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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

#791

Post by hollerith »

rchaud wrote: post #788
hollerith wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way the US had dealt with issues like this is in the courts of law How would that work in the case of TikTok. If for example the US Department of Justice were to sue TikTok, what law or regulation would it allege TikTok to have violated? >the US had dealt with issues like this This suggests that there were law suits in the past. Who were the plaintiffs and the defendants? What law were the defendants alleged to…

> If for example the US Department of Justice were to sue TikTok, what law or regulation would it allege TikTok to have violated? That's exactly what DOJ would be tasked to do, build the case against them. Surely if the risks are so dire, they can find something to persuade a judge.

That's not responsive.

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

#792

Post by robg »

rchaud wrote: post #467
robg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t know that Rupert Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen to own a U.S. newspaper. So precedents for old school media but of course the problem is new media not needing physical distribution that can be readily monitored.

Good thing that rule was in place, otherwise it could have opened the door for some unscrupulous person profiting off of national division and disharmony.

Sarcasm aside, it was the end of the fairness doctrine that led to this era.

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

#793

Post by [deleted] »

c4wrd wrote: post #499
voldacar wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an eye for an eye doesn't end well Actually in most games that are played repeatedly, the optimal strategy is to cooperate with cooperators and defect against defectors.

This simplification misses key nuances. Strategies like Tit-for-Tat (TFT) are context-sensitive and not universally "optimal." Effectiveness varies with game structure, communication clarity, and the presence of noise. Moreover, the "optimal" strategy adjusts in finite games (which you didn't clarify which type of game) due to the endgame effect. Simple hole in your simplification: one simple misunderstanding could l…

[deleted]

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

#794

Post by karaterobot »

esoterica wrote: post #696
cryptonector wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rights acknowledged and protected by the U.S. Constitution are rights of U.S. Persons (citizens, nationals, and permanent residents). They are not all rights of non-U.S. Persons, though some, like the Fifth Amendment, clearly are rights of all Persons. For example, if you're a tourist accused of committing a crime in the U.S. you do have a right to counsel and a right to not self-incriminate, but also you don't h…

If you believe that the constitution protects inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government then how can those rights be denied to non citizens? The government gets to decide who is and isn’t a citizen, which would mean they can decide who is or isn’t eligible for so-called “inalienable” rights.

If you really believed in that interpretation—that the bill of rights guarantees equal and identical liberties to everyone regardless of citizenship status—then what's the argument that those same rights extend only within the borders of U.S. geography? Why would we not, for example, enforce the second amendment right to bear arms on the benighted people of Australia, who don't have it? If we wanted our actions to be 100% consistent with that interpretation of the language of the constitution, wouldn't that be the outcome?

So, I think the answer to your question is that it's not feasible, practical, or desirable to be 100% consistent, and that the law is mostly cobbled together, full of edge cases, hammered into something that sort of works most of the time, and makes sense if it's dark enough and you squint.

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

#795

Post by voldacar »

c4wrd wrote: post #499
voldacar wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an eye for an eye doesn't end well Actually in most games that are played repeatedly, the optimal strategy is to cooperate with cooperators and defect against defectors.

This simplification misses key nuances. Strategies like Tit-for-Tat (TFT) are context-sensitive and not universally "optimal." Effectiveness varies with game structure, communication clarity, and the presence of noise. Moreover, the "optimal" strategy adjusts in finite games (which you didn't clarify which type of game) due to the endgame effect. Simple hole in your simplification: one simple misunderstanding could l…

>Strategies like Tit-for-Tat (TFT) are context-sensitive and not universally "optimal."

Of course. Hence why I didn't claim it to be universally optimal. All I'm saying is that your willingness to defect against defectors should always be non-zero, just to keep the players in line who start out with a higher predisposition towards defecting.

The noisiness of the real world should probably bias us more in the direction of cooperation, to avoid a cascade of defection as you mention, but a player who only cooperates will get taken advantage of regardless of the precise details of the game. Some amount of this dynamic can be seen currently in the relationship between western companies and the Chinese state, a relationship that is currently very different from the relationship between Chinese companies and the rest of the world.

It is also generally true that the longer the game, the more defectors suffer.

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

#796

Post by amou234 »

rajamaka wrote: post #783
amou234 wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What most of the posters in this thread don't realize is that US is effectively at war with China. China is working in front of the scenes to be the major funder of Russia's war [1] against Europe, which is US's ally amongst the coalition of democratic countries. China is working behind the scenes to stop the supply of artillery shells to Ukraine. [2]. and it is increasingly and more visibly supplying Russia with mil…

China also continues to trade with the US despite Russian sanctions on the US. Does this mean China is effectively at war with Russia too?

Current trading activities doesn't mean much by themselves. Europe also still trades with Russia. This is sort of missing the forest for the trees. You have to look at whether there are concerted efforts from Europe/US to REDUCE trade with Russia/China, which is yes. And whether US/Europe is restricting China's military capability, which is yes.

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

#797

Post by [deleted] »

voldacar wrote: post #455
bilekas wrote: post #387

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…

>an eye for an eye doesn't end well Actually in most games that are played repeatedly, the optimal strategy is to cooperate with cooperators and defect against defectors.

[deleted]

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

#798

Post by hellotomyrars »

corimaith wrote: post #684

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?

People largely don't seem to read past a headline that says US to ban Tiktok (or whatever other permutation of Tiktok and ban). It is an incomplete and dishonest picture of what the actual legislation does and the purpose of it.

I'm not surprised people at large get up in arms if you say congress is going to ban Tiktok. If you tell them the full story, that the legislation requires them to divest from Chinese ownership or no longer be widely available, I think the response would be somewhat different. I'd certainly like to think so, anyways.

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

#799

Post by cscurmudgeon »

hellojesus wrote: post #518
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> think rationally Not teenagers, TikTok's main target

Thankfully parents were invented to regulate them.

Do you think the govt. has zero responsibility in the welfare of our nation's children?

If a foreign adversary attacks, can parents alone protect their children?

Let me get this clear:

1. you don't want govt to act for children because "parents", 2. you don't want govt to act for adults because they are "rational".

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

#800

Post by hellotomyrars »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #275

The closest precedent for this ban are laws banning foreign ownership of TV stations. But TV has always been national. How is global social media supposed to work when every government demands to have its own version, controlled by a local company? Do these representatives imagine a truly separate version of TikTok, like China's Douyin, without access to foreign content, and without anyone else seeing american conten…

The sale of Grindr is a much closer precedent https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/06/grindr-sold-china-national...

The bill doesn't block any content on Tiktok, it is to require American ownership of the company. The penalty for non-compliance would remove Tiktok from appstores, but it wouldn't prevent Americans from accessing it either via the web (Probably easy to sideload on Android at least).

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