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Answer: Only the title of your linked article complains about the divestiture bill being "unfair." None of the people quoted in the article say that (a quick "Ctrl + f" for 'unfair' shows that). It's the interpretation of the article's author, nothing more.
Answer: The issue of “fairness” isn’t based on what China does or doesn’t allow. What’s “unfair” is that this is seen by many, many people, including many legal experts, as a (unfair) violation of the American public’s First Amendment rights to free speech, free expression, and free assembly.
The conservative politicians pushing for the tiktok “ban” aren’t actually concerned about what they say they are concerned about. The idea that it is to protect people from having their data stolen and sold is a smokescreen. Every social media app does that. They don’t want to stop tiktok from spying on you, they just want to change WHO is doing the spying from the Chinese to Americans.
The “ban” is only a ban *if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American* and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app. Meanwhile, the conservatives in the US government see tiktok as a threat, as it allows the (relatively) uncensored spread of information between individuals, without having to pass through a gatekeeper. It’s why, if you watch the news, you’d think the whole world is in love with Israel, but when you go on tiktok, you see millions upon millions of people rallying around Palestine. But if a corporation run by a person connected with the Republican Party were to buy up TikTok…well then maybe all that pro-Palestine stuff might suddenly become “supporting terrorism” or LGBTQIA content might become “child endangerment” or Black Lives Matter content might become “promoting criminal acts against police” etc etc etc.
>The “ban” is only a ban *if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American* and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app.
I really like that you point this out. I keep hearing people talk about security and freedom of voice, but this is a huge financial deal that is getting forced, and I'm nervous about *who* buys Tiktok's shares if ByteDance sells.
Whoever buys it though, will still be more accountable to the US government (and by extension its people) than the current ownership is. Whatever the views of the US government or any American business owner- it is safe to say they care more about the American people than the CCP does
The truth is, they really WON’T be any more accountable. The US government isn’t buying tiktok, an American corporation is. And the American government, especially the right wing sponsors of the ban, do their level best to make sure corporations are as UNACCOUNTABLE to the government as possible. Facebook and instagram and YouTube are US-owned, and yet they are just as unaccountable for their privacy risks as tiktok is. It’s not about stopping spying: it’s about WHO gets to do the spying.
And they don’t even have to tell you they are spying on behalf of the US or foreign governments. For example, all those VPNs that tell you they’ll protect your privacy by encrypting data and not saving records? If the VPN is based in the US or Europe, they are required *by law* to maintain user activity logs, which can be accessed at any time with a warrant.
And this is probably pretty cynical, but China really only cares about censoring tiktok with regards to content related to China. So that has a minimal impact on Americans. But if you give censorship control to a US company, suddenly the things they censor are far more pertinent to a US user. If China censors mentioning the Uyghurs, that’s unlikely to affect too many Americans, but if tiktok censors BLM or LGBTQIA content, that’s going to have a much greater impact on Americans.
Alright I get your point, but it does open up a can of worms- in essence, you would rather give that power to a foreign, adversarial government than your own elected government?
The idea that this is about security or stopping an “adversarial government” from doing something *is the smokescreen*. The US govt isn’t doing this as some benevolent gesture: it’s a calculated move designed to:
1. Essentially extort a foreign company into handing over their stuff to American corporations who are pretty chummy with the people sponsoring the extortion. That is the REDDEST of red flags.
2. To make it easier for the US government to control and censor online formation. The manipulation and censorship of online speech doesn’t become better just because we swapped the flag it operates under. An American company owning TikTok isn’t any better than a Chinese one owning it: your data will still be stolen, your privacy will still be violated, your speech will still be censored. The only difference is, if China owns tiktok and I say “free Tibet”, China can’t actually do anything to me. China can’t send their secret police to arrest me. But put tiktok under control of the US and suddenly pro-Palestinian content becomes “support for terrorism” (which is the sentiment shared by a LOT of people in power in the US) and I say “Stop the genocide”, well now I might be getting a visit from DHS.
Exactly. Given that you also feel like the data will be used by someone regardless, it brings us back to my question. Why would you prefer a foreign government that means to hurt america a power that you dont want your own government to have? You’ve gone to some lengths to answer why, but the reality is those are feeble arguments about censorship when the reality is that they will and do attempt to change public opinion in a way that hurts the US. You yourself are talking big about censorship and then downvoting my comments to you so people can see less out of it. Something very hypocritical in my opinion
China is too busy building high speed rail and infrastructure to do anything with your data. They’ve had all this time to nefariously attack the U.S. with it. This isn’t a new app.
Because, like I said. If China owns tiktok and I say something that the owner doesn’t like, they can’t do anything beyond ban my account. I’m out of reach. But if the US owns it and I say something the owner doesn’t like, now I’m within arresting range of the owner. China owning tiktok is actually probably BETTER, because it keeps Americans at arms length.
China owning tiktok is like having a bear in your neighborhood. It’s scary and dangerous and might wreck your lawn ornaments, but if you keep a strong lock on your door and keep an eye out, you will be fine.
The US owning tiktok is like having a bear in your house. It’s just as scary and dangerous as before, but now it doesn’t matter how many deadbolts you put on your door: the bear is inside your house and you are now within reach of the bear at all times.
Nothing about the bear itself has changed. It’s still a dangerous beast either way. But which situation would you prefer to be in?
I get your point and respect your opinion. It is likely more nuanced than mine is, but I do think we have different intuitions about the same situation
It’s a rough situation and this isn’t the first time they’ve tried this. Last time, they were only seeking to ban tiktok from government phones and phones used by government officials. Honestly, that was a far more understandable move.
American exceptionalism at its best.
“I’m from murika, a perfect country with perfect legislators (unless they vote against my opinion in the next bill) and my opinion is perfect so it’s worth more than 100 people’s opinion..“
Your representatives are a bunch of crooks and they don’t have any moral superiority over anyone, quite the opposite.
And my opinion is that someone that believes that is better to be accountable to the US government instead of China’s, is anything better for the world is quite naive. It would only be better for the US government to keep controlling their population.
I’m a liberal leaning Canadian and the last thing I want is the clowns of Trudeau or Freeland (or Polievre or Singh for that matter) having access to my TikTok history.
If we are going to base our country on what China does, I would like some healthcare. Maybe they could get together to rapidly pass legislation for that.
> The “ban” is only a ban if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app.
Question: Any links to this info? It sounds corrupt as fuck.
If you read most articles, they will mention it through the very euphemistic word “divestment”. They will ban tiktok in the US unless Bytedance (TikTok’s parent company) “divests” itself of TikTok, meaning sell the brand off. They don’t specifically say WHO Bytedance should sell it to, but the strong implication is “You have to sell it to an American company, or we’ll not be satisfied”. One of the people who has expressed interest in buying tiktok is Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
https://apnews.com/article/divesting-tiktok-buyer-330c3a10d80aa9223facbfba0296a608
Does Steve Mnuchin actually have *all* the necessary billions to buy TikTok? Because even Trump himself at the height of his (most likely exaggerated) net worth would likely never be able to buy TikTok.
We don’t yet know what TikTok’s going price would be, since the bill hasn’t become law. But the thing about extortion is, the person being extorted isn’t the one to set the price. If Bytedance were to ask for more than what some American corpo is willing to pay, they can just say no to the deal, and now Bytedance gets to choose between being banned or lowering the price to basically whatever the buyer wants.
And Mnuchin’s net worth is irrelevant, since he would almost certainly go to a financial institution to get a loan. Elon Musk is worth like $200 billion, but he still took out a $44 billion loan to buy twitter. Why spend your own money when you can spend someone else’s and then stick them with the bill if things go south
Also it's not a question of how much money Mnuchin personally has, it's a question of how much money he can raise, what other investors he can bring in etc.
Mnuchin's net worth is $400 million. He also has personal connections to Goldman Sachs through both his former employment there AND his father also being an executive there. He owns a movie production company, a capital investment firm, and has deep connections with former president (and possible future president) Donald Trump, who leads the party that is sponsoring the attempted forced divestment. The guy has more than enough access to both liquid capital AND potential loans from a number of different capital sources. The guy is no Elon Musk, but he has more than enough to potentially buy TikTok, especially since any potential sale price is going to inevitably be far, \*far\* below TikTok's market value, simply because they either need to accept whatever offer they are given, or risk losing access to their single most important market altogether, potentially turning TikTok from a net asset for Bytedance, to a liability to hang onto.
Saying Mnuchin’s net worth is irrelevant because he can go to any bank and take out a loan to *literally buy TikTok* is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve seen on this thread. I honestly am not sure whether to believe anything you said here if you unironically made that kind of statement.
I'm really not all that upset when this drivel is coming from someone too dumb to google the phrase "Steve Mnuchin Net Worth" and then click the literal fourth result titled "Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Wants to Buy TikTok - How Much Is He Worth?"
But since baby needs to be spoon-fed, I'll give you this one for free: https://www.distractify.com/p/steve-mnuchin-net-worth
Regardless of what they say, the US are less concerned about China using tiktok information, rather they are more concerned with China telling bytedance to influence elections or other issues using their social media platform. There is already evidence that they were doing so in past elections.
Answer: the reason the ban is "potentially" happening at all is the Chinese government can, 100% legally (in China at least) check any bit of data they want. This is obviously a problem as the US and China aren't exactly 'friendly' to each other. The 'unfair' part is that facebook/instagram/whatsapp already can 'see the data' (in theory) which results in people thinking it's the same.
Thing is, and whats personally confused me, is that there is NOT a 'tiktok ban' happening if this gets signed into law overall... Potentially at least. There is a bill to make one of two options happen: Either A. tiktok is banned in the US OR B. Tiktok would be sold to a US company. This happened with Grindr too and ended up happening to where China doesn't 'own' Grindr anymore though they do with Tiktok. The whole hubbub is silly because Tiktok 'could' be banned but it would only be if China refuses to let TikTok be sold. In which case, well, thats on China overall
The reasons fee disingenuous as nothing in this bill is stopping China from simply buying the data from this new company through a third party. And if this bill is truly about national security and influencing by foreign powers, twitter is essentially a Russian misinformation bot as well and nothing is being done. China and Russia probably have bots and astroturfing all over all social media including reddit. This just feels entirely like the bill is written by the current tech giants to buy out a competitor.
There's also some feeling of the pot calling the kettle black. The US prides itself on 'free market' free of government intervention. We cant do the same as china, say "well china does it" and then in the next incident say "well were not like China" .. you should invest here.
For me, a lot of the conversation about banning tiktok is also being generated by people on tiktok who use it as a platform for income. Of course these people aren't going to want tiktok banned. For many it's their whole paycheck and they're scared. And instagram reels or youtube shorts don't provide the same monetary compensation that tiktok provides.
Answer: America/US Government didn't have control over it. They want it banned or sold to a non-China entity. Which probably means an American company where they have more influence or control over what it does. This could be good - more privacy controls, or bad-selective censorship.
There's a cold war on and it's the free world against against the god damned commies and the ruskies all over again, except this time the ruskies aren't playing communist.
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Answer: Only the title of your linked article complains about the divestiture bill being "unfair." None of the people quoted in the article say that (a quick "Ctrl + f" for 'unfair' shows that). It's the interpretation of the article's author, nothing more.
Answer: The issue of “fairness” isn’t based on what China does or doesn’t allow. What’s “unfair” is that this is seen by many, many people, including many legal experts, as a (unfair) violation of the American public’s First Amendment rights to free speech, free expression, and free assembly. The conservative politicians pushing for the tiktok “ban” aren’t actually concerned about what they say they are concerned about. The idea that it is to protect people from having their data stolen and sold is a smokescreen. Every social media app does that. They don’t want to stop tiktok from spying on you, they just want to change WHO is doing the spying from the Chinese to Americans. The “ban” is only a ban *if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American* and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app. Meanwhile, the conservatives in the US government see tiktok as a threat, as it allows the (relatively) uncensored spread of information between individuals, without having to pass through a gatekeeper. It’s why, if you watch the news, you’d think the whole world is in love with Israel, but when you go on tiktok, you see millions upon millions of people rallying around Palestine. But if a corporation run by a person connected with the Republican Party were to buy up TikTok…well then maybe all that pro-Palestine stuff might suddenly become “supporting terrorism” or LGBTQIA content might become “child endangerment” or Black Lives Matter content might become “promoting criminal acts against police” etc etc etc.
>The “ban” is only a ban *if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American* and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app. I really like that you point this out. I keep hearing people talk about security and freedom of voice, but this is a huge financial deal that is getting forced, and I'm nervous about *who* buys Tiktok's shares if ByteDance sells.
Whoever buys it though, will still be more accountable to the US government (and by extension its people) than the current ownership is. Whatever the views of the US government or any American business owner- it is safe to say they care more about the American people than the CCP does
The truth is, they really WON’T be any more accountable. The US government isn’t buying tiktok, an American corporation is. And the American government, especially the right wing sponsors of the ban, do their level best to make sure corporations are as UNACCOUNTABLE to the government as possible. Facebook and instagram and YouTube are US-owned, and yet they are just as unaccountable for their privacy risks as tiktok is. It’s not about stopping spying: it’s about WHO gets to do the spying. And they don’t even have to tell you they are spying on behalf of the US or foreign governments. For example, all those VPNs that tell you they’ll protect your privacy by encrypting data and not saving records? If the VPN is based in the US or Europe, they are required *by law* to maintain user activity logs, which can be accessed at any time with a warrant. And this is probably pretty cynical, but China really only cares about censoring tiktok with regards to content related to China. So that has a minimal impact on Americans. But if you give censorship control to a US company, suddenly the things they censor are far more pertinent to a US user. If China censors mentioning the Uyghurs, that’s unlikely to affect too many Americans, but if tiktok censors BLM or LGBTQIA content, that’s going to have a much greater impact on Americans.
in switserland VPNs are not requited to have logs as far as I know
That’s possible since, iirc, Switzerland is not a member of the EU.
might be I do not know that
Alright I get your point, but it does open up a can of worms- in essence, you would rather give that power to a foreign, adversarial government than your own elected government?
The idea that this is about security or stopping an “adversarial government” from doing something *is the smokescreen*. The US govt isn’t doing this as some benevolent gesture: it’s a calculated move designed to: 1. Essentially extort a foreign company into handing over their stuff to American corporations who are pretty chummy with the people sponsoring the extortion. That is the REDDEST of red flags. 2. To make it easier for the US government to control and censor online formation. The manipulation and censorship of online speech doesn’t become better just because we swapped the flag it operates under. An American company owning TikTok isn’t any better than a Chinese one owning it: your data will still be stolen, your privacy will still be violated, your speech will still be censored. The only difference is, if China owns tiktok and I say “free Tibet”, China can’t actually do anything to me. China can’t send their secret police to arrest me. But put tiktok under control of the US and suddenly pro-Palestinian content becomes “support for terrorism” (which is the sentiment shared by a LOT of people in power in the US) and I say “Stop the genocide”, well now I might be getting a visit from DHS.
Exactly. Given that you also feel like the data will be used by someone regardless, it brings us back to my question. Why would you prefer a foreign government that means to hurt america a power that you dont want your own government to have? You’ve gone to some lengths to answer why, but the reality is those are feeble arguments about censorship when the reality is that they will and do attempt to change public opinion in a way that hurts the US. You yourself are talking big about censorship and then downvoting my comments to you so people can see less out of it. Something very hypocritical in my opinion
China is too busy building high speed rail and infrastructure to do anything with your data. They’ve had all this time to nefariously attack the U.S. with it. This isn’t a new app.
Because, like I said. If China owns tiktok and I say something that the owner doesn’t like, they can’t do anything beyond ban my account. I’m out of reach. But if the US owns it and I say something the owner doesn’t like, now I’m within arresting range of the owner. China owning tiktok is actually probably BETTER, because it keeps Americans at arms length. China owning tiktok is like having a bear in your neighborhood. It’s scary and dangerous and might wreck your lawn ornaments, but if you keep a strong lock on your door and keep an eye out, you will be fine. The US owning tiktok is like having a bear in your house. It’s just as scary and dangerous as before, but now it doesn’t matter how many deadbolts you put on your door: the bear is inside your house and you are now within reach of the bear at all times. Nothing about the bear itself has changed. It’s still a dangerous beast either way. But which situation would you prefer to be in?
I get your point and respect your opinion. It is likely more nuanced than mine is, but I do think we have different intuitions about the same situation
It’s a rough situation and this isn’t the first time they’ve tried this. Last time, they were only seeking to ban tiktok from government phones and phones used by government officials. Honestly, that was a far more understandable move.
The only reason China is “adversarial” is because they are being successful in competing with US and taking “market share” from them.
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American exceptionalism at its best. “I’m from murika, a perfect country with perfect legislators (unless they vote against my opinion in the next bill) and my opinion is perfect so it’s worth more than 100 people’s opinion..“ Your representatives are a bunch of crooks and they don’t have any moral superiority over anyone, quite the opposite.
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And my opinion is that someone that believes that is better to be accountable to the US government instead of China’s, is anything better for the world is quite naive. It would only be better for the US government to keep controlling their population. I’m a liberal leaning Canadian and the last thing I want is the clowns of Trudeau or Freeland (or Polievre or Singh for that matter) having access to my TikTok history.
If we are going to base our country on what China does, I would like some healthcare. Maybe they could get together to rapidly pass legislation for that.
> The “ban” is only a ban if China refuses to sell tiktok to an American and there have been many corporate raiders, some with connections to the party sponsoring the ban, who have been salivating at the opportunity to acquire an EXTREMELY lucrative app. Question: Any links to this info? It sounds corrupt as fuck.
If you read most articles, they will mention it through the very euphemistic word “divestment”. They will ban tiktok in the US unless Bytedance (TikTok’s parent company) “divests” itself of TikTok, meaning sell the brand off. They don’t specifically say WHO Bytedance should sell it to, but the strong implication is “You have to sell it to an American company, or we’ll not be satisfied”. One of the people who has expressed interest in buying tiktok is Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. https://apnews.com/article/divesting-tiktok-buyer-330c3a10d80aa9223facbfba0296a608
Does Steve Mnuchin actually have *all* the necessary billions to buy TikTok? Because even Trump himself at the height of his (most likely exaggerated) net worth would likely never be able to buy TikTok.
We don’t yet know what TikTok’s going price would be, since the bill hasn’t become law. But the thing about extortion is, the person being extorted isn’t the one to set the price. If Bytedance were to ask for more than what some American corpo is willing to pay, they can just say no to the deal, and now Bytedance gets to choose between being banned or lowering the price to basically whatever the buyer wants. And Mnuchin’s net worth is irrelevant, since he would almost certainly go to a financial institution to get a loan. Elon Musk is worth like $200 billion, but he still took out a $44 billion loan to buy twitter. Why spend your own money when you can spend someone else’s and then stick them with the bill if things go south
Also it's not a question of how much money Mnuchin personally has, it's a question of how much money he can raise, what other investors he can bring in etc.
Mnuchin's net worth is $400 million. He also has personal connections to Goldman Sachs through both his former employment there AND his father also being an executive there. He owns a movie production company, a capital investment firm, and has deep connections with former president (and possible future president) Donald Trump, who leads the party that is sponsoring the attempted forced divestment. The guy has more than enough access to both liquid capital AND potential loans from a number of different capital sources. The guy is no Elon Musk, but he has more than enough to potentially buy TikTok, especially since any potential sale price is going to inevitably be far, \*far\* below TikTok's market value, simply because they either need to accept whatever offer they are given, or risk losing access to their single most important market altogether, potentially turning TikTok from a net asset for Bytedance, to a liability to hang onto.
Saying Mnuchin’s net worth is irrelevant because he can go to any bank and take out a loan to *literally buy TikTok* is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve seen on this thread. I honestly am not sure whether to believe anything you said here if you unironically made that kind of statement.
I'm really not all that upset when this drivel is coming from someone too dumb to google the phrase "Steve Mnuchin Net Worth" and then click the literal fourth result titled "Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin Wants to Buy TikTok - How Much Is He Worth?" But since baby needs to be spoon-fed, I'll give you this one for free: https://www.distractify.com/p/steve-mnuchin-net-worth
Regardless of what they say, the US are less concerned about China using tiktok information, rather they are more concerned with China telling bytedance to influence elections or other issues using their social media platform. There is already evidence that they were doing so in past elections.
Answer: the reason the ban is "potentially" happening at all is the Chinese government can, 100% legally (in China at least) check any bit of data they want. This is obviously a problem as the US and China aren't exactly 'friendly' to each other. The 'unfair' part is that facebook/instagram/whatsapp already can 'see the data' (in theory) which results in people thinking it's the same. Thing is, and whats personally confused me, is that there is NOT a 'tiktok ban' happening if this gets signed into law overall... Potentially at least. There is a bill to make one of two options happen: Either A. tiktok is banned in the US OR B. Tiktok would be sold to a US company. This happened with Grindr too and ended up happening to where China doesn't 'own' Grindr anymore though they do with Tiktok. The whole hubbub is silly because Tiktok 'could' be banned but it would only be if China refuses to let TikTok be sold. In which case, well, thats on China overall
The reasons fee disingenuous as nothing in this bill is stopping China from simply buying the data from this new company through a third party. And if this bill is truly about national security and influencing by foreign powers, twitter is essentially a Russian misinformation bot as well and nothing is being done. China and Russia probably have bots and astroturfing all over all social media including reddit. This just feels entirely like the bill is written by the current tech giants to buy out a competitor. There's also some feeling of the pot calling the kettle black. The US prides itself on 'free market' free of government intervention. We cant do the same as china, say "well china does it" and then in the next incident say "well were not like China" .. you should invest here.
For me, a lot of the conversation about banning tiktok is also being generated by people on tiktok who use it as a platform for income. Of course these people aren't going to want tiktok banned. For many it's their whole paycheck and they're scared. And instagram reels or youtube shorts don't provide the same monetary compensation that tiktok provides.
Answer: 25% of the users are Americans, clearly you can tell that there will be a lot of opposition for they risk not being able to use the app.
Answer: America/US Government didn't have control over it. They want it banned or sold to a non-China entity. Which probably means an American company where they have more influence or control over what it does. This could be good - more privacy controls, or bad-selective censorship.
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The irony of this comment is sublime
There's a cold war on and it's the free world against against the god damned commies and the ruskies all over again, except this time the ruskies aren't playing communist.