Yes, the American government is comfortable with American companies having deeper access to American data than foreign adversaries.

It's not about what's being done, it's about who's doing it.

Is China really a foreign adversary?

I get that we aren't best buds with china but they are also a huge trade partner with the US. Bigger than many countries which we have friendlier feelings towards.

> Is China really a foreign adversary?

Yes, they are officially recognized as a foreign adversary. They're the first country listed:

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...

What foreign ally steals terabytes of data about top-of-the-line weapons programs like the F-22 and F-35?

https://www.sandboxx.us/news/the-man-who-stole-americas-stea...

They're actively undermining our interests all over the world. What else are they but an adversary?

Just look at the situation in the Philippines at Second Thomas Shoal. They're actively baiting the US.

> They're actively baiting the US.

How about we don't take the "bait" in the South CHINA Sea that is thousands of miles away from even the furthest abroad US territory (Guam)?

This is quite a naive take with regard to US global hedgemony. They don't have 11 aircraft carrier groups for nothing.

Naivete and challenging orthodoxy are not the same thing.

> South CHINA Sea

Very little of the South China See is owned by China. China doesn't own it any more than Japan owns the Sea of Japan.

Legally speaking, yes

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...

Yes, China is the number one threat to the US and we've been at war with them for the past decade+, both an economic war and cyberwar.

Feels like giving them billions of dollars in trade every year and making them a critical dependency of the US economy is a weird way of being at war. Are you sure that's not just a typo for "valued trading partner"?

What a trip you are on. You can't be in war with the country that produces all the stuff you have in your house.

> Is China really a foreign adversary?

I can't imagine what else we would call them. Also, turnabout is fair play. You can't run a company in China without giving up ownership and abiding by a number of, often draconian, rules. This isn't a "ban", it's a "You can't be owned by China" law. Given what China requires I find that completely reasonable.

YES

What sort of adversarial actions have they taken against the US?

The most recent one I can think of is responding with tariffs against the US after we put tariffs on their solar exports.

Beyond that... the Korean war I think was the last time we were any sort of direct/semi direct conflict with them. And Taiwan is the touchiest aspect we have with them.

Chinese backed threat actors have basically hacked into every major Fortune 50 tech company and stolen R&D.

Where is the evidence that they are backed by the Chinese government?

There's articles all over the place about it if you look. For example:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apt31-chine...

Articles and headlines themselves do not constitute evidence. All we get from your Reuters article is an allegation from the US Government (of Iraq WMD fame), and a denial from the Chinese Government. It's hearsay not evidence. Where is the evidence?

All over the place if you actually care but I somewhat doubt that.

If actual evidence were all over the place, you wouldn't be making this comment.

The fact is the accurately attributing expert cybercrime is extremely difficult and anyone that implies otherwise is making a fool out of you.

What type of company does China keep? Last I checked, they were pretty buddy-buddy with Russia, and North korea on an estranged leash. If we know other countries fund terrorist organizations for intent of undermining western influence, is it that big of a stretch to say China is probably doing the same thing?

You can't use 'direct conflict' as a measure in this type of game. Russia has done damning harm to american politics, but its not clear how to measure that effect.

Large scale hacking of US companies, IP theft, brinksmanship regarding issue of Taiwan (backed by real incentive to follow through) where have you been?

> Large scale hacking of US companies

This is a solid point. What most people don't get is that despite the enormous investment the CIA, NSA, and DoD Sigint have made into their offensive security teams, most of their budget is dedicated to Friday team-building activities, Bowling Nights, and Foosball tables. The US definitely does not hack anybody.

"Everyone but FVEY are the super evil hackerz" is a childish, head-in-the-sand position to hold in the modern geopolitical climate. Everyone is hacking everyone, and China is not some sort of unique Bad Guy in this regard.

Agreed, but if you're going to play whataboutism, then you surely understand that China does not allow US companies unfettered idealogical access to their populace, so why should we grant them as much?

I mean.. are you really not aware that the US and China have an adversarial relationship? Both countries embedding spies, industrial espionage, trade wars, soft power projection, etc etc. Power is a zero-sum game.

What kind of power do you mean? The military, economic, and industrial power of China and United States have both been increasing, it doesn't look like "zero-sum".

US and China choose to act this way, but they could stop harassing each other without affecting their own power bases.

WWII gave the US opportunity to dramatically expand its Pacific sphere of influence right to China's shores and borders. At that time, China was largely turned inward, modernizing and recovering. But China is no longer in that condition and openly signals that they're ready to start asserting their own influence over the region.

Further, the escalation of NATO/Russian tensions, the war in Ukraine, and resurgent Gaza conflict, have all contributed to a specific window of opportunity for China to act as these each spread US readiness thinner than at quieter times.

This has all unequivocally and openly set China as an adversary to the US until that "sphere of influence" conflict is resolved. They're not hiding it, the US is not hiding it. There's no question about this except among people who just happened not to be paying attention to what's going on in the region.

We can hope (perhaps too optimistically) for a gradual diplomatic reorganization or deescalation without hot trade or military conflict, but the whole world is preparing -- on many fronts -- for more confrontational scenarios.

> Is China really a foreign adversary?

Only in election years.

Even the current tensions at the South China Sea alone where a war could break out is a pretty good sign that they are. In fact China is probably the biggest threat to the US but Israel will make you think it is Arabs as they continue to use the US for its own goals.

It's American (and any other country's) data about stupid little videos. Who cares? The case for harm has not been made.

Apps track information of all kinds about you and it’s not hard at all to link this data to your real world identity. Even just the search and watch history would be a goldmine for any foreign (or domestic) spy program, especially if you consider what was discussed in the Snowden leaks.

“The case for harm has not been made” Do you think the American government would say publicly “we know China is exploiting this data because that’s exactly what we do and China is even worse than us.

This is true for any app, and tracking people who watch stupid videos is not useful for national security.

The Snowden leaks were bad because they showed Americans spied on without warrants. This is about users who for better or worse install the app intentionally.

I'm glad you agree that the US government has not actually made the case for harm.

> The Snowden leaks were bad because

The Snowden leaks were bad because they exposed a lot of 100% legal, directly part of their charter activity by the NSA, like monitoring the communications of foreign leaders and other non-US persons.

This is incorrect: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN25T3CJ/

"n a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans' telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act"

This article is unrelated to what I was talking about; you should go back and read both what I said (specifically who I mentioned being targeted for surveillance) and the article you linked (specifically who is mentioned being targeted for surveillance).

Ah, you are saying they were bad because they let foreign nationals know that the NSA was doing its normal mission. But I don't think that part would surprise anyone.

This bill was never about data privacy. If it was, they’d say something about data brokers and idk ban data brokers from selling Americans’ data to the Chinese.

It’s a mass manipulation tool, controlled by foreign interests.

Only in that it's a cultural artifact, like YouTube or Bollywood movies or anime. We don't ban those.

I live in Asia and have seen pro-chinese propaganda being repeated by some people, mass influence by nation states is a real thing

People repeat propaganda when it appeals to them, but any marketer can tell you customers are fickle.

Are those owned by China?

Why does the source matter to you?

Because the mass manipulation tool is owned by a foreign adversary with a vested interest in manipulating the US to weaken it on the international stage, so that it can establish a new global hegemony.

A more interesting question; why doesn't the source matter to you?

Because the content is funny dance videos. I don't think you can get to global hegemony with that.

But to me it's more scary what American companies and government can do with that data towards me. China having it doesn't affect my unless I'm going there.

Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do, and I imagine the intelligence agencies know more than we do about what involvement the CCP has with TikTok. Any public hearings or debate are just for show.

> Not letting foreign governments control media in your country is definitely a thing that governments do

Except that china never controlled media in the US, they just offered one option out of many. The fact that the option China offered was widely preferred over those made by US companies seems to be the problem. I'd rather have an open internet where we can get access to information from companies in other countries. We shouldn't be blocked from accessing Chinese Youtube anymore than we should be blocked from Chinese websites or the media at bbc.com or abc.net.au

> Except that china never controlled media in the US

Nonsense. If you want to make a movie that actually makes money you have to cut it for the Chinese censors on set.

That doesn't mean that China controls the media, it means the US companies that do control media care more about money than anything else. Just like most US companies do. They don't bow down to China, they only worship higher profits. If some other country paid them more money to insert Winnie the Poo into every movie than the money they make from China by inserting maps with the Nine-Dash-Line or giving a Chinese actress a cameo they'd be doing that instead.

You should look into how Chinese state linked companies buys stakes in newspapers around the world and ask yourself why they'd ever want to do such a thing. Also, the belt and road initiative or loans to African nations

> so we are just... okay with that?

We don't write and pass the laws, and what we're "okay with" doesn't really matter to the decision-makers. Hopefully though, the passage of this bill will catalyze a more widespread discussion about the hypocrisy of the US Government. They can at least be clear about the motivation: "Only _our_ state surveillance apparatus should have such direct access to this psychic imprint of the American people."

What I'm curious about is whether the new ownership will be sufficiently savvy to sniff out any automated data sharing.

I doubt instagram will replace it. Just like Youtube Shorts, they will fail to grab its audience. People who are using instagram/youtube are there because they like the format, and if they wanted tiktok, they 'd go to tiktok

YouTube Shorts is not really a replacement product for TikTok. They inherently have a different content creation and discovery model. Reels is much closer to TikTok.

I mostly use YouTube for Shorts and Reels is the de facto format of Instagram nowadays.

When whacking moles, you cannot whack all moles at once. Pick the one closest/easiest, and keep whacking.

I fear the US government will be whacking just the one mole and then putting down their novelty mallet.

They passed a law that allows the executive to ban companies with little to no evidence, I doubt that the US government will forget about this power

And they shouldn't. China has been doing that for years and it has been very bad for the western world. This is basic game theory. How about China stop being an adversary and allow US companies to settle in their country without needing a chinese owner and having its IPs stolen?

> How about China stop being an adversary and allow US companies to settle in their country without needing a chinese owner and having its IPs stolen

AFAIK china requirements are mostly about censorship and using chinese datacenters

> China has been doing that for years

China has been doing many things I would like the US to not start doing... Let's say that the US could find better role models

The schlep never ends, it just ebbs and flows, always in constant tension. Stay engaged and involved in the political process.

Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.

https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba

Congressional Representation: Accountability from the Constituent’s Perspective

Abstract: The premise that constituents hold representatives accountable for their legislative decisions undergirds political theories of democracy and legal theories of statutory interpretation. But studies of this at the individual level are rare, examine only a handful of issues, and arrive at mixed results. We provide an extensive assessment of issue accountability at the individual level. We trace the congressional roll-call votes on 44 bills across seven Congresses (2006–18), and link them to constituent’s perceptions of their representative’s votes and their evaluation of their representative. Correlational, instrumental variables, and experimental approaches all show that constituents hold representatives accountable. A onestandard deviation increase in a constituent’s perceived issue agreement with their representative can improve net approval by 35 percentage points. Congressional districts, however, are heterogeneous. Consequently, the effect of issue agreement on vote is much smaller at the district level, resolving an apparent discrepancy between micro and macro studies.

Control-F: "In what follows, we uncover a picture of the electorate that, although not hyperinformed and hyperrational, is one in which constituents are sufficiently attentive that the majority can and does hold their representatives accountable for the decisions that they make on important pieces of legislation."

https://cces.gov.harvard.edu/files/cces/files/AnsolabehereKu...

Verification Materials: The materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QOVWMM

Isn't China THE foreign adversary though? I think there's a difference between a media company housed in the UK or France versus China or Russia.

The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever. The main geopolitical rival having control over the largest source of media consumed by children (which incidentally, is banned in China) is insane and should have been stopped a long time ago.

People talk about data collection. I am sure that is happening, but the far bigger issue is having a regime who wishes you harm in change of what your young people are and are not seeing for hours every day. There is a lot of propaganda, a deluge of videos pushing of divisive extremism and misinformation. The people pushing this are also using western platforms, but they're doing it more effectively on TikTok. This cannot end soon enough.

> The US has had rules against foreign ownership of media since forever.

Why doesn't this apply to websites hosted overseas generally, or for other countries besides china. I can access media at www.abc.net.au just fine.

Well BBC has a division called "BBC America" which distributes their content in the US, which itself is jointly owned by AMC and anther US company called BBC Studios. I do not know anything about the details of this, but I imagine there were regulatory considerations when setting this up.

But anyway, my point was that the concern over foreign influence is not a new idea and has been something people were worried about even over a century ago.

I don't think that concern is entirely unwarranted, I just don't think it's justification for censorship. If TikTok were violating US laws and refusing to comply that'd be one thing, but "Kids prefer an app made by a company in China" isn't really good enough.

It's very strange that our government doesn't care that our phones are made in China, that damn near everything for sale on Amazon comes from China, that we're constantly getting Chinese products that are low quality, covered in heavy metals, and/or drenched in formaldehyde, yet a Chinese owned app goes too far?

There was plenty of criticism of that form, by AOC for example, but part of the democratic process is making progress where and when compromise can be found. Later efforts to restrict American companies can use this as precedent and a litmus test.

TikTok substantiated it almost immediately with their little stunt that resulted in thousands of 10-13 year olds calling their congressmen.

They learned from Musk and his "If X dies because of advertiser boycotts the world will know and they will judge". Ironically the world knew and did not care in that instance haha.

Notifying users that a service they use is about to become illegal does not sound like the covert manipulation congress was afraid of.

Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP is not the manipulation Congress is afraid of? In what universe?

If I were a tech company who's service was about to be made illegal, I would certainly tell my users about it before I was shutdown. It would be pretty rude to suddenly cease function on them without letting them know why, and I think most users would like to know in advance of the service shutting down.

This could be interpreted as CCP manipulation, but what else did you expect them to do?

Man you are just pushing one bad faith argument after another in this thread aren't you?

If the product wasn't something that people truly loved, would the callers have had that level of commitment to follow through?

Seeing the lack of political action in this country, I'd presume the answer to be NO.

Bad faith argument? It's not even an argument, it is a literal factual recounting of something that literally happened.

> Causing thousands of Americans to unknowingly act in the interest of the CCP

This is not a factual statement. It is a statement that contains something resembling a fact, however it is still just your subjective opinion.

I'll relent and admit that some of the people might knowingly have acted in the interest of the CCP, because you surely cannot be saying that it is not in the CCP's interest to avoid TikTok's divestment.

You are displaying a level of paranoia about the Chinese government that is clearly unhealthy. When US apps are facing legislation abroad that would ban them or regulate them in unfavorable ways they also notify their users. Take a step back and ask yourselves what the multinational company TikTok would do when facing a ban in one of its most profitable markets. Probably rally their users to oppose it.

The Chinese government and the US government exert their influence over companies in the same way -- regulation, backdoor conversations asking them to kill/mute stories, and NSL type requests. There's not some government propagandist sitting at a switchboard. In fact it's the "West" that goes above and beyond with an entire technical apparatus to real-time mass censor social media to "protect democracy." If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.

It is in China's interest to avoid divestment because TikTok is a successful company making China money. And now it's in their interest to avoid divestment to not get bullied by the US gov't. If TikTok had the power you and others in this thread ascribe to them they would be more successful at swaying public opinion.

>If you don't consider every US company to be a direct arm of the US government but do for China then it's because your feeling about China than your feelings about social media manipulation.

I do. I live in the EU, and our laws arguably don't allow sharing data with US companies for that exact reason (Schrems II judgement)

It doesn't matter why TikTok does anything. They have shown they can influence their users en masse, and they're legally obligated to do it if the Chinese authorities demand it.

Then you agree that it does not prove your point, its just another fact like "Today is Thursday" :)

To be cynical that sounds exactly like the "manipulation" they are most afraid of.

It doesn't worry you that china already has that much sway over people, especially children?

No, in this case it was OVERT manipulation, not covert. The important word, however, is: manipulation.

I am so floored by comments in this thread either denying or not caring about literal brainwashing by a foreign adversary of the US.

"literal brainwashing"

Do you really believe this?

Show me another company that convinced thousands of young teens to call their representatives, about anything. [0] If your rebuttal of that is that it’s a good thing kids called their representatives, my response would be, TikTok has proven to have enough influence to get kids to call congress. Think about that for a second. A singular entity controlled by China influences thousands of children to pass along the concerns of TIKTOK THE COMPANY.

Wonder what their next concern will be?

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/03/14/tikt...

It will be "watching funny dance videos", because that is what they were calling about this time, because it's what they care about.

You might believe that the next thing will be, "let China take over the Senkaku islands", but if so, you have not been around children in several decades.

By this logic then almost every other country should ban US social media companies.

So the great harm is that Congress gets called when they pass a bad bill?

I think the fear goes: today this is high-urgency spin about a bill which is demonstrably capable of affecting the behavior of hundreds of thousands. Tomorrow this is high-urgency spin about whatever TikTok wants, who can be more-or-less coerced to publish lots of things that would be detrimental to the US.

This supposes that teens care about East Asian border disputes as much as they care about the funny dance app, which I find doubtful.

Teens? It has over 170 million users in the US.

I was referencing this upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40146326

Wild that they didn't attempt to age gate that push to call congress to 17+.

> but it's not a Chinese company

Correct. US company data on citizens is most likely made available to the US government via fiber splicing and backdoor agreements. Separately, China is in a position to exercise way too much manipulative control over wide swaths of the US populace. That's generally agreed upon as "not a good thing".

Will Meta benefit with their massive network of boomers who can't tell generative AI from real life? I dunno, I doubt it. I think we'll see something else entirely replace Tiktok.

Yes, we're not only ok with it as a country... it's strongly supported.

yes, we’re okay with that - or its not a statement on that, the goal is for TikTok to be sold to Americans

with a ban being the fall back outcome

I don't believe it has to be sold to Americans. It just can't be "controlled by a foreign adversary" (which is a very specific set of criteria in the law). [1]

There are plenty of scenarios where TikTok ends up under non-American control. Only four countries (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia) are foreign adversary countries. [2]

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/4872#d_2

> I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash.

Arguments or statements like this only serve to piss people off. It probably does benefit Meta but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the bill should be passed.

A comment mocking a willingness to promote monopolization and the feigning of free, fair, open markets has no bearing?

It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned

This has been in the works for at least 2 years, so "rushed" doesn't seem right.

The difference is that Mark Zuckerberg will put on a suit and go and get yelled at by members of Congress for a few hours.