Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
(cnbc.com)939 points by kjhughes a day ago
939 points by kjhughes a day ago
An implementation detail that might be interesting is that the discussed method of the ban is to use the same ISP block that is used for torrent sites (and other websites).
This may be a bit of relevance when talking about how banning a website get applied through the legal system.
That’s a good point. Apparently VPN popularity is already exploding in states that PornHub had to block.
Maybe we will finally get the decentralized computer network we thought we were building in the 1990s (as a combination of software overlays and point to point unlicensed wireless links).
Not at all the case except for the largest ones. It is hard to grasp the distribution capacity of TikTok. It WILL put your content in front of people interested in it. It's crazy good at that. Also, a lot of money came in from the live streams within the app.
An interesting angle to this whole drama that I haven’t seen discussed much: in the creator industry, TikTok is known for being significantly harder to make money from your content, as compared to YouTube. For various reasons, content just makes much more money on YouTube than it does on TikTok.
I do wonder what will happen if TikTok users migrate to YouTube shorts, and if that will change this.
That's the opposite of what I've heard
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall...
Yeah, from my other reply
> I don't think that's going to happen. The party official seems to be positive about the event overall based on their press release recently. IMO it's going to the opposite direction, where they try to get more foreign users on the platform and have them stay there. If I were a CCP official, I would love to have more soft power by having everyone on a Chinese platform.
I jobbled down some thoughts a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42690618
But in a nut shell I think we're seeing outcome #2 play out, which has huge ramifications for the Chinese internet. Essentially this could become a precedent for all Chinese apps moving forward, and essentially the great firewall slowly dissolving. Trends have been slowly going that way with Bilibili, Douban, Kuaishou, etc, being more open to foreigners. There's still a lot to play out over the next few weeks as Trump assumes office and Tiktok CEO attends the inauguration. But there is just too much to comment about this entire situation, and most people who aren't Chinese or have experience with the great firewall are not going to comprehend just how monumental this whole ordeal has already been, and will be.
It's the first time the Chinese and rest-of-the-world users are interacting directly on the same platform at a massive scale.
If TikTok is just in the business of earning money they would've sold.
TikTok cannot be sold because the algorithm cannot be sold under the export control laws enacted by China.
Bits that can't be exported can be recreated by the new owner, most likely with material differences anyways not just because the new owner might not be able to recreate the original faithfully but because they might not want to.
Who are they actually supposed to be selling to? Given the US has pretty active antitrust for now, I can't really think of anyone who has both the money and expertise to run it and would be allowed to buy it.
An easy solution is to spin off TikTok to its own company and then that company IPOs.
The United States, through its influence over Facebook, instagram, and twitter, facilitated the Arab Spring. Of course we don’t want an adversary to have the same influence over our domestic political conversation.
Biden has said he won't enforce the ban and Trump has said he will keep TikTok from going dark. Shou is attending the inauguration. Ivanka and Kai are posting actively on TikTok. It is not going anywhere.
I'd be stunned if Trump saved TikTok, that would be really inconsistent with his anti-China rhetoric, which is one of the consistent policies he has.
He’s more pro-donor than anti-China, and Jeff Yass is a big donor.
Good news for everyone. Get off these endless scrolling trash providers
I personally don't think that it is going to be a big issue. India banned TikTok, but it is still accessibly on the browser via a VPN. And everyone has a VPN installed on their phone these days. What is stopping people from just opening tiktok in their browser on their phone and continuing to browse their old accounts and content?
China's vision of the Internet turned out to be more prescient than we realised at the time. Everyone is going to their own Great Firewall. In hindsight, it will seem crazy that we ever allowed media platforms to be controlled by foreign governments - especially ones which like to seed revolution, social unrest and regime change
This law does not impose a Great Wall on the Internet in the U.S.
I can't imagine the ban can't be circumvented with some creative use of VPN, geo spoofing etc. If I were a TikTok fan, I'd launch an Android emulator in a VPS in a censorship free country and install TikTok there.
Just as an aside, I'm surprised that Instagram has done nothing to facilitate the migration it wants. I've been hitting the same old rate limits while trying to "migrate" by subscribing to creators who have IG accounts as well. It's now got me down to one or two a day. Not only have they not made it easier ("import your export data file here, we'll subscribe you to everyone with the same handle"), they are making it quite hard.
From the oral arguments it was immediately obvious that Alito and Thomas had already decided their opinion --- as had the other judges, frankly. They were very skeptical of the ByteDance/petitioner's argument. The Act at issue was written in a very specific way to neuter a lot of their points. Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the US Government, is also an extremely good SC lawyer in oral arguments. A Per Curiam decision is not surprising at all, most people who follow the court were expecting it.
It sounds like they are just banning it from new installs on app stores, won't people just browse to the URL to use it?
The distinction between apps and websites seems arbitrary to me... especially since a huge fraction of apps seem to be effectively just a browser window with a single website locked in full screen.
I have never before used tiktok, but just now as an experiment I opened it in a browser and scrolled for a minute- I had no problem accessing an apparently endless stream of mostly young women jumping up and down without bras, and young men vandalizing automobiles.
Tik Tok said they'll fully shut down. They'd rather go dark now than have a slowly-degrading experience, since users won't be able to update the apps.
It makes sense to shut down the app in the US immediately rather than be unable to update it- but does that necessarily mean they would also shut it down outside the US, or access directly via the website?
> There are countries other than America
I've heard this myth repeated a few times online, but it sounds like an urban legend to me- and is easily disproven. If other countries exist, why do all of the movies take place in America?
How come I once walked for hours in the same direction and was still in America?
I think they just mean fully shut down in the US, as opposed to trying to serve existing US users as best they can.
Ah the land of free speech and freedom of the press.
Not even in Europe we have such crackdown on freedom while Americans scream censorship because nazi symbols and certain phrases are illegal in Germany.
>Not even in Europe we have such crackdown on freedom
Telegram?
Wdym? Last I checked Telegram is not banned in any way.
Since Durov was arrested in France they censored much more to appease Europe. Germany is now no. 2 for the most takedown requests, that's a nearly 20x increase in the last 3 months alone! https://te-k.github.io/telegram-transparency/
That’s understandable, Telegram is mostly used for illegal stuff in Germany. What I think is more interesting from your link is that India has 10x the number of takedown requests wtf
Does this only apply to TikTok or any other "foreign adversary" application that collects user data?
What's stopping another version of TikTok from being created, effectively defeating the purpose of banning a single app?
You could have read either the law or the decision, linked in the comments here, to get the answer to this question.
From the decision:
> Second, the Act establishes a general designa-
> tion framework for any application that is both (1) operated
> by a “covered company” that is “controlled by a foreign ad-
> versary,” and (2) “determined by the President to present a
> significant threat to the national security of the United
> States,” following a public notice and reporting process.
> §2(g)(3)(B). In broad terms, the Act defines “covered com-
> pany” to include a company that operates an application
> that enables users to generate, share, and view content and
> has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. §2(g)(2)(A).
> The Act excludes from that definition a company that oper-
> ates an application “whose primary purpose is to allow us-
> ers to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel in-
> formation and reviews.” §2(g)(2)(B).
If it gains more than 1 million active users and the president deems it to represent a potential threat, yes
Edit: assuming they, like tiktok, refuse to divest to a company based in the US
Edit: also assuming it is a foreign company. I’ve never even heard of it prior to this comment section
By this reading, and since Trump is sworn in on the 20th, it is really up to his discretion as to whether the tiktok ban remains.
He probably should let it stand for a day or two, and then drop an executive order to make it not banned and thus be a hero to all those who use it.
That's not quite correct, b/c the above only applies to companies other than TikTok/ByteDance, which are called out explicitly in the Act.
However, there is an open question as to whether Trump will choose to enforce the law.
It doesn't defeat the purpose. You can just make a new ban. There would be less friction since there is already an example.
What does this shutdown mean for US employees of Bytedance? Will they shut down their US offices or continue business as usual working from the US but only serving users outside?
If US users continue to use the app via VPN, will that hinder the CCPs ability to weaponize it? If so, this outcome may be a good middle ground.
The whole thing with social media is network effects though. The added friction of a VPN, though small, is just so much larger than "click download, open app"
But people might already have a VPN installed, thanks to the porn laws. Porn is the most powerful force on the Internet.
You won’t need a vpn. TikTok isn’t getting blocked. It’s getting delisted from the App Store. The app will still be on your phone.
That's more of a blocker then. It won't get updates and new users.
I don't have a list of factors or research in front of me, so let me just state that upfront.
It's widely understood that Meta, X, and plenty of other companies are collecting, and selling massive amounts of data. Meta builds profiles on people that have never even used Facebook, simply by monitoring their activity across the web through Ads, Embeds and Sign-Up w/ Facebook widgets, etc. This data, if I recall, has been sold many times over, and likely stolen, many times over, in data breaches - both disclosed and undisclosed. Which almost assures that China has it already.
Where is the outrage there? The laws, and fines, there? Why not ban that kind of pervasive data collection and digital finger printing, regardless of where it originates, to avoid the potential misuse of that data?
Obviously a company, like ByteDance, running businesses and Apps inside the US, while also being legally bound to helping the CCP - is cause for concern. But clearly we have our concerns right at our front door - and - nothing? Either or government believes access to this kind of data to be a threat, or they don't.
I know that's a gross over simplification, probably misses some key points, and probably falls under the dreaded "whataboutisms"... but it just seems like, its okay of US companies do it, as long as they give that data to OUR government, and losing that data is a just cost of doing business.
I'll take my tinfoil hat off now. :P
>In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration, upholding the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act which President Joe Biden signed in April.
Glad to see when it comes to protecting tech monopolies the wisest among us are in full agreement.
Silly things like a right to a speedy trial are up for debate though.
I think this is a massive over reach. You can argue to restrict social media to those over 18, but Americans should have a right to consume content they choose.
What's next, banning books by Chinese authors? Banning Chinese Americans from holding key positions in social media companies, after all they might have uncles in the CCP!
Follow the money. TikTok is an issue for Facebook, BYD cars are an issue for Tesla.
> I think this is a massive over reach. You can argue to restrict social media to those over 18, but Americans should have a right to consume content they choose.
Ain't about that.
> What's next, banning books by Chinese authors?
No
> Banning Chinese Americans from holding key positions in social media companies, after all they might have uncles in the CCP!
No.
I don't really agree with this line of thinking if you consider the addictive part of TikTok.
Imagine the US legalized and exported meth. All of a sudden, the US is "competing" because everyone is hooked on drugs. We had Opium wars in a somewhat similar vein as the social media wars.
TikTok is fun but it has degraded into a commercialized mess of copycats, IP theft and scams.
Like everything else that is commercialized on the internet. It has a lifespan of a few years before it becomes unusable to all but the meek and the ignorant.
A new service will emerge and replace it within months. The truth is their algorithm is about as complicated as a HS algebra test.
This makes it easier for those 170M users to find new homes with President Musk's X or any of Zuck's advertising products.
The ban is nothing more than an attempt to abridge speech and deny the youth voice in politics. TikTok increasingly has become refuge from censorship occurring on other platforms (see the recent issues). The lawmakers indicated that is the reason for the ban.
If United States was honestly concerned about data protection and privacy, it would devise a federal privacy law that models GDPR. They are trying to pass a federal law now, but it is seriously flawed and they are trying to preempt more user-centric privacy laws of the states.
Finally, such partisan, targeted and unprincipled bans reenforce that EU's approach on issues such as data transfers abroad (see Schrems 1 and Schrems 2) is perfectly valid. EU has a principled regulation, which gets evaluated by free and democratic courts. The outcomes are what they are. Not partisan and discriminatory, as they are here.
>TikTok increasingly has become refuge from censorship occurring on other platforms
do you have a source for this? if anything other platforms are shifting to less editorial control -- see recent announcements by Zucc https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mis...
Great twitter thread analyzing the Supreme Court decision from a former Congressional Staffer who now leads a think tank doing tech-focused policy work: https://x.com/marcidale/status/1880274466619691247
I'd love to see what a global ban for TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, and X would look like. Even better: massive breakdown of iOS and Android installations. Just for a couple of weeks, then revert to the nightmarish status quo we live in. Now that would be an interesting experiment. The change in people's behavior would be palpable for those fourteen days, I bet. It'd be so much fun.
Daniel Dennett was strong proponent of alternative information distribution mechanisms in case of internet goes down for everyone. We haven't even studied such scenarios.
We got something similar with social interactions during covid lockdowns (if your country had those). Btw i feel like people would go literally MAD, I can see it when just WhatsApp crashses for just a couple hours (doesn't happen often but I remember people's reactions when it happened). You can get a feel of what it would do for yourself by getting a dumbphone and limiting yourself from accessing social media.
>You can get a feel of what it would do for yourself by getting a dumbphone and limiting yourself from accessing social media.
I already do that. It's the most alienating and pessimism-inducing thing. I'd just love to see a world where people aren't hunched over, staring at a screen for 90% of their waking life.
I have trouble lumping those 5 services together. Maybe its something to do with me being a middle-age American male?
Instagram/X/TikTok: Hot garbage. Good riddance. Ban them and this country is a better place.
Whatsapp/YouTube: Actually quite useful. The former for real-time global communications. The latter for visual how-to's of all kinds (bicycles, home maintenance).
I'm not sure how many dimensions this chess game is being played in, but if I were a lawmaker I would be wary of unintended consequences.
Overall, I view this is as an admission to US populace and the world that the US is a weak-minded country that can easily be influenced by propaganda.
Many people here upset about this.
Here's what recently happened in Romania, all through TikTok.
Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country, waged an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by getting their chosen candidate elected. Without TikTok, this would not have happened. I have talked about this with Romanians who concur.
In the real world, there are two responses to this.
1. "Tough luck, it's too late now, should just stand by and watch the country get taken over".
2. "Ban it and future popular big platforms controlled by a foreign adversary".
That's it. We'd all love for something inbetween. It's not happening, all such options would end up becoming 1). That's the state of the modern day world.
The facts that
A. They seem to rather abandon the app rather than receive tens of billions by selling it
B. "The Chinese government also weighed a contingency plan that would have X owner Elon Musk acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations"
C. The remaining mountains of evidence that it is a CCP tool
Mean that the arguments of Congress here are valid and this is the right decision. It is a tool directly controlled by a foreign adversary, for geopolitical, not profit-oriented, purposes. This is nothing like the PATRIOT act or other moves by governments that claim "protect the children" or "protect against terrorism" for some ulterior motive of surveillance or worse. It might be a rarity, but in this case the claims by Congress are factual and a sufficiently good reason.
> Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country, waged an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by getting their chosen candidate elected.
But in the US, Russia also has waged enormous disinformation campaigns on US-based social media networks. Taking the problem of foreign (dis|mis)information, election interference, etc seriously requires that we do more than ban one network based on the ownership of that company. After TikTok gets shut down, Chinese influence operations can still use Twitter/X, Meta, Reddit etc. We need better tools and regulations to make these campaigns visible stoppable in real-time, rather than just banning one network while leaving up multiple other vulnerable networks. This ban is political theater, where the US can act like it's doing something while not having to address the harder parts of the problem.
> A. They seem to rather abandon the app rather than receive tens of billions by selling it
I think this is weak evidence of them being a mostly political tool. Valuations based on their actual use are well above what anyone has actually offered to pay. And disentangling US operations from the rest of TikTok would not be straight-forward; do you merely cleave it in two? Given network effects, would cutting off the US component to sell it make both the US and non-US portions less valuable?
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/15/tiktoks-us-unit-could-be-wor...
one would think the ranking member on the House Intel Cmte - my very own Rep - would agree with you, given how he'd be way more privy to such things than you, me, talking heads on TV, etc. yet he disagrees and cites free speech concerns [0][1].
in my mind none of these reasons add up. if this were truly about influence ops on social media we would not have blinders on for our own platforms' role in them. remember Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 campaign, or Facebook's role in the Myanmar genocide? or more-recently the ops Israel ran? furthermore if this were really about our data, we would again not have blinders on. the CCP can still purchase our data as we're all up for sale given our lack of data privacy/protection laws.
as such i tend to side with my Rep: this is bunk, and the pretexts flimsy. i believe the answer is to focus on education - critical thought particularly - and enacting data privacy/protection laws. i do not believe that would lead to 1).
now will that happen? i'm doubtful tbh. our own govt loves the fact that we're up for sale, for it allows them to side-step the need for a warrant. have a great weekend.
[0] https://www.ctinsider.com/columnist/article/tiktok-ban-jim-h... [1] https://himes.house.gov/2024/3/himes-statement-on-protecting...
What you're really complaining about is that too many people agree with Georgescu. The way mainstream media works, only a few candidates get air time so there's little competition. Georgescu was able to build a following on the alternatives so the election was suspended (without motivation) and new regulations put in place to make sure no un-approved candidate stands a change.
They were so busy banning Șoșoacă and demonizing the best candidate (Simion) that they forgot about Georgescu.
We were already a laughing stock for banning a candidate (Șoșoacă). Now we've suspended democracy and postponed the election 'til kingdom come.
This is laughable, even with your depiction of the events. The candidate in question (Georgescu) had a very popular platform, and was supported by a large bases or Romanians on the left and right.
He was, however, opposed to further expansion of NATO.
If these ideas are too scary to let general public even consider, then democracies have to step in and censor the media. And that begins by banning TikTok, the largest platform where a narrative like this can bypass the existing power structures.
There's a difference in degree, it's less addictive. HN works a little differently, in that its goal is not primarily to convert attention directly into revenue.
Personally, I still need to be deliberate in limiting my use, so I wouldn't be sad to see it disappear, even though I do find some value in it.
None of us have more than 24 hours in our days. That time is precious. Products that are specifically designed to suck up as much of it as possible must be avoided.
I'm really bored at this point by the political discussions around this. We've heard it all a million times. As far as I'm concerned, that's missing the point.
Because, at the end of the day, and ignoring for a moment the practicality of the notion, the world would just be a better place without them.
Seriously, go read a book. We'd be living in a different world if that scaled.
Thank goodness! I don’t know how anyone thinks this isn’t a good idea for America.
In this case, the necessity of this law is proof that American companies are incapable of producing an app that can compete with Tiktok.
Not sure if sarcastic or not, I'll bite. If tiktok infringes some kind of data privacy laws, punish them. If the data privacy laws of the US are bad, improve them.
But this? Just because some... not so bright soldiers use tiktok to upload videos of their base? What else is there so bad it requires a total ban? It seems like hypocrisy to me, when Meta, Google, X also have similar data available and also don't want to adhere to for example EU laws.
Do you think TikToc is a net positive for the world or the US?
It is not. But not banning it for geopolitical reasons is a net positive for everyone.
This won't ban anything. It's on the web. Just sideload the app and enjoy.
Remember we’re all in a tech bubble here. 99.9% of TikTok users don’t know what sideloading is.
Its a business. With ad and an e-commerce network to support that content. Without that connection, it will die.
True, but it could easily just shift to mining XMR in the background as users doomscroll and collect money without regulatory burden that way.
Yeah! If China wants our data they'll have to buy it from data brokers like everyone else!
If what TikTok is doing is dangerous when TikTok does it why is it safe when everyone else does it?
This is theft, pure and simple. The government-industrial complex is trying to steal this app. The private side wants to make money and the public side wants yet another way to control narratives on social media much the way President Musk does on twitter.
> but Trump might offer lifeline
Is this the same guy who wanted to ban TikTok 4.5 years ago? Just asking.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executi...
This outcome is worse than I could have ever conceived:
1) People have valid concerns about TikTok. TikTok will remain, and those concerns will remain.
2) People have valid concerns about free speech. The law that tramples free speech stands and is upheld by the court.
3) People have valid concerns about unfair and unequal enforcement of laws. The law will be blatantly and openly ignored for political reasons.
Literally everyone loses. What a clown show.
Looks like India set the way here. Wonder what it holds for US India relations.
Everyone has been in denial - this was always the most likely outcome.
As a free speech absolutist, I hope that what comes out of this is a completely anonymized, uncensorable alternative. We've gotten the arbitrary censorship walled garden social media sites mostly because until now there hasn't been any particular reason for most users to step outside of them.
I think many have tried but face an uphill battle of unless a significant majority is willing to relocate, the prevailing content will be things that are deemed undesirable/bannable on other platforms, which distracts potential users.
Having a completely decentralized solution also comes with the issue of future governance. If a single entity controls the direction (even if the spec is open and you can host it yourself), then it's not decentralized. If you end up with a consortium then you'll face the same issue of email, innovation is hard to spread as you need multiple actors with competing interests to agree.
If your vision is having multiple entities providing different experiences tailored to individual taste, they might start consolidating and effectively forming several disjoint platforms.
p.s.
The web can be said to be decentralized but it's dominated by large players all the way from hosting to browsers. If all three major browsers don't agree on your proposal, it's effectively dead. Who's to say entrenched players won't arise in your vision of a decentralized social media?
Nah, centralized apps have won because mass appeal and market momentum hinges on factors almost entirely other than an app's technical architecture.
I disagree. People just need to build a good social networking protocol.
Email for example can be thought of as a social networking app but it's really decentralised.
While you can ban Gmail, it's really hard to ban Email.
Something like AT Protocol would be what it would like like or activity pub.
But so far, they are all so bad.
I don't think that's at odds with what I said. If there's a good decentralized protocol that gets momentum, good for it. But, the interests that build social media apps well in terms of what is successful in the marketplace, usually chose not to do that because it isn't in their interest to do so. They spend a lot of money on marketing, driving engagement, etc, and most don't want to share it.
Email is a bit of an outlier because it gained critical mass before the web was predominantly commercialized.
Exactly - there are technical solutions, they just rely on mass uptake in order to work.
We have that. Welcome to the World Wide Web.
We all walked into the walled gardens and went "ooh, looks mighty nice in here!"
Your concern about losing the dominant culture status is useless. Recent geopolitical situation clearly shows soft power is useless. Hardpower is where everything is at.
Yes. TikTok.com is legal as long as it isn’t hosted here.
It isn't a "ban" except that TikTok would rather shut down than sell, forgoing billions of dollars in the process.
From pure PR perspective, it is a win for China; sometimes it is not about the money. US used to be much smarter those kinds of optics.
>sometimes it is not about the money.
Yes, that's precisely the argument of the pro-ban faction. China doesn't allow TikTok in China. It's not about the money, it's about control over a medium that can be exploited for influence, or at the very least the effects of that platform on its audience.
It's silly to pretend like ByteDance are acting on principle. Go post an LGBT meme or refer to Lai Ching-te as the "President of Taiwan" on Red Note and see how long that lasts.
Sure, but parent's argument was focused on ad revenue and wondering why TikTok chose to forego that revenue ( which presumed that most US entities would bend to such demand, but failed to consider non financial considerations ).
edit:
<< Go post an LGBT meme or refer to Lai Ching-te as the "President of Taiwan" on Red Note and see how long that lasts.
China does not pretend to give lipservice to freedom of speech. US does. That is why its population needs to hold its government accountable.
US used to be much smarter in general. Now that Trump is starting a 2nd term on Monday, the world over now realizes the US is comprised of a bunch of imbeciles. We've lost our prestige, and we'd been trading on it for a long, long time.
The world realizes the USA is no longer messing around, that's all. If anything, we've only gained prestige in the last couple months, we're finally getting stuff done...
Hmm? That is a rather bold statement bordering on bluster. Could you elaborate? The move shows something, but I am not certain it can be interpreted this way.
I lean heavily Democratic when it comes to social issues. But let’s be honest, everyone knew that Biden was losing his mental faculties.
The last time we had two smart candidates was 2012.
You say that as if they only operate in the US. The US represents less than 20% of their user base.
I mean, it was a ban when China did it to Facebook, no?
What I love is that apparently tons of Americans are signing up for a different Chinese social video app whose name is being translated as “Red Note”. I would love if the end result of this was another several years of congressional drama about a different Chinese app.
What's interesting is that RedNote doesn't have the same level of segregation as TikTok, so the US and China users are having a lot of interesting interactions. Assum the app doesn't get banned, it'll be interesting to see if the experiences get more silo'd
I am afraid this might not last long. There is no official announcement yet for now, to be clear, but still[0].
0. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/rednote-may-wall...
> if the end result of this was another several years of congressional drama about a different Chinese app
No need. If it’s Chinese and has more than 100mm (EDIT: 1mm) users, Commerce can designate it a foreign-adversary controlled application and designate it for app-store delisting.
I think the threshold is way lower than that? The "Covered Company" definition mentions 1 million monthly active users for at least 2 of the 3 months preceding some determination.
Also, I wonder who is the foreign-based "reviews" site that lobbied for the exclusion clause immediately following that?
https://www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ50/PLAW-118publ50.pdf
Hmm, § 2(g)(2)(b) been there since the start [1].
[1] https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr7521/BILLS-118hr7521ih....
> “Little Red Book.”
As in Mao's Little Red Book - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34932800
Can't confirm as I don't speak Chinese but Sharp China podcast says this is a mistranslation, and that the word for Mao's little red book is not the same as the Chinese name for Rednote
Isn't Red Note planning to segregate based on IP to prevent US Influence from those TikTok refugees? The original CN users aren't exactly happy with the newcomers either, and the TikTok refugees themselves are getting quite a culture shock with regards to cultural attitudes to LGBQT or even basic "leftist" activism like strikes and collective bargaining
Anyways, those alternatives are not so algorithmically driven, and especially if it's forcing actual user interaction and discussion that certainly would be good for Americans to understand what the mainland Chinese are really thinking and saying domestically. Because if you go to the actual main discussion forums like Weibo, oh boy it's not going to be pretty.
Honest question: why would an American consciously seek out multiple Chinese apps on purpose?
To be punk rock. The main reason I see thrown around is most younger users don't care if China has their user data and understand that the government is banning it for their own selfish reasons (money).
if China has US consumer's data they can do very little harm as they lack enforcement. So its not a big deal to use Chinese owned social media app.
US however, if it has data on US users, has all the means to cause harm to US users, starting from censorship and persecution.
UK and Germany for example are jailing people for social media posts
https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-...
Because deep inside, most people are still children, desperate to declare their autonomy.
The most literal translation of 小红书 is “Little Red Book”, which recalls the famous book of quotes from Mao Zedong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_T...
Except that’s not what Mao’s book was/is called in China, it’s a label the US applied to it. In China it’s better known as 红宝书 (Hóng Bǎo Shū) “The Red Treasure Book” or simply “The Red Book”.
Sometimes it’s fun to watch chaos unfold. It’s subjectively entertaining
Because if this sequence of events (one allegedly Chinese-government controlled social media app is banned over apparent ties to the government, so all of its American users immediately switch to another Chinese app whose name can be translated as "Little Red Book") happened in a movie, a reasonable person would balk at how ludicrous and on-the-nose the whole thing was.
It feels like a joke, and if you can somehow create enough space to actually see the humor in it, its kind of funny.
They've announced that they won't enforce the fines required by the law. But yes, selective enforcement of laws is legal — it's how prosecutorial discretion works.
the law doesn’t ban tiktok it just grants discretion to the president to ban tiktok
The law makes it illegal for Oracle, Apple and Google to continue doing what they are doing. It does in fact make it illegal for some companies to operate with TikTok. The president can use this law in the future on other companies controlled by foreign adversaries to divest or face a ban.
The companies still take risk not obeying the law. Most large publicly traded companies will not task the liability risk based on a wink and a nod.
Congress writes the law but the executive enforces the law. They can choose not to enforce the ban.
Let's see how many flunk Literacy....
How does one value a start up asset that according to ByteDance will never ever get access to the TikTok algo powering the app?
It appears at the moment, the only one to bet on who knows what the eff they are talking about is Mark Cuban who wants to pay or buy someone creating a new tiktok clone that uses the Bluesky protocol
I love all the comments saying that the Supreme Court doesn't understand the first amendment.
You don't destroy what can give you even more power by controlling it. Trump/Musk/Zuck plan is to control it, not destroy it: the army of teens willing to be inundated by propaganda just to keep using it is too appealing to ignore, and China will happily trade that control for something (less/no tariffs?).
I think in the future people will look back at kids on social media, like we look back at kids smoking cigarettes.
This is like paying doctors to say only evil foreign cigarettes cause cancer. Buy American!
Surprised some American billionaire hasn't thrown 50 Milly into like 5 clones of tik Tok to see which one takes off?
there should be an easy pivot to an American equivalent but there hasn't been?
Or has there?
I believe Biden says his admin won't enforce the ban, as they only have 1 day left in office after it goes into effect.
Trump has signaled he doesn't support the ban, and wants tiktok under american ownership. The legislation allows the president to put a 90 day hold on the ban too.
So my guess is that this isn't over yet.
Do you think Apple, Oracle and Google are going to thumb their noses at the law?
Trump initially championed the ban during his first term
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly57kxkmrxo
Apparently Trump did well on tiktok during the last election, and ByteDance (and everyone else) knows that Trump plays favorites.
> The legislation allows the president to put a 90 day hold on the ban too.
Only if there is an in-progress divestiture and only before the ban goes into effect.
Aka, TikTok/Biden would have to announce a sale is in process and Biden would have to enact the extension before the 19th.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation around this, no surprise given the TikTok user base..
The law targets other companies that would be breaking the law if they continue providing services for a China-owned TikTok past the ban date. The statute of limitations is five years, past a Trump presidency. No, an executive order can not cancel a law. Google, Apple & co would be exposing themselves to a lot of uncertainty and risk, and for what?
Can someone explain in unambiguous terms why people are so drawn specifically to TikTok? I have tried TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, and they are all basically the same--algorithmically-driven feeds of short videos. I don't see how banning TikTok is such a big problem, just use one of the other apps.
Here is what Chairman McCaul said: “I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”[1]
The U.S. national security angle identified is "mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions". And give me a break that they actually care about "young Americans’ mental health". This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized by CCP" that was harming "young people's health".
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent. I went through the testimonies given and it was DAMMMMMNNNN weak. Three issues were identified by me: The Bill suddenly declares "non-aligned countries" to be "foreign adversaries" but there is no declared war so how can they be adversaries already; The Bill declares anyone facilitating the company including through the transfer of communication is in violation of the bill but that is a freedom of speech issue which they did not bring up but instead brought the ban as a FoS issue; The Bill labels TikTok and ByteDance as companies to be sold [to an aligned state] or banned entirely but that is the only company being single-handedly called out and I don't know how to say this but that sounds like some form of discrimination and unsubstantiated claim of threat. They could have done a better job at the SCOTUS.
[1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
The next Supreme Court decision will be them deciding if disagreeing with the TikTok decision is sufficient grounds for being censored.
Public disagreement with the TikTok decision could lead to legislative pressure, which would add support to the pressure campaigns of Chinese lobbyists and diplomats, or of other organizations that are funded or donated to by Chinese people or people of Chinese descent. This could either result in new legislation being passed that nullifies the ban, or pressure the Executive into failing to enforce the ban.
Either of those outcomes would, in effect, allow the user data of Americans to be accessed by the government of China. Disagreement with the TikTok ban would in and of itself aid America's adversaries.
Besides, disagreement with it implies that America unduly restricts speech, when we're supposed to hate China because China unduly restricts speech. That's a clear case of creating a false equivalence in order to foment discord, which again is material support to China's goal to monitor American's communications and corrupt the minds of America's children.
One of the few federal powers in the constitution includes "control over foreign commerce". Somehow a Chinese website is now "foreign commerce". China bad.
I think that covers it.
America has the right to ban since china banned all American tech companies from operating in their nation but this means America could never ever talk about freedom of doing business bs
Any country has the right to this kind of ban, that's what national sovereignty is all about.
A different issue is whether doing it is the right decision or not.
And another issue is the hypocrisy. When China did it, the unanimous opinion from the US (both the official stance and what one could hear/read from regular people, e.g. HN comments) was that such bans were authoritarian and evidence that there was no freedom of speech in China. But now suddenly it's a perfectly fine and even obvious/necessary thing to do...
Being neither from China nor from the US, this paints the US (who have benefitted a lot from riding the moral high horse of free market, etc. for decades) in a quite bad light.
Should the EU ban US social networks for pure economic reasons (so we roll our own instead of providing our data and money to US companies, which would almost surely be good for our economy)? The argument for not doing it used to be that freedom should be above domestic interests, one embraces the free market even if some aspects of it are harmful because overall it's a win. But the US is showing it doesn't really believe in that principle, and probably never has.
Not too obvious to me unless there's some actual evidence of any of these claims of "China takes American data".
They take as much data as any of the various other manufacturing processes we outsourced over the decades.
Answering tit-for-tat is fine, even if the thing being done is bad in itself (e.g. waging war is bad, but should a country not use weapons to defend itself when invaded?). If else US and in general the West should have acted earlier: if American companies where free to operate in China and influence its people I doubt this ban would have been enacted.
So they were right about banning the US social media platforms then, right? Because according to this court opinion, having foreign social media is a menace to national security. It's funny to see Americans argue for a great firewall lol.
Very sad moment for the united states. Banning an app because the users are too critical of israel/support palestine, and they cannot control it.
Everybody already moved to red book and are starting to recognize that the US is just an aging colonialist with nothing to offer the future
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/hXe9HsWslW
The GenZ folks (including my kids) that I interact with on a day-to-day basis are much happier on that application and they’re starting to realize that the US is not what it pretends to be
That doesn’t mean any place is better (though possible) it simply means people started finally realizing the truth of the United States
China has 1.4 billion people. Americans can learn from them.
> That's quite interesting, because most of Chinese can only understand what's being colonized, but never understand what's colonizing and genocide.
You are saying that Chinese people don't even realize their colonialism and their genocides. Unless you're sarcastic, it is not the flex you think it is. Also LOL at you using "white" as a slur.
The key issue here now is: The future, freedom, international policy etc of you US guys no longer depends on democratic structures in ANY way whatsoever.
Who pays Trump most, wins. Who does what Musk wants, wins.
From what I know, there is no second Oligarch-run corrupt country that would come close to this. This is worse than China and Russia combined.
Sorry, not meant to bash our US HN friends at all, just an observation from another western country targeted by MuskTrump that has yet to follow the US lead (which they will), so we still have some time left to be in shock and awe about what is going on on your side of the pond for a while.
FFS.
Commenting on your own posts sucks, but let me add:
The current status of insanity is that the US is threatening to invade a EU country by force to annex it to be able to exploit natural resources and gain a strategic military position.
Again, let me repeat, as very clearly a lot of people are now completely numb to insanity and just filter it out:
THE US IS THREATENING TO INVADE A EU COUNTRY. YES. SERIOUSLY.
Was US Headlines for one day, now drowned in other madness already.
Anyway, you won't have any democratic say on this anyway, so let's just gamble:
Jeff Yass will bribe Trump heavily, and Trump will then lift the ban next week, no matter what his Supreme Court sock puppets want.
It's a bit disingenuous for Mark Zuckerberg to go on Joe Rogan and say that the Biden administration is anti Meta/anti America, when congress passed this bill to shut down TikTok.
I don't love that TikTok is run by a Chinese company (thus giving way too much control to the Chinese government), but Meta builds such garbage experiences in their apps. There really needs to be a real competitor to Meta.
I have mixed feelings. The Supreme Court did the right thing; the democratically elected government did decide upon a ban, so it should likely continue as was made law.
I am not sure that banning forms of media feels good. The point of free speech is to let everyone say their thing and for people to be smart enough to ignore the bad ideas.
I am not sure the general population of vertical video viewers does part 2, however, so I get the desire to force people to not engage. The algorithmic boosting has had lots of weird side effects; increased political polarization, people being constantly inundated with rage bait, and even "trends" that get kids to vandalize their school. (My favorite was when I asked why ice cream is locked up in the freezer at CVS. Apparently it was a TikTok "trend" to lick the ice cream and then put it back in the freezer, so now an employee has to escort you from the ice cream area to the cashier to ensure that you pay for it before you lick it. Not sure how much of this actually happened versus how companies were afraid of it happening, however.)
With all this in mind, it's unclear to me whether TikTok is uniquely responsible for this effect. I feel like Instagram, YouTube Shorts, etc. have the potential to cause the exact same problems (and perhaps already have). Even the legacy media is not guilt free here. Traditional newspapers ownership has changed over the years and they all seem pretty biased in a certain direction, and I am pretty sure that the local news is responsible for a lot of reactionary poor public policy making. (Do I dare mention that I think the whole New Jersy drone thing was just mass hysteria?)
Now, everyone is saying that regulating TikTok has nothing to do with its content, but I'm pretty sure that's just a flat-out lie. First, Trump wanted to ban it because everything on there was negative towards him. Then right-wing influencers got a lot of traction on the platform, and suddenly Democrats want to ban it and Trump wants to reverse the ban. It's pretty transparent what's going on there.
I agree with the other comments that say if data collection is the issue, we shouldn't let American companies do it either. That seems very fair to regulate and I'm in favor of that.
The best effect will be someone with a lot of money and media reach standing up against app stores. I can live with that.
Not hard to see how this will play out.
Trump will get a bribe from them and it will be opened.
NBC is delusional, thinking Trump who ran on a law and order platform is going to disregard the law.
The silliness of the ban itself aside, it is wild how casually the whole “both chambers of congress passed a law and that law was upheld by the highest federal court but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it” thing is being treated by the media.
It is like “Does America have laws?” is a 3 minute section of Good Morning America between low-carb breakfast recipes and the memoir of a skateboarding dog.
As with anywhere, laws are toothless without enforcement.
In some cases, they are enforced ruthlessly on one group of people, and not on others. This is a feature, not a mistake, by the way. Well, a feature for those with power, not normal citizens.
The real question is:
"Does America have justice?"
It's not a recent one either. The issue of select enforcement of our laws has been around as long as I can recall, and before I was born. It's not even unique to the United States.
What I find most upsetting as part of the normal citizenry, is that rather than taking things to court and finding that the laws need changed, they tend to go the route of charges dropped or pardons when the laws affect them.
I would have less of an issue with the rich and powerful folks avoiding prosecution if they at least did it in a precedent setting way for the rest of us.
That's the injustice.
Of recent note in the "no" column for the "does America have justice" question, a convicted felon escapes all consequences because he is president elect.
it may be toothless but will they have an effect?
You're Apple or Google's lawyer - the CEO asks, should I take Tiktok down from the app store. What do you say?
Otoh there's a law and civil penalty. On the other, Trump says he won't enforce. Statute of limitations is 5 years, and the liability will exist whether Trump enforces or not. In 5 years, there will (may?) be a new president. On the other hand, trump saying he's not going to enforce may give us an out if we're ever sued over this (we just did what the Pres told us to do...).
Hard call, I give > 50% that they take it down whatever Trump says.
I agree you shouldn't be allowed to express opinions on law without having passed the bar, and posit you shouldn't be allowed to write on a public forum unless you've got at least a BA in English Composition.
Knowledge of civics among the media is unfortunately not much higher than the average person, which is a real failure considering that they are supposed to be an entire “estate” of democratic society.
> but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it
Are you talking about a presidential veto? What are you saying?
No. The opportunity for a presidential veto in our system happened in April of last year.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-what...
You've ruled out my only guess, but you still haven't explained what you're talking about!
The headline on HN was updated, but it's in the key points on the article:
> Although President-elect Donald Trump could choose to not enforce the law...
Which is ridiculous. It's the executive branch's function to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" [1]. The president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the law. There's some debate over whether this applies to 'enforcement discretion', in that the president doesn't have infinite resources to perfectly execute the law and some things will slip through, or whether the president can decline to enforce a law that he believes to be unconstitutional before the supreme court declares it to be so.
In theory, no, the president can't simply decline to enforce a law, congress would then be able to impeach and remove him. In practice, though it happens a little bit all the time. And even if this was black and white, I don't know that there's anything that the incoming president can do that the incoming congress would impeach him for.
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-3-5/...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
> The president's DOJ can't simply refuse to enforce the law.
I had to look up how they handle marijuana laws since that has the _look_ of the DOJ doing just that.
'In each fiscal year since FY2015, Congress has included provisions in appropriations acts that prohibit DOJ from using appropriated funds to prevent certain states, territories, and DC from "implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana"'[1]
So in that case it's Congress that prohibits the DOJ from enforcing a federal law. So your point stands in that the DOJ may not be able to unilaterally decide not to enforce a law, but apparently congress can sort-of extort them into ignoring laws? Oh America.
I missed that, there was another post which was just the ruling itself and not an article, I thought that's what this was and never read the article.
Creating three branches of government that all have to agree that a law should exist (legislative) is constitutional (judicial) and should be enforced (executive) has proven to be an excellent method of keeping bad laws from negatively affecting us. Despite being seemingly simple on the surface, it's created a process a bit longer than what a single Schoolhouse Rock video can teach us, and it's too much for legacy media to handle.
Maybe they only learned from the aforementioned Schoolhouse Rock video, because they seem especially bad at understanding anything outside of the legislative branch. Not only does the legislative branch need to pass a bill into law for it to become a regulation, without objection by the judicial branch to its constitutionality, but the executive branch needs to write that law into a federal regulation, and the legislative branch can reject any new regulation they believe doesn't comply with the law, as can the judicial branch, who can also reject the regulation if it isn't constitutional as written, even if the original law that created it was.
It's no wonder that legacy media's wild misunderstandings of how laws and regulations work only get a small snippet of time, between their more entertaining and feel-good stories that drive viewership and revenue.
Fortunately we are no longer stuck with just legacy media, so I recommend finding a news source that actually knows what they are talking about. I've found the best bet is to get news from outlets and aggregators that specialize in a specific topic, shielding them from the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, and forcing them to publish news that is actually correct.
This is why I come to Hacker News for my tech news aggregation. For political news, my favorite so far has been The Hill, especially for videos like their Daily Brief and Rising videos published on YouTube. I'm open to more, so if anyone has any recommendations, let me know.
What checks remain to counter this power? Impeachment? Constitutional amendment? As I understand it, if the president chooses not to enforce a law, then the only real recourse Congress has is a massive escalation that requires an extremely high level of cooperation. I'm not sure it was ever intended for the executive branch to simply ignore the other two branches and unilaterally decide how to run things. Personally I think willfully refusing to enforce the law of the land should be an impeachable offense but I guess that's not how it works.
The judicial and executive branches are checks on the legislative branch. The entire point of a check is that it can't be overridden. If the judicial branch determines that a law is unconstitutional or the executive branch determines that it should not be enforced, than that's it; it's dead.
The legislative branch can try again with another law, but if it doesn't change whatever made the law unconstitutional or detrimental to enforce, than the relevant branch will keep it dead.
The only condition in which the judicial branch regularly forces the executive branch to enforce laws is when the executive branch tries to legislate through selective enforcement; then the judicial branch will give an all-or-nothing ultimatum, but even then not enforcing is an option, just not selective enforcement.
“I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”[1]
[1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
U.S. national security: "mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions"
And give me a break on "young Americans’ mental health".
This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized by CCP" and was harming young people's health.
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent.
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent.
Or they knew it would get them nowhere because they understand precisely how unpopular pro-Palestine sentiment is among lawmakers.
Both Biden and Trump have said that they will not enforce this law. So not just "one guy", but two :)
This whole thing is both silly and unsurprising.
Everybody knows the fearmongering about Chinese control and manipulation is a smokescreen. The real reason is that Tiktok doesn't fall in line with State Department propaganda [1].
It's noteworthy that SCOTUS sidestepped this issue entirely by not even considering the secret evidence the government brought.
That being said, it's unsurprising because you can make a strictly commerce-based argument that has nothing to do with speech and the First Amendment. Personally, I think reciprocity would've been a far more defensible position, in that US apps like Google, FB, Youtube and IG are restricted from the Chinese market so you could demand recipricol access on strictly commerce grounds.
The best analogy is the restriction on foreign ownership of media outlets, which used to be a big deal. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, US companies would defend themselves from foreign takeovers by buying TV stations, for example. That's basically the premise of the movie Working Girl, as one (fictional) example.
Politically, the big loser here is Biden and the Democratic Party because they will be (rightly) blamed for banning a highly popular app (even though the Congressional vote was hugely bipartisan) and Trump will likely get credit for saving Tiktok.
We don't know that the secret evidence was that TT doesn't promote U.S. propaganda. We can surmise, but speculation can be wrong. Besides, the justices might simply have revealed that secret evidence, had it really been just that. But they claim they didn't even consider the secret evidence. Unclear whether they took a peek, but they say they didn't consider it.
I'd like to see less pervasive chronic use of media, so would hope Canada follows suit, but I don't think banning specific services for political reasons is necessarily a good way to get there. Along with other toxic outlets like gambling, we should be able to make coherent judgements about what belongs and what doesn't based on assessments of well-being indicators that evolve over time. I know it's a fairly conservative take, but it's one I'm happy with, and have a hard time seeing how we're better off with the existence of things like TikTok that provide such an easy way to siphon off human hours in a way that few things other than TV before.
Incidentally, I feel almost controversial for seeing more ads for alcohol and gambling than anything else, and thinking "when did we agree it was a good thing to be more permissive about encouraging objectively addicting risky behavior?".