Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#651

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #246

stale2002 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under what authority? Under the authority of an executive order. > Why should they comply? Because these are american companies, who make a bunch of their money in america, and they can be fined many millions or even billions of dollars, or possibly even arrested if they don't comply with the orders of the nation that has the most powerful military in the world. > What's he going to do when ByteDance uploads the .a…

So you basically reject the overarching principle of limited government? Want to go full Melian Dialogue? The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must? The problem with ruling arbitrarily is that it kills predictability and crushes the spirit. It leads to a state of fear in which nobody wants to invest or go out on a limb, because in an environment where you can be punished for anything, everything…

> So you basically reject the overarching principle of limited government?

It is a good general principle to follow, as a very high level rule.

But when a country is in conflict with other nation states, that are not following the same principles as you are, then sometimes a country has to make comprises on their principles in order to not be at a disadvantage.

So if China changes a bunch of their own rules, and becomes a much more free and open country, then I would support giving them the benefit of small government/free market protections.

Nation states conflicts are messy. And you have to compromise on some of your principles in order to prevent others from taken advantage of you, who do not follow your own principles.

> The problem with ruling arbitrarily

It is not arbitrary. The USA is in serious conflict with China. And this is one such action that is at least indirectly related to these higher level nation state conflicts.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by onepointsixC » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #131

nan0 wrote: post #49

Could this be the same as a tit for tat measure like with tariffs? China has banned a lot of US services and forced US corporations to pull content from their stores too [0] [1]. Genuinely asking and want to remain open-minded about this. 0: https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/10-popular-apps-and-we... 1: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news18.com/amp/news/tech/ch...

> Could this be the same as a tit for tat measure like with tariffs? It certainly hopes to provoke a cycle of retaliatory escalation, because it's an election year stunt looking to distract from, well, a whole lot of other things with a manufactured international crisis to create a rally-around-the-flag effect. It will probably fail as a political strategy somewhat less spectacularly than “let’s avoid having a nation…

And what will be the retaliation? China has already banned just about every major US equivalent. It's mind numbing how many people are crying about trade reciprocity finally reaching China.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by throwaway894345 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #646

throwaway894345 wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have a much more direct impact on the U.S. and making it better than you have on China. Diluting yourself into thinking the U.S. is already essentially "the good guys" prevents you from having the will to actively improve it and over time leads to the fact of it being not as far from China as you'd like. You’re mistaken, I have little difficulty in acknowledging America’s faults and focusing on improving them.…

> You’re mistaken, I have little difficulty in acknowledging America’s faults and focusing on improving them. You haven't acknowledged a single one so far. You simply brush them as "I don't think the U.S. has killed millions of civilians within living memory" (it has), or the lack of healthcare is somehow not a direct consequence of capitalism in a sector that shouldn't be for profit (it is). Everyone can say they ca…

You keep misrepresenting me. I have acknowledged America’s faults, including the absence of universal healthcare. This isn’t meaningfully “a consequence of capitalism” as indeed many European countries with their public sector healthcare have capitalist economies. It’s really too bad that you insist on misrepresenting me and making disingenuous comparisons, because I think this conversation could have been interesting and mutually enlightening. Oh well, you are right that this conversation won’t be going further.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#654

Post by flywheel » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 11:25 PM UTC

linlucas wrote: post #335

flywheel wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You replied with nonsense. The fact is China is good at one thing: ripping off other countries inventions. Name one high tech thing in the last 1,000 years invented in China - no, not iteration, but INVENTED. Since gunpowder, China has stagnated.

Huawei has more 5G patents than any other company. By far.

I'll admit that one thing China is great at - downvote brigading posts about China, as evidenced right here. Still not high-tech though.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by onepointsixC » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

envy2 wrote: post #271

This is a terrible development and precedent. Whatever you think of the CCP and the Chinese approach to censorship and tech, building our own 'Great Firewall' and banning foreign apps/services we don't like is not the answer. It just legitimises the Chinese approach and sends us further down the road to a fragmented rather than open internet.

It's reciprocity. China built a great firewall, and now countries are just merely putting their own locks to the gates to prevent the China from having free access to their own markets while refusing to provide the same.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#656

Post by onepointsixC » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

re6tor wrote: post #327

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #106

Not even getting into the CCP ties, it's always struck me as unfair that Western social media companies are banned in China, while Chinese ones have been able to compete Worldwide. In a way this gives Chinese apps an immediate advantage (as some are indirectly calling out in this comment section). If you want to reach out to someone in China, you have to use a Chinese company's app. Since social media is mostly a win…

The message that would trascend from such an action is that our vision of how a society should work was no better than the one in China. The West always believed their ideals and principles around "democracy" and "freedom" were superior to those of the CCP. Now the West also needs to ban (in this case, a social media platform) to function and is no better than its rival. If anything, this would prove the CCP was alwa…

> If anything, this would prove the CCP was always right when it applied such measures in the past.

It does no such thing. China was given market access under the precise promise of the Chinese would likewise open their own markets. They did not do that. Then they explicitly started banning American companies, conducting unfair trade practices, and more. All we're seeing now is a long await readjustment to reciprocity. Your logic is bizarre. If two parties were in a Mexican stand off, and both agreed to put down their guns only for one to not actually put them down, then the other party that put their gun down can pick it back up just fine. That other party IS better than it's rival because it acted in good faith, and it was it's rival who was deceitful.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by stjohnswarts » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 12:17 AM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #293

Not US citizen here. Can someone explain how in a democracy the chief executive can singlehandedly decide to ban a media only a few month before elections? I can't make any sense of that, it seems wrong at so many levels...

He can try, it will never survive court unless he can prove the chinese really were up to something and then it falls into his purview of Chief Executive/Policeman. He almost certainly doesn't have that evidence or he would have already posted it to twitter. He is currently in a panic right now to create some fear/successes for the November election. He's appealing to his base and hoping to pull in a few people who hate "the reds".

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

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Post by stjohnswarts » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 12:19 AM UTC

anon9001 wrote: post #459

caymanjim wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is that he can't. The president has no power to ban TikTok. The president also has no control over how the app is distributed or its connectivity. He can say whatever he wants, and he can strongarm the agencies he has some control over (like the FCC), but there's simply no mechanism by which a ban can be enforced, legal or technical. Unless Google and Apple decide to voluntarily remove it from their…

I want you to be right, but I don't think you are. He's likely to issue some kind of executive order forcing bytedance to divest tiktok to continue operations. We may see some DoJ or FCC enforcement action that's effectively a "ban" (for users) while only being legally a temporary disruption of service pending compliance (for lawmakers, judges, enforcement agencies, etc to be okay with it). As we have learned over th…

He is right actually, and has a great argument and I don't feel you are correct at all. It looks like TikTok USA is currently trying to shut him down by simply becoming a completely independent company that is USA based and doesn't share any data with China. That is the 3rd option.

However if the CIA has some evidence that the Chinese are gathering up information and feeding it straight to their cybertroll farms then he absolutely can shut it all down and arrest some people because then they are breaking the law and that falls under Federal police power.

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#659

Post by summitsummit » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 12:47 AM UTC

burtonator wrote: post #77

surround wrote: post #37

I’m torn. On one hand, we’ve seen how TikTok has been used by the CCP to extend the reach of its censorship, oppression, and surveillance. On the other hand, I’m not sure if the government should be deciding what software we’re allowed to have.

One option would be to pass a blanket law that doesn't just impact TikTok but US players too and then ban ALL offending apps. This is only about hurting China and TikTok and NOT improving safety of US users. If the US cared it would just change legislation to require rights be protected for social media companies - but that would impact Facebook so that's not going to happen.

cant help but think facebook might be behind this push to ban tiktok, given how they're already created a rip-off clone of the service perfectly coincidentally in time with when tiktok's supposed to be banned

Re: Trump says he will ban TikTok through executive action

#660

Post by mistermann » Sun, Aug 02, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #430

Twisell wrote: post #293

Not US citizen here. Can someone explain how in a democracy the chief executive can singlehandedly decide to ban a media only a few month before elections? I can't make any sense of that, it seems wrong at so many levels...

The short answer is that he can't. The president has no power to ban TikTok. The president also has no control over how the app is distributed or its connectivity. He can say whatever he wants, and he can strongarm the agencies he has some control over (like the FCC), but there's simply no mechanism by which a ban can be enforced, legal or technical. Unless Google and Apple decide to voluntarily remove it from their…

Money and top secret guidelines could make this happen completely legally. I see TikTok as a strategic platform, including geopolitical. It is a wire into 100 million mostly young American minds.