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Comment by itishappy | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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?

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.

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.

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.

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.)

> 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.

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