TikTok users bombard Congressional offices over bill that could ban app
politico.com
politico.com
That from a "tiktok is bad for you" perspective. From a security and economic perspective there's a big difference between the company behind it being Meta or bytedance.
Then again, if tiktok people flock to reels we'd sort of have a big concentration of the social media market in the hands of Meta. Concerning, looking into this, etc.
Ultimately I do believe the issue here is more of a "we don't want Americans using a Chinese app" than anything else. And from there they seek reasons to justify the ban.
Personally, I much prefer that China hosts this substantial propaganda platform, I believe it to offer a nice counterbalance to the domestic propaganda we are subjected to.
Only for Americans. Not much different for the remaining 96% of the world.
I don't trust Meta either.
It could allow for 1:1 and n:m (small n, small m) messaging on these days, but nothing bigger. Email would be carved out as an exception.
If it were to be enforced, it'd have to be levied onto companies from the top. They'd be forced to engineer these time window blocks.
Maybe every other day would be a social media day.
I think about this occasionally. It would probably be good for all of us as a society. Totally impractical, would get tons of push back and would never happen, but a fun thought.
I want my friends off their phones too.
My state finally lets me buy alcohol on Sundays. I don’t need the government limiting my freedoms. I’m not their kid, they aren’t my parents.
Oh, don't you worry. I totally agree with you. Freedom is perhaps the most important thing in the world. I don't want people making choices for myself or others. Complete freedom - of thoughts, of speech, of actions. (But consequences for those that abuse it - murder, etc.)
That said, I still really miss the world before all of this happened. Our world has never been the same since smartphones arrived.
We'll never be able to go back to the way things were before. That world is dead forever, and nobody -- not me, not you -- will ever be able to bring it back. Doesn't stop me from wishing it would all go away occasionally. At the same time, I'd never be willing to give up what we have now.
It's a complicated feeling.
No, not really, they have proven time and again that they can't be trusted. Maybe its time to instead of protecting US company's data collection, we instead just limit data collection...
I can't believe how small fellow americans' value of our country and understanding of its fragility is.
I don't use Tiktok and don't care whether or not it is banned but this is pure addict behavior.
It's one part entertainment, one part news, one part streaming platform, and one part peer-to-peer communication. It makes sense people can spend a lot of time there if it replaces many different apps/TV shows/etc.
So, no.
If we had a healthy ecosystem of interconnected platforms and laws that worked to counter the extreme network effects of social media platforms we wouldn't have to worry about a major content stream getting piped through our largest geopolitical rival.
Which makes sense. Do you really want an entity with the demonstrated capability to coordinate mass political action (i.e. this TikTok popup) to be under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party?
It's like if Putin owned Facebook.
Once the (addiction-tuned) algorithms were mastered and the back end was nice and stable ByteDance made their Westernized version for the rest of the world, TikTok. Again, subsidized and promoted by the Chinese government.
A lot of people are worried about the data collection but I don't think that's as big a deal of having control over the algorithms. If the Chinese government says, "promote this" to ByteDance it gets promoted (can they realistically say no?). It could be propaganda, competitors of people they don't like, or similar. If they say, "get rid of this content/these users" it all but disappears.
The US government can't control media like that (and is explicitly barred from doing so). They can ask for such things (as nicely as possible) but that's it.
Because of the popularity of TikTok it has an extremely powerful influence over millions of Americans. Is it in the US's best interests to allow that level of control to persist?
The fact that so many people called up these Congressmen because of a pop-up in the app is really strong evidence of the sort of propaganda they can distribute and the level of control and influence they can have (indirectly) over the US government. It's not a good situation.
Perhaps a bill that says something like, "It must not be possible for foreign governments to influence algorithms or target specific users or categories of users with propaganda" might be in order. I know that's a tall order but there are a number of low-bar steps that can be taken to prevent or at least slow down such foreign government shenanigans.
That is the bill. ByteDance would have to sell TikTok to a non-foreign adversary country owner. It could be American, but also e.g. European.
The government shouldn't tell us what to do... but then again I wound't using the Chinese tracking device called TikTok. (or facebook/X)
I don't find the "China scary" motivations behind this bill to be particularly convincing.
I find it difficult to believe that your average "addicted to social media" user cares enough to contact congress about it.
I'd be surprised if anyone stood up in favor of Facebook, Insta-whatever, etc.
The speed and stealth with which congress is moving this through adds a certain sense of urgency to the message.
This is a similar issue with domestic social media (Instagram knowingly harming teenage girls' mental health, YouTube recommending radicalism, Facebook facilitating Rohingya genocide and failing to act despite reports, etc)
Our government has completely failed us when it comes to evaluating these issues. It's impossible to expect the average not-so-savvy person to do it for themselves or their children.
Platforms of a certain size should absolutely be scrutinized because they are so broad reaching that they can alter the fabric of society (unknowingly, or more troubling, knowingly and without oversight).
It's a little incredible to me, that even within the tech industry, we think so highly of ourselves that most people still willingly subject themselves to these unknowns for hours every day.
Either tiktok the app is doing something wrong and needs controlled - but that should come in a form of regulation to apply to all social media apps.
Or foreign investment ownership needs limits, but same thing, there should be a standard that applies to all foreign control concerns that should be expressed more generally than a singular app.
It’s a general foreign ownership of social media bill. We already have foreign ownership restrictions on traditional media.
To protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications, such as TikTok and any successor application or service and any other application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Ltd. or an entity under the control of ByteDance Ltd.
And names TikTok and ByteDance specifically in it's contents which grants the power to do so, but does not suggest any particular standards why other than designations as a "Foreign Adversary". Which is basically a circular framework for bias. Would this apply to X with a large investment from Saudi Arabia for example?
[1] https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/TIKTOK_xml_a8572d67bb....
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/tech/congress-bill-bans-t...
> Would this apply to X with a large investment from Saudi Arabia for example?
No, it’s not a foreign adversary country [1].
[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
Ownership restrictions didn't keep Facebook from allegedly selling the space for mass influence of an election to Russia operating through a UK company. If politicians were actually looking to protect the US, regulations on social media and advertising that apply universally regardless of ownership would be much more effective. I would welcome a well built set of regs for that.
Attributing this to racism is a bit obtuse, imo. China conducts aggressive cyber warfare + espionage campaigns (see "Shady Rat"), and strictly controls which foreign companies are allowed to operate within their borders.
Of course, I would like to see more scrutiny applied to ALL companies invasive practices, be it Instagram or TikTok.
There is a reason China has banned all US tech companies, why should the U.S. allow Bytedance to push algorithms that effect 1/3rd of the U.S. Population?
You can dismiss it as racism if you are ignoring the numerous reports from the last 20 years showing rampant IP theft coming out of China.
The CCP will use any means they can to get an advantage, and if I were in their shoes I would do the same thing.
In America the rights of the people come first, not the desires of the elites trying to lord over them. Americans don't win by letting the American government become more and more like the Chinese government.
This kind of geopolitical posturing is a lose-lose game for citizens of all countries involved, who lose more and more rights in the name of beating The Enemy, and a win-win game for the elites who use The Enemy as an excuse to exert more and more control over the population.
China straight up banned us, there was no provision for local devolution.
The rheotric around China was the engagement would cause China to become more open. It is time to admit that hypothesis has been disproven.
As such, penalization and disconnect should be implemented.
Someone domestic can create a TikTok clone if they feel like their free speech is being impinged. Problem solved.
Disconnecting from China is simply smart domestic security.
They—or someone in Canada or India or Europe—can also buy it. It’s a divestiture bill, not a ban.
Ironically, there are a lot of philosophy accounts on tiktok, if you watch them it would give you an opportunity to realize that what appears to you as a fact is actually a belief, and an incorrect one at that (I suspect you are thinking of the first amendment, a very common error among humans).
Has this "mistermann" account been compromised? Is there a way to flag it for review?
A reply could hardly be more ironic than this, even if you were trying.
Dang is well aware of my unusual perspective, and he too is not a fan afaict, but tends to "not be able to understand" simple unusually literal language when I explain.
We definitely want to emulate the Chinese state in it's clear-eyed pursuit of its own interests and its protection of its political system from interference by its adversaries.
Don't be a fool. I read an article just today that showed where your kind of idealism leads. The Chinese state subsidized and supported Chinese solar panel manufacturers, the EU subsidized the purchase of solar panels from any manufacturer, and the end result is the European solar industry was totally destroyed.
If their phones are ringing off the hook from people who mostly don’t have a history of voting you might be right.
If their phones are ringing non-stop from people with a record of voting consistently, it’s much more likely to change their behavior.
American politicians can be craven or shortsighted don't think any of them are that craven or shortsighted. These callers are getting their cues from a entity ultimately controlled by a foreign adversary. Any politician who cares less about that than if the callers vote in November is the kind of politician would volunteer to be the lackey of foreign occupiers.
The us should allow free speech but also use standard tit for tat diplomacy as simple fairness to try and encourage global and fair markets.
This is NOT a TikTok ban. It instead gives ByteDance 165 days to sell at least 80% of TikTok. The rules apply to any social media controlled by a foreign adversary country [2]. (There is also a data portability requirement.)
[1] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
An entity without a legal duty to the CCP would control it. (Doesn’t have to be American.)
1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
There's also the successful citizen-lead effort to put abortion as a right on the Ohio constitution. This despite a majority opposition from the state legislature.
The consequences are delayed, but they are there.
> They also won a majority of congress seats which were up in 2022
No, Republicans won 20 Senate seats and 222 House seats in 2022, Democrats won 15 and 213.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elec...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_House_elect...
> Democrats are polling ahead of Republicans in most states which have enacted abortion bans
That seems unlikely, given that Republicans are winning the nationwide general Congressional election polls and would certainly be doing better in red states than blue states.
I can personally attest to language that made it into bills at the state and federal level on the back of a call with an overworked staffer. I have also watched bills die because nobody bothered calling in support, but a few did in opposition.
You’re right that the process of getting a bill initiated is frought. But the country’s needs are diverse, and in most electeds’ backyards a given issue isn’t a battleground. So they’ll swing whichever way is convenient and move on.
Where this doesn’t work is for big-ticket issues; you aren’t going to flip your elected’s position on abortion with a call. Your study uses survey data from 1981 to 2002; the fact that an issue is being broadly surveyed biases the result. (We have no survey on this bill as yet.)
And like most statistics, they can be read to support almost any conclusion you want. A deeper dive on that study shows that it's not really that simple, or that distressing: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...
Important quote:
America is an imperfect democracy, in other words — but it's hardly an oligarchy. When the rich and middle class disagree, each wins about half the time.
It's like saying that "Half the time I win and half the time everyone else loses, so it's fair." Which isn't really fair at all considering the size of the groups[1]
1. 1 vs Rest in the extreme example. n=|people who are rich| vs m=|people who are not rich| in the context we're considering.