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Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Bann

Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Banning one player isn't going to help much in the long run I would think. Edit: I am an EU citizen if it matters.

simion314 6y ago
They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset.
- m0zg 6y ago
  FB and Twitter no doubt brainwash people into all kinds of silliness - we've seen that quite vividly in the past 3 months. But there's not a whole lot you can do about them legally under US law. There is a whole lot you can do with TikTok and other foreign companies that represent a national security threat.
  - simion314 6y ago
    That is the point, make a new law. I mean FB way where I can target with ads extremely precise groups make it possible to systematically slit a nation in all the political regions, split the population in relevant groups, and preciously target them non stop with fake or misleading stuff. This could be fixed in many , many ways - like not allowing political ads, or not allowing targeted political ads, or labeling clearly what is paid political propaganda or the exteme solution , limited electoral budget (why should the guy with more money is more equal then the rest?? it is are torical question I know constitution in US allows this )
    - m0zg 6y ago
      There already exists a law: if there's a threat to national security (which there is), the executive branch has relatively broad discretion. You can't really "make a law" in the time remaining until election, not with Pelosi turning everything into a political showdown, and _especially_ not if China prefers Biden (which, according to Nancy Pelosi it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE). Here's one way you could interfere with US elections without showing political ads BTW: show "vote" reminders only to people who you infer from data to be democrats. At a first approximation, to people in urban centers in swing states. Not an "ad" per se, but you can still swing the election quite easily - in swing states elections are close by definition. As far as I'm aware there exists no law prohibiting such interference. This is how FB and Twitter are going to do it if the DNC doesn't like the final polls.
      - simion314 6y ago
        Then this trail would hopefully surface the evidence about this National Security issue and we are not left without a retraction like in the case where China was accused of planting chips in PC motherboards.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      It's not about fake news it's about data access.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        It's about both, really. Data is darn near useless by itself. But from data you can easily infer things like age, gender, political affiliation, income and education level and so on, which can then be _easily_ used to swing an election.
        ThomPete 6y ago
        I am not taking about the data I am taking about access to the data and the devices. This is G5 controversy all over again. It's a trojan horse which can be used by the CCP. There is no ability to take them to court for misuse, no opposition media.
      - zo1 6y ago
        The data is pretty clear in a lot of cases on contentious issues. It's the interpretation that is being driven/manipulated and weaponized for some agenda. E.g. people have had all the data for car accidents for decades, and yet we don't have a large, concerted movement to ban or "reinvent" cars/roads/driving/driver's licenses even though it could save tens of thousands of lives. Likewise, we've had police and crime statistics for decades as well but only recently had a "big movement" mobilize around addressing some of it. Additionally, we have all the data to "call in to question" some of the hard narratives of said movement, yet people are doubling-down on it. At some point we have to agree that it's not about data anymore. It's about mind-share, and feelings/emotions and other intangible things that are causing shifts that we should all be worried about. With that in mind, it's absolutely clear to me that we should be taking a close look and scrutinize the platforms that can cause such societal shifts. TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Google Search, etc. They can all explicitly or at the very-least subtly manipulate and drive societal movements/impressions on issues. At least let's agree that they promote certain types of viral topics/movements that have criteria that make them more "virable".
        6y ago
- emteycz 6y ago
  Adults watch TikTok for voting suggestions? The American society is getting weirder every day.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Adults believe in every picture with a caption or video with text and sad music in it, as long as it doesn't have any clear association with a government. After all, it's not propaganda if the source is private, and the message is ostensibly made for teh lulz, right?
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Sounds like we should abolish states, then.
      - oblio 6y ago
        I can't even tell what's sarcasm and what isn't, anymore.
- gwd 6y ago
  > They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. FB and Twitter didn't have people on them embarrass Trump by tanking one of his rallies: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-...
  - simion314 6y ago
    It reminds me about the China and the Winnie the Pooh ban.
- naavis 6y ago
  Twitter and Facebook are US companies, while ByteDance (the company behind TikTok) is not. This makes them pretty different legislation-wise. Not saying that the brainwashing part doesn't apply to all three.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Thats not really why they are worried about TikTok, it comes back to the issue of the CCP and and that China defacto owns TikTok which means that information can be harvested. This is G5 controversy all over. The brainwashing part is just noise. The real concern is real given Chinas history.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    Yeah, but like the CCP don't really care about TikTok/ByteDance. Or at least they didn't, until this happened. They would care about Tencent or Alibaba, but ByteDance isn't big or important enough for the party to care.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      Oh they care. A lot. They care about anything that gives them access to western data so that's just wrong. They care quite a lot about TikTok as it provides a potential backdoor (given that the CCP defacto owns bytedance) That's the problem.
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        The sources I'm familiar with (mostly the FT) claim otherwise. See for example: https://www.ft.com/content/0c42dc7c-b927-477a-90b7-a202bbe4bc50 https://www.ft.com/content/0c42dc7c-b927-477a-90b7-a202bbe4b... Or also this: https://www.ft.com/content/61988d2d-4c95-4a35-8273-d6980af04114 https://www.ft.com/content/61988d2d-4c95-4a35-8273-d6980af04...
        ThomPete 6y ago
        That article is mostly an opinion piece not really about the nuts and bolts of US intelligence concerns. I love FT and I subscribe to the paper but I see more anti-trump sentiment than an actual argument there.
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
- swiley 6y ago
  As a US citizen, I would absolutely like domestic social media companies to be held similarly accountable.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Udik 6y ago
  Hmm, what does it mean to keep a social media giant hostage right up to the elections?
- kube-system 6y ago
  > They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. The easiest answer is: because ByteDance said so. ByteDance has a internal board staffed by the CCP, and their CEO Zhang Yiming has even: > promised that the firm would in the future “Further deepen cooperation with authoritative [official party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official party] media voices are broadcast to strength.” [0] > If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset. The US, like almost every other country, regulates international commerce differently than domestic commerce. The US intentionally makes it harder to regulate domestic matters in order to protect the rights of the people the government is tasked with protecting. They even go so far as having separate agencies responsible for domestic matters vs foreign matters. [0]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/16/bytedance-cant-outrun-beijings-shadow/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/16/bytedance-cant-outrun-b...
  - simion314 6y ago
    And what prevents some political party you don't like just use money to buy data from FB directly , or if getting the data is harder this days use the ad targeting and get same result that you don't like(make some people stay at home and not vote for your favorite and mobilize the guys in the group you don't like)
adrianN 6y ago
Maybe because protecting the privacy of the citizens is not the actual goal.
- martin_drapeau 6y ago
  Part of the greater trade wars between the US and China I think.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Trump has said that the goal is to punish China for the coronavirus: [1] > It's a big business. Look, what happened with China with this virus, what they've done to this country and to the entire world is disgraceful. The trade war is obviously a major factor as well, but Trump thinks that bashing China helps his reelection chances and helps deflect away from his administration's incompetent response to the virus. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-07/tiktok-touts-u-s-ties-after-pompeo-threatens-to-ban-social-app https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-07/tiktok-to....
phantomathkg 6y ago
Because the subtext is, "It is OK for companies to invade the privacy of US citizens, so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well".
- Udik 6y ago
  > so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well The US side of what? What does it mean to be on the US side?
  - dade_ 6y ago
    I don't understand how someone can be on HN for 6 years and not already know this. Look up Five Eyes.
    - Udik 6y ago
      Five Eyes includes US, CA, UK, NZ and AU. Does it mean that German or French social networks are not allowed in the US? Conversely, should Italy or Russia ban US social networks? There are no absolute friends and absolute enemies. China was a good commercial partner of the US until a few years ago. Italy has been spied for decades by the CIA. The US wiretapped Germany's PM. Israel was caught installing spy mobile phone cells around the White House. Or is threatening the economic and technological supremacy of the US by competing on the global markets already a way of not siding with the US?
      - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        Fourteen Eyes
      - dade_ 6y ago
        China - Not Five Eyes Italy - Not Five Eyes Germany - Not Five Eyes Israel - Not Five Eyes Notice a pattern? Anyone new US foreign policy should also lookup the Munro Doctrine. Would have saved Maduro and the Venezuelans a great deal of suffering.
  - 6y ago
m-p-3 6y ago
I guess they're trying with threatening one app in particular and see if the other will backtrack in fear, and putting a new law into place most likely takes time and they wanted to move fast.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  Economic sanctions are a long established executive power. No need for new laws behind a move like this.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Simple: regulating all businesses even closely to European standards would impact many big corporations that are, coincidentally or not, big donors to both political parties. Only going after "politically suitable" companies (in the case of the Republicans, TikTok + anything connected to Jeff Bezos, Big Tech for Democrats) is way more effective for the parties.
mola 6y ago
Divide and conquer and not acting in good faith. This is no more than racketeering.
Traster 6y ago
The US political system is structured in such a way that it's very difficult to draft legislation and get it passed. You have to get a bill to pass a majority in the house, then (generally) get 60% in the senate, then get past the president's veto, and then implementation of that legislation will fall to a governmental organisation ultimately run by a political appointee who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. That organisation then needs to fight out any judgements they make in federal court and are ultimately decided by judges who are appointed by current and previous presidents. Right, so, lots of stakeholders, very difficult to please. Add to that the fact that the house is elected every 2 years (so 50% of the time it's election year), so is the senate (although only 1/3rd of the seats, so it's impossible to swing the senate quickly), and the president every 4 years. And since the incumbent president's party always suffers in mid-term elections, and since the senate can't swing quickly, a single party has only had complete control of government for 14 years out of the last 50 years. So basically, the President generally gets 2 years after being elected during which they might have the actual power to draft, and pass legislation. Most of which gets spent on 1 single piece of legislation - for Obama is was Healthcare, for Trump is was repealing Healthcare (failed in the Senate) and Tax cuts.
- ackbar03 6y ago
  I didn't know the details of this before lol. That sounds like a nightmare it's a wonder anything gets done...
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > "US political systems was purposefully engineered for a deadlock"
  - swiley 6y ago
    That’s the idea. The states are supposed to be doing the majority of the legislation.
    - nemo44x 6y ago
      It’s probably too late but a good argument for drastically lowering federal taxes is that then states would be forced to raise local taxes as the federal government wouldn’t subsidize as much. I feel like in today’s climate that both sides would find common ground in this as you often here republicans wanting less federal authority and democrats complaining their states pay most of the taxes that get redistributed to generally republican states.
koolba 6y ago
It’s more cost effective to make an arbitrary example of one player.
- oblio 6y ago
  If you're a mobster, probably :-))
pryce 6y ago
I am coming to believe that what we are seeing is a kind of "race" to see which aspiring superpowers will eventually control (or own) the main companies that are intentionally the most successful in invading the privacy of citizens. People can only inhabit a finite number of social media networks, and there can eventually only be a fairly small number of big players in a position to produce massively detailed rich profiles on individuals and therefore hold most influence on them (consumer behaviour & voting behaviour) Imagine that the USA clamps down heavily on facebook, and in 4 years some rival company from Russia or China ended up achieving the largest market share / richest per-person psych profiles. That represents a security threat even greater than the (nearly catastrophic) threat that Facebook represents today. Who wins and who loses in this race is going to make a massive difference in what the planet looks like 20, 10, even 5 years from now.
- kolla 6y ago
  Feels more like companies own the aspiring superpowers with all the lobbying going around in the US.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - smolder 6y ago
    The government was supposed to represent people, but since we made corruption legal, its mainly accountable to money. Corporations and the government alike are therefore controlled by those with wealth and intent. They're two sides of the same coin.
- Tarq0n 6y ago
  There's definitely an element of this at play. This was stated pretty explicitly in the case of Grindr, a dating app for gay men. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-...
  - throwawayinfo 6y ago
baybal2 6y ago
> Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Banning one player isn't going to help much in the long run I would think. The matter is whether "is is ok to do business with a company from a communist country for as long as you are not dealing with the state itself" vs. "it is ok to do business with a communist country in general, just not with their dangerous businesses" Given the context of the issue, one whats to ask why now the later is fine, and the prior is not? It also does sound, and look completely schizophrenic when the same part of political establishment vouches for both at the same time. It feels the establishment is still very, very eager to keep doing business with China, just as much as they are eager to keep insane profits that come from the trade with China, and they will immediately run back to Beijing to bargain for concessions right after the elections. Remember, the establishment has collectively sank legislations barring companies from dealing with labour rights abusing contractors abroad.
dalbasal 6y ago
EU citizen also... Why is our politics/legislation in this space derivative of the US? Isn't the point of the EU to get a large enough regulatory block to be effective at (among other things) regulating multinationals? So far all I've seen is minor bureaucratic layers (eg gdpr) and rulings (eg the adwords antitrust case) that change nothing meaningful. I don't even know who to complain to.
- gostsamo 6y ago
  Issue is that in the EU the states have too much power that they don't want to let go. Currently, each country can block any EU-wide legislation on the main topics and the minor need two thirds approval.* * Actually 55% of the countries, but they must have 65% of the population which means that France and Germany are enough to block everything proposed by all the others even they all get together.
  - oblio 6y ago
    France and Germany are not 65% of the EU population, not even after Brexit. More like 33%.
    - gostsamo 6y ago
      My argument is that they together are big enough to stop any other legislation.
    - kevin_b_er 6y ago
      You're backwards. The topic is talking about how 65% of population is required to pass. If France and Germany have 33%, as you say, then every single other country combined is 67%. They would then have enough population to block legislation together in most cases
      - gostsamo 6y ago
        Well, they might need one or two of the small countries, but if you are realistic, this is never an issue.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Cynical answer: This is about creating chaos and allowing some buyer to get a really good deal. The hoped outcome is that that buyer will support trumps re-election and the headlines about china will rally support but that the damage won't be enough to cause China to act back. Less cynical answer: wider action would require congress to be involved and congress is permanently gridlocked
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  Yeah, this isn't a perspective I've seen anyone elucidate, and I don't have any evidence for it, but my gut says that it's a corrupt play intended to force sale/some other tawdry goal. Or maybe they just want to get back at those "tiktok teens."
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    The crazy thing is, I'd actually support real action on China. The CCP are a problem I feel we have been ignoring for too long. Instead, everything trump has done has been carefully designed NOT to actually change anything except to produce headlines in both countries and try to make more people indebted or reliant on his administration and strengthen the hand of the CCP. Of course, we're now deep into my opinions :)
    - rchaud 6y ago
      "real action" on China would require the hard work of making the case to the 100m American TT users, building a bipartisan consensus, and passing a bill. The current administration has no intention of doing any of that. Attemping to rule by decree is easier and makes for immediate headlines. By the time the executive order gets thrown out in court, plenty of political hay has been made among the party faithful. And when the order does get thrown out in court, the administration blames 'activist judges' instead of the merits of their own case.
      - LatteLazy 6y ago
        That's roughly my expectation too, though there is a chance the order will stand: courts are surprisingly accepting of "we can't tell you, national security" as long as the order is quite narrow. An order only targeting TT might well be acceptable to a sufficiently disinterested judge. Either way, the CCP will continue (or even intensify) it's activities, Trump will rally the faithful and someone will probably make a few billion for nothing more than already having a few billion and being in the right place at the right time.
johnhenry 6y ago
In this case, it's probably more about the president acting like a "Big Man" and being "tough on China" than actual concern for it's citizens.
- kinleyd 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's fuelled by pettiness following the sinking of Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla by TikTok teens and K-Pop Stans. Being "tough on China" and national security are convenient cover. It's just sad.
totalZero 6y ago
The US government benefits from corporate invasion of individual privacy because it can and does coerce corporations to share their information with the government. The issue at hand is not invasion of privacy, but rather the state's monopoly thereof versus its foreign adversaries.
kevin_b_er 6y ago
Paralyzed legislature is why there's no laws. And it isn't about privacy of the citizenry. Its about sticking it to China. The US executive hasn't and doesn't care about what happens to the citizens, just about reelection.
kube-system 6y ago
The issue with Chinese tech companies isn't really a matter of personal privacy -- it's a matter of national security. Chinese tech companies can (and often are) required to work directly in conjunction with the Chinese military to further their goals and operations. Also, the US has separate agencies and requirements for setting domestic policy vs foreign policy. The authorities that oversee what Facebook does is entirely different from the authorities that oversee what TikTok does -- so this is not a matter of a single group 'choosing' between the two. The laws of the US intentionally have more rigor for domestic issues.

simion314 6y ago

They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset.

m0zg 6y ago
FB and Twitter no doubt brainwash people into all kinds of silliness - we've seen that quite vividly in the past 3 months. But there's not a whole lot you can do about them legally under US law. There is a whole lot you can do with TikTok and other foreign companies that represent a national security threat.
- simion314 6y ago
  That is the point, make a new law. I mean FB way where I can target with ads extremely precise groups make it possible to systematically slit a nation in all the political regions, split the population in relevant groups, and preciously target them non stop with fake or misleading stuff. This could be fixed in many , many ways - like not allowing political ads, or not allowing targeted political ads, or labeling clearly what is paid political propaganda or the exteme solution , limited electoral budget (why should the guy with more money is more equal then the rest?? it is are torical question I know constitution in US allows this )
  - m0zg 6y ago
    There already exists a law: if there's a threat to national security (which there is), the executive branch has relatively broad discretion. You can't really "make a law" in the time remaining until election, not with Pelosi turning everything into a political showdown, and _especially_ not if China prefers Biden (which, according to Nancy Pelosi it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arS5qzS95cE). Here's one way you could interfere with US elections without showing political ads BTW: show "vote" reminders only to people who you infer from data to be democrats. At a first approximation, to people in urban centers in swing states. Not an "ad" per se, but you can still swing the election quite easily - in swing states elections are close by definition. As far as I'm aware there exists no law prohibiting such interference. This is how FB and Twitter are going to do it if the DNC doesn't like the final polls.
    - simion314 6y ago
      Then this trail would hopefully surface the evidence about this National Security issue and we are not left without a retraction like in the case where China was accused of planting chips in PC motherboards.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    It's not about fake news it's about data access.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      It's about both, really. Data is darn near useless by itself. But from data you can easily infer things like age, gender, political affiliation, income and education level and so on, which can then be _easily_ used to swing an election.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        I am not taking about the data I am taking about access to the data and the devices. This is G5 controversy all over again. It's a trojan horse which can be used by the CCP. There is no ability to take them to court for misuse, no opposition media.
    - zo1 6y ago
      The data is pretty clear in a lot of cases on contentious issues. It's the interpretation that is being driven/manipulated and weaponized for some agenda. E.g. people have had all the data for car accidents for decades, and yet we don't have a large, concerted movement to ban or "reinvent" cars/roads/driving/driver's licenses even though it could save tens of thousands of lives. Likewise, we've had police and crime statistics for decades as well but only recently had a "big movement" mobilize around addressing some of it. Additionally, we have all the data to "call in to question" some of the hard narratives of said movement, yet people are doubling-down on it. At some point we have to agree that it's not about data anymore. It's about mind-share, and feelings/emotions and other intangible things that are causing shifts that we should all be worried about. With that in mind, it's absolutely clear to me that we should be taking a close look and scrutinize the platforms that can cause such societal shifts. TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Google Search, etc. They can all explicitly or at the very-least subtly manipulate and drive societal movements/impressions on issues. At least let's agree that they promote certain types of viral topics/movements that have criteria that make them more "virable".
      - 6y ago
emteycz 6y ago
Adults watch TikTok for voting suggestions? The American society is getting weirder every day.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Adults believe in every picture with a caption or video with text and sad music in it, as long as it doesn't have any clear association with a government. After all, it's not propaganda if the source is private, and the message is ostensibly made for teh lulz, right?
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Sounds like we should abolish states, then.
    - oblio 6y ago
      I can't even tell what's sarcasm and what isn't, anymore.
gwd 6y ago
> They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. FB and Twitter didn't have people on them embarrass Trump by tanking one of his rallies: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-...
- simion314 6y ago
  It reminds me about the China and the Winnie the Pooh ban.
naavis 6y ago
Twitter and Facebook are US companies, while ByteDance (the company behind TikTok) is not. This makes them pretty different legislation-wise. Not saying that the brainwashing part doesn't apply to all three.
ThomPete 6y ago
Thats not really why they are worried about TikTok, it comes back to the issue of the CCP and and that China defacto owns TikTok which means that information can be harvested. This is G5 controversy all over. The brainwashing part is just noise. The real concern is real given Chinas history.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  Yeah, but like the CCP don't really care about TikTok/ByteDance. Or at least they didn't, until this happened. They would care about Tencent or Alibaba, but ByteDance isn't big or important enough for the party to care.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Oh they care. A lot. They care about anything that gives them access to western data so that's just wrong. They care quite a lot about TikTok as it provides a potential backdoor (given that the CCP defacto owns bytedance) That's the problem.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      The sources I'm familiar with (mostly the FT) claim otherwise. See for example: https://www.ft.com/content/0c42dc7c-b927-477a-90b7-a202bbe4bc50 https://www.ft.com/content/0c42dc7c-b927-477a-90b7-a202bbe4b... Or also this: https://www.ft.com/content/61988d2d-4c95-4a35-8273-d6980af04114 https://www.ft.com/content/61988d2d-4c95-4a35-8273-d6980af04...
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        That article is mostly an opinion piece not really about the nuts and bolts of US intelligence concerns. I love FT and I subscribe to the paper but I see more anti-trump sentiment than an actual argument there.
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
swiley 6y ago
As a US citizen, I would absolutely like domestic social media companies to be held similarly accountable.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Udik 6y ago
Hmm, what does it mean to keep a social media giant hostage right up to the elections?
kube-system 6y ago
> They would need to explain how TicTok brainwashes americans to vote(or not vote) but Facebook and Twitter categorically does not do the same thing. The easiest answer is: because ByteDance said so. ByteDance has a internal board staffed by the CCP, and their CEO Zhang Yiming has even: > promised that the firm would in the future “Further deepen cooperation with authoritative [official party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official party] media voices are broadcast to strength.” [0] > If "brainwashing" on social media exists then all should be made illegal not only the a small subset. The US, like almost every other country, regulates international commerce differently than domestic commerce. The US intentionally makes it harder to regulate domestic matters in order to protect the rights of the people the government is tasked with protecting. They even go so far as having separate agencies responsible for domestic matters vs foreign matters. [0]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/16/bytedance-cant-outrun-beijings-shadow/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/16/bytedance-cant-outrun-b...
- simion314 6y ago
  And what prevents some political party you don't like just use money to buy data from FB directly , or if getting the data is harder this days use the ad targeting and get same result that you don't like(make some people stay at home and not vote for your favorite and mobilize the guys in the group you don't like)

adrianN 6y ago

Maybe because protecting the privacy of the citizens is not the actual goal.

martin_drapeau 6y ago
Part of the greater trade wars between the US and China I think.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Trump has said that the goal is to punish China for the coronavirus: [1] > It's a big business. Look, what happened with China with this virus, what they've done to this country and to the entire world is disgraceful. The trade war is obviously a major factor as well, but Trump thinks that bashing China helps his reelection chances and helps deflect away from his administration's incompetent response to the virus. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-07/tiktok-touts-u-s-ties-after-pompeo-threatens-to-ban-social-app https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-07/tiktok-to....

phantomathkg 6y ago

Because the subtext is, "It is OK for companies to invade the privacy of US citizens, so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well".

Udik 6y ago
> so long the companies' own countries is also on the US side as well The US side of what? What does it mean to be on the US side?
- dade_ 6y ago
  I don't understand how someone can be on HN for 6 years and not already know this. Look up Five Eyes.
  - Udik 6y ago
    Five Eyes includes US, CA, UK, NZ and AU. Does it mean that German or French social networks are not allowed in the US? Conversely, should Italy or Russia ban US social networks? There are no absolute friends and absolute enemies. China was a good commercial partner of the US until a few years ago. Italy has been spied for decades by the CIA. The US wiretapped Germany's PM. Israel was caught installing spy mobile phone cells around the White House. Or is threatening the economic and technological supremacy of the US by competing on the global markets already a way of not siding with the US?
    - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
      Fourteen Eyes
    - dade_ 6y ago
      China - Not Five Eyes Italy - Not Five Eyes Germany - Not Five Eyes Israel - Not Five Eyes Notice a pattern? Anyone new US foreign policy should also lookup the Munro Doctrine. Would have saved Maduro and the Venezuelans a great deal of suffering.
- 6y ago

m-p-3 6y ago

I guess they're trying with threatening one app in particular and see if the other will backtrack in fear, and putting a new law into place most likely takes time and they wanted to move fast.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
Economic sanctions are a long established executive power. No need for new laws behind a move like this.

mschuster91 6y ago

> Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Simple: regulating all businesses even closely to European standards would impact many big corporations that are, coincidentally or not, big donors to both political parties. Only going after "politically suitable" companies (in the case of the Republicans, TikTok + anything connected to Jeff Bezos, Big Tech for Democrats) is way more effective for the parties.

mola 6y ago

Divide and conquer and not acting in good faith. This is no more than racketeering.

Traster 6y ago

The US political system is structured in such a way that it's very difficult to draft legislation and get it passed. You have to get a bill to pass a majority in the house, then (generally) get 60% in the senate, then get past the president's veto, and then implementation of that legislation will fall to a governmental organisation ultimately run by a political appointee who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. That organisation then needs to fight out any judgements they make in federal court and are ultimately decided by judges who are appointed by current and previous presidents. Right, so, lots of stakeholders, very difficult to please. Add to that the fact that the house is elected every 2 years (so 50% of the time it's election year), so is the senate (although only 1/3rd of the seats, so it's impossible to swing the senate quickly), and the president every 4 years. And since the incumbent president's party always suffers in mid-term elections, and since the senate can't swing quickly, a single party has only had complete control of government for 14 years out of the last 50 years. So basically, the President generally gets 2 years after being elected during which they might have the actual power to draft, and pass legislation. Most of which gets spent on 1 single piece of legislation - for Obama is was Healthcare, for Trump is was repealing Healthcare (failed in the Senate) and Tax cuts.

ackbar03 6y ago
I didn't know the details of this before lol. That sounds like a nightmare it's a wonder anything gets done...
- baybal2 6y ago
  > "US political systems was purposefully engineered for a deadlock"
- swiley 6y ago
  That’s the idea. The states are supposed to be doing the majority of the legislation.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    It’s probably too late but a good argument for drastically lowering federal taxes is that then states would be forced to raise local taxes as the federal government wouldn’t subsidize as much. I feel like in today’s climate that both sides would find common ground in this as you often here republicans wanting less federal authority and democrats complaining their states pay most of the taxes that get redistributed to generally republican states.

koolba 6y ago

It’s more cost effective to make an arbitrary example of one player.

oblio 6y ago
If you're a mobster, probably :-))

pryce 6y ago

I am coming to believe that what we are seeing is a kind of "race" to see which aspiring superpowers will eventually control (or own) the main companies that are intentionally the most successful in invading the privacy of citizens. People can only inhabit a finite number of social media networks, and there can eventually only be a fairly small number of big players in a position to produce massively detailed rich profiles on individuals and therefore hold most influence on them (consumer behaviour & voting behaviour) Imagine that the USA clamps down heavily on facebook, and in 4 years some rival company from Russia or China ended up achieving the largest market share / richest per-person psych profiles. That represents a security threat even greater than the (nearly catastrophic) threat that Facebook represents today. Who wins and who loses in this race is going to make a massive difference in what the planet looks like 20, 10, even 5 years from now.

kolla 6y ago
Feels more like companies own the aspiring superpowers with all the lobbying going around in the US.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- smolder 6y ago
  The government was supposed to represent people, but since we made corruption legal, its mainly accountable to money. Corporations and the government alike are therefore controlled by those with wealth and intent. They're two sides of the same coin.
Tarq0n 6y ago
There's definitely an element of this at play. This was stated pretty explicitly in the case of Grindr, a dating app for gay men. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-...
- throwawayinfo 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago

> Why is the US always focusing on individual companies instead of working on laws to protect them from all companies invading the privacy of their citizens? Banning one player isn't going to help much in the long run I would think. The matter is whether "is is ok to do business with a company from a communist country for as long as you are not dealing with the state itself" vs. "it is ok to do business with a communist country in general, just not with their dangerous businesses" Given the context of the issue, one whats to ask why now the later is fine, and the prior is not? It also does sound, and look completely schizophrenic when the same part of political establishment vouches for both at the same time. It feels the establishment is still very, very eager to keep doing business with China, just as much as they are eager to keep insane profits that come from the trade with China, and they will immediately run back to Beijing to bargain for concessions right after the elections. Remember, the establishment has collectively sank legislations barring companies from dealing with labour rights abusing contractors abroad.

dalbasal 6y ago

EU citizen also... Why is our politics/legislation in this space derivative of the US? Isn't the point of the EU to get a large enough regulatory block to be effective at (among other things) regulating multinationals? So far all I've seen is minor bureaucratic layers (eg gdpr) and rulings (eg the adwords antitrust case) that change nothing meaningful. I don't even know who to complain to.

gostsamo 6y ago
Issue is that in the EU the states have too much power that they don't want to let go. Currently, each country can block any EU-wide legislation on the main topics and the minor need two thirds approval.* * Actually 55% of the countries, but they must have 65% of the population which means that France and Germany are enough to block everything proposed by all the others even they all get together.
- oblio 6y ago
  France and Germany are not 65% of the EU population, not even after Brexit. More like 33%.
  - gostsamo 6y ago
    My argument is that they together are big enough to stop any other legislation.
  - kevin_b_er 6y ago
    You're backwards. The topic is talking about how 65% of population is required to pass. If France and Germany have 33%, as you say, then every single other country combined is 67%. They would then have enough population to block legislation together in most cases
    - gostsamo 6y ago
      Well, they might need one or two of the small countries, but if you are realistic, this is never an issue.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Cynical answer: This is about creating chaos and allowing some buyer to get a really good deal. The hoped outcome is that that buyer will support trumps re-election and the headlines about china will rally support but that the damage won't be enough to cause China to act back. Less cynical answer: wider action would require congress to be involved and congress is permanently gridlocked

roflc0ptic 6y ago
Yeah, this isn't a perspective I've seen anyone elucidate, and I don't have any evidence for it, but my gut says that it's a corrupt play intended to force sale/some other tawdry goal. Or maybe they just want to get back at those "tiktok teens."
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The crazy thing is, I'd actually support real action on China. The CCP are a problem I feel we have been ignoring for too long. Instead, everything trump has done has been carefully designed NOT to actually change anything except to produce headlines in both countries and try to make more people indebted or reliant on his administration and strengthen the hand of the CCP. Of course, we're now deep into my opinions :)
  - rchaud 6y ago
    "real action" on China would require the hard work of making the case to the 100m American TT users, building a bipartisan consensus, and passing a bill. The current administration has no intention of doing any of that. Attemping to rule by decree is easier and makes for immediate headlines. By the time the executive order gets thrown out in court, plenty of political hay has been made among the party faithful. And when the order does get thrown out in court, the administration blames 'activist judges' instead of the merits of their own case.
    - LatteLazy 6y ago
      That's roughly my expectation too, though there is a chance the order will stand: courts are surprisingly accepting of "we can't tell you, national security" as long as the order is quite narrow. An order only targeting TT might well be acceptable to a sufficiently disinterested judge. Either way, the CCP will continue (or even intensify) it's activities, Trump will rally the faithful and someone will probably make a few billion for nothing more than already having a few billion and being in the right place at the right time.

johnhenry 6y ago

In this case, it's probably more about the president acting like a "Big Man" and being "tough on China" than actual concern for it's citizens.

kinleyd 6y ago
I'm pretty sure it's fuelled by pettiness following the sinking of Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla by TikTok teens and K-Pop Stans. Being "tough on China" and national security are convenient cover. It's just sad.

totalZero 6y ago

The US government benefits from corporate invasion of individual privacy because it can and does coerce corporations to share their information with the government. The issue at hand is not invasion of privacy, but rather the state's monopoly thereof versus its foreign adversaries.

kevin_b_er 6y ago

Paralyzed legislature is why there's no laws. And it isn't about privacy of the citizenry. Its about sticking it to China. The US executive hasn't and doesn't care about what happens to the citizens, just about reelection.

kube-system 6y ago

The issue with Chinese tech companies isn't really a matter of personal privacy -- it's a matter of national security. Chinese tech companies can (and often are) required to work directly in conjunction with the Chinese military to further their goals and operations. Also, the US has separate agencies and requirements for setting domestic policy vs foreign policy. The authorities that oversee what Facebook does is entirely different from the authorities that oversee what TikTok does -- so this is not a matter of a single group 'choosing' between the two. The laws of the US intentionally have more rigor for domestic issues.