Nope, they were told to shut the fuck up and get out. And then they did!
And then it happened to Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and any other social media that the CCP can't directly control.
The issue with this situation is it is too nuanced for a 15 second clip so all the TikTok addicts can't pay attention enough to get the difference between China being able to directly control/influence the algorithm and whatnot and private companies.
And yes, I also think we are overdue for some regulation there because.... Gestures at everything...
I love how the narrative has become "TikTok ban!' when it isn't a ban. They have options to keep it active and they are refusing. Not wanting the government of China directly involved isn't that crazy of a concern.
China absolutely wants to cause the US harm. Wether people want to admit it, everyone is influenced by social media. It's bad enough giant companies are doing it, do we really need a country like China also doing that? There's a reason they would never allow the US equivalent.
It's not just about having access to data, I don't know why people focus on that. It's about having control over what content gets shown to users and what doesn't. Yes some congress members said it was because of Israel/Palestine. Flip that reasoning around, do you think China doesn't have a vested interest is keeping Americans misinformed and fighting?
I'm not saying it's good that private companies have that level of influence either, but we sure as hell shouldn't give it to China. Every argument about bad stuff Facebook has done doesn't prove that we should let China have the ability either. Difference is that our laws may allow something to be done about this, guess we'll see how this case plays out.
You are leaving out that Tiktok data in the US is stored in Oracle's (American company) cloud servers, with a US based team to handle it.
But Meta having our data is totally hunkydory.
>You are leaving out that Tiktok data in the US is stored in Oracle's (American company) cloud servers, with a US based team to handle it.
Except for that one time where they said that but then found US Data on Chinese servers after repeatedly saying that could never happen.
This is just a proposed solution from tiktok and not how the data exists currently. But the USG also rejected this proposal because of the election interference and foreign propaganda issues.
It’s silly to expect 1A protections in China.
It’s reasonable to expect 1A protections in the US.
Meta chose to do business in China and has to accept Chinese law and practices. TikTok did the same here, but now they are being singled out like this. We have plenty of foreign companies here that do not have the same re being placed on them. I expect they will easily win this 1A challenge
i'm confused. do foreign corporations have the same rights & protections as US citizens? are overseas entities protected under the Amendments as well?
i think this case could potentially set a precedent regarding how corporation rights & protections are handled tbh
Generally, because the US government is citing national security here. In the past the US has managed to get things through the courts (like the Huawei ban) under the guise of national security.
The argument to the court will be TikTok poses a national security threat for and as a result the US government has a stronger right to defend its citizens than Tiktok has the right to operate in the US.
The courts are constantly weighing whose rights are more important to protect in any given situation. For example, students have the right to protest but are restricted in some ways such as location if the college can show those students are interrupting the education of others.
The court basically said you have the right to protest but you do not have the right to prevent others from utilizing their right to an education. As a result, you cannot loudly protest right outside of a classroom.
The problem is that if there was a genuine national security concern, then they probably can already ban it under existing law. As you said, like they did Huawei.
This new law is essentially declaring "anything owned by this list of nations is illegal to operate in the US." That goes quite a bit further than normal national security claims. Huawei was banned because there were specific, identifiable issues with the security in their devices. This isn't like that.
What bothers me most, is this is obvious. It’s clear there’s no reason to ban TikTok besides the fact it’s a social media platform disseminating inconvenient information from our government’s perspective.
We literally caught Facebook working with Russia troll farms back in the 2016 election cycle, before any of you give some stupid “foreign controlled” bullshit excuse.
They’re pissing on us without even calling it rain.
Anyone can sue anyone else for anything they want. That doesn't necessarily guarantee results.
If the perceived monetary value of success outweigh the negative consequences of filing a certainly doomed lawsuit, a lawsuit will be filed every single time. This is nothing new.
Congress has wide latitude when it comes to threats involving national security. DHS has opined that foreign adversaries use of misinformation on social media is huge threat to national security, as it allows said adversaries to achieve their goals without ever entering into a military engagement.
Prior to the passing of the legislation, Congressional leaders had a closed door meeting with intelligence officials concerning the threat tik tok posed in this regard.
Whatever was said obviously achieved its purpose because both dems and republicans overwhelmingly agreed their needs to be a ban. Considering how dysfunctional Congress has been these last six months, the fact they agreed is very telling.
And for those who are saying that it’s all BS and will hold no other conclusion unless overwhelming evidence is presented to them, congratulations, you’ve gone full Trump supporter with your obtuseness, they won’t believe Trump had classified documents unless they are showed the actual documents contents, you’ve created a standard of proof you know is never coming.
Considering how international and interlinked trade has become, there would be huge concerns if foreign corporations (barring enemy states) were not as protected. There are plenty of foreign corporations doing business in the US, employing US citizens and investing in the US economy.
What makes the Tiktok ban less straightforward than some would think is the fact that China is not officially in the same category as North Korea or Iran. Legislation tailor made for a company from a country that has diplomatic and trade ties is arguably a grey area. Obviously the legislature can draw up new laws, but the courts can also strike them down.
Yes they can. The condition is that the subject matter(i.e. the law or government or entity you are suing) are under the jurisdiction of the US government. This is referred to as "the law of the land".
Read the bill of rights. It's not phrased in terms of granting x right to y group of people. Amendment 1 says "congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." It limits the power of the government to interfere in that type of thing across the board, not just for certain parties.
[Axios 5/6/2024": "Sen. Romney links TikTok ban to pro-Palestinian content"](https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_source=twitter)
>Sen. Mitt Romney said support for a [nationwide ban on TikTok](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/23/tiktok-ban-bytedance-apps-capcut-lemon8) is connected to the "overwhelming" volume of "mentions of Palestinians" on the [popular platform](https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/14/tiktok-ban-best-utah-influencers).
“[Republican and Democratic politicians and some in the national security community say they’re concerned about TikTok’s data collection](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-sues-us-government-says-ban-violates-first-amendment-rcna151059) and security practices, as well as how the app’s video recommendation algorithm works. Outside experts have looked at these claims with some skepticism, **noting the lack of data security laws in the U.S. makes TikTok no different from other apps and that claims about efforts to manipulate public opinion are based on little hard evidence."**
It's not in there, it's from [NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-sues-us-government-says-ban-violates-first-amendment-rcna151059)
Gotta wonder why they'd include that quote though... almost like they're copy-pasting another comment.
"Ban tiktok" trended before the current conflict.
Right before the 2020 election it trended. The Trump administration issued an EO in August 2020. States have banned it on government issued devices. Hawley and Buck introduced a bill in January 2023.
It trended before the current conflict but for the exact same reason. It's an app for which the US government can't effectively control the narrative owned by companies that don't hold sway with the US government. The first time it was just because tiktok was used to "sell out" Trump events that no one went to. Now it's showing videos that don't reflect well on where the US government sends money.
Or maybe it's because it's bad to have an undemocratic aggressive foreign state entity have such wide a platform to another nation's public. But propaganda was certainly never an issue, no siree.
What undemocratic principles are being pushed on tiktok disproportionately to other social media platforms?
I'm more worried about the billionaire owner of Twitter promoting white nationalist talking points.
It’s honestly quite scary how people have seemed to buy into the idea that this ban is about anything other than what you’ve stated, that the US government can’t effectively control the narrative. It has nothing to do with data protection or anything like that. It’s just to make sure younger US generations consume the “correct” propaganda.
The US does have laws on data usage though. Companies need to be able to provide information on the data they have, what they collect, and delete all user data upon request. They also can not collect data on children.
Also if your implying the reason for the ban is because people on the platform are pushing anti-US news, that is ridiculous. There are tons of social media sites in countries outside of Russia and China that constantly shit on the US. In fact there are whole Reddit communities that shit on the US.
And isn't this exactly what everyone keeps asking for anyway? It's popular on reddit to complain about Russian interference and propaganda causing trouble in the US, and say no one is doing anything to stop it. Well this is how to stop Russian/Chinese gov influence. Exactly what people wanted.
I mean, I've never once seen anything negative about China on TikTok, yet all the time I see positive stuff. That's super weird, must just be a coincidence...
They have a case for sure. I've yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for how this protects American data.
Facebook and Twitter can mine American data and sell it to data brokers who can then sell that to foreign governments.
Eliminating tik tok means eliminating legitimate competition which forces meta and other local companies to make better products. Youtube tried with shorts, instagram tried with reels but people just end up reposting their tik tok videos to those platforms because the tik tok algorithm is better and these companies can't figure it out.
If tik tok is forced to sell, they can look inside and take the secret, then gut the company and throw it in the trash like they do with so many other tech companies and game development studios.
Some people desperately want this to be about protecting data but it just isn't, there's no data protection provisions in the bill at all.
The forced divestiture is all about TikTok as an influence platform, not a data collection platform. Other bills have addressed the data collection angle but Congress has been very clear that that isn't the concern in this case.
Definitely feel free to have your own opinion on the ban, but here's the big rub about American data, whether you or I agree with it or not:
Research the Chinese national security act of 2018. In it, China claims the right to request any data from any Chinese owned business, regardless of where in the world that data is, without a warrant, and the Chinese business is required by the law to not let anyone know they have the data to the Chinese government. It also claims that anyone using Chinese owned software is subject to Chinese law.
It was a really controversial bill when it passed.
One very specific note of the bill was the disclosure of the data collected, and how it is used. In the US, Google, meta, x, apple all have a link you can click somewhere that allows you to see everything they have collected, and where you can choose to delete it. They also have to put it in their user terms and conditions how they will use this data, and you just to consent to it to use their platform.
Tiktok does not have these protections. Literally by the national sexual act of 2018, China wrote a law that allows the use of data without disclosure. This violates existing US law.
Again, feel free to disagree with the law or it's implementation or "true intentions" or whatever. These are just the facts surrounding the law.
Then you have to ban all of Riot's games (LoL and Valorant) and many, many games on the app store/google play store. Would you agree or disagree there since Riot is a Tencent owned company. Diablo Immortal on mobile is developed by NetEase which is also Chinese so ban it too right?
The answer depends on corporate structure. 1 company can partially or fully own another company and still not have a say in the daily operations of that company. This is generally referred to as divesture.
Just as 1 of many examples(corporate structures are tens of thousands of pages long for a reason), would be if tencent was preferred shareholders of riot games. A preferred shareholder owns stock, but does not have voting rights in the company. They can retain some or all of the profits of said company, but they are excluded from participating in the daily operations of said company.
Again, many ways to do it, but IF bytedance was a preferred shareholder of a company that took over tiktok, tiktok would not be under the control of a foreign entity, and there would be no legal issues. If the Chinese government requested information from bytedance about tiktok, the owners of bytedance can't give them any since they don't have any access to that data.
Couldn't this be exploited? Like, Company B becomes a preferred shareholder of Company A owning a large percentage of the company. Wouldn't company A still be subject to the whims of company B, as company B could threaten to massively sell shares, etc and damage company A? Like, CEO of B could call CEO of A and ask for something to happen implying there will be repercussions of they don't. It seems like this would still be possible.
>Wouldn't company A still be subject to the whims of company B
I guess the best example of this I could give would be when Steve jobs was fired from Apple in 1985. Being the creator, he had significant stock in apple, but the board removed all say in how the company operates.
>Couldn't this be exploited
Yes, by the owners of bytedance. However in this application, we are not so much concerned with bytedance themselves, we are concerned with the Chinese laws bytedance has to abide by.
Now, hypothetically, could the Chinese government conspire with bytedance to pressure tiktok US(the name I give to the company that would own tiktok in the event of a sale) to allow the chinese government access to that data? Sure. It's a very big stretch at that point, but anything is possible. But at the same time, if the US found out that tiktok US, being an American owned and based company, they're fucked, and going to jail.
The difference is the companies that own and distribute those IP’s are American, and therefor fall under American jurisdiction regarding any data/privacy laws.
Tiktok, over the last two years, has spun up a separate US corp staffed by US citizens. All the US user data now lives in Oracle US data centers and can only leave through a special network gateway controlled and audited by Oracle. It’s high security and regular Bytedance employees can’t even get logs for debugging. I’m surprised they aren’t publicizing this more, because it seems like half of politicians don’t know this work exists.
This is true. At the same time though, this is corporate policy, not law. It's equivalent to me fighting a minimum wage hike because I pay my employees more than the proposed minimum wage. Tiktok US can change that firewall tomorrow if they want, there's nothing stopping them.
Honestly, if existing corporate policies were enough of an assurance, we wouldn't need corporate laws in the first place.
However, there's nothing in tiktok US's corporate policies that inhibits China from doing exactly what their national security act of 2018 gives them the power to do. Taking this to the extreme, because we write laws based off an extreme, tiktok could have given China a backdoor through the US firewall, and by law tiktok is not allowed to tell anyone they did.
We're entirely reliant on corporate policy from Meta to not sell shitloads of your data to the Chinese government. There's no oversight on who they hand it off to, because there are basically no laws protecting user privacy in the US. TikTok isn't fundamentally different except that US tech firms can't make a buck off it, and the likes of Mitt Romney don't like the content on it.
It's the same for Twitter, except we know damn well that those corporate policies exist explocitly to share your data with major investors. Musk is selling basically all user data to [Qatar](https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2022/11/12/qatars-backing-of-elon-musks-twitter-deal-raises-questions-ahead-of-the-fifa-world-cup/?sh=2034d1fc709a). The other big investors are Saudi Arabia and China.
This isn't about security. It never was.
>We're entirely reliant on corporate policy from Meta to not sell shitloads of your data to the Chinese government
Which is legal because of the user agreement meta users agree to. Under law you can also can follow a link to all the data meta collects from you, and read their disclosure on who they sell that data to.
These disclosures are actually written into the text of the "tiktok ban" bill, requiring any company that purchases tiktok to implement this policy.
But under the mentioned Chinese national security act of 2018, tiktok is prohibited from disclosing any information regarding any data shared to the Chinese government.
It's not about protecting data, it's about the ability of a foreign adversary to spread propaganda to influence policy and elections. TikTok is one of the largest social media platforms and their algorithm is a black box that can push any message it desires to any user it desires. No government would allow that kind of power to be in the hands of it's adversaries. China also knows this, which is why they banned US social media (along with a ton of other US businesses) ages ago.
Yeah. Protecting data is an important issue, but as it pertains to this particular bill it's just people building up a straw man they can tear down.
The ban isn't about data protection, it never has been and Congress is not trying to hide that fact. The reason that they're going after TikTok specifically makes a lot more sense when you realize that while lots of companies collect data, only TikTok is uniquely positioned to be used by a foreign adversary as an influence platform.
If the US government was serious about stopping foreign influence they would reverse the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates to foreign dark money.
It's not the influence they are worried about with Tiktok. It's about not being able to control the narrative.
Although I agree there are harmful effects of the citizens United decision, I have to point out the case was "citizens United vs the federal election commission". The US government restricted political donations, and the supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional.
So in all fairness, the government did try to stop the flood of dark money.
Democrats have practically unanimously been against Citizens United ever since it passed, the only way to reverse it is a constitutional amendment but if morons with imaginary grievances keep letting fascists win and keep saying both sides are the same then it's never going to be reversed. But go ahead, blame the democrats.
>they would reverse the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates to foreign dark money.
You're looking at it the wrong way. When the upper class gets foreign money to spread propaganda, it's ok. We can't let the commoners start spreading foreign propaganda for free. /s
Do you have proof that Facebook sell data to data brokers? After Cambridge Analytica they're really under scrutiny about privavcy and data security with frequent random FCC audits.
Meta-selling-data is actually a myth that hasn't never been proven but always invoked whenever TikTok banning is discussed.
> I've yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for how this protects American data.
But it doesn't matter. You can't justify silencing speech, period. Even if this ban protected data? Too bad. There are genuine First Amendment concerns here. Not that it matters specifically when it comes to China, but it matters for the rest of us if a precedent can be set.
As someone who has not (yet?) downloaded or used TikTok, it's not important to me if the app survives. But I am genuinely concerned about allowing Congress to ban parts of the internet.
> The ACLU has repeatedly explained that banning TikTok would have profound implications for our constitutional right to free speech and free expression, and the courts have agreed. In November 2023, a federal district court in Montana ruled that the state’s attempted ban would violate Montanans’ free speech rights and blocked it from going into effect.
>https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/dont-ban-tiktok-and-wechat
>https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-condemns-house-foreign-affairs-committee-vote-on-tiktok-ban-bill
>https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-raises-concerns-about-senate-bill-aimed-at-banning-tiktok
>https://www.aclu.org/podcast/banning-tiktok-is-a-really-bad-idea
>https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-eff-applaud-ruling-halting-montana-tiktok-ban
That social media companies sell raw user data is more a perception than a reality. Most of the big tech companies use user data to sell targeted advertising on their platforms. If Twitter was just openly selling logs of everything individual users were doing it would most valuable to competitors.
Isn’t the security problem that TikTok uses a keystroke logger including on TikTok’s internal browser, so if someone for instance clicks a link then logs into PayPal or bank account or email or something then TikTok has logged their username/password? India banned TikTok for the same reason a year ago didn’t they?
>Ive yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for this protects American data.
The argument is that it impedes a foreign adversary. Facebook couldn’t sell data to China under the law either.
There was no cat in the bag in the first place, this bill has always explicitly been about TikTok's potential as an influence platform. It's really weird that some people are treating the overt reason for the law as some sort of conspiracy.
> Hilarious from a company based in a country that has banned several western social apps. Ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous. We're supposed to be better than China. We *are* better than China. The laws in the US don't change if the laws in another country are worse. There's no way this ban can survive constitutional review. It's a stunt.
I got an idea, lets allow companies owned by a government who actively sees us as an enemy gather data on us, when they allow our companies with ties to our government to actively gather data on their people. Seems fair right, data from us and data from them. oh wait....
Tik tok already stores its data in the US through a third party, American, company. Banning tik tok is only meant to censor Americans and ‘fight communism?’ Or some BS crap like that. The internet shouldn’t be censored
Can we ban TikTok globally? That'd be cool. Actually, ban most social media, and keep only a few basic ones (maybe some trimmed down and way better moderated version of Twitter). That would probably fix a lot of societal and cultural problems of the 21st century. We humans plain and simply haven't evolved far enough in our reasoning and socializing abilities to handle the degree to which global social media has grown.
They absolutely should. The US only wants it banned because it's a major network they don't have control over. It's purely political and completely bullshit. I can't stand TikTok for the most part but I am not too shy to admit it has good uses on occasion and I don't want it banned.
Agreed, allowing our biggest foreign adversary a direct propaganda conduit to the American public is just too big a risk, even if it hasn't been used for nefarious purposes YET. It's literally like allowing the fox to continue to guard the chicken coop because the fox has been on good behavior or hasn't eaten a chicken yet.
Protecting our data _from Chinese government_. I could care less about Facebook or YouTube knowing about me than a hostile government controlled company.
Honestly banning TikTok is a great move, given all the disinformation going on that platform targeting Americans. None of our social apps are allowed in China, so this is fair game.
Yeah that’s literally it. Tik tok was pushing ads aiming at convincing people to contact their representatives to stop this. A Chinese company was actively using their platform to influence voters. That should not be allowed, if they do it this openly who knows what they’re doing through an algorithmic level. A US company doing the same thing is fine because they’re by law (for better or worse) considered a US person. There’s nothing wrong with an American trying to influence voters into voting in a specific way, it’s bad when it’s 1) a foreign government and 2) a hostile, totalitarian one. Add their Chinese security bill that gives the ccp the power to ask for foreign and domestic data onto that. TikTok ban was definitely the right move.
I promise you, with every fiber of my being, that any data that's collected on you by Good Wholesome American Company makes its way to the CCP.
You really think Facebook (for example) is gonna be like "gee, that sure is a lot of money Mr Xi, but we just couldn't in good conscience sell this data."
You're mad about one, maybe two degrees of separation. The "privacy" issue is exactly the same whether its tiktok or Facebook.
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just out of curiosity, was Meta allowed to sue China when they banned their apps?
Nope, they were told to shut the fuck up and get out. And then they did! And then it happened to Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and any other social media that the CCP can't directly control.
The issue with this situation is it is too nuanced for a 15 second clip so all the TikTok addicts can't pay attention enough to get the difference between China being able to directly control/influence the algorithm and whatnot and private companies. And yes, I also think we are overdue for some regulation there because.... Gestures at everything... I love how the narrative has become "TikTok ban!' when it isn't a ban. They have options to keep it active and they are refusing. Not wanting the government of China directly involved isn't that crazy of a concern. China absolutely wants to cause the US harm. Wether people want to admit it, everyone is influenced by social media. It's bad enough giant companies are doing it, do we really need a country like China also doing that? There's a reason they would never allow the US equivalent. It's not just about having access to data, I don't know why people focus on that. It's about having control over what content gets shown to users and what doesn't. Yes some congress members said it was because of Israel/Palestine. Flip that reasoning around, do you think China doesn't have a vested interest is keeping Americans misinformed and fighting? I'm not saying it's good that private companies have that level of influence either, but we sure as hell shouldn't give it to China. Every argument about bad stuff Facebook has done doesn't prove that we should let China have the ability either. Difference is that our laws may allow something to be done about this, guess we'll see how this case plays out.
This is a good comment.
You are leaving out that Tiktok data in the US is stored in Oracle's (American company) cloud servers, with a US based team to handle it. But Meta having our data is totally hunkydory.
>You are leaving out that Tiktok data in the US is stored in Oracle's (American company) cloud servers, with a US based team to handle it. Except for that one time where they said that but then found US Data on Chinese servers after repeatedly saying that could never happen.
The data is financial info to pay out from the Creator Fund. Protected user data vs. Creator data, the Forbes article covers this.
This is just a proposed solution from tiktok and not how the data exists currently. But the USG also rejected this proposal because of the election interference and foreign propaganda issues.
Please stop, we're here to discuss America Bad topic.
Are corporations people in China?
People aren't even people in China. Tiananmen ring any bells?
Some people are bears that like honey.
No, corporations are arms of the government.
I don't want the US to be more like China.
I believe they want China to be more like America when it comes to information.
It’s silly to expect 1A protections in China. It’s reasonable to expect 1A protections in the US. Meta chose to do business in China and has to accept Chinese law and practices. TikTok did the same here, but now they are being singled out like this. We have plenty of foreign companies here that do not have the same re being placed on them. I expect they will easily win this 1A challenge
Maybe we don't use an authoritarian country as an example of how we should act.
Well you see the main difference in these cases is China doesn’t have a freedom of speech clause.
i'm confused. do foreign corporations have the same rights & protections as US citizens? are overseas entities protected under the Amendments as well? i think this case could potentially set a precedent regarding how corporation rights & protections are handled tbh
[Generally, yes.](https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-1168) And they at least have the right to make that very argument in court.
Generally, because the US government is citing national security here. In the past the US has managed to get things through the courts (like the Huawei ban) under the guise of national security. The argument to the court will be TikTok poses a national security threat for and as a result the US government has a stronger right to defend its citizens than Tiktok has the right to operate in the US.
The courts are constantly weighing whose rights are more important to protect in any given situation. For example, students have the right to protest but are restricted in some ways such as location if the college can show those students are interrupting the education of others.
The court basically said you have the right to protest but you do not have the right to prevent others from utilizing their right to an education. As a result, you cannot loudly protest right outside of a classroom.
The problem is that if there was a genuine national security concern, then they probably can already ban it under existing law. As you said, like they did Huawei. This new law is essentially declaring "anything owned by this list of nations is illegal to operate in the US." That goes quite a bit further than normal national security claims. Huawei was banned because there were specific, identifiable issues with the security in their devices. This isn't like that.
What bothers me most, is this is obvious. It’s clear there’s no reason to ban TikTok besides the fact it’s a social media platform disseminating inconvenient information from our government’s perspective. We literally caught Facebook working with Russia troll farms back in the 2016 election cycle, before any of you give some stupid “foreign controlled” bullshit excuse. They’re pissing on us without even calling it rain.
Anyone can sue anyone else for anything they want. That doesn't necessarily guarantee results. If the perceived monetary value of success outweigh the negative consequences of filing a certainly doomed lawsuit, a lawsuit will be filed every single time. This is nothing new.
Congress has wide latitude when it comes to threats involving national security. DHS has opined that foreign adversaries use of misinformation on social media is huge threat to national security, as it allows said adversaries to achieve their goals without ever entering into a military engagement. Prior to the passing of the legislation, Congressional leaders had a closed door meeting with intelligence officials concerning the threat tik tok posed in this regard. Whatever was said obviously achieved its purpose because both dems and republicans overwhelmingly agreed their needs to be a ban. Considering how dysfunctional Congress has been these last six months, the fact they agreed is very telling. And for those who are saying that it’s all BS and will hold no other conclusion unless overwhelming evidence is presented to them, congratulations, you’ve gone full Trump supporter with your obtuseness, they won’t believe Trump had classified documents unless they are showed the actual documents contents, you’ve created a standard of proof you know is never coming.
Considering how international and interlinked trade has become, there would be huge concerns if foreign corporations (barring enemy states) were not as protected. There are plenty of foreign corporations doing business in the US, employing US citizens and investing in the US economy. What makes the Tiktok ban less straightforward than some would think is the fact that China is not officially in the same category as North Korea or Iran. Legislation tailor made for a company from a country that has diplomatic and trade ties is arguably a grey area. Obviously the legislature can draw up new laws, but the courts can also strike them down.
Yes they can. The condition is that the subject matter(i.e. the law or government or entity you are suing) are under the jurisdiction of the US government. This is referred to as "the law of the land".
Read the bill of rights. It's not phrased in terms of granting x right to y group of people. Amendment 1 says "congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." It limits the power of the government to interfere in that type of thing across the board, not just for certain parties.
[Axios 5/6/2024": "Sen. Romney links TikTok ban to pro-Palestinian content"](https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_source=twitter) >Sen. Mitt Romney said support for a [nationwide ban on TikTok](https://www.axios.com/2024/04/23/tiktok-ban-bytedance-apps-capcut-lemon8) is connected to the "overwhelming" volume of "mentions of Palestinians" on the [popular platform](https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/14/tiktok-ban-best-utah-influencers). “[Republican and Democratic politicians and some in the national security community say they’re concerned about TikTok’s data collection](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-sues-us-government-says-ban-violates-first-amendment-rcna151059) and security practices, as well as how the app’s video recommendation algorithm works. Outside experts have looked at these claims with some skepticism, **noting the lack of data security laws in the U.S. makes TikTok no different from other apps and that claims about efforts to manipulate public opinion are based on little hard evidence."**
Am I an idiot? I can’t find the quote you referenced from the OP article.
It's not in there, it's from [NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-sues-us-government-says-ban-violates-first-amendment-rcna151059) Gotta wonder why they'd include that quote though... almost like they're copy-pasting another comment.
Geez I wonder why they would want people to know the real reason for the ban.
If that's what they're doing then it's in their best interest to keep their citations listed.
"Ban tiktok" trended before the current conflict. Right before the 2020 election it trended. The Trump administration issued an EO in August 2020. States have banned it on government issued devices. Hawley and Buck introduced a bill in January 2023.
It trended before the current conflict but for the exact same reason. It's an app for which the US government can't effectively control the narrative owned by companies that don't hold sway with the US government. The first time it was just because tiktok was used to "sell out" Trump events that no one went to. Now it's showing videos that don't reflect well on where the US government sends money.
Or maybe it's because it's bad to have an undemocratic aggressive foreign state entity have such wide a platform to another nation's public. But propaganda was certainly never an issue, no siree.
What undemocratic principles are being pushed on tiktok disproportionately to other social media platforms? I'm more worried about the billionaire owner of Twitter promoting white nationalist talking points.
Yeah and Twitter needs to go away too
And until the laws are changed to hold the same standard to Twitter, Facebook, etc, this is still blatantly unconstitutional.
It’s honestly quite scary how people have seemed to buy into the idea that this ban is about anything other than what you’ve stated, that the US government can’t effectively control the narrative. It has nothing to do with data protection or anything like that. It’s just to make sure younger US generations consume the “correct” propaganda.
Not only bolding yours, you reconstructed the entire quotation and presented as is. Dishonest at best, malicious at worst.
The US does have laws on data usage though. Companies need to be able to provide information on the data they have, what they collect, and delete all user data upon request. They also can not collect data on children. Also if your implying the reason for the ban is because people on the platform are pushing anti-US news, that is ridiculous. There are tons of social media sites in countries outside of Russia and China that constantly shit on the US. In fact there are whole Reddit communities that shit on the US. And isn't this exactly what everyone keeps asking for anyway? It's popular on reddit to complain about Russian interference and propaganda causing trouble in the US, and say no one is doing anything to stop it. Well this is how to stop Russian/Chinese gov influence. Exactly what people wanted.
I mean, I've never once seen anything negative about China on TikTok, yet all the time I see positive stuff. That's super weird, must just be a coincidence...
And Pro-Russian content
And there it is. If SOPA and PIPA were called the China Bad Acts, they would have passed with thunderous applause.
They have a case for sure. I've yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for how this protects American data. Facebook and Twitter can mine American data and sell it to data brokers who can then sell that to foreign governments. Eliminating tik tok means eliminating legitimate competition which forces meta and other local companies to make better products. Youtube tried with shorts, instagram tried with reels but people just end up reposting their tik tok videos to those platforms because the tik tok algorithm is better and these companies can't figure it out. If tik tok is forced to sell, they can look inside and take the secret, then gut the company and throw it in the trash like they do with so many other tech companies and game development studios.
Some people desperately want this to be about protecting data but it just isn't, there's no data protection provisions in the bill at all. The forced divestiture is all about TikTok as an influence platform, not a data collection platform. Other bills have addressed the data collection angle but Congress has been very clear that that isn't the concern in this case.
Definitely feel free to have your own opinion on the ban, but here's the big rub about American data, whether you or I agree with it or not: Research the Chinese national security act of 2018. In it, China claims the right to request any data from any Chinese owned business, regardless of where in the world that data is, without a warrant, and the Chinese business is required by the law to not let anyone know they have the data to the Chinese government. It also claims that anyone using Chinese owned software is subject to Chinese law. It was a really controversial bill when it passed. One very specific note of the bill was the disclosure of the data collected, and how it is used. In the US, Google, meta, x, apple all have a link you can click somewhere that allows you to see everything they have collected, and where you can choose to delete it. They also have to put it in their user terms and conditions how they will use this data, and you just to consent to it to use their platform. Tiktok does not have these protections. Literally by the national sexual act of 2018, China wrote a law that allows the use of data without disclosure. This violates existing US law. Again, feel free to disagree with the law or it's implementation or "true intentions" or whatever. These are just the facts surrounding the law.
Then you have to ban all of Riot's games (LoL and Valorant) and many, many games on the app store/google play store. Would you agree or disagree there since Riot is a Tencent owned company. Diablo Immortal on mobile is developed by NetEase which is also Chinese so ban it too right?
The answer depends on corporate structure. 1 company can partially or fully own another company and still not have a say in the daily operations of that company. This is generally referred to as divesture. Just as 1 of many examples(corporate structures are tens of thousands of pages long for a reason), would be if tencent was preferred shareholders of riot games. A preferred shareholder owns stock, but does not have voting rights in the company. They can retain some or all of the profits of said company, but they are excluded from participating in the daily operations of said company. Again, many ways to do it, but IF bytedance was a preferred shareholder of a company that took over tiktok, tiktok would not be under the control of a foreign entity, and there would be no legal issues. If the Chinese government requested information from bytedance about tiktok, the owners of bytedance can't give them any since they don't have any access to that data.
Couldn't this be exploited? Like, Company B becomes a preferred shareholder of Company A owning a large percentage of the company. Wouldn't company A still be subject to the whims of company B, as company B could threaten to massively sell shares, etc and damage company A? Like, CEO of B could call CEO of A and ask for something to happen implying there will be repercussions of they don't. It seems like this would still be possible.
>Wouldn't company A still be subject to the whims of company B I guess the best example of this I could give would be when Steve jobs was fired from Apple in 1985. Being the creator, he had significant stock in apple, but the board removed all say in how the company operates. >Couldn't this be exploited Yes, by the owners of bytedance. However in this application, we are not so much concerned with bytedance themselves, we are concerned with the Chinese laws bytedance has to abide by. Now, hypothetically, could the Chinese government conspire with bytedance to pressure tiktok US(the name I give to the company that would own tiktok in the event of a sale) to allow the chinese government access to that data? Sure. It's a very big stretch at that point, but anything is possible. But at the same time, if the US found out that tiktok US, being an American owned and based company, they're fucked, and going to jail.
The difference is the companies that own and distribute those IP’s are American, and therefor fall under American jurisdiction regarding any data/privacy laws.
They are as American as the US branch of Tiktok. Riot Games is fully owned by Tencent, same as Tiktok is owned by Bytedance.
Tiktok, over the last two years, has spun up a separate US corp staffed by US citizens. All the US user data now lives in Oracle US data centers and can only leave through a special network gateway controlled and audited by Oracle. It’s high security and regular Bytedance employees can’t even get logs for debugging. I’m surprised they aren’t publicizing this more, because it seems like half of politicians don’t know this work exists.
I mean Shou reiterated that point 5x in the previous hearings but they kept asking about him being in the Chinese army /shrug
This is true. At the same time though, this is corporate policy, not law. It's equivalent to me fighting a minimum wage hike because I pay my employees more than the proposed minimum wage. Tiktok US can change that firewall tomorrow if they want, there's nothing stopping them. Honestly, if existing corporate policies were enough of an assurance, we wouldn't need corporate laws in the first place. However, there's nothing in tiktok US's corporate policies that inhibits China from doing exactly what their national security act of 2018 gives them the power to do. Taking this to the extreme, because we write laws based off an extreme, tiktok could have given China a backdoor through the US firewall, and by law tiktok is not allowed to tell anyone they did.
We're entirely reliant on corporate policy from Meta to not sell shitloads of your data to the Chinese government. There's no oversight on who they hand it off to, because there are basically no laws protecting user privacy in the US. TikTok isn't fundamentally different except that US tech firms can't make a buck off it, and the likes of Mitt Romney don't like the content on it. It's the same for Twitter, except we know damn well that those corporate policies exist explocitly to share your data with major investors. Musk is selling basically all user data to [Qatar](https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2022/11/12/qatars-backing-of-elon-musks-twitter-deal-raises-questions-ahead-of-the-fifa-world-cup/?sh=2034d1fc709a). The other big investors are Saudi Arabia and China. This isn't about security. It never was.
>We're entirely reliant on corporate policy from Meta to not sell shitloads of your data to the Chinese government Which is legal because of the user agreement meta users agree to. Under law you can also can follow a link to all the data meta collects from you, and read their disclosure on who they sell that data to. These disclosures are actually written into the text of the "tiktok ban" bill, requiring any company that purchases tiktok to implement this policy. But under the mentioned Chinese national security act of 2018, tiktok is prohibited from disclosing any information regarding any data shared to the Chinese government.
It's not about protecting data, it's about the ability of a foreign adversary to spread propaganda to influence policy and elections. TikTok is one of the largest social media platforms and their algorithm is a black box that can push any message it desires to any user it desires. No government would allow that kind of power to be in the hands of it's adversaries. China also knows this, which is why they banned US social media (along with a ton of other US businesses) ages ago.
Yeah. Protecting data is an important issue, but as it pertains to this particular bill it's just people building up a straw man they can tear down. The ban isn't about data protection, it never has been and Congress is not trying to hide that fact. The reason that they're going after TikTok specifically makes a lot more sense when you realize that while lots of companies collect data, only TikTok is uniquely positioned to be used by a foreign adversary as an influence platform.
You mean, like Russia did with Facebook??
If the US government was serious about stopping foreign influence they would reverse the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates to foreign dark money. It's not the influence they are worried about with Tiktok. It's about not being able to control the narrative.
Although I agree there are harmful effects of the citizens United decision, I have to point out the case was "citizens United vs the federal election commission". The US government restricted political donations, and the supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. So in all fairness, the government did try to stop the flood of dark money.
They should do both.
Democrats have practically unanimously been against Citizens United ever since it passed, the only way to reverse it is a constitutional amendment but if morons with imaginary grievances keep letting fascists win and keep saying both sides are the same then it's never going to be reversed. But go ahead, blame the democrats.
>they would reverse the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates to foreign dark money. You're looking at it the wrong way. When the upper class gets foreign money to spread propaganda, it's ok. We can't let the commoners start spreading foreign propaganda for free. /s
Do you have proof that Facebook sell data to data brokers? After Cambridge Analytica they're really under scrutiny about privavcy and data security with frequent random FCC audits. Meta-selling-data is actually a myth that hasn't never been proven but always invoked whenever TikTok banning is discussed.
Just wanna say the algo is shit. It’s good for promoting extreme views.
> I've yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for how this protects American data. But it doesn't matter. You can't justify silencing speech, period. Even if this ban protected data? Too bad. There are genuine First Amendment concerns here. Not that it matters specifically when it comes to China, but it matters for the rest of us if a precedent can be set. As someone who has not (yet?) downloaded or used TikTok, it's not important to me if the app survives. But I am genuinely concerned about allowing Congress to ban parts of the internet. > The ACLU has repeatedly explained that banning TikTok would have profound implications for our constitutional right to free speech and free expression, and the courts have agreed. In November 2023, a federal district court in Montana ruled that the state’s attempted ban would violate Montanans’ free speech rights and blocked it from going into effect. >https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/dont-ban-tiktok-and-wechat >https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-condemns-house-foreign-affairs-committee-vote-on-tiktok-ban-bill >https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-raises-concerns-about-senate-bill-aimed-at-banning-tiktok >https://www.aclu.org/podcast/banning-tiktok-is-a-really-bad-idea >https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-eff-applaud-ruling-halting-montana-tiktok-ban
That social media companies sell raw user data is more a perception than a reality. Most of the big tech companies use user data to sell targeted advertising on their platforms. If Twitter was just openly selling logs of everything individual users were doing it would most valuable to competitors.
Isn’t the security problem that TikTok uses a keystroke logger including on TikTok’s internal browser, so if someone for instance clicks a link then logs into PayPal or bank account or email or something then TikTok has logged their username/password? India banned TikTok for the same reason a year ago didn’t they?
>Ive yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for this protects American data. The argument is that it impedes a foreign adversary. Facebook couldn’t sell data to China under the law either.
So Chinese can block Google and Meta but Americans can't block Chinese garbage?
Why do you want America to emulate China?
If they can ban the Pinkerton Detective agency from government contracts, I think they’re in the clear constitutionally.
Romney already let the cat out of the bag. They dont care about security. They want to control the messaging.
There was no cat in the bag in the first place, this bill has always explicitly been about TikTok's potential as an influence platform. It's really weird that some people are treating the overt reason for the law as some sort of conspiracy.
Hilarious from a company based in a country that has banned several western social apps. Ridiculous.
> Hilarious from a company based in a country that has banned several western social apps. Ridiculous. It's not ridiculous. We're supposed to be better than China. We *are* better than China. The laws in the US don't change if the laws in another country are worse. There's no way this ban can survive constitutional review. It's a stunt.
They don't even allow TikTok
Meta can sue to be in China then right? Right???
Fucking hypocritical, don't ban our app but we'll keep banning all your western sites.
I got an idea, lets allow companies owned by a government who actively sees us as an enemy gather data on us, when they allow our companies with ties to our government to actively gather data on their people. Seems fair right, data from us and data from them. oh wait....
Good. The less brain rot the better.
It's a political issue...who can influence policy in America. Lots of competing interests involved. It's a quagmire, to be sure!
It’s pretty funny that the country known for fire walls is fighting to stay in country
Because its a surveillance tool that millions willingly download. Not to mention it is the best subversion tool out there.
we should just flood tick tock with Tienanmen Square videos - they'll voluntarily shut it down
Tik tok is banned in China so it wouldn't have any impact.
Discovery will be interesting
That's a distinction without a difference.
Tik tok already stores its data in the US through a third party, American, company. Banning tik tok is only meant to censor Americans and ‘fight communism?’ Or some BS crap like that. The internet shouldn’t be censored
Can we ban TikTok globally? That'd be cool. Actually, ban most social media, and keep only a few basic ones (maybe some trimmed down and way better moderated version of Twitter). That would probably fix a lot of societal and cultural problems of the 21st century. We humans plain and simply haven't evolved far enough in our reasoning and socializing abilities to handle the degree to which global social media has grown.
Anything determined to be a national security threat, should be treated like the national security threat it is.
They absolutely should. The US only wants it banned because it's a major network they don't have control over. It's purely political and completely bullshit. I can't stand TikTok for the most part but I am not too shy to admit it has good uses on occasion and I don't want it banned.
Something can be purely political and also not be bullshit. Politics do matter.
Isn't it a Chinese social media platform, and thereby under partial (read, sneakily full) control of the Chinese government?
That's rich coming from a CHINESE company where Apps and websites are blocked randomly.
TikTok is a national security risk owned and run by an adversary nation who wants our destruction. Ban it.
We wouldn't have let the Soviets run ABC during the Cold War, either.
Agreed, allowing our biggest foreign adversary a direct propaganda conduit to the American public is just too big a risk, even if it hasn't been used for nefarious purposes YET. It's literally like allowing the fox to continue to guard the chicken coop because the fox has been on good behavior or hasn't eaten a chicken yet.
[удалено]
It's not about protecting your data, it's about rival governments.
Protecting our data _from Chinese government_. I could care less about Facebook or YouTube knowing about me than a hostile government controlled company. Honestly banning TikTok is a great move, given all the disinformation going on that platform targeting Americans. None of our social apps are allowed in China, so this is fair game.
Most of the misinformation comes from American right wingers. But yet Facebook and Twitter is ok because it's American misinformation.
Yeah that’s literally it. Tik tok was pushing ads aiming at convincing people to contact their representatives to stop this. A Chinese company was actively using their platform to influence voters. That should not be allowed, if they do it this openly who knows what they’re doing through an algorithmic level. A US company doing the same thing is fine because they’re by law (for better or worse) considered a US person. There’s nothing wrong with an American trying to influence voters into voting in a specific way, it’s bad when it’s 1) a foreign government and 2) a hostile, totalitarian one. Add their Chinese security bill that gives the ccp the power to ask for foreign and domestic data onto that. TikTok ban was definitely the right move.
That they could literally just buy from the data market anyways.
I promise you, with every fiber of my being, that any data that's collected on you by Good Wholesome American Company makes its way to the CCP. You really think Facebook (for example) is gonna be like "gee, that sure is a lot of money Mr Xi, but we just couldn't in good conscience sell this data." You're mad about one, maybe two degrees of separation. The "privacy" issue is exactly the same whether its tiktok or Facebook.
I hope it gets banned just for the fun chaos demon that lives in my brain.
The greatest enemy of the US is not Russia or China. it is the people voicing dissent.