9 ms·

House committee votes 50-0 to force TikTok to divest from Chinese owner

63 points by notamy 3y ago

2devnull 3y ago
Nice to see congress doing their job. China kills many Americans via tainted products and general incompetence. For example the COVID pandemic was the CCP’s fault. Many products from CCP China are toxic, bad for the environment, literal spyware. People who want to foist more of that on American citizens are, thus may offend some people, literally traitors.
grecy 3y ago
I wonder what would happen if Chinese lawmakers voted to force the sale of an American company? Like reversing genders, things always look different when the roles are reversed.
devhead 3y ago
It's not a ban on TikTok; they are proposing a restriction that will be applied to American companies in order to try and block American's access to an online web service. I do not agree with such restrictions nor would I if the role was reversed; in my opinion, any politician that supports such an encroachment on our rights will never have my support or vote. I would additionally be open to boycotting their corporate and wealthy donors since they seem to only listen to money. I do however, wholeheartedly support enacting legislation to protect our data, require security around it and to block the sale of it.
biomcgary 3y ago
I work at a biotech startup where the founder sold a previous company after being "encouraged" to do so by CFIUS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investmen...). That company had taken a large investment from a China-based investor. The concern was about sensitive health info of US citizens being in foreign hands.
- doc55 3y ago
  More like all info(and therefore rent on it) needs to be in the hands of American rent collectors. Its a stupid, late and irrelevent bill because info is not the issue, when info is exploding and overflowing. Attention is the issue. Attention is scarce and finite. It has been so fully exploited it has lost its value entirely. As more things that need Attention dont receive it, systems auto unravel. No Chinese or Russians required. An architecture of Attention allocation is the real need of the hour.
xpl 3y ago
As much as I am for the free market, TikTok is a scary thing. Probably it would need to be banned even if it was a domestic product.
- krapp 3y ago
  It's just a social media video app. It's no more scary than Youtube shorts, Facebook rolls, Vine back in the day. Sure it's vapid entertainment, but vapid entertainment shouldn't be illegal.
  - gymbeaux 3y ago
    They should all be banned
    - krapp 3y ago
      Not in a free society, they shouldn't. And the US has, at least for the moment, a semblance of a free society.
      - gymbeaux 3y ago
        The “this is a free country” argument is flawed and tired. You must be 21 to legally consume alcohol. You must have a license to drive a car. You can’t drive faster than the speed limit on a road. Meth and cocaine are illegal. Children must attend school. Abortions are illegal (after X weeks). Et al. Study after study has made clear the harm social media brings not only to children, but all who use it. The psychological “gaming” that goes into every little detail of these apps should be enough to make the average person sick. “Bad faith” doesn’t begin to describe the MO of TikTok and others. We’re not even touching the harvesting and selling of people’s data that these platforms heavily rely upon for revenue.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Youtube shorts came out in response to TikTok. Illegal is one thing, but maybe off of watching Dune, maybe there should be a guiding hand to society so that vapid entertainment isn't promoted and we don't get a society of airheads. though my problem with TikTok is that my feed is serious stuff like trama therapy and I can't use it for long because I hey overwhelmed by things to work on. I realize that's not everyone's experience with TikTok tho
ryandrake 3y ago
I'm not a huge fan of TikTok (I think it's just silly and most of the content there is just not for me), but has anyone shown any credible Bad Thing that the app has been doing? It just seems like a vapid time waster that sucks up user data, just like other US-owned vapid time waster apps that suck up user data. Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users?
- danlugo92 3y ago
  > It just seems like a vapid time waster that sucks up user data, just like other US-owned vapid time waster apps that suck up user data. Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users Well they do seem to push anti-us {anything} (not that there it isn't anything to complain about if you're a US voter) while simultaneously "hide" or "de-promote" anti-china or anti-eastern content. They also push more us-crime content while they could push more for buddhist content and make more of a difference but it's obvious it's the CCP behind of it all... Note that this is coming from someone that didn't grow up in the US and is anti-authoritarian (right or left) as they come... (I grew up in Venezuela, left authoritiaran system).
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  > Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users? Honestly, banning Chinese apps in general seems fine to me, given how many Western apps/websites China bans. Trade is good, but it should be reasonably two-sided. It's weird to me that in these discussions people mostly ignore how many Western apps/services China bans. Isn't reciprocity entirely reasonable?
- cromka 3y ago
  You might want to read on their takeover of… Newegg of all things.
  - ProjectArcturis 3y ago
    Can you elaborate? There's nothing obviously nefarious in the first dozen Google results.
carride 3y ago
“The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”
stubish 3y ago
Interesting that this relies on 'eventually' dropping the app from US controlled app stores. While in various courts are attempts to easily allow first class alternative app stores, not necessarily controlled by the US. I guess lawmakers are hoping for Tik-tok and others to blink first, rather than forcing them to legislate the Great Firewall of the USA.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
yogorenapan 3y ago
If I were in government, I’d vote this as well. Of course, only after I invest in the company expected to take over TikTok at a discount.

63 points by notamy 3y ago

Nice to see congress doing their job. China kills many Americans via tainted products and general incompetence. For example the COVID pandemic was the CCP’s fault. Many products from CCP China are toxic, bad for the environment, literal spyware. People who want to foist more of that on American citizens are, thus may offend some people, literally traitors.

grecy 3y ago

I wonder what would happen if Chinese lawmakers voted to force the sale of an American company? Like reversing genders, things always look different when the roles are reversed.

devhead 3y ago

It's not a ban on TikTok; they are proposing a restriction that will be applied to American companies in order to try and block American's access to an online web service. I do not agree with such restrictions nor would I if the role was reversed; in my opinion, any politician that supports such an encroachment on our rights will never have my support or vote. I would additionally be open to boycotting their corporate and wealthy donors since they seem to only listen to money. I do however, wholeheartedly support enacting legislation to protect our data, require security around it and to block the sale of it.

biomcgary 3y ago

I work at a biotech startup where the founder sold a previous company after being "encouraged" to do so by CFIUS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investmen...). That company had taken a large investment from a China-based investor. The concern was about sensitive health info of US citizens being in foreign hands.

doc55 3y ago
More like all info(and therefore rent on it) needs to be in the hands of American rent collectors. Its a stupid, late and irrelevent bill because info is not the issue, when info is exploding and overflowing. Attention is the issue. Attention is scarce and finite. It has been so fully exploited it has lost its value entirely. As more things that need Attention dont receive it, systems auto unravel. No Chinese or Russians required. An architecture of Attention allocation is the real need of the hour.

xpl 3y ago

As much as I am for the free market, TikTok is a scary thing. Probably it would need to be banned even if it was a domestic product.

krapp 3y ago
It's just a social media video app. It's no more scary than Youtube shorts, Facebook rolls, Vine back in the day. Sure it's vapid entertainment, but vapid entertainment shouldn't be illegal.
- gymbeaux 3y ago
  They should all be banned
  - krapp 3y ago
    Not in a free society, they shouldn't. And the US has, at least for the moment, a semblance of a free society.
    - gymbeaux 3y ago
      The “this is a free country” argument is flawed and tired. You must be 21 to legally consume alcohol. You must have a license to drive a car. You can’t drive faster than the speed limit on a road. Meth and cocaine are illegal. Children must attend school. Abortions are illegal (after X weeks). Et al. Study after study has made clear the harm social media brings not only to children, but all who use it. The psychological “gaming” that goes into every little detail of these apps should be enough to make the average person sick. “Bad faith” doesn’t begin to describe the MO of TikTok and others. We’re not even touching the harvesting and selling of people’s data that these platforms heavily rely upon for revenue.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Youtube shorts came out in response to TikTok. Illegal is one thing, but maybe off of watching Dune, maybe there should be a guiding hand to society so that vapid entertainment isn't promoted and we don't get a society of airheads. though my problem with TikTok is that my feed is serious stuff like trama therapy and I can't use it for long because I hey overwhelmed by things to work on. I realize that's not everyone's experience with TikTok tho

ryandrake 3y ago

I'm not a huge fan of TikTok (I think it's just silly and most of the content there is just not for me), but has anyone shown any credible Bad Thing that the app has been doing? It just seems like a vapid time waster that sucks up user data, just like other US-owned vapid time waster apps that suck up user data. Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users?

danlugo92 3y ago
> It just seems like a vapid time waster that sucks up user data, just like other US-owned vapid time waster apps that suck up user data. Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users Well they do seem to push anti-us {anything} (not that there it isn't anything to complain about if you're a US voter) while simultaneously "hide" or "de-promote" anti-china or anti-eastern content. They also push more us-crime content while they could push more for buddhist content and make more of a difference but it's obvious it's the CCP behind of it all... Note that this is coming from someone that didn't grow up in the US and is anti-authoritarian (right or left) as they come... (I grew up in Venezuela, left authoritiaran system).
TulliusCicero 3y ago
> Is this just "China Bad" from politicians, or have they actually done something wrong to users? Honestly, banning Chinese apps in general seems fine to me, given how many Western apps/websites China bans. Trade is good, but it should be reasonably two-sided. It's weird to me that in these discussions people mostly ignore how many Western apps/services China bans. Isn't reciprocity entirely reasonable?
cromka 3y ago
You might want to read on their takeover of… Newegg of all things.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? There's nothing obviously nefarious in the first dozen Google results.

carride 3y ago

“The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”

stubish 3y ago

Interesting that this relies on 'eventually' dropping the app from US controlled app stores. While in various courts are attempts to easily allow first class alternative app stores, not necessarily controlled by the US. I guess lawmakers are hoping for Tik-tok and others to blink first, rather than forcing them to legislate the Great Firewall of the USA.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

yogorenapan 3y ago

If I were in government, I’d vote this as well. Of course, only after I invest in the company expected to take over TikTok at a discount.