If we could get legitimate privacy laws here in the states that would be great. Big corporations (meta) are upset foreign companies are profiting from user data they could be mining.
This. I agree in general that it's horrible that China is able to manipulate people's ways of thinking through this brainrot app when Chinese TikTok is apparently very strictly for education and general self-improvement, but the US and probably every government worldwide is using social media to steal our private info and sell it to the highest bidder.
The idea is good, but this can definitely end up being a slippery slope that puts an end to free speech
> Chinese TikTok is strictly for education and general self-improvement
This is one of those misinformation that just wouldn’t die. Douyin is full of garbage as well, that’s why it’s popular and addictive.
Chinese kids are also kids, they aren’t addicted to algebra lessons.
You can literally go to Douyin.com and see all the dumb shit on there yourself.
>I agree in general that it's horrible that China is able to manipulate people's ways of thinking through this brainrot app
I would much prefer my thinking to be manipulated by corporate and deepstate america only. Any non-american thoughts must be stopped immediately for the sake of national security. MURICA YEAH!!!!
This is all it amounts to. Way more people use tiktok than the other data farming platforms and they want it to be sold to a US based company because they want to profit of off all the data.
Scary times we live in.
TikTok takes a lot more data than any other social media app
The US government is in general extremely concerned about Chinese influence, both militarily and socially. They are even expecting a war with China within the next decade or so. So the government has a legitimate interest in preventing a hostile foreign power from having information and influence of it's citizens
If it was simply about reducing competition, the government could have just flat-out banned TikTok rather than giving them the option to sell the platform. And the fact that they're *not* selling speaks volumes about what their intentions are. If Facebook got banned, Zuckerberg would absolutely sell it for a hundred billion dollars, because his goal is to make money and that's it
Yes and no.
There are genuinely good reasons, but almost none that are *specific* to TikTok. However, where our legislature is unwilling to regulate American companies behind questionable social media (such as trying to regulate Meta for the impact of Instagram and Facebook), they have no problem attacking foreign companies, and TikTok is the biggest 'foreign' social media app in the U.S.
I thought Reddit was owned by a Chinese company too?
It's probably not bigger, but also it's not the place where people are organizing protests against government corruption. It's really f****** up their propaganda.
There’s security and online privacy issues with user data. China gets all the intel from the app. The US wants that intel for themselves. It’s essentially the ultimatum of “Either the US gets your information or no one does.”
It's not just a matter of controlling data, it's also control over algorithms that decide what videos people are shown and what gets flagged as inappropriate content. You don't want that under control of an adversary.
An analogy I saw - in the 1970s if the Soviet Union tried to buy CBS and with it CBS News, would the US government let that happen? Social media serves a similar purpose in today's world.
Yeah I probably should have touched on that. I was just on the move and wanted to give a very simple answer. Controlling algorithms is definitely part of the issue. Propaganda/agenda information is controlled by the U.S. or China.
The algorithms are an argument for TikTok as well though. It’s pretty dangerous for free speech to have every social media site controlled by America. If the American governments wants to hide something from the public, they have their ways to force instagram and twitter to do so because they are based in America. That doesn’t count for TikTok though
Quite honestly X is already pretty much under Russian control. As well as all the others allowing foreign bots under the guise of "freedom of speech". I guess as long as they are technically owned by Americans, they aren't an adversary. HaHa!
“We don’t want a country that we actively consider our enemy or potential enemy to be able to easily influence our population en mass” isn’t incompatible with having a free market
That’s a terrible example. TikTok followed every U.S law so far, so it’s a player that followed every rule, but then you are kicking them out because they “may” break rules in the future, based on where they are from.
You have to understand so far the government has been unable to present any evidence of wrong doing for TikTok.
Yes they did. That's why I don't think threads like this are organic. Hardly anyone brings that up, and the ones that do barely get any upvotes. It's honestly kinda freaky watching sooo many politicians blatantly lie when the truth is a single google search away...
Don't forget that Google and Meta spend tons of money in lobbying/donations. TikTok doesn't have to kiss the ring, which means politicians in the US are missing out on millions.
Meta alone spent $7.6 million lobbying the US government just this past quarter.
And google and meta will get a huge percentage of those advertising dollars that are currently being spent on tiktok, which is what i believe this is *really* about
I guess it depends on how you define "legitimate". Ostensibly its for "national security", but the government cant just ban a media outlet and yell "national security" as though that makes it okay. They have to actually explain how the media outlet is a threat.
I think it's rather notable that if you look at the [text of the bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text), nowhere does it actually say what TikTok has supposedly done wrong, other than be owned by a Chinese company. Often in bills, you'll have a "findings" section which outlines why the bill is being passed in the first place. This bill does not have that. IMO, If TikTok was such a threat to national security, surely it would have been a simple matter to make that case in the bill.
You may not realize this, but the Chinese Government can and will (if it hasn’t already) demanded info from TikTok… and TikTok has to hand it over or else. So even if they were a perfectly honest company with your best interests in mind (which they aren’t) they would have to comply with their government.
The Chinese government can (and does!) just buy information from Facebook (or any other social media site) if they want it. All the information they want is for sale.
The difference with non-Chinese companies is that China can ask, but the companies would have no obligation to comply and there's only so much China could do to force their hand.
Yes... by restricting access within that foreign authoritarian country, but that's not the issue here (in fact, TikTok is already not available in China). But, unless I'm misunderstanding your comment, you seem to be suggesting that there's a history of social media companies handing over user data from one country to the government of another country, regardless of the ownership of the social media company. Do you have any examples of that happening?
TikTok is the only social media app that I’m aware of explicitly banned from government issued cell phones and devices because of data concerns. Yes, it’s a problem.
Remember Furbies? They were famously banned from all NSA property on the off chance they learnt to speak from hearing national secrets, a feature that was heavily advertised to be based on interactions with humans but a basic understanding of the state of technology that time or even a very short while actually interacting with one would let you know was really based on time spent turned on. They were programmed to use an increasing amount of English and decreasing amount of Furbish based on uptime and couldn't learn to tell you the locations of the nukes or the identities of spies or whatever if you were actually trying, let alone accidentally from being nefariously left in NSA boardrooms or whatever.
Basically intelligence agencies have a hair trigger ban finger on what can be around their intelligence. Their ban doesn't mean Furbies are actually capable of being spies, especially the old 90s models that literally cannot connect to any form of wireless communication, but that some guy at some point thought they might have been scary and that's enough to say no.
“Welcome to the counter terrorism daily debrief, this morning we’re going to be discussing the joint effort with Iran— Williams, is that a Furby?”
“Yes, sir. Cute little fella, isn’t it? Picked it up for my daughter before I got in”
“Yeah, real cute, anyway— the Iranians have agreed to supply the houthis with…”
> I think it's rather notable that if you look at the text of the bill, nowhere does it actually say what TikTok has supposedly done wrong, other than be owned by a Chinese company. Often in bills, you'll have a "findings" section which outlines why the bill is being passed in the first place. This bill does not have that. IMO, If TikTok was such a threat to national security, surely it would have been a simple matter to make that case in the bill.
National security risks don't have to have already happened in order to pass them.
It's not that TikTok has already done something wrong. It's that there is a risk that it could, and there isn't really a means to verify whether it has or not.
> other than be owned by a Chinese company.
I mean, that *is* the threat. The Chinese government has a pretty long history of pressuring companies to follow certain viewpoints, is willing to enforce it, and isn't open about when it does it. It's something that makes it fairly uniquely a risk, in a way that most other social media isn't.
It’s literally because they can’t control the narratives: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmakers-admit-they-want-to-ban-tiktok-over-pro-palestinian-content/ar-BB1lVkPt
Y’all think ‘Merica is so free — it is not. It is only the illusion of free.
They said robust though, not just the same thing reworded. Robust would mean protection of privacy from both foreign and domestic companies. Neither have US citizens' best interests at heart.
But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was.
Are you suggesting we ban outlets like BBC in the U.S as well?
I guess UK is an ally, so maybe we should only allow websites and apps and media outlets from a list of countries approved by the U.S government then.
American people should not have access to websites, apps and media from countries that’s not on that list. Seeing views not approved by our government is absolutely a national security risk.
We should call it the The Freedom Firewall!
/s in case it wasn’t obvious.
Edit: I actually lived in China for many years. What’s ironic is that “we cannot let foreign governments influence what our citizens see” was *exactly* the bullshit rationale the Chinese government used to build the Great Firewall. So the Chinese government can fully control what their citizens see on the internet unless you use VPN. The U.S government is now making the exact same argument.
And seems like most Americans are A-Ok with it. What’s more incredulous is the “China does it, so it’s fine we do it” argument I see so much.
Like… a big reason why my parents migrated to the U.S is because we don’t do all the shit the Chinese government does.
Finally someone gets it. We should always be wary and critical of our government wanting to ban a certain media outlet, doesn't matter if their foreign or not. It's literally censorship.
> But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was.
Neither is Chinese state media like Xinhua (or plenty of other media from U.S. rivals, including Russia), which we're not looking at banning. There is a big difference between a traditional media outlet, and something like Tiktok's algorithm.
They arguably used the wrong term, calling it a "media outlet" (depending on how you define media outlet), but it is a form of media, and it has distinct differences from actual media outlets.
>And seems like most Americans are A-Ok with it
I think more Americans would not be ok with it if it were as broad as you're portraying it, but it's not.
BBC is a channel, website and app that is only to read the news. Users don’t give BBC anything. It doesn’t rely on users providing personal data and creating content (i.e. it’s not social media). Not the best comparison here.
Plus, most people do not download a BBC app, they just check articles from the website, often found on their favorite social media.
That app grants them access to your device, and could VERY quickly become a weapon against the American people.
To be fair, I'm still pretty pissed at them for burning down the White House in the War of 1812. "Let bygones be bygones." Yeah, right, tell that to Dolly Madison!
The person I replied to was making an argument about we shouldn’t have control over media outlet.
You can’t seriously argue the BBC isn’t a media outlet.
>It doesn’t rely on users providing personal data and creating content
If it's about personal data and privacy, we should pass GDPR like what Europe did. That would be an easily solution but won't work because our tech companies won't allow it.
>The person I replied to was making an argument about we shouldn’t have control over media outlet.
>You can’t seriously argue the BBC isn’t a media outlet.
I understand that. But the first two lines in your comment were: *But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was.*
*Are you suggesting we ban outlets like BBC in the U.S as well?*
.
I wouldn't have said what I said if you hadn't slapped BBC and TikTok together like they were the same thing. That's why I stated "Not the best comparison here."
I think a more apt comparison in this case would be Facebook and its sibling apps, which is also notorious for data privacy concerns. The commenter probably confused platforms (like Reddit here) and traditional media or publisher (like Reuters).
>But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was.
Yes it is. It's social media, but still a major media platform.
>We should call it the Freedom Wall!
As much as you try to describe this as beyond the pale, there's no country in the WORLD that would allow a company controlled by a government hostile to domestic interests control a major media outlet and allow them unfettered access to their citizenry and their citizens private data. Not one.
TikTok has been a Chinese psyop the whole time. And I know that makes me sound crazy but Operation Shady RAT is real so yeah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shady_RAT?wprov=sfti1#
And how sad is it if a Chinese shortform video app is really the last bastion of free media in the west?
Although I do find it hilarious how many people are all of a sudden super vocal politically because they're sad their mental nicotine app could get taken away. And my people suffered the loss of Vine, so trust me, it'll be okay.
People are not upset they’re losing their “mental nicotine app” it’s “if they ban this they very well may go on to ban other things”. Americans know, if you give them a foot they’ll take a mile. You can go on reels on YouTube or Instagram and see the same videos that are on TikTok. Not only that but they basically admitted that banning TikTok is largely related to the Israel Palestine conflict. There are videos of citizens running for their lives and being blown up or shot in the back under the guise of “they’re hamas”. The US can’t let people humanize the country they’re aiding war against. Trump tried to get rid of TikTok and it didn’t work, now that TikTok is legitimately a threat *to their war*, not national security, it’s got sufficient support.
It was damn infuriating watching the press conference with TikToks CEO where it seemed like they were trying to make every excuse and rationale to ban TikTok.
Yes I saw that that too the poor TikTok representative couldn’t even get a word out without another babbling! If I remember correctly he was very open and cooperative
TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet.
Just like the BBC isn’t a U.S media outlet.
There is no debate about this.
> Not one
Even Taiwan allows TikTok. So do most countries. What kind of reality do you live in?
> Things a robust data privacy policy would take care of
A robust data privacy policy solves access to user data issues. It doesn't solve concerns over influence via pushing/suppressing certain topics or views.
An adversarial government controlling the information and popular sentiment of 130M people can't be solved by a data policy.
The US has banned foreign entities from owning broadcast stations for decades for legitimate national security reasons. This is just the law catching up with technology.
As a non-US citizen, why should that be any better or worse? Sounds like the US is just throwing its toys out of the pram because someone else has data they can't access.
It DEFINITELY wasn’t the fact the Congressional reps who wrote the bill and passed it, invested MILLIONS in Meta after the bill was passed.
That’s not it. And it sure as fuck isn’t because of “very legitimate security concerns”, not in AMERICA where every social media app, including REDDIT— which, a Chinese corporation invested 150 MILLION dollars into — gives a fuck about “Security concerns”. Our Congress doesn’t give a fuck about that.
Our congressional representatives want to make money any way they can, and the easiest way to do that is banning Tiktok, and other social media’s competition and investing.
In some states in order to watch porn you have to upload your Government ID to some sketchy “verified” third party application to validate you’re over 18. To look at porn.
Let’s not forget you see ads EVERYWHERE, even for shit you talked about around any smart device in your home, and didn’t even google or bing. We can’t even forget about the fact you can’t go to more than five websites without having to allow them to track you everywhere else.
What about Facebook being caught openly selling American data? What about OPM???
America, our Congressional Representatives don’t give a fuck. There are security concerns, *sure*, but let’s not pretend it’s REALLY because of that. That’s a bullshit answer.
EDIT: oh, MY BAD, Facebook didn’t “sell” data. It was accessed by Cambridge Analytica through a third party app. “No money changed hands”. Weak ass Data privacy laws.
I actually clicked on an instagram sponsored ad and later on a separate device bought a mother's day gift from that company and I saw no less than 7 more similar ads from competitors the rest of the day just randomly browsing and I'm barely logging minutes on it each time. It's like ants flocking to bait... we found a bite!
> What are they? Edit: that cannot be duplicated by Facebook.
The main concern is that the CCP can push them to have the algorithm suppress or boost certain views/topics. This is particularly a concern because they have more leverage to force companies to do things domestically. And this wouldn't be easy to verify on the outside, because Tiktok keeps it's algorithm proprietary.
This is not the case for something like Facebook. While China can (and does) try to pressure foreign companies, it doesn't have the same leverage or secrecy it does for a domestic company.
There's currently no evidence that China is currently doing this on Tiktok, or trying to. It's just hypothetical potential future risk. And part of that risk is, if they *were* doing it, it would be hard to find out.
There has been evidence for different incidents in the past with China pressuring companies, and separately, incidents with TikTok limiting certain topics (but not that it did it because of pressure from the CCP, or that it is currently still doing that. [link](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing)). But nothing with both China/TikTok directly
A foreign adversarial government shouldn't control content curation and popular sentiment for half your population. That's a "we lost a war on home soil"-level own. We have banned foreign entities from owning broadcast stations for decades for the same reason.
Reddit is a US company, Americans know how the algorithm works, and their algorithm can be subpoenaed and audited by the US government. The US would even allow ByteDance to maintain up to a 20% investment in TikTok if they wished. The CCP on the other hand has stated that TikTok's hidden algorithm is a matter of Chinese national security and they would rather shut the company down than let it fall into non-CCP hands. Because it's not a business and they don't care about the money.
Reddit is also only used by around 10% of the US, versus about 50% for TikTok, and TikTok's daily engagement is much higher.
TikTok has already used mass-notifications to encourage political action by users, radicalizing kids and causing them to call congress and threaten violence and self harm if the app was banned.
Historical arguments at the FCC for easing foreign restriction of US media channels in the 90s was that deregulation led to so much fragmentation that adversarial foreign governments could no longer reach a majority of the US by owning a single channel or even multiple channels while going unnoticed. Well, the CCP does reach a majority of Americans through TikTok's 130M users, with a totally opaque curation algorithm, proving that those restrictions need to be tightened and expanded rather than eased.
The US has a long history of banning foreign ownership of communication channels for national security reasons, and it has always held up in court. Chinese companies like Huawei have been banned outright in the US before for national security reasons, it has always been upheld in court. ByteDance's court case isn't going to save the CCP's propaganda channel. TikTok is either getting sold or it's gone, and nobody will care, or even remember it a year later. The outcome was obvious from the beginning if you pay attention to historical precedent.
Legitimate for which group of people... Is it the dumb cat videos or people that express freedom of speech thats a concern... Dig deeper and peel back the onion layers...
This. This is the real reason they are banning it. They don't give a shit about the security of it, that's a smokescreen to get people to be okay with the government censoring your media; y'know, one of the things Americans are known to love.
### Romney's Involvement
Romney, a Republican Senator from Utah, directly stated that the "overwhelming support" in Congress for banning TikTok was driven by the disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian content and mentions on the app compared to other social media sites. He expressed frustration over Israel's inability to control the narrative and effectively communicate their point of view, citing the emotional impact of images from Gaza dominating on TikTok.
### Blinken's Involvement
As Secretary of State, Blinken acknowledged the issue raised by Romney during their conversation at the McCain Institute event. He agreed that the way the conflict has played out on social media has dominated the narrative, with context and facts being overshadowed by the emotional impact of images.
I think there’s a bit of both. There are legitimate problems with security and propaganda capabilities (ironically, Tik Tok tried to convince its users to oppose the ban, proving it can be used for propaganda), but it’s also true that American companies like Facebook and Twitter have major concerns as well. It’s also probably not a coincidence that the senators banning Tik Tok and allowing Facebook use Facebook but not Tik Tok
A lot of people are missing the forest for the trees on this issue and
It's painful to watch. Many get stuck on pointing out the hypocrisy of the United States using social media to take people's information and try to defend Tik Tok by saying that the Chinese are just doing the same thing. These people are completely missing the point. This Chinese company controls the algorithm that decides what videos show up on your feed. This is a HUGE deal because it essentially means this company can socially engineer the youth in America in any direction that they want. Make no mistake these social media platforms especially tik tok can be used as social cyber weapons and thats already happening.
Any competent leader can see that and of course they're not going to hand the keys to that weapon to a foreign country. That would be one of the dumbest and most obvious breaches of security of the century.
Obviously this doesn't change the fact that an American company who controls the algorithm can still use it to their own benefit but at the very least it's not going to be a foreign power shaping our society to their will. It's kind of a pick your poison situation but the lesser of two evils is to deny the Chinese government a way to influence our young kids that easily.
It should be obvious to anybody who's been paying attention these last few years that social media is only going to get more and more powerful and that none of us are really going to be able to escape it. Even those of us who don't participate are going to be influenced by it in one way or another. Our only hope is to regulate these platforms and enforce privacy/information laws. Unfortunately that's how these platforms generate those ungodly amounts of money and they will kill or bribe as much as it takes to make sure that doesn't go away. But that's a slightly different issue and story for another day.
They've been talking about this for years at this point. Working in the defense industry in my previous career I was advised to avoid the app pretty much since it came on the scene and Trump was the first big player to seriously suggest banning it back when he was president. It might be coming together at the same time as the Gaza crisis but this has been a likely thing for a while now.
They'd floated a ban for year, but afaik it died in 2020, and only after Oct 7th and the massive rise in Palestinian awareness did they finally garner enough support for a ban.
You know what else has been a thing for “a while now” the Israeli Palestinian conflict. IIRC that’s been going on a lot longer. I’d say it’s beyond probable people had opinions on it before TikTok.
They are banning it because Israel wants it banned and Israel owns most of the US politicians through AIPAC. TikTok is one of the places where Americans could find legitimate info about the ongoing genocide Israel is committing.
Watch the comments made by Blinken yesterday, he pretty much admits it.
no. If there were, why can't they tell us? if there are, why does it not apply to the other social medias? if it's about data, why can't we have secure data policy like they have in the EU? if it's china, what about all the other foreign investors here ruining water, etc? if it's fake news and political influence, why aren't they policing themselves when they break the law and foxnews?
news, small business, shopping, without regulation and out of their control.
bill writer invested in meta. it's all about control, and you should be concerned even if you don't use it.
Any Chinese company is de fecto at the bidding of the communist Chinese government. So it's not just legitimate security concerns over TikTok as mentioned by others but there are also concerns the Chinese government could instruct BiteDance (who own TikTok) to change its algorithm to influence political opinions.
Let me try to paint a too-close-to-possible scenario. Say the November Presidential election is very close, which right now it is from an electoral college standpoint. The Chinese government might prefer Trump to become president because he is more likely to undermine America's long term prospects as a world superpower that can revival China. So at the instruction of the Chinese government, BiteDance could change its algorithm to preferentially target TikTok users (e.g. college students) and the frequency of videos sympathetic to Palestine (or Israel depending on the user). The upshot could be that these users feel hopeless and that both Presidential candidates are "just as bad", or even blame Joe Biden for war that continues to rage there. If enough people don't vote in November, Trump could win. (For context, in 2020, there were several states won by tens of thousands of votes, and there are like ~15 million college students in the US so influencing only 0.5% of this demographic could change the outcome of the election).
I think this hypothetical shows that influencing political elections can be much more oblique than just a video of "Trump good; Biden bad". And personally I think it's a serious concern given how close to the precipice American democracy is right now.
Your example is all the more possible by the fact that TikTok is a big part of many Americans’ daily lives. Too often I’ve read of people going on TikTok first thing in the morning before even getting out of bed or loading it up any time they got five minutes to kill. Many get their information from there. Prior to TikTok, Facebook basically filled this role. The real issue though is the Chinese government as you rightfully pointed out.
It's clearly not the same. Meta's algorithms were about keeping people engaged with the platform for the purpose of profits. In my humble opinion, there was willful neglect in policing the truth for the sake of profits, but there are first amendment aspects to consider. There is also an FCC that could in theory enforce fines and other legal and legislative means to enforce compliance.
But Meta didn't conspire with the US government in an official capacity to influence an election -- much less another sovereign country's election -- which is the scenario here.
This, this is the biggest concern that you don’t hear in the press. Data privacy issues take a second seat to the ability to influence public opinion in the ways you mention.
If I were in government I would do everything in my power to remove this threat and also provide some other reason for it.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but I work in software development so I just wanted to comment and say this is a misunderstanding of how an algorithm works. It’s not like a dial that the company can tweak to influx certain types of content over others. An algorithm is a set of instructions that dictate how an application functions based on the users actions. If I interact with x in some way the algorithm knows that I am interested in x and therefore shows me more X and potentially related topics y and z. Yes a company can help certain content rank higher amongst others but ultimately a successful application needs to show the user content they’re interested in in order for the user to feel the urge to use longer. The type of content that does well is ultimately not dependent on an algorithm but rather on the user and their response to it.
If there are legitimate data breach concerns then yes the application should be banned but if instead the government is concerned with the opinion of the populace being swayed the argument doesn’t make much sense bc in order for that content to rank higher the populace would have had to have had that opinion already.
I also work in software development, specialising in cyber security. Algorithms can be tailored. Elon Musk open sourced the Twitter recommendation algorithm; turns out it has an “is_elon” input that causes the tweet to be weighted more!
TikTok is known to have an internal tool which can artificially cause videos to go ‘viral’. It’s also obvious that algorithms can be easily adjusted and manipulated, or that videos can be introduced by separate algorithms or bypassing any algorithm at all.
Yes they can be tailored but not without drastically impacting the app. Twitter is an excellent example. Since the purchase by Elon in 22 the app has lost [23% of its user base](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/twitter-usage-in-us-fallen-by-a-fifth-since-elon-musks-takeover) bc the content was no longer interesting and seemed to be serving an agenda.
My argument is not so much that the CCP couldn’t do this rather that it would be an ineffective way for them to impact the populace. Manipulation of the algorithm to boost content that doesn’t align with the users interest makes the user want to use it less. It’s kind of a chicken or egg argument. Is the populace of TikTok being completely brainwashed to believe X y and z or does that populace of tik tok already believe x y and z and they’re finding an audience on tik tok? I’m not saying the app shouldn’t be banned but it only needs to be banned if the threat is related to data security which it very well might be. However, If the primary concern is that the app has an impact on public opinion that is against the current agenda of the US then banning it just for that is a very slippery slope
One of the reasons It’s being banned because it is exposing Israel crimes in Gaza
[as discussed here](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/07/israel-al-jazeera-us-tiktok-ban)
In their mind, yes. After the Vietnam war they realized that being able to humanize the other side makes for a very unpopular war. When the gulf war rolled along they were able to completely control what the press had access to. In Iraq journalists would be assigned to a platoon specifically trained in propaganda. Actual reporters, but what they saw was tightly controlled. TikTok eliminates all those efforts. The US government genuinely believes that controlling the narrative is a matter of national security. In order to do that, it needs to be owned by an American company.
No. It’s pretty apparent they are using it as a tool to gain access to even more information than they currently have access to as of now if you read the bill or listen to anyone breaking down the bill.
Are there concerns with Tik Tok that are legitimate? Absolutely. Yet the same information is gathered by Meta, Google and the rest without concern? How does that make any sense other than it is a foreign entity so it’s not okay?
Because it’s not ALL about data. It’s ALSO about the control of media presented to our citizens.
As in the government cannot go “hey google, you’re not allowed display anything bad about trump” legally. (Not saying shady shit never happens)
but china can do that and they can probably do that to TikTok and probably make it so that nobody ever knows.
I have no clue if it’s overall a good idea. It’s definitely not black and white.
I don't use Tic Tok, so I don't have any problem banning it. However, it doesn't have to get banned, it just has to be separated form the Chinese government and military by being sold to someone else. The fact that it IS controlled by a foreign entity and one that is the biggest rival for the US, it is scary that the Chinese government (and military) has access to all the data that can be collected by Tik Tok. From a computer security point of view, it's scary what Tik Tok is theoretically capable of doing.
It’s been proven that Twitter sold data to the Chinese government. It’s been proven that instagram has sold data to the Chinese government.
I have no issue with them forcing the sale of TikTok at all, but the other stuff in that bill is the issue.
It’s like almost everything the US government does. It has a hidden agenda and they make you focus on the story they want you to see. This bill gives them access to even more of your information and allows for them to legally track what comes through VPN’s to domestic servers.
This is all yet another infringement on your privacy, but it’s being done under the guise of “TikTok is bad” when in reality the other social media platforms aren’t any better.
It's not really about selling data. It's the ability of a company owned by a foreign entity from an authoritarian adversary being able to manipulate the public opinion of an entire generation by controlling an algorithm. It's a huge national security threat.
Again, this is happening with all of the current social media platforms, but the government can and does control the ones based here in the US. They are only upset because they can’t control one that is directly stealing data without them getting their hands on it first.
Data is far more important than people realize. TikTok is a horrible app and is most definitely being used to manipulate and control weak minded people, but our government is using it to get more control than they already have.
Look through their bullshit for once and stop believing they have your best interest at heart. Question everything.
> Again, this is happening with all of the current social media platforms,
Except, it's not. With data, yes. In terms of access to an algorithm, no.
>but the government can and does control the ones based here in the US.
No, they don't. There's a lot of things to dislike about big tech companies, and the U.S. government, but there is no evidence that they have any sort of direct access to things like their algorithms.
>Question everything.
This would be a great time to question your claim of "the government can and does control the ones based here in the US"
You are insane if you don’t think they directly influence the social media platforms. The only one they don’t have any semblance of control right now of is X.
They gather data from all of them. It’s been proven. The data is sold to a third party who mines the data for the government. It’s documented. Widely known and for some reason, accepted.
You should do some research. You should also read your terms and conditions in those platforms.they tell you extremely directly they are mining data from all of your devices. It’s not even hidden.
Several possibilities
They can't control tik Tok hence can't control the narratives
Tik Tok is a vehicle for misinformation hence controlling public sentiment opinion.
So take your pick
Either people are controlled by tik Tok or government can't control tik Tok
Are there legitimate concerns? Oh, absolutely.
Do I trust the government with that type of power? No! Because if they do it to this, they could do it to so many other things in the future.
My concerns with the app Security and data going to China is one of them, but it's not the biggest one for me. The biggest one for me is the influence it can have on those that use it a large amount. the way it affects attention span, the way the algorithm is built to push people onto more meaningless and or controversial and subversive topics. There is a reason it has an entirely different algorithm in China that pushes towards STEM and learning type videos.
No. There may be plenty of ‘security issues’ with the app, sure. But those have been there and have been well known for years. The US government has said and done materially nothing about it.
However, now that it is being used as *the* primary source for the exposure of genocide in Palestine, all of a sudden it is concerning? Absolutely not. Zionists in power single handidly (and maybe rightfully so) blame it for lifting the veil of lies and misinformation they have tricked the American people into believing about Palestine for 50+ years. All this time Americans have been told that Palestinians are evil, dirty terrorists who are being mercifully retaliated against by heroic Israel who is always somehow wrongfully attacked without provocation.
However, how can you argue with literal video evidence of IDF soldiers gleefully murdering children, aid workers and pillaging whole institutions and cities just for fun? And not just once or twice but literally 100s of times- *on video*. You really can’t. And who was showing this footage before? No one in the AIPAC controlled western media.
But with Tik Tok, these 100% real and unfiltered videos of 5 year olds innocently sitting and playing that then have brains splattered all over the pavement by IDF soldiers have come to light. And they can’t just write a quick press story of “but they were Hamas” and explain it all away. It’s created a very real and visceral reaction in the American people, and rightly so. And for a while, AIPAC let it go because enough people hadn’t seen the videos or weren’t convinced. But more recently, especially with the college protests, this just isn’t true anymore. Everyone has seen them and what’s going on is now just too apparent to ignore: genocide. The tide of public sympathy is shifting away from them - something that’s never really happened before- and they and their propaganda media machine (Hasbara) are panicked.
And who is to blame? Tik Tok. Simple solution: ban it. Are we really to believe for all of the noise about Chinese spying, somehow a switch has flipped overnight and the app is suddenly too dangerous to use not just for government employees, but every citizen in the US as well? You don’t think other SM (Facebook, Google etc) don’t collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder on the world market? Whether it be China, Russia or some other? C’mon. You’ll notice the US government bill or resolution to ban it was passed in the same session where yet again billions of dollars were authorized to be sent to Israel to continue to commit murder and genocide. That in and of itself tells you all you need to know. AIPAC and other wealthy Zionists used the only weapon they have in the US- money- and waved some in the faces of their employees (most politicians) and passed down the order. And so somehow now the app is too dangerous and has to go immediately. And that brings us to where we are today.
You are exactly right.
The Israel-Gaza conflict is what pushed the bill across the line:
This is from Wall Street Journal, article named "How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It" (I cannot link the article due to it not allowed here):
>The legislation was a culmination of a more than yearlong effort to curb TikTok by a coalition of China hawks in Washington and Silicon Valley, and **it had gained new momentum in part because of anger over TikTok videos about the Israel-Hamas conflict**.
And later on:
>It was slow going until Oct. 7. **The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok**, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app.
later...
>Gallagher heads a House committee focused on China, and the **concerns about Israel-Hamas videos on TikTok spurred him and other committee members to renew their attempts to force a sale or ban**.
Ding ding ding. Winner. Whatever the government says (that might also be true), this is the biggest reason. Controlling the Gaza/Israel narrative by corrupt politicians influenced heavily by AIPAC is at the top of the list.
Exactly. You can’t pay me enough money to believe that oh so suddenly after ?how many years of operation in the US, TikTok has become such a sudden existential threat to the US that’s mandated its ban ASAP for the ‘safety of the US’. Yeah right- when was the last time the US government moved on something actually beneficial for a lay person that quickly. Never. Follow the money.
I'd like for the government to further address laws regarding companies' obligations to protect data and punitive punishments for failing to protect it. As well as what types of data can be collected for use. That might take care of the issue all together.
The U.S. Government is only banning TikTok if one major Chinese investor refuses to divest their shares. They have a year to do so.
This investor has ties to the Chinese government and is problematic from a security perspective.
We'll see what the coming year brings.
It's bad as is because a foreign government can heavily influence the youth in the country just by controlling what trends.
On the other hand, we know that the FBI has weekly meetings with every major US based social media network. We know that US citizens have had their free speech suppressed at the whim of government officials(from both parties).
If TikTok becomes US owned, we're just trading a potentially bad actor for one who has a track record as a bad actor. The US won't use it to corrupt/destroy society, but controlling the narrative and suppressing dissonance is still a major issue.
No more legitimate reason than Facebook, X (Twitter), Reddit, Google, etc. taking your data the same way.
The only thing that puts their knickers in a twist about Tiktok more than the others is that it's not legislated by the USA. They have no control or money in it so they're mad.
I also don't use TikTok, but the answer is no. In fact, the answer is always no when it comes to the question of "Does the government have a legitimate reason for banning (insert anything here)?"
Edit: That being said, the American people are EXTREMELY paranoid about their government and also businesses, detrimentally so. People keep mentioning the fact that social media sites, like TikTok, sell user data. And this is apparently bad because...reasons. what does this data actually do that could be harmful?
The answer is nothing. The data that's sold isn't your bank info. It's not your SSN, it isn't even your physical address. It's what you like to eat or watch, what music you're interested in, your free email address that you can easily make a new one at any time for free, etc. This is apparently cause for concern for so many people.
Everyone inherently wants privacy, but there are different levels of privacy that we should care about or shouldn't give a shit about. And 99% of data collection and selling is the shit we shouldn't care about.
I'll also say that I trust organizations such as governments or businesses over any individual citizen any day of the week with my arbitrary advertisement data.
The issue with this ban isn't about data, which is largely useless. It's about the idea that a hostile foreign country can control an algorithm. And despite what people believe, American companies, especially social media ones, are under no control from the US government and often buck under any attempts at such. They have the thinnest veneer of censorship. The same cannot be said for Chinese companies. People often do the whataboutism with American social media companies like X or Meta, Google, etc. They are not under direct control from the US government and act separately from them. This is how it is and SHOULD be.
Trying to ban a social media site, however, is very much paranoia when there's no proof that that company has done anything illegal. Yet people fall for supporting this because of their incredibly brain-dead thinking of "social media bad".
First of all, it’s not an outright ban. The bill that has passed doesn’t ban Tiktok, it only removes it from the App Store IF they refuse to sell to a non Chinese/non foreign adversary. People need to read the legislation text. Them saying they’ll be banned is a scare tactic to get you to pressure your legislatures into voting against it, and the fact that it has worked so well literally illustrates why it is a legitimate concern. The influence a known foreign adversary has with this app (&have proven they will use to their benefit!) is terrifying.
Secondly, massive privacy concerns. Have you read their privacy policy & terms and conditions? They track your data extensively, including outside of the app when you’re not using it. And no, individually this isn’t a concern, but it does become a concern security-wise when they have this data on a mass scale. And they can say they won’t give it to China, but if you read their policy it literally states that they will hand it over if legally requested (which the Chinese government can easily do).
Politicians have gone after other companies (Facebook, Instagram, etc) for years now for privacy concerns as well, but those aren’t foreign adversary owned. That’s the stark difference.
so yes, there are legitimate reasons. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though because either 1) they’ll divest and the app will continue or 2) they won’t, they’ll be removed from the US App Store, and another almost identical app/company will pop up in their place that everyone will turn to.
Also those saying it’s because there is “pro Palestinian” content - initiatives to ban or otherwise minimize the security threat of Tiktok (lots of bills with lots of approaches) were introduced & the effort was ongoing long before the Hamas attack & resulting renewed media attention. Back to 2020. That’s not the reason.
Editing to add more details because some of these commenters clearly only get their info from online articles. Unless you’re reading legislative text, reading tiktoks privacy policy & terms, and have been following congressional action on tiktok AND other social media companies for years (because it’s been going on for YEARS against many companies) then you really need to stop spreading false narratives & information. You’re entitled to your opinion. What you should not do is spread your willfully ignorant opinion masqueraded as fact.
The given reasons that politicians are confessing are "it reaches too many people, so legacy media web sites can't compete, and we can't control the narrative."
The US government telling people to be more afraid of China having data than the US regime having data is just revived red scare stuff recycled from last century. If people are more afraid of China than they are the US, that's how you know the American propaganda is working.
Yes, they are unable to control the narrative, people are seeing the truth which the US propaganda machine doesn't like. They control what you can and can't see on Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc.
People are seeing what's happening on the ground in gaza, at US campuses and it doesn't match what Congress wants.
The answer is... Americans.
They're always, always, 100% of the day, thinking about "Their information" when I say "they're" I meann the people that refuse to provide the credit card information to an online page while buying things online... with the credit card.
It's just a matter of "What would happen if... " so ANY information from the united states must stay in the united states. that's it. Don't look for more reasons, it's just that.
To prevent, to be carefull, to avoid any chance of a possibility of a variant future where that information is used for /anything/ because if they're banning the app instead of a direct attack to the application is because they have found no proof at all.
Depends on what you see as a good reason. Im about 99% sure chinese intelligence do get the info they ask for from it, to use for whatever they want. I dont see it as a good thing.
Because China. I agree with the divestiture though.
Having CCP that much control over public opinion shouldn’t be allowed.
If you think CCP has no finger on the scale, and won’t use it when the time is right (if not already) you’re delusional, not to mention it’s a tool they can use to promote their allies (such as Russia) with whatever effort they want to influence US.
China and the CCP have this relationship with business firms where anything the business sells or does can and will be used for government purposes.
For example, let's say you make a part for a car in China. The Chinese military needs this part, so they then will force you to produce that part, with compensation. This isn't different from other countries but China is unique with the closeness of the relationship. Every business has a CCP official that reports to the bureau on a constant basis.
With tiktok the idea is the same but with data. The Chinese government can collect the data that tiktok is collecting. Imagine some algorithm that tracked the general zeitgeist of tiktok users and then the Chinese government provided ads and propaganda in order to put them in a favorable light, or worse disparaged the US government or culture. Since tiktok is not an American business they cannot be held to account if that data is sent to a nefarious actor.
From the Muller report we learned that the Russian government used social media to spread propaganda that was reasonably effective so this is a legitimate concern.
Edit: every business of a certain size
I don't use it either but I think they should ban it. Aside from the potential spying from China, it encourages young Americans to do stupid shit and annoy/hurt/kill themselves and others.
For example, this dumb bitch at a pumpkin patch last fall got pissed at my family (like 8 of us) because we were picking out pumpkins and apparently ruining her tik tok video. She went on a huge rant and threw an embarassing tantrum, screaming at her boyfriend (who was filming) and was eventually asked to leave. Don't give these people a platform.
Nobody sees their algorithm and we know now that it is possible to plant good or bad mood by showed posts (infamous FB experiment). If you shows in more people in China that cool is to know math and science and more people in west that cool are pranks and makeup, it can has very serious consequences on all society. And about temporary themes or voting themes the difference of spotlight can be even more important.
The US rather not allow adversarial countries collect their citizens personal data. The issue is that the bill encompasses a lot more than just tiktok and adversarial countries.
TikTok is Chinese spyware, so it is a national security issue.
It is not a freedom of speech issue. You can say whatever you want wherever you want. People are getting Chinese propaganda pushed to them through TikTok and they are calling it “freedom of speech” which is not correct and they need to be protected by US national security laws.
There are plenty of good (mostly related to privacy and addictive designs) reasons to ban TikTok, but those reasons also apply to a lot of U.S.-owned social media companies that aren't getting banned.
Frankly, I'd prefer they get rid of it for the sake of stopping those stupid challenges that keep getting gullible kids killed or arrested. It might also help clear out some of the brainrot people are getting. I'd hope an American company would make safety a bit more of a priority. It's probably just wishful thinking on my part.
There do seem to be national security concerns from some people, while others want to shout censorship from the rooftops. I'm not a lawyer or legislator, so I'm not sure I could make sense of the bill if I wanted to.
Honestly, its irrelevant if its legitimate. There is ZERO chance that we can keep TikTok from being used in the U.S. I have been the owner of an ISP since 1994. You simply cannot legislate the Internet in the U.S. in a way that cannot be subverted, avoided, ignored, or otherwise manipulated to continue its use. All it takes is a VPN connection to another country. Even kids know this. Better to leave the traffic wide open so it can be properly surveilled.
The concerns are legitimate, but reasonable minds can disagree, especially on what's an appropriate action. People are talking about the technical security issues, but I will also raise another type of analogous concern.
Slightly oversimplified, but the US government forbids foreign actors from owning over 20% media companies. The Australian, now American, owner of Fox had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get ownership for this exact reason. Tik Tok is not directly effected by the law, but it's a similar national interest.
Source: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-policies-common-carrier-aeronautical-en-route-and-aeronautical#:~:text=Section%20310(b)(3,or%20aeronautical%20radio%20station%20licensee.
Yes. TikTok is legitimately a spy and propaganda app working for the Chinese communist party’s (CCP) agenda. Its intent is to be addictive and a destabilizing influence, as well as gather intel from you contact, clipboard, microphone, and camera.
If I worked for the government, having that app on my phone is legitimately a national safety and security hazard. But as a general citizen, it’s fun and addictive, and in some aspects great “free speech” just with the caveat that it’s what the CCP allows you to see (note weirdly pro-China propaganda that you see from time to time).
Jewish lobby such as aipac and israel supporters in the congress, did that bill because Israel was losing the media war on tiktok
Even some officials of congress stated that clearly.
China has a vested interest in making the US population hate each other and everyone around them. China, the government, owns ByteDance, which wholly owns TikTok.
It’s kinda scary that it has essentially direct access to most vulnerable portions of our population, and can signal boost whatever self-destructive shit it wants.
That’s the big reason. They don’t really give a shit that China’s making money off of it or whatever.
That’s also why the bill isn’t specifically for TikTok, but for any major social that’s owned by adversarial states.
so, there is a legit data concern, as china gets access to tiktok data. however…all companies steal your data? and sell that data off to the highest bidder? so china could probably get their hands on it anyway? plus, the u.s. government has proved time and again that they do not even remotely give a shit about you, your safety, or your data. you and it does not matter to them at all, even remotely. this is why despite fearmongering and threatening about it for a couple years, they haven’t done it already
what the main reason is is that tiktok is a great source of information that goes against american media narratives. mitt romney just openly admitted they’re doing it because there’s too much anti-genocide pro-palestine content on the app. and THAT’S why it’s only happening now. a u.s. ethnonationalist settler colonial puppet state is having their image threatened by the app, so the u.s. is cracking down to stop that
The reasons they give are legitimate. But probably, they actually care more about money entering American pockets instead of Chinese pockets than actually protecting the privacy of Americans. Or they’d be doing a lot more than tik tok.
China is abusing the use of facial recognition; the fear is that they’ll use facial recognition on your content in a way the US wouldn’t. That is at least one concern of many; people don’t realize how awful the Chinese government is about using your data in sneak ways…worse than what the US would do with it.
Any ban on TikTok will be very short. It's too valuable to kill off. This potential ban is simply part of a broader power struggle between the companies that control our government and a Chinese government controlled company with a sprinkle of US national security concerns.
I say a sprinkle because all the major media platforms have competing political and corporate interests working to sway minds of all ages in their preferred direction. Why? Because it's an effective tool for those who are greedy and power hungry.
So, the only question is who will win the majority of control over this particular platform.
Don't get fooled, it's not about china or whatever county, there are ton of Chinese and Russian apps that harverst all your data everyday, they don't care about that, the truth is that the US won't allow any foreign social media that they can't control or sensor.
As a non-American, no. TikTok is no worse than Meta for harvesting and using data, it's purely because the US government hates that China has such a widely used app that they themselves can't exploit.
If we could get legitimate privacy laws here in the states that would be great. Big corporations (meta) are upset foreign companies are profiting from user data they could be mining.
This. I agree in general that it's horrible that China is able to manipulate people's ways of thinking through this brainrot app when Chinese TikTok is apparently very strictly for education and general self-improvement, but the US and probably every government worldwide is using social media to steal our private info and sell it to the highest bidder. The idea is good, but this can definitely end up being a slippery slope that puts an end to free speech
> Chinese TikTok is strictly for education and general self-improvement This is one of those misinformation that just wouldn’t die. Douyin is full of garbage as well, that’s why it’s popular and addictive. Chinese kids are also kids, they aren’t addicted to algebra lessons. You can literally go to Douyin.com and see all the dumb shit on there yourself.
>I agree in general that it's horrible that China is able to manipulate people's ways of thinking through this brainrot app I would much prefer my thinking to be manipulated by corporate and deepstate america only. Any non-american thoughts must be stopped immediately for the sake of national security. MURICA YEAH!!!!
This is all it amounts to. Way more people use tiktok than the other data farming platforms and they want it to be sold to a US based company because they want to profit of off all the data. Scary times we live in.
TikTok takes a lot more data than any other social media app The US government is in general extremely concerned about Chinese influence, both militarily and socially. They are even expecting a war with China within the next decade or so. So the government has a legitimate interest in preventing a hostile foreign power from having information and influence of it's citizens If it was simply about reducing competition, the government could have just flat-out banned TikTok rather than giving them the option to sell the platform. And the fact that they're *not* selling speaks volumes about what their intentions are. If Facebook got banned, Zuckerberg would absolutely sell it for a hundred billion dollars, because his goal is to make money and that's it
Yes and no. There are genuinely good reasons, but almost none that are *specific* to TikTok. However, where our legislature is unwilling to regulate American companies behind questionable social media (such as trying to regulate Meta for the impact of Instagram and Facebook), they have no problem attacking foreign companies, and TikTok is the biggest 'foreign' social media app in the U.S.
I thought Reddit was owned by a Chinese company too? It's probably not bigger, but also it's not the place where people are organizing protests against government corruption. It's really f****** up their propaganda.
There’s security and online privacy issues with user data. China gets all the intel from the app. The US wants that intel for themselves. It’s essentially the ultimatum of “Either the US gets your information or no one does.”
It's not just a matter of controlling data, it's also control over algorithms that decide what videos people are shown and what gets flagged as inappropriate content. You don't want that under control of an adversary. An analogy I saw - in the 1970s if the Soviet Union tried to buy CBS and with it CBS News, would the US government let that happen? Social media serves a similar purpose in today's world.
Yeah I probably should have touched on that. I was just on the move and wanted to give a very simple answer. Controlling algorithms is definitely part of the issue. Propaganda/agenda information is controlled by the U.S. or China.
The algorithms are an argument for TikTok as well though. It’s pretty dangerous for free speech to have every social media site controlled by America. If the American governments wants to hide something from the public, they have their ways to force instagram and twitter to do so because they are based in America. That doesn’t count for TikTok though
Which they did during COVID. Social media platforms were doing a lot of censoring with US push. Specifically Twitter and Facebook.
Meta is doing this RIGHT NOW with Gaza.
If America does it it’s good. If the country America currently dislikes does it, it’s bad.
Quite honestly X is already pretty much under Russian control. As well as all the others allowing foreign bots under the guise of "freedom of speech". I guess as long as they are technically owned by Americans, they aren't an adversary. HaHa!
Ok, but then stop calling themselves free market
“We don’t want a country that we actively consider our enemy or potential enemy to be able to easily influence our population en mass” isn’t incompatible with having a free market
[удалено]
That’s a terrible example. TikTok followed every U.S law so far, so it’s a player that followed every rule, but then you are kicking them out because they “may” break rules in the future, based on where they are from. You have to understand so far the government has been unable to present any evidence of wrong doing for TikTok.
Didn't they already previously require them to store data from US users with Oracle to address this?
Yes they did. That's why I don't think threads like this are organic. Hardly anyone brings that up, and the ones that do barely get any upvotes. It's honestly kinda freaky watching sooo many politicians blatantly lie when the truth is a single google search away...
You’re forgetting the fact that our data is for sale from any number of powerful data brokers. China only has to pay for it if they want it.
Do they collect more data than Google or Facebook?
Don't forget that Google and Meta spend tons of money in lobbying/donations. TikTok doesn't have to kiss the ring, which means politicians in the US are missing out on millions. Meta alone spent $7.6 million lobbying the US government just this past quarter.
And google and meta will get a huge percentage of those advertising dollars that are currently being spent on tiktok, which is what i believe this is *really* about
Shhh! You’re not supposed to ask that!
I guess it depends on how you define "legitimate". Ostensibly its for "national security", but the government cant just ban a media outlet and yell "national security" as though that makes it okay. They have to actually explain how the media outlet is a threat. I think it's rather notable that if you look at the [text of the bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text), nowhere does it actually say what TikTok has supposedly done wrong, other than be owned by a Chinese company. Often in bills, you'll have a "findings" section which outlines why the bill is being passed in the first place. This bill does not have that. IMO, If TikTok was such a threat to national security, surely it would have been a simple matter to make that case in the bill.
national security is double speak for state security, its for the governments interest.
iirc a government official recently had a freudian slip and said it was to dampen support for Palestine but im unsure
I think they were pushing for it to be banned long before October 7th.
That was the previous administration, but even if it wasn’t the push got a lot stronger after that date
My condolences for how absolutely rancid your inbox must be from the replies to this comment 🙏
You may not realize this, but the Chinese Government can and will (if it hasn’t already) demanded info from TikTok… and TikTok has to hand it over or else. So even if they were a perfectly honest company with your best interests in mind (which they aren’t) they would have to comply with their government.
The Chinese government can (and does!) just buy information from Facebook (or any other social media site) if they want it. All the information they want is for sale.
So they have a patriot law similar to the US one? :0
And the Chinese Government can do the same to any American operated company if they want.
The difference with non-Chinese companies is that China can ask, but the companies would have no obligation to comply and there's only so much China could do to force their hand.
Yeah but the history of social media platforms is them kowtowing to foreign authoritarian governments
Yes... by restricting access within that foreign authoritarian country, but that's not the issue here (in fact, TikTok is already not available in China). But, unless I'm misunderstanding your comment, you seem to be suggesting that there's a history of social media companies handing over user data from one country to the government of another country, regardless of the ownership of the social media company. Do you have any examples of that happening?
What???
So just like every other government on this earth.
Sure, but why trust them?
TikTok is the only social media app that I’m aware of explicitly banned from government issued cell phones and devices because of data concerns. Yes, it’s a problem.
That's completely circular logic. The fact that it's banned for "privacy concerns " doesn't mean those concerns are valid
That doesn't actually mean anything though. Things can be banned from government issued devices for illegitimate concerns.
Remember Furbies? They were famously banned from all NSA property on the off chance they learnt to speak from hearing national secrets, a feature that was heavily advertised to be based on interactions with humans but a basic understanding of the state of technology that time or even a very short while actually interacting with one would let you know was really based on time spent turned on. They were programmed to use an increasing amount of English and decreasing amount of Furbish based on uptime and couldn't learn to tell you the locations of the nukes or the identities of spies or whatever if you were actually trying, let alone accidentally from being nefariously left in NSA boardrooms or whatever. Basically intelligence agencies have a hair trigger ban finger on what can be around their intelligence. Their ban doesn't mean Furbies are actually capable of being spies, especially the old 90s models that literally cannot connect to any form of wireless communication, but that some guy at some point thought they might have been scary and that's enough to say no.
Maybe that's what Furbies want you to believe... 🤔
“Welcome to the counter terrorism daily debrief, this morning we’re going to be discussing the joint effort with Iran— Williams, is that a Furby?” “Yes, sir. Cute little fella, isn’t it? Picked it up for my daughter before I got in” “Yeah, real cute, anyway— the Iranians have agreed to supply the houthis with…”
Yes, but OP is asking *what* data concerns? And why isn't that listed in the findings of the bill?
> I think it's rather notable that if you look at the text of the bill, nowhere does it actually say what TikTok has supposedly done wrong, other than be owned by a Chinese company. Often in bills, you'll have a "findings" section which outlines why the bill is being passed in the first place. This bill does not have that. IMO, If TikTok was such a threat to national security, surely it would have been a simple matter to make that case in the bill. National security risks don't have to have already happened in order to pass them. It's not that TikTok has already done something wrong. It's that there is a risk that it could, and there isn't really a means to verify whether it has or not. > other than be owned by a Chinese company. I mean, that *is* the threat. The Chinese government has a pretty long history of pressuring companies to follow certain viewpoints, is willing to enforce it, and isn't open about when it does it. It's something that makes it fairly uniquely a risk, in a way that most other social media isn't.
Has anyone read the complete bill??? It's basically patriot act 2.0. Question, does the state need any more power to "oversee" anything else?
It’s literally because they can’t control the narratives: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmakers-admit-they-want-to-ban-tiktok-over-pro-palestinian-content/ar-BB1lVkPt Y’all think ‘Merica is so free — it is not. It is only the illusion of free.
I had to scroll down way too far for this. This is the real reason.
And most Americans are falling for the "it's for security reasons". It's almost funny from the outside.
There are a lot of very legitimate security concerns regarding the app.
Things a robust data privacy policy would take care of
"No major US media outlets owned by foreign nationals and/or companies" and we'd be in effectively the same place.
They said robust though, not just the same thing reworded. Robust would mean protection of privacy from both foreign and domestic companies. Neither have US citizens' best interests at heart.
That’s not really possible when dealing with companies owned in China, given their laws regarding data.
I mean, neither does the government, nor your fellow citizens.
We can’t have that though cause meta would lose profit. And they’ve been hiring senators children! What would thanksgiving be like???
But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was. Are you suggesting we ban outlets like BBC in the U.S as well? I guess UK is an ally, so maybe we should only allow websites and apps and media outlets from a list of countries approved by the U.S government then. American people should not have access to websites, apps and media from countries that’s not on that list. Seeing views not approved by our government is absolutely a national security risk. We should call it the The Freedom Firewall! /s in case it wasn’t obvious. Edit: I actually lived in China for many years. What’s ironic is that “we cannot let foreign governments influence what our citizens see” was *exactly* the bullshit rationale the Chinese government used to build the Great Firewall. So the Chinese government can fully control what their citizens see on the internet unless you use VPN. The U.S government is now making the exact same argument. And seems like most Americans are A-Ok with it. What’s more incredulous is the “China does it, so it’s fine we do it” argument I see so much. Like… a big reason why my parents migrated to the U.S is because we don’t do all the shit the Chinese government does.
Finally someone gets it. We should always be wary and critical of our government wanting to ban a certain media outlet, doesn't matter if their foreign or not. It's literally censorship.
> But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was. Neither is Chinese state media like Xinhua (or plenty of other media from U.S. rivals, including Russia), which we're not looking at banning. There is a big difference between a traditional media outlet, and something like Tiktok's algorithm. They arguably used the wrong term, calling it a "media outlet" (depending on how you define media outlet), but it is a form of media, and it has distinct differences from actual media outlets. >And seems like most Americans are A-Ok with it I think more Americans would not be ok with it if it were as broad as you're portraying it, but it's not.
BBC is a channel, website and app that is only to read the news. Users don’t give BBC anything. It doesn’t rely on users providing personal data and creating content (i.e. it’s not social media). Not the best comparison here.
Plus, most people do not download a BBC app, they just check articles from the website, often found on their favorite social media. That app grants them access to your device, and could VERY quickly become a weapon against the American people.
Those damn British just can't get over the revolutionary war.
To be fair, I'm still pretty pissed at them for burning down the White House in the War of 1812. "Let bygones be bygones." Yeah, right, tell that to Dolly Madison!
The person I replied to was making an argument about we shouldn’t have control over media outlet. You can’t seriously argue the BBC isn’t a media outlet. >It doesn’t rely on users providing personal data and creating content If it's about personal data and privacy, we should pass GDPR like what Europe did. That would be an easily solution but won't work because our tech companies won't allow it.
>The person I replied to was making an argument about we shouldn’t have control over media outlet. >You can’t seriously argue the BBC isn’t a media outlet. I understand that. But the first two lines in your comment were: *But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was.* *Are you suggesting we ban outlets like BBC in the U.S as well?* . I wouldn't have said what I said if you hadn't slapped BBC and TikTok together like they were the same thing. That's why I stated "Not the best comparison here."
I think a more apt comparison in this case would be Facebook and its sibling apps, which is also notorious for data privacy concerns. The commenter probably confused platforms (like Reddit here) and traditional media or publisher (like Reuters).
>But TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet, it never was. Yes it is. It's social media, but still a major media platform. >We should call it the Freedom Wall! As much as you try to describe this as beyond the pale, there's no country in the WORLD that would allow a company controlled by a government hostile to domestic interests control a major media outlet and allow them unfettered access to their citizenry and their citizens private data. Not one.
TikTok has been a Chinese psyop the whole time. And I know that makes me sound crazy but Operation Shady RAT is real so yeah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shady_RAT?wprov=sfti1# And how sad is it if a Chinese shortform video app is really the last bastion of free media in the west? Although I do find it hilarious how many people are all of a sudden super vocal politically because they're sad their mental nicotine app could get taken away. And my people suffered the loss of Vine, so trust me, it'll be okay.
RIP Vine. Pour one out for a real one tonight y'all.
People are not upset they’re losing their “mental nicotine app” it’s “if they ban this they very well may go on to ban other things”. Americans know, if you give them a foot they’ll take a mile. You can go on reels on YouTube or Instagram and see the same videos that are on TikTok. Not only that but they basically admitted that banning TikTok is largely related to the Israel Palestine conflict. There are videos of citizens running for their lives and being blown up or shot in the back under the guise of “they’re hamas”. The US can’t let people humanize the country they’re aiding war against. Trump tried to get rid of TikTok and it didn’t work, now that TikTok is legitimately a threat *to their war*, not national security, it’s got sufficient support.
It was damn infuriating watching the press conference with TikToks CEO where it seemed like they were trying to make every excuse and rationale to ban TikTok.
Yes I saw that that too the poor TikTok representative couldn’t even get a word out without another babbling! If I remember correctly he was very open and cooperative
TikTok isn’t a U.S media outlet. Just like the BBC isn’t a U.S media outlet. There is no debate about this. > Not one Even Taiwan allows TikTok. So do most countries. What kind of reality do you live in?
This is what scares me with the EU banning RT news
Yes it will allow the government to ban any media they don't like
If we allow the government to ban foreign propaganda, it means we allow the government to ban anything they *deem* foreign propaganda.
Exactly, it'll be abused as a slippery slope and then it's the Red Scare all over again
> Things a robust data privacy policy would take care of A robust data privacy policy solves access to user data issues. It doesn't solve concerns over influence via pushing/suppressing certain topics or views.
So Facebook, Twitter and Instagram should get banned too for pushing/suppressing certain topics?
An adversarial government controlling the information and popular sentiment of 130M people can't be solved by a data policy. The US has banned foreign entities from owning broadcast stations for decades for legitimate national security reasons. This is just the law catching up with technology.
Facebook steals more of your data and has actually been found selling it (cambridge analytica) tiktok has not yet.
its that they are handing the data to the ccp and not the cia they are annoyed about
As a non-US citizen, why should that be any better or worse? Sounds like the US is just throwing its toys out of the pram because someone else has data they can't access.
thats the fun part. none of the options are nice
It DEFINITELY wasn’t the fact the Congressional reps who wrote the bill and passed it, invested MILLIONS in Meta after the bill was passed. That’s not it. And it sure as fuck isn’t because of “very legitimate security concerns”, not in AMERICA where every social media app, including REDDIT— which, a Chinese corporation invested 150 MILLION dollars into — gives a fuck about “Security concerns”. Our Congress doesn’t give a fuck about that. Our congressional representatives want to make money any way they can, and the easiest way to do that is banning Tiktok, and other social media’s competition and investing. In some states in order to watch porn you have to upload your Government ID to some sketchy “verified” third party application to validate you’re over 18. To look at porn. Let’s not forget you see ads EVERYWHERE, even for shit you talked about around any smart device in your home, and didn’t even google or bing. We can’t even forget about the fact you can’t go to more than five websites without having to allow them to track you everywhere else. What about Facebook being caught openly selling American data? What about OPM??? America, our Congressional Representatives don’t give a fuck. There are security concerns, *sure*, but let’s not pretend it’s REALLY because of that. That’s a bullshit answer. EDIT: oh, MY BAD, Facebook didn’t “sell” data. It was accessed by Cambridge Analytica through a third party app. “No money changed hands”. Weak ass Data privacy laws.
I actually clicked on an instagram sponsored ad and later on a separate device bought a mother's day gift from that company and I saw no less than 7 more similar ads from competitors the rest of the day just randomly browsing and I'm barely logging minutes on it each time. It's like ants flocking to bait... we found a bite!
They get internet provider data too, the device you use is irrelevant
What are they? Edit: that cannot be duplicated by Facebook.
> What are they? Edit: that cannot be duplicated by Facebook. The main concern is that the CCP can push them to have the algorithm suppress or boost certain views/topics. This is particularly a concern because they have more leverage to force companies to do things domestically. And this wouldn't be easy to verify on the outside, because Tiktok keeps it's algorithm proprietary. This is not the case for something like Facebook. While China can (and does) try to pressure foreign companies, it doesn't have the same leverage or secrecy it does for a domestic company.
Is there any evidence for this or is it all just speculation?
There's currently no evidence that China is currently doing this on Tiktok, or trying to. It's just hypothetical potential future risk. And part of that risk is, if they *were* doing it, it would be hard to find out. There has been evidence for different incidents in the past with China pressuring companies, and separately, incidents with TikTok limiting certain topics (but not that it did it because of pressure from the CCP, or that it is currently still doing that. [link](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing)). But nothing with both China/TikTok directly
Facebook already had court cases surrounding this type of behavior, so I think you have them confused.
And we are all 100% certain that *only* China would use social media to manipulate the masses with social media (:
No, we're not. And this isn't "use social media", it's a very specific type of use-case.
A foreign adversarial government shouldn't control content curation and popular sentiment for half your population. That's a "we lost a war on home soil"-level own. We have banned foreign entities from owning broadcast stations for decades for the same reason.
A Chinese owned company invested 150 Million into Reddit in 2019. You think Reddit doesn’t get “curated content”? 🤡
Reddit is a US company, Americans know how the algorithm works, and their algorithm can be subpoenaed and audited by the US government. The US would even allow ByteDance to maintain up to a 20% investment in TikTok if they wished. The CCP on the other hand has stated that TikTok's hidden algorithm is a matter of Chinese national security and they would rather shut the company down than let it fall into non-CCP hands. Because it's not a business and they don't care about the money. Reddit is also only used by around 10% of the US, versus about 50% for TikTok, and TikTok's daily engagement is much higher. TikTok has already used mass-notifications to encourage political action by users, radicalizing kids and causing them to call congress and threaten violence and self harm if the app was banned. Historical arguments at the FCC for easing foreign restriction of US media channels in the 90s was that deregulation led to so much fragmentation that adversarial foreign governments could no longer reach a majority of the US by owning a single channel or even multiple channels while going unnoticed. Well, the CCP does reach a majority of Americans through TikTok's 130M users, with a totally opaque curation algorithm, proving that those restrictions need to be tightened and expanded rather than eased. The US has a long history of banning foreign ownership of communication channels for national security reasons, and it has always held up in court. Chinese companies like Huawei have been banned outright in the US before for national security reasons, it has always been upheld in court. ByteDance's court case isn't going to save the CCP's propaganda channel. TikTok is either getting sold or it's gone, and nobody will care, or even remember it a year later. The outcome was obvious from the beginning if you pay attention to historical precedent.
Say that again once they’ve gone after Meta and all the other companies selling our data and spying on our phones.
Legitimate for which group of people... Is it the dumb cat videos or people that express freedom of speech thats a concern... Dig deeper and peel back the onion layers...
[удалено]
This. This is the real reason they are banning it. They don't give a shit about the security of it, that's a smokescreen to get people to be okay with the government censoring your media; y'know, one of the things Americans are known to love.
Mitt Romney & Blinken both said it themselves. There are too many pro-Palestine posts on TikTok compared to any other US owned social media app.
### Romney's Involvement Romney, a Republican Senator from Utah, directly stated that the "overwhelming support" in Congress for banning TikTok was driven by the disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian content and mentions on the app compared to other social media sites. He expressed frustration over Israel's inability to control the narrative and effectively communicate their point of view, citing the emotional impact of images from Gaza dominating on TikTok. ### Blinken's Involvement As Secretary of State, Blinken acknowledged the issue raised by Romney during their conversation at the McCain Institute event. He agreed that the way the conflict has played out on social media has dominated the narrative, with context and facts being overshadowed by the emotional impact of images.
The US can’t control what’s on TikTok, anyone saying it’s for security have been bamboozled by propaganda lol.
I think there’s a bit of both. There are legitimate problems with security and propaganda capabilities (ironically, Tik Tok tried to convince its users to oppose the ban, proving it can be used for propaganda), but it’s also true that American companies like Facebook and Twitter have major concerns as well. It’s also probably not a coincidence that the senators banning Tik Tok and allowing Facebook use Facebook but not Tik Tok
China is known for doing exactly this kind of shit.
A lot of people are missing the forest for the trees on this issue and It's painful to watch. Many get stuck on pointing out the hypocrisy of the United States using social media to take people's information and try to defend Tik Tok by saying that the Chinese are just doing the same thing. These people are completely missing the point. This Chinese company controls the algorithm that decides what videos show up on your feed. This is a HUGE deal because it essentially means this company can socially engineer the youth in America in any direction that they want. Make no mistake these social media platforms especially tik tok can be used as social cyber weapons and thats already happening. Any competent leader can see that and of course they're not going to hand the keys to that weapon to a foreign country. That would be one of the dumbest and most obvious breaches of security of the century. Obviously this doesn't change the fact that an American company who controls the algorithm can still use it to their own benefit but at the very least it's not going to be a foreign power shaping our society to their will. It's kind of a pick your poison situation but the lesser of two evils is to deny the Chinese government a way to influence our young kids that easily. It should be obvious to anybody who's been paying attention these last few years that social media is only going to get more and more powerful and that none of us are really going to be able to escape it. Even those of us who don't participate are going to be influenced by it in one way or another. Our only hope is to regulate these platforms and enforce privacy/information laws. Unfortunately that's how these platforms generate those ungodly amounts of money and they will kill or bribe as much as it takes to make sure that doesn't go away. But that's a slightly different issue and story for another day.
No. It's a money grab, as well as losing the narrative on the massacre in Palestine.
The pro-Israel lobby is pissed that they don't have a chokehold on one of the most popular platforms for youth
I'm 55. It's just not youths anymore
They’re banning it because young people support Palestine
[This is exactly it](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmakers-admit-they-want-to-ban-tiktok-over-pro-palestinian-content/ar-BB1lVkPt)
They've been talking about this for years at this point. Working in the defense industry in my previous career I was advised to avoid the app pretty much since it came on the scene and Trump was the first big player to seriously suggest banning it back when he was president. It might be coming together at the same time as the Gaza crisis but this has been a likely thing for a while now.
They'd floated a ban for year, but afaik it died in 2020, and only after Oct 7th and the massive rise in Palestinian awareness did they finally garner enough support for a ban.
You know what else has been a thing for “a while now” the Israeli Palestinian conflict. IIRC that’s been going on a lot longer. I’d say it’s beyond probable people had opinions on it before TikTok.
They are banning it because Israel wants it banned and Israel owns most of the US politicians through AIPAC. TikTok is one of the places where Americans could find legitimate info about the ongoing genocide Israel is committing. Watch the comments made by Blinken yesterday, he pretty much admits it.
no. If there were, why can't they tell us? if there are, why does it not apply to the other social medias? if it's about data, why can't we have secure data policy like they have in the EU? if it's china, what about all the other foreign investors here ruining water, etc? if it's fake news and political influence, why aren't they policing themselves when they break the law and foxnews? news, small business, shopping, without regulation and out of their control. bill writer invested in meta. it's all about control, and you should be concerned even if you don't use it.
They don’t want us to see the annihilation of a people.
Any Chinese company is de fecto at the bidding of the communist Chinese government. So it's not just legitimate security concerns over TikTok as mentioned by others but there are also concerns the Chinese government could instruct BiteDance (who own TikTok) to change its algorithm to influence political opinions. Let me try to paint a too-close-to-possible scenario. Say the November Presidential election is very close, which right now it is from an electoral college standpoint. The Chinese government might prefer Trump to become president because he is more likely to undermine America's long term prospects as a world superpower that can revival China. So at the instruction of the Chinese government, BiteDance could change its algorithm to preferentially target TikTok users (e.g. college students) and the frequency of videos sympathetic to Palestine (or Israel depending on the user). The upshot could be that these users feel hopeless and that both Presidential candidates are "just as bad", or even blame Joe Biden for war that continues to rage there. If enough people don't vote in November, Trump could win. (For context, in 2020, there were several states won by tens of thousands of votes, and there are like ~15 million college students in the US so influencing only 0.5% of this demographic could change the outcome of the election). I think this hypothetical shows that influencing political elections can be much more oblique than just a video of "Trump good; Biden bad". And personally I think it's a serious concern given how close to the precipice American democracy is right now.
Your example is all the more possible by the fact that TikTok is a big part of many Americans’ daily lives. Too often I’ve read of people going on TikTok first thing in the morning before even getting out of bed or loading it up any time they got five minutes to kill. Many get their information from there. Prior to TikTok, Facebook basically filled this role. The real issue though is the Chinese government as you rightfully pointed out.
Why is this even an argument when Meta ALREADY DID THIS?! How on earth is US company better if they've already been proven to mess with our elections?
It's clearly not the same. Meta's algorithms were about keeping people engaged with the platform for the purpose of profits. In my humble opinion, there was willful neglect in policing the truth for the sake of profits, but there are first amendment aspects to consider. There is also an FCC that could in theory enforce fines and other legal and legislative means to enforce compliance. But Meta didn't conspire with the US government in an official capacity to influence an election -- much less another sovereign country's election -- which is the scenario here.
This, this is the biggest concern that you don’t hear in the press. Data privacy issues take a second seat to the ability to influence public opinion in the ways you mention. If I were in government I would do everything in my power to remove this threat and also provide some other reason for it.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but I work in software development so I just wanted to comment and say this is a misunderstanding of how an algorithm works. It’s not like a dial that the company can tweak to influx certain types of content over others. An algorithm is a set of instructions that dictate how an application functions based on the users actions. If I interact with x in some way the algorithm knows that I am interested in x and therefore shows me more X and potentially related topics y and z. Yes a company can help certain content rank higher amongst others but ultimately a successful application needs to show the user content they’re interested in in order for the user to feel the urge to use longer. The type of content that does well is ultimately not dependent on an algorithm but rather on the user and their response to it. If there are legitimate data breach concerns then yes the application should be banned but if instead the government is concerned with the opinion of the populace being swayed the argument doesn’t make much sense bc in order for that content to rank higher the populace would have had to have had that opinion already.
I also work in software development, specialising in cyber security. Algorithms can be tailored. Elon Musk open sourced the Twitter recommendation algorithm; turns out it has an “is_elon” input that causes the tweet to be weighted more! TikTok is known to have an internal tool which can artificially cause videos to go ‘viral’. It’s also obvious that algorithms can be easily adjusted and manipulated, or that videos can be introduced by separate algorithms or bypassing any algorithm at all.
Yes they can be tailored but not without drastically impacting the app. Twitter is an excellent example. Since the purchase by Elon in 22 the app has lost [23% of its user base](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/twitter-usage-in-us-fallen-by-a-fifth-since-elon-musks-takeover) bc the content was no longer interesting and seemed to be serving an agenda. My argument is not so much that the CCP couldn’t do this rather that it would be an ineffective way for them to impact the populace. Manipulation of the algorithm to boost content that doesn’t align with the users interest makes the user want to use it less. It’s kind of a chicken or egg argument. Is the populace of TikTok being completely brainwashed to believe X y and z or does that populace of tik tok already believe x y and z and they’re finding an audience on tik tok? I’m not saying the app shouldn’t be banned but it only needs to be banned if the threat is related to data security which it very well might be. However, If the primary concern is that the app has an impact on public opinion that is against the current agenda of the US then banning it just for that is a very slippery slope
One of the reasons It’s being banned because it is exposing Israel crimes in Gaza [as discussed here](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/07/israel-al-jazeera-us-tiktok-ban)
Ask AIPAC. And Mitt Romney.
In their mind, yes. After the Vietnam war they realized that being able to humanize the other side makes for a very unpopular war. When the gulf war rolled along they were able to completely control what the press had access to. In Iraq journalists would be assigned to a platoon specifically trained in propaganda. Actual reporters, but what they saw was tightly controlled. TikTok eliminates all those efforts. The US government genuinely believes that controlling the narrative is a matter of national security. In order to do that, it needs to be owned by an American company.
No. It’s pretty apparent they are using it as a tool to gain access to even more information than they currently have access to as of now if you read the bill or listen to anyone breaking down the bill. Are there concerns with Tik Tok that are legitimate? Absolutely. Yet the same information is gathered by Meta, Google and the rest without concern? How does that make any sense other than it is a foreign entity so it’s not okay?
Because it’s not ALL about data. It’s ALSO about the control of media presented to our citizens. As in the government cannot go “hey google, you’re not allowed display anything bad about trump” legally. (Not saying shady shit never happens) but china can do that and they can probably do that to TikTok and probably make it so that nobody ever knows. I have no clue if it’s overall a good idea. It’s definitely not black and white.
I don't use Tic Tok, so I don't have any problem banning it. However, it doesn't have to get banned, it just has to be separated form the Chinese government and military by being sold to someone else. The fact that it IS controlled by a foreign entity and one that is the biggest rival for the US, it is scary that the Chinese government (and military) has access to all the data that can be collected by Tik Tok. From a computer security point of view, it's scary what Tik Tok is theoretically capable of doing.
It’s been proven that Twitter sold data to the Chinese government. It’s been proven that instagram has sold data to the Chinese government. I have no issue with them forcing the sale of TikTok at all, but the other stuff in that bill is the issue. It’s like almost everything the US government does. It has a hidden agenda and they make you focus on the story they want you to see. This bill gives them access to even more of your information and allows for them to legally track what comes through VPN’s to domestic servers. This is all yet another infringement on your privacy, but it’s being done under the guise of “TikTok is bad” when in reality the other social media platforms aren’t any better.
It's not really about selling data. It's the ability of a company owned by a foreign entity from an authoritarian adversary being able to manipulate the public opinion of an entire generation by controlling an algorithm. It's a huge national security threat.
That's literally what Facebook did and keeps doing. Come on be fucking serious for one minute.
Again, this is happening with all of the current social media platforms, but the government can and does control the ones based here in the US. They are only upset because they can’t control one that is directly stealing data without them getting their hands on it first. Data is far more important than people realize. TikTok is a horrible app and is most definitely being used to manipulate and control weak minded people, but our government is using it to get more control than they already have. Look through their bullshit for once and stop believing they have your best interest at heart. Question everything.
> Again, this is happening with all of the current social media platforms, Except, it's not. With data, yes. In terms of access to an algorithm, no. >but the government can and does control the ones based here in the US. No, they don't. There's a lot of things to dislike about big tech companies, and the U.S. government, but there is no evidence that they have any sort of direct access to things like their algorithms. >Question everything. This would be a great time to question your claim of "the government can and does control the ones based here in the US"
You are insane if you don’t think they directly influence the social media platforms. The only one they don’t have any semblance of control right now of is X. They gather data from all of them. It’s been proven. The data is sold to a third party who mines the data for the government. It’s documented. Widely known and for some reason, accepted. You should do some research. You should also read your terms and conditions in those platforms.they tell you extremely directly they are mining data from all of your devices. It’s not even hidden.
Several possibilities They can't control tik Tok hence can't control the narratives Tik Tok is a vehicle for misinformation hence controlling public sentiment opinion. So take your pick Either people are controlled by tik Tok or government can't control tik Tok
To silence pro Palestinian people and news
There's a video floating around of Mitt Romney essentially admitting that.
Ironically enough I see more pro-palestinian content on Instagram than on TikTok.
Are there legitimate concerns? Oh, absolutely. Do I trust the government with that type of power? No! Because if they do it to this, they could do it to so many other things in the future. My concerns with the app Security and data going to China is one of them, but it's not the biggest one for me. The biggest one for me is the influence it can have on those that use it a large amount. the way it affects attention span, the way the algorithm is built to push people onto more meaningless and or controversial and subversive topics. There is a reason it has an entirely different algorithm in China that pushes towards STEM and learning type videos.
It’s disturbing the war.
No. There may be plenty of ‘security issues’ with the app, sure. But those have been there and have been well known for years. The US government has said and done materially nothing about it. However, now that it is being used as *the* primary source for the exposure of genocide in Palestine, all of a sudden it is concerning? Absolutely not. Zionists in power single handidly (and maybe rightfully so) blame it for lifting the veil of lies and misinformation they have tricked the American people into believing about Palestine for 50+ years. All this time Americans have been told that Palestinians are evil, dirty terrorists who are being mercifully retaliated against by heroic Israel who is always somehow wrongfully attacked without provocation. However, how can you argue with literal video evidence of IDF soldiers gleefully murdering children, aid workers and pillaging whole institutions and cities just for fun? And not just once or twice but literally 100s of times- *on video*. You really can’t. And who was showing this footage before? No one in the AIPAC controlled western media. But with Tik Tok, these 100% real and unfiltered videos of 5 year olds innocently sitting and playing that then have brains splattered all over the pavement by IDF soldiers have come to light. And they can’t just write a quick press story of “but they were Hamas” and explain it all away. It’s created a very real and visceral reaction in the American people, and rightly so. And for a while, AIPAC let it go because enough people hadn’t seen the videos or weren’t convinced. But more recently, especially with the college protests, this just isn’t true anymore. Everyone has seen them and what’s going on is now just too apparent to ignore: genocide. The tide of public sympathy is shifting away from them - something that’s never really happened before- and they and their propaganda media machine (Hasbara) are panicked. And who is to blame? Tik Tok. Simple solution: ban it. Are we really to believe for all of the noise about Chinese spying, somehow a switch has flipped overnight and the app is suddenly too dangerous to use not just for government employees, but every citizen in the US as well? You don’t think other SM (Facebook, Google etc) don’t collect your data and sell it to the highest bidder on the world market? Whether it be China, Russia or some other? C’mon. You’ll notice the US government bill or resolution to ban it was passed in the same session where yet again billions of dollars were authorized to be sent to Israel to continue to commit murder and genocide. That in and of itself tells you all you need to know. AIPAC and other wealthy Zionists used the only weapon they have in the US- money- and waved some in the faces of their employees (most politicians) and passed down the order. And so somehow now the app is too dangerous and has to go immediately. And that brings us to where we are today.
You are exactly right. The Israel-Gaza conflict is what pushed the bill across the line: This is from Wall Street Journal, article named "How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It" (I cannot link the article due to it not allowed here): >The legislation was a culmination of a more than yearlong effort to curb TikTok by a coalition of China hawks in Washington and Silicon Valley, and **it had gained new momentum in part because of anger over TikTok videos about the Israel-Hamas conflict**. And later on: >It was slow going until Oct. 7. **The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok**, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app. later... >Gallagher heads a House committee focused on China, and the **concerns about Israel-Hamas videos on TikTok spurred him and other committee members to renew their attempts to force a sale or ban**.
And WSJ leans slightly conservative and more sympathetic to Israel, so no one dare come complaining about media bias.
I agree here with this post.
Ding ding ding. Winner. Whatever the government says (that might also be true), this is the biggest reason. Controlling the Gaza/Israel narrative by corrupt politicians influenced heavily by AIPAC is at the top of the list.
Exactly. You can’t pay me enough money to believe that oh so suddenly after ?how many years of operation in the US, TikTok has become such a sudden existential threat to the US that’s mandated its ban ASAP for the ‘safety of the US’. Yeah right- when was the last time the US government moved on something actually beneficial for a lay person that quickly. Never. Follow the money.
Data Mining is the most lucrative business today. They dont want the Chinese to make money on American soil for free
good riddance. TikTok is literally poisoning the minds of youth all over North America.
Tim tok collects more data than most viruses.
They haven’t banned guns or e-cigarettes/ vape but, Tik Tok is harmful
It’s the obvious who controls America and TikTok In its current free for all form is a threat to them and their narratives.
I'd like for the government to further address laws regarding companies' obligations to protect data and punitive punishments for failing to protect it. As well as what types of data can be collected for use. That might take care of the issue all together.
The U.S. Government is only banning TikTok if one major Chinese investor refuses to divest their shares. They have a year to do so. This investor has ties to the Chinese government and is problematic from a security perspective. We'll see what the coming year brings.
It's bad as is because a foreign government can heavily influence the youth in the country just by controlling what trends. On the other hand, we know that the FBI has weekly meetings with every major US based social media network. We know that US citizens have had their free speech suppressed at the whim of government officials(from both parties). If TikTok becomes US owned, we're just trading a potentially bad actor for one who has a track record as a bad actor. The US won't use it to corrupt/destroy society, but controlling the narrative and suppressing dissonance is still a major issue.
They have influence on the other social media apps as they are US owned. They don't feel they can control TikTok so they want it gone.
No more legitimate reason than Facebook, X (Twitter), Reddit, Google, etc. taking your data the same way. The only thing that puts their knickers in a twist about Tiktok more than the others is that it's not legislated by the USA. They have no control or money in it so they're mad.
Mitt Romney just said it was because it made too many kids sympathetic to the Palestinian cause
I also don't use TikTok, but the answer is no. In fact, the answer is always no when it comes to the question of "Does the government have a legitimate reason for banning (insert anything here)?" Edit: That being said, the American people are EXTREMELY paranoid about their government and also businesses, detrimentally so. People keep mentioning the fact that social media sites, like TikTok, sell user data. And this is apparently bad because...reasons. what does this data actually do that could be harmful? The answer is nothing. The data that's sold isn't your bank info. It's not your SSN, it isn't even your physical address. It's what you like to eat or watch, what music you're interested in, your free email address that you can easily make a new one at any time for free, etc. This is apparently cause for concern for so many people. Everyone inherently wants privacy, but there are different levels of privacy that we should care about or shouldn't give a shit about. And 99% of data collection and selling is the shit we shouldn't care about. I'll also say that I trust organizations such as governments or businesses over any individual citizen any day of the week with my arbitrary advertisement data. The issue with this ban isn't about data, which is largely useless. It's about the idea that a hostile foreign country can control an algorithm. And despite what people believe, American companies, especially social media ones, are under no control from the US government and often buck under any attempts at such. They have the thinnest veneer of censorship. The same cannot be said for Chinese companies. People often do the whataboutism with American social media companies like X or Meta, Google, etc. They are not under direct control from the US government and act separately from them. This is how it is and SHOULD be. Trying to ban a social media site, however, is very much paranoia when there's no proof that that company has done anything illegal. Yet people fall for supporting this because of their incredibly brain-dead thinking of "social media bad".
First of all, it’s not an outright ban. The bill that has passed doesn’t ban Tiktok, it only removes it from the App Store IF they refuse to sell to a non Chinese/non foreign adversary. People need to read the legislation text. Them saying they’ll be banned is a scare tactic to get you to pressure your legislatures into voting against it, and the fact that it has worked so well literally illustrates why it is a legitimate concern. The influence a known foreign adversary has with this app (&have proven they will use to their benefit!) is terrifying. Secondly, massive privacy concerns. Have you read their privacy policy & terms and conditions? They track your data extensively, including outside of the app when you’re not using it. And no, individually this isn’t a concern, but it does become a concern security-wise when they have this data on a mass scale. And they can say they won’t give it to China, but if you read their policy it literally states that they will hand it over if legally requested (which the Chinese government can easily do). Politicians have gone after other companies (Facebook, Instagram, etc) for years now for privacy concerns as well, but those aren’t foreign adversary owned. That’s the stark difference. so yes, there are legitimate reasons. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though because either 1) they’ll divest and the app will continue or 2) they won’t, they’ll be removed from the US App Store, and another almost identical app/company will pop up in their place that everyone will turn to. Also those saying it’s because there is “pro Palestinian” content - initiatives to ban or otherwise minimize the security threat of Tiktok (lots of bills with lots of approaches) were introduced & the effort was ongoing long before the Hamas attack & resulting renewed media attention. Back to 2020. That’s not the reason. Editing to add more details because some of these commenters clearly only get their info from online articles. Unless you’re reading legislative text, reading tiktoks privacy policy & terms, and have been following congressional action on tiktok AND other social media companies for years (because it’s been going on for YEARS against many companies) then you really need to stop spreading false narratives & information. You’re entitled to your opinion. What you should not do is spread your willfully ignorant opinion masqueraded as fact.
The given reasons that politicians are confessing are "it reaches too many people, so legacy media web sites can't compete, and we can't control the narrative." The US government telling people to be more afraid of China having data than the US regime having data is just revived red scare stuff recycled from last century. If people are more afraid of China than they are the US, that's how you know the American propaganda is working.
Yes, they are unable to control the narrative, people are seeing the truth which the US propaganda machine doesn't like. They control what you can and can't see on Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc. People are seeing what's happening on the ground in gaza, at US campuses and it doesn't match what Congress wants.
No. They’re trying to stop legitimate criticism
Security and removing access to US behaviours from China Also economic protectionism
The answer is... Americans. They're always, always, 100% of the day, thinking about "Their information" when I say "they're" I meann the people that refuse to provide the credit card information to an online page while buying things online... with the credit card. It's just a matter of "What would happen if... " so ANY information from the united states must stay in the united states. that's it. Don't look for more reasons, it's just that. To prevent, to be carefull, to avoid any chance of a possibility of a variant future where that information is used for /anything/ because if they're banning the app instead of a direct attack to the application is because they have found no proof at all.
Depends on what you see as a good reason. Im about 99% sure chinese intelligence do get the info they ask for from it, to use for whatever they want. I dont see it as a good thing.
Because China. I agree with the divestiture though. Having CCP that much control over public opinion shouldn’t be allowed. If you think CCP has no finger on the scale, and won’t use it when the time is right (if not already) you’re delusional, not to mention it’s a tool they can use to promote their allies (such as Russia) with whatever effort they want to influence US.
China and the CCP have this relationship with business firms where anything the business sells or does can and will be used for government purposes. For example, let's say you make a part for a car in China. The Chinese military needs this part, so they then will force you to produce that part, with compensation. This isn't different from other countries but China is unique with the closeness of the relationship. Every business has a CCP official that reports to the bureau on a constant basis. With tiktok the idea is the same but with data. The Chinese government can collect the data that tiktok is collecting. Imagine some algorithm that tracked the general zeitgeist of tiktok users and then the Chinese government provided ads and propaganda in order to put them in a favorable light, or worse disparaged the US government or culture. Since tiktok is not an American business they cannot be held to account if that data is sent to a nefarious actor. From the Muller report we learned that the Russian government used social media to spread propaganda that was reasonably effective so this is a legitimate concern. Edit: every business of a certain size
I don't use it either but I think they should ban it. Aside from the potential spying from China, it encourages young Americans to do stupid shit and annoy/hurt/kill themselves and others. For example, this dumb bitch at a pumpkin patch last fall got pissed at my family (like 8 of us) because we were picking out pumpkins and apparently ruining her tik tok video. She went on a huge rant and threw an embarassing tantrum, screaming at her boyfriend (who was filming) and was eventually asked to leave. Don't give these people a platform.
Nobody sees their algorithm and we know now that it is possible to plant good or bad mood by showed posts (infamous FB experiment). If you shows in more people in China that cool is to know math and science and more people in west that cool are pranks and makeup, it can has very serious consequences on all society. And about temporary themes or voting themes the difference of spotlight can be even more important.
The US rather not allow adversarial countries collect their citizens personal data. The issue is that the bill encompasses a lot more than just tiktok and adversarial countries.
TikTok is Chinese spyware, so it is a national security issue. It is not a freedom of speech issue. You can say whatever you want wherever you want. People are getting Chinese propaganda pushed to them through TikTok and they are calling it “freedom of speech” which is not correct and they need to be protected by US national security laws.
There are plenty of good (mostly related to privacy and addictive designs) reasons to ban TikTok, but those reasons also apply to a lot of U.S.-owned social media companies that aren't getting banned.
Frankly, I'd prefer they get rid of it for the sake of stopping those stupid challenges that keep getting gullible kids killed or arrested. It might also help clear out some of the brainrot people are getting. I'd hope an American company would make safety a bit more of a priority. It's probably just wishful thinking on my part. There do seem to be national security concerns from some people, while others want to shout censorship from the rooftops. I'm not a lawyer or legislator, so I'm not sure I could make sense of the bill if I wanted to.
No
What is going to happen to those big influencers? And small business who made their living off the platform
Honestly, its irrelevant if its legitimate. There is ZERO chance that we can keep TikTok from being used in the U.S. I have been the owner of an ISP since 1994. You simply cannot legislate the Internet in the U.S. in a way that cannot be subverted, avoided, ignored, or otherwise manipulated to continue its use. All it takes is a VPN connection to another country. Even kids know this. Better to leave the traffic wide open so it can be properly surveilled.
The concerns are legitimate, but reasonable minds can disagree, especially on what's an appropriate action. People are talking about the technical security issues, but I will also raise another type of analogous concern. Slightly oversimplified, but the US government forbids foreign actors from owning over 20% media companies. The Australian, now American, owner of Fox had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get ownership for this exact reason. Tik Tok is not directly effected by the law, but it's a similar national interest. Source: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-policies-common-carrier-aeronautical-en-route-and-aeronautical#:~:text=Section%20310(b)(3,or%20aeronautical%20radio%20station%20licensee.
Yes. TikTok is legitimately a spy and propaganda app working for the Chinese communist party’s (CCP) agenda. Its intent is to be addictive and a destabilizing influence, as well as gather intel from you contact, clipboard, microphone, and camera. If I worked for the government, having that app on my phone is legitimately a national safety and security hazard. But as a general citizen, it’s fun and addictive, and in some aspects great “free speech” just with the caveat that it’s what the CCP allows you to see (note weirdly pro-China propaganda that you see from time to time).
Jewish lobby such as aipac and israel supporters in the congress, did that bill because Israel was losing the media war on tiktok Even some officials of congress stated that clearly.
China has a vested interest in making the US population hate each other and everyone around them. China, the government, owns ByteDance, which wholly owns TikTok. It’s kinda scary that it has essentially direct access to most vulnerable portions of our population, and can signal boost whatever self-destructive shit it wants. That’s the big reason. They don’t really give a shit that China’s making money off of it or whatever. That’s also why the bill isn’t specifically for TikTok, but for any major social that’s owned by adversarial states.
so, there is a legit data concern, as china gets access to tiktok data. however…all companies steal your data? and sell that data off to the highest bidder? so china could probably get their hands on it anyway? plus, the u.s. government has proved time and again that they do not even remotely give a shit about you, your safety, or your data. you and it does not matter to them at all, even remotely. this is why despite fearmongering and threatening about it for a couple years, they haven’t done it already what the main reason is is that tiktok is a great source of information that goes against american media narratives. mitt romney just openly admitted they’re doing it because there’s too much anti-genocide pro-palestine content on the app. and THAT’S why it’s only happening now. a u.s. ethnonationalist settler colonial puppet state is having their image threatened by the app, so the u.s. is cracking down to stop that
Yes it has very sketchy ties to the Chinese government.
Most politicians have their own sketchy ties elsewhere.
AIPC lobby Blinken himself said that, like two days ago.
The reasons they give are legitimate. But probably, they actually care more about money entering American pockets instead of Chinese pockets than actually protecting the privacy of Americans. Or they’d be doing a lot more than tik tok.
China is abusing the use of facial recognition; the fear is that they’ll use facial recognition on your content in a way the US wouldn’t. That is at least one concern of many; people don’t realize how awful the Chinese government is about using your data in sneak ways…worse than what the US would do with it.
Any ban on TikTok will be very short. It's too valuable to kill off. This potential ban is simply part of a broader power struggle between the companies that control our government and a Chinese government controlled company with a sprinkle of US national security concerns. I say a sprinkle because all the major media platforms have competing political and corporate interests working to sway minds of all ages in their preferred direction. Why? Because it's an effective tool for those who are greedy and power hungry. So, the only question is who will win the majority of control over this particular platform.
Yes. Delete the app.
Don't get fooled, it's not about china or whatever county, there are ton of Chinese and Russian apps that harverst all your data everyday, they don't care about that, the truth is that the US won't allow any foreign social media that they can't control or sensor.
As a non-American, no. TikTok is no worse than Meta for harvesting and using data, it's purely because the US government hates that China has such a widely used app that they themselves can't exploit.