I hope ByteDance sell tiktok to North Korea. This bill is so misguided and inflammatory. It's clearly OK for Google and Meta to freely harvest our data and sell it for a profit, but I guess they can't charge tariffs on data so they'll make up excuses and bully foreign companies over it. I hope the Chinese join the EU and start pushing on our tech monopolies since our government is too busy with bills like this to uphold the laws already on the books.
> This bill is so misguided and inflammatory. It's clearly OK for ${US_COMPANIES} to freely harvest our data and sell it for a profit, but I guess they can't charge tariffs on data so they'll make up excuses and ${PREVENT_THREAT}.
I think this just validates China’s social, cultural, and digital hegemony.
Banning (if you can call it that? Divesting?) a single product like this is a strange move. It’s using a shovel to clear the early crumbs of an avalanche.
I don’t think this is the right move. Yes, it threatens the monopolies that companies like Facebook have established. And let’s assume that Haidt is right and social media and the surrounding ecosystem is a cesspool of negativity being lunged at the youth. I still think that it’s in a way petulant and reactive to pass a bill for this. A foreign country is not responsible for our leaders having failed to nurture us into sensible adults who do not fall prey to these dark patterns and tactics. I will refrain from the angle that our leaders intentionally did not want us to be critical, independent thinkers to further their own agendas by treating us like lepers.
I don't care either way. I think it'll be really interesting to see how people react to this though. Do Americans learn how vpns work suddenly, do tiktok users just switch to reels like nothing happened. Do we snap out of our social media trance. It's like playing sim city and causing a little social chaos lol
are they going to have a firewall to block tiktok? I would think the government will just ask Apple and Google to take tiktok from their store, then tiktok can be a web app, and there is no one can stop it.
> do tiktok users just switch to reels like nothing happened
Yeah. The content there is already crossposted from TikTok anyway, now it will just be created there by default. Zero functional difference. Plus the YouTube Shorts algorithm has gotten a lot less overtly awful in the last year.
I just tested this and scrolled for a couple minutes straight — not one short was anything remotely substantive or interesting to me. An endless fountain of brain rot and offensively low quality content. Lots of it ai generated audio (wouldn’t be surprised if the content was too).
Is there something I’m doing wrong? Because mine is still very very bad. It seems to ignore my actual channel subscriptions and usual viewing habits entirely.
> “In the context of social media platforms used by nearly half of Americans, it’s not hard to imagine how a platform that facilitates so much commerce, political discourse, and social debate could be covertly manipulated to serve the goals of an authoritarian regime, one with a long track record of censorship, transnational repression, and promotion of disinformation.”
Mark Warner (D-VA), Senate Intelligence Committee Chair
That's the crux of it for me. Not protecting the data of Americans.
Mark Warner has gotten $343,211 from AIPAC. He cares about placating Israel, not protecting our data. If you can find a politician who says this but doesn't take money from AIPAC, I might be a little more convinced.
If merely accepting donations invalidates a politicians ability to have their own views then I suppose no politician legitimately cares about anything (perhaps that’s true, but I wouldn’t bet on it).
Can you explain in what way the US is authoritarian? I don't feel it on a personal level at all. I mean, the dept of motor vehicles is pretty strict, but other than that...
The only thing they are afraid of is being exposed. Simply exposing the vast weaknesses of the ruling elite in the country is has a stronger effect than what most people consider to be overtly propaganda.
Senator Pete Ricketts explains why the government wants to ban TikTok: "Pro-Palestinian and Hamas videos on TikTok have more reach than the top 10 US news websites combined."
Sen. Mark Warner has uncovered that "all 20" major tech companies are colluding to silence content that challenges government-approved stories about election "misinformation" and "disinformation."
watching from the sideline, I think this move has a lot to do with Palestine. Do you know how much Palestine information on TikTok, comparing to YouTube and Facebook, apparently those contents were suppressed on other platforms, and TikTok is the odd one here. I personally believe, regardless what politicians are saying, this is actually a big reason.
I'm seeing a lot of comments like this, but I have no idea what your camp is trying to say.
The bill isn't a criticism of TikTok's operation, its a criticism on its ownership and how that ownership + influence creates an exploit that poses a threat to NatSec.
This kind of reactionary framing feels like an attempt to put Facebook and TikTok on a level playing field, but the premise of the bill is about tech ownership and influence by companies of or from a foreign adversary.
How does this even make sense? This bill would be perfectly happy selling TikTok to Meta even, it's not killing social media it's just telling China to GTFO.
Readit News
Banning (if you can call it that? Divesting?) a single product like this is a strange move. It’s using a shovel to clear the early crumbs of an avalanche.
I don’t think this is the right move. Yes, it threatens the monopolies that companies like Facebook have established. And let’s assume that Haidt is right and social media and the surrounding ecosystem is a cesspool of negativity being lunged at the youth. I still think that it’s in a way petulant and reactive to pass a bill for this. A foreign country is not responsible for our leaders having failed to nurture us into sensible adults who do not fall prey to these dark patterns and tactics. I will refrain from the angle that our leaders intentionally did not want us to be critical, independent thinkers to further their own agendas by treating us like lepers.
Care to elaborate your point? I tried to understand what point you tried to make,but it heavily contrasts with reality.
Yeah. The content there is already crossposted from TikTok anyway, now it will just be created there by default. Zero functional difference. Plus the YouTube Shorts algorithm has gotten a lot less overtly awful in the last year.
Is there something I’m doing wrong? Because mine is still very very bad. It seems to ignore my actual channel subscriptions and usual viewing habits entirely.
Dead Comment
Mark Warner (D-VA), Senate Intelligence Committee Chair
That's the crux of it for me. Not protecting the data of Americans.
After years of contentious debate, the bipartisan measure marks a significant step toward passing a landmark federal privacy law
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/07/congres...
Bit of discussion (on CNN article) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39980232
It's reciprocal since the CCP has the similar policy towards Western social media
So…the US government then?
The bill isn't a criticism of TikTok's operation, its a criticism on its ownership and how that ownership + influence creates an exploit that poses a threat to NatSec.
This kind of reactionary framing feels like an attempt to put Facebook and TikTok on a level playing field, but the premise of the bill is about tech ownership and influence by companies of or from a foreign adversary.
Facebook is a US company. What am I missing here?
Dead Comment