What TikTok offered was abhorrent to American sensibilities:
America: we don’t want ccp censorship of people’s content
ByteDance: no problem, here are the knobs for US gov censorship, should be ok!
America: you have missed the point entirely, pls go away
Have a think why this might be, thinking about…
rule of law, acceptability to the public, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, authoritarian states and arbitrary rules.
There is a reason why one place must carefully plan policy, and another place can arbitrarily restrictions on anyone or anything. State violence can be used in both cases, but typically the later will use friends and family for leverage with such state violence.
I just wish for a world without bytedance and its patrons stamping on the worlds faces forever.
What TikTok offers is compliant with American sensibilities considering it follows US laws and is massively popular with US audiences. You know rule of law... acceptability to the public etc etc. If anything PRC restrictions are less arbiturary since it applies to all platform operators, while US is arbiturary since it doesn't.
One can point out the existence of the law is designed to be not about equal application, and highlight that is reflection on quality of law and the interests behind it. Ultimately, it's applier's perogative to push unequal application. Highlighting this scenario is one where US is more rule by law vs PRC rule of law is certainly going to seem like a mistake to those who want to interpret it as the opposite.
Again, you are missing the point, which may be a product of your environment. It’s not about systemic differences, or who is doing rule of law “properly”.
One side is pointing at knobs with the word China crossed out and replaced with USA.
The other side is shocked that someone would make such knobs in the first place, regardless of their label.
The issue is not the shape of the knob, or the color, or its size. The issue is the knobs existence.
Who is shocked? It's extremely not surprising the knob exists, it's surprising so many people think the knob is one shape when it's another. The original chain is about discussing the shape, not the existence.
Getting closer!! You are not shocked, and can’t see why anyone would be surprised the knob exists. This is closer to the root issue.
I want you to think about people that might be shocked,
Not for the shape, but the existence. Or why one might even desire such knobs. Think about why this might be.
It’s all very abstract now. You are not trying to convince me of anything, and all I am trying to do is expand your perspective. Peace to all.
When did I suggest US didn't have sovereign right to ban tiktok? I'm merely pointing out the reality that PRC didn't specifically craft legislation to ban US platforms - they block platforms that doesn't comply with PRC laws. Whereas US has to specifically single out TikTok because TikTok complying with the same US laws as other US platforms still undermines US interests. It's fine to accept US can do what it wants, but let's not pretend they're the same thing.
I’ll start by saying that I’m honestly largely ambivalent about this entire situation (potentially more than I should be - but I find it more difficult to care about things outside of my immediate control as I get older), but I’m really finding it difficult to understand what point it is you’re trying to make. Is your only issue that the US has far less restrictive commercial laws and so has specifically targeted TikTok in this case?
I don't have issue with US specifically targetting TikTok - it's USsovereign right, I have issue with people who forwards the argument that this is the same as PRC not specifically targetting US platforms who chose not to comply with PRC laws that also apply to domestic plaforms, which btw FB and Google both had initives to comply with (i.e. project dragonfly for Google) but was killed due to internal dissent, i.e. it's US companies that doesn't want to deal with PRC laws. At the end of the day, at least PRC requirements are "fair", they don't have to resort to wild requirements like divestment. At most they required local JV/warehousing, i.e. what TikTok offered with Oracle.
So it sounds like if the US had a far more restrictive system, like China currently has, that was applied across the board you would be OK with this? (That’s an actual question, I’m not trying to be combative). I’m also still unsure why targeting TikTok specifically is “wild”, unless again you think the US should simply never be targeting corporations directly - foreign or otherwise - and instead should always be legislating more broadly?
In case it’s not clear, even though I think I disagree with you I want to again say that I’m trying to understand your opinion, not tear you down.
I'm OK with US banning TikTok on whatever legal lawfare/loophole it chooses to conjure, the goal is afterall to ban TikTok, realstically not just from US but from world via US control of app stores. The "wildness" is not targetting TikTok per say, but the specific tactic of requiring divestment, i.e. literally trying to nationalize (or rather de-nationalize) another countries company (and let's be real ByteDance is PRC even if incorporated in Singapore). Even PRC doesn't go further than a 51/49 JV. They'll have sectoral black/white lists, but that includes/precludes everyone, not country specific. It's just comes off as extra fragile rule-by-law behaviour on platforms even relative to PRC, but as I reiterate elsewhere, that's US perogative, I don't find it "wrong", just highlighting how it's extreme even by PRC standards.
"I'm merely pointing out the reality that PRC didn't specifically craft legislation to ban US platforms - they block platforms that doesn't comply with PRC laws"
This says a lot about how restrictive Chinese laws are vs US laws.
And? It's restrictive but equal - hire 100ks of local moderators at extraordinary cost vs cheap out on human moderation and wrecklessly cause anti-social events. If anything PRC laws are prescient considering the reason they existed was lax US platform enforcement causing 2009 minority riots in PRC after which western platforms (twitter/fb) were blocked for literally refusing to censor calls for violence. Wouldn't be until NZ shooting and Rohingya genocide years later that western platforms took a page from PRC model and increased human moderation - incidentally after which when both FB and Google had internal programs to build PRC compliant services - after they learned unlimited speech is stupid, and human moderation was neccesary cost. After realizing scaling up human moderation made complying with PRC laws possible. And the only reason those initiatives failed was corporate internal drama, i.e. it wasn't PRC that stopped them from reentering market. At the end of the day - western plaforms are converging towards PRC model, not vice versa because restrictions fine. They just can't square PRC platforms operating on same local restrictions which says a lot about US laws.
It's Uncle Sam's bootprint... it's as free as any other boot western platforms wears. Except as we learn the boot doesn't matter if it's a Chinese foot.
Who cares who owns the foot. It’s the action, and the boot, that is the problem.
Don’t make this about the owner, make it about the action. And maybe get rid of the boots?
This site isn't the place for Reddit-quality mudslinging. From the guidelines:
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken.
