The TikTok Case Will Be Determined by What's Behind the Government's Black Lines

As a European I couldn't care less about Tiktok spying on me. US companies and NSA do the same.

My problem is the unfair competition of Chinese app devs having access to Western markets when Western app devs don't have the same level of access to the Chinese market.

my issue with TikTok is not its privacy policy, or whether it spies on me or not. my issue with TikTok is it does not enforce its community standards on pro-CCP stances

i've reported over 100 antisemitic content and comments - none of them have been taken down

simply having an israel flag and yellow ribbon on your tiktok name can result in over 20 antisemitic replies, even if your comment has nothing to do with the conflict

this lack of action seems to contribute to the growing number of teens developing antisemetic views, which is deeply, deeply troubling

Banning TikTok is doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

I think this is really about just not being a sucker.

Why would we allow a country that bans all our news and social media tech companies to operate their company here?

If they want to operate tiktok, then we should be allowed to operate google/Facebook/twitter/etc. They can’t ban our companies on national security grounds and then act like we are crazy for banning theirs.

The difference between europe banning us companies vs Europe banning Chinese companies is simply that europeans can operate similar companies in the United States without issue, whereas any service like this owned by europeans would be immediately banned in China.

Tit for tat policies serve as an effective standard for encouraging foreign countries to open their markets, as each side is incentivized to reduce trade barriers in response to similar actions by the other, ultimately fostering fair and balanced economic exchanges. We do it with airlines, why wouldn’t we do it with social media.

I really hate the US for doing this.

Every fucking country in the world is now going to point at the TikTok case and justify censorship.

The arguments used for blocking TikTok are literally the same arguments Iran uses to block, say , YouTube. Like, copy paste and put them there.

India did the best thing by banning TikTok, you don't want apps with backend controlled by dark and shady actors.

"it risks doing so in a way that will satisfy few observers, including those sympathetic to its position”

I think there are many people sympathetic to the government’s position that will be totally satisfied and this quote is not correct at all.

Who is suing? Would TikTok/ByteDance even have standing in a US court?

What an all around terrible situation. The US government has had over two decades to come up with general laws to protect personal information and maintain competition by requiring open interoperability - protecting against all attackers foreign and domestic. Instead, they've sat on their hands while the surveillance industry has been allowed to keep festering, becoming ever more entrenched in Americans' day to day lives while being championed as bastions of "growth" and "innovation".

Now that a single foreign company has gained the level of breakout popularity that had already been achieved by 20+ domestic companies, it's time for pearl clutching galore. Every single argument being levied at China and their authoritarianism is a dynamic we've already been suffering from domestic corporations and their authoritarianism. Give me a break!

Instead of hanging their hats on this simplistic election year stunt, the government could still create universal regulations that reign in the surveillance industry and give Americans control of their personal data and digital lives, preserving individual liberty rather than trying to mitigate the downstream effects on the collective. Yet apart from essentially toothless regulations by a few states regarding some very specific types of personal data, still crickets.

So I guess the lawmakers' concerns still aren't really about protecting Americans, but just making sure nominally American surveillance companies at least get paid when Americans get surveilled and propagandized by foreign powers? It seems like no matter which way this case gets decided and which way the precedent gets set, We the People are set to lose.

The only argument that speaks for allowing an state controlled media company from a hostile foreign power to operate in your country, in my opinion, is to trust in the ultimate wisdom of the consumer.

I think what is most interesting about this article and what it highlights is that software, especially software that is as big as tik Tok is almost offered the same protections that modern corporations are afforded. They simply are their own entity. To say that tik Tok is Chinese owned as said in the article is not necessarily true as the software is based in the cloud and the business side is located in the Cayman Islands. If America wins this prosecution this could have big impacts on other large tech companies as their “nationality” simply does not matter as they have become their own global entity.