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If Tiktok was European/Japanese/Korean/Canadian this would not happen, as those countries are free democracies and work with a similar/common rule of law 1. Ch

If Tiktok was European/Japanese/Korean/Canadian this would not happen, as those countries are free democracies and work with a similar/common rule of law 1. China doesn’t play with the same rules, and it has been proven to be a malicious player 2. They don’t allow western companies to operate freely in their country, why should we let them to? 3. The US and to a lesser degree Europe, are in a de-facto new Cold War, and informational warefare is big part of it You can view either on the reciprocity Point of view, or data-safety point Of view, the US would be foolish/dumb to allow TikTok to flourish in the US., while American companies just can’t in China. Now, if the US was banning an app from another western country, that would be a true scandal. In this case they are doing the right thinks

jackson1442 6y ago
If the government wants to restrict the ability of Chinese business to grow in the US, that's fine, but it should be under the existing framework of law that we follow. This should be passed through Congress and the SC as a law, not an executive order. We have Checks & Balances for a reason.
- ganfortran 6y ago
  I doubt that is the case. Look up how Japanese companies are treated in late 80s and 90s. When one felt under threat, all rules will be forgone.
  - puranjay 6y ago
    Free Market for me, not for thee
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      Is China a free market for non-Chinese companies?
      - s3r3nity 6y ago
        Don't know why this is getting downvoted - it's a legitimate (albeit rhetorical) question highlighting that China has never allowed western companies to compete fairly in their market. See: Google, Facebook, etc. etc.
        cscurmudgeon 6y ago
        Thank you. I have resorted to asking rhetorical questions as we are now at a stage where stating obvious true facts about certain topics is taboo. We are now witnessing the beginnings of the great social media struggle session. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-session-11552003346 https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-sess...
      - puranjay 6y ago
        Does China even pretend to be? What comes to your mind when you think of China - Adam Smith or Karl Marx?
      - jackson1442 6y ago
        Does it matter? This is a discussion about the law of the United States, and last I checked we do not follow Chinese law. I'll reiterate my point from above-- if the US government wants to ban Chinese services, that's fine. I support that decision. What I do not support is doing this via executive order as that is not how laws are passed. If the US were to ban Chinese companies, it should be a law passed through Congress, signed by the president, and approved by the USSC. It should have clear parameters as to what exactly is being banned. It should, again, not be an executive order banning TikTok explicitly as there is nothing inherently bad about being an app called TikTok. tldr if the US government wants to play the "fight fire with fire" card, they should be fighting the whole fire, not just the one that upset the president.
    - Zuider 6y ago
      I think game theory can offer some insight. A tit-for-tat approach has been shown to be an effective long-term strategy over multiple iterations of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Player A will be discouraged from acting adversarially if they have reason to believe that player B will respond in kind.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Executive orders aren't magic, there's some law they will reference as giving the president the power to issue such an order.
  - Slartie 6y ago
    Except for there being this joker called "national security" which magically allows practically anything to be ordered by the executive, because you can obviously reframe anything into a matter of national security, even short video clips of dancing teenagers.
    - threeseed 6y ago
      Let's be clear apps like TikTok are a threat to national security. Widely deployed apps that capture location data can and have been used to determine the location of military bases and assets.
      - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
        If an app is a national security threat, maybe people shouldn’t be carrying them around military bases :shrug:
        bezmenov 6y ago
        TikTok has been banned by the military since last year. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/30/army-follows-pentagon-guidance-bans-chinese-owned-tiktok-app.html/amp https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/30/army-follows-...
        TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Many of those bases will have baby + home security cameras which are far more obviously a security risk, because they (potentially) send WiFi passwords home. Trump's move is pure theatre. He has no clue about real security and he's throwing his weight around like an attention-seeking child, because that's what he does. This is an entirely orthogonal issue to something that's been missing in the West for decades - a coherent program of IT security and IoT and app standards which define exactly what products and apps can and can't do, and which enforces a testing and certification process to make sure products and services stay within the lines. And also... mandated protections for user data - something the EU is moving towards, but which the US still seems to be having issues with. Between IoT, IT infrastructure, poor corporate security, and unregulated data capture, there are much more serious security threats than the TikTok app.
- scarface74 6y ago
  What checks and balances? The Senate and the judiciary have been rubber stamping everything the President has done over the past four years.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- twat 6y ago
  I've never seen the words "wake up" used online in a way that doesn't make the commenter sound slightly deranged
kanox 6y ago
Rule of law is not conditional on reciprocity, societies strive to give due process even to literal murderers. The US should respect it's own laws and deal with chinese companies fairly. The actions of the chinese government should have no bearing on this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dwd 6y ago
Trump's wish to ban it has nothing to do with China and everything to do with his Tulsa rally. Gov agencies have already put internal bans in place to prevent it being used as for data gathering tool which is appropriate and legal. The users will find something else and move on, but this is a bad precedent for an open democracy.
ptx 6y ago
> 1. China doesn’t play with the same rules ... > 2. They don’t allow ..., why should we let them to? Because, as you said in your first point, we play by different rules. Do you want everyone to start playing by China's rules instead?
- dwd 6y ago
  This is a good point. American exceptionalism is based on the premise of taking the high road (free, open democracy, rule of law, basic freedoms, "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...", etc) and being a success because of that. To now play by China's rules basically says America has been doing it wrong the last 100 years.
bigpumpkin 6y ago
1. There's the First Amendment in the US 2. Tens of millions of Americans use Tiktok as a platform for speech. 3. Now Trump wants to prohibit the platform which enables the free exercise of political speech against him. What's more important, geopolitical considerations or the Constitution?
- endogui 6y ago
  The first amendment doesn't preclude the government liquidating a news business or publisher for unrelated reasons, such as fraud or tax violations. In this case Bytedance is basically being accused of (being accomplice to) espionage.
tzs 6y ago
If it is sold to Microsoft, is any of that still applicable?
throwaway5752 6y ago
Whatever is wrong with China, and there is plenty, the US and particularly the president's behavior is dictatorial here. Perhaps the administration could outline the new intel that has come to light in the last month that has made this such an urgent issue right now, as opposed to any other time in the past year. Otherwise, as a layman, I might think that the humiliating "million ticket reservation" prank of the president's Tulsa, OK rally that adolescents orchestrated on TikTok is what triggered it.
- dencodev 6y ago
  It's well within the rights of the president to negotiate these matters, and congress has increasingly over the decades encouraged it: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Has there been tariffs in the past levied against specific companies?
  - throwaway5752 6y ago
    I don't disagree with you. I think we've all found that a lot of the structure of US society and government have assumed non-malicious and non-criminal actors past a certain point. Frankly, I think the system assumes a capable enough public to elect competent and decent people, and should that ever fail there is nothing really worth saving, anyway.
tikwidd 6y ago
Easy to say that a country doesn't play by the rules when you make up the rules as you go along.
CPAhem 6y ago
Sadly this splitting of tech into China and the West is a huge trend, one which we are not going to stop. In the future tech will bifurcate into two camps and we'll have a new cold war.
- tibbydudeza 6y ago
  I am tired of the FAANG dominance of tech ... time for new products and companies.
zenexer 6y ago
You’re skirting around the argument. The parent’s argument is that no single politician should have this power. It isn’t an argument for or against the government stepping in here—it’s an argument against who’s doing it.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Genuine emergencies (IEEPA expressly addresses seems conflict with special provisions, and arguably mostly is made for that and conditions imminently threatening it) may need responses inside the legislative cycle, which is why IEEPA exists. Certainly, it's arguably been stretched beyond the basic intent in the past (but Congress hasn't reasserted itself in response), and even by the standards of past use this is somewhat ludicrous, but I think that the basic concept is one which makes the case that it's not the President having the power to exercise judgement in this area that is the problem but the judgement actually exercised.
8note 6y ago
I don't think it matters whether China is a democracy or not. The US has been a malicious player for the past few years -- Canada has similarly been labeled a threat to national security. What does matter is that China is starting to become strong enough to be a regional power, which is a threat to American dominance in East Asia
shalmanese 6y ago
Except Trump is blocking the move that would alleviate all of those concerns because it's politically inconvenient to admit that the owners of Tiktok don't really care about harvesting sensitive personal data to appease their political overlords in Beijing, they mainly care about the same thing every other tech CEO cares about which is harvesting sensitive personal data to build a fantastically profitable advertising platform.

jackson1442 6y ago

If the government wants to restrict the ability of Chinese business to grow in the US, that's fine, but it should be under the existing framework of law that we follow. This should be passed through Congress and the SC as a law, not an executive order. We have Checks & Balances for a reason.

ganfortran 6y ago
I doubt that is the case. Look up how Japanese companies are treated in late 80s and 90s. When one felt under threat, all rules will be forgone.
- puranjay 6y ago
  Free Market for me, not for thee
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    Is China a free market for non-Chinese companies?
    - s3r3nity 6y ago
      Don't know why this is getting downvoted - it's a legitimate (albeit rhetorical) question highlighting that China has never allowed western companies to compete fairly in their market. See: Google, Facebook, etc. etc.
      - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
        Thank you. I have resorted to asking rhetorical questions as we are now at a stage where stating obvious true facts about certain topics is taboo. We are now witnessing the beginnings of the great social media struggle session. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-session-11552003346 https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-sess...
    - puranjay 6y ago
      Does China even pretend to be? What comes to your mind when you think of China - Adam Smith or Karl Marx?
    - jackson1442 6y ago
      Does it matter? This is a discussion about the law of the United States, and last I checked we do not follow Chinese law. I'll reiterate my point from above-- if the US government wants to ban Chinese services, that's fine. I support that decision. What I do not support is doing this via executive order as that is not how laws are passed. If the US were to ban Chinese companies, it should be a law passed through Congress, signed by the president, and approved by the USSC. It should have clear parameters as to what exactly is being banned. It should, again, not be an executive order banning TikTok explicitly as there is nothing inherently bad about being an app called TikTok. tldr if the US government wants to play the "fight fire with fire" card, they should be fighting the whole fire, not just the one that upset the president.
  - Zuider 6y ago
    I think game theory can offer some insight. A tit-for-tat approach has been shown to be an effective long-term strategy over multiple iterations of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Player A will be discouraged from acting adversarially if they have reason to believe that player B will respond in kind.
marcinzm 6y ago
Executive orders aren't magic, there's some law they will reference as giving the president the power to issue such an order.
- Slartie 6y ago
  Except for there being this joker called "national security" which magically allows practically anything to be ordered by the executive, because you can obviously reframe anything into a matter of national security, even short video clips of dancing teenagers.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Let's be clear apps like TikTok are a threat to national security. Widely deployed apps that capture location data can and have been used to determine the location of military bases and assets.
    - alfiedotwtf 6y ago
      If an app is a national security threat, maybe people shouldn’t be carrying them around military bases :shrug:
      - bezmenov 6y ago
        TikTok has been banned by the military since last year. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/30/army-follows-pentagon-guidance-bans-chinese-owned-tiktok-app.html/amp https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/30/army-follows-...
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Many of those bases will have baby + home security cameras which are far more obviously a security risk, because they (potentially) send WiFi passwords home. Trump's move is pure theatre. He has no clue about real security and he's throwing his weight around like an attention-seeking child, because that's what he does. This is an entirely orthogonal issue to something that's been missing in the West for decades - a coherent program of IT security and IoT and app standards which define exactly what products and apps can and can't do, and which enforces a testing and certification process to make sure products and services stay within the lines. And also... mandated protections for user data - something the EU is moving towards, but which the US still seems to be having issues with. Between IoT, IT infrastructure, poor corporate security, and unregulated data capture, there are much more serious security threats than the TikTok app.
scarface74 6y ago
What checks and balances? The Senate and the judiciary have been rubber stamping everything the President has done over the past four years.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

twat 6y ago
I've never seen the words "wake up" used online in a way that doesn't make the commenter sound slightly deranged

kanox 6y ago

Rule of law is not conditional on reciprocity, societies strive to give due process even to literal murderers. The US should respect it's own laws and deal with chinese companies fairly. The actions of the chinese government should have no bearing on this.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dwd 6y ago

Trump's wish to ban it has nothing to do with China and everything to do with his Tulsa rally. Gov agencies have already put internal bans in place to prevent it being used as for data gathering tool which is appropriate and legal. The users will find something else and move on, but this is a bad precedent for an open democracy.

ptx 6y ago

> 1. China doesn’t play with the same rules ... > 2. They don’t allow ..., why should we let them to? Because, as you said in your first point, we play by different rules. Do you want everyone to start playing by China's rules instead?

dwd 6y ago
This is a good point. American exceptionalism is based on the premise of taking the high road (free, open democracy, rule of law, basic freedoms, "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...", etc) and being a success because of that. To now play by China's rules basically says America has been doing it wrong the last 100 years.

bigpumpkin 6y ago

1. There's the First Amendment in the US 2. Tens of millions of Americans use Tiktok as a platform for speech. 3. Now Trump wants to prohibit the platform which enables the free exercise of political speech against him. What's more important, geopolitical considerations or the Constitution?

endogui 6y ago
The first amendment doesn't preclude the government liquidating a news business or publisher for unrelated reasons, such as fraud or tax violations. In this case Bytedance is basically being accused of (being accomplice to) espionage.

tzs 6y ago

If it is sold to Microsoft, is any of that still applicable?

throwaway5752 6y ago

Whatever is wrong with China, and there is plenty, the US and particularly the president's behavior is dictatorial here. Perhaps the administration could outline the new intel that has come to light in the last month that has made this such an urgent issue right now, as opposed to any other time in the past year. Otherwise, as a layman, I might think that the humiliating "million ticket reservation" prank of the president's Tulsa, OK rally that adolescents orchestrated on TikTok is what triggered it.

dencodev 6y ago
It's well within the rights of the president to negotiate these matters, and congress has increasingly over the decades encouraged it: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Has there been tariffs in the past levied against specific companies?
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  I don't disagree with you. I think we've all found that a lot of the structure of US society and government have assumed non-malicious and non-criminal actors past a certain point. Frankly, I think the system assumes a capable enough public to elect competent and decent people, and should that ever fail there is nothing really worth saving, anyway.

tikwidd 6y ago

Easy to say that a country doesn't play by the rules when you make up the rules as you go along.

CPAhem 6y ago

Sadly this splitting of tech into China and the West is a huge trend, one which we are not going to stop. In the future tech will bifurcate into two camps and we'll have a new cold war.

tibbydudeza 6y ago
I am tired of the FAANG dominance of tech ... time for new products and companies.

zenexer 6y ago

You’re skirting around the argument. The parent’s argument is that no single politician should have this power. It isn’t an argument for or against the government stepping in here—it’s an argument against who’s doing it.

dragonwriter 6y ago
Genuine emergencies (IEEPA expressly addresses seems conflict with special provisions, and arguably mostly is made for that and conditions imminently threatening it) may need responses inside the legislative cycle, which is why IEEPA exists. Certainly, it's arguably been stretched beyond the basic intent in the past (but Congress hasn't reasserted itself in response), and even by the standards of past use this is somewhat ludicrous, but I think that the basic concept is one which makes the case that it's not the President having the power to exercise judgement in this area that is the problem but the judgement actually exercised.

8note 6y ago

I don't think it matters whether China is a democracy or not. The US has been a malicious player for the past few years -- Canada has similarly been labeled a threat to national security. What does matter is that China is starting to become strong enough to be a regional power, which is a threat to American dominance in East Asia

shalmanese 6y ago

Except Trump is blocking the move that would alleviate all of those concerns because it's politically inconvenient to admit that the owners of Tiktok don't really care about harvesting sensitive personal data to appease their political overlords in Beijing, they mainly care about the same thing every other tech CEO cares about which is harvesting sensitive personal data to build a fantastically profitable advertising platform.