compete with the rest of bytedance.
Dalewyn 8 days ago [-]
>It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
That's because:
* Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline.
* Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes.
* Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.
spxneo 8 days ago [-]
Another reason could be: many are not sympathetic to the America's claims that these foreign platforms are at the whims of a country it is at odds with and which have repeatedly demonstrated covert abilities to change American's perception.
Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections.
So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.
Dalewyn 8 days ago [-]
>their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see
Speaking as an American, our country was founded on the principles of being apprehensive of governments including our own. Being suspicious of our own government is a very American thing and should not be understood as surprising.
See our Declaration of Independence for further reading and context.
mike50 7 days ago [-]
And old people losing their connection with objective reality is connected to fox news. Next argument. It's being banned because old technically illiterate people (most of congress) latched onto a simplistic solution to the wrong problem,
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other companies also on the clock?
Hmm, but it gives the US President the ability to decide who is targeted, so one way or another it seems like TikTok is treated specially.
brfox 8 days ago [-]
I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no longer have Chinese owners?
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
IPOs usually involve selling only a small fraction of outstanding shares. Aramco sold less that 2% of it's shares.
rfoo 8 days ago [-]
Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15 years ago.
meowtimemania 8 days ago [-]
what happened 15 years ago?
YoumuChan 8 days ago [-]
I guess Google's exit from China.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
That was more 2013.
rfoo 7 days ago [-]
That was Jan 2010.
hankchinaski 8 days ago [-]
The chance that TikTok sells to US owner is zero, so the “ban” implies that assumption
breadwinner 8 days ago [-]
They only need to sell the US portion of the business. They can continue to operate everywhere else, right? Why would they throw away tens of billions of dollars (value of the US portion)?
0xB31B1B 8 days ago [-]
The CCP does not care about the marketcap of bytedance, they care about the soft power that tiktok allows them to wield. The CEO of bytedance may want to sell, but the CCP won't let them.
wraptile 7 days ago [-]
In US those are essentially equivellent as money buys soft power very easily. This whole thing is US not wanting to expand user rights but protect it's soft power and it shows.
I think either way this whole thing is a big W for CCP and L to US democracy that doesn't have the balls to actually expand regulation when it's clearly wanted and needed.
cylemons 7 days ago [-]
They're losing the soft power anyway. But if they sell they can atleast earn money.
0xFEE1DEAD 7 days ago [-]
They would lose soft power in the US but what if the CCP accepts this and shifts their tactics to slowly but surely flood the rest of the world with anti-US propaganda? Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like the US could win here.
coin 7 days ago [-]
So this will be the trust test. If they sell then it's a legit product. If not then it's clearly CCP spyware.
mullingitover 8 days ago [-]
> The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners.
My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
> Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
Or they just move over to FAANG competitors? I've never used TikTok before since it is an app, but I use YouTube shorts and whatever that Instagram short thing is Facebook is pushing into my feed (with...erm...a lot more addictive algorithms than YouTube). Ok, I'm not Gen Z, but it looks like content providers are already hedging their bets on platforms (they often don't even remove TikTok watermarks), I don't see why consumers wouldn't follow. Its not like YouTube or Facebook is blocked in the USA.
logicchains 7 days ago [-]
>Or they just move over to FAANG competitors?
Currently the FAANG competitors are much worse; their recommendation engines are inferior. That's why consumers overwhelmingly prefer Tiktok currently.
xvector 7 days ago [-]
This is an old misconception. Reels has already exceeded over 50% of TikTok's watch time. The algorithm is better on Reels now IMO.
nebula8804 7 days ago [-]
Sorry but Reels is crap. Its just stolen TikTok videos mixed with some other nonsense.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
Content providers are stealing their own TikTok videos, although I'm sure some providers are stealing other people's TikTok videos to make money on Reels and Shorts, especially the Chinese ones I've seen (probably ripped off by other Chinese wanting to make some quick money).
jquery 8 days ago [-]
Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.
groggo 8 days ago [-]
I'm not genz but I use tiktok. You need to give it a try. All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre.
We can be skeptical, but not afraid of foreign owned media.
mistermann 8 days ago [-]
> All of the comments on here from people who don't use it are bizarre.
100% agree.
I would say this offers some insight into the real reason they want to ban TikTok.
Marsymars 8 days ago [-]
I mean, I’m happy to see tiktok removed from app stores for the same reasons as I’d be happy to see any social media apps be removed from app stores, so from that perspective, I don’t think it matters that I haven’t used tiktok unless it’s somehow exempt from the problems that are endemic to social media apps.
groggo 8 days ago [-]
I mean it's debatable whether or not social media is good for society, and there's legitimate concerns about data privacy, but do you really want the govt to remove them?
Marsymars 7 days ago [-]
Good question! I wouldn’t trust a government aiming to remove them, but seeing them run afoul of legitimate legislation (where I’m not actually familiar enough with the US/tiktok law to really make a judgement call on) in ways that get them punished satisfies me. (Assuming those punishments are in line with principles I otherwise support - e.g. I wouldn’t support ISP-level blocking.)
xvector 7 days ago [-]
Sounds like you just don't care much for free speech.
coin 7 days ago [-]
> the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app
It's addictive and they don't fully understand the dangers of CCP spyware and CCP controlled algorithm. It's like drugs addicts being passionate about drug use.
onjectic 8 days ago [-]
If I were China this is the move. I’m suspect this is the intention of the bill from the US end as well.
ladzoppelin 8 days ago [-]
lol, you really think the US has "free Speech" and this is some unprecedented action that will tear us apart?
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
>the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners
Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest
Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
1. You are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available".
2. I am looking forward to seeing the justifications that will be trotted around once the USG torpedoes net neutrality and bans the website
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> you are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available"
Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban?
The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal to provide services to Americans (or more draconian, which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the executive.
What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake or distribute this from non-American servers and via the internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
>Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor?
It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still available.
It's an effective ban because the CCP has already said they will not allow a TikTok sale. Congress knows there's no recourse for ByteDance. They aren't going to hand over the IP to a non-Chinese entity. If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban.
>Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
The irony about this is that China has the same exact policy in the mainland, but no one argues whether or not Google is banned in China. Google used to be in China! China said Google had to censor some topics or they wouldn't be allowed to do business in China. Google opted to leave.
Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still available
These are both true, though. Again, if you want to see a ban, look at how Facebook is treated by China.
But fair enough, people are using the term "ban" inconsistently. I wouldn't say anyone's moving the goalposts as much as we're using an ambiguous term interchangeably.
> If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban
This is tautology. You literally said if Sally were to do X to Andy unless {}, then X = X.
> Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship
You can't go to Google.com in China. You will be able to go to TikTok.com and access its content freely after it's been, per your definition, banned. From a free-speech perspective, that seems material.
I get your point from a free-trade perspective. This is obviously not a free-trade bill. Maybe that's where the discussion is losing traction...
cwyers 8 days ago [-]
Why are you framing this in such a way that treats one party as having agency and the other party as being immovable? The US is not banning TikTok, they are posing stipulations towards its use and you believe the CCP when they say they won't comply with those stipulations. But why is that a ban, versus "the CCP refuses to let TikTok comply with US law?"
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
Do you consider Google banned in China? The CCP had stipulations for Google's continued business in China. It was unable/unwilling to follow them, so Google left (voluntarily, infact).
I've never seen anyone argue that Google isn't technically banned in China. It's clearly a ban when China does it.
djur 7 days ago [-]
Can you connect to the Internet in China and visit google.com?
cwyers 8 days ago [-]
Do you consider companies that refuse to comply with GDPR banned in the EU?
devmor 8 days ago [-]
I don't recall the GDPR being created specifically to target one company that politicians disliked.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
Yes. Is this even a contentious point? Despite the fact EU hasn't bothered to null-route an application that doesn't comply, they will impose onerous fines.
And what do companies do that don't want to comply to GDPR? They ban EU users. You can use the search bar here to find countless people talking about being banned. There's no ambiguity - there's only ambiguity when it comes to TikTok.
paulddraper 8 days ago [-]
It's mostly a first mover thing.
If I purchase a car with low gas mileage, and then the EPA requires cars to have minimum gas milage, that "bans" my car. Even though technically, I could figure out some way to rebuild it to comply.
dpflan 8 days ago [-]
It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response framing it like that rather than giving the technical details that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
If by glossed over you mean put in quotes in the title and made clear in the first sentence of the article.
dpflan 8 days ago [-]
Sure, raise that to the original commenter.
HarHarVeryFunny 7 days ago [-]
Today's news is that ByteDance says they'd prefer just to shut down TikTok rather than sell because:
1) Their algorithms (presumably video recommendations) are proprietary and used by their other Chinese apps
2) TikTok revenue isn't that significant for them
Maybe these reasons are bogus, but I'd not be surprised if they do refuse to sell.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.
It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.
There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons.
Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.
rhaps0dy 8 days ago [-]
Is this going to impact Riot Games' games (League of Legends, Valorant), the wildly popular American video game company which is owned by Tencent?
ajross 7 days ago [-]
As people are pointing out, no. This isn't a blanket law, it requires per-case executive action to enforce.
What the law absolutely does do is make "Chinese Ownership" an existential risk to companies with software products with large numbers of US users. Riot, Epic et. al. will be strongly incentivised to get their PRC shareholders to divest, and in the future other companies will be disincentivized from accepting that kind of investment.
And surely that's intentional.
xvector 7 days ago [-]
> it requires per-case executive action
Abuse of power in a nutshell.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
Tencent also owns 40% of Epic Games, which wants its own AppStores on the mobile OSes.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
If the current president decides that they're a threat to national security, then yes.
interactivecode 8 days ago [-]
Lol, queue china writing a clear document on all the US stock their citizens and companies own. Just to mess with the USA.
Anything they sell just gives them more money to buy more ownership.
FpUser 8 days ago [-]
>"passing a law that looks good in news headlines"
It does not look good at all. It just shows that they have no trust in their own citizens. And maybe for a reason.
pakyr 8 days ago [-]
> So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company.
Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.
> the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet
Only if the president believes they should be banned.
jquery 8 days ago [-]
1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer. Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death penalty.
pakyr 8 days ago [-]
Sure, that's a valid concern to have, and I'm not saying the bill is a great idea. I'm just pointing out that there's nothing automatic about the process and the clock to divestment wouldn't immediately start ticking the moment a company crosses 20% Chinese ownership. The person I was responding to said the bill could get weaponized by the CCP to ban things via the threat of them acquiring more than 20% ownership, but that's not how the bill works.
xvector 7 days ago [-]
The fact that it's not automatic is even worse. It means that the president can just target whoever they don't like.
remarkEon 8 days ago [-]
The US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law[1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that.
Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here.
What's different is that it's owned by a communist country. Otherwise, it would just be a giant liquidity event.
throwaway4good 7 days ago [-]
I don't think it is possible or economically viable for ByteDance to sell TikTok under the terms set out, even if they wanted. Because of the shared code base with Douyin and the bill's requirements on severing ties between the two.
The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.
barfingclouds 7 days ago [-]
Nope it doesn’t ban TikTok from having Chinese owners. TikTok could very well continue to have Chinese owners, and if so the US will ban the product domestically
8 days ago [-]
drooby 8 days ago [-]
China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell. And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law.
Hmm I wonder why..
I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.
grumple 8 days ago [-]
China has signaled that they would block a sale.
blodstone 8 days ago [-]
Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.
sudosysgen 8 days ago [-]
It really isn't, it's not in anybody's national interest to allow other companies to force a sale. It would set a terrible precedent where any Chinese tech company could see their Western/International operations get captured and therefore cause major loss of expected returns.
danieltanfh95 8 days ago [-]
It is already well known that tiktok ai models and algorithms trained on Chinese citizen data is non-exportable, so tiktok will never be able to sell to a non-chinese entity.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
The AI model doesn't much matter. The algorithms do matter. CCP will ban the sale. It doesn't really matter if they are banning the data or algorithm.
Spivak 8 days ago [-]
No it doesn't, were the roles reversed with say Facebook the US wouldn't think twice before blocking the sale.
ericmay 8 days ago [-]
In the case of a role-reversal here Facebook was just banned in China from the start. There was never a sale opportunity in the first place.
Spivak 8 days ago [-]
You're focusing too much on the what and not the why. Banning all foreign business in certain market segments to protect your domestic industry is fine (because it's all countries) Banning Chinese businesses because we're imposing trade restrictions with China is fine (because it affects everyone). Hell banning specific companies because they don't comply with local laws is fine too (because it's the same rules for everyone).
Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China doesn't do this to us. As a general rule US companies can operate in China and US companies are allowed to own stake in Chinese companies.
To me this is an escalation of the fair-weather, "I don't like you, you don't like me but we can still be professionals when it comes to mutually beneficial trade" attitude we've had.
ericmay 8 days ago [-]
The easiest way to understand this issue is to ask yourself why American social media companies can’t operate in China with the same level of operational freedom that Tik Tok can in the United States. Once you have those answers you will understand why it needs to be banned from the perspective of the United States.
timerol 8 days ago [-]
> Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China doesn't do this to us
Unintentionally funny comment when positioned next to its sibling about this exact thing happening to FB in a targeted way back in '09
joshuaissac 8 days ago [-]
> Facebook was just banned in China from the start.
It was not. It was only banned in 2009 after it was allegedly used to organise protests that escalated into deadly race riots in Xinjiang.
ericmay 8 days ago [-]
Facebook didn’t start to become globally popular until around this time. In 2006/2007 when I joined you still needed a .edu or in my case a .mil email address to access it. Basically as soon as it started becoming popular in China it was banned.
The organized protests[1] were just a convenient excuse. Race riots have occurred in many countries and you can link those back to various social media platforms which were used to organize protests.
[1] The protests as you describe them… there is a lot to unpack here and it’s not a good enough excuse to ban American social media companies. But if you think it is, then the US also gets to arbitrarily ban foreign social media companies.
malfist 8 days ago [-]
The US would not block the sale.
hi-v-rocknroll 8 days ago [-]
It's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways.
US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.
faeriechangling 7 days ago [-]
If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess.
>The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world
Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.
hi-v-rocknroll 7 days ago [-]
Comparing wintermelon and oranges. Live a few more decades and then your definition of "objective" may face reality. The higher education system of the US is selectively excellent, but 0.5-0.75% of Americans have top tier university degrees. Only 39% of Americans have any college degree at all, but this includes online and colleges that accept anyone. Fewer and fewer Americans read books of substance, or any books at all. America is deeply anti-intellectual from its founding arising from the culture of English settler merchants, with a tiny core of intelligentsia that grew around exiled religious movements.
a. Quantitatively
- Reading: Canada is 3rd, America is 24th
- Science: Canada is 7th, America is also 24th
- Math: Canada is 9th, America is 39th
^ There should be negligible differences between them given vast similarities.
b. Qualitatively - Meet and talk to enough people from Asia (Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China) and Europe (Iberian and Eastern) & UK. And then talk to many Americans from anywhere other than from the coasts. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, MAGA, and QAnon are the mainstream norm rather than the exception. The difference is: they don't have government censorship, a totalitarian regime, or social credit habits as an excuse for their ignorance. There are billboards with borderline racist MAGA slogans in the South US.
faeriechangling 7 days ago [-]
In china in 2018, 17% completed tertiary education. If you're comparing the worth of society by tertiary educational achievement, than Canada is beating America and crushing China. I already said that Americans educational achievements are mediocre relative to the rest of the OECD. However I'd bet money that its PISA scores would hold up next to China's if China actually tested the same percentage of the population that America did.
One country has borderline racist MAGA slogans. The other has Han Chauvinism and forced propaganda for a totalitarian state. There's plenty of conspiracy theories and misinformation in both countries. Here's a study showing that 13.8% of people in China considered GMO foods as a form of bioterrorism targeted at China[1].
I'm not saying America doesn't have problems, but most of the criticisms you lobbed at America can just as easily be lobbed at China, and yet China seems to be economically expanding rather rapidly relative to America or most places. I'll also say being highly educated isn't all roses, every country with tertiary education levels as high or higher than Canada's has a well sub-replacement birthrate - the education levels you idealise aren't even independantly sustainable.
There is another possibility. TikTok exits the us market.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
That's been widely discussed. But it's basically the same end result - for users.
throawayonthe 7 days ago [-]
[dead]
8 days ago [-]
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
I see this as a national security threat that it is. The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.
The US and its allies got rid of Chinese telecom hardware from their networks for the very same reasons now it’s time to do the same with TikTok.
Would you let an enemy supply you with the very same kit you would use to fight them? No. Would you let that same adversary install an app on your most used device to watch and track you? Hah no.
A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.
Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.
noobermin 7 days ago [-]
To be honest, the use of the word "enemy" is far too strong, it sounds like we are at war with them while they somehow supply half of our goods at prices we've grown accustomed to. "Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt (which you use later), where the US is not on the friendliest terms with China but isn't in an outright war with them.
Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamewars here on HN.
redbell 7 days ago [-]
> "Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt
> Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamwars here on HN.
I agree!
Back in Arcade Machines time, when a player is busy playing a fighting game, Street Fighter, I guess, and another person inserts a coin to play against him, the game pauses and a message that reads "Here's come a new challenger" pops up, so I think challenger would serve the purpose somehow!
TomJansen 7 days ago [-]
I don't want to compare life to video games and I think comparing a genocidal dictatorship that ruthlessly suppresses its citizens and occupies foreign lands (Tibet for example) a challenger is a bit of a downplay
robertlagrant 7 days ago [-]
> I don't want to compare life to video games
Not that this is relevant to anything, but if it were: no one was doing this.
throwaway4good 7 days ago [-]
The US has an official list of enemies and that includes China. I believe the list was introduced under Trump and is determined by the sitting president:
Your link names them "adversaries". Its an official list of adversaries.
throwaway4good 7 days ago [-]
Yes. They make it sound much nicer.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
It is about connotation.
I play Go against you.
You are my opponent or, if it is a tournament, I could also call you my adversary(connotation is a bit stronger, less matter of fact like opponent, more around competition now).
After the game, we sit down and have tea and laugh.
Now let's explore the connotation of enemy.
Playing Go against you calling you my enemy is outright wrong.
However, if you were my enemy, I would not drink tea and have a laugh with you afterwards.
I wouldn't even be playing a game of Go against you, but rather trying to do other not so nice things to you.
Such is the nature of connotation.
Being erudite helps here ;) .
ChrisRR 7 days ago [-]
The word enemy is not used on that page at all. It says adversaries
beebmam 7 days ago [-]
The US is in a cold war with China as long as China is open to the idea of the use of military force on its neighbors, including Taiwan. A cold war is the only alternative to surrendering the free Taiwanese people to communist rule, and a hot war.
omnimus 7 days ago [-]
US is also open to the idea to use military force and not only on their neighbours but also on countries far away.
US is in cold war with China because China might soon be economicaly getting upper hand.
bluepizza 7 days ago [-]
The only way that China gets an upper hand economically is by selling products to the US and the Western world.
If they enter into a conflict where they are cordoned off, their export oriented economy would crash immediately.
A war between China and USA is impossible to win for either sides, due to both military size, budgets, interdependence, and nuclear weapons arsenal. And this is why it's a cold war.
psychoslave 7 days ago [-]
> The only way that China gets an upper hand economically is by selling products to the US and the Western world.
I am not a geopolitician, but this looks like a little too simplistic perspective, doesn’t it? I mean China diversified its wallet, including by helping to create infrastructures in Africa where there is still a largely growing young population (in contrast to the general trend in the occidental countries, or even what the long standing single child policy led to in China).
hobo_mark 7 days ago [-]
If western demand goes away, you think African demand can compensate for that? Domestic would be more realistic, and even there China has nowhere near enough domestic consumption to keep the system running, let alone sustain historical growth rates.
ChrisRR 7 days ago [-]
Not really. China has so much manufacturing power that if they limited exports and focused on manufacturing for inland it would have major economic shifts for both china and the west. That's the problem with the world putting all of their manufacturing eggs in one basket
Sammi 7 days ago [-]
Sell domestically to whom? Domestic buyers ain't buying. That's why they are exporting.
mort96 7 days ago [-]
I don't get your first paragraph. Of course the US is open to the idea of using military force against, well, pretty much anyone. I don't see how that's relevant, other than as some form of pointing out hypocrisy? Or are you actually saying that "because the US is prepared to do its own military action, it categorically doesn't enter cold wars with other countries based on which military actions the other country could do"? I don't understand.
ExoticPearTree 7 days ago [-]
Hypocrisy mostly. You can’t tell others to stop doing what you keep doing.
The US considers all of LATAM as his own back yard. Why can’t China consider all of Asia as its own back yard?
This is what upsets people, the sheer size of hypocrisy.
mort96 7 days ago [-]
I was more interested in their answer, I don't think you have much more insight into what they meant than I do
omnimus 5 days ago [-]
Hypocrisy mostly.
shiroiushi 7 days ago [-]
So two wrongs make a right?
aurareturn 7 days ago [-]
If your military is powerful enough, yes.
The point is that the US has set a precedence on military power around the world. The US told the world that using military power for your own country's benefit is ok to do. So why can't China?
_heimdall 7 days ago [-]
No the GP, but their point is that the US can't complain about how China treats the rest of Asia when it looks so similar to how the US has treated Latin America.
That doesn't mean either side was right, or that one justifies the other. Only that the pot should into call the kettle black.
shiroiushi 6 days ago [-]
>or that one justifies the other
That is absolutely the implication here.
_heimdall 6 days ago [-]
I definitely read it differently, but maybe I did misunderstand them.
The commenter's focus on hypocrisy reads to me more like they take issue with the US calling China out for this rather then justifying what China is doing because they aren't the only ones.
fennecbutt 7 days ago [-]
Without the West, China would collapse economically. I mean literally collapse, ever heard of tofu-dreg?
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Exactly. It’s Cold War 2.0 this time we trade with them …
skissane 7 days ago [-]
The two blocks traded in Cold War 1.0 - there was even direct trade between the US and the Soviet Union - although no denying that trade was a lot smaller than US-China trade is today
7 days ago [-]
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
No I meant what I wrote. But I meant it about the CCP not the average Chinese person.
China wants to replace the US and the west as the global power. This will lead to upheaval and likely a war. When that finally comes to pass it behooves the west and the US to protect itself from anything that could undermine its own protection. In order to win a war you need hearts and minds. Not a populace that is being programmed to think despotic neo-communist-capitalist-when-it-suits-them rulers in China are somehow paper tigers.
Let’s compromise here: they are adversaries now but I think they are preparing to become enemies in every sense of the word. If they invade Taiwan, shed blood in the conflict over the breached rusting ship in the Phillipines, continue supporting Putin in his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine then yes they will eventually become enemies.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
Even in the times of the Great Empires, there were always other great powers - perhaps not peers, but powerful enough to be truly independent. This era most of us grew up in where the US was this unchallenged global hegemonic power was a major outlier in history, owing exclusively to rare circumstance. That being that after the USSR suddenly collapsed, there were not only politicians in the US that wanted to be rulers of the world, but also no other powers that could even remotely compare on a technological or economic level except Japan. But Japan itself also began a rapid economic collapse just about the time that the USSR collapsed.
And now not only were these circumstances rare, but they were also inherently liminal. Technological and economic edges fade rapidly, especially in light of major population level differences. I see no reason to think China imagines they could or even wants to be anything like the US was 30 years ago. The world is returning to its more natural multipolar state, as it's more or less always been.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
If my reading of history is correct while there might have been more than one power or more or less equal powers they all vied to be the one most powerful one. I think that’s the natural order of things and the question is do you want the west lead by the US or one of her allies to be that leader or China or her allies.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
How exactly do you think China is going to be able to "lead" the US? This is what I mean. The era of one hegemonic power being able to be the sole judge and authority on every single action around the globe was an extremely brief and freak incident in history, and that time is over. It required an extreme economic/tech imbalance that has rarely existed throughout history, no longer exists, and will probably not exist again for the foreseeable future. So whoever calls themselves the 'most powerful' is ultimately irrelevant - it would just be a mostly meaningless title.
wrasee 7 days ago [-]
I would much rather live in a world with a balance of power than one with a concentration of one.
It’s by no means a given that a more even distribution of power leads to war or China ‘replacing the US’ as the only one. But an attitude where everyone thinks so, ironically, might.
Sammi 7 days ago [-]
History is bloody when there is no concentration of power. Historically peace happens when there is a strong hegemon.
matheusmoreira 7 days ago [-]
The idea that your population can be "programmed" in the first place is the antithesis of american ideology. The whole point of freedom is you're free to think and say whatever you want and society has to deal with that. Society either rejects the ideas or accepts them but either choice still represents an active choice, an exercise of freedom. Saying that people are being "programmed" reveals a rather shocking lack of respect for the intellectual freedom and autonomy of their fellow man.
wrasee 7 days ago [-]
I’m pretty sure that I have been programmed. By my parents, by my friends, my education, my environment.
Change any of those things in a significant way and I’m sure I would be a different person now. I love the idea that I am an autonomous agent of my own that exists self evidently outside of those bounds, I just don’t think it’s true.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
Then humanity today would approximately the same as humanity of its first era. I don't really understand the tendency to deny one's own agency. We were all once teenagers. And one of the first things we do as our brain starts to develop is rebel against the authority of a time. And, for some, that spirit of independence and rebellion never ends.
aurareturn 7 days ago [-]
>The idea that your population can be "programmed" in the first place is the antithesis of american ideology.
The fact that you might be programmed to hate/dislike/fear China despite, I'm guessing having never been to China, is proof that America also programs you, just in another way.
Hint: Mostly through media.
Void_Kitty 7 days ago [-]
People are dumb, and like to believe the first thing they see, so "programming" a population is as easy as showing everyone something so often that it is all they see, tge human mind is incredibly malleable, and many big tech companies employ teams of psychologists to make best use of that, given china is a adversary or enemy or whatever you wanna call it, giving them a pipeline by which they can have direct access to tens of millions of American minds is a little silly to say the least, you do not win a war by winning battles, you win a war by breaking the enemies will to fight "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting" Sun Tzu said that, and I'd say he knows a little more about fighting then you do pal because he invented it
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
Were this true then any of the countless authoritarian states which ended up in complete control of all media, news, and even the ability to enter or leave the country - would have had a nation full of fully misinformed and obedient people. Instead it's invariably the exact opposite. The USSR is one of the best examples. They not only controlled all media, all news, and even who was allowed to leave the country. Yet trust completely collapsed as the state of nation completely collapsed.
7 days ago [-]
huytersd 7 days ago [-]
With them picking Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, the term enemy is rather applicable at this point.
ahtaarra 6 days ago [-]
By the same logic with the Israel-Palestine issue, the US is currently the only state visibly blocking calls for immediate ceasefires and establishing a Palestinian state (which is essential for a two-state solution) at the UN and it can therefore be called the enemy of the most of the world.
Edit: improve grammar and wording
pkphilip 7 days ago [-]
I agree. However, banning Tiktok won't change anything. If Tiketok is banned another company will take its place.
Now coming to the subject of Facebook, Twitter etc, these apps pose the same threat to nations other than the US. As in, these apps serve US interests by pushing US propaganda onto the rest of the world and constantly monitors/tracks the individuals who have these apps installed.
So a better option is to ban any type of tracking - on all apps. But it is extremely unlikely that this will be made into law.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Yes. Two pronged. Much stronger US consumer data privacy laws including a culling of the business of data brokers. And a total ban of TikTok in the US.
figassis 7 days ago [-]
Why should the US to other governments jobs? I say this while not being American.
I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens, when it is the US that creates and fuels those predatory companies. And I understand they basically don’t care if they destroy everyone if it benefits them. Great. But what are our governments doing?
shiroiushi 7 days ago [-]
>I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens,
Huh? Where did you get this idea? The GPDR in the EU isn't a US law, it's an EU law to protect EU citizens.
The US government really doesn't do much to protect the privacy of US citizens, certainly nothing at the level of the EU's laws.
figassis 7 days ago [-]
US and EU are very alike, I'm from neither.
m000 7 days ago [-]
No they are not. Just today, it made news here in HN that the (US) airlines will have to compensate their customers for cancelations/delays. EU has that for something like 20 years [1].
I am not saying that US should protect the rights of non-citizens but this will likely result in retaliatory action by other nations on apps from the US.. though I won't hold my breath
ChrisRR 7 days ago [-]
It may not solve it, but it will change it. The amount of influence these apps have on people make them a prime target for planting and spreading misinformation.
throwaway_jeff 7 days ago [-]
The problem is with the bill being legal.
For example, US citizens are free to listen to chinese radio stations, or chinese TV channels, read chinese books. Why the government needs to restrict what US citizens have access to in this specific case?
palata 7 days ago [-]
Because TikTok not only has the tracking potential of BigTech, but it is a serious competitor to some of them.
It's just protectionism, like banning the Huawei phones (not talking about the infrastructure, that's different) or banning DJI drones. It just sounds better to mention national security than to say "we don't want others to do to us what we do to them, and we don't want them to compete with us".
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
Your thoughts leave out one thing:
Radio and newspapers(including internet articles here in general) are a one way street.
With Tiktok, you not only get access to the users device via the app, but it is also a two way street. Tiktok gets to choose what it feeds you.
And what you describe is also true in a lot of countries(I can choose my medium). However, with newspapers, radio and television what you feed the population is readily visible to anyone.
I can turn on the telly to see what is being streamed. This is not the case with an app. Unless the government watches you 24/7 and I doubt that. The costs are prohibitive.
The thing that does exist is metadata. If I were to visit terrorist.com or bombmanual.org.uk I would make a list. But watching TikTok all that is being seen is me communicating with content-servers(here the subject that needs to be watched also changes from the user(me) to the proprietor(the company)) from them and protocolling the content of everything watched, unless you break encryption at scale, and monitor everyone is also prohibitive. Not to mention analysis of the content. So Tiktok is the perfect vehicle for subversion of a foreign nation if I want to play for time.
throwaway199956 7 days ago [-]
Yes, but you think that possibility of government oversight/monitoring is an inherent necessity for government permitting any kind of media to operate in the US?
If doesn't work in many cases anyway, Government has no way to track who is tuning in and listening to hostile radio broadcasts.
Even it might be hostile propaganda, First ammendment protects both publishing and consuming content, without any "national security" considerations. But US lawmakers are now seemingly keen to introduce such conditions in the publishing and consuming of content.
During the cold war it was perfectly legal for the Soviet Life magazine to be published in the US and for people to buy and read it.
First ammendment really does say that "Congress shall make no law .." without any caveats for national security or even war-time exemptions.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the SCOTUS.
palata 7 days ago [-]
All very good points! Which apply to all social networks, not only TikTok. The difference with TikTok being that the US do not have control over it, and they are not used to that.
_heimdall 7 days ago [-]
The US law in question actually isn't specific to TikTok either. That's all that is brought up in the media and by politicians because it gets more attention, but the law is much .ore wide reaching.
This is the government grabbing the authority to ban online services that they deem a national risk. The bill would honestly have been much more benign if it was a few pages spelling out a specific ban on TokTok. Hell, I don't think they'd even need a law to have Google and Apple pull the app from the app stores.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
I would generalize it.
With radio, television and newspapers you have national sovereignty.
The internet broadened that and introduced apps. So I would see this as a correction rather than anything else.
hnpolicestate 7 days ago [-]
The bill is unconstitutional. See the recent Montana ruling.
No it isn’t. One, national security is a federal matter not a state matter. Two, Montana outright banned the app whereas this bill forces divestiture. If TikTok doesn’t want to divest, too bad, bye bye.
hnpolicestate 7 days ago [-]
Extremely difficult to make a national security case for restricting speech or access to content. A court will also want to see a specific cause.
Much of the Patriot Act is probably unconstitutional but the government had 9/11 as a national security justification. No similar justification exists regarding TikTok.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Let’s see. Lawyers are split on this. The national security context is the strongest case. And as an American and a voter I support this 100%. In exceptional cases I support Congress banning companies especially if they happen to originate from hostile nations, us hedge fund investors be damned.
_heimdall 7 days ago [-]
As an American, why don't you prefer allowing consumers to leverage their free will and just make clear what the risks of using TikTok are?
The government getting into the business of banning companies, and more specifically banning online services, is very, very dangerous in my opinion. This one move effectively creates the need for our own great firewall, starting with a list of only one service but with the executive power to grow that list as more "national security threats" are named.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Because governments recieve the mandate from the people to take up things like national security on information we are not privy to.
In this -- extreme case -- the exceptional case of banning the company I think is warranted.
Secondly, half the country voted for DJT. Some insignificant percentage believed his lies and doubted science and such during COVID. Mistakes were indeed made by governments and scientists and public trust in them was strained ... but it proved to me, at least, that the general US public is not educated enough or are just too hopped on their social media opium to care enough to really weigh the threat that TikTok plays. And in this case I defer to the intelligence community and those who operate in the area of national defense to handle this. Seems enough of congress and the senate agree with me.
_heimdall 7 days ago [-]
If banning TikTok is a national security requirement then they should just ban TikTok rather than create a law that grants new peers to the government. I don't have the codes handy, but I'm 99% sure the powers are already in place for the government to have forced he ban of TikTok without new laws if national security was at risk.
I'm hesitant to assume people are uneducated because of who they vote for. Talking about Covid and the pandemic response, a vast majority of our politicians and health leaders were knowingly spouting off lies in the name of what they thought was best for us. Again, I can't pin that on any one person, even Fouci. The system broke down and that says nothing meaningful about the average voter.
That said, an educated populace is a fundamental need in a democracy and one that the US founders were well aware of. We don't have that today, whether by incompetence or malice our major societal systems reinforce obedience and subservience. We need more people following their curiosity wherever it leads, and we won't get there by continuing to further lean into a distrust of the general public or by making everyone's daily lives more and more complicated and stretched with less time to spend however each person wants to spend it.
rchaud 7 days ago [-]
You make it sound like that is a clever gotcha that a judge will rubber-stamp.
When has the US forced a private corporation to sell up via Congressional decree in peacetime?
Seems to me that Congress is betting that Bytedance will capitulate instead of taking the case to the Supreme Court.
gigatexal 6 days ago [-]
It’s Trump’s right wing court. They don’t care for China. They are hawks and I think they’ll side with the govt on this.
rchaud 6 days ago [-]
It could happen, but not overnight. SC cases take years to resolve. Even if this one was fast-tracked, it will create a media and PR circus that whatever administration is in power will not want.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Exactly this. The strongest case that the government can make in keeping this bill from being overturned in the courts is the national security one.
ChrisRR 7 days ago [-]
Whenever these posts about limiting chinese influence pop up, a bunch of whataboutism comments against the US pop up. I'm thankful that hackernews highlights new accounts
whatasaas 7 days ago [-]
How do we know a China man doesn’t work at Sony and is listening in to all PlayStations In households? Actually with all these Alexa devices and so many employees at Amazon it’s probably best to make sure all these devices are controlled by the government. Yes we have freedom of speech and privacy but no where in there did it say all communication shouldn’t be owned and and monitored by your government. It’s for the greater good.
Yea that mind set sounds awful.
wrasee 7 days ago [-]
Spies exist, yes that is a problem but it is a different problem.
And the reach of one individual is just not the same as a nation state. I’m not sure I get your point.
derelicta 7 days ago [-]
CIA and FBI propaganda campaigns on US and Europe's population are however acceptable somehow.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
Let's be critical here:
We should differenciate between spying(passive) and misinformation/manipulation(active)
Mentioning propaganda you choose the latter.
Pray tell what are those campaigns you talk about? If you are posing this question you must have at least some in mind and ready at hand to share.
derelicta 7 days ago [-]
Remember all those "independant" experts that were calling for the invasion of Irak because of those WMD?
Or all those action movies relying on leased military equipments under the condition they will never portray the US military in a bad manner?
Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?
Those are all examples of US propaganda.
There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
I know that tactic and the response to this argument is: Two wrongs do not make it right. Just because the they did a wrong the others should be permitted to do it or continue doing it until the other party stops...wink wink?
The answer to that is NO. That is whataboutism and a smoke screen.
But let's entertain those smokescreens even just to see where it leads:
The second Gulf war was outright wrong agreed. The hawks had their day and it was a dark one and all that followed because of it. A falling from grace.
No argument there. But it is not an argument one should make when arguing over operations done by other countries especially since it is not related and long past and the current subject of discussion is happening right now.
The action movie thing... it is their equipment, they may provide it under any condition as they see fit.
I wouldn't want to lend my neighbor a canister either if I knew he chooses to use it to write not so funny stuff in burning letters into my front lawn. I would not be surprised if other militaries would do the same thing if they were to lend their equipment at all.
>Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?
Was that even a real operation?
> There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.
That one is a doozy. The US made it clear that Israel should do more to shield civilians from harm. But let's be clear.
Israel and the US are the wrong party to be mad at.
If you want to be mad: be mad at Hamas, at Iran for supporting Hamas and at China and Russia for using it in a game of Geopolitical checkers in the UN security council.
Without the scourge that is Hamas, who still continue to shoot missiles from South Gaza and who deny a sovereign nation the right to exist, non of this would've happened.
Hamas uses the Palestinian people as shields, uses humanitarian institutions(e.g. hospitals) as hide outs and ammunition storages and subverts aide organizations created to help the people in the Gaza strip. They also slaughtered innocent civilians and kidnapped 100s a few months ago.
And the people in Gaza should also be mad at their long ago elected inapt and impotent president and their dysfunctional governing bodies. And their inability to face down those terrorists hiding amongst them.(I cannot blame them though, it is a horrid and couraguous thing to do in any circumstance.)
And let's entertain the scenario that the US would step out.... well the entire Middle East would implode or explode like a powder keg. Trade would also suffer considering the shipping routes, oil and other things. And then Iran with Russia's and/or China's blessing would then do evil things... not a very comforting thought either, especially if you give a hoot about religion.
pineaux 7 days ago [-]
QAnon is not really accepted.
defrost 7 days ago [-]
Perhaps not broadly within the US, but certainly by a handful of U.S. congressional representatives .. and seemingly seriously to boot, not just as an affectation of convenience.
frontalier 7 days ago [-]
gp is probably referring to hollywood type of prop not the imageboard born type
lrvick 7 days ago [-]
> A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.
Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc?
I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized.
All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors.
Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
> Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc?
I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized.
All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors.
Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.
We can ostensibly anyway regulate the American social media companies whereas the Chinese ones are a black box even though they might operate here under an American entity. That’s why we are here. They claimed they didn’t share data but they do. And that’s how the whole algorithm and value works
> Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.
And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based
LexGray 7 days ago [-]
Given the well documented Russian tendency to wage nation hostile whisper campaigns and app algorithms natural tendencies to promote such speech we are in place where every country both democratic and not have CIA levels of disorder, new mental health issues, and general productivity drain introduced by social apps. I think every country should take a hard look at what is happening and should consider banning or time limiting some U.S. apps.
I believe the underlying narrative of TikTok was with government control the algorithms would be purposefully tuned to promote disorder elsewhere which is a level of control the U.S. government does not have over U.S. companies and they were jealous (although with the level of information control during Desert Storm I am not 100% certain on that). However, I think this law was very premature and should have required evidence of tuning or actual war. While soldiers may have apps they should not the spies should know better.
The China side where they have banned encryption apps also seems to be war preparation. A digital iron curtain while depressing for the population behind it is not something that can be torn down from the outside. A per app legal war seems an unfeasible use of congressional time when many Chinese smart device control apps require location to function and are on many phones. This also appears to be an opening shot by congress for putting up a U.S. national firewall if TikTok just leaves all US offices and continues business through web based offerings.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
It is called a fortified democracy. And absolute democracy like the Weimarer Republik is a dangerous thing. All modern democracies are fortified these days. And it is good that they are. And yes if the US is caught with the hand in the cookie jar the nation in question is not happy, but there is a difference: Spying is passive and not influencing the democratic process of the nation or disrupting it.
The concern with Tiktok is that it is active, trying to disrupt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_Lu1S0sII
Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations. They are in it solely for the money, otherwise the NSA wouldn't have had to snoop on Google in 2013(?).
and this point
> And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based
I find questionable. It is too blanketed.
There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.
troupo 7 days ago [-]
> I find questionable. It is too blanketed. There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.
There's a difference between "Hey, France, we would like this info on a known criminal" and "U.S.-based companies have to turn over all data on any person regardless of that data location or the nationality of the person in question".
That's basically the basis for both Schrems I and Schrems II.
The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil
--- end quote ---
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
> ... via warrant or subpoena to provide ....
This is crucial. Legal due process.
Also
> ..... U.S.-based technology companies ....
Other jurisdictions have something similar, every company must adhere to the laws of the jurisdiction they want to operate in.
You don't like it as a company, not a problem just don't incorporate in the US and live with the repercussion.
There is nothing that suggests that it is out of the ordinary or malicious.
Where it becomes interesting is access without a warrant, or with a muzzle attached, at large scale. That is the clandestine stuff. The purview of intelligence agencies.
That has been addressed by the EU with legislation; privacy shield was not really the hit, but guess what: MS complied. https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-roll-out-data-b... so spooks from the US will now have a harder time accessing user data at scale without a warrant.
troupo 7 days ago [-]
> This is crucial. Legal due process.
That is entirely US-based and ignores any laws or regulations of other countries.
> Other jurisdictions have something similar, every company must adhere to the laws of the jurisdiction they want to operate in.
The key: operate. The US claims data from those companies even if the data and the operations happen in foreign countries.
> That has been addressed by the EU with legislation
EU legislation does not negate US laws. CLOUD Act is still there. And that is a huge issue for any country dealing with US companies.
aurareturn 7 days ago [-]
>Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations.
Is this a joke?
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
No. Feel free to educate me though. Only request I have, nothing older than 30 years please as I feel it may not be relevant any longer and before long we would argue about the antebellum period and what have you not. And it must be large scale.
timeon 7 days ago [-]
> Should other countries do the same with US companies? US government regularly (ab)uses FISA to get data on foreign nationals
This decision is based on Schrems II, which does not really apply anymore since the DPF. Though the latter is already being challenged.
account42 7 days ago [-]
> Should other countries do the same with US companies?
Absolutely.
aprilthird2021 7 days ago [-]
Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.
If it's that China will know more about Americans through data ingestion, they can already do that. Americans willingly upload every little bit of their lives to YouTube, Twitch, and tons of other platforms. Not to mention that Temu is the most downloaded shopping app in the US. And what kind of attack can TikTok information provide that other publicly available online information scraped from other social media sites cannot?
If it's that China can show American citizens a curated list of topics and videos to make Americans think certain ways or vote certain ways, then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem. That's the exact same rhetoric tons of repressive Communist countries used and still use to deny people the freedom to read books from outside, watch movies from outside, read newspapers from outside, etc. And I'm never going to accept the idea that information (even full on lies) so dangerous that people shouldn't be allowed to see them.
rockemsockem 7 days ago [-]
I *think* the main national security argument is that TikTok can tweak the algorithm to incite discord and inflame conflicts within the US. They can do this far more effectively from their own platform than by doing it on other social networks via bots and fake accounts.
I tend to come down with the same opinion as you though. It's all still essentially a first amendment issue and the negatives I listed aren't going to disappear if TikTok goes away.
whatshisface 7 days ago [-]
"Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
aprilthird2021 3 days ago [-]
Yeah, unfortunately "inciting discord" and "inflaming conflicts" is very well protected by the First Amendment. It's the entire negative consequence of truly allowing free speech (not counting movie theater fire exceptions). I guess we're gonna throw that out all on a whim in 2 weeks...
inkyoto 7 days ago [-]
> Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.
Facial recognition database and tracking people at a global scale.
With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.
Remember, TikTok is not just topless teenagers twerking on the camera, it is used by people to take short videos at random locations (and the locations are already easify to classify and account for), so if you happen to be a dissident (or a person of interest in general) hiding from the CCP, and you happened to have walked past a TikTok user shooting a short video and you got in the shot, your identity is matched up and your current location is revealed automatically, in near real time or with a short delay.
I have almost no doubt that people in TikTok videos are already digitised, and their faceprints are sunk into a gigantic database behind the Great Firewall. It is easy to project what other kinds of nefarious abuse are possible when such datasets are available.
aprilthird2021 3 days ago [-]
Why is a facial recognition database dangerous though? The vast majority of Americans publicly upload pictures and videos of their faces online in a way that it would be trivial for any nation state to gather them up.
Everything you've pointed to can be done already by mining the publicly available treasure trove of YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, etc. A pretty small team can scrape these sites and do what you're insinuating.
And lastly, I still don't see the danger of releasing this info? I mean, can't any foreigner travelling on a tourist visa record public vistas for 30 days and essentially do the same thing?
bjourne 7 days ago [-]
> With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.
I don't know of any system capable of doing what you describe. But if such a system existed it could just use publicly available videos from Facebook and Instagram. It wouldn't need its own social media platform to feed it data.
inkyoto 7 days ago [-]
Such a system would be built on orders of the state and it would not be publicly or widely advertised, esp. in mainland China. Russia, for instance, has built SORM (deep packet introspection of the ISP traffic at the nationwide scale) – to monitor all internet activities of its citizens (on demand, not constantly), and its technical architecture is not widely known.
Having a direct feed of videos being uploaded from the user's device is also advantageous as the higher resolution of the original video will provide more details before it is recomompressed for long term storage in a smaller resolution. Most importantly, Instagram and Twitter won't allow uncontrolled access to the content they host whereas a Chinese company simply does not have a choice and has to serve the content up on its state demands.
Until proven otherwise, it is safer to project that such a system exists.
bjourne 7 days ago [-]
Deep packet introspection is a completely different problem from the kind of facial recognition of people in video backgrounds that you envisage. Videos uploaded from cell phones are already MPEG-4 compressed and don't need re-encoding to be served. While it is true that social media companies don't allow unfettered access to their data, server farms for scraping web sites are a dime a dozen. I don't agree that it is safe to assume that systems there is no evidence for exists. It's one step removed from Chinese mind control viruses.
I don't think China are going to find their Dissident in TikTok videos any time soon. The false positive rate on even the best facial recognition is way too high for tracking individuals globally.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
That a foreign nation with aims not aligned with the US has the dominant social network with the CAPABILITY to use this influence to influence the US, collect data, shape the minds of youths and future voters etc etc. that is enough for me.
aprilthird2021 3 days ago [-]
>the CAPABILITY to use this influence to influence the US
But this is communist era logic used in some countries to this day to ban "foreign" and "corrupting" materials. Forgive me if it smells like repression and tastes like repression, I think it is repression. Shaping the minds of youths is not the exclusive purview of the US political class. That's some 1984 logic...
timeon 7 days ago [-]
> then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem
Not from US so I had to check the 1A:
"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"
"or of the press" sounds like it applies here but does 1A covers also foreign companies?
4gotunameagain 7 days ago [-]
It is because it is the adversary who controls the algorithms and suggestions.
The establishment wants and needs a monopoly in shaping the opinions and thoughts of its citizens.
scotty79 7 days ago [-]
Why trade with enemy at all? Why do money transfers? Mutual investments? Why let enemy people live in your country?
Every step you do to isolate yourself from your enemy makes them even more your enemy.
At the end of this process is war. Completely unsurprising. Pretty much inevitable.
Alternatively you could accept that you are loosing competition in some fields without turning it into mortal conflict.
miroljub 7 days ago [-]
Now, let's have other countries doing the same to Meta, Google, Microsoft and the likes. They all collect the data and send them to a foreign country (USA). They also use their algorithms to manipulate public meaning and to censor opposite opinions.
Oh, and a US company spaying foreign citizens in not only legal in the USA, but also required.
hobo_mark 7 days ago [-]
> spaying foreign citizens
now that would be a bridge too far...
miroljub 7 days ago [-]
Hey, you found a typo, and that made me learn a new English word.
Thanks for being a spelling-nazi :)
tjarrett 7 days ago [-]
Frankly... other countries should probably consider this IF they have an adversarial relationship with the US.
And they already do -- neither China nor Russia allow Meta services in their countries. Nor do they allow most of Google's services.
miroljub 7 days ago [-]
That means the data of US enemies is much safer than the data of US vassals^H allies.
tjarrett 7 days ago [-]
I'm trying to understand this.
I guess by "safer" you mean "less accessible by the US" and I suppose that is likely "true".
But would you rather be in China and send an anti-Chinese message to your friend via... some app that China allows? Or would you rather be in the US and send an anti-US message to a friend?
Both countries are going to try and snoop that data. Both are going to be successful.
But in which would you feel "safer" -- meaning in which one is the government likely to take action against you?
miroljub 2 days ago [-]
If I lived in China, I would rather be spied by the USA, and not by the Chinese government.
But since I live in the "west", I'd rather be spied by China and Russia, than by the USA or any of their allies and vassals.
That being said, I'd rather be spied on by the government, than by my wife, family, and friends.
People and organizations I don't have to deal with are less of a threat to me.
m000 7 days ago [-]
Does having the pipe that gets you cheap gas blown up by the US count as an adversarial relationship? /s
tjarrett 7 days ago [-]
Yeah probably...
troq13 7 days ago [-]
>A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.
At this level of paranoia you may as well ban Facebook and other social media as there is no guarantee their data is not getting intercepted by China.
throwaway4good 7 days ago [-]
This is the idea of the "clean network" originally brought forward by Trump.
Basically all tech is clean and ok if comes from the good guys (the US and allies) and unclean if it comes from the bad guys (China, Russia ...).
IMHO a sad state of affairs. We would be at a healthier and less hypocritical place if our tech was secure by design, and suppliers and platforms were subject to open objective criteria and rule of law wrt. censorship and surveillance.
talldatethrow 7 days ago [-]
My local library blocks Yandex but allows the Daily Stormer when using their wifi.
shiroiushi 7 days ago [-]
I don't see how "secure by design" tech would solve the TikTok problem. TikTok isn't hacking people's devices, it's tracking them and giving them disinformation and propaganda. Secure code isn't going to fix those problems; the only way to fix them is to simply not exchange data with tiktok.com.
alcoholic_byte 7 days ago [-]
Well a lot of agencies do that out of the box because secure by design is not believed. Trust but verify. You see that when intelligence agents talk about cooperation between partners. So in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't really change things.
The one thing it would change though is that it would make the life a bit harder for cyber criminals(think downgrading tls connections).
And the criteria you talked about, they are open. Called capitalism, and regulations those companies operate under. Along the way that abomination of surveillance capitalism was born though.
logicchains 7 days ago [-]
>I see this as a national security threat that it is.
The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is, and this bill just gives even more power to the US government to dominate its citizens.
computerfriend 7 days ago [-]
This statement is not obviously true.
retrochameleon 7 days ago [-]
It is also a logical fallacy. Even if it is true that the US is a greater threat in some sense, that doesn't invalidate that China is also a threat. It also doesn't justify not taking this action.
BeFlatXIII 7 days ago [-]
[ citation needed ]
RoyalHenOil 7 days ago [-]
You are also more likely to be murdered by a loved oned than by a stranger, but this doesn't mean that it's rational to open your door to strangers and bar it to your loved ones.
nyokodo 7 days ago [-]
> The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is
The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA. So, while it’s true that having the power that it does makes the US government a potential threat, it is nowhere near as much of an actual threat as China.
raxxorraxor 7 days ago [-]
Very doubtful. Military would defect en masse and you would get a civil war where government gets the boot in the end rather sooner than later.
whatshisface 7 days ago [-]
It's not defection to refuse to carry out unlawful orders, soldiers can be punished for carrying out orders that they knew were unlawful, or orders which are so obviously unlawful that the soldier should have known. The united states does not have an SS.
FactKnower69 7 days ago [-]
>The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA.
What the fuck are you talking about???
7 days ago [-]
4gotunameagain 7 days ago [-]
Just to spell it out, you are suggesting that if "China" could, would conduct a mass scale genocide against Americans ?
And you base that where exactly ?
user3939382 7 days ago [-]
This was passed because TikTok posts are not supporting US (horrendous) foreign policy. There are recorded statements from congressmen of them discussing and saying exactly this, it’s not even a secret.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
This whole thing is baffling to me. What are you talking about? What enemy? I would rather someone in China has my information than my own government. China has no power over me; my own government does. I don’t care if china knows whether I like cheesecake better than blueberry pie. They’re interested in monitoring their own citizens, im sure- for the same reasons our own government agencies and corporate behemoths monitor ours. But I don’t see what use china could have for data about Americans.
Look: the Cold War is over. And communism is a red herring. The world has changed. For some reason Americas elites view TikTok as a threat, probably because they don’t have the kind of total access to their servers that they’re accustomed to with American firms. But that has little to do with regular Americans. And there’s no argument other than decades old red baiting tropes they can think of to try to get us to care.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Commerce is not zero sum. When done right both parties gain something. But China’s ambitions directly counter those of the United States. They’re propping up Russia against Ukraine for example. Use of heavy state subsidies and lack of environmental controls mean they can flood the world with cheap solar destroying the incentives for local production. When all the world is dependent on China for something they then hold outside impact.
To not see the coming conflict be it cold or otherwise or not see the CCP for what it is is just ludicrous to me.
They want to — and as they should — become to dominant world power and reshape things as they see fit.
They will take Taiwan by force and it is zero sum: either China and its allies become the world’s leading economy and lead on things or the US and it’s allies remain in “power” and the west continues. This is the threat.
Now I’ve nothing against the people of China. It’s the government that I don’t trust.
m000 7 days ago [-]
> They’re propping up Russia against Ukraine for example.
That's a funny argument, given that the same piece of legislation with the TikTok "ban" also includes a(nother) $60.8 billion package for Ukraine [1].
Ok but even if I accept all that, what does it have to do with TikTok specifically?
I feel like all these arguments just come down to “China bad, therefore anything that annoys China is good” which is silly and juvenile reasoning
raxxorraxor 7 days ago [-]
On economic grounds this basically describes what every developing country would try to do as an offensive and hostile action.
But on topic I still think the ban is still old men barking at cloud. Somehow embarrassing really.
tadasZ 7 days ago [-]
i don't think "cold war is over", in a way it is, but the amount of propaganda tik toks blows my mind and the most important thing is - it's so one sided, that i fully support this bill/law or what it is, EU should do something too.
severino 7 days ago [-]
> i fully support this bill/law or what it is, EU should do something too.
Reading your comment, it's pretty obvious that we should do something about propaganda here in the EU. About US propaganda I mean.
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
Same. The wall fell as did Russian communism but it just swapped antagonists. Now it’s the Chinese government.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
Scaring people is a great way to get them to stop asking awkward questions.
qaq 7 days ago [-]
Cold war is over we are in the era of empires starting actual wars to annex other countries that is def not a cold war.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
You are attempting to link Russia invading Ukraine with TikTok? I’d love to see the chain of reasoning here.
qaq 7 days ago [-]
CCP controls TiKTok
CCP supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine
CCP suppresses videos on Ukrainian war on TikTok
Log_out_ 7 days ago [-]
The cold war of authoritarian VS democracy never ended. And China has the ability to turn anyone with mainland access into a asset by holding family hostage and models itself after the British empire. The Indians did have no quarrel with the king of India, until they did. Westcentrism and neutrality are no strategy now that the fascists march again.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
Word salad. There isn’t really any coherent thought there for me to respond to.
Log_out_ 7 days ago [-]
Worldviewsalad, there is no coherent concept for me to reply to. Not even values.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
Separating the world into “good guys” and “bad guys” does not constitute “values”. That is the thinking of a child.
notTooFarGone 7 days ago [-]
So how are you so sure that TikTok doesn't sell the data to the US anyway?
This way the same thing happens and china did also make some money. I don't see the argument that china having your data is somehow better than your government.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
Because china doesn’t have direct power over me, and so there’s not much they can do with the data that affects me.
troyvit 7 days ago [-]
To me the real national security threat is that Americans don't know how to use social media safely.
> The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists
The exact same way Facebook and other U.S. social networks abuse the minds of US users.[1]
> as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.
Yep, and in a similar way every large US player hoards as much data about its users as it can get away with, even if it doesn't know what it'll do with it, and eventually loses said data in a giant breach, which can lead to blackmail, etc.[2]
And here we sit, either toothlessly regulating the U.S. actors or attempting to ban the foreign ones instead of teaching people how to actually use social media in a way that helps them instead of melting their brains and exposing their deepest secrets to malicious actors.
I'm not much of a capitalist or a social darwinist but I'd say the best thing to do is let people learn the hard way. We seem cool to do that with junk food,[3][4] and the similarities in social engineering between the social media and junk food are striking.
I want it to shut down because I believe it’s a bad influence on kids in general.
wannacboatmovie 7 days ago [-]
Musk has already alluded to bringing back Vine, so the eradication of TikTok would be no great loss.
As an aside, I always viewed TikTok as a real world analogue to the mind control subplot from Zoolander (Frankie says 'relax')...
moomin 7 days ago [-]
Twitter couldn’t make Vine work. Trying to do it in the severely weakened form it’s in now strikes me as less plausible than his Mars plans.
kmeisthax 7 days ago [-]
We already have YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn to fill the short video void - bringing back Vine would be a Johnny-come-lately move.
7 days ago [-]
intellix 8 days ago [-]
if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their own variants. If they want to run around free-range without any restriction with their own products then they should respond by loosening restrictions in their own country.
This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?
madeofpalk 8 days ago [-]
Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.
tptacek 8 days ago [-]
Ownership restrictions on media companies generally are commonplace throughout the developed world.
BeFlatXIII 7 days ago [-]
Being common doesn't make them a good idea.
tptacek 7 days ago [-]
That's true, it just makes them common. This is a good idea on its own merits.
LeafItAlone 7 days ago [-]
> Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.
How about “make economic power and one of our main competitors” does it? Just because China is a totalitarian government didn’t mean they can do the “right” thing.
hi-v-rocknroll 8 days ago [-]
Exactly. Leadership isn't following with tit-for-tat pettiness.
What would be US leadership would similar to what Ro Khanna is saying with data and personal information privacy standards like a nationwide US GDPR but with the teeth of something like HIPAA. Data brokers should be put out of business.
EasyMark 7 days ago [-]
Because we don't want to look like pushovers and wimps who won't push back against a bully who is eating our lunch.
uejfiweun 8 days ago [-]
Give me a break... what, you'd rather just let said totalitarian government pump their propaganda into the US? This is a great example of following your moral principles right off the cliff.
loteck 8 days ago [-]
What makes you think the propaganda won't be pumped in if the US app is sold to a different company?
uejfiweun 8 days ago [-]
If it's sold to a US company then it will be our intelligence agencies pumping the propaganda, not theirs. Which is an outcome I'm more amenable to, considering that our intelligence agencies generally have more of an interest in the stability of American society than the intelligence agencies of China.
madeofpalk 7 days ago [-]
See also - Facebook is American owned, yet that never stopped assertions that it was used by foreign adversaries to pump their propaganda.
throw-the-towel 8 days ago [-]
So if it's propaganda either way, then no loss will happen?
cscurmudgeon 8 days ago [-]
Tolerance shouldn’t tolerate intolerance.
cscurmudgeon 7 days ago [-]
Why is this downvoted? This is a well known philosophical problem with a known solution.
Have you been to China? I've been to China and had no problems using all the things you're mentioning with the help of a VPN. Was it as easy as in Europe? No. Did it feel like a ban? Also no.
ironick09 7 days ago [-]
Was it a ban? Also yes
ThalesX 6 days ago [-]
Were the apps available on the App Store? Also yes.
themgt 8 days ago [-]
The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works great.
I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.
tristor 8 days ago [-]
> The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake
That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy:
1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the world certain things can be feasibly made.
2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which helped to drive their economic engine.
3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch.
The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps information out of China that the government wants kept out of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
> US companies started sending all their IP over to China
That's how capitalism works. And it worked extremely well and to most everyone's benefit.
gretch 8 days ago [-]
We're copying china's tactics wrt CHINA specifically (and other foreign adversaries)
This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the world
Reciprocation is rational and good
mjamesaustin 8 days ago [-]
Reciprocation is actually the policy more likely to get China to open up. As long as they can impose rules on US companies with impunity, while we stand back and give them free reign in our market, they have a zero likelihood of compromising.
janalsncm 7 days ago [-]
I don’t see this as reciprocation, I see it as a continuation of an existing policy that requires US media to be owned by Americans.
I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.
23B1 8 days ago [-]
There's no irony in realpolitik.
sudosysgen 8 days ago [-]
The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism (indeed, in international relations, liberalism is antipodal to realism which is realpolitiks namesake), so the irony persists.
Gormo 7 days ago [-]
And given the repeated examples of how realpolitik has led to conflict escalation, war, economic collapse, etc., the superiority of modern liberalism should be obvious.
It seems fairly clear to me why this is the case: complex, conflict-prone relationships often involve prisoner's dilemmas, and alignment on fundamental principles is an effective method for avoiding the worst-case outcome of a prisoner's dilemma. Abandoning principles for a purely situational approach to conflict makes the presumptive lose-lose outcome much more likely.
sudosysgen 7 days ago [-]
While modern liberalism rejects realpolitik in theory, in practice the structures it has set up have often been ignored by purportedly liberal actors, so your argument from experience is very tenuous.
As far as prisoner's dilemmas, its a lot more complicated than that. A purely pragmatic approach can lead to win-win outcomes that would be impossible in a purely idealist framework - realist IR scholars would, for example, argue (and could back it up far better than the alternative) that if it wasn't for Bush and Cheney's idealism, the 2003 Iraq war would never have occurred.
The realist counterpoint to the prisoner's dilemma is that it's not just due to conflict prone relationships, but because it's impossible to know what the intentions of other actors are, which is not something that international liberalism can solve in practice. In theory, liberalists would argue that two liberal states can communicate their true intentions well because their intentions reflect the intentions of the population, but this has conclusively been proven to be untrue in the case of foreign policy (not very surprising due to the way intelligence has to be set up), and therefore the liberalist rebuttal to uncertainty of intentions seems much weaker now than it did originally.
As a result, realists argue that following realpolitik can actually reduce the likelihood of war, as agents will be careful to act in such a way as to avoid seeming as to pose a threat in the absence of knowledge of their intentions, while a liberal actor, acting according to their ideals, would act in a way such that an actor who is unsure of their true intentions would have to perceive as a threat.
This means that you just can't assert easily that realism is more likely to cause lose-lose outcomes. It's a complicated argument where this kind of ironclad certainty just isn't justifiable.
23B1 8 days ago [-]
That's... a fair point.
alickz 7 days ago [-]
> The rejection of realpolitik is at the core of modern liberalism
why do you believe so?
i see no reason why rationalism and political pragmatism are mutually exclusive with liberalism. in fact to me it seems they complement each other well
sudosysgen 7 days ago [-]
Realpolitik and rationalism are not the same thing. Realpolitik is the idea that politics (esp. international politics) is ultimately dominated by power politics where each actor is trying to maximize their power and self-interest, and is generally an idea of the realist school of politics
While that might arguably be compatible with liberalism within a society where there is a relatively benevolent monopoly of power imposing a certain number of rights and rules molding the self-interest of all in such a way as to be compatible with civilization, within the international system there is no monopoly of violence, and therefore norms and rights are contingent on countries not acting purely in their self-interest and therefore to maximize their power.
Since modern liberalism is inherently internationalist (arguably since Woodrow Wilson, some called his approach to diplomacy "idealpolitik"), modern liberalism does have to reject realism as a school of thought.
The debate between liberalism and realism as it pertains to international politics is the main topic of contention in international relations theory.
More generally, you can also argue that liberalism assumes the good faith of powerful people not to destroy the liberal system to maximize their own power, but this is far easier to argue against in the domestic setting than in the international setting.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
Nonsense. A free and open system does not require foreign adversaries to be given free access to manipulate and control the population. That's not an open system, that's pure stupidity.
falleng0d 8 days ago [-]
Sorry but reciprocation is not copying. This is basic game theory. A 'tit for a tat'.
hackerlight 8 days ago [-]
> If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger.
Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US.
The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022.
The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.
DiogenesKynikos 4 days ago [-]
> their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes
China hasn't fought a war in 40 years. In recent years, there have been some border skirmishes with India between unarmed soldiers (it's not even clear which side initiated them) and some naval confrontations about a few islands with no shots fired, but that's about it. Meanwhile, the US has been fighting wars all around the world.
mistermann 8 days ago [-]
> It's become a legitimate national security problem.
What is the nature of the risk?
> You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis...
The risk is information warfare. It's difficult to know whether they've used it for that purpose yet, because there's a lack of transparency, which is actually part of the problem. But regardless, the risk is unacceptable, especially if the Taiwan or Philippines/Vietnam situations boil over. There's no historical precedent of a rival having such massive control over domestic consumption of information. The one thing we do know from the history of conflict is that all available tools will get used for that purpose (e.g. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8197).
mistermann 7 days ago [-]
Ok, at least you understand the real problem.
I don't disagree, but for clarity, you appreciate this is totally contrary to the (formerly) popular "free speech" meme that used to be a source of pride for Americans?
Isn't it a bit funny that America can't manage to educate[1] its citizens so they are resilient to propaganda? Do you think it is all that difficult to do, if the government set it as a priority"?
[1] It's worse: they can't even try to. To me, this is peak hilarity, doubly so when combined with the conversations in this thread...which themselves are a consequence of the root problem. Oh my, the layers of irony.
ergocoder 7 days ago [-]
> Isn't it a bit funny that America can't manage to educate[1] its citizens so they are resilient to propaganda?
Since you imply it's not difficult to do, which country has educated their citizens to be resilient to propaganda?
mistermann 7 days ago [-]
Does a lack of prior instances of something being done guarantee that it is difficult?
Don't forget: to accomplish something, you (typically) must first try.
ergocoder 7 days ago [-]
The answer is none then.
mistermann 7 days ago [-]
Was there something about my question that you did not like, so you chose to answer a different one?
ergocoder 5 days ago [-]
It's the same one. The answer is yeah it is difficult. It is evident based on the fact that no country in the history hasn't been able to achieve.
"Making citizens to be resilient to propaganda"?
While we should try to do our best, it's also not mutually exclusive to remove bad propaganda. Yet you make it sound like the 2 actions are mutually exclusive for some reason.
mistermann 3 days ago [-]
> It is evident based on the fact that no country in the history hasn't been able to achieve.
How many have tried, and what did they try?
Contrast this with the attention and funding the war machine gets, or the science machinery.
There might be flaws or other explanations. This is just tentative evidence that should push you in one direction more than the other.
mistermann 3 days ago [-]
Are you saying that it is a fact that it should necessarily point me in the direction that you think it should? It is literally not possible that the actions being taken toward TikTok are not a net good idea?
atleastoptimal 8 days ago [-]
what happened in Europe in 2022?
hackerlight 8 days ago [-]
Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before this, the European polity were stuck in this "End of History" mindset where great power conflict was a relic from the past and everything could be solved through negotiation and institutions. The sooner laypeople realize we're in the Second Cold War (as the foreign policy types have) the less these kinds of moves (banning TikTok, restricting Nvidia exports to China) will come as a surprise, and you may even start to appreciate them.
8 days ago [-]
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason. The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own reasons.
ZoomerCretin 8 days ago [-]
Yep. TikTok is the only major social media app in the US that does not downrank pro-Palestinian content. No one in the US government cared about TikTok until the latest conflict in Israel. This is the only reason for the ban.
There was no bipartisan consensus until Israel's atrocities began last year.
oooyay 7 days ago [-]
Yes, you and another user have claimed that but provided no sources or proof. For my part, I'm a dem and it always seemed that Dems weren't very vocal about it but were highly concerned about Tik Toks data sovereignty. They've kinda had bigger issues in their face since 2016.
SeanAnderson 8 days ago [-]
I thought Trump wanted TikTok banned when he was president?
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
Yes he did. Funny enough, he now criticizes this.
ngcc_hk 8 days ago [-]
He is one of the best political game player. Look at immigration (he does not allow bipartisan law to smooth the issue out) and abortion (he enabled it but does not want this to be the matter during election year).
Agree his policy might many of us not. But player great he is.
tedd4u 8 days ago [-]
I don't think it's accurate to say Biden is banning it. The vote in the House was very bipartisan. R's were like 92% in favor and D's more like 75%.
Yes: 155 D + 197 R
No: 50 D + 15 R
On Monday the White House clarified its position:
"We do not want to ban apps like TikTok. What we want – and what the
legislation we support would do – is ensure that TikTok becomes owned by an
American company so that our and our children's sensitive personal data stays
here instead of going to China and so that Americans' understandings and
views can't be manipulated by algorithms potentially controlled by the PRC."
BeFlatXIII 7 days ago [-]
> The vote in the House was very bipartisan.
That's a sure sign the citizens are getting screwed.
gosub100 7 days ago [-]
so they want to outsource to nations where paucity of labor and environmental laws give corporations higher margins, but is ready to force a ban if US laws cannot control the narrative and influence people. Okay
hot_gril 7 days ago [-]
Yeah, the White House doesn't pretend it's not about influencing public opinion. So it's a natural question, what opinion are they worried about. Maybe there's no particular one, but idk.
tedd4u 7 days ago [-]
The clear implication is the CCP.
dvhh 8 days ago [-]
Does that that would apply to any foreign country owned website ?
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
The bill gives the US President, currently Biden, the ability to designate social media apps as sufficiently popular and its owning nation as adversarial, mandating a forced sale. Biden approved the law and chose to use it on TikTok. So you could say it's to be sold or else banned (and China has already said they won't sell), but anyway it's in Biden's hands.
DaveExeter 7 days ago [-]
That's the real reason!
AIPAC wants Tiktok gone because young people are getting objective information rather than the propaganda of mainstream "responsible" media. [1]
Tiktok is not a good thing for Genocide Joe either! He has been an Israeli puppet for decades. Thanks to Tiktok, being an Israeli puppet has become a political liability because Israel has lost its control over American minds.
China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding ourselves to.
paxys 8 days ago [-]
Free trade and reciprocity agreements don't depend on a country's political leanings. You either play ball with the world or you don't. Can't have it both ways.
makeitdouble 8 days ago [-]
> Can't have it both ways.
You definitely can. International trade has never been a fair field, power balance will be the most impacting element in the deal you get.
paxys 8 days ago [-]
And this is the US exerting its power (which it should have done a long time ago).
didjxhxhsvc 8 days ago [-]
How can free trade be unfair?
makeitdouble 8 days ago [-]
Please define "free trade".
I think that's a concept that is thorny enough to merit a word on what we mean by that. I personally don't know what it actually points at (is there any "free trade" ever happening in real life ?), or my naive interpretation would be trade with absolutely no rules, but I assume that's not what you're pointing at.
xdennis 8 days ago [-]
Tit for tat is the bar for all international relations.
SuperHeavy256 8 days ago [-]
I feel like we can be more evolved than this. This mentality is not a sustainable strategy.
zappb 8 days ago [-]
Game theory proves otherwise. Defectors must be punished to maintain a stable system.
ripper1138 7 days ago [-]
Do some research on game theory and you’ll find otherwise.
gosub100 7 days ago [-]
for some reason capitalist countries love trading with them, gee I wonder why.
notresidenter 8 days ago [-]
China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most capitalist country nowadays !
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
It's more capitalist than communist but you'd have to be deranged to claim it's the "most capitalist" country.
notresidenter 7 days ago [-]
Please don't call me deranged. How much do you know about China?
As vague and imprecise as the term "most capitalist" is, it is a blatant ignorance of the way Chinese people (have to) live, especially in cities, to think that it isn't a consequence of an extreme form of capitalism: enormous gaps between the wealthy and the poor and materialism.
China is as much a communist country as Congo is a republic.
Edit: Reading the other comments, it seems like we might all value different aspects of the country to define whether it is capitalist.
deciplex 8 days ago [-]
China's national bourgeoisie has a seat at the table, but there are plenty of recent examples of them being brought to heel by the CPC. So, while they definitely have some capitalist productive relations I'd hardly call them capital-C Capitalist in the "ruled by capitalists" sense of the term.
Compare with the US where the capitalist class not only has a seat at the table: they are the table. And the chairs around the table, the room the table is in, the building the room is in, the property the building is on, the people who go in and out of the building, and the bullets that shoot anyone who tries to enter the building who isn't supposed to. The US is "more capitalist" in all the ways that count - what might be confusing you is that China has more sustainable and powerful relations of production which is why they're overtaking the US. But that doesn't make them capitalist.
hnbad 8 days ago [-]
IDK about that but you are correct that it is explicitly not communist. It's ruled by the "communist" party that wants to "establish communism" but it is very explicitly only on the path to communism even according to its own propaganda.
It's a "communist country" in an aspirational sense, not in a descriptive sense. When we call countries "capitalist" by contrast, we usually mean that in a descriptive sense. This tends to lead to a lot of confusion: nothing that China does is "communism", it's at best something that is done with the justification of being part of the pursuit of communism. Whether or not the CCP is truthful or honest in its claims about its aspirations is a different question.
HaZeust 8 days ago [-]
Ha - I'll bite. How is it the most capitalist country nowadays? It's HEAVILY state-sponsored mixed-market, if anything.
makeitdouble 8 days ago [-]
All other countries have heavily state sponsored economies. We just call them "subsidies", "research grants", "tax rebates" etc.
Many industries wouldn't be where they are without decades long government intervention, and govs will also apply extra scrutiny on who owns which company, and pick up the winners as needed for national interests.
China is the most transparent about it, but being transparent and being the most engaged in it are two different things.
To be clear, I think that's just the natural state of things. Real free markets are chaos and we want countries to actually think about where they're going.
jsutton 7 days ago [-]
Terrible take. You want the USA to follow the same policy on speech that Communist China follows?
SuperHeavy256 8 days ago [-]
Yes, you are missing something. Because you're seeing tiktok as a product, not as a community of millions of people. There are tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses that are only able to survive because of Tiktok. For a lot of the younger crowd, Tiktok is part of social culture. Cutting out a part of someone's life like that is not a decision that should be taken lightly at all.
Peace.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
There’s tens of thousands of families that depend on income from meth production or trading. Meth is part of the social culture for a significant subset of people.
spiderice 7 days ago [-]
Are you giving an example of a false equivalence? Because if so, you nailed it.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
How is it false equivalence to refer to two products that people use/sell to provide for their families, yet the product has been proved to cause great harm to communities, especially children [1]?
It's a community of millions of people, but which are seen by the millions is subject to the CCP's algorithm.
Just search for "Uighur genocide" and see how many negative Tiktoks you find.
Now go on any western social media platform, search for any contentious topic, and notice what's banned. It's not stuff that's harmful to the government (eg. Gaza/Israel topics) it's stuff that advertisers think is harmful (racism, unlabeled porn, etc.).
Also, restraining from banning a platform because some people can't be arsed to also post to IG reels or other platforms is their own fault as entrepreneurs.
nmfisher 8 days ago [-]
Out of interest, I just tried this. "Uighur genocide" was the fifth auto-completed search result. In the "Top" tab, the first video was a (maybe Chinese) guy saying he never saw any discrimination against Uighurs and maybe Americans should ask about the Hawaiian cultural genocide. The video next to it was from (presumably) Uighur people saying that they were suffering cultural genocide and China was selling their organs. Below that was a snippet from Wikipedia saying that China had been committing cultural genocide against the Uighurs.
The prominence of the Chinese guy "denying" the cultural genocide was interesting - I wouldn't assume he's a plant (it's equally likely he's just a rabid nationalist) but the placement of the video does strike me as a little odd. It had 300 likes, but rates higher than the second video which had 5000 likes? Does smell a bit.
This is from Singapore, by the way. I assume geography makes a difference.
wildrhythms 6 days ago [-]
The Tiktok search ranking does this for every query. There is no obvious rhyme or reason for the sort. There's a filter button to change how it's sorted, but by default I can never figure out what it's doing.
I search for "retro pc":
1st result 47k views, 4 months ago
2nd result 457k views, 2 years ago
3rd result 9k views, 1 year ago
4th result 133k views, 1 year ago
5th result 1k views, 5 months ago
Make it make sense!
TrackerFF 7 days ago [-]
Then it's time for them to move on to a new platform.
The fact that people have become dependent is no good argument for keeping the platform around.
And, with that said, if TikTok disappears - a new platform fill its void, as well as other platforms absorbing users. If there's a demand, someone will supply.
whatasaas 7 days ago [-]
If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you. It seems the initial comments are positive, followed by a lot of arguing. It's usually pointless debates, like whether it's a ban. Yes, it is effectively a ban, similar to imposing a million-dollar tax per gun, or required to be age 85, which essentially bans something protected by an amendment. Then there are those calling for regulations and bans, which is strange. I can manage my app usage and my kids', but I can't control safety regulations for trains carrying toxic chemicals. And then there are the trade war advocates; at what point does this back-and-forth justify losing rights and access? I don't care if China becomes like North Korea. The bill also mentions website and service providers, meaning it could block access through websites too. We should have rights to privacy, encryption, and anonymous whistleblowing without government interference in every social media platform.
ajross 7 days ago [-]
> If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you.
Relevant to context: whatasaas is an account with 10 karma and 9 total comments that has been mostly idle for its 14 month existence. Many of the trench fighters in the threads here are names I recognize.
Some of the stuff that really chipped at our privacy as our isps got to sell our dns pings to advertisers and social media. Have a good day citizen.
sandspar 6 days ago [-]
Paranoia
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
It’s not about you and your kids’ usage, it’s about the general population. Let’s not be naive, TikTok is the 2020s version of “Radio Free X”, a state-backed propaganda tool where anyone can run targeted ads with pinpoint geo accuracy, and cause division and social unrest. And unlike Facebook or YouTube, you can’t hold a company owned by a near-peer geopolitical adversary liable in the US.
Golden_Wind123 7 days ago [-]
At this point Tiktok is getting more regulatory action against it than Facebook has....and Facebook's lax moderation spread the wildfire of genocide in Myanmar.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
As it should. This might sound insensitive, but we’re drifting back to an era of realpolitik in geopolitics. Facebook fanning the flames of a genocide in Myanmar has little effect on US citizens, TikTok does.
Golden_Wind123 7 days ago [-]
I also seem to think Facebook fanning the flames of an insurrection is a greater threat than whatever dubious vaguely defined impact TikTok has had.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
You can hold Facebook legally accountable in the US (whether you will or not is another question). You can’t hold TikTok legally accountable.
ramblenode 7 days ago [-]
> You can’t hold TikTok legally accountable.
Sure you can. You follow the law or you are banned from doing business. This law just skipped the first part because the authors didn't want to write any actual regulations.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
Why wait until TikTok breaks the law to ban them? Banning an app after it’s been used for nefarious reasons to either spread propaganda or incite chaos in the upcoming elections is too late. It’s like saying “let’s not patch a zero day we found because no one has abused it”.
TikTok being owner by Bytedance means you don’t have who to prosecute for misdeeds, besides some fall guy.
ramblenode 7 days ago [-]
> Why wait until TikTok breaks the law to ban them?
Why wait until a homeless guy steals some bread to throw him in jail?
The foundation of the rule of law is that the law applies to everyone equally, not arbitrarily. That includes a presumption of no wrongdoing and due process.
It should be mentioned that TikTok already has its full US data and source code audited by Oracle, a level of scrutiny higher than any of the domestic tech companies. Combined with the FBI and NSA watching them like a hawk, if they were breaking the law, it would be old news by now.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
Didn’t know the homeless guy is a rising superpower with imperialist aspirations. Didn’t know the homeless guy is actively attempting to destabilise the US in order to become the new hegemon.
It’s not about the data or the code. Data brokers exist everywhere, it’s about a platform with reach to the eyeballs of 170 million users controlled by an adversary state.
You can’t use “foundation of the rule of law” wrt an actor that blatantly disregards rule of law.
b-side 7 days ago [-]
Interesting that you think breaking the laws is justification for banning a Platform. I wonder how the US would feel about the EU banning every last US tech company for the plethora of violations.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
Last I checked the EU and US are not in the pre- stages of hot war.
fragmede 7 days ago [-]
we're not? we're spinning up production of 150mm shells and other pre stages from my pov
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
Are you trolling?
fragmede 7 days ago [-]
I'm not. from my POV, we are spinning up the economy for war. we're already in world War III, we're just waiting for someone to officially declare it.
budududuroiu 7 days ago [-]
US defence spending is still below its 2010s level. Besides, you mentioned EU banning US apps. Last I checked, with some exceptions, all EU nations are in NATO, and directly procure weapons from the US.
It’s absurd to compare banning a Chinese-owned app to EU banning US apps.
fragmede 7 days ago [-]
the EU banning apps wasn't me i don't think
BeFlatXIII 7 days ago [-]
Are you?
bjourne 7 days ago [-]
That is false. Companies can be held legally accountable in the US regardless of whether they are owned by Americans or not.
PM_me_your_math 7 days ago [-]
[dead]
danielhep 8 days ago [-]
The way I see this is that democracy is extremely susceptible to tools that can change public opinion en masse. This of course applies to Western social media as much as TikTok, and I'd love to see regulation around all social media algorithms to ensure they're unbiased. I see this as a good start to counter a real threat, which is China's ability to influence US elections through TikTok.
cherioo 7 days ago [-]
It is not just democracy. All governance systems are susceptible to mass communication tools that can change public opinion, be it books, radio, tv, news organizations, or tiktok. It is why many non democratic countries do not have freedom of press, and a highly censored internet. This is a main contributor to Arab Spring.
It is just sad that even US is susceptible to this.
fallingfrog 7 days ago [-]
Susceptible? 90% of our public discourse is manufactured, and this whole TikTok thing is a prime example.
TaylorAlexander 7 days ago [-]
Well mass manipulation of the people is how the USA functions. This is what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote about extensively in their book Manufacturing Consent from 1988. So it is no wonder it works when other people do it too. I agree though, it is sad, or frustrating, upsetting, infuriating, that the USA works like that.
And indeed this gets at the falsity of democracy as a concept itself. In a certain sense it is more duplicitous than dictatorship
mjfl 8 days ago [-]
This is the same logic as would be used in banning the translation of the bible or the printing press. For any sufficiently concerned state, 'unbiased' means 'agrees with me'. For example, it may be seen in the USA to be 'unbiased' to be completely uncritical of Israel (anti-Zionism is anti-semitism according the US congress bill H.Res.894). However, this is not the case anywhere else in the world, including Israel (which criticizes itself sometimes), in fact it would seem quite insane.
TaylorAlexander 7 days ago [-]
Regulation to ensure media is unbiased sounds on the face of it impossible. Anything that looks "unbiased" simply shares the same biases as you.
YZF 7 days ago [-]
Exactly right. What is "unbiased" or "neutral".
That said I think some regulatory control is needed. There needs to be some sort of accountability e.g. for intentional propagation of fake news or censorship or defamation. This is no different than requirements for ethical behavior in other industries. Just like we regulate public companies in general we should be able to impose some requirements on any business that distributes media. Free speech for individuals but if you are a business or a media "provider" you need to meet a somewhat higher bar? I think we used to rely on journalistic standards or self regulation but with "new" media (and maybe even with old media) this seems to be not working that well any more. There's a fine line there for sure but seems like whether China owns some social media or someone with US citizenship we still want to have guards against harms this can cause. The amount of power these companies wield is scary.
roncesvalles 8 days ago [-]
If this were true, TikTok wouldn't have ended up in a ban.
LeroyRaz 7 days ago [-]
No. Your statement does not follow.
TikTok can be undermining the US (and potentially be a growing problem) without it being currently capable of preventing itself being banned.
By your logic, nobody should go to hospital when sick, as if they can go to hospital then they must not be sick.
tptacek 8 days ago [-]
It's not being banned.
ocdtrekkie 8 days ago [-]
China has already indicated that because the sale would require a "technology export" of the algorithm, it would need their approval. And also that they would not approve it.
So if China has already made it clear it considers a TikTok sale illegal, this is a ban.
That being said, you don't get Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the same side unless there is some serious fire behind all of the smoke. My guess is everyone who has seen the classified info agrees this ban is too critical to even play games with it.
onthecanposting 7 days ago [-]
Microsoft will dust off it's previous merger plan from the last time this political football was punted and fill superfluousmanagement and "trust and safety" positions with old national security alumni. The surveillance will continue.
EarthMephit 7 days ago [-]
There's many companies that have reproduced the tictok algorithm. Surely if it was sold, the multibillion dollar company would have no issue with that aspect.
ALittleLight 7 days ago [-]
What's an example of a company that reproduced the TikTok algorithm?
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
Facebook Reels and Youtube Shorts have pretty good implementations at this point, especially facebook, it is kind of scary. But I didn't use the original TikTok app so I don't know if TikTok is somehow better than these (I only started watching them because they started placing them in my Facebook and Youtube feed, sneaky!).
troq13 7 days ago [-]
"you don't get Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the same side unless there is some serious fire"
All you need to convince American politicians of anything is jingling keys and cash. Plus MTG opposed the original TikTok bill, they only voted in favor when it was packed together with sending money for Israel.
garbagewoman 7 days ago [-]
[flagged]
7 days ago [-]
null0pointer 8 days ago [-]
> I'd love to see regulation around all social media algorithms to ensure they're unbiased.
The bias is a feature. They just don't like the fact that they can't control the bias on TikTok so it spews Chinese propaganda instead of Western propaganda.
troq13 7 days ago [-]
Does it spew Chinese propaganda though? Have you even used TikTok?
symlinkk 7 days ago [-]
You’re saying you don’t believe in freedom of speech.
eBombzor 7 days ago [-]
You are free to post whatever you want on a different platform. Banning TikTok and its algorithm has nothing to do with free speech. It's funny this always gets brought up, like what is TikTok allowing you to say that you can't say on FB, YT, etc?
spiderice 7 days ago [-]
"The government isn't allowed to ban speech, but they can ban the tools used to speak". Pretty scary argument.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Not a problem as long as there are other tools to speak. You have no right to YouTube or Facebook because neither are necessary for your free speech. This isn't complicated.
intrasight 7 days ago [-]
Not really
hnthrowaway0328 8 days ago [-]
Overall we would want to give good education to children but sadly many parents resort to electronics quite early. There really should be a law to ban cell phones and pad for children less than 5.
r14c 8 days ago [-]
Improving the economics would help too. Raising a kid when both parents probably have to work presents challenges that just don't exist if most careers could support a family on a single income.
TikTok is branded as Douyin in China. The international version is the one that is blocked.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
No, it's not just a rebrand.
Douyin, like all social media in China, is subject to government censorship. Tiktok, like Google, FB, IG, etc., are not and therefore banned in China.
That's why they are two completely separate platforms.
natdempk 8 days ago [-]
It's a rebrand + censorship then? I'm not sure the distinction you're trying to make exactly, it's not like Douyin is a completely different thing from Tiktok, so I think "completely separate platforms" is also a stretch. The core technology and parent company/ownership is the same for both.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> The core technology and parent company/ownership is the same for both.
That's like saying Facebook and Instagram are not separate platforms.
hacker_88 7 days ago [-]
It's like saying all websites are owned by Wordpress
0xB31B1B 8 days ago [-]
Its functionally completely separate. Douyin content for people unter 18 its like educational material, science experiments, and pro social content. Tiktok for under 18 in the US is like bikini girls dancing, robot voices reading reddit threads while videos of people playing video games play in the background, and lefty social justice content.
anon373839 8 days ago [-]
Also, perhaps China doesn’t want its own children to consume the same content they’re spoon-feeding to their adversaries’ children. For reasons.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
No, it's not about that. It's about controlling the flow of information, which is totalitarianism 101. Every totalitarian government tries to do the same; it's just that China has perfected the toolkit and has the resources to implement it.
rchaud 8 days ago [-]
Like what? Are Americans downloading Tiktok under duress of some sort? Every American competitor has algorithmic video feeds, so there plenty of market substitutes.
seabird 7 days ago [-]
This isn't about whether or not algorithmic slop is unhealthy. It's quite obviously awful for the people it's exploiting. It's about who's controlling it. This is without a doubt the proper handling of this from a foreign policy standpoint. The company went out of their way to prove exactly how a foreign government could use the service as a tool to affect policy.
That aside, people do use shit like TikTok, Facebook, Google, and other social media and adtech bad actors' services because they don't fully understand what they're signing up for. To a certain extent, people do use them under duress -- completely checking out from them is going to have a pretty measurable impact on how people interact with you. You will be an afterthought to a lot of people in your life. People will think you not consuming those products is strange. Interacting with many institutions you have to deal with will be harder. Many (maybe even most) people can't handle that.
rchaud 7 days ago [-]
None of this makes a case for government intervention. From what I can tell, you can be ostracized in a US high school if your text messages are in the wrong colour. DOJ isn't dragging Apple into court for forcing teens to buy iPhones to fit in better.
The economy is designed to get people to sign up for things they don't fully understand. Payday loans, sports gambling, margin trading. None of these are illegal, but they should all have strong public education campaigns so citizens know the risks. Social media should be treated the same.
seabird 6 days ago [-]
The second paragraph of my post is completely beside the point, I just wanted to point out that it's a bit silly making the "downloading under duress" point when people _do_ do that in a lot of ways.
The law is not about whether or not it's healthy for people. It's about whether or not it is an uncontrolled tool that an adversarial foreign government can use to sway public opinion in the US. No government with any urgent sense of self-preservation would let that fly.
qzx_pierri 7 days ago [-]
The US wants to get their hooks into TikTok and use it for PsyOps. It’s that simple. Don’t let the word “PsyOps” trigger your wacko alarm.
It’s understood that the US already does this with Facebook and other websites.
anon373839 7 days ago [-]
The US doesn't need TikTok for that.
rchaud 7 days ago [-]
There are 170 million TikTok users in the US. Intelligence services would be doing a bad job if they didn't have their hooks in it somehow.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
Shouldn't the US prove it's better than China by its self-consistent actions with its espoused virtues of freedom of the press?
IncreasePosts 8 days ago [-]
The self consistent actions could just be "tit for tat" responses to the behavior of others. Does China allow free reign of American companies within its borders? No? Then China doesn't get that right either.
Regardless, TikTok isn't going away, it is just changing owners. How does that have any effect on freedom of the press?
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
What if they don't want to change owners? Why should a global company from Singapore do what US politicians want?
mjamesaustin 8 days ago [-]
All of our global companies do what China wants to operate there, and what they ask is a lot more onerous than to spin out a separate entity for local operation.
At least the US is trying to protect the privacy of its citizens in this case. The CCP meanwhile required Apple to prevent Airdrop from functioning properly in China in order to stop the spread of information between protest groups.
IncreasePosts 8 days ago [-]
Then...don't? No one is forcing them to, they just can't do business in the US if that is their choice.
falleng0d 8 days ago [-]
I hope they don't. Then I will finally give a smartphone to my kids.
phone8675309 8 days ago [-]
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.
TikTok can decide to not sell, in which case it's banned, or it can sell, in which case it's not.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs. China.
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
So you're saying the USA is better and thus it never needs to be compared in any aspect related to 'freedom'? That's a nice way of never having to challenge your assumptions.
It's not a strawman. The US espouses freedom of speech, and TikTok is comparable to running a printing press. It also espouses a general freedom to own and run private enterprises.
This ban runs against both of those.
phone8675309 7 days ago [-]
> It's not a strawman.
It is absolutely a strawman:
> A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.
Grandparent: Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs. China.
Parent: So you're saying the USA is better and thus it never needs to be compared in any aspect related to 'freedom'?
Me: GP didn't say the USA never needs to be compared in any aspect related to freedom, they said _relative to China_ the US doesn't need to prove anything.
It's objectively a strawman.
That's separate from the issue of whether or not this infringes on the freedom of speech, but 1) freedom of speech in the US is not nor ever has been absolute with no limits and 2) this move absolutely deserves scrutiny.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
Actually, it does.
kube-system 8 days ago [-]
Meh, foreign tech companies still can't even operate in China. The only way even things like iCloud exist there is because Apple literally handed it over to be owned and operated by the Guizhou government.
falleng0d 8 days ago [-]
Sorry but this is about China, the bar is that low.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
No. It's about whether or not we're hypocrites regarding freedom of the press and freedom of speech, as well as the overall freedom of business.
mminer237 8 days ago [-]
The Bill of Rights does not inherently apply to non-citizens. There's nothing stopping the people from running TikTok without government oversight. The only problem is that a foreign adversary controls it. This really is not comparable to China's restrictions.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
Yes, it does Yamataya v. Fisher and Yick Wo v. Hopkins. And that protection extends to commercial entities: First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.
mminer237 8 days ago [-]
Certain aspects of it do, but it doesn't as a whole. See United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez for the precedent that the Fourth Amendment doesn't totally apply to non-citizens. The Supreme Court hasn't specifically ruled on the First Amendment, it's hard to imagine that they would say hostile nations have an inalienable right to publish as much propaganda as they want in the US.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
Even assuming that exception is taken up, it would be difficult to prove in a court that TikTok is using its editorial control to publish propaganda beyond what other social media platforms do quiescently.
Propaganda is what advertising is. Should the courts restrict companies from their ability to advertise?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
It's not a criminal trial. The US doesn't have to prove that TikTok did anything. They merely need to show a compelling interest in restricting its future actions.
Freedom of the press/speech applies only to humans/entities within US borders not to foreign entities.
Last time I checked China wasn't within US borders.
matthest 8 days ago [-]
Yes, but at some point you have to know where to draw the line. That line should be national security.
If China is indeed receiving data from TikTok, the future isn't going to be fun, especially with AI tech heating up.
Truth is, when China benefits, the Han Chinese people benefit. Every other ethnicity? Uncertain.
When the US benefits, a variety of ethnicities benefit. The US is now diverse enough where it must work in the interest of a variety of ethnicities in order to operate effectively.
So unless you're Han Chinese, you're more likely to benefit when the US wins.
TikTok isn’t a news organization. It’s an entertainment platform.
I don’t understand the people coming out of the woodworks saying this is suppressing “freedom of the press” or speech.
Set up your own domain, get a VPS, upload your trash to VPS. There ya go, no more “censorship”.
Oh wait , you don’t want to do the work to set this up? Sounds like a personal problem.
ok123456 7 days ago [-]
> TikTok isn’t a news organization. It’s an entertainment platform.
I don't remember the First Amendment distinguishing between free speech that informs and that which entertains.
Most news on television is selected for its entertainment value. Does that give the government more power to regulate it?
PurpleRamen 8 days ago [-]
Funny list. I'm curious why something like swiggy.com, a food ordering and delivery platform is there. Do they even operate in china?
kube-system 8 days ago [-]
To protect local competitors (and local control)?
> Do they even operate in china?
If they were going to, they won't now.
ffpip 7 days ago [-]
They don't operate in China but I'm pretty sure they have received funding from chinese investors.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
blocking is not always that fine-grained; there are tons of IPs/domains blocked that have nothing to do with China
kylehotchkiss 8 days ago [-]
probably a tit-for-tat against India banning a lot of Chinese services back in 2020
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
And yet, at least anecdotally, it is very widely used, along with virtually every other resource that that Chinese state regards as banned.
seattle_spring 8 days ago [-]
I think they meant the US domain tiktok.com is banned. TikTok itself is not banned in CN, and its web presence there is likely available at the respective CN domain. I’m guessing it’s tiktok.cn, but I’m not checking so I take no responsibility if it’s a phishing domain.
United857 8 days ago [-]
The Chinese equivalent is DouYin, douyin.com
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
Tiktok is indeed banned in China.
Douyin is owned by the same company but not the same platform. It is subject to Chinese gov censorship (like all media in China), while Tiktok is not (therefore banned).
TeaBrain 8 days ago [-]
Douyin as someone else mentioned is the Chinese equivalent to TikTok and it has completely separate content. The international TikTok content (not US specific) is not available in China.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
> The international TikTok content (not US specific) is not available in China.
These comments are very confusing to me. Why is half this thread pretending that the Great Firewall is effective?
Do y'all not have friends in China? Contacts who visit?
Do they suddenly drop off the face of the earth? Of course not, they install a VPN and carry on, and communicate with you via all the normal media.
The Great Firewall is really just a means of forcing people not to acknowledge what they know, and to only publicly speak about the censored version of history and politics.
But it's no more effective than any other internet censorship (which is to say, it is trivially bypassed).
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> Why is half this thread pretending that the Great Firewall is effective?
It's extremely effective. Just because a very small fraction of the population 1) know how to use a VPN, 2) are willing to pay for it, and 3) bother to use it, doesn't mean the GFW is ineffective. The CCP doesn't need 99.99% efficiency rate, 95% is plenty to control their population.
Source: myself, many years living in China.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
I've never lived in China.
But you're saying that 95% of people refrain from reading resources that are not served by The Great Firewall?
That seems like a huge, huge stretch.
I've never met a Chinese person whom, when the topic came up, hadn't read about, for example, tiananmen square, in a method contrary to the wishes of the CCP.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
My 95% was an educated guess, it could well be 90%. But I would be shocked if it were any lower than that.
> I've never met a Chinese person whom, when the topic came up, hadn't read about, for example, tiananmen square, in a method contrary to the wishes of the CCP.
I know many as well, but there's major selection bias at work here, in that if you 1) met them abroad, 2) spoke to them in English about 3) a highly sensitive subject, they are highly likely to be one of the 5%.
TeaBrain 8 days ago [-]
I would not be surprised if the use of VPNs in China is not as prevalent as is often assumed. I knew a Chinese guy in his thirties who came to the US for a graduate program and he was excited to tell me of the websites he now had access to that he wasn't able to access on the Chinese web.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
What people don't understand is that it's hard to discover VPNs in the first place. They're not going to be in the Chinese iOS app store (which is separate from the rest of the world), or local Android app stores (Google Play isn't even there). Websites advertising VPN services are likely to be inaccessible (though not all are). I used a VPN for years in China, as did some Chinese I knew, but even among highly educated and well-off Chinese in a 1st tier city it was less prevalent than you would think, not to mention your average Chinese person living in a 2nd tier or smaller city (the vast majority of the pop).
dgfitz 8 days ago [-]
Have you met more than 5% of the residents of China? If not your point is moot. I’m guessing not.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
Yeah, I did!
Joking aside, that's not how statistics work. But I am reasonably confident that a random sampling of 1000 Chinese people drawn proportionally from where they live (meaning mostly in smaller cities, not Beijing, Shanghai, do not speak English, are not well off or highly educated, etc.), that only 50 of them would be using a VPN regularly. But I could be off by a factor of 2 or 3 and the point about control of the population still stands.
TeaBrain 8 days ago [-]
I never said the content would be impossible to access given the use of a VPN. The comment I responded to implied that they thought TikTok would be available simply by using a Chinese domain name. Granted, Douyin does have a Chinese domain name, but it does not have the content on TikTok.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
Yeah, I think you're correct.
...but seriously: The Chinese state pretends that Wikipedia is banned in China. Does anybody seriously think that Chinese people don't use Wikipedia, like every day?
Routing around a ban of this nature is so utterly trivial, and the primary audience of TikTok is strongly integrative of demographics which are digital natives accustomed to subverting such bans (heck, they got almost universal training in this area by having to jailbreak their school-issued tablets).
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> Does anybody seriously think that Chinese people don't use Wikipedia, like every day?
surprised as you may be, the vast majority certainly do not use Wikipedia
throw-the-towel 8 days ago [-]
Baidu, the local Internet giant, has its own encyclopedia.
You'd be surprised how different some countries are in their Internet usage. Russians don't really use Facebook, and Google faced an uphill battle to be accepted there. Czechs apparently prefer homegrown map services (such as Seznam) to Google Maps.
I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.
benced 8 days ago [-]
This is unfortunately a common tactic of the Chinese government (see their recent dealings with Lithuania). I do not believe a trade barrier not being explicitly stated is a barrier to bringing a WTO case though.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
They could operate there if they submitted themselves to Chinese government censorship (aka "local laws"). Google pulled out because it refused to. Facebook really wanted to (Zuck even made a trip there to talk to Chinese officials) but ultimately decided (correctly) that doing so would greatly hurt it in the US/Europe. Same for Twitter (pre-Elon).
thanksgiving 7 days ago [-]
No, it should just work.
I can understand having to abide by China PR laws if you have actual money transactions on the mainland but if all my customers are outside China PR and all I'm doing is making my website available to the people in China PR assuming I'm not breaking any laws, my website should be available to users in China PR.
I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that?
But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
China isn't a rule of law country, they admit that they don't even aspire to be a rule of law country, calling it an imperialistic western ideal not compatible with eastern culture. There is no way your expectation can be satisfied.
ajmurmann 7 days ago [-]
I've heard it referred to as "rule by law" instead
tsimionescu 7 days ago [-]
Even if China worked as a rule of law country, which they explicitly don't, what you're saying is still exactly the same as the previous commenter: you can't lawfully operate in China unless you actively monitor and censor any text you make available. If a user comments in a review on your bakery website that these cookies are so good that even Winnie the Pooh (hint hint) would like them, and you allow that review to be visible, then you are in violation of Chinese laws.
connicpu 7 days ago [-]
If all you do is open your website to china and don't perform any transactions in the country you're gonna have a hell of a time with your business model. All of these websites rely on advertisers to make money.
insane_dreamer 7 days ago [-]
You can still be breaking “public safety” and “consumer protection” laws if the CCP doesn’t like your content.
ramblenode 7 days ago [-]
Another important detail that has been burried in this discussion is that in the late aughts and early 10s there was a lot of domestic political pressure against US companies building products that could facillitate Great Firewall censorship. At the time that was a bigger concern than being allowed into the Chinese market.
All the talk of a digital services trade war/import ban ignores that US tech companies were facing a de facto export ban from the US side by being prohibited from complying with Chinese regulations.
deviantbit 7 days ago [-]
You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network.
One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
I lived in China for 9 years through most of the banning. I remember the day Twitter stopped working because the US embassy in Beijing was posting embarrassing AQI readings on their Twitter account (“crazy bad” for a reading that was so high they didn’t expect the label to ever be used). I was there when Facebook became blocked and when google became blocked. YouTube, however, was already blocked in 2007 when I started working there.
None of those services need apps, I never used apps to access them.
basch 7 days ago [-]
I don’t have a no YouTube and Roblox policy at my house. However, mysteriously they usually arent working. It’s a lot less contentious that way
raincole 7 days ago [-]
You didn't read the parent comment right then. Let me paraphrase it:
Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working.
They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.
deviantbit 7 days ago [-]
I don't remember if they announced it or not. I've been there a total of 4 times over the past 15 years.
There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime.
Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it.
There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available.
Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave.
This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form.
She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on.
I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law".
The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
The laws don’t exist. China has a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc…so actually writing a law that censors the internet isn’t very feasible. The official class just controls the courts (no judicial review allowed) so can do whatever.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
Isn't that a distinction without a difference? If the constitution isn't upheld by rule of law, what does it matter what is says?
chottocharaii 7 days ago [-]
These kinds of comments are legally ignorant. I’m always taken aback by these kinds of “but actually” comments on HN that ‘correct’ another user without any regard to how the law would be applied.
andsoitis 7 days ago [-]
I read the persons comment differently: reading between the lines I see them saying that the Chinese government finds other ways to work around the rules in bad faith.
a_random_canuck 8 days ago [-]
“Officially” is meaningless here. The blocking exists, and it is at the direction or under the control of their government.
They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck.
This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.
bbarnett 7 days ago [-]
Indeed. And this solidifies their control, because anything may be illegal at any moment.
jdjshdvegj 7 days ago [-]
Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.
hi-v-rocknroll 8 days ago [-]
Perhaps the GFOC must officially support an app via allowlisting, so that it's banned unless it's allowed by inaction, which is effectively the same thing.
Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access.
I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
winrid 8 days ago [-]
VPNs frequently get banned in China. I bought two major VPN services (nordvpn and one other) and they did not work when I got there. Luckily I had a backup VPN I host on Linode. It would randomly stop working though...
fma 7 days ago [-]
Outline VPN works pretty well FWIW.
thaumasiotes 7 days ago [-]
I am currently in China; Outline doesn't work at all reliably.
That might be to do with going to a Digital Ocean IP, but if you can use an innocent IP, anything works. So what benefit is Outline supposedly offering?
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
That's not how it works. The apps are not officially banned, they are just unavailable or don't work. If they're not on the China iOS store (separate than US) then you can't install them, and if you went abroad and managed to install them, they just can't connect to the IG or whatever servers once you're back in China. Same for Android.
jjeaff 8 days ago [-]
This doesn't seem correct. It was just in the news that Meta had to remove one of their apps from the Chinese market at the request of the Chinese gov.
insane_dreamer 7 days ago [-]
That's my point, they are not officially banned, but they're just "not available in the app store" (which is effectively banned, just not under that name).
But that overt request was unusual. Most apps are simply removed as part of Apple's "compliance with local regulations".
number_man 7 days ago [-]
The regulation recently changed and now requires all apps in the App Store to have a permit from the Chinese authority or be removed.
insane_dreamer 7 days ago [-]
Ah interesting; I didn’t know that had changed. It looks like the gov is more open about the banning now.
jibe 7 days ago [-]
Yes, China officially banned Threads and WhatsApp just a few days ago. They had Apple remove them from the App Store.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
If the only way someone can use your product is flying to another country to acquire it, it's a ban. Giving it other language is supportive of Chinese government efforts to soften the reality around their unfair practices.
7 days ago [-]
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
VPNs are unreliable and frustrating to use. They were never really solution for anyone I knew while living in China, especially for 4K video
hi-v-rocknroll 8 days ago [-]
Ouch. When I was there last 20-some years ago, high-speed interest was just becoming a thing and internet cafes were everywhere. Getting access to the outside world then was also a pain.
For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers?
Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy.
So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.
hi-v-rocknroll 7 days ago [-]
> So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it.
I think the era of hockey-stick growth and development China is more or less over now, growth will continue but slow to a drip, and will face 3 threats: rising economic inequality, drying up of external joint ventures, and male-female ratio demographics imbalance. It has BRI going for it but external investments can't address domestic structural socioeconomic concerns. Xi will be blamed first because he rode economics to the top of the mountain. I'm concerned that starting a war, a common political tactic for any government system, maybe used to distract from domestic economic woes.
insane_dreamer 7 days ago [-]
China has made a lot of investments into Africa and Central Asian countries, more like IMF-style loans, which give it considerable political leverage. But as to whether this translates into substantial economic advantages for China in terms of cash inflows, not just outflows, I haven't seen much to that effect.
China's housing market is its biggest problem. Most people invested their savings in second/third/etc. apartments as the stock market was notoriously unreliable (and investing abroad was very difficult). That means that a tremendous amount of middle-to-upper-class wealth is tied up in property values, creating a tremendous bubble. But the gov cannot let the bubble pop (see Evergrande, others before), as Japan did in the 90s, as that is the one thing that (in my opinion) could actually bring the CCP down.
onthecanposting 7 days ago [-]
I've tried to research details about the size of BRI and find specific projects. It's surprisingly opaque if you're used to FHWA's public disclosure of funds and projects. You could trace most hihhway funding in, say West Virginia, by pulling a few documents. I couldn't find any details on any project. I could not even find a video stream of the last year's conference. Just a keynote translation a week later.
I am suspicious that BRI might be more hot air than substance. That or world journalism is oblivious to what is supposedly the largest international infrastructure program in the world. Or Google doesn't index it.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
I was there from 2007-2016, and also in 2002, but that was a dorm experience at PKU. The internet VPNs were just horrible, but the tradeoff was all the pirated video content available on Chinese video websites, so I got used to it.
hi-v-rocknroll 7 days ago [-]
2003: I went to China with 1 suitcase and came back with 2. The new one was absolutely full to the brim with pirated DVDs and fairly good quality fake LV from the "free markets". Had to chip a Sony DVD player because half of them were random regions. Back then, checking the right boxes and declaring sensible amounts on US claims declaration forms reduced probability of searches.
fooker 7 days ago [-]
Did torrents work?
I remember that era fondly as the golden era of unfettered torrenting.
Jiahang 6 days ago [-]
It can be downloaded, but the upload is limited.
7 days ago [-]
ngcc_hk 8 days ago [-]
That is as silly as argument as it is. We know what the game china played and it is not because of technology. Really someone can “hack” the technology. But if one pretend to sleep, you cannot wake them up easily.
8 days ago [-]
vitorgrs 8 days ago [-]
And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.
tivert 7 days ago [-]
> And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.
That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have.
If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.
troll_v_bridge 5 days ago [-]
From facebooks perspective it’s always been official
jeremyjh 8 days ago [-]
So...what? We know they've disabled it and they know we know. We can just call it a ban.
dluan 8 days ago [-]
in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does
nmfisher 8 days ago [-]
That was the case when I was living there, but I've read a lot of people saying that VPNs aren't nearly as effective any more.
seanmcdirmid 8 days ago [-]
I was never good at VPNs. We would find one that worked, they wanted a one year subscription up front and...then they would stop working. I assume most VPNs in China are just a scam to make some shady money. Who are you going to complain to, the Chinese government?
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
China would try to block them so you had to find new alternatives. I used one for years that stayed up, but yes it was often frustratingly slow. You had to really make an effort, and most people aren't going to do that, and then there's the language barrier.
chrischen 8 days ago [-]
My experiences before was that they were doing some machine learning to detect my socks proxy and slow it down eventually. Last visit I went to China a few months ago I found my Wireguard VPN running at full speed.
Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
If you try and operative a service that relies on frictionless access by saying your users have to fly abroad to download it, and use an illegal and increasingly spotting VPN service to access it, it's banned. You simply cannot succeed under these conditions.
Aunche 8 days ago [-]
Every Chinese person a Westerner may talk to has a VPN, but you can't compete with Chinese-owned social media without the other 90% of the population. Also, China has been very aggressive with VPN throttling and random outages, since the pandemic.
dluan 8 days ago [-]
depends on time and place. its true that now there is less dependence on foreign internet and you can now be fully decoupled from english internet with the number of domestic apps. most people only use a VPN now just to access email (e.g. gmail, university), if they even need to at all. and yeah, if youre in beijing during a congress, then VPNs will be slow. but its trivial to set up and use a VPN, even my 88 year old grandma has one.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
I promise you Uyghur muslims don't all have VPNs installed on their phones. That alone will get you disappeared into a prison camp.
"Every Han Chinese of a certain background" is the more accurate reference.
stubish 7 days ago [-]
It is not easy. One day your VPN stops working, and you need to ask your friends for a new recommendation, and maybe they have if theirs didn't start failing last month, and set that up and hopefully it keeps working for a while longer, maybe until your original routes around the issue. It is high friction, and was a constant pain trying to maintain a functioning satellite office behind the Great Firewall.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
this was never the case and is even less so now.
the vast majority of the population cannot easily use a VPN, especially not on their phone which many people use instead of a PC
ken47 7 days ago [-]
It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.
coin 7 days ago [-]
Furthermore, TikTok itself is banned in China. The counterpart in China is Douyin, which has limitation for minors, like mandatory STEM videos and limited hours during school days.
8 days ago [-]
7 days ago [-]
bdd8f1df777b 8 days ago [-]
The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end.
The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.
When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.
robot_no_421 8 days ago [-]
This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted websites and drink whatever propaganda you want. You just can't use TikTok to find it anymore.
Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.
Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.
tenlp 7 days ago [-]
>Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.
As far as I know, tiktok's services are deployed on Oracle servers in the United States and are subject to supervision.
It was banned just because it comes from China. Look how many times the CEO of Singapore was questioned if he is Chinese. Maybe the Congressman thinks Singapore is also a part of China.
coin 7 days ago [-]
> Look how many times the CEO of Singapore was questioned if he is Chinese. Maybe the Congressman thinks Singapore is also a part of China.
74% of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese. The Congressman's questions are not unreasonable in questioning if the CEO has some ties with mainland China.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
> Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.
I read both Chinese and English, and I read both the opinions of within GFW and without. If anything, I've critically analyzed every idea from both sides. I can't fathom the hubris of someone who has ever lived on one side yet believes his truth is the ultimate truth and anyone disagreeing must not be thinking critically.
number_man 7 days ago [-]
Here's my take on your recent comments, as a mainland Chinese who immigrated to the US 10+ years ago. There is no point arguing with other mainland Chinese online. I guess this is true for most online arguments but particularly so for debating politics with other Chinese since they are far too influenced by propaganda to be convinced otherwise. Furthermore, if you find yourself arguing with friends who can't even tell the blinding difference between Chinese censorship of the Internet (with zero transparency, against CCP's own constitution) and this legislation (passed by both houses of democratically elected representatives and signed into law by elected president), it is time to move on and make better friends. Good luck and hope I don't meet you in real life.
NicoJuicy 7 days ago [-]
China is preparing a wat with Taiwan, just see it's military buildup the last year's.
It's ignoring international laws with neighbors, instead of using weapons, it's using water cannons against fishers and Philippines coast guard.
China is a "friend without limits" of Russia, who started a war on European soil lately.
I think it's safe to say that the west is decoupling from China.
It has nothing to do with "freedom of speech", most voters agree with that decoupling.
I have never heard of a pro China argument before from a politician party and it seems that most democracies nearby China think the same, even with the BRI initiative.
( Note: I'm not from the US)
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
I'm not debating that China is bad or not, or if it is an adversary to the US.
My deeply held belief is that we should allow speech from even the most hostile foreign countries. Do you know that every administration of China, starting from Qing Dynasty, resisted the idea of freedom and democracy by painting them as plots of foreign governments to destabilize China?
I am being called a sock puppet of China here, and I have been accused of being agents of US propaganda in China. That is how the future holds. Every thought deviating from mainstream is labelled as propaganda from a foreign government, ergo not subject to the protections of freedom of speech.
NicoJuicy 7 days ago [-]
I'm not calling you a sock puppet of China here, your username indicated a Chinese background though.
The tracking/propaganda dangers of TikTok are unrelated to freedom of speech, as banning TikTok doesn't affect freedom of speech.
People can spread their opinion on any other app.
Note : I'm responding and sharing my opinion for the following you mentioned:
> The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.
robot_no_421 7 days ago [-]
I say that you're not thinking critically because your arguments are very weak and you don't provide any inference or evidence to support your conclusions. It's irrelevant that "you read both Chinese and English" or that you think "you've critically analyzed every idea from both sides" if you're not using any of those in your logical argument, which you're not. In fact, it's an obvious logical fallacy to use "I have read more about this than you" as evidence that you're right.
7 days ago [-]
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore. The distinction you make isn't going to convince any one.
robot_no_421 7 days ago [-]
>Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore.
The real reason you can't "espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China" is because they will arrest you. Let's not mince words here. The Chinese government would shoot their citizens before they would let them protest or speak their mind freely.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
No, they don't arrest people for such abstract concepts. They do arrest people who tangibly threatens the government, like exposing the shenanigans of high officials, or organizing labor protests over the Internet.
wumeow 7 days ago [-]
Well, there you have it.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
Haha, you would think that these cases count as enough evidence for the government not to have any power over speech. Nope. The Chinese people just oppose those specific cases, and in a small percentage of them, the government reversed course and then the masses are satisfied.
After those happened, they still think that the government intervention of speech is a good idea. The only problem is that a small group of officials not handling the regulating power correctly. But if they were to adopt the American model, how could they be protected from the evil influence of foreign adversaries? You know, like me, an agent of US propaganda. Or Tencent, whose major shareholders are actually not Chinese.
I really can't maintain a straight face hearing Americans repeating that same argument.
starfallg 7 days ago [-]
Nothing you can't do before has been affected, given that you were never able to post anything on TikTok that would be seen in China. It is not accessible in China, as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.
coin 7 days ago [-]
> as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.
This is what most people don't know, that TikTok itself is banned in China.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
You misunderstood me. I was not talking about doing on TikTok, but on China's own social media and when conversing with other Chinese offline.
starfallg 7 days ago [-]
I don't follow your argument. In what way are you affected now and why? My understanding is that 1. You moved from China to the US yourself willing since some time ago and 2. There is no US equivalent of the GFW and this legislation doesn't change that.
I just don't see how this law will affect your ability to converse with others on Chinese social media.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
OK, let me reword. I still can converse with others on Chinese social media, but I will have a harder time convincing them that GFW is a bad idea or that the China's government is wrong restricting speech. Because people not already convinced will point to the US banning TikTok and ask me how China's actions are different. The distinction between the two is subtle, and frankly, while the US actions do not violate the First Amendment, it does breach the underlying principles. I have no convincing argument for them.
starfallg 7 days ago [-]
Ok, that's more clear on what your point is. The US is not banning TikTok technically like the GFW, they are just de-platforming it so it is no longer commercially active.
This is very different from the GFW, and many orders of magnitude less restrictive.
This issue isn't about speech and censorship, but media ownership. These rules has always been in place in many Western countries precisely because of the impact it has on society (even beyond geopolitics).
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
> and many orders of magnitude less restrictive.
That's true, but when I had a hard time convincing them when the US were the *perfect* model of no speech restrictions, it's much harder when US is just less restrictive. They will just dismiss such difference in quantity as cultural difference, rather than different principles when China and US had qualitative differences.
starfallg 6 days ago [-]
Yes, I understand your point, but it is also moot, because even with the first amendment in the US, Free Speech is not absolute. There are limits to freedom - i.e. the right for you to swing your fists ends at the tip of my nose.
cscurmudgeon 7 days ago [-]
> freedom of speech
Freedom of speech applies to humans living within US borders not to entities controlled by a foreign government.
(Unless China is within US borders, freedom of speech argument doesn't stand).
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
If we talk about law, that is probably true. But for the principles, I don't think so.
We want freedom of speech because we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth, so we need to ensure that everyone can speak their mind, and so can the real Truth be propagated and preserved. And that everyone includes foreigners and foreign governments.
Every time China's governments (including the past ones, like the Qing Dynasty) rejects the idea of freedom and democracy, it demonizes them by painting them as plots of foreign governments trying to overthrow and destablize China. So you can see why I am so wary of the argument that it is OK to silence the words if those come from a foreign government.
cscurmudgeon 7 days ago [-]
> But for the principles, I don't think so
Smart philosophers have studied this. You may not like the answer.
> we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth
Oh yeah, but we can easily spot propaganda/bias from CCP from miles away.
For the principle of freedom of speech to survive, it can never be absolute.
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
> Oh yeah, but we can easily spot propaganda/bias from CCP from miles away.
The same way how the Chinese people can smell the propaganda of capitalist reactionaries.
I'm being sarcastic. You share the same school of thought with CCP.
Also, TikTok has never intolerant. CCP is quite intolerant of its own people's views, but it strictly segregates TikTok and Douyin to avoid trampling on the toes of non-Chinese. Therefore the argument of "tolerance of intolerance" isn't applicable.
throwawayq3423 7 days ago [-]
> China's ideology wins over American in the end.
Influence operations aren't about "winning" or even convincing anyone anymore. It's about flooding peoples screens with untold amounts of toxic garbage.
csa 7 days ago [-]
Next level sock puppetry!
bdd8f1df777b 7 days ago [-]
I was called a US sock puppet on Chinese social media and then a Chinese sock puppet here. I guess people everywhere are the same, doing ad hominem attacks whenever they see people having an opposite opinion.
efitz 8 days ago [-]
I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative.
My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted.
I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contracts.
Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc. We had to build independent systems just for China to prevent sharing information about non-China based customers and employees. Where we couldn’t do that, we had to build filtered replication “diodes” to prevent data leakage.
China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc.
The content on tiktok is a problem, but there's nothing on tiktok that isn't also on facebook/reddit/twitter/youtube. The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.
Aloha 8 days ago [-]
While I'm not always thrilled that about the amount of monitoring United States Government does, as a United States Citizen, my government is at least marginally accountable to me - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can choose to elect representatives who will change it.
I can't say that about China, certainly not to me as a United States Citizen, and not even really to Chinese Citizens either - which is why it's another thing entirely when a foreign government is doing this level of monitoring on United States Soil.
China is welcome to monitor its own citizens on its own soil to the extent it desires - and monitor communications in and out of China - they're however not welcome to do that level of monitoring on United States Soil on anyone who resides here - at least not without the explicit consent of the United States Government.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> While I'm not always thrilled that about the amount of monitoring United States Government does, as a United States Citizen, my government is at least marginally accountable to me - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can choose to elect representatives who will change it.
On the other hand it's our own ostensibly accountable government that we have to worry about violating our freedoms, abusing and misinterpreting this data, targeting innocent people, etc. If China has this kind of data they still have no power to throw me in prison (provided that I stay out of China) and very little impact on my day to day life. I'm still not happy about them collecting my data, but I have much less to fear from it.
vlovich123 8 days ago [-]
> my government is at least marginally accountable to me - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can choose to elect representatives who will change it
Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
> and very little impact on my day to day life
It doesn't until it does at which point it would be too late & you're dealing with damage instead of preventing harm.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
I don't discount that potential. I'm certain it exists. I'm also certain that it exists on youtube and facebook and twitter and reddit and will continue to influence US politics long into the future. Yet the US government has never once spoken about banning facebook and youtube or any other platform doing exactly the same things as TikTok, they're focused only the threat of the one Chinese platform while allowing China, Russia and anyone else to influence Americans though US owned platforms. They're even fine with letting China influence Americans using TikTok as long as TikTok is owned by a US company.
I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed by youtube or twitter. I don't see how taking away our freedom to access/use a Chinese platform that isn't violating any US law and isn't doing anything different than similar US platforms are doing is really helping to protect us here. Congress telling Americans what software we can have installed on our own devices, and preventing us from accessing platforms in other countries seems much more likely to lead us down a slippery slope than one Chinese owned social media platform being allowed to do what all the US owned platforms are doing.
coupdejarnac 8 days ago [-]
You'd probably change your tune if you actually saw all the propaganda being pushed on Douyin and other Chinese social media.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I might if we saw that same propaganda being pushed on US users of TikTok but since we haven't... In fact, I suspect that the minute TikTok started feeding US users Chinese propaganda instead of whatever moronic thing is popular there currently US users would stop using the app and get the mind-numbing bite sized entertainment they crave on other social media platforms.
coupdejarnac 7 days ago [-]
I don't think you've been paying attention then. It's already happening.
-For example, try saying something critical about China or something in defense of Taiwan. If the post gains traction, your account will get banned.
I often see people online extol the virtues of China's progress, it's technological advancement, it's focus on the climate and equality for people, etc. I say this as someone who has lived in China, and I even like China, but people buy into the bullshit. China isn't some utopia. There are many good things about it, but there are a multitude of odious aspects that get glossed over.
This is about sowing dissent and creating doubt in our values.
I don't think you have any business making so many comments in this thread when you have no idea what is going on.
mistermann 8 days ago [-]
> I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed by youtube or twitter.
I looooove TikTok, but if I was running a regime, taking it down would be Job #1.
vlovich123 8 days ago [-]
Ok, but if you agree it’s a problem and “why aren’t we also banning or more carefully regulating other social platforms”, I don’t disagree with you. Let’s. There’s broadly enough accepted truism that they do probably do pose a threat (not just to democracy, but in terms of harms).
But a foreign one that’s directly controlled by an adversary is certainly one we can tackle immediately and it’s easier to muster the political will. They don’t need to be connected. Of course it’s hard to trust the government when they have a history of lying, but there’s every reason to believe the threat they’ve been communicating out as real in the wake of the attacks the Russians launched on us in 2016 and given it’s an election year. It’s like all those people who didn’t trust when Biden said Putin was gearing to attack Ukraine imminently.
On the other hand, there is reason to be skeptical of that claim since the tiktok ban won’t happen until well after the 2020 election. So maybe it is the US trying to kill a major tech adversary that’s managed to dethrone our own oligopoly in the space. But that’s the starting point of the argument - is it really going to be used by the Chinese governments for election meddling or is it protectionism to hide the rot within the US regulatory framework that’s simply entrenched interests.
ramblenode 7 days ago [-]
> Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
People often bring up this point, and yet if China poured every resource they had available into spreading chaos and disinformation, it would not touch what domestically-sourced influence campaigns are currently achieving.
You might say that, nonetheless, it's a step in the right direction. But when disinformation and manipulation is as ubiquitous as it is now, the real effect of this law will simply be to protect informal alliances between legislators, media companies, and intelligence agencies. There's a handful of things they all agree on (which may not be in your best interest), and this law helps make sure conversations about those things never gain traction.
apex3stoker 8 days ago [-]
I think the issue is that China can use TikTok to run publicity campaigns to sway the voters into supporting policies or political candidates they like. They can do it more effectively with executives residing in China.
The US government won’t be able to do the same thing with the two party systems and with more checks and balances.
interactivecode 8 days ago [-]
Well in the US the gov doesnt do it themselves directly but instead pays russians to do it for them. I guess the chineese werent willing?
apex3stoker 8 days ago [-]
The US government never did that.
Russian did use facebook and other social media to influence voters. It was rather effective.
But it is totally different from Chinese government compelling tiktok using full access of its internal data to do their bidding in secret. The effectiveness will likely be much higher.
BeFlatXIII 7 days ago [-]
They wouldn't run publicity campaigns from Beijing; they'd spotlight domestic voices using their 1A rights who say the same thing.
Workaccount2 8 days ago [-]
China collecting data is not the reason it was banned, and is largely a diversion meant to derail conversation about tiktok. The threat of tiktok is that the Chinese government has direct control over what content it's users consume.
American social media is motivated by money. Chinese social media is motivated by state power.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> The threat of tiktok is that the Chinese government has direct control over what content it's users consume.
The same can be said of every single website hosted in China, but they aren't (yet) banning all Chinese websites or all content hosted in any other countries. Why not?
The vast majority of the content US citizens view on TikTok was created by other US citizens and that content is no different than the content available on youtube or any other social media platform. Certainly China can influence what types of content people see (and they've done a lot of messed up stuff in the past like filtering out "ugly, poor, and disabled" people's videos) but it isn't as if they can flip a switch and start only showing children dancing to "The East Is Red" and expect to keep their popularity. There seems to be no evidence that TikTok is any more manipulative or dangerous than any other social media platform. Youtube is just as happy to push extremist content to increase engagement but nobody is talking about banning them.
nailer 8 days ago [-]
> The same can be said of every single website hosted in China, but they aren't (yet) banning all Chinese websites or all content hosted in any other countries. Why not?
I imagine the US audience for tiktok is larger than all chinese websites combined.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I'm not very comforted by the idea that our government won't censor content from other countries as long as we aren't looking at it. If the content is legal, it should be allowed.
nailer 7 days ago [-]
I agree completely but there's so many negatives in your sentence it took me a while to parse. "I am concerned about any censorship, regardless of how popular the content is"
Workaccount2 8 days ago [-]
Th difference is that none of those platforms have an interest in the toppling of western powers.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
And yet every one of those platforms allows China, Russia, or any others who do want to topple western powers abuse them. They know their algorithms push the most extremist divisive content it can find to drive views/engagement and they know full well that while they're stuffing their pockets with cash they're also threatening our mental health, our safety, and our democracy. US owned social media platforms might not be dead set on ending America, but they'll happily help that along if it'll increase next quarter profits and they don't have to pay more humans to moderate or fact check.
trog 8 days ago [-]
I think you're right about it being a diversion, but I think it's because the American government specifically does not want to make this into a free speech issue because it would directly undermine American businesses that do exactly the same thing and pose almost exactly the same risk of being weaponised by foreign powers (... as we know they have been already) against American citizens.
If it turns out that maybe "good speech" simply can't counter "bad speech" when the latter is applied with the resources of nation states behind it, that doesn't feel like an argument the government can win (because of 1A).
Ironically, the data collection angle is still critically important for US businesses and limiting the access and use of citizen data would be great for everyone, but it seems very clear that is not on the table for the same reasons.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
The problem with the TikTok ban is that it is now, as a US citizen, it is exceptionally more difficult to consume content that is not filtered by US hegemony. The Israel/Palestine conflict was an eye opener because on every other platform, pro-palestine content is actively suppressed.
It's also strange that Americans are uniquely afforded this privilege and many consider it a natural right, but don't consider that their relationship with TikTok is same relationship the rest of world has with Meta. French citizens, despite the GDPR, have no recourse for accountability when it comes the US government.
phatfish 8 days ago [-]
I can't tell if this is serious or not. Do Americans know there are sources of information other than social media apps?
Just watch Al Jazeera on Youtube if you want the Palestinian side.
runarberg 7 days ago [-]
I don’t think the problem is individual choose, but rather public exposure. Not everyone watches Al-Jazeera or Democracy Now! but the people that do want to share what they learned, and do so on social media where the content gets extra public exposure. With the banning of TikTok, avenues for expanding pro-palestinian content will diminish, even though individual choose remains (mostly) the same.
idrisser 8 days ago [-]
Totally agree and that's why X and TikTok are so precious when the US gov's propaganda is omnipresent on all other social networks (not even talking about traditional media...)
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
The failure of anti-israel suppression of speech on Tiktok is the main driver for this bill. Yet, everyone keeps saying it is a China problem. it was bundled with a war spending bill. That says loads about the importance and burial of information this carries.
lossolo 7 days ago [-]
1000x this, I'm not sure why more people do not see that when it's pretty obvious. People that actually use TikTok know what I mean, Israel narration lost and videos from Palestine reporting what's going on were super popular. Now there are pro Palestinian protests at campuses around US against US Israel policy and US government do not like that. TikTok was IMO the main driver of showing what's going in Gaza.
nashashmi 7 days ago [-]
I bet the uni protests were the catalyst behind the passage of the bill
partiallypro 7 days ago [-]
I don't really get this point; I see pro-Palestinian stuff on other networks CONSTANTLY. I also see information that is incredibly incorrect about Palestine on Tiktok (and others) all the time, like Hamas wasn't targeting civilians etc (obvious lie.) I also see pro-Israel stuff that is incorrect all the time across Tiktok, etc. It's the nature of the beast.
I think people that have this view are pretty new to the internet in general. It's no surprise it's a popular belief with Gen-Z, thinking somehow their "filter bubble" is unique in any way or that they have escaped the filter bubble and stumbled upon "the truth." Complete nonsense. You're hooked into whatever algorithm makes you engage more, that's the whole point of this. To make money from you. You think you're special because you got on a pro-Palestine feed on Tiktok? Hilariously naive.
kelnos 8 days ago [-]
I don't use TikTok, so I'm not particularly worried about the Chinese government using it to spy on me. What I am worried about is the Chinese government using TikTok to launch influence and misinformation campaigns against US citizens.
interactivecode 8 days ago [-]
Do you feel it’s possible to get information that isn’t filtered or influenced by the US government?
Aka how confident are you that the information you are getting today is honest, accurate and not influenced in any way? That you get the full picture, the good and the bad?
While I do feel like my personal views are more aligned with the US / west. I’m not convinced im getting balanced information. Its a little naive to suggest that only our enemies are doing propaganda.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Disinformation campaigns by my elected representatives are not the same thing as disinformation campaigns by top adversarial governments. If you can't see that, you're not fixable.
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
> Chinese government using TikTok to launch influence and misinformation campaigns
That is not what anyone is concerned about. The US tried to get Tiktok to suppress pro-palestine information against israel. Tiktok effectively said they are not doing any manipulation of promoted info, even in favor of israel.
congress resurrected a ban for it. The recent uni protests helped in doing that.
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
> The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.
Except that TikTok’s data, or the main copy of it at least, resides in the US, so the evil US govt theoretically already has access to it. That’s not the motivation for this bill.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I know they've said they would plan to store American's data on US-based servers, but wouldn't promise to stop sending data back to China or keep ByteDance from accessing it. I'm not sure that the US government having exclusive access to this data enough to make them go this far.
packetlost 8 days ago [-]
It's not about access to the data, it's about access to controlling or influencing the content that users see.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
>China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?
This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West when it comes to Israel and current times are no different. Tiktok has allowed nearly more access to whatever footage is capable of sneaking out of the warzone whereas Meta platforms tend to suppress. (ex: they recently auto-defaulted a restriction on political content without informing their users).
slowmovintarget 8 days ago [-]
TikTok amplifies whatever is in China's interest to amplify. Today, it happens to be voices opposed to Israel. Tomorrow, it could easily be the opposite. The goal is to generate geopolitical chaos to veil other actions (Taiwan, South China sea, Chinese migrant injections into Panama...).
A society's strength comes from its unity of will and resolve. Social media can be used to attack that unity... and has, not just by China.
coldtea 8 days ago [-]
>TikTok amplifies whatever is in China's interest to amplify.
So just like the other platforms, but for China instead of the US? (aka: "It's bad when you do it, not when we do it").
Aloha 8 days ago [-]
I dont know that I would be making that claim about other platforms - there is something unique, pervasive and opaque about TikTok and how they try to drive engagement.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Yes, and when our government does it, we can hold them accountable. When an adversarial foreign power does it we cannot. Is that a difficult concept for you?
ergocoder 7 days ago [-]
Yes, we will try hard to equate US government and China government. The 2 governments are so fungible and have equivalent due process for everything, especially for US citizens and citizens in other countries with border disputes. lol I can't even.
Workaccount2 8 days ago [-]
If Biden wants instagram to show you pictures of ponies, the best he can do is go to congress and get funding to run an ad campaign on instagram to show people ponies.
If Xi wants to show you ponies, you'll see them all over tiktok tomorow.
One exmaple of many. If Biden doesn't want you seeing something, the white house will put pressure on social media companies to censor it.
Workaccount2 7 days ago [-]
The US government has pressured various private orgs since forever to do stuff. Lots of stories about helping, refusals, court cases, retaliation. It's not much different than what goes on daily in the business world. Everyone will try to use their power to get their way.
However, this is contrary to China, who has never really pressured any Chinese organization to do anything. This is because they don't need to use pressure. They can just do it. Because there is no concept of "private organization" in China. The state has all the power.
It's so tellingly naive when people try to equivocate the US to China.
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
The difference is Meta was free to refuse, and did in some cases. False equivalence.
arandomusername 7 days ago [-]
"We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn't have done it."
Also:
The 5th Circuit panel found that the White House coerced the platforms through “intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences” and commandeered the decision-making processes of social media companies, particularly in handling pandemic-related and 2020 election posts.
Yes, pressure is not the same as coercion. The 5th circuit is a notorious conservative circus show, I’ll wait for the Supreme Court’s decision.
arandomusername 7 days ago [-]
How is "threats of adverse consequences" any different than what China does?
If a cartel member comes up to you and tells you to give him your wallet or there might be "consequences", do you think you are free to refuse him?
8 days ago [-]
slowmovintarget 8 days ago [-]
That's putting words in my mouth.
All social media with attention management may be weaponized and has generally proven to be unhealthy for society. TikTok happens to be actively worse for a number of reasons, one of them being that it is designed to be so.
megous 8 days ago [-]
Israel can generate chaos on its own quite well, thank you.
About one half (!) of all UNGA emergency special sessions are about its conflicts, for crying out loud. :) This nothingcountry of <10 million people entertains the whole UN for the last 80 years or so almost constantly.
The world has grown by 4 billion people during that time, lol. Most of that time social media did not even exist.
Aloha 8 days ago [-]
I'm not seeing any issue with those voices finding a space elsewhere say on X/Twitter - believe me, I see enough of the slop over from it.
The level of direct control the US Government has over US Social Media platforms pales in comparison to the control China has over TikTok.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Why not both? As it stands X platform is run by a pathological liar that has cozied up to the ADL to get the activist Pro-Israel community off his back. Many users many not prefer to use that platform because of these issues. The more options for people the better. What people seem to be forgetting is that TikTok is not the only market player. To single them out is absurd in this context.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
Saying the word "cis" is enough to catch a ban on Twitter. Somehow in America, uncensored only means that far right white supremacists can say n**er freely.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
After all there’s even a scotus case this term about the government merely “suggesting” that social media act a certain way.
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
>TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms
This has to be substantiated, because it seems blatantly absurd on its face. Are you saying TikTok is an anti-western platform? That, in and of itself, justifies the divestment, considering the owner, no? Furthermore, what "pro-western" platforms are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
>I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.
You only need to compare TikTok to it's US rival Reels. A majority of the pro-palestine is suppressed on Reels. The loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to access content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
> The loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to access content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
Meta's arcane moderation decisions apply to other platforms than their own? Go to reddit, to youtube, or to twitter, and you can find the most vile, unfiltered opinions on Israel and Palestine known to man.
Americans aren't missing out on any content at all. The only thing that will be destroyed is China's fast lane to American eyes.
nemothekid 7 days ago [-]
Since the "alt-right pipeline" days and subsequent adpocalypse, YouTube has become an incredibly milquetoast platform. Twitter is no different than Meta when it comes to moderation, however instead of being "liberal american media", its just "conservative american media". While Meta censors you for being too far right, Twitter censors you for being too far left.
That said, my point isn't that "I can't watch pro-palestine content". TikTok presents the first major news platform used by Americans that wasn't created for Americans. For all the whining about how $social_media_platform doesn't offer diverse view points, that goes out the window when the owner isn't American.
I don't believe that China is better than America. I personally don't think it's a good thing that the US can just decide ban any content platform that isn't controlled by a US interest. I don't think it's good for the country and I think the security issues are overblown - any realistic security issue you can have with foreign interference, Meta has already committed and any legislation that does not address this just means the legislation doesn't really give a shit about security.
I don't think any Chinese viewpoint is inherently good, but the fact that millions of Americans cannot view content from a diversity of platforms is a problem.
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
Try posting something on israel and palestine. it will get less views. Try doing a post like good morning. it will get more views!
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
The Israel/Palestine conflict is routinely at the top of massive subs like /r/news and /r/worldnews, two subreddits with diametrically opposed views on the conflict.
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
The channels are a different story. The dealbreaker is when that comes up on your newsfeed. It creates reactions.
My feed is repeatedly missing these things. And then i have to manually revisit them. It starts up again. And then ceases.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
So what you're saying is those who control the feed algo have all the power and you want China to control the feed algo for a popular US app. Sounds smart /s
nashashmi 7 days ago [-]
US wants to control the feed algo. TikTok said no. US wants TikTok sold to someone who will.
So far, China doesn’t control the feed algo. They control what content is uploaded. Imagine putting work into a video yet it never seeing the light because it was shadow banned. Now imagine it not allowed to be seen. The former is the western world. The latter is china.
valec 8 days ago [-]
are you serious? reddit is perhaps the most astroturfed platform on the planet.
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
Please, for the love of God, can people please stop making me pry their point from their hands? What about astroturfing makes reddit, a platform where you can build your own walled garden, a platform where you cannot find content that isn't filtered through US hegemony?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
Not the most unbiased source, let’s be honest
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
It allows you to see content typically hidden on other platforms. There should be freedom of choice. Its not like TikTok is the only game in town so if you are that triggered by the content that is on there then you should just log onto Meta platforms and leave the settings to restrict certain political posts that they quietly pushed to the "ON" setting.
8 days ago [-]
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
I asked you to substantiate it, not repeat exactly the same point again.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
There is so much content supporting this thesis with a 5 second google search.
As I have mentioned above and in other replies. Meta platforms has quietly introduced a filter for certain political topics that was pushed to their user base with no notification.
>and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?
By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.
eganist 8 days ago [-]
> By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.
There's a wild difference between unfettered access to a company's assets, systems, networks, data, etc. vs policywork to simply require that companies be owned at the very least by a country that isn't either Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.
Yes, I did read the bill. They did specifically single out ByteDance presumably to make sure there wasn't a way ByteDance could claim they weren't under Chinese influence. But they made a point of calling out Foreign Adversary Countries and pointed to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872 in doing so.
I view it like trade. They block our social media there, we block theirs here. EU did the same when we put tariffs on their steel or something.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
And eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
That saying applies to things you cannot take back, like blinding someone, not trade agreements. It's also like an eye for 200 eyes at this point. Tit-for-tat (or some softer variation) is pretty standard diplomatic protocol.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
Sure, but can you take back banning a social media platform? Very likely not, because even if you did, it'd still be ruined by a massive loss of users/ad partners/etc.
Realistically, what we needed is comprehensive user privacy legislation, which would prevent anyone from spying on us, including our own government. Likely the reason that did not happen is because our government enjoys access to our user data for various things.
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
It would cause damage that can be mended, same as how restricting steel trade would definitely hurt or bankrupt some companies caught up in it.
tomatokoolaid 8 days ago [-]
Yes, at least half blind. But an eye for nothing but complacence often results in two eyes for nothing ... and handing your adversary full advantage.
xdennis 8 days ago [-]
So trite! Without reciprocal actions there is no incentive for change.
asdasdsddd 8 days ago [-]
I think people are reticent to admit that unfettered globalism (especially in the internet which was meant to connect the world) is bad and has serious security implications. It should've been obvious retrospectively, but folks were lulled by a sense of post-soviet optimism.
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
Im concerned this represents a more general trend towards severing the small connections between countries formed on things like social networks, and that in doing so we’re opening ourselves up to a public that will be more supportive of useless war.
throw-the-towel 8 days ago [-]
If anything, social networks will only fuel support for war, as we're seeing with Russia and Ukraine.
Among the more liberal-minded Russians like me and most people I know back home, support for the Ukrainians had collapsed after two years of interacting with them online. It's become so bad, some people I met on the net have actually gone from opposing the war to volunteering to join the Russian army. And as for the Ukrainian side, their opinion of the common people of Russia is no better.
Anyway, we had way more of the "small links" you mentioned than you guys will ever have with the Chinese. A lot of us have family on the other side, even more had good friends across the border. The war destroyed most of these connections, and in case the West and China fall into a war, I don't see any reason whatsoever for you to do any better.
BriggyDwiggs42 7 days ago [-]
I can’t argue with that. Why do you think the exposure leads to less or equal camaraderie? I know interpersonal exposure to groups tends to reduce dislike of those groups, so is it an issue with the medium?
throw-the-towel 7 days ago [-]
Hmm, might as well be the medium. The more inflammatory exchanges tend to happen on Twitter, which does lend credence to your explanation.
But still, I'm not sure that whatever we know about interacting with the other group will hold true during wartime.
racional 7 days ago [-]
Support for the Ukrainians had collapsed after two years of interacting with them online.
This two-year period - you mean starting from the Feb 24th invasion (so the "collapse" as up until about two months ago)?
And what kinds of experiences with Ukrainians did they say they were having?
And as for the Ukrainian side, their opinion of the common people of Russia is no better.
Surprise, surprise. They have their physical survival to be concerned about now. And no longer have the attention or empathy resources to ponder the mystries the Russian soul.
There's also the compelling argument I hear them make: that anyone in Russia who understands what's up with Putin and Ukraine, has the financial means to flee (and no compelling reason, such as an elderly family member, to stay) -- should have done so long ago by now.
What else do you honestly expect after what's been happening since 2014/2022?
throw-the-towel 6 days ago [-]
You are wholly missing the point I'm making. I was not making any claim on whether someone's behaviour is good or bad. What I claimed was, interpersonal links between nations will probably fuel mutual hatred once the nations find themselves at war.
racional 6 days ago [-]
I was not making any claim on whether someone's behaviour is good or bad.
I'm not saying you were, and you're not answering my questions either.
So looks like there's no need to keep at this, and we can both move on.
krapp 8 days ago [-]
No. Stop. The public is only against war because Chinese spies are hypnotizing them with algorithms. You're not thinking clearly. The red menace is everywhere, you need to stay vigilant and focused.
turquoisevar 8 days ago [-]
I see variations of this argument pop up in this debate, which always confuses me.
I’d expect the takeaway to be “That’s bad, so we shouldn’t do it” instead of “Hold my beer and let me show you how we can follow their example.”
I always thought that the point was to not be like authoritarian countries.
j2kun 8 days ago [-]
> follow their example
Nothing about this is following their example. It's saying, "if you do the bad thing we won't let you operate here."
brigadier132 8 days ago [-]
> I always thought that the point was to not be like authoritarian countries.
No, the point is to not give authoritarian countries a free pass.
This is like saying we shouldn't put people in jail for murder because it's effectively kidnapping and that would make us like them.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Ever study game theory? Apparently not.
8 days ago [-]
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
I know this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban. Maybe Musk will buy it for pennies ona dollar and will turn my TikTok feed to my Twitter feed, which is full of lunatics, conspiracy theories, racist, dog whistle racist, conman and Tesla boys. Maybe Zuck will buy it and will start showing hot girls, meals and tourist attractions like they do on Instagram?
Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the global TikTok that I love. Hopefully.
But this is not my main concern, my main concern is that you people act like everything is about business and the users are just cattle.
0 regards about the fact that lots and lots of people love this app. I'm one of them because its the last place on the internet where it feels like I'm not supposed to be outraged or spending money all the time. It feels like the old internet for me.
Also, if the American users are lost, I will loose a lot of great content.
I'm appalled that people here on HN have no ability to realize that they deal with real people and not only numbers in the analytics and the bank.
It almost feels like there's no sense of identity here, no sese of persons who must have freedom to use and consume whatever they want.
The argument goes "The Chinese are banning our social media companies, why would we do the same?". Why don't you rephrase it as "The Chinese communist part controls what apps and media the Chinese citizens can consume, why we don't control what Americans consume?".
Can you really not see that taking away a product that people use is not only about companies? Are you really that blind to see that you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China?
Chinese government is not the ideal form of governance, please stop trying to be like China. Have some sense of personal freedoms.
Aloha 8 days ago [-]
I've watched people end up radicalized by content on TikTok - in ways that twitter, facebook, youtube, et al doesn't seem to do. You end up seeing the opening for a rabbit hole, and then suddenly you're very deep into said rabbit hole.
I get your concerns over loss of something you enjoy - but the content is steerable enough by algorithm and addictive enough that a little twiddle of the knob, and suddenly a bunch of people believe some very harmful and hard to eliminate untruths.
trafficante 8 days ago [-]
Remember about a decade ago, when you’d read about YouTube’s algorithm creating an “alt-right pipeline”?
Without making any judgments on the alt-right label, it was absolutely a real thing. Many documented cases showing how a fresh account could go from “Sesame Street, cooking videos, and CNN” on the default feed - and, within ~10 relatively innocuous clicks down the suggested video rabbit hole, the home feed would be full of Alex Jones tier stuff.
TikTok is heavily reminiscent of the old YouTube. Just taking a few steps down the Free Palestine recommendation road will get you into “Happy Birthday, Uncle Adolf” videos (hyperbolic, but only slightly).
I don’t blame certain parties for getting rather nervous over that. But I wish we could have some honesty from elected officials about why TikTok is suddenly such a pressing issue again.
Whatever happens, I hope they’ve learned from YouTube’s earlier mistakes. In trying to break the alt-right pipeline, they ended up breaking the entire recommendation engine for years (tbf it’s a lot better now).
Aloha 8 days ago [-]
I think the short form content inherent to TikTok - in some ways makes it worse than old YouTube was, because its multitudes of different people making the same or similar points - its more reinforcing.
That said I otherwise agree with you 100% - I saw folks get sucked down you YouTube pipeline then, and I've watched people get sucked down the TikTok one now, I got one person in my life to switch to FB reels, because I would correct the purported facts in each video and they found that annoying.
Agree (even if it is hyperbolic) on the yellow brick road model of radicalization.
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
Do you remember the bin laden reactions that surfaced on tiktok? That was radicalization that the US attempted to suppress after 9/11.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
Really? People get radicalised on the American social media all the time. Then go shoot people, all the time. Numerous shootings were organised on 4Chan&similar. What did your radicalised ones did may I ask? I hope it's more than having the "wrong" opinions on hot topics.
Can we please stop admiring China, Russia, DPRK and other similar countries where having the "wrong opinions" is considered radicalisation?
kelnos 8 days ago [-]
If those wrong opinions are actively harmful to others and/or lead to policy decisions that are actively harmful to others, then maybe "radicalized" still isn't the appropriate term, but I hope we can agree it's a bad outcome.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
What are examples of harmful opinions that harmed others?
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
>I've watched people end up radicalized by content on TikTok - in ways that twitter, facebook, youtube, et al doesn't seem to do.
QAnon, birthed in 4chan and largely disseminated to Boomers through Facebook isolated people and convinced a large number of people to stage a coup on the US government. I can't tell if you missed the QAnon craze, or you are intentionally being ignorant. I can't think of a single TikTok trend that comes close to the level of radicalization of QAnon.
metamet 8 days ago [-]
QAnon was massive on TikTok in 2019/2020, to the point that TikTok took measures to address it, blocking hashtags and banning accounts.
There seems to still be a large conspiratorial rabbit hole on TikTok that still leads to QAnon influencers (using more generalized hashtags and catch all conspiracies).
nemothekid 8 days ago [-]
QAnon related topics were banned in July/Aug 2020 and became community guidelines violations. Facebook did nothing about QAnon until post-January 6th.
Given the demographics of those most heavily influenced by QAnon, it's ridiculous to imply that Tiktok had even a 10th of the influence of Facebook wrt to QAnon.
p_j_w 8 days ago [-]
So what you're saying is TikTok actually took action against the most dangerous conspiracy movement the country has seen in our lifetimes while other American companies left it alone? And I'm supposed to be pissed at TikTok and support them being banned?
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Well, HN libertarians think the conspiracy should flourish.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban
It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese) buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and U.S. app stores.
> you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China
Good thing we're not.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
Right, will be interesting if France demands that Instagram be sold to LVHM, UK demands that Twitter be sold to Virgin, Spain demands that Shopify be sold to Inditex, Turkey demands that Snapchat be sold to Erdoğan’s son-in-law or else. Totally not banning though, simply be removed from the AppStore if fail
To sell.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> will be interesting if France demands that Instagram be sold to LVHM
Or else be removed from French app stores yet remain available online? Without being sanctioned or blocked?
ByteDance's CEO perjured himself in front of the Congress [1]. Meanwhile, you can't Google the 1989 Tianamen Square massacre in China because (a) Google is blocked, as in actually blocked, and (b) the very term is blocked.
There are reasonable objections to this bill. Claiming we're stooping to China's level is not one of them.
Does the legislation in fact specifically require sale to a US buyer, rather than a non-China buyer? Like EU buyer wouldn't fly?
Oddly, the articles I've seen don't feel the need to specify there. Seems like a big difference to me, and requiring sale to specifically US buyer seems rather more of a takeover.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Does the legislation in fact specifically require sale to a US buyer, rather than a non-China buyer? Like EU buyer wouldn't fly?
No, you are correct. Thank you. It must simply be no longer controlled by a foreign adversary [1]. (And yes, the term foreign adversary is defined in law [2].)
An EU, Gulf or Indian buyer would be totally fine if done in good faith, i.e. without being a front for Chinese interests.
I happen to personally agree with the general concept of making the CCP divest from the leading social media platform in the USA.
I also wonder if the KSA should be forced to divest from X/Twitter. Prior to owning part of X/Twitter, they did this [0], which led to to the worst of what one could imagine. What is happening now?
But my main question is, are there any other examples of forced divestiture, aside from Firefly Aerospace? [1]
I have reason to believe they have owned part of Twitter just post Arab spring and now own less not more. It definitely didn't happen in 2022.
Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
> Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?
Yes, absolutely, if we all agree upon the direction of the arrow of time.
inemesitaffia 7 days ago [-]
Before 2011?
Saudi Arabia was in Twitter when it was private
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
2011? I don't understand what you mean. Read the wiki, and we all know when "funding secured" happened for Twitter to go private.
inemesitaffia 6 days ago [-]
2011 is when the Saudis invested in Twitter
In 2022 when it went private they didn't add any additional money
7 days ago [-]
7 days ago [-]
jeswin 7 days ago [-]
> I also wonder if the the KSA should be forced to divest from Twitter.
There is no equivalence. The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world. The royal family just wants to keep their kingdom business running, and even for that they're dependent on the US.
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
I wish that was the case.
However, as a friend of human liberty, I cannot forget the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. [0]
While I would like to agree that KSA doesn't care about the rest of the world, and each culture should have their own space, the bone-saw story does prove that there are human factors which bind us all together. We all do live on one small rock, after all.
If the United States didn't exist when the Soviets were around, we'd have been living in one giant North Korea. That's why more needs to be done with the CCP, which is rapidly advancing their military and is already the preeminent industrial power.
Jamal Khashoggi is just one man. Tragedy it may be, but insignificant in the larger context.
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
Your ideology will murder us all, each one at a time, until none of us are left.
There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.
When a simple, predictable man like Putin, or Xi, make themselves emperor for life, they prove the fragility of their system. Their system cannot survive beyond them. It is the final call. Just as it was in Germany, France, Portugal, Spain... all of the imperial powers had to lose their final war. Soon, you will lose yours. Finally your people will become "Western," aka peaceful. All it takes is losing the final imperial ambition. I welcome you to the future.
My family has lived through these idiotic ambitions for many generations. This is why I am still here, speaking to you. We will live through it again, until we are all at peace.
Cheers.
jeswin 7 days ago [-]
> Your ideology will murder us all, each one at a time, until none of us are left.
I am curious, what do you think my ideology is? I just wanted to understand how I came across.
jeswin 7 days ago [-]
> Their system cannot survive beyond them.
I am old enough to remember the cold war times. The Soviet Union disintegrated because they never built an economy. Until Gorbachev, the communists did maintain their grip. If they had an economy like China has, the Soviet Union might have still been around.
Also Xi is not Putin, and the CCP (and generally Communist Parties) are not United Russia.
> There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.
Sure. But maintain the highest level of deterrence.
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
The deterrence is that I am alive.
Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family. [0]
They could not destroy Europe as much as they tried. We are still here.
Ukraine, is a rising democracy and is still here. Please my brother, just as each European country had to lose their empires, to finally win our own independence from the specter of imperialist thought. So must you.
The Russian people deserve this more than anyone. It's about effing time my brother.
> Ukraine, is a rising democracy and is still here.
Man! At what cost? Someone who used to work with me with sent me a pic - writing code from a bomb shelter.
Add:
> Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family.
They may not have destroyed yours, but they did destroy millions of other families.
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
We have lived through hundreds of years of this murder. We do not want to live through this again. This is the end. This is the end, and finally Russian people will prosper. Take the "L," It's actually a win. Just like Germans did after "losing." Just like Spanish did after "losing." Just like Italy did after "losing." Just like Portugal did after "losing" their empire. Then we became boring European assholes and we get a little per captia rich and all got along.
Fine, have a different alphabet, have orthodox, the Greeks are part of Europe and they have this. Why can't Moscow just stop killing us???
And they kill Russians more than anyone!!! Please, just stop! Fuck!
> The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world.
This seems obviously false. They host conferences talking about how they want to shape the world. KSA has interests, and they will want to use any power they have to further their interests.
jeswin 7 days ago [-]
China's economy is 20 times their size, and their population about 40 times larger. And there's no comparison in industrial capability.
consumer451 7 days ago [-]
How is this at all a response to the parent comment?
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
For everyone here having the vapours over this, note that the US government also prohibits more than 20/25% foreign ownership of radio/tv stations and airlines, and has for almost 100 years. It’s going to be ok.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
Good point. I wonder how did Murdoch (Australian) end up owning Fox News?
myroon5 8 days ago [-]
He switched to American citizenship in 1985 for that:
As I understand the bill is solely focused with the national security implications of ByteDance being China-based, and not the social impacts of short form video platforms on mental health, attention span, etc. Good news for Instagram Reels.
I also wonder if this goes through, does this set a precedent for enforcing similar divestment expectations for any companies operating in China. Is this isolated to social media platform, or could this also eventually extend in to other industries like manufacturing?
LordKeren 8 days ago [-]
The government already forced Grindr to be sold back in 2019 , so this isn’t a new precedent.
The only difference is scale and user base — and this time around it was even included in a bill.
The Government has a long history of interfering with foreign businesses in the name of national security. Feds have blocked sale of infrastructure like ports many times
spiderfarmer 8 days ago [-]
If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US. I certainly would not sell to a competitor. And I’d probably do a licensing deal for the content with a new entity without US based shareholders.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that their own government is a problem.
They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly.
I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy. I want young people to be more involved in politics and to vote.
afavour 8 days ago [-]
> I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy.
Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?
briffle 8 days ago [-]
Yes, but that would also mean realizing the dangers of social media apps owned by American companies and our allies also being able to alter the mindset of the population, which is a great thing.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
Sure, I guess. That's a very loaded question about a complex issue so I'm not sure how to answer it. But I can say, despite the complexities of that issue, my higher ideals are:
I want people to be more involved in politics and I want more people to vote. Wanting more people to vote is a safe side of history to be on I think.
I also want people to be able to access the content and information they choose. If that is the content and information on TikTok, who am I to deny them? I believe in free speech, morally (I say morally because, yes, I know the 1st Amendment doesn't apply everywhere, morally).
tazu 7 days ago [-]
> Wanting more people to vote is a safe side of history to be on I think.
This is going to be a hilarious statement in 20-50 years.
It's funny because on HN of all places, where all wildly successful companies are ran as absolute monarchies, and all the devices we type on are produced by companies ran as absolute monarchies, there's this undeserved reverence for "democracy" as if it's some sacred church or something.
If the voting population is so easily swayed by a video scrolling app, maybe, just maybe democracy isn't such a good idea? Would you work for a company where the CEO makes important decisions based on the amalgamation of 30 second videos that happen to come across his/her feed? I wouldn't. I don't think I want to participate in a country ran like that either. I'd expect the decisions to appear schizophrenic, which quite frankly describes our current political situation in the US.
Like, we have 100K+ fentanyl overdoses a year in the US, and I don't see any TikToks "informing voters" about that. No one cares. In fact, I don't even expect normal people to care about it---in a healthy society they shouldn't even be aware of it. It would take a special person, who is egoically invested in the health of his population to change that. Someone like a startup CEO, ala Washington, Jobs, etc.
So no, you're not on the "safe side of history" by advocating for something that's politically fashionable at the moment. History is written (and re-written) by the winners, and I wouldn't put my money on "democracy".
djur 7 days ago [-]
The wildly unsuccessful companies also run as absolute monarchies, as well as the wildly successful companies that became wildly unsuccessful due to poor decisions made by the monarch. Most CEOs barely understand how their business operates, and they rely heavily on the layers of management underneath them to make and enact decisions. The same is true of monarchs.
greatwave1 8 days ago [-]
"alter the mindset of the population" is such a vague boogeyman. Literally anyone with an internet connection has the capability to "alter the mindset of the population".
afavour 8 days ago [-]
Not at scale. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hysterical about it, but to me it seems indisputable that media companies (and this covers TV companies, newspaper companies when you go back far enough) have the ability to alter how a significant section of the population feel about a topic. A single person with an internet connection does not have the same power.
greatwave1 8 days ago [-]
Yes at scale. There are individuals who run social media accounts that reach hundreds of millions of people every month.
You can amass more reach and influence than many of the biggest TV stations / newspapers of the previous generation with nothing more than an internet connection.
afavour 8 days ago [-]
> There are individuals who run social media accounts that reach hundreds of millions of people every month.
And who holds the levers to that reach? The social media companies. If they want that account’s posts and I be less visible to users they’ll be able to do it in a heartbeat (and have!)
greatwave1 8 days ago [-]
Sure, I'm not disputing each social media company has the ability to alter public discourse.
My whole point is that there are literally billions of entities (everyone on Earth with an internet connection) who also have the ability to alter public discourse at scale. Hence why it's a vague boogeyman... the phrase "alter the mindset of a population" could be used to describe anything from a Orwellian propaganda machine to a Mr. Beast video.
In the 1990's, you could've claimed "Tetris is a software product developed by a geopolitical competitor (Russia) that has the capability to alter the mindset of the population" and you would've been right, but it would've been a silly thing to get worked up over.
JohnBooty 8 days ago [-]
I don't even think you need to cook up possibilities as complicated as "psyop."
It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate, that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin this week" etc.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
There's so many ideas about what TikTok's purpose is. By "psyop" I mean, if the purpose of TikTok is to influence the general mindset of the American populaton, then they'd throw a big tantrum and rile people up.
As you say, another possible purpose is that TikTok is used as a source of data and intel. I suppose it is a fine source for that, but also, if that's all China really wants, they can probably just buy most of that data on the shadowy data markets. The US Government shows no signs of stopping our personal data from being sold.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Gen-Z is already a pretty rockstar generation having seen their older Millenial siblings grow up post 9/11 and then get totally screwed in the 08 crash only to then graduate themselves into a pandemic and a market that is valuing their debt laden college skills less by the day. They started off cynical and so far have been a lot more active than Millenials when they came of age. They might be the group that finally enacts meaningful change. It is too early to tell though but I remain optimistic.
Hopefully the scars from Gaza remain with them and they take a different stance with Israel. A TikTok ban killing off one of the most desired career paths of this generation (TikTok influencer) will have a lasting impact on them when they take the reigns.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US
This is economically irrational to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. If Beijing truly does this, it somewhat cements the argument that TikTok was a CCP policy tool.
brentm 8 days ago [-]
I think it is reasonable that Beijing will not allow any sort of sale just for posture purposes. They don't want to be see as forced by Washington to do something and they care less about private economic outcomes than we do here, at least on the surface.
mamonster 8 days ago [-]
Depends. If you model this as a reputation game, depending on who is the sane and who is the crazy sender, the PBE might might be a pooling equilibrium(i.e makes sense to build the reputation of being a predatory firm).
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> makes sense to build the reputation of being a predatory firm
To what end? It isn't going to placate the hawks in America. And it's likely to inflame them elsewhere, e.g. in Europe. The only way you can position it as a win is within China's domestic politics, where it would save face for Xi and his acolytes. (Hence, the inefficiency of dictatorship.)
mamonster 8 days ago [-]
I wasn't making a concrete case(I have no idea what is either in U.S gov's or Xi's head), was just making the point that when you allow for signals with costs and subsequent belief updates then setting multiples of billions of dollars on fire may be economically rational.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
> The only way you can position it as a win is within China's domestic politics, where it would save face for Xi and his acolytes.
do not discount the importance of this; much of CCP's actions revolve around its survival
afavour 8 days ago [-]
Then you’d be wasting a huge amount of money for no good reason. If TikTok gets banned Meta will probably vacuum up the audience with Instagram Reels. It would be posturing with no real purpose.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
If Reels was any good wouldn't it have become a meaningful force in its own right by now? As it stands from my point of view it is mostly stolen recycled week old TikTok content. That TikTok "magic" is made on their platform because of what their algorithm rewards. Meta does not have that "magic".
afavour 8 days ago [-]
My point is that if Reels doesn’t have to compete with TikTok any more (because it shuts down) then that would be a good thing for Meta.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
I see where you are coming from but we have to consider why TikTok became so good in the first place and can that really be replicated in a vacuum? Look at X, once they got taken over, others tried to step up (Mastodon, BLueSky, threads). They all obviously grew...but the winner was nobody. People just stopped using that category of app altogether in favor of a different category (discord) or nothing at all.
Barrin92 8 days ago [-]
From Bytedance's point of view that's correct but the Chinese gov. would almost certainly interpret giving in to this as an incentive for Washington to ask "which sell off are we going to go for next". You'd effectively send the signal that this is a winning strategy to simply acquire Chinese firms by force. Beijing would almost certainly prevent that sale.
PurpleRamen 8 days ago [-]
USA seems to make around 10-15% of their users, and is probably a big source of income. Purely for the economics, this would be lousy idea. Especially as a cut-off from the USA could influence other markets, including losing them too. EU has some movement too, they probably will watch very close what will happen there and act accordingly.
encoderer 8 days ago [-]
How can they do that without upsetting the record labels?
They get a free pass to use licensed music because it’s a huge marketing channel for the labels. Lose America and that goes away.
refurb 8 days ago [-]
What do you think would happen to the value of a company cutting of the richest country in the world?
sgt 8 days ago [-]
This is your perfect time to sell the crap before it goes stale. Come on, have we learned nothing?
spiderfarmer 8 days ago [-]
Maybe I just value not being bullied over being rich.
kenjackson 8 days ago [-]
If you leave the US then you've accomplished what they wanted anyways. And now you're much poorer for it. The upside is you feel like you did it on your terms or something?
spiderfarmer 7 days ago [-]
Yes.
ThinkBeat 8 days ago [-]
I hope this will show the severity of threats countries face from social media
and that things are no longer business as usual.
Every European country /and/or EU/ECC as a block, as well as every other nation or block, should follow this up as soon as permitted to have all social media apps operated by a foreign country be subject to the same legislation.
TikTok will have to sel to the US, Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
That will of course also go for all other social networks as well.
The threats this bill highlights are universal to all social media operated
outside the control and ownership,
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will either
have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or they will need to
be sold to every country they wish to operate in.
Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause to protect
their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation from foreign owned social networks.
From a geek perspective this would be great.
We would get smaller entities that would need to interact with each other
in so far as that would be possible or attainable.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or they will need to be sold to every country they wish to operate in
TikTok can sell to a French, Hungarian, Indian, Brazilian or even Iraqi person and be in compliance with this bill's terms. It doesn't require American ownership, it forbids control by a foreign adversary.
If the EU and U.S. passed legislation subjecting all tech companies to these rules, the only ones who would have to do anything are those owned and controlled by a foreign adversary state.
trog 8 days ago [-]
Is it weird then that China is a "foreign adversary" that is otherwise allowed to sell the US the vast, overwhelming majority of consumer goods and participate in the economy in many other ways?
jszymborski 8 days ago [-]
There's a current trade war in which the USA is trying to "friend-shore" manufacturing and has imposed massive trade tariffs on China.
China is unambiguously a foreign adversary of the USA, as well as many/all Western democracies.
trog 8 days ago [-]
Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out?
The discussion about data and privacy seems totally disingenuous. This seems like a free speech issue being hidden being a weird angle.
A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states.
We already know US companies are impacted by both these issues. They need to be addressed at a lower level and not by cherry picking up the individual examples on grounds that are inconsistent with the rest of the state's behaviour.
dpkirchner 8 days ago [-]
> Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out?
Because it's easy and cheap. It's a way for our representatives to claim they're doing something about the threat that may be posed by the Chinese government, without actually jeopardizing the interests of our industries.
trog 8 days ago [-]
Yup. And I'm sure it's a completely unintended side effect that this massively helps US social media companies, who have been struggling to compete! Whoops!
jszymborski 7 days ago [-]
You're talking like this TikTok bill is literally the only salvo in this trade war. Just ask the Huawai folks if they think that's the case.
> A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states.
I have no love for FANNG, but there's a huge difference between a domestic companies invading privacy and possibly being soft targets for foreign adversaries, and a literal foreign adversary surveilling and shaping discourse.
So sure, if there is another bill that would curtail privacy invasion by domestic companies, I would be in huge support. But I fail to see how that stops blocking another privacy-invading app, run by a foreign adversary no less, is a bad thing.
There is this whataboutism in every comment on HN regarding the US and China that drives me nutty. A US company being bad does not cancel out a Chinese company being bad. A patchwork law is better than no law.
inetknght 8 days ago [-]
Weird? Arguably. I would argue no. That's normal capitalism.
Dangerous? I would definitely argue yes.
trog 8 days ago [-]
There are different types of danger and I'm not sure which one you're referring to - there's the general economic danger of relying too heavily on one trading partner (if China decides to put export tariff on anything to the US, for example), or literal danger, like national security stuff.
I assume you're talking about the latter because that seems to be what is talked about with TikTok. Again, it seems weird to me to decide, after however many decades of globalism and exploiting China's manufacturing prowess for cheap goods, that this is suddenly dangerous but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about it, except stifle TikTok.
Diversifying supply chains is a good idea - and the US is doing that already, though it seems to be much more in response to the first definition of "danger" than the second. Because if it was the national security aspect, we'd be seeing it happen with much more alacrity and urgency, and not some hand-wringing about TikTok.
paulddraper 8 days ago [-]
Correct. Any other country on earth, other than:
* China
* North Korea
* Iran
* Cuba
* Russia
* Venezuela
Could sell it to Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Belarus, etc.
mywittyname 8 days ago [-]
Honest question: what's stopping them from being transferred to a Belizean shell company owned by a company in Delaware with a board full of puppets who blindly do the bidding of the previous owners? Do the CxOs need to be replaced? Are Chinese senior staff members being replaced? Low level staff? What concrete changes are going to be made that will change their behavior?
I oppose this bill because it doesn't seem to do anything to address the actual threats posed by social media. After all, foreign adversaries openly operate on Facebook. Why isn't Zuckerberg being forced to divest? Either all social media is a threat, and that threat needs to be addressed, or this is all theater meant to satisfy the population without tackling the actual issues (if we are honest, the same politicians pushing for this bill benefit from social media influence) .
Marsymars 8 days ago [-]
> what's stopping them from being transferred to a Belizean shell company owned by a company in Delaware with a board full of puppets who blindly do the bidding of the previous owners?
What stops the puppets from ignoring the previous owners?
chronic639291 8 days ago [-]
> What stops the puppets from ignoring the previous owners?
A big paycheck.
Most readers on HN would happily pledge loyalty to the CCP if it meant $1M+ TC.
In fact, many American and European businesses do exactly this.
Marsymars 8 days ago [-]
> A big paycheck.
So what happens after they’ve received the big paycheque?
I think you’d have a hard time aligning the amount of the paycheques such that the puppets couldn’t get bigger expected future paycheques by doing what they wanted with tiktok.
someplaceguy 8 days ago [-]
> I think you’d have a hard time aligning the amount of the paycheques such that the puppets couldn’t get bigger expected future paycheques by doing what they wanted with tiktok.
Presumably the puppets wouldn't have access to the tiktok platform (its code including AI algorithms, data, employees, etc), they'd just be a middle-man that would take the finished product (e.g. the APK) and publish it to distribution platforms (Google and Apple's app stores)?
woooooo 8 days ago [-]
Doing business is not necessarily pledging loyalty.
You think I pledged loyalty to various employers, even? I mean I told them I did, but I was lying.
jltsiren 8 days ago [-]
When it comes to major national security interests, the spirit of the law can be more important than the letter. The law can always be changed, and the eventual outcome will often be worse after each rewrite.
Consider the sanctions against Russia, for example. Some European companies continued doing business in Russia. Everything they did was perfectly legal, and they complied with the sanctions to the letter. But because some officials considered those companies were aiding the Russian war effort, the next round of US sanctions targeted those companies specifically. Then they had to stop all business indefinitely, because no bank was willing to deal with them anymore.
itemize 7 days ago [-]
probably nothing beside more scrutiny at point of sale of the buyers
woooooo 8 days ago [-]
I was about to ask how "foreign adversary" is defined, thanks. Nice to have it official.
josu 8 days ago [-]
What about Hong Kong?
Moto7451 8 days ago [-]
That’s very much China.
paulddraper 7 days ago [-]
As of the executive order on Hong Kong Normalization [1], there is no policy distinction between Hong Kong and China.
The more interesting question is Taiwan, for which the US has taken no official position on sovereignty.
At least this vindicates the choice all the countries that consider the US an adversary and have blocked US social media. While the US has always characterised the block as the hallmark of illiberal regimes.
roody15 8 days ago [-]
Hmm not sure I agree. It can be helpful to have access to social media that contains perspectives outside of the control of the country you live in. Sure will it be slanted or even outright propaganda ? Yes but this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions. The idea that our “government” will curate content and sanctify what is true is simply dystopian.
Citizen these social media sites and these news sources are safe. We have curated this list for your safety and that of the community at large.
Geez things have gotten bad in a hurry :(
noqc 8 days ago [-]
>this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions.
This is a nice fantasy but it fails to a number of intractible social problems. Children aren't taught skepticism because parents don't want their children to be taught skepticism. You would need to use force that you do not have access to in order to even attempt the solution you are proposing.
Second, implicit in your argument is that people would be responsible for thinking critically about every fact that they believe. This is just too much work, the human strategy requires trust, and we have massive incentive structures called societies whose main job is to facilitate that trust through the establishment of systems of incentives. This complicated system of incentives has been demolished, wholesale, by social media, and we're not going to adapt fast enough to avoid serious damage.
hot_gril 8 days ago [-]
We solved this by disallowing children from voting. Kids these days eventually learn not to trust anything they read on the Internet.
kalupa 8 days ago [-]
hard to see that we "solved" this, regardless of who's allowed to vote
dgfitz 8 days ago [-]
> Children aren't taught skepticism because parents don't want their children to be taught skepticism.
Say huh? Where on earth did you pull this “factoid” from?
vundercind 8 days ago [-]
This is 100% true in a scary-large proportion of Protestant religious households. I don’t even mean the nuttier end like the Quiverfull folks or whatever, but much more common somewhat-more-religious-than-median-Protestant sorts, attending relatively normal churches.
Source: I ran which quite a few of that sort as a kid.
It could also be true of other religious groups (it definitely is with the even nuttier end of Protestants) like Catholics and Muslims or what have you, but that’s the part I have experience with, and that’s a lot of people. They don’t live in San Francisco or New York or Boston or Seattle, mostly, but they exist in numbers.
FpUser 8 days ago [-]
>" Yes but this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions."
Politicians will commit seppuku the minute it happens in their country. Independently thinking populace is their worst nightmare.
Luckily for them most people do not do that.
ajmurmann 8 days ago [-]
IMO the issue isn't that content should be censored and we shouldn't see ideas from other countries. It's perfectly fine to have an official CCP account post CCP positions anywhere. It's less fine when the CCP account claims to be Jeff from Iowa and it's even less fine when the platform is controlled by the CCP and certain topics or opinions hey amplified by the platform's algorithms. I'm not sure the latter happened, but we cannot even know and have to trust an actively hostile actor.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
Ironically, this sort of internet sovereignty is exactly what China has been preaching for years (though its so-called World Internet Conference), and of course has the most advanced state of the art implementation (aka Great Firewall) to ensure it. It likely didn't envision that this philosophy might one day come back to bite one of their own :)
lostlogin 8 days ago [-]
> Great Firewall
This is what sovereignty looks like to you? It looks like totalitarianism to me.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
I agree with you. But it's the brand of sovereignty that China has pushed for years. The more other countries adopt it and do the same, the more it validates their own totalitarian approach.
Also, you have to understand that it's never about "control" of the population or restricting freedom of speech (which, also ironically, is protected in the Chinese Constitution, yeah, really, look it up). Absolutely not. It's always about "public safety".
dgfitz 8 days ago [-]
I think that was the point being made. ;)
Nasrudith 8 days ago [-]
Sovereignty is really just a fancy word for "do whatever the hell we want" made to sound noble.
trog 8 days ago [-]
Not wrong, but arguably, the entire basis for our civilisation since the dawn of time - it's why we've had societies forming from groups of like-minded people, evolving into city states and then nation states.
flawn 8 days ago [-]
Both are more close to each other than you think. Just different semantics but speaking of the same
gleenn 8 days ago [-]
The US allows nearly everything and is now blocking one thing. China is almost exactly the opposite. They aren't the same.
gverrilla 8 days ago [-]
Regarding social media, US allows nearly everything because nearly everything is made there. Or might I say "allowed"? China is the same: they allow everybody in, as long as they play by their rules. The main difference is US being responsible for many massacres worldwide, and China being chill. Worth mentioning the incarceration data comparison aswell..
gleenn 8 days ago [-]
China's rules are so far fromthe US's that I feel like your comment is distracting from the main point. China doesn't "let everything in," they let nearly nothing in. They are extremely insular. Maybe many companies made most of the the social media sites as you mentioned but that also maybe a direct result of China's extreme grip on the allowed sites there. You can't just pop up a new social media site there without extreme scrutiny from the Chinese government. That's why there aren't that many social media platforms there.
gverrilla 8 days ago [-]
China is only smart. Third-world countries around the world should follow suit. Why allow for foreign companies that only have profit in mind without any regards to real life to operate freely? Why leave so much cash and data on the table? "Free market" and "free press" and "free speech" are only fantasies used when they are interesting.. The "american dream" is clearly only designed for americans and american companies.
gleenn 7 days ago [-]
"Leaving cash and data on the table" just indicates that you think any of this should be bought and sold. It's a social network, not a "sell people's private data network". I want to socialize online without forking over all my private data to the highest bidder. As an American, I don't think anyone associates The American Dream with data privacy. It's about having a standard notion of a desired family and house and pet and job. I think you are conflating many ideas we have. Just because all those ideas haven't been achieved or aren't implemented well in the modern tech world doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them. An authoritarian state that dictates what is allowed and hords and sells data is certainly not the answer.
gverrilla 7 days ago [-]
USA in the most authoritarian state in the world, mate. Also the most belligerent and disrespectful of sovereignty. The american dream is only a propaganda piece.
gleenn 6 days ago [-]
You can get disappeared in China, even billionaires like Jack Ma. Go talk crap about politics there and see how long you last. They harvest organs and decided to crush the Hong Kong people. The USA has many problems but very objectively speaking, the USA is far less authoritarian than China.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Huawei would like a word.
npteljes 8 days ago [-]
>Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause to protect their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation from foreign owned social networks.
Next up, we could migrate government systems away from foreign IT software and services. The FOSS world has plenty of capable offerings, and it's not as if the choices were made on technical merit in the first place. I'd love to see Free Software and open standards being taught in schools, and being used in government.
ThinkBeat 3 days ago [-]
All FOSS developers may be foreigners for a project.
Is it ok to use that then?
npteljes 3 days ago [-]
I think that's okay. I'm not opposed to foreigners at all. What I find a bit strange is that (proprietary) tech provides a backdoor to the user - I think this is something that a reasonable govt would oppose, but of course they have other things on their plates too, and they are corrupt as well.
This concern is similar to what is cited as the reason for the Huawei sanctions in the US.
Of course, it's not like FOSS magically eliminates all threat. If FOSS was commonly utilized by governments, I think we would see more "XZ Utils backdoor" type of attacks, as it were a juicier target. I firmly believe though that using FOSS would be a step in the right direction.
Yes and while we’re at it, we should simply relinquish control of these companies to the government. Perhaps any company remotely journalistic in nature. For safety of course.
randohostage 7 days ago [-]
Not necessarily I think between government controlled social media and gigantic corporations where people have no say in anything there's a middle ground where a federated reality exists I think?
vizzier 8 days ago [-]
De-facto international antitrust, I like it.
malfist 8 days ago [-]
I believe this would be de jure, not de facto.
paulddraper 8 days ago [-]
It wouldn't be explicitly anti-trust, but that would be the practical effect.
collegeburner 8 days ago [-]
No, small states do not have the same rights as large ones. You may disagree with this but I don't see any point in pretending it's untrue. Large countries have more sway and matter more to everyone, including but not limited to operators of social platforms. Losing half your userbase hurts much more than losing a hundredth. I also doubt that the U.S. would force a sale of a social app based in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
I wouldn't particularly blame Gabon or Vietnam if they wanted their primary media outlets operated by nations that are at least vaguely friendly to their values. They are free to attempt to force a sale and ban it when those apps inevitably do not comply.
b-side 7 days ago [-]
I think you are conflating "incomebase" and userbase. There are no "hard facts" on this but everyone seems to agree that the US is not even remotely close to 50% userbase for TikTok which makes sense (inverse Pigeonhole principle) if TikTok really has 1b+ active users. However, the US might be a bigger share of the "incomebase" because ads for US users are more valuable.
Tepix 7 days ago [-]
I'd argue that for european users, handing over a huge amount of data to american social networks with their lack of privacy protection is also highly problematic.
Perhaps the EU should do something similar to Facebook, X etc.?
randohostage 8 days ago [-]
would be super cool to see social media become federated :) fingers crossed for all countries in the world passing similar 20% ownership divestment requirements Meta to become Meta Brazil, Meta Egypt etc, TikTok to become TikTok Brazil, TikTok Egypt etc. Highly unlikely as this seems specifically geared towards TikTok / China / ML systems that can be trained by data generated as well countering specific content supported by the younger generation mentioned elsewhere in this thread but one can always hope :)
8 days ago [-]
nme01 8 days ago [-]
This shows that values such as “freedom of speech” are only key words used to enforce US policy in other countries. For such a long time it was advocated that free speech is an important thing and good in and on itself. Now it turns out the free speech is good only as long as it’s US who dominates the information market.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
“Now”? The US and state governments constantly try to violate free speech. Texas, Florida, and California all had major laws truck down for 1st amendment violations in the past year. And it’s been like this since the first Adams administration
thinkingtoilet 8 days ago [-]
How is this an attack on free speech? What individual is getting punished for their speech by the government? There is hardly a lack of spaces online for you to say just about anything.
Miner49er 7 days ago [-]
Free speech includes the right to receive/hear speech. TikTok contains a trove of speech that doesn't exist elsewhere. Banning it is unconstitutional, and I'm confident the courts will agree.
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
Google and Meta have limited what political content they'll show to you, feels like a pretty clear attack on something the establishment doesn't like but justifying it with the boogey man of communism: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240737627/meta-limit-politic...
thinkingtoilet 8 days ago [-]
Your response has absolutely nothing to do with the first amendment. If a private company wants to limit discussion on their platform they can. Facebook is not a right. If it's limiting the speech you don't like, leave.
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
I’ll happily agree it’s not a first amendment issue, but I think it’s a problem. A systemic analysis here reveals that, in effect, the discourse is clamped down on and censored in a way not to dissimilar in its consequences from actual government censorship. The vast majority of the population engages in discourse in spaces where some topics are made off limits, meaning they won’t be exposed to them. I do think we should be concerned about that when it has tangible negative effects.
sillysaurusx 8 days ago [-]
The most overused argument. I wonder if you’d feel the same way if every bank decided to ban you. Or every grocery store.
moshegramovsky 8 days ago [-]
If you go into a grocery store or a bank and harrass people or behave badly, you will get banned. Try getting a bank account if you have a felony for bank robbery.
There was a guy who received a lifetime ban from Safeway for driving through their garden displays and breaking windows in their stores.
The US does ban people from using banks. See also: list of specially designated nationals, etc.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
The US has banned foreign ownership of TV and radio since 1934. Are you really this naive of your own country's operations?
ipaddr 8 days ago [-]
Freedom of speech is right for an American citizen not a foreign country or entity.
Regardless free speech for Americans is already dead. Remember when they took away rights from groups you didn't care about? Now it's your turn.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
Freedom of speech is a moral ideal that exists despite the intricacies of US law.
ipaddr 8 days ago [-]
It is as much immoral as it is moral. It's a neutral idea like stopping on a red before a right turn. Some places it is deemed right and other places wrong. You might always stop even if laws forbid it or you might not stop.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
Okay. My point is someone made an argument about "freedom of speech" on moral grounds and then you cite a legal gotcha "well, legally that doesn't apply to the whole world". You're right, but the legal gotcha doesn't matter when arguing over morals (or "immorals").
dantheman 8 days ago [-]
I think it shows that politicians are short sighted and immoral - nothing new there. Freedom of speech is still incredibly valued and constantly fought for.
0xB31B1B 8 days ago [-]
If the security angle is the real issue here, how would "divestment" improve security here at all? Tiktok engineering in the US is like 90% chinese H1B holders, they speak mandarin at work broadly across the company including in work meetings to the extent that many people say you can't work there without mandarin knowledge. The codebase is massive. I don't think it is possible for any amount of auditing or reviewing to create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance. Bad actors and CCP plants can and will put in backdoors, and bytedance will have access to all of the encryption keys for the important services and databases. It just seems completely unworkable to me. I'm support the full ban, I don't think divestment makes any sense.
nine_k 7 days ago [-]
I think this is the point, and the outcome desired by the bill's proponents. There's no way to meaningfully achieve separation, so the only viable way to comply is to largely cease active operations. Maybe access to previously shared / liked content would remain, without a way to discover, access, or post new content, or register a new account.
ClumsyPilot 8 days ago [-]
> create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance
What are the code standards for American social media anyway? It’s not like Twitter has to meet any criteria on being free of Bias, they could suppress all bad news about China tomorrow and they wouldn’t be breaking any laws
I think it’s plain as day, this is simply a trade war, along with noises about China dumping cars and what not. All the stuff about security is just a cover story.
mu53 8 days ago [-]
They won't divest. The option for divestment just makes the US look less bad. They didn't ban the app. They chose to leave
mullingitover 8 days ago [-]
Nine months kicks the can down the road past the election. I doubt that's a coincidence.
mondobe 8 days ago [-]
At least we know who both sides will blame for any real or imagined election interference.
markus_zhang 8 days ago [-]
Since we are already being controversial, can we simply ban or regulate all short videos -- similar to the duration cap the Chinese government put up for gaming for people less than 18? My wife has been doom scrolling for hours every day.
At least get something good in return. Even if Tiktok decides to leave US, there are a whole lot of other short video apps that can fill in the blank.
spiderice 7 days ago [-]
Maybe your wife should be a big girl and gain some self control instead of needing the government to take it away from everyone. Just because she has a problem doesn't mean actual adults need their freedom taken away.
BLKNSLVR 8 days ago [-]
This isn't about making anything "better for society", this is about nation state power games.
That's why there's been no movement on data privacy legislation in 15+ years: because it would hobble a heavily US-centric profitable industry (with the side benefit that the data can be mined by US law enforcement and intelligence - which is directly the problem the US government has with TikTok / China)
markus_zhang 8 days ago [-]
Yeah I know that, just saying.
BLKNSLVR 8 days ago [-]
Sad innit.
squigz 7 days ago [-]
Can someone convince me that, as a Canadian, China poses a greater threat to me, my country, or global security, than the US does? Because I have a hard time buying into the "China's the big bad" narrative when America does everything they do.
mapasj 7 days ago [-]
For starters, I don’t think America will hold Canadians hostage to be used as bargaining chips, like China did with the two Michaels.
ranguna 7 days ago [-]
I wish that I had more exact knowledge and sources at hand to counter your example, but I don't. Not because they don't exist, but because at the moment the only source I can get with relative ease are these YouTube videos:
So I do apologise for not getting a list of factual examples supporting the OP's statement, but your argument was not barely enough to make me disagree with the OP. On the contrary, I do agree with the OP very much.
ThalesX 7 days ago [-]
With you on this one. As a European, I can't help but laugh at the comments in this thread. Words like 'obviously', 'clearly' when it comes to the dangers of TikTok and not a single piece of evidence. It's hilarious to see the psyopped scream psyops.
RomanAlexander 7 days ago [-]
Do you actually need reasons why a liberal society wouldn't want the largest source Americans receive news from to be run by a wildly illiberal society?
squigz 7 days ago [-]
I don't think that's what I asked about at all.
willio58 8 days ago [-]
I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash.
Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?
SeanAnderson 8 days ago [-]
Yes, the American government is comfortable with American companies having deeper access to American data than foreign adversaries.
It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.
cogman10 8 days ago [-]
Is China really a foreign adversary?
I get that we aren't best buds with china but they are also a huge trade partner with the US. Bigger than many countries which we have friendlier feelings towards.
zavertnik 8 days ago [-]
> Is China really a foreign adversary?
Yes, they are officially recognized as a foreign adversary. They're the first country listed:
WWII gave the US opportunity to dramatically expand its Pacific sphere of influence right to China's shores and borders. At that time, China was largely turned inward, modernizing and recovering. But China is no longer in that condition and openly signals that they're ready to start asserting their own influence over the region.
Further, the escalation of NATO/Russian tensions, the war in Ukraine, and resurgent Gaza conflict, have all contributed to a specific window of opportunity for China to act as these each spread US readiness thinner than at quieter times.
This has all unequivocally and openly set China as an adversary to the US until that "sphere of influence" conflict is resolved. They're not hiding it, the US is not hiding it. There's no question about this except among people who just happened not to be paying attention to what's going on in the region.
We can hope (perhaps too optimistically) for a gradual diplomatic reorganization or deescalation without hot trade or military conflict, but the whole world is preparing -- on many fronts -- for more confrontational scenarios.
xxpor 8 days ago [-]
They're actively undermining our interests all over the world. What else are they but an adversary?
Just look at the situation in the Philippines at Second Thomas Shoal. They're actively baiting the US.
pphysch 8 days ago [-]
> They're actively baiting the US.
How about we don't take the "bait" in the South CHINA Sea that is thousands of miles away from even the furthest abroad US territory (Guam)?
walthamstow 8 days ago [-]
This is quite a naive take with regard to US global hedgemony. They don't have 11 aircraft carrier groups for nothing.
pphysch 7 days ago [-]
Naivete and challenging orthodoxy are not the same thing.
xdennis 8 days ago [-]
> South CHINA Sea
Very little of the South China See is owned by China. China doesn't own it any more than Japan owns the Sea of Japan.
curt15 8 days ago [-]
What foreign ally steals terabytes of data about top-of-the-line weapons programs like the F-22 and F-35?
I can't imagine what else we would call them. Also, turnabout is fair play. You can't run a company in China without giving up ownership and abiding by a number of, often draconian, rules. This isn't a "ban", it's a "You can't be owned by China" law. Given what China requires I find that completely reasonable.
edm0nd 8 days ago [-]
Yes, China is the number one threat to the US and we've been at war with them for the past decade+, both an economic war and cyberwar.
trog 8 days ago [-]
Feels like giving them billions of dollars in trade every year and making them a critical dependency of the US economy is a weird way of being at war. Are you sure that's not just a typo for "valued trading partner"?
7 days ago [-]
troq13 7 days ago [-]
What a trip you are on. You can't be in war with the country that produces all the stuff you have in your house.
password54321 8 days ago [-]
Even the current tensions at the South China Sea alone where a war could break out is a pretty good sign that they are. In fact China is probably the biggest threat to the US but Israel will make you think it is Arabs as they continue to use the US for its own goals.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
YES
cogman10 8 days ago [-]
What sort of adversarial actions have they taken against the US?
The most recent one I can think of is responding with tariffs against the US after we put tariffs on their solar exports.
Beyond that... the Korean war I think was the last time we were any sort of direct/semi direct conflict with them. And Taiwan is the touchiest aspect we have with them.
eureka-belief 8 days ago [-]
Large scale hacking of US companies, IP theft, brinksmanship regarding issue of Taiwan (backed by real incentive to follow through) where have you been?
caeril 8 days ago [-]
> Large scale hacking of US companies
This is a solid point. What most people don't get is that despite the enormous investment the CIA, NSA, and DoD Sigint have made into their offensive security teams, most of their budget is dedicated to Friday team-building activities, Bowling Nights, and Foosball tables. The US definitely does not hack anybody.
"Everyone but FVEY are the super evil hackerz" is a childish, head-in-the-sand position to hold in the modern geopolitical climate. Everyone is hacking everyone, and China is not some sort of unique Bad Guy in this regard.
ryandvm 8 days ago [-]
Agreed, but if you're going to play whataboutism, then you surely understand that China does not allow US companies unfettered idealogical access to their populace, so why should we grant them as much?
edm0nd 8 days ago [-]
Chinese backed threat actors have basically hacked into every major Fortune 50 tech company and stolen R&D.
pphysch 8 days ago [-]
Where is the evidence that they are backed by the Chinese government?
heinternets 8 days ago [-]
There's articles all over the place about it if you look. For example:
Articles and headlines themselves do not constitute evidence. All we get from your Reuters article is an allegation from the US Government (of Iraq WMD fame), and a denial from the Chinese Government. It's hearsay not evidence. Where is the evidence?
edm0nd 8 days ago [-]
All over the place if you actually care but I somewhat doubt that.
pphysch 7 days ago [-]
If actual evidence were all over the place, you wouldn't be making this comment.
The fact is the accurately attributing expert cybercrime is extremely difficult and anyone that implies otherwise is making a fool out of you.
goliathDown 8 days ago [-]
What type of company does China keep?
Last I checked, they were pretty buddy-buddy with Russia, and North korea on an estranged leash. If we know other countries fund terrorist organizations for intent of undermining western influence, is it that big of a stretch to say China is probably doing the same thing?
You can't use 'direct conflict' as a measure in this type of game. Russia has done damning harm to american politics, but its not clear how to measure that effect.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
I mean.. are you really not aware that the US and China have an adversarial relationship? Both countries embedding spies, industrial espionage, trade wars, soft power projection, etc etc. Power is a zero-sum game.
axus 8 days ago [-]
What kind of power do you mean? The military, economic, and industrial power of China and United States have both been increasing, it doesn't look like "zero-sum".
US and China choose to act this way, but they could stop harassing each other without affecting their own power bases.
paulcole 8 days ago [-]
> Is China really a foreign adversary?
Only in election years.
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.
eureka-belief 8 days ago [-]
Apps track information of all kinds about you and it’s not hard at all to link this data to your real world identity. Even just the search and watch history would be a goldmine for any foreign (or domestic) spy program, especially if you consider what was discussed in the Snowden leaks.
“The case for harm has not been made”
Do you think the American government would say publicly “we know China is exploiting this data because that’s exactly what we do and China is even worse than us.
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
This is true for any app, and tracking people who watch stupid videos is not useful for national security.
The Snowden leaks were bad because they showed Americans spied on without warrants. This is about users who for better or worse install the app intentionally.
I'm glad you agree that the US government has not actually made the case for harm.
meepmorp 8 days ago [-]
> The Snowden leaks were bad because
The Snowden leaks were bad because they exposed a lot of 100% legal, directly part of their charter activity by the NSA, like monitoring the communications of foreign leaders and other non-US persons.
"n a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"
meepmorp 8 days ago [-]
This article is unrelated to what I was talking about; you should go back and read both what I said (specifically who I mentioned being targeted for surveillance) and the article you linked (specifically who is mentioned being targeted for surveillance).
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
Ah, you are saying they were bad because they let foreign nationals know that the NSA was doing its normal mission. But I don't think that part would surprise anyone.
janalsncm 7 days ago [-]
This bill was never about data privacy. If it was, they’d say something about data brokers and idk ban data brokers from selling Americans’ data to the Chinese.
marcofiset 8 days ago [-]
It’s a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign interests.
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.
Rastonbury 8 days ago [-]
I live in Asia and have seen pro-chinese propaganda being repeated by some people, mass influence by nation states is a real thing
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
People repeat propaganda when it appeals to them, but any marketer can tell you customers are fickle.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
Are those owned by China?
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
Why does the source matter to you?
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can establish a new global hegemony.
A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
Because the content is funny dance videos. I don't think you can get to global hegemony with that.
matsemann 8 days ago [-]
But to me it's more scary what American companies and government can do with that data towards me. China having it doesn't affect my unless I'm going there.
tracerbulletx 8 days ago [-]
Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do
Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au
phone8675309 8 days ago [-]
> Except that china never controlled media in the US
Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
That doesn't mean that China controls the media, it means the US companies that do control media care more about money than anything else. Just like most US companies do. They don't bow down to China, they only worship higher profits. If some other country paid them more money to insert Winnie the Poo into every movie than the money they make from China by inserting maps with the Nine-Dash-Line or giving a Chinese actress a cameo they'd be doing that instead.
Rastonbury 7 days ago [-]
You should look into how Chinese state linked companies buys stakes in newspapers around the world and ask yourself why they'd ever want to do such a thing. Also, the belt and road initiative or loans to African nations
terr-dav 8 days ago [-]
> so we are just... okay with that?
We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people."
What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.
seydor 8 days ago [-]
I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok
okdood64 8 days ago [-]
YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.
8 days ago [-]
Kiro 8 days ago [-]
I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto format of Instagram nowadays.
toomuchtodo 8 days ago [-]
When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.
frameset 8 days ago [-]
I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole and then putting down their novelty mallet.
afiori 8 days ago [-]
They passed a law that allows the executive to ban companies with little to no evidence, I doubt that the US government will forget about this power
falleng0d 8 days ago [-]
And they shouldn't. China has been doing that for years and it has been very bad for the western world. This is basic game theory. How about China stop being an adversary and allow US companies to settle in their country without needing a chinese owner and having its IPs stolen?
afiori 7 days ago [-]
> How about China stop being an adversary and allow US companies to settle in their country without needing a chinese owner and having its IPs stolen
AFAIK china requirements are mostly about censorship and using chinese datacenters
> China has been doing that for years
China has been doing many things I would like the US to not start doing... Let's say that the US could find better role models
toomuchtodo 8 days ago [-]
The schlep never ends, it just ebbs and flows, always in constant tension. Stay engaged and involved in the political process.
frameset 8 days ago [-]
Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.
Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent’s Perspective
Abstract: The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006–18), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation increase in a constituent’s perceived issue agreement with their representative can improve net approval
by 35 percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level, resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro studies.
Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the electorate that, although not hyperinformed and hyperrational, is one in which constituents are sufficiently
attentive that the majority can and does hold their representatives accountable for the decisions that they make
on important pieces of legislation."
Verification Materials: The materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures
and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard
Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM
dralley 8 days ago [-]
TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.
afiori 8 days ago [-]
Notifying users that a service they use is about to become illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress was afraid of.
Nasrudith 8 days ago [-]
To be cynical that sounds exactly like the "manipulation" they are most afraid of.
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP is not the manipulation Congress is afraid of? In what universe?
genrilz 8 days ago [-]
If I were a tech company who's service was about to be made illegal, I would certainly tell my users about it before I was shutdown. It would be pretty rude to suddenly cease function on them without letting them know why, and I think most users would like to know in advance of the service shutting down.
This could be interpreted as CCP manipulation, but what else did you expect them to do?
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Man you are just pushing one bad faith argument after another in this thread aren't you?
If the product wasn't something that people truly loved, would the callers have had that level of commitment to follow through?
Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd presume the answer to be NO.
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
Bad faith argument? It's not even an argument, it is a literal factual recounting of something that literally happened.
jntun 8 days ago [-]
> Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP
This is not a factual statement. It is a statement that contains something resembling a fact, however it is still just your subjective opinion.
hhjinks 8 days ago [-]
I'll relent and admit that some of the people might knowingly have acted in the interest of the CCP, because you surely cannot be saying that it is not in the CCP's interest to avoid TikTok's divestment.
Spivak 7 days ago [-]
You are displaying a level of paranoia about the Chinese government that is clearly unhealthy. When US apps are facing legislation abroad that would ban them or regulate them
in unfavorable ways they also notify their users. Take a step back and ask yourselves what the multinational company TikTok would do when facing a ban in one of its most profitable markets. Probably rally their users to oppose it.
The Chinese government
and the US government exert their influence over companies in the same way -- regulation, backdoor conversations asking them to kill/mute stories, and NSL type requests. There's not some
government propagandist sitting at a switchboard. In fact it's the "West" that goes above and beyond with an entire technical apparatus to real-time mass censor social media to "protect democracy." If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.
It is in China's interest to avoid divestment because TikTok is a successful company making China money. And now it's in their interest to avoid divestment to not get bullied by the US gov't. If TikTok had the power you and others in this thread ascribe to them they would be more successful at swaying public opinion.
afiori 7 days ago [-]
Then you agree that it does not prove your point, its just another fact like "Today is Thursday" :)
dgfitz 8 days ago [-]
It doesn't worry you that china already has that much sway over people, especially children?
No, in this case it was OVERT manipulation, not covert. The important word, however, is: manipulation.
I am so floored by comments in this thread either denying or not caring about literal brainwashing by a foreign adversary of the US.
Uhhrrr 7 days ago [-]
"literal brainwashing"
Do you really believe this?
dgfitz 7 days ago [-]
Show me another company that convinced thousands of young teens to call their representatives, about anything. [0] If your rebuttal of that is that it’s a good thing kids called their representatives, my response would be, TikTok has proven to have enough influence to get kids to call congress. Think about that for a second. A singular entity controlled by China influences thousands of children to pass along the concerns of TIKTOK THE COMPANY.
It will be "watching funny dance videos", because that is what they were calling about this time, because it's what they care about.
You might believe that the next thing will be, "let China take over the Senkaku islands", but if so, you have not been around children in several decades.
afiori 3 days ago [-]
By this logic then almost every other country should ban US social media companies.
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
So the great harm is that Congress gets called when they pass a bad bill?
thrtythreeforty 8 days ago [-]
I think the fear goes: today this is high-urgency spin about a bill which is demonstrably capable of affecting the behavior of hundreds of thousands. Tomorrow this is high-urgency spin about whatever TikTok wants, who can be more-or-less coerced to publish lots of things that would be detrimental to the US.
Uhhrrr 8 days ago [-]
This supposes that teens care about East Asian border disputes as much as they care about the funny dance app, which I find doubtful.
They learned from Musk and his "If X dies because of advertiser boycotts the world will know and they will judge". Ironically the world knew and did not care in that instance haha.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call congress to 17+.
goliathDown 8 days ago [-]
Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a difference between a media company housed in the UK or France versus China or Russia.
j2kun 8 days ago [-]
There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example, but part of the democratic process is making progress where and when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.
throw__away7391 8 days ago [-]
The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the largest source of media consumed by children (which incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have been stopped a long time ago.
People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever.
Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.
throw__away7391 8 days ago [-]
Well BBC has a division called "BBC America" which distributes their content in the US, which itself is jointly owned by AMC and anther US company called BBC Studios. I do not know anything about the details of this, but I imagine there were regulatory considerations when setting this up.
But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign influence is not a new idea and has been something people were worried about even over a century ago.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I don't think that concern is entirely unwarranted, I just don't think it's justification for censorship. If TikTok were violating US laws and refusing to comply that'd be one thing, but "Kids prefer an app made by a company in China" isn't really good enough.
It's very strange that our government doesn't care that our phones are made in China, that damn near everything for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality, covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde, yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned
micromacrofoot 8 days ago [-]
Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly supported.
yieldcrv 8 days ago [-]
yes, we’re okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans
with a ban being the fall back outcome
Brybry 8 days ago [-]
I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very specific set of criteria in the law). [1]
There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2]
Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing".
Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.
djur 7 days ago [-]
This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right.
The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.
2OEH8eoCRo0 8 days ago [-]
> I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash.
Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.
bluSCALE4 8 days ago [-]
A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?
8 days ago [-]
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
Look, I think this is potentially oversimplifying things, but imo this is just a reaction to the youth seeing pro-Palestinian positions on social media. The fervor around banning tik tok was reignited around the time that it started being more common to see such things on the app.
djur 7 days ago [-]
Congress has been working on this for 3+ years. This really started heating up after Shou Zi Chew's poorly received testimony to Congress in March 2023.
Argonaut998 7 days ago [-]
Absolutely. Trump proposed banning TikTok during his term and he was laughed at. As I said in another comment this is censorship (and Chinese style protectionism) being disguised as national security.
Even if there were efforts to ban TikTok before that time, this obviously escalated it.
yayr 8 days ago [-]
If I read the bill correctly, any entity with an at least 20% chinese ownership stake (by a person or company) falls under this law...
What are the other 2nd and 3rd order effects of this?
btown 8 days ago [-]
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/... is the relevant text of the bill presented to the President. It's restricted to companies with 1M+ MAUs that allow users to create profiles and share content, and only then if the President makes a public notice and public report to Congress of that determination for a specific company.
In theory, this could be used more broadly. Not a lawyer, but there's a reading that it would give a president the ability to unilaterally force divestiture in companies that have as little as a "choose your username for your online account" functionality. It's unlikely to affect B2B supply chains, though. Presidents have many existing tools at their disposal anyways if they want to disrupt those.
jvanderbot 8 days ago [-]
I guess I implicitly assumed that TikTok was the poster child for a more general / sweeping legislative push. Consider tech companies, startups, etc, operating under Chinese funding either directly or indirectly.
8 days ago [-]
lispisok 8 days ago [-]
Maybe I'm ignorant but can somebody explain to me how the federal government can just ban TikTok? If I create an app or business can the feds just decide to ban it and it's over?
returningfory2 8 days ago [-]
Calling it a "TikTok ban" is sort of inaccurate, but unfortunately that's how the media and politicians have referred to it. The act doesn't ban TikTok; it bans TikTok from having China-based owners (in this case the Chinese company ByteDance). The act requires the China-based owners to sell TikTok to non-China-based owners or cease operations in the US.
I'm guessing Congress justifies its authority here based on national security. The bill refers to "foreign adversary controlled applications".
henryfjordan 8 days ago [-]
Whether it's a "ban" or not gets into "ship of theseus" territory. The company as it exists is not allowed to continue existing. A new corporate structure with new owners is required or the app will be banned.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
From the point of view of users I don't think anyone cares who owns it, they would just care that the product continues to exist. In that sense if they divest it is not a ban at all.
jbverschoor 8 days ago [-]
And the whole ban originated from TikTok, hence the name
LordKeren 8 days ago [-]
Unequivocally yes. The legislature of the United States government can pass a bill to ban your business.
This is also overwhelmingly likely to go unchallenged by the court system due to the provision being passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
jncfhnb 8 days ago [-]
What would give you the impression that the government cannot ban a business?
greenish_shores 8 days ago [-]
For example, how would they address it? Govt banning services of ByteDance Inc.? They will change their name. Services of company headquartered at 11 Example Street, ExampleTown, PRC? Change their headquarters. Services using given logo? Modify the logo. Services using given brand name? Change it slightly. IP address range? Domain name? And so on.
Internet service by one company is not trivial to address in a "ban". Unlike, for example, a chemical molecule. At least they have the experience in specifying and addressing that.
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
We have a rather large amount of experience with sanctions and people trying to evade them.
I think we might be able to manage to identify a company with hundreds of millions of users trying to mask themselves by... changing their name.
It's not like we're going to firewall them off. The bill bans distribution of the app in the US app stores and US companies from offering any kind of internet hosting services related to the app.
megous 8 days ago [-]
So providing tiktok app and running from servers abroad is ok? :D Talk about causing the opposite of the law's intentions.
djur 7 days ago [-]
Yes, if TikTok wanted to provide an .apk from a non-US server that connects to non-US servers to operate, that would not be prohibited by this law. I'm sure there are hundreds, even thousands of current American TikTok users who would consider making use of this.
jncfhnb 7 days ago [-]
If thousands use it then 99.99%+ of the user base would not. Which would be totally fine in the eyes of the laws objectives
seanmcdirmid 7 days ago [-]
My wife uses Douyin in the USA on her iPhone with no proboem.
djur 6 days ago [-]
Douyin is available in the US iPhone app store?
seanmcdirmid 6 days ago [-]
I don't think so. But you can easily switch to the Chinese app store from America, you just need RMB to buy any paid apps. You can have apps installed from both stores on your phone.
stale2002 8 days ago [-]
> For example, how would they address it?
The same way that the government addresses most issues. They tell people not to do something, and if they refuse then they get fined, their assets frozen and confiscated, and eventually people are arrested.
Bytedance would have to withdraw all its assets and employees from anywhere in the west to escape the consequences.
LordKeren 8 days ago [-]
You will find that few large US companies are looking to provoke the federal government. Apple, Google, ISPs, cloud providers, etc. will all be compelled by this law.
They have to store the data somewhere and it much more likely that they will sell than engage in value killing whack-a-mole with federal agencies
jncfhnb 8 days ago [-]
Cringey coder perspective. These ideas may avoid the letter of the law. They don’t avoid the spirit of the law. You will be punished for trying such lame evasion efforts. You can’t hide hundreds of millions of users.
greenish_shores 8 days ago [-]
More like system architect's one.
sickofparadox 8 days ago [-]
Congress has extremely sweeping authority to dictate interstate and international commerce. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
"
axus 8 days ago [-]
Importantly, this was a law passed by Congress and signed by the president. A fair vote by all the representatives of a Republic should be able to do anything constitutional. And what's constitutional can also be amended by a large majority.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
The state can pass whatever legislation it wants; we've seen convincingly that constitutional restraints are not substantially motivating (although the strongest evidence for this in the current week is not this bill, but the legislation surrounding the ongoing surveillance regime(s)).
But the bigger question is the literal one you've asked: how the federal government can just ban TikTok?
What makes the government think that they can stop packets at some arbitrary line in the sand, when every indication in the history of the internet shows the opposite?
amanaplanacanal 8 days ago [-]
They aren’t going to stop packets. They are going to prevent TikTok from doing business in the US. No apps in the App Store, no ads from American companies, etc. no money from American customers.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
...but doesn't this just seem completely delusional?
They were unable to stop drug cartels. And drug cartels need a highly centralized and sophisticated organization, and need to ship a physical product across a border.
echoangle 8 days ago [-]
Just blocking them from the iOS AppStore would probably drop users by 50%, and that’s pretty easy to do.
kshacker 8 days ago [-]
So are you saying no apps can ever be banned?
Whether right or wrong, whether politically motivated or not, it has gone through the house, senate and president which is not a small thing.
yieldcrv 8 days ago [-]
They can ban foreign companies and products, they can’t do the same to Americans they would have to regulate/restrict the category of business
legohead 8 days ago [-]
They are claiming a national security threat.
AndyMcConachie 8 days ago [-]
Congress and the president can pass whatever law they want. Anyone can also challenge it in the courts, and the Supreme Court is the highest court in the USA.
mik1998 8 days ago [-]
It's a bill of attainder, which is unconstitutional in the USA. May or may not be struck down in court.
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
It's not. A bill of attainder declares a specific person guilty for past actions and punishing them - thereby denying them the right to a judicial trial.
While this bill does refer to a specific organization, it doesn't punish them for past actions, but rather constrains US companies in the future. That is perfectly ok as shown in cases like Huawei v. United States or Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. DHS. Like Kaspersky, it's "prophylactic, not punitive."
imzadi 8 days ago [-]
No it's not. China doesn't have any civil/constitutional rights in the USA.
troglodynellc 8 days ago [-]
The constitution makes no reference to citizens with regards to what congress can and cannot do. Nearly all these things are couched with "congress shall pass no law" -- the focus is restricting the behavior of congress rather than the citizenry.
This is a totally bunk argument. If you want an argument that does work against the constitution, SCOTUS' "empty shell" or Lysander Spooner's "Constitution of no authority" are of far more weight, but have more disturbing implications (e.g. You can disregard it completely; our system is precisely the "odious arbitrariness" the founders denounced).
troll_v_bridge 8 days ago [-]
I’m surprised I don’t hear many speak on the trade embargo aspects of something like TikTok. US social media is blocked from China, so from an economic policy perspective why wouldn’t the trade embargo me mutual, Tit4Tat.
I'll admit, I never really thought that social media primarily revolving around dancing teens would ever be a front in the Second Punic War... err, sorry, second cold war.
elfbargpt 8 days ago [-]
Is there any evidence that the content on TikTok isn't a result of the beliefs and interests of its users in America?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
It doesn't matter, but also that isn't the stated reasoning for the law.
8 days ago [-]
anonuser1234 8 days ago [-]
US companies are not allowed to fairly compete in China. I think that reason alone is justification.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
It's funny how many of the comments here have really no idea the level of restrictions that are on US (or European) companies who want to operate in China (not just manufacture for export).
GreedIsGood 8 days ago [-]
If the US wants to argue reciprocity then it should in a trade bill.
Requiring TikTok to sell is an overreach by the state. It will leads us on a path where companies will be strictly regional.
Not a fan.
superkuh 8 days ago [-]
>app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that enable distribution of TikTok in the US
So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?
metalcrow 8 days ago [-]
Anyone who is legally knowledgeable know how this works? The text says "It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute..a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out..internet hosting services to enable the distribution", and it specifices that this includes source code. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States specified that the publication of source code was protected by the first amendment, so the government would need a compelling reason to prevent that publication. Is there a conflict here? Is preventing the publication of an apk likely to withstand court scrutiny?
EDIT: My best guess currently is that the government is claiming there is a compelling state interest, that of national security, and that is why they should be allowed to ban the publication of this app and it's code. And even if it were to go to the court the courts don't like telling the government was is and isn't national security related, so they would probably just ok this.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law
Yes, provided you are doing it in a way "through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application" [1]. (It would be perfectly legal to go to TikTok.com, however.)
> The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated...
So the website is explicitly included in that
dfxm12 8 days ago [-]
This little blurb is not the actual law, so it's not worth considering what it means. You'll have to read the text of the law with a lawyer to see how clear it is. Even if the letter of the law leaves a little room for interpretation, think about what you would be trying to prove because I think the courts will agree that the spirit of the law is clear.
spiderfarmer 8 days ago [-]
I hope they improve their website so it won’t even need an app. And make it easier for external apps to upload content to the platform.
ipaddr 8 days ago [-]
Iphone users are out of luck.
jeswin 7 days ago [-]
The US should have the courage to do more. Order a full investigation into whether personal data was ever made available to the CCP. If data was ever shared, then there should be no payout to ByteDance.
mapasj 7 days ago [-]
This is a tech-savvy bunch in HN. I’d like to encourage my fellow hackernews users to counter this narrative that imo is being pushed by TikTok and the CCP, which is this one about data privacy. It’s a comfortable one for TikTok to attack since they can point to abuses by other tech giants. Every breath spoken or word written about personal data feeds into the CCP strategy. Instead we should be educating our peers, friends and families about the real danger from TikTok which is that it can spread propaganda. Not just influencing Americans to support pro-CCP positions. But there is a lot of negative press about the CCP that TikTok can hide or suppress. This isn’t hypothetical, it’s been happening already. I have faith young TikTok users can understand this. Congress understands this and they did the right thing (for Americans).
labrador 7 days ago [-]
More simply put: The issue is propaganda, not privacy
gigatexal 7 days ago [-]
This whole thing is so very simple.
There is a brewing (cold for now) conflict with China and the US and it just makes 1000% sense to me that TikTok not be in the US. It poses to severe a potential national security threat from it being on phones of members of the military, or Congress, to being able to subtly influence elections or shape the minds of the next generation with tweaks to the algorithm.
The algorithm for tailoring content to the user is just so very good the POTENTIAL is there for abuse that an outright ban needs to happen. (I know they’re trying to allow it to be spun but I’m more hardline here and think it just needs to be removed from the US.)
Why would the US or any power allow a social network with such a powerful algorithm to learn so much about every user when US or other social networks can’t or don’t operate in China? China censors content a la the thought police of Orwell’s 1984. Yet democracies largely allow speech to be free and accessible which is why the most popular podcast host in the world often hosts crazy people like Alex Jones and that’s okay — it’s not illegal to have insane opinions or conversations.
So China is exporting a social network that COULD be used to control, shape, etc — otherwise emit propaganda on US users, it could spy on those same users be it location data or otherwise (imagine the dirt it probably has on members of Congress) and yet US social networks don’t get to operate in China to the same extent.
The US government is under no obligation to this US voter, at least, to share some bombshell investigation because the potential is there and it shouldn’t be.
This is not different than removing ZTE and Huwawei hardware and software from sensitive US networks and such. In the event of a conflict do we really want companies who have members of the CCP in their upper mgmt or who are otherwise expected to do as told to be in sensitive areas like military or power generation or telecommunications? Of course not.
otabdeveloper4 7 days ago [-]
Does the US have a legal definition of what exactly constitutes "personal data"?
silenced_trope 7 days ago [-]
They have to divest in 9 months, in other words, Biden is potentially kicking the decision to Trump, who is now against a TikTok ban.
Why such a long timeline? It leaves open the door for Trump getting into office and immediately rolling it back such that they don't have to.
ein0p 8 days ago [-]
Reciprocity is a thing. I’m sure it won’t be difficult to suggest that certain US businesses operating in China “need to have Chinese owners” too. So I predict this will badly backfire.
But on the whole I’m in favor of any and all laws undermining the mind cancer that is “social media”, irrespective of who controls it, worldwide.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
They already do, for the most part, require a JV that is majority owned by Chinese. That has been around for a long time. (This is if you as a foreign business are operating locally and selling to Chinese consumers. If you're just doing your manufacturing in China and exporting abroad, you're in a different category.)
Plus, foreign social media are blocked altogether unless they submit to Chinese government censorship.
So there's not much that can backfire.
ein0p 8 days ago [-]
>> So there's not much that can backfire
Why does this sound like “famous last words”?
warbaker 8 days ago [-]
Forcing the sale of TikTok _is_ reciprocity. Facebook, Google, etc. are already banned in China. This is the CCP's policies backfiring.
ein0p 8 days ago [-]
I mean reciprocity not just on the de-facto government propaganda outlets like US-controlled social media and search engines, but on the more tangible things related to all sorts of manufacturing and access to the vast and still growing Chinese markets.
beambot 8 days ago [-]
This action is reciprocity. X, YouTube, Facebook, New York Times & hundreds of others are already blocked in China...
Given the recent law in the US to give the NSA full access to user data without court order, forcing Tiktok to be owned by a US company makes more sense.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
it doesn't have to be owned by a US company; it just can't be owned by a Chinese company (or another country deemed adversarial to the US).
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
It does not force US ownership. Read the bill.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
You're right, it's "US ownership or get banned".
Not just tiktok either, this will wind up applying to many companies.
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
> US ownership or get banned
Wrong. Read it again very carefully.
jtriangle 8 days ago [-]
I've read the complete bill at every stage of it's development.
It places substantial fines on American companies who provide services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.
So sure, it's not "banned', it's just that they're made completely inaccessible to US users because nobody is going to be ok with paying substantial fines in order to allow it on their networks/servers/app stores.
You do realize that, in english, we often use shortcuts to refer to things right? If something is "effectively" a ban, we just call it a ban and move on, because our language provides many, many facilities to improve efficiency. You being pedantic is, remarkably, unpleasant, and speaks poorly of your overall level of social adjustment, specifically because you are using the very language you speak incorrectly as you do so.
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
You said it required US ownership. It does not, it requires ownership by a non-foreign-adversary, which is every country in the world except 6. I’m being pedantic because the law is pedantic, and I am tired of people catastrophizing over a law they have not understood and that is similar to laws that have been in place for almost a hundred years (radio/tv stations, airlines).
I find it hard to believe you actually read the bill multiple times when you misstate a key aspect of it.
ok123456 8 days ago [-]
I won't stop using it.
jjordan 8 days ago [-]
You won't have to, but if an actual ban went through, and an iPhone is your only means of connection, you would be truly SOL, because Apple's captured ecosystem only allows users to run what Apple will permit.
We need open ecosystems and access to full root-level control of our devices by default. Accept no substitutes.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Correct me if I am wrong but this only limits people who already haven't downloaded the app yet? People who already have the app wouldn't just have it forcibly uninstalled from their phone right? I have had apps that didn't make it to the 32 -> 64 bit transition stay on my phone when my apps get transferred from phone to phone.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
I guess you better hope you never have to upgrade then
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Like I said in my example, Apple carries over apps through the cloud from phone to phone when you migrate. This is different from allowing it to be visible in the store.
dantheman 8 days ago [-]
Don't use an iphone if you don't like it, don't use tiktok if you don't like it. It's really very simple, the government has no role in either case.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> if an actual ban went through, and an iPhone is your only means of connection, you would be truly SOL
No, you'd just go to the website.
ipaddr 8 days ago [-]
Tiktok website is limited. You can't even change your display name.
wyldfire 8 days ago [-]
They wouldn't necessarily have to keep it that way.
8 days ago [-]
itemize 7 days ago [-]
not SOL, but you have to jump through one hoop -- you can download apps from other regional store if you make an alternative account.
troq13 7 days ago [-]
If the creators can't make money they will stop using it.
LeroyRaz 7 days ago [-]
I support this move. It seems pretty naive to me for people to whine about this ban curbing free speech or fairness when TikTok can directly be used by a belligerent superpower (China) to undermine those values.
bl4ckneon 7 days ago [-]
Do we have proof of that though. Other than "China bad" and the parent company being partially owned by China. It's really banning it on a hypothetical and TikTok doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are many other platforms and I would argue that X does more censorship than TikTok does.
LeroyRaz 7 days ago [-]
Yeah, I think there is lots evidence that social media companies use their platform to support favourable narratives. X is one example.
X spinning a pro X narrative is problematic, just as it is bad Facebook hid their problem with teenage mental health, etc... all these types of things are problematic and can often harm people and society.
The reason TikTok is a greater concern is that TikTok is fully controlled by China, and that hence it is not just pro TikTok narratives that might be amplified but any narrative China wants to amplify. The risks are greater, and the existing mitigations are weaker as the company isn't US owned.
If you ask me, the US in recent history has had incredibly anemic corporate regulation, and there should be a lot more intervention to prevent companies acting nefariously.
janalsncm 7 days ago [-]
Just to be clear, your position is that it could be used by China, not that it is being used? I agree with this position.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
And that's sufficiently concerning to nip this in the bud now. It is either happening or could be made to happen with ease and neither of those are good outcomes.
mjfl 8 days ago [-]
The problem with the logic, that a geopolitical adversary shouldn't control a social media company, is that our domestic political system has, as of late, acted quite adversarial to its own population. For that reason, it's not clear to me if China is really a foreign enemy, or an enemy of an enemy. For now, I and many of the younger generation clearly consider it to be the latter, and I will resist all efforts of the current regime to suppress it, until all members of the current regime are swept from power.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
You can vote out your own representatives, you cannot do the same for China. If this isn't an obvious distinction to you, maybe consider why.
mjfl 7 days ago [-]
not if both candidates are captured.
GardenLetter27 8 days ago [-]
They have a year though, and this will certainly go to the Supreme Court.
superkuh 8 days ago [-]
>app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that enable distribution of TikTok in the US
So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?
THENATHE 8 days ago [-]
Yes. Hosting it for personal use would not be a crime, but distributing it would be. Additionally, even if people were to get it from you without you getting in trouble, they would all have to use a VPN to even begin to see anything, which is past the capabilities of most of the populace currently, which would make hosting it and distributing it via sneakerware basically useless.
ddp26 8 days ago [-]
I looked into this, and here's what I think will happen [copied from another thread where I posted this]:
- ByteDance will challenge the ruling in court (>95%), but they will lose (80%)
- They then will succeed in selling TikTok US to a US company, despite what ByteDance execs and China are saying (75%)
- The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X.
- Walmart and Oracle won’t compete to buy it this time. Microsoft or Amazon are the top contenders, also quite likely is a consortium led by someone like Steven Mnuchin.
This is like the most plebeian take on this topic. This is what one would believe if they took mainstream discourse (press statements and all) at face value without assessing it critically.
josu 8 days ago [-]
>The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X.
Why replicate it? Can't ByteDance license the IP to the US company?
djur 7 days ago [-]
The law doesn't technically prohibit this, but the President has to sign off before the app becomes un-banned, and the law does specifically call out "any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm" as the type of thing that the executive might take into account. So just renting a black-box recommender from ByteDance would likely be a no go.
ddp26 8 days ago [-]
Maybe. Steve Mnuchin said he wants to partner with an AI company to replicate it. The CCP might prevent ByteDance from licensing it?
nashashmi 8 days ago [-]
it will have to be bought by a US company. The US company will have to be connected to the govt. The gears are already turning to make sure it happens just like they planned. Why else is Steve interested??
up2isomorphism 7 days ago [-]
US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP. This shows how incompetent and how bad current US leadership is in term of understanding what makes US to a the most powerful country in the first place.
chipdart 7 days ago [-]
> US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP.
I think this is the absolute best way to address this. It forces people to realize and acknowledge that even China's CCP is well aware that companies like TikTok are a major security threat which justifies this type of action.
I wonder why we have anonymous accounts spreading this nonsense that this is a mere trade issue, as if the problem is a company that generates well below $5B in revenue, and not the data harvesting operation and propaganda arm that it is designed to be.
jquery 8 days ago [-]
I don't use TikTok, but I strongly disapprove of this. Feels like we've stooped to China's level when it comes to free speech? All this has done is validate them banning Google and Facebook.
What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security concerns, but this feels like total overkill.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
This is either a bullshit argument or a wildly uninformed opinion. We've been banning foreign ownership of TV and radio in the US since 1934. How is this any different?
hnpolicestate 7 days ago [-]
This isn't accurate. The government has never banned Americans from watching a foreign television show or listening to a foreign radio broadcast. Please don't distort history.
They already banned Facebook and Google. We should reciprocate everything they do to us.
latentcall 8 days ago [-]
Why?
xdennis 8 days ago [-]
Because you can't have good relations with someone when they profit off of you but don't allow you to.
If your neighbor kept borrowing cups of sugar from you, but never lends you any sugar, would you keep giving him sugar?
gembeMx 7 days ago [-]
Yes, it’s what Christ requires of us
pkphilip 7 days ago [-]
This whole subject of blocking Tiktok raises the question as to why companies such as Bytedance aren't punished as malicious actors when the data being captured by them is clearly meant for malicious use.
We really should have a way of judging if any data being captured by an app is in good faith or if it is being done in a clearly fraudulent or malicious manner and then punish or shutdown the malicious operators. Tiktok has been proven to be manipulative and also as an arm of the CCP.
However, what about other apps which seem to capture data that makes no sense to them?
For example, if your note taking app is secretly uploading data from your contact list - that should be clearly seen as malicious in comparison to say your e-commerce app storing details about your purchase history made on that app to determine what may be going on with you.
Even the second part is a bit shady but at least you can make a case that it may be just a way to sell more things.
But many apps capture data that cannot make any business sense to the company behind that app other than being something quite malicious - like for example:
- Uber secretly recording your screen on iphone EVEN WHILE the app was NOT EVEN BEING USED using API which Apple conveniently did not disclose to anyone else other than Uber and perhaps other shady operators!
- Chrome caught secretly sending audio transcripts back to the Google servers. Why would a browser need to send audio transcripts by secretly tapping into the microphone?
- Nest using microphones which were only revealed much later. Why would a smoke alarm need audio?
- Why do apps like Whatsapp - even in the web version, secretly take the data from the clipboard (copy buffer)? Why would an app need the data in the clipboard before it is even pasted into it?
Any company capturing or using such data should be required to provide evidence that this data was captured for a legitimate reason - and be punished if they are not able to provide this data with the principals of the company being treated like organized crime operators. Anything else is just pointless.
resters 8 days ago [-]
There is absolutely no justification for the US copying CCP policies. This is an embarrassing day for the US.
Tiktok has been the only place to see videos about police brutality and one of the main places to see the movement supporting the Palestinian cause.
I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.
chaostheory 8 days ago [-]
It’s a trade war, or a counter to propaganda from a hostile foreign nation. If social media can’t operate in China, why should we allow CCP owned and operated social media companies operate in the US?
resters 8 days ago [-]
You are arguing that we should mimic all CCP policies that impact US firms just because of tit-for-tat.
chaostheory 8 days ago [-]
Yeah, that’s how international politics work. Otherwise, what incentive does the CCP have for changing its policies? We’ve been rewarding a bad actor for decades, and it hasn’t worked to change their behavior for the better. In fact, it’s just emboldened them to act in bad faith.
resters 7 days ago [-]
There was no national security justification given for confiscating TikTok. There is no US national interest-driven reason for doing so. TikTok happens to be beating Meta, Netflix, etc., and so the US government is stepping in to steal it.
I'd rather have the US foster innovation and let the best company win. TikTok is more entertaining and is growing because it has better/smarter feed algorithms and content creation tools, plan and simple.
Meta was an early innovator in this area but has stagnated due to revenue pressures leading to the over-promotion of low quality content. Netflix has failed to adapt.
chaostheory 7 days ago [-]
Yeah, my first comment already mentioned that it’s a trade war. It’s fair since our social media companies have been unable to operate in China’s domestic market for decades. It’s still banned. It’s that simple.
Also Tiktok is directly owned by the CCP. It’s barely a private company, so national security concerns are justified.
resters 7 days ago [-]
Economists have debunked the idea that retaliatory trade restrictions are beneficial. Not sure where you are getting your information.
As you may recall from the Snowden revelations, the US government has high bandwidth data intercept stations installed at major datacenters that are expressly for the purpose of ingesting massive amounts of data. There is no need for "ownership" when this level of cooperation with government exists.
chaostheory 6 days ago [-]
This is about politics and just like politics, economics isn’t a science. In fact, it’s closer to being yet another social study just like politics.
> As you may recall from the Snowden revelations,
That’s a non sequitur, and it doesn’t change the fact that TikTok is owned and operated by a hostile foreign government.
resters 6 days ago [-]
> economics isn’t a science.
Perhaps, but this is simply logic: Country A imposes tariffs that harm consumers and producers in country A and country B. That is the case before retaliatory tariffs. Once country B imposes its own, now the producers and consumers in both countries have yet more tariffs to deal with.
The leap of logic that is hard for people to grasp is that countries have producers and consumers and many that occupy both roles. A friend of mine had his 3D printing business fail after US retaliatory trade restrictions prvented him from importing 5% of parts for his printers that are mainly available from China. Meanwhile competitors in the US resold 100% China-manufactured printers and still beat him in price in spite of the tariffs. Such an embarrassing example of policy having effects far different from its intentions.
> That’s a non sequitur...
Governments can get control of companies in consequential (privacy, etc.) ways by a variety of means, and it happens everywhere. The Snowden revelations are highly relevant only because you make the claim that the paper ownership or other irrelevant nuance of how China has control over Chinese companies is somehow relevant. It absolutely is not since the end result is exactly the same.
There are many, many accounts of government using soft power to influence American firms to behave in ways that do the bidding of the state,... it is precisely analogous to what China would do with its own firms, regardless of the details.
anon373839 8 days ago [-]
> I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.
You’re ashamed that TikTok can continue to operate here so long as it’s divested of CCP control?
resters 8 days ago [-]
The relationship between TikTok and the CCP is no different than the relationship between Google/Meta/Microsoft and the US Government.
anon373839 5 days ago [-]
Assuming that's true, relevance?
mjfl 8 days ago [-]
> one of the main places to see the movement supporting the Palestinian cause.
hmmm....
resters 8 days ago [-]
It reveals the extent of suppression of those ideas on other platforms, nothing more.
I don't think there is anything scary/bad about Americans seeing content that humanizes people who have been dehumanized by the US media for as long as I can remember.
commie 8 days ago [-]
[flagged]
hnpolicestate 8 days ago [-]
[flagged]
Tiktaalik 8 days ago [-]
Not entirely sure what evil thing the CCP is doing with the TikTok data that I like cat videos.
electriclizard 8 days ago [-]
What are the logistics for this? Does ByteDance clone their repo and make America the owner?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
Companies have divested in the past. You could look up some previous cases.
nunez 8 days ago [-]
Does this mean that Cheetah Mobile apps are also going to be purged from US app stores? That would be a huge net benefit if so.
What does this mean for the INSANE number of Chinese-owned IoT companies that sell products in the US that store some data in China?
jauntywundrkind 8 days ago [-]
I wonder how effective being banned would really be at slowing down usage?
Across various threads there's a lot of info on how large & what a revenue source the US is for TikTok, and an assumption that that goes away. But do people think the ban would be 100% effective, that no one would workaround? Would TikTok accept the ban or try to help people work around it?
I kind of want to see an example of the US trying to control things at out. It's probably not enough for ByteDance, but if they could retain 20% of the US in spite of the ban, that'd be a pretty big cultural victory, would be an impressive way to show up congress.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
It is finally time for the Year of Linux on Mobile? Probably not lol but maybe this will push people to learn how to sideload or "tiktok install services" might crop up to do so. Maybe this might force Apple to open up iOS also if enough users go to sideloaded Android to get their tiktok fix.
Correct me if I am wrong but Didn't Epic also get removed from the Android and Apple stores? They are still going somehow though.
themagician 8 days ago [-]
Honestly, the loon who lit himself on fire the other day might have been onto something. The bill that the President just signed seems like an attempt to alienate at least 50% of voters under 30. It almost feels like the current administration is trying to give people a reason to vote for the other guy.
hall0ween 8 days ago [-]
I interpreted it differently. That Biden was putting national interests ahead of reelection interests. That said, I should caveat that I tend not to read US based news cause it’s a cesspool of outrage based clickbait.
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
I think Biden continually torpedoes his appeal to the youth because he thinks there’s no need to appeal to leftist votes when the opponent is Trump.
dareal 7 days ago [-]
It's so ironic that in the future, some Americans may use a VPN to log onto TikTok to practice their right to freedom of expression, while all the local social medias will ban them, lol.
djur 7 days ago [-]
The law doesn't require or permit blocking access to Chinese servers, and virtually no current TikTok users are going to use VPNs to access it.
ojbyrne 7 days ago [-]
One thing that confuses me about all this is that ByteDance has significant US ownership. Is this just a way for Jeff Yass-led hedge funds to get a cheap price on the rest of ByteDance?
hankchinaski 8 days ago [-]
Insiders at TikTok say US is a relatively small market for them and they would not mind pulling out of the market. This is the most likely scenario than an outright sale to US entities
zhengiszen 7 days ago [-]
Tiktok is banned indirectly because of the Gaza war and and its coverage by American youth. It is too free and is one of the last medium that show the reality on the ground and thus must be shut, banned to smithereens. Next step like Israelis have done is to shut Al Jazeera from the US. The same had been done in Europe against Russian media...
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then ..."
lovegrenoble 8 days ago [-]
When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...
morpheuskafka 7 days ago [-]
If I understood the law correctly, it bans providing US-based hosting or distribution services to TikTok, but doesn’t require ISPs to ban traffic to it (which is not always straightforward to do anyway).
Could TikTok just revert to fully Chinese hosting (or more likely a third country) and operate as a totally foreign company? You can already access many Chinese sites like Baidu Maps or Zhihu or Xiaohongshu from the US.
dirtybirdnj 8 days ago [-]
If your not banning tiktok for it's ownership opacity... ban it for destroying attention span and training people into being mindless content consumption robots.
We regulate cigarettes and heroin this is a much bigger problem than people give it credit for.
It's an even worse problem if a bad actor is using it subtlety to influence a population.
It doesn't matter if ByteDance or FB are doing this they should both burn to the ground for the damage they have done to the Internet and society.
nonethewiser 8 days ago [-]
Can someone explain why the previous "ban" was blocked but this wasnt? As I recall TikTok filed for an injunction and they argued it was unconstitutional (violated the 5th ammendment) and the injunction was granted. Then Biden rescinded the executive order and it ended there.
timerol 8 days ago [-]
As I understand it, the unconstitutionality of the initial executive order was based on the balance of power in the US government. Doing this kind of thing by executive order is not allowed. Doing this kind of thing by passing a law through Congress is allowed. The Constitution gives a lot of power to the legislature, especially given the interpretations of the Commerce Clause over the history of the US.
nonethewiser 2 days ago [-]
That would make sense if the initial reasoning wasn't that it violated the constitution. Neither executive orders nor laws can violate the constitution.
plnii 5 days ago [-]
I’m for this. China cannot be trusted to let TikTok simply be a business running an app. This can and will be weaponized against the US whenever it benefits China. Which is to say likely right now.
EasyMark 8 days ago [-]
I wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there? Away from NSA/SS/FBI scanning and FISA courts. That would seem to be the best of all worlds for ByteDance if they could make it hard to audit the potential company and if the court challenge fails to have the whole thing dismissed as unconstitutional.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there?
It only counts if "the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary" [1].
So presumably if a pair of Hungarian millionaires show up and place a bid, there would be additional questions.
So this is almost certainly to ensure it lands in the hands of pro-Israeli censors.
JumpCrisscross 7 days ago [-]
> this is almost certainly to ensure it lands in the hands of pro-Israeli censors
No. Whomever is elected executive.
vyrotek 8 days ago [-]
@dang, Am I imagining things or did something unusual happen with the ranking of this submission? Shot up and then dropped despite votes and comments.
sethammons 8 days ago [-]
He has previously said that there is governing logic in place to put the breaks on rapidly progressing stories to act as a dampener on potential contentious posts
kevingadd 8 days ago [-]
Threads with comment counts vastly exceeding their upvote count historically get suppressed, it's an anti-flamewar mechanism. Not sure if it's still in effect, but it would have applied here based on the # of upvotes.
phone8675309 8 days ago [-]
You'd have to know how many people have downvoted this to know that for certain.
codelord 7 days ago [-]
If you are on TikTok and you don't think CCP has all your personal data TikTok has collected from you, I have a bridge to sell you.
nimih 7 days ago [-]
I think this is a pretty commonly held belief at this point in time, and I'd be somewhat surprised if you could change even a single American TikTok user's behavior by convincing them of it, since, anecdotally, people seem to lump it in with their general feeling that tech and advertising companies already harvest and share vast amounts of personal information, and conclude that protecting that information is a lost cause, and they may as well use the fun app.
b-side 7 days ago [-]
Unlike Facebook which would never collect any data?
root_axis 7 days ago [-]
Why is that a problem?
wordsinaline 7 days ago [-]
Well speaking for myself I'd generally like to keep my data away from nefarious communist regimes.
waihtis 7 days ago [-]
here to express my support for you before the neocommunists come piling in on you
wordsinaline 7 days ago [-]
Are there seriously neo-communists on YC? I can understand reddit, but here?
waihtis 7 days ago [-]
Yes. It's paradoxical, but apparent if you engage in any kind of political discourse over here.
Nerds have always had some of the worst political stances, not because they're dumb but because they bend in face of the slightest pressure of losing social capital - in the current climate, this usually means submitting to the most psychotic leftist interpretation that is physically proximate to them.
Explains the politics of places like SF quite well.
andy99 8 days ago [-]
I'm very late to this - how do you ban something on the internet? Can't they just keep operating and people will learn how to sideload the app or use a VPN to get it or whatever they need to do? Presumably it will mean some friction but couldn't the company just call the bluff?
callalex 8 days ago [-]
There’s a lot of nuance to the answer, but the easy way to understand is:
They don’t host videos for fun, they host videos so you will watch ads. If they can’t sell ads for US$ then they won’t host videos either.
tijtij 8 days ago [-]
How does China ban Facebook?
Rhetoric aside, it will be done through blocking commercial activity on US soil. The US government can seize tiktok.com for example.
troq13 7 days ago [-]
Creators can't get paid, advertisers can't advertise, the whole ecosystem dies. Sure you can still access the app with a VPN but that's just 4chan with extra steps.
djur 7 days ago [-]
The value proposition for TikTok for the vast majority of existing users is that it provides a zero-friction source of Content. Maybe 5% of them have even heard the term "sideload" and most of those wouldn't bother. A VPN will not matter because TikTok is not being blocked at the network level.
crindy 8 days ago [-]
I believe this will legally mandate that Google and Apple remove the app from their app stores. It will still be available online.
system2 8 days ago [-]
Who do you think controls VPN? Do you still trust VPNs?
troq13 7 days ago [-]
Unclear what your conspiracy is, it is a fact you can get around a government ban with a VPN. It just doesn't solve the problem at hand.
system2 7 days ago [-]
You realize they can also ban VPN IPs right?
troq13 6 days ago [-]
My point is they don't even need to do that. If people cant get paid there is no ecosystem of content. Plus why would TikTok themselves care about this after they leave the American market.
hnpolicestate 8 days ago [-]
This is the 3rd time I'm trying to share a perspective that keeps getting flagged.
Bytedance does not have to divest because it's against the law for the U.S government to prevent Americans from reading, viewing or saying what they want. Will be struck down by SCOTUS.
Does this comply with HN's site guidelines?
JoshuaJB 8 days ago [-]
This law does not prevent Americans from reading, viewing, or saying anything. You will still be free to visit TikTok's web client and do that. This prevents US companies from doing business with the company (eg. ads, app distribution, etc).
cheriot 8 days ago [-]
TikTok isn't going away. It's changing owners.
There's existing laws about the citizenship of property owners (broadcase media for example).
anon373839 8 days ago [-]
I don’t know why you’re being flagged, but your constitutional analysis is wrong.
lr4444lr 8 days ago [-]
I think you're getting downvoted, because the right of congress to manage affairs interstate and foreign commerce has nothing to do with the content Americans read. The objection is ownership/controlling interest, and any SCOTUS ruling will have to speak to that, not first amendment issues.
hnpolicestate 8 days ago [-]
I appreciate the feedback but I disagree. The law would prevent Google and Apple from hosting the TikTok APK on their app stores if the company refuses to divest, yes? I don't think it's legal for the government to tell Google or Apple what apps they can host.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
It is absolutely legal. You are simply under-educated in this area. Read up and try again.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
It seems to me that the most likely outcome is that some money will opaquely change hands and that TikTok will remain available, either because of a shell game divestiture or because of a policy change. There's just too much money at stake.
But even if that doesn't happen, and the US state starts to regard TikTok as banned, what makes anyone think people will stop using it?
Many western resources are banned in China, and it seems that the primary effect of this is simply the proliferation of tools to subvert the ban.
One thing I don't understand, at a high level: how, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, can anyone believe that the internet will shape itself around the whims of legacy states on anything but very short timescales?
There is no case of successful censorship of this nature, let alone with such a large and popular resource. Conversely, there are many, many cases of failed attempts at censorship, even by the largest and most powerful states and corporations in the world.
Is there some reason to believe that this trend will very suddenly reverse?
THENATHE 8 days ago [-]
The thing about China banning stuff is that it is sponsored by the whole government, so every ISP in China is forced to comply with the ban. In the US, unless all of the ISPs are forced to ban tiktok at a network level, the ban will essentially be on new downloads I'm sure.
If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling boil kind of thing.
If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see big statements all the time about how people slightly younger than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are going to see the total death of the platform because most people don't really know how to do anything technical on a phone or computer anymore.
Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift will be just to a different platform rather than a different societal state of mind.
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
Keep in mind the politicians who pushed this stuff are so old they still think in terms of physical assets and not digital. By banning something they think its like blocking a ship entering port. We will have to see how things play out but if ByteDance moves faster to circumvent rules than the government can update the rules they might be able to establish a consistent loyal foothold no matter whatever the government will do.
duxup 8 days ago [-]
I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.
bink 8 days ago [-]
I should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China. This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market and even force a sale of a foreign company to an American company. That's the type of action taken by Russia and China that is rightfully condemned.
I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-monopoly legislation that removes the danger rather than playing whack-a-mole with whatever company has attracted the most attention at the time.
qp11 8 days ago [-]
The US is a weird ass country cause everything has been privatized. The banks, insurance, energy, water, food, health, telcos, the railways etc etc
Very few countries across the world do that. Govts usually own a chunk of the largest firms in strategic sectors and have seats on the board. Look at Boeing/Airbus ownership and the outcomes. Its just easier to influence large corps when you own them. If you don't own them then Boeing is the latest example in a long line up of large corps, showing everyone how they skirt whatever law and regulation the govt passes.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China
We do. TikTok.com won't be blocked here the way Facebook and Google are in China.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
If TikTok tells users "our app is being banned, so just use the website instead", I predict America will move towards a national firewall.
Let's see, it will be interesting to look back on these comments in a decade.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> If TikTok tells users "our app is being banned, so just use the website instead", I predict America will move towards a national firewall
Sure, yes, it can always get worse. The point is it isn't, and we're nowhere close to false comparisons with the CCP.
duxup 8 days ago [-]
No my reasoning would simply be applying the same rules that China applies to US companies for social media.
Good for the goose…
deciplex 8 days ago [-]
> This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market
No it wouldn't, as that precedent is already set. And, not only do they choose winners, but individual members of Congress freely profit off those choices.
LordKeren 8 days ago [-]
The forced sale of Grindr already demonstrated this precedent
bink 8 days ago [-]
As I recall Grindr was sold to a Chinese company without going through a legally required review process. That's a bit different than a Chinese company providing their own service in the US.
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
Just because some other country suppresses what content their citizens see doesn't mean we should too.
I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.
falleng0d 8 days ago [-]
This is not about suppressing content. ByteDance will be able to sell the company and even profit from it.
danieltanfh95 8 days ago [-]
They wont be able to, because their main product, the AI model and algorithms, are trained on Chinese citizen data, thus marking it as non-exportable. This is already well known, which is why the bill states to divest instead of outright ban just to play pedantry. Tiktok has announced that they will take it up to the courts and leave the US in the meantime.
duxup 8 days ago [-]
My basis is simply a tit for tat trade situation. Roughly the same situation for Chinese social media companies as they would apply to American in China.
Content is really unrelated.
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
I think from a trade perspective that makes a lot more sense.
It's possible for something to be providing valuable news and perspective and also be controlled/manipulated by an adversary. Sorta like a broken clock being right twice a day.
duxup 8 days ago [-]
Yeah I don't think those reps would like much of the internet if they ventured outside wherever they usually go. But they're also your typical bombastic / silly statements where they're throwing anything at public that sticks.
AbstractH24 8 days ago [-]
What does this mean for their US employees, their job security, and even office morale?
troq13 7 days ago [-]
What will happen to the creators that make a living on TikTok...
AbstractH24 6 days ago [-]
Honestly, less concerned about them.
They’ll move to whatever platform users move to
dluan 8 days ago [-]
ultimately, china operates on an entirely separate internet that the NSA can't get access to without having to be explicit about it in some very public way. when reddit removed their warrant canary, it was seen as just a cost of doing business an american social media platform. the US can't do full take even with a company based in singapore. the mask comes off when all the senate testimony yesterday focused on 'national security' and it comes wrapped in defense spending for ukraine and taiwan.
barryrandall 8 days ago [-]
What improvements should Americans expect to see in the next 6-12 months?
gretch 8 days ago [-]
Probably exactly zero given that's the basic clock for divestiture to even happen
> The company has an initial nine months to sort out a deal, though the president could extend that another three months if he sees progress.
But I do hope to see improvements in the next 5 years. I'd like to see less trends around destructive behavior: eating tide pods, destroying/defacing property, harassing others.
The algorithm should not be unbiased. We must take manual intervention to hinder the destructive tendencies in human behavior
8 days ago [-]
cwyers 8 days ago [-]
I feel like if TikTok didn't want this to happen, they should have not had their CEO commit perjury in front of Congress.
Are we reading the same articles? The Forbes story is just suggesting that there's a possible interpretation of their statements as lying and your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm -- and of course they do, for the same reason the US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off. There's no actual evidence of anything.
Like I'm ready to get out the pitchforks but this is just weird FUD.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Forbes story is just suggesting that maybe they lied
Yes, lying under oath is called perjury.
> your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm
Say a foreign country were considering banning Lockheed Martin. And the U.S. ambassador picked up the phone--not to fellow diplomats, but individual legislators--to argue against it. Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
> US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off
It's been happening in Russia for the past two years. The cases where it rises to diplomatic incident are not strongly correlated with value as much as strategic worth.
zztop44 7 days ago [-]
> Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
Ambassadors and diplomatic missions routinely intervene (including contacting legislators) to protect the perceived economic interests of their country’s large corporations and strategic industries.
I’m absolutely certain that if an important market for an important firm (eg: Lockheed) were to threaten to stop buying, top State Department staff would absolutely “pick up the phone” to legislators at a bare minimum.
Spivak 8 days ago [-]
> rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play
You mean the exact thing that happened with Facebook during the transatlantic data sharing agreement dispute because of the CLOUD act? Do you assume it's because the US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda? Even worse it was because Facebook said it was technically impossible for them to not store some data on EU citizens in the US.
> It's been happening in Russia for the past two years
Yes, because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia. It's not at all the same thing when we chose to force our own businesses to pull out or sell. Do we not remember the time when Github (along with every other company) couldn't do business in Iran?
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Do you assume it's because the US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda?
No, but there absolutely were IC concerns, as well as trade-integration ones between allies. Non-economic, politically-relevant factors. In that case, not necessarily all adversarial.
> because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia
We sanctioned certain Russian entities. Russia responded by seizing American and European assets. There were no U.S. sanctions on e.g. Danish beer made in Russia [1].
I thought the punishment for Congressional perjury was a lucrative think tank sinecure, America's really changed lately.
8 days ago [-]
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
Who hasn't lied to Congress at this point? Facebook did it, Amazon did it, the oil industry did it, Betsy DeVos did it, the director of the CIA did it, EPA Chief Scott Pruitt did it, Big Tobacco did it. How many of them faced any real consequences?
8 days ago [-]
skilled 8 days ago [-]
I think the biggest effect of this is going to be that a lot of creators are about to lose a lot of money that they were generating from sponsorships: whether above or below the table.
But most will slowly migrate to other platforms due to uncertainty (users and advertisers), though it remains to be seen exactly to where.
Maybe Snap? YT Shorts is bad, as are most other “shorts as a feature” platforms where discovery UX is terrible.
Just speculation for the time being as we need to see what ByteDance decides to do. Can’t recall the exact article but I think they do plan to fight this decision.
jvanderbot 8 days ago [-]
Why do people believe that TikTok will stop functioning? That is not the intent, and is not the likely outcome. TikTok will just not be owned by a Chinese company.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
The same tiktok? I highly doubt any sale will come with the algo, which is literally the bread and butter on what makes Tiktok so great and better than the competition. For users who only surf the FYP, the quality is set to seriously decline.
skilled 8 days ago [-]
That’s not how people think in a time of crisis and ByteDance will need to be swift in their response/decision if they want to retain users.
yreg 8 days ago [-]
Why not to instagram?
skilled 8 days ago [-]
Haven’t looked into it. What is the discoverability and does it come close to TikTok’s algorithm?
FalconSensei 8 days ago [-]
I don't know if it's the lack of content or what, but doing the same searches on Instagram usually return garbage. And their algo refuses to understand that I want to see music/books/movies reels instead of girls dancing almost naked.
newcommer 7 days ago [-]
I suggest US and China to be merged in to One Great Country in the planet.And as a result, US will be great again, so as China.
nadermx 8 days ago [-]
This is Idiocracy
spiderfarmer 8 days ago [-]
This is forcing the US government to show their true colors.
throwaway35777 8 days ago [-]
What exactly is their intention?
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
Banning content that is both critical of the government and extremely popular with younger people
There's a lot more leftist/anticapitalist content (and political content in general) on tiktok compared to youtube shorts and instagram reels.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
Is there more of that type of content? Or is it pushed up by the tiktok algorithm more than other social media? I don't think this is the case, but you are not in a position to state that categorically.
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
I don't think you'll ever be able to get a straight & correct answer to that question, but I don't think it really matters, because the effect is the same.
I and every friend I've talked to about tiktok has seen much more political content on tiktok than other short video apps.
encoderer 8 days ago [-]
You don’t think it matters whether you are viewing the authentic crowdsourced views of your countrymen, or the boosted political propaganda of an adversary?
Really?
NegativeLatency 8 days ago [-]
I'm not sure why you're arguing with me, I never ascribed merit or claimed it was good or bad
encoderer 8 days ago [-]
Gee I wonder why that is.
Who owns the damn thing anyway?
Oh right. Communists.
charonn0 8 days ago [-]
No content has been banned, though.
slim 5 days ago [-]
the length they go to singling out one social media company, to avoid regulating the whole market and protecting peope from mass control and manipulation
Log_out_ 6 days ago [-]
If China suddenly became democratic, that law would be repealed?
segasaturn 8 days ago [-]
99% Invisible recently introduced me to the political concept of Noticeably Improving People's Lives (abbreviated as NIPL), which refers to how politicians get votes by making visible, positive improvements to people's lives. Not only is this bill bad policy (does nothing to protect people from foreign surveillance and violates free speech), its shit politics. All it's going to do is make the 150m Americans who use TikTok angry. So I am pretty baffled by US politicians insistence to go down this route.
flappyeagle 8 days ago [-]
My girlfriend not zombifying herself for 3 hours a day noticeably improves her life and my life
mateo1 8 days ago [-]
She will just do it on Instagram reels now. I wish They were banning all short format video platforms and black box algorithmic suggestions. But obviously they aren't.
diath 7 days ago [-]
Sounds like she's the problem, not TikTok.
dorkwood 6 days ago [-]
Much better to do it on HN instead.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
...but is that among the likely outcomes of this?
If she is so zombified by TikTok, won't she just continue to use it? Why would she comply with the ban?
Moreover, even if she does, there are many other nearly identical sources of zombification. Won't she use fall prey to those instead?
FalconSensei 8 days ago [-]
exactly. Nothing changes if TikTok is sold, and even if it ends up banned in the US, she would be zombified by Instagram or whatever else people flock to
jvanderbot 8 days ago [-]
Yeah - interpreting this as a "People can't use tiktok anymore" bill is wrong. It's a "Bytedance can't own tiktok" bill.
throw__away7391 8 days ago [-]
All the analysts I've seen discussing this have stated that "China is highly unlikely to allow this", so it is being treated as effectively a ban.
jMyles 8 days ago [-]
...but even if Bytedance turns their nose up at this (which they won't, because they want to be in good imperial standing), why would users care?
They'll take 20 seconds to install one app to route around the ban, and then forget about it.
martinky24 8 days ago [-]
You claim that this bill "violates free speech". Can you expand on that? That's... quite the claim to just throw out there without any references.
orwin 8 days ago [-]
US version of "free speech" is that the congress cannot make a law that prevents someone from speaking. It was an example of extreme freedom (i don't have the English translation, but basically a freedom that supersede other freedoms, its philosophy 101 or close to that)
It's less true now, starting from when the mafia used this freedom to threaten judges and jury (Basically, when 80% of people think "full freedom of speech is stupid in this particular case", the US government will effectively suppress it).
I've talked with someone who argued that it effectively never truly existed, and gave me a lot of pre-prohibition examples i can't remember, and even a few from pre-civil war era, that targeted white people (which was surprising because most of the other did not), but i don't know if i trust him, and don't really know US history well, so if you're interested, you should research it yourself and not trust what i just wrote (which is basically, "Yes, No, It's complicated and i don't really know". I'm such a helpful person :/)
[edit] Not saying if it's good or bad btw, extreme freedoms are a cultural foundation of the US, and in my opinion define the country.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
Today's issue of Platformer explains it as the following:
>The Supreme Court has previously held that Congress can’t ban foreign propaganda, including propaganda from China. In Lamont vs. Postmaster General, the court considered a law that required the postmaster general to detain “communist political propaganda” sent through the mail. The Post Office was then required to send the addressee a card asking whether they wanted the propaganda to be delivered, in what the court ultimately ruled had an unconstitutional chilling effect on speech.
the average age of a congress person (house and senate) has gone up by one year, per year, for roughly 20 years.
that tells you that the "normal" organic churn of the past simply stopped dead in its tracks. we have been ruled over by nearly the exact same set of 50 somethings as they have slowly turned into 70 somethings. one very narrow cohort has held onto power so long they personally turned us into a gerontocracy.
this is why the tiktok ban is such a priority despite the fact that it has no constituency at all in the electorate. they don't really represent today's electorate, they represent 20 years ago's electorate that's finally had enough of this internet bullshit.
congress is supposed to be a lagging indicator of popular will by design, its just that for the last 20 years we've been increasing the incremental amount of lag by roughly one year per year, so we've been effectively in stasis.
corimaith 8 days ago [-]
Well, you probably voted in a congressman who voted in favour of this... And while there is a vocal segment of a population who might oppose it, there also plenty of comments in this very thread who support it. How do you know this isn't an enactment of the popular will here?
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
Apparently there are 150 million users in the US. If even a small part of the non-users oppose a ban, that's about half the population (especially since we can exclude small children).
patrickmay 8 days ago [-]
This is one of many reasons why we need congressional term limits. Three terms in the House, two in the Senate, then go live under the laws you made.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
I’m kind of in favor of term limits (though I would make them a bit longer) but there are surely some downsides, like increasing campaign spending and this the influence of money in politics.
Deprogrammer9 7 days ago [-]
Oh im sure come election time this wont come back to bite them at all lol.
paulcole 8 days ago [-]
Are any other companies going to have to divest as a result of the bill?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
Not immediately. It's possible for the president to extend it to cover other companies in the future.
throwaway69123 8 days ago [-]
China should retaliate and ban all US ownership of chinese companies
jonesn11 6 days ago [-]
The algorithm's novelty and recommendation accuracy is so far beyond what other competitors like Google, Snapchat, and Meta have that this seems like a coordinated effort by the private sector to push forth their mediocre products and centralize social media service which I absolutely DETEST. The saddest thing is that it seems like the U.S citizens, (i.e ANY of tiktoks 160 MILLION US users) have absolutely no say in the operations, yet we actually interact with the app not these old people in Congress. The fact that Biden so swiftly signed the bill too makes me frustrated as I want to vote for him, but he keeps doing or okaying things that are counter to my values.
vezycash 8 days ago [-]
Didn't Democrats kick against it when Trump made the same move?
enterprise_cog 8 days ago [-]
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whyenot 8 days ago [-]
US lawmakers are deeply concerned that TikTok might exploit some of the data they collect on their users,
...yet they turn a blind eye to the fact that GM not only collected driving data on their users, apparently in some cases without consent, but they sold it to others, including auto insurers, who used the information to increase the insurance rates of those who were spied on.
ZoomerCretin 8 days ago [-]
Poor drivers who are likely to cause accidents should pay higher rates. If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to drive a 10 year old clunker.
There is no difference between what GM did and what any social media company does. At least with GM selling driving data, there is significant public benefit to making bad driver pay for their poor driving instead of the rest of us having to pay for it.
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
Hey come on man it’s America. Pretending poor people dont exist is the name of the game.
dareal 7 days ago [-]
It's absurd that people are rationalizing this by saying "oh, China doesn't allow US companies to enter their market either," which has been this case in the past 50 years, or "backdoor used by CCP bad bad" without any evidence other than the company being Chinese. It shows how easy people will buy into whatever you feed them when everyone else is saying the same thing.
China is never a country with free market. The hypocrisy is glaring when one claiming as a free market while passing a law that outright rob a company in the day light, under the name of "national security". American people should be embarrassed by this. The government is using to the same tactics as a so-called authoritarian communist country, if not worse.
tonfreed 8 days ago [-]
I don't see why the West should allow government corporations from China to operate within their borders. It's not like there's reciprocal agreements in place that allow the inverse.
hindsightbias 8 days ago [-]
I wonder if Ellison and Elon could swing a deal for it.
Should be an eye for an eye. If china allow WhatsApp and Facebook etc in then USA can have WeChat …. If not all should not be allowed. Not just TikTok.
linearrust 8 days ago [-]
Biden signs bill into law giving $60 billion to ukraine and $26 billion to israel.
Isn't that what the bill actually does. The tiktok part is just legal distraction as it punts the tiktok issue to the next administration.
gretch 8 days ago [-]
> Isn't that what the bill actually does
The bill actually does multiple things, and it's okay to talk about the components in isolation.
IronWolve 7 days ago [-]
Cars spy on more americans than tiktok.
nme01 7 days ago [-]
Totally for it. Now it’s time for EU to ban TikTok but also Instagram, Facebook and other socials for the very same reasons US bans TikTok
angio 7 days ago [-]
I love how the EU introducing privacy laws and fining american companies when they break said laws is bad and the EU is overstepping their boundaries, but the US forcing the sale of a foreign company is totally cool.
andy_ppp 7 days ago [-]
Look if Facebook and Google aren’t allowed in China why the hell should we allow Chinese tech firms in the US or Europe for that matter?
chiefalchemist 7 days ago [-]
Question: Biden will also soon sign the extension to the FISA surveillance powers. How is the ownership of TikTok (and location of the data centers) impacted by the expansion of FISA powers?
Last time this was discussed during the Trump admin it was going to be Oracle that TikTok would be divested to, I wonder if that will still be the case now
hobotime 8 days ago [-]
TikTok made the mistake of making life difficult for the party. Boosting pro-Palestine voices has consequences.
wilsonnb3 8 days ago [-]
The idea of banning Tik Tok or forcing Bytedance to sell it has been cooking for much longer than the current Israel-Palestine drama, it would have happened anyways
I would be politically illiterate to pretend that a tik tok ban hasn’t been cooking for a long time, but I think the final impetus for this latest, successful push is the youth seeing non-mainstream perspective on the war.
troq13 7 days ago [-]
[flagged]
waihtis 8 days ago [-]
Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity’s survival, or at least an extremely potent gateway drug to it.
afavour 8 days ago [-]
If that’s the argument then you need to regulate social media as a whole. Instead this is specifically geopolitical intrigue rather than any care about the mental health of the American people.
Microsoft/Meta/A conglomerate of record labels(?) will buy TikTok and it’ll continue to exist just as it does today.
ipaddr 8 days ago [-]
What would be interesting is a cap on followers. Would change the platform into being more social and less influencers driven.
waihtis 8 days ago [-]
> you need to regulate social media as a whole
No, actually we dont. There is no divine mandate that requires us to do that, especially in a scenario where the geopolitical rival is using our credulity to their advantage.
enterprise_cog 8 days ago [-]
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api 8 days ago [-]
Hopefully it'll be sold to someone who will ruin it and we'll have one less addictionware monstrosity ensnaring millions of people into mindlessly scrolling through schlock.
Unfortunately that leaves Instagram, which is in many ways worse. Maybe Elon Musk can buy that one and destroy it next. He already did us a solid by ruining Twitter.
danieltanfh95 8 days ago [-]
It is maddening to see people who usually are pretty serious and mature turn into zombies parroting whatever political propaganda the state decides to push out this year.
Some key facts:
1. Tiktok isn’t allowed to sell because their AI models and algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a well known fact by the people pushing for the bill.
2. The bill was only passed since it was shafted into a bundle of other more urgent bills that have to pass.
3. Not all American media companies are banned in China. Some refuse to comply with local laws and pulled out. For example, Apple and Microsoft complied. However the competition in China is immense and not every business can survive the capitalistic competition.
4. While there were talks about the ban, it was not until the overwhelming amount of Pro Palestinian content that led to the heavy push for the ban.
5. The US is a relatively tiny market for tiktok, so tiktok is likely to just pull out.
What I think:
1. The date set for the sale is highly political, and IMO its meant to weaponise Gen Z against the democrats.
2. Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
segasaturn 8 days ago [-]
Agree strongly w/ this post. The irony of the comments claiming that TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool is that TikTok is one of the only major social platforms that isn't totally controlled by Western propaganda. Reddit, Facebook, X etc. will all ban and downrank you for anti-Western wrongthink.
abvdasker 8 days ago [-]
It's genuinely remarkable to witness the Democratic Party spurn their base of young people for no discernible gain. Who exactly is the constituency for this legislation other than China hawks?
ZoomerCretin 8 days ago [-]
Israel, who is mad that there exists a major social media app which does not censor pro-Palestinian content.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
I disagree with all of these points except the first one. #3 is particularly misleading: 1) Apple and Microsoft are not media companies, and 2) cute how you said "local laws" instead of "government censorship". This reads right out of a CCP handbook.
BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago [-]
I agree with the palestine point but good spot on the “local laws.” Pretty sus.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
1. Doesn't matter, the law is the law and you have to comply even if it's hard.
2. It already passed (the House) in a separate vote this year. It would have passed anyway. If anything, I would guess the Ukraine part of the package was the most controversial.
3. Absurd.
4. No evidence of this.
5. Perhaps, we don't really know the future. How is this a "fact"?
extr 8 days ago [-]
Don't really see what any of this has to do with the core objection that via TikTok a foreign nation, a global power, has the ability to directly and completely opaquely manipulate american voter at an unprecendented level.
Would be insanely easy to identify swing counties/demographics and slightly tweak their algorithm to influence votes. You can be sure some chinese data scientist has already run the numbers on this (if not already experimented on it at a state/local level). I don't really feel comfortable with the CCP having that level of control.
> Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
Not saying that the popularity of pro palestinian content is a psyop. But if it were, how would you even know? Maybe it's not a psyop today but they pulled the right levels to make it go viral, and now it's an organically driven flywheel? Maybe it's all organic and I'm fearmongering. The point is there is no way to know, or ever find out. Chinese datacenters can't be subpoenaed.
ZoomerCretin 8 days ago [-]
Both major presidential candidates are very anti-China. What exactly would they gain from election interference?
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
[flagged]
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
any time you see a post talking about "compliance with local laws" when it comes to media companies, as if it were some sort of zoning or worker safety compliance issue, you know where the talking points are coming from :)
doakes 8 days ago [-]
Misinformation is a security risk that comes both from deliberate sabotage as well as monetary incentives. If it bleeds, it leads. I'm not in favor of censorship like this or social medias tagging things as "fake news" but how else do we prevent people from believing everything they see on these platforms?
FalconSensei 8 days ago [-]
Now let's get Facebook/Instagram and Twitter banned from EU/Asia since they are owned by US companies
NickInSF 8 days ago [-]
American social media is already banned in China.
TikTok is also banned in China in favor of the state-controlled Douyin.
onepremise 8 days ago [-]
I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country. TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think there are many that leverage the platform for income and have been quite successful off it. I still think it should be moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors that are not Allies to the US.
What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
TikTok isn't violating any US laws. If the US outlawed 'spreading disinformation to polarize politics' they'd have to ban youtube/facebook/twitter/reddit too. Do you think we should block all websites in China and Russia? Should we block their IP space entirely? We used to say that censoring the internet was something that only happened in Evil countries like China. We'd poke fun at their Great Firewall, but to preserve our own hypocrisy the US has decided to join in on the internet censorship game. Now congress is telling you what software you're allowed to install on your own hardware.
I think it's better to have freedom. As an American I should be able to view any media from any country I like as long as that media doesn't violate US law. Americans should have the freedom to use any software written in any country they like. In this case, we lost freedom to censorship and Democracy did nothing to stop it.
xdennis 8 days ago [-]
> TikTok isn't violating any US laws.
Not a very good argument. This post is literally about the signing of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act".
The loophole which is being closed is allowing foreign adversaries to control your social media apps.
It will be in violation if it doesn't sell.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
Yes, a law was just created specifically so that tiktok could be in violation of it. Before today the platform wasn't in violation of any law and there is still nothing unique about what they've been doing compared to US owned platforms, and while their existence as a non-US owned platform has been made illegal TikTok itself wasn't doing anything illegal as a Chinese owned platform.
onepremise 7 days ago [-]
This exactly. We are basically giving them the keys to our culture. Especially since half the US was successfully convinced to write off their own freedom of press, which is one of the most fucking ridiculous things about it. We have the resources and freedom of our own press, guaranteed by the First Amendment. And ppl are bitching and moaning about a half-baked snapchat knockoff, with endless meme scroll animation. Half the US doesn't even realize they are using a CCP mandated and owned media outlet to rely on algorithmic digital chaos, which serves themselves to an echo of the past, and mistake it for future. We are literally watching another country manipulate policy in the house and senate live. There's no mistaking about it; we are being fucked with deliberately. Again, this isn't easy to see because it's been escalating gradually the past decade. However, if you follow the court cases, and occasionally listen to ongoing judicial and intelligence congressional hearings, they bring this up constantly. Make no mistake, American social media corps also need to be held accountable too. Americans have the right to assemble, even online. However, I don't think we should be letting Russia or China choose the platform. Again, we should only allow foreign investment from allied nations. THis shit with oligarchies and CCP controlled affiliates owning and getting on boards of disney, lucid, tesla, activation (blizzard), reddit, etc is just as fucked up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
Foreigners weren't breaking our laws in 1934 when we banned them from owning radio and TV stations. Are you all really that poorly educated in US history? Have schools really deteriorated that much in the 35 years I've been away from them that kids don't know we have laws governing mass media in this country?
anon373839 7 days ago [-]
When TikTok urged kids to phone Congress last month, apparently a number of them asked questions like "what's Congress?". I'm going to say yes, our schools have really deteriorated that much.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I get why they did it, but it's disappointing to have congress decide what software we're allowed to use. I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.
viscanti 8 days ago [-]
> I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.
China has been doing this for a very long time, to keep US apps out of the Chinese market (or forced IP transfers to Chinese companies) so that Chinese apps can thrive. There's no room for them to retaliate because they've already gone as far as they possibly could.
LordKeren 8 days ago [-]
China has banned innumerable pieces of software. They banned YouTube more than a decade ago
skullone 8 days ago [-]
China already bans many many western companies and services.
lm28469 8 days ago [-]
> I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.
The Great Firewall of China was a horrible idea when they did it. We don't need to make the same mistake in the US.
Buttons840 8 days ago [-]
If TikTok users start connecting directly to servers in China via tiktok.com (or whatever), I predict the US will move towards a national firewall as well.
junon 8 days ago [-]
They literally already do, I'm not sure what rock people have been living under but whenever I read comments like this it feels like misinformation campaign material given how common knowledge it is that China regulates foreign apps, internet traffic, and data.
tptacek 8 days ago [-]
There's nothing really new about this, right? The same thing happened in the last administration with Grindr, so famously that it was a plot point on Silicon Valley.
lovegrenoble 8 days ago [-]
When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...
moneycantbuy 8 days ago [-]
good, not only is it malware/spyware, the chinese government can shape the beliefs and behaviors of > 100,000,000 americans at the flip of a switch. albeit users are idiots for giving their attention in the first place. and because capitalism = god, will probably end up selling to the saudis.
gverrilla 8 days ago [-]
so this must be true for american social media in other countries aswell??? or is it exclusive to tiktok "because communism"?
moneycantbuy 7 days ago [-]
yes, facebook can/does propagandize the populations of other countries, though perhaps slightly less nefariously than if an authoritarian/totalitarian government was at the helm. fb is banned in china so there is that. interesting times. all hail king zuck in his fbverse.
pelorat 8 days ago [-]
So, press F for Bidens re-election campaign I guess?
Watch every republican and jump on this (even though they support it).
zrn900 7 days ago [-]
> Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there?
They didn't need to - William Hearst - the Murdoch of the era - signed a $500,000/year contract with the Nazi Government and did that propaganda on their behalf.
It was worse after the US entered the war - legions of US companies kept trading with Nazis and even provided technology to them - like the technology that was used in developing half trucks. The oil, equipment and technology that the US companies were still selling to the Nazis through intermediary countries were killing American soldiers.
Did anything happen to them? No - they were persecuted for 'trading with the enemy' and got off with a slap on the wrist and KEPT TRADING with Nazis until the end of the war.
...
So no, your example does not hold any weight. The only reason the US is trying to ban Tiktok is because it cant compete and it doesn't own a big piece of it.
Its anti competitive behavior and its not new - despite yammering about 'free trade', the US applies trade quotas even to the allies it has 'free trade' agreements with. 'Free trade' is in quotes, because the 'free trade' always happens on the US side - if the other side starts doing too much 'free trade', the US does what it is doing to Tiktok - ban them.
This is despicable as hell. It will gimp the position of the US in world trade A LOT.
rvz 8 days ago [-]
A fine is much better than a ban. But you all voted for Biden to 'save TikTok' and he is banning it anyway 4 years when Trump was about to ban it himself. [0]
Congratulations, you've played yourselves back to back.
Will be nice to see how this going to be implemented. Good luck with that.
astrange 8 days ago [-]
Pretty easily since it's happened before (Grindr) and nobody noticed.
cranberryturkey 8 days ago [-]
seriously, tiktok canibalizing ad revenue at bigtech so they ban it? how is that not communism?
astrange 8 days ago [-]
It's because having a large media company controlled by the CCP is obviously bad and their CEO was clearly lying when he testified about it.
That and after Congress had already concluded it was being run in a way bad for teens' mental health, TikTok put up a dialog on launch saying they'd get banned unless all their users called in about it, so all the teenagers with bad mental health called in and said they'd kill themselves without TikTok.
throwaway5959 8 days ago [-]
Pray tell, what do you think communism is?
AvieDeckard 8 days ago [-]
Socialism is when the government does stuff. The more stuff it does, the more socialist it is. And when it does a real lot of stuff, that's communism.
cranberryturkey 8 days ago [-]
banning competitors?
kstrauser 8 days ago [-]
Destroying competitors is just about the most laissez faire capitalist thing imaginable.
astrange 8 days ago [-]
They aren't banned. Their owner ByteDance is banned from owning them.
(TikTok is banned in China though, so it'd be fair if they were banned.)
Anyway, Chinese communism doesn't ban competitors.
notyourwork 8 days ago [-]
This is because of ad revenue?
cranberryturkey 8 days ago [-]
yes, tiktok is stealing all the ad revenue from facebook, twitter, google, etc.
8 days ago [-]
tmtvl 8 days ago [-]
Communism is where government owns the businesses. Businesses being in charge of govt. is called 'corporatocracy'.
rafaelero 7 days ago [-]
What a pathetic move. Feel bad for the state of the US.
onepremise 8 days ago [-]
I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country. TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think there are many that leverage the platform for income and have been quite successful off it. I still think it should be moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors that are not Allies to the US.
Crazy, all the spying we do and we can't provide any definitive proof of anything yet we're jumping to banning a company. Looks like all that red scare stuff isn't a thing of the past, eh? And we all get to suffer for it. From losing a platform, to facing shadow bans with no recourse, to laws being passed that continue to stamp out our civil liberties to the point that we forget they were even there, what's it all for?
IncreasePosts 8 days ago [-]
Did anyone claim anything happened that would require definitive proof? The argument was that a Chinese company having that kind of ability to reach US citizens is too dangerous in and of itself to let it stand.
giraffe_lady 8 days ago [-]
But assumes that american companies having that power is not. That's the red scare part.
CapmCrackaWaka 8 days ago [-]
You’re misconstruing the argument. American citizens don’t elect Chinese politicians, I don’t want the Chinese government to have my data. I don’t want the American government to either, but at least I can vote for my American government.
bluSCALE4 8 days ago [-]
This gov't must really make you feel safe then. I remember people saying Bush made them feel safe. That played out well. You know what makes me feel safe? Making my own decisions.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
American companies are subject to US law and US citizens are protected by US law. What's the equivalent protection China provides?
bluSCALE4 8 days ago [-]
Shadow bans.
IncreasePosts 8 days ago [-]
There's ample evidence of China and other countries attempting to influence American events using social media and other means.
It's not a red scare if it is true. And it's not a red scare because China isn't being targeted here because they are Communist - they are being targeted because they are a geopolitical adversary. Russia would be treated in the same manner if some killer app came out of there, and they aren't Communist.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
As a US citizen I have recourse against action by US companies and the government through both courts and the electoral process. What recourse do I have against action by Chinese entities?
luckydata 8 days ago [-]
this comment is either naive or in bad faith. I wonder how a moderately educated person can miss the difference between a propaganda machine operated by a geopolitical enemy and a for-profit company operating within the framework of national laws are different.
You can't miss that if you're even half smart or don't have an agenda.
giraffe_lady 8 days ago [-]
I guess I'm somewhat of a consequentialist here because I haven't so far seen much of a practical difference between these two things.
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
China can and already has used tiktok to influence the U.S. population. Just because the US spies a bunch doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect our best interests.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
As if US apps don't influence the population of other nations. Should every US company be required to divest in every other nation where they have users?
jimbob45 8 days ago [-]
Came here to say this. The US owns Apple and Google, both of which are tremendously more influential than TikTok could ever hope to be. Turnabout is fair play.
Grazester 8 days ago [-]
Google is banned in China and China is already taking steps to limit use of Apple hardware
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
Google left China because they didn't want to play by China's rules. Whatever their motivations, I'm glad google stood up to them, but we're not even accusing China of refusing to follow any particular US law. I don't think the US getting our own version of the Great Firewall of China is a good thing.
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
And TikTok is free to leave if they don't want to play by our rules that companies with large numbers of American users can't be substantially owned or controlled by a foreign adversary and still do business with US companies.
Also, who said we're going to firewall them?
luckydata 8 days ago [-]
see, this is what is great about soft power. If you use it right who is not straight up an enemy will probably give you a lot of leeway as long as mutually beneficial. China is... not doing that.
The Tik Tok ban is years late and I don't know why any US citizen could not understand why it's the right thing to do, unless on the payroll of the Chinese government.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
Not on the payroll of the Chinese government here, and I still think it's terrible for congress to tell us what software we're allowed to run on our own devices or to prevent us from accessing media from other countries.
If TikTok were breaking US laws and refused to comply that'd be one thing, but that's not the case. They say their just worried about "influence" which is beyond hypocritical and not really grounds for censorship. Should they ban websites hosted in other countries next?
corimaith 8 days ago [-]
Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of free speech will matter then? We've already seen implicit pressure to censor Taiwan or Hong Kong.
Like it or not, your freedom to access whatever software you wish is only really possible because you have a state that is capable of resisting foreign pressure to allow you to do so. This move is very much part of that removing leverage from an explicitly illiberal group. Paradox of Intolerance and so forth. You can pridefully choose to reject that, but I don't think your freedoms will last very long then.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
> Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of free speech will matter then?
I don't think that having access to websites and media in China, alongside all the websites and media from everywhere else on Earth, will result in us electing congressmen who are secretly working for China. There is zero evidence that TikTok is making that happen. There's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube. What good is it for us to voluntarily give up our freedoms in order to keep the China boogeyman from taking them from us?
jimbob45 8 days ago [-]
There's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube.
Apple has LGBT+ and BLM wallpapers on the phone by default. TikTok only reaches everyone with TikTok installed (and even then, only those that actually uses the app). Apple reaches everyone with an iPhone with its propaganda.
luckydata 8 days ago [-]
they probably should and they already have. Everyone defends their interest to the extent they can, the only difference is the USA has more leverage.
chamsom 8 days ago [-]
Please cite a well written study to back up your claim that is not an opinion piece or some state sanctioned message, from any country.
goliathDown 8 days ago [-]
That's a bit of a ridiculous standard.
Mostly because I don't think China is liable to hand out the records they've been gathering to cross check findings from other study.
chamsom 8 days ago [-]
You don't need records conduct research if a specific message is being spread on TikTok against chance, to at least back up an unsubstantiated theory — even if not practical in the court of law.
For anyone who uses TikTok regularly, it's evident there frequently political content that outright contradict's China's positions, spreading unfettered through the platform.
goliathDown 8 days ago [-]
Even if there is zero evidence supporting an influence campaign on the platform, the ease of collecting user data or spying on users is something I would expect an active adversary to do. Like it or not, China and America are at odds with each other, and it's almost silly to assume that China would not be exploiting a successful tool for their own means.
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
They sent a push notification to every American user asking them to ask their congressman to not ban tiktok.
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
That's hardly the subtle influence that we're all supposed to be afraid of. If that's the only example you cas come up with... that's not a strong case.
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
That’s overt influence showing they aren’t afraid to use their muscle. Of course they’re willing to use more subtle messages.
The same govt that screwed the entire world with Covid-19 will use tiktok for nefarious purposes. This isn’t a stretch.
How does someone do data collection on how the Chinese government weaponizes a social media platform? That would almost certainly involve Tailored Access Operations (or whatever they are calling offensive cyber warfare these days), not only of questionable legality but definitely compromising the sort of Tactics/Techniques/Procedures you REALLY don't want made public.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
I'm writing one right now, just waiting on the CCP to get back to me with their internal communications and commit history at tiktok which will prove this.
/s
chamsom 8 days ago [-]
You contradict yourself by asserting "arbitrary action X, which will prove this" implying the party is guilty by mere speculation about unknowns.
j0ba 8 days ago [-]
I never implied the party is guilty, although my prediction is that they are.
My point is that it's impossible to prove what the commenter was asking for.
chamsom 8 days ago [-]
"which will prove this" is not a prediction, it's an assertion of absolute truth.
blackoil 8 days ago [-]
You misread OP. With all spies they should have found some evidence of CCP trying to influence.
tempestn 8 days ago [-]
They may well have done. It seems a lot of lawmakers moved toward the opinion of banning tiktok after receiving classified intelligence briefings.
luyu_wu 8 days ago [-]
As a non-american (Canadian) citizen, I'm genuinely curious why this evidence can't be made public?
Wouldn't that be a far better way to end this debate and un-fracture opinions?
tempestn 8 days ago [-]
I'm Canadian too, but my guess would be that sharing what they know publicly would give away too much about how they learned it, and would give adversaries a better chance of hiding more in the future.
JohnMakin 8 days ago [-]
They use Meta systems to do the same thing? What is special about Tiktok?
This is a common practice on social media sites and is not evidence for your claim.
tedivm 8 days ago [-]
We should block the behavior, not target specific companies or groups because we don't like them. If influencing our elections is bad (and I agree it is) then we should ban corporations from influencing our elections. If we think collecting and aggregating a bunch of data on people is bad we should ban that, rather than picking a single company to ban from doing it while allowing a bunch of others too.
I actually truly believe we should do this- a GDPR style bill for the US that protects people's right to privacy and limits corporations ability to influence our governments. The fact that we know how easy it is for companies to do this but are just upset that a specific company is doing it tells me we're approaching this in the wrong way.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
How could we ensure that ByteDance follows such a law? It’s unlikely they would let us perform the necessary level of auditing.
I’m not against such a privacy law but I think it’s orthogonal to the TikTok issue.
flohofwoe 8 days ago [-]
OTH, western social media platforms cannot operate in China, why should Chinese social media platforms be allowed to operate in the western world? Even without the whole "spy angle" it makes a lot of sense, trade wars like this happen all the time also between western nations. If China opens up their market, things can be reconsidered.
mchanson 8 days ago [-]
There are a lot of things China does which limits US reach within their country that the US, as a more free society, would not be a good fit for the US.
This seems to me to be one of things we probably should not have done.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
We don't need proof. We didn't have proof of anything 90 years ago when we banned foreign ownership of our TV and radio stations. Are you really this ignorant to US history? Do they not teach US history or civics in school any more?
8 days ago [-]
EduardoBautista 8 days ago [-]
From what I understand it’s not just about spying. The Chinese Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive the algorithm is that the Chinese version of the app focuses on showing higher quality content (quality as judged by them).
So if they know it’s harmful, they have an interest on showing low quality content to the western audience and possibly psychologically and intellectually affect an entire generation.
bluSCALE4 8 days ago [-]
Whenever I open YouTube in Private mode, I get nonstop soft porn material. US companies are doing enough harm all on their own.
autoexec 8 days ago [-]
I doubt being offered whatever youtube's version of 'soft porn material' is counts as "harm". There are clearly concerns over disinformation and outright lies with tiktok which we've seen can have hurt people, and I can understand that, but the same can be said for every other social media platform in use which makes singling out the one popular Chinese platform seem pretty suspicious.
pphysch 8 days ago [-]
> The Chinese Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive the algorithm that the Chinese version of the app focuses on showing higher quality content
This is pure conspiracy theory. You think the nation that produces and loves Grand Theft Auto needs a relatively puritan foreign country, where certain depictions of death are restricted in media, weed and porn are totally illegal, to push such debauchery on the American people?
EduardoBautista 8 days ago [-]
They were the first ones to do it at scale. Before, you had to seek out the debauchery. TikTok is saying, don’t worry, we have hundreds of scrollable hours waiting for you, just keep scrolling.
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
Clearly you've never visited tumblr back in the day. They had both doomscrolling and a CSAM problem.
pphysch 8 days ago [-]
Twitter, Instagram, Reddit also are infinitely doomscrollable, with equally if not more inane content.
Vine hit the American streets long before TikTok before it was killed by mismanagement.
EduardoBautista 8 days ago [-]
Vine had no where near as good of a recommendation algorithm as TikTok. Reddit for over a decade relied on self-curation and upvoting to determine what to show you.
TikTok curated content without the need for a user to do anything else than scroll. You can have a remarkably well personalized TikTok experience without liking, following, or saving any content.
luyu_wu 8 days ago [-]
The thing that ticks me off is that there hasn't been conclusive evidence that actually justifies this ban. I'd be perfectly happy if the CIA came out with documents of how the data goes to China, but all I've seen is evidence to the contrary (e.g. servers in US, headquarters in SG etc).
If I'm wrong, I'd gladly look at some linked articles of course.
cowsup 8 days ago [-]
There's no evidence one way or another. TikTok's servers are in the US, but, even if we audit their entire outbound connections, or get a warrant from their ISP to confirm no traffic has ever gone out to China... There's no surefire way of saying that an employee didn't just plug their laptop into the server, download data, and then ship it off to China later on.
Both the US government and TikTok/ByteDance are unable to prove their claims, and likely, neither one ever could. Even if TikTok showed 100% evidence that they've never done that, the US government would know that there's nothing stopping TikTok from doing it at a later date.
This legislation is the US government deciding that the risks are too great, and so they're willing to take the gamble and shut down a company that's potentially done nothing wrong. "Innocent until proven guilty" is typically reserved for the judicial system, but this is a legislative decision; it'll be an interesting court case to determine if the US legislators are able to make these sorts of decisions outside of the judiciary.
luyu_wu 8 days ago [-]
Thanks! This actually makes a lot of sense to me.
While I'm not sure I agree with the 'guilty until proven innocent', I understand more about the motivations.
AlphaSite 8 days ago [-]
If nothing else the ban on foreign ownership of Chinese companies alone feels like it justifies some reciprocal action. No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China, but the reverse is not true.
aragonite 8 days ago [-]
> No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China
> A large majority of new foreign investments in China are WFOEs [wholly foreign owned enterprises], rather than JVs. As Chinese legal entities, WFOEs experience greater independence than ROs, are allowed exclusive control over carrying out business activities while abiding by Chinese law and are granted intellectual and technological rights.
> WFOE refers to a limited liability company that is 100% invested, owned by foreign investors, and independently operated. Almost 60% of foreign-owned companies are WFOEs, making it the most adopted business type. Famous multinational companies such as Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and General Electric are all examples of WFOEs.
bogdan 8 days ago [-]
Exactly. It's unclear whether the primary goal of TikTok regulation is to genuinely safeguard young users or to prepare the public for further restrictions on other Chinese companies. Regardless, given China's advanced development beyond what many in the West perceive, I think it's important for western countries to start taking protective measures. TikTok is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
luyu_wu 8 days ago [-]
I've seen this point scattered throughout the thread, and it seems quite popular.
I don't particularly take issue with it since market reciprocity obviously makes sense, but I'm not sure that this bill should tag itself as national security in that case!
Small note: Many US companies do operate in China with large margins (Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, NVidia, etc). There's been a Wikipedia article cited a through times throughout this thread with a complete list of blocked domains! Just a minor nitpick, thanks for the thoughts still.
_sword 8 days ago [-]
There’s some research here that the NYTimes cited in an article on the topic of TikTok deplatforming certain topics
This report is very laughable. It looks at the number of posts with the same hashtag between Instagram and TikTok as a simple ratio.
An alternate conclusion is that Instagram is censoring topics that don't align with the "Consensus" in Washington and artificially boosting content that does. Why is there literally no content on Instagram about the Gaza war, yet I get up-to-date news and reports on TikTok?
james4k 8 days ago [-]
Interestingly enough, NCRI is almost exclusively funded by pro-Israel lobbying groups.
For me, it's pretty obvious that social media is being used to destabize and weaken Western democracies like the US and Britain.
I don't believe that the lurch to the Right we've seen--Brexit, Trump, etc.--are happening naturally.
FrustratedMonky 8 days ago [-]
Yeah.
If this amount of effort is going into protect us from TikTok, then why not protect us from every other Social Media company that is tracking us.
asadotzler 7 days ago [-]
There was no evidence when we banned foreign TV and radio ownership in the US in 90 years ago either. What's your point? Are you suggesting we cannot make preventive laws about mass media? If so, you should read a book because you're under informed in this area.
RIMR 8 days ago [-]
There isn't really any evidence of the supposed threats we've heard about from Congress. It's pretty much bog-standard sinophobia / anti-communist scaremongering.
coffeemug 8 days ago [-]
If any ideology or regimes espousing it have earned scaremongering, it's communism.
8 days ago [-]
dogman144 8 days ago [-]
The thing is evidence came out 4-5 years ago that CCP directed TikTok to steer engagement algorithms to further PRC foreign policy goals which tldr meant inflame
US users via purposely divisive content served up via TK.
You are wrong, and linked articles from US intel community have been available for years.
whatasaas 8 days ago [-]
Did it? Why didn’t they bring it up in the hearings? They were pretty empty handed and trying to rage people apps have access to wifi.
Maybe you mean something like this “study” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-data-suggests-al... which concludes with “kinda maybe looks like they could possibly favor Chinese interest”. Doing a study and putting out a headline is all it takes to poison the public opinion and exactly what I would expect from the social media companies foaming at the mouth losing market share.
The wording I have seen is congress had a internal meeting about the potential security concerns that could be involved (very likely with every app).
>The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation that is more popular.
trevoragilbert 8 days ago [-]
Historically this is just how it works. You want law x passed and I'm ambivalent about it, I want law y passed and you're ambivalent about it. We both need each other to pass either of them, so we agree to pass both as part of a larger law. This isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 1800s. As early as the decision to make DC the capital we've traded goals through compromise.
The process does get abused and I get frustration over those instance. For this one in particular, there are thematic similarities that can reasonably fall under "national security concerns".
slg 8 days ago [-]
There is no reason a compromise needs to be formalized into a singular piece of legislation. Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability because it gives them plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific provisions of the overall bill. I think that is ultimately worse for our political system than making passing legislation more difficult.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability because it gives them plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific provisions of the overall bill
Whose position on this bill, in the House or Senate, do you think is unclear?
slg 8 days ago [-]
People's positions on the bill are the one thing that is known. The problem is that it allows politicians to avoid accountability on the individual issues within that bill. A vote on this doesn't tell you directly whether a politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Taiwan. It just tells you whether they support this specific bill.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> A vote on this doesn't tell you directly whether a politician supports banning TikTok. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Ukraine. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Israel. It doesn't tell you whether they support aid to Taiwan.
In the House, these bills were individually voted on. (In TikTok's case, twice.) In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok. (Taiwan hasn't been particularly contentious.)
slg 8 days ago [-]
>In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok.
There is a reason I used the word "accountability". There is difference between talk and action and accountability is about making sure the two align. "Made their views known" by itself is just talk that can easily be obfuscated. A voting record is an action and we shouldn't allow politicians to distance themselves from that action with a simple "it was part of a larger bill".
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> we shouldn't allow politicians to distance themselves from that action
Again, we have an actual case on hand. Who is distancing themselves from anything? Whose position—in talk and votes—on each of these issues isn’t abundantly clear?
slg 8 days ago [-]
>Again, we have an actual case on hand.
Which is the disconnect here. I criticized a general practice of which this is an example while you are focusing exclusively on that one example.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> I criticized a general practice of which this is an example
But it’s an example that clearly disproves the point. The accountability you describe is a communication, not vote structuring, problem.
slg 8 days ago [-]
Politicians lie which is why communication alone can’t be trusted the way actions like voting can.
henry2023 8 days ago [-]
“it’s ok because it has always been like this” is both a fallacy and a really bad argument.
trevoragilbert 8 days ago [-]
It's not a fallacy if one of the complaints is "routine practice in American politics." It's directly pointing out that it isn't routine by accident, it's routine by design from the beginning.
slg 8 days ago [-]
>It's directly pointing out that it isn't routine by accident, it's routine by design from the beginning.
That isn't a defense of the quality of the practice. Something can have a bad "design from the beginning".
8 days ago [-]
encoderer 8 days ago [-]
No, in the house they voted on this bill by itself and it passed overwhelmingly - 360 to 58
slg 8 days ago [-]
And that wasn't expected to happen in the Senate. Also that is the vote total for this bill, not the previous one that passed the House last month.
meepmorp 8 days ago [-]
The previous House vote was 352-65, so not much different.
encoderer 8 days ago [-]
getting a clean up/down vote on a bill is pretty rare (as you said yourself) so it’s strange to critique this bill when it actually had one.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation that is more popular
This bill was individually voted on by the House and sent to the Senate in March [1]. There it was deliberated in committee and re-drafted [2]. The House, on Saturday, passed it separately from the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan votes [3] (alongside Russian asset forfeiture and restrictions on Chinese financial institutions that do business with Iran). It was then bundled in the Senate for an up-and-down vote.
Regardless of what side you are on about this, it will be used to chip away at the liberties of American citizens. Look at the Patriot Act or the FISA wiretap laws. They told everyone it was only for foreigners, but it is impacting Americans.
stefan_ 8 days ago [-]
This was an amendment that was individually voted on
cvoss 8 days ago [-]
Well, they're not completely unrelated. The TikTok issue and the defense spending issue are both framed as national security concerns.
But secondly, I don't actually mind this aspect of the US political process. It's part of compromise and negotiations which are indispensable in an environment where not everyone is on the same page about what's important.
suyash 8 days ago [-]
Tell that to China, it's worst over there, no reason given just a great firewall ban shows up for your app/service. They have banned so many popular services there for decades, it's time for other countries to do tit for tat.
dfxm12 8 days ago [-]
I'm more interested in maintaining my own freedom & not further hindering freedom of the Web than spiting the Chinese government. I understand passions may be high when it comes to China, but do please consider these tradeoffs, because I'm not sure what this does to Chinese government in the grand scheme of things, but now the US government has a framework and precedent to stop me from using apps.
brentm 8 days ago [-]
It's either this way or pass nothing ever. Unless the country tilts away from basically 50/50 with two parties that constantly try to undo the other there are few options to get anything through congress.
dantheman 8 days ago [-]
I think I'd take pass nothing ever...
brentm 8 days ago [-]
That's a reasonable take but I think practically things need to get done for government to function.
8 days ago [-]
darknavi 8 days ago [-]
It was a series of bills
avn2109 8 days ago [-]
Besides the "unrelated legislation" thing, this is just such blatant corporate welfare for the American BigCo's that will buy Tiktok. Microsoft and Google are absolutely salivating at the thought of buying their way into a major social network in 2024, and not only will the Feds not go after them for antitrust, they'll actually greenlight it in advance and mandate the sale.
Big tech lobbying money well spent!
Aloisius 8 days ago [-]
The legislation doesn't require American ownership.
linearrust 8 days ago [-]
And the media will provide cover by calling it the tiktok bill to distract the people from the $60 billion given to ukraine and $26 billion given to israel. Wonderful isn't it?
8 days ago [-]
majani 8 days ago [-]
Asset seizure over data that mainly contains mindless entertainment? This is a new low for the US as a business environment in my opinion.
TikTok? what's the goal exactly? looks like this goes beyond China, what other laws do they want to pass? China spying on people having fun dancing and cooking!
Should the world ban Swift, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube? Where is CISCO, CISCO?!
And finally, should the world ditch the USD?
Reciprocity, at what price? :)
beretguy 4 days ago [-]
> Should the world ban Swift, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube? Where is CISCO, CISCO?!
I say yes.
czbond 8 days ago [-]
Wouldn't you as a government rather control your own citizens through mindless entertainment and algorithms than a foreign government? This isn't about China per se.....
majani 7 days ago [-]
Are we also going to go ban Fortnite and Unreal Engine for producing mindless entertainment from China?
czbond 6 days ago [-]
Ban? Nobody wants to ban it - the U.S. wants to OWN the data and have access to it
8 days ago [-]
Slava_Propanei 4 days ago [-]
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helpfulContrib 8 days ago [-]
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barfard 8 days ago [-]
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MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
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luyu_wu 8 days ago [-]
Genuinely don't see them (this is the 20th post I'm on or so?)
Is it further down?
Also, just out of curiosity, is bots ironic or not. I don't really see any reason for a government to send literal bots to Hacker News. Pretty sure changing our opinions aren't worth that much.
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
Changing American opinions and perceptions is worth everything.
gembeMx 7 days ago [-]
Main character syndrome
nebula8804 8 days ago [-]
So are the pro-american bots. You can literally watch the vote counts go up and down in near realtime and as far as I know they don't follow the Reddit style of obfuscation. There aren't many topics where I tend to see this on HN so its fascinating to watch.
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
It's the first time I've seen what definitely looks like wumao comments on HN posts.
Argonaut998 7 days ago [-]
This isn’t Reddit. Furthermore the trend of comments is the exact opposite as what I see on every other thread regarding this TikTok ban.
wumeow 8 days ago [-]
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MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
Nice username, very topical.
hogepiyo 8 days ago [-]
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hnpolicestate 8 days ago [-]
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MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
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JimmaDaRustla 7 days ago [-]
Biden better cancel some debt forgiveness in order to pay for the lawsuit
esalman 7 days ago [-]
That's not how it works.
devhead 8 days ago [-]
we'll see what the courts say with this. American government used to decry "the great china firewall" yet here they come all holding hands to raise up an American one, against the American people. This is not a Ban on TikTok, it is a blockage and suppression of our freedom of speech, and to freely associate.
The US government suddenly can find common grounds to do something and it's to restrict US? no thanks.
anon291 7 days ago [-]
I'm so happy Biden has continued to basically keep Trumpian policy on China. Say what you like about Trump, but his election actually changed American policy for the better in this regard.
Liftyee 8 days ago [-]
Honestly might benefit the US if TikTok gets shut down. Short form content is an endemic attention parasite.
nickthegreek 8 days ago [-]
The bill doesnt ban shortform content.
ConanRus 8 days ago [-]
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webworker 7 days ago [-]
There is some weird inversion going on here.
First, I can't find a reason why anyone would laud banning this app. It seems like it's done A LOT for the creator economy, more than Snapchat or Instagram did for anyone before TikTok took off.
Second, I'm surprised at the amount of China-hate I'm seeing in here, and elsewhere, over this app. So far, they don't appear to have actually committed any crimes, it's a lot of posturing about what they could do. Meanwhile, things that were actually a threat (the "weather balloons" over DoD installations) were hand-waved away by TPTB and allowed to traverse pretty much the whole country before any action was taken.
Huh??
Argonaut998 7 days ago [-]
Go into any thread in the past surrounding this TikTok ban and the comments are the exact opposite.
option 8 days ago [-]
Controversial, but right move by US.
MaxHoppersGhost 8 days ago [-]
About damn time. We should reciprocate any bans China has on US companies.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
From the world where the USA was the bastion of free speech which was condemning countries like Turkey for blocking social media to a world where the USA blocks social media. I guess when the reasons are about money(i.e. Chinese block American companies) its all good because it can't be about national security since the countries who used to block American social media were condemned for doing it in the name of national security. Or is it?
Anyway, this bothers me so much. It wouldn't take that much time before every country adopts the China/North Korea model once the USA leads the way, because you know, other countries also have national security concerns. Maybe the Spanish or Irish will want to protect their citizens being indexed by the US for their support for Palestine? Who know, banning apps is a thing now. Maybe soon all country-to-country communications will need to go through monitored cables with keys provided for inspection(maybe businesses can get an exception with acquiring a license?).
We are progressively sliding in a segregated world and it is a scary world because the tech to control all the communications is in place.
I wish the USA took the EU model where its free but regulated.
The desire for control over communications and the support by the people disgusts me. You will end up finding out that the Chinese/North Korean way of doing things is not going to provide you with security or prosperity.
Very sad day.
FredPret 8 days ago [-]
You complain about the USA regulating TikTok and then you wish it followed the EU model, which is more regulated?
The EU is inching closer to effectively banning US social media companies with their prohibitions on ads anyway. We may see region-specific social media at some point.
hmm37 8 days ago [-]
In the EU all social media companies have to comply to the same rules. This is normal "regulation". China also regulates all social media companies on whether or not they are willing to censor speech or not. This is also called normal "regulation" as it applies to all social media companies. No single social media is selected out and discriminated against.
On the other hand, US is regulating Tiktok AND pretty much only Tiktok, which is breaking no laws except now this new one where part of its ownership is Chinese. This wouldn't look as farcical if the US forced facebook, twitter, etc. to comply with privacy issues, etc.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
The US is requiring social media to not be owned by China. That seems to be a consistent rule for all companies.
hmm37 8 days ago [-]
Yes. It's the Chinese exclusion act all over again. We already been through this historically. Essentially a ban on race/ethnicity vs practice.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> Chinese exclusion act all over again...a ban on race/ethnicity vs practice
This is an incredibly bad-faith comparison. People of Chinese descent aren't being discriminated in any way by this bill. In the same way China blocking Google isn't an act of racism, this is putting restrictions on a foreign state which is acting belligerentlyt towards us.
We required American companies to stop doing business with the Nazis when we went to war with them. (Though not a moment sooner.) That wasn't racism, it was strategic sense.
hmm37 8 days ago [-]
It's not a bad-faith comparison at all. There's nothing about Tiktok's practice that is necessarily illegal as it follows basically the same business model as all other social media companies. It is only that it has a Chinese shareholder amongst its shareholders, and therefore must be ban unless this Chinese shareholder sells his share.
We aren't at war with China, nor are we close yet. Although it seems like people do want to move closer to a war and seem to hype China as some existential threat to the USA, and therefore try to justify such ideas. This is despite the fact that historically China has pretty much never used its navy to try to attack another nation except for basically (Japan), and that was when the Mongols had seized control of the nation about 800 years ago. China has throughout history basically repudiated the Mongols' methods and violence, and the Mongol ruled dynasty was considered one of the shortest in Chinese history because of this. Moreover one of the reasons why the Mongols did not succeed in conquering Japan was because the Chinese did not give the Mongols seafaring ships, and the keels were too flat to be stable in the ocean, despite the fact that China did have the technology for stable ships. This meant that the Chinese ships that were sent to Japan to attack easily capsized and the Mongol soldiers on them drown.
China blocking Google isn't China blocking Google because it is a US company. China is blocking due to the fact that Google doesn't censor. When Google tried to reenter the Chinese market, it was blocked and criticized from TWO different sources (1) Various US government officials and congressmen; (2) Google's own employees. Google acceded to pressure from the US, not China.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> only that it has a Chinese shareholder amongst its shareholders, and therefore must be ban unless this Chinese shareholder sells his share
The issue is the Chinese state's involvement. (TikTok's CEO perjuring himself about this didn't help [1].)
> We aren't at war with China
They are, under U.S. law, a foreign adversary [2].
If we were at war with China, we'd be talking about sanctioning ByteDance. Not merely removing it from app stores if it can't find a non-Chinese buyer.
> historically China has pretty much never used its navy to try to attack another nation except for basically (Japan)
Historically America has never used its space force to attack anyone. Meanwhile, China literally invaded and annexed Tibet in 1951 [3] and continues to use no uncertain terms about its intentions in respect of Taiwan [4].
(1) We are talking about an existential threat to the US. The idea that China is literally going to take its navy/army and try invading the US.
(2) Taiwan and Tibet are different cases and could not be considered clear and cut cases of invasion and annexation.
(3) Tibet and Taiwan was never internationally recognized as independent and were/are considered a part of Qing, later Republic of China and later by most nations as a part of a "China" whether now the PRC or previously ROC. They tried to secede, similarly like what happens during a civil war. Therefore they did/do not have what people call Westphalian sovereignty. We similarly e.g. also don't talk about the South during the Civil War as being a separate internationally recognized state. And therefore we also do not talk about the Union invading a different nation, the Confederacy, but simply a civil war within a nation. Nor do we say that the Union annex the Confederacy.
Taiwan has the same constitution, national anthem, flag, etc. as the Republic of China under Sun Yatsen. It still regards all of China, which includes all of the mainland territories as part of its territory, and Taiwan is a mere province, which is considered "Free China". It was the previous Chinese government before the PRC took control during a civil war in 1949. That civil war in a sense never ended. And throughout Chinese history there has been many cases where essentially civil wars took e.g. a 100+ years to settle, but there was sometimes periods of relatively peace between parties, even a trading relationship. A famous one is e.g. the Three Kingdoms period.
JumpCrisscross 7 days ago [-]
> We are talking about an existential threat to the US
What? No. We’re talking about Xi invading Taiwan. That causes war between China and the U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan and India.
> Taiwan and Tibet are different cases and could not be considered clear and cut cases of invasion and annexation
Oookay buddy.
> Tibet and Taiwan was never internationally recognized as independent and were/are considered a part of Qing
A lot of Western China wasn’t historically China. Hence why Beijing has to commit crimes against humanity to integrate it [1]. We can play this game endlessly for any piece of territory.
> That civil war in a sense never ended
Just so it’s clear to the thread, the pro-TikTok’er here is an avid advocate of China invading Taiwan, and thus war between America and China. This is why we need to dismember TikTok from ByteDance or remove it from app stores.
Can't wait the not to be owned by USA/EU/UK rules spread out like wildfire.
It will be especially interesting when Trump admin starts getting its way next year. The USA fucked up badly by pivoting into being fake China.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
Regulated means a framework of doing business, its not a ban. For example, the government can decide that car from now on have to use lead-free gasoline. That's not ban on cars, it means that from now on the cars should run lead-free.
EU isn't banning American social media, its banning certain practices and if the American social media companies want to do business they simply don't do these things and they will be fine. Unless, you know, forcing Meta to sell to Luxotica or something.
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
TikTok isn’t banned, it is merely required to not be owned by a Chinese company. It’s possible this results in a de facto ban but we don’t know yet.
Similarly, other regulations may become so onerous as to result in de facto bans. There’s not really a sharp distinction.
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
Not to be owned by Chinese today, not to be owned American/EU/UK etc. in the years to come around the globe.
FredPret 7 days ago [-]
Good luck to everyone not on the US economic team
jvanderbot 8 days ago [-]
TikTok will continue to function as normal. This is only a ban if bytedance does not divest, which they will.
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
What makes you say that? What do they possibly have to gain by selling their main product?
zeroonetwothree 8 days ago [-]
They gain the full value of the product rather than the lower value it will achieve under the future ban.
Thiez 8 days ago [-]
They get a possible future competitor and due to the forced nature of a potential sale are unlikely to get a fair price. Realistically they will not sell.
flohofwoe 8 days ago [-]
TikTok is currently also under heavy scrunity in Europe.
In any case, it's just tit for tat, pretty much all western social media platforms are banned in China, why should Chinese social media platforms be treated differently in the western world?
mrtksn 8 days ago [-]
>pretty much all social media platforms are banned in China, why should China have free reign in the western world?
This is so out of touch that its hard to comprehend. Is it maybe because the supposedly fee people should have the freedom to choose what to use? Unlike you know, the Chinese or North Koreans? Fuck Chinese government, its not something that the "free" world implements. Stop copying the Chinese government.
Is "freedom" only about businesses in the USA? What happen people's freedoms?
helpfulContrib 8 days ago [-]
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FpUser 8 days ago [-]
They can make web client and show middle finger. If this happens the US will be forced to block domains and VPNs.
charonn0 8 days ago [-]
The law applies to websites too.
FpUser 7 days ago [-]
What law? They can block domain but that's about it.
charonn0 7 days ago [-]
The law in the OP specifically includes websites, DNS, hosting, etc.
And this isn't some greyweb torrent site with a thousand heads. Without access to US advertisers there's no reason why Tiktok should even want to have US users.
This just proves that some principles (such as free speech) are only upheld conditionally when those in power feel they don't actually threaten their control.
Actions speak louder than words.
waihtis 8 days ago [-]
Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity’s survival, or at least an extremely potent gateway drug to it.
deepfriedbits 8 days ago [-]
Why target TikTok only? They should ban any Chinese social media app or network, and that should remain in effect until China agrees to open its domestic audience to Instagram, Google, Facebook, X, etc.
JumpCrisscross 8 days ago [-]
> should ban any Chinese social media app or network
The law permits the President to similarly designate any entity that meets the law's thresholds for a covered company [1] controlled by a foreign adversary [2].
Thanks for highlighting the language. I fear it's not being framed as that, though, and there will be another battle in the court of public opinion for the next TikTok.
droptablemain 8 days ago [-]
If China passed a similar law, I wonder what the U.S. state dept. would say about it.
jmbwell 8 days ago [-]
From what I understand, Google, YouTube, the web site that used to be called Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook are all banned in China already.
So I suspect the state department would say something like, "the state department recommends banning TikTok."
droptablemain 8 days ago [-]
I suspect the state dept. would say China banning Facebook/Twitter, etc. is an example of it being a "bad" or "totalitarian" "regime."
But the U.S. banning Tik-Tok? Why that's just good ol' democracy at work!
jmbwell 7 days ago [-]
One potential difference might be that china could be banning western media to stifle opposition, while the US could be banning TikTok primarily to protect its commercial interests. Though I guess you have a point if they are, fundamentally, indistinct justifications
insane_dreamer 8 days ago [-]
Uh, Google was kicked out of China for not censoring search results, Meta and others are blocked for not submitting to censorship. This is tame by comparison.
droptablemain 8 days ago [-]
Kicked out for not complying with rules vs. being forced to sell.
tamimio 8 days ago [-]
All of this just to limit the spread of Palestinians contents in the young generation, since the ADL has a strong “influence” on all other big social media except TikTok (there’s even videos of ADL’s CEO complaining about tiktok Palestinians contents and young generation not supporting Israel), AIPAC came to the rescue and asked its puppets in both red/blue parties to pass the bill, while they also make some cash out of it as reported that some politicians bought $META stocks before voting the bill. That’s the root reason, any other reason mentioned is just a diversion. The illusion of freedom and democracy in the US.
mjfl 8 days ago [-]
You are correct.
phailhaus 8 days ago [-]
India banned TikTok in 2020, so this conversation has been going on way before the current conflict in Gaza. Not everything is a conspiracy related to the issues you care about.
tamimio 8 days ago [-]
What I listed above are facts, not a conspiracy, you are welcome to look them up.
> India banned TikTok
I don’t know much about India and I’m talking about the US, but I know India has a law to control the contents of social media and requires these companies to hire local employees that will be held as “hostages” if the content in question is not removed, something Elon mentioned few times too about twitter in India.
> before the current conflict in Gaza.
The war on Gaza has been going for more than 16years and the Palestinians issue for more than 70years. You can read more about the issue here (1) Additionally, when the senators invited TikTok CEO last year, several senators (and I remember Ted Cruz specifically) mentioned the anti-israel contents back then, which you can also look it up, it’s just you don’t pay attention or lack the ability to connect the dots.
They are not facts. Can you show that these organizations are actively influencing the short-video algorithms that power tools like Facebook/Instagram Reels, or Youtube's shorts? Because yes, that is absolutely a conspiracy theory on the same level as "Jews are controlling everything!" Your whole premise is that these Jewish organizations have been secretly lobbying for a ban for years because TikTok (specifically?) might at some point have reels that support Gaza. But that makes no sense given:
* They have no control over US-based companies with identical short-form video products, so banning TikTok doesn't actually affect Gaza coverage.
* Gaza is being covered breathlessly as a humanitarian disaster across all major media outlets. If they're trying to suppress coverage, they're doing a terrible job. So what's the point of going after TikTok?
* Other, unrelated countries have also enacted a TikTok ban because of distrust of China. This is the common thread.
You personally think the current conflict in Gaza is the center of the world, so you're "connecting dots" no matter how far apart they are. Everything must be related to it somehow. But the US ban on TikTok is rooted in distrust of China that has been building for decades, and is much, much larger than Gaza.
fossuser 7 days ago [-]
Good - the ccp influence over what content is elevated or censored on TikTok is a serious national security problem, forcing a divesture is good independent of the inequality on trade with the ccp blocking American companies.
If they refuse to divest it’ll be even more obvious it’s the ccp tool we suspect it is.
This, to me, is one of those defining actions that will stand forever as a sign post for what America is at the moment of the event. As such, it is incredibly discouraging to me.
I don't write this in defense of TikTok or China. I'm just sad for the United States.
I imagine a scene where a wagon train of poor pilgrims is surrounded on all sides and all the poor children are crouching behind anything they can find. As the camera angle widens out you see a U.S. Cavalry officer order a rescue team to single out attackers and pull them out of their perches. They go around inspecting attackers one at a time, checking their footwear. Anybody in mocassins is pulled off the line and sent packing. Anybody wearing boots is left in place and encouraged to keep shooting. Especially if they are wearing a cavalry uniform. Just before the scene ends you see somebody in mocassins run back to their horse and pull out a pair of boots, hurrying to get back into the action.
krapp 8 days ago [-]
Outdated racist stereotypes aside, how are we meant to interpret the scene you're setting?
Rendered at 13:23:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.
And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.
"Ban" is completely appropriate shorthand for "ban (unless something highly improbable occurs)."
We can say that Google and Facebook are "banned" or "censored" in China even though China would surely be happy to unban them if they sold their operations in China to a Chinese business. So it is consistent and fair to say that this bill "bans" or "censors" TikTok.
If TikTok wants to give up the revenue, they can continue to send propaganda to the US, and kids can continue to watch and make videos.
China blocks access to Google. Whatever you want to call what the TikTok bill does, it is not the same as what China does.
China does way more than that. China forces all companies that wish to do business in China to host their data in China in a way that ensures the CCP has complete access to it.
It boggles the mind how some anonymous accounts try to attack the US for interfering with a Chinese company doing business in the US, particularly one which is a notorious security hole, but leave out the fact that CCP's China goes well beyond as a matter of policy.
It would make more sense that Chinese customers would want to host their data in the US not vice versa, and in that case you would treat them the same as American customers in American data centers with the same security in place.
It's the cheaper solution, caters to all customer needs, and doesn't risk your customers' faith.
I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't separate them.
Do you have some reason to believe they aren't or are you just guessing that they wouldn't take precautions? Because in this case, the precautions are actually the easier topology to build, I think.
Also China does not stop companies to do business with Facebook and Google, if you look up numbers from Facebook and Google, a big chunk ad revenue would come from Chinese companies.
I'm absolutely not defending China's authoritarian regime and overall the U.S. isn't seems less bad, but at the same time it's a bit rich to pretend the U.S. doesn't do the same if it matters.
give a dog a bad name and it's as good as dead.
I bet you that would become a thing at school, getting the geekier kids to "install tiktok 4 me pls"
In the same sense, it's not Google that's banned in China. It's free speech. Google just can't operate without it so it decided to exit the market by refusing to allow CCP access to user data and to implement CCP firewalls.
You can conflate things to make them sound like the same thing. Words can have subjective and loose meaning.
But reality is very complex and very specific and doesn't have any loose meaning. And this is not remotely the same thing.
Well that’s the crux, isn’t it.
If TikTok is just a business, like ByteDance insists, any business would rather get something than nothing. So ByteDance would sell.
If TikTok isn’t merely a business but rather an organ of soft power, and China blocks a sale, then the suspicions of the U.S. intelligence community are confirmed.
Using that logic, facebook, google, etc are not businesses either since they chose to be banned from china.
Google, Facebook etc don't have a "Chinese market" product at all, so there's nothing to sell off. If they did have a Chinese market product, worth many tens of billions of dollars, they would very likely sell it rather than spike it.
Essentially, you are asking everyone to assume that Bytdance does not really have a financial choice in the matter, and therefore financial irrationality is evidence of corruption.
When the reality is that the money may not mean as much to them as you are asking people to assume, and that in lieu of a payout they'd rather not reward a sale to the country that is strong-arming them. Which few with financial flexibility, and a healthy ego, would.
It's only improbable if the suspicion is true, and in that case: good riddance.
Also TikTok apparently isn't even allowed in China they have their own version.
But anyways, I like to hope that the US is better than China. If US citizens are abused while in China, I would be appalled to see Chinese citizens abused in the US as retribution.
I lost hope long ago.
The proper moral position is for trade to be governed by rational rules that apply consistently regardless of who is trading with whom or what country they are from.
We don’t need to overly moralize this and somehow find the US on a pedestal with impossible to reach and shifting standards of behavior that are only applicable to the US when it’s convenient for various bad actors and despotic regimes (Putin, Hamas, CCP, Iran, North Korea).
America can be “better” than China without having to accept disadvantages. Likewise China could allow American social media companies to show that it is sincere in being interested in free and fair business. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be regulations but there’s simply no good argument to allow a Chinese social media company to operate in the US without reciprocal activity and nothing, nothing is lost by banning Tik Tok.
I still believe in this, and if you look at America’s policies of sanctioning countries like Russia, blocking a business from operating in a country is actually a detriment to that country because they lose access to the benefit that that company provides. Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
I don’t fundamentally believe it’s about fair playing ground or advantages/disadvantages for equivalent US companies in China. The current consensus is really about national security, and having China be able to access data on US people. If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
Furthermore if it did become about fair playing ground for domestic companies then I think it fundamentally misunderstands the free market economic model. The free market would benefit domestic companies. It would strengthen domestic companies to have competition.
It was framed as a moral argument by suggesting the US should be “better”. At least that was my interpretation. I don’t think arguing from a market perspective really changes that interpretation but instead further weakens China’s lack of allowing American social media companies to operate in China with the same unfettered market access.
> If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
We kind of care and we have been caring more. The problem is that legally it has been difficult to say “go ahead and build or operate your business in the US except if you are China”. Likewise China just blanket applies the rules that it has to entities that want to operate in China.
> Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
It’s also important to remember that some things are more important than profit. The economy and market are just one aspect of a nation. Lowering cost and increasing competition are nice but they are not the point of civilization.
Of course in practice that's true, but we also tout free-er markets as something to strive for, especially when it comes to us imposing it on other countries in conflict with their sovereign rights to restrict their own markets.
> So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
I think TikTok is a highly special case, and sort of brings to light the rationale why China decided to ban foreign mega tech corps, especially social media ones. We also saw a backlash when Facebook tried to influence India's elections and politics with a banner on their website. Social media is indeed a special case.
But I think this problem is also similar to the national security vs privacy/encryption battle. We are giving up some of our principles to make our short term lives (national security) easier. Yes, TikTok can be weaponized as an influence machine... however letting it run free could mean developing a more natural resistance to it in the American population (if possible). If we devolve to market manipulation we'll rely on it as a crutch. Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
> Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
Why go to extremes? You could just argue the opposite and argue why don’t we explicitly allow slave labor, bribery, and dumping?
As soon as you provide an argument against any of those things you can use that same rationale to argue to ban a company like Tik Tok.
Every company that complies with the local laws can open any kind of company in China and they do.
The US has to do the same per WTO law as long as Tiktok obeys the US law. And it does. Hence the made up 'national security' horsesh*t to justify the ban - otherwise it would run afoul of WTO rules.
America did. Still does. And now it’s banning and regulating superior products off the market.
Although it is fun that it's totally fine for an American company to take the reins and continue on.
This could have been done with emphasis on the way China engineers TikTok/Douyin in each country and the effects on the end users - but that wouldn't make anyone with money or power very happy. The thing it does is fine - merely where the data goes and who pulls the levers is the concern.
The "ban" will change nothing in our society, thank God.
The important part should be understanding the whys and building access to a robust nonpunitive way out for those who want it.
But the profits of addiction are too important either way.
Where and when did America claim that?
The Biden admin has also been looking to halt BYD sales in the US, citing security threats [0]. BYD’s cars are often cheaper than Teslas and very well reviewed
0: https://www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/4/24087919/biden-tariff-c...
China did. Still does. And now it's begging and suing to keep those freedoms.
Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?
There should be no restrictions on who owns a website. There can be an unlimited number of websites, and every website's "reception range" is the entire planet.
Today's rulemaking pushes us one step closer to a Great Firewall. If ByteDance moves operations entirely to China, what measures will the government enact to prevent people in the US from using it? (It will probably be strong-arming app stores, but that will fail because they can just make it a web app. So the only option will be to have two Internets, one with everything except TikTok, and one with everything.)
It will be interesting if this extends to other apps. Will it be unamerican to play Genshin Impact?
Ex, ByteDance couldn't go to AWS and ask for capacity, nor could they go to Hurricane Electric and ask for Peering.
We’ll end up validating Chinese policies all these years if we claim this action has precedent.
If it doesn’t have precedent, then it’s even worse. It becomes a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them (or their practices).”
You could say the same thing about China complaining about this. Actually, that's what people would think of first when you mentioned "the teapot calling the kettle back". Frankly, I think people in China are surprised we kept our internet open for so long. Anyways, yes, American is now admitting that they will play by the same rules as China, rather than giving them a pass.
My whole second point about joining them is saying that it shouldn’t matter what China does or says. They are hypocrites so we can be too???
> I guess also if we really don't have any principles anymore, we'll have devolved back to survival of the fittest principles.
China has been very clear that the principle should be tit for tat. All of their economic and foreign policy is based on that, from the visas they issue to visitors, the tariffs we exchange on vehicle production, and the foreigners they throw in prison when one of their own is put on house arrest in Canada. This is just a very late counter-reaction to a policy China has held for awhile.
China is a government, so, just like our government, it must stfu.
This is a pretty straightforward protection of the people from government that's very much in line with American ideals.
China.
China is using TikTok to suppress free speech, so I don't see how your analogy relates here.
China: censors free speech in China then makes a US speech platform and censors American speech on the new platform. Blocks US platforms in China because they refuse to censor speech for the CCP.
US: blocks China from owning speech platforms because the US doesn't allow censorship and doesn't trust China to stop censoring speech on the platform.
Literally the opposite thing. How you've managed to conflate two completely opposite things is very interesting.
Are you a habitual TikTok user? Or do you work for the CCP?
I'm openly suspicious that you might be getting paid to conflate these very obviously opposite things.
Conversely America is holding to its core values of restricting governments from acting in the political field. That right is reserved for citizens, and is especially protected from government use. America is founded on restricting government so that free speech can exist.
This move firmly reestablishes America as a leader in free speech protection, as it protects citizens speech from influence by government, both domestic, and now, foreign.
It still wouldn't violate the Constitution. Rights are reserved for citizens. It's perfectly legal to tell TikTok what they can or can't say.
That's not what Congress has done, but it would be legal.
In other words "freedom of speech" means that Congress doesn't have the power to pass laws that suppress speech itself, regardless of where it comes from. It's not that the first amendment applies to some people (and certainly not that it doesn't apply to others), but that it applies to Congress and limits what laws they can pass without qualification.
These cases go back and forth.
I would argue that it wasn't necessary to spell out that constitutional rights apply to citizens because the law is presumed to defer to common practice in cases where no law exists. That is, laws go back to long before the Constitution and those laws are referred to as common law.
In that sense; the king has lordship of his subjects, and no obligation to subjects of other kingdoms. He collected taxes, and provided protection from foreign threat and justice for his subjects.
Likewise, citizens of China don't pay taxes to the US, they have not that obligation because they are not subjects of the US government. Neither do they have the rights that are afforded a subject thereof.
Congress has no need to clarify that. It's presumed to be the case. That they mention it in certain amendments is incidental, despite the creative interpretations I've read, mostly from immigration proponents. (Not that I'm opposed, I'm an immigrant.)
No doubt, lots of people prefer to interpret this differently, especially when it's a right they need for a specific reason. That's exactly what China is doing here.
They are arguing about why the law should be interpreted in their favor this time. And next time they will argue the other way, as they do against their subjects.
It's up to the judge what it means in each case, but as a generally accepted interpretation, applying US law and protections to a foreign nation without some kind of formal alliance specifying more directly what is provided, is an egregious stretch of the imagination. It's ridicule, at best.
Firstly, they didn't expand or alter the Constitution.
I'm not sure where you got that from. Reading back and I don't see it anywhere.
Stated again, hopefully more clearly; by exercising restrictions on China they've reestablished that China is not "the people" described in the Constitution. So, it's not protected from congressional acts.
And second, they didn't need to do that anyway. Foreign policy is a power reserved for Congress and the President. No amendment ever restricted that power.
See Article 1.
Freedom of speech is my right to be able to bitch about Biden or Trump without having to worry that I'll die in prison.
Freedom of speech is not a right of foreign entities sending me memes about them to manipulate who I will vote for in the election.
There's a law where foreign entities can't own TV or Radio in US. This might be controversial, but IMO it should be updated to also include social media as this is source where people get news from.
Journalists and your everyone else enjoys free speech, it must not be curtailed, neither must it be fostered.
While companies as a disembodied judicial entity cannot have speech in the same sense as people of flesh and blood, they can, simply based on their properties, act as an amplifier or muffler.
This requires at least some level of care which cannot be guaranteed if the business is run by a company headquartered in an unfriendly foreign nation which does not allow free speech at all and only allows businesses to conduct international business that is sanctioned.(We have had numerous reports about this now over the past years that foreign investors and companies operating in China are actually competing with the Chinese state there.)
If you don't agree, let's take out China in this argument and phrase it differently:
Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there? (I mean we had Nazi parties in the US around that time, BUT from today's perspective we would agree that such a scenario(the media-outlets) is a clear cut case with the US-government prohibiting it.)
What was better in the 1930's was that the newspaper industry was in the business for the news. They were a news-company. These days hedge-funds and for profits(not necessarily bad but it takes a turn when it is unadulterated greed by all means necessary( The Atlantic wrote a nice piece about this where Money swoops in buys a newspaper and runs it into the ground and that regularly and at scale, just cannot find the article)). So our position is a bit dire and we have Television and an industry that strives to captivate/capitalize all the attention it can get for a few pennies to deal with these days.
The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
Pair that with the New Silk Road initiative and the Dollar-Imperialism the Chinese government tries to run in the Pan-Pacific region and the picture becomes less welcoming.
Don't get me wrong, there is enough blame to go around for everybody, but I rather have it come from a non fascist entity. That being said, I can go into Washington and demonstrate peacefully(!) against Biden or Trump and I can ask questions about the past. Try doing that in Bejing with respect to Xi or Tienamen Square.(So while we can blame both sides there is still more to one argument than the other, so much for whataboutism) Considering that 'Grandpa' Xi enforced a personal cult around him starting with children's school books(not unlike Putin) and with what goes on with the Uyghur population in China's north, the attempts to strong arm Taiwan , the alignment of China with Russia, the broken promise made to Hong Kong and other items, I have to say that China is fascist and the CCP communist in name only.
The concept of Lebensraum is firmly on the agenda of global and, if you are unfortunate enough, also local politics again.
China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions.(China is less commercially insulated than Russia it appears. Propably one of the reasons China's is a bit softer trying to incorporate time.)
From an economic perspective I totally get that no company wants to have their business taken away, but I doubt Bytedance is just a company. This is just a change in ownership, nothing out of the ordinary. The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership. That framing, in the light of what I just wrote, becomes highly suspect. Almost vicious, bordering on the willingness to divide and incite. (Which reminds me: Totalitarian regimes like to be part of the regular government bodies but they also like to set up their own counterpart so that they, after having stopped the working of those other bodies (or if they are ousted), still have a viable alternative.)
That is why I welcome this, why I think it is high time, why I hope to see more of these actions globally,
This is deeply, deeply wrong - China and Russia are natural opponents, they are two autocracies that deeply distrust each other and do not understand each other’s culture. They will never be like USA and UK.
The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
Well Stalin and Hitler were like that too. Luckily for the world Hitler couldn't stay his hand reaching for Moscow, otherwise the Allies wouldn't have faced a Germany being engaged in a two front war. Also, considering that Putin and XI met during the Olympic Winter Games face to face and that the invasion of Ukraine commenced right after the games as to not affront Xi, depriving him of China's moment in the Limelight is telling non the less. So there must be some mutual understanding. Especially considering that Xi is slavering over Taiwan.
> The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
I wouldn't consider it failure. Opponent is Opponent no matter what.
>Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
The whole world produces weapons. This is a red herring implying that Russia is just doing what Europe does. That is outright wrong. Europe does not try to forcefully move borders attempting to annihilate a sovereign nation by committing genocide. And I doubt they are bottling Vodka from Russian production in Italy, especially not since the sanctions. Vodka may have originated in Russia, BUT every company can distill and sell it. Same goes for weapons. I also doubt that it would get anyone in trouble buying Chinese, otherwise, Me thinks, a lot of people in Russia would be in trouble, especially way out East. The way you label the War in Ukraine is also ... euphemistically put... and no, they are not like the Brexiteers. Please don't take me or anyone else here a fool. Britain left the EU because of populism and now they are dealing with the fallout. They have no notion of reviving the British Empire. Putin wants to recreate the UdSSR. He himself declared the downfall of the Soviet Union the single most geopolitical tragedy of the 20th Century. In short he is a Soviet still in mind and manner.
>China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
Really? Ask the Philippines, Vietnam or in general countries around the South China Sea, read news articles not penned by the South China Morning Post or read accounts from fishermen there. I am sure that the picture you fine there is totally different. Territorial saber rattling, building of artificial islands trying to stake a claim. China always say they come in peace and that we all should be tolerant, but when you try to see if that sentiment is true, then it is only true for others, for all other situations China comes first. Their recent political statements have become a statement of whataboutism and we are the victims of the bad bad west and we did no wrong ever... To my mind their vision of the future is a Chinese one where everything non-Chinese is to be treated as second rate at best.
They are not like the west and definitely not better, otherwise the Chinese Government wouldn't have warned against the bad influences of Christmas some months back. Open minded, tolerant... with that message I don't think so. And you are right, their plan is different. Industrial espionage on a very very large scale. And please don't try to white-wash or absolve. They are creating new power plants burning coal at a rate higher than any other nation.
I must also add here that Xi, just like Putin, feels slighted by history. That China's fall from might, from national glory, is bad and that it must reclaim its 'rightful' place. Anyone seeing a parallel here. I might also add that it is quiet telling that no one mentions the great leap forward by Mao dark times ahead indeed.
Haha, haha, ha...
Have you ever been to China? They have made more progress in the last few decades than the whole western world combined. And the west in in a serious decline. If anything that statement should be backwards.
Before you reflexively dismiss this argument and go hit that downwards triangle: what you are saying is China had more glory during the Opium wars than it does now. Surely you can see how absurd this statement is.
Also, it's nice to see a bipartisan bill in the national interest. There used to be a saying, "politics stops at the water's edge." Every so often we remember that.
Yes, I have heard that saying being quoted some time ago.
While I mostly exist on the other side of the water's edge... I am happy and hopeful that that is the case and hope it will continue to be that way and that the circus some politicians yonder the water's edge are putting on stops.
Some things do, and should transcend, political boundaries. e.g. while I, would I be eligible to vote in the US, would most likely not vote Republican(probably not aged enough yet :D ), I must say that I like this guy https://www.facebook.com/RepZachNunn/videos/this-isnt-a-horr... simply for trying to do the right thing there. Found it while I was prompted to do some more research due to busying myself with this thread.(and it is not the only report I found... See here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S160061352...) I always thought of it to be some boogie man story made up by Falun Gong or Falun Dafa hanging about the CBD to rope in support. Finding out that it is actually substancial... I think this is my seeing evil moment if I ever had one, and I am only in front of a computer screen in my PJs.
> TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly
This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
(example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
"Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
Do you have proof of this? Either in the positive, or the negative (if Chinese kids search for garbage they will be given garbage?)
But the materials that are "acceptable" to give to you in the first place is mostly garbage on TikTok and highly curated on the Chinese version.
That's the point.
> This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
Really? Then this investigation should be wrong, but they are a reputable source and I trust them, especially since that is not the only report or the only source.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_Lu1S0sII
> "Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
That is THE MOST inhumane and humanity denying thing I have read today. It does not matter the color of your skin or the cultural background of your upbringing, we all bleed when stabbed and we all feel pain and fear. If that sentiment is still alive in the governing ranks of that country and wide spread we should all be very very careful and worried.
> (example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
A) you would have to notice to be upset B) that is not how services and the internet work. We could sit side by side and use the same app and visit the same website and could,depending on connection or identifying markers still see totally different content or sentiments being expressed. Considering that we are on HN, I fear you know and you played that card deliberately non the less.
> If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
Search for Tienamen Square inside the GFW and outside and also add the word Massacre to it and observe. We also see a less politically colored version of this in general dubbed the Search Engine Bubble. Also, you are free to be annoyed, but if you speak up you might also be 'free' to receive a free political 'reeducation' or sanctions.
Good idea? No. But the world isn't exactly ran on good ideas. Instead of Nazi germany newspapers they went straight to american broadcast itself and seeped in like a poison.
And the sad part is I don't even blame them. People want to hear what they agree with. Some may be legitmately brainwashed, but I've seen enough examples of individuals shunning the truth to conclude that we're well into a post-truth era.
>The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
It goes back to the root issue, many westerners have long lost that disciplined to be an educated populace, to identify and defend against bias. to will themselves towards what they need to do as opposed to want. a single social media side won't change that.
>The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership.
They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
Really? That is like saying that Russians are always good at chess or Chinese good at Kung Fu or Japanese good at Karate.
We had this type of rhetoric during the time of the Cold War as well.
Aside from it being profiling let's entertain this:
If what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat. You wouldn't have to introduce a system of snitching and forced conformism via the social credit system(which is less technical than is made out to believe in the west, more like some dada and wify on the bench taking notes) and you wouldn't have dissidents or the need to 'shield/protect' the population from any foreign influence via the GFW.
And onto other parts: > And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
Really? It is only a crime, bad if caught and now they have been caught and called out. Also, how do you measure growth? Over the past years commercial data from within China has been dubious. And what is the fastest growing anyways? Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage. China has a large population and western products are not allowed to participate and e.g. Weibo or tencent are de factor monopolies. I assume it to be similar with Tiktok. Also, things that are not good for you usually are the most fun. Think junk food. There is nothing wrong with that or endulging it it(every once in a while), but, once again, it is nefarious when there is malicious purpose behind it like with Tiktok. A foreign power trying to subvert values and a way of life. And to answer your question: Yes, given that the Chinese Government is footing the bill they have more clout than their competitors because of that.
> They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
Well, then the ownership does not change. Their choice, it is their company. They may do with it as they please, but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
It didn't have to go that way but that's the direction it went. And I see no initiative to change that.
>f what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat.
In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
>so, how do you measure growth?
As a social media platform? Aquire more users, capture to market share, and increase profit margins. Asia isn't so different from NA/EU in that regard.
Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
>Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage.
The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
>but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
Maybe I can't stop the second coming, but I sure as heck won't have the wool I've my eyes again and get caught up in the petty squabbles.
If that is so altruistic, I am sure a mom from that cultural background would forfeit the future of her child so that another family(maybe her sister's) has a better life ensuring the thriving of their offspring instead. I have known many a people of Asian decent. What you describe is pure idolism. A cliche, a stereotypical, unreflected, reflexive - dare I say romatizised - vision of the Eastern Culture. If it were true, why are so many people migrating then? Away I mean? And what about the wandering workers that are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth? Also, what you are framing as logical is human nature. It is not different based on culture. Only its hue changes. You also left out my point about the generation that lies flat and other remarks.
> In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
ByteDance is a Chinese company with Bejing's blessing. The whole debate, not just our little discussion here, is framed US-China or West-China.
> Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
Really? Recall project Dragonfly of Google's ? Does any Chinese company operating in other jurisdictions require a minimum percentage of Chinese shareholders or similar shenanigans?
> The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
See project Dragonfly again. A lot of companies are interested in the Chinese market. That is all Bloomberg ever raves about when it comes to the Chinese market opening and Earning calls being presented. So the statement that the US(or the west in general) is not caring about the userbase in China is outright wrong. A lot of consumers, biiiiig market. They are just not allowed to touch it or under hefty penalties with big handicaps. And weibo was beaten to the punch, Tiktok wants to become the youtube/whatsapp of the world. Don't try to misdirect here ;) .
> That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
See my previous reply. I must also add, tongue in cheek, .... or is coerced to leave because of unfair competitive scewing. Amazon is the kingpin of online retail and must be checked in in general. Such a 800pound Gorilla knows what it is doing. So I doubt that would qualify for your argument to begin with.
> Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
That is a discussion worthy of its own thread and I am not touching it in order to stay focused(nice try though). Let's just say that doing the right thing should be done regardless of the implications because it is worth doing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be smart about it. And reigning in China's delusions of gradeur and Xi's pipedream of wanting a legacy as big as Mao's no matter the cost on the back of millions of people is the right thing. You can't let a bully step over you.
The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.
The US entity isn't beholden to the CCP and can decide to switch algorithm providers if they suddenly notice it's getting very propaganda-y, which provides a degree of independent oversight appeasing US concerns while not necessitating actually switching from the current systems.
1) prior to bill passage, convincing the public that they will pull out is optimal as it helps argue against bill, regardless of whether it is at all true
2) but, after bill passage, the incentives are totally different. Pulling out means giving up a billion dollar market that could instead have been sold. The shareholders would be livid.
So I am very skeptical. I have heard CEOs say many things they later were found to clearly never have meant seriously, simply because it was what they needed to say at the time. Like, "we would never do outsourcing or layoffs, your division is totally safe"....
I would think thoughtful HN readers would be just a little less credulous
"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Tim Snyder, it's also is short and to the point (audiobook is 2 hours long) and teaches people what to look for to see when their country slides into authoritarianism and what to do to fight it.
The author also reads it on YouTube if you can't get a hold of it.
If ByteDance sells TikTok to US owners to satisfy the requirement, they give up control of a successful platform developed inside of China to a self-declared adversary that already controls most of the world's social media platforms, representing a significant loss to China as they attempt to compete online.
If ByteDance ignores the demand to sell, the US government has obligated itself to prevent its citizens from accessing one of the most popular social media apps in existence, something that the affected users will be extremely angry about, and will likely make claims of state censorship.
If I were China, and my goal was to leverage TikTok to do harm to America, I would choose the option that turns US citizens against the government over the option that transfers power from China to the US.
That's simply a lie. Douyin is full of the same trash as Tiktok.
China is a communist country. State owned industry. The leash they give business "owners" might be long (long enough to fool westerns it's just another USA), but it is still a leash, and they are still under control of the party. No courts, no rights, no lawsuits. Party wants, party takes.
Nope! He has said - TT is not going anywhere and vows to fight back legally. I was a bit shocked to find court put a hold on Trump’s ban of TT
Very big example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co.
Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is going to be more than willing to put in place their own addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American social media and other adjacent tech companies have implemented them.
I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this will improve the app seems naive.
Someone like Facebook wants the algorithm to show addictive content that generally isn't super offensive to the average person. Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
For a US example you can simply count the minutes of coverage Fox News and CNN give to various stories for the same basic effect. How much coverage you gives the Russia- Ukraine war can be just as impactful as if you refer to it as a Russian invasion or not.
I don't use TikTok, but I use Facebook and Google's short video versions. I find just as many anti-CCP as pro-CCP content on it, and...I guess these are mostly TikTok videos because many of them still have TikTok watermarks.
I'm legitimately terrified to know what this means.
Let me not even get started on the deep fakes lurking on the platform.
The effect is less informed with higher certainty, and terrible combination for training citizens for actual civil discourse.
Same thing with propaganda used by social media.
This video illustrates the effects of it: https://youtu.be/pB7WzqUq4Nk?t=324
I don't see how people can say this with a straight face knowing that American adversaries operate almost in the open on Facebook. You don't need to control the platform to control the message. That's what social media companies sell!
Not according to his employees
They would have to be bribing the IRS. No way.
I don't like or use Facebook and I hope it dies a horrible death. But I'm also a realist.
>That's what social media companies sell!
In any case, without paid ads, their "friend me" campaigns didn't work. There's some research from the FBI on this.
Can't find the link right this second but I'll post back if I do.
There is no greater vehicle to deliver a hooking mechanism to target specific users for spyware upload than an app that is installed on a lot of platforms. Weechat is one other such tool btw. and that thing behaves strangely compared to e.g. Whatsapp if you install it.
To be fair having first past the post voting does wonders for division. No external enemy necessary.
I'm not convinced anything on TikTok is more divisive than any other social media platform. And Reddit seems to be filled with a lot more tankies than other platforms.
You're right, everyone I know now buys their glycine from Donghua Jinlong instead of using domestic manufacturers. This is clearly not because of the superior manufacturing capabilities of Donghua Jinlong, who are ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified, and whose glycine is industrial AND food grade, but because of an insidious campaign by the CCP to promote Chinese glycine across the entire industry, trying to crush American glycine manufacturing. I demand congressional hearings about what our elected politicians are doing about this threat to American-made glycine!
Readers might also be happy to know DHJL glycine is Halal, Kosher, and Reach certified, and more recently, FDA approved as well!
But they're very certain that it's bad!
Meanwhile, I'm scratching my head trying to understand how my watch history could have any value whatsoever. Cute kittens, shirtless guys chopping wood, sad hamster memes, Sanchez the sleepy racoon, Young Royals edits, some dude eating all kinds of cheese, A bunch of confused Americans in Europe and vice versa, PEDRO PEDRO PEDRO, guys promoting their onlyfans, schwapeepee, and of course Donghua Jinlong content, although it seems to have run its course now.
How is it worse than making disseminating disinformation illegal? The law as written lays bare the true motivation - it's not about fighting disinformation ("inauthentic user activity" has been detected across all social networks for the purposes of disinformation). It almost certainly is about protecting American companies from competitors with better AI algorithms. The legislature has telegraphed that the tech/potential for abuse are not problems by themselves - ownership by a Chinese company is what they take issue with.
I didn't say it was a bad thing - I said there's a better option that wasn't taken. IMO, protecting citizens from bad behavior by domestic and foreign companies is nobler than corporate protectionism. YMMV .
Sounds like a skill issue. The Us has decades worth of a head start on the internet and social media. If "the enemy" can just waltz in and disrupt that in a matter of 5 years, I think we have bigger issues on hand.
> Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
Yeah, America has a decade long headstart on that too. We blamed facebook in 2016, we're blaming Tiktok in 2024. How long are we going to deflect this to the internet?
Do you have a single example of a successful Chinese media campaign, disinformation or information - just one?
Because I can name, off the top of my head, disinformation campaigns by Trump (election was stole) , by Israel (bunker under a hospital), by Isis (mass recruitment in western countries), by oil companies (heat pumps don’t work in Britain’s unique climate), by food companies, by Russia, by Greenpeace, by crazy people on 4chan but I cannot name a single message that came out of China and got major public resonance in the west.
China's 50-cent army buys social media accounts, or creates fake personas, to push narratives and abuses reporting/takedown mechanisms to suppress unfavorable posts and channels.
> Most DRAGONBRIDGE activity is low quality content without a political message, populated across many channels and blogs
If anything, this is a demonstration that their efforts are futile and incompetent, very much non-threat. I’ve seen even 4chan do better
We have multiple actors that push divisive misinformation through bots, much more successfully, and we do not apply any scrutiny to that.
A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with every reason to wager to a far lesser degree.
Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis, but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's best interest).
China might not even need to influence the west through tiktok, meta and friends seem to be doing plenty of it themselves. None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
> None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
The Nirvana Fallacy is when you reject the better of two outcomes because it's not good enough compared to some mythical optimum.
In this case, the optimum could be some social media service that "strengthens progress and unity" or it could be a total ban on social media altogether, both of which seem pretty mythical. :p
I believe organic, chaotic derangement is better than extrinsic, targeted derangement in magnitude and outcome.
Take some responsibility for Americans posting on social media to other Americans, for the love of god.
The highest ideal American SNS follow is profit. That will generate all kinds of externalities that might be bad for society. Still, at least so far, we've found it to be the least destructive optimization target in modern human history (vs. socialism).
The CCP is clearly tuning the algorithm in the SNS under its control to limit topics it deems undesirable in its goal of an ideal society. Whoever thinks this isn't so bad hasn't experienced an authoritarian state personally or at least highly underestimates the pain and suffering one can inflict.
I'm afraid that's not goign to happen in the US. Politicians never let a disaster go to waste: had the will been there to regulate social media in general, the hysteria around TikTok would have precipitated it. Instead, we got a law specifically targeting TikTok and ignoring other SM.
The mere fact that these social media CEOs are building vast bunkers and amassing billions of dollars highlights the issue that they are literally shoveling value out of these platforms into their own pockets, and those of their investors, while preying upon the instincts of all their users in a deeply psychological manner.
I'm a musician myself, and social media is totally overburdening the music economy with scams for musicians like paying for ads and bot services just to get visibility. Social Media overall is considered to be a wasteland dedicated to promoting only artificially engineered celebrity music and stories right now in the opinion of many.
Also, please avoid ad-hominem ("hilariously limited intellect"); it overshadows what otherwise would be a valid point (enforcing a ban vs. practicing personal habit, critique on blanket statements, etc.)
Though, the saddest thing is that it seems like the U.S citizens, (i.e ANY of tiktoks 160 MILLION US users) have absolutely no say in the operations,a yet we actually interact with the app not these old people in Congress. The fact that Biden so swiftly signed the bill too makes me frustrated as I want to vote for him, but he keeps doing or okaying things that are counter to my values.
As a parent, I hate google a lot more than TikTok. I can already block TikTok, but I can't block youtube because the school district mandates it.
But ya, if a teen is otherwise cut off from devices besides the ones they get from school, then you could see that as a weak point, although I don't think that applies to a significant portion of families. For the ones that it does apply to, they probably have bigger problems to worry about than TikTok being banned.
You mean like Facebook, YouTube, and Starbucks?
Riiiggghhhttt…
Isn't this just another reason to conclude China views Tiktok as a national security asset?
If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries.
TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.
If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.
Most other short-form content recommendation algorithms overfit like crazy (ahem Instagram ahem), and many users trying to bend it a certain way mess it up.
Heck, they could post their IPA or source code if they wanted. This law isn't what prevents users from sideloading.
https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-...
The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream.
The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular.
Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets.
TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it.
At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.
Thats easy to answer.
The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.
Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off.
So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.
The tiktok that you know about is the international app that already doesnt compete with the rest of bytedance.
That's because:
* Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline.
* Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes.
* Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.
Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections.
So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.
Speaking as an American, our country was founded on the principles of being apprehensive of governments including our own. Being suspicious of our own government is a very American thing and should not be understood as surprising.
See our Declaration of Independence for further reading and context.
Does yandex have an app or use cloudflare?
I think either way this whole thing is a big W for CCP and L to US democracy that doesn't have the balls to actually expand regulation when it's clearly wanted and needed.
My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.
Or they just move over to FAANG competitors? I've never used TikTok before since it is an app, but I use YouTube shorts and whatever that Instagram short thing is Facebook is pushing into my feed (with...erm...a lot more addictive algorithms than YouTube). Ok, I'm not Gen Z, but it looks like content providers are already hedging their bets on platforms (they often don't even remove TikTok watermarks), I don't see why consumers wouldn't follow. Its not like YouTube or Facebook is blocked in the USA.
Currently the FAANG competitors are much worse; their recommendation engines are inferior. That's why consumers overwhelmingly prefer Tiktok currently.
We can be skeptical, but not afraid of foreign owned media.
100% agree.
I would say this offers some insight into the real reason they want to ban TikTok.
It's addictive and they don't fully understand the dangers of CCP spyware and CCP controlled algorithm. It's like drugs addicts being passionate about drug use.
Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.
Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.
2. I am looking forward to seeing the justifications that will be trotted around once the USG torpedoes net neutrality and bans the website
Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban?
The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal to provide services to Americans (or more draconian, which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the executive.
What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake or distribute this from non-American servers and via the internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still available.
It's an effective ban because the CCP has already said they will not allow a TikTok sale. Congress knows there's no recourse for ByteDance. They aren't going to hand over the IP to a non-Chinese entity. If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban.
>Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
The irony about this is that China has the same exact policy in the mainland, but no one argues whether or not Google is banned in China. Google used to be in China! China said Google had to censor some topics or they wouldn't be allowed to do business in China. Google opted to leave.
Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship.
These are both true, though. Again, if you want to see a ban, look at how Facebook is treated by China.
But fair enough, people are using the term "ban" inconsistently. I wouldn't say anyone's moving the goalposts as much as we're using an ambiguous term interchangeably.
> If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban
This is tautology. You literally said if Sally were to do X to Andy unless {}, then X = X.
> Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship
You can't go to Google.com in China. You will be able to go to TikTok.com and access its content freely after it's been, per your definition, banned. From a free-speech perspective, that seems material.
I get your point from a free-trade perspective. This is obviously not a free-trade bill. Maybe that's where the discussion is losing traction...
I've never seen anyone argue that Google isn't technically banned in China. It's clearly a ban when China does it.
And what do companies do that don't want to comply to GDPR? They ban EU users. You can use the search bar here to find countless people talking about being banned. There's no ambiguity - there's only ambiguity when it comes to TikTok.
If I purchase a car with low gas mileage, and then the EPA requires cars to have minimum gas milage, that "bans" my car. Even though technically, I could figure out some way to rebuild it to comply.
1) Their algorithms (presumably video recommendations) are proprietary and used by their other Chinese apps
2) TikTok revenue isn't that significant for them
Maybe these reasons are bogus, but I'd not be surprised if they do refuse to sell.
It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.
There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons.
Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.
What the law absolutely does do is make "Chinese Ownership" an existential risk to companies with software products with large numbers of US users. Riot, Epic et. al. will be strongly incentivised to get their PRC shareholders to divest, and in the future other companies will be disincentivized from accepting that kind of investment.
And surely that's intentional.
Abuse of power in a nutshell.
Anything they sell just gives them more money to buy more ownership.
It does not look good at all. It just shows that they have no trust in their own citizens. And maybe for a reason.
Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.
> the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet
Only if the president believes they should be banned.
Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06...
The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.
Hmm I wonder why..
I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.
Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China doesn't do this to us. As a general rule US companies can operate in China and US companies are allowed to own stake in Chinese companies.
To me this is an escalation of the fair-weather, "I don't like you, you don't like me but we can still be professionals when it comes to mutually beneficial trade" attitude we've had.
Unintentionally funny comment when positioned next to its sibling about this exact thing happening to FB in a targeted way back in '09
It was not. It was only banned in 2009 after it was allegedly used to organise protests that escalated into deadly race riots in Xinjiang.
The organized protests[1] were just a convenient excuse. Race riots have occurred in many countries and you can link those back to various social media platforms which were used to organize protests.
[1] The protests as you describe them… there is a lot to unpack here and it’s not a good enough excuse to ban American social media companies. But if you think it is, then the US also gets to arbitrarily ban foreign social media companies.
US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.
>The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world
Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.
a. Quantitatively
- Reading: Canada is 3rd, America is 24th
- Science: Canada is 7th, America is also 24th
- Math: Canada is 9th, America is 39th
^ There should be negligible differences between them given vast similarities.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/02/15/u-s-stude...
b. Qualitatively - Meet and talk to enough people from Asia (Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China) and Europe (Iberian and Eastern) & UK. And then talk to many Americans from anywhere other than from the coasts. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, MAGA, and QAnon are the mainstream norm rather than the exception. The difference is: they don't have government censorship, a totalitarian regime, or social credit habits as an excuse for their ignorance. There are billboards with borderline racist MAGA slogans in the South US.
One country has borderline racist MAGA slogans. The other has Han Chauvinism and forced propaganda for a totalitarian state. There's plenty of conspiracy theories and misinformation in both countries. Here's a study showing that 13.8% of people in China considered GMO foods as a form of bioterrorism targeted at China[1].
I'm not saying America doesn't have problems, but most of the criticisms you lobbed at America can just as easily be lobbed at China, and yet China seems to be economically expanding rather rapidly relative to America or most places. I'll also say being highly educated isn't all roses, every country with tertiary education levels as high or higher than Canada's has a well sub-replacement birthrate - the education levels you idealise aren't even independantly sustainable.
[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-018-0018-4
The US and its allies got rid of Chinese telecom hardware from their networks for the very same reasons now it’s time to do the same with TikTok.
Would you let an enemy supply you with the very same kit you would use to fight them? No. Would you let that same adversary install an app on your most used device to watch and track you? Hah no.
A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.
Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.
Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamewars here on HN.
> Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamwars here on HN.
I agree!
Back in Arcade Machines time, when a player is busy playing a fighting game, Street Fighter, I guess, and another person inserts a coin to play against him, the game pauses and a message that reads "Here's come a new challenger" pops up, so I think challenger would serve the purpose somehow!
Not that this is relevant to anything, but if it were: no one was doing this.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
They're listed as adversaries and not enemies because aiding an enemy country suddenly unlocks a litany of other crimes.
Enemy is very specifically defined: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/2204
Adversary is very specifically defined: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
Now let's explore the connotation of enemy. Playing Go against you calling you my enemy is outright wrong. However, if you were my enemy, I would not drink tea and have a laugh with you afterwards. I wouldn't even be playing a game of Go against you, but rather trying to do other not so nice things to you.
Such is the nature of connotation. Being erudite helps here ;) .
US is in cold war with China because China might soon be economicaly getting upper hand.
If they enter into a conflict where they are cordoned off, their export oriented economy would crash immediately.
A war between China and USA is impossible to win for either sides, due to both military size, budgets, interdependence, and nuclear weapons arsenal. And this is why it's a cold war.
I am not a geopolitician, but this looks like a little too simplistic perspective, doesn’t it? I mean China diversified its wallet, including by helping to create infrastructures in Africa where there is still a largely growing young population (in contrast to the general trend in the occidental countries, or even what the long standing single child policy led to in China).
The US considers all of LATAM as his own back yard. Why can’t China consider all of Asia as its own back yard?
This is what upsets people, the sheer size of hypocrisy.
The point is that the US has set a precedence on military power around the world. The US told the world that using military power for your own country's benefit is ok to do. So why can't China?
That doesn't mean either side was right, or that one justifies the other. Only that the pot should into call the kettle black.
That is absolutely the implication here.
The commenter's focus on hypocrisy reads to me more like they take issue with the US calling China out for this rather then justifying what China is doing because they aren't the only ones.
China wants to replace the US and the west as the global power. This will lead to upheaval and likely a war. When that finally comes to pass it behooves the west and the US to protect itself from anything that could undermine its own protection. In order to win a war you need hearts and minds. Not a populace that is being programmed to think despotic neo-communist-capitalist-when-it-suits-them rulers in China are somehow paper tigers.
Let’s compromise here: they are adversaries now but I think they are preparing to become enemies in every sense of the word. If they invade Taiwan, shed blood in the conflict over the breached rusting ship in the Phillipines, continue supporting Putin in his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine then yes they will eventually become enemies.
And now not only were these circumstances rare, but they were also inherently liminal. Technological and economic edges fade rapidly, especially in light of major population level differences. I see no reason to think China imagines they could or even wants to be anything like the US was 30 years ago. The world is returning to its more natural multipolar state, as it's more or less always been.
It’s by no means a given that a more even distribution of power leads to war or China ‘replacing the US’ as the only one. But an attitude where everyone thinks so, ironically, might.
Change any of those things in a significant way and I’m sure I would be a different person now. I love the idea that I am an autonomous agent of my own that exists self evidently outside of those bounds, I just don’t think it’s true.
The fact that you might be programmed to hate/dislike/fear China despite, I'm guessing having never been to China, is proof that America also programs you, just in another way.
Hint: Mostly through media.
Edit: improve grammar and wording
Now coming to the subject of Facebook, Twitter etc, these apps pose the same threat to nations other than the US. As in, these apps serve US interests by pushing US propaganda onto the rest of the world and constantly monitors/tracks the individuals who have these apps installed.
So a better option is to ban any type of tracking - on all apps. But it is extremely unlikely that this will be made into law.
I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens, when it is the US that creates and fuels those predatory companies. And I understand they basically don’t care if they destroy everyone if it benefits them. Great. But what are our governments doing?
Huh? Where did you get this idea? The GPDR in the EU isn't a US law, it's an EU law to protect EU citizens.
The US government really doesn't do much to protect the privacy of US citizens, certainly nothing at the level of the EU's laws.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passengers_Rights_Regulati...
For example, US citizens are free to listen to chinese radio stations, or chinese TV channels, read chinese books. Why the government needs to restrict what US citizens have access to in this specific case?
It's just protectionism, like banning the Huawei phones (not talking about the infrastructure, that's different) or banning DJI drones. It just sounds better to mention national security than to say "we don't want others to do to us what we do to them, and we don't want them to compete with us".
Radio and newspapers(including internet articles here in general) are a one way street. With Tiktok, you not only get access to the users device via the app, but it is also a two way street. Tiktok gets to choose what it feeds you.
And what you describe is also true in a lot of countries(I can choose my medium). However, with newspapers, radio and television what you feed the population is readily visible to anyone. I can turn on the telly to see what is being streamed. This is not the case with an app. Unless the government watches you 24/7 and I doubt that. The costs are prohibitive. The thing that does exist is metadata. If I were to visit terrorist.com or bombmanual.org.uk I would make a list. But watching TikTok all that is being seen is me communicating with content-servers(here the subject that needs to be watched also changes from the user(me) to the proprietor(the company)) from them and protocolling the content of everything watched, unless you break encryption at scale, and monitor everyone is also prohibitive. Not to mention analysis of the content. So Tiktok is the perfect vehicle for subversion of a foreign nation if I want to play for time.
If doesn't work in many cases anyway, Government has no way to track who is tuning in and listening to hostile radio broadcasts.
Even it might be hostile propaganda, First ammendment protects both publishing and consuming content, without any "national security" considerations. But US lawmakers are now seemingly keen to introduce such conditions in the publishing and consuming of content.
During the cold war it was perfectly legal for the Soviet Life magazine to be published in the US and for people to buy and read it.
First ammendment really does say that "Congress shall make no law .." without any caveats for national security or even war-time exemptions.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the SCOTUS.
This is the government grabbing the authority to ban online services that they deem a national risk. The bill would honestly have been much more benign if it was a few pages spelling out a specific ban on TokTok. Hell, I don't think they'd even need a law to have Google and Apple pull the app from the app stores.
The internet broadened that and introduced apps. So I would see this as a correction rather than anything else.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-eff-applaud-rul...
Much of the Patriot Act is probably unconstitutional but the government had 9/11 as a national security justification. No similar justification exists regarding TikTok.
The government getting into the business of banning companies, and more specifically banning online services, is very, very dangerous in my opinion. This one move effectively creates the need for our own great firewall, starting with a list of only one service but with the executive power to grow that list as more "national security threats" are named.
In this -- extreme case -- the exceptional case of banning the company I think is warranted.
Secondly, half the country voted for DJT. Some insignificant percentage believed his lies and doubted science and such during COVID. Mistakes were indeed made by governments and scientists and public trust in them was strained ... but it proved to me, at least, that the general US public is not educated enough or are just too hopped on their social media opium to care enough to really weigh the threat that TikTok plays. And in this case I defer to the intelligence community and those who operate in the area of national defense to handle this. Seems enough of congress and the senate agree with me.
I'm hesitant to assume people are uneducated because of who they vote for. Talking about Covid and the pandemic response, a vast majority of our politicians and health leaders were knowingly spouting off lies in the name of what they thought was best for us. Again, I can't pin that on any one person, even Fouci. The system broke down and that says nothing meaningful about the average voter.
That said, an educated populace is a fundamental need in a democracy and one that the US founders were well aware of. We don't have that today, whether by incompetence or malice our major societal systems reinforce obedience and subservience. We need more people following their curiosity wherever it leads, and we won't get there by continuing to further lean into a distrust of the general public or by making everyone's daily lives more and more complicated and stretched with less time to spend however each person wants to spend it.
When has the US forced a private corporation to sell up via Congressional decree in peacetime?
Seems to me that Congress is betting that Bytedance will capitulate instead of taking the case to the Supreme Court.
Yea that mind set sounds awful.
And the reach of one individual is just not the same as a nation state. I’m not sure I get your point.
Mentioning propaganda you choose the latter.
Pray tell what are those campaigns you talk about? If you are posing this question you must have at least some in mind and ready at hand to share.
Or all those action movies relying on leased military equipments under the condition they will never portray the US military in a bad manner?
Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?
Those are all examples of US propaganda.
There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.
But let's entertain those smokescreens even just to see where it leads:
The second Gulf war was outright wrong agreed. The hawks had their day and it was a dark one and all that followed because of it. A falling from grace. No argument there. But it is not an argument one should make when arguing over operations done by other countries especially since it is not related and long past and the current subject of discussion is happening right now.
The action movie thing... it is their equipment, they may provide it under any condition as they see fit. I wouldn't want to lend my neighbor a canister either if I knew he chooses to use it to write not so funny stuff in burning letters into my front lawn. I would not be surprised if other militaries would do the same thing if they were to lend their equipment at all.
>Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?
Was that even a real operation?
> There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.
That one is a doozy. The US made it clear that Israel should do more to shield civilians from harm. But let's be clear. Israel and the US are the wrong party to be mad at. If you want to be mad: be mad at Hamas, at Iran for supporting Hamas and at China and Russia for using it in a game of Geopolitical checkers in the UN security council. Without the scourge that is Hamas, who still continue to shoot missiles from South Gaza and who deny a sovereign nation the right to exist, non of this would've happened. Hamas uses the Palestinian people as shields, uses humanitarian institutions(e.g. hospitals) as hide outs and ammunition storages and subverts aide organizations created to help the people in the Gaza strip. They also slaughtered innocent civilians and kidnapped 100s a few months ago. And the people in Gaza should also be mad at their long ago elected inapt and impotent president and their dysfunctional governing bodies. And their inability to face down those terrorists hiding amongst them.(I cannot blame them though, it is a horrid and couraguous thing to do in any circumstance.)
And let's entertain the scenario that the US would step out.... well the entire Middle East would implode or explode like a powder keg. Trade would also suffer considering the shipping routes, oil and other things. And then Iran with Russia's and/or China's blessing would then do evil things... not a very comforting thought either, especially if you give a hoot about religion.
Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc?
I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized.
All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors.
Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.
We can ostensibly anyway regulate the American social media companies whereas the Chinese ones are a black box even though they might operate here under an American entity. That’s why we are here. They claimed they didn’t share data but they do. And that’s how the whole algorithm and value works
> Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.
And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based
I believe the underlying narrative of TikTok was with government control the algorithms would be purposefully tuned to promote disorder elsewhere which is a level of control the U.S. government does not have over U.S. companies and they were jealous (although with the level of information control during Desert Storm I am not 100% certain on that). However, I think this law was very premature and should have required evidence of tuning or actual war. While soldiers may have apps they should not the spies should know better.
The China side where they have banned encryption apps also seems to be war preparation. A digital iron curtain while depressing for the population behind it is not something that can be torn down from the outside. A per app legal war seems an unfeasible use of congressional time when many Chinese smart device control apps require location to function and are on many phones. This also appears to be an opening shot by congress for putting up a U.S. national firewall if TikTok just leaves all US offices and continues business through web based offerings.
Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations. They are in it solely for the money, otherwise the NSA wouldn't have had to snoop on Google in 2013(?).
and this point
> And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based
I find questionable. It is too blanketed. There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.
There's a difference between "Hey, France, we would like this info on a known criminal" and "U.S.-based companies have to turn over all data on any person regardless of that data location or the nationality of the person in question".
That's basically the basis for both Schrems I and Schrems II.
Edit: See also CLOUD Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
--- start quote ---
The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil
--- end quote ---
This is crucial. Legal due process. Also
> ..... U.S.-based technology companies ....
Other jurisdictions have something similar, every company must adhere to the laws of the jurisdiction they want to operate in. You don't like it as a company, not a problem just don't incorporate in the US and live with the repercussion.
There is nothing that suggests that it is out of the ordinary or malicious.
Where it becomes interesting is access without a warrant, or with a muzzle attached, at large scale. That is the clandestine stuff. The purview of intelligence agencies.
That has been addressed by the EU with legislation; privacy shield was not really the hit, but guess what: MS complied. https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-roll-out-data-b... so spooks from the US will now have a harder time accessing user data at scale without a warrant.
That is entirely US-based and ignores any laws or regulations of other countries.
> Other jurisdictions have something similar, every company must adhere to the laws of the jurisdiction they want to operate in.
The key: operate. The US claims data from those companies even if the data and the operations happen in foreign countries.
> That has been addressed by the EU with legislation
EU legislation does not negate US laws. CLOUD Act is still there. And that is a huge issue for any country dealing with US companies.
Is this a joke?
This is already in process in case of EU: https://noyb.eu/en/update-cnil-decides-eu-us-data-transfer-g...
Absolutely.
If it's that China will know more about Americans through data ingestion, they can already do that. Americans willingly upload every little bit of their lives to YouTube, Twitch, and tons of other platforms. Not to mention that Temu is the most downloaded shopping app in the US. And what kind of attack can TikTok information provide that other publicly available online information scraped from other social media sites cannot?
If it's that China can show American citizens a curated list of topics and videos to make Americans think certain ways or vote certain ways, then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem. That's the exact same rhetoric tons of repressive Communist countries used and still use to deny people the freedom to read books from outside, watch movies from outside, read newspapers from outside, etc. And I'm never going to accept the idea that information (even full on lies) so dangerous that people shouldn't be allowed to see them.
I tend to come down with the same opinion as you though. It's all still essentially a first amendment issue and the negatives I listed aren't going to disappear if TikTok goes away.
Facial recognition database and tracking people at a global scale.
With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.
Remember, TikTok is not just topless teenagers twerking on the camera, it is used by people to take short videos at random locations (and the locations are already easify to classify and account for), so if you happen to be a dissident (or a person of interest in general) hiding from the CCP, and you happened to have walked past a TikTok user shooting a short video and you got in the shot, your identity is matched up and your current location is revealed automatically, in near real time or with a short delay.
I have almost no doubt that people in TikTok videos are already digitised, and their faceprints are sunk into a gigantic database behind the Great Firewall. It is easy to project what other kinds of nefarious abuse are possible when such datasets are available.
Everything you've pointed to can be done already by mining the publicly available treasure trove of YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, etc. A pretty small team can scrape these sites and do what you're insinuating.
And lastly, I still don't see the danger of releasing this info? I mean, can't any foreigner travelling on a tourist visa record public vistas for 30 days and essentially do the same thing?
I don't know of any system capable of doing what you describe. But if such a system existed it could just use publicly available videos from Facebook and Instagram. It wouldn't need its own social media platform to feed it data.
Having a direct feed of videos being uploaded from the user's device is also advantageous as the higher resolution of the original video will provide more details before it is recomompressed for long term storage in a smaller resolution. Most importantly, Instagram and Twitter won't allow uncontrolled access to the content they host whereas a Chinese company simply does not have a choice and has to serve the content up on its state demands.
Until proven otherwise, it is safer to project that such a system exists.
I don't think China are going to find their Dissident in TikTok videos any time soon. The false positive rate on even the best facial recognition is way too high for tracking individuals globally.
But this is communist era logic used in some countries to this day to ban "foreign" and "corrupting" materials. Forgive me if it smells like repression and tastes like repression, I think it is repression. Shaping the minds of youths is not the exclusive purview of the US political class. That's some 1984 logic...
Not from US so I had to check the 1A:
"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"
"or of the press" sounds like it applies here but does 1A covers also foreign companies?
The establishment wants and needs a monopoly in shaping the opinions and thoughts of its citizens.
Every step you do to isolate yourself from your enemy makes them even more your enemy.
At the end of this process is war. Completely unsurprising. Pretty much inevitable.
Alternatively you could accept that you are loosing competition in some fields without turning it into mortal conflict.
Oh, and a US company spaying foreign citizens in not only legal in the USA, but also required.
now that would be a bridge too far...
Thanks for being a spelling-nazi :)
And they already do -- neither China nor Russia allow Meta services in their countries. Nor do they allow most of Google's services.
I guess by "safer" you mean "less accessible by the US" and I suppose that is likely "true".
But would you rather be in China and send an anti-Chinese message to your friend via... some app that China allows? Or would you rather be in the US and send an anti-US message to a friend?
Both countries are going to try and snoop that data. Both are going to be successful.
But in which would you feel "safer" -- meaning in which one is the government likely to take action against you?
But since I live in the "west", I'd rather be spied by China and Russia, than by the USA or any of their allies and vassals.
That being said, I'd rather be spied on by the government, than by my wife, family, and friends.
People and organizations I don't have to deal with are less of a threat to me.
At this level of paranoia you may as well ban Facebook and other social media as there is no guarantee their data is not getting intercepted by China.
Basically all tech is clean and ok if comes from the good guys (the US and allies) and unclean if it comes from the bad guys (China, Russia ...).
IMHO a sad state of affairs. We would be at a healthier and less hypocritical place if our tech was secure by design, and suppliers and platforms were subject to open objective criteria and rule of law wrt. censorship and surveillance.
The one thing it would change though is that it would make the life a bit harder for cyber criminals(think downgrading tls connections).
And the criteria you talked about, they are open. Called capitalism, and regulations those companies operate under. Along the way that abomination of surveillance capitalism was born though.
The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is, and this bill just gives even more power to the US government to dominate its citizens.
The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA. So, while it’s true that having the power that it does makes the US government a potential threat, it is nowhere near as much of an actual threat as China.
What the fuck are you talking about???
And you base that where exactly ?
Look: the Cold War is over. And communism is a red herring. The world has changed. For some reason Americas elites view TikTok as a threat, probably because they don’t have the kind of total access to their servers that they’re accustomed to with American firms. But that has little to do with regular Americans. And there’s no argument other than decades old red baiting tropes they can think of to try to get us to care.
To not see the coming conflict be it cold or otherwise or not see the CCP for what it is is just ludicrous to me.
They want to — and as they should — become to dominant world power and reshape things as they see fit.
They will take Taiwan by force and it is zero sum: either China and its allies become the world’s leading economy and lead on things or the US and it’s allies remain in “power” and the west continues. This is the threat.
Now I’ve nothing against the people of China. It’s the government that I don’t trust.
That's a funny argument, given that the same piece of legislation with the TikTok "ban" also includes a(nother) $60.8 billion package for Ukraine [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/politics/senate-aid-pa...
I feel like all these arguments just come down to “China bad, therefore anything that annoys China is good” which is silly and juvenile reasoning
But on topic I still think the ban is still old men barking at cloud. Somehow embarrassing really.
Reading your comment, it's pretty obvious that we should do something about propaganda here in the EU. About US propaganda I mean.
This way the same thing happens and china did also make some money. I don't see the argument that china having your data is somehow better than your government.
> The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists
The exact same way Facebook and other U.S. social networks abuse the minds of US users.[1]
> as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.
Yep, and in a similar way every large US player hoards as much data about its users as it can get away with, even if it doesn't know what it'll do with it, and eventually loses said data in a giant breach, which can lead to blackmail, etc.[2]
And here we sit, either toothlessly regulating the U.S. actors or attempting to ban the foreign ones instead of teaching people how to actually use social media in a way that helps them instead of melting their brains and exposing their deepest secrets to malicious actors.
I'm not much of a capitalist or a social darwinist but I'd say the best thing to do is let people learn the hard way. We seem cool to do that with junk food,[3][4] and the similarities in social engineering between the social media and junk food are striking.
[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/08/11/waukegan-district-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinar...
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21999689/
As an aside, I always viewed TikTok as a real world analogue to the mind control subplot from Zoolander (Frankie says 'relax')...
This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?
How about “make economic power and one of our main competitors” does it? Just because China is a totalitarian government didn’t mean they can do the “right” thing.
What would be US leadership would similar to what Ro Khanna is saying with data and personal information privacy standards like a nationwide US GDPR but with the teeth of something like HIPAA. Data brokers should be put out of business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.
That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy:
1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the world certain things can be feasibly made.
2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which helped to drive their economic engine.
3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch.
The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps information out of China that the government wants kept out of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.
That's how capitalism works. And it worked extremely well and to most everyone's benefit.
This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the world
Reciprocation is rational and good
I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.
It seems fairly clear to me why this is the case: complex, conflict-prone relationships often involve prisoner's dilemmas, and alignment on fundamental principles is an effective method for avoiding the worst-case outcome of a prisoner's dilemma. Abandoning principles for a purely situational approach to conflict makes the presumptive lose-lose outcome much more likely.
As far as prisoner's dilemmas, its a lot more complicated than that. A purely pragmatic approach can lead to win-win outcomes that would be impossible in a purely idealist framework - realist IR scholars would, for example, argue (and could back it up far better than the alternative) that if it wasn't for Bush and Cheney's idealism, the 2003 Iraq war would never have occurred.
The realist counterpoint to the prisoner's dilemma is that it's not just due to conflict prone relationships, but because it's impossible to know what the intentions of other actors are, which is not something that international liberalism can solve in practice. In theory, liberalists would argue that two liberal states can communicate their true intentions well because their intentions reflect the intentions of the population, but this has conclusively been proven to be untrue in the case of foreign policy (not very surprising due to the way intelligence has to be set up), and therefore the liberalist rebuttal to uncertainty of intentions seems much weaker now than it did originally.
As a result, realists argue that following realpolitik can actually reduce the likelihood of war, as agents will be careful to act in such a way as to avoid seeming as to pose a threat in the absence of knowledge of their intentions, while a liberal actor, acting according to their ideals, would act in a way such that an actor who is unsure of their true intentions would have to perceive as a threat.
This means that you just can't assert easily that realism is more likely to cause lose-lose outcomes. It's a complicated argument where this kind of ironclad certainty just isn't justifiable.
why do you believe so?
i see no reason why rationalism and political pragmatism are mutually exclusive with liberalism. in fact to me it seems they complement each other well
While that might arguably be compatible with liberalism within a society where there is a relatively benevolent monopoly of power imposing a certain number of rights and rules molding the self-interest of all in such a way as to be compatible with civilization, within the international system there is no monopoly of violence, and therefore norms and rights are contingent on countries not acting purely in their self-interest and therefore to maximize their power.
Since modern liberalism is inherently internationalist (arguably since Woodrow Wilson, some called his approach to diplomacy "idealpolitik"), modern liberalism does have to reject realism as a school of thought.
The debate between liberalism and realism as it pertains to international politics is the main topic of contention in international relations theory.
More generally, you can also argue that liberalism assumes the good faith of powerful people not to destroy the liberal system to maximize their own power, but this is far easier to argue against in the domestic setting than in the international setting.
Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US.
The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022.
The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.
China hasn't fought a war in 40 years. In recent years, there have been some border skirmishes with India between unarmed soldiers (it's not even clear which side initiated them) and some naval confrontations about a few islands with no shots fired, but that's about it. Meanwhile, the US has been fighting wars all around the world.
What is the nature of the risk?
> You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox
The risk is information warfare. It's difficult to know whether they've used it for that purpose yet, because there's a lack of transparency, which is actually part of the problem. But regardless, the risk is unacceptable, especially if the Taiwan or Philippines/Vietnam situations boil over. There's no historical precedent of a rival having such massive control over domestic consumption of information. The one thing we do know from the history of conflict is that all available tools will get used for that purpose (e.g. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8197).
I don't disagree, but for clarity, you appreciate this is totally contrary to the (formerly) popular "free speech" meme that used to be a source of pride for Americans?
Isn't it a bit funny that America can't manage to educate[1] its citizens so they are resilient to propaganda? Do you think it is all that difficult to do, if the government set it as a priority"?
[1] It's worse: they can't even try to. To me, this is peak hilarity, doubly so when combined with the conversations in this thread...which themselves are a consequence of the root problem. Oh my, the layers of irony.
Since you imply it's not difficult to do, which country has educated their citizens to be resilient to propaganda?
Don't forget: to accomplish something, you (typically) must first try.
"Making citizens to be resilient to propaganda"?
While we should try to do our best, it's also not mutually exclusive to remove bad propaganda. Yet you make it sound like the 2 actions are mutually exclusive for some reason.
How many have tried, and what did they try?
Contrast this with the attention and funding the war machine gets, or the science machinery.
Regarding education, we should do that too. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.
There might be flaws or other explanations. This is just tentative evidence that should push you in one direction more than the other.
Agree his policy might many of us not. But player great he is.
That's a sure sign the citizens are getting screwed.
AIPAC wants Tiktok gone because young people are getting objective information rather than the propaganda of mainstream "responsible" media. [1]
Tiktok is not a good thing for Genocide Joe either! He has been an Israeli puppet for decades. Thanks to Tiktok, being an Israeli puppet has become a political liability because Israel has lost its control over American minds.
[1] https://twitter.com/SweatieAngle/status/1725897178038595901
They are very busy trying to get Finkelstein banned from Youtube as a "terrorist sympathiser"[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=norman+finkelst...
You definitely can. International trade has never been a fair field, power balance will be the most impacting element in the deal you get.
I think that's a concept that is thorny enough to merit a word on what we mean by that. I personally don't know what it actually points at (is there any "free trade" ever happening in real life ?), or my naive interpretation would be trade with absolutely no rules, but I assume that's not what you're pointing at.
As vague and imprecise as the term "most capitalist" is, it is a blatant ignorance of the way Chinese people (have to) live, especially in cities, to think that it isn't a consequence of an extreme form of capitalism: enormous gaps between the wealthy and the poor and materialism.
China is as much a communist country as Congo is a republic.
Edit: Reading the other comments, it seems like we might all value different aspects of the country to define whether it is capitalist.
Compare with the US where the capitalist class not only has a seat at the table: they are the table. And the chairs around the table, the room the table is in, the building the room is in, the property the building is on, the people who go in and out of the building, and the bullets that shoot anyone who tries to enter the building who isn't supposed to. The US is "more capitalist" in all the ways that count - what might be confusing you is that China has more sustainable and powerful relations of production which is why they're overtaking the US. But that doesn't make them capitalist.
It's a "communist country" in an aspirational sense, not in a descriptive sense. When we call countries "capitalist" by contrast, we usually mean that in a descriptive sense. This tends to lead to a lot of confusion: nothing that China does is "communism", it's at best something that is done with the justification of being part of the pursuit of communism. Whether or not the CCP is truthful or honest in its claims about its aspirations is a different question.
Many industries wouldn't be where they are without decades long government intervention, and govs will also apply extra scrutiny on who owns which company, and pick up the winners as needed for national interests.
China is the most transparent about it, but being transparent and being the most engaged in it are two different things.
To be clear, I think that's just the natural state of things. Real free markets are chaos and we want countries to actually think about where they're going.
Peace.
[1] https://theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/04/how-tiktoks-a...
Just search for "Uighur genocide" and see how many negative Tiktoks you find.
Now go on any western social media platform, search for any contentious topic, and notice what's banned. It's not stuff that's harmful to the government (eg. Gaza/Israel topics) it's stuff that advertisers think is harmful (racism, unlabeled porn, etc.).
Also, restraining from banning a platform because some people can't be arsed to also post to IG reels or other platforms is their own fault as entrepreneurs.
The prominence of the Chinese guy "denying" the cultural genocide was interesting - I wouldn't assume he's a plant (it's equally likely he's just a rabid nationalist) but the placement of the video does strike me as a little odd. It had 300 likes, but rates higher than the second video which had 5000 likes? Does smell a bit.
This is from Singapore, by the way. I assume geography makes a difference.
I search for "retro pc":
1st result 47k views, 4 months ago
2nd result 457k views, 2 years ago
3rd result 9k views, 1 year ago
4th result 133k views, 1 year ago
5th result 1k views, 5 months ago
Make it make sense!
The fact that people have become dependent is no good argument for keeping the platform around.
And, with that said, if TikTok disappears - a new platform fill its void, as well as other platforms absorbing users. If there's a demand, someone will supply.
Relevant to context: whatasaas is an account with 10 karma and 9 total comments that has been mostly idle for its 14 month existence. Many of the trench fighters in the threads here are names I recognize.
Some of the stuff that really chipped at our privacy as our isps got to sell our dns pings to advertisers and social media. Have a good day citizen.
Sure you can. You follow the law or you are banned from doing business. This law just skipped the first part because the authors didn't want to write any actual regulations.
TikTok being owner by Bytedance means you don’t have who to prosecute for misdeeds, besides some fall guy.
Why wait until a homeless guy steals some bread to throw him in jail?
The foundation of the rule of law is that the law applies to everyone equally, not arbitrarily. That includes a presumption of no wrongdoing and due process.
It should be mentioned that TikTok already has its full US data and source code audited by Oracle, a level of scrutiny higher than any of the domestic tech companies. Combined with the FBI and NSA watching them like a hawk, if they were breaking the law, it would be old news by now.
It’s not about the data or the code. Data brokers exist everywhere, it’s about a platform with reach to the eyeballs of 170 million users controlled by an adversary state.
You can’t use “foundation of the rule of law” wrt an actor that blatantly disregards rule of law.
It’s absurd to compare banning a Chinese-owned app to EU banning US apps.
It is just sad that even US is susceptible to this.
https://chomsky.info/consent01/
That said I think some regulatory control is needed. There needs to be some sort of accountability e.g. for intentional propagation of fake news or censorship or defamation. This is no different than requirements for ethical behavior in other industries. Just like we regulate public companies in general we should be able to impose some requirements on any business that distributes media. Free speech for individuals but if you are a business or a media "provider" you need to meet a somewhat higher bar? I think we used to rely on journalistic standards or self regulation but with "new" media (and maybe even with old media) this seems to be not working that well any more. There's a fine line there for sure but seems like whether China owns some social media or someone with US citizenship we still want to have guards against harms this can cause. The amount of power these companies wield is scary.
TikTok can be undermining the US (and potentially be a growing problem) without it being currently capable of preventing itself being banned.
By your logic, nobody should go to hospital when sick, as if they can go to hospital then they must not be sick.
So if China has already made it clear it considers a TikTok sale illegal, this is a ban.
That being said, you don't get Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the same side unless there is some serious fire behind all of the smoke. My guess is everyone who has seen the classified info agrees this ban is too critical to even play games with it.
All you need to convince American politicians of anything is jingling keys and cash. Plus MTG opposed the original TikTok bill, they only voted in favor when it was packed together with sending money for Israel.
The bias is a feature. They just don't like the fact that they can't control the bias on TikTok so it spews Chinese propaganda instead of Western propaganda.
Douyin, like all social media in China, is subject to government censorship. Tiktok, like Google, FB, IG, etc., are not and therefore banned in China.
That's why they are two completely separate platforms.
That's like saying Facebook and Instagram are not separate platforms.
That aside, people do use shit like TikTok, Facebook, Google, and other social media and adtech bad actors' services because they don't fully understand what they're signing up for. To a certain extent, people do use them under duress -- completely checking out from them is going to have a pretty measurable impact on how people interact with you. You will be an afterthought to a lot of people in your life. People will think you not consuming those products is strange. Interacting with many institutions you have to deal with will be harder. Many (maybe even most) people can't handle that.
The economy is designed to get people to sign up for things they don't fully understand. Payday loans, sports gambling, margin trading. None of these are illegal, but they should all have strong public education campaigns so citizens know the risks. Social media should be treated the same.
The law is not about whether or not it's healthy for people. It's about whether or not it is an uncontrolled tool that an adversarial foreign government can use to sway public opinion in the US. No government with any urgent sense of self-preservation would let that fly.
It’s understood that the US already does this with Facebook and other websites.
Regardless, TikTok isn't going away, it is just changing owners. How does that have any effect on freedom of the press?
At least the US is trying to protect the privacy of its citizens in this case. The CCP meanwhile required Apple to prevent Airdrop from functioning properly in China in order to stop the spread of information between protest groups.
TikTok can decide to not sell, in which case it's banned, or it can sell, in which case it's not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices
Enjoy the data.
This ban runs against both of those.
It is absolutely a strawman:
> A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.
Grandparent: Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs. China.
Parent: So you're saying the USA is better and thus it never needs to be compared in any aspect related to 'freedom'?
Me: GP didn't say the USA never needs to be compared in any aspect related to freedom, they said _relative to China_ the US doesn't need to prove anything.
It's objectively a strawman.
That's separate from the issue of whether or not this infringes on the freedom of speech, but 1) freedom of speech in the US is not nor ever has been absolute with no limits and 2) this move absolutely deserves scrutiny.
Propaganda is what advertising is. Should the courts restrict companies from their ability to advertise?
Last time I checked China wasn't within US borders.
If China is indeed receiving data from TikTok, the future isn't going to be fun, especially with AI tech heating up.
Truth is, when China benefits, the Han Chinese people benefit. Every other ethnicity? Uncertain.
When the US benefits, a variety of ethnicities benefit. The US is now diverse enough where it must work in the interest of a variety of ethnicities in order to operate effectively.
So unless you're Han Chinese, you're more likely to benefit when the US wins.
I don’t understand the people coming out of the woodworks saying this is suppressing “freedom of the press” or speech.
Set up your own domain, get a VPS, upload your trash to VPS. There ya go, no more “censorship”.
Oh wait , you don’t want to do the work to set this up? Sounds like a personal problem.
I don't remember the First Amendment distinguishing between free speech that informs and that which entertains.
Most news on television is selected for its entertainment value. Does that give the government more power to regulate it?
> Do they even operate in china?
If they were going to, they won't now.
Douyin is owned by the same company but not the same platform. It is subject to Chinese gov censorship (like all media in China), while Tiktok is not (therefore banned).
These comments are very confusing to me. Why is half this thread pretending that the Great Firewall is effective?
Do y'all not have friends in China? Contacts who visit?
Do they suddenly drop off the face of the earth? Of course not, they install a VPN and carry on, and communicate with you via all the normal media.
The Great Firewall is really just a means of forcing people not to acknowledge what they know, and to only publicly speak about the censored version of history and politics.
But it's no more effective than any other internet censorship (which is to say, it is trivially bypassed).
It's extremely effective. Just because a very small fraction of the population 1) know how to use a VPN, 2) are willing to pay for it, and 3) bother to use it, doesn't mean the GFW is ineffective. The CCP doesn't need 99.99% efficiency rate, 95% is plenty to control their population.
Source: myself, many years living in China.
But you're saying that 95% of people refrain from reading resources that are not served by The Great Firewall?
That seems like a huge, huge stretch.
I've never met a Chinese person whom, when the topic came up, hadn't read about, for example, tiananmen square, in a method contrary to the wishes of the CCP.
> I've never met a Chinese person whom, when the topic came up, hadn't read about, for example, tiananmen square, in a method contrary to the wishes of the CCP.
I know many as well, but there's major selection bias at work here, in that if you 1) met them abroad, 2) spoke to them in English about 3) a highly sensitive subject, they are highly likely to be one of the 5%.
Joking aside, that's not how statistics work. But I am reasonably confident that a random sampling of 1000 Chinese people drawn proportionally from where they live (meaning mostly in smaller cities, not Beijing, Shanghai, do not speak English, are not well off or highly educated, etc.), that only 50 of them would be using a VPN regularly. But I could be off by a factor of 2 or 3 and the point about control of the population still stands.
...but seriously: The Chinese state pretends that Wikipedia is banned in China. Does anybody seriously think that Chinese people don't use Wikipedia, like every day?
Routing around a ban of this nature is so utterly trivial, and the primary audience of TikTok is strongly integrative of demographics which are digital natives accustomed to subverting such bans (heck, they got almost universal training in this area by having to jailbreak their school-issued tablets).
surprised as you may be, the vast majority certainly do not use Wikipedia
You'd be surprised how different some countries are in their Internet usage. Russians don't really use Facebook, and Google faced an uphill battle to be accepted there. Czechs apparently prefer homegrown map services (such as Seznam) to Google Maps.
I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.
I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that?
But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.
All the talk of a digital services trade war/import ban ignores that US tech companies were facing a de facto export ban from the US side by being prohibited from complying with Chinese regulations.
One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.
None of those services need apps, I never used apps to access them.
Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working.
They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.
There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime.
Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it.
There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available.
Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave.
This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form.
She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on.
I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.
The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.
They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck.
This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.
Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access.
I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?
That might be to do with going to a Digital Ocean IP, but if you can use an innocent IP, anything works. So what benefit is Outline supposedly offering?
That's not how it works. The apps are not officially banned, they are just unavailable or don't work. If they're not on the China iOS store (separate than US) then you can't install them, and if you went abroad and managed to install them, they just can't connect to the IG or whatever servers once you're back in China. Same for Android.
But that overt request was unusual. Most apps are simply removed as part of Apple's "compliance with local regulations".
For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers?
Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.
So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.
I think the era of hockey-stick growth and development China is more or less over now, growth will continue but slow to a drip, and will face 3 threats: rising economic inequality, drying up of external joint ventures, and male-female ratio demographics imbalance. It has BRI going for it but external investments can't address domestic structural socioeconomic concerns. Xi will be blamed first because he rode economics to the top of the mountain. I'm concerned that starting a war, a common political tactic for any government system, maybe used to distract from domestic economic woes.
China's housing market is its biggest problem. Most people invested their savings in second/third/etc. apartments as the stock market was notoriously unreliable (and investing abroad was very difficult). That means that a tremendous amount of middle-to-upper-class wealth is tied up in property values, creating a tremendous bubble. But the gov cannot let the bubble pop (see Evergrande, others before), as Japan did in the 90s, as that is the one thing that (in my opinion) could actually bring the CCP down.
I am suspicious that BRI might be more hot air than substance. That or world journalism is oblivious to what is supposedly the largest international infrastructure program in the world. Or Google doesn't index it.
I remember that era fondly as the golden era of unfettered torrenting.
That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have.
If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.
Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.
"Every Han Chinese of a certain background" is the more accurate reference.
the vast majority of the population cannot easily use a VPN, especially not on their phone which many people use instead of a PC
The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.
When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.
Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.
Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.
As far as I know, tiktok's services are deployed on Oracle servers in the United States and are subject to supervision. It was banned just because it comes from China. Look how many times the CEO of Singapore was questioned if he is Chinese. Maybe the Congressman thinks Singapore is also a part of China.
74% of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese. The Congressman's questions are not unreasonable in questioning if the CEO has some ties with mainland China.
I read both Chinese and English, and I read both the opinions of within GFW and without. If anything, I've critically analyzed every idea from both sides. I can't fathom the hubris of someone who has ever lived on one side yet believes his truth is the ultimate truth and anyone disagreeing must not be thinking critically.
It's ignoring international laws with neighbors, instead of using weapons, it's using water cannons against fishers and Philippines coast guard.
China is a "friend without limits" of Russia, who started a war on European soil lately.
I think it's safe to say that the west is decoupling from China.
It has nothing to do with "freedom of speech", most voters agree with that decoupling.
I have never heard of a pro China argument before from a politician party and it seems that most democracies nearby China think the same, even with the BRI initiative.
( Note: I'm not from the US)
My deeply held belief is that we should allow speech from even the most hostile foreign countries. Do you know that every administration of China, starting from Qing Dynasty, resisted the idea of freedom and democracy by painting them as plots of foreign governments to destabilize China?
I am being called a sock puppet of China here, and I have been accused of being agents of US propaganda in China. That is how the future holds. Every thought deviating from mainstream is labelled as propaganda from a foreign government, ergo not subject to the protections of freedom of speech.
The tracking/propaganda dangers of TikTok are unrelated to freedom of speech, as banning TikTok doesn't affect freedom of speech.
People can spread their opinion on any other app.
Note : I'm responding and sharing my opinion for the following you mentioned:
> The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.
The real reason you can't "espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China" is because they will arrest you. Let's not mince words here. The Chinese government would shoot their citizens before they would let them protest or speak their mind freely.
After those happened, they still think that the government intervention of speech is a good idea. The only problem is that a small group of officials not handling the regulating power correctly. But if they were to adopt the American model, how could they be protected from the evil influence of foreign adversaries? You know, like me, an agent of US propaganda. Or Tencent, whose major shareholders are actually not Chinese.
I really can't maintain a straight face hearing Americans repeating that same argument.
This is what most people don't know, that TikTok itself is banned in China.
I just don't see how this law will affect your ability to converse with others on Chinese social media.
This is very different from the GFW, and many orders of magnitude less restrictive.
This issue isn't about speech and censorship, but media ownership. These rules has always been in place in many Western countries precisely because of the impact it has on society (even beyond geopolitics).
That's true, but when I had a hard time convincing them when the US were the *perfect* model of no speech restrictions, it's much harder when US is just less restrictive. They will just dismiss such difference in quantity as cultural difference, rather than different principles when China and US had qualitative differences.
Freedom of speech applies to humans living within US borders not to entities controlled by a foreign government.
(Unless China is within US borders, freedom of speech argument doesn't stand).
We want freedom of speech because we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth, so we need to ensure that everyone can speak their mind, and so can the real Truth be propagated and preserved. And that everyone includes foreigners and foreign governments.
Every time China's governments (including the past ones, like the Qing Dynasty) rejects the idea of freedom and democracy, it demonizes them by painting them as plots of foreign governments trying to overthrow and destablize China. So you can see why I am so wary of the argument that it is OK to silence the words if those come from a foreign government.
Smart philosophers have studied this. You may not like the answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
> we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth
Oh yeah, but we can easily spot propaganda/bias from CCP from miles away.
For the principle of freedom of speech to survive, it can never be absolute.
The same way how the Chinese people can smell the propaganda of capitalist reactionaries.
I'm being sarcastic. You share the same school of thought with CCP.
Also, TikTok has never intolerant. CCP is quite intolerant of its own people's views, but it strictly segregates TikTok and Douyin to avoid trampling on the toes of non-Chinese. Therefore the argument of "tolerance of intolerance" isn't applicable.
Influence operations aren't about "winning" or even convincing anyone anymore. It's about flooding peoples screens with untold amounts of toxic garbage.
My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted.
I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contracts.
Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc. We had to build independent systems just for China to prevent sharing information about non-China based customers and employees. Where we couldn’t do that, we had to build filtered replication “diodes” to prevent data leakage.
China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?
This happens in the US too and has been happening for a very long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) only when it happens to US companies they get gag orders and/or paid off. (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/ve... and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-att-cooperated-... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)
The content on tiktok is a problem, but there's nothing on tiktok that isn't also on facebook/reddit/twitter/youtube. The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.
I can't say that about China, certainly not to me as a United States Citizen, and not even really to Chinese Citizens either - which is why it's another thing entirely when a foreign government is doing this level of monitoring on United States Soil.
China is welcome to monitor its own citizens on its own soil to the extent it desires - and monitor communications in and out of China - they're however not welcome to do that level of monitoring on United States Soil on anyone who resides here - at least not without the explicit consent of the United States Government.
On the other hand it's our own ostensibly accountable government that we have to worry about violating our freedoms, abusing and misinterpreting this data, targeting innocent people, etc. If China has this kind of data they still have no power to throw me in prison (provided that I stay out of China) and very little impact on my day to day life. I'm still not happy about them collecting my data, but I have much less to fear from it.
Except https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/china-is-using-tikt...
Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
> and very little impact on my day to day life
It doesn't until it does at which point it would be too late & you're dealing with damage instead of preventing harm.
I don't discount that potential. I'm certain it exists. I'm also certain that it exists on youtube and facebook and twitter and reddit and will continue to influence US politics long into the future. Yet the US government has never once spoken about banning facebook and youtube or any other platform doing exactly the same things as TikTok, they're focused only the threat of the one Chinese platform while allowing China, Russia and anyone else to influence Americans though US owned platforms. They're even fine with letting China influence Americans using TikTok as long as TikTok is owned by a US company.
I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed by youtube or twitter. I don't see how taking away our freedom to access/use a Chinese platform that isn't violating any US law and isn't doing anything different than similar US platforms are doing is really helping to protect us here. Congress telling Americans what software we can have installed on our own devices, and preventing us from accessing platforms in other countries seems much more likely to lead us down a slippery slope than one Chinese owned social media platform being allowed to do what all the US owned platforms are doing.
-For example, try saying something critical about China or something in defense of Taiwan. If the post gains traction, your account will get banned.
-Observe the amplification of r/latestatecapitalism type of content. https://www.businessinsider.com/capitalism-tiktok-america-pr...
-Whitewashing of life in China and China's accomplishments. https://apnews.com/article/china-tiktok-facebook-influencers...
I often see people online extol the virtues of China's progress, it's technological advancement, it's focus on the climate and equality for people, etc. I say this as someone who has lived in China, and I even like China, but people buy into the bullshit. China isn't some utopia. There are many good things about it, but there are a multitude of odious aspects that get glossed over.
This is about sowing dissent and creating doubt in our values.
I don't think you have any business making so many comments in this thread when you have no idea what is going on.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMbYJYmU/
I looooove TikTok, but if I was running a regime, taking it down would be Job #1.
But a foreign one that’s directly controlled by an adversary is certainly one we can tackle immediately and it’s easier to muster the political will. They don’t need to be connected. Of course it’s hard to trust the government when they have a history of lying, but there’s every reason to believe the threat they’ve been communicating out as real in the wake of the attacks the Russians launched on us in 2016 and given it’s an election year. It’s like all those people who didn’t trust when Biden said Putin was gearing to attack Ukraine imminently.
On the other hand, there is reason to be skeptical of that claim since the tiktok ban won’t happen until well after the 2020 election. So maybe it is the US trying to kill a major tech adversary that’s managed to dethrone our own oligopoly in the space. But that’s the starting point of the argument - is it really going to be used by the Chinese governments for election meddling or is it protectionism to hide the rot within the US regulatory framework that’s simply entrenched interests.
People often bring up this point, and yet if China poured every resource they had available into spreading chaos and disinformation, it would not touch what domestically-sourced influence campaigns are currently achieving.
You might say that, nonetheless, it's a step in the right direction. But when disinformation and manipulation is as ubiquitous as it is now, the real effect of this law will simply be to protect informal alliances between legislators, media companies, and intelligence agencies. There's a handful of things they all agree on (which may not be in your best interest), and this law helps make sure conversations about those things never gain traction.
The US government won’t be able to do the same thing with the two party systems and with more checks and balances.
Russian did use facebook and other social media to influence voters. It was rather effective.
But it is totally different from Chinese government compelling tiktok using full access of its internal data to do their bidding in secret. The effectiveness will likely be much higher.
American social media is motivated by money. Chinese social media is motivated by state power.
The same can be said of every single website hosted in China, but they aren't (yet) banning all Chinese websites or all content hosted in any other countries. Why not?
The vast majority of the content US citizens view on TikTok was created by other US citizens and that content is no different than the content available on youtube or any other social media platform. Certainly China can influence what types of content people see (and they've done a lot of messed up stuff in the past like filtering out "ugly, poor, and disabled" people's videos) but it isn't as if they can flip a switch and start only showing children dancing to "The East Is Red" and expect to keep their popularity. There seems to be no evidence that TikTok is any more manipulative or dangerous than any other social media platform. Youtube is just as happy to push extremist content to increase engagement but nobody is talking about banning them.
I imagine the US audience for tiktok is larger than all chinese websites combined.
If it turns out that maybe "good speech" simply can't counter "bad speech" when the latter is applied with the resources of nation states behind it, that doesn't feel like an argument the government can win (because of 1A).
Ironically, the data collection angle is still critically important for US businesses and limiting the access and use of citizen data would be great for everyone, but it seems very clear that is not on the table for the same reasons.
It's also strange that Americans are uniquely afforded this privilege and many consider it a natural right, but don't consider that their relationship with TikTok is same relationship the rest of world has with Meta. French citizens, despite the GDPR, have no recourse for accountability when it comes the US government.
Just watch Al Jazeera on Youtube if you want the Palestinian side.
I think people that have this view are pretty new to the internet in general. It's no surprise it's a popular belief with Gen-Z, thinking somehow their "filter bubble" is unique in any way or that they have escaped the filter bubble and stumbled upon "the truth." Complete nonsense. You're hooked into whatever algorithm makes you engage more, that's the whole point of this. To make money from you. You think you're special because you got on a pro-Palestine feed on Tiktok? Hilariously naive.
Aka how confident are you that the information you are getting today is honest, accurate and not influenced in any way? That you get the full picture, the good and the bad?
While I do feel like my personal views are more aligned with the US / west. I’m not convinced im getting balanced information. Its a little naive to suggest that only our enemies are doing propaganda.
That is not what anyone is concerned about. The US tried to get Tiktok to suppress pro-palestine information against israel. Tiktok effectively said they are not doing any manipulation of promoted info, even in favor of israel.
congress resurrected a ban for it. The recent uni protests helped in doing that.
Except that TikTok’s data, or the main copy of it at least, resides in the US, so the evil US govt theoretically already has access to it. That’s not the motivation for this bill.
This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West when it comes to Israel and current times are no different. Tiktok has allowed nearly more access to whatever footage is capable of sneaking out of the warzone whereas Meta platforms tend to suppress. (ex: they recently auto-defaulted a restriction on political content without informing their users).
A society's strength comes from its unity of will and resolve. Social media can be used to attack that unity... and has, not just by China.
So just like the other platforms, but for China instead of the US? (aka: "It's bad when you do it, not when we do it").
If Xi wants to show you ponies, you'll see them all over tiktok tomorow.
One exmaple of many. If Biden doesn't want you seeing something, the white house will put pressure on social media companies to censor it.
However, this is contrary to China, who has never really pressured any Chinese organization to do anything. This is because they don't need to use pressure. They can just do it. Because there is no concept of "private organization" in China. The state has all the power.
It's so tellingly naive when people try to equivocate the US to China.
Also: The 5th Circuit panel found that the White House coerced the platforms through “intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences” and commandeered the decision-making processes of social media companies, particularly in handling pandemic-related and 2020 election posts.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/09/08/biden-adminis...
To say they were free to refuse is disingeneous.
If a cartel member comes up to you and tells you to give him your wallet or there might be "consequences", do you think you are free to refuse him?
All social media with attention management may be weaponized and has generally proven to be unhealthy for society. TikTok happens to be actively worse for a number of reasons, one of them being that it is designed to be so.
About one half (!) of all UNGA emergency special sessions are about its conflicts, for crying out loud. :) This nothingcountry of <10 million people entertains the whole UN for the last 80 years or so almost constantly.
The world has grown by 4 billion people during that time, lol. Most of that time social media did not even exist.
The level of direct control the US Government has over US Social Media platforms pales in comparison to the control China has over TikTok.
This has to be substantiated, because it seems blatantly absurd on its face. Are you saying TikTok is an anti-western platform? That, in and of itself, justifies the divestment, considering the owner, no? Furthermore, what "pro-western" platforms are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.
You only need to compare TikTok to it's US rival Reels. A majority of the pro-palestine is suppressed on Reels. The loss of TikTok is the destruction of Americans to access content that isn't filtered through US hegemony.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
Meta's arcane moderation decisions apply to other platforms than their own? Go to reddit, to youtube, or to twitter, and you can find the most vile, unfiltered opinions on Israel and Palestine known to man.
Americans aren't missing out on any content at all. The only thing that will be destroyed is China's fast lane to American eyes.
That said, my point isn't that "I can't watch pro-palestine content". TikTok presents the first major news platform used by Americans that wasn't created for Americans. For all the whining about how $social_media_platform doesn't offer diverse view points, that goes out the window when the owner isn't American.
I don't believe that China is better than America. I personally don't think it's a good thing that the US can just decide ban any content platform that isn't controlled by a US interest. I don't think it's good for the country and I think the security issues are overblown - any realistic security issue you can have with foreign interference, Meta has already committed and any legislation that does not address this just means the legislation doesn't really give a shit about security.
I don't think any Chinese viewpoint is inherently good, but the fact that millions of Americans cannot view content from a diversity of platforms is a problem.
My feed is repeatedly missing these things. And then i have to manually revisit them. It starts up again. And then ceases.
So far, China doesn’t control the feed algo. They control what content is uploaded. Imagine putting work into a video yet it never seeing the light because it was shadow banned. Now imagine it not allowed to be seen. The former is the western world. The latter is china.
[1]:https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
As I have mentioned above and in other replies. Meta platforms has quietly introduced a filter for certain political topics that was pushed to their user base with no notification.
[2]:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/meta-limit-some-fa...
By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.
There's a wild difference between unfettered access to a company's assets, systems, networks, data, etc. vs policywork to simply require that companies be owned at the very least by a country that isn't either Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.
Yes, I did read the bill. They did specifically single out ByteDance presumably to make sure there wasn't a way ByteDance could claim they weren't under Chinese influence. But they made a point of calling out Foreign Adversary Countries and pointed to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872 in doing so.
Bill raw text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...
Realistically, what we needed is comprehensive user privacy legislation, which would prevent anyone from spying on us, including our own government. Likely the reason that did not happen is because our government enjoys access to our user data for various things.
Among the more liberal-minded Russians like me and most people I know back home, support for the Ukrainians had collapsed after two years of interacting with them online. It's become so bad, some people I met on the net have actually gone from opposing the war to volunteering to join the Russian army. And as for the Ukrainian side, their opinion of the common people of Russia is no better.
Anyway, we had way more of the "small links" you mentioned than you guys will ever have with the Chinese. A lot of us have family on the other side, even more had good friends across the border. The war destroyed most of these connections, and in case the West and China fall into a war, I don't see any reason whatsoever for you to do any better.
But still, I'm not sure that whatever we know about interacting with the other group will hold true during wartime.
This two-year period - you mean starting from the Feb 24th invasion (so the "collapse" as up until about two months ago)?
And what kinds of experiences with Ukrainians did they say they were having?
And as for the Ukrainian side, their opinion of the common people of Russia is no better.
Surprise, surprise. They have their physical survival to be concerned about now. And no longer have the attention or empathy resources to ponder the mystries the Russian soul.
There's also the compelling argument I hear them make: that anyone in Russia who understands what's up with Putin and Ukraine, has the financial means to flee (and no compelling reason, such as an elderly family member, to stay) -- should have done so long ago by now.
What else do you honestly expect after what's been happening since 2014/2022?
I'm not saying you were, and you're not answering my questions either.
So looks like there's no need to keep at this, and we can both move on.
I’d expect the takeaway to be “That’s bad, so we shouldn’t do it” instead of “Hold my beer and let me show you how we can follow their example.”
I always thought that the point was to not be like authoritarian countries.
Nothing about this is following their example. It's saying, "if you do the bad thing we won't let you operate here."
No, the point is to not give authoritarian countries a free pass.
This is like saying we shouldn't put people in jail for murder because it's effectively kidnapping and that would make us like them.
Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the global TikTok that I love. Hopefully.
But this is not my main concern, my main concern is that you people act like everything is about business and the users are just cattle.
0 regards about the fact that lots and lots of people love this app. I'm one of them because its the last place on the internet where it feels like I'm not supposed to be outraged or spending money all the time. It feels like the old internet for me.
Also, if the American users are lost, I will loose a lot of great content.
I'm appalled that people here on HN have no ability to realize that they deal with real people and not only numbers in the analytics and the bank.
It almost feels like there's no sense of identity here, no sese of persons who must have freedom to use and consume whatever they want.
The argument goes "The Chinese are banning our social media companies, why would we do the same?". Why don't you rephrase it as "The Chinese communist part controls what apps and media the Chinese citizens can consume, why we don't control what Americans consume?".
Can you really not see that taking away a product that people use is not only about companies? Are you really that blind to see that you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China?
Chinese government is not the ideal form of governance, please stop trying to be like China. Have some sense of personal freedoms.
I get your concerns over loss of something you enjoy - but the content is steerable enough by algorithm and addictive enough that a little twiddle of the knob, and suddenly a bunch of people believe some very harmful and hard to eliminate untruths.
Without making any judgments on the alt-right label, it was absolutely a real thing. Many documented cases showing how a fresh account could go from “Sesame Street, cooking videos, and CNN” on the default feed - and, within ~10 relatively innocuous clicks down the suggested video rabbit hole, the home feed would be full of Alex Jones tier stuff.
TikTok is heavily reminiscent of the old YouTube. Just taking a few steps down the Free Palestine recommendation road will get you into “Happy Birthday, Uncle Adolf” videos (hyperbolic, but only slightly).
I don’t blame certain parties for getting rather nervous over that. But I wish we could have some honesty from elected officials about why TikTok is suddenly such a pressing issue again.
Whatever happens, I hope they’ve learned from YouTube’s earlier mistakes. In trying to break the alt-right pipeline, they ended up breaking the entire recommendation engine for years (tbf it’s a lot better now).
That said I otherwise agree with you 100% - I saw folks get sucked down you YouTube pipeline then, and I've watched people get sucked down the TikTok one now, I got one person in my life to switch to FB reels, because I would correct the purported facts in each video and they found that annoying.
Agree (even if it is hyperbolic) on the yellow brick road model of radicalization.
Can we please stop admiring China, Russia, DPRK and other similar countries where having the "wrong opinions" is considered radicalisation?
QAnon, birthed in 4chan and largely disseminated to Boomers through Facebook isolated people and convinced a large number of people to stage a coup on the US government. I can't tell if you missed the QAnon craze, or you are intentionally being ignorant. I can't think of a single TikTok trend that comes close to the level of radicalization of QAnon.
There seems to still be a large conspiratorial rabbit hole on TikTok that still leads to QAnon influencers (using more generalized hashtags and catch all conspiracies).
Given the demographics of those most heavily influenced by QAnon, it's ridiculous to imply that Tiktok had even a 10th of the influence of Facebook wrt to QAnon.
It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese) buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and U.S. app stores.
> you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China
Good thing we're not.
Or else be removed from French app stores yet remain available online? Without being sanctioned or blocked?
ByteDance's CEO perjured himself in front of the Congress [1]. Meanwhile, you can't Google the 1989 Tianamen Square massacre in China because (a) Google is blocked, as in actually blocked, and (b) the very term is blocked.
There are reasonable objections to this bill. Claiming we're stooping to China's level is not one of them.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...
Oddly, the articles I've seen don't feel the need to specify there. Seems like a big difference to me, and requiring sale to specifically US buyer seems rather more of a takeover.
No, you are correct. Thank you. It must simply be no longer controlled by a foreign adversary [1]. (And yes, the term foreign adversary is defined in law [2].)
An EU, Gulf or Indian buyer would be totally fine if done in good faith, i.e. without being a front for Chinese interests.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(g)(6)
[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
I also wonder if the KSA should be forced to divest from X/Twitter. Prior to owning part of X/Twitter, they did this [0], which led to to the worst of what one could imagine. What is happening now?
But my main question is, are there any other examples of forced divestiture, aside from Firefly Aerospace? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter#...
[1] https://spacenews.com/firefly-halts-launch-preparations-afte...
Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?
Yes, absolutely, if we all agree upon the direction of the arrow of time.
Saudi Arabia was in Twitter when it was private
In 2022 when it went private they didn't add any additional money
There is no equivalence. The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world. The royal family just wants to keep their kingdom business running, and even for that they're dependent on the US.
However, as a friend of human liberty, I cannot forget the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. [0]
While I would like to agree that KSA doesn't care about the rest of the world, and each culture should have their own space, the bone-saw story does prove that there are human factors which bind us all together. We all do live on one small rock, after all.
[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20190110153304/https://www.washin...
Jamal Khashoggi is just one man. Tragedy it may be, but insignificant in the larger context.
There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.
When a simple, predictable man like Putin, or Xi, make themselves emperor for life, they prove the fragility of their system. Their system cannot survive beyond them. It is the final call. Just as it was in Germany, France, Portugal, Spain... all of the imperial powers had to lose their final war. Soon, you will lose yours. Finally your people will become "Western," aka peaceful. All it takes is losing the final imperial ambition. I welcome you to the future.
My family has lived through these idiotic ambitions for many generations. This is why I am still here, speaking to you. We will live through it again, until we are all at peace.
Cheers.
I am curious, what do you think my ideology is? I just wanted to understand how I came across.
I am old enough to remember the cold war times. The Soviet Union disintegrated because they never built an economy. Until Gorbachev, the communists did maintain their grip. If they had an economy like China has, the Soviet Union might have still been around.
Also Xi is not Putin, and the CCP (and generally Communist Parties) are not United Russia.
> There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.
Sure. But maintain the highest level of deterrence.
Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family. [0]
They could not destroy Europe as much as they tried. We are still here.
Ukraine, is a rising democracy and is still here. Please my brother, just as each European country had to lose their empires, to finally win our own independence from the specter of imperialist thought. So must you.
The Russian people deserve this more than anyone. It's about effing time my brother.
Play this loud my friend!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1AmMt6A9s
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Man! At what cost? Someone who used to work with me with sent me a pic - writing code from a bomb shelter.
Add:
> Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family.
They may not have destroyed yours, but they did destroy millions of other families.
Fine, have a different alphabet, have orthodox, the Greeks are part of Europe and they have this. Why can't Moscow just stop killing us???
And they kill Russians more than anyone!!! Please, just stop! Fuck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqohApD6Ng8
This seems obviously false. They host conferences talking about how they want to shape the world. KSA has interests, and they will want to use any power they have to further their interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
I also wonder if this goes through, does this set a precedent for enforcing similar divestment expectations for any companies operating in China. Is this isolated to social media platform, or could this also eventually extend in to other industries like manufacturing?
The only difference is scale and user base — and this time around it was even included in a bill.
The Government has a long history of interfering with foreign businesses in the name of national security. Feds have blocked sale of infrastructure like ports many times
They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly.
I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy. I want young people to be more involved in politics and to vote.
Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?
I want people to be more involved in politics and I want more people to vote. Wanting more people to vote is a safe side of history to be on I think.
I also want people to be able to access the content and information they choose. If that is the content and information on TikTok, who am I to deny them? I believe in free speech, morally (I say morally because, yes, I know the 1st Amendment doesn't apply everywhere, morally).
This is going to be a hilarious statement in 20-50 years.
It's funny because on HN of all places, where all wildly successful companies are ran as absolute monarchies, and all the devices we type on are produced by companies ran as absolute monarchies, there's this undeserved reverence for "democracy" as if it's some sacred church or something.
If the voting population is so easily swayed by a video scrolling app, maybe, just maybe democracy isn't such a good idea? Would you work for a company where the CEO makes important decisions based on the amalgamation of 30 second videos that happen to come across his/her feed? I wouldn't. I don't think I want to participate in a country ran like that either. I'd expect the decisions to appear schizophrenic, which quite frankly describes our current political situation in the US.
Like, we have 100K+ fentanyl overdoses a year in the US, and I don't see any TikToks "informing voters" about that. No one cares. In fact, I don't even expect normal people to care about it---in a healthy society they shouldn't even be aware of it. It would take a special person, who is egoically invested in the health of his population to change that. Someone like a startup CEO, ala Washington, Jobs, etc.
So no, you're not on the "safe side of history" by advocating for something that's politically fashionable at the moment. History is written (and re-written) by the winners, and I wouldn't put my money on "democracy".
You can amass more reach and influence than many of the biggest TV stations / newspapers of the previous generation with nothing more than an internet connection.
And who holds the levers to that reach? The social media companies. If they want that account’s posts and I be less visible to users they’ll be able to do it in a heartbeat (and have!)
My whole point is that there are literally billions of entities (everyone on Earth with an internet connection) who also have the ability to alter public discourse at scale. Hence why it's a vague boogeyman... the phrase "alter the mindset of a population" could be used to describe anything from a Orwellian propaganda machine to a Mr. Beast video.
In the 1990's, you could've claimed "Tetris is a software product developed by a geopolitical competitor (Russia) that has the capability to alter the mindset of the population" and you would've been right, but it would've been a silly thing to get worked up over.
It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate, that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin this week" etc.
As you say, another possible purpose is that TikTok is used as a source of data and intel. I suppose it is a fine source for that, but also, if that's all China really wants, they can probably just buy most of that data on the shadowy data markets. The US Government shows no signs of stopping our personal data from being sold.
Hopefully the scars from Gaza remain with them and they take a different stance with Israel. A TikTok ban killing off one of the most desired career paths of this generation (TikTok influencer) will have a lasting impact on them when they take the reigns.
This is economically irrational to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. If Beijing truly does this, it somewhat cements the argument that TikTok was a CCP policy tool.
To what end? It isn't going to placate the hawks in America. And it's likely to inflame them elsewhere, e.g. in Europe. The only way you can position it as a win is within China's domestic politics, where it would save face for Xi and his acolytes. (Hence, the inefficiency of dictatorship.)
do not discount the importance of this; much of CCP's actions revolve around its survival
They get a free pass to use licensed music because it’s a huge marketing channel for the labels. Lose America and that goes away.
Every European country /and/or EU/ECC as a block, as well as every other nation or block, should follow this up as soon as permitted to have all social media apps operated by a foreign country be subject to the same legislation.
TikTok will have to sel to the US, Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.
That will of course also go for all other social networks as well. The threats this bill highlights are universal to all social media operated outside the control and ownership,
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or they will need to be sold to every country they wish to operate in.
Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause to protect their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation from foreign owned social networks.
From a geek perspective this would be great. We would get smaller entities that would need to interact with each other in so far as that would be possible or attainable.
TikTok can sell to a French, Hungarian, Indian, Brazilian or even Iraqi person and be in compliance with this bill's terms. It doesn't require American ownership, it forbids control by a foreign adversary.
If the EU and U.S. passed legislation subjecting all tech companies to these rules, the only ones who would have to do anything are those owned and controlled by a foreign adversary state.
China is unambiguously a foreign adversary of the USA, as well as many/all Western democracies.
The discussion about data and privacy seems totally disingenuous. This seems like a free speech issue being hidden being a weird angle.
A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states.
We already know US companies are impacted by both these issues. They need to be addressed at a lower level and not by cherry picking up the individual examples on grounds that are inconsistent with the rest of the state's behaviour.
Because it's easy and cheap. It's a way for our representatives to claim they're doing something about the threat that may be posed by the Chinese government, without actually jeopardizing the interests of our industries.
> A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states.
I have no love for FANNG, but there's a huge difference between a domestic companies invading privacy and possibly being soft targets for foreign adversaries, and a literal foreign adversary surveilling and shaping discourse.
So sure, if there is another bill that would curtail privacy invasion by domestic companies, I would be in huge support. But I fail to see how that stops blocking another privacy-invading app, run by a foreign adversary no less, is a bad thing.
There is this whataboutism in every comment on HN regarding the US and China that drives me nutty. A US company being bad does not cancel out a Chinese company being bad. A patchwork law is better than no law.
Dangerous? I would definitely argue yes.
I assume you're talking about the latter because that seems to be what is talked about with TikTok. Again, it seems weird to me to decide, after however many decades of globalism and exploiting China's manufacturing prowess for cheap goods, that this is suddenly dangerous but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about it, except stifle TikTok.
Diversifying supply chains is a good idea - and the US is doing that already, though it seems to be much more in response to the first definition of "danger" than the second. Because if it was the national security aspect, we'd be seeing it happen with much more alacrity and urgency, and not some hand-wringing about TikTok.
* China
* North Korea
* Iran
* Cuba
* Russia
* Venezuela
Could sell it to Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Belarus, etc.
I oppose this bill because it doesn't seem to do anything to address the actual threats posed by social media. After all, foreign adversaries openly operate on Facebook. Why isn't Zuckerberg being forced to divest? Either all social media is a threat, and that threat needs to be addressed, or this is all theater meant to satisfy the population without tackling the actual issues (if we are honest, the same politicians pushing for this bill benefit from social media influence) .
What stops the puppets from ignoring the previous owners?
A big paycheck.
Most readers on HN would happily pledge loyalty to the CCP if it meant $1M+ TC.
In fact, many American and European businesses do exactly this.
So what happens after they’ve received the big paycheque?
I think you’d have a hard time aligning the amount of the paycheques such that the puppets couldn’t get bigger expected future paycheques by doing what they wanted with tiktok.
Presumably the puppets wouldn't have access to the tiktok platform (its code including AI algorithms, data, employees, etc), they'd just be a middle-man that would take the finished product (e.g. the APK) and publish it to distribution platforms (Google and Apple's app stores)?
You think I pledged loyalty to various employers, even? I mean I told them I did, but I was lying.
Consider the sanctions against Russia, for example. Some European companies continued doing business in Russia. Everything they did was perfectly legal, and they complied with the sanctions to the letter. But because some officials considered those companies were aiding the Russian war effort, the next round of US sanctions targeted those companies specifically. Then they had to stop all business indefinitely, because no bank was willing to deal with them anymore.
The more interesting question is Taiwan, for which the US has taken no official position on sovereignty.
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/17/2020-15...
At least this vindicates the choice all the countries that consider the US an adversary and have blocked US social media. While the US has always characterised the block as the hallmark of illiberal regimes.
Citizen these social media sites and these news sources are safe. We have curated this list for your safety and that of the community at large.
Geez things have gotten bad in a hurry :(
This is a nice fantasy but it fails to a number of intractible social problems. Children aren't taught skepticism because parents don't want their children to be taught skepticism. You would need to use force that you do not have access to in order to even attempt the solution you are proposing.
Second, implicit in your argument is that people would be responsible for thinking critically about every fact that they believe. This is just too much work, the human strategy requires trust, and we have massive incentive structures called societies whose main job is to facilitate that trust through the establishment of systems of incentives. This complicated system of incentives has been demolished, wholesale, by social media, and we're not going to adapt fast enough to avoid serious damage.
Say huh? Where on earth did you pull this “factoid” from?
Source: I ran which quite a few of that sort as a kid.
It could also be true of other religious groups (it definitely is with the even nuttier end of Protestants) like Catholics and Muslims or what have you, but that’s the part I have experience with, and that’s a lot of people. They don’t live in San Francisco or New York or Boston or Seattle, mostly, but they exist in numbers.
Politicians will commit seppuku the minute it happens in their country. Independently thinking populace is their worst nightmare.
Luckily for them most people do not do that.
This is what sovereignty looks like to you? It looks like totalitarianism to me.
Also, you have to understand that it's never about "control" of the population or restricting freedom of speech (which, also ironically, is protected in the Chinese Constitution, yeah, really, look it up). Absolutely not. It's always about "public safety".
Next up, we could migrate government systems away from foreign IT software and services. The FOSS world has plenty of capable offerings, and it's not as if the choices were made on technical merit in the first place. I'd love to see Free Software and open standards being taught in schools, and being used in government.
This concern is similar to what is cited as the reason for the Huawei sanctions in the US.
Of course, it's not like FOSS magically eliminates all threat. If FOSS was commonly utilized by governments, I think we would see more "XZ Utils backdoor" type of attacks, as it were a juicier target. I firmly believe though that using FOSS would be a step in the right direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions_agains...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor
I wouldn't particularly blame Gabon or Vietnam if they wanted their primary media outlets operated by nations that are at least vaguely friendly to their values. They are free to attempt to force a sale and ban it when those apps inevitably do not comply.
Perhaps the EU should do something similar to Facebook, X etc.?
There was a guy who received a lifetime ban from Safeway for driving through their garden displays and breaking windows in their stores.
The US does ban people from using banks. See also: list of specially designated nationals, etc.
Regardless free speech for Americans is already dead. Remember when they took away rights from groups you didn't care about? Now it's your turn.
What are the code standards for American social media anyway? It’s not like Twitter has to meet any criteria on being free of Bias, they could suppress all bad news about China tomorrow and they wouldn’t be breaking any laws
I think it’s plain as day, this is simply a trade war, along with noises about China dumping cars and what not. All the stuff about security is just a cover story.
At least get something good in return. Even if Tiktok decides to leave US, there are a whole lot of other short video apps that can fill in the blank.
That's why there's been no movement on data privacy legislation in 15+ years: because it would hobble a heavily US-centric profitable industry (with the side benefit that the data can be mined by US law enforcement and intelligence - which is directly the problem the US government has with TikTok / China)
https://youtu.be/R5au74auD_k
https://youtu.be/jUGILxwkpVc
And the channel itself is pretty great.
So I do apologise for not getting a list of factual examples supporting the OP's statement, but your argument was not barely enough to make me disagree with the OP. On the contrary, I do agree with the OP very much.
Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?
It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.
I get that we aren't best buds with china but they are also a huge trade partner with the US. Bigger than many countries which we have friendlier feelings towards.
Yes, they are officially recognized as a foreign adversary. They're the first country listed:
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
Further, the escalation of NATO/Russian tensions, the war in Ukraine, and resurgent Gaza conflict, have all contributed to a specific window of opportunity for China to act as these each spread US readiness thinner than at quieter times.
This has all unequivocally and openly set China as an adversary to the US until that "sphere of influence" conflict is resolved. They're not hiding it, the US is not hiding it. There's no question about this except among people who just happened not to be paying attention to what's going on in the region.
We can hope (perhaps too optimistically) for a gradual diplomatic reorganization or deescalation without hot trade or military conflict, but the whole world is preparing -- on many fronts -- for more confrontational scenarios.
Just look at the situation in the Philippines at Second Thomas Shoal. They're actively baiting the US.
How about we don't take the "bait" in the South CHINA Sea that is thousands of miles away from even the furthest abroad US territory (Guam)?
Very little of the South China See is owned by China. China doesn't own it any more than Japan owns the Sea of Japan.
https://www.sandboxx.us/news/the-man-who-stole-americas-stea...
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
I can't imagine what else we would call them. Also, turnabout is fair play. You can't run a company in China without giving up ownership and abiding by a number of, often draconian, rules. This isn't a "ban", it's a "You can't be owned by China" law. Given what China requires I find that completely reasonable.
The most recent one I can think of is responding with tariffs against the US after we put tariffs on their solar exports.
Beyond that... the Korean war I think was the last time we were any sort of direct/semi direct conflict with them. And Taiwan is the touchiest aspect we have with them.
This is a solid point. What most people don't get is that despite the enormous investment the CIA, NSA, and DoD Sigint have made into their offensive security teams, most of their budget is dedicated to Friday team-building activities, Bowling Nights, and Foosball tables. The US definitely does not hack anybody.
"Everyone but FVEY are the super evil hackerz" is a childish, head-in-the-sand position to hold in the modern geopolitical climate. Everyone is hacking everyone, and China is not some sort of unique Bad Guy in this regard.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apt31-chine...
The fact is the accurately attributing expert cybercrime is extremely difficult and anyone that implies otherwise is making a fool out of you.
You can't use 'direct conflict' as a measure in this type of game. Russia has done damning harm to american politics, but its not clear how to measure that effect.
US and China choose to act this way, but they could stop harassing each other without affecting their own power bases.
Only in election years.
“The case for harm has not been made” Do you think the American government would say publicly “we know China is exploiting this data because that’s exactly what we do and China is even worse than us.
The Snowden leaks were bad because they showed Americans spied on without warrants. This is about users who for better or worse install the app intentionally.
I'm glad you agree that the US government has not actually made the case for harm.
The Snowden leaks were bad because they exposed a lot of 100% legal, directly part of their charter activity by the NSA, like monitoring the communications of foreign leaders and other non-US persons.
"n a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"
A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?
Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au
Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.
We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people."
What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.
AFAIK china requirements are mostly about censorship and using chinese datacenters
> China has been doing that for years
China has been doing many things I would like the US to not start doing... Let's say that the US could find better role models
https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
Abstract: The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006–18), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation increase in a constituent’s perceived issue agreement with their representative can improve net approval by 35 percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level, resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro studies.
Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the electorate that, although not hyperinformed and hyperrational, is one in which constituents are sufficiently attentive that the majority can and does hold their representatives accountable for the decisions that they make on important pieces of legislation."
https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKu...
Verification Materials: The materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM
This could be interpreted as CCP manipulation, but what else did you expect them to do?
If the product wasn't something that people truly loved, would the callers have had that level of commitment to follow through?
Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd presume the answer to be NO.
This is not a factual statement. It is a statement that contains something resembling a fact, however it is still just your subjective opinion.
The Chinese government and the US government exert their influence over companies in the same way -- regulation, backdoor conversations asking them to kill/mute stories, and NSL type requests. There's not some government propagandist sitting at a switchboard. In fact it's the "West" that goes above and beyond with an entire technical apparatus to real-time mass censor social media to "protect democracy." If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.
It is in China's interest to avoid divestment because TikTok is a successful company making China money. And now it's in their interest to avoid divestment to not get bullied by the US gov't. If TikTok had the power you and others in this thread ascribe to them they would be more successful at swaying public opinion.
No, in this case it was OVERT manipulation, not covert. The important word, however, is: manipulation.
I am so floored by comments in this thread either denying or not caring about literal brainwashing by a foreign adversary of the US.
Do you really believe this?
Wonder what their next concern will be?
[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/03/14/tikt...
You might believe that the next thing will be, "let China take over the Senkaku islands", but if so, you have not been around children in several decades.
People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.
Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.
But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign influence is not a new idea and has been something people were worried about even over a century ago.
It's very strange that our government doesn't care that our phones are made in China, that damn near everything for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality, covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde, yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?
with a ban being the fall back outcome
There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2]
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...
[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2
Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing".
Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.
The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.
Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.
Even if there were efforts to ban TikTok before that time, this obviously escalated it.
What are the other 2nd and 3rd order effects of this?
Covered countries are here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...
In theory, this could be used more broadly. Not a lawyer, but there's a reading that it would give a president the ability to unilaterally force divestiture in companies that have as little as a "choose your username for your online account" functionality. It's unlikely to affect B2B supply chains, though. Presidents have many existing tools at their disposal anyways if they want to disrupt those.
I'm guessing Congress justifies its authority here based on national security. The bill refers to "foreign adversary controlled applications".
This is also overwhelmingly likely to go unchallenged by the court system due to the provision being passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Internet service by one company is not trivial to address in a "ban". Unlike, for example, a chemical molecule. At least they have the experience in specifying and addressing that.
I think we might be able to manage to identify a company with hundreds of millions of users trying to mask themselves by... changing their name.
It's not like we're going to firewall them off. The bill bans distribution of the app in the US app stores and US companies from offering any kind of internet hosting services related to the app.
The same way that the government addresses most issues. They tell people not to do something, and if they refuse then they get fined, their assets frozen and confiscated, and eventually people are arrested.
Bytedance would have to withdraw all its assets and employees from anywhere in the west to escape the consequences.
They have to store the data somewhere and it much more likely that they will sell than engage in value killing whack-a-mole with federal agencies
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; "
But the bigger question is the literal one you've asked: how the federal government can just ban TikTok?
What makes the government think that they can stop packets at some arbitrary line in the sand, when every indication in the history of the internet shows the opposite?
They were unable to stop drug cartels. And drug cartels need a highly centralized and sophisticated organization, and need to ship a physical product across a border.
Whether right or wrong, whether politically motivated or not, it has gone through the house, senate and president which is not a small thing.
While this bill does refer to a specific organization, it doesn't punish them for past actions, but rather constrains US companies in the future. That is perfectly ok as shown in cases like Huawei v. United States or Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. DHS. Like Kaspersky, it's "prophylactic, not punitive."
This is a totally bunk argument. If you want an argument that does work against the constitution, SCOTUS' "empty shell" or Lysander Spooner's "Constitution of no authority" are of far more weight, but have more disturbing implications (e.g. You can disregard it completely; our system is precisely the "odious arbitrariness" the founders denounced).
Requiring TikTok to sell is an overreach by the state. It will leads us on a path where companies will be strictly regional.
Not a fan.
So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?
EDIT: My best guess currently is that the government is claiming there is a compelling state interest, that of national security, and that is why they should be allowed to ban the publication of this app and it's code. And even if it were to go to the court the courts don't like telling the government was is and isn't national security related, so they would probably just ok this.
Yes, provided you are doing it in a way "through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application" [1]. (It would be perfectly legal to go to TikTok.com, however.)
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(a)(1)(A)
The bill itself says:
> The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated...
So the website is explicitly included in that
There is a brewing (cold for now) conflict with China and the US and it just makes 1000% sense to me that TikTok not be in the US. It poses to severe a potential national security threat from it being on phones of members of the military, or Congress, to being able to subtly influence elections or shape the minds of the next generation with tweaks to the algorithm.
The algorithm for tailoring content to the user is just so very good the POTENTIAL is there for abuse that an outright ban needs to happen. (I know they’re trying to allow it to be spun but I’m more hardline here and think it just needs to be removed from the US.)
Why would the US or any power allow a social network with such a powerful algorithm to learn so much about every user when US or other social networks can’t or don’t operate in China? China censors content a la the thought police of Orwell’s 1984. Yet democracies largely allow speech to be free and accessible which is why the most popular podcast host in the world often hosts crazy people like Alex Jones and that’s okay — it’s not illegal to have insane opinions or conversations.
So China is exporting a social network that COULD be used to control, shape, etc — otherwise emit propaganda on US users, it could spy on those same users be it location data or otherwise (imagine the dirt it probably has on members of Congress) and yet US social networks don’t get to operate in China to the same extent.
The US government is under no obligation to this US voter, at least, to share some bombshell investigation because the potential is there and it shouldn’t be.
This is not different than removing ZTE and Huwawei hardware and software from sensitive US networks and such. In the event of a conflict do we really want companies who have members of the CCP in their upper mgmt or who are otherwise expected to do as told to be in sensitive areas like military or power generation or telecommunications? Of course not.
Why such a long timeline? It leaves open the door for Trump getting into office and immediately rolling it back such that they don't have to.
But on the whole I’m in favor of any and all laws undermining the mind cancer that is “social media”, irrespective of who controls it, worldwide.
Plus, foreign social media are blocked altogether unless they submit to Chinese government censorship.
So there's not much that can backfire.
Why does this sound like “famous last words”?
Not just tiktok either, this will wind up applying to many companies.
Wrong. Read it again very carefully.
It places substantial fines on American companies who provide services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.
So sure, it's not "banned', it's just that they're made completely inaccessible to US users because nobody is going to be ok with paying substantial fines in order to allow it on their networks/servers/app stores.
You do realize that, in english, we often use shortcuts to refer to things right? If something is "effectively" a ban, we just call it a ban and move on, because our language provides many, many facilities to improve efficiency. You being pedantic is, remarkably, unpleasant, and speaks poorly of your overall level of social adjustment, specifically because you are using the very language you speak incorrectly as you do so.
We need open ecosystems and access to full root-level control of our devices by default. Accept no substitutes.
No, you'd just go to the website.
X spinning a pro X narrative is problematic, just as it is bad Facebook hid their problem with teenage mental health, etc... all these types of things are problematic and can often harm people and society.
The reason TikTok is a greater concern is that TikTok is fully controlled by China, and that hence it is not just pro TikTok narratives that might be amplified but any narrative China wants to amplify. The risks are greater, and the existing mitigations are weaker as the company isn't US owned.
If you ask me, the US in recent history has had incredibly anemic corporate regulation, and there should be a lot more intervention to prevent companies acting nefariously.
So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?
Why replicate it? Can't ByteDance license the IP to the US company?
I think this is the absolute best way to address this. It forces people to realize and acknowledge that even China's CCP is well aware that companies like TikTok are a major security threat which justifies this type of action.
I wonder why we have anonymous accounts spreading this nonsense that this is a mere trade issue, as if the problem is a company that generates well below $5B in revenue, and not the data harvesting operation and propaganda arm that it is designed to be.
What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security concerns, but this feels like total overkill.
If your neighbor kept borrowing cups of sugar from you, but never lends you any sugar, would you keep giving him sugar?
We really should have a way of judging if any data being captured by an app is in good faith or if it is being done in a clearly fraudulent or malicious manner and then punish or shutdown the malicious operators. Tiktok has been proven to be manipulative and also as an arm of the CCP.
However, what about other apps which seem to capture data that makes no sense to them?
For example, if your note taking app is secretly uploading data from your contact list - that should be clearly seen as malicious in comparison to say your e-commerce app storing details about your purchase history made on that app to determine what may be going on with you.
Even the second part is a bit shady but at least you can make a case that it may be just a way to sell more things.
But many apps capture data that cannot make any business sense to the company behind that app other than being something quite malicious - like for example:
- Uber secretly recording your screen on iphone EVEN WHILE the app was NOT EVEN BEING USED using API which Apple conveniently did not disclose to anyone else other than Uber and perhaps other shady operators!
- Chrome caught secretly sending audio transcripts back to the Google servers. Why would a browser need to send audio transcripts by secretly tapping into the microphone?
- Nest using microphones which were only revealed much later. Why would a smoke alarm need audio?
- Why do apps like Whatsapp - even in the web version, secretly take the data from the clipboard (copy buffer)? Why would an app need the data in the clipboard before it is even pasted into it?
Any company capturing or using such data should be required to provide evidence that this data was captured for a legitimate reason - and be punished if they are not able to provide this data with the principals of the company being treated like organized crime operators. Anything else is just pointless.
Tiktok has been the only place to see videos about police brutality and one of the main places to see the movement supporting the Palestinian cause.
I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.
I'd rather have the US foster innovation and let the best company win. TikTok is more entertaining and is growing because it has better/smarter feed algorithms and content creation tools, plan and simple.
Meta was an early innovator in this area but has stagnated due to revenue pressures leading to the over-promotion of low quality content. Netflix has failed to adapt.
Also Tiktok is directly owned by the CCP. It’s barely a private company, so national security concerns are justified.
As you may recall from the Snowden revelations, the US government has high bandwidth data intercept stations installed at major datacenters that are expressly for the purpose of ingesting massive amounts of data. There is no need for "ownership" when this level of cooperation with government exists.
> As you may recall from the Snowden revelations,
That’s a non sequitur, and it doesn’t change the fact that TikTok is owned and operated by a hostile foreign government.
Perhaps, but this is simply logic: Country A imposes tariffs that harm consumers and producers in country A and country B. That is the case before retaliatory tariffs. Once country B imposes its own, now the producers and consumers in both countries have yet more tariffs to deal with.
The leap of logic that is hard for people to grasp is that countries have producers and consumers and many that occupy both roles. A friend of mine had his 3D printing business fail after US retaliatory trade restrictions prvented him from importing 5% of parts for his printers that are mainly available from China. Meanwhile competitors in the US resold 100% China-manufactured printers and still beat him in price in spite of the tariffs. Such an embarrassing example of policy having effects far different from its intentions.
> That’s a non sequitur...
Governments can get control of companies in consequential (privacy, etc.) ways by a variety of means, and it happens everywhere. The Snowden revelations are highly relevant only because you make the claim that the paper ownership or other irrelevant nuance of how China has control over Chinese companies is somehow relevant. It absolutely is not since the end result is exactly the same.
There are many, many accounts of government using soft power to influence American firms to behave in ways that do the bidding of the state,... it is precisely analogous to what China would do with its own firms, regardless of the details.
You’re ashamed that TikTok can continue to operate here so long as it’s divested of CCP control?
hmmm....
I don't think there is anything scary/bad about Americans seeing content that humanizes people who have been dehumanized by the US media for as long as I can remember.
What does this mean for the INSANE number of Chinese-owned IoT companies that sell products in the US that store some data in China?
Across various threads there's a lot of info on how large & what a revenue source the US is for TikTok, and an assumption that that goes away. But do people think the ban would be 100% effective, that no one would workaround? Would TikTok accept the ban or try to help people work around it?
I kind of want to see an example of the US trying to control things at out. It's probably not enough for ByteDance, but if they could retain 20% of the US in spite of the ban, that'd be a pretty big cultural victory, would be an impressive way to show up congress.
Correct me if I am wrong but Didn't Epic also get removed from the Android and Apple stores? They are still going somehow though.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then ..."
Could TikTok just revert to fully Chinese hosting (or more likely a third country) and operate as a totally foreign company? You can already access many Chinese sites like Baidu Maps or Zhihu or Xiaohongshu from the US.
We regulate cigarettes and heroin this is a much bigger problem than people give it credit for.
It's an even worse problem if a bad actor is using it subtlety to influence a population.
It doesn't matter if ByteDance or FB are doing this they should both burn to the ground for the damage they have done to the Internet and society.
It only counts if "the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary" [1].
So presumably if a pair of Hungarian millionaires show up and place a bid, there would be additional questions.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... 2(g)(6)*
No. Whomever is elected executive.
Nerds have always had some of the worst political stances, not because they're dumb but because they bend in face of the slightest pressure of losing social capital - in the current climate, this usually means submitting to the most psychotic leftist interpretation that is physically proximate to them.
Explains the politics of places like SF quite well.
They don’t host videos for fun, they host videos so you will watch ads. If they can’t sell ads for US$ then they won’t host videos either.
Rhetoric aside, it will be done through blocking commercial activity on US soil. The US government can seize tiktok.com for example.
Bytedance does not have to divest because it's against the law for the U.S government to prevent Americans from reading, viewing or saying what they want. Will be struck down by SCOTUS.
Does this comply with HN's site guidelines?
There's existing laws about the citizenship of property owners (broadcase media for example).
But even if that doesn't happen, and the US state starts to regard TikTok as banned, what makes anyone think people will stop using it?
Many western resources are banned in China, and it seems that the primary effect of this is simply the proliferation of tools to subvert the ban.
One thing I don't understand, at a high level: how, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, can anyone believe that the internet will shape itself around the whims of legacy states on anything but very short timescales?
There is no case of successful censorship of this nature, let alone with such a large and popular resource. Conversely, there are many, many cases of failed attempts at censorship, even by the largest and most powerful states and corporations in the world.
Is there some reason to believe that this trend will very suddenly reverse?
If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling boil kind of thing.
If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see big statements all the time about how people slightly younger than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are going to see the total death of the platform because most people don't really know how to do anything technical on a phone or computer anymore.
Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift will be just to a different platform rather than a different societal state of mind.
I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-monopoly legislation that removes the danger rather than playing whack-a-mole with whatever company has attracted the most attention at the time.
Very few countries across the world do that. Govts usually own a chunk of the largest firms in strategic sectors and have seats on the board. Look at Boeing/Airbus ownership and the outcomes. Its just easier to influence large corps when you own them. If you don't own them then Boeing is the latest example in a long line up of large corps, showing everyone how they skirt whatever law and regulation the govt passes.
We do. TikTok.com won't be blocked here the way Facebook and Google are in China.
Let's see, it will be interesting to look back on these comments in a decade.
Sure, yes, it can always get worse. The point is it isn't, and we're nowhere close to false comparisons with the CCP.
Good for the goose…
No it wouldn't, as that precedent is already set. And, not only do they choose winners, but individual members of Congress freely profit off those choices.
I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.
Content is really unrelated.
The part that's hard for me to ignore is the fairly overt statements from reps that they don't like the content: https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1782920301052911713
It's possible for something to be providing valuable news and perspective and also be controlled/manipulated by an adversary. Sorta like a broken clock being right twice a day.
They’ll move to whatever platform users move to
> The company has an initial nine months to sort out a deal, though the president could extend that another three months if he sees progress.
But I do hope to see improvements in the next 5 years. I'd like to see less trends around destructive behavior: eating tide pods, destroying/defacing property, harassing others.
The algorithm should not be unbiased. We must take manual intervention to hinder the destructive tendencies in human behavior
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/17/china-lobbying-tikt...
Like I'm ready to get out the pitchforks but this is just weird FUD.
Yes, lying under oath is called perjury.
> your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm
Say a foreign country were considering banning Lockheed Martin. And the U.S. ambassador picked up the phone--not to fellow diplomats, but individual legislators--to argue against it. Do you not see how the fact that this rose to the level of state-level mediation concedes there are non-economic factors at play?
> US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off
It's been happening in Russia for the past two years. The cases where it rises to diplomatic incident are not strongly correlated with value as much as strategic worth.
Ambassadors and diplomatic missions routinely intervene (including contacting legislators) to protect the perceived economic interests of their country’s large corporations and strategic industries.
I’m absolutely certain that if an important market for an important firm (eg: Lockheed) were to threaten to stop buying, top State Department staff would absolutely “pick up the phone” to legislators at a bare minimum.
You mean the exact thing that happened with Facebook during the transatlantic data sharing agreement dispute because of the CLOUD act? Do you assume it's because the US is secretly manipulating EU citizens with pro-America propaganda? Even worse it was because Facebook said it was technically impossible for them to not store some data on EU citizens in the US.
> It's been happening in Russia for the past two years
Yes, because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia. It's not at all the same thing when we chose to force our own businesses to pull out or sell. Do we not remember the time when Github (along with every other company) couldn't do business in Iran?
No, but there absolutely were IC concerns, as well as trade-integration ones between allies. Non-economic, politically-relevant factors. In that case, not necessarily all adversarial.
> because of the US imposed sanctions on Russia
We sanctioned certain Russian entities. Russia responded by seizing American and European assets. There were no U.S. sanctions on e.g. Danish beer made in Russia [1].
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/business/carlsberg-russia-bus...
But most will slowly migrate to other platforms due to uncertainty (users and advertisers), though it remains to be seen exactly to where.
Maybe Snap? YT Shorts is bad, as are most other “shorts as a feature” platforms where discovery UX is terrible.
Just speculation for the time being as we need to see what ByteDance decides to do. Can’t recall the exact article but I think they do plan to fight this decision.
There's a lot more leftist/anticapitalist content (and political content in general) on tiktok compared to youtube shorts and instagram reels.
I and every friend I've talked to about tiktok has seen much more political content on tiktok than other short video apps.
Really?
Who owns the damn thing anyway?
Oh right. Communists.
If she is so zombified by TikTok, won't she just continue to use it? Why would she comply with the ban?
Moreover, even if she does, there are many other nearly identical sources of zombification. Won't she use fall prey to those instead?
They'll take 20 seconds to install one app to route around the ban, and then forget about it.
It's less true now, starting from when the mafia used this freedom to threaten judges and jury (Basically, when 80% of people think "full freedom of speech is stupid in this particular case", the US government will effectively suppress it).
I've talked with someone who argued that it effectively never truly existed, and gave me a lot of pre-prohibition examples i can't remember, and even a few from pre-civil war era, that targeted white people (which was surprising because most of the other did not), but i don't know if i trust him, and don't really know US history well, so if you're interested, you should research it yourself and not trust what i just wrote (which is basically, "Yes, No, It's complicated and i don't really know". I'm such a helpful person :/)
[edit] Not saying if it's good or bad btw, extreme freedoms are a cultural foundation of the US, and in my opinion define the country.
>The Supreme Court has previously held that Congress can’t ban foreign propaganda, including propaganda from China. In Lamont vs. Postmaster General, the court considered a law that required the postmaster general to detain “communist political propaganda” sent through the mail. The Post Office was then required to send the addressee a card asking whether they wanted the propaganda to be delivered, in what the court ultimately ruled had an unconstitutional chilling effect on speech.
https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-ban-bill-senate-legal-cha...
In particular TikTok is not being “banned” based on content, so it’s likely strict scrutiny will not apply.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fszq_PSWIAUwaWw?format=jpg&name=...
the average age of a congress person (house and senate) has gone up by one year, per year, for roughly 20 years.
that tells you that the "normal" organic churn of the past simply stopped dead in its tracks. we have been ruled over by nearly the exact same set of 50 somethings as they have slowly turned into 70 somethings. one very narrow cohort has held onto power so long they personally turned us into a gerontocracy.
this is why the tiktok ban is such a priority despite the fact that it has no constituency at all in the electorate. they don't really represent today's electorate, they represent 20 years ago's electorate that's finally had enough of this internet bullshit.
congress is supposed to be a lagging indicator of popular will by design, its just that for the last 20 years we've been increasing the incremental amount of lag by roughly one year per year, so we've been effectively in stasis.
...yet they turn a blind eye to the fact that GM not only collected driving data on their users, apparently in some cases without consent, but they sold it to others, including auto insurers, who used the information to increase the insurance rates of those who were spied on.
There is no difference between what GM did and what any social media company does. At least with GM selling driving data, there is significant public benefit to making bad driver pay for their poor driving instead of the rest of us having to pay for it.
China is never a country with free market. The hypocrisy is glaring when one claiming as a free market while passing a law that outright rob a company in the day light, under the name of "national security". American people should be embarrassed by this. The government is using to the same tactics as a so-called authoritarian communist country, if not worse.
Isn't that what the bill actually does. The tiktok part is just legal distraction as it punts the tiktok issue to the next administration.
The bill actually does multiple things, and it's okay to talk about the components in isolation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-renews-fisa...
Microsoft/Meta/A conglomerate of record labels(?) will buy TikTok and it’ll continue to exist just as it does today.
No, actually we dont. There is no divine mandate that requires us to do that, especially in a scenario where the geopolitical rival is using our credulity to their advantage.
Unfortunately that leaves Instagram, which is in many ways worse. Maybe Elon Musk can buy that one and destroy it next. He already did us a solid by ruining Twitter.
Some key facts:
1. Tiktok isn’t allowed to sell because their AI models and algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a well known fact by the people pushing for the bill.
2. The bill was only passed since it was shafted into a bundle of other more urgent bills that have to pass.
3. Not all American media companies are banned in China. Some refuse to comply with local laws and pulled out. For example, Apple and Microsoft complied. However the competition in China is immense and not every business can survive the capitalistic competition.
4. While there were talks about the ban, it was not until the overwhelming amount of Pro Palestinian content that led to the heavy push for the ban.
5. The US is a relatively tiny market for tiktok, so tiktok is likely to just pull out.
What I think:
1. The date set for the sale is highly political, and IMO its meant to weaponise Gen Z against the democrats.
2. Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
Would be insanely easy to identify swing counties/demographics and slightly tweak their algorithm to influence votes. You can be sure some chinese data scientist has already run the numbers on this (if not already experimented on it at a state/local level). I don't really feel comfortable with the CCP having that level of control.
> Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.
Not saying that the popularity of pro palestinian content is a psyop. But if it were, how would you even know? Maybe it's not a psyop today but they pulled the right levels to make it go viral, and now it's an organically driven flywheel? Maybe it's all organic and I'm fearmongering. The point is there is no way to know, or ever find out. Chinese datacenters can't be subpoenaed.
I think it's better to have freedom. As an American I should be able to view any media from any country I like as long as that media doesn't violate US law. Americans should have the freedom to use any software written in any country they like. In this case, we lost freedom to censorship and Democracy did nothing to stop it.
Not a very good argument. This post is literally about the signing of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act".
The loophole which is being closed is allowing foreign adversaries to control your social media apps.
It will be in violation if it doesn't sell.
China has been doing this for a very long time, to keep US apps out of the Chinese market (or forced IP transfers to Chinese companies) so that Chinese apps can thrive. There's no room for them to retaliate because they've already gone as far as they possibly could.
Is this sarcastic ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...
Watch every republican and jump on this (even though they support it).
They didn't need to - William Hearst - the Murdoch of the era - signed a $500,000/year contract with the Nazi Government and did that propaganda on their behalf.
It was worse after the US entered the war - legions of US companies kept trading with Nazis and even provided technology to them - like the technology that was used in developing half trucks. The oil, equipment and technology that the US companies were still selling to the Nazis through intermediary countries were killing American soldiers.
Did anything happen to them? No - they were persecuted for 'trading with the enemy' and got off with a slap on the wrist and KEPT TRADING with Nazis until the end of the war.
...
So no, your example does not hold any weight. The only reason the US is trying to ban Tiktok is because it cant compete and it doesn't own a big piece of it.
Its anti competitive behavior and its not new - despite yammering about 'free trade', the US applies trade quotas even to the allies it has 'free trade' agreements with. 'Free trade' is in quotes, because the 'free trade' always happens on the US side - if the other side starts doing too much 'free trade', the US does what it is doing to Tiktok - ban them.
This is despicable as hell. It will gimp the position of the US in world trade A LOT.
Congratulations, you've played yourselves back to back.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24024491
That and after Congress had already concluded it was being run in a way bad for teens' mental health, TikTok put up a dialog on launch saying they'd get banned unless all their users called in about it, so all the teenagers with bad mental health called in and said they'd kill themselves without TikTok.
(TikTok is banned in China though, so it'd be fair if they were banned.)
Anyway, Chinese communism doesn't ban competitors.
What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
It's not a red scare if it is true. And it's not a red scare because China isn't being targeted here because they are Communist - they are being targeted because they are a geopolitical adversary. Russia would be treated in the same manner if some killer app came out of there, and they aren't Communist.
You can't miss that if you're even half smart or don't have an agenda.
Also, who said we're going to firewall them?
The Tik Tok ban is years late and I don't know why any US citizen could not understand why it's the right thing to do, unless on the payroll of the Chinese government.
If TikTok were breaking US laws and refused to comply that'd be one thing, but that's not the case. They say their just worried about "influence" which is beyond hypocritical and not really grounds for censorship. Should they ban websites hosted in other countries next?
Like it or not, your freedom to access whatever software you wish is only really possible because you have a state that is capable of resisting foreign pressure to allow you to do so. This move is very much part of that removing leverage from an explicitly illiberal group. Paradox of Intolerance and so forth. You can pridefully choose to reject that, but I don't think your freedoms will last very long then.
I don't think that having access to websites and media in China, alongside all the websites and media from everywhere else on Earth, will result in us electing congressmen who are secretly working for China. There is zero evidence that TikTok is making that happen. There's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube. What good is it for us to voluntarily give up our freedoms in order to keep the China boogeyman from taking them from us?
Apple has LGBT+ and BLM wallpapers on the phone by default. TikTok only reaches everyone with TikTok installed (and even then, only those that actually uses the app). Apple reaches everyone with an iPhone with its propaganda.
For anyone who uses TikTok regularly, it's evident there frequently political content that outright contradict's China's positions, spreading unfettered through the platform.
The same govt that screwed the entire world with Covid-19 will use tiktok for nefarious purposes. This isn’t a stretch.
https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinese-Wang-Xia...
How does someone do data collection on how the Chinese government weaponizes a social media platform? That would almost certainly involve Tailored Access Operations (or whatever they are calling offensive cyber warfare these days), not only of questionable legality but definitely compromising the sort of Tactics/Techniques/Procedures you REALLY don't want made public.
/s
My point is that it's impossible to prove what the commenter was asking for.
I actually truly believe we should do this- a GDPR style bill for the US that protects people's right to privacy and limits corporations ability to influence our governments. The fact that we know how easy it is for companies to do this but are just upset that a specific company is doing it tells me we're approaching this in the wrong way.
I’m not against such a privacy law but I think it’s orthogonal to the TikTok issue.
This seems to me to be one of things we probably should not have done.
So if they know it’s harmful, they have an interest on showing low quality content to the western audience and possibly psychologically and intellectually affect an entire generation.
This is pure conspiracy theory. You think the nation that produces and loves Grand Theft Auto needs a relatively puritan foreign country, where certain depictions of death are restricted in media, weed and porn are totally illegal, to push such debauchery on the American people?
Vine hit the American streets long before TikTok before it was killed by mismanagement.
TikTok curated content without the need for a user to do anything else than scroll. You can have a remarkably well personalized TikTok experience without liking, following, or saving any content.
Both the US government and TikTok/ByteDance are unable to prove their claims, and likely, neither one ever could. Even if TikTok showed 100% evidence that they've never done that, the US government would know that there's nothing stopping TikTok from doing it at a later date.
This legislation is the US government deciding that the risks are too great, and so they're willing to take the gamble and shut down a company that's potentially done nothing wrong. "Innocent until proven guilty" is typically reserved for the judicial system, but this is a legislative decision; it'll be an interesting court case to determine if the US legislators are able to make these sorts of decisions outside of the judiciary.
Not true taken literally, obviously; not true if taken as saying "only JVs are allowed" either. According to the Department of Commerce (https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=China-Establishing-a...):
> A large majority of new foreign investments in China are WFOEs [wholly foreign owned enterprises], rather than JVs. As Chinese legal entities, WFOEs experience greater independence than ROs, are allowed exclusive control over carrying out business activities while abiding by Chinese law and are granted intellectual and technological rights.
Also (https://arc-group.com/china-company-setup/):
> WFOE refers to a limited liability company that is 100% invested, owned by foreign investors, and independently operated. Almost 60% of foreign-owned companies are WFOEs, making it the most adopted business type. Famous multinational companies such as Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and General Electric are all examples of WFOEs.
Small note: Many US companies do operate in China with large margins (Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, NVidia, etc). There's been a Wikipedia article cited a through times throughout this thread with a complete list of blocked domains! Just a minor nitpick, thanks for the thoughts still.
https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
An alternate conclusion is that Instagram is censoring topics that don't align with the "Consensus" in Washington and artificially boosting content that does. Why is there literally no content on Instagram about the Gaza war, yet I get up-to-date news and reports on TikTok?
https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/network-contagion-rese...
Ex-ByteDance Exec Claims TikTok Gave Communist Party 'God User' Status https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-political-china-communist-god-use...
American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/23/american-tik...
I don't believe that the lurch to the Right we've seen--Brexit, Trump, etc.--are happening naturally.
If this amount of effort is going into protect us from TikTok, then why not protect us from every other Social Media company that is tracking us.
You are wrong, and linked articles from US intel community have been available for years.
Maybe you mean something like this “study” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-data-suggests-al... which concludes with “kinda maybe looks like they could possibly favor Chinese interest”. Doing a study and putting out a headline is all it takes to poison the public opinion and exactly what I would expect from the social media companies foaming at the mouth losing market share.
The wording I have seen is congress had a internal meeting about the potential security concerns that could be involved (very likely with every app).
Very easy example to find: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/30/army-follows-...
One of many, hence not linking.
Every TikTok fan is demanding proof that was provided several years ago and they ignored.
Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation that is more popular.
The process does get abused and I get frustration over those instance. For this one in particular, there are thematic similarities that can reasonably fall under "national security concerns".
Whose position on this bill, in the House or Senate, do you think is unclear?
In the House, these bills were individually voted on. (In TikTok's case, twice.) In the Senate, pretty much everyone has made their views known on at least Ukraine, Israel and TikTok. (Taiwan hasn't been particularly contentious.)
There is a reason I used the word "accountability". There is difference between talk and action and accountability is about making sure the two align. "Made their views known" by itself is just talk that can easily be obfuscated. A voting record is an action and we shouldn't allow politicians to distance themselves from that action with a simple "it was part of a larger bill".
Again, we have an actual case on hand. Who is distancing themselves from anything? Whose position—in talk and votes—on each of these issues isn’t abundantly clear?
Which is the disconnect here. I criticized a general practice of which this is an example while you are focusing exclusively on that one example.
But it’s an example that clearly disproves the point. The accountability you describe is a communication, not vote structuring, problem.
That isn't a defense of the quality of the practice. Something can have a bad "design from the beginning".
This bill was individually voted on by the House and sent to the Senate in March [1]. There it was deliberated in committee and re-drafted [2]. The House, on Saturday, passed it separately from the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan votes [3] (alongside Russian asset forfeiture and restrictions on Chinese financial institutions that do business with Iran). It was then bundled in the Senate for an up-and-down vote.
This was absoloutely not an omnibus slip-in.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-vote-force-byted...
[2] https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/03/14/congress/ca...
[3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...
But secondly, I don't actually mind this aspect of the US political process. It's part of compromise and negotiations which are indispensable in an environment where not everyone is on the same page about what's important.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index....
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies...
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11562433/Facebook-r...
Should the world ban Swift, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube? Where is CISCO, CISCO?!
And finally, should the world ditch the USD?
Reciprocity, at what price? :)
I say yes.
The US government suddenly can find common grounds to do something and it's to restrict US? no thanks.
First, I can't find a reason why anyone would laud banning this app. It seems like it's done A LOT for the creator economy, more than Snapchat or Instagram did for anyone before TikTok took off.
Second, I'm surprised at the amount of China-hate I'm seeing in here, and elsewhere, over this app. So far, they don't appear to have actually committed any crimes, it's a lot of posturing about what they could do. Meanwhile, things that were actually a threat (the "weather balloons" over DoD installations) were hand-waved away by TPTB and allowed to traverse pretty much the whole country before any action was taken.
Huh??
Anyway, this bothers me so much. It wouldn't take that much time before every country adopts the China/North Korea model once the USA leads the way, because you know, other countries also have national security concerns. Maybe the Spanish or Irish will want to protect their citizens being indexed by the US for their support for Palestine? Who know, banning apps is a thing now. Maybe soon all country-to-country communications will need to go through monitored cables with keys provided for inspection(maybe businesses can get an exception with acquiring a license?).
We are progressively sliding in a segregated world and it is a scary world because the tech to control all the communications is in place.
I wish the USA took the EU model where its free but regulated.
The desire for control over communications and the support by the people disgusts me. You will end up finding out that the Chinese/North Korean way of doing things is not going to provide you with security or prosperity.
Very sad day.
The EU is inching closer to effectively banning US social media companies with their prohibitions on ads anyway. We may see region-specific social media at some point.
On the other hand, US is regulating Tiktok AND pretty much only Tiktok, which is breaking no laws except now this new one where part of its ownership is Chinese. This wouldn't look as farcical if the US forced facebook, twitter, etc. to comply with privacy issues, etc.
This is an incredibly bad-faith comparison. People of Chinese descent aren't being discriminated in any way by this bill. In the same way China blocking Google isn't an act of racism, this is putting restrictions on a foreign state which is acting belligerentlyt towards us.
We required American companies to stop doing business with the Nazis when we went to war with them. (Though not a moment sooner.) That wasn't racism, it was strategic sense.
We aren't at war with China, nor are we close yet. Although it seems like people do want to move closer to a war and seem to hype China as some existential threat to the USA, and therefore try to justify such ideas. This is despite the fact that historically China has pretty much never used its navy to try to attack another nation except for basically (Japan), and that was when the Mongols had seized control of the nation about 800 years ago. China has throughout history basically repudiated the Mongols' methods and violence, and the Mongol ruled dynasty was considered one of the shortest in Chinese history because of this. Moreover one of the reasons why the Mongols did not succeed in conquering Japan was because the Chinese did not give the Mongols seafaring ships, and the keels were too flat to be stable in the ocean, despite the fact that China did have the technology for stable ships. This meant that the Chinese ships that were sent to Japan to attack easily capsized and the Mongol soldiers on them drown.
China blocking Google isn't China blocking Google because it is a US company. China is blocking due to the fact that Google doesn't censor. When Google tried to reenter the Chinese market, it was blocked and criticized from TWO different sources (1) Various US government officials and congressmen; (2) Google's own employees. Google acceded to pressure from the US, not China.
The issue is the Chinese state's involvement. (TikTok's CEO perjuring himself about this didn't help [1].)
> We aren't at war with China
They are, under U.S. law, a foreign adversary [2].
If we were at war with China, we'd be talking about sanctioning ByteDance. Not merely removing it from app stores if it can't find a non-Chinese buyer.
> historically China has pretty much never used its navy to try to attack another nation except for basically (Japan)
Historically America has never used its space force to attack anyone. Meanwhile, China literally invaded and annexed Tibet in 1951 [3] and continues to use no uncertain terms about its intentions in respect of Taiwan [4].
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...
[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_by_the_Peo...
[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-drops-peaceful-reu...
(2) Taiwan and Tibet are different cases and could not be considered clear and cut cases of invasion and annexation.
(3) Tibet and Taiwan was never internationally recognized as independent and were/are considered a part of Qing, later Republic of China and later by most nations as a part of a "China" whether now the PRC or previously ROC. They tried to secede, similarly like what happens during a civil war. Therefore they did/do not have what people call Westphalian sovereignty. We similarly e.g. also don't talk about the South during the Civil War as being a separate internationally recognized state. And therefore we also do not talk about the Union invading a different nation, the Confederacy, but simply a civil war within a nation. Nor do we say that the Union annex the Confederacy.
Taiwan has the same constitution, national anthem, flag, etc. as the Republic of China under Sun Yatsen. It still regards all of China, which includes all of the mainland territories as part of its territory, and Taiwan is a mere province, which is considered "Free China". It was the previous Chinese government before the PRC took control during a civil war in 1949. That civil war in a sense never ended. And throughout Chinese history there has been many cases where essentially civil wars took e.g. a 100+ years to settle, but there was sometimes periods of relatively peace between parties, even a trading relationship. A famous one is e.g. the Three Kingdoms period.
What? No. We’re talking about Xi invading Taiwan. That causes war between China and the U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan and India.
> Taiwan and Tibet are different cases and could not be considered clear and cut cases of invasion and annexation
Oookay buddy.
> Tibet and Taiwan was never internationally recognized as independent and were/are considered a part of Qing
A lot of Western China wasn’t historically China. Hence why Beijing has to commit crimes against humanity to integrate it [1]. We can play this game endlessly for any piece of territory.
> That civil war in a sense never ended
Just so it’s clear to the thread, the pro-TikTok’er here is an avid advocate of China invading Taiwan, and thus war between America and China. This is why we need to dismember TikTok from ByteDance or remove it from app stores.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countrie...
It will be especially interesting when Trump admin starts getting its way next year. The USA fucked up badly by pivoting into being fake China.
EU isn't banning American social media, its banning certain practices and if the American social media companies want to do business they simply don't do these things and they will be fine. Unless, you know, forcing Meta to sell to Luxotica or something.
Similarly, other regulations may become so onerous as to result in de facto bans. There’s not really a sharp distinction.
In any case, it's just tit for tat, pretty much all western social media platforms are banned in China, why should Chinese social media platforms be treated differently in the western world?
This is so out of touch that its hard to comprehend. Is it maybe because the supposedly fee people should have the freedom to choose what to use? Unlike you know, the Chinese or North Koreans? Fuck Chinese government, its not something that the "free" world implements. Stop copying the Chinese government.
Is "freedom" only about businesses in the USA? What happen people's freedoms?
And this isn't some greyweb torrent site with a thousand heads. Without access to US advertisers there's no reason why Tiktok should even want to have US users.
Actions speak louder than words.
The law permits the President to similarly designate any entity that meets the law's thresholds for a covered company [1] controlled by a foreign adversary [2].
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(g)(2)
[2] Id. § 2(g)(1)
So I suspect the state department would say something like, "the state department recommends banning TikTok."
But the U.S. banning Tik-Tok? Why that's just good ol' democracy at work!
> India banned TikTok
I don’t know much about India and I’m talking about the US, but I know India has a law to control the contents of social media and requires these companies to hire local employees that will be held as “hostages” if the content in question is not removed, something Elon mentioned few times too about twitter in India.
> before the current conflict in Gaza.
The war on Gaza has been going for more than 16years and the Palestinians issue for more than 70years. You can read more about the issue here (1) Additionally, when the senators invited TikTok CEO last year, several senators (and I remember Ted Cruz specifically) mentioned the anti-israel contents back then, which you can also look it up, it’s just you don’t pay attention or lack the ability to connect the dots.
(1) https://ifamericansknew.org
* They have no control over US-based companies with identical short-form video products, so banning TikTok doesn't actually affect Gaza coverage.
* Gaza is being covered breathlessly as a humanitarian disaster across all major media outlets. If they're trying to suppress coverage, they're doing a terrible job. So what's the point of going after TikTok?
* Other, unrelated countries have also enacted a TikTok ban because of distrust of China. This is the common thread.
You personally think the current conflict in Gaza is the center of the world, so you're "connecting dots" no matter how far apart they are. Everything must be related to it somehow. But the US ban on TikTok is rooted in distrust of China that has been building for decades, and is much, much larger than Gaza.
If they refuse to divest it’ll be even more obvious it’s the ccp tool we suspect it is.
Also the TikTok ceo lied about this under oath in Congress: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-calls-for-doj-investigati...
Stratechery also had a good write up on this issue from a while back: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/
Nice to see some bipartisan support on something.
I don't write this in defense of TikTok or China. I'm just sad for the United States.
I imagine a scene where a wagon train of poor pilgrims is surrounded on all sides and all the poor children are crouching behind anything they can find. As the camera angle widens out you see a U.S. Cavalry officer order a rescue team to single out attackers and pull them out of their perches. They go around inspecting attackers one at a time, checking their footwear. Anybody in mocassins is pulled off the line and sent packing. Anybody wearing boots is left in place and encouraged to keep shooting. Especially if they are wearing a cavalry uniform. Just before the scene ends you see somebody in mocassins run back to their horse and pull out a pair of boots, hurrying to get back into the action.