House likely to pass a bill that could ban TikTok, sending it to the Senate
House likely to pass a bill that could ban TikTok, sending it to the Senate
House Democrats and Republicans say the legislation, which would pressure TikTok's China-based owner to divest, is needed to protect Americans' data. Senators are still evaluating it.
That's one way to spread the message to the world that you've given up on freedom and democracy. It's as if TikTok is a monster that eats the brains of our children, and the problem they have with it is that the wrong person is holding its leash.
I am not advocating for the "alternatives" (i.e. Instagram and the likes), however I think banning a Chinese PSYOP indoctrinating a whole generation with far-right ideas can only be positive for society. Hopefully the EU does something similar.
They aren't just targeting the far-right and they are not just spreading far-right lies. There's misinformation for everybody and of every color on that platform.
i've never seen one far right tiktok on my feed; i have, however, seen d&dtok, teachertok, booktok, gazatok, and lots of queer people
EFF sent out a campaign to their mailing list this morning about how banning it is a bad move for free speech and a better option would be to create actual data privacy laws that companies have to follow to do business in the US, but of course that would just put more money in politicians pockets to ensure it never sees the light of day.
I like the though of enforcing regulations on certain permissions such as location, network info, contacts, etc so apps can't just data mine it. I'd also like laws to make these apps function with certain access restricted by the user. My car app for example pops up with permission requests saying it can't function without getting location data in the background. I just want to remote start my damn car.
everybody is pro capitalism until someone else beats them.
I don’t use the platform so I’m not as familiar to if this is general nationalist issue or about specific practices in TikTok. I do think this is a slippery slope, though. Im afraid our elected officials are just too far behind on Technology to look at the broader issues on privacy and technology - this might pass simply because they can slap “not US = bad” on a campaign bus. It likely will boost VPN usage and/or drive people to less mature and even less privacy concerned services.
As a conservative I generally hate the idea of Chinese software collecting all our national selfie secrets, but I hate the idea of banning companies even more.
If there’s a problem about national security as it relates to Chinese social media, we need to address that with education not banning apps.
The domestic apps scrape and sell the same data to anybody who will buy it, foreign adversaries included. They are banning tiktok because the younger generation is way more connected on there and there is attention being brought to places they don't want it. Simple as that.
I do use the platform and used to think the same thing everyone else my age thinks but it is actually super good. Most content creators moved over for a reason.
There is a lot of "good activism" on there and I think that is the thing they would like to stamp out.
I think it's a scary thing combined with the fact that politicians have been trying to pass KOSA and similar bills that outline very harsh punishments for anyone using vpns to circumvent national bans.
America isn't free and it is getting less free by the day.
A classic authoritarian tactic is to make people think that other governments are worse and that only giving away your freedoms and giving power to them is the way to fight it. TikTok became to risky for the government not because of China's propaganda, but because China didn't want to ban or deprioritize posts against genocide in Palestine funded by the US government. When any government feels treatened they censor the media and call it propaganda from another country. This is prime example that US is not better then China or Russia when it comes to it, only that so far it was their companies that were more popular, so they didn't need to.
I find it interesting that you're implying the CCP is better than the US. You're implying you're a TikTok user. You're also implying that the US government is somehow censoring Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc to suppress information and TikTok is the lone bastion of free information.
The last time I heard someone talking about something being the lone bastion of free information, they were talking about Fox News. A network that directly interacted with them and spoon-fed them right wing talking points.
So you're assuming you haven't been affected just like the Fox News supporting folks I've struggled with for years. However, you're out here advocating on China's behalf... Because let's face it, it's not an anti-TikTok bill, it's an anti-CCP bill. The ownership and control of TikTok and control over its recommendation algorithm are the central issue.
We've already accidentally had US tech companies create radicalization algorithms called social media algorithms, YouTube as an example. There's been a lot of work done to stop YouTube from promoting right wing radicalization content. What exactly is stopping TikTok from intentionally implementing a recommendation algorithm that both benefits the CCP and targets the most vulnerable to its influence campaigns?
It is 100% possible to look at folks viewing habits, find content creators that have messaging that benefits you, then test that content and observe the response. If they don't take the bait and engage back off. If they do take the bait, turn the knob a little more, slowly add more politicized content. If they're following a farming content creator that's a US liberal... Maybe see if they'll follow a leftist... Maybe see if they'll follow a pro-CCP leftist... etc. then promote the content in their subscriptions that more closely aliens with your goals.
You don't even need to have your message be the one that wins to have a win. You literally just have to create arguments and division. You can promote both arguments at the same time. You'll get some additional mind share and you'll get more people arguing on your platform and other platforms ... no press is bad press after all.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-facebook-banned-china.asp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Twitter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube
It's almost like the CCP understands the threat of algorithmically spoon-fed promoted propaganda.
CCP is better than the US. You’re implying you’re a TikTok user Not even close. Never used TikTok in my life, I have no reason to believe CCP is any better then US either. I don't think you should assume that when someone is critisizing one group is automatically support another, this is exactly what everyone in power is using as propaganda to discredit any critique of them.
The US is a capitalist dumpster fire. Seems like a lot of folks in here don't use the platform much because they are just repeating the same talking points western media parrots.
The big problem seems to be that younger generations are connecting and organizing on there and they can't shut it up. If the issue is that a foreign adversary is exposing the corrupt shit the US is doing and that they allow US citizens to connect with each other rapidly on such issues, well... where is the fucking problem?
Outside of that, it is a dope platform with a scary good algorithm. Lots of good folks in there. Most content creators flocked there because the other platforms are shit now. Bytedance has complied in every way but they are essentially trying to force the sale of tiktok despite them not wanting to sell. That is shitty.
Tiktok is not the problem. What a fucking joke.
Yah, this is very much politicians being terrified of how much TikTok undermines the narratives they want to play to.
How is this the single most important thing for the house to deal with right now?
Like is TikTok turning the migrant crisis at the border into gay trans athletes trying to steal the election (but only the presidency, not the house/senate) and destroy Christian families?
It sure seems like the message from Mike Johnson is “nothing is really wrong, so we just hate the app with the silly videos”.
It's just part of the US government's constant obsession with controlling the internet. They managed to make it sound legit this time due to anxiety around the CCP, but it's not going to end at TikTok.
Basically since Tik Tok launched, literally all I've ever seen from everyone regardless of age or political affiliation is that it needs to be blocked since it's a data mining machine for the CCP. Now that it's actually happening, everyone is saying the opposite, that we need to keep it, even though the data mining for the CCP is still happening. What the fuck is actually going on?
It’s probably not a data mining machine for china, they’ve done a fair bit to divest them selves from china at this point. If the CCP wanted to data mine Americans they can just buy that information from data brokers.
I suspect the main reason so many establishment politicians are terrified of it is because of how it suggest content.
Because there is very little direct user input on what it shows, It tends to spin people off in to communities and places people wouldn’t normally end up in. Trends there also tend to spread fast and unpredictably, most people won’t know about a trend until it shows up in their feed, making it difficult to monitor by a third party.
It can really throw a wrench in political messaging when you can’t be sure what narratives and ideas your constituents have been exposed to. These issues come from social media generally, but most big social media platforms are a lot less volatile in the trends, are easier to monitor, and are less likely to send people off in to spaces that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.
I suspect the main reason so many establishment politicians are terrified of it is because of how it suggest content.
I'm not convinced the politicians even have a clue what the app is, let alone how it serves content. To me, it seems like they really just want to keep data out of the hands of the CCP. The bill itself doesn't state that TikTok is banned - only that ByteDance needs to divest it to keep operating it in the US.
they’ve done a fair bit to divest them selves from china at this point. If
As a Chinese company, that's impossible. That's kind of like saying Mojang has done a lot to distance itself from Microsoft. Microsoft at the end of the day calls the shots whenever it suits Microsoft to do so.
I suspect the main reason so many establishment politicians are terrified of it is because of how it suggest content.
That's the biggest issue for sure. It's the recommendation algorithm. You can use all the data you use for marketing based on feeds that people have followed to algorithmically create a sort of psychological profile.
Once you have that, you have a weapon because you can spoon feed an active user through radicalizing content. YouTube did it accidentally for years (though this has largely been fixed from what I've seen recently).
The CCP could do it intentionally and as they have the final say over anything and everything that happens at ByteDance, that's a huge risk. We don't need the millions of TikTok users being subject to an information psychological warfare operation.
They don't care too much about the data, though that might be useful to them as well. I think that's why they went along with protect Texas. They can still get the data out into China if they really want some of it. However, their main goal is influence and a direct line of communication to a large number of Americans.
The people that complain that anything from China is a spyware product are the very same people that use sites like Facebook and Google, that are technically American/Western spyware.
I have a feeling that this was never about the CCP and that it is all racially-motivated.
Sounds like a good move, that ticktock voiceover voice is like nails on a chalkboard.
From a European perspective I can only say that the US is as bad as China in terms of privacy violations (probably even worse). The whole Snowden and NSA scandal really broke any trust in nations or corporations to respect anyone's privacy. I want to see how the US stops spying on everyone and regulates its own companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. I get that banning tiktok is done out of competition over information etc. But the US certainly has no right to claim moral high ground or argue in favor of trying to protect anyone.
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WASHINGTON — The House is poised to pass legislation Wednesday that could ban TikTok in the U.S. as Republicans and Democrats alike sound the alarm that the popular video-sharing app is a national security threat.
TikTok, owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, is mounting an aggressive lobbying campaign to kill the legislation, arguing that it would violate the First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users and harm thousands of small businesses that rely on it.
That means TikTok, which FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified poses a risk to national security, could face a ban unless ByteDance acted quickly to divest it.
U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials worry the Chinese government could use TikTok to access personal data from its millions of users and use algorithms to show them videos that could influence their views, including in the coming presidential election.
Testifying before Congress a year ago, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denied that the Chinese government controls the app and pushed back against suggestions that China accesses U.S. user data.
Outside the Capitol, a handful of young House Democrats — Robert Garcia and Sarah Jacobs of California, Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois — rallied alongside TikTok creators to express their opposition to the bill.
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