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TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users after Trump comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42759336 - Jan 2025 (22 comments)

The Communications Act of 1934 limits foreign ownership of many communication technologies such as TV. TikTok has easily more influence than most TV channels so it does not seem strange to limit its foreign ownership. If the purchase of US steel by a Japanese company threatens national security, surely the ownership of TikTok is also one.
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A point I think most people don’t understand is that the government interest in TikTok has little to do with exploiting user data per se, a lot of other companies do that. The issue is that TikTok is somewhat unique in being aggressively weaponized in currently very active “grey zone” conflicts.

This has been an open secret in national security circles but the average person on the street has no idea what a grey zone conflict is, what it looks like, or why it matters. Geopolitic strategies are increasingly executed as grey zone warfare, and some hybrid warfare, because the costs and risks of traditional overt warfare have become unacceptably high.

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Chase Hughes:

"Manipulation Playbook: The 20 Indicators of Reality Control"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AN2wY4qAM

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There's an interesting cognitive bias in the western media that tends to define freedom of the press (and freedom of expression) as exactly what is perceived as freedom in this side of the iron curtain.

Libgen domains are "seized", and tiktok "goes dark", but of course other countries "censor" porn or news outlets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index

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Censoring is different to banning though. Banning in this case is the correct word to use, censoring isn’t. You can censor things on a platform, you can’t censor a platform entirely - that is a ban.
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This morning I felt the urge to download TikTok for the first time. I did, but I didn't bother creating an account.

There is a passage in the book Life of Pi, where Pi's family is gathered and ready to leave India for Canada. And his mother does something out of the ordinary:

> The day before our departure she pointed at a cigarette wallah and earnestly asked, "Should we get a pack or two?"

> Father replied, "They have tobacco in Canada. And why do you want to buy cigarettes? We don't smoke."

> Yes, they have tobacco in Canada-but do they have Gold Flake cigarettes? Do they have Arun ice cream? Are the bicycles Heroes? Are the televisions Onidas? Are the cars Ambassadors? Are the bookshops Higginbothams'? Such, I suspect, were the questions that swirled in Mother's mind as she contemplated buying cigarettes.

Do I use TikTok? No, I've always advocated against it. Will I use it if it is reinstated? Probably not. But I downloaded it anyway the same way Mrs Gita Patel wanted to buy cigarettes. It wasn’t about need or use. It was about the loss.

I would stand behind a tiktok ban if it was for the right reasons. But this ban is only because it failed to conform to manufactured consent.

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The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1]

The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines.

[1] https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.c...

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So I have a relatively large extended family covering a wide age range and we talk pretty frequently in a shared SMS group - most of them have noted the ban with a passing level of irritation but nobody's "freaking out" like if you lost access to a platform like Facebook, Twitter, or Discord that's more oriented around communication rather than consumption.

I understand that people spend a lot of time doomscrolling on it, but even with millions of daily users the optimistic side of me really wants to believe that it won't affect anyone's mental health in any measurable way.

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It’s always uncomfortable when realpolitik clashes with the values we aspire to have.

What is freedom, anyway? Surely it can’t include allowing a foreign adversary access to a knob to twist on an important demographic of society. A foreign adversary who is actively compromising the network infrastructure of that society [1] but definitely wouldn’t touch infrastructure around an app owned by a Chinese company.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. One person's portal to a better world is a state's vehicle to shaping it in the state's interests.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/united-states-china-hacking-espio...

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I think a lot of people on here never spent much time on TikTok and it shows. It wasn't just for young people and it wasn't all brain rot.

There were vibrant communities, subcultures.

Real issues were aired there. Real people connected. From the early days of Covid it provided a window into a broader world.

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(Perspective from an American)

Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world.

This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate.

TikTok has an immense amount of cultural power. The concentration of power scares me, no matter who holds it. But China ultimately having that power scares me more than an American company having it.

Again, this outcome was preventable, but ByteDance is hoping Americans let them continue with the status-quo. We didn’t and we shouldn’t.

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From CBSNews:

> U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that TikTok threatens national security because the Chinese government could use it as a vehicle to spy on Americans or covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content.

In other words, US officials are scared that China is going to do what the USA has been doing with American social media apps in various countries

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As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".
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I'm really curious and somewhat worried about what the economic effect of this is going to be. There are a number of legitimate small businesses that saw a lot of, if not all of, their business and customer base through TikTok. Business that just will not be able to make the move to somewhere else.

I personally know musicians, actors, and artists that got a lot of work through TikTok. People who actually create things, and people who just used the app to make ends meet who probably aren't going to make ends meet this month

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Apple and Google created individual APIs to serve up phone number, contacts, exact location, device model, time zone, clipboard data, photos, files, and cookies to 10 million different random app developers to harvest to their heart's delight. US government passes law against just one of them for using said APIs. Are they going to fix the root of the issue, or just play whack-a-mole forever?
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I clicked open the link to find Yahoo has gone dark in China since 2021. Doesn’t work even with a VPN. I miss the good old days of the Web.
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Always nice to see the American population kept safe from propaganda, affordable rents, a working healthcare system and fresh food for 90 cents.
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Bottom line is: it is reasonable for governments to exercise control over the information environment their citizens experience, especially when social media has such potential to sow chaos and instability.

Look at how the US internet fuelled the fires of the Arab Spring / HK protests / Jan 6th / Any number of colour revolutions in Europe. Even today, we see X being used as a platform to encourage protests against governments in UK and Germany. National sovereignty is contingent on digital sovereignty - everyone is going to need a firewall.

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If China doesn’t permit our social media and search engine companies to operate in their country, why should we allow theirs in ours? Reciprocity in market access should be a baseline expectation.
TikTok was banned in India years ago. There was some noise initially but eventually everyone moved to Instagram Reels/YT Shorts. A few homegrown apps tried to capture the space but couldn't compete against Meta and Alphabet's entrenched network effect and superior platforms. TikTok wasn't as big in India back then as it is in the US right now but it was gaining traction and then lost it all. The same alternatives already exist in the US as well, people will move on in no time.
Consider the proximity of Zuckerberg to the new admin, and the current admin, and remember that this is only market consolidation (data consolidation) around Reels and Shorts.
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What's to stop TikTok from serving their website from non-US servers to all comers? Using it in a browser is not as smooth as an app, but there must be apps out there that are nothing but a WebView to URLs on a single domain (like you can do in Mac Safari with File... Add to Dock...). Submitting / watching videos wouldn't be that different.

It seems to me the only recourse the US would have is building The Great Firewall of America.

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TikTok is forbidden in India already since 2020:

https://time.com/7208112/what-happened-when-india-banned-tik...

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I think most folks are upset because the US always projects this open image about itself around the world and most importantly to it's citizens. However there are cases where it's actions go against this prevailing narrative and the people are starting to ask questions.
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Can someone please explain to me, why it is illegal to publish biased media? Please relate your answer to US native broadcasters like Fox News.

The public discourse in the US appears very distorted. The rececently elected legislative heavily tampers with the executive/judicative and somehow this is stil democratic?

IMO the tiktok ban is only about media control, no morale or legality, just political power and somehow there is still free speech for all?

All this is so bizare to me. I dont expect reasonable answers.

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It's coming back: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/24347280/tiktok-ban-shutd...

Anecdote says the app is currently having network trouble, so I expect there's some devops minions having a sweaty moment, but the ban is (to be) postponed (and in the meanwhile not enforced).

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This'll be a pretty interesting psychological experiment. Tomorrow a whole lot of addicted people are going to be experiencing withdrawals at the same time. I have to assume nothing major will come of it, but still, there's not too many instances of this occurring in society, right?
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Related ongoing thread:

About availability of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd. apps in the United States - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42754130 - Jan 2025 (80 comments)

Today I learned that TikTok has been used by over half the US population! In Europe, usage numbers are significantly lower and it's still generally regarded as something for young people. In fact, I only know very few adults (in my country) who actively use TikTok.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/tiktok-us...

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they are really blocking even with VPN, i was just testing stuff out. 1 - if you created an account in US and trying to login with that account, then it wont work. 2 - tried logging in to Canada VPN, and create a "Canadian" account so i can login to tiktok, no joy, it somehow throws errors on debugger and does not proceed on sign up button. 3 - Booted up an AWS ec2 free windows tier machine on Canada region, created and logged in with a new account no issues. 4 - if you try to use that account on your machine with canada vpn, you will get suspicious activity alert then it wont let you login even with canada VPN, so they must tracking device location differently. 5 - So, the only way to access it without any issues is by using some virtual machine located in another region - no VPN, maybe a dedicated region IP might work.
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Let's put aside freedom of speech and Meta v China for a moment:

Has anyone suspected foreign interference in our social media during the height of the culture wars in the last decade? We had people encouraging civil unrest on the Left (whenever there was some police shooting or event where racism was suspected), and we had people encouraging civil unrest on the right (an immigrant committed a crime, or similar). We had puppet trolls in Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc.

Russia and the United States have been doing this to each other - stirring civil unrest with propaganda - since the 1950s. It's an old war.

Does that not merit consideration in this conversation?

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If the problem is China, why wouldn't they ban all apps from China?

And what exactly is preventing China to launch a new app withjin hours (that is the point of cloud infras right?) under a new company using tiktok source code and allow easy importation of dumps from tiktok to facilitate their migration and get a head start?

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While I have no particular love for Tiktok, I hope this serves as an educational moment for younger generations about putting all of your trust in apps and app store gatekeepers instead of the open web.
This is one of the most slippery slopes I think we have ever ventured down in the history of the Internet here in North America.

Not impressed whatsoever with this.

This is not what the internet is all about.

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As someone who has used TikTok, I don’t hate the outcome, but hate the mendacity with which it was executed. TikTok is brain rot, a better way of describing it is digital crack. You can spend hours and hours on TikTok in a numb state, with no sense of what’s going on in the world around you. If the government decided, this addiction is not good, let’s treat it like a drug and ban it, I would be all for it. But claiming it is a tool of Chinese Propaganda is absurd.

Anyone who uses TikTok, knows China can’t really gin up any propaganda through it.

Propaganda only works if it seduces, not if it bludgeons and China as a country never seems to be able to seduce. It’s Hollywood that gets exported to China, Xi Jinpings daughter studied at Harvard, not the other way around. China is a fashion victim of US propaganda if anything. The worst China could do, was artificially boost “how cool China is” TikTok’s, crudely ban TianMen Square TikTok’s and this does not convince anyone. It only encourages even more subversive TikTok’s, weakening its power further.

In fact I would claim, China not only has no power over those that use TikTok, but in its current regime, it has no pathway to ever influence those that use TikTok, even in the future. The Chinese regime is practically capable but culturally uncool. All that the American Regime has succeeded in banning TikTok, is embarrass the American Regime and reveal itself to be equally uncool in the eyes of Gen Z. If you browsed TikTok recently, you have seen probably all the ironic TikTok’s of Americans saluting the Chinese National Anthem. This irony from the younger generation, itself shows how uncool Congress has become. A culturally dominant regime, would have no reason to worry about enemy’s propaganda, and America didn’t realize it but it was very culturally dominant, now however it’s own insecurity has harmed its prestige significantly.

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Not my country so I couldn't care less. Just my observation from two oceans away:

US is a hypocrite. How about Meta and other US companies? Those companies does the same if not worse damage to your citizen.

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Did they also delist themselves from the App Store or is that by Apple and Google?
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It's a shame that it's come to this. I feel that all arguments that TikTok is unhealthy or spyware and bad for our general public are valid, but the same arguments also apply to Instagram/Twitter/Whatever. Rather than have some sort of further regulation for what data any application can collect and present to Americans, we've just brought the hammer down on the millions of people that use this application for their livelihood. This serves only to enrich our American tech monopolies — companies which have proven to us that they have bad intentions towards our country's people.

Truly bleak.

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This shutdown is performative, by the way. The law prohibits the distribution, maintenance, or updating of the application. There's no reason to disable the app for users who already have it installed except to generate outrage.

No one reads the actual law, everyone is taking the bait.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521

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It would be nice if such a ban meant that a small competitor could get a jumpstart. Instead I fear the result is that Meta just gets bigger.
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There’s proof from Federal agencies that they knew the algorithm was intentionally being weaponized to agitate and promote domestic protestors. Just look at the Chinese consulate shut down when 45 was in office last in Texas. It was rumored to be the base of operations for where the Chinese were weaponizing the algorithm against American interests.
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If it's for the mental health of the US citizens then banning TikTok alone is not going to address it. But may be the first step.
Historically the US has been always behind the curve when it comes to personal online privacy and security threats compared to Europe(and it's not like we are doing a good job at all, Europe is pretty shit as well), but here, today, I am utterly jealous of the US. Let's hope the EU commission gets their shit together and follows soon.
Outside the US all the American account contents are still up and visible. How does TikTok designate where an account is from? Can Americans not sign in and delete their content? Do VPNs work if American-created accounts log in? Interesting rollout here I wonder if this will change in the coming days.
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I'll bet none of the people responding here actually read the Supreme Court decision.

This isn't about data that people agreed to allow ByteDance to scrape. It's about ByteDance going beyond that and scraping contact information of NON-TikTok users, which could be used for blackmail or in other illegal and adversarial ways.

Everyone knows U.S. companies gather user data. Oracle had been doing it for decades. This is not the issue and not at all why TikTok has been banned.

The difference is that ByteDance was blatantly going after data that was legally not within their rights to grab; NON-TikTok user data on TikTok user's devices.

In addition, there are hints in the decision that the FBI provided evidence that China was using this information for adversarial purposes.

The decision very clearly walks through the First Amendment issues in relation to foreign adversaries and explicitly states that this is a singular decision.

It would have been VERY EASY for ByteDance to stop scraping data or to find a U.S. partner to host the data of U.S. Citizens. I've worked at global consulting firms and Germany requires this. All German citizen data must be hosted in their country. This isn't anything new. Companies make these kinds of compromises all the time and have for decades. Some companies explicitly state their data has to be on-prem or not in AWS. As an enterprise architect, I make these kinds of design decisions all the time. (Scenario: If customer is located in XYZ country, where do we store their data?)

ByteDance simply refused because even though they claim they are not handing data over to the Chinese Intelligence Service, they ACT LIKE THEY ARE.

None of this will matter in a few months. There are active projects to build Instagram and TikTok clones on the atProto network (Bluesky) which will serve the same content without advertising and without an algorithm. There will be Feeds for cat videos, pirate dress up videos, and APT dance videos and I'm 100% sure all the users that join that service will completely forget about TikTok. And the moderation will be given to the users so they can decide what to see.

The supreme court also said you don't have a right to control your own body a few years ago. They have been political (and thus unreliable) for years.
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I wonder if part of the new move to ban social media sites is because it's more effective because there's less of an open web and presumably government agencies have gotten the hang of hindering emerging sites and social media they don't like.

Ie through state sanctioned ddos and bot swarms

If I hadn't long time ago lost touch with the idea that Internet is a new global, rebellious space that transcends all limited, conservative, slow-moving nations, and that I can offer or use a service running wherever from wherever else I might be sitting as long as it's all connected to the internet, I'd be heartbroken to see services being stopped or driven away from within the borders of a certain geological area. But that train left the station so long time ago that the rails have all rusted since.

I can only expect the bar to geopartition Internet services due to financial, political, and militarian whims to go lower and lower until eventually there's no global internet left.

In any case, I'm glad I could see the 90's.

Unreal. Land of Freedom bans Social Media app that runs on US servers, on its own terms, with censorship teams staffed by dozens of ex-US State officials[1].

Amazing that Congress will see bipartisan action on this issue before any of the other much more important issues.

It absolutely destroys criticisms of China banning Facebook, etc.

1. https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-ru...

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Time for the EU to ban Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, due to foreign interference.
It’s funny watching this TikTok ban unfold. Trump went hell on Earth against TikTok before he lost to Biden. Biden got what he wanted done, but now Trump is back and seems to have a special "warm" spot for TikTok.

Every politician flip-flops, but Trump is something else.

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Things censored from the article:

Shirtless pics

LGBTQ posts

My Hero Academia

The funny thing is, I saw videos from Chinese users that specifically mentioned not to post these things. I had to look up why the anime, and apparently the creator made choices that directly poked at old WW2 tensions between Japan and China.

TikTok just disappeared from the US Google Play Store
Good. China bans almost anything and everything. Why should we feed data to them freely.
> In the meantime, alternative Chinese-owned apps like RedNote and Lemon8 have received a boost as TikTok users search for alternatives.

Why does it seem that there's no non-Chinese alternative to TikTok popular enough to warrant any mention?

My (limited) understanding of this law is that it works by barring US companies from doing business with ByteDance, primarily hitting App Store providers and cloud service providers.

There’s a world in which they could have migrated services to an off-shore cloud and continued to serve the existing users who already had the app installed (with the disadvantage that they would be unable to evolve the app itself, since no updates). It would have bought them time to figure out a long-term, legal fix.

…But instead they chose to just block all users with US-based accounts.

Someone made the calculation that failing the app loudly for US users was the better strategy.

I don't remember ever seeing an article at the top of HN for 12 hours straight, and I'm on here an unhealthy amount. While it is a major event, it's definitely not the biggest we've seen, even in tech.
I feel like a lot of these comments not understanding the sentiment are not looking at this in the context of what is going on in the US. The other alternatives people are suggesting are openly manipulating public opinion and stifling speech to serve their own interests at the detriment of the rest of US public.

Books are being banned, the defunding of the department of education is an explicit goal at the incoming administration.

The fact that Americans may or may not be incredibly susceptible to propaganda is a direct consequence of national public policy over the last few generations at least, and it's going to get much worse

I can't see this for anything other than massive act of petulance. Sure TikTok are probably spying and influencing Americans, but I'm darned sure Meta, Google etc. are doing the same for similar non altruistic purposes.
{"deleted":true,"id":42759264,"parent":42753396,"time":1737308167,"type":"comment"}
In the current geopolitical climate, just how far might we go in barring Chinese H‑1B visa holders from industries we label “critical to national security”—sectors such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence? Could such fear and suspicion escalate to the point of mass internment, echoing the shameful precedent of forcibly confining Japanese Americans during World War II? Most importantly, which legal safeguards, democratic institutions, and moral principles exist to ensure that such extreme xenophobic measures remain firmly off the table?
Good I hope this opens the way for the ban of american apps all over the world.
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was not really on TikTok but a bleak day for anyone that believes in the free speech ideals the US was founded on
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A huge shame it'll be undone in 24 hours. Shouting out Trump by name in the ban message is hilarious, they are really doing their best to tie his hands.
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The largest ever constituency in the USA, has now been banned and eliminated. There has been no disclosure of factual evidence for doing this. The reason given for doing this is vague and goes in the face of almost? all? legal precident regarding property and free speach. Every single person under the age of 40, was on TicTok, and in there own way, every single one of them is going to put on a tight little smile and say "ok, then" I wonder if they are going to crash the app stores?
Time for the kids to pick up a book.
Did they ever show the proof of spying to the American public?
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I wish we would ban social media for at least 2 days per week, these apps are extremely distracting and will be seen like gambling addiction in the future.
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this will have immediate and devastating effects on the economy and culture and the usa especially the incoming administration is not prepared to handle
The first amendment only applies to the oligarchs and their friends in the 3 branches of the United States. TikTok is only the first to be blocked, there will be more, and they will be DC political fodder too.

We need a distributed social platform. Distributed currency system. Distributed personal information privacy. Distributed AI. Where’s the tech YC?

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I'd like to discuss the pop-up's content. If it comes out to be that one guy, President Trump, CAN pass an executive order that effectively ignores a law that Congress passed AND the Supreme court upheld unanimously, it's a very dangerous precedent.
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It'll be interesting to see how much the other social media platforms work to replicate the TikTok model if this ban ends up being permanent.
Maritime powers want to control choke points, flow of goods, flow of information, flow of gas and natural resources.

In this particular case I don't care. But it fits in with the Nordstream sabotage, the attempts to control Arctic sea routes via Greenland, the attempted control of the Panama canal and the attempts in the Caspian sea region via Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.

Very interesting to see how effective US propaganda can be

Going by the comments, it seems a lot of people here actually believe this whole thing is about “China”

“China” is the new “communism”. It’s just the phantom enemy to scare everyone

Without a real disclosure about the real reasons for the TT ban, we will never really know what is going on behind the scenes

Maybe we’ll have to wait a few decades to get some unclassified docs

When the CCP asked Google to censor search results, that was a bad thing.

When the US government asks China to censor TikTok, that's a good thing.

Make it make sense.

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i'm conflicted. i don't want chinese controlled propaganda but i don't want us controlled propaganda either. but i suspect that the "safety"/propaganda arguments are window dressing and it's really economic protectionism, which at least i understand. but from a free-enterpise perspective, banning a legally operating company simply because of it's ownership seems worrisome, and it would seem a toothless unenforceable thing in the long run (e.g. sell TikTok to its own "independent" company on paper and keep pulling the strings).

the realization is that this is a binary choice, either we ban it or we don't. but we shouldn't be in this position in the first place. neither choice is the right answer. i don't want any of the outcomes. i don't want a chinese facebook. i don't want a us controlled facebook. i don't want a facebook controlled facebook.

you want to know how to keep giant governments out of your shit (us and china and russia, etc.)? how to keep giant corporations out of your knickers? if you favor economic protectionism, how to keep other countries from undermining your industries? how to keep giant corporations (us or chinese) from exploiting their monopolies to wreck our culture just so they can serve more advertisements?

everyone on this forum, especially if you decry this ban, needs to stop defending, accepting, and allowing closed monopolistic computing and networking. app-store monopolies, for instance, secure-boot, device-non-ownership. we've given these companies persistent 100% control over our own devices and we (as surprised as you are) got monopolies. now we have to argue about which flavor of monopoly we want.

the minute, via app store policy or via crypto/secure boot, you allow a company to select what i am or am not allowed to do, see, or buy on my own devices - this is what we are doomed to deal with as a result.

The United States has become a parody of itself.

Six years ago, The Onion mocked the idea of TikTok being dangerous to the US as a paranoid fantasy.[0] Now, that position is bipartisan consensus. China hysteria appears to have no limits.

0. https://theonion.com/xi-whiz-1844838344/

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Isnt taking the app down today just for show? It seems like the ban wasnt going to be enforced? https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-trump-executive-order-...
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Isn’t there a saying along the lines of “land of the free”? Except not free to choose which app you use. lol
Who’s in charge of thought control now?
The game Marvel Snap is also offline in the US due to being part of the Bytedance game publisher arm.
i’m not normally a conspiracy theorist but i had in mind what trump announced earlier today. he’s going to parlay this into a way to being the millennial/gen z savior and it will work with great success. my gen z kids are already compromising their progressive values and throwing themselves at the feet of their lord and savior donald trump.
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It appears to be back online as of 8:30AM PT. I saw it down an hour ago or so, but seems to be operating as usual again now.

That was quicker than I had expected, though I thought they'd probably find a way to avert even a temporary shutdown to begin with.

American youth was too crirical of Israel and too supportive of Luigi Mangione. Youth needed to be punished and also pushed into american platforms where the algorithm can suppress certain type of content that the ruling class does not approve.
I don't have the app, but from what I can tell, using a VPN doesn't help either. I guess when you downloaded it from the U.S. Android/Apple app stores, it flags you somehow, so a VPN can't help?

Dunno, I'm wayyyy out of the loop on all of this.

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Has anyone seen any evidence of ISPs/internet providers taking action to block TikTok?
So I used a VPN to go to a different country and... I still get the "Tiktok banned" message, which is a little surprisingly honestly. I guess Tiktok have done this on an account basis rather than strictly GeoIP.

The "learn more" link tells you that you can still download your data. I'm not sure how. Website maybe? Because the app only has "learn more" and "close app" as options. Interestingly the fyp still loads and you see a video in the background.

I do think it'll come back this week but it's not clear what the legal mechanism is. Since the ban has gone into effect the extension in the law doesn't seem to apply anymore. This would then seem to require Congressional action and there doesn't seem to be much appetite for that but maybe that's because Republicans in Congress want to give credit for saving Tiktok to Trump when he becomes president on Monday.

Another option being talked about is nonenforcement by the Department of Justice. Some dismiss this by saying "the DoJ can change their mind" but that's not strictly true. Defendants in a case can rely on statements by prosecutors. It's a valid defense. If the Attorney-General makes an official statement saying "we will not prosecute Amazon or Google or Tiktok for 90 days (or whatever) while we work this out", that's absolutely a legal defense should the DoJ ever change their mind.

Basically, this is now a shakedown as some Trump allies will seek forcibly buy Tiktok or at least a large stake in it as a price for its continued operation in the US. It's unclear if Tiktok will acquiesce to this.

Remember though, Bytedance has significant US investors so there are conflicting forces at play here.

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Google NotebookLM Audio Deep Dive on this HN thread: https://jumpshare.com/v/OFPXiOv9KR8pCtSmWlg2
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US is the same country that allows a practical monopoly of NVIDIA on GPUs and Intel on CPU (or at least an oligopoly), and then pretend "foreigners are out to get us". It gets one to know one.
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Does anyone know how divesting in this case would actually work?

Would Bytedance still own shares in the resulting US entity? Shares they could sell or get paid with via dividends, just no control over operations?

I’m just waiting for Truth Social to be identified as a potential buyer.
There is literally no content being banned. All the talk about the U.S. trying to censor is nonsensical, as all the opinions by the members of the unanimous Supreme Court clearly pointed out, considering any of those opinions can be made in the hundreds or thousands of other social media avenues.

The entire situation hinges on TikTok’s ownership. They could sell themselves to any organization based outside China and have been given multiple opportunities to do so and they’ve refused.

That tells you all you need to know about the priorities of ByteDance, considering the U.S. was their biggest market since they’re banned in both China and India, the only other countries larger than the U.S.

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The US hegemony is dying and it is showing. The sign of a crumbling empire. Also, funny how any made up argument about national security goes before the first amendment.
This is a massive self own by the US estalishment. They are just damaging their own trust but not releasing the full and classified reasoning behind this.
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every state has the right to enforce whatever laws it prefers within its own borders. it would be nice if the united states allowed other states to be sovereign at home instead of constantly interfering in their political decisions. as a non-american citizen, i couldn't care less if the usa bans tiktok. i consider it a legitimate decision by their government, whether i like it or not.
This is not just special interests. It's also a Blueprint for future internet censorship in the US, so the government likes it too
Good riddance. It was nothing but brainrot, spyware and propoganda.

Though it's hardly unique in that regard. That's modern social media now.

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Good. Good riddance. Let’s do how long it lasts
There is no system of digital content distribution that can withstand the will of Government. The only thing that can be done is for the citizens of that government to wake up and take the power away from those that are wielding it to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. I am not a user of TikTok but this is not a good development for our "perfect union", nor the freedom of the internet in the United States of America.
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It is absurd that users are not angry at TikTok for not protecting their data. Instead, TikTok weaponized the user base and made them belief that it is a free speech problem while they collected swaths of data and allowed it to leave US jurisdiction, into the hands of the Chinese government.

And Democrats just sucked at messaging. Its not a "TikTok ban". The message should have been about data protection.

And yes, it would be far better to pass something like the GDPR. But I guess, with the power of the US media companies, the TikTok law was a compromise.

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China should also unblock YouTube and Twitter/X, Facebook if US decided to reverse its decision on Tiktok.
If everyone started doing this ,we would have Google and Facebook in each country owned and operated individually
As far as Musk boldly stated his intention to interfere in european elections, can we ban Twitter/X on Europe as well? Asking for a friend.
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Nice move. Regulating competitors away while screaming about free markets. Not a meme country at all..
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Sounds great to me. Now EU authorities should ban Xitter in the EU. Stop foreign election interference!
The coverage of TikTok's closure on this site is just sort of tabloid at this point. The culture of HN ceteris paribus hates social media significantly more than the average person. That and its western bias makes questions about the TikTok ban's effects on this site really silly. The folks here are probably some of the most opinionated, least impartial voices to discuss this issue with. A discussion about the ban's knock-on effects among creators, users, and larger GenZ culture around it isn't going to happen because this site doesn't really have much of those populations on it.

As far as what's next, it's up to the Biden and Trump admins to see what happens next. If deadlines are extended, what does a good divestiture settlement mean for TikTok? Can the executive department get away with not enforcing this law? And of course, the question that really lies ahead of us: what does this mean for other social media based outside of the US like Telegram, Line, and KakaoTalk?

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Looking forward to seeing the ECJ order Meta to sell its European operations to a European company.
I hope trump will reverse this action. I don't want government to decide what I am allowed to watch.
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No Chinese apps should be allowed to operate in USA while similar US apps are banned in China.
It actually happened… I guess Instagram and YouTube will be getting a tonne more traffic then
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In related news, people are flooding social music service Hangout.fm to discover new music
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Is this going to be a crazy year?
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Media approved by the state (of _) shall be the only media you all can freely access.
The real loss here is when my kids realized that they can no longer access CapCut.
Anybody who thinks TikTok is coming back anytime soon is a sucker. They aren't selling and the law only allows for extensions if they are in the process of selling. Trump may be able to violate the law with impunity thanks to the morons on our Supreme Court but nobody else involved with the TikTok ban (Google, Apple, Oracle) has that luxury.
This was one for the (people who need to electronically hit) books.
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TikTok is a dumb, cringy, addictive product. That is enough for it to be banned in my book, regardless even of "propaganda, surveillance" etc. stuff. I can't even imagine how little life you have to have to tolerate using it.
And its off to the races who creates the most addictive successor
A sad day for the country that holds free speech in high regard
this is going to be the most productive sunday in US history
ByteDance has agency.

They had the chance to divest TikToc and chose not to.

It’s sad to see so many people have been brainwashed… please think independently based on facts you can verify first hand … refrain from trusting anyone, especially the deep state people and politicians..
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How is it that people still don't see thru this violation of their free speech right?

TikTok got banned for one and only one reason: to silence the narrative around a 70 year old war.

Sources:

- ADL: "we have a major major major generational problem" ... "we have a tiktok problem" http://web.archive.org/web/20231116180709/https://media.mehr...

- US Representative (MIT alum): everyone in the U.S. Congress "has an AIPAC person" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2reaGhLnYI

False claims for the reason for the ban:

- Tiktok has great content and a great algorithm to help you find it (that's a good thing)

- Tiktok spies and collects data, such as scraping your clipboard, network (Apple iOS sandboxing prevents any app from doing so without explicit user permission - technical audience here shouldn't fall for this one easily)

- Tiktok collects face recognition data on citizens worldwide (anyone scraping Instagram can do that - technical audience here shouldn't fall for this one easily)

- Tiktok is addictive, and designed to be (so is Instagram, and?)

- Tiktok is cultural expression, and contributes to people's feeling of identity (good; the more diverse cultural expressions the better)

- Tiktok provides a platform for critical thinking and debate (not really a bad thing if you think about it)

- Tiktok contributed to Brexit, and similar political crises in the EU (so does X)

- Tiktok is part of the Chinese 100 year marathon strategy (vague scare tactic)

I wonder. Isn't it that type of "ban" that simple VPN to Europe resolve? I wouldn't be surprised if zoomers would watch tutorials how to get vpn on instagram right now.
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So young people learn how to use VPN and web apps.
This is taste of US so called democracy and freedom
I wish for TikTok-style short form lowest common denominator videos to fall out of fashion.

Trying to copy TikTok is probably the worst thing Instagram has done. Their “suggested reels” are a cancer.

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The story everyone seems to be missing is how gatekeeping app stores are enforcing it. That is, if TikTok was sold as a "desktop program" which came in an envelope, and was given away for free just as America Online did decades ago, it very likely would be untouchable under the first amendment. The gatekeeping mechanisms at play are a large story that we've become ignorant to.

>TikTok, however, suggested this was not enough assurance for “critical service providers” to continue listing or hosting the app in the United States unless the Biden administration...

This would be a joke statement 20 years ago.

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My 12 year old daughter just walked over excited that Tik Tok was working again. I’m like “I wonder if Trump worked over the weekend to fix Tik Tok.” Sure enough: https://wgme.com/news/nation-world/tiktok-begins-restoring-s.... She gave me a high five lol.
Maybe US Productivity will see a boost now.
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Is it possible that all of these are true at the same time?

- Tiktok has great content and a great algorithm to help you find it

- Tiktok advances Chinese interests

- Tiktok spies and collects data, such as scraping your clipboard, network

- Tiktok collects face recognition data on citizens worldwide

- Tiktok is addictive, and designed to be

- Tiktok is cultural expression, and contributes to people's feeling of identity

- Tiktok provides a platform for critical thinking and debate

- Trump wants to control it for his own profit motive, not because it's what's best for the US

- Tiktok contributed to Brexit, and similar political crises in the EU

- Tiktok is part of the Chinese 100 year marathon strategy

and so on...

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Not sure how I feel about this. I don’t like the precedent, but I also loathe this industry. It’s a bit like heavy handed crackdowns on tobacco. Yeah, I lean liberal/libertarian but cancer.

I see nothing redeeming in these addictive slop factories. They create nothing and the content on them is trash. All they do is hack your dopamine system to shovel in ads, empty filler, or worse hate and fear porn.

There’s nothing they do that can’t better be done by forums, chat, the web, even AI agents, without the destruction of attention span and brain rot.

I have a teenager who regularly requests his TikTok screen time allowance to be reduced. He wants to not know the passcode even though he is well old enough to know it if he wants.

What this temporary outage might do is have the opposite effect TikTok expects - to show people they need a break from such an addictive app.

Stranger things have happened on the internet. The longer before Trump "cuts a deal" the more I expect people to press the question - why allow China access to this market if China is shut to our social media apps ?

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This thread is trying to have a serious conversation about the merits and dangers of the US banning TikTok. I don’t think it’s going to happen. There’s too much value for Trump to leave on the table. He’s a showman and he’s giving us, mainly gen-z, a show. On Monday he will “save” TikTok. He can ingratiate himself with a demographic that historically had not leaned conservative. It seems so obvious yet I see people trying to debate the ban as if it’s going to stay in place. It won’t.
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When does X go dark too? It's a platform that spreads hate, racism, misogyny and other right wing fascists agenda under Musk's rule. Or is this OK, is this a new policy of USA?
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I hope all other countries ban/block Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft social apps, and throw in Discord as well.

Then, when the civilians are tired of this bullshit and the dust settles, we emerge with truly decentralized social networks.

Note that the outgoing Biden administration has stated that it won’t enforce the TikTok ban today, choosing to leave implementation of the law to the incoming Trump administration. TikTok shutting down today is an internal choice.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-wont-enforce-tik...

In all the internet posts about this, I've never seen a response to the fact that China has been doing this to US tech interests basically forever, and even the EU has done its utmost to severely handicap US tech companies for the same reasons. Why hold the US to a double standard against our own interests? TikTok is the exact same garbage you can get from Insta, YouTube, for fuck's sake even LinkedIn has video now. What is the incentive to allow a hostile foreign power that repeatedly and overtly attacks our infrastructure to control the biggest player?
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Instantly +20% GDP across the country
Its kinda morbidly amuzing to ponder what European countries (and others besides the 'quarreling' US/China duo) will do now.

Will they also ban TikTok as a security threat? If not, will they issue a statement contradicting US actions?

If they do, what about US owned platforms that have been known to e.g., interefere with European elections (Facebook / Cambridge Analytica) and (at least) one of the owners openly supports certain type of party across the continent?

What a grotesque theater. How much more hypocricy can the political classes that enabled the wholesale enshittificarion of our digital lives get away with?

How does this work, why are they banning individual companies? Shouldn't they be pointing to the regulation broken (or just set up such regulation)? Is the problem here that this is on the federal level and there is are no federal privacy regulations so they just have to wing it?

Speaking of which, how does this work with the GDPR? Does TikTok abide by the GDPR in Europe or are they just not able to sanction them for violating it?

Incredible how short peoples' memories are. "The American security aparatus says its dangerous" has historically been a very poor indicator of a threat to the American people, and usually forecasts misguided geoplotical interests that will have long lasting echoes. Gulf of Tonkin, Red Scare, WMDs, etc. No idea why people believe now, over the dancing app, the secret briefing given to congress was factual. In fact many congress people have said is was extremely vague with 0 evidence aside from "we think this is happening, and it definitely could happen".

It becomes more and more clear that the people supporting this app don't use the app, making it easy to imagine the worst. The reality of this situation seems very obvious to me: Meta sees the future, and knows that they have lost the next generation to tiktok and social media platforms that are authentic. FB is doomed, Instagram is all ads and manicured posts, and the Metaverse is perpetually 10 years ahead of the tech. They wanted to do what they did last time they needed to stay relevant: buy a relevant company (Instagram). Tiktok wasnt interested. So since they cant compete they spend a fraftion of the money they would need to compete fairly to simply bribe the government to ban the app. Its a "security risk"! And look, they are saying all these bad things about Israel, your AIPAC bribers hate the app too! Its definitely not that Israel is a pariah state that the entire world except for the US (where bribery is legal and encouraged) despises because of their crimes against humanity, its the Chinese government controlling the app! And you have no way of forcing them to censor the news like you can on Meta and MSM! Sprinkle some red scare in the pot, talk ominously about China, and now all the representatives (avg age 63 btw) are scared about the chinese controlled brain control app that all their grandkids love.

Anytime something remotely political comes up on HN I'm reminded that the people that tend to be very matter of fact and well informed on the intricacies of tech are no more immune to tribalism and groupthink than anyone else. No ciritical thought when the government says something they agree with, no matter how nebulous and manufactured it is. And yes, I include myself in that group. Reminds me to take everything I read on here with a healthy grain of salt because this same tribalist-bias exists in seemingly objective tech discussion.

I’m too old to be optimistic but this was a great final message from the Biden administration: that the US still has the courage and power to stand up for itself and fight back. Regardless of what happens in the next 4 years of the coward administration that’s coming, the phantom of a real president/government will at least (hopefully) be there.
Regardless of what you think about TikTok or Trump, we can probably all acknowledge this is a “slow ball” pitch that he can hit out of the park politically in a number of ways. People in this thread have mentioned the flip flopping but I don’t think mid term voters care about that. Nor do the Chinese as this brings a bargaining chip to the table.
> “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump told the outlet.

I would have thought that indeed, they have looked at it already carefully.

The message also suggests this may only be a temporary disappearance. TikTok credits President-elect Donald Trump for indicating “he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” with users urged to “stay tuned!”

This is the most unusual endorsement I've seen, admittedly of a most unusual President.

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Everyone must keep in mind that the asian continent had a long issue with communism, and although it's almost extinguished, we should still be very careful about it, like a staph (staffing?) infection almost. Also lets not forget China bans all the western stuff outright yea?
The extreme irony here, is that what tiktok is being banned for -the ability to sway national opinion, is exactly what they are doing with that Trump ego stroking message.

If that message and it's implications are flying over your head, please look up.

Where I struggle with the narrative that I see often on here is regarding free speech, the idea that this is 1984/Animal Farm or some kind of antidemocratic action. The CCP has tight control over every company in mainland China. Until you can prove to me that the US government is controlling Meta, any of the whataboutism is just pointless. China is a fairly nefarious actor on the world stage, they grip media with an iron fist and within the country there is no room for swaying opinions, country and party first. ByteDance US had years to figure out an IPO or another way to divest controlling ownership from its mainland counterpart. They did nothing and only argued on free speech. The decision was not one of rational economic thinking, which makes you wonder what they want to achieve.

China does play a real threat to American and other western interests and has done so for many years. If you have evidence that ByteDance is not controlled by the CCP or that the CCP has not very openly played many games both economically, politically and socially I would be happy to see that evidence.

The levels of McCarthyism and apparent Sinophobia in this thread astounds me.

“The kids are watching communist propaganda from the CCP!”

Americans on TikTok watch content from other Americans. I know a big complaint the government had was the overflow of support for the Palestinian people compared to Israel.

Are you guys sure you’ve even used the app before? I used it some time ago and it was just other Americans doing dumb stuff or making political videos.

People really just believe the first thing their government tells them and believes it so strictly? “They said it is a national security concern so I believe them and must spread their message!”

Seems to me that TikTok had Americans on there sharing anti-Israel and anti-America content on there with other Americans. Didn’t Ted Cruz bring that up specifically to the CEO of TikTok as a problem?

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To those with knowledge in security, what exactly were the concerns? Here are the four I can think of.

- Users tend to use the same passwords across apps. It would be trivial for TikTok to provide an email + password combo to CCP.

- Until 2020, the tiktok iOS app was accessing the system clipboard at all times that TikTok was running (even in the background) https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/26/21304228/tiktok-security-...

- A sort of vague concern that because CCP can easily compel Chinese companies, it could easily compel TikTok to show / not-show various content to American users. (this could stir political tensions, misinformation etc).

- TikTok (and by extension CPP) could access any content/messages that the app has access to. E.g. Phone contacts (if permission given), private messages sent on TikTok app (possibly even if just typed but not sent).

What else?

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I wonder how much TikTok will have to personally pay Trump to get reinstated. What would that be worth? Is it a one time fee, or could it repeat over time. Bad situation to be in for TikTok.
Tiktok works fine for me if I pretend to be in Singapore.

I open up tiktok: I see cute dog videos.

I open up Twitter: Immediately get pushed white nationalist great replacement was Hitler actually bad? posts.

Incredible.

Cool. Now, in Europe, please.
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The land of the free

It's funny that Trump started this ban attempt, and now people look forward for him to undo the ban. Lord and Saviour...

good, not only is it malware/spyware, the chinese government can shape the beliefs and behaviors of > 100,000,000 americans at the flip of a switch. albeit users are idiots for giving their attention in the first place. and because capitalism = god, will probably end up selling to the saudis and/or elon co.
> Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay the ban

I already foresee a Mueller investigation part #2 “Trump is a Chinese puppet” stories.

I generally care about good and bad arguments even if I agree or disagree with the direction of the argument itself.

But in terms of TikTok, I don't care. Burn it down. If Trump uses his first 100 days to pressure his 3 vote majority in the House to vote to overturn something they passed overwhelmingly it's a pretty startling indication of his priorities and loyalties in his second term. His crypto-scam this weekend is only the prologue.

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Now Marvel Snap is claiming it is banned in the US by the same mechanism due to ownership by ByteDance.
As long as google, …. All can run in china. It is ok. If not it is unfair and not ok.
"Trump is gonna unban us!" - TikTok's wet dream.
“Give us more control over your algorithm and we will let you stick around”
And just like that Trump overturns it. Lost opportunity to actually break the psychological hold tiktok has on people. How can a single branch (in this case one person) override the other two branches of government? I thought that's what checks and balances were all about? The farther we get from "well that's a law, but we are going to selectively enforce it" the worse we will get as a society (see the former DA Gascons Los Angeles policy on not enforcing theft). Repeal the laws that don't make sense and enforce the ones on the books. The alternative is that we will continue to accumulate laws to the point everything is illegal and their enforcement determined by individuals which is effectively the same as no laws and everyone is subject to those with power. That is an existential threat to freedom.
TikTok has now announced a reversal and is turning it back on.
This just means that China will use bots on american social media for influence. Honsestly, considering Trump got elected, that is enough.

Dont think this will affect foreign influence by china much.

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{"deleted":true,"id":42753428,"parent":42753396,"time":1737259107,"type":"comment"}
Now let's do the same with X (South African foreign adversary) and Meta (Aliens from planet Gooblidook).

Yes it is a joke. But whether it is outsized influence of foreign power or uber rich nutter, what's the difference...

My unpopular opinion on this:

- Trump schemes to get TikTok blocked in the US

- He waits till he is in charge

- Presents himself as White Knight (or rather Orange Knight?)

- Gets TikTok unbanned

- Popularity with the younger generation rises

- ...profit?

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I wonder what new and incredible things American teens will learn about themselves and life tomorrow now that their phones are boring. Too bad this probably ends Monday.
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Claude summary of the Supreme Court opinion at: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf

1. Background on TikTok: - Launched in 2017, TikTok has over 170 million U.S. users and 1 billion worldwide - Users create, publish, view, share and interact with short videos with audio and text - Features a personalized "For You" page using a proprietary algorithm - Operated in the U.S. by TikTok Inc. (California-based company) - Ultimate parent company is ByteDance Ltd., a private Chinese company that: - Owns TikTok's algorithm (developed/maintained in China) - Develops portions of TikTok's source code - Is subject to Chinese laws requiring cooperation with intelligence work and government data access

2. Arguments by Petitioners (TikTok & Users): - First Amendment violations due to: - Burden on content moderation and content generation - Restricting access to a distinct medium of expression - Limiting association with preferred speakers/editors - Restricting receipt of information and ideas - Argued the Act should face strict scrutiny as content-based regulation - Claimed divestiture within 270 days is commercially infeasible, making it an effective ban - Argued alternative measures could address security concerns without banning TikTok

3. Arguments by Respondents (Government): - Primary justification: Preventing China from collecting vast amounts of sensitive data from 170M U.S. users - Secondary justification: Preventing foreign adversary control over the recommendation algorithm - Argued for intermediate scrutiny as content-neutral regulation - Cited national security concerns and Chinese laws requiring data sharing - Pointed to failed negotiations with ByteDance for alternative security measures

4. Main Opinion: The Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit's ruling that the Act does not violate the First Amendment, finding: - Applied intermediate scrutiny as the Act is content-neutral - Found compelling government interest in preventing Chinese data collection - Determined the Act is sufficiently tailored to address security concerns - Notable quote: "Data collection and analysis is a common practice in this digital age. But TikTok's scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the Government's national security concerns."

5. Concurring Opinions: Justice Sotomayor: - Agreed with outcome but argued First Amendment clearly applies - Cited TikTok's expressive activity in "compiling and curating" material

Justice Gorsuch: - Expressed concerns about rushed timeline (14 days to resolve) - Praised Court for not considering classified evidence hidden from petitioners - Questioned whether law is truly "content neutral" - Agreed government has compelling interest in preventing data harvesting - Found law appropriately tailored after other solutions proved inadequate

6. Dissenting Opinions: None filed.

7. Other Relevant Details: - The Court emphasized the narrow scope of its ruling given the novel technology issues - Showed substantial deference to Congress's national security judgments - The Act was passed with strong bipartisan support (352-65 in House, 79-18 in Senate) - The Court noted but did not rely on classified evidence in reaching its decision

The Supreme Court's ruling allows the Act to take effect, requiring TikTok to either complete a qualified divestiture from Chinese ownership or cease U.S. operations, marking a significant development in the intersection of national security, technology regulation, and First Amendment rights.

{"deleted":true,"id":42753589,"parent":42753396,"time":1737260745,"type":"comment"}
Another bite the dust.

Who's next ?

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"Okay, now it is really bad:

The ban – which is an incredible overreach – was a bipartisan effort by congress. Sticking it to Biden seems very, very off.

Biden explicitly left the decision if and how it is enforced to Trump. ⇒ No reason to go dark now to have a huge: “Thank you, tangerine tyrant, that you are willing to maybe save us!”

I do enjoy Tik Tok a lot, but is it unanimously good or even only unproblematic? Hell, no. It is an indoctrination machine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/18/tiktok-..."

https://social.tchncs.de/@HeptaSean/113854276302658566

I’m honestly surprised at how many HN’ers are fine with totalitarianism as long as the bogeyman are Chinese.
My opinion. Assuming just because you have the ability to freely listen to everyone else drivel does not mean you made that decision freely.

I am actively anti-social media myself, it's a hard stance I have and I have had to effectively "die on that hill".

The amount of time our social media team has had serious issues with me refusing to comply with their requests to be involved with their current tiktok trend, arguing about "but you need to be relevant to the modern generation" when my argument is exactly the thing Tiktok was banned for, I want to be in control of who has my data. That is bad enough already but to freely just give my likeness to a chinese owned company to sell adverts however they like?

It's got nothing to do with "relevance" its a moral standing. And no I don't think tiktok is the only guilty platform but it's a step in the right direction concidering how absolutely mindless and time consuming the content is.

And no matter how strongly you believe you have free will and freedom of thought, you are a reflection of the people you surround yourself with and I would make the argument the media you consume.

And tiktok specifically is significantly more addictive than other media, sure the same argument can be made for youtube shorts and IG reels and whatever else which is the current short form content, and the biggest issue there is: there's no way to justify your stance, to bring evidence to back your case.

All that there is is the ability to state your point and the majority of users will follow if you state it compellingly enough. It's mass propaganda taken to the extreme.

I strongly believe YouTube shorts etc should follow the same fate as tiktok has. It should be regulated as strongly as Narcotics because it is equally as addictive and imho has a similar effect on society.

Sorry for the rant but as I said, I have a moral stance on this topic and for some reason society in general decided it needs to be faught with the zeal of the crusades.

Why is all of our media bombarded with the ban when it has been signed into law and backed by the relevant countries highest powers.

If it was a unanimous vote in government and held up by the supreme court why is media against it? They are scared the next step is them.

This isn't the media holding government accountable, this is media swaying the general public's opinion. This[1] comment on HN just proves that. They had no interest in tiktok, if media let it just go quietly into the night they would still have no interest but now that the fact that its disappearance has been shouted from every rooftop to every single human being the addiction crysis has spread to them. "Fear of missing out" strikes again.

Media is designed to control and the first punch thrown against it is being countered, who will win in the end?

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42754640

Someone should measure how much the collective mental health in America increases while TikTok is unavailable.
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Where will the zoomers go?
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This is unfortunate for women in the US, many of whom were using TikTok to raise consciousness of 4B, a protest movement originating in South Korea that calls for women to fight widespread societal misogyny and boycott men. It went viral on TikTok in the US after Trump's win in November and has been steadily increasing in reach and impact since.

Hopefully this movement will continue on other social media. Though unfortunately none are quite as light on censorship as TikTok is for feminist voices, often unfairly framing these as "hate".

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Hallelujah but the damage to society has already been done. Instagram next maybe?
There are a number of cults in the US with a strong leader, living in a rural area where information about the world outside is limited. There are Hasidic dynasties and Christian groups like this. To a lesser but wider degree there are fundamental Protestant groups like this - not exactly cults, but with some of this behavior.

We see a celebration of this kind of thinking here. People want to be kept ignorant of the outside world and to keep others ignorant as well. It's a natural way to think, in the context of the road the US has been heading down for decades.

People here are excited the US will be censoring seditious content just like China does. It reminds me less of China and more of post-1905, pre-1914 Russia and the ministry of internal affairs Bureau of Censorship.

Not that it's the only factor, but I watch the US Congress sanctioning the UN and International Criminal Court for investigating the genocide in Gaza, and how many expressed their unhappiness about how Tiktok was a fissure in the US media bubble regarding that. Now Americans can be in their bubble a little longer, unaware of what the rest of the world thinks.

HN is a tightly controlled media platform and I don't expect any honest discussion of this issue here.
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Much ado about nothing! Not available for download a day at max! (You can still use the app if it’s already installed)

The ban will be repealed on Monday and it will be sold to US tech lords by month’s end. The damn hysteria is embarrassing

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China and USA are both same in a way so I dnt give a f..k which side wins. World will be a little better place with one less bully
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The 170 million users of this digital crack / cocaine platform has now got their supply cut off and its users are desperately running for the next hit. Rednote "Xiaohongshu" appears to be where they are going to.

It is also a test for "Rednote" and if they grow extremely fast in the next 90 days then that will be another ban target. But this is all temporary and they will run back to TikTok again.

But again 170 million users just had their crack / cocaine supply cut off. Now is the time for them to reflect and cure their addiction.

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