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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

#231

Post by briffle »

afavour wrote: post #148
Buttons840 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but that would also mean realizing the dangers of social media apps owned by American companies and our allies also being able to alter the mindset of the population, which is a great thing.

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

#232

Post by nebula8804 »

efitz wrote: post #179

I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative. My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted. I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contract…

>China and other countries do far worse to us than just requiring local ownership of businesses; and if they feel that is in their national interest, why can’t we return the favor when we feel it’s in our interest?

This is bigger than China for a lot of people. TikTok has given an alternative voice to groups typically marginalized on pro-Western platforms. We typically see hypocrisy from the West when it comes to Israel and current times are no different. Tiktok has allowed nearly more access to whatever footage is capable of sneaking out of the warzone whereas Meta platforms tend to suppress. (ex: they recently auto-defaulted a restriction on political content without informing their users).

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

#233

Post by dfxm12 »

suyash wrote: post #143
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.

I'm more interested in maintaining my own freedom & not further hindering freedom of the Web than spiting the Chinese government. I understand passions may be high when it comes to China, but do please consider these tradeoffs, because I'm not sure what this does to Chinese government in the grand scheme of things, but now the US government has a framework and precedent to stop me from using apps.

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

#234

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jMyles wrote: post #17
lispisok wrote: post #4

Maybe I'm ignorant but can somebody explain to me how the federal government can just ban TikTok? If I create an app or business can the feds just decide to ban it and it's over?

The state can pass whatever legislation it wants; we've seen convincingly that constitutional restraints are not substantially motivating (although the strongest evidence for this in the current week is not this bill, but the legislation surrounding the ongoing surveillance regime(s)). But the bigger question is the literal one you've asked: how the federal government can just ban TikTok? What makes the government th…

They aren’t going to stop packets. They are going to prevent TikTok from doing business in the US. No apps in the App Store, no ads from American companies, etc. no money from American customers.

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

#235

Post by JohnBooty »

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 don't even think you need to cook up possibilities as complicated as "psyop."

It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate, that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin this week" etc.

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

#236

Post by jauntywundrkind »

I wonder how effective being banned would really be at slowing down usage?

Across various threads there's a lot of info on how large & what a revenue source the US is for TikTok, and an assumption that that goes away. But do people think the ban would be 100% effective, that no one would workaround? Would TikTok accept the ban or try to help people work around it?

I kind of want to see an example of the US trying to control things at out. It's probably not enough for ByteDance, but if they could retain 20% of the US in spite of the ban, that'd be a pretty big cultural victory, would be an impressive way to show up congress.

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

#237

Post by waihtis »

afavour wrote: post #95
waihtis wrote: post #85

Good. Tiktok is a threat to humanity’s survival, or at least an extremely potent gateway drug to it.

If that’s the argument then you need to regulate social media as a whole. Instead this is specifically geopolitical intrigue rather than any care about the mental health of the American people. Microsoft/Meta/A conglomerate of record labels(?) will buy TikTok and it’ll continue to exist just as it does today.

> you need to regulate social media as a whole

No, actually we dont. There is no divine mandate that requires us to do that, especially in a scenario where the geopolitical rival is using our credulity to their advantage.

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

#239

Post by NegativeLatency »

duxup wrote: post #113

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

Just because some other country suppresses what content their citizens see doesn't mean we should too.

I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.

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

#240

Post by NegativeLatency »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #145
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.

Google and Meta have limited what political content they'll show to you, feels like a pretty clear attack on something the establishment doesn't like but justifying it with the boogey man of communism: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240737627/meta-limit-politic...
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