8 ms·

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many c

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

yieldcrv 2y ago
yes, we’re okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans with a ban being the fall back outcome
- Brybry 2y ago
  I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very specific set of criteria in the law). [1] There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2] [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038/text#HAD383DF6A9D14CAF9B027748AB024CF7 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2
toomuchtodo 2y ago
When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.
- frameset 2y ago
  I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole and then putting down their novelty mallet.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    The schlep never ends, it just ebbs and flows, always in constant tension. Stay engaged and involved in the political process.
    - frameset 2y ago
      Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law. https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent’s Perspective Abstract: The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006–18), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation increase in a constituent’s perceived issue agreement with their representative can improve net approval by 35 percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level, resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro studies. Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the electorate that, although not hyperinformed and hyperrational, is one in which constituents are sufficiently attentive that the majority can and does hold their representatives accountable for the decisions that they make on important pieces of legislation." https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKuriwaki_AJPS.pdf https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKu... Verification Materials: The materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM
SeanAnderson 2y ago
Yes, the American government is comfortable with American companies having deeper access to American data than foreign adversaries. It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.
- Uhhrrr 2y ago
  It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.
  - marcofiset 2y ago
    It’s a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign interests.
    - Uhhrrr 2y ago
      Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.
      - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
        Are those owned by China?
        Uhhrrr 2y ago
        Why does the source matter to you?
        hhjinks 2y ago
        Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can establish a new global hegemony. A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?
j2kun 2y ago
There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example, but part of the democratic process is making progress where and when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.
tracerbulletx 2y ago
Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au
  - phone8675309 2y ago
    > Except that china never controlled media in the US Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      That doesn't mean that China controls the media, it means the US companies that do control media care more about money than anything else. Just like most US companies do. They don't bow down to China, they only worship higher profits. If some other country paid them more money to insert Winnie the Poo into every movie than the money they make from China by inserting maps with the Nine-Dash-Line or giving a Chinese actress a cameo they'd be doing that instead.
      - Rastonbury 2y ago
        You should look into how Chinese state linked companies buys stakes in newspapers around the world and ask yourself why they'd ever want to do such a thing. Also, the belt and road initiative or loans to African nations
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
> I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bluSCALE4 2y ago
  A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?
seydor 2y ago
I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Kiro 2y ago
  I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto format of Instagram nowadays.
- okdood64 2y ago
  YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.
hipadev23 2y ago
> but it's not a Chinese company Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing". Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.
dralley 2y ago
TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call congress to 17+.
- afiori 2y ago
  Notifying users that a service they use is about to become illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress was afraid of.
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    To be cynical that sounds exactly like the "manipulation" they are most afraid of.
  - hhjinks 2y ago
    Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP is not the manipulation Congress is afraid of? In what universe?
    - nebula8804 2y ago
      Man you are just pushing one bad faith argument after another in this thread aren't you? If the product wasn't something that people truly loved, would the callers have had that level of commitment to follow through? Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd presume the answer to be NO.
      - hhjinks 2y ago
        Bad faith argument? It's not even an argument, it is a literal factual recounting of something that literally happened.
goliathDown 2y ago
Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a difference between a media company housed in the UK or France versus China or Russia.
micromacrofoot 2y ago
Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly supported.
throw__away7391 2y ago
The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the largest source of media consumed by children (which incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have been stopped a long time ago. People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.
  - throw__away7391 2y ago
    Well BBC has a division called "BBC America" which distributes their content in the US, which itself is jointly owned by AMC and anther US company called BBC Studios. I do not know anything about the details of this, but I imagine there were regulatory considerations when setting this up. But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign influence is not a new idea and has been something people were worried about even over a century ago.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      I don't think that concern is entirely unwarranted, I just don't think it's justification for censorship. If TikTok were violating US laws and refusing to comply that'd be one thing, but "Kids prefer an app made by a company in China" isn't really good enough. It's very strange that our government doesn't care that our phones are made in China, that damn near everything for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality, covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde, yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?
terr-dav 2y ago
> so we are just... okay with that? We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people." What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.
MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned
djur 2y ago
This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right. The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.

yieldcrv 2y ago

yes, we’re okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans with a ban being the fall back outcome

Brybry 2y ago
I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very specific set of criteria in the law). [1] There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2] [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038/text#HAD383DF6A9D14CAF9B027748AB024CF7 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2

toomuchtodo 2y ago

When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.

frameset 2y ago
I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole and then putting down their novelty mallet.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  The schlep never ends, it just ebbs and flows, always in constant tension. Stay engaged and involved in the political process.
  - frameset 2y ago
    Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law. https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent’s Perspective Abstract: The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006–18), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation increase in a constituent’s perceived issue agreement with their representative can improve net approval by 35 percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level, resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro studies. Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the electorate that, although not hyperinformed and hyperrational, is one in which constituents are sufficiently attentive that the majority can and does hold their representatives accountable for the decisions that they make on important pieces of legislation." https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKuriwaki_AJPS.pdf https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKu... Verification Materials: The materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM

SeanAnderson 2y ago

Yes, the American government is comfortable with American companies having deeper access to American data than foreign adversaries. It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.

Uhhrrr 2y ago
It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.
- marcofiset 2y ago
  It’s a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign interests.
  - Uhhrrr 2y ago
    Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.
    - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
      Are those owned by China?
      - Uhhrrr 2y ago
        Why does the source matter to you?
        hhjinks 2y ago
        Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can establish a new global hegemony. A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?

j2kun 2y ago

There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example, but part of the democratic process is making progress where and when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.

tracerbulletx 2y ago

Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.

autoexec 2y ago
> Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au
- phone8675309 2y ago
  > Except that china never controlled media in the US Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    That doesn't mean that China controls the media, it means the US companies that do control media care more about money than anything else. Just like most US companies do. They don't bow down to China, they only worship higher profits. If some other country paid them more money to insert Winnie the Poo into every movie than the money they make from China by inserting maps with the Nine-Dash-Line or giving a Chinese actress a cameo they'd be doing that instead.
    - Rastonbury 2y ago
      You should look into how Chinese state linked companies buys stakes in newspapers around the world and ask yourself why they'd ever want to do such a thing. Also, the belt and road initiative or loans to African nations

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

> I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bluSCALE4 2y ago
A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?

seydor 2y ago

I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 2y ago
I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto format of Instagram nowadays.
okdood64 2y ago
YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.

hipadev23 2y ago

> but it's not a Chinese company Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing". Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.

dralley 2y ago

TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.

nickthegreek 2y ago
Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call congress to 17+.
afiori 2y ago
Notifying users that a service they use is about to become illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress was afraid of.
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  To be cynical that sounds exactly like the "manipulation" they are most afraid of.
- hhjinks 2y ago
  Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP is not the manipulation Congress is afraid of? In what universe?
  - nebula8804 2y ago
    Man you are just pushing one bad faith argument after another in this thread aren't you? If the product wasn't something that people truly loved, would the callers have had that level of commitment to follow through? Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd presume the answer to be NO.
    - hhjinks 2y ago
      Bad faith argument? It's not even an argument, it is a literal factual recounting of something that literally happened.

goliathDown 2y ago

Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a difference between a media company housed in the UK or France versus China or Russia.

micromacrofoot 2y ago

Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly supported.

throw__away7391 2y ago

The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the largest source of media consumed by children (which incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have been stopped a long time ago. People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.

autoexec 2y ago
> The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.
- throw__away7391 2y ago
  Well BBC has a division called "BBC America" which distributes their content in the US, which itself is jointly owned by AMC and anther US company called BBC Studios. I do not know anything about the details of this, but I imagine there were regulatory considerations when setting this up. But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign influence is not a new idea and has been something people were worried about even over a century ago.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    I don't think that concern is entirely unwarranted, I just don't think it's justification for censorship. If TikTok were violating US laws and refusing to comply that'd be one thing, but "Kids prefer an app made by a company in China" isn't really good enough. It's very strange that our government doesn't care that our phones are made in China, that damn near everything for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality, covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde, yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?

terr-dav 2y ago

> so we are just... okay with that? We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people." What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.

MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago

It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned

djur 2y ago

This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right. The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.