House approves sell-or-be-banned TikTok measure
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Why should the US or any other trade partner with China therefore keep such a lopsided relationship? Seems like the US has a case here IMO, given all this history and practice. We should have been tougher on this years ago
You’ll probably not be surprised to find out there’s a lot of anti-US sentiment courtesy of Chinese, Russian and Iranian propaganda.
Plenty of younger folks fall for it, same stuff in the 70s and 80s on college campuses with supposedly well educated people talking about how the Soviet Union had higher standards of living than the US, and the “tyranny” was all just American propaganda.
I read most of the challenges to this ban as either explicitly championing US-colored ideals of free markets and free speech or simple personal frustration because people don't want to lose the experience of the app.
I'd expect some of the messaging gets amplified and shaped by adversarial parties, but the framing is rarely/never aligned with "anti-US" rhetoric on this topic.
Your concern sounds like a different thing than what applies to this discussion.
It’s attempting to push the narrative that TikTok is somehow the exception and is being treated unfairly, and that this is the big bad USA violating constitutional rights when this is just exactly how businesses with adversarial governments are treated in America. We already know Chinese controlled social media bots are amplifying to far right and far left extremists who act as useful idiots to spread this bait.
The US government regularly intervenes in the free market, especially when national security is involved. It’s no different than banning Huawei from critical infrastructure, but allowing Nokia to stick around. Look at real estate, automotive industry, hell even construction has similar restrictions.
My concern is strictly national security, it’s my own opinion and I definitely could be wrong, but given what I’ve seen that’s public, there’s not really a downside here. Someone will buy TikTok, and they will make a shit load of money. People will call it a conspiracy, but at the end of the day the idea of China running a social media platform just does not seem very logical no matter how you spin it.
Protectionist trade policy is nothing new, and in the big picture that’s what this really is.
But now? In my lifetime it feels like America's soft power has gone from the sort that could make grown men cry with joy, to basically nonexistent. And I think a big part of it is that we are no longer seen as behaving in a principled fashion. We just do whatever is convenient at the moment and then wrap it in some grandstanding and a whole lot of propaganda. Even with this silly event, I think there's an interesting nuance. The government was so concerned about the tremendous national security threat of TikTok that, just 2 months, ago Biden decided to start his very own TikTok account. [1] It went like you'd expect. But imagine it didn't. Imagine he actually managed to gain some traction. Would he, today, still be looking to sign off on a ban of it?
[1] - https://www.wired.com/story/joe-biden-tiktok-campaign-commen...
CCTV (Chinese central TV) has a Twitter/X/Youtube accounts even though it is banned in China. Heck, Tiktok itself is banned in China but the Chinese government doesn't mind using it to push its messages abroad. This isn't really weird from a Chinese perspective anyways.
China bans whatever they feel like for whatever reason they want. Another example was banning social media imagery or references to Winnie the Pooh on social media because of it being used to mock Xi Jinping in a domain they couldn't directly control otherwise. [2] Of course they were happy to still allow it in domains where they could control the messaging and use, like in books or parks. And this is, of course, one of the many reasons Chinese society isn't particularly well regarded. And this is the exact route we're going down, with the exact same outcomes.
[1] - http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_...
They’re hardly unique to that end, no? I’m with you that this is dumb but mostly because I don’t see ByteDance holding even half its value for another decade.
Microsoft and Google must be absolutely salivating right now, imagine being able to buy your way into operating a major social network in 2024, and not only do the Feds not come after you for antitrust, they actually mandate the sale and greenlight it in advance!
That said, how is this different from Chinas long standing economic policies that have effectively banned many western companies from doing business there and longstanding practices of stealing trade secrets[0][1][2]?
Or how about forcing companies to transfer technology and business operations to local Chinese firms[3] under threat of being banned in the Chinese market?
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s...
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/technology/china-generati...
[3]: https://www.axios.com/2021/12/21/why-us-giants-keep-caving-t...
In an ideal world, TikTok would be prevented from doing business in the US, but everyone would continue to download the TikTok client and act like nothing happened. Just like with Napster and BitTorrent.
Actually, without something like a GFW, the USA can't do more than "ban" app stores from carrying the app in the US market, they can't even really prevent you from switching markets and using an overseas credit card. But they can definitely ban American based tiktokers from getting paid, or American based advertisers from using the platform commercially, which will probably hurt more than anything.
If for some reason TikTok actually disappears, Meta's apps are still there and there will be plenty of money flowing into a new competitor with similar UX.
Because the current situation is already quid pro quo. The rule now is US companies can operate in China if they obey the same rules in China that Chinese companies have to obey in China, and Chinese companies can operate in the US if they obey the same rules in the US that US companies have to obey.
FB is not in China because China requires social media companies to turn over the identities of posters that post things the Chinese government does not like. FB does not want to do that and so FB is not allowed in China.
Everything that people speculate that TikTok might do or be used for has already happened and continues to happen on Facebook. The quid pro quo approach would be for the US to regulate or ban those things on all social media apps in that operate in the US.
China practices the maxim of "we don't have a rule book, but don't do anything that makes us angry" to enforce a maximum of self censorship on its operators. Heck, Chinese services are actually required to break rules in ways that would violate America's FCPA laws (it is impossible to operate in China and not break either American or Chinese laws).
> FB is not in China because China requires social media companies to turn over the identities of posters that post things the Chinese government does not like.
FB would probably setup a JV in a heart beat if the Chinese government would let them (letting the JV handle the data and interaction with Chinese regulators, and keeping it completely separated from Facebook in the rest of the world). The issue is that China wants to know the identities of people outside of China, like in Taiwan or Hong Kong, and Facebook would be breaking Chinese law not revealing them, but would be breaking other country laws revealing them. Again, it is simply impossible for Facebook to operate in China without breaking either Chinese or other country laws. So they pick the rest of the world.
I think ByteDance actually did the right thing with TikTok. It would be impossible to have a service that legally works both in China and outside of China, because Chinese rules would require breaking other country rules, so they did two services instead. But unfortunately, I guess the Americans don't think they are organizationally separate enough, and that the Chinese government can still exert pressure on ByteDance to reveal TikTok data, not just Douyin data.
You forgot to mention that China hacks companies operating in China.
from https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...
> Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.
> First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
Sure, China tries to hack companies. But do they only hack foreign companies or do they also hack domestic companies?
[1] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...
No it hasn't.
Facebook isn't sending information on US journalists to our foreign adversaries.
Thats the difference. Helping out a geopolical enemy that very likely could be at war with the US or its allies, is a big deal.
> all social media apps in that operate in the US.
All social media apps of that size are equally not going to be controllable by our foreign adversaries. That is already what the law does.
And Tiktok will be perfectly able to equally follow the law, once they sell to a non foreign adversary.
> TikTok has (allegedly) shared US customer data overseas.
When discussing a law let's not discuss alleged things, be precise and talk about facts, was it done or not?
> And they’re effectively controlled by an adversarial state.
Do you think everything in this world should be controlled by the USA?
> And that state doesn’t reciprocate by letting US companies freely operate social media services there. So ban it.
Can you please remind me the USA is a democracy? if it is a democracy, then it should not compare itself to other forms of governments and how they operate. Every country has its laws, companies should abide by them, and the USA as far as I am aware was a proponent of free trade, capitalism and democracy
It is perfectly okay to be biased against China, they are biased against my rights as a human.
They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, they don’t give those who “disappear” for speaking out against their government the benefit of the doubt either.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/tiktok-pledged-to-prot...
> Do you think everything in this world should be controlled by the USA?
I think that things that pump directly into the minds of the American public should not be controlled by adversaries of America. That is different from what you said, and the difference matters.
You know full well that it’s not possible to monitor or examine what these companies do, because we don’t have total transparency.
> So much bias in your comment.
The bias isn’t with me, but with you. Obviously you could have taken one second to do a search and find numerous articles on this, such as this one, where TikTok ADMITTED to storing US data in China, which means they lied under oath. That’s why a divestment is not enough to trust them: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/06/21/tikt...
> Do you think everything in this world should be controlled by the USA?
I think the CCP is a corrupt authoritarian regime that used violent revolution and force to come into power and stay there. Most people don’t trust such regimes to control anything. It’s not about the US, or even Chinese people, but about Chinese leadership.
> Every country has its laws, companies should abide by them, and the USA as far as I am aware was a proponent of free trade, capitalism and democracy
I’m not sure what point you’re making. Banning TikTok worldwide would be consistent with all three.
Its clear TikTok has not done the legwork and deployed significant spend on PAC and lobbying.
Anyway, the US should be prepared to ban or regulate other platforms, because all the propaganda that would have come out of TikTok will instead appear in Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Social media really is the worst invention of our time and honestly I'd be happy to see those platforms go.
How is this such a common opinion while we also critcize the great firewall?
---
Individuals are prohibited from using the Internet to: harm national security; disclose state secrets; or injure the interests of the state or society. Users are prohibited from using the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit information that incites resistance to the PRC Constitution, laws, or administrative regulations; promoting the overthrow of the government or socialist system; undermining national unification; distorting the truth, spreading rumors, or destroying social order; or providing sexually suggestive material or encouraging gambling, violence, or murder. Users are prohibited from engaging in activities that harm the security of computer information networks and from using networks or changing network resources without prior approval.
---
[1] - https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/TIKTOK_xml_a8572d67bb....
So, yes, the website would still work when hosted outside of the US and people could sideload the app but in general it would kill TikTok.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...
This was around the time I decided that I didn't care what happened to TikTok.
I have a 1st grader and one day she said she wants to be youtuber when she grows up. She learned this from her peers.
Prior to this answer, she wanted to be a doctor.
I asked her what happened to being a doctor, and she says, she can be both (thank goodness, probably the best answer I can wish for).
When I was growing up I remember some said they wanted to be Barbie, or GI Joe.
Cultural influence will always be a “thing” as it were. Doesn’t mean it stays a primarily thing or wha t have you. I don’t think it says anything meaningful about someone’s future per se
I'm begging of you please let me login.
Douyin, Douyin, Douyin, Douyin,
Even though I'm not a Chinese citizen.
Your algorithm's like TLC,
the cable channel, how it used to be,
serving education, not cheap junk vids.
Just months until Tiktok gets banned.
There'll be now more Bytedance in this land.
To save yourself, just please think of the kids.
As someone who grew up in the edutainment 90s, I'm starting to think that there might actually have been something to the CTA et al. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations_on_children%27s_te... )
It seems as if the regulations have just been weakened over the years, and they're of course nonexistent with streaming and cable. Maybe that should change. Tiktok is just one of the starker examples of a company that COULD be using its algorithmic power for good and choosing to use it for greed, the well-being of users be damned.
Governments that are banning Tiktok:
- Taliban in Afghanistan
- Congress in USA
Governments that ban federal employees and military from installing third party apps on secure devices:
- Pretty much all of them
https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-ban-countries
It's also banned for the entire country in Nepal and Somalia. And oh yeah, it also seems to be effectively banned in one more very large country.
China.
That's about 18% of the population of earth.
And if you count the population of China, that's another 1,412,000,000 people. So it's more like 36%...
” In 2020, India imposed a ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, including the messaging app WeChat, over privacy and security concerns. The ban came shortly after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian soldiers and injured dozens. The companies were given a chance to respond to questions on privacy and security requirements but the ban was made permanent in January 2021.”
That is 1.4 billion people.
It's important to click "not interested" on meme videos for both platforms though. Instagram keeps reverting to meme videos for me (probably because my habits get away from me), but my TikTok account never gives me memes or what I consider low value content.
I wish there was something more like HN, in that it's text-centric, doesn't put my dopamine mechanics into overdrive, but with the content multitude and recommendation accuracy of TikTok. HN is great, but tech stuff isn't the only stuff I care about, and I've not seen good manual moderation scale beyond a frontpage or so.
(Note: There are exceptions for anything the government classifies as "terrorism")
Do you expect TikTok to sell? Or am I missing something?
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/younger-a...
Can't wait for us to be rid of them
Their creator program pays a lot of people decent amounts of money and pays an not insignificant amount of people life-changing amounts of money. YouTube can't match it and Instagram isn't even trying.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General#:...
The real irony here perhaps is that the only thing your government has to do to impair your "freedom" is write a strongly-worded letter to your OEM: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/tech/china-apple-whatspp-thre...
Gladly. I feel like my basic human rights as a citizen of a first world county are being impinged by Israel and their far-right regime. And this is just one other example of that. At this point my real fear of Israel far surpasses any fear I have of any other geopolitical adversary nation. I have nothing to do with Israel or the middle east and yet this country has this insane influence in my country as it does in every other western country. How did this happen and how can we win our democracy back? Since when does Israel get to have a say in the public and private goings of other countries?
I think TikTok is crap, I don't have it installed, and I don't even disagree with your concern.
But is that concern enough to overcome the concern about the government controlling the software you can install?
They would more likely either shut down the US operation, support US users from outside the US, or sell the US users to one of the other social media networks.
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40099135
"We will just use the same thing we introduced and sweared it will ever be used only, ONLY to protect children"
Many people see much hotter conflict with China on the horizon and TikTok in its current form presents a greater risk of letting an adversary manipulate messaging during that conflict than its major competitors do.
That's a strategic threat. Fair and constructive debate can be had as to whether banning it aligns with free speech ideology, whether a conflict is really coming, whether TikTok is really a vector for adversarial manipulation, etc -- but when you don't engage with the apparent and rather straightforward rationale for a ban, you just inject chaos into the discussion and complicate the work of those who might make legitimate arguments against it.
1. If TikTok is a problem, so are the other social media platforms
2. The Chinese government can just buy data from a data broker if the ban goes through
3. Such a ban is purely made of xenophobia
4. There’s no evidence that TikTok is being used to influence its users
5. Such a ban runs afoul of the 1st amendment
To this, I say:
1. I agree that the other platforms are a problem and we need comprehensive privacy legislation to address that. Could action against TikTok be better framed as a first step focused on low hanging fruit?
2. I think too many people focus on data gathering in the abstract without considering the richness of data that is only available in 1st party form, i.e. granular data about the kinds of content and ideas that users are interested in and susceptible to. This may exist in some forms from data brokers, but 1st party access enables something much more powerful.
3. I do think some people are primarily concerned because of xenophobia, but this has little bearing on the potentially real underlying issues.
4. TikTok directly asking users to contact their lawmakers was an overt act that shows the platform is capable of spurring on political action by its users. A CCP-controlled platform that can successfully get people to call their congresspeople should make us pause.
5. I am not a lawyer, but this seems like a scenario where commerce is regulated, not speech. I think there is a lot of confusion about what constitutes a true first amendment issue, and in the absence of TikTok, there are a myriad of ways to continue expressing freely.
This is a hard issue to discuss outside of a community like HN because almost all discussions are made up of whataboutism or hardline opinions aligned to 1-5. I truly don’t know what the right answer is, but I do think TikTok should worry us. I think other platforms should worry us too. We already know how harmful Facebook has been to the political process, and arguably social media is still in its infancy compared to whatever is yet to come.
Absolutely no, because if you are making first steps, you need generalize approach and not selectively target companies
> TikTok directly asking users to contact their lawmakers was an overt act that shows the platform is capable of spurring on political action by its users.
What's wrong with this exactly? You have rights to call your congress representatives when you need them, it is normal and expected in functioning democracy, why this is an exception?
This is an engineering mindset. I’m not aware of any other social media platform that is currently in TikTok’s position wrt affiliation with a geopolitical adversary. I’m not arguing that there shouldn’t also be a comprehensive solution, but right now, it seems clear that TikTok stands alone in terms of why it’s being targeted.
> What's wrong with this exactly? You have rights to call your congress representatives when you need them, it is normal and expected in functioning democracy, why this is an exception?
This isn’t about our rights to call our congresspeople. Of course everyone calling has that right.
At issue is the source of that influence. Outside of the TikTok conversation, such influence is “foreign interference”, “election meddling”, etc. The concern boils down to: are we comfortable with a major foreign government holding the keys to one of the biggest megaphones in existence?
It’s a brilliant play, really. “Direct” interference in the form of targeted advertising and misinformation is something most users find themselves hostile towards. But a social media app that everyone loves is the perfect Trojan horse and in a hypothetical situation where influence was applied in an effort to achieved darker goals, the CCP’s biggest defenders will be their targets. Hypothetically.
> What's wrong with this exactly? You have rights to call your congress representatives when you need them, it is normal and expected in functioning democracy, why this is an exception?
There may not be anything inherently wrong with political action, but when one of the concerns is that the CCP can use TikTok to influence Americans' political behavior, that whole episode proved exactly why everyone believes it. What happens if they start pushing overtly anti-NATO and anti-Taiwan messages instead?
Nothing quite like congress ignoring their 170 million plus constituents (aka a majority of citizens) and 30k+ businesses, eh? Though, I can’t pretend that this is the first time.
Turnabout is fair play and free markets are not necessarily safe markets.
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Instead, its a national security threat that is going to help them kill a lot more people.
Come back when there’s a verified threat that Facebook doesn’t already pose to US citizens.
Or instead of waiting until a world war happens, we eliminate the threat now before it can be wielded and the damage is already done.
China also doesn't own a 20% share of facebook.
But even if you think there are issues with facebook, that is no excuse to ignore tiktok. 1 less threat is still good.
Also:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by...
Bytedance has even admitted to spying on journalists.
A fact which they previously lied about:
'ByteDance and TikTok had initially issued categorical denials of the allegations when they were first reported. The company claimed it “could not monitor US users in the way the article suggested”, and added that TikTok had never been used to “target” any “members of the US government, activists, public figures or journalists”. Those claims are now acknowledged to be false.'
They already spied on US journalists, lied about it, and now you are claiming that things are all fine? Yeah no. Thats a threat that needs to be permanently eliminated.
I can imagine they want to control the narrative with the mentioned algorithm. But are they afraid of it that much that they would ban it if they can’t get it? I mean 170 million Americans in the young demographic are quite important.
The US won't own the company. Some non-Chinese private corporation will. The government won't be able to control the narrative on the app. If you disagree with that, just think about what would happen if Fox bought it: would a Democratic administration be able to have any influence whatsoever on the algorithm? No, of course not. It would be run by American citizens who are protected by the First Amendment.
(Also, I don't think it even has to be owned by an American company, just not a Chinese one.)
US = 10% of users, but 50% of revenue.
>And given how small the US install base is compared to the rest of the world, it’s not an unreasonable stance to take.
Meaning that losing the US customer base wouldn't hurt TikTok too badly.
I said
>US = 10% of users, but 50% of revenue.
You can't now say
>True, but I don’t think it will matter.
You can't have it both ways. Would losing the US market seriously hurt TikTok? Yes, or no?
>China is likely to take an ideological stance, just like the US is.
I don't disagree, but that is orthogonal to your initial claim.
>It’s going to hurt the US more than China, especially with how close to the elections the ban will occur.
If TikTok is banned in the US, as opposed to being sold to some non-Chinese owner, Americans would just move to Instgram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
I'm flagging this because while I agree China is a hostile power, it's detrimental to stoke the flames of war like this.
Honestly it’s shocking the US looked the other way for so long
I don't agree that acknowledging that in any way stokes the flames of war. Having to tip-toe around the fact would be severely detrimental to the quality of discussion on HN, though.
You as an individual are perfectly free to continue discussing anti American ideas if you wish.
Google? Great, an even larger company gets free data
Microsoft? Yuck. Pass.
Apple? Probably not a good idea to lock it behind the Apple Wall. It might have worked for Instagram in 2009-2010, but the ecosystem has lost its desire.
Twitter? Doubt this company has enough capital left to absorb the ecosystem of TT. Not even sure if there’s engineering talent left to absorb it, let alone perform the transition.
Congress sadly DNGAF about our privacy rights, but they are rightfully concerned about espionage and psyops.
With a Chinese-owned company, their incentives are to do what's best for the CCP. In the short term, maybe that's making some money and allowing American Zoomers to work themselves into a frenzy over Gaza, but it may also be interfering in our elections, undermining support for NATO and Taiwan, pushing pro-CCP narratives, etc.
I've seen estimates that TikTok would be valued at $250B.
Bytedance (parent company) had $120B revenue in 2023.