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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

#191

Post by Manuel_D »

itishappy wrote: post #170
Manuel_D wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Americans claim to value open access to information. We could go even further and implement a copy of the great firewall of China, but should we?

No, we shouldn't. Be we also shouldn't be schmucks that give market access that isn't reciprocated. Most free trade agreements work on reciprocity. We agree not to put tariffs on country X's cars because they agree not to put tariffs on ours. A ban is essentially an infinite tariff. If that's how a foreign country is going to treat American companies, why not respond in kind?

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

#192

Post by itishappy »

basisword wrote: post #149
fullshark wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...what 'intelligence' would they be gathering though? What actionable intelligence could be cleaned from someones TikTok viewing habits?

It's an election year. Intelligence can include things like your political affiliation and level of engagement, and can be (ab)used by targeting specific areas/demographics with supportive/decisive content. Think Theil's Palantir, but controlled by a foreign government.

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

#193

Post by lancesells »

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…

Where is freedom of speech involved with changing the ownership of a company?

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

#195

Post by grecy »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #152
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_...

I think that is a slippery slope race to the bottom of morals/ideals.

Pretty soon you have "China doesn't let people say bad things about their leader, neither should we"

and

"China uses force to take things from other countries, why shouldn't we"

Your ideals and morals should be strong enough they don't change based on a bad actor.

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

#196

Post by JoshuaJB »

Broadcast news and radio are limited to at most 20% foreign ownership by default [1]. Applying a similar requirement to large internet news distributors seems reasonable if they want to do business in the US (even if "banned" they could still distribute content, they'd just be restricted in making money).

[1] https://www.foster.com/newsroom-publications-The-Road-Map-Fo...

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

#197

Post by dmos62 »

andiareso wrote: post #13

I'm a big proponent of free speech and the first amendment, but I agree with the reasonings for banning it or forcing US owners. 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. We all know how easy it is to manipulate users... aka Cambridge Analytica. It'll be interesting to see what legal challenges come up if the bill pa…

Funnily enough, this is why I prefer Chinese devices and apps as a Westerner living in the West. My threat vector is my local security apparatus coercing my data or my devices. Correspondingly, If I were living in China, I'd consider it safer to use Western tech. Meanwhile, I don't really care what China does with my stuff while I'm not in China, I just hope that China doesn't collude with my local authorities.

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

basiccalendar74 wrote: post #103
tqi wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all know how easy it is to manipulate users... aka Cambridge Analytica. There is little to no evidence that CA was able to manipulate anyone other than gullible campaign managers. And frankly the idea that a list of pages someone liked could be used to create a skeleton key that turned people into Republican voters is... far-fetched. Similarly, I haven't seen anyone actually articulate what the risk from TikTok…

Yes, it’s cable news. But US has restrictions on foreign owned news.

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by rusty_venture »

basisword wrote: post #167
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…

>> 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? Emulating the policies of a country 'we' think 'is bad' isn't great policy. >> undermine Americans' faith in our democratic institutions It seems like Americans did a pretty good job of this themselves at the last election cycle. A…

>> Emulating the policies of a country 'we' think 'is bad' isn't great policy.

The paradox of tolerance.

>> A highly politicised Supreme Court, a violent attack on the Capitol, a lot of people who don't accept or believe the election result.

2 out of 3 of these were precipitated by foreign influence campaigns on social media actively undermining Americans' trust in our political institutions, so yeah, prohibiting foreign-owned social media networks in advance of the upcoming election is definitely a step in the right direction.

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

#200

Post by aprilthird2021 »

JoshuaJB wrote: post #196

Broadcast news and radio are limited to at most 20% foreign ownership by default [1]. Applying a similar requirement to large internet news distributors seems reasonable if they want to do business in the US (even if "banned" they could still distribute content, they'd just be restricted in making money). [1] https://www.foster.com/newsroom-publications-The-Road-Map-Fo...

But, every American has access to even government propaganda of foreign adversaries. It's part of the 1st Amendment. Denying access to this information feels really weird. If TikTok doesn't divest, it will be banned and app stores will not be allowed to distribute it and the government telling app stores which content is and isn't approved feels like the PATRIOT Act all over again, all of us handing over our rights for some boogeyman
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