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> it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. It’s weird t

• chaostheory 6y ago
  Why give China access to our domestic market when they refuse to give us access theirs? What do you propose then?
  • kjksf 6y ago
    The issue here is that it's a president arbitrarily destroying a company. If the Congress (the actual body meant to crate laws) decides to create a reasoned, comprehensive law to level the playing field with Chinese companies, then they should do it. What shouldn't happen is this kind of impulsive decision making that arguably abuses the emergency powers of the presidency to block an app that allows people to film themselves and post those recordings. If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is.
    • pupdogg 6y ago
      I disagree. The definition of "arbitrarily" states: "on the basis of random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". I think the President's decision is based on reason and is not a random choice or a personal whim as much as it might seem to some. Now, why is that? Well, it became public yesterday that Microsoft was in talks with TikTok to acquire them. Though every business decision by big players like Microsoft may seem like a calculated risk, no one can predict the future. In this scenario, that risk is clearly foreign state infiltration. Keep in mind, we're in 2020 and morse code is no longer a thing. Due to the uncertain nature of what this deal might bright about, the President reasoned that it was appropriate from him to take this executive action to protect national security interests. I do believe that if Microsoft can sell the government on mitigating or completely removing any risk exposure that this deal might bring, that the ban will be lifted. Again, this is just my opinion.
      • miracle2k 6y ago
        The meaning of "arbitrary" here is that the decision is based on the whims of the White House, rather than on well-established rules that apply to everyone - regardless of how well-reasoned the authors of such a ban might think themselves.
      • atomi 6y ago
        I think the above poster probably means to say "unilaterally."
      • whoevercares 6y ago
        From a native Chinese’s perspective, this is scary: what’s the next thing he will ban? - Wechat: this make a virtual “family separation” - A purge of any app related to China (TuSimple, Zoom etc) - Suspend F1 and H1B visa for “suspected” Chinese and make special scrutiny during immigration interviews for all Chinese applicants - witch hunt more Let me tell you what’s this: Chinese Exclusion Act II
        • diebeforei485 6y ago
          What's wrong with banning WeChat? China bans WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and a whole other bunch of apps. Zoom should be scrutinized very heavily and potentially banned as well. Keep in mind China bans Skype.
          • whoevercares 6y ago
            Zoom’s founder is of Chinese origin but it entirely US based from the beginning.
            • diebeforei485 6y ago
              No, their engineers are mostly in China. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead-of-ipo-engineers-in-china.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead...
        • 6y ago
    • ethanbond 6y ago
      > If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is. How so? Not every app is 1. Owned and controlled by an adversarial state, 2. In the hands of every American youth, and 3. Providing opaquely generated/sorted content. So explain how every app is an equivalent security threat.
      • miracle2k 6y ago
        The US used to claim a higher moral when others blocked, filtered, or enacted bans by executive fiat. It did so with some justification. Banning an app because you are worried about external cultural influence on your youth ends any such claim.
        • ethanbond 6y ago
          This is irrelevant to the question I asked.
      • Slartie 6y ago
        Please explain why TikTok is "owned and controlled" by the Chinese government. TikTok is just as much "owned and controlled" by an adversarial state as any app by US corporations is "owned and controlled" by the US government due to national security letters and the CLOUD Act.
        • ethanbond 6y ago
          No, it’s really not. Note that there is currently a very public tiff between American media and the American state. This would be impossible in China. That is the difference, regardless of whether you can pull pieces of law from either side that would indicate the contrary. State power is a complex thing that is not entirely encoded in legal code. Some reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-media-policy-xi-jinping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-media-po... https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-china-cracked-down-on-the-social-media-giant-bytedance https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-china-crack... “Jan 25 - Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Friday stressed efforts to boost integrated media development and amplify mainstream tone in public communication so as to consolidate the common theoretical foundation for all Party members and all the people to unite and work hard.” http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/25/c_137774923.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/25/c_137774923.htm
  • Barrin92 6y ago
    because not giving someone access to your market is stupid, in particular if you're not a developing country because there's nothing to be gained from protectionism, other than enabling the increasingly authoritarian tnedencies of the American government against its own citizens. Why does something need to be proposed at all, is the US threatened by zoomers doing funny dances on a smartphone app?
    • ethanbond 6y ago
      No, they’re threatened by two things: 1. Equipping the CCP with a sensor placed in the pockets of millions of American citizens. This is already a problem when American companies are doing it for ad targeting purposes. But to do the same and funnel the data to an increasingly militaristic near-peer adversary? It in fact makes it qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different. 2. Tiktok opaquely selects which content it shows users. Again, American social media companies do this to a lesser degree (non-chronological feeds), but they don’t tweak their algorithms at the direction of the government to opaquely modify the information environment a citizen exists in. Note that there is currently very public tension between the US establishment and these companies because yes, authoritarians love this capability and no, they don’t yet have it in the US. Tiktok has no ability to refuse CCP’s requests to, e.g. erase any references to their concentration camps or to amplify claims that Bill Gates is trying to inject microchips via the COVID vaccine. Whether a US executive should be able to single handedly make such a decree, I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to me but I ought to think about it more. What is 100% obvious to anyone looking at TikTok and the CCP with clear eyes is that it is a huge threat.
      • Barrin92 6y ago
        There is no evidence at all that China puts the thumbs on the scale when it comes to content being served in the US, TikTok has kept US data out of China, and now is actually willing to open source key parts of its code base to auditors, which is a ridiculous double standard anyway given the disinformation campaigns on domestic platforms who are under no such obligations. That aside, the US is a free country. Everyone can spread propaganda. I was under the impression that American citizens of voting age are able to discern information themselves and distinguish between hoax and reality. Since when is it the task of the US government to police media companies?
  • nfc_ 6y ago
    China gives Apple access to their market but the US bans AT&T from partnering with Huawei to sell consumer phones.
    • chaostheory 6y ago
      Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been banned from operating in China. If you look at the big picture, Western companies have much less access to the Chinese domestic market than vice versa
  • eru 6y ago
    Why restrict what American customers can do just because China restricts what Chinese customers can do? Do you also suppose that it would be a good idea for you to hit your head repeatedly against a wall, if I start doing so?
    • bayesian_horse 6y ago
      The bigger problem is that when American users use TikTok, the Chinese government gets a say in their social media exposure. Nobody should be using TikTok voluntarily, in my opinion. There should be a PR-effort led by governments, parties or NGOs to tell people why they shouldn't use TikTok.
      • eru 6y ago
        I don't know enough about TikTok to have an opinion on them in particular. But I do agree that it should be up to people to decide whether they want to use TikTok. An information campaign like you suggest might be justified. Though given how politicized everything seems to be, I suspect it might backfire. Btw, would you like to make it illegal for people to send their personal information directly via email to the CCP?
        • bayesian_horse 6y ago
          It's not unusual for some kind of transaction to be forbidden by only penalizing or hindering one side. TikTok users don't consent to the CCP directing their user experience. In fact, TikTok will do its best to avoid letting on to anything like that. And US jurisdiction doesn't cover this company at all. That is one of the rare situations where you really want a government to step in and tell people what not to do. Just like you would still ban a dangerous product, even though users could know the danger if they really wanted to. Banning TikTok isn't really about personal information or even surveillance of any kind. Social media can be abused in many different ways, and much more actively.
    • CydeWeys 6y ago
      > Do you also suppose that it would be a good idea for you to hit your head repeatedly against a wall, if I start doing so? This is a bad analogy and proves nothing. There's no connection between two people banging their head against the wall. However, there is a connection between one actor performing a bad action and then facing punitive action from another actor because of it. It makes them less likely to perform similar actions in the future, and could cause them to reverse the previous bad actions that are still in effect. Whereas if you're banging your head against the wall, me doing the same does nothing to stop you. Hence why it's a meaningless analogy.
• chii 6y ago
  There's nothing weird about "an eye for an eye" approach. The fact that chinese media and tech companies are allowed to operate unhindered in the USA is what's really weird. Unfortunately, banning it in the USA is a bit of a pointless act imho.
  • eru 6y ago
    If you want to use those metaphors, it's the Chinese who are poking out their own eyes, ie who are restricting what their customers can have access to. That's a great injustice to the Chinese people. But Americans poking their own eyes out in 'retaliation' makes neither Americans nor Chinese customers better off.
    • chii 6y ago
      > neither Americans nor Chinese customers better off. who said anything about making customers better off? it's done to hurt the other party's profit and expansion and influence.
      • eru 6y ago
        Well, ostensibly politics is done in the name of making citizens better off. Customers are citizens. Of course, if you get arbitrarily cynical, you are right. But then we'd need to have a very different discussion.
• bayesian_horse 6y ago
  This shouldn't be about market access but rather about the power media companies wield. The debates around Facebook, Twitter and so on regarding political speech and misinformation is bad enough, and those companies at least don't have malicious intents and are criticized mostly for their inaction. With a company operating under Chinese law this is a whole other can of worms.