TikTok divestment law upheld by federal appeals court
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
>Notably, TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC.
The Court held that the law could satisfy strict scrutiny (regardless of whether or not it applies), which requires that the Government prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and less restrictive alternatives would not accomplish the Government's goals. That's a high, high bar, and most laws subject to it are found wanting.
I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to want to hear this case. The most interesting legal question for them to decide was whether the law is subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny, but that is off the table now that the D.C. Circuit says it doesn't matter because the law could satisfy either standard.
Direct link to the opinion: https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111...
Trump also has no ability to upend this: he lacks the authority by law.
"Let us be very clear: TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period. Our US moderation team, which is led out of California, reviews content for adherence to our US policies – just like other US companies in our space. We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future."
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-conte...
"58. Have members of the Chinese Communist Party, or other members of the Chinese government, asked ByteDance or TikTok employees to heat content?
TikTok does not heat content in the U.S. at the request of any government, including the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok may promote or "heat" specific content (including, e.g., promoting the video of an artist who will be hosting a concert on TikTok Live) in line with company content policies to support the inclusion of diverse and high-quality content on the platform. A content operations team will review heating requests submitted by a limited number of cross-functional partners with access to the heating request, and the Content Operations team will either approve or reject the request based on their assessment of whether it follows the platform's best practices in support of content diversity and quality (including, e.g., being engaging and meaningful and focusing on timely/relevant content) and business objectives. An audit function, that is in the process of being refined, will regularly review the heating request process to ensure internal compliance with company policies. Even if the request is approved, increasing visibility or video views ("VV") is not guaranteed as the recommendation system will not heat low quality content (e.g, reposted or irrelevant content). Heating impacts less than 1% of VV in the US."
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20230323/115519/HHRG...
The court isn't an investigative body, they take the evidence submitted. Perhaps TikTok was more careful to be truthful in court submissions than press releases.
The models come from China.
You don't need to ask the US team to silence and amplify certain topics when your models do it for you.
If you know this is happening, you tell the US gov it isn't happening, and they find out it is - you're in for a bad time.
I'm not sure it's physically possible for a CEO to bury their head in the sand deep enough to plead ignorance in this situation.
It’d be easy to go from a set of “moderators” who find examples and use it to query related content and use it as negative training samples. Just a guess.
They’re denying stuff that doesn’t matter while leaving plenty of room for the kind of behavior that does.
To the question that you quoted: asked a question in the past tense, they responded in the present. Asked whether individual people had made requests, they answered whether they currently act on government requests.
It reads as such a non-denial denial.
It is laughable to suggest that the basis for this ruling is anything less than fear and paranoia about Chinese government softpower. Nothing they could have said, and no fact they could bring to bear, would change the outcome of the court, which has been predetermined, for better or worse, by the current American political climate.
Facebook (and Messenger)
Instagram
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Blogspot
New York Times
The Financial Times
The Economist
The Wall Street Journal
Bloomberg
Google News
Wikipedia
YouTube
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Messenger (and Facebook)
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SignalChina can do it because China doesn't have the First Amendment, which is, you know, sort of the whole point...
>TikTok, whose mainland Chinese and Hong Kong[3] counterpart is Douyin,[a][4] is a short-form video hosting service (...)
>While TikTok and Douyin share a similar user interface, the platforms operate separately.[28][4][29] Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people's faces for more videos of them, along with other features such as buying, booking hotels, and making geo-tagged reviews.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
So I think even TikTok (app for non-China markets) isn't available in China.
A) About “Americans”
B) Freedom of Speech
If TikTok bans a post from user846859347 which American’s freedom of speech are we talking about. 98.65% of shit on TT is bot-generated propaganda and removing it isn’t violating anyone’s freedom of speech
Who could possibly take issue with such a technology!
It feels like I'm on Reddit and not in a place that should be more intellectually active and open.
We can make it harder. Switch our telecoms to E2E by default.
We’ve shown the current set-up can be exploited by adversaries. It’s not a huge leap given the prevalence of encrypted messaging apps. And you can market it as a finger to the deep state on one side and a limit on the executive to the other.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/us-telecom-providers...
Of course it does. It removes them. This problem can be solved with a bit of legislation.
Good. Red teaming. This is exactly what I’d say, too, if I wanted to tank a federal E2E bill. It splits the national security bloc by unnecessarily vilifying the IC, the one group that doesn’t traditionally bother with the lawful part of lawful intercept.
-Overthrown Gaddafi and destabilized Libya in the process, leading to million of small arms washing into the Sahel. Jihadists groups have killed hundreds of thousands with those weapons, further destabilizing the region.
-Funded and backed murderous dictators like Hissene Habre who tortured, killed, and raped roughly 40k innocent Chadians.
-Other dictators that have held unto power with implicit/explicit American support include Mobutu, Amin, Barre, etc., and I'm not going to go into the atrocities they've committed.
-Continue to meddle in African countries, including their implicit support for the overthrow of popularly-elected governments like Egypt's Muhammad Morsi, and Congo's Lumumba, after which the country fell apart .
These are just a few examples off the top of my head. No matter how much you scaremonger about China, all they do is transfer technology, build infrastructure, and assist with explicit approval of local governments.
Do they have evil intent in the long-run? Who knows?
But, given their track record so far (of going heads down and building stuff) and the West's history of plain maliciousness, it'd be stupid to suggest anyone shouldn't partner with China.
Holy fuck, are you saying this as someone who lives in the UNITED STATES? Incredible
Would you rather have imperfect, corrupt development projects or the CIA fucking your shit up and definitely not building any dams?
Speaking of loans, most of Africa (and the developing world's) loans originate from Western lenders. They never cared about the borrower's ability to pay back or the fact that a huge chunk of the capital would be stolen. They'd simply demand payment anyway.
So, how is China responsible for loaning money on the same terms? In which specific cases has China demanded payment or strong-armed governments into making concessions for loans? Just one example, please. And don't mention the Hambantota port since you'll lose any credibility left.
If any African country lets their leaders steal dev. capital, it's not China's fault, and it's not different from what has happened with Western loans. In fact, with Western loans, there's an understanding that it will not get to the people, but is seen as a payoff for the puppet leaders to stay loyal.
China builds usable infrastructure that can be used for decades, and you can't argue against infrastructure.
But the main point is what you ignored. Have you ever seen miles of brand new highways falling apart before a single vehicle has driven on them? Spread over hundreds of kilometers, not a one-off mistake.
Furthermore, the only reason I know it was a Chinese-built road is because our guide was explaining the differences (pro and con) between the Chinese (cheap, fall apart, but built quickly) vs Ethiopian (decent quality, but incredibly slow progress and never completed) road projects.
If the western countries want to clean up their acts and offer something better than what China is doing, I am sure the doors of the African governments are open.
The problem is that the West has abandoned Africa, destabilized the region and then complains that Africa is looking for new partners.
What is the West doing to make amends? What are they offering? If those questions cannot be answered then it's no wonder that China is making gains in Africa.
> They're in it for themselves.
As opposed to the West who does things out of the goodwill of it's heart, I am sure. Do we live in the same world?
It already happened[0] through massive predatory loans that Africans were never realistically going to be able to pay back. Of course, you could also frame those loans as China believing in Africa and investing heavily in stalwart people who had long been exploited by other countries. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Were they forced to use them?
Loans with strings attached to ensure ongoing dependence.
>This policy has been alleged by the U.S. Government to be a form of debt-trap diplomacy; however, the term itself has come under scrutiny as analysts and researchers have pointed out that there is no evidence to prove that China is deliberately aiming to do debt-trap diplomacy.
>Research from Deborah Brautigam, an international political economy professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Meg Rithmire, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, have disputed the allegations of debt-trap diplomacy by China and pointed out that "Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota".
>Academic Jeremy Garlick concludes that there is no reason to believe the BRI framework is worse for developing countries' debt than Western lending frameworks.
China still has to learn these lessons, and it will in time. It will need to shake its authoritarian ways first, because lessons can never learned this way. Authoritarianism repeats the same mistakes over and over by reenforcement of dogma.
It’s not jealousy, it’s a warning of lessons learned.
You must no be aware of the CFA francs that is used in some parts of Africa and de facto controlled by France. Control that in turn has been proven to actually channel money out of Africa towards France. I guess the end of exploitation memo must not have reached Paris.
The West doesn't like that China is going to Africa because it creates competition for them. Before France et al could just call the shots and the African continent was simply supposed to shut up and take it.
Now China is there and is trying to offer something better potentially. The West doesn't want to up it's offers so the complaining starts and with it comes the moralizing.
As if the West has any lessons to give to someone else regarding anything moral.
> It’s not jealousy, it’s a warning of lessons learned.
Maybe the West should just let these people live and choose for themselves instead of whining about unfair the competition is.
China financially and politically backed Pol Pot who murdered more than 1 million Cambodian civilians plus Vietnamese civilians on the border with Cambodia.
China kept quiet when Putin invaded Ukraine because they get oil, gas and minerals from Russia.
They all sin, not just US, UK or whatever great power from the West.
The China China China histrionics is disingenuous and dishonesty by dishonest and fraudulent people who are concerned with the loss of control of censorship and thought policing. They want total control over thoughts and speech in America and TikTok is a major problem for them, a red-pill so to say, and they want everyone taking that blue pill because their whole tyrannical and fraudulent power structure relies on regularly taking the regime’s blue pills.
It’s why there is so much frantic flailing about this issue and the same people who not only never cared about “protecting the children” from violence, gore, and sexuality including explicit pornography, are all the sudden so concerned with children once they may learn something about the world that makes them realize the dishonest, lying, narcissistic, histrionic, psychopathic dirt bags that control all of the west; have been telling them lies and abusing them and plundering their future for their own kind.
TikTok was used to push an unknown, unlikable character to almost win the presidential elections in Romania, who shares a lot of border with both Ukraine, the Black Sea and Danube.
See also: is China suddenly a center of human rights activism, or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians?
China is, when it serves their primary interest of deflecting criticism from the operation of their very extensive totalitarian/authoritarian system. IIRC, they put out "human rights" reports all the time to that end that do stuff like criticize American prison conditions.
> or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians?
It's worth noting that TikTok could (and probably would) be used by the PRC in very subtle ways, that would be missed in a distinction of "is it Chinese people speaking or is it Americans." I think the influence mechanism would almost certainly consist of giving artificial boosts to American voices that unwittingly serve PRC goals, e.g. anti-war activists if China invades Taiwan. They could even strongly condemn China as a warmonger, but their elevation would still serve Chinese goals if they spread the message that the US should stay out.
And given that the PRC has access to all the TikTok data (I believe no claims the could not access it), they can probably very effectively figure out exactly the voices to elevate that would do their job effectively.
No. This is about using reason to anticipate and prevent problems, not dumbly waiting around until the actualized problem stares you in the face and it's too late to do anything about it.
But if you want evidence, all that is needed is the evidence that China and the US are adversaries.
Then your standards of evidence are too high, and least for making decisions in this area. It's like you're working in computer security, but you demand evidence a vulnerable system was actually hacked and used maliciously before you're willing to take action to patch it and clear out the infiltration. It's foolish. Patch the damn system.
A theory that can explain everything explains nothing.
Aside, Congress is not a courtroom. The legality of the law is on trial, not its motivation or the basis in fact of its public justification.
However, returning to your witty witch-hunt comment, I don't think it's 1:1.
Consider that by that line of reasoning it's very difficult to prove that intelligence agencies ever do anything at all. All they have to do is say "no we didn't, and we don't have to allow anyone to have a close look".
In fact, if we simply relied on governments and faceless corporations to always tell us the truth, we'd probably manage to be even worse off than now! Haha.
There exists a difference between investigating or rejecting that with uncertain sources (esp. large and secretive institutions) and specifically accusing. Or between a witch hunt and demanding that (for example) food manufacturers should have to disclose their secret ingredients and some processes to the government to make it harder to put poison or addictive drugs in there without telling anyone.
It's absolutely absurd to think that the Chinese government doesn't use TikTok to influence non-Chinese users. They'd be incredibly foolish not to do so. And the difference here (as compared to other nations, including the US) is that that Chinese government gets to legally, deeply meddle in the affairs of Chinese companies as a matter of course. Running influence campaigns on a platform owned by a company out of the Chinese government's reach is a bit more work; they get to do it essentially "for free" on TikTok, plus, as a bonus, they'd have access to data they wouldn't get from a foreign-owned platform.
I think any country should have the right to protect its citizens from influence campaigns led by other countries. Whether or not that protection can and will be effective, and whether or not it's a smokescreen for other purposes (e.g. protecting Meta's market share), is another matter, of course. And certainly some kinds of protection -- such as a US TikTok ban -- will be wildly unpopular with a lot of people who love using it.
1.) How Chinese companies interact with the CCP: they are 100% subservient with a CCP party member who can pull the CEO in at anytime and assign them tasks related to studying Xi thought and other party material, as well as demand the company do anything for the state.
2.) What great power competition looks like including economic warfare (tariffs, massive state subsidies to protect national defense, influence operations for allies, securing raw materials, reducing reliance on rivals, etc).
3.) How espionage in general works in support of political aims, and especially how each nation uses it to further their goals. For China, it's always been about vacuuming up as much data as possible, and then later on finding use cases for it. The disruption side of their practices are successful if they make chaos in an adversary that forces them to spend time on dealing with that instead of confronting them. Each nation acts in their own interest and are absolutely ruthless here in a way the average person rarely can comprehend.
4.) The free pass given to China related to tech and social media industries. American Social Media is banned in China[1]. Why do you think that is? There are many reports/cases of American intel/military use cases of social media to influence outcomes worldwide[2]. China wasn't going to allow this. But we are supposed to allow them access to us? We know this is the case because we would do the same in their position[3]. There's a reason it's banned in India[4].
5.) We know China influences the Douyin algorithm[5] locally to promote behaviors the government perceives as healthy or important to state interests. This often manifests in pushing more STEM related content and suppressing the ragebait content that flourishes in other nations[6].
Even if the leadership of Bytedance were 100% on board with not pushing CCP interests to the USA and world, there's no mechanism of protection or redress from them. The CCP can, and will, disappear high profile people at will with no repercussion, and replace you with someone who will listen. Any smart nation who wants to protect the minds of their citizens would do well to extremely regulate social media in their country.
In your case for "Americans upset over Israeli treatment of civilians". Assuming that the American outrage is 100% organic on it's own: It is in the best interest of China to amplify that outrage and make it seem stronger than it is for a variety of reasons:
A. This will have knock on effects for policy makers and their aides who are hyper-tuned in because if their constituents want something, voting for that is how B. Anything that disrupts American foreign policy and allies is an asset at weakening the grip the dollar has on international markets C. Israel is an extremely talented producer of technical people. If the relationship between the USA and Israel sours, then suddenly a pathway opens for China to get access to the incredible tech that Israel develops for various US programs. (This is also ignoring their incredibly advanced spyware capabilities in their private sector, which is morally repugnant, but it does exist).
[0] - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.reddit... (look at the most addicted cities) [3] - https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-... [4] - https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY [6] - https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o... [7] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-li...
Assuming that's true, TikTok, at the behest of the CCP, can (and will) amplify the reach of that outrage to an outsized impact. If the outrage is 5% of TikTok users in the given nation, and that 5% is thrown into the FYP of 50% of the users in that nation, that's an impact that any power that be dreams to have.
> Any smart nation who wants to protect the minds of their citizens would do well to extremely regulate social media in their country.
Extremely regulating social media isn't going to decrease the gormlessness of the population. In fact it'll probably make it worse. We can try to tamp down manipulative content all we want but it's a losing battle. What we need instead is to educate our masses. The problem is we won't, because our regulators want to be able to manipulate us. They just don't want other countries to be able to.
I'm just not comfortable with a widely used platform for Americans to speak to other Americans being taken away because it might skew one way politically or another, no matter what evil country is advantaged by that. Even if it were heavily edited by enemy of USA Xi himself, I am uncomfortable with that. We are not a country that bans things because it's too dangerous for people to know them.
The government doesn't get to decide what's good for us to learn and say and hear. We do. That's the entire idea of free speech. And this tramples on it significantly
The other government doesn't become in charge because they put out stuff on social media Americans want to watch. Americans are in charge no matter what they think or who they are influenced by. That's the whole idea of democracy
It was about the fact that a firm which is foreign and unsympathetic captured lightning in a bottle: they became the cool platform for a new generation. Why bother trying to figure out why the platform that Mom uses to share AI-generated Trump spam with Aunt Bertha is no longer drawing the 14-year-olds when you can just rattle some sabres in Congress and get them to shut the competition down for you?
If we're so terrified that TikTok can blast a candidate into office, we should be equally concerned that Rumble or Twitter could too. If your media is that powerful, it's dangerous wherever the nominal mailing address of the firm is. Taking potshots at single firms or specific ownership strategies just means the next one will take a slightly different form and dispense slightly different hazards.
The only way to actually regain control is to boost media literacy. TikTok can be part of a balanced media diet, but are we teaching kids "Compare what the BBC and Tass say, and the truth is probably in the middle?"
I'm seeing a lot of attempts to render Tiktok as interchangeable to any number of other examples in order to pose a dilemma about logical equivalences. I just don't think these withstand factual scrutiny. Rumble is not at the scale or engagement of Tiktok and Twitter does not have ties to a major competitive state actor.
You can see how it's meaningfully differentiated if you want to. If you don't want to, you attempt to restate the terms on which the comparison happens to make it look for fuzzy, so everything looks the same.
That is one fucking tie if you ask me.
He has direct motive to influence the operations of the American state, the resources to amplify his messages, and has control of a platform that's mainstreamed in a way that gives it a broader reach than TikTok ever had.
Saying he's an American entity is barely meaningful. When you're that rich, you can probably pull in five new passports given 48 hours notice, so the one you carry at any given point is largely a flag of convenience.
Blaming China is a cheat code for the current political climate. See the Huawei fiasco: No level of audits, disclosures, or actual technical evidence about security would satisfy-- It Is Foreign So It Is Evil. So I'm sure that the hype against TikTok was fanned in part by their competitors who saw an opportunity.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions like this one.
Muzzle social media and make sure everyone gets their news from the "approved" mainstream media platforms which we all know never lie and have never pushed one narrative only instead of providing facts.
I am sure this will end well.
Next step, we should all leave our TVs on 24/7 just so we don't miss a single word from our beloved leaders. Maybe install some cameras in every home while we are it, you know to save the children/defeat terrorism/save the planet (take your pick)...
Nobody in the open knows, that is the problem.
But also russian millitary bloggers are outraged by the IDF. Simply because it is war in the information sphere, not that they care about the people there. Just like China don't give a damn about them - but they can and do use it to weaken the self declared western moral leadership.
No, but is there a question that china still might try to influence and leverage it?
Market place implies transparent exchange of ideas. But if the TikTok algorithm is political biased, it is not a honest exchange of ideas anymore. (same goes for X's or FB, or whatever). But personally I am cool with not using those services.
In essence, the government wants to ban foreign news sources. TikTok may have been less editorialized than Al Jazeera, but it had wider reach.
In short, you have no idea whether it is more or less editorialized than other news outlets, and that's the central issue here.
It is a sign of weakness for a free society.
Ideally in my oppinion, intelligence services would proof the manipulation - and show it to the public. Who then decide on their own to be sceptical of TikTok content.
I am against a direct government intervention.
But it is still a very different situation in terms of impact compared to a single local newspaper.
Based on the fact that FedGov is presenting evidence to the court under seal, it seems likely that intelligence services have proof (or -more likely- "proof") of manipulation, but are only showing it to the judge.
Does the likely fact that the US government is refusing to provide for public inspection and discussion what they're using as evidence of alleged national-security-relevant Chinese interference in domestic affairs make you more comfortable with the veracity of their claims that the Chinese government not only has substantial control over TikTok, but that that control is so harmful to national security that it must be unilaterally terminated?
Why or why not?
With data ranging back years, sometimes even birth of the individuals?
I don't think so.
Newspaper editor edit one newspaper for everyone.
If FedGov is going to be fixing problems with the domestic news and entertainment industry, they should start by reversing that consolidation of control.
A lot of folks have been empowered to say “end the war in Gaza”. A lot of those folks don’t quite know what to say to “should we allow Hamas to seize control of Palestine”?
If this were not the case, democracies would work best when the public was not taught to read. :-) Can we really argue that the public is too stupid to be trusted with the ability to communicate? If that is the idea we should admit, at least, that what is being considered inverts every principle of the free world.
Having a foreign government control the narratives that reach mass audiences is not at all the same as trusting the public with the ability to communicate.
You’re just spouting one cherry picked narrative of an incredibly messy situation.
Bombing people indiscriminately tends to cause them to oppose you and support the people who are most credibly able to stop you - regardless of anything you do. So it was inevitable that support for Israel would plummet and for Hamas would rise, once people learned about the situation.
TikTok only had a hand in this to the extent that it helped Western citizens bypass Western soft censorship and learn about the situation sooner.
Notice that if TikTok was spreading a false or one-sided view of the situation, Israeli and Western government could have effectively countered it by providing an even more complete information with even more evidence, but they did not. This in itself is weak evidence that there isn't a more complete view to provide.
I don’t believe we should determine who rules Palestine. But I also don’t believe we should allow a hostile state to just bankroll effective seizure of Palestine and the military intimidation of Israel.
It’s frankly insanity to tell Israel to be chill while a hostile nation, which is posturing a potential nuclear attack, is actively funding a large and growing base of terrorist operations next door.
Palestine is a proxy battleground of many foreign actors. Reducing it to a conflict that is just Israel vs. Palestine is bullshit
The entire conflict is that Israel believes their safety necessitates that Palestine not be sovereign because they believe a sovereign Palestine will try to take back the land it lost whether in Israel itself or the various illegal encroachments over the years. Palestine on the other hand is not going to accept Israeli sovereignty over it. And thus the conflict. However many or few foreign actors are involved doesn't change the root of the conflict.
It is messy geopolitics. There are dire consequences to sitting back and doing nothing. It’s a prisoners dilemma with large moral negative externalities to playing.
The newer apartment renters (20s-40s typical young urban dwellers) are not surprised by anything they see on the news regarding the conflict. I think they had ways to see what the older generations had just been blind to since before this latest flare up happened.
Despite brigading from any side, anyone can get anything trending on social media, including videos of the aftermath of israeli air strikes, meanwhile nothing but filtered news headlines make it out of editors.
A fun exercise is comparing how big news websites frame headlines when Palestinians die (passive voice) and Ukrainian / israelis are killed.
If one newspaper can convince the United States to support the Spanish-American War because one of her own warships blew up due to poor maintenance, It's not a stretch to believe a sufficiently well-funded state operation with relatively unfettered control over an entire media application could run a similar opinion shaping operation.
Public opinion is the cornerstone of the US system, but the public can be misinformed at scale.
Correct. But (until relatively recently) the proposed solution to deception and propaganda was dismantling them with facts and reason. "Free and open discussion in the public square is critical to a well-functioning society." is one of the foundational principles of our country.
This notion that adults should be protected by deception and propaganda by censorship, rather than frank and open conversation is a distressing resurgence of authoritarianism.
As always, when looking at the machines of control that politicians are assembling, ask what can be done with it by someone who is dedicated not to the protection of their citizens, but rather the suppression or destruction of a section of the citizenry they disfavor. If someone who hates can legally do more harm with the machinery than someone who cares can do good, either ensure that it is built differently, or that it is not built at all.
If you've never looked into it, you'd do well to learn a bit about what it takes to become an AS and get an ASN. There was a post on the red site a while back about someone doing it on the cheap as a dare for their stupid hobby project.
If you think of TikTok as an instrument of the Chinese state, this could look consistent with the phenomenon Anne Applebaum has been talking about lately: a pattern of loose alliances-of-convenience between autocratic nations in service of specific disruptive missions [1]. A less spooky reading might be that Chinese norms don’t align with American ones as far as proactively stopping this kind of thing—that they just don’t care about this kind of Russian caper on the other side of the world. They sure do think carefully about their domestic information environment, though; and they’re probably the best in the world at policing mass thinking when they feel like it.
Where are the lines between mere negligence, complicity, and active participation? That seems a little more delicate than a couple news cycles’ work. The Europeans have asked TikTok to preserve records to find out.
I suspect the light and fire seems to be around whether a nation wants any tool like this to just be lying around, ready to disrupt the nation’s politics at a moment’s notice. Social media may be new in the scheme of things, but in the years since the UN studied Facebook’s genocides [2], governments have at least tried to get a handle on the kinds of monitoring and moderation tools and tactics that can help counter this kind of campaign (some with more deference than others to authentic speech).
As far as I’ve heard, the allegation had never been that Chinese government villains cackled and rubbed their hands together and said “today we take Romania!” Rather, it’s that the tools are powerful enough that we don’t want to leave them lying around unchecked—especially since, at least from the perspective of American and European policy professionals, Chinese thinking doesn’t really recognize a distinction between commercial and national security interests.
Others may have better sourcing than I do for this specific instance, but I think it’s fair to point to Western thinking about China’s Military-Civil Fusion policy [3] to think about dual-use idea-disseminating technologies like TikTok.
[0] https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference...
[1] e.g., https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-r... and https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/russia-chi...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... , https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/myanmar-ffm/reportoft... , https://iimm.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Hate-Speech-R... [PDF, large]
[3] https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/12/chinas-military-civil-f...
Why is it ok then for Youtube to feed violence and awful behavior to people (probably to lots of kids) in the US if it's able to influence people? Is the thought that Meta and Google (both without ethics or morals) are just trying to get us to buy shit we don't need, but Tiktok is trying to get us to agree (or not agree) with their stance on x?
What's the alternative? Even HN has "algorithmic content" the algorithm is based on voting and time.
That model may not work with all social media, but as far as I remember it worked for Facebook.
> We investigated the effects of Facebook’s and Instagram’s feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity. The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw decreased on Facebook, and the amount of content from moderate friends and sources with ideologically mixed audiences they saw increased on Facebook. Despite these substantial changes in users’ on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period.
I don't think we are okay, but I don't think there's an across the board equivalent. We prioritize the egregious examples while simultaneously searching for a systematic redress that's less heavy handed.
I don't think Facebook marketing Blue Apron to its users is the same kind of issue as undermining democracy in Romania.
There isn't such a thing as a non-manipulatible feed. Even a chronological feed can be manipulated by spam, so it is a bit like asking why is it okay for tools to be made of mass when it means they can be used to bludgeon someone to death.
I think the allegation, implied rather than stated in this case, is that it is not predominantly any of those, but that it is predominantly the Russian state.
Which would serve as an example that it's able to be mobilized, even weaponized, at the behest of state actors. China would not necessarily be culpable under this interpretation of this particular example, but it illustrates that they could exercise that same mechanism.
How does it work? You simply give some money to TikTok and the whole country runs to vote for an unknown, unlikable candidate? It must have superpowers.
... the same power as all media is sufficient
TikTok was required to comply with electoral law and check/enforce all this stuff but did not respond until after the elections, and apparently did not enforce these electoral laws, while pocketing all the illegal ad money.
Same with Trump. I don't agree with many of his policies but hey, did the establishment take care of the people?
I interpreted it as questioning the democratic process. I could be wrong.
Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.
So is that promoting Trump? Or is it double reversi and trying to make people more confident to not need to vote, while also telling them to go vote? It gets confusing.
When election campaigns "got going" I started first see pro-Left content for about 2 days off and on. Disliked the F out of it... as I was doing that the algorithm was proly thinking "ohhh the right-winger, here's some awesome pro-right content..." took 2 days (off and on) to dislike that shit... From like August onward I maybe saw 2-3 political videos weekly if that...
Social media companies do not give a shit what you watch/read as long as you read/watch as long as possible. So you will get whatever (on TikTok or otherwise) you actually want to see there :)
look at romania!
china is hacking the elections now!
The far right is rising => everybody is racist. The cost of living is rising too quickly and people are complaining => you are too stupid to see that the economy is doing extremely well and if that doesnt make sense to you then you must be Chinese or Russian puppet.
it's so easy a toddler could do it.
1) it's a very well known fact that 70% or so of the electorate can't be moved from their positions, even if their party said they were gonna harm them people will still not vote the other ones, thus any real advertisement or anything is gonna only impact a few % of people
2) extremism is on the rise everywhere in the world, from Germany to US, from South Africa to South America. Narratives have made centrist governments, especially those coming from larger coalitions made weak (often for good reasons)
3) we have had multiple scientists (stats, sociologists) look at these allegations of interference and no single data seems to demonstrate that political discourse on TikTok is any different than other media platforms. In fact, if anything, it seems way less controversial than other US based ones.
4) The average European finds supporting Ukraine not only a lost cause nowadays, but gives part of the blame to the west
So what's an "average European"? You and your friends?
A recent poll from Germany, for example, found solid (>60 percent) support for both sanctions against Russia, and military support for Ukraine:
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1312216/umfra...
They would also prefer a diplomatic solution, but that doesn't mean they think "Ukraine is a lost cause".
In Italy, where I live only 55% of the polled people support sending money to Ukraine, and only 33% support sending weapons.
The only Europeans I know that are very pro helping Ukraine, like where it's an exception to be sceptical are Poles.
https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/due-anni-di-guerr...
https://www.romania-insider.com/romanians-ukraine-negotiate-...
The average European believes that Ukraine cannot win the war (meaning getting back their 1991 territories), but that's also a reality and the opinion shared by analysts, and is honestly tired of it.
This war is extremely expensive on Europe and with no realistic prospects of Ukraine going anywhere it's hard to be a die hard supporter for Zelenskis official line.
In any case what happened in Romania is a tragedy.
A court canceling a democratic election because one candidate allegedly got financial support from Russia (something that many parties currently ruling in Europe like Italy did too by the way) is a very disturbing fact.
This should've been handled, if true, weeks ago. Not after the candidate got so many votes.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/how-strong-is-public-support-for-ukrai...
If the poll were taken today, the percentages would probably shift a bit on some of these questions. But what's more interesting is the spread across the 10 countries.
Notice that Italy and Hungary tend to sit more on the "doomer/skeptic" side (in accord with the poll you offered in regard to Italy's sentiment), while countries like the UK, Finalnd and the Baltics are more on the "there's still hope" side. And Germany seems to fight right in the middle.
Which suggests that no, the average European does not simply think Ukraine is a lost cause.
The average European believes that Ukraine cannot win the war (meaning getting back their 1991 territories), but that's also a reality and the opinion shared by analysts, and is honestly tired of it. ... It's hard to be a die hard supporter for Zelenskis official line.
Well that's obviously no longer Zelenskyy's position, right?
Also, you're setting up a false dichotomy here -- either the (now basically collapsed) "die-hard" position, or the "Ukraine is lost cause" position.
My observations indicate that the median sentiment falls somewhere between these extremes.
It's odd for a startup/tech oriented board.
It's not "all about politics". You could have said "Why is it mostly about ...?" and the question would have had an entirely different ring to it. But the wording you chose was weird and distracting, so I don't think I'll be able invest much time in answering.
Other than to say: I respond mostly to muddled thinking and misinformation (and in some cases outright disinformation). Which not coincidentally seems to bubble forth continuously from posts referencing that country (and a certain other one). Which also tend to appear in bursts, as we have seen. So the intent is to keep the conversation at least borderline reality-centered. And hence, per the site guidelines, more "interesting".
(Not that your post is in this category. I just think you're probably mistaken).
In that sense the interest isn't even all that "political" as such. It's more psychological and cognitive.
It's odd for a startup/tech oriented board.
It's not specifically startup/tech-oriented. Check the guidelines again.
I have an interest in tech also, but am also rather burned out on it.
The more powerful it gets, the more boring it gets, somehow.
(Also this week I had to share my credit card number over the phone to book an airline ticket and the next day I got a nice assortment of fraud charges despite using tap to pay/Apple Pay everywhere else)
The real problem is the algorithmic control this gives China to influence the populations of Western countries. But Meta was found to outsource content moderation to a Canadian company that outsourced Instagram content moderation to Iran.
This is not about privacy. These platforms have become the new media. Getting your news from profit-seeking American and Chinese companies is not ideal in the long run.
Just seems like pretty incomplete control if they can still let themselves get to this point.
And if you're talking about public opinion, just look down this thread - most people are against this action, not for it.
And unlike that metaphor, TikTok offers basically 0 value over replacement compared to other media. Maybe it’s even worse than other media since it’s more addictive.
But either way, if my state is banning things based on their "value", on what might be "dangerous" to my thought, well, I might as well move to China! Because its the same thing there, but at least I know I can get cheap rent.
They did try: https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-activates-army-of-u-s-tweens-to-s...
"TikTok sent a push notification to United States users on Thursday morning asking them to call their local representative to “Stop a TikTok shutdown.” The app refers to a bipartisan bill gaining momentum in Congress this week which could ban TikTok altogether."
The first amendment allows us to choose whatever we want to influence us. If Americans want to sit in front of Chinese controlled social media and gorge on it, that's our right. I don't agree the government can take it away. The idea that they should control what influenced us is very anti democratic.
Strict Scrutiny has two tests: 1. Compelling Government Interest 2. Narrowly Tailored (least restrictive means)
Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights.
The concurrence by Judge Srinivasan would instead hold that the law is subject to only intermediate scrutiny and uphold the law on that basis.
Why do it this way? It takes away a potential avenue of appeal for TikTok. They can’t ask the Supreme Court to hold that the law is subject to strict scrutiny, because that issue wouldn’t help them overturn this ruling.
If you had forced the rest of the panel to choose, I think they would have landed on intermediate scrutiny.
>There are reasonable bases to conclude that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate even under these circumstances. We need not, however, definitively decide that question because we conclude the Act “passes muster even under the more demanding standard.”
It's possible that either Judge Ginsburg or Judge Rao think the strict scrutiny should apply, but if forced to put money on it I would say they both land on intermediate scrutiny.
Not to say that you couldn't be right, them both landing on intermediate scrutiny is just not how I read the tea leaves.
Is there a precedence on foreign actors (either inside or outside the US) having First Amendment rights?
Outside of the US your question is moot, as the US constitution is only binding in the US.
It's so weirdly targeted to me. Why TikTok only?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/tiktok-accusatio...
Because the government is not threatened by X, Meta, or YouTube. In many ways, it exists in their pocket. There's not a lot of looming dissonance between what those parties are interested in seeing happen and what the modern federal government (as run by either party) is pursuing, and at this point, those each provide far more value as an allied propaganda arm than as a hostile propaganda risk.
But China and the US have directly competing interests in many places around the world, and the radical changes that both countries have undergone in the last 80 years have set the stage of a fresh contest of power. Obviously, both parties would like to navigate that contest in the best position possible. Allowing your anticipated opponent access to unmediated, private communications with hundreds of millions of citizens in an already vulnerable democracy is not a great position to be in during that contest.
I’ve used both reels and TT. I’ve only ever gotten lots of pro-China content on TT.
Better check on that. I know of a few countries that have no problem with foreign-owned radio stations. I assume that applies to television stations, too.
When the Iron Curtain came down, radio companies from around the world started buying up signals in eastern Europe.
How did you manage to get Chinese propaganda?
Look at the proposed solution: Just sell TikTok to someone else who isn't China.
Countries are starting to view it as a _serious_ national threat, due to the disinformation risk.
Just look at the Romanian election: A couple of hours ago they annulled the first election round, after a coordinated Russian campaign managed to propel a rather unknown pro-Russian candidate to the top, where they used platforms like TikTok to influence voters.
Not that platforms like Facebook, Snap, etc. are much better, but this comes down to having some control.
That's not nearly the damage that people are organizing against. It's hard to imagine China really gains much simply be holding some trove of old details about some subset of US consumers, no matter how large. Vanishingly few users are individually interesting from halfway around the world, and the aggregate data grows stale quickly.
The pressing concerns are in them being able to (a) advance their global political agenda by dynamically manipulating what people see and how its presented to them in a way that almost nobody can monitor, and (b) intercept ostensibly private messaging between select users. From the national security perspective of a foreign government, both of these are huge vulnerabilities in a hot or even mildly warm conflict with China as most of the globe seems to be anticipating.
And the fact that pushing back against these strategic threats raises ideological conflicts with Western celebration of free speech and free trade -- making it hard for the government to do anything about the threats and stoking internal conflict when they try -- is gravy on top of it.
It's interesting that these are only actionable threats when they apply to [insert foreign boogeyman here].
That is, there's been lots of lip service paid about misinformation and privacy violations on/by U.S. companies. But it feels like the only meaningful action is being taken when it's some hypothetical foreign adversary. The further away they are, the more insidious.
I've always felt the most tangible threat is in my backyard, instead of on the other side of the planet.
But to the US government (and its codependent allies), losing grip of the influence the US secured over the Pacific rim of Asia during to the 20th century and yielding it to China is an embarrassment at best and a major strategic loss at worst, and sets the stage for some kind of active contest of power which would be really costly and painful. Taking measures that prepare for that, under the lax purview of international law and diplomacy, is simply easier to do.
Do you have more sources/readings on this? It's not that I don't believe you, it's just the first rationale I've heard that doesn't boil down to vague innuendos about manipulation and national security that are equally applicable to US companies.
And isolationist, hands-off US would be great for China (and Russia, etc.). China has been increasing their influence on the global stage for quite some time now, and would love to surpass the US in its global influence. Helping to get leaders elected (like Trump) who want to pull back and focus inward could easily be a part of that strategy. (To be fair, I don't think China got Trump re-elected; I think Democrat blindness toward actual domestic issues got Trump re-elected.)
> "... that are equally applicable to US companies.*
I don't really agree that's the case. From the US government's perspective, the dominant social media platforms being owned by US companies is a big win. Certainly those companies sometimes act in ways that piss off the US government, but the trade off is worth it.
Modern history through the Cold War sees diplomacy through the lens of "great powers" exercising some "sphere of influence" over vassals, subjects, and partners.
Through the 19th and 20th century, up to WWII, the US worked to define its sphere of influence as all of the Western Hemisphere (Monroe Doctrine) and as much of Pacific rim as they could claw away from declining/decolonizing European powers.
After WWII, as the only great power able to proceed at full stride and with no recovery to muster, they were able to cement the Pacific projection through new relationships with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc
But the landscape changed over the subsequent 80 years, with China's independent modernization and industrialization setting it up as the modern "great power" was due to inherit its legacy from pre-modern history.
And so we arrive at today, where China feels increasingly ready to challenge stale European and US influence over Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South East more generally. The US inevitably needs to respond to those challenges. That's the brewing, long-anticipated, and seemingly inevitable conflict that becomes increasingly hot as the US is stretched thin by internal conflict and Russias's parallel challenges to it in Europe.
In this global conflict, TikTok's continued success is a huge benefit to China and huge vulnerability to the US.
Meanwhile, domestic social media companies actually play the opposite strategic role, giving the US a channel to project its voice into foreign constituencies to influence both allies and enemies. Which we can assume is why China already bans them there.
Well, duh. I know my government and what it can do and tends to do, for the most part. I know what restrictions are placed on it, and that when they circumvent those restrictions, it usually comes to light, even if it takes a while. I know that news outlets here can criticize the government and not have their journalists arrested. US (and other Western) intelligence agencies presumably run influence campaigns on social media to influence foreign citizens. While I may not agree with that practice, it's not high on my list of things I'm going to be worried up about.
[Insert foreign boogeyman] also presumably runs influence campaigns on social media that target the citizens of my country. When they run those campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, Bluesky, etc., it is safe to assume that the people running those companies (well, perhaps with the exception of Musk) don't like that, and will try (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to shut them down.
If China wants to run influence campaigns on TikTok against US citizens, TikTok will actively help them do it. If they're not already doing this, their intelligence agencies are asleep at the wheel.
but what about Instagram and X?
And yes, that ownership is problematic but I would argue that the others including those you've listed here are equally problematic for the safety of users.
So to answer your question: they should be too, but they likely won't, because the force behind this isn't a desire to protect users from disinformation, the desire is to protect western companies from scary Asian competition. Same reason behind us constantly propping up Detroit. Protecting people from disinformation is just an excuse.
Of course it's not a coincidence. It's not even a hidden, implicit unspoken motive, it's openly explained as the reason behind the concern! TFA explains this clearly, numerous times.
Aah I see the ruling elite in the West can't actually handle freedom of speech. The court really should unseal the classified part where they accuse TikTok of towing Chinese/PRC line. Then lets have a referendum to decide its fate or at least Congress to pass a law banning it.
They did that already.
If this were really the problem, TikTok wouldn't be singled-out. This is american frustration with the sympathy to Palestine: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...
What you've described so far isn't disinformation but something more like illegal campaigning. This and disinformation both happen on platforms owned by the countries they're effecting (Facebook in 2016 with Trump). US shareholders benefiting doesn't really stop it.
You mean disinformation that the West does not control. If i want to hear disinformation, I don't need TikTok. I can just watch the public TV channels that are just parroting whatever the government says.
> Just look at the Romanian election: A couple of hours ago they annulled the first election round, after a coordinated Russian campaign managed to propel a rather unknown pro-Russian candidate to the top, where they used platforms like TikTok to influence voters.
Yes, these people are so brain dead that a few videos on TikTok changed their minds. It absolutely not because the governments of the EU have stopped listening to their people. No, it's the Chinese and the Russians.
Typically the things that get deplatformed are not well-reasoned criticism so much as emotional outbursts full of barely coherent rhetoric anyway... (this comment should not be interpreted as taking a position on the issue).
Politicians were not happy that tiktok had those raw footage. It's not criticism but trying to hide reality.
Do you actually believe the criticism of Israel was just random and “viral”? I find it hard to believe sitting on that platform is anything ‘random’.
I give this a 0% chance of being real and 100% chance of being an illusion they want you to believe
I have friends working for nonprofits in this space, and I can assure you the 25 stories a day they blast out are not being censored
Actually, it has been the 76 years of increasingly brutal occupation with no end in sight, along with all the compltely ludicrous propaganda the State of Israel (and its right-wing support base abroad) continually transmits about itself this state of affairs, with the weird expectation that the world should actually believe it for some reason -- which has allowed criticism of Israel to go viral.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/jul/21/trump-...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-praises-...
In cases like Vidal v. Elster, United States v. Rahimi, and Samia v. United States I think you'll see the justices straining to understand how how square originalism against the modern world, and having to turn to another justification, traditionalism, which feels more like a "I believe this to be true, due to my political lenses" than perhaps some originalist justices in the past.
That said, I personally find originalism to be pretty conservative already (lowercase c again), and kind of silly, but the recent justice appointments are dialling it up more and more.
"Under intermediate scrutiny, the Act complies with the First Amendment “if it advances important governmental inter- ests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests.” Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC (Turner II), 520 U.S. 180, 189 (1997) (citing United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377 (1968)). Under strict scrutiny, the Act violates the First Amendment unless the Government can “prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 171 (2015)
"We think it clear that some level of heightened scrutiny is required. The question whether intermediate or strict scrutiny applies is difficult because the TikTok-specific provisions are facially content neutral, yet the Government justifies the Act in substantial part by reference to a foreign adversary’s ability to manipulate content seen by Americans. No Supreme Court case directly addresses whether such a justification renders a law content based, thereby triggering strict scrutiny. There are reasonable bases to conclude that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate even under these circumstances. We need not, however, definitively decide that question because we con- clude the Act “passes muster even under the more demanding standard.”"
They do believe that intermediate scrutiny could be appropriate. Sure TikTok can (and presumably will appeal), but to SCOTUS, they will only take up the case if they believe in the possibility that the appeals court erred on two things: that 1) strict scrutiny is required, and 2) the facts of the case don't pass muster when strict scrutiny is applied. That feels like a pretty high bar for a potential TikTok appeal to clear.
Honestly I think TikTok's best hope is Trump. Either he somehow convinces Congress to repeal the ban law, or he instructs his DoJ to not enforce it.
Then they concluding by saying "anyway, it doesn't really matter" but that seems weak to me.
Doing 3 things at once, so above is best I can do in trying to describe an underreported and poorly appreciated threat to our nation.
I have found it very helpful for finding voices pretty far to the left. I also have found it very helpful for finding voices among marginalized communities, specifically indigenous folks, black women, anarchists, and queer folks- especially making fairly rational, well informed critiques of the US. And especially as that relates to things like Palestine or the Democrats failures in marketing Harri.
I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there.
However, the TT algo surfaces these things quite quickly and satisfactorally for me.
I can see how that really is a threat to US powers. I have a pretty good understanding of the various US oppressive actions against subversives, including the all-out war to demonize folks starting with anarchists/trade unionists/communists in the late 1800s to the use of COINTELPRO against folks like the black panthers, AIM, and the anti-war movement.
So from my standpoint, as someone who has gotten legitiamte "free-speech" value from the app, this move seems like just another step in a long history of US repression of political dissent.
If you start from the assumption that everyone who has different politics than you has been brainwashed or manipulated into that differing position, then sure TT seems like a great tool to do that. But if you think that it really takes immense amounts of capital and effort to get people to "form" opinions, you might take the position that the effort could only be done by folks who, say, have control of the "history" curriculum in Texas public schools ot, for instance, the power to have their press releases uncritically published by the New York Times.
Anyhow.
It will be interesting to see the US set up its own version of the Great Firewall, I guess.
The US can ban TikTok all they want, but the worms aren't going back into the can.
> I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there.
The law doesn't ban the discussion of any particular topics, it bans social media platforms that are subject to the laws and control of adversarial governments. Specifically, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, who are already prohibited from participating in sensitive parts of the US economy.
If social media exists to collect vast amounts of information about its users--and it does--then it's reasonable for the government to be concerned about whether that information can fall into the hands of an adversary.
If social media exists to manipulate its users into believing and doing things that benefit the platform--and it does--then likewise the government has good reason to be concerned about how an adversary might use that.
Framing the law as a ban on particular viewpoints is misguided at best, misinformation at worst. And, as you and the GP comment both point out, it wouldn't work since other platforms and venues are still wide open.
The can of worms being left open is a feature not a bug. It's one reason why the law can survive a strict scrutiny review.
https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...
TikTok is a bastion of and important tool for free speech.
Take recent news: the media is towing the line and crying over the murdered CEO. Social media is celebrating a Robin Hood character. One of these is a calculated expression from those in power. The other is an organic response that echoes public opinion.
It appears the decision is related to China's control over the platform, shaping massively the opinion of groups, rather more importantly than the fact one can freely post ALT videos from their Ring cam of the assassin biking down the street.
This comment is FUD though. Did FB do it intentionally?
It's frankly an embarrassing look for the US if we go through with this on these grounds because we're basically saying we can't weather targeted disinformation and propaganda while simultaneously deploying them in our own house.
You can't make people in the US believe anything. We had the full force of US government pulling every lever they had access to get people to get vaccinated and wear a mask and it still didn't work. Even when (arguably) they had the truth on their side. There's no way we're admitting China outclassed us.
Also, the US acts against misinformation from with US too.
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/26/nx-s1-5003970/supreme-court-s...
Honestly, I never understood arguments like this. What next?
1. Why should only the US govt tax Americans, we should also let CCP tax Americans.
2. Why should only the US govt police Americans, we should also let CCP police Americans.
> You can't make people in the US believe anything. We had the full force of US government pulling every lever they had access to get people to get vaccinated and wear a mask and it still didn't work. Even when (arguably) they had the truth on their side. There's no way we're admitting China outclassed us.
You are conflating many things.
CCP doesn't have to sway the average American. It only has to sway fringe groups at critical moments/places. That is much more easy.
2. Apparently, you take the original argument US and CCP are equivalent seriously. If so, I can't your argument seriously and it needs to mocked with equivalences like what I was going for. That was the argument I was responding to.
> 1. Why should only the US govt tax Americans, we should also let CCP tax Americans.
Well. Much to the frustration of authoritarians everywhere, we have the first amendment to the US Constitution. We also have a lot of precedent saying that Constitutional protections don't only extend to US citizens.
Tiktok, Ltd is a company operating in the US, with a solid, real US presence. Either the conduct of the company violates local, state, or federal law and the company should be prosecuted accordingly, or it doesn't and they should be left alone.
The actual argument being made is not "We should let the CCP police Americans." but rather "Multinational companies with a real US presence have the same free speech protections as any strictly-domestic US-based company. Why is TikTok, Ltd being treated differently?".
This is not violating the first amendment rights of TikTok.
This is just asking Bytedance/CCP to divest from TikTok.
Last I heard, CCP is not subject to US laws (maybe CCP thinks otherwise?). Bytedance is a Chinese entity and US first amendment and equivalent don't apply to it.
Bytedance - CCP link
> In 2014, ByteDance established an internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee.[51] The company's vice president, Zhang Fuping, serves as the company's CCP Committee Secretary.[52][53] According to a report submitted to the Australian Parliament, Zhang Fuping stated that ByteDance should "transmit the correct political direction, public opinion guidance and value orientation into every business and product line."[54][55]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance
If CCP wants American first amendment protections for itself, it should also be subject to all other US laws then.
The Communist Party of China is, in fact, subject to those US laws with extraterritorial application (with the limitations and exceptions the US has chosen to include in those laws), or when it acts within US territory. For instance, see the litigation over Missouri’s claims against the the People’s Republic of China, Communist Party of China, National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Emergency Management of the People’s Republic of China, Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, People’s Government of the Hubei Province, People’s Government of Wuhan City, Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences under US law over COVID-19 related actions. [0][1]
> Bytedance is a Chinese entity and US first amendment and equivalent don’t apply to it.
The First Amendment is applicable based on the US government being the actor, not based on who is acted against.
[0] https://tlblog.org/missouris-covid-suit-against-china-revive...
[1] https://lettersblogatory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2224... [PDF]
> This is not violating the first amendment rights of TikTok. This is just asking Bytedance/CCP to divest from TikTok.
As an aside; did you know that foreign companies can own or otherwise have a controlling interest in US defense contractors that do Top Secret / SCI work for the DoD and other US military customers? It's true!
Anyway. China is currently subject to a very limited trade embargo. It is otherwise a country that has "permanent normal trade relations" with the US.
Please cite previous Federal precedent that permits FedGov to force countries that we have PNTR with to relinquish their controlling interest in US companies that provide data transfer services [0], or provide publishing services, or operate a newspaper, television or radio station. Make sure to link to actual, official communications, rather than some blogger writing about how the world SHOULD be.
> If CCP wants American first amendment protections for itself, it should also be subject to all other US laws then.
You're conflating the Chinese government and TikTok.
[0] Huawei provides hardware for companies providing data transfer services; the distinction is important.
Well, did they try a disinformation campaign on TikTok?
And China would just ignore it. It's already illegal to steal IP and yet China does it all the time.
So what happens if they do make a pure web version, and host that on servers outside the US?
But US doesn't have a national Fire Wall like China.
So on one hand we don't have the ability to block content/internet like China, but we seem to want to be more like China and be able to?
You'll lose most audience to a competitor that doesn't require VPN at this step.
You actually do have a chance iff someone manages to catch the essence of tiktok and implement it at home without screwing everything up, so better do not.
Sure, TikTok could mount a massive campaign to get people off of its (in the future) banned in the app stores app and onto the web and then get them to install VPNs, but in the end they'd easily lose 80-90% of their users.
Is TikTok with 10-20% of its users in the US still a problem? Maybe, but not nearly the problem TikTok is with 100% of its users.
A third thing to consider is the network effect. If (hypothetically) in Russia, every other teen uses VPN to post on an otherwise unavailable platform, there's enough content made by Russians there to get fellow Russians interested. OTOH, if in the US, the majority of the kids stop going there, there will be less relatable content that kids would be interested in. Those that exited the platform would publish their stuff elsewhere, and that's where everyone would eventually end up going.
We had a very recent example of how that can work here in Brazil. Like the USA, we have hundreds of independent ISPs, and no national firewall. Twitter tried the "just don't respond", and got banned for over a month (the ban was lifted once Twitter gave up and cooperated with the courts).
TikTok was stopped because it was eating FB's lunch. That's it. There is not a single argument that applies to TikTok that doesn't apply to FB or some other company
See:
- CHIPs act
- Ban of sale of many nvidia GPUs to China
- Ban of export of ASML euv tech
- Huawei ban
- Chinese EV tariffs (ban?)
- whole host of tariffs
- China south sea tensions
- Chinese support of Russia who is a threat to NATO allies (and invaded a sovereign country) - Ban of most US tech companies in China
- Chinas mutual aid treaty with North Korea
This decision could set a dangerous president, pulling us towards a future of authoritarianism where only government approved communication channels are permitted.
The U.S. government is designed this way on purpose -- so that no one part of the government is more powerful than the other.
I assume you're not an American, because this is generally taught in elementary school.
>> the Government acknowledges that it lacks specific intelligence that shows the PRC has in the past or is now coercing TikTok into manipulating content in the United States
> (Note 1: the court then shifts the burden back on TikTok: “TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC.”)
...
>> At bottom, the Government lacks confidence that it has sufficient visibility and resources to monitor TikTok’s promised measures, nor does it have “the requisite trust” that “ByteDance and TTUSDS would comply in good faith.” The court can neither fault nor second guess the Government on these crucial points…
>> The Government “need not wait for a risk to materialize” before acting; its national security decisions often must be “based on informed judgment.” Here the Government has drawn reasonable inferences based upon the evidence it has
> The court can’t second-guess possibly pretextual arguments? The government has “drawn reasonable inferences” about conjectural risks? Those words don’t sound like the rigorous judicial review we expect from strict scrutiny.
...
> Third, the majority repeatedly indicates that the ban won’t necessarily change the content available on TikTok, given that the PRC hasn’t yet engaged in its conjectural influence operation. But which way does this cut? As mentioned above, changing the ownership will change the editorial policies and practices, so inevitably the content would change from the forced divestment. More importantly, doesn’t this raise serious questions about the ban’s efficacy if it doesn’t actually change the content? In other words, if the content stays the same, then means-fit analysis seems potentially undermined.
> (Yes, I would also argue the contrary position–that if the speech were to change, that would be reason to strike down the ban. From my perspective, legislatively picking and choosing owners of speech venues is always constitutionally problematic, regardless of the effects on editorial content).
> There is a fair bit of hand-waving, in which they note that the government presented no actual evidence of China doing anything nefarious with TikTok, but because government officials said “but they could!” that was enough. This sets an extremely low and dangerous bar. Mere speculation about what a foreign government might hypothetically do in the future should not be enough to override the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.
> In many ways, this is a continuation of the way the courts often view Fourth Amendment cases, where if the government just yells “national security” loud enough, courts will ignore the plain text of the Fourth Amendment.
...
> The court’s reasoning here is Orwellian. It claims that banning TikTok, and the speech of millions of Americans on the platform, somehow enhances free speech. This is a complete inversion of First Amendment values. The First Amendment protects against government censorship and control of private speech, it doesn’t justify such censorship in the name of preventing foreign influence. The court is essentially arguing that violating the First Amendment is necessary to save it, which is absurd.
...
> The ruling also rejects the idea that this was a Bill of Attainder, by saying that while it does “target” TikTok directly, its remedy is not a “punishment” and therefore that prohibition doesn’t apply. But banning TikTok from operating in the US unless it is sold certainly seems like a punishment. The court’s analysis on this point is not persuasive.
> The court also claims that this bill is, in fact, the least restrictive means of achieving this outcome, rejecting ByteDance’s long-negotiated alternative of having all the data stored in the US on Oracle hardware, and giving Oracle the ability to audit the code. This plan was originally cooked up deliberately under the first Trump administration to support Trump donor Larry Ellison.
We see how well that promise worked out.
"When I wanted to disable TIKTOK 3 years ago [...] I was right": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1099896988452...
"A national ban on TikTok is long overdue": https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/18212
"Trump was RIGHT on TikTok": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1100753484322...
"FACEBOOK IS A GREAT THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, AND IT WILL ONLY GET BIGGER AND STRONGER IF TIKTOK IS TAKEN OUT. DO THEM BOTH?": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1120957020572...
And of course, his own executive order to ban TikTok: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
Here's another fun prediction: China will give him (personally, not the US) a huge sum of money and he will withdraw all support from Taiwan allowing China to take them over. TBD whether there's shooting involved.
I'm open to friendly bets!
Allowing foreigners to broadcast speech into your country, or harvest data from it invites nothing but trouble.
Though the first amendment does not protect calls to action. Especially if that call includes violence or treason. (Unless you’re specifically Donald Trump)
Any social network should be assumed to be an agent of the government in which it operates from. Facebook, for instance, has a special relationship with the Pentagon, VKontakte with the Kremlin, TikTok with Beijing, etc.
If a foreign rabble-rouser, seeking to disrupt our harmonious society can be banned from entry into the country, why should their ideas be let in through a social network?
Who would decide if they are a rabble-rouser or are seeking to disrupt a country?
Let’s imagine a government where officials believe vaccines are bad for their population.
Then, under their state monitored and filtered social media, they see some rabble rousers from Norway trying to encourage people to be pro-vax.
What does that government do?
They make a virtual “wall” to prevent unauthorized ideas into the country.
Its kind of the opposite of a good idea.
> The Government suggests that because TikTok is wholly owned by ByteDance, a foreign company, it has no First Amendment rights. Cf. Agency for Int’l Dev. v. All. for Open Soc’y Int’l, Inc., 591 U.S. 430, 436 (2020) (explaining that “foreign organizations operating abroad have no First Amendment rights”). TikTok, Inc., however, is a domestic entity operating domestically. See NetChoice, 144 S. Ct. at 2410 (Barrett, J., concurring) (identifying potential “complexi- ties” for First Amendment analysis posed by the “corporate structure and ownership of some platforms”). The Government does not dispute facts suggesting at least some of the regulated speech involves TikTok’s U.S. entities. See TikTok App. 811– 12, 817–18 (explaining that promoted videos are “reviewed by a U.S.-based reviewer,” that an executive employed by a U.S. entity approves the guidelines for content moderation, and that the recommendation engine “is customized for TikTok’s vari- ous global markets” and “subject to special vetting in the United States”).
> Nor does the Government argue we should “pierce the corporate veil” or “invoke any other relevant exception” to the fundamental principle of corporate separateness. Agency for Int’l Dev., 591 U.S. at 435–36. We are sensitive to the risk of a foreign adversary exploiting corporate form to take advantage of legal protections in the United States. Indeed, the Government presented evidence to suggest the PRC intention- ally attempts to do just that. See, e.g., Gov’t App. 33–35 (describing the PRC’s hybrid commercial threat and its exploitation of U.S. legal protections for hacking operations). Under these circumstances, however, we conclude that the TikTok-specific provisions of the Act trigger First Amendment scrutiny.
It doesn’t say “congress shall make no law for citizens” or “within the US”.
The Constitution derives power from and applies them to the "People of the United States"[1], excluding everyone including even Americans who do not physically exist within US sovereign jurisdiction.[2]
That is to say, some guy in not-Americaland does not enjoy First Amendment nor any other Constitutional protections.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_...
No, I think that "People of the United States" (having "of" rather than "in") can include US citizens physically present outside of the borders. The US government can punish me for illegal things I do outside of the US. If I, a US citizen, go to Britain and kill another US citizen in Britain, I will be subject to murder laws in both Britain and the US, and the US could call for extradition. If I go to Britain and defame a US citizen, the person I defamed can sue me. Likewise for rights, I don't lose my First Amendment rights to criticize the US government when I'm abroad, although the US government would question my allegiance if I send my criticism from Russia.
Unincorporated territories and anything beyond that (ie: foreign countries) does not (and cannot, both legally and practically in the case of foreign countries) enjoy US Constitutional protections.
You are certainly welcome to your opinions, of course, but where legality is concerned the courts clearly say otherwise.
Obligatory IANAL.
Now I agree with you almost completely, but I have a nitpick.
The US Constitution protects me from the US government. The second section you cited about losing constitutional rights (such as the right to a jury trial) when leaving US borders suggests to me that formally all of the Constitution's protections go away but informally some protections remain. Consider this excerpt from the second section you cited [2]:
> The court held that, since his trial was conducted by an American court and was, by American standards, basically fair, he was not entitled to the specific constitutional right of trial by jury while overseas.
Legally, why does it matter that the defendant got a "basically fair" trial? To me, it means that defendant still has a right to a "basically fair" trial. So where does that right come from? I think that it comes from the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution: mostly diminished, but not completely eliminated, for US citizens outside of US borders.
Suppose that I go on vacation to Mexico and send a letter to the White House with the message "Joe Biden can suck an egg. hn_acker, from Mexico". Upon receiving it, Joe Biden signs an executive order declaring that "If hn_acker sends an insult to me from outside of the borders of the United States then hn_acker will be an enemy of the state". Then I send another letter with the same message I sent before. I return to US soil and Joe Biden orders the military to shoot me. The military refuses the order and documents having done so. During any point of my hypothetical scenario, did Joe Biden violate any of my constitutional rights? I think that the answer is yes, Joe Biden as the head of the military violated my First Amendment right to free expression by retaliating to my second letter.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_...
Are you really so scared of China that you’d throw that all away?
Namely, we are engaging in foreign interference towards any country that uses our social media (Mysterious Twitter X, Facebook, Youtube, et al.). Japan's online discourse lives and breathes Mysterious Twitter X, for example. We definitely influence and interfere in their domestic affairs whether anyone likes it or not.
If the sanctity(?) of domestic-only electoral will is paramount, it stands to reason that any and all social media should be legally barred from crossing borders regardless if that even makes internet sense.
TikTok manipulates discourse everywhere towards Chinese ends, X/Facebook/et al. manipulate discourse everywhere towards American ends.
This is an entirely separate concern from firewalls, which with the way you posited it might as well be a strawman.
Haven't they proved over and over that they will use any opportunity to spy on as much people as possible?
https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-lobbying-rec...
Ironically, for anti-ban folks Meta is by default assumed guilty despite evidence unlike TikTok which is given the benefit of doubt despite evidence [1,2,3].
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index....
[2] https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-...
[3] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-probes-tiktok-after-surprise-win-in...
Chinese companies have no rights in the US. So, take your bag of tricks and spyware and scurry off to Beijing.
Learn some law.