My Concerns about the TikTok Divestiture Bill as a Software Developer
g1a55er.net
g1a55er.net
If we want to compete, then we need to do that. Investment not protection is the path forward. Protectionist ideas dont save any one, they just let shitty or inferior products flourish.
Our own social media platforms have been doing a perfectly good job of spreading disinformation. And now were building ML systems to accelerate someone's agenda.
You beat tiktok by building what's next and watching it fade like every other platform before it.
352-65, that's what our congress thinks of free speech. Who's next after we set the precedent?
There's some language that attempts to limit the bill to social media apps, but any multiplayer game would easily pass those tests.
There's no "unless they're Chinese" clause in the first amendment.
That aside, we're not forcing Tiktok to shut down, just forcing them to find a new owner. We're not stopping anyone from posting online, nor are we stopping anyone from posting on tiktok. If anything, this will be good for speech on tiktok, surfacing topics that were banned or deboosted by a company that has to follow the CCP rules.
In the 2000s it was the arabs, in the 90s it was the Japanese, in the 80s it was the Russians. What would it look like if we had accumulated laws inhibiting speech from each group? We'd practically have a great firewall by now.
China requires all social media apps there to implement government directed censorship and to help ID people who post things on forbidden topics. That's not a nice playing field to play on, but it is a level one because it does apply regardless of app origin.
... creating a massive pressure for sideloading and alternative/non-official app-stores. Don't for a minute think that those millions of people who currently enjoy that platform will suddently want to stop. Necessity is the mother of invention.
(No, personally I don't use TikTok, YouTube or any other cat video sites. I'm not in that demographic)
Is the US chinaphobic or something? Because they have a good relationship in terms of trade. I'm always reminded of the irony of 'Boycott China' T-Shirts being manufactured in China. As long as the US is the buyer, there's no beef.
Well, china makes many threats to invade our allies, like Taiwan. (Officially declared or not. We give them weapons)
China is quite literally on a list of military enemies.
Yes, it is reasonably to be fearful of countries that are likely going to go to war with your allies. Just like it is reasonable for the government of ukraine to be afraid of the invading russian army.
Our cold war relationship with china could change in the future. They are going to have to make a lot of changes first, such as swearing off invading our allied country taiwan.
But, until that happens, china is right now on the path to actual war with the US in around 5 years.
Of course it would be silly to sell them Aegis missile systems if we really believed that. But that's our official position.
> US Upgrades Taiwan Weapons Package With Newer Patriot Missiles
Not an ally though.
Yes, it's silly.
The dictionary definition is irrelevant to my point, because I wasn't using your definition of the word ally.
So my original point stands.
I don’t understand all the constitutional hurdles. However, we know that Russia has heavily invested in disinformation and destabilization for decades. We can and should expect the same from China.
But the next app covered by the bill that would come to mind as the article mentions is Telegram.
Here it's not changing US politics but allows us to watch others politics. We are weakening our power by weakening our citizens.
Like restricting 5G we are at war with ourselves doing Chinas work for them.
1) TikTok is indirectly owned and therefore controlled by Chinese Communist party.
2) Given the footprint and influence that TikTok has in the US, the platform has the ability to editorially control what people see and therefore influence perceptions of things such as elections and other hot button issues.
3) The widespread installation of an app indirectly controlled by the CCP creates fundamental risk. Eg a number of popular TikTok influencers were actually members of the armed forces who were recording videos in their residences on military properties. Gps and potentially camera access provides information such as troop movements and troop readiness to a potential adversary. At a wider scale, there are similar risks with mass location information of members of the public.
The reality is that US companies are not leaned on by the US government for this kind of information about foreign users.
Until we acknowledge that this is not a normal situation, it seems moot to debate TikTok under normal trade custom and practice.
I've never used tiktok, I've never created an account and I've certainly never installed the app.
I was a senior product manager at Uber for a number of years where I witnessed both the encroachment of the Chinese government into our operations and also the significant responsibility of having a GPS enabled app installed on a vast majority of the populations phones while holding all sorts of sensitive demographic information such as the places you visit, your social graph via your contact address book, etc.
Patently false. It's owned by a few Chinese nationals and a few foreign nationals, in roughly a 50-50 ratio.
>2) Given the footprint and influence that TikTok has in the US, the platform has the ability to editorially control what people see and therefore influence perceptions of things such as elections and other hot button issues.
Like CNN, Fox News, NYT, WaPo, BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, South China Morning Post?
>3) The widespread installation of an app indirectly controlled by the CCP creates fundamental risk. Eg a number of popular TikTok influencers were actually members of the armed forces who were recording videos in their residences on military properties. Gps and potentially camera access provides information such as troop movements and troop readiness to a potential adversary. At a wider scale, there are similar risks with mass location information of members of the public.
That's an OPSEC discipline issue. Active duty personnel shouldn't be posting videos of themselves on any social media app.
>The reality is that US companies are not leaned on by the US government for this kind of information about foreign users.
Snowden, Assange, the NSA, Five Eyes and various other very real things would like to have a word with you.