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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

#151

Post by contrarian1234 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #124
dauertewigkeit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Free trade should go both ways. It's ridiculous to let Chinese apps and websites operate in the West when China blocks so many Western sites and apps: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_...

The basic benefits of free trade (based on comparative advantage) do not require both parties to engage in it

They make a superior dancing video app, so then engineers in silicon valley can go work on something else instead

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

#152

Post by TulliusCicero »

2four2 wrote: post #9

As much as I don't care about tiktok going away, and acknowledge the privacy and security risks, there's something about banning a highly popular website that doesn't sit right with me. Is there precedent in the USA for anything like this?

China bans a shitton of Western websites. What's wrong with reciprocating? Free trade should go both ways, shouldn't it?

I would definitely be more okay with allowing Chinese websites/apps in the US if China wasn't banning so many Western ones: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_...

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

#154

Post by JumpCrisscross »

filoleg wrote: post #139
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Got it. I think they get banned for a while and then fold. Unless Beijing decides to take a hard line, which they might, though hundreds of billions funds a lot of R&D [1].

[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/tiktok-owner-boosts-...

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

#155

Post by WillPostForFood »

cherryteastain wrote: post #111
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…

The point is that the West painted itself as the defender of freedom, democracy and free markets. Going beyond, it claimed that (in the post Reagan/Thatcher era) that free markets are a prerequisite for being a rich country. Yet, the moment free markets became inconvenient, the west dropped that narrative and went full protectionist. As a result, China gets a propaganda victory in the eyes of non-Western nations. All…

West painted itself as the defender of freedom, democracy and free markets

China is not free, not a democracy, and not a free market, so there no hypocrisy. What was crazy was supporting the one sided relationship where we export our industry and production capacity to China while they block and steal from our businesses.

I'd support TikTok in the US if China gets rid of their firewall.

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

#158

Post by nova22033 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #144
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.

Another way to look at it is the fact that China does not let American social media in its market. Why should America give China access to it's markets when that's not reciprocated?

TikTok is banned in China.

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

#159

Post by hawthornio »

basiccalendar74 wrote: post #100
pixelatedindex wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China most definitely has their hands in the data that TikTok amasses and given its popularity it's not an insignificant risk to U.S. citizens. At least according to their website, it seems like US data does not leave US data warehouses: https://usds.tiktok.com/our-approach-to-keeping-u-s-data-sec... I don’t know the details of course but if China wants the data there are umpteen companies who engage in data broker…

Even if data doesn’t leave US, we want to avoid algorithmic manipulation via TikTok feed.

Yeah it’s sickening how the CCP is able to push their hoof cleaning agenda on americans /s

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

#160

Post by dauertewigkeit »

rwmj wrote: post #126
dauertewigkeit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That's nice, but you have to defend democracy from people who wish to overthrow it. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance )

Is every heterodox narrative immediately "intolerance" in your view?
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