Much of the public support around the TikTok "shutdown" is to avoid it rotting our brains, but shutting down TikTok (which isn't even what the bill is proposing) is only freeing up space for similar platforms to come about. It seems more a bug in our hardware vs. platform specific IMO.
I think that complaint is secondary to fears of China gathering massive amounts of data on US citizens and having the power to influence what content they are exposed to.
> I think that complaint is secondary to fears of China gathering massive amounts of data on US citizens and having the power to influence what content they are exposed to.
We already know that Facebook does the same, and we already know for a fact that they have wielded this power against the public interest. Focusing on the nationality is a red herring - a US-based company can be just as adversarial as a foreign one.
We don't fucking care that Facebook or other US companies do the same. We care when it's a front of the Chinese communist government which is growing more adversarial by the day. If you don't think they're a front of the Chinese government then you haven't been paying attention to the weekly reports on China for the last few years.
Wasn't Facebook used by russian intelligence to manipulate the 2016 elections?
Does it even matter that it's under US jurisdiction if it can be misused by foreign actors without any real consequences? Meta just uses its lobbying to keep itself without harm.
> Focusing on the nationality is a red herring - a US-based company can be just as adversarial as a foreign one.
Come on, you can't be serious. Even considered at a pretty abstract and uninformed level, it's clear even the most "adversarial" domestic company would not go places an adversarial foreign company would.
> Even considered at a pretty abstract and uninformed level, it's clear even the most "adversarial" domestic company would not go places an adversarial foreign company would.
Between TikTok and Facebook, one has already gone demonstrably further than the other, and it's not TikTok.
Nobody's giving Facebook a free pass, but this shouldn't be a hard concept to understand. Yes, the fact that TikTok is based on China and has very close ties to their government, one of our adversities,is the problem here. The amount & type data both Facebook & TikTok collect is egregious, but that's not the point of any of this.
China is only an adversary if you ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars in trade we have between us. If we were serious about treating China as an adversary or enemy, we'd address trade way before we'd bother with toy sites like TikTok.
> China is only an adversary if you ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars in trade we have between us. If we were serious about treating China as an adversary or enemy, we'd address trade way before we'd bother with toy sites like TikTok.
You're trying to make perfect be the enemy of the good.
The US and Western countries, for the last several decades, have engaged in a foolish and deluded trade policy with China. It's going to be a long and difficult process to partially undo that mistake. Though is done, they'll never be able to take back the technology, trade secrets, and know-how they let go.
Dealing with the TikTok problem is low-hanging fruit, in comparison. You reach for the low-hanging fruit first.
> Dealing with the TikTok problem is low-hanging fruit, in comparison. You reach for the low-hanging fruit first.
In this case it appears we're reaching for the low-hanging fruit because it makes easy headlines, has low political risk, and won't change the status quo (Congress won't be successful in their stated goals). It's a distraction from real problems.
> In this case it appears we're reaching for the low-hanging fruit because it makes easy headlines, has low political risk
I don't think so. That honestly just sounds like a baseless appeal to cynicism.
And as for "low political risk," didn't they just get their phone lines jammed with complaints?
> and won't change the status quo (Congress won't be successful in their stated goals)
What goals are those? It seems like their big goal is to remove a popular social network from the control of an adversary nation, and this bill would do that.
IIRC, CIFUS successful forced the Chinese to divest Grindr. I don't see why this divestment would be out of reach.
> And as for "low political risk," didn't they just get their phone lines jammed with complaints?
Sure, and how many people are going to change their votes on the issue? Are they going to take it more seriously than immigration policy, abortion rights, support for Israel, the actual issue of our trade deficit with China, etc? I sincerely doubt it. It's pure distraction. They can point to it and claim they're taking the Chinese threat seriously.
> IIRC, CIFUS successful forced the Chinese to divest Grindr. I don't see why this divestment would be out of reach.
They invested about $250M, most of which was only a year before they sold it for $600M. They could have fought harder but I doubt they were too upset about that massive, quick profit. TikTok has a lot more at stake -- although who knows, maybe they'll find someone with extremely deep pockets.
A big reason that the US trades so much with China is because they are an adversary. It's a similar concept to nuclear MAD doctrine. Mutual Assured Economic destruction for both of the countries if there is a war.
> A big reason that the US trades so much with China is because they are an adversary. It's a similar concept to nuclear MAD doctrine. Mutual Assured Economic destruction for both of the countries if there is a war.
No, that's wrong. It sounds like a regurgitated libertarian talking point/post-hoc justification, not actual history.
The reason the US trades so much with China is that, during its over-confident post Cold War high, it convinced itself that economic liberalization would inevitably bring political liberalization. That theory has been proven wrong, and China has shown you can have capitalism without democracy.
I disagree. I don't care how the money flows, their actions are adversarial, and if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it means I don't have to put much effort into replying to obnoxious contrarian comments masquerading as a respectable point on Hackernews.
Lets not be Naive and think that the massive data collection of FB data isn't available because of their methods. Cambridge Analytica proved the possibilities.
This has less to do with data, and more about xenophobia.
Create data privacy laws is the only way to protect the US
We're talking about a nation who at worst is our enemy and at best a geopolitical foe who is harvesting massive amounts of data to use for purposes which are much worse than targeted ads.
Almost all of the people behind the ban have no problem with Facebook or other companies engaging in the exact behavior that TikTok is. They just don't like that it's ByteDance doing it.
If you have problems with TikTok's action, pass a general law that mandates privacy protections, rather than targeting a specific company based on the nationality of its incorporation.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and raise a problem with that: Meta is under US jurisdiction and Chinese owned companies are not. We have no way to enforce our laws if our data passes through their networks. We see time and again that the Chinese have a complete and utter disrespect for our intellectual property laws, so why would they respect our privacy laws?
I think two things can be true about congressional motivation to legislate tiktok
- it's almost entirely fueled (in congress) by economic anxiety and xenophobia towards China
- it's good that this is happening, because it's good to legislate against brainmelting, algorithm-driven platforms
This same legislation being levied against the exact same feature on "american platforms" like YouTube and Instagram might never happen, but I hope it does in the future.
Believe me, I'm not a tankie. I just watched the congressional hearing where a Republican senator repeatedly asked the TikTok CEO, Shou Chew, if he had Chinese citizenship, if he was a member of the CCP, etc. etc. with Shou repeatedly saying that he's not Chinese, he's from Singapore. That's not measured concern about TikTok possibly being an arm of China's surveillance state, that's just being racist. The Republican half of the bipartisan support for legislating TikTok isn't from concern about dopamine-pushing algorithms and misinformation, it's just xenophobia.
Tom Cotton literally has brain damage but there are indeed legitimate concerns about TikTok's relationship with the CCP. It's not racist or xenophobic. You are just stupid and spend too much time on buzzfeed.
It's not xenophobia it's purely about the communist party. They are wagging a cold war against the US with barely any response afraid that it will affect their economy. The concern with tiktok is not privacy it's China's control over a large part of the US population and they've more than proved it this time.
> “You had to dial the phone number on the screen before you could enter the app, so a lot of people were just hanging up,” when they connected, said committee member Rep. Scott Peters (D., Calif.).
Was that really true, that they basically forced their users to call? I don't use TikTok.
> Committee member Rep. John Curtis (R., Utah) said he didn’t like that a Chinese-owned app tried to “manipulate a response” from its users. He said that feeling solidified unanimous support for the bill.
That seems kind of predictable. I don't doubt the possibility of Americans having dumb ideas like this, but this stunt does feel a bit like it came from the "home office," where they'd probably have a misinformed, oversimplified understanding of how American politics works.
No. It is partially true. From the NY Times article:
> Some users said on X that they were unable to use the app before placing the call. TikTok told The New York Times that users could swipe right to get rid of the message, which may have been confusing because users typically swipe up to see the next video on the app. The company also said that the “X” to close the page wasn’t visible for some users at first but that it later fixed that.
That's the problem with average user, they they will push the biggest button present, which is call now. So technically they did not forced them to call, but put a red drape in front of a bull and bull charged it.
And from the image below, it does not seems to be possible to be closed (or close button is black on black background)
Certainly it is the equivalent of a kid yelling "I can play my music as loud as I want to!"
As I understand proposed legislation, it would apply to many websites and not be directed at TikTok or China specifically. I wonder if there is a larger strategic interest for China if the US enacts this type of law? Maybe the blowback is entirely expected and is the actual desired response?
I was mistaken about the currently proposed legislation[0], which mentions ByteDance specifically and is broader to include any app from a "foreign adversary country" defined elsewere.
It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, . . . a foreign adversary controlled application by . . .: [app store] or [internet hosting]
[...]
FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.
USC Title 10 section 4872(d)(2) defines the adversaries as N. Korea, China, Russia and Iran. [1]
> The fact that Chinese tiktok's algorithm encourages different types of videos versus the rest of the world shows this.
Do you have more information on this?
I vaguely recall reading that Douyin's algorithm in China pushes more "positive" content than TikTok's, though that may be been due to Chinese government directives being able to slap the stupid out of the market, like how they can effectively put limits on excessive video game use by minors.
platforms created by private companies can do whatever they want on them. They are only subject to standards that are set by themselves. You honestly don't think FB, Insta, and Snap censor content or have rules around whats acceptable to post ?
We've banned this account. You can't attack other users like this, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
The irony is that if TikTok is successful in its call for users to act, then there is more evidence that it occupies a privileged position in directing a large number of people's mental energy.
The larger question of TikTok is when will the US will join China in creating national boundaries for Internet traffic?
I don't like the thought of IP packets going through a customs and immigration layer as it passes a physical boundary. On the other hand, everything else does, why not a packet? Is the current openness an utopian artifact that will go the way of "no sales tax" for online stores? Is my dislike merely an aesthetic judgement formed from the history of negative stories about the "Great Firewall of China?"
I don't use TikTok at all, but what's with so much support for the government banning a piece of software in hacker communities? Where's the hacker energy from when the government declared encryption a "munition"? Where's the "fuck software patents" energy?
I don't want the government telling me what software I can use.
> I don't use TikTok at all, but what's with so much support for the government banning a piece of software in hacker communities? Where's the hacker energy from when the government declared encryption a "munition"? Where's the "fuck software patents" energy?
Lawmakers like Richard Blumenthal have discovered that xenophobia is a powerful enough force that it will override people's other principles.
Look at the comment sections on HN every time this topic comes up, and you'll see the pattern on full display.
TikTok isn't free software. It's at best an enormous social media company designed to profit off of manipulating naive users' attention, and at worst an arm of one of the largest world governments.
I'm sure most people on HN simply don't care about TikTok at all and don't comment, but among those who do care it's hardly surprising that it's harder to drum up support for TikTok than for the idea of encryption itself.
I don't think it being free software is necessary. There is plenty of anger when Apple blocks some non-free software from the App Store, like the whole Epic/Fortnite situation, or many other cases with smaller indie developers. It seems much, much worse for the government to be doing that, doesn't it? With the Apple situation, you can choose to use Android or Linux instead, if it's the government, you... need to emigrate to use the software?
Epic vs Apple is at a different point along the spectrum—there are plenty of people who argue that Apple is within their rights (and even pro-consumer) to have the rules that they do, but there are plenty that are opposed.
Epic is more palatable than a social media company but less obviously good than encryption.
>It's at best an enormous social media company designed to profit off of manipulating naive users' attention, and at worst an arm of one of the largest world governments.
This is absurd. you sound as ridiculous as the politicians. If they are concerned pass data protection laws for every company
The analogy is more like if the government of China decided which books should go on display in our libraries. Only, American teens are on TikTok way more than they visit the library. You might have trouble finding books about the Tiananmen Square protests, too.
> I don't want the government telling me what software I can use.
You can still use the software they wont force you to delete it, you just wont be able communicate with the TikTok entity with it. So this isn't a software ban, it is just a ban on Tiktok the entity.
Or can you show me where they say they will punish people for keeping the tiktok app installed?
Thought experiment: War breaks out tomorrow. You're China and you have an application that 150 million Americans have installed on their phones. What is the most disruptive thing that you can do?
I assume they'd gain root on those phones and then the only limit is your imagination.
85 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadWe already know that Facebook does the same, and we already know for a fact that they have wielded this power against the public interest. Focusing on the nationality is a red herring - a US-based company can be just as adversarial as a foreign one.
This is straight-up factually incorrect.
How is it wrong? Are you making a super-big deal that, say, TikTok has some US-registered LLC's or something?
What ultimately matters is who owns and controls it, and whose jurisdiction they're under.
Does it even matter that it's under US jurisdiction if it can be misused by foreign actors without any real consequences? Meta just uses its lobbying to keep itself without harm.
Come on, you can't be serious. Even considered at a pretty abstract and uninformed level, it's clear even the most "adversarial" domestic company would not go places an adversarial foreign company would.
Between TikTok and Facebook, one has already gone demonstrably further than the other, and it's not TikTok.
This is geopolitics, not criminal law. It's not about what was done, but about what could be done.
Whatever specific past actions of Facebook or TikTok that you're vaguely gesturing at don't matter.
China is a geopolitical foe who is quite serious about espionage. We don't have to make it easy for them.
You're trying to make perfect be the enemy of the good.
The US and Western countries, for the last several decades, have engaged in a foolish and deluded trade policy with China. It's going to be a long and difficult process to partially undo that mistake. Though is done, they'll never be able to take back the technology, trade secrets, and know-how they let go.
Dealing with the TikTok problem is low-hanging fruit, in comparison. You reach for the low-hanging fruit first.
In this case it appears we're reaching for the low-hanging fruit because it makes easy headlines, has low political risk, and won't change the status quo (Congress won't be successful in their stated goals). It's a distraction from real problems.
I don't think so. That honestly just sounds like a baseless appeal to cynicism.
And as for "low political risk," didn't they just get their phone lines jammed with complaints?
> and won't change the status quo (Congress won't be successful in their stated goals)
What goals are those? It seems like their big goal is to remove a popular social network from the control of an adversary nation, and this bill would do that.
IIRC, CIFUS successful forced the Chinese to divest Grindr. I don't see why this divestment would be out of reach.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21168079/grindr-sold-chine...
Sure, and how many people are going to change their votes on the issue? Are they going to take it more seriously than immigration policy, abortion rights, support for Israel, the actual issue of our trade deficit with China, etc? I sincerely doubt it. It's pure distraction. They can point to it and claim they're taking the Chinese threat seriously.
> IIRC, CIFUS successful forced the Chinese to divest Grindr. I don't see why this divestment would be out of reach.
They invested about $250M, most of which was only a year before they sold it for $600M. They could have fought harder but I doubt they were too upset about that massive, quick profit. TikTok has a lot more at stake -- although who knows, maybe they'll find someone with extremely deep pockets.
No, that's wrong. It sounds like a regurgitated libertarian talking point/post-hoc justification, not actual history.
The reason the US trades so much with China is that, during its over-confident post Cold War high, it convinced itself that economic liberalization would inevitably bring political liberalization. That theory has been proven wrong, and China has shown you can have capitalism without democracy.
This has less to do with data, and more about xenophobia.
Create data privacy laws is the only way to protect the US
We're talking about a nation who at worst is our enemy and at best a geopolitical foe who is harvesting massive amounts of data to use for purposes which are much worse than targeted ads.
Your only threat is they are using US platforms to target ads??
make it make sense
Also "_purposes which are much worse than_ targeted ads".
If you have problems with TikTok's action, pass a general law that mandates privacy protections, rather than targeting a specific company based on the nationality of its incorporation.
Where does this meme come from? It's so prevalent despite being obviously and verifiably factually incorrect!
- it's almost entirely fueled (in congress) by economic anxiety and xenophobia towards China
- it's good that this is happening, because it's good to legislate against brainmelting, algorithm-driven platforms
This same legislation being levied against the exact same feature on "american platforms" like YouTube and Instagram might never happen, but I hope it does in the future.
China is the explicitly and openly hostile to the US.
Was that really true, that they basically forced their users to call? I don't use TikTok.
> Committee member Rep. John Curtis (R., Utah) said he didn’t like that a Chinese-owned app tried to “manipulate a response” from its users. He said that feeling solidified unanimous support for the bill.
That seems kind of predictable. I don't doubt the possibility of Americans having dumb ideas like this, but this stunt does feel a bit like it came from the "home office," where they'd probably have a misinformed, oversimplified understanding of how American politics works.
No. It was a closable modal. Didn't even show up for me.
> Some users said on X that they were unable to use the app before placing the call. TikTok told The New York Times that users could swipe right to get rid of the message, which may have been confusing because users typically swipe up to see the next video on the app. The company also said that the “X” to close the page wasn’t visible for some users at first but that it later fixed that.
And from the image below, it does not seems to be possible to be closed (or close button is black on black background)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4516261-tiktok-urges-u...
As I understand proposed legislation, it would apply to many websites and not be directed at TikTok or China specifically. I wonder if there is a larger strategic interest for China if the US enacts this type of law? Maybe the blowback is entirely expected and is the actual desired response?
It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, . . . a foreign adversary controlled application by . . .: [app store] or [internet hosting]
[...]
FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary country” means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.
USC Title 10 section 4872(d)(2) defines the adversaries as N. Korea, China, Russia and Iran. [1]
0. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...
1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872
Or was it a dark pattern?
The calling and hanging up aspect seems to indicate a lot of people didn't understand how to close it without calling.
The fact that Chinese tiktok's algorithm encourages different types of videos versus the rest of the world shows this.
Do you have more information on this?
I vaguely recall reading that Douyin's algorithm in China pushes more "positive" content than TikTok's, though that may be been due to Chinese government directives being able to slap the stupid out of the market, like how they can effectively put limits on excessive video game use by minors.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/15/tiktoks...
washington post really ?
- https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-is-the-latest-window-into...
anecdotal story by 1 person
- https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/china-douyin-tiktok-ku...
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/03/tiktok-ow...
this is a good thing
These are all reasons wiki isn't a good source but keep going
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
The larger question of TikTok is when will the US will join China in creating national boundaries for Internet traffic?
I don't like the thought of IP packets going through a customs and immigration layer as it passes a physical boundary. On the other hand, everything else does, why not a packet? Is the current openness an utopian artifact that will go the way of "no sales tax" for online stores? Is my dislike merely an aesthetic judgement formed from the history of negative stories about the "Great Firewall of China?"
I don't want the government telling me what software I can use.
Lawmakers like Richard Blumenthal have discovered that xenophobia is a powerful enough force that it will override people's other principles.
Look at the comment sections on HN every time this topic comes up, and you'll see the pattern on full display.
I'm sure most people on HN simply don't care about TikTok at all and don't comment, but among those who do care it's hardly surprising that it's harder to drum up support for TikTok than for the idea of encryption itself.
Epic is more palatable than a social media company but less obviously good than encryption.
This is absurd. you sound as ridiculous as the politicians. If they are concerned pass data protection laws for every company
My belief is that the government should not ban software, and that we should be free to install anything that we wish on our computers. That's all.
But you're ok with a foreign government controlling what your kids see on their app?
You can still use the software they wont force you to delete it, you just wont be able communicate with the TikTok entity with it. So this isn't a software ban, it is just a ban on Tiktok the entity.
Or can you show me where they say they will punish people for keeping the tiktok app installed?
I assume they'd gain root on those phones and then the only limit is your imagination.
https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=2906336330954&w=XFzOd9q33S...