> But these kinds of comments try to imply that TikTok is uniquely dangerous when it's just more of the same.
It comes down to what you believe is the lesser of two evil systems of governance. I will not hesitate to criticize the United States, NATO, the central banks, or the IMF, and I have many problems with them; I would still prefer to live under their system as opposed to the kind of world that China proposes. I live in the United States, and to an extent I want the United States to remain stable. Why should I not be concerned that an adversary in both policy and philosophy gets to have as much influence as TikTok over the minds of millions of Americans?
The only way I could see viewing US tech and China tech as equal is if one has no connection to the soil on which they stand, or perhaps if they live outside those two systems. I don't live outside of those systems. I live in the United States. I don't think the future proposed by the United States or any of its tech companies is as bad as what China proposes to bring to the world.
> one key difference is that Facebook, Google, and others are still siphoning up people's data today.
Again, that is a point that no one is disputing. And why emphasize today? As far as I am aware, TikTok doesn't plan to mine data. It already does. Regardless, I can't see how it's defensible to allow an adversary that much influence over our psychology. It's one thing for us to essentially cause our own problems, but it's another to invite problems from nations that would be thrilled for the United States to either be under its complete control or not exist at all.
> Not sure why you're discounting the potential for foreign influence campaigns from reducing the accountability your government has to you.
I don't discount that potential. I'm certain it exists. I'm also certain that it exists on youtube and facebook and twitter and reddit and will continue to influence US politics long into the future. Yet the US government has never once spoken about banning facebook and youtube or any other platform doing exactly the same things as TikTok, they're focused only the threat of the one Chinese platform while allowing China, Russia and anyone else to influence Americans though US owned platforms. They're even fine with letting China influence Americans using TikTok as long as TikTok is owned by a US company.
I'm just not buying the argument that TikTok represents a threat to our democracy any greater than the threat posed by youtube or twitter. I don't see how taking away our freedom to access/use a Chinese platform that isn't violating any US law and isn't doing anything different than similar US platforms are doing is really helping to protect us here. The US congress telling Americans what software we can have installed on our own devices, and preventing us from accessing platforms in other countries seems much more likely to lead us down a slippery slope than one Chinese owned social media platform being allowed to do what all the US owned platforms are doing.
> And that significant difference is that TikTok is a Chinese company, not an American one
Can't repeat this enough. The Americans in here might see that foreigness and national dick-measuring contest as enough justification for a ban. All while either willingly ignoring or relishing in the fact that they do the same thing in other countries. "But we're your allies!" my arse, I trust your government as much as I trust China's, which is to say I don't, at all.
I can't accurately express with words the anger I derive from the hypocrisy of the SV-types in here arguing for a ban on privacy grounds. And to be clear, I'm not trying to defend TikTok here, they do deserve to be banned from every country on Earth. I just wish American companies would get the same treatment, and die as they all deserve.
> TikTok/CCP supporters keep dragging it in that direction to avoid the main issue.
You were the one to bring human rights into the conversation: "with one of the worst human rights violations in the modern world".
> It is about an adversarial government
The US has spent the last decade using China as a way to score political points at home, after spending the prior three decades moving the majority of their manufacturing there. China is far from perfect but from my perspective the US have been the ones fostering an adversarial relationship.
> And you have data to support that?
I'll qualify that statement as my personal opinion but from my perspective your politicians just spent a day engaging in an embarrassingly transparent attempt at stoking fear and mistrust. The main result of which was showing the world how deeply incompetent many of them are.
Buddy Carter confidently believes that TikTok is tracking it's users emotional response through pupil dilation but has no comprehension of why you'd need to identify someone's eyes to put a motion tracking filter over them[1]. According to Mr. Carter, TikTok isn't doing enough to protect younger users but thinks that asking a user their age and checking whether or not the users public videos align with the age they declared is "creepy".
Dan Crenshaw used his time to state that Chinese law requires it's citizens to co-operate with their national intelligence agencies. That might have been a good point if not for the fact that TikTok's CEO, the person Crenshaw was questioning, is not Chinese.
Richard Hudson proved himself unable of forming a coherent question as to whether TikTok attempts to access other devices on a WiFi network. Instead asking "So if I have a TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home WiFi network, does TikTok access that network?"
> Access to the US population while shutting off US companies unfairly. It is about national security and fair trade.
The average American is at much more risk from their own government's surveillance apparatus than China's. America has never been interested in fair trade, only trade which furthers American interests. There's no "fairness" in a financially poorer country having it's domestic players pushed out of their own markets by companies that can afford to lose more than the country's GDP.
> I was neutral about this when starting out but seeing the same weak pro-TikTok arguments repeated in different forms, have pushed to the other side.
Ah yes, TikTok have been famously adversarial and haven't taken any steps to assuage privacy or security concerns. They aren't a legally separate entity, they aren't already working with Oracle to process US data and they haven't already moved the storage of that data to Oracle's servers in the US either[2]:
> As of October, all new U.S. user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historic U.S. user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.
> access to U.S. data is managed by U.S. employees through a separate entity called TikTok U.S. Data Security, which is run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.
By all means, ban TikTok from the devices of government and security personnel. Banning it entirely will only cool the relationship between China and the US even further, followed by a resulting loss in global influence. The lack of support for the sanctions on Russia proves how much damage the antagonistic approach has already caused.
> My point is that the US is mad at Tiktok because the CCP can do it, yet now the US wants to also control all content on its platforms and wants the world to see it as something totally different to what China can do.
> Its basically, "it's OK for us, we are good, but not for them, they are the Baddies!!!"
Yeah, it seems like we agree, except that I just wouldn't call it a double standard, because the US government is pretty clear that it does claim that it's "the good guys" and that China (or insert other historical nation state with a less-than-great relationship with the US) is "the bad guys." The US government isn't trying to make some principled claim about liberalism and the appropriate role of nation states domestically and on the global stage. It's just literally saying that it's the best nation state and that it should be responsible for and in control of a lot of global affairs. I don't agree, but I just don't characterize the problem as a double standard.
Only figuratively in the hacker/gamer sense. TikTok is owned by ByteSense.
The "TikTok can be used to spy on americans" is much like "Russians interfered in our elections". Both are true, both are legitimately very concerning, but both are also things that the USA has been doing for decades with minimal domestic outcry.
So implicit in our attempts to reign in other countries behavior is that other countries should be attempting to reign in ours. If these are behaviors we think the world would be better off without, the best place to reign in that behavior is by starting with our own government.
> Well, presumably the US government's argument would be that China can influence content to harm the United States, whereas the US government would only influence content to help the United States (pinky swear!).
Correct.
But that's from the view point of the US only.
The US isn't going against Tiktok only locally, it wants to remove it world wide because of Chinese influence.
The US can influence local content how it likes, they have their own rules and its totally fine IMO.
The issue is controlling global content, which is what they are accusing China of, and what they really want to do if not already have been doing.
> I do agree with you that the ability of a government to censor at a large scale is likely to be bad for the people under that government's jurisdiction and the people of the world, even if that government is acting competently in its own self-interest.
I think this is obvious.
My point is that the US is mad at Tiktok because the CCP can do it, yet now the US wants to also control all content on its platforms and wants the world to see it as something totally different to what China can do.
Its basically, "it's OK for us, we are good, but not for them, they are the Baddies!!!"
>I don't think the US is anywhere near the "utopia" side; but China is much further toward the "dystopia" side.
I think we are going to disagree on this because you are playing geopolitics and I'm looking at this from the angle of individual freedoms. I don't think this is a bad thing - for geopolitical reasons, individuals are barred from owning nuclear weapons. This line is will be different for everyone. Personally I'm glad that there is a foreign owned media platform in the west that at the very least offered a different point of view. I don't believe the chicken littles that somehow China had come up with a magic algorithm that makes all the kids dumb (I think the DoEdu has a _far_ greater impact of the deterioration of schools in America than Xi).
My discomfort with the ban is, on its face, is that first, it's just protectionism, and second, by isolating tiktok it makes it clear that propaganda is fine, as long as were the ones doing the propaganda. I'd love to see better data protection regulation in the space - but it's clear that anything that would hinder Meta and Google's ability to vacuum up data in the rest of the world is "bad". Rules for thee and not for me.
>The thing you should worry about, is what Tiktok would be able to be used as by the CCP, the moment the US starts shooting at China. Tiktok is the corporate equivalent of a sleeper agent.
This can be used an argument for banning all media. If your threat vector is that you fear that $enemy may use $platform to spread propaganda; I posit that banning $platform isn't an affective strategy. Russia already shown they could spread propaganda on US owned media sites. If the populace either isn't educated or, IMO, is primed to eat propaganda, that's a problem of local regulation.
On the other hand, I consider it a very scary thing that the US state department is just going to ban any media platform that cannot be effectively controlled. We might as well just admit that China was right to ban Google/Meta.
> Does anyone seriously believe TikTok is a threat to national security?
I think they are in the sense that they're collecting massive amounts of user data about their users and I believe they wouldn't hesitate to share that data with the Chinese government if asked.
On the flip side, I also think their threat to our national security is being made a bigger deal than it actually is by politicians who have an anti-Chinese agenda and companies who see an easy way to cripple a competitor.
>Why should the U.S. let Chinese tech companies compete in the U.S. marketplace when China doesn't let U.S tech companies compete in their marketplace?
The final purpose of the market is not to serve producers. It is, rather, to serve consumers through producers. You might protect U.S. companies by preventing U.S. consumers from choosing the best and cheapest products they can find abroad, but you are not protecting U.S. consumers by expecting them to use inferior products. Because TikTok is in a leisure market, neither a self-consistent imperialist philosophy, nor one focused on the happiness of US citizens, can justify favoring it over domestic competitors. Of course, it is in our interest to ban the importation of all products of the labor that we ourselves perform, but let's not pretend there is anything but self-interest behind the desire to do so.
>The idea that TikTok could drive the erosion of democratic processes in the US strikes me as silly, especially considering domestic forces like militarization and economic stagnation.
With respect, have you been asleep for the past 7 years? The existence and tangible effects of foreign disinformation and manipulation campaigns are known and well-studied by this point. It's not unique to the US, the tragic situation in Myanmar would likely not have occurred without the existence of Facebook..
> I'm actually all for a TikTok ban as long as we also ban other social media. I think it's all toxic. But the excessive focus on TikTok is just yellow peril/red scare nonsense in pursuit of a new cold war.
> Yes. If there is determined to be harm, I see no reason to protect them.
But should the US government, given the current developments, ban Twitter and/or Facebook? That is what I'm asking.
Because they are quite literally doing the same as TikTok. Now, is TikTok spying for China? Except for a few reports, there is no proof of it. In fact, the US government would not ban TikTok if they sell their business to US companies.
So either TikTok does not spy on their customers for China, or they do, and the US government wants to have control over data illegally harvested.
Either way, forcing TikTok hand is not a move made to protect US citizens.
> imo the most dystopian thing about TikTok is the fact that China intentionally exports a highly addictive product that they don't allow their own people to use
This comment made me think that TikTok (and Facebook before it) are somewhat like an attempt at hacker attack on the simulation we live in, where the analogue to the "simulation" is the system where freedom of speech is an absolute law, but the system is running on susceptible components: people, and is therefore vulnerable.
> The problem here isn't TikTok being banned. I couldn't care less about TikTok. The problem here is singling out an individual entity for punishment outside an established framework of laws just because we don't like it. You can be tough on China without becoming China.
Even without talking about morality or Chinese laws, TikTok could just be banned as trade retaliation. It's very common outside of tech, if a country closes down their market, they generally face retaliation on their foreign markets.
But yes I do agree with you on that, it should be done using an official retaliation policy, not just tweeted by the US president...
Who is? I don't mean to be trite or contrary, but TikTok is coming into an environment where norms are pretty damned shady. Google as you and the article say, also consume user data quite unethically.
FB likewise surveil us for their advertising businesses. They both also happen to host and control a good chunk of political and politically adjacent content within that framework. Police and regulate it with no transparency. FB are also gave us our first big "scandals" with third party trackers and/or data sharing.
Other countries (including, but definitely not exclusively) also use tech companies as espionage assets.
> Yes, absolutely. The US does not trust Tiktok because it is Chinese owned, or is it because of privacy concerns, or is it both?
Does it matter what the reason is? It's a foreign government owned media company operating in the US. The Chinese government doesn't have any rights in america. If the government wants to get rid of it, it can. China has nothing to stand on here. They don't even allow uncensored tik-tok in their own country, let alone facebook, etc.
> (e.g. we are talking of banning Tik-Tok precisely because Google, Facebook and such will kill any attempt to make an innovative social platform in the US)
Precisely? Why are you so sure?
You are aware of China's ownership, control, ability, and motive to use Tiktok for state purposes, whether surveillance, influence, disinformation, or otherwise. This is the biggest stated risk I've seen across various media (at least what I read; I'm not on Facebook). You disagree?
Perhaps you have evidence that the claims above are false? Do you think these claims are manufactured by US social media companies to defend their turf? This would seem the less plausible claim in my view.
Three articles, one quite different than the rest:
> Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children.
Do they? My Impression is a bit different here. TikTok is much more focused on the automatically selected content, and has fewer options for letting users make their own choices. The format itself (video) also strongly boosts the connection between people. And both combined let TikTok-Trends move much faster and ingrain deeper in the minds of people. It was quite interesting to see how fast and deep the brainwashing on TikTok was spreading after the CEOs appearance in senat, and also kinda concerning.
> US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear.
But isn't that legit concern of any country regarding other countries with even less security than you have yourself? I mean in Europe we also have strong concerns against the USA and their poor handling of data.
So what? We shouldn't try to close the TikTok hole just because there are others?
TikTok is also at least partly unique in that it repeatedly lied to regulators.
> data brokers will sell data about every American to anyone, anywhere
Data brokers still have less power than TikTok because TikTok can propagate influence campaigns. It's a black box with a bad actor operating inside of it.
> Plenty of American companies have engineering teams in China or countries with strong ties to China.
Which ones are as large and influential as TikTok? Which are able to algorithmically manipulate tens of millions of children without any external oversight?
> banning a single app will allow policymakers to pat themselves on the back while ignoring the larger issue
You could have made the same argument when they banned Huawei, and yet here we are: still not ignoring the larger issue.
Banning TikTok would set a (good) precedent about consequences for lying about CCP affiliation and data exfiltration.
It comes down to what you believe is the lesser of two evil systems of governance. I will not hesitate to criticize the United States, NATO, the central banks, or the IMF, and I have many problems with them; I would still prefer to live under their system as opposed to the kind of world that China proposes. I live in the United States, and to an extent I want the United States to remain stable. Why should I not be concerned that an adversary in both policy and philosophy gets to have as much influence as TikTok over the minds of millions of Americans?
The only way I could see viewing US tech and China tech as equal is if one has no connection to the soil on which they stand, or perhaps if they live outside those two systems. I don't live outside of those systems. I live in the United States. I don't think the future proposed by the United States or any of its tech companies is as bad as what China proposes to bring to the world.
> one key difference is that Facebook, Google, and others are still siphoning up people's data today.
Again, that is a point that no one is disputing. And why emphasize today? As far as I am aware, TikTok doesn't plan to mine data. It already does. Regardless, I can't see how it's defensible to allow an adversary that much influence over our psychology. It's one thing for us to essentially cause our own problems, but it's another to invite problems from nations that would be thrilled for the United States to either be under its complete control or not exist at all.
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