TikTok says it has 150M US users amid renewed calls for a ban | Hacker News Reader

TikTok says it has 150M US users amid renewed calls for a ban

cnn.com

17 pointsMasterYoda47 comments

I keep reading the headlines, wondering how exactly they to ban TikTok. Does TikTok not have some kind of First Amendment right to speak? If they can ban TikTok, why not the Fox News / MSNBC app?

Also, what exactly are they proposing to ban - TikTok the company doing business in the US? TikTok the app being distributed by Apple / Google? The TikTok domains being accessible from within the US? I'm genuinely curious.

First amendment rights are only granted to US citizens (and presumably US companies).

There are many examples of import embargoes.

First amendment rights (and many other rights) apply to anyone in the country, not just citizens.

I imagine the approach will be to treat it as a spy/propaganda network operated by a hostile foreign state. I'd be amazed if such a thing was protected by the first amendment.

> and presumably US companies

It would be simple to prove that TikTok (and it's parent company ByteDance) are free from foreign government involvements by simply disclosing their worldwide finances and having external auditors confirm they aren't receiving payments from adversaries.

I don't see why the company would prefer to face a potential ban from it's most lucrative market rather than go that route...

If the US is going to ban it they’re going to ban it. You appear to be hinting that China has something to hide. Sure they obviously do. The US is hiding that they’re intent on banning it regardless of what the company does outside being American property.

TikTok is a platform that

- Enables rapid peer-to-peer information sharing across traditional "social networks" (in other words you don't need to know the person, only show interest in the topic)

- Has usage metrics and reach that far exceed competing social networks and traditional media outlets

I would not be surprised if the calls for a ban are being lobbied for by a competitor. The foreign spy story is a bit too convenient.

The US does not realize that we are targets of a major attack using psychological, social, military, and economic attack vectors. The best thing the US could do is ban this app. The latest meeting between Xi and Putin are basically openly mocking us at this point. While the TikTok app is toxic, an American version of tiktok could at least keep the economic benefit at home. I don't think all social media should be banned but there are some which do more harm than good at this point under the guide of "community" "social connnection" and what have you. I have heard in China they have its use closely monitored and regulated.

We gain more from diverse points of view embodied in the ideal of free speech than we do from the safety of censorship. If individuals want to choose which media they consume, more power to them, but as soon as the government steps in and starts picking winners and losers, we all end up worse off.

Letting the people of the US decide which media to consume by voting with their feet is the only free and fair way to go about this.

>but as soon as the government steps in and starts picking winners and losers

This already happens, constantly, and it's perfectly normal for governments to do this. There is no reason we have to adhere to "free markets" like some kind of religious principle. You can vote with your feet, sure, but we have to admit that social media is different, right? It's been beat to death but this isn't Toyota vs Ford. These companies all intentionally hijack your dopamine response to make you addicted, opening the door to all sorts of manipulation - benign or not.

Exactly social media is the opiate drug of the 21st c. People have no control, we’re hooked and as soon as someone tries to take it away we scream like… addicts? If anything this thread reactions shows you what a serious problem it is, and to not think there’s a massive COI that it’s a Chinese app and not think this is a geopolitical concern is a step in the wrong direction.

Yep.

I agree with "banning" TikTok, but only by methodology which will hit all of the US social media companies as well.

No one is owed a business model, and I think we've seen all the evidence we need to to see that Facebook et al. are extremely dangerous but would be less so if they were _forced_ to follow GDPR style rules in the US.

A foreign adversary injected a toxic application into our country, but because "people really like it" the government has no right to stop it? This is 21st century opium wars. Leaving the addicts to decide policies based on "let people be addicted" isn't a valid point.

If people aren't capable of signaling value based on market participation, then why have free-market capitalism at all? The two are fundamentally intertwined in an inseparable belief that people can make rational decisions that benefit themselves as individuals and which aggregate into a social good.

Yes exactly, unfortunately people don’t understand this.

Ah okay, you're a libertarian or ancap. Not sure why you didn't try to shift the argument of nationalism over to why I agree with statism at all. At least there you would get somewhere with my distrust of authority and minimal anarchist inclinations.

Probably better to have your “diverse points of view embodied in the ideal of free speech” on a platform that isn’t controlled by a hostile foreign power.

I can totally see their algorithm being used to push videos with views that they want to promote for political purposes while videos with views they dislike will never appear on anyone’s FYP.

P.S. The sad thing is there will probably be plenty of TikTok content creators who will create content for the CCP just for the chance of getting promoted by their algorithm.

No country has actual free speech.

> The US does not realize that we are targets of a major attack using psychological, social, military, and economic attack vectors

Do you say that as an active user of TikTok? I scroll TikTok. My feed has been curated basically to show me exclusively dumb silly content (memes), cooking videos, etc.

If I were to scroll Instagram Reels, it'd be the same content. I'd be willing to bet whatever creators post on TikTok, also post on IG.

How is TikTok "home of toxic Chinese social attack" but IG reels (with the same content) not?

Tiktok showed me lots of NDP (alt liberal party Canada) and aboriginal activism during Covid. No real searches for that stuff.

Anyways. What if TikTok manipulates half of us? Sow discord. Or gets us hooked now same as others but wields the power to manipulate later for important reason.

It’s not about quality of content here vs there, it’s about the risk of foreign national having so much influence.

Agreed, we need to regulate social media in some way, period, especially for people under 18, not just TikTok.

If TikTok demonstrably moves towards subversive behavior then it should frankly be banned. Until then regulate and allow like other social media.

There is no point asking for evidence, they aren’t “convicting” based on evidence.

They are instead taking preliminary precautions based on the fact that the technology can be abused and that it’s controlled by a hostile foreign power.

I’m sympathetic to this argument. But I wonder: Is there any evidence that Tiktok is being used by CCP to hurt USA?

I would argue we should ban them simply cause they ban Facebook etc. Ie tit for tat, be nice to those who are nice to you, etc etc

I think many don’t want to wait and find out. The fact that it could be abused and it’s controlled by a hostile foreign power is seen as reason enough to ban it.

Exactly. I don’t want to give them any ideas but imagine owning the platform that significant number of people spend considerable amount of time on each day and not thinking how it could be used to subvert a foreign power.

Makes sense. I’m sure this is the logic they applied banning fb.

If your country views the US as a hostile foreign power, yes, banning Facebook is a reasonable course of action.

Count me as directly opposed to this point of view. I've read all the news reports about the imaginary threat from TikTok. It's entirely conjecture and "Red Scaremongering" that happens every time the US faces a new global competitor. There are absolutely no facts underlying this hysteria. Let's assume TikTok is an arm of China's military. What can they do? Get info and track people; they could buy this information from data brokers right now. Influence people via social media; they have already done this on Facebook, Reddit et.al. Ban/favor content regarding China; no different from Facebook/YouTube inadvertently pumping QAnon content. Either legislate all social media (which I'm against fyi) or none, but selectively hitting TikTok feeds Chinese propaganda that the West is out to get them.

As a semi-libertarian I'm suspicious of governments - certainly the inept idiots in US Congress now - setting limits on the Internet. My TikTok feed is exclusively silly pet videos. It is was you make of it. If some people are watching political content or hate speech or Ponzi adverts, that seems fine in a free country.

Every part of your argument is more true of Facebook, Google, and Amazon than TikTok. Platforms like Facebook actively sold the ability to influence US elections while enabling genocides around the world. TikTok has never done anything like that. Your argument is just baseless sinophobia and misdirected rage that would be more accurately aimed at American companies.

I’ll be frank, I have many Chinese friends, some I would count as my best friends and even they are convinced that tiktok could weaponized by CCP for malevolent purposes. I have nothing against the Chinese people but I do have a problem with their government (as many Chinese nationals and diaspora do as well). And I would not put anything beneath them especially when it is a win at all costs situation on economic and geopolitical front.

Yea great point. If everything about the reality of the story was completely different; then the argument would make sense.

Interesting, how Americans have a hard time getting over American exceptionalism, but people from other countries can always make some concessions. It's as if the most brainwashed countries on the planet are such a criminal group: North Korea, Israel, the USA, Britain.

At least China is not only right-wing (right-wing socially).

> And I would not put anything beneath them especially when it is a win at all costs situation on economic and geopolitical front.

So, America?

Is there an equivalent of Godwin's law for "sinophobia"?

Is there a Godwin’s law for the opposite? Check your sibling comment and your own. Both reacting negatively to any one that doesn’t bow down to US interest vs China. As if one side has to be picked.

If you’re American or Chinese you don’t really get to pick your side

Are you claiming Americans and Chinese have no agency on this topic? All humans have some level of agency.

I mean we shouldn’t say tiktok has not done anything “like that”. That’s a vague term. Tiktok has done a ton of bad stuff like other big tech. They’re all bad. Tiktok less so only because it’s less impactful and powerful so far.

I'm convinced half the comments are just Chinese bots. It's all the same talking points about how "we totally can't ban these tool developed by our adversary because they would just be so hypocritical!".

Regardless of how you spin it, you're putting foreign corporate interests above US national interests, and so you deserve as much stock in your opinion as what Putin thinks America should do.

We are one people in the end. Borders are divisions. Nations are divisions. I’m an American who puts everyone’s interests in mind. I don’t see why me not putting US interest above makes my opinion equivalent to Putin’s. A terrible man.

That's exactly it. You're not interested in America's interests, and in this case that means you're putting the designs of an adversary first. Consequently when it comes to matters of American interests and national security, your desired outcome here aligns exactly with a terrible man like Putin.

And to be clear, even from a globalist perspective, undermining the US to the benefit of China doesn't seem like a great ends for the US.

I’m American. I don’t have to be a slave to nationalism. I have agency. You are gaslighting by making up stuff like “if you’re not with us you’re against us”. The whole reason that’s a saying is because we know that’s not actually true. That’s a naive way of looking at the world.

I’m not a globalist, so that’s irrelevant to me.

>Regardless of how you spin it, you're putting foreign corporate interests above US national interests, and so you deserve as much stock in your opinion as what Putin thinks America should do.

One can easily make the case that a lot of American rights potentially undermine US national interests. What is your plan to deal with this reality?

Based on your argument it sounds like you are not a fan of a lot of America's founding principles that err on the side of freedom and liberty.

If China can really break your adhesion to the US constitution and its hard won amendments with a silly app, you may have already lost.

Yes something very odd at work here.

That’s a better penetration than Facebook.

ding ding

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