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TikTok should be banned in the US. China banned all of our homegrown social networks, its pretty standard international precedent to ban theirs, given the secur
by cm2012 5y ago
TikTok should be banned in the US. China banned all of our homegrown social networks, its pretty standard international precedent to ban theirs, given the security risks.
- Bombthecat 5y agoTried that already, didn't work..
- duxup 5y agoThey banned tik tok ?
- wutbrodo 5y ago
- duxup 5y agoI honestly can't parse that sentence, it seems pretty loaded to the point that it makes no sense to me.
- long_time_gone 5y ago> Trump it mobilized the 99% of people who don't have beliefs as much as they have I thought it was the judicial branch and an injunction that stopped it. >> On 23 September 2020, TikTok filed a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the app from being banned by the Trump administration. This request was filed with the District Court for the District of Columbia. The preliminary injunction was approved by Judge Carl J. Nichols on September 27. Then, the current President rescinded it and ordered an actual review of the risks. Something we probably should have done prior to the attempted banning. >> In June 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order revoking the Trump administration ban on TikTok, and instead ordered the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the app to determine if it poses a threat to U.S. national security. I'm confused on exactly what you think happened. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_...
- wutbrodo 5y agoYes, I was being glib, thanks for calling it out. As the wiki article you shared lays out, there was a decent amount of nonpartisan momentum behind narrower limitations on Tiktok, along with serious consideration of it as a national security threat. Trump's threat of an outright ban immediately polarized the conversation and deflated much of that momentum, helped along by the fact his specific approach and messaging were typically incautious instead of incremental. The courts did indeed issue an injunction against Trump's EO, and I don't have any reason to believe they were wrong to do so. Biden, again typically, _has_ taken the first steps of an incremental approach towards assessing the risks that tiktok poses. But as implied by the Wikipedia page you linked, we're nowhere near the level of Congressional and institutional attention that we were at in 2019 and 2020, and it's pretty reasonable to attribute this to Trump's engagement with the issue reorienting the political valence of the conversation. Specifically, the "Trump vs tiktok" association is so strong that (eg) a Senator that makes too much noise about it will now be loaded with an association that he may not want. I actually don't have a strong opinion about tiktok's ban, see risks in both courses of action, and am a fan of the Biden admin's ostensible careful approach. I just resent the degree to which the idiocy of the public drives so many issues further away from thoughtful engagement with reality and towards partisan sportsball.
- twofornone 5y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_... Trump admin tried to restrict its use, at least among government/military, and perhaps predictably he was accused of racism/sinophobia...but the threat was just as real then as now.
- duxup 5y agoThat doesn't really seem like "tried that" to me.
- dahfizz 5y agoThere was literally an executive order which banned TikTok if the Chinese parent company did not sell the platform[1]. That's a pretty real "tried to ban tiktok". [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13942 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13942
- duxup 5y agoTo me an executive order doomed to fail in the courts really isn't a real attempt.
- dymk 5y agoPray tell what a real attempt looks like to you?
- duxup 5y agoLegislation, a department taking action within their legal powers. In the US it really does matter how you do things. Just the whim of the president is not enough for it to happen. Trump had no legal basis for his order. He liked to act like he was doing things with grand strokes, many of them were doomed to fail. I'm not convinced that he or those around him even cared if they did or not. I don't think you can read much into an amateur hour / foolish attempt.
- nsajko 5y agoTrump tried doing something like that in a predictably half-assed, illegal and obviously inappropriate manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok_v._Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok_v._Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_co...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoAs a European, I would be happy to ban TikTok, but also Facebook and all its subsidiaries (Instagram, WhatsApp) and Google and all its subsidiaries. It's not like others are better, but those three are the worst when it comes to spying shaping public opinion only because they are the biggest and most powerful. If I had to choose who will influence the public in my country, let it better be some company (or government) that has my country interest first, and not China or the USA interests.
- rmbyrro 5y agoI understand the point, but I don't see how companies can be "nationalist", or think in "their country's interests". They only care about money and who knows who really control any corporation with the size that a competing social network service would require?
- ethbr0 5y agoThat's part of the point though: in most of the developed world, it is possible to know who controls a given corporation. Because there's a rule of law, legal records, required disclosures, all subject to investigation and enforcement by an independent judiciary that creates a public record. We can bemoan that wealthy people control a majority of assets or that some exceptions slip through the cracks at smaller scale (e.g. offshore shell companies owning assets). But by and large there's no question as to "Who owns Exxon? Or Google? Or Facebook?" China does not have that.
- voxl 5y agoNo thanks, don't need any more authoritarian moves from presidential over reach. Privacy laws for companies making X$ in yearly revenue is much saner approach.
- Karunamon 5y agoCountries deciding that foreigners can't use their citizen's data willy-nilly is neither authoritarian nor over-reach, and neither is restricting those foreigners from access when they don't comply. For a generally accepted instance, see the EU GDPR.
- seanp2k2 5y agoI just have a hard time accepting that the people who made every website implement a cookie warning that is equivalent to the “don’t use in bathtub” stickers all over appliances know enough about to write airtight laws that would actually solve any of this.
- Karunamon 5y agoThe cookie warning as irritatingly implemented is a bit of false-flagging by people who make their money from adtech surveillance. They intentionally make the experience suck as much as possible, then point at the law and say "talk to the government, they're making us do this" when challenged.
- jdlshore 5y agoThe GDPR is an excellent law and has nothing to do with the cookie warnings you see. I’m speaking as someone who read it carefully for implementing compliance in a small business.
- Steltek 5y agoI think parent was commenting on the "China bans US tech, we should ban TikTok", which is just reflexive poop throwing between two countries. GDPR is totally different: it's a level headed statement of principles for how ALL tech companies should treat user data.
- snehk 5y agoChina didn't specifically "ban" US social networks because they were US social networks. The companies themselves didn't want to comply with Chinese laws so they cannot operate there. It's the same as Facebook now threatening to leave the EU if they have to comply with EU data protection laws.
- vorpalhex 5y agoThey didn't want to comply with laws requiring giving the Chinese government full access to their data.
- snehk 5y agoIt really doesn't matter. We can say that it's good that companies like Google or Facebook don't want to be part in any of this or we can say that even the slightest interest in user privacy makes it morally impossible for companies to operate in China. What's simply not true is the idea that Google or Facebook not being in China has anything to do with them being American companies.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoWell I mean the US kinda does that too. That's why Schrems II was able to invalidate EU-US Privacy Shield.
- Steltek 5y agoChina structures things overwhelmingly in favor of its domestic companies to the point of ridiculousness. It's well past simple tariffs when you need joint ventures, a license to operate a website, source code disclosure, key escrow, government censors, Taiwan/Tibet/Hong Kong/Uiyghur tiptoeing, and who knows what else. A US company operating in China under its own international brand is a sucker who fell for a pretty blatant con.
- coliveira 5y agoUS companies go to China because they want to make money. Pure and simple. China has laws, that they need to comply with. Nobody is being forced to do things, in one side or another. If US companies want to operate overseas, they need to follow other countries rules, the same way that happens inside the US. If US companies don't want to make money from the Chinese market, they can just chose to leave.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoRight, I actually see this as a very simple trade issue! China doesn't allow US social networks in China, so the US shouldn't allow Chinese social networks in the US. Doing anything else means that Chinese companies have the ability to build international platforms—where both Chinese and US citizens can participate—and US companies do not. Furthermore, those international platforms could potentially be made to enforce the CCP's standards for speech, setting the tone for conversations about Uyghurs and Taiwan worldwide.
- rootsudo 5y agohttps://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-order-tiktok/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-orde... Tried and failed.
- bakuninsbart 5y agoUS social networks are allowed to operate in China, they just have to follow the local law. Facebook was banned after denying the authorities the data of Uighur protesters after a deathly riot in 2009. Imagine the outcry here if a riot that left more than a hundred people dead was organized on facebook, and then the company decides to protect the rioters. Google and Twitter decided that the backlash back home wasn't worth the attempt to enter the market, since they would have to comply with strict censorship laws. Some US social media platforms do operate within China. TikTok does follow US law, so instead of flat out banning it, the reasonable thing to do would be to enact sensible privacy legislation... But oh wait, then tech giants can't exploit the local population anymore.
- piggybox 5y agoLet me remind you that once upon a time a US company gave some email data to the authorities of China, the CEO of the company was sued in US and later resigned. That company was Yahoo!
- babypuncher 5y agoTo do this, we can't just say "Chinese social networks are not allowed in the US", because that is not what China is doing. You need to outlaw whatever it is TikTok is doing that you do not like in the first place. Facebook is not allowed to operate in China not because they are American, but because they do not want to comply with Chinese law.
- kelnos 5y agoI think it's too late for that. If we tried to ban TikTok in the US, there'd be a public outcry.
- marvel_boy 5y agoBetter late than never.
- rootsudo 5y agohttps://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-order-tiktok/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-orde...
- yibg 5y agoI’d rather have a generally applicable law in place. If we think massive data collection shouldn’t be allowed then ban that.
- cortesoft 5y agoHow would you ban data collection happening in a foreign country?
- echelon 5y agoRequire servers to be hosted domestically. This doesn't prevent exfiltration, but it can be more closely regulated and inspected. Many countries ask this of US companies, so there's no reason we shouldn't adopt a similar stance.
- angio 5y agoIntroduce general data protection rules, then forbid data transfers to countries that cannot guarantee protection of users' data. That what's happening in the EU with US-based software.
- yibg 5y agoYou can’t. But you can ban apps that don’t comply to these laws. Similarly to how China band google and Facebook for not complying with their laws.
- ethbr0 5y agoIt feels like debate is a generation behind practice here. The greatest danger isn't from data collection, but from algorithmic recommendation. The data collection horse is out of the barn, has legitimate uses, and is an incredibly thorny issue to legislate appropriately. And will be adjusted for the next 20+ years. What needs to be done now is to say that (1) at a certain user count ("too big to democratically ignore") then (2) production recommendation algorithms must be auditable. Allow the details of audits to be kept secret from public record, but the DoJ should be able to go to Google, Facebook, Netflix, or TikTok and say "Show me how this works, now." It's burying your head in the sand to suggest this doesn't have a clear impact on democracy and is currently solely in control of private companies and completely opaque. And it's the opaqueness that's the biggest danger. Fundamentally, modern media/social is different from everything that came before because of the economic feasibility of microtargeting. Newspapers couldn't afford to track their customers individually & print a unique paper for each of them, which resulted in an auditable public record. All of the companies above can do exactly that, without leaving any public record.
- rootsudo 5y agoIt was tried, but people cried racism. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-order-tiktok/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-orde...
- varispeed 5y agoNot only that. You can't operate an online store in China, but Chinese sellers can sell good to Europe or the US. It's baffling why this lack of reciprocity is allowed.
- colinmhayes 5y agoPeople like having access to cheap goods.
- dragonelite 5y agoNo US tech just doesn't want to follow Chinese law so they left, kind of like how facebook threatened to leave EU recently. If the EU continues with their cyber law.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago> You're not banned from my house, but if you come to visit, you're required to beat my children.
- colejohnson66 5y agoThey aren't: https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/meta-is-absolutely-not-threatening-to-leave-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/meta-is-absolutely-not-thr...
- ok123456 5y agoSnowden exposed the wholesale, unauthorized data collection operation the US NatSec complex was performing and we haven't banned the us government from peering to the internet. Why should we ban people voluntarily using a short video service that shows them things they like and whose business model is virtually identical to every other social media company?
- boc 5y agoThere's a difference between listening and engaging. The NSA listens. TikTok listens, engages, and suggests new content and ideas to millions.
- ok123456 5y agoNSA works against infrastructure providers to breech their security guards so they can continue to hoover up data, and backdoors products/algorithms. TikTok shows you 80s commercials and clips from industrial films after figuring out that you want to see 80s commercials and clips from industrial films. Based on the ads that I get, which are pretty unintrusive, easily identifiable and always skippable, it doesn't seem like their analytics are that advanced. Besides random major brands, who are essentially broadcasting ads, I get ads for diesel mechanic tech schools and random wish products.
- loudthing 5y agoI for one am a proponent for free and open internet and net neutrality. Banning any sites/services in the US is a slippery slope. There has to be better ways to deal with these problems.