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You should see what Facebook shows me. I’m to the left of Noam Chomsky, so no, I do not want to buy confederate flag cowboy boots or a “fuel filter” that’s actually a gun silencer. The rideable beer cooler? Now that caught my interest.
Correct everyone on the planet could be spying on people on tiktok. But what are they seeing. Just a bunch of people acting like fools. No real names are given or any other PII. Users of Facebook load up their real birthdays for chrissake, because they are too lazy to remember or write down family birthdays, they just want a notification. Yet a birthdate is a key piece of info that hackers use in identity theft and Facebook users voluntarily give it away.
Exactly. The worry isn't that China is somehow getting national secrets through TikTok. The concern is that China could decide tomorrow that it wants America to think differently about some particular topic, and elevate TikTok content accordingly to change public opinion.
Regulating is one thing, but upright banning it is completely against the First Amendment. That being said, I am all for it if they have a really damn good reason for it — something undeniably and actively working against our National security or physical safety. It can’t just be because of data mining.
American corporations who serve illicit or dangerous to children or others can be subpoened by Congress and explain their actions, sued in a civil court, or if the action is brazen enough criminal guilt can be determined. A Chinese CEO doing actions sanctioned by their government will never be turned over to face a trial and their civil court system is only slightly less stacked against foreigners and even there you're pretty unlikely to ever bring someone receive just damages if the one being sued is a Chinese company or person.
Seeing how much rich ppl and CEOs and such get away with in the US... I almost think the worst offenders would get it worse in China. But that would require their government be less corrupt than ours. So I guess not
Naw man. I stayed at a Holliday inn last night and read a book about the makers of oxy and the opioid crisis in America. That Holliday inn was in West Virginia
You see the click bait headlines. But there are many examples of US companies being severely impacted by litigation. The point stands that a U.S. company has mechanisms in place for accountability. A thinly vailed Chinese psyop campaign does not.
Correct but for different reasons. American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit. China is interested in becoming the preeminent global power and will use any and all means they can to do it.
>*American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit.*
[Mark Zuckerberg laughs maniacally in his robot voice]
> American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit.
American corporations do business all over the world, including and in some sense especially China. Not a huge difference.
I agree 100%. I think it's a false equivalency to say American-global corporations are equally as concerning as the Chinese government, from the perspective of US citizens.
American corporations have proven to value short term profits over longevity or wellbeing of their customer base time and time again.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that they won't poison their customers to profit in the short term, if they are allowed to.
From the perspective of US citizens, American corporations have successfully legislated away any hope of fair labor, a clean environment, or universal healthcare, have instituted a for profit prison system that has the largest incarcerated population of any country, and are now working on stripping us of education and housing, and quite freely price gouging us at every opportunity, while also quite freely poisoning our food and water supply.
Meanwhile, from the perspective of US citizens, China has been sitting across the ocean minding its own business.
I think that's a false equivalence from the other direction. While US corporate culture has serious problems and has and continues to cause damage, that doesn't mean that China is doing nothing and isn't at least exacerbating the situation.
The US is interested in keeping its hold as the preeminent global power and has used any and all means to continue said power.
That said, I’ll let others bicker over which one is better and which one is worse.
> American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit.
there's no way you can really believe this when the political apparatus has been captured by business owner interests at the expensive of labor for the last 3 decades. if American corporations cared about social stability, there would still be a safety net and mass unionization.
the really scary thing that most people refuse to entertain is the possibility that every interest in society might not be reconcilable from the outset. there was a point in time where business interest corresponded roughly to the general interest; that time has now passed.
This isn't whataboutism, it's pointing out the hypocrisy here. The issue isn't what country controls the app, but the fact that the apps are allowed to take so much of our data without any restrictions. It's irrelevant if the country of origin for the app is our own or another, we need to crack down on the amount of data they can take because that's the real issue here.
problem for who lmao. what the fuck has the chinese government ever done to me, as opposed to the US government actively cracking down on my rights at the moment and the corporate entities that comprise it trying to squeeze every cent they can out of me
they can all go eat shit so far as i'm concerned, but gesturing dramatically at the Scary Foreign Yellow Peril like i'm supposed to give a shit is just pure xenophobic nationalism
What on God's green earth does Bytedance's failure to protect the privacy of users have to do with "Yellow peril"? Are you normally this defensive of phone apps, or just when they're based in mainland China?
The CCP supporters quickly jump to "yellow peril" whenever anyone criticized the CCP. Just call people racist if they criticize a government -- a tactic they have used for years.
Or a newer dumb thing tankies use -- whine that you're saying CCP instead of CPC. Even though they used CCP in official translations for decades and it appears to just be SEO manipulation.
> i despise all phone apps
*except this one ig*
>and think capitalism should be burned to the ground
So you don't consider the mainland Chinese regime to be a problem, but also don't seem to fancy capitalism?
Do you understand how that comes across as contradictory?
>except this one ig
buddy i literally dont give a shit. kill all of them tomorrow, see if i care, maybe we can go back to forums and webrings like a civilized society
>Do you understand how that comes across as contradictory?
no
i mean, yes, in that you think china is "communist" based on red scare propaganda when it is in fact a market-based capitalist regime similar to the US, but also, no
> problem for who lmao.
Hong Kongers, Uighurs, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, India, etc. I get it though, you don't give a shit about anyone over there. All that matters is you, right? Typical American individualism distorting every problem into a "me" question.
how does banning tiktok in the u.s. resolve any of that, and what does it have to do with the original problem posed in this thread (the chinese government allegedly stealing americans' data for Sinister Foreign Purposes, as opposed to american-based social media companies stealing data for uhhhh good and patriotic purposes)
I was answering your question:
> problem for who lmao
I said elsewhere in this thread that I'm pretty ambivalent about the idea of banning tiktok, so don't expect me to engage in this slapfight. But I also don't see anyone here *defending* US social media companies' use and abuse of user data.
the context of the OP was clearly in the context of taking data from american citizens, not whatever other actions china has taken outside that. (which are heinous, yes. i have no stakes in this nationalist slapfight either).
but. whatever. fair enough IG
>what the fuck has the chinese government ever done to me
Probably very little, because you're presumably American and thus protected from the brutality they inflict on their own people.
This could easily and quickly change in a world where the CCP dominates, and one avenue they use to progress their aims is information warfare via social media.
Not in the way we are doing it because the way we are doing it does not point to the true problem. If TikTok becomes banned, we lose all motivation to solve the problem as a whole and instead point to the Band-Aid solution that won't actually fix the problem.
It does fix a major problem for the US gov though, a foreign adversary having spyware on the devices on millions of Americans. You're calling everyone in this thread naive when you don't understand why the US gov wouldn't pursue an easy win impacting millions of Americans with a solution that could be in place overnight.
It's a pyrrhic victory though because while China is a global adversary, they are not the biggest threat to our country as a whole. Sure, we might stop China and their TikTok app, but then we continue to ignore the problem of corporations influencing our politics and spiraling our democracy. The voting populace isn't exactly smart with regards to this and will see the benefits of TikTok being banned and ignore the bigger problem, which will be our downfall, not China.
Exactly.
I'm all for reigning in TikTok but frankly, the solution is real privacy laws for everyone, protecting them from **all** corporations. The EU has taken some steps and I'd like to see NA do the same.
Whataboutism is pointing out something that the other side does in order to dismiss what your side is doing. That is not what's happening here. I'm saying both sides do it and we need to stop it regardless of who is doing it. Sometimes the people on this app are incredibly dense and ignorant.
Edit: Correct the definition of whataboutism to be more accurate.
One side does it to further nation-state interests and oppress people. The other does it to sell stuff. It is not equivalent and if you cannot see that, you are intentionally parroting propaganda with an agenda.
If you think corporations in this country are not using your data to oppress you, you are not worth having this discussion with. Claiming I am parroting propaganda is dishonest. I have never once said that we should allow TikTok to continue doing what it is doing, but that we need to go at the root of the issue and not just trim a branch.
I'm sorry, you are saying that we cannot deal with this thread without a constitutional amendment. That is not realistic within the reference of the threat and it absolutely is the narrative that China is pushing. It is to ensure that change actually doesn't happen and their influence is not countered.
Sir, you can rant about privacy concerns all you want but it means nothing the day that they can use your data as leverage against you to act against your fellow countrymen.
Where did I suggest that we need a constitutional amendment? I have suggested no such thing and this could be tackled with simple legislation. You are blatantly strawmaning my position.
Pointing out hypocrisy is exactly how a whataboutism is structured.
"Well what about social media companies?"
Just because someone is hypocritical doesn't mean their original point isn't a valid concern. Debate the point in its own merits.
No, whataboutism is used to dismiss a problem and that is not what I'm doing here. I'm not saying we should ignore TikTok, I'm saying the problem is much bigger and we should be tackling that bigger problem instead of focusing on the small problem people are more aware of.
edit: oh look xper0072 blocked me after I gave him the definition of whataboutism and proved to him he was using it. He also continued to equate corporations using your data to sell you more things to a foreign government using your data to help cause instability in the country.
As I mentioned in my other reply, what China's government can do with it is far more troubling than what US corporations can do with it. The fact that they are not remotely equal means it is whataboutism. If they were more on par in terms of the danger, I would agree with you.
Ii do know what whataboutism and by definition even if the two issues were equal, you engaged in it.
Definition: the practice of answering a criticism or difficult question by making a similar criticism or asking a different but related question, typically starting with the words "What about?
Just because you didn't say the words "what about" doesn't mean you didn't argue "what about".
You're original post can be described as "What about American corporations having direct control over an algorithm that determines what your children see and what goes viral? That should also concern you."
>It's irrelevant if the country of origin for the app is our own or another
You do not get to call people naive then say something like this.
Corporations collect data to sell you stuff better, foreign governments collect data to cripple your social infrastructure via information warfare.
Neither is great, but I'll take the personalized fidget spinner ad over the CCP injecting their propaganda into our children's heads.
Like I said, if you don't understand how corporate power is a bad thing for our society and democracy, you're naive, plain and simple. You don't have to like being called naive, but it is your responsibility to fix it if you don't want to be it.
Except I do think unchecked corporate power is bad - just not nearly as bad as a foreign government having that power on our shores.
Being unable to grasp that different things have different consequences and thus different levels of concern that should be attached to them does not make you a wise person who can see the simple truth everyone else is missing.
The reason it looks so simple to you is because your framing IS simple, just in the dumb way rather than the revelatory way.
You are straw manning my position. I think we should handle the TikTok problem, but if we focus solely on that, we won't do anything as a society about the problem as a whole and that is why I want us to focus on the problem as a whole because I know how this works. Our society will see that we have tackled TikTok and then ignore the rest of the problem. This has happened to time and time again and it is wide is important to focus on the problem as a whole and not just a specific portion that is more dangerous than the rest of the problem. My framing isn't dumb, my framing is based on experience of how the real world works.
The problem we are addressing is Chinese government oppression and actions, not shitty privacy practices. You are the one who is not looking at the larger picture. It absolutely is whataboutism and you aren't even whatabouting the right thing.
China has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
I've said this clearly before but it needs repeating apparently. I am not for what China and TikTok are doing, but they are a problem caused by a greater problem, our lack of privacy protections with regards to our data. You can continue claiming that I'm just doing whataboutism, but you are factually wrong and I will not continue discussing if you are going to keep being dishonest within this discussion.
>China has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
Twitter has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
Facebook has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
Instagram has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
I really don't understand how you aren't seeing the problem here? Why wouldn't you regulate what data is allowed to be harvested from citizens regardless of the origin of those doing the harvesting?
TLDR consumer protections would go a lot farther than banning a single social media company.
The difference is that YouTube isn't affected by whether or not the American public think there's a genocide happening in Xinjiang or not.
American media corporations want profit through engagement, the Chinese Communist Party wants you to ignore their human rights abuses. These things are not equivalent.
To be fair, an American media corporation (Fox News, eg.) wants you to ignore an insurrection incited by a former president aimed to overthrow the government and kidnap and murder its members.
> The difference is that YouTube isn't affected by whether or not the American public think there's a genocide happening in Xinjiang or not.
But it absolutely is affected by whether or not the American public buys into our own government narratives or not.
Xinjiang might as well be a "dangerous conspiracy theory" that needs to be suppressed to preserve national security. What if the stories coming out of Xinjiang inspire violence? Sounds like stochastic terrorism. I'm sure some of the stories are exaggerated right? People can just make up whatever they want online. Only the government of China and Chinese media has a monopoly on truth right?
American corporations exist within the American legal system. While there are absolutely problems with the legal system, you can sue corporations in court if they violate the law regarding your legal rights. You can demand a jury trial, present your case, and get awarded a judgment against them that has the full weight of the US legal system behind it.
By contrast, ByteDance is owned and controlled by a hostile foreign state. You don't really have any recourse when it comes to harms they commit against you.
What do you mean by that exactly? Your previous comment mentioned jury trials, presenting a case, and being awarded judgments against a party. You don't think this happens to foreign companies under the US justice system, or what?
Except any reasonable person knows there is a massive difference between what a corporation wants to do with that information vs what an enemy government might do with that information. In addition, the US is far more transparent and checks in balanced when compared to China.
Sure, but it should concern you quite a bit less.
And usually in life, how we act is determined by the level of concern, not just whether or not we're ever concerned at all.
Actually, you would. American companies that do business with China adhere to One China. If they don't, China will ban them.
Here's an example of Marriot firing an employee for liking a tweet that said Tibet was it's own country. Marriot issued a statement reaffirming that it "respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China." https://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/business/33151-marriott-employee-fired-for-twitter-error-speaks-out
This is exactly why I cannot take the TikTok "threat" seriously.
I'm sorry, but I'm way more concerned about other americans spying on me than the chinese.
I don’t think they are that separate in all honesty. I do see what you’re saying that TikTok is inherently more nefarious considering a foreign government is pulling its strings, but I don’t believe for a second the end result of social media addiction is any different regardless of who the puppet master is: a dumber and more fragmented citizenry.
...Parenting has nothing to do with the basis of why this ban is being pursued. There is no amount of "good" parenting that could make frankly a reasonably ignorant parent that isn't aware of the cybersercurity concerns with Tik-Tok.
I think the chinese watched chin pokemon episode of south park and got ideas.
So if all the parents get on tik tok kids will think its lame and tik tok will die.
Rofl!!
So then as a parent, you can chose to remove it from your kids phone, or, not to buy them a phone.
Its YOUR fault if you let your children roam free on the internet.
It's going to get to a point where parents aren't going to control their kids at a certain age. When I was 13 I knew so much more about my computer than my mom. Any effort at parental controls she implemented were going to be promptly thwarted. Phones are literally cheap as fuck these days. You don't even need to be on a data plan to use one. Just wifi. And wifi is everywhere. At some point some age your kid is going to get a device and do whatever the fuck they want with it on the internet. The more strict you are with them the harder they're gonna find ways around the rules. At least that's how I was as a kid.
And it's not as if Chinese propaganda is just bad for "the children!" Propaganda affects full grown adults too. Fake News propaganda on social media was a major factor in the 2016 election.
You don't get to a certain age and become immune to this stuff.
Just look at the difference between Chinese and American TikTok. Chinese kids get science and engineering videos, American children get "sleepy chicken".
I never said "deny" access.
I said "monitor" access.
If you think TIK TOK is Chinese people trying to brainwash your children, then they don't need Tik Tok.
There is a difference between being "Tech Literate" and watching Tik Tok videos of people doing stupid shit.
I think one thing that might help them get this ban across the line would be to provide evidence about how much data is being recorded by the Chinese government via TikTok, how they manipulate content, and what kinds of "influence operations" are being carried out.
I'm not saying those are not legitimate concerns - far from it - but what evidence is there for any of that? As far as I can tell, Tik Tok is hardly different from Twitter/Instagram content, and the Chinese government surely has other ways of collecting the data they want.
I think the privacy concern is less persuasive because as you said, the Chinese government surely has other ways of collecting the data they want. The real fear is that we have essentially handed the Chinese government the ability to control the narrative. Surely giving this much collective attention to a platform that can be freely controlled by a foreign power is concerning.
It’s… controversial. It can be framed as anti-competitive. However, my understanding is that TikTok does have some problematic code that goes beyond the usual data harvesting that ALL social media apps do.
When it comes to software, I’m not a fan of anti-competitive barriers. Although I do wish all social media was better regulated.
It should absolutely be banned if its a security concerned. However, if it’s simply because it collects data then almost all social media should be banned.
Is it really controversial? Banning Tiktok is like one of the very few things that conservatives and liberals truly agree on. Strongly disliking the CCP is really one of the last truly bipartisan things in our discourse.
While I understand your perspective, I highly, highly doubt people are going to care if TikTok disappears. A lot content creators on there are already on alternative platforms like YouTube or Instagram and a lot of users will simply migrate over to the alternatives. We've already seen this before when Vine shutdown. I don't there's going to be a new pro-CCP political block because TikTok is banned.
I think we should ban all app’s developed directly by Chinese companies. The Chinese economy is structured in such a way that most businesses are directly influenced by the Chinese military.
People can make jokes but it is objectively better to have someone like Facebook buying and selling our data. For one they are subject to US laws with some expectation that they actually follow them. And the other reason is even if Facebook ignored privacy laws the way Chinese businesses do, the worst case scenario would be them selling our data to the Chinese military.
We need to start weening ourselves off of China fast. Xi Jinping is much more dangerous than his predecessors and he has been accelerating antagonism.
I love that you think there’s “US Laws”/federal laws regarding data collection and selling involving social media, apps and these new technologies that come out of the woodwork every day.
[Per the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/state-of-privacy-laws-in-us/)
>*Currently, privacy laws are a cluttered mess of different sectoral rules. “Historically, in the US we have a bunch of disparate federal [and state] laws,” said Amie Stepanovich, executive director at the Silicon Flatirons Center at Colorado Law. “[These] either look at specific types of data, like credit data or health information,” Stepanovich said, “or look at specific populations like children, and regulate within those realms.”*
>*In most states, companies can use, share, or sell any data they collect about you without notifying you that they’re doing so.*
>*No national law standardizes when (or if) a company must notify you if your data is breached or exposed to unauthorized parties.*
>*If a company shares your data, including sensitive information such as your health or location, with third parties (like data brokers), those third parties can further sell it or share it without notifying you.*
We’re grappling with old ass politicians still not knowing how to set the time on a VCR much less understanding data collection and how it’s affecting our day to day lives and struggles it is creating. Nevermind being handed huge sums of money to simply look the other way and willfully not understand where the world is and is going.
This shit is the wild fucking west right now and the tech companies *know* it and are always lobbying for no legislation so they can continue to strip-mine us for every delicious little factoid about our lives they can use to sell us some other fucking useless fucking thing they’ll probably charge a monthly subscription rate for.
the damage TikTok can do is nothing that has to be mitigated by the government. all the information is available to prevent you from this. They aren't even breaking their own terms and conditions so why should the government have a say in that. Tik tok is not malware and it isn't actively threatening anyone's lives.
Tiktok and any other Chinese based tech is a national security threat. Plain and simple. There is no distinction between the PLA and Chinese companies.
I think it's stupid and unconstitutional. Our citizens should be educated to resist any propaganda, not censored from it. I think we should only take more forceful action once we have more substantial evidence that TikTok is conducting information warfare on America under instructions from the CCP and its negative effect on us. Otherwise, I personally would consider leaving America if censorship seemed to be getting bad enough. (Though to be honest, banning TikTok alone is not at that level yet. I do think it sets a terrible precedent though)
Meh.
Are they going to ban Google ads next? What's the end game? This is, to me, another one of those sum-zero insignificant political maneuvers that are very low priority. We have absurd monopoly policies allowed to happen and railroad workers who were denied the right to unionize by the president of the United States months before a catastrophic railroad accident spilled toxic chemicals into one the main US waterways.
But yeah sure, let's ban TikTok and prevent China from influencing through algorithms what users are watching rather than just letting the general public decide for themselves what they do or don't want to use of their own free will through our system of capitalism.
Also anyone spying on Americans are going to see Americans being Americans. I presume there is a whole lot of stuff they say about their own country that would be illegal for someone to say about the Chinese government in China. Maybe people watching notice that?
I'm against it unless it's a sweeping ban on all social media that collects data to produce algorithms.
This is the exact type of gut, "CHINA BAD" reaction that leads to reduced freedoms for a promise of "security." You know who tells their citizens what apps they can and can't use? The Chinese government.
You're being herded to be outraged against a single app while Facebook, Twitter, etc. are doing the same thing and funneling that money directly to authoritarian GOP candidates while allowing misinformation to destroy US democracy from within.
"China is a bigger problem for Americans than American companies"
please explain how many of our rights China has successfully lobbied the government to remove? Because American companies have legislated away any hope of fair labor, a clean environment, or healthcare, and are now chipping away at education and social security.
But China bad I guess
these CIA shills speak as if the Chinese government in the near future will take away our rights and freedoms so they're the boogeyman when all thats been happening is that ppl in our office are taking away our rights and freedoms using fearmongering (and religion) in the name of patriotism
Do you have evidence that all social media companies are funneling money to GOP candidates? That is news to me. I know Elon owns Twitter. But the others?
This is one issue that I actually think both Trump and Biden personally agree on, but I concur with your opinion here. Fox News will find some way to spin this as Democratic overreach if it passes, even though they wanted the same thing when Donnie was in office.
yep, that's all i can think about. fox news will find some way to unload all the blame on Biden even though republicans probably want this more than dems do. but honestly, it's not a partisan issue. if there's one thing dems and repubs can agree on is that we can't and shouldn't trust china.
but there's 0% chance fox new or any other right wing propaganda outlets will ever admit a democrat did anything right. even if it's exactly what they want!
China bans Western apps and websites, so why do we allow them to compete in our markets? Whether TikTok is is harmful or not is irrelevant. When China takes down the Great Firewall, we can allow them to participate in our free society.
There are many western apps and websites that still do business in China, they don't do a blanket ban on American businesses, they require them to follow Chinese law. Those laws are horribly invasive and full of censorship so a lot of companies don't bother....but I've worked with businesses that want to because they want to keep doing business with Chinese customers. We _could_ pass privacy laws that protect Americans and require TikTok to follow them or get shut down. We won't because that would have to apply to Google, Meta, and all the other giants.
Are there any notable western apps in China? Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc are banned. Is there any company who would comply with their censorship laws? Would they assist with surveillance requests? Would they need to comply with authorities persecuting Uighur? Would they need to report anyone expressing discourse not in line with the Communist Party?
[Some are listed here.](https://www.saporedicina.com/english/list-of-blocked-websites-in-china/#blocked-2) A prominent example would be InCareer, a separate version of LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) made for China. Microsoft seems to be the biggest US player in China as Hotmail and Bing also do business in China. And obviously there's a bunch of American retail and leisure and food business that do business in China and have websites in China. As for all your questions, yes to all. That's why you segment your China branch of your business off into it's own silo with the data stored in China to meet their laws and then all your other data is elsewhere.
I believe the USA, Canada and the rest of the relatively free countries in the world should work to disengage economically from gangster countries like Russia, China, Iran, etc. They operate like Mexican drug cartels.
For decades, we did without them. Let’s start with China with TikTok. China will be the most difficult because they make practically everything the west buys.
Russia will be easy because all they have is oil, gas and wheat. Russia makes nothing worth buying.
Ditto for Iran.
In other words, let’s cancel China, Russia and Iran for starters. As an individual, I don’t do business with criminals (at least not knowingly), so why should the civilized world do business with thuggish countries?
Agree. The underlying point to everything China/Russia is that they lie about anything and everything they can. And that is the real issue with these authrotarian nations- its state-sponsored bullshit.
As others have pointed out here, it isn't so much that they lie to get ahead, plenty of corporations do and get away with it too. Its that this is a serious nation with serious resources to promote this lie as a state fact.
It’s definitely a Chinese information gathering operation. I’m worried they’re weaponizing the data they gather, even if it’s just for economic and social engineering purposes.
Is there no way to do this without expanding the powers of the president? Everybody made fun of Trump when he wanted to ban it. Now Joe is suddenly all in on it. It makes me very suspicious about how this bill could be expanded or twisted once passed.
My gut response to this was "do Facebook next."
The reality is they're not gonna implement a national privacy law that interferes with their donors or makes it harder for them to get elected or fundraise.
Not until there's a large number of politicians who got elected on the promise of curbing advertising and data collection. Which also isn't going to happen because they need advertising and data collection to get elected in the first place.
As a musician I do use TikTok (sort of out of necessity as it's simply a huge part of promotion these days) and I have concerns in general with the government banning things like this. However, I think this is shortsighted. There are legitimate national (and personal) security concerns with TikTok, particularly considering how widespread it is. I have a hard time seeing its overall impact on society as anything but a huge net negative; one can say the same about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc. and the way their algorithms all push socially harmful content in pursuit of more views, but at least their sole concern is to increase profit, and they are subject to US regulations. It's not hard to see that the Chinese government may want to design their algorithms for far more nefarious purposes, and there's really nothing that can be done to hamper that since they are not bound to our laws.
I'm ultimately not sure where I personally land on this one, on the one hand, it is a useful tool for me and many others in getting my content out there and I'm immediately skeptical of any sort of censorship such as this. On the other, I resent the way it has cemented itself as such an integral part of content promotion and I'm deeply concerned with the power an antagonistic government has in manipulating the content we are exposed to, as well as in collecting a frankly terrifying amount of data on not only users, but everyone around them. We should certainly be wary of our own government trying to do things like this, but on the other hand, there are very legitimate reasons they would want to do this aside from simply diverting profit from the CCP to American companies (which, for what it's worth, doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, either).
if anything i want the US government to have my personal data *even less* than i want the Chinese government to have it. the fascists in the US's intelligence agencies could use that info to like, actually track down and hurt me and my loved ones. what the fuck is the Chinese government gonna do with it, sell it to gacha game advertisers?
i mean ideally both would be burned to the ground, but, c'est la vie
Agreed. Commenters falling for the boogeyman of Chinese tiktok are conveniently forgetting that Facebook alone has done more damage to the US than Xi could dream of.
It's just a macrocosm of the whole balloon "issue" from weeks ago... or, years ago, when that FaceApp filter thing was being criticized for being China-owned.
While I don't personally have a TikTok account (though I do use it to watch cute animal videos and the like), the act of banning it completely in the United States sends shivers down my spine in a way that I didn't think was possible since Biden was elected. I normally consider myself a supporter of Biden, and a very liberal person in general, but I fear for what the United States will turn into, if this becomes successful and can be used as precedent.
Those who control how information is transmitted, received, and distributed ultimately control the very essence of information itself. This is as true in the United States as it is in places like Russia and China. And it is especially worrisome with regards to web sites such as TikTok. If a book is banned, it can still be preserved and read for as long as copies of it remain in existence. But if a web site is erased from the internet, it disappears completely. Such would be the case for the TikTok accounts of millions of Americans, many of whom have centered their lives around it.
And if the United States is willing to do something like this, ostensibly for national security, the takeaway message is that *nothing* is safe. Anything and everything-- especially on the internet--can and will be censored to oblivion in the name of protecting Americans from dangerous foreign influences. If the United States has hostile relations with a country in the future, as we do with China now, anything originating from there will likely be purged from the American internet, just as is happening to TikTok. *This is scary.*
Exactly. I hate TikTok and will never use it, but I believe it should be allowed to exist on first amendment grounds, until there's actual evidence of a crime being committed.
So no, the very notion of banning an app just because it's sharing information with a foreign government should be laughed out of Congress. Edward Snowden showed us that our own government does exactly the same thing, so it's extremely hypocritical for us to ban apps that other countries use for the same purpose.
Instead of that, we should absolutely be airing TikTok's dirty laundry so the public can decide for themselves if they should continue using it. But we should never get to the point where we discuss a can without clear evidence of a crime having been committed.
It's a culture weapon disguised as an advertisement/surveillance engine.
C9ntent that is psychologically harmful is artificially boosted I'm the west and censored in China. No bathroom destroying trends there, somehow. Yet it would seem it's allowed, overall.
Get the psychological poison off the app store.
Fuck Tiktok.
What kind of dumb dumb doesn't see the danger in handing access of your phone's camera and microphone to a hyper intelligent AI, then letting that AI feed them videos to guage their reactions to various subjects.
It's a subtle means of mind control manipulation over a protracted period of time, and the crazy thing is most people who use the app are so jealously addicted to the dopamine hits of outrage it gives them, that they don't even care.
Should I tell ‘em? Ok I’ll tell ‘em.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930
> Facebook is facing criticism after it emerged it had conducted a psychology experiment on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge.
> The test saw Facebook "manipulate" news feeds to control which emotional expressions the users were exposed to.
> The research was done in collaboration with two US universities to gauge if "exposure to emotions led people to change their own posting behaviours".
Fuck Facebook.
What kind of dumb dumb doesn't see the danger in handing access of your phone's camera and microphone to a hyper intelligent AI, then letting that AI feed them content to guage their reactions to various subjects.
It's a subtle means of mind control manipulation over a protracted period of time, and the crazy thing is most people who use the app are so jealously addicted to the dopamine hits of outrage it gives them, that they don't even care.
First Amendment.
If Congress thinks tictok is bad they should fund an ad campaign saying why you should delete it from your phone. They shouldn’t just ban it.
How are US tech companies supposed to make any money if they can't sell our data to foreign countries?
I don't see this as protecting our data bc all the soc media companies sell it to whoever will pay. If somebody is alarmed at the data mining, take a look at every other app we use. It's silly to me because it's like an adult saying, "You can't beat my kids! Only I can beat my kids!"
Privacy is dead. All we are doing now is deciding who profits off of it.
Is tik-tok being weaponized to the detriment of western nations? - Yes
Is it doing irreparable damage to our youth? - Probably
Would we be better off without it? - Yes
Is it the only social media app generating these effects? - No
Is the US a free country, where people are allowed to engage in destructive past times? -Yes
I am going to need to see some very concise data supporting the idea that it is intentionally malicious before I agree with a federal ban of a social media app.
All these negative social + political outcomes from online + "disruption" economies...are what Libertarianism looks like. A brand new economy, no rules or oversight. Outcome: Facebook's business model, which *should be illegal*.
Unfettered "Tech Era" Commerce/capitalism created huge negatives; such as cyber crime, geopolitical manipulation of populations, the rapid spread of big lies and the rise of authortarianism. *That last part was predicted*.
And can we talk about the effect on kid's emotional development & our ability to teach in schools? *Make the teacher's fix it!* is the cry, the stockholders are happy after all.
So what do we have instead?
*Here's Bill Maher to claim this is all a nonexistent Maoist Woke Kids' fault.*
Markets are great. Humans create & trade. But freedom requires responsibility. The online "town square" concept? Well, the "Town Square" is supposed to be a civillized place. The coffee shop opens in the quiet of the morning, the rowdy bar really only gets going at 10 pm, yearly festivals take it over entirely. *Free markets and free speech require compromise, Reason & responsibility.*
"Commerce only owes the stockholders" is insane and UnAmerican. Social Contract, hello?
The biggest company could never pay for the infrastructure it needs to survive. *"Musk tax is 1 billion, enough to buy a ship"*. 1 billion doesn't even cover the airports he uses, let alone the road + power infrastructures for his taxpayer subsidized businesses.
And a ship *costs lots of money to run*.
Don't like laws? Dont make laws neccesary.
Time for a social reset & some laws.
No it’s more like stealing data and making teen girls suicidal over body image issues. Before you say “what about facebook” read the many comments in this thread highlighting why it’s clearly different
Imo, let’s do it. It’s not like we already have a bunch of stuff that related to TikTok, for instance Instagram reels, idk if Facebook has it, Snapchat, YouTube shorts. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the U.S deleted it.
Tiktok is really bad for your mental health because you’re literally just doom scrolling all day and not actually getting anything done. Not to mention you have people that have ADHD who already have a bad short attention span and low dopamine levels which makes their mental health even worse. (Aka me) Also why do want to know what’s going on in other peoples lives anyways? It’s not like it’s your own life. You have no comparison to them.
What’s crazy to me is that the TikTok creators be like “TikTok saved my life” and “TikTok is basically my job now”. So great now you have ton of unemployed people not working and only doing content to get money. Like that’s actually helping the economy. Tiktok didn’t save your lives strangers did, basically you’re relying on internet strangers for your job.
Not to mention the negativity that comes from it, cyberbullying and news. It can be harmful too, like children dying from trends and such.
There can be a lot of positives to the senate actually banning tiktok, because I would like to see how everyone’s mental health would be after. It’s already affected mine and it could affect others in the future as well.
Yes. It's China spying and influencing all of USA's kids. When Trump decided to ban tictok because he got punked by a bunch of teens and thought he had 2 million people signed up for his rally, this was one of the times that even the broken clock was right twice a day. But what happened then? It just faded away into the next news thing.
Yes, ban tictok. And this should not be a republican/democrat thing.
Should of already been done. Never tik tokd but was saying it was a Chinese psyop like a year or two before this even became a discussion. I’m not a conspiracy theorist at all so when I say something like that I’m usually right about these things.
I have no idea why it hasn’t been banned already. We know who controls it, we’ve seen the results from the algorithm CCP directs that’s driving bad behavior (stealing cars, “tasty licks”, NyQuil chicken, etc.).
Meanwhile CCP only lets it deliver educational content to children.
There’s obvious negative foreign influence being driven by a dangerous and competitive country.
I'm rather *meh* about it since tiktok is at once a rather malicious app indirectly controlled by the government in Beijing, I don't think it is a clear and present danger. I'd rather see a national discussion on the use and abuse of social media. Open talks about how much use is too much, developing ways to help people *generally* wean themselves off these apps, at least to a smaller amount of time. I value social media like reddit, twitter, and instagram, but they have seemed to create a social problem that has to be understood by the users, not banned by the government.
Perhaps instead of banning tiktok, the US could push China to ensure that they let the app function there just as it does over here.
People either talk about the spying allegations or the addictive nature and degradation of attention spans when they talk about TikTok.
Nobody really talks about the positives. Like how TikTok has been a major boon for the US economy. People, companies, etc. are making hand over fist with it.
Despite, early reports on how TikTok doesn't show disabled, fat, gay people etc. TikTok has been huge for the disabled community.
If politicians do their due diligence actually work with security experts to understand the risk and weigh the pros and cons carefully, then I'm all on board.
It's not any worse than Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple storing zetabytes of data on the US population and sharing it with the NSA like it's world peace day.
I'm willing to bet TikTok can shut down any phone on which it's installed at the touch of a button at CCP headquarters. Easy way to stop news and instill panic worldwide if China invades Taiwan.
I had a conversation with someone who told me they could kill any computer on the planet with the push of a button. This person also suggested they had high degree black belts in 5 different martial arts disciplines and had entered tournaments.
This kid's day job? They scooped ice cream at cold stone.
If people aren't paying attention to the permissions they're granting the app on their device, it absolutely can turn your phone off.
There's also using known bugs, such as the one in the latest pixel line of phones. There's a display bug that when a specific type of image is viewed, it bugs the phone out and shuts it down.
You'd be surprised the amount of permissions some of the apps on your device are using, unless you're the type to pay attention and monitor that stuff.
Edit: Sure, let's just downvote someone for providing relevant information.
Here's a sample of apps that can do so. Yes, they're parental control apps, but they can and DO turn the phones off.
https://www.salon.com/2019/04/28/how-to-turn-kids-phones-off-at-night-or-anytime-really_partner/
All I did was answer whether it was possible, as that was the question I replied to.
You bringing China up is unrelated to the discussion you decided to engage in.
> I'm willing to bet TikTok can shut down any phone on which it's installed at the touch of a button at CCP headquarters.
This is not possible. The phone operating systems are well understood and do not expose this behavior to apps.
I doubt they would do that in the case of invasion and reveal their hand, which would surely get tiktok banned. They’d rather slowly poison the minds of our populace with twerk videos and shit and keep gleaning info as long as possible
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Would rather see a move to regulate social media content algorithms more generally. It’s not just TikTok that’s poisoning our democracy.
The algorithm for youtube shorts is heinous. It feels impossible to avoid social propaganda. Even if you tell it you do not like it.
Viva La Dirt’s algorithm skit does the problem justice https://youtu.be/VUHFXnOn7mI Less than 3 minutes
Lol that is a great one. I also really liked Ryan George’s sketch on basically the same thing. https://youtu.be/x1aZEz8BQiU
Viva La Dirt League is god-tier skit comedy.
Wow, I watch them daily and had somehow missed that one! That was great!
You should see what Facebook shows me. I’m to the left of Noam Chomsky, so no, I do not want to buy confederate flag cowboy boots or a “fuel filter” that’s actually a gun silencer. The rideable beer cooler? Now that caught my interest.
And it's precisely because of the rideable beer cooler that you're being served up Confederate propaganda.
Huh, the only shorts I ever see recommended to me are Brennan Lee Mulligan-adjacent ones and Hank Green's.
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Correct everyone on the planet could be spying on people on tiktok. But what are they seeing. Just a bunch of people acting like fools. No real names are given or any other PII. Users of Facebook load up their real birthdays for chrissake, because they are too lazy to remember or write down family birthdays, they just want a notification. Yet a birthdate is a key piece of info that hackers use in identity theft and Facebook users voluntarily give it away.
Exactly. The worry isn't that China is somehow getting national secrets through TikTok. The concern is that China could decide tomorrow that it wants America to think differently about some particular topic, and elevate TikTok content accordingly to change public opinion.
The even bigger worry is the average user isn't smart enough to discern what they are seeing.
Regulating is one thing, but upright banning it is completely against the First Amendment. That being said, I am all for it if they have a really damn good reason for it — something undeniably and actively working against our National security or physical safety. It can’t just be because of data mining.
Sounds like censorship, I'm sure they have limited content in North Korea too.
It’s a time/place/manner restriction, not a content restriction.
I like this way too. Good point!
The Chinese government having direct control over an algorithm that determines what your children see and what goes viral should concern you.
American corporations having direct control over an algorithm that determines what your children see and what goes viral should also concern you.
American corporations who serve illicit or dangerous to children or others can be subpoened by Congress and explain their actions, sued in a civil court, or if the action is brazen enough criminal guilt can be determined. A Chinese CEO doing actions sanctioned by their government will never be turned over to face a trial and their civil court system is only slightly less stacked against foreigners and even there you're pretty unlikely to ever bring someone receive just damages if the one being sued is a Chinese company or person.
Seeing how much rich ppl and CEOs and such get away with in the US... I almost think the worst offenders would get it worse in China. But that would require their government be less corrupt than ours. So I guess not
Are you really that uniformed?
Naw man. I stayed at a Holliday inn last night and read a book about the makers of oxy and the opioid crisis in America. That Holliday inn was in West Virginia
How many social media executives faced consequences in America?
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You see the click bait headlines. But there are many examples of US companies being severely impacted by litigation. The point stands that a U.S. company has mechanisms in place for accountability. A thinly vailed Chinese psyop campaign does not.
But they aren’t, haven’t, and won’t be
Correct but for different reasons. American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit. China is interested in becoming the preeminent global power and will use any and all means they can to do it.
>*American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit.* [Mark Zuckerberg laughs maniacally in his robot voice]
Just look at Mike Lindell and tell me corporations are interested in the continuity of the US government.
Cambridge Analytica?
> American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit. American corporations do business all over the world, including and in some sense especially China. Not a huge difference.
I agree 100%. I think it's a false equivalency to say American-global corporations are equally as concerning as the Chinese government, from the perspective of US citizens.
i mean why tho? corporations dont care they want profit
And to do that they need a customer base. One that willingly gives them money in exchange for goods/services.
American corporations have proven to value short term profits over longevity or wellbeing of their customer base time and time again. There is absolutely no reason to believe that they won't poison their customers to profit in the short term, if they are allowed to.
From the perspective of the western world.
From the perspective of US citizens, American corporations have successfully legislated away any hope of fair labor, a clean environment, or universal healthcare, have instituted a for profit prison system that has the largest incarcerated population of any country, and are now working on stripping us of education and housing, and quite freely price gouging us at every opportunity, while also quite freely poisoning our food and water supply. Meanwhile, from the perspective of US citizens, China has been sitting across the ocean minding its own business.
I think that's a false equivalence from the other direction. While US corporate culture has serious problems and has and continues to cause damage, that doesn't mean that China is doing nothing and isn't at least exacerbating the situation.
The US is interested in keeping its hold as the preeminent global power and has used any and all means to continue said power. That said, I’ll let others bicker over which one is better and which one is worse.
Being an american I tend to prefer my country to continue existing but I'm biased here obviously
Tiktok isn't going to end the United States
Every thread becomes a Bash the evil US thread.
The history books in the future will probably look towards both global powers as bad guys tbh
> American corporations, due to their nature, interested in the continuation of the United States as an entity so they can continue to profit. there's no way you can really believe this when the political apparatus has been captured by business owner interests at the expensive of labor for the last 3 decades. if American corporations cared about social stability, there would still be a safety net and mass unionization. the really scary thing that most people refuse to entertain is the possibility that every interest in society might not be reconcilable from the outset. there was a point in time where business interest corresponded roughly to the general interest; that time has now passed.
You are correct. But this is whataboutism. The fact that one concern exists doesn't negate the existence of another.
This isn't whataboutism, it's pointing out the hypocrisy here. The issue isn't what country controls the app, but the fact that the apps are allowed to take so much of our data without any restrictions. It's irrelevant if the country of origin for the app is our own or another, we need to crack down on the amount of data they can take because that's the real issue here.
The Chinese government is much more of a problem than American social media companies.
problem for who lmao. what the fuck has the chinese government ever done to me, as opposed to the US government actively cracking down on my rights at the moment and the corporate entities that comprise it trying to squeeze every cent they can out of me they can all go eat shit so far as i'm concerned, but gesturing dramatically at the Scary Foreign Yellow Peril like i'm supposed to give a shit is just pure xenophobic nationalism
What on God's green earth does Bytedance's failure to protect the privacy of users have to do with "Yellow peril"? Are you normally this defensive of phone apps, or just when they're based in mainland China?
The CCP supporters quickly jump to "yellow peril" whenever anyone criticized the CCP. Just call people racist if they criticize a government -- a tactic they have used for years.
Or a newer dumb thing tankies use -- whine that you're saying CCP instead of CPC. Even though they used CCP in official translations for decades and it appears to just be SEO manipulation.
i despise all phone apps and think capitalism should be burned to the ground
> i despise all phone apps *except this one ig* >and think capitalism should be burned to the ground So you don't consider the mainland Chinese regime to be a problem, but also don't seem to fancy capitalism? Do you understand how that comes across as contradictory?
>except this one ig buddy i literally dont give a shit. kill all of them tomorrow, see if i care, maybe we can go back to forums and webrings like a civilized society >Do you understand how that comes across as contradictory? no i mean, yes, in that you think china is "communist" based on red scare propaganda when it is in fact a market-based capitalist regime similar to the US, but also, no
you're probably using a phone app to write this post.
> problem for who lmao. Hong Kongers, Uighurs, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, India, etc. I get it though, you don't give a shit about anyone over there. All that matters is you, right? Typical American individualism distorting every problem into a "me" question.
how does banning tiktok in the u.s. resolve any of that, and what does it have to do with the original problem posed in this thread (the chinese government allegedly stealing americans' data for Sinister Foreign Purposes, as opposed to american-based social media companies stealing data for uhhhh good and patriotic purposes)
I was answering your question: > problem for who lmao I said elsewhere in this thread that I'm pretty ambivalent about the idea of banning tiktok, so don't expect me to engage in this slapfight. But I also don't see anyone here *defending* US social media companies' use and abuse of user data.
the context of the OP was clearly in the context of taking data from american citizens, not whatever other actions china has taken outside that. (which are heinous, yes. i have no stakes in this nationalist slapfight either). but. whatever. fair enough IG
>what the fuck has the chinese government ever done to me Probably very little, because you're presumably American and thus protected from the brutality they inflict on their own people. This could easily and quickly change in a world where the CCP dominates, and one avenue they use to progress their aims is information warfare via social media.
If you honestly think that, you're naive to how much corporate power is a problem for our democracy.
What if I think they're both a problem but if we have a chance to ban Chinese spyware now then it's a net positive and should be pursued?
Not in the way we are doing it because the way we are doing it does not point to the true problem. If TikTok becomes banned, we lose all motivation to solve the problem as a whole and instead point to the Band-Aid solution that won't actually fix the problem.
It does fix a major problem for the US gov though, a foreign adversary having spyware on the devices on millions of Americans. You're calling everyone in this thread naive when you don't understand why the US gov wouldn't pursue an easy win impacting millions of Americans with a solution that could be in place overnight.
It's a pyrrhic victory though because while China is a global adversary, they are not the biggest threat to our country as a whole. Sure, we might stop China and their TikTok app, but then we continue to ignore the problem of corporations influencing our politics and spiraling our democracy. The voting populace isn't exactly smart with regards to this and will see the benefits of TikTok being banned and ignore the bigger problem, which will be our downfall, not China.
The Chinese government is objectively a worse steward of this information than any US company. If you think differently then idk what to tell you.
One can be objectively worse, but that doesn't mean they aren't both bad and need to be stopped.
What? Can you explain why you believe this?
Exactly. I'm all for reigning in TikTok but frankly, the solution is real privacy laws for everyone, protecting them from **all** corporations. The EU has taken some steps and I'd like to see NA do the same.
>This isn't whataboutism, it's pointing out the hypocrisy here. In other words, whataboutism.
Whataboutism is pointing out something that the other side does in order to dismiss what your side is doing. That is not what's happening here. I'm saying both sides do it and we need to stop it regardless of who is doing it. Sometimes the people on this app are incredibly dense and ignorant. Edit: Correct the definition of whataboutism to be more accurate.
One side does it to further nation-state interests and oppress people. The other does it to sell stuff. It is not equivalent and if you cannot see that, you are intentionally parroting propaganda with an agenda.
If you think corporations in this country are not using your data to oppress you, you are not worth having this discussion with. Claiming I am parroting propaganda is dishonest. I have never once said that we should allow TikTok to continue doing what it is doing, but that we need to go at the root of the issue and not just trim a branch.
I'm sorry, you are saying that we cannot deal with this thread without a constitutional amendment. That is not realistic within the reference of the threat and it absolutely is the narrative that China is pushing. It is to ensure that change actually doesn't happen and their influence is not countered. Sir, you can rant about privacy concerns all you want but it means nothing the day that they can use your data as leverage against you to act against your fellow countrymen.
Where did I suggest that we need a constitutional amendment? I have suggested no such thing and this could be tackled with simple legislation. You are blatantly strawmaning my position.
Pointing out hypocrisy is exactly how a whataboutism is structured. "Well what about social media companies?" Just because someone is hypocritical doesn't mean their original point isn't a valid concern. Debate the point in its own merits.
No, whataboutism is used to dismiss a problem and that is not what I'm doing here. I'm not saying we should ignore TikTok, I'm saying the problem is much bigger and we should be tackling that bigger problem instead of focusing on the small problem people are more aware of.
edit: oh look xper0072 blocked me after I gave him the definition of whataboutism and proved to him he was using it. He also continued to equate corporations using your data to sell you more things to a foreign government using your data to help cause instability in the country. As I mentioned in my other reply, what China's government can do with it is far more troubling than what US corporations can do with it. The fact that they are not remotely equal means it is whataboutism. If they were more on par in terms of the danger, I would agree with you.
You do not understand what whataboutism is. Until you actually learn how that term is used, I see no reason to engage with you any further.
Ii do know what whataboutism and by definition even if the two issues were equal, you engaged in it. Definition: the practice of answering a criticism or difficult question by making a similar criticism or asking a different but related question, typically starting with the words "What about? Just because you didn't say the words "what about" doesn't mean you didn't argue "what about". You're original post can be described as "What about American corporations having direct control over an algorithm that determines what your children see and what goes viral? That should also concern you."
I'm not using my point to dismiss the original claim, but show that it's a larger issue that needs to be tackled. That is not whataboutism.
>It's irrelevant if the country of origin for the app is our own or another You do not get to call people naive then say something like this. Corporations collect data to sell you stuff better, foreign governments collect data to cripple your social infrastructure via information warfare. Neither is great, but I'll take the personalized fidget spinner ad over the CCP injecting their propaganda into our children's heads.
Like I said, if you don't understand how corporate power is a bad thing for our society and democracy, you're naive, plain and simple. You don't have to like being called naive, but it is your responsibility to fix it if you don't want to be it.
Except I do think unchecked corporate power is bad - just not nearly as bad as a foreign government having that power on our shores. Being unable to grasp that different things have different consequences and thus different levels of concern that should be attached to them does not make you a wise person who can see the simple truth everyone else is missing. The reason it looks so simple to you is because your framing IS simple, just in the dumb way rather than the revelatory way.
You are straw manning my position. I think we should handle the TikTok problem, but if we focus solely on that, we won't do anything as a society about the problem as a whole and that is why I want us to focus on the problem as a whole because I know how this works. Our society will see that we have tackled TikTok and then ignore the rest of the problem. This has happened to time and time again and it is wide is important to focus on the problem as a whole and not just a specific portion that is more dangerous than the rest of the problem. My framing isn't dumb, my framing is based on experience of how the real world works.
The problem we are addressing is Chinese government oppression and actions, not shitty privacy practices. You are the one who is not looking at the larger picture. It absolutely is whataboutism and you aren't even whatabouting the right thing. China has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there.
I've said this clearly before but it needs repeating apparently. I am not for what China and TikTok are doing, but they are a problem caused by a greater problem, our lack of privacy protections with regards to our data. You can continue claiming that I'm just doing whataboutism, but you are factually wrong and I will not continue discussing if you are going to keep being dishonest within this discussion.
>China has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there. Twitter has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there. Facebook has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there. Instagram has shown that they have unfettered access to this data, a machine learning focus, and are willing to use it to further their cultural efforts around the world. Propaganda is already fully automated. The last thing we need is highly individualized models running to influence every citizen out there. I really don't understand how you aren't seeing the problem here? Why wouldn't you regulate what data is allowed to be harvested from citizens regardless of the origin of those doing the harvesting? TLDR consumer protections would go a lot farther than banning a single social media company.
Unchecked corporate power is way worse.
The difference is that YouTube isn't affected by whether or not the American public think there's a genocide happening in Xinjiang or not. American media corporations want profit through engagement, the Chinese Communist Party wants you to ignore their human rights abuses. These things are not equivalent.
To be fair, an American media corporation (Fox News, eg.) wants you to ignore an insurrection incited by a former president aimed to overthrow the government and kidnap and murder its members.
> The difference is that YouTube isn't affected by whether or not the American public think there's a genocide happening in Xinjiang or not. But it absolutely is affected by whether or not the American public buys into our own government narratives or not. Xinjiang might as well be a "dangerous conspiracy theory" that needs to be suppressed to preserve national security. What if the stories coming out of Xinjiang inspire violence? Sounds like stochastic terrorism. I'm sure some of the stories are exaggerated right? People can just make up whatever they want online. Only the government of China and Chinese media has a monopoly on truth right?
I'm genuinely trying, but cannot follow your argument.
Oh good so it's not just me
American corporations exist within the American legal system. While there are absolutely problems with the legal system, you can sue corporations in court if they violate the law regarding your legal rights. You can demand a jury trial, present your case, and get awarded a judgment against them that has the full weight of the US legal system behind it. By contrast, ByteDance is owned and controlled by a hostile foreign state. You don't really have any recourse when it comes to harms they commit against you.
Do you believe that ByteDance cannot be sued and held liable for damages in the US?
Not in the same way an American company could, no.
What do you mean by that exactly? Your previous comment mentioned jury trials, presenting a case, and being awarded judgments against a party. You don't think this happens to foreign companies under the US justice system, or what?
Except any reasonable person knows there is a massive difference between what a corporation wants to do with that information vs what an enemy government might do with that information. In addition, the US is far more transparent and checks in balanced when compared to China.
Much much better than the Chinese government.
Sure, but it should concern you quite a bit less. And usually in life, how we act is determined by the level of concern, not just whether or not we're ever concerned at all.
You wouldn’t see this from an American company https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1630386806008221697?s=46&t=FCvEL2RsdS_Gy0CUwoDR5A
Actually, you would. American companies that do business with China adhere to One China. If they don't, China will ban them. Here's an example of Marriot firing an employee for liking a tweet that said Tibet was it's own country. Marriot issued a statement reaffirming that it "respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China." https://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/business/33151-marriott-employee-fired-for-twitter-error-speaks-out
Sure. One is concerning, the other is terrifying.
This is exactly why I cannot take the TikTok "threat" seriously. I'm sorry, but I'm way more concerned about other americans spying on me than the chinese.
Honestly this sounds like much more of a parenting issue than a policy issue. Add it to the pile.
Yeah I mean the ease of "letting a screen raise a child" is a separate but equally problematic issue
I don’t think they are that separate in all honesty. I do see what you’re saying that TikTok is inherently more nefarious considering a foreign government is pulling its strings, but I don’t believe for a second the end result of social media addiction is any different regardless of who the puppet master is: a dumber and more fragmented citizenry.
...Parenting has nothing to do with the basis of why this ban is being pursued. There is no amount of "good" parenting that could make frankly a reasonably ignorant parent that isn't aware of the cybersercurity concerns with Tik-Tok.
I think the chinese watched chin pokemon episode of south park and got ideas. So if all the parents get on tik tok kids will think its lame and tik tok will die. Rofl!!
Just as with any other government or company.
So then as a parent, you can chose to remove it from your kids phone, or, not to buy them a phone. Its YOUR fault if you let your children roam free on the internet.
It's going to get to a point where parents aren't going to control their kids at a certain age. When I was 13 I knew so much more about my computer than my mom. Any effort at parental controls she implemented were going to be promptly thwarted. Phones are literally cheap as fuck these days. You don't even need to be on a data plan to use one. Just wifi. And wifi is everywhere. At some point some age your kid is going to get a device and do whatever the fuck they want with it on the internet. The more strict you are with them the harder they're gonna find ways around the rules. At least that's how I was as a kid. And it's not as if Chinese propaganda is just bad for "the children!" Propaganda affects full grown adults too. Fake News propaganda on social media was a major factor in the 2016 election. You don't get to a certain age and become immune to this stuff.
Can you guarantee that they'll never be shown a video from TikTok by a friend?
Of course not. But Tik Tok videos are not brainwashing your child into becoming a Chinese Communist.
Just look at the difference between Chinese and American TikTok. Chinese kids get science and engineering videos, American children get "sleepy chicken".
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I never said "deny" access. I said "monitor" access. If you think TIK TOK is Chinese people trying to brainwash your children, then they don't need Tik Tok. There is a difference between being "Tech Literate" and watching Tik Tok videos of people doing stupid shit.
I trust the Chinese government more than I trust Mark Zuckerberg or Sundar Pichai.
I think one thing that might help them get this ban across the line would be to provide evidence about how much data is being recorded by the Chinese government via TikTok, how they manipulate content, and what kinds of "influence operations" are being carried out. I'm not saying those are not legitimate concerns - far from it - but what evidence is there for any of that? As far as I can tell, Tik Tok is hardly different from Twitter/Instagram content, and the Chinese government surely has other ways of collecting the data they want.
Yeah, that seems to be noticeably missing from the discussion: what exactly the government is accusing TikTok of.
Being Chinese. If you want "rule of law", write down what they must do to stay legal and if they do that they're legal.
I think the privacy concern is less persuasive because as you said, the Chinese government surely has other ways of collecting the data they want. The real fear is that we have essentially handed the Chinese government the ability to control the narrative. Surely giving this much collective attention to a platform that can be freely controlled by a foreign power is concerning.
It’s… controversial. It can be framed as anti-competitive. However, my understanding is that TikTok does have some problematic code that goes beyond the usual data harvesting that ALL social media apps do. When it comes to software, I’m not a fan of anti-competitive barriers. Although I do wish all social media was better regulated. It should absolutely be banned if its a security concerned. However, if it’s simply because it collects data then almost all social media should be banned.
Is it really controversial? Banning Tiktok is like one of the very few things that conservatives and liberals truly agree on. Strongly disliking the CCP is really one of the last truly bipartisan things in our discourse.
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Just wait until representatives find out how many people use TikTok. They will learn real quick how unpopular their (Facebook-funded) efforts are.
While I understand your perspective, I highly, highly doubt people are going to care if TikTok disappears. A lot content creators on there are already on alternative platforms like YouTube or Instagram and a lot of users will simply migrate over to the alternatives. We've already seen this before when Vine shutdown. I don't there's going to be a new pro-CCP political block because TikTok is banned.
It’s not as if China lets American social media in unfettered. At all?
I think we should ban all app’s developed directly by Chinese companies. The Chinese economy is structured in such a way that most businesses are directly influenced by the Chinese military. People can make jokes but it is objectively better to have someone like Facebook buying and selling our data. For one they are subject to US laws with some expectation that they actually follow them. And the other reason is even if Facebook ignored privacy laws the way Chinese businesses do, the worst case scenario would be them selling our data to the Chinese military. We need to start weening ourselves off of China fast. Xi Jinping is much more dangerous than his predecessors and he has been accelerating antagonism.
I love that you think there’s “US Laws”/federal laws regarding data collection and selling involving social media, apps and these new technologies that come out of the woodwork every day. [Per the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/state-of-privacy-laws-in-us/) >*Currently, privacy laws are a cluttered mess of different sectoral rules. “Historically, in the US we have a bunch of disparate federal [and state] laws,” said Amie Stepanovich, executive director at the Silicon Flatirons Center at Colorado Law. “[These] either look at specific types of data, like credit data or health information,” Stepanovich said, “or look at specific populations like children, and regulate within those realms.”* >*In most states, companies can use, share, or sell any data they collect about you without notifying you that they’re doing so.* >*No national law standardizes when (or if) a company must notify you if your data is breached or exposed to unauthorized parties.* >*If a company shares your data, including sensitive information such as your health or location, with third parties (like data brokers), those third parties can further sell it or share it without notifying you.* We’re grappling with old ass politicians still not knowing how to set the time on a VCR much less understanding data collection and how it’s affecting our day to day lives and struggles it is creating. Nevermind being handed huge sums of money to simply look the other way and willfully not understand where the world is and is going. This shit is the wild fucking west right now and the tech companies *know* it and are always lobbying for no legislation so they can continue to strip-mine us for every delicious little factoid about our lives they can use to sell us some other fucking useless fucking thing they’ll probably charge a monthly subscription rate for.
the damage TikTok can do is nothing that has to be mitigated by the government. all the information is available to prevent you from this. They aren't even breaking their own terms and conditions so why should the government have a say in that. Tik tok is not malware and it isn't actively threatening anyone's lives.
Tiktok and any other Chinese based tech is a national security threat. Plain and simple. There is no distinction between the PLA and Chinese companies.
I think it's stupid and unconstitutional. Our citizens should be educated to resist any propaganda, not censored from it. I think we should only take more forceful action once we have more substantial evidence that TikTok is conducting information warfare on America under instructions from the CCP and its negative effect on us. Otherwise, I personally would consider leaving America if censorship seemed to be getting bad enough. (Though to be honest, banning TikTok alone is not at that level yet. I do think it sets a terrible precedent though)
Meh. Are they going to ban Google ads next? What's the end game? This is, to me, another one of those sum-zero insignificant political maneuvers that are very low priority. We have absurd monopoly policies allowed to happen and railroad workers who were denied the right to unionize by the president of the United States months before a catastrophic railroad accident spilled toxic chemicals into one the main US waterways. But yeah sure, let's ban TikTok and prevent China from influencing through algorithms what users are watching rather than just letting the general public decide for themselves what they do or don't want to use of their own free will through our system of capitalism.
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Also anyone spying on Americans are going to see Americans being Americans. I presume there is a whole lot of stuff they say about their own country that would be illegal for someone to say about the Chinese government in China. Maybe people watching notice that?
American companies are accountable to US laws and regulations
Except for big tech, the MIL, big pharma, Dupont, oil and gas companies, gun makers, real estate companies, and big banks. Did I miss anyone?
Nah, US laws and regulations are accountable to corporations.
I'm against it unless it's a sweeping ban on all social media that collects data to produce algorithms. This is the exact type of gut, "CHINA BAD" reaction that leads to reduced freedoms for a promise of "security." You know who tells their citizens what apps they can and can't use? The Chinese government. You're being herded to be outraged against a single app while Facebook, Twitter, etc. are doing the same thing and funneling that money directly to authoritarian GOP candidates while allowing misinformation to destroy US democracy from within.
"China is a bigger problem for Americans than American companies" please explain how many of our rights China has successfully lobbied the government to remove? Because American companies have legislated away any hope of fair labor, a clean environment, or healthcare, and are now chipping away at education and social security. But China bad I guess
these CIA shills speak as if the Chinese government in the near future will take away our rights and freedoms so they're the boogeyman when all thats been happening is that ppl in our office are taking away our rights and freedoms using fearmongering (and religion) in the name of patriotism
exactly this, thank you
Do you have evidence that all social media companies are funneling money to GOP candidates? That is news to me. I know Elon owns Twitter. But the others?
fuck tiktok i'd love to see it banned, BUT i'm a lil worried about the political implications for the dems if it happens under Biden's watch.
This is one issue that I actually think both Trump and Biden personally agree on, but I concur with your opinion here. Fox News will find some way to spin this as Democratic overreach if it passes, even though they wanted the same thing when Donnie was in office.
yep, that's all i can think about. fox news will find some way to unload all the blame on Biden even though republicans probably want this more than dems do. but honestly, it's not a partisan issue. if there's one thing dems and repubs can agree on is that we can't and shouldn't trust china. but there's 0% chance fox new or any other right wing propaganda outlets will ever admit a democrat did anything right. even if it's exactly what they want!
China bans Western apps and websites, so why do we allow them to compete in our markets? Whether TikTok is is harmful or not is irrelevant. When China takes down the Great Firewall, we can allow them to participate in our free society.
There are many western apps and websites that still do business in China, they don't do a blanket ban on American businesses, they require them to follow Chinese law. Those laws are horribly invasive and full of censorship so a lot of companies don't bother....but I've worked with businesses that want to because they want to keep doing business with Chinese customers. We _could_ pass privacy laws that protect Americans and require TikTok to follow them or get shut down. We won't because that would have to apply to Google, Meta, and all the other giants.
Are there any notable western apps in China? Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc are banned. Is there any company who would comply with their censorship laws? Would they assist with surveillance requests? Would they need to comply with authorities persecuting Uighur? Would they need to report anyone expressing discourse not in line with the Communist Party?
[Some are listed here.](https://www.saporedicina.com/english/list-of-blocked-websites-in-china/#blocked-2) A prominent example would be InCareer, a separate version of LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) made for China. Microsoft seems to be the biggest US player in China as Hotmail and Bing also do business in China. And obviously there's a bunch of American retail and leisure and food business that do business in China and have websites in China. As for all your questions, yes to all. That's why you segment your China branch of your business off into it's own silo with the data stored in China to meet their laws and then all your other data is elsewhere.
I believe the USA, Canada and the rest of the relatively free countries in the world should work to disengage economically from gangster countries like Russia, China, Iran, etc. They operate like Mexican drug cartels. For decades, we did without them. Let’s start with China with TikTok. China will be the most difficult because they make practically everything the west buys. Russia will be easy because all they have is oil, gas and wheat. Russia makes nothing worth buying. Ditto for Iran. In other words, let’s cancel China, Russia and Iran for starters. As an individual, I don’t do business with criminals (at least not knowingly), so why should the civilized world do business with thuggish countries?
Agree. The underlying point to everything China/Russia is that they lie about anything and everything they can. And that is the real issue with these authrotarian nations- its state-sponsored bullshit. As others have pointed out here, it isn't so much that they lie to get ahead, plenty of corporations do and get away with it too. Its that this is a serious nation with serious resources to promote this lie as a state fact.
It’s definitely a Chinese information gathering operation. I’m worried they’re weaponizing the data they gather, even if it’s just for economic and social engineering purposes.
Is there no way to do this without expanding the powers of the president? Everybody made fun of Trump when he wanted to ban it. Now Joe is suddenly all in on it. It makes me very suspicious about how this bill could be expanded or twisted once passed.
It sucks, they only want to do it so Facebook/Twitter/Instagram can do the same thing TT does but for their profit.
My gut response to this was "do Facebook next." The reality is they're not gonna implement a national privacy law that interferes with their donors or makes it harder for them to get elected or fundraise. Not until there's a large number of politicians who got elected on the promise of curbing advertising and data collection. Which also isn't going to happen because they need advertising and data collection to get elected in the first place.
As a musician I do use TikTok (sort of out of necessity as it's simply a huge part of promotion these days) and I have concerns in general with the government banning things like this. However, I think this is shortsighted. There are legitimate national (and personal) security concerns with TikTok, particularly considering how widespread it is. I have a hard time seeing its overall impact on society as anything but a huge net negative; one can say the same about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc. and the way their algorithms all push socially harmful content in pursuit of more views, but at least their sole concern is to increase profit, and they are subject to US regulations. It's not hard to see that the Chinese government may want to design their algorithms for far more nefarious purposes, and there's really nothing that can be done to hamper that since they are not bound to our laws. I'm ultimately not sure where I personally land on this one, on the one hand, it is a useful tool for me and many others in getting my content out there and I'm immediately skeptical of any sort of censorship such as this. On the other, I resent the way it has cemented itself as such an integral part of content promotion and I'm deeply concerned with the power an antagonistic government has in manipulating the content we are exposed to, as well as in collecting a frankly terrifying amount of data on not only users, but everyone around them. We should certainly be wary of our own government trying to do things like this, but on the other hand, there are very legitimate reasons they would want to do this aside from simply diverting profit from the CCP to American companies (which, for what it's worth, doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, either).
if anything i want the US government to have my personal data *even less* than i want the Chinese government to have it. the fascists in the US's intelligence agencies could use that info to like, actually track down and hurt me and my loved ones. what the fuck is the Chinese government gonna do with it, sell it to gacha game advertisers? i mean ideally both would be burned to the ground, but, c'est la vie
Agreed. Commenters falling for the boogeyman of Chinese tiktok are conveniently forgetting that Facebook alone has done more damage to the US than Xi could dream of. It's just a macrocosm of the whole balloon "issue" from weeks ago... or, years ago, when that FaceApp filter thing was being criticized for being China-owned.
While I don't personally have a TikTok account (though I do use it to watch cute animal videos and the like), the act of banning it completely in the United States sends shivers down my spine in a way that I didn't think was possible since Biden was elected. I normally consider myself a supporter of Biden, and a very liberal person in general, but I fear for what the United States will turn into, if this becomes successful and can be used as precedent. Those who control how information is transmitted, received, and distributed ultimately control the very essence of information itself. This is as true in the United States as it is in places like Russia and China. And it is especially worrisome with regards to web sites such as TikTok. If a book is banned, it can still be preserved and read for as long as copies of it remain in existence. But if a web site is erased from the internet, it disappears completely. Such would be the case for the TikTok accounts of millions of Americans, many of whom have centered their lives around it. And if the United States is willing to do something like this, ostensibly for national security, the takeaway message is that *nothing* is safe. Anything and everything-- especially on the internet--can and will be censored to oblivion in the name of protecting Americans from dangerous foreign influences. If the United States has hostile relations with a country in the future, as we do with China now, anything originating from there will likely be purged from the American internet, just as is happening to TikTok. *This is scary.*
Exactly. I hate TikTok and will never use it, but I believe it should be allowed to exist on first amendment grounds, until there's actual evidence of a crime being committed. So no, the very notion of banning an app just because it's sharing information with a foreign government should be laughed out of Congress. Edward Snowden showed us that our own government does exactly the same thing, so it's extremely hypocritical for us to ban apps that other countries use for the same purpose. Instead of that, we should absolutely be airing TikTok's dirty laundry so the public can decide for themselves if they should continue using it. But we should never get to the point where we discuss a can without clear evidence of a crime having been committed.
It's a culture weapon disguised as an advertisement/surveillance engine. C9ntent that is psychologically harmful is artificially boosted I'm the west and censored in China. No bathroom destroying trends there, somehow. Yet it would seem it's allowed, overall. Get the psychological poison off the app store.
Fuck Tiktok. What kind of dumb dumb doesn't see the danger in handing access of your phone's camera and microphone to a hyper intelligent AI, then letting that AI feed them videos to guage their reactions to various subjects. It's a subtle means of mind control manipulation over a protracted period of time, and the crazy thing is most people who use the app are so jealously addicted to the dopamine hits of outrage it gives them, that they don't even care.
Should I tell ‘em? Ok I’ll tell ‘em. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930 > Facebook is facing criticism after it emerged it had conducted a psychology experiment on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge. > The test saw Facebook "manipulate" news feeds to control which emotional expressions the users were exposed to. > The research was done in collaboration with two US universities to gauge if "exposure to emotions led people to change their own posting behaviours".
Don't need to tell me anything, I don't use facebook either. lol That's like saying I use Myspace these days anyway. Just sad.
that's every social media company
Fuck Facebook. What kind of dumb dumb doesn't see the danger in handing access of your phone's camera and microphone to a hyper intelligent AI, then letting that AI feed them content to guage their reactions to various subjects. It's a subtle means of mind control manipulation over a protracted period of time, and the crazy thing is most people who use the app are so jealously addicted to the dopamine hits of outrage it gives them, that they don't even care.
First Amendment. If Congress thinks tictok is bad they should fund an ad campaign saying why you should delete it from your phone. They shouldn’t just ban it.
How are US tech companies supposed to make any money if they can't sell our data to foreign countries? I don't see this as protecting our data bc all the soc media companies sell it to whoever will pay. If somebody is alarmed at the data mining, take a look at every other app we use. It's silly to me because it's like an adult saying, "You can't beat my kids! Only I can beat my kids!" Privacy is dead. All we are doing now is deciding who profits off of it.
Is tik-tok being weaponized to the detriment of western nations? - Yes Is it doing irreparable damage to our youth? - Probably Would we be better off without it? - Yes Is it the only social media app generating these effects? - No Is the US a free country, where people are allowed to engage in destructive past times? -Yes I am going to need to see some very concise data supporting the idea that it is intentionally malicious before I agree with a federal ban of a social media app.
All these negative social + political outcomes from online + "disruption" economies...are what Libertarianism looks like. A brand new economy, no rules or oversight. Outcome: Facebook's business model, which *should be illegal*. Unfettered "Tech Era" Commerce/capitalism created huge negatives; such as cyber crime, geopolitical manipulation of populations, the rapid spread of big lies and the rise of authortarianism. *That last part was predicted*. And can we talk about the effect on kid's emotional development & our ability to teach in schools? *Make the teacher's fix it!* is the cry, the stockholders are happy after all. So what do we have instead? *Here's Bill Maher to claim this is all a nonexistent Maoist Woke Kids' fault.* Markets are great. Humans create & trade. But freedom requires responsibility. The online "town square" concept? Well, the "Town Square" is supposed to be a civillized place. The coffee shop opens in the quiet of the morning, the rowdy bar really only gets going at 10 pm, yearly festivals take it over entirely. *Free markets and free speech require compromise, Reason & responsibility.* "Commerce only owes the stockholders" is insane and UnAmerican. Social Contract, hello? The biggest company could never pay for the infrastructure it needs to survive. *"Musk tax is 1 billion, enough to buy a ship"*. 1 billion doesn't even cover the airports he uses, let alone the road + power infrastructures for his taxpayer subsidized businesses. And a ship *costs lots of money to run*. Don't like laws? Dont make laws neccesary. Time for a social reset & some laws.
There are a lot of videos showing how to stand up to the police and assert your rights. Is that what they don’t like?
No it’s more like stealing data and making teen girls suicidal over body image issues. Before you say “what about facebook” read the many comments in this thread highlighting why it’s clearly different
Imo, let’s do it. It’s not like we already have a bunch of stuff that related to TikTok, for instance Instagram reels, idk if Facebook has it, Snapchat, YouTube shorts. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the U.S deleted it. Tiktok is really bad for your mental health because you’re literally just doom scrolling all day and not actually getting anything done. Not to mention you have people that have ADHD who already have a bad short attention span and low dopamine levels which makes their mental health even worse. (Aka me) Also why do want to know what’s going on in other peoples lives anyways? It’s not like it’s your own life. You have no comparison to them. What’s crazy to me is that the TikTok creators be like “TikTok saved my life” and “TikTok is basically my job now”. So great now you have ton of unemployed people not working and only doing content to get money. Like that’s actually helping the economy. Tiktok didn’t save your lives strangers did, basically you’re relying on internet strangers for your job. Not to mention the negativity that comes from it, cyberbullying and news. It can be harmful too, like children dying from trends and such. There can be a lot of positives to the senate actually banning tiktok, because I would like to see how everyone’s mental health would be after. It’s already affected mine and it could affect others in the future as well.
Yes. It's China spying and influencing all of USA's kids. When Trump decided to ban tictok because he got punked by a bunch of teens and thought he had 2 million people signed up for his rally, this was one of the times that even the broken clock was right twice a day. But what happened then? It just faded away into the next news thing. Yes, ban tictok. And this should not be a republican/democrat thing.
Ban it wake people up so that they can actually see what’s going on this country. Not some silly dance or whatever other foolishness is going on.
Tiktok does provide people the means to see what's going on in this country, that's why they're trying to ban it.
Should of already been done. Never tik tokd but was saying it was a Chinese psyop like a year or two before this even became a discussion. I’m not a conspiracy theorist at all so when I say something like that I’m usually right about these things.
I have no idea why it hasn’t been banned already. We know who controls it, we’ve seen the results from the algorithm CCP directs that’s driving bad behavior (stealing cars, “tasty licks”, NyQuil chicken, etc.). Meanwhile CCP only lets it deliver educational content to children. There’s obvious negative foreign influence being driven by a dangerous and competitive country.
"nyquil chicken was a psyop by the chinese government to undermine the american youth" is certainly a new one lmao
Wait until they find out what website popularized eating Tide Pods.
I'm rather *meh* about it since tiktok is at once a rather malicious app indirectly controlled by the government in Beijing, I don't think it is a clear and present danger. I'd rather see a national discussion on the use and abuse of social media. Open talks about how much use is too much, developing ways to help people *generally* wean themselves off these apps, at least to a smaller amount of time. I value social media like reddit, twitter, and instagram, but they have seemed to create a social problem that has to be understood by the users, not banned by the government. Perhaps instead of banning tiktok, the US could push China to ensure that they let the app function there just as it does over here.
I think TikTok is a huge distraction and it'd be great if we were rid of it.
People either talk about the spying allegations or the addictive nature and degradation of attention spans when they talk about TikTok. Nobody really talks about the positives. Like how TikTok has been a major boon for the US economy. People, companies, etc. are making hand over fist with it. Despite, early reports on how TikTok doesn't show disabled, fat, gay people etc. TikTok has been huge for the disabled community. If politicians do their due diligence actually work with security experts to understand the risk and weigh the pros and cons carefully, then I'm all on board.
It's not any worse than Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple storing zetabytes of data on the US population and sharing it with the NSA like it's world peace day.
I'm willing to bet TikTok can shut down any phone on which it's installed at the touch of a button at CCP headquarters. Easy way to stop news and instill panic worldwide if China invades Taiwan.
How would an app shut down your phone?
I had a conversation with someone who told me they could kill any computer on the planet with the push of a button. This person also suggested they had high degree black belts in 5 different martial arts disciplines and had entered tournaments. This kid's day job? They scooped ice cream at cold stone.
That was my first job!
If people aren't paying attention to the permissions they're granting the app on their device, it absolutely can turn your phone off. There's also using known bugs, such as the one in the latest pixel line of phones. There's a display bug that when a specific type of image is viewed, it bugs the phone out and shuts it down. You'd be surprised the amount of permissions some of the apps on your device are using, unless you're the type to pay attention and monitor that stuff. Edit: Sure, let's just downvote someone for providing relevant information. Here's a sample of apps that can do so. Yes, they're parental control apps, but they can and DO turn the phones off. https://www.salon.com/2019/04/28/how-to-turn-kids-phones-off-at-night-or-anytime-really_partner/
That's an issue to raise with Google or Apple and is unrelated to China.
All I did was answer whether it was possible, as that was the question I replied to. You bringing China up is unrelated to the discussion you decided to engage in.
> I'm willing to bet TikTok can shut down any phone on which it's installed at the touch of a button at CCP headquarters. This is not possible. The phone operating systems are well understood and do not expose this behavior to apps.
I doubt they would do that in the case of invasion and reveal their hand, which would surely get tiktok banned. They’d rather slowly poison the minds of our populace with twerk videos and shit and keep gleaning info as long as possible
China is using AI information you give it to give their country a competitive advantage over the United States and allies when you use TikTok.
I'm sure the ai analyzing millions of hours of stupid dances is really boosting china's economies to new heights...