Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok
rubio.senate.gov
rubio.senate.gov
I'm really hoping this doesn't become a reality because if it does, we will end up with partitioned internet and stagnation.
People often forget that the US companies are foreign entity for most of the worlds population and with the WikiLeaks revelations we know for a fact that the US government has access to the data of American tech companies.
This is not a regular app, but part of information warfare China is engaged in with the West.
The TikTok situation is new for the USA but it's nothing new for the rest of the world.
Millions (?) of Americans have freely chosen to receive and interact with the app, wouldn't their freedom of speech allow them to enjoy the content they choose?
I'm not trying to play the whatabout card, I'm trying to understand how we would legally articulate what TikTok has done to justify banning by congressional decree. The senate bill [1] doesn't appear to have any measurements or values or clarifications, it's just a few paltry pages that never specify what line TikTok crossed. The only argument I'm hearing is China=Bad.
And who knows, maybe China is nefariously manipulating the TikTok algorithm, but for the US government to step in and say "these ideas are too dangerous, you can not access them," seems like the cure is as bad as the disease. It's using blatant authoritarianism to try to stop the spread of potential authoritarianism.
[1] https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/1ebac814-15...
In my opinion, the difference is that insta (Meta) controls US government more than the government controls insta. I don't believe that's the case with tik tok and the CCP.
If they don't like that they should be free to ban social media being used in that way.
The refuge of people who have no other arguments.
By doing that you are effectively conceding that the original concern with TikTok is justified.
You just think that other bad things are happening.
So, I am glad you agree completely with everyone else, that yes there are problems with TikTok!
Legislation how data is acquired/stored/used will solve every problems, banning the people you don't like only solve one specific problem and makes you look like a fool
The US built a monopoly on online social media and communications, this move is another evidence that it wants to remain the sole big eye
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies...
Yes, you have misunderstood.
GP asked what shade of gray goes with US gov running appstore. I responded with a fascist imagery - gray uniforms and black boots. [Those would be certain Americans wearing boots ..]
I agree with GP that taking a totalitarian regime (CPC's China) as a role model is not the right choice for us, at all.
this is now easier than ever through adobe cloud offerings! only 12 usd a month!
imo the most dystopian thing about TikTok is the fact that China intentionally exports a highly addictive product that they don't allow their own people to use
TikTok and Douyin have almost the same user interface but no access to each other's content. Their servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available.[11] The two products are similar, but their features are not identical. Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them and other features such as buying, booking hotels and making geo-tagged reviews.[12]
Edit: I see what you mean. For all intents and purposes, I stand corrected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY&ab_channel=60Min...
If you work in tech, you most certainly have a few Chinese citizens as coworkers and colleagues. Talk to them about what life is like if you're curious, don't rely on "60 minutes".
TikTok in China may be moderated but only to keep anything controversial from the government perspective off. I've seen this myth floating that somehow tiktok in China is much more wholesome, which is ridiculous. As far as the ill effects of social media, TikTok is arguably worse in China as it's almost entirely people trying to sell things and make a quick buck, flooded with get rich quick schemes and scams.
All of the things mentioned in that 60 minutes video can be found in the US version of TikTok, there is plenty of educational content. The idea that everyone in China is watching scientific experiments on tiktok while its corrupting American youth is ridiculous.
There might be some half truths to the 60 minute story but AFAIK the time limit is real and the content available to children is different which is what the piece is referring to. It might be more similar for adults.
compare to the US where there’s no separate experience for kids and there’s no time limit.
At a first glance the content is disappointingly similar to TikTok. Also, as I expected, with this type of content language is a non-issue.
Does anyone know if I can get the real Douyin? A search in the AppStore shows Kuaishou first and TikTok second.
Because Facebook lobbyists don't want that, they just want to eliminate the competition.
We don't need to regulate TikTok, we need to regulate Social Media as a whole.
Not a small group, and a very vulnerable group.
This legislation doesn't ban all Chinese government controlled apps that users might share their data with, only those that are social media specifically. If users cannot view content generated by other users, then it isn't social media and isn't banned by this bill. If the app doesn't sell digital advertising space, then it isn't social media (according to this bill) and isn't banned.
A Chinese government "backup app" that lets you upload all your documents to a server in China would presumably not be banned by this bill because it lacks those social media features. Maybe it would be banned by another law, but not this one. Or consider a Chinese "keyboard app", that logs everything you type. That's not social media, so this bill doesn't ban it.
The bill doesn't address Chinese ownership of US customer data. The bill is specifically about social media, and doesn't apply generally to other Chinese companies that also suck up US customer data.
Yet you admitted, another kind of services would "presumably not be banned by this bill because it lacks those social media features. Maybe it would be banned by another law, ..." which is in agreement with comments saying that this bill is targeted at Tik Tok.
The irony is that the pedagogic aspect is secondary if those comments are right, but because data which documents how much the people are lacking impulse control is at ridiculous levels, if I am projecting myself for a second. The why you don't face book and study meme applies.
On the surface it's about the kids. But congress is a social network with thought leaders and lobbyists, too. They ought to know the power those even bigger networks can have.
> [prohibits] all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia, and several other foreign countries of concern.
(After a quick read of the bill, it sounds like it may also ban VK. Although, it is already sanctioned.)
What other social media companies from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela might they have explicitly listed as a social media company? There are probably some.. maybe Yandex has some social media? WeChat? Regardless, only TikTok/Bytedance are explicitly named as examples. Obviously they have it in for TikTok specifically.
This comment made me think that TikTok (and Facebook before it) are somewhat like an attempt at hacker attack on the simulation we live in, where the analogue to the "simulation" is the system where freedom of speech is an absolute law, but the system is running on susceptible components: people, and is therefore vulnerable.
It's 4 times the number of people as the US. Imagine having 200 states instead of 50. I mean heck, they have over 300 languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China).
> if you believe China is a dystopian state why would a Chinese tech product that isn't even allowed in it's international form within China not itself "dystopian"
^^ The classification here as "chinese" tech product is the first issue
> imo the most dystopian thing about TikTok is the fact that China intentionally exports a highly addictive product that they don't allow their own people to use
^^ second issue is "china intentionally exports"
At least I read this as if there's an assumption there's some centralized bureau of dictats speaking with one voice in orchestrating policy as opposed to an $18 trillion economy with 1.4 billion people consisting of 43 million companies and a parliamentary system with 3155 members representing 10 political parties including 480 independents.
Everything is actually a confusing complicated hot mess and I reject such attributions and framings.
That's not to say there aren't policies, of course there are. It's more to say that if you are not only describing but also attributing intentionality and goals to an international policy in a way that takes under say, 10 words, I'm going to be suspicious of the accuracy.
TikTok's main power is creating associations. For example, CCP may dislike some US politician because he is a trouble for Huawei, so TikTok starts subtly pushing videos that associate that politician with bad stuff. In a few weeks 150 millions US citizens have a strong negative reaction to that politician. TikTok may do the same for targeted high-profile individuals, e.g. family members of congressmen or high rank CIA officers. That is an immense power.
I'd love to see it
Sorry for the high bar. Remarkable stories of secret vast networks of communist mind control have a long history. I claim aggressive skepticism of supposed international plots by a cabal of communist puppetmasters is warranted.
I mean Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, real spies. Not saying this stuff is impossible, there's just a lot of noise here.
Hell there's the long forgotten 1980s espionage by the Japanese stealing stuff from IBM https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/02/09/Hitachi-pleads-guilt... stuff does happen... Espionage in the Silicon Valley, a book published in 1984, is a pretty good summary of them if you're really interested. You'll have to toss about $20 on the used market to get a copy though. (I should send mine to internet archive)
Also, I want to note how your comment is structured:
1. Demand an impossible proof.
2. Gaslight with remarks about vast spy networks, mind control and illuminatis.
3. Distract with an irrelevant, but true story.
Like I said, you're defending TikTok & CCP with surprising passion and competence.
I literally gave two examples along with a giant book of where such proof is.
Yes, true stories, that's what I'm asking for. Not fantastic tales inspired from the protocols of the elders of Zion.
Something like the Panama papers or Epstein or the VW emission scandal. There's more examples
I'm referring to how digital assets can be owned non-exclusively, i.e. we can both have the same data.
In contrast material (or physical) assets are exclusive. Either I have it xOR you do, we cannot both own the same thing.
Stocks (and other sophisticated goods) are interesting because they mean we each own a fraction of something, even when that object cannot actually be easily split. But notice how there's still a sense of exclusivity; the same stock cannot be owned by multiple people at the same time.
Trade restrictions on physical goods don't exist due to matters of ownership.
> the same stock cannot be owned by multiple people at the same time.
This may be an irrelevant tangent, but that's entirely untrue.
regardless,
the restrictions on trade of physical goods exists due to matters of ownership over government-level permissions (licenses?) for import/export, taxation, an other such kinds of things. It's ownership over whole countries; that's the ownership at play when considering digital trade restrictions.
I'm fine with banning all apps from countries that require their app-makers to share data with the government. If that requires an international treaty to codify when a company must share data (e.g. only with a criminal warrant), then great, let's do that.
China would refuse to sign that treaty? Even better.
They're caught in a bramble bush and getting themselves unstuck is going to get them scratched up. But the longer they put off freeing themselves, the more the bramble grows around them. They should have done it years ago. They should do it now, before the "Trusted Computing" trap slams shut forever.
Finally, this hypothetical would say "a recipient country may ban the app." It wouldn't say "shall ban the app." So your country can just decide to keep using whatever they like.
But other governments should ban such apps. The CLOUD Act drafts all American tech companies into the US intelligence gathering apparatus; all American companies providing services to foreigners are legally compelled to be spies. EU laws that require EU data to be stored in the EU? Nullified! The CLOUD Act undercuts any foreign data residency laws by requiring US companies to hand over even that data which is stored in other countries. All US tech companies are required by law to participate in espionage. The EU should respond by banning all American apps in the EU (but won't, for obvious realpolitik reasons.)
No sense in giving the market to apps that are illegal in your country just because they operate on the internet.
For decades, the US has been a leader in global policy so there is no reason to think of them helplessly bowing to North Korea in the fu.
As for the validity of the complaint: that would be handled the same as for existing free trade treaties, i.e. slowly.
Banning one application (due to trade reasons) is not "full control" of what apps US citizens have access to.
The idea that we can allow China to ban all non-Chinese companies and then let Chinese companies "freely compete" with other global companies is insane, and I'm not sure why it's been going on for 30 years.
I guess because China was starting from so far behind that it took 20+ years for any Chinese companies to get to a point they are literal threats to western companies.
If we follow down this path of allowing China to gate access to 25% of the world and having our companies compete with theirs - there will mostly only be Chinese companies left...
That sounds infinitely more dystopian to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(international_rel...
You should figure out what part of what the Chinese apps are doing that you don't like and ban that behavior. Otherwise this year its Tik-Tok from China and next year it's Click-Clock from UAE. Instead ban a behavior and you don't have to play whack-a-mole with countries/apps.
A far better reason is that a nasty authoritarian regime is using Tiktok to gather intelligence in anticipation of doing nastier things. Just one example: one of the obvious things to do with Tiktok data would be to correlate it with the OPM hack[1]. Who knows what kind of insights into people's character you might find? I'm sure a trained handler who actually understands their capabilities can come up with far more interesting uses than that.
And note that in that context, stopping US citizens from foreign exploitation is a legitimate role for government.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...
[Citation needed]
"China banning US opium is bad for Chinese citizens"
Which is why this seems quite strange to me because TikTok China content doesn't show up on the western TikTok because they are completely separate.
The nations that best bucked the trend were the Eastern Asian nations that engaged in protectionist policies despite the desires of the West. Much like China continues to do today.
Apple for instance follows Chinese law, and does a lot of business there.
America loves to talk about the "rule of law", but will just ban anything that competes with it's MIC controlled platforms.
Apple is not a social media company so it's not a good comparison.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
A courtesy also extended to Beijing [1].
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
This isn't some smoking gun about CCP surveillance, but more about how the sausage is made for a global app.
I too can predict conversation topics based on what's trending in Twitter. But Twitter is now owned (in part) by investors representing foreign interests, including KSA [1]. Recent editorial changes at Twitter have amplified "unamerican" rhetoric [2]. Does Twitter cross the same lines as TikTok?
Any "solution" that bans TikTok would leave behind a far-reaching precedent, one that is completely ineffective at dealing with the core problem. Trying to stand up a virtual iron curtain won't sit well with an american userbase that's accustomed to choosing the content they want.
Also, if there's one thing you can do to make young people more captivated and curious about something - make it forbidden.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-hol...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7zm9q/elon-musk-twitter-naz...
Source: https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/social-media/tiktok-statistic...
There's nothing that can be done about that reality, so we have to worry about people and mechanisms that have control over that conversation.
It should not sound unreasonable to worry about an adversarial country possessing what amounts to a gigantic, unauditable mind control machine.
Is this ok? Were any of those people on the social network "stupid" if they were more likely to vote after seeing targeted content?
The irony is there was a product, Vine, that filled this niche but it was ultimately killed by Facebook (who promoted Tiktok because they didn't want Vine making inroads with their users) and Twitter (by not developing it further).
Agreed on the twitter part, but the FB part feels like a pure conspiracy at best, and is just factually provable to be false. For one, Vine was killed off in September 2017, which is the same month that TikTok became available internationally.
To add, the acquisition happened in november 2017[0], which is after Vine had already been killed off. Vine had 200mil users as of 2015, while it took musical.ly until May 2017 to get there. Which is also, months after Vine had already been dead, and over half a year after Vine had announced the upcoming shutdown (those numbers and dates are all from the wikipedia pages of the companies mentioned).
0. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/09/chinas-toutiao-is-buying-m...
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-t...
TikTok is an international version of Douyin, which was released in the Chinese market in September 2016.[10] It launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it became available worldwide only after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018.
From the links above Vine was already dying if not completely dead before TikTok was ascendent.
That is also a good idea and the US can do that too. In the past, Facebook got a multi-billion dollar fine from the FTC for violating user privacy. The exact same should happen and apply to all social networks worth over $1BN and repeat violations should be in the billions of dollars; not in the millions that the EU is doing.
If that is enough for them to stop these privacy violating operations or even better, to make them leave like what the EU is doing, rather that than companies worse than Facebook to continue their repeated invasive privacy violations just like TikTok.
Yes, we can treat foreign companies differently than local companies, on the issue of data privacy, because of these national security concerns.
https://abload.de/img/screenshot2022-12-13aa4exy.png
NY Daily news:
This is disingenous, as reported by common-sense. For example, my city does not have sidewalks lined with tents full of TikTok users, but the same cannot be said of the comparand.
This has either or both of the following knock-on effects:
- Undermine trust in the speaker for people who feel the 'seam' in the analogy. American institutions are really good at undermining themselves in this way. Remember DARE? It took me years to trust any authority again after hearing their nonsense about cannabis, back in the nineties. They used to call it things like "herbal heroin", etc.
- Promote stigmatization of TikTok users, and social-media users more generally. It's like taking the Smudge Tool in photoshop and moving some of the stigma from fentanyl to TikTok. This will have the unintended effect of further isolating people who depend on social media because they are disabled and/or shut-in; socially isolated; physically isolated; LGBTQ; autistic; etc. You aren't accessing community now, you're ~high on fentanyl~. Like.
American politicians love lines like this because they feel good in the short term but contribute to the ruin of polity in the longer run. Which is why these quips are the proper analog of fentanyl.
Imo this legislation makes sense because our companies are more or less banned from entering China’s domestic market. Why should we allow their tech companies in when they’ve banned ours
Huawei - ban
TikTok - ban
EVs - subsidize tesla
I guess in practice, if need be economically and politically, you can always launder data.
What's the worst thing Bytedance / China can do with the average amount of "US citizen/TikTok user" data they have?
Is the conclusion that all forms of digital fentanyl should be banned or just Chinese ones? Because the reality is there's nothing too exceptional about TikTok's underlying algorithms. Will lawmakers be willing enact legislation against companies marketing similar "digital fentanyl" but that are American or European in origin?
/s?
Congress could easily introduce data privacy legislation.
Fuck TikTok.
if russia made tiktok, I think you'd see a similar response.
given what we know about how people's attention works on these apps, and how impressionable people turn out being, I can understand how putting that power in the hands of another state could be problematic.
That being said, it's also problematic for US-owned entities. They just get a by because capitalism, and because we're still figuring out what social media guard rails would even look like. Foreign ownership/control could be an obvious one.
This blows up global trade. Different countries value different industries for different reasons. The French aren't going to sell wine like Americans, and Americans don't care enough about the difference to get into a fight over it.
Are there concrete laws that local companies adhere to that TikTok can follow besides "don't be Chinese"?
I don't think ByteDance would be able to get themselves unbanned under my scheme without the CCP changing its laws, but it's hard to view that as a negative when ByteDance is basically an extension of the CCP.
Instead of banning Tiktok, how about enforcing proper rules and regulations that every social media should follow? Why not make a proper privacy that every people in US deserves.
Many people are probably glad that they are banning Chinese tech, but at the end it is gonna be superseded by Instagram which supply more data to three letter organization. The probability that three letter organization abusing our data is more than Chinese government.
I believe TikTok is a MASSIVE threat to those running the show in the US, as it may be the most potent propaganda tool out there, and the US government has many juicy attack vectors that TikTok as a platform is perfect for attacking.
I tend to keep my feed pretty clean of stuff like that, but it does creep in every now and then, who knows how much anti-US propaganda is on the platform that I never encounter but others do (like the agencies who go looking for it, since "Public Relations" dominance is their job).
All user data is processed in China and de software is also Chinese-made. There's no way in hell you'll get access and you can regulate all you want but in the end they'll simply ignore you.
With MOTs, we generally wait for SNI (significant new information) before having yet another thread. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Proposed bills tend not to count as SNI since they usually don't go anywhere. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... I suppose in this case the appearance of the bill itself may be a significant notch in the story?
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South Dakota first to ban TikTok on state-owned devices - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836666 - Dec 2022 (291 comments)
The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33653894 - Nov 2022 (418 comments)
U.S. FBI director says TikTok poses national security concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33617301 - Nov 2022 (68 comments)
TikTok is “unacceptable security risk” and should be removed from app stores - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33447285 - Nov 2022 (64 comments)
FCC commissioner says government should ban TikTok - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33423895 - Nov 2022 (112 comments)
TikTok accused of covert plot to track specific US citizens' every move - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33302591 - Oct 2022 (106 comments)
ByteDance planned to use TikTok to surveil specific American citizens - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33280176 - Oct 2022 (208 comments)
FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148218 - July 2022 (848 comments)
As TikTok grows, so does suspicion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32045339 - July 2022 (617 comments)
FCC commissioner wants TikTok removed from app stores over spying concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31923483 - June 2022 (505 comments)
My generation (1992) didn’t have a major cultural phenomenon being attacked in this way, though there was still the moral panic around things like social media and research chems.
The closest comparison I can draw is the crackdown on raves which affected western Gen X youth, but TikTok is more pervasive and more heterogeneous as a form of cultural expression.
Copycats? Underground tiktok? Gen Z influencers calling for action against the feds? Acceptance of the government’s position?
I hope more ethical companies take over the void. In fact, I see YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in a position to fill the void since they've introduced "shorts" and some things similar to tik tok.
I'm all about passing very strong laws and lawsuits against big tech for their continued abuse despite previous wrist slaps.
What do you use as the measurement for more ethical in this case? I see the companies you mentioned completely equivalent(all pretty bad) in terms of making choices that are best for our shared society.
I'm all about passing very strong laws and lawsuits against big tech for their continued abuse despite previous wrist slaps.
It didn't start out that way, but then there was a big moral panic over interracial marriage.
(Similarly, but unrelated to music, check out sentencing law disparities for expensive white collar fresh cocaine vs. cheaper inner-city preserved cocaine.)
Tik Tok won't give you NSFW content even if you search for it. They made an excellent job filtering it.
Just wholesome clips of happy citizens dancing and living joyful lives under the communist regime.
Such content isn't inherently bad of course, but if you're an adult and that's the only media you're consuming, it's a bit like eating fast food for every meal.
It's not hard to understand, it's literally because it's controlled by China.
* "X seems to be a pretty big deal because I keep hearing a lot of people upset about it"
* "I haven't seen anything about X. It must not be that big of a deal."
All social media seems to be moving toward individualized echo chambers, but it's another level when it's an individualized black box controlled by foreign interests.
I do think there's a content problem on TikTok, but I think it's hidden away from the people who would point it out due to the way the algo works.
Unless you're implying (not saying you are, just asking for clarification) that we should limit free speech based on words you (or some government official) find objectionable. Isn't that what China already does and what the US wants to avoid?
Should Andrew Shulz be banned because a lot of his jokes are racial? I'm guessing you'd be offended by a number of them, but I don't think that means Netflix/Youtube have a "content problem".
Content really depends on the user. It's a very tailored experience.
Trust me, I'm aware of how addictive tiktok is, I had to swear off it after finding myself multiple hours deep in scrolling holes multiple times. But banning one platform (over something unrelated, privacy/data concerns) will do nothing to stem social media addiction.
If Tik Tok stayed the way it was when I first got into it I'd say it's fine, but the content it pushes now makes me concerned it will poison our culture with apathy, pessimism and cynicism.
I'm sure some people can use TikTok responsibly but many can't. I also wouldn't want a foreign government (any foreign government) to have such a powerful psyop tool under their control. The extremely rapid feedback loops allow beliefs to coalesce so quickly that I imagine many people will get stuck in harmful local minima.
The quality of the content is the reason. It's excessively cringe.
If it were simply "because China" then this bill wouldn't be targeting social media specifically. But it does, and other Chinese apps aren't addressed. If it were because of foreign social media influence, this bill wouldn't be calling out TikTok solely and specifically, and would presumably also mention WeChat, etc. But it doesn't. It's about TikTok specifically, and I think the reason is a visceral disgust for the content on TikTok.
It’s good for our companies, it’s good for our people, and it takes away a dangerous tool from a country that is more and more an adversary.
I truly hope it is banned. Better late than never. Nothing against this rather brain-dead tech. Let Facebook/Google/Twitter have those users on the clones.
Our rights apply to our citizens, not to foreign governments. They should have no right to speak to us. They should have no right to do business with us. Our elected representatives can and should regulate this international trade.
Well, whether you agree with this statement or not. If an adversarial government is basically controlling what information people see.. especially young impressionable people who might not know any better, isn't that potentially a problem that needs to be addressed?
Sounds like the government should have a say when it's literally trying to protect it's own interests and doesn't want a foreign power being able to so easily push their own agenda.
Billions of dollars have been invested by the biggest US tech companies to try to do this, and they all fuck it up by building the product to serve advertisers first rather than users first.
It's not all that different from US companies that want to operate in Europe having to obey Europe's stricter regulations in areas such as food safety and consumer protection or have to obey GDPR.
And, so what? It was a great policy that lead to a lot of innovation in the Chinese economy and allowed the Chinese government maximum control so it could maintain the delicate balance of its authoritarian system.
So why the double standard? They banned our companies to keep our influence out. Why not do the same? Are we a prisoner to our principles so much that we can’t even take obvious steps to defend ourselves?
Globalism is over as we know it and the West is on an inevitable collision course with China. Time we all got our heads out of the sand on this one.
In the end it’s hilarious how the American government thinks of its citizens as being so clueless to need such a paternalistic policy.
I wonder how many tiktokers even care about the fact that the app is Chinese.
uh... you really haven't met a lot of US citizens if you think they don't need paternalistic policy.
The world was headed that way a long time ago, and this wouldn't significant change anything. Assuming it could ever pass, it looks like typical political theater to me.
Is it? Given how Tik Tok content is regulated in China, the Chinese seem to agree.
Half the US voters in 2016 voted for Trump. So ... yeah. Am I taking crazy pills? Why is it suddenly okay in modern times that a geopolitical rival controls a major communication medium for your own population? It's as if people still haven't learnt anything from Russia invading Ukraine (or really, all of history).
A friend of mine's wife is a paramedic/firefighter and I always ask her about crazy stories from when she's on duty. This past weekend, she told me about one where a teenager saw a challenge/trend on TikTok to report a fake fire. She said they showed up with multiple fire engines, ambulances, and a squad car to no fire. The girl who called it in just said she saw it as a trend on TikTok and wanted to post a video.
A ban wouldn't be the worst thing (especially when you consider that it's a covert foreign state attack—ideological subversion—by the CCP).
Have you actually used TikTok? I've heard this claim several times but I'm just not seeing it in my feed.
However, as a user of VK, I can tell you it went totalitarian rather quickly after the Russian government decided it is time to exercise its power as the indirect owner of the company.
Hell, even Yandex, formerly famous search engine was forced to sell user facing bits out when puilo ramped up repressions. Can you imagine having a search engine like Google where the side news feed were forced to be sold and now belongs to a separate company wholly owned by pro-government or state entities, and they still had to continue showing it exactly where it were on their search page?
How about “Anti-TikTok Act of 2022”.
But yeah, the bill names get really goofy sometimes.
Make a pro-waterfowl bill called the POND Act? Sure. That’s kind of fun.
Make a voter ID bill called the SAVE FREEDOM FROM SCAMS Act? That’s what I’m tired of.
I do understand SB 1589 isn’t exactly memorable. Just don’t make it look like you’re trying to hard? Maybe it’s like comedy in that way.
“Now there's no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet. Good luck! That's sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall.” — Bill Clinton, 2000
This leads me to the cynical interpretation of “national security” objections. The spying was never the issue. It’s who can access the data afterwards that’s the problem. If the US government can’t, then it’s a security concern.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/alabama-utah-become-latest-...
It doesn't make sense to cut TikTok from US civilian devices because: Land of the free, free speech etc etc etc.
The other guy you replied to is correct, CIA/NSA et all don't like they can't swing their ducks into Bytedance servers and doctorate the content without exposing intelligence agencies MO to the Chinese.
Every American should be fighting against such bill because when domestic cronies own all domestic media, you guys are in a virtual China. Media plurality is the beacon of a healthy democracy, so suck it up Rubio
I'd imagine the lobbying effort would be less "briefcase full of cash" and more "can we hire smart people to think through policy mechanisms, in a way that's productive for both Rs & Ds"
Though there's probably also a couple briefcases lmao
It is when you forget where the collected data ends up, and just focus on the hoovering of the data. FB is the OG of this realm, but because they are US based instead of Chinese based, they get a pass?
In the evils of data hoovering, I'm much more perturbed what theZuck knows about me much more than caring what winnie the pooh knows about me. All politics are local. If I lived in Beijing, then I'd have those concerns flipped.
Just playing the tape all the way to the end.
Let's say I'm the average TikTok user and I grant it all permissions on my phone that the iOS app store approval process has allowed them to do.
How... predatory are those?
They know who I am, where I live, who my friends are, where I go, my "habits/interests". Worst case scenario my job, my wealth level.
What can China/the Chinese government/Bytedance go with this information that is so "scary"?
Say Meta + Bytedance have the same information on me. One company is American, one company is Chinese. Why is the Chinese one having that level of information bad?
Can China force Bytedance to do something with the app's algorithm to influence millions of people to think a certain way? Are people just puppets that don't think for themselves? It's ok if Meta influences us but not Bytedance? Why are we assuming we're easily influenced and need to be protected from... ourselves?
In fact, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp outgrew TikTok and even YouTube during this period:
https://twitter.com/eric_seufert/status/1602045164016615428?...
The best argument is reciprocity. China is largely a closed market to US companies. This is intentional policy by the CCP. the CCP dangles the 1B+ market to extract concessions from Western companies that I don't like (eg making movies more palatable to the CCP even released elsewhere). More importantly, Western companies will never "win" in China. It's Lucy and the football. The CCP will guarantee that doesn't happen.
Trade is predicated to open and equal access to each other's markets. Obviously the reality isn't quite that but that's the starting principle: reciprocity. China is clearly not reciprocating the access Chinese companies have in the West and that's a good a reason as any to ban things like Tiktok. It's also justifiable.
There's also the issue that Chinese companies are tools of the state without any adequate separation or rule of law to stop that in a way that just isn't true for US companies. But that's a lesser issue than the recipricoal trade issue.
Nothing wrong with playing protectionist games and fighting to remain the home of the worlds most influential tech companies, but let’s be honest that this is what it is. We’re not doing this to protect the children.
Reels is pretty terrible.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/13/lawmakers-unveil-bipartisan-...
If you were in charge of national defense would you allow a potential adversary unfettered access to map out and leverage the social networks of your citizenry for their information operations? No one in their right mind would do that. If I were a country not aligned with the US, I would ban all US based social media apps / sites.
I think that there is an argument to made for a culture of free access to content / information in the US. But one must also keep in mind that (a) unlike broadcasts or pamphlets the flow of information here is bidirectional, (b) entities outside the US are certainly not entitled to information about US citizens, and (c) entities operating outside of the US are not necessarily subject to US laws which includes first amendment protections.
The flimsiest bullet point in the definition might be that the company "sells digital advertising space". If TikTok started gating access to paid accounts only, I wonder if they would no longer qualify be a "social media company"! And therefore not be a "threat". (:
[1]: pdf warning https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/1ebac814-15...
[2]: There's also an interesting exception for websites that have the "primary purpose" of posting/viewing "reviews" of business, travel, or products.
Also, be careful emitting hate for individuals or groups of people based on an identity. You would look very silly recorded on the internet being xenophobic and racist.
1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-st...
Of course that won't happen bc that would take discipline and personal responsibility.
In this case they are implying that China having my data should scare me more than google but google has much more ability to ruin my life than China as an American
Instead, I'd prefer
1. Turn TikTok US into a company owned by a number of bidders
2. Force TikTok CN to share algos and other stuff from TikTok US
3. Have TikTok US pay some % of revenue to TikTok CN
The same arrangement that US companies have to do in CN.
lol
I installed tiktok and it was all videos of people getting gross ear wax out and popping giant zits. Maybe I swiped the wrong way or something.
This is not digital fentanyl, its more like digital Ipecac syrup.
I uninstalled tiktok
How hard would it be to spin-off TikTok USA into a separate entity?
Anyone aggrieved by this would move on to the next social fad and forget that TikTok even exists as quickly as they forgot #kony2012 three months later.
And my guess is that they're not exactly enthusiastic participants in the electoral system anyway.
Gen Z voters were the driving force giving the Democrats the best midterm results in decades.
> Snapchat (96%) , TikTok( 91%), Youtube (87%), and Instagram (83%) are the top three social media platforms used by Gen Z, according to a new study done by National Research Group.
For comparison banning TikTok would have a wider impact on Gen Z than banning them from YouTube.
(edited to add: I don't support banning TikTok. This is actually a free speech issue. I didn't like it when Trump did it by executive fiat and I don't like it now. If the content there is truly that corrosive, implement punitive measures short of a full ban. The bar has to be much higher than "I don't like it" for the government to fully censor something.)
Also banning TikTok might set off a Cold War of banning each other’s apps and I have to think we would lose more in that scenario.
Amazon is doing decently there currently.
Google was banned after they decided to stop censoring searches.
Facebook was banned after they refused to provide the government the identities of protestors in Urumqi.
Google cancelled Dragonfly after outcry from their employees.
Anyway, if Google and Facebook need to follow censorship laws in China, then maybe TikTok needs to follow not-being-based-in-China laws in the US. After all, they can't just decide not to follow the laws.
https://www.thatsmags.com/china/post/32153/this-day-in-histo...
Dragonfly was stopped after pressure from Americans, both civil and political pressure.
> In 2018, media reports that Google was working on a prototype for another censored Chinese search engine surfaced, which was met with backlash from some Google employees. The development, called ‘Project Dragonfly,’ was shortly after suspended, according to The Intercept.
The US government did not force Google to stop Dragonfly.
If China can enforce a censorship policy, America can enforce a consistent not-based-in-China policy.
America can do anything it wants, I just wanted to dispute the idea that it would be a reciprocal action. I think it would be a pretty big uncalled for escalation.
That is patently untrue. China's enforcement of its GFW ban list (which is still an unpublished state secret) has been very focused at specific companies, especially in the earlier days when they didn't just ban everything. CNN, for example, was on the s-list for many years due to Tiananmen Square (ironically, being unblocked later while NyTimes would get on the s-list for publish an at article about Xi's family wealth).
China's censorship policies (again an unpublished state secret) are anything but consistent. They are mostly applied for personal retribution (don't publish articles about the leader's family financial assets) or business advantages (don't let in competitors that would challenge domestic champions).
"They weren't following the law"
The law:
"You have to give a chinese company all your technology and 51 percent ownership"
China is a flat out enemy of the United States. We should treat TikTok as an arm of that enemy as a result of how China demands state control over every company operating in the country.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/In-Depth-How-SoftBa...
No, the kids will not throw a temper tantrum and vote for $THE_OTHER_GUY because you blocked their access to an app. The kids, in fact, stand for more than just politics-as-sports.
...that actually is a pretty good name.
The digital crack cocaine that TikTok is, was already under extensive investigation and will inevitably be either banned in the US on the grounds of national security or heavily fined to the point where they have to leave the US.
The fines for repeat offenders should also be in the billions, applying to all social networks worth over $1BN if it is enough for them to take user privacy seriously.
The manipulation of society at scale by a foreign adversary is my biggest concern about tik tok. I imagine they can flip a switch or more likely a long slow push of american values to china’s liking. That and many people stare at it for a majority of their waking hours. Good riddance. withdrawals and who fills the vacuum will be interesting.
What's worse, unscrupulous advertisers are actually taking disadvantage of their illegal behavior to advertise to minors and to track and profile them, which is against the law.
The sooner TikTok is banned the better!!
They keep forgetting the U.S. is guaranteeing their safety through our NATO commitments. China will only play them out against each other to benefit itself. They're merely children playing amongst the wolves.
This is really about TikTok specifically. The real reason? TikTok and their userbase pioneered depths of cringe so extreme, revulsion to it cuts across all political boundaries.