Spend .000001% of my time there.

Clueless I'd even say.

YMMV

not saying it flips it to the orange fuck, but it certainly does NOT help

did an Executive Order that tried (and failed) to ban it, but he has flipped flopped on it now (hello Republican and anti-progressive Dem mega-donor and Trump friend Jeff Yass)

It is all about the perception of both the hostility to it and the intent to ban it if the Chinese do not sell it off.

I am going to have my hands full tamping this down (already starting to TBH) within my social set (obviously the Americans in it are the main ones I am concerned about election-wise). I already do (have full hands) with the Gaza/Israel shitshow and its being funded and armed to a significant degree by the US.

and specifically supported the ban.

For example Marco Rubio just made this comment..

For years we've allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America that was dangerously shortsighted," said Senator Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. "A new law is going to require its Chinese owner to sell the app. This is a good move for America."

Maybe he will. But this will definitely cause some of his voters to walk away. And our margins are too tight for comfort as it is.

It's an unforced error to do this now.

170 million Americans are on TicToc -

Many thousands of influencers making their living on TicToc.

Sorry for the confusion!

Historically, If you ever find yourself opposed to a student-led movement, you are probably in the wrong.

Never mind the GOP actions, this literally has Biden's signature on it.

because it happened while he was president, it's a tough wall to break through with the reality.

Its a done deal. Lets move on and help Joe win instead of complaining about something that will likely have zero effect in November.

You might want to move on but that ain't gonna happen in the near future. Just like Trump's EO to ban it, this will end up in court. And will make headlines again and again.

The Biden campaign better have some slick ads ready to defend this.

Virtually everyone in Congress agrees with this. What did you expect him to do.. veto it?? That would be absurd.

The Biden campaign is already dealing with tenuous support from those pesky young voters. Telling them that the GOP also supports this is NOT a good strategy.

If it was going or gone, they would notice, but many don't get into all the ins and outs a bill that was passed and has not been enacted yet.

Remember how young people kinda went nuts the day after Trump was elected, yet they weren't going nuts before the election?
Where the heck were they before the election?

Both from Nov 10, 2016

Don’t you live abroad and have said you are unlikely to return to the US for personal safety reasons?

If things improve in America, I am open to returning to live someday, given the right set of circumstances involving multiple factors.

This coming election is obviously a huge possible inflection point in regards to all our futures, American or not. It has global impacts and consequences.

Just curious.

We shortly thereafter moved to Hong Kong for several years, then rerurned to London, which is where I grew up and remained until I rerurned to Los Angeles to read for my MBA in the mid 2010s.

After that, we (my GF, now wife, I am a lesbian) returned to London for a very short spell, then moved to Stockholm, which is where we have resided for 6 plus years now.

I am the only US citizen in my family, due to the US jus soli law (birthright citizenship). My mum is Bajan (Barbados) who is also a UK citizen. My father is Swedish and also a UK citizen. They met in London. My siblings are all London born UK citizens.

My wife's parents are both Swedish, who like my father, moved to London (separately) met there, and married. My wife is London born, and like her parents, my father, and my siblings, holds UK and Swedish citizenship. I do as well plus my US passport (accident of birth, lolol, as my mum was supposed to return to to London to give birth, but had serious complications that prevented that, plus I was born a couple months prematurely).

Hope that clears it up.

The American issues I see as threats to us that make me loathe to return arm (besides the fact my wife is vehemently against it atm) are pretty much bog standard: the violence/gun culture and then the threat to our LGBTQ rights, especially the possibility the SCOTUS reverses Obergefell v Hodges and bans gay marriage nationally.

Obviously there are racism concerns too (I am mixed race black, wifey is a white, all Swede), but racism is global (I have very little issues personally here in Stockholm though, thankfully) and we would probably end up back in Los Angeles or San Diego (adore La Jolla), never some ruby red hellscape state, nor some rural area. We are maximal city girls, lolol, other than my MIL's family sommarstuga (Swedish summer country house) we go to, it is north of Stockholm in a wonderful forested lake area.

If I had not gained US citizenship at birth, I still think I would have come there for at least one if my uni degrees, and just to see how it is to live there. I deffo would not be nearly as active on DU, especially if there was no Trump presidency ever.

Hope that answers your questions. I have always been fairly open about my background since I joined DU almost 6 years ago, and I am well aware that I am not everyone's cuppa here, but hopefully some find some value in my board contributions.

I gain insights daily on DU, but do admit it can be quite taxing as well, especially since Oct 7 and the subsequent significant bifurcation and cleavages here since. That said, I shall strive to carry on, until I deem it fit and proper to exit the DU stage or I am removed (hopefully not!).

Cheers

Cel

Thank you for taking the time to explain it all.

Sweden is a beautiful amazing country. I visited friends there several years ago. I love their relaxed and accepting culture. We did some hiking around the Stockholm archipelago and other areas where our friends live. Such a beautiful landscape. I recall while we were relaxing at the Archipelago there was a young man playing a violin. The sound was mesmerizing as we laid there looking at the scenery. It was like we were in heaven.

My friends also have a weekend home north of Stockholm. It might be more or less in the same area you mention. I do recall it being a beautiful green forested area. The moss is several inches thick on some parts of their property.

My wife and I also have spent quite a bit of time in Hong Kong. At one time we were thinking of moving there as it is one of few places in Asia that is mostly westernized and we can get by with English. My wife is from the Philippines originally and she worked in Macau for several years as an engineer involved in designing and building the casinos there. That place is also quite remarkable but I would not want to live there.

The Chinese influence in both Hong Kong and Macau is overwhelming. Its sad what has happened to both of those places.

Anyway thanks again for explaining your situation. Lets not forget we are on the same side battling the "evil empire".

Cheers!
Abe

Just because you don’t use TickTock, you need to understand that it is a FIXTURE for millions of us (of ALL ages. I’m 71. ) Somebody needs to make it pellucidly clear that this is an issue about data security, not content.

What will we do with this thing that nobody needs.

Sorry, but without the US and India markets the app is garbage. They will sell.

It won't be banned anytime soon -- if at all, if ever.

The Trump administration singlehandedly tried to ban it via an executive order back in 2020. Spoiler alert: it was not banned.

Now Congress is tackling it, and it most likely will die a similar death in our court system or be tied up long enough that a resolution is found.

I don't care much about it one way or the other, but the fact that such a large bipartisan majority of our Congress voted for this -- veto-proof majorities, I believe -- makes me think that TikTok really is as bad as it is claimed.

Oh well. TIME FOR VINE TO MAKE A COMEBACK!

...over "US led security team" that ultimately answers to the Chinese owners that employ them.

This board trends far older than the age cohorts who are rabid TikTok users, so I see so many just say 'No big deal, I do not use it anyway.'

Speaking as a 27 year old surrounded by hundreds of TikTok users (many are US citizens, I have a global social set) I can say that this is going to be a BFD, a bad one. I hope we can do a great job at damage limitation.

Gen Z is less tied to the Democratic Party than the last half or so of the Millennial cohort. I have posted on this multiple times over the years. It is a problem.

Many here would go absolutely bonkers if they engaged in a setting like DU (and one with no alert option other than illegal content) that was as dominated by the 15yo to 35yo cohort as DU is by the 45-50yo and up (a large chunk well up) cohort.

I am considered ancient at 27 by so many that I interact with outside of DU, and I am one of the youngest (that I have seen over the past almost 6 years) regular posters here.

If it were not against TOS, I could, instantly, with no looking at any search aids, jot off a list of at least 25 or so posters here who would have splodey heads if (on that hypothetical board) they started getting serious chatback from a a bunch of 18 to 22 yos, ones who those posters could not bow up on and shut down by appeals to authority (of the hypothetical board's TOS and site admins, and in all other power projections as well.

This place is extremely insulated and the rules of the road here enforce that. I chose to work within them, but I have had zero luck getting anyone to come and join and then stay. All it takes to blow them out is one student debt thread gone bad, or the typical casual youth bashing that far too often permeates here.

I have to truly laugh when some people here call late Gen Xers (Xennials) and first half or so Millennials 'kids'. Those 'kids' are mostly (or soon will be) in their 40's now, and some will hit 50 in a couple of years or so.

They believe the bullshit, which, oftentimes, they get through terrible sources of misinformation/disinformation like TikTok to begin with.

They believed the lies about Hillary -- and look at the disaster that Trump was, Roe v. Wade was killed, Biden's student loan debt cancellation planned was overturned, etc.

If they are fooled into thinking TikTok is going to be banned -- all the while they complain about it about being banned, right on up to Election Day, when it is guaranteed not to be banned by then -- and instead let a democracy-destroying wannabe authoritarian take control over our government yet again, after they watched firsthand all the terrible things that happened during his administration, then they deserve what they get (even if the rest of us don't). Oh yeah, let's not forget that Trump and his administration *actually* banned TikTok via executive order in 2020 and it was only stopped by the court system and later, the Biden administration rolling back that executive order of his.

I don't know what the answer is to the continued persistence ignorance of some youth. This isn't ancient history here -- this is less than ten years' worth of time. If they can't learn from recent history, there apparently is no teaching them. Here's hoping enough of those that know better will out-vote them in numbers to prevent them from foisting on the nation another four (or more?) years of Trump due to their stupidity.

And for a prebuttal, I don't want to hear about """gee, that's sure gonna win them over, calling them stupid!""" They've been given the facts and they choose to ignore them. Insulting others certainly isn't above them -- just look at all the ridiculous nicknames they've come up with for good Democrats -- so I don't want to hear it. Whoever called them BlueAnon hit the nail on the head.

Wrong age cohort, as my age cohort was a very small part of the 2016 electorate, and we voted in far greater numbers percentage wise for the Dems and Clinton than did older people. (I turned 20 a couple of weeks before the election, I was born very near the cusp of the Millennial Gen and Gen Z, I am a Zillennial, a micro gen from 1992/3 to 1998 or so born)

It was older Gen Xers, the Boomers and up on balance who did the real damage, and especially white people overall, with white males just off the charts Trumpy.

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls





I already addressed the Trump thing here.

As for the rest of your post, I am loathe to get into the mud, as you are just pushing quotidian anti-youth hostility.

We (younger voters) made the difference (overcame the older vote who went Rethug) in 2018, 2020, and 2022. I have posted on that extensively in the past here.

Perhaps you and others who are so quick to point the finger of blame and ridicule at us younger folk should get your age cohort house (it's bright Red, it needs a paint job) in order before hammering us.

As a black women as well, I see a lot of similarities with some who expect us PoC to be the saviours, just like some do with us young voters.

I don't expect younger people that claim to know better and espouse progressive views to disparage someone running on "the most progressive Democratic platform ever" and sit back and watch someone like Trump take office.

And if a young person voted for Hillary and Biden and other good Democrats when they were able and didn't constantly trash them, then they ain't the ones I'm referring to here.

And "my cohort" also supported Clinton, from your charts.

To reach the factually challenged youth that are willing to let Trump take control over this country again because of a fucking social media app (what happened to "healthcare plz?" What happened to the immediacy of addressing climate change?), how about this: if the Biden administration hasn't shut down their ability to use TikTok by Election Day, then they have to get off their asses and off their phones and vote for Biden and every other Democrat, up and down the ballot? How about that for a TikTok challenge?

Your hostility and 'othering' linguistic constructs towards younger voters, us Millennials and Gen Zers, doesn't face up like a Millennial (or the very end stage of Gen X, but I see now from search that you are a Millennial) as that is what you would be if you were 39yo or younger in 2016.

It threw me off.

I guess you just dislike your fellow Millennial cohorters as well as Gen Z. Or maybe you chop up the Millennial Gen and only dislike the last half or third.

Also, only the first 22 months born of Gen Z could even vote in 2016, a tiny sliver, so your blaming younger voters for 2016 means you were blaming Millennials for the most part.

I just do not get the dislike you (and more than a fair share of others here) seem to have for us.

This is (with some wonderful exceptions, I have met many extraordinary older folk here) not a very youth friendly board on far too many occasions.

I feel like I am carrying the weight of people my age or younger here on my back alone, or damn near, here at times.

That said, I am not even really a youth anymore, I turn 28 right before the election, and I deffo feel a slight but growing cultural gap with an 18yos or younger now, but certainly no ill will.

What are you on about? Gen Z weren't even old enough to vote in that election.

Meanwhile, the majority of old voters supported Trump in that election.

Furthermore, it wasn't just eligible voters that were shitting on Hillary back then, so I'm not sure it even matters when the ultimate issue is believing -- and oftentimes, repeating and amplifying -- lies about Hillary.

And, once again, I expect conservative Republicans brainwashed by Fox News to support Trump.

I do not expect young voters who claim to be progressives and claim to espouse progressive ideals and principles to act in ways that support Trump.

I have Zoomer kids and DU has almost zero clue how bad this is. Nancy Pelosi is making a huge mistake supporting this. My kids are left leaning but as you stated, not beholden to the Democratic party. I am already spending energy to steer my kids away from Kennedy.

Us older Democrats are sticking our heads in the sand if we do not believe this ban proposal has the potential to offset gains made due to the overturning of Roe v Wade. This is a BIG issue with younger potential voters.

There is also the fact that this is another bullshit "think of the children" scam. Not one of them is upset that China has the data and control, these bastards are angry that China has this data, and they do not. This is so that American oligarchs like Peter Thiel can gain control and add the scraped data to companies like Palantir.

They don't want us being influenced by China, they want to be the ones influencing us.

I'm very disappointed in Pelosi and other supporters of this. This does us zero good. It can only harm us in the next election.

why do they need to be steered from Kennedy? Where do they get their info? How can they not know how terrible he is?

I pointed them (mostly the younger) to better information on what an idiot he really is.

Anti vax
Abortion stance and who he associates with.

I pointed them (mostly the younger) to better information on what an idiot he really is.

Anti vax
Abortion stance and who he associates with.

My daughter approached me asking about him

Her friends view him as an anti old white establishment male, despite him being an old white male from an establishment family. I know I don't get either.

Banning TikTok is the same as throwing away the youth vote. It could very easily swing the election. This is a huge mistake.

Democrats absolutely need the youth vote.

in their opinions and observations about the big questions of the day..

I am often stunned and disgusted by the ignorant, smug "kids have no attention span" and "they're doing it for attention and sex" and "I'd just cut off their money" bullshit that I often see around here. Even when I disagree with my young relatives, there is no place in the discussion for that kind of ridiculous disrespectful dismissal.

Hold onto your hats, fellow geezers, because we're in the twilight. These "kids" are the ones who will be running things now. So you might as well take them seriously.

I guess you do calcify as you get older. We see it here in that ill-informed closed-mindedness toward those younger generations.

And PS: Of all the problems we are facing right now, tiktok isn't at the top of the list.

Glad your voice is here!

Which is sort of the ultimate point here.

I'd point out the numerous times in history that this thinking has been proven wrong -- especially when the alternative is outright fascism (read up on Ernst Thälmann) -- but if they can't even learn from what happened less than a decade ago in 2016, odds are they won't give a damn about those other instances either.

I am in my 50s and I am shocked by how out of touch many posters on this board seem to be about the negative effects a TikTok ban will have on the Democratic party.

It's happened with this and a few other issues and it reminds me of that kind of mid-space I've always been in as a gen-x person. I lean far more toward the youth because my work keeps me involved with them and watching the reactions here and in other older left-leaning spaces just shows how out of touch a lot of people are because it's not something that they personally use.

And, no, sorry, TikTok does not matter compared against our democracy, a woman's right to choose, voting rights, civil rights, climate change, etc.

This is the same ignorant short-sightedness that led *just enough* to turn against Hillary in 2016, which saddled them -- and, unfortunately, the rest of us -- with the worst president in our country's history and a Republican-hijacked Supreme Court that will happily shoot down any progress they try to make over the next decade+.

It's cutting off your nose to spite your face and it's the complete antithesis of progressivism.

Not going to hold up in court. Also, not going to be an issue this Fall as they're not even going to try to ban it until next year. Tyhey might try to ban TikTok next year isn't exactly going to move people.

I happen to see a Tweet by Rep Ritchie Torres he thinks Tik tok should be banned.

What info does he have that makes it so necessary for those who want it banned?

TY

To their government upon request.

to help the Chinese Spy on the World?

Wonder why Canada and the UK are ok with it?

They, along with a number of other countries, have already banned TikTok from governmental devices and similar measures to what has been passed in the United States have been moving through their own channels in other countries.

is now expanding!

information - all YOUR information - and then used psy ops on reams of voters to manipulate the vote in 2016.

I don't see tik tok doing anything close to that.

And I also don't see any talk of banning Facebook. Funny, that.

President Biden is a master politician. Those who underestimate him have paid the price.

China may say that they are not going to approve selling TikTok, but the President can say, they will change their tune after the election. And one thing people know (for sure) is that politicians, Chinese or otherwise, say very different thingsbefore an election than afterwards when the dust has settled.

Trump actually tried to ban TikTok in 45 days. TikTokers are not stupid. He can run on it, but it will get him nowhere. IMHO.

many posts around here that say otherwise.

Too many posts before Joe Biden has had a word to say? Yeah, right.

I believe banning TikTok is madness, but when it comes to heading off Trump, I'm riding with Biden.

a Done Deal?

I'm sure there will be court cases etc.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/04/23/congress-passes-tiktok-ban-biden-china/73424172007/

But this is about control.

They want control of the algorithms and data. Simple as that.

Correct.

A Federal ‘ban’ will make it illegal for app stores to allow downloads, a clear First Amendment violation.

Indeed, three Federal district courts have blocked bans at the state level.

More than that, both Apple's App Store and Google play can remotely disable apps on users connected phones.

So funny how we want ther votes, but still don't want anything else to do with them/

amassing the personal data of millions of Americans.
Do you really think Silicon Valley can't come up with a video sharing app?

Like the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Or Google.

a mistake as old as time.

Its just that one would expect the youth to be keenly aware of the bleak future they will have if Trump wins this election. Losing a social media app will be the least of their worries.

I think it will take a few years before it gets banned.. It will go into the Supreme Court under a 1st amendment right violation, and I just don't know if Congress will have enough proof to have it banned. I mean they are going to need 100% proof of what they are saying is happening.


There was a good video put together by a Federal Attorney on this yesterday which he explained about not getting upset about it being banned.

A lot of people have secondary incomes on these sites..

By that time a lot can happen, but no doubt the Dems need to get in front of this. It is the type of thing that can turn Gen Z against us, especially since the biggest Gen Z organization is against this ban.

Congress absolutely has the right to prohibit foreign ownership of companies under the Commerce Clause. It's one of the most fundamental parts of the Constitution and we've restricted, prohibited, or taxed foreign products or investment for our entire history.

We've explicit restricted or prohibited foreign government, hostile or otherwise, and nationals from owning media companies and assets in America for a hundred years.

We do not ban foreign ownership of anything in the US. Foreign entities own over 40 million acres of US land.

This ban is EXTREMELY unusual. Republicans only back this because they know the youth vote swung the last two elections to Dems and the youth have been organizing on TikTok. Any Dems backing this have been bamboozled and it will backfire in their faces.
Just ask Jeff Jackson from NC.

And Australia is one of our closest allies, not even a hostile foreign power like China, and he still was prohibited from controlling ownership of TV stations.

"Section 310(b)(3) prohibits foreign individuals, governments, and corporations from owning more than twenty percent of the capital stock of a broadcast, common carrier, or aeronautical radio station licensee. "

Guess how much of TikTok China owns. 20%. And that is assuming a social media app even falls under these rules.

Like, it's obvious you just googled what I was talking about and landed on the applicable law.

So,
1) You admit you were wrong about Murdoch.
2) You admit that Congress has the power to regulate or prohibit foreign ownership

-> Thank you for agreeing with me that foreign governments have no Constitutional right to own a media company in America and for further agreeing that we have restricted foreign governments and nationals from ownership of media companies for a hundred years.

I'm starting to wonder what you actually disagree with me about. Maybe you just like a hostile foreign power controlling US media. *shrug*.

I do not agree with you, because you are wrong on key points.
China only owns 20%, which is allowable under US law.

You're the one responding to me with demonstrably false and misleading claims. Now you're saying I'm hostile, as if I'm just supposed to let your lies stand? Are you going to say they're not lies and you're merely misinformed? Yet you haven't actually acknowledged that you've made false and misleading claims so what am I to believe?

Again you bring up the Communications Act of 1934 as if the text of it applies in this case.

The Act does not regulate tik tok because tik tok is not a common carrier. (I'm sure you'll now google that and come back with another handful of poorly researched talking points.)

However the Act does show that Congress has the power to regulate the ownership of media companies in America. It's just one of thousands of applications of the Commerce Clause in American history to regulate foreign commerce.

The bill that just passed Congress is a NEW LAW that prohibits adversarial foreign governments from a controlling ownership of certain types of social media companies in America. If you want to say that some old law is not applicable, that's irrelevant. If you want to say that China doesn't actually have a controlling ownership of tik tok then Good News!, if you're right then tik tok is not subject to the new law and won't have to change in any way.

Australia?

Jeezus, man.

So......everyone born within a certain set of dates all think the same? "Gen Z" thinks this, "Gen X" thinks that, and "Boomers"? Do Boomers ever get credit for anything? Or just all the blame and derision.

So "young" people are willing to sacrifice not only their own bodily autonomy, but every generation that follows them? Totally cool with miscarrying women (by definition, their own generation) dying in gutters outside medical facilities because it's against the law for doctors to treat them? Or being thrown into prison for "allowing" themselves to miscarry? They okay with that? If they don't care about themselves, how about their daughters, granddaughters, sisters, friends, etc.

I'm getting a bit sick of this perpetual "informed young voters" attempted extortion: "If Democrats don't fix the climate crisis RIGHT NOW, I'm voting for someone who will destroy the world even faster! Ha ha!"

Then: "If President Biden doesn't end the war in Gaza RIGHT NOW, I'm voting for the guy whose own family members want nothing to do with him, and who have all publicly endorsed President Biden! That'll show him!"

Now: "If Democrats ban Tik Tok, I'm voting for the criminal traitor who wants to destroy my life, control my decisions, crown himself dictator, sell out the US to the highest bidding oligarch, shits all over everyone and will kill everyone who dares disagree or makes fun of him, deport everyone who isn't blond and blue eyed, OR maybe I just won't vote at all, OR maybe I'll write in Mickey Mouse! Screw future generations, because there won't be any! But I'm sure King Asshole will let me keep my precious app!"

Also. As a Democrat posting on a Democratic discussion board, I don't like the implication that Democrats are "letting democracy die," because Gen Z, or Millennials, or whatever label one chooses, wants what they want or else. Our elected Dems have been working their butts off fighting the MAGAt assholes who do NOTHING but destroy and obstruct (and then of course take credit for Dems' hard work) and continually waste time and taxpayer money putting on stupid puppet shows and porn peepshows on the House floor.

How "informed" is anyone who doesn't know that???

Heck, maybe we could go all out and arrest TikTok users.

The obvious solution to this problem is strict privacy laws that apply to ALL internet social media companies.

Just as obviously that's the last thing our most vile home-grown internet companies want. So we end up with this absurd political theater.

Disclaimer: I'm largely commenting from the sidelines. DU is my only "social media" and I don't even have a smart phone.
.

If the current owners are OK with that decreased value, then so be it. That’s part of capitalism, which Americans allegedly support - free will of the business owner to operate at a lower profit margin. However, if the business wishes to maximize their current value, selling the company to a different owner seems like the best decision (take the money and run).

To dump Tik Tok for months, among them Steve Scalise and Leonard Leo.,
Just makes me want to support it more.

If this were decades ago and it had been the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Add to that, repeated concerns for YEARS over this app.

Add to that that China has continued to steal IP, involve and engage in practices against this country.

FUCK them. FUCK them. It pisses me off that it was ever allowed here.

I use a VPN for all my internet traffic

Thank you.

How to change App Store country in 2024
https://vpnpro.com/guides-and-tutorials/change-apple-app-store-country/

FBI and DOJ can’t spell out in specific terms why they are wanting to ban TikTok, and I mean very specific reasons. Maybe if they would, more people would understand their problem with TikTok.

active users in 2023 and is expected to reach 1.8 billion by the end of 2024.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/

....and bytedance is some kind of front company?

If that's the case, then the U.S. is right to be wary of it.

If it isn't, why would the government care if it's sold?

Last edited Thu Apr 25, 2024, 07:36 AM - Edit history (1)

My main concern is the timing of this all. The new law doesn't stop TikTok before the 2024 elections (if one is worried about Facebook style manipulation), AND it also puts Biden's face on the potential ban in a front and centre position BEFORE the elections.

It's a lose-lose.

Being tied to unpopular government actions or outcomes can cause blow back:

A long-forgotten thing that happened right before the 2016 elections (overshadowed of course by the Comey bullshit on October 28, 2016) is that you could see a drop off already across the board in Clinton's polling when the new, and in many cases very substantively-raised/increased Obamacare premium rates were issued right before the damn election. They were leaked on Friday, October 21, 2016 (and officially came out on Monday, October 24, with the RW press and TBF, much of the MSM going wild over the size of the increases), which was a week before the Comey ratfucking and you could already see negative movement in the daily polls, cutting against Clinton for the first time in multiple ones. A bit maddening that the Obama administration changed the open enrollment dates (and thus the release date of those premium increases) so that the increases were released right before the 2016 election. They used to come out around early September, prior to the 2014 open enrollment date for the 2015 effective rate year (as open enrollment before then started Oct 1, not November 1 like it did in 2016, or Nov 15, like it has before, see below). That would have given it time to settle in and not end up being an 'October surprise'. They also could have (even better!) released the increases after the 2016 election, as unlike other times the open enrollment that year was a whopping 3 months, from Nov 1 all the way to Jan 31, 2017. You had open enrollment for 2 months, from Nov 15 to Jan 15 recently. They could have had 2 (or even 2 and half) full months of open enrollment back in 2016/2017 and had a post election release date for the new rates.

I was living in the US at that time, and I so remember my father (investment banker in the City of London who did M&A work globally in the healthcare sector at that time, so he was and is well sussed) saying on a Skype video call with my wife and I that those rate increases would move the dial against Clinton.

now, all that said............


As for user data, China already buys user data on US citizens via data brokers, and TikTok actually captures less data than many American social media firms like FaceBook (Meta).

ByteDance is a privately held firm, but China can veto its sale.

The algorithms are the real crux of the biscuit.

Here is a cut from a March NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/13/us/politics/tiktok-ban-house-bill.html

snip

Those algorithms, which guide how TikTok watches its users and feeds them more of what they want, are the magic sauce of an app that 170 million Americans now have on their phones. That’s half the country. But TikTok doesn’t own those algorithms; they are developed by engineers who work for its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, which assembles the code in great secrecy in its software labs, in Beijing, Singapore and Mountain View, Calif. But China has issued regulations that appear designed to require government review before any of ByteDance’s algorithms could be licensed to outsiders. Few expect those licenses to be issued — meaning that selling TikTok to an American owner without the underlying code might be like selling a Ferrari without its famed engine.

The bill would require a new, Western-owned TikTok to be cut off from any “operational relationship” with ByteDance, “including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm.” So the new, American-based company would have to develop its own, made-in-America algorithm. Maybe that would work, or maybe it would flop. But a version of TikTok without its classic algorithm might quickly become useless to users and worthless to investors. And right now, China has no incentive to relent. The House vote “was a nice symbolic gesture,” James A. Lewis, who leads the cyber research program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Wednesday. “But the Chinese get a vote, too.”

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But officials know they cannot wrest it from ordinary users — which is why the threat of banning TikTok, especially in an election year, is faintly ridiculous. In a fit of remarkable candor, Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, told Bloomberg last year that if any democracy thinks it can outright ban the app, “the politician in me thinks you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35, forever.” The House bill passed on Wednesday holds open the threat of such a ban. But that is probably not its real intent. Rather, it seeks to give the United States leverage to force a sale. And for two years now, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a secretive body that reviews corporate deals that could jeopardize national security, has quietly been trying to work out an arrangement that would avert a true showdown. So far it has failed — one reason that the bill passed.

In the course of those negotiations, TikTok has proposed to continue U.S. operations — while still fully owned by ByteDance — and have its algorithm inspected and dissected in the United States. It is part of a broader plan TikTok calls Project Texas. Under Project Texas, all U.S.-origin user data from TikTok would be stored on domestic servers operated by Oracle, the cloud computing company. To build confidence in the independence of its algorithm, TikTok has also proposed that Oracle and a third party will review its source code to make sure it has not been manipulated. TikTok says much of this plan is already being implemented. But government officials insist that it is hard to know how such inspections would actually work — even for the most experienced experts, reviewing minor changes in code, at high speed, is a complicated proposition. Biden administration officials say it is not like inspecting agricultural goods or counting weapons under an arms treaty. Very subtle changes could alter the news that is delivered, whether it was about a presidential election or Chinese action against Taiwan.

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...you make very good points with information that I haven't seen or considered.

Taking all of this insight into consideration, it leaves me wondering why the U.S. is doing this? There seems to be a lot at stake that is being played with unless there is some valid reason.

My initial reaction is that perhaps there is more to the security threat than is being made public, but that doesn't jive with the longterm roll-out dictated by the bill's enforcement schedule. Now I'm wondering if this one action against this one company is part of a larger scheme the U.S. is working on, or if this just happens to be one of the game pieces being played by the U.S. in our (seemingly) eternal negotitations with China.

In any case, I have a very strong suspicion that we (the public) just don't have all the info we need to paint an accurate picture of this scene, and that in itself bothers me.

If it truly was a clear and present danger, an truly imminent existential threat, then ban it now. Letting it roll on for a possible year more shows that it is not considered that, and yet Biden will likely be blamed, as he signed the bill and Trump has flipped (quelle surprise) his previous position to now being against a ban.

I am all about the pragmatic when it comes to electoral risk reduction at this point.

At all the people who think President Biden isn't or shouldn't do what he thinks is right. Obviously they don't understand who he really is.