[onlyhumans]

I don’t think anyone is really concerned with privacy, tho it is piled on as a reason to ban. The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda

[segasaturn]

The "our" in "our adversary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Adversary to who? The 0.01% who are CEOs, IP holders, and State Department goons for sure, but I don't think the average American has any reason to fear China over their own government.

[entropicdrifter]

Not sure the American government is really a problem compared to American megacorporations, but I suppose at this point that's kind of splitting hairs since the government's been at the beck and call of said megacorps more and more so since like 1980

[mingus88]

The CEO class has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The Chinese government has a vested interest in American instability and sowing chaos and further economic dependency on China

So I guess you could say bothe of these are “our adversaries” depending on your point of view

[mullingitover]

If the Chinese want to control our media they're going to have to get one of their citizens to get US citizenship first. Only then can that token citizen build a media empire and engage in a massive, decades-long propaganda campaign against us.

[trescenzi]

The Australians have already accomplished this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

[t-writescode]

As was repeated over, and over, and over again, the CEO of TikTok is Singaporean.

[logicchains]

They'd also need to bribe lawmakers to add an exception to the foreign agents law that allows the Chinese to donate to people running for US office without needing to register as foreign agents.

[maxglute]

> US citizenship first

Li Hongzhi / EpocheTimes intensifies.

[cdme]

Has the government made that case? I'm indifferent to TikTok's fate, but I've only heard vague allusions, not a concrete case.

[BadHumans]

They have just made vague comments like "national security risk."

[marcosdumay]

Somehow media concentration isn't concerning enough to act...

[iugtmkbdfil834]

To paraphrase, one man's freedom of speech is another man's propaganda. There is a reason TikTok was embraced by the younger generations. I don't use it, but I think the whole move only proves that US has no freedom of speech unless it is carefully curated.

edit: To all the negative reactions, argue with me you dullards instead of reactively pressing a button when you see something you disagree with. Use that wit and freedom!

[guelo]

Democrats didn’t ban tiktok because of china, it is also piled on as a reason. They banned it because some donors got mad that their grandkids were hearing anti-israel stuff. Remember, Trump tried to ban it several years ago and then everyone forgot about it until the images started coming out of Gaza last year. When considered this way it is a grotesque 1st amendment violation, but they'll probably get away with.

[seanmcdirmid]

A republican majority house voted for the ban, so I'm guessing their granddaughters were also hearing dangerous anti-israel stuff (there is no difference between Democrat and Republican on Israel).

[scarface_74]

And now Trump is against the ban

[hammock]

The government has yet not laid out a strong, unclassified case for that issue to the citizens. If it exists, should it be laid out as such, so these discussions become more meaningful?

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Of course the data collection, i.e., the "privacy violation", arguably informs any such propaganda and allows it to be targeted and more effective as a result.

[abeppu]

> The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda

... but during the 2016 election we saw that Russian-funded interference efforts using FB and Twitter were pretty effective despite those being public, US-based companies. If you're concerned about propaganda, then policies should be concerned with stuff like "is this poster a real human", "does this post make factually untrue assertions", "is this poster paid to say this without it being marked as an ad", along with "is the platform doing view-point-based amplification or suppression".

Further, in Citizens United, the court effectively invited companies, including subsidiaries of foreign companies, to contribute to political campaigns as part of their free-speech rights. And there was press about foreign companies exercising those rights. So it seems inane to me to say that foreign companies have a first amendment right to pay for political ads and statements, but not to operate a service that lets users create and view posts. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-for...

[scarface_74]

Let’s be honest, Trump supporters were going to support Trump even if he “shot someone in the middle of Times Square”.

Even when places like Fox News called the election fairly in 2020, they were roundly criticized by Trump supporters and places like Redstate kicked out life long anti-Trump conservatives.

The Wall Street Journal of all things was being called part of the “liberal media” of all things.

But in 2024, the Democrats lost fair and square. They lied and covered up Biden’s mental decline until it became more than apparent and lost any credibility with the public. They have given up on the “50 state strategy”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy

[wbl]

China, and no one else, refused ICJ arbitration over the South China Sea. China, and no one else, is responsible for Chinese vessels harassing boats on the high seas. China, and no one else, refuses to rebalance domestic consumption vs investment. China, and no one else, imprisoned Jimmy Li. I do have to say their propaganda makes us look so good, so thanks for that.

There will be war because China starts it by deciding to invade Taiwan. They are very much preparing for it.

[krapp]

I'm not aware of this insidious Chinese propaganda supposedly controlling the minds of the American masses... Tik Tok just seems to be memes and nonsense as far as I can tell.

I am aware that every other social media platform in the US is being weaponized by the same 'adversaries' as well as the American government and corporations. There's a much better argument for banning Twitter and Facebook than Tiktok on those grounds, yet people go to the mat to defend every troll, nazi and spook on those platforms because "free speech."

[sneak]

TikTok is indeed laden with pro-China propaganda. It also censors, outright or algorithmic demotion, content critical of the CCP. It also censors tons of other stuff unrelated to the CCP.

It doesn’t even need to be ideologically aligned; simple pursuit of engagement is sufficient motive for the observed behavior.