Comment by shahzaibmushtaq a day ago
TikTok is also banned in China. For the Chinese market, Douyin is there from the same company ByteDance. Americans need to understand this decision is not an emotional one but for the nation, just like the opposite party does for its nation.
Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat are not functionally owned & operated by an unfriendly foreign government that would have incentive to destabilize the USA via civil unrest by influencing our algorithms.
They are owned and operated by unfriendly actors with no allegiance to the government - they just need to be profitable. If there was a publicly owned and operated alternative I would feel better about that, but for example Facebook has been shown to experiment with their algorithm and increase depression rates in the past. If the argument is that the US should own/operate it then I'm not opposed to that because we could remove the profit incentive, but then meta/snapchat would have to become parts of the government instead of independent companies, and with them already being global I don't see how that would actually be implemented. Right now the proposal is to continue letting them do all the harm and data collection, so the reasoning for the change doesn't match up with the actions being taken.
The US government protects Facebook, and is what enabled them to become they company they are today. There are plenty of examples of their loyalty to the US government. They make back doors available and allow the US government to moderate content. Seems like they are very aligned!
Theoretically that can happen. But functionally, that hasn't happened - and in fact, the primary incentive is for that not to happen (bad business, etc).
I think there would need to be some basis in fact for these claims, right?
I find this line of argument particularly uncompelling and offensive - it’s like saying the arresting of a Soviet spy per a valid warrant by the courts is against the constitutionally rights and is also hypocritical given how the US protests against people being disappeared.
Uncompelling! The particulars matter!
Direct from the horse's mouth: https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
"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.”
> this decision is not an emotional one but for the nation, just like the opposite party does for its nation
I'd argue that it is an emotional decision for both, and it does seem ironic that the US would be following China in restricting a platform that people see as a major tool for free speech. Whether you agree with that or not the optics are terrible, and the users are very aware of it. If this is really a big concern then they would also ban facebook/instagram/snapchat, but they aren't being included in this, despite having a worse track record.