The US government would speak from a place of greater credibility if their sabre-rattling on "security" grounds didn't line up oh-so-perfectly with commercial concerns.
Huawei and ZTE were selling cheaper, good enough kit that was appealing enough that Western telecoms would buy it.
TikTok is succeeding in markets where Facebook and Twitter are foundering.
Various "let's deny them chips/equipment" activity might protect Taiwan, but it also serves to hamstring their economic development.
Being able to pull the "security" card is a great way to allow the existing players to remove a huge headache without being inherently more competitive.
If we're worried about mapping/surveilance of high value targets, those places should be no-phones as a whole in the first place. If you don't have enough organizational discipline to prevent soldiers from livestreaming their equipment, perhaps you need to be addressing that rather than whack-a-moling platforms.
If you're concerned about CPC propaganda, the answer is in parenting and education. Kids need to learn intelligent media consumption, whether it's "The toy is never as good as in the TV commercial" or "Check the credentials and sponsors of the news sources your friends are pushing, and devalue accordingly."
> If you're concerned about CPC propaganda, the answer is in parenting and education.
Isn't this like saying the solution to greenhouse gases is personally to drive less, while sparing any broader regulation, i.e. a ridiculous but business-friendly fiction?
I'd say it's more "We're going to teach everyone to read rather than expect everyone to put picture symbols on everything."
Media literacy is hugely important. It goes beyond CPC propaganda, but that's definitely a good way to start the conversation.
If we start trying to go after specific platforms and messages, it's a fiasco: a lot of splash damage (people losing their platforms), a lot of playing catch up as the culture advances faster than regulators, and a dangerous risk of uneven enforcement (will domestic-terrorist content be as relentlessly monitored as pro-China content?) It also can never reach certain types of disinformation that's politically or commercially favoured. Better media consumers are immune from a broader set of threats.
It's surprising that ACLU has very recently spoken out against free speech for Americans (to protect "marginalized" peoples), but defends free speech when it comes to Chinese-controlled spyware, when they are perhaps the biggest marginalizers in the globe.
It is impossible for any Chinese company, let alone the size of TikTok, to exist without partnering with the CCP.
They can appear to be organized and operate like a normal, independent tech corporation, with their charming and eccentric CEOs and their garage startup story.
But we all know the real bosses are in Beijing.
How and why the US allowed companies like Huawei, Ali, DJI and TikTok take over American markets and infiltrate pretty much every single layer of national security for years is pretty disconcerting and shocking to me, even knowing how effective lobbyist can be at manipulating our lawmakers.
>How and why the US allowed companies like Huawei, Ali, DJI and TikTok take over American markets and infiltrate pretty much every single layer of national security for years
How are they "infiltrating every single layer of national security"? Sensationalism aside, can you provide some concrete examples?
Of course there are many reasons to not trust China, but it doesn't mean you don't need any shred of evidence to make up shit against them. Like...that's not how that works.
And calling China "imperialist" is borderline hilarious. How many military bases do they have around the world and how many brown people countries have they bombed?
imperialism takes many forms, not only the highly militarised one we are used to by the US.
take the Belt and Road Initiative, the financial invasion and indebting of countries half way around the globe.
This TikTok shit is the biggest fucking distraction, and so many idiots eat it right up.
National Security? For who? The green haired lib and the redneck bitching about the culture war? It's Furbies all over again! (Yeah you heard me right)
Ban it from government devices and networks, who gives a shit? Most workers can't get to social media while on the clock anyway...
I know people personally who have never launched the app but tell me it's Chinese brainwashing. Someone related to me blames their marriage falling apart on TikTok.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so obviously entangled in the "anti-woke" horse shit people have been suckered into in recent years. Backed by silicone valley because it's eating their fucking lunch. Supported by shareholders to disrupt lines of communication regarding citizen journalism, union building, and other working class solidarity.
> Supported by shareholders to disrupt lines of communication regarding citizen journalism, union building, and other working class solidarity.
TikTok is not about promoting citizen journalism, union building or working class solidarity. It's about being positioned to undermine all of that when the need arises. Anybody that dares say the app about twerking has national security implications sounds like a lunatic.
It's problematic because it's part of a broader campaign to backdoor (pun intended) every goddamn device in this country. They've already flooded the consumer market with mandatory internet-connected IoT crap; they ship the hardware and the firmware. We don't sell Huawei in the west, so the next best thing is getting users to download foreign state-controllable software onto domestic mobile devices. Enter TikTok.
Because it's a media app, users necessarily give the app access to cameras and microphones. Everybody with the app installed is one auto-update away from quietly having their device turned into a foreign surveillance unit.
And that's assuming they don't flip the switch to selectively push propaganda to A/B groups. Everybody's experience is different-- by design! You're enjoying ass-clapping videos while your kids are being encouraged to idealize mental illness and Communism (everything is free and nobody has to work!), and your neighbors are being introduced to the QAnon pipeline.
Yeah, TikTok is to blame for falling birth rates in America, not the fact that our wages can't keep up with inflation, I'll never own a home, I'll never retire, the job market is plummeting, and WW3 looms right around the corner.
Even ACLU! What a shame. Corporations are not people so no free speech for them. And they damn well know free speech does not mean free convenient platform for speech.
The government cannot restrict your speech but it can regulate commerce and restrict businesses who engage in commerce even if they permit limited and censored speech haha.
Moreover, tiktok isn't restricted, tiktok's ownership by chinese nationals is restricted. Tiktok can stop engaging in commerce or separate from its chinese owners.
I am really surprised, I don't always agree with the ACLU but I've always seen them as a serious and respectable organization.
I honestly wonder if there is external influence at play here.
> I am really surprised, I don't always agree with the ACLU but I've always seen them as a serious and respectable organization. I honestly wonder if there is external influence at play here.
People said that when they defended terrorists. People said that when they defended Nazis. People said that (correctly) when they refused to defend Communists.
This is a silly point to realize they are in favor of free speech, and believe free speech means that the government can't single out particular speech for consequences. (And yes, requiring someone to stop "engaging in commerce" because of the content of their speech clearly counts as that).
> government can't single out particular speech for consequences.
But that obviously isn't happening as you well know. What particular speech is being singled out against individuals here? "People said that" and so what?
The restriction is against a foreign state and agents under its control. It's hard to even argue a court in the US can hear the case given immunities the government enjoys in these situations.
The governments right to regulate commerce and foreign relations is in the same constitution that guarantees free speech.
Very obviously, no one's political views or speech are persecuted. A US citizen who loves the CCP can become the next owner of tiktok without any issue. What you and this retarded aclu are saying is that a foreign government's ability to conduct business is protected so long as that business allows people to say stuff (with heavy restrictions!)??? I can't believe people donate to this organization. Of all the civil liberities beinf eroded and all the people that can't afford a good lawyer these people choose to waste time and money defending a foreign government.
Being a long time supporter of the ACLU doesn't really make sense at this particular moment in time. If you liked what they were a long time ago, you shouldn't like what they are now, and vice versa.
Huawei and ZTE were selling cheaper, good enough kit that was appealing enough that Western telecoms would buy it.
TikTok is succeeding in markets where Facebook and Twitter are foundering.
Various "let's deny them chips/equipment" activity might protect Taiwan, but it also serves to hamstring their economic development.
Being able to pull the "security" card is a great way to allow the existing players to remove a huge headache without being inherently more competitive.
If we're worried about mapping/surveilance of high value targets, those places should be no-phones as a whole in the first place. If you don't have enough organizational discipline to prevent soldiers from livestreaming their equipment, perhaps you need to be addressing that rather than whack-a-moling platforms.
If you're concerned about CPC propaganda, the answer is in parenting and education. Kids need to learn intelligent media consumption, whether it's "The toy is never as good as in the TV commercial" or "Check the credentials and sponsors of the news sources your friends are pushing, and devalue accordingly."