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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#711

Post by throwaway29812 »

quacked wrote: post #514
withinboredom wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every American expat I know has a similar-ish process where they have to get over the fear/anxiety from living in the US. It’s a proper dinner topic. So yes, I assume it’s typical. Perhaps not 1:1, but there are always similar elements. Edit to add: everyone says they never noticed it while living there. They only noticed it after the first few months/years when it was no longer present.

I don't think that other countries have had their social fabric broken down quite as far as Americans have. A big part of American fear is knowing that nearly every single person you interact with that isn't a friend of yours doesn't really consider you their "people". No matter what ethnicity or social class you come from, if you leave the house you're going to spend a lot of time around people that don't feel any p…

Does your anecdote include the immigrant experience? You are perhaps describing the experience of a Lebanese in Lebanon, or a German in Germany. What about everyone else?

> A big part of American fear is knowing that nearly every single person you interact with that isn't a friend of yours doesn't really consider you their "people".

The other side of this coin: America actually accepts people from other places. Most of the world will always see you as foreign if you come from abroad, even if you have lived there your whole life.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#712

Post by rawgabbit »

shagie wrote: post #495
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…

The "name a specific company" is known as a bill of attainder ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder ) > A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect…

From my cursory reading of the bill, it says (a) if a foreign adversary has control or interest in a piece of hardware or software or IOT (b) and that hardware software IOT touches or has data for more than 1,000,000 persons in any given year (c) the Secretary needs to decide if it should be banned or do something about it.

I understand that any bill can be abused. But IMO this bill reads like common sense.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#713

Post by mistermann »

californical wrote: post #641
mistermann wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm WAY more distrustful and scared of the US government than the Chinese government.

Then you’re misinformed. The United States doesn’t have great political accountability recently, but China has ~none.

This topic really does a number on otherwise reasonably rational minds.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#714

Post by mistermann »

charlieflowers wrote: post #662
mistermann wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have Tik Tok installed, my kids only get the "reruns" off YouTube, but frankly I find it a bit extremist that the US government wants to ban an app that looks to me like people doing funny dances in their living rooms. There is a wide variety of content on TikTok. One category is (tens/hundreds of) thousands of people who watched the Congressional "democracy" theatre on the TikTok ban realizing that their s…

True, I think the political elite made a big mistake, revealing the clowns behind the curtain. The younger generation, even with their default disgruntlement with the system, still might've taken another decade to figure out just how much the emperor has no clothes.

If they kill TikTok now, I think it can easily be patched back up. Assuming something even more powerful doesn't come along.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#715

Post by throwaway29812 »

ironick09 wrote: post #599
withinboredom wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every American expat I know has a similar-ish process where they have to get over the fear/anxiety from living in the US. It’s a proper dinner topic. So yes, I assume it’s typical. Perhaps not 1:1, but there are always similar elements. Edit to add: everyone says they never noticed it while living there. They only noticed it after the first few months/years when it was no longer present.

Honestly this just sounds entirely made up. It seems surreal to me that you live your life in fear, of what? The United States? Either that or you’re extremely over exaggerating.

People work hard to justify their decisions after they made them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#716

Post by dirtyid »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #140
dirtyid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because US/western social media has same market access to PRC... all they have to do is follow PRC regulations. Literally why FB and Google had internal projects to engineer compliant products to re-enter PRC market, but killed due to internal dissent. The narrative that PRC bans US platforms was always cope. Google pulled out because they didn't like dissidents being hacked, when operationally and eventually they sh…

Oi - where to start - let's go one by one. >> Because US/western social media has same market access to PRC I do not believe that the preferred platforms of the CCP, owned and operated by the same people, would not be favored in China. There is no open or transparent lobbying in China. Rather, overnight, someone from the CCP can decide that your platform should be shut down and your employees harassed, arrested and/o…

> realpolitik, is alive and well ... > compared to the CCP's framework, there is no debate

Really the crux of issue for me. By all means ban TikTok, Huawei, constrain PRC chips, but let's chalk it up to sensible realpolitik than narrative over morals/frameworks. Like CIA basically bribed their way to control promotions throughout CCP throughout 90s-00s, hence Xi crackdwon on foreign NGOs, and dismantled PRC CIA networks. If US fears that's a risk vector for tiktok, and US society laws too open/fragile to handle even JV configurations like in PRC, then sensible people should accept that to ban TikTok, US has to adopt harsher methods than even PRC.

> would not be favored in China

I specifically highlighted PRC _would_ have tip scales towards domestic incumbents. Like US is doing now against TikTok. But PRC didn't have to do much, western platforms never really got localization right, Google stole Sogou pinyin so input didn't suck, Youtube never broke top10 streaming, Amazon was unimpressive relative to other ecommerce. PRC companies that focused solely on domestic market outcompeted western platforms where PRC sideshow. Then exported Tiktok that flourished in US because it's fashioned after Douyin style feel good content due to survivorship bias of PRC censorship.

> would any western company take that chance

Ask the 10,000s western companies that operate in PRC fine for 30+ years. Or why is twitter in India despite indian gov threatening to arrest employees? Or why western platforms in Vietnam cede to VCP censorship requests. Many have grown enough to have no scruples working with "shady" governments now. Hence me highlighting western platforms during 00s-10s had SV pride/optics/ethos considerations of the time that made today's routine acquiescing to foreign security interests unlikely then. As for why take that chance, because PRC still large market that was worth friction cost, until geopolitics made it not.

> US doesn't have these issues to this level

IMO functionally it does, all the lobbying and connections in the world isn't going to overcome interests of motivated national security state. US domestic sentiment has little effect on actual foreign / security policy. US had to ram through CHIPs act / October "surprise" without much industry consultation / ability to disrupt because ultimately US just comparably as capable as PRC in terms of overnight responses. Dressing it up with demographic process theatre isn't particularly convincing considering how many strategic industries US is home too, industries like in PRC that exist because state was precient enough to keep competition out/down.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#717

Post by quacked »

throwaway29812 wrote: post #711
quacked wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that other countries have had their social fabric broken down quite as far as Americans have. A big part of American fear is knowing that nearly every single person you interact with that isn't a friend of yours doesn't really consider you their "people". No matter what ethnicity or social class you come from, if you leave the house you're going to spend a lot of time around people that don't feel any p…

Does your anecdote include the immigrant experience? You are perhaps describing the experience of a Lebanese in Lebanon, or a German in Germany. What about everyone else? > A big part of American fear is knowing that nearly every single person you interact with that isn't a friend of yours doesn't really consider you their "people". The other side of this coin: America actually accepts people from other places. Most…

I don't think America accepts immigrants; in most places there's a pleasant apathy toward them. You're not really considered "American" by most born here unless you're born here and have the accent, and even then people are understood to belong primarily to their own ethnic group.

The American ideal is now a civic society that's not predicated on the idea of having a "people" who the nation-state is created for. Citizens still often think that they have a "people", but that delineation does not extend to all Americans. As an example a second-gen Mexican person is not particularly likely to consider me part of their "clan" even though we are both American. When everyone's foreign, no one is.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#718

Post by dirtyid »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #561
dirtyid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because US/western social media has same market access to PRC... all they have to do is follow PRC regulations. Literally why FB and Google had internal projects to engineer compliant products to re-enter PRC market, but killed due to internal dissent. The narrative that PRC bans US platforms was always cope. Google pulled out because they didn't like dissidents being hacked, when operationally and eventually they sh…

> data sharing at PRC gov requests like in US. No, it's nothing like the US. PRC actively censors all social media in China (the social media companies do it themselves based on keywords provided by the government). > it's not PRC's fault FB/Google employees killed efforts to move back into PRC, or that the SV was drunk on free speech (cheap moderation) until western society realized (but won't admit) PRC regulators…

I didn't say kind of censorship is the same, nor should they be. I said US platforms who want to operate in PRC should comply with PRC national security interests REGARDLESS of how it's "worse". It's happening in Vietnam and other highly censorial countries now without much issue. If didn't happen in PRC before because they didn't want to eat the cost.

What's moderated maybe different, but how it's moderated now is the same. US followed PRC platforms to build actual teams to "guide" content, PRC has extra step of formal content blacklist, no different than wiping out mass shooting videos. It's an expensive man powered team trying to ensure platform stays out of trouble. It's now technically / functionally / economically comparable, hence the comment about how western platforms started exploring ways back into PRC market AFTER they implemented PRC like moderation systems.

The comment isn't a debate about which censorship system is "superior". It's simply acknowledging US platforms got blocked because they couldn't compete on PRC rules that PRC companies had to follow.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#719

Post by makeitdouble »

zappchance wrote: post #710
makeitdouble wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As your former president eloquently explained, "USA first" is the current US doctrine. Why should the other countries accept US influence short of not having the choice as it would have pretty deep repercussions? The game of cutting off foreign players is a luxury only the few countries can afford right now, making it look like everybody else supports the US is disingenuous.

The current age of global peace is wonderful and pleasant. It is also young and fragile. Other countries can choose who they wish to align with, I hope most liberal democracies will find the United States to be a more reliable ally than China or Russia. The price of association with the US is, as you say, US influence; however, US influence is much less restrictive and oppressive than many other major players today a…

This is a 'us or them' dichotomy that only makes sense if you need a perpetual enemy.

Most countries criticize the US _and_ China _and_ Russia _and_ North Korea, make trade where they need to and make a balancing act with alliances and relations between all of these countries.

> It's high time for global players to wake up from the ideal world where everyone can get along with zero tariffs or restrictions.

The US have engaged into perpetual tariffs and restrictions from the day it had the power to do so. Are you assuming other countries thought they could stop that ? Or what are you even talking about ?

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#720

Post by dang »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #682
dang wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've broken the site guidelines egregiously here, and have unfortunately been doing that a bunch elsewhere. We've warned you multiple times before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34429933 (Jan 2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30858404 (March 2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29085513 (Nov 2021) If you keep this up we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you. Therefore could you…

Sure I'll try to do better, I'm sorry. Would you apply the same rules to people escalating, calling me names, being snarky, etc in the same thread?

Appreciated!

Yes, if that's what they were doing, but I'd have to see specific links. (For example I don't think https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35366985 broke the site guidelines although it wasn't entirely un-edgy either.)

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