I don't feel like the argument on constitutional grounds applies here. The past decision they cite has to do with banning propaganda, i.e., speech. I don't think the resolution in question runs...
I don't feel like the argument on constitutional grounds applies here. The past decision they cite has to do with banning propaganda, i.e., speech. I don't think the resolution in question runs afoul of that because it doesn't describe content or ban specific speech.
If anything I'm leery of a slippery slope conceptually with the bill, I e., normalize banning platforms, but find many of the arguments against it flawed. TikTok is leaking data to Chinese platforms that is not available from data brokers. So arguments about passing real privacy laws are beside the point. And the bill isn't banning content, but narrowly targeting apps operated by adversarial states, which have specific definitions.
This isn't a consumer privacy bill. This is a bill to stymie efforts to collect data from the US by its adversaries. So arguments about how we should pass real privacy bills miss the point. And arguments about censorship seem completely unfounded to me from a plain reading of the bill.
This is highlighted in the article. While it's true that Facebook or Twitter don't collect as much personal data as Tiktok, data brokers do. There's no data that Tiktok collects that can't be...
This isn't a consumer privacy bill. This is a bill to stymie efforts to collect data from the US by its adversaries.
This is highlighted in the article. While it's true that Facebook or Twitter don't collect as much personal data as Tiktok, data brokers do. There's no data that Tiktok collects that can't be bought by anyone from any number of data brokers.
So if it's not about the data, then that leaves speech.
I don't know this to be true. The data that I think is most concerning isn't just what it picks up via telemetry, but the data provided through the normal operation of the service, such as...
There's no data that Tiktok collects that can't be bought by anyone from any number of data brokers.
I don't know this to be true. The data that I think is most concerning isn't just what it picks up via telemetry, but the data provided through the normal operation of the service, such as pictures of government ID for identity verifications, copies of reported CSAM, associated identities, etc, which is then leaked to Chinese platforms through porous and poorly run corporate tools.
In August 2021, TikTok received a complaint from a British user, who flagged that a man had been “exposing himself and playing with himself” on a livestream she hosted on the video app. She also described past abuse she had experienced.
To address the complaint, TikTok employees shared the incident on an internal messaging and collaboration tool called Lark, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. The British woman’s personal data — including her photo, country of residence, internet protocol address, device and user IDs — were also posted on the platform, which is similar to Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Her information was just one piece of TikTok user data shared on Lark, which is used every day by thousands of employees of the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, including by those in China. According to the documents obtained by The Times, the driver’s licenses of American users were also accessible on the platform, as were some users’ potentially illegal content, such as child sexual abuse materials. In many cases, the information was available in Lark “groups” — essentially chat rooms of employees — with thousands of members.
I don't have any special knowledge here, but I've read a number of investigative pieces that paint a portrait of a service without appropriate separations of their regional and regulatory operations. Not to mention the horrific lack of internal controls on this sensitive PII.
I also am somewhat swayed by the prior banning of any use of TikTok by certain federal agencies. These are agencies that have external affairs offices, etc, who use Facebook and social media, etc. and they are saying something about TikTok is too dangerous for their folks who communicate public data to have on their government furnished equipment.
Edit: additionally, I also disagree with the argument that if it isn't data, then it is speech. It could be domestic industry protectionism, it could be performative to show a token crackdown on tech companies in an election year, and it could be the typical moral panic like claims of satanic rituals when songs were played backwards. So there are lots of reasons that it could be other than data or speech.
But to be clear, I think the bill is as advertised. I think they really do have concerns about China and other adversarial states gaining through the data collection of widely installed apps.
China is on track to massively expand its nuclear arsenal, just as Russia suspends the last major arms control treaty. It augurs a new world in which Beijing, Moscow and Washington will likely be atomic peers. Archive link
There are also articles of the US building up its operations in Guam and other Pacific locations with a goal of getting aggression from China.
So it doesn't seem far fetched to me that the government is forcing the sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, or banning it, given the view of the government that war with China is possible and to be prepared for.
But also, her first paragraph is important as well. To date no one has shown an actual evidence of TikTok being dangerous. Instead, all that people will tell me is that there was some sort of classified briefing about it. From Rep. Jacobs’ statement we see that she was able to see that classified intel, and did not find it convincing at all.
Define dangerous. Driver’s Licenses, Addresses, Photos: Inside How TikTok Shares User Data The more serious parts of the government have been concerned about the telemetry picked up by the tiktok...
In August 2021, TikTok received a complaint from a British user, who flagged that a man had been “exposing himself and playing with himself” on a livestream she hosted on the video app. She also described past abuse she had experienced.
To address the complaint, TikTok employees shared the incident on an internal messaging and collaboration tool called Lark, according to company documents obtained by The New York Times. The British woman’s personal data — including her photo, country of residence, internet protocol address, device and user IDs — were also posted on the platform, which is similar to Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Her information was just one piece of TikTok user data shared on Lark, which is used every day by thousands of employees of the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, including by those in China. According to the documents obtained by The Times, the driver’s licenses of American users were also accessible on the platform, as were some users’ potentially illegal content, such as child sexual abuse materials. In many cases, the information was available in Lark “groups” — essentially chat rooms of employees — with thousands of members.
The more serious parts of the government have been concerned about the telemetry picked up by the tiktok app and web service for a while These regulations are usually much less performative than congressional acts, and have nothing to do with suppressing generational or domestic content.
This is trivially false. Moderation is speech: https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 Banning an application because you don’t like their moderation (or their potential to promote viewpoints) is...
I don't think the resolution in question runs afoul of that because it doesn't describe content or ban specific speech
This is trivially false. Moderation is speech:
Section 230 allows for web operators, large and small, to moderate user speech and content as they see fit. This reinforces the First Amendment’s protections for publishers to decide what content they will distribute. Different approaches to moderating users’ speech allows users to find the places online that they like, and avoid places they don’t.
Banning an application because you don’t like their moderation (or their potential to promote viewpoints) is effectively suppressing their speech, even if it’s the CCP’s viewpoint.
I don't see how the text of the house resolution acts as moderation. Can you paste the text from the resolution that you feel qualifies as moderation? The resolution. It then goes on to provide...
I don't see how the text of the house resolution acts as moderation. Can you paste the text from the resolution that you feel qualifies as moderation?
PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following
It then goes on to provide some technical definitions of the things prohibited, like apps and source code.
Ah, ok. Then clearly ByteDance is allowed to convert TikTok to a progressive web app and not be in violation of the law then? It’s not going through an App Store then! Russia Today can continue to...
Ah, ok. Then clearly ByteDance is allowed to convert TikTok to a progressive web app and not be in violation of the law then? It’s not going through an App Store then!
Russia Today can continue to do propaganda dressed up as “””journalism””” as long as the want, but lord help them if they decide to create an app?
When people are trying to ban speech, they don’t fucking put “we are banning the speech of person or entity X” in the bill.
Instead they ban books discussing LGBTQ/race by saying:
The policy must include procedures to develop, periodically review, and evaluate feedback regarding
the library collection to ensure the collection is appropriate for the age and maturity levels of the
students who may access the materials, and suitable for, and consistent with, the educational mission
of the school
I don't know that I follow your argument, or see how it addresses my question regarding moderation or free speech. You said I was trivially incorrect in saying that I was unsure that the bill...
I don't know that I follow your argument, or see how it addresses my question regarding moderation or free speech. You said I was trivially incorrect in saying that I was unsure that the bill would run afoul of the first amendment due to prior moderation rulings, and I asked you which part of the resolution you felt would constitute moderation.
I understand that the courts can rule that the effective outcome of a law amounts to a limitation of speech. If that is your argument, then I would ask the same question.
Why does limiting ownership from adversarial states amount to effective limits on speech given the many other options and platforms?
Speech can be limited in certain circumstances subject to public interest constraints. Even if a court didn't find question 1 convincing, why wouldn't limiting activities of adversarial states meet the public interest threshold to limit speech?
Additionally, as I pointed out in my other comments, I don't think the intent is laughably false. The government has been allocating substantial resources to prepare for a conflict with China.
Edit: regarding arguments around the efficacy of the bill if workarounds like progressive web apps exist, I don't know what that has to do with my original comment in response to the article, which is that I don't think the constitutionality argument holds.
I believe that what matters to the lawmakers is that TikTok is an app on the phones of the general american public. I am confident that if a company headquartered in the PRC or Russia or North...
I believe that what matters to the lawmakers is that TikTok is an app on the phones of the general american public. I am confident that if a company headquartered in the PRC or Russia or North Korea owned a maps app or a payment app or even a delivery app that was as popular, that there would also be pressure to forbid that ownership. Apps can siphon data from phones. If Tiktok were simply a website accessible through a browser there would me much less of an issue.
Personally I'm not happy with US or European companies collecting the data available through apps either, any apps, not just TikTok, but concerns about espionage are not new this decade.
Howso? Websites can siphon just as much data. The reality is if they don't want the security risks of apps siphoning data, they'd have better odds regulating security standards for devices that...
Howso? Websites can siphon just as much data.
The reality is if they don't want the security risks of apps siphoning data, they'd have better odds regulating security standards for devices that government employees can use.
The US government has the power to fix the smartphone market with one blanket statement: 'In order to maintain a top secret security clearance, holders may only use computers and applications where telemetry data must be opted-in without a prompt, must not affect functionality when disabled, and the opt-in is only good for 1 month.'
That'll yank a big slice of the pie to somebody able to ship that inside of 2 years.
To be a bit pedantic here, they can siphon a lot, but probably not as much? I'd have to really go down the rabbit hole on specifics since it's been a long time since any of that was directly...
Websites can siphon just as much data.
To be a bit pedantic here, they can siphon a lot, but probably not as much? I'd have to really go down the rabbit hole on specifics since it's been a long time since any of that was directly relevant to me, but things like previous locations and contacts come to mind as the main example of being, at the very least, much harder to scrape from a webapp being accessed on a phone as opposed to a phone app.
Granted again, that's ALSO something that should be dealt with
If anyone is an app or web developer feel free to correct me but depending on what permissions the app has, there is a lot of stuff available via the Android/iOS SDKs that I can't imagine are...
If anyone is an app or web developer feel free to correct me but depending on what permissions the app has, there is a lot of stuff available via the Android/iOS SDKs that I can't imagine are available in a browser engine. Things like performing Bluetooth and wireless scans, access to the NMEA GPS messages etc.
Not a developer but I deal with cross-platform data privacy and apps certainly have more access to device data than a website accessed via a browser does. Even if the sandboxed apps and...
Not a developer but I deal with cross-platform data privacy and apps certainly have more access to device data than a website accessed via a browser does.
Even if the sandboxed apps and consent-managed APIs limit what’s accessible to an app developer, there’s always a risk of a zero-day exploit that Apple/Google are unaware of. Given that state-level actors are the main driver behind this legislation, this seems a reasonable concern.
While browsers can usually collect most of the same data points as an app, they’re far less prone to the harvesting of intelligence data of interest to nation state actors like China. In addition...
While browsers can usually collect most of the same data points as an app, they’re far less prone to the harvesting of intelligence data of interest to nation state actors like China. In addition to modern browsers’ deny-by-default restriction of sensitive APIs, websites are also more privacy-friendly because the code is running in a user-controlled VM, as opposed to an obfuscated binary on a locked-down OS that intentionally impedes access to debugging/auditing/inspection tools.
In the case of TikTok, there’s no comparison: China has been running campaign to break into critical US infrastructure for over a decade. Keep in mind they’re responsible for the biggest breach of classified US intel to date in the form of the OPM breach. The juicy stuff that’s good for identifying military sites, high-value infrastructure targets, and candidates for HUMINT is all far, far easier to get via mobile app: think bluetooth/wifi scanning, contacts info, camera fingerprinting. Geolocation is way more precise too, thanks to better hardware for it on phones.
Acutally yes, it goes a good bit more into depth. It highlights how measures like this in the past have been ruled unconstitutional...it's not just hyperbolic clickbait title. And I appreciate the...
Acutally yes, it goes a good bit more into depth. It highlights how measures like this in the past have been ruled unconstitutional...it's not just hyperbolic clickbait title. And I appreciate the quote from San Diego rep Sara Jacobs:
As a member of both the House Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs Committees, I am keenly aware of the threat that PRC information operations can pose, especially as they relate to our elections. However, after reviewing the intelligence, I do not believe that this bill is the answer to those threats. Banning TikTok won’t protect Americans from targeted misinformation or misuse of their personal data, which American data brokers routinely sell and share. This is a blunt instrument for serious concerns, and if enacted, would mark a huge expansion of government power to ban apps in the future. Instead, we need comprehensive data privacy legislation, alongside thoughtful guardrails for social media platforms – whether those platforms are funded by companies in the PRC, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or the United States.
Taking this unprecedented step also undermines our reputation around the world. We can’t credibly hold other countries to one set of democratic values while giving ourselves a free pass to restrict freedom of speech. The United States has rightly criticized others for censorship and banning specific social media platforms in the past. Doing so ourselves now would tarnish our credibility when it matters most and trample on the civil liberties of 150 million Americans – a vast majority of whom are young Americans – who use TikTok for their livelihoods, news, communication, and entertainment. Ultimately, all Americans should have the freedom to decide for themselves how and where to express themselves and what information they want to consume.”
I don't feel like the argument on constitutional grounds applies here. The past decision they cite has to do with banning propaganda, i.e., speech. I don't think the resolution in question runs afoul of that because it doesn't describe content or ban specific speech.
If anything I'm leery of a slippery slope conceptually with the bill, I e., normalize banning platforms, but find many of the arguments against it flawed. TikTok is leaking data to Chinese platforms that is not available from data brokers. So arguments about passing real privacy laws are beside the point. And the bill isn't banning content, but narrowly targeting apps operated by adversarial states, which have specific definitions.
This isn't a consumer privacy bill. This is a bill to stymie efforts to collect data from the US by its adversaries. So arguments about how we should pass real privacy bills miss the point. And arguments about censorship seem completely unfounded to me from a plain reading of the bill.
This is highlighted in the article. While it's true that Facebook or Twitter don't collect as much personal data as Tiktok, data brokers do. There's no data that Tiktok collects that can't be bought by anyone from any number of data brokers.
So if it's not about the data, then that leaves speech.
I don't know this to be true. The data that I think is most concerning isn't just what it picks up via telemetry, but the data provided through the normal operation of the service, such as pictures of government ID for identity verifications, copies of reported CSAM, associated identities, etc, which is then leaked to Chinese platforms through porous and poorly run corporate tools.
Driver’s Licenses, Addresses, Photos: Inside How TikTok Shares User Data
I don't have any special knowledge here, but I've read a number of investigative pieces that paint a portrait of a service without appropriate separations of their regional and regulatory operations. Not to mention the horrific lack of internal controls on this sensitive PII.
I also am somewhat swayed by the prior banning of any use of TikTok by certain federal agencies. These are agencies that have external affairs offices, etc, who use Facebook and social media, etc. and they are saying something about TikTok is too dangerous for their folks who communicate public data to have on their government furnished equipment.
Edit: additionally, I also disagree with the argument that if it isn't data, then it is speech. It could be domestic industry protectionism, it could be performative to show a token crackdown on tech companies in an election year, and it could be the typical moral panic like claims of satanic rituals when songs were played backwards. So there are lots of reasons that it could be other than data or speech.
But to be clear, I think the bill is as advertised. I think they really do have concerns about China and other adversarial states gaining through the data collection of widely installed apps.
Let's take a look at a sampling of headlines:
U.S. Military Returns to the Jungle, Training for a Very Different Threat
3 Nuclear Superpowers, Rather Than 2, Usher In a New Strategic Era
Pentagon Vows to Move Quickly to Buy More Drones, Citing China Threat
Archive link
There are also articles of the US building up its operations in Guam and other Pacific locations with a goal of getting aggression from China.
So it doesn't seem far fetched to me that the government is forcing the sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, or banning it, given the view of the government that war with China is possible and to be prepared for.
Edit: grammar.
Define dangerous.
Driver’s Licenses, Addresses, Photos: Inside How TikTok Shares User Data
The more serious parts of the government have been concerned about the telemetry picked up by the tiktok app and web service for a while These regulations are usually much less performative than congressional acts, and have nothing to do with suppressing generational or domestic content.
Edit: and here is the text of the bill. It doesn't describe content.
This is trivially false. Moderation is speech:
https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
Banning an application because you don’t like their moderation (or their potential to promote viewpoints) is effectively suppressing their speech, even if it’s the CCP’s viewpoint.
I don't see how the text of the house resolution acts as moderation. Can you paste the text from the resolution that you feel qualifies as moderation?
The resolution.
It then goes on to provide some technical definitions of the things prohibited, like apps and source code.
Ah, ok. Then clearly ByteDance is allowed to convert TikTok to a progressive web app and not be in violation of the law then? It’s not going through an App Store then!
Russia Today can continue to do propaganda dressed up as “””journalism””” as long as the want, but lord help them if they decide to create an app?
When people are trying to ban speech, they don’t fucking put “we are banning the speech of person or entity X” in the bill.
Instead they ban books discussing LGBTQ/race by saying:
https://casetext.com/statute/tennessee-code/title-49-education/chapter-6-elementary-and-secondary-education/part-38-age-appropriate-materials-act-of-2022/section-49-6-3803-materials-review-removal
And making it a criminal offense for school employees found providing “obscene materials harmful for children”
What matters is the effect of the bill, not the laughably false stated intent.
I don't know that I follow your argument, or see how it addresses my question regarding moderation or free speech. You said I was trivially incorrect in saying that I was unsure that the bill would run afoul of the first amendment due to prior moderation rulings, and I asked you which part of the resolution you felt would constitute moderation.
I understand that the courts can rule that the effective outcome of a law amounts to a limitation of speech. If that is your argument, then I would ask the same question.
Why does limiting ownership from adversarial states amount to effective limits on speech given the many other options and platforms?
Speech can be limited in certain circumstances subject to public interest constraints. Even if a court didn't find question 1 convincing, why wouldn't limiting activities of adversarial states meet the public interest threshold to limit speech?
Additionally, as I pointed out in my other comments, I don't think the intent is laughably false. The government has been allocating substantial resources to prepare for a conflict with China.
Edit: regarding arguments around the efficacy of the bill if workarounds like progressive web apps exist, I don't know what that has to do with my original comment in response to the article, which is that I don't think the constitutionality argument holds.
I believe that what matters to the lawmakers is that TikTok is an app on the phones of the general american public. I am confident that if a company headquartered in the PRC or Russia or North Korea owned a maps app or a payment app or even a delivery app that was as popular, that there would also be pressure to forbid that ownership. Apps can siphon data from phones. If Tiktok were simply a website accessible through a browser there would me much less of an issue.
Personally I'm not happy with US or European companies collecting the data available through apps either, any apps, not just TikTok, but concerns about espionage are not new this decade.
Howso? Websites can siphon just as much data.
The reality is if they don't want the security risks of apps siphoning data, they'd have better odds regulating security standards for devices that government employees can use.
The US government has the power to fix the smartphone market with one blanket statement: 'In order to maintain a top secret security clearance, holders may only use computers and applications where telemetry data must be opted-in without a prompt, must not affect functionality when disabled, and the opt-in is only good for 1 month.'
That'll yank a big slice of the pie to somebody able to ship that inside of 2 years.
To be a bit pedantic here, they can siphon a lot, but probably not as much? I'd have to really go down the rabbit hole on specifics since it's been a long time since any of that was directly relevant to me, but things like previous locations and contacts come to mind as the main example of being, at the very least, much harder to scrape from a webapp being accessed on a phone as opposed to a phone app.
Granted again, that's ALSO something that should be dealt with
Say more please?
Edit, I don't carry my computer with me everywhere I go so my location isn't available to a website for example
It is if you use the browser on your phone though. It's not like 'not having an app' stopped something from being usable on a phone.
If anyone is an app or web developer feel free to correct me but depending on what permissions the app has, there is a lot of stuff available via the Android/iOS SDKs that I can't imagine are available in a browser engine. Things like performing Bluetooth and wireless scans, access to the NMEA GPS messages etc.
Not a developer but I deal with cross-platform data privacy and apps certainly have more access to device data than a website accessed via a browser does.
Even if the sandboxed apps and consent-managed APIs limit what’s accessible to an app developer, there’s always a risk of a zero-day exploit that Apple/Google are unaware of. Given that state-level actors are the main driver behind this legislation, this seems a reasonable concern.
that's fair but most people use computers or tablets for websites, not phones.
It's the phone that is the primary risk but apps target phones.
While browsers can usually collect most of the same data points as an app, they’re far less prone to the harvesting of intelligence data of interest to nation state actors like China. In addition to modern browsers’ deny-by-default restriction of sensitive APIs, websites are also more privacy-friendly because the code is running in a user-controlled VM, as opposed to an obfuscated binary on a locked-down OS that intentionally impedes access to debugging/auditing/inspection tools.
In the case of TikTok, there’s no comparison: China has been running campaign to break into critical US infrastructure for over a decade. Keep in mind they’re responsible for the biggest breach of classified US intel to date in the form of the OPM breach. The juicy stuff that’s good for identifying military sites, high-value infrastructure targets, and candidates for HUMINT is all far, far easier to get via mobile app: think bluetooth/wifi scanning, contacts info, camera fingerprinting. Geolocation is way more precise too, thanks to better hardware for it on phones.
Is this article bringing anything new that the other one already on the front page isn't?
Acutally yes, it goes a good bit more into depth. It highlights how measures like this in the past have been ruled unconstitutional...it's not just hyperbolic clickbait title. And I appreciate the quote from San Diego rep Sara Jacobs: