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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#861

Post by aprilthird2021 »

chpatrick wrote: post #742
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

I think it's totally reasonable when it has massive influence over your population and is controlled by a geopolitical adversary. The EU banned Russia Today (correctly in my opinion) and that was nothing compared to TikTok. Propaganda isn't free speech.

In the US propaganda is free speech. We allowed enemies of the US to circulate Communist newspapers in America during the Cold War because we believe the people control the government not the government control the people

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#863

Post by ncr100 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #772
moviet wrote: post #695

(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…

It’s offensive to the notion of free speech as Americans profess to respect. If the capabilities of these services are so dangerous, we should have laws and rules to control the danger. Instead we’ve done some nationalist cowing to send a message, and we’re arm-twisting Zuck to adapt Facebook to the political expediency of the moment.

That's a misread, tiktok speech .. eg eating toxic Tide Pods for competition .. can be gotten and made in the USA still.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#864

Post by richardw »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

China is not just foreign, it’s a rising superpower who has demonstrated ongoing information and cyber attacks against the US, and who has a stated goal of invading Taiwan. It attempts to dislodge the US or West influence wherever possible. That’s different to eg Germany, France or Japan.

Playing fair is fine, so rather ask for level playing fields. Where there aren’t, apply pressure. Compared to arming other countries this is barely worth a big argument.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#865

Post by fourside »

This thread is trying to have a serious conversation about the merits and dangers of the US banning TikTok. I don’t think it’s going to happen. There’s too much value for Trump to leave on the table. He’s a showman and he’s giving us, mainly gen-z, a show. On Monday he will “save” TikTok. He can ingratiate himself with a demographic that historically had not leaned conservative. It seems so obvious yet I see people trying to debate the ban as if it’s going to stay in place. It won’t.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#866

Post by mfuzzey »

markus_zhang wrote: post #827
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

I think we can just cut the crap and say, now the gloves have been taken off. It's a jungle. Let's grab whatever we can. I mean it has always been like this anyway, just with some gloves. There is no law above the states(elites).

And that is exactly what we don't want. We want civilized law based international relations not a jungle.

International courts should settle disputes based on law

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#867

Post by etc-hosts »

Tiktok works fine for me if I pretend to be in Singapore.

I open up tiktok: I see cute dog videos.

I open up Twitter: Immediately get pushed white nationalist great replacement was Hitler actually bad? posts.

Incredible.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#868

Post by aprilthird2021 »

bad_user wrote: post #774
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

As a European born in communism, I find it dangerous for a communist and despotic state to yield so much power and for Europe to consider it business as usual, even if China may have started their own hybrid war with Europe, supporting Russia and preparing for the invasion of Taiwan. China, BTW, is censoring or blocking all Western social media platforms and online publications. Why should we accept their online serv…

As a European born in communism, you think if a communist country censors our information, we should censor theirs? Hard to believe.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#869

Post by saturn8601 »

nimbius wrote: post #713
moviet wrote: post #695

(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…

Bytedance already won. Biden flat-out admitted he was not going to enforce the law once it passed, and Trump is pushing for a 90 day "Extension" because "finding a buyer" has proven more difficult than initially expected. this statement is intended to save face as bytedance has repeatedly refused to sell. What we are watching now is US leaders in both houses of the oligarchy (democratic and republican) scramble to un…

Interesting point...that leads one to think why did they make this stumble? US generally is a smooth political operator. I immediately go to the theory that their hand was forced to make this bad move by another actor (maybe pro-israel donors). Of course who knows the truth really.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#870

Post by tensor »

velcrovan wrote: post #787
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

> demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held This is a reductive and misleading analysis. The US has already prohibited foreign entities from holding broadcast/common carrier licenses, or from owning significant chunks of equity in holders of those licenses [1]. It should be kind of obvious why a country would not want their biggest media providers to be foreign-ow…

This is a great argument for the rest of us banning nearly all US social media tech from our countries. Frankly I'd support it given the new US government.
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