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> The executive order is instead better understood as an attempt to bully companies into regulating speech according to the government’s tastes. Hmm. But what

> The executive order is instead better understood as an attempt to bully companies into regulating speech according to the government’s tastes. Hmm. But what if the Chinese use Tik Tok or other social media companies to spread anti-American or pro-Chinese dystopia propaganda? We've seen how susceptible people are to disinformation, so should we trust an opponent (let's not pretend China isn't since we already tried to work with them) with social media applications in the US or west at large? That's aside from, well, if you're going to ban and restrict US companies from spreading free speech then I just don't see why we should let China use our strength against us. Idk why people think that anybody (Americans included) will just always "choose Democracy" or w/e - we're clearly susceptible to mind infections and herd mentality toward really dumb ideas. China can use free speech in the US against us. We do need to protect against that. At a minimum we need to make Chinese companies store their data about Americans within the US and it needs to be routinely audited.

xvector 6y ago
Americans listen to propaganda every day. Do you really think FOX News has the best interests of Americans at heart? No, it’s just another one of the propaganda outlets millions of Americans use every day. In the end this order is just a reflection of Trump’s xenophobia and blatant disregard for justice. He never once attempted to engage TikTok in discussion, he dismissed everything the company said outright, and now he is forcing a sale of the company to the US.
- ericmay 6y ago
  Yea but even Fox News isn't anti-American. I certainly disagree with most that would come out, but they aren't against free markets, free speech, freedom of religion, etc. > In the end this order is just a reflection of Trump’s xenophobia and blatant disregard for justice. He never once attempted to engage TikTok in discussion, he dismissed everything the company said outright, and now he is forcing a sale of the company to the US. Let's not forget that the China issue has bipartisan support in the US. I also don't think there is any discussion that needs to happen with Bytedance or TikTok. What are we supposed to talk about? Did the Chinese have similar discussions with Google? We played nice and gave them the opportunity to join us in the world community and they decided to be adversarial. These are some of the consequences of that.
  - xvector 6y ago
    > Yea but even Fox News isn't anti-American. And yet they are still a propaganda platform, which is the point. Whether they are anti-American or not is debatable. At the most I would say they do not care for Americans, only their profits. Their downplay of COVID has undoubtedly contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans. > I also don't think there is any discussion that needs to happen with Bytedance or TikTok. What are we supposed to talk about? You do not believe in due process? TikTok has stated that no data is overturned and all data is stored in the US. At the very least a discussion around this would involve third party audits prior to a ban. Furthermore, a sane and reasonable leader would pass laws for TikTok to adhere to prior to a ban, but there was no discussion about what steps TikTok could actually take to assuage these fears. Just baseless accusations. > Did the Chinese have similar discussions with Google? Google and Facebook were free to operate in China so long as they adhered to the law. Both companies chose to pull out as they found the laws objectionable. Other companies - LinkedIn, GitHub - adhere to the law and are free to continue operating in China. Trump is not giving TikTok a law to adhere to. That is why this is different, unprecedented, and unjust.
jaybeeayyy 6y ago
>China can use free speech in the US against us. We do need to protect against that. It's a bit bizarre how frequently I read comments like this about the whole issue. This is a big part of China's reasoning for not allowing "western imperialist propaganda" in their country. I am curious about you and other people that have this opinion if you're all aware of that...? They believe their people are susceptible to western dystopic "democracy" propaganda and to protect them they regulate content. I just didn't think people thought the US needed to be protected from outside propaganda in the same way.
- ericmay 6y ago
  I think protect against it is different than banning it. Think about it like this, a protection would be having a source label that the content comes directly from the Chinese Communist Party. In that case you still have access to the content, but you know who it is coming from. I think it's also been clearly shown that disinformation campaigns (which can include ideological disinformation - capitalism bad, Chinese communism good) have a real effect. To your more broad point about China I think the issue that is at the heart of so many complaints is that the Chinese Communist Party doesn't engage in competition with free ideas. In a sense, they are saying, Western ideals can't compete here, but we will export ideas to the West and see how many we can win over. I'm willing to bet that (and this was the whole point of us opening up to China in the first place) if China didn't censor or block Western companies, then we wouldn't have this same issue. If the Chinese were exposed to "Western propaganda" and Americans were subsequently exposed to "Chinese Communist Party" propaganda due to free-flowing of ideas then what's there really to complain about? Most Americans would surely see this as a fair exchange. I think it boils down to this: "They get to do stuff to us, and we can't do stuff to them, so let's make it so they don't get to do stuff to us unless we can do stuff to them".

xvector 6y ago

Americans listen to propaganda every day. Do you really think FOX News has the best interests of Americans at heart? No, it’s just another one of the propaganda outlets millions of Americans use every day. In the end this order is just a reflection of Trump’s xenophobia and blatant disregard for justice. He never once attempted to engage TikTok in discussion, he dismissed everything the company said outright, and now he is forcing a sale of the company to the US.

ericmay 6y ago
Yea but even Fox News isn't anti-American. I certainly disagree with most that would come out, but they aren't against free markets, free speech, freedom of religion, etc. > In the end this order is just a reflection of Trump’s xenophobia and blatant disregard for justice. He never once attempted to engage TikTok in discussion, he dismissed everything the company said outright, and now he is forcing a sale of the company to the US. Let's not forget that the China issue has bipartisan support in the US. I also don't think there is any discussion that needs to happen with Bytedance or TikTok. What are we supposed to talk about? Did the Chinese have similar discussions with Google? We played nice and gave them the opportunity to join us in the world community and they decided to be adversarial. These are some of the consequences of that.
- xvector 6y ago
  > Yea but even Fox News isn't anti-American. And yet they are still a propaganda platform, which is the point. Whether they are anti-American or not is debatable. At the most I would say they do not care for Americans, only their profits. Their downplay of COVID has undoubtedly contributed to the deaths of thousands of Americans. > I also don't think there is any discussion that needs to happen with Bytedance or TikTok. What are we supposed to talk about? You do not believe in due process? TikTok has stated that no data is overturned and all data is stored in the US. At the very least a discussion around this would involve third party audits prior to a ban. Furthermore, a sane and reasonable leader would pass laws for TikTok to adhere to prior to a ban, but there was no discussion about what steps TikTok could actually take to assuage these fears. Just baseless accusations. > Did the Chinese have similar discussions with Google? Google and Facebook were free to operate in China so long as they adhered to the law. Both companies chose to pull out as they found the laws objectionable. Other companies - LinkedIn, GitHub - adhere to the law and are free to continue operating in China. Trump is not giving TikTok a law to adhere to. That is why this is different, unprecedented, and unjust.

jaybeeayyy 6y ago

>China can use free speech in the US against us. We do need to protect against that. It's a bit bizarre how frequently I read comments like this about the whole issue. This is a big part of China's reasoning for not allowing "western imperialist propaganda" in their country. I am curious about you and other people that have this opinion if you're all aware of that...? They believe their people are susceptible to western dystopic "democracy" propaganda and to protect them they regulate content. I just didn't think people thought the US needed to be protected from outside propaganda in the same way.

ericmay 6y ago
I think protect against it is different than banning it. Think about it like this, a protection would be having a source label that the content comes directly from the Chinese Communist Party. In that case you still have access to the content, but you know who it is coming from. I think it's also been clearly shown that disinformation campaigns (which can include ideological disinformation - capitalism bad, Chinese communism good) have a real effect. To your more broad point about China I think the issue that is at the heart of so many complaints is that the Chinese Communist Party doesn't engage in competition with free ideas. In a sense, they are saying, Western ideals can't compete here, but we will export ideas to the West and see how many we can win over. I'm willing to bet that (and this was the whole point of us opening up to China in the first place) if China didn't censor or block Western companies, then we wouldn't have this same issue. If the Chinese were exposed to "Western propaganda" and Americans were subsequently exposed to "Chinese Communist Party" propaganda due to free-flowing of ideas then what's there really to complain about? Most Americans would surely see this as a fair exchange. I think it boils down to this: "They get to do stuff to us, and we can't do stuff to them, so let's make it so they don't get to do stuff to us unless we can do stuff to them".