22 ms·

Why we are suing the Administration

292 points by yunong 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
auggierose 6y ago
Well, try suing the administration in China ...
- fsloth 6y ago
  While acerbic, this highlights the difference between the two systems. China is economically and politically exclusive, while US system is inclusive politically and economically (inclusive means you are not stopped from participating, not that everyone would be capable of participating). One facet of an inclusive system are courts that are politically independent. Hence you are able to sue a government in an inclusive system.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Yes, you are able. But when one of two players are not playing fair (China) you're not going win any medals (or fights) while holding by your usual ethical standards. And as much as I'm mostly completely opposed to the current US administration, Tiktok is a liability.
    - fsloth 6y ago
      "you're not going win any medals (or fights) while holding by your usual ethical standards." That's the thing! These are not ethical standards. These are about the general rules by which a society operates. Generally countries with inclusive systems work better than countries with exclusive ones. China being the odd man out, apparently, at the moment. So it's not about ethics, it's about economics. It may seem like a value call, but actually it's a decision along a path does the society want to be more or less like an exclusive system. Since exclusive systems don't work as well financially, it's effectively a call does the system want to be wealthier or poorer long term.
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        > Generally countries with inclusive systems work better than countries with exclusive ones. China being the odd man out I agree. More of a reason to make China accountable.
- steveneo 6y ago
  cannot agree more!
- jand 6y ago
  I do not think that the actions of a 3rd party should be influencing our decisions regarding the standards we apply to ourselves.
  - camillomiller 6y ago
    A huge amount of smart people in the U.S. seem to completely forget this when it comes to China. Everyone's so effectively brainwashed to think that China = bad that you can't even start any type of complex conversation about such a multifaceted topic.
    - threeseed 6y ago
      It's because China regularly does things that Western countries simply don't do. For example right now we have an Australian citizen who is being held for no reason and with no ability to purse it through the judiciary because there isn't one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/china-australia-journalist.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/china-australi... Or you know that small issue of the mass-genocide that is happening in Xinjiang.
      - camillomiller 6y ago
        This is what I’m talking about. You just give for granted that America = good, China = bad. Should we start listing everything the US has done since the Vietnam war that has never been regarded as genocide (although it was) and nobody has ever paid for? Or all the other shenanigans American administration and agencies have been continuously involved with? Out of the top of my head: - guantanamo bay and waterboarding. - toppling all sorts of South American sovereign government when the CIA would see fit. - Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia from 1970 to 1975 - occupying foreign territory with the intent of making war on terror while seizing natural resources and destabilizing entire regions in the Middle East I’m just saying: savior and champion of the free world my ass. Which is why the US should not be reserved any benefit in comparison to China when it comes to human rights and freedoms. We’re talking about a Western society LITERALLY built on slavery, whose entire prison system has been conceived as a continuation of forced labor. Once this is settled, and the idea that America in inherently superior to China from an ethical standpoint is set aside, well then maybe we can properly talk about geopolitics.
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appoi... Yes, there is still a difference. No doubt. But Donald Trump is working on it ... since he already mentioned that he wants a third term (https://twitter.com/politicsvideo23/status/1295497962366402562 https://twitter.com/politicsvideo23/status/12954979623664025... ) one has to see how long the system will uphold the attacks ...
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    I don't understand why you're being down-voted. Donald Trump unambiguously is a tyrant, and has already made clear he will not accept an election defeat. Donald Trump will be the downfall of us all, and this forum tries to down-mod this concern. It's a worrying trend.
- rvz 6y ago
  There you go. While they're at it, try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. In the US, at least you can sue the administration and criticize them over their actions. The CCP on the other hand...
  - yorwba 6y ago
    > try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. You can even call them nazis without it getting removed: https://www.tiktok.com/tag/chinazi https://www.tiktok.com/tag/chinazi Now if you tried that on Douyin, the results would be different, but Douyin is available in China while TikTok isn't, so Chinese censorship applies to Douyin while it doesn't apply to TikTok.
    - rvz 6y ago
      > You can even call them nazis without it getting removed Which is why there is something called "Blacklisted tags" and it has been used towards QAnon posts [0] and on BLM posts. [1] Some tags get shadow-banned so that it doesn't appear on TikTok. The users here take a new hashtag so that it can be searchable. This form of censorship still applies to TikTok. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/25/21338615/tiktok-qanon-hashtags-videos-twitter-facebook-reddit https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/25/21338615/tiktok-qanon-has... [1] https://time.com/5863350/tiktok-black-creators/ https://time.com/5863350/tiktok-black-creators/
      - yorwba 6y ago
        I didn't say they're not censoring content, I said they're not applying Chinese censorship. (Random aside: QAnon isn't banned on Weibo https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=100103type%3D1%26q%3D%23QAnon%23 https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=100103type%3D1%26q%3D%... )
  - disgu 6y ago
    > There you go. While they're at it, try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. It doesn't get removed. Neither does LGBT content or Hong Kong protest content for that matter. Just because people repeat it again and again doesn't make it true and it takes literally three seconds to check if it's true or not.
ddorian43 6y ago
This needs to be done to all Chinese businesses. They do the same. China has become too powerful for everyone-else good.
- jorge-d 6y ago
  Yeah because obviously when the US administration uses all the big american tech giants to spy on every internet user it's for "everyone-else good" /s
  - ecmascript 6y ago
    That sucks very much, I agree but at least they won't send police to your home if you write critically about it. Your post here is evidence for that the CCP is way, way worse since your post would be pretty much dangerous to write in China if it were about their government. If you really believe the US is as bad as China, you're living in a fantasy world my friend.
    - morelisp 6y ago
      > they won't send police to your home if you write critically about it. Well, unless you're Jason Chen writing about the iPhone 4. (I don't think the US is "as bad as China" but I'm also not interested in meeting low bars. I do think it's nearly impossible to find a line China has crossed but the US has not. It's just a question of frequency.)
      - swiley 6y ago
        I wasn’t going to get involved in this discussion but now I’m tempted. Has the US done organ harvesting of political prisoners? We’ve done some incredibly messed up stuff from drugging people (including famous composers) to some really really nasty treatment (The details aren’t something I’d like to repeat) of children captured in other countries as part of war but I don’t think we’ve done that.
      - ecmascript 6y ago
violetyellow 6y ago
https://twitter.com/ding_gang/status/1300402435639463936 https://twitter.com/ding_gang/status/1300402435639463936 America, wake up
- baybal2 6y ago
  Well, this being a China's company. It would be an error not to anticipate something like that from it. They are so predictable. I have a problem expressing this in English, but the idea is "If you make it easy, and risk free for them to blow up your bridges, they will definitely do it." Xi can only do to Americans, as much as Americans allow him to do.
bootloop 6y ago
Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Banning one player isn't going to help much in the long run I would think. Edit: I am an EU citizen if it matters.
- simion314 6y ago
  They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    FB and Twitter no doubt brainwash people into all kinds of silliness - we've seen that quite vividly in the past 3 months. But there's not a whole lot you can do about them legally under US law. There is a whole lot you can do with TikTok and other foreign companies that represent a national security threat.
    - simion314 6y ago
      That is the point, make a new law. I mean FB way where I can target with ads extremely precise groups make it possible to systematically slit a nation in all the political regions, split the population in relevant groups, and preciously target them non stop with fake or misleading stuff. This could be fixed in many , many ways - like not allowing political ads, or not allowing targeted political ads, or labeling clearly what is paid political propaganda or the exteme solution , limited electoral budget (why should the guy with more money is more equal then the rest?? it is are torical question I know constitution in US allows this )
      - m0zg 6y ago
        There already exists a law: if there's a threat to national security (which there is), the executive branch has relatively broad discretion. You can't really "make a law" in the time remaining until election, not with Pelosi turning everything into a political showdown, and _especially_ not if China prefers Biden (which, according to Nancy Pelosi it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE). Here's one way you could interfere with US elections without showing political ads BTW: show "vote" reminders only to people who you infer from data to be democrats. At a first approximation, to people in urban centers in swing states. Not an "ad" per se, but you can still swing the election quite easily - in swing states elections are close by definition. As far as I'm aware there exists no law prohibiting such interference. This is how FB and Twitter are going to do it if the DNC doesn't like the final polls.
chrisco255 6y ago
It's really hard to feel bad for a Chinese entity when tens of thousands of small businesses across the country have had their business effectively bankrupted on account of arbitrary government action that is no fault of their own.
- m11a 6y ago
  Keep in mind that it's not just about a Chinese entity. They employ a lot of people directly, and all those 'influencers' on TikTok also make their livelihoods from their TikTok work. Not all could easily migrate to other platforms. This is akin to banning YouTube. You're not just banning the company. There's a whole community, of content consumers and creators with jobs, behind it.
  - ddorian43 6y ago
    It's a new market, it's ok if it fails quickly.
    - m11a 6y ago
      If it fails by natural causes, sure. If it fails by government policy, that's an awful outcome for tech and the future. We need to encourage new markets, not end them. Tech is ending old markets as it is, if we're not encouraging new ones we're going to end up with increasing unemployment.
- ryosuke 6y ago
  Why does this need to be compared to coronavirus lockdowns? It's a completely unrelated matter.
ecmascript 6y ago
I don't think enough people care TikTok. You are going the errands of the CCP and expect people to feel sympathy with you? I won't feel any sympathy. I think the west should stop doing business with china as long as they keep putting pressure. By doing business with dictatorships, we only ensure their future economic power which is what matters in this world. I am an EU citizen and wish that the EU and the US should stop doing business with companies from China. I never purchase goods from China if I can avoid it. I gladly pay 100% more if that is necessary to avoid a chinese product. Fuck TikTok and fuck the CCP.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
maa5444 6y ago
and you are going to lose
qazpot 6y ago
Maybe American companies should sue China.
fvv 6y ago
Chinese administration ban or ostracize large portion of us software , imo us and eu must do the same 'til minimum information freedom for free people ( no China firewall,information circulation ban ) is allowed there too
- disgu 6y ago
  So you're in favor of the EU forcing Tesla, Facebook, Microsoft to sell their European business to European companies then because those American companies are clearly not up to European privacy standards? We literally know for a fact that American companies do all the things the Trump administration is accusing TikTok of doing. We've known this since the Snowden revelations. It's also a 100% different scenario because European and American companies actively decide to not operate in China. If they want to they have to comply with the local laws. Just like European companies in the US or US companies in Europe have to. The fact that the big tech companies are not there is the result of a decision by the companies. All companies operating in the US have to follow US law. The fact that the government can just say "You can't operate anymore" without giving any evidence of what they're accusing you of is problematic. Authoritarian regimes are not authoritarian because they don't have laws. They are because they have laws that cover all kinds of bullshit and if you look at the countries that are most authoritarian (Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea), you'll see that they argue "national security" all the time.
  - brabel 6y ago
    Exactly! I am in favour of that. The EU protects its citizens but only to the degree it doesn't damage its relationship with the US. They need to grow some balls and stop treating the US as if it were its best mate. Clearly they are not and their laws do not protect foreign nationals in any way, or at least nearly as much as EU regulations would have them do.
    - raziel2p 6y ago
      On the flip side, forcing US companies to comply with EU regulations has benefits for US citizens and helps encourage the US to adopt similar laws.
nelaboras 6y ago
I would love for tiktok (and all similar social media) to disappear and I agree that China is a threat to the rest of the world (although the US is too :-) ) but tiktok do have a point that this has been done by the trump admin like they do things in a banana republic: I don't like things therefore I, the king.. uh president, decide that this has to go. You might like it here as its a company you don't like but what if the same is done next for Twitter, Telegram, or maybe just foreign companies like e.g. Siemens, Tata, ... Trump is hollowing out the rule of law and pretends he can do whatever he feels like. It's a mistake to cheer for that even if you agree with some of those decisions. All I'm reminded of is this famous quote of a German priest ultimately executed by the Nazis: > First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a socialist. > Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a trade unionist. > Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew. > Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
badRNG 6y ago
Regardless of what you think about TikTok, the banning of an app in the interest of "national security" is largely unprecedented. The jump from banning Huawei from building critical public infrastructure to banning an app that hasn't even conclusively been proven to behave in any uniquely dangerous ways seems to be an intense, unjustified escalation of this conflict. [1] You may disagree with me on the strict security-related merits of banning TikTok, and I am willing to concede all of them, however this will, either way, establish a precedent of an app's coverage by 1st amendment free speech protections, and of what standards the government needs to do to ban an app, whether it be a Chinese social media app or an end-to-end encrypted messaging app. [2] If the standard is simply to claim that it's "a national security threat" without requiring any further evidence (besides the fact that it's Chinese) then that might be cause for concern. [1] https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e8162647a https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/tiktok-ban-seed-genuine-security-concern-wrapped-thick-layer-censorship https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/tiktok-ban-seed-genuin...
- StreamBright 6y ago
  >> the banning of an app in the interest of "national security" is largely unprecedented. In the USA. China has done is many times.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    It looks like we should be expecting China to export more of its policies to the US ?
    - apta 6y ago
      Slippery slope fallacy.
  - badRNG 6y ago
    Yes, and the concerns about 1st Amendment precedence weren't referring to China either. I imagine China disallows end-to-end encrypted messaging apps as well, which is largely the basis of my concern.
protez 6y ago
All Chinese companies are subsidiaries of Chinese communists party. There is no single exception. TikTok and Huawei have been exploiting all of its information and power to influence in the favor of China Communist Party and it's against not just us, but all the free states and people in proper nations.
- swiley 6y ago
  Isn’t pine64 a Chinese company? I haven’t seen them do anything pro ccp.
  - m11a 6y ago
    I think it depends on the size of the company. Some maintain a further distance from the party successfully, some even manage to criticise it, but I don't think you get to ByteDance levels of growth without close connection to the party. Consider that ByteDance has its own CCP Party Secretary. Of course, this doesn't mean you're exploiting US data at the whim of the party, which is what Trump's actions imply the company is doing. I think you can successfully maintain a separate US structure from their Chinese one, and I don't think China really cares much for what US people do in their own country.
swiley 6y ago
Im no fan of banning an app just because it’s from another country but > As a company we have always focused on transparency Isn’t something you can say when the only way to see something is from an “algorithm” curated feed. Facebook says the same thing and it’s always really upsetting.
drtillberg 6y ago
The silliness in the statement about being "obligated" to the TikTok community.... It's contradictory, just like all ToS would be. Compare: Public Relations Statement: "Put simply, we have a thriving community and we are grateful – and responsible – to them." With: Terms of Service[1] ( hilariously, TikTok provides a read time estimate on the ToS of "279 - 354 minutes"): We reserve the right to disable your user account at any time ... in our sole discretion .... We reserve the right, at any time and without prior notice, to remove or disable access to content at our discretion for ... no reason. You further acknowledge that ... you (i) have no right to receive any income or other consideration from any User Content ... including in any User Content created by you, and (ii) are prohibited from exercising any rights to monetize or obtain consideration from any User Content within the Services or on any third party service ( e.g. , you cannot claim User Content that has been uploaded to a social media platform such as YouTube for monetization). By posting User Content ... you waive ... any and all rights of privacy, publicity, or any other rights of a similar nature in connection with your User Content.... [Y]ou hereby waive and agree never to assert any and all moral rights ... with respect to any User Content you Post to or through the Services. I'm sure there's more, but the point is, as far as legal obligation goes, users are the junior partner for sure, and it's pretty silly to claim TikTok is "responsible" to the community for much of anything, as a result of the ToS and other behind the scenes manuvering. [1] https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-use?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-use?lang=en
- robjan 6y ago
  In this case they are probably using "obligated" in the context of repaying a debt of gratitude.
  - the_other 6y ago
    I’d just call it spin.
wombatmobile 6y ago
President Trump's executive order states these reasons for banning TikTok: "TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage. "TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus." https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
- nxc18 6y ago
  The Trump administration itself spread debunked conspiracies about the Novel Coronavirus... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-laboratory https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-do...
euix 6y ago
Interesting article in Bloomberg just now: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/bytedance-chief-reconsiders-tiktok-options-after-new-china-rules https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/bytedance.... The kicker is at the end: “He thought that by making a promise to follow international standards or rules he would be able to escape the regulation or the kind of pressure from the American government,” said Ding. “But I think now he realizes he might have been wrong and that if he doesn’t want to sell the company, the only one who can help him is the Chinese government -- which is what he’s tried to avoid the past few years.” It's the same with Huawei, if Huawei wasn't a government owned or backed company before, after the U.S. tried to kneecap it, it sure as hell will become one if only to survive.
- ryosuke 6y ago
  Exactly. My understanding is that ByteDance has tried to maintain some distance with the Chinese government in the past, but this pressure from the US essentially forces it to reverse course. It's antithetical to the US's purported objective of promoting a more liberalized market economy in China (though I suppose that was never something this administration really cared about).
  - euix 6y ago
    Maybe it's a next level play the more hardline authoritarian China becomes the easier it is to rally the domestic population to be anti-Chinese in all matters. Remember when terrorists created sectarian violence in Iraq for the sole purpose of inciting ethnic conflict? I wouldn't have believed it was possible even 5 years ago in the U.S. but now who knows.
    - ryosuke 6y ago
      Indeed. Though given this administration's history I'm more inclined to believe there is no grand strategy, I'm sure such a play would be effective.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >It's antithetical to the US's purported objective of promoting a more liberalized market economy in China (though I suppose that was never something this administration really cared about). You're missing the context behind why that policy was in place. A big part of that was the hope that China would democratize in the process. Clearly that has not happened so it makes sense to pull the plug. No point giving out free concessions to trade partners that aren't willing to reciprocate.
Canada 6y ago
This is retaliation for China's unfair practices. It's not about propaganda, what videos are allowed or disallowed, or who might see which videos you watch. It's about the fact that valuable US tech companies aren't allowed to compete in China. If they were the trade deficit wouldn't nearly as bad. Now the Trump administration is hitting back. This is plainly and simply: Screw you, we're going to take something successful of yours. The tactics are distasteful: Filing outrageous criminal changes against Meng Wanzhou and the campaign to ban Huawei products as well as this frankly gangster-like hostile takeover of Bytedance's business. I don't feel sorry for Huawei. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Bytedance on the other hand is only guilty of making a fun product, but in the game being played here fairness to the pawns isn't a priority.
- modo_mario 6y ago
  I suspect there's also more lobbying from more isolated (as in not general American) interest involved than people think. I initially thought it would come from the potential buyers like Microsoft but actually articles have mentioned Zuckerberg was throwing his weight behind it before it all took off.
  - Canada 6y ago
    Sure, could be. Maybe it was even Zuckerberg's idea, who knows. Regardless, the strategy is to pressure the CCP to allow better China market access by imposing restrictions on access by Chinese companies. And just like the CCP, this administration is picking targets strategically and using arbitrary and ambiguous reasoning: Did the CCP really ban Facebook because of censorship or was it actually a protectionist move? Is the Trump administration threatening TikTok for the reasons it says or is it really about punishing China for its trade policy?
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  > ByteDance has had a party committee since 2017 and is headed by CCP secretary and company editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping (張輔評), reported Human Rights Watch. Members of the committee hold regular gatherings at which they study speeches by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) and "pledge to follow the party in technological innovation." > In addition, ByteDance on April 25, 2019, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau (公安部新聞宣傳局) in Beijing. The agreement was billed as "aiming to give full play to the professional technology and platform advantages of Toutiao and Tiktok in big data analysis," strengthen the creation and production of "public security new media works," boost "network influence and online discourse power," and enhance "public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility," among other aspects. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027
christophilus 6y ago
It’s hard for me to imagine the US allowing the USSR to distribute apps like this (or any kind, really) back in the Cold War. This action is not as unprecedented as some think. It is misguided, though. The US needs a systematic policy, not a bunch of arbitrary one-offs.
- Igelau 6y ago
  IANAL, but I doubt that imagined alternate histories constitute a legal precedent.
IanDrake 6y ago
This isn't about privacy, this is about a cold war with China that has been going on for a while now.
square_usual 6y ago
All else aside, > As a company we have always focused on transparency, so we want to explain why we are taking this step. is patent bullshit, even more than the usual marketing speak. They sure as heck weren't transparent about hiding posts from unattractive or LGBTQ people [1], or when they waited hours before calling police on a suicide which happened live on the platform to protect their image [2], or even about how they hid posts during the Hong Kong protests [3]. The last one is especially rich - they tried to claim it was because users "came to TikTok for joyful content" that there were very few posts from Hong Kong about the protests. This (The Administration vs TikTok) is a battle where both sides are awful. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tried-to-filter-out-videos-from-ugly-poor-or-disabled-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tr... 2: https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ 3: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks-beijing-roots-fuel-censorship-suspicion-it-builds-huge-us-audience/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks...
- newen 6y ago
  TikTok is fun because it has funny videos and dances and memes. If a company doesn't want its content to fill up with toxic politics, they shouldn't be forced to.
  - perryizgr8 6y ago
    Sure, they can sell to American owners and continue their app as is.
S53Vflnr4n 6y ago
Zuck s been busy fighting Tiktok with tooth n nail. He knows he lost his prime users to Tiktok. No youngsters use FB anymore. But FB can do this in India and its ok ? https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-indias-modi-disparaged-opposition-in-internal-messages-11598809348 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-in...
- novaRom 6y ago
  Not just FB. It looks like a real exodus is happening now from WatsApp to Telegram, at least in EU. Instagram is their last bastion for now.
- sbmthakur 6y ago
  Zuck probably did not have any to do with Tiktok getting banned in India. The current border conflict between India and China provided the impetus to getting it banned in India.
krisgenre 6y ago
Why they have not done the same in India? They must be having more users in India than in US.
golergka 6y ago
TikTok is awful company which clearly panders to Chinese government, deletes anti-CCP content, and quite probably collects private data and promotes content in its own political interests. However. The whole world sees "The West" in general, and US in particular, as a place, where The Rule Of Law, and in general, some respect for the Rules, even for adversaries, is more important than in other places. That's why Russian oligarchs sue each other in London's courts. That's why millions of the most educated, the most creative, the most productive people immigrate to US and other capitalist countries from former Soviet block and not the other way around. Of course, US is not paradise, and everybody how ugly and criminal can it be sometimes; but still, compared to what other parts of the world look like, it's still a City upon a hill. Yes, US is a corrupt, racist country with a lot of deep internal problems, and yet it is still the best champion for democratic values we've got on the whole planet. (Some smaller European countries can have a better record, but they're just not significant enough to have a real influence). And despite how awful TikTok is, and how I would applaud their demise, these executive orders, which directly violate these core ideals of western civilisation, damage not only US, but these ideals itself in the long run. I'm still amazed that a private company can sue the government and have a real hope at winning — if you're American, you may not realise how precious that possibility even is. And I really hope it does win.
fvv 6y ago
I think that free world should ban every company that comply with china censorship, here we are not talking about something like explicit content, or violence censorship which belong to cultural differences, here we are talking about not being put in jail because you say publicly that tibet should be free. or because you try to report abuse and suppression of the ruling class this type of free speech should be guaranteed to anyone and reinforced with the non-violent marginalization of those who struggle to take away fundamental human rights, the ban of a society under the control of this regime is the least I expect from a state that wants to enact these rights. talk about what you want (here you can do it) talk about rights in the west etc ... (here you can do it) there (in china) you are just on another level, compare them if you want .. here you can do it .. but try to go there ..
- koheripbal 6y ago
  My opinion is that the only realistic solution is a broad offering of many many social media apps, so that people can choose between them.
  - xibalba 6y ago
    Wasn't this already "attempted" through the natural mechanics of the free market? Social media seems to tend toward monopoly (or at least oligopoly) due to the extreme realization of the network effect in this industry. Here is a sampling attempts (though I'm sure the graveyard has hundreds if not thousands of members): Friendster, DailyBooth, FriendFeed, Google Buzz, Meerkat, Yik Yak, Vine, Google Plus, MySpace, Path, Orkut, ConnectU, ...
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      Sort of. Networks tend to lead towards natural monopolies. If you were my age, you had AOL IM friends, ICQ friends, Yahoo friends, etc. The US had a phone company at the national level until regulatory bodies made a market.
  - EForEndeavour 6y ago
    Given the realities of network effects and the observed tendency for a small number of social media platforms to dominate the market, this doesn't sound particularly realistic. More choice would indeed be great, but I highly doubt that'll ever happen with a product/service whose entire value proposition depends on everyone choosing the same one.
exabrial 6y ago
It's pretty simple really: prove that you've resisted CCP censorship instead of rolling over. Not hard.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  Wait, so your pathway to them not being "censored" (as HN would say) is to show that they aren't being censored (and by censored you mean moderated) by CCP? That's ridiculous.
- bepvte 6y ago
  Can you prove that you aren't yourself? How would someone prove that?? I believe you are allowed to say "free tibet" etc on tiktok without any problems right now.
yholio 6y ago
I believe the USA is squarely within its rights to reciprocate the ban that american companies such as Google and Facebook face in China. So the move is justified on commercial grounds alone. That being said, Trump's claims that TikTok is a national security threat are more than dubious. Sure, the operation of any foreign company can be interpreted as a security threat to any nation. Who's to say that the latest imported batch of Ramen aren't part of a Japanese plot for a new Pearl Harbor involving explosive Ramen. But the only logical conclusion to this way of thinking is to completely isolate a country from the outside world.
seamyb88 6y ago
Your police shoot unarmed black people and your president defends them. Free world my ass.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  FWIW, our police also shoot unarmed white people at higher rates (than crime rates would predict, anyway) than unarmed black people. We have a police accountability problem, and we can improve it dramatically with a few relatively small tweaks (remove qualified immunity, weaken police unions, improve police training) whereas China's police violence is top-down policy. Note that I'm only contextualizing/clarifying; I'll leave it to readers to determine which is preferable.
- rglover 6y ago
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
  - joubert 6y ago
    That's in absolute numbers. Better to look at rate, because it shows your risk of being shot and killed, depending on ethnicity - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings... Black: 32 per million Hispanic: 24 per million White: 13 per million That is, if you're Black, your chances of being shot and killed by the police is 2.5 times higher than if you were white.
    - stOneskull 6y ago
      you make it sound like the police are a murder cult. they shoot because of a crime incident.
      - joubert 6y ago
        > they shoot because of a crime incident. Even if all fatal police shootings were directly related to a crime committed by the person who is killed (they're not), we have to ask ourselves whether such shootings (or killing by other means, e.g. chokehold) are an appropriate technique for law enforcement. Which crimes or actions warrant shooting or killing someone, in your opinion? When we look at data that show killings by law enforcement officers by country, we learn that in the US people are fatally shot at 3.5 times the rate than they are in Canada and 9 times the rate as in France. You are more likely to be killed by the police in America than you are in Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan[1]. > you make it sound like the police are a murder cult. I am not saying the police are a murder cult; I'm saying that they are here to protect us and that when innocent people are fearful of those meant to protect us, something's wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
nogabebop23 6y ago
lost me at the second sentence: >> As a company we have always focused on transparency maybe this is another parody like the MasterWiki one?
knodi 6y ago
The Idiot-Trump effect.
bdefore 6y ago
Couldn't the EU leverage the TikTok ordeal to make a similar case to force US-based social networks to divest ownership and restrict data hosting to locations outside of Five Eyes access? Given the revelations around espionage towards NATO allies it doesn't sound unreasonable.
- angio 6y ago
  At least someone in the EU is thinking about a digital firewall [0] to keep European citizens data within the EU. [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
nicosaul 6y ago
Best case scenario Tiktok is just wasting people’s time.
temp1892232323 6y ago
In a world full of shady companies, I would much rather bacl companies like FB than companies like TikTok backed by the Chinese government. Even with all the flaws that the US government and various US companies have, they're so much better in terms of transparency and regulation than their chinese counterparts.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Idk, the lead up to the Iraq War was the polar opposite of transparency and now one million people are dead.
ausjke 6y ago
Tiktok, in your hiring practice, you stated CCP members first and preferred, you have CCP organization in your company and they're very active daily(meeting, discussing how to serve better to CCP and obey CCP's leadership,etc), in fact your CEO etc must follow the CCP leaders in your organization, you're nothing but a CCP puppet. You're further evil enough to leverage the West free world to cover the true you. this is the same logic as many CCP officers in the news section, they block twitter/facebook/etc inside mainland China, but themselves have active twitter/facebook/etc accounts to push CCP's propaganda. they become so good at leveraging the free world's system to cover their own evil actions. For god sake the west is waking up. I did business there and I know you all well.
llboston 6y ago
If you wanna learn more about how Chinese company are forced to do censorship, this will be a good read https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.voachinese.com%2Fa%2Finternet-censorship-20200812%2F5540475.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http... An former employee of Weibo (China's Twitter clone) who recently moved to the US did a great interview with VOA
someonehere 6y ago
Radio Free Asia (unsure of legitimacy of this site) has stated China used TikTok data out of the Houston consulate (remember it was shut down by the State Department out of the blue and neighbors were filming the consulate burning documents in the courtyard) to manipulate the BLM protest narrative: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3876672/posts https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3876672/posts “The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivered relevant materials precisely to those people who were most likely to participate in the protests, while other people could not even find those videos.” From the article there’s mention of fake IDs. That made me think of this news item: https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/shipments-of-nearly-20000-fake-drivers-licenses-seized-at-chicago-airport https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/shipments-of-nearly-20000-f... Something is afoot and TikTok needs to not be here anymore.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Radio Free Asia has been founded by the CIA, and is generally considered to be a propaganda rag. Would not use it as a source, and if you can only find RFA as a source and not much else it's probably outright false.
  - president 6y ago
    Something can be propaganda but still remain factual. Agree that framing and bias can still be present but you can't just dismiss it as false without overwhelming proof otherwise you're just making a bad faith argument.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      You can't prove a negative. If the only source for something was TASS or the CGTN and you couldn't find any other source, it would be treated as false until proof of the contrary. The burden of proof is on the person claiming something to provide a credible source. The CIA is not a good source for things that conflict with US interests.
      - 6y ago
ideals 6y ago
Some strong Chinese xenophobia in this thread. This place is getting straight up awful towards Chinese. Cheerleading a racist president who shouts "China flu" and latching onto this flimsy executive order because you finally get the warm fuzzy feeling of fucking over a company started by a Chinese person is straight up fucked.
zadkey 6y ago
"By banning TikTok with no notice or opportunity to be heard (whether before or after the fact), the executive order violates the due process protections of the Fifth Amendment." The 5th amendment rights that they are asserting apply to people. This brings us back to the question of "Are corporations people?" "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
- ghayes 6y ago
  The 14th Amendment expands the scope of the 5th Amendment by clarifying when and how Due Process must be applied. The Court has generally expanded the scope over the last 200 years, and I do not think TikTok will have to seriously argue whether or not Constitutional due process applies in this case. The arguments should mostly lie in whether or not Due Process was applied and likely more on the application of Federal law in the case.
fl0wRiny 6y ago
Who cares though honestly. Cry about it TikTok. Honestly ALL social media should be banned. Citizens don't understand the privacy that is being exploited while they think that they're benefiting from a "free service." Besides these companies are mostly fueling a toxic culture that glorifies sin while they get rich off of the poor. Plus it's the American market and we get to make the decisions here about other countries even if it's extremely authoritarian. And honestly china is a despicable marketplace (not to say fight fire with fire) but gg dude, go to other markets they have been exploiting our market for as long as society can remember. Go do business elsewhere. They're already stealing all of our IP and not required barely any pay to make it. So let's set some boundaries where we can.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  >Honestly ALL social media should be banned. The page you're posting that comment on is social media...
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    Forums that don't require you to use your real time, don't track your location, and are text only are not synonymous with the modern sense of social media.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Honestly, as much as I dislike the CCP, I definitely want TikTok to stay until/unless there is some real anti-trust or other FAANG weakening happening. Even if Tik Tok just kills Facebook and becomes the new Facebook, that's fine. Now the US goverment won't feel conflicted between anti-trust and tech nationalism, and we can lobby for much better privacy laws. Anti-trust has been such a joke in the last few decades, and federal governance so bad in general around all issues of privacy, technology, and competition, I'll accept the Chinese competitor cudgel because it's the best we got. Sigh.
Heyso 6y ago
Not sure this has anything to do with tiktok, but just wanted to say that : Every compagny that is not paying taxes, is stealing money from all peoples in the country. They use loopholes in the law to make in legal. But that should not be acceptable. It pain me to live in a world where most peoples doesn't care to be robbed constantly.
chojeen 6y ago
It's hard to know how to feel about this complex situation. On one hand: - The Chinese government clearly has its tendrils in TikTok and uses it to push its oppressive censorship policies around the world - The security implications of giving China a backdoor into a large percentage of American phones is too concerning to ignore On the other hand: - Explicitly targeting specific companies feels wrong. If security and censorship are real concerns here, Congress should be passing laws that apply to all companies, not just TikTok - Even though there are sound reasons to restrict TikTok, this is still a transparently protectionist policy by the Trump admin and fits right into his nationalistic, totalitarian, xenophobic playbook. A broken clock is still right twice a day, I suppose - Requiring a sale to an American company is the mirror image of China's forced technology transfers for foreign companies. Two wrongs don't make a right I think the best scenario is for Congress to preempt Trump with laws that protect American security and free speech interests without executive action. That's easier said than done, though.
cryptica 6y ago
Nobody gives a crap about TikTok or its executives. If Trump puts them all in jail for life without a trial. I don't care about TikTok and their cronies. If Trump decided to seize all billionaires' money and assets and distribute it equally to everyone, I would see that as a plus. In this nonsensical economy, the pathetic moral arguments made by this article are word vomit. Not relevant to anyone's life. Nobody cares. They should be locked up for abusing our collective brains with this irrelevant crap.
BTCOG 6y ago
If and while China sees fit to ban all American apps, programs, and sites, we should return that in kind. I support segregating China off our clean network.
tmcronn 6y ago
>Microsoft has been in talks to acquire TikTok — though co-founder Bill Gates has called the potential deal a “poisoned chalice” Where there's money to be made, no poison is too poisonous for big companies.
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
So American companies can sue China for not allowing them in? Not.

292 points by yunong 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

auggierose 6y ago

Well, try suing the administration in China ...

fsloth 6y ago
While acerbic, this highlights the difference between the two systems. China is economically and politically exclusive, while US system is inclusive politically and economically (inclusive means you are not stopped from participating, not that everyone would be capable of participating). One facet of an inclusive system are courts that are politically independent. Hence you are able to sue a government in an inclusive system.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Yes, you are able. But when one of two players are not playing fair (China) you're not going win any medals (or fights) while holding by your usual ethical standards. And as much as I'm mostly completely opposed to the current US administration, Tiktok is a liability.
  - fsloth 6y ago
    "you're not going win any medals (or fights) while holding by your usual ethical standards." That's the thing! These are not ethical standards. These are about the general rules by which a society operates. Generally countries with inclusive systems work better than countries with exclusive ones. China being the odd man out, apparently, at the moment. So it's not about ethics, it's about economics. It may seem like a value call, but actually it's a decision along a path does the society want to be more or less like an exclusive system. Since exclusive systems don't work as well financially, it's effectively a call does the system want to be wealthier or poorer long term.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      > Generally countries with inclusive systems work better than countries with exclusive ones. China being the odd man out I agree. More of a reason to make China accountable.
steveneo 6y ago
cannot agree more!
jand 6y ago
I do not think that the actions of a 3rd party should be influencing our decisions regarding the standards we apply to ourselves.
- camillomiller 6y ago
  A huge amount of smart people in the U.S. seem to completely forget this when it comes to China. Everyone's so effectively brainwashed to think that China = bad that you can't even start any type of complex conversation about such a multifaceted topic.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    It's because China regularly does things that Western countries simply don't do. For example right now we have an Australian citizen who is being held for no reason and with no ability to purse it through the judiciary because there isn't one. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/china-australia-journalist.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/china-australi... Or you know that small issue of the mass-genocide that is happening in Xinjiang.
    - camillomiller 6y ago
      This is what I’m talking about. You just give for granted that America = good, China = bad. Should we start listing everything the US has done since the Vietnam war that has never been regarded as genocide (although it was) and nobody has ever paid for? Or all the other shenanigans American administration and agencies have been continuously involved with? Out of the top of my head: - guantanamo bay and waterboarding. - toppling all sorts of South American sovereign government when the CIA would see fit. - Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia from 1970 to 1975 - occupying foreign territory with the intent of making war on terror while seizing natural resources and destabilizing entire regions in the Middle East I’m just saying: savior and champion of the free world my ass. Which is why the US should not be reserved any benefit in comparison to China when it comes to human rights and freedoms. We’re talking about a Western society LITERALLY built on slavery, whose entire prison system has been conceived as a continuation of forced labor. Once this is settled, and the idea that America in inherently superior to China from an ethical standpoint is set aside, well then maybe we can properly talk about geopolitics.
johannes1234321 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appoi... Yes, there is still a difference. No doubt. But Donald Trump is working on it ... since he already mentioned that he wants a third term (https://twitter.com/politicsvideo23/status/1295497962366402562 https://twitter.com/politicsvideo23/status/12954979623664025... ) one has to see how long the system will uphold the attacks ...
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  I don't understand why you're being down-voted. Donald Trump unambiguously is a tyrant, and has already made clear he will not accept an election defeat. Donald Trump will be the downfall of us all, and this forum tries to down-mod this concern. It's a worrying trend.
rvz 6y ago
There you go. While they're at it, try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. In the US, at least you can sue the administration and criticize them over their actions. The CCP on the other hand...
- yorwba 6y ago
  > try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. You can even call them nazis without it getting removed: https://www.tiktok.com/tag/chinazi https://www.tiktok.com/tag/chinazi Now if you tried that on Douyin, the results would be different, but Douyin is available in China while TikTok isn't, so Chinese censorship applies to Douyin while it doesn't apply to TikTok.
  - rvz 6y ago
    > You can even call them nazis without it getting removed Which is why there is something called "Blacklisted tags" and it has been used towards QAnon posts [0] and on BLM posts. [1] Some tags get shadow-banned so that it doesn't appear on TikTok. The users here take a new hashtag so that it can be searchable. This form of censorship still applies to TikTok. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/25/21338615/tiktok-qanon-hashtags-videos-twitter-facebook-reddit https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/25/21338615/tiktok-qanon-has... [1] https://time.com/5863350/tiktok-black-creators/ https://time.com/5863350/tiktok-black-creators/
    - yorwba 6y ago
      I didn't say they're not censoring content, I said they're not applying Chinese censorship. (Random aside: QAnon isn't banned on Weibo https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=100103type%3D1%26q%3D%23QAnon%23 https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=100103type%3D1%26q%3D%... )
- disgu 6y ago
  > There you go. While they're at it, try critiquing the CCP on TikTok. Watch it get removed instantaneously. It doesn't get removed. Neither does LGBT content or Hong Kong protest content for that matter. Just because people repeat it again and again doesn't make it true and it takes literally three seconds to check if it's true or not.

ddorian43 6y ago

This needs to be done to all Chinese businesses. They do the same. China has become too powerful for everyone-else good.

jorge-d 6y ago
Yeah because obviously when the US administration uses all the big american tech giants to spy on every internet user it's for "everyone-else good" /s
- ecmascript 6y ago
  That sucks very much, I agree but at least they won't send police to your home if you write critically about it. Your post here is evidence for that the CCP is way, way worse since your post would be pretty much dangerous to write in China if it were about their government. If you really believe the US is as bad as China, you're living in a fantasy world my friend.
  - morelisp 6y ago
    > they won't send police to your home if you write critically about it. Well, unless you're Jason Chen writing about the iPhone 4. (I don't think the US is "as bad as China" but I'm also not interested in meeting low bars. I do think it's nearly impossible to find a line China has crossed but the US has not. It's just a question of frequency.)
    - swiley 6y ago
      I wasn’t going to get involved in this discussion but now I’m tempted. Has the US done organ harvesting of political prisoners? We’ve done some incredibly messed up stuff from drugging people (including famous composers) to some really really nasty treatment (The details aren’t something I’d like to repeat) of children captured in other countries as part of war but I don’t think we’ve done that.
    - ecmascript 6y ago

violetyellow 6y ago

https://twitter.com/ding_gang/status/1300402435639463936 https://twitter.com/ding_gang/status/1300402435639463936 America, wake up

baybal2 6y ago
Well, this being a China's company. It would be an error not to anticipate something like that from it. They are so predictable. I have a problem expressing this in English, but the idea is "If you make it easy, and risk free for them to blow up your bridges, they will definitely do it." Xi can only do to Americans, as much as Americans allow him to do.

bootloop 6y ago

Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Banning one player isn't going to help much in the long run I would think. Edit: I am an EU citizen if it matters.

simion314 6y ago
They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset.
- m0zg 6y ago
  FB and Twitter no doubt brainwash people into all kinds of silliness - we've seen that quite vividly in the past 3 months. But there's not a whole lot you can do about them legally under US law. There is a whole lot you can do with TikTok and other foreign companies that represent a national security threat.
  - simion314 6y ago
    That is the point, make a new law. I mean FB way where I can target with ads extremely precise groups make it possible to systematically slit a nation in all the political regions, split the population in relevant groups, and preciously target them non stop with fake or misleading stuff. This could be fixed in many , many ways - like not allowing political ads, or not allowing targeted political ads, or labeling clearly what is paid political propaganda or the exteme solution , limited electoral budget (why should the guy with more money is more equal then the rest?? it is are torical question I know constitution in US allows this )
    - m0zg 6y ago
      There already exists a law: if there's a threat to national security (which there is), the executive branch has relatively broad discretion. You can't really "make a law" in the time remaining until election, not with Pelosi turning everything into a political showdown, and _especially_ not if China prefers Biden (which, according to Nancy Pelosi it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE). Here's one way you could interfere with US elections without showing political ads BTW: show "vote" reminders only to people who you infer from data to be democrats. At a first approximation, to people in urban centers in swing states. Not an "ad" per se, but you can still swing the election quite easily - in swing states elections are close by definition. As far as I'm aware there exists no law prohibiting such interference. This is how FB and Twitter are going to do it if the DNC doesn't like the final polls.

chrisco255 6y ago

It's really hard to feel bad for a Chinese entity when tens of thousands of small businesses across the country have had their business effectively bankrupted on account of arbitrary government action that is no fault of their own.

m11a 6y ago
Keep in mind that it's not just about a Chinese entity. They employ a lot of people directly, and all those 'influencers' on TikTok also make their livelihoods from their TikTok work. Not all could easily migrate to other platforms. This is akin to banning YouTube. You're not just banning the company. There's a whole community, of content consumers and creators with jobs, behind it.
- ddorian43 6y ago
  It's a new market, it's ok if it fails quickly.
  - m11a 6y ago
    If it fails by natural causes, sure. If it fails by government policy, that's an awful outcome for tech and the future. We need to encourage new markets, not end them. Tech is ending old markets as it is, if we're not encouraging new ones we're going to end up with increasing unemployment.
ryosuke 6y ago
Why does this need to be compared to coronavirus lockdowns? It's a completely unrelated matter.

ecmascript 6y ago

I don't think enough people care TikTok. You are going the errands of the CCP and expect people to feel sympathy with you? I won't feel any sympathy. I think the west should stop doing business with china as long as they keep putting pressure. By doing business with dictatorships, we only ensure their future economic power which is what matters in this world. I am an EU citizen and wish that the EU and the US should stop doing business with companies from China. I never purchase goods from China if I can avoid it. I gladly pay 100% more if that is necessary to avoid a chinese product. Fuck TikTok and fuck the CCP.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

maa5444 6y ago

and you are going to lose

qazpot 6y ago

Maybe American companies should sue China.

fvv 6y ago

Chinese administration ban or ostracize large portion of us software , imo us and eu must do the same 'til minimum information freedom for free people ( no China firewall,information circulation ban ) is allowed there too

disgu 6y ago
So you're in favor of the EU forcing Tesla, Facebook, Microsoft to sell their European business to European companies then because those American companies are clearly not up to European privacy standards? We literally know for a fact that American companies do all the things the Trump administration is accusing TikTok of doing. We've known this since the Snowden revelations. It's also a 100% different scenario because European and American companies actively decide to not operate in China. If they want to they have to comply with the local laws. Just like European companies in the US or US companies in Europe have to. The fact that the big tech companies are not there is the result of a decision by the companies. All companies operating in the US have to follow US law. The fact that the government can just say "You can't operate anymore" without giving any evidence of what they're accusing you of is problematic. Authoritarian regimes are not authoritarian because they don't have laws. They are because they have laws that cover all kinds of bullshit and if you look at the countries that are most authoritarian (Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea), you'll see that they argue "national security" all the time.
- brabel 6y ago
  Exactly! I am in favour of that. The EU protects its citizens but only to the degree it doesn't damage its relationship with the US. They need to grow some balls and stop treating the US as if it were its best mate. Clearly they are not and their laws do not protect foreign nationals in any way, or at least nearly as much as EU regulations would have them do.
  - raziel2p 6y ago
    On the flip side, forcing US companies to comply with EU regulations has benefits for US citizens and helps encourage the US to adopt similar laws.

nelaboras 6y ago

I would love for tiktok (and all similar social media) to disappear and I agree that China is a threat to the rest of the world (although the US is too :-) ) but tiktok do have a point that this has been done by the trump admin like they do things in a banana republic: I don't like things therefore I, the king.. uh president, decide that this has to go. You might like it here as its a company you don't like but what if the same is done next for Twitter, Telegram, or maybe just foreign companies like e.g. Siemens, Tata, ... Trump is hollowing out the rule of law and pretends he can do whatever he feels like. It's a mistake to cheer for that even if you agree with some of those decisions. All I'm reminded of is this famous quote of a German priest ultimately executed by the Nazis: > First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a socialist. > Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a trade unionist. > Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew. > Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

badRNG 6y ago

Regardless of what you think about TikTok, the banning of an app in the interest of "national security" is largely unprecedented. The jump from banning Huawei from building critical public infrastructure to banning an app that hasn't even conclusively been proven to behave in any uniquely dangerous ways seems to be an intense, unjustified escalation of this conflict. [1] You may disagree with me on the strict security-related merits of banning TikTok, and I am willing to concede all of them, however this will, either way, establish a precedent of an app's coverage by 1st amendment free speech protections, and of what standards the government needs to do to ban an app, whether it be a Chinese social media app or an end-to-end encrypted messaging app. [2] If the standard is simply to claim that it's "a national security threat" without requiring any further evidence (besides the fact that it's Chinese) then that might be cause for concern. [1] https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e8162647a https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/tiktok-ban-seed-genuine-security-concern-wrapped-thick-layer-censorship https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/tiktok-ban-seed-genuin...

StreamBright 6y ago
>> the banning of an app in the interest of "national security" is largely unprecedented. In the USA. China has done is many times.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  It looks like we should be expecting China to export more of its policies to the US ?
  - apta 6y ago
    Slippery slope fallacy.
- badRNG 6y ago
  Yes, and the concerns about 1st Amendment precedence weren't referring to China either. I imagine China disallows end-to-end encrypted messaging apps as well, which is largely the basis of my concern.

protez 6y ago

All Chinese companies are subsidiaries of Chinese communists party. There is no single exception. TikTok and Huawei have been exploiting all of its information and power to influence in the favor of China Communist Party and it's against not just us, but all the free states and people in proper nations.

swiley 6y ago
Isn’t pine64 a Chinese company? I haven’t seen them do anything pro ccp.
- m11a 6y ago
  I think it depends on the size of the company. Some maintain a further distance from the party successfully, some even manage to criticise it, but I don't think you get to ByteDance levels of growth without close connection to the party. Consider that ByteDance has its own CCP Party Secretary. Of course, this doesn't mean you're exploiting US data at the whim of the party, which is what Trump's actions imply the company is doing. I think you can successfully maintain a separate US structure from their Chinese one, and I don't think China really cares much for what US people do in their own country.

swiley 6y ago

Im no fan of banning an app just because it’s from another country but > As a company we have always focused on transparency Isn’t something you can say when the only way to see something is from an “algorithm” curated feed. Facebook says the same thing and it’s always really upsetting.

drtillberg 6y ago

The silliness in the statement about being "obligated" to the TikTok community.... It's contradictory, just like all ToS would be. Compare: Public Relations Statement: "Put simply, we have a thriving community and we are grateful – and responsible – to them." With: Terms of Service[1] ( hilariously, TikTok provides a read time estimate on the ToS of "279 - 354 minutes"): We reserve the right to disable your user account at any time ... in our sole discretion .... We reserve the right, at any time and without prior notice, to remove or disable access to content at our discretion for ... no reason. You further acknowledge that ... you (i) have no right to receive any income or other consideration from any User Content ... including in any User Content created by you, and (ii) are prohibited from exercising any rights to monetize or obtain consideration from any User Content within the Services or on any third party service ( e.g. , you cannot claim User Content that has been uploaded to a social media platform such as YouTube for monetization). By posting User Content ... you waive ... any and all rights of privacy, publicity, or any other rights of a similar nature in connection with your User Content.... [Y]ou hereby waive and agree never to assert any and all moral rights ... with respect to any User Content you Post to or through the Services. I'm sure there's more, but the point is, as far as legal obligation goes, users are the junior partner for sure, and it's pretty silly to claim TikTok is "responsible" to the community for much of anything, as a result of the ToS and other behind the scenes manuvering. [1] https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-use?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-use?lang=en

robjan 6y ago
In this case they are probably using "obligated" in the context of repaying a debt of gratitude.
- the_other 6y ago
  I’d just call it spin.

wombatmobile 6y ago

President Trump's executive order states these reasons for banning TikTok: "TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage. "TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus." https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...

nxc18 6y ago
The Trump administration itself spread debunked conspiracies about the Novel Coronavirus... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-laboratory https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/mike-pompeo-do...

euix 6y ago

Interesting article in Bloomberg just now: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/bytedance-chief-reconsiders-tiktok-options-after-new-china-rules https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-01/bytedance.... The kicker is at the end: “He thought that by making a promise to follow international standards or rules he would be able to escape the regulation or the kind of pressure from the American government,” said Ding. “But I think now he realizes he might have been wrong and that if he doesn’t want to sell the company, the only one who can help him is the Chinese government -- which is what he’s tried to avoid the past few years.” It's the same with Huawei, if Huawei wasn't a government owned or backed company before, after the U.S. tried to kneecap it, it sure as hell will become one if only to survive.

ryosuke 6y ago
Exactly. My understanding is that ByteDance has tried to maintain some distance with the Chinese government in the past, but this pressure from the US essentially forces it to reverse course. It's antithetical to the US's purported objective of promoting a more liberalized market economy in China (though I suppose that was never something this administration really cared about).
- euix 6y ago
  Maybe it's a next level play the more hardline authoritarian China becomes the easier it is to rally the domestic population to be anti-Chinese in all matters. Remember when terrorists created sectarian violence in Iraq for the sole purpose of inciting ethnic conflict? I wouldn't have believed it was possible even 5 years ago in the U.S. but now who knows.
  - ryosuke 6y ago
    Indeed. Though given this administration's history I'm more inclined to believe there is no grand strategy, I'm sure such a play would be effective.
- gruez 6y ago
  >It's antithetical to the US's purported objective of promoting a more liberalized market economy in China (though I suppose that was never something this administration really cared about). You're missing the context behind why that policy was in place. A big part of that was the hope that China would democratize in the process. Clearly that has not happened so it makes sense to pull the plug. No point giving out free concessions to trade partners that aren't willing to reciprocate.

Canada 6y ago

This is retaliation for China's unfair practices. It's not about propaganda, what videos are allowed or disallowed, or who might see which videos you watch. It's about the fact that valuable US tech companies aren't allowed to compete in China. If they were the trade deficit wouldn't nearly as bad. Now the Trump administration is hitting back. This is plainly and simply: Screw you, we're going to take something successful of yours. The tactics are distasteful: Filing outrageous criminal changes against Meng Wanzhou and the campaign to ban Huawei products as well as this frankly gangster-like hostile takeover of Bytedance's business. I don't feel sorry for Huawei. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Bytedance on the other hand is only guilty of making a fun product, but in the game being played here fairness to the pawns isn't a priority.

modo_mario 6y ago
I suspect there's also more lobbying from more isolated (as in not general American) interest involved than people think. I initially thought it would come from the potential buyers like Microsoft but actually articles have mentioned Zuckerberg was throwing his weight behind it before it all took off.
- Canada 6y ago
  Sure, could be. Maybe it was even Zuckerberg's idea, who knows. Regardless, the strategy is to pressure the CCP to allow better China market access by imposing restrictions on access by Chinese companies. And just like the CCP, this administration is picking targets strategically and using arbitrary and ambiguous reasoning: Did the CCP really ban Facebook because of censorship or was it actually a protectionist move? Is the Trump administration threatening TikTok for the reasons it says or is it really about punishing China for its trade policy?
abc-xyz 6y ago
> ByteDance has had a party committee since 2017 and is headed by CCP secretary and company editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping (張輔評), reported Human Rights Watch. Members of the committee hold regular gatherings at which they study speeches by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) and "pledge to follow the party in technological innovation." > In addition, ByteDance on April 25, 2019, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau (公安部新聞宣傳局) in Beijing. The agreement was billed as "aiming to give full play to the professional technology and platform advantages of Toutiao and Tiktok in big data analysis," strengthen the creation and production of "public security new media works," boost "network influence and online discourse power," and enhance "public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility," among other aspects. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027

christophilus 6y ago

It’s hard for me to imagine the US allowing the USSR to distribute apps like this (or any kind, really) back in the Cold War. This action is not as unprecedented as some think. It is misguided, though. The US needs a systematic policy, not a bunch of arbitrary one-offs.

Igelau 6y ago
IANAL, but I doubt that imagined alternate histories constitute a legal precedent.

IanDrake 6y ago

This isn't about privacy, this is about a cold war with China that has been going on for a while now.

square_usual 6y ago

All else aside, > As a company we have always focused on transparency, so we want to explain why we are taking this step. is patent bullshit, even more than the usual marketing speak. They sure as heck weren't transparent about hiding posts from unattractive or LGBTQ people [1], or when they waited hours before calling police on a suicide which happened live on the platform to protect their image [2], or even about how they hid posts during the Hong Kong protests [3]. The last one is especially rich - they tried to claim it was because users "came to TikTok for joyful content" that there were very few posts from Hong Kong about the protests. This (The Administration vs TikTok) is a battle where both sides are awful. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tried-to-filter-out-videos-from-ugly-poor-or-disabled-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tr... 2: https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ 3: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks-beijing-roots-fuel-censorship-suspicion-it-builds-huge-us-audience/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks...

newen 6y ago
TikTok is fun because it has funny videos and dances and memes. If a company doesn't want its content to fill up with toxic politics, they shouldn't be forced to.
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  Sure, they can sell to American owners and continue their app as is.

S53Vflnr4n 6y ago

Zuck s been busy fighting Tiktok with tooth n nail. He knows he lost his prime users to Tiktok. No youngsters use FB anymore. But FB can do this in India and its ok ? https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-indias-modi-disparaged-opposition-in-internal-messages-11598809348 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-in...

novaRom 6y ago
Not just FB. It looks like a real exodus is happening now from WatsApp to Telegram, at least in EU. Instagram is their last bastion for now.
sbmthakur 6y ago
Zuck probably did not have any to do with Tiktok getting banned in India. The current border conflict between India and China provided the impetus to getting it banned in India.

krisgenre 6y ago

Why they have not done the same in India? They must be having more users in India than in US.

golergka 6y ago

TikTok is awful company which clearly panders to Chinese government, deletes anti-CCP content, and quite probably collects private data and promotes content in its own political interests. However. The whole world sees "The West" in general, and US in particular, as a place, where The Rule Of Law, and in general, some respect for the Rules, even for adversaries, is more important than in other places. That's why Russian oligarchs sue each other in London's courts. That's why millions of the most educated, the most creative, the most productive people immigrate to US and other capitalist countries from former Soviet block and not the other way around. Of course, US is not paradise, and everybody how ugly and criminal can it be sometimes; but still, compared to what other parts of the world look like, it's still a City upon a hill. Yes, US is a corrupt, racist country with a lot of deep internal problems, and yet it is still the best champion for democratic values we've got on the whole planet. (Some smaller European countries can have a better record, but they're just not significant enough to have a real influence). And despite how awful TikTok is, and how I would applaud their demise, these executive orders, which directly violate these core ideals of western civilisation, damage not only US, but these ideals itself in the long run. I'm still amazed that a private company can sue the government and have a real hope at winning — if you're American, you may not realise how precious that possibility even is. And I really hope it does win.

fvv 6y ago

I think that free world should ban every company that comply with china censorship, here we are not talking about something like explicit content, or violence censorship which belong to cultural differences, here we are talking about not being put in jail because you say publicly that tibet should be free. or because you try to report abuse and suppression of the ruling class this type of free speech should be guaranteed to anyone and reinforced with the non-violent marginalization of those who struggle to take away fundamental human rights, the ban of a society under the control of this regime is the least I expect from a state that wants to enact these rights. talk about what you want (here you can do it) talk about rights in the west etc ... (here you can do it) there (in china) you are just on another level, compare them if you want .. here you can do it .. but try to go there ..

koheripbal 6y ago
My opinion is that the only realistic solution is a broad offering of many many social media apps, so that people can choose between them.
- xibalba 6y ago
  Wasn't this already "attempted" through the natural mechanics of the free market? Social media seems to tend toward monopoly (or at least oligopoly) due to the extreme realization of the network effect in this industry. Here is a sampling attempts (though I'm sure the graveyard has hundreds if not thousands of members): Friendster, DailyBooth, FriendFeed, Google Buzz, Meerkat, Yik Yak, Vine, Google Plus, MySpace, Path, Orkut, ConnectU, ...
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    Sort of. Networks tend to lead towards natural monopolies. If you were my age, you had AOL IM friends, ICQ friends, Yahoo friends, etc. The US had a phone company at the national level until regulatory bodies made a market.
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  Given the realities of network effects and the observed tendency for a small number of social media platforms to dominate the market, this doesn't sound particularly realistic. More choice would indeed be great, but I highly doubt that'll ever happen with a product/service whose entire value proposition depends on everyone choosing the same one.

exabrial 6y ago

It's pretty simple really: prove that you've resisted CCP censorship instead of rolling over. Not hard.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
Wait, so your pathway to them not being "censored" (as HN would say) is to show that they aren't being censored (and by censored you mean moderated) by CCP? That's ridiculous.
bepvte 6y ago
Can you prove that you aren't yourself? How would someone prove that?? I believe you are allowed to say "free tibet" etc on tiktok without any problems right now.

yholio 6y ago

I believe the USA is squarely within its rights to reciprocate the ban that american companies such as Google and Facebook face in China. So the move is justified on commercial grounds alone. That being said, Trump's claims that TikTok is a national security threat are more than dubious. Sure, the operation of any foreign company can be interpreted as a security threat to any nation. Who's to say that the latest imported batch of Ramen aren't part of a Japanese plot for a new Pearl Harbor involving explosive Ramen. But the only logical conclusion to this way of thinking is to completely isolate a country from the outside world.

seamyb88 6y ago

Your police shoot unarmed black people and your president defends them. Free world my ass.

throwaway894345 6y ago
FWIW, our police also shoot unarmed white people at higher rates (than crime rates would predict, anyway) than unarmed black people. We have a police accountability problem, and we can improve it dramatically with a few relatively small tweaks (remove qualified immunity, weaken police unions, improve police training) whereas China's police violence is top-down policy. Note that I'm only contextualizing/clarifying; I'll leave it to readers to determine which is preferable.
rglover 6y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...
- joubert 6y ago
  That's in absolute numbers. Better to look at rate, because it shows your risk of being shot and killed, depending on ethnicity - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings... Black: 32 per million Hispanic: 24 per million White: 13 per million That is, if you're Black, your chances of being shot and killed by the police is 2.5 times higher than if you were white.
  - stOneskull 6y ago
    you make it sound like the police are a murder cult. they shoot because of a crime incident.
    - joubert 6y ago
      > they shoot because of a crime incident. Even if all fatal police shootings were directly related to a crime committed by the person who is killed (they're not), we have to ask ourselves whether such shootings (or killing by other means, e.g. chokehold) are an appropriate technique for law enforcement. Which crimes or actions warrant shooting or killing someone, in your opinion? When we look at data that show killings by law enforcement officers by country, we learn that in the US people are fatally shot at 3.5 times the rate than they are in Canada and 9 times the rate as in France. You are more likely to be killed by the police in America than you are in Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan[1]. > you make it sound like the police are a murder cult. I am not saying the police are a murder cult; I'm saying that they are here to protect us and that when innocent people are fearful of those meant to protect us, something's wrong. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...

nogabebop23 6y ago

lost me at the second sentence: >> As a company we have always focused on transparency maybe this is another parody like the MasterWiki one?

knodi 6y ago

The Idiot-Trump effect.

bdefore 6y ago

Couldn't the EU leverage the TikTok ordeal to make a similar case to force US-based social networks to divest ownership and restrict data hosting to locations outside of Five Eyes access? Given the revelations around espionage towards NATO allies it doesn't sound unreasonable.

angio 6y ago
At least someone in the EU is thinking about a digital firewall [0] to keep European citizens data within the EU. [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648784/IPOL_STU(2020)648784_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...

nicosaul 6y ago

Best case scenario Tiktok is just wasting people’s time.

temp1892232323 6y ago

In a world full of shady companies, I would much rather bacl companies like FB than companies like TikTok backed by the Chinese government. Even with all the flaws that the US government and various US companies have, they're so much better in terms of transparency and regulation than their chinese counterparts.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Idk, the lead up to the Iraq War was the polar opposite of transparency and now one million people are dead.

ausjke 6y ago

Tiktok, in your hiring practice, you stated CCP members first and preferred, you have CCP organization in your company and they're very active daily(meeting, discussing how to serve better to CCP and obey CCP's leadership,etc), in fact your CEO etc must follow the CCP leaders in your organization, you're nothing but a CCP puppet. You're further evil enough to leverage the West free world to cover the true you. this is the same logic as many CCP officers in the news section, they block twitter/facebook/etc inside mainland China, but themselves have active twitter/facebook/etc accounts to push CCP's propaganda. they become so good at leveraging the free world's system to cover their own evil actions. For god sake the west is waking up. I did business there and I know you all well.

llboston 6y ago

If you wanna learn more about how Chinese company are forced to do censorship, this will be a good read https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.voachinese.com%2Fa%2Finternet-censorship-20200812%2F5540475.html https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http... An former employee of Weibo (China's Twitter clone) who recently moved to the US did a great interview with VOA

someonehere 6y ago

Radio Free Asia (unsure of legitimacy of this site) has stated China used TikTok data out of the Houston consulate (remember it was shut down by the State Department out of the blue and neighbors were filming the consulate burning documents in the courtyard) to manipulate the BLM protest narrative: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3876672/posts https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3876672/posts “The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivered relevant materials precisely to those people who were most likely to participate in the protests, while other people could not even find those videos.” From the article there’s mention of fake IDs. That made me think of this news item: https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/shipments-of-nearly-20000-fake-drivers-licenses-seized-at-chicago-airport https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/shipments-of-nearly-20000-f... Something is afoot and TikTok needs to not be here anymore.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Radio Free Asia has been founded by the CIA, and is generally considered to be a propaganda rag. Would not use it as a source, and if you can only find RFA as a source and not much else it's probably outright false.
- president 6y ago
  Something can be propaganda but still remain factual. Agree that framing and bias can still be present but you can't just dismiss it as false without overwhelming proof otherwise you're just making a bad faith argument.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    You can't prove a negative. If the only source for something was TASS or the CGTN and you couldn't find any other source, it would be treated as false until proof of the contrary. The burden of proof is on the person claiming something to provide a credible source. The CIA is not a good source for things that conflict with US interests.
    - 6y ago

ideals 6y ago

Some strong Chinese xenophobia in this thread. This place is getting straight up awful towards Chinese. Cheerleading a racist president who shouts "China flu" and latching onto this flimsy executive order because you finally get the warm fuzzy feeling of fucking over a company started by a Chinese person is straight up fucked.

zadkey 6y ago

"By banning TikTok with no notice or opportunity to be heard (whether before or after the fact), the executive order violates the due process protections of the Fifth Amendment." The 5th amendment rights that they are asserting apply to people. This brings us back to the question of "Are corporations people?" "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

ghayes 6y ago
The 14th Amendment expands the scope of the 5th Amendment by clarifying when and how Due Process must be applied. The Court has generally expanded the scope over the last 200 years, and I do not think TikTok will have to seriously argue whether or not Constitutional due process applies in this case. The arguments should mostly lie in whether or not Due Process was applied and likely more on the application of Federal law in the case.

fl0wRiny 6y ago

Who cares though honestly. Cry about it TikTok. Honestly ALL social media should be banned. Citizens don't understand the privacy that is being exploited while they think that they're benefiting from a "free service." Besides these companies are mostly fueling a toxic culture that glorifies sin while they get rich off of the poor. Plus it's the American market and we get to make the decisions here about other countries even if it's extremely authoritarian. And honestly china is a despicable marketplace (not to say fight fire with fire) but gg dude, go to other markets they have been exploiting our market for as long as society can remember. Go do business elsewhere. They're already stealing all of our IP and not required barely any pay to make it. So let's set some boundaries where we can.

whatshisface 6y ago
>Honestly ALL social media should be banned. The page you're posting that comment on is social media...
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  Forums that don't require you to use your real time, don't track your location, and are text only are not synonymous with the modern sense of social media.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Honestly, as much as I dislike the CCP, I definitely want TikTok to stay until/unless there is some real anti-trust or other FAANG weakening happening. Even if Tik Tok just kills Facebook and becomes the new Facebook, that's fine. Now the US goverment won't feel conflicted between anti-trust and tech nationalism, and we can lobby for much better privacy laws. Anti-trust has been such a joke in the last few decades, and federal governance so bad in general around all issues of privacy, technology, and competition, I'll accept the Chinese competitor cudgel because it's the best we got. Sigh.

Heyso 6y ago

Not sure this has anything to do with tiktok, but just wanted to say that : Every compagny that is not paying taxes, is stealing money from all peoples in the country. They use loopholes in the law to make in legal. But that should not be acceptable. It pain me to live in a world where most peoples doesn't care to be robbed constantly.

chojeen 6y ago

It's hard to know how to feel about this complex situation. On one hand: - The Chinese government clearly has its tendrils in TikTok and uses it to push its oppressive censorship policies around the world - The security implications of giving China a backdoor into a large percentage of American phones is too concerning to ignore On the other hand: - Explicitly targeting specific companies feels wrong. If security and censorship are real concerns here, Congress should be passing laws that apply to all companies, not just TikTok - Even though there are sound reasons to restrict TikTok, this is still a transparently protectionist policy by the Trump admin and fits right into his nationalistic, totalitarian, xenophobic playbook. A broken clock is still right twice a day, I suppose - Requiring a sale to an American company is the mirror image of China's forced technology transfers for foreign companies. Two wrongs don't make a right I think the best scenario is for Congress to preempt Trump with laws that protect American security and free speech interests without executive action. That's easier said than done, though.

cryptica 6y ago

Nobody gives a crap about TikTok or its executives. If Trump puts them all in jail for life without a trial. I don't care about TikTok and their cronies. If Trump decided to seize all billionaires' money and assets and distribute it equally to everyone, I would see that as a plus. In this nonsensical economy, the pathetic moral arguments made by this article are word vomit. Not relevant to anyone's life. Nobody cares. They should be locked up for abusing our collective brains with this irrelevant crap.

BTCOG 6y ago

If and while China sees fit to ban all American apps, programs, and sites, we should return that in kind. I support segregating China off our clean network.

tmcronn 6y ago

>Microsoft has been in talks to acquire TikTok — though co-founder Bill Gates has called the potential deal a “poisoned chalice” Where there's money to be made, no poison is too poisonous for big companies.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

So American companies can sue China for not allowing them in? Not.