I agree that the TikTok shutdown/sale/whatever-it-is is reasonable. But I also agree with the grandfather post that this standard should be applied to all social media.
A company that is under the sway of the CCP is an obvious first step, but just because twitter and facebook are American-owned doesn’t mean that geopolitical adversaries can’t use them to control the population too.
The thing is that those companies are very much under the power of American law, so we can (and have) taken less drastic (and less effective, imo) measures to restrict adversaries from using them for propaganda.
Amending the rules to prevent that kind of influence would be reasonable. He is saying thay specifically demanding a sale to the USA is the odd move; it wouldn’t even fix the issue of concentration of power, just shift it to someone else.
> He is saying thay specifically demanding a sale to the USA is the odd move; it wouldn’t even fix the issue of concentration of power, just shift it to someone else.
The problem is that right now the power is yielded by the CCP, which is clearly unacceptable. The problem is not TikTok per se but how a totalitarian regime that has a long track record of actively engaging in espionage and psyops against the US is controlling that platform. Forcing the CCP to sell it's position mitigates or eliminates the impact on the remaining shareholder's interests. The fact that the CCP opts for scorched earth tactics is already telling.
I don't think anyone is arguing that it is acceptable, but that the solution is at odds with a free market economy and values usually upheld by western democracies.
A company in Hungary starts manufacturing cars. They become wildly popular in the US. Everyone and their aunt is driving one. Then the US demands a sale for national security reasons. Does that sound reasonable? Instead, you address whatever the security gap is (data privacy, scanning for backdoors, data residency, etc) and enforce compliance.
In the case of social media, that would be mandatory tagging of paid content, advertisements, political ads (or prohibition of), along with measures to slow down/limit the dissemination of information so no single person can sway public opinion with the wave of a hand (cough cough X). In many countries, influencers are now subject to advertising rules, as it should be. At some point we'll need to get a grasp on how to do the same for news/opinion pieces.
Just dropping the whole thing into 'more reliable hands' without changing any of the rules of the game accomplishes very little.
It need not be someone in the US, just a country which is not one of a few named adversaries. A Singaporean owning company would comply with the law just as well.
> Who decides what is propaganda and what is not? EU commissariat?
Like most things in the EU it’s overly complicated, but I think sanctions are decided unanimously by the Council, which in this case would be assembled national ministers of foreign policy or security.
These people think that minimum wage "fact checkers" who delete posts that don't agree with their handbook are "freedom", not "censorship". So they think they have principles.
This is an absolutely unhinged take. The US doesn't allow more than 25% foreign ownership of broadcast media. That's not some "free speech" violation. If a foreigner wants to say something, they have many ways to do it. But they don't have those privileged ways.
But would you want the rest of the world to operate the same way?
If ycombinator wants to show HN to somebody in Germany then they would have to spin off a company owned by Germans to be able to show HN there? Same for France and the other 170-200 countries in the world.
This is obviously an unreasonable way for the internet to work.
Are you trying to say there's some utilitarian principle where countries should allow companies from other countries to operate unrestricted?
I'm a fan of free trade! That's a good thing! But tolerance is not a moral precept. We don't have to allow companies that report to hostile foreign governments to operate!
Even among friendly nations, the European governments are fairly opinionated about how US tech companies are allowed to operate in Europe.
Let's say it's the same situation as now. They made a super addictive app that doesn't have any overt nazism but it's fully under the control of the NSDAP, we don't know how the algorithm works, and they can bias it anytime they like. It's extremely popular and most young people use it. Would you say this is fine, yes or no?
> Even if they can tune the algorithm at a whim to include just a bit of antisemitism
You mean like all the US social networks banning or severely restricting the content on the slaughter being perpetrated in Palestina, mostly against innocent people and kids, while tik tok allowed it?
The answer is still yes, instead of the holocaust I will gladly take an app with just a bit of antisemitism, that, BTW, is not lacking on the platforms we all use and originated in the USA
Now, that's not what's happening on tik tok, that's what's happening in your mind, as a thought experiment I would accept nazitok and tell my kids to not use it, instead of the holocaust and having no power to stop it in any meaningful way.
Wouldn't you?
Would you really reproduce the holocaust, just so you don't have to educate your children and explain them the right from the wrong?
I don't understand where "instead of the holocaust" came from. I'm talking of a hypothetical modern-day Nazi Germany that's just as awful as the real one, and whether you would allow their funny dancing app. There's no either-or.
> I don't understand where "instead of the holocaust" came from
Since we are speculating, a modern day Germany has not perpetrated the holocaust, or it would not be allowed to exist in the European Union.
> Nazi Germany that's just as awful as the real one, and whether you would allow their funny dancing app. There's no either-or.
But what tik tok has to do with that?
If nazi Germany was still alive and kicking, it means we would all use their apps, because we would all speak German.
It would be what the USA are today.
We in fact use American apps or buy American devices even though they allow very bad content or are produced where labor protection laws are inexistent and worker are treated like slaves.
No one said anything about the European Union. Let's say our hypothetical modern Nazi Germany is in fact conducting the holocaust. Would you be okay with your kids using their funny dancing app?
Why is that such a big problem for you to understand that China is not the nazi germany and tik tok is not spreading dangerous ideas, it's simply less controlled by the US monopoly? (who are the nazi germany in this your little experiment)
But hey, you want an answer? of course I wouldn't be onboard with whoever is committing a genocide, just like I'm not on board with Israel and I boycott them and their products, as I am not onboard with the US foreign policy of the past 80 years (CIA was responsible for more than 90s changes of regime) and if it was for me US social networks would be banished in my Country.
I don't see many differences between the modern US and the nazi germany, besides the holocaust (which is not a small feat, I know, but hey, dangerous ideas are dangerous too)
It doesn't matter what I think, I am a no one, a genocide is not when USA say their adversaries are committing it but stay silent when their allies are condemned by internationally recognized courts (here, in the West).
BTW if you consider the Uyghurs issue a genocide, I got news for you: you should consider 80% of the countries of the World genocidal.
If you wanna play that game, no one should trade with the USA or use any of their apps and, god forbid, have access to their cultural (propagandist) material.
Take for example what's been happening at the Mexican border for decades
The US says more than 1.7 million migrants were detained along its border with Mexico in the past 12 months - the highest number ever recorded
By contrast "only" 1 million Uyghurs have been detained to date (according to our sources, that are not official sources, we don't even have real evidence, just wild guesses).
You don't know how much you don't know my friend, when I read something like this I always think: tell me you are american (or plainly ignorant, they are synonyms) without telling me.
This is obviously an over-the-top response. I quoted what you said:
> of course I wouldn't be onboard with whoever is committing a genocide
And asked if you were familiar with these particular atrocities. These particular atrocities are fairly different from the American/Mexican border in enough ways that your conflation is fairly bizarre (is there forced sterilization at the US Mexico border? What about forced labor? Or do you consider those to be unfounded claims that I would only believe because I'm an American?)
Tbh mostly the US and their allies seem to prefer not talking about the Uyghurs. And, I mean, what is the US supposed to do about it, anyway? (Contrast this with Israel/Palestine where the US continues to arm Israel with relatively few conditions on the usage of those weapons)
I am curious how you think the US should handle its southern border? My understanding is most European nations similarly struggle with large influxes of refugees. This is a global crisis, and you have actual data about it because the US doesn't kill journalists who research it.
I'm not saying "America shouldn't trade with China because of what's going on within their borders." (We are a huge trade partner with China. We were a huge trade partner with Russia before they invaded Ukraine)
I do think it's reasonable for America to ban TikTok.
Now let's talk about segregation and eugenics politics that inspired the Hitler third reich and went on until the 1970s and are having a come back now with the resurgence of neo confederated ideologies and literally the KKK .
a place with the largest incarcerated population of the world where the police is as brutal as in some developing country where the mob and drug cartels rule and where people shoot at each other at the same rate of countries at war.
For comparison in USA there are every year 20 thousands intentional homicides, while in China they are 7 thousand, but China has almost 4 times the population of the USA.
Would you use an app coming from such a place?
> And asked if you were familiar with these particular atrocities
It's not a genocide.
> I do think it's reasonable for America to ban TikTok.
I do also think it's reasonable for China to ban US social networks and Europe should do the same thing.
Now you have to explain how 2024 China relates to the Nazis, though.
Nazism is an 100% western creation, had many supporters in the west and in the USA, and Hitler himself was inspired by the segregation laws in the United States for his reich.
I'm not comparing China to it, it's just an extreme example. If you are such a free speech absolutist that you think all foreign-controlled media should be allowed (and encouraged to do business in your country), does that include the nazis? And if not, where do you draw the line?
> If you are such a free speech absolutist that you think all foreign-controlled
You said all, I never said all, I just said instead of the holocaust I prefer tik tok.
You are the one that prefers the holocaust to tik tok and has to live with it.
> where do you draw the line?
I'll gladly answer: I draw the line where illegal or seriously dangerous stuff is happening.
For example I would have banned any social network that promoted the so called "challenges".
But the tik tok case has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that if the US cannot control the narrative, they do not want Americans to use it.
Which is the exact same thing the nazi did, back then.
They did not trust their people to make the right choices.
> When did the US citizens become so subservient to their government?
Technically speaking, they did in 1789. As to the practicality of it, the US government expanded massively from 1900-1950, so maybe during that time period. The FCC was formed in 1972, so on the issue of permissible purveyors of brain rot, maybe then.
The Chinese government does not have the right to free speech in this country. And since they are the ones controlling the algorithm that controls what people see on the app, then it's China speaking not the people who are posting.
The black box algorithms that are at the heart of TikTok and Instagram are very powerful and have the potential to be very dangerous mind control weapons, quite literally. It should all be blown up, but keeping that weapon from China is good.
Shout fire in a crowded theater. Its literally the first example in that you aren't allowed to say anything you want whenever you want. You only have protection against government retaliation.
In the US, shouting fire in a crowded theater is expressly allowed per Brandenburg v Ohio in 1969. It puzzles me why it is so often trotted out as an example of things you can’t say since we had a whole Supreme Court case that determined the opposite — it is arguing the losing side. The kind of speech that is disallowed in the US is very narrow, much narrower than people apparently assume.
> This is just the paradox of tolerance, if you allow everything you won't be free for long.
This. As a nice clear-cut example see the propaganda being pushed on how Haitians were somehow eating everyone's pets. Even if someone somehow ignores the extremist call for violence, the fact that this propaganda campaign was targeting perfectly legal and legitimate immigrants should be very telling.
In the US propaganda is free speech. We allowed enemies of the US to circulate Communist newspapers in America during the Cold War because we believe the people control the government not the government control the people
The EU banned Russia Today (correctly in my opinion) and that was nothing compared to TikTok. Propaganda isn't free speech.