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Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

rubio.senate.gov

271–280 of 445 posts

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm consistently surprised that many people in the tech community treat China as some unknowable country that we only get a few snippets of insight in from our media. If you work in tech, you most certainly have a few Chinese citizens as coworkers and colleagues. Talk to them about what life is like if you're curious, don't rely on "60 minutes". TikTok in China may be moderated but only to keep anything controversial…

Do you know if it is possible to access Douyin outside of China? I think it would be an interesting experience to see it first-hand and also I guess the language barrier would no be a huge issue if the content is similar to TikTok.

the 60 minutes piece was focused on how they moderate content for kids not everyone eg adult coworkers.

compare to the US where there’s no separate experience for kids and there’s no time limit.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#272
post #171

Technical and security issues aside, I wonder how the users are going to take it. My generation (1992) didn’t have a major cultural phenomenon being attacked in this way, though there was still the moral panic around things like social media and research chems. The closest comparison I can draw is the crackdown on raves which affected western Gen X youth, but TikTok is more pervasive and more heterogeneous as a form…

In the 90s, we had Tipper Gore trying to ban explicit song lyrics.

If you think that's bad, you should read up on how the record industry intentionally partitioned music by ethnicity back in the early 1900's. Ever wonder why radio stations break down by race in the US?

It didn't start out that way, but then there was a big moral panic over interracial marriage.

(Similarly, but unrelated to music, check out sentencing law disparities for expensive white collar fresh cocaine vs. cheaper inner-city preserved cocaine.)

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US Tech firms products are largely banned in China, closing off a market of 1bn+ - why should Chinese firms have unfettered access to the US?

Keeping our markets open is the American way and it's how the US became the preeminent trading nation and the cornerstone and chief architect of the global economic system. The US always pushes hard for other nations to open their markets as well (for better or worse), but it also leads by example.

"America" in the abstract has benefited immensely from free trade, but the average American has not. Wealth inequality has never been worse.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US Tech firms products are largely banned in China, closing off a market of 1bn+ - why should Chinese firms have unfettered access to the US?

Quoted post unavailable.

> Zuckerberg even married an ethnic Chinese woman in order to get a leg up on accessing the Chinese market.

Do you have a credible citation for this, or are you making an assumption that there would be no more compelling reasons for Zuck to marry someone who's ethnically Chinese? (Asking for my ethnically 3/4 Chinese wife, my cousin's ethnically Chinese husband, and plenty of other European/Chinese mixed ancestry marriages in my social circle.)

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#275
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you will ban apps from ~all other countries.

Certainly Europe would be better off if they took this approach and banned all American apps. American techies have no respect for European privacy laws and will never faithfully follow the spirit of such laws, or even the letter.

The biggest issue with this is also needing to adopt OSes and programming languages that aren't controlled by US companies.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#276

China is not ban Apple, because Apple willing to store data inside China. BUT, why did US ban tiktok although they were willing to store data inside US. You can ban a company that not obtain the law, but can not ban without any advice.

What? This is completely asinine. You're comparing a hardware company to a social media company.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you believe China is a dystopian state why would a Chinese tech product that isn't even allowed in it's international form within China not itself "dystopian" imo the most dystopian thing about TikTok is the fact that China intentionally exports a highly addictive product that they don't allow their own people to use

China isn't some monolithic automaton. It's a complex society with multi-faceted incongruities and contradictory rationalizations for conflicting piecemeal systems Just Like Every Other Society that has ever existed. It's 4 times the number of people as the US. Imagine having 200 states instead of 50. I mean heck, they have over 300 languages ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China ).

we’re talking about the government not the Chinese people here but nice bad faith response

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US Tech firms products are largely banned in China, closing off a market of 1bn+ - why should Chinese firms have unfettered access to the US?

China banning US social media is bad for Chinese citizens. US banning any social media is bad for US citizens. TBH, I'm more worried about the rights of US citizens.

> China banning US social media is bad for Chinese citizens.

"China banning US opium is bad for Chinese citizens"

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand the bi-partisan dislike of Tik Tok. It's not hard to understand, it's literally because it's controlled by China.

Exactly. They can use it to boost the opinions that they favor. The feedback loop of "I talked about opinion X and got tons of love" and "I talked about opinion Y and everyone got mad / ignored me" is very powerful, especially on young people.

Likewise:

* "X seems to be a pretty big deal because I keep hearing a lot of people upset about it"

* "I haven't seen anything about X. It must not be that big of a deal."

All social media seems to be moving toward individualized echo chambers, but it's another level when it's an individualized black box controlled by foreign interests.

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