A Draft Of TikTok’s Plan To Avoid A Ban Gives The U.S. Government Unprecedented Oversight Power
A Draft Of TikTok’s Plan To Avoid A Ban Gives The U.S. Government Unprecedented Oversight Power
For the past four years the Biden administration and TikTok have been negotiating a deal to resolve national security concerns posed by the Chinese-owned app. Here’s a look inside a draft of the deal.
So these two provisions caught my eye; under the draft agreement, executive branch agencies (the article gives the example of the DOJ or DOD) would have the ability to (among other things)
Examine TikTok’s U.S. facilities, records, equipment and servers with minimal or no notice,
In some circumstances, require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning in the United States.
In the case of the former, would that include user data? Given the general US gov approach to digital privacy I assume so, and granting yourself the power to do the things you’re afraid China is doing seems appropriately ironic for us.
As far as the latter, I wonder how broadly “some circumstances” is defined. If the language is broad enough, that would open the door to de facto censorship if a certain trend or info around a certain event is spreading on the site right as the government magically decides it needs to pause TikTok due to, “uh, terrorism or something, don’t worry about it.”
I’m also curious how durable this agreement would be. How hard would it be for the next administration to decide to pitch a fit and renegotiate or throw out the deal pending a new, even harsher agreement?
It would seem to me that this is pretty nakedly an assertion of power over an entity based outside the US, and not an agreement meant to protect US citizens in any meaningful way. I think any defense of this agreement as a way to protect privacy or mental health or whatever won’t be able to honestly reconcile with the fact that these exact same concerns exist with domestic social media companies
So basically, the US government doesn't actually mind all the creepy data harvesting; it just minds not getting a spot at the trough. Typical.
I mean, it's not just because it's outside the US. It's because ByteDance is legally required to collect and hand over data to the Chinese government. And it's well beyond what any other social media app does plus unnecessary for the functionality of the app. This is not about xenophobia. This is legit about trying to stop the Chinese government from spying on US citizens who are too ignorant to realize what that app is. They just care about stupid videos.
Edit: for example, if you're on a government network, there's a good chance half your calls to GitHub hosted content will timeout with no response. Why? Because GitHub has load balances that direct traffic occasionally through a server hosted under Chinese jurisdiction. That route is explicitly blocked so any time your request gets sent there, it simply fails. China is not a trusted foreign government under US law. And the Chinese government found a novel way to legally spy on the United States and the citizenry are too stupid to prevent it so the government is trying to fix it without calling the public a bunch of idiots like they are.
But even if you grant the two premises there, that TikTok’s data collection is beyond that of other apps, and that said data is given to the PRC to access, this draft agreement’s solution to those problems is “let us access that collected data instead of them”. It implements measures that would affect future changes to TOS and policies, but I don’t see anything about scaling back what’s collected now. From what I can tell, this is just trying to replace who’s steering the ship. If the solution that “stops the Chinese government from spying on US citizens” just changes the government that’s doing the spying, I don’t see how that helps said US citizens in any way. The CPC isn’t the one who can put me on a no-fly list on a whim.
That’s my fundamental issue with this, as well as the relevant proposed legislation; it’s not a good-faith attempt to protect US citizens.
And it's well beyond what any other social media app does plus unnecessary for the functionality of the app.
I'll need to rewatch this to remember the specifics, but this privacy YouTuber named Rob Braxman did a comparison of the permissions and terms from Tik Tok and other social media apps, and Tik Tok came out quite favourably: https://youtu.be/VIakTNOhNSE
Chinese government spying or interference in the algorithm is probably real, but it's still a far superior product at the end of the day, which tells you something about how bad the competition is. To compare Tik Tok to Instagram reels is completely absurd.
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and granting yourself the power to do the things you’re afraid China is doing seems appropriately ironic for us.
I'm so glad to hear some of you are self aware.
It's gotten to the point where if I see a story in Forbes, I just automatically assume that the reality is the opposite.
unprecedented control over essential functions that it does not have over any other major free speech platform
The US government has claimed for itself the authority to eavesdrop on any and all internet communication inside the United States, alter the plotlines of TV and movies, and (if you accept that Trump can speak for the US government) pull the FCC licenses of news networks that report news the president doesn't like. Nothing in what's proposed on Tiktok comes close to any of that along any of those axes; it's factually wrong to say it's "unprecedented." I actually don't agree with any of those things, but putting what they now want to do in Tiktok beyond any of those categories of behavior is a gross exaggeration.
Ama Adams, a managing partner and CFIUS expert at Ropes & Gray, said that some of the government powers in the draft agreement were somewhat typical — including the right to inspect a company’s facilities and materials, and the use of a third-party monitor.
Yep.
But “setting up a structure that has allegiance to the United States — I’ve never seen language, per se, to that extent.”
Fair enough, but this only came about because Tiktok clearly has allegiance to a conflicting foreign power. Facebook and Google aren't required to have allegiance to the United States because they're allowed to do their own thing, because they seem like they're doing their own thing and that's fine under our system. This is like saying "No one else has to go on house arrest; it's unfair to single me out like this" after you robbed a liquor store.
These provisions seem designed to address fears — expressed by the Biden Administration, the Trump Administration, and legislators in both parties — that TikTok’s foreign ownership and control threaten U.S. national security.
Incorrect. This is designed to address "fears" that Tiktok functions explicitly as a surveillance tool for the Chinese government. It is required to do so by Chinese law, and contains features which are highly unusual which appear designed to spy on its users. That's above and beyond even the extremely invasive data-collection which most other social media apps also do (scanning your contacts, doing facial recognition on you, listening to your microphone, etc). I think it's fair to say that gathering that level of data on millions of individual people and then handing the information to the Chinese government on demand is a unique and dangerous capability which should be addressed in some fashion.
There actually are technologies (e.g. routers) where simply the "ownership and control" is an issue, and maybe those should be treated as a bigger deal than they are, but that's not this.
That would raise serious concerns about the government’s ability to censor or distort what people are saying or watching on TikTok.
Bro, you are lying. Again, they're actually fine with doing that in some other platforms, which I don't agree with either, but that very clearly isn't this. Forbes is only saying that this is the issue to try to distort the facts in order to oppose putting Tiktok under this kind of control. Why Forbes is lying in this specific manner I have no idea, but I'm genuinely very curious why they are.
Etc. etc.
So... Now Tiktok gets to be a surveillance tool for the US government like every other major social media? Wonderful.
Why are you reacting this way to laws which seem very specifically aimed at curbing (or attempting to curb) the use of Tiktok for Chinese surveillance? If the US government was demanding that Tiktok install a keylogger and provide the data to it, that would justify what you're saying. But, as I keep repeatedly saying with sourcing, it's the opposite. Do you have an argument for why this represents any kind of US surveillance, beyond just repeating the assertion?
Edit: Let me ask in a little more distilled form. Why, if the US government wanted to use Tiktok for surveillance, would they keep attempting to ban it from various classes of people's phones, and keep talking about banning it from everybody's? That seems counterproductive to the surveillance mission, no?
It's like them saying "listen, we love authoritarian governance. Wanna have some of this TikTok bussy?" And then flaunts it's ass while winking and throwing kisses. Republicans be all sweaty, losening their ties, licking their lips...
If you don't post subversive messages, they won't be taken down. Get with the program.
DO NOT BE SUBVERSIVE, FELLOW CITIZEN
What's considered "subversive" could be very broad.
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I think they're making a pointed joke
This will destroy what we love about TikTok. The ability to get silenced news stories out that the established press either refuse to report on, or serve to hide or water down the narrative. The train derailment, the Alabama waterfront brawl, news on terrible legislative happenings, the ability to coordinate flashmob style protests.
They do this, we will NEED a replacement. I refuse to go back to navigating this political landscape blindly.
i can't tell if this is a joke or not.
It could be a Chinabot. At a certain point on Lemmy I realized that there are quite a few bots or bot-like users here that will just fire-and-forget some statement that's (1) psychologically persuasive (2) vaguely plausible if you don't scrutinize it, and (3) in support of some point of view that a state actor wants people to have. Then, they'll never respond again.
Maybe I'm being cynical and this person will be open to a back and forth with some kind of justification or something, but my money's against it. The "destroy what we love about Tiktok" was the giveaway for me. Again I could be wrong, but that's generally not how real human people phrase things.
Not. If you TikTok you know
Can you give some examples from the last month or two of these silenced news stories, please (what aspect of it was reported on Tiktok that wasn't in the establishment press)? I see your list, but I could list about ten stories on each from the established press I think, so it's tough to tell what information it is that you're saying you're dependent on Tiktok to get.
Edit: No response, which was what I expected. I believe this person is lying with the aim of influencing people's opinion; i.e. they don't actually value the ability to get news from Tiktok with any specifics that they can talk any further about, but they just crafted that opinion to put out there to create the perception that "people" think Tiktok is a good thing. The silence, when asked for simple details about what they said they believed, is generally a tell (not just that their opinion on the matter is one I disagree with, but that their whole claim to have the opinion in the first place is just some bullshit they fabricated.)
Genuinely. The chinese government uses algorithms and active moderation to make sure their tiktok is not nearly as wild as ours.
This is missing some pretty important context, in that CPC policy is generally more restrictive around social media and youth usage. This is a country that has legal limits on the amount of time minors can play video games (and I know that’s not unique to China). If you’re making the point, in good faith, that China has identified some specific evil in regards to TikTok, it’s not enough to merely show that they have restrictions on it; you would also need to show how this differs from the way they treat Weibo, bilibili, etc.
Ha. TikTok is heavily censored by the Chinese government. It also is a mass data collection beyond any other social media app, well beyond anything that serves the company. Its essentially spying on you. ByteDance is effectively also owned by the Chinese Government. It's not a privately owned app.
There is a replacement. You're probably on most of them. It just won't be short form video.
TikTok is and always has been hot garbage, so I can see why kids would enjoy it.
kids today and their trash. *shakes head bemusedly*
Dude I’ve never even been on TikTok’s site. I have TikTok blocked with my PiHole and I know about those events. That you believe you can only get these stories on TikTok means you’re playing directly into their hands.
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