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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

#411
post #334

The actual bill is here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521 And I think the interesting bit is what is considered a covered company: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521... The wording could be applied to many companies, including chat apps like Telegram. The only saving grace is that the company has to be controlled by a "foreign adversary", and it seems to explicitl…

Seems fairly written to me.

My issue is that this could be applied very broadly:

> (B) a covered company that—

> (i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and

> (ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—

> (I) a public notice proposing such determination; and

> (II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.

---

The above gives the president the ability to shut down many websites out there from operating in the US if they are "controlled by a foreign adversary". Btw, the definition is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872, which says: "Covered nation.—The term “covered nation” means— (A)the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea; (B)the People’s Republic of China; (C)the Russian Federation; and (D)the Islamic Republic of Iran."

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

#412
I'm seeing a lot of "censorship is bad" propaganda coming from the shills. This resonates with liberal minded people who are against censorship.

Now, that's not to say that most people here are shills or wrong for being against censorship. However they are unwittingly being coopted just as anti-racists were when China deflected any responsibility for a lab leak.

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

#413
In a previous discussion thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39692670), there was a significant amount of discussion regarding the belief that the push for this legislation may be influenced by the pro-Israel lobby, specifically in reaction to the uncensored flow of information via TikTok following the events of October 7th in Gaza. These discussions were quickly downvoted and flagged. However, I believe it is crucial to engage in this conversation respectfully and with a genuine intent for understanding. The potential influence of such lobbying efforts, if substantiated, carries profound implications that merit thoughtful discussion, irrespective of one's personal stance on Israel, Gaza, or the broader political dynamics. If you share these concerns, I encourage you to reply with any evidence supporting your viewpoint, so we can engage in a constructive and good-faith discussion about this issue.

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

#415
post #392

This is going to be a shit show. I don’t even really know where I stand. On one hand, we have to acknowledge that an adversarial government has massively succeeded in installing a botnet in our population— even if that wasn’t the initial intent of ByteDance, it’s effectively true now. On the other hand, you can’t stop people from installing spyware, donating money to fraudster politicians, surrendering themselves to…

It's no worse that what Facebook or Twitter does (or has done). I would prefer to have a plurality of options and not be limited to apps that are owned by countries the US deems "allies".

But Tiktok is much worse for US citizens:

- Facebook+Twitter are US-based entities and have to follow US laws and regulations in a much more strict way than Tiktok

- They are not controlled by a politically-motivated adversarial government

You are also conflating apps "from a country" vs apps "under a country's gvmt control". I think most here would agree "apps from a plurality of countries" is a good goal to strive for, while "apps under a dictatorship's gvmt control" is not.

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

#416
Anything with the potential to disrupt internal and external American/Western propaganda is a threat.

---

[1]

> With a majority of Americans calling the war a mistake despite all administration attempts to sway public opinion, the Pentagon has focused in the last couple of years on cultivating in particular military analysts frequently seen and heard in conservative news outlets, records and interviews show.

> Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 the first of six such Guantánamo trips which was designed to mobilize analysts against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of inhumane treatment. On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so analysts on their key messages how much had been spent improving the facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded detainees.

> The results came quickly. The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting that all detainees were treated humanely.

> The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.

---

[2]

> Likewise, a charge that Russia had turned to China for potential military help lacked hard evidence, a European official and two U.S. officials said.

> The U.S. officials said there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia. The Biden administration put that out as a warning to China not to do so, they said.

It's only a little white lie here and there, just trust us bro!

---

[3]

> Cable television channel Al Jazeera claimed 600 civilians had been killed and filled its broadcasts with images of dead children at the Fallujah hospital and other locations within the city. Al Jazeera’s broadcasts so stung U.S. national leaders that they considered withdrawing all U.S. forces—including CENTCOM’s forward headquarters—from Qatar if its government did not do more to “bring Al Jazeera under control.”

> With little time to prepare for the mission, MNF-W had not embedded Western journalists with I MEF forces, so that the critical ground of information operations was effectively ceded to an insurgency that could distribute a one-sided message. Worse, the haste with which the operation was executed precluded the opportunity to evacuate the city of civilians properly, essentially ensuring that the insurgency had the opportunity to exploit footage of civilian casualties.

Al Jazeera "claimed," but whoops it was also true, and we can't stand the exposure.

---

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-...

[3] The US Army in the Iraq War, 2003-2006

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

#417

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…

This isn't a First Amendment issue, it's regulating commerce with a foreign nation.

So if TikTok was not earning any profit from US (for example, if it was sponsored by the govt), there would be no commerce and it would not be banned? I do not believe that.

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

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I remember seeing a study that compared the content TikTok served to children in China vs other countries. I would have to look and find it again. But basically, Chinese children got lots of science, engineering, and other educational content, while other countries got your run of the mill generic time-wasting nothingburger nonsense kind of content. Food for thought.

Check out the difference between CNN International and CNN US. One is a proper news channel covering US and Intl affairs and competing for influence with BBC, NHK, France 24 and DW.

The other is a editorial banter from talking heads discussing 2 political parties like they're competing with ESPN.

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

#419
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s going to pass Congress, signed into law. Then a federal judge will issue a preliminary injunction blocking it on first amendment grounds just like what happened both times with the Montana ban in 2023 and trumps executive order in 2020

This feels mostly right. Although, it may not make it past the senate, and it might not get signed if it goes by the president. Especially since he's campaigning on TikTok. What amazes me is how people's view in these threads are for a ban. For a counter point, the EFF thinks congress should not ban apps[0] [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-should-give-u...

Biden said he would sign it.

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

#420
post #394

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? I understand what you're saying and I actually support the ban as tiktok can be used as a giant botnet at-will by Chinas government, but an eye for an eye doesn't end well and the US is supposed to be "free" so this part of the argument I…

How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.

The humans it feeds content into are the botnet.

For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...

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