Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 1001 posts

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#731

Post by IncreasePosts »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #592
Kerrick wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Constitution also says, "The Congress shall have Power [...] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." Forcing a sale of TikTok so it's not foreign (with a punishment of banning if they don't), especially while making no such law for U.S. controlled competitors, is no more an infringement upon free speech than introducing a tariff or trade restriction on German-manufactured printing presses while leaving domest…

What if EU forced american companies to sell off their stuff to european companies? It isnt that easy.

Then American companies would need to consider whether they wanted to pull out of the market, or spin off a European version of the company.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#732

Post by everdrive »

jrockway wrote: post #486
codekaze wrote: post #213

I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…

I don't think we should "lowest common denominator" to oppressive regimes. Our Constitution says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." TikTok, at the end of the day, is just a kind of…

>I actually don't think that TikTok is much of a Chinese propaganda avenue.

I don't disagree currently, but it certainly could be used for that. Due to the invisible hand of the algorithm, it would also be hard to know if a topic was trending naturally, or if TikTok was pushing a viewpoint. Setting aside the issue of whether or not TikTok should be banned, do you agree with the potential propaganda concerns?

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#733

Post by MBCook »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #324
MBCook wrote: post #307

Ignoring everything else TikTok screwed up. They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections. So what did they do? Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes. Oops. All of a sudden a ton of representatives who were on the fence jumped off and joined the bandwagon.

> They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections. I thought it was about stealing data? > Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes. Not pushing the alert, would have changed nothing. And to be fair, isn't this how any organization in a democratic country works? Talking to…

There are two arguments. Data and politics.

Data seems like a sideshow to me. It’s legal and they could just buy it from data brokers anyway. It’s not like the US has any real laws against that.

Political action is a fair response to the bill but they went about it in an incredibly tone deaf way.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#734

Post by IncreasePosts »

layer8 wrote: post #574
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US freedom applies only to citizens and residents and not foreign govts.

That’s part of what is being criticized. Human rights are supposed to be universal, and some countries actually handle them like that, applying them to citizens and foreigners alike.

Human rights are just made up. It means nothing to talk about them. You can scream in a desert that water is a human right as much as you want, doesn't mean it is going to rain.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#735

Post by dragonwriter »

bjourne wrote: post #712
elefanten wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're muddling issues. China restricts free speech in all contexts, and also separately puts onerous requirements on or outright bans various kinds of foreign businesses. If TikTok is banned for geopolitical reasons, reciprocity reasons or whatever you want to call it, that doesn't change anything about free speech in America. It's not the unrestricted speech that was deemed a problem with TikTok, but rather the spe…

No, you are muddling the issues. This is about speech and not about anything trade-related. Banning TikTok is not equivalent to putting import tariffs on cheap Chinese electronic bikes or solar panels. It's not about whatever profits ByteDance makes from TikTok. It's 100% about controlling the narrative. "Young Americans are turning against Israel — and you can thank TikTok" https://forward.com/opinion/574346/freepal…

Its funny that the debate here is whether it is:

(1) trade protectionism that is about protecting the right to profit off of manipulation of American youth to favored actors, rather than disfavored foreign actors (whether disfavored because their country doesn’t allow American firms the same power in their countries, or for other reasons) or

(2) totally not trade related, but speech related, and about reserving the right to manipulate American youth to the exact same favored actors discussed in #1.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#736

Post by tstrimple »

aydyn wrote: post #579

I think a lot of the HN crowd are beyond the target age for a lot of tiktok trends, and don't realize the extent of sociopathic behavior being enabled on tiktok. Even ignoring overtly political trends, the social contract is being shredded for money and clout. Tiktok is not just another social media platform. It is a mass digital propaganda machine controlled by a foreign government.

People who make statements like this sound just like "concerned parents" talking about D&D and rock and roll music. 30-40 years ago. Wildly out of touch. Seriously, go take a look at what others are actually sharing from TikTok. It's none of this Chinese propaganda nonsense people are ranting about. Here's a few examples of videos ruining the youth of today!

  * https://v.redd.it/8yktpgwzl4oc1 - Iron Maidens
  * https://v.redd.it/n0p299qt1znc1 - If Korn wrote "1000 Miles"
  * https://v.redd.it/dqpj11wk03oc1 - Ok, this is pretty genius, if you can't use chopsticks
  * https://v.redd.it/ye820pezj5oc1 - On Confidence
  * https://v.redd.it/lj1mwh0080oc1 - Trans man handles hateful comment in a respectable way
  * https://v.redd.it/2vkx2sh624oc1 - Listen to your grandma.
All extremely typical of what I've seen on TikTok and the kinds of things my kids will send to me on occasion.

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#737

Post by harkinian »

xdennis wrote: post #523
Miner49er wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and Americans should have the freedoms to receive whatever information they want, including whatever is on Tik Tok. This is covered by the first amendment.

It's not the information that's banned, it's TikTok. People don't seek to ban TikTok because they fear the content, they fear the power that an enemy nation has over their citizens. It's not a free speech issue. Imagine if a company developed a new form of paper and published many books on it. If the paper turns out to be toxic and is banned, the company can't then say "oh, no, we're being censured". It has nothing t…

"People don't seek to ban TikTok because they fear the content"

I'm not convinced about that. Open letter to congress from JFNA: https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-1/1/Jewish%2520Federation%2520Let...

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#738

Post by lnxg33k1 »

calibas wrote: post #657
segasaturn wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a mistake for TikTok to ask Americans to participate in their representative democracy? Do we not remember when Google and Facebook blacked out their sites to stop SOPA from passing, how is TikTok's notification any different?

The US government is accusing the CCP of using TikTok to manipulate democracy. TikTok responded by attempting to manipulate democracy. They did they very thing the government trying to ban them is scared of. Doesn't seem like a smart move to me, I guess we'll see how it plays outs

They didn’t try to manipulate democracy, people didn’t vote for their representatives based on their ideas about tiktok, there was no referendum about how to handle tiktok, but of course they actually showed that they could have the influence to affect future democratic process

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#739

Post by csa »

groggo wrote: post #649
lumb63 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone wants to subject themselves to CCP propaganda, why stop them? If they’re that lacking in critical thinking, then maybe they’re getting what they deserve. It’s not like anyone is forcing people to use TikTok.

The funny thing is there's not really that much propaganda on TikTok, much less pro-CCP. Sure there's the potential, but it's really not even much of a thing IRL.

> The funny thing is there's not really that much propaganda on TikTok

I recommend that you sit down in front of your computer with your beverage of choice and do a deep dive into psyops.

To address your comment, there are psyops actors in every significant (and some less significant) social media platform, even our own Hacker News. Whether you want to call their work “propaganda” or something else is mostly semantics — they are operating with an agenda, sometimes/often one that conflicts with the will and/or best interest of our nation (in my case, the US).

Re: House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app

#740

Post by wslh »

bdw5204 wrote: post #627
felixgallo wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would the same argument apply to Fox News? If not, why not?

Fox News and MSNBC are propaganda for American political parties not foreign governments. They have a much stronger constitutional argument for 1st Amendment protection than Russia Today or China Central TV would.

It seems you are not looking to American history: CIA and dictatorships in Latin America?
Post reply on HN