Comment on Desperate TikTok lobbying effort backfires on Capitol Hill

umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• 7heo@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  AFAIU - but that is a veeeeeery “skimmed” take on the issue, so please check what I wrote before taking it at face value:

  There were legitimate concerns about tiktok (hugely popular platform distributed as a “black box”, with very concerning permissions and behaviours, and owned by a foreign actor that demonstrably uses technology in an extremely dystopian way on their own population), so there was quite a lot of public pressure to “do something about it”, and of course politicians jumped on the opportunity to make a (very) broadly fitting legislation on targeting it, coincidentally also having utterly damaging and immensely concerning side-effects for the end users privacy and sovereignty.

  Following that, some of the people got (rightly) concerned about the legislation’s effect on their rights and privacy, but the vast majority just saw that their digital crack cocaine was being attacked, and started whining with arguments of varying relevance. At the end of the day, though, a given platform is irrelevant. What is, is the abilities given to the users, and the possibilities that those create. But now, we have a deeply concerning platform, still being immensely popular and uncontrolled; a totally unfitting legislation with incredibly wild “side effects”; and a growing, misguided popular movement to “save tiktok” that will only make a legitimate attempt at mitigating it much harder. Yay.

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  • umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Thanks.

    I also had a brief read on the bill you linked and some relavent articles. The bill only cite “national security” yet doesn’t explain what “national security” it causes.

    The Bloomberg article states a few reasons, but none satisfied me to justify a ban. For example, reason 1 points out that the algoritm of generating feed is advanced and intoxicating. So they should be punished for a well written and effective algorithms?

    Yes, there are and were dumb to harmful contents found on TikTok. However, I think it should be a content moderation issue, not a national security issue. I heard people can find CSAM on Twitter and Discord, harmful and damaging it’s, should it get banned too due to “national security” concerns? It just have a smell of unfair.

    Just my two cents.

    Disclosure: I don’t use Facebook, Intagram, Twitter, nor TikTok. I do have a Discord account.

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    • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Because the Chinese government has inordinate control over Chinese companies and is not a friendly government. They routinely use technology to control their own population and work closely with hackers in their country that attack US businesses and consumers.

      There absolutely should be serious legislation on data gathering and how large platforms manipulate public perception with their algorithms, but TikTok is a national security threat at a level the others are not explicitly because the Chinese government has control over it.

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      • umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Because the Chinese government has inordinate control over Chinese companies and is not a friendly government.

        Friendly or not is subjective. I dislike it doesn’t means others are the same, nor I should force them to believe so.

        They routinely use technology to control their own population and

        In US, instead of the government, companies use technology to influence/control their own users. Personalized adverts is one. Also other recommendation algorithms. Yes the scale and motives is different but is one better then the other? I don’t think so.

        work closely with hackers in their country that attack US businesses and consumers.

        The United States does have its cyber arm that conducts offensive operations, such as the Equation Group. Any country that does not have its own hacking team would be seriously remiss.

        There absolutely should be serious legislation on data gathering and how large platforms manipulate public perception with their algorithms,

        I totally agree but should be applied universally

        but TikTok is a national security threat at a level the others are not explicitly because the Chinese government has control over it.

        I can agree that it is a matter of national security if it can affect elections “greatly”, not because of other government have controls. However, the determination of “greatly” is hard to quantify. And even if quantifiable, it is not unique to TikTok as there are many platforms can influence elections, present and in the future. Are we going to ban every single platform that can affect elections “greatly”? This is a slippery slop opening for abuse.

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        All in all, I still hardly justify a bill just to target TikTok or other platforms that is controlled by a “foreign adversary”. Law should treat every entity equal and without discrimination, based on some ideological differences or political preferences.

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    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      They’re not worried about CSAM. They worried about TikTok users being influenced during an election campaign.

      And yes, it is a moderation issue. Specifically, the US doesn’t want the current moderation team to be in charge of moderation.

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      • umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It not uncommon to see misinformatuon to fabricated information appears on many SNS platforms including Facebook and Twitter. It is not unheard of Russia use social media to influence election too via popular platform that is US based. All SNS are subject to the same problem, but only TikTok have more active users thus more far reaching, but again this is a content moderation problem, not the inherent fault of TikTok itself. Whom should perform content moderation is a business decision. It should not be dictated by law, though they can make moderation standards that companies needs to comply. I think this is a bit unfair to just targeting TikTok only, and should be universal.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I have a question. How would it be moderated and by whom? In an age where the warthunder forums literally have a leak of classified info like monthly, and the US is increasingly losing the cyber security war because people can’t do simple things like not plug random usb’s they found on the side of the road into their work computers, I don’t really understand why it’s hard to believe tik tok is a threat to national security.

      The permissions it asks for on your phone are kind of a red flag. Specifically access to the camera and microphone. Mostly because with it being controlled by the CCP (as most successful Chinese Businesses are), it is absolutely trivial for them to gather information “anonymously” about their users, de-anonymize it, and then target those users with anything and everything including pro CCP propaganda. That alone is reason enough for me to understand why federal employees aren’t allowed to use tik tok on any federal device (work phones and computers for instance).

      I don’t necessarily think forcing them to sell to another entity will fix the problems with tik tok. I think this bill is intended to be a “solution” to placate people. Mostly because it doesn’t seem like it’s been written by people who understand the technology. But I also wouldn’t say that tik tok is harmless or blameless.

      Why does tik tok need to gather information about what banking apps I use? What healthcare apps I use? Why does it need my GPS location? Why can it collect with data without my consent? Why and how does it collect information on people even if they don’t use tik tok? Have never used tik tok?

      On top of that Tik Tok got caught spying on reporters with the intent to track down their sources. That’s terrifying.

      welivesecurity.com/…/what-tiktok-knows-you-should…

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      • umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        the US is increasingly losing the cyber security war because people can’t do simple things like not plug random usb’s they found on the side of the road into their work computers

        I’m not surprised when Americans refuse to ware a simple medical mask during COVID.

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      • abhibeckert@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        How would it be moderated and by whom?

        That would be easier to answer if we had a list of people can afford to buy it (that’s a short list) and also willing to buy it (an even shorter list).

        I don’t necessarily think forcing them to sell to another entity will fix the problems

        Sure - it obviously depends who buys it. Elon Musk, for example, would probably be a bad steward. Alphabet? That might not be so bad. As a fan of YouTube, I’d love to see the “shorts” feature killed off and all that content moved to a separate service.

        Whoever buys it, it the US can force TikTok to be sold once, they can do it again if the buyer proves to also be problematic.

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  • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    all the US would have to do to completely and entirely nuke an app (or an entire federated platform!) in the US would be to declare any foreign entity (country, state, corporation, person, etc) their “adversary”.

    Declaring a foreign country to be adversarial to the U.S. is a huge deal, and I highly doubt they would do so just to ban an app. They would much sooner try to pass an unrelated “special case” legislation, and the success of such a bill would hinge on the persuasiveness of the justification.

    I’m fine with the U.S. forcing the sale of TikTok for a different reason, though: internet companies operating in China must be majority-owned and -operated by a Chinese domestic entity, yet the same restriction is not imposed on Chinese investments in U.S. internet companies. Asymmetric markets like this cede a great deal of influence to China, and it just doesn’t sit right with me.

    It can often be beneficial to both parties when two countries influence each other, but such influence must be bilateral.

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