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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

congress.gov

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#321

Post by dahwolf »

In select countries (China, Turkey, India, many more) apps regularly get banned. In the west we frown upon this practice based on the principle of freedom of speech and free markets and competition.

The second-order effect of this is interesting to ponder about as it creates an asymmetrical situation. Those countries get the "good" parts of social media (as in, good for their government) whilst we get the bad parts of every app ever.

My main point is that these bad parts should not be underestimated. Misinformation campaigns, election interference, calls for violence, addiction, mental health issues, radicalization, polarization, dysfunction, the normalization of degenerate behavior, a cultural breakdown, mob justice, the list is long.

If in China Tiktok users get a cap of 2 hours of usage in which only productive/interesting (science) content is shown whilst in the US teenagers use it for 5-7 hours leading to a mental health crisis, then we're talking about radically different outcomes.

This doesn't mean that social media is only bad, nor does it mean we should ban it. I'm just saying that we should stop seeing it as an unimportant toy. It potentially is a weapon of mass destruction.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#322

Post by SoftTalker »

eganist wrote: post #206
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…

Speaking at least with my background: Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of their awareness of the da…

> China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population

Exactly how most social media execs handle it with respect to their own kids.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#323

Post by vetinari »

brigadier132 wrote: post #307
vetinari wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

China never claimed that they value freedom, (whatever you define as freedom). They value harmony instead, (whatever you define as harmony).

By US banning TikTok, US is acting against claimed values, turning out to be hypocrite. China, by banning US social media, doesn't. Might be seen unfair, but it is a dead end that US painted itself into.

For the sake of argument, _if_ we agree that banning is OK, EU should ban social media from both, and subsidize their own the same way as US subsidized theirs.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#324

Post by alexose »

eganist wrote: post #206
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…

Speaking at least with my background: Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of their awareness of the da…

> China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population

Exactly. We're a decade into the social media experiment now, and it's absolutely clear that it in its current form it doesn't make us smarter, it doesn't make us happier, and it doesn't bring us closer. If anything, it makes people sick and it weakens the social fabric. The proposed solution of "more free speech better" is clearly not working in the face of organized, AI-fueled, nation-state manipulation efforts.

Hacker News is made up of people with a birds-eye view of social media technology. Most of us understand how it works and who operates it. I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, and to remember that most people aren't like us. Most people can't just say, "screw it, I'll get my information elsewhere."

I think we'll improve over time, but we're at least a generation away from any kind of widespread media literacy. What do we do in the meantime?

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#325

Post by TaylorAlexander »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #289
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…

Well yeah, ByteDance directly takes orders from the Chinese government. Big Tech can also take orders from the American government, but America is bound by the rule of law and isn't actively imprisoning millions in concentration camps so it's way better

> America is bound by the rule of law

People keep saying this, but the Snowden leaks make clear this is a fantasy.

> America… isn’t actively imprisoning millions…

It’s a good thing you said “in concentration camps” or that would have been a doozy!

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#326

Post by sebzim4500 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #286
gorwell wrote: post #214

Did anyone notice that the bill doesn't even mention Tiktok??? If it's a "bill to ban TikTok" why doesn't it name the target? It's a red herring. This is the Patriot Act for the Internet. Ironically they're copying the CCP playbook and want the same level of sweeping control with the implementation of a Great Firewall. It's extremely broad and includes everything connected to the internet that has >1M users in a year…

Honest question,did the Patriot act ever get misused intentionally in a grossly negligent way?

Yes. Between 2003 and 2006, nearly two hundred thousand National Security Letters were issued to obtain personal/financial history of US citizens without any judicial review. This data was only used for one terrorism related conviction, and it is generally considered that this conviction would have happend even without the act.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#327

Post by hgsgm »

Aunche wrote: post #319
withinboredom wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [The] US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China. Yeah, except that any business can just buy that information. I can buy your day-to-day movements for dirt cheap. I own a non-American company (though I'm still an American citizen, but that isn't a factor), and it is insanely cheap to get information about any American you want. Hell, BingBot will tell you all about…

Anyone can get your address and phone number from just about anywhere. What you can't purchase are the thousands of data points that Facebook or Google has about your habits, location, and preferences. That's their secret sauce after all.

You can't get it from Google, but you can get it from other data harvesters and brokers with a different business model.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#328

Post by alexose »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #298
eganist wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking at least with my background: Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of their awareness of the da…

Yes, telling parents (who are the voters) that actually they should just be doing a better job monitoring their kids activities online seems like a losing political strategy!

Maybe it's not a binary choice. Parents can do a better job monitoring their kids and the state can make it mildly harder for kids to spend all day on social media.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#330

Post by Invictus0 »

realce wrote: post #263
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly of course, but what about a Ractive? I think something that actively tries to collect data on you and shape your perception controlled by a geopolitical competitor should be handled carefully and potentially outlawed.

So you agree that the Chinese government is doing the right thing when they block a Chinese citizen from viewing Twitter? You agree with the usage of the Great Firewall? You agree with the ability for the government to tell you what websites you can visit? If you use a VPN to read a Chinese newspaper article, you agree that the government should be allowed to imprison you and take all of your possessions? That's madn…

There are many things wrong with this comparison.

1) Twitter is not an arm of the US government in the way that Tiktok and most Chinese companies are.

2) The law is not calling for the information on Tiktok to be banned. For instance, an image of a tweet saying "fuck Xi Jinping" could not be viewed in China, but an image/video of a tiktok saying "fuck biden" would be fine to view in America.

3) Tiktok is not benign like a book is. It extracts information from the user and sends it to the company servers.

4) It is trivial to use the platform to perform psyops; the company could easily mix subtly pro-china content into the feed from time to time.

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