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We have laws against foreign ownership of broadcast TV and radio. Our legal system already acknowledges that foreign ownership of the media is a bad thing that

We have laws against foreign ownership of broadcast TV and radio. Our legal system already acknowledges that foreign ownership of the media is a bad thing that should be prevented. The problem is that these laws haven't been updated for the modern era. TikTok is not covered. But this due to a failure of our politicians to respond to the modern era, not because the bill of rights enshrines or applies to foreign companies. That's why Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen in order to start FOX in the 80s. This then enabled him to build FOX News with the specific intent to become the media arm of the Republican party, by tapping Roger Ailes as the first and guiding CEO. Ailes had already worked on media campaigns for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, often credited as a major factor in their victories. So he got to run the day to day of the party's new media arm. Murdoch himself was an international operator who wanted political power for the benefits rather than the ideology. This is demonstrated by the much more liberal leanings in Australia when that was the party willing to grant him power. What could the impacts be today, if FOX News was owned by the CCP instead of an Aussie of negotiable political virtue?

jrockway 3y ago
The law in the US is that you can't make radio transmissions on TV / AM / FM frequencies without a license, because left unchecked, everyone doing what they want would make radio useless for everyone. The government has a clear reason to require licenses, and they have the power to restrict who can receive one. The Internet doesn't work like that, though. No license is required to make a website or mobile app, because websites and mobile apps don't interfere with each other. The government wouldn't have a very strong argument to require websites to have a license, because they have no reason for doing that other than in moderating the content of the website, which is prohibited by the Constitution. In the past, TV licenses were absolutely used to censor viewpoints the government didn't like, but now that is no longer possible, because nobody cares about TV or radio. You can bring in whatever content you want from anywhere in the world, thanks to the Internet. That is what the government is salty about; they are losing control because people don't care about TV anymore. (I'll also point out that shortwave radio still exists. You can tune your radio to, say, 5910kHz and listen to CCP propaganda all day, and there is nothing the US government can do about it. On the flip side, we have Voice of America for a reason. We like broadcasting American propaganda into China just as much as China likes the reverse. Unfortunately, nobody listens to shortwave radio anymore. That's what the US is mad about; people like TikTok, but they don't have anything like it.)
- heroprotagonist 3y ago
  I was referring to the section of the Telecommunication Act that limits foreign direct investment to a 20% ownership stake (which ups to 25% with FCC approval for anything more if a holding company is used). I'm not sure I communicated my point clearly though, because I agree that the old laws do not apply because they haven't been updated to work with the internet era. I do know how the internet works, though, and that you can get data from 'anywhere'. Nobody would really care about the issue, though, if there weren't ways to make it more difficult to operate. Banning from the app stores doesn't prevent people from watching TikTok, but it makes it more difficult. They'll get fewer users if they need to side-load a native app or use a PWA, and a significant revenue dip from blocked advertising from PWA or browser views. This gives competitors an artificial advantage that network effects can solidify in time. But the point I was trying to make is, the US should address their failure to keep legislation up-to-date with national security objectives, rather than single out a single company. Rather than stick-up jobs on random international corporations, eg 'Sell to our country, OR ELSE', they should have created legislation with privacy laws that apply Congress' concerns to all companies, perhaps with stricter rules for international companies. A review process and penalties could result in forced removal from the app store. This could have _prevented_ TikTok's data collection by defining a clear line they're not allowed to cross. And if they still crossed the line, their app could be removed without it clearly being biased. Now, the stated concern (privacy violations and data transferred to China) are likely not the only problem. We would have to update the old laws and go beyond simply checking for foreign ownership. The law would need to directly address the same issue that the old law was written for (potential abuse by a foreign entity). The privacy laws would need to be there. But we'd need to also build a process enabling review of algorithmic behavior and manual processes around censorship and propaganda, when companies reach a certain size or market reach. We'd need safeguards to prevent abuse of the law (which will happen, considering the tendency for all of our institutions to come under regulatory capture at some point). Frankly, I'd prefer if algorithmic ranking system were forced to be opened to the public in a scenario where they gain sufficient audience to cause a significant impact on public discourse, as long as we're rewriting the laws. Some might cringe and cry 'Oh no, what about the intellectual property of that dozen or so megacorps!' And no doubt these companies would also incur expense fighting the gamification of their algorithms. That's just the cost of being so impactful, and it will drive innovation if they can't keep up. And it's the best way to ensure abuses are discovered if we put regulation of censorship and algorithmic abuse in the hands of government organizations. Basically, we need a framework to systemically address these issues. Not repeated contentious multi-year congressional fights that are triggered on a case-by-case basis. The current haphazard approach _might_ succeed against an occasional bad actor, but it's going to let dozens more through. All they're doing now is generating talking points during an election year. It's political theatre, not problem-solving.
butlike 3y ago
Why is foreign ownership of the media a bad thing. Put a different way: why should I only get filtered media from my geographic location? Or is the worry our media will look more and more like propaganda?

jrockway 3y ago

The law in the US is that you can't make radio transmissions on TV / AM / FM frequencies without a license, because left unchecked, everyone doing what they want would make radio useless for everyone. The government has a clear reason to require licenses, and they have the power to restrict who can receive one. The Internet doesn't work like that, though. No license is required to make a website or mobile app, because websites and mobile apps don't interfere with each other. The government wouldn't have a very strong argument to require websites to have a license, because they have no reason for doing that other than in moderating the content of the website, which is prohibited by the Constitution. In the past, TV licenses were absolutely used to censor viewpoints the government didn't like, but now that is no longer possible, because nobody cares about TV or radio. You can bring in whatever content you want from anywhere in the world, thanks to the Internet. That is what the government is salty about; they are losing control because people don't care about TV anymore. (I'll also point out that shortwave radio still exists. You can tune your radio to, say, 5910kHz and listen to CCP propaganda all day, and there is nothing the US government can do about it. On the flip side, we have Voice of America for a reason. We like broadcasting American propaganda into China just as much as China likes the reverse. Unfortunately, nobody listens to shortwave radio anymore. That's what the US is mad about; people like TikTok, but they don't have anything like it.)

heroprotagonist 3y ago
I was referring to the section of the Telecommunication Act that limits foreign direct investment to a 20% ownership stake (which ups to 25% with FCC approval for anything more if a holding company is used). I'm not sure I communicated my point clearly though, because I agree that the old laws do not apply because they haven't been updated to work with the internet era. I do know how the internet works, though, and that you can get data from 'anywhere'. Nobody would really care about the issue, though, if there weren't ways to make it more difficult to operate. Banning from the app stores doesn't prevent people from watching TikTok, but it makes it more difficult. They'll get fewer users if they need to side-load a native app or use a PWA, and a significant revenue dip from blocked advertising from PWA or browser views. This gives competitors an artificial advantage that network effects can solidify in time. But the point I was trying to make is, the US should address their failure to keep legislation up-to-date with national security objectives, rather than single out a single company. Rather than stick-up jobs on random international corporations, eg 'Sell to our country, OR ELSE', they should have created legislation with privacy laws that apply Congress' concerns to all companies, perhaps with stricter rules for international companies. A review process and penalties could result in forced removal from the app store. This could have _prevented_ TikTok's data collection by defining a clear line they're not allowed to cross. And if they still crossed the line, their app could be removed without it clearly being biased. Now, the stated concern (privacy violations and data transferred to China) are likely not the only problem. We would have to update the old laws and go beyond simply checking for foreign ownership. The law would need to directly address the same issue that the old law was written for (potential abuse by a foreign entity). The privacy laws would need to be there. But we'd need to also build a process enabling review of algorithmic behavior and manual processes around censorship and propaganda, when companies reach a certain size or market reach. We'd need safeguards to prevent abuse of the law (which will happen, considering the tendency for all of our institutions to come under regulatory capture at some point). Frankly, I'd prefer if algorithmic ranking system were forced to be opened to the public in a scenario where they gain sufficient audience to cause a significant impact on public discourse, as long as we're rewriting the laws. Some might cringe and cry 'Oh no, what about the intellectual property of that dozen or so megacorps!' And no doubt these companies would also incur expense fighting the gamification of their algorithms. That's just the cost of being so impactful, and it will drive innovation if they can't keep up. And it's the best way to ensure abuses are discovered if we put regulation of censorship and algorithmic abuse in the hands of government organizations. Basically, we need a framework to systemically address these issues. Not repeated contentious multi-year congressional fights that are triggered on a case-by-case basis. The current haphazard approach _might_ succeed against an occasional bad actor, but it's going to let dozens more through. All they're doing now is generating talking points during an election year. It's political theatre, not problem-solving.

butlike 3y ago

Why is foreign ownership of the media a bad thing. Put a different way: why should I only get filtered media from my geographic location? Or is the worry our media will look more and more like propaganda?