Are there whataboutism arguments? Yes, many.
Has Chinese intelligence lost access to a treasure trove of US data? Yes.
Are US kids’ already dwindling attention spans going to be saved from exposure to the TikTok algorithm? Yes.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
Actually, you’re right.
If we consider this normal, it would totally be acceptable for Europe to demand a ban or sale of American
spying and propaganda toolssocial media and streaming platforms. Either way, it would reduce the harm they could do - and in the case of a sale, they’d actually have to adhere to consumer friendly laws.They probably should. FB and all those other apps suck just as much.
Fucken do it.
I wish we would, but on the other hand, not being a totalitarian regime is kind of the reason why it’s better here. Damned if you you, damned if you don’t.
Protecting citizens’ interests is not totalitarian.
If it was about protecting citizens interests, PRISM would have been declared illegal and disbanded, not hushed and expanded.
PRISM is European?
I mean, they really should. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… These are all trash.
Are US kids’ already dwindling attention spans going to be saved from exposure to the TikTok algorithm? Yes.
You’re pinning the blame on tiktok when this also applies to YouTube (shorts and not), Instagram (Reels), Twitter. If we wanted an actual solution here we would implement actual children screen time laws, ironically similar to the under 18 gaming laws that have been implemented in China.
Tiktok is the only platform I’ve seen legitimate progressive movement on various issues and discussions centering on what that means and takes, in a way that actually fosters a great democratic progressive movement in the US.
From all I’ve read on this issue, not a single person has provided me with any insight into what or who this benefits that does not also apply to every other social media other than an entirely fabricated myth that they’re controlling the algorithms to spread anti US sentiment. Anti-US sentiment definitely exists, but it exists as a discussion around what the US is currently doing. I.e. funding Israel, and as a counterargument to that I am also fed state department interviews on my FYP.
80% of contant on tik tok is pro Palestine compared to 20% pro Isreal. They cannot have the young generation be made aware of the world’s injustices. Thats why it was the fastest bill to pass.
This is my point when people say “it’s just getting sold, don’t worry”. Yeah I am sure after Google, FB or Steven Mnuchin’s investor group buys it I will still see all the pro Palestine stuff in my feed…
deleted by creator
You’re saying all content on TikTok is about Palestine or Israel. Math doesn’t add up.
Dude think for a moment its not hard to understand. Obviously the percentage describes the contant ratio between the two political fronts.
deleted by creator
It’s the new red scare basically.
saved from exposure to the TikTok algorithm?
I don’t understand. It will just be bought. It won’t go anywhere.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
I agree with the chinese intelligence part but other than that, this is basically the government telling you how to live your life rather than letting you choose yourself. In my opinion we should be allowed to make bad choices. What’s next? Ban on sugar and mandatory excercise for everyone? Obviously I’m being hyperbolic but this is a step in exactly that direction.
Agree that the hyperbolic situations would be problematic but luckily tiktok is only one of the many social media options out there. I’d also consider that content like tiktok can be targeted at kids who arent developed enough to make the right choices yet. Taking freedom away is bad but getting hooked on tiktok is hardly a passive choice when it’s the platforms goal to keep you swiping and social influence makes it near impossible to avoid. I’d see it as a grey area when taking choices away. Like removing a lot of extra sugar from school lunches I think was already a goal, as is taking physical fitness in school. There are choices to avoid those options so it’s not a blanket ban on that opportunity, but I definitely don’t see it as a slippery slope.
There will be something new that pops up. Or the US companies out there might just buy tiktok anyways.
What’s next? Ban on sugar and mandatory excercise for everyone?
Maybe a wall-mounted screen that would, of course, help you exercise.
You’re the type of person to hate on China for the way they control the internet then root for the same thing to happen here.
Apples to Oranges. This isn’t about preventing TikTok users from seeing content the US deems harmful, it’s the delivery mechanism for that content is such a gaping hole of security it doesn’t even qualify as a backdoor espionage. It’s going straight through the front door to gather data illicitly for reasons unknown. Adversarial nations are marked such for good reason and not a title lightly given.
TikTok isn’t the only social media that should be banned here but I’m honestly struggling to understand why people are fighting so hard to defend it, it’s a massive data leaking engine that harvests so much more information that it needs for people to share funny fortnite dances and cat videos. That and siix months from now if the ban goes through some other app is going to pop up to fill the void while existing apps and social media platforms have already been trying to cater to the short video sharing for a long time now.
Do you have any proof of this? Or just repeating propaganda.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html
CCP used tiktok data to identify and track pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong in 2018.
That doesn’t prove a single thing you claimed. Every country does this with every social media app. I didn’t know watching peoples Tik Toks meant they owned the company.
The Red Army has had an intelligence office located directly in ByteDance headquarters, it goes without saying they’re doing more than just watching someone’s videos.
Do you think people are as uneducated as you are? Just because you eat up American propaganda doesn’t mean everyone is as dumb as you and will fall for the same lies.
Let’s declare any successful foreign country as enemy and either ban, or better, steal their products. True market.
China would certainly know a lot about stealing intellectual property from successful countries.
Right?! As well as banning social media. China has banned basically every American social media long before this.
I don’t really use TikTok but I really hope this gets tossed by the courts. I don’t care if ByteDance is owned by cthulus and draculas, it’s a terrible precedent to have the government ban a media company. If we don’t like China having access to data, ban apps from collecting it in the first place. Require algorithm audits. There are so many better ways to handle this than singling out TikTok.
Everybody talks about Facebook like they’re owned by the American government. They’re not. I’m sure the US government gets massive amounts of data from them, but they can’t control Facebook in the way China can control Tik Tok. And much of their surveillance is public with warrants whereas China does not need to follow any of that.
I get it. But it’s night and day different than the actual government owning the company.
If you think the Chinese government doesn’t have its hand directly up in Tik Tok, you’re absolutely fooling yourself. China has much more direct control over companies, well beyond what the US government has.
So this bill is not going to do anything but require ByteDance to sell the tiny small insignificant minuscule 1% that the Chinese government owns and in no way uses to influence how the company is run.
Sounds like it’s no big deal!
Don’t forget, control the sale of data too. Audits etc to make sure they comply with privacy safeguards, and so on.
This is just pandering as well as, I suspect, to give a corporate donor a profit-making business.
The precedent was already set back in 2020 when the US government forced Kunlun to sell Grindr
it’s a terrible precedent to have the government ban a media company
Good thing TikTok’s not actually being banned then isn’t it? It’s just being forcibly sold, which is quite different.
deleted by creator
I know that I heard (on the 538 podcast) that before voting on this, congress was given a security briefing about it, and after that there was wide bipartisan support for the ban (and we all know how rare bipartisan support is these days). It sounds like the security briefing was pretty compelling. If it’s not just theoretical that Chinese gocernment could leverage tiktok to spy on Americans and influence them, and there’s evidence that they are already doing it, I think it makes the case for the ban much stronger. But the information has not been made public.
I’ll also note that they set the ban to not go into effect until after the election.
This seems to be the case, but congress is doing an awful job of communicating the danger to the public. There will likely be a lot of people angry at Biden when he signs this if there is no effort to justify the targeted action.
I feel like it isn’t congress’s job to do that. They don’t have to share or repeat information that they are not experts on to the public. They can share their thought process and rationale for supporting legislation, but we shouldn’t expect them to be perceived as technical experts. I bet that fewer than 10 congressional representatives can look at a portion of code and make an educated statement on what’s going on and how authors may be performing abnormal operations or obfuscating other actions.
It’s the job of the organization(s) that prepare the security briefing, and we’ve already been hearing this kind of thing in the cybersecurity field for years. Those in the know, know. Those not, tend to not believe it. Warnings about the potential for data harvesting and information operations via platforms like (and specifically) Tik Tok aren’t new.
This is like public health information during COVID. Medical professionals have the training and experience to share their professional assessments, but large portions of the population were instead solely relying on politicians to deliver medical information.
So ban data harvesting? That seems pretty common sense. Instead we’re giving our government autocratic powers pick winners in the market.
So they can’t talk to people about it because they’re not technical experts, but they also have the authority to make decisions despite not being experts.
They can talk about it if they want to, but we shouldn’t be using them as our only source of information. Curious on why politicians voted X instead of Y? Look it up! See what experts in the field are saying.
You shouldn’t rely on them to tell you why TikTok is a threat the same way we shouldn’t rely on them to inform us on why weakening EPA standards is good for the environment, why taxing foreign trucks is good for the economy, or why drawing voting maps to concentrate demographics is good for democracy.
These politicians probably know enough to make an informed decision if they care to seek out information. They don’t always have the time or desire to do this. If you believe this to be true even one in a hundred times, that covers a handful of politicians for every single piece of legislation that comes out, every single time.
The same way you may care about many things but only know a lot about a few subjects, they legislate everything and people act like they are the experts. Why assume they know what they’re talking about for every single topic?
Why assume they know what they’re talking about for every single topic?
Because I would hope they know what they’re talking about when they write the legislation. Or at least can explain their reasoning for voting a certain way. Especially when nobody has made the case that TikTok is any more dangerous than Facebook or Twitter.
They largely don’t write the legislation. Lobby groups draft the materials and if we’re lucky, the congressional aides make a pass and clean things up.
You can search for why TikTok is dangerous. There are plenty of examples of how the application and platform are not being forthright with how they collect your identifiers and weaponize them for information operations campaigns.
As I mentioned earlier, the powers that be aren’t as worried about Facebook and the like because they’re US-based and have working relationships with law enforcement. Facebook has been used for the very campaigns that TikTok is being used for now, but a large difference is that another nation has near complete control over the platform.
They largely don’t write the legislation. Lobby groups draft the materials and if we’re lucky, the congressional aides make a pass and clean things up.
Yes but they should at least be able to explain why they voted a certain way on that legislation, right?
I agree that social media is dangerous for all the reasons mentioned, but I don’t see why Zuckerberg and Musk still get to do all those things.
See https://lemmy.world/post/14643617
I’m sure it’s just even more detail about the scope of that influence campaign (and possibly an extrapolation of effectiveness on public opinion).
The major thing is manipulation of the public’s information pipeline by a hostile foreign power. There are already existing laws about foreign owned media (as cited by the New York Times this morning https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/tiktok-bill-foreign-influence/677806/).
Young people get a lot of their news and information from TikTok. The US government doesn’t have their hands in TikTok like they do domestic social media platforms.
That’s it. That’s the ban.
Edit: A lot of people downvoting, but this is 100% about control. It isn’t “oooo China spooky” national security stuff, it’s “we have no power here, how can we change this?”
Bipartisan support is only rare when it comes to things like giving healthcare to the poor.
That hasn’t been true at all post-2016.
If there is evidence then let’s hear it in court. We are not an Autocracy.
Uhh, yeah, we’re a representative democracy. This passed through both houses of congress and is on its way to be signed by the president. You know, the completely normal legislative process.
You can vote yourself out of a democracy at any time.
Only way you’re voting yourself out of the US is with your feet. There are no mechanisms to relinquish citizenship (and your vote, barring convictions) while remaining in the country permanently.
I didn’t say vote yourself out of the US. I said what I meant.
The US isn’t a straight simple democracy, so you win I guess.
Okay you’re obviously not getting it. If you vote for people who ignore the Constitution then you won’t have any rights.
I mean sure, if you pass a constitutional amendment, I guess? Which this is not.
“I don’t like this law that our democratically elected representatives passed” does not mean that the law threatens democracy. You’re allowed to not like it, of course. That’s actually a big part of democracy.
Just because they were elected does not mean you’ve avoided autocracy. There isn’t a magic shield. You need to make sure they are respecting the Constitution and our Rights. If they assign themselves autocratic powers then you’re going to live in an autocracy. And make no mistake, giving the executive the power to just declare a corporation illegal is autocratic. It’s literally out of the playbook.
This is why our Constitution repeatedly says the government must use due process and prove its case in court.
Data harvesting is half of the problem. I have a feeling that congress could give two shits about the data harvesting as it’s almost literally everywhere in modern society and not in the interests of donors or the nationality security apparatus to remove.
The other half is the platform and its potential (hypothetical and actual) for use in information operations. TikTok has direct access to something like 160 million American devices. That rivals other social media giants like Meta who have some government liaisons and relationships embedded in their security teams. ByteDance to my knowledge does not have these relationships. This problem could just as easily apply to any other foreign platform if any were large enough to pose threats of this scale.
My guess is they’re more concerned about propaganda. They’re concerned about it being Fox News, but for the CCP.
Starts off innocent enough, then slowly starts pushing disinformation that’s in service of a political entity.
You mean exactly like Facebook, right, because there are a lot of parallels but I never heard American politicians want to ban Facebook.
Let’s not fool ourselves!
Difference being, Facebook is just greedy, and will promote toxic disinformation because it gets high engagement numbers. If factual civics videos got high engagement, Facebook would gladly promote that. They want to promote whatever is going to sell more ads.
With the CCP, the motivation is the message, not the money. With Facebook, the motivation is the money and whatever message makes the most of it.
Based take. Seemed we learned nothing from Trump and What-aboutism. Just because Facebook does it and doesn’t get in trouble doesn’t mean Facebook is in the right. It means you should get mad and demand change from them too.
Also I might have missed this, but didn’t everyone get mad at tiktok last or a couple of years ago for circumventing Android and Apple app policies and collecting data they shouldn’t? I though Facebook and Twitter obeyed those policies, they just had other means to collect that data.
TikTok has been known to exploit 0-days to evade the Android permissions system and escape OS sandboxing, especially on rooted and/or unlocked phones. This is one of the primary reasons it was banned from government-issued devices in the USA.
So I suppose put it like this: what if the way for Facebook to make the most money is all their current operations + pushing the rightwing agenda? (or leftwing depending on what team you’re on).
How is that any less meddling than tik tok? Sure Facebook is based in america, but has clearly shown it cares much more about its own interests than any country.
It just feels like trusting a tank of gas cause you just saw someone get lit on fire by a tank of diesel
On one hand I can see your gas tank analogy being correct but I may be saying this out of habit of how we have been disarming disinformation that originates from random sources the whole time we have had social media but disarming disinformation that is backed and distributed by a authoritarian regimes that have a military force and possibly assassins and other means to physically shut people up it’s a bit harder especially when you’re going against them on a platform that they control and own
Propaganda is effective. It’s at times silly, blatant, jingoistic, and offensive, but it has historically worked to influence public opinions.
I think you’re right, but saying the quiet part out loud. People don’t like to think they’re susceptible to scams and propaganda because they’re not that dumb or gullible. People still click on phishing emails…
The question is, do enough people do it to impact elections?
Sure, you gotta limit the propaganda to American companies…
I’m no fan of TikTok and I think it’s actively harmful for a whole host of reasons, but freedom of speech is Constitutionally protected, and I can see an argument that “algorithms” should be included in that protection. That’s probably why this doesn’t target the “algorithms” TikTok uses, but instead targets the nation of origin.
The propaganda issue is not resolved by this legislation, it merely attacks one potential source and gives the President tools to address other similar sources w/o passing new legislation. It’s probably fine (and way better than previous, related proposals), but it doesn’t do much to solve propaganda.
I’d much rather see more focus on transparency, privacy, and consent, instead of just banning stuff because it seems dangerous.
Yes, this is almost certainly it. They used the app to send a notification to users to contact their representatives about this bill. They are obviously willing to use it for political means, and their users are willing to listen. What else might they use that power to do?
Being the guy who signed the bill that threatens the existence of a platform that is super popular with young people whose vote he desperately needs during an election year. Masterful gambit, sir!
Literally my first thought… Way to go Biden, nothing like getting hundreds of thousands of “influencers” mad at you right at an important election…
But who are we kidding, I can guarantee that maybe 5% of Congress even understood what they were doing.
There’s a reason why the bill doesn’t go into effect until after the election.
We’re not stupid.
This person does not speak for me
I posted this in the other thread, but I’ll repost here for discussion:
Ew. I looked through the bill, and here are some parts I have issues with:
Main text
PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CON - TROLLED APPLICATIONS .—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following:
(A) Providing services to distribute, main- tain, or update such foreign adversary con- trolled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application.
(B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States.
So basically, the US can block any form of software (not just social media) distributed by an adversary county for pretty much reason, and it can block any company providing access to anything from an adversary.
Definition of "controlled by a foreign adversary"
(g) DEFINITIONS .—In this section:6 (1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY .— The term ‘‘controlled by a foreign adversary’’ means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is–
(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country;
(B) an entity with respect to which a for- eign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indi- rectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or
© a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
The adversary countries are (defined in a separate US code):
- N. Korea
- China
- Russia
- Iran
So if you live in any of these or work for a company based in any of these, you’re subject to the law.
foreign adversary company definition
(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLI - CATION .—The term ‘‘foreign adversary controlled application’’ means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by—
(A) any of—
(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;
(ii) TikTok;
(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or
(iv) an entity owned or controlled, di- rectly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
(B) a covered company that—
(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of—
It specifically calls out TikTok and ByteDance, but it also allows the President to denote any other entity in one of those countries as a significant threat.
So here are my issues:
- I, as a US citizen, can’t choose to distribute software produced by an adversary as noted officially by the US government - this is a limitation on my first amendment protections, and I think this applies to FOSS if the original author is from one of those countries
- the barrier to what counts is relatively low - just living in an adversary country or working for a company based on an adversary country seems to don’t
- barrier to a “covered company” is relatively low and probably easy to manipulate - basically needs 1M active users (not even US users), which the CIA could totally generate if needed
So I think the bill is way too broad (lots of "or"s), and I’m worried it could allow the government to ban competition with US company competitors. It’s not as bad as I feared, but I still think it’s harmful.
Anyway, thoughts?
and I’m worried it could allow the government to ban competition with US company competitors.
I want to give the benefit of the doubt and say they are concerned about getting programs running all over the country that can somehow “backdoor” a major issue into our network, but I not only don’t know enough about how feasible that is, I also strongly believe it’s as you feared. It’s what we get the government to do all the time: fuck with other countries to “protect” our major corporations…
Why give them the benefit of the doubt? Look at Snowdon"s revelations, they abused FISA courts to rubber stamp spying on US citizens. Why wouldn’t they do the same for lobbyists?
I get that TikTok sucks for all manner of reasons, but expanding the power of the executive branch isn’t the way to deal with it, especially this way. This is pretty similar to the “force authorization” crap where the President can just bomb whoever the want, provided they let Congress know afterward. But now it’s in the economy instead of just military…
So no, I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt, they’ve lost my trust every other time they’ve done something like this. The bill is bad and the precedent is sets is bad.
its also them just avoiding writing a privacy bill, yet again.
Well c’mon, if they write a legit privacy bill it’s going to hurt their Stateside vectors. This way, they can tout “yay security!” while funneling more traffic to Instabookapp where they can still access it.
I think you should check out this article in The Atlantic, it goes into the history of the US government’s previous laws to protect against foreign propaganda and manipulation of the media. What you’ll find is this is more of an update (to catch up with the internet era) than a revamp of US domestic policy.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/tiktok-bill-foreign-influence/677806/
Also a key point I think you’re missing here:
but it also allows the President to denote any other entity in one of those countries as a significant threat
The president can only do this for apps from the countries covered in the US code as Foreign Adversaries, which means the president can act quickly against threats, but this is a bad avenue for attacking competition in other friendly countries (e.g., shutting down Proton would require congress to pass a law that Switzerland is a foreign adversary – which would not be good for relations – AND a law specifically targeting Proton accompanying that or the president to then act against Proton).
All of this is still subject to judicial review as well.
What does the judicial review process look like? Because the bill only states (unless I missed it) that the President needs to give notice to Congress.
What it looks like is if China or Russia has a competitor to a US product (say, Yandex or Baidu), a US company (say, Google) could lobby the President to mark them as a threat and ban them from the US. The product doesn’t need to actually have the capacity to cause harm, it just needs to be from one of the adversary countries (currently China, Russia, N. Korea, and Iran).
It’s not as bad as it could be, but I think it misses a lot of the point here.
Just the standard “you can sue if you think this is unfair and have your day in court.”
What it looks like is if China or Russia has a competitor to a US product (say, Yandex or Baidu), a US company (say, Google) could lobby the President to mark them as a threat and ban them from the US. The product doesn’t need to actually have the capacity to cause harm, it just needs to be from one of the adversary countries (currently China, Russia, N. Korea, and Iran).
This is true, but it’s also pretty unlikely. Even TikTok is just a vine ripoff, but a vine that was successfully monetized.
There really hasn’t been much to come out of our “foreign adversaries” that I think most people would care about. If that’s the price we have to pay … I’m not the least bit worried about it really.
Furthermore, China is happy to use public money to back companies (as a sort of “state run venture capital”); that is a threat to competition in the same way venture capital is a threat to competition.
But is it worth the potential for abuse?
Google and Facebook certainly stand to benefit here since TikTok is a direct competitor. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ban TikTok (I’d like to see some evidence from the FBI though), but it means we should scrutinize the bill to see if there are undesirable parts to it.
Likewise, I think this bill could be used against companies with Chinese investment, like anything Tencent investment (e.g. Fortnite, League of Legends, etc). That’s obviously not the target, but I think it could be used to get those banned from the US.
So I’m worried about this bill. Maybe I’m misreading it (I hope so), and it doesn’t seem as bad as some people claim, but I do think it’s problematic.
Likewise, I think this bill could be used against companies with Chinese investment, like anything Tencent investment (e.g. Fortnite, League of Legends, etc).
IANAL but I believe that would not be covered under this bill. Those games are run by American companies with foreign investment.
Maybe when it gets to the point where the foreign power is the majority shareholder. However, I think in a publicly traded company they’d just be forced to divest and that would likely take a different law.
Here’s what I read in the bill:
Division H, (g)(1)
(1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY.—The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is—
(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country;
(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake;
So if someone from an adversary country directly or indirectly owns at least 20% of the company, which I’m pretty sure applies to what I’ve said.
But the text needs to apply to a “covered company,” which is intended to focus on social media, but here’s the text:
Division H, (g)(2)
A) IN GENERAL.—The term “covered company” means an entity that operates, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that—
(i) permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content;
(ii) has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users with respect to at least 2 of the 3 months preceding the date on which a relevant determination of the President is made pursuant to paragraph (3)(B);
(iii) enables 1 or more users to generate or distribute content that can be viewed by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application; and
(iv) enables 1 or more users to view content generated by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application.
So if you have more than 1M monthly active users and allow users to share and view text, images, video, etc with at least 1 person, then you’re a covered company. I’m pretty sure that could apply to many things outside of social media.
There’s an exclusion in (g)(2)(B) for “product reviews,” so maybe EGS is safe, but I’m not sure because the primary purpose of EGS isn’t reviews, it’s selling games.
However, the above are merely qualifiers, so it must also satisfy section (g)(3), which states either:
- A - is related to ByteDance or TikTok (mentioned by name)
- B - the President decides it’s a threat to national security
So Fortnite, LoL, etc wouldn’t be caught immediately by the law like TikTok is because they haven’t been specifically mentioned, but I think they quality, so they could be impacted if the President thinks they’re a threat to national security. And the burden of proof there is pretty minimal, the President just submits notice to Congress at least 30 days before doing anything about it. If Congress is already in board (lobbyists and whatnot), that won’t be an issue.
For timing, you have 165 days from when this law takes effect or 90 days from any action under this law. So here’s a scenario:
- President publicly notifies Congress that it’s considering marking Fortnite as a threat to national security - juicy bits sealed in a classified annex
- 30 days later, the President publicly determines Fortnite is a national security threat
- 90 days later, the statute of limitations has passed, and the President instructs the Attorney General to issue fines through the appropriate district court
My understanding is that if the company doesn’t challenge the initial public notice (2), they could lose their ability to fight the fines in the courts. So the question is, how much leeway does the President have to obfuscate that so the lawyers miss it? Is it sufficient for the President to post to that White House website?
This scenario is pretty unlikely, but it’s just a small bill change away from being a lot easier to sneak through (like making the public notice optional).
The bill is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (earlier versions were worse), so it’s likely this will only apply to TikTok for now. But I’m worried about giving the President so much autonomy here. There’s no requirement that the company or app is actually harmful, just that the President decides it’s a threat. Oh, and I could probably be fined if I distribute TikTok or similar from a personal website after this bill goes live, though I think I can share a link for them to download it, provided the servers aren’t hosted by me and are hosted in another country.
My $1 bid is ready to submit to ByteDance once grandpa signs that bill.
Get in line buddy, I’m entering this race with $1.01!!
How are you raising that kind of capital in this environment!? I can only dream of it!
Selling off old memes that were appraised at [email protected]
Good. Honestly, great! The EU should do the same. Fuck the CCP and their propaganda machine that brainwashes people all over the world!
At the moment brainwashing the youths to support Gaza, but not for long…
The kids don’t care, they will just use CoCo Fun (most are using both apps anyway).
The only difference is that with Coco Fun, its America spying on your kids.
I don’t know why people think spying is the issue. It’s the potential control. For example, when this bill was proposed, TikTok sent a notification to users to contact their representatives. That’s not horribly harmful, but it does show a willingness to weaponize their user base (and their base’s willingness to listen).
If this bill wasn’t going to pass before, it sure as well would after that happened. You have to consider what else that could potentially be used for. Could they possibly use it to influence an election if a candidate was against their interests?
If they ban one they should ban them all. Cambridge analytica used Facebook on behalf of LeaveEU and Trump.
I don’t totally disagree, but a foreign owned company playing with our politics is just a little different than a company in the US doing so. Sure, they’re all dangerous, but you don’t let foreign governments have power that can potentially control your nation. It’s why in China nearly all western services are banned. China sees the risks. Why would anyone expect a Chinese company to be ignored?
There is a whole class of “influencers” that get paid to shill for everything from liquor to policy on every platform. Tiktok, a foreign company, owns the algorithm, so they can promote whatever they want.
This all seems sketchy, but then I recall citizens united and the fact that billions are spent directly purchasing influence in the actual government. They just don’t like some other entity putting their finger on the scale.
I’d much prefer systematic reform where money can’t buy influence and companies (US or otherwise) can’t spy on their users, yet that will never be on the table because of the money and power Facebook and others have.
Most companies will let customers know about legislation like that. It’s hardly nefarious.
Exactly. I remember this being a thing with Net Neutrality banners everywhere, so this isn’t new.
Yeah, except if a foreign owned company activates their user base to attack you, as a representative, it has to look threatening, and it should be seen as a threat. It was more than just a comment when opening the app. It was a notification pushed to the device, or that’s my impression at least.
As I said, this case isn’t that bad, but it does make the potential threat obvious. There’s a reason western apps are banned in China. Why should a Chinese company not expect action in the west?
My local dispensary had “write your congressman to support legal weed.” Is that a threat? Or is it just encouraging people who use your app to participate in politics? It’s not like they’re encouraging their users to march on Washington or commit violence. They’re just telling folks to do what every civics teacher has told them: Write your congressman about things you care about.
If Congress takes that as a threat that says a lot more about Congress than it does about Tik Tok.
There’s a reason western apps are banned in China. Why should a Chinese company not expect action in the west?
I thought that reason was because we post about events that didn’t happen and countries that don’t exist, not that it was a threat to China’s government. We didn’t ban apps here because we’re the free good guys, and they’re the authoritarians.
But I guess both countries are dickweeds now. So it goes…
Eh, all international (and even intranational to a large degree) politics is about power and always has been. We aren’t the “free good guys,” though China is absolutely authoritarian and controlling. Looking at it through a moral lense leads to the wrong ideas though. Morality has never come into play. If there’s a potential threat to power (even if imagined), it’ll be defended against. It doesn’t matter what country we’re referring to, nor is that unreasonable action to take.
Totally agree. Which is why I truly despise nation-states and the people who make me pretend to believe in them.
I get you, but asking people to participate in democracy is not “weaponization”, and I’m 100% okay with popular figures, even from other countries, telling people how to vote, because who doesn’t tell people how to vote these days?
Using a weapon can be done for good. If they’re using it to attack something for their interest, it’s weaponization. However, they didn’t do it for “good.” They did it for self-interest. US representatives got bombarded with phone calls and messages telling them not to block a foreign company’s app after the company told them to do so. What would that look like to them? It looks like a weapon that has been turned on them.
We shouldn’t just accept foreign agents interfering with our election just because “who doesn’t these days.” That is totally the wrong response. If that’s all you see in this you need to re-evaluate your position.
I get where you’re coming from but oh my god is that a wack ass take
You’re OK with paid actors interfering in your elections?
Jesus fucking christ.
That’s pretty much par for the course. We saw the same thing with big tech companies around Net Neutrality, this is largely the same thing, no?
It’s Thursday night here has he signed yet ?
Yup. It’s signed.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that’s expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income.
For years, lawmakers and administration officials have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data, or influence Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat who voted for the legislation, said he has concerns about TikTok, but he’s also worried the bill could have negative effects on free speech, doesn’t do enough to protect consumer privacy and could potentially be abused by a future administration to violate First Amendment rights.
“At the stage that the bill is signed, we will move to the courts for a legal challenge,” Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, wrote in a memo sent to employees on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press.
Since then, TikTok has been in negotiations about its future with the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a little-known government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns.
“As I started to reflect some months ago on the stresses of the last few years and the new generation of challenges that lie ahead, I decided that the time was right to pass the baton to a new leader,” Andersen wrote in an internal memo that was obtained by the AP.
The original article contains 1,165 words, the summary contains 266 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Who is gonna buy it though?
I read a while back that Bobby Kotick was trying to drum up investors for it.
Gross.
No one. China already said it won’t let Bytedance sell the algorithm or code. So even if someone buys the name we’ll just get YouTube shorts under a different name.
Sell to who is what I’m wondering. I would be surprised if whoever wants to acquire TikTok is not lobbying hard for this.
Introducing… FaceTok
Exclusively available on Meta Quest 3
US Congress will grant the government any power except enforcing privacy rights.
APRA is coming
Welp, there goes any chance of getting the zoomers to vote this year
Biden wants to ban Chinese ownership of TikTok, but Trump’s been banning raw dog fuck’n.
Choice isn’t even close.
