Are there whataboutism arguments? Yes, many.
Has Chinese intelligence lost access to a treasure trove of US data? Yes.
Are US kids’ already dwindling attention spans going to be saved from exposure to the TikTok algorithm? Yes.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
You’re the type of person to hate on China for the way they control the internet then root for the same thing to happen here.
Apples to Oranges. This isn’t about preventing TikTok users from seeing content the US deems harmful, it’s the delivery mechanism for that content is such a gaping hole of security it doesn’t even qualify as a backdoor espionage. It’s going straight through the front door to gather data illicitly for reasons unknown. Adversarial nations are marked such for good reason and not a title lightly given.
TikTok isn’t the only social media that should be banned here but I’m honestly struggling to understand why people are fighting so hard to defend it, it’s a massive data leaking engine that harvests so much more information that it needs for people to share funny fortnite dances and cat videos. That and siix months from now if the ban goes through some other app is going to pop up to fill the void while existing apps and social media platforms have already been trying to cater to the short video sharing for a long time now.
Do you have any proof of this? Or just repeating propaganda.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html
CCP used tiktok data to identify and track pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong in 2018.
That doesn’t prove a single thing you claimed. Every country does this with every social media app. I didn’t know watching peoples Tik Toks meant they owned the company.
The Red Army has had an intelligence office located directly in ByteDance headquarters, it goes without saying they’re doing more than just watching someone’s videos.
Do you think people are as uneducated as you are? Just because you eat up American propaganda doesn’t mean everyone is as dumb as you and will fall for the same lies.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
I agree with the chinese intelligence part but other than that, this is basically the government telling you how to live your life rather than letting you choose yourself. In my opinion we should be allowed to make bad choices. What’s next? Ban on sugar and mandatory excercise for everyone? Obviously I’m being hyperbolic but this is a step in exactly that direction.
Agree that the hyperbolic situations would be problematic but luckily tiktok is only one of the many social media options out there. I’d also consider that content like tiktok can be targeted at kids who arent developed enough to make the right choices yet. Taking freedom away is bad but getting hooked on tiktok is hardly a passive choice when it’s the platforms goal to keep you swiping and social influence makes it near impossible to avoid. I’d see it as a grey area when taking choices away. Like removing a lot of extra sugar from school lunches I think was already a goal, as is taking physical fitness in school. There are choices to avoid those options so it’s not a blanket ban on that opportunity, but I definitely don’t see it as a slippery slope.
There will be something new that pops up. Or the US companies out there might just buy tiktok anyways.
saved from exposure to the TikTok algorithm?
I don’t understand. It will just be bought. It won’t go anywhere.
I don’t really use TikTok but I really hope this gets tossed by the courts. I don’t care if ByteDance is owned by cthulus and draculas, it’s a terrible precedent to have the government ban a media company. If we don’t like China having access to data, ban apps from collecting it in the first place. Require algorithm audits. There are so many better ways to handle this than singling out TikTok.
Everybody talks about Facebook like they’re owned by the American government. They’re not. I’m sure the US government gets massive amounts of data from them, but they can’t control Facebook in the way China can control Tik Tok. And much of their surveillance is public with warrants whereas China does not need to follow any of that.
I get it. But it’s night and day different than the actual government owning the company.
it’s a terrible precedent to have the government ban a media company
Good thing TikTok’s not actually being banned then isn’t it? It’s just being forcibly sold, which is quite different.
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The precedent was already set back in 2020 when the US government forced Kunlun to sell Grindr
I know that I heard (on the 538 podcast) that before voting on this, congress was given a security briefing about it, and after that there was wide bipartisan support for the ban (and we all know how rare bipartisan support is these days). It sounds like the security briefing was pretty compelling. If it’s not just theoretical that Chinese gocernment could leverage tiktok to spy on Americans and influence them, and there’s evidence that they are already doing it, I think it makes the case for the ban much stronger. But the information has not been made public.
I’ll also note that they set the ban to not go into effect until after the election.
Young people get a lot of their news and information from TikTok. The US government doesn’t have their hands in TikTok like they do domestic social media platforms.
That’s it. That’s the ban.
Edit: A lot of people downvoting, but this is 100% about control. It isn’t “oooo China spooky” national security stuff, it’s “we have no power here, how can we change this?”
If there is evidence then let’s hear it in court. We are not an Autocracy.
Uhh, yeah, we’re a representative democracy. This passed through both houses of congress and is on its way to be signed by the president. You know, the completely normal legislative process.
You can vote yourself out of a democracy at any time.
I mean sure, if you pass a constitutional amendment, I guess? Which this is not.
“I don’t like this law that our democratically elected representatives passed” does not mean that the law threatens democracy. You’re allowed to not like it, of course. That’s actually a big part of democracy.
Just because they were elected does not mean you’ve avoided autocracy. There isn’t a magic shield. You need to make sure they are respecting the Constitution and our Rights. If they assign themselves autocratic powers then you’re going to live in an autocracy. And make no mistake, giving the executive the power to just declare a corporation illegal is autocratic. It’s literally out of the playbook.
This is why our Constitution repeatedly says the government must use due process and prove its case in court.
See https://lemmy.world/post/14643617
I’m sure it’s just even more detail about the scope of that influence campaign (and possibly an extrapolation of effectiveness on public opinion).
The major thing is manipulation of the public’s information pipeline by a hostile foreign power. There are already existing laws about foreign owned media (as cited by the New York Times this morning https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/tiktok-bill-foreign-influence/677806/).
Being the guy who signed the bill that threatens the existence of a platform that is super popular with young people whose vote he desperately needs during an election year. Masterful gambit, sir!
Literally my first thought… Way to go Biden, nothing like getting hundreds of thousands of “influencers” mad at you right at an important election…
But who are we kidding, I can guarantee that maybe 5% of Congress even understood what they were doing.
There’s a reason why the bill doesn’t go into effect until after the election.
We’re not stupid.
This person does not speak for me
My $1 bid is ready to submit to ByteDance once grandpa signs that bill.
Get in line buddy, I’m entering this race with $1.01!!
How are you raising that kind of capital in this environment!? I can only dream of it!
Selling off old memes that were appraised at !antiquememesroadshow@lemmy.world
Free markets 📉🔥
Free speech 📉🔥
Children’s attention spans 📈✈️
I don’t think that a hostile foreign nation has an inalienable right to collect the data of and interfere in the lives of American citizens, as a form of “free speech” lol
I guess the EU should ban Meta and Xitter…
The United States is not an enemy nation to the EU. Nor does the United States own Meta or Xitter.
That being said if EU nations were worried about the NSA collecting information on their citizens and had reason to believe Meta was complicit in that, then they absolutely should ban Meta. I mean they have the GDPR don’t they.
They basically do, as revealed by Snowden documents when the US forced American companies like AT&T, Microsoft, or Google to let them spy on their users. I don’t even think Tik Tok stores their user data in China servers, it’s in Texas or Virginia or Singapore.
This was the original compromise, but Byte Dance repeatedly gave access to said servers to engineers with ties to the CCP against the agreement’s stipulations. Byte Dance broke the compromise.
Oh I don’t remember seeing that anywhere. You got a link with more info on that?
Well then yeah maybe the EU should ban them. Thats up to them, but I would totally understand it if they did.
As for TikTok’s user data, it doesn’t matter where it’s geographically stored. ByteDance has unfettered access to the data regardless, which means the CCP has unfettered access to it.
Well yeah?
Probably, but for other reasons. Neither of those are owned by the US, are they?
Yes but not for the reasons stated in the post you replied to.
It was apparently fine for years and years though lol
You think that it being unaddressed made it “fine?” The United States had slavery for years and years before being banned and I wouldn’t call that “fine” either.
Red herring for supper?
No it’s literally the exact same logical process you followed in your comment, just on a subject dramatically worse. Also I know what it is you’re accusing me of, but a “red herring” is not it lol.
You’re arguing this is bad for free speech defending an app run by a country that doesn’t have free speech.
You’re exceptionally dumb if you think they won’t just go to another app that does the exact same thing.
The kids don’t care, they will just use CoCo Fun (most are using both apps anyway).
The only difference is that with Coco Fun, its America spying on your kids.
I don’t know why people think spying is the issue. It’s the potential control. For example, when this bill was proposed, TikTok sent a notification to users to contact their representatives. That’s not horribly harmful, but it does show a willingness to weaponize their user base (and their base’s willingness to listen).
If this bill wasn’t going to pass before, it sure as well would after that happened. You have to consider what else that could potentially be used for. Could they possibly use it to influence an election if a candidate was against their interests?
If they ban one they should ban them all. Cambridge analytica used Facebook on behalf of LeaveEU and Trump.
I don’t totally disagree, but a foreign owned company playing with our politics is just a little different than a company in the US doing so. Sure, they’re all dangerous, but you don’t let foreign governments have power that can potentially control your nation. It’s why in China nearly all western services are banned. China sees the risks. Why would anyone expect a Chinese company to be ignored?
Most companies will let customers know about legislation like that. It’s hardly nefarious.
Yeah, except if a foreign owned company activates their user base to attack you, as a representative, it has to look threatening, and it should be seen as a threat. It was more than just a comment when opening the app. It was a notification pushed to the device, or that’s my impression at least.
As I said, this case isn’t that bad, but it does make the potential threat obvious. There’s a reason western apps are banned in China. Why should a Chinese company not expect action in the west?
My local dispensary had “write your congressman to support legal weed.” Is that a threat? Or is it just encouraging people who use your app to participate in politics? It’s not like they’re encouraging their users to march on Washington or commit violence. They’re just telling folks to do what every civics teacher has told them: Write your congressman about things you care about.
If Congress takes that as a threat that says a lot more about Congress than it does about Tik Tok.
There’s a reason western apps are banned in China. Why should a Chinese company not expect action in the west?
I thought that reason was because we post about events that didn’t happen and countries that don’t exist, not that it was a threat to China’s government. We didn’t ban apps here because we’re the free good guys, and they’re the authoritarians.
But I guess both countries are dickweeds now. So it goes…
Eh, all international (and even intranational to a large degree) politics is about power and always has been. We aren’t the “free good guys,” though China is absolutely authoritarian and controlling. Looking at it through a moral lense leads to the wrong ideas though. Morality has never come into play. If there’s a potential threat to power (even if imagined), it’ll be defended against. It doesn’t matter what country we’re referring to, nor is that unreasonable action to take.
Totally agree. Which is why I truly despise nation-states and the people who make me pretend to believe in them.
There is a whole class of “influencers” that get paid to shill for everything from liquor to policy on every platform. Tiktok, a foreign company, owns the algorithm, so they can promote whatever they want.
This all seems sketchy, but then I recall citizens united and the fact that billions are spent directly purchasing influence in the actual government. They just don’t like some other entity putting their finger on the scale.
I’d much prefer systematic reform where money can’t buy influence and companies (US or otherwise) can’t spy on their users, yet that will never be on the table because of the money and power Facebook and others have.
US Congress will grant the government any power except enforcing privacy rights.
APRA is coming
It’s Thursday night here has he signed yet ?
Yup. It’s signed.
Who is gonna buy it though?
I read a while back that Bobby Kotick was trying to drum up investors for it.
No one. China already said it won’t let Bytedance sell the algorithm or code. So even if someone buys the name we’ll just get YouTube shorts under a different name.
Sell to who is what I’m wondering. I would be surprised if whoever wants to acquire TikTok is not lobbying hard for this.
Tiktok is literally brainwashing people into supporting Palestine and brainrot liberal policies. I’m glad it’s finally being banned
