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Comment by bluSCALE4 | Hacker News Reader

Crazy, all the spying we do and we can't provide any definitive proof of anything yet we're jumping to banning a company. Looks like all that red scare stuff isn't a thing of the past, eh? And we all get to suffer for it. From losing a platform, to facing shadow bans with no recourse, to laws being passed that continue to stamp out our civil liberties to the point that we forget they were even there, what's it all for?

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Did anyone claim anything happened that would require definitive proof? The argument was that a Chinese company having that kind of ability to reach US citizens is too dangerous in and of itself to let it stand.

But assumes that american companies having that power is not. That's the red scare part.

There's ample evidence of China and other countries attempting to influence American events using social media and other means.

It's not a red scare if it is true. And it's not a red scare because China isn't being targeted here because they are Communist - they are being targeted because they are a geopolitical adversary. Russia would be treated in the same manner if some killer app came out of there, and they aren't Communist.

American companies are subject to US law and US citizens are protected by US law. What's the equivalent protection China provides?

Shadow bans.

You’re misconstruing the argument. American citizens don’t elect Chinese politicians, I don’t want the Chinese government to have my data. I don’t want the American government to either, but at least I can vote for my American government.

This gov't must really make you feel safe then. I remember people saying Bush made them feel safe. That played out well. You know what makes me feel safe? Making my own decisions.

this comment is either naive or in bad faith. I wonder how a moderately educated person can miss the difference between a propaganda machine operated by a geopolitical enemy and a for-profit company operating within the framework of national laws are different.

You can't miss that if you're even half smart or don't have an agenda.

I guess I'm somewhat of a consequentialist here because I haven't so far seen much of a practical difference between these two things.

As a US citizen I have recourse against action by US companies and the government through both courts and the electoral process. What recourse do I have against action by Chinese entities?

China can and already has used tiktok to influence the U.S. population. Just because the US spies a bunch doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect our best interests.

You misread OP. With all spies they should have found some evidence of CCP trying to influence.

They may well have done. It seems a lot of lawmakers moved toward the opinion of banning tiktok after receiving classified intelligence briefings.

As a non-american (Canadian) citizen, I'm genuinely curious why this evidence can't be made public? Wouldn't that be a far better way to end this debate and un-fracture opinions?

I'm Canadian too, but my guess would be that sharing what they know publicly would give away too much about how they learned it, and would give adversaries a better chance of hiding more in the future.

Please cite a well written study to back up your claim that is not an opinion piece or some state sanctioned message, from any country.

I'm writing one right now, just waiting on the CCP to get back to me with their internal communications and commit history at tiktok which will prove this.

You contradict yourself by asserting "arbitrary action X, which will prove this" implying the party is guilty by mere speculation about unknowns.

I never implied the party is guilty, although my prediction is that they are.

My point is that it's impossible to prove what the commenter was asking for.

"which will prove this" is not a prediction, it's an assertion of absolute truth.

That's a bit of a ridiculous standard. Mostly because I don't think China is liable to hand out the records they've been gathering to cross check findings from other study.

You don't need records conduct research if a specific message is being spread on TikTok against chance, to at least back up an unsubstantiated theory — even if not practical in the court of law.

For anyone who uses TikTok regularly, it's evident there frequently political content that outright contradict's China's positions, spreading unfettered through the platform.

Even if there is zero evidence supporting an influence campaign on the platform, the ease of collecting user data or spying on users is something I would expect an active adversary to do. Like it or not, China and America are at odds with each other, and it's almost silly to assume that China would not be exploiting a successful tool for their own means.

They sent a push notification to every American user asking them to ask their congressman to not ban tiktok.

That's hardly the subtle influence that we're all supposed to be afraid of. If that's the only example you cas come up with... that's not a strong case.

That’s overt influence showing they aren’t afraid to use their muscle. Of course they’re willing to use more subtle messages.

The same govt that screwed the entire world with Covid-19 will use tiktok for nefarious purposes. This isn’t a stretch.

Does this count?

https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinese-Wang-Xia...

How does someone do data collection on how the Chinese government weaponizes a social media platform? That would almost certainly involve Tailored Access Operations (or whatever they are calling offensive cyber warfare these days), not only of questionable legality but definitely compromising the sort of Tactics/Techniques/Procedures you REALLY don't want made public.

As if US apps don't influence the population of other nations. Should every US company be required to divest in every other nation where they have users?

Came here to say this. The US owns Apple and Google, both of which are tremendously more influential than TikTok could ever hope to be. Turnabout is fair play.

Google is banned in China and China is already taking steps to limit use of Apple hardware

Google left China because they didn't want to play by China's rules. Whatever their motivations, I'm glad google stood up to them, but we're not even accusing China of refusing to follow any particular US law. I don't think the US getting our own version of the Great Firewall of China is a good thing.

And TikTok is free to leave if they don't want to play by our rules that companies with large numbers of American users can't be substantially owned or controlled by a foreign adversary and still do business with US companies.

Also, who said we're going to firewall them?

see, this is what is great about soft power. If you use it right who is not straight up an enemy will probably give you a lot of leeway as long as mutually beneficial. China is... not doing that.

The Tik Tok ban is years late and I don't know why any US citizen could not understand why it's the right thing to do, unless on the payroll of the Chinese government.

Not on the payroll of the Chinese government here, and I still think it's terrible for congress to tell us what software we're allowed to run on our own devices or to prevent us from accessing media from other countries.

If TikTok were breaking US laws and refused to comply that'd be one thing, but that's not the case. They say their just worried about "influence" which is beyond hypocritical and not really grounds for censorship. Should they ban websites hosted in other countries next?

Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of free speech will matter then? We've already seen implicit pressure to censor Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Like it or not, your freedom to access whatever software you wish is only really possible because you have a state that is capable of resisting foreign pressure to allow you to do so. This move is very much part of that removing leverage from an explicitly illiberal group. Paradox of Intolerance and so forth. You can pridefully choose to reject that, but I don't think your freedoms will last very long then.

> Let's say the CCP were to establish hegemony in the future and even managed to create a bloc of pro-China politicians in US congress. Do you think these notions of free speech will matter then?

I don't think that having access to websites and media in China, alongside all the websites and media from everywhere else on Earth, will result in us electing congressmen who are secretly working for China. There is zero evidence that TikTok is making that happen. There's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube. What good is it for us to voluntarily give up our freedoms in order to keep the China boogeyman from taking them from us?

There's no evil on TikTok that isn't on facebook and youtube.

Apple has LGBT+ and BLM wallpapers on the phone by default. TikTok only reaches everyone with TikTok installed (and even then, only those that actually uses the app). Apple reaches everyone with an iPhone with its propaganda.

they probably should and they already have. Everyone defends their interest to the extent they can, the only difference is the USA has more leverage.

They use Meta systems to do the same thing? What is special about Tiktok?

They control what is boosted on tiktok

Do you have any evidence of that?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tik...

This is a common practice on social media sites and is not evidence for your claim.

We should block the behavior, not target specific companies or groups because we don't like them. If influencing our elections is bad (and I agree it is) then we should ban corporations from influencing our elections. If we think collecting and aggregating a bunch of data on people is bad we should ban that, rather than picking a single company to ban from doing it while allowing a bunch of others too.

I actually truly believe we should do this- a GDPR style bill for the US that protects people's right to privacy and limits corporations ability to influence our governments. The fact that we know how easy it is for companies to do this but are just upset that a specific company is doing it tells me we're approaching this in the wrong way.

How could we ensure that ByteDance follows such a law? It’s unlikely they would let us perform the necessary level of auditing.

I’m not against such a privacy law but I think it’s orthogonal to the TikTok issue.

OTH, western social media platforms cannot operate in China, why should Chinese social media platforms be allowed to operate in the western world? Even without the whole "spy angle" it makes a lot of sense, trade wars like this happen all the time also between western nations. If China opens up their market, things can be reconsidered.

There are a lot of things China does which limits US reach within their country that the US, as a more free society, would not be a good fit for the US.

This seems to me to be one of things we probably should not have done.

We don't need proof. We didn't have proof of anything 90 years ago when we banned foreign ownership of our TV and radio stations. Are you really this ignorant to US history? Do they not teach US history or civics in school any more?

From what I understand it’s not just about spying. The Chinese Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive the algorithm is that the Chinese version of the app focuses on showing higher quality content (quality as judged by them).

So if they know it’s harmful, they have an interest on showing low quality content to the western audience and possibly psychologically and intellectually affect an entire generation.

> The Chinese Communist Party knows how harmful and addictive the algorithm that the Chinese version of the app focuses on showing higher quality content

This is pure conspiracy theory. You think the nation that produces and loves Grand Theft Auto needs a relatively puritan foreign country, where certain depictions of death are restricted in media, weed and porn are totally illegal, to push such debauchery on the American people?

They were the first ones to do it at scale. Before, you had to seek out the debauchery. TikTok is saying, don’t worry, we have hundreds of scrollable hours waiting for you, just keep scrolling.

Twitter, Instagram, Reddit also are infinitely doomscrollable, with equally if not more inane content.

Vine hit the American streets long before TikTok before it was killed by mismanagement.

Vine had no where near as good of a recommendation algorithm as TikTok. Reddit for over a decade relied on self-curation and upvoting to determine what to show you.

TikTok curated content without the need for a user to do anything else than scroll. You can have a remarkably well personalized TikTok experience without liking, following, or saving any content.

Clearly you've never visited tumblr back in the day. They had both doomscrolling and a CSAM problem.

Whenever I open YouTube in Private mode, I get nonstop soft porn material. US companies are doing enough harm all on their own.

I doubt being offered whatever youtube's version of 'soft porn material' is counts as "harm". There are clearly concerns over disinformation and outright lies with tiktok which we've seen can have hurt people, and I can understand that, but the same can be said for every other social media platform in use which makes singling out the one popular Chinese platform seem pretty suspicious.

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