Comment on Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to Biden, who has already committed to signing it
WhatsThePoint@lemmy.world 5 months agoChina made American companies partner and share their IP with Chinese companies when the Chinese market was opened back in the 90s. That’s how China caught up to us in technology, they straight up stole the IP and changed terms on the American companies. I believe there is some tit for tat happening here. China has done a lot of fucked up shit and they are definitely actively hacking American infrastructure and social engineering against American interests. They are harvesting American data and tweaking the algorithm to actively undermine American interests. Whether you agree or disagree, China started this fight. China has banned most American social media already.
A. Creating laws that let us act like an authoritarian regime is not a good thing.
B. They didn’t need to do any of that with TikTok. Late stage capitalism is radicalizing people every day. All they need to do is get out of the way of them finding each other.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 5 months ago
China doesn’t need TikTok to do any of that, including the data collection. They can just get it from data brokers (either by purchasing or stealing it). Because guess what? Data collection and/or sale of said data to foreign countries wasn’t made illegal with this bill.
WhatsThePoint@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Reading the bill further - it does mention the banning of the sale of America data to foreign adversaries enforceable by the FCC. That language does sound like a ban on data brokers selling to China too. It will be difficult to enforce with shell corporations and non-adversary countries who may partner with Chinese companies, but the language seems to be there. Be interesting to see how this plays out.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Indeed.
Kalysta@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Foreign adversaries. What’s to stop them from selling to an ally and the ally re-selling that data?
If they’re this concerned they need to ban data brokers in general. And enforce those bans.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That was already a law. Facebook is being sued for it right now by the government after getting caught doing it multiple times over the last 15ish years.
WhatsThePoint@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I agree privacy bills need to be passed. 100%. One of the main reasons I am typing this here instead of Reddit. I’m just pointing out this is far from just an unprovoked action. There isn’t enough talk in this debate about the host of messed up shit being done to America by China (and Russia)in the digital space. Cyber attacks are at all time high. It sucks Tik tok is getting banned, but privacy laws aren’t also being rolled out. It’s also true that China is indeed using Tiktok’s data maliciously. Both things can be true. My statement was to point out it’s not JUST a cash grab by social media companies, China is also a real threat and that shouldn’t be overlooked.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 5 months ago
It’s not really a ban though, it’s a forced sale. Cyber attacks come from more than just China, and there are more companies selling data to China than just TikTok. I also see (and protect against) cyber attacks every day at my job.
WhatsThePoint@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I thought the forced sale was trying to get it to be able to stay around because a ban was so unpopular while accomplishing the same goal of breaking China’s access to the algorithm. They tried the Oracle housing but Byte Dance kept giving access to engineers with ties to the CCP. Either way, I just get an overall vibe in this debate that China isn’t a big threat and I think that’s a mistake. Not saying you specifically but the discourse that I have read across many posts.