Senate Bill to Ban TikTok(congress.gov) |
Senate Bill to Ban TikTok(congress.gov) |
All of these claims are heavily debatable. But more importantly, none of this is remotely relevant to the bill. The policy question is whether or not Congress should allow 150 million Americans to be influenced by a platform controlled (directly or indirectly) by the Chinese Communist Party.
I want to someone to actually make the case for why allowing TikTok in the U.S. is better for America than banning Tiktok (unless it divests from Chinese control). Someone needs to argue that:
- Allowing TikTok is better for American national security than banning it
- Allowing TikTok is better for the health of americans than banning it
- Or, there is some substantial harm from banning it that outweighs those benefits.
And it's surprising to me that people still doubt that manipulating social media can cause societal-level effects. Back in 2014 Facebook published a study where they can increase or decrease levels of anxiety and depression by manipulating the emotional content of the news feed [1]. Back in 2012, academics estimated that 314,000 additional Americans voted in the 2010 congressional election because a they implemented a popup reminding people that "Today is election day."
As it stands, the Chinese government absolutely can use TikTok to manipulate the mental health of Americans, by influencing the content that is shown. The Chinese government can manipulate results of an election by preferentially showing a reminder voters of to one party or the other. Are they doing this already? The U.S. has no way to know, and no defense against this sort of manipulation. TikTok is absolutely a national security issue, and it's within Congress's purview to legislate around it.
This bill primarily aims to safeguard national security by regulating and mitigating risks associated with foreign investments in U.S. information and communications technology companies. It outlines the processes and authority of the Secretary of Commerce and the President to identify, review, and take necessary actions against transactions that pose a threat to national security. The major and minor intentions of this bill can be summarized as follows:
Major intentions:
Define "covered transactions" and "interests" that warrant scrutiny for national security purposes.
Establish a process for the Secretary of Commerce to review covered transactions and interests.
Allow the President to take action against transactions that pose a threat to national security.
Outline the penalties for violating the regulations set forth in this Act.
Provide a framework for judicial review of actions taken under this Act.
Establish the protection of sensitive information during the review process and any subsequent legal proceedings.
Clarify the relationship between this Act and other existing laws and authorities, such as the Defense Production Act of 1950 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Specify the transition process for implementing this Act, including the continuation of actions taken under Executive Order 13873 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The broad scope of the bill's language may allow for an expansive interpretation of "national security risks," which could lead to a greater number of transactions being scrutinized and potentially restricted.
The bill might deter foreign investment in the U.S. information and communications technology sector, which could impact innovation, competition, and economic growth.
The exclusion of certain administrative and judicial review processes might limit transparency and accountability in the implementation of the Act.
The protection of sensitive information and the limitations on access to classified and unclassified information in legal proceedings may hinder the ability of affected parties to challenge actions taken under this Act effectively.
That’s how most bills die for _years_.
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
It's authorizing the President to ban certain classes of transactions. Not behavior let alone speech.
This is mind boggling that every single person on HN isn’t terrified of this.
Surely most of us were around in the 2000s when the Bush Administration demonized people who spoke against the war? Aren’t we the same people who were railing against censorship then? What HAPPENED to that community I grew up with that wouldn’t put up with censorship, who held free speech as the backbone of democracy? Where are all of those people now?
I have a few hunches, and I’m not sure I’d like to know the answer.
Not that I agree that it is actually an immediate threat to US national security, but anti-TikTok pundits claim it is and can spin their argument that way. Its not unreasonable following that premise.
TLDR: The bill doesn't ban TikTok, it gives the executive branch the power to ban companies like Tiktok. IMO this is an entirely reasonable measure.
As someone with strong libertarian leanings, I am generally opposed to the trend of the executive branch gaining arbitrary legislative authority but this bill appears entirely reasonable to me despite some concerns of vagueness.
It gives the Secretary of commerce the responsibility of consulting with agencies to determine if software companies from "foreign adversaries" pose a national security threat. If the secretary seems it does then it gives the president the authority to ban the company.
My initial reading of the text was that it gives the executive branch the right to force companies from a selected list of "foreign adversaries" to divest if it deems it a threat to national security.
I personally believe thats entirely reasonable both from a national security and trade-relations point of view but upon further research this bill looks like an extension of the Patriot Act giving the executive branch
Heres the new information regarding the vagueness that changed my mind: - It punishes citizens for using the "banned" product. - It gives way more arbitrary power to the secretary of commerce to decide whats a threat to national security than I initially realised. - It allows the government to regulate VPN, essentially removing our write to privacy.
As a side note, this is exactly why many people like me have trust issues with the government and other institutions. I don't understand how these smart lawyer types don't realise the immense damage they are doing to public trust.
I think this probably the first time they are recognised as such in an official capacity in recent times.
Also, probably, Alibaba, AliExpress, and Yandex.
There's a bunch of 18-28 year olds who are going to be super pissed off.
If you want to point the finger at anyone, Google might be a better bet. Google has been very good at keeping out of the public eye, like successfully arguing "it's the algorithm" about search results to gloss over the human element in that.
But there are several aspects to this that have varying levels of validity:
1. China doesn't provide reciprocal access to their market to US companies like FB, IG and Youtube. To me, this alone is justification to ban Chinese companies. You need go no further than this;
2. Data protection is a real issue. Having data within US jurisdiction is a valid concern but as many have pointed out, this would better be served by a Federal data protection law, which will never happen. Tiktok has been singled out here;
3. As much as the US government can gain access to data on FB, IG, etc, there is still a rule of law. Even FISA courts have a process. There is not even a pretense of separation between Chinese companies and the Chinese state;
4. Influence by any company through the algorithm is a valid concern. This is more of a concern with a foreign adversary but is still an issue with US companies. We've seen how quickly misinformation can spread (and affect elections) since at least 2016;
5. Some point out you can just get this data from data brokers. Data brokers sell audiences. In some cases you can tie that back to an individual but the platform has way more data than any broker would. I can't go to a broker and get WSJ journalist DMs. The platform owner obviously can;
6. The risk of a foreign government targeting individuals with 0-days and the like is a real one. We've seen Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian governments target journalists. It's a valid concern.
But instead of a nuanced conversation we get reactionary "China = bad" antics from some of the dumbest people (in Congress) I've ever witnessed.
(just in case you were curious)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
Also a terrible message for foreign companies investing in the US, you can get banned if you don't give up ownership/control of your own company if you become too big..
And at least they finally did something.
The second-order effect of this is interesting to ponder about as it creates an asymmetrical situation. Those countries get the "good" parts of social media (as in, good for their government) whilst we get the bad parts of every app ever.
My main point is that these bad parts should not be underestimated. Misinformation campaigns, election interference, calls for violence, addiction, mental health issues, radicalization, polarization, dysfunction, the normalization of degenerate behavior, a cultural breakdown, mob justice, the list is long.
If in China Tiktok users get a cap of 2 hours of usage in which only productive/interesting (science) content is shown whilst in the US teenagers use it for 5-7 hours leading to a mental health crisis, then we're talking about radically different outcomes.
This doesn't mean that social media is only bad, nor does it mean we should ban it. I'm just saying that we should stop seeing it as an unimportant toy. It potentially is a weapon of mass destruction.
Is this what is happening? This seems to me like free speech absurdism.
Let’s be real. Nobody is closing anything down. This is a bizarre game of brinksmanship between D.C. and Beijing that ends in one place: divestiture. The only reason it’s getting so much attention is because the object of concern is a social media property, not e.g. a port asset or power plant.
It seems silly to legislate "thou shalt not do really scare thing #1 if name == TikTok" or "thou shalt not allow any third party to have really scare access if name == China". Just leave out the if clauses.
Don't target China or Russia or Iran or North Korea. Don't exempt Virginia or Maryland or any three letter acronym. If it is dangerous for the Chinese government to do it, it is dangerous for the U.S. government to do it and for the sales department of Amazon to do it.
> The term “transaction” means any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology product or service, including ongoing activities such as managed services, data transmission, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services, or a class of such transactions.
> includes, unless removed by the Secretary pursuant to section 6—
(i) the People’s Republic of China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macao Special Administrative Region;
(ii) the Republic of Cuba;
(iii) the Islamic Republic of Iran;
(iv) the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;
At no point has anyone actually done anything about this, even though it significantly affects peoples views in a negative way through false truths, voting etc.
What about kids with social media and how bad it is for them? Evident through the fact that most people who work at social media companies ban or severely limit their kids from having phones and/or social media. Nope, let it slide.
But the China war with Tiktok? Of course this gets focus. How about they care about the country they actually live in by looking after the people that live in it rather than only focusing on external country threats.
It's sad living outside of the US and watching it fall apart by their own doing. If they cared, they'd focus on their employment rate, homelessness, free quality healthcare, gun control (yes), clean streets, and better education. If they can't solve it with their Military, they don't care.
Was TikTok a net good to American society? Depends on who you ask, but if anything I think most people would agree that it only exaggerated the decline of the average attention span. This moves with the larger movement to commodify clicks, quick ads and lowers the threshold towards late stage capitalism. In short, this speeds cultural decline ("I said what I said").
Would I support an American TikTok? No, see above.
Should TikTok be banned by the US congress? When is the last time you ever saw a ban of something that didn't include any overt pocket lining or omnibus-style overreach? Read the bill, the language is broad and sweeping; certainly kin to the CFAA and COPPA.
So what then? Well we're certainly at an impasse here, right? We can't rely on tech businesses to turn their shoulders to cold hard cash. We can't rely on our elected officials to "Do the right thing" without lining their pockets and sharpening their knives. Truly a conundrum with no good solution.
The mental health impact of kids, parents, and teachers having to worry about STAYING THE FUCK ALIVE IN SCHOOL EVERYDAY cannot be understated.
Yes, of course, gun safety must be addressed, and the government should have resources to do this concurrently, but the foreign influence issue is an existential threat to your nation, and should be the highest priority.
Sounds like a problem with the media then. Ban coverage of shootings if people can’t behave rationally about risks.
Children are 1000x more likely to die in a car crash than a school shooting.
My good friend is a teacher in another state. A school near his lost a teacher to gun violence this month. Between gun violence, going thru COVID, and general apathy to learning from his students, he's about done with teaching.
Both turned out fine but this takes a heavy toll on the school community. Kids should be learning and playing. Teachers should be teaching. Parents should be at peace knowing their kids are safe. That used to be a given. It's not anymore.
Guns now kill more kids than vehicle accidents. Sure, not all of those deaths are in schools. But the point still stands.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/health/us-children-gun-deaths...
We have a massive gun violence problem deep inside of American culture. No other country comes close to our level of gun violence.
The reason for banning it is simple: it can be used as a first-strike weapon to influence an entire generation (or two) of Americans in a conflict with China that is almost certain to happen. Keeping it under Chinese control is a bad idea.
China has the option to sell it to an American company, take the money and build more guns to shoot at us. Honestly, it's a win-win.
Seems like there's... a LOT of calve-outs for due process / checks-and-balances? or is that fairly normal and i'm mis-interpreting in my ignorance?
Can’t the administration or a governmental agency (such as but not limited to FTC, FCC etc.) ban it?
I think that’s how it works in many other countries.
The reverse, where government agencies ban things without Congress, is the unusual thing from a Constitutional perspective.
Those bodies were created by congress to delegate the duties of congress to the Executive branch.
They work for the Executive but are given authority by the Legislature.
The thing you may be conflating as the reverse is executive orders.
Banning TikTok based on alleged "Chinese influence" sets a dangerous precedent for censorship, jeopardizing freedom of expression and access to global platforms. Instead, focus on enforcing data privacy regulations, strengthening cybersecurity, and promoting transparency to protect user interests without infringing on individual rights.
Open dialogue and collaboration are more productive than outright bans.
2) This is embarrassing. You don't like TikTok? Man up and compete. Don't ban it.
3) The complexity in this bills makes it reak of corruption. There will be winners and losers in this bill. The losers we can bet are 99% of the population.
That's gotta be taking a huge chunk of time away from playing Xbox/PlayStation/PC games.
How are so many people (especially on HN) fine with this? Haven't we criticized "The Great Firewall of China" for literally decades? How is this not the start of that? Genuine question. This ban seems to set horrible precedent to me. Bet everyones "coolness" with it makes me think I'm not understanding something.
As the sibling post mentions, the public is too stupid to be allowed to be communicated at by an untrustworthy and adversarial media. Of course, untrustworthy and adversarial refers to foreign enemies, not domestic[1] ones.
[1] Fox and friends, et al, would be the poster children[2] for untrustworthy and adversarial, but they are our untrustworthy and adversarial media firms, so mysteriously, they get a free pass.
[2] Just imagine if the 'batshit right-wing conspiracy' half of the US media landscape were ran by the Kremlin (Or some other boogieman of the week), instead of a billionaire from Australia. Same content, different source, would drive people utterly livid.
We can still say and post what we want - it’s not content that’s being censored.
I personally was deep into digital privacy back in grade school and college when the Arab Spring began, but my own thinking shifted after learning about and working with people who blue teamed incidents like Operation Aurora and Titan Rain, as well as censorship of FB and Whatsapp in the PRC following unrest in East Turkestan in 2009.
but sure, lets not ban it. lets not stop any foreign interference in our institutions and lets let our adversaries brain wash our population into destroying our country, but as long as we feel righteous that we have freedom right? thats all that matters?
every time someone brings up a whataboutism as a rebuttle to that, "what about american social media companies?? they are much worse", they are doing exactly what China wants. China will gladly sit by and watch our destruction, prodding it along, as we eat each other. Most people are just oblivious to it and will deny it because of how much peace we've had, and how far we've gone without a near-peer enemy. at least with this bill we can stop the bleed.
I was once a diehard defender of digital privacy and a small government, but over time I realized that the world really is not peaceful and countries exist out there that want to see our people dead. I understand it, I get it. But so many people are oblivious to foreign threats that they are willing to undermine their own country just so they can be on their high horse. It's not worth it.
However, I do agree about point 3, wholeheartedly. This makes it seem like envy, where our government is salivating at the prospect of doing this themselves under the guise of protecting us from foreign powers.
As a non-American, I would argue the last 70 years of Hollywood and social media has been a psyop by a foreign power. The DoD literally aids in the making of Hollywood movies as long as their ideological content is "correct"[1]. After all that it's pretty funny to see this kind of pearl clutching about "psyops" coming from American citizens.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unof...
Do you personally use tiktok?
Re: 3, can't argue there.
This bill is twice as long as the entire U.S. Constitution.
A real principled stand against these adversaries would not be resorting to their levels with this "RESTRICT ACT" and giving more power and money to negative value add lawyes, but instead would be something like "FREEDOM ACT", where we invest in technologies and tactics that go against the Great Firewall and other methods used by these countries to keep American apps out.
For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me.
There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm when they're being influenced every day by how they might get shot up in math class? Come on (wo)man. This shit is fucking stupid.
It's just sad to me, sad to watch the country I grew up in, the one I went to war for ... do this level of stupid shit.
That's my 2 bucks, spend it how you want it.
This is really meant to be a punch in the fight against China. US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear. The narrative of child safety, for example the story about the kid who commit suicide because of their "for you" page, is being used as a kind of legal "pretext" so they can ban TikTok.
https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/
Dialing up things to cause unrest, dialing down stuff critical of the CCP. It’s not an issue about data, or even an issue about speech, it’s an issue of ownership of a media company by an adversary that will weaponize it against you.
Who controls and owns media companies is a reasonable national security question. The CCP knows this risk, they don’t play fair.
China. Yeah, except that any business can just buy that information. I can buy your day-to-day movements for dirt cheap. I own a non-American company (though I'm still an American citizen, but that isn't a factor), and it is insanely cheap to get information about any American you want. Hell, BingBot will tell you all about me, what I do for a living and where I live.
This is about China, but it is a stupid and pointless zero-point game. This bill would get shot down in 30s for being unconstitutional, especially if the company has an American LLC or corporation (making it a legal entity protected by the constitution). Further, you'd think congress would have learned from prohibition that banning something ... hmm, doesn't work? At all? How would you even enforce something like this, stop people randomly to violate their privacy further and search their phone? Will this be another thing to get arrested for when you have a 'broken tailight'?
This overlooks the "possibility" that those platforms have an "agreement" of sorts with the US Government. The Twitter Files have gone into some of that, but be careful: it is possible for things to exist that each individual/civilian may not have knowledge of, even though most people seem to be strongly under the impression that this is impossible, perhaps because it could be considered (or, has been marketed as) [only] a conspiracy theory.
> This is really meant to be a punch in the fight against China. US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear. The narrative of child safety, for example the story about the kid who commit suicide because of their "for you" page, is being used as a kind of legal "pretext" so they can ban TikTok.
It is plausible that there are certain ideas that they would not like the minds of the American Public exposed to, certain conversations they would prefer they do not have, etc. There is a surprising amount of detail to reality, but we miss out on most of it (and often do not realize it), for a variety of reasons.
The thinking on these sorts of matters one reads in this thread is rather eye opening....I suspect a lot of the styles of logic that are perfectly acceptable in threads on this topic would be very unwelcome when writing software.
However, this is not about the arguments presented. Those are merely talking points as a way to get an upper hand on China. That is it. It is annoying, because there is actually a dire need to make children a little less addicted to screens ( not to mention the chance to get some privacy ).
Politicsgirl makes the case this is about shutting down marginalized voices, among other things. I’m no TikTok user myself but the argument holds water.
Do they? My Impression is a bit different here. TikTok is much more focused on the automatically selected content, and has fewer options for letting users make their own choices. The format itself (video) also strongly boosts the connection between people. And both combined let TikTok-Trends move much faster and ingrain deeper in the minds of people. It was quite interesting to see how fast and deep the brainwashing on TikTok was spreading after the CEOs appearance in senat, and also kinda concerning.
> US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear.
But isn't that legit concern of any country regarding other countries with even less security than you have yourself? I mean in Europe we also have strong concerns against the USA and their poor handling of data.
Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of their awareness of the dangers of social media to their own people.
At this point, I'd venture that politicians in the US are trying to grasp at whatever they can to mitigate the risk while still maintaining their election chances. Easier to "blame China" and get re-elected than it is to dump on their own constituents for not monitoring their kids' social media habits.
And frankly, I'm okay with that. Even if a parent does their best, there'll be second-hand influences through all the kids raised irresponsibly through their parents, and nothing can be done about that aside from homeschooling or going off-grid, which is unsustainable for nearly everyone.
I'm fine with a combination of the bill introduced + bills like the one passed in Utah placing curfews on kids since parents have proven to be so bad at parenting their own kids as to present the nation with an emergent aggregate risk to national security.
Exactly. We're a decade into the social media experiment now, and it's absolutely clear that it in its current form it doesn't make us smarter, it doesn't make us happier, and it doesn't bring us closer. If anything, it makes people sick and it weakens the social fabric. The proposed solution of "more free speech better" is clearly not working in the face of organized, AI-fueled, nation-state manipulation efforts.
Hacker News is made up of people with a birds-eye view of social media technology. Most of us understand how it works and who operates it. I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, and to remember that most people aren't like us. Most people can't just say, "screw it, I'll get my information elsewhere."
I think we'll improve over time, but we're at least a generation away from any kind of widespread media literacy. What do we do in the meantime?
Exactly how most social media execs handle it with respect to their own kids.
And it kinda signals to other countries they really should put critical effort in lowering dependence on the US and chalenging the dominance if they ever intend to thrive.
> Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people.
Do you think that we should ban all the Chinese apps and also all the American apps?
The way you weaponize the network against a populace is by censoring it. In this regard, Congress is the one doing that.
Pathos-heavy comments like this one with no real meat disappoint me. Surely we can do better.
I increasingly think interesting geopolitics are a trap for a certain type of brain. When I was in high school I followed that sort of thing closely, and felt very smart. But it all had no connection to me, and it didn't matter to me at all. I realized I prefered geopolitics to domestic news because I could feel detached from the tradgedy.
Sorry, I'm calling bullshit on this. Look at every single thread that discusses cryptocurrency. If you haven't noticed the Redditification of Hacker News, then I envy you.
Do you think banning Huawei from owning US telecommunications infrastructure is also a sign of the end times (Parent comment)?
Not that the US spying agencies cant do the same with US companies. They surely do. But it's a strong argument for banning technology coming from an adversarial government.
In 2022, there were ~25.1 million teens[1], of whom ~67% used TikTok[2], for a total of ~16.8 million on TikTok (totally ignoring anyone under 12 or over 17).
I know the numbers are hacky because the first group includes younger children and the second group doesn't (and 1/3 of TikTok's users could be under 14[3]), but I was trying to get a sense of scale for each category. Assume the TikTok user count is probably an underestimate.
My hacky numbers come up with a bit over 40x more teens being first-hand infuenced by tiktok. To make the numbers even more hypothetical, the next step of deciding how many times worse you think being enrolled at a school that has a shooting is for students and plugging that in to get how much more attention/resources should be used on shootings is left as an exercise for the reader.
[0] https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-school-shootings [1] https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/technology/tiktok-underag...
The fact that school shootings have been so normalized that we’re sitting here and discussing the math around whether they’re worse than social media is… so profoundly sad it’s hard to describe.
The total number of children who should die in school shootings should always be 0.
It's not even particularly hard. Practically every country in the world manages to achieve that target.
The raw footage has changed substantially in recent years.
I watched recent senate hearings and, instead of bringing expert witnesses to educate senators to help them better do their job, it seems hearings (and basically any other chance at being in front of a camera) is an opportunity to PWN the “other side” in a series of 30s sound bites.
Senators yell at each other, talk past each other and their guests, fall back on their pre-written “serious burn!” scripts no matter where the conversation goes, and insult the guests they invite in to speak. Everyone is freaking out about whether or not everything was shared with “their side” prior to the hearing because they need to have pre written burns to score more “points” than the other side.
You see these 30s clips floating around the internet and wonder how they can all come from the same hearing. It’s because they are all rapid firing a bunch of pre-written dribble optimized for 30s sound bites.
I don’t know how we come back from this.
That's not how Congress works. We're taught in school that Congress debates bills one at a time, but the reality is that all the real debate and drafting and work happens behind the scenes, massively parallelized.
Time spent during a session of Congress is mostly just the very end of the process, discovering where the votes fall and some last-minute negotiations. Also grandstanding.
There are lots of factors that have been making Congress less "productive" in recent history, depending on how you view it, but the total hours available per year isn't really one of them.
b) There is zero appetite from the GOP for gun control. Until that changes the status quo persists.
c) Information about US citizens (which can be used to manipulate them) being handed over to the Chinese government is something that the government should be concerned about.
There have been many years of Democratic control where they didn't prioritize gun control. The status quo persists for some other reasons, not just the GOP bogeyman.
There are people who look at data to determine how likely they were to die from covid vs. the risk and effectiveness of a vaccine authorized for emergency use, and there are people who watch the news.
You can't have a good argument with people who watch the news because they get convinced of their position emotionally through anecdotes that the news focuses on, not data. You end up arguing with that person's emotional reaction to anecdotes. It's never a good idea to criticize another person's emotions if you expect to remain friends with them or not get flagged on HN.
not only that but you have media outfits literally called "Infowars" operating inside the country basically supporting treasonous activities. I find it absolutely hilarious that imaginary threats from TikTok, for which even the US government cannot find genuine evidence, somehow are more relevant than existing domestic ones. Some of the largest news channels in the country openly publish the kind of propaganda that TikTok is allegedly supposed to boost.
From the outside over the last two decades it honestly looks like 9/11 just broke the US flat out. Ever since then it's been a spiral into paranoia and insecurity with 'foreign adversaries' being blamed for absolutely every self-inflicted stupidity.
Yes, in the supposed Great Game this is simply a mole being whacked, a performative exercise that does nothing to solve any of the problems and shoddily disguises these in puerile emnity.
Yet and all, The US Senate is still and nonetheless one of the most powerful and wayward legislative bodies in our species' history. You have a direct part in your Senate, albeit at the length of another's arm, and so you still have this power.
I'm at risk of rambling, but you are still a citizen of one of the greatest nations, and you should have more than hope. I take your two bucks and give it to a beggar, as their need is greater than either of ours.
Please, if you are willing and brave, and as you have served your country we know you are willing and brave, get into Politics. Good people working together is the best way of making things better
In reality, you take for granted the freedom that you enjoy here, protected by the US military, constitution and rule of law. People in many other countries would go to great lengths to just have what you have.
I agree that gun control is a serious issue, but this TikTok thing can easily cause many more suicides among teenagers if we don't ban it, the scale of harm is much higher than school shootings.
That's my 2 cents.
Not that it isn't at least a little reasonable to be wary of adversaries having access to a data collection platform, but the problem also gets meaningfully less substantial in general if you put meaningful limits on these companies' capacity to grow and eat each other in the name of building empires of surveillance capitalism.
Meta in particular is pushing hard on that angle while hand-waving away the fact that Facebook has a history of treating society as a large-scale experiment. It's manipulated users' mental health on purpose, meddled in elections by selling users' data directly to campaigners, and furthered incitements of everything from genocides abroad to the attack on the Capitol. They're feeding into attacks that single out TikTok specifically, as part of a broader pattern that Facebook and Zuckerberg personally have exhibited of trying to buy or clone nearly anything that represents competition. They bought Instagram. They bought WhatsApp. They tried to buy Snapchat. They've lifted the primary functionality of several large competitors, ranging from disappearing messages to basically all of Reels.
Instead of just taking the blunt-instrument approach of banning social media platforms from within the borders of specific foreign countries, we arguably should be having an entirely different conversation about banning the business practices that make TikTok a problem.
On the kids' manipulation -- even though that's not the main intent and American social media co's influence kids as well -- I'd still argue it's significant. A foreign adversary can control how your population thinks... it almost speaks for itself.
I mean, at least China might actually criticize American government and policy, which is something America's so-called "free press" is no longer capable of. I say give Americans a healthy dose of propaganda from all sides and let the market decide!
I expected it to get downvoted to oblivion but the whole thing made me sad and no one else seemed to feel that way, so I made this comment.
What do you think causes kids to shoot up their math class?
The sentiment against assamge, patriot act, even the iraq war was popular at the time.
Now I have tried to make a rational argument for this ban but all I got was downvotes even bots/people downvoting every unrelated thing I post probably including this post.
You need to engage in polite discourse with others and change their minds not complain about the government.
And believe me when I say, having seen how things are in other countries, as bad as things are in the US I wouldn't trade it for any other country.
You've all chosen to whine in your bubbles instead of a healthy debate. Enjoy the result.
It's a red herring.
This is the Patriot Act for the Internet. Ironically they're copying the CCP playbook and want the same level of sweeping control with the implementation of a Great Firewall. It's extremely broad and includes everything connected to the internet that has >1M users in a year period.
Edit: If you don't want to read it, Louis Rossmann does a good flyover here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8
There is a Senate bill[1] called "S.85 - No TikTok on United States Devices Act", which is very short and seems to only do one thing, and that's ban TikTok. This bill is in committee.
There is another Senate bill[2], called "S.686 - RESTRICT Act", which is the one linked in this submission and is the one everyone is - imo rightly - quite concerned about, because a bunch of stuff seemingly unrelated to TikTok is getting the Department of Homeland Security treatment. TikTok isn't even mentioned in the text of the act. This bill is also in committee.
I'm honestly left wondering if the RESTRICT Act is being intentionally amplified as "The Bill to Ban TikTok", because of how shitty it is, to give people the means to say "no we shouldn't pass this if the cost of banning TikTok is Patriot Act Part Deux", when in reality we shouldn't pass this bill anyway because it sucks.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/85/...
[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
Could potentially apply to VPNs - Sec 2-3-(B) - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
General leeway for The Secretary of Commerce to classify things as they see fit. Chevron Deference, the idea that courts defer to executive branch agency interpretations of the law, might go away so this hedges against that - Sec 3-(a)-1-2 - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
Judicial Review in Section 12. I think this is the section most resembling what we think of with respect to The Patriot Act. Basically feels like it will be very hard to challenge decisions made under this law. I don't read these things often tho so perhaps I am way off base. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
> (B) includes any other holding, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
This is referring to intermediary holding companies intended to disguise an ownership stake by foreign nationals (like a shell company). Nothing to do with VPN or any other technology.
China doesn't allow FB, Insta, Twitter, etc to operate in its market, but its companies can provide such a service to US customers? Is that not protectionism?
If we're afraid that China will use TikTok to push their propaganda in the US, we should be appropriately concerned that banning a platform to stop targeted speech is in conflict with our own norms around free speech. But instead insisting that TikTok can only operate in the US if FB/Snap/Twitter can operate in China on equal terms seems like it would be more in line with our rhetoric around wanting a rules-based international order, and freedom of both trade and speech under most circumstances.
If western social media companies were able to offer their services in China, their fear of our propaganda would be much worse than our fear of theirs.
I'm so cynical, I bet even that is a lie.
Diving in, the list of "foreign adversaries" is amusing. China and Russia have to be on there. Iran and North Korea I guess. Cuba and specifically a Maduro led Venezuela are a stretch.
What this bill actually seems to do is allow the Secretary of Commerce to review any communication technology, including both apps and hardware, used by a million Americans, and then suggest the president punish it if it poses an "unacceptable risk" of stealing IP, damaging infrastructure, interfering with elections, extorts a person in power, or just "otherwise poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the safety of United States persons."
Then it discusses what penalties the President can enact, which are banning the thing, confiscating their assets, and confiscating their collected data (and code? not 100% on this.)
Next, how to designate a communication device needing review or foreign adversary, basically someone high up says so. Then how to remove a foreign adversary, which seems much more difficult though it may just have more possible methods.
The rest seems to deal with the minutia of enforcement. I also can't be bothered to read this once, let alone twice, but it also means I'm not quite sure what investigative powers the Secretary of Commerce has without getting a warrant.
So it's called a bill to ban TikTok, but it seems to give the government a fairly clear path to banning any foreign communication technology widely used. The adversary part doesn't even seem necessary, the only time the foreign adversary comes up is if they are undermining the democratic process. Which means Russia can't interfere in elections, Israel and Saudi Arabia can.
1. Apple adds easy support for non-Apple app stores and side-loading to iOS to comply with the recent EU regulations that require opening things up in 2024, and then people can download TikTok from outside the US and install it?
2. TikTok users switch to using the TikTok website instead of the app?
It looks like the main thing the app gives you that the website can't is a convenient way to film short video and edit it and add music all on your phone and then post that. Surely someone could write a social network agnostic app just for filming, editing, and adding music that can upload that short video to any of your social media accounts (TikTok, YouTube shorts, and whatever other ones allow video). The destinations could be entirely user configurable and support any social network that provides a halfway decent upload API.
What's the US going to do? Try to make a US equivalent of China's Great Firewall? I don't think that would work here, because our free speech laws make it too easy to circulate circumvention information.
If I was a company that does mobile apps I'd be seriously looking right now into making that general short video maker/uploader app. If the US does successfully cut off TikTok all those users aren't going to just stop wanting to post and read the kind of things they are now doing there. They are going to try to move to other platforms. Done right, maybe my app would be something they use as part of that.
"Hence anyone using a VPN to access TikTok would be in trouble—specifically, subject to up to $1 million in fines, 20 years in prison, or both."[1]
[1]https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-crimina...
> Warner's office says this isn't so. Spokesperson Rachel Cohen told Newsweek that the provisions only apply when someone is "engaged in 'sabotage or subversion' of communications technology in the U.S., causing 'catastrophic effects' on U.S. critical infrastructure, or 'interfering in, or altering the result' of a federal election in order for criminal penalties to apply."
In what way? Explain that, and let readers decide if it is horrific.
Wrote some brief thoughts about it here: https://concernedsoftwareuser.github.io/software-freedom/
(10) ICTS COVERED HOLDING ENTITY.—The term “ICTS covered holding entity” means any entity that—
(A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and
(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or
(ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.
(11) INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.—The term “information and communications technology products or services” means any hardware, software, or other product or service primarily intended to fulfill or enable the function of information or data processing, storage, retrieval, or communication by electronic means, including transmission, storage, and display.
Domestic tech companies shamelessly sold access to American users for manipulation by "foreign adversaries" for years, made billions, suffered no lasting consequences. Then Chinese Vine walks in, smokes everybody else in ~24 months, the mad South African buys and destroys Twitter, and Mark toddles off the cliff of irrelevance with a social network in each pocket and an Oculus strapped to his face.
I guess it was fun while it lasted.
This bill literally references parts of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and the Controlled Substances Act. It's beyond absurd. A good video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8
Why nothing about US media companies pushing advertising based on data that really should be protected by privacy laws?
Why nothing about the material released from Twitter by Matt Taibi, et. al.? Very concerning stuff for a country talking the talk about democracy.
Why not enforce limits on what kids can watch and for how long, as China does? While I am all for free speech and liberty for adults, I think it is necessary for parents to put some guardrails on their kids.
There is a lot more at stake here: the USA (my country) is struggling to maintain the dollar hegemony, has some severe looming economic problems, and has the same general problems shared by all countries. The USA has been very successful by carrying a big stick and hitting other countries with it. But, what was once a successful strategy is, I think, now a very poor strategy. An Empire like ours should sometimes orchestrate a graceful exit, on terms best for our country. Now when I say best for our country, I mean best for people, and not what is best for Wall Street, Our Military Industrial Complex, etc.
Back in the previous administration, I figured this was all a temper-tantrum being thrown by an executive who got embarrassed when outsmarted by a bunch of kids. It may have started like that, but somehow in D.C. everyone's been convinced of the danger a foreign-owned social-media network poses. I'm still not sure I get it...
If you’ve read it and you still support it (as a US citizen) I’m going to be so heartbroken by today’s tech community.
This is authoritarianism in the name of protecting our children.
I understand, TikTok is projected to overtake Alphabet’s and Meta’s video ad revenue [0] and it won’t surprise me if they even lobbied for it. I just see it as a shortsighted move by these companies not to strongly come against this bill.
[0] https://www.fiercevideo.com/advertising/2027-tiktok-video-ad...
As a Network/Security engineer, I personally trust American companies as little or less than anything Chinese, but I know nothing good comes from anything connecting to or from there for 99% of everything most of my non-international customers of mine or I do. They simply do not play by ours or any rules but their own. Given my druthers or by request with a capable firewall with geolocation, I gladly block anything to/from China and most anything outside the the US, particularly SLED/FED or regionally local to US only businesses. Not that I endorse isolationism, but as a practical engineer, it would likely save our incumbent non-security-savvy sheeple (or simply lazy businesses) from more blatant direct attacks and siphoning of data at least from the less tricky foreign villains without their own domestic botnets.
If later I actually do need to send something to/from blocked geolocations, there will be an exception policy for it that shall be documented.
But moreover, laws should be about behavior. You don’t ban Philip Morris, you ban selling tobacco to kids and smoking indoors.
This is not that. But Congress has had years of opportunities to develop actual data privacy laws and they haven't. They held proceedings focused on a single company. The tagline for this post is specifically "Senate Bill to Ban TikTok" for good reason: it was written to target a single company.
We _should_ be concerned about companies which have personal data on basically everyone and have no real limitations on how it's used, but FB is gonna keep operating. We _should_ be concerned about a government that can gather private data about Americans by secretly working with a corporation. But AT&T's cooperation with the NSA never really hurt it.
Unfortunately, the bill’s official one-line summary (“To authorize the Secretary of Commerce to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes”) and title (“Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act”) are also misleading, though perhaps not clickbait (they are more to discourage looking inside by making it seem bland than to encourage attention.)
The summary is factually misleading, because the Secretary of Commerce isn’t authorized to prohibit anything by the bill, the President is, and the bill specifically prohibits delegating except to the Attorney-General, and that only for litigation purposes, and it is an obscurant because it is vague about what kind of transactions and why. And the title is basically word salad to fit a forced acronym, though it does hint about the business domain of concern.
I don't think you guys understand here how important a bill like this is, and how much of a threat China is to us. This bill could be modified to restrict its usage more, and that would be good, but at the end of the day we must take action against the fact that China has such a massive social and cultural entry point into our culture, because China has spent the last 10 decades ensuring that they are protected from any social exchange from us to them.
They will use that tool against us. It is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and it's probably already happening.
Do not hand our people's minds to a country that would destroy us. Pay attention to what Russia was able to do with nothing but a couple of troll farms. China won't just have that, they'll have the entire platform and the algorithm which determines everything you see every day.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
Luckily I live in a small country now and shouldn't care much about us politics
I remember the trump days. the same democrats pushing for a ban where calling trump racist for his anti-china policies. what a 180 from all our enlightened benefactors and democrats thinkers
This isn't about lifting people out of poverty or the quality of the other apps. There are very big systemic problems that still need to be solved with regulations on American applications.
This is about making sure an enemy state doesn't have a little window to half the people in the country, with the ability to exert total control on what they see every day.
Apathy, learned helplessness, inaction, cult-like fervor, magical thinking, pan-colonial ambitions, and inability to fund or defend itself lead a society to ruin.
The thing is that every 8-12 generations (250+-50 years), a civilization must rework or recommit itself or it slides into decline and decay.
No rampant conservative moral panic crusade, violent upheaval, civil war, or totalitarian junta can rebuild what divides left or right, or rebalances fewer haves and many more have nots.
I agree with you that there are more important things, but we do lots at once. Honestly if shooting up congresspeople, kindergartners, and kindergartners shooting teachers hasn't changed anything in regards to guns... I don't know what will.
This isn't really about protecting kids anyway though, it's mostly fearmongering about China, which is one of the rare things most of our legislature agrees on these days.
Tiktok ban is purely political nothing else.
Some other country created something we couldn’t: a social media app that appeals to Gen-Z. Our domestic industry tried and failed to clone it. So we banned it.
Call US government whatever you want in another conversation, but China has a direct line to every user of Tiktok, and we don't know they plan to leverage that against US interests. Their hail mary with Tiktok could cause a social collapse if they engineered it like how the Russians engineered English social media for the last 7 years.
You’re stance on this is actually “I don’t believe that the CCP would try to harm the US population”. I can tell that is your stance because if it wasn’t then you are effectively saying “I believe the CCP may potentially feed the US population mental-illness-inducing content via targeted algorithms, but I don’t think it’s worth caring about and we should be mad that lawmakers are even trying to do anything about it.”
I mean, it’s not like we’re talking about something meaningless here. If you believe that there is a chance of the CCP doing something nefarious with their Golden Shares power, then that’s a pretty big deal.
not inclusive enough, your opinion is invalid /s
yieldcrv explains the substantive nature of this joke: OP believes that people have their priorities wrong in the face of surprise death matters, pointing out opinionated gender inclusion logic that also has not permeated universally outside of the US would be another example of prioritizing in the face of surprise death matters
China is putting itself on a direct 'war footing' path with respect to Taiwan and the likelihood of conflict is worriesome. That conflict will make Ukraine look like a side show, and will involve Japan, Korea, Philippines, Australia, US - and incidentally Vietnam, Singapore, Canada - and everyone will be affected.
For example the CCP has made deep inroads in influencing Canadian politics along a number of vectors.
Xi's stated policy (and what we can infer from actual behaviour) is that 'all assets are geared towards state objectives) and that will 100% include TikTok - to varying degrees.
Even from purely a 'trade parity' perspective, outside countries would simply not be allowed to have the kinds of influence in China that they somehow expect in other states and that there are bunch of conflating factors there as well.
And most of that applies to pretty much all Western nations, and frankly, a bunch of others that would be powerless to do anything anyhow.
I think the only reasonable solution would be to have TikTok sold off and run separately, from Singapore, US, or any place with commercial, regulatory, judicial transparency etc..
It was hilarious to watch clueless clowns in Congress, but I think that was mostly a populist display for the general population so that the 'creator furor' is tempered to some extent by the headlines they read on CNN, Fox, MSNBC etc..
Then you no longer know the place. According to media the US is nothing but school shootings and government censorship.
I still have family there and still visit for nearly a month out of the year. The number of people running red lights has gone up significantly the last few visits. To the point where I feel like I’m driving in Bali and not the US. People are more rude now than they used to be, and scared.
It took months after moving here to brush off the fear you have living in the US. Fear of the government taking your kid because your neighbor gets pissed off, fear of car accidents, fear of getting pulled over, fear of getting stabbed/shot while walking down the street, fear of seeing someone else getting stabbed/shot, fear of getting fired for no reason, fear of going to the hospital or getting seriously sick because even if you survive, you’re going to be broke af.
I’ve had cops plant evidence in my car, I’ve been hit by trucks running red lights, I’ve gotten in a knife fight with a hobo, I’ve been shot at on the highway, I’ve been fired for no reason, I’ve gotten in a motorcycle accident that fucked me over seven ways to Sunday.
I haven’t had to worry about any of those things since leaving. Not a one.
To us, this was a funny question, to my sister-in-law ... she was like 'wtaf.' I can't imagine having my son worried about that kind of stuff and I can't imagine the internal stress. That's why I said 'might' because it 'might' be normalized to the point that it's just background noise; a joke. Until it isn't.
My son and his friends run around in the streets like when I was a kid; they don't stop until the street lights come on. I could never take that away from him, and I feel like if we were to move back to the US, I would be doing that.
That this is auxiliary to US goals to antagonize China is the sugar. The real goal is to continue the progress made when when breakaway Trump-supporting networks like Parler were directly attacked by Congress, and app stores informally threatened if they wouldn't ban them. Twitter is being continuously threatened by Congress just because they changed ownership from movement Democrats to an "independent" rich guy.
TikTok will be the precedent. It's obviously just racist to attack TikTok alone; in order to retroactively make it not racist, it's important to attack companies that amplify Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or Palestinian messages, the alt-left, the alt-right, or anyone that might inspire disloyalty to the homeland. Which is why Homeland Security will be overseeing social media.
> they might get shot up in math class?
The safest place that a child is at all day is at school (home and family are far more dangerous), and more people die in a day in Ukraine or (until fairly recently) Yemen, or because asthma inhalers were re-patented in the US through active corruption and their price went from $5 to $75, than have ever died in a school shooting. Middle class paranoia is being exploited by dragging the discussion of 6 deaths in this suburb, 10 deaths in that suburb, over years, with public wailing and gnashing of teeth, energetic and aggressive shaming of dissenters (with state support), and constant press releases from an industry that relies on advocacy for income.
Upper-middle class liberals can only be focused on issues that affect them directly, which is why gun control (and gun rights, classical liberals are liberals too) is an easy way to manipulate them. I wish they could be pushed back to important things, like our failed healthcare system that will ruthlessly bankrupt them with the slightest provocation.
Gun control pandering is just Republican law & order pandering in a Democratic style. It's pretending that there's some magical incantation that will make desperate people both not violent, and also not easy targets for violence and exploitation. The solution is systemic infrastructure, rather than distraction. I'd take a school shooting that kills 6 every week in exchange for a compassionate, functional healthcare system. It's 300 lives versus hundreds of thousands of lives.
edit: Americans live in a country that shut down most public mental health care from 2008-2010.
It would be wrong for the US to do nothing.
It's reddit/HN who have never traveled or lived outside US that has jaded your view of US.
You know which country released chatGPT? or NVIDIA A100 or made a huge step towards Quantum Computing / Nuclear Fusion?
I'd rather congress focus on irrelevant details, while startups solve / tackle important issues. When it really comes to it, Congress will get their act together, but anything before is pure meddling in one of the greatest systems that is producing unbelievable innovations at an alarming rate.
I have some jaded views. Perhaps my jading moment was when my unit was used as a political pawn by Obama to get re-elected. That pissed me off to no end and broke my rose colored glasses.
I sincerely miss US startups sometimes. I work at a startup here and they actually (somehow) have a work/life balance, 20 days paid vacation, and other perks with no gimmicks, like a chef who cooks us lunch every day, but no shenanigans (like “unlimited” vacations that aren’t actually unlimited).
I (sometimes) miss working weekends and impossible deadlines while devouring cheap pizza and passing out on the couch. But there’s a good chance even US startups have evolved in the last ten years… but the last US startup I worked at in the early teens was like that. My then-girlfriend-now-wife would come hang out with us nerds for dinner before we got back to work. Hell, I fixed a rare database issue on my honeymoon because everyone else was asleep and I wasn’t while my new wife cussed out my CEO on the phone. He ordered us a really nice bottle wine from the hotel, so I can’t complain…
Meh, maybe I don’t miss it, but you make some valuable points.
That's a shortsighted and very optimistic viewpoint, dripping with typical American pride.
You're underestimating just how much damage foreign propaganda and misinformation can do and has done to your great country. Trump getting to power, and still being a strong contender for 2024, mass delusion and rising popularity of conspiracy theories (QAnon, pizzagate, etc.), record-high social unrest and division, racial tensions, protests, marches, insurrections, etc.
And this is just starting to unravel.
The ironic thing is that all that great technology built by the US, allowing everyone to join, connecting the world and whatnot, has been the perfect weapon of information warfare. You've essentially built the weapons, and handed them to your enemies, and are somehow still debating if that's the case, and what to do about it. This confused state is indicative of the effects of psyops, where the afflicted adversary doesn't understand the situation they're in, or how they got there. An ex-KGB agent explained this well way back in 1985[1].
The East certainly has an advantage, considering they've been doing this for decades now, and Western influence on their own population is close to zero, because of their isolation from the internet.
Banning TikTok is a good defensive measure, but it's too little, too late, to reverse the damage already done, and to stop the bleeding. The US would have to do a major shakeup and banning of foreign accounts across all social media sites, and judging by the reactions on this well educated forum alone, that wouldn't fly with the general population, who perceive this as an infringement on free speech.
EDIT: Ah, it seems the bill is broader than just banning TikTok. Good, it might be the only playable move. Unfortunately, it requires more government oversight at the expense of some civil liberties, and I can already see how unpopular this will be.
Buckle up, it's going to get even bumpier. I suspect the US in its current dominant position won't last more than a couple of decades, at most. Funny that with all its untouchable military power, it's completely defenseless against this type of attack.
It's also good practice because it prevents TikTok from just making a new company that is exactly the same.
Edit: changed illegal to unconstitutional because someone below was confused.
> A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself.
Within the US...
> In 2011, the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler called that vote a bill of attainder, saying it was unconstitutional as such because the legislation was targeting a specific group.
With that in mind, calling out a specific company gets dicy.
Thus, they are instead written as:
(3) COVERED HOLDING.—The term “covered holding”—
(A) means, regardless of how or when such holding was or will be obtained or otherwise come to have been held, a controlling holding held, directly or indirectly, in an ICTS covered holding entity by—
(i) a foreign adversary;
(ii) an entity subject to the jurisdiction of, or organized under the laws of, a foreign adversary; or
(iii) an entity owned, directed, or controlled by an entity described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii); and
(B) includes any other holding, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
...
(10) ICTS COVERED HOLDING ENTITY.—The term “ICTS covered holding entity” means any entity that—
(A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and
(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or
(ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.
I understand that any bill can be abused. But IMO this bill reads like common sense.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
>(2) INAPPLICABILITY OF FOIA.—Any information submitted to the Federal Government by a party to a covered transaction in accordance with this Act, as well as any information the Federal Government may create relating to review of the covered transaction, is exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the “Freedom of Information Act”).
Not all records are required to be released under the FOIA. Congress established nine exemptions from disclosure for certain categories of information to protect against certain harms, such as an invasion of personal privacy, or harm to law enforcement investigations. The FOIA authorizes agencies to withhold information when they reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of these nine exemptions.
Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security.
Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.
Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged.
Exemption 5: Privileged communications within or between agencies, including those protected by the:
Deliberative Process Privilege (provided the records were created less than 25 years before the date on which they were requested)
Attorney-Work Product Privilege
Attorney-Client Privilege
Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual’s personal privacy.
Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:
7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings
7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication
7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source
7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law
7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual
Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.
Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.
The same level ?
Here's the full text of 4a, see for yourself:
>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
There are no exceptions in there for air travel! It's incredibly firmly worded, and is obviously deliberately meant to be very restrictive on government power.
They don't have probable cause to search every single person, let alone a warrant to do so. And their holding people's freedom to travel hostage to do so, and conditioning Americans to a lack of rights that were supposedly enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
The notion that they need to search every single person flying is not remotely "reasonable". It's one more step towards a police state. It's a shame that the 4th amendment isn't defended as strongly as the 1st & 2nd. The patriot act is the reason why flying sucks now when it used to be fantastical.
2. (I) A group, subgroup, or other association or organization whether or not organized for profit. [like an OSS project on github?]
3. (1) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for a person to violate, attempt to violate, conspire to violate, or cause a violation of any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under this Act, including any of the unlawful acts described in paragraph (2).
4. SEC. 5. Considerations. [the star of the show - read it]
Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are definitely touching more than 1M personal records and/or providing "communication". They are all subject to this bill. All their "transactions" are now subject to approval of Secretary of Commerce.
For example:
"State-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open source Signal Protocol) keeps your conversations secure. We can't read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time."
Isn't Signal also subject to this bill? Or better, who isn't subject to this bill?
Will starting/contributing to an OSS project in any of the Sec. 5 areas require consulting an attorney?
That's half the point. A lot of people here are saying "Facebook will just sell your data to China".
Here's the line saying they can't.
Because that would make it a bill of attainder which is unconstitutional.
1. Games, social media, or other personal apps on government devices is a terrible idea. They shouldn't be there to begin with.
2. Making a big deal of banning them from US government devices is a symbolic anti-China move.
3. Banning US consumers from using a particular transnational app. How exactly would that be enforced? How would it not run afoul of the 1st a.? Will the US gov get into the business of banning apps, books, games, and any particular media it doesn't approve of because it didn't happen to originate in America?
4. Forcing a transnational app to either move its data to the US or sell to a US owner. Russia did this and now they're an international pariah. How exactly does this square with laissez-faire free trade?
It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along.
It's never been about privacy nor internal (to the US) security. It's very openly about cross pacific adversaries. Only meta-tech commentators have tried to apply some weird narrative of privacy.
1. This is a way of getting memes to the masses that we (the US political establishment) can't fully control.
2. Meta and others are getting their asses kicked revenue-wise by Tik Tok. Like any business, they'd use anything they could to fight back. Turns out they can use China fear mongering, so they are.
3. (Added) Believe it or not, there's nationalistic pride here. There is a reluctance to admit that an app from "the other side" (China) is more appealing to the masses than _our_ social media apps. Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars (but at least they're made by Asians who are _allies_ I guess).
No matter that banning an app is completely against the principles we claim, such as freedom for individuals, competition in a free market, and freedom of information.
This is going to be one of those things Americans look back at, like the PATRIOT act, and wonder how the hell they allowed it to happen all because of one app/event.
I’m finding the wording strange because the US arguably has more cross-Pacific allies than adversaries.
It's not that simple. The commitee can change the definition of "foreign adversary" under SEC. 2. (8) (B) at their will.
https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-pr...
The politicians don't want to touch privacy or security laws since that would negatively impact their benefactors as opposed to actually doing their jobs for their constituents.
Its a power grab, hopefully it won't get passed because of the loose undefined wording that could apply to anything they so choose like in ways described in Ayn Rand.
I get that it is not appropriate on government phones in case they manage to leverage a zeroday but for the average Joe I'm not seeing the risk of TikTok being any greater than the rest of the social media world - the same info is shared/available.
One party is largely in favor of stronger privacy laws, but with enough dissenters that when that party is the majority party they still would need help from the other party.
The other party is largely against stronger privacy laws, without enough dissenters to overcome the more pro-privacy party dissenters when the more pro-privacy party has the majority.
So nothing passes.
Facebook and TikTok are of similar sizes and have both violated the privacy of its users and since FB has paid a giant billion dollar fine to the FTC, it already makes sense to also fine TikTok on similar grounds including overseas access to US data by specifically targeting US journalists.
> If western social media companies were able to offer their services in China
I've seen this meme floating around a lot recently and feel the need to add in some relevant history.
Between the mid and late aughts Google, Facebook, and Twitter were all operating in China. Around this time the Chinese government got very serious about content filtering and imposed new restrictions on what could be shown/uploaded. There was a very strong backlash from the US side that American companies might be helping to build the Great Firewall. Many Americans were outraged and US politicians warned the companies not to build infrastructure that could be used for censorship. So the American companies acquiesced and either left the market or were banned (Twitter).
I remember the outrage back then. It's like what I see now but with the facts reversed! Back then the concern was that American tech companies would export infrastructure that could be used by China for social control. Now it's "China won't allow American tech companies!".
"We've always/never been at war with EastAsia."
Kind of disturbing stuff. Watch the congressional hearing of the TikTok CEO and tell me that the powers who are pushing this care about facts.
China on the other hand, not only had their domestic market entirely for their own domestic giants, creating their own expertise and talent pool, they also didn’t even had to think on what to do, as they could just copy US apps “with Chinese characteristics”, making A LOT of money too.
There was a lot of talk about technology transfer, but you right, the narrative 100% changed from helping the CCP to “China bad”, but how bad they really are when they allowed America to make a true empire on the www without the Chinese companies as competitors?
How America is reacting to its very first Chinese competitor says a lot about America true sportsmanship on the market, it’s very childish and lame if you ask me.
So companies that refuse to build tools for compliance with China's unique censorship/control policies are not allowed in the country. Most American tech companies opted to leave voluntarily rather than implement these controls, and at least one that did not implement the controls or voluntarily leave was instead forcibly banned.
I see the point you're making here, but at the same time, I think the situation as explained here can still be viewed as China not allowing American tech companies to operate in China the way those companies want to do business.
Has the US provided ByteDance with an opportunity to become compliant with this country's requirements that it has opted against? That would seem very similar to what transpired with Twitter in China.
I also think it is quite reasonable that American tech companies should be allowed to operate in China and uphold American values in China if TikTok is allowed to operate in the US. I don't see a contradiction. The entire point of letting China into the WTO and allowing China to help Walmart and Amazon acquire inventory to offer "low prices" was to bring freedom to China by opening the country up to capitalism (this was stated more or less openly by western neoliberal policy makers at the time). It definitely wasn't to strengthen the CCP and weaken the USA but that's what the actual result of 2 decades of "free trade" with China has been.
It's not all that different from how US restaurant chains cannot operate in the UAE unless they take things off the menu that violate Islamic dietary rules. So Wendy's in Dubai does not sell The Baconator.
So there's nothing really to pursue via the WTO. It's not a protectionism issue when domestic and foreign companies have to obey the same or similar restrictions, even if those restrictions are onerous.
They'd have sided with China who on their official books says "they can come back they just have to follow our laws", while in practice continuing to ban and restrict these companies regardless.
In a democracy you get the types of discussions that we've been seeing about TikTok, so that door's shut now. This sort of "trickery" only really works for authoritarian countries, where the discourse is exclusively behind doors.
It's no secret that apps collect data. It's how they exist! Each American with it installed has made the decision to give the app creators their data, which means that anyone that wants the data can get it from the app creators.
Why are we blaming China for the deciduous of individuals?
If you read the bill, it's very transparent that it's not about market access, and that it's not specific to China. It explicitly names five other countries and also authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to include any country that they feel is an adversary to "national security" interests.
Forward to today, somehow TikTok operating in US while compliant to US laws managed outcompeted US platforms. At this point even putting the finger down on some sort of joint venture like Oracle proposal, like how icloud in PRC is under domestic management (a very PRC solution) isn't enough to tip scales back to domestic incumbents. Hence bill to ban, or divest, which to be clear, even PRC hasn't resorted to because they already had regulations to limit influence / scope of US platforms. Playing "fair" is not viable anymore because TikToks is too big, as is the associated risk, so nothing left but nuclear option because TikTok won playing fair.
No, it's nothing like the US. PRC actively censors all social media in China (the social media companies do it themselves based on keywords provided by the government).
> it's not PRC's fault FB/Google employees killed efforts to move back into PRC, or that the SV was drunk on free speech (cheap moderation) until western society realized (but won't admit) PRC regulators were prescient
Moderation on Western platforms is nothing like the censorship that takes place on PRC platforms, and equating them is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. Not to mention that government censorship is much more problematic even than company defacto cenorship (where if you don't like Twitter you can move to Mastodon) since gov censorship is absolute.
>> Because US/western social media has same market access to PRC
I do not believe that the preferred platforms of the CCP, owned and operated by the same people, would not be favored in China. There is no open or transparent lobbying in China. Rather, overnight, someone from the CCP can decide that your platform should be shut down and your employees harassed, arrested and/or prosecuted. Yes, the market is huge, but why would any western company take that chance. For all its flaws, the US doesn't have these issues to this level. The TikTok debate is happening relatively slowly and a lot of it in the open (So our politicians can showboat, but still). TikTok also has access to the best lawyers, lobbyists, as well as grounds for appeal. Those in power will also be politically assailed by their opponents on behalf of those under 35 for shutting down their favored platform. People could conceivably lose office for the decision.
>> Forward to today, somehow TikTok operating in US while compliant to US laws managed outcompeted US platforms.
No argument here - TikTok has done amazing and has played by the rules (though if you have pile of nearly infinite money from a powerful government, you can do a lot). I'd argue that realpolitik, is alive and well, always has been and always will be. TikTok can both influence (which I'm less worried about thanks to the other avenues of free speech) but TikTok can also collect and retain the moral and legal trespass of the young for decades to then use it as blackmail when they are the ones seeking positions of power. You could argue the same for all the other socials, and I think their data retention is what should really be limited, but they are at least within the confines of a legal system, that yes, has flaws, but is open enough.
I'm not naive enough to believe the US is devoid of corruption, backroom deals, people whose rights are denied or trampled on etc. But compared to the CCP's framework, there is no debate.
Personally, I think TikTok has a first amendment right to exist regardless of who owns it. It's the data retention that really worries me, and unless you count data as property (which I could be convinced of), there is not right to data retention.
This is the parent's job. Kids can't even play in the front yard without CPS being called, and adding more complexities like this sounds like an even worse nightmare.
Privacy is not the major concern here.
> Why nothing about the material released from Twitter by Matt Taibi, et. al.? Very concerning stuff for a country talking the talk about democracy.
Twitter is subject to the US courts and legal system and while there are issue we can work to resolve them.
> Why not enforce limits on what kids can watch and for how long, as China does? While I am all for free speech and liberty for adults, I think it is necessary for parents to put some guardrails on their kids.
Again not the issue.
Seriously, read at-least the start of the bill it makes it very very clear the main concern is limiting foreign powers ability to mass influence the general USA population.
Carefully selected to keep the ship distinctly itself, but still ever so slightly different each time.
(I just like the irony of plagiarising policy from China as a parallel to their plagiarising IP from the US - and likely elsewhere).
This is not something you have to speculate about, they clearly outline the process for law enforcement to get information: https://www.tiktok.com/legal/page/global/law-enforcement/en
Of course they can. Bytedance is keeping American TikTok data in the U.S. The problem is that it's also filtering out to China.
Even if the data is valuable, as far as I know there are no backdoors available to tiktok that aren't available to other apps (e.g any tencent game). The security model at the os level seems to be the proper place to ensure privacy, and the witch hunt against tik tok seems to only exist because it is popular.
Are there any examples of ByteDance refusing to hand over data in response to a warrant?
The only way this ends: They keep tipping until they fall off.
Of course they do, it's called Prism and it's been around for over a decade.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
It is irrelevant if the data is stored in the US if Chinese government have tools they can use to search for dissidents, journalists etc
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
The bill affects multiple countries, not just China.
In fact, it encompasses "any foreign government or regime, determined by the Secretary [to be]... significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons"
Depending on how much (or little) you trust the Secretary of Commerce, that's incredibly far-reaching and could easily be abused.
"TikTok spy journalist" returns a lot of results in your favorite search engine
If TSA didn't exist, and airlines were in charge of their own security, every single accident or incident would be blamed on companies trying to raise their profits by cutting costs, and people would be screaming for government to intervene. Just like they are doing currently with Tesla and autopilot.
Also, you don't have to fly if you are going to US. You can drive most places. Flying is using the services of a private company, on their terms, which without TSA would still include TSA like security. If you are going overseas, then it makes sense for security like the TSA because US laws don't apply to other countries.
As an aside, I see more and more reddit-like posts like this on HN - unsubstantiated, baseless wokeposting. Did you guys get tired of your echo chambers on there?
It sounds like you both agree China made a market that was specifically hostile to American companies, including intentionally banning some, though. Which is kind of the point most people are making when they talk about market reciprocity.
Really the crux of issue for me. By all means ban TikTok, Huawei, constrain PRC chips, but let's chalk it up to sensible realpolitik than narrative over morals/frameworks. Like CIA basically bribed their way to control promotions throughout CCP throughout 90s-00s, hence Xi crackdwon on foreign NGOs, and dismantled PRC CIA networks. If US fears that's a risk vector for tiktok, and US society laws too open/fragile to handle even JV configurations like in PRC, then sensible people should accept that to ban TikTok, US has to adopt harsher methods than even PRC.
> would not be favored in China
I specifically highlighted PRC _would_ have tip scales towards domestic incumbents. Like US is doing now against TikTok. But PRC didn't have to do much, western platforms never really got localization right, Google stole Sogou pinyin so input didn't suck, Youtube never broke top10 streaming, Amazon was unimpressive relative to other ecommerce. PRC companies that focused solely on domestic market outcompeted western platforms where PRC sideshow. Then exported Tiktok that flourished in US because it's fashioned after Douyin style feel good content due to survivorship bias of PRC censorship.
> would any western company take that chance
Ask the 10,000s western companies that operate in PRC fine for 30+ years. Or why is twitter in India despite indian gov threatening to arrest employees? Or why western platforms in Vietnam cede to VCP censorship requests. Many have grown enough to have no scruples working with "shady" governments now. Hence me highlighting western platforms during 00s-10s had SV pride/optics/ethos considerations of the time that made today's routine acquiescing to foreign security interests unlikely then. As for why take that chance, because PRC still large market that was worth friction cost, until geopolitics made it not.
> US doesn't have these issues to this level
IMO functionally it does, all the lobbying and connections in the world isn't going to overcome interests of motivated national security state. US domestic sentiment has little effect on actual foreign / security policy. US had to ram through CHIPs act / October "surprise" without much industry consultation / ability to disrupt because ultimately US just comparably as capable as PRC in terms of overnight responses. Dressing it up with demographic process theatre isn't particularly convincing considering how many strategic industries US is home too, industries like in PRC that exist because state was precient enough to keep competition out/down.
What's moderated maybe different, but how it's moderated now is the same. US followed PRC platforms to build actual teams to "guide" content, PRC has extra step of formal content blacklist, no different than wiping out mass shooting videos. It's an expensive man powered team trying to ensure platform stays out of trouble. It's now technically / functionally / economically comparable, hence the comment about how western platforms started exploring ways back into PRC market AFTER they implemented PRC like moderation systems.
The comment isn't a debate about which censorship system is "superior". It's simply acknowledging US platforms got blocked because they couldn't compete on PRC rules that PRC companies had to follow.
Not to mention the data collection.
The old saying goes that knowledge is power; everyone here with deep knowledge of computers and the things they enable really are in a blessed position.
I’m not even sure what you’re talking about.
Also, "save Mickey Mouse Act"
The post you are replying to explains this in detail.
Google, Facebook, etc all either had products in China or planned products in China but all voluntarily withdrew for various reasons. I imagine low market share vs domestic services was probably the largest reason.
Remember that as soon as you release a service in the West a Chinese clone will spring forth almost instantly. That clone will be much more Chinese then your eventual adaption and as such will you likely struggle to compete with it. Worse yet said clone is probably built by either Alibaba or Tencent both of which have armies of extremely smart engineers, near unlimited cash to sink into new ventures and a near duopoly on the ecosystems necessary to thrive in China.
At the end of the day the Chinese market is just incredibly tough and Western companies (perhaps rightly) don't think it's worth the effort.
No, Google withdrew because it refused to continue censoring results (and this was back before censorship become much more pervasive, in the 2010s). It wasn't a monopoly like in the US but had a good 30% market share (which in China is a lot). FB, which started later, never even got started in China because censorship of individual posts -- even worse than censoring search results -- would have caused an uproar with FB's user base in the US/Europe.
TikTok is not asking to be allowed to operate in the US and uphold Chinese values. It's just asking to be allowed to operate in the US, and agreed to public oversight on its algorithms and data storage. This is essentially equivalent to what the Chinese government asks of American companies, and what they declined to do, in large part due to moral disagreement from their employees.
Sigh, it isn't just this: China doesn't do rule of law, so American companies have to follow rule by law when operating in China, but they are also subject to American anti-corruption laws even for their operations in China, which makes doing business in China difficult (unless they can be isolated from that like they are in manufacturing). If it were just "moral disagreements due to employees", the CEOs would find a way around that, but technically it is just hard to do social media in China under Chinese rules that you won't even be told what they are.
But I agree TikTok should be treated fairly, even if that fairness is definitely not reciprocated in China.
Surely you have to do some kind of math eventually, or else you'll end up prioritizing whatever sounds the most dramatic instead of the things that actually matter (consider people who are more afraid of sharks than drowning, even though shark deaths are 1 in 4,332,817 and drowning deaths are 1 in 1,134)
I acknowledge that the numbers I'm using are not, by any means, conclusive. And I'm not saying we should prioritize TikTok above shootings just because it's more common. But this seems like a reason to get better evidence about the way the world is, not refuse to touch numbers because some harms are too sacred to attempt to quantify.
TSA? Or any other "but think of the children"-type bill? Or look at water-scarcity "solutions" in the south west for something different.
I'm serious, "prioritizing whatever sounds the most dramatic instead of the things that actually matter" is literally 90% of the politician's playbook.
If you are a dissidents influencer or online figure, on the other hand, you will be lucky to even be found out why you disappeared.
And more recently: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/22/china/china-zero-covid-protes...
2. There are countless examples of dissidents in China disappeared that amounts to worse than a 20 year prison sentence, which again is part of a bill that remains highly unlikely to pass in its current form.
I would point to actual cases of authoritarian oppression rather than theoretical ones.
The law must be both specific and punitive to be a bill of attainder. A law can nonpunitively regulate a “class of one” without being a Bill of Attainder. See, Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977). [0] So, it is not quite accurate that “any law targeting a specific person or company will be struck down”.
OTOH, a “TikTok ban” based on asserted prior misconduct would pretty surely be seen as punitive.
Isn’t the whole point of an NSL to get something for legitimate national security purposes that couldn’t be legitimately acquired for criminal prosecution?
I'm just trying to gauge the difference between what people were saying Patriot act will allow, versus what actually happened.
Some of the the more accusatory headlines:
> The Restrict Act would allow the Feds access to all the data on our devices
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35362848
> The “anti-TikTok” RESTRICT act seems to apply to nearly every U.S. tech company
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35318956
> The RESTRICT act may let the government control any public tech company
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35324114
> The TikTok Ban Act, RESTRICT, will give Gov't unprecedented privacy access
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35342797
> Could the Restrict Act Criminalize the Use of VPNs?
So for example, President Biden could designate TikTok a national security threat under the RESTRICT Act, and then order VPN companies to block outbound traffic to TikTok. If the VPN companies refused they would be liable.
Don't blame yourself for not finding it, I had the same reaction last night. The libertarians who caught onto this are not very good at explaining themselves to people who don't care.
Then they can fine $250K and up to 20 years in jail if a US person attempts to access banned content. If a US person uses a VPN to try to circumvent this ban the fine increases to $1M.
It also enables them to use all devices on your private network, including routers, wifi APs, webcams, video cameras, smart speakers, etc, to spy on US citizens and persons without any warrant and no recourse for people that are spied on. They can spy on you and surveil your entire digital and physical life and you cannot do anything about it.
This is basically the PATRIOT act for the Internet. It makes it so this new, unaccountable government agency, who meets in secret and is not subject to FOIA, can ban any website, content, or entity they want online, then spy on and jail US persons who might try to access it.
It's pure evil and puts us in the same place that China is today.
But again, practically every country has managed to being the total number of school shootings to 0. Which tells you that it’s not a particularly hard problem.
America also generally allows businesses and media from foreign companies to take part, whereas China has no such reciprocity.
Security arrangements are real things that can't be merely handwaved away as something that "should" not exist in one's ideal world.
The likes of Tiktok operately strictly for Chinese interests, and Chinese interests do not align with western interests.
They operate for their own interests, which are almost always directly at odds with the interests of the people who actually live in the west.
[1] I have exactly as much evidence for this as you do for your claim.
The game of cutting off foreign players is a luxury only the few countries can afford right now, making it look like everybody else supports the US is disingenuous.
The price of association with the US is, as you say, US influence; however, US influence is much less restrictive and oppressive than many other major players today and historically. Our EU allies regularly criticize us in public forums; North Korea does not have the political freedom to criticize China and Belarus does not have the political freedom to criticize Russia to the same extent that United States' allies do today.
It's high time for global players to wake up from the ideal world where everyone can get along with zero tariffs or restrictions. The United States must do what is in her best interests and other states should follow her lead. I believe it is the US best interest that the world is more free, and should that eventual goal require some restriction of hostile foreign entities' freedom to operate on US soil, so be it.
We can educate or change things at the population level, we just lack the political will to do so and it's disincentivized for the people in power to orient their efforts that way. I think it's worth taking a good hard look about why our Overton Window has ended up where it has on these issues.
There are also other ways to cope rather than outright bans or anarchy. We could study the physiology of the harm caused and require algorithm changes to demonstrate they don't cause biological panic reactions. We could require some knowledge in order to access social media rather than gatekeeping by age (for the record, I don't think this would work and it's probably not legal in America, but it's interesting that nobody seems to discuss it), etc. Even something as simple as requiring a representative age sample for groups addressing these problems so that we can have the perspectives of both those of us who grew up chronically online and people who have to adjust to this weird new techno world they don't understand since both groups need to live in society.
We could also go meta and ask why education has a low chance of success in adults. What of those variables could we influence? Would an economically secure population be easier to educate? Etc.
You agree with the usage of the Great Firewall? You agree with the ability for the government to tell you what websites you can visit? If you use a VPN to read a Chinese newspaper article, you agree that the government should be allowed to imprison you and take all of your possessions? That's madness IMO.
We should be making Super-TOR instead of this.
...or any country that the Secretary of Commerce unilaterally decides is a "national security" concern.
That's an incredibly sweeping power to grant.
The bill allows the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally ban products associated with countries of their choosing, with a 20 year prison sentence for any US citizen who attempts to use a VPN to circumvent the access ban.
That's fucked up and insane. It should also fail a First Amendment test easily, but that all depends on the courts
My wife and I use WeChat because her family lives in China and we want to be able to chat and do video calls with her. If Secretary of Commerce declares that WeChat is illegal that is going to put an enormous strain on my family.
specifically, hardware what sold to >=1MM consumers, or software product >=1MM AAU.
Seems reasonable.
Its not “are owned by”, its “has a current, pending, or potential future controlling interest, direct or indirect, that is, will be, or will come to have been held by an adversary of the united states” (and, yes, the bill itself explicitly and separately refers to both simple future and future perfect, for some reason.)
No, it is not only restricted to services that are owned by adversaries of the United States. The text of the bill is very clear and much broader.
Most countries criticize the US _and_ China _and_ Russia _and_ North Korea, make trade where they need to and make a balancing act with alliances and relations between all of these countries.
> It's high time for global players to wake up from the ideal world where everyone can get along with zero tariffs or restrictions.
The US have engaged into perpetual tariffs and restrictions from the day it had the power to do so. Are you assuming other countries thought they could stop that ? Or what are you even talking about ?
Regardless, this makes it very different from a 0 suicide or 0 spyware goal. Those don't have a similarly reasonable theoretical solution.
I believe in reciprocity. If someone treating you poorly, there's no reason you need to keep allowing them to walk over you.
Sucks for us Westerners to see our Internet firewalled, but that's what happens when you're in a war, whatever its nature. Everybody pays for it.
Moral high ground and fairness is the best strategy here. If it's illegal for all companies to capture this information, it makes enforcement easier and prevents foreign adversaries from merely infiltrating other companies.
There are plenty of influential people in the tech world that would sell America out for a quick Renminbi.
Pack it up, folks, as it turns out, there are some things that are too dangerous to let the public hear.
Free Speech comes and goes in the USA. We tend to lean towards the freer-side of things, but if we need to, we clamp down on it to meet our other goals.
-----
WW2 is hardly an outlier either. WW1 had Espionage Act of 1917, Civil War didn't even have a law, Censorship and seizure of printing presses was just so common. Pre-Civil War, the Postmaster General of slave states commonly censored pamphlets from abolitionists. I mean, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" were passed within a year or two of the Bill of Rights, allowing the President to arrest various members of the press in the 1780s. Etc. etc. This stuff has been going on since the dawn of the USA as a country.
Book burnings and other such events were also widespread in the USA throughout our history... and even have legal precedent like the Comstock laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws
IMO, we've gone too far into the free-speech side of becoming absolutely idiots about the subject in recent years and all of us can benefit from researching the actual history of the USA.
Free Speech, both opening up, and restricting it, has its uses. And if you're a student of history, you'll be able to feel the ebbs and flows of this subject throughout time.
-----------
Censorship is a tool. A tool best used rarely, maybe only a few times a century. But I unfortunately think we're coming to the point where we need to start using it within this decade or so. And no, not for the stupid AP African American class crap. I mean for the part that matters right now, the China-Taiwan conflict that is obviously brewing up.
How about the Red Scare or Huckleberry Finn? Problem with censorship as a tool is that it will be abused. What makes you so sure that the party censoring AP African American studies won't be back in power next?
I can help with that: not seriously at all. Calling someone a nerd has been a thing for the better part of a century. How long has TikTok been around?
Few random webcams which would be illegal to take video from is not substantive and does not provide any insight into their interests, likes etc.
The whole issue with TikTok is that the Chinese government is able to personally identify people who disagree with them.
Edit: the key parts of the bill that specify it applies only for controlling interests:
> Sec 2-2: CONTROLLING HOLDING.—The term “controlling holding” means a holding with the power, whether direct or indirect and whether exercised or not exercised, to determine, direct, or decide important matters affecting an entity.
> Sec 2-3-a (emphasis mine): COVERED HOLDING.—The term “covered holding”— means [...] a controlling holding held, directly or indirectly, in an ICTS covered holding entity by— [...]
Here is the definition that the bill uses for "transaction":
> (17) TRANSACTION.—The term “transaction” means any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology product or service, including ongoing activities such as managed services, >>>data transmission<<<, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services, or a class of such transactions.
As you can see here, mere data transmission is considered to be a transaction. I strongly suggest that you read the bill, in its entirety.
If you're not going to be banning internet services, how can you possibly ban TikTok? It has a website, you know.
Also, America’s current rate of household gun ownership is about the same as Canada, Norway, and Switzerland in the 1990s: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1485564/pdf/cma... (p. 1723). France and Finland were in the low -20s, not exactly disarmed. But our current homicide rate (65 per million) is more than double Canada’s, five times higher than Norway’s, and six times higher than Switzerland’s rates when those countries had similar percentages of households with guns as america does now.
While I think I can understand many of your feelings about US culture, I'm a bit lost here. I was married to a US citizen and have lived a significant amount of time there, although never settled permanently. But I never experienced any of these things, nor felt an overwhelming need to worry about them. Is it something about your chosen lifestyle?
(For context, I have also lived and worked in a place where many of my neighbours employed armed guards to sit at their gates. And I watched from my office window as an armed bank robbery took place across the way. It ended with corpses lying in the street. And I was far more worried when dealing with police there than in any of my several US interactions with them. Think the US is bad? Well, in some ways it is... but it could be a lot worse.)
Are you quite sure you're not misremembering an action movie for your own experiences? Living in America is not even remotely this exciting for most people. T-boned in intersections not just by a truck, but multiple trucks? Shootouts on the highway and knife fights with bums? Are you Neo from the Matrix?
Your experience is not everyones experience. For example, the country you describe has 0% resemblance to the one I know. Why should your experience matter more than mine?
Are you actually proposing that your experiences are in some way typical ?
Edit to add: everyone says they never noticed it while living there. They only noticed it after the first few months/years when it was no longer present.
(This isn't just a skin color thing, even white people in America have such diverse in-cultures that it feels bizarre to speak to some of them. Go down five houses in a richer white neighborhood and you will not typically find neighbors that share really common understanding among one another.)
So your selection bias includes only people that have made the decision to leave. Do you not see the issue ?
Even if you didn't select into people who left presumably for a reason, this is still an anecdote. It's your opinion, your reality. It's not shared.
For example, I have an anecdote of living in the EU. It's cloudy 10 months out of the year, everywhere except in the south. No one told me that. Winters were harsh. Foreigners in general were not accepted, most social interactions were with other ex-pats. Salary was much lower and that limited my ability to buy property and save for retirement.
I could go on. But what I wouldn't do is broadcast all of this as if it's some kind of universal truth. It's just my experience.
Execution, jailings, regulations, etc. etc. Plenty of ways for the government to be abused. Its inevitable that we give the government power to do what is necessary in society, whatever it is. Censorship is just one more power that the US Government has toyed with from time to time over the centuries.
To prevent abuse, we need to elect the right people to be our leaders, and the ones who wield that power.
I disagree. The most effective war strategy is playing dirtier than your opponent. Like, I don't know, throwing the two only atomic bombs ever unleashed on city centres.
I'm not saying that I approve it. I'm just saying that war is not an honourable endeavour. The one that goes further than the other ever dared tends to be the winner.
> There are plenty of influential people in the tech world that would sell America out for a quick Renminbi.
Indeed. The only way to stop that is through draconian laws, so you can jail these people for "high treason", like I imagine China already does.
(A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and
(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or
(ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.
But more to the point here, the American government responds to pressure from the electorate and U.S.-based stakeholders, which the Chinese government by and large does not.
If your point is that different American states responded differently despite broadly similar public opinion based on party affiliation of the legislators and governors, that’s true, and part of how our the US system works. Public preferences clearly aren’t the only thing driving policy decisions.
Totalitarian countries like China, with strict controls over what its government and media report is a prime candidate for grossly underreporting its prison population.
People keep saying this, but the Snowden leaks make clear this is a fantasy.
> America… isn’t actively imprisoning millions…
It’s a good thing you said “in concentration camps” or that would have been a doozy!
But that will never happen as long as the good citizens of the USA continue to pretend that the rule of law has any meaning in the USA when it comes to mass surveillance, and we point at China and chide them for the millions they have imprisoned as if that is not the pot calling the kettle black.
Calling out China will change very little there, and serves mostly to distract the conversation from the problems we really have the power to solve. We only have the power to change ourselves. The people in the USA and around the globe who suffer from US surveillance will continue to suffer all the while.
And what is worse, China will simply start running domestic companies and collecting our data all the same, because these bills aren't solving the real problem.
Blindly pointing the finger at China causes real harm to us.
ByteDance isn't under the direct authority at any given moment of CCP, but, they will, at any time, receive arbitrary orders for any particular reason, and they will follow them. Notably 1/2 of the Western world uses this app.
Google isn't under the thumb of US Gov. but with a court order, the FBI can obtain specific bits of information. Notably, Google does not operate in China.
Now - the more secretive relationship with NSA/CIA/FBI aka national security has with Google is a different question, it's a bit guesswork, but just given the nature of the two regimes, and the fact that again Google has no material presence in China it's plain to see the difference.
The Congressional Hearing was a farce in the wind, but the underlying issues of both security and trade are really serious.
It would have been better to create comprehensive legislation a decade ago about data and corporate ownership so companies could make progress. Even if ByteDance owned 49% of a US company that was 'TikTok' and it was based anywhere but China, that would probably be fine.
If Musk hadn't bought Twitter, we never would have been able to prove that this is also true for Twitter and arbitrary orders from the American government.
If I didn’t have family there, I’d probably give up my passport, because outside of America it is more of a hindrance than a boon.
Of course it is! and storks deliver babies and the moon is yellow because it's made of cheese.
> [The USA] isn't actively imprisoning millions in concentration camps
It's actively imprisoning millions in prisons. What's the difference between a prison and a concentration camp? Perhaps the guards twirling their evil mustache more?
China has no such protections and guarantees.
I don't think the hyperbole here is particularly helpful; there is clearly a national security risk to allowing a foreign competitor unfettered access to your market and control over what amounts to a major media property. Maybe you believe that this doesn't matter and shouldn't be addressed, but if you do believe it should be addressed in some way, you need the legal framework to be able to do so
1) Twitter is not an arm of the US government in the way that Tiktok and most Chinese companies are.
2) The law is not calling for the information on Tiktok to be banned. For instance, an image of a tweet saying "fuck Xi Jinping" could not be viewed in China, but an image/video of a tiktok saying "fuck biden" would be fine to view in America.
3) Tiktok is not benign like a book is. It extracts information from the user and sends it to the company servers.
4) It is trivial to use the platform to perform psyops; the company could easily mix subtly pro-china content into the feed from time to time.
Re item 3: TikTok is worse than that. The recommendation feeds are specifically designed to rot the minds of American citizens. [1]
[0] https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-gop-want...
[1] https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-betwe...
But, except for maybe some of those in the French Revolution, those are mostly foot soldiers, or leaders who fell victim to distinct subsequent revolutions, not the people who kicked off the resolution getting eaten by it.
That's who I was referring to in GGP. Generally the masses don't fare well in revolution.
The point is not to enforce against individual users, just to remove it from the main distribution channels.
S.686 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686
Also, websites are pretty powerful. Apple even allowed websites to send notifications now.
They will just switch to a different social network, which is equally destructive but not Chinese.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
Additionally, app stores and ISPs are a pretty obvious route for blocking 99% of U.S. users from circumventing the ban. Any users who are able to circumvent those measures will be using an app whose network effect has been destroyed.
China has no jurisdiction over you… there’s no real punishing to relate to what you have viewed on TikTok, so why are your viewing habits a threat to national security?
I don’t believe this to be a zero sum game. This is further extension of authoritarianism from a government that is terrified of anything short of pervasive colonoscopy-tier data collection.
I was always under the impression that when people say ‘Google collects all your data and sells it’, or whatever, they really mean that google sells ads which may be targeted based on the data they collect, and it’s only small companies with much less data who might sell it.
I mean, I mostly agree with what your saying above this, but this particular line I disagree with.
People get blackmailed all the time for different reasons. If I'm looking for a person in a hardware/software company that has weaknesses, having a full view of their social media is a great starting place.
The propaganda part.
Remember a month ago when everyone's feed had a video in it from the TikTok CEO encouraging people to side with TikTok.
They are scared shitless of not being mostly in control of that kind of power when applied to Americans. They are worried that the next Saddam is going to pay TikTok, or some future foreign competitor to torpedo whatever the next WMD lie is (and this will be done with Chinese blessing because that will be in their geopolitical interest).
The possibility was easy to ignore back when all the social media giants were American and the feds had jurisdiction and soft power over them. Now there's a new entrant that China has jurisdiction and soft power over. They want the status quo back. Hence why all the bill language is mostly about preventing foreign ownership.
Remember how Elon makes it a point to stick himself into everybody's Twitter feed and even fired a guy for not maximizing this further?
Though I think it's less that Xi responded to pressure from the people and more that his personal power was starting to become at risk due to the policy from others in the CCP.
Information isn't organized by your name but by your quadrant(s) you fall under
What happened to Nixon? What happened to OJ Simpson from the victim's family?
As someone that has lived in a police state before, I can't tell you that your feelings in the US aren't valid. They are yours alone. But perhaps travel somewhere were actual security forces search you randomly, harass you for no reason, etc. Experiences I have never had in the US, not once.
> A big part of American fear is knowing that nearly every single person you interact with that isn't a friend of yours doesn't really consider you their "people".
The other side of this coin: America actually accepts people from other places. Most of the world will always see you as foreign if you come from abroad, even if you have lived there your whole life.
The American ideal is now a civic society that's not predicated on the idea of having a "people" who the nation-state is created for. Citizens still often think that they have a "people", but that delineation does not extend to all Americans. As an example a second-gen Mexican person is not particularly likely to consider me part of their "clan" even though we are both American. When everyone's foreign, no one is.
Not been my experience in NYC and other places. Quite the opposite. Also have you seen European integration of foreigners up close? Middle East? Asia?
My guess is no, because these places make it far more difficult to assimilate (if not impossible)
These aren’t new issues, there are certain types of corporations where there is a national security interest in American ownership and capability (see also: Intel). Ownership of airlines is another example, you can’t have a foreign controlling interest in a domestic airline (Richard Branson couldn’t save Virgin America due to this).
There are good reasons for a nation to have rules about foreign control in certain types of companies that carry a national security risk.
your argument to me sounded like : > Brave people don't fear heights, you are brave and hence you should jump from empire state building. And you don't need protection, remember you are brave.
While fake news and undue outside influence absolutely must be protected against, the line is hard to draw. For instance, would Snowden have been considered undue influence, would Wikileaks have been considered fake news, at least sufficiently enough to cross the ban threshold?
There are pros and cons to both approaches, and it really doesn’t come down to whether or not people agree with a statement that contains such vague terms. It comes down to interpretation of those terms.
It's funny it's not there already, with all the talk of the "need" for more critical thinking.
Democracy theatre.
It’s not like we would let the Soviets, Nazis, British, Prussians, etc just buy the New York Times.
And non-news media has been protectionist too.
We allow foreign news distribution - but there are limits.
Or here's a better idea: The Golden Rule. Eye for an eye is how you run a war, not a civil society.
It has a really nasty history.
It’s not common for tolerant societies to descend into despotism. Liberal deco meadows are very resilient.
Allowing intolerance is usually better than systematic political suppression.
From various recent polls, it looks like somewhere between 30-40%, somewhere under 2/3 of Republicans and Republican-leaners and basically no one else.
Millions use TikTok. To them, you’re not removing their “adversary”, you’re removing their fun.
From the outside, this looks like the United States is controlling the media - something it’s already accused of by 1/2 of Americans.
This action will reiterate that for some and make it true for more.
It shouldn’t have gotten to this level, but it’s where we are. Users will move to reels or something else that takes its place without the national security risk.
And, yeah, I can see the apprehension regarding the new account.
> it’s more the ability for CCP to leverage influence.
Well, no, that’s more Maximum Bone Saw’s purview than the CCPs, and that foreign influence isn’t (at least per the initial list written into the proposed law) considered adversarial.
(EDIT: That’s specific to Twitter, not Facebook and all the rest.)
but perhaps i am missing some obvious point?
They can't do that with "hypothetical Chinese Elon" so long as said Elon remains in good standing with the powers that be there.
We ripped CDs so we didn’t have to buy them. Hell, we sat by boomboxes until the right song came on the radio just to push record on the tape player.
Kids will do whatever it takes to get what they want. I’d buy that bridge.
I think you are overestimating the tech know-how of the average person and how driven the average teenager is. TikTok a year ago was pretty unique, but now you have YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. I'd bet a hard money that 99% of people will just switch to those in a heartbeat if TikTok was banned.
> Kids will do whatever it takes to get what they want. I’d buy that bridge.
What they want is cheap dopamine hit from the smartphone. It's really close to drugs, make heroin hard to get and people will go to an analog like fentanyl.
Like the commenter above you said; I too have a bridge to sell.
I suspect we're disagreeing over what it means to "assimilate" or "be accepted as" one of an ethnic group. Imagine a stirring speech where a speaker says "I have dreamed of a respite from the trials our people have undergone". When the audience hears "our people", they are going to think of a certain group that they imagine themselves belonging to. In America, a miniscule fraction of the population thinks of "everyone who is legally an American" when they hear the phrase "our people".
However, some other place like Paris, the massive city-state of the white Franks, has a carefully guarded culture that they gatekeep as a majority ethnic group. You can live in France, and you can speak French, but you can't "become French" because many of the people who call themselves "French" think specifically of white Frankish/Gaulish/Roman descendents. That's just not happening in major American cities.
So, ghettos. I'm not saying there's not a "little Italy" in most American cities, but a Turkish person living in Germany their whole life is still Turkish. American in Japan, same. These places don't even allow the possibility of assimilation.
Or as my English friend put it, "there's a difference between tolerance and acceptance."
A specific unrelaible/untrusted tool and equipment they use for adventure is banned. You are arguing as if people are banned. But they are not.
An even simpler threshold is that banning it is a reasonable position to hold given the issue even if you may disagree.
> Main thing I notice is the fear I sense in people whenever cops are nearby, and definitely the sense of this security state hovering over everyone
You should know what that feels like, when it actually occurs. Similarly when someone rushes to declare their country has become "Nazi Germany", they ought to read a history book or two.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2023/03/24/douyin-tiktok...
By whose standards? The United States has never been an ideologically cohesive nation outside some basic principles of representative democracy - and even those have been challenged at moments in our history. The moment you get beyond the basics of a unified military, postal service, weights and measures, and currency, you quickly get into the social issues that have plagued our cohesion since the founding of the nation. Is Uncle Tom's Cabin a seminal work in understanding US history, or subversive and dangerous? We can't even decide that as a nation at the moment, so "how much social media is good for our kids?" would be a very, very ugly discussion to have at a national level.
I don't have Tik Tok installed, my kids only get the "reruns" off YouTube, but frankly I find it a bit extremist that the US government wants to ban an app that looks to me like people doing funny dances in their living rooms.
Never mind that the policy here is actually not about protecting children at all, since its banning an app entirely where the vast majority of users are adults.
a) the Chinese goverment is right
and b) TikTok is notably worse than American social media.
I, for example, disagree with both. I think the Chinese government is wrong about a lot of things, including the right way to raise kids. And I think TikTok is no worse than Instagram.
The Chinese government is right in the sense that drug cartels generally avoid getting too high on their own supply.
Germany dropped bombs on the UK. The UK responded by dropping bombs on Germany. By responding in kind, was the UK therefore asserting that Germany was 'right' to drop bombs on the UK?
Both Honda and Toyota build a lot factories in the US, creating a lot of jobs for US Citizens that actually show up to vote. All while American brands move to Mexico, Canada etc.
TikTok might as well be the same as "BigTech" but with the bonus of being Chinese—that is something politicians can work with. I think the root of the problem, though, is we (humans) are easy to manipulate, but I dont even know how we can even begin to tackle that.
In what other trade context would this scenario be acceptable?
And how does giving access to an authoritarian regime, famous for controlling speech, promote free speech?
What EU's social media companies? Exactly.
Frankly, it should get this treatment. Its executives have been consistently hostile toward government inquiries and in public statements about its users. The hubris it has shown in its treatment on political speech and disdain for paid advertisers is revolting. The stock structure of the company is a physical manifestation of everything wrong - we can treat the public and the law with disdain and you can't touch us.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
We do ban some import vehicles. Specifically light trucks.
Harley-Davidson famously tried to get Japanese V-Twins banned for not leaking oil. Er, I mean, for “stealing their signature exhaust noise”.
So while I think it’s fair to ask for a reference, it is prudent to assume it’s happening, unless proven otherwise.
They don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
This is a holdover from the US supporting the development of industry in Japan to keep them from turning communist (which was a real threat back in the 60's and 70's)
*laws that protect a negative externality for an involuntary transactor.
That's for altruists, who rarely make it to Washington and don't last long when they do.
Open markets mean what it says on the tin - markets without barrier. Saying, "We're barring actors for entering the market for reason X," means closed markets even is X is "treating people poorly."
It seems to ebb and flow: each side takes their turn being the aggrieved party and then alternate next go around (2000, 2016, 2020).
Consecutive cycles of animosity on one side could be worrying.
The tapestry of dysfunctional patchwork that make up the American Constitutional Republic, while tattered and frayed before, has found ways to persist.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2000/12/01/many-questio...
[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/4687/seven-americans-accept-bus...
Is that not what we're experiencing now?
It's hard to 'both sides' this issue with a straight face, when the biggest election denier in America is a former president and current presidential candidate. When was the last time that happened?
The closest parallel was probably Aaron Burr and his…whatever exactly he was trying to achieve in 1806-1807 in the Southwest after being dumped as VP in 1804 in part resulting from Jefferson’s suspicions that he was trying to pull electoral shenanigans in 1800. But that’s a long time ago, in very different circumstances, and not a particularly close parallel. So, never anything really similar.
But you raise a good point in that Al Gore was far more gracious when aggrieved. He comported himself with the norms established in the last 60 years during the modern mass media era.
Clearly you aren't going to have a large contingent of deniers of elections that your favored party won.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States_Electoral_C...
You can't just pick out some other thing and claim that is what is matters most. Just saying "when push comes to shove" doesn't mean anything. How many times did the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee lie about something like having evidence for the delusional conspiracy theory that "Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election", dangerously fueling election denial and undermining confidence in the democratic process, like Adam Schiff did? Aside from rhetoric and assertions by partisans and conspiracy theorists involved in the whole mess, where is the evidence to say what one side does is better or worse or more or less "damaging to democracy"? There isn't any.
If you in denial of the reality that both sides question elections and make up conspiracy theories when it suits them, you are incapable of anything approaching an objective understanding of the topic. Sorry.
Yes, that’s generally what “believe the election was stolen” without further qualification means; its not a reference to the total sum of people who believe at least one election in the history of the US was stolen.
> For the previous one a majority of Democrats including high ranking Democrat politicians and officials were election deniers.
No, they weren’t.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/more-republicans-distru...
A large percentage of Democrats believe Russian interference and other improper interference influenced the election results, but that’s different than thinking the actual vote was rigged or invalid.
If the UK justified their actions solely on the basis that because the Germans did it it must be ok that'd be unreasonable. (This isn't the right forum to get into it, but the ethics of civilian saturation bombings are much more complicated and I'm not saying either was in the right, though of course in total Germany was far far worse).
By US banning TikTok, US is acting against claimed values, turning out to be hypocrite. China, by banning US social media, doesn't. Might be seen unfair, but it is a dead end that US painted itself into.
For the sake of argument, _if_ we agree that banning is OK, EU should ban social media from both, and subsidize their own the same way as US subsidized theirs.
It is being true to what I claim that I'm, what my values are. If I start playing opportunist, how I'm better that the other guy?
Besides, the problem is already solvable. People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits. No one is forcing them. This is a vote with your feet issue, plain and simple.
A democratically elected government banning something is the people deciding.
A lot of people choose meth.
I am no conspiracy theorist, but at some point we need to accept the countless proof we keep reading about tech used maliciously once your app reaches a significant mass of users, especially if those users live in a country you are in a bona-fide economic war with.
Some degree of skepticism is healthy, but propaganda thrives any time a skeptic dismisses valid concerns.
Social media is the puts when it comes to moral bankruptcy... It is a casino based on popularity, and so many people are dumping money into it on a regular basis that it's really too late to do anything to stem the way it manipulates our world. Congressional action is far too late and futile to the maximum in encouraging any sort of ethics, they did nothing with all the damning evidence presented about Facebook, The only reason they'd ban TikTok is to satisfy the anti-competitive lobby of US competitors if you ask me.
TilTok is a corrupt platform nonetheless, and I really wouldn't be sad if it got banned, the basis of it has already infected everything else, including YouTube to the point of useless overload, so the entire ideal of going viral and getting paid on platforms is actually way past anything meaningful any more.
The amount of brainrot content that tiktok pushes is staggering. The other video platforms don’t come close.
tiktok incentivizes teenagers to create content, and makes going viral extremely easy... as long as you can up the ante on current edgy activity
they hosted the videos and banned them as they were reported.
you can't even search the term anymore as it shows a get help button instead.
however i can go on youtube and watch all of the ripped tiktok that people downloaded before it was removed.
TikTok has expanded to be the dominant short form video platform for every interest, niche, and micro niche you can imagine that exists, and even ones you can't imagine.
Please anyone reading this comment replace "TikTok = people dancing" with "TikTok = feed + discovery for short form video tailored to your specific interests no matter how niche". Yes this includes programming, science, education, dancing, gaming, cooking, acrobatics, painting, arguing, politics, news, weather, etc. basically anything you can imagine that isn't against their content policies.
1) TikTok is really good at what they do.
2) They are a Chinese-owned company.
It certainly feels like if it weren't for #2, they would be praised for their innovation and held up as a great American success story. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be skepticism in the name of national security, but of all the things threatening to destroy the planet on any given day, this feels low on the list.
YouTube videos are frequently 30-120 seconds of relevant content padded to 10-15 minutes. Most TikTok videos are close to just those 30-120 relevant seconds.
If Congress bans it, they'll probably lose the trust and interest of a massive percentage of Americans under the age of 30.
It is this and also that young people are especially malleable, so content that they see can cause long-term psychological and emotional damage, or--more pertinently to governments' interests--can introduce ideological change that they don't control.
There is a wide variety of content on TikTok. One category is (tens/hundreds of) thousands of people who watched the Congressional "democracy" theatre on the TikTok ban realizing that their so-called democracy is fake, a laughing stock, pick your pejorative. Millions of people who formerly had no clue, now realize absolutely that what is on the label does not match what is on the tin.
Of course, they could have realized this via other means since it has been the case for ages, but whether they would have is another story.
If I was running an illusory regime, I'd take out TikTok too, it's just old fashioned common sense.
And to also ensure that trade relationships are fair and equitable (which it currently isnt).
Besides, anytime we see the government intervene on matters like this, we're reminded how they make it worse.
And you didn't address my point with respect to young people's lack of life experience. Or that trade relationships should be fair and equitable.
[citation needed]
You present no evidence relating to actual election denial.
The statement that trade relationships must be fair is some sort of neoliberal mumbo jumbo. I don't accept it as an assumption or a consequence. You can accept it as axiomatic if you want, but I don't see it as a consequence of any valid logical train of thought.
And what you describe as "neo-liberal mumbo-jumbo" I think for most people would be seen as simple commonsense.