Whatever Tiktok is doing, the correct response is to write enforcable laws to prevent ANY company from doing what Tiktok is doing.
This is bad governance.
That’s what they did. The “correct response” is described in the article as the law 50/50 signed here.
Did you read the article? The bill bans tiktok for being foreign. There is nothing in this article that describes a bill that outlaws any practices, conventions, or actions that tiktok has done.
Being afraid of foreigners for being foreign is not effective regulation.
The bill itself says, more or less, “any foreign adversary controlled app is banned. Also, TikTok is a foreign adversary controlled app”. So it doesn’t apply exclusively to TikTok, but it does explicitly include them.
The point is that companies like Google and Facebook do the same data harvesting and manipulation but aren’t being held to the same standard. The law is clearly written to benefit the US government not the citizens, while the justification is stated to be ‘for the benefit of the citizens.’ It’s like buying your wife a lawn tractor for her birthday even though you know she has no interest in using one. You’re claiming it’s for her but it’s really for you.
I’ve read this comment over 10 times now and I have no idea what the words “the law 50/50 signed here” means, so I can’t be sure I understand the argument you are trying to make. My best guess is that you are using circular logic to suggest that every democratically decided upon decision is always the right decision, which is nonsense because democracy is demonstrably fallible.
My point might be a little Covid brain fogged but I’m just pointing out that they did exactly what the guy asked for, if they bothered to click past the title which makes it sound like a targeted “ban Tiktok” law.
I am not a guy. I read the entire article before commenting. The law did not do what I asked for. You would know if you read my comment all the way through.
I think you’re making assumptions that I can read into what exactly you find wrong with Tiktok. That context is not there in the original comment.
Being chinese by definition can’t effect any company. There is enough context.
High school nerds pay attention. This is how you can make some money and have an excuse to talk to the hot girls…by installing a vpn on their phones so they can still have their tik tok.
Get one popular girls phone set up and every girl in the school will be hitting you up within a week.
Highschooler here, everyone already uses vpn’s to bypass the school firewall to view blocked sites and stuff while on school wifi.
The kids are gonna be alright
And the cycle of infantalizing women continues…
Lemmy does draw a certain crowd unfortunately.
That’s mainly the internet, not just Lemmy
And why do you assume everyone including hot girls & popular girls aren’t already capable of installing their own VPNs? Unless of course you mean the high school nerd is going to pay for our VPN service, then come on over!
I’m sure some do. I haven’t talked to many high school girls lately.
If this goes through and this happened when I was in school…that’d be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’d probably never even think of it then. I’d probably luck into it by telling the rest of the nerd table at lunch, jock overheard, sell him my services, and then word of mouth from there.
That happening now…probably be the inspiration for the gen Z’s “American Pie”. Or “Superbad”.
Are you kidding? There isn’t a phone owning high schooler that doesn’t know how to vpn past their high school’s nanny software. You’re out of touch.
aren’t already capable
Anyone who can read and follow directions is capable
Most people can’t install a VPN, including hot or cold girls
Most people can’t install a VPN,
My guy, do YOU know how to set up a VPN?
So NSA backdoors are mandatory but Chinese ones are bad.
Yes. 🤷
Nobody wants to be spied on by their perceived enemies. Also, how do you expect us to maintain an appropriate level of hypocrisy if we don’t constantly do hypocritical things?
I wish we would go after foreign investment, ownership, and political meddling as much as tiktok
You have a choice to not use tiktok, in this day and age you don’t really have a choice to not use a phone…
I would be more afraid of being spied on by the government of the country I live in than by a government from a foreign country. Who do you think is more capable of doing something to you?
Yes, governmental surveillance is always bad. But let’s not pretend being surveilled by NSA is as bad as being surveilled by the authoritarian government of China.
it’s worse. it’s worse because they have the power to arrest me, freeze my assets, or do a hundred other terrible things. the chinese can… uh… find out my sense of humor is immature i think.
The fundamental fear of TikTok isn’t censorship. It’s fear of a media outlet that expresses views sympathetic to the Chinese government.
If Americans are exposed to these views, there is a horrifying possibility that they my agree with them. And if Americans agree with the Chinese government, it’s just a matter of time before America crumbles from within.
the second paragraph, that’s satire, right?
It’s what American politicians actually believe
The former is more pressing than the latter.
Can the US Lawmakers do anything about the US companies harvesting my data and selling it off… please?
Can they? Completely wrong question.
“Will they” is what you wanted to ask but the answer is still firmly no
Yes, they can make more money from it.
I dislike TikTok as much as the next guy, but I think there are several issues with this bill:
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It specifically mentions TikTok and ByteDance. While none of the provisions seem to apply exclusively to them, the way they are included would give them no recourse to petition this, the way other companies would be able to (ie, other companies could argue in court that they aren’t controlled by a foreign adversary, but TikTok can’t. The bill literally defines “foreign adversary controlled application” as “TikTok, or …” (g.3.A)). It also gives the appearance that this law is only supposed to apply to them, which isn’t what it says but it might be treated that way anyway.
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It leaves the determination of whether or not a company is “controlled by a foreign adversary” entirely up to the president. He has to explain himself to Congress, but doesn’t need their approval. That seems ripe for exploitation. I think it should require Congress to approve, either in a addition to or instead of the president.
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According to g.2.A.ii (in the definition of “covered company”), the law only applies to social media with more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. Not sure why that’s included.
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There is a specific exemption for any app that’s for posting reviews (g.2.B). I’m guessing one such company paid a whole lot to just not have this apply to them.
The directed scope of the bill is going to do the same thing to TikTok that legislation did to Juul.
If you target Juul with legal repercussions for all their flavored vapes, then only Juul stops selling flavored pods. Now a million other disposable vape companies fill the void with flavored vapes that are worse for the ecosystem.
Targeting TikTok will just lead to another foreign data-harvesting social media app popping up to fill its place.
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U.S. lawmakers can’t force anything on foreign corporations.
If the bill passes in the House and Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn’t sell. It also would lose access to US-based web-hosting services.
ByteDance would be banned from the U.S. market and lose it’s webhosting on U.S. servers.
Also, what’s with the “foreign adversary” status of China?
Also, what’s with the “foreign adversary” status of China?
China is attacking us by having a bigger economy
Lol yea. They also maintain control over their big corpos and that must be threatening to the 9 corporations in a trench coat that the U.S. calls a government. Still, the world doesn’t need any more adversarial relationships, thank you very much U.S.A.
Unironically, so much of US/China hostility boils down to corporate market share
Many users called lawmakers’ offices to complain, congressional staffers told Politico. “It’s so so bad. Our phones have not stopped ringing. They’re teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we can’t take it away,” one House GOP staffer was quoted as saying.
and they still voted 50-0. really tells you something about how much these politicians are willing to listen to their constituents.
It was a 50-0 to pass the commission and then go to the House floor for a vote and then the Senate for a vote and finally signed into law by the president unless he vetoes it, which is possible imo.
Honestly, teenagers and old people are the sorts of folks that need to be protected from themselves, I might just call in to my local representative to voice my support of forced sale, operating restrictions, or even outright ban.
EDIT: I sent him an email.
what are you even trying to say here? that it’s okay for politicians to ignore entire demographics? or that it’s only okay for them to ignore entire demographics if, ultimately, it’s left up to a different group of politicians to pass the law?
i don’t use tiktok or have any interest in the app itself, but it’s still very alarming to see a vote go through 50-0 despite a “nonstop” flood of calls opposing it.
Ignore them? Gosh no. Protect them. Literally what I said.
“protect them from themselves” is what you said. which carries the connotation that they don’t know what’s best for themselves and aren’t qualified to make judgments about those things. this is different from simply “protecting them”.
To be fair, a big part of a functioning society is a government with proper regulations in place so that people are not expected to be experts in literally every field before making a purchase or performing some kind of action. Obviously, calling it “protect[ing] them from themselves,” is dismissive and patronizing, but it’s pretty much why we need government in the first place.
For example, the EPA recently issued a recall for ground cinnamon from certain specific (dollar store) brands due to unacceptably high levels of lead. Without the career scientists (and yes, bureaucrats) working for that regulatory agency, millions of people would have continued consuming the product and feeding it to their kids (low-income folks too in this case, given the brands) literally indefinitely.
Without the EPA, every person who buys cinnamon is what, expected to use mass spectrometry to determine the exact molecular make-up of every spice (or in the case of the EPA, literally any food or prescription drugs you may ever consume) before using?
If they didn’t do their cinnamon research, then they deserved it, and the government should have no involvement? What happens in cases where companies hide dangerous issues in their products to avoid losing profits?
What if there’s literally no way for anyone but a scientist, with extensive lab access and at least 4+ years of university to know that there is an issue with a product (or a construction site, or a drug, or water treatment, etc)? They’re the only ones who should be able to properly avoid using a product that may kill them and their children? And even then, only when it’s a product they’re an expert in?
Not saying you’re a libertarian, just like pointing out the obvious things that make it so so stupid.
Would love to see the science or other expert opinions that is being used to justify this ban then.
I haven’t heard anything except politicians making vague references to spying or other things we allow from domestic services.
It’s just politics.
I wonder if this could also be applied to games owned in whole or part by Tencent…
i hope they sell conan exiles to someone else, because then the shitty monitization that is destroying the game will end.
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yeah
So when do they plan to do something about those domestic businesses trying to manipulate citizens of America?
I mean, the domestic businesses are the ones who own Congress and are using it to get rid of a competitor.
While you’re not wrong about double standards, anything that discourages the use of vapid social media platforms is a win in my book. Use whatever backwards logic you like to make it happen so long as it’s effective.
He says, on a social media platform
Lemmy is a message board, not social media. Like fark or something awful. You have no idea who the duck i am. How is that social?
My tiktok account is also anonymous.
Your Lemmy account can likely be used to identify you, given a big enough data set.
Undoubtedly, especially since I haven’t taken particular steps to obfuscate my identity here.
But as I said in a comment below, I’m more worried about some unhinged nutbag online randomly targeting me than being a person of interest by any nefarious groups or organizations.
Capitalism abusing citizens? Just fine.
“Communism” abusing citizens? Avengers, assemble!
They’re prospective communists. Supposedly they’re going to get there by 2050, but they just built a new massive luxury tower for their ultra wealthy so…
It’s just like Marx said: “If you do an oppressive oligarchy for 100 years, it magically transforms into communism”
Sooo… How do Republican’s square being the party of “Small Govt” and then interfering in a private business?
Is it a private business if it’s owned by the Chinese government?
It’s really not though? The Chinese government has a 1% stake in ByteDance. Meanwhile ~60% is foreign investors – believed to be mostly American.
You have a misunderstanding of how China’s government operates. It does not matter how much stake the government holds, companies just cannot say no to the government’s request. Otherwise you will be disappeared. See Alibaba for example.
Remember, China does not have a democracy.
That’s literally the same thing the us government is doing here…
Ooooof, somebody licking the boot of capitalism a little too hard.
The world is on fire but the kids are upset that they have to use another platform for their stupid fucking dance videos.
BTW: someone in the US should just make a similar app and call it tiktok. It’s not like China gives a crap about IP protection so turn about is fair play.
Tik tok is at the root of so many of the social issues we’re facing today. It’s absolutely worse than Facebook, although both need to be addressed.
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It has a huge hold over our youth today, even folks up to 30. It’s so ubiquitous it’s used as a replacement for Google to find new information including political.
Problem is it’s absolutely chock full of misinformation and propaganda, which doesn’t just exist on the platform, but is actively pushed on American youth today.
It’s full of misinformation and propaganda unlike… You know… All those super reliable objective sources of information that you use?
Oh yes VERY unlike those. Anything that can be traced and verified, aren’t read to you by an AI voice or a white person claiming to be an American while trying very hard to suppress an Eastern European or East Asian accent. Another good trait to have would be anything that isn’t verifiably false.
You know the algorithm shows you what you interact with the most… Right?
Well that and whatever will keep you addicted and hopefully spending money. Rage, bias confirmation, propaganda that hits the class or group you belong to. And the more you trust it the more they can use that trust.
Among other things.
If it only showed you what you interacted with the most it’d be less of an issue but that’s not how it works. Thats not even how it works on YouTube.
Thanks for proving why that platform is just so damned dangerous. The ignorance it inspires is shocking.
Sorry but this is giving ‘old man yells at clouds’ energy. How is tiktok any worse than any other social media platform? They’re all echochambers filled with misinformation, it just what happens when you get a lot of people online.
That you’re trying to ‘they’re all the same’ bs shows how ignorant many people are on this. They’re not all the same, this one is especially bad and it’s not JUST because it turns you into a fucking retard when you use it.
The only social platform that doesn’t try to actively censor Pro-Palestinian voices. What a coincidence that it’s suddenly a security risk.
Big ups to Rathbone https://www.tiktok.com/@rathbonemakesmusic/video/7289906736847129902
Suddenly? It’s been labeled Chinese spyware since day one.
And Twitter, Instagram and others are American spyware. The timing is very interesting since TikTok was the only platform not censoring Palestinians into oblivion especially at the start of the Genocide. Even now you can see a drastic difference in recommended content between TikTok and American based platforms. Which is a major reason that the youth reacts a lot different than boomers.
Full control of social media must be held. Free speech btw
others are American spyware
The M.O. of American business has always been clear: The internet exists to enrich the already-powerful. All Internet systems must be considered a possible vector for mission-critical business communication. As such, EVERY message sent over the internet must be viewable by those who might benefit from seeing it. Every phone call must be interceptable and traceable. Every new business idea must be known. Every new competitor must be stifled or bought out. Every piece of information which could be used to coerce or force compliance / silence must be gathered. If there is insufficient leverage then leverage must be manufactured.
Yes this sounds like paranoid hyperbole. but it explains pretty much everything.The classic “Freedom of speech except for platforms that say mean things about us”.
At least China is open about their censorship
Ya, the site being abused by Iran, China and Russia isn’t a problem. Nope not at all
I feel there’s a lot of China influence in this thread. I wonder why that is…
