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Comment by gretch | Hacker News Reader

That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in the United States".

It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along.

It's never been about privacy nor internal (to the US) security. It's very openly about cross pacific adversaries. Only meta-tech commentators have tried to apply some weird narrative of privacy.

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The real concerns, in order of importance, are:

1. This is a way of getting memes to the masses that we (the US political establishment) can't fully control.

2. Meta and others are getting their asses kicked revenue-wise by Tik Tok. Like any business, they'd use anything they could to fight back. Turns out they can use China fear mongering, so they are.

3. (Added) Believe it or not, there's nationalistic pride here. There is a reluctance to admit that an app from "the other side" (China) is more appealing to the masses than _our_ social media apps. Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars (but at least they're made by Asians who are _allies_ I guess).

No matter that banning an app is completely against the principles we claim, such as freedom for individuals, competition in a free market, and freedom of information.

When the memes involve destroying the school bathrooms and stealing cars. It's probably worth considering what control is had over it.

Yeah, that's where the Toyota/Honda comparison breaks down to me. Toyota and Honda sell cars to users. TikTok sells users.

I mean, yeah, true. But only in the exact same way that Meta, Google, and a bunch of other American companies do too.

Toyota and Honda both assemble cars here in the US and have a huge network of US-based suppliers. No one believes that those companies operate under Japanese government direction nor that the Japanese government has the ability to influence company management to the degree the CCP clearly can with TikTok. It is well documented that the "Golden Shares" owned by the CCP and the board seat on they have give them fundamental control of the company.

Saying that the CCP is in control due to board seats is a bad reason. China gives CCP membership to the top students in schools, and most people try and join the CCP if they can. The people that make up the tops of companies are most likely to be CCP members because of the fact that highly driven people are most likely to be in or join the CCP. Yes the Chinese government has a lot of control, but members of the CCP being on the board is nonsense. It is extra nonsense when you consider how many US companies have government members on the board. Condoleezza Rice is a board member of Dropbox for example.

Would love to see the overlap of people concerned about threats to the conditional right to own guns, and those who are completely unconcerned about this direct attack on freedom of speech.

Being able to post videos in a walled garden owned by a corporation is not free speech. freedom of speech, regardless of where you are on the political compass, is in platforms like Mastodon.

Those aren't really relevant to the topic of Chinese ownership, unless you believe the government told TikTok to actively promote those videos. The stupid destruction trends seem organic to me, and did not require CCP interference.

Tiktok is not just a dumb video host. They chose the content they show to users. And the content their system is shoving in users faces is destructive.

Are you saying there are engineers sitting behind their laptops who upvote the "bathroom destruction" trend in some kind of global dashboard? You sound very certain about the degree of control they have over recommendation systems.

I’m not saying they specifically coded in a “bathroom destruction” function, but they coded a function which results in promoting destruction videos more than any platform before it.

The amount of brainrot content that tiktok pushes is staggering. The other video platforms don’t come close.

Make no mistake, they let everything sensational trend until it makes the news because it makes them look edgy to a younger audience and that makes them lots of money... Covering your tracks is easy when there's no algorithm/operational transparency.

Social media is the puts when it comes to moral bankruptcy... It is a casino based on popularity, and so many people are dumping money into it on a regular basis that it's really too late to do anything to stem the way it manipulates our world. Congressional action is far too late and futile to the maximum in encouraging any sort of ethics, they did nothing with all the damning evidence presented about Facebook, The only reason they'd ban TikTok is to satisfy the anti-competitive lobby of US competitors if you ask me.

TilTok is a corrupt platform nonetheless, and I really wouldn't be sad if it got banned, the basis of it has already infected everything else, including YouTube to the point of useless overload, so the entire ideal of going viral and getting paid on platforms is actually way past anything meaningful any more.

google devious lick

tiktok incentivizes teenagers to create content, and makes going viral extremely easy... as long as you can up the ante on current edgy activity

tiktok doesn't actually incentivize it.

they hosted the videos and banned them as they were reported.

you can't even search the term anymore as it shows a get help button instead.

however i can go on youtube and watch all of the ripped tiktok that people downloaded before it was removed.

We have proved time and time again that governments have propaganda and astroturfing teams deployed on all major social media, why is it so hard to believe that CCP through TikTok has a mechanism to promote some content over another?

I am no conspiracy theorist, but at some point we need to accept the countless proof we keep reading about tech used maliciously once your app reaches a significant mass of users, especially if those users live in a country you are in a bona-fide economic war with.

Some degree of skepticism is healthy, but propaganda thrives any time a skeptic dismisses valid concerns.

Lawmakers don't care about that. You're giving them way too much credit. Since the public is not in an uproar about this destructiveness, there are no votes or advantages to be gained by advocating against it.

That's for altruists, who rarely make it to Washington and don't last long when they do.

Why don't we put the ownership of the actions back on the individuals? Presumably you and I would never destroy private property because it became a viral trend. We need parents to step up and educate their children on responsible decision making, and those breaking laws* should be held accountable.

*laws that protect a negative externality for an involuntary transactor.

You are overestimating how much of a concern 2 is for lawmakers. Meta getting its ass kicked is a happy bonus for both political parties.

Agree, but then Meta and others are lobbying (throwing money at those politicians), which buys concern from the lawmakers.

>Meta getting its ass kicked is a happy bonus for both political parties.

Frankly, it should get this treatment. Its executives have been consistently hostile toward government inquiries and in public statements about its users. The hubris it has shown in its treatment on political speech and disdain for paid advertisers is revolting. The stock structure of the company is a physical manifestation of everything wrong - we can treat the public and the law with disdain and you can't touch us.

Do you have a reference for point 2?

FB has the motive and means to promote xenophobia, and has repeatedly shown willingness to do whatever it takes to make a profit.

So while I think it’s fair to ask for a reference, it is prudent to assume it’s happening, unless proven otherwise.

They don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Meta seems to be doing fine financially besides the VR money pit. Also in a weird way having TikTok around just bolsters their case against any sort of anti trust enforcement. That said I am sure they would be happy if TikTok did get banned but I also doubt they are sticking their neck out lobbying for that to happen (although I would not be surprised to be wrong)

Actual #1. TikTok is banned in China, but in their similar app (Douyin) their kids are limited to 40min a day and restricted from a lot of the digital opium drip that US kids are receiving in infinite quantities. Sounds like it'd only be fair to follow suit if China itself is limiting the poisoning of their own citizens:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2023/03/24/douyin-tiktok...

It is mind boggling, and at the same time not surprising at all, that China is enforcing a humane policy to protect its children when we are not willing to do the same.

It is also surprising to realize that China and the chinese actually think as a nation and have a sense of collectivism, whereas the US is to each their gun and their million dollars in the bank. China has always had this sense of being one thing, historically, and even the atrocious regimes, emperors, and dictators are always representative of a populace wish to centralize and control things fluidly and efficiently. Who knows, maybe it will work out, even with the price it has that westerners won't ever consider, or ever let go of a philosophical individuality.

That's a pretty superficial take on both countries.

...because they killed or chased away any dissenters, now and historically. Look at Taiwan, or Hong Kong, the revolution, or Xinjiang. It isn't some innate characteristic of the Chinese, it is intentional.

True, I had not thought about the survivorship bias, literally genetic I guess.

>It is mind boggling, and at the same time not surprising at all, that China is enforcing a humane policy to protect its children when we are not willing to do the same.

By whose standards? The United States has never been an ideologically cohesive nation outside some basic principles of representative democracy - and even those have been challenged at moments in our history. The moment you get beyond the basics of a unified military, postal service, weights and measures, and currency, you quickly get into the social issues that have plagued our cohesion since the founding of the nation. Is Uncle Tom's Cabin a seminal work in understanding US history, or subversive and dangerous? We can't even decide that as a nation at the moment, so "how much social media is good for our kids?" would be a very, very ugly discussion to have at a national level.

I don't have Tik Tok installed, my kids only get the "reruns" off YouTube, but frankly I find it a bit extremist that the US government wants to ban an app that looks to me like people doing funny dances in their living rooms.

We need to move past the "TikTok = people dancing" stage of discussion.

TikTok has expanded to be the dominant short form video platform for every interest, niche, and micro niche you can imagine that exists, and even ones you can't imagine.

Please anyone reading this comment replace "TikTok = people dancing" with "TikTok = feed + discovery for short form video tailored to your specific interests no matter how niche". Yes this includes programming, science, education, dancing, gaming, cooking, acrobatics, painting, arguing, politics, news, weather, etc. basically anything you can imagine that isn't against their content policies.

That's fair - but if that's the case, how is that actually different from YouTube, Instagram, or any number of other platforms? It appears in two ways:

1) TikTok is really good at what they do.

2) They are a Chinese-owned company.

It certainly feels like if it weren't for #2, they would be praised for their innovation and held up as a great American success story. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be skepticism in the name of national security, but of all the things threatening to destroy the planet on any given day, this feels low on the list.

While I think some of it is the UX, the main thing in TikTok's favour is the massive number of people creating concise, interesting content for it.

YouTube videos are frequently 30-120 seconds of relevant content padded to 10-15 minutes. Most TikTok videos are close to just those 30-120 relevant seconds.

If Congress bans it, they'll probably lose the trust and interest of a massive percentage of Americans under the age of 30.

Yes it's different because of the foreign ownership. It really is that simple.

> feed + discovery for short form video tailored to your specific interests no matter how niche

It is this and also that young people are especially malleable, so content that they see can cause long-term psychological and emotional damage, or--more pertinently to governments' interests--can introduce ideological change that they don't control.

> I don't have Tik Tok installed, my kids only get the "reruns" off YouTube, but frankly I find it a bit extremist that the US government wants to ban an app that looks to me like people doing funny dances in their living rooms.

There is a wide variety of content on TikTok. One category is (tens/hundreds of) thousands of people who watched the Congressional "democracy" theatre on the TikTok ban realizing that their so-called democracy is fake, a laughing stock, pick your pejorative. Millions of people who formerly had no clue, now realize absolutely that what is on the label does not match what is on the tin.

Of course, they could have realized this via other means since it has been the case for ages, but whether they would have is another story.

If I was running an illusory regime, I'd take out TikTok too, it's just old fashioned common sense.

True, I think the political elite made a big mistake, revealing the clowns behind the curtain. The younger generation, even with their default disgruntlement with the system, still might've taken another decade to figure out just how much the emperor has no clothes.

If they kill TikTok now, I think it can easily be patched back up. Assuming something even more powerful doesn't come along.

I mean... gestures at latest mass school shooting

USA and China have very different societies so the best you could expect in the former is an opt in facility for parents to limit time in an app. Much as I think these apps are the junk food of tech, I still prefer a less authoritarian state.

Humane by who's standards? Should the government be mandating how to raise children? Maybe the government would think compelling church attendance is a humane policy to protect children. Or we could let parents decide how to raise their kids.

Never mind that the policy here is actually not about protecting children at all, since its banning an app entirely where the vast majority of users are adults.

Only if you think

a) the Chinese goverment is right

and b) TikTok is notably worse than American social media.

I, for example, disagree with both. I think the Chinese government is wrong about a lot of things, including the right way to raise kids. And I think TikTok is no worse than Instagram.

a) the Chinese goverment is right

The Chinese government is right in the sense that drug cartels generally avoid getting too high on their own supply.

> "Only if you think the Chinese goverment is right"

Germany dropped bombs on the UK. The UK responded by dropping bombs on Germany. By responding in kind, was the UK therefore asserting that Germany was 'right' to drop bombs on the UK?

You're taking my statement out of context. I was refuting the claim that China's restrictive social media policy is a justification for a similar US policy.

If the UK justified their actions solely on the basis that because the Germans did it it must be ok that'd be unreasonable. (This isn't the right forum to get into it, but the ethics of civilian saturation bombings are much more complicated and I'm not saying either was in the right, though of course in total Germany was far far worse).

Tit for tat is how wars are fought, not by finding a moral high ground. Like it or not, we are in a economic and information war with China. Bury your head in the sand if you want to lose it.

Actual #2. Bytedance's other App NeiHan Duanzi (com.ss.iphone.essay.Joke) was banned by CCP with little explaination

> Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas

This is a holdover from the US supporting the development of industry in Japan to keep them from turning communist (which was a real threat back in the 60's and 70's)

I think you're conflating the reasoning of the ban to be against Asians, when in fact it's purely against China. Japanese car manufacturers have done absolutely nothing wrong.

Note that the Reagan administration negotiated “voluntary import quotas” with Japanese car manufacturers in the 1980s when US car manufacturers were being beaten by Japanese brands

You are also ignoring the fact that China does not allow our social media companies to operate in their jurisdiction. So part of this is a sense of fairness. Why do they get to operate here if we can't operate there?

Because open markets and free speech are national values, not tit-for-tat teenage diplomatic drama. We're supposed to be better than that.

But its not open markets if one partner blocks all access to it's own market?

In what other trade context would this scenario be acceptable?

And how does giving access to an authoritarian regime, famous for controlling speech, promote free speech?

Consumer choice is unequivocally good.

Besides, the problem is already solvable. People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits. No one is forcing them. This is a vote with your feet issue, plain and simple.

> People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits

A democratically elected government banning something is the people deciding.

Ridiculous argument.

A lot of people choose meth.

It sounds like your argument is, The government can be a force for good for people who aren't capable of making rational decisions.

Exactly and young people lack the life experience to comprehend the long-term risks associated with surrendering their private data to the CCP or being exposed to sophisticated disinformation campaigns over time. So it is incumbent on the govt to protect their long-term interests.

And to also ensure that trade relationships are fair and equitable (which it currently isnt).

I fail to see how free markets work if people aren't rational actors. We might as well have a communist economy if we can't count on that.

Besides, anytime we see the government intervene on matters like this, we're reminded how they make it worse.

Or we may as well have no laws because people are completely rational actors no matter their age etc...

And you didn't address my point with respect to young people's lack of life experience. Or that trade relationships should be fair and equitable.

I'm a parent, I guide my kiddos when rationality escapes them. The process itself, parent-child, teaches them how to make their own decisions. Governments can't teach people how to make their own decisions.

The statement that trade relationships must be fair is some sort of neoliberal mumbo jumbo. I don't accept it as an assumption or a consequence. You can accept it as axiomatic if you want, but I don't see it as a consequence of any valid logical train of thought.

Yes but govts can try to minimize the damage from people making bad decisions. Which they do constantly, across all areas of society.

And what you describe as "neo-liberal mumbo-jumbo" I think for most people would be seen as simple commonsense.

It's a social fact which is different from an objective fact based in reality.

ok well I think for most people this "social fact" aligns exactly with reality, and as you've already stated, people are always rational actors so...

The idea of open markets is that no player is given favorable treatment by the government. If you allow a player that comes from a country that treats its citizens as human farms, I wouldn't call that open markets.

The two statements just don't logically follow. A better argument would be that the US, in an effort to improve human rights, sets a minimum threshold for market participation at the level of nations. Unfortunately, that's not the argument being made.

Open markets mean what it says on the tin - markets without barrier. Saying, "We're barring actors for entering the market for reason X," means closed markets even is X is "treating people poorly."

Because they have seen how EU's social media companies ended up.

What EU's social media companies? Exactly.

Ok, so you gave a good reason for China to ban US companies and you haven't given a good one for why the US shouldn't ban TikTok.

China never claimed that they value freedom, (whatever you define as freedom). They value harmony instead, (whatever you define as harmony).

By US banning TikTok, US is acting against claimed values, turning out to be hypocrite. China, by banning US social media, doesn't. Might be seen unfair, but it is a dead end that US painted itself into.

For the sake of argument, _if_ we agree that banning is OK, EU should ban social media from both, and subsidize their own the same way as US subsidized theirs.

Why do people have this delusion that empowering oppressive governments promotes freedom in any way?

It is not about "empowering oppressive government".

It is being true to what I claim that I'm, what my values are. If I start playing opportunist, how I'm better that the other guy?

If the EU considers America an adversary (perhaps they should), they would be wise to ban all American social media.

Because the US isn't China, not should it try to be.

What US value is being respected by allowing a different authoritarian country operate uncontested on American soil?

To correct #1, it is a way that China can fully control.

> Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

We do ban some import vehicles. Specifically light trucks.

Harley-Davidson famously tried to get Japanese V-Twins banned for not leaking oil. Er, I mean, for “stealing their signature exhaust noise”.

> Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars (but at least they're made by Asians who are _allies_ I guess).

Both Honda and Toyota build a lot factories in the US, creating a lot of jobs for US Citizens that actually show up to vote. All while American brands move to Mexico, Canada etc.

TikTok might as well be the same as "BigTech" but with the bonus of being Chinese—that is something politicians can work with. I think the root of the problem, though, is we (humans) are easy to manipulate, but I dont even know how we can even begin to tackle that.

When you are also banning VPN access to whatever tools you deem under the control of "foreign adversaries" (which, more people should look up the government's actual definition on this lol), then privacy is very much a core narrative. If it was just about China then Chinese apps would have been banned off Apple and Google stores years ago.

This is going to be one of those things Americans look back at, like the PATRIOT act, and wonder how the hell they allowed it to happen all because of one app/event.

China has banned nearly all US social networks already so is this really surprising given the current status quo?

If we're using China as a role model for our information hygiene, then I think it's fair to say that the free speech experiment that some liberal democracies have practiced over the past few centuries has ran its course, and can be considered a failure.

Pack it up, folks, as it turns out, there are some things that are too dangerous to let the public hear.

I think you need to study WW2 a little bit more. The Office of Censorship opening up letters to destroy pro-Nazi sentiment, and the Office of War Information buying up Disney Cartoons to show Donald Duck / Popeye / etc. as a Navy Sailor and encourage us to buy War Bonds through very overt propaganda.

Free Speech comes and goes in the USA. We tend to lean towards the freer-side of things, but if we need to, we clamp down on it to meet our other goals.

-----

WW2 is hardly an outlier either. WW1 had Espionage Act of 1917, Civil War didn't even have a law, Censorship and seizure of printing presses was just so common. Pre-Civil War, the Postmaster General of slave states commonly censored pamphlets from abolitionists. I mean, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" were passed within a year or two of the Bill of Rights, allowing the President to arrest various members of the press in the 1780s. Etc. etc. This stuff has been going on since the dawn of the USA as a country.

Book burnings and other such events were also widespread in the USA throughout our history... and even have legal precedent like the Comstock laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

IMO, we've gone too far into the free-speech side of becoming absolutely idiots about the subject in recent years and all of us can benefit from researching the actual history of the USA.

Free Speech, both opening up, and restricting it, has its uses. And if you're a student of history, you'll be able to feel the ebbs and flows of this subject throughout time.

-----------

Censorship is a tool. A tool best used rarely, maybe only a few times a century. But I unfortunately think we're coming to the point where we need to start using it within this decade or so. And no, not for the stupid AP African American class crap. I mean for the part that matters right now, the China-Taiwan conflict that is obviously brewing up.

> Censorship is a tool. A tool best used rarely, maybe only a few times a century. But I unfortunately think we're coming to the point where we need to start using it within this decade or so. And no, not for the stupid AP African American class crap. I mean for the part that matters right now, the China-Taiwan conflict that is obviously brewing up.

How about the Red Scare or Huckleberry Finn? Problem with censorship as a tool is that it will be abused. What makes you so sure that the party censoring AP African American studies won't be back in power next?

There's plenty of evils available to the US Government today. As some people like to point out, a government is an entity that has monopolized violence, which is an arrangement that's largely to the benefit of society (at least, in the cases where it is used correctly).

Execution, jailings, regulations, etc. etc. Plenty of ways for the government to be abused. Its inevitable that we give the government power to do what is necessary in society, whatever it is. Censorship is just one more power that the US Government has toyed with from time to time over the centuries.

To prevent abuse, we need to elect the right people to be our leaders, and the ones who wield that power.

Because China has strict censorship laws, so should the US?

China also has strict economic requirements for foreign companies too. Foreign companies of specific “strategic industries” are prohibited from operating independently in China and must open up as a joint venture with Chinese domestic companies and have party members on their board.

We shouldn't adopt 'general censorship' positions, but if China censors US media, then the US should center Chinese media.

I believe in reciprocity. If someone treating you poorly, there's no reason you need to keep allowing them to walk over you.

In what sense is TikTok "Chinese media" when the majority of the creators (consumed in the US) are in the West?

Bytedance is a Chinese company that is required by law to take direction from the CCP. The CCP may find it useful to promote/suppress particular content regardless of the geographic location of the creator.

There is no honour in (economic) war. You don't win by holding the moral high ground.

Sucks for us Westerners to see our Internet firewalled, but that's what happens when you're in a war, whatever its nature. Everybody pays for it.

This is not an effective war strategy though. The same influence American politicians swear the Chinese government has over Tiktok can easily be obtained through any number of social media companies.

Moral high ground and fairness is the best strategy here. If it's illegal for all companies to capture this information, it makes enforcement easier and prevents foreign adversaries from merely infiltrating other companies.

There are plenty of influential people in the tech world that would sell America out for a quick Renminbi.

> This is not an effective war strategy though

I disagree. The most effective war strategy is playing dirtier than your opponent. Like, I don't know, throwing the two only atomic bombs ever unleashed on city centres.

I'm not saying that I approve it. I'm just saying that war is not an honourable endeavour. The one that goes further than the other ever dared tends to be the winner.

> There are plenty of influential people in the tech world that would sell America out for a quick Renminbi.

Indeed. The only way to stop that is through draconian laws, so you can jail these people for "high treason", like I imagine China already does.

These guys are ridiculous, they represent the "I'm losing now so gonna take my ball home crying" mentality. Oh what a pity the US is not able to always win and have all the hot new toys made of american silicon! Of course it's very fine and dandy for all social networks that matter to be controlled on their soil, of course it's great that US is phone code #1!!1 and that .com is such an american thing at its birth. The land of freedom and opportunity cannot stomach that Zuker could not buy TikTok too? Come on give me a break. Also, even Rome fell. It's better not to start playing the loser's game, it just accelerates decadence.

What does the Pacific have to do with that? I’m sure it would be the same if the adversaries were cross-Atlantic.

I’m finding the wording strange because the US arguably has more cross-Pacific allies than adversaries.

> It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along.

It's not that simple. The commitee can change the definition of "foreign adversary" under SEC. 2. (8) (B) at their will.

That's a lot of words to say authoritarianism.

I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line.

> I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line.

The bill affects multiple countries, not just China.

In fact, it encompasses "any foreign government or regime, determined by the Secretary [to be]... significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons"

Depending on how much (or little) you trust the Secretary of Commerce, that's incredibly far-reaching and could easily be abused.

Bytedance absolutely has US offices. Their Mountain View office being branded Bytedance, while their LA office is TikTok. They also have office in many cities in the US like Nashville and NYC.

That's absolutely incorrect. TikTok has plenty of US personnel and is doing something called "Project Texas" to try to assuage US regulator concern. This is about China controlling a channel that millions of Americans use to get their news

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