Mar 20, 2023·edited Mar 20, 2023Liked by Noah Smith
I spent 20 years in China. Americans by and large just don't "get" that there is effectively no such thing as a private company in China, at least not in sensitive sectors. TikTok will act as an arm of the Chinese state when it pleases the CCP, or it will die. Ban it.
This is kind of a big problem in many areas, no? The whole Huawei ugliness, the recent semiconductor restrictions... I worry we need more of the bigger picture conversation about this problem.
I'd love the solution to be that the whole world says "nations are kind of BS" but that doesn't seem like what's going to happen.
That's the reality of the situation, even though the national security apparatuses of various countries pretend otherwise to justify their existence. Borders don't matter anymore except in extreme cases of incompetent policy.
not exactly. No one online at least what I have researched has proven the impact of user data collection. What TikTok has collected is similar to user data collected by other social media like YouTube, Instagram and such. The same risks apply to them, not just TikTok.
Considering the VAST differences between Western and Asian/Chinese culture, my intuition is that the risks (originating) on the Western side are much, much larger.
Well still what’s the actual impact with collecting user data. Does that pose a national security risk? We’ve already banned TikTok from government and military devices already
"Collecting user data" is a red herring - whether it is a deliberate/intentional red herring (I suspect yes, but who knows) is another matter, but a red herring nonetheless.
What the banning of TikTok is *really* about is mind/reality and inter-communication/solidarity control.
Well one what do you mean collecting user data is a red herring? People accuse it for being a national security threat and are trying to ban it because China can use TikTok and user data to control the algorithm. Second, what do you mean mind/reality and inter-communication/solidarity control. I don’t incline to either side of this debate but I’m researching this topic for a debate and I’m negative
The simple fact of the matter is US is scared tha China made a social media platform that is popular on their shores, nevermind that their own social media platforms does the same in other countries. It's hypocritical given social media platforms does the exact same thing to many other countries but the moment it happens to them, then they cry foul.
You present nonsensical arguments. The key point here is that the us corporate monkeys cannot get people to listen, hear or watch their propaganda and "pay for it" or earn from advertising. So, the whole government spying spin.
People are smart to realize that hollywood is propaganda and people end up paying to watch propaganda. Also, the corporate monkeys cant dose people or control information because tiktok does not follow their yutube edicts.
Tiktok allows users to download videos and share videos while this feature is unavailable in us corporate controlled apps. That means the corporate monkeys can control the dissemination of information, information flow, content and also erase information. They cannot do this on tiktok.
The interesting part is that all these corporate monkeys advocating for a ban have a common denominator and they happen to be from the community of nile-khazars and you are suspectee to be one among them.
If the U.S. government made an *extra-legal* demand that Apple kick of TikTok then yes, I expect Apple would refuse and fight in court. Such a thing is unthinkable in China where the party sits outside of and above the legal system.
We're not really worried about China banning U.S. apps though (they already do that!). We're worried about them using TikTok for clandestine propaganda purposes. Perhaps the U.S. would do the same thing in a conflict if it had the opportunity. So what? That's not a reason to give China the opportunity.
You present nonsensical arguments. The key point here is that the us corporate monkeys cannot get people to listen, hear or watch their propaganda and "pay for it" or earn from advertising. So, the whole government spying spin.
People are smart to realize that hollywood is propaganda and people end up paying to watch propaganda. Also, the corporate monkeys cant dose people or control information because tiktok does not follow their yutube edicts.
Tiktok allows users to download videos and share videos while this feature is unavailable in us corporate controlled apps. That means the corporate monkeys can control the dissemination of information, information flow, content and also erase information. They cannot do this on tiktok.
The interesting part is that all these corporate monkeys advocating for a ban have a common denominator and they happen to be from the community of nile-khazars and I suspect you are one among them with a loud voice.
I highly disagree that we should ban Tik Tok. If we do we just give the government license to ban any app or information source that the government doesn’t like. It’s Tik Tok today. It can be Youtube tomorrow. I think Fox news is a propaganda outlet destroying the country. Why don’t we ban Fox? And then why not the New York Times? It’s bad enough that liberals want to regulate the internet to cleanse it of “misinformation.” To give the government discretionary power to ban entire sources of information is a horrible idea. If that’s what they do in China, then why should we do it here? Democracies are not supposed to “wield sharp power,” at least not where it undermines the liberties of their own citizens. And if Tik Tok can track us, then so what? Can’t any company track us? Can’t the NSA already listen in on our private phone calls? Would we have to start banning social media companies to fix that? We could just pass privacy laws. But I understand that’s a lot less sexy than using the administrative state as a blunt instrument to plan the public good. And we’re unanimously obsessed with using the government to do big theatrical things now. Our politics is so deranged that besides cracking down on China to protect the steel industry and curry favor with the red state voting bloc, we have to freak out about the potential indoctrination of the electorate by an app full of videos of people screaming and dancing that each last only seconds long. It is my conviction that each political party is shoring up their own incompetence and covering their ass (for votes) by competing with each other for who can pretend to talk the toughest game on China. But to compete zero sum with a peaking, mock geopolitical power, by “friendshoring” and reviving manufacturing, we just put a greater strain on our deteriorating relationship with China and encourage an increasingly brittle regime to lash out. With our economic trade war, I think we are pushing Xi to support Putin in Ukraine, and we’re also pushing him into becoming a peacemaker in the middle east. We are creating a whole new sphere of influence with our inability to rationally deal with and talk to China which is entirely self-serving for the populists in our government. It’s horrible. You praise the US for finally starting to act like a “nation state.” I think the fact that we don’t care at all about international trade law is a horrible thing, and that we have totally forgotten how dumb industrial policy is, etc. It’s a strong economy and freedom that will make the US the superior of China, a commitment to western ideals and free trade, not protectionism or national security crackdowns on the internet. Why do we want to mirror China’s policies that aren’t giving them any edge on us and which are sinking their economy, and could be pushing them towards greater aggression on the world stage? And we’ll just make our own citizens hate their government more. Our bipartisan China policy is completely hysterical and stupid.
Fox News is not controlled by a foreign government, nor is the NY Times. The issue is not that TikTok spreads false news or that it tracks US citizens; it's that it is controlled by the PRC government and the information it collects is at the disposal of that government.
I agree that the US behaving like a "nation state" is nothing to celebrate in itself. It is the context that matters. For many years, from the late 1990s until the Trump Administration, the US response to the PRC was to behave not like a nation state but like an international leader, the exalted goal we set for ourselves. We championed lowering barriers to China's access to foreign markets and integrating the PRC into international systems of trade and diplomacy. The expectation was that the PRC would increasingly conform to the norms of those international systems and behave less like a nation state. Despite some early positive signs, progress was surprisingly slow on the PRC side: trademark piracy, trade secret theft, and laws limiting foreign access to Chinese markets without disclosing trade secrets all continued, and these trends have ramped up since Xi Jinping's accession in 2013. The US "nation state-like" response is a realistic acknowledgment of the limits of the more open and expansive approach. The same process has been underway with regard to Russia since Putin's accession, although the specific mix of reasons varies. The US return towards nation state behavior in this context is a recognition of the tactical failure of the larger vision in the specific context of recent decades. It's not good in itself, but it may be the optimal choice at this time in this world.
It is always easy to criticize US policy--in fact, I think there may not be a government on earth with major policies not easy to characterize as stupid. Part of the reason isevident in your comment: it is generally true that a policy may provoke either backlash or moral hazard, and that can be the basis for criticism. Of course friendshoring, etc., may provoke a PRC backlash or push them towards support of Putin. The question is weighing the cost/benefit of friendshoring (etc.) with not friendshoring, and I think that recent events have taught us that the costs of the "not" option can be much higher than we had been calculating. (The "push toward Putin" argument may be valid in theory, but is there any indication that if there were not heightened tensions with China now it would not be leaning toward Putin? The ultimate logic is never to piss off any state no matter what they do, because pissing them off can make it worse. I think we see the same weaknesses of argument in the Mearsheimer line on the US/NATO as the cause of the Ukraine war.)
<Fox news is not controlled by foreign government>
I think you're missing the one key point here: Jay Burkett isn't making it about 'who owns what,' he's highlighting the hypocrisy of both governments. Our American Media AS WELL AS our government is just as giant of a hypocrite as this 'foreign government' (China) in this matter. As long as China exists (as well as American/foreign hackers, attackers, and 3rd-party trackers), China could receive our data other ways if they really wanted to, they don't need TikTok for that necessarily. Plus, how many Americans visit China each year? Your data and security can be at risk of breach just from setting foot on their grounds, KNOWINGLY (if research is done beforehand, or else perhaps unknowingly) entering Communist territory. So by that knowledge: No One in either country is safe, really.
It's good of you to come to Jay Burkett's defense, Mr. Vega, but I honestly don't follow you argument. I'm not going to dispute that Rupert Murdoch is a hypocrite in many respects. How does comparing the CCP to Rupert Murdoch reveal the hypocrisy of the "both governments" (I assume the other one is the US government, not the Australian one)? Grant that every owner of a media outlet is a hypocrite in many respects. No one of them represents a force remotely comparable to the CCP.
I take your second point to be: our data is at risk from countless sources; there's nothing special about it being at risk from TikTok. What's special about TikTok in this frame is that our data is not only at risk but is being channeled to the CCP, an entity with incomparably more leverage than hackers, attackers, and 3rd-party trackers.
Of course your data's at risk in China. I've traveled there many times highly conscious of that. Why would it be that because my data may be at risk there it should be equally at risk when I am here? And since no more than well under 10% of Americans ever visit China, why should the 90+% who don't be irrelevant on this score?
"No one in either country is safe, really." I have no idea what this counsel of despair is supposed to imply. You seem to assume it follows that we should just give up our data and be content. A counter-response would be, "So we need to improve our safety protocols."
Namely this: Banning TikTok will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And no, there really isn't anything special about TikTok's risks. Again, they're literally the same as any other Media Platform, ABSOLUTELY REGARDLESS of the government it's under (USGov't, CCP, etc.)
<Counter-Response> What I said was not a despair counsel, more of a reality check. Yes we do need better protocol. Thing is, we can hand out protocol improvements on a silver platter, but it won't subtract the reality that safety would still be lacking regardless (data and all).
Mr. Vega, the implication of your first paragraph seems to be that our data is as accessible to the CCP via YouTube as via TikTok. I have no reason to believe that's true. Or perhaps you meant that our data is as accessible to *some* government or private actor anywhere. I'm certainly prepared to accept that claim. But that would indeed leave something "special" about TikTok.
What I called a counsel of despair still sounds like one to me. Saying that there are things we can do but none of them will work isn't materially different from saying that there's nothing we can do.
The way I read your responses, my interpretation is that banning TikTok will indeed have an impact on the vulnerabilityof our data to mining by the CCP, but we'll still be vulnerable to being mined by government/bad actors in general. That doesn't undermine the argument for banning TikTok (and we haven't even touched on the disinformation aspect), but it certainly is a reality check about online vulnerability.
My argument here is nothing like those arguments that Nato created Putin’s Russia, and the way we have worked to target Russia’s economy with sanctions I think is justified. Russia actually invaded Ukraine and they are a mortal threat to the international order and the US in particular. China has not invaded anyone. And though China’s increasing totalitarianism is certainly alarming, our reactions to it are disproportionate to the actual threat. Like the Foreign Direct Product Rule for example, where we’re cracking down on other countries that sell technology to China with US-made parts is really excessive. I think some export controls regarding, or reshoring critical technology manufacture, is justified. But the FDPR, Trump’s useless tariffs and now a Tik Tok ban are excessive bordering on absurd. And the analogy I made between Tik Tok on Fox is perfectly fair. Tik tok is owned by the CCP. fox is owned by Murdoch. Just about everyone who owns anything is an unscrupulpus person who might be a threat to national security or democracy, but however big that threat might be, it is no justification to ban Tik Tok and overthrow the Berman amendments, giving the executive that level of power to control and restrict information exchange. And where does this end? Are we going to start deporting Chinese immigrants too? Recall Trump’s muslim ban. Trump started all this China hysteria. He pulled out of the transpacific partnership and the populist schizoid green new deal progressive Buy America biden has made no effort to repair our commitment to the WTO which it would be a better idea to use to punish China for their trade and IP violations. Then we would also have our allies on board. At the moment we’re trying to maintain reckless primacy in the pacific, just with military might and trying to pressure our allies to follow along with our mindless green energy subsidies and tariffs.
JB, The argument that NATO enlargement created Putin's Russia is entirely about our defensive actions long prior to Putin's initial invasion of Ukraine. In that sense there is a very close parallel to our situation vis a vis the PRC now, when an attack on Taiwan seems reasonably likely within the decade.
If you're content to have your argument hang on a parallel between Rupert Murdoch and the Chinese Communist Party, I'm content to let it hang there.
It is a great misfortune that former president Trump is associated with our change of strategy towards China. His major reasoning (trade deficits bad) was nonsense and his methods (tariffs everywhere) terrible, but his administration were not the only voices calling for a strategic change in light of the PRC's commercial conduct and authoritrianism (that last, of course, Trump admires).
Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was not anti-China: it was isolationist (and rising US isolationism had already forced Clinton to advocate the same action), and it significantly enhanced China's position in Asian trade. The TPP was anti-PRC, and it was Obama who embraced it (which had many problems, but which I think was absolutely the right policy choice).
It is not a strong argument to say: If you ban TikTok the next step may be deporting immigrants. A slippery slope argument fails if the slope is a cliff.
I think the argument you probably can actually make is this: "And though China’s increasing totalitarianism is certainly alarming, our reactions to it are disproportionate to the actual threat." It suggests you could, if you had time, spell out specifics on what reshoring is justified and what is excessive, and why. I don't have the knowledge to assess whether we've abetted China's bad trade practices by passing up effective action through the WTO; you might be right there.
Check out my Substack the “Neoliberal Standard.” In a series of posts called “Biden’s Leviathan” I’m trying to document the danger of our China policies. I also did a piece on banning Tik Tok.
Mr. Burkett, I wish I could pursue many more substack blogs than I do. I think it's a great platform. But I already am over-budget with the time I devote to reading substack blogs and bloviating in the comments. I often follow links to specific data sources in comments, but just as a matter of time limitations I don't pursue comment-string arguments into other substacks unless the comments themselves have been analytically persuasive and the topic is of particular interest to me. As I noted, although I don't think you argued well here, it seemed to me you had knowledge that could enable you to mount a stronger case. Maybe you'll recruit me on another string.
I think my argument is very persuasive, because Biden doesn’t give a damn to work with the WTO to handle China’s nationalist trade practices, we are decoupling from China and pushing a decrepit and pretentious regime into a corner, with excessive export controls and now a deluded Tik Tok ban, which will even have broad and ugly ramifications for our free society in America. We are perfectly mirroring China’s policies in our efforts to counter them. In addition it’s gratuitous. It’s all for partisan clout, because our government is full of populists. You can’t disentangle the China phobia from the erroneous conclusion that China took manufacturing jobs. Politicians are building their careers on a misguided resentment for China which has involved us sleepwalking into ever worsening tensions with them, possibly war sooner or later. Here are a couple articles that have influenced my thinking. Also the economist has done a lot on America’s dumb trade policies. https://www.cato.org/blog/echoing-trump-biden-embraces-international-trade-lawlessness
Nobody's arguing for banning TikTok because of the content. They're arguing for banning it because it's a massive spyware apparatus for a hostile foreign government. The free speech argument is a red herring.
To argue that information in itself, regardless of where it comes from, is worth censoring is a dangerous notion for any free society to entertain. That’s all I’m saying. It’s Mccarthyism to block and restrict information sources that are national security risks, as a way to promote the public good. It’s just a vain and disturbing attempt by the state to control public discourse. To ban tik tok is just as unsettling as Ron Desantis punishing Disney just for protesting his bill or his Stop Woke Act, or his fight with the college board. Private companies must at all times be allowed to teach and say whatever they want. And people should have the freedom to associate with them or not, as they wish.
It's funny how the US has no problem when its culture and values are subtly spread across the world by Hollywood and the US Internet giants, but as soon as a foreign company develops similar influence, they turn French and fight the foreign influence. The right way to address this is by having a wide spectrum of different sources available and by having an educated population, and not by trying to impose a top-down content filter on a nation. It's unfortunate that even otherwise intelligent observers like Noah do not recognize that.
There's a world of difference between foreign cultural exports and and foreign nation-state adversary propaganda. People aren't worried that American teenagers will start listening to C-pop and using chopsticks -- they're worried that in a conflict with the U.S., China will use TikTok to push narratives that suit its agenda.
Is there really a difference between cultural exports and state propaganda? I doubt the Hungarians or the Poles think so. When a rural Romanian girl is convinced she's trans by American-led social media, is that cultural exportation or state propaganda? (And that's a real example that I know of.)
I think Richard made the right point. No one is saying "pro-China" is where we draw the line. We're talking about foreign government-sponsored propaganda via a major news source that does not identify its character. Individuals, including PRC citizens, can still post pro-China content to social media.
"The US state uses Hollywood to push its narratives too." Hollywood is not the US government. Its war films are patriotic because that sells. "I cannot think of a single Hollywood movie that featured the US government in a conflict with a foreign country where the US government was not portrayed as the good guys." I think films like "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now," "The Hurt Locker," "American Sniper" all portray to varying degrees negative images of the US in war. I'm sure there are others I haven't seen or heard about. (Worth noting that US pop music, including lots of songs denigrating various aspects of the US, are just as much a part of exported US culture as big-budget movies.)
A better comparison here would be with Russian Internet Research Agency, members of which were indicted as a result of the Mueller investigation. When a foreign government engages in a covert influence campaign via social media, it is considered part of a cyberwar activities, subject to a national security response, not a First Amendment issue. The fact that the US may engage in similar activities is not a rationale for suspending national security concerns--it would be a national security concern if the US did not engage in similar activities, given that these tools are now available to all governments. Treaty obligations would be the way to limit those activities. If the PRC and US entered a treaty assuring that neither side would block the other's social media activity there would be a legal barrier to doing so, but it would not be a First Amendment issue.
I'd just add Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, The Whistleblower, Eye in the Sky, Vice, and The Green Zone to the list of Hollywood films that are critical of the military. In fact among *recent* films in particular, Top Gun: Maverick stands out for its pro-military POV.
Tik-Tok is not the same thing as Al-Jazeera or Russia Today at all, because Tik-Tok can be used to spy on Americans on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Read Noah's paragraphs about spying again. TikTok has already admitted to tracking journalists' physical movements, and apps collect all sorts of data about their users. TikTok is *obligated* to turn that data over to Chinese government if the Chinese government wants it. This isn't even a big secret! Does anyone seriously believe that this could not happen, if it hasn't happened already?
The propaganda stuff is bad, but this is the actual reason to ban TikTok. Al-Jazeera and Russia Today do not, as far as I know, spy on American citizens.
Because I know someone is gonna talk about how American governmental and private-sector spying: I think this is bad, too! I'm all for strengthening privacy laws and making this more difficult. But a) I'd take the American government or even an American corporation over the Chinese government any day of the week, and b) two wrongs do not make a right.
Mike, You'll find the information you need about the Mueller investigation on Wikipedia's page for the Internet Research Agency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency). I disagree with you that people shouldn't have been charged for their activities on social media accounts. The IRA, operating from Russia, was covertly trying to influence the outcome of a US national election by spreading false narratives through social media. The First Amendment has never been interpreted as covering foreign government entities, nor, in my view, should it.
I think it's remarkable and important that RT and Al-Jazeera operate in the US. I do not understand why you believe their direct foreign governmental sponsorship is not utterly conspicuous--it is openly acknowledged and signaled by their names. It is entirely the covert nature of potential TikTok influence that is the problem, as it is with the Internet Research Agency. If the PRC government wanted to sponsor a cable source called something like "Bàndaŏ," signaling its foreign origin as obviously as "Al-Jazeera," while openly licensing as a state-sponsored corporation, then I don't see a problem with it presenting the PRC case. It is the covert nature of potential misinformation sources that renders them powerful.
I'll grant your point about The Deer Hunter and American Sniper (though my memory of the former is that is was certainly critical of US foreign policy, and was indeed meant to inspire horrified sympathy for the Vietnamese killed) and cede to Richard on the longer list of Hollywood movies.
And the China pushes Hollywood as well. US movie makers are now very aware that they must avoid certain topics if they want access to the Chinese movie market. China hasn’t been the villain in an action movie in over a decade. The Simpsons has lampooned Chinese censorship several times over its 30 year history. Those episodes aren’t available on the Disney+ streaming service. Disney knows they can’t release those anymore if they want to distribute Marvel superhero movies in China.
The US doesn’t ban any Chinese movies which would be restricting speech. You are free to watch all the Chinese propaganda you want, although no company is required to distribute it. Many American movies are banned by the CCP. In the case of TikTok, what speech is being banned? The app or ByteDance aren’t speaking, the users are and the users are free to use any other platform. The only speaking that ByteDance does is by suppressing or promoting certain speech, and I’m not sure stopping that is a first amendment violation assuming the first amendment even applies to foreign entities.
Then I think you haven't watched very many hollywood movies lol.
The issue is not with foreign ownership of the app but the fact that the Chinese govt does not permit any effective guardrails between private companies and the state.
Anyway, the French are allowed to worry about American owned tech companies and lots of the data privacy regulation in the EU is about addressing issues not dissimilar to these.
"I cannot think of a single Hollywood movie that featured the US government in a conflict with a foreign country where the US government was not portrayed as the good guys."
How old are you? Did you see Apocalypse Now? Or The Deer Hunter?
He is either incompetent or a high anxiety person who thinks he deserves some special privilege to tell others how to think or he must think others are stupid or he is a deceiver (kazar agent) or all of the above.
Such people should be ignored for wasting people's time.
The "moral basis" is the assumption that technocrats in the government can make better decisions for the people than the people can make for themselves. Given this assumption, it's not just allowable, but imperative to allow the technocrats control.
Setting aside the moral basis, what's the legal basis? Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965) already found that Americans have a First Amendment right to consume foreign communist propaganda.
We curtail people's choices all the time on that basis. Fentanyl is illegal on that basis. So So is prostitution. So is commercial sale of organs. Can this go too far? Absolutely. But we've gone so far to the other extreme that we can't even see that edge right now.
You say "we've gone so far to the other extreme that we can't even see that edge right now." Given all your examples, I presume your "other extreme" is too few restrictions. What are some of the restrictions you think we should have? And were these ever in effect?
I don't know - a ban for people in certain organizations(like military, or government) seems to make sense, but a complete ban? Individuals worried about CCP spying on them can simply not use Tiktok. I'd go for something on the level of a warning sign near the download button, for normal citizens.
As for the propaganda issue, I think the free-speech side has a good point as well. If we start banning stuff on the basis that it presents a biased picture, I can't imagine how many websites we'd have to shut down. Yes, the source of the bias is a lot more problematic in case of Tiktok, but fundamentally I don't think it's too different from a pro-Russian thinker writing columns on his website. It's has more influence, but that's about it.
The arguments against leaving it up to "Individuals worried about CCP spying on them " is that we as a country have interests in not having citizens subject to covert CCP influence and propaganda as well as preventing the CCP from having intelligence or leverage over US citizens (or a fifth-column pro-CCP constituency) independently of the level of individual decisionmaking. Sometimes kids (or older) make dumb decisions that give them a dopamine hit but are net-negative. TikTok is frustrating because it's conceptually similar to, say, smoking (really only has evil applications and is manifestly bad for the smoker and others, used to be incredibly popular anyway), it just has the 1A tagging along for the ride.
As to the latter point, if the kids were all, of their own accord, visiting pro-CCP websites and downloading *the Communist Manifesto,* that seems like a core free speech concern. Here, the presumptively covert nature of both the spying and the manipulation are the point -- we don't like being unable to assess the source and nature of information independently of its content in order to assess motivated reasoning and, crucially, the appears to be roughly consistent with the 1st Amendment (thinking here of attribution requirements for political ads, e.g.). In this case, the curator deciding who sees what is some amalgam of ByteDance and the CCP, but in a highly non-obvious way because we've never been in a position where a propaganda and spying platform (1) resides on a Smartphone (because we haven't had smartphones) and (2) puts most of its efforts towards stuff like cat videos, compared to which the active propaganda elements are intrinsically covert and seem like small potatoes.
It's a tough nut to crack but I'm basically in favor of finding some kind of legally tenable distinction to preserve the 1A while also allowing us to say "the fact that a bunch of impressionable teenagers are, through a combination of incredibly bad and dumb decisionmaking by an initial set of kids who downloaded the app, plus a bunch of the rest who are locked in a social network-effect local maximum they cant' escape without coordinated action (and are also dumb and impressionable), now carry around a program effectively controlled by the CCP on their phones, is both (a) sui generis and (b) really fucking bad, and should not be allowed."
What we need is some way to (correctly) analogize this to smoking or gambling regulation or any previously-upheld limits on foreign agency or intelligence measures without actually blocking citizens' right to look at the Communist Party USA's (or heck, Communist Part of China's) website if they so choose.
Thank you. Blows my mind when people don't understand that 1) social media is "really fucking bad" and 2) that it is in the national interest to prevent a foreign government from meddling in the thoughts and minds of our youth.
Teenagers cannot decide or judge on 1A. They need adult supervision.
Adults do not need governments telling them what is good or bad. They use their own mind and judge for their own. Adults are responsible for their actions, reactions and consequences that follow.
Banning TikTok was one of a very few issues that Trump was right about, and in general, should be part of a larger effort to throw some sharp elbows at China. They have to know that if they're going to be aggressively authoritarian bullying a-holes on the international stage, there will be consequences.
Many Americans are so interested in what is easy to use they never consider the consequences of that use. Per Watergate, "Follow the money." Who benefits when we use a program designed and operated by people who stand against everything America is supposed to stand for? Why support nations whose leaders are openly antagonistic toward America? Why should we trust anything said by either Russia or China? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan - trust but verify. Since our computer experts can't verify what China claims, we should not use their computer parts or programs.
For the most part, America airs its dirty laundry in public. The same cannot be said about China. They bury their dirty laundry - in more ways than one. No computer part or program is so important that we should blindly use it without considering where it came from and what the potential downsides of this use may be.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the (largely anecdotal) evidence that TikTok is intentionally pushing content to young people that is likely to negatively impact their mental health. Granted, all social media use negatively affects mental health, and it could be argued that all smartphone use does, but TikTok is clearly far worse.
If you don't believe me, look up how TikTok has caused a host of young women to develop tics. And caused a spike in self-diagnosed bipolar. Plus there's the spike in cases of self-diagnosed (and possibly self-induced) Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition that has historically been extremely rare and which is treated by eliminating all alternate personalities; TikTok influencers are instead encouraging young people to work to develop their alternative personalities.
That’s a good reason to ban TickTok. But also to ban anything else that mimics TikTok. I don’t buy that any algorithm produced in SV would be better. In fact Instagram using teenagers report bad mental health, Instagram is following the TikTok model of short portrait mode videos you can scroll.
Noah has supported banning TikTok for years so this is not a surprising piece. I don't have any preference either way: I'm certain that data on TikTok users is leaked to the CCP but that's not much different from what already happens on American social media platforms.
There have been several instances of private user data on American apps( Clubhouse comes to mind) ending up in foreign hands with nefarious intentions, China and Russia especially. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica voter profiling and targeting - overblown as such things are - was another such example.
So, the real problem here isn't TikTok as much as it is tightening privacy laws on social media companies. I even doubt a lot of this data is useful any way to all parties concerned. Tim Hwang had an excellent book on the subject titled Subprime Attention.
So, should TikTok be banned? Well, yea. It's only fair. But its security risk, relative to the other massive social media platforms, has been significantly misrepresented.
What I'm interested in knowing is how will the TikTok ban be enforced. Bruce Schneier, the computational security expert, wrote a lovely post on the topic a while ago and his conclusion was every possible option presented unpalatable consequences.
So, perhaps the issue here isn't so much as the political will and approval necessary to ban TikTok as it is the means by which that curtailment will be carried out. That may constitute the more important problem.
I found Schneier's entire argument weirdly naive. He says we shouldn't ban TikTok, we should just have strong data privacy laws that affect all social media.
Okay, say that happens. And TikTok says they don't want to follow those laws, because the CCP likes collecting data.
So what's the next move? Aren't you just back to banning the app but with more steps in between?
And he pooh poohs the idea of banning apps, so he seems to be undermining his entire point, since any company can sidestep US regulations with ease and face no consequences.
Yes, it was rather naive although the core of his argument stands: it will be really difficult to implement a fully effective ban without resorting to certain insalubrious measures.
Meh, he had the typical techno libertarian belief that if you can't do something 100% perfectly then don't bother.
Just make Apple and Android drop it from their marketplace. Make US companies not allowed to advertise. Make US payment processors not allowed to transact. Make US banks not allowed to receive payments.
Who cares if it isn't 100% perfect?
Not really any different than say sanctions the US imposes on a regular basis.
I'm not sure if I'll call Schneier a techno libertarian ( he's a big fan of regulation), although his most recent book - A Hacker's Mind - certainly shares some distinct similarities with that philosophy.
It is somewhat irrelevant that those measures will fail to be 100 percent perfect. But it will accelerate the ongoing decoupling between China and America. Eric Schmidt often spoke about how in the future, there would be two versions of the internet. Perhaps, the future intends to prove him right.
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
Can't it just be given the Parler treatment? If the major app stores push an update that bricks the app and then delist it, that should be sufficient to kill it. Sure, some tiny fragment of the population might download it with an APK and keep using it, but that's on them, and it's big social influence and tracking potential will be gone.
Pretty good solution. Because the web is so centralized, it just takes a few platforms to delist something or someone and they lose cultural and social influence.
Although it is worth noting rhat Parler did pivot to Russian hosting services and it was extremely right wing( the appeal was very limited). TikTok will have alternative options it can migrate to where it's still available to the American public for a little more hassle
And Tiktok's appeal is not only quite broad but its biggest demographic is teens who have a lot of time on their hands, lean heavily towards the left and socialism, and are quite rebellious. In other words, the perfect customer base to subvert a policy like that.
"TikTok will have alternative options it can migrate to where it's still available to the American public for a little more hassle"
The iPhone has like 70% market penetration in the US and apparently teens think of a blue text box as some sort of asinine status symbol. Between Apple the Google Play store plus a forcible app delete this thing would be gone and never coming back no matter how cute they get with workarounds (in other words, I think your first paragraph is sufficiently powerful to overcome your third as a practical matter.)
Also TikTok's perceived utility is presumably going to go down quadratically rather than linearly with a reduced user base, which seems like it would likely lead to a death spiral.
Data privacy isn't the main issue. The problem is the opaque algorithm that decides what users see, and the impossibility of verifying that it isn't being used for nefarious purposes.
Lots of respect for Bruce Schneier but I think he is overplaying the difficulty here. Banning U.S. companies from dealing with ByteDance will get the job done over time, even if it doesn't make the app disappear from phones overnight.
"The problem is the opaque algorithm that decides what users see, and the impossibility of verifying that it isn't being used for nefarious purposes."
But aren't all the algorithms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) opaque? Aren't there already accusations that they're being used for nefarious purposes? Is the solution to ban algorithms? Or do we allow regulators to oversee the algorithms? If so, how do we keep the regulators from using the algorithms for nefarious purposes?
The whole point of the First Amendment is that we don't trust anyone, in particular the government, to control what we can see, or read, or hear. If different companies have different algorithms, we at least have some choice about which algorithm we use. If we give the government the power to decide which algorithms are nefarious, then eventually we'll only have one algorithm that functions exactly as the regulators want, and the regulators will inevitably pursue their own agenda, not the purported agenda they are chartered to pursue.
Data privacy is the main issue because these businesses make money by selling data to advertisers through complex but often ineffective methods. Strong data privacy rules mean a lot of these businesses can't function.
Most commercial software runs on opaque algorithms and there's little evidence these algorithms exert strong political influence on users( I consider this belief to be the most effective propaganda of the 21st century)
And we already know it's being used for nefarious purposes so the 'impossibility' of verifying it is immaterial. ( TikTok is definitely taking directions from the CCP). The distinction here is what it is storing is hardly of any important use to the CCP.
I fully agree on the second paragraph. Schneier overplays the difficulty and the ban will reduce use over time. That is what will happen eventually.
How do strong data privacy rules prevent TikTok from manipulating its algorithm to increase the visibility of videos that (for example) argue that the U.S. defense commitment to Japan is a waste of taxpayer money that could be spent on social services at home?
To start with, I don't think it's reasonable for either country that America continues to subsidize Japan's defence needs on such a substantial scale.
Now, to the main point:
First off, as I wrote earlier, there's plenty evidence that digital propaganda of that nature fails to have measurable and strong effects.
Second, it hardly matters anyway: many young people don't support the Ukraine War( a few of them partly because of Russian propaganda), but America has kept funding it regardless. As long as the political elite don't buy the narrative, it will not have any meaningful impact.
And third, strong data privacy rules will help indirectly. If TikTok can't sell private data to advertising brokers and middle men, then it will run at a steeper loss. The company can simply be regulated out of any potential chance at profitability unless of course it is heavily subsidized anyway.
And TikTok is not the only bad actor here. If sensitive American data ends up in Chinese hands, it doesn't make much of a difference if it came from TikTok or if it came from
The reason I used the argument about Japan's defense as an example is precisely because it will seem reasonable to some people. If you agree with it, why do you doubt it would be persuasive to others, particularly those who aren't committed or informed about this particular issue? Adversaries are of course going to try to use persuasive arguments in their propaganda. It won't be "rah rah China is the best!" - the message will be subtle.
I don't know what evidence you're referring to when you claim digital propaganda doesn't work, but I highly doubt that the data exists to conclusively answer questions about the effectiveness of clandestine propaganda like this because, well, it's clandestine, and when it works we never find out.
1.) The work of celebrated statistician David Sumpter and his subsequent assertions before members of the Congress, no less, on the ineffectiveness of digital propaganda.
2.) Tim Hwang's perceptive book on the broken ecosystem of digital advertising.
3.) The essay by Noah itself contains a link to evidence disproving the myth that YouTube contributed significantly to right wing radicalization.
4.) Numerous others I cannot enumerate for the sake of brevity.
It's a convenient story but it's likelier that material causes, peer groups, and psychological inclinations are the chief factors in determining whether people are susceptible to media bias or not.
Nudging isn't just very effective, either online or in real life( so much of behavioural psychology has come under justified attack recently on this basis).
"So, should TikTok be banned? Well, yea. It's only fair."
So Americans' free speech rights should be abridged because authoritarian countries abridge the free speech rights of their citizens? WTF kind of logic is that?!?
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
Disclaimer: I work for TikTok in the US since 2020.
I want to point out some factual errors in below paragraph:
"Tiktok has admitted tracking journalists’ physical movements and sending the data to its Chinese parent company. But physical location is probably only the tip of the iceberg of the data TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone."
1. "Tiktok has admitted tracking journalists’ physical movements and sending the data to its Chinese parent company" != TikTok shared data with CCP. And AFAIK, there was no prior incidents that CCP requested any data from TikTok or TikTok sent any data to CCP. By AFAIK, I meant public information. If there is anything really happened, given how easily TikTok information was leaked (and vastly misinterpreted), they would have became public information. Also, TikTok has spent more than 1 billion dollars on Project Texas (there was public report) to ensure none USDS employees can have access to US users' data.
2. "TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone" is simply false. Both iOS and Android has done a great job in term of security, I don't think any mobile app can do this without being caught. There were so many false claims from "security experts" what TikTok did or could do. For ones I am aware of (e.g. inapp browser or Feroot report), they are either overly exaggerated, and simply false.
I am your paid subscriber and really liked your other posts. If you are interested to learn more, we can discuss.
"But physical location is probably only the tip of the iceberg of the data TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone"
Who is to say that if you ban TikTok another foreign company won't show up that can do this too?
Seems like the better solution is to pass laws ensuring protection of our data and their sharing across all apps, not just 1 that we dislike.
This is just bullshit... Meta / Google / Linkdin how many more do exactly the same thing for the US so the rest of the world by this logic should ban all of them due to US spying .
No, US spying is clearly different from Chinese spying. Let's agree that US-based web apps do exactly the same kind of spying as China does through TikTok (it emphatically does not, but again, let's agree for the sake of this argument). Let's also agree that both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
I don't want to live in a country where the government tries to control which apps I can or cannot use; that is a violation of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, values I find extremely important. The issues would with TikTok would have to be much, much worse for me to even consider supporting banning it – it would need to be solidly, confidently, a significant existential threat to the freedom of the entirety of humanity. Issues with TikTok are not significantly worse to me than issues with the NSA spying and US corporate and social media manipulation, and I care about the world, not nation states.
> But it’s simply not clear what the U.S. derived from the arrangement other than a feeling of self-righteousness.
How about the peace of knowing that your government is not that level of tyrannical?? Some disinformation isn't nearly as scary to me as the government stooping to China's level and doing the things that make me so opposed to the CCP in the first place. Even though the existence of TikTok manipulation is risky, it is simply not worth stooping to the CCP's level in this area, in my opinion.
This is not the take I would have expected from Level 20 Neoliberal Noah Smith. I agree, though. Even as an EFF donor, there's a difference between upholding Section 230 and letting a company controlled by a foreign nation-state track American citizens.
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
I spent 20 years in China. Americans by and large just don't "get" that there is effectively no such thing as a private company in China, at least not in sensitive sectors. TikTok will act as an arm of the Chinese state when it pleases the CCP, or it will die. Ban it.
This is kind of a big problem in many areas, no? The whole Huawei ugliness, the recent semiconductor restrictions... I worry we need more of the bigger picture conversation about this problem.
I'd love the solution to be that the whole world says "nations are kind of BS" but that doesn't seem like what's going to happen.
That's the reality of the situation, even though the national security apparatuses of various countries pretend otherwise to justify their existence. Borders don't matter anymore except in extreme cases of incompetent policy.
not exactly. No one online at least what I have researched has proven the impact of user data collection. What TikTok has collected is similar to user data collected by other social media like YouTube, Instagram and such. The same risks apply to them, not just TikTok.
> The same risks apply to them, not just TikTok.
Considering the VAST differences between Western and Asian/Chinese culture, my intuition is that the risks (originating) on the Western side are much, much larger.
Well still what’s the actual impact with collecting user data. Does that pose a national security risk? We’ve already banned TikTok from government and military devices already
"Collecting user data" is a red herring - whether it is a deliberate/intentional red herring (I suspect yes, but who knows) is another matter, but a red herring nonetheless.
What the banning of TikTok is *really* about is mind/reality and inter-communication/solidarity control.
Well one what do you mean collecting user data is a red herring? People accuse it for being a national security threat and are trying to ban it because China can use TikTok and user data to control the algorithm. Second, what do you mean mind/reality and inter-communication/solidarity control. I don’t incline to either side of this debate but I’m researching this topic for a debate and I’m negative
The simple fact of the matter is US is scared tha China made a social media platform that is popular on their shores, nevermind that their own social media platforms does the same in other countries. It's hypocritical given social media platforms does the exact same thing to many other countries but the moment it happens to them, then they cry foul.
> Americans by and large just don't "get"...
Consider what you don't "get".
You present nonsensical arguments. The key point here is that the us corporate monkeys cannot get people to listen, hear or watch their propaganda and "pay for it" or earn from advertising. So, the whole government spying spin.
People are smart to realize that hollywood is propaganda and people end up paying to watch propaganda. Also, the corporate monkeys cant dose people or control information because tiktok does not follow their yutube edicts.
Tiktok allows users to download videos and share videos while this feature is unavailable in us corporate controlled apps. That means the corporate monkeys can control the dissemination of information, information flow, content and also erase information. They cannot do this on tiktok.
The interesting part is that all these corporate monkeys advocating for a ban have a common denominator and they happen to be from the community of nile-khazars and you are suspectee to be one among them.
😂
Who’s arguments the one in the article?
If the U.S. government made an *extra-legal* demand that Apple kick of TikTok then yes, I expect Apple would refuse and fight in court. Such a thing is unthinkable in China where the party sits outside of and above the legal system.
We're not really worried about China banning U.S. apps though (they already do that!). We're worried about them using TikTok for clandestine propaganda purposes. Perhaps the U.S. would do the same thing in a conflict if it had the opportunity. So what? That's not a reason to give China the opportunity.
You present nonsensical arguments. The key point here is that the us corporate monkeys cannot get people to listen, hear or watch their propaganda and "pay for it" or earn from advertising. So, the whole government spying spin.
People are smart to realize that hollywood is propaganda and people end up paying to watch propaganda. Also, the corporate monkeys cant dose people or control information because tiktok does not follow their yutube edicts.
Tiktok allows users to download videos and share videos while this feature is unavailable in us corporate controlled apps. That means the corporate monkeys can control the dissemination of information, information flow, content and also erase information. They cannot do this on tiktok.
The interesting part is that all these corporate monkeys advocating for a ban have a common denominator and they happen to be from the community of nile-khazars and I suspect you are one among them with a loud voice.
If you don't see that China is the enemy of the world, you're in for a rude awakening. I'd start learning your Mandarin.
I highly disagree that we should ban Tik Tok. If we do we just give the government license to ban any app or information source that the government doesn’t like. It’s Tik Tok today. It can be Youtube tomorrow. I think Fox news is a propaganda outlet destroying the country. Why don’t we ban Fox? And then why not the New York Times? It’s bad enough that liberals want to regulate the internet to cleanse it of “misinformation.” To give the government discretionary power to ban entire sources of information is a horrible idea. If that’s what they do in China, then why should we do it here? Democracies are not supposed to “wield sharp power,” at least not where it undermines the liberties of their own citizens. And if Tik Tok can track us, then so what? Can’t any company track us? Can’t the NSA already listen in on our private phone calls? Would we have to start banning social media companies to fix that? We could just pass privacy laws. But I understand that’s a lot less sexy than using the administrative state as a blunt instrument to plan the public good. And we’re unanimously obsessed with using the government to do big theatrical things now. Our politics is so deranged that besides cracking down on China to protect the steel industry and curry favor with the red state voting bloc, we have to freak out about the potential indoctrination of the electorate by an app full of videos of people screaming and dancing that each last only seconds long. It is my conviction that each political party is shoring up their own incompetence and covering their ass (for votes) by competing with each other for who can pretend to talk the toughest game on China. But to compete zero sum with a peaking, mock geopolitical power, by “friendshoring” and reviving manufacturing, we just put a greater strain on our deteriorating relationship with China and encourage an increasingly brittle regime to lash out. With our economic trade war, I think we are pushing Xi to support Putin in Ukraine, and we’re also pushing him into becoming a peacemaker in the middle east. We are creating a whole new sphere of influence with our inability to rationally deal with and talk to China which is entirely self-serving for the populists in our government. It’s horrible. You praise the US for finally starting to act like a “nation state.” I think the fact that we don’t care at all about international trade law is a horrible thing, and that we have totally forgotten how dumb industrial policy is, etc. It’s a strong economy and freedom that will make the US the superior of China, a commitment to western ideals and free trade, not protectionism or national security crackdowns on the internet. Why do we want to mirror China’s policies that aren’t giving them any edge on us and which are sinking their economy, and could be pushing them towards greater aggression on the world stage? And we’ll just make our own citizens hate their government more. Our bipartisan China policy is completely hysterical and stupid.
Fox News is not controlled by a foreign government, nor is the NY Times. The issue is not that TikTok spreads false news or that it tracks US citizens; it's that it is controlled by the PRC government and the information it collects is at the disposal of that government.
I agree that the US behaving like a "nation state" is nothing to celebrate in itself. It is the context that matters. For many years, from the late 1990s until the Trump Administration, the US response to the PRC was to behave not like a nation state but like an international leader, the exalted goal we set for ourselves. We championed lowering barriers to China's access to foreign markets and integrating the PRC into international systems of trade and diplomacy. The expectation was that the PRC would increasingly conform to the norms of those international systems and behave less like a nation state. Despite some early positive signs, progress was surprisingly slow on the PRC side: trademark piracy, trade secret theft, and laws limiting foreign access to Chinese markets without disclosing trade secrets all continued, and these trends have ramped up since Xi Jinping's accession in 2013. The US "nation state-like" response is a realistic acknowledgment of the limits of the more open and expansive approach. The same process has been underway with regard to Russia since Putin's accession, although the specific mix of reasons varies. The US return towards nation state behavior in this context is a recognition of the tactical failure of the larger vision in the specific context of recent decades. It's not good in itself, but it may be the optimal choice at this time in this world.
It is always easy to criticize US policy--in fact, I think there may not be a government on earth with major policies not easy to characterize as stupid. Part of the reason isevident in your comment: it is generally true that a policy may provoke either backlash or moral hazard, and that can be the basis for criticism. Of course friendshoring, etc., may provoke a PRC backlash or push them towards support of Putin. The question is weighing the cost/benefit of friendshoring (etc.) with not friendshoring, and I think that recent events have taught us that the costs of the "not" option can be much higher than we had been calculating. (The "push toward Putin" argument may be valid in theory, but is there any indication that if there were not heightened tensions with China now it would not be leaning toward Putin? The ultimate logic is never to piss off any state no matter what they do, because pissing them off can make it worse. I think we see the same weaknesses of argument in the Mearsheimer line on the US/NATO as the cause of the Ukraine war.)
<Fox news is not controlled by foreign government>
I think you're missing the one key point here: Jay Burkett isn't making it about 'who owns what,' he's highlighting the hypocrisy of both governments. Our American Media AS WELL AS our government is just as giant of a hypocrite as this 'foreign government' (China) in this matter. As long as China exists (as well as American/foreign hackers, attackers, and 3rd-party trackers), China could receive our data other ways if they really wanted to, they don't need TikTok for that necessarily. Plus, how many Americans visit China each year? Your data and security can be at risk of breach just from setting foot on their grounds, KNOWINGLY (if research is done beforehand, or else perhaps unknowingly) entering Communist territory. So by that knowledge: No One in either country is safe, really.
It's good of you to come to Jay Burkett's defense, Mr. Vega, but I honestly don't follow you argument. I'm not going to dispute that Rupert Murdoch is a hypocrite in many respects. How does comparing the CCP to Rupert Murdoch reveal the hypocrisy of the "both governments" (I assume the other one is the US government, not the Australian one)? Grant that every owner of a media outlet is a hypocrite in many respects. No one of them represents a force remotely comparable to the CCP.
I take your second point to be: our data is at risk from countless sources; there's nothing special about it being at risk from TikTok. What's special about TikTok in this frame is that our data is not only at risk but is being channeled to the CCP, an entity with incomparably more leverage than hackers, attackers, and 3rd-party trackers.
Of course your data's at risk in China. I've traveled there many times highly conscious of that. Why would it be that because my data may be at risk there it should be equally at risk when I am here? And since no more than well under 10% of Americans ever visit China, why should the 90+% who don't be irrelevant on this score?
"No one in either country is safe, really." I have no idea what this counsel of despair is supposed to imply. You seem to assume it follows that we should just give up our data and be content. A counter-response would be, "So we need to improve our safety protocols."
<I don't follow your argument>
Namely this: Banning TikTok will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And no, there really isn't anything special about TikTok's risks. Again, they're literally the same as any other Media Platform, ABSOLUTELY REGARDLESS of the government it's under (USGov't, CCP, etc.)
<Counter-Response> What I said was not a despair counsel, more of a reality check. Yes we do need better protocol. Thing is, we can hand out protocol improvements on a silver platter, but it won't subtract the reality that safety would still be lacking regardless (data and all).
Mr. Vega, the implication of your first paragraph seems to be that our data is as accessible to the CCP via YouTube as via TikTok. I have no reason to believe that's true. Or perhaps you meant that our data is as accessible to *some* government or private actor anywhere. I'm certainly prepared to accept that claim. But that would indeed leave something "special" about TikTok.
What I called a counsel of despair still sounds like one to me. Saying that there are things we can do but none of them will work isn't materially different from saying that there's nothing we can do.
The way I read your responses, my interpretation is that banning TikTok will indeed have an impact on the vulnerabilityof our data to mining by the CCP, but we'll still be vulnerable to being mined by government/bad actors in general. That doesn't undermine the argument for banning TikTok (and we haven't even touched on the disinformation aspect), but it certainly is a reality check about online vulnerability.
Thank you
My argument here is nothing like those arguments that Nato created Putin’s Russia, and the way we have worked to target Russia’s economy with sanctions I think is justified. Russia actually invaded Ukraine and they are a mortal threat to the international order and the US in particular. China has not invaded anyone. And though China’s increasing totalitarianism is certainly alarming, our reactions to it are disproportionate to the actual threat. Like the Foreign Direct Product Rule for example, where we’re cracking down on other countries that sell technology to China with US-made parts is really excessive. I think some export controls regarding, or reshoring critical technology manufacture, is justified. But the FDPR, Trump’s useless tariffs and now a Tik Tok ban are excessive bordering on absurd. And the analogy I made between Tik Tok on Fox is perfectly fair. Tik tok is owned by the CCP. fox is owned by Murdoch. Just about everyone who owns anything is an unscrupulpus person who might be a threat to national security or democracy, but however big that threat might be, it is no justification to ban Tik Tok and overthrow the Berman amendments, giving the executive that level of power to control and restrict information exchange. And where does this end? Are we going to start deporting Chinese immigrants too? Recall Trump’s muslim ban. Trump started all this China hysteria. He pulled out of the transpacific partnership and the populist schizoid green new deal progressive Buy America biden has made no effort to repair our commitment to the WTO which it would be a better idea to use to punish China for their trade and IP violations. Then we would also have our allies on board. At the moment we’re trying to maintain reckless primacy in the pacific, just with military might and trying to pressure our allies to follow along with our mindless green energy subsidies and tariffs.
JB, The argument that NATO enlargement created Putin's Russia is entirely about our defensive actions long prior to Putin's initial invasion of Ukraine. In that sense there is a very close parallel to our situation vis a vis the PRC now, when an attack on Taiwan seems reasonably likely within the decade.
If you're content to have your argument hang on a parallel between Rupert Murdoch and the Chinese Communist Party, I'm content to let it hang there.
It is a great misfortune that former president Trump is associated with our change of strategy towards China. His major reasoning (trade deficits bad) was nonsense and his methods (tariffs everywhere) terrible, but his administration were not the only voices calling for a strategic change in light of the PRC's commercial conduct and authoritrianism (that last, of course, Trump admires).
Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was not anti-China: it was isolationist (and rising US isolationism had already forced Clinton to advocate the same action), and it significantly enhanced China's position in Asian trade. The TPP was anti-PRC, and it was Obama who embraced it (which had many problems, but which I think was absolutely the right policy choice).
It is not a strong argument to say: If you ban TikTok the next step may be deporting immigrants. A slippery slope argument fails if the slope is a cliff.
I think the argument you probably can actually make is this: "And though China’s increasing totalitarianism is certainly alarming, our reactions to it are disproportionate to the actual threat." It suggests you could, if you had time, spell out specifics on what reshoring is justified and what is excessive, and why. I don't have the knowledge to assess whether we've abetted China's bad trade practices by passing up effective action through the WTO; you might be right there.
Check out my Substack the “Neoliberal Standard.” In a series of posts called “Biden’s Leviathan” I’m trying to document the danger of our China policies. I also did a piece on banning Tik Tok.
Mr. Burkett, I wish I could pursue many more substack blogs than I do. I think it's a great platform. But I already am over-budget with the time I devote to reading substack blogs and bloviating in the comments. I often follow links to specific data sources in comments, but just as a matter of time limitations I don't pursue comment-string arguments into other substacks unless the comments themselves have been analytically persuasive and the topic is of particular interest to me. As I noted, although I don't think you argued well here, it seemed to me you had knowledge that could enable you to mount a stronger case. Maybe you'll recruit me on another string.
I think my argument is very persuasive, because Biden doesn’t give a damn to work with the WTO to handle China’s nationalist trade practices, we are decoupling from China and pushing a decrepit and pretentious regime into a corner, with excessive export controls and now a deluded Tik Tok ban, which will even have broad and ugly ramifications for our free society in America. We are perfectly mirroring China’s policies in our efforts to counter them. In addition it’s gratuitous. It’s all for partisan clout, because our government is full of populists. You can’t disentangle the China phobia from the erroneous conclusion that China took manufacturing jobs. Politicians are building their careers on a misguided resentment for China which has involved us sleepwalking into ever worsening tensions with them, possibly war sooner or later. Here are a couple articles that have influenced my thinking. Also the economist has done a lot on America’s dumb trade policies. https://www.cato.org/blog/echoing-trump-biden-embraces-international-trade-lawlessness
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-trap-us-foreign-policy-zero-sum-competition
This comment is a perfect example of Lenin's axion: "the capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
Any relevant Hitler quotes while you're at it?
Nobody's arguing for banning TikTok because of the content. They're arguing for banning it because it's a massive spyware apparatus for a hostile foreign government. The free speech argument is a red herring.
To argue that information in itself, regardless of where it comes from, is worth censoring is a dangerous notion for any free society to entertain. That’s all I’m saying. It’s Mccarthyism to block and restrict information sources that are national security risks, as a way to promote the public good. It’s just a vain and disturbing attempt by the state to control public discourse. To ban tik tok is just as unsettling as Ron Desantis punishing Disney just for protesting his bill or his Stop Woke Act, or his fight with the college board. Private companies must at all times be allowed to teach and say whatever they want. And people should have the freedom to associate with them or not, as they wish.
Go back and read the post.
I would call it inching toward reciprocity rather than hysterical, though you do make some good points
I feel the article has soared over your head entirely.
I feel you don't pay attention to what's happening in this world.
If we could ban TikTok and its clones it might be better for mental health.
It's funny how the US has no problem when its culture and values are subtly spread across the world by Hollywood and the US Internet giants, but as soon as a foreign company develops similar influence, they turn French and fight the foreign influence. The right way to address this is by having a wide spectrum of different sources available and by having an educated population, and not by trying to impose a top-down content filter on a nation. It's unfortunate that even otherwise intelligent observers like Noah do not recognize that.
There's a world of difference between foreign cultural exports and and foreign nation-state adversary propaganda. People aren't worried that American teenagers will start listening to C-pop and using chopsticks -- they're worried that in a conflict with the U.S., China will use TikTok to push narratives that suit its agenda.
Is there really a difference between cultural exports and state propaganda? I doubt the Hungarians or the Poles think so. When a rural Romanian girl is convinced she's trans by American-led social media, is that cultural exportation or state propaganda? (And that's a real example that I know of.)
Were people starting in the 1950s convinced they were left-handed?
More nonsense by Richard Shlomo JulinSLY DECEIVING-STEIN
I think Richard made the right point. No one is saying "pro-China" is where we draw the line. We're talking about foreign government-sponsored propaganda via a major news source that does not identify its character. Individuals, including PRC citizens, can still post pro-China content to social media.
"The US state uses Hollywood to push its narratives too." Hollywood is not the US government. Its war films are patriotic because that sells. "I cannot think of a single Hollywood movie that featured the US government in a conflict with a foreign country where the US government was not portrayed as the good guys." I think films like "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now," "The Hurt Locker," "American Sniper" all portray to varying degrees negative images of the US in war. I'm sure there are others I haven't seen or heard about. (Worth noting that US pop music, including lots of songs denigrating various aspects of the US, are just as much a part of exported US culture as big-budget movies.)
A better comparison here would be with Russian Internet Research Agency, members of which were indicted as a result of the Mueller investigation. When a foreign government engages in a covert influence campaign via social media, it is considered part of a cyberwar activities, subject to a national security response, not a First Amendment issue. The fact that the US may engage in similar activities is not a rationale for suspending national security concerns--it would be a national security concern if the US did not engage in similar activities, given that these tools are now available to all governments. Treaty obligations would be the way to limit those activities. If the PRC and US entered a treaty assuring that neither side would block the other's social media activity there would be a legal barrier to doing so, but it would not be a First Amendment issue.
I'd just add Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, The Whistleblower, Eye in the Sky, Vice, and The Green Zone to the list of Hollywood films that are critical of the military. In fact among *recent* films in particular, Top Gun: Maverick stands out for its pro-military POV.
It's really telling that half your examples are 35+ years old . . . .
Tik-Tok is not the same thing as Al-Jazeera or Russia Today at all, because Tik-Tok can be used to spy on Americans on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Read Noah's paragraphs about spying again. TikTok has already admitted to tracking journalists' physical movements, and apps collect all sorts of data about their users. TikTok is *obligated* to turn that data over to Chinese government if the Chinese government wants it. This isn't even a big secret! Does anyone seriously believe that this could not happen, if it hasn't happened already?
The propaganda stuff is bad, but this is the actual reason to ban TikTok. Al-Jazeera and Russia Today do not, as far as I know, spy on American citizens.
Because I know someone is gonna talk about how American governmental and private-sector spying: I think this is bad, too! I'm all for strengthening privacy laws and making this more difficult. But a) I'd take the American government or even an American corporation over the Chinese government any day of the week, and b) two wrongs do not make a right.
Mike, You'll find the information you need about the Mueller investigation on Wikipedia's page for the Internet Research Agency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency). I disagree with you that people shouldn't have been charged for their activities on social media accounts. The IRA, operating from Russia, was covertly trying to influence the outcome of a US national election by spreading false narratives through social media. The First Amendment has never been interpreted as covering foreign government entities, nor, in my view, should it.
I think it's remarkable and important that RT and Al-Jazeera operate in the US. I do not understand why you believe their direct foreign governmental sponsorship is not utterly conspicuous--it is openly acknowledged and signaled by their names. It is entirely the covert nature of potential TikTok influence that is the problem, as it is with the Internet Research Agency. If the PRC government wanted to sponsor a cable source called something like "Bàndaŏ," signaling its foreign origin as obviously as "Al-Jazeera," while openly licensing as a state-sponsored corporation, then I don't see a problem with it presenting the PRC case. It is the covert nature of potential misinformation sources that renders them powerful.
I'll grant your point about The Deer Hunter and American Sniper (though my memory of the former is that is was certainly critical of US foreign policy, and was indeed meant to inspire horrified sympathy for the Vietnamese killed) and cede to Richard on the longer list of Hollywood movies.
And the China pushes Hollywood as well. US movie makers are now very aware that they must avoid certain topics if they want access to the Chinese movie market. China hasn’t been the villain in an action movie in over a decade. The Simpsons has lampooned Chinese censorship several times over its 30 year history. Those episodes aren’t available on the Disney+ streaming service. Disney knows they can’t release those anymore if they want to distribute Marvel superhero movies in China.
The US doesn’t ban any Chinese movies which would be restricting speech. You are free to watch all the Chinese propaganda you want, although no company is required to distribute it. Many American movies are banned by the CCP. In the case of TikTok, what speech is being banned? The app or ByteDance aren’t speaking, the users are and the users are free to use any other platform. The only speaking that ByteDance does is by suppressing or promoting certain speech, and I’m not sure stopping that is a first amendment violation assuming the first amendment even applies to foreign entities.
Then I think you haven't watched very many hollywood movies lol.
The issue is not with foreign ownership of the app but the fact that the Chinese govt does not permit any effective guardrails between private companies and the state.
Anyway, the French are allowed to worry about American owned tech companies and lots of the data privacy regulation in the EU is about addressing issues not dissimilar to these.
"I cannot think of a single Hollywood movie that featured the US government in a conflict with a foreign country where the US government was not portrayed as the good guys."
How old are you? Did you see Apocalypse Now? Or The Deer Hunter?
Your examples are 45 years old . . . .
Noah is not intelligent.
He is either incompetent or a high anxiety person who thinks he deserves some special privilege to tell others how to think or he must think others are stupid or he is a deceiver (kazar agent) or all of the above.
Such people should be ignored for wasting people's time.
We do not have an educated population. Did the Trump years fail to teach you that?
What's the moral basis for denying an American consumer the right to share data with a foreign country in exchange for whatever service they provide?
Or denying them the right to consume foreign propaganda?
The "moral basis" is the assumption that technocrats in the government can make better decisions for the people than the people can make for themselves. Given this assumption, it's not just allowable, but imperative to allow the technocrats control.
Indeed. I'm unhappy to see Noah broadcast this position.
Setting aside the moral basis, what's the legal basis? Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965) already found that Americans have a First Amendment right to consume foreign communist propaganda.
Interstate commerce clause :)
The Interstate Commerce Clause generally doesn't override the First Amendment.
How about "the common good"?
We curtail people's choices all the time on that basis. Fentanyl is illegal on that basis. So So is prostitution. So is commercial sale of organs. Can this go too far? Absolutely. But we've gone so far to the other extreme that we can't even see that edge right now.
All of those things unironically should be legal.
Talk about extreme. Even most libertarians recognize the moral hazard of markets for organ donation.
Racial equality was once called extreme. That's not an argument.
Sheltered take.
Ah, of course, the common good. Like that time we needed two weeks to flatten the curve.
You say "we've gone so far to the other extreme that we can't even see that edge right now." Given all your examples, I presume your "other extreme" is too few restrictions. What are some of the restrictions you think we should have? And were these ever in effect?
Do you know anything about the CCP? I'd honestly start learning your Mandarin, since China is the enemy of the world and will show that soon.
I don't know - a ban for people in certain organizations(like military, or government) seems to make sense, but a complete ban? Individuals worried about CCP spying on them can simply not use Tiktok. I'd go for something on the level of a warning sign near the download button, for normal citizens.
As for the propaganda issue, I think the free-speech side has a good point as well. If we start banning stuff on the basis that it presents a biased picture, I can't imagine how many websites we'd have to shut down. Yes, the source of the bias is a lot more problematic in case of Tiktok, but fundamentally I don't think it's too different from a pro-Russian thinker writing columns on his website. It's has more influence, but that's about it.
The arguments against leaving it up to "Individuals worried about CCP spying on them " is that we as a country have interests in not having citizens subject to covert CCP influence and propaganda as well as preventing the CCP from having intelligence or leverage over US citizens (or a fifth-column pro-CCP constituency) independently of the level of individual decisionmaking. Sometimes kids (or older) make dumb decisions that give them a dopamine hit but are net-negative. TikTok is frustrating because it's conceptually similar to, say, smoking (really only has evil applications and is manifestly bad for the smoker and others, used to be incredibly popular anyway), it just has the 1A tagging along for the ride.
As to the latter point, if the kids were all, of their own accord, visiting pro-CCP websites and downloading *the Communist Manifesto,* that seems like a core free speech concern. Here, the presumptively covert nature of both the spying and the manipulation are the point -- we don't like being unable to assess the source and nature of information independently of its content in order to assess motivated reasoning and, crucially, the appears to be roughly consistent with the 1st Amendment (thinking here of attribution requirements for political ads, e.g.). In this case, the curator deciding who sees what is some amalgam of ByteDance and the CCP, but in a highly non-obvious way because we've never been in a position where a propaganda and spying platform (1) resides on a Smartphone (because we haven't had smartphones) and (2) puts most of its efforts towards stuff like cat videos, compared to which the active propaganda elements are intrinsically covert and seem like small potatoes.
It's a tough nut to crack but I'm basically in favor of finding some kind of legally tenable distinction to preserve the 1A while also allowing us to say "the fact that a bunch of impressionable teenagers are, through a combination of incredibly bad and dumb decisionmaking by an initial set of kids who downloaded the app, plus a bunch of the rest who are locked in a social network-effect local maximum they cant' escape without coordinated action (and are also dumb and impressionable), now carry around a program effectively controlled by the CCP on their phones, is both (a) sui generis and (b) really fucking bad, and should not be allowed."
What we need is some way to (correctly) analogize this to smoking or gambling regulation or any previously-upheld limits on foreign agency or intelligence measures without actually blocking citizens' right to look at the Communist Party USA's (or heck, Communist Part of China's) website if they so choose.
Thank you. Blows my mind when people don't understand that 1) social media is "really fucking bad" and 2) that it is in the national interest to prevent a foreign government from meddling in the thoughts and minds of our youth.
Nonsense argument.
Teenagers cannot decide or judge on 1A. They need adult supervision.
Adults do not need governments telling them what is good or bad. They use their own mind and judge for their own. Adults are responsible for their actions, reactions and consequences that follow.
Ban does not make sense.
If government or military is such a concern then they should lock their phones in a locker and use a government device for government duties.
Just some corporate kazars trying to fool people
Banning TikTok was one of a very few issues that Trump was right about, and in general, should be part of a larger effort to throw some sharp elbows at China. They have to know that if they're going to be aggressively authoritarian bullying a-holes on the international stage, there will be consequences.
Many Americans are so interested in what is easy to use they never consider the consequences of that use. Per Watergate, "Follow the money." Who benefits when we use a program designed and operated by people who stand against everything America is supposed to stand for? Why support nations whose leaders are openly antagonistic toward America? Why should we trust anything said by either Russia or China? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan - trust but verify. Since our computer experts can't verify what China claims, we should not use their computer parts or programs.
For the most part, America airs its dirty laundry in public. The same cannot be said about China. They bury their dirty laundry - in more ways than one. No computer part or program is so important that we should blindly use it without considering where it came from and what the potential downsides of this use may be.
The logic of the Internet is simple:
If you pay for it, you're the customer.
If you don't pay for it, you're the product.
The only question is whether what you're getting "for free" is worth being the product.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the (largely anecdotal) evidence that TikTok is intentionally pushing content to young people that is likely to negatively impact their mental health. Granted, all social media use negatively affects mental health, and it could be argued that all smartphone use does, but TikTok is clearly far worse.
If you don't believe me, look up how TikTok has caused a host of young women to develop tics. And caused a spike in self-diagnosed bipolar. Plus there's the spike in cases of self-diagnosed (and possibly self-induced) Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition that has historically been extremely rare and which is treated by eliminating all alternate personalities; TikTok influencers are instead encouraging young people to work to develop their alternative personalities.
That’s a good reason to ban TickTok. But also to ban anything else that mimics TikTok. I don’t buy that any algorithm produced in SV would be better. In fact Instagram using teenagers report bad mental health, Instagram is following the TikTok model of short portrait mode videos you can scroll.
Noah has supported banning TikTok for years so this is not a surprising piece. I don't have any preference either way: I'm certain that data on TikTok users is leaked to the CCP but that's not much different from what already happens on American social media platforms.
There have been several instances of private user data on American apps( Clubhouse comes to mind) ending up in foreign hands with nefarious intentions, China and Russia especially. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica voter profiling and targeting - overblown as such things are - was another such example.
So, the real problem here isn't TikTok as much as it is tightening privacy laws on social media companies. I even doubt a lot of this data is useful any way to all parties concerned. Tim Hwang had an excellent book on the subject titled Subprime Attention.
So, should TikTok be banned? Well, yea. It's only fair. But its security risk, relative to the other massive social media platforms, has been significantly misrepresented.
What I'm interested in knowing is how will the TikTok ban be enforced. Bruce Schneier, the computational security expert, wrote a lovely post on the topic a while ago and his conclusion was every possible option presented unpalatable consequences.
So, perhaps the issue here isn't so much as the political will and approval necessary to ban TikTok as it is the means by which that curtailment will be carried out. That may constitute the more important problem.
I found Schneier's entire argument weirdly naive. He says we shouldn't ban TikTok, we should just have strong data privacy laws that affect all social media.
Okay, say that happens. And TikTok says they don't want to follow those laws, because the CCP likes collecting data.
So what's the next move? Aren't you just back to banning the app but with more steps in between?
And he pooh poohs the idea of banning apps, so he seems to be undermining his entire point, since any company can sidestep US regulations with ease and face no consequences.
Yes, it was rather naive although the core of his argument stands: it will be really difficult to implement a fully effective ban without resorting to certain insalubrious measures.
Meh, he had the typical techno libertarian belief that if you can't do something 100% perfectly then don't bother.
Just make Apple and Android drop it from their marketplace. Make US companies not allowed to advertise. Make US payment processors not allowed to transact. Make US banks not allowed to receive payments.
Who cares if it isn't 100% perfect?
Not really any different than say sanctions the US imposes on a regular basis.
I'm not sure if I'll call Schneier a techno libertarian ( he's a big fan of regulation), although his most recent book - A Hacker's Mind - certainly shares some distinct similarities with that philosophy.
It is somewhat irrelevant that those measures will fail to be 100 percent perfect. But it will accelerate the ongoing decoupling between China and America. Eric Schmidt often spoke about how in the future, there would be two versions of the internet. Perhaps, the future intends to prove him right.
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
Can't it just be given the Parler treatment? If the major app stores push an update that bricks the app and then delist it, that should be sufficient to kill it. Sure, some tiny fragment of the population might download it with an APK and keep using it, but that's on them, and it's big social influence and tracking potential will be gone.
Pretty good solution. Because the web is so centralized, it just takes a few platforms to delist something or someone and they lose cultural and social influence.
Although it is worth noting rhat Parler did pivot to Russian hosting services and it was extremely right wing( the appeal was very limited). TikTok will have alternative options it can migrate to where it's still available to the American public for a little more hassle
And Tiktok's appeal is not only quite broad but its biggest demographic is teens who have a lot of time on their hands, lean heavily towards the left and socialism, and are quite rebellious. In other words, the perfect customer base to subvert a policy like that.
"TikTok will have alternative options it can migrate to where it's still available to the American public for a little more hassle"
The iPhone has like 70% market penetration in the US and apparently teens think of a blue text box as some sort of asinine status symbol. Between Apple the Google Play store plus a forcible app delete this thing would be gone and never coming back no matter how cute they get with workarounds (in other words, I think your first paragraph is sufficiently powerful to overcome your third as a practical matter.)
Also TikTok's perceived utility is presumably going to go down quadratically rather than linearly with a reduced user base, which seems like it would likely lead to a death spiral.
I didn't think of the sizable iPhone market penetration among teens in America. Workarounds are still possible but they become much more difficult.
Also, because of Metcalfe's law, the loss of a few users, especially power users, has compounding negative effects for a social media platform.
Those are excellent points. I cannot but agree.
Data privacy isn't the main issue. The problem is the opaque algorithm that decides what users see, and the impossibility of verifying that it isn't being used for nefarious purposes.
Lots of respect for Bruce Schneier but I think he is overplaying the difficulty here. Banning U.S. companies from dealing with ByteDance will get the job done over time, even if it doesn't make the app disappear from phones overnight.
"The problem is the opaque algorithm that decides what users see, and the impossibility of verifying that it isn't being used for nefarious purposes."
But aren't all the algorithms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) opaque? Aren't there already accusations that they're being used for nefarious purposes? Is the solution to ban algorithms? Or do we allow regulators to oversee the algorithms? If so, how do we keep the regulators from using the algorithms for nefarious purposes?
Facebook/Twitter/YouTube aren't based in authoritarian foreign adversary states
But they are subject to "suggestions" from the US government. Should we trust the intentions of US government agencies?
Who is "we"? China? American citizens?
American citizens.
The whole point of the First Amendment is that we don't trust anyone, in particular the government, to control what we can see, or read, or hear. If different companies have different algorithms, we at least have some choice about which algorithm we use. If we give the government the power to decide which algorithms are nefarious, then eventually we'll only have one algorithm that functions exactly as the regulators want, and the regulators will inevitably pursue their own agenda, not the purported agenda they are chartered to pursue.
I have to disagree on the first paragraph
Data privacy is the main issue because these businesses make money by selling data to advertisers through complex but often ineffective methods. Strong data privacy rules mean a lot of these businesses can't function.
Most commercial software runs on opaque algorithms and there's little evidence these algorithms exert strong political influence on users( I consider this belief to be the most effective propaganda of the 21st century)
And we already know it's being used for nefarious purposes so the 'impossibility' of verifying it is immaterial. ( TikTok is definitely taking directions from the CCP). The distinction here is what it is storing is hardly of any important use to the CCP.
I fully agree on the second paragraph. Schneier overplays the difficulty and the ban will reduce use over time. That is what will happen eventually.
How do strong data privacy rules prevent TikTok from manipulating its algorithm to increase the visibility of videos that (for example) argue that the U.S. defense commitment to Japan is a waste of taxpayer money that could be spent on social services at home?
To start with, I don't think it's reasonable for either country that America continues to subsidize Japan's defence needs on such a substantial scale.
Now, to the main point:
First off, as I wrote earlier, there's plenty evidence that digital propaganda of that nature fails to have measurable and strong effects.
Second, it hardly matters anyway: many young people don't support the Ukraine War( a few of them partly because of Russian propaganda), but America has kept funding it regardless. As long as the political elite don't buy the narrative, it will not have any meaningful impact.
And third, strong data privacy rules will help indirectly. If TikTok can't sell private data to advertising brokers and middle men, then it will run at a steeper loss. The company can simply be regulated out of any potential chance at profitability unless of course it is heavily subsidized anyway.
And TikTok is not the only bad actor here. If sensitive American data ends up in Chinese hands, it doesn't make much of a difference if it came from TikTok or if it came from
American social platforms.
The reason I used the argument about Japan's defense as an example is precisely because it will seem reasonable to some people. If you agree with it, why do you doubt it would be persuasive to others, particularly those who aren't committed or informed about this particular issue? Adversaries are of course going to try to use persuasive arguments in their propaganda. It won't be "rah rah China is the best!" - the message will be subtle.
I don't know what evidence you're referring to when you claim digital propaganda doesn't work, but I highly doubt that the data exists to conclusively answer questions about the effectiveness of clandestine propaganda like this because, well, it's clandestine, and when it works we never find out.
The evidence I'm referring to are as follows:
1.) The work of celebrated statistician David Sumpter and his subsequent assertions before members of the Congress, no less, on the ineffectiveness of digital propaganda.
2.) Tim Hwang's perceptive book on the broken ecosystem of digital advertising.
3.) The essay by Noah itself contains a link to evidence disproving the myth that YouTube contributed significantly to right wing radicalization.
4.) Numerous others I cannot enumerate for the sake of brevity.
It's a convenient story but it's likelier that material causes, peer groups, and psychological inclinations are the chief factors in determining whether people are susceptible to media bias or not.
Nudging isn't just very effective, either online or in real life( so much of behavioural psychology has come under justified attack recently on this basis).
"So, should TikTok be banned? Well, yea. It's only fair."
So Americans' free speech rights should be abridged because authoritarian countries abridge the free speech rights of their citizens? WTF kind of logic is that?!?
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
Disclaimer: I work for TikTok in the US since 2020.
I want to point out some factual errors in below paragraph:
"Tiktok has admitted tracking journalists’ physical movements and sending the data to its Chinese parent company. But physical location is probably only the tip of the iceberg of the data TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone."
1. "Tiktok has admitted tracking journalists’ physical movements and sending the data to its Chinese parent company" != TikTok shared data with CCP. And AFAIK, there was no prior incidents that CCP requested any data from TikTok or TikTok sent any data to CCP. By AFAIK, I meant public information. If there is anything really happened, given how easily TikTok information was leaked (and vastly misinterpreted), they would have became public information. Also, TikTok has spent more than 1 billion dollars on Project Texas (there was public report) to ensure none USDS employees can have access to US users' data.
2. "TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone" is simply false. Both iOS and Android has done a great job in term of security, I don't think any mobile app can do this without being caught. There were so many false claims from "security experts" what TikTok did or could do. For ones I am aware of (e.g. inapp browser or Feroot report), they are either overly exaggerated, and simply false.
I am your paid subscriber and really liked your other posts. If you are interested to learn more, we can discuss.
Long live the CCP?
"But physical location is probably only the tip of the iceberg of the data TikTok can collect, which includes faceprints, voiceprints, browsing history, text messages, and pretty much anything you do on your phone"
Who is to say that if you ban TikTok another foreign company won't show up that can do this too?
Seems like the better solution is to pass laws ensuring protection of our data and their sharing across all apps, not just 1 that we dislike.
This is just bullshit... Meta / Google / Linkdin how many more do exactly the same thing for the US so the rest of the world by this logic should ban all of them due to US spying .
US Exceptionalism incarnate
No, US spying is clearly different from Chinese spying. Let's agree that US-based web apps do exactly the same kind of spying as China does through TikTok (it emphatically does not, but again, let's agree for the sake of this argument). Let's also agree that both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.
I don't want to live in a country where the government tries to control which apps I can or cannot use; that is a violation of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, values I find extremely important. The issues would with TikTok would have to be much, much worse for me to even consider supporting banning it – it would need to be solidly, confidently, a significant existential threat to the freedom of the entirety of humanity. Issues with TikTok are not significantly worse to me than issues with the NSA spying and US corporate and social media manipulation, and I care about the world, not nation states.
> But it’s simply not clear what the U.S. derived from the arrangement other than a feeling of self-righteousness.
How about the peace of knowing that your government is not that level of tyrannical?? Some disinformation isn't nearly as scary to me as the government stooping to China's level and doing the things that make me so opposed to the CCP in the first place. Even though the existence of TikTok manipulation is risky, it is simply not worth stooping to the CCP's level in this area, in my opinion.
This is not the take I would have expected from Level 20 Neoliberal Noah Smith. I agree, though. Even as an EFF donor, there's a difference between upholding Section 230 and letting a company controlled by a foreign nation-state track American citizens.
Sorry, but this hysteria about TikTok is easily as absurd as the hysteria about ChinaBalloongate.
https://www.internetgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/TikTok-and-US-national-security-3.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/opinion/tiktok-ban-big-tech-china.html
Both are hegemonic powers seeking to, respectively, maintain global hegemony and create a new global hegemony. Which do you prefer? The answer is easy: US hegemony. We are, factually and empirically, the good guys. We are literally exceptional.
In the present, US hegemony props up Ukraine and defends freedom and democracy in Europe. Chinese hegemony lukewarmly supports Russian aggression. China right now perpetrates genocide and population-level brainwashing against Uighurs and Tibetans. It exterminates any tall poppies among its own populace like Harrison Bergeron. This isn't a hard distinction to make.
Look at the last eighty years. Have you noticed they're the wealthiest, freest, and most peaceful period in all of human history? I sure have! That is the world the United States made. The United States held the entire world in the palm of its hand in 1945, and chose to make everyone who wanted it rich and free, at the cost of their independence in foreign policy. It could have made all these client states into its slaves. It didn't. The Soviets, in their little corner, did make slaves of every nation it occupied. The Nazis would have made deserts. The British, in their best moments, aspired to make a global hegemony somewhat like the one the US actually built, but failed in every respect.
Have we made some mistakes and gotten some egg on our face during that time? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act. These were all bad, but were really mostly no more than embarrassments.
There IS a difference between good and bad things. The evidence that enables you to distinguish one from the other is before your eyes every minute of every day.