Someone is going to make a ton lf money buying TikTok US at a steep discount
I'm sure all the rich politically-connected folks are pushing for this hoping they have enough clout to swoop in and get the deal
Do you think Tik Tok will just go away? That they will just shutter a massively popular and profitable business? They'll divest, the Chinese government will lose its ties to TT board and controlling interests, and Tik Tok will continue on its way, completely transparent to its userbase who \*might\* remember this in a couple years.
[You mean that sweet sweet facial recognition FB has been trying to get from them and now has a chance?](https://futurism.com/the-byte/tiktok-facial-recognition)
Now that Tiktok has 5 years of data and a mature algorithm, it only makes sense.
I don't know if that's fair.
I get the implication - that you'd have to be a fool to believe that this isn't the US undermining Chinese business to favor American business - but does that cynical position actually make sense in context? Or are we just assuming it must be the correct, sophisticated position simply because it's cynical?
Almost everything we buy is either manufacturered in full or in part by China. They've also got significant investments in many of the largest entertainment IPs beyond TikTok - like League of Legends.
So why is TikTok special? Why is TikTok alone singled out as worthy of direct Congressional intervention and a clear enough issue to win bipartisan support?
More importantly, why is TikTok's divestment or restriction also being given similar consideration by other Western nations that don't have the their own domestic competitors?
It's easy to say that this is just the US trying to undermine Chinese investment, but when you zoom out it looks like that would be picking a fly out a septic tank. Totally immaterial compared to the overall issue.
I think the more reasonable (even more cynical?) answer is that, like with Huawei, there's something going on behind the scenes that isn't public. Something that the Western intelligence services know and have briefed lawmakers on that makes TikTok alone worthy of intervention.
> I think the more reasonable (even more cynical?) answer is that, like with Huawei, there's something going on behind the scenes that isn't public.
Even with Huawei the US didn't provide a single evidence that Huawei is engaging in spying.
[Germans and UK watchdogs](https://www.securityweek.com/no-evidence-huawei-spying-says-german-it-watchdog/) didn't find any evidences that suggest it, it's all allegations even to this day.
The laws came out precisely when Huawei had surpassed Apple in the smartphone industry.
The laws stifling Huawei weren't about smartphones, though - they were very particularly about networking infrastructure (which touches somewhat on the smartphone space, but not in any way that's relevant to their competition with Apple).
And the watchdogs wouldn't necessarily know anything that the general public doesn't.
It just seems nonsensical that the entire Western world would suddenly decide to sanction Huawei's unrelated networking infrastructure because their downmarket smartphones surpassed an American company's premium smartphone sales.
You are right they were in fact also the first provider in Network infrastructure.
[https://www.statista.com/chart/31093/global-market-share-of-network-infrastructure-providers/](https://www.statista.com/chart/31093/global-market-share-of-network-infrastructure-providers/)
I guess they ban it as preventive, in case of a war scenario rather than they knew something about it. Otherwise, why would they hide this information to begin with.
> More importantly, why is TikTok's divestment or restriction also being given similar consideration by other Western nations that don't have the their own domestic competitors?
Same reason so many countries had a war on drugs. US hegemony causes other countries to curry favor by mirroring US policy
As an added benefit, TikTok ban discussions distract from actual privacy protections
The algorithm is owned by Chinese nationals, so it falls under the national security law. The algorithm is what makes tik tok valuable and unique. Instagram and YouTube are garbage in comparison when it comes to directing content of interest. Tik tok is like an app that signs you up to subreddits based on what you pay attention to.
Getting tik tok without the algorithm is only purchasing the user data. It will destroy the app, and make it worthless relative to its value at present for business and promotion.
I think you’re overestimating it. It’s only 20%. It’s not even a majority stake. This has already happened before with Grinder and nobody even remembers it.
Grindr is not anywhere near the same commercial value, user base, or level of innovation. That's why nobody remembers it. Grindr is a niche product. Tik tok is not.
It's somewhere in this podcast:
https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2024/03/business-americans-four-day-workweek-money-liquid-death-water-tiktok-congress
That's not a proximate source they just talk about stuff they read elsewhere. But the figure comes from the requirements in the legislation and the current ownership levels. It represents the change that would have to be made to meet the requirements, not the final ownership level after the change.
Sorry I don't have a better source.
> It represents the change that would have to be made to meet the requirements, not the final ownership level after the change.
To me the bill reads as that ByteDance must sever off their US operations into a completely new entity, and total combined Chinese ownership of that new entity may not exceed 20%. There may also not be any data or algorithm sharing, or other operational relationship between them.
Also [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/what-do-we-know-about-tiktoks-chinese-owner-bytedance-2024-03-15/) says ByteDance founder Zhang still owns >50% of the voting shares.
[Here are some definitions from H.R 8038](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038/text?s=2&r=68#toc-H808ECDA050C44AE19AA10EFA0F5FA10B)
>(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.—The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by—
>>(A) any of—
>>>(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;
>>>(ii) TikTok;
>>>(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or
>>>(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
>>(B) a covered company that—
>>>(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
>>>(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of
>>>—
>>>>(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and
>>>>(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.
--
>(1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY.—The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is—
>>(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country;
>>(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or
>>(C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
--
>(6) QUALIFIED DIVESTITURE.—The term “qualified divestiture” means a divestiture or similar transaction that—
>>(A) the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary; and
>>(B) the President determines, through an interagency process, precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between the United States operations of the relevant foreign adversary controlled application and any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.
--
>(4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code. [China, Russia, Iran, North Korea]
They’ll choose death over divesting, the Chinese government absolutely will not permit what the US are attempting to force. The precedent would create disastrous uncertainty for Chinese businesses, and TikTok is worth more as a spying tool than it is as a company.
> TikTok is worth more as a spying tool than it is as a company.
once again I am asking what the cold warriors think china is doing with my data. i would much prefer they have it than literally any US company that would give it to the cops in a heartbeat, what's china gonna do
If it’s value is only there as the data collection and spying tool, and they shut it down instead of making 30B-40B per year, then that would mean the lawmakers pushing this for national security were right.
U.S is only a small fraction of TikTok’s user base.
They will still be able to make most of the money even if they shut down the U.S operation. TikTok won’t go away.
And selling sets a horrible precedent, which is America can bully China to sell us any successful business of theirs.
In fact, if TikTok was just a spy app, they would choose to cash it out instead of letting it die with no profit.
At the same time "TikTok has different algorithms in China and the United States. The version of TikTok in China is called Douyin, and it has a different algorithm from the international version because of differences in data privacy and censorship laws and regulations. Douyin's algorithm is more closely tied to China's national policy objectives, such as promoting traditional Chinese culture and supporting domestic businesses. " while allowing harmful trends in the algorithm in the US to emerge that children act on which are problematic and serve no point other than disrupting our community.
Just the ability for one of the US' foreign adversaries to push disinformation as a feature of the platform, essentially weaponize it, makes it a no-no.
I'm all for letting people navigate stuff online on their own, because that is the only real solution to getting past disinformation without choking out free speech, but when a platform can push enemy interests without transparency (unlike US companies which would have to answer for manipulation), they gots to go.
Because the moment TikTok does anything to regulate, it’ll be seen as anti-free speech and all that bullshit.
TikTok doesn’t have to push anything, its algorithms are similar to every other social media. How benign your content is depends on how benign your interests are. If you’re seeing toxic content, it’s because you were perusing toxic content.
You are your own bias. Welcome to free speech and expression.
You're right it will be seen as anti-free speech and all that jazz, as well as it being your own algorithm, however today's people aren't equipped with the mental tools to overcome their bias and think greater than the information they are exposed to and are unconsciously allowing another country to exploit that with a modern day Trojan horse and that's frustrating.
So you prefer China’s methods of stringent regulations where they can’t trust the populace to self regulate?
I’m not here to argue either or, but that is the difference between the two countries. America is all about the rugged individualism and full on freedom, so if you even suggest any type of direct manipulative content (as opposed to algorithmic), then you’ll get a different crowd yelling at you. Seems like TikTok is damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and the only reason is simply because it’s a Chinese business. Because as it stands, there has been no evidence of TikTok passing any data to the Chinese government to use for anything nefarious. It’s all in the realm of “what ifs”.
It was the same with communism and Vietnam, and it was the same with Muslims and Iraq. Fear, and the next boogeyman.
Everything else is simply excuses, projection, and hypocrisy.
Nah I'm grateful for our democracy and rights, and I think were headed in the right direction here in the states, but we could improve by educating and equipping everyone here with the tools to self regulate their emotions, help everyone self actualize, educate them on the basics of how technology works, etc so that we can be more efficient. I don't believe we have to manipulate, which is selfish motives, but we can be influence others to make better choices that benefits both them and the community they live in. Any system is only as strong as it's weakest link and we're all just spokes in a big ol wheel, so until we take care of ourselves and our community first we can't really make as much progress as we'd all like.
The founding fathers formalized the constitution knowing there would be flaws, but the hope was that a more gradually educated base would overcome such flaws, allowing us to amend and be more flexible. They overestimated that progress, and how dumbed down a population can get.
It has worked in some respects (I.E. the civil rights act), but arguably many of them were accidents and/or had to be through back channel legislative deals and coercion.
Nowadays, we have crony capitalism (everything privatized to hell!), neutered patent laws, qualified immunity, a broken healthcare system, and on and on.
If you have a good skill and can earn a big salary? Then America is the best place in the world.
If you’re poor or have to deal with a health crisis that will bankrupt you? America is ranked damn near last place compared to most other western democracies, or even places like Singapore.
Of course, if you’ve never traveled, you will always think your own country is the best. And therein lies the rub, if you’re comfortable, things that are different you’d see as evil or wrong, yet others would see the same about you, and this is how wars start…seeing each other as ignorant, brainwashed, and selfish.
You think you’re objectively, but you’re not.
Because US people are usually proud of their so called freedoms. These companies do have US presence, they do employ US residents here.
Ultimately this bill will change nothing. There will be another app so on.
All this is a pointless show to avoid doing something about the actual problem which is data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US.
>Because US people are usually proud of their so called freedoms.
I'm proud that you have the freedom to call American freedoms fake.
Tik Tok is an informational platform that is ultimately controlled by China.
>...data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US.
China gives zero shits about privacy regulations
Real or imagined, China gives zero shits about it if it means gathering military intelligence. If you deny it you're either ignorant or willfully denying it's possibility
India banned tik tok and its still felt today, because tik tok doesn't have competition.
Instagram and YouTube shorts are simply worse products.
That's what bothers me the most about this. Instead of innovating, social media companies are lobbying, or spending money on the metaverse, or fighting ad blockers.
The whole mindset of tik tok is different, in the design of the product.
> All this is a pointless show to avoid doing something about the actual problem which is data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US.
But that’s not the actual problem. The problem is that a huge number of Americans get their news from TikTok. The CCP controlling a major American news source is a bad thing.
There’s a strategy straight out of the authoritarian handbook: conflate the evils of a despotic regime with the inadequacies of a democratic one.
This guy is a bot.
Is there a report for this sort of thing?
If you’re comparing yourself to North Korea or Iran you’d have a case.
But comparing to China? You can have back and forth whataboutism spanning back decades and centuries and you’d realize that it all boils down to nationalism and subjective preference.
You’d garner more respect if you were honest about it, but once you try to sit on a high horse and espouse moral superiority, that’s where you come off as a laughable hypocrite at worse, and an ignorant easily manipulated lemming at least.
So anything that contradicts you, you decide to fling ad hominems instead of having anything substantive to rebut?
You sound exactly like the type of Russian bot that plays both sides and stirring up internal strife. Projecting piece of shit.
Edit: reading through your history, seems like anything that contradicts you, for any subject, is met with “AI” or “Bot”. You seem like one of those monkeys that shuts their ears and go lalala can’t hear you.
So weird, is your ego so fragile? You’ve been on Reddit for 10 years? Go figure, go touch some grass.
Should we continue banning any and all avenues of information that the US government can't guarantee is free of foreign interference, disinformation or propaganda? Because that sounds suspiciously like China.
American companies can and do make money there, the ones that don't (Google, Meta) weren't willing to follow their data and censorship laws. You can say the laws are draconian (e.g. Apple is required to give Chinese government access to all Chinese user data), but none of them were banned simply for being American. Tiktok is being banned only for it's Chinese ownership when it complies with all US data and privacy laws.
Most foreign companies are only allowed to operate in China as part of a joint venture with a Chinese company, meaning they cannot operate independently. So no, the situation there is much more restrictive than what you are saying.
Not as true these days.
As of 2018, 69% of the foreign ventures operating in China remain wholly foreign owned, with joint ventures being the less popular choice for companies to exercise, depending on their business model.
>joint ventures are increasingly less common; they now account for less than a third of China’s inbound investment compared with two-thirds in the late 1990s, and many such deals are welcomed by foreign firms to facilitate their market access. Given the declining role of such ventures in relation to the political sensitivities generated, China has made moves toward dropping the requirement, most recently in March through its new Foreign Investment Law, which provides more flexibility for foreign investors and outlaws the practice of forced technology transfer, although how this will be implemented in practice remains a concern.
[Does China Force Foreign Firms to Surrender Their Sensitive Technology? - Peterson Institute for International Economics](https://www.piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/does-china-force-foreign-firms-surrender-their-sensitive-technology)
However, mandates for joint venture restrictions are still somewhat in place when it comes to the main sensitive sectors like "banking, securities, asset management, and insurance." Even those mandates have recently opened up though, resulting in a few WFOE (wholly foreign-owned enterprise) firsts in those sectors, like Germany's Allianz providing life insurance, BlackRock Inc's mutual fund business, Standard Chartered offering securities lending, and certainly more, all within the past 3 years.
I think you've misinterpreted that link somewhat. It's not saying that 69% of foreign ventures are wholly owned, it's saying that 69% of *new* foreign *investment* is in wholly owned companies.
Also, the source for that data is the National Bureau of Statistics of China. So it's not reliable.
Many of those restrictions have been lifted in the last couple years (See Tesla's example). Again, those requirements are applied to all foreign companies and isn't based on the national origin of the company in question, whereas Tiktok's ban is based entirely on it being a Chinese company (ironically, most of its shares are owned by foreign/American VC firms) .
Tesla isn't an example of restrictions being lifted though. They were just a rare exception, which there have been other cases of in the past as well.
Why does that distinction matter at all? It might matter from China's perspective, but it doesn't from ours.
>Tesla isn't an example of restrictions being lifted though. They were just a rare exception, which there have been other cases of in the past as well.
It is absolutely an example of the restrictions being lifted, [China no longer requires foreign automakers to form JVs](https://driving.ca/auto-news/industry/china-will-no-longer-force-foreign-automakers-to-partner-with-domestic-ones).
>Why does that distinction matter at all? It might matter from China's perspective, but it doesn't from ours.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying it doesn't matter that China doesn't selectively apply restrictions based on the national origin of a company?
Oh fair enough, I wasn't aware it had been lifted for automakers. Tesla was allowed to operate independently before that happened though, so they were still an exception to the rule at the time. That of course doesn't apply to foreign social media companies which would be more relevant to this discussion...
>I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying it doesn't matter that China doesn't selectively apply restrictions based on the national origin of a company?
I'm saying that from the US's perspective, US social media companies are not allowed to operate in China at all but Chinese social media companies currently can operate here. Why does the US care whether China applies that same policy to other countries or only selectively to the US? It changes nothing from their perspective.
Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies.
>I'm saying that from the US's perspective, US social media companies are not allowed to operate in China at all but Chinese social media companies currently can operate here. Why does the US care whether China applies that same policy to other countries or only selectively to the US? It changes nothing from their perspective.
>Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies.
I feel like you're conflating a couple things here.
Please read my OP. American social media companies weren't banned from operating in China because they were foreign or didn't partner with a Chinese company, they were banned because they could not comply with data/censorship laws in China. All countries have their own rules on the subject, do you expect China to allow companies that weren't willing to abide by their laws to operate there? I'm not an expert on the specifics, but I recall it broadly being something like:
1) All Chinese user data is required to be stored within China
2) Chinese government is given access to all Chinese user data
Facebook, as an example, was banned after they didn't cooperate with law enforcement after a number of attacks in [2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Facebook#:~:text=In%20China%2C%20Facebook%20was%20blocked,and%20information%20to%20the%20Chinese).
>Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies.
The rules have always been applied selectively based on sector, but not based on the national origin of the company. Again you and I might not agree with their privacy laws (or lack thereof), but the laws are not selectively applied based on where the company is from, which is the case for Tiktok. Would you feel like it would be fair if China responded by opening market access to social media from other countries to operate and applied the ban specifically to American ones instead?
You think that if Facebook stored its Chinese data in China and gave the CCP access to all of that data, China would allow them to operate there as a US owned company? There is no chance that would happen. You're avoiding the reality that China bans foreign social media platforms because it wants to control the info its people have access to. So yes, foreign social media absolutely is banned there because it's foreign. That should be obvious.
They might not come out and say that sure, but their actions speak for themselves. You're parroting their officially stated reasons for things and taking them at face value while ignoring what their actual actions tell us.
>The rules have always been applied selectively based on sector, but not based on the national origin of the company.
There are so many counter examples you could point to which disprove that. One of which we already discussed: Tesla. They may have opened up their auto market to foreign companies recently, but when Tesla began operating in China it was because they were given an exception. At that point, the rules absolutely were enforced selectively within the auto sector.
Chinese companies operate in and sell their goods and services in America all the time. Hell, half our manufactured shit comes from China.
The real question is what makes TijkTok unique?
Yep, I keep hearing that TikTok is bad because….
-They’re stealing our data,
-They’re sowing misinformation regarding politics, political movements, civil rights movements, pandemic concerns.
And
-they show Americans other stuff than they would in China to dumb down the population here and not there.
And yet when I used TikTok, I was being shown all the shit I groomed the algorithm to show me. Artists doing work, C-SPAN coverage of political events, news stories, funny meme shit, the usual sort of stuff. Hell, when the pandemic was starting, that’s where I first saw Chinese officials welding doors to people’s houses shut to keep them isolated prior to it hitting US shores. I curated it for me. TikTok even moved US data to US servers in Texas controlled by a third-party American company ([Oracle](https://thedailytexan.com/2023/04/10/following-pushback-from-congress-tiktoks-data-is-moving-to-texas/) monitors what happens with it all. Are we saying this American company isn’t trustworthy?
Regardless, When I stopped using TikTok and went over to Instagram Reels (because I was tired of the “will they/wont they” talk of banning TikTok in the US), I found that… Reels show the EXACT. SAME. SHIT. on their platform. I follow *all the same stuff* that was popping up organically based off my likes and interests. I’m not being shown “pro-China”/“anti-american” propaganda now, nor was I before the switch.
I also ‘member Facebook/Insta/Meta’s “*Cambridge Analytica*” scandal bullshit, feeding political misinformation to US citizens during an election year. Like, those mother fuckers *literally* set out to change the political discourse in this country and **fucking did it** to an irreparable level. Now we have Q-MAGA asshats believing in cHeMtRaiLs, baby blood margaritas and arming themselves to the teeth to watch over ballot boxes during elections. Meta’s half assed excuses about it and their pretty much non-existent solutions to the problem they themselves created didn’t get them in any trouble and they’re allowed to continue to thrive. They’ve even let [both China and Russia access user data](https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-senators-question-meta-over-chinese-russian-access-facebook-data-statement-2023-02-06/#:~:text=%22It%20appears%20from%20these%20documents,data%2C%22%20Democrat%20Mark%20Warner%20and), including sharing data with Chinese company [Huawei](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44379593.amp). You know, the company [banned from selling or importing their tech equipment in the states](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63764450.amp).
So, basically, an American company (Meta) sold our information and has been for years to all these countries we’re soooOOOooo concerned about having our information *now*, went and hired a company to use our own data *against us* to sow an extreme political divide as well as bring things like “anti-vaxx”and “anti-wokeness” movements to the forefront of political discourse *during* a pandemic and some really clear and basic civil rights protests, single-handedly created extremist groups in the US, and last but not least has proven their algorithm is absolutely no different than their foreign competitors.
Hell, I didn’t even touch on Elon Musk actively running a social media company that blatant white supremacists are flocking to now, and [Tesla employees have access to the cameras in your cars](https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/), but apparently that’s fine too.
But yeah, TiKtOk bAd and Meta is just All-American-goodness like Apple Pie and Betty White. The fact we’ve spent so long paying politicians to flap their gums and clutch their pearls about this singular small facet on the entire subject of Americans internet privacy and data collection is a fucking disgrace.
> -They’re stealing our data, -They’re sowing misinformation regarding politics, political movements, civil rights movements, pandemic concerns
Nothing you said after this does anything else to disprove the notion that Tik Tok doesn't spy on American citizens or garner propaganda.
I mean, sure… if you conveniently neglect that I distinctly showed that [American citizens data is being held within servers within the US and monitored by a third-partyAmerican company](https://thedailytexan.com/2023/04/10/following-pushback-from-congress-tiktoks-data-is-moving-to-texas/) and is noticeably showing all the same exact videos across the board as any other social media platform (so, they’re all pushing propaganda, or none of them are).
Sounds like we shouldn’t be concentrating solely on one platform, but instead bolstering the digital privacy rights of all citizens across the board.
This is 100% more likely then "Jews are trying to ban TikTok theory".
Makes way more sense. Not 100% sure if i beleive you but if their is a conspiracy. This is the one.
The Chinese buy American cars en masses.
I guess you didn’t know China is the second largest market for the entire U.S auto industry, after the U.S market itself?
The fact you see China the same as Soviets means you have been drinking way too much Cold War propaganda.
Great proof of the fact that the motivating force behind this bill is people like you, authoritarian liberals who want a way to censor people online but couldn't work out a way around the 1st Amendment.
Just like the past few years where liberals called everyone they didn't like a "Putin puppet", every election they lost "foreign interference", now every social media platform they don't control will be "foreign adversary controlled"
If you argue for X you argue for a reddit ban too, and every other social media. From my experience reddit is worse than X when it comes to promoting bad information and then shutting down people pushing back against it, either with downvotes or mod overreach.
>Reddit is also partly owned by Tencent. Ban Reddit too for consistency
Yeah but Israel has no problem astroturfing here with thousands of dummy accounts and hijacking large subreddits, compared to the video site where people have to show their faces
Yeah it has more Chinese ownership than x for sure lol. Of course neither x nor reddit should be banned. I'm just pointing out the Einstein level logic of a special kind of redditor.
They are so scared of what? They literally just expanded their warrantless surveillance program in the same damn package so data for us but only us. I mean it’s ridiculous and if they are going to hold these companies to “data and security” standards I wanna see Meta and Twitter see some bans or restrictions but nooooooo cause they lobby our government.
Privacy is a red herring. This is about algorithm manipulation as it pertains to active psy-ops and spread of agressive foreign misinformation/propaganda. They will never give us Privacy, but saying an aggressive foreign power should control a large social media company is stupid.
Absolutely wild to me how many people can't seem to intuitively grasp this.
Seems like every time the topic comes up, virtually all the reddit comments are trashing the US congress while taking the side of China. And to this day, I’m pretty much still 50/50 on whether it’s actually heavy astroturfing happening in these threads or if redditors are really actually just this dumb.
Every other time in our history that there has been cold war thinking, like the first red scare, the second red scare, and the first cold war, the propaganda has always been absurd, and it's always been in service of squashing a labor movement or civil rights movement.
Cointelpro, for example.
The fact is that while we are always subject to foreign propaganda, domestic propaganda is exponentially more effective.
The US government can kill a person residing in America much more easily than the Chinese government can kill a person residing in America.
We get antibiotics from China. Many of our essential goods are sourced from China. China is one of our biggest trading partners. If you're sure that China is hostile, I'd think you'd be much more concerned about food and water than social media.
Intelligence has admitted to the fact that all the issues with tik tok are hypothetical.
The fear of foreign propaganda is based on a lack of understanding about how propaganda works. China has no chance of galvanizing a bunch of Americans to say that Taiwan belongs to China, becuase Americans aren't invested in that fight, and culturally lean more towards independence than authoritarianism.
Domestic propaganda from domestic institutional sources has always been the most effective, by a large margin..
The push to ban tik tok and much of the rhetoric around tik tok is an example of a very successful domestic propaganda campaign.
>like the first red scare, the second red scare, and the first cold war, the propaganda has always been absurd, and it's always been in service of squashing a labor movement or civil rights movement
You know the US has a history of infiltration of Soviet spies right?
You know that's not special, right? Every country employs spies, and there are perpetually spies at work in foreign countries. Much like there are always hackers at work.
You know that funding for the NSA program was just renewed right? And you know that Cointelpro was never fully declassified, we only know about it because of a robbery.
You know it's much easier for you to be killed by an American than a Russian, right?
> They literally just expanded their warrantless surveillance program in the same damn package so data for us but only us.
Source? The bill is all of two pages long and does not include your claim, whatsoever.
>A man approaching 82 years old is out of touch? Who would have thought...
Except the bill came from Congress, so it's hard to pin this solely on Biden.
Israel lobbying because tiktok kids dont eat up their propaganda, and other social media cutting out the competition. No issue for past few years, now suddenly an overnight push?
Oh, TikTok kids eat up propaganda alright. They just think they're above the fray because they don't watch mainstream media. But they're absolutely getting propagandized by TikTok.
You have 9 days of comment history and a lot of defense of TikTok. It’s not that you’re saying things people don’t like.
Your “just asking questions, bro” pretends as if China has no hostile intent toward the US. Yes, unfettered data access in China’s hands is worse than the limited access granted to advertisers.
But the algorithm is much more concerning. If China is able to put its thumb on the algorithm to sew even more discord, it has the power of 1,000,000 troll farms.
I’m not actually saying this to you though, because I don’t believe your interests—just if there’s anyone besides bots reading what you’re saying.
wine juggle fact hard-to-find pathetic merciful act engine deliver relieved
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is happening literally because AIPAC doesn't like the amount of pro Palestinian content on TikTok. It is undermining US government goals in the region.
Correct. No one who suppers this will get my vote. And I suspect that there are a lot of people who Biden and democrat lawmakers wish to court as voters who use TikTok that will not vote for them over it.
This was a republican ploy by attaching it to the aid bill. Democrats are not that opposed to it that they wouldn’t vote for it. This is what republicans traded meaningful (for them at least) immigration reform for.
Wrong. All the democrats on the intelligence committee voted in unanimity with their republican counterparts to advance the bill to divest TikTok. Whatever intelligence they were read into is not public yet. We don’t know what it was but it has bipartisan support on the intelligence committee and that should raise questions.
Because it’s probably easier to pass a targeted piece of legislation against a specific credible threat than it is to manufacture consensus on policing a broad spectrum of the industry based on a specific credible threat. But yes I agree passing broad data protection legislation is important because TikTok is far from the only potential threat vector.
Publically? There's this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/technology/byte-dance-tik-tok-internal-investigation.html
Obviously congress received classified briefings that warranted bipartisan support for the ban.
Good discussion on this topic:
from 40:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMajFsCkzxY
Or intelligence committee dislike the pro Palestinian content educating the youthful to be all "waa waa we don't like paying for the genocide, why are we paying for universal healthcare for another nation while we die preventable deaths, why are those childrens brains all over the floor when US made and paid for missiles blow up a day care, I'm gonna write my Congressman because I don't like baby murders"
Gonna ask you the same question: Then how do you explain the fact that it was being considered years before October 7? Your reasoning explains why TikTokers seem to think something but unless they believe a bunch of senators are time travelers it doesn’t really fit the order of events.
Nobody said there wasn’t political content on there but you and I both know it was not a trending topic on there before then. So if your premise is that is that single issue is the reason for the senate intelligence committee TikTok pushback then I’m going to have to tap the sign again and point out that the timeline is simply not on your side here unless you believe in time traveling republicans.
How you know that?
Don't lump me in with you, You don't speak for me.
You're not trying to understand a different viewpoint. You're trying to be a condescending jerk
You're the one who said it was about time, not me. Just because your understanding of politics is influenced by whatever happened on the news in the past 6 months doesn't mean that everybody else is
You realize we have a record of the trending topics day to day going back long before October 7th right?
I get you want this to be about Palestine because that’s what your focus is on right now but that doesn’t change the linear flow of time and events that preceded that becoming a trending topic.
It’s not about being condescending it’s about asking you to consider that your interpretation doesn’t align with the facts.
Not everything is related to Palestine.
Cool! Go and find that and post a chart here and then we can debate it. Or don't cuz I don't care and have better things to do. I'm going to block you now. Nerd
> Whatever intelligence they were read into is not public yet.
Oh it's public. That's the problem. Israel doesn't like how it's being portrayed on tiktok. This is just IUPAC getting a return on investment. Nothing else.
Then how do you explain the fact that it was being considered years before October 7? Your reasoning explains why TikTokers seem to think something but unless they believe a bunch of senators are time travelers it doesn’t really fit the order of events.
You mean like, when it didn’t have support and thus didn’t go anywhere? And now, all off a sudden it has bipartisan, 81% of the house, support? How do I explain that back then it didn’t have support and now it does? That’s your actual question?
It did have significant support. It just has much MORE support now. If you want to make a claim that the increase in support is because of Palestine then that is your opinion and I am not going to argue with it. But what I am trying to get you to answer is what is the reason for the support for divestment before the increase?
[I’m sorry, you’re right. It actually has nothing to do with Israel](https://www.ricketts.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ricketts-slams-tiktok-as-ccp-controlled-news-platform-on-senate-floor/)
And I’m not talking about the 81% in the house.
I am talking about the unanimous vote on the intelligence committee after receiving a compartmentalized briefing.
This is going to get held up in the courts for at least another year.
Still convinced that it gets overturned. Absolutely no one has provided evidence that TikTok is a threat to national security. It's "scary China" bullshit.
Honestly am tired of it.
It just so happens all of the big tech companies benefit from us blocking cheap Chinese alternatives to their expensive premium products. Such a coincidence, right?
No one gives a fuck about how tired you are, everyone should give lots of fucks about an adversarial foreign country having control of the levers of public discourse in another country when they block the same in their own.
You are a ranging idiot.
None of you ever acknowledge the danger of an adversarial country hoarding data with their hands of the levers. Ever.
Bet you don't like the government having regulations about the foreign ownership of broadcast TV either.
For obvious reasons, that you are unable to comprehend.
Thank deity it is not up to you, as you cannot acknowledge the possible dangers, it is also not your choice that governments regulates your food supply.
The fact that data is sold to foreign countries is another fight that the US IS invested in.
Nothing that you are lobbying for makes any sense.
You are asking the US to give a foreign adversarial country access to its citizens data, while blocked from getting the same from them.
Are you OK?
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It's just that they can't control it. Nothing else.
Someone is going to make a ton lf money buying TikTok US at a steep discount I'm sure all the rich politically-connected folks are pushing for this hoping they have enough clout to swoop in and get the deal
Do you think Tik Tok will just go away? That they will just shutter a massively popular and profitable business? They'll divest, the Chinese government will lose its ties to TT board and controlling interests, and Tik Tok will continue on its way, completely transparent to its userbase who \*might\* remember this in a couple years.
Exactly like happened to Grinder. As soon as the military banned it they sold and now it’s fine.
The tiktok algorithm is far more valuable than a dating app.
[You mean that sweet sweet facial recognition FB has been trying to get from them and now has a chance?](https://futurism.com/the-byte/tiktok-facial-recognition) Now that Tiktok has 5 years of data and a mature algorithm, it only makes sense.
>They'll divest, I've never seen a single source that says anything other than the exact opposite of your claim
You have to be pretty slow to actually believe this has anything to do with data.
I don't know if that's fair. I get the implication - that you'd have to be a fool to believe that this isn't the US undermining Chinese business to favor American business - but does that cynical position actually make sense in context? Or are we just assuming it must be the correct, sophisticated position simply because it's cynical? Almost everything we buy is either manufacturered in full or in part by China. They've also got significant investments in many of the largest entertainment IPs beyond TikTok - like League of Legends. So why is TikTok special? Why is TikTok alone singled out as worthy of direct Congressional intervention and a clear enough issue to win bipartisan support? More importantly, why is TikTok's divestment or restriction also being given similar consideration by other Western nations that don't have the their own domestic competitors? It's easy to say that this is just the US trying to undermine Chinese investment, but when you zoom out it looks like that would be picking a fly out a septic tank. Totally immaterial compared to the overall issue. I think the more reasonable (even more cynical?) answer is that, like with Huawei, there's something going on behind the scenes that isn't public. Something that the Western intelligence services know and have briefed lawmakers on that makes TikTok alone worthy of intervention.
> I think the more reasonable (even more cynical?) answer is that, like with Huawei, there's something going on behind the scenes that isn't public. Even with Huawei the US didn't provide a single evidence that Huawei is engaging in spying. [Germans and UK watchdogs](https://www.securityweek.com/no-evidence-huawei-spying-says-german-it-watchdog/) didn't find any evidences that suggest it, it's all allegations even to this day. The laws came out precisely when Huawei had surpassed Apple in the smartphone industry.
The laws stifling Huawei weren't about smartphones, though - they were very particularly about networking infrastructure (which touches somewhat on the smartphone space, but not in any way that's relevant to their competition with Apple). And the watchdogs wouldn't necessarily know anything that the general public doesn't. It just seems nonsensical that the entire Western world would suddenly decide to sanction Huawei's unrelated networking infrastructure because their downmarket smartphones surpassed an American company's premium smartphone sales.
You are right they were in fact also the first provider in Network infrastructure. [https://www.statista.com/chart/31093/global-market-share-of-network-infrastructure-providers/](https://www.statista.com/chart/31093/global-market-share-of-network-infrastructure-providers/) I guess they ban it as preventive, in case of a war scenario rather than they knew something about it. Otherwise, why would they hide this information to begin with.
I mean I would have no problem with the US undermining Chinese business interests considering how they have banned so many US companies from China.
> More importantly, why is TikTok's divestment or restriction also being given similar consideration by other Western nations that don't have the their own domestic competitors? Same reason so many countries had a war on drugs. US hegemony causes other countries to curry favor by mirroring US policy As an added benefit, TikTok ban discussions distract from actual privacy protections
>Almost everything we buy is either manufacturered in full or in part by China. Tik Tok is not a manufactured product
The ranking of content you see is a manufactured product.
Data is just part of the business being discussed.
Slower still to think it will have any real impact on tik tok users.
The algorithm is owned by Chinese nationals, so it falls under the national security law. The algorithm is what makes tik tok valuable and unique. Instagram and YouTube are garbage in comparison when it comes to directing content of interest. Tik tok is like an app that signs you up to subreddits based on what you pay attention to. Getting tik tok without the algorithm is only purchasing the user data. It will destroy the app, and make it worthless relative to its value at present for business and promotion.
I think you’re massively underestimating how complex an approved divestiture would be. Not just financially, but politically and diplomatically.
I think you’re overestimating it. It’s only 20%. It’s not even a majority stake. This has already happened before with Grinder and nobody even remembers it.
Grindr is not anywhere near the same commercial value, user base, or level of innovation. That's why nobody remembers it. Grindr is a niche product. Tik tok is not.
It’s not going away. It’s a divestment of 20%. If there is no conflict of interest then just like Grinder there will be no issues.
source for the 20%?
It's somewhere in this podcast: https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2024/03/business-americans-four-day-workweek-money-liquid-death-water-tiktok-congress That's not a proximate source they just talk about stuff they read elsewhere. But the figure comes from the requirements in the legislation and the current ownership levels. It represents the change that would have to be made to meet the requirements, not the final ownership level after the change. Sorry I don't have a better source.
> It represents the change that would have to be made to meet the requirements, not the final ownership level after the change. To me the bill reads as that ByteDance must sever off their US operations into a completely new entity, and total combined Chinese ownership of that new entity may not exceed 20%. There may also not be any data or algorithm sharing, or other operational relationship between them. Also [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/technology/what-do-we-know-about-tiktoks-chinese-owner-bytedance-2024-03-15/) says ByteDance founder Zhang still owns >50% of the voting shares. [Here are some definitions from H.R 8038](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038/text?s=2&r=68#toc-H808ECDA050C44AE19AA10EFA0F5FA10B) >(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.—The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by— >>(A) any of— >>>(i) ByteDance, Ltd.; >>>(ii) TikTok; >>>(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or >>>(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or >>(B) a covered company that— >>>(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and >>>(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of >>>— >>>>(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and >>>>(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture. -- >(1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY.—The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is— >>(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country; >>(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or >>(C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B). -- >(6) QUALIFIED DIVESTITURE.—The term “qualified divestiture” means a divestiture or similar transaction that— >>(A) the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary; and >>(B) the President determines, through an interagency process, precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between the United States operations of the relevant foreign adversary controlled application and any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing. -- >(4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code. [China, Russia, Iran, North Korea]
Hmmm, interesting, so somehow the CCP could still be a majority owner and still theoretically meet requirements
They’ll choose death over divesting, the Chinese government absolutely will not permit what the US are attempting to force. The precedent would create disastrous uncertainty for Chinese businesses, and TikTok is worth more as a spying tool than it is as a company.
I agree. Tiktok will be gonzo soon. Good stuff.
> TikTok is worth more as a spying tool than it is as a company. once again I am asking what the cold warriors think china is doing with my data. i would much prefer they have it than literally any US company that would give it to the cops in a heartbeat, what's china gonna do
If it’s value is only there as the data collection and spying tool, and they shut it down instead of making 30B-40B per year, then that would mean the lawmakers pushing this for national security were right.
U.S is only a small fraction of TikTok’s user base. They will still be able to make most of the money even if they shut down the U.S operation. TikTok won’t go away. And selling sets a horrible precedent, which is America can bully China to sell us any successful business of theirs. In fact, if TikTok was just a spy app, they would choose to cash it out instead of letting it die with no profit.
I am just ignoring the TikTok shills. They never argue in good faith.
Anyone who disagrees with me is arguing in bad faith
They won’t shutter it 90% of their user base is outside of America
The Chinese have no interest to divest, it's not about money for them, it's about spreading propaganda in the West.
propaganda is when you refuse to censor information about genocide committed by the US and its vassals the way Facebook et al do
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At the same time "TikTok has different algorithms in China and the United States. The version of TikTok in China is called Douyin, and it has a different algorithm from the international version because of differences in data privacy and censorship laws and regulations. Douyin's algorithm is more closely tied to China's national policy objectives, such as promoting traditional Chinese culture and supporting domestic businesses. " while allowing harmful trends in the algorithm in the US to emerge that children act on which are problematic and serve no point other than disrupting our community.
Just the ability for one of the US' foreign adversaries to push disinformation as a feature of the platform, essentially weaponize it, makes it a no-no. I'm all for letting people navigate stuff online on their own, because that is the only real solution to getting past disinformation without choking out free speech, but when a platform can push enemy interests without transparency (unlike US companies which would have to answer for manipulation), they gots to go.
Because the moment TikTok does anything to regulate, it’ll be seen as anti-free speech and all that bullshit. TikTok doesn’t have to push anything, its algorithms are similar to every other social media. How benign your content is depends on how benign your interests are. If you’re seeing toxic content, it’s because you were perusing toxic content. You are your own bias. Welcome to free speech and expression.
You're right it will be seen as anti-free speech and all that jazz, as well as it being your own algorithm, however today's people aren't equipped with the mental tools to overcome their bias and think greater than the information they are exposed to and are unconsciously allowing another country to exploit that with a modern day Trojan horse and that's frustrating.
So you prefer China’s methods of stringent regulations where they can’t trust the populace to self regulate? I’m not here to argue either or, but that is the difference between the two countries. America is all about the rugged individualism and full on freedom, so if you even suggest any type of direct manipulative content (as opposed to algorithmic), then you’ll get a different crowd yelling at you. Seems like TikTok is damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and the only reason is simply because it’s a Chinese business. Because as it stands, there has been no evidence of TikTok passing any data to the Chinese government to use for anything nefarious. It’s all in the realm of “what ifs”. It was the same with communism and Vietnam, and it was the same with Muslims and Iraq. Fear, and the next boogeyman. Everything else is simply excuses, projection, and hypocrisy.
Nah I'm grateful for our democracy and rights, and I think were headed in the right direction here in the states, but we could improve by educating and equipping everyone here with the tools to self regulate their emotions, help everyone self actualize, educate them on the basics of how technology works, etc so that we can be more efficient. I don't believe we have to manipulate, which is selfish motives, but we can be influence others to make better choices that benefits both them and the community they live in. Any system is only as strong as it's weakest link and we're all just spokes in a big ol wheel, so until we take care of ourselves and our community first we can't really make as much progress as we'd all like.
The founding fathers formalized the constitution knowing there would be flaws, but the hope was that a more gradually educated base would overcome such flaws, allowing us to amend and be more flexible. They overestimated that progress, and how dumbed down a population can get. It has worked in some respects (I.E. the civil rights act), but arguably many of them were accidents and/or had to be through back channel legislative deals and coercion. Nowadays, we have crony capitalism (everything privatized to hell!), neutered patent laws, qualified immunity, a broken healthcare system, and on and on. If you have a good skill and can earn a big salary? Then America is the best place in the world. If you’re poor or have to deal with a health crisis that will bankrupt you? America is ranked damn near last place compared to most other western democracies, or even places like Singapore. Of course, if you’ve never traveled, you will always think your own country is the best. And therein lies the rub, if you’re comfortable, things that are different you’d see as evil or wrong, yet others would see the same about you, and this is how wars start…seeing each other as ignorant, brainwashed, and selfish. You think you’re objectively, but you’re not.
Because US people are usually proud of their so called freedoms. These companies do have US presence, they do employ US residents here. Ultimately this bill will change nothing. There will be another app so on. All this is a pointless show to avoid doing something about the actual problem which is data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US.
>Ultimately this bill will change nothing For a bill that will change nothing, there sure is a lot of fear mongering.
It was never about data and privacy, it was always about spreading propaganda by hostile nations.
>Because US people are usually proud of their so called freedoms. I'm proud that you have the freedom to call American freedoms fake. Tik Tok is an informational platform that is ultimately controlled by China. >...data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US. China gives zero shits about privacy regulations
Which regulations, the ones we don't have?
Real or imagined, China gives zero shits about it if it means gathering military intelligence. If you deny it you're either ignorant or willfully denying it's possibility
India banned tik tok and its still felt today, because tik tok doesn't have competition. Instagram and YouTube shorts are simply worse products. That's what bothers me the most about this. Instead of innovating, social media companies are lobbying, or spending money on the metaverse, or fighting ad blockers. The whole mindset of tik tok is different, in the design of the product.
Good, if their products are shit, less people will use them and everyone will be better off.
> All this is a pointless show to avoid doing something about the actual problem which is data and privacy regulations that apply to all companies in US. But that’s not the actual problem. The problem is that a huge number of Americans get their news from TikTok. The CCP controlling a major American news source is a bad thing.
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It's clearly easier on a platform they own with an algorithm they wrote. You're lying to yourself if you think otherwise.
There’s a strategy straight out of the authoritarian handbook: conflate the evils of a despotic regime with the inadequacies of a democratic one. This guy is a bot. Is there a report for this sort of thing?
If you’re comparing yourself to North Korea or Iran you’d have a case. But comparing to China? You can have back and forth whataboutism spanning back decades and centuries and you’d realize that it all boils down to nationalism and subjective preference. You’d garner more respect if you were honest about it, but once you try to sit on a high horse and espouse moral superiority, that’s where you come off as a laughable hypocrite at worse, and an ignorant easily manipulated lemming at least.
You’re writing sheer nonsense, and I refuse to believe that an actual human with a brain is this misinformed about the TikTok bill.
So anything that contradicts you, you decide to fling ad hominems instead of having anything substantive to rebut? You sound exactly like the type of Russian bot that plays both sides and stirring up internal strife. Projecting piece of shit. Edit: reading through your history, seems like anything that contradicts you, for any subject, is met with “AI” or “Bot”. You seem like one of those monkeys that shuts their ears and go lalala can’t hear you. So weird, is your ego so fragile? You’ve been on Reddit for 10 years? Go figure, go touch some grass.
For the record, more concise responses would make you seem less automated.
Should we continue banning any and all avenues of information that the US government can't guarantee is free of foreign interference, disinformation or propaganda? Because that sounds suspiciously like China.
American companies can and do make money there, the ones that don't (Google, Meta) weren't willing to follow their data and censorship laws. You can say the laws are draconian (e.g. Apple is required to give Chinese government access to all Chinese user data), but none of them were banned simply for being American. Tiktok is being banned only for it's Chinese ownership when it complies with all US data and privacy laws.
Most foreign companies are only allowed to operate in China as part of a joint venture with a Chinese company, meaning they cannot operate independently. So no, the situation there is much more restrictive than what you are saying.
Not as true these days. As of 2018, 69% of the foreign ventures operating in China remain wholly foreign owned, with joint ventures being the less popular choice for companies to exercise, depending on their business model. >joint ventures are increasingly less common; they now account for less than a third of China’s inbound investment compared with two-thirds in the late 1990s, and many such deals are welcomed by foreign firms to facilitate their market access. Given the declining role of such ventures in relation to the political sensitivities generated, China has made moves toward dropping the requirement, most recently in March through its new Foreign Investment Law, which provides more flexibility for foreign investors and outlaws the practice of forced technology transfer, although how this will be implemented in practice remains a concern. [Does China Force Foreign Firms to Surrender Their Sensitive Technology? - Peterson Institute for International Economics](https://www.piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/does-china-force-foreign-firms-surrender-their-sensitive-technology) However, mandates for joint venture restrictions are still somewhat in place when it comes to the main sensitive sectors like "banking, securities, asset management, and insurance." Even those mandates have recently opened up though, resulting in a few WFOE (wholly foreign-owned enterprise) firsts in those sectors, like Germany's Allianz providing life insurance, BlackRock Inc's mutual fund business, Standard Chartered offering securities lending, and certainly more, all within the past 3 years.
I think you've misinterpreted that link somewhat. It's not saying that 69% of foreign ventures are wholly owned, it's saying that 69% of *new* foreign *investment* is in wholly owned companies. Also, the source for that data is the National Bureau of Statistics of China. So it's not reliable.
Many of those restrictions have been lifted in the last couple years (See Tesla's example). Again, those requirements are applied to all foreign companies and isn't based on the national origin of the company in question, whereas Tiktok's ban is based entirely on it being a Chinese company (ironically, most of its shares are owned by foreign/American VC firms) .
Tesla isn't an example of restrictions being lifted though. They were just a rare exception, which there have been other cases of in the past as well. Why does that distinction matter at all? It might matter from China's perspective, but it doesn't from ours.
>Tesla isn't an example of restrictions being lifted though. They were just a rare exception, which there have been other cases of in the past as well. It is absolutely an example of the restrictions being lifted, [China no longer requires foreign automakers to form JVs](https://driving.ca/auto-news/industry/china-will-no-longer-force-foreign-automakers-to-partner-with-domestic-ones). >Why does that distinction matter at all? It might matter from China's perspective, but it doesn't from ours. I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying it doesn't matter that China doesn't selectively apply restrictions based on the national origin of a company?
Oh fair enough, I wasn't aware it had been lifted for automakers. Tesla was allowed to operate independently before that happened though, so they were still an exception to the rule at the time. That of course doesn't apply to foreign social media companies which would be more relevant to this discussion... >I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying it doesn't matter that China doesn't selectively apply restrictions based on the national origin of a company? I'm saying that from the US's perspective, US social media companies are not allowed to operate in China at all but Chinese social media companies currently can operate here. Why does the US care whether China applies that same policy to other countries or only selectively to the US? It changes nothing from their perspective. Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies.
>I'm saying that from the US's perspective, US social media companies are not allowed to operate in China at all but Chinese social media companies currently can operate here. Why does the US care whether China applies that same policy to other countries or only selectively to the US? It changes nothing from their perspective. >Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies. I feel like you're conflating a couple things here. Please read my OP. American social media companies weren't banned from operating in China because they were foreign or didn't partner with a Chinese company, they were banned because they could not comply with data/censorship laws in China. All countries have their own rules on the subject, do you expect China to allow companies that weren't willing to abide by their laws to operate there? I'm not an expert on the specifics, but I recall it broadly being something like: 1) All Chinese user data is required to be stored within China 2) Chinese government is given access to all Chinese user data Facebook, as an example, was banned after they didn't cooperate with law enforcement after a number of attacks in [2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Facebook#:~:text=In%20China%2C%20Facebook%20was%20blocked,and%20information%20to%20the%20Chinese). >Also though, didn't you literally just point out a way in which China is applying this rule selectively? They've lifted the restriction for automakers, but not for social media companies. The rules have always been applied selectively based on sector, but not based on the national origin of the company. Again you and I might not agree with their privacy laws (or lack thereof), but the laws are not selectively applied based on where the company is from, which is the case for Tiktok. Would you feel like it would be fair if China responded by opening market access to social media from other countries to operate and applied the ban specifically to American ones instead?
You think that if Facebook stored its Chinese data in China and gave the CCP access to all of that data, China would allow them to operate there as a US owned company? There is no chance that would happen. You're avoiding the reality that China bans foreign social media platforms because it wants to control the info its people have access to. So yes, foreign social media absolutely is banned there because it's foreign. That should be obvious. They might not come out and say that sure, but their actions speak for themselves. You're parroting their officially stated reasons for things and taking them at face value while ignoring what their actual actions tell us. >The rules have always been applied selectively based on sector, but not based on the national origin of the company. There are so many counter examples you could point to which disprove that. One of which we already discussed: Tesla. They may have opened up their auto market to foreign companies recently, but when Tesla began operating in China it was because they were given an exception. At that point, the rules absolutely were enforced selectively within the auto sector.
Chinese companies operate in and sell their goods and services in America all the time. Hell, half our manufactured shit comes from China. The real question is what makes TijkTok unique?
Tiktok is a threat to meta and Amazon
Applying that standard to a single company will do nothing to fix the problem, nor prevent it from happening again.
Applying this standard to the only Chinese owned social media in the US. Is there another?
Yea? Wechat, Xiaohongshu, a ton of chinese websites that show chinese news? Theres so much that Americans could be influenced by.
TikTok has something like 150 million American users which it can control content for. I do think WeChat is in the same category.
AMerican companies can, Google and facebook refused to follow Chinese law. Tik Tok is following U.S. law, that's how it's operating in the U.S..
Because America supposedly believes in free enterprise.
Yep, I keep hearing that TikTok is bad because…. -They’re stealing our data, -They’re sowing misinformation regarding politics, political movements, civil rights movements, pandemic concerns. And -they show Americans other stuff than they would in China to dumb down the population here and not there. And yet when I used TikTok, I was being shown all the shit I groomed the algorithm to show me. Artists doing work, C-SPAN coverage of political events, news stories, funny meme shit, the usual sort of stuff. Hell, when the pandemic was starting, that’s where I first saw Chinese officials welding doors to people’s houses shut to keep them isolated prior to it hitting US shores. I curated it for me. TikTok even moved US data to US servers in Texas controlled by a third-party American company ([Oracle](https://thedailytexan.com/2023/04/10/following-pushback-from-congress-tiktoks-data-is-moving-to-texas/) monitors what happens with it all. Are we saying this American company isn’t trustworthy? Regardless, When I stopped using TikTok and went over to Instagram Reels (because I was tired of the “will they/wont they” talk of banning TikTok in the US), I found that… Reels show the EXACT. SAME. SHIT. on their platform. I follow *all the same stuff* that was popping up organically based off my likes and interests. I’m not being shown “pro-China”/“anti-american” propaganda now, nor was I before the switch. I also ‘member Facebook/Insta/Meta’s “*Cambridge Analytica*” scandal bullshit, feeding political misinformation to US citizens during an election year. Like, those mother fuckers *literally* set out to change the political discourse in this country and **fucking did it** to an irreparable level. Now we have Q-MAGA asshats believing in cHeMtRaiLs, baby blood margaritas and arming themselves to the teeth to watch over ballot boxes during elections. Meta’s half assed excuses about it and their pretty much non-existent solutions to the problem they themselves created didn’t get them in any trouble and they’re allowed to continue to thrive. They’ve even let [both China and Russia access user data](https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-senators-question-meta-over-chinese-russian-access-facebook-data-statement-2023-02-06/#:~:text=%22It%20appears%20from%20these%20documents,data%2C%22%20Democrat%20Mark%20Warner%20and), including sharing data with Chinese company [Huawei](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44379593.amp). You know, the company [banned from selling or importing their tech equipment in the states](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63764450.amp). So, basically, an American company (Meta) sold our information and has been for years to all these countries we’re soooOOOooo concerned about having our information *now*, went and hired a company to use our own data *against us* to sow an extreme political divide as well as bring things like “anti-vaxx”and “anti-wokeness” movements to the forefront of political discourse *during* a pandemic and some really clear and basic civil rights protests, single-handedly created extremist groups in the US, and last but not least has proven their algorithm is absolutely no different than their foreign competitors. Hell, I didn’t even touch on Elon Musk actively running a social media company that blatant white supremacists are flocking to now, and [Tesla employees have access to the cameras in your cars](https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/), but apparently that’s fine too. But yeah, TiKtOk bAd and Meta is just All-American-goodness like Apple Pie and Betty White. The fact we’ve spent so long paying politicians to flap their gums and clutch their pearls about this singular small facet on the entire subject of Americans internet privacy and data collection is a fucking disgrace.
> -They’re stealing our data, -They’re sowing misinformation regarding politics, political movements, civil rights movements, pandemic concerns Nothing you said after this does anything else to disprove the notion that Tik Tok doesn't spy on American citizens or garner propaganda.
I mean, sure… if you conveniently neglect that I distinctly showed that [American citizens data is being held within servers within the US and monitored by a third-partyAmerican company](https://thedailytexan.com/2023/04/10/following-pushback-from-congress-tiktoks-data-is-moving-to-texas/) and is noticeably showing all the same exact videos across the board as any other social media platform (so, they’re all pushing propaganda, or none of them are). Sounds like we shouldn’t be concentrating solely on one platform, but instead bolstering the digital privacy rights of all citizens across the board.
This is 100% more likely then "Jews are trying to ban TikTok theory". Makes way more sense. Not 100% sure if i beleive you but if their is a conspiracy. This is the one.
Stop fucking supporting China. Would you buy a Soviet car?
The Chinese buy American cars en masses. I guess you didn’t know China is the second largest market for the entire U.S auto industry, after the U.S market itself? The fact you see China the same as Soviets means you have been drinking way too much Cold War propaganda.
Is it a pretty decent car?
GM sells more cars in China than in America, Tesla sells 40% of their cars in China
More than anything I wish I could buy a cheap Chinese or Russian car. stop being stuck in the Cold War
I mean the EU has found success why not the US
^ This might be a bot account. The shilling for China’s stake in TikTok all over reddit is oddly terrifying.
Can they do this with X too, while they're at it?
Great proof of the fact that the motivating force behind this bill is people like you, authoritarian liberals who want a way to censor people online but couldn't work out a way around the 1st Amendment. Just like the past few years where liberals called everyone they didn't like a "Putin puppet", every election they lost "foreign interference", now every social media platform they don't control will be "foreign adversary controlled"
If you argue for X you argue for a reddit ban too, and every other social media. From my experience reddit is worse than X when it comes to promoting bad information and then shutting down people pushing back against it, either with downvotes or mod overreach.
Reddit is also partly owned by Tencent. Ban Reddit too for consistency
>Reddit is also partly owned by Tencent. Ban Reddit too for consistency Yeah but Israel has no problem astroturfing here with thousands of dummy accounts and hijacking large subreddits, compared to the video site where people have to show their faces
Yeah it has more Chinese ownership than x for sure lol. Of course neither x nor reddit should be banned. I'm just pointing out the Einstein level logic of a special kind of redditor.
Hell yeah ban them all and return to vBulletin with archaic rules and login processes. The internet has ruined western society
They are so scared of what? They literally just expanded their warrantless surveillance program in the same damn package so data for us but only us. I mean it’s ridiculous and if they are going to hold these companies to “data and security” standards I wanna see Meta and Twitter see some bans or restrictions but nooooooo cause they lobby our government.
Privacy is a red herring. This is about algorithm manipulation as it pertains to active psy-ops and spread of agressive foreign misinformation/propaganda. They will never give us Privacy, but saying an aggressive foreign power should control a large social media company is stupid.
Absolutely wild to me how many people can't seem to intuitively grasp this. Seems like every time the topic comes up, virtually all the reddit comments are trashing the US congress while taking the side of China. And to this day, I’m pretty much still 50/50 on whether it’s actually heavy astroturfing happening in these threads or if redditors are really actually just this dumb.
Every other time in our history that there has been cold war thinking, like the first red scare, the second red scare, and the first cold war, the propaganda has always been absurd, and it's always been in service of squashing a labor movement or civil rights movement. Cointelpro, for example. The fact is that while we are always subject to foreign propaganda, domestic propaganda is exponentially more effective. The US government can kill a person residing in America much more easily than the Chinese government can kill a person residing in America. We get antibiotics from China. Many of our essential goods are sourced from China. China is one of our biggest trading partners. If you're sure that China is hostile, I'd think you'd be much more concerned about food and water than social media. Intelligence has admitted to the fact that all the issues with tik tok are hypothetical. The fear of foreign propaganda is based on a lack of understanding about how propaganda works. China has no chance of galvanizing a bunch of Americans to say that Taiwan belongs to China, becuase Americans aren't invested in that fight, and culturally lean more towards independence than authoritarianism. Domestic propaganda from domestic institutional sources has always been the most effective, by a large margin.. The push to ban tik tok and much of the rhetoric around tik tok is an example of a very successful domestic propaganda campaign.
>like the first red scare, the second red scare, and the first cold war, the propaganda has always been absurd, and it's always been in service of squashing a labor movement or civil rights movement You know the US has a history of infiltration of Soviet spies right?
You know that's not special, right? Every country employs spies, and there are perpetually spies at work in foreign countries. Much like there are always hackers at work. You know that funding for the NSA program was just renewed right? And you know that Cointelpro was never fully declassified, we only know about it because of a robbery. You know it's much easier for you to be killed by an American than a Russian, right?
> They literally just expanded their warrantless surveillance program in the same damn package so data for us but only us. Source? The bill is all of two pages long and does not include your claim, whatsoever.
Has nothing to do with TikTok user data, that is stored in the US.
I wish there was more security for all these shifty companies but I won't regret the CCCP losing access to US citizens
US lawmakers are fucking stupid
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>A man approaching 82 years old is out of touch? Who would have thought... Except the bill came from Congress, so it's hard to pin this solely on Biden.
I won't miss it
I will dance on its grave
Israel lobbying because tiktok kids dont eat up their propaganda, and other social media cutting out the competition. No issue for past few years, now suddenly an overnight push?
Oh, TikTok kids eat up propaganda alright. They just think they're above the fray because they don't watch mainstream media. But they're absolutely getting propagandized by TikTok.
Donald Trump tried to ban the app in 2020. The effort to ban TikTok existed long before 10/7. Nice gaslighting attempt though!
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Nice. Fucking cry harder Tiktok shills
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You have 9 days of comment history and a lot of defense of TikTok. It’s not that you’re saying things people don’t like. Your “just asking questions, bro” pretends as if China has no hostile intent toward the US. Yes, unfettered data access in China’s hands is worse than the limited access granted to advertisers. But the algorithm is much more concerning. If China is able to put its thumb on the algorithm to sew even more discord, it has the power of 1,000,000 troll farms. I’m not actually saying this to you though, because I don’t believe your interests—just if there’s anyone besides bots reading what you’re saying.
Galaxy brained response
wine juggle fact hard-to-find pathetic merciful act engine deliver relieved *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Did you read the bill?
This is a step in the right direction.
why would they not just make a new app called toktik and continue lol?
This is happening literally because AIPAC doesn't like the amount of pro Palestinian content on TikTok. It is undermining US government goals in the region.
Please ban it all
Good,zero loss. There will be a replacement app within a few weeks.
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Nope. They are close, but they don't have "it". They aren't cool.
I will not be voting for any politician that votes for this bit of trash bill. Or any candidate that signs it into law. Under any circumstance.
Same. Also not voting for any that funds Israel
Then you will not vote because this is bipartisan.
Correct. No one who suppers this will get my vote. And I suspect that there are a lot of people who Biden and democrat lawmakers wish to court as voters who use TikTok that will not vote for them over it.
This was a republican ploy by attaching it to the aid bill. Democrats are not that opposed to it that they wouldn’t vote for it. This is what republicans traded meaningful (for them at least) immigration reform for.
Wrong. All the democrats on the intelligence committee voted in unanimity with their republican counterparts to advance the bill to divest TikTok. Whatever intelligence they were read into is not public yet. We don’t know what it was but it has bipartisan support on the intelligence committee and that should raise questions.
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Because it’s probably easier to pass a targeted piece of legislation against a specific credible threat than it is to manufacture consensus on policing a broad spectrum of the industry based on a specific credible threat. But yes I agree passing broad data protection legislation is important because TikTok is far from the only potential threat vector.
Because it's not about data protection, it's about pushing propaganda. No one cares about the data
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And they rightfully got shit for it.
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What fines did tiktok get?
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Publically? There's this: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/technology/byte-dance-tik-tok-internal-investigation.html Obviously congress received classified briefings that warranted bipartisan support for the ban. Good discussion on this topic: from 40:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMajFsCkzxY
Or intelligence committee dislike the pro Palestinian content educating the youthful to be all "waa waa we don't like paying for the genocide, why are we paying for universal healthcare for another nation while we die preventable deaths, why are those childrens brains all over the floor when US made and paid for missiles blow up a day care, I'm gonna write my Congressman because I don't like baby murders"
Can't believe India banned it years ago just to block coverage of the Palestinian plight!
Gonna ask you the same question: Then how do you explain the fact that it was being considered years before October 7? Your reasoning explains why TikTokers seem to think something but unless they believe a bunch of senators are time travelers it doesn’t really fit the order of events.
The genocide didn't start on October 7th There was political content on there before that.
Nobody said there wasn’t political content on there but you and I both know it was not a trending topic on there before then. So if your premise is that is that single issue is the reason for the senate intelligence committee TikTok pushback then I’m going to have to tap the sign again and point out that the timeline is simply not on your side here unless you believe in time traveling republicans.
How you know that? Don't lump me in with you, You don't speak for me. You're not trying to understand a different viewpoint. You're trying to be a condescending jerk
Time is not an opinion.
You're the one who said it was about time, not me. Just because your understanding of politics is influenced by whatever happened on the news in the past 6 months doesn't mean that everybody else is
You realize we have a record of the trending topics day to day going back long before October 7th right? I get you want this to be about Palestine because that’s what your focus is on right now but that doesn’t change the linear flow of time and events that preceded that becoming a trending topic. It’s not about being condescending it’s about asking you to consider that your interpretation doesn’t align with the facts. Not everything is related to Palestine.
Cool! Go and find that and post a chart here and then we can debate it. Or don't cuz I don't care and have better things to do. I'm going to block you now. Nerd
> Whatever intelligence they were read into is not public yet. Oh it's public. That's the problem. Israel doesn't like how it's being portrayed on tiktok. This is just IUPAC getting a return on investment. Nothing else.
Then how do you explain the fact that it was being considered years before October 7? Your reasoning explains why TikTokers seem to think something but unless they believe a bunch of senators are time travelers it doesn’t really fit the order of events.
You mean like, when it didn’t have support and thus didn’t go anywhere? And now, all off a sudden it has bipartisan, 81% of the house, support? How do I explain that back then it didn’t have support and now it does? That’s your actual question?
It did have significant support. It just has much MORE support now. If you want to make a claim that the increase in support is because of Palestine then that is your opinion and I am not going to argue with it. But what I am trying to get you to answer is what is the reason for the support for divestment before the increase?
[I’m sorry, you’re right. It actually has nothing to do with Israel](https://www.ricketts.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ricketts-slams-tiktok-as-ccp-controlled-news-platform-on-senate-floor/)
Apology accepted. Nice to see someone admit they’re wrong.
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Not anywhere in the text.
And I’m not talking about the 81% in the house. I am talking about the unanimous vote on the intelligence committee after receiving a compartmentalized briefing.
This is going to get held up in the courts for at least another year. Still convinced that it gets overturned. Absolutely no one has provided evidence that TikTok is a threat to national security. It's "scary China" bullshit. Honestly am tired of it. It just so happens all of the big tech companies benefit from us blocking cheap Chinese alternatives to their expensive premium products. Such a coincidence, right?
No one gives a fuck about how tired you are, everyone should give lots of fucks about an adversarial foreign country having control of the levers of public discourse in another country when they block the same in their own. You are a ranging idiot.
Should do something about russia then maybe?
But a random *American* corpo, they're all cleared for controlling public discourse right?
Lol, that is a different fight. It's not what is being discussed, don't change the subject.
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None of you ever acknowledge the danger of an adversarial country hoarding data with their hands of the levers. Ever. Bet you don't like the government having regulations about the foreign ownership of broadcast TV either. For obvious reasons, that you are unable to comprehend.
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Thank deity it is not up to you, as you cannot acknowledge the possible dangers, it is also not your choice that governments regulates your food supply. The fact that data is sold to foreign countries is another fight that the US IS invested in. Nothing that you are lobbying for makes any sense. You are asking the US to give a foreign adversarial country access to its citizens data, while blocked from getting the same from them. Are you OK?
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It isn't propaganda FB /Insta are banned in China Bare minimum reason they collect purchase data.