So when do they plan to do something about those domestic businesses trying to manipulate citizens of America?
US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users
Submitted 8 months ago by ZeroCool@slrpnk.net to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Neato@ttrpg.network 8 months ago
Capitalism abusing citizens? Just fine.
“Communism” abusing citizens? Avengers, assemble!
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
They’re prospective communists. Supposedly they’re going to get there by by 2050, but they just built a new massive luxury tower for their ultra wealthy so…
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 8 months ago
I think they’re more worried that it’s a foreign corporation going after their citizens and not a domestic corporation.
Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 8 months ago
More of a capitalistic dictatorship
boatswain@infosec.pub 8 months ago
I mean, the domestic businesses are the ones who own Congress and are using it to get rid of a competitor.
kalkulat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
After the thousands of years of human history I’ve read about, getting rid of competitors seems to have been the primary concern of most of the ruling classes all over the world. Way back to Ur.
krashmo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
While you’re not wrong about double standards, anything that discourages the use of vapid social media platforms is a win in my book. Use whatever backwards logic you like to make it happen so long as it’s effective.
trolololol@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well this goes into the direction of social media monopoly so I’m not sure
Ghyste@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
As soon as the foreign businesses get better at harvesting data than the domestic ones, of course.
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Whatever Tiktok is doing, the correct response is to write enforcable laws to prevent ANY company from doing what Tiktok is doing.
This is bad governance.
Devccoon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s what they did. The “correct response” is described in the article as the law 50/50 signed here.
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Did you read the article? The bill bans tiktok for being foreign. There is nothing in this article that describes a bill that outlaws any practices, conventions, or actions that tiktok has done.
Being afraid of foreigners for being foreign is not effective regulation.
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I’ve read this comment over 10 times now and I have no idea what the words “the law 50/50 signed here” means, so I can’t be sure I understand the argument you are trying to make. My best guess is that you are using circular logic to suggest that every democratically decided upon decision is always the right decision, which is nonsense because democracy is demonstrably fallible.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This was a committee vote. The bill now must advance to the floor, pass a vote there, then go through the same process in the Senate.
Many bills are passed out of committee but are never given an actual vote.
captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org 8 months ago
Especially in the least productive congress in US history, the odds of any actual vote are low.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Technically, while that might have been true at the end of 2023, the US House of Representatives of the 118th congress have voted 796 times with 126 items passed, according to Govtrack.us with at least ten vetoes by the POTUS.
affiliate@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Many users called lawmakers’ offices to complain, congressional staffers told Politico. “It’s so so bad. Our phones have not stopped ringing. They’re teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we can’t take it away,” one House GOP staffer was quoted as saying.
and they still voted 50-0. really tells you something about how much these politicians are willing to listen to their constituents.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
It was a 50-0 to pass the commission and then go to the House floor for a vote and then the Senate for a vote and finally signed into law by the president unless he vetoes it, which is possible imo.
Honestly, teenagers and old people are the sorts of folks that need to be protected from themselves, I might just call in to my local representative to voice my support of forced sale or even outright ban.
affiliate@lemmy.world 8 months ago
what are you even trying to say here? that it’s okay for politicians to ignore entire demographics? or that it’s only okay for them to ignore entire demographics if, ultimately, it’s left up to a different group of politicians to pass the law?
i don’t use tiktok or have any interest in the app, but it’s still very alarming to see a vote go through 50-0 despite a “nonstop” flood of calls opposing it.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 8 months ago
Yeah honestly if a bunch of addicted teens and old people were calling me screaming that I can’t take away their drug of choice when that’s not even what’s happening, and it’s not being taken away just moved to where there can be more control on quality… Then I would be really considering the damage this is doing to them.
I don’t know if supporting the junkies being taken advantage of is the altruistic take that these “absolute freedom” supporters think it is.
Misconduct@startrek.website 8 months ago
It’s not just teenagers and old people anyway. That’s just some bullshit rhetoric. Millennials/middle age folk are abundant on TikTok as well as young adults.
The audacity of some of you to jump into action just to spite “teenagers and old people” is shameful. So easily manipulated.
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
teenagers and old people are the sorts of folks that need to be protected from themselves
Please, big daddy government, protect me from the freedom of choice. I cannot be trusted to consume without your permission.
Atyno@dmv.social 8 months ago
From what I read, the calls actually evaporated opposition to the bill.
Which, I’m NGL, if you’re worried about an app being used by a foreign adversary to encourage anti-social behavior in your youth, a bunch of people calling in acting like drug addicts getting their drugs taken away is only going to erase doubts.
BreakDecks@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Encouraging people to contact their representatives and demand action? Congress clearly can’t have this. How will they do their jobs if they are constantly forced to engage with their constituents?
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 8 months ago
It also tells you something about all the supposed gridlock in Washington that can magically evaporate when there’s money and power to be gained from it.
realharo@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Are they “taking it away” though? Do normal people care about who owns it?
affiliate@lemmy.world 8 months ago
you’re taking it as a given that bytedance will sell the app if this law passes. there is a chance that they won’t want to sell and then the app will be banned. (but i think this unlikely.)
also, if i’m understanding things correctly, there’s the possibility that they do sell and the app still gets banned. the article says
An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale “would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.”
depending on who the next president is, there’s no guarantee that they’ll say any sale will result in the company not being controlled by a foreign adversary. (although this past is just speculation.)
anyways. this bill will certainly raise the chances that the app will be banned in the US. (and it opens the door for other apps to get banned if the US doesn’t like the country they were developed in.)
Nacktmull@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Tik Tok pushes so much toxic content towards children and teenagers it should be shut down in my opinion.
Sl00k@programming.dev 8 months ago
The can very easily apply to every single social media.
Nacktmull@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes but unlike Facebook and other platforms, Tik Tok is aimed at and consumed by minors specifically.
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 8 months ago
I wonder if this could also be applied to games owned in whole or part by Tencent…
Zstom6IP@lemmy.world 8 months ago
i hope they sell conan exiles to someone else, because then the shitty monitization that is destroying the game will end.
funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Or websites? Like Reddit? No, never mind, that’s silly talk.
jaschen@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Good. Fuck them and all social media controlled by any big mega corp. But fuck the CCP especially.
TheFriar@lemm.ee 8 months ago
The fucked up thing is they don’t seem to have a problem with rich 1%ers owning and manipulating millions of people. Only when it’s the Chinese. Facebook, Twitter, instagram are just as harmful. Although the delivery method of the content isn’t exactly “tailored” on those services like TikTok. I dunno how I feel about this. I mean, I think all social media services should die out. This just seems like an uneven hand.
blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
This insinuates that the CPC owns TikTok lmao
Aghast@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well the CCP does exert considerable control over TikToks parent company ByteDance. The CCP has already utilized data from TikTok to track protestors and other “dissidents”
apnews.com/…/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d25…
No the CCP does not own Tik Tok but it might as well own it.
Unfortunately this situation is not unlike what the US government likely does. However, hopefully this precedence building policy recognizes that data privacy from 3rd party entities is needed. Will that standard be applied to US companies? Not likely any time soon but I’m optimistic.
nxdefiant@startrek.website 8 months ago
web.archive.org/web/…/t20190425_836599.html
They don’t have to own it when they can make it do whatever they want. You won’t find critical analysis of anything important on Chinese tik tok.
kadu@lemmy.world 8 months ago
[deleted]just_another_person@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It can still be successful elsewhere. It’s clearly about data sharing.
filister@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think here the point is that the US government seems to be not bothered by Meta’s data collection which by the way has already been used by Cambridge Analytica to swing elections in favour of one of the opponents and most likely used on countless more occasions but it is not super worried about Tiktok.
If they do this they should apply the same measures against Meta and other companies but they don’t. Which is disturbing.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Ah yes, the US, where no foreign company is allowed to be successful.
Such unsuccessful or banned foreign companies include Samsung, LG, Sony, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Aldi, Shell, Siemens…
Goronmon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m surprised that people are surprised that a country would favor it’s own businesses versus foreign ones.
I’m also unsure of which countries act differently from this.
trolololol@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m not surprised but I’m still outraged at the amount of hypocrisy they are pulling off out of this one.
trolololol@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And if foreign politics won’t take care of it call the CIA and tell it they’re hiding oil under the presidents house.
Buttons@programming.dev 8 months ago
My prediction is coming true: www.reddit.com/…/anything_to_protect_the_youth/
DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I watched that commercial - I guess banning TikTok is gonna work, huh?
jaemo@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
What’s more likely to work is something else will appear and distract the gnat-like attention span of our status-obsessed species, and we can go back to tik tok being the sound your you hear at night when you visit your boomer relatives and try to sleep in the guest bedroom.
tiltinyall@lemmy.org 8 months ago
For the commercial yeah, real life is more of a no.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Bytedance needs to figure out which congresspeople Meta has been bribing.
PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Need to donate a couple hundred mil to Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and see if he’ll give up his strategy.
Serinus@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Oh man, is this a game? Are we supposed to name all the reasons this is dumb? The first two are obvious.
Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So NSA backdoors are mandatory but Chinese ones are bad.
redfox@infosec.pub 8 months ago
Yes. 🤷
hark@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I would be more afraid of being spied on by the government of the country I live in than by a government from a foreign country. Who do you think is more capable of doing something to you?
Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You have a choice to not use tiktok, in this day and age you don’t really have a choice to not use a phone…
nialv7@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes, governmental surveillance is always bad. But let’s not pretend being surveilled by NSA is as bad as being surveilled by the authoritarian government of China.
tpihkal@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Both are bad but fuck Xi and the CCP 🖕
jeremyparker@programming.dev 8 months ago
I mean, it’s not one or the other. No interference from Congress means we get surveilled by China and the US. Congress can cut that number in half.
fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 8 months ago
I’ve got you tagged as “CCP shill?”
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The former is more pressing than the latter.
agitatedpotato@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Bold move. Who are they going to blame all the online privacy issues once they cant yell about the Chinese? Or are we going to start pretending everythings fine then?
ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Why do you think that they give a shit about online privacy? This isn’t a privacy bill, it’s a bill stopping another government from doing exactly the same shit that the US government does through domestic apps. They aren’t looking out for people, they’re afraid of the competition.
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I expect the latter
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
High school nerds pay attention. This is how you can make some money and have an excuse to talk to the hot girls…by installing a vpn on their phones so they can still have their tik tok.
Get one popular girls phone set up and every girl in the school will be hitting you up within a week.
Trantarius@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I dislike TikTok as much as the next guy, but I think there are several issues with this bill:
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It specifically mentions TikTok and ByteDance. While none of the provisions seem to apply exclusively to them, the way they are included would give them no recourse to petition this, the way other companies would be able to (ie, other companies could argue in court that they aren’t controlled by a foreign adversary, but TikTok can’t. The bill literally defines “foreign adversary controlled application” as “TikTok, or …” (g.3.A)). It also gives the appearance that this law is only supposed to apply to them, which isn’t what it says but it might be treated that way anyway.
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It leaves the determination of whether or not a company is “controlled by a foreign adversary” entirely up to the president. He has to explain himself to Congress, but doesn’t need their approval. That seems ripe for exploitation. I think it should require Congress to approve, either in a addition to or instead of the president.
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According to g.2.A.ii (in the definition of “covered company”), the law only applies to social media with more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. Not sure why that’s included.
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There is a specific exemption for any app that’s for posting reviews (g.2.B). I’m guessing one such company paid a whole lot to just not have this apply to them.
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Alpha71@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sooo… How do Republican’s square being the party of “Small Govt” and then interfering in a private business?
MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So TikTok is sending out app notifications that they are at risk of being shut down and urging their users to call their representatives right now. They are not going down without a fight.
The 165 days time limit would land the deadline in August-ish, right before the most intense phase of election season in the States, and I do think TikTok would be a very influential part of the election strategy this year.
pjwestin@lemmy.world 8 months ago
…TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn’t sell. It also would lose access to US-based web hosting services.
Oh no. Where would children act out jokes they stole from old tweets?
S_204@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Tik tok is at the root of so many of the social issues we’re facing today. It’s absolutely worse than Facebook, although both need to be addressed.
Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Lemmy.world has horrible takes as usual when it comes to censorship of a platform lmao
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
I don’t see why users would even have a problem with this. Same services, more competitive market, and with less ties to an evil dictatorship should be celebrated, right?
Delta_V@lemmy.world 8 months ago
An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale “would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.”
So apps can still be banned after divestiture, based on an arbitrary decision by one corrupt and potentially insane and/or senile person?
After all the talk of a “rules based order”, I’m disappointed - this isn’t a rule, its a leap of faith into the arms of serial liars.
InternetUser2012@midwest.social 8 months ago
I feel there’s a lot of China influence in this thread. I wonder why that is…
maculata@aussie.zone 8 months ago
The world is on fire but the kids are upset that they have to use another platform for their stupid fucking dance videos.
yamanii@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The world police is scared about the competition lmao, “only us should violate worldwide privacy!”
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 8 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The House Commerce Committee today voted 50-0 to approve a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company or lose access to the US market.
If the bill passes in the House and Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn’t sell.
These applications present a clear national security threat to the United States and necessitate the decisive action we will take today," she said before the vote.
Gallagher also said his bill puts the decision “squarely in the hands of TikTok to sever their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.”
While the bill text could potentially wrap in other apps in the future, it specifically lists the ByteDance-owned TikTok as a “foreign adversary controlled application.”
An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale “would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.”
The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
yarr@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I want my data to be centralized, profiled and used against me, but I want it by American corporations, dammit!
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 8 months ago
U.S. lawmakers can’t force anything on foreign corporations.
If the bill passes in the House and Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn’t sell. It also would lose access to US-based web-hosting services.
ByteDance would be banned from the U.S. market and lose it’s webhosting on U.S. servers.
Also, what’s with the “foreign adversary” status of China?
Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The only social platform that doesn’t try to actively censor Pro-Palestinian voices. What a coincidence that it’s suddenly a security risk.
Big ups to Rathbone www.tiktok.com/…/7289906736847129902
RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social 8 months ago
Ahhh…hmm. Kindof a point-and-shoot sort of thing, isn’t it? Blow away/take over (well, “unrelated parties may buy,” ha ha) any app associable with Russia, North Korea, Iran, or China 🤔 'Course, they can edit that list too.
Nah, I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong. US government never abuses powerful, broad powers it gives itself 😃👍
dephyre@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Can the US Lawmakers do anything about the US companies harvesting my data and selling it off… please?
Potatisen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Yes, they can make more money from it.
soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Can they? Completely wrong question.
“Will they” is what you wanted to ask but the answer is still firmly no
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Honestly it might be “Can they” given how partisan issues like industry regulation are.