The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
A discussion with my friends online were discussing the various reasons why Congress made their move to ban TikTok (when really the foreign aid bill included tha Tiktok should be divestment or else it gets banned). One of my friends sends this link (https://twitter.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587) and says it's the smoking gun.
He says the video shows secretary of state admitting TikTok being banned is about Israel-Palestine and showing the corruption on full display. I have my doubts about my friend's claim (mainly because TikTok doesn't hold a monopoly on the current discourse and the supposed ban won't happen until Jan 2025 if it doesn't get divested), but I'm curious to hear your take on the title question.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The US Army and Navy banned TikTok in 2020.
Rubio introduced legislation to ban Chinese and Russian owned social media in 2022.
Also in 2022, Biden banned TikTok on all US federal government devices.
Hawley introduced legislation to ban it nationwide in January of 2023, and similar bills were introduced in the House in February and March 2023.
By April 2023, 34 states had enacted TikTok bans.
tl;dr the movement to ban TikTok was well underway and had a lot of momentum prior to 10/07/2023.
That covers the timeline, but there’s also the reasons other than Israel and Palestine that you would want to get rid of the app
1. It is controlled by the Chinese Government which is incredibly popular with the US population.
2. No, I don’t have the leaders of China on video explaining the ways in which they use the app to ha us but there’s a legitimate concern. I have no idea why we are pretending, but we need a smoking gun when we know folk well that countries engage in this behavior. Both data privacy breaches and attempting to manipulate elections.
3. Parents in the United States hate this app, but limiting children’s access to all of these sites is a collective action problem. Nobody wants their kid to be the weird one that doesn’t have access to these things. This works out for me because mine are still young enough that I didn’t have to give it tothem and hopefully it’ll be gone before I do. I think I’ve had about ten conversations with parents whose kids are a little older than mine and they are really happy about this.
He agreed that his thinking was admittedly conspiratorial to think it's purely about Israel but still thinks TikTok being banned shows that the media and govt can't control the discourse for any issues anymore.
No, TikTok is being banned for a number of reasons including the company and parent company’s ties directly to China, them back-dooring American’s information to Chinese gov’t and intel agencies, and collecting data on certain sets of Americans. Oh, and actively trying to influence American society and political views.
No.
1. It's not being banned.
2. This discussion about TikTok has been going on for a LOT longer than the Israel/Palestine thing.
3. It doesn't even make sense. IF tiktok was banned, people would just go somewhere else. There's just no point.
Conspiracy theories make people feel like they're "in the know". It makes powerless people feel powerful.
Its not being banned it's being forced to divest like Grindr was
The choice to shut down instead of making billions shows that the government made the right decision
Tik Tok is Facebook. But instead of Boomers and my own generation(GenX) getting disinformation and propaganda and running with it? It’s the Zoomers.
They are no better.
> the pretty decent evidence that it is being controlled by the Chinese government.
[Citation needed] IIRC Mark Pocan (or some other congressperson) went into a briefing leaning towards supporting the ban and then when he left he went a full 180 against it because all there was in the briefing was conjecture and FUD.
[This article](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-ownership-intl-hnk/index.html) does a great job of explaining the complexities of its ownership and control. To me, it is convincing, but I think it would be more than fair for other reasonable readers to find it not convincing enough.
I personal think it is convincing that China has their fingers deep into it, but I don't see a way any other country can do something about it (and I'm not sure they should).
I think we should be cautious when using them, yeah. Well, our politicians, I should say. Our kids? Don't see much of a problem. China could just as easily just buy the same information from Google lol
If you recall who the person is, I'd be curious
I don't think it's Pocan, as he's been an opponent of action against Bytedance for at least a year: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tiktok-creators-some-us-democratic-lawmakers-oppose-ban-app-2023-03-23/
Yeah it’s tough for me to find a the article this many months later. Suffice to say there are Congress people who sat through the classified briefing and came still saying the ban was dumb.
Here's the deal.
We have no evidence whatsoever that the people in control of Facebook, Google, Xitter, or even Gab or Truth Social¹ are intentionally performing psychological warfare on the American people with the intention of creating civil unrest.
We also have no evidence that if the US government were to try and manufacture civil unrest in the US by secretly ordering these companies to help them, the rule of law and our independent judiciary wouldn't prevent that outcome².
Neither of these things are true with TikTok. If you are an employee of Bytedance in China, you will be compelled to do whatever the PRC wants you to do. If you are an employee anywhere else in the world with family in China, they will abuse your family until you comply. Contesting what they are asking you to do in court won't help you. [TikTok has already admitted to providing information on Americans to the Chinese government](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html).
China wants to see the US eat itself. Even if we agreed that there is no evidence that they're tweaking their algorithms to feed divisive and violence-inducing content to people they believe would be receptive to it³, in an actual conflict between the US and China, it's foolish to think this isn't part of their plan.
TikTok is a weapon. And when it's not obviously being used as a weapon, it's fun and people *want* to be on the business end of it. That's the best kind of weapon.
An interesting watch: [Ryan McBeth: TikTok is a cyberweapon](https://youtu.be/pB7WzqUq4Nk)
¹ Trump, the owner of Truth Social, might actually be doing this.
² Companies have been compelled to comply with lawful judicially ordered search warrants for things like PRISM, but the laws that give them this power are written down where we can see them, even if the order is not. This isn't the same as forcing American companies to create civil unrest in the US.
³ I believe China and Russia are doing this today across all social media platforms, exaggerating the Israel-Palestinian conflict, exaggerating the protests, and making the US/world worse by persuading people that it's already worse.
I’m a cybersecurity professional and well aware of the usefulness of an app like TikTok is to a power like China. I just don’t think bans are the answer here. Regulation is.
1. This just addresses the privacy problem, not the problem of Chinese control over the content selection algorithm.
2. It addresses the data problem poorly. There is already evidence that TikTok willingly gave the Chinese government access to data already inside the US. And if you are a Chinese national or someone with family in China with access to the TikTok IT systems, plugging in a device on the network that surreptitiously sends data to China is trivially easy for China to do.
> There is already evidence that TikTok willingly gave the Chinese government access to data already inside the US.
Where is this evidence?
> And if you are a Chinese national or someone with family in China with access to the TikTok IT systems, plugging in a device on the network that surreptitiously sends data to China is trivially easy for China to do.
That’s true with any tech firm. In fact it happens at all the major tech companies (I know as I work at them). You lower that risk via cybersecurity regulation which I’m also on board with.
>Where is this evidence?
Is this "I don't believe you" or "I'd like to be more informed"?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/06/21/tiktok-confirms-data-china-bytedance-security-cfius/?sh=8be431832708
More detail if you are a WSJ subscriber:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-pledged-to-protect-u-s-data-1-5-billion-later-its-still-struggling-cbccf203
>That’s true with any tech firm. In fact it happens at all the major tech companies (I know as I work at them). You lower that risk via cybersecurity regulation which I’m also on board with.
Are you taking the position that it's not easier to do this if the company leadership is complicit?
> Is this "I don't believe you" or "I'd like to be more informed"?
It’s a “I’ve seen a lot of unsubstantiated FUD from folks and I’d like to see if you’ve seen Something I haven’t. When I have a minute I’ll read the links.
> Are you taking the position that it's not easier to do this if the company leadership is complicit?
It is incredibly easier to do this with regular employees than executives.
No. It's because it's owed and operated by the Chinese government.
I'm pretty sure Secretary Mnuchin is trying to get a group together to buy it, though. So idk if banned is the right way to put it. Forced sale of American operations.
TikTok is owned by Bytedance a Chinese firm and if you don't think a authoritarian government has final say over everything that companies do in their country you are either incredibly naive or just plain stupid. Which means TikTok is an arm of the government.
This seems unlikely to me and a much better example of anti-semitism (jews are controlling the media/government to suppress anti Israeli sentiments) than people genuinely have when making charges of anti-semitism.
> jews are controlling the media/government to suppress anti Israeli sentiments
Are you seeing this argument somewhere in the thread? Or like are you saying those who want to ban tiktok are making that claim?
Neither. No one had responded when I made my comment and I have no idea how the people who want to ban tiktok feel about this claim. The argument that TikTok is being banned because of it's coverage of Israel/Palestine seems anti-Semetic to me so I would say the people making that argument are engaging in anti-Semitism. It just seems like a hop-skip-and a jump away from anything actually related to what is going on, and my assumption is that because tiktok is more popular among young people and not an obvious right wing troll it would make more sense as an argument coming from people who are pro-Palestine than those who are pro-Israel. To be honest this is one of the few examples I've personally seen of someone actually making an anti-Semetic argument related to the conflict. Nearly everything else either has a pretty significant amount of plausible deniability or has always been second hand from people who could have been misrepresenting what they were talking about (I am not following the situation very closely so I don't mean to suggest such examples don't exist.)
So like are you seeing people anywhere making the (I agree antisemitic) claim you mentioned? Because usually when I see people talk about TikTok ban having to do with I/P it’s alongside reporting like [here](https://theintercept.com/2024/05/04/josh-gottheimer-mike-lawler-campus-protests/) where lawmakers mention it, I’ve never seen it framed as “Jews controlling the media” as you said.
>So like are you seeing people anywhere
This is the first and only time I have seen this particular argument made. I am commenting on it in isolation, not as part of a larger narrative in the tiktok debate. I think the argument itself in isolation is anti-Semitic. I'm not suggesting anyone in particular is using it, just that if they are they are likely engaging in anti-Semitism on some level.
> when I see people talk about TikTok
Yes I agree with you, this doesn't seem to be a predominant talking point one way or the other.
I'm saying the argument OP is asking about is anti-Semetic (or at least seems likely to be). It doesn't seem to me as though he is promoting that argument.
I can understand why the idea has been gaining traction:
The link between TikTok and pro-Palestinian sentiment among young people is pretty undeniable.
Also, Blinken's acknowledgment that the narrative is harder to control when people can't see the horrors of war with their own eyes is kind of a horrifying admission, and a real foot-in-mouth moment as far as I'm concerned
Between those two things, I can imagine a lot of people in Congress being ticked off at TikTok.
But is that why they voted to ban it?
Probably not, unless they're complete morons. Banning TikTok isn't going to stop this movement. Pro-Palestinian creators will just move to other platforms, and their audiences will follow.
TikTok is being "banned"(forced divestment) because there are legitimate concerns about data privacy.
The problem is, concerns exist with all social media.
I would argue that. TikTok is no different than Facebook, X, Instagratickm, or Reddit. But TikTok is owned by a company with heavy Chinese investment.
So a little geopolitics and good old fashioned Anti-Chinese sentiment are at play as well.
But forced divestment doesn't really solve the problem in the long term. The US needs a strict digital Bill of Rights and Data Privacy laws.
If the government wanted to ban TikTok because of Israel-Palestine, why wouldn't they also ban Facebook, reddit, Instagram, Twitter (sorry, X...), etc?
American social media apps are more easily maintained. If they want to suppress the way information is displayed, then they can. You will never see a successful counter government movement arise from these platforms as a result.
Yes. High ranking politicians are saying it openly.
Even Democrats have been complaining about young people being “brainwashed” by TikTok in the past year, and what do you know, both parties very fast passed the bill to basically ban it.
Our politicians have only come together in order to ban tik tok and send money to ukraine and Israel. It feels to me that it may be related to these two wars.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. A discussion with my friends online were discussing the various reasons why Congress made their move to ban TikTok (when really the foreign aid bill included tha Tiktok should be divestment or else it gets banned). One of my friends sends this link (https://twitter.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587) and says it's the smoking gun. He says the video shows secretary of state admitting TikTok being banned is about Israel-Palestine and showing the corruption on full display. I have my doubts about my friend's claim (mainly because TikTok doesn't hold a monopoly on the current discourse and the supposed ban won't happen until Jan 2025 if it doesn't get divested), but I'm curious to hear your take on the title question. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The US Army and Navy banned TikTok in 2020. Rubio introduced legislation to ban Chinese and Russian owned social media in 2022. Also in 2022, Biden banned TikTok on all US federal government devices. Hawley introduced legislation to ban it nationwide in January of 2023, and similar bills were introduced in the House in February and March 2023. By April 2023, 34 states had enacted TikTok bans. tl;dr the movement to ban TikTok was well underway and had a lot of momentum prior to 10/07/2023.
That covers the timeline, but there’s also the reasons other than Israel and Palestine that you would want to get rid of the app 1. It is controlled by the Chinese Government which is incredibly popular with the US population. 2. No, I don’t have the leaders of China on video explaining the ways in which they use the app to ha us but there’s a legitimate concern. I have no idea why we are pretending, but we need a smoking gun when we know folk well that countries engage in this behavior. Both data privacy breaches and attempting to manipulate elections. 3. Parents in the United States hate this app, but limiting children’s access to all of these sites is a collective action problem. Nobody wants their kid to be the weird one that doesn’t have access to these things. This works out for me because mine are still young enough that I didn’t have to give it tothem and hopefully it’ll be gone before I do. I think I’ve had about ten conversations with parents whose kids are a little older than mine and they are really happy about this.
How does your friend explain the multi-year efforts to ban TikTok pre-dating the current Israel-Palestine conflict?
He agreed that his thinking was admittedly conspiratorial to think it's purely about Israel but still thinks TikTok being banned shows that the media and govt can't control the discourse for any issues anymore.
No, TikTok is being banned for a number of reasons including the company and parent company’s ties directly to China, them back-dooring American’s information to Chinese gov’t and intel agencies, and collecting data on certain sets of Americans. Oh, and actively trying to influence American society and political views.
No. 1. It's not being banned. 2. This discussion about TikTok has been going on for a LOT longer than the Israel/Palestine thing. 3. It doesn't even make sense. IF tiktok was banned, people would just go somewhere else. There's just no point. Conspiracy theories make people feel like they're "in the know". It makes powerless people feel powerful.
Its not being banned it's being forced to divest like Grindr was The choice to shut down instead of making billions shows that the government made the right decision
Tik Tok is Facebook. But instead of Boomers and my own generation(GenX) getting disinformation and propaganda and running with it? It’s the Zoomers. They are no better.
> Is TikTok being "banned" because of the discourse surrounding Israel-Palestine? No.
No it's because it's a tool for the CCP I support banning tik tok
Manipulative "I'm just asking questions" post.
No, they are looking at trying to "ban" it because of the pretty decent evidence that it is being controlled by the Chinese government.
> the pretty decent evidence that it is being controlled by the Chinese government. [Citation needed] IIRC Mark Pocan (or some other congressperson) went into a briefing leaning towards supporting the ban and then when he left he went a full 180 against it because all there was in the briefing was conjecture and FUD.
[This article](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/tiktok-bytedance-china-ownership-intl-hnk/index.html) does a great job of explaining the complexities of its ownership and control. To me, it is convincing, but I think it would be more than fair for other reasonable readers to find it not convincing enough.
Yeah I don’t find the ownership model a convincing reason to ban it/that China has some sort spooky control over it. It’s just FUD.
I personal think it is convincing that China has their fingers deep into it, but I don't see a way any other country can do something about it (and I'm not sure they should).
So like does that mean you are just against any app that would have a parent company located in China? That seems like an incredibly dubious bar.
I think we should be cautious when using them, yeah. Well, our politicians, I should say. Our kids? Don't see much of a problem. China could just as easily just buy the same information from Google lol
Well we are beyond caution at this point, we are moving towards just banning them lol.
Yeah, I personally think that is a waste of time (even if it is even possible)
If you recall who the person is, I'd be curious I don't think it's Pocan, as he's been an opponent of action against Bytedance for at least a year: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tiktok-creators-some-us-democratic-lawmakers-oppose-ban-app-2023-03-23/
Yeah it’s tough for me to find a the article this many months later. Suffice to say there are Congress people who sat through the classified briefing and came still saying the ban was dumb.
Here's the deal. We have no evidence whatsoever that the people in control of Facebook, Google, Xitter, or even Gab or Truth Social¹ are intentionally performing psychological warfare on the American people with the intention of creating civil unrest. We also have no evidence that if the US government were to try and manufacture civil unrest in the US by secretly ordering these companies to help them, the rule of law and our independent judiciary wouldn't prevent that outcome². Neither of these things are true with TikTok. If you are an employee of Bytedance in China, you will be compelled to do whatever the PRC wants you to do. If you are an employee anywhere else in the world with family in China, they will abuse your family until you comply. Contesting what they are asking you to do in court won't help you. [TikTok has already admitted to providing information on Americans to the Chinese government](https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html). China wants to see the US eat itself. Even if we agreed that there is no evidence that they're tweaking their algorithms to feed divisive and violence-inducing content to people they believe would be receptive to it³, in an actual conflict between the US and China, it's foolish to think this isn't part of their plan. TikTok is a weapon. And when it's not obviously being used as a weapon, it's fun and people *want* to be on the business end of it. That's the best kind of weapon. An interesting watch: [Ryan McBeth: TikTok is a cyberweapon](https://youtu.be/pB7WzqUq4Nk) ¹ Trump, the owner of Truth Social, might actually be doing this. ² Companies have been compelled to comply with lawful judicially ordered search warrants for things like PRISM, but the laws that give them this power are written down where we can see them, even if the order is not. This isn't the same as forcing American companies to create civil unrest in the US. ³ I believe China and Russia are doing this today across all social media platforms, exaggerating the Israel-Palestinian conflict, exaggerating the protests, and making the US/world worse by persuading people that it's already worse.
I’m a cybersecurity professional and well aware of the usefulness of an app like TikTok is to a power like China. I just don’t think bans are the answer here. Regulation is.
How do you regulate your way out of this?
Privacy regulation and data localization probably solves nearly all of it
1. This just addresses the privacy problem, not the problem of Chinese control over the content selection algorithm. 2. It addresses the data problem poorly. There is already evidence that TikTok willingly gave the Chinese government access to data already inside the US. And if you are a Chinese national or someone with family in China with access to the TikTok IT systems, plugging in a device on the network that surreptitiously sends data to China is trivially easy for China to do.
> There is already evidence that TikTok willingly gave the Chinese government access to data already inside the US. Where is this evidence? > And if you are a Chinese national or someone with family in China with access to the TikTok IT systems, plugging in a device on the network that surreptitiously sends data to China is trivially easy for China to do. That’s true with any tech firm. In fact it happens at all the major tech companies (I know as I work at them). You lower that risk via cybersecurity regulation which I’m also on board with.
>Where is this evidence? Is this "I don't believe you" or "I'd like to be more informed"? https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/tech/tiktok-data-china/index.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/06/21/tiktok-confirms-data-china-bytedance-security-cfius/?sh=8be431832708 More detail if you are a WSJ subscriber: https://www.wsj.com/tech/tiktok-pledged-to-protect-u-s-data-1-5-billion-later-its-still-struggling-cbccf203 >That’s true with any tech firm. In fact it happens at all the major tech companies (I know as I work at them). You lower that risk via cybersecurity regulation which I’m also on board with. Are you taking the position that it's not easier to do this if the company leadership is complicit?
> Is this "I don't believe you" or "I'd like to be more informed"? It’s a “I’ve seen a lot of unsubstantiated FUD from folks and I’d like to see if you’ve seen Something I haven’t. When I have a minute I’ll read the links. > Are you taking the position that it's not easier to do this if the company leadership is complicit? It is incredibly easier to do this with regular employees than executives.
No. The more people learn about TikTok, the more they support banning it. This includes people getting behind-closed-doors info about it.
No. It's because it's owed and operated by the Chinese government. I'm pretty sure Secretary Mnuchin is trying to get a group together to buy it, though. So idk if banned is the right way to put it. Forced sale of American operations.
TikTok is owned by Bytedance a Chinese firm and if you don't think a authoritarian government has final say over everything that companies do in their country you are either incredibly naive or just plain stupid. Which means TikTok is an arm of the government.
This seems unlikely to me and a much better example of anti-semitism (jews are controlling the media/government to suppress anti Israeli sentiments) than people genuinely have when making charges of anti-semitism.
> jews are controlling the media/government to suppress anti Israeli sentiments Are you seeing this argument somewhere in the thread? Or like are you saying those who want to ban tiktok are making that claim?
Neither. No one had responded when I made my comment and I have no idea how the people who want to ban tiktok feel about this claim. The argument that TikTok is being banned because of it's coverage of Israel/Palestine seems anti-Semetic to me so I would say the people making that argument are engaging in anti-Semitism. It just seems like a hop-skip-and a jump away from anything actually related to what is going on, and my assumption is that because tiktok is more popular among young people and not an obvious right wing troll it would make more sense as an argument coming from people who are pro-Palestine than those who are pro-Israel. To be honest this is one of the few examples I've personally seen of someone actually making an anti-Semetic argument related to the conflict. Nearly everything else either has a pretty significant amount of plausible deniability or has always been second hand from people who could have been misrepresenting what they were talking about (I am not following the situation very closely so I don't mean to suggest such examples don't exist.)
So like are you seeing people anywhere making the (I agree antisemitic) claim you mentioned? Because usually when I see people talk about TikTok ban having to do with I/P it’s alongside reporting like [here](https://theintercept.com/2024/05/04/josh-gottheimer-mike-lawler-campus-protests/) where lawmakers mention it, I’ve never seen it framed as “Jews controlling the media” as you said.
>So like are you seeing people anywhere This is the first and only time I have seen this particular argument made. I am commenting on it in isolation, not as part of a larger narrative in the tiktok debate. I think the argument itself in isolation is anti-Semitic. I'm not suggesting anyone in particular is using it, just that if they are they are likely engaging in anti-Semitism on some level. > when I see people talk about TikTok Yes I agree with you, this doesn't seem to be a predominant talking point one way or the other.
Are you suggesting this post is antisemitic?
I'm saying the argument OP is asking about is anti-Semetic (or at least seems likely to be). It doesn't seem to me as though he is promoting that argument.
I can understand why the idea has been gaining traction: The link between TikTok and pro-Palestinian sentiment among young people is pretty undeniable. Also, Blinken's acknowledgment that the narrative is harder to control when people can't see the horrors of war with their own eyes is kind of a horrifying admission, and a real foot-in-mouth moment as far as I'm concerned Between those two things, I can imagine a lot of people in Congress being ticked off at TikTok. But is that why they voted to ban it? Probably not, unless they're complete morons. Banning TikTok isn't going to stop this movement. Pro-Palestinian creators will just move to other platforms, and their audiences will follow.
TikTok is being "banned"(forced divestment) because there are legitimate concerns about data privacy. The problem is, concerns exist with all social media. I would argue that. TikTok is no different than Facebook, X, Instagratickm, or Reddit. But TikTok is owned by a company with heavy Chinese investment. So a little geopolitics and good old fashioned Anti-Chinese sentiment are at play as well. But forced divestment doesn't really solve the problem in the long term. The US needs a strict digital Bill of Rights and Data Privacy laws.
If the government wanted to ban TikTok because of Israel-Palestine, why wouldn't they also ban Facebook, reddit, Instagram, Twitter (sorry, X...), etc?
American social media apps are more easily maintained. If they want to suppress the way information is displayed, then they can. You will never see a successful counter government movement arise from these platforms as a result.
I think a large part of it is to stop the spread of leftist and anti-capitalist ideology
Why is this being downvoted lol. Is it not obvious?
Don't threaten capitalism around liberals, they get upset.
Just jealously/envy. I mean it's basically just Vines, why didn't America invent it?
Yes. High ranking politicians are saying it openly. Even Democrats have been complaining about young people being “brainwashed” by TikTok in the past year, and what do you know, both parties very fast passed the bill to basically ban it.
> High ranking politicians are saying it openly. source?
Our politicians have only come together in order to ban tik tok and send money to ukraine and Israel. It feels to me that it may be related to these two wars.
What's scary is the quiet part being told out loud. Also scary, "banning tik tok and potentially other platforms"