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Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

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Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#141

Post by JohnMakin »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #67
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #55

Crazy, all the spying we do and we can't provide any definitive proof of anything yet we're jumping to banning a company. Looks like all that red scare stuff isn't a thing of the past, eh? And we all get to suffer for it. From losing a platform, to facing shadow bans with no recourse, to laws being passed that continue to stamp out our civil liberties to the point that we forget they were even there, what's it all fo…

China can and already has used tiktok to influence the U.S. population. Just because the US spies a bunch doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect our best interests.

They use Meta systems to do the same thing? What is special about Tiktok?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#142

Post by Uhhrrr »

dralley wrote: post #45
willio58 wrote: post #7

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.

So the great harm is that Congress gets called when they pass a bad bill?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#143

Post by suyash »

slg wrote: post #75

>The "Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" was approved as part of a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Regardless of your opinions on TikTok, this type of thing is incredibly frustrating and routine practice in American politics. Can't actually get support for the legislation you want? Just add it on to some other completely unrelated piec…

Tell that to China, it's worst over there, no reason given just a great firewall ban shows up for your app/service. They have banned so many popular services there for decades, it's time for other countries to do tit for tat.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#144

Post by kenjackson »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #98
sgt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your perfect time to sell the crap before it goes stale. Come on, have we learned nothing?

Maybe I just value not being bullied over being rich.

If you leave the US then you've accomplished what they wanted anyways. And now you're much poorer for it. The upside is you feel like you did it on your terms or something?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#145

Post by thinkingtoilet »

nme01 wrote: post #124

This shows that values such as “freedom of speech” are only key words used to enforce US policy in other countries. For such a long time it was advocated that free speech is an important thing and good in and on itself. Now it turns out the free speech is good only as long as it’s US who dominates the information market.

How is this an attack on free speech? What individual is getting punished for their speech by the government? There is hardly a lack of spaces online for you to say just about anything.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#146

Post by tedivm »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #67
bluSCALE4 wrote: post #55

Crazy, all the spying we do and we can't provide any definitive proof of anything yet we're jumping to banning a company. Looks like all that red scare stuff isn't a thing of the past, eh? And we all get to suffer for it. From losing a platform, to facing shadow bans with no recourse, to laws being passed that continue to stamp out our civil liberties to the point that we forget they were even there, what's it all fo…

China can and already has used tiktok to influence the U.S. population. Just because the US spies a bunch doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect our best interests.

We should block the behavior, not target specific companies or groups because we don't like them. If influencing our elections is bad (and I agree it is) then we should ban corporations from influencing our elections. If we think collecting and aggregating a bunch of data on people is bad we should ban that, rather than picking a single company to ban from doing it while allowing a bunch of others too.

I actually truly believe we should do this- a GDPR style bill for the US that protects people's right to privacy and limits corporations ability to influence our governments. The fact that we know how easy it is for companies to do this but are just upset that a specific company is doing it tells me we're approaching this in the wrong way.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#147

Post by dantheman »

nme01 wrote: post #124

This shows that values such as “freedom of speech” are only key words used to enforce US policy in other countries. For such a long time it was advocated that free speech is an important thing and good in and on itself. Now it turns out the free speech is good only as long as it’s US who dominates the information market.

I think it shows that politicians are short sighted and immoral - nothing new there. Freedom of speech is still incredibly valued and constantly fought for.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#148

Post by afavour »

Buttons840 wrote: post #129
spiderfarmer wrote: post #63

If I were Bytedance I would cut off the US. I certainly would not sell to a competitor. And I’d probably do a licensing deal for the content with a new entity without US based shareholders.

If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that their own government is a problem. They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly. I actually see this as a silver lining. I want…

> I actually see this as a silver lining. I want young people to realize the government effects them and can directly ruin things they enjoy.

Would you also consider it a win if young people realize the dangers of social media apps owned by geopolitical competitors able to alter the mindset of the population?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#150

Post by THENATHE »

returningfory2 wrote: post #38

The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away. It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. To be clear, I'm not sup…

The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
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