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Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

rubio.senate.gov

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Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#321

Post by runamok »

spamizbad wrote: post #173
mrtksn wrote: post #7

Why not regulate how the data is used or stored, like the EU does, but ban? I'm really hoping this doesn't become a reality because if it does, we will end up with partitioned internet and stagnation. People often forget that the US companies are foreign entity for most of the worlds population and with the WikiLeaks revelations we know for a fact that the US government has access to the data of American tech compani…

SV failed to build social media products that appeal to Gen-Z so this is the "plan B". The only reason why TikTok is getting banned is because its popular. And the only reason why its popular is because US-based entrepreneurs seem to struggle building products that connect with users under the age of 30. The irony is there was a product, Vine, that filled this niche but it was ultimately killed by Facebook (who promo…

Vine died (or was killed) before TikTok started. It was more outcompeted by Instagram and Snapchat iirc.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-t...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#322

Post by [deleted] »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #298
maria2 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with user data. People are influenced by the content they see on social media. Allowing a foreign adversary to run the main information network for an entire generation of the population is not a wise move.

HN posters are in love with the "people are too stupid to think for themselves and need me to protect them" narrative. Nowhere else do I see that line of thought as frequently as I see it here. Not even Reddit pushes that justification for controlling the ability of others to access whatever media sources they want as much as it is pushed here. We truly must be the intellectual giants of humanity to know so consisten…

[deleted]

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#323

Post by posterboy »

boomchinolo78 wrote: post #194
dtjb wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a "main information network?" Are websites ok? Podcasts?

I don't think you realize how widespread Tiktok usage is. I can reliably predict what Tiktok users will talk about in social events just by a few minutes of browsing that week's top.

Because by association you are receiving the same recommendations. I doubt that this is true over heterogenic, random assemblies.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#324

Post by bdcravens »

pseudolus wrote: post #79

"TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news." Is the conclusion that all forms of digital fentanyl should be banned or just Chinese ones? Because the reality is there's nothing too exceptional about TikTok's underlying algorithms. Will lawmakers be willing enact legislation against companies marketing similar "digital fentanyl" but that are America…

Ironic given that 90%+ of fentanyl seizures arrests are Americans smuggling it in.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#325

Post by dougmwne »

AlexandrB wrote: post #234
dougmwne wrote: post #119

Why not? China doesn’t allow our social media. Why should we allow theirs? We can easily copy the best parts of the platform and let our companies take their users. Plus, social media can be used for mass political manipulation, and what justifies letting them hold that power over our population? It’s good for our companies, it’s good for our people, and it takes away a dangerous tool from a country that is more and…

Think about who is being restricted here, because it's not just TikTok. Why are you ok with the government dictating which apps you can and cannot install?

Because we absolutely do not need to even pretend to play fair when it comes to China. The government dictates what kind of content we can consume for the public good all the time. It’s as easy as saying “counties on this new human rights blacklist do not have the right to access our markets and the minds of our citizens.”

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#326

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

mannerheim wrote: post #190
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and FB famously pulled out, if they didn't they would still be there. It's the US that is stopping google, etc from operating there, remember project dragonfly that the prevented from going into china? Amazon is doing decently there currently.

Multiple lies. Google was banned after they decided to stop censoring searches. Facebook was banned after they refused to provide the government the identities of protestors in Urumqi. Google cancelled Dragonfly after outcry from their employees.

What? How are they lies, they were operating fine until they decided to not follow the laws one day. That was their prerogative and not the CCP deciding to block them from the market. Unless you can point to laws tiktok is violating it's not a remotely comparable situation. The way that Chinese companies work they explicitly create distinct entities that can meet the requirements of any territories that they operate in.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#327

Post by mannerheim »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #326
mannerheim wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple lies. Google was banned after they decided to stop censoring searches. Facebook was banned after they refused to provide the government the identities of protestors in Urumqi. Google cancelled Dragonfly after outcry from their employees.

What? How are they lies, they were operating fine until they decided to not follow the laws one day. That was their prerogative and not the CCP deciding to block them from the market. Unless you can point to laws tiktok is violating it's not a remotely comparable situation. The way that Chinese companies work they explicitly create distinct entities that can meet the requirements of any territories that they operate…

Because they didn't 'pull out', they were banned. And Dragonfly wasn't stopped by the US, it was cancelled by Google after their employees protested.

Anyway, if Google and Facebook need to follow censorship laws in China, then maybe TikTok needs to follow not-being-based-in-China laws in the US. After all, they can't just decide not to follow the laws.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#330

Post by dougmwne »

tzs wrote: post #287
dougmwne wrote: post #119

Why not? China doesn’t allow our social media. Why should we allow theirs? We can easily copy the best parts of the platform and let our companies take their users. Plus, social media can be used for mass political manipulation, and what justifies letting them hold that power over our population? It’s good for our companies, it’s good for our people, and it takes away a dangerous tool from a country that is more and…

I don't think US social media companies are per se banned in China. They just have to obey the same Chinese rules for data storage and content moderation and record keeping that Chinese social media companies have to obey. It's not all that different from US companies that want to operate in Europe having to obey Europe's stricter regulations in areas such as food safety and consumer protection or have to obey GDPR.

It’s pretty massively different actually. Many US companies tried to operate in China, but the theft of trade secrets and uneven playing field was so bad that they eventually all pulled out. The Chinese government very explicitly wanted to grow its own tech companies by keeping out foreign companies and stealing their trade secrets.

And, so what? It was a great policy that lead to a lot of innovation in the Chinese economy and allowed the Chinese government maximum control so it could maintain the delicate balance of its authoritarian system.

So why the double standard? They banned our companies to keep our influence out. Why not do the same? Are we a prisoner to our principles so much that we can’t even take obvious steps to defend ourselves?

Globalism is over as we know it and the West is on an inevitable collision course with China. Time we all got our heads out of the sand on this one.

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