> TikTok also undermined the claim that they’re not an effort to manipulate American opinion on a massive scale by enacting a very public attempt to manipulate American opinion on a massive scale.
I haven't exactly been thrilled by seeing this take everywhere, because it seems obvious that if you are any kind of platform and the government wants to threaten your existence, using your platform to ask citizens to petition the government is the exact thing you are supposed to do. What kind of logic is it where protesting your innocence and trying to rally support for your cause is taken as evidence of your guilt? I believe in some circles they call this a "Kafkatrap".
I say this because I think our societal norms around guilt and innocence, speech, and process are important. I think TikTok is resisting a forced sale because their new buyer is going to see a mountain of shady shit they were doing, and I support the bill overall - but I nonetheless think this particular argument against TikTok is very concerning because of the corrosive principle behind it.
I dislike when too much deference is paid to terms like “narrowly tailored”.
/sarcasm start/
Oh, well since they say it will be narrowly tailored who could argue that! Tact! That’s what the government is know for tact! It’s hardly ever the case that the Supreme Court has to strike down laws as “unconstitutional!” When has that ever happened? The government will usually and so often act only within the scope of their “limited” power. If you put a limit in a bill you better bet that the people in Washington will bend over backwards to abide by it! Look at how many jobs in Washington have been lost when well meaning and level headed voters remove bad actors from politics! Happens yearly!
I'd also like to add, that as a long time computer geek, there's something about how the app works that made me uninstalled it over a year ago. I can't really explain what it is but it makes all the computer geek alarms go off in my brain. These are the same alarms that have kept me from ever getting a virus on any of my computers ever. I wish I could quantify this but I can't. The app just behaves weirdly. I don't trust it. (and I know this sounds silly but whatever. Sometimes I listen to the voices in my head.)
Of course Tik Tok should be banned in the US for being a tool of the CCP. The ban should be rescinded when it’s allowed to be used in China by the Chinese people.
I have problems with the bill for giving too much power to the Executive Branch, because I’m old enough to remember the Patriot Act, however I 100% agree with forced divestment, my evidence for the case being that the CCP is against selling it and said so outright last week.
Xi is willing to let $100 billion burn and let the app be banned rather than have a company from, not just America, but any country not of the 4 listed in the bill, take a look under the hood.
Why? Because they’re warping the algorithm to destabilize America in particular, and exposing exactly how they have been doing that would be so dangerous that Xi will let it burn, and also, as the joke in the first sentence suggests, as an avenue for sexual blackmail. If just one of those 50 year olds holds a security clearance? Statistically more than one will.
Xi wants the fabrication plants in Taiwan, so he can control 90% of advanced semiconductor production, thereby controlling the entire electronics supply change and effectively rule the world.
Tiktok is a psychological weapon to make that easier to accomplish by shattering social cohesion in America before the hypersonic missiles slam into our aircraft carriers. Divide the beliefs of the young and old in a country. Excellent strategy, and exactly what I would do if I had his goals.
But they need to narrow the bill and have it only apply to Tiktok, or at the very least, only apply to Chinese apps.
They can't only have it apply to TikTok because that's a "bill of attainder". In layman's terms that means the legislature isn't supposed to pass laws that consist of "fuck this guy/group/organization in particular", because they are supposed to establish principles and work from them, thus upholding rule of law instead of rule of not pissing off a few powerful people. This is a good thing, even if it's occasionally a pain in the arse.
They didn't get around it. It was about the same reasoning, but it didn't get to the stage of having to force the issue because a regulator merely raised concerns and the Chinese holders divested.
There’s gotta be a better way to get around the bill of attainder problem. I see the point but you can still narrow this. Personally I don’t care about the other 3 enemy countries, Russia, Iran, whatever, only China.
Russia’s incompetent and has an eighth China’s GDP and isn’t attempting to seize the entire world’s electronics supply chain.
You can do tariffs on one country, you can make a bill tailored to one country.
What I propose is getting the best minds of all congressional staffers together to make a bill that basically only forces a Tiktok divestment without violating a bill of attainder problem.
I’ve already mentioned one, singling out one country, and I bet there are more.
Why does there "gotta be a better way"? Why should we have to revisit the issue if Iran gets better cyber capabilities or it turns out you underestimated Russia? They're still enemies.
There's a fair bit of case law centering around the fact that if you're all on record trying to make a law that applies to exactly one entity ever, the court goes "who do you think you're fooling here?" and throws out your law. As they should.
There shouldn't be a problem with the intended process, which is that you figure out what's intolerable about TikTok and make a law against that. Establish a principle instead of a vendetta. If the effective rule is "don't piss off the government" that isn't rule of law anymore.
Jeff, I may not be around long enough to see if you will be "about as likely to give my son a smartphone at a young age as I am to give him a pack of Winston’s". You leave yourself a lot of wiggle room with the young-age clause: three, five, eight, seventeen? Also, being a newbie parent, you totally under estimate the power of a whining child. It's potent stuff, exponentially powerful if there is a doting grandparent, or even sympathetic aunt, around. I say to you, good luck and God's speed, you'll need it.
Tried to upgrade to paid--gave up when the algorithm said, "Something went wrong" and bounced me to the insufferable "I am Not a Robot" guessing game with itty-bitty picvtures of something or other.
Thank you, Jeff, for injecting a dose of much-needed sanity into this conversation. As someone hailing from the traditional media —yes, that ancient land where social "media" wasn't the central hub of all discourse—I have so much trouble with all the digital noise. While traditional media certainly played its role in shaping the narrative, the spectacle we're witnessing today feels like the credits rolling on the world as we knew it. And now, I'm off to condense this entire saga into a 1:30 video—because if you can't beat the algorithm, why not join it in the most spectacularly meta way possible?
I am always worried we find ourselves among our historical peers the people who lamented the publishing industry upon the invention of the xerox machine, those who bemoaned this new fangled trend of women reading trashy romance novels (circa 1920) will erode family values, or that the typewriter spells the end of gated media (“now anyone can write a newsletter!!”).
I’m certainly open to the “but this time it’s different” argument. But I also remember that upon letting things run their course Aol-time-Warner imploded in on itself. Though I was told it would lead to an unavoidable monopolization of internet and media.
I think the people off of TikTok take the things on TikTok more seriously than the people on TikTok do. I might be wrong. I just think in 10 years if we do nothing TikTok will be in the same place Pinterest or tumblr or MySpace or any of these other also-Rans are. Generationally if you think something is cool at 30 18 year olds will fucking hate it. Facebook is crumbling around itself.
I don’t like TikTok. It’s meh. But I also think it’s a bit of a scapegoat! Like “why aren’t people being attracted to MY POLICIES?” And there are two answers. 1. You are unconvincing, your argumentation lacks, your attitudes are pompous, and people either don’t like you or your ideas. Or 2. Malfeasance! They must be misled and brainwashed.
I might be wrong. Again I’m no expert on this and I don’t have a horse in the race. But from my perspective it feels like the TikTok hysteria at the very least rhymes with historical moral panics. I’m open to being proven wrong. I’m no fan of the CCP for sure, much to the chagrin of a lot of my friends interestingly.
While the phenomenon of challenging or subverting societal norms through the dissemination of ideas is certainly not new, the current period is distinct in the sheer scale and speed at which information can travel. TikTok is just an example.
What I am trying to say is that I fully understand the notion of free speech as fundamental right, however it is sometimes interesting to notice how people forget that we are talking about private companies with their own agendas, rules and guidelines. It's not only TikTok and possible relations to CCP, we really need to talk about all other platforms as well. This is where I find the debate limited.
Hold the line on the smartphone - let some other parent be the "cool" one who gets their kid a phone just so they can say they have one. To me as a parent, that's a battle worth having.
My moral compass is clearly broken, because I do despise TikTok but now I kinda want to go there and see sexy ladies jumping on trampolines in bikinis acquired from Grave Robber Dave’s Strange-Smelling Suit Depot.
> TikTok also undermined the claim that they’re not an effort to manipulate American opinion on a massive scale by enacting a very public attempt to manipulate American opinion on a massive scale.
I haven't exactly been thrilled by seeing this take everywhere, because it seems obvious that if you are any kind of platform and the government wants to threaten your existence, using your platform to ask citizens to petition the government is the exact thing you are supposed to do. What kind of logic is it where protesting your innocence and trying to rally support for your cause is taken as evidence of your guilt? I believe in some circles they call this a "Kafkatrap".
I say this because I think our societal norms around guilt and innocence, speech, and process are important. I think TikTok is resisting a forced sale because their new buyer is going to see a mountain of shady shit they were doing, and I support the bill overall - but I nonetheless think this particular argument against TikTok is very concerning because of the corrosive principle behind it.
The government has proven that it will censor for political reasons. It cannot be trusted with more power in this arena.
I dislike when too much deference is paid to terms like “narrowly tailored”.
/sarcasm start/
Oh, well since they say it will be narrowly tailored who could argue that! Tact! That’s what the government is know for tact! It’s hardly ever the case that the Supreme Court has to strike down laws as “unconstitutional!” When has that ever happened? The government will usually and so often act only within the scope of their “limited” power. If you put a limit in a bill you better bet that the people in Washington will bend over backwards to abide by it! Look at how many jobs in Washington have been lost when well meaning and level headed voters remove bad actors from politics! Happens yearly!
/end sarcasm/
I agree with your article completely.
I'd also like to add, that as a long time computer geek, there's something about how the app works that made me uninstalled it over a year ago. I can't really explain what it is but it makes all the computer geek alarms go off in my brain. These are the same alarms that have kept me from ever getting a virus on any of my computers ever. I wish I could quantify this but I can't. The app just behaves weirdly. I don't trust it. (and I know this sounds silly but whatever. Sometimes I listen to the voices in my head.)
Of course Tik Tok should be banned in the US for being a tool of the CCP. The ban should be rescinded when it’s allowed to be used in China by the Chinese people.
I have problems with the bill for giving too much power to the Executive Branch, because I’m old enough to remember the Patriot Act, however I 100% agree with forced divestment, my evidence for the case being that the CCP is against selling it and said so outright last week.
Xi is willing to let $100 billion burn and let the app be banned rather than have a company from, not just America, but any country not of the 4 listed in the bill, take a look under the hood.
Why? Because they’re warping the algorithm to destabilize America in particular, and exposing exactly how they have been doing that would be so dangerous that Xi will let it burn, and also, as the joke in the first sentence suggests, as an avenue for sexual blackmail. If just one of those 50 year olds holds a security clearance? Statistically more than one will.
Xi wants the fabrication plants in Taiwan, so he can control 90% of advanced semiconductor production, thereby controlling the entire electronics supply change and effectively rule the world.
Tiktok is a psychological weapon to make that easier to accomplish by shattering social cohesion in America before the hypersonic missiles slam into our aircraft carriers. Divide the beliefs of the young and old in a country. Excellent strategy, and exactly what I would do if I had his goals.
But they need to narrow the bill and have it only apply to Tiktok, or at the very least, only apply to Chinese apps.
They can't only have it apply to TikTok because that's a "bill of attainder". In layman's terms that means the legislature isn't supposed to pass laws that consist of "fuck this guy/group/organization in particular", because they are supposed to establish principles and work from them, thus upholding rule of law instead of rule of not pissing off a few powerful people. This is a good thing, even if it's occasionally a pain in the arse.
So how did they get around that with the Grindr divestment?
This isn’t the only time this has been done.
They didn't get around it. It was about the same reasoning, but it didn't get to the stage of having to force the issue because a regulator merely raised concerns and the Chinese holders divested.
There’s gotta be a better way to get around the bill of attainder problem. I see the point but you can still narrow this. Personally I don’t care about the other 3 enemy countries, Russia, Iran, whatever, only China.
Russia’s incompetent and has an eighth China’s GDP and isn’t attempting to seize the entire world’s electronics supply chain.
You can do tariffs on one country, you can make a bill tailored to one country.
What I propose is getting the best minds of all congressional staffers together to make a bill that basically only forces a Tiktok divestment without violating a bill of attainder problem.
I’ve already mentioned one, singling out one country, and I bet there are more.
Why does there "gotta be a better way"? Why should we have to revisit the issue if Iran gets better cyber capabilities or it turns out you underestimated Russia? They're still enemies.
There's a fair bit of case law centering around the fact that if you're all on record trying to make a law that applies to exactly one entity ever, the court goes "who do you think you're fooling here?" and throws out your law. As they should.
There shouldn't be a problem with the intended process, which is that you figure out what's intolerable about TikTok and make a law against that. Establish a principle instead of a vendetta. If the effective rule is "don't piss off the government" that isn't rule of law anymore.
Jeff, I may not be around long enough to see if you will be "about as likely to give my son a smartphone at a young age as I am to give him a pack of Winston’s". You leave yourself a lot of wiggle room with the young-age clause: three, five, eight, seventeen? Also, being a newbie parent, you totally under estimate the power of a whining child. It's potent stuff, exponentially powerful if there is a doting grandparent, or even sympathetic aunt, around. I say to you, good luck and God's speed, you'll need it.
Tried to upgrade to paid--gave up when the algorithm said, "Something went wrong" and bounced me to the insufferable "I am Not a Robot" guessing game with itty-bitty picvtures of something or other.
Thank you, Jeff, for injecting a dose of much-needed sanity into this conversation. As someone hailing from the traditional media —yes, that ancient land where social "media" wasn't the central hub of all discourse—I have so much trouble with all the digital noise. While traditional media certainly played its role in shaping the narrative, the spectacle we're witnessing today feels like the credits rolling on the world as we knew it. And now, I'm off to condense this entire saga into a 1:30 video—because if you can't beat the algorithm, why not join it in the most spectacularly meta way possible?
JK (do ppl use this anymore?)
I am always worried we find ourselves among our historical peers the people who lamented the publishing industry upon the invention of the xerox machine, those who bemoaned this new fangled trend of women reading trashy romance novels (circa 1920) will erode family values, or that the typewriter spells the end of gated media (“now anyone can write a newsletter!!”).
I’m certainly open to the “but this time it’s different” argument. But I also remember that upon letting things run their course Aol-time-Warner imploded in on itself. Though I was told it would lead to an unavoidable monopolization of internet and media.
I think the people off of TikTok take the things on TikTok more seriously than the people on TikTok do. I might be wrong. I just think in 10 years if we do nothing TikTok will be in the same place Pinterest or tumblr or MySpace or any of these other also-Rans are. Generationally if you think something is cool at 30 18 year olds will fucking hate it. Facebook is crumbling around itself.
I don’t like TikTok. It’s meh. But I also think it’s a bit of a scapegoat! Like “why aren’t people being attracted to MY POLICIES?” And there are two answers. 1. You are unconvincing, your argumentation lacks, your attitudes are pompous, and people either don’t like you or your ideas. Or 2. Malfeasance! They must be misled and brainwashed.
I might be wrong. Again I’m no expert on this and I don’t have a horse in the race. But from my perspective it feels like the TikTok hysteria at the very least rhymes with historical moral panics. I’m open to being proven wrong. I’m no fan of the CCP for sure, much to the chagrin of a lot of my friends interestingly.
While the phenomenon of challenging or subverting societal norms through the dissemination of ideas is certainly not new, the current period is distinct in the sheer scale and speed at which information can travel. TikTok is just an example.
What I am trying to say is that I fully understand the notion of free speech as fundamental right, however it is sometimes interesting to notice how people forget that we are talking about private companies with their own agendas, rules and guidelines. It's not only TikTok and possible relations to CCP, we really need to talk about all other platforms as well. This is where I find the debate limited.
Hold the line on the smartphone - let some other parent be the "cool" one who gets their kid a phone just so they can say they have one. To me as a parent, that's a battle worth having.
Agreed, social media is bad enough without having its biggest player in the hands of a Chinese firm.
In the meantime, enjoy this video of the Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic “playing” a duet with Chuck Schumer.
https://www.tiktok.com/@ry_violamom/video/7194415048490552622
My moral compass is clearly broken, because I do despise TikTok but now I kinda want to go there and see sexy ladies jumping on trampolines in bikinis acquired from Grave Robber Dave’s Strange-Smelling Suit Depot.
Think of a short form of The Man Show, but less sophisticated if that's possible.
It’s just 90% dog and cat videos. You’re going to be disappointed.
Yeah, I DEFINITELY don't want to see any dog on cat videos.