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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#301

Post by revscat »

chimeracoder wrote: post #280
revscat wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That have a million or more users and are owned by adversaries of the United States. Seems reasonable.

> That have a million or more users and are owned by adversaries of the United States. No, it is not only restricted to services that are owned by adversaries of the United States. The text of the bill is very clear and much broader.

(10) ICTS COVERED HOLDING ENTITY.—The term “ICTS covered holding entity” means any entity that—

(A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and

(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or

(ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#302

Post by withinboredom »

threeseed wrote: post #273
withinboredom wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can buy that information for 'practically free' (amortized per person), you don't need an app for that.

Please provide me a dataset I can buy that has video feeds, so I can do facial recognition, as well as deep behavioural insights.

There are webcam feeds all over the earth, most can be found by just scanning ip addresses. There are even websites dedicated to finding them. You’d probably have a better dataset than TikTok simply because it is more realistic. The best part: it is free.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#303

Post by brigadier132 »

goatlover wrote: post #277
brigadier132 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are also ignoring the fact that China does not allow our social media companies to operate in their jurisdiction. So part of this is a sense of fairness. Why do they get to operate here if we can't operate there?

Because the US isn't China, not should it try to be.

What US value is being respected by allowing a different authoritarian country operate uncontested on American soil?

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#304

Post by micromacrofoot »

withinboredom wrote: post #164

Maybe someone will scroll all the way down to this comment. Probably not. For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me. There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how…

They're compounding problems, we have alarming increases in teenage depression rates (especially amongst girls), and there's some correlation with the rise of social media as well as other things like school shootings.

I agree with you that there are more important things, but we do lots at once. Honestly if shooting up congresspeople, kindergartners, and kindergartners shooting teachers hasn't changed anything in regards to guns... I don't know what will.

This isn't really about protecting kids anyway though, it's mostly fearmongering about China, which is one of the rare things most of our legislature agrees on these days.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#305

Post by bmarquez »

mistermann wrote: post #205
throwaway4837 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children. This is really meant to be a punch in the fight against China. US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their qu…

> Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children. This overlooks the "possibility" that those platforms have an "agreement" of sorts with the US Government. The Twitter Files have gone into some of that, but be caref…

> This overlooks the "possibility" that those platforms have an "agreement" of sorts with the US Government.

Of course they do, it's called Prism and it's been around for over a decade.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#306

Post by brigadier132 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #193
lazyeye wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But its not open markets if one partner blocks all access to it's own market? In what other trade context would this scenario be acceptable? And how does giving access to an authoritarian regime, famous for controlling speech, promote free speech?

Consumer choice is unequivocally good. Besides, the problem is already solvable. People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits. No one is forcing them. This is a vote with your feet issue, plain and simple.

> People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits

A democratically elected government banning something is the people deciding.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#307

Post by brigadier132 »

vetinari wrote: post #237
brigadier132 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are also ignoring the fact that China does not allow our social media companies to operate in their jurisdiction. So part of this is a sense of fairness. Why do they get to operate here if we can't operate there?

Because they have seen how EU's social media companies ended up. What EU's social media companies? Exactly.

Ok, so you gave a good reason for China to ban US companies and you haven't given a good one for why the US shouldn't ban TikTok.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#308

Post by atlasunshrugged »

humanistbot wrote: post #3

If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally to all social media platforms, regardless of who currently owns it or may own it in the future?

Congress is also working on privacy legislation, it just takes forever because it's massive and complex. I imagine that legislators feel they have urgency/momentum behind the TikTok stuff to get something focused done. From the article below: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee last year advanced a bipartisan bill backed by Rodgers and sponsored by ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., that would produce a national data privacy standard, but the measure didn't get a House floor vote, and no similar measure has passed in the Senate."

https://rollcall.com/2023/02/02/lawmakers-stumble-on-data-pr...

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#309

Post by dragonwriter »

revscat wrote: post #272
chimeracoder wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way? Explain that, and let readers decide if it is horrific. The bill allows the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally ban products associated with countries of their choosing, with a 20 year prison sentence for any US citizen who attempts to use a VPN to circumvent the access ban.

That have a million or more users and are owned by adversaries of the United States. Seems reasonable.

> are owned by adversaries of the United States

Its not “are owned by”, its “has a current, pending, or potential future controlling interest, direct or indirect, that is, will be, or will come to have been held by an adversary of the united states” (and, yes, the bill itself explicitly and separately refers to both simple future and future perfect, for some reason.)

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#310

Post by bigmattystyles »

chimeracoder wrote: post #194
bigmattystyles wrote: post #106

I feel like they could have done this by creating a bill saying that US social media companies must be given the same access and freedoms to the Chinese market as TikTok has to ours. It would put the onus back on the CCP, they would never allow it and they would get TikTok banned in the US without being the ones to directly ban it. I am sure someone smarter than I can tell me why this is not a viable strategy.

> I feel like they could have done this by creating a bill saying that US social media companies must be given the same access and freedoms to the Chinese market as TikTok has to ours. If you read the bill, it's very transparent that it's not about market access, and that it's not specific to China. It explicitly names five other countries and also authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to include any country that they…

Yes, that's my point, I disagree with the approach and justification they took.
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