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US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

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Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#121

Post by rightbyte »

mindslight wrote: post #20
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

I don't really mind that per se. What I do mind is the government letting domestic companies run roughshod over the population with surveillance/influence for the past few decades, and then when a significant enough foreign company finally does it, focusing on that foreign company while continuing to ignore the longstanding deeper problem. Rather than focusing on TikTok, how about a general solution of a US GDPR plus…

I for one miss this type of humour. It is dead. Mailing list humour is dead. Chain mail humour is dead.

The book is a 200 page rant. Like, it is beutuful that someone can care so much.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#122

Post by junon »

nearbuy wrote: post #60
brigadier132 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is following a tit for tat strategy. Which European companies has the US forced to divest their holdings to justify the action you're proposing?

Which US companies has China forced to divest their holdings?

Literally almost all of them.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#123

Post by DoItToMe81 »

wcunning wrote: post #16
_akhe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China bans sites & apps from the West that violate their laws - the ad tracking, monitoring, censorship & influencer/fake news we have here... the funding schemes and market monopolizing that companies like Facebook do in the West is just not legal there. Can you blame them for not wanting it? Companies that don't violate Chinese laws and approach China with realistic deals are allowed to operate there - you can play…

They also ban TikTok -- the Chinese version doesn't push the type of content TikTok does and doesn't mix international user data into the local version. Notably, several other countries with mediocre relationships with China also ban TikTok, for example India.

People who say this have never used Douyin. It's influencer shilling and funny animal videos.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#124

Post by kgdiem »

This is really difficult for me. I have an app that is available in every country except for China because it isn’t allowed to be published there.

In that vein it seems fair and probably doesn’t go far enough — Chinese citizens are free to publish whatever they want in the US while we’re severely restricted on conducting trade in China.

On the other hand, I’d love access to that market and would prefer trade negotiations rather than tit for tat disputes like this that won’t further the interests of American businesses (outside of Meta and Snapchat)

The app https://dailydao.app

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#125

Post by eviks »

PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #2

Not always a popular sentiment, but I don't really mind treating a country's companies as that country treats ours. I know this TikTok issue is far more nuanced (who the backers/owners are, how data is treated etc) of course.

Censorship is always a pretty popular sentiment, as well as conflating governments with their subjects, pardon, citizens. That's one of the reasons similar measures get passed

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#126

Post by ThunderSizzle »

wnevets wrote: post #74
kelnos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably none, or very few, but the reason for that is China doesn't allow local companies to be majority-owned by foreign entities in the first place. Another, somewhat equivalent answer to your question is, "all of them".

doesn't that mean any company that does business in China should share the same security concerns if not worse than TikTok? I would be much more concerned about hardware that is being made and/or assembled by Chinse companies in China that a smartphone app

Bingo.

The anti-Tiktok focus might be more about the fact the CIA and FBI don't have control like they do with Facebook or YouTube.

Notice they also want to shut down X since Musk bought it probably for a similar reason.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#127

Post by CBarkleyU »

kgdiem wrote: post #124

This is really difficult for me. I have an app that is available in every country except for China because it isn’t allowed to be published there. In that vein it seems fair and probably doesn’t go far enough — Chinese citizens are free to publish whatever they want in the US while we’re severely restricted on conducting trade in China. On the other hand, I’d love access to that market and would prefer trade negotiat…

The West was greedy and saw a trillion dollar opportunity in welcoming China into the WTO in 2000 and gave China massive leeway (this is my opinion, and probably not a majority opinion).

In my opinion (only speaking for Germany, as I follow mostly the politics here) nobody was very keen on asking questions and making demand when the Chinese were producing our shit for pennies on the dollar but buying our premium Mercedes Benz S Classes Long Lines (and similar high technology products) by the millions.

Who would've thunk that the turntables would've, well turned...

I'm not blaming China for this btw, they played their hand very well

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#128

Post by krapp »

ajmurmann wrote: post #102
krapp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not yet, but this is an obvious step in the same direction, "banning" a social media platform to prevent exposure to foreign ideas. It's difficult not to assume the motives are similar, a need to control political narratives and manufacture consent for American policy.

It's not about foreign ideas. It's about a foreign, arguably hostile, government having control over what gets amplified and what gets hidden. I don't think anyone would have an issue with an official CCP account posting CCP positions on social media platforms they don't control. Those things are very, very different!

Unless you're arguing the CCP is going to force TikTok's algorithm to amplify Chinese propaganda, the algorithm is probably going to work the way it does everywhere, by optimizing for engagement by showing content similar to what a user already prefers. I'm not aware of evidence of that, though, beyond the circumstantial evidence of people claiming American leftist activism must the result of CCP brainwashing through the platform.

While social media algorithms can (and does) lead to filter bubbles and radicalism by exposure to extremist content, that just makes TikTok no more or less dangerous than all other social media platforms in that regard, and that remains the case under American ownership. And those algorithms and that extremist content are more often than not protected by American free speech rights, as are the rights of platforms to police content as they wish (this includes the right to propagandize.)

Singling out TikTok because it's owned by China, and might do things it has every legal right to do in the US anyway, seems specious. Social media is already a hotbed of disinformation and propaganda, and TikTok's influence is a drop in the bucket compared to Twitter (which is going full Nazi and the moment) and Facebook and Google, with their deep ties to the American military and intellegence services.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#129

Post by chaosbolt »

kgdiem wrote: post #124

This is really difficult for me. I have an app that is available in every country except for China because it isn’t allowed to be published there. In that vein it seems fair and probably doesn’t go far enough — Chinese citizens are free to publish whatever they want in the US while we’re severely restricted on conducting trade in China. On the other hand, I’d love access to that market and would prefer trade negotiat…

But then we have different values than China, and we claim to have more freedom (whatever it means today).

The ban on tiktok didn't come when everyone was criticizing the negative impact it had on children and teenager's mental health, it only came now when lots of its users started publicly criticizing a certain country more openly than is allowed on other platforms... So its censorship/ban will be to comply with western censorship rules,thus making us no better than China in this regard.

Re: US House passes bill to ban TikTok if owners won't divest

#130

Post by johngladtj »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
_akhe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China bans sites & apps from the West that violate their laws - the ad tracking, monitoring, censorship & influencer/fake news we have here... the funding schemes and market monopolizing that companies like Facebook do in the West is just not legal there. Can you blame them for not wanting it? Companies that don't violate Chinese laws and approach China with realistic deals are allowed to operate there - you can play…

> Companies that don't violate Chinese laws and approach China with realistic deals are allowed to operate there China isn’t a country with the rule of law. They don’t even pretend as much. If you appease Xi, you can stay. If you don’t, you’re out.

Name one country with rule of law so that I may show you an example of such rule not existing
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