www.theverge.com/2024/5/7/24151242/tiktok-sues-us-divestment-ban
TikTok is suing the US government / TikTok calls the US government’s decision to ban or force a sale of the app ‘unconstitutional.’
Social MediaI got 7 unique “notification of data breach” letters in the last 6 month. I know have 7 years worth of ID monitoring.
I know have 7 years worth of ID monitoring.
Yeah, now instead of being unaware that your data is being stolen, you will be notified now, still unable to do anything since you will only be notified after its been stolen 😉
From corn syrup, to medication, to personal information.
People are just cattle being milked for anything and everything.
I have data Greg, could you milk me?
Uncle Sam mimes pinching tiny udders in front of 330 million of us
Trickle down economics baby
A society that views corporations as authority figures of information.
Who are the unlucky 3 million that are going to be swollen with unmilked data?
I could, under what your people might call a “chuppah”
Hey Homer! Hate to be an iddy naggy, but could you do me a favor? MILK ME!
I would pay to have the corn syrup milked out of me, shit is everywhere.
Edit: Wait, no, don't want to give the pharma industry any ideas
Just wish I was given the option to sell my data, y’all can pour all over my sad history if ya pay me.
Still waiting for my compensation for my information being sold
With the same energy and procedures used to make this stupid tik tok ban law… the US could have passed GDPR-style privacy laws.
But they didn’t. Because they don’t respect you. YOU. The person reading this right now, YOU.
Of course. They just don't want a foreign entity doing to us what they do to us.
This isn't about data protection. This is about not allowing a hostile foreign country control over an algorithm that has the ability to dramatically shape public opinion and destabilize the national security of the United States.
This is about not allowing a hostile foreign country control over an algorithm that has the ability to dramatically shape public opinion and destabilize the national security of the United States.
I don't want US companies like Facebook doing it either
The sad part is that russia has been using facebook to stir the pot and get trump elected, but seemingly nothing is done about that because then what is the U.S. supposed to use for propoganda?
Neither do I but Tiktok poses the exact same risks and more because it's controlled by a hostile foreign country.
Certainly. But that's a completely different topic, isn't it?
And thankfully, we can do both!
True,this isn't about data protection alone, they can meddIe election, fuel the fire with the algo.
I don't know what the fuss is about, just ban it, Indian government woke up one day and banned 100s of Chinese apps along with tik tok citing security reasons.
They ARE meddling with the election, stirring the political pot, and pushing CCP propoganda with tik tok.
Not just that, but the US has been preventing foreign ownership of media since 1934.
This is a continuation of that. Tik Tok is going to lose in the court case because the precedent is quite clear.
When they aren’t the just banning it and instead demanding it be handed over to US control? If it was really that bad and evil it would easy to just straight up ban the app
Unless that foreign country is Israel and pays them
There is a reason the "ban" is put in a aid bill for Ukraine and Israel.
It was never going to pass on its own.
There is also some extension of a surveillance program by 2 years they have in there.
Me?
This wasn't a data privacy law.
The argument I generally see is that actual useful data privacy laws would make the whole "China owns part of company" thing basically moot.
It isn't even about data privacy. I implore everyone saying that: read the bill yourself. Here's the text.
The US government's stance is that adversarial states (and China in this particular case) pose national security risks because of their ability to directly propagandize or otherwise manipulate and divide the citizenry. They can--and do--spread conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation that has lead to actual harm.
And someone defending Tiktok might be asking: what's the difference between TIktok and Facebook/IG/Youtube? Those entities are not owned by authoritarian nations that seize control of companies via acquisition of so-called "golden shares." They aren't government-owned entities, and are actually based in the US and subject to US laws. ByteDance has been constantly found to falsify assurances, like when they said US data was protected and inaccessible outside of the US... until ByteDance's employees in China were found to have been spying on American journalists via TikTok by accessing the supposedly inaccessible data from outside of the USA.
People comparing American and European companies to Chinese companies are proving how Tiktok manipulates Americans into being sympathetic to Chinese messaging. China takes control of companies via golden shares, and ByteDance is no different. This gives the Chinese government (really, the CCP only) controlling board seats, access to the data, allows the government to pick which workers are sent to the company's labor council, and also insert a spy layer inside of these companies.
This was never about privacy. That is an assertion that Tiktok put forth and has been boosting for months now.
Edit: to preempt it (since China has so thoroughly propagandized people via Tiktok), yeah; Tencent has shares of Reddit. Tencent gave golden shares to the CCP and thus have all of the same problems. But Reddit is not owned and operated by Tencent. At any rate, I think it is reasonable that an even more restrictive bill be signed into law that forbids any state entity (including affiliates, since the Chinese government loves placing shell companies inside of shell companies just like private businesses do) from being active in the US. A forceful divestiure. That goes for Reddit, that goes for Truth Social, and that definitely goes for all the bridges, highways, and utilities that China has wormed its way into partial (or total) ownership of in the USA.
We should've never allowed such a state to get its hooks into us in the first place. We have Nixon to thank for opening that door, and every greedy little piggy capital class member ever since. Slam the door shut.
The very fact that when they were put under pressure they start a misinformation campaign just proves that it is a national security risk.
Edit: to preempt it (since China has so thoroughly propagandized people via Tiktok), yeah; Tencent has shares of Reddit. Tencent gave golden shares to the CCP and thus have all of the same problems. But Reddit is not owned and operated by Tencent.
I don't know the specifics about websites, but since 1934 America has essentially banned foreign ownership of media companies.
Tik Tok being forced to divest is a continuation of that policy and it will undoubtedly be held up in court.
We should also require all properties owned by Chinese persons (who are not US citizens) or corporations to sell them to a US owned company, citizen, or at the very least legal permanent alien. But, if I were King, I would limit all real property ownership in the country to citizens.
They're buying properties and infrastructure near military installations, critical infrastructure like power sub-stations, and all kinds of things that could be very bad for us if they become more openly hostile than they are now. There is zero reason whatsoever to expose our nation to those kinds of threats.
Should a company owned by a foreign government have constitutional rights when the forced sale/ban is about privacy and security of the citizens? It is also not the first time the US wanted to force a sale or ban of a social network. If I recall it was a dating app which is talked about here https://www.wired.com/story/how-pentagon-learned-targeted-ads-to-find-targets-and-vladimir-putin/ This time it is just way more public.
Doesn't the constitution apply to everyone physically in the country, regardless of their citizenry?
Doesn't the constitution apply to everyone physically in the country, regardless of their citizenry?
Tik Tok is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and based in Shanghai.
Under the logic that "corporations are people" then by definition it is not a "citizen of the US".
I believe Beijing actually
Furthermore, what leg does China have to stand on, banning U.S. based apps well before the U.S. considered this ban?
I can't take legislation against tiktok seriously when companies like Equifax are offloading private details of every living American citizen and not even getting a slap on the wrist.
It's because it was never about the data. They don't care about the data.
It's about the ability to influence the American public. It's the idea that China could, using Tiktok, influence the American public in one way or another. They could tweak their algorithm to promote whatever divisive thing they want, or use it to promote something that would be beneficial to them.
Actually, the truth is more insidious than that. It's all due in part because AIPAC put pressure on our government to fast track the bill and get a majority vote on both houses. There's even leaked audio where they specifically single out TikTok.
Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.
Exactly. Romney actually admitted to it.
There is also a recording of ADL complaining about TikTok.
Censorship ...US style
If you can believe it, some people have the cahones (and lack of a brain) to say it's a left-wing conspiracy theory that the TikTok ban is in large part motivated by anti-Palestine sentiment. In a thread where Mitt Romney just said it.
They look at the blue sky, and tell you it is red. That you are crazy to think it is blue.
People are too lazy to care.
That and we like free stuff.
People aren't too lazy to care. They are constantly being ignored even when they vote. Then you protest and people hate you for it. So apathy is the only thing left for many.
So when's the revolution? Or are we just gonna keep bitching and not doing anything.
Keep bitching.
Revolutions don't happen until the majority of the population is living in unbearable conditions and that really isn't the case.
That also does not guarantee revolutions. Governments come up with very creative compromises mist of the time and de-escalate.
And revolutions tend to turn into long and drawn out civil wars.
Revolutions also result in a lot of the population dying and its 50/50 if the new boss will be better than the old boss, USA probably end up a monarchy somehow once the dust settles.
Evolution not revolution.
I hope after TikTok, we rein in the other social media platforms, too, with a general privacy law. I do not trust any corporation with my data, even our own.
The approach with tiktok isn't really about privacy, it's just about privacy from a foreign country. As soon as tiktok is sold to a US company they will be given a national security letter and will be required to build in infrastructure to allow the NSA to perpetually monitor the content.
User deleted comment
26d
Not even just privacy, the gov is terrified that China could force TikTok to push videos that are sympathetic to Chinese causes.
China wants to invade Taiwan? Queue 5 months of videos from American creators talking about how America should stay out of foreign affairs, or how Taiwan really only exists because of colonialism and that Chinas invasion is an act of decolonization, etc etc
It doesn’t have to post pro Chinese stuff, all it has to do is direct individuals to groups that keep the us dysfunctional and divided. Just look at what’s happened to the GOP and Ukraine funding.
That’s why I mentioned from American creators. When Jeff Jackson posted his video saying it’s because of security, I saw so many stitches of people saying “I don’t critique the US because China tells me too”, yeah but your video can be getting pushed for that reason bro
Pick 1000 random content creators.
5 of them think China is the best thing since sliced bread.
200 of them hate China.
795 don't comment at all on China.
User573474 creates an account, and looks for content creators to watch.
Which 5 get suggested the most? Which 200 are hidden under rugs?
Exactly this, because a good majority of content creators hardly double check sources as long as it gets them views.
What's even worse is this is where Children/teens/and sometimes even young adults get their news.
I think it was the New York Times that did a test of 8 brand new accounts, age set to 13, they watched all videos to the end and didn't like/interact, and all but one of them wound up in a warzone rabbit hole .
TikTok is pushing videos to spark civil discourse in America.
They don’t need to push pro-China videos.
In 2014, I was very active on Tumblr. When the Black Lives Matter movement started, users I was following began saying stuff like, “white people are animals.” This began to radicalize me to the right, but it also radicalized my friends to the left. Because it was making me angry and social media is supposed to be fun, I unfollowed all of these accounts and was no longer being radicalized (fwiw, I’m super left now). In 2017, Tumblr informed me I was following Russian bots trying to interfere in the 2016 election. One comment was making severe discourse in two political directions. And this was a US based app, think about what apps that are owned by enemy governments might be doing.
TikTok is a national security concern and has bigger implications than funny dances and new recipes.
Nah. Oracle currently stores all the American data for TikTok and the NSA is already likely monitoring that data
It's not even that. Politicians are starting to say the quiet part out loud: it's about the amount of times Palestine gets mentioned.
they will be given a national security letter and will be required to build in infrastructure to allow the NSA to perpetually monitor the content.
lol that's ridiculous, the NSA would never do anything like that, it would be too big of a risk of that letter being leaked to the public, like the so-called "twitter files" revealed that the Biden administration asked Twitter to take down a post and Twitter was like "k... wait no" and the State Dept was like "pff fine then fuck you".
No they just monitor the main undersea cables at the source. No need to go around sending silly letters to companies asking permission.
The argument is that it protects security concerns by having foreign access to our data.
Giving American billionaires access to our data so they can make even more money and giving them the opportunity to screw over the lower classes is totally OK! The wealth will totally trickle down!
That reminds me of a joke about trickle-down, but 99% of people won't get it.
I really doubt it’s much about collecting data. I’d think it’s mostly about the ability of a foreign state (one that’s pretty much an adversary) being able to put their thumb on the scales of the algorithm to manipulate public opinion in the US.
I’m not saying it has or will even be used that way, but it’s not hard to imagine how it could be
Well, both. I recently went to a security conference focused on China that had leadership from the NSA, CIA, FBI and DEA. All of the speakers, regardless of what administration they served in want TikTok gone because of the national security problem. It’s not an issue of maybe it might be a problem. They already KNOW it is a problem and can prove it. That problem is that proving it is not something anyone wants to do in open court since that would reveal our own spying measures and methods. So this court battle will be interesting for sure.
There is a lot of anti-America sentiment on TikTok. On the other side of the coin I get a lot of "daily life" type content of China. Like a obviously staged Chinese Village person making something. Very few videos popup criticizing China. I can see it is impacting people, especially the youth, as you'll see people (a lot of teens) praising China and saying "You'll never see this is America"
US Senators were able to look at some classified information before casting their vote for this bill. A lot of them are calling for the information to be declassified so we can see how bad Tik Tok is.
And it was one of the rare bipartisan agreements. It has to be bad to bring our congress together lol
User deleted comment
26d
While it'll be nice to have it spelled out, it's pretty obvious that they're a propaganda platform generated as part of intelligence warfare against the US. Intelligence Warfare rule #1 is to get your enemy's population supporting you. China and Russia both play this game, in different ways.
Just look at all the people defending tiktok and throwing a bunch of whataboutism.
Aren't foreign governments already doing that with American based social media though? Wasn't there an entire federal investigation back in 2016 that showed Russia has been spending millions of dollars to create political discourse on Facebook and Twitter?
You don't think there's a difference between actually controlling the algorithm and not?
In many ways the 'problem' is essentially the same in that regard though. Billionaires might as well be sovereign unto themselves in many ways. They operate internationally and act with almost impunity. They themselves are threats to our national security. Their interests just happen to more frequently align with the US corporate message, so there's less heat back at them, even as they use that influence to manufacture consent for the approved narrative in the US
What we need is regulations around how these algorithms drive content. Just as we require a disclaimer when someone is a paid promotion, maybe we need something that indicates when the algorithm has been tilted to push specific content as opposed to delivering that content organically based on a user's own preferences. And this should apply across all platforms: tiktok, facebook, twitter, etc.
Nobody is arguing that American cooperate control is good in anyway, just that putting content control in the hands of a company that directly partners with 11 CCP agencies and military is a blatantly horrible idea.
In any case, the “American corporations are just as bad” point is completely moot in light of the fact that China already passed a law prohibiting sale of their algorithm to any foreign entity. No American will ever own or control TikTok’s algorithm, because China’s primary interest isn’t profit, it’s controlling the content distributed to the citizens of its geopolitically competitors.
It's so obvious too, I don't get how people don't see it
Because they're either addicted to TikTok or are simply ignorant about the CCP and the specific dangers TikTok poses as an affiliated enterprise.
The point is control. All the other social media companies work with the government directly or indirectly. The data privacy argument was always bullshit.
Control is part of it
Data privacy wasn't BS, just misleading. They were repeatedly asked to stop transferring data to China and kept doing it. They want the data to remain in the US, it's just not exactly to protect consumers.
Though there is a ton of mis/disinformation on Tok Tok, it also exists on FB, Insta, blah blah blah
Edit: what we need are actually consumer data protection laws...
https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/SafeguardingOurFuture/FINAL_NCSC_SOF_Bulletin_PRC_Laws.pdf
The main concern is the 2023 Chinese counter-espionage law's changes and implications.
1/2 the people talking about tiktok bans are sub 16, let alone a demographic that actually understands cybersecurity. The people bitching about it being banned actually have 0 clue or knowledge of the technical details and are just loud idiots complaining because they have to find a new source of entertainment.
And all of that is without the whole internal vs external algorithm debate, data harvesting, and censorship issues.
Seeing as how it was Facebook that paid lobbyists to go after TikTok in the first place, I don’t think that the politicians will care that much about “other social media platforms”.
absolute best case, we get a bill that says it'll rein in social media and in reality just makes it worse while empowering fb/google/microsoft etc monopolies.
most of congress won't even know the difference since they're too old to understand the tech, just cashing bribe checks.
AIPAC as well. Videos of starving kids and murdered civilians are not in their interest.
The other big social media platforms aren't owned by the US's geopolitical rivals. If VK managed to be as successful here as TikTok I'm sure it would get the same response.
We won't. They do a better job at censoring and removing content that Israel and AIPAC doesn't approve of.
The issue is less privacy and more that we have no idea what the algo does so this platform can promote various news topics that fit the CCPs information warfare goals. if You cared about Russian disinformation then one should care quite a bit more about about this.
I think a "general privacy law" would be way more constitutional than a "no Chinese owned social media that is popular" law.
I hate TikTok, but this law is absolutely unconstitutional and I absolutely want to see SCOTUS destroy it.
deserted faulty jeans cover flag squash smile frame steer icky
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
Clarence Thomas will magically go on an all expenses paid trip through China pretty soon, lol.
he is the dirty one?
one of them
If you don't have an ethics code no one can accuse you if violating it. QED.
The US forced Grindr to do that same thing and it was implemented just fine.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the US Constitution.
Congress has the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
Tik Tok just opened a shopping experience, aka commerce.
The store is not even necessary to count as commerce. For purposes of the commerce clause in the constitution, it’s an extremely broad term.
There’s an old case about a wheat farmer that was only growing wheat on his land to feed to his own animals without selling it and under the Constitution, the federal government could still regulate the farmer’s wheat growing since it fell under the broad umbrella of commerce.
Selling people's data to other companies and foreign governments is definitely commerce
Wickard v. Filburn!
I had my con law final today! Lolzzz
TikTok always had a shopping experience except you just weren’t the shopper you were the product in stock.
Looks like they are arguing Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3 - No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. You can't pass a law specifically to punish one entity without a judicial trial.
A previous case involving Huawei makes this unlikely to be considered a bill of attainder.
The Constitution requires more than specificity for a law to be a bill of attainder; it also requires a punishment. The punishment, however, needs to be more than a burden. The Supreme Court in Selective Serv. Sys. v. Minn. Pub. Interest Research Grp. provided a three-inquiry test to determine whether a punishment is more than a mere burden. These three inquiries are commonly described as the “historical test,” the “functional test,” and the “motivational test.” The historical test asks “whether the challenged statute falls within the historical meaning of legislative punishment.” The functional test asks “whether the statute, ‘viewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed, reasonably can be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes.’” The motivational test asks “whether the legislative record ‘evinces a congressional intent to punish.’” For a bill of attainder claim to be successful, the court must find that the legislation meets all three tests.
Going back to the Huawei case, Huawei argued that the 2019 NDAA’s prohibition on government agencies purchasing its telecom equipment amounted to such an unconstitutional punishment. The District Court disagreed. The District Court’s analysis for the functional test is most relevant to the case of TikTok. The District Court held that Congress’s actions burdening Huawei were lawful because it was not denying Huawei a trial for past offenses. Instead, the NDAA applied to transactions that had not yet occurred and thus was not imposing punishment that would render it a bill of attainder.
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/is-a-ban-on-tiktok-a-bill-of-attainder
The law is broad enough that it would apply to other entities. While it does name Tiktok and Bytedance as exemplars, it would apply to other companies like vk.com, etc. so not targeting Tiktok only.
Additionally, other laws targetting foreign orgnaizations have been on the books and have been held perfectly constitutional.
User deleted comment
26d
The lawsuit is from their US branch, TikTok Inc., and concerns how that US company does business within the US. For corporations that's as American as things get. Otherwise many big companies in the US should actually be treated as Irish, since they've officially moved their headquarters there for tax purposes.
Best part of the TikTok complaint is that they can't divest since China won't allow them to sell the Algorithm. Probably should have left out the part that ByteDamce is subject to Chinese law, which is what the ban is all about.
I mean, why would they sell the algorithm? They can still use it in the rest of the world. Why create a new competitor for the rest of the market?
There's a reason china doesn't want the algorithim to be reviewable in the US.
This ban will eliminate TikTok’s future outside of china, the content will degrade for several years before it’s irrelevant.
This. People should realize that this confirms that TikTok is indeed part of China's greyzone warfare operations against the United States. And this lawsuit is also a prime evidence that China is using LAWFARE, under their unrestricted warfare doctrine.
The argument over whether a Chinese corporation directly integrated with the CCP or an American billionaire is worse is pretty pointless, because China already passed a law that under no circumstances will the algorithm be sold to a foreign entity.
Either TikTok will be banned, or they will successfully sue to strike the ban down. No American will ever own or control TikTok. The Chinese government isn’t interested in money, their primary concern is controlling the algorithm that feeds content to the citizens of its geopolitical competitors around the world.
Isn't this the reason to ban it?
There's a few reasons. From what I understand, being a Chinese owned business means the CCP can force them to cooperate with the CCP in any way possible and the company can be prosecuted for even mentioning that the CCP asked. With such a widespread app like TikTok this CAN be problematic. I mean every company buys and sells data, but I think the issue the us government has is that the CCP COULD use the app to track government officials and military movements just by people having their phones on them.
It's not great that it can feed propaganda to so many people (so can like, every other app in the world), but I think the whole forced cooperation in assisting the CCP in any way possible and that cooperation being top secret is the main issue.
Clearly, however one offhand statement from Mitt Romney is apparently enough to convince a bunch of people about what the “feel” to be the “truth”.
These TikTok evangelists are no different from the people getting their news from facebook, just a different flavor of misinformation
The Chinese government isn’t interested in money, their primary concern is controlling the algorithm that feeds content to the citizens of its geopolitical competitors around the world.
In which case, a ban based on security concerns is 100% justified.
When it comes to “national security” the government has a very, very long leash. So much so that the EU has rejected every attempt by the US to make an acceptable privacy law so that companies under GDPR could share data and do business with the US. The US has made it abundantly clear that they have the right to invade their citizens privacy in light of suspected terrorism. Congress has already banned the usage of Chinese telecom equipment and Russian software in any of their infrastructure all in the name of… “national security.” TikTok is not winning this. TikTok is a software company just like kaspersky (also banned), not a blog site or news channel. There is no violation of free speech happening here.
Kaspersky isnt banned in the US. its banned on US government systems. They could probably ban it based on national secuirty, same reasoning for chinese telecoms enterining into the network infrastructure within the US but the customer end user stuff is still available and can be bought and run on US carriers. It will depend on the law for which the ban is based whether they can overturn it, if its national secuirty then probably not gonna get overturned as the decision happened based on closed sessions and classified intel. Tiktok was already banned from government phones and computer. The civilian reach is probably where the ban is weak. On the other ha d, this could lead to a social media regulation overhaul if they dislike tiktok enough to violate the us tech sector
Congress has already banned the usage of Chinese telecom equipment and Russian software in any of their infrastructure all in the name of… “national security.”
Whether or not the telecommunications equipment that processes our nation's data is manufactured by companies that are easily manipulated by openly adversarial foreign governments is very clearly of practical interest to the country's "national security", just in case anyone was getting confused by the quotes.
Congress has already banned the usage of Chinese telecom equipment and Russian software in any of their infrastructure all in the name of… “national security.”
ngl i think all gov't tools and platforms need to be 100% developed & manufactured in-house. like hell I would trust another country to manufacture DAC/ADC chips+software because they will absolutely put backdoors to spy on us. The US is the most powerful country in the world and that means murphys law with spies.
It’s so funny and ironic that people are clutching pearls about TikTok on Reddit, one of the biggest propaganda outlets out there comprised mainly of bots and trolls.
They will lose. National security risk will not be beaten in court. Period.
Also…how many American social media companies are in China? Zero. Yup. Zero.
No shit, in what world does the U.S. Constitution protect the Chinese Communist Party?
In the eyes of a lot of the bots, trolls, foreign agents, and useful idiots on reddit and other social media platforms it does.
They use the billionaire US owner argument. I don't like the US oligarch control of many things, including tech, but that's a completely separate conversation.
The Chinese government direct involvement in a very popular social media platform that is data mined to know WAY WAY too much about everyone that uses it, possibly being used for whatever the Chinese equivalent of Russian komproat is, probably just blackmail, and to a lesser degree the warnings of US security experts about possible security exploits by the applications itself (haven't heard as much of that lately, only because I think they backed off once they were sort of caught and decided that data mining from the server side was far more useful anyways) means it should be banned or forced to be sold, period. I prefer banned and burned to the ground, but that's just me.
Coming from China this is funny
Rich coming from a country which ban Google and Facebook, censored and firewalled their internet. How constitutional is that.
"We can't sell because China won't let us!!" hmmm that doesn't seem to help their argument against the spyop
How constitutional is that.
China is in no way shape or form bound by the US constitution. Of course the standards are different. It's wild that I have to point this out.
E: To people thinking I missed the point about tiktok being a Chinese company, I feel again very silly pointing this out - but foreign companies can and almost always do have offices overseas as well. TikTok has a dozen in the US. This was trivial to find out. These are their US headquarters: 5800 Bristol Pkwy, Culver City, CA 90230
Constitutional law applies to TikTok, even if it doesn't apply to China. This is an international business.
Not to be that guy, but China is not bound by the US Constitution - literally a completely different country.
China is fully within its rights to ban whatever commercial enterprises it wishes. It is the companies that bend to its will that are the problem.
That being said, I can't see how the TikTok "ban" (a forced sale) is in any way a violation of the US Constitution. States cannot make laws restricting interstate commerce (which TikTok could be seen as, by some court in some way), but the US Government is free to do such. It happens all the time - you cannot buy drugs (legally) from other countries that are not approved by the FDA, certain food items are not permitted for sale in the US, and there are a host of other commerce restricting laws on the books.
Maybe we should fight for with fire. When countries put tariffs on imported goods, it's standard practice to put tariffs on their goods. It's a way to keep countries from throwing up tariffs on everything and causing another Great Depression.
To some extent I think it could be argued that tiktok is an attack, and not just a social media platform/business.
Do you think China follows the US constitution?
Moderator removed comment
26d
Facebook grandparents vs. Tik Tok asylum inmates.
Boomers getting radicalized by Russia, Zoomers getting radicalized by China
User deleted comment
26d
I take issue with either but I do think there’s something inherently worse about allowing a foreign state that has often taken an antagonistic stance towards your country’s policies to interfere in society.
Edited for some clarity. I don’t think ALL foreign state involvement is bad.
An ENEMY foreign state. That word cannot be overstated. China is not our friend.
or, reject both. how about that?
Insinuating that people concerned about CCP control of content algorithms are “pro American corporation algorithm control” is such a blatant strawman.
You can be for banning foreign adversaries from controlling content on social media sites in the US while also wanting increased user privacy and protections for domestically-owned companies.
That account you replied to is a 16-day-old CCP bot account trying to muddy the waters and public opinion to support Tik Tok. The CCP bots are all over /r/technology
reddit discourse mandates that if you're against one thing, you're for the other thing.
its impossible to have any nuance here
I try to reject both. I am only really on social media because I have to be (ie. selling stuff on FB Marketplace).
It's honestly hard cause everyone's life is intertwined with social media. I think if you can manage to avoid all the trends and endlessly scrolling, it's a step in the right direction.
That being said, I am on reddit…
China has said it will not sell TikTok because the algorithm is a “Chinese national security asset”. That’s reason enough.
Data provided to tyrannical government that keeps people in internment camps versus data provided to advertisers to sell you a devise to shave your balls.
Yep same thing totally.
China gets to ban any app they want.
Other countries ban their app
CHINA "How dare they!"
God I fuckin hate Redditors.
there is alot of bad information in this subreddit.
When a company falls under possible national security risk, the government looks at the company through something called F.O.C.I. (Foreign Ownership Control and Influence) so it doesn't matter if tik tok has a US subsidiary or incorporated in a state like delaware, if the controlling interest goes back to a foreign entity they lose protections that would be granted to a US corporation.
The Chinese government owns 1% of TikTok, the US data is stored in Texas and overseen by Oracle, a US company. Reddit has more Chinese foreign investment than TikTok does.
It’s not about national security - Biden, and many of our representatives and senators have a TikTok account lmao. It’s very clearly seen as a catalyst for organizing protests and dissemination of unfiltered news that the government wants control over
I actually do think TikTok is bad and compromises the integrity of the US and is poisoning our youth sooooooooooooo I hope it does get shut down
Your Chinese the constitution doesn’t apply to you.
What does China know about constitutional?
Laughable coming from a Chinese company.
In a forum Friday at the McCain Institute in Sedona, Arizona Romney asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken why Israel and the U.S. have "been so ineffective at communicating" justifications for the war in Gaza, adding, "Typically the Israelis are good at PR."
"You have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion — the impact of images — dominates," Blinken said.
Romney replied, "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
...so, yeah, it's totally China guys... National Security... etc...
Its funny, when it comes to operating in the US, Chinese companies are all about rule of law and constitutional rights; yet in China they never seem to bother talking about any of these things.
A bunch of "rules for thee but not for me" bullshit that authoritarians love to tout. They have no problem using our laws and rights against us.
TIL having a business presence in a country is speech
I mean if corporations are people and money is speech…
Citizens United vs FEC, was a big turning point for politics in this country and probably a big reason why this bill passed to begin with. Corporations can donate money to politicians for elections and well it's 2024
I love all the people railing against Tiktok because it is secretly a propaganda machine, on a different propaganda machine. Teach media literacy and critical thinking. Show people how to recognize propaganda and understand it because it's not going to stop because one app is gone.
Banning TikTok is fucking pointless and insanely harmful in the long run, The bigger issue is the part where it gives the president the power to label any company a foreign adversary controlled application if they believe it that it present a significant threat to the national security of the United States. If you think that isn't going to be used to suppress the voice of the American people you are living under a dam rock. If you think someone like Donald Trump won't use that to suppress his political opponents your insane.
I've gone through around 1600 of the 2400 comments, only about 6 people are posting as though they're legit people. The rest are just the same automated comments you'll see on any topic with the words TikTok in them on this subreddit.
It's also funny seeing some of the automated responses talking to each other but for the most part, this place is as per usual a giant circlejerk of 'american politicians can do no wrong' and 'I believe the government has my best interest at heart'.
I miss when I could click onto a reddit comment thread and get a wide variety of views but now I might aswell just click on foxnews as atleast then I'd get some skepticism over government policy.
Dead set correct. Reddit is propaganda bot-land. Barely any organic stuff exists in "popular" at all. Stuff that gets updooted to 35k... that's not real.
"China is evil and bad for banning apps and websites, that's why I think we should do the exact same thing"
"China algorithm = bad/propaganda. American algorithm = good"
This thread summed up. If these aren't bots it's depressing how many people apparently want their only source of information to be spoon fed to them by the US government.
lol. What goes around comes around. China blocks all the US apps and companies it wants
TikTok really thinks it is the only place people can share videos online.
Edit: For anyone who doesn't like my opinion here, the first amendment protects the content, not the app. The content being uploaded is not being banned. That's why this isn't unconstitutional and TikTok will lose this lawsuit. Period. There is no free speech being restricted.
Pretty sure they are dominating the short video format
Have you just called them a monopoly?
let me get back to caring when China themselves open their internet up
Meanwhile, from a European perspective:
2009: China's government starts banning websites it doesn't want its people to see
2024: The US government starts banning websites it doesn't want its people to see
I'm just glad we at least still have the free internet here.
Discovery. Please.
China is fighting the U.S. to protect free speech… in the U.S.
🤪
And the lawyers cartel wins again.
Looool how about opening up FB and Google in China hahaha
It really isnt unconsistitutional lol
How does the constitution help a non us company sue the us?
With these courts this suit won’t bare any claim all because of national security interests
How about China allows Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, and Google behind the great firewall? Why are we allowing this lopsided situation?
Not sure how a foreign company owned by foreigners has constitutional rights since the company is not a US citizen¿?
Just foreign company exercising their American constitutional rights…
China isn't protected by the US constitution!
The filing itself (PDF) is surprisingly readable and accessible. This was likely intentional - they've written this as much for a general audience as for a court. The main claims are via the Constitution's first and fifth amendments and Bill of Attainder clauses:
And consistent with the fundamental principles of fairness and equal treatment rooted in the Bill of Attainder Clause and the Fifth Amendment, Congress has never before crafted a two-tiered speech regime with one set of rules for one named platform, and another set of rules for everyone else.
While the law itself doesn't explicitly mention TikTok, every legislator and member of the Executive branch who has discussed this calls it the "TikTok ban" and everyone knows that it's all about TikTok. Courts may well deem that a violation of the Constitution's ban on Bills of Attainder.
User deleted comment
26d
Redditors love to hate on TikTok but I’ve seen world news content on there that would never make it to my page on Facebook or Instagram thanks to their shitty algorithms. Maybe on Reddit. I see value in having a platform like that, and also the risk it poses as a foreign propaganda outlet. All this is to say I feel conflicted about the ban and will be disappointed when the app is gone and all we’re left with is god awful domestic alternatives with heavily curated content.
COMPANIES DON'T HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS BECAUSE COMPANIES ARE NOT PEOPLE
Legally they are people
China app talking about our Constitution. Hey why is Facebook banned in China?
Fuck TikTok
A Chinese data collection service talking about what’s unconstitutional. That switch.
The USA Constitution does not protect foreign companies like ByteDance, which owns TikTok.
That's just fundamentally not true. First of all of course it does, basic civics 101, but second that's a moot point because the lawsuit is from the US branch of the company, Tiktok Inc.
Data privacy laws in America in general are a total joke. We are the product and there are 333 million of us.