Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/24/24139036/biden-signs-tiktok-ban-bill-divest-foreign-aid-package

by vyrotek • 2 years ago

819 1681 2 years ago

skilled3• 2 years ago

I think the biggest effect of this is going to be that a lot of creators are about to lose a lot of money that they were generating from sponsorships: whether above or below the table.

But most will slowly migrate to other platforms due to uncertainty (users and advertisers), though it remains to be seen exactly to where.

Maybe Snap? YT Shorts is bad, as are most other “shorts as a feature” platforms where discovery UX is terrible.

Just speculation for the time being as we need to see what ByteDance decides to do. Can’t recall the exact article but I think they do plan to fight this decision.

yreg• 2 years ago

Why not to instagram?

skilled3• 2 years ago

Haven’t looked into it. What is the discoverability and does it come close to TikTok’s algorithm?

jvanderbot4• 2 years ago

Why do people believe that TikTok will stop functioning? That is not the intent, and is not the likely outcome. TikTok will just not be owned by a Chinese company.

skilled3• 2 years ago

That’s not how people think in a time of crisis and ByteDance will need to be swift in their response/decision if they want to retain users.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

The same tiktok? I highly doubt any sale will come with the algo, which is literally the bread and butter on what makes Tiktok so great and better than the competition. For users who only surf the FYP, the quality is set to seriously decline.

lispisok• 2 years ago

Maybe I'm ignorant but can somebody explain to me how the federal government can just ban TikTok? If I create an app or business can the feds just decide to ban it and it's over?

mik1998• 2 years ago

It's a bill of attainder, which is unconstitutional in the USA. May or may not be struck down in court.

imzadi• 2 years ago

No it's not. China doesn't have any civil/constitutional rights in the USA.

Aloisius7• 2 years ago

It's not. A bill of attainder declares a specific person guilty for past actions and punishing them - thereby denying them the right to a judicial trial.

While this bill does refer to a specific organization, it doesn't punish them for past actions, but rather constrains US companies in the future. That is perfectly ok as shown in cases like Huawei v. United States or Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. DHS. Like Kaspersky, it's "prophylactic, not punitive."

legohead• 2 years ago

They are claiming a national security threat.

yieldcrv2• 2 years ago

They can ban foreign companies and products, they can’t do the same to Americans they would have to regulate/restrict the category of business

jMyles9• 2 years ago

The state can pass whatever legislation it wants; we've seen convincingly that constitutional restraints are not substantially motivating (although the strongest evidence for this in the current week is not this bill, but the legislation surrounding the ongoing surveillance regime(s)).

But the bigger question is the literal one you've asked: how the federal government can just ban TikTok?

What makes the government think that they can stop packets at some arbitrary line in the sand, when every indication in the history of the internet shows the opposite?

amanaplanacanal• 2 years ago

They aren’t going to stop packets. They are going to prevent TikTok from doing business in the US. No apps in the App Store, no ads from American companies, etc. no money from American customers.

sickofparadox• 2 years ago

Congress has extremely sweeping authority to dictate interstate and international commerce. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; "

kshacker• 2 years ago

So are you saying no apps can ever be banned?

Whether right or wrong, whether politically motivated or not, it has gone through the house, senate and president which is not a small thing.

returningfory22• 2 years ago

Calling it a "TikTok ban" is sort of inaccurate, but unfortunately that's how the media and politicians have referred to it. The act doesn't ban TikTok; it bans TikTok from having China-based owners (in this case the Chinese company ByteDance). The act requires the China-based owners to sell TikTok to non-China-based owners or cease operations in the US.

I'm guessing Congress justifies its authority here based on national security. The bill refers to "foreign adversary controlled applications".

jbverschoor• 2 years ago

And the whole ban originated from TikTok, hence the name

henryfjordan• 2 years ago

Whether it's a "ban" or not gets into "ship of theseus" territory. The company as it exists is not allowed to continue existing. A new corporate structure with new owners is required or the app will be banned.

AndyMcConachie• 2 years ago

Congress and the president can pass whatever law they want. Anyone can also challenge it in the courts, and the Supreme Court is the highest court in the USA.

jncfhnb3• 2 years ago

What would give you the impression that the government cannot ban a business?

greenish_shores2• 2 years ago

For example, how would they address it? Govt banning services of ByteDance Inc.? They will change their name. Services of company headquartered at 11 Example Street, ExampleTown, PRC? Change their headquarters. Services using given logo? Modify the logo. Services using given brand name? Change it slightly. IP address range? Domain name? And so on.

Internet service by one company is not trivial to address in a "ban". Unlike, for example, a chemical molecule. At least they have the experience in specifying and addressing that.

LordKeren5• 2 years ago

Unequivocally yes. The legislature of the United States government can pass a bill to ban your business.

This is also overwhelmingly likely to go unchallenged by the court system due to the provision being passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

axus2• 2 years ago

Importantly, this was a law passed by Congress and signed by the president. A fair vote by all the representatives of a Republic should be able to do anything constitutional. And what's constitutional can also be amended by a large majority.

segasaturn3• 2 years ago

99% Invisible recently introduced me to the political concept of Noticeably Improving People's Lives (abbreviated as NIPL), which refers to how politicians get votes by making visible, positive improvements to people's lives. Not only is this bill bad policy (does nothing to protect people from foreign surveillance and violates free speech), its shit politics. All it's going to do is make the 150m Americans who use TikTok angry. So I am pretty baffled by US politicians insistence to go down this route.

martinky24• 2 years ago

You claim that this bill "violates free speech". Can you expand on that? That's... quite the claim to just throw out there without any references.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

Today's issue of Platformer explains it as the following:

The Supreme Court has previously held that Congress can’t ban foreign propaganda, including propaganda from China. In Lamont vs. Postmaster General, the court considered a law that required the postmaster general to detain “communist political propaganda” sent through the mail. The Post Office was then required to send the addressee a card asking whether they wanted the propaganda to be delivered, in what the court ultimately ruled had an unconstitutional chilling effect on speech.

https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-ban-bill-senate-legal-cha...

orwin• 2 years ago

US version of "free speech" is that the congress cannot make a law that prevents someone from speaking. It was an example of extreme freedom (i don't have the English translation, but basically a freedom that supersede other freedoms, its philosophy 101 or close to that)

It's less true now, starting from when the mafia used this freedom to threaten judges and jury (Basically, when 80% of people think "full freedom of speech is stupid in this particular case", the US government will effectively suppress it).

I've talked with someone who argued that it effectively never truly existed, and gave me a lot of pre-prohibition examples i can't remember, and even a few from pre-civil war era, that targeted white people (which was surprising because most of the other did not), but i don't know if i trust him, and don't really know US history well, so if you're interested, you should research it yourself and not trust what i just wrote (which is basically, "Yes, No, It's complicated and i don't really know". I'm such a helpful person :/)

[edit] Not saying if it's good or bad btw, extreme freedoms are a cultural foundation of the US, and in my opinion define the country.

flappyeagle• 2 years ago

My girlfriend not zombifying herself for 3 hours a day noticeably improves her life and my life

jMyles9• 2 years ago

...but is that among the likely outcomes of this?

If she is so zombified by TikTok, won't she just continue to use it? Why would she comply with the ban?

Moreover, even if she does, there are many other nearly identical sources of zombification. Won't she use fall prey to those instead?

mateo1• 2 years ago

She will just do it on Instagram reels now. I wish They were banning all short format video platforms and black box algorithmic suggestions. But obviously they aren't.

diath• 2 years ago

Sounds like she's the problem, not TikTok.

dorkwood• 2 years ago

Much better to do it on HN instead.

cagenut• 2 years ago

the single most explanatory fact about america's political behavior, generally over the last 20 years and most acutely today, is this graph:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fszq_PSWIAUwaWw?format=jpg&name=...

the average age of a congress person (house and senate) has gone up by one year, per year, for roughly 20 years.

that tells you that the "normal" organic churn of the past simply stopped dead in its tracks. we have been ruled over by nearly the exact same set of 50 somethings as they have slowly turned into 70 somethings. one very narrow cohort has held onto power so long they personally turned us into a gerontocracy.

this is why the tiktok ban is such a priority despite the fact that it has no constituency at all in the electorate. they don't really represent today's electorate, they represent 20 years ago's electorate that's finally had enough of this internet bullshit.

congress is supposed to be a lagging indicator of popular will by design, its just that for the last 20 years we've been increasing the incremental amount of lag by roughly one year per year, so we've been effectively in stasis.

corimaith2• 2 years ago

Well, you probably voted in a congressman who voted in favour of this... And while there is a vocal segment of a population who might oppose it, there also plenty of comments in this very thread who support it. How do you know this isn't an enactment of the popular will here?

patrickmay• 2 years ago

This is one of many reasons why we need congressional term limits. Three terms in the House, two in the Senate, then go live under the laws you made.

mullingitover2• 2 years ago

Nine months kicks the can down the road past the election. I doubt that's a coincidence.

mondobe• 2 years ago

At least we know who both sides will blame for any real or imagined election interference.

willio58• 2 years ago

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash.

Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

yieldcrv2• 2 years ago

yes, we’re okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans

with a ban being the fall back outcome

Brybry• 2 years ago

I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very specific set of criteria in the law). [1]

There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2]

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2

toomuchtodo3• 2 years ago

When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.

frameset2• 2 years ago

I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole and then putting down their novelty mallet.

SeanAnderson2• 2 years ago

Yes, the American government is comfortable with American companies having deeper access to American data than foreign adversaries.

It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.

Uhhrrr13• 2 years ago

It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.

cogman102• 2 years ago

Is China really a foreign adversary?

I get that we aren't best buds with china but they are also a huge trade partner with the US. Bigger than many countries which we have friendlier feelings towards.

matsemann• 2 years ago

But to me it's more scary what American companies and government can do with that data towards me. China having it doesn't affect my unless I'm going there.

j2kun2• 2 years ago

There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example, but part of the democratic process is making progress where and when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.

tracerbulletx• 2 years ago

Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.

autoexec24• 2 years ago

Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do

Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash.

Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.

bluSCALE45• 2 years ago

A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?

seydor• 2 years ago

I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok

Kiro• 2 years ago

I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto format of Instagram nowadays.

okdood64• 2 years ago

YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.

hipadev23• 2 years ago

but it's not a Chinese company

Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing".

Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.

dralley• 2 years ago

TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call congress to 17+.

afiori5• 2 years ago

Notifying users that a service they use is about to become illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress was afraid of.

Uhhrrr13• 2 years ago

So the great harm is that Congress gets called when they pass a bad bill?

nebula880414• 2 years ago

They learned from Musk and his "If X dies because of advertiser boycotts the world will know and they will judge". Ironically the world knew and did not care in that instance haha.

goliathDown4• 2 years ago

Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a difference between a media company housed in the UK or France versus China or Russia.

micromacrofoot• 2 years ago

Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly supported.

throw__away73913• 2 years ago

The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the largest source of media consumed by children (which incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have been stopped a long time ago.

People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.

autoexec24• 2 years ago

The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever.

Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.

terr-dav• 2 years ago

so we are just... okay with that?

We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people."

What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.

MaxHoppersGhost6• 2 years ago

It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned

djur12• 2 years ago

This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right.

The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.

jMyles9• 2 years ago

It seems to me that the most likely outcome is that some money will opaquely change hands and that TikTok will remain available, either because of a shell game divestiture or because of a policy change. There's just too much money at stake.

But even if that doesn't happen, and the US state starts to regard TikTok as banned, what makes anyone think people will stop using it?

Many western resources are banned in China, and it seems that the primary effect of this is simply the proliferation of tools to subvert the ban.

One thing I don't understand, at a high level: how, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, can anyone believe that the internet will shape itself around the whims of legacy states on anything but very short timescales?

There is no case of successful censorship of this nature, let alone with such a large and popular resource. Conversely, there are many, many cases of failed attempts at censorship, even by the largest and most powerful states and corporations in the world.

Is there some reason to believe that this trend will very suddenly reverse?

THENATHE3• 2 years ago

The thing about China banning stuff is that it is sponsored by the whole government, so every ISP in China is forced to comply with the ban. In the US, unless all of the ISPs are forced to ban tiktok at a network level, the ban will essentially be on new downloads I'm sure.

If the ban is on new downloads, it will mean that the ban doesn't hit particularly hard, except for there will be no more platform growth, which would mean that the company sees all of the issue with it, but the users do not which would stagnate the platform and lead to its eventual death. Frogs in a pot of water turned up to a boil, instead of dropped in at a rolling boil kind of thing.

If it is banded in ISP level, there is essentially no real chance that anybody will put any effort to get around it. I see big statements all the time about how people slightly younger than me don't even know what command prompt is, which is frankly a wild statement because even people I know my age that are not techy. Like I am still know how to do almost all of the basic commuter commands and know how to download a VPN and similar. We are either going to see a Renaissance of tech people opened up because of the ban on tick tock and them learning about technology to try and circumvent it, or we are going to see the total death of the platform because most people don't really know how to do anything technical on a phone or computer anymore.

Either way, it's going to cause some fairly large shifts until something is done, and if nothing is done, maybe the main shift will be just to a different platform rather than a different societal state of mind.

nebula880414• 2 years ago

Keep in mind the politicians who pushed this stuff are so old they still think in terms of physical assets and not digital. By banning something they think its like blocking a ship entering port. We will have to see how things play out but if ByteDance moves faster to circumvent rules than the government can update the rules they might be able to establish a consistent loyal foothold no matter whatever the government will do.

yayr• 2 years ago

If I read the bill correctly, any entity with an at least 20% chinese ownership stake (by a person or company) falls under this law...

What are the other 2nd and 3rd order effects of this?

jvanderbot4• 2 years ago

I guess I implicitly assumed that TikTok was the poster child for a more general / sweeping legislative push. Consider tech companies, startups, etc, operating under Chinese funding either directly or indirectly.

btown2• 2 years ago

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/... is the relevant text of the bill presented to the President. It's restricted to companies with 1M+ MAUs that allow users to create profiles and share content, and only then if the President makes a public notice and public report to Congress of that determination for a specific company.

Covered countries are here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840...

In theory, this could be used more broadly. Not a lawyer, but there's a reading that it would give a president the ability to unilaterally force divestiture in companies that have as little as a "choose your username for your online account" functionality. It's unlikely to affect B2B supply chains, though. Presidents have many existing tools at their disposal anyways if they want to disrupt those.

dwnoble• 2 years ago

Fun fact: according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma..., tiktok.com has been blocked in mainland China since 2020.

jMyles9• 2 years ago

And yet, at least anecdotally, it is very widely used, along with virtually every other resource that that Chinese state regards as banned.

seattle_spring• 2 years ago

I think they meant the US domain tiktok.com is banned. TikTok itself is not banned in CN, and its web presence there is likely available at the respective CN domain. I’m guessing it’s tiktok.cn, but I’m not checking so I take no responsibility if it’s a phishing domain.

ok12345613• 2 years ago

Shouldn't the US prove it's better than China by its self-consistent actions with its espoused virtues of freedom of the press?

IncreasePosts4• 2 years ago

The self consistent actions could just be "tit for tat" responses to the behavior of others. Does China allow free reign of American companies within its borders? No? Then China doesn't get that right either.

Regardless, TikTok isn't going away, it is just changing owners. How does that have any effect on freedom of the press?

j0ba10• 2 years ago

Please, US doesn't need to prove anything w.r.t freedom vs. China.

mminer2373• 2 years ago

The Bill of Rights does not inherently apply to non-citizens. There's nothing stopping the people from running TikTok without government oversight. The only problem is that a foreign adversary controls it. This really is not comparable to China's restrictions.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

Looks like the wumao's have made it to HN :)

matthest• 2 years ago

Yes, but at some point you have to know where to draw the line. That line should be national security.

If China is indeed receiving data from TikTok, the future isn't going to be fun, especially with AI tech heating up.

Truth is, when China benefits, the Han Chinese people benefit. Every other ethnicity? Uncertain.

When the US benefits, a variety of ethnicities benefit. The US is now diverse enough where it must work in the interest of a variety of ethnicities in order to operate effectively.

So unless you're Han Chinese, you're more likely to benefit when the US wins.

xyst• 2 years ago

TikTok isn’t a news organization. It’s an entertainment platform.

I don’t understand the people coming out of the woodworks saying this is suppressing “freedom of the press” or speech.

Set up your own domain, get a VPS, upload your trash to VPS. There ya go, no more “censorship”.

Oh wait , you don’t want to do the work to set this up? Sounds like a personal problem.

cscurmudgeon6• 2 years ago

Freedom of the press/speech applies only to humans/entities within US borders not to foreign entities.

Last time I checked China wasn't within US borders.

PurpleRamen2• 2 years ago

Funny list. I'm curious why something like swiggy.com, a food ordering and delivery platform is there. Do they even operate in china?

kube-system4• 2 years ago

To protect local competitors (and local control)?

Do they even operate in china?

If they were going to, they won't now.

kylehotchkiss• 2 years ago

probably a tit-for-tat against India banning a lot of Chinese services back in 2020

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

blocking is not always that fine-grained; there are tons of IPs/domains blocked that have nothing to do with China

ffpip• 2 years ago

They don't operate in China but I'm pretty sure they have received funding from chinese investors.

paxys3• 2 years ago

TikTok is branded as Douyin in China. The international version is the one that is blocked.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

No, it's not just a rebrand.

Douyin, like all social media in China, is subject to government censorship. Tiktok, like Google, FB, IG, etc., are not and therefore banned in China.

That's why they are two completely separate platforms.

robotnikman• 2 years ago

Last time this was discussed during the Trump admin it was going to be Oracle that TikTok would be divested to, I wonder if that will still be the case now

mrtksn9• 2 years ago

From the world where the USA was the bastion of free speech which was condemning countries like Turkey for blocking social media to a world where the USA blocks social media. I guess when the reasons are about money(i.e. Chinese block American companies) its all good because it can't be about national security since the countries who used to block American social media were condemned for doing it in the name of national security. Or is it?

Anyway, this bothers me so much. It wouldn't take that much time before every country adopts the China/North Korea model once the USA leads the way, because you know, other countries also have national security concerns. Maybe the Spanish or Irish will want to protect their citizens being indexed by the US for their support for Palestine? Who know, banning apps is a thing now. Maybe soon all country-to-country communications will need to go through monitored cables with keys provided for inspection(maybe businesses can get an exception with acquiring a license?).

We are progressively sliding in a segregated world and it is a scary world because the tech to control all the communications is in place.

I wish the USA took the EU model where its free but regulated.

The desire for control over communications and the support by the people disgusts me. You will end up finding out that the Chinese/North Korean way of doing things is not going to provide you with security or prosperity.

Very sad day.

jvanderbot4• 2 years ago

TikTok will continue to function as normal. This is only a ban if bytedance does not divest, which they will.

Thiez7• 2 years ago

What makes you say that? What do they possibly have to gain by selling their main product?

FredPret2• 2 years ago

You complain about the USA regulating TikTok and then you wish it followed the EU model, which is more regulated?

The EU is inching closer to effectively banning US social media companies with their prohibitions on ads anyway. We may see region-specific social media at some point.

mrtksn9• 2 years ago

Regulated means a framework of doing business, its not a ban. For example, the government can decide that car from now on have to use lead-free gasoline. That's not ban on cars, it means that from now on the cars should run lead-free.

EU isn't banning American social media, its banning certain practices and if the American social media companies want to do business they simply don't do these things and they will be fine. Unless, you know, forcing Meta to sell to Luxotica or something.

hmm374• 2 years ago

In the EU all social media companies have to comply to the same rules. This is normal "regulation". China also regulates all social media companies on whether or not they are willing to censor speech or not. This is also called normal "regulation" as it applies to all social media companies. No single social media is selected out and discriminated against.

On the other hand, US is regulating Tiktok AND pretty much only Tiktok, which is breaking no laws except now this new one where part of its ownership is Chinese. This wouldn't look as farcical if the US forced facebook, twitter, etc. to comply with privacy issues, etc.

flohofwoe2• 2 years ago

TikTok is currently also under heavy scrunity in Europe.

In any case, it's just tit for tat, pretty much all western social media platforms are banned in China, why should Chinese social media platforms be treated differently in the western world?

mrtksn9• 2 years ago

pretty much all social media platforms are banned in China, why should China have free reign in the western world?

This is so out of touch that its hard to comprehend. Is it maybe because the supposedly fee people should have the freedom to choose what to use? Unlike you know, the Chinese or North Koreans? Fuck Chinese government, its not something that the "free" world implements. Stop copying the Chinese government.

Is "freedom" only about businesses in the USA? What happen people's freedoms?

nova22033• 2 years ago

https://berthub.eu/articles/spice.jpg

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

There is no requirement that it must be US-based.

wumeow9• 2 years ago

For everyone here having the vapours over this, note that the US government also prohibits more than 20/25% foreign ownership of radio/tv stations and airlines, and has for almost 100 years. It’s going to be ok.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

Good point. I wonder how did Murdoch (Australian) end up owning Fox News?

myroon5• 2 years ago

He switched to American citizenship in 1985 for that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

waihtis5• 2 years ago

Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity’s survival, or at least an extremely potent gateway drug to it.

nadermx• 2 years ago

This is Idiocracy

spiderfarmer5• 2 years ago

This is forcing the US government to show their true colors.

throwaway35777• 2 years ago

What exactly is their intention?

returningfory22• 2 years ago

The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away.

It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.

To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be available in the Country unless the company divested from US interest, would we not call it a ban?

fauigerzigerk• 2 years ago

I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on this question.

If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.

dpflan2• 2 years ago

It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response framing it like that rather than giving the technical details that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

If by glossed over you mean put in quotes in the title and made clear in the first sentence of the article.

LordShredda• 2 years ago

This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.

importantbrian• 2 years ago

Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from refusing to sell and getting banned.

kube-system4• 2 years ago

We didn't call the baby-bells an AT&T ban.

stale20023• 2 years ago

Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor?

Thats easy to answer.

The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.

Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off.

So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.

wavemode• 2 years ago

I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it". If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure of reading, not a failure of media reporting.

THENATHE3• 2 years ago

The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?

SnorkelTan• 2 years ago

It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.

alisonatwork• 2 years ago

ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two.

The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream.

The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular.

Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets.

TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it.

At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.

brfox• 2 years ago

I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no longer have Chinese owners?

intrasight8• 2 years ago

IPOs usually involve selling only a small fraction of outstanding shares. Aramco sold less that 2% of it's shares.

grumple• 2 years ago

China has signaled that they would block a sale.

blodstone• 2 years ago

Which makes the case of china interference seems more plausible now.

danieltanfh954• 2 years ago

Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc.

The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.

wmf• 2 years ago

So not only does TikTok have to be sold but they also have to remove the addiction algorithm? This deal just gets better and better!

jorblumesea2• 2 years ago

Kind of reinforces the allegations of being CCP owned and compromised and not an independent entity. If you have poison pill provisions.

EasyMark5• 2 years ago

They could work on a "good enough" algorithm that is basically already in public/open source domain when they sell it. 80% of its value is captive audience and "cool factor" with younger users.

Vegenoid• 2 years ago

Of course the CEO is going to say that, because they don't want the law passed. When the chips are down, it's a lot less likely that just pull out than that they take the money from one of the many salivating buyers.

mandeepj• 2 years ago

The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.

Nope! He has said - TT is not going anywhere and vows to fight back legally. I was a bit shocked to find court put a hold on Trump’s ban of TT

kromem• 2 years ago

Theoretically they could sell "TikTok" to a US company who then licenses algorithm processing to the Chinese entity, no?

The US entity isn't beholden to the CCP and can decide to switch algorithm providers if they suddenly notice it's getting very propaganda-y, which provides a degree of independent oversight appeasing US concerns while not necessitating actually switching from the current systems.

togg• 2 years ago

As I understand TikTok has been investing in building out a U.S. fulfillment center network over the past two years, perhaps a drop in the bucket for them. With this investment and the loads of U.S employees they have I would be surprised if they leave their large (largest?) user base.

galdosdi4• 2 years ago

I am baffled that any thoughtful person would take a CEO statement at face value without considering incentives.

1) prior to bill passage, convincing the public that they will pull out is optimal as it helps argue against bill, regardless of whether it is at all true

2) but, after bill passage, the incentives are totally different. Pulling out means giving up a billion dollar market that could instead have been sold. The shareholders would be livid.

So I am very skeptical. I have heard CEOs say many things they later were found to clearly never have meant seriously, simply because it was what they needed to say at the time. Like, "we would never do outsourcing or layoffs, your division is totally safe"....

I would think thoughtful HN readers would be just a little less credulous

throwawayq342317• 2 years ago

China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export

Isn't this just another reason to conclude China views Tiktok as a national security asset?

disgruntledphd22• 2 years ago

The really funny part about all that is that those bans were a reaction to the last time the US tried to ban TikTok.

Aloisius7• 2 years ago

The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners.

It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries.

TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.

cute_boi2• 2 years ago

What about iphone?

temporarely2• 2 years ago

Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.

torginus• 2 years ago

does that mean that it could be used to basically block any app made by the Chinese?

nemothekid11• 2 years ago

the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners

Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest

Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.

cwyers3• 2 years ago

Why are you framing this in such a way that treats one party as having agency and the other party as being immovable? The US is not banning TikTok, they are posing stipulations towards its use and you believe the CCP when they say they won't comply with those stipulations. But why is that a ban, versus "the CCP refuses to let TikTok comply with US law?"

Dalewyn2• 2 years ago

It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.

That's because:

* Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline.

* Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes.

* Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.

spxneo• 2 years ago

Another reason could be: many are not sympathetic to the America's claims that these foreign platforms are at the whims of a country it is at odds with and which have repeatedly demonstrated covert abilities to change American's perception.

Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections.

So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.

remarkEon• 2 years ago

The US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law[1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that.

Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-03-06...

intrasight8• 2 years ago

What's different is that it's owned by a communist country. Otherwise, it would just be a giant liquidity event.

rfoo2• 2 years ago

Or maybe TikTok decides to exit US in protest because they don't want to comply with the law. We've been seen this 15 years ago.

meowtimemania• 2 years ago

what happened 15 years ago?

hot_gril11• 2 years ago

Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other companies also on the clock?

autoexec24• 2 years ago

It's not just tiktok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...

Does yandex have an app or use cloudflare?

jtriangle6• 2 years ago

It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.

It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.

There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons.

Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.

calgarymicro2• 2 years ago

So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company.

Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.

the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet

Only if the president believes they should be banned.

interactivecode4• 2 years ago

Lol, queue china writing a clear document on all the US stock their citizens and companies own. Just to mess with the USA.

Anything they sell just gives them more money to buy more ownership.

rhaps0dy• 2 years ago

Is this going to impact Riot Games' games (League of Legends, Valorant), the wildly popular American video game company which is owned by Tencent?

FpUser4• 2 years ago

"passing a law that looks good in news headlines"

It does not look good at all. It just shows that they have no trust in their own citizens. And maybe for a reason.

mullingitover2• 2 years ago

The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners.

My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.

It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.

jquery3• 2 years ago

Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.

onjectic• 2 years ago

If I were China this is the move. I’m suspect this is the intention of the bill from the US end as well.

seanmcdirmid20• 2 years ago

Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.

Or they just move over to FAANG competitors? I've never used TikTok before since it is an app, but I use YouTube shorts and whatever that Instagram short thing is Facebook is pushing into my feed (with...erm...a lot more addictive algorithms than YouTube). Ok, I'm not Gen Z, but it looks like content providers are already hedging their bets on platforms (they often don't even remove TikTok watermarks), I don't see why consumers wouldn't follow. Its not like YouTube or Facebook is blocked in the USA.

christkv• 2 years ago

There is another possibility. TikTok exits the us market.

intrasight8• 2 years ago

That's been widely discussed. But it's basically the same end result - for users.

mhardcastle• 2 years ago

For what it's worth, "play money" betting site Manifold is currently at a 69% chance of sale versus 31% of shutting down.

https://manifold.markets/mint/conditional-on-the-tiktok-ban-...

ok12345613• 2 years ago

What about no sale yet they continue to operate because the ban is not enforceable either legally or technically?

arduanika3• 2 years ago

Buzzkill! Everybody else on here was having fun opining that it's 100% certain that China pulls the plug, or conversely that a sale will happen, and you just had to point out that it's an empirical question where nobody can read the CCP's mind. Boo.

dnissley• 2 years ago

There's another market with more options where "ban will be rendered unenforceable by courts" is leading: https://manifold.markets/MichaelBlume/tiktok-endgame-which-w...

partiallypro3• 2 years ago

If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's just a forced sell.

zappb2• 2 years ago

That’s similar to eminent domain, a right granted to the government in the constitution.

drooby• 2 years ago

China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell. And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law.

Hmm I wonder why..

I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.

hankchinaski2• 2 years ago

The chance that TikTok sells to US owner is zero, so the “ban” implies that assumption

breadwinner• 2 years ago

They only need to sell the US portion of the business. They can continue to operate everywhere else, right? Why would they throw away tens of billions of dollars (value of the US portion)?

georgeecollins• 2 years ago

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.

codedokode• 2 years ago

You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen

Because freedom of speech doesn't work in practice?

hahajk• 2 years ago

I didn't see the parent say there was no precedent.

But anyways, I like to hope that the US is better than China. If US citizens are abused while in China, I would be appalled to see Chinese citizens abused in the US as retribution.

holmesworcester• 2 years ago

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China.

And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.

"Ban" is completely appropriate shorthand for "ban (unless something highly improbable occurs)."

We can say that Google and Facebook are "banned" or "censored" in China even though China would surely be happy to unban them if they sold their operations in China to a Chinese business. So it is consistent and fair to say that this bill "bans" or "censors" TikTok.

alcoholic_byte16• 2 years ago

I think, also with respect to the comments to this comment, we need to appreciate the minute nature of this scenario and statement.

Journalists and your everyone else enjoys free speech, it must not be curtailed, neither must it be fostered.

While companies as a disembodied judicial entity cannot have speech in the same sense as people of flesh and blood, they can, simply based on their properties, act as an amplifier or muffler.

This requires at least some level of care which cannot be guaranteed if the business is run by a company headquartered in an unfriendly foreign nation which does not allow free speech at all and only allows businesses to conduct international business that is sanctioned.(We have had numerous reports about this now over the past years that foreign investors and companies operating in China are actually competing with the Chinese state there.)

If you don't agree, let's take out China in this argument and phrase it differently:

Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there? (I mean we had Nazi parties in the US around that time, BUT from today's perspective we would agree that such a scenario(the media-outlets) is a clear cut case with the US-government prohibiting it.)

What was better in the 1930's was that the newspaper industry was in the business for the news. They were a news-company. These days hedge-funds and for profits(not necessarily bad but it takes a turn when it is unadulterated greed by all means necessary( The Atlantic wrote a nice piece about this where Money swoops in buys a newspaper and runs it into the ground and that regularly and at scale, just cannot find the article)). So our position is a bit dire and we have Television and an industry that strives to captivate/capitalize all the attention it can get for a few pennies to deal with these days.

The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).

Pair that with the New Silk Road initiative and the Dollar-Imperialism the Chinese government tries to run in the Pan-Pacific region and the picture becomes less welcoming.

Don't get me wrong, there is enough blame to go around for everybody, but I rather have it come from a non fascist entity. That being said, I can go into Washington and demonstrate peacefully(!) against Biden or Trump and I can ask questions about the past. Try doing that in Bejing with respect to Xi or Tienamen Square.(So while we can blame both sides there is still more to one argument than the other, so much for whataboutism) Considering that 'Grandpa' Xi enforced a personal cult around him starting with children's school books(not unlike Putin) and with what goes on with the Uyghur population in China's north, the attempts to strong arm Taiwan , the alignment of China with Russia, the broken promise made to Hong Kong and other items, I have to say that China is fascist and the CCP communist in name only.

The concept of Lebensraum is firmly on the agenda of global and, if you are unfortunate enough, also local politics again.

China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions.(China is less commercially insulated than Russia it appears. Propably one of the reasons China's is a bit softer trying to incorporate time.)

From an economic perspective I totally get that no company wants to have their business taken away, but I doubt Bytedance is just a company. This is just a change in ownership, nothing out of the ordinary. The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership. That framing, in the light of what I just wrote, becomes highly suspect. Almost vicious, bordering on the willingness to divide and incite. (Which reminds me: Totalitarian regimes like to be part of the regular government bodies but they also like to set up their own counterpart so that they, after having stopped the working of those other bodies (or if they are ousted), still have a viable alternative.)

That is why I welcome this, why I think it is high time, why I hope to see more of these actions globally,

spaceman_20202• 2 years ago

To be fair, China never claimed to be the bastion of free market capitalism.

America did. Still does. And now it’s banning and regulating superior products off the market.

dbbk2• 2 years ago

TikTok in the US is not run by the Chinese parent directly, it's run by a US-based company called TikTok U.S. Data Security

zrn9003• 2 years ago

A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China

Every company that complies with the local laws can open any kind of company in China and they do.

The US has to do the same per WTO law as long as Tiktok obeys the US law. And it does. Hence the made up 'national security' horsesh*t to justify the ban - otherwise it would run afoul of WTO rules.

hi-v-rocknroll7• 2 years ago

It's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways.

US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.

faeriechangling2• 2 years ago

If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess.

The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world

Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.

rzz32• 2 years ago

It’s alarming to me that you think the owners of arguably the most successful social media company in the world would sell it only to appease a single country. It comes off as a typical American perspective of thinking they’re the center of the world. At TikTok’s current global growth rate, they could exceed the entire user base of the USA in just a few months. I’m not sure how that user share corresponds to revenue as I’d assume the US is a lucrative market,but I just don’t see it. And TikTok has directly said they won’t be divesting.

peanuty1• 2 years ago

How much of their revenue comes from Europe and Asia though? American users are much more valuable than Greek or Spanish users for instance.

xvector5• 2 years ago

The US is typically more profitable than all the other countries combined, as people here have far more disposable income after all expenses, and are more inclined to spend it.

j0hnyl• 2 years ago

The advertising market in the US pretty much eclipses the whole rest of the world, so yes the owners are very likely to sell it to appease a single country.

throwaway4good4• 2 years ago

I don't think it is possible or economically viable for ByteDance to sell TikTok under the terms set out, even if they wanted. Because of the shared code base with Douyin and the bill's requirements on severing ties between the two.

The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.

HarHarVeryFunny• 2 years ago

Today's news is that ByteDance says they'd prefer just to shut down TikTok rather than sell because:

1) Their algorithms (presumably video recommendations) are proprietary and used by their other Chinese apps

2) TikTok revenue isn't that significant for them

Maybe these reasons are bogus, but I'd not be surprised if they do refuse to sell.

barfingclouds• 2 years ago

Nope it doesn’t ban TikTok from having Chinese owners. TikTok could very well continue to have Chinese owners, and if so the US will ban the product domestically

superkuh2• 2 years ago

app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that enable distribution of TikTok in the US

So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?

spiderfarmer5• 2 years ago

I hope they improve their website so it won’t even need an app. And make it easier for external apps to upload content to the platform.

dfxm122• 2 years ago

This little blurb is not the actual law, so it's not worth considering what it means. You'll have to read the text of the law with a lawyer to see how clear it is. Even if the letter of the law leaves a little room for interpretation, think about what you would be trying to prove because I think the courts will agree that the spirit of the law is clear.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law

Yes, provided you are doing it in a way "through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application" [1]. (It would be perfectly legal to go to TikTok.com, however.)

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(a)(1)(A)

Klathmon• 2 years ago

Why would tiktok.com be allowed?

The bill itself says:

The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated...

So the website is explicitly included in that

ipaddr5• 2 years ago

Iphone users are out of luck.

metalcrow• 2 years ago

Anyone who is legally knowledgeable know how this works? The text says "It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute..a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out..internet hosting services to enable the distribution", and it specifices that this includes source code. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States specified that the publication of source code was protected by the first amendment, so the government would need a compelling reason to prevent that publication. Is there a conflict here? Is preventing the publication of an apk likely to withstand court scrutiny?

EDIT: My best guess currently is that the government is claiming there is a compelling state interest, that of national security, and that is why they should be allowed to ban the publication of this app and it's code. And even if it were to go to the court the courts don't like telling the government was is and isn't national security related, so they would probably just ok this.

api• 2 years ago

Hopefully it'll be sold to someone who will ruin it and we'll have one less addictionware monstrosity ensnaring millions of people into mindlessly scrolling through schlock.

Unfortunately that leaves Instagram, which is in many ways worse. Maybe Elon Musk can buy that one and destroy it next. He already did us a solid by ruining Twitter.

ok12345613• 2 years ago

I won't stop using it.

jjordan• 2 years ago

You won't have to, but if an actual ban went through, and an iPhone is your only means of connection, you would be truly SOL, because Apple's captured ecosystem only allows users to run what Apple will permit.

We need open ecosystems and access to full root-level control of our devices by default. Accept no substitutes.

dantheman3• 2 years ago

Don't use an iphone if you don't like it, don't use tiktok if you don't like it. It's really very simple, the government has no role in either case.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

if an actual ban went through, and an iPhone is your only means of connection, you would be truly SOL

No, you'd just go to the website.

nebula880414• 2 years ago

Correct me if I am wrong but this only limits people who already haven't downloaded the app yet? People who already have the app wouldn't just have it forcibly uninstalled from their phone right? I have had apps that didn't make it to the 32 -> 64 bit transition stay on my phone when my apps get transferred from phone to phone.

itemize2• 2 years ago

not SOL, but you have to jump through one hoop -- you can download apps from other regional store if you make an alternative account.

troq139• 2 years ago

If the creators can't make money they will stop using it.

superkuh2• 2 years ago

app stores in the US would have to drop the app, and Internet hosting services would be prohibited from providing services that enable distribution of TikTok in the US

So just install it like a normal application instead of using an "app store". But does this mean if I host the .apk or whatever on my personal website I would be breaking the law?

THENATHE3• 2 years ago

Yes. Hosting it for personal use would not be a crime, but distributing it would be. Additionally, even if people were to get it from you without you getting in trouble, they would all have to use a VPN to even begin to see anything, which is past the capabilities of most of the populace currently, which would make hosting it and distributing it via sneakerware basically useless.

lovegrenoble2• 2 years ago

When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...

anonuser1234• 2 years ago

US companies are not allowed to fairly compete in China. I think that reason alone is justification.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

It's funny how many of the comments here have really no idea the level of restrictions that are on US (or European) companies who want to operate in China (not just manufacture for export).

bluSCALE45• 2 years ago

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?

MaxHoppersGhost6• 2 years ago

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.

blackoil• 2 years ago

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

chamsom4• 2 years ago

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.

autoexec24• 2 years ago

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?

JohnMakin3• 2 years ago

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

tedivm• 2 years ago

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.

IncreasePosts4• 2 years ago

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.

giraffe_lady2• 2 years ago

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

EduardoBautista3• 2 years ago

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.

pphysch7• 2 years ago

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?

bluSCALE45• 2 years ago

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

flohofwoe2• 2 years ago

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.

mchanson• 2 years ago

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.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

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?

MaxHoppersGhost6• 2 years ago

About damn time. We should reciprocate any bans China has on US companies.

spiderfarmer5• 2 years ago

If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US. I certainly would not sell to a competitor. And I’d probably do a licensing deal for the content with a new entity without US based shareholders.

sgt• 2 years ago

This is your perfect time to sell the crap before it goes stale. Come on, have we learned nothing?

spiderfarmer5• 2 years ago

Maybe I just value not being bullied over being rich.

encoderer5• 2 years ago

How can they do that without upsetting the record labels?

They get a free pass to use licensed music because it’s a huge marketing channel for the labels. Lose America and that goes away.

afavour6• 2 years ago

Then you’d be wasting a huge amount of money for no good reason. If TikTok gets banned Meta will probably vacuum up the audience with Instagram Reels. It would be posturing with no real purpose.

Barrin92• 2 years ago

From Bytedance's point of view that's correct but the Chinese gov. would almost certainly interpret giving in to this as an incentive for Washington to ask "which sell off are we going to go for next". You'd effectively send the signal that this is a winning strategy to simply acquire Chinese firms by force. Beijing would almost certainly prevent that sale.

nebula880414• 2 years ago

If Reels was any good wouldn't it have become a meaningful force in its own right by now? As it stands from my point of view it is mostly stolen recycled week old TikTok content. That TikTok "magic" is made on their platform because of what their algorithm rewards. Meta does not have that "magic".

Buttons8407• 2 years ago

If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that their own government is a problem.

They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly.

I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy. I want young people to be more involved in politics and to vote.

afavour6• 2 years ago

I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy.

Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?

JohnBooty• 2 years ago

I don't even think you need to cook up possibilities as complicated as "psyop."

It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate, that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin this week" etc.

nebula880414• 2 years ago

Gen-Z is already a pretty rockstar generation having seen their older Millenial siblings grow up post 9/11 and then get totally screwed in the 08 crash only to then graduate themselves into a pandemic and a market that is valuing their debt laden college skills less by the day. They started off cynical and so far have been a lot more active than Millenials when they came of age. They might be the group that finally enacts meaningful change. It is too early to tell though but I remain optimistic.

Hopefully the scars from Gaza remain with them and they take a different stance with Israel. A TikTok ban killing off one of the most desired career paths of this generation (TikTok influencer) will have a lasting impact on them when they take the reigns.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US

This is economically irrational to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. If Beijing truly does this, it somewhat cements the argument that TikTok was a CCP policy tool.

brentm3• 2 years ago

I think it is reasonable that Beijing will not allow any sort of sale just for posture purposes. They don't want to be see as forced by Washington to do something and they care less about private economic outcomes than we do here, at least on the surface.

mamonster2• 2 years ago

Depends. If you model this as a reputation game, depending on who is the sane and who is the crazy sender, the PBE might might be a pooling equilibrium(i.e makes sense to build the reputation of being a predatory firm).

PurpleRamen2• 2 years ago

USA seems to make around 10-15% of their users, and is probably a big source of income. Purely for the economics, this would be lousy idea. Especially as a cut-off from the USA could influence other markets, including losing them too. EU has some movement too, they probably will watch very close what will happen there and act accordingly.

refurb• 2 years ago

What do you think would happen to the value of a company cutting of the richest country in the world?

intellix• 2 years ago

if you've been to China, you'll know that they ban all western products: facebook, google, etc etc and replaced them with their own variants. If they want to run around free-range without any restriction with their own products then they should respond by loosening restrictions in their own country.

This is an absolute no-brainer. If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger. Am I missing something?

themgt• 2 years ago

The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake and join us at the end of history. Their great firewall would cripple their economy until then. The new story is we're copying China's tactics because China did it first and it works great.

I mean, sure, go with that. But it doesn't negate the irony.

j0ba10• 2 years ago

Nonsense. A free and open system does not require foreign adversaries to be given free access to manipulate and control the population. That's not an open system, that's pure stupidity.

tristor• 2 years ago

The story back in the ancient history of ~1989->2021 was our free open liberal system was so obviously superior that we were just going to wait around for China to realize their dumb mistake

That story worked out fine until US companies started sending all their IP over to China for manufacturing which resulted in 3 key outcomes that broke the initial strategy:

1. It funded and supported the buildout of China's manufacturing base. China now has the best manufacturing base in the world, and in some cases is the only place in the world certain things can be feasibly made.

2. It guaranteed an export market for Chinese goods which helped to drive their economic engine.

3. It allowed unfettered industrial espionage. There is a reason that nearly every product in existence has a Chinese clone/counterfeit available within a week of launch.

The strategy failed, because the Great Firewall only keeps information out of China that the government wants kept out of China, but any other information goes in, but it prevents pretty much all information from flowing out. Firewalls are not binary, they are tunable with policy, and the Chinese government has historically had a strong strategy and nuanced policy, which has allowed them to see great economic success despite reducing freedom of information. Fundamentally, it's economics that drives the rise and fall of governments.

gretch3• 2 years ago

We're copying china's tactics wrt CHINA specifically (and other foreign adversaries)

This is not the same thing as copying China's approach to the world

Reciprocation is rational and good

falleng0d5• 2 years ago

Sorry but reciprocation is not copying. This is basic game theory. A 'tit for a tat'.

23B12• 2 years ago

There's no irony in realpolitik.

mjamesaustin2• 2 years ago

Reciprocation is actually the policy more likely to get China to open up. As long as they can impose rules on US companies with impunity, while we stand back and give them free reign in our market, they have a zero likelihood of compromising.

janalsncm3• 2 years ago

I don’t see this as reciprocation, I see it as a continuation of an existing policy that requires US media to be owned by Americans.

I do agree with you though that the capitalism=democracy experiment was a pretty obvious failure. You can have pretty free markets with or without democracy. The US emerged from the Cold Wa with ideological battle scars which prevent us from doing what’s best for the people because that might be communism. We are gradually finding out that concentrated corporate power is potentially an even greater threat.

hot_gril11• 2 years ago

I was always in favor of banning it for this reason, but I'm concerned that Biden is now banning it for a different reason. The timing is interesting. Certain lobby groups have been urging Congress on this due to TikTok videos about the war in Gaza. Then again, Trump was also trying to ban it for his own reasons.

ZoomerCretin6• 2 years ago

Yep. TikTok is the only major social media app in the US that does not downrank pro-Palestinian content. No one in the US government cared about TikTok until the latest conflict in Israel. This is the only reason for the ban.

tedd4u2• 2 years ago

I don't think it's accurate to say Biden is banning it. The vote in the House was very bipartisan. R's were like 92% in favor and D's more like 75%.

    Yes: 155 D + 197 R
    No:   50 D +  15 R

On Monday the White House clarified its position:

    "We do not want to ban apps like TikTok. What we want – and what the 
    legislation we support would do – is ensure that TikTok becomes owned by an 
    American company so that our and our children's sensitive personal data stays 
    here instead of going to China and so that Americans' understandings and 
    views can't be manipulated by algorithms potentially controlled by the PRC."

DaveExeter2• 2 years ago

That's the real reason!

AIPAC wants Tiktok gone because young people are getting objective information rather than the propaganda of mainstream "responsible" media. [1]

Tiktok is not a good thing for Genocide Joe either! He has been an Israeli puppet for decades. Thanks to Tiktok, being an Israeli puppet has become a political liability because Israel has lost its control over American minds.

[1] https://twitter.com/SweatieAngle/status/1725897178038595901

tonymet• 2 years ago

China is communist. That is not the bar we are holding ourselves to.

paxys3• 2 years ago

Free trade and reciprocity agreements don't depend on a country's political leanings. You either play ball with the world or you don't. Can't have it both ways.

notresidenter2• 2 years ago

China is absolutely not communist, it's probably the most capitalist country nowadays !

xdennis5• 2 years ago

Tit for tat is the bar for all international relations.

gosub1002• 2 years ago

for some reason capitalist countries love trading with them, gee I wonder why.

hackerlight5• 2 years ago

If you want Tik Tok in the US, lower your middle finger.

Reciprocity isn't the main reason. It's become a legitimate national security problem. We're no longer in the early 2000s where we could delude ourselves into thinking China wasn't a rival. They're clearly revisionist, with their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes and rhetoric about forceful reunification of Taiwan being on the table. They are bolstering strategic reserves of oil beyond normal peacetime levels, appointing Taiwan hawks to the Politburo, increasing PLA presence near Taiwan, running war games involving an embargo of Taiwan. They doubled their trade with Russia, filling in gaps left by sanctions. They are overtly hostile to the maritime sovereignty of a treaty ally of the US.

The world has changed a lot, and few here realize it because they're stuck in this weird libertarian bubble where everyone's interests are the same and foreign policy doesn't exist and it's cynical intentions all the way down. You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis just as Europe was back in 2022.

The US will legislate according to its interests, and that is what it's appropriately doing here.

atleastoptimal• 2 years ago

what happened in Europe in 2022?

mistermann10• 2 years ago

It's become a legitimate national security problem.

What is the nature of the risk?

You are all in for a rude awakening to wake you up from your hypnosis...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox

DiogenesKynikos• 2 years ago

their aggressive approach to resolving border disputes

China hasn't fought a war in 40 years. In recent years, there have been some border skirmishes with India between unarmed soldiers (it's not even clear which side initiated them) and some naval confrontations about a few islands with no shots fired, but that's about it. Meanwhile, the US has been fighting wars all around the world.

madeofpalk2• 2 years ago

Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.

uejfiweun2• 2 years ago

Give me a break... what, you'd rather just let said totalitarian government pump their propaganda into the US? This is a great example of following your moral principles right off the cliff.

cscurmudgeon6• 2 years ago

Tolerance shouldn’t tolerate intolerance.

tptacek4• 2 years ago

Ownership restrictions on media companies generally are commonplace throughout the developed world.

hi-v-rocknroll7• 2 years ago

Exactly. Leadership isn't following with tit-for-tat pettiness.

What would be US leadership would similar to what Ro Khanna is saying with data and personal information privacy standards like a nationwide US GDPR but with the teeth of something like HIPAA. Data brokers should be put out of business.

EasyMark5• 2 years ago

Because we don't want to look like pushovers and wimps who won't push back against a bully who is eating our lunch.

LeafItAlone• 2 years ago

Personally I don’t think ‘totalitarian government does it, so should we’ is a super compelling reason.

How about “make economic power and one of our main competitors” does it? Just because China is a totalitarian government didn’t mean they can do the “right” thing.

SuperHeavy2562• 2 years ago

Yes, you are missing something. Because you're seeing tiktok as a product, not as a community of millions of people. There are tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses that are only able to survive because of Tiktok. For a lot of the younger crowd, Tiktok is part of social culture. Cutting out a part of someone's life like that is not a decision that should be taken lightly at all.

Peace.

VHRanger• 2 years ago

It's a community of millions of people, but which are seen by the millions is subject to the CCP's algorithm.

Just search for "Uighur genocide" and see how many negative Tiktoks you find.

Now go on any western social media platform, search for any contentious topic, and notice what's banned. It's not stuff that's harmful to the government (eg. Gaza/Israel topics) it's stuff that advertisers think is harmful (racism, unlabeled porn, etc.).

Also, restraining from banning a platform because some people can't be arsed to also post to IG reels or other platforms is their own fault as entrepreneurs.

budududuroiu10• 2 years ago

There’s tens of thousands of families that depend on income from meth production or trading. Meth is part of the social culture for a significant subset of people.

TrackerFF• 2 years ago

Then it's time for them to move on to a new platform.

The fact that people have become dependent is no good argument for keeping the platform around.

And, with that said, if TikTok disappears - a new platform fill its void, as well as other platforms absorbing users. If there's a demand, someone will supply.

jsutton• 2 years ago

Terrible take. You want the USA to follow the same policy on speech that Communist China follows?

ThalesX3• 2 years ago

Have you been to China? I've been to China and had no problems using all the things you're mentioning with the help of a VPN. Was it as easy as in Europe? No. Did it feel like a ban? Also no.

ironick09• 2 years ago

Was it a ban? Also yes

dirtybirdnj• 2 years ago

If your not banning tiktok for it's ownership opacity... ban it for destroying attention span and training people into being mindless content consumption robots.

We regulate cigarettes and heroin this is a much bigger problem than people give it credit for.

It's an even worse problem if a bad actor is using it subtlety to influence a population.

It doesn't matter if ByteDance or FB are doing this they should both burn to the ground for the damage they have done to the Internet and society.

GardenLetter27• 2 years ago

They have a year though, and this will certainly go to the Supreme Court.

slg8• 2 years ago

The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation that is more popular.

encoderer5• 2 years ago

No, in the house they voted on this bill by itself and it passed overwhelmingly - 360 to 58

slg8• 2 years ago

And that wasn't expected to happen in the Senate. Also that is the vote total for this bill, not the previous one that passed the House last month.

darknavi• 2 years ago

It was a series of bills

avn2109• 2 years ago

Besides the "unrelated legislation" thing, this is just such blatant corporate welfare for the American BigCo's that will buy Tiktok. Microsoft and Google are absolutely salivating at the thought of buying their way into a major social network in 2024, and not only will the Feds not go after them for antitrust, they'll actually greenlight it in advance and mandate the sale. Big tech lobbying money well spent!

Aloisius7• 2 years ago

The legislation doesn't require American ownership.

trevoragilbert2• 2 years ago

Historically this is just how it works. You want law x passed and I'm ambivalent about it, I want law y passed and you're ambivalent about it. We both need each other to pass either of them, so we agree to pass both as part of a larger law. This isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 1800s. As early as the decision to make DC the capital we've traded goals through compromise.

The process does get abused and I get frustration over those instance. For this one in particular, there are thematic similarities that can reasonably fall under "national security concerns".

henry2023• 2 years ago

“it’s ok because it has always been like this” is both a fallacy and a really bad argument.

slg8• 2 years ago

There is no reason a compromise needs to be formalized into a singular piece of legislation. Doing it this way helps politicians avoid accountability because it gives them plausible deniability to say they didn't support specific provisions of the overall bill. I think that is ultimately worse for our political system than making passing legislation more difficult.

brentm3• 2 years ago

It's either this way or pass nothing ever. Unless the country tilts away from basically 50/50 with two parties that constantly try to undo the other there are few options to get anything through congress.

dantheman3• 2 years ago

I think I'd take pass nothing ever...

suyash• 2 years ago

Tell that to China, it's worst over there, no reason given just a great firewall ban shows up for your app/service. They have banned so many popular services there for decades, it's time for other countries to do tit for tat.

dfxm122• 2 years ago

I'm more interested in maintaining my own freedom & not further hindering freedom of the Web than spiting the Chinese government. I understand passions may be high when it comes to China, but do please consider these tradeoffs, because I'm not sure what this does to Chinese government in the grand scheme of things, but now the US government has a framework and precedent to stop me from using apps.

stefan_• 2 years ago

This was an amendment that was individually voted on

cvoss• 2 years ago

Well, they're not completely unrelated. The TikTok issue and the defense spending issue are both framed as national security concerns.

But secondly, I don't actually mind this aspect of the US political process. It's part of compromise and negotiations which are indispensable in an environment where not everyone is on the same page about what's important.

linearrust3• 2 years ago

And the media will provide cover by calling it the tiktok bill to distract the people from the $60 billion given to ukraine and $26 billion given to israel. Wonderful isn't it?

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piece of legislation that is more popular

This bill was individually voted on by the House and sent to the Senate in March [1]. There it was deliberated in committee and re-drafted [2]. The House, on Saturday, passed it separately from the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan votes [3] (alongside Russian asset forfeiture and restrictions on Chinese financial institutions that do business with Iran). It was then bundled in the Senate for an up-and-down vote.

This was absoloutely not an omnibus slip-in.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-vote-force-byted...

[2] https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/03/14/congress/ca...

[3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...

tmaly• 2 years ago

Regardless of what side you are on about this, it will be used to chip away at the liberties of American citizens. Look at the Patriot Act or the FISA wiretap laws. They told everyone it was only for foreigners, but it is impacting Americans.

lovegrenoble2• 2 years ago

When Appropriation Becomes a Tool...

option• 2 years ago

Controversial, but right move by US.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity’s survival, or at least an extremely potent gateway drug to it.

afavour6• 2 years ago

If that’s the argument then you need to regulate social media as a whole. Instead this is specifically geopolitical intrigue rather than any care about the mental health of the American people.

Microsoft/Meta/A conglomerate of record labels(?) will buy TikTok and it’ll continue to exist just as it does today.

ipaddr5• 2 years ago

What would be interesting is a cap on followers. Would change the platform into being more social and less influencers driven.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

you need to regulate social media as a whole

No, actually we dont. There is no divine mandate that requires us to do that, especially in a scenario where the geopolitical rival is using our credulity to their advantage.

vezycash• 2 years ago

Didn't Democrats kick against it when Trump made the same move?

linearrust3• 2 years ago

Biden signs bill into law giving $60 billion to ukraine and $26 billion to israel.

Isn't that what the bill actually does. The tiktok part is just legal distraction as it punts the tiktok issue to the next administration.

gretch3• 2 years ago

Isn't that what the bill actually does

The bill actually does multiple things, and it's okay to talk about the components in isolation.

cljacoby• 2 years ago

As I understand the bill is solely focused with the national security implications of ByteDance being China-based, and not the social impacts of short form video platforms on mental health, attention span, etc. Good news for Instagram Reels.

I also wonder if this goes through, does this set a precedent for enforcing similar divestment expectations for any companies operating in China. Is this isolated to social media platform, or could this also eventually extend in to other industries like manufacturing?

LordKeren5• 2 years ago

The government already forced Grindr to be sold back in 2019 , so this isn’t a new precedent.

The only difference is scale and user base — and this time around it was even included in a bill.

The Government has a long history of interfering with foreign businesses in the name of national security. Feds have blocked sale of infrastructure like ports many times

autoexec24• 2 years ago

I get why they did it, but it's disappointing to have congress decide what software we're allowed to use. I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.

lm28469• 2 years ago

I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.

Is this sarcastic ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...

autoexec24• 2 years ago

The Great Firewall of China was a horrible idea when they did it. We don't need to make the same mistake in the US.

LordKeren5• 2 years ago

China has banned innumerable pieces of software. They banned YouTube more than a decade ago

viscanti• 2 years ago

I wonder if China or other countries will do the same for US apps now.

China has been doing this for a very long time, to keep US apps out of the Chinese market (or forced IP transfers to Chinese companies) so that Chinese apps can thrive. There's no room for them to retaliate because they've already gone as far as they possibly could.

junon• 2 years ago

They literally already do, I'm not sure what rock people have been living under but whenever I read comments like this it feels like misinformation campaign material given how common knowledge it is that China regulates foreign apps, internet traffic, and data.

skullone• 2 years ago

China already bans many many western companies and services.

FalconSensei3• 2 years ago

Now let's get Facebook/Instagram and Twitter banned from EU/Asia since they are owned by US companies

NickInSF• 2 years ago

American social media is already banned in China. TikTok is also banned in China in favor of the state-controlled Douyin.

pelorat• 2 years ago

So, press F for Bidens re-election campaign I guess?

Watch every republican and jump on this (even though they support it).

duxup4• 2 years ago

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

bink2• 2 years ago

I should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China. This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market and even force a sale of a foreign company to an American company. That's the type of action taken by Russia and China that is rightfully condemned.

I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-monopoly legislation that removes the danger rather than playing whack-a-mole with whatever company has attracted the most attention at the time.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China

We do. TikTok.com won't be blocked here the way Facebook and Google are in China.

LordKeren5• 2 years ago

The forced sale of Grindr already demonstrated this precedent

duxup4• 2 years ago

No my reasoning would simply be applying the same rules that China applies to US companies for social media.

Good for the goose…

deciplex2• 2 years ago

This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market

No it wouldn't, as that precedent is already set. And, not only do they choose winners, but individual members of Congress freely profit off those choices.

qp11• 2 years ago

The US is a weird ass country cause everything has been privatized. The banks, insurance, energy, water, food, health, telcos, the railways etc etc

Very few countries across the world do that. Govts usually own a chunk of the largest firms in strategic sectors and have seats on the board. Look at Boeing/Airbus ownership and the outcomes. Its just easier to influence large corps when you own them. If you don't own them then Boeing is the latest example in a long line up of large corps, showing everyone how they skirt whatever law and regulation the govt passes.

NegativeLatency6• 2 years ago

Just because some other country suppresses what content their citizens see doesn't mean we should too.

I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.

duxup4• 2 years ago

My basis is simply a tit for tat trade situation. Roughly the same situation for Chinese social media companies as they would apply to American in China.

Content is really unrelated.

falleng0d5• 2 years ago

This is not about suppressing content. ByteDance will be able to sell the company and even profit from it.

barryrandall• 2 years ago

What improvements should Americans expect to see in the next 6-12 months?

gretch3• 2 years ago

Probably exactly zero given that's the basic clock for divestiture to even happen

The company has an initial nine months to sort out a deal, though the president could extend that another three months if he sees progress.

But I do hope to see improvements in the next 5 years. I'd like to see less trends around destructive behavior: eating tide pods, destroying/defacing property, harassing others.

The algorithm should not be unbiased. We must take manual intervention to hinder the destructive tendencies in human behavior

Liftyee• 2 years ago

Honestly might benefit the US if TikTok gets shut down. Short form content is an endemic attention parasite.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

The bill doesnt ban shortform content.

nme012• 2 years ago

This shows that values such as “freedom of speech” are only key words used to enforce US policy in other countries. For such a long time it was advocated that free speech is an important thing and good in and on itself. Now it turns out the free speech is good only as long as it’s US who dominates the information market.

thinkingtoilet2• 2 years ago

How is this an attack on free speech? What individual is getting punished for their speech by the government? There is hardly a lack of spaces online for you to say just about anything.

NegativeLatency6• 2 years ago

Google and Meta have limited what political content they'll show to you, feels like a pretty clear attack on something the establishment doesn't like but justifying it with the boogey man of communism: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240737627/meta-limit-politic...

Miner49er• 2 years ago

Free speech includes the right to receive/hear speech. TikTok contains a trove of speech that doesn't exist elsewhere. Banning it is unconstitutional, and I'm confident the courts will agree.

dantheman3• 2 years ago

I think it shows that politicians are short sighted and immoral - nothing new there. Freedom of speech is still incredibly valued and constantly fought for.

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

“Now”? The US and state governments constantly try to violate free speech. Texas, Florida, and California all had major laws truck down for 1st amendment violations in the past year. And it’s been like this since the first Adams administration

ipaddr5• 2 years ago

Freedom of speech is right for an American citizen not a foreign country or entity.

Regardless free speech for Americans is already dead. Remember when they took away rights from groups you didn't care about? Now it's your turn.

Buttons8407• 2 years ago

Freedom of speech is a moral ideal that exists despite the intricacies of US law.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

The US has banned foreign ownership of TV and radio since 1934. Are you really this naive of your own country's operations?

hobotime• 2 years ago

TikTok made the mistake of making life difficult for the party. Boosting pro-Palestine voices has consequences.

wilsonnb32• 2 years ago

The idea of banning Tik Tok or forcing Bytedance to sell it has been cooking for much longer than the current Israel-Palestine drama, it would have happened anyways

hdlothia• 2 years ago

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

I would be politically illiterate to pretend that a tik tok ban hasn’t been cooking for a long time, but I think the final impetus for this latest, successful push is the youth seeing non-mainstream perspective on the war.

nickthegreek9• 2 years ago

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40145963

deepfriedbits2• 2 years ago

Why target TikTok only? They should ban any Chinese social media app or network, and that should remain in effect until China agrees to open its domestic audience to Instagram, Google, Facebook, X, etc.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

should ban any Chinese social media app or network

The law permits the President to similarly designate any entity that meets the law's thresholds for a covered company [1] controlled by a foreign adversary [2].

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... § 2(g)(2)

[2] Id. § 2(g)(1)

deepfriedbits2• 2 years ago

Thanks for highlighting the language. I fear it's not being framed as that, though, and there will be another battle in the court of public opinion for the next TikTok.

SamPatt• 2 years ago

This just proves that some principles (such as free speech) are only upheld conditionally when those in power feel they don't actually threaten their control.

Actions speak louder than words.

efitz• 2 years ago

I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative.

My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted.

I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contracts.

Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc. We had to build independent systems just for China to prevent sharing information about non-China based customers and employees. Where we couldn’t do that, we had to build filtered replication “diodes” to prevent data leakage.

China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?

nebula880414• 2 years ago

China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?

This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West when it comes to Israel and current times are no different. Tiktok has allowed nearly more access to whatever footage is capable of sneaking out of the warzone whereas Meta platforms tend to suppress. (ex: they recently auto-defaulted a restriction on political content without informing their users).

slowmovintarget2• 2 years ago

TikTok amplifies whatever is in China's interest to amplify. Today, it happens to be voices opposed to Israel. Tomorrow, it could easily be the opposite. The goal is to generate geopolitical chaos to veil other actions (Taiwan, South China sea, Chinese migrant injections into Panama...).

A society's strength comes from its unity of will and resolve. Social media can be used to attack that unity... and has, not just by China.

Aloha5• 2 years ago

I'm not seeing any issue with those voices finding a space elsewhere say on X/Twitter - believe me, I see enough of the slop over from it.

The level of direct control the US Government has over US Social Media platforms pales in comparison to the control China has over TikTok.

hhjinks10• 2 years ago

TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms

This has to be substantiated, because it seems blatantly absurd on its face. Are you saying TikTok is an anti-western platform? That, in and of itself, justifies the divestment, considering the owner, no? Furthermore, what "pro-western" platforms are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from TikTok that wouldn't fly on discord or reddit, for example.

autoexec24• 2 years ago

Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc.

This happens in the US too and has been happening for a very long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) only when it happens to US companies they get gag orders and/or paid off. (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/ve... and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-att-cooperated-... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)

The content on tiktok is a problem, but there's nothing on tiktok that isn't also on facebook/reddit/twitter/youtube. The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.

Aloha5• 2 years ago

While I'm not always thrilled that about the amount of monitoring United States Government does, as a United States Citizen, my government is at least marginally accountable to me - if enough of us are bothered by this policy, we can choose to elect representatives who will change it.

I can't say that about China, certainly not to me as a United States Citizen, and not even really to Chinese Citizens either - which is why it's another thing entirely when a foreign government is doing this level of monitoring on United States Soil.

China is welcome to monitor its own citizens on its own soil to the extent it desires - and monitor communications in and out of China - they're however not welcome to do that level of monitoring on United States Soil on anyone who resides here - at least not without the explicit consent of the United States Government.

wumeow9• 2 years ago

The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.

Except that TikTok’s data, or the main copy of it at least, resides in the US, so the evil US govt theoretically already has access to it. That’s not the motivation for this bill.

mrtksn9• 2 years ago

I know this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban. Maybe Musk will buy it for pennies ona dollar and will turn my TikTok feed to my Twitter feed, which is full of lunatics, conspiracy theories, racist, dog whistle racist, conman and Tesla boys. Maybe Zuck will buy it and will start showing hot girls, meals and tourist attractions like they do on Instagram?

Since I'm not it the USA, maybe I will be able to use the global TikTok that I love. Hopefully.

But this is not my main concern, my main concern is that you people act like everything is about business and the users are just cattle.

0 regards about the fact that lots and lots of people love this app. I'm one of them because its the last place on the internet where it feels like I'm not supposed to be outraged or spending money all the time. It feels like the old internet for me.

Also, if the American users are lost, I will loose a lot of great content.

I'm appalled that people here on HN have no ability to realize that they deal with real people and not only numbers in the analytics and the bank.

It almost feels like there's no sense of identity here, no sese of persons who must have freedom to use and consume whatever they want.

The argument goes "The Chinese are banning our social media companies, why would we do the same?". Why don't you rephrase it as "The Chinese communist part controls what apps and media the Chinese citizens can consume, why we don't control what Americans consume?".

Can you really not see that taking away a product that people use is not only about companies? Are you really that blind to see that you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China?

Chinese government is not the ideal form of governance, please stop trying to be like China. Have some sense of personal freedoms.

Aloha5• 2 years ago

I've watched people end up radicalized by content on TikTok - in ways that twitter, facebook, youtube, et al doesn't seem to do. You end up seeing the opening for a rabbit hole, and then suddenly you're very deep into said rabbit hole.

I get your concerns over loss of something you enjoy - but the content is steerable enough by algorithm and addictive enough that a little twiddle of the knob, and suddenly a bunch of people believe some very harmful and hard to eliminate untruths.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

this is not straight up a ban but it is a ban

It's really not. ByteDance isn't being sanctioned. TikTok.com will remain accessible to everyone in America. This is simply saying if it can't be sold to an American (EDIT: non-Chinese) buyer within a year, it gets removed from U.S. hosting and U.S. app stores.

you can't claim being "the free world" by imitating China

Good thing we're not.

asdasdsddd• 2 years ago

I think people are reticent to admit that unfettered globalism (especially in the internet which was meant to connect the world) is bad and has serious security implications. It should've been obvious retrospectively, but folks were lulled by a sense of post-soviet optimism.

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

Im concerned this represents a more general trend towards severing the small connections between countries formed on things like social networks, and that in doing so we’re opening ourselves up to a public that will be more supportive of useless war.

segasaturn3• 2 years ago

and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?

By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

hot_gril11• 2 years ago

I view it like trade. They block our social media there, we block theirs here. EU did the same when we put tariffs on their steel or something.

eganist3• 2 years ago

By the looks of it, it seems like you want the US to be more like the CCP than the other way around. Imitating authoritarian governments harms America's global reputation for "freedom and democracy", if that reputation even still exists.

There's a wild difference between unfettered access to a company's assets, systems, networks, data, etc. vs policywork to simply require that companies be owned at the very least by a country that isn't either Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran.

Yes, I did read the bill. They did specifically single out ByteDance presumably to make sure there wasn't a way ByteDance could claim they weren't under Chinese influence. But they made a point of calling out Foreign Adversary Countries and pointed to https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872 in doing so.

Bill raw text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...

turquoisevar• 2 years ago

I see variations of this argument pop up in this debate, which always confuses me.

I’d expect the takeaway to be “That’s bad, so we shouldn’t do it” instead of “Hold my beer and let me show you how we can follow their example.”

I always thought that the point was to not be like authoritarian countries.

j2kun2• 2 years ago

follow their example

Nothing about this is following their example. It's saying, "if you do the bad thing we won't let you operate here."

brigadier132• 2 years ago

I always thought that the point was to not be like authoritarian countries.

No, the point is to not give authoritarian countries a free pass.

This is like saying we shouldn't put people in jail for murder because it's effectively kidnapping and that would make us like them.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

Ever study game theory? Apparently not.

elfbargpt• 2 years ago

Is there any evidence that the content on TikTok isn't a result of the beliefs and interests of its users in America?

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

It doesn't matter, but also that isn't the stated reasoning for the law.

AbstractH242• 2 years ago

What does this mean for their US employees, their job security, and even office morale?

troq139• 2 years ago

What will happen to the creators that make a living on TikTok...

AbstractH242• 2 years ago

Honestly, less concerned about them.

They’ll move to whatever platform users move to

onepremise3• 2 years ago

I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in our country. TikTok, Twitter (X), Facebook, and Truth social have been abused and leveraged to manipulate many into thinking conspiracies are all real. This also includes media outlets and corporations that allow foreign Chinese (CCP) and oligarch investors. The difference with TikTok is that its owned by the CCP and they are very intent on getting everybody to dislike our government and splinter our democracy. While TikTok is mostly garbage, I think there are many that leverage the platform for income and have been quite successful off it. I still think it should be moderated in a way that doesn't turn citizens against each other and their own government. The only way to do this is to ban or sell the corporation. I'd also add disallowing foreign investors that are not Allies to the US.

What Does Free Speech Mean? https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...

hindsightbias• 2 years ago

I wonder if Ellison and Elon could swing a deal for it.

onepremise3• 2 years ago

autoexec24• 2 years ago

TikTok isn't violating any US laws. If the US outlawed 'spreading disinformation to polarize politics' they'd have to ban youtube/facebook/twitter/reddit too. Do you think we should block all websites in China and Russia? Should we block their IP space entirely? We used to say that censoring the internet was something that only happened in Evil countries like China. We'd poke fun at their Great Firewall, but to preserve our own hypocrisy the US has decided to join in on the internet censorship game. Now congress is telling you what software you're allowed to install on your own hardware.

I think it's better to have freedom. As an American I should be able to view any media from any country I like as long as that media doesn't violate US law. Americans should have the freedom to use any software written in any country they like. In this case, we lost freedom to censorship and Democracy did nothing to stop it.

xdennis5• 2 years ago

TikTok isn't violating any US laws.

Not a very good argument. This post is literally about the signing of the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act".

The loophole which is being closed is allowing foreign adversaries to control your social media apps.

It will be in violation if it doesn't sell.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

Foreigners weren't breaking our laws in 1934 when we banned them from owning radio and TV stations. Are you all really that poorly educated in US history? Have schools really deteriorated that much in the 35 years I've been away from them that kids don't know we have laws governing mass media in this country?

btown2• 2 years ago

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/... - the relevant section of the final version of the bill.

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

I wonder how effective being banned would really be at slowing down usage?

Across various threads there's a lot of info on how large & what a revenue source the US is for TikTok, and an assumption that that goes away. But do people think the ban would be 100% effective, that no one would workaround? Would TikTok accept the ban or try to help people work around it?

I kind of want to see an example of the US trying to control things at out. It's probably not enough for ByteDance, but if they could retain 20% of the US in spite of the ban, that'd be a pretty big cultural victory, would be an impressive way to show up congress.

nebula880414• 2 years ago

It is finally time for the Year of Linux on Mobile? Probably not lol but maybe this will push people to learn how to sideload or "tiktok install services" might crop up to do so. Maybe this might force Apple to open up iOS also if enough users go to sideloaded Android to get their tiktok fix.

Correct me if I am wrong but Didn't Epic also get removed from the Android and Apple stores? They are still going somehow though.

cwyers3• 2 years ago

I feel like if TikTok didn't want this to happen, they should have not had their CEO commit perjury in front of Congress.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tikt...

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Or literally having the Chinese embassy lobby on their behalf [1]. I guess we can laugh now that we're on the other side of this ham-fisted fiasco.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/17/china-lobbying-tikt...

Spivak5• 2 years ago

Are we reading the same articles? The Forbes story is just suggesting that there's a possible interpretation of their statements as lying and your link is saying that China wants TikTok to remain owned by a Chinese firm -- and of course they do, for the same reason the US would resist huge chunks of our own hugely profitable companies being sold off. There's no actual evidence of anything.

Like I'm ready to get out the pitchforks but this is just weird FUD.

no_exit• 2 years ago

I thought the punishment for Congressional perjury was a lucrative think tank sinecure, America's really changed lately.

autoexec24• 2 years ago

Who hasn't lied to Congress at this point? Facebook did it, Amazon did it, the oil industry did it, Betsy DeVos did it, the director of the CIA did it, EPA Chief Scott Pruitt did it, Big Tobacco did it. How many of them faced any real consequences?

Balgair• 2 years ago

I'll admit, I never really thought that social media primarily revolving around dancing teens would ever be a front in the Second Punic War... err, sorry, second cold war.

nunez• 2 years ago

Does this mean that Cheetah Mobile apps are also going to be purged from US app stores? That would be a huge net benefit if so.

What does this mean for the INSANE number of Chinese-owned IoT companies that sell products in the US that store some data in China?

pelagicAustral• 2 years ago

Will be nice to see how this going to be implemented. Good luck with that.

cranberryturkey3• 2 years ago

seriously, tiktok canibalizing ad revenue at bigtech so they ban it? how is that not communism?

throwaway5959• 2 years ago

Pray tell, what do you think communism is?

notyourwork• 2 years ago

This is because of ad revenue?

astrange3• 2 years ago

It's because having a large media company controlled by the CCP is obviously bad and their CEO was clearly lying when he testified about it.

That and after Congress had already concluded it was being run in a way bad for teens' mental health, TikTok put up a dialog on launch saying they'd get banned unless all their users called in about it, so all the teenagers with bad mental health called in and said they'd kill themselves without TikTok.

tmtvl• 2 years ago

Communism is where government owns the businesses. Businesses being in charge of govt. is called 'corporatocracy'.

astrange3• 2 years ago

Pretty easily since it's happened before (Grindr) and nobody noticed.

vyrotek• 2 years ago

@dang, Am I imagining things or did something unusual happen with the ranking of this submission? Shot up and then dropped despite votes and comments.

phone86753095• 2 years ago

You'd have to know how many people have downvoted this to know that for certain.

sethammons• 2 years ago

He has previously said that there is governing logic in place to put the breaks on rapidly progressing stories to act as a dampener on potential contentious posts

kevingadd• 2 years ago

Threads with comment counts vastly exceeding their upvote count historically get suppressed, it's an anti-flamewar mechanism. Not sure if it's still in effect, but it would have applied here based on the # of upvotes.

paulcole2• 2 years ago

Are any other companies going to have to divest as a result of the bill?

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

Not immediately. It's possible for the president to extend it to cover other companies in the future.

majani2• 2 years ago

Asset seizure over data that mainly contains mindless entertainment? This is a new low for the US as a business environment in my opinion.

beretguy2• 2 years ago

But isn’t China spying through tiktok?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index....

WhereIsTheTruth• 2 years ago

TikTok? what's the goal exactly? looks like this goes beyond China, what other laws do they want to pass? China spying on people having fun dancing and cooking!

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies...

https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/290615/revealed-m...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11562433/Facebook-r...

Should the world ban Swift, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube? Where is CISCO, CISCO?!

And finally, should the world ditch the USD?

Reciprocity, at what price? :)

czbond2• 2 years ago

Wouldn't you as a government rather control your own citizens through mindless entertainment and algorithms than a foreign government? This isn't about China per se.....

majani2• 2 years ago

Are we also going to go ban Fortnite and Unreal Engine for producing mindless entertainment from China?

nonethewiser2• 2 years ago

Can someone explain why the previous "ban" was blocked but this wasnt? As I recall TikTok filed for an injunction and they argued it was unconstitutional (violated the 5th ammendment) and the injunction was granted. Then Biden rescinded the executive order and it ended there.

timerol2• 2 years ago

As I understand it, the unconstitutionality of the initial executive order was based on the balance of power in the US government. Doing this kind of thing by executive order is not allowed. Doing this kind of thing by passing a law through Congress is allowed. The Constitution gives a lot of power to the legislature, especially given the interpretations of the Commerce Clause over the history of the US.

nonethewiser2• 2 years ago

That would make sense if the initial reasoning wasn't that it violated the constitution. Neither executive orders nor laws can violate the constitution.

droptablemain3• 2 years ago

If China passed a similar law, I wonder what the U.S. state dept. would say about it.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

Uh, Google was kicked out of China for not censoring search results, Meta and others are blocked for not submitting to censorship. This is tame by comparison.

droptablemain3• 2 years ago

Kicked out for not complying with rules vs. being forced to sell.

jmbwell2• 2 years ago

From what I understand, Google, YouTube, the web site that used to be called Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook are all banned in China already.

So I suspect the state department would say something like, "the state department recommends banning TikTok."

droptablemain3• 2 years ago

I suspect the state dept. would say China banning Facebook/Twitter, etc. is an example of it being a "bad" or "totalitarian" "regime."

But the U.S. banning Tik-Tok? Why that's just good ol' democracy at work!

danieltanfh954• 2 years ago

It is maddening to see people who usually are pretty serious and mature turn into zombies parroting whatever political propaganda the state decides to push out this year.

Some key facts:

1. Tiktok isn’t allowed to sell because their AI models and algorithms are trained on Chinese citizenry data. These items have been marked as non-exports for some time now, and this is a well known fact by the people pushing for the bill.

2. The bill was only passed since it was shafted into a bundle of other more urgent bills that have to pass.

3. Not all American media companies are banned in China. Some refuse to comply with local laws and pulled out. For example, Apple and Microsoft complied. However the competition in China is immense and not every business can survive the capitalistic competition.

4. While there were talks about the ban, it was not until the overwhelming amount of Pro Palestinian content that led to the heavy push for the ban.

5. The US is a relatively tiny market for tiktok, so tiktok is likely to just pull out.

What I think:

1. The date set for the sale is highly political, and IMO its meant to weaponise Gen Z against the democrats.

2. Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.

segasaturn3• 2 years ago

Agree strongly w/ this post. The irony of the comments claiming that TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool is that TikTok is one of the only major social platforms that isn't totally controlled by Western propaganda. Reddit, Facebook, X etc. will all ban and downrank you for anti-Western wrongthink.

abvdasker• 2 years ago

It's genuinely remarkable to witness the Democratic Party spurn their base of young people for no discernible gain. Who exactly is the constituency for this legislation other than China hawks?

ZoomerCretin6• 2 years ago

Israel, who is mad that there exists a major social media app which does not censor pro-Palestinian content.

extr• 2 years ago

Don't really see what any of this has to do with the core objection that via TikTok a foreign nation, a global power, has the ability to directly and completely opaquely manipulate american voter at an unprecendented level.

Would be insanely easy to identify swing counties/demographics and slightly tweak their algorithm to influence votes. You can be sure some chinese data scientist has already run the numbers on this (if not already experimented on it at a state/local level). I don't really feel comfortable with the CCP having that level of control.

Pro Palestinian content is highly searchable on tiktok, and that made a lot of people unhappy and uncomfortable.

Not saying that the popularity of pro palestinian content is a psyop. But if it were, how would you even know? Maybe it's not a psyop today but they pulled the right levels to make it go viral, and now it's an organically driven flywheel? Maybe it's all organic and I'm fearmongering. The point is there is no way to know, or ever find out. Chinese datacenters can't be subpoenaed.

ZoomerCretin6• 2 years ago

Both major presidential candidates are very anti-China. What exactly would they gain from election interference?

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

I disagree with all of these points except the first one. #3 is particularly misleading: 1) Apple and Microsoft are not media companies, and 2) cute how you said "local laws" instead of "government censorship". This reads right out of a CCP handbook.

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

I agree with the palestine point but good spot on the “local laws.” Pretty sus.

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

1. Doesn't matter, the law is the law and you have to comply even if it's hard. 2. It already passed (the House) in a separate vote this year. It would have passed anyway. If anything, I would guess the Ukraine part of the package was the most controversial. 3. Absurd. 4. No evidence of this. 5. Perhaps, we don't really know the future. How is this a "fact"?

icar• 2 years ago

Given the recent law in the US to give the NSA full access to user data without court order, forcing Tiktok to be owned by a US company makes more sense.

wumeow9• 2 years ago

It does not force US ownership. Read the bill.

jtriangle6• 2 years ago

You're right, it's "US ownership or get banned".

Not just tiktok either, this will wind up applying to many companies.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

it doesn't have to be owned by a US company; it just can't be owned by a Chinese company (or another country deemed adversarial to the US).

eganist3• 2 years ago

The raw text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/...

7373737373• 2 years ago

Thank you! To repeat a comment I saw in another thread, including sources like this should be a journalistic standard

themagician• 2 years ago

Honestly, the loon who lit himself on fire the other day might have been onto something. The bill that the President just signed seems like an attempt to alienate at least 50% of voters under 30. It almost feels like the current administration is trying to give people a reason to vote for the other guy.

hall0ween• 2 years ago

I interpreted it differently. That Biden was putting national interests ahead of reelection interests. That said, I should caveat that I tend not to read US based news cause it’s a cesspool of outrage based clickbait.

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

I think Biden continually torpedoes his appeal to the youth because he thinks there’s no need to appeal to leftist votes when the opponent is Trump.

jquery3• 2 years ago

I don't use TikTok, but I strongly disapprove of this. Feels like we've stooped to China's level when it comes to free speech? All this has done is validate them banning Google and Facebook.

What a petty move. I understand the theoretical security concerns, but this feels like total overkill.

MaxHoppersGhost6• 2 years ago

They already banned Facebook and Google. We should reciprocate everything they do to us.

latentcall• 2 years ago

Why?

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

This is either a bullshit argument or a wildly uninformed opinion. We've been banning foreign ownership of TV and radio in the US since 1934. How is this any different?

hnpolicestate6• 2 years ago

This isn't accurate. The government has never banned Americans from watching a foreign television show or listening to a foreign radio broadcast. Please don't distort history.

ThinkBeat2• 2 years ago

I hope this will show the severity of threats countries face from social media and that things are no longer business as usual.

Every European country /and/or EU/ECC as a block, as well as every other nation or block, should follow this up as soon as permitted to have all social media apps operated by a foreign country be subject to the same legislation.

TikTok will have to sel to the US, Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.

That will of course also go for all other social networks as well. The threats this bill highlights are universal to all social media operated outside the control and ownership,

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or they will need to be sold to every country they wish to operate in.

Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause to protect their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation from foreign owned social networks.

From a geek perspective this would be great. We would get smaller entities that would need to interact with each other in so far as that would be possible or attainable.

vizzier• 2 years ago

De-facto international antitrust, I like it.

malfist2• 2 years ago

I believe this would be de jure, not de facto.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, will either have to stop operating outside of the Unites States or they will need to be sold to every country they wish to operate in

TikTok can sell to a French, Hungarian, Indian, Brazilian or even Iraqi person and be in compliance with this bill's terms. It doesn't require American ownership, it forbids control by a foreign adversary.

If the EU and U.S. passed legislation subjecting all tech companies to these rules, the only ones who would have to do anything are those owned and controlled by a foreign adversary state.

paulddraper4• 2 years ago

Correct. Any other country on earth, other than:

* China

* North Korea

* Iran

* Cuba

* Russia

* Venezuela

Could sell it to Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Belarus, etc.

throw310822• 2 years ago

it forbids control by a foreign adversary.

At least this vindicates the choice all the countries that consider the US an adversary and have blocked US social media. While the US has always characterised the block as the hallmark of illiberal regimes.

trog7• 2 years ago

Is it weird then that China is a "foreign adversary" that is otherwise allowed to sell the US the vast, overwhelming majority of consumer goods and participate in the economy in many other ways?

roody15• 2 years ago

Hmm not sure I agree. It can be helpful to have access to social media that contains perspectives outside of the control of the country you live in. Sure will it be slanted or even outright propaganda ? Yes but this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions. The idea that our “government” will curate content and sanctify what is true is simply dystopian.

Citizen these social media sites and these news sources are safe. We have curated this list for your safety and that of the community at large.

Geez things have gotten bad in a hurry :(

noqc• 2 years ago

this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions.

This is a nice fantasy but it fails to a number of intractible social problems. Children aren't taught skepticism because parents don't want their children to be taught skepticism. You would need to use force that you do not have access to in order to even attempt the solution you are proposing.

Second, implicit in your argument is that people would be responsible for thinking critically about every fact that they believe. This is just too much work, the human strategy requires trust, and we have massive incentive structures called societies whose main job is to facilitate that trust through the establishment of systems of incentives. This complicated system of incentives has been demolished, wholesale, by social media, and we're not going to adapt fast enough to avoid serious damage.

FpUser4• 2 years ago

" Yes but this is still okay as we can teach people to critically think and make their own decisions."

Politicians will commit seppuku the minute it happens in their country. Independently thinking populace is their worst nightmare.

Luckily for them most people do not do that.

ajmurmann4• 2 years ago

IMO the issue isn't that content should be censored and we shouldn't see ideas from other countries. It's perfectly fine to have an official CCP account post CCP positions anywhere. It's less fine when the CCP account claims to be Jeff from Iowa and it's even less fine when the platform is controlled by the CCP and certain topics or opinions hey amplified by the platform's algorithms. I'm not sure the latter happened, but we cannot even know and have to trust an actively hostile actor.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

Ironically, this sort of internet sovereignty is exactly what China has been preaching for years (though its so-called World Internet Conference), and of course has the most advanced state of the art implementation (aka Great Firewall) to ensure it. It likely didn't envision that this philosophy might one day come back to bite one of their own :)

lostlogin• 2 years ago

Great Firewall

This is what sovereignty looks like to you? It looks like totalitarianism to me.

collegeburner• 2 years ago

No, small states do not have the same rights as large ones. You may disagree with this but I don't see any point in pretending it's untrue. Large countries have more sway and matter more to everyone, including but not limited to operators of social platforms. Losing half your userbase hurts much more than losing a hundredth. I also doubt that the U.S. would force a sale of a social app based in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Egypt etc etc etc.

I wouldn't particularly blame Gabon or Vietnam if they wanted their primary media outlets operated by nations that are at least vaguely friendly to their values. They are free to attempt to force a sale and ban it when those apps inevitably do not comply.

b-side3• 2 years ago

I think you are conflating "incomebase" and userbase. There are no "hard facts" on this but everyone seems to agree that the US is not even remotely close to 50% userbase for TikTok which makes sense (inverse Pigeonhole principle) if TikTok really has 1b+ active users. However, the US might be a bigger share of the "incomebase" because ads for US users are more valuable.

npteljes2• 2 years ago

Certainly, a small state has the same rights and the same cause to protect their citizens from the surveillance and manipulation from foreign owned social networks.

Next up, we could migrate government systems away from foreign IT software and services. The FOSS world has plenty of capable offerings, and it's not as if the choices were made on technical merit in the first place. I'd love to see Free Software and open standards being taught in schools, and being used in government.

ThinkBeat2• 2 years ago

All FOSS developers may be foreigners for a project. Is it ok to use that then?

astrea2• 2 years ago

Yes and while we’re at it, we should simply relinquish control of these companies to the government. Perhaps any company remotely journalistic in nature. For safety of course.

Tepix• 2 years ago

I'd argue that for european users, handing over a huge amount of data to american social networks with their lack of privacy protection is also highly problematic.

Perhaps the EU should do something similar to Facebook, X etc.?

EasyMark5• 2 years ago

I wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there? Away from NSA/SS/FBI scanning and FISA courts. That would seem to be the best of all worlds for ByteDance if they could make it hard to audit the potential company and if the court challenge fails to have the whole thing dismissed as unconstitutional.

JumpCrisscross27• 2 years ago

wonder if they couldn't sell to a more "friendly" to China country somewhere in Europe and then backdoor info out of there?

It only counts if "the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary" [1].

So presumably if a pair of Hungarian millionaires show up and place a bid, there would be additional questions.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... 2(g)(6)*

ZoomerCretin6• 2 years ago

So this is almost certainly to ensure it lands in the hands of pro-Israeli censors.

moneycantbuy2• 2 years ago

good, not only is it malware/spyware, the chinese government can shape the beliefs and behaviors of > 100,000,000 americans at the flip of a switch. albeit users are idiots for giving their attention in the first place. and because capitalism = god, will probably end up selling to the saudis.

gverrilla4• 2 years ago

so this must be true for american social media in other countries aswell??? or is it exclusive to tiktok "because communism"?

moneycantbuy2• 2 years ago

yes, facebook can/does propagandize the populations of other countries, though perhaps slightly less nefariously than if an authoritarian/totalitarian government was at the helm. fb is banned in china so there is that. interesting times. all hail king zuck in his fbverse.

electriclizard• 2 years ago

What are the logistics for this? Does ByteDance clone their repo and make America the owner?

zeroonetwothree21• 2 years ago

Companies have divested in the past. You could look up some previous cases.

ein0p3• 2 years ago

Reciprocity is a thing. I’m sure it won’t be difficult to suggest that certain US businesses operating in China “need to have Chinese owners” too. So I predict this will badly backfire.

But on the whole I’m in favor of any and all laws undermining the mind cancer that is “social media”, irrespective of who controls it, worldwide.

lowbloodsugar• 2 years ago

They already do that.

beambot• 2 years ago

This action is reciprocity. X, YouTube, Facebook, New York Times & hundreds of others are already blocked in China...

warbaker• 2 years ago

Forcing the sale of TikTok _is_ reciprocity. Facebook, Google, etc. are already banned in China. This is the CCP's policies backfiring.

ein0p3• 2 years ago

I mean reciprocity not just on the de-facto government propaganda outlets like US-controlled social media and search engines, but on the more tangible things related to all sorts of manufacturing and access to the vast and still growing Chinese markets.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

They already do, for the most part, require a JV that is majority owned by Chinese. That has been around for a long time. (This is if you as a foreign business are operating locally and selling to Chinese consumers. If you're just doing your manufacturing in China and exporting abroad, you're in a different category.)

Plus, foreign social media are blocked altogether unless they submit to Chinese government censorship.

So there's not much that can backfire.

ein0p3• 2 years ago

> So there's not much that can backfire

Why does this sound like “famous last words”?

devhead• 2 years ago

we'll see what the courts say with this. American government used to decry "the great china firewall" yet here they come all holding hands to raise up an American one, against the American people. This is not a Ban on TikTok, it is a blockage and suppression of our freedom of speech, and to freely associate.

The US government suddenly can find common grounds to do something and it's to restrict US? no thanks.

GreedIsGood• 2 years ago

If the US wants to argue reciprocity then it should in a trade bill.

Requiring TikTok to sell is an overreach by the state. It will leads us on a path where companies will be strictly regional.

Not a fan.

ddp262• 2 years ago

I looked into this, and here's what I think will happen [copied from another thread where I posted this]:

  - ByteDance will challenge the ruling in court (>95%), but they will lose (80%)

  - They then will succeed in selling TikTok US to a US company, despite what ByteDance execs and China are saying (75%)

  - The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X.

  - Walmart and Oracle won’t compete to buy it this time. Microsoft or Amazon are the top contenders, also quite likely is a consortium led by someone like Steven Mnuchin.

Rationales for the above in https://github.com/varunaai/tiktok-ban

josu2• 2 years ago

The sale will be for $30-50B (CI 50%), it won't include important ByteDance IP that will have to be recreated by a US-based company, likely Snap or X.

Why replicate it? Can't ByteDance license the IP to the US company?

ddp262• 2 years ago

Maybe. Steve Mnuchin said he wants to partner with an AI company to replicate it. The CCP might prevent ByteDance from licensing it?

djur12• 2 years ago

The law doesn't technically prohibit this, but the President has to sign off before the app becomes un-banned, and the law does specifically call out "any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm" as the type of thing that the executive might take into account. So just renting a black-box recommender from ByteDance would likely be a no go.

nashashmi8• 2 years ago

it will have to be bought by a US company. The US company will have to be connected to the govt. The gears are already turning to make sure it happens just like they planned. Why else is Steve interested??

roncesvalles3• 2 years ago

This is like the most plebeian take on this topic. This is what one would believe if they took mainstream discourse (press statements and all) at face value without assessing it critically.

luyu_wu5• 2 years ago

The thing that ticks me off is that there hasn't been conclusive evidence that actually justifies this ban. I'd be perfectly happy if the CIA came out with documents of how the data goes to China, but all I've seen is evidence to the contrary (e.g. servers in US, headquarters in SG etc). If I'm wrong, I'd gladly look at some linked articles of course.

RIMR4• 2 years ago

There isn't really any evidence of the supposed threats we've heard about from Congress. It's pretty much bog-standard sinophobia / anti-communist scaremongering.

coffeemug• 2 years ago

If any ideology or regimes espousing it have earned scaremongering, it's communism.

AlphaSite• 2 years ago

If nothing else the ban on foreign ownership of Chinese companies alone feels like it justifies some reciprocal action. No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China, but the reverse is not true.

bogdan• 2 years ago

Exactly. It's unclear whether the primary goal of TikTok regulation is to genuinely safeguard young users or to prepare the public for further restrictions on other Chinese companies. Regardless, given China's advanced development beyond what many in the West perceive, I think it's important for western countries to start taking protective measures. TikTok is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

aragonite• 2 years ago

No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China

Not true taken literally, obviously; not true if taken as saying "only JVs are allowed" either. According to the Department of Commerce (https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=China-Establishing-a...):

A large majority of new foreign investments in China are WFOEs [wholly foreign owned enterprises], rather than JVs. As Chinese legal entities, WFOEs experience greater independence than ROs, are allowed exclusive control over carrying out business activities while abiding by Chinese law and are granted intellectual and technological rights.

Also (https://arc-group.com/china-company-setup/):

WFOE refers to a limited liability company that is 100% invested, owned by foreign investors, and independently operated. Almost 60% of foreign-owned companies are WFOEs, making it the most adopted business type. Famous multinational companies such as Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and General Electric are all examples of WFOEs.

luyu_wu5• 2 years ago

I've seen this point scattered throughout the thread, and it seems quite popular. I don't particularly take issue with it since market reciprocity obviously makes sense, but I'm not sure that this bill should tag itself as national security in that case!

Small note: Many US companies do operate in China with large margins (Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, NVidia, etc). There's been a Wikipedia article cited a through times throughout this thread with a complete list of blocked domains! Just a minor nitpick, thanks for the thoughts still.

_sword• 2 years ago

There’s some research here that the NYTimes cited in an article on the topic of TikTok deplatforming certain topics

https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...

ok12345613• 2 years ago

This report is very laughable. It looks at the number of posts with the same hashtag between Instagram and TikTok as a simple ratio.

An alternate conclusion is that Instagram is censoring topics that don't align with the "Consensus" in Washington and artificially boosting content that does. Why is there literally no content on Instagram about the Gaza war, yet I get up-to-date news and reports on TikTok?

cowsup• 2 years ago

There's no evidence one way or another. TikTok's servers are in the US, but, even if we audit their entire outbound connections, or get a warrant from their ISP to confirm no traffic has ever gone out to China... There's no surefire way of saying that an employee didn't just plug their laptop into the server, download data, and then ship it off to China later on.

Both the US government and TikTok/ByteDance are unable to prove their claims, and likely, neither one ever could. Even if TikTok showed 100% evidence that they've never done that, the US government would know that there's nothing stopping TikTok from doing it at a later date.

This legislation is the US government deciding that the risks are too great, and so they're willing to take the gamble and shut down a company that's potentially done nothing wrong. "Innocent until proven guilty" is typically reserved for the judicial system, but this is a legislative decision; it'll be an interesting court case to determine if the US legislators are able to make these sorts of decisions outside of the judiciary.

luyu_wu5• 2 years ago

Thanks! This actually makes a lot of sense to me. While I'm not sure I agree with the 'guilty until proven innocent', I understand more about the motivations.

neverokay• 2 years ago

McCarthyism is back in style.

sevmedna• 2 years ago

Some ex-TikTok employees say the social media service worked closely with its China-based parent despite claims of independence https://fortune.com/2024/04/15/tiktok-china-data-sharing-byt...

Ex-ByteDance Exec Claims TikTok Gave Communist Party 'God User' Status https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-political-china-communist-god-use...

American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/23/american-tik...

FrustratedMonky• 2 years ago

Yeah.

If this amount of effort is going into protect us from TikTok, then why not protect us from every other Social Media company that is tracking us.

dogman1442• 2 years ago

The thing is evidence came out 4-5 years ago that CCP directed TikTok to steer engagement algorithms to further PRC foreign policy goals which tldr meant inflame US users via purposely divisive content served up via TK.

You are wrong, and linked articles from US intel community have been available for years.

luyu_wu5• 2 years ago

Thanks for linking the articles...

whatasaas5• 2 years ago

Did it? Why didn’t they bring it up in the hearings? They were pretty empty handed and trying to rage people apps have access to wifi.

Maybe you mean something like this “study” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiktok-data-suggests-al... which concludes with “kinda maybe looks like they could possibly favor Chinese interest”. Doing a study and putting out a headline is all it takes to poison the public opinion and exactly what I would expect from the social media companies foaming at the mouth losing market share.

The wording I have seen is congress had a internal meeting about the potential security concerns that could be involved (very likely with every app).

cm2012• 2 years ago

It's as simple as a trade war issue. They banned our social media, we ban theirs. Fair is fair.

charonn04• 2 years ago

For me, it's pretty obvious that social media is being used to destabize and weaken Western democracies like the US and Britain.

I don't believe that the lurch to the Right we've seen--Brexit, Trump, etc.--are happening naturally.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

There was no evidence when we banned foreign TV and radio ownership in the US in 90 years ago either. What's your point? Are you suggesting we cannot make preventive laws about mass media? If so, you should read a book because you're under informed in this area.

whyenot• 2 years ago

US lawmakers are deeply concerned that TikTok might exploit some of the data they collect on their users,

...yet they turn a blind eye to the fact that GM not only collected driving data on their users, apparently in some cases without consent, but they sold it to others, including auto insurers, who used the information to increase the insurance rates of those who were spied on.

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

Hey come on man it’s America. Pretending poor people dont exist is the name of the game.

ZoomerCretin6• 2 years ago

Poor drivers who are likely to cause accidents should pay higher rates. If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to drive a 10 year old clunker.

There is no difference between what GM did and what any social media company does. At least with GM selling driving data, there is significant public benefit to making bad driver pay for their poor driving instead of the rest of us having to pay for it.

markus_zhang2• 2 years ago

Since we are already being controversial, can we simply ban or regulate all short videos -- similar to the duration cap the Chinese government put up for gaming for people less than 18? My wife has been doom scrolling for hours every day.

At least get something good in return. Even if Tiktok decides to leave US, there are a whole lot of other short video apps that can fill in the blank.

BLKNSLVR2• 2 years ago

This isn't about making anything "better for society", this is about nation state power games.

That's why there's been no movement on data privacy legislation in 15+ years: because it would hobble a heavily US-centric profitable industry (with the side benefit that the data can be mined by US law enforcement and intelligence - which is directly the problem the US government has with TikTok / China)

markus_zhang2• 2 years ago

Yeah I know that, just saying.

spiderice3• 2 years ago

Maybe your wife should be a big girl and gain some self control instead of needing the government to take it away from everyone. Just because she has a problem doesn't mean actual adults need their freedom taken away.

throwaway69123• 2 years ago

China should retaliate and ban all US ownership of chinese companies

FpUser4• 2 years ago

They can make web client and show middle finger. If this happens the US will be forced to block domains and VPNs.

charonn04• 2 years ago

The law applies to websites too.

FpUser4• 2 years ago

What law? They can block domain but that's about it.

Tiktaalik• 2 years ago

Not entirely sure what evil thing the CCP is doing with the TikTok data that I like cat videos.

resters7• 2 years ago

There is absolutely no justification for the US copying CCP policies. This is an embarrassing day for the US.

Tiktok has been the only place to see videos about police brutality and one of the main places to see the movement supporting the Palestinian cause.

I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.

mjfl5• 2 years ago

one of the main places to see the movement supporting the Palestinian cause.

hmmm....

resters7• 2 years ago

It reveals the extent of suppression of those ideas on other platforms, nothing more.

I don't think there is anything scary/bad about Americans seeing content that humanizes people who have been dehumanized by the US media for as long as I can remember.

anon3738396• 2 years ago

I feel so much shame as an American that my country did this.

You’re ashamed that TikTok can continue to operate here so long as it’s divested of CCP control?

resters7• 2 years ago

The relationship between TikTok and the CCP is no different than the relationship between Google/Meta/Microsoft and the US Government.

chaostheory4• 2 years ago

It’s a trade war, or a counter to propaganda from a hostile foreign nation. If social media can’t operate in China, why should we allow CCP owned and operated social media companies operate in the US?

resters7• 2 years ago

You are arguing that we should mimic all CCP policies that impact US firms just because of tit-for-tat.

rvz• 2 years ago

A fine is much better than a ban. But you all voted for Biden to 'save TikTok' and he is banning it anyway 4 years when Trump was about to ban it himself. [0]

Congratulations, you've played yourselves back to back.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24024491

hankchinaski2• 2 years ago

Insiders at TikTok say US is a relatively small market for them and they would not mind pulling out of the market. This is the most likely scenario than an outright sale to US entities

BriggyDwiggs428• 2 years ago

Look, I think this is potentially oversimplifying things, but imo this is just a reaction to the youth seeing pro-Palestinian positions on social media. The fervor around banning tik tok was reignited around the time that it started being more common to see such things on the app.

djur12• 2 years ago

Congress has been working on this for 3+ years. This really started heating up after Shou Zi Chew's poorly received testimony to Congress in March 2023.

Argonaut9982• 2 years ago

Absolutely. Trump proposed banning TikTok during his term and he was laughed at. As I said in another comment this is censorship (and Chinese style protectionism) being disguised as national security.

Even if there were efforts to ban TikTok before that time, this obviously escalated it.

danielhep• 2 years ago

The way I see this is that democracy is extremely susceptible to tools that can change public opinion en masse. This of course applies to Western social media as much as TikTok, and I'd love to see regulation around all social media algorithms to ensure they're unbiased. I see this as a good start to counter a real threat, which is China's ability to influence US elections through TikTok.

hnthrowaway0328• 2 years ago

Overall we would want to give good education to children but sadly many parents resort to electronics quite early. There really should be a law to ban cell phones and pad for children less than 5.

r14c• 2 years ago

Improving the economics would help too. Raising a kid when both parents probably have to work presents challenges that just don't exist if most careers could support a family on a single income.

mjfl5• 2 years ago

This is the same logic as would be used in banning the translation of the bible or the printing press. For any sufficiently concerned state, 'unbiased' means 'agrees with me'. For example, it may be seen in the USA to be 'unbiased' to be completely uncritical of Israel (anti-Zionism is anti-semitism according the US congress bill H.Res.894). However, this is not the case anywhere else in the world, including Israel (which criticizes itself sometimes), in fact it would seem quite insane.

roncesvalles3• 2 years ago

If this were true, TikTok wouldn't have ended up in a ban.

tptacek4• 2 years ago

It's not being banned.

LeroyRaz3• 2 years ago

No. Your statement does not follow.

TikTok can be undermining the US (and potentially be a growing problem) without it being currently capable of preventing itself being banned.

By your logic, nobody should go to hospital when sick, as if they can go to hospital then they must not be sick.

_r4nc• 2 years ago

I'd love to see regulation around all social media algorithms to ensure they're unbiased.

The bias is a feature. They just don't like the fact that they can't control the bias on TikTok so it spews Chinese propaganda instead of Western propaganda.

troq139• 2 years ago

Does it spew Chinese propaganda though? Have you even used TikTok?

cherioo• 2 years ago

It is not just democracy. All governance systems are susceptible to mass communication tools that can change public opinion, be it books, radio, tv, news organizations, or tiktok. It is why many non democratic countries do not have freedom of press, and a highly censored internet. This is a main contributor to Arab Spring.

It is just sad that even US is susceptible to this.

TaylorAlexander3• 2 years ago

Well mass manipulation of the people is how the USA functions. This is what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote about extensively in their book Manufacturing Consent from 1988. So it is no wonder it works when other people do it too. I agree though, it is sad, or frustrating, upsetting, infuriating, that the USA works like that.

https://chomsky.info/consent01/

fallingfrog8• 2 years ago

Susceptible? 90% of our public discourse is manufactured, and this whole TikTok thing is a prime example.

TheVespasian• 2 years ago

And indeed this gets at the falsity of democracy as a concept itself. In a certain sense it is more duplicitous than dictatorship

symlinkk• 2 years ago

You’re saying you don’t believe in freedom of speech.

eBombzor• 2 years ago

You are free to post whatever you want on a different platform. Banning TikTok and its algorithm has nothing to do with free speech. It's funny this always gets brought up, like what is TikTok allowing you to say that you can't say on FB, YT, etc?

TaylorAlexander3• 2 years ago

Regulation to ensure media is unbiased sounds on the face of it impossible. Anything that looks "unbiased" simply shares the same biases as you.

YZF• 2 years ago

Exactly right. What is "unbiased" or "neutral".

That said I think some regulatory control is needed. There needs to be some sort of accountability e.g. for intentional propagation of fake news or censorship or defamation. This is no different than requirements for ethical behavior in other industries. Just like we regulate public companies in general we should be able to impose some requirements on any business that distributes media. Free speech for individuals but if you are a business or a media "provider" you need to meet a somewhat higher bar? I think we used to rely on journalistic standards or self regulation but with "new" media (and maybe even with old media) this seems to be not working that well any more. There's a fine line there for sure but seems like whether China owns some social media or someone with US citizenship we still want to have guards against harms this can cause. The amount of power these companies wield is scary.

hnpolicestate6• 2 years ago

This is the 3rd time I'm trying to share a perspective that keeps getting flagged.

Bytedance does not have to divest because it's against the law for the U.S government to prevent Americans from reading, viewing or saying what they want. Will be struck down by SCOTUS.

Does this comply with HN's site guidelines?

lr4444lr• 2 years ago

I think you're getting downvoted, because the right of congress to manage affairs interstate and foreign commerce has nothing to do with the content Americans read. The objection is ownership/controlling interest, and any SCOTUS ruling will have to speak to that, not first amendment issues.

hnpolicestate6• 2 years ago

I appreciate the feedback but I disagree. The law would prevent Google and Apple from hosting the TikTok APK on their app stores if the company refuses to divest, yes? I don't think it's legal for the government to tell Google or Apple what apps they can host.

cheriot• 2 years ago

TikTok isn't going away. It's changing owners.

There's existing laws about the citizenship of property owners (broadcase media for example).

anon3738396• 2 years ago

I don’t know why you’re being flagged, but your constitutional analysis is wrong.

JoshuaJB• 2 years ago

This law does not prevent Americans from reading, viewing, or saying anything. You will still be free to visit TikTok's web client and do that. This prevents US companies from doing business with the company (eg. ads, app distribution, etc).

tamimio2• 2 years ago

All of this just to limit the spread of Palestinians contents in the young generation, since the ADL has a strong “influence” on all other big social media except TikTok (there’s even videos of ADL’s CEO complaining about tiktok Palestinians contents and young generation not supporting Israel), AIPAC came to the rescue and asked its puppets in both red/blue parties to pass the bill, while they also make some cash out of it as reported that some politicians bought $META stocks before voting the bill. That’s the root reason, any other reason mentioned is just a diversion. The illusion of freedom and democracy in the US.

mjfl5• 2 years ago

You are correct.

phailhaus2• 2 years ago

India banned TikTok in 2020, so this conversation has been going on way before the current conflict in Gaza. Not everything is a conspiracy related to the issues you care about.

tamimio2• 2 years ago

What I listed above are facts, not a conspiracy, you are welcome to look them up.

India banned TikTok

I don’t know much about India and I’m talking about the US, but I know India has a law to control the contents of social media and requires these companies to hire local employees that will be held as “hostages” if the content in question is not removed, something Elon mentioned few times too about twitter in India.

before the current conflict in Gaza.

The war on Gaza has been going for more than 16years and the Palestinians issue for more than 70years. You can read more about the issue here (1) Additionally, when the senators invited TikTok CEO last year, several senators (and I remember Ted Cruz specifically) mentioned the anti-israel contents back then, which you can also look it up, it’s just you don’t pay attention or lack the ability to connect the dots.

(1) https://ifamericansknew.org

mjfl5• 2 years ago

The problem with the logic, that a geopolitical adversary shouldn't control a social media company, is that our domestic political system has, as of late, acted quite adversarial to its own population. For that reason, it's not clear to me if China is really a foreign enemy, or an enemy of an enemy. For now, I and many of the younger generation clearly consider it to be the latter, and I will resist all efforts of the current regime to suppress it, until all members of the current regime are swept from power.

asadotzler15• 2 years ago

You can vote out your own representatives, you cannot do the same for China. If this isn't an obvious distinction to you, maybe consider why.

mjfl5• 2 years ago

not if both candidates are captured.

tonfreed• 2 years ago

I don't see why the West should allow government corporations from China to operate within their borders. It's not like there's reciprocal agreements in place that allow the inverse.

freeopinion• 2 years ago

This, to me, is one of those defining actions that will stand forever as a sign post for what America is at the moment of the event. As such, it is incredibly discouraging to me.

I don't write this in defense of TikTok or China. I'm just sad for the United States.

I imagine a scene where a wagon train of poor pilgrims is surrounded on all sides and all the poor children are crouching behind anything they can find. As the camera angle widens out you see a U.S. Cavalry officer order a rescue team to single out attackers and pull them out of their perches. They go around inspecting attackers one at a time, checking their footwear. Anybody in mocassins is pulled off the line and sent packing. Anybody wearing boots is left in place and encouraged to keep shooting. Especially if they are wearing a cavalry uniform. Just before the scene ends you see somebody in mocassins run back to their horse and pull out a pair of boots, hurrying to get back into the action.

krapp2• 2 years ago

Outdated racist stereotypes aside, how are we meant to interpret the scene you're setting?

troll_v_bridge2• 2 years ago

I’m surprised I don’t hear many speak on the trade embargo aspects of something like TikTok. US social media is blocked from China, so from an economic policy perspective why wouldn’t the trade embargo me mutual, Tit4Tat.

benced3• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40151662

dareal3• 2 years ago

this is not an economic nor trade issue though

andy99• 2 years ago

I'm very late to this - how do you ban something on the internet? Can't they just keep operating and people will learn how to sideload the app or use a VPN to get it or whatever they need to do? Presumably it will mean some friction but couldn't the company just call the bluff?

crindy• 2 years ago

I believe this will legally mandate that Google and Apple remove the app from their app stores. It will still be available online.

tijtij• 2 years ago

How does China ban Facebook?

Rhetoric aside, it will be done through blocking commercial activity on US soil. The US government can seize tiktok.com for example.

callalex• 2 years ago

There’s a lot of nuance to the answer, but the easy way to understand is:

They don’t host videos for fun, they host videos so you will watch ads. If they can’t sell ads for US$ then they won’t host videos either.

system22• 2 years ago

Who do you think controls VPN? Do you still trust VPNs?

troq139• 2 years ago

Unclear what your conspiracy is, it is a fact you can get around a government ban with a VPN. It just doesn't solve the problem at hand.

djur12• 2 years ago

The value proposition for TikTok for the vast majority of existing users is that it provides a zero-friction source of Content. Maybe 5% of them have even heard the term "sideload" and most of those wouldn't bother. A VPN will not matter because TikTok is not being blocked at the network level.

troq139• 2 years ago

Creators can't get paid, advertisers can't advertise, the whole ecosystem dies. Sure you can still access the app with a VPN but that's just 4chan with extra steps.

benced3• 2 years ago

The WTO allows China to ban American social networks - which would otherwise be required to be allowed under its general principle of parity - because of its "public morals" exception (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/g4_...).

I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.

seanmcdirmid20• 2 years ago

China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.

dluan3• 2 years ago

in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does

jeremyjh• 2 years ago

So...what? We know they've disabled it and they know we know. We can just call it a ban.

hi-v-rocknroll7• 2 years ago

Perhaps the GFOC must officially support an app via allowlisting, so that it's banned unless it's allowed by inaction, which is effectively the same thing.

Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access.

I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?

benced3• 2 years ago

This is unfortunately a common tactic of the Chinese government (see their recent dealings with Lithuania). I do not believe a trade barrier not being explicitly stated is a barrier to bringing a WTO case though.

vitorgrs• 2 years ago

And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.

insane_dreamer30• 2 years ago

They could operate there if they submitted themselves to Chinese government censorship (aka "local laws"). Google pulled out because it refused to. Facebook really wanted to (Zuck even made a trip there to talk to Chinese officials) but ultimately decided (correctly) that doing so would greatly hurt it in the US/Europe. Same for Twitter (pre-Elon).

a_random_canuck• 2 years ago

“Officially” is meaningless here. The blocking exists, and it is at the direction or under the control of their government.

They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck.

This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.

ngcc_hk4• 2 years ago

That is as silly as argument as it is. We know what the game china played and it is not because of technology. Really someone can “hack” the technology. But if one pretend to sleep, you cannot wake them up easily.

throwawayq342317• 2 years ago

I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law".

The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.

chottocharaii• 2 years ago

These kinds of comments are legally ignorant. I’m always taken aback by these kinds of “but actually” comments on HN that ‘correct’ another user without any regard to how the law would be applied.

jdjshdvegj• 2 years ago

Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.

deviantbit2• 2 years ago

You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network.

One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.

troll_v_bridge2• 2 years ago

From facebooks perspective it’s always been official

bdd8f1df777b12• 2 years ago

The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end.

The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.

When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.

robot_no_4213• 2 years ago

This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted websites and drink whatever propaganda you want. You just can't use TikTok to find it anymore.

Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.

Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.

csa• 2 years ago

Next level sock puppetry!

throwawayq342317• 2 years ago

China's ideology wins over American in the end.

Influence operations aren't about "winning" or even convincing anyone anymore. It's about flooding peoples screens with untold amounts of toxic garbage.

ken47• 2 years ago

It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.

coin5• 2 years ago

Furthermore, TikTok itself is banned in China. The counterpart in China is Douyin, which has limitation for minors, like mandatory STEM videos and limited hours during school days.

dluan3• 2 years ago

ultimately, china operates on an entirely separate internet that the NSA can't get access to without having to be explicit about it in some very public way. when reddit removed their warrant canary, it was seen as just a cost of doing business an american social media platform. the US can't do full take even with a company based in singapore. the mask comes off when all the senate testimony yesterday focused on 'national security' and it comes wrapped in defense spending for ukraine and taiwan.

0xB31B1B3• 2 years ago

If the security angle is the real issue here, how would "divestment" improve security here at all? Tiktok engineering in the US is like 90% chinese H1B holders, they speak mandarin at work broadly across the company including in work meetings to the extent that many people say you can't work there without mandarin knowledge. The codebase is massive. I don't think it is possible for any amount of auditing or reviewing to create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance. Bad actors and CCP plants can and will put in backdoors, and bytedance will have access to all of the encryption keys for the important services and databases. It just seems completely unworkable to me. I'm support the full ban, I don't think divestment makes any sense.

ClumsyPilot4• 2 years ago

create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance

What are the code standards for American social media anyway? It’s not like Twitter has to meet any criteria on being free of Bias, they could suppress all bad news about China tomorrow and they wouldn’t be breaking any laws

I think it’s plain as day, this is simply a trade war, along with noises about China dumping cars and what not. All the stuff about security is just a cover story.

mu53• 2 years ago

They won't divest. The option for divestment just makes the US look less bad. They didn't ban the app. They chose to leave

nine_k• 2 years ago

I think this is the point, and the outcome desired by the bill's proponents. There's no way to meaningfully achieve separation, so the only viable way to comply is to largely cease active operations. Maybe access to previously shared / liked content would remain, without a way to discover, access, or post new content, or register a new account.

tptacek4• 2 years ago

There's nothing really new about this, right? The same thing happened in the last administration with Grindr, so famously that it was a plot point on Silicon Valley.

doakes• 2 years ago

Misinformation is a security risk that comes both from deliberate sabotage as well as monetary incentives. If it bleeds, it leads. I'm not in favor of censorship like this or social medias tagging things as "fake news" but how else do we prevent people from believing everything they see on these platforms?

ngcc_hk4• 2 years ago

Should be an eye for an eye. If china allow WhatsApp and Facebook etc in then USA can have WeChat …. If not all should not be allowed. Not just TikTok.

homefree• 2 years ago

Good - the ccp influence over what content is elevated or censored on TikTok is a serious national security problem, forcing a divesture is good independent of the inequality on trade with the ccp blocking American companies.

If they refuse to divest it’ll be even more obvious it’s the ccp tool we suspect it is.

Also the TikTok ceo lied about this under oath in Congress: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-calls-for-doj-investigati...

Stratechery also had a good write up on this issue from a while back: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/

Nice to see some bipartisan support on something.

anon291• 2 years ago

I'm so happy Biden has continued to basically keep Trumpian policy on China. Say what you like about Trump, but his election actually changed American policy for the better in this regard.

LeroyRaz3• 2 years ago

I support this move. It seems pretty naive to me for people to whine about this ban curbing free speech or fairness when TikTok can directly be used by a belligerent superpower (China) to undermine those values.

bl4ckneon• 2 years ago

Do we have proof of that though. Other than "China bad" and the parent company being partially owned by China. It's really banning it on a hypothetical and TikTok doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are many other platforms and I would argue that X does more censorship than TikTok does.

LeroyRaz3• 2 years ago

Yeah, I think there is lots evidence that social media companies use their platform to support favourable narratives. X is one example.

X spinning a pro X narrative is problematic, just as it is bad Facebook hid their problem with teenage mental health, etc... all these types of things are problematic and can often harm people and society.

The reason TikTok is a greater concern is that TikTok is fully controlled by China, and that hence it is not just pro TikTok narratives that might be amplified but any narrative China wants to amplify. The risks are greater, and the existing mitigations are weaker as the company isn't US owned.

If you ask me, the US in recent history has had incredibly anemic corporate regulation, and there should be a lot more intervention to prevent companies acting nefariously.

chiefalchemist• 2 years ago

Question: Biden will also soon sign the extension to the FISA surveillance powers. How is the ownership of TikTok (and location of the data centers) impacted by the expansion of FISA powers?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-renews-fisa...

ojbyrne• 2 years ago

One thing that confuses me about all this is that ByteDance has significant US ownership. Is this just a way for Jeff Yass-led hedge funds to get a cheap price on the rest of ByteDance?

JimmaDaRustla• 2 years ago

Biden better cancel some debt forgiveness in order to pay for the lawsuit

esalman• 2 years ago

That's not how it works.

whatasaas5• 2 years ago

If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you. It seems the initial comments are positive, followed by a lot of arguing. It's usually pointless debates, like whether it's a ban. Yes, it is effectively a ban, similar to imposing a million-dollar tax per gun, or required to be age 85, which essentially bans something protected by an amendment. Then there are those calling for regulations and bans, which is strange. I can manage my app usage and my kids', but I can't control safety regulations for trains carrying toxic chemicals. And then there are the trade war advocates; at what point does this back-and-forth justify losing rights and access? I don't care if China becomes like North Korea. The bill also mentions website and service providers, meaning it could block access through websites too. We should have rights to privacy, encryption, and anonymous whistleblowing without government interference in every social media platform.

budududuroiu10• 2 years ago

It’s not about you and your kids’ usage, it’s about the general population. Let’s not be naive, TikTok is the 2020s version of “Radio Free X”, a state-backed propaganda tool where anyone can run targeted ads with pinpoint geo accuracy, and cause division and social unrest. And unlike Facebook or YouTube, you can’t hold a company owned by a near-peer geopolitical adversary liable in the US.

Golden_Wind1232• 2 years ago

At this point Tiktok is getting more regulatory action against it than Facebook has....and Facebook's lax moderation spread the wildfire of genocide in Myanmar.

ajross2• 2 years ago

If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you.

Relevant to context: whatasaas is an account with 10 karma and 9 total comments that has been mostly idle for its 14 month existence. Many of the trench fighters in the threads here are names I recognize.

whatasaas5• 2 years ago

Yea caught me, I self reported to try and trick everyone. Jokes aside my comment was based on net neutrality if you don’t remember https://duckduckgo.com/?q=net+neitrality+bot+comments

Some of the stuff that really chipped at our privacy as our isps got to sell our dns pings to advertisers and social media. Have a good day citizen.

sandspar• 2 years ago

Paranoia

dareal3• 2 years ago

It's absurd that people are rationalizing this by saying "oh, China doesn't allow US companies to enter their market either," which has been this case in the past 50 years, or "backdoor used by CCP bad bad" without any evidence other than the company being Chinese. It shows how easy people will buy into whatever you feed them when everyone else is saying the same thing.

China is never a country with free market. The hypocrisy is glaring when one claiming as a free market while passing a law that outright rob a company in the day light, under the name of "national security". American people should be embarrassed by this. The government is using to the same tactics as a so-called authoritarian communist country, if not worse.

dareal3• 2 years ago

It's so ironic that in the future, some Americans may use a VPN to log onto TikTok to practice their right to freedom of expression, while all the local social medias will ban them, lol.

djur12• 2 years ago

The law doesn't require or permit blocking access to Chinese servers, and virtually no current TikTok users are going to use VPNs to access it.

IronWolve• 2 years ago

Cars spy on more americans than tiktok.

codelord• 2 years ago

If you are on TikTok and you don't think CCP has all your personal data TikTok has collected from you, I have a bridge to sell you.

root_axis• 2 years ago

Why is that a problem?

wordsinaline2• 2 years ago

[flagged]

nimih• 2 years ago

I think this is a pretty commonly held belief at this point in time, and I'd be somewhat surprised if you could change even a single American TikTok user's behavior by convincing them of it, since, anecdotally, people seem to lump it in with their general feeling that tech and advertising companies already harvest and share vast amounts of personal information, and conclude that protecting that information is a lost cause, and they may as well use the fun app.

b-side3• 2 years ago

Unlike Facebook which would never collect any data?

newcommer• 2 years ago

I suggest US and China to be merged in to One Great Country in the planet.And as a result, US will be great again, so as China.

consumer4518• 2 years ago

I happen to personally agree with the general concept of making the CCP divest from the leading social media platform in the USA.

I also wonder if the KSA should be forced to divest from X/Twitter. Prior to owning part of X/Twitter, they did this [0], which led to to the worst of what one could imagine. What is happening now?

But my main question is, are there any other examples of forced divestiture, aside from Firefly Aerospace? [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter#...

[1] https://spacenews.com/firefly-halts-launch-preparations-afte...

jeswin7• 2 years ago

I also wonder if the the KSA should be forced to divest from Twitter.

There is no equivalence. The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world. The royal family just wants to keep their kingdom business running, and even for that they're dependent on the US.

TaylorAlexander3• 2 years ago

The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world.

This seems obviously false. They host conferences talking about how they want to shape the world. KSA has interests, and they will want to use any power they have to further their interests.

consumer4518• 2 years ago

I wish that was the case.

However, as a friend of human liberty, I cannot forget the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. [0]

While I would like to agree that KSA doesn't care about the rest of the world, and each culture should have their own space, the bone-saw story does prove that there are human factors which bind us all together. We all do live on one small rock, after all.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20190110153304/https://www.washin...

inemesitaffia3• 2 years ago

I have reason to believe they have owned part of Twitter just post Arab spring and now own less not more. It definitely didn't happen in 2022.

Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?

consumer4518• 2 years ago

Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?

Yes, absolutely, if we all agree upon the direction of the arrow of time.

jeswin7• 2 years ago

The US should have the courage to do more. Order a full investigation into whether personal data was ever made available to the CCP. If data was ever shared, then there should be no payout to ByteDance.

otabdeveloper4• 2 years ago

Does the US have a legal definition of what exactly constitutes "personal data"?

mapasj2• 2 years ago

This is a tech-savvy bunch in HN. I’d like to encourage my fellow hackernews users to counter this narrative that imo is being pushed by TikTok and the CCP, which is this one about data privacy. It’s a comfortable one for TikTok to attack since they can point to abuses by other tech giants. Every breath spoken or word written about personal data feeds into the CCP strategy. Instead we should be educating our peers, friends and families about the real danger from TikTok which is that it can spread propaganda. Not just influencing Americans to support pro-CCP positions. But there is a lot of negative press about the CCP that TikTok can hide or suppress. This isn’t hypothetical, it’s been happening already. I have faith young TikTok users can understand this. Congress understands this and they did the right thing (for Americans).

labrador• 2 years ago

More simply put: The issue is propaganda, not privacy

silenced_trope• 2 years ago

They have to divest in 9 months, in other words, Biden is potentially kicking the decision to Trump, who is now against a TikTok ban.

Why such a long timeline? It leaves open the door for Trump getting into office and immediately rolling it back such that they don't have to.

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

This whole thing is so very simple.

There is a brewing (cold for now) conflict with China and the US and it just makes 1000% sense to me that TikTok not be in the US. It poses to severe a potential national security threat from it being on phones of members of the military, or Congress, to being able to subtly influence elections or shape the minds of the next generation with tweaks to the algorithm.

The algorithm for tailoring content to the user is just so very good the POTENTIAL is there for abuse that an outright ban needs to happen. (I know they’re trying to allow it to be spun but I’m more hardline here and think it just needs to be removed from the US.)

Why would the US or any power allow a social network with such a powerful algorithm to learn so much about every user when US or other social networks can’t or don’t operate in China? China censors content a la the thought police of Orwell’s 1984. Yet democracies largely allow speech to be free and accessible which is why the most popular podcast host in the world often hosts crazy people like Alex Jones and that’s okay — it’s not illegal to have insane opinions or conversations.

So China is exporting a social network that COULD be used to control, shape, etc — otherwise emit propaganda on US users, it could spy on those same users be it location data or otherwise (imagine the dirt it probably has on members of Congress) and yet US social networks don’t get to operate in China to the same extent.

The US government is under no obligation to this US voter, at least, to share some bombshell investigation because the potential is there and it shouldn’t be.

This is not different than removing ZTE and Huwawei hardware and software from sensitive US networks and such. In the event of a conflict do we really want companies who have members of the CCP in their upper mgmt or who are otherwise expected to do as told to be in sensitive areas like military or power generation or telecommunications? Of course not.

Deprogrammer9• 2 years ago

Oh im sure come election time this wont come back to bite them at all lol.

webworker• 2 years ago

There is some weird inversion going on here.

First, I can't find a reason why anyone would laud banning this app. It seems like it's done A LOT for the creator economy, more than Snapchat or Instagram did for anyone before TikTok took off.

Second, I'm surprised at the amount of China-hate I'm seeing in here, and elsewhere, over this app. So far, they don't appear to have actually committed any crimes, it's a lot of posturing about what they could do. Meanwhile, things that were actually a threat (the "weather balloons" over DoD installations) were hand-waved away by TPTB and allowed to traverse pretty much the whole country before any action was taken.

Huh??

Argonaut9982• 2 years ago

Go into any thread in the past surrounding this TikTok ban and the comments are the exact opposite.

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

I see this as a national security threat that it is. The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.

The US and its allies got rid of Chinese telecom hardware from their networks for the very same reasons now it’s time to do the same with TikTok.

Would you let an enemy supply you with the very same kit you would use to fight them? No. Would you let that same adversary install an app on your most used device to watch and track you? Hah no.

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.

logicchains3• 2 years ago

I see this as a national security threat that it is.

The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is, and this bill just gives even more power to the US government to dominate its citizens.

computerfriend• 2 years ago

This statement is not obviously true.

nyokodo• 2 years ago

The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is

The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA. So, while it’s true that having the power that it does makes the US government a potential threat, it is nowhere near as much of an actual threat as China.

RoyalHenOil• 2 years ago

You are also more likely to be murdered by a loved oned than by a stranger, but this doesn't mean that it's rational to open your door to strangers and bar it to your loved ones.

wannacboatmovie• 2 years ago

Musk has already alluded to bringing back Vine, so the eradication of TikTok would be no great loss.

As an aside, I always viewed TikTok as a real world analogue to the mind control subplot from Zoolander (Frankie says 'relax')...

kmeisthax• 2 years ago

We already have YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn to fill the short video void - bringing back Vine would be a Johnny-come-lately move.

moomin• 2 years ago

Twitter couldn’t make Vine work. Trying to do it in the severely weakened form it’s in now strikes me as less plausible than his Mars plans.

fallingfrog8• 2 years ago

This whole thing is baffling to me. What are you talking about? What enemy? I would rather someone in China has my information than my own government. China has no power over me; my own government does. I don’t care if china knows whether I like cheesecake better than blueberry pie. They’re interested in monitoring their own citizens, im sure- for the same reasons our own government agencies and corporate behemoths monitor ours. But I don’t see what use china could have for data about Americans.

Look: the Cold War is over. And communism is a red herring. The world has changed. For some reason Americas elites view TikTok as a threat, probably because they don’t have the kind of total access to their servers that they’re accustomed to with American firms. But that has little to do with regular Americans. And there’s no argument other than decades old red baiting tropes they can think of to try to get us to care.

Log_out_3• 2 years ago

The cold war of authoritarian VS democracy never ended. And China has the ability to turn anyone with mainland access into a asset by holding family hostage and models itself after the British empire. The Indians did have no quarrel with the king of India, until they did. Westcentrism and neutrality are no strategy now that the fascists march again.

tadasZ• 2 years ago

i don't think "cold war is over", in a way it is, but the amount of propaganda tik toks blows my mind and the most important thing is - it's so one sided, that i fully support this bill/law or what it is, EU should do something too.

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

Commerce is not zero sum. When done right both parties gain something. But China’s ambitions directly counter those of the United States. They’re propping up Russia against Ukraine for example. Use of heavy state subsidies and lack of environmental controls mean they can flood the world with cheap solar destroying the incentives for local production. When all the world is dependent on China for something they then hold outside impact.

To not see the coming conflict be it cold or otherwise or not see the CCP for what it is is just ludicrous to me.

They want to — and as they should — become to dominant world power and reshape things as they see fit.

They will take Taiwan by force and it is zero sum: either China and its allies become the world’s leading economy and lead on things or the US and it’s allies remain in “power” and the west continues. This is the threat.

Now I’ve nothing against the people of China. It’s the government that I don’t trust.

qaq2• 2 years ago

Cold war is over we are in the era of empires starting actual wars to annex other countries that is def not a cold war.

notTooFarGone• 2 years ago

So how are you so sure that TikTok doesn't sell the data to the US anyway?

This way the same thing happens and china did also make some money. I don't see the argument that china having your data is somehow better than your government.

aprilthird20214• 2 years ago

Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.

If it's that China will know more about Americans through data ingestion, they can already do that. Americans willingly upload every little bit of their lives to YouTube, Twitch, and tons of other platforms. Not to mention that Temu is the most downloaded shopping app in the US. And what kind of attack can TikTok information provide that other publicly available online information scraped from other social media sites cannot?

If it's that China can show American citizens a curated list of topics and videos to make Americans think certain ways or vote certain ways, then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem. That's the exact same rhetoric tons of repressive Communist countries used and still use to deny people the freedom to read books from outside, watch movies from outside, read newspapers from outside, etc. And I'm never going to accept the idea that information (even full on lies) so dangerous that people shouldn't be allowed to see them.

4gotunameagain2• 2 years ago

It is because it is the adversary who controls the algorithms and suggestions.

The establishment wants and needs a monopoly in shaping the opinions and thoughts of its citizens.

rockemsockem• 2 years ago

I *think* the main national security argument is that TikTok can tweak the algorithm to incite discord and inflame conflicts within the US. They can do this far more effectively from their own platform than by doing it on other social networks via bots and fake accounts.

I tend to come down with the same opinion as you though. It's all still essentially a first amendment issue and the negatives I listed aren't going to disappear if TikTok goes away.

inkyoto2• 2 years ago

Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.

Facial recognition database and tracking people at a global scale.

With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.

Remember, TikTok is not just topless teenagers twerking on the camera, it is used by people to take short videos at random locations (and the locations are already easify to classify and account for), so if you happen to be a dissident (or a person of interest in general) hiding from the CCP, and you happened to have walked past a TikTok user shooting a short video and you got in the shot, your identity is matched up and your current location is revealed automatically, in near real time or with a short delay.

I have almost no doubt that people in TikTok videos are already digitised, and their faceprints are sunk into a gigantic database behind the Great Firewall. It is easy to project what other kinds of nefarious abuse are possible when such datasets are available.

timeon2• 2 years ago

then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem

Not from US so I had to check the 1A:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

"or of the press" sounds like it applies here but does 1A covers also foreign companies?

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

That a foreign nation with aims not aligned with the US has the dominant social network with the CAPABILITY to use this influence to influence the US, collect data, shape the minds of youths and future voters etc etc. that is enough for me.

noobermin• 2 years ago

To be honest, the use of the word "enemy" is far too strong, it sounds like we are at war with them while they somehow supply half of our goods at prices we've grown accustomed to. "Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt (which you use later), where the US is not on the friendliest terms with China but isn't in an outright war with them.

Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamewars here on HN.

beebmam• 2 years ago

The US is in a cold war with China as long as China is open to the idea of the use of military force on its neighbors, including Taiwan. A cold war is the only alternative to surrendering the free Taiwanese people to communist rule, and a hot war.

throwaway4good4• 2 years ago

The US has an official list of enemies and that includes China. I believe the list was introduced under Trump and is determined by the sitting president:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

No I meant what I wrote. But I meant it about the CCP not the average Chinese person.

China wants to replace the US and the west as the global power. This will lead to upheaval and likely a war. When that finally comes to pass it behooves the west and the US to protect itself from anything that could undermine its own protection. In order to win a war you need hearts and minds. Not a populace that is being programmed to think despotic neo-communist-capitalist-when-it-suits-them rulers in China are somehow paper tigers.

Let’s compromise here: they are adversaries now but I think they are preparing to become enemies in every sense of the word. If they invade Taiwan, shed blood in the conflict over the breached rusting ship in the Phillipines, continue supporting Putin in his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine then yes they will eventually become enemies.

redbell• 2 years ago

"Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt
Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamwars here on HN.

I agree!

Back in Arcade Machines time, when a player is busy playing a fighting game, Street Fighter, I guess, and another person inserts a coin to play against him, the game pauses and a message that reads "Here's come a new challenger" pops up, so I think challenger would serve the purpose somehow!

huytersd2• 2 years ago

With them picking Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, the term enemy is rather applicable at this point.

troupo3• 2 years ago

Should other countries do the same with US companies? US government regularly (ab)uses FISA to get data on foreign nationals: https://transparency.meta.com/reports/government-data-reques...

Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.

And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based

LexGray• 2 years ago

Given the well documented Russian tendency to wage nation hostile whisper campaigns and app algorithms natural tendencies to promote such speech we are in place where every country both democratic and not have CIA levels of disorder, new mental health issues, and general productivity drain introduced by social apps. I think every country should take a hard look at what is happening and should consider banning or time limiting some U.S. apps.

I believe the underlying narrative of TikTok was with government control the algorithms would be purposefully tuned to promote disorder elsewhere which is a level of control the U.S. government does not have over U.S. companies and they were jealous (although with the level of information control during Desert Storm I am not 100% certain on that). However, I think this law was very premature and should have required evidence of tuning or actual war. While soldiers may have apps they should not the spies should know better.

The China side where they have banned encryption apps also seems to be war preparation. A digital iron curtain while depressing for the population behind it is not something that can be torn down from the outside. A per app legal war seems an unfeasible use of congressional time when many Chinese smart device control apps require location to function and are on many phones. This also appears to be an opening shot by congress for putting up a U.S. national firewall if TikTok just leaves all US offices and continues business through web based offerings.

account42• 2 years ago

Should other countries do the same with US companies?

Absolutely.

timeon2• 2 years ago

Should other countries do the same with US companies? US government regularly (ab)uses FISA to get data on foreign nationals

This is already in process in case of EU: https://noyb.eu/en/update-cnil-decides-eu-us-data-transfer-g...

alcoholic_byte16• 2 years ago

It is called a fortified democracy. And absolute democracy like the Weimarer Republik is a dangerous thing. All modern democracies are fortified these days. And it is good that they are. And yes if the US is caught with the hand in the cookie jar the nation in question is not happy, but there is a difference: Spying is passive and not influencing the democratic process of the nation or disrupting it. The concern with Tiktok is that it is active, trying to disrupt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_Lu1S0sII

Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations. They are in it solely for the money, otherwise the NSA wouldn't have had to snoop on Google in 2013(?).

and this point

And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based

I find questionable. It is too blanketed. There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.

pkphilip3• 2 years ago

I agree. However, banning Tiktok won't change anything. If Tiketok is banned another company will take its place.

Now coming to the subject of Facebook, Twitter etc, these apps pose the same threat to nations other than the US. As in, these apps serve US interests by pushing US propaganda onto the rest of the world and constantly monitors/tracks the individuals who have these apps installed.

So a better option is to ban any type of tracking - on all apps. But it is extremely unlikely that this will be made into law.

figassis2• 2 years ago

Why should the US to other governments jobs? I say this while not being American.

I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens, when it is the US that creates and fuels those predatory companies. And I understand they basically don’t care if they destroy everyone if it benefits them. Great. But what are our governments doing?

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

Yes. Two pronged. Much stronger US consumer data privacy laws including a culling of the business of data brokers. And a total ban of TikTok in the US.

ChrisRR4• 2 years ago

It may not solve it, but it will change it. The amount of influence these apps have on people make them a prime target for planting and spreading misinformation.

throwaway_jeff• 2 years ago

The problem is with the bill being legal.

For example, US citizens are free to listen to chinese radio stations, or chinese TV channels, read chinese books. Why the government needs to restrict what US citizens have access to in this specific case?

hnpolicestate6• 2 years ago

The bill is unconstitutional. See the recent Montana ruling.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-eff-applaud-rul...

palata2• 2 years ago

Because TikTok not only has the tracking potential of BigTech, but it is a serious competitor to some of them.

It's just protectionism, like banning the Huawei phones (not talking about the infrastructure, that's different) or banning DJI drones. It just sounds better to mention national security than to say "we don't want others to do to us what we do to them, and we don't want them to compete with us".

ChrisRR4• 2 years ago

Whenever these posts about limiting chinese influence pop up, a bunch of whataboutism comments against the US pop up. I'm thankful that hackernews highlights new accounts

alcoholic_byte16• 2 years ago

Your thoughts leave out one thing:

Radio and newspapers(including internet articles here in general) are a one way street. With Tiktok, you not only get access to the users device via the app, but it is also a two way street. Tiktok gets to choose what it feeds you.

And what you describe is also true in a lot of countries(I can choose my medium). However, with newspapers, radio and television what you feed the population is readily visible to anyone. I can turn on the telly to see what is being streamed. This is not the case with an app. Unless the government watches you 24/7 and I doubt that. The costs are prohibitive. The thing that does exist is metadata. If I were to visit terrorist.com or bombmanual.org.uk I would make a list. But watching TikTok all that is being seen is me communicating with content-servers(here the subject that needs to be watched also changes from the user(me) to the proprietor(the company)) from them and protocolling the content of everything watched, unless you break encryption at scale, and monitor everyone is also prohibitive. Not to mention analysis of the content. So Tiktok is the perfect vehicle for subversion of a foreign nation if I want to play for time.

throwaway4good4• 2 years ago

This is the idea of the "clean network" originally brought forward by Trump.

Basically all tech is clean and ok if comes from the good guys (the US and allies) and unclean if it comes from the bad guys (China, Russia ...).

IMHO a sad state of affairs. We would be at a healthier and less hypocritical place if our tech was secure by design, and suppliers and platforms were subject to open objective criteria and rule of law wrt. censorship and surveillance.

talldatethrow• 2 years ago

My local library blocks Yandex but allows the Daily Stormer when using their wifi.

shiroiushi5• 2 years ago

I don't see how "secure by design" tech would solve the TikTok problem. TikTok isn't hacking people's devices, it's tracking them and giving them disinformation and propaganda. Secure code isn't going to fix those problems; the only way to fix them is to simply not exchange data with tiktok.com.

alcoholic_byte16• 2 years ago

Well a lot of agencies do that out of the box because secure by design is not believed. Trust but verify. You see that when intelligence agents talk about cooperation between partners. So in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't really change things.

The one thing it would change though is that it would make the life a bit harder for cyber criminals(think downgrading tls connections).

And the criteria you talked about, they are open. Called capitalism, and regulations those companies operate under. Along the way that abomination of surveillance capitalism was born though.

derelicta2• 2 years ago

CIA and FBI propaganda campaigns on US and Europe's population are however acceptable somehow.

pineaux2• 2 years ago

QAnon is not really accepted.

alcoholic_byte16• 2 years ago

Let's be critical here: We should differenciate between spying(passive) and misinformation/manipulation(active)

Mentioning propaganda you choose the latter.

Pray tell what are those campaigns you talk about? If you are posing this question you must have at least some in mind and ready at hand to share.

miroljub4• 2 years ago

Now, let's have other countries doing the same to Meta, Google, Microsoft and the likes. They all collect the data and send them to a foreign country (USA). They also use their algorithms to manipulate public meaning and to censor opposite opinions.

Oh, and a US company spaying foreign citizens in not only legal in the USA, but also required.

hobo_mark2• 2 years ago

spaying foreign citizens

now that would be a bridge too far...

tjarrett3• 2 years ago

Frankly... other countries should probably consider this IF they have an adversarial relationship with the US.

And they already do -- neither China nor Russia allow Meta services in their countries. Nor do they allow most of Google's services.

whatasaas5• 2 years ago

How do we know a China man doesn’t work at Sony and is listening in to all PlayStations In households? Actually with all these Alexa devices and so many employees at Amazon it’s probably best to make sure all these devices are controlled by the government. Yes we have freedom of speech and privacy but no where in there did it say all communication shouldn’t be owned and and monitored by your government. It’s for the greater good.

Yea that mind set sounds awful.

wrasee3• 2 years ago

Spies exist, yes that is a problem but it is a different problem.

And the reach of one individual is just not the same as a nation state. I’m not sure I get your point.

lrvick• 2 years ago

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc?

I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized.

All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors.

Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.

gigatexal14• 2 years ago

Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc? I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized. All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors. Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.

We can ostensibly anyway regulate the American social media companies whereas the Chinese ones are a black box even though they might operate here under an American entity. That’s why we are here. They claimed they didn’t share data but they do. And that’s how the whole algorithm and value works

scotty79• 2 years ago

Why trade with enemy at all? Why do money transfers? Mutual investments? Why let enemy people live in your country?

Every step you do to isolate yourself from your enemy makes them even more your enemy.

At the end of this process is war. Completely unsurprising. Pretty much inevitable.

Alternatively you could accept that you are loosing competition in some fields without turning it into mortal conflict.

troq139• 2 years ago

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

At this level of paranoia you may as well ban Facebook and other social media as there is no guarantee their data is not getting intercepted by China.

user3939382• 2 years ago

This was passed because TikTok posts are not supporting US (horrendous) foreign policy. There are recorded statements from congressmen of them discussing and saying exactly this, it’s not even a secret.

troyvit• 2 years ago

To me the real national security threat is that Americans don't know how to use social media safely.

The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists

The exact same way Facebook and other U.S. social networks abuse the minds of US users.[1]

as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.

Yep, and in a similar way every large US player hoards as much data about its users as it can get away with, even if it doesn't know what it'll do with it, and eventually loses said data in a giant breach, which can lead to blackmail, etc.[2]

And here we sit, either toothlessly regulating the U.S. actors or attempting to ban the foreign ones instead of teaching people how to actually use social media in a way that helps them instead of melting their brains and exposing their deepest secrets to malicious actors.

I'm not much of a capitalist or a social darwinist but I'd say the best thing to do is let people learn the hard way. We seem cool to do that with junk food,[3][4] and the similarities in social engineering between the social media and junk food are striking.

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/08/11/waukegan-district-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinar...

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21999689/

huytersd2• 2 years ago

I want it to shut down because I believe it’s a bad influence on kids in general.

mbs159• 2 years ago

The red scare is real, holy shit.

up2isomorphism• 2 years ago

US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP. This shows how incompetent and how bad current US leadership is in term of understanding what makes US to a the most powerful country in the first place.

chipdart2• 2 years ago

US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP.

I think this is the absolute best way to address this. It forces people to realize and acknowledge that even China's CCP is well aware that companies like TikTok are a major security threat which justifies this type of action.

I wonder why we have anonymous accounts spreading this nonsense that this is a mere trade issue, as if the problem is a company that generates well below $5B in revenue, and not the data harvesting operation and propaganda arm that it is designed to be.

nme012• 2 years ago

Totally for it. Now it’s time for EU to ban TikTok but also Instagram, Facebook and other socials for the very same reasons US bans TikTok

angio• 2 years ago

I love how the EU introducing privacy laws and fining american companies when they break said laws is bad and the EU is overstepping their boundaries, but the US forcing the sale of a foreign company is totally cool.

andy_ppp• 2 years ago

Look if Facebook and Google aren’t allowed in China why the hell should we allow Chinese tech firms in the US or Europe for that matter?

morpheuskafka• 2 years ago

If I understood the law correctly, it bans providing US-based hosting or distribution services to TikTok, but doesn’t require ISPs to ban traffic to it (which is not always straightforward to do anyway).

Could TikTok just revert to fully Chinese hosting (or more likely a third country) and operate as a totally foreign company? You can already access many Chinese sites like Baidu Maps or Zhihu or Xiaohongshu from the US.

squigz2• 2 years ago

Can someone convince me that, as a Canadian, China poses a greater threat to me, my country, or global security, than the US does? Because I have a hard time buying into the "China's the big bad" narrative when America does everything they do.

mapasj2• 2 years ago

For starters, I don’t think America will hold Canadians hostage to be used as bargaining chips, like China did with the two Michaels.

ranguna• 2 years ago

I wish that I had more exact knowledge and sources at hand to counter your example, but I don't. Not because they don't exist, but because at the moment the only source I can get with relative ease are these YouTube videos:

https://youtu.be/R5au74auD_k

https://youtu.be/jUGILxwkpVc

And the channel itself is pretty great.

So I do apologise for not getting a list of factual examples supporting the OP's statement, but your argument was not barely enough to make me disagree with the OP. On the contrary, I do agree with the OP very much.

RomanAlexander• 2 years ago

Do you actually need reasons why a liberal society wouldn't want the largest source Americans receive news from to be run by a wildly illiberal society?

squigz2• 2 years ago

I don't think that's what I asked about at all.

ThalesX3• 2 years ago

With you on this one. As a European, I can't help but laugh at the comments in this thread. Words like 'obviously', 'clearly' when it comes to the dangers of TikTok and not a single piece of evidence. It's hilarious to see the psyopped scream psyops.

rafaelero• 2 years ago

What a pathetic move. Feel bad for the state of the US.

pkphilip3• 2 years ago

This whole subject of blocking Tiktok raises the question as to why companies such as Bytedance aren't punished as malicious actors when the data being captured by them is clearly meant for malicious use.

We really should have a way of judging if any data being captured by an app is in good faith or if it is being done in a clearly fraudulent or malicious manner and then punish or shutdown the malicious operators. Tiktok has been proven to be manipulative and also as an arm of the CCP.

However, what about other apps which seem to capture data that makes no sense to them?

For example, if your note taking app is secretly uploading data from your contact list - that should be clearly seen as malicious in comparison to say your e-commerce app storing details about your purchase history made on that app to determine what may be going on with you.

Even the second part is a bit shady but at least you can make a case that it may be just a way to sell more things.

But many apps capture data that cannot make any business sense to the company behind that app other than being something quite malicious - like for example:

- Uber secretly recording your screen on iphone EVEN WHILE the app was NOT EVEN BEING USED using API which Apple conveniently did not disclose to anyone else other than Uber and perhaps other shady operators!

- Chrome caught secretly sending audio transcripts back to the Google servers. Why would a browser need to send audio transcripts by secretly tapping into the microphone?

- Nest using microphones which were only revealed much later. Why would a smoke alarm need audio?

- Why do apps like Whatsapp - even in the web version, secretly take the data from the clipboard (copy buffer)? Why would an app need the data in the clipboard before it is even pasted into it?

Any company capturing or using such data should be required to provide evidence that this data was captured for a legitimate reason - and be punished if they are not able to provide this data with the principals of the company being treated like organized crime operators. Anything else is just pointless.

zhengiszen• 2 years ago

Tiktok is banned indirectly because of the Gaza war and and its coverage by American youth. It is too free and is one of the last medium that show the reality on the ground and thus must be shut, banned to smithereens. Next step like Israelis have done is to shut Al Jazeera from the US. The same had been done in Europe against Russian media...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then ..."

zrn9003• 2 years ago

Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there?

They didn't need to - William Hearst - the Murdoch of the era - signed a $500,000/year contract with the Nazi Government and did that propaganda on their behalf.

It was worse after the US entered the war - legions of US companies kept trading with Nazis and even provided technology to them - like the technology that was used in developing half trucks. The oil, equipment and technology that the US companies were still selling to the Nazis through intermediary countries were killing American soldiers.

Did anything happen to them? No - they were persecuted for 'trading with the enemy' and got off with a slap on the wrist and KEPT TRADING with Nazis until the end of the war.

...

So no, your example does not hold any weight. The only reason the US is trying to ban Tiktok is because it cant compete and it doesn't own a big piece of it.

Its anti competitive behavior and its not new - despite yammering about 'free trade', the US applies trade quotas even to the allies it has 'free trade' agreements with. 'Free trade' is in quotes, because the 'free trade' always happens on the US side - if the other side starts doing too much 'free trade', the US does what it is doing to Tiktok - ban them.

This is despicable as hell. It will gimp the position of the US in world trade A LOT.

jonesn112• 2 years ago

The algorithm's novelty and recommendation accuracy is so far beyond what other competitors like Google, Snapchat, and Meta have that this seems like a coordinated effort by the private sector to push forth their mediocre products and centralize social media service which I absolutely DETEST. The saddest thing is that it seems like the U.S citizens, (i.e ANY of tiktoks 160 MILLION US users) have absolutely no say in the operations, yet we actually interact with the app not these old people in Congress. The fact that Biden so swiftly signed the bill too makes me frustrated as I want to vote for him, but he keeps doing or okaying things that are counter to my values.

Log_out_3• 2 years ago

If China suddenly became democratic, that law would be repealed?

slim• 2 years ago

the length they go to singling out one social media company, to avoid regulating the whole market and protecting peope from mass control and manipulation

plnii• 2 years ago

I’m for this. China cannot be trusted to let TikTok simply be a business running an app. This can and will be weaponized against the US whenever it benefits China. Which is to say likely right now.

Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

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