TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban • Hacker News Board

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#271

Post by mmm_grayons » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

endogui wrote: post #168

buran77 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are backed by an entity which has plans for global dominance and are not exactly aligned with American interests The irony is that each of the entities has plans for global dominance, which is incompatible with the plans and interests the other one has. The sad part is that it turns out the US is willing to forgo its values if this gives them a leg up on China. Makes any future rhetoric on values and morals se…

Rhetoric about US values has been empty since Guantanamo Bay started housing "foreign militants". Europe seems to be the only place in the West where a commitment to human rights is sincere.

Really? 27% of Germans support the right to speech that offends minority groups, and less than half of Europeans as a whole [0]. A Swedish man was convicted for producing art that was deemed racist, and the owner of the gallery that displayed it was fined [1]. A man was famously prosecuted for a video of a dog performing a nazi salute [2]. A refugee may be expelled from Denmark after he left comments "celebrating" the Charlie Hebdo attacks [3]. I'm not saying these excuse things America has done, but you saying that Europe is the last place where liberty is valued is patently ridiculous.

[0]: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/catos-let...

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/swedish-artist...

[2]: https://www.newsweek.com/youtuber-count-dankula-avoids-jail-...

[3]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-depo...

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#272

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

DetroitThrow wrote: post #87

cortesoft wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to do something about Chinese business practices, than do something within the constraints of the law. If TikTok wins, it means that we didn't follow our own laws. Either change the laws or follow the current ones.

The executive branch's broad authority to regulate foreign commerce has been a constitutional privilege from the beginning - Jefferson strongly advocated for it, for example. Only legislation would disallow this order from going through.

Then the lawsuit will fail, and the system works. What is the problem, then?

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#273

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

drevil-v2 wrote: post #80

cortesoft wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to do something about Chinese business practices, than do something within the constraints of the law. If TikTok wins, it means that we didn't follow our own laws. Either change the laws or follow the current ones.

What laws are those?

Whichever ones TikTok is using to sue? Either they have a case or they don’t, but they still deserve their day in court.

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#274

Post by _8j50 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #214

_8j50 wrote: post #51

Is this not a freedom of speech issue? The right is guaranteed for foreingners in the US as well. If they can ban tik tok, they can ban signal or briar because those also might send your encrypted data overseas or because their use among "violent" protestors is a risk. How about VPN apps that siphon your personal data to china and russia! Haha Here's the thing, US bigtech complies (in secret) with US intel community…

The US President is granted wide-ranging authority to regulate international commerce The executive order doesn't outright ban the use of TikTok (the app), it just places a ban on "any transactions subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance", which in essence makes it impossible for people to find the app on an App store. It's almost identical to the Huawei/ZTE executive orders. It's a bit like a…

Non-commercial transactions of information can't be regulated. US advertisers can be banned from doing business with tiktok but it is a free app. If someone in China called you and read out loud every byte in the tiktok app and you wrote it down in notepad and saved it,is that speech or commerce? It is speech in my opinion. They can regulate commerce but for software and crypto they can't regulate the transfer of information,they can only regulate commercial activity with that information. Commerce such as huawei/zte physical equipment sales is dfferent than software. They can't ban software just like how they can't ban a book. They can ban book sales or a book reading service but storage, avaipability and free transfer of information cannot be banned.

They can't ban someone from mailing you the communist manifesto for free as a book or handwritten letter, so they can't ban a communist manifesto app download or punish anyone for facilitating that transfer.

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#275

Post by Joker_vD » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #264

gampleman wrote: post #121

So if the problem is that TikTok is gathering too much invasive data on US citizens (and supposedly siphoning it to China), and their defence is basically "So what, it's legal and everyone else is doing it too!", then isn't the obvious solution making actual digital privacy legislation that would make such data vacuuming illegal? That would solve the problem and make the American market a fair playing field rather th…

The problem isn't digital privacy; it's a fair bit more complex than that. Tech lenses aren't a great way to view geopolitics. The US' international economic dominance is predicated on a (1) pronounced lead in certain industries and (2) a simply massive economy, which combine to (3) let the US set the rules of international "fair play." The US is where you find the thing you want to buy, and the people you want to se…

There was an old Soviet joke that "the USA meddles in the USSR's internal affairs all over the globe"... and yeah, the "policy nerds" apparently do honestly believe that the whole world is in the US's jurisdiction, but what can you realistically do?

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#276

Post by colejohnson66 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

gpanders wrote: post #255

La1n wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause if they don't you can punish them according to the law. That's how laws work.

This already exists in the form of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and China already flouts those rules. Your plan has been tried and does not work.

So why don’t we sanction the whole country then? Why single out this one app?

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#277

Post by nafizh » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

gampleman wrote: post #121

So if the problem is that TikTok is gathering too much invasive data on US citizens (and supposedly siphoning it to China), and their defence is basically "So what, it's legal and everyone else is doing it too!", then isn't the obvious solution making actual digital privacy legislation that would make such data vacuuming illegal? That would solve the problem and make the American market a fair playing field rather th…

How is it a fair playing field if US companies can't do business in China, and Chinese companies can do in US?

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#278

Post by _8j50 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

codemonkey-zeta wrote: post #258

logicchains wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US already has export restrictions on knowledge ( for example encryption ) to foreign governments. And normally people on this site deride such things as ridiculous (and actively worked around bans on exporting encryption), but when they find out Big Bad China might see their dance videos and lip synching suddenly they're happy to crush the free exchange of information.

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat for a moment and say that you might be underplaying the power of TikTok. It's not just that China has peoples' dance videos. The app has complete adoption by the teenage generation. When many high-profile hacks begin with simple social engineering, all it takes is blackmail attempts on the sons and daughters of diplomats and CEOs threatening to reveal/promote to friends either priva…

I don't care how justified your fears are. I also have fears about facebook being abused by republicans and russia, and google being abused by democrats but I am not calling for their ban and I am not calling for telegram's ban either. You need to educate your fellow citizens or pressure appstore owners (google and apple) to delist tiktok. That's how a free nation functions, through dialogue not paranoia and treating the law as a suggestion.

Don't sacrifice my liberty to alleviate your fears.

If we follow your logic let's equally apply the law and ban telegram,facebook/whatsapp/instagram,google and snapchat as well. And please,let the US cease all commerce with China if they are a hostile enemy government, let's stop financing them. Unless of course like always this is about american greed and not security. Injustice is not tolerable even if security is at stake. If you claim this is just and lawful, apply it equally to all other foreign and domestic apps that can be abused similar to tiktok both by domestic and foreign forces. I have no reason to fear China more than a domestic political party that is eager to start race wars and concentration camps. The law must be fair and it must be applied equally. That is a fundamental concept where it's violation means invalidation and collapse of all legal and legitimate goverment and legal activity.

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#279

Post by curiousllama » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

Joker_vD wrote: post #275

curiousllama wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't digital privacy; it's a fair bit more complex than that. Tech lenses aren't a great way to view geopolitics. The US' international economic dominance is predicated on a (1) pronounced lead in certain industries and (2) a simply massive economy, which combine to (3) let the US set the rules of international "fair play." The US is where you find the thing you want to buy, and the people you want to se…

There was an old Soviet joke that "the USA meddles in the USSR's internal affairs all over the globe"... and yeah, the "policy nerds" apparently do honestly believe that the whole world is in the US's jurisdiction, but what can you realistically do?

I'm totally stealing that joke. Love soviet political humor.

Re: TikTok to Sue U.S. over Ban

#280

Post by bhupy » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #274

bhupy wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US President is granted wide-ranging authority to regulate international commerce The executive order doesn't outright ban the use of TikTok (the app), it just places a ban on "any transactions subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance", which in essence makes it impossible for people to find the app on an App store. It's almost identical to the Huawei/ZTE executive orders. It's a bit like a…

Non-commercial transactions of information can't be regulated. US advertisers can be banned from doing business with tiktok but it is a free app. If someone in China called you and read out loud every byte in the tiktok app and you wrote it down in notepad and saved it,is that speech or commerce? It is speech in my opinion. They can regulate commerce but for software and crypto they can't regulate the transfer of inf…

But we're not talking strictly about non-commercial transactions. Prohibiting US advertisers from doing business with TikTok removes a lot of incentive for TikTok to operate in the US.

> US advertisers can be banned from doing business with tiktok but it is a free app.

In addition, App Store providers can be banned from allowing ByteDance to submit it.

> They can ban book sales or a book reading service but storage, avaipability and free transfer of information cannot be banned.

The free transfer of software information is already "banned" through copyright law. Software piracy is technically simply the capital-free transfer of bits of data, and that can and is controlled by the US government.

> They can't ban someone from mailing you the communist manifesto for free as a book or handwritten letter, so they can't ban a communist manifesto app download or punish anyone for facilitating that transfer.

The argument is not whether they can ban someone from mailing you a copy of the communist manifest, it's whether they can ban an American retailer from receiving copies of it from a sanctioned supplier. That's what the executive order appears to be targeting.