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Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

politico.com

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Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#41

Post by throwaway63323 »

Eumenes wrote: post #4

At first, I was all for banning Tiktok, but I'm come around - no social media giant has the users or general public in mind, whether their HQ is in the US or China. Big tech in the US is just upset they didn't come up with Tiktok first and in turn, the intelligence agencies are upset they can't snoop as much as they'd like. This turns off politicians because they're 1) tight with big tech 2) support the federal intel…

>Big tech in the US is just upset they didn't come up with Tiktok first

They did come up with it first, it was called Vine. I would even go as far as calling TikTok a Vine clone.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#42

Post by Hizonner »

mschuster91 wrote: post #14
coldpie wrote: post #5

> "There are real national security risks associated with TikTok, but it’s also an app 150 million Americans use," said Peter Harrell, who served on Biden’s National Security Council until last fall. It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. Banning it on government devices makes sense, but I don't understand why they're trying to ban individuals from using…

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

> The second difference/risk comes with looking whom these apps target: kids. [...] kids are sponges

So far as I can tell, the people most vulnerable to Internet propaganda, manipulation, and general bullshit, aren't kids. They're old people. And maybe younger people who've been raised in bubbles that were a bit overprotective.

TikTok users are mostly teenagers, not little children. By the time you hit your teens, whatever anti-manipulation systems humans have seem to have largely kicked in. That's what you'd expect, really, since that's always been about when you had to start playing the manipulation and anti-manipulation game in real life.

Another part of youthful plasticity seems to be an ability to adapt your defenses to the particular threats you're seeing. When I was a kid, seeing something in 4 or 5 apparently "independent" written sources was pretty good evidence that it was true, or at least widely believed. My own kid seems to have a pretty good intuitive knowledge that she can't just trust those sources' independence, or their credentials, or their judgement.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#43

Post by croes »

mrguyorama wrote: post #39
croes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all of a sudden privacy and data protection are important. Maybe the USA and China should sign a data protection agreement and call it Safe Harbor or so.

The US government wanting privacy but only from foreign nations is a perfectly logical and consistent policy from a government that thinks it has a right to it's citizen's data but also understands that privacy is valuable. It's no different from a US court having a right to sign a warrant for your data while China has no right to obtain a US citizen's data through a chinese equivalent of a warrant.

That's not how they reacted when the EU asked about data protection for its citizens' data on European servers of US companies.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#44

Post by tinus_hn »

mschuster91 wrote: post #14
coldpie wrote: post #5

> "There are real national security risks associated with TikTok, but it’s also an app 150 million Americans use," said Peter Harrell, who served on Biden’s National Security Council until last fall. It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. Banning it on government devices makes sense, but I don't understand why they're trying to ban individuals from using…

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

Censorship as the answer to unwanted opinions. Along with the old adage ‘But think about the children!’

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#45

Post by carapace »

coldpie wrote: post #19
mschuster91 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

If we agree that that's bad, why do we allow Facebook to do it? Why not craft a ban on the bad behavior, which would then necessarily also preclude Tiktok from doing it?

> why do we allow Facebook to do it?

We shouldn't.

They are starting to make AI personas to interact with teenagers.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbot-younger-users-da...

This should almost certainly be banned. I'm not sure on what legal grounds but I am sure this is bad.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#46

Post by Hizonner »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #15
chankstein38 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implications, as far as I've understood, is that the Chinese government has access and, theoretically, could be slurping the information that TikTok collects which is seemingly more than some others collect. I'm not purporting to know this is happening but I believe this is the reason for the assertion.

I always thought that the opposite was the main concern, pushing a narrative rather than collecting data. I don’t know if it is, but it would be mine. For example, I have seen many videos clearly aimed at young people that casually and weirdly slip in a comment stating that Taiwan is part of China. One example: one of these “a guy asking pretty girls trivia questions” asks two girls a series of questions, to one ques…

That does sound like the tone of Chinese propaganda. I mean, when they think they're being subtle. They are so bad at it.

I would hope that kind of thing would be pretty cringeworthily crude and obvious to any teenager raised on a diet of Western advertising. Maybe I'm overoptimistic, though.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#47

Post by kelseyfrog »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #15
chankstein38 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implications, as far as I've understood, is that the Chinese government has access and, theoretically, could be slurping the information that TikTok collects which is seemingly more than some others collect. I'm not purporting to know this is happening but I believe this is the reason for the assertion.

I always thought that the opposite was the main concern, pushing a narrative rather than collecting data. I don’t know if it is, but it would be mine. For example, I have seen many videos clearly aimed at young people that casually and weirdly slip in a comment stating that Taiwan is part of China. One example: one of these “a guy asking pretty girls trivia questions” asks two girls a series of questions, to one ques…

This has "we don't have propaganda - we have truth," and "they don't have truth - they have propaganda" vibes to it. I'm frankly tired of being patronized. If the US wants to propagandize to people at least just admit it. At least one side is truthful about it.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#48

Post by ejlxsh »

lukev wrote: post #23

I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.

Can’t you ban an app based on purpose, “they’re using the app to spy on us”, and then case law applies it on an app by app basis?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#49

Post by ejlxsh »

coldpie wrote: post #33
gardenhedge wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the US government has more authority over Facebook than it does for a Chinese tech company.

I don't understand how. If Facebook or Tiktok('s US branch) violates some law against whatever bad behavior, we can punish them or shut them down. If we don't have such a law, then by definition we have no control over it. What is the difference?

If you ban Facebook because the US government has too much of a reach, then you’re asking the party in control to block themselves

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#50

Post by diogenes4 »

ejlxsh wrote: post #48
lukev wrote: post #23

I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.

Can’t you ban an app based on purpose, “they’re using the app to spy on us”, and then case law applies it on an app by app basis?

Surely this would mostly apply to non-chinese companies, no? This would wipe the market out.
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