We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China. The CCP got wise to crappy addictive content, and made sure that ByteDance (TikTok's owner) only displays legitimate educational content (languages, maths, physics, etc). If you're going to get people addicted to short-form content, at least teach them something useful.
Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us.
To those who think that would be unfair - get a grip. China does this shit all the time. China also freely admits they are in an economic competition with the US and wants to overtake the US in terms of economic power.
A good analogy to this is steroids in an athletic competition. The US won't use them, but won't stop their competition from using them, but acts surprised when their competition (China) beats them. Either the playing field is level and everyone acts as such (quid-pro-quo in terms of banning tech products), or the playing field is not level (acknowledging that one side is playing by a different set of rules and gets to continue doing so) and one party is objectively playing a different game, one that it will win every time when its competition is stuck claiming moral superiority. China doesn't give a fuck about your morals, and China will stop at nothing to win.
We don't want to outsource our regulations to China. We should implement our own regulations for how media apps must behave, and apply those rules across the board (on both foreign and domestic companies).
> made sure that ByteDance (TikTok's owner) only displays legitimate educational content (languages, maths, physics, etc)
Can't believe that laughable bullshit keeps being repeated. Anyone who spent a minute on Douyin will tell you that's false. Approximately no one would be using it otherwise, instead of approximately everyone. Society addicted to an education platform… Does that sound possible to you in this universe? It's interesting how people here call right wing media fake news, but then regurgitate their outright lies that are easily seen through if you actually think about it when it comes to certain topics.
I don't know how accurate it is - but I used to do business directly with Tsinghua University, and through that I got to know an executive who was pretty high up the food chain at ByteDance, and I'm regurgitating what he told me verbatim in terms of content "requested" on them by The Party.
The Party had been quite worried about how much bullshit and useless information can be conveyed through short-form video, and wanted to be sure that if kids were going to be addicted to it, they might as well learn something useful.
Kids or adults simply don’t get addicted to educational content. An amazing human species for which the most popular app is an educational app doesn’t walk this earth.
I have no way to verify who you’re regurgitating, but I can open the Douyin website/app, which I just did, to verify that 99.9% of it is not educational, and the “crappy addictive content” are getting millions of likes as ever. And the very popular livestreams which are a major source of their income have exactly nothing to do with education.
Edit: Here's a screenshot of some of the most popular livestreams recommended to a visitor of live.douyin.com: https://0x0.st/HL9e.png Does any of these look educational to you?
"Crappy addictive content" shouldn't be illegal just like junk food shouldn't be illegal. People can make their own choices about what they consume without the government making decisions for them.
The most remarkable thing about your comment is that if US does a single thing you suggested we loose what we are about and what separates us from countries like China…
Well, yes. Open societies are vulnerable in a way that authoritarian ones are not. Absolute free speech is a weakness, adversaries will take advantage of the openness of your mind and the leverage that fake news will provide them.
And that’s even with some of the most disagreeable speech (active threats etc) still banned. Like we’re not even absolute free speech and it still sucks just how easy it is to ride the line with vague threats, knowing mistruths (Fox News etc), and other “valid” speech. It’s better to take stricter approaches like Germany etc and have the lines drawn a bit broader and have nazis banned entirely etc.
The “discourse banishes bad ideas” thing is a wishful fairy tale. Adversarial actors will parasitize your openness and use it to spread their message, and rebutting it only spreads the “debate” and gives it legitimacy. It’s better to stamp that shit out and force it out of mainstream channels and into separate “racist services” like gab, truth social, voat, etc.
It is what divides us from china but it’s also what’s tearing down our political system from the inside, because propaganda still works regardless of what you think about it. It’s marketing for ideology, nobody thinks marketing works either but companies aren’t spending billions of dollars for nothing. And the open western dialogue and interchange of information makes the propaganda more effective and propagate quicker.
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates undefended. There are some things you shouldn’t be open to even rebutting because they are simply so far out of the window of acceptability. We don’t debate people’s right to exist, for example.
> It’s better to take stricter approaches like Germany etc and have the lines drawn a bit broader and have nazis banned entirely etc.
Time will pass and then another group of people will be the ones deciding "where the lines will be drawn" and those lines will be forbidding books to children, women education etc etc... This line of thinking is fine if people drawing the lines are sane... But we all know how that always turns out
Not sure I understand what does "free trade" have to do with anything here? I was commenting on:
1. "We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China." I and hopefully 99.999% Americans do not want to live in a country that 'legally mandates' what content is available for consumption
2. "Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us." Again - WUT?! Not even going to elaborate on this silliness...
3. "China does this shit all the time." Happy to NOT do what China does :)
Absolutely agree here. We should be intolerant of intolerance in democratic societies and reciprocate with the more questionable counter parties from countries with .. shall we say different moral norms.
When I put "tiktok bytedance ownership" in Google, I get this:
"ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan's SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%. Some details of the relationship between TikTok and ByteDance remain unclear to outsiders.Mar 24, 2023"
It is unfair, but not to China or even TikTok. It's unfair to TikTok's users.
Why are we advocating that China-style censorship should be applied to apps we use in the west just because the parent company is in China? And where does this stop? Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it?
> Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it?
Yes. I say that as a gay person, too; if China wants to enforce their policy, the US should demand they do it in the ugliest way possible. Their anachronistic decisions will become a lot more obvious if they're forced to pick one side in the game of public perception.
It's basically called not being a sucker. They ban all our apps, so we should ban their apps. It's tit for tat. If they want to sell in our market, they should open up their market! It's totally unfair to allow them to operate in our market while they ban and restrict every single large american tech platform in their own.
>Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it?
Most movie studios literally cut a different movie for Chinese audiences to downplay the surface level faux "look we care about gay people, give us money" they do for western audiences.
Nearby, Target literally pulled LBGTQ merchandise because some people hate the mere existence of LGBTQ people, and Bud light lost 10% of their damn value for throwing a token ad at someone who is Trans.
I agree with you overall but I would crop a major part of your argument:
> Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us.
You don't actually want TikTok in the US to ban all mention of LGBTQ rights, Taiwan, and Whiney The Poo, do you? Those are the rules for TikTok in China; applying them the US would not be a good thing.
But I think the rest of your point is spot on. I don't see why the US should allow TikTok in its country if China doesn't allow Facebook in their country, just on pure economic/free-trade grounds.
I think you're confusing winning a game with living life. The reason we don't use steroids is we institutionally value living a healthy life more highly than winning a game. China-TikTok is unhealthy in a different way than USA-TikTok but it's still unhealthy. And while USA-TikTok has issues I'm not sure Facebook is any better, so the question is how we come up with generally protective rules.
Really I think the EU has a good approach with GDPR and we need to copy that. Banning TikTok or putting special rules on them is maybe a better reaction than doing nothing whatsoever but it's kneejerk and does very little to solve the fundamental problems.
I think the steroid ban is not for the benefit of the professional competitors, but for the impressionable public. It is a tragedy when our young people are harmed by PEDs because most of them do not go on to become super-atheletes and are left maimed by the experience.
But I am just guessing.
China may also have an official public statement that they do not use PEDs, while wink wink nod nod anything to gain attention and glory for CCP on the international stage is worth the sacrifice.
If the rational for the ban is "too much influence over the public," the root problem is that apps shouldn't have that much influence over the public.
Being that artificially engaging, algorithmic and addictive is a public health hazard... But no leader is going to say that because the US is fine with the influence such apps project to other countries (among other things).
And that influence doesn't have to be directly from the U.S. govt.
Yes. Let’s start having the government banning everything that is a health hazard. Let’s have a “War on Algorithms”. That worked remarkably well for drugs.
So what happens when we give the government the power to start banning websites that surface content algorithmically - like say Hacker News.
I can see next we have to ban Reddit because r/cscareerquestions have a generation of computer grads thinking that if they spend months “grinding leetCode” and trying to working “for a FAANG” and failing, they feel like a failure.
Overly engaging social media has weaponized conservative news media, among many other things.
Blasting propaganda over cable, radio, magazines and such is as old as America itself. Thats fine. Its part of the deal. But a device that lives in your pocket, essentially required for participating in society, with many billions spent on stopping you from disengaging is an entirely different thing. There is no good historical precedent for how psycologically manipulative that is.
Its unacceptable because China could quite probably start a civil war with such influence. Its not OK for Facebook, Google, or any government to have that unchecked power even if they just use it to sell ads or whatever.
So... I dunno where the line should be. But wherever that is, we are well past it.
So we shouldn’t ban media that you can view over cable and radio. But it’s okay to ban media if it is on cell phones? So we should also ban US companies from being able to distribute propaganda over cell phones?
If the US bans TikTok from app stores should they also ban TikTok from being viewed on the web? Do we institute a “great firewall”?
I don't know what good policy would look like, but off the top of my head enforcing "attention guidelines" in iOS/Android and putting limits on personalized tracking in US software seems reasonable.
No, but maybe (for example) notifications constantly popping up in the background begging you to open an app based on highly personalized data should be.
The US is not China, its not going to try and dictate how much screen time kinds should get or whatever.
Right because in the US, no state official would punish a private company - say an amusement park - for speaking out against a law that it passed to keep teachers from admitting gay people exist - because we aren’t China.
>Who defines "too much influence over the public,"?
Everyone knows drawing arbitrary lines in the sand is physically impossible, and we have never done anything like it before, and famously, American law has zero grey area and zero ambiguity about anything because everything is perfectly defineable in human life.
Slippery slope is a fallacy because it just pretends that decisions aren't being made at every single point on the slope. Notice how some drugs are illegal and others are less illegal? But if you ban one drug that's a slippery slope to ban all drugs!!!!
People make decisions in grey areas all the fucking time. There are judges answering those exact questions right now. That's like, their job.
And you’re okay with judges who are always political making decisions for you? How about we just not give government and unelected judges power over our lives?
What's your magical alternative to a human system? Is it anarchy? No thanks, full stop. Is it "just make the laws clear and concise and easy to understand"? I take it you've never built software around human things before, or you would understand that's an unsolveable problem, and would require humans in the loop making human decisions just the same.
well, we do require foreign broadcasters to register with the US govt because we want oversight and a cudgel. If there were a threat during a crisis we should expect the US gov't to pull the plug on these broadcasters (and similarly TikTok).
TikTok has some good things going for it, but it also has a sinister side. Some oversight is probably prudent. Same goes for all the public-content streamers.
I suspect this view is held by American adults who aren't from a young enough generation to use TikTok. While Facebook and Instagram might be 'evil', they're considered 'our American evil'. This smacks of jingoism and ageism. It's simpler to ban what you don't personally use.
> While Facebook and Instagram might be 'evil', they're considered 'our American evil'.
Yes, the business operations of Facebook and Instagram are fundamentally accountable to American lawmakers, and thus voters, in a way TikTok is not. That accountability is imperfect, indirect, and weaker than it should be, but it is a different situation than TikTok.
Despite a lot of hullaballoo, I think it would be exceedingly difficult for any one person to purposefully (!) tweak the Facebook algorithm to benefit a preferred political viewpoint. Someone—an engineer, a shareholder, etc—would notice and blow the whistle.
By contrast, there is no doubt in my mind that the CCP can make ByteDance e.g. downrank messages in support of Hong Kong. ByteDance is a private company in an authoritarian nation whose government explicitly has this legal power! I don't think it's jingoism to believe the CCP should not have control over a major American media platform.
>
Yes, Facebook's and Instagram's business operations are fundamentally accountable to American lawmakers, and thus voters, in a way TikTok is not.
No, they are accountable in the same way. You pass laws that restrict corporate behaviour, and then you fine/ban applications that don't follow them.
What you don't do is write a 'TikTok sucks so it's banned' law, while permitting the same problematic behavior from other vendors.
----
The major problem with TikTok[1] is that it disrupts an American oligopoly on public mindshare, and the US is afraid of it for the same reason that CCP is afraid of Facebook, or the CCCP[2] was afraid of jazz music and Hollywood.
[1] The other major problem with TikTok is that Facebook and Twitter and another major tech company are scared of it, and instead of competing, are very interested in lobbying until it goes away.
> I also think voters continue to wield significant power.
I disagree. Have you seen this famous study?
"Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a simple question: Does the government represent the people?
Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all."
"The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
> Facebook's and Instagram's business operations are fundamentally accountable to American lawmakers, and thus voters, in a way TikTok is not
Also, and perhaps more relevantly here, American lawmakers are accountable to and American voters are thereby subject to Meta's owners in the way they are not to TikTok’s.
Would it be easier for the US govt to "throw the smackdown on" FB or Tiktok? Nobody is even talking about banning FB, despite the known bad shit we know about it. Half of US adults would ban TikTok goes to show how much more accountable TikTok is than FB. Zuckerberg/FB has spent millions buying political favor. There is no way the Chinese ownership of TikTok has anywhere the kind of political access and influence of Zuck/FB.
In "the Twitter Files" we learned that American social media companies actually manipulate public opinion on sensitive political topics (censoring content based on hypothetical "Russian involvement"). And they haven't been held to account.
Meanwhile, there is no actual evidence of TikTok doing this in the West. I'm sure Chinese Douyin complies with government censorship for their domestic product, but there is no evidence that the American-managed product has done this. If it is happening and we just haven't found the evidence, the effect isn't there: Americans hate China more than ever.
I understand you wish to believe the opposite, because it would make us feel fuzzy inside about how great America is and evil the chicoms are, but there simply isn't evidence to support your comment.
It is honestly mind blowing that americans still believe that big social media companies and our glorious three letter agencies aren’t in cahoots, and that we only ever influence other countries.
The problem is that "The Twitter Files" is yet another propaganda op, framing the centralization problem in terms of the de jure government so that you continue ignoring the longstanding elephant in the room of centralized corporate control. In your terms - most power structures are roughly in cahoots, and directing focus towards a mere few seats at the table is a distraction. The vast majority of censorship is done for banal business reasons, including executives scratching each others' backs, regardless of whether one thinks it's justifiable based on the outcome or not.
Given users of these sorts of apps have been demonstrated to have an addiction to them in many cases, are users of TikTok more or less reliable judges?
No, you're comparing apples and oranges. In the poll, the reason they support banning TikTok is due to security concerns about China. The person I responded to was implying that the respondents' opinions are irrelevant because they do not (he assumes) use the platform themselves, and my point is that using the platform does not make your opinion on this issue more or less valid. Nobody is using addiction as a metric for banning anything in this case.
"Security concerns about China..." as more than half of the products you buy are from China. Your phone, router, bluetooth earbuds, chips in your car, the smart assistance that has an always on microphone, your smart TV that observes everything you watch and listens with a mic...
But this free app that some people use definitely needs to be banned because "China". Selective jingoism.
"Sometimes kids are complete idiots"... so definitely ban their social network but keep yours full of phony influencers and extreme politics - because the adults are never complete idiots...
It’s not “their” social network. It’s the CCP’s. They have never lacked for a social network. They will simply migrate to YouTube, Instagram, whatever. They will not hurt one bit for expressive capability. No one is being censored.
This is like banning a specific blend of woodpulp for making paper. There are other papers.
TikTok has no age gate. If adults "aren't young enough" to use TikTok it's because TikTok's content is irredeemable low quality trash and the average adult isn't as stupid as the average teen. Youtube doesn't seem to have this problem. Adults, even elderly people, can find content they like on youtube; youtube has both vapid trash and long form thoughtful content. TikTok's content is just awful cringe to a unique degree.
This reminds me of the last time this came up in some committee and senior politicians were complaining how the app is just full of dancing teenage boys. It’s not. As a longtime user of both, I’d say the content is comparable, except on TikTok you can’t drag out a video to 10 minutes to make a bit more money. Also, all ads are skippable.
A good video isn't drawn out to 10 minutes. Youtube has videos that are an hour+ because that's how much time the content demands. MIT's OpenCourseWare hosts lecture videos on youtube. What does TikTok have that compares? Nothing.
I know, I’m just saying that the platforms encourage different types of content and for YouTube it’s drawing out what could be a 3 minute video into 10 minutes because it’s better for the creator and the platform. TikTok doesn’t have long form content, but what it does have is someone saying “hey, check out this YouTube lecture, this is why you should watch it” which has helped me find interesting things on YouTube that I would have never clicked on.
If it were "60% of Americans favor HN ban", it'd be very easy for HN to recognize the morally abhorrent censorship for what it is. Extend to people you dislike, and who are very unlike you, the same dignity and autonomy you would yourself enjoy.
(It's also clarifying to contemplate this argument: "we're *not* banning you from accessing HN: we're merely banning HN from making its website accessible by you).
There's endless reasons you might want to stop other people from reading the things they want to read, and none of them matter, because, it is not your business what other people read.
I'm not really in favor of banning anything. As soon as you carve out something that should be banned, then things that shouldn't be banned are twisted by the detractors into being the class of material that should be banned. Today you get rid of Tiktok because it's Chinese Propaganda, and tomorrow you say that The New York Times reporting is propaganda that must also be banned. Then there are no information sources except from whoever is in charge, and that's basically the end of democracy.
I think the cat is out of the bag with Tiktok. If we really think the Chinese government is going to influence ordinary Americans, I'd like to hear why they shouldn't be allowed to do that, and I'd like to hear why they won't just start using Instagram Stories or YouTube Shorts. I get the feeling that old people (like me now I guess) are annoyed that people use Tiktok to come up with absurd pranks that hurt a lot of people and that this platform gives them an audience. But I guarantee that if it's banned, we'll just see the "YouTube Kia Stealing Challenge" or whatever.
The software issue is worrying. If video-sharing applications can be used as malware vectors, that is an iOS/Android bug that needs to be fixed with high urgency. Whatever Tiktok can do, your Verizon app or local newspaper can also do. Do you trust their IT teams to not let malware slip into production builds? I don't. So the OS needs to compartmentalize every app, and disallow wholesale information sharing (no device ID, no access to contacts, etc.; those features are totally unnecessary).
All in all, preventing certain people from having a printing press is against everything our country stands for. Yeah, dumb people can do a lot of harm by publishing dumb things. We balance that risk with with happens when smart people can't publish smart things. Governments have always hated that, but it's always been good for ordinary citizens.
Not being in favor of banning anything sounds noble on the surface, but it isn't plausible. Society is built from the ground up on things people can and can't do.
I thought the ban was due to TikToks ability/possibility to gather information about people, not the what they actually show? I have no love for TikTok.
There's no consensus on why TikTok should be banned, as there are various reasons for various people, likely including the congresspeople sponsoring any legislation to do so.
What a simplistic view of the world. The Chinese government will use their control of TikTok to allow them to have as much control and influence as possible and they won't subscribe to the view of "do what you want as long as it does not affect anyone else". Their view will be "do what we tell you or else".
So out of all the things that are “controlling people’s minds” - drugs, alcohol, pay to win games, gambling sites, and the US news media, that’s where you draw the line?
What’s next, we are going to ban EU media because they may influence people with their evil socialist agenda?
Last I checked, it wasn’t Chinese media that riled up a bunch of yokels to storm the Capital and has a large percentage of the population thinking that the “election was stolen”
> So out of all the things that are “controlling people’s minds” - drugs, alcohol, pay to win games, gambling sites, and the US news media, that’s where you draw the line?
I mean, all these things, if not banned, should at least be subject to regulatory limits. The concern is not the content itself, but the downstream effects on the population. We tolerate regulation on drugs, alcohol and gambling because of the serious negative aggregate effects they have on society. A democratic society based on rule of law should be able to collectively decide that the negative effects of some thing do not justify people's freedoms to do that thing. Without that principle, we might as well live in anarchy.
So do we really regulate that alcohol can’t be sold on Sundays because of the downstream effects or is it because of religion? Why would regulating of TikTok or other media not be based on the political leanings of whoever in power?
We also didn’t start regulating weed because of health concerns. It was because of racism.
How do you choose not to regulate content and still regulate its downstream effects? How is this different from when Tipper Gore wanted to regulate “violent video games” and rap music?
This comment is all over the place, but I think even the people motivated by religion and racism still justify their support of regulation with (at least perceived) negative effects on society. We can agree or disagree with them. Clearly minds are slowly changing on alcohol, drugs, and gambling.
Minds are changing on content and free speech, too. 40% of Millennials are OK with limiting speech offensive to minorities[1] and the trend by age cohort is very clear and swift. We may disagree but we old people are aging out. Another poll[2] shows 61 percent of Americans agree that free speech should be restricted, and 51 percent believe that the First Amendment, ratified in 1791, should be rewritten to reflect the new cultural norms of today.
I don't think you can regulate the downstream effects of content without regulating the content. Its up to a democratic society to decide whether one outweighs the other.
> This comment is all over the place, but I think even the people motivated by religion and racism still justify their support of regulation with (at least perceived) negative effects on society.
Is that suppose to be some type of justification for regulation - “because Jesus said so”?
> Its up to a democratic society to decide whether one outweighs the other.
You mean the same democratic society that made non heterosexual sex, interracial marriage, and Jim Crow illegal?
I would much rather give the government less power and you should to. No matter what side you are on, eventually someone on the opposite side is going to come along and use that power in a way that you don’t like.
There isn't a single country in the EU that's in any meaningful way 'socialist'.
Stop derailing.
As to your last point: approximately what dollar value of damage was done to schools as a result of the 'devious licks' viral videos trend from last year? And on what platform did those viral videos trend?
I agree completely - EU isn’t socialist. Do you think that right wing conservatives feel the same way? You see what happens when you give the government power to decide what should and shouldn’t be seen?
And you sound a lot like the federal government when they wanted to ban NWA because they said they were putting police in danger.
So now it’s okay to ban platforms that cause “bad things” to go viral? Is media also to blame for Jan 6th?
> So now it’s okay to ban platforms that cause “bad things” to go viral?
I think if platforms habitually or consistently cause 'bad things' to go viral then the ownership and management of those platforms should be examined, and if it's determined that their ownership/management may be beholden to interests contrary to the welfare of the nation then sanctions should be applied, which may or may not include a ban.
There are well understood exceptions to free speech and freedom of association that apply to the ownership and control of companies that could significantly affect the welfare of the nation. See:
Approximately what dollar value of damage was done to schools as a result of the 'devious licks' viral videos trend from last year? And on what platform did those viral videos trend?
> I think if platforms habitually or consistently cause 'bad things' to go viral then the ownership and management of those platforms should be examined, and if it's determined that their ownership/management may be beholden to interests contrary to the welfare of the nation then sanctions should be applied, which may or may not include a ban.
Who gets to decide and are you okay with people who have opposite political beliefs than you having the power to make that decision?
> Approximately what dollar value of damage was done to schools as a result of the 'devious licks' viral videos trend from last year? And on what platform did those viral videos trend?
I don’t know. If you’re okay with holding TikTok liable are you also okay with holding conservative media liable for January 6th?
Would you have been okay with the government banning Doom because they think playing video games causes mass shootings?
Do you think we should sue the gun manufacturers for shootings?
In no other area of society do we think anyone should be blamed for criminal activities besides the criminals.
The subject is foreign adversaries, not domestic strife. Let's not get derailed.
> the government banning Doom
The subject is foreign adversaries
> sue the gun manufacturers
The subject is foreign adversaries
> In no other area of society
Yes, we absolutely do. When companies bring out predatory sales techniques (such as lootboxes in video games) these techniques absolutely do attract oversight, sanctions and - in cases - outright bans. It's well recognised that people can be led astray and there are many legal avenues available to prevent significant impact.
A bipartisan “Right Think” committee of officials get to come together and decide what media should be banned? How would that have worked out if those commie sympathizers who were trying to get the good Black folks in the south to rise up against segregation?
> The subject is foreign adversaries
So you’re okay with domestic adversaries like the ones who invaded the capital because they were riled up by domestic media?
> When companies bring out predatory sales techniques
Aren’t all addictive substances “predatory”? Do you think we should bring back Prohibition
No media is being banned. The same content creators can create their content on another platform, or even the same platform, if that platform agrees to incorporate locally so as to be meaningfully under the control of legislation.
> No media is being banned. The same content creators can create their content on another platform
Do you feel the same way if the government suppressing media on Twitter? Facebook? HN?
> if that platform agrees to incorporate locally so as to be meaningfully under the control of legislation.l
So now we are back to the government controlling media. Shouldn’t we also want the government to bring EU media under their control? Maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with cookie banners…
How am I derailing anything? Are you not saying that the government should ban TikTok because it’s harmful?
I'm ending this conversation becausee:
1. you're not actually saying anything and
2. you're endlessly bringing up Jan 6 presumably because you think I'm a conservative and want to expose my double standard.
You're literally Just Asking Questions here, and I absolutely hate that term.
I’m taking your statements to the logical conclusion. It’s what happens when people don’t think through the consequences of giving the government power.
All it really takes to decide whether a government policy is a good idea or not is to think of how the political party you don’t agree with could use that power.
It never ceases to amaze me how willingly people are willing to give power to the government.
The government already has the power to regulate foreign media and broadcasters because it's well understood that their agenda may be inimical to national security.
We're just discussing how this may be applied to a 'broadcaster' such as TikTok which isn't covered by the legislation that covers legacy media.
How does the US government have power to regulate foreign media? There is no great firewall. The government doesn’t even have the power to regulate American media except when it is broadcast over the airwaves.
The only reason that government can legislate mecha over the airwaves is because public spectrum belongs to people and is licensed
> How does the US government have power to regulate foreign media?
Since 2017, U.S. legislators and the Department of Justice have required multiple foreign-funded news organizations to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA)
free societies are allowed to people to do unsavory things. Sometimes things change and activities once frowned upon become mainstream once people realize its not bad (or is quite good).
> influence ordinary Americans, I'd like to hear why they shouldn't be allowed to do that
You can find these arguments made in any of the many court decisions related to the foreign funding of trade union groups and other activist entities. Take your pick, there's no shortage to choose from in almost every single anglosphere jurisdiction you can think of.
The printing press analogy isn't really the right analogy when it comes to media "platforms" (any media platform). It's not really about allowing or banning a printing press, it's about companies deciding what printing presses citizens will see work from, what gets boosted and what gets buried, via a behind-the-scenes mechanism and based on heavily profiling users first. And because of the size of these platforms, the dynamic is different than say TV networks. Eg, think of Youtube's control over what videos people see on the internet, it's crazy how much cultural and political influence this gives them
So, it's sort of a subliminal form of influence, not a "this is what I have to say, now make up your mind" situation, and one with a lack of alternatives.
Also, that profiling data being sent to China's government is sketchy. I mean, in Canada, there's a national scandal about election interference and Chinese government outposts policing/pressuring Canadians as it is
TV networks were kind of similar actually, just less personalized, and way smaller in scale so that viewers could have some choice over what company controls what they see. Somewhat... maybe...
Close to half people agree with censorship. Of course, it's a product of propaganda. If people are afraid that foreign apps collect data about their citizens, they could do like in Europe and regulate with laws what is allowed to be collected and stored. Oh, if this is done, it also would prevent the American companies and their government to do the same...
Seems difficult to ban TikTok alone without violating the First Amendment. If you more generally banned exploitative data practices then you’d interfere with other social media companies as well.
Is there even any mechanism for this in the US legal system?
Companies and products can be regulated but the requirements need to be specific (and I'd welcome rules around personal data collection etc.) Or you can regulate an entire class of product, but then it would apply to all companies/manufacturers.
I don't see how you can ban TikTok without either being super specific about which rules it's breaking, or also banning Instagram/Youtube/many others.
The Facebook ban is kosher under WTO trade fairness rules because censorship laws apply to domestic and foreign companies equally, and Facebook decided to no longer follow them.
A TikTok ban that doesn't violate trade fairness would have to be based on some criterion other than nationality, e.g. by banning vertical video or something.
Congress can more or less do what it wants for things like this (under the guise of "interstate commerce"). They can write up a bill that says "TikTok is banned", and if it's passed and signed... that's that.
Certainly the Biden administration can't ban it on their own unless they can figure out how to use existing regulatory power in a way that the courts will uphold.
Congress can pass whatever they like, but there's a bunch of reasons a law like that would be unconstitutional and likely quickly struck down. Not only is it a violation of the First Amendment, it is almost a textbook case of a Bill of Attainder.
(At least, to to my layman's understanding. IANAL.)
I'm in favor of anything that negatively impacts China. They are our greatest geopolitical enemy. Ban it. Ban Huawei products. Ban Chinese entities from any and all ownership of real estate or natural resources. Impose monetary limits on investments in pure financial instruments from their nationals. Make travel to the US more painful for their citizens. Punitively tax US companies who move their manufacturing to China.
The fact that so many Americans are in favor of this is alarming. The government shouldn't be dictating what people can view on the internet, or what software they can install on their devices. This seems like common sense to me. What am I missing?
No one should dictate what people can view on the internet or what software they can install. Unfortunately it is a part of most modern operating systems, and the American government is fine with letting it happen. Our surveillance-agnostic attitude is the problem, government bans are merely a symptom of it going malignant.
They should also ask how many favor total ban on all trade with China. I suspect that sentiment is much more popular than they’d like to admit. TikTok would of course be banned along with everything else.
Does anyone know where I can find the poll questions, etc.? The poll is completely meaningless if we don't know what the questions are, and what e.g. "somewhat" supporting a ban means. E.g. does "somewhat" mean, bans on government phones but not on private phones? Because then of course many Americans are going to support that.
TikTok panic is the new satanic panic. If you did this same poll back in the 80s, you would have seen similar support for banning MTV and heavy metal music. Except, now the government and their organs are actively trying to stoke this panic and it has undertones of Asian hate.
Can you please describe a kind of engagement with Asian culture or products that you will not dismiss as orientalism? I fear that everything will fit neatly into Asian hate or orientalism in your taxonomy.
Americans love Asian cars. Tons of Hondas, Toyotas, Hyundais, Kias, etc. Also while some weeby anime fans may be orientalist, not all are, and love for Gangnam style was genuine. It was a great song and people loved it for that, not because traded on Asian stereotypes. The American geopolitical strategy in the Pacific rests heavily on a very deep trust of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, among other partners.
Actually studying their culture through their classical literature, philosophy and history instead of just a goofy song or some cartoons which were created by the "Good ones" (i.e., client states).
okay, that's just an idiosyncratic requirement. i don't ask that anyone do that for any of the cultures i'm from, nor does anybody that i know. hell, i haven't even read my own culture's classic literature!
They’re right, and if only American adults could properly understand and contextualize what every other company in algorithm-driven media and behavioral advertising does, in terms of abusing personal data and manipulating attention, we would have the good sense to ban all of it.
Nation-states are not people. The people running the nation of which I'm a citizen have interests that are not fully aligned with my personal interests, and to the extent that the nation itself can be said to have interests, those are also not fully aligned with me or the current leaders.
Also, tit-for-tat may be emotionally satisfying, but it isn't a universal strategy for all situations. There are frequently better ways to get what you want.
Cheaper software may be a short term benefit, but gutting the domestic tech industry and putting our future in the hands of China is ultimately a massive negative.
Trade should be reciprocal, that's how most trade decisions work. If you add a tariff to foreign goods, it's expected that the other party will add a tariff as well.
We're not talking about "trade" here. We're talking about not allowing US citizens/residents access to media that they want to access, regardless of whether or not it is "good for them".
What does that remind us of? The USSR during the cold war? China, today? No thank you.
I think it would be totally fine to use financial controls to, say, ban US users from buying things from ByteDance. But consuming free media should never be restricted just because it comes from a country you don't like.
Go read up on how the WTO works. We do this already for literally everything else, as does the rest of the world. The real issue is that when it comes to technology/software the policy makers have their heads in the sand.
I think giving unfettered access to "western" culture through media and software is one of the better long-term plays for bringing us all closer and planting the seeds of liberalism in other regions.
I think an argument against it is generally the classic, "that takes generations and I don't want to pay for that today. I want my market locked down for my benefit today."
I mean, that was the plan back with China, back in the later decades of the last century. Clearly it didn't work.
Either way, the issue at hand is whether or not US citizens/residents should be allowed to see certain things that come out of China, not whether or not we can and should be able to spread our ideals to China.
I support the ban. It’s potentially a mouthpiece for China. I see Chinese propaganda in my feed today. Mostly benign cultural garbage - here learn Chinese from some lady with a beauty filter - here let’s see how great the workers in luxury furniture factory live in our communist paradise, and then see the bosses new mansion.
Of course the tool can be gradually weaponized to push a Chinese agenda in their Taiwanese battle.
Should be banned today.
Alternate platforms will arise to fill the space, which aren’t CCP aligned.
> China's government could use TikTok to control software on millions of devices and drive narratives to divide Americans
Obviously other countries should ban US services as US government could (huh, “could”) use them to control software on millions of devices and drive narratives to divide %nation placeholder%? :-)
China does ban US services for exactly this reason.
Principles that work in a free society work within and between free societies. They don't work on an international scale between nations that are opposed to each other, geopolitically, the incentives are all wrong.
Leaving morals and ideology aside, simply strategically, Russia, China and the US are all wise to distrust each other and put limits on how each other's corporations can act within their boundaries. It's not the same situation between allies. Like, sure the US can use facebook to mess with Germany or the UK politically, but their incentives aren't to destabilize their allies.
I think it's fine for an otherwise-free society to decide that another country's government poses a threat to free societies elsewhere, and then do things like ban foreign investment and exports into the problematic country and its companies.
But not allowing their own citizens to access content produced in that problematic country smacks of Soviet-style cold war isolation. Or, hell, the Chinese government's block on any outside news or media it doesn't agree with.
Strategically, if the US (and others) want to remain free, democratic societies, doing things like banning TikTok is a step in the wrong direction.
> But not allowing their own citizens to access content produced in that problematic country smacks of Soviet-style cold war isolation.
Nobody is talking about that, though. Almost none of the content on Tik-Tok is produced in China. They're just talking about banning _the corporation_ from operating in the united states.
> but their incentives aren't to destabilize their allies
Why not? Take that “green” politics for example that lead Germany to close a lot of atomic plants and, now, basically, at mercy of US gas (which production surged 80%, if I’m not mistaken)
And then US subsidies to move production to US so that some VW plant is cheaper in US than in Germany
Does the US have a great firewall? Is it even in the same universe of information control as CCP?
“This other government is provably controlling information flow and punishing thoughtcrime” is plenty of justification to be suspicious of China’s motives in a way that doesn’t feel blatantly hypocritical to me given that we are on the receiving end of similar suspicion by our allies and enemies.
It is not the same. The US government does not partially own Instagram or Twitter, and I've never seen pro-US narratives driven on either platform. I usually see the opposite if anything.
US control over tech companies is a bit subtler than that and mostly manifests in certain people going through a revolving door between the executive suite in tech companies and some job in the military-industrial complex, as well as lucrative government contracts for the companies (look at how the deal was done for cloud services for the Pentagon).
It's _extremely_ common for people with NSA or similar experience to have very senior positions at US tech companies, and there's a reason for that. It's nothing formal, it's more that having friendly people on both sides of the fence is mutually beneficial for the government and for those companies.
The distinction is irrelevant if the government branches have power to use Facebook and Twitter data as they wish. Or if these companies are near monopolies, which gives them great powers comparable with a government.
Data collection is the issue politicians are presenting, but I think the actual worry is in the other direction: the influence the Chinese govt can have over the US population through algorithmic and explicit feed changes.
Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us.
To those who think that would be unfair - get a grip. China does this shit all the time. China also freely admits they are in an economic competition with the US and wants to overtake the US in terms of economic power.
A good analogy to this is steroids in an athletic competition. The US won't use them, but won't stop their competition from using them, but acts surprised when their competition (China) beats them. Either the playing field is level and everyone acts as such (quid-pro-quo in terms of banning tech products), or the playing field is not level (acknowledging that one side is playing by a different set of rules and gets to continue doing so) and one party is objectively playing a different game, one that it will win every time when its competition is stuck claiming moral superiority. China doesn't give a fuck about your morals, and China will stop at nothing to win.