The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away.
It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.
A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China. You can't own a broadcast station in the US as a non-US citizen. Rupert Murdoch had to become a US citizen to buy Fox. I don't know if I agree with this but you can't say there is no precedent for it in the US or in China.
> A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China.
And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.
"Ban" is completely appropriate shorthand for "ban (unless something highly improbable occurs)."
We can say that Google and Facebook are "banned" or "censored" in China even though China would surely be happy to unban them if they sold their operations in China to a Chinese business. So it is consistent and fair to say that this bill "bans" or "censors" TikTok.
> China blocks access to Google. Whatever you want to call what the TikTok bill does, it is not the same as what China does.
China does way more than that. China forces all companies that wish to do business in China to host their data in China in a way that ensures the CCP has complete access to it.
It boggles the mind how some anonymous accounts try to attack the US for interfering with a Chinese company doing business in the US, particularly one which is a notorious security hole, but leave out the fact that CCP's China goes well beyond as a matter of policy.
It boggles my mind how people look at China's censorship regime and think, "wow we are so far behind in the censorship race, we must move in that direction and start banning things ASAP"
it boggles the mind that everyone is complaining about tiktok and yet, each of the big cloud providers have data centers in china, hey but dont worry guys, they're physically separated honest
If you start a business in the US and you're only adding China DC's specifically for Chinese customers, I don't see why you'd invest more time and money in connecting the CCP to your US DC's.
It would make more sense that Chinese customers would want to host their data in the US not vice versa, and in that case you would treat them the same as American customers in American data centers with the same security in place.
It's the cheaper solution, caters to all customer needs, and doesn't risk your customers' faith.
I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't separate them.
Do you have some reason to believe they aren't or are you just guessing that they wouldn't take precautions? Because in this case, the precautions are actually the easier topology to build, I think.
The U.S. might be doing that, you just don't know because that kind of thing comes with gag orders making it a federal offense to even reveal that any such thing is occurring.
I'm absolutely not defending China's authoritarian regime and overall the U.S. isn't seems less bad, but at the same time it's a bit rich to pretend the U.S. doesn't do the same if it matters.
China passed data law after US and Europe, actually very similar law.
Also China does not stop companies to do business with Facebook and Google, if you look up numbers from Facebook and Google, a big chunk ad revenue would come from Chinese companies.
Telling a business it's free to do something if there's no profit involved is like telling a man he's free to drink whiskey if he can jump over the moon.
China is banned. TikTok isn't banned. You're conflating those to say that TikTok is banned, but your argument is what applies to China, not TikTok.
In the same sense, it's not Google that's banned in China. It's free speech. Google just can't operate without it so it decided to exit the market by refusing to allow CCP access to user data and to implement CCP firewalls.
You can conflate things to make them sound like the same thing. Words can have subjective and loose meaning.
But reality is very complex and very specific and doesn't have any loose meaning. And this is not remotely the same thing.
> And it's even more implausible to think China would allow this as a result of a US law aimed at limiting China's power.
Well that’s the crux, isn’t it.
If TikTok is just a business, like ByteDance insists, any business would rather get something than nothing. So ByteDance would sell.
If TikTok isn’t merely a business but rather an organ of soft power, and China blocks a sale, then the suspicions of the U.S. intelligence community are confirmed.
The stance of the US is that ByteDance has to sell off what is already a separate product (TikTok).
Google, Facebook etc don't have a "Chinese market" product at all, so there's nothing to sell off. If they did have a Chinese market product, worth many tens of billions of dollars, they would very likely sell it rather than spike it.
That's weak if common logic. Wealthy people burn a lot of money out of spite, constantly.
Essentially, you are asking everyone to assume that Bytdance does not really have a financial choice in the matter, and therefore financial irrationality is evidence of corruption.
When the reality is that the money may not mean as much to them as you are asking people to assume, and that in lieu of a payout they'd rather not reward a sale to the country that is strong-arming them. Which few with financial flexibility, and a healthy ego, would.
ByteDance would sell, but China is blocking it for export restrictions. It does not confirm anything. China is not a business, and it will look bad if US can force ByteDance to sell. You are mixing up ByteDance and China. China is not responsible for returns to ByteDance shareholders.
I didn't see the parent say there was no precedent.
But anyways, I like to hope that the US is better than China. If US citizens are abused while in China, I would be appalled to see Chinese citizens abused in the US as retribution.
Trade is conducted by individuals and businesses, not by nation-states. The fact that two parties have agreed to a mutual value-for-value exchange makes it fair by definition, and what is unfair is encumbering some people's commerce in order to serve the interests of some particular political faction.
The proper moral position is for trade to be governed by rational rules that apply consistently regardless of who is trading with whom or what country they are from.
Nations are just as relevant as businesses as abstractions as far as trade is concerned. Free trade across the world arguably only exists because it's made possible by the rule-based order with the might of the US Navy and affiliates to secure it.
Nations are abstractions. Trade involves individuals and businesses. Whatever the US Navy is doing to secure overseas shipping lanes doesn't change the nature of that in any substantive way.
I think it would be a poor argument to liken the US banning Tik Tok to US (or other) citizens being abused in China with supposed retaliatory measures.
We don’t need to overly moralize this and somehow find the US on a pedestal with impossible to reach and shifting standards of behavior that are only applicable to the US when it’s convenient for various bad actors and despotic regimes (Putin, Hamas, CCP, Iran, North Korea).
America can be “better” than China without having to accept disadvantages. Likewise China could allow American social media companies to show that it is sincere in being interested in free and fair business. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be regulations but there’s simply no good argument to allow a Chinese social media company to operate in the US without reciprocal activity and nothing, nothing is lost by banning Tik Tok.
Actually a free market is one of the main points of America. It’s not a moral argument of its superiority but a practical argument that a free market should result in the best outcome for all.
I still believe in this, and if you look at America’s policies of sanctioning countries like Russia, blocking a business from operating in a country is actually a detriment to that country because they lose access to the benefit that that company provides. Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
I don’t fundamentally believe it’s about fair playing ground or advantages/disadvantages for equivalent US companies in China. The current consensus is really about national security, and having China be able to access data on US people. If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
Furthermore if it did become about fair playing ground for domestic companies then I think it fundamentally misunderstands the free market economic model. The free market would benefit domestic companies. It would strengthen domestic companies to have competition.
The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances.
It was framed as a moral argument by suggesting the US should be “better”. At least that was my interpretation. I don’t think arguing from a market perspective really changes that interpretation but instead further weakens China’s lack of allowing American social media companies to operate in China with the same unfettered market access.
> If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
We kind of care and we have been caring more. The problem is that legally it has been difficult to say “go ahead and build or operate your business in the US except if you are China”. Likewise China just blanket applies the rules that it has to entities that want to operate in China.
> Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
It’s also important to remember that some things are more important than profit. The economy and market are just one aspect of a nation. Lowering cost and increasing competition are nice but they are not the point of civilization.
> The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances.
Of course in practice that's true, but we also tout free-er markets as something to strive for, especially when it comes to us imposing it on other countries in conflict with their sovereign rights to restrict their own markets.
> So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
I think TikTok is a highly special case, and sort of brings to light the rationale why China decided to ban foreign mega tech corps, especially social media ones. We also saw a backlash when Facebook tried to influence India's elections and politics with a banner on their website. Social media is indeed a special case.
But I think this problem is also similar to the national security vs privacy/encryption battle. We are giving up some of our principles to make our short term lives (national security) easier. Yes, TikTok can be weaponized as an influence machine... however letting it run free could mean developing a more natural resistance to it in the American population (if possible). If we devolve to market manipulation we'll rely on it as a crutch. Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
> A US company would never be allowed to own any kind of social media company in China
Every company that complies with the local laws can open any kind of company in China and they do.
The US has to do the same per WTO law as long as Tiktok obeys the US law. And it does. Hence the made up 'national security' horsesh*t to justify the ban - otherwise it would run afoul of WTO rules.
Just like crack and fentanyl! Let the market decide, cowards.
Although it is fun that it's totally fine for an American company to take the reins and continue on.
This could have been done with emphasis on the way China engineers TikTok/Douyin in each country and the effects on the end users - but that wouldn't make anyone with money or power very happy. The thing it does is fine - merely where the data goes and who pulls the levers is the concern.
The "ban" will change nothing in our society, thank God.
Ironically we’d see far fewer overdoses and a lot less drug-related violence worldwide if America would legalize the drugs people are going to take in America regardless of drug laws. You didn’t pick a great example.
It’s banning it because of national security concerns and has nothing to do with capitalism. Honestly though this administration doesn’t seem to take national security very seriously so this will probably fall to the wayside and be enforced with the same vigor as our border security laws - so yeah nothing for them to worry about.
Somehow, it becomes a security threat when the product is superior than local offerings
The Biden admin has also been looking to halt BYD sales in the US, citing security threats [0]. BYD’s cars are often cheaper than Teslas and very well reviewed
There can only be a finite number of broadcasters because of how radio works, so it makes sense to regulate. (A little bit of sense, not a lot.)
There should be no restrictions on who owns a website. There can be an unlimited number of websites, and every website's "reception range" is the entire planet.
Today's rulemaking pushes us one step closer to a Great Firewall. If ByteDance moves operations entirely to China, what measures will the government enact to prevent people in the US from using it? (It will probably be strong-arming app stores, but that will fail because they can just make it a web app. So the only option will be to have two Internets, one with everything except TikTok, and one with everything.)
It will be interesting if this extends to other apps. Will it be unamerican to play Genshin Impact?
In this particular case, the law targets financial interactions with the company in question. So it wouldn't actually ban the company from serving on the internet, but no US company can knowingly facilitate their services on their servers.
Ex, ByteDance couldn't go to AWS and ask for capacity, nor could they go to Hurricane Electric and ask for Peering.
If the ban was based on the context of the speech it would violate the constitution, but ownership of corporations is fair game to regulate. It's not uncommon for countries to have foreign ownership restrictions on other industries like banking, utilities, railroads, etc.
The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black. If the US has precedent, and this action follows that precedent, then our bitching and whining about Google and Facebook in China previously makes us look really contradictory.
We’ll end up validating Chinese policies all these years if we claim this action has precedent.
If it doesn’t have precedent, then it’s even worse. It becomes a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them (or their practices).”
> The other problem is the teapot calling the kettle black.
You could say the same thing about China complaining about this. Actually, that's what people would think of first when you mentioned "the teapot calling the kettle back". Frankly, I think people in China are surprised we kept our internet open for so long. Anyways, yes, American is now admitting that they will play by the same rules as China, rather than giving them a pass.
What does it matter what China does? If they don’t want our stuff then that’s their choice. I mean, we voluntarily use an economic blockade as a weapon against North Korea, Iran, and Russia, and it is not to their benefits.
My whole second point about joining them is saying that it shouldn’t matter what China does or says. They are hypocrites so we can be too???
I mean, if you think like that, then it doesn't really matter at all. Americans aren't so bound to concept of Chinese face that they actually even care about this. Since we don't get face hurt, accusations of hypocrisy are pretty pointless anyways.
Saving face is not just about saving face. There's also your credibility at stake. There's only so many times you can invade a country under false pretenses before the international community, or even your own constituency, starts siding with the opposition. I guess also if we really don't have any principles anymore, we'll have devolved back to survival of the fittest principles. At which point we don't need thinkers, just people doing what they can to get what they can all the time. No need to argue or make points. Just fight it out and save some time.
China said "American companies not welcome in China's internet", well they didn't say it, they just made that the truth. America saying "Chinese companies not welcome in America's internet" 10 years later isn't going to raise many eyebrows abroad. For the most part, people are wondering why it took so long.
> I guess also if we really don't have any principles anymore, we'll have devolved back to survival of the fittest principles.
China has been very clear that the principle should be tit for tat. All of their economic and foreign policy is based on that, from the visas they issue to visitors, the tariffs we exchange on vehicle production, and the foreigners they throw in prison when one of their own is put on house arrest in Canada. This is just a very late counter-reaction to a policy China has held for awhile.
It's the sovereign right of any country to be protectionist. Protectionism is actually the default. Open markets is not the default. I'd like to think the open US market is what makes it great, and too much protectionism actually stifles innovation and the robustness of the domestic economy.
The US market hasn't historically been that open. We started this country with tariffs as the only thing funding the government. All the free trade market stuff we have today was carefully negotiated via the WTO, and even then there is a huge bias in supporting allies (remember, when China opened up in the late 90s, it was antagonistic with Russia and actually a US ally since the the late 70s, that is all history now).
But we're not. The mantra of the West has always been that government must stfu and let the people talk. Government is charged with protecting that right for the people.
China is a government, so, just like our government, it must stfu.
This is a pretty straightforward protection of the people from government that's very much in line with American ideals.
I'm seeing downvoters here. Do you guys mean that people shouldn't have a right to free speech? Or you believe that if we give foreign governments the right to free speech, that they won't use it to silence you? I can think of at least one example that did.
It's like this: imagine your neighbor is a raging alcoholic, and you say - he can get drunk and beat his wife, so I should too. And anyone who says this is bad can clearly see that he was the first one to do it.
Because we exactly didn't. Look what's flying over your head.
China: censors free speech in China then makes a US speech platform and censors American speech on the new platform. Blocks US platforms in China because they refuse to censor speech for the CCP.
US: blocks China from owning speech platforms because the US doesn't allow censorship and doesn't trust China to stop censoring speech on the platform.
Literally the opposite thing. How you've managed to conflate two completely opposite things is very interesting.
Are you a habitual TikTok user? Or do you work for the CCP?
I'm openly suspicious that you might be getting paid to conflate these very obviously opposite things.
How would it validate China? China has made itself a laughing stock hypocrite. It tells everyone how bad free speech is, and then it begs for free speech?
Conversely America is holding to its core values of restricting governments from acting in the political field. That right is reserved for citizens, and is especially protected from government use. America is founded on restricting government so that free speech can exist.
This move firmly reestablishes America as a leader in free speech protection, as it protects citizens speech from influence by government, both domestic, and now, foreign.
This isn't the US joining China's practices, they aren't cracking down on all foreign ownership, they're targeting China as a tit-for-tat. Tit-for-tat is the right response to a defector like China, the US still cooperates with other cooperators like those in Europe.
No because a US person can be called in to answer questions in a court of law or before congress. If the owner is Chinese living in London, where would you even begin ?
Well, no, that's not quite right. Even though we nominalize the concept of 'freedoms' as something that we have (making it possible to conceptualize there being people who don't have them), the actual legal framework in place operationalizes these freedoms as restrictions on the exercise of political power, without qualification.
In other words "freedom of speech" means that Congress doesn't have the power to pass laws that suppress speech itself, regardless of where it comes from. It's not that the first amendment applies to some people (and certainly not that it doesn't apply to others), but that it applies to Congress and limits what laws they can pass without qualification.
To clarify further, interpretation of what it means to to be a right of people vs a limit on Congress; FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life is one of many examples where we have to assume SCOTUS interpreted that it's a right of people as there was no congressional action for them to limit in that case. They are clearly protecting people.
These cases go back and forth.
I would argue that it wasn't necessary to spell out that constitutional rights apply to citizens because the law is presumed to defer to common practice in cases where no law exists. That is, laws go back to long before the Constitution and those laws are referred to as common law.
In that sense; the king has lordship of his subjects, and no obligation to subjects of other kingdoms. He collected taxes, and provided protection from foreign threat and justice for his subjects.
Likewise, citizens of China don't pay taxes to the US, they have not that obligation because they are not subjects of the US government. Neither do they have the rights that are afforded a subject thereof.
Congress has no need to clarify that. It's presumed to be the case. That they mention it in certain amendments is incidental, despite the creative interpretations I've read, mostly from immigration proponents. (Not that I'm opposed, I'm an immigrant.)
No doubt, lots of people prefer to interpret this differently, especially when it's a right they need for a specific reason. That's exactly what China is doing here.
They are arguing about why the law should be interpreted in their favor this time. And next time they will argue the other way, as they do against their subjects.
It's up to the judge what it means in each case, but as a generally accepted interpretation, applying US law and protections to a foreign nation without some kind of formal alliance specifying more directly what is provided, is an egregious stretch of the imagination. It's ridicule, at best.
Your interpretation might have been right before. But now you're looking at a vast majority bipartisan vote that makes something inarguably clear; China doesn't have those rights as of the most recent interpretation. That's now true, regardless of previous interpretations.
That's not the way it works. Bipartisan votes in Congress don't alter the constitution, or expand Congress's own power under the constitution, unless the vote is for a constitutional amendment, which must subsequently be ratified by the states to become effective.
Firstly, they didn't expand or alter the Constitution.
I'm not sure where you got that from. Reading back and I don't see it anywhere.
Stated again, hopefully more clearly; by exercising restrictions on China they've reestablished that China is not "the people" described in the Constitution. So, it's not protected from congressional acts.
And second, they didn't need to do that anyway. Foreign policy is a power reserved for Congress and the President. No amendment ever restricted that power.
Amendment I takes precedence over Article I. Congress does not itself get to decide what "the people" refers to in the Constitution, and acts of Congress do not alter or establish any meaning of any terminology in the Constitution. Where there is ambiguity, the courts resolve it -- Congress does not have the final say in interpreting the rules that define and limit its own power.
Further, the protection of free speech in the first amendment does not even refer to "the people", but simply prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of speech per se, without qualification or any exception for who is doing the speaking. Congress cannot pass laws that abridge the freedom of speech as a matter of actual effect, regardless of whether they are doing so under the auspices of exercising other powers.
Foreign policy powers don't come into it -- if the act restricts free speech, it is unconstitutional, regardless of what end Congress was attempting to pursue.
Freedom of speech is my right to be able to bitch about Biden or Trump without having to worry that I'll die in prison.
Freedom of speech is not a right of foreign entities sending me memes about them to manipulate who I will vote for in the election.
There's a law where foreign entities can't own TV or Radio in US. This might be controversial, but IMO it should be updated to also include social media as this is source where people get news from.
I think, also with respect to the comments to this comment, we need to appreciate the minute nature of this scenario and statement.
Journalists and your everyone else enjoys free speech, it must not be curtailed, neither must it be fostered.
While companies as a disembodied judicial entity cannot have speech in the same sense as people of flesh and blood, they can, simply based on their properties, act as an amplifier or muffler.
This requires at least some level of care which cannot be guaranteed if the business is run by a company headquartered in an unfriendly foreign nation which does not allow free speech at all and only allows businesses to conduct international business that is sanctioned.(We have had numerous reports about this now over the past years that foreign investors and companies operating in China are actually competing with the Chinese state there.)
If you don't agree, let's take out China in this argument and phrase it differently:
Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there? (I mean we had Nazi parties in the US around that time, BUT from today's perspective we would agree that such a scenario(the media-outlets) is a clear cut case with the US-government prohibiting it.)
What was better in the 1930's was that the newspaper industry was in the business for the news. They were a news-company.
These days hedge-funds and for profits(not necessarily bad but it takes a turn when it is unadulterated greed by all means necessary( The Atlantic wrote a nice piece about this where Money swoops in buys a newspaper and runs it into the ground and that regularly and at scale, just cannot find the article)). So our position is a bit dire and we have Television and an industry that strives to captivate/capitalize all the attention it can get for a few pennies to deal with these days.
The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
Pair that with the New Silk Road initiative and the Dollar-Imperialism the Chinese government tries to run in the Pan-Pacific region and the picture becomes less welcoming.
Don't get me wrong, there is enough blame to go around for everybody, but I rather have it come from a non fascist entity. That being said, I can go into Washington and demonstrate peacefully(!) against Biden or Trump and I can ask questions about the past. Try doing that in Bejing with respect to Xi or Tienamen Square.(So while we can blame both sides there is still more to one argument than the other, so much for whataboutism) Considering that 'Grandpa' Xi enforced a personal cult around him starting with children's school books(not unlike Putin) and with what goes on with the Uyghur population in China's north, the attempts to strong arm Taiwan , the alignment of China with Russia, the broken promise made to Hong Kong and other items, I have to say that China is fascist and the CCP communist in name only.
The concept of Lebensraum is firmly on the agenda of global and, if you are unfortunate enough, also local politics again.
China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions.(China is less commercially insulated than Russia it appears. Propably one of the reasons China's is a bit softer trying to incorporate time.)
From an economic perspective I totally get that no company wants to have their business taken away, but I doubt Bytedance is just a company. This is just a change in ownership, nothing out of the ordinary. The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership.
That framing, in the light of what I just wrote, becomes highly suspect. Almost vicious, bordering on the willingness to divide and incite. (Which reminds me: Totalitarian regimes like to be part of the regular government bodies but they also like to set up their own counterpart so that they, after having stopped the working of those other bodies (or if they are ousted), still have a viable alternative.)
That is why I welcome this, why I think it is high time, why I hope to see more of these actions globally,
> China and Russia only differ in the choice of their tooling, approach and starting positions
This is deeply, deeply wrong - China and Russia are natural opponents, they are two autocracies that deeply distrust each other and do not understand each other’s culture. They will never be like USA and UK.
The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
I don't think that GP was asserting that China and Russia are close natural allies. You're drawing some accurate distinctions, but I'm not entirely sure how they relate.
> This is deeply, deeply wrong - China and Russia are natural opponents, they are two autocracies that deeply distrust each other and do not understand each other’s culture
Well Stalin and Hitler were like that too.
Luckily for the world Hitler couldn't stay his hand reaching for Moscow, otherwise the Allies wouldn't have faced a Germany being engaged in a two front war. Also, considering that Putin and XI met during the Olympic Winter Games face to face and that the invasion of Ukraine commenced right after the games as to not affront Xi, depriving him of China's moment in the Limelight is telling non the less. So there must be some mutual understanding. Especially considering that Xi is slavering over Taiwan.
> The alignment between then, is because they both face pressure from USA. It’s not natural and is a huge failure of US foreign policy.
I wouldn't consider it failure. Opponent is Opponent no matter what.
>Russia emulates Europe, it produces weapons using German machines, and bottles vodka on Italian production lines. Buying Chinese equipment gets local governors in trouble. They are happy selling natural resources and have no real desire to compete with US in iPhone production or car market. The main friction is around territory. They are kinda like brexiteers - they don’t really have their own vision of the future outside of a narrow. Specific issue.
The whole world produces weapons. This is a red herring implying that Russia is just doing what Europe does. That is outright wrong.
Europe does not try to forcefully move borders attempting to annihilate a sovereign nation by committing genocide. And I doubt they are bottling Vodka from Russian production in Italy, especially not since the sanctions. Vodka may have originated in Russia, BUT every company can distill and sell it.
Same goes for weapons.
I also doubt that it would get anyone in trouble buying Chinese, otherwise, Me thinks, a lot of people in Russia would be in trouble, especially way out East.
The way you label the War in Ukraine is also ... euphemistically put... and no, they are not like the Brexiteers. Please don't take me or anyone else here a fool.
Britain left the EU because of populism and now they are dealing with the fallout. They have no notion of reviving the British Empire. Putin wants to recreate the UdSSR. He himself declared the downfall of the Soviet Union the single most geopolitical tragedy of the 20th Century.
In short he is a Soviet still in mind and manner.
>China is totally different, they have a vision that is very different - it is not ‘be like the west but better’ - it’s be their own thing. they are getting off oil and plan to compete in high-tech industries. That’s not to say they are better, but the plan is totally different
Really?
Ask the Philippines, Vietnam or in general countries around the South China Sea, read news articles not penned by the South China Morning Post or read accounts from fishermen there. I am sure that the picture you fine there is totally different. Territorial saber rattling, building of artificial islands trying to stake a claim. China always say they come in peace and that we all should be tolerant, but when you try to see if that sentiment is true, then it is only true for others, for all other situations China comes first. Their recent political statements have become a statement of whataboutism and we are the victims of the bad bad west and we did no wrong ever...
To my mind their vision of the future is a Chinese one where everything non-Chinese is to be treated as second rate at best.
They are not like the west and definitely not better, otherwise the Chinese Government wouldn't have warned against the bad influences of Christmas some months back. Open minded, tolerant... with that message I don't think so. And you are right, their plan is different. Industrial espionage on a very very large scale. And please don't try to white-wash or absolve. They are creating new power plants burning coal at a rate higher than any other nation.
I must also add here that Xi, just like Putin, feels slighted by history. That China's fall from might, from national glory, is bad and that it must reclaim its 'rightful' place. Anyone seeing a parallel here. I might also add that it is quiet telling that no one mentions the great leap forward by Mao dark times ahead indeed.
Have you ever been to China? They have made more progress in the last few decades than the whole western world combined. And the west in in a serious decline. If anything that statement should be backwards.
Before you reflexively dismiss this argument and go hit that downwards triangle: what you are saying is China had more glory during the Opium wars than it does now. Surely you can see how absurd this statement is.
Also, it's nice to see a bipartisan bill in the national interest. There used to be a saying, "politics stops at the water's edge." Every so often we remember that.
Yes, I have heard that saying being quoted some time ago.
While I mostly exist on the other side of the water's edge... I am happy and hopeful that that is the case and hope it will continue to be that way and that the circus some politicians yonder the water's edge are putting on stops.
Some things do, and should transcend, political boundaries.
e.g. while I, would I be eligible to vote in the US, would most likely not vote Republican(probably not aged enough yet :D ), I must say that I like this guy https://www.facebook.com/RepZachNunn/videos/this-isnt-a-horr... simply for trying to do the right thing there.
Found it while I was prompted to do some more research due to busying myself with this thread.(and it is not the only report I found... See here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S160061352...) I always thought of it to be some boogie man story made up by Falun Gong or Falun Dafa hanging about the CBD to rope in support. Finding out that it is actually substancial... I think this is my seeing evil moment if I ever had one, and I am only in front of a computer screen in my PJs.
> TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly
This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
(example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
"Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
> This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
Do you have proof of this? Either in the positive, or the negative (if Chinese kids search for garbage they will be given garbage?)
There is a massive lack of garbage on Chinese TokTok. It's not actively injected into society like they do in the American version. It's a propaganda tool in both countries, each having a targeted purpose.
Amount of text is seldomly a metric for good or bad texts, some stuff needs explaining.
Especially when dealing with matters like this where others do not warrant their positions.
> This portion is rarely discussed. The algorithm that serves content, should be the algorithm that serves content. If kid who likes STEM in America searches STEM content, kid in America should get STEM content. Same in China. Kid likes STEM content, kids get STEM content.
Really?
Then this investigation should be wrong, but they are a reputable source and I trust them, especially since that is not the only report or the only source.
> "Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?" Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, 'Essays on Mind and Matter'
That is THE MOST inhumane and humanity denying thing I have read today.
It does not matter the color of your skin or the cultural background of your upbringing, we all bleed when stabbed and we all feel pain and fear. If that sentiment is still alive in the governing ranks of that country and wide spread we should all be very very careful and worried.
> (example based on physical addiction) If I was a smoker, and Phillip Morris completely changed it's marketing near me, and sold completely different cigarettes in my local area that were wildly different than the market standard, just because there was a local smoker inhabiting the area, I'd be furious. Especially if they were "dumbed down" versions of what actual smokers got.
A) you would have to notice to be upset
B) that is not how services and the internet work. We could sit side by side and use the same app and visit the same website and could,depending on connection or identifying markers still see totally different content or sentiments being expressed. Considering that we are on HN, I fear you know and you played that card deliberately non the less.
> If a website serves me wildly different content, even if we search for the same terms, have the same interests, then that's a load of BS. And if I was in China, I'd also be vaguely annoyed at the nanny state behavior.
Search for Tienamen Square inside the GFW and outside and also add the word Massacre to it and observe.
We also see a less politically colored version of this in general dubbed the Search Engine Bubble.
Also, you are free to be annoyed, but if you speak up you might also be 'free' to receive a free political 'reeducation' or sanctions.
>Would you think it would've been a good idea to have foreign investors from Nazi Germany run newspapers and radios in the states in the 1930s and leading up there?
Good idea? No. But the world isn't exactly ran on good ideas. Instead of Nazi germany newspapers they went straight to american broadcast itself and seeped in like a poison.
And the sad part is I don't even blame them. People want to hear what they agree with. Some may be legitmately brainwashed, but I've seen enough examples of individuals shunning the truth to conclude that we're well into a post-truth era.
>The 60min segment of ABC(Australia) also clearly showed that the TikTok version in China serves more STEM content to kids while the non-Chinese version shows entertainment mostly(let's amuse ourselves to death).
And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
It goes back to the root issue, many westerners have long lost that disciplined to be an educated populace, to identify and defend against bias. to will themselves towards what they need to do as opposed to want. a single social media side won't change that.
>The users won't know the difference between posting on TikTok under Chinese or American ownership.
They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
> It goes back to the root issue, many westerners have long lost that disciplined to be an educated populace, to identify and defend against bias. to will themselves towards what they need to do as opposed to want. a single social media side won't change that.
Really?
That is like saying that Russians are always good at chess or Chinese good at Kung Fu or Japanese good at Karate.
We had this type of rhetoric during the time of the Cold War as well.
Aside from it being profiling let's entertain this:
If what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat. You wouldn't have to introduce a system of snitching and forced conformism via the social credit system(which is less technical than is made out to believe in the west, more like some dada and wify on the bench taking notes) and you wouldn't have dissidents or the need to 'shield/protect' the population from any foreign influence via the GFW.
And onto other parts:
> And would Tiktok be the fastest growing social media if it did the same? China can force their citizens to watch whatever they deem worthy. they have literal curfews for playing games implemented by the government. imposing that onto the west is just a bad business decision.
Really?
It is only a crime, bad if caught and now they have been caught and called out.
Also, how do you measure growth?
Over the past years commercial data from within China has been dubious.
And what is the fastest growing anyways?
Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage. China has a large population and western products are not allowed to participate and e.g. Weibo or tencent are de factor monopolies. I assume it to be similar with Tiktok.
Also, things that are not good for you usually are the most fun.
Think junk food.
There is nothing wrong with that or endulging it it(every once in a while), but, once again, it is nefarious when there is malicious purpose behind it like with Tiktok. A foreign power trying to subvert values and a way of life.
And to answer your question: Yes, given that the Chinese Government is footing the bill they have more clout than their competitors because of that.
> They would if they pulled out of the US. I'd look forward to the fallout that ensues. Maybe it will get the you to understand the power of their vote.
Well, then the ownership does not change.
Their choice, it is their company. They may do with it as they please, but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
It's, not profiling, it's culture. You abandon all your safety nets in lieu of a increasingly individualistic society, and then costs of living increases as wages stagnate. The logical conclusion is that you start to become more selfish, and focus more on your own survival and satisfaction, instead of thinking in the larger picture about long term goals or how you can server your community or society.
It didn't have to go that way but that's the direction it went. And I see no initiative to change that.
>f what you say were true, then the populace of China(to borrow your verbage) wouldn't start laying flat.
In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
>so, how do you measure growth?
As a social media platform? Aquire more users, capture to market share, and increase profit margins. Asia isn't so different from NA/EU in that regard.
Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
>Usershare? Tiktok enjoys an unfair advantage.
The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
>but if they don't play by the rules they may conduct business elsewhere only. Why stop a parting guest?
Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
Maybe I can't stop the second coming, but I sure as heck won't have the wool I've my eyes again and get caught up in the petty squabbles.
>It's, not profiling, it's culture. You abandon all your safety nets in lieu of a increasingly individualistic society, and then costs of living increases as wages stagnate. The logical conclusion is that you start to become more selfish, and focus more on your own survival and satisfaction, instead of thinking in the larger picture about long term goals or how you can server your community or society.
If that is so altruistic, I am sure a mom from that cultural background would forfeit the future of her child so that another family(maybe her sister's) has a better life ensuring the thriving of their offspring instead. I have known many a people of Asian decent. What you describe is pure idolism. A cliche, a stereotypical, unreflected, reflexive - dare I say romatizised - vision of the Eastern Culture. If it were true, why are so many people migrating then? Away I mean? And what about the wandering workers that are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth? Also, what you are framing as logical is human nature. It is not different based on culture. Only its hue changes. You also left out my point about the generation that lies flat and other remarks.
> In all honestly, most of my post has nothing to do with China at all. So I have no idea what you are deriving from my statement.
ByteDance is a Chinese company with Bejing's blessing. The whole debate, not just our little discussion here, is framed US-China or West-China.
> Then when expanding/globalizing you adjust your platform to the culture. China has theirs, the US has a different one. Facebook has to do this, Google has to do this, Even Apple has to do this. Nothing is really unique from a business perspective.
Really?
Recall project Dragonfly of Google's ? Does any Chinese company operating in other jurisdictions require a minimum percentage of Chinese shareholders or similar shenanigans?
> The US doesn't care about the Chinese userbase. And if the Chinese userbase could influence platforms, Weibo would be the Facebook of the world, instead of Facebook.
See project Dragonfly again. A lot of companies are interested in the Chinese market. That is all Bloomberg ever raves about when it comes to the Chinese market opening and Earning calls being presented.
So the statement that the US(or the west in general) is not caring about the userbase in China is outright wrong. A lot of consumers, biiiiig market. They are just not allowed to touch it or under hefty penalties with big handicaps.
And weibo was beaten to the punch, Tiktok wants to become the youtube/whatsapp of the world. Don't try to misdirect here ;) .
> That's the quirk of growth that companies can forget when expanding. You don't just get a bunch of famous or masses of users and things become profitable nor even popular. Even companies as big as Amazon may pull out of a country if it can't properly understand this.
See my previous reply. I must also add, tongue in cheek, .... or is coerced to leave because of unfair competitive scewing. Amazon is the kingpin of online retail and must be checked in in general. Such a 800pound Gorilla knows what it is doing. So I doubt that would qualify for your argument to begin with.
> Again, I don't really care about their fate. I'm looking at the fallout from a bunch of angry ticktok users. The last time we had a bunch of angry people on social media enraged by some trivial issue we got Trump.
That is a discussion worthy of its own thread and I am not touching it in order to stay focused(nice try though). Let's just say that doing the right thing should be done regardless of the implications because it is worth doing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be smart about it. And reigning in China's delusions of gradeur and Xi's pipedream of wanting a legacy as big as Mao's no matter the cost on the back of millions of people is the right thing. You can't let a bully step over you.
Just because it doesn’t say “ban” doesn’t mean its not one. It is well known that China lists algorithms and AI models trained on citizen data as a non-export so tiktok will never be able to sell to anyone other than a Chinese company unless they retrain the model etc.
The CEO has mentioned that they will simply pull out of the US market.
Theoretically they could sell "TikTok" to a US company who then licenses algorithm processing to the Chinese entity, no?
The US entity isn't beholden to the CCP and can decide to switch algorithm providers if they suddenly notice it's getting very propaganda-y, which provides a degree of independent oversight appeasing US concerns while not necessitating actually switching from the current systems.
The law requires the President (i.e. executive agencies) to verify any such transaction, and it specifically calls out "cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing" as subject to review. So they thought about that.
I am baffled that any thoughtful person would take a CEO statement at face value without considering incentives.
1) prior to bill passage, convincing the public that they will pull out is optimal as it helps argue against bill, regardless of whether it is at all true
2) but, after bill passage, the incentives are totally different. Pulling out means giving up a billion dollar market that could instead have been sold. The shareholders would be livid.
So I am very skeptical. I have heard CEOs say many things they later were found to clearly never have meant seriously, simply because it was what they needed to say at the time. Like, "we would never do outsourcing or layoffs, your division is totally safe"....
I would think thoughtful HN readers would be just a little less credulous
That does not follow at all. Perhaps they simply don't want to spin off a future competitor, and decide that selling simply isn't worth that future risk.
They could work on a "good enough" algorithm that is basically already in public/open source domain when they sell it. 80% of its value is captive audience and "cool factor" with younger users.
As I understand TikTok has been investing in building out a U.S. fulfillment center network over the past two years, perhaps a drop in the bucket for them. With this investment and the loads of U.S employees they have I would be surprised if they leave their large (largest?) user base.
This they can actually sell, plenty of fulfillment companies that would be interested in buying. They aren't selling their tech though and I don't blame them, Facebook wouldn't sell to be in China so whatever. However, I am disappointed because we aren't China and shouldn't govern the same. I personally will be voting for any non incumbent going forward (for my remaining time in this country, I'm getting out of here), the current legislature on both sides is insane, dangerous and (obviously) slowly creeping up the road of fascism.
There's a great book that I think everyone should read:
"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Tim Snyder, it's also is short and to the point (audiobook is 2 hours long) and teaches people what to look for to see when their country slides into authoritarianism and what to do to fight it.
The author also reads it on YouTube if you can't get a hold of it.
Of course the CEO is going to say that, because they don't want the law passed. When the chips are down, it's a lot less likely that just pull out than that they take the money from one of the many salivating buyers.
If TikTok is in bed with the CCP as much as Congress says they are, think about the actual cause and effect of their different options.
If ByteDance sells TikTok to US owners to satisfy the requirement, they give up control of a successful platform developed inside of China to a self-declared adversary that already controls most of the world's social media platforms, representing a significant loss to China as they attempt to compete online.
If ByteDance ignores the demand to sell, the US government has obligated itself to prevent its citizens from accessing one of the most popular social media apps in existence, something that the affected users will be extremely angry about, and will likely make claims of state censorship.
If I were China, and my goal was to leverage TikTok to do harm to America, I would choose the option that turns US citizens against the government over the option that transfers power from China to the US.
aren't they already split and use different app in China vs US. Interestingly Chinese app's algorithm chooses more STEM videos, while Western version just pushes addictive crap.
China is a communist country. State owned industry. The leash they give business "owners" might be long (long enough to fool westerns it's just another USA), but it is still a leash, and they are still under control of the party. No courts, no rights, no lawsuits. Party wants, party takes.
There are plenty of US companies that are authorized to use government-funded patents, that would prevent them from transferring ownership to foreign owners. This isn't a "poison pill" conspiracy, this is standard export control for state-funded technology.
Companies that are export controlled have military tech. The idea that a social media app would have a poison pill for export control is ridiculous and shows how owned these supposedly independent companies really are.
ITAR applies to many technologies that are trivial to duplicate or have been redeveloped outside the US to bypass those restrictions. Memory chips hardened for space are subject to ITAR. These memory chips are commercial with lead tape on them.
> they also have to remove the addiction algorithm
Whoever they sell it to, if they end up doing that, is going to be more than willing to put in place their own addiction algorithm, in just the same way that American social media and other adjacent tech companies have implemented them.
I'm in no way a fan or user of TikTok, but thinking this will improve the app seems naive.
Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative.
Someone like Facebook wants the algorithm to show addictive content that generally isn't super offensive to the average person. Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve ever used TikTok. I assumed the same thing going in and found quite the opposite. I’m way better informed since I started using it. In some cases by people that were actually involved in whatever event was newsworthy.
Selectively reducing or excluding some events as not newsworthy while promoting others is observable when using ticktock and the underlying means of propaganda people are concerned about.
For a US example you can simply count the minutes of coverage Fox News and CNN give to various stories for the same basic effect. How much coverage you gives the Russia- Ukraine war can be just as impactful as if you refer to it as a Russian invasion or not.
I don't use TikTok, but I use Facebook and Google's short video versions. I find just as many anti-CCP as pro-CCP content on it, and...I guess these are mostly TikTok videos because many of them still have TikTok watermarks.
Have you even used TikTok?
Facebook connects you with the people around you, and TikTok connects you with your favorite people on earth. That's the essence of the product.
I've found way more false news and stuff on TikTok than anywhere else, even about innocuous things and not something serious like a war. It's taken on the form of modern day chain mails in the way it spreads lies, with the participants being the most invested. They all think they're doing citizen journalism yet most of them verify nothing.
Let me not even get started on the deep fakes lurking on the platform.
Not only is there more false info on Tiktok, the user comes away with high certainty they are being reliably informed. Because accounts popular on Tiktok focus strictly on presentation and entertainment, not anything actual journalists prioritize.
The effect is less informed with higher certainty, and terrible combination for training citizens for actual civil discourse.
I don't see how people can say this with a straight face knowing that American adversaries operate almost in the open on Facebook. You don't need to control the platform to control the message. That's what social media companies sell!
I don't think the GP was talking about ads at all when referring to foreign adversaries influence on Facebook. They wouldn't need ads. They're doing fine disseminating disinformation already. TikTok does not promote CCP messages through ads, either.
If it has to come down to companies increasing division in Western countries for profit over ideology, then fine. One is a negative externality that can be mitigated, the other is the entire point (therefore cannot be made better).
But you need to control the platform to siphon user data , have a foothold into everyone's phone and to peddle misinformation and entertainment instead of education (Chinese version operates differently than the non-Chinese one).
There is no greater vehicle to deliver a hooking mechanism to target specific users for spyware upload than an app that is installed on a lot of platforms.
Weechat is one other such tool btw. and that thing behaves strangely compared to e.g. Whatsapp if you install it.
While this AFAIK only applies to the US, it should be the #1 issue to solve. By a wide margin. It's honestly baffling that not everyone with half a brain is up in arms about it.
I'm not convinced anything on TikTok is more divisive than any other social media platform. And Reddit seems to be filled with a lot more tankies than other platforms.
> idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
You're right, everyone I know now buys their glycine from Donghua Jinlong instead of using domestic manufacturers. This is clearly not because of the superior manufacturing capabilities of Donghua Jinlong, who are ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified, and whose glycine is industrial AND food grade, but because of an insidious campaign by the CCP to promote Chinese glycine across the entire industry, trying to crush American glycine manufacturing. I demand congressional hearings about what our elected politicians are doing about this threat to American-made glycine!
On a serious note, it's so amusing to me to read the comments of people who hate TikTok, but who clearly haven't used it. They simply have no idea what it looks like and the kind of content that is popular on it.
But they're very certain that it's bad!
Meanwhile, I'm scratching my head trying to understand how my watch history could have any value whatsoever. Cute kittens, shirtless guys chopping wood, sad hamster memes, Sanchez the sleepy racoon, Young Royals edits, some dude eating all kinds of cheese, A bunch of confused Americans in Europe and vice versa, PEDRO PEDRO PEDRO, guys promoting their onlyfans, schwapeepee, and of course Donghua Jinlong content, although it seems to have run its course now.
> Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative
How is it worse than making disseminating disinformation illegal? The law as written lays bare the true motivation - it's not about fighting disinformation ("inauthentic user activity" has been detected across all social networks for the purposes of disinformation). It almost certainly is about protecting American companies from competitors with better AI algorithms. The legislature has telegraphed that the tech/potential for abuse are not problems by themselves - ownership by a Chinese company is what they take issue with.
But why is that a bad thing, China has the same regulations on companies not Chinese? Its not "better" algorithms its "weaponized" algorithms designed for specific populations including its own population which I imagine are not as damaging then the ones applied to others. My point is, of course this will be banned if the US gov cannot benefit from it and considered a threat to certain people.
I didn't say it was a bad thing - I said there's a better option that wasn't taken. IMO, protecting citizens from bad behavior by domestic and foreign companies is nobler than corporate protectionism. YMMV .
>Having the US's primary rival, which runs massive disinformation campaigns, also opaquely control the content that US youth consume en masse seems worse than...just about any alternative.
Sounds like a skill issue. The Us has decades worth of a head start on the internet and social media. If "the enemy" can just waltz in and disrupt that in a matter of 5 years, I think we have bigger issues on hand.
> Someone like the CCP wants the algorithm to show addictive content that idealizes "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries.
Yeah, America has a decade long headstart on that too. We blamed facebook in 2016, we're blaming Tiktok in 2024. How long are we going to deflect this to the internet?
> “socialism with Chinese characteristics" and increases division in Western countries
Do you have a single example of a successful Chinese media campaign, disinformation or information - just one?
Because I can name, off the top of my head, disinformation campaigns by Trump (election was stole) , by Israel (bunker under a hospital), by Isis (mass recruitment in western countries), by oil companies (heat pumps don’t work in Britain’s unique climate), by food companies, by Russia, by Greenpeace, by crazy people on 4chan but I cannot name a single message that came out of China and got major public resonance in the west.
CCP is a major pusher of disinformation/propaganda. Look up Dragonbridge. Or how YouTube had to remove thousands of CCP propaganda channels. Or the classic "US Army Covid Origin" story that China pushed when social media came for Wuhan.
China's 50-cent army buys social media accounts, or creates fake personas, to push narratives and abuses reporting/takedown mechanisms to suppress unfavorable posts and channels.
A Facebook or Twitter-esque addiction algorithm is WAY better than a CCP addiction algorithm since the latter tries to socially engineer unrest and disillusion, on purpose, as a targeted act of Nakatomi-esque cyberwarfare against a totalitarian regime's rivals. The former kind maybe does so as an inadvertent externality, and with every reason to wager to a far lesser degree.
Meta won't turn up the heat on antisemitism and down on something the CCP doesn't like. It might turn up the heat on, I don't know, trans rights, and down on neo Nazis, but it's much more benign dystopic info filtering than an actual "what will destabilize the US and fuel stochastic terrorism and civil war?" agenda (which is against Meta's best interest).
The US social media seems to be encouraging nationalism and conservatism. Which Im also not to happy about. It seems to be creating more unrest in the west rather than strength progress and unity.
China might not even need to influence the west through tiktok, meta and friends seem to be doing plenty of it themselves. None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
I give TikTok negative benefit of the doubt though. Nobody can prove if the stream of craziness is organic or a result of Chinese propagandists tuning the algorithm, but I'll believe it's the latter every time. Could I even afford not to? It's just game theory at this point.
> None of it seem to be making us progress forward tbh
The Nirvana Fallacy is when you reject the better of two outcomes because it's not good enough compared to some mythical optimum.
In this case, the optimum could be some social media service that "strengthens progress and unity" or it could be a total ban on social media altogether, both of which seem pretty mythical. :p
I believe organic, chaotic derangement is better than extrinsic, targeted derangement in magnitude and outcome.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted - but I think this is thoughtful and to the point.
The highest ideal American SNS follow is profit. That will generate all kinds of externalities that might be bad for society. Still, at least so far, we've found it to be the least destructive optimization target in modern human history (vs. socialism).
The CCP is clearly tuning the algorithm in the SNS under its control to limit topics it deems undesirable in its goal of an ideal society. Whoever thinks this isn't so bad hasn't experienced an authoritarian state personally or at least highly underestimates the pain and suffering one can inflict.
I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to be honest... All of the algorithms only end up working against the entertainment and educational factor of it all anyway. I'm thoroughly convinced that the social media mega-platforms have all moved out of algorithms to just pushing sponsored ads all day. Many of these ads repeat far too often every time I log in, and it's been making me want to ban all the apps anyway...
> I'm looking forward to more regulation of social media to be honest
I'm afraid that's not goign to happen in the US. Politicians never let a disaster go to waste: had the will been there to regulate social media in general, the hysteria around TikTok would have precipitated it. Instead, we got a law specifically targeting TikTok and ignoring other SM.
Facebook & Instagram have had tons of Congressional scrutiny over the past decade, the problem is they never really did much to fix issues with the platform as a result.
The mere fact that these social media CEOs are building vast bunkers and amassing billions of dollars highlights the issue that they are literally shoveling value out of these platforms into their own pockets, and those of their investors, while preying upon the instincts of all their users in a deeply psychological manner.
I just don't we'll ever see bans of social media working in the USA if the company is from here, at least not for the next 15 years, SCOTUS will most likely shoot down any attempts to do any serious regulation of social media except for maybe people under 18.
Personal web sites have been around for ages. Things worked better before when there was a proper search related to individual web sites and music blogs. There was also a lot less obsession with minute-to-minute updates from artists and scams to get on playlists and for likes and followers.
I'm a musician myself, and social media is totally overburdening the music economy with scams for musicians like paying for ads and bot services just to get visibility. Social Media overall is considered to be a wasteland dedicated to promoting only artificially engineered celebrity music and stories right now in the opinion of many.
You're right, but to the consumer like me I cherish how I'm able to connect to my favorite individuals like Andrej Karpathy and still learn a lot. I guess most people are likely the same, and spend an awful amount of time daily on this, whether they know it or not.
Playing devil's advocate: you can't block on native apps, and some mobile web browsers don't have extension support.
Also, please avoid ad-hominem ("hilariously limited intellect"); it overshadows what otherwise would be a valid point (enforcing a ban vs. practicing personal habit, critique on blanket statements, etc.)
Google and Meta already have plenty of TikTok-style videos with addictive algorithms, so I don't think we will be much better off if TikTok leaves the market. Kids will just migrate to other competitors.
The algorithm's novelty and recommendation accuracy is so far beyond what other competitors like Google, Snapchat, and Meta have that this seems like a coordinated effort by the private sector to push forth their mediocre products and centralize social media service which I absolutely DETEST. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly announced how far behind Tiktok Meta was. Many years later they are still playing catchup.
Though, the saddest thing is that it seems like the U.S citizens, (i.e ANY of tiktoks 160 MILLION US users) have absolutely no say in the operations,a yet we actually interact with the app not these old people in Congress. The fact that Biden so swiftly signed the bill too makes me frustrated as I want to vote for him, but he keeps doing or okaying things that are counter to my values.
Yeah. Google won this war already by getting Chromebooks into schools, which are mandatorily tied to a Gsuite account and thus have YouTube Shorts, drive, Gmail, etc access.
As a parent, I hate google a lot more than TikTok. I can already block TikTok, but I can't block youtube because the school district mandates it.
They don't need chromebooks in schools, my kid uses YouTube kids at home (that doesn't include shorts), teens will have their own phone usually, and youtube is already a popular place for them to go, discovering YouTube shorts (if they haven't already), is easy.
But ya, if a teen is otherwise cut off from devices besides the ones they get from school, then you could see that as a weak point, although I don't think that applies to a significant portion of families. For the ones that it does apply to, they probably have bigger problems to worry about than TikTok being banned.
The admins should be able to block YouTube for minors when asked. There's a way to do it but it's by OU not individual user. Fight for it if you want it.
I'm fairly certain the title of this article already makes that perfectly clear: "starting clock for ByteDance to divest it". If anyone is unclear on what is meant, that is purely a failure of reading, not a failure of media reporting.
While I get the point... if the EU said Facebook could not be available in the Country unless the company divested from US interest, would we not call it a ban?
I think it matters whether it really is a ban or just called a ban, because the whole First Amendment argument hinges on this question.
If TikTok was banned in the sense that it had to shut down then the First Amendment argument could work. But if it's just a forced sale then it has no bearing on the freedom of speech of TokTok users.
"Forced sale" is interesting, because it assumes that a Chinese company would allow itself to be forced to sell. If TikTok refuses, the government either has to admit that they have no power to force a sale or actually ban access to the service, or they have to start demanding that app stores remove the app, and DNS providers stop resolving the website, and that ISPs start blocking the IPs. This would become a complete shitshow pretty much instantly.
The law doesn't ban them from having Chinese owners.
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps substantially owned or controlled by foreign adversaries.
TikTok could host APKs from CCP headquarters if they want to.
Is this just a distribution ban or will US actually block the app at net/protocol? I have never used the thingie but this ban business motivated me to download it the other day.
The most essential advice I can give to any new user of TikTok is to be EXTREMELY liberal with the "long press > not interested" feature. The default FYP ("For you page", the algorithmic feed) is initially tuned towards the average teen, with lots of garbage (pranks, half-dressed women, and assorted other trashy content). The algo is pretty good at picking up what keeps your attention, so be careful what you give your attention to.
If you tune it right, there's a lot of good content on there, though.
The crux of TikTok's success is that you don't have to "game the algorithm" like in other apps, and it's quite resilient even if you try. It seems to know what's an organic signal and what's an artificial signal.
Most other short-form content recommendation algorithms overfit like crazy (ahem Instagram ahem), and many users trying to bend it a certain way mess it up.
Give it a try. It's weird, fun, educational, stupid. It's whatever you make of it. Is it also whatever China wants you to make of it? Maybe. But they could do the same thing with news, TV, or movies.
I believe so. It's called "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" not "TikTok Ban Act", so it can be applied to apps like WeChat as well.
For example, if they (or some party that's directly targeted like Apple or Cloudflare) gets a U.S. court to enjoin enforcement of some of the provisions.
Buzzkill! Everybody else on here was having fun opining that it's 100% certain that China pulls the plug, or conversely that a sale will happen, and you just had to point out that it's an empirical question where nobody can read the CCP's mind. Boo.
The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?
ByteDance did a ton of stuff in China before getting into short videos, which was a hype cycle with a whole bunch of players until eventually they consolidated to one or two.
The amusing thing looking at this from China perspective is that ByteDance has been hit by the government over and over again for appealing to the mainstream.
The first big success they had was a social media platform centered around memes/jokes, and because the CCP doesn't have a sense of humor they crushed this platform when it started getting too popular.
Their second big success was a news aggregator that focused on surfacing news people actually wanted to read instead of the news the CCP wanted people to read. Which is to say mostly lowbrow gossip and sensationalist storytelling instead of long and tedious treatises about how great the party is. The Xi administration crushed that too, mandating changes in the platform that made it just as sanitized as all the other Chinese "news" outlets.
TikTok getting popular overseas seems like the result of a very well-timed purchase of musical.ly. The small number of western Gen Z youth I'm in contact with say they came to TikTok through musical.ly. Either way, we all see how successful that has been. Once again, ByteDance figured out a product that gave the "low end population" exactly what they wanted, and once again the government is punishing them for it.
At this point you wonder if these guys should just throw their hands in the air and pivot into oil or pharmaceuticals or some other addiction industry that's totally in the government's pocket. I guess the suspicion of some in the US government is that that's already happened and that's why this fun app that everyone loves is actually a tool of the CCP.
It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.
It’s alarming to me that you think the owners of arguably the most successful social media company in the world would sell it only to appease a single country. It comes off as a typical American perspective of thinking they’re the center of the world. At TikTok’s current global growth rate, they could exceed the entire user base of the USA in just a few months. I’m not sure how that user share corresponds to revenue as I’d assume the US is a lucrative market,but I just don’t see it. And TikTok has directly said they won’t be divesting.
A propaganda tool doesn’t need to be immediately financially profitable though, that’s not their expected main outcome (though I guess that can be a nice bonus).
The US is typically more profitable than all the other countries combined, as people here have far more disposable income after all expenses, and are more inclined to spend it.
The advertising market in the US pretty much eclipses the whole rest of the world, so yes the owners are very likely to sell it to appease a single country.
If I forced you to sell your home and said you couldn't live there anymore, and if you refused to move, we would tear your house down. Would you then say that I am banning you from living in your home? Kinda feels like a ban, even though it's just a forced sell.
This is pretty much a ban. Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor? Majority of congress isn't stupid and knows what they want to happen.
Because the shareholders would most likely rather have X billion dollars from selling the company than 0 dollars from refusing to sell and getting banned.
It wouldn't be 0 dollars, though; the majority of their users are apparently outside the US. So the question is: how does the amount you could get by selling a US-inclusive Tiktok compare the potential future earnings of a US-free Tiktok? If the market prices it accurately, you'd sort of expect the former to be higher (a US-inclusive version seems obviously more valuable), but maybe they think the market undervalues them, or maybe prospective buyers would smell blood in the water because of the deadline and try to low-ball, etc.
> Why would the company convert their main product into a competitor?
Thats easy to answer.
The reason why is because they'd get paid 10s of billions of billions of dollars for it, and otherwise their investment would massively lose a large amount of value otherwise.
Also, bytedance wouldn't be competing with tiktok anymore in those markets as they'd have sold it off.
So the choice is either to make a bunch of money, or to instead have their investment become worthless.
>It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
That's because:
* Saying it'll get banned makes for a more sensational headline.
* Saying it'll get banned is accurate enough for most practical purposes.
* Saying it'll get banned is simpler than explaining the details of divestiture. Most Americans probably don't even know what "divest" means without pulling out a dictionary.
Another reason could be: many are not sympathetic to the America's claims that these foreign platforms are at the whims of a country it is at odds with and which have repeatedly demonstrated covert abilities to change American's perception.
Speaking with some younger American co-workers in the past, their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see and it seems to have coincidentally begun after TikTok entered US market a few months before US elections.
So the worry seems to be that young American voters exposed to a foreign social platform will influence upcoming elections. I do not think this is far fetched as multiple countries have come out to expose various tactics by certain countries to influence perception.
>their suspicion/hatred of their own country is astounding to see
Speaking as an American, our country was founded on the principles of being apprehensive of governments including our own. Being suspicious of our own government is a very American thing and should not be understood as surprising.
See our Declaration of Independence for further reading and context.
And old people losing their connection with objective reality is connected to fox news. Next argument. It's being banned because old technically illiterate people (most of congress) latched onto a simplistic solution to the wrong problem,
Also wonder whether the law names TikTok in particular or just some criteria that matches it. If it's the latter, are other companies also on the clock?
I've seen articles saying that it would be hard to find any large enough investors to buy it who also don't cause a monopoly. Can ByteDance spin off TikTok to a separate company which would have an IPO and go public and in the process no longer have Chinese owners?
They only need to sell the US portion of the business. They can continue to operate everywhere else, right? Why would they throw away tens of billions of dollars (value of the US portion)?
The CCP does not care about the marketcap of bytedance, they care about the soft power that tiktok allows them to wield. The CEO of bytedance may want to sell, but the CCP won't let them.
In US those are essentially equivellent as money buys soft power very easily. This whole thing is US not wanting to expand user rights but protect it's soft power and it shows.
I think either way this whole thing is a big W for CCP and L to US democracy that doesn't have the balls to actually expand regulation when it's clearly wanted and needed.
They would lose soft power in the US but what if the CCP accepts this and shifts their tactics to slowly but surely flood the rest of the world with anti-US propaganda? Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like the US could win here.
> The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners.
My prediction: China would absolutely throw away a few billion to enjoy the chaos that results from the country that preaches free speech painting itself into a corner and banning it. Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
It would be like taking away terrestrial radio from boomers. It's that popular.
> Enacting a ban on the most popular app among Gen Z would cause a huge uproar.
Or they just move over to FAANG competitors? I've never used TikTok before since it is an app, but I use YouTube shorts and whatever that Instagram short thing is Facebook is pushing into my feed (with...erm...a lot more addictive algorithms than YouTube). Ok, I'm not Gen Z, but it looks like content providers are already hedging their bets on platforms (they often don't even remove TikTok watermarks), I don't see why consumers wouldn't follow. Its not like YouTube or Facebook is blocked in the USA.
Currently the FAANG competitors are much worse; their recommendation engines are inferior. That's why consumers overwhelmingly prefer Tiktok currently.
Content providers are stealing their own TikTok videos, although I'm sure some providers are stealing other people's TikTok videos to make money on Reels and Shorts, especially the Chinese ones I've seen (probably ripped off by other Chinese wanting to make some quick money).
Yeah. This is really a generational thing. That's why the ban was bipartisan... nobody in Congress is of the age that uses TikTok. However, the youth in this country are going to be enraged, far more than I think a lot of people expect. I don't use TikTok but the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app.
I mean, I’m happy to see tiktok removed from app stores for the same reasons as I’d be happy to see any social media apps be removed from app stores, so from that perspective, I don’t think it matters that I haven’t used tiktok unless it’s somehow exempt from the problems that are endemic to social media apps.
I mean it's debatable whether or not social media is good for society, and there's legitimate concerns about data privacy, but do you really want the govt to remove them?
Good question! I wouldn’t trust a government aiming to remove them, but seeing them run afoul of legitimate legislation (where I’m not actually familiar enough with the US/tiktok law to really make a judgement call on) in ways that get them punished satisfies me. (Assuming those punishments are in line with principles I otherwise support - e.g. I wouldn’t support ISP-level blocking.)
> the people I know who use it are extremely passionate about the app
It's addictive and they don't fully understand the dangers of CCP spyware and CCP controlled algorithm. It's like drugs addicts being passionate about drug use.
>the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners
Why does everyone assume this is likely? The CCP has already said they would block a sale of TikTok. This happened a while ago - so the US saying TikTok must be sold is an effective ban. The misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest.
> misdirection of the wording of the ban is just dishonest
Ban usually means you can't use it anymore. Take, for example, Google in mainland China. Banned without unusual circumvention. If TikTok refuses to sell to a non-Chinese owner, on the other hand, they get removed from app stores. Their website still works without any circumvention. Not banned. Even in the worst case.
> you are moving the goalposts. Now it's not "they will be forced to sell", but "the website will still be available"
Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor? What counts as a ban?
The United States is capable of banning stuff. When we take down pirate websites, we're enacting a ban: domain seizures, asset freezes, criminal penalties and possibly sanctions. We can even go lightweight: say it's illegal to provide services to Americans (or more draconian, which I must add lines up with China's approach, make it illegal to access them) and then leave enforcemnt to the executive.
What we're doing here is milquetoast: sell enough to non-Chinese owners so they no longer have a controlling stake or distribute this from non-American servers and via the internet and sideloaded apps. Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
>Where did I set a goal post? What does the goal even represent in this metaphor?
It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still available.
It's an effective ban because the CCP has already said they will not allow a TikTok sale. Congress knows there's no recourse for ByteDance. They aren't going to hand over the IP to a non-Chinese entity. If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban.
>Calling this a ban is like saying someone was banned from a restaurant because they arrived after it closed.
The irony about this is that China has the same exact policy in the mainland, but no one argues whether or not Google is banned in China. Google used to be in China! China said Google had to censor some topics or they wouldn't be allowed to do business in China. Google opted to leave.
Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship.
> It has gone from "not a ban" because they just have to sell, to "not a ban" because because the website is still available
These are both true, though. Again, if you want to see a ban, look at how Facebook is treated by China.
But fair enough, people are using the term "ban" inconsistently. I wouldn't say anyone's moving the goalposts as much as we're using an ambiguous term interchangeably.
> If France said they were going to ban NVDA unless NVDA sells to a French national we would call it a ban
This is tautology. You literally said if Sally were to do X to Andy unless {}, then X = X.
> Nobody sits around pontificating that it technically wasn't a ban because all Google needed to do what follow Chinese law on censorship
You can't go to Google.com in China. You will be able to go to TikTok.com and access its content freely after it's been, per your definition, banned. From a free-speech perspective, that seems material.
I get your point from a free-trade perspective. This is obviously not a free-trade bill. Maybe that's where the discussion is losing traction...
Why are you framing this in such a way that treats one party as having agency and the other party as being immovable? The US is not banning TikTok, they are posing stipulations towards its use and you believe the CCP when they say they won't comply with those stipulations. But why is that a ban, versus "the CCP refuses to let TikTok comply with US law?"
Do you consider Google banned in China? The CCP had stipulations for Google's continued business in China. It was unable/unwilling to follow them, so Google left (voluntarily, infact).
I've never seen anyone argue that Google isn't technically banned in China. It's clearly a ban when China does it.
Yes. Is this even a contentious point? Despite the fact EU hasn't bothered to null-route an application that doesn't comply, they will impose onerous fines.
And what do companies do that don't want to comply to GDPR? They ban EU users. You can use the search bar here to find countless people talking about being banned. There's no ambiguity - there's only ambiguity when it comes to TikTok.
If I purchase a car with low gas mileage, and then the EPA requires cars to have minimum gas milage, that "bans" my car. Even though technically, I could figure out some way to rebuild it to comply.
It's glossed over because it creates a more emotional response framing it like that rather than giving the technical details that reveal the actual situation is perhaps less sensational?
It bans American companies from providing services that distribute, maintain or update any sufficiently popular apps where a company is headquartered in, or has more than a 20% ownership share of the company held, in a country that has been determined to be a foreign adversary.
It is much, much broader than a 'tiktok ban', it applies to any company that fits that criteria. So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company. It's not just a ban, it simply won't exist on the internet for US users.
There are probably a bunch of companies that will be subject to this if it's upheld in court, and the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet. It'll also likely result in Chinese interests devesting down to >20% from US companies that they do not want banned, for much the same reasons.
Basically, this is the result of a bunch of tech-illiterate politicians who have no idea how any of this works, passing a law that looks good in news headlines without regard to the potential consequences. So business as usual on the hill.
As people are pointing out, no. This isn't a blanket law, it requires per-case executive action to enforce.
What the law absolutely does do is make "Chinese Ownership" an existential risk to companies with software products with large numbers of US users. Riot, Epic et. al. will be strongly incentivised to get their PRC shareholders to divest, and in the future other companies will be disincentivized from accepting that kind of investment.
> So to put it bluntly, if the CCP bought 20% of reddit, reddit can't be distributed, maintained or updated by any US company.
Provided they have more than 1 million MAU (which they do, obviously). The president would also have to affirmatively ban it and report to Congress about the specific threat that company poses, and what assets need to be divested. TikTok is the only company written into the bill by Congress that doesn't require affirmative action by the president, or the report.
> the law very likely could be weaponized by the CCP to get things banned that they don't even own yet
Only if the president believes they should be banned.
1 million MAU is nothing. Throw up AdSense on something that gets 1m MAU and that pays for a single developer. Also, I don't like the President getting this kind of power over businesses. It's bad enough when they can make angry Twitter threats... now they can give them a corporate death penalty.
Sure, that's a valid concern to have, and I'm not saying the bill is a great idea. I'm just pointing out that there's nothing automatic about the process and the clock to divestment wouldn't immediately start ticking the moment a company crosses 20% Chinese ownership. The person I was responding to said the bill could get weaponized by the CCP to ban things via the threat of them acquiring more than 20% ownership, but that's not how the bill works.
The US has already done this with a different company, without passing a law[1]. I don't know what else to say, other than the TikTok algorithm must be some secret sauce and actually is being manipulated by Beijing and that's why they're making such a big deal about a forced sale in this case. Otherwise, this would just be a giant liquidity event for these senior business executives and that would be that.
Instead, the TikTok CEO is invoking the First Amendment and "freedom" to emotionally manipulate people into thinking Congress did something wrong here.
I don't think it is possible or economically viable for ByteDance to sell TikTok under the terms set out, even if they wanted. Because of the shared code base with Douyin and the bill's requirements on severing ties between the two.
The likely outcome is that TikTok will stop operating in the US and continue in Europe and other places plus Douyin will continue in China.
Nope it doesn’t ban TikTok from having Chinese owners. TikTok could very well continue to have Chinese owners, and if so the US will ban the product domestically
China has made very clear they do not want ByteDance to sell. And that ByteDance should follow Chinese law.
Hmm I wonder why..
I think it's unlikely they will sell and it will instead be removed from US markets. China would prefer that we don't have another successful social networking platform, and they would like to keep their spyware for use in other countries.
It really isn't, it's not in anybody's national interest to allow other companies to force a sale. It would set a terrible precedent where any Chinese tech company could see their Western/International operations get captured and therefore cause major loss of expected returns.
It is already well known that tiktok ai models and algorithms trained on Chinese citizen data is non-exportable, so tiktok will never be able to sell to a non-chinese entity.
You're focusing too much on the what and not the why. Banning all foreign business in certain market segments to protect your domestic industry is fine (because it's all countries) Banning Chinese businesses because we're imposing trade restrictions with China is fine (because it affects everyone). Hell banning specific companies because they don't comply with local laws is fine too (because it's the same rules for everyone).
Fuck this one particular subsidiary majority owned by a Chinese company rubs me the wrong way because China doesn't do this to us. As a general rule US companies can operate in China and US companies are allowed to own stake in Chinese companies.
To me this is an escalation of the fair-weather, "I don't like you, you don't like me but we can still be professionals when it comes to mutually beneficial trade" attitude we've had.
The easiest way to understand this issue is to ask yourself why American social media companies can’t operate in China with the same level of operational freedom that Tik Tok can in the United States. Once you have those answers you will understand why it needs to be banned from the perspective of the United States.
Facebook didn’t start to become globally popular until around this time. In 2006/2007 when I joined you still needed a .edu or in my case a .mil email address to access it. Basically as soon as it started becoming popular in China it was banned.
The organized protests[1] were just a convenient excuse. Race riots have occurred in many countries and you can link those back to various social media platforms which were used to organize protests.
[1] The protests as you describe them… there is a lot to unpack here and it’s not a good enough excuse to ban American social media companies. But if you think it is, then the US also gets to arbitrarily ban foreign social media companies.
It's somewhat of a sinophobic/red scare dogwhistle and provincial protectionism insecurity gasp of declining global influence because it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it when day-to-day operations are led by the same people with the same interests and allegiances as before. Domestic politicians compete to look tough by seeming to attack convenient, distant foreign adversaries in symbolic ways.
US news media is able to spin headlines to maximize drama and outrage for the chumbox sales while misinforming readers. The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world and so US mainstream news media doesn't have to seek excellence in evidence, integrity, accuracy, or precision.
If this is Sinophobic, China must be pissing its pants terrified of the United States. It's a shame for the two of them I guess.
>The reason is Americans, in aggregate, are under-educated compared to the rest of the world
Objectively wrong. It's one of the most educated countries in the world, just mediocre compared to the rest of the OECD. They're more educated than China, no matter how well a small number of urban Chinese students do on international standardised tests.
Comparing wintermelon and oranges. Live a few more decades and then your definition of "objective" may face reality. The higher education system of the US is selectively excellent, but 0.5-0.75% of Americans have top tier university degrees. Only 39% of Americans have any college degree at all, but this includes online and colleges that accept anyone. Fewer and fewer Americans read books of substance, or any books at all. America is deeply anti-intellectual from its founding arising from the culture of English settler merchants, with a tiny core of intelligentsia that grew around exiled religious movements.
a. Quantitatively
- Reading: Canada is 3rd, America is 24th
- Science: Canada is 7th, America is also 24th
- Math: Canada is 9th, America is 39th
^ There should be negligible differences between them given vast similarities.
b. Qualitatively - Meet and talk to enough people from Asia (Japan, China, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China) and Europe (Iberian and Eastern) & UK. And then talk to many Americans from anywhere other than from the coasts. Conspiracy theories, misinformation, MAGA, and QAnon are the mainstream norm rather than the exception. The difference is: they don't have government censorship, a totalitarian regime, or social credit habits as an excuse for their ignorance. There are billboards with borderline racist MAGA slogans in the South US.
In china in 2018, 17% completed tertiary education. If you're comparing the worth of society by tertiary educational achievement, than Canada is beating America and crushing China. I already said that Americans educational achievements are mediocre relative to the rest of the OECD. However I'd bet money that its PISA scores would hold up next to China's if China actually tested the same percentage of the population that America did.
One country has borderline racist MAGA slogans. The other has Han Chauvinism and forced propaganda for a totalitarian state. There's plenty of conspiracy theories and misinformation in both countries. Here's a study showing that 13.8% of people in China considered GMO foods as a form of bioterrorism targeted at China[1].
I'm not saying America doesn't have problems, but most of the criticisms you lobbed at America can just as easily be lobbed at China, and yet China seems to be economically expanding rather rapidly relative to America or most places. I'll also say being highly educated isn't all roses, every country with tertiary education levels as high or higher than Canada's has a well sub-replacement birthrate - the education levels you idealise aren't even independantly sustainable.
It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN.
To be clear, I'm not supporting the law with this comment, just clarifying what the actual content of the law is.
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