13 ms·

If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally t

If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally to all social media platforms, regardless of who currently owns it or may own it in the future?

tonetheman 4y ago
[dead]
gretch 4y ago
That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in the United States". It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along. It's never been about privacy nor internal (to the US) security. It's very openly about cross pacific adversaries. Only meta-tech commentators have tried to apply some weird narrative of privacy.
- kneel 4y ago
  That's a lot of words to say authoritarianism.
- charlieflowers 4y ago
  The real concerns, in order of importance, are: 1. This is a way of getting memes to the masses that we (the US political establishment) can't fully control. 2. Meta and others are getting their asses kicked revenue-wise by Tik Tok. Like any business, they'd use anything they could to fight back. Turns out they can use China fear mongering, so they are. 3. (Added) Believe it or not, there's nationalistic pride here. There is a reluctance to admit that an app from "the other side" (China) is more appealing to the masses than _our_ social media apps. Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars (but at least they're made by Asians who are _allies_ I guess). No matter that banning an app is completely against the principles we claim, such as freedom for individuals, competition in a free market, and freedom of information.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    When the memes involve destroying the school bathrooms and stealing cars. It's probably worth considering what control is had over it.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      Yeah, that's where the Toyota/Honda comparison breaks down to me. Toyota and Honda sell cars to users. TikTok sells users.
      - charlieflowers 4y ago
        I mean, yeah, true. But only in the exact same way that Meta, Google, and a bunch of other American companies do too.
      - throwaway-blaze 4y ago
        Toyota and Honda both assemble cars here in the US and have a huge network of US-based suppliers. No one believes that those companies operate under Japanese government direction nor that the Japanese government has the ability to influence company management to the degree the CCP clearly can with TikTok. It is well documented that the "Golden Shares" owned by the CCP and the board seat on they have give them fundamental control of the company.
        ecshafer 4y ago
        Saying that the CCP is in control due to board seats is a bad reason. China gives CCP membership to the top students in schools, and most people try and join the CCP if they can. The people that make up the tops of companies are most likely to be CCP members because of the fact that highly driven people are most likely to be in or join the CCP. Yes the Chinese government has a lot of control, but members of the CCP being on the board is nonsense. It is extra nonsense when you consider how many US companies have government members on the board. Condoleezza Rice is a board member of Dropbox for example.
    - 4y ago
- layer8 4y ago
  What does the Pacific have to do with that? I’m sure it would be the same if the adversaries were cross-Atlantic. I’m finding the wording strange because the US arguably has more cross-Pacific allies than adversaries.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- holler 4y ago
  China has banned nearly all US social networks already so is this really surprising given the current status quo?
  - vkou 4y ago
    If we're using China as a role model for our information hygiene, then I think it's fair to say that the free speech experiment that some liberal democracies have practiced over the past few centuries has ran its course, and can be considered a failure. Pack it up, folks, as it turns out, there are some things that are too dangerous to let the public hear.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      I think you need to study WW2 a little bit more. The Office of Censorship opening up letters to destroy pro-Nazi sentiment, and the Office of War Information buying up Disney Cartoons to show Donald Duck / Popeye / etc. as a Navy Sailor and encourage us to buy War Bonds through very overt propaganda. Free Speech comes and goes in the USA. We tend to lean towards the freer-side of things, but if we need to, we clamp down on it to meet our other goals. ----- WW2 is hardly an outlier either. WW1 had Espionage Act of 1917, Civil War didn't even have a law, Censorship and seizure of printing presses was just so common. Pre-Civil War, the Postmaster General of slave states commonly censored pamphlets from abolitionists. I mean, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" were passed within a year or two of the Bill of Rights, allowing the President to arrest various members of the press in the 1780s. Etc. etc. This stuff has been going on since the dawn of the USA as a country. Book burnings and other such events were also widespread in the USA throughout our history... and even have legal precedent like the Comstock laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws IMO, we've gone too far into the free-speech side of becoming absolutely idiots about the subject in recent years and all of us can benefit from researching the actual history of the USA. Free Speech, both opening up, and restricting it, has its uses. And if you're a student of history, you'll be able to feel the ebbs and flows of this subject throughout time. ----------- Censorship is a tool. A tool best used rarely, maybe only a few times a century. But I unfortunately think we're coming to the point where we need to start using it within this decade or so. And no, not for the stupid AP African American class crap. I mean for the part that matters right now, the China-Taiwan conflict that is obviously brewing up.
- waboremo 4y ago
  When you are also banning VPN access to whatever tools you deem under the control of "foreign adversaries" (which, more people should look up the government's actual definition on this lol), then privacy is very much a core narrative. If it was just about China then Chinese apps would have been banned off Apple and Google stores years ago. This is going to be one of those things Americans look back at, like the PATRIOT act, and wonder how the hell they allowed it to happen all because of one app/event.
- goldfeld 4y ago
  These guys are ridiculous, they represent the "I'm losing now so gonna take my ball home crying" mentality. Oh what a pity the US is not able to always win and have all the hot new toys made of american silicon! Of course it's very fine and dandy for all social networks that matter to be controlled on their soil, of course it's great that US is phone code #1!!1 and that .com is such an american thing at its birth. The land of freedom and opportunity cannot stomach that Zuker could not buy TikTok too? Come on give me a break. Also, even Rome fell. It's better not to start playing the loser's game, it just accelerates decadence.
- stronglikedan 4y ago
  I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line.
  - chimeracoder 4y ago
    > I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line. The bill affects multiple countries, not just China. In fact, it encompasses "any foreign government or regime, determined by the Secretary [to be]... significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons" Depending on how much (or little) you trust the Secretary of Commerce, that's incredibly far-reaching and could easily be abused.
  - starfallg 4y ago
    Bytedance absolutely has US offices. Their Mountain View office being branded Bytedance, while their LA office is TikTok. They also have office in many cities in the US like Nashville and NYC.
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    That's absolutely incorrect. TikTok has plenty of US personnel and is doing something called "Project Texas" to try to assuage US regulator concern. This is about China controlling a channel that millions of Americans use to get their news
- est 4y ago
  > It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along. It's not that simple. The commitee can change the definition of "foreign adversary" under SEC. 2. (8) (B) at their will.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
The issue is that tiktok told congress that US data was inaccessible in China but there is evidence of Chinese nationals accessing american journalist's data in China. Also I'm sure big tech lobbying is playing a large role here too, but that's the cover story at least.
- florbnit 4y ago
  Do you have a link or reference to that evidence?
  - kube-system 4y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by... "TikTok spy journalist" returns a lot of results in your favorite search engine
- kube-system 4y ago
  Regardless of anything TikTok's management says, Chinese law functionally allows them to force ByteDance to supply any data they want.
remote_phone 4y ago
It’s not about privacy and security it’s about propaganda and controlling what our citizens are influenced by.
tzs 4y ago
Actual privacy and security laws aren't passed because this is not a sufficiently bipartisan issue to get enough votes. One party is largely in favor of stronger privacy laws, but with enough dissenters that when that party is the majority party they still would need help from the other party. The other party is largely against stronger privacy laws, without enough dissenters to overcome the more pro-privacy party dissenters when the more pro-privacy party has the majority. So nothing passes.
than3 4y ago
The concern is subversion and malign influence, which is a very real problem. USMC University has a book on political warfare that covers the topic fairly. The politicians don't want to touch privacy or security laws since that would negatively impact their benefactors as opposed to actually doing their jobs for their constituents. Its a power grab, hopefully it won't get passed because of the loose undefined wording that could apply to anything they so choose like in ways described in Ayn Rand.
- alexfromapex 4y ago
  Tencent also has a very large stake in Reddit, I wonder if there's any plan to investigate influence operations there.
- beezle 4y ago
  Yes but Twitter and Facebook have already been used for that purpose and continue to be used in that manner. I get that it is not appropriate on government phones in case they manage to leverage a zeroday but for the average Joe I'm not seeing the risk of TikTok being any greater than the rest of the social media world - the same info is shared/available.
beebmam 4y ago
Because other social media companies aren't owned or controlled by an authoritarian state, one which expresses threats of violent aggression to its neighboring countries.
- Quinner 4y ago
  This is America, we follow through on our threats of violent aggression, no matter how far away other countries are. And when we ban speech, it's not authoritarianism, it's Freedom.
rvz 4y ago
The US regulators and government is not tired of collecting money from and imposing fines on all social media and tech platforms, hence why Facebook, Google (YouTube), Instagram, Snap, etc all have been fined by the FTC for privacy violations. Facebook and TikTok are of similar sizes and have both violated the privacy of its users and since FB has paid a giant billion dollar fine to the FTC, it already makes sense to also fine TikTok on similar grounds including overseas access to US data by specifically targeting US journalists.
atlasunshrugged 4y ago
Congress is also working on privacy legislation, it just takes forever because it's massive and complex. I imagine that legislators feel they have urgency/momentum behind the TikTok stuff to get something focused done. From the article below: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee last year advanced a bipartisan bill backed by Rodgers and sponsored by ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., that would produce a national data privacy standard, but the measure didn't get a House floor vote, and no similar measure has passed in the Senate." https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-privacy-as-another-tech-ceo-to-testify/ https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-pr...
greenie_beans 4y ago
that would be reasonable, wouldn't it?
chaostheory 4y ago
Because like with the GPRD, this is primarily about a trade dispute.

tonetheman 4y ago

[dead]

gretch 4y ago

That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in the United States". It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along. It's never been about privacy nor internal (to the US) security. It's very openly about cross pacific adversaries. Only meta-tech commentators have tried to apply some weird narrative of privacy.

kneel 4y ago
That's a lot of words to say authoritarianism.
charlieflowers 4y ago
The real concerns, in order of importance, are: 1. This is a way of getting memes to the masses that we (the US political establishment) can't fully control. 2. Meta and others are getting their asses kicked revenue-wise by Tik Tok. Like any business, they'd use anything they could to fight back. Turns out they can use China fear mongering, so they are. 3. (Added) Believe it or not, there's nationalistic pride here. There is a reluctance to admit that an app from "the other side" (China) is more appealing to the masses than _our_ social media apps. Surprising then that we don't ban Hondas and Toyotas, even though they're far superior to American cars (but at least they're made by Asians who are _allies_ I guess). No matter that banning an app is completely against the principles we claim, such as freedom for individuals, competition in a free market, and freedom of information.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  When the memes involve destroying the school bathrooms and stealing cars. It's probably worth considering what control is had over it.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    Yeah, that's where the Toyota/Honda comparison breaks down to me. Toyota and Honda sell cars to users. TikTok sells users.
    - charlieflowers 4y ago
      I mean, yeah, true. But only in the exact same way that Meta, Google, and a bunch of other American companies do too.
    - throwaway-blaze 4y ago
      Toyota and Honda both assemble cars here in the US and have a huge network of US-based suppliers. No one believes that those companies operate under Japanese government direction nor that the Japanese government has the ability to influence company management to the degree the CCP clearly can with TikTok. It is well documented that the "Golden Shares" owned by the CCP and the board seat on they have give them fundamental control of the company.
      - ecshafer 4y ago
        Saying that the CCP is in control due to board seats is a bad reason. China gives CCP membership to the top students in schools, and most people try and join the CCP if they can. The people that make up the tops of companies are most likely to be CCP members because of the fact that highly driven people are most likely to be in or join the CCP. Yes the Chinese government has a lot of control, but members of the CCP being on the board is nonsense. It is extra nonsense when you consider how many US companies have government members on the board. Condoleezza Rice is a board member of Dropbox for example.
  - 4y ago
layer8 4y ago
What does the Pacific have to do with that? I’m sure it would be the same if the adversaries were cross-Atlantic. I’m finding the wording strange because the US arguably has more cross-Pacific allies than adversaries.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
holler 4y ago
China has banned nearly all US social networks already so is this really surprising given the current status quo?
- vkou 4y ago
  If we're using China as a role model for our information hygiene, then I think it's fair to say that the free speech experiment that some liberal democracies have practiced over the past few centuries has ran its course, and can be considered a failure. Pack it up, folks, as it turns out, there are some things that are too dangerous to let the public hear.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    I think you need to study WW2 a little bit more. The Office of Censorship opening up letters to destroy pro-Nazi sentiment, and the Office of War Information buying up Disney Cartoons to show Donald Duck / Popeye / etc. as a Navy Sailor and encourage us to buy War Bonds through very overt propaganda. Free Speech comes and goes in the USA. We tend to lean towards the freer-side of things, but if we need to, we clamp down on it to meet our other goals. ----- WW2 is hardly an outlier either. WW1 had Espionage Act of 1917, Civil War didn't even have a law, Censorship and seizure of printing presses was just so common. Pre-Civil War, the Postmaster General of slave states commonly censored pamphlets from abolitionists. I mean, the "Alien and Sedition Acts" were passed within a year or two of the Bill of Rights, allowing the President to arrest various members of the press in the 1780s. Etc. etc. This stuff has been going on since the dawn of the USA as a country. Book burnings and other such events were also widespread in the USA throughout our history... and even have legal precedent like the Comstock laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws IMO, we've gone too far into the free-speech side of becoming absolutely idiots about the subject in recent years and all of us can benefit from researching the actual history of the USA. Free Speech, both opening up, and restricting it, has its uses. And if you're a student of history, you'll be able to feel the ebbs and flows of this subject throughout time. ----------- Censorship is a tool. A tool best used rarely, maybe only a few times a century. But I unfortunately think we're coming to the point where we need to start using it within this decade or so. And no, not for the stupid AP African American class crap. I mean for the part that matters right now, the China-Taiwan conflict that is obviously brewing up.
waboremo 4y ago
When you are also banning VPN access to whatever tools you deem under the control of "foreign adversaries" (which, more people should look up the government's actual definition on this lol), then privacy is very much a core narrative. If it was just about China then Chinese apps would have been banned off Apple and Google stores years ago. This is going to be one of those things Americans look back at, like the PATRIOT act, and wonder how the hell they allowed it to happen all because of one app/event.
goldfeld 4y ago
These guys are ridiculous, they represent the "I'm losing now so gonna take my ball home crying" mentality. Oh what a pity the US is not able to always win and have all the hot new toys made of american silicon! Of course it's very fine and dandy for all social networks that matter to be controlled on their soil, of course it's great that US is phone code #1!!1 and that .com is such an american thing at its birth. The land of freedom and opportunity cannot stomach that Zuker could not buy TikTok too? Come on give me a break. Also, even Rome fell. It's better not to start playing the loser's game, it just accelerates decadence.
stronglikedan 4y ago
I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line.
- chimeracoder 4y ago
  > I don't think it's specifically China. I think it's retribution because ByteDance won't open US offices and be beholden to the US government like other large corporations do. I think this is the US gov using them as an example of what happens when a corporation such as this dares not fall in line. The bill affects multiple countries, not just China. In fact, it encompasses "any foreign government or regime, determined by the Secretary [to be]... significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons" Depending on how much (or little) you trust the Secretary of Commerce, that's incredibly far-reaching and could easily be abused.
- starfallg 4y ago
  Bytedance absolutely has US offices. Their Mountain View office being branded Bytedance, while their LA office is TikTok. They also have office in many cities in the US like Nashville and NYC.
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  That's absolutely incorrect. TikTok has plenty of US personnel and is doing something called "Project Texas" to try to assuage US regulator concern. This is about China controlling a channel that millions of Americans use to get their news
est 4y ago
> It's quite simple - the US and China don't get along. It's not that simple. The commitee can change the definition of "foreign adversary" under SEC. 2. (8) (B) at their will.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

The issue is that tiktok told congress that US data was inaccessible in China but there is evidence of Chinese nationals accessing american journalist's data in China. Also I'm sure big tech lobbying is playing a large role here too, but that's the cover story at least.

florbnit 4y ago
Do you have a link or reference to that evidence?
- kube-system 4y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by... "TikTok spy journalist" returns a lot of results in your favorite search engine
kube-system 4y ago
Regardless of anything TikTok's management says, Chinese law functionally allows them to force ByteDance to supply any data they want.

remote_phone 4y ago

It’s not about privacy and security it’s about propaganda and controlling what our citizens are influenced by.

tzs 4y ago

Actual privacy and security laws aren't passed because this is not a sufficiently bipartisan issue to get enough votes. One party is largely in favor of stronger privacy laws, but with enough dissenters that when that party is the majority party they still would need help from the other party. The other party is largely against stronger privacy laws, without enough dissenters to overcome the more pro-privacy party dissenters when the more pro-privacy party has the majority. So nothing passes.

than3 4y ago

The concern is subversion and malign influence, which is a very real problem. USMC University has a book on political warfare that covers the topic fairly. The politicians don't want to touch privacy or security laws since that would negatively impact their benefactors as opposed to actually doing their jobs for their constituents. Its a power grab, hopefully it won't get passed because of the loose undefined wording that could apply to anything they so choose like in ways described in Ayn Rand.

alexfromapex 4y ago
Tencent also has a very large stake in Reddit, I wonder if there's any plan to investigate influence operations there.
beezle 4y ago
Yes but Twitter and Facebook have already been used for that purpose and continue to be used in that manner. I get that it is not appropriate on government phones in case they manage to leverage a zeroday but for the average Joe I'm not seeing the risk of TikTok being any greater than the rest of the social media world - the same info is shared/available.

beebmam 4y ago

Because other social media companies aren't owned or controlled by an authoritarian state, one which expresses threats of violent aggression to its neighboring countries.

Quinner 4y ago
This is America, we follow through on our threats of violent aggression, no matter how far away other countries are. And when we ban speech, it's not authoritarianism, it's Freedom.

rvz 4y ago

The US regulators and government is not tired of collecting money from and imposing fines on all social media and tech platforms, hence why Facebook, Google (YouTube), Instagram, Snap, etc all have been fined by the FTC for privacy violations. Facebook and TikTok are of similar sizes and have both violated the privacy of its users and since FB has paid a giant billion dollar fine to the FTC, it already makes sense to also fine TikTok on similar grounds including overseas access to US data by specifically targeting US journalists.

atlasunshrugged 4y ago

Congress is also working on privacy legislation, it just takes forever because it's massive and complex. I imagine that legislators feel they have urgency/momentum behind the TikTok stuff to get something focused done. From the article below: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee last year advanced a bipartisan bill backed by Rodgers and sponsored by ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., that would produce a national data privacy standard, but the measure didn't get a House floor vote, and no similar measure has passed in the Senate." https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-privacy-as-another-tech-ceo-to-testify/ https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-pr...

greenie_beans 4y ago

that would be reasonable, wouldn't it?

chaostheory 4y ago

Because like with the GPRD, this is primarily about a trade dispute.