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It's a shame that it's come to this. I feel that all arguments that TikTok is unhealthy or spyware and bad for our general public are valid, but the same argum

It's a shame that it's come to this. I feel that all arguments that TikTok is unhealthy or spyware and bad for our general public are valid, but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their livelihood. This serves only to enrich our American tech monopolies — companies which have proven to us that they have bad intentions towards our country's people. Truly bleak.

swasheck 2y ago
as a parent who has attempted to navigate the complexities of social media and mental health and social norms and conformity, social media absolutely has an effect on how the emerging generations interact with their surrounding environments, and in my experience, all been negative. I understand this is colloquial, but the cloak wheel evidence of all of my peers additionally supports this. i’m sad, not that this has been banned and gone dark, but at the emotional and social uproar that this seems to have created.
- swasheck 2y ago
  [flagged]
maeil 2y ago
To an extent, yes, some of the arguments absolutely apply to other platforms as well. But others don't. You never saw such platforms directly impact elections as much, having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe. Of course they tried running campaigns in the past on Facebook as well, but not with as high of an impact, and after they got caught the platforms have put in a reasonable amount of effort to crack down on them. TikTok knowingly turns a blind eye, and unlike with the US platforms, Russia can be much more blatant. Think it would be pretty reasonable for other countries to ban such platforms too though, as China has understandably already been doing for over a decade. Facebook of course played a big role in genocide in Myanmar, so I wouldn't dare say the US platforms are necessarily better.
- MichaelRo 2y ago
  >> having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe I suppose you refer to this: https://theconversation.com/why-romanias-election-was-annulled-and-what-happens-next-245779 https://theconversation.com/why-romanias-election-was-annull... "The Romanian constitutional court annulled the country’s presidential election on December 6. This decision is unprecedented in Romanian history. It followed the declassification of documents by Romanian intelligence services that exposed evidence of voting manipulation through social media platforms, illegal campaign financing on TikTok, cyber-attacks orchestrated by external forces and suspected Russian interference."
  - miohtama 2y ago
    This goes to European Court of Human Rights. It may find out that cancelling election results was unnecessary. https://www.ejiltalk.org/electoral-dysfunction-romanias-election-annulment-disinformation-and-echr-positive-obligations-to-combat-election-irregularities/ https://www.ejiltalk.org/electoral-dysfunction-romanias-elec... > Here, the opposite could be alleged- that Romania took action, but the action was too immediate and drastic than was called for in the circumstances. Considering how the Court expressed a critical view of overly drastic measures in cases such as the above-mentioned Kermiova v Azerbaijan, it is possible that the Court could similarly show a disdain for the expeditious actions taken by the domestic judiciary in Romania. Also apparently most voters voted this candidate because of economic reasos, not due to Russian proximity.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      Most voters didn’t vote for that candidate though. They voted for a more moderate and not pro-Russia independent who was effectively guaranteed to win in the next round. Establishment parties obviously didn’t like that outcome.
  - paganel 2y ago
    There is still no proof that the powers that be have come up with, to the contrary, it was proven that one of the governing parties (PNL) was paying money for the online campaign of mr. Georgescu (supposedly the “extremist” candidate who had made use of TikTok). It is all a farce and it has helped kill democracy (or what had been left of it, anyway) in this country.
blackoil 2y ago
These bans are more to do with geopolitics and economic interest than security. e.g. Blanket ban on Huawei including accessing TSMC, Samsung fabs is more to protect Apple and Qualcomm.
safety1st 2y ago
I'm going to quote a CBS News article here because I don't feel Congress' arguments in favor of banning TikTok are being well represented. You can agree with them or disagree with them but everyone should at least understand them accurately. TLDR TikTok is not comparable to the other services you mentioned because ByteDance is required to comply with Chinese intelligence, and China has made many public statements in recent years to the effect that it is a hostile, rival power to the United States. Allowing ByteDance to operate TikTok is granting a hostile government a tool to influence US public opinion as well as to track the locations and text messages of 170 million American citizens. Congress gave ByteDance the option to divest control so that they could get paid and TikTok could continue to operate, ByteDance refused. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supreme-court-congress/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supr... Why did Congress want to ban TikTok? U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that TikTok threatens national security because the Chinese government could use it as a vehicle to spy on Americans or covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content. The concern is warranted, they said, because Chinese national security laws require organizations to cooperate with intelligence gathering. FBI Director Christopher Wray told House Intelligence Committee members last year that the Chinese government could compromise Americans' devices through the software. As the House took up the divest-or-ban law in April 2024, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, compared it to a "spy balloon in Americans' phones." Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said that lawmakers learned in classified briefings "how rivers of data are being collected and shared in ways that are not well-aligned with American security interests." "Why is it a security threat?" Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Friday. "If you have TikTok on your phone currently, it can track your whereabouts, it can read your text messages, it can track your keystrokes. It has access to your phone records." If the Chinese government gets its hands on that information, "it's not just a national security threat, it's a personal security threat," Hawley said.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  > Allowing ByteDance to operate TikTok is granting a hostile government a tool to influence US public opinion I have always and will always say that the government does not have the sole right to influence me as a US citizen, and it is my right to slurp up "influence" from whoever and wherever I want to. The idea that Americans are too stupid to ingest whatever information is out there (edited or unedited, curated or not, propaganda or not) for the sake of democracy is a threat to the very idea of democracy itself. The very fact that this argument has gained traction is the worst outcome of this entire debacle. I never ever ever thought I'd see Americans cheering that the government should limit the ability of their own fellow citizens to access information, and here we are.
che_shirecat 2y ago
how can the US government just ban an app? has this ever happened before in US history? what gives the government the right to tell US citizens what apps they can and can't use? this is some North Korea tier behavior you expect to see from authoritarian governments panicking when they lose control over the narrative
- in-pursuit 2y ago
  Grindr was forcibly divested, so yes, it has happened
- secstate 2y ago
  I'm sure there's case law all over the place, but effectively the Surpreme Court unanimously decided that the US definitely has a right to protect itself from foreign influence. This is diplomacy. And for anyone living in North Korea who ever has a chance to read your comment, I'm sorry, this person has no idea what it means to live in a police state under a belligerent dictator.
  - suraci 2y ago
    a police state
- Aloisius 2y ago
  There's nothing special about being an app. And the right comes from their Constitutional power to regulate foreign commerce. The US has banned American companies from doing business with various foreign entities for a while, though it really picked up after 1990.
- derektank 2y ago
  Father Coughlin's periodical Social Justice was denied a mailing permit during World War II for airing pro-Nazi material (such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) under the authority of the Espionage Act of 1917, which limited its distribution to news stands in the Boston area. I don't think America has faced a political rival like China since the Soviet Union; not sure if there were any restrictions on the distribution of Soviet software in the late 80s.
rvz 2y ago
It is just an app and this ban was going to happen and TikTok had years to prepare for it and change. Another app will take its place. This is the perfect time for Twitter / X to relaunch Vine again. > Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their livelihood. That's why we have our existing regulators to issue fines against Meta, Google (YouTube), X, Snap, etc when they violate their user's data in the billions. > Truly bleak. Life in India appears to be functioning well after their TikTok ban with its 1BN users so even if this is temporary, it is not the end of the world. This is a chance for TikTok users in the US to reflect on their addictions and hopefully change for the better. There is life after TikTok.
wilg 2y ago
None of those arguments are the salient one, which is that a geopolitical adversary has control over a major influence vector on US public opinion. They could simply have divested.
- GolfPopper 2y ago
  Yeah. If you don't stop it here, where does it end? Next thing you know, you'll have a guy doing millions of dollars of business with proxies for the Russian government in the White House.
- crummy 2y ago
  Was that happening or was it just something we were worried about? Maybe we could have just banned it when there was evidence it was actually occuring?
  - wilg 2y ago
    nothing wrong with doing it in advance but yes, there is some evidence but of course its very controversial
  - josephcsible 2y ago
    Maybe we could have just closed the barn door when there was evidence the horse was actually bolting?
- ewild 2y ago
  to me this is the only important one. Not only can they subtely influence the entire us culture, if they were to get in trouble for it, then what? the US doesnt have any influence over them we would just ban them and at that point its too late. realistically it already is too late. a huge point imo aswell is we ARENT at war right now, but if we are at war the amount of information china can both push and obtain through tiktok would be large enough to change the tides of a war
  - hypeatei 2y ago
    > Not only can they subtely influence the entire us culture Not the entire U.S. population is on TikTok. Even if a significant percentage are, your argument is that they cannot think for themselves? It is widely known that TT is Chinese owned/controlled yet Americans still used it. Even a regulation requiring disclosure of that fact each time you open it would be fine. But an outright ban on the app itself? This is a huge "feel good" moment which will not improve any aspects of the social media environment in the U.S.
disambiguation 2y ago
You can always seek asylum in China if you want protection from the "evil American tech monopolies".
- guerrilla 2y ago
  You could just not do that and reap the benefits of both. It's super useful to play them against each other that way. Real the benefits of living in one place, while using the others to get access to things you couldn't otherwise. TikTok for Palestine activism, Yandex for piracy, whatever. None of the overclasses in control of these warring states gives a shit about any of us. Profit from their conflict instead.
plantwallshoe 2y ago
Of all the bleak things in our world right now this one doesn’t even crack the top 500
- davidjfelix 2y ago
  I’m glad you’ve limited your number of concerns to allow yourself to focus on what matters. Just curious where did replying on hacker news rank?
  - jillyboel 2y ago
    shills going strong in this thread
    - plantwallshoe 2y ago
      Would those be shills for the Chinese or US government you’re referring to?
KikoHeit 2y ago
[flagged]
- sodality2 2y ago
  Do we ban propaganda in the US now? Or do we educate people out of believing it?
  - zbobet2012 2y ago
    We've banned foreign ownership of traditional media channels since the 30s. We did not ban the propaganda but we did deplatform it.
    - sodality2 2y ago
      Federally regulated airwave media aside, this is the internet. Telling the company they cannot operate in the US because of the content of the messages that might proliferate on it is a dangerous precedent. If you’re really claiming that the internet should be regulated as much as TV, I fear for that future
- bamboozled 2y ago
  What do you think US based products will now be used for ? Healthy political discourse ?
- colordrops 2y ago
  If shedding lightning the genocide of the Palestinian people is "antisemitism", then yes. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palestine-republicans/ https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest... For the down voters, what exactly is the claim here? That everyone on earth is inherently antisemitic, like it's in our DNA? What exactly do the Chinese have against Jews?
- dang 2y ago
  We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's not allowed on this site, regardless of what you're battling for or against. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bufferoverflow 2y ago
> but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. No, they do not. These are US products, not the foreign communist party psyops project.
- ternnoburn 2y ago
  You use these words like they are axiomatically evil. Like, "it's a foreign project"... so is my Nintendo. Are you afraid or worried about foreign things? A lot of the world does a lot of things better than the U.S. "It's a communist party project"... first of all, plenty of great communist projects out there, and the Chinese communist party is really only a very very narrow slice of communism so your brush is absolutely over broad. But second, so what? What do you own that didn't pass through China in some capacity? "It's a psyop"... it's an app with funny videos on it. I think you need to set that tinfoil hat down and pause a bit. Does it have a different cultural root used to moderate it? Sure! Are they making moderation decisions I would make? No. Does that make it psyop? Of course not. Don't be absurd.
  - audunw 2y ago
    There’s some serious false equivalence here. Is Xbox prevented from competing with Nintendo in Japan, under similar conditions as Nintendo competes with Xbox in USA? Are there representatives of the Japanese government sitting within Nintendos offices overlooking what Nintendo is doing? Is that government run by a single party? China doesn’t allow US social media apps, mostly because they want extreme control over the content on their side of the firewall. But probably also because they know that US intelligence services could force the US social media companies to give them access to information or make changes to their code. So it’s utter madness and ridiculous naive to allow Chinese companies unfettered access to the US market when we know that the parent company is forced to be under direct supervision of the communist party of China, and we know that the party and the PLA along with its intelligence services are essentially one and the same entity. At the very least this gives Chinese companies undue advantage in the US market. It’s much easier for them to leverage the code they’re written in both the Chinese and the US market, making them more efficient and thus letting them undercut US companies over time. I can’t believe how naive nearly all of the comments defending TikTok are. (Sure the “psyop” part of the other comment is a bit much, but I took it as hyperbole and I think most readers would)
epigramx 2y ago
It's the same country that allows a practical monopoly of NVIDIA on GPUs and Intel on CPU (or at least an oligopoly), and then pretend "foreigners are out to get us". It gets one to know one.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
TikTok lied under oath about what they do with user data. Also the requirements they have for their managers and executives amount to them operating as an unregistered foreign agent, since staff are literally required to uphold China’s national interests: https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths-china-socialist-system-court-documents/ https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths... You combine that with the lack of reciprocal access for American and European social media apps to the Chinese market, the mental health issues TikTok causes, the lack of safeguards in TikTok that inexplicably Douyin has (China’s TikTok from the same parent company), and on and on - banning isn’t just justified but the only sane thing for all countries that aren’t China to do.
- MortyWaves 2y ago
  And yet last time I mentioned this on HN I was met with disbelief and straw man arguments. How times change online.
deleted 2y ago
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fuzzfactor 2y ago
It's an app. Some money could possibly be made by some people legitimately. The bleakest part is people who didn't recognize how extreme a gamble it is if that's what somebody wants to pin their entire livelihood on. Whether they wrote the app or not. The "house" just drew the winning hand, and all the gamblers lost everything they had on the table at once. That can happen at any time, and almost always happens eventually, that's why they call it gambling. It's not so bad if you don't bet everything.
- llamaboy 2y ago
  You’re obviously not involved in the content creation world. My partners main income source is selling a product via Instagram. While she puts a lot of effort into building her brand on other platforms to diversify as she recognises the risk, once you have an established and profitable audience on one platform you’d be silly not to continue to put effort into growing that. Also what works on one platform is different to the others, it’s not a simple copy and paste. People generally are aware of this and try to diversify, but it’s not as easy as you might think. Posts that get 5m+ views on one platform may only get 5000 on another.
tsimionescu 2y ago
Those arguments have nothing to do with why TikTok was banned. The banning is purely a geopolitical move. TikTok is the only major social network that is (hugely!) popular in Europe and North America that is not controlled by the USA - and even worse for US geopolitical ambitions, it has major ties with China. This is not some conspiracy theory: this is 100% of the official reason that Congress voted on this. They fear that China has influence through TikTok into the US public, and could use this to sway public opinion [unsaid: just as the US does with Facebook or Twitter]. They also fear that China could surreptitiously spy on high-value targets through the TikTok app - which is why it was forbidden two years ago already from any device used in doing business with the US Government, including the business phones or BYOD phones of all federal employees and contractors. Interestingly, part of the fear of influence ties back to Gaza. Here is a quote from Mitt Romney about this [0]: > SENATOR ROMNEY: A small parenthetical point, which is some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. 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’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard. This is exactly the sort of issue that the US fears: losing control of the public narrative, especially in the USA, but more broadly as well. [0] https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/ https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-i...
- yread 2y ago
  Interesting that a Romainian sounding username wouldn't mention the mess with Romanian presidential election where tiktok played a major role. The threat seems very real
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    The Romanian elections were a debacle in many other ways. So far at least, our authorities have done nothing to actually arrest the fascist lunatic that almost won, nor to bring any concrete evidence that he did anything other than breaking campaign finance laws by paying for TikTok like any other influencer might while not declaring this money in his campaign fund disclosures. Actually, they didn't even bring any evidence of that, except for the fact that he claims in official documents and public appearances that his campaign cost 0, which is such a bold faced lie that it barely needs dismissing. But no, I don't share the court's apparent opinion that, but for TikTok, this lunatic wouldn't have won. All suggestions are that, will he be allowed to run again (which is theoretically the current status quo, him not having been put under any sort of judicial control!), he will win again, despite his vastly diminished TikTok presence. Turns out, to my great personal sadness, that many of my countrymen, idioticaly, actually liked the fascist and weren't (just) manipulated by TikTok.
Vegenoid 2y ago
Do people believe that the US government's control over Instagram/Twitter/whatever are similar to the level of control China's government has over TikTok? I'm not that educated on the subject (I think most people who are making claims either way about this aren't), but all my priors indicate to me that China's government collects data from and controls content (to be shown only to the western populace) in TikTok much more than the US government with US social media companies. I understand the comparison, but I think the magnitude of the problem is very likely to be much higher with TikTok.
- plastic3169 2y ago
  I don’t think US government controls social media like china, but after the constant news about all the social media CEO’s hanging out with the president I am not surprised many people start to get a feeling that something is up.
- klabb3 2y ago
  > Do people believe that the US government's control over Instagram/Twitter/whatever are similar to the level of control China's government has over TikTok? Control comes in different flavors. Is the US government covertly and directly compelling corporations like they did during Snowden era? Probably less today if I were to guess, and certainly less than China. I think today the threat is not government overreach but rather that the tech industry and government have so many shared interests and back-channels that coercion is no longer needed, and probably the big ones would throw hissy fits if so. Instead, I think it’s a mutual back-scratching operation. During covid, the infrastructure was laid out, with corporations running the information errands. I think both sides found that to be much more comfortable, and yes I do believe that became the prevailing MO afterwards. Race riots? Palestine protests? Luigi support, and similar current uncomfortable issues transcending culture war daily jabs? ”Lightly suppressing” such speech has corp-govt incentive alignment, and frankly might be necessary to keep people in check given the growing inequalities and dissent. Any large uncontrolled social media operation is a risk, even without amplifying or suppressing anything inorganically and deliberately.
flohofwoe 2y ago
> but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever ...well most of those service are banned in China.
bborud 2y ago
> This serves only to enrich our American tech monopolies I suspect many people see that as a worthy cause. They may not understand what it implies, but dammit, they don’t want none of that foreign spyware.
beepbopboopp 2y ago
Please be serious. Any suggestion that TikTok poses no real threat to U.S. interests is staggeringly naive. Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. Meanwhile, Chinese citizens are explicitly barred from accessing TikTok in China, and American social media companies are shut out of China’s market altogether. There’s no credible argument that TikTok doesn’t undermine U.S. interests; the only reason people are reacting so emotionally now is that our government took far too long to address this blatant national security risk.
- sharperguy 2y ago
  It's more like, if China started their own news network and American citizens began to prefer it over CBS, NBC and FOX because of the extremely shoddy level of content available on those local networks.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Sure. But the danger is still identical. That doesn't change the overall point.
  - brailsafe 2y ago
    Channel 5 already did that, it's more like of if they did that and also got to inject each viewer with a little bit of cocaine multiple times a minute while being able to figure out exactly what to show them next and how much cocaine to give them.
- tomjen3 2y ago
  In that case, what exactly would happen? Specifically, go into details. Here's what would happen: Nothing. People already think America is a terrible country to live in. Sure, certain interest groups would be preferred, probably Palestine over Israel. Maybe something instead of Saudi Arabia. But for the average American? Why should they care?
- Mordisquitos 2y ago
  > Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. That analogy falls apart by making use the hyperbole of comparing ownership of one social media application to the ownership of all major broadcast media television channels. Or is the U.S. so socially conflicted and institutionally fragile that it not handle one single social media application being owned and operated by 's/the government of/a private company from/' its greatest adversary? The broadcast TV analogy may be more applicable if Instagram, X, YouTube and Twitch were all operated by the oligarchy of a single geopolitical adversary... which arguably could become the case for the E.U. from tomorrow 20th January 2025.
r33b33 2y ago
Better to have US spying on you than China.
ipython 2y ago
“Millions of people that use this application for their livelihood” - citation needed A bit over dramatic. I don’t foresee soup kitchens overflowing from TikTok influencers suddenly unable to house or feed themselves.
- nicce 2y ago
  Even if that is true, it might be better that they start getting their livelihood somewhere else which makes whole society more healthier.
op00to 2y ago
If only it were possible for the “millions of people that use this application for their livelihood” could apply the skills learned from doing business on TikTok to create their own platform, find a new platform, etc.
jillyboel 2y ago
> that use this application for their livelihood what? you will survive without cat videos or whatever the fuck kids are watching these days
coin 2y ago
> the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever Those apps aren't controlled by a foreign adversary with a history of ignoring data privacy laws (example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...)
nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
It seems like tiktok crowd is uniquely deranged however. The Palestine nonsense woke a lot of us up to TikTok brain
Aunche 2y ago
You cannot expect a foreign adversary to comply with laws designed for domestic corporations. For example, Facebook cooperated with the DOJ to find the source of Russia's 2016 disinformation campaign. Not only will China not allow similar cooperation from TikTok, they would also pressure TikTok to comply with their own demands.

swasheck 2y ago

as a parent who has attempted to navigate the complexities of social media and mental health and social norms and conformity, social media absolutely has an effect on how the emerging generations interact with their surrounding environments, and in my experience, all been negative. I understand this is colloquial, but the cloak wheel evidence of all of my peers additionally supports this. i’m sad, not that this has been banned and gone dark, but at the emotional and social uproar that this seems to have created.

swasheck 2y ago
[flagged]

maeil 2y ago

To an extent, yes, some of the arguments absolutely apply to other platforms as well. But others don't. You never saw such platforms directly impact elections as much, having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe. Of course they tried running campaigns in the past on Facebook as well, but not with as high of an impact, and after they got caught the platforms have put in a reasonable amount of effort to crack down on them. TikTok knowingly turns a blind eye, and unlike with the US platforms, Russia can be much more blatant. Think it would be pretty reasonable for other countries to ban such platforms too though, as China has understandably already been doing for over a decade. Facebook of course played a big role in genocide in Myanmar, so I wouldn't dare say the US platforms are necessarily better.

MichaelRo 2y ago
>> having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe I suppose you refer to this: https://theconversation.com/why-romanias-election-was-annulled-and-what-happens-next-245779 https://theconversation.com/why-romanias-election-was-annull... "The Romanian constitutional court annulled the country’s presidential election on December 6. This decision is unprecedented in Romanian history. It followed the declassification of documents by Romanian intelligence services that exposed evidence of voting manipulation through social media platforms, illegal campaign financing on TikTok, cyber-attacks orchestrated by external forces and suspected Russian interference."
- miohtama 2y ago
  This goes to European Court of Human Rights. It may find out that cancelling election results was unnecessary. https://www.ejiltalk.org/electoral-dysfunction-romanias-election-annulment-disinformation-and-echr-positive-obligations-to-combat-election-irregularities/ https://www.ejiltalk.org/electoral-dysfunction-romanias-elec... > Here, the opposite could be alleged- that Romania took action, but the action was too immediate and drastic than was called for in the circumstances. Considering how the Court expressed a critical view of overly drastic measures in cases such as the above-mentioned Kermiova v Azerbaijan, it is possible that the Court could similarly show a disdain for the expeditious actions taken by the domestic judiciary in Romania. Also apparently most voters voted this candidate because of economic reasos, not due to Russian proximity.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    Most voters didn’t vote for that candidate though. They voted for a more moderate and not pro-Russia independent who was effectively guaranteed to win in the next round. Establishment parties obviously didn’t like that outcome.
- paganel 2y ago
  There is still no proof that the powers that be have come up with, to the contrary, it was proven that one of the governing parties (PNL) was paying money for the online campaign of mr. Georgescu (supposedly the “extremist” candidate who had made use of TikTok). It is all a farce and it has helped kill democracy (or what had been left of it, anyway) in this country.

blackoil 2y ago

These bans are more to do with geopolitics and economic interest than security. e.g. Blanket ban on Huawei including accessing TSMC, Samsung fabs is more to protect Apple and Qualcomm.

safety1st 2y ago

I'm going to quote a CBS News article here because I don't feel Congress' arguments in favor of banning TikTok are being well represented. You can agree with them or disagree with them but everyone should at least understand them accurately. TLDR TikTok is not comparable to the other services you mentioned because ByteDance is required to comply with Chinese intelligence, and China has made many public statements in recent years to the effect that it is a hostile, rival power to the United States. Allowing ByteDance to operate TikTok is granting a hostile government a tool to influence US public opinion as well as to track the locations and text messages of 170 million American citizens. Congress gave ByteDance the option to divest control so that they could get paid and TikTok could continue to operate, ByteDance refused. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supreme-court-congress/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-supr... Why did Congress want to ban TikTok? U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that TikTok threatens national security because the Chinese government could use it as a vehicle to spy on Americans or covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content. The concern is warranted, they said, because Chinese national security laws require organizations to cooperate with intelligence gathering. FBI Director Christopher Wray told House Intelligence Committee members last year that the Chinese government could compromise Americans' devices through the software. As the House took up the divest-or-ban law in April 2024, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, compared it to a "spy balloon in Americans' phones." Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said that lawmakers learned in classified briefings "how rivers of data are being collected and shared in ways that are not well-aligned with American security interests." "Why is it a security threat?" Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Friday. "If you have TikTok on your phone currently, it can track your whereabouts, it can read your text messages, it can track your keystrokes. It has access to your phone records." If the Chinese government gets its hands on that information, "it's not just a national security threat, it's a personal security threat," Hawley said.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
> Allowing ByteDance to operate TikTok is granting a hostile government a tool to influence US public opinion I have always and will always say that the government does not have the sole right to influence me as a US citizen, and it is my right to slurp up "influence" from whoever and wherever I want to. The idea that Americans are too stupid to ingest whatever information is out there (edited or unedited, curated or not, propaganda or not) for the sake of democracy is a threat to the very idea of democracy itself. The very fact that this argument has gained traction is the worst outcome of this entire debacle. I never ever ever thought I'd see Americans cheering that the government should limit the ability of their own fellow citizens to access information, and here we are.

che_shirecat 2y ago

how can the US government just ban an app? has this ever happened before in US history? what gives the government the right to tell US citizens what apps they can and can't use? this is some North Korea tier behavior you expect to see from authoritarian governments panicking when they lose control over the narrative

in-pursuit 2y ago
Grindr was forcibly divested, so yes, it has happened
secstate 2y ago
I'm sure there's case law all over the place, but effectively the Surpreme Court unanimously decided that the US definitely has a right to protect itself from foreign influence. This is diplomacy. And for anyone living in North Korea who ever has a chance to read your comment, I'm sorry, this person has no idea what it means to live in a police state under a belligerent dictator.
- suraci 2y ago
  a police state
Aloisius 2y ago
There's nothing special about being an app. And the right comes from their Constitutional power to regulate foreign commerce. The US has banned American companies from doing business with various foreign entities for a while, though it really picked up after 1990.
derektank 2y ago
Father Coughlin's periodical Social Justice was denied a mailing permit during World War II for airing pro-Nazi material (such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) under the authority of the Espionage Act of 1917, which limited its distribution to news stands in the Boston area. I don't think America has faced a political rival like China since the Soviet Union; not sure if there were any restrictions on the distribution of Soviet software in the late 80s.

rvz 2y ago

It is just an app and this ban was going to happen and TikTok had years to prepare for it and change. Another app will take its place. This is the perfect time for Twitter / X to relaunch Vine again. > Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their livelihood. That's why we have our existing regulators to issue fines against Meta, Google (YouTube), X, Snap, etc when they violate their user's data in the billions. > Truly bleak. Life in India appears to be functioning well after their TikTok ban with its 1BN users so even if this is temporary, it is not the end of the world. This is a chance for TikTok users in the US to reflect on their addictions and hopefully change for the better. There is life after TikTok.

wilg 2y ago

None of those arguments are the salient one, which is that a geopolitical adversary has control over a major influence vector on US public opinion. They could simply have divested.

GolfPopper 2y ago
Yeah. If you don't stop it here, where does it end? Next thing you know, you'll have a guy doing millions of dollars of business with proxies for the Russian government in the White House.
crummy 2y ago
Was that happening or was it just something we were worried about? Maybe we could have just banned it when there was evidence it was actually occuring?
- wilg 2y ago
  nothing wrong with doing it in advance but yes, there is some evidence but of course its very controversial
- josephcsible 2y ago
  Maybe we could have just closed the barn door when there was evidence the horse was actually bolting?
ewild 2y ago
to me this is the only important one. Not only can they subtely influence the entire us culture, if they were to get in trouble for it, then what? the US doesnt have any influence over them we would just ban them and at that point its too late. realistically it already is too late. a huge point imo aswell is we ARENT at war right now, but if we are at war the amount of information china can both push and obtain through tiktok would be large enough to change the tides of a war
- hypeatei 2y ago
  > Not only can they subtely influence the entire us culture Not the entire U.S. population is on TikTok. Even if a significant percentage are, your argument is that they cannot think for themselves? It is widely known that TT is Chinese owned/controlled yet Americans still used it. Even a regulation requiring disclosure of that fact each time you open it would be fine. But an outright ban on the app itself? This is a huge "feel good" moment which will not improve any aspects of the social media environment in the U.S.

disambiguation 2y ago

You can always seek asylum in China if you want protection from the "evil American tech monopolies".

guerrilla 2y ago
You could just not do that and reap the benefits of both. It's super useful to play them against each other that way. Real the benefits of living in one place, while using the others to get access to things you couldn't otherwise. TikTok for Palestine activism, Yandex for piracy, whatever. None of the overclasses in control of these warring states gives a shit about any of us. Profit from their conflict instead.

plantwallshoe 2y ago

Of all the bleak things in our world right now this one doesn’t even crack the top 500

davidjfelix 2y ago
I’m glad you’ve limited your number of concerns to allow yourself to focus on what matters. Just curious where did replying on hacker news rank?
- jillyboel 2y ago
  shills going strong in this thread
  - plantwallshoe 2y ago
    Would those be shills for the Chinese or US government you’re referring to?

KikoHeit 2y ago

[flagged]

sodality2 2y ago
Do we ban propaganda in the US now? Or do we educate people out of believing it?
- zbobet2012 2y ago
  We've banned foreign ownership of traditional media channels since the 30s. We did not ban the propaganda but we did deplatform it.
  - sodality2 2y ago
    Federally regulated airwave media aside, this is the internet. Telling the company they cannot operate in the US because of the content of the messages that might proliferate on it is a dangerous precedent. If you’re really claiming that the internet should be regulated as much as TV, I fear for that future
bamboozled 2y ago
What do you think US based products will now be used for ? Healthy political discourse ?
colordrops 2y ago
If shedding lightning the genocide of the Palestinian people is "antisemitism", then yes. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palestine-republicans/ https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest... For the down voters, what exactly is the claim here? That everyone on earth is inherently antisemitic, like it's in our DNA? What exactly do the Chinese have against Jews?
dang 2y ago
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's not allowed on this site, regardless of what you're battling for or against. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bufferoverflow 2y ago

> but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. No, they do not. These are US products, not the foreign communist party psyops project.

ternnoburn 2y ago
You use these words like they are axiomatically evil. Like, "it's a foreign project"... so is my Nintendo. Are you afraid or worried about foreign things? A lot of the world does a lot of things better than the U.S. "It's a communist party project"... first of all, plenty of great communist projects out there, and the Chinese communist party is really only a very very narrow slice of communism so your brush is absolutely over broad. But second, so what? What do you own that didn't pass through China in some capacity? "It's a psyop"... it's an app with funny videos on it. I think you need to set that tinfoil hat down and pause a bit. Does it have a different cultural root used to moderate it? Sure! Are they making moderation decisions I would make? No. Does that make it psyop? Of course not. Don't be absurd.
- audunw 2y ago
  There’s some serious false equivalence here. Is Xbox prevented from competing with Nintendo in Japan, under similar conditions as Nintendo competes with Xbox in USA? Are there representatives of the Japanese government sitting within Nintendos offices overlooking what Nintendo is doing? Is that government run by a single party? China doesn’t allow US social media apps, mostly because they want extreme control over the content on their side of the firewall. But probably also because they know that US intelligence services could force the US social media companies to give them access to information or make changes to their code. So it’s utter madness and ridiculous naive to allow Chinese companies unfettered access to the US market when we know that the parent company is forced to be under direct supervision of the communist party of China, and we know that the party and the PLA along with its intelligence services are essentially one and the same entity. At the very least this gives Chinese companies undue advantage in the US market. It’s much easier for them to leverage the code they’re written in both the Chinese and the US market, making them more efficient and thus letting them undercut US companies over time. I can’t believe how naive nearly all of the comments defending TikTok are. (Sure the “psyop” part of the other comment is a bit much, but I took it as hyperbole and I think most readers would)

epigramx 2y ago

It's the same country that allows a practical monopoly of NVIDIA on GPUs and Intel on CPU (or at least an oligopoly), and then pretend "foreigners are out to get us". It gets one to know one.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

TikTok lied under oath about what they do with user data. Also the requirements they have for their managers and executives amount to them operating as an unregistered foreign agent, since staff are literally required to uphold China’s national interests: https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths-china-socialist-system-court-documents/ https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths... You combine that with the lack of reciprocal access for American and European social media apps to the Chinese market, the mental health issues TikTok causes, the lack of safeguards in TikTok that inexplicably Douyin has (China’s TikTok from the same parent company), and on and on - banning isn’t just justified but the only sane thing for all countries that aren’t China to do.

MortyWaves 2y ago
And yet last time I mentioned this on HN I was met with disbelief and straw man arguments. How times change online.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fuzzfactor 2y ago

It's an app. Some money could possibly be made by some people legitimately. The bleakest part is people who didn't recognize how extreme a gamble it is if that's what somebody wants to pin their entire livelihood on. Whether they wrote the app or not. The "house" just drew the winning hand, and all the gamblers lost everything they had on the table at once. That can happen at any time, and almost always happens eventually, that's why they call it gambling. It's not so bad if you don't bet everything.

llamaboy 2y ago
You’re obviously not involved in the content creation world. My partners main income source is selling a product via Instagram. While she puts a lot of effort into building her brand on other platforms to diversify as she recognises the risk, once you have an established and profitable audience on one platform you’d be silly not to continue to put effort into growing that. Also what works on one platform is different to the others, it’s not a simple copy and paste. People generally are aware of this and try to diversify, but it’s not as easy as you might think. Posts that get 5m+ views on one platform may only get 5000 on another.

tsimionescu 2y ago

Those arguments have nothing to do with why TikTok was banned. The banning is purely a geopolitical move. TikTok is the only major social network that is (hugely!) popular in Europe and North America that is not controlled by the USA - and even worse for US geopolitical ambitions, it has major ties with China. This is not some conspiracy theory: this is 100% of the official reason that Congress voted on this. They fear that China has influence through TikTok into the US public, and could use this to sway public opinion [unsaid: just as the US does with Facebook or Twitter]. They also fear that China could surreptitiously spy on high-value targets through the TikTok app - which is why it was forbidden two years ago already from any device used in doing business with the US Government, including the business phones or BYOD phones of all federal employees and contractors. Interestingly, part of the fear of influence ties back to Gaza. Here is a quote from Mitt Romney about this [0]: > SENATOR ROMNEY: A small parenthetical point, which is some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. 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’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard. This is exactly the sort of issue that the US fears: losing control of the public narrative, especially in the USA, but more broadly as well. [0] https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/ https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-i...

yread 2y ago
Interesting that a Romainian sounding username wouldn't mention the mess with Romanian presidential election where tiktok played a major role. The threat seems very real
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  The Romanian elections were a debacle in many other ways. So far at least, our authorities have done nothing to actually arrest the fascist lunatic that almost won, nor to bring any concrete evidence that he did anything other than breaking campaign finance laws by paying for TikTok like any other influencer might while not declaring this money in his campaign fund disclosures. Actually, they didn't even bring any evidence of that, except for the fact that he claims in official documents and public appearances that his campaign cost 0, which is such a bold faced lie that it barely needs dismissing. But no, I don't share the court's apparent opinion that, but for TikTok, this lunatic wouldn't have won. All suggestions are that, will he be allowed to run again (which is theoretically the current status quo, him not having been put under any sort of judicial control!), he will win again, despite his vastly diminished TikTok presence. Turns out, to my great personal sadness, that many of my countrymen, idioticaly, actually liked the fascist and weren't (just) manipulated by TikTok.

Vegenoid 2y ago

Do people believe that the US government's control over Instagram/Twitter/whatever are similar to the level of control China's government has over TikTok? I'm not that educated on the subject (I think most people who are making claims either way about this aren't), but all my priors indicate to me that China's government collects data from and controls content (to be shown only to the western populace) in TikTok much more than the US government with US social media companies. I understand the comparison, but I think the magnitude of the problem is very likely to be much higher with TikTok.

plastic3169 2y ago
I don’t think US government controls social media like china, but after the constant news about all the social media CEO’s hanging out with the president I am not surprised many people start to get a feeling that something is up.
klabb3 2y ago
> Do people believe that the US government's control over Instagram/Twitter/whatever are similar to the level of control China's government has over TikTok? Control comes in different flavors. Is the US government covertly and directly compelling corporations like they did during Snowden era? Probably less today if I were to guess, and certainly less than China. I think today the threat is not government overreach but rather that the tech industry and government have so many shared interests and back-channels that coercion is no longer needed, and probably the big ones would throw hissy fits if so. Instead, I think it’s a mutual back-scratching operation. During covid, the infrastructure was laid out, with corporations running the information errands. I think both sides found that to be much more comfortable, and yes I do believe that became the prevailing MO afterwards. Race riots? Palestine protests? Luigi support, and similar current uncomfortable issues transcending culture war daily jabs? ”Lightly suppressing” such speech has corp-govt incentive alignment, and frankly might be necessary to keep people in check given the growing inequalities and dissent. Any large uncontrolled social media operation is a risk, even without amplifying or suppressing anything inorganically and deliberately.

flohofwoe 2y ago

> but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever ...well most of those service are banned in China.

bborud 2y ago

> This serves only to enrich our American tech monopolies I suspect many people see that as a worthy cause. They may not understand what it implies, but dammit, they don’t want none of that foreign spyware.

beepbopboopp 2y ago

Please be serious. Any suggestion that TikTok poses no real threat to U.S. interests is staggeringly naive. Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. Meanwhile, Chinese citizens are explicitly barred from accessing TikTok in China, and American social media companies are shut out of China’s market altogether. There’s no credible argument that TikTok doesn’t undermine U.S. interests; the only reason people are reacting so emotionally now is that our government took far too long to address this blatant national security risk.

sharperguy 2y ago
It's more like, if China started their own news network and American citizens began to prefer it over CBS, NBC and FOX because of the extremely shoddy level of content available on those local networks.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Sure. But the danger is still identical. That doesn't change the overall point.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  Channel 5 already did that, it's more like of if they did that and also got to inject each viewer with a little bit of cocaine multiple times a minute while being able to figure out exactly what to show them next and how much cocaine to give them.
tomjen3 2y ago
In that case, what exactly would happen? Specifically, go into details. Here's what would happen: Nothing. People already think America is a terrible country to live in. Sure, certain interest groups would be preferred, probably Palestine over Israel. Maybe something instead of Saudi Arabia. But for the average American? Why should they care?
Mordisquitos 2y ago
> Imagine if CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC were all owned and operated by the government of America’s greatest adversary—that’s essentially what we’re dealing with. That analogy falls apart by making use the hyperbole of comparing ownership of one social media application to the ownership of all major broadcast media television channels. Or is the U.S. so socially conflicted and institutionally fragile that it not handle one single social media application being owned and operated by 's/the government of/a private company from/' its greatest adversary? The broadcast TV analogy may be more applicable if Instagram, X, YouTube and Twitch were all operated by the oligarchy of a single geopolitical adversary... which arguably could become the case for the E.U. from tomorrow 20th January 2025.

r33b33 2y ago

Better to have US spying on you than China.

ipython 2y ago

“Millions of people that use this application for their livelihood” - citation needed A bit over dramatic. I don’t foresee soup kitchens overflowing from TikTok influencers suddenly unable to house or feed themselves.

nicce 2y ago
Even if that is true, it might be better that they start getting their livelihood somewhere else which makes whole society more healthier.

op00to 2y ago

If only it were possible for the “millions of people that use this application for their livelihood” could apply the skills learned from doing business on TikTok to create their own platform, find a new platform, etc.

jillyboel 2y ago

> that use this application for their livelihood what? you will survive without cat videos or whatever the fuck kids are watching these days

coin 2y ago

> the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever Those apps aren't controlled by a foreign adversary with a history of ignoring data privacy laws (example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...)

nobodywillobsrv 2y ago

It seems like tiktok crowd is uniquely deranged however. The Palestine nonsense woke a lot of us up to TikTok brain

Aunche 2y ago

You cannot expect a foreign adversary to comply with laws designed for domestic corporations. For example, Facebook cooperated with the DOJ to find the source of Russia's 2016 disinformation campaign. Not only will China not allow similar cooperation from TikTok, they would also pressure TikTok to comply with their own demands.