TikTok ban?

[Beet]

If there is anything that would lose the election for Biden it is this. 18-24 year olds would not vote for him if he signs this and may turnout to vote third party. Plus there are people who make their living off Tik Tok so you'd essentially be taking away income from people.

Aren’t those the same votes he lost from Palestine?

It could be a much broader group. Plenty of younger Tik Tok users could be persuaded to support Biden based on women's rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. But banning Tik Tok would put those people off. Young people don't like having their voice taken away.

What if Bytedance divests from TikTok?

That's what the proposed ban is trying to trigger so it wouldn't be banned if that happened.

The Chinese government last year pretty much said they wouldn't allow a forced sale, so a divestiture looks highly unlikely. If this goes through its likely a ban.

There are serious security concerns but frankly none that couldn't be solved by measures short of an outright ban, such as giving the US oversight of the data and algorithims, so this would set a very bad precedent vis-a-via freedom of speech concerns.

[Beet]

Unless the Chinese govt changed its mind its going to be a ban NOT a forced sale
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-oppose-us-lawmakers-move-093000760.html

Which means you'll have to use VPN to access it which is ironic bc VPN is what people in China use to access uncensored content.

[Beet]

The issue is that any potential manipulation of TikTok's algorithim as well as any data collection use by the CCP can both be addressed by means short of a ban. Simply open up the algorithim to regulators so they can see what's in it, would solve the first issue. And keep all the data in the US with the passwords only available to employees of a third party auditor or a regulator would solve the other issue.

And further, require a corporate structure so that the US operations are essentially independent, and any communications from "HQ" down are monitored by regulators, and any policies issued from HQ down subject to regulatory approval.

With those reforms in place, there is no need for the most draconian restriction on Americans' speech in a century, as well as opening up the can of worms of the government telling people which apps can be used or not. And besides, all of the data collection and manipulation concerns regarding TikTok also apply to other social media companies. They may be of a different scale, but our privacy should be protected against misuse by domestic actors as well. So there should be a bill covering general privacy protections rather than this bill.

[Beet]

The issue is that any potential manipulation of TikTok's algorithim as well as any data collection use by the CCP can both be addressed by means short of a ban. Simply open up the algorithim to regulators so they can see what's in it, would solve the first issue. And keep all the data in the US with the passwords only available to employees of a third party auditor or a regulator would solve the other issue.

And further, require a corporate structure so that the US operations are essentially independent, and any communications from "HQ" down are monitored by regulators, and any policies issued from HQ down subject to regulatory approval.

With those reforms in place, there is no need for the most draconian restriction on Americans' speech in a century, as well as opening up the can of worms of the government telling people which apps can be used or not. And besides, all of the data collection and manipulation concerns regarding TikTok also apply to other social media companies. They may be of a different scale, but our privacy should be protected against misuse by domestic actors as well. So there should be a bill covering general privacy protections rather than this bill.

This is hardly "the most draconian restriction on Americans' speech in a century."  It is not demanding any change to TikTok's functionality at all.  It is just saying that an app that stores massive amounts of user data in a totally non-transparent way should be owned by an American company.  The amount of disinformation and conspiratorial thought around this issue is staggering.

No one objects to the divestment part, only the ban part. The ban, according to this bill, goes into effect if the CCP doesn't approve of divestment. Ironically, this bill is what gives the CCP the power to effectively ban a hugely popular app in America. Which would be more power than they would have had without it.

I'll also add that the fact ByteDance won't agree to do any of what Beet describes, or even sell the company for billions of dollars, should be a huge red flag about its real purpose and intentions.

Where did they say they wouldn't agree to it? They almost certainly would agree to it. Let's give them an opportunity to and see if they accept.

"Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are shady and untrustworthy individuals" is not exactly an argument for "The Chinese Communist Party is reliable and can be trusted fine"

 Nobody said they are or can be trusted. The CCP does have an interest in letting Americans criticize the worst aspects of American life. Just because they provide the platform for this, doesn't mean the messages people are sharing are not valid.

And they don't allow criticism of any of the Chinese actions on that platform: https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/27/20985795/tiktok-censorship-china-uighur-bytedance

This article, from 2019, just says they were "accused of censorship", not that they censored. And the reason why is quite clear from a cursory scroll-down of the article:

In a statement, TikTok confirmed that it banned Aziz — though it denied it was because of her beauty tutorial-cum-impassioned plea on behalf of China’s Muslims. Instead, it said it only banned the phone that Aziz used to upload those videos because it was tied to her previous account, which had been banned for violating policies on terrorism-related imagery. (One of her videos briefly showed a photo of Osama bin Laden in what she has described as a joke about other people’s perceptions of the kind of men that she, as a Muslim woman, is romantically interested in.)

In fact, she posted as late as October 2020 and her account is still up, with 160k followers and 5.6M likes. And you can find plenty of content on the Uyghur genocide on TikTok from a cursory search. The account @uyghuryouth https://www.tiktok.com/@uyghuryouth, regularly posts videos raising awareness.

Ironically, this content would be banned in America under the bill proposed, if the CCP decides that it should be.

[Beet]

I am never clicking another link from GP270Watch lmao

As for the ban, that's only the enforcement for divestment.  I would also be OK with fining ByteDance into oblivion for storing data in China.  But a ban is more practical.  Realistically, the point is to get them to divest.

Look, I would be 100% on board with a divestment, but the problem is the CCP has to approve a divestment, and they have stated they won't. This bill gives them way too much power to determine that outcome.

[Beet]

I am never clicking another link from GP270Watch lmao

As for the ban, that's only the enforcement for divestment.  I would also be OK with fining ByteDance into oblivion for storing data in China.  But a ban is more practical.  Realistically, the point is to get them to divest.

Look, I would be 100% on board with a divestment, but the problem is the CCP has to approve a divestment, and they have stated they won't. This bill gives them way too much power to determine that outcome.

So what is the position here?  That we should somehow force the CCP to approve a divestment?  That we should invade China and seize the codebase and data centers that constitute TikTok if they don't divest?

The most we have the power to do is to ban the app from operating in the United States.  That is now what we are threatening to do, to try and force ByteDance to divest.  If the CCP is unwilling to approve a divestment, there's not much more we can threaten it with other than a ban.  And I don't see any way to force ByteDance to give TikTok to an American company other than by threats.

The position should be to force them to keep the data here, open up the source codes and algorithim to Oracle, and make the management independent here. That's the policy which is both feasible and addresses national security concerns without a ban.

[Beet]

I am never clicking another link from GP270Watch lmao

As for the ban, that's only the enforcement for divestment.  I would also be OK with fining ByteDance into oblivion for storing data in China.  But a ban is more practical.  Realistically, the point is to get them to divest.

Look, I would be 100% on board with a divestment, but the problem is the CCP has to approve a divestment, and they have stated they won't. This bill gives them way too much power to determine that outcome.

So what is the position here?  That we should somehow force the CCP to approve a divestment?  That we should invade China and seize the codebase and data centers that constitute TikTok if they don't divest?

The most we have the power to do is to ban the app from operating in the United States.  That is now what we are threatening to do, to try and force ByteDance to divest.  If the CCP is unwilling to approve a divestment, there's not much more we can threaten it with other than a ban.  And I don't see any way to force ByteDance to give TikTok to an American company other than by threats.

The position should be to force them to keep the data here, open up the source codes and algorithim to Oracle, and make the management independent here. That's the policy which is both feasible and addresses national security concerns without a ban.

Their CEO testified before Congress that all data was shored within the United States and that turned out to be a lie.  What should the consequence be?

He was referring to TikTok user data. It was later reported that data creators send to TikTok to sign up as creators is stored in China. That shouldn't be happening either, but it's a different group of people.

How would we even know if they're storing data here or in servers at CCP HQ?  You could literally just run a scheduled job every night to copy all the data from the American servers to the Chinese servers, run it on a Chinese machine, and there's no way anyone would know.  Given how trivial it would be to build this I would be shocked if this is not already happening.  Which of course explains why China is so adamant that they (why is it "they" isn't ByteDance independent of the CCP?) will refuse to sell TikTok no matter what the price may be.

Because you would need credentials and authorization for the job to access the database. Besides, any reads of the database can be audited. Any network traffic can be audited too. The fact that you don't know any of this suggests you don't really know the first thing about IT.

ByteDance is independent of the CCP, and ByteDance I am sure is willing to sell and any suggestion to the otherwise is a bluff. But the Chinese government is a different story. I don't know why they refuse to allow the sale but frankly the reason is more likely similar to compucomp's response on this thread. They see it as a gangster move to forcibly appropriate a Chinese company. Similarly, if China told Tesla that it had to be forced to sell its Chinese operations to a Chinese company and transfer its IP to the Chinese company, the U.S. government wouldn't be too happy and would probably block the deal.

The idea that China would need to go through ByteDance corporate to engage in expropriation U.S. data is farfetched given that data of Americans from all social media companies is for sale on the Dark Web. It's available to China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, terrorist organizations, etc. Congress never cared about that problem before and even now it's an afterthought to them, so that suggests this really isn't about protecting our data.

[Beet]

https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1767525209064558954?s=20

So apparently this bill gives the gov't power not only to ban TikTok, but to ban foreign hosted websites. I think we need to have a serious discussion about why we are copying China to build up our own Great Firewall. The reason they censor the Internet so heavily is because their government is insecure and weak, and can't stand up to scrutiny or free debate. We should not be copying them here.

[Beet]

It's amazing that a forum that skews towards young people is so supportive of a TikTok ban. Just remember, that by supporting the TikTok ban you

1. Don't believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech. "The CCP" you like to demonize is responsible for exactly none of the viral content on TikTok, your fellow citizens are
2. Are carrying water for Mark Zuckerberg, who is one of the hidden hands behind this legislation as the main beneficiary.
3. Are carrying water for the FBI and NSA to gain additional surveillance capabilities and authority. I've never heard of anyone going to jail over VPN use in China and Mark Warner wants to hand out 20 year prison sentences for that.

Looks like blind anti-China hate and jingoism has corrupted your minds. Maybe one day you'll wake up and realize that and regret that you supported policies that are in total opposition to your ideals.

Edit: No, Bytedance will not divest from TikTok. We won't let it happen. You won't pry TikTok out of our cold dead hands, you'll have to ban it and suffer the consequences.

     The CCP doesn't put the content on there, but it blesses the algorithm that promotes it and rots the brains of American youth, and it's not a secret that the TikTok equivalent that is used in China shows very different content. While there are important free expression concerns that need to be addressed, TikTok is an information warfare vector that the Chinese government is using to inflict severe long-term damage on the United States. If we cannot effectively answer this, then our defeat is a fait accompli. This goes far deeper than TikTok, but that is a basic litmus test that we need to pass if the survival of the nation is to be a realistic outcome.

The correct answer is to regulate the algorithim and the content. The Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, shows much the same content, but a little different not because of some weird conspiracy, but because the Chinese government enacted regulations, on what kind of content the app could promote, also putting in a 40 minute time limit for minors. By the way, those regulations apply to all apps in China, not just one. TikTok has a parent mode in the US that does largely the same thing.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-tiktok-douyin-teens-privacy/

Essentially, all the supposed harms of this app could be addressed by regulation that gives auditing and oversight of the algorithm, data, to US officials and third parties, as well as adding data privacy requirements and encouraging use of features like parent mode that are within First Amendment allowances. There is no need to remove literally billions of videos, likes, comments, and so on, generated by Americans, in the biggest government takedown of free speech in US history. This would be an ideological victory for the CCP, which is not to be underestimated. After all, the reason we won the original Cold War was because ideologically, freedom and capitalism came to be seen as more appealing systems by the world at large from the 1960s to the 1980s. Similarly, if we want to survive as a free nation and one more appealing to the world, we need to hold tighter to our ideals and not give them up.

Further, on the same day the House Energy & Commerce Committee passes this bill 50-0, they tabled a bill that would have stopped data brokers from selling Americans' data. If they are s concerned about protecting our data, why would they do that? Not to speak of the fact that while they are adamant about the equivalent of the death penalty for TikTok, they have zero concern for enacting any regulation that would address the harms of social media in general.

So none of their supposed concerns require a ban or divestment to solve and there's no evidence any privacy or data concerns would even be solved by a ban. But whenever critics of this bill point that out, the supporters keep going back to ignoring it and repeating the same talking points "blah blah CCP threat". Almost as if there are other motives out there for the ban/divestment besides what's stated. The supporters can't even get straight whether it's a ban or not, one moment they say it's not a ban and the next moment they say "the ban" can't be challenged. But the text of the bill clearly contains language that would prohibit the app, as well as give the government power to ban foreign hosted websites.

[Beet]

The correct answer is to regulate the algorithim and the content. The Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, shows much the same content, but a little different not because of some weird conspiracy, but because the Chinese government enacted regulations, on what kind of content the app could promote, also putting in a 40 minute time limit for minors. By the way, those regulations apply to all apps in China, not just one. TikTok has a parent mode in the US that does largely the same thing.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-tiktok-douyin-teens-privacy/

Essentially, all the supposed harms of this app could be addressed by regulation that gives auditing and oversight of the algorithm, data, to US officials and third parties, as well as adding data privacy requirements and encouraging use of features like parent mode that are within First Amendment allowances. There is no need to remove literally billions of videos, likes, comments, and so on, generated by Americans, in the biggest government takedown of free speech in US history. This would be an ideological victory for the CCP, which is not to be underestimated. After all, the reason we won the original Cold War was because ideologically, freedom and capitalism came to be seen as more appealing systems by the world at large from the 1960s to the 1980s. Similarly, if we want to survive as a free nation and one more appealing to the world, we need to hold tighter to our ideals and not give them up.

Further, on the same day the House Energy & Commerce Committee passes this bill 50-0, they tabled a bill that would have stopped data brokers from selling Americans' data. If they are s concerned about protecting our data, why would they do that? Not to speak of the fact that while they are adamant about the equivalent of the death penalty for TikTok, they have zero concern for enacting any regulation that would address the harms of social media in general.

So none of their supposed concerns require a ban or divestment to solve and there's no evidence any privacy or data concerns would even be solved by a ban. But whenever critics of this bill point that out, the supporters keep going back to ignoring it and repeating the same talking points "blah blah CCP threat". Almost as if there are other motives out there for the ban/divestment besides what's stated. The supporters can't even get straight whether it's a ban or not, one moment they say it's not a ban and the next moment they say "the ban" can't be challenged. But the text of the bill clearly contains language that would prohibit the app, as well as give the government power to ban foreign hosted websites.

     Well their concern isn't protecting our data, but striking back against China. That's the reality of the situation, and I won't defend that. If banning the app is an ideological victory for China, then so would be passing regulations similar to those that exist there, since they can easily make the case that this is happening because their method of governance is superior.

No, because regulating social media is not a fundamental distinguishing difference between the U.S. and China's government styles. However, free speech, and free use of apps, provided that there are regulatory ways of dealing with security concerns short of banning, traditionally has been. I'll also note that China does not ban American software such as operating systems, cloud providers, databases, the App Store, or browsers, even though those also collect data. They specifically ban foreign social media. Why is that? Because they are out to censor content to control their own population. That is their motive. Importing a policy with such a basis here is profoundly unAmerican by traditional metrics, although maybe not the country we are becoming.

I don't think there is a singular motive for the proposed TikTok divestment/ban either. The AIPAC lobby is clearly upset that the app was used to show a lot of images of suffering Palestinians. The app is valued at over $200 billion. If it is banned, someone is going to lose/make a lot of money.

[Beet]

The correct answer is to regulate the algorithim and the content.

snip:

Essentially, all the supposed harms of this app could be addressed by regulation that gives auditing and oversight of the algorithm, data, to US officials and third parties, as well as adding data privacy requirements and encouraging use of features like parent mode that are within First Amendment allowances.

I’m sure this would be enthusiastically welcomed by American social media companies.

Further, on the same day the House Energy & Commerce Committee passes this bill 50-0, they tabled a bill that would have stopped data brokers from selling Americans' data. If they are s concerned about protecting our data, why would they do that? Not to speak of the fact that while they are adamant about the equivalent of the death penalty for TikTok, they have zero concern for enacting any regulation that would address the harms of social media in general.

oh

The bolded bit is flippant enough about the difference between a human life and a f**king phone app that it almost makes me think there's something to the crass "kids these days" framing here. Not great!

It was a bad turn of the phrase.

Speaking of human life, Congress has done almost nothing for 20 years as mass shooters actually take away the lives of children in our schools, it does nothing about a health care system that has higher per capita spending but worse outcomes in life expectancy that other OECD countries with lower per capita income than us, and higher rates of treatable illness, and chronic conditions, and it does not seem to be troubled that the president sent over 100 arms shipments to Israel in its war that has cost 30,000 Gazan lives in the past six months alone. It does not want to act to avert climate change that is estimated to cost over 250,000 lives per year.

So if the perceived flippancy based on bad wording one time of me, one guy posting on an Internet forum who has no power, who is 40 years old and not even a part of Gen Z, is "almost" enough to dismiss an entire generation who I am not even a part of, what makes you think our Congress, which actually has power and is substantively flippant year after year about human life, should be trusted to be able to tell us which apps we can express ourselves on? This is not just about a "f**king phone app", it is much deeper than that, when considering implications of the government taking this power for themselves.

[Beet]

The correct answer is to regulate the algorithim and the content.

snip:

Essentially, all the supposed harms of this app could be addressed by regulation that gives auditing and oversight of the algorithm, data, to US officials and third parties, as well as adding data privacy requirements and encouraging use of features like parent mode that are within First Amendment allowances.

I’m sure this would be enthusiastically welcomed by American social media companies.

Further, on the same day the House Energy & Commerce Committee passes this bill 50-0, they tabled a bill that would have stopped data brokers from selling Americans' data. If they are s concerned about protecting our data, why would they do that? Not to speak of the fact that while they are adamant about the equivalent of the death penalty for TikTok, they have zero concern for enacting any regulation that would address the harms of social media in general.

oh

The bolded bit is flippant enough about the difference between a human life and a f**king phone app that it almost makes me think there's something to the crass "kids these days" framing here. Not great!

It was a bad turn of the phrase.

Speaking of human life, Congress has done almost nothing for 20 years as mass shooters actually take away the lives of children in our schools, it does nothing about a health care system that has higher per capita spending but worse outcomes in life expectancy that other OECD countries with lower per capita income than us, and higher rates of treatable illness, and chronic conditions, and it does not seem to be troubled that the president sent over 100 arms shipments to Israel in its war that has cost 30,000 Gazan lives in the past six months alone. It does not want to act to avert climate change that is estimated to cost over 250,000 lives per year.

So if the perceived flippancy based on bad wording one time of me, one guy posting on an Internet forum who has no power, who is 40 years old and not even a part of Gen Z, is "almost" enough to dismiss an entire generation who I am not even a part of, what makes you think our Congress, which actually has power and is substantively flippant year after year about human life, should be trusted to be able to tell us which apps we can express ourselves on? This is not just about a "f**king phone app", it is much deeper than that, when considering implications of the government taking this power for themselves.

I'm not one of the people in this thread whom I think you can fairly accuse of complacency on all these other (and, yes, enormously more important) issues, Beet.

I just saw this. Where did I accuse you of complacency, Nathan? I didn't. First you nitpick me over one phrase in a long debate with other posters over several very long posts, then you accuse me of saying you are complacent, which, having read the quoted post carefully, I never did. Which is weird because I never interact with you on this site at all and am barely aware of who you are. Don't engage in this weird passive aggressive behavior. You are a mod and a respected member of this forum. There is nothing wrong with me, or others, being passionate about this issue.

And yes, I find the warlike and authoritarian tendencies of Congress to be linked, and their vote to provide lethal weapons to a country carrying out genocide on the same week that they vote to restrict Americans' speech by banning TikTok, AND expand government powers to spy on us, on the same day, merely reinforces the point expressed in my earlier post. Except for Ukraine, (which is conveniently profitable to weapons contractors), we are losing the moral high ground. If you support any of this, then yes, you should feel bad about it,

[Beet]

You guys notice the Chinese government weighing in and saying TikTok will never divest?

Why is the Chinese government weighing in on this, I thought TikTok was a Singapore app, wasn't that the point of Shou Chew constantly reminding us that he's from Singapore, not China?  Hmmm otherwise why would he keep bringing that up if it's irrelevant?

Also I thought TikTok was totally independent of the Chinese government and that in particular its American operations were a completely distinct entity from anything Chinese?  That's what Shou Chew told us when he sat before Congress.  So why would the Chinese Communist Party have any interest whatsoever in what an American app with American data does?

And why is China so determined to keep this particular app operational rather than allowing its CEO to sell it for enormous amounts of money?  LinkedIn, PornHub, DeviantArt, Archive.org, and many other American companies are banned in Russia, did the United States government get involved and dictate corporate strategy for those companies?  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google, and YouTube are banned in China but I don't remember the Trump administration weighing in on whether or not Google should do Project Dragonfly.

The U.S. government regularly weighs in in favor of U.S. companies in China. Virtually every visit by Yellen or Blinken or whoever tends to have this as an agenda item. This is pretty much normal behavior for governments. Shou Chew said he was from Singapore because he was asked by Tom Cotton whether he was a member of the CCP.  Singaporeans aren't members of the CCP. They just, often, have a Yellow face.

I still really don't like the "foreign influence" angle on this--I want short-form social media in general cracked down on because it's a cognitohazard, not TikTok in particular cracked down on because it's Chinese--but Zephyr Teachout (law professor at Fordham, perennial candidate in New York, high-profile left-wing primary challenger to Cuomo in 2014) has an interesting essay in The Atlantic arguing, convincingly in my opinion, that this is really not much of a departure from traditional American policy on who can and can't own communications infrastructure.

Teachout is coming from the right place, but in Teachout's ideal world, all tech companies would be regulated as platform monopolies. Clearly, this isn't the motivation of Congress to pass this xenophobic bill. News Corp. was allowed to own networks here even while it was incorporated in Australia, as long as founder Rupert Murdoch became a U.S. citizen. Has anyone even considered allowing offering Zhang Yiming the chance to become an American citizen to allow TikTok to remain legal? Of course not. If there was an actual national security concern that could not be addressed without a divest-or-ban, everyone would understand a divest-or-ban, but the bill's supporters never even tried to find a workable solution because they weren't interested in one.