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U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#181

Post by cwkoss »

__jal wrote: post #51
CydeWeys wrote: post #23

I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network. I suspect (b) can be explained primarily through ignorance.

A huge swath of the consumer market in physical products is Chinese goods. Why would your average nontechnical, fairly apolitical, non-foreign policy or intelligence news following person draw a distinction? They see a fun app, they play with it. If they're even aware of censorship issues or geopolitical power games, that seems very distant from some app that amuses them for a few minutes a day.

I'm trying to avoid Chinese manufactured goods where possible. Does anyone know of good online resources for looking up companies which don't have China in their supply chain?

I've found sites that do "made in america" generally, but ideally I'd like a site that allows something like "sort by distance to manufacturer" - I'd like to preferentially support businesses proportionally to how geographically local they are.

Would also be interested in sites that have some sort of curated directory of companies that have good labor relations, quality controls, environmental impact, etc.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#182

Post by pdabbadabba »

_u5xo wrote: post #145
pdabbadabba wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you referring to, exactly? There certainly is no enforceable law in the United States against LGBT content. There theoretically are restrictions on "obscenity," but they are virtually nonexistent in practice. The only law I can think of that resembles what you're describing in any way is our, indeed, quite aggressive ban on child pornography. And I'm no expert on Canadian child pornography laws, but I'll bet…

Sorry I may of missed your point? As a lot of right wing commentary (not saying that you are right wing) suggest when talking about LGBTQ they bring up child pornography alot. Why are you doing so as well?

Yes, you missed it. My point is that the US government does not censor LGBTQ content. In fact, it censors very few types of content. One of the few areas it does censor, just by way of example, is child pornography. But this has nothing to do with LGBTQ content--thus my puzzlement over GP's comment.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#183

Post by Slartie »

So a president who basically hands victory after victory to foreign governments and who effectively reduced the toolbox of the United States to shape foreign relations to "sanctions" and "tariffs" is not considered a threat to national security. Everything's fine with that.

But if just one foreign social network app manages to divert some serious attention of US teenagers from Facebook for the first time in Internet history, THAT of course is a threat to national security.

Seriously...is this a parody?

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#184

Post by mustacheemperor »

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #169

I am an American-born man of Western European descent. My girlfriend is a Chinese passport holder here on H1B. I am an anarchist. I absolutely do not understand why there is so much hate for Chinese people, Chinese companies, or the Chinese government. Literally everything has flaws, and Western Europe and USA have plenty of them. If you are not willing to say "China does xyz but actually also my country does somethi…

This line of discussion seems a bit off the topic of the thread, but I want to respond to you. Based on your last paragraph, it seems to me like it should be pretty clear why there is so much hate for the Chinese government and the companies that act as agents for Chinese government censorship and oppression policies. There are many Chinese nationals suffering and dying in concentration camps _right now_. Am I obliged to engage in whataboutism just to hold the opinion that example and other human rights atrocities are sufficient reason to reject cooperation with the Chinese regime, or the opinion that domestic companies should not become active agents of the the regime’s censorship objectives to do business there?

Your comment seems to conflate all of that criticism with “hate for Chinese people,” which seems unfair and disingenuous since I and presumably many people opposed to the CCCP feel that way because of the fate of all the people currently in China’s borders and subjugated by the regime.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#185

Post by funny_username »

tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #170
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #130

While I agree that Chinese soft imperialism is bad, I think it's tremendously funny that Americans are complaining about it now, after years of using military and economic power to enforce a similar imperialism everywhere.

The false equivalence is strong with this one. In no way shape or form is it even remotely similar.

Victor Jara would've loved to speak with you.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#186

Post by hnuser77 »

dv_dt wrote: post #140
vkou wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same is said for non-US consumers, who consume US-made media (Which is consumed world-wide, and has in many places, displaced local media.)

While the US doesn't hard censor media like China, I'd agree there is something of a soft censorship/ignoring of many topics. And, if you think about US based hard restraints, there are certainly onerous restrictions with rules attached to financial services imposed by the US into foreign nations.

Some teachable moments about the soft censorship system are when 1) it misfires, like when a teenager stands around on video with a smile in the general vicinity of a Native American man and has his reputation immediately smeared by multiple national networks and thousands of other highly credentialed professionals, 2) when a dozen major online platforms and infrastructure services "independently" ban the same person in a 72 hour period, or 3) when snippets or leaks come out that demonstrate levers of political control, like the "YouTube Controversial Query Blacklist", or when the Chancellor of Germany asks Mark Zuckerberg on a hot mic to censor certain topics and he agrees.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#187

Post by CharlesColeman »

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #169

I am an American-born man of Western European descent. My girlfriend is a Chinese passport holder here on H1B. I am an anarchist. I absolutely do not understand why there is so much hate for Chinese people, Chinese companies, or the Chinese government. Literally everything has flaws, and Western Europe and USA have plenty of them. If you are not willing to say "China does xyz but actually also my country does somethi…

> I absolutely do not understand why there is so much hate for Chinese people, Chinese companies, or the Chinese government.

> please do not act as if your statements about Chinese nationals

I think it's misleading to bring up the Chinese people in this way: the "hate," if it can even be called that, is for the Chinese government and the CCP. The real or imagined influence of the CCP over Chinese companies is causing the latter to be viewed with greater suspicion.

The Chinese people/Chinese nationals as a group aren't being viewed as antagonists (though unfortunate abbreviations like using "the Chinese" for "the Chinese government" do confuse things sometimes). If anything, I'd bet most people who are critical of the CPP, etc. would see the Chinese people sympathetically as closer to victims than anything else.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#188

Post by pdabbadabba »

kart23 wrote: post #117
pdabbadabba wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you referring to, exactly? There certainly is no enforceable law in the United States against LGBT content. There theoretically are restrictions on "obscenity," but they are virtually nonexistent in practice. The only law I can think of that resembles what you're describing in any way is our, indeed, quite aggressive ban on child pornography. And I'm no expert on Canadian child pornography laws, but I'll bet…

Pretty much all hate speech is censored on social media platforms. So is calling for or promoting violence against certain groups. Harrassment is also prohibited on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. All American social media censors their users, most people just arent producing that type of content.

Yes. But GP's comment was about the US government, not restrictions placed on content by American companies voluntarily (or due to pressure from the broader US culture). I agree, of course, the US culture is restrictive in some ways, and this can come through in the practices of US companies (the culture is also quite permissive in some ways). But this is different in important ways from the restrictions being imposed by the government.

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#189

Post by stetrain »

Slartie wrote: post #183

So a president who basically hands victory after victory to foreign governments and who effectively reduced the toolbox of the United States to shape foreign relations to "sanctions" and "tariffs" is not considered a threat to national security. Everything's fine with that. But if just one foreign social network app manages to divert some serious attention of US teenagers from Facebook for the first time in Internet…

I mean, there's basically one primary mechanism by which the president's actions can be challenged (other than lawsuit on constitutionality), and that mechanism is currently in progress in the House of Representatives.

I'm not sure I'd call that "Everything's fine"

Re: U.S. opens a national security review of TikTok’s acquisition of Musical.ly

#190

Post by sol_remmy2 »

inetknght wrote: post #95
justinzollars wrote: post #86

TikTok is actually a great app. When I was a kid in the 00's my friends and I used to carry around a video camera to make music videos. With TikTok you can do it with your cell phone. They beat SnapChat, FB and Instagram on experience. Censorship is something serious to consider, but these are mainly kids making music videos. They aren't using it to organize campaigns.

> these are mainly kids making music videos. They aren't using it to organize campaigns. I think that's a dangerously naive interpretation of the platform (or any platform really), particularly when it involves children and young adult minds.

Have you seen the weird articles on Snapchat Discover? "Why I'm never taking my mom to an x-rated convention again" "How my kitten play fetish makes me feel less alone" "Why I've been dressing like a horse for twenty years"

If I had a teenage daughter, I'd feel much more comfortable with her using the Chinese tik-tok than whatever tabloid-level trash Snapchat is pushing these days. Some of these American media companies have just gotten weird

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