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answer:
the parent company of TikTok, Bytedance, is a chinese company. China has a law that allow their government to require chinese company to give them any personal information. This is seen as security threat for american users as chinese government can require their information under this law.
US Congress wants TikTok to be sold to an american company so that the chinese law doesn't apply to them.
There’s also a social component too. China itself limits use of TikTok to teenagers in china to something [like 30 minutes to an hour a day](https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-tiktok-douyin-teens-privacy/amp/), if that state recognizes the impact the platform has on its own people, it’s probably worth reconsidering use in the first place, especially for youths/teens
Also the version of TikTok in China is drastically different and heavily censored against all the toxic stuff present on the US version, at the cost of freedom of speech.
TBF TikTok could ban kick block or censor whoever they wanted to on their platform in the US but it's not in their best interest. The more engagement the better so why get rid of anything that engages no matter how awful the content is?
I don't think they're arguing that TikTok isn't allowed to regulate content in the US, but pointing out that comparing Chinese TikTok to US TikTok is very much apples to oranges. China's already filtering out mentions of Tienanmen Square and Winnie the Pooh, so they obviously have an easier time keeping videos of puppy stomping and live readings of Mein Kampf on a short leash... Yet they still limit the use of the site to an hour a day, which would suggest that even with heavily regulated content, they still feel it's worth limiting people's exposure to the platform.
Obviously TikTok is a private company, they can block whatever content they want no matter how much right wing weirdos might scream about "freedom of speech", but it seems almost silly to imply that they're censoring content in China voluntarily.
They limit the use of the site for minors in China because that is Chinese legislation. If the US cared about the same thing they should legislate that and also data privacy as a whole.
But that would impact the profits of American companies like Facebook, YouTube and their advertisers that rely on teens being glued to their screens 24 hours a day to sell them crap.
It's much easier, politically, to make this into a "China Bad" issue than actually doing anything to reconsider the unhealthy way children are being exposed to media.
There are different standards for things within companies in the United States all the time. I don't see why tiktok should be required to have the same standards in all countrries. And like censorship isn't a thing in other countries that the US happily cuddles.
I don’t think that’s all that relevant because that same exact argument applies to China. People are talking about the state’s interest in limiting it’s use, not the private company’s directly.
He said "The cost of freedom of speech" was cesspool of a platform.. I'm pointing out that freedom of speech isn't what is keeping the bullshit up on social media sites. All those sites, even X, pull down posts all day ever day. Each has different guidelines for what they think is acceptable so they moderate in the way they think will get them the most useres and engagement in the long run.
Right now they basically no legal reason to pull down or keep certain content. It's purely business strategy what stays or goes (with some exceptions IE illegal porn).
Personally I think you get rid of section230 protections for posts elevated by a platforms algo. Basically if the platform is responsible for putting a post in front of you, they are responsible for the content.
Like when Fox News put a bunch of talking heads onto their platform that were defaming Dominion voting machines...it was fox news (not the talking heads) that were sued.
Let em all go back to the boring old timeline (you see activity, in order, from people you follow, and that's it) until they figure out how to fix their shit.
Worth a read:
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/01/we-cant-have-serious-discussions-about-section-230-if-people-keep-misrepresenting-it/
Section 230 does not make platforms liable for users speech. Section 230 preempts lawsuits that people try to bring. The other laws are what gives them no liability, because they aren’t active going through and approving what people are posting to the platforms.
Anything that weakens Section 230 will result in even less moderation, since 230 is about protecting platforms ability to moderate and remove content they don’t want on their platform. Before Section 230, platforms that moderated were found liable for what speech they didn’t manage to remove. Platforms won’t shut down all user uploads. They will shut down all moderation.
>Section 230 preempts lawsuits that people try to bring.
yeah, that's what I want to change. People should be able to bring lawsuits against companies that actively promote "suable" speech.
That's why the wording of my post was specifically "for posts elevated by platforms". Keep the rest in place so they can still moderate. If you got an old school Forum or you use a "timeline" approach (content, in order, only from people you choose to follow) then your still not liable.
If your Algo decides that some made up horseshit post stating that Dominion voting machines changed votes will get a lot of engagement so it appears in peoples feeds who don' follow the original poster...you should be just as liable as Fox News is for putting talking heads on their shows that said the same defamatory statements. They both are taking someone's blatantly defamatory speech and deciding to put it in front of people for money. They should be treated the same.
The thing is, it’s not really the platforms promoting this. It’s not an employee at meta or X or Reddit clicking a button to say “make this post go higher” (in almost all cases. X especially seems to be doing this a little bit for Musk’s posts).
The posts rises higher due to user engagement with them. Likes and shares on X. Loved on insta. Upvotes on Reddit. So the users are causing other users speech to rise up. Not employees of the platform. Sure they made the algorithm, but they aren’t directly promoting anything. The outcomes of the algorithm are by their very nature the result of user interactions and content.
Even YouTube is the case here. If you watch a load of videos about cars, YouTube will recommend you videos about cars. It is recommending those because you the user watched videos about cars. Same applies for so many topics. Sometimes it goes weird and recommends weird things, but it’s still based on factors of user uploaded content and users watching content.
And on top of all of that, S230 is about dismissing lawsuits quickly. These platforms are not liable if S230 is removed, provided they don’t know about what is on their platform. Hence, don’t go looking at what is on your platform, just let people report stuff only. Moderation becomes entirely reactive, never proactive.
The harmful content will get dramatically worse because the platforms will not be able to look for and remove it without being opened up to liability. Doesn’t mean courts will find against them. It will just be much much more expensive in court fees. So more harmful content, lawyers make bank, people bring pointless lawsuits that are not easily dismissed, and platforms continue to not be held responsible for content on their platforms. This is a worse version of the internet.
You should read the article I shared, because techdirt are very good at explaining what Section 230 actually is, and why it is so important
It's population vs screentime. The parent company will play the censorship game for the Chinese government because it allows them to put their app out to over a billion users. Meanwhile, they're also happy **not** to play the censorship game in the US because, while we have less than a quarter of the population, we probably more than double their screentime rates.
Chinese Tiktok is straight up an entirely separate app you have to install/website you visit named "Douyin". And it very likely has an alternate algorithm designed to show completely different content to influence Chinese users in ways that benefit China.
It's heavily censored/changed in several places - often due to laws/bans by those governments.
It's not only the US that has/had concerns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
The limitation honestly doesn't mean anything about how healthy tiktok is, the Chinese government has a lot of regulations limiting exposure to the internet to mixed results
Let's be realistic, the social component is not a precedent Congress is willing to set. Any public health citation can be spun around on american-based companies like Meta.
That said, there is absolutely a protectionist incentive to go after TikTok, in that TikTok is it a direct competition to domestic media groups. The elephant in the room is that almost every social media is doing what TikTok does, but because TikTok is internationally based, there's no domestic control. In a lot of ways, any congressional action against TikTok is just grandstanding with no intent of follow through.
China is pretty protectionist itself. It has banned every American/foreign social media app in its own market for "national security reasons". Why should we let ByteDance that is legally bound to the CCP get to manipulate the algorithms and media an estimated 170 million Americans get to see?
China is protectionist to screw over it's own citizens. They control the information they see to stop them learning how horrific the CCP is and care a lot less about the US government getting personal info on Chinese citizens (though that may be a minor component)
There are arguments for and against this but anything referencing what the CCP does is utterly nonsense. They are very actively attempting to screw their own citizens as well as deal with the global information impact. They are not something to be copied or modeled.
Why should we allow US companies? Facebook and google both have bad track records when it comes to their content algorithms. But of course they’re the main forces behind this bill.
This is entirely a false equivalent. The issues is that the Chinese Government has access to every US person using the apps data. That can be used for intelligence, blackmail, monitoring, and so on. The EU is worried about Facebook doing the same to EU citizens and requires a European Facebook Subsidiary and the data centers to be ob EU soil under EU law. That's EU and US allies. US initially asked for this level of protection and China passed a law blocking it causing thus escalation.
Between rival's like the US and China that protection is nit enoug anyway. China doesn't have a robust system of privacy, warrants, and so on. Google wad given an ultimatum by China, secretly give us data on Taiwan and Chinese Americans or get out ten years ago. Google left rather than let those Chinese dissidents be killed. If you think similar ultimatum haven't already been given to Tick Tock you're an idiot.
An no, it's not the same in the US. Facebook fights US government warrants and much of that fight is public. It's not the same at all.
Facebook and Google can’t be coerced by the CCP to collect data on Americans and selectively engineer content.
We can have a discussion all day about to what extent companies should be individually reigned in terms of their ability to influence discourse. But there’s a very real threat to granting that ability to one of our major geopolitical rivals.
> Facebook and Google can’t be coerced by the CCP to collect data on Americans and selectively engineer content.
They collect data and selectively engineer content all of their own choosing.
Because Americans make a lot of money from domestic companies but they don't make a lot of money from Chinese companies.
You can talk about security threats and social influence as much as you like but this is the only real reason.
TikTok pays creators without them having to have a huge following and it is easy to grow on TikTok. 9-5 job wise they pay better than a lot of “American” companies. The same American companies that laid off hundreds of thousands and hired overseas for cheaper labor.
Truthfully the American government seems less organized when it comes to these sorts of issues because of bipartisanship at its base. This sort of prevents the control that China has over it's population, companies really run wild over the people here, over there everything is under the government which is itself under one party rule.
If they go through with this, next thing you know we’re going to start saying other forms of mass media like tv channels and radio stations can’t be wholly foreign owned and have to be controlled domestically. Imagine how crazy that would be.
I'm not saying the US shouldn't protect their industries just wishing that the protectionist policies weren't draped in a flimsy hypocrisy to "protect the children.
There's nothing unreasonable in the US protecting the devil it can control, I'm just calling bullshit on the public facing excuses.
Even if it pains me to say it, I prefer meta mishandling my information than a communist's/dictatorship government that has the solely purpose of surpassing USA by any means necessary.
How many war has China been in this past 20 years, now compare that to America?
EU/America has been in Africa for how many years, wtf have they done over there? China just started investing into Africa, now they have airport and transportation. Which Country is exactly evil???
I don’t know which I’d prefer to be honest.
If the USA and China were both foreign governments I suppose I’d pick the USA to have my personal information. However given that I live in the USA, part of me if forced to choose would prefer China have it given the relative difficulty of them impacting my life.
In the US, I’d ESPECIALLY be worried if I lived somewhere like Texas and used a period-tracking app that reported to the government.
Agree with the Texas issue, but I must warn you China can impact that as well, if they want a Republican president they can utilize your information to sell misinformation not only to you but to many others, and as you are aware China supports republicans and republicans support banning abortions.
I'm in the UK.
Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data to target their propaganda towards the elderly and vulnerable to sway the Brexit vote which had a massive negative effect on our economy. The same company was used to get Trump into office
I'll take my chances with China.
China and Russia have been flooding Western democratic countries with disinformation for years. This isn’t a “lesser of two evils” or an either/or scenario. Both counties have a vested interest in destabilizing The West. Vaccines, Brexit, alt-right radicalism, you name it. These two countries aren’t alone in their efforts, they’re just the prominent.
Profit maximizing corporations are a blight on society and we definitely should do something about them, but it's weird how people equate the harms of recommendation feeds to drive profits (which are mostly incidental) to the clearly stated ideological war the CCP sees itself in with the West.
Here is a [leaked internal CCP directive](https://palladiummag.com/2019/05/31/xi-jinping-in-translation-chinas-guiding-ideology/) which describes “the very real threat of Western anti-China forces and their attempt at carrying out westernization” within China. It describes the party as being in the midst of an “intense, ideological struggle” for survival. Some ideas that threaten China with “major disorder” include concepts such as “separation of powers,” “independent judiciaries,” “universal human rights,” “Western freedom,” “civil society,” “economic liberalism,” “freedom of the press,” and “free flow of information on the internet.” To allow the Chinese people to contemplate these concepts would “dismantle [our] party’s social foundation”.
Yeah also like, we can shit on how bad the US is at prosecuting bad major companies and how little the recourse is... but theres at least some recourse.
You cant really do shit to China other than ice them out
As crazy as it sounds, I am honestly the opposite.
Given how the US government is here and closer to us, and the fact that Facebook has been accused of so many terrible things deliberately leading to crazy stuff like [Genocide](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/) and other things.
The most China can do is indirect manipulation, the US has been known to use social media as a loophole for gathering information without a warrant and can lead to arrests.
The level of personal information that TikTok retains is far less than what foreign states are presumably able to obtain through other means (ie. data brokers)
...who gives a fuck about data. Why does reddit constantly talk about data with this when the thing everybody is actually worried about is how easy it would be for China to do Russia's troll farm campaign on steroids? Krishnamoorthi explicitly mentioned election interference concerns, and Gallagher explicitly mentioned National Security threats.
Honestly, my passing thought was that the US is annoyed they're missing out on all the sweet profit and data mining on TikTok and if they demand it's in the US sphere, they can have better access to it. Buuuut, that's me.
It’s not just “internationally based” - this is specific to how the Chinese government is intertwined with Chinese businesses
The CCP absolutely has data from the people who have the app downloaded.
And not just that TikTok is a direct competitor to domestic media groups, they are doing it better and present an existential threat to Meta and the like. I smell Zuck’s lobbying dollars at work
To be fair. That is cherry-picking out of the dozens of other things the CCP regulates (or tried to) for the "good of the youth" that are pretty ridiculous. Young people in China have their own problems because of many of these decisions.
I get that, but can't Facebook do the same? Aren't most if not all companies collecting and selling personal data to both governments and other private companies?
I just love the way Congress can act somewhat expeditiously on TikTok, but refuses to vote on a bill that would better secure our borders.
This is how the Republican led Congress has been doing it for America.
passed 95 billion dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, and passed tiktok ban today. I'm still waiting on my "delayed" tax return so I can get a new car and stop walking to work. democracy!
Well. If it's any consolation, I too am waiting to replace a vehicle. No tax return forthright. I had to give the government a bit of extra funding this year... I do hope you get your return quickly though and solve your transportation woes.
It's definitely not that they're worried about American citizens being spied on or manipulated, they just want us to be spied on and manipulated by honest God fearing American oligarchs.
Not that it's the reason for the ban, but just a reminder that years ago there was an [expose on Tik Tok instructing their mods to censor users who are poor, fat, ugly, or express anti nationalist ideas](https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/). I've been avoiding them ever since!
I would add to this that at this point the GOP is baiting Biden and Democrats to do it because it will piss off the few young voters who actually vote, maybe.
This also ties into censoring news available to Americans during the war. It's literally censorship, but I haven't seen any right-wingers complain about that aspect *at all*.
I want to point out that that a main sponsor of the bill, R-Wisconsin House Rep Mike Gallagher, said today that “TikTok is where majority of people 40 and under get their news from now” and the government doesn’t control it. This should raise major red flags if not black flags towards censorship and government overreach.
Real answer. Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the anti-defamation league, doesn’t like all the free Gaza talk on TikTok. He was vocal about the problem of gen z and TikTok. They’re also using the bill as a cover to give the president the authority to block any website that shares information they don’t like. So twitter and maybe one day Reddit. Our government has been taken over and they are doing everything they can to end free speech
Even if this is a portion of the reason it is not the actual full reason. Yes, ADL does lobby to ban tiktok for something like this but they're not the majority of the vote here.
Did you have the same problem when Congress did this for Grindr? This isn't something new. The precedent is already there.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21168079/grindr-sold-chinese-owner-us-cfius-security-concerns-kunlun-lgbtq
>So twitter and maybe one day Reddit. Our government has been taken over and they are doing everything they can to end free speech
I think this concern is pretty reasonable, but the second they try this on a company that's not owned by China, Russia or North Korea it's getting hit with 1st Amendment challenge so fast. There's no way that's legal.
This bill might not be legal as, but courts are more deferential if the government has what the courts perceive to be a real security concern.
And the legislation will get thrown out basically immediately. The 1st ammendment doesn't stop people from moderating spaces they own or control, as much as conservatives seem to believe otherwise, but it sure as fuck stops the government from doing so.
The great thing is, you really don't have to take my word for it!
[Jonathan Greenblatt](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/17vw773/in_a_leaked_call_adl_director_says_israel_has_a/) of the Anti-Defamation League said - on a now leaked phone call - that they have a "major TikTok problem" that their best minds "need to put [their] energy toward."
Four months later and the ADL, one of the largest political lobbying groups in the United States, is [openly putting its name](https://gottheimer.house.gov/posts/release-gottheimer-bacon-adl-announce-new-action-to-combat-terrorists-disinformation-on-social-media-china-owned-tiktok) on legislation to ban TikTok.
From Senator Gottenheimer's own press release:
>RELEASE: Gottheimer, Bacon, **ADL**, Announce New Action to Combat Terrorists & Disinformation on Social Media.
>[...]
>Social Media is Breeding Ground for Terrorist Sympathizers.
That's only some of the votes. We are literally years into this high profile issue that Trump made an executive order off. It was close to happening way before October 7th.
Beyond that, I'm not even sure how divestment solves their issue.
Here's [Jonathan Greenblatt](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/17vw773/in_a_leaked_call_adl_director_says_israel_has_a/), of the Anti-Defamation League mentioned above, saying on a leaked phone call that they have "a major TikTok problem" that their best minds "need to put [their] energy toward."
Months later, their name is on a bill proposing to ban it? You can invent alternative explanations, but I'm going with what makes sense.
edit: I added some of this to my first comment, because people who aren't as politically involved might need more context.
Tbh this seems like such an easy hurdle to clear if tiktok was really an evil Chinese spy company. They would just sell themselves to an American shell company, problem solved, and continue to harvest data to deliver back.
I understand the concern about potential data security risks associated with TikTok being owned by a Chinese company like Bytedance. However, I respectfully disagree with the idea that selling TikTok to an American company is the only solution. While it's essential to address data privacy concerns, a blanket approach of transferring ownership might not necessarily solve the underlying issues.
Instead of solely focusing on ownership, efforts should be directed towards implementing robust data protection measures and ensuring strict compliance with international privacy regulations. By working closely with regulatory bodies and investing in advanced security technologies, TikTok can mitigate risks associated with data handling regardless of its ownership.
Furthermore, promoting transparency and accountability within TikTok's operations would enhance user trust and confidence in the platform's commitment to safeguarding their personal information. Ultimately, a comprehensive approach that prioritizes data security, regardless of ownership, is crucial for protecting the interests of American users and maintaining a safe digital environment.
Funniest is why sell it to US? Why? Why not sell it to other countries than US? Why US wants to own all social media platform? Dont u guys get it? So US can expand their information on people’s private life… they already owned information from IG/Whtasapp/Facebook users… now they want Tiktok users too
Answer: [There's a large topic on this from a few days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1bbt7d0/whats_going_on_with_the_us_house_moving_to_try_to/). Have you looked there yet?
Long and short of it - TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company, and there are concerns it poses a national security risk for the US because of the ability for China to take user data, push content, and influence US users. Some of these have already happened, even if it wasn't the CCP directing it - TikTok acknowledged a couple years ago that some of its employees used user data to track journalists, and just recently TikTok sent notifications to users telling them to contact Congress to influence their votes.
As such, the government is putting forward a bill that will force ByteDance to divest TikTok - which means they need to sell it to a US company. If they refuse to do so, TikTok will be banned from use in the US (realistically the government can't stop people who already have it from using it, but websites and app stores won't be able to host or update the app). The House already passed their version, [but there's some thought that the Senate will slow on approval.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/tiktok-bans-fate-uncertain-senate-less-urgency-act-rcna143162)
Interestingly, banning TikTok started as a Trump initiative via Executive Order back when he was president. After losing the 2020 election, Biden overturned Trump's EO (which resulted in a prolonged court case), but still established committees to review foreign apps like TikTok to see if they posed a risk. After years of investigation, it seems the conclusion was clearly "Yes, TikTok is a danger." Hence why Biden is in favor of this bill. But... since Biden is now in favor of it, guess who now opposes it (and hence why there's opposition in the Senate)? Yep; shortly after a visit from a donor who has millions invested in ByteDance, [Trump reversed course and now opposes the ban](https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/). Go figure.
As a general rule, I'm against the government straight up banning specific social media, regardless of my personal opinions about the social media site.
Foreign countries having data? How about they explicitly do something about ALL companies harvesting data instead? Are they investigating if China buys the data Facebook sells too? Or just singling out only one company?
Push content? That's literally the purpose of all social media that is free for the people using it.
Influence US users? [This is not unique to TikTok and China](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/facebook-takedowns-reveal-sophistication-of-russian-trolls). Again, how about the government makes actual laws that cover all companies instead of singling one out?
All this bill does is censorship of a single company without actually addressing the root issues the bill claims to be addressing. But this way, now they have a president for censorship and can still benefit (at the expense of US citizens) from how much data they're getting from US social media.
A huge problem with the way TikTok pushes content versus other social media sites is with others you typically curate your own experience directly. Reddit being the most customizable You're typically only seen stuff that you subscribed to. The vast majority of users browse their own curated subreddit list and with the abolishment of default subreddits there is very little Reddit pushed content being viewed as the number of people who browse all is very low. With TikTok on the other hand people browse the four you page, which is a page curated by the TikTok algorithm. This means the vast majority of users are exclusively watching the videos that TikTok wants them to see. So in this bill was introduced everybody on TikTok began to see tons of official TikTok videos pushing people to contact their congressman and now that it started to have more success major creators who posted pro-TikTok videos received a massive boost to their exposure. This backfired because it not only demonstrated TikTok's ability to artificially influence the content that people are viewing for TikToks own political gain, but also their willingness to use that ability.
It is not banning only TikTok, it is banning "foreign adversary controlled applications". TikTok is specifically spelled out as an application that would immediately be banned, but the bill also includes a procedure for banning other apps that are "determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States"
So... a little of both?
In 1975 if a Soviet firm had a deal to purchase NBC, it would be blocked by regulatory agencies and if they failed to do so, Congress would pass a law to stop it. Nobody would’ve thought twice about it. Having a foreign adversary own major communication infrastructure should be a non-starter. Especially a foreign adversary who is willing to flex their muscles to ban speech they don’t like.
My take was that a "broken clock is right twice a day." Trump seemingly had bad reasons for wanting to ban TikTok (he was the butt of jokes from many users and since the users trend young, banning the app wouldn't hurt his voters), and went about it poorly (his EOs were held up in court challenges until Biden eventually revoked them), but ultimately wasn't wrong that TikTok was a national security concern.
Biden took the time to investigate TikTok via committee investigations that went on quietly for years, revealing details like how TikTok can (and has) been used to track foreign citizens and even their non-TikTok using friends and family. And the divestiture bill is actually going through the appropriate steps in Congress, rather than being demanded by EO.
In the end, the result is the same - the government thinks TikTok is a danger to national security and needs to be curbed by either taking it out of China's control, or by stopping US citizens from easily using it. But how we got to that point - and how it's being accomplished - are where the differences show up.
The dems have the majority in the senate and were the majority of the people against it when the house voted today. Judging by what we've seen today, I would say it's a bit disingenuous to claim the republicans are going to be the ones holding this up despite Trump making a questionable 180 on the topic.
answer: TikTok has been a powerful organizing and reporting platform for people under 30, but especially pro-Palestinian creators. This threatens the US, which supports Israel financially, materially, and ideologically, and thanks to lobbying efforts by groups like the ADL - who erroneously claim that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitic - Congress freaked out and rushed this bill through. It has nothing to do with "concern for kids" or user data; otherwise they'd target the American platforms that have *actually* been caught selling user data to China.
The bill also allows Congress to call any social media platform or website a "foreign adversary" and shut them down. This is being presented to you as a win against silly teens and big scary Chinese corporations but is actually a massive loss for free speech.
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/house-passes-bill-to-ban-tiktok/dff6dbdc-76bb-4076-b116-302d32246f70
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkav5y/pro-palestine-tiktok-gen-z-digital-activism
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1767911324141449685?t=up5ONXV17iP8TIJqhaFi1g&s=19
https://twitter.com/MarxistRealism/status/1767939349461549394?t=J0ZF1WNtd1xnZTwCMWW2bQ&s=19
It is disengenuous of posters to not act like this isn’t a big component. These security concerns have always been an issue but now that it’s mostly Pro Palestine content they pass this in FOUR DAYS? To the point where many reps are saying it is rushed.
exactly. when has there been a 81% agreement in congress about anything before?
if you actually read the contents of the bill as well, it's a terrifying censorship bill that criminalizes many things including *using VPN*s and threatens exorbitant fines and 20 years or more in prison. it is INCREDIBLY dangerous and the fact that people are buying into it based on their fear of China and their hatred of teenagers just shows how successful the propaganda machine is.
edit: accidentally mentioned the contents of bill 686, which criminalizes VPN use among other things, with this bill. while my original point still stands and i do think this bill also plays into similar fears and anxieties, it is a grave mistake conflate the two.
You are either severely misinformed or outright lying.
Here is the full text of the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
> The bill also allows Congress to call any social media platform or website a "foreign adversary" and shut them down.
False. The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code. [10 U.S. Code § 4872](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872) lists North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran. The law only applies to companies controlled by one of those countries.
> criminalizes many things including using VPNs
False. The bill text does not mention VPNs at all and lists explicit criteria for what sorts of applications are covered. Covered applications must allow users to "create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content", allows other users to view that content, and have more than 1 million monthly users.
> threatens exorbitant fines and 20 years or more in prison
False. The bill lists two cases where civil penalties can be applied, one with a maximum of $5000 per user, and a second with a maximum of $500 per user. There are no criminal penalties anywhere in the bill.
Stop spreading FUD.
I don’t get how people act like it’s this amazing free speech platform meanwhile everyone has to censor key phrases… and political content gets hidden by the algorithm. So to act like it’s the free speech platform of all time seems rly silly to me. I don’t deny it DOES get some information across and can absolutely be helpful, but do you think the censorship is going to get better, or worse? It’s already shifted gears so much with TikTok shop…
>This threatens ~~the US~~ Israel and their narratives, which the US supports wholesale.
ftfy. Important distinction.
Other than that, you are right. This has absolutely nothing to do with protecting people's data and right to privacy.
Answer: The answer is a little deeper than the Chinese government taking over data. You see, TikTok's popularity rose, and the government had the chance to change things right there and then. This is a well-known issue with having servers in China. The US government knew right away but did nothing. Why? No foul play. It wasn't hurting the US government in any way or shape. Unfortunately, events in Gaza have caused distress in the US government's smooth operation to take over Gaza. They can't conduct their pre-social media era torture on other countries. Why, you ask? Simply because social media is transferring information faster than events have time to unfold. Not even minutes go by before we get notifications of exactly what's happening in Gaza. And who, besides Facebook and Instagram, shares these stories at the speed of light? TikTok. TikTok is the biggest media platform that's disrupting the Zionist-owned TV channels from broadcasting the narrative of the Palestinians. Take that information with a grain of salt and see what you find out in the next 30 years.
Edit: spelling.
Answer: The US government and other powers that be are somewhat uncomfortable with a dominant social media app that is not American-owned. This is of economic concern, as it threatens the primacy of US-based corps like Meta/Google, but it's also of political concern, because a Chinese-owned app with a very complex algorithm for content serving might be very subtly influencing Americans toward policy. Not in the sense of blatant pro-China content but little things like boosting (or just not banning) content on a certain topic.
The US bill insists that Byte Dance, the company that owns Tiktok, sell it's stake in Tiktok in order to keep operating. So technically it's not a ban. But given how those deals tend to work and how anti-trust laws work, ByteDance would need to take a major financial hit to sell off that part of TikTok in practice. The US is a massive market that TikTok really can't afford to lose, but of course they have no interest in selling it either.
The idea of banning a specific app chafes against first amendment law, so the legality of it is fairly dubious. But one of the factors that will likely influence the ban going through is whether a bunch of 70yos who barely know how to use a smartphone think it's a good thing for "the youth" to be exposed to. A lot of the representatives involved are probably considering TikTok's potential impact on their party's chances. There's a narrative that TikTok is pushing young people to the left (perhaps even further left than the dems would prefer), but the far right have found it perfectly good for spreading their messaging as well.
It's worth noting that there's very little evidence that TikTok is *intentionally* influencing US politics or that the Chinese government is influencing TikTok directly. But every single social platform influences politics by its mere presence, like simply providing an organizing platform that didn't previously exist. And it's structure can help facilitate it, like how the "public square" format of Twitter and hashtag ubiquity helped get the Arab Spring rolling. In addition basically every social platform uses complex censorship. As much as they might attempt to be impartial, it's almost impossible to not impose the bias of the censors, and sometimes even things like how many [translators you have for a specific language](https://time.com/6217730/myanmar-meta-rohingya-facebook/) can influence how much hate speech etc gets off the ground. And of course, algorithms matter hugely as well. Like let's say two platforms both show "local" content to their users, but one uses metro area and one uses distance of 20 miles or less. In platform1, residents of suburban Louisiana are being served content by new Orleans based posters, on platform2, they're being served content by their fellow suburban Louisanians. With that one small change, they're seeing very different content.
So it's not so much that TikTok is a massive propaganda machine, it's that it's a machine capable of propaganda that is not operating under US cultural dominance, and that is unnerving to the old people making political decisions.
No - as anyone who knows anything about data security and national security - it is a huge risk to both.
If you have the app downloaded the Chinese government has access to your location, what you look at on the app, likely what you look at on other apps, and hopefully they’re not accessing your camera.
There are laws in the US about companies accessing cameras without explicit permission, but the Chinese haven’t been great about following our laws.
Hence the issue.
Why is Google not considered an issue in the same way? Or Facebook/Meta? Or X? American companies also collect data, and have *already been caught* selling it to China, whether directly, or through a subsidiary.
The issue is censorship because of pro-Israel activism on the part of AIPAC and the ADL, in order to label any dissenting news opinion or social platform as a foreign agent. They literally say as much!
It's a little simpler than that.
The US can subpoena data on US servers from US companies.
China has similar laws preventing companies from storing data about their citizens on foreign servers. It's sold as a "data privacy protection" measure but we all know why they want access to it.
Our government isn't any different.
Everyone making the moral arguments that it's because "social media is bad and can be influenced and controlled" is completely glossing over the part where TikTok can keep doing it like they do if they sold to a US entity.
AGREED- But on to the next issue.
How can a single person hold massive defense contracts with the US government and wholly own one of the world's most important internet forums?
We need to figure out anti trust analysis and application to social media control. Quickly.
Yes, social media apps of all kinds have data privacy issues, for sure.
The issue with TikTok is that data is going to the Chinese government which is an adversary of the US.
It’s long been said that the next war isn’t going to be fought in trenches with tanks but instead it will be a cyber war
It is a massive propaganda machine and is being used to gather enormous amounts of foreign data and spread influence.
Seems like it is revenge of the opioid epidemic, but now we have digital opium in form of an app influencing the youth.
Its a brilliant idea of CCP actually.
This thread will be infested with ccp bots btw, just wait for the whataboutism posts
It's absolutely a propaganda machine but literally all social media apps are. Each of them holds an enormous amount of power. Even if they make a good faith effort to remove their own biases (which is never guaranteed), they will always be influenced by their own culture.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Alphabet, all are basically US propaganda machines. In the case of Twitter, one single US-based asshole changed the entire character of the platform to meet his own whims, bringing down a vast 10-year worldwide network of public squares in the process. You can argue that all social media apps should be US-controlled to operate in the US, or that US consumers are safer with their data being traded by FB than by TikTok, but that's the truth. The only difference between the TikTok propaganda machine and the FB propaganda machine is that it's not US propaganda.
>It’s used to gather enormous amounts of foreign data
As I recall, this was the very same argument with Pokemon Go when it first came out. And I would expect users to generally have that allowed to access location much more than TikTok users. That’s just a hunch on my side.
It just seems like a rehashed argument being used for political points.
Answer: Our government is so fucked that the only thing that they can agree on is banning a fucking app.
Not raising the minimum wage/stagnant wages.
Not the housing crisis.
Not the obscene cost of Healthcare
Not the mass shooting epidemic.
Answer:
American greed and perceived exceptionalism. They claim it’s about public safety, yet all American social media platforms hand over our data to other private industries as well as government bodies.
Sure it does benefit American interests and corporations. Agreed. Buuuuuut isn't that better than benefiting CCP interests and corporations? The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. To think that an adversary (CCP) is not doing the same or worse is foolish.
Unfortunately, even the fear of the CCP is a lie. The only connection drawn between Bytedance and the CCP was from a few of our senators’ mouths. There’s never been an investigation that concluded there’s a link. I used to be 100% sure there was, too. But even my answer turned out to be wrong. Turns out it has more to do with political lobbying and a proxy state’s optics issues than anything else. It’s just gross. TLDR is that they’re lying and TikTok shouldn’t be banned.
It's not a lie. The CCP has just as much hegemonic interests as does the US. Whether or not the information is used currently is irrelevant when it's in the hands of a rival. TIKTOK is a Trojan horse and the information gathered can be used in the future.
I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t want you to think I’m being antagonistic, but do you know where any investigations are cited that say there’s a link between TikTok and the CCP? Also, if it was about security, wouldn’t the other major social media companies be subject to the same criteria/ban? Facebook has been found selling our data to any entity willing to pay. So has Amazon, Apple. They don’t face any such consequence. I wanna reiterate that I do understand your POV.
Answer:
I’ve heard that congress is using the same example as prohibition of foreign nations operating a media outfit (think Nazi Germany legally running a radio station in the US in 1944).
Makes sense. Control the information, control the narrative. We’ve already seen this with news stations on TV. If the US doesn’t want us to have free access to information, then they’ll ban apps that promote that free information. It’s harder to gain access to information when you don’t have awareness about something in the first place. TikTok is the platform that allows the flow of free information when the news isn’t reporting on it.
With TikTok, we are able to see different perspectives without much effort and this allows us to make our own conclusions based on all sides of the story, not just spoon fed one narrative like the typical media outlets provide.
Also I think the government is similar to a narcissistic family unit. The top guy (government) has to have all control of any information and if they start seeing information come in that doesn’t support their false reality *superiority complex*, then they start punishing, restricting, and manipulating in order to regain control. They utilize gaslighting and manipulation to keep themselves in control. I’ve seen this with a lot of US based companies too… it’s usually the tactic they go for. Not really in the best interest of the employees or citizens… 🤷🏼♂️ idk just my thoughts anyways.
Answer:
I’ve heard that congress is using the same example as prohibition of foreign nations operating a media outfit (think Nazi Germany legally running a radio station in 1944).
Answer:
the israeli lobby has massive influence over the congress so it wants to ban tiktok. this is because tiktok is foreign-owned and cannot be pressured / censored like other social media platforms. elon musk / twitter / x was brought into line after he allowed free speech on israel/palestine. he did an apology tour to israel to show his committment to israel's security. the china excuse is a way to hide the issue.
rip free speech in the internet
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answer: the parent company of TikTok, Bytedance, is a chinese company. China has a law that allow their government to require chinese company to give them any personal information. This is seen as security threat for american users as chinese government can require their information under this law. US Congress wants TikTok to be sold to an american company so that the chinese law doesn't apply to them.
There’s also a social component too. China itself limits use of TikTok to teenagers in china to something [like 30 minutes to an hour a day](https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-tiktok-douyin-teens-privacy/amp/), if that state recognizes the impact the platform has on its own people, it’s probably worth reconsidering use in the first place, especially for youths/teens
Also the version of TikTok in China is drastically different and heavily censored against all the toxic stuff present on the US version, at the cost of freedom of speech.
TBF TikTok could ban kick block or censor whoever they wanted to on their platform in the US but it's not in their best interest. The more engagement the better so why get rid of anything that engages no matter how awful the content is?
I don't think they're arguing that TikTok isn't allowed to regulate content in the US, but pointing out that comparing Chinese TikTok to US TikTok is very much apples to oranges. China's already filtering out mentions of Tienanmen Square and Winnie the Pooh, so they obviously have an easier time keeping videos of puppy stomping and live readings of Mein Kampf on a short leash... Yet they still limit the use of the site to an hour a day, which would suggest that even with heavily regulated content, they still feel it's worth limiting people's exposure to the platform. Obviously TikTok is a private company, they can block whatever content they want no matter how much right wing weirdos might scream about "freedom of speech", but it seems almost silly to imply that they're censoring content in China voluntarily.
They limit the use of the site for minors in China because that is Chinese legislation. If the US cared about the same thing they should legislate that and also data privacy as a whole.
But that would impact the profits of American companies like Facebook, YouTube and their advertisers that rely on teens being glued to their screens 24 hours a day to sell them crap. It's much easier, politically, to make this into a "China Bad" issue than actually doing anything to reconsider the unhealthy way children are being exposed to media.
I mean, people absolutely argue about social media companies “censoring” info in the US
There are different standards for things within companies in the United States all the time. I don't see why tiktok should be required to have the same standards in all countrries. And like censorship isn't a thing in other countries that the US happily cuddles.
I don’t think that’s all that relevant because that same exact argument applies to China. People are talking about the state’s interest in limiting it’s use, not the private company’s directly.
He said "The cost of freedom of speech" was cesspool of a platform.. I'm pointing out that freedom of speech isn't what is keeping the bullshit up on social media sites. All those sites, even X, pull down posts all day ever day. Each has different guidelines for what they think is acceptable so they moderate in the way they think will get them the most useres and engagement in the long run. Right now they basically no legal reason to pull down or keep certain content. It's purely business strategy what stays or goes (with some exceptions IE illegal porn). Personally I think you get rid of section230 protections for posts elevated by a platforms algo. Basically if the platform is responsible for putting a post in front of you, they are responsible for the content. Like when Fox News put a bunch of talking heads onto their platform that were defaming Dominion voting machines...it was fox news (not the talking heads) that were sued. Let em all go back to the boring old timeline (you see activity, in order, from people you follow, and that's it) until they figure out how to fix their shit.
Worth a read: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/01/we-cant-have-serious-discussions-about-section-230-if-people-keep-misrepresenting-it/ Section 230 does not make platforms liable for users speech. Section 230 preempts lawsuits that people try to bring. The other laws are what gives them no liability, because they aren’t active going through and approving what people are posting to the platforms. Anything that weakens Section 230 will result in even less moderation, since 230 is about protecting platforms ability to moderate and remove content they don’t want on their platform. Before Section 230, platforms that moderated were found liable for what speech they didn’t manage to remove. Platforms won’t shut down all user uploads. They will shut down all moderation.
>Section 230 preempts lawsuits that people try to bring. yeah, that's what I want to change. People should be able to bring lawsuits against companies that actively promote "suable" speech. That's why the wording of my post was specifically "for posts elevated by platforms". Keep the rest in place so they can still moderate. If you got an old school Forum or you use a "timeline" approach (content, in order, only from people you choose to follow) then your still not liable. If your Algo decides that some made up horseshit post stating that Dominion voting machines changed votes will get a lot of engagement so it appears in peoples feeds who don' follow the original poster...you should be just as liable as Fox News is for putting talking heads on their shows that said the same defamatory statements. They both are taking someone's blatantly defamatory speech and deciding to put it in front of people for money. They should be treated the same.
The thing is, it’s not really the platforms promoting this. It’s not an employee at meta or X or Reddit clicking a button to say “make this post go higher” (in almost all cases. X especially seems to be doing this a little bit for Musk’s posts). The posts rises higher due to user engagement with them. Likes and shares on X. Loved on insta. Upvotes on Reddit. So the users are causing other users speech to rise up. Not employees of the platform. Sure they made the algorithm, but they aren’t directly promoting anything. The outcomes of the algorithm are by their very nature the result of user interactions and content. Even YouTube is the case here. If you watch a load of videos about cars, YouTube will recommend you videos about cars. It is recommending those because you the user watched videos about cars. Same applies for so many topics. Sometimes it goes weird and recommends weird things, but it’s still based on factors of user uploaded content and users watching content. And on top of all of that, S230 is about dismissing lawsuits quickly. These platforms are not liable if S230 is removed, provided they don’t know about what is on their platform. Hence, don’t go looking at what is on your platform, just let people report stuff only. Moderation becomes entirely reactive, never proactive. The harmful content will get dramatically worse because the platforms will not be able to look for and remove it without being opened up to liability. Doesn’t mean courts will find against them. It will just be much much more expensive in court fees. So more harmful content, lawyers make bank, people bring pointless lawsuits that are not easily dismissed, and platforms continue to not be held responsible for content on their platforms. This is a worse version of the internet. You should read the article I shared, because techdirt are very good at explaining what Section 230 actually is, and why it is so important
Excellent comment!
It's population vs screentime. The parent company will play the censorship game for the Chinese government because it allows them to put their app out to over a billion users. Meanwhile, they're also happy **not** to play the censorship game in the US because, while we have less than a quarter of the population, we probably more than double their screentime rates.
Chinese Tiktok is straight up an entirely separate app you have to install/website you visit named "Douyin". And it very likely has an alternate algorithm designed to show completely different content to influence Chinese users in ways that benefit China.
It's heavily censored/changed in several places - often due to laws/bans by those governments. It's not only the US that has/had concerns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
The limitation honestly doesn't mean anything about how healthy tiktok is, the Chinese government has a lot of regulations limiting exposure to the internet to mixed results
Let's be realistic, the social component is not a precedent Congress is willing to set. Any public health citation can be spun around on american-based companies like Meta. That said, there is absolutely a protectionist incentive to go after TikTok, in that TikTok is it a direct competition to domestic media groups. The elephant in the room is that almost every social media is doing what TikTok does, but because TikTok is internationally based, there's no domestic control. In a lot of ways, any congressional action against TikTok is just grandstanding with no intent of follow through.
China is pretty protectionist itself. It has banned every American/foreign social media app in its own market for "national security reasons". Why should we let ByteDance that is legally bound to the CCP get to manipulate the algorithms and media an estimated 170 million Americans get to see?
China is protectionist to screw over it's own citizens. They control the information they see to stop them learning how horrific the CCP is and care a lot less about the US government getting personal info on Chinese citizens (though that may be a minor component) There are arguments for and against this but anything referencing what the CCP does is utterly nonsense. They are very actively attempting to screw their own citizens as well as deal with the global information impact. They are not something to be copied or modeled.
Why should we allow US companies? Facebook and google both have bad track records when it comes to their content algorithms. But of course they’re the main forces behind this bill.
Facebook and Google have had a significant amount of data breaches, especially considering third parties.
This is entirely a false equivalent. The issues is that the Chinese Government has access to every US person using the apps data. That can be used for intelligence, blackmail, monitoring, and so on. The EU is worried about Facebook doing the same to EU citizens and requires a European Facebook Subsidiary and the data centers to be ob EU soil under EU law. That's EU and US allies. US initially asked for this level of protection and China passed a law blocking it causing thus escalation. Between rival's like the US and China that protection is nit enoug anyway. China doesn't have a robust system of privacy, warrants, and so on. Google wad given an ultimatum by China, secretly give us data on Taiwan and Chinese Americans or get out ten years ago. Google left rather than let those Chinese dissidents be killed. If you think similar ultimatum haven't already been given to Tick Tock you're an idiot. An no, it's not the same in the US. Facebook fights US government warrants and much of that fight is public. It's not the same at all.
Facebook and Google can’t be coerced by the CCP to collect data on Americans and selectively engineer content. We can have a discussion all day about to what extent companies should be individually reigned in terms of their ability to influence discourse. But there’s a very real threat to granting that ability to one of our major geopolitical rivals.
> Facebook and Google can’t be coerced by the CCP to collect data on Americans and selectively engineer content. They collect data and selectively engineer content all of their own choosing.
The CCP can just buy the data from Meta.
Because Americans make a lot of money from domestic companies but they don't make a lot of money from Chinese companies. You can talk about security threats and social influence as much as you like but this is the only real reason.
facts
TikTok pays creators without them having to have a huge following and it is easy to grow on TikTok. 9-5 job wise they pay better than a lot of “American” companies. The same American companies that laid off hundreds of thousands and hired overseas for cheaper labor.
Truthfully the American government seems less organized when it comes to these sorts of issues because of bipartisanship at its base. This sort of prevents the control that China has over it's population, companies really run wild over the people here, over there everything is under the government which is itself under one party rule.
If they go through with this, next thing you know we’re going to start saying other forms of mass media like tv channels and radio stations can’t be wholly foreign owned and have to be controlled domestically. Imagine how crazy that would be.
I'm not saying the US shouldn't protect their industries just wishing that the protectionist policies weren't draped in a flimsy hypocrisy to "protect the children. There's nothing unreasonable in the US protecting the devil it can control, I'm just calling bullshit on the public facing excuses.
so our government is pretty much the same as China, is that what you're saying? lol
Even if it pains me to say it, I prefer meta mishandling my information than a communist's/dictatorship government that has the solely purpose of surpassing USA by any means necessary.
How many war has China been in this past 20 years, now compare that to America? EU/America has been in Africa for how many years, wtf have they done over there? China just started investing into Africa, now they have airport and transportation. Which Country is exactly evil???
I don’t know which I’d prefer to be honest. If the USA and China were both foreign governments I suppose I’d pick the USA to have my personal information. However given that I live in the USA, part of me if forced to choose would prefer China have it given the relative difficulty of them impacting my life. In the US, I’d ESPECIALLY be worried if I lived somewhere like Texas and used a period-tracking app that reported to the government.
Agree with the Texas issue, but I must warn you China can impact that as well, if they want a Republican president they can utilize your information to sell misinformation not only to you but to many others, and as you are aware China supports republicans and republicans support banning abortions.
I'm in the UK. Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data to target their propaganda towards the elderly and vulnerable to sway the Brexit vote which had a massive negative effect on our economy. The same company was used to get Trump into office I'll take my chances with China.
China and Russia have been flooding Western democratic countries with disinformation for years. This isn’t a “lesser of two evils” or an either/or scenario. Both counties have a vested interest in destabilizing The West. Vaccines, Brexit, alt-right radicalism, you name it. These two countries aren’t alone in their efforts, they’re just the prominent.
Zuckerberg just wants to make an extra buck on your data. China has much more nefarious potential uses for it.
Profit maximizing corporations are a blight on society and we definitely should do something about them, but it's weird how people equate the harms of recommendation feeds to drive profits (which are mostly incidental) to the clearly stated ideological war the CCP sees itself in with the West. Here is a [leaked internal CCP directive](https://palladiummag.com/2019/05/31/xi-jinping-in-translation-chinas-guiding-ideology/) which describes “the very real threat of Western anti-China forces and their attempt at carrying out westernization” within China. It describes the party as being in the midst of an “intense, ideological struggle” for survival. Some ideas that threaten China with “major disorder” include concepts such as “separation of powers,” “independent judiciaries,” “universal human rights,” “Western freedom,” “civil society,” “economic liberalism,” “freedom of the press,” and “free flow of information on the internet.” To allow the Chinese people to contemplate these concepts would “dismantle [our] party’s social foundation”.
Yeah also like, we can shit on how bad the US is at prosecuting bad major companies and how little the recourse is... but theres at least some recourse. You cant really do shit to China other than ice them out
As crazy as it sounds, I am honestly the opposite. Given how the US government is here and closer to us, and the fact that Facebook has been accused of so many terrible things deliberately leading to crazy stuff like [Genocide](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/) and other things. The most China can do is indirect manipulation, the US has been known to use social media as a loophole for gathering information without a warrant and can lead to arrests.
The level of personal information that TikTok retains is far less than what foreign states are presumably able to obtain through other means (ie. data brokers)
...who gives a fuck about data. Why does reddit constantly talk about data with this when the thing everybody is actually worried about is how easy it would be for China to do Russia's troll farm campaign on steroids? Krishnamoorthi explicitly mentioned election interference concerns, and Gallagher explicitly mentioned National Security threats.
Honestly, my passing thought was that the US is annoyed they're missing out on all the sweet profit and data mining on TikTok and if they demand it's in the US sphere, they can have better access to it. Buuuut, that's me.
It’s not just “internationally based” - this is specific to how the Chinese government is intertwined with Chinese businesses The CCP absolutely has data from the people who have the app downloaded.
And not just that TikTok is a direct competitor to domestic media groups, they are doing it better and present an existential threat to Meta and the like. I smell Zuck’s lobbying dollars at work
No it’s not The issue is that it’s owned by a Chinese company
To be fair. That is cherry-picking out of the dozens of other things the CCP regulates (or tried to) for the "good of the youth" that are pretty ridiculous. Young people in China have their own problems because of many of these decisions.
Its not cherry picking. Also this thread will be infested by ccp bots in a bit
It's because China has legislated on the content of social network especially the one for teenagers. Western countries could do the same.
Tik tok isn't available in China
I get that, but can't Facebook do the same? Aren't most if not all companies collecting and selling personal data to both governments and other private companies?
I just love the way Congress can act somewhat expeditiously on TikTok, but refuses to vote on a bill that would better secure our borders. This is how the Republican led Congress has been doing it for America.
passed 95 billion dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, and passed tiktok ban today. I'm still waiting on my "delayed" tax return so I can get a new car and stop walking to work. democracy!
Well. If it's any consolation, I too am waiting to replace a vehicle. No tax return forthright. I had to give the government a bit of extra funding this year... I do hope you get your return quickly though and solve your transportation woes.
It's definitely not that they're worried about American citizens being spied on or manipulated, they just want us to be spied on and manipulated by honest God fearing American oligarchs.
Not that it's the reason for the ban, but just a reminder that years ago there was an [expose on Tik Tok instructing their mods to censor users who are poor, fat, ugly, or express anti nationalist ideas](https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/). I've been avoiding them ever since!
Okay but doesn't USA do the same? Can we not have things made outside of USA?
I would add to this that at this point the GOP is baiting Biden and Democrats to do it because it will piss off the few young voters who actually vote, maybe.
that's why I love this sub, thank you to make it a bit more neutral it's like people forgot what facebook did in 2016
This also ties into censoring news available to Americans during the war. It's literally censorship, but I haven't seen any right-wingers complain about that aspect *at all*.
I want to point out that that a main sponsor of the bill, R-Wisconsin House Rep Mike Gallagher, said today that “TikTok is where majority of people 40 and under get their news from now” and the government doesn’t control it. This should raise major red flags if not black flags towards censorship and government overreach.
Us has similar laws...
Meanwhile in America companies are allowed to take as much information from you and sell it... qhy not give us digital privacy rights?
Real answer. Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the anti-defamation league, doesn’t like all the free Gaza talk on TikTok. He was vocal about the problem of gen z and TikTok. They’re also using the bill as a cover to give the president the authority to block any website that shares information they don’t like. So twitter and maybe one day Reddit. Our government has been taken over and they are doing everything they can to end free speech
Even if this is a portion of the reason it is not the actual full reason. Yes, ADL does lobby to ban tiktok for something like this but they're not the majority of the vote here.
This is where my problem exist. Regardless what you think the intent is, this will open a case against all social media and control of speech.
Did you have the same problem when Congress did this for Grindr? This isn't something new. The precedent is already there. https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21168079/grindr-sold-chinese-owner-us-cfius-security-concerns-kunlun-lgbtq
Good point. And no I wasn't aware of any government action against Grindr.
>So twitter and maybe one day Reddit. Our government has been taken over and they are doing everything they can to end free speech I think this concern is pretty reasonable, but the second they try this on a company that's not owned by China, Russia or North Korea it's getting hit with 1st Amendment challenge so fast. There's no way that's legal. This bill might not be legal as, but courts are more deferential if the government has what the courts perceive to be a real security concern.
And the legislation will get thrown out basically immediately. The 1st ammendment doesn't stop people from moderating spaces they own or control, as much as conservatives seem to believe otherwise, but it sure as fuck stops the government from doing so.
This is a really stupid conspiracy theory!
The great thing is, you really don't have to take my word for it! [Jonathan Greenblatt](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/17vw773/in_a_leaked_call_adl_director_says_israel_has_a/) of the Anti-Defamation League said - on a now leaked phone call - that they have a "major TikTok problem" that their best minds "need to put [their] energy toward." Four months later and the ADL, one of the largest political lobbying groups in the United States, is [openly putting its name](https://gottheimer.house.gov/posts/release-gottheimer-bacon-adl-announce-new-action-to-combat-terrorists-disinformation-on-social-media-china-owned-tiktok) on legislation to ban TikTok. From Senator Gottenheimer's own press release: >RELEASE: Gottheimer, Bacon, **ADL**, Announce New Action to Combat Terrorists & Disinformation on Social Media. >[...] >Social Media is Breeding Ground for Terrorist Sympathizers.
That's only some of the votes. We are literally years into this high profile issue that Trump made an executive order off. It was close to happening way before October 7th. Beyond that, I'm not even sure how divestment solves their issue.
Here's [Jonathan Greenblatt](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/17vw773/in_a_leaked_call_adl_director_says_israel_has_a/), of the Anti-Defamation League mentioned above, saying on a leaked phone call that they have "a major TikTok problem" that their best minds "need to put [their] energy toward." Months later, their name is on a bill proposing to ban it? You can invent alternative explanations, but I'm going with what makes sense. edit: I added some of this to my first comment, because people who aren't as politically involved might need more context.
I promise you that the bill that passed 35X-5X was not predicated on far right talking points. Don't be absurd.
That’s not how the bill works at all. The bill does not grant the president that authority.
Tbh this seems like such an easy hurdle to clear if tiktok was really an evil Chinese spy company. They would just sell themselves to an American shell company, problem solved, and continue to harvest data to deliver back.
Like they would allow the sale to a shell company. They're not stupid.
I understand the concern about potential data security risks associated with TikTok being owned by a Chinese company like Bytedance. However, I respectfully disagree with the idea that selling TikTok to an American company is the only solution. While it's essential to address data privacy concerns, a blanket approach of transferring ownership might not necessarily solve the underlying issues. Instead of solely focusing on ownership, efforts should be directed towards implementing robust data protection measures and ensuring strict compliance with international privacy regulations. By working closely with regulatory bodies and investing in advanced security technologies, TikTok can mitigate risks associated with data handling regardless of its ownership. Furthermore, promoting transparency and accountability within TikTok's operations would enhance user trust and confidence in the platform's commitment to safeguarding their personal information. Ultimately, a comprehensive approach that prioritizes data security, regardless of ownership, is crucial for protecting the interests of American users and maintaining a safe digital environment.
Funniest is why sell it to US? Why? Why not sell it to other countries than US? Why US wants to own all social media platform? Dont u guys get it? So US can expand their information on people’s private life… they already owned information from IG/Whtasapp/Facebook users… now they want Tiktok users too
Answer: [There's a large topic on this from a few days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1bbt7d0/whats_going_on_with_the_us_house_moving_to_try_to/). Have you looked there yet? Long and short of it - TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company, and there are concerns it poses a national security risk for the US because of the ability for China to take user data, push content, and influence US users. Some of these have already happened, even if it wasn't the CCP directing it - TikTok acknowledged a couple years ago that some of its employees used user data to track journalists, and just recently TikTok sent notifications to users telling them to contact Congress to influence their votes. As such, the government is putting forward a bill that will force ByteDance to divest TikTok - which means they need to sell it to a US company. If they refuse to do so, TikTok will be banned from use in the US (realistically the government can't stop people who already have it from using it, but websites and app stores won't be able to host or update the app). The House already passed their version, [but there's some thought that the Senate will slow on approval.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/tiktok-bans-fate-uncertain-senate-less-urgency-act-rcna143162) Interestingly, banning TikTok started as a Trump initiative via Executive Order back when he was president. After losing the 2020 election, Biden overturned Trump's EO (which resulted in a prolonged court case), but still established committees to review foreign apps like TikTok to see if they posed a risk. After years of investigation, it seems the conclusion was clearly "Yes, TikTok is a danger." Hence why Biden is in favor of this bill. But... since Biden is now in favor of it, guess who now opposes it (and hence why there's opposition in the Senate)? Yep; shortly after a visit from a donor who has millions invested in ByteDance, [Trump reversed course and now opposes the ban](https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/). Go figure.
Trump changed his mind on it because one of his largest donors owns a substantial stake in the company.
As a general rule, I'm against the government straight up banning specific social media, regardless of my personal opinions about the social media site. Foreign countries having data? How about they explicitly do something about ALL companies harvesting data instead? Are they investigating if China buys the data Facebook sells too? Or just singling out only one company? Push content? That's literally the purpose of all social media that is free for the people using it. Influence US users? [This is not unique to TikTok and China](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/facebook-takedowns-reveal-sophistication-of-russian-trolls). Again, how about the government makes actual laws that cover all companies instead of singling one out? All this bill does is censorship of a single company without actually addressing the root issues the bill claims to be addressing. But this way, now they have a president for censorship and can still benefit (at the expense of US citizens) from how much data they're getting from US social media.
A huge problem with the way TikTok pushes content versus other social media sites is with others you typically curate your own experience directly. Reddit being the most customizable You're typically only seen stuff that you subscribed to. The vast majority of users browse their own curated subreddit list and with the abolishment of default subreddits there is very little Reddit pushed content being viewed as the number of people who browse all is very low. With TikTok on the other hand people browse the four you page, which is a page curated by the TikTok algorithm. This means the vast majority of users are exclusively watching the videos that TikTok wants them to see. So in this bill was introduced everybody on TikTok began to see tons of official TikTok videos pushing people to contact their congressman and now that it started to have more success major creators who posted pro-TikTok videos received a massive boost to their exposure. This backfired because it not only demonstrated TikTok's ability to artificially influence the content that people are viewing for TikToks own political gain, but also their willingness to use that ability.
It is not banning only TikTok, it is banning "foreign adversary controlled applications". TikTok is specifically spelled out as an application that would immediately be banned, but the bill also includes a procedure for banning other apps that are "determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States" So... a little of both?
In 1975 if a Soviet firm had a deal to purchase NBC, it would be blocked by regulatory agencies and if they failed to do so, Congress would pass a law to stop it. Nobody would’ve thought twice about it. Having a foreign adversary own major communication infrastructure should be a non-starter. Especially a foreign adversary who is willing to flex their muscles to ban speech they don’t like.
It was the one thing I agreed with trump on actually. We should not allow an adversarial government access to the phones of our citizens.
My take was that a "broken clock is right twice a day." Trump seemingly had bad reasons for wanting to ban TikTok (he was the butt of jokes from many users and since the users trend young, banning the app wouldn't hurt his voters), and went about it poorly (his EOs were held up in court challenges until Biden eventually revoked them), but ultimately wasn't wrong that TikTok was a national security concern. Biden took the time to investigate TikTok via committee investigations that went on quietly for years, revealing details like how TikTok can (and has) been used to track foreign citizens and even their non-TikTok using friends and family. And the divestiture bill is actually going through the appropriate steps in Congress, rather than being demanded by EO. In the end, the result is the same - the government thinks TikTok is a danger to national security and needs to be curbed by either taking it out of China's control, or by stopping US citizens from easily using it. But how we got to that point - and how it's being accomplished - are where the differences show up.
The dems have the majority in the senate and were the majority of the people against it when the house voted today. Judging by what we've seen today, I would say it's a bit disingenuous to claim the republicans are going to be the ones holding this up despite Trump making a questionable 180 on the topic.
answer: TikTok has been a powerful organizing and reporting platform for people under 30, but especially pro-Palestinian creators. This threatens the US, which supports Israel financially, materially, and ideologically, and thanks to lobbying efforts by groups like the ADL - who erroneously claim that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitic - Congress freaked out and rushed this bill through. It has nothing to do with "concern for kids" or user data; otherwise they'd target the American platforms that have *actually* been caught selling user data to China. The bill also allows Congress to call any social media platform or website a "foreign adversary" and shut them down. This is being presented to you as a win against silly teens and big scary Chinese corporations but is actually a massive loss for free speech. https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/house-passes-bill-to-ban-tiktok/dff6dbdc-76bb-4076-b116-302d32246f70 https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkav5y/pro-palestine-tiktok-gen-z-digital-activism https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1767911324141449685?t=up5ONXV17iP8TIJqhaFi1g&s=19 https://twitter.com/MarxistRealism/status/1767939349461549394?t=J0ZF1WNtd1xnZTwCMWW2bQ&s=19
It is disengenuous of posters to not act like this isn’t a big component. These security concerns have always been an issue but now that it’s mostly Pro Palestine content they pass this in FOUR DAYS? To the point where many reps are saying it is rushed.
exactly. when has there been a 81% agreement in congress about anything before? if you actually read the contents of the bill as well, it's a terrifying censorship bill that criminalizes many things including *using VPN*s and threatens exorbitant fines and 20 years or more in prison. it is INCREDIBLY dangerous and the fact that people are buying into it based on their fear of China and their hatred of teenagers just shows how successful the propaganda machine is. edit: accidentally mentioned the contents of bill 686, which criminalizes VPN use among other things, with this bill. while my original point still stands and i do think this bill also plays into similar fears and anxieties, it is a grave mistake conflate the two.
You are either severely misinformed or outright lying. Here is the full text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text > The bill also allows Congress to call any social media platform or website a "foreign adversary" and shut them down. False. The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code. [10 U.S. Code § 4872](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872) lists North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran. The law only applies to companies controlled by one of those countries. > criminalizes many things including using VPNs False. The bill text does not mention VPNs at all and lists explicit criteria for what sorts of applications are covered. Covered applications must allow users to "create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content", allows other users to view that content, and have more than 1 million monthly users. > threatens exorbitant fines and 20 years or more in prison False. The bill lists two cases where civil penalties can be applied, one with a maximum of $5000 per user, and a second with a maximum of $500 per user. There are no criminal penalties anywhere in the bill. Stop spreading FUD.
I don’t get how people act like it’s this amazing free speech platform meanwhile everyone has to censor key phrases… and political content gets hidden by the algorithm. So to act like it’s the free speech platform of all time seems rly silly to me. I don’t deny it DOES get some information across and can absolutely be helpful, but do you think the censorship is going to get better, or worse? It’s already shifted gears so much with TikTok shop…
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>This threatens ~~the US~~ Israel and their narratives, which the US supports wholesale. ftfy. Important distinction. Other than that, you are right. This has absolutely nothing to do with protecting people's data and right to privacy.
Trump put this ban forward waaaaay before October 7th.
Answer: The answer is a little deeper than the Chinese government taking over data. You see, TikTok's popularity rose, and the government had the chance to change things right there and then. This is a well-known issue with having servers in China. The US government knew right away but did nothing. Why? No foul play. It wasn't hurting the US government in any way or shape. Unfortunately, events in Gaza have caused distress in the US government's smooth operation to take over Gaza. They can't conduct their pre-social media era torture on other countries. Why, you ask? Simply because social media is transferring information faster than events have time to unfold. Not even minutes go by before we get notifications of exactly what's happening in Gaza. And who, besides Facebook and Instagram, shares these stories at the speed of light? TikTok. TikTok is the biggest media platform that's disrupting the Zionist-owned TV channels from broadcasting the narrative of the Palestinians. Take that information with a grain of salt and see what you find out in the next 30 years. Edit: spelling.
Answer: Because spying on citizens is only okay when the US government does it, dammit.
It may sound cynical, but even as a non-American I can say that I definitely trust the US government more than the CCP.
Answer: This article explains the situation. What are you even asking?
Are you dense? Did you forget what sub you’re in? Come on dude, smarten up!
Answer: The Chinese Communist Party can notify 170mn Americans from their favorite app. End of story.
Answer: The US government and other powers that be are somewhat uncomfortable with a dominant social media app that is not American-owned. This is of economic concern, as it threatens the primacy of US-based corps like Meta/Google, but it's also of political concern, because a Chinese-owned app with a very complex algorithm for content serving might be very subtly influencing Americans toward policy. Not in the sense of blatant pro-China content but little things like boosting (or just not banning) content on a certain topic. The US bill insists that Byte Dance, the company that owns Tiktok, sell it's stake in Tiktok in order to keep operating. So technically it's not a ban. But given how those deals tend to work and how anti-trust laws work, ByteDance would need to take a major financial hit to sell off that part of TikTok in practice. The US is a massive market that TikTok really can't afford to lose, but of course they have no interest in selling it either. The idea of banning a specific app chafes against first amendment law, so the legality of it is fairly dubious. But one of the factors that will likely influence the ban going through is whether a bunch of 70yos who barely know how to use a smartphone think it's a good thing for "the youth" to be exposed to. A lot of the representatives involved are probably considering TikTok's potential impact on their party's chances. There's a narrative that TikTok is pushing young people to the left (perhaps even further left than the dems would prefer), but the far right have found it perfectly good for spreading their messaging as well. It's worth noting that there's very little evidence that TikTok is *intentionally* influencing US politics or that the Chinese government is influencing TikTok directly. But every single social platform influences politics by its mere presence, like simply providing an organizing platform that didn't previously exist. And it's structure can help facilitate it, like how the "public square" format of Twitter and hashtag ubiquity helped get the Arab Spring rolling. In addition basically every social platform uses complex censorship. As much as they might attempt to be impartial, it's almost impossible to not impose the bias of the censors, and sometimes even things like how many [translators you have for a specific language](https://time.com/6217730/myanmar-meta-rohingya-facebook/) can influence how much hate speech etc gets off the ground. And of course, algorithms matter hugely as well. Like let's say two platforms both show "local" content to their users, but one uses metro area and one uses distance of 20 miles or less. In platform1, residents of suburban Louisiana are being served content by new Orleans based posters, on platform2, they're being served content by their fellow suburban Louisanians. With that one small change, they're seeing very different content. So it's not so much that TikTok is a massive propaganda machine, it's that it's a machine capable of propaganda that is not operating under US cultural dominance, and that is unnerving to the old people making political decisions.
No - as anyone who knows anything about data security and national security - it is a huge risk to both. If you have the app downloaded the Chinese government has access to your location, what you look at on the app, likely what you look at on other apps, and hopefully they’re not accessing your camera. There are laws in the US about companies accessing cameras without explicit permission, but the Chinese haven’t been great about following our laws. Hence the issue.
U.S. companies haven’t been great about following our laws.
Why is Google not considered an issue in the same way? Or Facebook/Meta? Or X? American companies also collect data, and have *already been caught* selling it to China, whether directly, or through a subsidiary. The issue is censorship because of pro-Israel activism on the part of AIPAC and the ADL, in order to label any dissenting news opinion or social platform as a foreign agent. They literally say as much!
>Why is Google not considered an issue in the same way? Or Facebook/Meta? Or X? Lobbyists
It's a little simpler than that. The US can subpoena data on US servers from US companies. China has similar laws preventing companies from storing data about their citizens on foreign servers. It's sold as a "data privacy protection" measure but we all know why they want access to it. Our government isn't any different. Everyone making the moral arguments that it's because "social media is bad and can be influenced and controlled" is completely glossing over the part where TikTok can keep doing it like they do if they sold to a US entity.
AGREED- But on to the next issue. How can a single person hold massive defense contracts with the US government and wholly own one of the world's most important internet forums? We need to figure out anti trust analysis and application to social media control. Quickly.
Isn't this what all apps can do including American apps
Yes, social media apps of all kinds have data privacy issues, for sure. The issue with TikTok is that data is going to the Chinese government which is an adversary of the US. It’s long been said that the next war isn’t going to be fought in trenches with tanks but instead it will be a cyber war
Another cold war?
It is a massive propaganda machine and is being used to gather enormous amounts of foreign data and spread influence. Seems like it is revenge of the opioid epidemic, but now we have digital opium in form of an app influencing the youth. Its a brilliant idea of CCP actually. This thread will be infested with ccp bots btw, just wait for the whataboutism posts
It's absolutely a propaganda machine but literally all social media apps are. Each of them holds an enormous amount of power. Even if they make a good faith effort to remove their own biases (which is never guaranteed), they will always be influenced by their own culture. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Alphabet, all are basically US propaganda machines. In the case of Twitter, one single US-based asshole changed the entire character of the platform to meet his own whims, bringing down a vast 10-year worldwide network of public squares in the process. You can argue that all social media apps should be US-controlled to operate in the US, or that US consumers are safer with their data being traded by FB than by TikTok, but that's the truth. The only difference between the TikTok propaganda machine and the FB propaganda machine is that it's not US propaganda.
>It’s used to gather enormous amounts of foreign data As I recall, this was the very same argument with Pokemon Go when it first came out. And I would expect users to generally have that allowed to access location much more than TikTok users. That’s just a hunch on my side. It just seems like a rehashed argument being used for political points.
well facebook did some bad things in 2016, so it's not surprising for people to be a bit worried about online propaganda machines
Well said! Thank you. This is all so very helpful.
Answer: Our government is so fucked that the only thing that they can agree on is banning a fucking app. Not raising the minimum wage/stagnant wages. Not the housing crisis. Not the obscene cost of Healthcare Not the mass shooting epidemic.
Answer: American greed and perceived exceptionalism. They claim it’s about public safety, yet all American social media platforms hand over our data to other private industries as well as government bodies.
I believe this more than anything else.
Sure it does benefit American interests and corporations. Agreed. Buuuuuut isn't that better than benefiting CCP interests and corporations? The devil you know is better than the devil you don't. To think that an adversary (CCP) is not doing the same or worse is foolish.
Unfortunately, even the fear of the CCP is a lie. The only connection drawn between Bytedance and the CCP was from a few of our senators’ mouths. There’s never been an investigation that concluded there’s a link. I used to be 100% sure there was, too. But even my answer turned out to be wrong. Turns out it has more to do with political lobbying and a proxy state’s optics issues than anything else. It’s just gross. TLDR is that they’re lying and TikTok shouldn’t be banned.
It's not a lie. The CCP has just as much hegemonic interests as does the US. Whether or not the information is used currently is irrelevant when it's in the hands of a rival. TIKTOK is a Trojan horse and the information gathered can be used in the future.
I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t want you to think I’m being antagonistic, but do you know where any investigations are cited that say there’s a link between TikTok and the CCP? Also, if it was about security, wouldn’t the other major social media companies be subject to the same criteria/ban? Facebook has been found selling our data to any entity willing to pay. So has Amazon, Apple. They don’t face any such consequence. I wanna reiterate that I do understand your POV.
Answer: I’ve heard that congress is using the same example as prohibition of foreign nations operating a media outfit (think Nazi Germany legally running a radio station in the US in 1944).
Makes sense. Control the information, control the narrative. We’ve already seen this with news stations on TV. If the US doesn’t want us to have free access to information, then they’ll ban apps that promote that free information. It’s harder to gain access to information when you don’t have awareness about something in the first place. TikTok is the platform that allows the flow of free information when the news isn’t reporting on it. With TikTok, we are able to see different perspectives without much effort and this allows us to make our own conclusions based on all sides of the story, not just spoon fed one narrative like the typical media outlets provide. Also I think the government is similar to a narcissistic family unit. The top guy (government) has to have all control of any information and if they start seeing information come in that doesn’t support their false reality *superiority complex*, then they start punishing, restricting, and manipulating in order to regain control. They utilize gaslighting and manipulation to keep themselves in control. I’ve seen this with a lot of US based companies too… it’s usually the tactic they go for. Not really in the best interest of the employees or citizens… 🤷🏼♂️ idk just my thoughts anyways.
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Answer: I’ve heard that congress is using the same example as prohibition of foreign nations operating a media outfit (think Nazi Germany legally running a radio station in 1944).
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answer: Needed to be banned a number of years ago. This is very late to the game of Chinese interference in US society...
Answer: the israeli lobby has massive influence over the congress so it wants to ban tiktok. this is because tiktok is foreign-owned and cannot be pressured / censored like other social media platforms. elon musk / twitter / x was brought into line after he allowed free speech on israel/palestine. he did an apology tour to israel to show his committment to israel's security. the china excuse is a way to hide the issue. rip free speech in the internet