Representative Buck and Senator Hawley have introduced a bill to band TikTok nation wide. How do you feel about that?

44 comments

1. I am a free speech absolutist and I utterly despise Josh Hawley. So take a guess.

2. It’s an app effectively controlled by the CCP, the primary purpose of which is to suck up data for their use.

   If it’s banned, the American subsidiary can be bought and split off to reenter the market keeping the functionality without sending all the data to China. After decades of their IP theft, I have no problem with screwing China over.

3. Sounds dumb, which is on par for Hawley.

4. [deleted]

5. How do I feel? Like my time is being wasted.

   It couldn’t possibly pass constitutional muster, would almost certainly count as an illegal bill of attainder, and even if it somehow did pass it would be nearly impossible to enforce without *really, seriously* trampling on other rights.

   I hate TikTok personally, but I’d still stand up for it if the legislation was serious (it’s not). I don’t want congress meddling in my decisions on what apps I use.

6. Utterly stupid and utterly unsurprising, so nothing new from Republicans.

7. It wouldn’t effect me personally, but it sets a bad precedent to have the government regulating personal freedoms.

8. TikTok is a Chinese spyware application that openly allows underage girls to receive money (through the app) from men that are requesting them to try on skimpy outfits and show them parts of their body that come right up to the line of nudity. TikTok does nothing to stop this. I’m fine with banning it. Someone can make a moderated American one. It isn’t a free speech issue. Freedom of speech doesn’t cover espionage committed by foreign organizations.

9. to the people defending surveillance because “all other apps do it”, any large scale data breach, and all your info will be aired out in the open for everyone to see. chats, pictures, ip addresses, emails, passwords, financial information, everything the app has been allowed to access and collect from you. you can’t count on the integrity of the servers this stuff is stored on

10. That would be unfortunate. I find a lot of good recipes from that app.

11. That’s fine by me. Social media in general needs some more regulation.

12. Simple answer: good
    Complex answer: its because yeah more or less its controlled by the CCP and they can use to gather intelligence on the US Armed Forces and sometimes it’s just that social media in general is back if not handled with proper security protocols/protection.

13. In China the TikTok algorithm shows people excelling in sports, mathematics, and in general accomplishing inspiring things.

    In America the TikTok algorithm shows people eating vomit, dancing like strippers, and making people hate each other.

    It’s literally psychological warfare and needs to be completely banned.

14. I am a Democrat and I support this. Tik Tok is a very shady company that is selling data on American teens to the Chinese government. I have huge concerns about its popularity given who is controlling it

15. TikTok is spyware operated by the Chinese Communist Party.

    I’d be fine with it being banned as it is cyberwarfare being committed by the US against us by our adversary, the People’s Republic of China.

    I think the sponsors of the bill are scum, but the bill itself has merit on its face.

16. I think it should be banned. Children are hurt and killed because of tiktok challenges. I find nothing good about it, for our country.

17. Like they’re posturing for votes

18. I ask why wasn’t this done earlier.

19. I don’t use it, I wouldn’t be sad to see it go

20. At this point giving companies our data is normal so I don’t agree with the reasons for banning it. But it still should be banned, if only because it is peddling bad ideas to impressionable young people. You won’t convince me that the rise in “trendy” mental illnesses and claiming to be cat gendered (or other equally moronic ideas) haven’t been made worse by TikTok. It’s like if tumblr, twitter, and YouTube all had a baby that combines the worst attributes of each

21. I violently don’t care.

22. I disagree with the choice. I find a majority of the videos I see to be useful and/or entertaining.

23. I think that TikTok’s entire algorithm is shady and predatory, especially on children and teenagers but even on adults. But if that were the extent of it I would opposed banning it like this.

    As the App is more akin to CCP Spyware with a shorts feature, I’m okay with banning it.

    When the inevitable Tokit competitor with the same business model but not as Chinese Spyware comes out, I would be opposed to banning that.

24. I want it fucking banned I wrote a paper on why this thing needs to be banned it should be banned

25. If there is a behavior that they object to (collecting info or such) they should ban that instead. Banning a specific service is going to be a problem – rename it, relaunch it as a new brand, done deal.

26. i agree but i also want tech companies in the US to stop doing the same thing

27. Excellent!

28. the return of vine shall be upon us.

29. Behold the field where I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and witness that it is barren.

30. I want to get this out of the way: I think TikTok is at best emblematic of a national security threat the US needs to address with regards to the People’s Republic of China; hell, I’ve literally worked in and studied in this space for years now, it’s extremely top of mind for my professional life.

    That said: Straight up banning just TikTok is at best a blunt force solution and may well impinge on First Amendment rights, depending on how it’s worded.

31. Its a slippery slope of censorship. I don’t like what the app does, but I like less what banning the app can or would do.

32. I’d rather we ban Hawley, but tik tok could be a reasonable second

33. No more chinese spyware. I only download American Spyware, like facebook!

    USA! USA! USA! 🇺🇸

34. Good, now do Twitter and Facebook

35. I think it’s grandstanding that doesn’t have a chance at getting passed, and I think most of the people commenting here sound about as well-informed on the subject as the parents in the 80s who thought heavy metal was turning their children into Satanists.

36. Disagree with it primarily because the app itself is not the reason they are wanting to ban it. They are wanting to ban it only because of China. Otherwise tiktok does do social influencing but that isn’t enough in my opinion to limit it. This gets into an area of where the government can tell youtube or truth social or twitter what they can and can’t do and that is never something I am for.

37. I support it as the app is malware for the CCP and it produces some of the worst trends known to man

38. On the one hand, good. Tik Tok is cancer and I don’t like China having access to all that data. Its TOS even says it can collect biometric data, including fingerprints. Why does China need that?

    On the other hand, I wonder if that sets a precedent for banning other apps.

39. Posturing. If Tiktok was banned the CCP cyber boogeyman would just promote another equivalent data scraping app in it’s place, surely? If the pols actually held all other social media accountable to data privacy standards equally I’d change my tune, but pretending Tiktok is somehow more of a national security risk than Meta is a joke.

40. So much for limited government and personal choice lmao

41. How is that enforceable?

42. Bring back Vine

43. I’m all for it

44. I’m cool with it. Lots of folks think the danger is in data collection but even bigger imo is propaganda. Kids spend more hours on it than with family or streaming. Ccp just needs to turn the anti American/democracy knob a bit and it goes directly into our kids eyeballs.