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Comment by jncfhnb | Hacker News Reader

100% this. Setting the topic of conversation for millions of Americans is absolutely unacceptable to throw to the hands of foreign powers.

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But it’s acceptable to put in the hands of Elon Musk?

That incessant whataboutism is the only recourse of those who oppose the ban really helps the cause of those who are for it.

Elon Musk doesn't have a military hostile to the US, nor are his companies controlled by any, so for the purposes of this concern, yes.

He does take regular phone calls from Putin, the content of which we're not privy to, and he meets with the Iranian government on the down-low.

I think those alone would be grounds to at least take a close look at his access to Twitter data, his censorship choices and any input he has into the algorithms.

When it comes to actual harm done to Americans (particularly via their own data), that harm is continually done by US commercial and government interests.

This law isn't a consumer protection law, nor does it attempt to be.

No, that's not acceptable either. Elon should never have been allowed to get full control of Twitter/X. But that is a separate battle. And it doesn't make the issue with TikTok being under CCP control any less of a problem (unless you're China and trying to shift the narrative with "what about Elon", and if you are that basically proves the point that you can't have a foreign adversary in a position to be able to heavily, while subtly, influence public opinion through an algorithm.)

> Elon should never have been allowed to get full control of Twitter/X.

We can't just ban everything though. It'd be better to just allow everything.

Honestly X is pretty crazy on the propaganda these days, it's a little scary. The issue with TikTok would be way more subtle or speculative. Anyway if it is "unacceptable", I don't want that to be for the govt to decide. Even if it was being overtly politically manipulative (which is less scary than being subtle I guess) - I'd still support it. I like consuming foreign media, recognizing bias, being exposed to different view points, and thinking critically to make my own decisions. If you don't think the average american can do that, well too bad, we can't just spoon-feed people "approved" content.

I like consuming foreign media too, and I have no problem with Americans have access to CCP media.

But control of an algorithm that can shift public opinion in ways that are imperceptible through promotion / demotion of posts on certain topics, is a different matter altogether. And the CCP are masters at this (since their own social networks in China are heavily controlled).

I 100% agree with open access to all sources - but you should know what the sources are. If the CCP secretly owned the NYT, that would be a problem as I would want to know that when I read the NYT it's likely reflecting CCP authorized views, just like I know what to expect when I read the Economist, WSJ, or The Times.

No making decisions by a committee of individuals doing their best in an open and transparent way is the correct method.

Basically what Twitter was before Elon bought it.

From a geopolitics standpoint, the effective question here is “whose guns are the owners of the company worried about?” Elon is a bit of an outlier here because he’s effectively bought the government now, but in theory, if the US government decides to arrest Elon and seize his assets, that’s a big problem for Elon, whereas if China does, that’s a lesser problem for him (yes, Tesla, I know). It’s the same reason the US banned Huawei from US telecoms: the US government can’t threaten Huawei like they can Cisco.

None of this is a normative statement - I’m not saying that this is good or bad, but if you want to know why the US government thinks Elon is better than ByteDance, it’s because they can shoot Elon tomorrow if they decide to, but they can’t shoot Zhang Yiming without causing an international incident.

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