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.
Instead this says it’s fine to spy on and manipulate US citizens and concentrate media power, so long as you’re “American”.
When it is a foreign platform controlled by a foreign government, the US government can't do shit about it.
It boils down to national security. We live in an age where (dis)information campaigns have real consequences.
I generally view "data is the new oil" arguments as a sign that the journalist doesn't know what they are talking about, especially if they can't characterise what data they are referring to or why it is valuable.
More likely, this is about control of the recommendation algorithm, and therefore control of the narrative.
In the US, for the most part, the app must do both surveillance and coercion, which is why the kids prefer the Chinese app.
Oil isn’t useful in its raw form either. Do you think we’d be plagued by cookie banners on almost every single website if they didn’t think collecting data was crucial to their business? Not to mention AI, where the analogy is reinforced for obvious reasons.
So data being the new oil is not a terrible analogy. However, I have to agree with you that the reasoning and justification from journalists is often fluffy and completely off-mark. I’d cut them a bit of slack, they’ve been through a complete economic massacre and talent exodus precisely as a result of this new economy.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-people-think-us-effor...
Some lawmakers built momentum for the bill by holding hearings to introduce their colleagues to arguments against TikTok, Helberg said. He also co-hosted a hearing that focused in part on TikTok.
It was slow going until Oct. 7. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app.
Anthony Goldbloom, a San Francisco-based data scientist and tech executive, started analyzing data TikTok published in its dashboard for ad buyers showing the number of times users watched videos with certain hashtags. He found far more views for videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-Israel hashtags. While the ratio fluctuated, he found that at times it ran 69 to 1 in favor of videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags."
linked in the article https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-...
Don’t mince words. Meta absolutely has issues with data collection but it’s comical to think they somehow China is better.
Who is more likely to give my data to my government to adverse affect?
Who is more likely to lobby my government to adverse affect?
At the end of the day you are the outgroup when it comes to the CCP and it'd be best to remember that.
[0] In the dictionary sense of the word: https://corp.oup.com/news/brain-rot-named-oxford-word-of-the...
Dude, the concern is that allowing TikTok is quite literally allowing the CCP to indirectly lobby. It's how this whole thing got started in earnest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/business/tiktok-phone-cal...
The geopolitical utility of the app is to give the CCP more power to manipulate and hurt you. They want to get closer to the level of power that domestic US powers-that-be have. I'm blown away that this seems to lost on so many people commenting here
Your interests are probably not aligned with the CCP. The American public's certainly aren't. The Chinese government wants to achieve a hegemony and export their economy and culture by undermining the US wherever they can. We don't fit into that in a way that won't result in a markedly worse life for us.
TikTok would boost content about how Israelis making target practice out of Palestinian children is great and needs to happen more often if it made the US look bad. That you can't see that, or can't separate that instance from other possibilities, is exactly why TikTok is under scrutiny.
Using "CCP" shows your ideological bias.
The issue is ability to manipulate people. However, should not the NSA monitor how the algo is working, and be empowered to cut off TikTok if for example you start seeing a million videos saying "Taiwan, the eastern province of China". I am sure we will still have control, we just need to be smart enough to "tap" into what content is being fed.
The risk with TikTok is that it presents media entirely algorithmically, and that algorithm is controllable by the Chinese government and is opaque to everyone else.
British Petroleum (total settlement was 20b, but the Clean Water Act penalty was only 5.5b): https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-and-five-gulf-states-reach...
Wells Fargo: has had so many scandals, some of which were over 3b: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-bill...
In the article you linked, it mentions that this fine was 2.75b, or, 4% of Alibaba's 2019 revenue. I'm not knowledgeable enough in finance to state this as fact, but it looks like BP had a total revenue of 222B in 2015 [1]. 5.5b/222b = 2.47%. The total settlement would be 20b/222b = 9.01%
Now, obviously there are many examples of companies being fined paltry amounts for massive violations in the US, and I'm not sure how to reconcile 5.5b for destroying an entire ocean ecosystem vs roughly the same fine for anti-trust violations. But I don't think it's true that the US never enforces its laws against large and valuable companies. Do you know of any good sources that compare the history of corporate fines in China vs the US in more detail?
[1] https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...
The true threat to our democracy is a foreign power. It's just not China.
They also profited heavily from picking favorites. Senator Cotton mysteriously increased his net wealth by 2 million in the past year.
This isn't a battle of moneyed interests vs. penniless altruists. There is plenty of money on TikTok's side here.
If you find yourself buying into a simplistic narrative about a single organization buying the exact law they want, you've been had. It's never that simple.
AIPAC wanted this.
They threaten congressmen who buck them with being primaried. They reward compliance with money. This is not behavior we see routinely from other special interests.
It has nothing to do with the AIPAC besides that they happened to support the "well duh" position on this.
I get that "it's the jews" is the preferred cope of people on TikTok who don't want to think about this too much, but it really has nothing to do with this. This all started years before the middle eastern omnicause du jour.
"Please share a source that the allied powers are going to invade the beaches of Normandy". You can't, because people are working incredibly hard to keep that secret.
It is perfectly reasonable to infer what might happen based on past actions by the specific powers, and on world history. Attempting to gain geopolitical influence through propaganda is nothing new.
In one case it was "we have specific evidence of something that should cause us to go to war".
In this case it is "we can infer that a hostile foreign power will use a straightforward conduit to push propaganda to our populace if we come into conflict".
It's defense, not offense.
Maybe I'm being naive because I don't use TikTok, but all the partisan misinformation I see is being spread by either Americans on American social networks or maybe Russian disinformation bots operating on American social networks.
Answer this: who has genocided 10s of millions? Who has crushed Tibet and threatens Taiwan?
CCP or Zuckerberg?
(Please don’t ask naively how US controls mass-media, no desire to follow up on that.)
Not substitution, and you somehow missed the fact that it's China's CCP, not ByteDance. It's China's CCP that acts through a de-facto shell corporation called ByteDance, the same CCP that stands behind the Uighur genocide, Tibet annexation, threat of invasion of Taiwan, etc. That's who you are defending as the desirable option.
https://www.fcc.gov/proceedings-actions/mergers-transactions...
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/biden-admin-delays-enf...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21168079/grindr-sold-chine...
Are you even aware of the context of the reasons why Tiktok went dark? Did they do it with no provocation? By accepting the US's arguments for the Tiktok ban we're just aligning ourselves with the same ideology of "the enemy" you're trying to malign.
The US has done plenty of that sort of thing in south America and the middle east, but it has always had the extra burden of maintaining a narrative under which it was not doing those things. If we let the US ban services that are contrary to its narratives, what's left to stop the US from behaving like China even more than it already does?
By that standard, Norway, Sweden and Denmark should be shunned for their slavery, raping, looting and imperialist colonizing abroad -- in the 10-11th centuries.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067361...
Trying to mix and match is obviously just disingenuous here.
Just like one person getting vaccinated is useless, I want the country to be inoculated from insidious propaganda outside of democratic control and review.
And it is within my rights to point out the hypocrisy of those who cry freedom
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-...
Both sides of the strait want the status quo in Taiwan for various reasons. Detent would be the correct approach instead of further military armament. It would be like if the Soviet Union continued to militarize Cuba from the Cuban missile crisis until the current day.
I'm more concerned about the genocide in Gaza than some CIA assets in Germany playing make-believe.
You probably know some that have enough non-China presence.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-...
This … you are right in that West has issue … where you are wrong is that the issues are just as dangerous (if not A LOT more) than China. I quoted “US-owned” cause one of the biggest social media platforms that everyone considers “West” is owned by an African
If the capabilities of these services are so dangerous, we should have laws and rules to control the danger. Instead we’ve done some nationalist cowing to send a message, and we’re arm-twisting Zuck to adapt Facebook to the political expediency of the moment.
The issue has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. China's CCP spying and conducting psyops is not free speech, and forcing China to sell it's controlling position on TikTok has nothing to do with free speech.
That's, amusing enough, the propaganda that's being pushed onto you, which even forces you to criticize a policy that you failed to even be informed about it's rationale and main points. You're fooled into believing that eliminating one of China's attack vectors is somehow an attack on free speech.
Where does it stop? Should my company by eyeing a switch to Oracle services because SAP is German?
> offensive to the notion of free speech
And, something about New Law (vs Policy enforcement by administrator of agencies or political elected leadership positions), to prevent damage from speech .. via Facebook.
I wanted to fast-forward past this second question, as I think it's a red herring here -- Facebook Management and their operation in the USA is not legally beholden to the government of China. Tiktok is, so it's different. So I rejected the second question.
Then back to the first, the notion of free speech and taking offense. I recognize free speech is not total, as I understand my rights here in the USA. And I see corporations as existing Only by sanction of government. Therefore the authority still rests within the State to moderate corporate behavior.
Tah dah .. that's why I think it's the correct point.
What am I overlooking?
Then, the hypothetical (?) about Oracle and Germany, yes. If your company reasonably can expect to be seen to be working with a partner, that's offering services similar to Oracle, and which is legally obligated to the worldwide operation constraints of an enemy of the state of your company's incorporation (USA), like China, then yes.
I’m all for controlling propaganda. Where are the rules?
There's also a problem of food coming from Ukraine - initially Poland allowed Ukrainian trucks to enter Poland as a transit through EU, as the sea passage was blocked by russians. That passage is no longer blocked, however, and there were incidents where it was detected the food was actually bought and processed in Poland.
China controlling the flow of information is the same. The only difference is China is upfront about what information they are feeding everyone.
Perhaps. It might feel that way because we have multiple sources of propaganda and interests trying to sway us while places like China only have one. We have political party propaganda, government propaganda, corporate propaganda, special interest group propaganda, religious propaganda, grass roots propaganda, etc. China has government propaganda that encompasses all of that.
I also think the US apparatus' are just better at hiding which information is propaganda and which isn't; this makes it harder to spot. China has full control so it doesn't really matter if its propaganda is believable. Once you bring up a generation on it, the propaganda turns into reality.
So what is the tiktok ban really about? If it's about the lack of narrative control, we should see the same ban being applied to RedNote.
Probably part protectionism of our social media sites, part retribution for China banning our social media sites, part an attempt to control the narrative from at least a foreign competitor perspective.
An interesting thing that might happen is the influx of US users switching to RedNote will be difficult for the Chinese government to sensor. This could introduce some western culture and values into everyday people in China.
>we should see the same ban being applied to RedNote.
Good point. I'm not sure the government is equipped to handle this sort of thing without creating an agency with pretty broad powers. I would prefer that didn't happen.
You are very wrong.
I mean, I get that the "pledge of allegiance", "the Texas History curriculum", and the "POW/MIA" flags aren't "propaganda", they are just "completely normal things that any country does to maintain a cohesive citizenry".
Control of information is not a legitimate function of the state. The only real reason to ban TikTok or any other platform is establishing control over narratives, and the government must never in a free society put a thumb on the scale of ideas.
So what if the Chinese can boost this message or that message? Is our society so fragile it'll fall apart if people are exposed to the wrong ideas?
The TikTok ban is awful not because TikTok is great, but because it's the state arrogating power to control what's in people's minds. It was no right to do that!
This reductionism to "exposure to ideas" is absolutely absurd. TikTok and any other algorithmic feed isn't problematic because it exposes anyone to anything. They're problematic because those feeds can be used to actively shape behavior.
Shaping behavior is not very difficult if you have a lot of information about someone and control of what they see for hours a day. If shaping behavior didn't work no social media company would make the billions of dollars that they do. TikTok fads wouldn't exist if it was just a simple exposure to ideas.
TikTok in particular is worth targeting because of the way state security laws work in China. There's no legal issues with the state apparatus accessing company data. There's no judicial review. The state just has access to companies' back ends.
Since we know social media feeds can shape personal behavior and China can exert any control they want over Chinese companies, it's not a logical leap to realize a state hostile to interests of the North America and Europe having control over something people use for hours a day is a bad thing.
There's a whole cohort of the population for who TikTok is their primary source of "news". Their world view is shaped by what's presented to them. They're not "exposed to ideas" but targeted with specific narratives. Because all users have different targeting you may never see the same sort of feed as the person sitting next to you.
If you look at the arc of that very motivated thinking, and if you look at the work that the US government did to try and implement the kind of control you're describing here, I feel the only correct conclusion is that it's almost impossible to actually fabricate what folks think with any systematic success.
The best you can do is, maybe, "Coke is it", and even that is more of a product of peoples' material tastes and dislike of New Coke.
I don't think there actually is much evidence to support the idea that "social media feeds can shape personal behavior" in the granular and targeted way that you (and many folks) are implying here, in which someone's worldview is shaped for the short-term goals of XYZ actor.
I think you probably understand this, which is why you hedge into the abstract idea that social media is simple "shaping" via altering a statistical means.
I agree that it is possible to expose extant impulses as "legitimate" in ways that open folks to acting differently (I certainly wish I had understood how flexible gender expression could be when I was 14 instead of 40- I would have probably led a much different life). I think that kind of exposure to larger communities really does have an effect on people, because it certainly had an effect on people.
However, I find that to be very different than creating impulses that aren't there- I think that kind work requires, for instance, a system of bullies in school to beat folks when they don't conform to "accepted" gender roles.
But even if it were true that actors could create ideas, it begs an obvious question: how do you tell the difference between your "authentic" views and the "implanted" ideas of the media you consume?
I (personally) don't think that you (personally) have completely had your opinions actively shaped by some state actors.
I think a historical dialect merges our lived experiences with the communication we get from the folks around us: fundamentally we are drawing conclusions based on information from our surroundings in toto. Since it's very difficult to get people to ignore their lived experiences for very long, and the cost of doing that work requires the largest military and prison system in the 300k year long history of homo sapiens, I have a hard time believe that "media" can do that work very effectively. Doubly so in a world where there are multiple televisual streams and no one takes the NY Times seriously.
But if it were possible to easily, through media, manipulate whole populations, it really does beg that question stated above:
if "brainwashing" is possible, why haven't you assumed that you personally, have been the long-term target of those kinds of programs by the state which rules you?
> So what if the Chinese can boost this message or that message
Propaganda is effective. Let's not pretend it isn't. This isn't freedom of speech from an American citizen being censored. This is a militarized, industrial, foreign nation exerting influence over the people of its chief rival while it actively blocks American companies from doing the same within its borders.
Yes.
At the same time, we’re still not equipped to fully understand the complex and often hidden ways that information can influence people online. Some critics go as far as attributing mind-control capabilities to TikTok, yet everyone’s “For You” page is different—driven largely by a user-led algorithm rather than top-down editorial control.
So we've stripped back a genuine outlet for the masses. And now must accept prescription/participation for any similar digital experience or large-scale information sharing in our country.
But do you really know this? Just because your homepage is different from other people, doesn't mean there isn't a thumb on the scale.
Of course, Meta and the like also tweak their algorithms, in their case to maximize engagement and profit. Who knows what TikTok might be optimizing for?
I personally think we should regulate the shit out of all these things, especially the hyper-addictive short-form video brain rot, and especially for children.
They did however manage to ban one of the brain-rotting apps. Not even remotely a majority, but one.
I don't need one line of CCP propaganda to know the American government is a fucking joke.
That fact is relevant to the issue. This comment is the most “State Department talking points” comment you could make and the finger is put on the scales to elevate it.
That’s exactly what Google and Meta do with content via recommendation algorithms and comments.
And it’s what TikTok doesn’t do, which is the exact reason it was banned.
Oldheads will remember when comment karma was public. Its hidden now basically to hide just how manipulated comment rankings are.
It’s also true it’s never been a strict ranking by net votes either. Getting a lot of upvotes quickly will elevate a comment.
It’s also suspected that certain users will have their comments upranked or downranked based on their history as well as manual intervention.
Organic ranking still exists but there are many, many thumbs on the scale. Hiding comment karma just makes that less obvious.
I don’t normally engage in HN meta-commentary. In fact, it’s highly discouraged. It’s somewhat ironic that an obvious, egregious case of content manipulation here is directly relevant to the issue at hand: the TikTok ban.
I just felt compelled to state what I thought was missing from the conversation.
But your case gives us a window into that. 28 karma from 3 comments, none of them grey, puts a really low ceiling on the karma this comment has.
Again, nothing against you personally.
Why?
These liberties are built into the U.S. Constitution. And, while the U.S. government makes mistakes, this is the ideal we strive towards.
Btw, lots of nice stuff is in the Chinese constitution too. Doesn’t really matter if it’s not followed in practice.
EDIT: example critical post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYK037S2N-/
China has never in its history practiced imperialism. They don't have a burgeoning and entrenched oligarchy.
What good is democracy when popular initiatives never see the light of day? What good is it when political parties ignore court ruling and continue to hold elections on Gerry meandered maps? What good is it when people are continually enslaved by debt and taken advantage of?
I'm not arguing for China here but we have a handful of social media properties controlled by one man who can change the narrative on anything with the drop of a hat.
We don't even really promote the individual (liberal democracy) anymore. The rich and powerful leverage ignorance to hold power. It is disgusting.
And for the record, I still hold onto American exceptionalism as principal and believe America is the light of the world. This experiment has allowed many to ascend from poverty and make something of themselves despite what they were born into many, many times over.
A better read I think is just Trump paving the way for Musk and his supporters to monopolize control of data and attention. First step for a silent oligopoly of democracy.
Biden flat-out admitted he was not going to enforce the law once it passed, and Trump is pushing for a 90 day "Extension" because "finding a buyer" has proven more difficult than initially expected. this statement is intended to save face as bytedance has repeatedly refused to sell.
What we are watching now is US leaders in both houses of the oligarchy (democratic and republican) scramble to undo policy that was written by people who think the US still has the type of pull it had in the sixties. banning Tiktok in the USA would mean one of the largest social platforms of more than 150 nations combined would have zero US presence.
the US must constantly and vehemently evangelize western values and hegemony in order to protect and maintain the international neoliberal hegemony it has come to enjoy. Washington realizes they have effectively and accidentally cut themselves off from a system of propaganda they benefit from domestically (election rhetoric and stumping) as well as internationally (hearts and minds doctrine of diplomacy and soft power.)
Its bad to operate in a contested environment with china, but its worse to endure a denied environment where the only voices are not yours.
It also helped that Hungarian candidate when tiktok was used by Russia to push him...
It should be gone. I wish we would ditch FB too. And SEO. Kill all the algos and let me find stuff via regex.
> Kill all the algos and let me find stuff via regex
I love this. As someone who increasingly feels old and dissatisfied with what computing is turning into, I'm going to start using this along with things like "you'll have to pry local accounts, passwords, and plain text email from my cold, dead hands."
That's actually misinformation and narrative invented to support coup by Romanian security services/supreme court to cancel elections. No Russians were involved. TikTok campaign was financed by center-right party but backfired in unexpected ways.
https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
Whatever dude.
While I have you, could I ask you to please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? Note these two of the guidelines:
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
It's in China's interest -- not a small population -- for tiktok to continue to influence American thought.
So I speculate we are witnessing HN being influenced by mis/disinfo.
Eg I see here many repeated "Free Speech" being a corporate mandate claims, and other easily discounted factually unsound claims, misleading the conversation.
Well for people not from US, China having that power is absolutely better. After all, unlike the US, China hadn't invaded another country or instigated coup for the past 40+ years.
Sometimes, we overcorrect or under-correct - or are slow to address things.
But we admit them. I think that counts for a lot.
I think it is unfair to point to military mistakes as undermining all of U.S. credibility.
We make mistakes and learn nothing from them.
US didn't invade Iraq and other countries "by mistake". Same with all the coups and regime change operations. If you think these many instances are mistake, well then I have a bridge to sell to you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Because in the first half of last year, pro-Palestine discourse has been occupying heavy majority of my social media feeds (twitter, reddit, ig, etc.) without me even engaging with any of that content. Not even mentioning all the pro-Palestine protests outside that I got to witness myself. And I had a chance to witness plenty of anti-Trump protests (both irl and in the media of all kinds) during his first presidency as well. Open any social media, and you will see tons and tons of people talking plenty of very strong anti-Trump and anti-Biden rhetoric.
How well would any of that fly in China?
P.S. If pro-Palestine content was “suppressed in US public spaces and social media platforms,” they were doing a really poor job of it. My IG and twitter feeds were just filled with it, despite me hitting “not interested” on most of it. Meanwhile, TikTok algorithm was actually respecting my preferences, and my feed there was filled with stuff I actually cared to see (like 3d printing projects).
No need to invade when you can do neo-colonialism to take over Africa, social media to influence the vote of your primary rival, and forcing a puppet government in Hong Kong (i.e. a coup). Not to mention destroying coral reefs to build artificial islands for military outposts in other nations' waters and blatant sabre rattling against Taiwan and even maritime attacks on peaceful neighbors.
China is regularly swinging their fist within range to tweak noses and crying foul when they're called out on their aggressive behavior. The only reason a war hasn't started is because their victims haven't stood up to their nonsense yet.
I'm no expert on Hongkong, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere as bad as a genocide where 50% of the victims are children funded and supplied by the US. So yes, China is better.
> Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.
Edit: Also reaffirming my position the parent commenter is a combative CCP apologizer using irrelevant comparisons, as all the sibling conversation clearly points out.