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House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

nytimes.com

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Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#131

Post by contrarian1234 »

throwaway237289 wrote: post #19

Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy. This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US. Any other way to look at this is naive.

Is there any evidence it's been used for propaganda? I don't use TikTok a lot, but it seems very non-political (maybe it's my filter bubble). The real cesspool of hatred and madness is Facebook - but of course Congress doesn't care too much about that.

As far as I remember from the previous elections the Russian bots were operating on US based platforms

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#134

Post by fullshark »

throwaway237289 wrote: post #19

Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy. This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US. Any other way to look at this is naive.

I think it's both. You don't think it's possible TikTok usage data is being accumulated for prominent Americans and/or their children for the purpose of intelligence gathering? I'd actually be surprised if it wasn't happening.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#136

Post by tzs »

rusty_venture wrote: post #74
throwaway237289 wrote: post #19

Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy. This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US. Any other way to look at this is naive.

What's your point? China literally has a nationwide firewall to prevent Western ideas from entering the minds of its subjects. Why should we throw open our digital borders to Chinese influence campaigns? "The supreme art of war is to defeat the enemy without fighting", e.g. to undermine Americans' faith in our democratic institutions, to gain the ability to compromise our critical infrastructure, and to influence our…

> All explicitly stated goals of both Bejing and the Kremlin, and the misinformation and distraction campaigns carried out by Russia in the last presidential election are about to ratchet up again. I don't believe we should be making these objectives any easier for our ideological rivals.

Those campaigns mostly took part on platforms owned and operated by US companies.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#137

Post by WillPostForFood »

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #116
rusty_venture wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? China literally has a nationwide firewall to prevent Western ideas from entering the minds of its subjects. Why should we throw open our digital borders to Chinese influence campaigns? "The supreme art of war is to defeat the enemy without fighting", e.g. to undermine Americans' faith in our democratic institutions, to gain the ability to compromise our critical infrastructure, and to influence our…

> Why should we throw open our digital borders to Chinese influence campaigns? Because we are not China and our institutions are built on presumption of freedom of speech and freedom of thought and democracy. If we start emulating China, we will become China. Our institutions are supposed to be robust enough to handle local and foreign propaganda and if they are not, then censorship is certainly not a solution that w…

US Citizens still have the same freedom of speech and freedom of thought and democracy. Those rights don't extend to foreign adversaries. If you want to relay Chinese or Russian or Ukrainian or Israeli or Hamas propaganda, you are completely free to do it, without censorship. Limiting the ability of any of those countries to project it within the US is reasonable stance.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#138

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ThisIsMyAltAcct wrote: post #105
farts_mckensy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine

Also, literally the Nazis. We lost over 400,000 people helping free Europe from the last lot who tried consolidating control. Pax Americana has been one of the longest stretches of peace in Europe. Vaccines and peace…

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#139

Post by filoleg »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94
elfbargpt wrote: post #30

Does anyone have an idea of the likelihood of the owners divesting vs a ban being enforced? I kind of want to see the owners refuse to divest

> kind of want to see the owners refuse to divest It will 100% be enforced if passed. There is marginal political will to pass this. There is no political will to bail out TikTok if ByteDance or Beijing throw a hissy fit.

I think you misunderstood the question.

The grandparent comment wasn’t asking about the likelihood of the US enforcing the ban (assuming the bill passes and TikTok refuses to divest). Obviously, the answer to that is somewhere near 100%.

The question was, assuming the bill passes, what’s the likelihood of TikTok deciding to divest (and thus remaining non-banned) vs. TikTok refusing to divest (and getting banned).

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