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Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and twe

• x0iii 2y ago
  There's no room for equality and fairness when it comes to global political rivals especially when there's stone cold evidence of mischief.
• ranger_danger 2y ago
  I don't think any big business sees protection of its users as a solution to anything.
• tptacek 2y ago
  The whole case turns on foreign adversary control of the data.
  • mjmsmith 2y ago
    Exactly, these are hostile political actors interfering in our country. This is also why Facebook and X should be banned everywhere except the USA.
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Meanwhile, it's perfectly fine for foreign adversaries to use American social media to interfere with American events. Anything for that GDP.
      • mjmsmith 2y ago
        Good point. Social media accounts should only be available to people who live in the country where the company is based. Then there's no need to ban Facebook and X elsewhere.
    • gWPVhyxPHqvk 2y ago
      ... and also the USA, too.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • muglug 2y ago
    Right, Congress was shown some pretty convincing evidence that execs in China pull the strings, and those execs are vulnerable to Chinese government interference. As we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks, social media companies based in the US are also vulnerable to US government interference — but that’s the way they like it.
    • ok123456 2y ago
      They have? They released a Marty Rimm-level report citing that pro-Palestinian was mentioned more than pro-Israeli content in ratios that differed from Meta products. This was the 'smoking gun' of manipulation when it's more of a sign Meta was the one doing the manipulation.
      • tptacek 2y ago
        The opinion today has almost nothing to do with how content is controlled on the platform; the court is very clear that they'd have upheld the statute based purely on the data collection issue.
        • ok123456 2y ago
          That report was pivotal during the vote for the law and belies the actual interests.
          • tptacek 2y ago
            The court addresses that directly, and every member of it, despite agreeing on little else, disagrees with you.
            • ok123456 2y ago
              [flagged]
      • derektank 2y ago
        I don't know what Congress has said but there absolutely is evidence that TikTok has been used to spy on users for political reasons. A US based engineer claims that he saw evidence that Hong Kong protestors were spied on in 2018 at the behest of a special committee representing the CCP's interests within ByteDance. This is not surprising, most major corporations within China maintain a special committee representing the government's interests to company executives https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/6/7/china-spied-on-hong-kong-activists-using-tiktok-lawsuit-claims https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/6/7/china-spied-on-ho...
  • hedora 2y ago
    That can’t be it. Facebook sells the same data to foreign adversaries including China and Russia. The most famous incident involved the British company Cambridge Analytica, which used it to manipulate election outcomes in multiple countries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica... Edit: Apparently it’s not common knowledge that this is still happening. Here’s a story about a congressional investigation from 2023: https://www.scworld.com/analysis/developers-in-china-russia-had-access-to-facebook-user-data-for-years-senators-say https://www.scworld.com/analysis/developers-in-china-russia-... And here’s a story about an executive order from Biden the next year. Apparently the White House concluded that the investigation wasn’t enough to fix the behavior: https://www.thedailyupside.com/technology/biden-wants-to-stop-foreign-spies-buying-americans-data/ https://www.thedailyupside.com/technology/biden-wants-to-sto... https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/americans-personal-data-foreign-powers-executive-order https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/americans-person... Edit 2: Here’s a detailed article from the EFF from this month explaining how the market operates: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-surveillance-industry-heres-how https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-...
    • tptacek 2y ago
      I assure you, if you read the opinion, that is indeed it, and the objection you raise about other instances of data collection not being targeted is addressed directly.
    • paganel 2y ago
      > That can’t be it. Facebook sells the same data to foreign adversaries including China and Russia. I'm not sure they do that anymore, not in the current geopolitical climate and not with the DC ghouls having taken over the most sensitive parts of Meta the company (there were many posts on this web-forum about former CIA people and not only working at the highest levels inside of Meta).
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  • benreesman 2y ago
    That may be true in a legal sense (and my reading of that is the same as yours). My interpretation of the parent’s comment is that we have pretty serious (and dubiously legal) overreach on this in a purely domestic setting as well. As someone who has worked a lot on products very much like TikTok, I’d certainly argue that we do.
    • tptacek 2y ago
      The short answer here is that directly addressing a threat from a foreign adversary formally designated by both the legislative and executive branches long before the particular controversy before the court affords the government a lot more latitude than they would have in other cases.
      • benreesman 2y ago
        I’m not sure anyone is disputing that, certainly I’m not. There is an adjacent point that many of us feel is just as important, which is that there is evidence in the public record (see Snowden disclosures among others) that there is lawbreaking or at least abuse of clearly stated constitutional liberties taking place domestically in the consumer internet space and has been for a long time. Both things can be true, and both are squarely on topic for this debate whether on HN or in the Senate Chambers.
  • josefritzishere 2y ago
    It's still completely legal for Meta to sell that user data to Chinese owned companies. So no security is provided by this change. I see it as theatre.
    • xnx 2y ago
      I thought this too, but I think there's a new law for this as well: "In a bipartisan measure, the House of Representatives unanimously pass a bill designed to protect the private information of all Americans by prohibiting data brokers from transferring that information to foreign adversaries such as China" https://allen.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=6203 https://allen.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=...
    • tptacek 2y ago
      People keep coming up with other avenues by which China could get this information, but the court addresses that directly: the legislature is not required to address every instance of a compelling threat in one fell swoop.
  • echelon 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • rusty_venture 2y ago
      Thank you for this concise and comprehensive summary. The DDoS threat had never occurred to me.
    • bloomingkales 2y ago
      China can show favorable political content to America and American youth. American culture has been such an influencing force on the world due to our conduits, movies and music. TikTok is a Chinese conduit, and I do believe this is happening. Our culture can be co-opted, the Chinese had John Cena apologize to ALL of China. They can easily pay to have American influencers spin in a certain way, influencing everything.
    • doug_durham 2y ago
      China can benefit without doing any influencing. It can simply mine the vast amount of data it gets for sentiment analysis. Say they want to be more aggressive against the Philippines. They can do an analysis to gauge the potential outrage on the part of the American people. If it's low they can go ahead.
    • o999 2y ago
      So China blocking US social media is justified for the very same reasons?
      • likpok 2y ago
        China has blocked US social media for years (decades perhaps?). I don't know if they've explicitly said all the reasons, but "social stability" is a big one. As an aside, TikTok itself is banned in China.
  • ternnoburn 2y ago
    It seems pretty bold to assume that Google, Facebook, Amazon, X, etc aren't adversaries. Foreign or otherwise.
    • tptacek 2y ago
      The case turns on the fact that China is formally designated a foreign adversary. The statute doesn't allow the government to simply make up who its adversaries are on the fly, or derive them from some fixed set of first principles. There's a list, and it long predates this case.
      • ternnoburn 2y ago
        Your mistake is assuming I'm thinking about any sort of legal definition. Adversarial nature doesn't require or government to declare it for it to exist.
  • mindslight 2y ago
    Yes, there is a distinction there. The issue is that it's a small part of the overall problem when looked at the larger scale. The overarching issues of political influence at odds with individual citizens, hostile engagement-maximizing algorithms, adversarial locked-down client apps, and selling influence to the highest bidder are all there with domestically-incorporated companies. The government's argument basically hinges on "but when these companies do something really bad we can force domestic companies to change but we can't do the same for TikTok". That's disingenuous to American individuals who have been on the receiving end of hostile influence campaigns for over a decade, disingenuous to foreign citizens not in the US or China who can't control any of this, and disingenuous to our societal principles as we're still ultimately talking about speech.
• prpl 2y ago
  Why do you care if a chinese company is banned from business in the US? All sorts of american companies are banned from doing business in China
  • taylodl 2y ago
    Because we're looking at the Big Picture and seeing how they're figuring out how to dismantle our First Amendment rights.
    • gambiting 2y ago
      First Amendment Right is only for American citizens, no? If you're a visitor to the US for example, you don't get the First Amendment protection against anything, you're a guest. Why doesn't the same principle apply to a foreign company? I don't see how banning tik tok affects your first amendment rights or first amendment rights of American companies - maybe you can explain?
      • galleywest200 2y ago
        The constitution applies to everyone within the borders of the country, not just citizens. Tourists still get due process, can say what they want, cannot be forced to house american soldiers in their hotel, etc. No idea if this applies to companies, but foreign visitors do get protections.
        • ziddoap 2y ago
          >The constitution applies to everyone within the borders of the country Minor clarification that some parts specify "citizen" (e.g. voting). Others specify "person" or "resident" or the like, which would be anyone within the border.
      • cathalc 2y ago
        Legal aliens absolutely have the same First Amendment rights as citizens.
• panki27 2y ago
  Data = Money, the rest is capitalism
• Workaccount2 2y ago
  The US occupies a new office downtown. China wants eyes on a specific room, and the choice spot for monitoring it is someone else's apartment. This person happens to own a bakery also in town, and it sort of seems like the apartment is a reach for them as it is. Now in your feed you get a short showing some egregious findings in the food from this bakery. More like this crop up from the mystical algorithmic abyss. You won't go there anymore. Their reviews tank and business falls. Mind you those posts were organic, tiktok just stifled good reviews and put the bad ones on blast. 6 months later the apartment is on the market, and not a single person in town "has ever seen CCP propaganda on tiktok". This is the overwhelmingly main reason why Tiktok is getting banned.
  • cwillu 2y ago
    What in the tinfoil hat of god…
  • hb-robo 2y ago
    > This is the overwhelmingly main reason why Tiktok is getting banned. Because people are writing Orwell fanfiction?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • Joker_vD 2y ago
    I cannot tell if this comment was made seriously or as a satire of unhinged conspiracy theories.
  • itishappy 2y ago
    Why just TikTok? Are American corporations immune from coveting thy neighbor's possessions?
    • dralley 2y ago
      For the same reason Grindr was forced to sell to a non-Chinese parent, the risks of putting some apps / information in the hands of strategic competitors is too high. If a domestic company tried to blackmail people with their sexual history, they face domestic legal accountability. China does not.
• zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  It’s bad because China has different interests than the US. Imagine if a war breaks out in Taiwan and they send targeted propaganda to members of the US military.
  • ramon156 2y ago
    Aka because we're the "good" guys
    • luddit3 2y ago
      In preventing a country from being invaded, yes, we are.
    • like_any_other 2y ago
      This is a common criticism in these kinds of discussions, but no, protecting oneself from foreign influence and threats does not require a moral high-ground, just as locking your front door doesn't.
    • ssijak 2y ago
      For some reason I can't reply to "luddit3" below you. But he should check a list of countries that started the most wars and invasions in the last 150 years and which one tops it easily.
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > countries that started the most wars and invasions in the last 150 years and which one tops it easily What is the list? Does WWII count as one war, or do we could belligerents individually?
    • yard2010 2y ago
      There is no good, just bad and kill-it-with-fire kind of evil. You choose bad you get a bad life. You choose the other you get literally hell. One government harvests and sells the organs of its healthy population[0][1][2] and the other makes some people feel sad. Ironically, the "good" guys here allow you to talk shit on the internet about them while the "bad" guys would catch and harvest my organs someday for writing this comment. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_... [1] https://chinatribunal.com/ https://chinatribunal.com/ [2] https://theowp.org/reports/china-is-forcibly-harvesting-organs-from-prisoners-of-conscience-tribunal-rules/ https://theowp.org/reports/china-is-forcibly-harvesting-orga...
• chpatrick 2y ago
  For the same reason you're okay with the US military being present in the US and not the Chinese one.
• Aaronstotle 2y ago
  Domestic governments shouldn't let hostile foreign governments the ability to exert soft power over 1/2 of their population. Hence why China banned all USA based tech companies from operating there.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • tptacek 2y ago
    The opinion is mostly not about control over recommendation algorithms; it goes out of its way to say that the data collection is dispositive. Check out Gorsuch's concurrence for some flavor of how much more complicated this would be with respect to the recommender.
  • thiagoharry 2y ago
    And this is why most countries should ban Facebook, Twitter and US social media.
  • qwezxcrty 2y ago
    As a Chinese grown up within the Great Firewall, now I began to really feel all the hypocrisy around the matter of "freedom of Internet". It seems the block of Facebook and Twitter in China is surely justified at the very begining, for the same "national security" grounds. China have exactly the same amount of reason to believe the US is stealing data or propelling propaganda by social network. It seems there are indeed things that can override citizen's free choice even in the "lighthouse of democracy and freedom", and CCP didn't make a mistake for building the firewall. My need to use Shadowsocks to use Google instead of Baidu or some other crap was simply a collateral damage. Of course, the Chinese censorship is way more intensive, but this act makes a dangerous precedent.
    • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      TikTok is also blocked by the GFW in China, so this puts the USA on par with blocking it also. Weirdly enough, Douyin isn’t banned, specifically, so you should still be able to use it in the states.
• mschuster91 2y ago
  > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic? Indeed, but at the point we are in history the steps to get that done - aka, copy the EU GDPR and roll it out federally - would take far too long, all while China has a direct path to the brains of our children.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    But it's fine for Russia as long as it's through an American corporation.
• kube-system 2y ago
  The concern isn't broadly that "social media companies have data". The concern is the governing environment that those companies operate in, which can be coopted for competing national security purposes. This isn't a consumer data privacy protection. The concerns here are obvious: For example, it would be trivial for the Chinese military to use TikTok data to find US service members, and serve them propaganda. Or track their locations, etc.
• zug_zug 2y ago
  > But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? China blocks facebook/twitter/instagram/pinterest/gmail/wikipedia/twitch and even US newspapers. So clearly they don't think it's okay for a US-company to do it (and are at least an order magnitude stricter about it)...
  • colejohnson66 2y ago
    China doesn't have a constitution like America's. Edit: Obviously, China has a constitution, but the freedoms enumerated there are not the same as those in America's. And those that are enumerated are pointless (like North Korea's constitution). My point is that there's an inherent hypocrisy in saying we're more free than them, but then doing a tit-for-tat retaliatory measure. How can we be more free when we're doing the same things the other side is?
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • ok123456 2y ago
      So what? If you believe in liberal values (with a small l), like freedom of speech, you lead by example.
      • AlexandrB 2y ago
        The "example" being banning things for nebulous reasons? If anything this is the US following China's lead in restricting what software their citizens can access.
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > If you believe in liberal values (with a small l), like freedom of speech, you lead by example America is ridiculously pro free speech. That doesn’t mean we must then tolerate libel, slander, fraud, false advertising, breach of contract, et cetera because someone screams free speech. The Bill of Rights exists in balances, and the First Amendment is balanced, among other the things, with the nation’s requirement to exist. That doesn’t mean the Congress can ban speech. But it can certainly regulate media properties, including by mandating maximum foreign ownership fractions.
• alberth 2y ago
  This is being positioned as a national security issue that a foreign government has so much influence over the US public (and data on people if they want, like geolocation, interests, your contacts, etc). Note: I'm not saying I either agree or disagree ... just pointing out the dynamics in the case being made.
  • ellisv 2y ago
    Legally, the national security component is relatively minor to the case. It's played up to be the justification for the law but SCOTUS doesn't really get to decide whether that is good justification or even correct.
    • alberth 2y ago
      > The nation’s highest court said in the opinion that while “data collection and analysis is a common practice in this digital age,” the sheer size of TikTok and its “susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects” poses a National Security Concern. FTA
    • orangecat 2y ago
      SCOTUS doesn't really get to decide whether that is good justification or even correct They do, and they did. From the ruling: The Act’s prohibitions and divestiture requirement are designed to prevent China—a designated foreign adver- sary—from leveraging its control over ByteDance Ltd. to capture the personal data of U. S. TikTok users. This ob- jective qualifies as an important Government interest un- der intermediate scrutiny.
      • ellisv 2y ago
        My point was that SCOTUS didn't review whether there was a compelling national security interest or not – they didn't review any of the classified material, etc. SCOTUS didn't consider whether or not it was good or meaningful policy, they simply accepted the national security argument which more-or-less required them to uphold the DC court's application of intermediate scrutiny.
• DrScientist 2y ago
  Indeed - if the US is this afraid of a popular social network under foreign control then every country outside the US should be petrified. And domestically in the US - citizens should be demanding the dismantling of the big powerful players - which ironically the US government is against because of it's usefulness abroad..... ( let's assume for one moment, despite evidence to the contrary, that the US government doesn't use these tools of persuasion on it's own population ).
  • mbrumlow 2y ago
    > if the US is this afraid of a popular social network under foreign control then every country outside the US should be petrified. They are and have been.
    • alonsonic 2y ago
      This is exactly why China controls the internet and any company with a presence there.
  • realusername 2y ago
    I have no horses in the race but if you justify a Tiktok ban in the US because of a foreign influence, you also do justify a Facebook ban in the EU on the same arguments.
    • mplanchard 2y ago
      Thus why Facebook is blocked in China, but not in the EU, since we have a much less adversarial relationship with them.
      • realusername 2y ago
        I'm not sure how long it will last with Zukerberg and Musk openly threatening the EU.
        • 2y ago
• mbrumlow 2y ago
  I thought it was less about the data and more about the control China had on what Americans saw, and how that could influence Americans. If China could effectively influence the American populations opinions, how would that not be bad?
  • ossobuco 2y ago
    If the reality of things, the simple truth, is able to "influence" Americans does it really matter who brought that truth up? Do you prefer Americans to be ignorant about certain topics, or to be informed even if that comes at the cost of reduced approval for the government?
    • BobaFloutist 2y ago
      What if, and hear me out, China didn't limit its propaganda to the truth?
      • ossobuco 2y ago
        Sounds like a great opportunity for the US government to inform the people on what's the actual truth. You say Americans don't believe their government anymore? I wonder why...
        • BobaFloutist 2y ago
          Do you think the truth is, like, inherently more compelling than lies? If Americans don't believe their government anymore, how is their government supposed to use China's lies to highlight the truth?
          • ossobuco 2y ago
            I'm saying the government should focus on regaining the trust of its citizens, rather than censoring dangerous opinions. That trust wasn't lost because of foreign propaganda, but because of the government own lies.
• rwarfield 2y ago
  Because for all of Mark Zuckerburg's flaws (or Elon, or whoever), America is unlikely to go to war with him?
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Of course not. He's already winning the war and "The People" have no voice in that matter.
• afavour 2y ago
  Because China is a rival geopolitical power and the US is... us. It's a national security concern. I get that there's a lot of conversation and debate to be had on the topic but the answer here is very straightforward and I don't understand why people are so obtuse about it.
  • bushbaba 2y ago
    Not everyone on HN is a U.S. national. Many are Chinese nationals. So the discussion here has conflict of interest depending on one’s allegiance
    • alex_young 2y ago
      So a US court should make decisions not in the US interest because people in other countries use some software?
      • bushbaba 2y ago
        No. The U.S. court should make decisions in the U.S. interest. But this HN thread represents people from around the world who may not share the U.S. interest at a personal level. Leading to remarks which are trying to sway US opinion. In a way, this thread could very well be monitored and commented on by a non US nation state
    • afavour 2y ago
      > no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, In the context of a discussion on a US-specific ban on TikTok I'm taking the "us" in OP's post to mean people in the US. If you aren't in the US the ban doesn't apply to you so the discussion is irrelevant.
    • gkbrk 2y ago
      HN is literally banned in China [1][2]. And since VPNs are also illegal in China, they're breaking the law if they are here. I doubt they'd break the law if they had such a strong allegiance to China. [1]: https://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=news.ycombinator.com https://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=news.ycombinator.... [2]: https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com https://en.greatfire.org/news.ycombinator.com
• 23B1 2y ago
  Because the Chinese are openly hostile towards the United States and its interests, whereas American companies have a vested interest in the U.S. and are beholden to its laws. I don't know why realpolitik is so hard for technologists to understand, perhaps too much utopian fantasy scifi?
  • alonsonic 2y ago
    The idealist and optimist part of technologists tend to block the understanding of the rather simple practicalities at play in geo politics.
  • tmnvdb 2y ago
    It is really amazing to see so many replies here of people who do not just disagree with the ruling but completely deny the principles at play exist.
    • Spunkie 2y ago
      I've honestly never seen so many stupid people making stupid arguments on HN before. Nothing but lazy disingenuous arguments who's only purpose is to bait conversations for replying with even lazier whataboutisms. Either the brainrot has really set in for these people or we are being flooded with ai/bots.
      • tmnvdb 2y ago
        Yes. Or both.
        • 23B1 2y ago
          Or mutually-supporting fires, a death-spiral of agitprop fueling already bent values.
      • kjkjadksj 2y ago
        What is stupid in these replies to me is that people seemingly think the interests of american companies and the american working class are somehow aligned.
• gspencley 2y ago
  While I agree with you about domestic policy, I'm not sure why it's inconsistent or hypocritical to deal with an external threat posed from those who want to destroy or harm you. The details specific to China and TikTok are kind of moot when talking about broad principles. And there is a valid discussion to be had regarding whether or not it does pose a legitimate national security threat. You would be absolutely correct in pointing out all of the trade that happens between China and the USA as a rebuttal to what I'm about to offer. To put where I'm coming from into perspective, I'm one of those whacko Ayn Rand loving objectivists who wants a complete separation between state and economy just like we have been state and church and for the same reasons. This means that I want nothing shy of absolute laissez-faire capitalism. But that actually doesn't mean that blockades, sanctions and trade prohibitions are necessarily inconsistent with this world view. It depends on the context. An ideal trade is one in which both parties to that trade benefit. The idea being that both are better off than they were before the trade. This means that it is a really stupid idea to trade anything at all at any level with those who want to either destroy or harm you. National security is one of the proper roles of government. And I don't think you necessarily disagree with me, because you're saying "we should also be protected our citizens from spying and intrusions into our privacy" and yes! Yes we absolutely should be! But that's a different role than protecting the nation from external threats. You can do your job with respects to one, and fail at your job with respects to the other, and then it is certainly appropriate to call out that one of the important jobs is not being fulfilled. Does that make it hypocritical? Does it suddenly make it acceptable for enemy states to start spying? By all means criticize your government always. That's healthy. But one wrong does not excuse another. We can, and should, debate whether TikTok really represents a national security threat, or whether we should be trading with China at all (my opinion is we shouldn't be). It's just that the answer to "why its bad when China does it but it's right when it's done domestically" is "it's wrong in both cases and each can be dealt with independently from the other without contradiction"
• Vanclief 2y ago
  The comparison isn't even close. TikTok's relationship with the Chinese government is well-documented, not "supposed". They are legally required to share data under China's National Intelligence Law. The Chinese government has also a track record of pushing disinformation and find any way to destabilize Western democracies. Douyin (The Chinese Tiktok version) limits users under 14 to 40 minutes per day and primarily serves educational content, while TikTok's algorithm outside China optimizes for maximum engagement regardless of content quality or user wellbeing. US tech companies pursuing profit at the expense of user wellbeing is concerning and deserves its own topic. However, there is a fundamental difference between a profit driven company operating under US legal constraints and oversight, versus a platform forced to serve the strategic interests of a foreign government that keeps acting in bad faith.
  • gs17 2y ago
    > Douyin (The Chinese Tiktok version) limits users under 14 to 40 minutes per day and primarily serves educational content, while TikTok's algorithm outside China optimizes for maximum engagement regardless of content quality or user wellbeing. This isn't true, at least not for adults' accounts. I've watched my girlfriend use it and the content was exactly what she watched on TikTok, mostly dumb skits, singing, dancing, just all in Chinese instead of half in Chinese. It also never kicked her off for watching too long. I was told a similar story about Xiaohongshu, where it was supposedly an app for Chinese citizens to read Mao's quotations (through the lens of Xi Jinping Thought) to prove their loyalty. Then I saw it for real and it's literally Chinese Instagram.
• drawkward 2y ago
  Judging by your karma and registration date, you spend some time here on HN. There have been lots of good answers why; they are the many prior discussions of this topic. You are just seeming to ignore them for whatever reason.
• legitster 2y ago
  > Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic? Maybe. But there is a huge constitutional distinction between foreign and domestic threats. And the supreme court was pretty clear that the decision would be different if it didn't reside with a "foreign adversary".
• jack_pp 2y ago
  Check out the scandal in Romania, some guy that had less than 5% in polls got 30% because of tiktok. Other candidates had tiktok campaigns too but probably didn't use bots. Social media is a legitimate threat to any countries democracy if used wisely. It is dangerous to have one of the biggest ones in the hands of your enemy when they can influence your own countries narrative to such an extent.
  • Al-Khwarizmi 2y ago
    For me the biggest scandal in Romania is that they threw the people's choice to the trash just because he didn't show up in polls... a few months after banning another candidate, Sosoaca, for, and I cite textually, "calling for the removal of fundamental state values and choices, namely EU and NATO membership". Note that from the little I know about both Sosaca and Georgescu, they both look like dangerous nutjobs that should not rule, but if I were a Romanian I would be more worried about a democracy that removes candidates it doesn't like for purely political reasons (not for having commited a felony or anything like that) than about them.
    • jack_pp 2y ago
      I'm no lawyer and can't be arsed to do the proper research but for Georgescu to be able to declare he had 0 campaign spending while everyone knows that the tiktok campaign cost 20-50 million euros is insane to me. If they aren't already prosecuting him on this I guess technically it's legal but such a weird loophole in the law. Any spending towards promoting a candidate should be public knowledge imo. EDIT: he was claiming bullshit like GOD chose him and that's how he got that good of a result. I guess his God is the people in the shadows that made his tiktok campaign lol > For me the biggest scandal in Romania is that they threw the people's choice to the trash just because he didn't show up in polls I think they did it for many reasons but not because he didn't show up in polls. Top ones are: - PSD didn't advance in the second round and they had the leverage to pull it off - Georgescu was clearly anti-NATO so maybe the US pulled strings - Danger of having a president with Russian sympathies - He was claiming that he didn't spend a single dime on the election while everyone in the know knows that his tiktok campaign cost sever million euros
• disharko 2y ago
  optimistically, this is the first step towards banning or at least forcing more transparency for all algorithmic feeds. there's absolutely similar concerns about the leadership of American companies being able to sway public opinion in whatever direction they choose via promotion or demotion of viewpoints. but it's only been possible to convince those with the power to stop them of the danger from China, because while probably none of the companies have "America's best interests" at heart when tuning their algorithms, it's much clearer that China has reason to actively work against American national interests (even just demoting honest critique of China is something to be wary of)
• cmiles74 2y ago
  Clearly the US government would like only US companies to collect this kind of data. Eliminating the biggest competitors for companies like Google, X and Meta is likely just the icing on the cake.
• skirge 2y ago
  my wife can yell at me and spend my money and my neighbour can't, because you know different case
• amelius 2y ago
  In addition: • US data brokers can still sell data to foreign companies (out of control of US and thus indirectly to Chinese companies). • Chinese companies can buy US companies (thereby obtaining lots of data). If we killed user-tracking, then that would solve a LOT of problems.
  • mplanchard 2y ago
    > US data brokers can still sell data to foreign companies (out of control of US and thus indirectly to Chinese companies). This is false. It was made illegal in April, 2024: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7520 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7520
    • amelius 2y ago
      > (...) to North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran or an entity controlled by such a country This is very limited and will not prevent indirect sales (like we now see happening with Russian oil for example). It is also why I said "indirectly".
      • mplanchard 2y ago
        Yeah it could be broader for sure, would prefer it to be an allowlist rather than a blocklist, but the presence of a workaround doesn't make banning something pointless, and as the SC pointed out in their decision, a law does not need to solve all problems in one fell swoop in order for it to be valid.
        • amelius 2y ago
          I just wish we could ban user-tracking (and data brokers) entirely so we wouldn't have this problem to begin with, or at least not to the current extent. Keeping the data securely inside our country is never going to work if China can simply open their wallet and spend billions of $ to obtain the data.
• ajkjk 2y ago
  It sounds like you have ignored all the answers and then you're saying there's no good answers? If you want to convince someone they're not good answers you would have to at least engage with them and show how they fail to be correct/moral/legal or something. Pretending they don't exist does nothing.
• epolanski 2y ago
  Not only that, but there's no evidence at all that Tik Tok's been feeding China any data. None. Whereas we have proof and evidence that US agencies can access data about citizens from anywhere else in the world without even needing a court order. Everybody forgot already US spying on Merkel's phone? But that's okay, because America is not bound to any rules I guess. Disgusting foreign policy with a disgusting exceptionalism mentality.
  • afavour 2y ago
    > there's no evidence at all that Tik Tok's been feeding China any data. Because China's political system applies absolutely no pressure for transparency. > Whereas we have proof and evidence that US agencies can access data about citizens from anywhere else in the world without even needing a court order. Something we know about because the US political system has levers that can be pulled to apply pressure for transparency. You'd have to be very naive not to think that the Chinese government has an interest in controlling what US users of TikTok see. Whether they actually have or not is a somewhat useless question because we'll never know definitively, and even if they haven't today there's nothing saying they won't tomorrow. We can say that they have both the motive and capability to do so.
    • monocasa 2y ago
      > Something we know about because the US political system has levers that can be pulled to apply pressure for transparency. We know most of it because of whistleblower leaks.
      • afavour 2y ago
        Otherwise known as a lever within the US political system that allows for transparency. No free press, no whistleblowers.
        • monocasa 2y ago
          I'm mainly thinking of Snowden, who wasn't afforded whistleblower protections, and who mainly distributed through foreign media like Der Spiegel and The Guardian.
• deleted 2y ago
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• myrmidon 2y ago
  1) You can not protect users from being influenced by the media they consume-- that is basically the very nature of the thing. 2) This is not about protecting users of the app, this is about preventing a foreign state from having direct influence on public opinion. It is obvious to me why this is necessary. If you allow significant foreign influence on public opinion, then this can be leveraged. Just imagine Russia being in control of a lot of US media in 2022. Or 1940's Japan. That is a very serious problem, because it can easily lead to outcomes that are against the interests of ALL US citizens in the longer term...
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • plorg 2y ago
    SCOTUS explicitly avoided ruling on this justification, and it seemed at argument that even some of the conservative justices were uncomfortable with the free speech implications of it.
    • redserk 2y ago
      That justification also seems like it quickly can be used to shutdown access to VPN services hosted elsewhere like Mullvad.
    • DudeOpotomus 2y ago
      It's not a top down broadcast and the SCOTUS has a hard time wrapping their head around 250 individual people receiving individualized content with no oversight or necessity for accuracy.
    • perbu 2y ago
      I think the question "What is Tiktoks speech?" was raised. And the answer, "the algorithm" didn't really strike home. So I read it like they didn't interpret this as a free speech issue at all.
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• throw10920 2y ago
  Where in that CNBC article does it say that it's fine for US companies to do that? I don't see that anywhere, yet that's the point you're claiming is being made.
• knowitnone 2y ago
  same reason China forbids or controls US companies operating in China. This is just tit-for-tat.
  • sudosysgen 2y ago
    This isn't true, US companies are allowed to operate in China. They just eventually choose not to because complying with Chinese censorship laws is too much trouble, but in that sense they are not too different from Chinese companies. Facebook for example operated in China for many years until they decline to comply with a ruling on Xinjiang (which may have been the moral decision).
• knowitnone 2y ago
  ever hear of election tampering?
• misiti3780 2y ago
  I think you have no good answer to this, you should do some soul searching.
• insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Plenty of good answers have already been put forward. But in case you're asking in good faith, here are the two main ones: 1- It's in the interest of the US government to protect its interests and citizens from governments that are considered adversarial, which China is. And unlike other countries, the Chinese government exercises a great deal of direct control over major companies (like ByteDance). If TikTok was controlled by the Russian government would we even be having this conversation? (Ironically most Americans are freaked out about Russia, but when it comes to global politics, China is the much greater threat to the U.S.) I think social media in general - including by US companies - does more harm than good to society and concentrates too much power and influence in the hands of a few (Musk, Zuck, etc.) So this isn't to say that "US social media is good". But from a national security standpoint, Congress' decision makes sense. 2- If China allowed free access to US social media apps to its citizens then it might have a leg to stand on. But those are blocked (along with much of the Western internet) or heavily filtered/censored. TikTok itself is banned in China. So there's a strong tit-for-tat element here, which also is reasonable.
  • bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > Ironically most Americans are freaked out about Russia, but when it comes to global politics, China is the much greater threat to the U.S. China benefits greatly from the rules based order that America spends considerable effort to maintain and uphold. They would prefer a different rules based order than the one America would prefer, but they're better off with than without and recognize that. OTOH, Russia does not. They prefer chaos. China is definitely the stronger threat. But Russia is a greater immediate threat because they're only interested in tearing things down. It's easier to tear things down than to build them up, especially if you don't care about the consequences.
    • insane_dreamer 2y ago
      > But Russia is a greater immediate threat I disagree; and it's the dismissal for the past 13-14 years of China as an immediate threat which is what has in part allowed China to become such a large longer-term threat. > They would prefer a different rules based order than the one America would prefer I would put it differently: China wants its own global hegemony instead of the U.S.' -- and that's understandable (everyone wants to rule the world). But if the U.S. doesn't want that to happen then it has to take steps to counter it.
• GoldenMonkey 2y ago
  It's about psychological manipulation of Americans. TikTok is a completely different experience in China. Social media influences us in negative ways. And the Chinese government can and does take advantage of that.
• ryandvm 2y ago
  Two extremely obvious reasons: First, it's a national security issue for a company controlled by the CCP to have intimate data access for hundreds of millions of US citizens. Not only can they glean a great deal of sensitive information, but they have the ability to control the algorithm in ways that benefit the CCP. Second, China does not reciprocate this level of vulnerability. US companies do not have the same access or control over Chinese users. If you want to allow nation states to diddle around with your citizens, then it ought to be a reciprocal arrangement and then it all averages out.
  • flybarrel 2y ago
    Back in the early stage of social media, US companies had the choice to operate in China as long as they comply with the censorship and local laws. Had they chosen not to quit China market at the point, they would have been probably huge in China holding major access over Chinese users too. (How would Chinese government react to that is something we never get to see now...) I keep seeing argument regarding "China bans social medias from other countries". It's not an outright ban saying that "Facebook cannot operate in China", but more like "Comply with the censorship rules or you cannot operate in China". It's not targeting "ownership" or "nation states". e.g. Google chose to leave, while Microsoft continues to operate Bing in China.
    • ryandvm 2y ago
      Good point, but still that's not reciprocity. Allowing the CCP to fine tune their propaganda at American citizens while US companies have to comply with heavy handed censorship is not a fair trade.
• bigmattystyles 2y ago
  It is, and if this a stepping stone to that conversation, that’s a good thing. Great even. If you expect to have everything at once, you’ll make no progress.
• fumar 2y ago
  Why would you want an outside nation to have an outsized influence America's social fabric? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXsPU25B60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXsPU25B60 Chomsky laid out manufacturing consent decades ago and while his thesis revolves around traditional media heavily influencing thought-in-America, the influencing now happens from algorithmic based feeds. Tik Tok controls the feed for many young American minds.
• jelly 2y ago
  Action against Tiktok doesn't preclude action against US companies
• llm_nerd 2y ago
  The rational for why TikTok should be banned in the United States is precisely the same rational why Xitter, Facebook, Instagram, et al, should be banned in other countries. Meta, Musk, and others have no right or grant to operate in the EU, Canada or elsewhere. They should be banned.
  • nthingtohide 2y ago
    US benefits from Tiktok ban. US benefits from its social media not being banned in other countries. The calculation is pretty clear to me.
• caseysoftware 2y ago
  Yes, all of them should be stopped from doing it. And end Third Party Doctrine. I 100% agree.
• o999 2y ago
  Because US is not really a free country. It is obviously way better on this matter than China, but in principle, liberties are selectively granted in US and in China. The TikTok ban topic has been stale for long time before it became the main harbor for Pro-Palestine content after it became under censorship by US social media thus depriving anti-Palestine from controling the narrative, effectively becoming a major concern for AIPAC et al. Data collection is more of a plausible pretext at this point.
  • tmnvdb 2y ago
    Every country has "selective liberties", that is not a very meaningful criterion.
    • o999 2y ago
      Liberties are not granted to everyone equaly ≠ Some liberties are [equally] denied.
• lvl155 2y ago
  Why do we need a good answer? Does US need to be a good guy on some made up rules? Post Soviet collapse, US could have just taken over a bunch of territories. We don’t alway need to be some faithful country when the rest of the world is always messing up asking for millions of Americans to spill blood. I think RoW take US goodwill for granted. We don’t need to play nice. That’s not how competition works.
• CryptoBanker 2y ago
  This is essentially a whataboutism argument...
• timcobb 2y ago
  > But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? It's not perfectly fine, but you need to start with companies of foreign adversaries first.
• deleted 2y ago
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• bastardoperator 2y ago
  It's perfectly fine for a South African immigrant to do it, I really don't understand the problem either.
  • prpl 2y ago
    You don't understand the difference between a non-resident corporation under control of an adversary and a naturalized citizen?
    • bastardoperator 2y ago
      I do, but there is no data or evidence supporting said non-resident corporation is under control of an adversary, so why should I believe anything the government claims? If you're going to talk about security, just stop, nearly every component in your phone is produced in China, and you still use that everyday.
      • prpl 2y ago
        At the very least they have an export ban on the "algorithms" which is why they won't sell, and chinese control, especially under Xi, is well documented, so I don't know what kind of smoking gun you'd expect. It'd be more unusual if there was a laissez faire position by the government. Regardless, assembly of an iPhone with Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese components in China is not the same as mass surveillance as a service.
        • bastardoperator 2y ago
          I asked for evidence or even some data, show me something that can verify anything you're saying beyond a reasonable doubt. You can't, you're basically regurgitating talking points on topics neither of us really know anything about. I'm not saying I'm against a ban, but "China evil" shouldn't be good enough for a semi intelligent society. In terms of algorithms, most US companies refer to that as intellectual property. Google doesn't sell their search algorithm to other search engines so I don't think your point makes any sense. Companies keep their IP secret for a reason, they don't want competition digging into their profits. What US company isn't engaging in the same completely legal behaviors? My point about the phones is that China like America can target any electronic like the US was doing 20 years via interdiction. If we look at the NSA ANT catalog, specifically DIETYBOUNCE, everything they accuse China of is stuff we practically invented. edit: Also I just purchased a M4 Mac mini, shipped directly from China.
• trothamel 2y ago
  There is a rule of law issue here. Say, for example, congress passes and the president signs a law that says that product sponsorships in videos need to be disclosed. If a US company (or a European, Australian, Japanese, etc) country violates that law, we're pretty sure that a judgement against them can change that behavior. China? Not so much, given their history.
• aprilthird2021 2y ago
  The problem is framing information access as a threat. It is not and that's fundamentally not a First Amendment positive stance. If I want to gorge myself on Chinese propaganda it's my right as an American.
• DudeOpotomus 2y ago
  Because it's not the TWEAKING of the content tho tis the problem. It's the ability to manipulate individuals using fake or altered content. Not sure why this is a hard one to understand but with the ability to individualized media, you can easily feed people propaganda and they'd never know. Add in AI and deep fakes, and you have the ability to manipulate the entire discourse in a matter of minutes. How do you think Trump was elected? Do you really think the average 20 something would vote for a Republican, let alone a 78 year old charlatan? They were manipulated into the vote. And that is the most innocuous possible use of such a tech.