Not the entire U.S. population is on TikTok. Even if a significant percentage are, your argument is that they cannot think for themselves? It is widely known that TT is Chinese owned/controlled yet Americans still used it. Even a regulation requiring disclosure of that fact each time you open it would be fine. But an outright ban on the app itself? This is a huge "feel good" moment which will not improve any aspects of the social media environment in the U.S.
we don't let any foreign citizens work on missiles and stuff (ITAR), we shouldn't let adversarial countries own and control communications infrastructure
this doesn't get enough attention. ByteDance could have easily partitioned off the US environment and made bank selling it. but the influence potential was too juicy for CCP to let ByteDance sell it. even if the CCP wasn't manipulating the algorithm to sway US public opinion - I don't know whether they were or not - having that option open was far too valuable to part with it.
and I think they were playing a game of chicken, honestly. they bargained for the US government being too dysfunctional - and TikTok too popular - for the ban to happen.
I think that's kind of trivializing the position they were in. Would you take the same tone if it were an American startup that were forced to sell a big chunk of itself pre-IPO? Would you roll your eyes at them for "being greedy" at any indication of pushback against such a requirement?
I don't think the law is necessarily bad, considering the national security implications, but it's a cop-out to dismiss the burden of being forced to sell a major part of an enterprise as no big deal and the owner as just stubborn.
to be clear, I don't think ByteDance was greedy. I suspect ByteDance would have been happy to cash out. but it wasn't up to them, they needed approval from the CCP.
if a US social media startup somehow got extremely popular in China, I'd understand and even empathize with China requiring it be sold. they'd be right to mistrust us.
China avoided this problem by ensuring that never happened in the first place.
Then China requires the company's operations in China to be more than 50% owned by China. The TikTok thing is very much "what's good for the goose", but it's also the US acting more like China the authoritarian country.
I couldn’t figure out if that is actually true
But the distinction is somewhat redundant with their government structure anyway. If they want to force you to do something there, how much does it matter if they say "you have to because we have majority control of this company" or "you have to because we have a one-party system and control the law"?
If the US government e.g. orders a US company to censor criticism of the US, the company can sue them and plausibly win. If you can't do the same in China, you don't control that company, they do.
You can both believe that the requirement is justified and that it comes at a big cost for the org that would have to sell. They aren't mutually exclusive.
> let adversarial countries own and control communications infrastructure
This is an exaggeration that a social media platform for short form content is communications infrastructure, akin to a cell tower or fiber optic line. I'd the say the same for your mention of ITAR in a thread about, again, a social media platform.
If we were serious, there would be regulations for all social media, not just forcing of U.S. ownership then saying "all good, this can't be bad since Americans own it"
why should China obey to an US request?
Of course they are against selling it, like the US government of course is against Google selling to the Chinese.
But that speaks volumes on the sad state of our democracies, they are so brittle that students protesting against the slaughter of Palestinian kids can trigger a cold war and the revanche of the authoritarian doctrines of a not so distant past.
Suppose that is true. Then why are you ok with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or any other American oligarch wielding even more influence on US culture? When it comes down to it, it's just jingoism, isn't it? China man bad, America man good.
Not wanting authoritarian shitholes to have influence on people isn't really all that crazy of a stance, IMO, even if the world isn't perfect and shitheads like Zucc have similar influence.
If you don't like this, you are free to forgoe your citizenship and the benefits of the protection of the state to live statelessly.
Ban 'em both for all I care, my whole point is that pretending as if the west is being evil or whatever for banning these obvious propaganda channels is absurd to me
please stop spreading lies.
The Romanian supreme court presented no evidence and instead cancelled the election results while the election were still going on (citizen living abroad were still voting)
It was just an excuse to stop something NATO did not like from happening and I am saying it as a very left leaning person, anti-fascist and anti-Putin.
What happened in Romania is a pure and simple coup d'etat with no military intervention.
Besides: if tik tok could really win elections in EU, it means our democracies aren't remotely as strong as we like to believe.
And if that's true, imagine what the US can do, having by far the largest budget for these kinds of operations in the entire World.
I think you meant to say that it is not the job of any supreme court to cancel free elections without evidence.
I dare you to quote the documents that link the win of Georgescu to Russian propaganda.
I am not saying Georgescu wasn't helped by Russia, I am saying there is absolutely no evidence, and if an election can be bought with a couple hundred thousands dollars spent on tik tok, are you implying I could win the elections in Romania?
It is that weak the state of democracy there?
Imagine what the US could do there, having tens of billions at their disposal.
Again, it's not the job of any court anywhere in the world to present evidence
I would chose China, which is on the other side of the globe, has no military bases in my country (USA have 3! two of them with nuclear capabilities) and probably what they gather from me make little or no sense to them and can't really influence me the same way (not even close to it) content in my language, repeated day and night from the top government bodies to the least popular piece of media that then spread from mouth to mouth and becomes a discussion topic at family gatherings, can.
No way tik tok remotely has that power, no way China could really do anything like that, they can at most insinuate through the cracks already present in our contemporary societies hoping it will work, but banning tik tok will only widen them.
It's one of those situation where having a common enemy should reunite people with opposing views, but it's not evil aliens trying to conquer earth we are fighting, it's social content (mostly entertainment) that this time will take people with opposing views even more apart.
Sometimes, public opinion can be swayed very easily, by igniting the first spark with something outrageous; this is especially fruitful in times where the president of the United States openly opposes journalism, spreads lies, and generally fosters distrust and doubt. Lots of people are more inclined to believe a random TikTok than a professional journalist with decades of experience; what do you think were to happen if the Chinese government sees immediate value in the US government making a specific decision to their benefit, and one of the tools in their toolbox is playing a flurry of short videos to millions of American citizens, made to influence their understanding of an issue?
Most people will follow a reasonable opinion if it's the first time they're confronted with a complex situation. TiktTok is the perfect tool to exploit this, by delivering this opinion to absurdly narrow target groups, in a matter of seconds. Just because you don't notice this right now does neither mean the capability doesn't exist nor that it isn't already happening—which may be one of the reasons there is a bipartisan effort to pull through.
and that makes it different from IG, Facebook, X, YouTube (etc etc) how exactly?
With all due criticism, there are still checks and balances in place in the US that make it a very different place. We're not talking about an objectively "correct" decision here, but what is in the best interest of the USA and its allies, and that certainly makes a difference when it comes to foreign influence on the own populace.
All that being said: American Tech companies are dangerous in their own right, and nothing in my post was defending these either. But that doesn't make TikTok less of a threat.
This is actually false.
The USA are a Republic, not a democracy. By constitution.
> there are still checks and balances in place in the US
If you are rich, maybe it's true.
I give you that.
> but what is in the best interest of the USA and its allies
The US has no allies. My Country is a vassal of the US, we cannot decide anything geopolitically relevant on our own.
Can we for example exit NATO? Of course we can't! They got military bases here, with atomic missiles, recently updated.
We can't even negotiate the release of one of our own independently without the US giving the thumb up/down.
So, please, before saying that what they do it's in our best interest, please, ask us.
It's usually not, BTW.
> But that doesn't make TikTok less of a threat
My point: same threat should result in the same response to the threat.
We should ban any non European propaganda machine on our soil.
One simple example: we all know what went down with Cambridge Analytica and yet if you look for it, you won't find any reference to trials or convictions, because there was none! it had a massive influence on shifting political view of the people in UK and in the US, but you'll only find vague scolds to bad apples that unilaterally abused of one - with a clear conscience - social network, unknowingly to the management. Despite a ton of evidence of the contrary.
How can you explain that?
But that is not the talking point here. The current situation is the USA effectively banning TikTok in the USA to ensure national security.
The particular interests of other foreign countries are not being considered here, and I honestly don't quite understand why you think they should be? It's not like the USA is forcing this decision on everyone else.
> How can you explain that?
Now look; I'm not an American myself. I'm also appalled at what Meta and X are doing; it's all awful. But this particular decision? It's just not about us, and yet I can still try to understand why it was taken, and how I think it is the correct one, from the perspective of the USA.
the best oppressor is the one who's far.
That's why the US dominion over Europe seems better than the ones before, the USA are on the other side of an Ocean.
In my case, China influence is not an influence, I've studied China, I come from a long tradition of socialism and in particular "the Chinese way to socialism", I see them as a field of study but I think their way it's the new way of the World, capitalism the way it is implemented right now, especially in the US, it's not working anymore for the 99% (it's a meme, I know, but it's a fitting metaphor) and yet I don't buy their propaganda, because I despise propaganda, wherever it comes from.
OTOH the interest of China in me is minimal at best, they have bigger fishes to fry, while the declination of the various American social networks in each different western country (including mine) have a strong interest to sell me something, so they can make more money through ads. I am very much a good target for them and that bothers me much more.
> The current situation is the USA effectively banning TikTok in the USA to ensure national security.
And yet the POTUS himself promised to relieve the ban.
He didn't like tik tok, until he did.
And I know, you know, we all know, but don't say it, it's a move to piss of the democrats and the previous administration "with me, things will change" regardless if tik tok really is or it is not a threat to national security.
What does that say about the US actual political situation?
And what does China reaction says?