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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

Pass a privacy law, stop arbitrarily banning. What exactly would be the justification for forcing the sale rather than passing a law solving the actual problem?

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The actual problem is threat of algo manipulation in times of crisis. But they apparently don't want to make that their argument. It's the only valid justification imo. Data privacy should apply to all companies.

It’s probably an issue of messaging: telling a population that someone is misusing the information, potentially militarily, is an easier pill to swallow than telling them they are susceptible to algorithmic manipulation by a foreign adversary. And do they even want to open the can of worms about their susceptibility to domestic manipulation?

But the government hates online privacy. It stops them from spying. And (though I don't know this for a fact) I feel tech giants could be lobbying against privacy laws.

What would the privacy law entail? Would a privacy law even prevent the CCP from pushing content onto every American who uses TikTok?

To do the second thing, you'd need some kind of statement of what the problem was.

… which can be understood and articulated by the median congressperson. A tall order indeed.

Why would that be a requirement? There's no need to understand, or state, the contents of a bill in order to pass it.

But there do have to be contents, and whatever you put in there is subject to media coverage.

That’s half of Valley to fight against. Not going to happen.

TikTok has no reason to follow US law. It is doubtful they will allow auditors to ensure compliance.

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