Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

231–240 of 1001 posts

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

#231

I'm going to ask an intentionally stupid question. TikTok is largely just kids dancing and other innocuous videos, even if Bytedance is sucking up all that data and sending it back to the CCP, how does that constitute a national security threat?

That's a very narrow view...

I use it myself and never get dancing videos. I get videos about gaming, sketch-comedy, abstract comedy, fails and mishaps, podcast snippets, global conflicts, politics etc.

There's something for anyone on TikTok. It's a bit scary how well the algo knows my interests, but at least it's interesting content.

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

#233
> On Tuesday, officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department spoke with lawmakers in a classified briefing about national security concerns tied to TikTok.

I would have loved to be in that briefing.

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

#235

[flagged]

First of all that was one post by one rando on the platform that didn't really take off that much compared to all the other trending posts on tiktok at the time. The media picked it up, completely took it out of context and from there it blew up due to the Streisand effect.

So much garbage on all the western news channels that it has buried the original content(probably on purpose).

Here is a somewhat reasonable timeline of events: [1]:https://slate.com/business/2023/11/tiktok-osama-bin-laden-le...

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

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, Facebook is flat out banned in China no matter whether they comply with CCP censorship. I'm very interested in sources to substantiate the claim that Facebook is refusing to ban groups that even the US designates as terrorists.

Here's at least one source http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/kindle/2014-10/02/content_18692... Although I appear to be wrong that it was specifically what caused the block. I'd be interested to know the source of your claim that facebook wouldn't be allowed if it complied fully with Chinese law?

One, this article was published years after Facebook was blocked in China so it can't be the cause of the block. Also, China daily is a propaganda outlet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Daily

It's literally run by the "Central Propaganda Department".

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

#237

I'm interested to see how this plays out. TikTok is popular enough that I can imagine it's making enough money outside the US to just let them ban it and not sell. The whole thing is interesting to watch from a non-China/US perspective. It feels like a move to make the US government look strong to its citizens. A move that, unusually, can have bipartisan support. It feels like propaganda really. And judging by the co…

Idk, every person I talk to thinks it's crazy that the US is this close to banning an app because it doesn't like the content. The idea that Americans aren't allowed to view "propaganda" is insane and very against the ideas of free speech. But I come online and there's so much support for banning an app who hires lots of devs in Silicon Valley itself...

>> The idea that Americans aren't allowed to view "propaganda" is insane and very against the ideas of free speech.

It's odd that the people who are so adamant that we can't ban 'hate speech' because 'it's a slippery slope' don't seem to care that the government banning us from viewing content is also quite a serious slipper slope.

>> But I come online and there's so much support for banning an app who hires lots of devs in Silicon Valley itself.

It's a net-positive for all the people working at Facebook + Twitter which is where the eyeballs will be diverted to.

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

#238
post #234

Next up, China forces Tesla to divest its Chinese operations or face ban

They did it to all previous OEMs via forcing them into Joint Ventures. So it would be actually equal treatment for Tesla as the rest of OEMs.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> open access to information Nobody proposed blocking TikTok.com. It’s just limiting its distribution.

So, all 160 million US TikTok users install a PWA of TikTok and everything is fine then? I highly doubt it

> all 160 million US TikTok users install a PWA of TikTok and everything is fine

I’m not saying the bill is performative. The app-store and hosting ban will be effective. The point is nothing will be censored. Distribution will have been curtailed.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete fairly in their digital ecosystem, why the hell should we continue to grant Chinese firms unrestricted access to our market? Because we are (used to be?) a country that believes in democracy and the will of our citizens. If people want to download a Chinese app and watch straight up Chinese news and propaganda (not even close to what TikTok actually is), they sh…

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

This level of censorship isn't good, it's very bad. It's also concerning the speed at which the government mobilized to do this. It's a rapid crackdown on free speech and individual freedom.
Post reply on HN