House panel unanimously approves bill that could ban TikTok

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨testeronious@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/tech/congress-bill-bans-tiktok-america/index.html

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/12876226

The measure that sailed unanimously through the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform — used by roughly 170 million Americans — is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.

US officials have cited the widespread commercial availability of US citizens’ data as another source of national security risk. The US government and other domestic law enforcement agencies are also known to have purchased US citizens’ data from commercial data brokers.

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Comments

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dzaffaires@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Let’s ban one app instead of making laws that govern personal data for everyone.

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- bassomitron@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Not to mention this does nothing. ByteDance could easily just stand up a shell company with a puppet in another country and have it become the owner. Our lawmakers and regulators are fucking morons.
  
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    They aren’t. They’re just well paid. Meta and Alphabet don’t want competition.
    
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- dinckelman@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  North American politics don’t work like that. We all know there are gigantics gaps in the reasoning behind everything. Domestic companies do the same damn thing, but a part of that money has already gone into someone’s pocket, because lobbying is a huge part of the decision making process
  
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- state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s only bad if other countries are doing it.
  
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verdantbanana@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
our minimum wage is $7.25, no universal health care, the cops are militarized and keeping citizens in their proper places, food/ housing costs are more than our pay, transportation costs have skyrocketed, the postal service needs attention, we have fifty states not working together

but we showed that China TikTok what for BY GOD! they ain’t gonna spy on us BY GOD!

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- Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I am still semi convinced that the ban is really because there are a lot of tiktokers devoted to exposing trades and corruption of congress critters in near real time. Tiktok has a lot of flaws, but it’s great for finding breaking news.
  
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  - ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m there as well, but on a broader scale: I think they’re wanting to ban it because they don’t have a hotline to Xi so they can get shut shit down. Basically want it banned for doing the same things Google does, but the problem is it’s not run by their own Musk-on-a-Leash
    
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- soloner@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fuck your whatsboutism. This is good news; tiktok is a propaganda machine.
  
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  - TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The cyber security professional inside of me wants to agree with you. The Liberal in me doesn’t want to give the government the authority to ban speech and what citizens are allowed to watch.
    
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  - Specal@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lemmy is also a propaganda machine, let’s ban this platform too then.
    
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  - Nima@leminal.space ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    are we going to ban youtube as well? which has more than tiktok? or lemmy for that matter? or any other forms of social media?
    
    people who fear monger tiktok make me worry that they fail to see the bigger picture.
    
    tiktok isn’t the problem. the fact that propaganda is monetized is the problem. and banning tiktok will fix nothing whatsoever.
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So you’re going to shut down YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc as well right? Considering they all do the same thing and FB even interfered in an election?
    
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  - umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    so is instagram and facebook but you don’t see people want to ban them.
    
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- ares35@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  the legislation that needs to get passed, cannot, unless and until the house majority swings about 20 points the other way and the sliver of a majority in the senate is boosted by at least another 10.
  
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- K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Those are the issues they dont want us collectively talking about, sharing our lived experiences and how they dont line up with the bullshit our government is gaslighting us with
  
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retrieval4558@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This may sound like a rhetorical question but I promise it’s sincere.

Why would I be more concerned about China having my data than when the US has the potential to collect that same data AND MUCH MORE through surveillance that we know they do? My own government has a much higher potential to do me harm than one on the other side of the world.

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Saw another post that had many great points. What if TikTok leaned into propaganda, topics like reunification with Taiwan? I promise that will effect us, big time.
  
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  - JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Good point, let’s censor political speech.
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    What if China bought targeted ads on Meta?
    
    That’s never affected our country at all…
    
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  - SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    What if isn’t a valid reason for jack shit.
    
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  - retrieval4558@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I agree that would be problematic.
    
    However I’m not willing to allow the government to ban a social media platform that a lot of people enjoy and rely on for community building (or even their livelihoods, in a lot of creators’ cases) on a “what if”.
    
    Think about the precedent this sets. What could it be used on next?
    
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  - Davidchan@lemmynsfw.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    China absolutely doesn’t want the US talking about Taiwan or the island of Taipei at all. They want the West to forget it exists entirely so they can “reunify” with it the same way they squashed out Democracy Riots in Hong Kong once the west got bored and stopped paying attention.
    
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- pastabatman@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because China has interests that are in opposition to US interests, and they can sway US opinion any way they want by covertly manipulating the feed. They absolutely can do significant harm with this, including but not limited to selecting politicians, inciting chaos and political unrest, and even economic destabilization. I’m not sure that the US government actually has a much higher potential to do you harm than a foreign enemy of the US with a weapon like social media as you stated. You could make a strong argument that the political shitshow we are currently in is partially due to foreign interference through social media, and that is before they owned the actual platforms. The US government is not incentivized to destabilize itself at least.
  
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- m13@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  As an individual I’d rather be giving my data to China who probably have no interest in me personally, rather than a Five Eyes country who want my data to spy on me, and have more interest in persecuting me, stopping me at borders, etc.
  
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- force@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  probably because China is a foreign country and the US is (presumably) where you reside, and you should apparently trust your own government only. but i don’t know exactly what a foreign government would want with your personal data anyways
  
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- erwan@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I can insult Trump and Biden on social networks, travel to the US then travel back alive to my home country.
  
  I wouldn’t try that with China.
  
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- Davidchan@lemmynsfw.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Each country has the right to say if businesses or entities of a foreign country can operate in their borders. The US Govt is rarely directly involved with operationing a company or business, with the biggest exception being the US Postal Service. So while they might make rules and regulations for how companies can do business, these businesses are privately owned, what information they gather on clients or users is for commercial use, typically for advertising purposes.
  
  With Chinese companies, this is not the case, even companies that are technically privately owned are heavily managed by the CCP if not directly operated or owned by an official member of the govt. So while in the US if a company like Instagram or Twitter was told by the US govt to hand over information about certain individuals, without a warrent clearly defining what data to hand over and the reason for it, those companies can and in the past repeatedly have used legal means to resist and deny those demands. This isn’t a thing n China, and there is a lot of rumors that all the data these Chinese originating platforms collect by default goes to the Chinese govt, who can use it for anything from espionage, using insider information gathered illegally to manipulate markets or officials, to even things like blackmail or planning military actions in extreme cases. The CCP and all their associated companies have repeatedly shown in the past they don’t care about the rights of citizens in other countries, copyright laws or intellectual rights, and would be more than happy to turn every teenagers smart phone into a listening device into peoples homes and tailor content shown to individuals they identified as someone they can manipulate to radicalize them in a manner that suits them without any regard to that persons wellbeing.
  
  If you think the US Government is untrustworthy (which, yeah it’s not) then you should be absolutely horrified at the thought of ever allowing the Chinese Govt and the CCP having access to any of your personal life or allowed to put software on your device and partake in a social network they curate and moderate.
  
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Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is misleading. It mandates that Tiktok be sold if it’s to continue operating in the US.

Which honestly I support. It’ll probably just be sold. Even if it’s not, the CCP should not have a direct pipeline to feed US citizens whatever they want (even if they’re allegedly “not using it for that”).

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- Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  All the CCP has to do is buy advertising. If Russia can swing a presidential election with Facebook then do can the CCP. None of this makes any sense unless we actually hold executives accountable for the actions of their companies. No more second chances after admitting to Congress that they flaunted the law almost continuously from the last time Congress caught them.
  
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Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why doesn’t the government just make their own spyware entertainment app that’s better than tiktok? 🤷🏻‍♂️

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- BeMoreCareful@lemdro.id ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  YouTube shorts algorithm sucks. It sucks so bad you realize how bad YouTube videos algorithm sucks.
  
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  - GeneralVincent@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah comparing the TikTok algorithm to the YouTube shorts algorithm is like comparing the original Avatar the last Airbender to any of the remakes.
    
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captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Congress’ priorities are fucked.

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iterable@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Never forget back during height of pandemic Zoom was actually caught routing all data through China. Said oops mistake and giggled. Hey look Tik Tok is evil and connected to China…but how much more evil then Facebook?..uhh CHINA!!

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degen@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I, for one, only want domestic adversaries abusing my personal information. Actual rocks and fence posts are smarter than this.

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- CeeBee@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Tiktok isn’t about advertising. It’s CCP propaganda. Studies have been done that demonstrate that the Chinese only version Douyin shows more positive content to its users and Tiktok shows far more negative content that has a measurable effect on the mental health of younger people.
  
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  - degen@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    To me that sounds an awful lot like TikTok being closer to good old American media than some Chinese psyop.
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s uh… The NYPost article you’re flogging. Which is brave considering NYPost is a rag.
    
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Jamil@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tiktok has been the only massively popular social media app that hasn’t censored pro-Palestinian content. I used to be against tiktok for it’s ties to China, but I’ve been convinced it’s important to maintain freedom of speech.

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- DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t use TikTok but wasn’t it heavily criticized for censoring pro-Hong Kong content?
  
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- Mastengwe@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  So you’re fine with yours and everyone else’s info being sent to china because they allow the type of speak that you like?
  
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  - Jamil@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So the choice is the American government having my data, which is fully committed to genocide, or the Chinese government which is speaking out against this genocide?
    
    Right now, China is the lesser evil.
    
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  - Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The “American” social media companies and data aggregators have repeatedly been caught selling your information to the CCP. The only difference is tiktok isn’t selling it to them.
    
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csm10495@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If the same videos TikTok had were instead on YouTube shorts, would all you people be happy? What about if Meta had it? It’s pure nationalism and old people being scared of short form woke-ness.

I believe every social media has a misinformation problem, but I’m not just pinning it on TikTok.

Heck, our fear is the same reason we don’t have cheaper EVs. We say 'the CCP… ’ and poof less competition and shitter availability for Americans.

I think it’s ridiculous. I could care less if the CCP knows what type of short form videos I like. I’m sure our government has the same type of data. Obviously users could care less too. Leave choice to the people: hence freedom.

I believe in freedom of speech. Trying to take this (stupid) app away is a violation of it. I don’t care about who owns it or gets data from it.

And no: I don’t regularly use TikTok.

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- TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Its performative. There is at least logic in thinking that if TikTok had US ownership that it’d be more aligned to US interests but unless it was bought by a mega US corp, it’d likely just be a shell operation and nothing changes.
  
  Why single out TikTok and not Chinese nationals buying US real estate, driving up the cost of commercial and residential rents?
  
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  - furikuri@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Why single out TikTok and not Chinese nationals buying US real estate, driving up the cost of commercial and residential rents?
    
    Heavily agree that this is equally problematic, but unfortunately it seems like the choice has already been made that real estate “investments” cannot be allowed to fail. It’s the same reason why they aren’t also targeting US-based companies that have been shown to have ties to foreign rivals, they’re literally just playing politics. Sucks, but for now this at least opens the door for further regulation in the area
    
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- Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean YouTube has both a propaganda funnel into white supremacy and sales of data/advertising to the CCP.
  
  But it’s American right?
  
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K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Congress is after TikTok because it’s impacting corporate profits like the boycotts of Starbucks and McD has done. A place where we can collectively communicate with each other outside of the approved echo chambers. They can’t control how we act and think without being able to control the algorithm

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retrieval4558@mander.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Here is the full text of the bill in case anyone was curious.

www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/…/text?forma…

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ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They know and we know that this is going nowhere. It’s got a very thin chance of being brought to a vote, let alone passing the whole House, and an even thinner chance of passing the Senate. There’s no way on this planet that Biden signs it. TikTok is just too powerful a campaigning platform.

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Teknikal@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Could see it effecting Ios devices but even then people will just use a browser. Not really going to effect pc and Android users will likely just sideload.

So not really sure this would have any effect as it stands.

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- lorkano@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Honestly it could affect it. People might just start using YouTube shorts, they are not much worse than TikTok already
  
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