4 ms·

I'm not sure we should ban TikTok. I am sure we should pass proper privacy legislation, but lack the will to do so.

by cdme 2y ago

onlyhumans 2y ago
I don’t think anyone is really concerned with privacy, tho it is piled on as a reason to ban. The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Somehow media concentration isn't concerning enough to act...
- cdme 2y ago
  Has the government made that case? I'm indifferent to TikTok's fate, but I've only heard vague allusions, not a concrete case.
  - BadHumans 2y ago
    They have just made vague comments like "national security risk."
    - cdme 2y ago
      I suppose that'll lose them the case with the public but have no impact on the outcome of the case proper.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  If the Chinese want to control our media they're going to have to get one of their citizens to get US citizenship first. Only then can that token citizen build a media empire and engage in a massive, decades-long propaganda campaign against us.
  - logicchains 2y ago
    They'd also need to bribe lawmakers to add an exception to the foreign agents law that allows the Chinese to donate to people running for US office without needing to register as foreign agents.
    - cma 2y ago
      There are other ways to donate to nonpolitician social media owners who then donate to politicians or support through their algorithm Like allow an individual who owns a big media platform to have the first fully foreign owned auto factory in China. In Musk's case it was before the Twitter purchase so not saying that's what happened there, just that that kind of thing is an avenue.
  - trescenzi 2y ago
    The Australians have already accomplished this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    As was repeated over, and over, and over again, the CEO of TikTok is Singaporean.
    - km3r 2y ago
      And you are being entirely pedantic or uninformed if you do not understand that the CCP controls TikTok with mechanisms like Golden Shares.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    > US citizenship first Li Hongzhi / EpocheTimes intensifies.
- krapp 2y ago
  I'm not aware of this insidious Chinese propaganda supposedly controlling the minds of the American masses... Tik Tok just seems to be memes and nonsense as far as I can tell. I am aware that every other social media platform in the US is being weaponized by the same 'adversaries' as well as the American government and corporations. There's a much better argument for banning Twitter and Facebook than Tiktok on those grounds, yet people go to the mat to defend every troll, nazi and spook on those platforms because "free speech."
  - sneak 2y ago
    TikTok is indeed laden with pro-China propaganda. It also censors, outright or algorithmic demotion, content critical of the CCP. It also censors tons of other stuff unrelated to the CCP. It doesn’t even need to be ideologically aligned; simple pursuit of engagement is sufficient motive for the observed behavior.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      And Twitter is laden with pro-Trump propaganda. It also censors and at least promotes what its CEO and owner wants to be seen and demotes what it doesn’t want to be seen. It’s CEO is going to have a lot more influence on policy and be a large part of the Trump administration and have an appointed position without divesting his ownership of Twitter. You should be much more concerned about Twitter than TikTok. I wouldn’t even care about Twitter if Musk wasn’t going to become an official member of government post 1/20.
      - cdme 2y ago
        Truth Social and Gab are quite similar, but smaller still. The intent here is clearly to punish foreign influence, not domestic and that's the first amendment carve out being used to push this through. X, Truth Social and Gab are all malign (and arguably little better than 4chan or 8chan as homes for civil discussion) but are domestic in origin. I'd rather wade into the ocean than join any of the above, but they aren't subject to the same legal carve out.
- segasaturn 2y ago
  The "our" in "our adversary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Adversary to who? The 0.01% who are CEOs, IP holders, and State Department goons for sure, but I don't think the average American has any reason to fear China over their own government.
  - entropicdrifter 2y ago
    Not sure the American government is really a problem compared to American megacorporations, but I suppose at this point that's kind of splitting hairs since the government's been at the beck and call of said megacorps more and more so since like 1980
  - mingus88 2y ago
    The CEO class has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The Chinese government has a vested interest in American instability and sowing chaos and further economic dependency on China So I guess you could say bothe of these are “our adversaries” depending on your point of view
- hammock 2y ago
  The government has yet not laid out a strong, unclassified case for that issue to the citizens. If it exists, should it be laid out as such, so these discussions become more meaningful?
- abeppu 2y ago
  > The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda ... but during the 2016 election we saw that Russian-funded interference efforts using FB and Twitter were pretty effective despite those being public, US-based companies. If you're concerned about propaganda, then policies should be concerned with stuff like "is this poster a real human", "does this post make factually untrue assertions", "is this poster paid to say this without it being marked as an ad", along with "is the platform doing view-point-based amplification or suppression". Further, in Citizens United, the court effectively invited companies, including subsidiaries of foreign companies, to contribute to political campaigns as part of their free-speech rights. And there was press about foreign companies exercising those rights. So it seems inane to me to say that foreign companies have a first amendment right to pay for political ads and statements, but not to operate a service that lets users create and view posts. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-foreign-owned-corporations-put-millions-in-us-elections/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-for...
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Let’s be honest, Trump supporters were going to support Trump even if he “shot someone in the middle of Times Square”. Even when places like Fox News called the election fairly in 2020, they were roundly criticized by Trump supporters and places like Redstate kicked out life long anti-Trump conservatives. The Wall Street Journal of all things was being called part of the “liberal media” of all things. But in 2024, the Democrats lost fair and square. They lied and covered up Biden’s mental decline until it became more than apparent and lost any credibility with the public. They have given up on the “50 state strategy”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy
    - abeppu 2y ago
      I agree with you that Trump-supporters are both loyal and ruthless. And I think that's mostly a US-internal matter. I agree with you that in 2024 the Democrats lost fair and square in the sense of not convincing people they were worth voting for. However, Russia has continued to interfere in US elections including 2020 and 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... I'm not pretending foreign interference only happened in 2016, or only happened when Trump won -- foreign and especially Russian interference has been non-stop because we haven't done anything systematically to stop it. The claimed threat about TikTok is always some vague opportunity for "propaganda". But we can point to many specific cases of Russian interference and misinformation on US-based platforms. The TikTok ban is just not a serious attempt at addressing the "foreign propaganda" problem, and people that make non-specific allegations about propaganda on it without mentioning the very real issues on US-based platforms are being disingenuous.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wbl 2y ago
    China, and no one else, refused ICJ arbitration over the South China Sea. China, and no one else, is responsible for Chinese vessels harassing boats on the high seas. China, and no one else, refuses to rebalance domestic consumption vs investment. China, and no one else, imprisoned Jimmy Li. I do have to say their propaganda makes us look so good, so thanks for that. There will be war because China starts it by deciding to invade Taiwan. They are very much preparing for it.
- iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
  To paraphrase, one man's freedom of speech is another man's propaganda. There is a reason TikTok was embraced by the younger generations. I don't use it, but I think the whole move only proves that US has no freedom of speech unless it is carefully curated. edit: To all the negative reactions, argue with me you dullards instead of reactively pressing a button when you see something you disagree with. Use that wit and freedom!
- guelo 2y ago
  Democrats didn’t ban tiktok because of china, it is also piled on as a reason. They banned it because some donors got mad that their grandkids were hearing anti-israel stuff. Remember, Trump tried to ban it several years ago and then everyone forgot about it until the images started coming out of Gaza last year. When considered this way it is a grotesque 1st amendment violation, but they'll probably get away with.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    A republican majority house voted for the ban, so I'm guessing their granddaughters were also hearing dangerous anti-israel stuff (there is no difference between Democrat and Republican on Israel).
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And now Trump is against the ban
    - mrkramer 2y ago
      His mind is spinning all the time....he wanted to ban both Facebook and TikTok.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  Of course the data collection, i.e., the "privacy violation", arguably informs any such propaganda and allows it to be targeted and more effective as a result.
fifticon 2y ago
it wont be banned,45 just needs to collect his paycheck first
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Trump previously tried and failed to ban Tiktok, but the ban this article is about isn't that ban. This ban is a bipartisan effort by Congress, and Trump has suggested that he doesn't think it should go through, despite previously supporting a ban of tiktok, because he's a petulant child.
lupusreal 2y ago
This tiktok ban has nothing to do with generic concerns about social media, such as privacy (which I emphatically agree with, FWIW.) It's entirely to do with Tiktok being controlled by a foreign adversary. Facebook has gross privacy issues (and should be regulated) but it's owned and controlled by an American so whatever other concerns we have about it, this tiktok ban isn't remotely intended to cover a company like Facebook.
- gretch 2y ago
  Not to mention China already banned foreign owned social media from within its own borders. So if nothing else, it’s just a reciprocal trade policy.
jakubmazanec 2y ago
> I'm not sure we should ban TikTok. TikTok was already used to influence election: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 Why wouldn't China try to do the same in the US?
- valec 2y ago
  it's interesting you bring that up as it turns out the incumbent party was actually the one behind that tiktok campaign, not russia. the campaign they used as evidence of "russian interference" that they cancelled the election because of https://snoop.ro/anaf-a-descoperit-ca-pnl-a-platit-o-campanie-care-l-a-promovat-masiv-pe-calin-georgescu-pe-tiktok/ https://snoop.ro/anaf-a-descoperit-ca-pnl-a-platit-o-campani...
  - jakubmazanec 2y ago
    It's irrelevant to my point who did what. The elections were still influenced (though it saddens me that people are so easily influenced, but that's orthogonal too).
    - valec 2y ago
      should we ban tv too then?
      - jakubmazanec 2y ago
        Is the content on the TV generated for you by some black box algorithm? Is it hard to determine who finances the political ads you see on TV? No and no, so no.
        valec 2y ago
        actually, yes, it is extremely hard to determine who finances the political ads you see on TV. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money and how is a black box algorithm any worse than a system where only large corporate gatekeepers control what you see? if anything, i'd argue tiktok is more fair and democratic.

I'm not sure we should ban TikTok. I am sure we should pass proper privacy legislation, but lack the will to do so.

by cdme 2y ago

I'm not sure we should ban TikTok. I am sure we should pass proper privacy legislation, but lack the will to do so.

I don’t think anyone is really concerned with privacy, tho it is piled on as a reason to ban. The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda

marcosdumay 2y ago
Somehow media concentration isn't concerning enough to act...
cdme 2y ago
Has the government made that case? I'm indifferent to TikTok's fate, but I've only heard vague allusions, not a concrete case.
- BadHumans 2y ago
  They have just made vague comments like "national security risk."
  - cdme 2y ago
    I suppose that'll lose them the case with the public but have no impact on the outcome of the case proper.
mullingitover 2y ago
If the Chinese want to control our media they're going to have to get one of their citizens to get US citizenship first. Only then can that token citizen build a media empire and engage in a massive, decades-long propaganda campaign against us.
- logicchains 2y ago
  They'd also need to bribe lawmakers to add an exception to the foreign agents law that allows the Chinese to donate to people running for US office without needing to register as foreign agents.
  - cma 2y ago
    There are other ways to donate to nonpolitician social media owners who then donate to politicians or support through their algorithm Like allow an individual who owns a big media platform to have the first fully foreign owned auto factory in China. In Musk's case it was before the Twitter purchase so not saying that's what happened there, just that that kind of thing is an avenue.
- trescenzi 2y ago
  The Australians have already accomplished this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
- t-writescode 2y ago
  As was repeated over, and over, and over again, the CEO of TikTok is Singaporean.
  - km3r 2y ago
    And you are being entirely pedantic or uninformed if you do not understand that the CCP controls TikTok with mechanisms like Golden Shares.
- maxglute 2y ago
  > US citizenship first Li Hongzhi / EpocheTimes intensifies.
krapp 2y ago
I'm not aware of this insidious Chinese propaganda supposedly controlling the minds of the American masses... Tik Tok just seems to be memes and nonsense as far as I can tell. I am aware that every other social media platform in the US is being weaponized by the same 'adversaries' as well as the American government and corporations. There's a much better argument for banning Twitter and Facebook than Tiktok on those grounds, yet people go to the mat to defend every troll, nazi and spook on those platforms because "free speech."
- sneak 2y ago
  TikTok is indeed laden with pro-China propaganda. It also censors, outright or algorithmic demotion, content critical of the CCP. It also censors tons of other stuff unrelated to the CCP. It doesn’t even need to be ideologically aligned; simple pursuit of engagement is sufficient motive for the observed behavior.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And Twitter is laden with pro-Trump propaganda. It also censors and at least promotes what its CEO and owner wants to be seen and demotes what it doesn’t want to be seen. It’s CEO is going to have a lot more influence on policy and be a large part of the Trump administration and have an appointed position without divesting his ownership of Twitter. You should be much more concerned about Twitter than TikTok. I wouldn’t even care about Twitter if Musk wasn’t going to become an official member of government post 1/20.
    - cdme 2y ago
      Truth Social and Gab are quite similar, but smaller still. The intent here is clearly to punish foreign influence, not domestic and that's the first amendment carve out being used to push this through. X, Truth Social and Gab are all malign (and arguably little better than 4chan or 8chan as homes for civil discussion) but are domestic in origin. I'd rather wade into the ocean than join any of the above, but they aren't subject to the same legal carve out.
segasaturn 2y ago
The "our" in "our adversary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Adversary to who? The 0.01% who are CEOs, IP holders, and State Department goons for sure, but I don't think the average American has any reason to fear China over their own government.
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  Not sure the American government is really a problem compared to American megacorporations, but I suppose at this point that's kind of splitting hairs since the government's been at the beck and call of said megacorps more and more so since like 1980
- mingus88 2y ago
  The CEO class has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The Chinese government has a vested interest in American instability and sowing chaos and further economic dependency on China So I guess you could say bothe of these are “our adversaries” depending on your point of view
hammock 2y ago
The government has yet not laid out a strong, unclassified case for that issue to the citizens. If it exists, should it be laid out as such, so these discussions become more meaningful?
abeppu 2y ago
> The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda ... but during the 2016 election we saw that Russian-funded interference efforts using FB and Twitter were pretty effective despite those being public, US-based companies. If you're concerned about propaganda, then policies should be concerned with stuff like "is this poster a real human", "does this post make factually untrue assertions", "is this poster paid to say this without it being marked as an ad", along with "is the platform doing view-point-based amplification or suppression". Further, in Citizens United, the court effectively invited companies, including subsidiaries of foreign companies, to contribute to political campaigns as part of their free-speech rights. And there was press about foreign companies exercising those rights. So it seems inane to me to say that foreign companies have a first amendment right to pay for political ads and statements, but not to operate a service that lets users create and view posts. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-foreign-owned-corporations-put-millions-in-us-elections/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-for...
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Let’s be honest, Trump supporters were going to support Trump even if he “shot someone in the middle of Times Square”. Even when places like Fox News called the election fairly in 2020, they were roundly criticized by Trump supporters and places like Redstate kicked out life long anti-Trump conservatives. The Wall Street Journal of all things was being called part of the “liberal media” of all things. But in 2024, the Democrats lost fair and square. They lied and covered up Biden’s mental decline until it became more than apparent and lost any credibility with the public. They have given up on the “50 state strategy”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy
  - abeppu 2y ago
    I agree with you that Trump-supporters are both loyal and ruthless. And I think that's mostly a US-internal matter. I agree with you that in 2024 the Democrats lost fair and square in the sense of not convincing people they were worth voting for. However, Russia has continued to interfere in US elections including 2020 and 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2024_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... I'm not pretending foreign interference only happened in 2016, or only happened when Trump won -- foreign and especially Russian interference has been non-stop because we haven't done anything systematically to stop it. The claimed threat about TikTok is always some vague opportunity for "propaganda". But we can point to many specific cases of Russian interference and misinformation on US-based platforms. The TikTok ban is just not a serious attempt at addressing the "foreign propaganda" problem, and people that make non-specific allegations about propaganda on it without mentioning the very real issues on US-based platforms are being disingenuous.
alsetmusic 2y ago
[flagged]
- wbl 2y ago
  China, and no one else, refused ICJ arbitration over the South China Sea. China, and no one else, is responsible for Chinese vessels harassing boats on the high seas. China, and no one else, refuses to rebalance domestic consumption vs investment. China, and no one else, imprisoned Jimmy Li. I do have to say their propaganda makes us look so good, so thanks for that. There will be war because China starts it by deciding to invade Taiwan. They are very much preparing for it.
iugtmkbdfil834 2y ago
To paraphrase, one man's freedom of speech is another man's propaganda. There is a reason TikTok was embraced by the younger generations. I don't use it, but I think the whole move only proves that US has no freedom of speech unless it is carefully curated. edit: To all the negative reactions, argue with me you dullards instead of reactively pressing a button when you see something you disagree with. Use that wit and freedom!
guelo 2y ago
Democrats didn’t ban tiktok because of china, it is also piled on as a reason. They banned it because some donors got mad that their grandkids were hearing anti-israel stuff. Remember, Trump tried to ban it several years ago and then everyone forgot about it until the images started coming out of Gaza last year. When considered this way it is a grotesque 1st amendment violation, but they'll probably get away with.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  A republican majority house voted for the ban, so I'm guessing their granddaughters were also hearing dangerous anti-israel stuff (there is no difference between Democrat and Republican on Israel).
- scarface_74 2y ago
  And now Trump is against the ban
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    His mind is spinning all the time....he wanted to ban both Facebook and TikTok.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
Of course the data collection, i.e., the "privacy violation", arguably informs any such propaganda and allows it to be targeted and more effective as a result.

fifticon 2y ago

it wont be banned,45 just needs to collect his paycheck first

lupusreal 2y ago
Trump previously tried and failed to ban Tiktok, but the ban this article is about isn't that ban. This ban is a bipartisan effort by Congress, and Trump has suggested that he doesn't think it should go through, despite previously supporting a ban of tiktok, because he's a petulant child.

lupusreal 2y ago

This tiktok ban has nothing to do with generic concerns about social media, such as privacy (which I emphatically agree with, FWIW.) It's entirely to do with Tiktok being controlled by a foreign adversary. Facebook has gross privacy issues (and should be regulated) but it's owned and controlled by an American so whatever other concerns we have about it, this tiktok ban isn't remotely intended to cover a company like Facebook.

gretch 2y ago
Not to mention China already banned foreign owned social media from within its own borders. So if nothing else, it’s just a reciprocal trade policy.

jakubmazanec 2y ago

> I'm not sure we should ban TikTok. TikTok was already used to influence election: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42339819 Why wouldn't China try to do the same in the US?

valec 2y ago
it's interesting you bring that up as it turns out the incumbent party was actually the one behind that tiktok campaign, not russia. the campaign they used as evidence of "russian interference" that they cancelled the election because of https://snoop.ro/anaf-a-descoperit-ca-pnl-a-platit-o-campanie-care-l-a-promovat-masiv-pe-calin-georgescu-pe-tiktok/ https://snoop.ro/anaf-a-descoperit-ca-pnl-a-platit-o-campani...
- jakubmazanec 2y ago
  It's irrelevant to my point who did what. The elections were still influenced (though it saddens me that people are so easily influenced, but that's orthogonal too).
  - valec 2y ago
    should we ban tv too then?
    - jakubmazanec 2y ago
      Is the content on the TV generated for you by some black box algorithm? Is it hard to determine who finances the political ads you see on TV? No and no, so no.
      - valec 2y ago
        actually, yes, it is extremely hard to determine who finances the political ads you see on TV. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money and how is a black box algorithm any worse than a system where only large corporate gatekeepers control what you see? if anything, i'd argue tiktok is more fair and democratic.