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Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Another way to look at it is the fact that China does not let American social media in its market. Why should America give China access to it's markets when that's not reciprocated?

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Americans claim to value open access to information. We could go even further and implement a copy of the great firewall of China, but should we?

No, we shouldn't. Be we also shouldn't be schmucks that give market access that isn't reciprocated. Most free trade agreements work on reciprocity. We agree not to put tariffs on country X's cars because they agree not to put tariffs on ours. A ban is essentially an infinite tariff. If that's how a foreign country is going to treat American companies, why not respond in kind?

Because it goes against one of our purported values. I'd hope that this action had some inherent merit (I'm not claiming it doesn't), and it's not just retaliation.

Are we protecting America's trade interests with this bill? I don't think so...

What purported value is it going against? Allowing market access to countries that don't reciprocate is not one of our values. Nor is it one of China's. Or most countries, for that matter. When other countries erect tariffs, we usually respond on kind. And when we raise tariffs other countries - including close friends like Canada - they respond with their own tariffs against American imports too.

You've got it backwards: reciprocal trade agreements are the norm not just in US politics but across the world.

Freedom of expression. Our government is banning a major platform that Americans use to access information.

Are we doing this because they banned Facebook? Again, I don't think so.

We're banning the company not the ability to express. They can upload the exact same videos to YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, and who knows how many alternatives.

What about ByteDance’s freedom of expression?

They are owned by a Chinese company and thus have no rights

What about Meta's freedom of expression in China?

This is the foundation of reciprocal trade agreements: We don't put tariffs on your cars if you don't put tariffs on ours. We don't ban your social media companies if you don't ban ours.

ByteDance is a Chinese corporation. The US federal government does not govern it and has no responsibility to allow a Chinese corporation to express itself in the US by publishing propaganda.

US freedom of expression applies only to US residents not to foreign govt controlled companies lol. And that is good.

Does the Citizens United ruling have a say?

No. Citizens United covered PAC donations. Nowhere did it rule that the government cannot restrict foreign social media companies.

Nope, go read it. Once again, the first amendment applies only to US entities.

Unless China is part of the US, I don't see how CCP/Bytedance can get First Amendment protection.

> open access to information

Nobody proposed blocking TikTok.com. It’s just limiting its distribution.

So, all 160 million US TikTok users install a PWA of TikTok and everything is fine then? I highly doubt it

> all 160 million US TikTok users install a PWA of TikTok and everything is fine

I’m not saying the bill is performative. The app-store and hosting ban will be effective. The point is nothing will be censored. Distribution will have been curtailed.

Americans have more than one value at a time. Americans also claim to value fairness, and they conduct trade with all kinds of people. If some of those people fail to conduct trade fairly, Americans do not need to oblige those failures.

Totally agree! We have conflicting motivations here, so I think it's important to know what's driving this! (I'm not confident in my understanding.)

So if TikTok was fully sponsored by the govt and didn't show ads and didn't earn any profit in US, then it can continue operating in US?

You can profit off of recording viewership patterns and activities, too. It's be very hard to prove ByteDance isn't doing that.

TikTok is banned in China.

But ByteDance, TikTok's owner, operates it's own analogous app in China, Douyin

Which means Tiktok was banned.

TikTok is Douyin with a different coat of paint. They're near identical apps run by the same company, ByteDance. It's not banned in China, it just has a different name.

And different content, which is what matters.

Sure, by virtue of China's stricter regulation of social media. But for all intents and purposes, Douyin is TikTok in China. Or rather TikTok is Douyin in the rest of the world outside of China.

Americans spend a lot of time complaining about artificial Chinese filtering. It makes sense they'd serve them different content.

Why isn't TikTok available in China? Do you think it makes business sense to operate two different apps if they're "analogous"?

Douyin is TikTok in China. Or perhaps it's more appropriate to say that TikTok is the export version of Douyin.

Reasons for having two apps are rife with speculation. One is that censorship in Douyin is more prevalent than on the export version (that one is pretty obvious). There's also speculation that the export version of Douyin has an algorithm tuned to be more addictive.

But let's be clear, by ByteDance's own statements the two apps have shared management and technology.

That's false, American social media simply refused to follow Chinese law. (I believe facebook specifically refused to remove accounts belonging to ETIM/TIP, an organisation recognised by the UN, EU and at the time the USA as a terrorist group)

Incorrect, Facebook is flat out banned in China no matter whether they comply with CCP censorship. I'm very interested in sources to substantiate the claim that Facebook is refusing to ban groups that even the US designates as terrorists.

Here's at least one source http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/kindle/2014-10/02/content_18692... Although I appear to be wrong that it was specifically what caused the block.

I'd be interested to know the source of your claim that facebook wouldn't be allowed if it complied fully with Chinese law?

One, this article was published years after Facebook was blocked in China so it can't be the cause of the block. Also, China daily is a propaganda outlet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily

It's literally run by the "Central Propaganda Department".

Zuckerberg tried damn hard to get his crap into China, he even asked the Chinese president Xi in person to name his unborn baby. He became quite "unfriendly" to China/CCP after all those efforts got him nothing in return.

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