Comment on House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok
CeeBee@lemmy.world 3 months agoBut this doesn’t accomplish that goal
That’s partially true. But there’s a difference between having access to a dataset vs having direct control over an app, which includes the algorithms and content being shown.
In any case, if it goes through to a full ban, you can still use the app. It just cannot be distributed on any app stores. It would still be possible to sideload it (on Android).
And that will discourage a lot of people from using it, which would be the point.
I also would like to see any reports or studies showing China buying data from other social media platforms.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Oh? And what would that difference be?
CeeBee@lemmy.world 3 months ago
If that needs to be spelled out to you, then that explains your position.
You’re either not too smart to understand, or you’re a tankie of some kind.
You also completely dodged the part where you need to backup your claims about Facebook selling data to China.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Buddy. I’m not the one here who’s naive and I’m not a tankie.
Facebook being sued for giving data to Chinese companies with tighter relationships to the CCP than Bytedance is literally headline news right now. I’m not going to spend time linking reality to you.
The fact is you’re bending over backwards to defend an unconstitutional law with unprecedented powers. The common sense and constitutional law is staring you in the face. Make it illegal on pain of ban to give, or sell American data to a sensitive country; or otherwise cause American data in your company’s control to come into their possession.
There’s one paragraph that removes the xenophobia, holds the entire data industry accountable, and is constitutional.
The question of what’s the difference isn’t some cute gotcha thing. Datasets are storage containers. China will keep their data in one too. So what is the difference between getting everything Facebook can scrape and getting everything TikTok can scrape?
And you need to look up targeted advertising. It’s literally creating a custom algorithm on everything from Reddit to Facebook to Google Search. Which is why it was used by the Russians to impact our 2016 elections via Facebook. Yet another reason your demand for evidence about Facebook is ridiculous.
CeeBee@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I looked it up, and you’re right that there’s an issue there. But that’s an issue with an American owned company giving data to an adversarial country (two actually, China and Russia). It’s 100% absurd and shouldn’t be allowed with heavy penalties. But that’s still a different issue than the one we’re talking about.
Two things: I’m not American, and it’s not unconstitutional anyways. There’s nothing in the bill that says no one is allowed to use it. And the first and preferred option of the bill is to sell ownership of TikTok to an American firm, essentially to divorce control and influence of China from the largely American userbase. If, and only if, the transfer of ownership is not possible then the app is to be delisted from all app stores.
That means that it’s still possible for existing users to use the app and it’s still possible to install the app through official means without either thing being illegal.
reuters.com/…/proposed-us-tiktok-ban-not-fair-chi…
Another interesting thing is that the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it will protect its rights and national security interests (paraphrased). What on earth does TikTok, an app that’s Chinese owned and banned in the very country that owns it, have to do with Chinese National security?
That a very telling thing to say.
I can agree with this, but the TikTok bill has nothing to do with xenophobia. If China wasn’t an adversarial country actively bullying and threatening other countries with war and annihilation then it wouldn’t be an issue.
In fact, let’s go a step further and implement sweeping data protection laws so that our data can’t be sold for any reason.
No, it’s not a “cute gotcha thing”. It’s pointing out the difference between passive data collection and active control to influence content.
I know very well what it is. I work in the tech sector (IT/programming) adjacent to cyber security.
Right, so if you think targeted advertising is bad when company A sells data to company B, who then builds algorithms to target people for political party C, imagine how bad it is when that entire process is vertically integrated and directly controlled by a foreign adversary. And to add to that, we’re not even just dealing with ads anymore, we’re dealing with grassroots-like influencer content with talking points from the CCP.
You gave me an example of one really bad thing and said it’s the same thing as a different and extremely bad thing.
Both of them are bad need to be addressed. But with TikTok being run by a CCP-influenced company in a country that laughs at American laws, there’s little recourse to deal with it.