What party or politicians support individual freedom in this context? How could libertarians support banning an app?
I thought this was rather reductionist until TikTok was allowed back temporarily, only for pro-Plaestine slogans to be suddenly banned when it returned.
Is it the only motivation? No. Given the above and the fact that dozens of highly popular Chinese apps continue to be allowed, does it appear likely this is a leading reason? Plausible.
I don't think the closed door intelligence was about that though. I think they probably said that the persuasive power of TikTok was dangerous to the US, but imo, that's very against the First Amendment and the idea of democracy. Americans are allowed to be influenced however which way we want. We run the government, not the other way around
"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down TikTok..." (https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/1787104142982283587)
I couldn’t help but lol when I read that.
This is speculating. In other instances, the national security apparatus has provided specific evidence when it existed which makes me believe there isn’t anything more than “XYZ could happen”.
In any case, I think we can do better than make laws based on secret evidence. This is supposed to be a democracy after all. Or something.
> One key for him is that it’s only a possible threat. Our best intelligence, including in a briefing for Congress from the Biden administration Tuesday, is that the Chinese government has not actually done the things the ban fears.
Also, from a recent All-In interview (https://www.happyscribe.com/public/all-in-with-chamath-jason...):
> I look to Jim Himes, who is the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, the ranking member. He's in what's called the Gang of Eight. He has the most exquisite access to intelligence. Jim voted against the ban. And I thought, you know what? If this guy is not seeing anything on the national security level.
> [00:44:36] There was an off the record or confidential briefing to the House Intelligence Committee. You think in that meeting, there was nothing that was very meaningful that was disclosed about TikTok?
> [00:44:45] Nothing that I had seen. Is it owned by the Chinese government? Absolutely. But is there a national security risk? I have not seen that.
But he voted yes on the subsequent vote?
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024145
Moreover your factoid is misleading because it omits the fact that the chair voted for the ban, along with most of the members. Of the 25 members on the committee, only 4 voted against.
> The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package, a priority for President Joe Biden with broad congressional support for Ukraine and Israel, fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a shorter, six-month selling deadline passed the House in March by an overwhelming bipartisan vote as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app’s owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/possible-u-s-tiktok-ba...)
Q90 - John Nicolson: It may happen elsewhere, and I can tell you what your official TikTok response was to this leak. You did not deny that these were instructions. In fact, you confirmed that these were instructions, but what you said was that the company had changed its policy in May 2019. Previously, you instructed your moderators to take down videos critical of China, specifically talking about incidents in Tiananmen Square, separatism in Tibet, all straight out of the Chinese Communist Party playbook. You confirmed that is what your moderators did, but your defence was that you had changed your policy in May 2019.
Theo Bertram: It is highly regrettable that that is what it was, but it is not our policy today, nor has it been for a long time.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/13247/html/
There's a sentence
For some stuff like this it's hard to imagine why they wouldn't be able to make it public. You need public support if you're going to ban an app that a lot of the public likes. Almost certainly IMO, no substantive evidence existed.
> not speculative
So it is speculative, right? Even your comment is just speculation.
I swear I have heard zero people opposed to the ban who seem to even be vaguely aware of that aspect which is the entire actual issue, and instead are completely confused and think it’s about spyware or hacking. Whether or not you agree with the ban, we need to actually be discussing the same underlying issue.
Even when TikTok themselves tried to argue that the primary reason was to prevent foreign control over a recommendation algorithm, the Supreme Court said "nope, Congress's primary motive was the data collection."
I'm sorry but I have yet to see a single person who makes this point admit that it's a form of speech suppression. This is classic First Amendment precedent. Just because the speaker is someone you don't like, or its content is anti-American (or what have you), doesn't mean it's not protected speech.
Frankly the propaganda aspect is the least troubling part of it because you're right, people can make their own choices about information sources.
But figuring out who various military members are connected to, where and how they're moving around, and especially any leaks where people take cell phones in places they shouldn't (remember that ship that installed a Starlink illegally?), they can get quite a bit of intelligence.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880975630646612254
Speculation, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Trump’s change of heart on the TikTok ban is due to Musk’s influence.
Musk needs to stay in Beijing’s favour due to the size of Tesla’s investments in China, which Beijing could destroy in a moment if Musk overly offended them. Opposing TikTok ban helps Musk stay in Beijing’s good books, supporting it would have had the opposite effect.
