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> If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete fairly in their digital ecosystem, why the hell should we continue to grant Chinese firms unrestricted

• hypeit 3y ago
  How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.
  • ceejayoz 3y ago
    The humans it feeds content into are the botnet. For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Rallies_and_protests_organized_by_IRA_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...
    • hypeit 3y ago
      A human is not a bot. In addition to being dehumanizing, it removes agency to say that.
      • ceejayoz 3y ago
        Pretending large groups of humans can't possibly be influenced to do things is lunacy. We do weird things in crowds even without intentional propaganda at play. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091
        • bluefishinit 3y ago
          That's not a "botnet" though, advertising does the same thing. We don't call the people buying things they've been marketed a "botnet".
          • ceejayoz 3y ago
            It needn't be a perfect comparison to be a useful one.
            • bluefishinit 3y ago
              It's not useful though. I actually think it's very cool that TikTok got a bunch of young people to contact their representatives. If this ban goes through, the political blowback is going to be extreme. It will be like the Streisand effect x100,000,000.
              • ceejayoz 3y ago
                > I actually think it's very cool that TikTok got a bunch of young people to contact their representatives. I don't think that's the concern.
              • stale2002 3y ago
                > If this ban goes through, the political blowback is going to be extreme. Its not a ban. Whats going to happen is that tiktok will divest. Kids will continue to have their social media.
                • bluefishinit 3y ago
                  > What’s more, divestiture would require Beijing’s approval. Last year, the Chinese government said it opposed a forced sale. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/house-passes-tiktok-bill-are-tiktok-s-days-numbered-what-you-need-to-know/ar-BB1jPQmL https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/house-passes-tiktok-...
      • butlike 3y ago
        I'm a human, and I identify as a "bot," so there.
    • PM_me_your_math 3y ago
      [dead]
  • rjmunro 3y ago
    Didn't they already, in effect, DDOS the congress telephone system?
    • hypeit 3y ago
      No, they did however increase engagement in democracy in a very dramatic fashion. More people making demands from their government is a good thing.
      • j_maffe 3y ago
        When they're deliberately coordinated by foreign states with malicious intent? When the demands become more and more extreme towards the opposing side?
        • bluefishinit 3y ago
          Opposing this ban isn't "malicious intent" lots of people think it's an infringement upon their rights for the US government to decide what they can and cannot see.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• User23 3y ago
  What's being described isn't an eye for an eye, but tit for tat. And tit for tat is the norm for international relations and has been since time immemorial. Usually it's relatively dull stuff, like if country A requires citizens of country B to have a visa to visit, country B will as a matter of course require citizens of country A to have visas to visit too.
  • j_maffe 3y ago
    So if China bans all American literature and news sources, the US should do the same? If China deports all Chinese Americans from their country, should the US do the same?
    • mschuster91 3y ago
      > So if China bans all American literature and news sources, the US should do the same? At least their propaganda outlets, yes. > If China deports all Chinese Americans from their country, should the US do the same? No one is calling for a return to the ugly times of WW2 [1], but banning new immigration outside of asylum claims and especially banning investment into real estate certainly should be on the table. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
      • j_maffe 3y ago
        I disagree but I understand where you're coming from. There's an aspect of being an idealist vs being a realist in the final result. Perhaps some sort of balanced strategy is the way to go. Just definitely don't give leeway for governments to do shitty things (to their people and others) just because others are doing it.
        • mschuster91 3y ago
          I used to be on the idealist side myself - after all, Germany has been the driving force behind the idea "change (towards democracy) by trade" - but as we've seen with Russia and China, all that did was make us completely dependent on them, and in the case of China the resulting loss of domestic production jobs led to massive issues with "left behind" areas and a loss of trust in democracy itself. In Africa, it's a similar situation - we poured in boatloads of money and aid, in exchange for the demand of a bare minimum of human rights, and now a lot of the countries there are falling to the lure of Russia and China. My personal position is, drop them. Let Russia and China deal with the mess, fail at it, and keep an open invitation once they realize that Chinese imperialism is just as bad as historic Western imperialism.
• Pigalowda 3y ago
  Businesses/commerce/trade have never been “free”. I’m not sure why this keeps being used as a rebuttal. These topics are covered in basic macroeconomics classes in the United States.
• voldacar 3y ago
  >an eye for an eye doesn't end well Actually in most games that are played repeatedly, the optimal strategy is to cooperate with cooperators and defect against defectors.
  • c4wrd 3y ago
    This simplification misses key nuances. Strategies like Tit-for-Tat (TFT) are context-sensitive and not universally "optimal." Effectiveness varies with game structure, communication clarity, and the presence of noise. Moreover, the "optimal" strategy adjusts in finite games (which you didn't clarify which type of game) due to the endgame effect. Simple hole in your simplification: one simple misunderstanding could lead to an endless cycle of defection where everyone will defect on each other: game over.
    • harkinian 3y ago
      Right, so usually the modification of TFT is that you forgive one or two missteps. We're well past that point with China trade.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • voldacar 3y ago
      >Strategies like Tit-for-Tat (TFT) are context-sensitive and not universally "optimal." Of course. Hence why I didn't claim it to be universally optimal. All I'm saying is that your willingness to defect against defectors should always be non-zero, just to keep the players in line who start out with a higher predisposition towards defecting. The noisiness of the real world should probably bias us more in the direction of cooperation, to avoid a cascade of defection as you mention, but a player who only cooperates will get taken advantage of regardless of the precise details of the game. Some amount of this dynamic can be seen currently in the relationship between western companies and the Chinese state, a relationship that is currently very different from the relationship between Chinese companies and the rest of the world. It is also generally true that the longer the game, the more defectors suffer.
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• cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  US freedom applies only to citizens and residents and not foreign govts.
  • motoxpro 3y ago
    Totally. This is the main thing agaisnt the free speech argument. We have also passed this same law in radio and TV. It's about influence at a mass scale more than anything. I don't know why we would want a foreign ADVERSARY to have free reign.
    • idle_zealot 3y ago
      This framing is all backwards. Americans go to TikTok for content of their own free will. This law effectively prevents Americans from using an information service they prefer. Unless, of course, you want to admit that social media applications, through some combination of peer pressure, advertising, propaganda, manipulation, and deception subvert the free will of some portion of their users. In which case naturally they ought to be regulated in order to protect your citizens. Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister.
      • vineyardmike 3y ago
        > Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister. Sinister or not this framing makes a lot more sense than the alternative if you write it like this: “Only companies [beholden to American interests] are allowed to [influence] Americans”. The core premise is really rather dull. If the company poses a risk to Americans, then it should exist fully within reach of the US Gov regulations and completely out of the control of adversaries.
      • motoxpro 3y ago
        You’re talking one level too low in the process. I’m not arguing if a us citizen should be allowed to use a property controlled by foreign adversary. I’m arguing should a foreign adversary be able to control such a large US property in the first place? In my opinion, having a direct line to > 100 million people where they can send push notifications that tell people to contact their government for a specific purpose is not so great. That’s leaving out the more subtle untraceable black box of deranking things their government doesn’t like.
• mschuster91 3y ago
  > but an eye for an eye doesn't end well and the US is supposed to be "free" so this part of the argument I wouldn't agree with. "stay on the moral high ground" only works when the other side is roughly playing by the same rules as you are. With authoritarian nations, with authoritarian leaders? They see any kind of even the slightest allowance as a weakness to exploit, an explicit allowance to move the Overton window. We should have kneecapped China years ago, when the first complaints about industrial espionage came in, and same for Russia after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. We didn't, and now we're a bunch of lame ducks swimming in a pond of manure.
• trts 3y ago
  an eye for an eye doesn't end well because nobody gets their eyes back China can change their policy easily with respect to reciprocity
• creato 3y ago
  > but an eye for an eye doesn't end well This is the only thing that governs international relations. Look at visa reciprocity, trade agreements, etc. for examples.
• ScoobleDoodle 3y ago
  "eye for an eye" is actually a retaliation limiter, not a call to arms. It means if someone pokes out your eye, then you are limited to a maximum retaliation of poking out their eye. You are not allowed to kill them. For this China having TikTok spread propaganda or addiction in the USA does not then give the USA permission to nuke China as a consequence.
• paxys 3y ago
  It's called reciprocity, and has been used since time immemorial for trade agreements, border control, ceasefire agreements, retaliatory strikes and a lot of other very high level geopolitics. "An eye for an eye" works perfectly well in such contexts.
• IncreasePosts 3y ago
  You know what doesn't end well? Letting foreign adversaries walk all over your nation and citizens.