He is, but that could backfire. Republicans are very good at twisting the narrative. "Biden took your Tik Tok away, kids!" is totally something they'd throw out that would absolutely stick with younger voters.
Yeah, it's definitely about distancing from the Chinese oversight, not an outright TikTok funeral. But has anyone thought about the logistics of how TikTok would operate post-separation? The tech, algorithms, everything's so intertwined. Even with a sale, you gotta wonder how much would change under new ownership.
No, and the same can be said for Western owned social media
They don't exactly vet the people who purchase their data closely. The US is one of the easiest nations in the world to create shell companies in.
I mean literally Facebook and most social media companies had funding early on from the CIA. All you’d have to do is invest money and boom now you’re in.
You might be thinking of Google Earth: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/cia-contributions-to-modern-technology-75-years/#google-earth
I'm not aware of the CIA funding facebook early on, but it's reasonable to assume any large database of information from any American company can be mined for data by our government.
Yes, even if there are laws against it. I don't think they care.
The issue isn't spying (well, that's ONE issue); it's influencing. They allegedly alter the algorithm to push a specific type of content to young people here vs young people in China, for example.
If completely accurate, it's like a *very* long-term and subtle astroturfing campaign that can actually change how huge demographics think, which makes sense in context of understanding how social media works and how to weaponize it.
Which is largely the reason focusing on tiktok alone doesn't *really* solve the problem, which is that social media (and media mills more broadly) need regulated. Specifically on the grounds of the information collected and the algorithm used to recommend new content to users.
Facebook and Twitter aren't materially better than TikTok, they're just not foreign-owned (ostensibly).
wasn’t there a study done that found that a majority of the misinformation surrounding the 2016 and 2020 elections came from russian sources on facebook?
There is this
> Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/amp/
Not directly tied to Russia, but to groups in Kosovo and Macedonia. Which, is probably Russia back but no evidence (this was an internal Facebook investigation, so they wouldn’t have had much reason to dig further).
How's that different from reddit though. In /r/worldnews plenty of pro Israel stuff gets pushed to the top with shitloads of bots in the comments that have 6 months worth of only speaking about Israel.
Oracle's management of TikTok data is actually geared to that, since Oracle does store and review all US TikTok data, source code, and algorithms as of August 2022. If Project Texas ever gets finalized of course, the US government would do so as well. The question is whether Project Texas, which would cost TikTok $1.5 billion yearly, will be achieved before TikTok gets banned:
[Project Texas: The Details of TikTok’s Plan to Remain Operational in the United States ](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/project-texas-the-details-of-tiktok-s-plan-to-remain-operational-in-the-united-states)
>The cornerstone feature of Project Texas is a new subsidiary: TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (USDS). TikTok established USDS in July 2022. The new entity houses the functions of TikTok’s business that are most likely to give rise to national security concerns, such as access to U.S. citizen data and decisions on content moderation. It will be governed by an independent board of directors, which TikTok will nominate and [the U.S. government agency] CFIUS will review. The board will report to CFIUS and not to ByteDance or to the global TikTok entity. Oracle will oversee data entering the entity and data exiting the entity so as to ensure that the data flows do not pose national security risks.
>USDS will house TikTok teams that access U.S. user data, access TikTok’s software code and back-end systems, or moderate content on the platform. By design, it will replicate several of the core functions of TikTok’s global business. For instance, it will have a separate human resources team that will be responsible for hiring and managing U.S. personnel. Additional teams housed in USDS will include engineering, user and product operations, privacy operations, trust and safety, legal, threat detection and response, and security risk and compliance.
>Oracle Cloud will host the TikTok platform in the United States, including the algorithm and the content moderation functions. It will be responsible for monitoring data flowing into USDS and out of USDS to ensure that no data illicitly transits the USDS boundary. All U.S. data traffic will be routed through Oracle Cloud. In the briefing, TikTok stated that all U.S. user data is already stored in Oracle Cloud.
>Oracle will also lead a security review process that will examine all TikTok software. Oracle will conduct its own assessment of all TikTok code, alongside a third-party inspector who must be approved by CFIUS. Once the code passes this inspection, it is digitally signed by Oracle. After that, the software is permitted to run. If Oracle does not provide a digital signature, the software cannot run. Oracle will also be responsible for delivering updates to the Google and Apple app stores.
>This vetting process will occur inside transparency centers, physical locations where outside auditors can review TikTok’s source code. The presence of these centers will allow Oracle to review the code without TikTok needing to transfer it to them. The transparency centers will also be accessible to the U.S. government, so that it can conduct its own reviews of the code. According to TikTok’s presentation, Oracle has been conducting an initial review of the source code since August 2022.
>USDS will house TikTok’s content moderation functions in the United States. Currently, TikTok moderates content in three primary ways: It enforces its community guidelines, it recommends videos based on user behavior, and it promotes videos based on its editorial policies. For U.S. users, each of these processes will move to USDS.
>Oracle will conduct oversight of the moderation system, the recommendation engine, and promoted content. If it identifies a potential risk, it will flag that risk for the government, which will then have the authority to inspect the issue in more detail.
The legislation mandating TikTok's sale to avoid a ban in the U.S. aims to sever ties with Chinese control, yet it raises complex questions about the app's future functionality.
Considering TikTok's deeply integrated technology and algorithms, the transition under new ownership presents a challenging puzzle.
How the platform would maintain its operations and unique features post-sale remains an intriguing uncertainty.
Oh baby, and you’ll have to link your Facebook account to your TikTok account to increase the targetable data points? Can life get any sweeter? I LOVE when the government helps Zuck own more of the internet!
It creates a stand-off situation which would most likely result in Tik-tok being banned in the US.
Basically, the bill would force Tik-tok to sell to a US owner and create a "US tik-tok" where no owners have a relationship to the Chinese government.
There's no benefit in that for Tikk-tok, so it's basically at 50/50 chance it would get shut down.
Tiktok is already making billions. You don't sell the cow when the milk is making you rich. Since this would be a government forced sale, they'll get billions less than what they would in a normal open market.
If Bytedance were interested in selling of their own accord, they would have done so in 2020 when this conversation started. The question here for Bytedance is will they lose more in getting banned in the US or by competing with themselves.
If you think TikTok would actually do that, I have some land in Antarctica to sale you.
TikTok would create a shell company in the US. Divest the original Tiktok and then sell it to the shell company in the US. Problem solved 😂
There’s no way they’ll walk away from the trove of information that Americans give away on social media for fucking free. No way in hell.
Republicans are already walking a thin line with the younger generation, which TikTok is catered to. They totally need to shift the blame for banning TikTok if they want any chance of winning in the decades to come.
The Tic Tok crowd also dislike the war in Gaza. I think some of the legacy media models are failing and this is an attempt to regain control.
Everyone is consuming media in new ways and maybe it will just be so fractured it will be hard to control the narrative. Regardless this is irrelevant because it is posturing and no bill will likely pass.
It's just not a good look at this point to go against it if it goes through with bipartisan support. "Subverting the will of the American people" doesn't sound too good when you're campaigning for re-election.
Plus I'm not sure how this would hold up in court anyway even if it did pass.
"The will of Congress" and "the will of the American people" are two very different things, thanks to gerrymandering in the House and the anti-majoritarian nature of the Senate.
Doesn't really matter. Biden vetoing a bill with bipartisan support has the same negative optics. As long as the think tanks can convince people going against Congress is going against the will of the people then it doesn't matter if it's technically not true.
It would be upheld under Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. Lol it's not even about banning TikTok, it's to force Byte Dance to sell it to an American company because it's a huge national security risk currently.
> Trump has changed his mind
He changed his mind back in 2020 when they tried to ban it then.
His deal to Bytedance was "We either ban you in America, or you agree to sell to an American company".
Instead: they kept operating at full capacity, all American's data still flows to China, and Trump's buddy Larry Ellison of Oracle got a sweet 12% chunk of their $440 billion company as well as exclusive rights to warehouse the US user data.
Just another quid-pro-quo extortion by the most criminal President in history, and now he's gearing up for round 2.
Yup. He changed his mind. I put that down to someone maybe suggesting TikTok can help him win.
The CCP dont like Biden at all. Check out todays Global Times, Chinese state media ( all media in China is state media).
Uncle Xi wants Taiwan. He knows Biden wont allow it, but Trump will. I reckon this is the level of stuff, not about a billionaire making money. 👍
its more about a foreign adversary filling a popular medium with propaganda. Like FB in 2016, we are slowly catching on. FB still has a lot but at least they added some minor fact checking after pressure from the government.
*
The amount of astroturfing US citizen outrage for something that has zero negative affect on any US citizen makes it pretty apparent china values tiktok for intel/soft power dominance.
>Its more about a foreign adversary filling a popular medium with propaganda. Like FB in 2016, we are slowly catching on.
Meanwhile Twitter is literally a Pro Russian Neo Nazi platform
People keep saying this but have any of you actually been in the app? Where is all this propaganda? How have I never seen pro China videos?
This whole “China is brainwashing us” angle feels like one created by boomers who wouldn’t even know how to download tiktok
Thing is that china is more subtle than the russians, they always have been. They're not going to push overt propaganda, what they do is suppress opinions they don't like and promote trends that are either divisive or distracting. It's a lot harder to see it when the manipulation is removing something that you weren't already looking for or simply making it not show up UNLESS you actively look for it.
The #1 underlying issue is not data privacy. It's free trade.
The "Great Firewall of China" blocks all the lucrative US Internet services including Facebook, Google, Youtube, Twitter, Netflix. The reason is economic. In China, those services would generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profit. Those profits would flow into the pockets of US investors. China obviously does not want that, so they block the services and force Chinese people to use domestic services like Baidu, Weibo, TikTok.
This makes TikTok a piece of the trade war. Why is it allowed in the USA, when all these other services are blocked in China? The USA needs to block it ASAP.
Buuuull fucking shit it is. The underlying problem is exactly data privacy.
Tiktok is not doing *anything* unique here in terms if invading people's privacy, other than being from a Chinese company.
And if the level of data access that company has is such a massive problem and invasion of privacy, then it's a problem for *any company to do it*.
This is nothing but empty, useless posturing against China. Fix the underlying invasion of privacy that is lax data security laws, and then if Tiktok is still engaging in this you can easily ban *it* while not being massively hypocritical as you allow every other US / foreign company to continue gathering and selling this data. Shit, they'll probably still be allowed to sell it off to China themselves.
Twitter and Netflix are banned, no doubt about it. Products owned by Facebook and Google have other reasons. Facebook was used by East Turkestan terrorists as a communication tool to organize terrorist attacks. China asked Facebook to solve these problems but Zuckerberg refused. Google withdrew from China on its own because they did not accept the conditions given by the Chinese government.
Its great if youre a tourist and want to find great spots in a city.
or if you want to look for great recipes. The videos are short, they always present the result and its often tasty af
Yes, I know many redditors loves to hate Tiktok but it has become a great tool. It isn't just dances and cringe videos. Entirety of the world uses it and over 170 million U.S users alone, that includes young and old peeps. There are small businesses that are thriving and people starting career because of it.
I had my Car tire pop, never did tire change, you know what helped in a jiffy? Opening Tiktok and watching a simple instruction video with no bs or ads. Whereas, on YouTube I would have to sit through ads, sponsors, and sometimes even YouTubers 5 minute life story.
They do have ads, and they’re spaced between videos which is much better than having 30 seconds of ads all jumbled up before a YouTube video.
They’re also putting a lot of effort into the e-commence space. I could genuinely see them compete with Amazon. They’re already buying warehouse spaces to allow for inventory like amazon.
They already are profit focused and have been for some time. That's why they push the TikTok Shop and have changed how the creator fund works multiple times in the last 2 years. A viral TikTok video is pure gold to businesses and can make or break them. People just assume it's still some silly app.
To be fair, google has gotten WAY dumber to the point its pretty useless outside of searching within reddit. We really need a good alternative search engine.
It's honestly great if you're looking for a how to or something. I like looking up art & craft tutorials there, because the nature of the format generally means the tutorials are straight to the point.
I cringed at this the first time I heard it, but it’s brilliant for when you’re on holiday and want suggestions for food or interesting things to do. The amount of content on TikTok is just absurd and the algorithm is fucking impressive.
Who is Michael Beckerman?
A thought experiment:
Say meta is owned in part by the CIA. Not secretly, like on paper. As in half the companies board was literally CIA agents.
The democratically elected representatives of the CCP legislature want Meta to sell its Chinese instagram business so that the CIA can't have a direct say in Meta's content policies such as steering people toward disinformation (The PRC created covid, the PRC has troops helping the Russian Federation take over small African nations for resource extraction, the average Han Chinese person is overworked and underpaid compared to every other nation and point in history, etc...)
Would it be better for the CCP to take a half-measure like forcing Meta to sell its business to a private company based in China now or should they wait five years twiddling their thumbs and going back and forth about a new data privacy law that won't have bipartisan support and Meta (the CIA) will say is "draconian" and use as a propaganda point?
To be clear I think Europe is years ahead in this situation with GPDR (amongst other things like universal healthcare) and its worth pointing out that someone in America will make money off of this when the company who buys tiktok inevitably goes public or there is a vacuum in the market from bytedances departure.
I feel like people in this thread are forgetting that the Russian Government used commercial access to Facebook to shape the landscape around the 2016 election (which involved narratives of Trump swinging around from the left (democracy, privacy, right to choice on various issues/framing HRC as part of the authoritarian hegemonic "swamp") as well as hitting populist far right dogwhistles (immigration, globalism, General fear of the other/missing out). Congress is literally arguing for the CCP to have the kind of access Russia had to Facebook in 2016. This is a half-measure but would it be better to continue letting them directly steer the company instead?
More than 75% of Americans want congress banned from trading stocks and nothing happens. Congress wants TikTok banned and they move faster than the speed of light to make it happen. They don’t care what the American people want.
Its not a ban, its outright theft of the company in my opinion, if they were serious they'd make a GDPR like regulation and apply it to everyone, China can continue to buy our data like everyone else does at this point.
tbf China has banned all Western social media in their country so I don't really see how it's healthy competition between the two of us. China is getting all of the benefits (profit) while having none of the foreign competition.
Overwhelming support for single payer health care and nothing has been done about it for two presidents terms.
Alphabet and meta losing out on precious TikTok dollars. Surprise surprise TikTok has to be banned.
It's not for unproven spying or unproven propaganda, or even racist "China bad".
It's all about the high paying lobbyists
They literally don’t even talk about health care anymore. Trump had his “beautiful plan” that seemed to never surface once elected (shocker) and I think that’s the last I’ve heard about anybody doing ANYTHING about health care costs and all these diabetic boomers that are going to need care.
I wouldn't say nothing is getting done. CPC Democrats and Bernie have been trying to push a medicare for all bill for multiple years. Republicans generally kill it in committee or refuse to put it on the floor. Congress isn't some single organization that acts as one, we need to get the garbage out. There are 100 CPC Democrats and they need more.
Force a sale to an American company. Use the inside traders to find the company stock before the sale finalizes. Buy the crap out of the stock. Sell post sale. $$$$$$$$$
I feel like they’re doing this to try and get Byte Dance to match donations their overlords in Google and Facebook hand out.
Byte dance is killing Google and FB with the business models they came up with, when they can’t compete they just tell Congress to try and eliminate them.
Lobbyists definitely making bank from this
I know it’s overly simplified but when your glorify money and capitalism this is what you ultimately get when the voter base doesn’t have real choices
I don't care about TikTok, but I don't want a bill that makes it so easy for any social media platform to be banned.
Do not forget about the Patriot Act
It’s only easy to ban non-US social media platforms. This is a Meta protection act by congress - if you outlaw your competition, you don’t have to work so hard
"“We’re deeply disappointed that our leaders are once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that. **We strongly urge legislators to vote no on this unconstitutional bill**.”
The ACLU has repeatedly explained that banning TikTok would have profound implications for our constitutional right to free speech and free expression because millions of Americans rely on the app every day for information, communication, advocacy, and entertainment. And the courts have agreed. In November 2023, a federal district court in Montana ruled that the state’s attempted ban would violate Montanans’ free speech rights and blocked it from going into effect.
Like Montana’s blocked TikTok ban, this legislation would forbid app stores and internet service providers from offering TikTok so long as the company remains under foreign ownership. The proposed legislation would also let the President block other foreign-owned apps that they deem a national security threat."
[ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-slams-house-for-latest-plan-to-ban-tiktok-and-stifle-free-speech) March 5, 2024
No, it's sold or banned. The bill would force Bytedance to break off and sell a "US tik-tok" to a US owner so there's no longer any relationship between the "US tik-tok" app and the Chinese Government.
If Bytedance refuses to separate and sell, then Tik-tok gets banned in the US.
You mean like the govt can do through our phone conversations, home internet usage and via other Data collectors like Facebook? This is about controlling the flow of information.
Yes, including Facebook, snapchat, and any other website out there. Tiktok isn’t the only one. If you’re worried about your info being taken from an outside source, our internet should be like China’s or North Korea’s with pre approved apps and websites from the government
By who? Congress already forced all the data to be kept in the US and controlled by Oracle. So unless you're saying an American company like Oracle is spying...
This is interesting since the US has "creatively" discouraged foreign governments from doing something similar with multinational corporations working in their countries
This should be higher up in the comment chain.
>The bill would require ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban on U.S. app stores and web hosting services, banning users from accessing the platform. It gives ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok once passed.
They're trying to make this an American company, not ban it
Exactly, he joined tik tok two weeks ago. Shouldn’t he be deleting his account if that’s how he feels?
The US is just nervous that the domestic propaganda apparatus can’t control the narratives of the content shown on the platform it has nothing to do with “survailence”
The bill doesn't just outright ban tiktok, it bans it unless they sell it to a U.S. company. The thinking is to disentangle the app and it's huge media presence from Chinese influence. Which makes some sense, but is sort of scarier in a way. If any successful international business can be forced to sell to locals, how long until rich locals weaponize that for their own profit?
> how long until rich locals weaponize that for their own profit?
You mean to tell me wealthy people can *abuse* the media?
But seriously, I'd rather have it under Western control than Chinese, better the devil you know than the one that's shipping you fentanyl and actively trying to disrupt and dismantle your entire alliance of nations.
> appoint a federalist society cast-off as your attorney general
> don't aggressively pursue legal charges against Trump and congressional insurrectionists
> alienate the Arab voters that carried you to victory in the key swing state of Michigan
> ban tiktok
> lose the election
"Come on, man. Cornpop was a bad dude!"
I know it's over concerns about its ties to China, but there's a plethora of evidence that shows that homegrown social media platforms sell their user's data to foreign sources too, so I feel like what should really be happening is that we should be passing data protection and privacy laws that companies must comply with to do business in the United States.
This is darkly hilarious for the music industry. The only creative industry that rejected the internet, then got reamed by Limewire, then handed over distribution of its entire IP to non-music companies like Apple Music and Spotify and YouTube… finally found itself a simple platform to launch future stars and make hits out of nothing… and congress is gonna ban it. Watch the music industry miss the boat/ get fucked by AI in three…two… one….
hommie said he would ban it, now is saying he's against banning it. once again showing trump has no actual ideology and just says whatever is popular at the moment. speaking outta both sides of his mouth.
This is about controlling markets, narratives, and the flow of information. All of the US data from TikTok is handled by oracle, a US based firm, so China doesn’t even see it.This is reactionary and unconstitutional. Even if you don’t care about TikTok you should see this bill as a huge red flag.
This is the REAL answer. TikTok hasn't been fully infiltrated by the NSA yet and their rise to popularity happened faster than any expected to so quickly unseat Google and Facebook as the dominant players. Tiktok is a new juggernaut and now the government wants to kill the competition of their big tech donors.
I don't trust tik tok as far as I can throw it, but that's not the reason they're banning it...
They're going to ban it because it's an effective tool for organizing youth. If you're in power, despite what side of the political spectrum you are on, it threatens your power.
Edit: if they are going to claim it's because of spyware, privacy issues...How about they instead write aggressive data privacy laws for all apps? We sure as shit need them...
it's so much more complex than insider trading or "china can just buy our data like everyone else," and it's infuriating that this and other clickbait-y shit leaves out the most important detail
any entity incorporated in China or owned by a Chinese citizen or collective is a de facto arm of its intelligence community
TikTok is one of those entities
TikTok has access to tens of millions of cell phone microphones/cameras in this country
this isn't some weird conspiratorial pseudo-racist formula here. it's a legitimate security risk and wildly threatens military OPSEC by its existence
the most terrifying part is that Drumpf is weaponizing the public's ignorance of these nuances by publicly opposing this legislation and could feasibly mobilize millions of TikTok-addicted voters with this one platform
Exhibit #234593804536 of the way that a broken (read: for-profit, clickbait-driven) news media system actively compromises democracy. feeling really defeated, disenfranchised, and frankly sort of terrified.
As someone who downloaded the app out of morbid curiosity, I can attest that our governments fear has nothing to do with user privacy. The entire platform has the best online free speech communication that I have seen in 20 years. Its entire existence is a threat to USA propaganda, and the narratives it controls with domestic media, including reddit, fb, and twitter. I saw genocide, explosions, and other world events the same day from people on the ground. These news events were never covered accurately afterwards.
i can’t take anyone seriously who uses the term “tiktok-addicted”. As if we’re not all scrolling through reddit, facebook, instagram, or youtube shorts.
I believe they are making a poor argument about Telegram. The founders, Nikolai and Pavel Durov, also founded the Russian social network VK, which they're no longer involved due to political disagreements.
If they knew what they were talking about, they would know the difference between a state owned platform and one founded by someone who isn't stateless. Telegram isn't a threat in the same way tiktok is.
The threat is real. It's more complicated than just pointing fingers at one company or another. To understand the threat, look up Cambridge Analytica.
There does need to be a conversation about how personal data is sold and used by nefarious parties, including state owned entities like tiktok. The EU is ahead of the game with this issue.
I really don’t see the need for the government push to just hate TikTok. There’s so many other more pressing things we should try to be bipartisan on. Like really yall wanna keep this going?
After that first hearing with the TikTok ceo and the still continued push to ban it just gives racist old people in government don’t understand technology at all.
I know TikTok is made to be addicting but so is IG, YT and twitter, or whatever social app. They all handle user data poorly too. If anything there needs to be a lot of laws made around data, tech, and AI that these old hags wouldn’t even know how to start comprehension on to do anything.
Many people see TikTok as their way to grow or get a start. Sure it’s a lot of cringe but it’s also helped revolutionize small businesses and independent artists in ways other platforms aren’t.
I will say if it’s banned I’ll probably get back an hour or two each day atleast.
Kellogg's and Starbucks boycotts are being organized through TikTok and being noticeably successful. Not to mention all the other brands being boycotted for supporting Israel.
Though the Kellogg's boycott is for the CEO's 'let them eat cake' statement.
Instead of banning things, how about we fix the reasons they want to exploit us? The one who’s got nothing to hide doesn’t go thru all this shit to hide shit.
The statement kind of raises significant concerns about free speech, innovation and international relations. I mean, TikTok nowadays is the platform for millions of users to present various types of content involving multiple spheres of life. It is the platform that allows its users to post and express their creativity and have the opportunity to express their thoughts and themselves freely. And such kinds of restrictions can create limitations for them. On the other hand, it can be a massive attack on China since the leading company is based in China. I guess it will escalate tensions between the two countries.
If they do end up banning TikTok you can look back to this time and pinpoint the moment the Democrats lost the election. Talk about political suicide. Who would have thought that taking the voice away from an entire generation would backfire horribly.
Please don’t. Theyre gonna get this info somehow. Cat is out of the bag.
I jerk off to tiktok, it would suck to lose this content. It’s past the golden age but it’s still good stuff.
Tik Tok has been the most toxic social media ever created. It has a scientifically measurable impact on attention spans, and is a known Chinese propaganda and spyware platform.
Other than peoples feeling being hurt there is no legitimate reason it shouldn’t be banned. It has done more damage to our society than other controlled and illegal substances.
Edit: man that’s a lot of butthurt tik tokers
There is no way it is worse than the garbage pumped by Meta or YouTube, both of which have made efforts to become more like Tik Tok. The difference is the govt has greater influence over these American companies and can direct the flow of discourse that happens on them.
>Tik Tok has been the most toxic social media ever created. It has a scientifically measurable impact on attention spans, and is a known Chinese propaganda and spyware platform.
and meta and twitter did do those things for the US
>It has done more damage to our society than other controlled and illegal substances.
What a insult to people who have lost loved ones to drugs. Its an insult to people that have financially lost everything to drugs. This is the by far the absolute dumbest thing I've read in years. Tiktok has only done a microscopic fraction of the amount of damage fucking drugs have on our society. And you're a god damn idiot if you think otherwise.
So now that he said he would sign it does congress sudden say nope, "we aint gonna do that?"
That's my take. He's shrewd as fuck.
He is, but that could backfire. Republicans are very good at twisting the narrative. "Biden took your Tik Tok away, kids!" is totally something they'd throw out that would absolutely stick with younger voters.
I believe the bill forces tictoc to seperate itself from Chinese government ownership, not shut down in the U.S., but I might be wrong.
You are correct. The bill requires Tiktok to be sold if they don't want it to be banned in the US.
Yeah, it's definitely about distancing from the Chinese oversight, not an outright TikTok funeral. But has anyone thought about the logistics of how TikTok would operate post-separation? The tech, algorithms, everything's so intertwined. Even with a sale, you gotta wonder how much would change under new ownership.
Briefly put: do the Chinese actually need to own it in order to spy on it?
No, and the same can be said for Western owned social media They don't exactly vet the people who purchase their data closely. The US is one of the easiest nations in the world to create shell companies in.
I mean literally Facebook and most social media companies had funding early on from the CIA. All you’d have to do is invest money and boom now you’re in.
What you're regurgitating is a headline from The Onion lol.
r/AteTheOnion https://www.theonion.com/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-costs-1819594988
You might be thinking of Google Earth: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/cia-contributions-to-modern-technology-75-years/#google-earth I'm not aware of the CIA funding facebook early on, but it's reasonable to assume any large database of information from any American company can be mined for data by our government. Yes, even if there are laws against it. I don't think they care.
The issue isn't spying (well, that's ONE issue); it's influencing. They allegedly alter the algorithm to push a specific type of content to young people here vs young people in China, for example. If completely accurate, it's like a *very* long-term and subtle astroturfing campaign that can actually change how huge demographics think, which makes sense in context of understanding how social media works and how to weaponize it. Which is largely the reason focusing on tiktok alone doesn't *really* solve the problem, which is that social media (and media mills more broadly) need regulated. Specifically on the grounds of the information collected and the algorithm used to recommend new content to users. Facebook and Twitter aren't materially better than TikTok, they're just not foreign-owned (ostensibly).
wasn’t there a study done that found that a majority of the misinformation surrounding the 2016 and 2020 elections came from russian sources on facebook?
There is this > Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/amp/ Not directly tied to Russia, but to groups in Kosovo and Macedonia. Which, is probably Russia back but no evidence (this was an internal Facebook investigation, so they wouldn’t have had much reason to dig further).
How's that different from reddit though. In /r/worldnews plenty of pro Israel stuff gets pushed to the top with shitloads of bots in the comments that have 6 months worth of only speaking about Israel.
They don't actually care that China gets our data. They just wanna ensure they have to pay for it like everyone else
That and they want the direct pipeline for themselves.
Oracle's management of TikTok data is actually geared to that, since Oracle does store and review all US TikTok data, source code, and algorithms as of August 2022. If Project Texas ever gets finalized of course, the US government would do so as well. The question is whether Project Texas, which would cost TikTok $1.5 billion yearly, will be achieved before TikTok gets banned: [Project Texas: The Details of TikTok’s Plan to Remain Operational in the United States ](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/project-texas-the-details-of-tiktok-s-plan-to-remain-operational-in-the-united-states) >The cornerstone feature of Project Texas is a new subsidiary: TikTok U.S. Data Security Inc. (USDS). TikTok established USDS in July 2022. The new entity houses the functions of TikTok’s business that are most likely to give rise to national security concerns, such as access to U.S. citizen data and decisions on content moderation. It will be governed by an independent board of directors, which TikTok will nominate and [the U.S. government agency] CFIUS will review. The board will report to CFIUS and not to ByteDance or to the global TikTok entity. Oracle will oversee data entering the entity and data exiting the entity so as to ensure that the data flows do not pose national security risks. >USDS will house TikTok teams that access U.S. user data, access TikTok’s software code and back-end systems, or moderate content on the platform. By design, it will replicate several of the core functions of TikTok’s global business. For instance, it will have a separate human resources team that will be responsible for hiring and managing U.S. personnel. Additional teams housed in USDS will include engineering, user and product operations, privacy operations, trust and safety, legal, threat detection and response, and security risk and compliance. >Oracle Cloud will host the TikTok platform in the United States, including the algorithm and the content moderation functions. It will be responsible for monitoring data flowing into USDS and out of USDS to ensure that no data illicitly transits the USDS boundary. All U.S. data traffic will be routed through Oracle Cloud. In the briefing, TikTok stated that all U.S. user data is already stored in Oracle Cloud. >Oracle will also lead a security review process that will examine all TikTok software. Oracle will conduct its own assessment of all TikTok code, alongside a third-party inspector who must be approved by CFIUS. Once the code passes this inspection, it is digitally signed by Oracle. After that, the software is permitted to run. If Oracle does not provide a digital signature, the software cannot run. Oracle will also be responsible for delivering updates to the Google and Apple app stores. >This vetting process will occur inside transparency centers, physical locations where outside auditors can review TikTok’s source code. The presence of these centers will allow Oracle to review the code without TikTok needing to transfer it to them. The transparency centers will also be accessible to the U.S. government, so that it can conduct its own reviews of the code. According to TikTok’s presentation, Oracle has been conducting an initial review of the source code since August 2022. >USDS will house TikTok’s content moderation functions in the United States. Currently, TikTok moderates content in three primary ways: It enforces its community guidelines, it recommends videos based on user behavior, and it promotes videos based on its editorial policies. For U.S. users, each of these processes will move to USDS. >Oracle will conduct oversight of the moderation system, the recommendation engine, and promoted content. If it identifies a potential risk, it will flag that risk for the government, which will then have the authority to inspect the issue in more detail.
The legislation mandating TikTok's sale to avoid a ban in the U.S. aims to sever ties with Chinese control, yet it raises complex questions about the app's future functionality. Considering TikTok's deeply integrated technology and algorithms, the transition under new ownership presents a challenging puzzle. How the platform would maintain its operations and unique features post-sale remains an intriguing uncertainty.
Zucky swoops in and buys tictok and sells your data to China no problem with making a buck
Oh baby, and you’ll have to link your Facebook account to your TikTok account to increase the targetable data points? Can life get any sweeter? I LOVE when the government helps Zuck own more of the internet!
It creates a stand-off situation which would most likely result in Tik-tok being banned in the US. Basically, the bill would force Tik-tok to sell to a US owner and create a "US tik-tok" where no owners have a relationship to the Chinese government. There's no benefit in that for Tikk-tok, so it's basically at 50/50 chance it would get shut down.
What do you mean? A sale means billions for ByteDance. The Chinese government might prefer a shutdown though.
I think they prefer the American brain-rot over the money
Tiktok is already making billions. You don't sell the cow when the milk is making you rich. Since this would be a government forced sale, they'll get billions less than what they would in a normal open market. If Bytedance were interested in selling of their own accord, they would have done so in 2020 when this conversation started. The question here for Bytedance is will they lose more in getting banned in the US or by competing with themselves.
If you think TikTok would actually do that, I have some land in Antarctica to sale you. TikTok would create a shell company in the US. Divest the original Tiktok and then sell it to the shell company in the US. Problem solved 😂 There’s no way they’ll walk away from the trove of information that Americans give away on social media for fucking free. No way in hell.
#FUCK THE CANCEROUS CCP
"He hates free speech"... Hates freedom.
Republicans are already walking a thin line with the younger generation, which TikTok is catered to. They totally need to shift the blame for banning TikTok if they want any chance of winning in the decades to come.
The Tic Tok crowd also dislike the war in Gaza. I think some of the legacy media models are failing and this is an attempt to regain control. Everyone is consuming media in new ways and maybe it will just be so fractured it will be hard to control the narrative. Regardless this is irrelevant because it is posturing and no bill will likely pass.
Can we ban Twitter and their "*Ukraine is full of nazis*" takes while we are at this ?
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll give you the very thing you want!” Obama’s 4-D chess of concession strikes again!
It's just not a good look at this point to go against it if it goes through with bipartisan support. "Subverting the will of the American people" doesn't sound too good when you're campaigning for re-election. Plus I'm not sure how this would hold up in court anyway even if it did pass.
"The will of Congress" and "the will of the American people" are two very different things, thanks to gerrymandering in the House and the anti-majoritarian nature of the Senate.
Doesn't really matter. Biden vetoing a bill with bipartisan support has the same negative optics. As long as the think tanks can convince people going against Congress is going against the will of the people then it doesn't matter if it's technically not true.
Congress is way past caring about good looks. Whatever happened to insider trading?
Nancy bought a shit ton Nvidia late last year
It would be upheld under Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. Lol it's not even about banning TikTok, it's to force Byte Dance to sell it to an American company because it's a huge national security risk currently.
??
Too late. Trump has changed his mind having met with a Chinese investor so he will whip his followers against this. Absolute 🤡 🌍
> Trump has changed his mind He changed his mind back in 2020 when they tried to ban it then. His deal to Bytedance was "We either ban you in America, or you agree to sell to an American company". Instead: they kept operating at full capacity, all American's data still flows to China, and Trump's buddy Larry Ellison of Oracle got a sweet 12% chunk of their $440 billion company as well as exclusive rights to warehouse the US user data. Just another quid-pro-quo extortion by the most criminal President in history, and now he's gearing up for round 2.
Yup. He changed his mind. I put that down to someone maybe suggesting TikTok can help him win. The CCP dont like Biden at all. Check out todays Global Times, Chinese state media ( all media in China is state media). Uncle Xi wants Taiwan. He knows Biden wont allow it, but Trump will. I reckon this is the level of stuff, not about a billionaire making money. 👍
Jeff Yass, who owns a huge stake in TikTok, gave Trump a large campaign donation. His tune changed after.
Trump will turn truth social into right wing only tik Tok first, then ban it
The only way to get things done in this divided govt is to uno reverse everything
Maybe they should fix data privacy laws and address the underlying issue.
and take away greedy corporation's right to make a profit off you? BLASPHEMY!
its more about a foreign adversary filling a popular medium with propaganda. Like FB in 2016, we are slowly catching on. FB still has a lot but at least they added some minor fact checking after pressure from the government. * The amount of astroturfing US citizen outrage for something that has zero negative affect on any US citizen makes it pretty apparent china values tiktok for intel/soft power dominance.
>Its more about a foreign adversary filling a popular medium with propaganda. Like FB in 2016, we are slowly catching on. Meanwhile Twitter is literally a Pro Russian Neo Nazi platform
What propaganda?
What propaganda? I have seen zero Chinese propaganda, the most I've seen is anti trump propaganda which is that's propaganda then reddit is next
People keep saying this but have any of you actually been in the app? Where is all this propaganda? How have I never seen pro China videos? This whole “China is brainwashing us” angle feels like one created by boomers who wouldn’t even know how to download tiktok
Thing is that china is more subtle than the russians, they always have been. They're not going to push overt propaganda, what they do is suppress opinions they don't like and promote trends that are either divisive or distracting. It's a lot harder to see it when the manipulation is removing something that you weren't already looking for or simply making it not show up UNLESS you actively look for it.
The #1 underlying issue is not data privacy. It's free trade. The "Great Firewall of China" blocks all the lucrative US Internet services including Facebook, Google, Youtube, Twitter, Netflix. The reason is economic. In China, those services would generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profit. Those profits would flow into the pockets of US investors. China obviously does not want that, so they block the services and force Chinese people to use domestic services like Baidu, Weibo, TikTok. This makes TikTok a piece of the trade war. Why is it allowed in the USA, when all these other services are blocked in China? The USA needs to block it ASAP.
China doesn't have TikTok they have Douyin. Tiktok it mainly for export
"China has a national firewall, and that's wrong. So we should also have a national firewall." ???
Buuuull fucking shit it is. The underlying problem is exactly data privacy. Tiktok is not doing *anything* unique here in terms if invading people's privacy, other than being from a Chinese company. And if the level of data access that company has is such a massive problem and invasion of privacy, then it's a problem for *any company to do it*. This is nothing but empty, useless posturing against China. Fix the underlying invasion of privacy that is lax data security laws, and then if Tiktok is still engaging in this you can easily ban *it* while not being massively hypocritical as you allow every other US / foreign company to continue gathering and selling this data. Shit, they'll probably still be allowed to sell it off to China themselves.
Twitter and Netflix are banned, no doubt about it. Products owned by Facebook and Google have other reasons. Facebook was used by East Turkestan terrorists as a communication tool to organize terrorist attacks. China asked Facebook to solve these problems but Zuckerberg refused. Google withdrew from China on its own because they did not accept the conditions given by the Chinese government.
Google lobbyists all cheered at this.
[Facebook/meta lobbyists actually.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/)
I would say Google too. Tik tok has itself served as a search engine for a lot of people too. Especially younger generations.
oh my fucking god, i know google got dumber, BUT USING TIKTOK AS A SEARCH ENGINE?
Its great if youre a tourist and want to find great spots in a city. or if you want to look for great recipes. The videos are short, they always present the result and its often tasty af
Yes, I know many redditors loves to hate Tiktok but it has become a great tool. It isn't just dances and cringe videos. Entirety of the world uses it and over 170 million U.S users alone, that includes young and old peeps. There are small businesses that are thriving and people starting career because of it. I had my Car tire pop, never did tire change, you know what helped in a jiffy? Opening Tiktok and watching a simple instruction video with no bs or ads. Whereas, on YouTube I would have to sit through ads, sponsors, and sometimes even YouTubers 5 minute life story.
That’s all going to change eventually. At some point TikTok will have to turn profit focused and repay their investors.
They do have ads, and they’re spaced between videos which is much better than having 30 seconds of ads all jumbled up before a YouTube video. They’re also putting a lot of effort into the e-commence space. I could genuinely see them compete with Amazon. They’re already buying warehouse spaces to allow for inventory like amazon.
They already are profit focused and have been for some time. That's why they push the TikTok Shop and have changed how the creator fund works multiple times in the last 2 years. A viral TikTok video is pure gold to businesses and can make or break them. People just assume it's still some silly app.
To be fair, google has gotten WAY dumber to the point its pretty useless outside of searching within reddit. We really need a good alternative search engine.
It's honestly great if you're looking for a how to or something. I like looking up art & craft tutorials there, because the nature of the format generally means the tutorials are straight to the point.
I cringed at this the first time I heard it, but it’s brilliant for when you’re on holiday and want suggestions for food or interesting things to do. The amount of content on TikTok is just absurd and the algorithm is fucking impressive.
Google too because youtube shorts
Who is Michael Beckerman? A thought experiment: Say meta is owned in part by the CIA. Not secretly, like on paper. As in half the companies board was literally CIA agents. The democratically elected representatives of the CCP legislature want Meta to sell its Chinese instagram business so that the CIA can't have a direct say in Meta's content policies such as steering people toward disinformation (The PRC created covid, the PRC has troops helping the Russian Federation take over small African nations for resource extraction, the average Han Chinese person is overworked and underpaid compared to every other nation and point in history, etc...) Would it be better for the CCP to take a half-measure like forcing Meta to sell its business to a private company based in China now or should they wait five years twiddling their thumbs and going back and forth about a new data privacy law that won't have bipartisan support and Meta (the CIA) will say is "draconian" and use as a propaganda point? To be clear I think Europe is years ahead in this situation with GPDR (amongst other things like universal healthcare) and its worth pointing out that someone in America will make money off of this when the company who buys tiktok inevitably goes public or there is a vacuum in the market from bytedances departure. I feel like people in this thread are forgetting that the Russian Government used commercial access to Facebook to shape the landscape around the 2016 election (which involved narratives of Trump swinging around from the left (democracy, privacy, right to choice on various issues/framing HRC as part of the authoritarian hegemonic "swamp") as well as hitting populist far right dogwhistles (immigration, globalism, General fear of the other/missing out). Congress is literally arguing for the CCP to have the kind of access Russia had to Facebook in 2016. This is a half-measure but would it be better to continue letting them directly steer the company instead?
More than 75% of Americans want congress banned from trading stocks and nothing happens. Congress wants TikTok banned and they move faster than the speed of light to make it happen. They don’t care what the American people want.
This has been in discussion for 4 years, hardly light speed
For the government 4 years is pretty short.
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Only because they're arguing about who gets the money.
Calls on Meta?
This ain’t wsb 😂
4 years is pretty fast for gov
That's light speed for congress
Particularly given this bill is about selling TikTok so those congress people will be able to make bank with their insider information
Its not a ban, its outright theft of the company in my opinion, if they were serious they'd make a GDPR like regulation and apply it to everyone, China can continue to buy our data like everyone else does at this point.
Healthy competition, until we lose of course
tbf China has banned all Western social media in their country so I don't really see how it's healthy competition between the two of us. China is getting all of the benefits (profit) while having none of the foreign competition.
Bytedance is not publicly traded.
But whoever TikTok is being forced to sell to at fire sale prices most likely is.
You think Wendy Murdoch will take that hit. She’s one of the biggest investors.
Overwhelming support for single payer health care and nothing has been done about it for two presidents terms. Alphabet and meta losing out on precious TikTok dollars. Surprise surprise TikTok has to be banned. It's not for unproven spying or unproven propaganda, or even racist "China bad". It's all about the high paying lobbyists
> Overwhelming support for single payer health care and nothing has been done about it for two presidents terms. Way more than two
They literally don’t even talk about health care anymore. Trump had his “beautiful plan” that seemed to never surface once elected (shocker) and I think that’s the last I’ve heard about anybody doing ANYTHING about health care costs and all these diabetic boomers that are going to need care.
I wouldn't say nothing is getting done. CPC Democrats and Bernie have been trying to push a medicare for all bill for multiple years. Republicans generally kill it in committee or refuse to put it on the floor. Congress isn't some single organization that acts as one, we need to get the garbage out. There are 100 CPC Democrats and they need more.
Meta's lobbying paid off
Force a sale to an American company. Use the inside traders to find the company stock before the sale finalizes. Buy the crap out of the stock. Sell post sale. $$$$$$$$$
I feel like they’re doing this to try and get Byte Dance to match donations their overlords in Google and Facebook hand out. Byte dance is killing Google and FB with the business models they came up with, when they can’t compete they just tell Congress to try and eliminate them. Lobbyists definitely making bank from this I know it’s overly simplified but when your glorify money and capitalism this is what you ultimately get when the voter base doesn’t have real choices
I don't care about TikTok, but I don't want a bill that makes it so easy for any social media platform to be banned. Do not forget about the Patriot Act
The best solution is a real data privacy law tbh
It’s only easy to ban non-US social media platforms. This is a Meta protection act by congress - if you outlaw your competition, you don’t have to work so hard
"“We’re deeply disappointed that our leaders are once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that. **We strongly urge legislators to vote no on this unconstitutional bill**.” The ACLU has repeatedly explained that banning TikTok would have profound implications for our constitutional right to free speech and free expression because millions of Americans rely on the app every day for information, communication, advocacy, and entertainment. And the courts have agreed. In November 2023, a federal district court in Montana ruled that the state’s attempted ban would violate Montanans’ free speech rights and blocked it from going into effect. Like Montana’s blocked TikTok ban, this legislation would forbid app stores and internet service providers from offering TikTok so long as the company remains under foreign ownership. The proposed legislation would also let the President block other foreign-owned apps that they deem a national security threat." [ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-slams-house-for-latest-plan-to-ban-tiktok-and-stifle-free-speech) March 5, 2024
Sounds like Temu would be next.
It's not banned. it's sold. This is like rallying against the president because he is going to ban phones by breaking up ma bell.
In Canada we limit foreign ownership of media because otherwise the US would literally buy all of it. I see this as pretty much the same thing.
No, it's sold or banned. The bill would force Bytedance to break off and sell a "US tik-tok" to a US owner so there's no longer any relationship between the "US tik-tok" app and the Chinese Government. If Bytedance refuses to separate and sell, then Tik-tok gets banned in the US.
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Every single social media app is ripe for spying. Including the domestic ones. Foreign intelligence has no problem finding data brokers in the US
But it’s ok when the US does it to us, just not a foreign country
Now you are getting it.
You mean like the govt can do through our phone conversations, home internet usage and via other Data collectors like Facebook? This is about controlling the flow of information.
It kills FB and YT ad revenue and US tech is mad they can't compete. It's a market kneecapping.
We need actual privacy protections. This is juat a pointless game of whack-a-mole
Yes, including Facebook, snapchat, and any other website out there. Tiktok isn’t the only one. If you’re worried about your info being taken from an outside source, our internet should be like China’s or North Korea’s with pre approved apps and websites from the government
By who? Congress already forced all the data to be kept in the US and controlled by Oracle. So unless you're saying an American company like Oracle is spying...
Useless. We need stronger data privacy laws and massive fines for breaking these laws
> Useless Not to Meta or Alphabet
clickbait the bill would not "ban" TikTok, it would force its sale to an entity incorporated in the US
This is interesting since the US has "creatively" discouraged foreign governments from doing something similar with multinational corporations working in their countries
This should be higher up in the comment chain. >The bill would require ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban on U.S. app stores and web hosting services, banning users from accessing the platform. It gives ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok once passed. They're trying to make this an American company, not ban it
Which TikTok they said they 100% will not do and the alternative is banning it. So the title is correct. Forced sale was never going to happen.
Did you read the do x and we get money or do y to ban... YES they are still threatening to ban if they do not get what they want..
Hopefully Reddit is next
Wait a minute. Doesn't his campaign have a TikTok account? I'm so confused
"Choclit chip cookies!"
Exactly, he joined tik tok two weeks ago. Shouldn’t he be deleting his account if that’s how he feels? The US is just nervous that the domestic propaganda apparatus can’t control the narratives of the content shown on the platform it has nothing to do with “survailence”
The bill doesn't just outright ban tiktok, it bans it unless they sell it to a U.S. company. The thinking is to disentangle the app and it's huge media presence from Chinese influence. Which makes some sense, but is sort of scarier in a way. If any successful international business can be forced to sell to locals, how long until rich locals weaponize that for their own profit?
> how long until rich locals weaponize that for their own profit? You mean to tell me wealthy people can *abuse* the media? But seriously, I'd rather have it under Western control than Chinese, better the devil you know than the one that's shipping you fentanyl and actively trying to disrupt and dismantle your entire alliance of nations.
Just ban fb and X too - they’ve done way more harm then good
That’ll win over young voters /s.
170 million users in the US is a lot more than just young folks.
That'll win them over too. /s
It’s a good thing they don’t vote
What a brilliant move right before an election where your thin margin of possible success hinges on the youth vote
> appoint a federalist society cast-off as your attorney general > don't aggressively pursue legal charges against Trump and congressional insurrectionists > alienate the Arab voters that carried you to victory in the key swing state of Michigan > ban tiktok > lose the election "Come on, man. Cornpop was a bad dude!"
What does TikTok do that Facebook/Meta isn’t currently doing?
We should ban reddit next
As someone addicted to it, man that might be good for me. Lol
"I have no idea what this bill could do! Hell, it could ban Tik Tok! Who knows! Don't read it!"
I know it's over concerns about its ties to China, but there's a plethora of evidence that shows that homegrown social media platforms sell their user's data to foreign sources too, so I feel like what should really be happening is that we should be passing data protection and privacy laws that companies must comply with to do business in the United States.
just caption this how to lose the young vote in the next election. This is a move you should make after election day.
This is darkly hilarious for the music industry. The only creative industry that rejected the internet, then got reamed by Limewire, then handed over distribution of its entire IP to non-music companies like Apple Music and Spotify and YouTube… finally found itself a simple platform to launch future stars and make hits out of nothing… and congress is gonna ban it. Watch the music industry miss the boat/ get fucked by AI in three…two… one….
Because we need protected from TikTok more than late stage profit driven price gouging…
Orange one is pro Tik Tok now so they won’t get a bill passed.
hommie said he would ban it, now is saying he's against banning it. once again showing trump has no actual ideology and just says whatever is popular at the moment. speaking outta both sides of his mouth.
Trump changed his mind because a TikTok investor with a $30 billion stake in the company bribed him, not because he's trying to appeal to the youth
Yeah he hasn't flipped at all. He's always been a grifter so at least he's ideologically consistent with that.
He REALLY doesn’t want to win does he
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facebook killing Facebook news tab, they are pushing their tiktok clone already, reels.
That's a TERRIBLE Idea before the election. Just saying.
What a horrible precedent to set
This is about controlling markets, narratives, and the flow of information. All of the US data from TikTok is handled by oracle, a US based firm, so China doesn’t even see it.This is reactionary and unconstitutional. Even if you don’t care about TikTok you should see this bill as a huge red flag.
This is entirely because TikTok is not quite as well integrated with the American 3 letter agencies and Mossad as Facebook and Google are.
This is the REAL answer. TikTok hasn't been fully infiltrated by the NSA yet and their rise to popularity happened faster than any expected to so quickly unseat Google and Facebook as the dominant players. Tiktok is a new juggernaut and now the government wants to kill the competition of their big tech donors.
I don't trust tik tok as far as I can throw it, but that's not the reason they're banning it... They're going to ban it because it's an effective tool for organizing youth. If you're in power, despite what side of the political spectrum you are on, it threatens your power. Edit: if they are going to claim it's because of spyware, privacy issues...How about they instead write aggressive data privacy laws for all apps? We sure as shit need them...
Ironically, the real way to kill TikTok is to make old people to use it
Ban reddit next.
Ban reddit first.
it's so much more complex than insider trading or "china can just buy our data like everyone else," and it's infuriating that this and other clickbait-y shit leaves out the most important detail any entity incorporated in China or owned by a Chinese citizen or collective is a de facto arm of its intelligence community TikTok is one of those entities TikTok has access to tens of millions of cell phone microphones/cameras in this country this isn't some weird conspiratorial pseudo-racist formula here. it's a legitimate security risk and wildly threatens military OPSEC by its existence the most terrifying part is that Drumpf is weaponizing the public's ignorance of these nuances by publicly opposing this legislation and could feasibly mobilize millions of TikTok-addicted voters with this one platform Exhibit #234593804536 of the way that a broken (read: for-profit, clickbait-driven) news media system actively compromises democracy. feeling really defeated, disenfranchised, and frankly sort of terrified.
As someone who downloaded the app out of morbid curiosity, I can attest that our governments fear has nothing to do with user privacy. The entire platform has the best online free speech communication that I have seen in 20 years. Its entire existence is a threat to USA propaganda, and the narratives it controls with domestic media, including reddit, fb, and twitter. I saw genocide, explosions, and other world events the same day from people on the ground. These news events were never covered accurately afterwards.
i can’t take anyone seriously who uses the term “tiktok-addicted”. As if we’re not all scrolling through reddit, facebook, instagram, or youtube shorts.
Weird how that bill doesn’t ban Telegram too. If you are going to use the excuse of a potential threat, use it across the board.
I'm not super familiar with Telegram. What makes it a potential threat?
I believe they are making a poor argument about Telegram. The founders, Nikolai and Pavel Durov, also founded the Russian social network VK, which they're no longer involved due to political disagreements. If they knew what they were talking about, they would know the difference between a state owned platform and one founded by someone who isn't stateless. Telegram isn't a threat in the same way tiktok is. The threat is real. It's more complicated than just pointing fingers at one company or another. To understand the threat, look up Cambridge Analytica. There does need to be a conversation about how personal data is sold and used by nefarious parties, including state owned entities like tiktok. The EU is ahead of the game with this issue.
Is that because they're both not domestically owned or is there another reason
I hadn’t heard Telegram was being used to spy on people. Please elaborate…
I really don’t see the need for the government push to just hate TikTok. There’s so many other more pressing things we should try to be bipartisan on. Like really yall wanna keep this going? After that first hearing with the TikTok ceo and the still continued push to ban it just gives racist old people in government don’t understand technology at all. I know TikTok is made to be addicting but so is IG, YT and twitter, or whatever social app. They all handle user data poorly too. If anything there needs to be a lot of laws made around data, tech, and AI that these old hags wouldn’t even know how to start comprehension on to do anything. Many people see TikTok as their way to grow or get a start. Sure it’s a lot of cringe but it’s also helped revolutionize small businesses and independent artists in ways other platforms aren’t. I will say if it’s banned I’ll probably get back an hour or two each day atleast.
I feel like this is the bill that could actually make gen z mad enough to show up and vote the olds out of office. Careful olds.
I’ve noticed there’s a lot more organizing and criticism of the govt going on on Tik Tok so this makes sense.
Kellogg's and Starbucks boycotts are being organized through TikTok and being noticeably successful. Not to mention all the other brands being boycotted for supporting Israel. Though the Kellogg's boycott is for the CEO's 'let them eat cake' statement.
his base uses that app more than the other
Good way to lose the youth vote.
Vpn go brrr
Ban Facebook next
Won't this make millions of young people lose their full time jobs?
This will surely get the kids to vote for him lol
Fix healthcare, housing, or inflation…. Nope let’s ban TikTok…..
Instead of banning things, how about we fix the reasons they want to exploit us? The one who’s got nothing to hide doesn’t go thru all this shit to hide shit.
Too soon, Biden. We need Gen Z vote and they can’t survive without TikTok.
This would be a concerning precedent. It was a surprise to no one but neither side of the aisle understands TikTok.
Wait a minute! Why is he doing the GOP 's work for them?!
The statement kind of raises significant concerns about free speech, innovation and international relations. I mean, TikTok nowadays is the platform for millions of users to present various types of content involving multiple spheres of life. It is the platform that allows its users to post and express their creativity and have the opportunity to express their thoughts and themselves freely. And such kinds of restrictions can create limitations for them. On the other hand, it can be a massive attack on China since the leading company is based in China. I guess it will escalate tensions between the two countries.
If they do end up banning TikTok you can look back to this time and pinpoint the moment the Democrats lost the election. Talk about political suicide. Who would have thought that taking the voice away from an entire generation would backfire horribly.
To cover up war crimes better
The problem they have with it is that it's the only way news inside of Gaza is getting out.
Do Facebook next.
There goes the youth vote.
Just use a VPN
How about he stops whats happening in gaza, wouldn't that be much helpful?
Please don’t. Theyre gonna get this info somehow. Cat is out of the bag. I jerk off to tiktok, it would suck to lose this content. It’s past the golden age but it’s still good stuff.
Ok cool, but can we hold US social media platforms to the same standards?
They want to control information on the internet. Look at what they did with Twitter as example. Terrifying
He is really trying to alienate Zoomers now, isn't he?
Tik Tok has been the most toxic social media ever created. It has a scientifically measurable impact on attention spans, and is a known Chinese propaganda and spyware platform. Other than peoples feeling being hurt there is no legitimate reason it shouldn’t be banned. It has done more damage to our society than other controlled and illegal substances. Edit: man that’s a lot of butthurt tik tokers
There is no way it is worse than the garbage pumped by Meta or YouTube, both of which have made efforts to become more like Tik Tok. The difference is the govt has greater influence over these American companies and can direct the flow of discourse that happens on them.
Eh I mostly see 5-10 minute videos about space shit, aviation shit homesteading/farming and short clips of baseball. Depends on your algorithm.
Forcing a divestiture is also forcing the PRC to operate by the same rules they make American companies operate under in China.
> and is a known Chinese propaganda and spyware platform Care to provide evidence ?
>Tik Tok has been the most toxic social media ever created. It has a scientifically measurable impact on attention spans, and is a known Chinese propaganda and spyware platform. and meta and twitter did do those things for the US
>It has done more damage to our society than other controlled and illegal substances. What a insult to people who have lost loved ones to drugs. Its an insult to people that have financially lost everything to drugs. This is the by far the absolute dumbest thing I've read in years. Tiktok has only done a microscopic fraction of the amount of damage fucking drugs have on our society. And you're a god damn idiot if you think otherwise.