As always, remember that there are several FCC commissioners. When you see a headline about one commissioner, you aren't seeing the FCC decide something, you are seeing the politics within the FCC play out.
In fact statements like this typically mean the opinion given is not the overall direction of the FCC, because if it was a majority opinion they wouldn't need to be playing to the media and would just be enacting their will.
Well in this case I don't think the FCC has the authority to block it. They can recommend lawmakers do something.
But this begs the question of if this point of view is based on oversight of the recommendation algorithm, is it limited to those developed by foreign owned platforms?
>As always, remember that there are several FCC commissioners
Do they vote along party lines too?
I know at the FTC under obama, anything BCP the GOP would oppose.
(It seemed extremely weird since up until that point the people who'd be the most civil had been the libertarians, an awkward alliance since the millenials have all known since middle school that money is just pieces of paper.)
It's a shame the French or whatever decriminalized espionage and renamed it "business intelligence" in the 90s, or we could just start threatening to execute these people for espionage or something when they get too ornery.
It can be. The Obama and Trump administrations definitely installed captive individuals. Appointment can, and probably should be, taken away. We don't need an FCC that flies by the whims of an administration. There's a lot of agencies that statement applies to though. The downside of such a take is that agencies are inherently derivative of the powers Congress gives them, so offering the president appointments is really their attempt to balance power between the branches.
The real root cause is that presidents are often working hand in hand with Congress and who is really shut out is the people because Congress, regardless of the party in power, often does not reflect the will of the people.
Also, kinda odd you're daydreaming about lobbing people's heads off. Maybe don't do that.
TikTok is the new anodyne entertainment that is worse for youth than stale TV was for previous generations because it encourages harmful behavior. If it were only the time wasting aspect it would not be so bad --the bad part is propagating harmful behavior to unrealized adults, specifically wrong self-help information.
Eh, how is that behavior any different than previous iterations of planking? It is not. The only real difference is that it puts control of a majority of social media young people use in the hands of a foreign power. When FB et al were doing the same thing ( with same access ), it was all great.
I have no love for social media, but that ban starts at home AND if we accept the proposition that TikTok should be banned, we should be doing the same with FB and its derivatives. For the record, I am all for it ( as long as we apply this idiocy evenly and across the board ).
> only real difference is that it puts control of a majority of social media young people use in the hands of a foreign power
An adversary. Different discussion. National security versus public health / competition. We don't need to justify enforcement on Tik Tok against our lenience with Facebook because they're separate conversations.
To my knowledge, regulators haven't raised anti-trust concerns with Tik Tok the way they have with Facebook. And nobody has taken the public-health mantel when it comes to social media.
what does national security mean to you? to me it means there is a threat to the safety of people living inside the borders of the united states. by that definition, how is china--let alone tiktok--a national security threat?
> how is china--let alone tiktok--a national security threat?
How China is or isn't a threat to America is a big question. That it's perceived as an adversary, almost universally, by not only the U.S. [1][2] but most of the West [3] and its neighbors, is pretty well documented. It's probably the crowning strategic failure of Xi's.
No. Same exact discussion. Those are not separate conversations thanks at partially to globalism and our interconnectedness and interdependence.
<<To my knowledge, regulators haven't raised anti-trust concerns with Tik Tok the way they have with Facebook.
Yes, regulators also didn't raise any anti-trust concerns in general lately, where US economy is full of oligopolies, where individual companies have the resources, power and impact equal to some nation states and appetites to lock customers even further in their respective locked gardens. I am sorry, but I do not find this argument persuasive based on the reality on the ground alone. You can throw a rock at almost any industry in US and you will find several top dogs owning everything in it. And this is before we get to regulatory capture and revolving doors.
edit: To sum up, people like me would argue regulators are not doing their jobs.
<< We don't need to justify enforcement on Tik Tok against our lenience with Facebook because they're separate conversations.
Why not? Scratch that. Why are they separate conversations? It seems TikTok and FB are the same type of app. The only difference is that TikTok is housed in the wrong country.
<< And nobody has taken the public-health mantel when it comes to social media.
Could you elaborate a little? I think I know what you are trying to say, but I do not want to put words in your mouth.
This criticism is valid; however they are not banning TikTok for this reason. Once TikTok is banned that anodyne entertainment will simply just move to Instagram.
Every generation has its hysterics about the thing ruining the children. No matter how much you ban things, teenagers aren’t going to have the mindset of people in their 30s, but for some reason some folks just can’t see this and will keep trying over and over and over. TikTok, Rap, MTV, Rock Music, Jazz, marijuana… etc. etc. etc. are not the reason your teenager doesn’t think like you.
If we used the logic you used above, then the FDA should not function as it does today and we should allow "snakeoil" and elixirs to be marketed because, you know, people can decide for themselves. [yes I understand the loophole of "herbal medicines"]
Let teenagers publish but don't trend the things that lead to unwitting self-harm.
Just like last time this came up, what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking? I'm no fan of TikTok nor of the CCP and its asymmetric corporate warfare, but the executive branch must not be allowed to invent its own laws.
I think this is a bigger problem, from the article:
> Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.
If they’re worried about the data being lost, ban and enforce bans on collecting that information by everybody. I’m more concerned with google having that information than China (China doesn’t give a shit about me, google has a lot of surface area to affect me)
Likely because it'll become a political football, as everything these days does. "Biden took away your TikToks!" "Here's 23 articles about sad influencers who lost their accounts!"
Data which can distinguish a citizen's political leanings so they can serve the proper content to influence elections, harvested just through the data from their viewing habits
It's funny how when some other country blocks access to eg. facebook, we're immediately talking about how undemocratic that is, how people should protest, etc.
I'm not sure what data exactly tiktok collects, but i'm pretty sure it's not a lot more than what facebook does.
This is a weird example where we are handing our adversaries something, and they are quietly stockpiling it. And we have no idea what they are doing with it, but it's just kind a weirding out our foreign policy experts.
The executive branch is responsible for foreign policy and national security.
This issue is about a hostile foreign government being in a position to manipulate the internal communications and political debate in the US. So it's more in the realm of foreign policy and national security rather than US corporate law.
> The executive branch is responsible for foreign policy and national security.
That doesn't mean they can or should have power to ban any company, communication or program just because of a vague and weak phrase of national security.
By similar logic they should be able to just lock up foreign citizens because they might be doing something nefarious for their states. No --- this is what rights are for, and the rule of law still applies.
That's a bill that went through congress, and it only applies to the government's own use of those company's products (which I agree with on several fronts).
Executive branch put Huawei on doc's entity list, which means US businesses can only interact with Huawei in limited situations with explicit licensing from the export control folks.
Carr is calling on congress to craft a bill, so that's in line with this. The situation is different there because the threat is different - the greatest threat from China is if they have a backdoor to US gov devices. The greatest threat with TikTok is (from the article):
> Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.
I don't think you realize the scope of this part from the article linked, "In the end, Congress decided on a measure that will essentially ban the US government or anyone that wants to work with the US government from using components from Huawei, ZTE, or a number of other Chinese communications companies." The "anyone that wants to work with the US government" is incredibly broad and effectively banned them from our telecom industry and many others.
Here's another article
> On Sunday, May 19, 2019, Google publicly declared that it would be complying with Trump’s Huawei ban. Interpreting the language of the order, Google determined that the proper course of action would be to cut Huawei off from Google’s suite of digital products. [...] Not long after Google made its announcement, other US-based companies followed suit. This included Qualcomm, Intel, Arm, Microsoft, and many more.
i agree, plus China doesn't play by the same rules they ban a endless list of sites/apps from outside of China then copy the product to be used and profited from inside China and out..
Then enact broader policy that addresses privacy and security. The government shouldn't pick and choose winners and losers because it doesn't like how they operate. It should establish the rules for every company to abide by.
This question is tired. Of course it will be the one "in charge" that decide that. Why is that even a question? I see it posed like it is a thinking exercise on what people might like/dislike or whatever, when it will so obviously be the dictator/totalitarian that has become the leadership that will start banning speech. What type of speech getting banned will be obvious as well as it will be anything that questions or goes against those in charge.
Maybe a reciprocity rule is what we need: ban foreign companies from operating in the US whenever an equivalent US company wouldn't be allowed to do the exact same thing in the foreign country.
yes exactly, never understood why we allowed this to happen look at how strict they are with even simple business trying to open in China you basically have to give them all your proprietary info before they allow you to partly own your own business in China.. You can't even invest into Chinese stocks... they play by their own rules to benefit them self's and we allow them to do so
No reasonable adult (in any country) would go on the record to propose that a hostile foreign government should run any part of their internal communication infrastructure. It's well documented that all companies in China are beholden to the political whims of the Chinese Communist Party; when national security is at issue, Chinese companies and the Chinese government are one entity, sadly.
I'm squinting skeptically at all the comments here that are confused about this, especially the ones with extra helpings of carefully chosen rhetoric (whatabout-ism, free speech, free markets, etc). There are no "free speech" issues here, ByteDance is a foreign company, not a US person. This is a national security issue.
If you think it's cool to allow TikTok in Western countries, please explain why it would have been fine to allow the Nazis to run the Royal Mail, the US Postal Service, and one third of the broadcasting services in the 1930s. Would that have been a "free speech" or "free market" issue?
The Chinese government has a long way to go to earn the trust of other countries.
Comparing tiktok to the post office circa 1940 is… an odd choice.
Tiktok is more like a foreign power owning playboy and mad magazine. People making dumb videos for a laugh isn’t critical communications infrastructure it’s entertainment. Banning ZTE and Huawei makes sense… but if your culture and infrastructure is so sensitive that Chinese ownership of dumb entertainment is a threat… you’ve really already lost.
If tiktok as foreign spyware is a problem, ban the mechanisms of surveillance, everyone does it and it’s not only a problem when China is in control of the data.
People underestimate the power of TikTok to influence opinion.
Strangely, TikTok makes up a large part of the "information diet" for a lot of people. It's tough to find a great analog from 1930, but I think the postal service analogy is in the ballpark.
no, it's not. "information diet" is not the point. the postal service was the mechinism by which information traveled. a person's information diet is what they choose to pay attention to, communications infrastructure is how information moves.
My TikTok feed is mostly stand up comics and absurd sketches from American 20-somethings. I think characterizing TT as “internal communication infrastructure” is a massive stretch.
That said, I could see the argument that what TT chooses to censor or uprank is a kind of soft power that could influence American attitudes over time. But I’m not sure this is any more significant than say, Chinese influence on what Disney chooses to include or not include in their films.
Right - it's complicated and nuanced. Some Disney censorship is probably benign, right? This is the argument made by the crowd urging inaction.
Consider the recent example of John Cena, an actor in the "Fast and Furious" franchise, apologizing to China for calling Taiwan a country. Is that apology good, bad, or irrelevant? Probably irrelevant by itself, I'd say.
But what about China's ability to coerce John Cena into making that apology? This is more akin to the problem you might see on TikTok. Influential people that others look up to parroting Chinese propaganda, wittingly or unwittingly.
It doesn't require much imagination to see the problem. If China secretly coerced 10 famous actors to say, "the US should leave Taiwan to China," and those videos had >100 million views in the US, that could be a very successful influence operation. TikTok could be a means of distribution for that kind of thing.
I think it doesn’t have to be coercive or even conscious. Basically there’s a million content creators out there saying different things. On their own volition, some will say stuff the Chinese government likes, some will say stuff the Chinese government doesn’t like. The former get upranked, the latter get downranked. The outcome is it seems like “everyone” believes the former.
Lots of responses about 'I only see funny comedians' or 'Tik Tok is only about dumb entertaining videos', etc.
This misses the forest through the trees. The dumb videos are the mechanism through which a foreign and often hostile world power is able to create a profile on millions of americans and learn everything about them.
All this data is fed back into other Chinese government groups and organizations which leverage it to determine how to best spread divisiveness, propaganda, misinformation and more through all the other platforms (FB, Twitter, News, etc).
The funny videos is the honey pot trap to collect all the data to create profiles, it may or may not be the primary way the Chinese government then uses that information to influence or nudge people but it informs and empowers all of that.
Also, TikTok's algorithm is specific and targeted. Just because your feed is only funny videos doesn't mean everyone else's are too. Even if everyone in your 'group' sees the same funny videos, there are many other groups that have entirely different feeds and many other variants.
This has nothing to do with free speech, no one is saying you can't say this but not that on TikTok. This is about the existence and allowance of it in the first place. Plenty of other forums for the speech.
I wonder how people would react to this issue if TikTok had come from Iran or North Korea rather than China.
You're right, this is probably the main problem (rather than the ability to change the content on TikTok.)
So you're implying that their future influence operations could be enhanced and better targeted by using profile-level viewing history on TikTok, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used FB profile data to target political advertising?
Exactly, TikTok is for information gathering and profiling so the government can know what swaths of the population to target more effectively for whatever goal they have.
What's valuable is all the information they can gather: contacts, age group, political affiliations, interest, geographic location, race, gender, interests.
Everything that happens in TikTok is monitored and tracked even the in app web viewer that shows when you click a link. All activity in that is tracked (the page, duration, links you visit etc).
These problems of security/privacy obviously exist for other foreign and domestic companies, TikTok is one of the most egregious and more threatening because the US has no recourse against it. At least if it were a US company, they could become subject to US laws requiring better data management, anonymization, require deletions on request etc.
Being a foreign owned and operated entity means it is subject to no existing US laws and will never be subject to future US laws.
How do you ban TikTok if they broke no law? If they’re kicked off all the app stores, they’ll just live on the web. If they’re not allowed to do business in the US, they’ll serve content for free, if their aim is indeed data gathering.
> No reasonable adult (in any country) would go on the record to propose that a hostile foreign government should run their internal communication infrastructure.
frankly, calling tiktok internal communications infrastructure is idiotic.
I can't wait until China invades Taiwan and their is a statistically significant shift of gen-z support for Chinese imperialism, or more likely, support of american isolationism.
The whole emergence of TikTok in the US was an almost hilariously slow moving policy crisis. We know it's nefarious, but no one has really figured out a coherent reason of why.
Like, even before it really took off in the states you could read reports of this highly addictive, nefarious platform that the CCP had their fingers all over getting ready to be bottled up and shipped over to the US.
So now that it's here, we've poked and prodded enough to go "yep, that's a Trojan horse all right". But we still don't know what it's for.
Is it meant to push subtle CCP talking points and propaganda? Is this a ruse designed to find and track dissidents? Track rising nascent millennial trends? Lure in important officials to capture or intercept their media habits?
And it could just be a vanity project by high ranking CCP members - showing the West that they can develop technology.
no, "we" certainly do "know" it's nefarious. which isn't to say it actually is. understand that we're in the early stages of a new red scare, so china has gone from an important partner to an adversary to hostile, and now it's the enemy in some circles. so now everything china does is nefarious.
That's the thing - we don't know. But there are some very high level endorsements for the whole thing from within the CCP despite the whole venture being not particularly profitable.
There have been repeated reports of negative outcomes as a result of TikTok trends. There have been investigations into the amount of information the app collects and it is far beyond what other apps do (all without user consent). The app is clearly highly addictive.
What sorts of proof would convince you that this is an addictive app that is causing harm?
I think we should separate the concerns being raised:
- If the FCC is concerned with how user data is handled, great! But instead of ad-hoc bans on specific companies, let's introduce some rules or laws which apply across the board. This both removes the appearance of a targeted and capricious ban on a Chinese company (which this seems like), and set clear rules of the road going forward.
- If the FCC is concerned with non-transparent manipulation of political speech or pushing perspectives preferred by foreign governments, that's great! It's a little weird and late to focus on China given that it seems we haven't really addressed the documented Russian interference, but sure. Again, let's have a somewhat more systematic approach than just 'ban TikTok', because of course there will be other avenues.
How would this even work? Get it out of the app stores, fine. But presumably the URL would still be accessible? Likewise sideloading it onto Android devices?
Go after the $ side of it. If it's illegal for US companies to advertise on TikTok, it'll be dead in that market overnight, regardless of app store availability.
If you removed it from the app stores, a humungous percentage of people would no longer install the app. There will certainly be some tech literate folks who do so, but most people have very little tolerance for technical challenges outside of the norm and would stop at, it's not in the app store anymore.
Maybe. For Android it's very easy to sideload, just share a link for an APK download and then open it. Easy and quick enough for even a TikTok-addled ADD brain to do.
Well, not to search very far, but OFAC could simply forbid US persons from interacting with TikTok and its subsidiaries. It would send shock waves through the system, but it can be done.
You can then still sideload stuff, but you are immediately in a violation of OFAC. Naturally, I doubt even US government would be stupid enough to open that particular pandora's box.
So, the thing about championing free speech and free trade is that you also need to allow speech and trade that doesn't benefit you.
If you're interested in giving up America's commitment to either, that's fine, but I'd like to have some say in what other forms of speech and trade are silly to allow.
ummm with how much we are propping up China... a country with concentration camps and that is anti free speech is biting us back if your about free speech... all western films need to be edited to Chinese "speech", all companies must say the right "speech"...
If it feels a bit weird to have your country's media steered by social, cultural, and legal norms[1] of another country, that's just the situation that the rest of the world has been in for a very long time, now, due to America's dominance in international media production.
The United States should not be expected to have a dominating position in media export forever, though, and when its relevance outside the domestic market wanes, its media producers will be free[2] to edit their products with no regard for what the rest of the world thinks of them.
[1] Also, both Television and Hollywood codes were a thing for a very long time.
[2] They are currently free to do so, too, and they exercise that freedom. They just don't do it in a way that is consistent with your values. Since they aren't nationally owned companies, they aren't beholden to you in this respect.
"The United States should not be expected to have a dominating position in media export forever" ?.... who is saying it should? China is trying to dominate the market by limiting others while still being free to export their films to anyone who wants them and forcing foreign films to their "speech"
your saying its fine? that western companies have to bow to the CCP in other to be able to have access to the Chinese market? while we allow them to profit from our free speech/ freedom we have here
So the main issues are leaking private data to Chinese authorities and the risk of foreign manipulation of the recommendation algorithm. -Does this somehow become a blueprint for oversight, in this case Oracle, of these algorithms for other social media platforms? And who wants to trust Oracle to do this?
Civil servant thinks the government should expand its overreach and create new regulations + agencies + jobs for civil servants, even when it goes against the constitution, news at 11.
how is it fine that the US allows every Chinese site/app to operate and profit from outside China while China banns everything outside China internally and just copies the banned product to profit from inside and out? we should of never allowed this behaviour
How is it fine that we allow freedom when another country restricts freedom - is that your question? Should we also be against Uighurs like they are in China?
I don't think we should bow down to the lowest denominator and instead still appeal to what's best for all people.
Sure if you want to go down this route, I don't see why you're singling out TikTok. Do you feel we should stop trading entirely with their country then? I doubt allowing TikTok makes any kind of dent to their GDP versus our other economic entanglements with them.
To me it feels like your argument for banning TikTok is because they ban our applications, and so we should do the same kinds of things they do. My argument is more that we shouldn't measure ourselves against the things they do.
The US also imprisons vast quantities of people and forces them to work. We are also heavily dependent on China economically and any US administration would lose a lot of support from the business class if they started mandating economic decoupling.
In fact statements like this typically mean the opinion given is not the overall direction of the FCC, because if it was a majority opinion they wouldn't need to be playing to the media and would just be enacting their will.