The plain and simple fact is, if China doesn't allow Western social media platforms to operate within China, then Western countries are well within their rights to restrict Chinese access to Western markets.
American companies do work with EU regulators, even if conflicts happen at the end of the day, and vice versa with European companies that wish to operate in the US (eg. Protonmail)
The TikTok divestment bill is basically an attempt to build the precedent needed to give the DoC the power to force divestment by Chinese firms under national security guidelines, and the primary reason why ByteDance is fighting this in court instead of selling for a massive profit.
> The plain and simple fact is, if China doesn't allow Western social media platforms to operate within China, then Western countries are well within their rights to restrict Chinese access to Western markets.
Reciprocity is the primary principle of modern trade [0].
Negotiations over reciprocity have happened for decades, but the PRC has never actually complied, unlike most other countries. At some point, the shoe does drop.
> So the USA should model itself on China?
Every country has the ability to use this kind of power. Most countries will tend to negotiate and compromise, but China has increasingly stopped doing this under the Xi administration.
your argument is mostly bullshit and i believe you're fully aware.
there's no European social network. or large data collection syndicate. it's only US. and tiktok offset that status quo.
name one EU entity that collects as much data as the number 100 on the usa list, which is something like onStar. there isn't, which makes all the argument of global fair play a joke.
a joke which you highlight by citing protonmail which is a very famous landmark case where the usa made it very clear it will act on the limits of any agreement it can with borderline legality to keep the status quo intact.
so when i say it's bs and you know it, i mean you are either in DC doing your job, or so often around them you internalized the talking point.
Nothing, obviously. When Twitter/Facebook/Instagram is ordered by the DHS to censor accounts or modify engagement algorithms, that's just good ol' fashioned Americanism, bro. Uncle Sam's Ministry of Truth is superior to China's in every conceivable way. That's how the Founders intended it, and you better light off some fireworks and grill some burgers in solidarity, brother. Seriously, my orders are if you see something, say something. Light up that grill so I know you're not one of Them. FISA courts don't fuck around, don't ask me how I know. Just do it.
I would have loved to see actual privacy and data collection regulation instead of these arbitrary bans.
I'm not on tiktok or facebook, but as an american I don't really see China having all my data and influencing me as any worse than the US gov doing the same thing? For non americans I imagine it's even less relevant. Am I supposed to be happy now that only the CIA and IDF gets to blast me with propaganda and the CCP is cut off? somehow that doesn't make me feel any better
I couldn't agree more. My objection to the legislation around TT is purely that it's only addressing the abuse by TT when most (all?) other such services are equally problematic.
I understand that surveys are designed to have a random sample whose findings can be generalized to the population.
But even so, polling ~1000 people and applying those opinions as generalizable to the US where 170 million use the app doesn't sound right to me.
Especially when the poll took place at a time when the news cycle was focused on parroting the government's case for banning the app.
I think TT is dangerous in much the same way that FB/IG/TW is: disinformation and division is rampant, and the app owners are incentivized to propagate it because of engagement. That's intrinsic to social media, as we saw in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Singling out TT as uniquely guilty in this regard doesn't help protect Americans from the influence operations happening on the other apps. You can decide for yourself if what is posted on FB groups or Truth Social is doing a better job of uniting Americans.
> But even so, polling ~1000 people and applying those opinions as generalizable to the US where 170 million use the app doesn't sound right to me.
The Central Limit Theorem [0] is why a poll of ~1k is fairly representative.
Everybody keeps complaining about the size of a poll while ignoring grade school math (not aimed at you - I've seen this talking point repeated ad nauseum).
They do use the CLT in polls for elections. There are different types of polls (some have crap methodology but others are actually statistically driven).
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 47.3 ms ] threadAmerican companies do work with EU regulators, even if conflicts happen at the end of the day, and vice versa with European companies that wish to operate in the US (eg. Protonmail)
The TikTok divestment bill is basically an attempt to build the precedent needed to give the DoC the power to force divestment by Chinese firms under national security guidelines, and the primary reason why ByteDance is fighting this in court instead of selling for a massive profit.
So the USA should model itself on China?
Negotiations over reciprocity have happened for decades, but the PRC has never actually complied, unlike most other countries. At some point, the shoe does drop.
> So the USA should model itself on China?
Every country has the ability to use this kind of power. Most countries will tend to negotiate and compromise, but China has increasingly stopped doing this under the Xi administration.
[0] - https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact2_e....
there's no European social network. or large data collection syndicate. it's only US. and tiktok offset that status quo.
name one EU entity that collects as much data as the number 100 on the usa list, which is something like onStar. there isn't, which makes all the argument of global fair play a joke.
a joke which you highlight by citing protonmail which is a very famous landmark case where the usa made it very clear it will act on the limits of any agreement it can with borderline legality to keep the status quo intact.
so when i say it's bs and you know it, i mean you are either in DC doing your job, or so often around them you internalized the talking point.
I'm not on tiktok or facebook, but as an american I don't really see China having all my data and influencing me as any worse than the US gov doing the same thing? For non americans I imagine it's even less relevant. Am I supposed to be happy now that only the CIA and IDF gets to blast me with propaganda and the CCP is cut off? somehow that doesn't make me feel any better
... mission accomplished?
But even so, polling ~1000 people and applying those opinions as generalizable to the US where 170 million use the app doesn't sound right to me.
Especially when the poll took place at a time when the news cycle was focused on parroting the government's case for banning the app.
I think TT is dangerous in much the same way that FB/IG/TW is: disinformation and division is rampant, and the app owners are incentivized to propagate it because of engagement. That's intrinsic to social media, as we saw in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Singling out TT as uniquely guilty in this regard doesn't help protect Americans from the influence operations happening on the other apps. You can decide for yourself if what is posted on FB groups or Truth Social is doing a better job of uniting Americans.
The Central Limit Theorem [0] is why a poll of ~1k is fairly representative.
Everybody keeps complaining about the size of a poll while ignoring grade school math (not aimed at you - I've seen this talking point repeated ad nauseum).
[0] - https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/bs/bs704_probabi...
The electtion system in USA is very sensitive to small differences, that are below the extimated error of the pool. ("swing states")
The looser will always ask for a full election.