A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure.
It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation should it make it through both chambers of Congress. The House passed the foreign aid package that includes the TikTok bill on Saturday.
↫ Lauren Feiner at The Verge
I hope the EU follows.
> I hope the EU follows.
@Thom, I am at cross often with your opinion on corporates and markets — but hell ‘yeah, this ones needs to be rooted out.
Democracy and decision making depend on information and education and TikTok is the antithesis to it. Pure brain poison.
TikTok shows you the content you engage with. If all you see is “brain poison” as you put it, it says more about you than it does TikTok.
Personally, my TikTok feed is filled with art, science and history, and activism.
Thank you for the insult, I don’t use TikTok.
However I have very dear friends in frontier markets indulging in it and I get a very good idea what Anti-Western propaganda is spilt there. You probably call this activism.
I am very sure, you the deep stock of art, “science”, “history” and activism (the whole 30 seconds) was the major driver for that bill.
There are several terrible aspects of this TikTok ban that need to be addressed.
First and foremost, this is clearly a Bill of Attainder, which is EXPLICITLY banned by the US Constitution.
Second, it doesn’t at all address the issue of wide spread data collection and sales, which is the real problem. China doesn’t need TikTok to collect data on Americans, it can buy it from any number of data brokers that have vastly more access to our information.
More than that, it is a platform where 150 million people share and consume content that is protected by the 1st amendment. There have been far, far too many Congressmen that have made public statements admonishing TikTok for the type of content – people complaining about pro-Palestinian viewpoints on TikTok, pro-Trans rights content, etc. So many have voiced their opinions on the content available on TikTok that it is basically impossible to separate these 1st Amendment issues from the ban.
Drumhellar,
I’m no fan of tiktok, however I agree with you that banning platform like this is very concerning on 1st amendment grounds. I think project texas was a good faith effort to comply with the government’s earlier requirements run on US soil by a US company and IIRC 3rd party audits.
https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/oracle-chosen-as-tiktok-secure-cloud-provider-091920/
I don’t trust China, but come on congressmen, you guys just approved a spying bill that explicitly permits US agencies to spy on all foreign communications without a warrant. These two acts, taken together, couldn’t possibly be more hypocritical.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-renews-fisa-section-702-spying-privacy-rcna148394
Alfman,
Maybe the framing of the discussion is wrong. Or maybe the TikTok propaganda is working to label this as a ban.
However, during cold war, US did not allow russia to set up TV stations, or buy CBS / New York Times.
Currently the modern media is the Internet, and most US youth is directly exposed to TikTok, which is a foreign entity.
You’d know, I actually do not have a big problem with multi-national Internet applications. After all, Internet itself goes beyond borders. However TikTok has done several unique things to be targeted for a forced sale. (Again they are not banning TikTok, but rather foreign ownership of it).
Like the EU / US data sharing agreements (or many similar ones), US tried to have a framework called “Project Texas”. They were supposed to transfer US users’ data to Oracle, and have the algorithms audited. More importantly they would not allow the Chinese “mothership” to have direct access to private information.
It famously did not work:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/16/24132315/tiktok-bytedance-project-texas-china-silo
There were a lot of reports where Chinese outsiders continued to access US users’ private information like before, making any promises nil.
And hence we are here today.
sukru,
Why do you shy away from calling it “a ban”? A ban on foreign ownership is still a ban. A ban with contingencies (even if you consider them sensible) is still a ban.
Any ban could be transformed into some kind of non-ban using word play, but this turns into absurd doublespeak…
“We’re not banning books, just the authors who won’t comply with our family guidelines.”
“We don’t ban abortions, just the doctors who perform unauthorized procedures.”.
One can be for the tiktok ban or against it, but it’s still correct for tiktok users and the media call it a ban. We need to debate the merits of the ban.
Yes, I actually mentioned project texas in my comment. The US did not accept it, but honestly do you think ByteDance could have done anymore more to satisfy the US? I really don’t think the US would have accepted anything short of new ownership.
I agree, there are real concerns, I don’t deny it.
However I still think the points in my post apply. We must tread very carefully before accepting government censorship in defiance of 1st amendment protections. Can/should those protections be voided in the case of foreign misinformation/interference? This is a very tough question, The government’s responsibility is to uphold the constitution – when in conflict, the bar they would have to clear to overrule a constitutionally protected right would need to be extremely high. And IMHO to date they haven’t remotely provided enough public evidence to clear that bar.
I’m not saying the evidence of foreign manipulation doesn’t exist, but so long as the government keeps it secret, they don’t deserve the benefit of doubt in terms of nullifying people’s rights as it sets a dangerous precedent for authoritarian rule without the need for public disclosure.
Unfortunately I think one of the reasons the US won’t publicly disclose details of foreign spying operations that are happening is because the US is itself guilty of the same thing on a potentially much larger scale.
I couldn’t have put it better. Just as the gen z was raising its voices, shut their media down.
https://truthout.org/articles/tiktok-exposed-youth-to-genocide-in-gaza-is-that-why-electeds-want-it-banned/
In my opinion this is not possible and ByteDance will overturn this decision, if it ever happens, in courts. I perceive it as something suitable for elections.
I’m no fan of the PROC but this cheer leading of selective US policy helps no one. The US government is no stranger to data gathering. We need to advocate for the free and open internet many of us grew up with, or take sides in political battles. Remember IMAP, RSS; NNTP! Protocols and standards no matter the originating nation.
Just imagine the appeal TikTok now got when it comes to young folks, becoming the forbidden fruit. It’s over for FB, the congress made sure of that.
Freedom depends on state funded actors like tiktok and to some extent twitter to die.
Freedom depends on people being citizens first, consumers second.
Ban all closed source software you cowards.
But srsly, wow, I can’t see this being beneficial for Biden with young voters, especially when it’s only a couple thousand votes in a couple swing states that will move this election. If Trump ends up back in office, the Democrats will have to look at this as one of the reasons they lost young voters.
> Ban all closed source software you cowards.
unix_joe for president! You have my votes, Sir!
This is actually a difficult one: Choosing between Trump and TikTok! It’s like choosing between brain cancer and Naegleria fowleri.
I’m all for a TikTok ban as long as Youtube and Instagram also get banned.
Gentle reminder: there is a classified briefing that’s been given to various members of congress explaining why this is being done. We literally don’t know what those reasons are, other than in the most general terms, plus a lot of speculation. Apparently, congress thought it was important enough to pass a law. And in the current era, congress pretty much sucks at getting stuff done, so the fact that they actually managed to do this is in itself somewhat notable.
Not pro or con, just food for thought.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24108674/tiktok-ban-classified-intelligence-briefing-china-national-security
sarahannalien,
IMHO it would be better to have a disclaimer that china owns the platform and that all tiktok accounts could be spied on. If that creepy factor doesn’t dissuade users from sharing on tiktok, well the US government has no constitutional right to censor those users and I worry they are stepping into authoritarian territory by doing so.
The founding fathers intented for democracy to give people control over the government. For the government to declare power over the people really is a bastardization of democratic values. And to do so in secret such that it cannot be debated is doubly abusive.
Alfman,
as far as I know you are not living in a democracy, but in a republic. Dramatic difference, intended by the founding fathers who feared the mob! Also Democracy in its earliest form was never about “everyone can vote”, but about “every man contributing to the defense of the Atika has a vote”.
Why does it matter? Because 1) democracy is a very dependent and fragile institution that needs protection. Don’t forget: Hitler was voted into power in a free and fair election! Secondly free speech ends, where harmful lies start and TikTok is full of it.
Can you guarantee that with absolutely certainty that China/Russia is not orchestrating TikTok in a way to seed it with the perfect ratio of fun/entertainment and subversive propaganda to undermine the democracy? And have you ever wondered why China is restricting/censoring TikTok so heavily on its own territory?
I offer you an analogy: As far as I can see US soil is flooded by fentanyl, and EU is just starting. You know where this comes from and why its spreading. And it is common sense to fight it, despite freedom and the individual right to control you own body and substances.
TikTok is the same drug, just brain altering. I am not exaggerating here, read about how TikTok alters the cognitive capabilities of children: https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/
TikTok is not about data collection, that’s other nonsense and hillarious to hear from US government. I agree with you on this hypocrisy.
But TikTok easily can be seen as a very subtle, long term strategy to undermine our society — and this is where the 1st amendment ends and I agree on that with your government and hope the EU follows.
Andreas Reichel,
The technically correct term is “democratic republic”, language many of us learned about in school but don’t use often in every day conversations…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_republic
I think you’re assuming I don’t believe China are guilty…they may well be guilty. But that needs to be dealt with in the open. Allowing our government to use it’s powers on people without their consent is the beginning of the end of democracy.
I think there is merit to the science but its not specific to tiktok, others including google/youtube have been trying to capitalize on it as well. I’m not against solutions that take the problem seriously but frankly for these to really work we need a holistic approach, not just some anti-tiktok agenda.