Why give China access to our domestic market when they refuse to give us access theirs? What do you propose then?

The issue here is that it's a president arbitrarily destroying a company.

If the Congress (the actual body meant to crate laws) decides to create a reasoned, comprehensive law to level the playing field with Chinese companies, then they should do it.

What shouldn't happen is this kind of impulsive decision making that arguably abuses the emergency powers of the presidency to block an app that allows people to film themselves and post those recordings.

If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is.

> If you claim that this app is a national security threat then any app is.

How so? Not every app is 1. Owned and controlled by an adversarial state, 2. In the hands of every American youth, and 3. Providing opaquely generated/sorted content.

So explain how every app is an equivalent security threat.

Please explain why TikTok is "owned and controlled" by the Chinese government.

TikTok is just as much "owned and controlled" by an adversarial state as any app by US corporations is "owned and controlled" by the US government due to national security letters and the CLOUD Act.

No, it’s really not. Note that there is currently a very public tiff between American media and the American state. This would be impossible in China. That is the difference, regardless of whether you can pull pieces of law from either side that would indicate the contrary. State power is a complex thing that is not entirely encoded in legal code.

Some reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-media-po...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-china-crack...

“Jan 25 - Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Friday stressed efforts to boost integrated media development and amplify mainstream tone in public communication so as to consolidate the common theoretical foundation for all Party members and all the people to unite and work hard.”

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/25/c_137774923.htm

That would be relevant for the discussion if the stated reason for banning TikTok were specific, concrete and actually happening actions of politically-motivated censorship. However, the stated reason is "national security" due to potential access to data of American people. Which - surprise! - is exactly what the CLOUD Act provides the US government with regard to ANY app with server-side data storage operated by ANY US-based corporation.

“[CLOUD Act allows] federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.”

In case you missed it, I’ll emphasize the relevant point: “via warrant or subpoena”

This is not “exactly,” as you say, the same provision.

And what exactly prevents the US government from creating any kind of subpoena they'd like? They don't even have to defend it anywhere, because "national security" trumps the normal judicative process. The targets of the subpoena aren't allowed to talk about, and the original owners of the data sought by the government will never even see the subpoena.

Look, if you don’t believe in the western systems of checks and balances despite the long, long track record of it performing with greater regard for human dignity than any regime without checks and balances, we’re just not going to be able to have a conversation here.

No sensible person would suggest the American system is perfect. But to suggest that an imperfect system of checks and balances is tantamount to an actual unashamed dictatorship is equally divorced from reality.

There’s nowhere for this conversation to go, so have a good weekend!

Meh. The last three and a half years have pretty clearly demonstrated that a large part of the foundation of America that we’ve always believed was held in place with ‘checks and balances’ were actually ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ that don’t mean shit if one side of the agreement decides to ignore them.

I do believe in actual checks and balances, especially of the transparent kind, just not in those dark pockets of unchecked power that have always existed in between the parts of government that do have proper c&b. Pretty much all the stuff labeled "national security" in the US are such pockets of largely unchecked power, even more so, they are deliberately engineered pockets of unchecked power that are designed to evade proper oversight - because, you know, "it's a matter of national security, just don't ask questions".

Also, I've never stated that the entire US governmental system was "tantamount" to a dictatorship - this is a straw man you're putting up there. I named very particular legislation that I indeed consider equivalent to what it is you're suggesting the Chinese government is doing. If you want to rebuke that argument - fine, I'm listening! But please stop putting up straw men just because it turns out that it's kind of hard to defend the existence of such opaque and unchecked pockets of power if your entire argument builds on the superiority of a system that is designed to balance and limit individuals' power over one that just lets those in power reign over anyone else.

Also, abbub brought up a great point here that I want to emphasize: "checks and balances" that are weak in practice and depend on those in power to "just behave" are ineffective and shouldn't be considered equal to actual, enforceable limitations. I was stunned how close a US president can get to a dictator in terms of effective powers if he just decides to stop caring about morals, political conventions and other "soft limits". This experience seems to be an argument against the concept of "let's just trust everyone to play nice" and a clear indicator for the need of actual, effective and enforceable limitations to power. Those regulations that I criticized now are the exact opposite of this.

Thing is, there are no checks and balances for this area of government activity. Otherwise why would american companies include government backdoors in their products?

> there are no checks and balances for this area of government activity

Of course there are. Congress can pass laws limiting executive actions. And the courts can constrain it.

Okay, so in theory maybe there could be checks and balances in place. In practice, however, there are instead secret court orders, subpoenas, or "national security letters".

> there are instead secret court orders, subpoenas, or "national security letters"

None of which apply to this action, which has been publicly promulgated and will be publicly enforced and challenged.

Also, secret courts and NSLs are an abomination. Subpoenas are legal demands for information.

None of which _are known to_ apply to this action. Sure. But it still doesn't change the root of the problem: the alleged security problems with Chinese products, caused by government being able to force manufacturers to do whatever their intelligence agencies require, are in fact real - but for US products, not Chinese ones.

Companies tend to fight back when it's profitable to fight back; and do their best to ignore the government otherwise. See: this week's tech CEO house hearing. I can't recall this example of the backdoors; and if you say "Clipper Chips" I'm going home.

Of course I don't mean clipper. I mean the backdoors in US telco equipment - some uncovered by Snowden, some discovered by independent researchers. If your theory were true, Chinese network equipment would be full of government backdoors, and US manufactured equipment would be free of them. In the real world, however, the reverse is true.

The US used to claim a higher moral when others blocked, filtered, or enacted bans by executive fiat. It did so with some justification.

Banning an app because you are worried about external cultural influence on your youth ends any such claim.

This is irrelevant to the question I asked.

The meaning of "arbitrary" here is that the decision is based on the whims of the White House, rather than on well-established rules that apply to everyone - regardless of how well-reasoned the authors of such a ban might think themselves.

> The definition of "arbitrarily" states: "on the basis of random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system".

Here's what OED says. (b) looks interesting, especially with the 1st amendment complications.

(Unless I'm missing something and arbitrarily is defined in US constitutional documents??)

---begin---

arbitrarily, adv. (ˈɑːbɪtrərɪlɪ)[f. arbitrary + -ly 2.]

arbitrarily, adv. In an arbitrary manner, at will;

arbitrarily, adv. a. merely at will, without sufficient reason, capriciously;

arbitrarily, adv. b. unconstitutionally, despotically.

a1626: Davies Quest. Impositions 131 “This power of laying on arbitrarily new impositions.”

1656: Hobbes Six Less. Wks. 1845 VII. 394 “The point F is not to be taken arbitrarily.”

1754: Edwards Freed. Will iv. 2 (ed. 4) 279 “The meaning that they arbitrarily affix to a word.”

1769: Junius Lett. xxxv, “Their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present House of Commons.”

1849: Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. 126 “The Bishop of Dunkeld..was arbitrarily ejected from his see.”

1882: A. Macfarlane Consanguin. 1 “The arbitrarily chosen names of substances.”

I think the above poster probably means to say "unilaterally."

From a native Chinese’s perspective, this is scary: what’s the next thing he will ban?

- Wechat: this make a virtual “family separation”

- A purge of any app related to China (TuSimple, Zoom etc)

- Suspend F1 and H1B visa for “suspected” Chinese and make special scrutiny during immigration interviews for all Chinese applicants

- witch hunt more

Let me tell you what’s this: Chinese Exclusion Act II

What's wrong with banning WeChat?

China bans WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and a whole other bunch of apps.

Zoom should be scrutinized very heavily and potentially banned as well. Keep in mind China bans Skype.

Zoom’s founder is of Chinese origin but it entirely US based from the beginning.

No, their engineers are mostly in China.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/zoom-key-profit-driver-ahead...

Isn’t this what happens to Western companies and products in China?

because not giving someone access to your market is stupid, in particular if you're not a developing country because there's nothing to be gained from protectionism, other than enabling the increasingly authoritarian tnedencies of the American government against its own citizens.

Why does something need to be proposed at all, is the US threatened by zoomers doing funny dances on a smartphone app?

No, they’re threatened by two things:

1. Equipping the CCP with a sensor placed in the pockets of millions of American citizens. This is already a problem when American companies are doing it for ad targeting purposes. But to do the same and funnel the data to an increasingly militaristic near-peer adversary? It in fact makes it qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different.

2. Tiktok opaquely selects which content it shows users. Again, American social media companies do this to a lesser degree (non-chronological feeds), but they don’t tweak their algorithms at the direction of the government to opaquely modify the information environment a citizen exists in. Note that there is currently very public tension between the US establishment and these companies because yes, authoritarians love this capability and no, they don’t yet have it in the US. Tiktok has no ability to refuse CCP’s requests to, e.g. erase any references to their concentration camps or to amplify claims that Bill Gates is trying to inject microchips via the COVID vaccine.

Whether a US executive should be able to single handedly make such a decree, I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to me but I ought to think about it more. What is 100% obvious to anyone looking at TikTok and the CCP with clear eyes is that it is a huge threat.

There is no evidence at all that China puts the thumbs on the scale when it comes to content being served in the US, TikTok has kept US data out of China, and now is actually willing to open source key parts of its code base to auditors, which is a ridiculous double standard anyway given the disinformation campaigns on domestic platforms who are under no such obligations.

That aside, the US is a free country. Everyone can spread propaganda. I was under the impression that American citizens of voting age are able to discern information themselves and distinguish between hoax and reality.

Since when is it the task of the US government to police media companies?

I would suggest that “media company” is a westernized, capitalist, and therefore inaccurate description of what Bytedance is. It, like all other media in China, is an extension of the state.

I am not arguing whether or not the US government has the right to ban TikTok, I am explaining what the threats are. Do not conflate the two and confuse the conversation. It is absolutely possible that this is a threat and we can legally (or in compliance with our values) not do anything about it.

“All news media run by the party must work to speak for the party’s will and its propositions, and protect the party’s authority and unity,” - Xi Jinping

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-media-po...

“ On April 9th, the day before Zuckerberg’s testimony began, Bytedance was ordered to suspend its most popular product, a news-aggregator app called Jinri Toutiao (Today’s Headlines). The next day, regulators yanked Neihan Duanzi, the company’s social-media platform, where users share jokes and videos. Last Wednesday, Zhang’s official apology appeared on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. His company had taken “the wrong path,” he wrote, and, along the way, he had “failed his users.” Perhaps it was not entirely coincidental that his words echoed a notice posted by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the country’s media regulator”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-china-crack...

> Bytedance was ordered to suspend its most popular product, a news-aggregator app called Jinri Toutiao (Today’s Headlines). The next day, regulators yanked Neihan Duanzi, the company’s social-media platform, where users share jokes and videos.

If ByteDance really was an extension of the state, surely they wouldn't even have launched a product that violates the regulations of the state they're supposedly an extension of.

You’re missing the parent’s point, which is that they will jump when the government tells them to.

They are now as Bytedance for the message and will now do whatever they ask

If a company apologizes for violating regulations and promises to do better, it usually means they made the minimum changes necessary to signal compliance, not that they suddenly changed their ways and will always do as told from then on...

“It, like all other media in China, is an extension of the state.”

You can increasingly say the same for American companies.

Even for developing countries it's stupid. Perhaps even more so for them.

China gives Apple access to their market but the US bans AT&T from partnering with Huawei to sell consumer phones.

Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been banned from operating in China. If you look at the big picture, Western companies have much less access to the Chinese domestic market than vice versa

Why restrict what American customers can do just because China restricts what Chinese customers can do?

Do you also suppose that it would be a good idea for you to hit your head repeatedly against a wall, if I start doing so?

> Do you also suppose that it would be a good idea for you to hit your head repeatedly against a wall, if I start doing so?

This is a bad analogy and proves nothing. There's no connection between two people banging their head against the wall.

However, there is a connection between one actor performing a bad action and then facing punitive action from another actor because of it. It makes them less likely to perform similar actions in the future, and could cause them to reverse the previous bad actions that are still in effect.

Whereas if you're banging your head against the wall, me doing the same does nothing to stop you. Hence why it's a meaningless analogy.

The bigger problem is that when American users use TikTok, the Chinese government gets a say in their social media exposure.

Nobody should be using TikTok voluntarily, in my opinion. There should be a PR-effort led by governments, parties or NGOs to tell people why they shouldn't use TikTok.

I don't know enough about TikTok to have an opinion on them in particular. But I do agree that it should be up to people to decide whether they want to use TikTok.

An information campaign like you suggest might be justified. Though given how politicized everything seems to be, I suspect it might backfire.

Btw, would you like to make it illegal for people to send their personal information directly via email to the CCP?

It's not unusual for some kind of transaction to be forbidden by only penalizing or hindering one side.

TikTok users don't consent to the CCP directing their user experience. In fact, TikTok will do its best to avoid letting on to anything like that. And US jurisdiction doesn't cover this company at all. That is one of the rare situations where you really want a government to step in and tell people what not to do.

Just like you would still ban a dangerous product, even though users could know the danger if they really wanted to.

Banning TikTok isn't really about personal information or even surveillance of any kind. Social media can be abused in many different ways, and much more actively.

This shouldn't be about market access but rather about the power media companies wield.

The debates around Facebook, Twitter and so on regarding political speech and misinformation is bad enough, and those companies at least don't have malicious intents and are criticized mostly for their inaction. With a company operating under Chinese law this is a whole other can of worms.

There's nothing weird about "an eye for an eye" approach. The fact that chinese media and tech companies are allowed to operate unhindered in the USA is what's really weird. Unfortunately, banning it in the USA is a bit of a pointless act imho.

If you want to use those metaphors, it's the Chinese who are poking out their own eyes, ie who are restricting what their customers can have access to.

That's a great injustice to the Chinese people. But Americans poking their own eyes out in 'retaliation' makes neither Americans nor Chinese customers better off.

> neither Americans nor Chinese customers better off.

who said anything about making customers better off? it's done to hurt the other party's profit and expansion and influence.

Well, ostensibly politics is done in the name of making citizens better off. Customers are citizens.

Of course, if you get arbitrarily cynical, you are right. But then we'd need to have a very different discussion.