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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

#951

Post by lupire »

aragonite wrote: post #940
kurthr wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong? The glorious right to investment profits? It's not even censorship. The 1st amendment right to free speech is about US citizens. This isn't even a US corporation. No 1st amendment there so it looks legal. They probably wouldn't have done anything, if the manipulation and spying had been a bit less blatant. Even Telegram and Kaspersky still operate. This isn't even a WTO trade issue since almost every si…

> almost every single tech or manufacturing company (except Tesla?) that wants to sell in China has to be a joint owned venture Apple, Oracle, Amazon, GE, Micron, Intel, Dell, Samsung, Kingston, LG, Seagate, Inventec ... Not a single one of these is a joint venture. They are all wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs) [1][2] According to the Department of Commerce, > A large majority of new foreign investments in Ch…

This is true economically, but the unelected authoritarian Chinese Communist Party still has control over content and communications in those companies and their products.

Specifically relevant. Chinese Communist Party allows content on TikTok in US that is not allowed on TikTok in China.

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

#952

Post by lupire »

strangattractor wrote: post #551
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…

The US Constitution guaranties US citizens rights not the general population of the Earth. Our government has no way to enforce or protect rights from entities outside of the US (other than force). If as you say it is just a "giant printing press" then ownership is irrelevant - change it and print away. If on the other hand the Chinese government has a vested interest in influencing what 136 million Americas consume…

That's not quite true. The Constitution protects residents and arguably visitors.

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

#953

Post by mvkel »

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…

Isn't that just whataboutism applied in the wrong direction?

Like two young siblings, "she hit me so I get to hit her back!"

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

#954

Post by lupire »

sophacles wrote: post #655
bjourne wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "reciprocity" cannot hide the fact that two wrongs doesn't make a right. We think it is wrong of China to censor Facebook and Twitter because that is what authoritarian regimes that don't give a shit about free speech do. For exactly the same reason it is wrong of the US to ban TikTok. And this bill has nothing to do with balancing international trade. It's stated purpose is to restrict China's ability to in…

What's being censored here? The bill doesn't ban any speech at all - you can put any video tik tok allows on dozens of other video sharing platforms. This is a ban on certain foreign countries (er.. i mean "companies") doing some types of business in the US.

Chinese Communist Party is an authoritarian conquerer, not exactly a country or a company.

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

#955

Post by lupire »

theturtletalks wrote: post #762
theferalrobot wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Stor…

My mistake then, but what’s the point then? Won’t they come for the website next if TikTok doesn’t sell? I don’t even use TikTok but I know this law will be precedence for other laws blocking outside websites.

That's the main loophole.

The only way to ban TikTok is with a network firewall. US can ban local web hosting and even DNS (see pirate media sites), which might be enough to destroy the "network effect" of the site's popularity. But has US ever banned an IP address or routing?

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

#956

Post by aragonite »

lupire wrote: post #951
aragonite wrote: post #940

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost every single tech or manufacturing company (except Tesla?) that wants to sell in China has to be a joint owned venture Apple, Oracle, Amazon, GE, Micron, Intel, Dell, Samsung, Kingston, LG, Seagate, Inventec ... Not a single one of these is a joint venture. They are all wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs) [1][2] According to the Department of Commerce, > A large majority of new foreign investments in Ch…

This is true economically, but the unelected authoritarian Chinese Communist Party still has control over content and communications in those companies and their products. Specifically relevant. Chinese Communist Party allows content on TikTok in US that is not allowed on TikTok in China.

That's a matter of compliance with local censorship laws. American social media companies are obligated to do that when operating abroad, not just in China. YouTube just blocked a Canadian video at the request of the Indian government, for example.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/india-fifth-estate-video-stor...

> In an email to CBC on Wednesday, YouTube said it had received an order from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block access to the video of the story from its website.

> YouTube confirmed to CBC News Wednesday afternoon that "the content has now been blocked from view" on the India YouTube country site. While the content is restricted in India, the video is still available everywhere else on YouTube.

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

#957

Post by butlike »

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 insurgents

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

#958

Post by butlike »

aunty_helen wrote: post #606
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…

I feel like the twitter files weren’t sufficiently long enough ago to make this one sided argument. All governments have their hand in the cook jar.

On the one hand, leaving the potential for CCP propaganda to reach citizen's eyes can be a threat model for insurgency. On the other hand, leaving it monitoring the data coming in, then earmarking when there's an uptick in "flagged" packets or whatever could be a valuable heuristic. It all depends on the point of view.

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

#959

Post by butlike »

kirse wrote: post #553
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…

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…

FB, Insta, Twitter, Snapchat. All home-grown opium. Also, what if. AND I DO MEAN...WHAT IF...there was no CCP propaganda sent through TikTok?

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

#960

Post by butlike »

heroprotagonist wrote: post #889
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…

We have laws against foreign ownership of broadcast TV and radio. Our legal system already acknowledges that foreign ownership of the media is a bad thing that should be prevented. The problem is that these laws haven't been updated for the modern era. TikTok is not covered. But this due to a failure of our politicians to respond to the modern era, not because the bill of rights enshrines or applies to foreign compan…

Why is foreign ownership of the media a bad thing. Put a different way: why should I only get filtered media from my geographic location?

Or is the worry our media will look more and more like propaganda?

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