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.
But it's also not available in China correct? They have a separate version with a different name from what I understand. They could do the same for the other regions they serve and sell the US user base to a new company.
The Chinese app is a completely different app and company than TikTok. ByteDance owns two apps. While we might end up with an American version ByteDance is not going to sell TikTok. And at the closest, that version would be an American corporation running a licensed version of TikTok with TikTok's American server and software infrastructure. But that's not very likely, even with a year's lead time. That's the kind of deal you get when a company exits a market voluntarily. When you have a fire sale you far more often see a company's assets sold as parts. The problem is it's not an equal playing ground anymore and free market principles no longer apply.
So in this case TikTok would still want the most money possible for their buildings, servers, office equipment, etc. That means that all Meta and friends need to do in order to prevent a whole sale is give TikTok a good deal on one aspect. If Meta takes the servers, and Reddit takes the work computers, and Alphabet takes the source code, and Apple takes the buildings, there's not very much left over for a new competitor to grab and turn into a running concern that could compete.
So in this case TikTok itself comes away fine. But the American social media market becomes less competitive and consumers have to deal with shittier apps as there's less competition.
There are two very concerning points to this law in the future though. This is a law allowing the executive branch to make a declaration about a company and force a fire sale. If this was done to a domestic company with foreign backing then it would simply be the end of that company. Second, this does not in any way actually keep the CCP from getting our data or influencing us through social media. In 2016 Russia famously ran an information op through Facebook. There have been no reforms to keep that from happening again and in fact we saw that same campaign in 2020, it just wasn't enough the second time. And American Data Vendors willingly sell our data to the highest bidder, including the CCP. They have been caught doing so multiple times, have received nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and there's no evidence they've stopped.
So this law puts a dangerous precedent into place without solving any of the things it says it's going to solve. The short story here is that unless we're talking about school lunches you need to run away the second a politician says it's for the children.
Oh and it's an open question as to if it's even Constitutional since it's basically a standing authority to ban companies by name. Which is literally called out in the Constitution and why you've never seen a law to punish someone by name in the US. There's supposed to be a court procedure and a law they've violated. If they wanted to make a law saying a company could be banned for giving data to declared enemies and enforce it in civil court that would be proper. But it would immediately fail because all of our Billionaires are ass deep in the data markets. So we have this smoke cloud instead.
Why would they sell? That would create a competitor that could easily expand into other markets and take away that user base as well.
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
It was right there!
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 government absolutely has unconditional and unlimited authority to restrict enemy states from ownership of anything in the US they want to.
There is absolutely no possibility of any Constitutional issue. The government has explicit authority to handle anything they want about international commerce in the Constitution.
That's why they're having to pass this law I guess then? Because they already have the authority to do the thing they're trying to make the law to get the authority to do?
And TikTok isn't owned by China. It's owned by ByteDance, a MultiNational Corp with Chinese ties. It's not operated out of China, Tiktok is operated out of Singapore and Los Angeles.
And what exactly is the security concern of people making funny cat videos? Nobody is saying the government has to put Tiktok on government computers. So what exactly is the exposure here that trumps the first amendment and prohibition on bills of attainder in the US?
To your first point, yes, exactly. Congress mostly has to pass bills to exercise their power. For example: they have the authority to decide finances. They pass bills to (barely) get that done.
You're not wrong but even if this was a standing authority being used in the same way as passing the budget, it would be illegal because it targets a single entity by design. The Constitution prohibits that which is why laws are written as behavior rules you have to violate and then the government proves you violated them in court. Just declaring a company or person persona non grata is something our founders specifically prohibited.
You're thinking of laws in terms of obedience. Law is about agreed-upon structure (sometimes functional, often dysfunctional).
Enforcement is about obedience, and comes up when people don't go along with the agreed-upon structure. When the structure is made poorly, enforcement has harmful consequences.
Examples:
food stamps (law)
no stealing (law)
preventing theft or multiple-subscription to food stamps (enforcement)
the wilderness act (law)
suing the government for not following the wilderness act (enforcement)
Law and enforcement are closely linked, but definitely distinct.
They have the authority to create structure (pass laws) regarding foreign powers operating within the States. So they pass laws (create structure) that state the agreed-upon structure, and enable that structure to be enforced.
Except we don't have that power. Not unless there's a national security threat. And they might make our children more woke isn't a national security threat.
American individuals and this company have a first amendment right. Furthermore this isn't a ban on all foreign owned companies. This is a ban on companies with ownership that have nebulous ties to certain countries. A list we can add to at any time. That is capricious and open to being abused. It's also unconstitutional under the no Bills of Attainder rule.
Except we do have that power. There's reasonable national security risk, and your lack of understanding of the dynamics involved doesn't make them nebulous to others.
In any case, if you don't like it, vote with your life choices. If it's not that important, well.. ..it's not that important.
You know nobody has yet to actually say what the risk is. Just that China is evil and therefore a risk. There's some overblown stuff about them pushing cancel culture but that's not a national security risk.
If it's not nebulous then tell me, how are they getting our nuclear codes with a social media app they don't directly control?
And again. No. We have rights in the US. Unless you guys go giving them away because you're afraid you might see a Chinese video.
Passing laws is how they regulate international commerce. Or one way. Treaties are another. Executive orders are another. Actions of regulatory bodies within frameworks established by prior legislation is another.
Congress passing legislation to stop hostile foreign ownership of a US business that's doing harm is well within their authority.
A. Doing what harm? People just throw this around and there's been no evidence except, "lol it's a social media company".
B. It's not within their authority unless there's a specific national security problem. So what about TikTok is going to breach national security? Are they stealing military secrets? (They were already banned from government devices along with other social media apps so the answer is no. They're not.)
The Constitution is supposed to protect us from the government just pointing at us and declaring us criminals. Today it's TikTok tomorrow it's you.
A. It's malware that does an obscene amount of spying, even compared to other social media. Forcing the sale isn't good enough. It should have been outright banned.
B. That's incorrect. Their authority over foreign trade is unconditional and absolute. There are absolutely zero restrictions on what they can do to restrict foreign trade. Non-US companies have literally zero constitutional rights. They can ban all trade with any foreign person or business who has any commercial interaction with China if they wish. The Constitution places absolutely zero restrictions on their authority to restrict international trade.
No, the slippery slope does not exist, ignoring that that's a stupid fallacy for a reason. I am not an enemy state. I am a US citizen. I have Constitutional rights. TikTok doesn't, and for very good reason.
Oh now it's malware? Funny, I haven't seen it on any warning lists. Google hasn't thrown it's shield up and made me click the naughty button. Is there any reputable source saying it's malware? Or are you just hoping I wasn't tech literate?
International trade is literal trade, not just any foreigner offering a service. Foreign companies operating inside the US have the same rights you or I or Hobby Lobby have. Anything less runs into the same problems with restricting the Rights of non citizen individuals, namely that citizens inevitably lose those rights too. As long as they're here they have the same rights.
Yes, they've been caught abusing multiple exploits.
Foreign trade is literally anything involving any person from any country that's not the US, any corporation that isn't based in the US, and anything involving any US citizen crossing the borders of the US and bringing anything back. The government has unconditional and unlimited authority to regulate and restrict all of it for any reason. There are absolutely zero limitations. The government can completely bar any foreign ownership of any US asset and any corporation that isn't registered exclusively in the US from doing any business at all with anyone within the borders of the US. It cannot possibly be a Constitutional issue.
Oh? And there are reports of this, right? By cyber security professionals? Reports you could link to?
And no. Your definition would turn the New Jersey tourist industry into a Foreign Trade. If that authorization is already in law then surely you could point it out so our esteemed politicians could just use that?
I'll save you the trouble. It isn't there. You're making this up as you go along because you like the way that sounds. But we've spent 70 years building an international trade with treaties and international courts. Even if this, somehow, isn't a beach of the 1st Amendment, 5th Amendment, and the prohibition on Bills of Attainder we still have to abide by the treaties we've signed. Treaties our Constitution affords the same level of respect as itself.
See, that's all easily findable. There's no circular logic about having the authority so you can pass a law giving yourself the authority. It's how laws are supposed to work.
Yes, it's been reported numerous times.
Yes, Congress could pass laws banning tourism by foreign nationals if they wished. The constitution is explicit that they can do literally anything they want to regulate trade with other countries, and they absolute do regularly ban and sanction foreign bad actors. It has nothing to do with laws that exist. There are numerous such sanctions already in place against China and Chinese actors, and it's an inherent right of being a sovereign nation.
You have absolutely no rights to interact or do business with foreign actors. It cannot possibly violate your rights to be prohibited from interacting with China. Every single country on the planet breaks treaties when things change to the extent doing so is required, which is irrelevant, because China routinely bans US companies for the sole purpose of protecting their own state controlled entities.
There is nothing for the Supreme Court to rule on. There is nothing remotely ambiguous here and nothing that in any way resembles a new precedent. This is entirely standard behavior.
Then where's the report?
You've sat here for three comments now, without referencing the Constitution, or the report just declaring your narrative as truth.
The alternative is to outright ban it. Tik Tok is a cancer directly controlled by a hostile nation state. The government absolutely has the right to block foreign interference like this.
Pray tell how is this any worse than Facebook? Is the CCP in the Los Angeles TikTok office moderating content?
Or is this just more bullshit invented on the spot to justify an unconstitutional power grab?
Facebook isn't under an obligation to provide America's data directly to the government of a hostile foreign power. Tiktok is
An obligation? Is there proof of that? That's a pretty incendiary accusation.
Technically according to this article tiktok won't share data with the PRC - but their parent company bytedance is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested. Bytedance has authority to require tiktok to share data. Therefore through this channel tiktok is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested.
Bytedance owning a stake in TikTok does not mean they can require TikTok to share data. Especially if we made a common sense law to protect data saying it's not allowed to leave the country.
Oh wait, that's already a thing. And we just let Meta and the other data vendors keep doing it.
Attempts have been made. But the data is still sent.
We should have better and more comprehensive data privacy laws across the board but whataboutism doesn't change the fact that tiktok is obligated to share Americans data with a hostile and repressive foreign power.
Did... Did you actually read it? They sent user data for app engagement research. Oh no the CCP knows you're a middle aged white guy in Oklahoma! The world is going to end!!!
And if we're going to ban any data going to the CCP then we should just do that. It's not whataboutism to point out you're only punishing the odd duck for a crime all of the ducks are committing openly. Make that law and reform the industry. Anything less is just a racist excuse for a fire sale.
Nothing in the article cites a reason for why the data was sent. In fact the article specifically mentions that this data being sent was to circumvent attempts to limit the transmission of American citizens data to a hostile foreign government.
We should ban the sale and transmission of Americans sensitive data to hostile foreign powers regardless of the company. I support this action because it would help do that, and I would support (and I do advocate for) more broad data privacy legislation. If you support data privacy why would you not support a bill which enhances data privacy, even if it doesn't go far enough?
You started this discussion with me by saying that tiktok isnt obligated to send data, when I provided sourcing to that effect you brought up corporate structure questions asking if the data was being sent. I provided a source showing that it is transmitted through those avenues regardless. Now your argument is that because we don't have totally comprehensive data privacy regulation we can just ignore the fact that tiktok is sending American citizens private data to a hostile foreign power? If you think that isn't a big deal just say so, then we can have an honest conversation.
Oh look, a reason-
The spreadsheets included users’ names, email addresses, IP addresses, and geographic and demographic information and was used to determine how to develop TikTok’s algorithm to encourage users to be more active on the app, he said.
And no it was their own Project Texas. Also, not nearly the data anyone is worried about. They can get that from your bank. (And yes banks sell data) That's not a breach of national security, it's just good business sense to retain consumers. This is also the only instance the article actually finds. The article also mentions the software programmers saying that the data coding itself is well siloed, i.e. no back doors.
So is this the horrible national security problem we've all heard so much about? A vital statistics spreadsheet you can buy from any Data Vendor? When you say they're obligated to send information people aren't thinking it's just literately a headcount. They're thinking it's political affiliation, income, job, social networking maps, GPS travel data. You know the stuff that the CCP intelligence people could fit together to find out what kind of porn you like and figure out how they can get that kind of porn in China.
Every argument for why we should ban TikTok fits Facebook and Twitter just as well. They both willingly give a lot more than that spreadsheet to the CCP. Facebook is perenially in congressional hearings over getting caught doing exactly what you're accusing TikTok of, and yet somehow here we are worrying about TikTok because of nebulous racist fearmongering that falls apart the second we find the "smoking gun".
They're owned by the CCP (and before you say they're not, the ByteDance C-suite is basically all current Chinese citizens and the headquarters is in Beijing).
Businesses and people do not have rights in the way most westerners are used to. Assume anything out of China or generally owned by Chinese companies is a direct arm of the CCP ... because even if it isn't today, the CCP can unilaterally throw down an order from the top and take control of the company/have them do whatever they want or the leaders replaced.
So are American companies that are basically all Americans in the C-Suite owned by the US Government?
Even if what you were saying was true, the common sense approach is to ban the trading of data internationally. Then TikTok can tell Beijing to pound sand if they tried anything. Instead we have this fear mongering racist bullshit being touted.
So are American companies that are basically all Americans in the C-Suite owned by the US Government?
Ultimately, yes. The US government can tell Google to report all searches of "I'm a goofy goober!" to them to collect a list of SpongeBob fans.
The same is true of a company like Proton and Swiss law.
The difference is that in the US/Switzerland/Western Democracy there are rights, laws, and courts that limit and check government power and action + open ended elections. Biden cannot just go to Elon Musk and tell him "this is my company now, you WILL report all the goofy goobers." There are a lot of roadblocks to that kind of behavior.
The CCP is a monoculture based around the "National People's Congress". The NPC is effectively the CCP because the CCP picks who is eligible to be part of the NPC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
For all intents and purposes, what Xi wants is what happens. There is no court to check him, there is no opposition party to hold him back, and anyone that tries to stand in his way will more than likely be "punished."
This is not racist bull shit. It has nothing to do with Chinese people and everything to do with the CCP.
The trading of data also has very little to do with anything. It's about cutting off a hostile, authoritarian, foreign power from having a direct line to millions of US citizens to push whatever message they want with minimal oversight. The data is surely just icing on the cake for the CCP because they might be able to find some blackmail worthy piece of information in their hoard of metrics and videos for a current or future public figure.
I don't think you understand either ... "Banning" something only works if they care about the law and the CCP does not care at all about US laws. If they want to break them, they will, and they will either get the people that did the job for them back to China or use people that don't know anything/any better as scapegoats. It's the exact same stuff any government would do, international law is imaginary because ultimately nations do not answer to nations except by diplomacy and war.
Lmao. Okay we're done here. You have an outsized idea of nationality, government power, and what's in TikTok data.
You're just naive if you honestly think companies are somehow "above" the nations of their owners or that government power has some real limit beyond what other nations are willing (and able) to punish them over.
It's also pretty naive to assert there's nothing of value in that data, particularly of the blackmail variety. That stupid distasteful video you uploaded and then "deleted" at a teen ... there's no guarantee they don't have it. The location ping your phone made when you were cheating on your spouse and opened TikTok while waiting for your mistress, there's no guarantee they don't have it.
You could even use popular political videos as the basis for evaluating who's more likely to cooperate or believe you following an attack and mix that with geographic data to figure out how to minimize the risk of guerilla fighters. Similarly, you could use the social network graph to figure out how to put pressure on someone.
I mean, social media is honestly nasty in terms of what it can tell you about a society.
That doesn't even begin to touch on the ability to directly manipulate a proprietary content promotion algorithm. You think they can effectively manipulate Facebook? There are no limits to the manipulation they can perform on TikTok and there is no framework for overseeing social media algorithm performance.
Multi national corporations are so beholden to their countries they cheat on their taxes and break any law they can get away with. Including selling data directly to the CCP.
So no. I don't have time or the willpower to argue with someone who thinks international affairs is a video game and everything is tied to countries.
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.
But it's also not available in China correct? They have a separate version with a different name from what I understand. They could do the same for the other regions they serve and sell the US user base to a new company.
The Chinese app is a completely different app and company than TikTok. ByteDance owns two apps. While we might end up with an American version ByteDance is not going to sell TikTok. And at the closest, that version would be an American corporation running a licensed version of TikTok with TikTok's American server and software infrastructure. But that's not very likely, even with a year's lead time. That's the kind of deal you get when a company exits a market voluntarily. When you have a fire sale you far more often see a company's assets sold as parts. The problem is it's not an equal playing ground anymore and free market principles no longer apply.
So in this case TikTok would still want the most money possible for their buildings, servers, office equipment, etc. That means that all Meta and friends need to do in order to prevent a whole sale is give TikTok a good deal on one aspect. If Meta takes the servers, and Reddit takes the work computers, and Alphabet takes the source code, and Apple takes the buildings, there's not very much left over for a new competitor to grab and turn into a running concern that could compete.
So in this case TikTok itself comes away fine. But the American social media market becomes less competitive and consumers have to deal with shittier apps as there's less competition.
There are two very concerning points to this law in the future though. This is a law allowing the executive branch to make a declaration about a company and force a fire sale. If this was done to a domestic company with foreign backing then it would simply be the end of that company. Second, this does not in any way actually keep the CCP from getting our data or influencing us through social media. In 2016 Russia famously ran an information op through Facebook. There have been no reforms to keep that from happening again and in fact we saw that same campaign in 2020, it just wasn't enough the second time. And American Data Vendors willingly sell our data to the highest bidder, including the CCP. They have been caught doing so multiple times, have received nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and there's no evidence they've stopped.
So this law puts a dangerous precedent into place without solving any of the things it says it's going to solve. The short story here is that unless we're talking about school lunches you need to run away the second a politician says it's for the children.
Oh and it's an open question as to if it's even Constitutional since it's basically a standing authority to ban companies by name. Which is literally called out in the Constitution and why you've never seen a law to punish someone by name in the US. There's supposed to be a court procedure and a law they've violated. If they wanted to make a law saying a company could be banned for giving data to declared enemies and enforce it in civil court that would be proper. But it would immediately fail because all of our Billionaires are ass deep in the data markets. So we have this smoke cloud instead.
Why would they sell? That would create a competitor that could easily expand into other markets and take away that user base as well.
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
It was right there!
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 government absolutely has unconditional and unlimited authority to restrict enemy states from ownership of anything in the US they want to.
There is absolutely no possibility of any Constitutional issue. The government has explicit authority to handle anything they want about international commerce in the Constitution.
That's why they're having to pass this law I guess then? Because they already have the authority to do the thing they're trying to make the law to get the authority to do?
And TikTok isn't owned by China. It's owned by ByteDance, a MultiNational Corp with Chinese ties. It's not operated out of China, Tiktok is operated out of Singapore and Los Angeles.
And what exactly is the security concern of people making funny cat videos? Nobody is saying the government has to put Tiktok on government computers. So what exactly is the exposure here that trumps the first amendment and prohibition on bills of attainder in the US?
To your first point, yes, exactly. Congress mostly has to pass bills to exercise their power. For example: they have the authority to decide finances. They pass bills to (barely) get that done.
You're not wrong but even if this was a standing authority being used in the same way as passing the budget, it would be illegal because it targets a single entity by design. The Constitution prohibits that which is why laws are written as behavior rules you have to violate and then the government proves you violated them in court. Just declaring a company or person persona non grata is something our founders specifically prohibited.
You're thinking of laws in terms of obedience. Law is about agreed-upon structure (sometimes functional, often dysfunctional).
Enforcement is about obedience, and comes up when people don't go along with the agreed-upon structure. When the structure is made poorly, enforcement has harmful consequences.
Examples:
Law and enforcement are closely linked, but definitely distinct.
They have the authority to create structure (pass laws) regarding foreign powers operating within the States. So they pass laws (create structure) that state the agreed-upon structure, and enable that structure to be enforced.
Except we don't have that power. Not unless there's a national security threat. And they might make our children more woke isn't a national security threat.
American individuals and this company have a first amendment right. Furthermore this isn't a ban on all foreign owned companies. This is a ban on companies with ownership that have nebulous ties to certain countries. A list we can add to at any time. That is capricious and open to being abused. It's also unconstitutional under the no Bills of Attainder rule.
Except we do have that power. There's reasonable national security risk, and your lack of understanding of the dynamics involved doesn't make them nebulous to others.
In any case, if you don't like it, vote with your life choices. If it's not that important, well.. ..it's not that important.
You know nobody has yet to actually say what the risk is. Just that China is evil and therefore a risk. There's some overblown stuff about them pushing cancel culture but that's not a national security risk.
If it's not nebulous then tell me, how are they getting our nuclear codes with a social media app they don't directly control?
And again. No. We have rights in the US. Unless you guys go giving them away because you're afraid you might see a Chinese video.
Passing laws is how they regulate international commerce. Or one way. Treaties are another. Executive orders are another. Actions of regulatory bodies within frameworks established by prior legislation is another.
Congress passing legislation to stop hostile foreign ownership of a US business that's doing harm is well within their authority.
A. Doing what harm? People just throw this around and there's been no evidence except, "lol it's a social media company".
B. It's not within their authority unless there's a specific national security problem. So what about TikTok is going to breach national security? Are they stealing military secrets? (They were already banned from government devices along with other social media apps so the answer is no. They're not.)
The Constitution is supposed to protect us from the government just pointing at us and declaring us criminals. Today it's TikTok tomorrow it's you.
A. It's malware that does an obscene amount of spying, even compared to other social media. Forcing the sale isn't good enough. It should have been outright banned.
B. That's incorrect. Their authority over foreign trade is unconditional and absolute. There are absolutely zero restrictions on what they can do to restrict foreign trade. Non-US companies have literally zero constitutional rights. They can ban all trade with any foreign person or business who has any commercial interaction with China if they wish. The Constitution places absolutely zero restrictions on their authority to restrict international trade.
No, the slippery slope does not exist, ignoring that that's a stupid fallacy for a reason. I am not an enemy state. I am a US citizen. I have Constitutional rights. TikTok doesn't, and for very good reason.
Oh now it's malware? Funny, I haven't seen it on any warning lists. Google hasn't thrown it's shield up and made me click the naughty button. Is there any reputable source saying it's malware? Or are you just hoping I wasn't tech literate?
International trade is literal trade, not just any foreigner offering a service. Foreign companies operating inside the US have the same rights you or I or Hobby Lobby have. Anything less runs into the same problems with restricting the Rights of non citizen individuals, namely that citizens inevitably lose those rights too. As long as they're here they have the same rights.
Yes, they've been caught abusing multiple exploits.
Foreign trade is literally anything involving any person from any country that's not the US, any corporation that isn't based in the US, and anything involving any US citizen crossing the borders of the US and bringing anything back. The government has unconditional and unlimited authority to regulate and restrict all of it for any reason. There are absolutely zero limitations. The government can completely bar any foreign ownership of any US asset and any corporation that isn't registered exclusively in the US from doing any business at all with anyone within the borders of the US. It cannot possibly be a Constitutional issue.
Oh? And there are reports of this, right? By cyber security professionals? Reports you could link to?
And no. Your definition would turn the New Jersey tourist industry into a Foreign Trade. If that authorization is already in law then surely you could point it out so our esteemed politicians could just use that?
I'll save you the trouble. It isn't there. You're making this up as you go along because you like the way that sounds. But we've spent 70 years building an international trade with treaties and international courts. Even if this, somehow, isn't a beach of the 1st Amendment, 5th Amendment, and the prohibition on Bills of Attainder we still have to abide by the treaties we've signed. Treaties our Constitution affords the same level of respect as itself.
See, that's all easily findable. There's no circular logic about having the authority so you can pass a law giving yourself the authority. It's how laws are supposed to work.
Yes, it's been reported numerous times.
Yes, Congress could pass laws banning tourism by foreign nationals if they wished. The constitution is explicit that they can do literally anything they want to regulate trade with other countries, and they absolute do regularly ban and sanction foreign bad actors. It has nothing to do with laws that exist. There are numerous such sanctions already in place against China and Chinese actors, and it's an inherent right of being a sovereign nation.
You have absolutely no rights to interact or do business with foreign actors. It cannot possibly violate your rights to be prohibited from interacting with China. Every single country on the planet breaks treaties when things change to the extent doing so is required, which is irrelevant, because China routinely bans US companies for the sole purpose of protecting their own state controlled entities.
There is nothing for the Supreme Court to rule on. There is nothing remotely ambiguous here and nothing that in any way resembles a new precedent. This is entirely standard behavior.
Then where's the report?
You've sat here for three comments now, without referencing the Constitution, or the report just declaring your narrative as truth.
The alternative is to outright ban it. Tik Tok is a cancer directly controlled by a hostile nation state. The government absolutely has the right to block foreign interference like this.
Pray tell how is this any worse than Facebook? Is the CCP in the Los Angeles TikTok office moderating content?
Or is this just more bullshit invented on the spot to justify an unconstitutional power grab?
Facebook isn't under an obligation to provide America's data directly to the government of a hostile foreign power. Tiktok is
An obligation? Is there proof of that? That's a pretty incendiary accusation.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/afcl/fact-check-tiktok-03242023144611.html
Technically according to this article tiktok won't share data with the PRC - but their parent company bytedance is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested. Bytedance has authority to require tiktok to share data. Therefore through this channel tiktok is obligated to share data with the PRC when requested.
Bytedance owning a stake in TikTok does not mean they can require TikTok to share data. Especially if we made a common sense law to protect data saying it's not allowed to leave the country.
Oh wait, that's already a thing. And we just let Meta and the other data vendors keep doing it.
Attempts have been made. But the data is still sent.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/16/24132315/tiktok-bytedance-project-texas-china-silo
We should have better and more comprehensive data privacy laws across the board but whataboutism doesn't change the fact that tiktok is obligated to share Americans data with a hostile and repressive foreign power.
Did... Did you actually read it? They sent user data for app engagement research. Oh no the CCP knows you're a middle aged white guy in Oklahoma! The world is going to end!!!
And if we're going to ban any data going to the CCP then we should just do that. It's not whataboutism to point out you're only punishing the odd duck for a crime all of the ducks are committing openly. Make that law and reform the industry. Anything less is just a racist excuse for a fire sale.
Nothing in the article cites a reason for why the data was sent. In fact the article specifically mentions that this data being sent was to circumvent attempts to limit the transmission of American citizens data to a hostile foreign government.
We should ban the sale and transmission of Americans sensitive data to hostile foreign powers regardless of the company. I support this action because it would help do that, and I would support (and I do advocate for) more broad data privacy legislation. If you support data privacy why would you not support a bill which enhances data privacy, even if it doesn't go far enough?
You started this discussion with me by saying that tiktok isnt obligated to send data, when I provided sourcing to that effect you brought up corporate structure questions asking if the data was being sent. I provided a source showing that it is transmitted through those avenues regardless. Now your argument is that because we don't have totally comprehensive data privacy regulation we can just ignore the fact that tiktok is sending American citizens private data to a hostile foreign power? If you think that isn't a big deal just say so, then we can have an honest conversation.
Oh look, a reason-
And no it was their own Project Texas. Also, not nearly the data anyone is worried about. They can get that from your bank. (And yes banks sell data) That's not a breach of national security, it's just good business sense to retain consumers. This is also the only instance the article actually finds. The article also mentions the software programmers saying that the data coding itself is well siloed, i.e. no back doors.
So is this the horrible national security problem we've all heard so much about? A vital statistics spreadsheet you can buy from any Data Vendor? When you say they're obligated to send information people aren't thinking it's just literately a headcount. They're thinking it's political affiliation, income, job, social networking maps, GPS travel data. You know the stuff that the CCP intelligence people could fit together to find out what kind of porn you like and figure out how they can get that kind of porn in China.
Every argument for why we should ban TikTok fits Facebook and Twitter just as well. They both willingly give a lot more than that spreadsheet to the CCP. Facebook is perenially in congressional hearings over getting caught doing exactly what you're accusing TikTok of, and yet somehow here we are worrying about TikTok because of nebulous racist fearmongering that falls apart the second we find the "smoking gun".
They're owned by the CCP (and before you say they're not, the ByteDance C-suite is basically all current Chinese citizens and the headquarters is in Beijing).
Businesses and people do not have rights in the way most westerners are used to. Assume anything out of China or generally owned by Chinese companies is a direct arm of the CCP ... because even if it isn't today, the CCP can unilaterally throw down an order from the top and take control of the company/have them do whatever they want or the leaders replaced.
So are American companies that are basically all Americans in the C-Suite owned by the US Government?
Even if what you were saying was true, the common sense approach is to ban the trading of data internationally. Then TikTok can tell Beijing to pound sand if they tried anything. Instead we have this fear mongering racist bullshit being touted.
Ultimately, yes. The US government can tell Google to report all searches of "I'm a goofy goober!" to them to collect a list of SpongeBob fans.
The same is true of a company like Proton and Swiss law.
The difference is that in the US/Switzerland/Western Democracy there are rights, laws, and courts that limit and check government power and action + open ended elections. Biden cannot just go to Elon Musk and tell him "this is my company now, you WILL report all the goofy goobers." There are a lot of roadblocks to that kind of behavior.
The CCP is a monoculture based around the "National People's Congress". The NPC is effectively the CCP because the CCP picks who is eligible to be part of the NPC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
The CCP is currently effectively controlled by Xi who has claimed increasing amounts of control over the party: https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/
For all intents and purposes, what Xi wants is what happens. There is no court to check him, there is no opposition party to hold him back, and anyone that tries to stand in his way will more than likely be "punished."
This is not racist bull shit. It has nothing to do with Chinese people and everything to do with the CCP.
The trading of data also has very little to do with anything. It's about cutting off a hostile, authoritarian, foreign power from having a direct line to millions of US citizens to push whatever message they want with minimal oversight. The data is surely just icing on the cake for the CCP because they might be able to find some blackmail worthy piece of information in their hoard of metrics and videos for a current or future public figure.
I don't think you understand either ... "Banning" something only works if they care about the law and the CCP does not care at all about US laws. If they want to break them, they will, and they will either get the people that did the job for them back to China or use people that don't know anything/any better as scapegoats. It's the exact same stuff any government would do, international law is imaginary because ultimately nations do not answer to nations except by diplomacy and war.
Lmao. Okay we're done here. You have an outsized idea of nationality, government power, and what's in TikTok data.
You're just naive if you honestly think companies are somehow "above" the nations of their owners or that government power has some real limit beyond what other nations are willing (and able) to punish them over.
It's also pretty naive to assert there's nothing of value in that data, particularly of the blackmail variety. That stupid distasteful video you uploaded and then "deleted" at a teen ... there's no guarantee they don't have it. The location ping your phone made when you were cheating on your spouse and opened TikTok while waiting for your mistress, there's no guarantee they don't have it.
You could even use popular political videos as the basis for evaluating who's more likely to cooperate or believe you following an attack and mix that with geographic data to figure out how to minimize the risk of guerilla fighters. Similarly, you could use the social network graph to figure out how to put pressure on someone.
I mean, social media is honestly nasty in terms of what it can tell you about a society.
That doesn't even begin to touch on the ability to directly manipulate a proprietary content promotion algorithm. You think they can effectively manipulate Facebook? There are no limits to the manipulation they can perform on TikTok and there is no framework for overseeing social media algorithm performance.
Multi national corporations are so beholden to their countries they cheat on their taxes and break any law they can get away with. Including selling data directly to the CCP.
So no. I don't have time or the willpower to argue with someone who thinks international affairs is a video game and everything is tied to countries.
The first amendment doesn't have an exception for retaliation.
Eye for an eye?