TikTok Closer to Potential U.S. Ban as House Passes Bill Requiring Sale

[Ceviche Lover]

It’s amazing and hilarious reading all of the propaganda some have been fed by mainstream media regarding Chinese spying, just breathlessly repeating it.

Where is the EVIDENCE user data is being used maliciously by the Chinese government? These must be the same people who believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, because that’s what people on the television set told them, despite there being zero evidence for it. You’d think after all of the lies told during COVID, people would wake up by now.

If you or the government are going to make bold, outlandish claims like the Chinese harvesting user data and somehow using that data against Americans, present the EVIDENCE for it.

Like I said in an earlier post, the REAL reason why they want to ban it is because the US government, and the west in general are not able to control the content, like they are able to do with Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies.

Anyone remember the Twitter files report? FBI working hand in hand with Twitter(pre-Elon Musk ownership) to shadow ban, censor, anything related to the Hunter Biden laptop story and Covid stuff.

And now that Elon owns Twitter, the EU is now coming after Twitter and threatening the company with a shutdown in the EU for ‘misinformation’.

Start getting into the habit of questioning everything the government/mainstream media tells you instead of just believing it. I can’t count how many lies we have been told regarding Iraq, how we’re destroying the Taliban, getting vaccinated will prevent you from getting Covid, Ukraine is beating up Russia, etc…all lies.

I also find it interesting regarding the timing of this vote, considering TikTok is flooded with videos from inside Palestine and how bad it is there, not to mention all of the young people protesting this war. Kinda makes you wonder where they get their news from regarding this conflict doesn’t it?

Let’s be real here, if it wasn’t for TikTok and Twitter people would not be as outraged as they are now regarding this war. You would just see a few clips here and there on CNN and MSNBC and that would be it.

Not a coincidence the only two apps that show what is really going on in Palestine and Ukraine are the ones getting threatened with takedowns.

 

[tobybrut]

Torn on this. I agree we shouldn't be giving our data to foreign nations. But at the same time doesn't this just hand the market over to Alphabet and Meta on a silver platter?

If it’s sold to a company that is not on the list of adversary nations (China, N. Korea, Russia, and Iran), Google and Meta won’t gain a thing since TikTok will continue to operate. It all comes down to what the Chinese government decides. Will they sell or does it get shut down? It’s almost certainly going to pass and become law, so the choice is really up to them.

 

[tobybrut]

Interesting to read how all comments are against the EU-government opening up Apple’s ecosystem, but now make a 180 when it’s the US government cracking down on a foreign platform.

(I’m all for TikTok disappearing from the planet, just pointing out the irony).

Literally Apple and oranges. One is an issue of protectionism to prop up EU companies while the other is a national security issue regarding a foreign adversary. At least up to this point, the US and the EU are political allies. If TikTok were owned by an EU company, this bill wouldn’t exist no matter how toxic you believe TikTok is. There are no First Amendment protections for foreign entities, so there is no Constitutional issue here. It’s not any different from the US government banning Huawei and other Chinese companies from selling cellular infrastructure within the US because of a potential national security threat.

 

[tobybrut]

How do you ban an app? By internet filters like in China?

You fine companies that either host the TikTok app, e.g. iOS App Store or Google Play Store, or you fine companies that host their website and database. Oracle would drop them in a heartbeat while any ISP trying to host their website would be sanctioned. ISP’s block addresses all the time, so that’s not terribly difficult. I suppose you can use a VPN to get to another country’s website, but that isn’t terribly convenient. If you really, really want to watch some kid dance or see someone crying on the Internet, you can, but it wouldn’t be easy.

 

[tobybrut]

I wonder what the US would do if they sell to a Taiwan entity now. 😀

As the law is written, nothing. Taiwan is not on the list of adversary nations. There are only four countries on the list.

 

[tobybrut]

Might as well add Facebook and Twitter and Russia to that list then...

Russia is on the list. While the law is supposedly targeted at TikTok, it grants the president authority to force divestiture of any company controlled by any of the nations on the adversary list or face a ban. Russia is one of the four countries on that list along with China, Iran, and North Korea. Facebook and X are American companies and do not fall under this law. Foreign entities are not protected by the First Amendment but American companies are.

 

[brofkand]

If it’s sold to a company that is not on the list of adversary nations (China, N. Korea, Russia, and Iran), Google and Meta won’t gain a thing since TikTok will continue to operate. It all comes down to what the Chinese government decides. Will they sell or does it get shut down? It’s almost certainly going to pass and become law, so the choice is really up to them.

My assumption was that Bytedance/CCP would not agree to a sale just to appease the US Government.

Which would presumably lead to the unprecedented firewalling of an app in the land of the free.

Concerning. But I could be wrong. When Trump suggested this, it was rumored that Microsoft may have been interested.

 

[tobybrut]

My assumption was that Bytedance/CCP would not agree to a sale just to appease the US Government.

Which would presumably lead to the unprecedented firewalling of an app in the land of the free.

Concerning. But I could be wrong. When Trump suggested this, it was rumored that Microsoft may have been interested.

As I said, it’s up to China. They can sell or not. If they don’t sell within six months, TikTok gets the ban hammer. At The moment, the only company that has expressed interest in buying TikTok is Rumble. Others may emerge in time, but there is already at least one interested buyer.

Lots of countries are banned from doing certain business in the US due to national security. This is just the first to hit social media, so it has a lot more visibility. I used the example of a ban on Huawei from selling cellular infrastructure equipment to any American cell carrier. Mention Huawei to any American and you’ll get a yawn. Nobody cares if some other country supplies a cell tower to Verizon. Note Huawei is not banned from selling cell phones, only infrastructure equipment since the US government doesn’t trust China to not tap into our phone calls. Only the NSA is allowed to do that.

 

[STOCK411]

It’s amazing and hilarious reading all of the propaganda some have been fed by mainstream media regarding Chinese spying, just breathlessly repeating it.

Where is the EVIDENCE user data is being used maliciously by the Chinese government? These must be the same people who believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, because that’s what people on the television set told them, despite there being zero evidence for it. You’d think after all of the lies told during COVID, people would wake up by now.

If you or the government are going to make bold, outlandish claims like the Chinese harvesting user data and somehow using that data against Americans, present the EVIDENCE for it.

Like I said in an earlier post, the REAL reason why they want to ban it is because the US government, and the west in general are not able to control the content, like they are able to do with Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies.

Anyone remember the Twitter files report? FBI working hand in hand with Twitter(pre-Elon Musk ownership) to shadow ban, censor, anything related to the Hunter Biden laptop story and Covid stuff.

And now that Elon owns Twitter, the EU is now coming after Twitter and threatening the company with a shutdown in the EU for ‘misinformation’.

Start getting into the habit of questioning everything the government/mainstream media tells you instead of just believing it. I can’t count how many lies we have been told regarding Iraq, how we’re destroying the Taliban, getting vaccinated will prevent you from getting Covid, Ukraine is beating up Russia, etc…all lies.

I also find it interesting regarding the timing of this vote, considering TikTok is flooded with videos from inside Palestine and how bad it is there, not to mention all of the young people protesting this war. Kinda makes you wonder where they get their news from regarding this conflict doesn’t it?

Let’s be real here, if it wasn’t for TikTok and Twitter people would not be as outraged as they are now regarding this war. You would just see a few clips here and there on CNN and MSNBC and that would be it.

Not a coincidence the only two apps that show what is really going on in Palestine and Ukraine are the ones getting threatened with takedowns.

Um. No. And how about this.

Tiktok itself is banned in China. They have their own app that is nothing like the us one.

 

[Rafterman]

It’s amazing and hilarious reading all of the propaganda some have been fed by mainstream media regarding Chinese spying, just breathlessly repeating it.

Where is the EVIDENCE user data is being used maliciously by the Chinese government? These must be the same people who believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, because that’s what people on the television set told them, despite there being zero evidence for it. You’d think after all of the lies told during COVID, people would wake up by now.

The United States and its allies vowed this week to do more to counter Chinese theft of technology, warning at an unusual gathering of intelligence leaders that Beijing’s espionage is increasingly trained not on the hulking federal buildings of Washington but the shiny office complexes of Silicon Valley.

- NYT, Oct 2023

 

[Ceviche Lover]

Um. No. And how about this.

Tiktok itself is banned in China. They have their own app that is nothing like the us one.

So they banned TikTok(a Chinese app), in China for being a national security threat to China? Yeah about about no.

Their version of the app is heavily controlled by the Chinese government, and what Congress is attempting to do is force the sale of TikTok to a western company so it can be turned into a neutered down app with constant shadow bans and takedowns like we see in western social media companies when it comes to things like war, Covid, stories about missing laptops, etc…

And if you think it really is about Chinese spying, I’ll ask again, present some EVIDENCE for it, along with examples.

 

[Ceviche Lover]

The United States and its allies vowed this week to do more to counter Chinese theft of technology, warning at an unusual gathering of intelligence leaders that Beijing’s espionage is increasingly trained not on the hulking federal buildings of Washington but the shiny office complexes of Silicon Valley.

- NYT, Oct 2023

Says someone who wrote this post on an IPhone/computer. How do you not know your phone, laptop, router, or anything internet connected that was most likely made in China isn’t spying on you? Why are we not banning everything that can be connected to the internet and manufactured in China if they are such a threat? Oh right, because it has nothing to do with national security.

 

[STOCK411]

So they banned TikTok(a Chinese app), in China for being a national security threat to China? Yeah about about no.

Their version of the app is heavily controlled by the Chinese government, and what Congress is attempting to do is force the sale of TikTok to a western company so it can be turned into a neutered down app with constant shadow bans and takedowns like we see in western social media companies when it comes to things like war, Covid, stories about missing laptops, etc…

And if you think it really is about Chinese spying, I’ll ask again, present some EVIDENCE for it, along with examples.

Have a good day.

 

[Infinitewisdom]

If you read article correctly, it's just about TikTok needs to change from chinese ByteDance to US entity. Solved. TikTok is not going to disappear from the US. It's quite easy for ByteDance to create US company for this purpose. Especially when they already separated the US infrastructure in the last years.

I know our politicians are generally dumb, but do you really think it would be this easy? This will require a forced sale to a buyer approved by the US government. Just simply changing hands with some legal documentation would never be acceptable.

If the bill passes the senate, it's a de facto ban on TikTok because TikTok will never get sold.

 

[Danilo - Italy]

I think every citizen has the right to choose by which government to be spied on

 

[Someyoungguy]

The irony of this is that the US have similar laws under the Patriot Act which has been causing concern from the EU for years. There's been agreements and so on between US and EU, but it's not a full protection according to some.

It could be a quite troublesome future if this is a new trend. I can't imagine the Chinese government will just let this go without some retaliation.

Fun fact: the Chinese government prohibits GPS data (and I assume anything else about its people and places) to be stored outside of China.

 

[JoeShades]

You fine companies that either host the TikTok app, e.g. iOS App Store or Google Play Store, or you fine companies that host their website and database. Oracle would drop them in a heartbeat while any ISP trying to host their website would be sanctioned. ISP’s block addresses all the time, so that’s not terribly difficult. I suppose you can use a VPN to get to another country’s website, but that isn’t terribly convenient. If you really, really want to watch some kid dance or see someone crying on the Internet, you can, but it wouldn’t be easy.

After saying there is no first amendment issue you just explained what the first amendment issue is

 

[JoeShades]

Literally Apple and oranges. One is an issue of protectionism to prop up EU companies while the other is a national security issue regarding a foreign adversary. At least up to this point, the US and the EU are political allies. If TikTok were owned by an EU company, this bill wouldn’t exist no matter how toxic you believe TikTok is. There are no First Amendment protections for foreign entities, so there is no Constitutional issue here. It’s not any different from the US government banning Huawei and other Chinese companies from selling cellular infrastructure within the US because of a potential national security threat.

Infrastructure is not speech, you really need a class on the first amendment, Things like apps or websites are considered speech, not the same as infrastructure, App stores can choose not to carry Tik Tok, that is not a first amendment violation. The government would have high bar banning tik tok in court, Montana already lost. Every member can yell and scream on their soapbox that Tik Tok is a direct national security threat but that is not good enough. They have to prove it.

 

[Supermallet]

Nothing like good ol’ American fear mongering. The number of posts in this thread alone who think that the CCP is “corrupting our youth” is both hilarious and concerning. How is this different from the Red Scare and McCarthyism? Especially when the US has been spying on its own population at a level the CCP wishes they could attain.

I do think the fact that so much of the opposition to the genocide in Gaza has been on TikTok is a major factor in this decision. We already lost anything of value in Twitter, which is now a mainstream Nazi website, and now the US government is doing what it can to neuter the one major outlet that isn’t aggressively working to support genocide. Just disgusting all around.

 

[coolkid93]

This app needs to be banned or a bigger mental health problem will develop than what we have right now. You have kids saying they would be depressed if it went away…. And ending their own life.

 

[scorpio vega]

I guess it isn't a problem unique to TikTok. But in today's social media landscape, everyone's trying to get instant validation, everyone's trying to become a digital influencer, everyone is trying to go viral. And I think those things are good psychologically.

But that’s been a thing way before social media. Tik tok and social media is not the problem. It’s the fact our culture encourages that mentality.

Social media also brought an entire world together during a pandemic. Families were creating together. We in California could relate to someone in Barcelona.

Anything can be bad. It’s just how you choose to fur it.

 

[whatgift]

This is an outrageous overreach by the USA government to control foreign media organisations, and is a joke in the context of what American companies are allowed to do with your data. It demonstrates how the USA is not that much different than China after all!

 

[delsoul]

This is an outrageous overreach by the USA government to control foreign media organisations, and is a joke in the context of what American companies are allowed to do with your data. It demonstrates how the USA is not that much different than China after all!

British parliament and other EU govs aren’t much for saints, either. Goes to show they’re pretty much all the same. Different clothes, same person.

 

[DustinDev47]

But blocking it at the borders before there's hard evidence it's being used for espionage or as a trojan is dumb.

What an absurd comment. Do you wait until after a burglar enters to lock your doors to your house and car?

 

[avz]

Anything can be bad. It’s just how you choose to fur it.

This can't be used to justify "grooming" practices. It takes a conceptually powerful person to see the "sexual revolution" as a gimmick and a "luxury belief" that only very few people can truly benefit from.