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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

#941

Post by jessi_lia »

TMWNN wrote: post #309
contrarian1234 wrote: post #123

Lol, the US finally showing its true colors. It's a freemarket until our companies start to lose - then suddenly you gotta think of the children, national security, the brainwashed masses and the evil communists. At this point they're basically using the same arguments the Chinese use to ban Western apps. Bunch of sore losers. We're losing all moral authority over being a beacon of capitalism. The Chinese made a bett…

>Lol, the US finally showing its true colors. It's a freemarket until our companies start to lose If TikTok were a Canadian, British, French, German, Korean, Japanese, or Taiwanese company, the US government wouldn't have intervened in the first place.

Not supporting the post you responded to, while not sure about your opinion either, something perhaps relative:

- To a French company: [The American Trap](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1529326869)

- To Japanese semi-conductor industry and others: [The False Allure of Managed Trade - WSJ](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-false-allure-of-managed-tra...)

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

#942

Post by jf22 »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #635
jf22 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point but it doesn't mean that US doesn't support those things the majority of the time. The primary motivation of a firefighter doesn't change because they rescue a cat every once in a while.

Not the point, but firefighters actually respond to few fires (presumably better electrical codes or smokers falling asleep with a cigarette). Most of their work is now supplemental EMT, locked houses, cats in trees, etc. This 2018 report ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/376683/number-of-fire-de... ) shows some 23 million medical emergencies to 1.5 million fire call responses.

Huh wow, I had no idea.

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

#943

Post by suoduandao3 »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #853
suoduandao3 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to botspam a competitor with terroristic and genocidal posts if you only need a fig leaf to remove the platform - not a great precedent to align with. Also, didn't a spokesperson for Harvard recently say some calls for genocide were acceptable on their platform (campus) depending on context? Why aren't the anti-1st amendment types trying to ban Harvard? Edit: Not a rhetorical question for the downvoters.

Your comment seems to have spiraled out into... I don't even know where? Were you combining threads in your head? >It's easy to botspam a competitor with terroristic and genocidal posts I don't think it's necessary to employ conspiracy theory accessories when the stated moderation policy of the platform was "no moderation."

Not combining threads, but it was a rather obscure reference. The president of Harvard recently testified before congress that calls for genocide may not violate Harvard's code of conduct 'depending on context'. Which makes a widespread effort to censor Parler for hosting calls for genocide rather hypocritical IMHO. Hope that's clearer.

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

#944

Post by okamiueru »

MBCook wrote: post #733
PurpleRamen wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections. I thought it was about stealing data? > Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes. Not pushing the alert, would have changed nothing. And to be fair, isn't this how any organization in a democratic country works? Talking to…

There are two arguments. Data and politics. Data seems like a sideshow to me. It’s legal and they could just buy it from data brokers anyway. It’s not like the US has any real laws against that. Political action is a fair response to the bill but they went about it in an incredibly tone deaf way.

I'd also include security concerns. Not as scary as anti-cheat rootkits from TenCent owned companies that millions of people willingly installed. Concerning nonetheless.

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

#945

Post by jessi_lia »

mathgorges wrote: post #279
contrarian1234 wrote: post #131

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 suppose that depends on what you mean by “propaganda”. Personally I think it can be convincingly argued that any message transmitted to you from a State is propaganda (Note: that means that I don’t believe that all propaganda is inherently evil, sometimes your interests align with a State. For example governments paying for advertising to discourage smoking is a great thing, IMO!) I’ve never lived in China, but I’v…

I am a Chinese that has been living in the West for a few years.

> I’ve never lived in China, but I’ve spoken with many people that have

IMO, these opinions are a bit biased. 1) those are probably the people who chose to stay in the West; 2) Chinese people (incl. me) sometimes talk extravagantly about life in a "communist country", since to some degree it pleases the Western audience and adds some fun to the talk.

Maybe a CCP member has to show their allegiance from time to time, but I am not and I can not recall I was asked to do so in any form. Probably asked to sing the national anthem every morning when I was in the school? And despite the censorship, people, especially young netizens, invent all kinds of altered words mocking domestic politics, often to my surprise how much they are aware of, given that I already live in the West out of the bubble, that people usually think Chinese internet is.

Taking a particular different mindset as unconscious propaganda and thinking it's harmful seems to support the Chinese internet firewall project and the opinion that people are not able to make "correct" opinions on their own.

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

#946

Post by suoduandao3 »

mckn1ght wrote: post #435
suoduandao3 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Non-political is political Is war also peace and freedom also slavery?

> Is war also peace Si vis pacem, para bellum > freedom also slavery Total freedom for one includes their ability to enslave others. My point is, you’re presenting false dichotomies to justify another (the political and the non-political).

Is that what I'm doing? I thought I was making an Orwell reference to imply that a peculiar kind of very public gaslighting he warned about is not confined to the slogans of 1984's Party.

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

#947

Post by criddell »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #890
criddell wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it as being significantly different from our laws prohibiting foreign ownership of tv and radio stations.

It's very different. There are tons of foreign owned apps and websites, like Spotify for example. Are we going to force them to become an American company too?

Maybe if Sweden joins the list of adversary countries.

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

#948

Post by lrvick »

Rather than single out and ban Tiktok, we should instead mandate any application mass collecting data be open sourced, so anyone technical can verify any claims about security and privacy for themselves.

It will never happen, but it would solve the problem.

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

#949

Post by andiareso »

esoterica wrote: post #717
andiareso wrote: post #13

I'm a big proponent of free speech and the first amendment, but I agree with the reasonings for banning it or forcing US owners. China most definitely has their hands in the data that TikTok amasses and given its popularity it's not an insignificant risk to U.S. citizens. We all know how easy it is to manipulate users... aka Cambridge Analytica. It'll be interesting to see what legal challenges come up if the bill pa…

If you truly believe in the principles of free speech, no matter how offensive and evil and cynically motivated, then the logical conclusion of that belief is that adversarial foreign governments have the right to propagandize in America and to Americans. If you abandon your principles the moment someone invokes the foreign menace then you don’t really have principles. People like to think of themselves as being pro-…

Freedom of speech isn't a blanket everything-goes. The government can impose time and place restrictions on where and when you can express yourself. So to me, getting rid of TikTok is restricting place. You can very well express yourself on other platforms if TikTok is removed from the U.S. marketplace.

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

#950

Post by lupire »

deciplex wrote: post #664
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…

> I don't think we should "lowest common denominator" to oppressive regimes. Chinese approval of their government is much higher than most Western regimes including the US. I think you are right about how we ought to apply the 1st amendment here, but I don't find that Chinese propaganda is any more insidious or pervasive than American. We just manage it differently: in China the state directly controls the media, whi…

Approval is always higher when disapproval is a crime punishable by disappearance.
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