The risk from TikTok is possibly not speculative at all. I think it’s quite likely the national security apparatus knows something and informed congressmen because they went from being opposed to it to being in favor of it in a short time.
Is it? Because as soon as the ban went into effect and phones started to ring Congress very quickly changed its tune. If it was genuinely a national security threat you absolutely would NOT bend after a few hundred angry constituency calls.
Did congress change it's tune? From what I've seen, congress still wants to ban them, it's just that Trump has exutive ordered that he won't enforce the law.
I know it's stupid to get upset over an app like TikTok, but the ban really did shock me a little, even more so because of how widely supported it was.
What party or politicians support individual freedom in this context? How could libertarians support banning an app?
I hate to get involved with this one because it's not my fight and I don't personally care. That said, I have no issue reconciling the concept of someone who supports individual freedom and banning TikTok. Banning TikTok, at least theoretically, is more to do with TikTok's right to do business here, not your right to use TikTok. I don't think it is illegal to use TikTok if you were to bypass the block. It's illegal for them to let you in.
Not even that, it's unlawful for another business (Apple or Google) to carry TikTok. TikTok can let you in just fine (what are we going to do, sue China?) and you can use it, the app store just can't carry it. It would also be illegal for Oracle to host it.
"it is unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform TikTok, unless U. S. operation of the platform is severed from Chinese control."
I’t’s very clear now that it was the Palestine support among tiktok users that was the main reason. I’m guessing Israel issues typically get that level of support in congress.
I actually think this is the most likely culprit. I think Tiktok deliberately showed Americans all sorts of videos of the horrors going on in Gaza (which certainly there are) but none of the videos from 10/7. They show us people talking about how evil Israel and us are, nothing about Hamas's actions, motivations, etc.
If they wanted to do the opposite, they could show us videos from 10/7 (there are a lot), talk to the survivors, show us historians talking about Hamas's particularly insidious brand of extremism, show videos of them hanging gay people from cranes, etc. Whatever agenda they want to push, it's clear how they could do it.
I think they probably do this with other things too, to make us hate our government. Our chaos benefits China. I think the intelligence agencies showed Congress data they collected on this.
I admit, this is a giant mound of speculation, but even if China didn't do that, it's quite obvious they could and seems likely they would. Whether or not they've exploited TikTok in that manner is certainly debatable but I don't wish to leave them the option in the future.
The other big social media apps were banning or suppressing pro-Palestine content during that time, so tiktok was the only place you could post that stuff. Whether they were deliberately pushing it is debatable I suppose. I am fairly certain it was organic since it was the only big place you could post it.
Is there really evidence that pro palestine content was intentionally promoted or demoted any any social network? Obviously the possibility is there. But US social media can do it too, which kind of just proves that it's worth having a foreign controlled app. If everything is being manipulated to push different agendas, at least have the option to be exposed to one not controlled by the US gov
The left doesn’t support individual freedoms because they believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The right no longer supports individual freedoms because they believe that the privileges of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
Many speculate that the prevalence of anti-prop on Israel-Palestine was a big motivator.
I thought this was rather reductionist until TikTok was allowed back temporarily, only for pro-Plaestine slogans to be suddenly banned when it returned.
Is it the only motivation? No. Given the above and the fact that dozens of highly popular Chinese apps continue to be allowed, does it appear likely this is a leading reason? Plausible.
Considering that the majority of the Congresscritter rhetoric I heard about the issue concerned TikTok as a vector for the spread of antisemitism, I'd guess you're correct.
the only reason the ban came down was AIPAC was not able to get them to ban or silent ban pro Palestine sentiment and voices like facebook etc do.They were wary of it before but suddenly a bill banning gets passed in days something that normally takes months
It is true that the reasoning mentioned by the commenter was also given as an example of why TikTok needs to be banned by a few legislators.
I don't think the closed door intelligence was about that though. I think they probably said that the persuasive power of TikTok was dangerous to the US, but imo, that's very against the First Amendment and the idea of democracy. Americans are allowed to be influenced however which way we want. We run the government, not the other way around
The First Amendment doesn't give any foreign entity any rights. There's no censorship of Americans here, whatever you posted on TikTok you're free to post on Instagram. In fact you can even still post it on TikTok, it just can't be in the Apple or Google app store and it can't be hosted on Oracle servers.
I think a closed door intelligence meeting is unlikely to just be them telling Congressmen scenarios they've already heard. I think they much more likely had some receipts. Some of the Senators in that meeting (from both parties) have sponsored a bill to declassify it and share it with the public, so we may find out.
> The First Amendment doesn't give any foreign entity any rights.
Wait, what?
Are you suggesting the bill of rights only applies to US citizens? Like, does the 5th amendment not protect foreign entities from illegal search and seizure? Does the 2nd amendment not apply to foreign security companies like Securitas?
The security apparatus should understan that anything they do in this case will be performative only.
5000000 downloads already, all legal
many many instances up and running publicly
if it was me, the first task I would give a deepseek model, would be to obfusicate itself
and pattent the results, and start selling copys realy cheap......deepcheap
This is speculating. In other instances, the national security apparatus has provided specific evidence when it existed which makes me believe there isn’t anything more than “XYZ could happen”.
In any case, I think we can do better than make laws based on secret evidence. This is supposed to be a democracy after all. Or something.
> One key for him is that it’s only a possible threat. Our best intelligence, including in a briefing for Congress from the Biden administration Tuesday, is that the Chinese government has not actually done the things the ban fears.
> I look to Jim Himes, who is the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, the ranking member. He's in what's called the Gang of Eight. He has the most exquisite access to intelligence. Jim voted against the ban. And I thought, you know what? If this guy is not seeing anything on the national security level.
> [00:44:36] There was an off the record or confidential briefing to the House Intelligence Committee. You think in that meeting, there was nothing that was very meaningful that was disclosed about TikTok?
> [00:44:45] Nothing that I had seen. Is it owned by the Chinese government? Absolutely. But is there a national security risk? I have not seen that.
Moreover your factoid is misleading because it omits the fact that the chair voted for the ban, along with most of the members. Of the 25 members on the committee, only 4 voted against.
He voted against the March bill that narrowly focuses on the TikTok issue, but voted for the April bill which also includes foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel. They are not the same bill.
> The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden with broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a shorter, six-month selling deadline passed the House in March by an overwhelming bipartisan vote as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app’s owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/possible-u-s-tiktok-ba...)
Putting shit like that in an unrelated bill can be translated as a 'horseman bill' and would have been censored so fast in my country it isn't even funny. What does your supreme court do exactly?
Intelligence is kinda unnecessary at this point. A Tiktok VP already admitted to a UK parliament select committee that they used to harshly moderate anything the Chinese government found sensitive
Q90 - John Nicolson: It may happen elsewhere, and I can tell you what your official TikTok response was to this leak. You did not deny that these were instructions. In fact, you confirmed that these were instructions, but what you said was that the company had changed its policy in May 2019. Previously, you instructed your moderators to take down videos critical of China, specifically talking about incidents in Tiananmen Square, separatism in Tibet, all straight out of the Chinese Communist Party playbook. You confirmed that is what your moderators did, but your defence was that you had changed your policy in May 2019.
Theo Bertram: It is highly regrettable that that is what it was, but it is not our policy today, nor has it been for a long time.
one thing bothers me is that: americans, even americans in tech industry, seems place a ton of trust in the CIA. you know the government often lies, and the media does too. but you seem to really buy into everything the CIA puts out. I'm curious to know why.
lol that’s such wishful thinking and seeing those congressmen in a way too competent light. If they had any hard evidence they’d have published it. It isn’t hard to understand is it.
For some stuff like this it's hard to imagine why they wouldn't be able to make it public. You need public support if you're going to ban an app that a lot of the public likes. Almost certainly IMO, no substantive evidence existed.
While there may very well be security concerns, other countries have handled this by simply banning the app on government devices (eg: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tiktok-banned-on-uk-gover...). You needn't ban the app nationwide to address those concerns. What I believe is more likely is that, this isn't about national security or data privacy, which could be addressed far more effectively with subject-appropriate legislation (such as data privacy laws akin to GDPR), but rather that TikTok was banned over unfavourable speech. It is no secret that TikTok has been used as a platform of citizen journalism, particularly in regards to the Gaza War. Congressmen have admitted as much.
The concerns are about adversarial foreign governments being able to silently target messages to highly-influenced demographics en masse.
I swear I have heard zero people opposed to the ban who seem to even be vaguely aware of that aspect which is the entire actual issue, and instead are completely confused and think it’s about spyware or hacking. Whether or not you agree with the ban, we need to actually be discussing the same underlying issue.
The concerns are that US hegemony over the media narrative is crumbling. Young people, "highly-influenced" as you call them, sees that American bombs are dropped on refugees in Gaza and they don't think that is right. So just do what China itself does and remove everything that challenges the government-approved narrative. Banning TikTok is no different from banning publishers of books the government doesn't like.
Israel is god's gift to Chinese propaganda.Every single Palestinian death further erodes Western moral superiority.
It's like the Mai Lai massacre that never ends.
I am quite sure God does not operate through US JDAM missiles and billions of dollars' of ammunition. God doesn't operate the American media which doesn't report the Genocide.
If US was willing, this Gift could have ended long long ago. I am sure no other country was forcing US to vote against peace at UN.
I am opposed to the way Israel is handling the war and believe they are committing unspeakable atrocities against the Palestinian people. My Instagram reels are filled with content supporting those beliefs. To my knowledge, Instagram is still owned by Meta.
Banning TikTok has literally nothing to do with silencing pro-Palestinian content. For fuck’s sake, Trump is trying his best to bring it back while threatening to deport students who engage in pro-Palestinian activism.
It might have something to do with 90% of the justification as articulated by the bill's own authors and supporters, and especially in the arguments before the Supreme Court and their opinion upholding it, being about "content-neutral" goal of blocking the ability of China to spy on US data.
Even when TikTok themselves tried to argue that the primary reason was to prevent foreign control over a recommendation algorithm, the Supreme Court said "nope, Congress's primary motive was the data collection."
And you weak-minded simpletons have to be protected from those dangerous ideas for your own safety. We have to fill your heads with only good thoughts, the ones we select for you. I know this is the stated issue, people won't shut up about it. It's a bunch of bollocks. How China handles their media isn't a blueprint for how we should do it. I wouldn't trust this power in the hands of my parents who love me unconditionally, I sure as hell don't trust this power in the hands of the worst people alive right now. If you're a Republican substitute Nanci Pelosi / AOC.
> And you weak-minded simpletons have to be protected from those dangerous ideas for your own safety. We have to fill your heads with only good thoughts, the ones we select for you.
I'm sorry but I have yet to see a single person who makes this point admit that it's a form of speech suppression. This is classic First Amendment precedent. Just because the speaker is someone you don't like, or its content is anti-American (or what have you), doesn't mean it's not protected speech.
This has nothing to do with the speech. The speech is protected as always. You are free to say the same things on any platform you like: soapbox, print, a website, social media, anywhere.
What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience.
How I read your stance: You are not allowed to hear what they have to say. They have poison thoughts that will infect you and others around you. We must protect our children from poison thoughts.
We can either strive for an educated populace that can identify propaganda or we use propaganda ourselves on ourselves. Propaganda is winning.
Not sure what's hard to grasp about a country deciding it's a bad idea to allow adversarial nations to run psyops on its populace at-scale.
Your solution is to open the floodgates, allowing all manner of military/intel-grade psychological manipulation, bots, AI, etc. to be unleashed on our population, but try to educate the entire population to become professionals at identifying and resisting these tactics?
Seems absurd on its face. It's strange to see someone trying to make that sound like the reasonable option.
I'm engaging in curiosity to understand. I'd love to understand your position better. You wrote:
> What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience.
That seems to imply that certain voices or ideas must be excluded to prevent this control. Isn't that, at its core, a decision that some poisonous thoughts should not be allowed to reach certain people? If not, how do you see this distinction? Does freedom of speech not include freedom to hear what others may find objectionable?
What? Many people just don't think the First Amendment applies to foreign nations. (Why would it??) And that restrictions on corporate control/structure for the US-based parts are not speech issues (e.g. imagine if free speech was a defense against an anti-trust prosecution).
The simplest case for banning TikTok is simple reciprocity. China is no longer a market that needs the level of protectionism they currently have to develop. The second best is data privacy. Just a shame they won't apply the same to US companies yet. And then an additional reason is the one that's being used currently - risk of foreign influence. You'd hate to not ban it "because it hasn't happened yet" just for it to happen in the future. China keeping out US apps seems to have worked out great for their local industry, I'm hardly convinced it wouldn't also be a good thing for US citizens. And with the foreign-country thing tossing Constitutional issues out the window, go nuts.
Let's remind ourselves of what the First Amendment says:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Constitution does not consider Freedom of Speech a positive right, one that can be granted to some but not others. It is a negative right against the government. It's about as broad and as absolute as you can get. This is why the right also applies to legal entities (eg: companies), even foreign legal entities. It is not limited to citizens, it is not limited to persons.
The First Amendment famously has limits, which have been tested and have held, repeatedly. These limits generally arise from conflict with other rights or societal good. On the latter point, obscenity is one of the most well-known exceptions. The government can and does make laws against it.
The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent.
If you want to make an argument that it's not happening, that's one thing. But, your assertions about TikTok having some blanket "right" here are false.
> The idea that a foreign, adversarial government would have a Constitutional right to propagandize our citizenry at-scale is obviously not consistent with the societal good (or the "common defense", for that matter), so is outside of the First Amendment's scope/intent.
You seem oddly enthusiastic about giving your government the right to violate freedom of speech for entities you do not like, thus removing a platform used both as a platform for speech and for commerce, for 150 million Americans. It totally makes sense to violate the First Amendment over unproven and hypothetical fears of FYP algorithm misuse. Enjoy your slippery slope :)
Feel free to re-read my comments and address my actual statement, pointing out that your initial assertion is wrong. That, versus changing the subject.
>Enjoy your slippery slope
There's certainly a slippery slope here—and a strawman, but they ain't mine.
You just refuse to accept that entities that you do not like also have Freedom of Speech rights. You continue to believe that Freedom of Speech is a positive right to people, rather than a negative right against the government. You are therefore perfectly fine with preemptively suppressing the speech (and commerce) for over a hundred million American citizens, because you perceive a threat from the FYP algorithm, because you do not value the Freedom of Speech rights of entities you do not like. That is a slippery slope. If you don't want to recognise that either, that's your prerogative.
At this point, why even have a negative-right Freedom of Speech if you're just going to treat it like a positive right anyway? Ridiculous.
Yup, the composition of the Court has changed, thus its stance has changed. But if you choose to defer any and all thought to this Court, who consistently give the government wide latitude to do whatever it wants so long as it invokes the magic words "national security", that's your prerogative. It's a sad way to live though.
If we're parsing at a super detailed level "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" seems even further away from the TikTok law, if anything.
"Apple has a first amendment right to be able to list any app it wants, regardless of source" seems like the only claim you could make. The Lamont case doesn't directly apply since the government isn't an intermediary between Apple and ByteDance saying "are you SURREEEE you want to get this app from them?" And the existence of restrictions on what you can send/receive through the mail make it clear that Lamont isn't a blanket "you can't regulate messages between people" restriction.
So is "hey Apple, don't list things that meet that criteria" different than "hey UPS, don't send things that meet this other criteria"?
AFAICT the Supreme Court didn't really consider it from this angle anyway and just looked at it as a regulation on corporate control, which also seems completely legitimate. Can the US gov't say "certain things require US-person-owned/controlled companies?" They do for other things already.
I think you're both conflating the concept of "free speech = good" with what forms of speech are, at this moment, permitted or forbidden by US law.
For someone who believes in the concept of free speech, the fact that US constitutional rights to free speech in practice almost certainly do not protect overseas business interests is really an embarrassing corner case. Even if you do genuinely consider national and foreign actors to be different kinds of entity, so that it could be ethically sound to protect one and not the other, there's a simple technical reason for constantly the distinction to be artificial: Free speech protection can be gained merely by funnelling the speech through an intermediary US citizen.
I have no way of verifying it, but I heard from someone I believe to be connected enough to know things that TikTok is taking marching orders from the Chinese military.
But that's, imo, not a reason to ban it. When it comes to media, yes curated media like magazines, journals, newspapers, and social media, Americans have the right to consume whatever media they want (minus exceptions like CSAM). If Americans want to watch hours of CCP-edited brainrot scrolly videos, that's 100% our right. We were never supposed to be a country like China or India who bans websites just because they don't like them and because they think people are too stupid to surf the web on their own.
It's not banned, they're forcing the Chinese to divest ownership & control of it, same as China does to US companies, really. The fact is that they'd rather shut it down than be unable to gather location data or build social graphs of their user base.
Frankly the propaganda aspect is the least troubling part of it because you're right, people can make their own choices about information sources.
But figuring out who various military members are connected to, where and how they're moving around, and especially any leaks where people take cell phones in places they shouldn't (remember that ship that installed a Starlink illegally?), they can get quite a bit of intelligence.
Well there’s that and then there is the 2 billionaires with competing social media platforms. Where one is considered a dumpster fire and the other is a retirement home. So why not use that considerable wealth and legislate your competition out of existence.
Speculation, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump’s change of heart on the TikTok ban is due to Musk’s influence.
Musk needs to stay in Beijing’s favour due to the size of Tesla’s investments in China, which Beijing could destroy in a moment if Musk overly offended them. Opposing TikTok ban helps Musk stay in Beijing’s good books, supporting it would have had the opposite effect.
Trust, but verify ideally. I have little doubt tiktok was being used for hostile influence campaigns. But so are American social media. Maybe the difference is in what countermeasures the American government is able to coerce local companies into deploying.
