Yes, I very much value free market but ethical principles need to be kept. Social media companies, however, fail to follow the basic ethics and disrespect privacy.
Is that picture AI-generated? The article claims it’s from GettyImages and shot on Capitol Hill, but… The signs are too perfect. They all follow the name design, the text in crispy clear, the colours uniform, and the sign itself 1 atom thin.
Not to take a page out of tin foil hat gangs book, but paid protesters imo. Byte dance probably funded them and had the signs made / distributed amongst them.
On what basis? The legal power of the US government to break up or otherwise force divestment of corporate assets is the basis upon which antitrust law is built. The only way this law could be overturned is it’s found unconstitutional, and if that happens, you can say goodbye to the FTC.
On the grounds that they are not breaking it up because it has monopoly but because they don’t like it can be used for Chinese propaganda. Which is limiting speech.
Also, they require it to be sold to non-chinese buyer, which is discriminatory.
Sorry if it sounded like I did not think TikTok is used for espionage. I am sure it is, just like Google, Facebook, etc. are used by the NSA (thanks Snowden for giving us proof of this). Its just funny to me that the US gov has to resort to banning it, because they spent years convincing people Tech Giants spying on them is ok. And now when they say don’t use TikTok, everyone laughs at them.
I couldn’t agree more. IMO the right solution is to regulate data collection, mandate algorithmic transparency, and require opt out for algorithmic curation.
But the discussion isn’t about whether this is the right remedy (IMO it’s not) but about whether the remedy will be held up by the courts.
Well, I think the courts should strike it down because:
It is content based speech regulation (Chinese influence on people), which deserves strictest scrutiny under the 1st amendment.
It targets TikTok by name, which triggers equal protection issue. Congress is not allowed to pass a law that specifically bans Tom Holland from smoking. Laws need to be general. I don’t see why this would be an exception.
As opposed to every other social media? If they want to protect privacy, Congress is allowed to pass privacy laws that apply to all companies. They are not allowed to single just one out.
You really think the interests of some country half a world away are more dangerous to you than that of companies trying to exploit you in your own country? The politicians trying to control you without pesky things as protests and elections? ;)
What do you mean when you say that the “external force wants to see us fall”?
It would be generally unwise to assume that powerful Chinese people agree on that particular issue. Everyone has their own priorities. People who are in power seeking more power and money have their own ways of pursuing it, and some of those approaches work better if the country on the other side of the Pacific is relatively stable.
Certainly we agree that the spy agencies will continue to spy on whoever they can. I don’t think banning TikTok will be a major roadblock for them, given the lack of consequences for companies that fail to secure their data.
The social media at home (ie Twitter, Facebook, reddit) have been manipulating all citizens into destabilizing democracy with all the right-wing propaganda and it is getting worse every day. I can go to Twitter any day of the week and see some slander in the “What’s hot” section for any democratic/liberal leader while ass licking every conservative one depending on which country you are from. And the posts are mostly made by young Russian/etc bots. The problem is it seems to be working.
It’s not just tik tok thats used for this shit. But the others are OK because they are 'MURICAN? It’s a double standard. I’m not defending tik tok, but I personally think Twitter, etc need to be sold as well.
I suppose for me personally it falls into the us us them ideology. I feel better with those companies at least having stake in the country they exist in.
Idk the more I think about it the more I realize how naive of a thought that is but I just don’t like the idea of an enemy of the US having that power over US citizens.
Twitter, etc isn’t Canadian but it sure does has an opinion about who the Canadian Prime Minister should be.
I dont feel good about any of these social media platforms having a stake in this propaganda. Tik Tok, Twitter, reddit, etc…it’s all the same to me.
Russia, etc will use any platform they can for this shit. It doesn’t matter where the site is based. I don’t think banning tik tok or forcing it to sell will change anything. Facebook will still be a cesspool of right ring propaganda.
Facebook was a key factor in the rise of trump and the January insurrection. I respect you’re realising the lack of substance in this pov, I just want to say I don’t see the appeal in an American company shovelling Russian propaganda over a Chinese one shovelling Chinese propaganda. Not like we’re gonna do anything either way to remove the grip these companies have on people. Just push them to ones that feel more “like we are”.
Where are you getting that from? Seriously if I saw that from a reputable malware reporter I’d support this in an instant. If this is true please link your source.
The question is indeed constitutionality. But I disagree with you about any major effect on the FTC. Details matter, and this looks to be a situation where the details don’t look good for the government. A court could easily find that this was handled improperly, and leave the rest of the framework as it is.
Lmao. Then bring an anti-trust case? That power is specifically in reference to that and requires the government to prove it’s case in court. Not just make a declaration.
In the case of antitrust law, the government has to prove its case in court because that’s the way the Sherman Act and related laws are written, not because the constitution necessarily requires it. And it’s the constitutional interpretation that matters as this is a law passed by Congress. A constitutional challenge is the only way to reverse it.
That said, TikTok is owned by a Chinese organization. So if I’m wrong and the constitution does protect corporations from forced divestment in a situation like this, it wouldn’t apply to TikTok. This is much closer to protectionist trade policy and I’m not aware of any cases where such acts were found to be unconstitutional. To the contrary, as a recent example, Huawei was banned from American markets on national security grounds (see: CFIUS) and while challenged in court, those challenges were defeated. And then there’s OFAC and the entire American sanctions regime (e.g. Russian asset seizures).
To be clear: I am not saying I support this ban one way or the other. I’m saying the belief that this will easily be struck down in court is misguided and that it’s not an obvious slam dunk.
Huawei was banned from critical infrastructure. You can still buy their products for personal use.
And the Anti-Trust laws were written that way because that’s the Due Process the Constitution demands. The executive cannot just declare something punitive. That has been the standard for over 200 years.
Also, if there aren’t rights for foreigners in the US then there aren’t rights for citizens. Because the loss of your rights is always just one declaration away. Which is why rights for everyone inside our borders has been the standard for 70 years.
Huawei was banned from critical infrastructure. You can still buy their products for personal use.
In what way does that invalidate it as an example?
The executive cannot just declare something punitive.
CFIUS and OFAC would beg to differ.
Also, if there aren’t rights for foreigners in the US then there aren’t rights for citizens. Because the loss of your rights is always just one declaration away. Which is why rights for everyone inside our borders has been the standard for 70 years.
Bytedance isn’t inside your borders and the constitution doesn’t protect extra-nationals. There’s a reason Guantanamo Bay still exists.
You wouldn’t be able to use TikTok as a personal thing. This isn’t critical infrastructure.
(CFIUS) is a powerful interagency panel that screens foreign transactions with U.S. firms for potential security risks.
So again. Not personal use. Also, refunding an investment is entirely different than shutting down a business.
And LMAO. If Bytedance wasn’t inside the borders then this wouldn’t matter. Saying they aren’t inside the borders is possibly the most hilarious bad faith thing I’ve seen in this entire debacle.
You wouldn’t be able to use TikTok as a personal thing. This isn’t critical infrastructure.
I’m sorry, but this is irrelevant. Look at the list of CFIUS cases. Among them:
CFIUS requested that Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd. sell Grindr, citing national security concerns regarding a database of user’s location, messages, and HIV status, after the company acquired the gay dating app in 2018 without CFIUS review.
Would you agree that Grindr probably doesn’t count as “critical infrastructure”?
(BTW, before you mention it, the CFIUS case on that list vis a vis TikTok was reversed by the court because they ruled the executive exceeded the bounds of the IEEPA, not because the IEEPA itself was unconstitutional).
(CFIUS) is a powerful interagency panel that screens foreign transactions with U.S. firms for potential security risks.
To protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications, such as TikTok and any successor application or service and any other application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Ltd. or an entity under the control of ByteDance Ltd.
So if CFIUS is constitutional, then I fail to see why this law is any different.
Look, again, I get it, I think the law is dumb, too.
But it is absolutely not a slam dunk that the law will get struck down by the courts, whether you like it or not.
The difference between your position and mine is I can acknowledge I may turn out to be wrong.
Furthermore, ByteDance absolutely is not operating within US borders. It’s incorporated in China and the Caymans (in the latter case as a variable interest entity so that Americans can buy economic exposure to ByteDance shares that otherwise don’t trade on any US stock exchanges).
TikTok, a wholly own subsidiary, is incorporated within the US. A forced divestiture affects the parent company (ByteDance).
The real question is whether the ban itself, if divestment doesn’t occur, would be constitutional, given that would affect TikTok Ltd., and that, to me, is unclear, and I expect it’s that portion of the law where TikTok is most likely to succeed in courts.
Oh no the government said it was for national security! That’s it folks pack it up. As everyone knows nobody has any rights once the President mentions the words National and Security together!
Also, did you just admit CFIUS doesn’t apply?
Stop justifying Unconstitutional shit just because someone said the scary words.
Why would they do that? Any arrangement that sees money come back to them more than once will be seen as them still owning it. And they aren’t about to open the door to their codebase and algorithm when they still have the entire rest of the world. It’s something like 6.5 billion people who aren’t American or Chinese on this planet.
And nothing of value was lost. While I’ve railed against the unwarranted mass data collection by the NSA and other 3-letter agencies via US carriers and app creators, Tik-Tok is controlled by a foreign adversary that is actively engaging in cyber attacks and has been shown to have far-reaching data collection capacities.
People can be mad about the US policies and celebrate the banning of Tik-Tok at the same time.
Constitutional right to free expression? Lies. So many get this wrong and they don’t understand its limited jurisdiction. And most of the time it’s all about their narrative and suppressing the opposing view.
Google and Facebook did the same thing when they were trying to pass SOPA or whatever it was before that made midtier services responsible for content and data of their users. Yet we don’t see people up in arms to ban those companies.
This is just about young people changing their minds about the Palestine conflict due to videos on the ground.
That’s just moving some goalposts. My reply was purely for this person who said Tik Tok needs to be banned because they showed a message to users saying they’re about to be banned and asking people to defend them, and this is something other tech and social media companies can do and have done as well. They didn’t say anything about the message itself, which wasn’t terrible at all. It said no lies, there was no mind control in it.
And btw, Meta is bad for their users as well. Cambridge Analytica fucking got us Trump through Facebook and Instagram. That’s bad for the whole country, including all their users. We need a general tech privacy bill, like Europeans have been getting, not this protectionist shit to help US oligarchs keep their billions.
There is a difference between a corporation advocating for the public good, and a corporation advocating for its own good. If your direct comparison is “well, why did no one want to ban Google for telling people to not support SOPA/PIPA” you have to acknowledge that distinction. Google et al were perceived to be useful companies advocating for an important cause, while TikTok is not as well-regarded and therefore its advocacy is (or will be) seen as self-serving.
And btw, Meta is bad for their users as well. Cambridge Analytica fucking got us Trump through Facebook and Instagram. That’s bad for the whole country, including all their users. We need a general tech privacy bill, like Europeans have been getting, not this protectionist shit to help US oligarchs keep their billions.
Oh you’re not gonna get any disagreement out of me. The point of my rather flippant response was exactly that- TikTok only gets called out because of the Sinophobia being pushed by Conservatives right now, when all media corporations are the problem.
There’s nothing wrong with companies informing their customers on how ongoing legislation will affect them.
That being said, I approve of restricting TikTok’s power and influence. I don’t approve of it happening like this. This is a problem for every social media company, not just TikTok. Americans need full privacy protections and transparency behind algorithms that shape their content.
Forcing the sale of one company doesn’t do much but get it out of China’s hands (which… okay fine, this is probably good. We wouldn’t be in this scenario in the first place if congress could do anything to put more control in consumer’s hands in regards to their privacy/content).
I do not want to be slightest of a Meta/Reddit advocate but domestic companies making political statements/actions, although I persoanlly do not agree, is far different from foreign captial, especially considering where the originating country is.
I’m not even US citizen but what they did was really concerning.
Forcing the sale of one company doesn’t do much but get it out of China’s hands (which… okay fine, this is probably good. We wouldn’t be in this scenario in the first place if congress could do anything to put more control in consumer’s hands in regards to their privacy/content).
I mean its a company alerting you to an impending loss of service and asking the only people who can turn course to do something. Its not much different to pornhub putting up a “no longer accessible, reach out to your senator” banner instead of aggressive privacy invading age checks. I think a lot of american websites did something similar when gdpr basically forced them to stop tracking us without consent.
I mean to an extent it is. America is mad China has a platform that’s popular with Americans that they can’t control. The effects of this were shown with the fact that America couldn’t control the narrative over the Israel-Palestine issue after October 7th. So to increase national security and try to gain back the control they had they’re getting rid of TikTok.
I agree that the government attempting to have this kind of control in a democracy is wrong but it still does provide national security. Security is good but can be taken too far and in all honestly we’ve been very far past what’s too far for a while with stuff like the Patriot act.
If this bill passes and any of you criticizes China/Russia for banning Facebook/Instagram/Twitter etc… under the name of “lack of freedom of speech”. I will be laughing. A lot.
They should have taken the harder route. Something like requiring all software that uses algorithms to manipulate their users to share their algorithms with an auditing body, or to provide a manipulation-free environment otherwise. Every time a change is made, that change must go through the auditing body. Of course Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google would have a hissy fit, so such a thing would never fly. Or just ban algorithms that manipulate users.
An outright ban of a particular piece of software sets a terrible precedent in an increasing Orwellian future. They didn’t even ban Kaspersky when Russia attacked Ukraine, they just all said, “you probably shouldn’t trust this, but keep using it if you want” and that’s software that has full access to a computer at a very low level.
I have news for you, China has already banned everything and if any western app exists in China, it must have its servers in China and it only works in “cooperation” in a local chinese company(which has complete or partial ownership of the chinese part of the app). Have you ever heard the Great Firewall of China?
That’s basically what the US asked of Tik Tok. They wanted their servers in the US (so they did) and then they wanted them in cooperation with a US company (which they did, Oracle I think it was). And it still wasn’t enough. And now everyone is clapping as the US becomes more and more like China.
First of all, i was answering to someone who seemed like a tankie making a bad faith argument.
The fact that Trump is about to get re-elected as president, seems to indicate that information warfare is very effective. Foreign countries can tap in whatever resentment there is, amplify and guide it. And next thing you know, Ukraine no longer exists.
GOP has gone from the party of McCain who warned the US about Putin, and who Obama laughed at and every democrat accused him of having Cold War mentality, to the party of “Yeah, Putin is cool and the US should be more like Russia”, in just a couple years.
Personally, i am a very big “fuck it” man, if humans arent capable of making very basic and easy decisions, let Trump get elected and Russia/China do information warfare(while shielding their own population from it). But some people seem to care about the world and they need to decide what they want.
They have to decide whether they want to use authoritarianism to “save” democracy, or risk it all by having a liberal society and hope people can eventually get educated to make informed decision(while information warfare risks bringing the country to a civil war). As i said, decisions have consequences.
The difference is that in countries that are not dictatorships you have alternatives that don’t seek to suck dry every bits of user data for profit and control.
There are services, like tor, proton, tuta, signal, session, blair, matrix, mastodon, wikipedia, and private and secure OS like graphene, calyx etc., seek to keep user data out of their control and respect user choice.
I have yet to see alternatives like these in a dictatorship. If so, I would have much less problem about China’s GFW. It is annoying that I have to keep wechat in its own profile, because I have no way to communicate with people in China, or communicate with others outside when I visit China.
That being said, I am not a fan of countries banning services for no good reason, but I don’t know if I want to make an exception for instagram and tiktok etc, because they are very much designed to be manipulative.
But I definitely don’t think any countries should ban services that are private, essential, and don’t impose manipulative algorithms, like signal, session, mastodon, tor, legitimate VPNs, GrapheneOS, etc. including wikileaks.
A lot of people started their businesses on Tiktok. The Tiktok algorithm is actually way better than that of Instagram to reach your target niche. A lot content creators and marketing exes do realize this.
I don’t understand the mentality of users, of course of obviously older generation here, that realize Tiktok did in fact change a lot of people’s lives. It’s not just an app for dancing.
They’re also all printed, and with the same font. I’m assuming it’s a stock photo, but if that’s from a real protest I don’t trust those protestors.who the hell gets a protest sign printed?
No *one outside of some influencers were paid lmao. People contacted Congress but they weren’t paid, and a quick Google search brought up zero result of people being paid *outside of the influencers. So I’d love to see where you’re sourcing this from.
Edit: Correction - about 30 influencers were paid to visit events for Tik Tok. I’ll rescind saying that literally no one was paid: that’s point is wrong. My main point was that average users weren’t paid to call into Congress. And the vast majority that called in or have talked out against the ban did so of their own volition rather than being paid as implied by OP’s comment
Its because the company literally paid shills to stump for them in person, call Congress, etc.
The way it was presented was that they paid average users to call Congress which is disingenuous. I’ll admit I was wrong when I came to the influencers being paid for in person events, but that’s only a smaller group of people and events. The vast majority were not paid and did so of their own volition.
Edit: Didn’t realize OP and the replier were different people. That’s also on me.
While some influencers report paying their own airfare to Washington, everyone we talked to took the free hotel. It’s unclear precisely what folks were offered as part of the trip to Washington, but seemingly everyone got one perk or another. Beyond the more than 30 influencers in attendance, along with their travel buddies, WIRED counted 10 other people who were, in one way or another, at the Capitol on behalf of TikTok.
30 influencers and their plus ones and 10 other people are paid. These are only people that wired has talked to, so there might be more people being paid one way or another.
And “everyone we talked to took the free hotel”: everyone wired has talked to has received some benefit from tiktok.
I don’t really know the scale of the rally, but seeing the rally photo from different sources: duckduckgo.com/?q=dc+tiktok+protest&iax=images&ia… , it seem like most cameras are pointing towards the same 15 people, all with signs distributed by tiktok.
I don’t think I will be as confident as you about the size of the protest. Even if there were 100 people there, that still means over 50% of the protesters received direct compensation from TikTok specifically for this protest.
I believe they are talking about a specific community that has formed over TikTok, a very anticapitalist and cosmopolitan one, and not about the platform itself.
If your algorithm is favoring that content, your short videos will be full of people talking about all things wrong in our global state of affairs; alternatives and temporal solutions (that happen to harm corporations, ironically because the information is becoming popular thanks to one, so I guess it’s the ladder to get to the rooftop); global situations that are not talked or barely talked on regular news (like Congo, Palestine, etc.); the truth behind Western propaganda and lies, especially the ones against populations and ideologies (e.g., “this country doesn’t prosper because they’re [whatever]” vs “we exploited and condemn this country to scarcity for decades and lied about it”); etcetera. In my time there, I’ve learnt a couple things.
I know that these content creators will find another platform if TikTok goes down. Lemmy has shown me that social media can be free of corporations, but that’s something many people are not aware of yet, especially since the techy people that could explain it on TikTok are not there.
So… yeah, TikTok has some interesting sides content-wise. There’s even the rumor that this is one of the reasons they want it banned in the U.S.
Tiktok helped my life for the better 😀… LOL. Sure but it is also a Chinese company that can do things to turn your life and the life of everyone around you into living hell if the government do wishes to.
I think what I would want my relationship with the Chinese country to be like is just simple transactions… I give you this money and I buy that thing. Done, end of transaction. I would like that for all phone tech companies actually. None of this shit about updates because they sold me a shit phone. None of the here’s 8 features, then an update leaves you with 3 features only.
Twitter/x is owned by an unhinged South African billionaire and Middle East oil Barrons. We can discuss the theoretical abuse of TikTok, but X is damaging our democracy today.
Meanwhile everyone has already forget when Cambridge Analytics used Meta and Facebook to influence voters into giving us Trump with the help of Russian propaganda. The hypocrisy is so blatant They just want only US oligarchs making money and they want to be able to censor things young people are seeing nowadays from around the world. Every other excuse is a screen.
This is possible. But at home we don’t watch TV and I just blocked YouTube altogether from my kids. That website is rancid. I wouldn’t let my kids on TikTok either if I was me. And I am me.
However you are absolutely right. How else will you move people who don’t know any better to actually vote for you? And what sector of the population doesn’t know all the shit you have done in the past 30 years than people who haven’t lived 30 years and haven’t paid attention in history class, not care much about it? Teenagers! That population lives on TikTok. So you are absolutely right. Because if TikTok was a porn site nobody would give a fuck except Texas.
That’s the thing. I definitely think short form content, and spawning even before that, the news bite culture, has been bad for attention spans, and I wouldn’t mind some sort of regulation on that with respect to kids probably. If I ever get a kid, they’ll be mad at me for being one of the last of their friends to get a smart phone lol.
But the fact that it’s only Tik Tok and not the just as algorithm-laden YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and Snapchat stories kind of proves it’s not for the good reasons people keep bringing up, of mental health or privacy. So they have to concoct the red scare, “China can manipulate our youth” angle. Even though we already had foreign companies and states influencing Americans, especially our older people, on other good, homegrown social media companies, like Meta and Twitter. So it won’t make a difference on that front, so it’s for less good reasons, like protecting American social media monopolies and censorship of news, the exact stuff we criticize China for. Then they’re going to pat themselves on the back about solving the problem. That’s the part that bothers me, i suppose. The lies and hypocrisy.
Just as a reminder, we have been ‘fighting for 15’ since 2012. But when it comes to leveraging foreign companies with bans to force them to sell to US oligarchs we can move at blazing speed through the least functional congrss in recent history. There are two very different Americas depending on how much money you have.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. Flush that garbage away forever, I say. It’s garbage and turds.
Tiktok style video selfie mode talking about random bullshit is the worst kind of social media invented yet. Nobody should care what your random face looks like watching some other bullshit on social media. There’s no need for that level of narcissism in society, we have more than enough everywhere else.
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