Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to Biden, who has already committed to signing it
Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to Biden, who has already committed to signing it
ByteDance will get up to a year to divest TikTok or face a ban.
Cool, now let's ban Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and every single social media platform that does the same exact thing as TikTok. I have never used TikTok, but this is fucking bullshit. Facebook literally ruined elections and lives around the world.
Only the US is allowed to ruin elections.
Technically true of any country: only China is allowed to influence CCP elections, only Russia is allowed to fix Russian elections, only the US is allowed to ruin US elections...
They still try to influence each other's ones, but they aren't openly "allowed" to...
Permanently Deleted
Lets drop this whole "lesser of two evils" thing. It doesn't work in our two party system and it certainly doesnt work with comparing governments. Fascism is fascism. America loves having a boogeyman.
The united states is fascist as fuck. All our tax dollars are funneled into the war machine to ruin lives all around the world to help make a few dick heads rich. We fund far right monsters in order to overthrow democracies and peaceful governments that don't want to fuck with America's banks. Civil liberties are thrown out week after week. The wage gap is a fucking joke. Nobody can afford shit. Homelessness is on the rise. Schools are underfunded. Police are militarized against the citizens. Protesting is becoming illegal basically everywhere. We allow corporations to run slave operations all over the global south in order to placate and distract consumers from their shitty existences.
It is only getting worse. And the big reason they want to get rid of tiktok is because ordinary people are successfully sharing their firsthand experiences with fascist america. Its got nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with control. Young people are mad and organizing on the only platform that doesn't have a US backdoor.
This comment was brought to you by the US State Department.
Tell me, how many countries' governments has China knocked over in the last century as compared to the US CIA?
How many countries did the US drop bombs on in the last decade, and how many did China?
It's not even close. In terms of physical violence the US is the world's #1 exporter.
Why would the American government ban companies based under their own jurisdiction? They can make use of all those other companies just like the Chinese government can make use of TikTok.
Sounds good.
the internet was a mistake
I thought that US was the country of freedom, but turns out that the freedom is just to racists, nazis and for them to fuck up other countries.
That’s an interesting take from this whole thing
Why do you think they are Banning tiktok?
Because China is collecting information from millions of US citizens. Plus they control what the US citizens can see and interact with. US has no control over Tik Tok and that scares them. Why are Facebook and X not banned? Because Facebook and X are US based have to comply with the US regulators and share every collected information with the government.
Because is Chinese. And that's not what I think, it is what it is.
Or they will ban X and Im not aware?
Does the legislation also include penalties for Samsung for preinstalling TikTok on my fucking Smart TV and making the app non-removable ?
I don't understand why people get so upset about this. Yes, Google, Facebook, etc. hoard your data too. But there's a big difference wether that data is hoarded domestically or by a foreign nation that is pretty blatant about their industry espionage and political propaganda. Yes, the US do it too. But you really can't blame a country for protecting it's interests, be they ethical or not.
As a user and not as a government agent, why should I care? If anything, having a foreign government hoard my data and spy on me is better than the government that actually has jurisdiction over me. If I were posting things critical of my own government I would rather have a foreign government hoard that data than my own government. There's a lot more of a chance that US data hoarding leads to action against US citizens than Chinese data hoarding.
I don't see how this benefits average Americans in any way. This helps the government and corporations.
It's not just about data hoarding, though. It's also about a social media company having considerable influence over the messaging seen by a very large part of the voting population.
Yes, it's no different to other social media companies, but with one exception: the company in question is subject to the whims of the Chinese government. Something the US government is clearly fearful of.
If I were posting things critical of my own government I would rather have a foreign government hoard that data than my own government.
At first glance, that would be true... but beware, since either will be happy to throw you under the bus whenever it helps their agenda.
If, for example, China was to hoard data about voters for A, B, and C... whenever they wanted to favor B voters, they could "leak" the most compromising data about A and C so the US government would take action... or if they wanted to wreak havoc and favor D, they could leak all data about everyone.
A much simpler case, is that having more data on more people, allows them to better tailor and target misinformation campaigns that benefit them.
So really, any kind of hoarding has a similar chance of getting acted upon.
As a simple user, you are right that you shouldn't care much about who hoards data about you, your main care should be about anyone hoarding that data at all.
Personally, I just find it really disappointing. This Tik Tok issue could have been an opportunity to improve privacy and reduce data collection across the board. Instead, it's a surgical strike in order to not disrupt American tech companies doing the same thing.
What will happen is that Bytedance will sell the US Tik Tok to an American VC firm and it will continue data hoarding as before. This time, the US government will be getting the data instead of the CCP. I'd rather nobody got it.
You can absolutely blame a country for doing that actually. What kind of argument is that? People shouldn't be upset when their government does something unethical as long as it's "protecting its interests"?
That's not quite what I meant.
The argument I most often see and is that TikTok should stay because Facebook and Google are just as bad. That's stupid because foreign espionage is obviously worse than domestic espionage to any government.
If your argument is that the TikTok ban is good and Facebook and Google should be next because of the similar practises then I'm 100% with you.
There is also a massive difference in user experience in China vs abroad, to the point where they might as well be two fundamentally different apps. Even just things like time limits for children exist by default in China and are unavailable elsewhere, which kind of feels like an admission that they only take things like platform safety seriously at home.
As someone who doesn't live in the US:
The data from google and facebook is hoarded by a foreign nation (the US is basically a quasi-democratic plutocracy which also has extremely extensive surveillance both legally and agencies caught working in grey areas) to boost surveillance and that is pretty blatant about their espionage and political propaganda. We get US political right wing propaganda on these platforms all over the rest of the world.
There is a difference of course, but the gap is closing significantly every few years.
The US encourages international business competition, but not if you do it better than they do.
We've not actually seen for sure that TikTok data is being passed to the Chinese government - supposedly the USA data is being kept separately. But we have certainly seen US data brokers gathering data from all over in the US and selling that on to any 3rd party (domestic government, as well as anyone else). Facebook has been caught more than once being in the business of leaking private data. I'm just surprised that the US gov did not leave this choice up to its citizens to choose on - the ideas of freedom of choice and speech seem to be rather dictated here now.
I'm just wondering if it is not more a case of the US gov has no control itself over TikTok (think US CLOUD Act) and this is what is irking them. I'm not in the US so one way or the other I don't really mind. What I do mind about though is that TikTok does not sell out to a US company. We really don't need one single country controlling all the mainstream social media platforms. US laws after all do not represent all of mankind, so some diversity is a good thing.
So I guess I'm rather for a "ban" than a "sell out".
You have guessed right. The US government had a massive hand in the creation of modern social media, such as a significant amount of funding for Facebook during its startup phase. The intelligence agencies are mad that they can't pull data from TikTok or influence its algorithms, on top of the American social media companies wanting to kill off their foreign competition as much as possible.
This bill has nothing to do with data privacy because if Congress cared about that they would've banned other platforms too. It's about control and unfair competition.
I love that this and more funding for other countries' wars are a higher priority than the housing crisis.
Conservatives have been purposely tanking uncontroversial legislation so that "Biden doesn't get any wins". Do you genuinely think it is possible for the current legislature to pass bills that would fix something as complex as the housing crisis?
In 2013, foreign buyers made up about 7% ($92.2 billion) of transactions in the $1.2 trillion U.S. real estate market. Canada was the main buyer with 19% of sales (decrease from 23% the year before), China was on the second place with 16% of sales, while on the first place considering total foreign sales by dollar value (24% or $22 billion). Mexico ranked third with 9% of sales and India and the UK both accounted for 5%.[2] Florida is the most popular destination with 31% of sales, followed by California (12%), Texas (9%) and Arizona (6%).
But yeah tiktok bad mmmmk
If you think Taiwan and Ukraine are "other countries' wars" I have bad news for you. It's better to pay as much money as we can now before the payment is made with american lives.
Israel is something else obviously, as was US involvement Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bulk of the money is absolutely worth spending if you value your freedom. It has nothing to do with the housing crisis whatsoever. The US has enough money for both.
Respectfully, the "fight them there so we don't fight them here" and "help them stand up so we can stand down" nonsense is straight out of the chickenhawks' war branding guide. Our government wasted tens of trillions on these meaningless platitudes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and those boondoggles led to the rise of ISIS.
Meanwhile I can look over the border and see Mexico spending a mere 8 billion a year on war and Canada a mere 26 billion. Meanwhile we're up to a trillion and a half this year, but sure, it has nothing to do with the housing crisis or the standard of living in this country. We're definitely not neglecting our own people to feed an insatiable war machine.
Frankly, I'm sick of watching our government impoverish our people to pay for more super yachts for warmongers.
I don't like big government but I have zero sympathy in this case. TikTok is the greatest cancer on modern society and I will not change my mind on that.
We literally have a global rise in violent fascism and multiple ongoing genocides, and TikTok is the worst thing you can think of?
Hey, did you know that Facebook is partially* responsible for a more recent genocide? So, considering TikTok's ties to the Chinese government, which is also known to commit genocides, I'm gonna go ahead and say this is probably a good thing.
Edit: changed because Facebook just incited it, people are responsible for their own actions.
Tictok is horrible but this entire ban is being driven by the swamp being upset that young people have come to the wrong conclusion about Israel. I think that the idea is that as long as people are using facebook or google-owned properties, people can be shown only information that will lead them to the correct, approved opinions.
I dunt lik big gubmint butt...
Nah, this entire thing is about US control. They're upset that it's a different government that's spying on us this time. No sympathy for TikTok but there's no good way to spin this.
Btw, you know if TikTok sells to a US company, they'll be just as rancid, right?
I agree but TikTok is worthless in general. The content it serves people is literal brain rot. Also, I don't want it to sell, I just want it to die and never come back.
So much easier than passing an actual data privacy law--and maybe Bobby Kotick will buy TikTokUSA!
VPN subscriptions about to explode.
Naturally, they'll try to ban VPNs next.
I feel like most people would rather use shady, free VPNs instead. There'll probably be an increase in them too
Then why is the bill about DIVESTMENT of Tiktok from Chinese ownership? The operation headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore. I'm beginning to think you don't know what you're talking about.
why is the bill about DIVESTMENT of Tiktok from Chinese ownership?
"Chinese ownership" == "CCP control"
The US doesn't want a highly addictive app to be controlled by a potentially adversarial regime... which is still way less than China blocking all "potentially uncontrolled" apps.
Lol nice bad faith argument. Fucking Lemmy sockpuppets.
Hey, even if the above is a bad faith argument, this is not a constructive or nice way to bring that up in conversation. Please try to do a better job of communicating going forward. Thanks!
Interesting that Temu and AliExpress are also China owned, yet there’s no mention of any issues with them.
Well, they're totally different platforms . The rationale behind the TikTok ban (and I'm not saying I'm in favor of it or opposed to it) is that they can do spooky spooky things with your personal data and your attention – your opinions can be nudged once there's enough data on you and your eyeballs are on the app half the day. And just to repeat, I'm not saying I agree with the ban (well, not with banning just TikTok anyhow…)
Temu and AliExpress have their own problems (like the absolutely mind boggling waste of finite resources) but nobody's worried Temu is radicalizing boys or collecting tons of your personal data. And yes even Temu does collect data just like everyone else nowadays, but it's a shopping site; compared to a social network there's not all that much you can get out of your users or too many ways to really influence them outside of making them spend more money
The "data privacy" argument is bullshit and the people pushing for this law know it. That's what is being sold to people but it is not why this TikTok ban got passed. It got passed because American social media companies are pissed that TikTok is outcompeting them for the attention of young people, and because the US government has a heavy hand in what algorithms are allowed to push on Facebook and Google and others. A good portion of Facebook's initial funding came from government sources.
"Data privacy" is just an excuse. Lobbying from the intelligence agencies and social media companies is why it's really being enacted.
I suggest you read the bill. It isn't a tik tok ban. It's actually quite a good piece of legislation.
It is a vague and sprawling piece of legislation that gives money to Israel and Ukraine, makes Fentanyl more illegal, makes money laundering for fentanyl more illegal, allows seizure and use if Russian assets, restricts "foreign adversaries" from distributing and maintaining apps, restricts "foreign adversaries" from transferring data away from the US, and makes Iranian terrorism more illegal.
It does like 3 things that are fine, but these should all be different bills (the data transfer bits, seizing Russian assets, and sending aide to Ukraine, though that is getting iffy)
It IS a TikTok band and explicitly names ByteDance and TikTok, and also vaguely defines foreign adversaries to the point where it could be any person operating in a country that the US doesn't like.
"Quite a good piece of legislation" is only true if you mean quite as sprawling and good as ill defined
And nothing of value was lost.
My only issue is with Congress telling us all “you have not seen what we have seen, you have not been in the classified briefings”. Yeah, I heard the same shit about WMD’s in Iraq where two of my battle buddies died, two more got wounded beyond any recovery, and a bunch more chose to end their lives after we got home.
“Trust us, bro”. Nah, fuck you. You want the world to support this, you need to share the information.
These threads/articles always get the facts wrong, TikTok is not "getting banned", they are just forcing the company to divest from it's Chinese parent company.
they are just forcing the company to divest from it's Chinese parent company.
... Or get banned
AND/OR switch gears to actually mitigate the damage these companies and their Almighty Algorithms do to people. TikTok has worried me for years. But TikTok wasn't at the forefront of radicalizing and driving a wedge between Americans, our own companies helped with that first. Our own companies mined our profiles, upped the rage bait, and redesigned UI to be less controllable, less friendly. Our own companies wouldn't fact check, or treat mods fairly, or defend users from harassment.
I've got no love for TikTok, and I even bet this ban is a good, if unpopular, event. But we deserve so, so much more, and I don't want this to be the one thing we do just so we don't have to actually regulate how massive Internet companies/communication corporations treat average citizens.
It will be interesting to see if tiktoks newest big selling point (relatively free from US influence) will be able to offset it's loss in users.
It's doubtful that Tiktok would even agree to sell and there is precedent in the courts that a Tiktok ban is unconstitutional considering it's already been blocked in Montana.
Then there's the entire notion over the fact that Apple is ALREADY under fire for anti-competitive practices involving the app store and remove the ability for all iDevices to access the app with no other way to access it outside of the app store will just add more fuel to that case.
It's likely that they will form a new organization in the US, so they can operate in that country and still have Tik Tok alive. My expectation is that the US based Tik Tok would still interact with the world, but block China.
Thanks for protecting Americans from misinformation, AIPAC.