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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

#541

Post by karaterobot »

wongarsu wrote: post #393
karaterobot wrote: post #346

The arguments I can think of for why you wouldn't support restricting social media owned by foreign adversaries: * You don't believe social media companies can become literal or de facto extensions of the countries they are located in. * You don't believe social media can influence people's beliefs and behaviors. * You believe the above, but think a government cannot (or should not) regulate companies operating in it…

> You don't believe social media can influence people's beliefs and behaviors. > You believe the above, but think a government cannot (or should not) regulate companies operating in its jurisdiction for those aforementioned purposes. Isn't freedom of speech (as understood in the US) exactly that, a prohibition on any regulation that prevents you from influencing people's belief and behavior? Sure, there are limits on…

I don't know whether the first amendment is meant to stop this kind of regulation, but I suppose that's one the courts have either settled already, or will get a chance to settle. I would guess that a foreign company's right to either operate a business in the U.S., or service U.S. citizens from a foreign country, is treated differently when it comes to first amendment protections compared to say a domestic business or a private citizen shouting on a street corner.

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

#542

Post by mupuff1234 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #462
codekaze wrote: post #213

I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…

>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 the United States, and we are better than that. We are a society that promotes free trade, freedom of expression, and economic globalization to the ends of the earth. It's kind of our whole thing.

So do you think the US should also be fine with foreign nations running bot farms spreading fake news / propaganda?

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

#544

Post by codedokode »

franciscop wrote: post #500
bugglebeetle wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a completely irrational argument, rooted solely in xenophobic appeals, that can be trivially dismissed by inverting the premise: Do Chinese citizens have more to fear from state control and monitoring of domestic social media services or those owned by companies outside China?

Those are not equivalent as I hint in my last paragraph, different countries and gvmt influence do have different risk factors. You can e.g. criticize the US gvmt in a US-based app with no consequences. Good luck doing that in China (that = criticizing the CCP on a Chinese-based app while living in China).

Actually it might be the other way round. Chinese will not care if you critisize US govt in private messages, but US platform might actually report you to FBI.

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

#545

Post by RivieraKid »

segasaturn wrote: post #423
corytheboyd wrote: post #323

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…

Why is it worse for me to have Tiktok installed on my phone than Google Chrome or Facebook?

Because TikTok can be used as a weapon by China. Democracies have a weakness - enemies can influence the population and therefore the government. Russia does this quite effectively in my opinion (one example is Slovakia).

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

#546

Post by idle_zealot »

motoxpro wrote: post #478
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US freedom applies only to citizens and residents and not foreign govts.

Totally. This is the main thing agaisnt the free speech argument. We have also passed this same law in radio and TV. It's about influence at a mass scale more than anything. I don't know why we would want a foreign ADVERSARY to have free reign.

This framing is all backwards. Americans go to TikTok for content of their own free will. This law effectively prevents Americans from using an information service they prefer.

Unless, of course, you want to admit that social media applications, through some combination of peer pressure, advertising, propaganda, manipulation, and deception subvert the free will of some portion of their users. In which case naturally they ought to be regulated in order to protect your citizens. Except... then the regulation drafted reads as "only American companies are allowed to subvert the free will of Americans", which comes off as pretty sinister.

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

#547

Post by tempsy »

falcolas wrote: post #537
tempsy wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 60 minutes episode last year (?) insinuated that the CCP's main goal is social disorder eg they heavily restrict the Chinese version for kids to be education oriented where the American version is basically all ages softcore porn and ragebait.

> American version is basically all ages softcore porn and ragebait. My own experience, as well as my partner's, disputes this. My content is generally creators in the neurodivergant, LGTBQIA+, power generation for Alaska towns, wildlife rescues, D&D, cosplay, and news. Only the last can occasionally contain ragebait, but it's generally not. Most of the things that make me angry are those like Nex Benedict's death, t…

yes every person’s feed is entirely different based on watch history.

that’s not what i’m talking about.

start a completely new profile and see what is recommended.

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

#548

Post by Sammi »

jrockway wrote: post #486
codekaze wrote: post #213

I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…

I don't think we should "lowest common denominator" to oppressive regimes. Our Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." TikTok, at the end of the day, is just a kind of…

The US constitution is for the people in the US. Chinese companies don't apply. If you want to grant freedom of speech protection under the US constitution for TikTok, then TikTok must be owned by US people.

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

#549

Post by s3r3nity »

xdennis wrote: post #502
codekaze wrote: post #213

I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…

> I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. The argument that CCP people make is that Facebook et al aren't banned, they just need to follow the law to be allowed. The law, of course, includes unacceptable things like complying with every communist request). A better way to ban TikTok is to require social media companies to be based in c…

> Facebook et al aren't banned, they just need to follow the law to be allowed

Yes, and by that logic, TikTok isn't banned, but rather foreign ownership of said app is.

Just "follow the law" and sell the rights.

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

#550

Post by thaumasiotes »

codekaze wrote: post #213

I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…

> I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns.

Reciprocity of policies isn't really conceptually coherent.

There was some semi-recent news (really, not that recent) to the effect that Saudi Arabia would allow women to drive.

Now imagine our policy toward them before they made that change. We could ignore them because they have their own country. Or we could give up on that and try to impose some kind of penalty on them.

But one thing you're unlikely to see an argument for is reciprocity. "So, they don't let their women drive? How barbaric! We'll show them -- we won't let our women drive either!"

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