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

681–690 of 1001 posts

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

#681

Post by larrik »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #592
Kerrick wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This actually isn't too far fetched with the data privacy laws in the EU. It's not an explicit directive, though.

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

#682

Post by cynicalsecurity »

lumb63 wrote: post #611
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…

If someone wants to subject themselves to CCP propaganda, why stop them? If they’re that lacking in critical thinking, then maybe they’re getting what they deserve. It’s not like anyone is forcing people to use TikTok.

Because I'm not fancying getting what they deserve together with them. Some brainless zoomers might be casually destroying the West and causing our doom, but I don't want to suffer from their stupidity. I would rather limit their fun than my life.

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

#683

Post by tharmas »

takoid wrote: post #353
tharmas wrote: post #349

[flagged]

What evidence do you have to support this belief?

What evidence has Congress presented that Tiktok is a National Security threat?

Didn't Congress try to shut down Tiktok before but it failed? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/31/us-tiktok... From the article: "But none of these bills ever made it to a vote, and many have stalled entirely as lawmakers turned their attention to the boom in artificial intelligence.

...In a preliminary injunction blocking the ban [Referring to state of Montan's ban on Tiktok], US district judge Donald Molloy said the law “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users”."

But things started to change after the Gaza War happened and the body count of Palestinians began to rise; young people who watch videos on Tiktok began to call for a cease-fire etc, etc. Congress members became re-enthused about the ban.

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

#684

Post by corimaith »

It's interesting how the bill can have such a heavily bipartisan approval yet there are so many opposing the decision in HN. That goes also with the general US anti-China consensus that has virtually no political lashback from domestic voters. So I would naturally assume from that then the plurality of the american voterbase would support this. So is this opposition really coming from the voterbase or elsewhere?

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

#685

Post by ssernikk »

Wouldn't introducing actual privacy laws be better than censoring part of the internet? I doubt that American social media corporations hoard less data about it's users than Chinese. I am not defending TikTok here, because I believe it's a danger, but this new bill is equivalent to treating the symptoms instead of the cause.

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

#686

Post by theferalrobot »

theturtletalks wrote: post #509
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…

How many times do we see the government trample on our rights behind “safety”? I’m fully with you on this. If TikTok is harmful, spread the word and let people make that decision for themselves. If kids are too small to make that decision, that falls on the parents. Don’t take away my rights because others can’t vet companies and use their brains if they should use the apps these companies put out.

What rights is it taking away? TikTok will still exist, you will still be able to get to it on the internet. All this bill does is force a sale OR prevent American companies from platforming technology from adversarial nations (something every government does all the time... see the US and Huawei or limiting Nvidia exports to china etc).

You'll still be able to download the app from the internet (just not an App Store) or browse it on your phone on the internet. We aren't putting up a 'great firewall' or anything

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

#687

Post by dylan604 »

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…

> Our Constitution says

That's a great start, but it's only as valid as an activist judicial branch says it is. If congress passes a law that goes against the reading of that old parchment, someone brings a case that works its way to SCOTUS, then they vote based on the vacation they are provided, then the law is declared valid. If they decide it is not, then it is not. It doesn't matter what some armchair critic of the law thinks. They can tweet and tweet, they can blog and blog, they can vent on forums, but unless they become POTUS in a term where you get to sit 1/3 of the bench, you've got no real shot at changing it. Doesn't matter if you lean left or right, a single POTUS sitting 3 judges is rare enough to not consider it a real possibility. So an activist bench can cause disruption for decades/generations.

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

#689

Post by ajross »

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…

> TikTok, at the end of the day, is just a kind of printing press.

Printing presses can't spy on the readers of the paper that goes through them[1]. I think there's a first amendment argument to be made here, but this is way too far out on the absolutist end of the spectrum, not least because this bill doesn't actually regulate TikTok's speech, only who's allowed to own it.

Commercial speech is regulated in thousands of ways already in ways much more effective than this bill. If you really believe in free speech absolutism[2] the fights to be had are elsewhere.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/us/politics/tik-tok-spyin...

[2] And no one does. Everyone starts censoring the second they get their hands on a lever.

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

#690

Post by polemic »

This is – fairly obviously – the US working to maintain it's primacy in the control over technology (broadly) and social media (specifically).

It's certainly convenient that various security and privacy concerns align, but as many comments here point out, they don't stand up to much scrutiny, and they certainly don't warrant this level of policy response.

Post reply on HN