return to table of content

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

gigatexal
136 replies
12h45m

I see this as a national security threat that it is. The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.

The US and its allies got rid of Chinese telecom hardware from their networks for the very same reasons now it’s time to do the same with TikTok.

Would you let an enemy supply you with the very same kit you would use to fight them? No. Would you let that same adversary install an app on your most used device to watch and track you? Hah no.

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.

noobermin
36 replies
11h55m

To be honest, the use of the word "enemy" is far too strong, it sounds like we are at war with them while they somehow supply half of our goods at prices we've grown accustomed to. "Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt (which you use later), where the US is not on the friendliest terms with China but isn't in an outright war with them.

Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamewars here on HN.

beebmam
14 replies
11h48m

The US is in a cold war with China as long as China is open to the idea of the use of military force on its neighbors, including Taiwan. A cold war is the only alternative to surrendering the free Taiwanese people to communist rule, and a hot war.

omnimus
11 replies
11h32m

US is also open to the idea to use military force and not only on their neighbours but also on countries far away.

US is in cold war with China because China might soon be economicaly getting upper hand.

mort96
5 replies
11h24m

I don't get your first paragraph. Of course the US is open to the idea of using military force against, well, pretty much anyone. I don't see how that's relevant, other than as some form of pointing out hypocrisy? Or are you actually saying that "because the US is prepared to do its own military action, it categorically doesn't enter cold wars with other countries based on which military actions the other country could do"? I don't understand.

ExoticPearTree
4 replies
11h1m

Hypocrisy mostly. You can’t tell others to stop doing what you keep doing.

The US considers all of LATAM as his own back yard. Why can’t China consider all of Asia as its own back yard?

This is what upsets people, the sheer size of hypocrisy.

shiroiushi
2 replies
9h12m

So two wrongs make a right?

aurareturn
0 replies
6h28m

If your military is powerful enough, yes.

The point is that the US has set a precedence on military power around the world. The US told the world that using military power for your own country's benefit is ok to do. So why can't China?

_heimdall
0 replies
6h43m

No the GP, but their point is that the US can't complain about how China treats the rest of Asia when it looks so similar to how the US has treated Latin America.

That doesn't mean either side was right, or that one justifies the other. Only that the pot should into call the kettle black.

mort96
0 replies
6h13m

I was more interested in their answer, I don't think you have much more insight into what they meant than I do

bluepizza
3 replies
11h3m

The only way that China gets an upper hand economically is by selling products to the US and the Western world.

If they enter into a conflict where they are cordoned off, their export oriented economy would crash immediately.

A war between China and USA is impossible to win for either sides, due to both military size, budgets, interdependence, and nuclear weapons arsenal. And this is why it's a cold war.

psychoslave
1 replies
10h9m

The only way that China gets an upper hand economically is by selling products to the US and the Western world.

I am not a geopolitician, but this looks like a little too simplistic perspective, doesn’t it? I mean China diversified its wallet, including by helping to create infrastructures in Africa where there is still a largely growing young population (in contrast to the general trend in the occidental countries, or even what the long standing single child policy led to in China).

hobo_mark
0 replies
5h20m

If western demand goes away, you think African demand can compensate for that? Domestic would be more realistic, and even there China has nowhere near enough domestic consumption to keep the system running, let alone sustain historical growth rates.

ChrisRR
0 replies
10h13m

Not really. China has so much manufacturing power that if they limited exports and focused on manufacturing for inland it would have major economic shifts for both china and the west. That's the problem with the world putting all of their manufacturing eggs in one basket

fennecbutt
0 replies
10h58m

Without the West, China would collapse economically. I mean literally collapse, ever heard of tofu-dreg?

gigatexal
1 replies
11h31m

Exactly. It’s Cold War 2.0 this time we trade with them …

skissane
0 replies
11h26m

The two blocks traded in Cold War 1.0 - there was even direct trade between the US and the Soviet Union - although no denying that trade was a lot smaller than US-China trade is today

gigatexal
10 replies
10h42m

No I meant what I wrote. But I meant it about the CCP not the average Chinese person.

China wants to replace the US and the west as the global power. This will lead to upheaval and likely a war. When that finally comes to pass it behooves the west and the US to protect itself from anything that could undermine its own protection. In order to win a war you need hearts and minds. Not a populace that is being programmed to think despotic neo-communist-capitalist-when-it-suits-them rulers in China are somehow paper tigers.

Let’s compromise here: they are adversaries now but I think they are preparing to become enemies in every sense of the word. If they invade Taiwan, shed blood in the conflict over the breached rusting ship in the Phillipines, continue supporting Putin in his illegal attempt to annex Ukraine then yes they will eventually become enemies.

matheusmoreira
5 replies
8h29m

The idea that your population can be "programmed" in the first place is the antithesis of american ideology. The whole point of freedom is you're free to think and say whatever you want and society has to deal with that. Society either rejects the ideas or accepts them but either choice still represents an active choice, an exercise of freedom. Saying that people are being "programmed" reveals a rather shocking lack of respect for the intellectual freedom and autonomy of their fellow man.

wrasee
1 replies
8h12m

I’m pretty sure that I have been programmed. By my parents, by my friends, my education, my environment.

Change any of those things in a significant way and I’m sure I would be a different person now. I love the idea that I am an autonomous agent of my own that exists self evidently outside of those bounds, I just don’t think it’s true.

somenameforme
0 replies
6h27m

Then humanity today would approximately the same as humanity of its first era. I don't really understand the tendency to deny one's own agency. We were all once teenagers. And one of the first things we do as our brain starts to develop is rebel against the authority of a time. And, for some, that spirit of independence and rebellion never ends.

Void_Kitty
1 replies
8h5m

People are dumb, and like to believe the first thing they see, so "programming" a population is as easy as showing everyone something so often that it is all they see, tge human mind is incredibly malleable, and many big tech companies employ teams of psychologists to make best use of that, given china is a adversary or enemy or whatever you wanna call it, giving them a pipeline by which they can have direct access to tens of millions of American minds is a little silly to say the least, you do not win a war by winning battles, you win a war by breaking the enemies will to fight "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting" Sun Tzu said that, and I'd say he knows a little more about fighting then you do pal because he invented it

somenameforme
0 replies
1h23m

Were this true then any of the countless authoritarian states which ended up in complete control of all media, news, and even the ability to enter or leave the country - would have had a nation full of fully misinformed and obedient people. Instead it's invariably the exact opposite. The USSR is one of the best examples. They not only controlled all media, all news, and even who was allowed to leave the country. Yet trust completely collapsed as the state of nation completely collapsed.

aurareturn
0 replies
6h25m

The idea that your population can be "programmed" in the first place is the antithesis of american ideology.

The fact that you might be programmed to hate/dislike/fear China despite, I'm guessing having never been to China, is proof that America also programs you, just in another way.

Hint: Mostly through media.

somenameforme
2 replies
9h2m

Even in the times of the Great Empires, there were always other great powers - perhaps not peers, but powerful enough to be truly independent. This era most of us grew up in where the US was this unchallenged global hegemonic power was a major outlier in history, owing exclusively to rare circumstance. That being that after the USSR suddenly collapsed, there were not only politicians in the US that wanted to be rulers of the world, but also no other powers that could even remotely compare on a technological or economic level except Japan. But Japan itself also began a rapid economic collapse just about the time that the USSR collapsed.

And now not only were these circumstances rare, but they were also inherently liminal. Technological and economic edges fade rapidly, especially in light of major population level differences. I see no reason to think China imagines they could or even wants to be anything like the US was 30 years ago. The world is returning to its more natural multipolar state, as it's more or less always been.

gigatexal
1 replies
5h18m

If my reading of history is correct while there might have been more than one power or more or less equal powers they all vied to be the one most powerful one. I think that’s the natural order of things and the question is do you want the west lead by the US or one of her allies to be that leader or China or her allies.

somenameforme
0 replies
2h54m

How exactly do you think China is going to be able to "lead" the US? This is what I mean. The era of one hegemonic power being able to be the sole judge and authority on every single action around the globe was an extremely brief and freak incident in history, and that time is over. It required an extreme economic/tech imbalance that has rarely existed throughout history, no longer exists, and will probably not exist again for the foreseeable future. So whoever calls themselves the 'most powerful' is ultimately irrelevant - it would just be a mostly meaningless title.

wrasee
0 replies
8h30m

I would much rather live in a world with a balance of power than one with a concentration of one.

It’s by no means a given that a more even distribution of power leads to war or China ‘replacing the US’ as the only one. But an attitude where everyone thinks so, ironically, might.

pineaux
2 replies
10h20m

Your link names them "adversaries". Its an official list of adversaries.

throwaway4good
1 replies
10h5m

Yes. They make it sound much nicer.

alcoholic_byte
0 replies
8h12m

It is about connotation. I play Go against you. You are my opponent or, if it is a tournament, I could also call you my adversary(connotation is a bit stronger, less matter of fact like opponent, more around competition now). After the game, we sit down and have tea and laugh.

Now let's explore the connotation of enemy. Playing Go against you calling you my enemy is outright wrong. However, if you were my enemy, I would not drink tea and have a laugh with you afterwards. I wouldn't even be playing a game of Go against you, but rather trying to do other not so nice things to you.

Such is the nature of connotation. Being erudite helps here ;) .

ChrisRR
0 replies
10h15m

The word enemy is not used on that page at all. It says adversaries

redbell
2 replies
10h29m

"Adversary" is a weaker word that is more apt

Words matter, at the very least to avoid starting nationalistic flamwars here on HN.

I agree!

Back in Arcade Machines time, when a player is busy playing a fighting game, Street Fighter, I guess, and another person inserts a coin to play against him, the game pauses and a message that reads "Here's come a new challenger" pops up, so I think challenger would serve the purpose somehow!

TomJansen
1 replies
9h19m

I don't want to compare life to video games and I think comparing a genocidal dictatorship that ruthlessly suppresses its citizens and occupies foreign lands (Tibet for example) a challenger is a bit of a downplay

robertlagrant
0 replies
8h47m

I don't want to compare life to video games

Not that this is relevant to anything, but if it were: no one was doing this.

huytersd
0 replies
9m

With them picking Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, the term enemy is rather applicable at this point.

fallingfrog
16 replies
12h25m

This whole thing is baffling to me. What are you talking about? What enemy? I would rather someone in China has my information than my own government. China has no power over me; my own government does. I don’t care if china knows whether I like cheesecake better than blueberry pie. They’re interested in monitoring their own citizens, im sure- for the same reasons our own government agencies and corporate behemoths monitor ours. But I don’t see what use china could have for data about Americans.

Look: the Cold War is over. And communism is a red herring. The world has changed. For some reason Americas elites view TikTok as a threat, probably because they don’t have the kind of total access to their servers that they’re accustomed to with American firms. But that has little to do with regular Americans. And there’s no argument other than decades old red baiting tropes they can think of to try to get us to care.

tadasZ
3 replies
12h11m

i don't think "cold war is over", in a way it is, but the amount of propaganda tik toks blows my mind and the most important thing is - it's so one sided, that i fully support this bill/law or what it is, EU should do something too.

gigatexal
1 replies
12h8m

Same. The wall fell as did Russian communism but it just swapped antagonists. Now it’s the Chinese government.

fallingfrog
0 replies
2h29m

Scaring people is a great way to get them to stop asking awkward questions.

severino
0 replies
11h2m

i fully support this bill/law or what it is, EU should do something too.

Reading your comment, it's pretty obvious that we should do something about propaganda here in the EU. About US propaganda I mean.

gigatexal
3 replies
12h10m

Commerce is not zero sum. When done right both parties gain something. But China’s ambitions directly counter those of the United States. They’re propping up Russia against Ukraine for example. Use of heavy state subsidies and lack of environmental controls mean they can flood the world with cheap solar destroying the incentives for local production. When all the world is dependent on China for something they then hold outside impact.

To not see the coming conflict be it cold or otherwise or not see the CCP for what it is is just ludicrous to me.

They want to — and as they should — become to dominant world power and reshape things as they see fit.

They will take Taiwan by force and it is zero sum: either China and its allies become the world’s leading economy and lead on things or the US and it’s allies remain in “power” and the west continues. This is the threat.

Now I’ve nothing against the people of China. It’s the government that I don’t trust.

raxxorraxor
0 replies
11h33m

On economic grounds this basically describes what every developing country would try to do as an offensive and hostile action.

But on topic I still think the ban is still old men barking at cloud. Somehow embarrassing really.

m000
0 replies
4h39m

They’re propping up Russia against Ukraine for example.

That's a funny argument, given that the same piece of legislation with the TikTok "ban" also includes a(nother) $60.8 billion package for Ukraine [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/politics/senate-aid-pa...

fallingfrog
0 replies
2h34m

Ok but even if I accept all that, what does it have to do with TikTok specifically?

I feel like all these arguments just come down to “China bad, therefore anything that annoys China is good” which is silly and juvenile reasoning

Log_out_
3 replies
12h19m

The cold war of authoritarian VS democracy never ended. And China has the ability to turn anyone with mainland access into a asset by holding family hostage and models itself after the British empire. The Indians did have no quarrel with the king of India, until they did. Westcentrism and neutrality are no strategy now that the fascists march again.

fallingfrog
2 replies
12h16m

Word salad. There isn’t really any coherent thought there for me to respond to.

Log_out_
1 replies
10h15m

Worldviewsalad, there is no coherent concept for me to reply to. Not even values.

fallingfrog
0 replies
4h40m

Separating the world into “good guys” and “bad guys” does not constitute “values”. That is the thinking of a child.

qaq
1 replies
11h40m

Cold war is over we are in the era of empires starting actual wars to annex other countries that is def not a cold war.

fallingfrog
0 replies
2h32m

You are attempting to link Russia invading Ukraine with TikTok? I’d love to see the chain of reasoning here.

notTooFarGone
1 replies
7h24m

So how are you so sure that TikTok doesn't sell the data to the US anyway?

This way the same thing happens and china did also make some money. I don't see the argument that china having your data is somehow better than your government.

fallingfrog
0 replies
2h31m

Because china doesn’t have direct power over me, and so there’s not much they can do with the data that affects me.

throwaway_jeff
14 replies
11h19m

The problem is with the bill being legal.

For example, US citizens are free to listen to chinese radio stations, or chinese TV channels, read chinese books. Why the government needs to restrict what US citizens have access to in this specific case?

pb7
5 replies
10h44m

No it isn’t. One, national security is a federal matter not a state matter. Two, Montana outright banned the app whereas this bill forces divestiture. If TikTok doesn’t want to divest, too bad, bye bye.

hnpolicestate
2 replies
10h21m

Extremely difficult to make a national security case for restricting speech or access to content. A court will also want to see a specific cause.

Much of the Patriot Act is probably unconstitutional but the government had 9/11 as a national security justification. No similar justification exists regarding TikTok.

gigatexal
1 replies
8h6m

Let’s see. Lawyers are split on this. The national security context is the strongest case. And as an American and a voter I support this 100%. In exceptional cases I support Congress banning companies especially if they happen to originate from hostile nations, us hedge fund investors be damned.

_heimdall
0 replies
6h36m

As an American, why don't you prefer allowing consumers to leverage their free will and just make clear what the risks of using TikTok are?

The government getting into the business of banning companies, and more specifically banning online services, is very, very dangerous in my opinion. This one move effectively creates the need for our own great firewall, starting with a list of only one service but with the executive power to grow that list as more "national security threats" are named.

rchaud
0 replies
46m

You make it sound like that is a clever gotcha that a judge will rubber-stamp.

When has the US forced a private corporation to sell up via Congressional decree in peacetime?

Seems to me that Congress is betting that Bytedance will capitulate instead of taking the case to the Supreme Court.

gigatexal
0 replies
10h40m

Exactly this. The strongest case that the government can make in keeping this bill from being overturned in the courts is the national security one.

alcoholic_byte
4 replies
8h1m

Your thoughts leave out one thing:

Radio and newspapers(including internet articles here in general) are a one way street. With Tiktok, you not only get access to the users device via the app, but it is also a two way street. Tiktok gets to choose what it feeds you.

And what you describe is also true in a lot of countries(I can choose my medium). However, with newspapers, radio and television what you feed the population is readily visible to anyone. I can turn on the telly to see what is being streamed. This is not the case with an app. Unless the government watches you 24/7 and I doubt that. The costs are prohibitive. The thing that does exist is metadata. If I were to visit terrorist.com or bombmanual.org.uk I would make a list. But watching TikTok all that is being seen is me communicating with content-servers(here the subject that needs to be watched also changes from the user(me) to the proprietor(the company)) from them and protocolling the content of everything watched, unless you break encryption at scale, and monitor everyone is also prohibitive. Not to mention analysis of the content. So Tiktok is the perfect vehicle for subversion of a foreign nation if I want to play for time.

palata
2 replies
6h59m

All very good points! Which apply to all social networks, not only TikTok. The difference with TikTok being that the US do not have control over it, and they are not used to that.

alcoholic_byte
0 replies
6h11m

I would generalize it. With radio, television and newspapers you have national sovereignty.

The internet broadened that and introduced apps. So I would see this as a correction rather than anything else.

_heimdall
0 replies
6h39m

The US law in question actually isn't specific to TikTok either. That's all that is brought up in the media and by politicians because it gets more attention, but the law is much .ore wide reaching.

This is the government grabbing the authority to ban online services that they deem a national risk. The bill would honestly have been much more benign if it was a few pages spelling out a specific ban on TokTok. Hell, I don't think they'd even need a law to have Google and Apple pull the app from the app stores.

throwaway199956
0 replies
2h2m

Yes, but you think that possibility of government oversight/monitoring is an inherent necessity for government permitting any kind of media to operate in the US?

If doesn't work in many cases anyway, Government has no way to track who is tuning in and listening to hostile radio broadcasts.

Even it might be hostile propaganda, First ammendment protects both publishing and consuming content, without any "national security" considerations. But US lawmakers are now seemingly keen to introduce such conditions in the publishing and consuming of content.

During the cold war it was perfectly legal for the Soviet Life magazine to be published in the US and for people to buy and read it.

First ammendment really does say that "Congress shall make no law .." without any caveats for national security or even war-time exemptions.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the SCOTUS.

palata
0 replies
10h45m

Because TikTok not only has the tracking potential of BigTech, but it is a serious competitor to some of them.

It's just protectionism, like banning the Huawei phones (not talking about the infrastructure, that's different) or banning DJI drones. It just sounds better to mention national security than to say "we don't want others to do to us what we do to them, and we don't want them to compete with us".

ChrisRR
0 replies
10h7m

Whenever these posts about limiting chinese influence pop up, a bunch of whataboutism comments against the US pop up. I'm thankful that hackernews highlights new accounts

aprilthird2021
10 replies
12h8m

Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.

If it's that China will know more about Americans through data ingestion, they can already do that. Americans willingly upload every little bit of their lives to YouTube, Twitch, and tons of other platforms. Not to mention that Temu is the most downloaded shopping app in the US. And what kind of attack can TikTok information provide that other publicly available online information scraped from other social media sites cannot?

If it's that China can show American citizens a curated list of topics and videos to make Americans think certain ways or vote certain ways, then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem. That's the exact same rhetoric tons of repressive Communist countries used and still use to deny people the freedom to read books from outside, watch movies from outside, read newspapers from outside, etc. And I'm never going to accept the idea that information (even full on lies) so dangerous that people shouldn't be allowed to see them.

inkyoto
4 replies
11h26m

Can someone please explain to me what the security threat is? I still haven't understood it.

Facial recognition database and tracking people at a global scale.

With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.

Remember, TikTok is not just topless teenagers twerking on the camera, it is used by people to take short videos at random locations (and the locations are already easify to classify and account for), so if you happen to be a dissident (or a person of interest in general) hiding from the CCP, and you happened to have walked past a TikTok user shooting a short video and you got in the shot, your identity is matched up and your current location is revealed automatically, in near real time or with a short delay.

I have almost no doubt that people in TikTok videos are already digitised, and their faceprints are sunk into a gigantic database behind the Great Firewall. It is easy to project what other kinds of nefarious abuse are possible when such datasets are available.

bjourne
2 replies
10h16m

With advances in computing power and unsupervised machine learning, correlating a person with the person's surroundings is now largely or fully automated – what used to take forensic experts weeks, months or years to hunt down a person by poring over indirect clues in photographs or CCTV camera footage, is now almost instantenous.

I don't know of any system capable of doing what you describe. But if such a system existed it could just use publicly available videos from Facebook and Instagram. It wouldn't need its own social media platform to feed it data.

inkyoto
1 replies
9h13m

Such a system would be built on orders of the state and it would not be publicly or widely advertised, esp. in mainland China. Russia, for instance, has built SORM (deep packet introspection of the ISP traffic at the nationwide scale) – to monitor all internet activities of its citizens (on demand, not constantly), and its technical architecture is not widely known.

Having a direct feed of videos being uploaded from the user's device is also advantageous as the higher resolution of the original video will provide more details before it is recomompressed for long term storage in a smaller resolution. Most importantly, Instagram and Twitter won't allow uncontrolled access to the content they host whereas a Chinese company simply does not have a choice and has to serve the content up on its state demands.

Until proven otherwise, it is safer to project that such a system exists.

bjourne
0 replies
8h48m

Deep packet introspection is a completely different problem from the kind of facial recognition of people in video backgrounds that you envisage. Videos uploaded from cell phones are already MPEG-4 compressed and don't need re-encoding to be served. While it is true that social media companies don't allow unfettered access to their data, server farms for scraping web sites are a dime a dozen. I don't agree that it is safe to assume that systems there is no evidence for exists. It's one step removed from Chinese mind control viruses.

r_c_a_d_t_s
0 replies
9h25m

Sounds like you have been watching Travelers - specifically the episodes where the Director is looking for Traveler 001. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers_(TV_series)

I don't think China are going to find their Dissident in TikTok videos any time soon. The false positive rate on even the best facial recognition is way too high for tracking individuals globally.

rockemsockem
1 replies
11h58m

I *think* the main national security argument is that TikTok can tweak the algorithm to incite discord and inflame conflicts within the US. They can do this far more effectively from their own platform than by doing it on other social networks via bots and fake accounts.

I tend to come down with the same opinion as you though. It's all still essentially a first amendment issue and the negatives I listed aren't going to disappear if TikTok goes away.

whatshisface
0 replies
11h53m

"Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

timeon
0 replies
9h35m

then I absolutely think that's a 1A problem

Not from US so I had to check the 1A:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

"or of the press" sounds like it applies here but does 1A covers also foreign companies?

gigatexal
0 replies
8h3m

That a foreign nation with aims not aligned with the US has the dominant social network with the CAPABILITY to use this influence to influence the US, collect data, shape the minds of youths and future voters etc etc. that is enough for me.

4gotunameagain
0 replies
12h2m

It is because it is the adversary who controls the algorithms and suggestions.

The establishment wants and needs a monopoly in shaping the opinions and thoughts of its citizens.

logicchains
9 replies
12h31m

I see this as a national security threat that it is.

The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is, and this bill just gives even more power to the US government to dominate its citizens.

nyokodo
4 replies
12h7m

The US government is a far greater danger to the average American than the Chinese government is

The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA. So, while it’s true that having the power that it does makes the US government a potential threat, it is nowhere near as much of an actual threat as China.

raxxorraxor
1 replies
11h35m

Very doubtful. Military would defect en masse and you would get a civil war where government gets the boot in the end rather sooner than later.

whatshisface
0 replies
11h25m

It's not defection to refuse to carry out unlawful orders, soldiers can be punished for carrying out orders that they knew were unlawful, or orders which are so obviously unlawful that the soldier should have known. The united states does not have an SS.

FactKnower69
0 replies
10h51m

The US government could, if it wanted to, slaughter the entire civilian population of the US right now and no one could stop them. I don’t believe for a second that China would be so restrained if it suddenly had that power over the USA.

What the fuck are you talking about???

4gotunameagain
0 replies
12h0m

Just to spell it out, you are suggesting that if "China" could, would conduct a mass scale genocide against Americans ?

And you base that where exactly ?

computerfriend
2 replies
12h28m

This statement is not obviously true.

retrochameleon
0 replies
12h18m

It is also a logical fallacy. Even if it is true that the US is a greater threat in some sense, that doesn't invalidate that China is also a threat. It also doesn't justify not taking this action.

BeFlatXIII
0 replies
6h23m

[ citation needed ]

RoyalHenOil
0 replies
3h46m

You are also more likely to be murdered by a loved oned than by a stranger, but this doesn't mean that it's rational to open your door to strangers and bar it to your loved ones.

troupo
8 replies
11h45m

Should other countries do the same with US companies? US government regularly (ab)uses FISA to get data on foreign nationals: https://transparency.meta.com/reports/government-data-reques...

Parallel to this we need a federal national data privacy law that protects us but also cracks down on the huge industry of data brokers selling Americans’ data to anyone that has cash.

And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based

alcoholic_byte
3 replies
7h42m

It is called a fortified democracy. And absolute democracy like the Weimarer Republik is a dangerous thing. All modern democracies are fortified these days. And it is good that they are. And yes if the US is caught with the hand in the cookie jar the nation in question is not happy, but there is a difference: Spying is passive and not influencing the democratic process of the nation or disrupting it. The concern with Tiktok is that it is active, trying to disrupt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T_Lu1S0sII

Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations. They are in it solely for the money, otherwise the NSA wouldn't have had to snoop on Google in 2013(?).

and this point

And also dismantle the law where the US can request any data on any person, even abroad, if the company is US-based

I find questionable. It is too blanketed. There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.

aurareturn
1 replies
6h20m

Also, unlike the Bytedance and the Chinese Government, US companies do not run intelligence operations.

Is this a joke?

alcoholic_byte
0 replies
6h14m

No. Feel free to educate me though. Only request I have, nothing older than 30 years please as I feel it may not be relevant any longer and before long we would argue about the antebellum period and what have you not. And it must be large scale.

troupo
0 replies
3h49m

I find questionable. It is too blanketed. There are international criminals afoot after all. Red Letters do have their purpose as do international treaties for law enforcement to cooperate across borders in a bespoke manner in accordance with their and international laws.

There's a difference between "Hey, France, we would like this info on a known criminal" and "U.S.-based companies have to turn over all data on any person regardless of that data location or the nationality of the person in question".

That's basically the basis for both Schrems I and Schrems II.

Edit: See also CLOUD Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

--- start quote ---

The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil

--- end quote ---

cccbbbaaa
0 replies
8h52m

This decision is based on Schrems II, which does not really apply anymore since the DPF. Though the latter is already being challenged.

account42
0 replies
10h36m

Should other countries do the same with US companies?

Absolutely.

LexGray
0 replies
10h43m

Given the well documented Russian tendency to wage nation hostile whisper campaigns and app algorithms natural tendencies to promote such speech we are in place where every country both democratic and not have CIA levels of disorder, new mental health issues, and general productivity drain introduced by social apps. I think every country should take a hard look at what is happening and should consider banning or time limiting some U.S. apps.

I believe the underlying narrative of TikTok was with government control the algorithms would be purposefully tuned to promote disorder elsewhere which is a level of control the U.S. government does not have over U.S. companies and they were jealous (although with the level of information control during Desert Storm I am not 100% certain on that). However, I think this law was very premature and should have required evidence of tuning or actual war. While soldiers may have apps they should not the spies should know better.

The China side where they have banned encryption apps also seems to be war preparation. A digital iron curtain while depressing for the population behind it is not something that can be torn down from the outside. A per app legal war seems an unfeasible use of congressional time when many Chinese smart device control apps require location to function and are on many phones. This also appears to be an opening shot by congress for putting up a U.S. national firewall if TikTok just leaves all US offices and continues business through web based offerings.

pkphilip
7 replies
11h35m

I agree. However, banning Tiktok won't change anything. If Tiketok is banned another company will take its place.

Now coming to the subject of Facebook, Twitter etc, these apps pose the same threat to nations other than the US. As in, these apps serve US interests by pushing US propaganda onto the rest of the world and constantly monitors/tracks the individuals who have these apps installed.

So a better option is to ban any type of tracking - on all apps. But it is extremely unlikely that this will be made into law.

figassis
4 replies
11h23m

Why should the US to other governments jobs? I say this while not being American.

I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens, when it is the US that creates and fuels those predatory companies. And I understand they basically don’t care if they destroy everyone if it benefits them. Great. But what are our governments doing?

shiroiushi
2 replies
9h10m

I sometimes get upset when I see that every privacy and safety law is written to protect only US citizens,

Huh? Where did you get this idea? The GPDR in the EU isn't a US law, it's an EU law to protect EU citizens.

The US government really doesn't do much to protect the privacy of US citizens, certainly nothing at the level of the EU's laws.

figassis
1 replies
6h39m

US and EU are very alike, I'm from neither.

pkphilip
0 replies
11h22m

I am not saying that US should protect the rights of non-citizens but this will likely result in retaliatory action by other nations on apps from the US.. though I won't hold my breath

gigatexal
0 replies
11h21m

Yes. Two pronged. Much stronger US consumer data privacy laws including a culling of the business of data brokers. And a total ban of TikTok in the US.

ChrisRR
0 replies
10h8m

It may not solve it, but it will change it. The amount of influence these apps have on people make them a prime target for planting and spreading misinformation.

derelicta
6 replies
10h31m

CIA and FBI propaganda campaigns on US and Europe's population are however acceptable somehow.

pineaux
2 replies
10h16m

QAnon is not really accepted.

frontalier
0 replies
10h0m

gp is probably referring to hollywood type of prop not the imageboard born type

defrost
0 replies
10h7m

Perhaps not broadly within the US, but certainly by a handful of U.S. congressional representatives .. and seemingly seriously to boot, not just as an affectation of convenience.

alcoholic_byte
2 replies
7h54m

Let's be critical here: We should differenciate between spying(passive) and misinformation/manipulation(active)

Mentioning propaganda you choose the latter.

Pray tell what are those campaigns you talk about? If you are posing this question you must have at least some in mind and ready at hand to share.

derelicta
1 replies
7h27m

Remember all those "independant" experts that were calling for the invasion of Irak because of those WMD?

Or all those action movies relying on leased military equipments under the condition they will never portray the US military in a bad manner?

Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?

Those are all examples of US propaganda.

There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.

alcoholic_byte
0 replies
6h17m

I know that tactic and the response to this argument is: Two wrongs do not make it right. Just because the they did a wrong the others should be permitted to do it or continue doing it until the other party stops...wink wink? The answer to that is NO. That is whataboutism and a smoke screen.

But let's entertain those smokescreens even just to see where it leads:

The second Gulf war was outright wrong agreed. The hawks had their day and it was a dark one and all that followed because of it. A falling from grace. No argument there. But it is not an argument one should make when arguing over operations done by other countries especially since it is not related and long past and the current subject of discussion is happening right now.

The action movie thing... it is their equipment, they may provide it under any condition as they see fit. I wouldn't want to lend my neighbor a canister either if I knew he chooses to use it to write not so funny stuff in burning letters into my front lawn. I would not be surprised if other militaries would do the same thing if they were to lend their equipment at all.

Or Operation Mockingbird during the cold war?

Was that even a real operation?

There is much I left aside ofc, including anything related to the support of the ongoing "military operation" against the palestinian people.

That one is a doozy. The US made it clear that Israel should do more to shield civilians from harm. But let's be clear. Israel and the US are the wrong party to be mad at. If you want to be mad: be mad at Hamas, at Iran for supporting Hamas and at China and Russia for using it in a game of Geopolitical checkers in the UN security council. Without the scourge that is Hamas, who still continue to shoot missiles from South Gaza and who deny a sovereign nation the right to exist, non of this would've happened. Hamas uses the Palestinian people as shields, uses humanitarian institutions(e.g. hospitals) as hide outs and ammunition storages and subverts aide organizations created to help the people in the Gaza strip. They also slaughtered innocent civilians and kidnapped 100s a few months ago. And the people in Gaza should also be mad at their long ago elected inapt and impotent president and their dysfunctional governing bodies. And their inability to face down those terrorists hiding amongst them.(I cannot blame them though, it is a horrid and couraguous thing to do in any circumstance.)

And let's entertain the scenario that the US would step out.... well the entire Middle East would implode or explode like a powder keg. Trade would also suffer considering the shipping routes, oil and other things. And then Iran with Russia's and/or China's blessing would then do evil things... not a very comforting thought either, especially if you give a hoot about religion.

miroljub
5 replies
8h53m

Now, let's have other countries doing the same to Meta, Google, Microsoft and the likes. They all collect the data and send them to a foreign country (USA). They also use their algorithms to manipulate public meaning and to censor opposite opinions.

Oh, and a US company spaying foreign citizens in not only legal in the USA, but also required.

tjarrett
2 replies
6h40m

Frankly... other countries should probably consider this IF they have an adversarial relationship with the US.

And they already do -- neither China nor Russia allow Meta services in their countries. Nor do they allow most of Google's services.

miroljub
0 replies
5h20m

That means the data of US enemies is much safer than the data of US vassals^H allies.

m000
0 replies
4h55m

Does having the pipe that gets you cheap gas blown up by the US count as an adversarial relationship? /s

hobo_mark
1 replies
8h51m

spaying foreign citizens

now that would be a bridge too far...

miroljub
0 replies
2h32m

Hey, you found a typo, and that made me learn a new English word.

Thanks for being a spelling-nazi :)

throwaway4good
3 replies
11h4m

This is the idea of the "clean network" originally brought forward by Trump.

Basically all tech is clean and ok if comes from the good guys (the US and allies) and unclean if it comes from the bad guys (China, Russia ...).

IMHO a sad state of affairs. We would be at a healthier and less hypocritical place if our tech was secure by design, and suppliers and platforms were subject to open objective criteria and rule of law wrt. censorship and surveillance.

talldatethrow
0 replies
10h45m

My local library blocks Yandex but allows the Daily Stormer when using their wifi.

shiroiushi
0 replies
9h7m

I don't see how "secure by design" tech would solve the TikTok problem. TikTok isn't hacking people's devices, it's tracking them and giving them disinformation and propaganda. Secure code isn't going to fix those problems; the only way to fix them is to simply not exchange data with tiktok.com.

alcoholic_byte
0 replies
7h50m

Well a lot of agencies do that out of the box because secure by design is not believed. Trust but verify. You see that when intelligence agents talk about cooperation between partners. So in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't really change things.

The one thing it would change though is that it would make the life a bit harder for cyber criminals(think downgrading tls connections).

And the criteria you talked about, they are open. Called capitalism, and regulations those companies operate under. Along the way that abomination of surveillance capitalism was born though.

wannacboatmovie
2 replies
12h30m

Musk has already alluded to bringing back Vine, so the eradication of TikTok would be no great loss.

As an aside, I always viewed TikTok as a real world analogue to the mind control subplot from Zoolander (Frankie says 'relax')...

moomin
0 replies
11h51m

Twitter couldn’t make Vine work. Trying to do it in the severely weakened form it’s in now strikes me as less plausible than his Mars plans.

kmeisthax
0 replies
12h12m

We already have YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn to fill the short video void - bringing back Vine would be a Johnny-come-lately move.

whatasaas
1 replies
8h51m

How do we know a China man doesn’t work at Sony and is listening in to all PlayStations In households? Actually with all these Alexa devices and so many employees at Amazon it’s probably best to make sure all these devices are controlled by the government. Yes we have freedom of speech and privacy but no where in there did it say all communication shouldn’t be owned and and monitored by your government. It’s for the greater good.

Yea that mind set sounds awful.

wrasee
0 replies
8h41m

Spies exist, yes that is a problem but it is a different problem.

And the reach of one individual is just not the same as a nation state. I’m not sure I get your point.

lrvick
1 replies
8h14m

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc?

I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized.

All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors.

Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.

gigatexal
0 replies
8h8m

Can we apply this logic to Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc? I personally only support a ban of TikTok if we apply the logic universally. Such services are weapons, and weapons are sure to be weaponized. All centrally mass collected, plaintext or effectively plaintext data will sooner or later be co-opted by state actors. Best to ban the practice of bulk plaintext data storage entirely unless it can all be E2EE and anonymozed to the point of being useless to the companies storing it.

We can ostensibly anyway regulate the American social media companies whereas the Chinese ones are a black box even though they might operate here under an American entity. That’s why we are here. They claimed they didn’t share data but they do. And that’s how the whole algorithm and value works

user3939382
0 replies
6h21m

This was passed because TikTok posts are not supporting US (horrendous) foreign policy. There are recorded statements from congressmen of them discussing and saying exactly this, it’s not even a secret.

troyvit
0 replies
3h33m

To me the real national security threat is that Americans don't know how to use social media safely.

The potential for abuse from the CCP on the minds of US users exists

The exact same way Facebook and other U.S. social networks abuse the minds of US users.[1]

as does the tracking the app could do and every data point that is generated is stored and potentially useful for blackmail or otherwise on members of Congress or others.

Yep, and in a similar way every large US player hoards as much data about its users as it can get away with, even if it doesn't know what it'll do with it, and eventually loses said data in a giant breach, which can lead to blackmail, etc.[2]

And here we sit, either toothlessly regulating the U.S. actors or attempting to ban the foreign ones instead of teaching people how to actually use social media in a way that helps them instead of melting their brains and exposing their deepest secrets to malicious actors.

I'm not much of a capitalist or a social darwinist but I'd say the best thing to do is let people learn the hard way. We seem cool to do that with junk food,[3][4] and the similarities in social engineering between the social media and junk food are striking.

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/08/11/waukegan-district-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinar...

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21999689/

troq13
0 replies
7h40m

A spin to a US company is not enough. It needs to cease operating in the US because there’s no surety that even with a spin data and sharing won’t get back to ByteDance China.

At this level of paranoia you may as well ban Facebook and other social media as there is no guarantee their data is not getting intercepted by China.

scotty79
0 replies
7h59m

Why trade with enemy at all? Why do money transfers? Mutual investments? Why let enemy people live in your country?

Every step you do to isolate yourself from your enemy makes them even more your enemy.

At the end of this process is war. Completely unsurprising. Pretty much inevitable.

Alternatively you could accept that you are loosing competition in some fields without turning it into mortal conflict.

huytersd
0 replies
10m

I want it to shut down because I believe it’s a bad influence on kids in general.

benced
88 replies
18h3m

The WTO allows China to ban American social networks - which would otherwise be required to be allowed under its general principle of parity - because of its "public morals" exception (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/g4_...).

I personally don't think that exception should exist and I'm OK banning it solely on trade parity grounds.

seanmcdirmid
56 replies
18h1m

China doesn't actually ban American social networks, not officially at least. They just don't work for some reason due to technical issues. China has never said "we ban Facebook and Google", you just wake up one day and they aren't working anymore.

hi-v-rocknroll
19 replies
17h54m

Perhaps the GFOC must officially support an app via allowlisting, so that it's banned unless it's allowed by inaction, which is effectively the same thing.

Most/all apps aren't banned outright, but they require VPNs to access.

I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?

seanmcdirmid
8 replies
17h43m

VPNs are unreliable and frustrating to use. They were never really solution for anyone I knew while living in China, especially for 4K video

hi-v-rocknroll
7 replies
17h23m

Ouch. When I was there last 20-some years ago, high-speed interest was just becoming a thing and internet cafes were everywhere. Getting access to the outside world then was also a pain.

For Westerners, could they get GFOC-excluded commercial PoP internet connections or wireless carriers?

Perhaps in the near future, China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy. With all of the advances in economic mobility and details of life outside the GFOC, there will be more asks.

insane_dreamer
3 replies
17h13m

China's middle- and upper-class will insist on specific changes in policy like unfettered internet access as a bargain for not demanding democracy.

So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it. Those who can't handle it, and have the means, emigrate or have a plan B (i.e., their kids at a US university who can continue their career abroad; many Chinese would come to the US just to have a baby to ensure their kid had US citizenship--the US has clamped down on that). This is why the CCP's survival depends on economics.

hi-v-rocknroll
2 replies
16h35m

So long as the CCP delivers on economic prosperity this won't happen; people will not risk it.

I think the era of hockey-stick growth and development China is more or less over now, growth will continue but slow to a drip, and will face 3 threats: rising economic inequality, drying up of external joint ventures, and male-female ratio demographics imbalance. It has BRI going for it but external investments can't address domestic structural socioeconomic concerns. Xi will be blamed first because he rode economics to the top of the mountain. I'm concerned that starting a war, a common political tactic for any government system, maybe used to distract from domestic economic woes.

onthecanposting
0 replies
15h54m

I've tried to research details about the size of BRI and find specific projects. It's surprisingly opaque if you're used to FHWA's public disclosure of funds and projects. You could trace most hihhway funding in, say West Virginia, by pulling a few documents. I couldn't find any details on any project. I could not even find a video stream of the last year's conference. Just a keynote translation a week later.

I am suspicious that BRI might be more hot air than substance. That or world journalism is oblivious to what is supposedly the largest international infrastructure program in the world. Or Google doesn't index it.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
14h38m

China has made a lot of investments into Africa and Central Asian countries, more like IMF-style loans, which give it considerable political leverage. But as to whether this translates into substantial economic advantages for China in terms of cash inflows, not just outflows, I haven't seen much to that effect.

China's housing market is its biggest problem. Most people invested their savings in second/third/etc. apartments as the stock market was notoriously unreliable (and investing abroad was very difficult). That means that a tremendous amount of middle-to-upper-class wealth is tied up in property values, creating a tremendous bubble. But the gov cannot let the bubble pop (see Evergrande, others before), as Japan did in the 90s, as that is the one thing that (in my opinion) could actually bring the CCP down.

seanmcdirmid
2 replies
17h7m

I was there from 2007-2016, and also in 2002, but that was a dorm experience at PKU. The internet VPNs were just horrible, but the tradeoff was all the pirated video content available on Chinese video websites, so I got used to it.

hi-v-rocknroll
1 replies
16h30m

2003: I went to China with 1 suitcase and came back with 2. The new one was absolutely full to the brim with pirated DVDs and fairly good quality fake LV from the "free markets". Had to chip a Sony DVD player because half of them were random regions. Back then, checking the right boxes and declaring sensible amounts on US claims declaration forms reduced probability of searches.

fooker
0 replies
14h49m

Did torrents work?

I remember that era fondly as the golden era of unfettered torrenting.

insane_dreamer
6 replies
17h16m

I wonder: Are there any Western apps which Chinese citizens would lose social credit or are officially prohibited from using?

That's not how it works. The apps are not officially banned, they are just unavailable or don't work. If they're not on the China iOS store (separate than US) then you can't install them, and if you went abroad and managed to install them, they just can't connect to the IG or whatever servers once you're back in China. Same for Android.

jjeaff
5 replies
17h10m

This doesn't seem correct. It was just in the news that Meta had to remove one of their apps from the Chinese market at the request of the Chinese gov.

insane_dreamer
2 replies
14h34m

That's my point, they are not officially banned, but they're just "not available in the app store" (which is effectively banned, just not under that name).

But that overt request was unusual. Most apps are simply removed as part of Apple's "compliance with local regulations".

number_man
1 replies
13h30m

The regulation recently changed and now requires all apps in the App Store to have a permit from the Chinese authority or be removed.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
6h9m

Ah interesting; I didn’t know that had changed. It looks like the gov is more open about the banning now.

jibe
1 replies
16h43m

Yes, China officially banned Threads and WhatsApp just a few days ago. They had Apple remove them from the App Store.

throwawayq3423
0 replies
16h37m

If the only way someone can use your product is flying to another country to acquire it, it's a ban. Giving it other language is supportive of Chinese government efforts to soften the reality around their unfair practices.

winrid
2 replies
17h26m

VPNs frequently get banned in China. I bought two major VPN services (nordvpn and one other) and they did not work when I got there. Luckily I had a backup VPN I host on Linode. It would randomly stop working though...

fma
1 replies
16h20m

Outline VPN works pretty well FWIW.

thaumasiotes
0 replies
13h58m

I am currently in China; Outline doesn't work at all reliably.

That might be to do with going to a Digital Ocean IP, but if you can use an innocent IP, anything works. So what benefit is Outline supposedly offering?

dluan
10 replies
17h58m

in practicality it doesnt matter because you can easily circumvent it with a VPN and nearly every single person does

nmfisher
3 replies
17h45m

That was the case when I was living there, but I've read a lot of people saying that VPNs aren't nearly as effective any more.

seanmcdirmid
1 replies
17h42m

I was never good at VPNs. We would find one that worked, they wanted a one year subscription up front and...then they would stop working. I assume most VPNs in China are just a scam to make some shady money. Who are you going to complain to, the Chinese government?

insane_dreamer
0 replies
17h9m

China would try to block them so you had to find new alternatives. I used one for years that stayed up, but yes it was often frustratingly slow. You had to really make an effort, and most people aren't going to do that, and then there's the language barrier.

chrischen
0 replies
17h5m

My experiences before was that they were doing some machine learning to detect my socks proxy and slow it down eventually. Last visit I went to China a few months ago I found my Wireguard VPN running at full speed.

Either technology has improved or they stopped trying as hard, which makes sense now that the local internet economy has matured.

Aunche
2 replies
17h36m

Every Chinese person a Westerner may talk to has a VPN, but you can't compete with Chinese-owned social media without the other 90% of the population. Also, China has been very aggressive with VPN throttling and random outages, since the pandemic.

throwawayq3423
0 replies
16h32m

I promise you Uyghur muslims don't all have VPNs installed on their phones. That alone will get you disappeared into a prison camp.

"Every Han Chinese of a certain background" is the more accurate reference.

dluan
0 replies
17h32m

depends on time and place. its true that now there is less dependence on foreign internet and you can now be fully decoupled from english internet with the number of domestic apps. most people only use a VPN now just to access email (e.g. gmail, university), if they even need to at all. and yeah, if youre in beijing during a congress, then VPNs will be slow. but its trivial to set up and use a VPN, even my 88 year old grandma has one.

throwawayq3423
0 replies
16h34m

If you try and operative a service that relies on frictionless access by saying your users have to fly abroad to download it, and use an illegal and increasingly spotting VPN service to access it, it's banned. You simply cannot succeed under these conditions.

stubish
0 replies
15h7m

It is not easy. One day your VPN stops working, and you need to ask your friends for a new recommendation, and maybe they have if theirs didn't start failing last month, and set that up and hopefully it keeps working for a while longer, maybe until your original routes around the issue. It is high friction, and was a constant pain trying to maintain a functioning satellite office behind the Great Firewall.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
17h11m

this was never the case and is even less so now.

the vast majority of the population cannot easily use a VPN, especially not on their phone which many people use instead of a PC

insane_dreamer
7 replies
17h18m

They could operate there if they submitted themselves to Chinese government censorship (aka "local laws"). Google pulled out because it refused to. Facebook really wanted to (Zuck even made a trip there to talk to Chinese officials) but ultimately decided (correctly) that doing so would greatly hurt it in the US/Europe. Same for Twitter (pre-Elon).

thanksgiving
5 replies
16h48m

No, it should just work. I can understand having to abide by China PR laws if you have actual money transactions on the mainland but if all my customers are outside China PR and all I'm doing is making my website available to the people in China PR assuming I'm not breaking any laws, my website should be available to users in China PR.

I guess this last part is the loophole they will drive a truck through in hindsight. They will make up some nonsense or maybe even find a legitimate scam and ban Facebook based on that?

But really once they ban Facebook, we should be able to reciprocate and ban tick tack.

seanmcdirmid
1 replies
16h45m

China isn't a rule of law country, they admit that they don't even aspire to be a rule of law country, calling it an imperialistic western ideal not compatible with eastern culture. There is no way your expectation can be satisfied.

ajmurmann
0 replies
16h36m

I've heard it referred to as "rule by law" instead

tsimionescu
0 replies
13h27m

Even if China worked as a rule of law country, which they explicitly don't, what you're saying is still exactly the same as the previous commenter: you can't lawfully operate in China unless you actively monitor and censor any text you make available. If a user comments in a review on your bakery website that these cookies are so good that even Winnie the Pooh (hint hint) would like them, and you allow that review to be visible, then you are in violation of Chinese laws.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
13h35m

You can still be breaking “public safety” and “consumer protection” laws if the CCP doesn’t like your content.

connicpu
0 replies
16h44m

If all you do is open your website to china and don't perform any transactions in the country you're gonna have a hell of a time with your business model. All of these websites rely on advertisers to make money.

ramblenode
0 replies
13h46m

Another important detail that has been burried in this discussion is that in the late aughts and early 10s there was a lot of domestic political pressure against US companies building products that could facillitate Great Firewall censorship. At the time that was a bigger concern than being allowed into the Chinese market.

All the talk of a digital services trade war/import ban ignores that US tech companies were facing a de facto export ban from the US side by being prohibited from complying with Chinese regulations.

deviantbit
4 replies
15h6m

You haven't been there then. Google, YouTube, Twitter are all banned there. They are blocked completely. You cannot download the apps. In fact, the Google Play Store doesn't work there. They have cracked down on all VPN's now as well. We could only access western social media through a corporate network.

One side note, the United States Embassy has free Wi-Fi if you're close enough to it. You can get access to everything through it.

raincole
1 replies
14h23m

You didn't read the parent comment right then. Let me paraphrase it:

Yes, you can't use these services in China. But unlike the US's TikTok ban, China will not officially tell everyone what they banned. It just suddenly stops working.

They banned, allowed and banned again GitHub. Without any explanation. Your parent comment is correct.

deviantbit
0 replies
26m

I don't remember if they announced it or not. I've been there a total of 4 times over the past 15 years.

There are these Kiosks where you get Wi-Fi Access. You scan your passport, and it gives you a username and password. It specifically states accessing prohibited internet sites is a crime.

Then you click the link, and Facebook, Twitter, Google, ... are all on the list. They're pretty in your face about it.

There are some odd things though. You can access Steam in some areas, but not in others. Internet Cafe's have signs saying Steam Games allowed, while others don't. Some will say New York Times available.

Leaving the country was much harder than entering now. We missed several flights and were in the Airport for almost 2 days before they allowed us to leave.

This last trip in February, I made the mistake of buying an Unicom SIM card. So get this, I go through US Customs, they point me over to a desk with a curtain, a guy reads my declaration document again, then walks me over to do a door, and opens it. In side is a little waiting area. I sit down, and about 10 minutes later a woman slides the glass window open and asks me for the SIM card. They already knew I had bought it when I arrived. There is no SIM card declaration on the form.

She told me I should probably destroy the phone. I don't think any of us have any idea what is going on.

I won't be returning to China. They have made it very clear they're not interested in Americans investing or visiting.

seanmcdirmid
0 replies
14h17m

I lived in China for 9 years through most of the banning. I remember the day Twitter stopped working because the US embassy in Beijing was posting embarrassing AQI readings on their Twitter account (“crazy bad” for a reading that was so high they didn’t expect the label to ever be used). I was there when Facebook became blocked and when google became blocked. YouTube, however, was already blocked in 2007 when I started working there.

None of those services need apps, I never used apps to access them.

basch
0 replies
14h51m

I don’t have a no YouTube and Roblox policy at my house. However, mysteriously they usually arent working. It’s a lot less contentious that way

vitorgrs
1 replies
17h39m

And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.

tivert
0 replies
16h53m

And as far I know, if you go there with roaming ON with your phone, these social networks still work as well.

That's because roaming phone traffic is routed through your home carrier, through whatever telephone traffic peering agreement the phone companies have.

If a Chinese person roams to the US using a Chinese cell phone plan, it works in the other direction. So their phone is still behind the great firewall even though they're physically outside of China.

throwawayq3423
1 replies
16h39m

I thought you were going with "China doesn't ban American companies, American companies simply refuse to obey Chinese law".

The laws in question are becoming a subsidiary of the state, of course.

seanmcdirmid
0 replies
14h27m

The laws don’t exist. China has a constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, press, religion, etc…so actually writing a law that censors the internet isn’t very feasible. The official class just controls the courts (no judicial review allowed) so can do whatever.

chottocharaii
1 replies
16h34m

These kinds of comments are legally ignorant. I’m always taken aback by these kinds of “but actually” comments on HN that ‘correct’ another user without any regard to how the law would be applied.

andsoitis
0 replies
16h10m

I read the persons comment differently: reading between the lines I see them saying that the Chinese government finds other ways to work around the rules in bad faith.

a_random_canuck
1 replies
17h15m

“Officially” is meaningless here. The blocking exists, and it is at the direction or under the control of their government.

They are yet same thing. You know, if it looks like a duck.

This is standard operating procedure for the communist party. They rarely say any kind of topics or activities are banned outright. It’s just that if you say the wrong things in the wrong place, a bunch of plainclothes police will come to your home in the middle of the night.

bbarnett
0 replies
16h49m

Indeed. And this solidifies their control, because anything may be illegal at any moment.

ngcc_hk
0 replies
17h9m

That is as silly as argument as it is. We know what the game china played and it is not because of technology. Really someone can “hack” the technology. But if one pretend to sleep, you cannot wake them up easily.

jeremyjh
0 replies
17h58m

So...what? We know they've disabled it and they know we know. We can just call it a ban.

jdjshdvegj
0 replies
16h4m

Within the past week China told Apple to take several social media apps off their App Store. It’s an official ban.

benced
0 replies
17h51m

This is unfortunately a common tactic of the Chinese government (see their recent dealings with Lithuania). I do not believe a trade barrier not being explicitly stated is a barrier to bringing a WTO case though.

bdd8f1df777b
28 replies
17h23m

The US bans TikTok citing the same reasons China bans foreign social media, to avoid influence from foreign adversaries (people below says that China never official bans it, but China is inconsistent on that). It is only fair from a business perspective, but it also means that China's ideology wins over American in the end.

The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.

When I was young, I was taught in China that China lost its superpower status after it chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world. And then it isolated itself. I was taught by the US the importance of freedom of speech. Then it ditched it. My education was a lie.

robot_no_421
24 replies
17h17m

This is a really poor argument. You are equating banning one social media app with the GFW, which is obviously a huge hyperbole which has nothing to do with reality. The Great Firewall operates by checking transmission control protocol (TCP) packets for keywords or sensitive words. That is a violation of freedom of thought at the infrastructure level. As an American, you are still free to visit Chinese hosted websites and drink whatever propaganda you want. You just can't use TikTok to find it anymore.

Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.

Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.

bdd8f1df777b
15 replies
16h57m

Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore. The distinction you make isn't going to convince any one.

starfallg
6 replies
16h51m

Nothing you can't do before has been affected, given that you were never able to post anything on TikTok that would be seen in China. It is not accessible in China, as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.

bdd8f1df777b
4 replies
16h45m

You misunderstood me. I was not talking about doing on TikTok, but on China's own social media and when conversing with other Chinese offline.

starfallg
3 replies
16h13m

I don't follow your argument. In what way are you affected now and why? My understanding is that 1. You moved from China to the US yourself willing since some time ago and 2. There is no US equivalent of the GFW and this legislation doesn't change that.

I just don't see how this law will affect your ability to converse with others on Chinese social media.

bdd8f1df777b
2 replies
15h57m

OK, let me reword. I still can converse with others on Chinese social media, but I will have a harder time convincing them that GFW is a bad idea or that the China's government is wrong restricting speech. Because people not already convinced will point to the US banning TikTok and ask me how China's actions are different. The distinction between the two is subtle, and frankly, while the US actions do not violate the First Amendment, it does breach the underlying principles. I have no convincing argument for them.

starfallg
1 replies
15h32m

Ok, that's more clear on what your point is. The US is not banning TikTok technically like the GFW, they are just de-platforming it so it is no longer commercially active.

This is very different from the GFW, and many orders of magnitude less restrictive.

This issue isn't about speech and censorship, but media ownership. These rules has always been in place in many Western countries precisely because of the impact it has on society (even beyond geopolitics).

bdd8f1df777b
0 replies
14h45m

and many orders of magnitude less restrictive.

That's true, but when I had a hard time convincing them when the US were the *perfect* model of no speech restrictions, it's much harder when US is just less restrictive. They will just dismiss such difference in quantity as cultural difference, rather than different principles when China and US had qualitative differences.

coin
0 replies
13h24m

as Bytedance only operates Douyin there. The two systems are completely separate content-wise.

This is what most people don't know, that TikTok itself is banned in China.

robot_no_421
3 replies
16h44m

Say what you will, but I won't be able to espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China anymore.

The real reason you can't "espouse the virtues of freedom of speech in China" is because they will arrest you. Let's not mince words here. The Chinese government would shoot their citizens before they would let them protest or speak their mind freely.

bdd8f1df777b
2 replies
16h20m

No, they don't arrest people for such abstract concepts. They do arrest people who tangibly threatens the government, like exposing the shenanigans of high officials, or organizing labor protests over the Internet.

wumeow
1 replies
16h2m

Well, there you have it.

bdd8f1df777b
0 replies
12h42m

Haha, you would think that these cases count as enough evidence for the government not to have any power over speech. Nope. The Chinese people just oppose those specific cases, and in a small percentage of them, the government reversed course and then the masses are satisfied.

After those happened, they still think that the government intervention of speech is a good idea. The only problem is that a small group of officials not handling the regulating power correctly. But if they were to adopt the American model, how could they be protected from the evil influence of foreign adversaries? You know, like me, an agent of US propaganda. Or Tencent, whose major shareholders are actually not Chinese.

I really can't maintain a straight face hearing Americans repeating that same argument.

cscurmudgeon
3 replies
16h20m

freedom of speech

Freedom of speech applies to humans living within US borders not to entities controlled by a foreign government.

(Unless China is within US borders, freedom of speech argument doesn't stand).

bdd8f1df777b
2 replies
15h49m

If we talk about law, that is probably true. But for the principles, I don't think so.

We want freedom of speech because we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth, so we need to ensure that everyone can speak their mind, and so can the real Truth be propagated and preserved. And that everyone includes foreigners and foreign governments.

Every time China's governments (including the past ones, like the Qing Dynasty) rejects the idea of freedom and democracy, it demonizes them by painting them as plots of foreign governments trying to overthrow and destablize China. So you can see why I am so wary of the argument that it is OK to silence the words if those come from a foreign government.

cscurmudgeon
1 replies
13h30m

But for the principles, I don't think so

Smart philosophers have studied this. You may not like the answer.

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

we can never know that our opinions are the ultimate Truth

Oh yeah, but we can easily spot propaganda/bias from CCP from miles away.

For the principle of freedom of speech to survive, it can never be absolute.

bdd8f1df777b
0 replies
5h5m

Oh yeah, but we can easily spot propaganda/bias from CCP from miles away.

The same way how the Chinese people can smell the propaganda of capitalist reactionaries.

I'm being sarcastic. You share the same school of thought with CCP.

Also, TikTok has never intolerant. CCP is quite intolerant of its own people's views, but it strictly segregates TikTok and Douyin to avoid trampling on the toes of non-Chinese. Therefore the argument of "tolerance of intolerance" isn't applicable.

bdd8f1df777b
5 replies
16h9m

Your education was not a lie, but you should still get a refund on your failed education. You clearly did not learn to think critically.

I read both Chinese and English, and I read both the opinions of within GFW and without. If anything, I've critically analyzed every idea from both sides. I can't fathom the hubris of someone who has ever lived on one side yet believes his truth is the ultimate truth and anyone disagreeing must not be thinking critically.

NicoJuicy
2 replies
15h3m

China is preparing a wat with Taiwan, just see it's military buildup the last year's.

It's ignoring international laws with neighbors, instead of using weapons, it's using water cannons against fishers and Philippines coast guard.

China is a "friend without limits" of Russia, who started a war on European soil lately.

I think it's safe to say that the west is decoupling from China.

It has nothing to do with "freedom of speech", most voters agree with that decoupling.

I have never heard of a pro China argument before from a politician party and it seems that most democracies nearby China think the same, even with the BRI initiative.

( Note: I'm not from the US)

bdd8f1df777b
1 replies
14h38m

I'm not debating that China is bad or not, or if it is an adversary to the US.

My deeply held belief is that we should allow speech from even the most hostile foreign countries. Do you know that every administration of China, starting from Qing Dynasty, resisted the idea of freedom and democracy by painting them as plots of foreign governments to destabilize China?

I am being called a sock puppet of China here, and I have been accused of being agents of US propaganda in China. That is how the future holds. Every thought deviating from mainstream is labelled as propaganda from a foreign government, ergo not subject to the protections of freedom of speech.

NicoJuicy
0 replies
14h29m

I'm not calling you a sock puppet of China here, your username indicated a Chinese background though.

The tracking/propaganda dangers of TikTok are unrelated to freedom of speech, as banning TikTok doesn't affect freedom of speech.

People can spread their opinion on any other app.

Note : I'm responding and sharing my opinion for the following you mentioned:

The China's own social media is full of posts ridiculing people like me who have believed in the American ideology, espoused the virtues of freedom of speech and rallied against the GFW. They call us naive and credulous. And I can't refute them.
robot_no_421
0 replies
7h13m

I say that you're not thinking critically because your arguments are very weak and you don't provide any inference or evidence to support your conclusions. It's irrelevant that "you read both Chinese and English" or that you think "you've critically analyzed every idea from both sides" if you're not using any of those in your logical argument, which you're not. In fact, it's an obvious logical fallacy to use "I have read more about this than you" as evidence that you're right.

number_man
0 replies
11h25m

Here's my take on your recent comments, as a mainland Chinese who immigrated to the US 10+ years ago. There is no point arguing with other mainland Chinese online. I guess this is true for most online arguments but particularly so for debating politics with other Chinese since they are far too influenced by propaganda to be convinced otherwise. Furthermore, if you find yourself arguing with friends who can't even tell the blinding difference between Chinese censorship of the Internet (with zero transparency, against CCP's own constitution) and this legislation (passed by both houses of democratically elected representatives and signed into law by elected president), it is time to move on and make better friends. Good luck and hope I don't meet you in real life.

tenlp
1 replies
16h14m

Plus, freedom of speech is about protecting American Citizens from being censored by American Government. Banning an ungovernable, foreign owned business does not stop you from freely expressing yourself on the internet.

As far as I know, tiktok's services are deployed on Oracle servers in the United States and are subject to supervision. It was banned just because it comes from China. Look how many times the CEO of Singapore was questioned if he is Chinese. Maybe the Congressman thinks Singapore is also a part of China.

coin
0 replies
13h26m

Look how many times the CEO of Singapore was questioned if he is Chinese. Maybe the Congressman thinks Singapore is also a part of China.

74% of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese. The Congressman's questions are not unreasonable in questioning if the CEO has some ties with mainland China.

csa
1 replies
16h43m

Next level sock puppetry!

bdd8f1df777b
0 replies
16h35m

I was called a US sock puppet on Chinese social media and then a Chinese sock puppet here. I guess people everywhere are the same, doing ad hominem attacks whenever they see people having an opposite opinion.

throwawayq3423
0 replies
16h31m

China's ideology wins over American in the end.

Influence operations aren't about "winning" or even convincing anyone anymore. It's about flooding peoples screens with untold amounts of toxic garbage.

ken47
0 replies
15h34m

It should be openly banned on the tit-for-tat principles. The paranoid speculation towards TikTok by some media is embarrassing. Instagram is in the same class of brain-melters. Let's stop the nonsense and call this what it is: protectionism.

coin
0 replies
13h31m

Furthermore, TikTok itself is banned in China. The counterpart in China is Douyin, which has limitation for minors, like mandatory STEM videos and limited hours during school days.

danielhep
25 replies
19h3m

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

roncesvalles
8 replies
17h54m

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

tptacek
6 replies
17h41m

It's not being banned.

ocdtrekkie
5 replies
17h28m

China has already indicated that because the sale would require a "technology export" of the algorithm, it would need their approval. And also that they would not approve it.

So if China has already made it clear it considers a TikTok sale illegal, this is a ban.

That being said, you don't get Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the same side unless there is some serious fire behind all of the smoke. My guess is everyone who has seen the classified info agrees this ban is too critical to even play games with it.

EarthMephit
2 replies
15h7m

There's many companies that have reproduced the tictok algorithm. Surely if it was sold, the multibillion dollar company would have no issue with that aspect.

ALittleLight
1 replies
14h0m

What's an example of a company that reproduced the TikTok algorithm?

seanmcdirmid
0 replies
13h56m

Facebook Reels and Youtube Shorts have pretty good implementations at this point, especially facebook, it is kind of scary. But I didn't use the original TikTok app so I don't know if TikTok is somehow better than these (I only started watching them because they started placing them in my Facebook and Youtube feed, sneaky!).

troq13
0 replies
7h17m

"you don't get Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene on the same side unless there is some serious fire"

All you need to convince American politicians of anything is jingling keys and cash. Plus MTG opposed the original TikTok bill, they only voted in favor when it was packed together with sending money for Israel.

onthecanposting
0 replies
15h46m

Microsoft will dust off it's previous merger plan from the last time this political football was punted and fill superfluousmanagement and "trust and safety" positions with old national security alumni. The surveillance will continue.

LeroyRaz
0 replies
16h33m

No. Your statement does not follow.

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

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

symlinkk
4 replies
15h38m

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

eBombzor
3 replies
15h31m

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

spiderice
2 replies
15h11m

"The government isn't allowed to ban speech, but they can ban the tools used to speak". Pretty scary argument.

intrasight
0 replies
15h8m

Not really

asadotzler
0 replies
14h24m

Not a problem as long as there are other tools to speak. You have no right to YouTube or Facebook because neither are necessary for your free speech. This isn't complicated.

cherioo
3 replies
16h12m

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

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

fallingfrog
0 replies
12h18m

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

TheVespasian
0 replies
42m

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

TaylorAlexander
0 replies
13h20m

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

https://chomsky.info/consent01/

null0pointer
1 replies
17h28m

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

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

troq13
0 replies
7h14m

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

hnthrowaway0328
1 replies
18h47m

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

r14c
0 replies
17h50m

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

TaylorAlexander
1 replies
13h22m

Regulation to ensure media is unbiased sounds on the face of it impossible. Anything that looks "unbiased" simply shares the same biases as you.

YZF
0 replies
12h24m

Exactly right. What is "unbiased" or "neutral".

That said I think some regulatory control is needed. There needs to be some sort of accountability e.g. for intentional propagation of fake news or censorship or defamation. This is no different than requirements for ethical behavior in other industries. Just like we regulate public companies in general we should be able to impose some requirements on any business that distributes media. Free speech for individuals but if you are a business or a media "provider" you need to meet a somewhat higher bar? I think we used to rely on journalistic standards or self regulation but with "new" media (and maybe even with old media) this seems to be not working that well any more. There's a fine line there for sure but seems like whether China owns some social media or someone with US citizenship we still want to have guards against harms this can cause. The amount of power these companies wield is scary.

mjfl
0 replies
18h46m

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

luyu_wu
21 replies
20h12m

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

dogman144
3 replies
19h43m

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

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

luyu_wu
1 replies
19h30m

Thanks for linking the articles...

whatasaas
0 replies
19h20m

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

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

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

AlphaSite
3 replies
20h3m

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

luyu_wu
0 replies
19h46m

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

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

bogdan
0 replies
19h56m

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

aragonite
0 replies
19h53m

No US (or otherwise) company can operate in China

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

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

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

WFOE refers to a limited liability company that is 100% invested, owned by foreign investors, and independently operated. Almost 60% of foreign-owned companies are WFOEs, making it the most adopted business type. Famous multinational companies such as Apple, Amazon, Oracle, and General Electric are all examples of WFOEs.
ok123456
1 replies
19h41m

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

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

cowsup
1 replies
20h1m

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

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

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

luyu_wu
0 replies
19h31m

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

RIMR
1 replies
20h7m

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

coffeemug
0 replies
20h0m

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

neverokay
0 replies
19h52m

McCarthyism is back in style.

cm2012
0 replies
19h39m

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

charonn0
0 replies
19h7m

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

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

asadotzler
0 replies
13h24m

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

FrustratedMonky
0 replies
19h46m

Yeah.

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

whatasaas
19 replies
15h36m

If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you. It seems the initial comments are positive, followed by a lot of arguing. It's usually pointless debates, like whether it's a ban. Yes, it is effectively a ban, similar to imposing a million-dollar tax per gun, or required to be age 85, which essentially bans something protected by an amendment. Then there are those calling for regulations and bans, which is strange. I can manage my app usage and my kids', but I can't control safety regulations for trains carrying toxic chemicals. And then there are the trade war advocates; at what point does this back-and-forth justify losing rights and access? I don't care if China becomes like North Korea. The bill also mentions website and service providers, meaning it could block access through websites too. We should have rights to privacy, encryption, and anonymous whistleblowing without government interference in every social media platform.

budududuroiu
16 replies
15h21m

It’s not about you and your kids’ usage, it’s about the general population. Let’s not be naive, TikTok is the 2020s version of “Radio Free X”, a state-backed propaganda tool where anyone can run targeted ads with pinpoint geo accuracy, and cause division and social unrest. And unlike Facebook or YouTube, you can’t hold a company owned by a near-peer geopolitical adversary liable in the US.

Golden_Wind123
15 replies
15h11m

At this point Tiktok is getting more regulatory action against it than Facebook has....and Facebook's lax moderation spread the wildfire of genocide in Myanmar.

budududuroiu
14 replies
15h8m

As it should. This might sound insensitive, but we’re drifting back to an era of realpolitik in geopolitics. Facebook fanning the flames of a genocide in Myanmar has little effect on US citizens, TikTok does.

Golden_Wind123
13 replies
14h56m

I also seem to think Facebook fanning the flames of an insurrection is a greater threat than whatever dubious vaguely defined impact TikTok has had.

budududuroiu
12 replies
14h50m

You can hold Facebook legally accountable in the US (whether you will or not is another question). You can’t hold TikTok legally accountable.

ramblenode
10 replies
12h46m

You can’t hold TikTok legally accountable.

Sure you can. You follow the law or you are banned from doing business. This law just skipped the first part because the authors didn't want to write any actual regulations.

budududuroiu
9 replies
12h39m

Why wait until TikTok breaks the law to ban them? Banning an app after it’s been used for nefarious reasons to either spread propaganda or incite chaos in the upcoming elections is too late. It’s like saying “let’s not patch a zero day we found because no one has abused it”.

TikTok being owner by Bytedance means you don’t have who to prosecute for misdeeds, besides some fall guy.

b-side
6 replies
12h0m

Interesting that you think breaking the laws is justification for banning a Platform. I wonder how the US would feel about the EU banning every last US tech company for the plethora of violations.

budududuroiu
5 replies
11h58m

Last I checked the EU and US are not in the pre- stages of hot war.

fragmede
4 replies
11h55m

we're not? we're spinning up production of 150mm shells and other pre stages from my pov

budududuroiu
3 replies
11h50m

Are you trolling?

fragmede
1 replies
1h10m

I'm not. from my POV, we are spinning up the economy for war. we're already in world War III, we're just waiting for someone to officially declare it.

budududuroiu
0 replies
56m

US defence spending is still below its 2010s level. Besides, you mentioned EU banning US apps. Last I checked, with some exceptions, all EU nations are in NATO, and directly procure weapons from the US.

It’s absurd to compare banning a Chinese-owned app to EU banning US apps.

BeFlatXIII
0 replies
6h10m

Are you?

ramblenode
1 replies
11h59m

Why wait until TikTok breaks the law to ban them?

Why wait until a homeless guy steals some bread to throw him in jail?

The foundation of the rule of law is that the law applies to everyone equally, not arbitrarily. That includes a presumption of no wrongdoing and due process.

It should be mentioned that TikTok already has its full US data and source code audited by Oracle, a level of scrutiny higher than any of the domestic tech companies. Combined with the FBI and NSA watching them like a hawk, if they were breaking the law, it would be old news by now.

budududuroiu
0 replies
11h53m

Didn’t know the homeless guy is a rising superpower with imperialist aspirations. Didn’t know the homeless guy is actively attempting to destabilise the US in order to become the new hegemon.

It’s not about the data or the code. Data brokers exist everywhere, it’s about a platform with reach to the eyeballs of 170 million users controlled by an adversary state.

You can’t use “foundation of the rule of law” wrt an actor that blatantly disregards rule of law.

bjourne
0 replies
10h2m

That is false. Companies can be held legally accountable in the US regardless of whether they are owned by Americans or not.

ajross
1 replies
15h19m

If you told me Facebook directed some AI chatbots here to discuss how great this is, I'd believe you.

Relevant to context: whatasaas is an account with 10 karma and 9 total comments that has been mostly idle for its 14 month existence. Many of the trench fighters in the threads here are names I recognize.

whatasaas
0 replies
12h43m

Yea caught me, I self reported to try and trick everyone. Jokes aside my comment was based on net neutrality if you don’t remember https://duckduckgo.com/?q=net+neitrality+bot+comments

Some of the stuff that really chipped at our privacy as our isps got to sell our dns pings to advertisers and social media. Have a good day citizen.

consumer451
16 replies
13h40m

I happen to personally agree with the general concept of making the CCP divest from the leading social media platform in the USA.

I also wonder if the KSA should be forced to divest from X/Twitter. Prior to owning part of X/Twitter, they did this [0], which led to to the worst of what one could imagine. What is happening now?

But my main question is, are there any other examples of forced divestiture, aside from Firefly Aerospace? [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter#...

[1] https://spacenews.com/firefly-halts-launch-preparations-afte...

jeswin
11 replies
13h27m

I also wonder if the the KSA should be forced to divest from Twitter.

There is no equivalence. The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world. The royal family just wants to keep their kingdom business running, and even for that they're dependent on the US.

consumer451
7 replies
13h20m

I wish that was the case.

However, as a friend of human liberty, I cannot forget the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. [0]

While I would like to agree that KSA doesn't care about the rest of the world, and each culture should have their own space, the bone-saw story does prove that there are human factors which bind us all together. We all do live on one small rock, after all.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20190110153304/https://www.washin...

jeswin
6 replies
13h7m

If the United States didn't exist when the Soviets were around, we'd have been living in one giant North Korea. That's why more needs to be done with the CCP, which is rapidly advancing their military and is already the preeminent industrial power.

Jamal Khashoggi is just one man. Tragedy it may be, but insignificant in the larger context.

consumer451
5 replies
13h1m

Your ideology will murder us all, each one at a time, until none of us are left.

There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.

When a simple, predictable man like Putin, or Xi, make themselves emperor for life, they prove the fragility of their system. Their system cannot survive beyond them. It is the final call. Just as it was in Germany, France, Portugal, Spain... all of the imperial powers had to lose their final war. Soon, you will lose yours. Finally your people will become "Western," aka peaceful. All it takes is losing the final imperial ambition. I welcome you to the future.

My family has lived through these idiotic ambitions for many generations. This is why I am still here, speaking to you. We will live through it again, until we are all at peace.

Cheers.

jeswin
3 replies
12h50m

Their system cannot survive beyond them.

I am old enough to remember the cold war times. The Soviet Union disintegrated because they never built an economy. Until Gorbachev, the communists did maintain their grip. If they had an economy like China has, the Soviet Union might have still been around.

Also Xi is not Putin, and the CCP (and generally Communist Parties) are not United Russia.

There is an alternative, and that is that we will win, as we always do.

Sure. But maintain the highest level of deterrence.

consumer451
2 replies
12h42m

The deterrence is that I am alive.

Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family. [0]

They could not destroy Europe as much as they tried. We are still here.

Ukraine, is a rising democracy and is still here. Please my brother, just as each European country had to lose their empires, to finally win our own independence from the specter of imperialist thought. So must you.

The Russian people deserve this more than anyone. It's about effing time my brother.

Play this loud my friend!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1AmMt6A9s

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...

jeswin
1 replies
12h38m

Ukraine, is a rising democracy and is still here.

Man! At what cost? Someone who used to work with me with sent me a pic - writing code from a bomb shelter.

Add:

Neither the Nazis, nor the their Soviet allies could destroy my family.

They may not have destroyed yours, but they did destroy millions of other families.

consumer451
0 replies
12h11m

We have lived through hundreds of years of this murder. We do not want to live through this again. This is the end. This is the end, and finally Russian people will prosper. Take the "L," It's actually a win. Just like Germans did after "losing." Just like Spanish did after "losing." Just like Italy did after "losing." Just like Portugal did after "losing" their empire. Then we became boring European assholes and we get a little per captia rich and all got along.

Fine, have a different alphabet, have orthodox, the Greeks are part of Europe and they have this. Why can't Moscow just stop killing us???

And they kill Russians more than anyone!!! Please, just stop! Fuck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqohApD6Ng8

jeswin
0 replies
12h41m

Your ideology will murder us all, each one at a time, until none of us are left.

I am curious, what do you think my ideology is? I just wanted to understand how I came across.

TaylorAlexander
2 replies
13h24m

The KSA has no ability or ambition to shape the world.

This seems obviously false. They host conferences talking about how they want to shape the world. KSA has interests, and they will want to use any power they have to further their interests.

jeswin
1 replies
13h15m

China's economy is 20 times their size, and their population about 40 times larger. And there's no comparison in industrial capability.

consumer451
0 replies
13h8m

How is this at all a response to the parent comment?

inemesitaffia
3 replies
12h41m

I have reason to believe they have owned part of Twitter just post Arab spring and now own less not more. It definitely didn't happen in 2022.

Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?

consumer451
2 replies
7h34m

Did this infiltration happen before they owned part of Twitter?

Yes, absolutely, if we all agree upon the direction of the arrow of time.

inemesitaffia
1 replies
6h6m

Before 2011?

Saudi Arabia was in Twitter when it was private

consumer451
0 replies
3h54m

2011? I don't understand what you mean. Read the wiki, and we all know when "funding secured" happened for Twitter to go private.

resters
10 replies
19h33m

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

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

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

chaostheory
5 replies
19h17m

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

resters
4 replies
18h23m

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

chaostheory
3 replies
17h44m

Yeah, that’s how international politics work. Otherwise, what incentive does the CCP have for changing its policies? We’ve been rewarding a bad actor for decades, and it hasn’t worked to change their behavior for the better. In fact, it’s just emboldened them to act in bad faith.

resters
2 replies
4h7m

There was no national security justification given for confiscating TikTok. There is no US national interest-driven reason for doing so. TikTok happens to be beating Meta, Netflix, etc., and so the US government is stepping in to steal it.

I'd rather have the US foster innovation and let the best company win. TikTok is more entertaining and is growing because it has better/smarter feed algorithms and content creation tools, plan and simple.

Meta was an early innovator in this area but has stagnated due to revenue pressures leading to the over-promotion of low quality content. Netflix has failed to adapt.

chaostheory
1 replies
4h0m

Yeah, my first comment already mentioned that it’s a trade war. It’s fair since our social media companies have been unable to operate in China’s domestic market for decades. It’s still banned. It’s that simple.

Also Tiktok is directly owned by the CCP. It’s barely a private company, so national security concerns are justified.

resters
0 replies
2h52m

Economists have debunked the idea that retaliatory trade restrictions are beneficial. Not sure where you are getting your information.

As you may recall from the Snowden revelations, the US government has high bandwidth data intercept stations installed at major datacenters that are expressly for the purpose of ingesting massive amounts of data. There is no need for "ownership" when this level of cooperation with government exists.

mjfl
1 replies
19h24m

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

hmmm....

resters
0 replies
18h21m

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

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

anon373839
1 replies
19h23m

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

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

resters
0 replies
18h24m

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

codelord
7 replies
13h48m

If you are on TikTok and you don't think CCP has all your personal data TikTok has collected from you, I have a bridge to sell you.

root_axis
4 replies
13h47m

Why is that a problem?

wordsinaline
3 replies
13h40m

Well speaking for myself I'd generally like to keep my data away from nefarious communist regimes.

waihtis
2 replies
13h35m

here to express my support for you before the neocommunists come piling in on you

wordsinaline
1 replies
13h7m

Are there seriously neo-communists on YC? I can understand reddit, but here?

waihtis
0 replies
12h14m

Yes. It's paradoxical, but apparent if you engage in any kind of political discourse over here.

Nerds have always had some of the worst political stances, not because they're dumb but because they bend in face of the slightest pressure of losing social capital - in the current climate, this usually means submitting to the most psychotic leftist interpretation that is physically proximate to them.

Explains the politics of places like SF quite well.

nimih
0 replies
13h28m

I think this is a pretty commonly held belief at this point in time, and I'd be somewhat surprised if you could change even a single American TikTok user's behavior by convincing them of it, since, anecdotally, people seem to lump it in with their general feeling that tech and advertising companies already harvest and share vast amounts of personal information, and conclude that protecting that information is a lost cause, and they may as well use the fun app.

b-side
0 replies
11h53m

Unlike Facebook which would never collect any data?

andy99
7 replies
18h19m

I'm very late to this - how do you ban something on the internet? Can't they just keep operating and people will learn how to sideload the app or use a VPN to get it or whatever they need to do? Presumably it will mean some friction but couldn't the company just call the bluff?

system2
1 replies
17h40m

Who do you think controls VPN? Do you still trust VPNs?

troq13
0 replies
6h2m

Unclear what your conspiracy is, it is a fact you can get around a government ban with a VPN. It just doesn't solve the problem at hand.

troq13
0 replies
6h4m

Creators can't get paid, advertisers can't advertise, the whole ecosystem dies. Sure you can still access the app with a VPN but that's just 4chan with extra steps.

tijtij
0 replies
18h13m

How does China ban Facebook?

Rhetoric aside, it will be done through blocking commercial activity on US soil. The US government can seize tiktok.com for example.

djur
0 replies
14h18m

The value proposition for TikTok for the vast majority of existing users is that it provides a zero-friction source of Content. Maybe 5% of them have even heard the term "sideload" and most of those wouldn't bother. A VPN will not matter because TikTok is not being blocked at the network level.

crindy
0 replies
18h17m

I believe this will legally mandate that Google and Apple remove the app from their app stores. It will still be available online.

callalex
0 replies
18h5m

There’s a lot of nuance to the answer, but the easy way to understand is:

They don’t host videos for fun, they host videos so you will watch ads. If they can’t sell ads for US$ then they won’t host videos either.

hnpolicestate
6 replies
19h2m

This is the 3rd time I'm trying to share a perspective that keeps getting flagged.

Bytedance does not have to divest because it's against the law for the U.S government to prevent Americans from reading, viewing or saying what they want. Will be struck down by SCOTUS.

Does this comply with HN's site guidelines?

lr4444lr
2 replies
18h57m

I think you're getting downvoted, because the right of congress to manage affairs interstate and foreign commerce has nothing to do with the content Americans read. The objection is ownership/controlling interest, and any SCOTUS ruling will have to speak to that, not first amendment issues.

hnpolicestate
1 replies
18h44m

I appreciate the feedback but I disagree. The law would prevent Google and Apple from hosting the TikTok APK on their app stores if the company refuses to divest, yes? I don't think it's legal for the government to tell Google or Apple what apps they can host.

asadotzler
0 replies
13h37m

It is absolutely legal. You are simply under-educated in this area. Read up and try again.

cheriot
0 replies
18h56m

TikTok isn't going away. It's changing owners.

There's existing laws about the citizenship of property owners (broadcase media for example).

anon373839
0 replies
18h55m

I don’t know why you’re being flagged, but your constitutional analysis is wrong.

JoshuaJB
0 replies
18h53m

This law does not prevent Americans from reading, viewing, or saying anything. You will still be free to visit TikTok's web client and do that. This prevents US companies from doing business with the company (eg. ads, app distribution, etc).

ein0p
6 replies
20h40m

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

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

warbaker
1 replies
20h35m

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

ein0p
0 replies
20h11m

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

insane_dreamer
1 replies
20h34m

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

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

So there's not much that can backfire.

ein0p
0 replies
20h10m

> So there's not much that can backfire

Why does this sound like “famous last words”?

lowbloodsugar
0 replies
20h38m

They already do that.

beambot
0 replies
20h36m

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

squigz
5 replies
8h38m

Can someone convince me that, as a Canadian, China poses a greater threat to me, my country, or global security, than the US does? Because I have a hard time buying into the "China's the big bad" narrative when America does everything they do.

mapasj
1 replies
7h44m

For starters, I don’t think America will hold Canadians hostage to be used as bargaining chips, like China did with the two Michaels.

ranguna
0 replies
7h20m

I wish that I had more exact knowledge and sources at hand to counter your example, but I don't. Not because they don't exist, but because at the moment the only source I can get with relative ease are these YouTube videos:

https://youtu.be/R5au74auD_k

https://youtu.be/jUGILxwkpVc

And the channel itself is pretty great.

So I do apologise for not getting a list of factual examples supporting the OP's statement, but your argument was not barely enough to make me disagree with the OP. On the contrary, I do agree with the OP very much.

RomanAlexander
1 replies
4h28m

Do you actually need reasons why a liberal society wouldn't want the largest source Americans receive news from to be run by a wildly illiberal society?

squigz
0 replies
2h54m

I don't think that's what I asked about at all.

ThalesX
0 replies
29m

With you on this one. As a European, I can't help but laugh at the comments in this thread. Words like 'obviously', 'clearly' when it comes to the dangers of TikTok and not a single piece of evidence. It's hilarious to see the psyopped scream psyops.

jeswin
5 replies
13h19m

The US should have the courage to do more. Order a full investigation into whether personal data was ever made available to the CCP. If data was ever shared, then there should be no payout to ByteDance.

mapasj
1 replies
12h59m

This is a tech-savvy bunch in HN. I’d like to encourage my fellow hackernews users to counter this narrative that imo is being pushed by TikTok and the CCP, which is this one about data privacy. It’s a comfortable one for TikTok to attack since they can point to abuses by other tech giants. Every breath spoken or word written about personal data feeds into the CCP strategy. Instead we should be educating our peers, friends and families about the real danger from TikTok which is that it can spread propaganda. Not just influencing Americans to support pro-CCP positions. But there is a lot of negative press about the CCP that TikTok can hide or suppress. This isn’t hypothetical, it’s been happening already. I have faith young TikTok users can understand this. Congress understands this and they did the right thing (for Americans).

labrador
0 replies
12h56m

More simply put: The issue is propaganda, not privacy

silenced_trope
0 replies
12h54m

They have to divest in 9 months, in other words, Biden is potentially kicking the decision to Trump, who is now against a TikTok ban.

Why such a long timeline? It leaves open the door for Trump getting into office and immediately rolling it back such that they don't have to.

otabdeveloper4
0 replies
13h12m

Does the US have a legal definition of what exactly constitutes "personal data"?

gigatexal
0 replies
12h51m

This whole thing is so very simple.

There is a brewing (cold for now) conflict with China and the US and it just makes 1000% sense to me that TikTok not be in the US. It poses to severe a potential national security threat from it being on phones of members of the military, or Congress, to being able to subtly influence elections or shape the minds of the next generation with tweaks to the algorithm.

The algorithm for tailoring content to the user is just so very good the POTENTIAL is there for abuse that an outright ban needs to happen. (I know they’re trying to allow it to be spun but I’m more hardline here and think it just needs to be removed from the US.)

Why would the US or any power allow a social network with such a powerful algorithm to learn so much about every user when US or other social networks can’t or don’t operate in China? China censors content a la the thought police of Orwell’s 1984. Yet democracies largely allow speech to be free and accessible which is why the most popular podcast host in the world often hosts crazy people like Alex Jones and that’s okay — it’s not illegal to have insane opinions or conversations.

So China is exporting a social network that COULD be used to control, shape, etc — otherwise emit propaganda on US users, it could spy on those same users be it location data or otherwise (imagine the dirt it probably has on members of Congress) and yet US social networks don’t get to operate in China to the same extent.

The US government is under no obligation to this US voter, at least, to share some bombshell investigation because the potential is there and it shouldn’t be.

This is not different than removing ZTE and Huwawei hardware and software from sensitive US networks and such. In the event of a conflict do we really want companies who have members of the CCP in their upper mgmt or who are otherwise expected to do as told to be in sensitive areas like military or power generation or telecommunications? Of course not.

ddp26
5 replies
20h34m

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

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

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

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

  - Walmart and Oracle won’t compete to buy it this time. Microsoft or Amazon are the top contenders, also quite likely is a consortium led by someone like Steven Mnuchin.
Rationales for the above in https://github.com/varunaai/tiktok-ban

josu
2 replies
20h15m

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

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

djur
0 replies
14h24m

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

ddp26
0 replies
18h27m

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

roncesvalles
0 replies
17h46m

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

nashashmi
0 replies
20h13m

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

tamimio
4 replies
18h59m

All of this just to limit the spread of Palestinians contents in the young generation, since the ADL has a strong “influence” on all other big social media except TikTok (there’s even videos of ADL’s CEO complaining about tiktok Palestinians contents and young generation not supporting Israel), AIPAC came to the rescue and asked its puppets in both red/blue parties to pass the bill, while they also make some cash out of it as reported that some politicians bought $META stocks before voting the bill. That’s the root reason, any other reason mentioned is just a diversion. The illusion of freedom and democracy in the US.

phailhaus
2 replies
18h50m

India banned TikTok in 2020, so this conversation has been going on way before the current conflict in Gaza. Not everything is a conspiracy related to the issues you care about.

tamimio
1 replies
18h34m

What I listed above are facts, not a conspiracy, you are welcome to look them up.

India banned TikTok

I don’t know much about India and I’m talking about the US, but I know India has a law to control the contents of social media and requires these companies to hire local employees that will be held as “hostages” if the content in question is not removed, something Elon mentioned few times too about twitter in India.

before the current conflict in Gaza.

The war on Gaza has been going for more than 16years and the Palestinians issue for more than 70years. You can read more about the issue here (1) Additionally, when the senators invited TikTok CEO last year, several senators (and I remember Ted Cruz specifically) mentioned the anti-israel contents back then, which you can also look it up, it’s just you don’t pay attention or lack the ability to connect the dots.

(1) https://ifamericansknew.org

phailhaus
0 replies
3h27m

They are not facts. Can you show that these organizations are actively influencing the short-video algorithms that power tools like Facebook/Instagram Reels, or Youtube's shorts? Because yes, that is absolutely a conspiracy theory on the same level as "Jews are controlling everything!" Your whole premise is that these Jewish organizations have been secretly lobbying for a ban for years because TikTok (specifically?) might at some point have reels that support Gaza. But that makes no sense given:

* They have no control over US-based companies with identical short-form video products, so banning TikTok doesn't actually affect Gaza coverage.

* Gaza is being covered breathlessly as a humanitarian disaster across all major media outlets. If they're trying to suppress coverage, they're doing a terrible job. So what's the point of going after TikTok?

* Other, unrelated countries have also enacted a TikTok ban because of distrust of China. This is the common thread.

You personally think the current conflict in Gaza is the center of the world, so you're "connecting dots" no matter how far apart they are. Everything must be related to it somehow. But the US ban on TikTok is rooted in distrust of China that has been building for decades, and is much, much larger than Gaza.

mjfl
0 replies
18h57m

You are correct.

markus_zhang
4 replies
20h10m

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

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

BLKNSLVR
2 replies
19h10m

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

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

markus_zhang
1 replies
18h14m

Yeah I know that, just saying.

BLKNSLVR
0 replies
17h8m

Sad innit.

spiderice
0 replies
15h4m

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

LeroyRaz
4 replies
16h36m

I support this move. It seems pretty naive to me for people to whine about this ban curbing free speech or fairness when TikTok can directly be used by a belligerent superpower (China) to undermine those values.

bl4ckneon
3 replies
16h30m

Do we have proof of that though. Other than "China bad" and the parent company being partially owned by China. It's really banning it on a hypothetical and TikTok doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are many other platforms and I would argue that X does more censorship than TikTok does.

LeroyRaz
2 replies
16h15m

Yeah, I think there is lots evidence that social media companies use their platform to support favourable narratives. X is one example.

X spinning a pro X narrative is problematic, just as it is bad Facebook hid their problem with teenage mental health, etc... all these types of things are problematic and can often harm people and society.

The reason TikTok is a greater concern is that TikTok is fully controlled by China, and that hence it is not just pro TikTok narratives that might be amplified but any narrative China wants to amplify. The risks are greater, and the existing mitigations are weaker as the company isn't US owned.

If you ask me, the US in recent history has had incredibly anemic corporate regulation, and there should be a lot more intervention to prevent companies acting nefariously.

janalsncm
1 replies
15h33m

Just to be clear, your position is that it could be used by China, not that it is being used? I agree with this position.

asadotzler
0 replies
13h44m

And that's sufficiently concerning to nip this in the bud now. It is either happening or could be made to happen with ease and neither of those are good outcomes.

FpUser
3 replies
19h55m

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

charonn0
2 replies
18h49m

The law applies to websites too.

FpUser
1 replies
16h42m

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

charonn0
0 replies
15h25m

The law in the OP specifically includes websites, DNS, hosting, etc.

And this isn't some greyweb torrent site with a thousand heads. Without access to US advertisers there's no reason why Tiktok should even want to have US users.

EasyMark
3 replies
20h53m

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

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
20h50m

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

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

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

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

ZoomerCretin
1 replies
18h37m

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

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
10h31m

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

No. Whomever is elected executive.

0xB31B1B
3 replies
17h52m

If the security angle is the real issue here, how would "divestment" improve security here at all? Tiktok engineering in the US is like 90% chinese H1B holders, they speak mandarin at work broadly across the company including in work meetings to the extent that many people say you can't work there without mandarin knowledge. The codebase is massive. I don't think it is possible for any amount of auditing or reviewing to create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance. Bad actors and CCP plants can and will put in backdoors, and bytedance will have access to all of the encryption keys for the important services and databases. It just seems completely unworkable to me. I'm support the full ban, I don't think divestment makes any sense.

nine_k
0 replies
14h5m

I think this is the point, and the outcome desired by the bill's proponents. There's no way to meaningfully achieve separation, so the only viable way to comply is to largely cease active operations. Maybe access to previously shared / liked content would remain, without a way to discover, access, or post new content, or register a new account.

mu53
0 replies
17h18m

They won't divest. The option for divestment just makes the US look less bad. They didn't ban the app. They chose to leave

ClumsyPilot
0 replies
17h31m

create sufficient separation between US/tiktok and China/Bytedance

What are the code standards for American social media anyway? It’s not like Twitter has to meet any criteria on being free of Bias, they could suppress all bad news about China tomorrow and they wouldn’t be breaking any laws

I think it’s plain as day, this is simply a trade war, along with noises about China dumping cars and what not. All the stuff about security is just a cover story.

whyenot
2 replies
20h10m

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

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

ZoomerCretin
0 replies
18h29m

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

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

BriggyDwiggs42
0 replies
19h6m

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

troll_v_bridge
2 replies
18h20m

I’m surprised I don’t hear many speak on the trade embargo aspects of something like TikTok. US social media is blocked from China, so from an economic policy perspective why wouldn’t the trade embargo me mutual, Tit4Tat.

dareal
0 replies
14h52m

this is not an economic nor trade issue though

moneycantbuy
2 replies
20h50m

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

gverrilla
1 replies
18h50m

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

moneycantbuy
0 replies
16h41m

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

mjfl
2 replies
18h58m

The problem with the logic, that a geopolitical adversary shouldn't control a social media company, is that our domestic political system has, as of late, acted quite adversarial to its own population. For that reason, it's not clear to me if China is really a foreign enemy, or an enemy of an enemy. For now, I and many of the younger generation clearly consider it to be the latter, and I will resist all efforts of the current regime to suppress it, until all members of the current regime are swept from power.

asadotzler
1 replies
13h30m

You can vote out your own representatives, you cannot do the same for China. If this isn't an obvious distinction to you, maybe consider why.

mjfl
0 replies
12h3m

not if both candidates are captured.

BriggyDwiggs42
2 replies
19h7m

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

djur
0 replies
14h10m

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

Argonaut998
0 replies
12h31m

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

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

webworker
1 replies
12h55m

There is some weird inversion going on here.

First, I can't find a reason why anyone would laud banning this app. It seems like it's done A LOT for the creator economy, more than Snapchat or Instagram did for anyone before TikTok took off.

Second, I'm surprised at the amount of China-hate I'm seeing in here, and elsewhere, over this app. So far, they don't appear to have actually committed any crimes, it's a lot of posturing about what they could do. Meanwhile, things that were actually a threat (the "weather balloons" over DoD installations) were hand-waved away by TPTB and allowed to traverse pretty much the whole country before any action was taken.

Huh??

Argonaut998
0 replies
12h20m

Go into any thread in the past surrounding this TikTok ban and the comments are the exact opposite.

up2isomorphism
1 replies
12h32m

US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP. This shows how incompetent and how bad current US leadership is in term of understanding what makes US to a the most powerful country in the first place.

chipdart
0 replies
12h29m

US can easily use the free trade as the ground to ban TikTok, instead it uses an subpar excuses that often used by CCP.

I think this is the absolute best way to address this. It forces people to realize and acknowledge that even China's CCP is well aware that companies like TikTok are a major security threat which justifies this type of action.

I wonder why we have anonymous accounts spreading this nonsense that this is a mere trade issue, as if the problem is a company that generates well below $5B in revenue, and not the data harvesting operation and propaganda arm that it is designed to be.

nme01
1 replies
10h30m

Totally for it. Now it’s time for EU to ban TikTok but also Instagram, Facebook and other socials for the very same reasons US bans TikTok

angio
0 replies
9h35m

I love how the EU introducing privacy laws and fining american companies when they break said laws is bad and the EU is overstepping their boundaries, but the US forcing the sale of a foreign company is totally cool.

freeopinion
1 replies
18h29m

This, to me, is one of those defining actions that will stand forever as a sign post for what America is at the moment of the event. As such, it is incredibly discouraging to me.

I don't write this in defense of TikTok or China. I'm just sad for the United States.

I imagine a scene where a wagon train of poor pilgrims is surrounded on all sides and all the poor children are crouching behind anything they can find. As the camera angle widens out you see a U.S. Cavalry officer order a rescue team to single out attackers and pull them out of their perches. They go around inspecting attackers one at a time, checking their footwear. Anybody in mocassins is pulled off the line and sent packing. Anybody wearing boots is left in place and encouraged to keep shooting. Especially if they are wearing a cavalry uniform. Just before the scene ends you see somebody in mocassins run back to their horse and pull out a pair of boots, hurrying to get back into the action.

krapp
0 replies
18h19m

Outdated racist stereotypes aside, how are we meant to interpret the scene you're setting?

electriclizard
1 replies
20h41m

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

zeroonetwothree
0 replies
19h16m

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

dareal
1 replies
14h48m

It's so ironic that in the future, some Americans may use a VPN to log onto TikTok to practice their right to freedom of expression, while all the local social medias will ban them, lol.

djur
0 replies
14h41m

The law doesn't require or permit blocking access to Chinese servers, and virtually no current TikTok users are going to use VPNs to access it.

JimmaDaRustla
1 replies
16h2m

Biden better cancel some debt forgiveness in order to pay for the lawsuit

esalman
0 replies
16h0m

That's not how it works.

zhengiszen
0 replies
34m

Tiktok is banned indirectly because of the Gaza war and and its coverage by American youth. It is too free and is one of the last medium that show the reality on the ground and thus must be shut, banned to smithereens. Next step like Israelis have done is to shut Al Jazeera from the US. The same had been done in Europe against Russian media...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then ..."

tptacek
0 replies
17h42m

There's nothing really new about this, right? The same thing happened in the last administration with Grindr, so famously that it was a plot point on Silicon Valley.

tonfreed
0 replies
18h38m

I don't see why the West should allow government corporations from China to operate within their borders. It's not like there's reciprocal agreements in place that allow the inverse.

throwaway69123
0 replies
19h59m

China should retaliate and ban all US ownership of chinese companies

rvz
0 replies
19h26m

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

Congratulations, you've played yourselves back to back.

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

rafaelero
0 replies
6h26m

What a pathetic move. Feel bad for the state of the US.

pkphilip
0 replies
3h8m

This whole subject of blocking Tiktok raises the question as to why companies such as Bytedance aren't punished as malicious actors when the data being captured by them is clearly meant for malicious use.

We really should have a way of judging if any data being captured by an app is in good faith or if it is being done in a clearly fraudulent or malicious manner and then punish or shutdown the malicious operators. Tiktok has been proven to be manipulative and also as an arm of the CCP.

However, what about other apps which seem to capture data that makes no sense to them?

For example, if your note taking app is secretly uploading data from your contact list - that should be clearly seen as malicious in comparison to say your e-commerce app storing details about your purchase history made on that app to determine what may be going on with you.

Even the second part is a bit shady but at least you can make a case that it may be just a way to sell more things.

But many apps capture data that cannot make any business sense to the company behind that app other than being something quite malicious - like for example:

- Uber secretly recording your screen on iphone EVEN WHILE the app was NOT EVEN BEING USED using API which Apple conveniently did not disclose to anyone else other than Uber and perhaps other shady operators!

- Chrome caught secretly sending audio transcripts back to the Google servers. Why would a browser need to send audio transcripts by secretly tapping into the microphone?

- Nest using microphones which were only revealed much later. Why would a smoke alarm need audio?

- Why do apps like Whatsapp - even in the web version, secretly take the data from the clipboard (copy buffer)? Why would an app need the data in the clipboard before it is even pasted into it?

Any company capturing or using such data should be required to provide evidence that this data was captured for a legitimate reason - and be punished if they are not able to provide this data with the principals of the company being treated like organized crime operators. Anything else is just pointless.

ojbyrne
0 replies
16h22m

One thing that confuses me about all this is that ByteDance has significant US ownership. Is this just a way for Jeff Yass-led hedge funds to get a cheap price on the rest of ByteDance?

ngcc_hk
0 replies
17h11m

Should be an eye for an eye. If china allow WhatsApp and Facebook etc in then USA can have WeChat …. If not all should not be allowed. Not just TikTok.

newcommer
0 replies
13h46m

I suggest US and China to be merged in to One Great Country in the planet.And as a result, US will be great again, so as China.

morpheuskafka
0 replies
10h0m

If I understood the law correctly, it bans providing US-based hosting or distribution services to TikTok, but doesn’t require ISPs to ban traffic to it (which is not always straightforward to do anyway).

Could TikTok just revert to fully Chinese hosting (or more likely a third country) and operate as a totally foreign company? You can already access many Chinese sites like Baidu Maps or Zhihu or Xiaohongshu from the US.

hankchinaski
0 replies
19h8m

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

fossuser
0 replies
16h57m

Good - the ccp influence over what content is elevated or censored on TikTok is a serious national security problem, forcing a divesture is good independent of the inequality on trade with the ccp blocking American companies.

If they refuse to divest it’ll be even more obvious it’s the ccp tool we suspect it is.

Also the TikTok ceo lied about this under oath in Congress: https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-calls-for-doj-investigati...

Stratechery also had a good write up on this issue from a while back: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/

Nice to see some bipartisan support on something.

doakes
0 replies
17h30m

Misinformation is a security risk that comes both from deliberate sabotage as well as monetary incentives. If it bleeds, it leads. I'm not in favor of censorship like this or social medias tagging things as "fake news" but how else do we prevent people from believing everything they see on these platforms?

dluan
0 replies
17h53m

ultimately, china operates on an entirely separate internet that the NSA can't get access to without having to be explicit about it in some very public way. when reddit removed their warrant canary, it was seen as just a cost of doing business an american social media platform. the US can't do full take even with a company based in singapore. the mask comes off when all the senate testimony yesterday focused on 'national security' and it comes wrapped in defense spending for ukraine and taiwan.

devhead
0 replies
20h39m

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

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

dareal
0 replies
15h4m

It's absurd that people are rationalizing this by saying "oh, China doesn't allow US companies to enter their market either," which has been this case in the past 50 years, or "backdoor used by CCP bad bad" without any evidence other than the company being Chinese. It shows how easy people will buy into whatever you feed them when everyone else is saying the same thing.

China is never a country with free market. The hypocrisy is glaring when one claiming as a free market while passing a law that outright rob a company in the day light, under the name of "national security". American people should be embarrassed by this. The government is using to the same tactics as a so-called authoritarian communist country, if not worse.

anon291
0 replies
16h48m

I'm so happy Biden has continued to basically keep Trumpian policy on China. Say what you like about Trump, but his election actually changed American policy for the better in this regard.

andy_ppp
0 replies
10h28m

Look if Facebook and Google aren’t allowed in China why the hell should we allow Chinese tech firms in the US or Europe for that matter?

Tiktaalik
0 replies
19h46m

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

IronWolve
0 replies
13h58m

Cars spy on more americans than tiktok.

GreedIsGood
0 replies
20h36m

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

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

Not a fan.

Deprogrammer9
0 replies
13h18m

Oh im sure come election time this wont come back to bite them at all lol.