House approves sell-or-be-banned TikTok measure, attaching it to foreign aid bill

Crazy that the proposed solution to propaganda is banning media instead of investing in education that promotes critical thinking. Or maybe the idea here is "no propaganda except mine".
- Investing in education is counter to the clear goals of the USA. Smart people would revolt, protest,and you know, hold companies and billionaires accountable. Uneducated people are often poor, can’t afford to fight back and are scared they will lose what little they have.
  At some point we need all to fight back, but it might be too late. And worse, too few will join in out of fear of death.
- Looking at things pragmatically widespread education of the population takes time and simply won't take for some people. There are folks today complaining that "they don't teach taxes in school". These people have a problem filling out a 1040EZ. Not exactly encouraging.
  At the same time Tic Tok represents a single vector for current or potential foreign propaganda and intelligence gathering targeting the American public. Opportunities to nip a single bud (so to speak) are few and far between and probably won't be possible in the near future.
  TL;DR - The "sell or ban" is a short term measure that won't take a lot of time, education is a long term measure that takes years.
- If people can pick apart China's propaganda it means they can pick apart US propaganda, too.
  Can't have that.
- I have to tell you, I know many intelligent people that have succumbed to propaganda, and outrage porn addiction. I see it continue to happen on all sides of the political isle. (This isn't a both sides kind of statement, simply acknowledgement that the same tactics work on our brain, indifferent of political ideology.)
  Whether they are hooked on the dopamine rush of rage baiting up votes, likes or comments; or only seeing everything in the world through a myopic lens of negativity, it has captured many of my friends and family, including myself for a time.
  For some their drug is Fox News, others it's Reddit, Facebook or TikTok, the results are often the same.
  I have yet to figure out a manner in which to communicate with individuals who spend considerable amounts of time in echo chambers, constantly having their personal beliefs reinforced. Evasion of cognitive dissonance and social conflict are very powerful psychological motivations. I wish I knew the solution.
  
  Fuck that bro, get mad as hell.
  We deserve better lives, and we should be pissed it's being taken from us.
- Well, of course. They aren't banning Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. That's exactly how they want it.
  
  they aren't even banning tiktok, at least they're trying not to. What they're trying to do is force a sale specifically to US government insiders. They're seizing it. They want that sweet, sweet propaganda and data mining for themselves.
- What do you think billionaires are bribing congress for? Regulatory capture keeps all the competitors out. Whereas actually fixing the problem of social media brainwashing would cost them money.
- And yet China is banning basically the whole Western internet, foreign companies must enter joint ventures with Chinese companies under government control. Reciprocity is fair. Why should Byte Dance be allowed to take in billions to fund Chinese gulags?
  
  China does thing: Bad
  America does same thing: Good
  
  As someone who's neither chinese nor american I want nothing more than these countries to keep their hands to themselves. I don't like China doing it, and I don't want the US doing it because China does it. Are y'all gonna hand a piece of your companies to every country they operate in? I'm guessing "no".
  
  Why do you want our social media to mirror China? That's the real question. What's the US gonna do with our data that's so much better? Oh yeah, fund our allies genocides! Yay! 🥳

- “Pork” on a bill has been a problem for decades.
  
  This is not the definition of "pork" in a bill. This is an additive that has nothing to do with the bill, sure, but "pork" is when someone diverts funds to their cause with no direct reason to have it in the bill.
  SINGLE ISSUE BILLS, FOLKS.
- You could argue that the perceptions of TikTok as a CCP tool of propaganda is an indirect foreign aid to Taiwan
  God knows how much Russia tries to use social media to turn sentiments against Ukraine
  Ultimately I think short form content encouraging platforms at large need to go down anyways so sucker punching the current biggest offender is right by me!
  
  The only thing I've seen about Taiwan on TikTok are videos talking about just how bad China's casualty rate would be if they tried anything.
  
  Facebook literally conducted social experiments on a million of their own users and didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Banning TikTok had absolutely nothing to do with security or stopping propaganda. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a gullible fool.
  
  Short form content platforms aren't going anywhere, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts are just a carbon copy of tiktok. No problems with them, of course, because they're American.
- Yup and that is the same issue with elections. Candidate A wants to ban private jets and burn tyres, candidate B wants to legalise child labour. A wins then claims they have a mandate to burn tyres
  
  And they also don't ban the private jets. I'd really love to have national legislation that a shithead can be recalled from any position if enough citizens demand it.
  
  Just First Past the post voting things
- It was attached because they already tried twice with it as a single issue and lost both times. They forced it through to get their way despite a clear message from the people that they didn't want this. It's so laughably anti-democratic but a lot of the older folks here don't care because it fits their bias of TikTok bad. At the end of the day democracy gets shit on once again because small minded people are easily manipulated into hating something they don't understand.

Minimum wage has been $7.25/hr for 15 years and this is what they're getting done on Capitol Hill 🤪
- Because of lobbyists

How about a digital bill of rights that applies to every corporation you fucking cowards!
- They don't care about every corporation because they work with those corporations. It's because it's a foreign power that started doing the same shit they've been doing for decades now. None of these countries & corporations deserve any sort of sympathy or support from any sane individual.

grabs popcorn
- mimes eating popcorn, while pointing to overlayed captions, with a Taylor Swift song playing in the background
  
  This person TikToks!

Well the Senate killed the earlier bill. There's a decent chance they pass the Ukraine/Israel aid bill without this amendment. It would then be stricken in reconciliation. Unfortunately there's also a decent chance the Senate passes it because this version probably fixes things the Senators had problems with.
If it does get passed there's a very good chance there's a court order to prevent anything until the courts rule on the constitutionality of the law. If Bytedance loses that there's zero chance they sell though. The US market is not big enough for them to jettison an international company.
- Not big enough. I imagine it’s their biggest market.
  
  It's the biggest single country but in a world of 7.9 Billion people, 148 million is a fraction.
- Why are you cheerleading for TikTok to remain in the hands of a US adversary, during the same week when said adversary forced a US company to abjectly ban US-based messaging apps?
  Retaliation. Tit for tit.
  
  Tik for Tok
  
  If the government can just point at a company and force a fire sale then there is no market, there is no order, there is no financial industry. This is an incredibly dangerous law.
  
  The first amendment doesn't have an exception for retaliation.
  
  Eye for an eye?
  
  Because it has absolutely nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with US corporations wanting our data and eyeballs back. If you think otherwise you're just too easily manipulated.

Weren't you all just hating on Republicans for not voting for that bill.
How about an all bills must be fucking separate bill?
- You need to fix voting in congress first. The reason riders get put in is because some small bills that are of no interest to some in congress would never make it because they’d never get enough votes to pass. Of course the system got abused to hell with poison pills and shitty bills that are crammed into popular legislation to make it hard to pass or make good legislation pass shitty laws.
  So yeah, split the bills. But make these clowns vote on everything.
- This was a separate bill. Til Tok, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel were all separate. They were brought to the floor at the same time, but they could’ve all been voted on differently
  
  So the article is wrong?
  
  At least the Genocrats cant hide behind the "it was bundled in with Ukraine" excuse now. The end up the exact same as the Republicunts.
  Both sides are exactly the same.

I see no issue with banning tik tok.
- It's not even "banning tik-tok". It's "separate your interests, or we block your product".
  Which isn't exactly something that we haven't seen before in the U.S. and it for sure isn't anything new in China where plenty of services, games....etc are blocked with "Chinese only" versions of those services.
  
  We forced the sale of Grindr and nobody even brought it up.
  
  It's a ban. They have stated in no uncertain terms that they will not sell or separate any interests. It's not for our "security" or any of that absolute BS either. It's for their own profits and because they want people's data.
  The fact that you'd want our media to even remotely resemble the highly sensored versions in China is insane to me. Y'all are just happy to go along with this because you don't like tiktok. That's it. That's all it took for a lot of you. I'd say I expected better but it's becoming more obvious every day that lemmy is where the old and out of touch people migrated to. Despite it seeming like it would be the opposite.
  You genuinely don't care if the government oversteps as long as it fits your bias. The fact that they couldn't get it to go through as a single issue twice so they had to shove it with other issues just to get their way should be enough to piss most people off but here we are. It's a shame. I'm disappointed in how easily manipulated so many of you are. Truly.
- I don't like TikTok, but I do take issue with the government deciding what is and isn't available to me.
  
  They are not banning the content type that tiktok provides, they are banning the foreign authoritarian government control of American user information. If Bytedance Sells tiktok to a business in a non authoritarian state then they no longer care.
- Except they would be ignoring all the other shitty social networks but it's a start.
  
  It's not a start tho, it's killing competition of Facebook and Google. It's consolidating power if anything. I believe this bill has nothing to do with security issues and everything to do with campaign contributions to make sure America never has to compete with another country in this space.
- what did tiktok do to deserve being banned, and why is it okay for other companies to do that?
  
  Feeding data to the CCP, helping them identify people who can be easily swayed into espionage. Say someone gets into a position of power. "Hey, remember when you were 12 and said this on tik Tok? Now we need you to be out removed or we're leaking this."
  Look at the things that have gone viral on Tik Tok, it's like their algorithm prioritizes things that are toxic to make American youth shittier. Kia boys comes to mind.
  There is also the fact that China bans all American social media out of fear that we'd use it to manipulate their people. If they aren't allowing our businesses to compete fairly, why should we allow theirs? Also, they probably are projecting that fear because they are doing exactly that with TikTok.
  The app has more permissions than most apps and is highly invasive. They sent a push notification to all their users based on Geo location saying who their rep was and giving their phone number saying to call them to stop this bill. That alone seems like a major abuse of power. They are using the data they have to try to sway the American politicians already.
  
  TikTok is very heavily influenced by the CCP and could be used to collect data from Americans (probably they already are). Not wanting your biggest geopolitical rival to harvest data from your citizens is pretty understandable.
- i hate TikTok but also Instagram and YouTube shorts should be in the same list
- Except for the part where they couldn't get support for it twice so they shoved it in here to get their way? But that's ok because you don't like the silly dancing app that you know basically nothing about right? Other than "China bad", of course.
  
  I don't give a shit about the China bit, I just think it's dumb and full of misinformation so I really don't care if it's banned. I have no reason to hide my thoughts on this. It's stupid, I think it's cringey as fuck, and I'll be happy to see it go. I know nothing about it because it doesn't remotely interest me in the slightest. I'm sorry you're upset people don't like your stupid little dancing app but lashing out like this changes jack shit. You're right. We don't like it. Nobody here was hiding that.

Oh, no! What will I do without my level 5 gyatt rizz livvy fanum tax dunne rizzing up baby gronk ice spice wat da dawg doin skibidi toilet in real life only in ohio we go jim zyzz creatine alpha sigma cuh dey board?
This bill would also outlaw using VPNs to view such restricted platforms, and has a general policy that would allow lawmakers to ban any platform they claim is a national security risk. No overreach here!
- The poor kids will lose everything because of course you can only host that kind of fucking trash on tik tok!! It's either on tik tok or not at all!!!
  it's ridiculous how attached these children are to a chinese company lol. They just host the goddamn footage and provide an algo to feed that shit to you. THAT'S IT! TT ain't some special fuckin unicorn
  but the kids are kids and they don't want to think about and understand that. Most on tiktok probably don't even know of or remember Vine or the other previous iterations of the same exact shit concept. But noooo, the CCP must be allowed to frame the narratives/algos and vacuum up all possible PII data!!!
  now that aside, the VPN part you mention is indeed disturbing. Could you please provide the source / exact wording for this claim? I want to read more about it but can't find anything close to what you are suggesting
  https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8038/text?s=3&r=1#toc-H2669E9E74E8A43039D7E92B5E8152F38
  VPN or virtual private network are not mentioned anywhere
  
  TikTok is also a pretty effective protest tool, which is also a threat to conservatives. It's just funny how they're so against the CCP rotting the brains of children but do nothing about the black box of YouTube recommendations and every American social media platform (until they started banning campaign misinformation)
  VPn or virtual private network are not mentioned anywhere
  Shit, they revised it then. I remember there was originally language like that in the original 2023 version.
  Currently 0-2 today for spreading correct information.

Can we just put the american and chinese government in a room and let them fight it out untill they are done?
Just let me watch my funny cat videos and cooking videos in peace thankyou very much.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
It would mark the first time ever the U.S. government has passed a law that could shut down an entire social media platform, setting the stage for what is expected to be a protracted legal battle.
"It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans," said TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek.
National security officials in Washington have feared that the Chinese government could use TikTok to promote propaganda aimed at interfering in U.S. elections, or surveil some of the 170 million Americans who use the app every month.
While there has been no evidence made public that Chinese government officials have accessed Americans' information through TikTok, the idea that China has the theoretical ability to weaponize an app used by half of America has been enough to set off an all-out crackdown.
And during the Trump administration's campaign against TikTok, China added content-recommendation algorithms to its export-control list, meaning selling the technology would require the blessing of the Chinese government.
"The Chinese said very firmly this month at senior levels that they won't let the algorithm be sold and without it, it's an empty deal," Lewis told NPR.
The original article contains 701 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

"they won't let the algorithm be sold and without it, it's an empty deal" I don't see how that's a problem. Obviously there's a great deal of knowledge about what "the algorithm" does across the userbase; just get users to raise tickets about what they miss and others to upvote them, then knock them off one by one. There's nothing magic about "users who liked post A also liked post B" or "company X paid us $1000000000000 so here's post C whether you like it or not". It might even end up being better than the original.

I will never vote for my rep again because of this. Climate change, runaway COL, rising wealth inequality, legalize cannabis, Middle East on fire, flood in the district that killed people....utter silence.
Banning Tik Tok was the priority.
I won't vote GOP but my rep is never getting my vote again.
- Is your rep speaker of the house Mike Johnson? If not, they don't choose which bill is voted on...
  
  Could have voted nay, could have refused to vote on it, could have demanded a rider be attached passing universal healthcare. Choose to vote against our rights to use as shitty app. Therefore I choose to never vote for them again.
  Unless you got a time machine my decision is final.

It's not even about propaganda it's not having it until their thumb, they can't push a button and ensure the top video under trans on every search is Matt Walsh, and yeah on all other major platforms if you search trans people critical of trans people pop up. The reasoning isn't popularity or engagement, the US government has ordered them to do it through backroom tax deals and Slapp orders. Next stop for the US gov is gonna be the fediverse and AT proto, they are gonna argue that not just anyone should be trusted and that running a social media server is a big task. security blah blah children, protecting your data. Than lass a bill require you to obtain an FCC license to host your own social media site. It only gets worse from here folks
- I didn't really like your attitude about it, but you're probably right. Moving goalposts is what the US does to establish precedents.
- Even if someone hates TikTok for whatever reason this should still piss them off. They tried to do this twice and the people said NO both times. To the extent that they spread a bunch of bs rhetoric claiming people were forced to call their representatives last time because they got so much immediate push back lol. Nobody was forced to do anything. A notification was sent to TikTok inboxes telling people about the vote and offering to help them contact their local reps about it. A bunch of people exercised their rights to have a voice and did just that. That was it. That's what happened.
  Now here we are. In an incredibly undemocratic move, they forced the ban through anyway.
- Look, I hate TERFs and distrust the US government, but this take is just conspiracy theory nonsense. Unless you have some evidence that the US government is forcing social media to promote anti-trans content, I have absolutely zero reason to believe your claim over the more believable explanation: that promoting controversial content drives engagement and increases ad revenue.