Good. We have something called "due process" in the US, and the attempted TikTok ban violates it.
Due process is a bedrock of American law. It means government officials can't just "do what they want" and make arbitrary decisions with specific targets -- which is exactly what the TikTok ban is.
You want to ban TikTok? Great, you need a specific law from Congress that outlines under what circumstances companies may be banned in the US, and then prove the specific company meets those standards.
None of that has been done here. The president is not a dictator. TikTok should absolutely sue.
Note: this is regardless of anything TikTok has actually done privacy- or security-wise. The point isn't whether they're dangerous, the point is whether we can meet some standard of showing that they're dangerous. If they're dangerous, we need to establish how and why legally. This is what separates the rule of law from dictatorship.
Exactly. As far as I'm aware, TikTok is pretty much malware, meant to collect every single possible piece of information it can get access to on your phone, so I would recommend everybody to avoid it, and I'm not opposed to a ban at all.
What matters is the way it's banned. And why. And the current process feels every bit as wrong as TikTok itself.
What the US needs is proper data protection laws. And then it should enforce those laws equally against US and foreign companies. Just arbitrarily banning one thing because you realise that what you always allowed for US companies, is suddenly a problem when it's a Chinese company, is absolutely wrong.
That ship has sailed long back. With the patriot act and other legislations in this area that gives enormous power to the executive , also the secretive FISA court which hardly rejects any warrant requests etc , there is no real due process when it concerns “national security” .
Congress can hardly control the three letter agencies violating amercian rights on a massive scale or blatantly lie under oath in testimony
Don’t think a foreign company is going to allowed to actually proceed with a suit involving national security as the administration is going ton claim
"You want to ban TikTok? Great, you need a specific law from Congress that outlines under what circumstances companies may be banned in the US, and then prove the specific company meets those standards."
There is a specific law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which specifies when and how a president can ban economic exchanges with foreign entities. I think you will be disappointed to find out that under this law there is no real due process required. The president only needs to declare a national emergency in regards to the ban and then send a report to Congress detailing why the declaration and ban are justified. If Congress disagrees it is justified they can pass a resolution overriding the ban.
Due process resulted in the presidency having way too much power.
Now, due process has to start focusing on increasing the federal structure of state’s power and the power that comes with their senators / house / etc.
So if the problem is that TikTok is gathering too much invasive data on US citizens (and supposedly siphoning it to China), and their defence is basically "So what, it's legal and everyone else is doing it too!", then isn't the obvious solution making actual digital privacy legislation that would make such data vacuuming illegal? That would solve the problem and make the American market a fair playing field rather than this hamfisted protectionism.
The problem isn't digital privacy; it's a fair bit more complex than that. Tech lenses aren't a great way to view geopolitics.
The US' international economic dominance is predicated on a (1) pronounced lead in certain industries and (2) a simply massive economy, which combine to (3) let the US set the rules of international "fair play." The US is where you find the thing you want to buy, and the people you want to sell to. You want access? Play by our rules - everywhere.
Tik Tok does not just threaten US data. It threatens our lead in a critical industry (1), and comes from a country that minimizes the impact of US economic might (2), meaning that China can set their own rules of "fair play" (3). Banning Tik Tok isn't to protect US data; that's totally missing the point. It's to protect the American ability to set international norms.
From that lens, this is certainly hamfisted, and I certainly don't believe views it like this, but you can damn well bet the policy nerd drafting this EO is thinking this way.
You can’t have a fair playing field with China unless they also have a fair playing field with the US. That has not ever been the case. China wants to have cake and eat cake.
Ah interesting, I think I remember Congress asking the tech CEOs if China stole data from the us shortly before the tik tok announcement, I wonder if there's a connection there.
But we use a ton of Chinese tech software and hardware outside of Tiktok, are they gonna ban them all?
That is not the problem. I'm not a US citizen, but let's pretend I am; as a normal citizen (ie, not a politician or high profile important person) would I be more concerned about my personal data being sent to a foreign country who doesn't know me, my family, my job, and very likely will never give a damn about what i think, or rather my own government who has all interests to know what I think, especially during protests?
I have zero trust in Chinese government, but if I had to choose, even as the European citizen I am (not high profile, not employed in critical areas etc.), I'd rather send my data to China than to my own government.
Have you met the American legislative process? This is the same country that when, for example, faced with stiff competition in the motorcycle market from Japanese manufacturers in the 1980s didn't start producing better and cheaper bikes, but instead just added a huge tariff on imported bikes over 700cc in order to boost Harley up. Why would this be any different?
Besides, this move isn't coming from the actual concern for citizens' and residents' privacy. It comes from the idea that economy and pandemic and terrible polling numbers for Trump mean he needs a distraction, as per his usual pattern. It was TikTok but it could have been catalytic converters or grandmothers or anything, just to get people talking about something else.
Is this not a freedom of speech issue? The right is guaranteed for foreingners in the US as well.
If they can ban tik tok, they can ban signal or briar because those also might send your encrypted data overseas or because their use among "violent" protestors is a risk. How about VPN apps that siphon your personal data to china and russia! Haha
Here's the thing, US bigtech complies (in secret) with US intel community just like tik tok complies with CCP's MSS. Matter of fact, I happen to know with certainty and with first hand accounts that the US intel community offensively uses american made apps and services to spy against naturalized law abiding americans on american soil just as they would with a foreigner working for the CCP in China.
You might say, China bans US media companies so US should as well. And I will say to you that's absolute nonsense. China is a totalitarian orwelian nightmare state and the US is supposed to be a beacon of liberty and freedom in the world. The US can ban tiktok's usage amongst US government and military and anyone that does business with them. But by what right do they get to restrict communication, an unregulated non-financial interaction between americans and anyone else?
If americans want to be spied on by China in exchange for being able to use tiktok it's their right and this activity is beyond the reaches of any elected government. Even if there is a law allowing congress or the president to ban tiktok, this law is overriden by the bill of rights that restricts the government from making laws that constrain speech and communication between citizens and anyone,and that guarantees tiktok due process and a trial before being found of any wrongdoing. Congress can however restrict commerce, as in financial transaction and for profit activity with tiktok and advertisers, what congress or trump have no authority to do is to tell americans and tiktok they cannot communicate with each other. Freedom of speech is meaningless if no one is allowed to listen to you.
This needs to be done right. Do not throw away your rights by creating a precedent set by the supreme court that lets government restrict your speech. These sneaky bastards will always worm their way into slowly taking away rights from the people in order to preserve their social order.
I don't like tiktok and if you care to go back far enough into my posting history you will see how much I hate the CCP.
What is given can be taken away (if your right to communicate with a foreign entity is given by the government). And if they can ban one app,banning others is a matter of legal mental gymnastics.
The US President is granted wide-ranging authority to regulate international commerce
The executive order doesn't outright ban the use of TikTok (the app), it just places a ban on "any transactions subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance", which in essence makes it impossible for people to find the app on an App store. It's almost identical to the Huawei/ZTE executive orders. It's a bit like an economic sanction on a country, which may also include companies that engage in media/speech.
'If americans want to be spied on by China in exchange for being able to use tiktok it's their right'
I think you're argument breaks down here. I don't think that handimf over information to a foreign government is a right. I was unable to Google for a definitive answer, but maybe a more knowledgeable person could chime in. The US already has export restrictions on knowledge ( for example encryption ) to foreign governments.
I'd like to see a similar approach to what happened with tobacco: test apps for spyware, put warning labels in big letters (or simple icons) right up front, teach kids about the dangers in school, but ultimately let everyone decide what they do.
Of course, just as with tobacco there are huge American companies which are going to oppose this sort of transparency. And of course rolling out teaching standards requires that some standardization for app privacy exist in the first place, so I don't expect this to happen fast (if it could ever happen at all).
If a publisher violates a tax law, it can be shut down without worrying about free speech issues. Same with a phone company or church in violation of federal laws (although large lawsuits are a given). Tiktok is not being shut down for its own speech, but for being an agent of foreign espionage and foreign contributions to political candidates (essentially). Thus the first ammendment issue is moot.
Signal isn't sponsored by foreign governments, so it is immune to this sort of attack. It looks like Briar has German funding. The encrypted and decentralized nature of both of those apps makes them much lower concerns for espionage and (election) interference, and of course neither provides content directly from foreign governments, so they cannot be called into question for campaign interference.
I'm far from understanding the legal complexity, but one analogy I consider here is what it'd be like to ban a particular brand or country of origin of pens, or cellphones, or routers.
Those things are definitely used for speech, and banning them all would likely be an issue. But banning a brand of pens because you don't trust the chemicals in them as safe or routers because you're concerned about potential spy ware, seems reasonable.
In that sense, TikTok is just one of many alternatives and if the motivation isn't to regulate speech, it feels like it could fit with other bans that seem reasonable to me.
I'd assume the claim here would be that it presents national security risk, though of course I think that's probably not why the ban is really happening, and it makes sense for it to be challenged.
Will a chinese company really comply with the US court system in terms of discovery? I would question if they are going to comply with discovery in a way that a US company might. What exactly is forcing them to hand over actual documentation and not just forgeries? Will the Chinese court system get them in trouble for that? I doubt it.
After all many publically traded chinese companies in the US aren't actually compliant with the same laws as US companies are.
I might be missing something, but I don't see the relevance of discovery when TikTok is suing the US government. The government will need to establish that it followed due process in drafting and executing the executive order. I can't see what relevant information TikTok would hold about that? Posisbly they would have correspondence between the government and themselves, but you would expect the government to have copies of that too. It may be that the order was carried out because of TikTok's behaviour, but that would need to be behaviour that the government has documentation of, so it wouldn't come through discovery.
Also, just to be clear, this law suit isn't going to be litigated by Chinese lawyers, the lawyers are going to be US lawyers who have to adhere to the US standards. If they think that TikTok is failing to provide something to the court or are acting unethically they are obligated to tell the court of be disbared.
I don't get why he decided to ban tik tok and tencent and I'm not the biggest fan of his by any stretch of the imagination, but if America wants to ban 1 Chinese app, why is that an issue? They literally copied silicon valley businesses for decades in China.
The problem I have with this though, is that it's not a way to get protect American interests, it's probably the first in a series of last ditch efforts to portray a certain political stance before the campaign. And the effect of banning wechat, tik tok, and tencent will stoke an already considerable flame of anti chinese perspective, which the chinese americans on our soil, have to suffer for. I say ban the crap out of all Chinese apps if that's just what it is, but let's all make sure not to throw out our own under the bus with it.
Because permitting banning apps without due process is a dangerous precedent. Next up will be Signal because you could use it to talk to dangerous foreign nationals, or VPN apps because you could send secret data to the evil-state-du-jour. Process matters, even if this particular app doesn't.
> At the same time, how can a single person decide the fate of a company in a different country?
The single person was explicitly elected to speak and act on America’s behalf. The same single person is the commander in chief for America’s military, giving them quite a bit of power when interacting with foreign countries.
And they’re impacting a foreign company’s operations in the US, something which seems to fall within the powers granted to them.
In general, I don’t like what he’s doing, but the why and how in this case appear to be by the book.
Yes. It is no surprise that they sue, but maybe that was a mistake. Because depending on the result, it might get TikTok banned in the EU as well.
Or the result is that indeed their operation is 100% independent of their Chinese parent company and no US data ever touches mainland China... which would surprise me.
Hello, the data angle is just a diversion for kicking out tiktok and we chat getting too big and kicking American tech giants ass. Too dominant. It’s protectionism
This ban is clearly a distraction by the white house to take attention away from actual national security matters, specifically the foreign hacking of elections. It's absurd that this is a priority but protecting our electoral process is not. Only fools would believe a social network like this is a real threat.
> the president's order appeared rushed and did not include carveouts or exceptions for TikTok to maintain any legal representation, which the company plans to argue is a violation of due process rights. [...] Typically, if the federal government launches an investigation, it will inform the company with a subpoena or some other kind of notice [...] no such outreach from the White House requesting evidence took place before Thursday's executive order. TikTok lawyers view that as shortcutting standard procedure.
These are pretty ironic allegations considering It's all because they are Chinese owned.
As long as they have standing and a chance of winning (their claims aren't frivolous) then a court might grant an injunction against the 45 day compulsory sale while this lawsuit proceeds.
It's a matter of who owns the user activity data on TikTok whether ByteDance retains rights to sell or rent without informing public to someone at some point in future..
This is best case scenario. It'll be up to them to prove they're not leaking info to CCP, or prove there was a time they resisted a government mandate to do so.
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
Due process is a bedrock of American law. It means government officials can't just "do what they want" and make arbitrary decisions with specific targets -- which is exactly what the TikTok ban is.
You want to ban TikTok? Great, you need a specific law from Congress that outlines under what circumstances companies may be banned in the US, and then prove the specific company meets those standards.
None of that has been done here. The president is not a dictator. TikTok should absolutely sue.
Note: this is regardless of anything TikTok has actually done privacy- or security-wise. The point isn't whether they're dangerous, the point is whether we can meet some standard of showing that they're dangerous. If they're dangerous, we need to establish how and why legally. This is what separates the rule of law from dictatorship.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process
[+] [-] mcv|5 years ago|reply
What matters is the way it's banned. And why. And the current process feels every bit as wrong as TikTok itself.
What the US needs is proper data protection laws. And then it should enforce those laws equally against US and foreign companies. Just arbitrarily banning one thing because you realise that what you always allowed for US companies, is suddenly a problem when it's a Chinese company, is absolutely wrong.
[+] [-] manquer|5 years ago|reply
Congress can hardly control the three letter agencies violating amercian rights on a massive scale or blatantly lie under oath in testimony
Don’t think a foreign company is going to allowed to actually proceed with a suit involving national security as the administration is going ton claim
[+] [-] nouveaux|5 years ago|reply
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-cfius-exclusive/ex...
[+] [-] tssva|5 years ago|reply
There is a specific law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which specifies when and how a president can ban economic exchanges with foreign entities. I think you will be disappointed to find out that under this law there is no real due process required. The president only needs to declare a national emergency in regards to the ban and then send a report to Congress detailing why the declaration and ban are justified. If Congress disagrees it is justified they can pass a resolution overriding the ban.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|5 years ago|reply
Now, due process has to start focusing on increasing the federal structure of state’s power and the power that comes with their senators / house / etc.
[+] [-] Fjolsvith|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
A) Foreign owned companies are subject to all sorts of other criteria and trade rules.
B) The issue cited is 'national security' in which case there is a wide latitude for tolerance.
'Suing the government' is not 'good' - it's a canard.
What Congress needs to do is ban all Chinese companies and activities wherein US companies of the same kind are not allowed to operate in China.
That China won't allow social networks there, but the US allows them here is bonkers ridiculous.
It would be like Canada saying 'We're banning aluminium imports, but demand that we can export to the US'.
All of this before 'security' even enters the equation.
[+] [-] gampleman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousllama|5 years ago|reply
The US' international economic dominance is predicated on a (1) pronounced lead in certain industries and (2) a simply massive economy, which combine to (3) let the US set the rules of international "fair play." The US is where you find the thing you want to buy, and the people you want to sell to. You want access? Play by our rules - everywhere.
Tik Tok does not just threaten US data. It threatens our lead in a critical industry (1), and comes from a country that minimizes the impact of US economic might (2), meaning that China can set their own rules of "fair play" (3). Banning Tik Tok isn't to protect US data; that's totally missing the point. It's to protect the American ability to set international norms.
From that lens, this is certainly hamfisted, and I certainly don't believe views it like this, but you can damn well bet the policy nerd drafting this EO is thinking this way.
[+] [-] cwhiz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nafizh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catsarebetter|5 years ago|reply
But we use a ton of Chinese tech software and hardware outside of Tiktok, are they gonna ban them all?
[+] [-] squarefoot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DetroitThrow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newacct583|5 years ago|reply
No, because that isn't the solution to the problem being addressed. The administration doesn't want to protect privacy. It wants to ban TikTok.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|5 years ago|reply
Besides, this move isn't coming from the actual concern for citizens' and residents' privacy. It comes from the idea that economy and pandemic and terrible polling numbers for Trump mean he needs a distraction, as per his usual pattern. It was TikTok but it could have been catalytic converters or grandmothers or anything, just to get people talking about something else.
[+] [-] sbmthakur|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] badrabbit|5 years ago|reply
If they can ban tik tok, they can ban signal or briar because those also might send your encrypted data overseas or because their use among "violent" protestors is a risk. How about VPN apps that siphon your personal data to china and russia! Haha
Here's the thing, US bigtech complies (in secret) with US intel community just like tik tok complies with CCP's MSS. Matter of fact, I happen to know with certainty and with first hand accounts that the US intel community offensively uses american made apps and services to spy against naturalized law abiding americans on american soil just as they would with a foreigner working for the CCP in China.
You might say, China bans US media companies so US should as well. And I will say to you that's absolute nonsense. China is a totalitarian orwelian nightmare state and the US is supposed to be a beacon of liberty and freedom in the world. The US can ban tiktok's usage amongst US government and military and anyone that does business with them. But by what right do they get to restrict communication, an unregulated non-financial interaction between americans and anyone else?
If americans want to be spied on by China in exchange for being able to use tiktok it's their right and this activity is beyond the reaches of any elected government. Even if there is a law allowing congress or the president to ban tiktok, this law is overriden by the bill of rights that restricts the government from making laws that constrain speech and communication between citizens and anyone,and that guarantees tiktok due process and a trial before being found of any wrongdoing. Congress can however restrict commerce, as in financial transaction and for profit activity with tiktok and advertisers, what congress or trump have no authority to do is to tell americans and tiktok they cannot communicate with each other. Freedom of speech is meaningless if no one is allowed to listen to you.
This needs to be done right. Do not throw away your rights by creating a precedent set by the supreme court that lets government restrict your speech. These sneaky bastards will always worm their way into slowly taking away rights from the people in order to preserve their social order.
I don't like tiktok and if you care to go back far enough into my posting history you will see how much I hate the CCP.
What is given can be taken away (if your right to communicate with a foreign entity is given by the government). And if they can ban one app,banning others is a matter of legal mental gymnastics.
[+] [-] bhupy|5 years ago|reply
The executive order doesn't outright ban the use of TikTok (the app), it just places a ban on "any transactions subject to the jurisdiction of the United States with ByteDance", which in essence makes it impossible for people to find the app on an App store. It's almost identical to the Huawei/ZTE executive orders. It's a bit like an economic sanction on a country, which may also include companies that engage in media/speech.
[+] [-] kittiepryde|5 years ago|reply
I think you're argument breaks down here. I don't think that handimf over information to a foreign government is a right. I was unable to Google for a definitive answer, but maybe a more knowledgeable person could chime in. The US already has export restrictions on knowledge ( for example encryption ) to foreign governments.
[+] [-] dguest|5 years ago|reply
Of course, just as with tobacco there are huge American companies which are going to oppose this sort of transparency. And of course rolling out teaching standards requires that some standardization for app privacy exist in the first place, so I don't expect this to happen fast (if it could ever happen at all).
[+] [-] khuey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endogui|5 years ago|reply
Signal isn't sponsored by foreign governments, so it is immune to this sort of attack. It looks like Briar has German funding. The encrypted and decentralized nature of both of those apps makes them much lower concerns for espionage and (election) interference, and of course neither provides content directly from foreign governments, so they cannot be called into question for campaign interference.
[+] [-] throwaway129012|5 years ago|reply
Those things are definitely used for speech, and banning them all would likely be an issue. But banning a brand of pens because you don't trust the chemicals in them as safe or routers because you're concerned about potential spy ware, seems reasonable.
In that sense, TikTok is just one of many alternatives and if the motivation isn't to regulate speech, it feels like it could fit with other bans that seem reasonable to me.
I'd assume the claim here would be that it presents national security risk, though of course I think that's probably not why the ban is really happening, and it makes sense for it to be challenged.
[+] [-] zpeti|5 years ago|reply
After all many publically traded chinese companies in the US aren't actually compliant with the same laws as US companies are.
[+] [-] Traster|5 years ago|reply
Also, just to be clear, this law suit isn't going to be litigated by Chinese lawyers, the lawyers are going to be US lawyers who have to adhere to the US standards. If they think that TikTok is failing to provide something to the court or are acting unethically they are obligated to tell the court of be disbared.
[+] [-] oblio|5 years ago|reply
What happened to the presumption of innocence?
[+] [-] catsarebetter|5 years ago|reply
The problem I have with this though, is that it's not a way to get protect American interests, it's probably the first in a series of last ditch efforts to portray a certain political stance before the campaign. And the effect of banning wechat, tik tok, and tencent will stoke an already considerable flame of anti chinese perspective, which the chinese americans on our soil, have to suffer for. I say ban the crap out of all Chinese apps if that's just what it is, but let's all make sure not to throw out our own under the bus with it.
[+] [-] parliament32|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panpanna|5 years ago|reply
I don't like this company, which has already started censoring foreign nationals based on what CCP allows.
At the same time, how can a single person decide the fate of a company in a different country? What will be next?
Furthermore, what if EU decides Instagram is somehow a threat and must be shut down?
[+] [-] itsoktocry|5 years ago|reply
How is TikTok's fate being decided by a US ban? The CCP does this all the time, it isn't uncommon to ban foreign software.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] falcolas|5 years ago|reply
The single person was explicitly elected to speak and act on America’s behalf. The same single person is the commander in chief for America’s military, giving them quite a bit of power when interacting with foreign countries.
And they’re impacting a foreign company’s operations in the US, something which seems to fall within the powers granted to them.
In general, I don’t like what he’s doing, but the why and how in this case appear to be by the book.
[+] [-] evbpcapfxy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khuey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChemSpider|5 years ago|reply
Or the result is that indeed their operation is 100% independent of their Chinese parent company and no US data ever touches mainland China... which would surprise me.
[+] [-] dear|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnm1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomxor|5 years ago|reply
These are pretty ironic allegations considering It's all because they are Chinese owned.
[+] [-] popup21|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OneGuy123|5 years ago|reply
People would say "China can decide what they want to allow".
Well if China can decide (which they did first) two can play this game.
Also TikTok says this ban is baseless. If USA's ban of TikTok is baseless, what base does China have for banning everything?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cmurf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomcat27|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
HFGLWT!
[+] [-] runawaybottle|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naveen99|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcmontx|5 years ago|reply