This is the real story IMO. The government has no business telling people they can’t use certain apps for their speech. What’s next? Apps which support encryption? Apps which don’t support whoever the current political party is? You want Donald Trump or Joe Biden in charge of which apps you’re allowed to use, really?
Huh. I hadn’t considered that. I dislike the platform and liked the idea of it being blocked, but I hadn’t considered it as a limitation of free speech.
Begrudgingly, this changes my opinion.
My issue is with information flowing to the Chinese government.
I understand that in the United States that information drain has been discontinued(as much as any American app discontinues information drain) but the fact that a few years ago, personal information was going straight from TikTok to the Chinese government who is actively seeking that information, and the app TikTok came from, douyin, still sends information to the Chinese government today like this is enough to give me pause.
To me, it’s not the same as Facebook or Instagram or whatever getting banned because of that direct and recent connection to the Chinese government.
If that were truly the issue, why not instead pass a law that prohibits transferring that kind of information to entities that could potentially share it without foreign powers?
They mention tiktok a lot but the text of the bill reads “any foreign adversary controlled applications.” So I think it is more broad.
Not really. They word it like that because laws need to look broad, but the purpose is to target TikTok.
One thing I’m absolutely worried about is the definition of “adversary” is too broad, and it could potentially be broadened to include any foreign country that doesn’t do whatever the US wants.
The “purpose” is to target TikTok, sure. But that doesn’t really matter as it could be used to enforce laws against any other company / country doing something similar. Laws are often used beyond the original intent.
Though if it’s not written broadly enough I believe it could be ruled unconstitutional.
Yeah, I’m not Constitutional lawyer, but that’s my impression as well. I’m guessing they’ll just adjust the definition of “adversary” to match their political aims though.
That’s been my position as well. I absolutely detest TikTok, refuse to use it, and consistently tell others to avoid it, but I cannot agree to banning it. People should be free to use what they want.
That said, it should be banned for government employees on government devices and on government networks (and perhaps on government property as well). That’s not a free speech issue, it’s a policy of the government as an employer, and government employees should absolutely be free to use it on personal devices.
I’d have more respect for the USA if it just dropped it’s pretense of supporting absolute freedom of speech. In theory, spreading Chinese and Russian propaganda should be protected under free speech, but the US government is clearly not willing to allow it.
I keep hearing that the US government is trying to ban TikTok. That just ain’t happening, but forcing it to divest from Bytedance is much more realistic. And that’s exactly what should happen.
TikTok is the primary news source for a lot of young people. The algorithms absolutely could be controlled by the CCP. The ability to amplify fringe beliefs is a power Xi should not have over us.
What I don’t get is that they wanted to have the most public system of any social media company. The proposal included an independent audit board, compromised of industry and government officials that could audit the code at any given time and would be forced to do periodic audits. AFAIK bytedance was completely on board with the proposal, but then it just gets scrapped and then they say the only thing they want is a ban and resale.
So it’s clearly not about the CCP changing algorithms to promote progaganda… it’s about the US governments current inability to change the algorithms to promote their propaganda. Otherwise having everything out in the daylight would solve the whole CCP problem, it just wasn’t the problem.
That just ain’t happening, but forcing it to divest from Bytedance is much more realistic. And that’s exactly what should happen.
A quick read through the first bill, HR 7521: “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”, shows that they explicitly call out divesting as an option. If ByteDance would rather shut down than sell, that’s their call.
If Bytedance shutters TikTok, a multi-billion dollar operation, that’s proof positive they are hiding some heinous shit.
I wouldn’t quite go that far. ByteDance would be balancing shuttering TikTok in the US with selling it off worldwide, likely at a reduced price. Then there’s the Chinese TikTok equivalent that ByteDance owns that seems to run off the same code base. They would certainly want to retain that. The US has the largest user base, but it might be the best business decision to not sell off TikTok. It still has potential elsewhere.
Honestly, I just can’t muster any sympathy here. A Chinese company is getting manhandled by the US government in the same way China has been treating foreign companies for years. China wouldn’t let a company be in the same position if the US government literally had a position on its board of directors, but that is exactly the case with TikTok. Fair is fair.
