House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/12876226

The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.

US officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of US citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to have purchased US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers.

retrieval4558,

Here is the full text of the bill in case anyone was curious.

www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/…/text?forma…

ilinamorato,

They know and we know that this is going nowhere. It’s got a very thin chance of being brought to a vote, let alone passing the whole House, and an even thinner chance of passing the Senate. There’s no way on this planet that Biden signs it. TikTok is just too powerful a campaigning platform.

retrieval4558,

This may sound like a rhetorical question but I promise it’s sincere.

Why would I be more concerned about China having my data than when the US has the potential to collect that same data AND MUCH MORE through surveillance that we know they do? My own government has a much higher potential to do me harm than one on the other side of the world.

shalafi,

Saw another post that had many great points. What if TikTok leaned into propaganda, topics like reunification with Taiwan? I promise that will effect us, big time.

Maggoty,

What if China bought targeted ads on Meta?

That’s never affected our country at all…

JTskulk,

Good point, let’s censor political speech.

retrieval4558,

I agree that would be problematic.

However I’m not willing to allow the government to ban a social media platform that a lot of people enjoy and rely on for community building (or even their livelihoods, in a lot of creators’ cases) on a “what if”.

Think about the precedent this sets. What could it be used on next?

FreakinSteve, (edited )

Can it be used on conservatives and fascists? Can we use it to destroy right wing media outlets and overthrow the 1996 Telecommunications Act? Can we use it to band together and hunt down evangelicals who commit child abuse through radical indoctrination? Can we use it to hunt down corporate lobbyists and the Congressmen who take their bribes?

retrieval4558,

Not unless those things are owned by foreign companies, which I doubt those are

retrieval4558,

In case I’m being downvoted because you think I’m worried about a slippery slope for no reason, I’ll link the full text of the bill here.

The process is basically that the president determines that an app is an issue, notifies Congress (who does not need to give approval), then within a certain time period the foreign owner of the all must divest ownership or it would become illegal to distribute that app.

There are definitions laid out in the text. I see nothing that would stop them from banning foreign news sources or potentially foreign shopping platforms except for the clause about “permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content”, which could be broadly interpreted.

Do you really want to give the executive branch basically unchecked power to limit our access to voices from outside the country?

www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/…/text?forma…

pastabatman,

I think you’re farther down that slippery slope than you think you are. We have more access to foreign voices from outside the country than we’ve ever had in history. A lot of that is through social media owned by US companies who are not the target of this legislation.

Twitter has been pretty instrumental in swaying public favor to the Palestinians in Gaza despite Israel (a US ally) trying to paint a different narrative. Now imagine if Twitter was owned by an Israeli company. Would we see all those horrific pictures and videos in Gaza? Would we even know if we weren’t seeing them? Would we have any legal or legislative options if we did uncover feed manipulation?

I think maybe the reason you aren’t fully on board with this is that you seem to have a strong distrust of the US government. More than our foreign adversaries. That’s fair and you are entitled to that. The people on the other side of the issue trust the US government more than foreign adversaries and that changes the calculation.

SmilingSolaris,

What if isn’t a valid reason for jack shit.

sheogorath,

It already happened in other countries. Philippines and Indonesia elected their old dictators after a successful campaign on TikTok to whitewash their crimes so that Gen Z vote for them.

Davidchan,

China absolutely doesn’t want the US talking about Taiwan or the island of Taipei at all. They want the West to forget it exists entirely so they can “reunify” with it the same way they squashed out Democracy Riots in Hong Kong once the west got bored and stopped paying attention.

m13,

As an individual I’d rather be giving my data to China who probably have no interest in me personally, rather than a Five Eyes country who want my data to spy on me, and have more interest in persecuting me, stopping me at borders, etc.

force,

probably because China is a foreign country and the US is (presumably) where you reside, and you should apparently trust your own government only. but i don’t know exactly what a foreign government would want with your personal data anyways

Davidchan,

Each country has the right to say if businesses or entities of a foreign country can operate in their borders. The US Govt is rarely directly involved with operationing a company or business, with the biggest exception being the US Postal Service. So while they might make rules and regulations for how companies can do business, these businesses are privately owned, what information they gather on clients or users is for commercial use, typically for advertising purposes.

With Chinese companies, this is not the case, even companies that are technically privately owned are heavily managed by the CCP if not directly operated or owned by an official member of the govt. So while in the US if a company like Instagram or Twitter was told by the US govt to hand over information about certain individuals, without a warrent clearly defining what data to hand over and the reason for it, those companies can and in the past repeatedly have used legal means to resist and deny those demands. This isn’t a thing n China, and there is a lot of rumors that all the data these Chinese originating platforms collect by default goes to the Chinese govt, who can use it for anything from espionage, using insider information gathered illegally to manipulate markets or officials, to even things like blackmail or planning military actions in extreme cases. The CCP and all their associated companies have repeatedly shown in the past they don’t care about the rights of citizens in other countries, copyright laws or intellectual rights, and would be more than happy to turn every teenagers smart phone into a listening device into peoples homes and tailor content shown to individuals they identified as someone they can manipulate to radicalize them in a manner that suits them without any regard to that persons wellbeing.

If you think the US Government is untrustworthy (which, yeah it’s not) then you should be absolutely horrified at the thought of ever allowing the Chinese Govt and the CCP having access to any of your personal life or allowed to put software on your device and partake in a social network they curate and moderate.

erwan,

I can insult Trump and Biden on social networks, travel to the US then travel back alive to my home country.

I wouldn’t try that with China.

pastabatman,

Because China has interests that are in opposition to US interests, and they can sway US opinion any way they want by covertly manipulating the feed. They absolutely can do significant harm with this, including but not limited to selecting politicians, inciting chaos and political unrest, and even economic destabilization. I’m not sure that the US government actually has a much higher potential to do you harm than a foreign enemy of the US with a weapon like social media as you stated. You could make a strong argument that the political shitshow we are currently in is partially due to foreign interference through social media, and that is before they owned the actual platforms. The US government is not incentivized to destabilize itself at least.

Kolanaki, (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Why doesn’t the US government just make their own spyware entertainment app that’s better than tiktok? 🤷🏻‍♂️

BeMoreCareful,

YouTube shorts algorithm sucks. It sucks so bad you realize how bad YouTube videos algorithm sucks.

GeneralVincent,

Yeah comparing the TikTok algorithm to the YouTube shorts algorithm is like comparing the original Avatar the last Airbender to any of the remakes.

FreakinSteve,

Amazing analogy everyone gets

degen,

I, for one, only want domestic adversaries abusing my personal information. Actual rocks and fence posts are smarter than this.

CeeBee,

Tiktok isn’t about advertising. It’s CCP propaganda. Studies have been done that demonstrate that the Chinese only version Douyin shows more positive content to its users and Tiktok shows far more negative content that has a measurable effect on the mental health of younger people.

degen,

To me that sounds an awful lot like TikTok being closer to good old American media than some Chinese psyop.

Maggoty,

That’s uh… The NYPost article you’re flogging. Which is brave considering NYPost is a rag.

K1nsey6,
@K1nsey6@lemmy.world avatar

Congress is after TikTok because it’s impacting corporate profits like the boycotts of Starbucks and McD has done. A place where we can collectively communicate with each other outside of the approved echo chambers. They can’t control how we act and think without being able to control the algorithm

Jamil,

Tiktok has been the only massively popular social media app that hasn’t censored pro-Palestinian content. I used to be against tiktok for it’s ties to China, but I’ve been convinced it’s important to maintain freedom of speech.

DrSteveBrule,

I don’t use TikTok but wasn’t it heavily criticized for censoring pro-Hong Kong content?

Mastengwe,

So you’re fine with yours and everyone else’s info being sent to china because they allow the type of speak that you like?

Jamil, (edited )

So the choice is the American government having my data, which is fully committed to genocide, or the Chinese government which is speaking out against this genocide?

Right now, China is the lesser evil.

Take a page from capitalism, having competition is good for us consumers.

Mastengwe,

Okay… lol! we’re done here. I’m going to block your nonsense from my feed.

Jamil,

Ok bye

FireTower,
@FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/bae412c3-1bf6-43e2-8250-68de0960265d.jpeg

Not sure the CCP has a moral high ground on this issue.

Maggoty,

The “American” social media companies and data aggregators have repeatedly been caught selling your information to the CCP. The only difference is tiktok isn’t selling it to them.

Mastengwe, (edited )

I’d love to see the data on this. Provide an unbiased source please.

Maggoty,

Most recent news.

2018 case showing Zuckerberg does not care.

2015 allowing Chinese advertising, in the same time frame the Russians were allowed to run targeted ads.

They were sharing data all the way back to 2010.

Mastengwe,

If any of that shit is true, I’d love to see ALL of shut the fuck down. So it looks like your whataboutsim failed yet again.

Maggoty,

And yet Congress isn’t going after the “American” companies, just foreign ones. It’s not whataboutism to point out an action is entirely ineffective. And the real reason is to shut down competition.

Mastengwe,

How many times has Zuckerberg stood before politicians having to answer for his shit? How many FTC lawsuits are there now? San Francisco among many other cities/states have sued them.

Don’t make things out to be that Facebook is protected. You’re diluting the water to defend china.

Maggoty,

Answering tough questions is free. He’s not going to stop until he’s convicted in a criminal court.

iterable,
@iterable@sh.itjust.works avatar

Never forget back during height of pandemic Zoom was actually caught routing all data through China. Said oops mistake and giggled. Hey look Tik Tok is evil and connected to China…but how much more evil then Facebook?..uhh CHINA!!

csm10495,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

If the same videos TikTok had were instead on YouTube shorts, would all you people be happy? What about if Meta had it? It’s pure nationalism and old people being scared of short form woke-ness.

I believe every social media has a misinformation problem, but I’m not just pinning it on TikTok.

Heck, our fear is the same reason we don’t have cheaper EVs. We say 'the CCP… ’ and poof less competition and shitter availability for Americans.

I think it’s ridiculous. I could care less if the CCP knows what type of short form videos I like. I’m sure our government has the same type of data. Obviously users could care less too. Leave choice to the people: hence freedom.

I believe in freedom of speech. Trying to take this (stupid) app away is a violation of it. I don’t care about who owns it or gets data from it.

And no: I don’t regularly use TikTok.

Maggoty,

I mean YouTube has both a propaganda funnel into white supremacy and sales of data/advertising to the CCP.

But it’s American right?

TORFdot0,

Its performative. There is at least logic in thinking that if TikTok had US ownership that it’d be more aligned to US interests but unless it was bought by a mega US corp, it’d likely just be a shell operation and nothing changes.

Why single out TikTok and not Chinese nationals buying US real estate, driving up the cost of commercial and residential rents?

furikuri,

Why single out TikTok and not Chinese nationals buying US real estate, driving up the cost of commercial and residential rents?

Heavily agree that this is equally problematic, but unfortunately it seems like the choice has already been made that real estate “investments” cannot be allowed to fail. It’s the same reason why they aren’t also targeting US-based companies that have been shown to have ties to foreign rivals, they’re literally just playing politics. Sucks, but for now this at least opens the door for further regulation in the area

Teknikal,

Could see it effecting Ios devices but even then people will just use a browser. Not really going to effect pc and Android users will likely just sideload.

So not really sure this would have any effect as it stands.

lorkano, (edited )

Honestly it could affect it. People might just start using YouTube shorts or Instagram reels, they are not much worse than TikTok already

Dark_Arc, (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

This is a misleading headline. It mandates that Tiktok be sold if it’s to continue operating in the US.

Which honestly I support. It’ll probably just be sold. Even if it’s not, the CCP should not have a direct pipeline to feed US citizens whatever they want (even if they’re allegedly “not using it for that”).

Maggoty, (edited )

All the CCP has to do is buy advertising. If Russia can swing a presidential election with Facebook then so can the CCP. None of this makes any sense unless we actually hold executives accountable for the actions of their companies. No more second chances after admitting to Congress that they flaunted the law almost continuously from the last time Congress caught them.

captainastronaut,
@captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org avatar

Congress’ priorities are fucked.

verdantbanana, (edited )
@verdantbanana@lemmy.world avatar

our minimum wage is $7.25, no universal health care, the cops are militarized and keeping citizens in their proper places, food/ housing costs are more than our pay, transportation costs have skyrocketed, the postal service needs attention, we have fifty states not working together

but we showed that China TikTok what for BY GOD! they ain’t gonna spy on us

K1nsey6,
@K1nsey6@lemmy.world avatar

Those are the issues they dont want us collectively talking about, sharing our lived experiences and how they dont line up with the bullshit our government is gaslighting us with

ares35,
ares35 avatar

the legislation that needs to get passed, cannot, unless and until the house majority swings about 20 points the other way and the sliver of a majority in the senate is boosted by at least another 10.

soloner,

Fuck your whatsboutism. This is good news; tiktok is a propaganda machine.

Specal,

Lemmy is also a propaganda machine, let’s ban this platform too then.

TORFdot0,

The cyber security professional inside of me wants to agree with you. The Liberal in me doesn’t want to give the government the authority to ban speech and what citizens are allowed to watch.

los_chill, (edited )

Same. Just make it so Tiktok cannot advertise to American users or monetize American views. Start with that and wait for another non-ccp app to take that market.

Edit: Curious why every seems to disagree.

Mastengwe,

It’s proven propaganda. And a proven method of spying/gathering info.

I’m fine with the government removing it.

Maggoty,

So you’re going to shut down YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc as well right? Considering they all do the same thing and FB even interfered in an election?

Mastengwe,

If they start stealing information for china? Yes. I’d suggest we shut them down too.

See? I’m not so reliant on social media that I’m willing to sacrifice my security for them.

Maggoty, (edited )

Then do so. This idea that tiktok is any worse because it’s Chinese is ridiculous.

Mastengwe,

The fact that you’re here defending china is not at all lost on me. I’m not allowing you to waste my time again.

Maggoty,

I’m really not. I want Congress to pass actual laws, not operate as an adjunct to American Corporations.

Mastengwe,

Then start voting.

Maggoty,

Lol, we’ve been round and round on that one. You know my position.

Mastengwe,

That’s why I said it. You don’t get the change you want even in small doses- by standing on street corners yelling at people to not vote.

That’s not how it works.

Maggoty, (edited )

Well for something that never works it’s tried impressively often. And it’s no coincidence Biden’s messaging changed after Michigan and Super Tuesday.

Mastengwe,

It didn’t change. And it’s hilarious that you’re taking credit for something he was going to do anyway.

Man you people really need to learn how nuanced diplomacy is.

CeeBee,

This idea that tiktok is any worse because it’s Chinese is ridiculous.

Either the propaganda is working or there’s no hope for any of us. And I’m not saying this facetiously.

The idea of a company in China versus in the West is very different. In the West a company has near complete autonomy within the confines of law in the democratic country it’s in. In China, a company is completely beholden to the will of the CCP. Smaller companies are not worth getting involved with, but larger companies like Bytedance and Baidu are effectively corporate offices of the CCP.

We’re talking about a communist dictatorship that’s constantly threatening Taiwan with invasion and death threats. Goes around the South China Sea harassing the countries there by attacking their military and civilian ships with high power water cannons. Putting nets and markers right up against those same countries, in some instances within 50 or so kilometers. Then there’s the ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people. The constant suppression of any negative news. The complete isolation of its people from accessing the internet or news from the rest of the world. It just goes on.

China is an adversarial power to Western nations and even many Asian ones.

The issue isn’t that Bytedance is simply Chinese. The issue is that China does not allow a single bit of information leaving its borders without its explicit say so. Which is why any Chinese company that conducts any business outside China has CCP officials stationed at the company’s offices and have to examine and approve everything that goes out.

Maggoty,

So what’s the difference between the CCP getting it for free from Tiktok and paying for it from an “American” corporation?

None of what you said matters in this. Not when Zuckerberg is specifically courting China to spend advertising dollars and buy data.

Is the money changing hands making the end effect any different?

TikTok is both a sacrifice to make it look like something is being done and a called hit on a competitor.

CeeBee,

So what’s the difference between the CCP getting it for free from Tiktok and paying for it from an “American” corporation?

Whataboutism at its finest.

Maggoty,

That word does not mean what you think it means. In fact throwing China’s human rights record out there like it matters in preventing American consumer data from flowing to China is far closer to whataboutism.

The only thing that matters in stopping American Consumer Data from being collected by the CCP is stopping American Consumer Data from being collected by the CCP.

If that’s your stated goal then you need to hold all the data vendors accountable, not just the scary Chinese one. Because there’s nothing stopping them from selling it to China right now. There’s a whole chain of articles about Facebook and Meta doing this for over a decade. And you’re worried only about Tiktok.

Gee I wonder why that might be?

CeeBee,

The only thing that matters in stopping American Consumer Data from being collected by the CCP is stopping American Consumer Data from being collected by the CCP.

And how is this accomplished when the CCP has direct control and direct access to the company that develops the app collecting the data?

And you’re worried only about Tiktok.

Well that’s a massive assumption. Please show me where I said “I’m only worried about TikTok”.

Maggoty,

Obviously it doesn’t. But this doesn’t accomplish that goal. It’s like saying I hate bananas, let’s ban PBJs.

If you want to ban foreign countries collecting data then make that the law and ban TikTok when they break it. And then ban Facebook when they break it. That’s how good legislation is done. This kind of targeted bullshit is just a gift to Musk, Zuckerberg, and whoever runs Google and Apple these days. They’re going to funnel data to the CCP just as fast as they can make a profit from it.

The entire algorithm thing is also bullshit. Facebook has been courting the CCP for advertising for over a decade. To think they won’t use targeted ads for an info op is just fucking naive.

CeeBee,

But this doesn’t accomplish that goal

That’s partially true. But there’s a difference between having access to a dataset vs having direct control over an app, which includes the algorithms and content being shown.

In any case, if it goes through to a full ban, you can still use the app. It just cannot be distributed on any app stores. It would still be possible to sideload it (on Android).

And that will discourage a lot of people from using it, which would be the point.

I also would like to see any reports or studies showing China buying data from other social media platforms.

Maggoty,

Oh? And what would that difference be?

CeeBee,

If that needs to be spelled out to you, then that explains your position.

You’re either not too smart to understand, or you’re a tankie of some kind.

You also completely dodged the part where you need to backup your claims about Facebook selling data to China.

Maggoty,

Buddy. I’m not the one here who’s naive and I’m not a tankie.

Facebook being sued for giving data to Chinese companies with tighter relationships to the CCP than Bytedance is literally headline news right now. I’m not going to spend time linking reality to you.

The fact is you’re bending over backwards to defend an unconstitutional law with unprecedented powers. The common sense and constitutional law is staring you in the face. Make it illegal on pain of ban to give, or sell American data to a sensitive country; or otherwise cause American data in your company’s control to come into their possession.

There’s one paragraph that removes the xenophobia, holds the entire data industry accountable, and is constitutional.

The question of what’s the difference isn’t some cute gotcha thing. Datasets are storage containers. China will keep their data in one too. So what is the difference between getting everything Facebook can scrape and getting everything TikTok can scrape?

And you need to look up targeted advertising. It’s literally creating a custom algorithm on everything from Reddit to Facebook to Google Search. Which is why it was used by the Russians to impact our 2016 elections via Facebook. Yet another reason your demand for evidence about Facebook is ridiculous.

CeeBee,

Facebook being sued for giving data to Chinese companies with tighter relationships to the CCP than Bytedance is literally headline news right now.

I looked it up, and you’re right that there’s an issue there. But that’s an issue with an American owned company giving data to an adversarial country (two actually, China and Russia). It’s 100% absurd and shouldn’t be allowed with heavy penalties. But that’s still a different issue than the one we’re talking about.

The fact is you’re bending over backwards to defend an unconstitutional law with unprecedented powers

Two things: I’m not American, and it’s not unconstitutional anyways. There’s nothing in the bill that says no one is allowed to use it. And the first and preferred option of the bill is to sell ownership of TikTok to an American firm, essentially to divorce control and influence of China from the largely American userbase. If, and only if, the transfer of ownership is not possible then the app is to be delisted from all app stores.

That means that it’s still possible for existing users to use the app and it’s still possible to install the app through official means without either thing being illegal.

reuters.com/…/proposed-us-tiktok-ban-not-fair-chi…

Another interesting thing is that the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it will protect its rights and national security interests (paraphrased). What on earth does TikTok, an app that’s Chinese owned and banned in the very country that owns it, have to do with Chinese National security?

That a very telling thing to say.

Make it illegal on pain of ban to give, or sell American data to a sensitive country; or otherwise cause American data in your company’s control to come into their possession.

I can agree with this, but the TikTok bill has nothing to do with xenophobia. If China wasn’t an adversarial country actively bullying and threatening other countries with war and annihilation then it wouldn’t be an issue.

In fact, let’s go a step further and implement sweeping data protection laws so that our data can’t be sold for any reason.

The question of what’s the difference isn’t some cute gotcha thing.

No, it’s not a “cute gotcha thing”. It’s pointing out the difference between passive data collection and active control to influence content.

And you need to look up targeted advertising.

I know very well what it is. I work in the tech sector (IT/programming) adjacent to cyber security.

It’s literally creating a custom algorithm on everything from Reddit to Facebook to Google Search. Which is why it was used by the Russians to impact our 2016 elections via Facebook.

Right, so if you think targeted advertising is bad when company A sells data to company B, who then builds algorithms to target people for political party C, imagine how bad it is when that entire process is vertically integrated and directly controlled by a foreign adversary. And to add to that, we’re not even just dealing with ads anymore, we’re dealing with grassroots-like influencer content with talking points from the CCP.

You gave me an example of one really bad thing and said it’s the same thing as a different and extremely bad thing.

Both of them are bad need to be addressed. But with TikTok being run by a CCP-influenced company in a country that laughs at American laws, there’s little recourse to deal with it.

Maggoty,

You get a pass on this because you’re not an American and most Americans don’t know what a Bill of Attainder is. But it’s a law that targets a single person or organization. And the Constitution outright bans it.

SCOTUS has also historically been very unhappy with attempts to weasel word around the Constitution. Their position has consistently been if the effect is to do something that would be unconstitutional then it is unconstitutional.

That said. There’s no reason to target a single company when we can regulate the industry just as easily. Unless the actual intent is to force a private sale for the benefit of American billionaires.

But with your response to an actual bill and over a decade of American data vendors selling everything to China; I can see that you don’t care about regulating the industry. You just want to punish China. Nobody is refuting the horribleness of China. But there isn’t any evidence they’ve even tried to do anything to the international version of TikTok. Or that the Singaporean company that runs TikTok would listen to them

So yeah I’m against giving the US government powers it’s called corrupt in every country that’s used them. Especially in response to xenophobic jingoism. This is being done the wrong way, for the wrong reasons.

CeeBee,

I can see that you don’t care about regulating the industry.

Right, because me saying that Facebook and other social media selling our data even just for advertising is not ok and we should introduce laws for strong data and privacy protection equates to me “not caring about regulating the industry”.

Sure there, bud.

You just want to punish China.

Nonsense.

But it’s a law that targets a single person or organization. And the Constitution outright bans it.

Ok, I get this, but it gets murky when the “organisation” being targeted is a corporate office of a government party.

I’m not claiming to have the answer, but as a non-American I can’t get upset at such a bill. Simply because it would push back against a country that lately had been getting away with everything and causing severe and deliberate harm in other countries, including mine and yours.

umbrella, (edited )
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

so is instagram and facebook but you don’t see people rabidly want to ban them.

CeeBee,

Instagram and Facebook aren’t run by the CCP

bigMouthCommie,

they are propaganda machines though

CeeBee,

To a degree, yes. But nowhere near the same context or scale.

In democratic countries people have the ability to choose their opinions and voice them loudly. This allows many different groups to hold different viewpoints and then express them to other people. And yes social media has been used as propaganda platforms by those groups. Yet none of those groups have full unilateral control of a country under dictator-like rule.

The difference is that the CCP is a single party government. Xi Jinping has recently abolished term limits, effectively making himself a defacto dictator. The I-Soon leaks also demonstrate that the CCP is actively trying to disrupt society in other countries (not just the US). They have secret police stations in places like Canada, UK, and US where they monitor and track Chinese people and even intimidate them if they do or say anything the CCP doesn’t like.

Then there’s the constant attacks on military and fishing ships from countries like the Phillipines and Vietnam. The constant threats of annihilation of Taiwan. Etc etc.

You cannot equate the two.

bigMouthCommie,

tiktok and Facebook use in the US have nothing to do with anything you are rambling about.

Facebook manufactures consent for the military industrial complex and capitalist interests and since it is not overtly controlled by Lockheed or the Pentagon, it's propaganda is more sinister. at least you know who pulls the strings at tiktok

CeeBee,

You sound like a Wumao

bigMouthCommie,

idk wut wumoa means,but it sounds like you are pigeonholing me instead of dealing with what I Said

bigMouthCommie,

hey i looked up wumao and i was right. you were just pigeonholing.

if you can't engage in honest conversation without accusations of shilling, you might find a great experience on facebook, x (formerly twitter), or reddit. the youtube comment section might fit your style, as well.

umbrella,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

yes they are run by the us empire, which has a more violent history.

still not seeing the point of banning one over the other

CeeBee,

You’re just spouting whataboutism. It’s not an argument, it’s a deflection tactic.

I have no love for Instagram or Facebook. IMO they should both be banned and have all data erased. The planet would be better off without them.

But that’s not the topic of conversation.

The US isn’t an adversarial country to itself. The CCP is an adversarial country to the US, and most of the world.

which has a more violent history

Ah yes, so the CCP is A-OK because you claim they have a “less violent history”. Makes perfect sense.

Tell me, how many people died during the Long March and the “Great” Leap Forward?

In any case, the bill is not about banning TikTok. The bill is about selling ownership of TikTok to a US owned firm to take away control from the CCP. And then only if a sale cannot be arranged, to ban it as a last resort.

umbrella, (edited )
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

the real enemy of the world is the US by a long shot. what the US does warrants invasions and wars on 3rd world countries by the US, the same isnt true for china.

no country has such a dark and murderous history. my country is on that list and we are suffering from the consequences still, decades later.

and yes, having people die of starvation in one of the poorest countries in the planet is sadly expected. no system of government can fix a country that huge overnight.

banning shit like tiktok like you have a huge moral highground is hypocritical at best when US apps are doing it all around the planet.

e: how could i forget the genocide you are sponsoring

Maggoty,

So you’re going to shut down YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc as well right? Considering they all do the same thing and FB even interfered in an election?

asdfasdfasdf,

I would 100% be for shutting those down. Doing so would probably lead us into the next Renaissance.

Nima,
@Nima@leminal.space avatar

are we going to ban youtube as well? which has more than tiktok? or lemmy for that matter? or any other forms of social media?

people who fear monger tiktok make me worry that they fail to see the bigger picture.

tiktok isn’t the problem. the fact that propaganda is monetized is the problem. and banning tiktok will fix nothing whatsoever.

CeeBee,

Propaganda is a major problem no matter what.

I mentioned in another comment that Tiktok is a massively direct pipeline to the minds of younger people by the CCP. Studies have demonstrated that the Chinese only version of Tiktok (Douyin) promotes positive content to users whereas Tiktok promotes highly negative content. To the point that a study concluded it was affecting the mental health of younger people.

retrieval4558,

How do you differentiate purposeful manipulation vs it being a natural effect of Western social media? I stopped using Facebook and Twitter because it was obviously toxic and affecting my mental health. I use TikTok a fair amount and don’t find it nearly as bad.

It’s also possible that there’s manipulation in the other direction. In their own app they could be artificially increasing positive content while allowing the natural social media toxicity and ragebait to dominate in other areas.

My personal opinion is that TikTok is a way that peer to peer information and news travels very quickly in a way that they can’t control, and they don’t like that. As with all things, they want to keep us isolated.

CeeBee,

How do you differentiate purposeful manipulation vs it being a natural effect of Western social media?

Well, Tiktok is owned by a Chinese company. Every major Chinese company, especially ones that operate outside of China, have CCP offices within the company. The “rights” that individuals and companies have in China are at best a facade. What the CCP says to do is what happens.

The major difference is tested by looking at how the algorithm promotes or suppresses certain topics. Tiktok has a Chinese counterpart called Douyin (which IIRC is the “original” Tiktok) that’s only available to people in China. The findings point to more positive content being promoted on Douyin and negative content on Tiktok.

What’s also noticed is that Douyin heavily promotes anti-west and specifically anti-American propaganda. And promotes pro-China and pro-CCP stuff, such as “China has solved homelessness and homelessness doesn’t exist there” and “China has solved poverty”. The second one is technically true on paper, because they recently reduced the poverty threshold to $600 a year.

On Tiktok huge pro-CCP campaigns have been discovered and that content is constantly being pushed. They use Western shills mostly and the propaganda aspect is cleverly veiled.

As with all things, they want to keep us isolated.

In the context of Tiktok, that doesn’t make sense. And what’s even more ironic is that Tiktok is Chinese owned, and people in China have zero access to the outside world. People are going to jail or even disappeared now for simply using a VPN. News coming out of China is almost completely censored. China has basically become North Korea with more money. And they have direct control over the content on the most widely used social media platform in the West.

retrieval4558,

I’m not here to be pro-china, and I definitely believe that they’re putting those things in douyin. I’m just not convinced they’re purposefully putting negative things in TikTok purposefully to harm mental health.

This is anecdotal and my personal experience, but I haven’t noticed any pro-ccp things on my personal algorithm. What I do notice is anti-US and anti-capitalist content by Americans. Whether or not they are shills, I can’t say for sure, but it feels like it would border on conspiracy theory thinking to suggest that many of them are.

To clarify the isolation comment, I mean that TikTok is a place where community building and the spreading of ideas or news (not necessarily good or bad ideas/news) spreads rapidly, especially among young people, in a way the people who run traditional media can’t control. Taking away this tool makes us more reliant on forms of media that they do control.

CeeBee,

To clarify the isolation comment, I mean that TikTok is a place where community building and the spreading of ideas or news (not necessarily good or bad ideas/news) spreads rapidly, especially among young people, in a way the people who run traditional media can’t control. Taking away this tool makes us more reliant on forms of media that they do control.

This is true for many platforms like Reddit, Lemmy, Mastadon, etc., including ones that no longer exist like Vine. There have always been pages on the internet to share censored free content, and there likely will always be. The issue with Tiktok being a “way to spread news” is that most of the content is just “hearsay” without being verifiable. And that means false information spreads quickly and easily on Tiktok. There’s a reason most of the flat earthers have flocked to Tiktok lately.

Additionally, Tiktok is terrible for searchability. The platform isn’t designed to work that way. It’s designed to just doom scroll and you see what the platform tells you to see. The only other time you see something else is if someone shares a video. The random nature of the next video is where the issue lies, and considering it’s a CCP controlled company that controls the algorithm that picks the next video, I wouldn’t trust it with a video of watching paint dry.

There have been many studies demonstrating that the TikTok algorithm is hugely problematic.

retrieval4558,

I agree with you. The difference between the other platforms mentioned and TikTok is that TikTok is where the action is right now, so it’s the target. The unverified hearsay problem is certainly there, but I don’t think it’s inherent to TikTok more than any other platform. No matter the platform, rage and engagement are the most important things so the algorithms will always reward them. Even YouTube’s algorithm has been highly criticized for funneling people down extremist pipelines.

The TikTok algorithm is incredibly efficient at locking people, especially young people, into scrolling forever. That’s bad. However that same criticism has been made against more traditional social media platforms too. Twitter especially has a similar although less effective problem.

Besides vague gesturing at China, I don’t see any problem that TikTok has that isn’t already present in other social media platforms. If we want to go after all of them, I’d 100% be for it, but this legislation is too targeted and creates a dangerous precedent imo.

100% agree on the searchability. It’s totally unusable.

CeeBee, (edited )

but I don’t think it’s inherent to TikTok more than any other platform.

cbsnews.com/…/tiktok-pushes-potentially-harmful-c…

bloomberg.com/…/tiktok-effects-on-mental-health-i…

amnesty.org/…/tiktok-risks-pushing-children-towar…

The issue is measurable.

No matter the platform, rage and engagement are the most important things so the algorithms will always reward them. Even YouTube’s algorithm has been highly criticized for funneling people down extremist pipelines.

I’ll agree with you up to a point. The difference here is the interests of the company. The money angle is easy to understand and figure out, because there’s no reason to hide that.

It’s less obvious or easy when the intention is to influence people away from a societal or political ideation. So many people hand-wave away the fact that Bytedance is a Chinese company. The reason is that most people think “company” like Google or Microsoft in a democratic country, where access to data has (mostly) a lot of red tape and legal protections.

Now I’m sure anyone reading that would laugh and say “have you heard of Snowden?” which is absolutely a fair and correct thing to say. So with that in mind, Western companies still have a ton of autonomy and legal protections from their governments when compared to China. In China a “company” like Bytedance or Baidu are more like “corporate offices” for the CCP.

So Tiktok is effectively owned by the CCP, and it’s the Chinese Communist Party that’s coding the algorithm on Tiktok. There’s no other way to approach it.

Besides vague gesturing at China

No, it’s not vague gesturing. This is 100% a demonstrable issue. The I-Soon leaks demonstrate that. China is absolutely an adversarial country to places like the US, Canada, and Europe. The fact that they have covert Chinese police stations in the US and Canada to track and intimidate Chinese citizens in these countries is being alarming.

It baffles me that people even want to use Tiktok on the fact that it’s CCP owned in the first place.

twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/…/1765823031966904671

retrieval4558,

Thank you for those resources, they are pretty compelling, especially the Twitter thread, which if true, is good evidence that China has used the data to target specific individuals. That’s a problem. And the individual bit is important because I’m unpersuaded by “mass data collection” arguments because a) everyone is doing that and no one seems to care and b) basically the same data is freely purchasable.

The harms associated with the first few links are definitely real, but I would certainly be interested in an apples to apples comparison to other platforms, especially YouTube.

But I think it’s also important to recognize that there is a lot of good that comes from TikTok as well. If I can get personal here, I’ve moved away from family and friends to work a demanding job, and I’ve found some sense of community on TikTok with people who are into the same hobbies as I am, which I’ve had difficulty finding IRL. It has also given voice and community to [certain groups of] marginalized people, and, (for better or for worse) is a major platform by which creators can generate revenue by which a lot of them survive.

Obviously a lot of that COULD and SHOULD be hosted on a different platform without all these issues, but right now they are not, so we need to make sure not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I pointed it out in other comments, but I feel as if the current bill provides too much power to the executive to unilaterally ban foreign outlets from functioning in the US. I’m not a nutty free speech absolutist or anything, but I think anything that has the potential to shut out alternative perspectives like that takes us closer to Chinese style censorship, not farther away.

Ironically, I wonder if a better solution is mandatory integration of positive content algorithms like it seems like douyin has. But then the question is, who picks what’s positive? Is religion positive? Patriotism? Depends who you ask.

All in all, I think social media of all kinds has been basically the worst thing to happen to the world in my lifetime, but I think that that the cat is out of the bag on it and we’re just pretty fucked.

Thank you for the honest and level conversation here, I do appreciate it.

CeeBee,

Thanks for sharing that perspective.

Btw, everyone zones in on the “ban Tiktok” narrative, whereas the proposed bill actually says that Tiktok would need to be sold to another company not in China. That’s the bill’s first choice, but if that’s not possible, THEN ban Tiktok.

Nima,
@Nima@leminal.space avatar

do you have a link to that study?

CeeBee,

nypost.com/…/china-is-hurting-us-kids-with-tiktok…

newsweek.com/douyin-tiktok-use-link-favorable-vie…

I can’t find the study I’m thinking of. It’s been at least 6 months since I saw it. But these articles at least backup some of what I said.

Corkyskog,

I am still semi convinced that the ban is really because there are a lot of tiktokers devoted to exposing trades and corruption of congress critters in near real time. Tiktok has a lot of flaws, but it’s great for finding breaking news.

ThrowawaySobriquet,

I’m there as well, but on a broader scale: I think they’re wanting to ban it because they don’t have a hotline to Xi so they can get shut shit down. Basically want it banned for doing the same things Google does, but the problem is it’s not run by their own Musk-on-a-Leash

DancingBear,

Pretty sure it’s the other way around, musk and zuck have congress on a leash. Especially musk since he has skynet and tesla and space x

ThrowawaySobriquet,

All companies that are heavily involved with government contracts and subsidies. At least a Mexican standoff situation. There goes the George Carlin quote about clubs and who’s in them

dzaffaires,

Let’s ban one app instead of making laws that govern personal data for everyone.

bassomitron,

Not to mention this does nothing. ByteDance could easily just stand up a shell company with a puppet in another country and have it become the owner. Our lawmakers and regulators are fucking morons.

Maggoty,

They aren’t. They’re just well paid. Meta and Alphabet don’t want competition.

state_electrician,

It’s only bad if other countries are doing it.

dinckelman,

North American politics don’t work like that. We all know there are gigantics gaps in the reasoning behind everything. Domestic companies do the same damn thing, but a part of that money has already gone into someone’s pocket, because lobbying is a huge part of the decision making process

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