TikTok ready to “move to the courts” to prevent ban in US

Company points out that proposed ban would run afoul of the First Amendment.

See full article...

 

[ip_what]

I am ok with us banning Chinese social media any way we can. The Internet is no longer a global shared resource and the sooner we realize that the better off we will be. Allowing any form of influence from anti-US adversaries like China is the right move.

Oh, man, I can’t think of any ways that a law banning anti-American activities could possibly go wrong. Like, what are people afraid of? That Congress will require loyalty oaths and creative institutions like Hollywood will obey in advance and blacklist people with insufficiently obsequious politics?

 

[igorsky]

What we’re seeing is a realtime exploitation of a weakness in our system by China. Their authoritarian government allows them to act unilaterally with nobody to answer to. Not the case in a democracy, which China is all to happy to use and abuse.

 

[terrydactyl]

(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.
The term "foreign adversary controlled application" means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by
(A) any of
(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;
(ii) TikTok;
(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or
(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or
(B) a covered company that
(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and
(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of
(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and
(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture.


Even if TikTok is covered by section B here, and the president can (at their digression) start the process that would lead to a divestment or ban, it is hard to think that the courts would uphold section A starting the process for TikTok automatically since it applies special legal conditions to ByteDance and TikTok specifically. There are conditions listed elsewhere in the law that determine what are the requirements for being a "covered company", but it applies to TikTok and ByteDance even if they wouldn't meet the other requirements. For example, this is written so it applies to any website or application operated by ByteDance, even if 10 people in the US were to use it, when it otherwise would require 1,000,000 users for 2 of the 3 prior months (part of the conditions under "covered company") before starting the process if it were owned by any other company.

If ever there was a bill of attainder, this is it. But the current SC seems creative in their interpretation of the Constitution. We'll see.

 

[Quisquis]

Oh, man, I can’t think of any ways that a law banning anti-American activities could possibly go wrong. Like, what are people afraid of? That Congress will require loyalty oaths and creative institutions like Hollywood will obey in advance and blacklist people with insufficiently obsequious politics?

That's a slippery slope fallacy, my dude

 

[Stickmansam]

Here's a few thought experiments that might be worth going through before getting into the specifics of TikTok.

• Can the government outlaw a foreigner from attending a religious service in the US?
• Can the government outlaw a foreigner from speaking?
• Can the government outlaw a foreigner from writing a pamphlet?
• Can the government outlaw a foreigner from attending a meeting?
• Can the government outlaw a foreigner from asking for a legal hearing if they have been wronged in the US?

When TikTok gets to court, and they will be granted leave to file the case, the government's law will have to pass strict scrutiny to be considered legal. That's a hard bar.

Yes the government can, because this bill targets the foreigners access to the US (market) in the first place. You can de facto ban a foreigner from doing all of the above by simply not letting them into the country (or market). This is why I think the bill be be legal. It's targetting essentially the import and stopping it at/before the border.

I see little difference from this with any of the other foreign entity ownership restrictions. Look at Nippon Steel trying to buy US Steel for instance.


EDIT: As an aside, this is why TikTok is structuring their proposed argument as being the rights of the users being infringed and not TikTok's rights. TikTok knows the foreign entity rules are not a bill of attainder as it is fundamentally a legal foreign access/ownership restriction.

The First Amendment challenge will be based on the argument that the bill is really intended to curtail all speech, including protected speech by US persons. I expect they will argue that beyond the data privacy issue, its a means of controlling/limiting speech the US Gov does not like on the platform. This plugs into the other stated purpose of the ban which is to eliminate TikTok's control of the algorithm, and selectively boosting speech that is harmful to the national security of the US.

It is interesting that so much coverage has only covered the data privacy and not the issue/concern about influence operations by a foreign firm. That has driven the Congress imo far more than the data privacy issue.

 

[Quisquis]

If ever there was a bill of attainder, this is it. But the current SC seems creative in their interpretation of the Constitution. We'll see.

No one's past actions are being criminalized, and no one's going to not get a trial, so, ya know... No

 

[Rindan]

Except as quoted in the bill text above, it isn't "provider neutral". It reads an awful lot like a bill of attainder against TikTok / ByteDance.

If TikTok / ByteDance is illegally using consumer data they should be prosecuted under that law. If there isn't such a law today and congress wants to protect consumer privacy, they should pass a consumer privacy bill that does that, not some ridiculously narrow law targeted just at TikTok.

The bill makes ownership by "hostile" national governments the thing that is forbidden, not an attempt to fix consumer privacy.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that you ban hostile nations from running social media services in your own nation. I don't understand the argument as to why it's important that a Chinese Communist Party owned social media site be allowed to operate within the United States. What exactly does the US get out of that deal, especially when the access isn't mutual?

I don't see any reason why the US should allow a Chinese owned social media company to operate inside of the US when a US owned social media company isn't allowed to operate inside of China. Forget "free speech" arguments; I'm saying that its just unfair in terms of market access. We wouldn't let China dump cars in the US market without opening their market first, so why exactly is Chinese social media allowed access to US markets, but the US isn't allowed access to the Chinese market?

 

[Pecisk]

The bill makes ownership by "hostile" national governments the thing that is forbidden, not an attempt to fix consumer privacy.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that you ban hostile nations from running social media services in your own nation. I don't understand the argument as to why it's important that a Chinese Communist Party owned social media site be allowed to operate within the United States. What exactly does the US get out of that deal, especially when the access isn't mutual?

I don't see any reason why the US should allow a Chinese owned social media company to operate inside of the US when a US owned social media company isn't allowed to operate inside of China.

Why China should give access to its market to USA high tech corpos then?
Just playing devil's advocate here for a second. It is just not very politically savvy move.

 

[Atterus]

Legislation is targeting ALL forigen companies trying to use digital platforms to spy on Americans... you lose CCP. Get over it. All this whining and mischaracterization squarely paints TokTok of some vital survelliece importance just like when Huawei got the boot.

Just more of the whining like when Huawei tried to bog down their ejection in court to finish inserting some more malware. The court will laugh them straight out the door. There is no "1st amendment" protections when you are a hostile nations survellience tool. Pretty blatant they have NOT been made to shut up either.

Divest, or shut down. That's the law, comrade. We are even allowing you to still make bank, unlike your take overs or liquidations. No more free survellience data to harass journalists and track your fleeing expats or corrupting society with. A good first step for general privacy laws. Deal with the hostile nation FIRST, then worry about the others.

The best part is the CCP bots losing their minds. Pretty plain this is hitting them hard where it hurts. Full steam ahead. It will be interesting to learn all the dirty secrets that app has been hiding...

 

[Pecisk]

Just wrapping up chatter - China owned Microsoft fully two times in last six months. If TikTok is really a concern not a showpiece, legislation is seriously out of depth.
I personally don't care what happens with TikTok and I believe people will move on from it. I just question energy spent on this topic.

 

[ip_what]

That's a slippery slope fallacy, my dude

The quote was “ Allowing any form of influence from anti-US adversaries like China is the right move.”

If anything, my post didn’t go far enough on how terrible a suggestion that is.

 

[Atterus]

Why China should give access to its market to USA high tech corpos then?
Just playing devil's advocate here for a second. It is just not very politically savvy move.

They don't... thats... thats the point. Explicitly because they don't want US influence on their tightly controlled mediasphere or the truth about the corruption of the CCP. See Hong Kong, the whole destruction of that city was the same reason. Thus the reason your argument carries zero water.

 

[lolnova]

What this is doing is shutting down a massive Chinese spy operation on the United States.

[citation needed]

 

[blackhawk887]

Nobody has been able to demonstrate how this would actually happen. Nobody has been able to make a serious argument showing this to be an actual problem. And, most importantly, nobody has been able to demonstrate that Facebook and Twitter could not be used to do the same thing. Especially because they actually were used to do the same thing, on Jan 6.

So... It was done with Facebook and Twitter, but nobody has ever done it? Which is it?

There's no need to demonstrate that a foreign adversary has exploited a particular tool against you before you take steps to prevent such exploitation. The mere fact that they could do so is sufficient to warrant action to prevent it.

 

[Rindan]

So .... your argument is that we should set business standards in America like they do in China?

Do tell ...

I mean... yes? If China denies economic access to their market, I'm actually a-okay with doing the same back to them. If China bans American cars, then I don't see any problem with America banning Chinese cars. If China bans American social media, I don't see any reason why the US can't turn around and ban Chinese social media. I'd feel that way even if China wasn't a hostile rival power, but I feel that way doubly when you consider that the CCP is a rival that isn't above using the power it has to try and influence the internals of democracies.

Simply put, why should America allow the CCP to have ownership in social media operating in the US, when the CCP doesn't allow American social media companies to operate in China? What is the positive argument for allowed CCP owned social media to operate in the US while banning the US from operating in China?

 

[Tonkaman]

The bill makes ownership by "hostile" national governments the thing that is forbidden, not an attempt to fix consumer privacy.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that you ban hostile nations from running social media services in your own nation. I don't understand the argument as to why it's important that a Chinese Communist Party owned social media site be allowed to operate within the United States. What exactly does the US get out of that deal, especially when the access isn't mutual?

I don't see any reason why the US should allow a Chinese owned social media company to operate inside of the US when a US owned social media company isn't allowed to operate inside of China.

Trump effectively declared Canada a hostile nation to impose tariffs on their aluminum and bypass a need to have congress pass a tariff law. "Hostile nation" means whatever the government at the time wants it to mean to get its preferred result.

 

[the cave troll]

That's a slippery slope fallacy, my dude

It's not particularly fallacious to point out that we have slipped down the exact same slope before, and not even in the distant past but within living memory.

 

[ip_what]

[citation needed]

I’m prepared to concede that this is a massive Chinese spy operation!

Which is all the more reason to address the actual problem—data privacy—and not flail ineffectually and unconstitutionally at a single bad actor. Ban TikTok, and China (and the NSA) will continue to assemble the same dossiers from the like of Cambridge Anayltica 2.0

 

[the cave troll]

(I swear, on days like this I really resent not being paid particularly well to be a CCP bot. )

 

[kgb999-again]

If the foreigner is an individual, no.

If the foreigner is a corporate entity, yes.

Seriously, do you not know how the fucking constitution works?

While Citizen's United definitely blurred the lines between rights, what TitTok does in the U.S. must remain compliant with the governmental regulations. They claim they do not share U.S. data with China. They say the data goes to Singapore.

An authoritarian regime who's been butt-buddies with China since the second world war.

The thing that people don't seem to get is that TikTok America is not adhering to their operational agreement. They may not be sending the data to China directly (which they assert over and over) but Singapore DOES. If that data wasn't being shared with China, this whole effort to ban them wouldn't be a thing.

Moreover, it's not a ban. It's a divestment order, under which the government can force the sale or divestment of a division of a corporation through regulatory means. This law is a regulatory means. A divestment order doesn't shut down a company, unless they fail to divest. The parent corporation must remove itself entirely from the subsidiary, meaning the U.S. data does not leave the borders of United States.

This was supposedly what ByteDance agreed to do when they created the American subsidiary currently being ordered by the government to divest. The reason why ByteDance did that was to avoid being ordered to divest. They thought they could route the data they collect in the U.S. through Singapore to China and avoid further sanctions. They were wrong. In the upcoming lawsuit, I expect the U.S. will show proof of that - but behind closed doors and with little detail that can be relayed back to the Chinese government about how that was discovered.

What this is doing is shutting down a massive Chinese spy operation on the United States.

Your red herring fallacy post doesn't specify what KIND of foreigner is involved. Corporations operate under far more restrictions than individuals do, and this move is in full compliance with both constitutional precedent and law. If ByteDance doesn't divest, TikTok leaves the U.S. and nothing of value will be lost. Another social media company will pick up the slack, or something new, and not whispering in China's ear, will arise to replace it.

Funny thing is, technically, it currently isn't illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China. After this bill becomes law ... it still won't be illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China.

Meanwhile. There is a reason America is able to attract investment capital from all over the world. Corporate stability. This policy undermines one of the core pillars on which America's corporate stability is built. The added insult is that it offers exactly zero real protection from any of the stated "harms" America faces in the current status quo.

I prefer a system that punishes American business entities for something they've actually done ... as opposed to punishing entities for something government officials claim to be scared they might do. We should pass solid laws that protect Americans regardless who owns a platform. Then we would have the tools to slam any of them for cause if any of them manifests an actual danger.

Elon Musk willingly turning all Twitter data over to Putin, or manipulating his algorithm to intentionally create chaos, is also a very real possibility. Trump's social platform also raises many of the same questions. Any platform that gets big enough could manifest dangerous properties. America needs standards that apply to everyone, and then we need to enforce those standards.

This is a terrible precedent. What's happening here is performative horseshit.

 

[lolnova]

Legislation is targeting ALL forigen companies trying to use digital platforms to spy on Americans... you lose CCP. Get over it. All this whining and mischaracterization squarely paints TokTok of some vital survelliece importance just like when Huawei got the boot.

Just more of the whining like when Huawei tried to bog down their ejection in court to finish inserting some more malware. The court will laugh them straight out the door. There is no "1st amendment" protections when you are a hostile nations survellience tool. Pretty blatant they have NOT been made to shut up either.

Divest, or shut down. That's the law, comrade. We are even allowing you to still make bank, unlike your take overs or liquidations. No more free survellience data to harass journalists and track your fleeing expats or corrupting society with. A good first step for general privacy laws. Deal with the hostile nation FIRST, then worry about the others.

The best part is the CCP bots losing their minds. Pretty plain this is hitting them hard where it hurts. Full steam ahead. It will be interesting to learn all the dirty secrets that app has been hiding...

I'm so tired of dimwitted allistic logic.

 

[blackhawk887]

Trump effectively declared Canada a hostile nation to impose tariffs on their aluminum and bypass a need to have congress pass a tariff law. "Hostile nation" means whatever the government at the time wants it to mean to get its preferred result.

There's a list written into US law. 4 countries are on it, and Canada is not one of them.

Changing the list requires that the House, Senate, and President agree, and that SCOTUS not intervene, so while that's possible, it's not easy.

And yes, the government has the constitutional authority to declare that hostile countries are in fact hostile countries.

 

[Atterus]

I'm so tired of dimwitted allistic logic.

And I'm tired of the CCP trolls crawling out of the woodwork anytime Bytedance is mentioned. But here we are.

Clearly, the bots are angry people are pointing out it is a divestment order, not a ban. Pretty logical one too, preventing survellience by enemy nations in plain sight.

 

[blackhawk887]

Funny thing is, technically, it currently isn't illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China. After this bill becomes law ... it still won't be illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China.

The problem isn't so much that they can share if they want to share. The problem is that right now China has leverage to force them to share even if they don't want to share, and even if the US passes laws requiring them to not share.

 

[EVOO]

So fascist propaganda is first amendment rights, but China theoretically paying for influence campaign (with having to abide to rules) is no go?
You guys have to realise how selective BS this start to look like right?

Fascist propaganda spawned by a national adversary? Definitely. And what rules are the Chinese Communist government abide by? Not throwing Singaporean puppet execs out the window?

 

[the cave troll]

And I'm tired of the CCP trolls crawling out of the woodwork anytime Bytedance is mentioned. But here we are.

I resent that remark! I live in a proper troll cave, not a flimsy house made out of wood.

 

[Tonkaman]

There's a list written into US law. 4 countries are on it, and Canada is not one of them.

Changing the list requires that the House, Senate, and President agree, and that SCOTUS not intervene, so while that's possible, it's not easy.

And yes, the government has the constitutional authority to declare that hostile countries are in fact hostile countries.

Written into THIS particular law. There are other lists the executive controls.

 

[Quisquis]

The quote was “ Allowing any form of influence from anti-US adversaries like China is the right move.”

If anything, my post didn’t go far enough on how terrible a suggestion that is.

Ah, so we're taking a casual comment literally... Sorry, my mistake.

Edit: you do realize they made a typo in that line that flips its meaning, right?

 

[jjmorris2000]

Ah yes, unlike the US' recent incompetent, insecure, narcissistic manchild leader who attempted a coup. Plenty of people use his (failing) social media platform, why aren't we banning that too?

Our First Amendment definitely prevents a lot of the kinds of actions against domestic enemies that you can take against foreign ones. Foreign adversaries don't get constitutional rights, but domestic terrorists still get their rights (until convicted).

The First Amendment arguments are a canard to a large degree IMO. TikTok isn't a publisher. They're explicitly a service provider - if they were a publisher they would have 1st amendment rights but wouldn't be protected by Section 230 because they would have editorial control. That's why the 1A stuff from the company is being couched in terms of the users' 1A rights being violated. Except they aren't really because nobody has a right to use a particular service provider in this country for anything. I don't think they'll have much of a 1A case though I'll defer to 1A lawyers on that because I could be wrong there.

They should have a case for bills of attainderequal protection violation, though the way this is written even if the specific ByteDance/TikTok elements are taken out as violating the bills of attainder clause equal protection the rest of it might hold up since it's neutral-ish enough to probably pass muster (though its still narrowly written enough that a judge who wasn't sympathetic could drive a truck through it I suspect). It probably depends on how much leeway the courts want to give this as a national security concern. But the national security folks don't want to make what they think they know public for some reason - a number of Reps seem to have gotten scared from closed-door briefings on TikTok they got from the national security folks. If its that bad and clear cut why they don't want to make what they know public seems somewhat strange (though I guess it might burn a source if they were to do it).

(Edited because I didn't mean bill of attainder even though my stupid brain thought that was what I meant...)

 

[Quisquis]

It's funny watching the votes change across the pages as the normal people move on and the only ones left here are the Tiktok supporters and a few detractors...

 

[Pecisk]

Funny thing is, technically, it currently isn't illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China. After this bill becomes law ... it still won't be illegal for any corporation to share as much data as they want with China.

Meanwhile. There is a reason America is able to attract investment capital from all over the world. Corporate stability. This policy undermines one of the core pillars on which America's corporate stability is built. The added insult is that it offers exactly zero real protection from any of the stated "harms" America faces in the current status quo.

I prefer a system that punishes American business entities for something they've actually done ... as opposed to punishing entities for something government officials claim to be scared they might do. We should pass solid laws that protect Americans regardless who owns a platform. Then we would have the tools to slam any of them for cause if any of them manifests an actual danger.

Elon Musk willingly turning all Twitter data over to Putin, or manipulating his algorithm to intentionally create chaos, is also a very real possibility. Trump's social platform also raises many of the same questions. Any platform that gets big enough could manifest dangerous properties. America needs standards that apply to everyone, and then we need to enforce those standards.

This is a terrible precedent. What's happening here is performative horseshit.

But China and those goddamn commies. You have to understand.
Also China hackers most likely already have way more detailed information than TikTok with millions of fake accounts could five them.
But people need that sense of control badly.

 

[GxSee]

No one's past actions are being criminalized, and no one's going to not get a trial, so, ya know... No

With how this bill is worded, it would take effect provided that no court case is filed, and the only defenses available to TikTok would be on constitutional grounds. If this were some other company (lets say Telegram), they would be able to argue in court, beyond constitutional challenges, that they don't meet the requirements for being a "covered platform" since there is a list of criteria in the law to determine what platform is covered, or dispute which assets would need to be divested, and to start the whole process the president would have to create a public report to congress that both outlines their case for the platform being a national security threat, evidence that it reaches the criteria listed in the law, and explicitly lists what exactly needs to be divested in their minds to be complaint with this law. None of this is available to TikTok (or any company owned by ByteDance) however because the law is written in such a way that it has special conditions that apply only (and automatically) to TikTok and ByteDance.

I would argue that the special restrictions that apply only to TikTok are potentially unconstitutional as either a bill of attainder or under equal protection grounds, but upon such a finding the president could (and likely would) still start the process that applies to any other covered platform (in a platform neutral way) to TikTok, where they could try to argue in court they aren't a covered platform (an arguement they aren't likely to win) or on first amendment grounds (where I woudn't guess their chances of success).

 

[archie4oz]

TikTok Inc. is incorporated in California. I don't think anyone would claim that the Cayman Island companies are anything more than intermediaries.

Apologies but Pedantic Mode: on.

There is no "TikTok Inc." TikTok LLC is registered in Delaware (typical incorporating in the US). The Caymen incorporation (TikTok Ltd.) is probably about taxes, and business neutrality, and it's easier to decouple rest of the corporation from US regulatory purview. Likewise why all the capital investment first had ByteDance incorporated there is to reduce damages if for some unforeseen reason they need to jettison the Chinese business.

Their legacy main US office is indeed in Culver City (been to it), and they recently sub-leased a bunch of office space in San Jose from Roku.

Another potential option would be partial divestiture, i.e. spin-off the LLC as a stand-alone company with the parent corporation (TikTok Ltd.) having a 19% stake in the company (I don't recall if the law required 100% divestiture and generally specifies ByteDance divesting, not specifically TikTok partitioning itself).

Lastly, even if they do get banned in the US, side-loading on Android will still be an option (and I'm sure they'd promote videos and website instructions on how to do it), adding a 2nd app store account to download from Canada or some other countries App Store. Or lastly, just really push hard on a PWA. The law only stipulates that it can't be hosted from US soil.

 

[Rindan]

So your argument is that we can't pass laws about things, because people won't follow the law?

I find that extremely hard to believe.

You can pass laws, but you can also assume that those laws will be broken. For instance, it's a crime to kill someone, so why do we need to pass gun safety laws? I mean, it's already a crime to use the gun in a harmful way, so we do we also need to regulate gun ownership to begin with? Well, because presumably people are going to violate those crimes that say you can't use guns in bad ways. So, knowing that people will violate the "don't use guns badly" laws, we also have setup laws to keep guns out of the hands of people that might "use guns badly" before they get the chance.

I don't see this as being any different with TikTok. Yes, you can make it a crime to hand off user data to the CCP, and you should, but you shouldn't rely on that law. You should assume that if the need is great enough, the CCP is going to try and find a way to violate that law. For instance, you are not being paranoid if you suspect that China would try and use TikTok illegally to bolster their case against an American intervention in Taiwan before a Chinese invasion. It's reasonable to assume that in that scenario, the CCP is willing to risk getting caught committing that crime because they will be presumably ejected anyways once the war starts.

There are arguments for and against, but I don't think anyone should be pretending like it's insane that the CCP might not respect the rule of law in the US before a major military conflict, and so perhaps you should prepare for that. The truth is that the CCP and the US are in fact on the edge of conflict, and we should in fact be preparing for that day, and not pretending like it's unreasonable to think that Xi Jinping is going to do exactly what he has promised and try to "reunite" China and Taiwan at the point of a gun in the next couple of decades. Our legal and economic systems should be prepared for that day, even if we all hope it never comes.

 

[Pecisk]

You can pass laws, but you can also assume that those laws will be broken. For instance, it's a crime to kill someone, so why do we need to pass gun safety laws? I mean, it's already a crime to use the gun in a harmful way, so we do we also need to regulate gun ownership to begin with? Well, because presumably people are going to violate those crimes that say you can't use guns in bad ways. So, knowing that people will violate the "don't use guns badly" laws, we also have setup laws to keep guns out of the hands of people that might "use guns badly" before they get the chance.

I don't see this as being any different with TikTok. Yes, you can make it a crime to hand off user data to the CCP, and you should, but you shouldn't rely on that law. You should assume that if the need is great enough, the CCP is going to try and find a way to violate that law. For instance, you are not being paranoid if you suspect that China would try and use TikTok illegally to bolster their case against an American intervention in Taiwan before a Chinese invasion. It's reasonable to assume that in that scenario, the CCP is willing to risk getting caught committing that crime because they will be presumably ejected anyways once the war starts.

There are arguments for and against, but I don't think anyone should be pretending like it's insane that the CCP might not respect the rule of law in the US before a major military conflict, and so perhaps you should prepare for that. The truth is that the CCP and the US are in fact on the edge of conflict, and we should in fact be preparing for that day, and not pretending like it's unreasonable to think that Xi Jinping is going to do exactly what he has promised and try to "reunite" China and Taiwan at the point of a gun in the next couple of decades. Our legal and economic systems should be prepared for that day, even if we all hope it never comes.

If you really think that this law makes it better - it simply does not. As I said, if this is extent of preparation, USA has already lost.

 

[hel1kx]

There's no need to demonstrate that a foreign adversary has exploited a particular tool against you before you take steps to prevent such exploitation. The mere fact that they could do so is sufficient to warrant action to prevent it.

Yeah we should start arresting people because they could do a crime!

 

[Argosy]

Except as quoted in the bill text above, it isn't "provider neutral". It reads an awful lot like a bill of attainder against TikTok / ByteDance.

If TikTok / ByteDance is illegally using consumer data they should be prosecuted under that law. If there isn't such a law today and congress wants to protect consumer privacy, they should pass a consumer privacy bill that does that, not some ridiculously narrow law targeted just at TikTok.

I'm not sure if the authors of this bill are worried so much about consumer data, since as you say, if so, they should pass a law directed at just that, handling of consumer data.

I am in agreement with Scott Galloway's opinion here. The data is not the main issue, it is the algorithm and the ability of a foreign adversary to "put the thumb on the scale" of what users see.

Scott points out the Chinese government can promote content (for mostly younger people) painting democracy, free markets, America, etc. in the worse light. Easily sow distrust of our national leaders (sure that may not be difficulty ;v), science, and the media. This puts the ability of the CCP to further divide our country.

Is their evidence this is happening? I don't know (there was the obvious TikTok push to have young people call their representatives to complain when this bill first started getting circulated). We shouldn't wait for evidence. This is a scary addictive tool to have controlled by a foreign adversary.

The CCP can't "out military the US" (yet), but having our society crumble from within due to continuous infighting is way easier and cheaper.

 

[TracyInRTP]

Imagine if the UK passed a law that said "Microsoft needs to sell their Windows or MS Office (you're most profitable products) to a UK company or we're banning them from the country." That's the equivalent here, and why it's patently ridiculous to think any company would go along with that.

Didn't something similar to that happen already? The UK demanded Microsoft uncouple internet exploder from the OS so they could sell a version of it without the web browser included. Thus leaving UK'ians free to install "their browser of choice"? Others here with more knowledge than I will remember the details better.

Yes I know it isn't an exact match but it is a government forcing a company to make major changes or else be banned. The problem with your exact example is Microsoft is publicly traded. So if the UK wanted a certain percentage of it owned by a UK company they can do that themselves.

 

[Rindan]

Why China should give access to its market to USA high tech corpos then?
Just playing devil's advocate here for a second. It is just not very politically savvy move.

I didn't say that they should give the US access. Obviously, they shouldn't as that could disrupt their single party control over the nation. I said that they don't give the US access.

The CCP relies on a tight control of information to maintain their single party, single ruler, autocracy. Use social media companies would disrupt that. If you are a brutal authoritarian in the Chinese government tasked with enacting Xi Jinping's will, I'd keep US tech companies as far away as possible.

Conversely though, the US should treat them exactly the same. If it was a choice between letting our respective social media companies battle it out on each other's home turf, I'd probably be for it. That isn't what is being decided though. The CCP has banned US access to their markets. The question is whether or not the US should reciprocate.

I don't see it as being any different from cars. If China bans American car imports, I have no problem banning Chinese imports into the US. If China wants to ban American social media, that's fine, but the US should feel free to do the same right back to them.

 

[Deleted member 764661]

So Facebook, Twitter/x, WhatsApp,signal,etc are blocked by China, but there is an issue doing so to TikTok? Do tell…

"A country that doesn't even pretend to respect free speech has restricted speech in their country. Why aren't WE doing that HERE???"