This ban was precipitated by TikTok refusing to bow to pressure to censor (pro-Palestinian) content that American politicians don't like.

The politics of this are exactly the opposite of that you're saying. This is about restricting democratic rights.

Do you have evidence of this compared to what is known, that ByteDance China has in-office seats for the CCP? These conspiracies and what-aboutism make no sense to me.

Many American politicians, including the people leading the charge for the ban, have openly said that this is the reason.

Senator Mitt Romney put it very bluntly [0]:

> "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites - it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."

Or maybe Mitt Romney is just another conspiracy theorist?

0. https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...

None of those 1A arguments held up and the SC decision did not use "count of Palestinians" AFAIK. I am sure some of the initial support was drummed up for reasons like what you mentioned but ultimately that is not why its being banned. But going back to your point, mentioning democratic rights for a CCP app is hilarious.

That's why Mitt Romney thinks it was banned.

The people who formulated the ban failed a few times previously, both because they couldn't gain enough political support to push it through and because it was legally shaky. The Gaza issue was what led to overwhelming support for a ban in the US Congress and Senate (as Romney says), and the ban was intentionally formulated in such a way as to try to legally sidestep the First Amendment question (in a highly dubious manner, but the SC isn't going to overrule Congress here).

> mentioning democratic rights for a CCP app is hilarious.

It's the most popular app in the United States. Calling it a "CCP app" is just braindead. Of course banning the most popular means of expression in a country because the people are expressing themselves in ways that political leaders disapprove of is anti-democratic.

All major corporations in mainland China have direct ties to the CCP. To think otherwise is foolish, their business and government are intertwined. At the end of the day all ByteDance china had to do was divest their ownership in the company.

I sympathize with you and agree the initial support definitely utilized the conflict in Gaza but it goes beyond the conflict and centers itself around the ability for the CCP to influence how the algorithm works. To not understand how much control the CCP has over mainland entities is surprising.

> their business and government are intertwined

This completely depends on the company. There's no evidence that TikTok has been used as a Chinese propaganda vehicle, and the issue that led to TikTok being banned in the US was TikTok's refusal to bow to pressure to toe the line on Palestine/Israel. Unlike Facebook, TikTok did not suppress pro-Palestinian content, and that led to broad Congressional support for a ban.

So have you done business in China or are you just guessing? I have and in China and other single party communist countries and absolutely all business, especially at large size have direct lines to the party. I am not sure how you can be so confidently incorrect. You can be some small time manufacturer and you are still beholden to your local governing party members with at the very least annual kickback gifts.

You keep latching on this idea of Palestinian content. You do realize this is much larger than that conflict?

I've spent plenty of time in China and know how things work there, in general. The idea that everything is run through the Communist Party is just a lazy, scaremongering generalization that's become increasingly popular in the US since 2016. There is such a thing as "Trump Derangement Syndrome," and it's the anti-China derangement that has become the bipartisan consensus since Trump took office in 2016.

The people pushing the ban say it's about Israel. Other Senators and Congresspeople say that's why they and their colleagues supported a ban. There were always some people who wanted to ban TikTok, but they were never able to get majority support in Congress until the issue of Israel came into play. Banning the most popular social media platform in the United States, a platform that more than half of Americans use, is a big deal.

So you do business in China or you have visited China? You totally skirt the topic but it’s clear you lack knowledge of how business is done in China.

I don't have much of a horse in this race, and I wouldn't consider myself pro or anti-China but I do a significant amount of business in China just shy of 9 figures annually in terms of revenue and I have never once dealt with their government in any way shape or form.

I have absolutely no direct line to them, never given them any kickbacks, and I visit the country once or twice a year.

I have no doubt that there are businesses that do have significant dealings with the CCP, I would never believe otherwise, but the idea that every company has to have a direct line to them is objectively untrue. I know many other people who also do business with China and its mostly the same story, none of us deal with the government and frankly I would be very uncomfortable if ever I had to.

> I have never once dealt with their government in any way shape or form.

It’s likely you have and didn’t know it. The “political officer” or otherwise-embedded party official often has another title or “non-official cover” as they say. Communist governments have operated this way since 1918.

You can also read that as an example of his opinion that TikTok is selectively amplifying anti-Western sentiment. You _can_ go for "it's all about Israel", but you really don't have to.

Or you could just read the statements of various politicians of our government:

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn: "It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content"

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.: "We’ve seen TikTok used to downplay the Uyghur genocide, the status of Taiwan, and now Hamas terrorism"

And of course, Romney's explicit statement as well, when in context, it's actually far worse because it seems he is very concerned about lax fact checking on TikTok (which American social media platforms announced they are doing away with): https://xcancel.com/ggreenwald/status/1880979821901332773#m

I fundamentally disagree with all of these representatives. Americans are allowed to view all sides of every geopolitical issue and make up their own minds and vote according to their own beliefs. We should never ever be "shielded" from propaganda because we are smart enough to vote for and lead democracy, so we should be trusted as smart enough to ingest any geopolitical information existing in the world.

It's one thing to be exposed to varying viewpoints, it's another thing to have a nation state wage propaganda campaigns against you on your home turf.

If 999/1000 tiktoks you see are of one particular viewpoint, you don't think the audience is going to draw specific conclusions? Our species now has mis-information tools that we couldn't have possibly imagined even just a decade ago. We're in the midst of a real struggle to work out how your average person can identify it. It's disheartening how little progress has been made in this area.

> If 999/1000 tiktoks you see are of one particular viewpoint, you don't think the audience is going to draw specific conclusions?

So what? If you watch InfoWars all day you'll also draw specific conclusions. If you watch PressTV all day you'll also draw specific conclusions. The point is that Americans can draw whatever conclusions they want, and that limiting info to only "approved" sources is authoritarian

On that topic, Twitter/X is now heavily pushing InfoWars.

Of all the social networks, Twitter is currently the most concerning, given the far-right sympathies and political connections of its owner.

Maybe, but I think Americans have the right to watch Infowars all day if they want to. And X has the right to push it all they want, imo

Is it not so much the exact topics but the control of a recommendation engine that’s at the hands of a government that is a general adversary to the West?

So what? Recommendation engine is just the same thing as a newspaper editor who picks and chooses what is read by everyone in circulation and what's not. But we allow foreign adversary newspapers to circulate in the US (and did during the height of the Cold war too)

Would you give the same freedom to an opponent in a hot war? I.e. if there had been widespread TVs during WW2, would you allow NaziTV to televise their content to your population totally uncontrolled?

Would you allow an unfriendly adversary to buy up your ports, critical infrastructure, and food/water supply, or would you block certain transactions in the name of national security?

Could be - the amount of online commentary when that war broke out was all encompassing. Almost like it was a highly volatile combination of an rightfully angry/scared population and paid information campaign by US foreign adversaries.

have you been on twitter?

The UK and Australia are much more insecure

https://x.com/ausvstheagenda/status/1880136652678656311

https://x.com/PlanetOfMemes/status/1865399407220306313

Since the general positive sum game is breaking down all around the world, everybody should feel insecure, and you will be insecure, if you are not already.

Those aren't free countries (as in bill of rights levels of personal guarantees).

"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is solution to you?

Respect doesn't mean that you have to agree. If you believe that something is wrong, use arguments, educate, inform... It's hard to implement pathological behaviour in well informed and educated society. Fragile society, however, is easier to be manipulated with and lead to hate, violence and wars.

> "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is solution to you?

What's wrong with this solution?

agreeing with the point the question makes here; the game theory of global politics does not work with the same morals that we prescribe individual people

It makes the whole world blind

No, there'd be one person left with an eye. They could just dodge the last blind person.

It doesn't actually solve anything, rather it makes the baseline lower by hurting everyone. I.e., it's an anti-solution - something that actively makes things worse, and can only make things worse, but masquerades as a solution.

An example of an anti-solution is lowering crime by making something that was illegal no longer illegal (see: public transit vs automobiles). Or, reducing the incidence of something by making it illegal while simultaneously increasing it's necessity (see: abortion). Or, solving wage inequality by protesting minimum wage increases.

Better to lower baseline for everyone than to be the naive sucker that gets taken advantage of

Do you consider yourself as naive?

Right, but objectively it's not, because both parties experience either same or worse outcomes. So it's not better, by definition of "better".

I agree, a "well informed" society would be wonderful but we have a long way to get there and even then, highly educated people are not immune to misinformation and propaganda. Not everything is black and white, there are always shades of grey and these are difficult to navigate.

I think imposing certain limits on various freedoms, including speech is required for a functioning democracy. I also believe that there are deeper issues if the populace of a nation no longer respect the decisions made by its highest court of law.

“Tit for that” is a solution for the USA on a great deal of topics, from reciprocal taxes to reciprocal visa requirements for travel. Why not reciprocate social media site access too? It’s just another product after all?

All "governments" are authoritarian. The USA was founded by authoritarian white slaveowners. So yes, Gen Z and TikTok users will definitely baffle all those who accept US imperialism above all else.

Let's be honest: "Democracy" in the USA is and always has been a game for the rich, especially since the 1908s when Reagan and Thatcher decided that China should be the top dog in the world order.

People just want to live happily. Simple as that. TikTok gives a lot of people a feeling, a snippet, of a little bit of freedom and connection with others. All US media makes people fearful - FOX "news" is literally just fearmongering for boomers and their children who can't afford homes of their own. CNN and MSNBC is just fear mongering against boomers who watch FOX "news". Facebook/Meta/IG/WhatsApp is an extension of these fears into the virtual world and TikTok offers something better.

Jokes on the USA though. RedNOTE is gonna close the cultural divide between America and China and Americans will realize just how far the boomer generation and those who have been elected to uphold boomer beliefs really left younger/current generations behind.

China has won technologically and now begins the cultural victory.

I can foresee, sadly, that there will be an unnecessary loss of lives in the short term however for both the USA and BRICS nations. Hopefully I wind up being wrong.

Lots of hyperbole and feelings but not much evidence.

TikTok is not some bastion of freedom, they did win with critical mass and a vastly superior algorithm. All media makes people fearful, you speak so highly of China but have you consumed mainland Chinese media before? It is like Fox on steroids, packed full with stories that paint China as the victor and America as a dangerous and silly country.

Calling a victory in technology is laughable, mainland manufacturing is incredible, one of the best in the world. Products in China have caught up and in some spaces exceeded western brands. China is still missing out on innovation in high-tech, thats why they have been caught so frequently trying to steal corporate secrets.

RedNOTE is not going to prove anything to americans except the disdain the Chinese have for Americans joining their social network and the level of censorship that exists in a mainland app.

It is like you are a propaganda machine and ironic enough it reads just like a mainland Chinese news article. If there was a conflict everyone would lose out. I am surprised anyone would foreshadow it. China unlike Russia seems to still think through the lens of economic interests, I suspect nobody in the current regime would want any type of conflict. While they may have a military its entirely untested both equipment and men.

But America IS a dangerous and silly country. Source: I live here.

I can already tell by your hyperbole and lack of critical discussion. It shows.

"lots of hyperbole and feelings but not much evidence" is applicable to your comments more so than others...

> why?

Years of TikTok usage

If your democracy is so rotten that a few teens dancing can bring it down I have bad news.

There was a classified briefing on Tiktok presented to Congress last year about why it is a threat to national security. No doubt the Intelligence Community had a good look inside Tiktok/Bytedance's network and determined it is not something we should allow to operate in this country.

Similar story with Huawei.

There was one about the Iraq war too.

That's strawman that has nothing to do with this topic. If you follow this line of thought, everything that is discussed in classified briefings is being done in bad faith, which I agree is easy to argue for, because we tend to pick and remember only bad examples, lack of trust in the system probably doesn't help much either. So even if you're right about trusting Gov in general, your argument is still wrong.

If you follow your line of thought we could never point out that processes have made mistakes in the past. Yours is the only strawman.

any classified briefings on X/Twitter being controlled by an immigrant? :)

Why only to the Congress, does not the American people have a right to know? Why be tight-lipped about it, certainly it's not some military or nuclear technology matter.

Yes I also trust the federal government unequivocally and without question. They didn’t tell me any details but I don’t need any, their word is good enough. In fact I will tell others so they are aware of the new gospel.

Yes, especially the same people who said Iraq had WMDs. Trust them implicitly.

TikTok is much more than “a few teens dancing”, for a huge swath of population it’s how they get their news and how they find stuff.

And if their lives weren't a end stage capitalist hell scape those news would have as much effect as Radio Moscow did during the cold war.

It is only when a system is failing that it becomes susceptible to destruction by indifference.

Two fantastic comments (yours and GP[lim_trw])- accurate summing of the state of affairs.

Another plausible theory is that the literal billions that have been invested into optimizing content for hyper attention have led to improvements in propaganda methods since Radio Moscow.

So, in summary, you believe that since the USA is on its way down, it should not bother fighting back anymore?

You might have a point, though. With the new administration and its explicit focus on short term populism, it’s hard to stand up for anything.

In summary the Us government should spend its time improving the lives of Americans, and not find better ways to lie them about the quality of their lives.

or you just think it’s a hellscape because you’re bored and on your phone where people make money by telling you it’s a hellscape

I though TikTok algorithm won't let you choose what to find.

If you get news primarly from Tiktok you are ill-informed and should reconsider your information diet.

Oh man have I got some bad news for you

You don't believe that. So don't try and use that as justification. Alternatively if you do believe that you don't understand how power on media platforms works.

Are you really so dense as to not understand how social media is used to influence elections, and how that is significantly different from any media format that has previously existed?

Allowing free publishing isn’t allowing anyone to take over anything.

>So the alternative is to defend democracy by letting a foreign authoritarian entity take over your country in the name of (their) freedom?

People being convinced to change their countries geopolitical policies seems to me a perfectly legitimate thing to do in a democracy.

If the american people would like closer relations to china and vote accordingly that seems to me to be the whole point of democracy.

China engaging and supporting that is also a perfectly legitimate means of achieving its goals, no? Or would you prefer that instead of convincing the american people of that, they should instead bribe or coerce their politicians behind closed fdoors?

Remember that Americans are already at each other's throats. Half the country is literally terrified about what will happen tomorrow. The other half of the country is ecstatic. For at least some of them, they are looking forward to doing exactly what the other half fears. The rest are relieved that they will not have to undergo the terrors and tribulations of the last four years.

The country is constantly on a knife edge. It takes only a tiny shift to cause a radical change in the power structure, and good reason to think that power structure will be used against you.

It is indeed remarkable that the country has achieved anything at all when it spends so much time cowering. Nor is that new, but modern media seem to give it more immediacy.

There was only 64% election turnout in 2024. People are not as politically radicalized and polarized as media companies say to increase engagement. Some people are, but the problem is being exaggerated for clicks and views.

> People are not as politically radicalized and polarized as media companies say to increase engagement

I disagree based purely off of my own life and experiences. The shift rightward over the past 10 years is palpable. It's not surprising historically at all - the US has always been composed of almost entirely conservative, individualistic attitudes and then little pockets of progressiveness here and there. They never last, rather the hope is just to get as much done as fast as possible in that time frame.

Certainly, policy that would be unthinkable 15 years ago is par for the course now. I think that's just undeniable, and speaks to the radicalization of the US.

I'm guessing that you live on one of the coasts and mostly associate with certain classes of people? In the real world, people are not at each others throats. They're mostly interested in talking about their kids, the price of milk, sportsball and debating the best way to prepare briquet.

Take a deep breath, we're all gonna be okay.

I take it you don't know any trans people, gay people, or those whose lives depend on government services.

While you are preparing brisket they are expecting to lose rights and have friends taken away. For them it is not going to be ok.

My comments just went right over your head. Didn't comprehend a word I wrote. It honestly makes me sad.

Everything will be okay, nobody is losing their rights. Try getting out of California/NYC some time.

People have lost rights/freedoms over the course of the last 8 years though.

Which constitutional rights have Americans lost over the past eight years?

So it has to be enumerated in the constitution to be considered a freedom lost?

Moving the goal post there isn't it?

I believe it's arguably clear the right to privacy and freedom of movement have been attacked/stripped though and those are constitutional rights.

It is day one and trans people can no longer get a federal id matching how they look.

Fuck right off about "gonna be okay", asshole.

My comments just went right over your head. Didn't comprehend a word I wrote. It honestly makes me sad.

Let's be specific:

In the "Gender" executive order, Sec 2(a) and Sec 3(d), the administration has set it up so that the passport, global entry, social security, or other identity document of any transgender American citizen can be scrutinized, denied in the future, or in an expansive reading, retroactively revoked.

Since all such changes require documentation, there is almost certainly a list of all such people, unless the previous administration was clever enough to destroy it.

For example, a valid document for this man https://www.uri.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/news/sites/16/20... (picked at random, a picture of an openly trans man who has stated as such on a website), can no longer list an M. A document with an M on it is subject to government scrutiny, for example at any border crossing or other location where identity may be verified. The government may now argue that such a document is not valid. If he has no documents with such an M marker, he can no longer obtain them. Additionally, he must use the women's room, per sec (4).

"We're all gonna be okay!" The federal government is simply subjecting trans people to increased scrutiny, limiting their freedom of speech and expression and their freedom of movement. "Nobody's gonna lose their rights."

But hey, enjoy your brisket, right? How's the price of milk doing?

How is having your biological sex on an Id card a violation of your rights? Shouldn't they be accurate as possible?

There's no laws in America about how one dresses and presents themselves as long as its not a false identity.

Anyways, weren't you just arguing that IDs shouldn't even be required for trivial inconsequential stuff like voting?

Why not just list chromosomes?

I mean, descriptive information on an ID isn't used for like tying someones appearance to their name or anything, right?

So it makes sense for the news to say something like "the police are searching for a female suspect 5'9" " despite them looking similar to the person in rpearl's example.

That description will really help the public identify or be on the look out for that female, right?

People with a trans belief shouldn't be given extra privileges over everyone else, such as being allowed to record false information on government-issued ID. Changing the sex on your ID documents is like changing your date of birth. It is quite simply incorrect.

What's an ID for? Identifying someone or to list arbitrary information about a person, like political affiliation, faith, natural born citizen or immigrant?

Interesting that you think to have the authority to tell others what “the real world” actually is. That doesn’t seem to work.

Maybe you should try to get out of the technofacist mindset?

I'm struck by the complete lack of confidence in statements like this.

We've got the whole world wearing blue jeans and listening to our music, mostly communicating on our tech platforms. English is the default language for international business. One Chinese social media company and its game over? Have some faith in your culture.

Do you realize that the same exact logic can apply to any US company abroad? Not just social networking, _any_ company. We are everyone else's "geopolitical adversary" too. Or is it "different" and I "don't understand"?

There must be other options than banning Tiktok or losing to "the enemy".

You gotta get off Facebook and touch grass man

“Fragile” trust? That trust has been beaten out of us at every turn for an entire generation. There is nothing fragile about American exceptionalism or the dream of achievement; we’ve just been shown repeatedly that we are becoming the third-world bully regime in the eyes of the world and, increasingly, in our own.

Every bad thing we’ve been taught to believe about China or Russia, it turns out we do too and often worse. So what loyalty should we have? What has democracy and capitalism done for us but bankrupt our seniors with medical debt and addict our children to iPads and amphetamines?

I’d love to be able to trust my government and the American ideal again, but don’t tell me I’m weak for second-guessing the whole con game this century is turning into.

”What has democracy and capitalism done for us...”

Radicaly increased wealth. I guess you have access to drinking water, food, place to sleep and be warm at cold sessions. It wasn't a standard few decades ago and still it is not fot most in the world.

"I’d love to be able to trust my governmen..."

Do you really believe that government solve your problems?

Over the last 40 years, China’s version of socialism with state-controlled markets have lifted more people out of poverty than ours. Democracy and capitalism have not benefited me in my lifetime. My taxes go to fund foreign wars and lining the pockets of American oligarchs.

“Radically increased wealth”, for who? Government has never solved my problems, only created more. My point is that I would have been doing better under China’s system than ours.

> My point is that I would have been doing better under China’s system than ours.

I’m not sure how you can say this with a straight face. China hit rock bottom after the cultural revolution and they had a lot of “the only place left to go is up!” going on. This is like someone saying their salary increased 5X from $10k to $50k and calling that better than someone’s salary only going up by a third from $200k to $300k. Yes, the improvements have been great, and while your life would have improved more under Chinese rule (velocity), do you really think your position would be better off? (And imagine only making $50k or $100k/year and houses still start at a million bucks!)

If you don’t like government meddling, China probably isn’t the place for you. Yes, they might not pay attention that you aren’t following some rule for awhile, but the rule exists and they will eventually hit you with non-compliance.

But you still voting, do you?

the problem is basically your whole worldview is wrong

This feels like a shallow dismissal, and I’d love to understand what you’re trying to communicate in more depth.