Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 1001 posts

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

#591

Post by squigz »

felixgallo wrote: post #584
zachmu wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok isn't "some website", it is partially owned and controlled by the CCP, which influences what content gets shown to Americans. A majority of zoomers get most of their news and information primarily from this platform, which again is under the influence of a hostile foreign government. (TikTok also spies on US citizens for the CCP, but let's keep this restricted to the free speech argument about the ban). We act…

would the same argument apply to Fox News? If not, why not?

Of course not. He said "foreign countries". The propaganda outlets at home are harmless.

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

#592

Post by victorbjorklund »

Kerrick wrote: post #572
jrockway wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Our Constitution also says, "The Congress shall have Power [...] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." Forcing a sale of TikTok so it's not foreign (with a punishment of banning if they don't), especially while making no such law for U.S. controlled competitors, is no more an infringement upon free speech than introducing a tariff or trade restriction on German-manufactured printing presses while leaving domest…

What if EU forced american companies to sell off their stuff to european companies? It isnt that easy.

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

#593

Post by kirse »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #565
kirse wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok, at the end of the day, is just a kind of printing press. No, TikTok is essentially digital opium. And China itself has confirmed that reality by 1) restricting their citizens' daily access and 2) significantly filtering the content they can see on it: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti... It would only be fair of the US to follow China's example of protecting its citizens from numbin…

If you honestly believed this to be true, you would be arguing for a ban on all social media, as like half of Instagram is just reposts of TikTok content and is otherwise mind-numbingly equivalent to the service.

Nah, I'm just arguing that it's both reasonable and fair to do unto others. Here's some more evidence:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/china-wants-to-ri...

I'm sure it's not "xenophobic moral panic" when China does it though, right?

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

#594

Post by BeetleB »

pksebben wrote: post #571
BeetleB wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other commenters have said, the GP's argument is not about free speech but about trade. Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. If someone makes a video of a TikTok video and shares it on Youtube/Whatsapp, that's legal. The actual content is legal, so it's not a free speech/censorship issue. This is the equivalent of "We'v…

What I find troubling about this is the delta between the vox populi and the decision made. Whether it's right or prudent or whatever, if you figure that people using the service don't want it shut down (~170M or roughly half of the population) then what's happening here is that our "representatives" are doing what they always do and totally ignoring their constituency. Mind you, this isn't surprising in the least, b…

Representatives are elected to do "what's right". If their constituents don't like it, they can elect them out.

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

#595

Post by rKarpinski »

felixgallo wrote: post #584
zachmu wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiktok isn't "some website", it is partially owned and controlled by the CCP, which influences what content gets shown to Americans. A majority of zoomers get most of their news and information primarily from this platform, which again is under the influence of a hostile foreign government. (TikTok also spies on US citizens for the CCP, but let's keep this restricted to the free speech argument about the ban). We act…

would the same argument apply to Fox News? If not, why not?

No, it's owned & controlled by an American family (from Australia), has its headquarters in New York City and is not beholden to any foreign governments.

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

#597

Post by andrewla »

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…

Can you expand on what you mean by "installing a botnet"?

As a term of art, a botnet refers to a collection of computing devices that can be controlled remotely. I am not aware of any such capability in TikTok itself. Presumably they could attempt to offer a new version of TikTok that allowed arbitrary remote execution or one-time behavior, but this would need to get past Apple's app review process and would be subject to pretty immediate rollback.

Like if they wanted to use the install base of TikTok to perform a DDoS against an adversary, that would pretty much be a one-shot deal, after which it would be shut down.

Unless you're using botnet in a different sense, in which case this is irrelevant but I would recommend using a different word in this case ("propaganda engine" maybe) to avoid carrying along the connotations.

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

#598

Post by dpkirchner »

hparadiz wrote: post #519
segasaturn wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a mistake for TikTok to ask Americans to participate in their representative democracy? Do we not remember when Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA from passing, how is TikTok's notification any different?

The whole reason this is even happening is because they've been caught pushing political content that is blatantly either pro-China or meant to stir shit up in the American population. The irony with your comment is that TikTok's masters in China already have the same power that SOPA was supposed to grant the US government. In other words the USA is trying to strip the CCP of that power. They could've played ball and…

No, the whole reason this is happening is it distracts us from more serious issues such as Chinese labor practices. If politicians can "take China seriously" by banning TikTok they don't need to talk about barring import of products made using forced labor, say.

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

#599

Post by BeetleB »

Miner49er wrote: post #484
BeetleB wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other commenters have said, the GP's argument is not about free speech but about trade. Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. If someone makes a video of a TikTok video and shares it on Youtube/Whatsapp, that's legal. The actual content is legal, so it's not a free speech/censorship issue. This is the equivalent of "We'v…

> Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. Yes, it does impinge free speech. It's not about being able to say things, it's about freedom to hear speech. The first amendment and freedom of speech also covers that, and there is speech on Tik Tok that is not available elsewhere.

As I said, they are not banning listening to the speech on Tik Tok videos. If someone makes a mirror of all TikTok videos and posts it on Peertube, it is totally fine to listen to it.

They are banning one delivery mechanism. Not the content.

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

#600

Post by thomastjeffery »

squigz wrote: post #591
felixgallo wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would the same argument apply to Fox News? If not, why not?

Of course not. He said "foreign countries". The propaganda outlets at home are harmless.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN