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Can anyone enlighten me as to what this TikTok ban is supposed to be about? It feels a bit satanic panic from a distance.

Rhapso 2y ago
Politicians realized just how powerful the corporate surveillance and propaganda system is, and they don't want to share it with China.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  This guy gets it. They don't care about anyone's privacy, save their own. This is yet more coddling of American industry, bought and paid for by generous political donations to keep the scaaaary Chinese apps from stealing honest, hard working red-blooded American's data... so that American apps can steal honest, hard working, red-blooded American's data.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    It's not a coincidence that this comes along with similar cybersecurity/anticompetitive pushes against Chinese routers, drones, and EVs.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Except people may be migrating to Rednote (which you have heard, is Chinese). Government intervention at its finest.
poszlem 2y ago
It's far more complex than that. TikTok is a Chinese company with immense reach and influence that can shape American public discourse. A global superpower cannot allow another global superpower to influence its population so significantly through social media (which is also why Facebook is banned in China).
EncomLab 2y ago
Perfect analogy. Keep in mind that most US lawmakers still think the internet is a series of tubes - and we don't want OUR tubes dirties by some pinko commie tubes! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
lenerdenator 2y ago
It's generally not wise to let your geopolitical rival have extensive influence over your populace, which is why CCP doesn't let American companies like Meta operate in China. Turnabout is fair play.
- woooooo 2y ago
  There's also the signaling and red meat factor for politicians. Easy headline to be "tough on china", requires less explanation than pacific trade deals.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Absent any of these conversations is, in my experience, any notion of what exactly China aims to achieve with TikTok that is so sinister? I'm not even arguing, I wouldn't doubt China has plans or another that involve America, specifically that wouldn't be too great for America, I'm just struggling to connect TikTok to any of them, and any discussion seems to take it as granted that the shifty Chinese government is up to something with it.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Oh, you could probably make some effective arguments that they're using it to influence American thought in a way that's designed to diminish the US as a world power through internal strife. Israel/Hamas would probably be an example.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      Its clear to anyone that's looking that what's happening in Gaza is a genocide
      - Philpax 2y ago
        For example, here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
DAGdug 2y ago
I hope this doesn’t sound overly cynical or conspiratorial. My sense is that there’s panic about unfettered access to what’s happening in Gaza on TikTok, which is shaping Gen Z’s perceptions in a way that isn’t deemed acceptable by the political establishment. US-based companies seem to have processes in place - direct or indirect - to suppress the reach of such content.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  ^^^^^^ Same reason they passed the nonprofit killing bill bipartisanly, for whatever reason this seems to be a huge deal for the people in government right now.
- gpm 2y ago
  This is overly conspiratorial, because the timeline doesn't line up. Gaza has only been in the news since October 7th 2023. The government first started talking about banning TikTok in 2018 (under Trump). Ordered them to divest of US interests and prohibited transactions with them in 2020 (under Trump). The latter of which was overturned by the courts. The current administration took over in 2021, and in 2021 labelled the PRC as a foreign adversary. Discussed the threat to the US through the PRCs control of software applications and teh vasts swaths of information available from their users, directed agencies to find risk mitigation measures, and started a long process of negotiating with TikTok over how exactly it continued to operate. The act ordering divestment is the inevitable consequence of those talks failing... those talks failed sometime late 2022 or early 2023 (the last proposal under them was in August 2022).
  - user982 2y ago
    The sudden resurgence of the years-dormant campaign to ban TikTok, and its rapid legislative success this time around, were directly because of Israel and Gaza. From the mouths of senators: "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down (potentially) TikTok...if you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts, so I know that's of real interest..." (https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587 https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587) Jacob Helberg, a member of a congressional research and advisory panel called the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, has been working on building a bipartisan, bicoastal alliance of China hawks, united in part by their desire to ban TikTok. Over the past year, he says, he has met with more than 100 members of Congress, and brought up TikTok with all of them. [...] It was slow going until Oct. 7. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app. "How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It" (https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-bill-that-could-ban-it-7201ac8b https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-...)
polytely 2y ago
According to the people gunning for it seems to be mostly about controlling what content Americans can see in order to keep public opinions in line with foreign policy goals. (i.e. pro Israel) >While data security issues are paramount, less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world-picture that America’s young people encounter. Israel’s unfolding war with Hamas is a crucial test case. According to one poll, 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’s murder of civilians was justified—a statistic notably different from other age cohorts. Analysts have attributed this disparity to the ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok, where most young internet users get their information about the world from: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/Hawley-Letter-to-CFIUS-re-TikTok-and-Israeli-Hamas-Conflict.pdf https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/Ha...
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  I think there's an important distinction between "keeping public opinions [pro Israel]," as you claim, and discouraging the dissemination of content that radicalizes (for lack of a better word) viewers enough to justify and support the murder of innocent civilians by a terrorist organization, as the Senator claims.
gpm 2y ago
Yes! In fact the US court system does a great job of things like that. https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-1113-2088317.pdf https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111... I recommend you start reading on Page 33 if you are impatient. In extremely short. The PRC is an extremely active cyber threat, hacking things all over the US, in large part to gain access do gain access to datasets about U.S. people. Including hacks of the Goverment's Office of Personnel Management, of a credit reporting agency, a health insurance provider. The PRC has a strategy and laws of using its relationship with Chinese companies, and through them their subsidiaries, to carry out it's intelligence activities.They specifically point to the National Security Law of 2015 and the Cybersecurity law of 2017 which require full co-operation with Chinese authorities and full access to the data. So one half of their justification is the significant risk of China using TikTok to conduct espionage in the form of gathering a huge dataset on Americans. --- Another half of the risk is, as everyone else here is already saying, their ability to influence Americans. This is not an entirely theoretical concern as TikTok would like you to believe, the Government reports that “ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to PRC demands to censor content outside of China”. And all evidence is that it would happen in the US the second the PRC decided to ask for it.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  If they wanted our datasets they could just buy it lol, Remember Cambridge Analytica?
  - gpm 2y ago
    They do just buy it. The opinion mentions that. It turns out they want even more data and also do things like hacking to steal it. > The PRC’s methods for collecting data include using “its relationships with Chinese companies,” making “strategic investments in foreign companies,” and “purchasing large data sets.” For example [...] In fact it treats the Chinese investment into TikTok as basically a form of "just buying it" with regards to the information gathering justification for banning it.
  - LargeWu 2y ago
    It's not about getting our data. The TikTok algorithm is already being used to sow discord by showing stuff the PRC wants impressionable Americans to see. This ability of an adversarial foreign nation to surgically push individualized propaganda to consumers in another country is pretty unparalleled in human history. TikTok is the ultimate propaganda machine.
mynameishere 2y ago
[dead]
thuanao 2y ago
Red panic, racism, and corporate welfare. The usual motivating factors in US policy.

Rhapso 2y ago

Politicians realized just how powerful the corporate surveillance and propaganda system is, and they don't want to share it with China.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
This guy gets it. They don't care about anyone's privacy, save their own. This is yet more coddling of American industry, bought and paid for by generous political donations to keep the scaaaary Chinese apps from stealing honest, hard working red-blooded American's data... so that American apps can steal honest, hard working, red-blooded American's data.
- pjc50 2y ago
  It's not a coincidence that this comes along with similar cybersecurity/anticompetitive pushes against Chinese routers, drones, and EVs.
johnisgood 2y ago
Except people may be migrating to Rednote (which you have heard, is Chinese). Government intervention at its finest.

poszlem 2y ago

It's far more complex than that. TikTok is a Chinese company with immense reach and influence that can shape American public discourse. A global superpower cannot allow another global superpower to influence its population so significantly through social media (which is also why Facebook is banned in China).

EncomLab 2y ago

Perfect analogy. Keep in mind that most US lawmakers still think the internet is a series of tubes - and we don't want OUR tubes dirties by some pinko commie tubes! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!

lenerdenator 2y ago

It's generally not wise to let your geopolitical rival have extensive influence over your populace, which is why CCP doesn't let American companies like Meta operate in China. Turnabout is fair play.

woooooo 2y ago
There's also the signaling and red meat factor for politicians. Easy headline to be "tough on china", requires less explanation than pacific trade deals.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Absent any of these conversations is, in my experience, any notion of what exactly China aims to achieve with TikTok that is so sinister? I'm not even arguing, I wouldn't doubt China has plans or another that involve America, specifically that wouldn't be too great for America, I'm just struggling to connect TikTok to any of them, and any discussion seems to take it as granted that the shifty Chinese government is up to something with it.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Oh, you could probably make some effective arguments that they're using it to influence American thought in a way that's designed to diminish the US as a world power through internal strife. Israel/Hamas would probably be an example.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Its clear to anyone that's looking that what's happening in Gaza is a genocide
    - Philpax 2y ago
      For example, here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

DAGdug 2y ago

I hope this doesn’t sound overly cynical or conspiratorial. My sense is that there’s panic about unfettered access to what’s happening in Gaza on TikTok, which is shaping Gen Z’s perceptions in a way that isn’t deemed acceptable by the political establishment. US-based companies seem to have processes in place - direct or indirect - to suppress the reach of such content.

spencerflem 2y ago
^^^^^^ Same reason they passed the nonprofit killing bill bipartisanly, for whatever reason this seems to be a huge deal for the people in government right now.
gpm 2y ago
This is overly conspiratorial, because the timeline doesn't line up. Gaza has only been in the news since October 7th 2023. The government first started talking about banning TikTok in 2018 (under Trump). Ordered them to divest of US interests and prohibited transactions with them in 2020 (under Trump). The latter of which was overturned by the courts. The current administration took over in 2021, and in 2021 labelled the PRC as a foreign adversary. Discussed the threat to the US through the PRCs control of software applications and teh vasts swaths of information available from their users, directed agencies to find risk mitigation measures, and started a long process of negotiating with TikTok over how exactly it continued to operate. The act ordering divestment is the inevitable consequence of those talks failing... those talks failed sometime late 2022 or early 2023 (the last proposal under them was in August 2022).
- user982 2y ago
  The sudden resurgence of the years-dormant campaign to ban TikTok, and its rapid legislative success this time around, were directly because of Israel and Gaza. From the mouths of senators: "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down (potentially) TikTok...if you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts, so I know that's of real interest..." (https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587 https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587) Jacob Helberg, a member of a congressional research and advisory panel called the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, has been working on building a bipartisan, bicoastal alliance of China hawks, united in part by their desire to ban TikTok. Over the past year, he says, he has met with more than 100 members of Congress, and brought up TikTok with all of them. [...] It was slow going until Oct. 7. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app. "How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It" (https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-bill-that-could-ban-it-7201ac8b https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-...)

polytely 2y ago

According to the people gunning for it seems to be mostly about controlling what content Americans can see in order to keep public opinions in line with foreign policy goals. (i.e. pro Israel) >While data security issues are paramount, less often discussed is TikTok’s power to radically distort the world-picture that America’s young people encounter. Israel’s unfolding war with Hamas is a crucial test case. According to one poll, 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’s murder of civilians was justified—a statistic notably different from other age cohorts. Analysts have attributed this disparity to the ubiquity of anti-Israel content on TikTok, where most young internet users get their information about the world from: https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/Hawley-Letter-to-CFIUS-re-TikTok-and-Israeli-Hamas-Conflict.pdf https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/Ha...

nozzlegear 2y ago
I think there's an important distinction between "keeping public opinions [pro Israel]," as you claim, and discouraging the dissemination of content that radicalizes (for lack of a better word) viewers enough to justify and support the murder of innocent civilians by a terrorist organization, as the Senator claims.

gpm 2y ago

Yes! In fact the US court system does a great job of things like that. https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-1113-2088317.pdf https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111... I recommend you start reading on Page 33 if you are impatient. In extremely short. The PRC is an extremely active cyber threat, hacking things all over the US, in large part to gain access do gain access to datasets about U.S. people. Including hacks of the Goverment's Office of Personnel Management, of a credit reporting agency, a health insurance provider. The PRC has a strategy and laws of using its relationship with Chinese companies, and through them their subsidiaries, to carry out it's intelligence activities.They specifically point to the National Security Law of 2015 and the Cybersecurity law of 2017 which require full co-operation with Chinese authorities and full access to the data. So one half of their justification is the significant risk of China using TikTok to conduct espionage in the form of gathering a huge dataset on Americans. --- Another half of the risk is, as everyone else here is already saying, their ability to influence Americans. This is not an entirely theoretical concern as TikTok would like you to believe, the Government reports that “ByteDance and TikTok Global have taken action in response to PRC demands to censor content outside of China”. And all evidence is that it would happen in the US the second the PRC decided to ask for it.

spencerflem 2y ago
If they wanted our datasets they could just buy it lol, Remember Cambridge Analytica?
- gpm 2y ago
  They do just buy it. The opinion mentions that. It turns out they want even more data and also do things like hacking to steal it. > The PRC’s methods for collecting data include using “its relationships with Chinese companies,” making “strategic investments in foreign companies,” and “purchasing large data sets.” For example [...] In fact it treats the Chinese investment into TikTok as basically a form of "just buying it" with regards to the information gathering justification for banning it.
- LargeWu 2y ago
  It's not about getting our data. The TikTok algorithm is already being used to sow discord by showing stuff the PRC wants impressionable Americans to see. This ability of an adversarial foreign nation to surgically push individualized propaganda to consumers in another country is pretty unparalleled in human history. TikTok is the ultimate propaganda machine.

mynameishere 2y ago

[dead]

thuanao 2y ago

Red panic, racism, and corporate welfare. The usual motivating factors in US policy.