Could not be more wrong. "Society" is not deciding anything here. The ban is entirely because of idelogical and geopolical reasons. They have already allowed the good big tech companies to get people hooked as much as they want. If you think you are going to see regulation for public good you will probably be disappointed.
This is evidenced by the fact that ByteDance could've sold TikTok in the US for a huge amount of money to comply with the recent legislation, but the Chinese government won't allow the sale. They aren't interested in the money, which to me sounds like they only ever cared about the data and influence.
Side note: I used Perplexity to summarize the recent events to make sure I'm not totally talking out my butt :). Just a theory though, happy to be proven wrong!
If it was a business they would have sold it.
By that logic, every single Chinese company is controlled by the CCP by law.
Second, how does your comment change the fact that there are multiple politicians on record saying this is why they are going after tik tok?
As a tech person who already understood the system, it's refreshing that I now often see the comment "I need to change my algorithm"- meaning, I can shape the parameters of what X/Twitter / Instagram/ YouTube / TikTok shows me in my feed.
I think there's growing meta-awareness (that I see as comments within these platforms) that there is "healthy" content and that the apps themselves manipulate their user's behavior patterns.
Hopefully there's momentum building that people perceive this as a public health issue.
The mental health angle of support for the bans is the way the change gets accepted by the public, not a motivating goal or direction for the next regulations
THis situation is another data point and is a net good for society (whether or not the ban sticks).
Discussion around (for example) the technical implementation of content moderation being inherently political (i.e., Meta and Twitter) will be good for everyone.
You want a political body to make decisions apolitically?
> mental health angle of support
This was de minimis. The support was start to finish from national security angles. There was some cherry-on-top AIPAC and protectionist talk. But the votes were got because TikTok kept lying about serious stuff [1] while Russia reminded the world of the cost of appeasement.
[1] https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/76E769A8-3ED...
BTW you're the one who cast doubt on me for suggesting UnitedHealth is incentivized to raise prices to get around profit caps, which turned out to be exactly the case despite your sense-making of the rules in place: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716428
Sorry, could you link to my comment?
In a democracy, this is how "society decides" what's in the "public good." This is not a case where legislators are going behind the public's back, hiding something they know they public would oppose. Proponents of the law have been clear in public about what the law would do and what the motivations for the law are. There is nothing closer to "society decides" than Congress overwhelmingly passing a law after making a public case for what the law would do.
Yes, they're doing it for "ideological and geopolitical reasons"--but those things are important to society! Americans are perfectly within their rights to enact legislation, through their duly elected representatives, simply on the basis of "fuck China."
Sorry but I don't believe this in the slightest.
One could take the position that this process is so flawed as to be illegitimate. In this case it would be a valid position to believe that society had not fairly decided these things, and they were instead decided by a certain class of people and pushed on to the rest of us.
See: A Propaganda Model, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky: https://chomsky.info/consent01/
While many have a love hate relationship with it, there are many who love it. I know people who aren’t too sad, because it’ll break their addiction, and others who are making really decent money as content creators on it. So generally, you’re exactly right. “Society” is not lashing back at TikTok. Maybe some are lashing back at American social media companies (eg some folks leaving Twitter and meta products).
But if we wanted to actually protect our citizens, we’d enact strong data privacy laws, where companies don’t own your data — you do. And can’t spy on you or use that data without your permission. This would solve part of the problem with TikTok.
some US oligarchs wanted to buy tiktok at deep discount while it was private, and make money off of making it public company
About 45% of the US population uses TikTok and 63% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using TikTok, with 57% of them using the app daily
Hell of a product, there would be a crazy bidding war for that kind of engagement
The sell or be banned part, instead of just banned, was most certainly lobbied for by the US social media companies hoping to get it on the off chance it had served its purpose, wasn't as useful as China had hoped, or the slim chance they really did just want Americans to copy dance trends.
For me, it's very hard to conceive of any concrete way that would work. It's a brand, some partnerships, and a network of users that would all go to whatever buyer, and would give that buyer a huge benefit over their existing domestic competitors. So under what circumstances would those domestic competitors allow that instead of aggresively trying to secure it for themselves?
I'm open to believing you, I just don't see what you have in mind.
Campaign with the president, offer large amounts of money to the presidents campaign, donate huge sums to a small inauguration party, and then just be picked to get it at a deep discount. The entire point of bribes is that corruption let's you get away with things at a lesser cost. You just screw over everyone else except for the bribe receiver.
Larry Ellison (since he is CIA/MIC friendly and tiktok is already running on Oracle cloud)
Zuck has too much conflict to acquire tiktok, but other oligarchs like Musk/bezos/gates can pull it off, given their recent meetings with Trump
Why do you assume only a natural person can buy TikTok? Why do you assume you need political capital?
The law doesn’t provide that much executive deference in enforcement.
Plus FTC will review the acquisition process as well.
Do you have a counter example?
Why?
> Political capital is needed because the tiktok question is politicized heavily (national security as a reason)
This is entirely meaningless. You don’t need political capital to maintain the status quo.
> Do you have a counter example?
To your hypothetical? My example is the law. FACA is tightly defined. Bytedance needs to divest to a non-FAC to return to the status quo. Trump could do something else to fuck with them. But that’s true of anyone anywhere.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
Delay. It’s not a deferential review.
It doesn’t. The courts do. TikTok could be sold to a Hungarian businessman. As long as it can’t be proved they aren’t controlled by China, they should be allowed to reënter app stores.
Generally speaking, we tend to refer to governments in countries with independent judiciaries as being separate from their courts. The same way we refer to the government in parliamentary democracies separately from their parliaments. (Or governments separately from a country’s people, even though one is a subset of the other.)
> Do you think there isn't any collusion between Supreme Court and the other branches of government?
Not super relevant here. This SCOTUS barely upheld the ban with Bytedance as the owner.
Given that the Court has been lobbied by billionaires, I find really hard to believe they wouldn't help an US company to buy it instead of a Hungarian or any other one.
As a rich person I’d rather get 30% of tiktok with 99% certainty by committing 30% of capital needed, rather than 100% of tiktok with 30% certainty and committing 100% of capital needed.
Which is why a viable solution for TikTok was selling it to a US company. If it was just about the population "being hooked", a sale would not be an acceptable outcome.
To sell you shoes. Not for whatever nightmarish future application of this technology and relationship between private sector and the state represents: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/15/documents...
1) Influence- TikTok gives the CCP significant direct influence over the views of Americans.
2) Data- TikTok collects massive amounts of data on 100s of millions of Americans. Opens many avenues for spying, extortion of influence, etc.
3) Reciprocity- Foreign tech companies are essentially banned from operating in China. Much like with other industries, China is not playing fair, they’re playing to win.
Insofar as TikTok has offered a “superior” product, this might be a story of social media and its double edge. But this far more a story of geopolitics.
More to the point: it removes the ability of the existing American establishment to monopolise the viewpoints presented to Americans.
The key point here is that an algorithm can invisibly nudge those viewpoints, and a foreign adversary controls the algorithm.
Insofar as your claim is that powerful people and institutions care most about power, I agree. It’s very telling that TikTok would shutdown instead of divest. (Meanwhile, U.S. companies have routinely taken the other side of the deal in China: minority stake joint ventures in which “technology transfer” is mandated. AKA intellectual property plundering.)
The reality is they live in an establishment controlled media bubble, that is itself full of propaganda.
Being free does not mean free to live in a lie constructed for the benefit of someone else, it means being free to live in reality, and that freedom is being denied to Americans. At least the Chinese are aware of their reality.
That’s to say nothing of censorship. I can post “f** Joe Biden” on any social platform in the U.S. Meanwhile, a Chinese netizen compares Xi to Winnie the Pooh and gets a visit from the police. And their post never sees the light of day.
These aren’t differences of degree. They are differences of category.
The reason you can is that very few people actually do. As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's the right thing to do, but it's worth taking note that it's how things are.
The whole point is to remove anything that may cause a passive media consumer to question what is presented to them.
They’ve each run ads on billboards in New York. I distinctly remember Xinhua’s in Time Square.
Al Jazeera America closed down some years ago. (2016 apparently).
My parents used to be addicted to Al Jazeera, then some unspecified incident occurred and we were never to speak of it again. All very strange.
Al Jazeera is widely known across the country, and during the time I had cable television was available in every city in which I lived.
RT is available over-the-air on free regular broadcast channels in some American cities. You can't get less restricted than that.
You speak like someone who's never even been to the United States.
RT America was removed from most services as of 2022 and hasn't been broadcasting since.
This is changing in the wrong direction and you are getting less free over time.
> You speak like someone who's never even been to the United States.
You speak like someone who's never left it.
In fact, even the idea of allowing CNN to broadcast into people's homes in Russia is so laughable, I don't know why you even brought it up, or what your point is.
No one's talking about availability in Russia except you.
And to add some substance about why AJ and RT can be accessed I will quote another commenter who put it better than I did: "The reason you can is that very few people actually do. As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down. Maybe it's the right thing to do, but it's worth taking note that it's how things are."
That's the other side of the coin. Why do you expect one country to be totally open and allow the other to be totally closed? How is that a standard that makes any sense?
> "The reason you can is that very few people actually do."
I don't see what consumption habits have to do with anything. This is also contradicting what you just said, that people in the US don't have access to this content.
> As the Tik Tok affair shows, the moment the US suspects it might have some real competitor in controlling the narrative, it shuts them down.
Who is the "US" here? The U.S. government? A specific company? Without specifics you aren't really saying anything at all, just implying some greater unfalsifiable conspiracy.
The point is that their other media so promotes a lack of curiosity by providing a false impression of being comprehensive. If you risk bursting that bubble suddenly you are first mocked, then they try to buy you, then they block you, and tell you it is your fault.
The US is held to higher standards because that is how it promotes itself. Many of us outside the US are actually saddened by a betrayal of these values, because we are all too aware of how lacking many places are, and we need the US to be better than this.
I'm not being funny but I honestly couldn't follow that.
> The US is held to higher standards because that is how it promotes itself.
You are right, they are. That's why they didn't prevent TikTok from operating and growing domestically for years. Then the Chinese government starting using it as an asset of their espionage apparatus, so in response the U.S. STILL didn't ban the content in contains, but rather told the (apparently) independent company operating TikTok that the content is free to remain as long as it's not controlled by a hostile foreign government. The refusal to sell is the most obvious public facing proof that they are in fact Chinese government controlled.
All of that is how the U.S. is different, but as evidenced by this conversation and multiple other threads, no one really cares about the nuance.
And the greater context to this discussion is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
> if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.
The application of this principle can be seen when closed societies maintain complete control over their domestic media, while spreading as much toxic nonsense as possible abroad[1].
At the same they are completely intolerant of speech at home, they exploit the openness of the west by pushing disinfo they know to be wrong (and harmful) aboard. They continue to muddy the waters by pretending their information warfare is "just asking questions" (RT's moto is "Question More"). It's an extension of their hybrid warfare efforts, and shouldn't be seen as anything less.
[1] For example, domestic Russian media encourages citizens to get vaccinated against COVID19, while promoting anti-vaccine conspiracies abroad. This is one of thousands of examples. https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/russia-china-iran-covid-...
Darn it, then decade I spent in Asia and the 100+ trips to Europe and the Middle East didn't prepare me for the rapier banter of some rando on the internet.
How appropriate.
You have to accept that the era of American exceptionalism is over and we’ll all be measured by our actions rather than the dreamy stories told.
Compared to all the other algorithmic social media in which domestic adversaries control the algorithm.
TBF; The CCP passed laws that likely make it illegal for TikTok to sell/export that kind of information (the algo). They can't divest without also neutering the sticking power of the service.
He can just blame it on Biden and use his time productively.
There is no evidence this exists.
This is not new behavior between the two countries, the only thing new is the direction. US is finally waking up to the foreign soft power being exercised inside our own country, and it isn't benefiting us.
Google was operating in China until 2010 when they got banned because they stopped censoring search results. Other Western search engines like Bing continue operate in China.
GMail continued for a few years after that - I'm not even sure if it was ever actually banned, or just suffered the same fate (death by a thousands timeouts).
The domestic companies lost some attention share to TikTok sure, and a ban or domestic sale would generally be in their interests, but it's not like they were about to be Myspaced. They've remained among the most valued companies -- presently and in forecasts -- even while it was "eating their lunch"
It hasn't been an overnight switch, but the trajectory did not look good for US companies. TikTok was even eating into TV viewing time. There's a fixed amount of attention and TikTok was vacuuming it up from everywhere.
Where? Stockholders have been vocally livid about it.
We should treat social media as the addictive, mind altering drug it is, and stop acting like a free market saturation of them is a good thing.
China having their more potent mind control app pointed at the brains of hundreds of millions of people is not something to celebrate.
It'll be revealing to see which political actors come out in favor of keeping tiktok around.
2) yes, that is an issue.
3) fair point.
This is distinct from a foreign entity, without registering as a foreign entity, directly participating in electioneering. While it's true that the Russian involvement in 2016 was overblown let's not pretend it's the same as legal political spending.
US funds foreign political no profits in other countries thanks to the Foreign Assistance Act agencies like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.
That's besides the money funneled through other agencies which are more covert.
That means that countries around the world have US funded no profits effectively doing non bi-partizan political activity.
Officially those should only inform (foreign) citizens about their civic and voting rights, in reality they are more often than not tools of the US to influence and take huge biases in other countries.
And here's the underlying problem: as per American exceptionalism it's fine when US does that, but it's unacceptable when others do it in US.
*Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/political-ad-spend-nearly-...
The huge difference is that while foreign adversaries run influence networks on other social media platforms (and are opposed and combatted by those platforms) TikTok (the platform itself) is controlled by the foreign adversary (the CCP).
And elections are decided by margins, pushing them even slightly has massive, irrevocable consequences.
There is no credible argument that the CCP doesn't directly control the alg as it's actively being used for just that in tawain/etc.
Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have clear direct access to influence 170m americans, an entire generation - completely unfettered? Incredible national security implications. Bot farms can influence X/Meta/etc, but they can be at least be fought. TikTok itself is the influence engine as currently constructed.
Apparently, American users want this? Approximately 700k users have joined RedNote, a Chinese platform. It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for Americans.
There are 335 million Americans, and a lot of them are stupid and/or foolish.
As the SCOTUS said itself:
“At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence.” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC
2. A core principle of the constitution is that those rights apply to noncitizens as well as citizens. They are human rights, not citizen rights. It's significantly more ridiculous for corporations to have free speech than a government. They don't have less of a right to free speech because we don't like them.
You may not like TikTok, but this line of argumentation also would allow the government to prevent US citizens from e.g. reading Iranian newspapers or researching Chinese media. The polarizing nature of TikTok obscures the fact that US users are losing freedom of access to information in this decision.
there is a difference between 'US Citizen having access to information' and 'Hostile Foreign Govt having Direct Push Access for news to ~70% of a generation of Americans as they go from puberty to voting age'. US isn't discussing a Great Firewall, the information will still be available, it just won't be as easy for a generation to be indoctrinated (well, by a foreign govt instead of our own* at least. Theoretically our govt has our interests at heart more than 'hostile foreign power' - but that's a different fight we need to have)
you can buy all of that from data brokers
> If, for example, a user allows TikTok access to the user’s phone contact list to connect with others on the platform, TikTok can access “any data stored in the user’s contact list,” including names, contact information, contact photos, job titles, and notes. 2 id., at 659. Access to such detailed information about U. S. users, the Government worries, may enable “China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf
It seems farcically ridiculous to me to ban the app because it somehow could let china blackmail CEOs.
What ZTE were up to was way more nefarious, but couldn't be done with just apps.
At some point, I realized that I avoid social media apps, and the people in those marches certainly don't.
I know that there's more to the Israel:Palestine situation than the attack on the music festival, but the fundamental contradiction that the side that brutalized innocent young people seems to have the popular support of young people is hard to ignore. I wonder to what degree it's algorithmically driven.
>that the side that brutalized innocent young people
…
Now if you wanted to compare atrocities—which honestly you shouldn’t—you would compare the Palestinian children that were brutalized both in the Gaza genocide, and in any one of the number of IDF incursions into Gaza and the West Bank before and after oct 7. That is compare victims to one side, to the victims of the other side.
But people generally don’t pick sides like that. They don‘t evaluate the atrocities committed by one armed group to the atrocities committed by the other and favor one over the other. And they certainly don‘t favor one civilian group over another based on the actions of their armed groups. People much more simply react to atrocities as they happen. And Israel has committed enough atrocities during the Gaza genocide that social media will be reacting—both in anger and horror—for a long time to come.
3. Then what is Microsoft doing in China? What is Apple doing in China? Etc. No tech company is banned from China, the only companies that choose not to operate in China are those that do not agree to follow Chinese laws.
Source? I could only find this.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti...
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-china/story?id=108111...
Limiting use to 40 minutes is not a ban but it still shows a view that extended exposure to it is harmful. To turn it on its head, if more than 40 minutes is viewed harmful for Chinese youth, why not American?
https://apnews.com/article/gaming-business-children-00db669d...
What more do you need to know?
Anecdotally, I have heard from people who lived in China at the time that there was a significant shift in content a few years back.
Because it was never there. Bytedance never launched TikTok in China.
It’s a similar product. We don’t have any server-side code so we don’t know.
You chose a bad analogy, that's all.
I think it is form of compartmentalizing Internet and social networks, to keep Chinese internet and social media separate from the US.
the red book app, where tiktok refugees are flocking to right now, also want to introduce geofence and compartmentalize Chinese users and US users separately
Do you believe that all Chinese media is part of a propaganda machine?
Do you believe the same of American or French media?
Every social media app or website in China is required to ask for your real name and ID number, and implement any censorship requested by the party. If you post something that rubs the government the wrong way, your identity is readily available.
I don't believe this level of content control, censorship and user prosecution is there for all American media. And if it were, you are allowed to set up your own channel or social media app in America to be the exception.
I didn't know this. Do you have any reading on the subject you can recommend?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_real-name_system_in_C...
- https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/10/1086366/china-so...
- https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202310/31/WS6541068aa3109068...
You legally must have a CCP member in the room when making editorial decisions.
(Although that No is getting a bit blurry with US social media bending over for commander cheeto)
"It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,”
I worked on some language in the bill for my Senator. The unifying concern—and my and their concern—was China.
I know when you have a pet war you tend to see everything through its lens, but most Americans—including electeds—couldn’t care less about what’s going on in Gaza or Ukraine.
And legislators have zero requirement to explain to the public the real reason a policy proposal happens. The language used in a bill doesn’t have to be the reason it exists. This is how lobbying works.
I get that people have pet issues they want to protect, but Israel was a big enough reason to force Joe Biden out of office: https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling
Wow, people really believe Joe Biden wouldn’t have bombed his debate if he just changed his policy on Israel. (Or more seriously, that Kamala was kept out of the White House by this. What a myopic worldview.)
You may not agree with the 10% of the population that sides with Hamas, but that’s enough to cause an election to flip from Democrat to Republican or Independent, causing a 1.5% win for Trump.
The world doesn’t operate in majorities. Small groups do have power over you.
What poll? Every reputable pollster said the opposite.
> You may not agree with the 10% of the population that sides with Hamas, but that’s enough to cause an election to flip
I don’t and it’s not because of where they are. State-level polls on the issue show it’s irrelevant. That’s why it was ignored. The fact that people were willing to throw the election on this single issue certainly changed my view on the matter, and I know two Republican Senators who took it as a license to be more aggressive against Palestine and Iran.
See: https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...
If you don’t want to believe reputable pollsters you can look at state primary polling results. For those, the uncommitted movement received 9% of the votes in the Democratic primaries.
And Kamala lost by 1.5% in the general election.
You can thank us in making sure your candidate was defeated. Maybe next time don’t live stream Jews killing thousands of Muslim children on Instagram with the support of your candidate while pretending it doesn’t matter?
lol you really thought Gaza didn’t matter in the election? Even I don’t believe you believe that. Be serious.
I wouldn't say TikTok is a "nice thing" ..
I get that Zionists don’t want that reason stated publicly, hoping to blame China instead, but it’s out there now.
The same algorithm in US possession isn’t a problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/13/tiktok-...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/16/tiktok...
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest...
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2024/3/...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/business/tiktok-israel-ha...
"enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health ... capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”
Justice Gorsuch in his concurrence specifically commended the court for doing so, believing that a content manipulation argument could run afoul of first amendment rights.
He said that "One man's covert content manipulation is another's editorial discretion".
EFF's stance is that SCOTUS's decision based on national security ignores the First Amendment scrutiny that is required.
> The United States’ foreign foes easily can steal, scrape, or buy Americans’ data by countless other means. The ban or forced sale of one social media app will do virtually nothing to protect Americans' data privacy – only comprehensive consumer privacy legislation can achieve that goal. Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally.
I think it's more about the fact that users of platform are able to connect and share their experiences and potential action for resolving class inequality. There's an entire narrative that is outside of US govt/corp/media control, and that's a problem (to them).
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-fentanyl-pipeline-and...
To be fair, trying to consider the other way around, I wonder what Chinese people could point to as disastrous stuff (in terms of the well-being of their population) coming from the US.
I think the government could fix it with a screen time limit. 30 mins for under 18's, and 1 hour for everyone else, per day.
Maybe allow you to carry over some.
After that, it's emergency calls only.
The government bans plenty of activities. Taking illegal drugs. Murdering people. Fishing without a license. Investing in unregulated stocks, Etc. Why not addictive apps?
Source?
> Source?
The same source as everything Covid related: Trust me, bro.
Are you referring to the completely scientifically-untrained "bros" who were touting ivermectin and other treatments or cures with little to no scientific evidence of efficacy?
No ones impressed by your ignorance bro. Get help.
Yes, you could say Douyin is available in place of TikTok, but have you asked yourself why they have 2 separate apps? One for mainland China, and another for everyone else?
Another source (see the section "How is Douyin different from TikTok?"): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/business/china-tiktok-dou...
There are many reasons why there are two separate apps and not necessarily related to how addictive the algorithm is. The "source" you linked gives one such reason:
> Like other social media services in China, Douyin follows the censorship rules of the Chinese Communist Party. It conscientiously removes video pertaining to topics deemed sensitive or inflammatory by the party, although it has proved a little harder than text-based social media to control.
Also have you used Douyin? It's really feels like basically the same thing.
What's happening to TikTok is not a good proxy for the trajectory of social media companies in the US, esp Meta. They've got plenty of tailwind.
Respectively, heavily regulated, heavily regulated, poorly regulated but really has to toe the line to not fall into the first bucket, fairly regulated (with shifting attitudes about what they should be, but definitely not unregulated), probably only a problem because this is "gambling" again lately and has been regulated in the past and I suspect may well be more heavily regulated in the near future, and people probably would not generally agree this belongs in the list.
Another way could be limiting feed algorithms to chronological order only.
Another could be limiting what data can be collected from users on these platforms. Or limiting what data could be provided to other entities.
Who knows if these are the best ways to regulate social media, but they would like help mitigate some of the clear harms.
Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive and frequently are not set up to be in the best interests of the users.
There are billions of casual drinkers / gamblers / gamers who do not show any sign of addiction. I’m really tired to hear the same nonsense repeated again and again. Do a pyschology study of any casino employee that spends 40 hours a week in a gaming venue, or any manufacturer of gaming devices that professionally play games 40 hours a week, and none of these employees exposed to so much gambling / drinking are addicted.
Psychology studies have not established that these items are “addictive”, because if they were, they would be banned all over the world. Nowhere in the western world are they banned, ghey are regulated for “fairness”. There are some individuals that throw the word addiction around without justification, please dont be one of them.
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/cycle-alcohol-addicti...
Scientific studies have established nicotine is addictive yet purchase and smoking of cigarettes is legal in most countries.
Those two types of content are about the cheapest TV to produce. Per second of video produced (counting all the unpopular content), short videos might be more expensive, but the costs are very distributed.
> Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that gambling is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
Not really. TikTok isn't a gambling app.
Here, the payment is your attention, you swipe to the next video to play the game, and the prize if you land on a good video is a small hit of dopamine.
Where are they being regulated at all?
There was a bill introduced in the US that didn't go anywhere. Of course gambling has recently been heavily deregulated in the US so I suppose we can't expect much to be done about gambling in video games right now. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/162...
I vaguely recall it in at least one of those state bills to regulate social media for kids (listing it as an addictive behavior that's "harmful to minors" or whatever), but can't find specifics. I don't know whether something has passed anywhere in the US.
https://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~hchsiao/pub/2024_ACSAC_lootbox....
"Verifying Loot-box Probability Without Source-code Disclosure"
Just read the abstract
Come on. We all know that TikTok was banned because the US regime couldn't control it.
If they really wanted to ban vice, they would have banned Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and their kin a long ago.
The law is fine with TikTok being owned by a Nigerian.
Take a step back and consider how ridiculous this is. Every country in the world other than these six [1] is controlled by the U.S.?
[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-B/chapter-VII...
The US social media billionaire class is ostensibly accountable to the law, but they're also perfectly capable of using their influence over these platforms to write the law.
One plausible theory for why the politicians talk about fears of spying instead of the real fears of algorithmic manipulation is because they don't want to draw too much attention to how capable these media platforms are of manipulating voters, because they rely on those capabilities to get into and stay in power.
We can't really jail the CCP. Additionally, Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their propaganda. We shouldn't let foreign powers own the means of broadcast...
The people who can do something about it are the people who are already in power in the US. They understandably don't want to share with the CCP, but most of them came to power by manipulating enough voters into voting for them. They stay in power by ensuring that enough voters continue to want to vote for them. Which means that someone like Zuckerberg or Musk has an insanely inordinate amount of influence over whether these people who are in power stay in power.
Yes, I think it's marginally better that that influence remain out of the hands of the CCP, but I would rather that that influence not exist at all. It's too dangerous and too prone to corruption.
Isn't this true for literally all problems in a democracy? Do you have a better solution?
Hopefully we'll get AGI soon and it'll take over and rule as a benevolent overlord. Short of that, everything in your comment feels like it has always applied to every societal problem, and always will.
Create a level playing field where money does not amplify speech. Our existing democracy is basically a spending contest with a very small component of eloquently persuading voters to vote against their own interest. The richest of the rich have voices and can manipulate the platforms on which others express their voices, and so those rich people either pick the victors or become them.
For democracy to survive we have to get past the idea that a "free market" approach to speech leads to democratic outcomes. It doesn't, it leads to plutocratic outcomes, which is painfully obvious on both sides of the aisle right now. Americans haven't had a true representative of the people in generations.
- the electoral college where winner takes all, so minority opposition vote is always suppressed
- gerrymandering that dilutes and suppresses the minority opposition vote
- oligopoly of two parties
- unchecked financial influence by allowing unlimited funding via PACs
- legalized lobbying/bribery
- influence of special interest groups
- the influence of legal system with expensive lawyers (that only rich can afford)
We can? Like what? What's the chance of that happening?
> Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their propaganda.
I'd like to note the seating arrangements published for the upcoming presidentia inauguration ceremony.
Unlike Zuck, Musk, and Bezos, Chew did not found the company with which he is most associated, and his net worth is somewhat less than a billion dollars.
But they're about to have all three branches of government to back it up.
I, personally, have views that would lean towards being labeled by HN users as supporting a “nanny state” (at least far departure from younger libertarian phase), but even I struggle with a “why” on banning these platforms in general.
Like Facebook, the "algorithm" is nothing special. TikTok made some smart design decisions that collect more interaction data that legacy social sites like Instagram and YouTube. They use that data to effectively recommend content.
The hard part is de-googling.
What is China for Americans, for us Europeans, is the USA.
Some argue that it's even worse for Europeans because the Chinese military and government can't reach you while in the USA. And there is no safe place for Europeans from the US government, unless they move to China or Russia.
But it's a problem when your biggest ally treats you like an ally, says you're living off him militarily and spies/hacks you non stop.
China is not a military threat to Europe, it's literally on the other part of the globe. It's only a threat to US geopolitical ambitions.
Is that correct?
They're saying (that other people are saying) that in the US, you are safe from the Chinese government/military. In the EU, you are not safe from the US government/military.
Also note that the claim is not that the US is worse than China for Europeans. The claim is that the US is worse for Europeans than China is for Americans.
The last part about relocating is saying that you can only be safe from the US government/military in China or Russia.
Based on extradition agreements, this conclusion seems true enough on the surface. And maybe US military bases in Europe play a role as well. But this is a thread about national security concerns via social media, and I think it's hard to make a broad and definitive conclusion due to the wide variety of soft and hard powers that countries exert internationally.
In Europe we have some direct and some less direct democracy and human rights that a really apply without any Guantanamo exceptions. When there are issues there are laws made, not singular platforms banned. It's not similar and offensive to say so.
Another poster pointed out Guantanamo, but our prison population is unreal compared to Europe. We're rolling back child labor laws. We're burning and banning books. We don't have universal suffrage. We're actively and enthusiastically participating in a genocide against the Palestinian people. We've got a "border zone" in which our cops have huge authority that extends 100 miles in from every border. We're letting Americans starve, sleep rough, and die from preventable disease because taking care of each other is considered "communist". The right to protest is being heavily curtailed. And we've continued to gerrymander away democracy across our nation.
No, we're nowhere close to the human rights or democratic positions of Europe. Which of course, is also not perfect, but along those two specific axes? The U.S. is far, far away.
But it's worth the effort.
I do have some hopes for a digital euro and, maybe, maybe, even Wero. But i fear it will never take off because too many players are involved and there is no clear marketing strategy to get it to people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
What nonsense.
> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
"Apparently"? Tiktok was forced to separate itself into a chinese version and the non-chinese version by the US because we didn't want "da ccp" controlling tiktok.
> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
There is no historic symmetry. Unless china invades the US and forces americans to use tiktok. Like britain invaded china ( opium wars ) and forced opium on china's population.
What's with all the same propaganda in every tiktok/china related thread? The same talking points on every single thread for the past few years.
You're talking about Propaganda but you are spreading straight up fake news.
ByteDance initially released Douyin in China in September 2016. ByteDance introduced TikTok for users outside of China in 2017.
There was no "split", let alone one "forced by the US".
There was no split? You wrote: "ByteDance initially released Douyin in China in September 2016. ByteDance introduced TikTok for users outside of China in 2017."
You say there was no split while explicitly proving that there was split? You're not that stupid are you?
Why do you think "tiktok" was created in 2017 when bytedance already had douyin( aka tiktok ) in 2016?
Why is there a "tiktok" for china and a "tiktok" for everyone else? Because the "tiktok in china ( duoyin ) was influenced by the chinese government and to appease the US, bytedance branched off tiktok from "douyin".
And it obviously is not a split if they are seperate apps from the beginning. Why do you lie so much btw?
No. It had everything to do with it. How can you say that when tiktok is getting banned? Even after bytedance bent over backwards to appease the US?
> the Chinese version is heavily filtered and tilted towards CPP prefered activities and worldview, such a platform would never work on the international market and they know it.
Sure. But nothing prevents tiktok from catering their app to other nations differently. You do realize that most nations get different versions of tiktok, facebook, youtube, etc right?
> And it obviously is not a split if they are seperate apps from the beginning.
But they weren't separate apps from the beginning. Your fellow bot/propagandists wrote: "ByteDance initially released Douyin in China in September 2016. ByteDance introduced TikTok for users outside of China in 2017."
If someone is born in 2016 and another person is born in 2017 are born in the same year? Are they the same person?
> Why do you lie so much btw?
Everyone can read this thread and see that you are lying. Not me.
That statement is misleading, as the differences between these platforms across various countries are typically minor—mostly due to copyright restrictions—so users can still access roughly 99% of the same content. This situation isn’t remotely comparable to TikTok’s China-only counterpart, Douyin, which exists in a separate and completely different ecosystem. I suspect you’re aware of this, yet you brought it up anyway. What is your motivation for such dishonesty?
> “No. It had everything to do with it. How can you say that when TikTok is getting banned? Even after ByteDance bent over backward to appease the US?”
Could you explain exactly what the United States did before 2017 that caused ByteDance to launch a separate app for every country outside of China (not just in the US)? You seem to be muddying the waters by referring to this potential 2024 ban, but that obviously can’t be the reason ByteDance created a separate platform for every non-China country back in 2017.
> “But they weren’t separate apps from the beginning.”
Actually, they were. Douyin is geo-restricted to China (requiring a Chinese phone number to register) and was never accessible to users outside the country. This restriction was put in place to limit the information available to Chinese users, clearly separating Douyin from TikTok right from the start.
> "Everyone can read this thread and see that you are lying. Not me."
Well, I certainly agree that everyone can read this thread and make a judgement on who is more honest.
> Even after bytedance bent over backwards to appease the US?
In 2017 when TikTok was launched, there were no US government rules towards it, there were no demands made by the US government about TikTok - that part is the absolutely wrong part of your argument. You either didn't know that, or you are lying about it. Either way it's misinformation.
ByteDance didn't do anything to appease the US in 2016 or 2017. Bytedance offering Douyin for China, and a separate app TikTok for other markets is specifically about controlling the content that people see in China. TikTok is banned in China because content on TikTok isn't as filtered and strictly controlled in the same ways that China's government wants it to be for their own people - TikTok was specifically made for markets outside of China for this reason. The US had NOTHING to do with that, it is strictly about China controlling China's population with Douyin, or more specifically, not losing control of Chinese people by allowing anti-China videos to appear in Douyin. It's far easier for China to control the narrative they want if there are two separate apps that essentially provide the same user experience. The Chinese government controls TikTok, and I have not seen a single anti-China video in my wife's TikTok feed, so I'm willing to believe that they do have some control over content in the US too.
I hope that's not too complicated for you to understand.
>> Why do you lie so much btw?
>Everyone can read this thread and see that you are lying. Not me.
The other person is not lying. You may not be lying, but you really don't have your facts straight.
No. TikTok was forced to put its data on American servers [1].
Douyin was launched in 2016 as musical.ly, and is unrelated to U.S. pressure. (EDIT: Douyin was launched in 2016, TikTok in 2017. Musical.ly was acquired in 2017 and merged into/basically became TikTok. TikTok has never been in China.)
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-moves-us-user-data...
Musical.ly was acquired by Bytedance in 2017 and merged into TikTok in 2018 [1]. TikTok itself “was launched internationally in 2017” [2].
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191005154207/https://beebom.co...
> What nonsense.
Obviously experiences will vary, but I think this is actually pretty well-established.
Not many studies, but here's one: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9486470/
What is very well established is that the british fought a war , literally called the opium war by Western historians themselves with the main objective of keeping their opium distribution into China open after the emperor banned it
Their action was akin to if some majority owner of Purdue pharma invades US and forces US government to "keep the oxy market open" while letting "people make their own decision".
>> Like britain invaded china ( opium wars ) and forced opium on china's population.
> how did Britain force the Chinese population to consume Opium?
Did the English strap down each individual and intravenously administer opium? Unlikely.
To the extent that a government reflects the general sense and purpose of a population (mandate of heaven, etc), did Queen Victoria and all her subjects force people in China to accept the presence and marketing of an addictive and risky substance? Absolutely.
Ironically, the people of Great Britain fought a war to sell opium right as there was a temperance movement within Victorian culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement_in_the_Uni...
I think politicians have scrutinized american social media and they're 100% fine with the misery they induce so long as they are personally enriched by them.
> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China
TikTok isn't anywhere near as destructive as opium was. Hell, purely in terms of "mis/disinformation" surely facebook and twitter are many times worse than TikTok.
Surely the appropriate modern parallel is fentanyl.
And generally speaking as a culture we are too liberal to ban things for being too addictive. Again, showing that it is not relevant in this case since it will not inspire bans of other addictive (pseudo) substances on those grounds.
It's hard to see how the government would tackle algorithmic addiction within running afoul of First Amendment issues. Such an effort should also apply to Meta and Google too if it were attempted.
IMHO reciprocal market access was the most defensible position but wasn't the argument the government made.
That being said, the government did make a strictly commerce-based argument to avoid free speech issues. As came up in oral arguments (and maybe the opinion?) this is functionally no different to the restrictions on foreign ownership of US media outlets.
I don't buy it.
China is wise to have such laws to protect their citizens.
1) I sell to you my special and cherished resource. You may live in the fever dream of "market rules all", but a cold surprise may come that not everyone does.
2) You can afford what I sell - especially if political winds blow so that your benevolent rulers choose to impose 1000% tariffs on my good tomatoes
3) That you even _know_ there's a difference, and that tomatoes come from a farm and not the store or a can.
Also, even if they were differently monetizing by region, you are also missing the non-monetary reasons this might happen: Manipulation & propaganda. Even aside from any formal policy by the Chinese govermnent self-censorship by businesses and individuals for anything the Party might not like is very common. Also common is the government dictating the actions a Chinese company may take abroad for these same efforts in influencing foreign opinions.
Legally, there is no issue with TikTok being Japanese, Korean, Indian, Saudi, Polish, Ugandan, Brazilian or Mexican. Just not owned by a foreign adversary country.
As you said, we trade with them extensively. We didn’t tighten the screws on Russia until it actually invaded Ukraine. Until Xi actually invades Taiwan, it’s profitable to pretend.
Which politician argues China is a friend?
We bought Soviet oil in the 1970s [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_trade_of_the_Soviet_...
From app stores and American hosting. Only if Bytedance doesn’t sell TikTok to e.g. a French or Indian or American owner. TikTok.com will still resolve (unless Bytedance blocks it).
China literally blocks information.
2) Multiple agencies investigate and make a determination that a real threat exists, the threat and measures to resolve it are debated strongly in two houses of Congress between strongly opposing parties, an passes with bi-partisan support, the law is signed by the President, then the law is upheld through multiple challenges in multiple courts and panels of judges, finally being upheld by the Supreme Court of the country. And no, this is not yet a situation where the country has fallen into autocracy so the institutions have all been corrupted to serve the executive (I.e., not like Hungary, Venezuela, Russia, etc.).
If you think these are the same... I'll just be polite and say the ignorance expressed in that post is truly stunning and wherever you got your education has deeply failed — yikes.
Sounds like they tried.
Apparently?
What's the obvious about it?
I don't think this is true. Everyone that is reading this forum might even be too strong. The majority of people happily eating the pablum up as the users of TikTok can't even tell the blatantly false content from just the silly dancing videos.
See this for more https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42739855
EDIT: the link above doesn’t work for others for reason, so here is the source story: https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...
Nicotine being legal but TikTok is not tells you everything you need to know about government wanting to control the "addictiveness" of social media.
There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.