[tims33]

I agree with everything you're saying, but I also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China. This is about freedom of speech on app built by a country that has no freedom of speech. I realize this point is orthogonal, but is still an important element of the decision.

[marricks]

> also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China

It's a chance to showcase how we're "more free" or literally just as restrictive

[Retric]

At its core free speech is about the freedom from government influence and the complaint is about government influence.

It’s one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants, it’s something else to allow them the ability to manipulate of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more than it helps.

[marricks]

> https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/24/shadowbanning-...

Maybe you disagree with the viewpoint or message, but it seems awfully paternal for such wide spread censorship.

This is why we can't trust only the US to provide us our social media and even if we don't like who is offering it.

[talldayo]

TikTok also has an enormous shadowbanning problem so your complaint here is moot.

[johnnyanmac]

>Allowing such a highly restricted platform

Tiktok was and still is banned in China by the way.

[Retric]

Yea it’s banned in India, Afghanistan, China and a few others. It’s kind of an odd list, including democracies and autocratic governments.

[logicchains]

It's not a highly restricted platform at all, there were literally videos of translated Hitler speeches trending with hundreds of thousands of likes, even though the CCP absolutely hates western nationalism.

[robgibbons]

This is the platform that led to the proliferation of newspeak terms like "unalive" to circumvent content restrictions. Such speech restrictions were never a thing on FB, IG, X, or YT, yet this form of self-censorship has spread to those platforms anyway, because TikTok users have become so used to it.

[Timon3]

While there aren't direct speech restrictions in platforms like YouTube, you're leaving out the crucial detail that mentioning words like "suicide" gets your video demonetized, which directly causes similar self-censorship.

[Retric]

YouTube pays creators based on advertising deals making some topics far more valuable, while other topics have become very sensitive to advertisers. That’s related, but different from censorship.

Creators are still free to use YouTube as a platform to discuss sensitive topics with a very large audience without paying per viewer, unlike say advertising or standing at a street corner talking to passersby. As such YouTube is still supporting the discussion and distribution of said content.

[Retric]

Restrictions become more effective when they are less obvious.

When as has been demonstrated their algorithm ignores the number of upvotes in favor of massively promoting viewpoints it cares about, that’s also vast suppression of opposing viewpoints but in a way o get creators to quietly comply rather than try and push the boundaries.

[philipov]

China probably doesn't care about Hitler. How about Tiananmen Square? Do you see a lot of trending coverage on Hong Kong protests?

[moussess]

Here is a list on what restrictions Chinese citizens live with

- Workers in state sectors can be banned from traveling out of China https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3265503/chinas-expanding-t.... Also, non 1st tier city citizens can have a hard time getting passports, essentially a ban of travelling

- banned from using trains or airline if they are on the social credit score ban

- banned from moving money out of China for more than $50k a year

- banned from accessing foreign websites. VPN is technically illegal, and using it can get you into trouble

- banned from accessing porn

- banned from using a long list of restricted words on social media, from Winnie the Pooh, to "support Xinjiang people"

- banned from using TikTok

- banned from protesting against lost wages from state enterprises

- banned from group protesting

the list goes on and on and on

[marricks]

Ok, that’s their country what does it have to do with us? Also why do we do this:

> https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/24/shadowbanning-...

This is why it’s good to have a social media company free of US control.

[ethanwillis]

Yes it's great to have chinese companies on american soil that prevent people from saying "taiwan number one" in games like marvel rivals.

So much freedom!!!!

Do you hear yourself? Are you insane?

[talldayo]

> Ok, that’s their country what does it have to do with us?

I mean, nothing really. You could say the same about Israel and Palestine, or Saudi Arabia and Iran, or China and Hong Kong. Human rights abuses are perfectly acceptable in today's society, as long as they're out of sight and out of mind. He who controls visibility into human suffering controls the way people perceive his control. Hasbara, in Israeli vernacular.

> Also why do we do this:

Because Zionist lobbying exerts disproportionate control over both the US tech industry and the legislative apparatus regulating it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

You're not going to drive a wedge between people by repeating the Israel stance, though. If you tried to expose China's same abuses for working slave labor to death or suicide, you'd be suppressed in exactly the same way America suppresses your anti-Israel content. From a national security perspective, TikTok's existence is about whether another country can impose their own double-standard on top of America's own populist opinion. Today it's the war in Gaza, but tomorrow it will be about suppressing democracy in Taiwan for the "betterment of global peace" et. al. You can't deny China's plans to use TikTok for war with a straight face - by many accounts it's already started.

[infecto]

The US does not need to showcase anything, they are magnitudes more free in speech than mainland China. To suggest otherwise is strange.

[roca]

With or without Tiktok, the USA is nowhere near as restrictive as the CCP. The users who tried RedNote discovered that very quickly.

[VectorLock]

People trying to act like this Chinese controlled vehicle supports free speech is so weird to me. They're not "censoring" anything - they're using it as a straight unimpeded funnel to subvert the west.

[vkou]

> they're using it as a straight unimpeded funnel to subvert the west.

And Fox News is also a foreign-owned straight unimpeded funnel used to subvert democracy, which sows division and conflict in our society.

It's done orders of magnitude more harm to it than TikTok ever has.

When are we banning it?

[seanmcdirmid]

Rupert Murdoch got US citizenship because of foreign ownership rules. From his wiki page:

> On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.

[vkou]

I am pretty sure a Chinese-American owner would be considered Chinese for the conversation about foreign control over TikTok.

[mvc]

What defence remains against an autocratic government who will use that very freedom as an attack vector for their nefarious goals.

[talldayo]

The United States used to claim we had a laissez-faire market. We don't claim that anymore.

[tgma]

In founding of the United States lies tariff stories. The United States does not reject government and nations as entities at all. It just asserts rights for its citizens which doesn't include everyone on the planet.

[CryptoBanker]

Or it’s a chance to be “fair”

[Cyph0n]

If stooping down to their level is the move we make, then we should immediately stop acting as if we are more “free” or democratic than China. You can’t have it both ways.

[tgma]

You realize it was a representative-democratic process chose to enact TikTok ban, so your statement is literally false on that dimension alone.

[johnnyanmac]

you're implying that these elections are on equal grounds with truthful candidates. I think that's a small part why America has become decreaingly distrustgul of politicians but still vote. Many people on both sides of the aisle have admitted 2024 felt like choosing the least bad candidate.

[tgma]

The root cause of this sort of comment is people often equate the outcome of democracy == good or desirable to them or even the majority, which is not necessarily the case. People can whine about the outcome of a democratic process all they want, which even if done perfectly could be a compromise that is distasteful to all parties but still democratic.

[johnnyanmac]

You'd normally be right. But the US did just have the richest man in the world setup a lottery to buy votes, and walked it back to "oh it was rigged anyway" when called out on it. Any lawsuits is pennies compared to the results.

It was subtle before with stuff like Gerrymandering that the layman would never notice. But it's so blatant now that the democratic process is compromised.

[VectorLock]

When he got away with calling the Thai diver "pedo guy" using the "lol jk" defense then he knew he could get away with anything.

[wavemode]

> you're implying that these elections are on equal grounds with truthful candidates

Where exactly is the commenter implying this?

No political process on Earth, democratic or otherwise, has ever met this standard.

[handfuloflight]

But is it the Will of the People?

[Cyph0n]

Yes. I also realize that a democratic system allows for making decisions that do not align with such a system, and can in fact destroy such a system from within.

Is this not what we have all been saying about Trump? Or are you saying that is OK because his moves have been made within the framework of a democratic system?

[josephcsible]

How is "everybody has freedoms except the governments of adversarial foreign countries" not more free than "nobody has freedoms"?

[Cyph0n]

You could reasonably argue that, but only for now. The precedent set here opens a can of worms that we should aim to close sooner rather than later.

But the mechanism we are using is one and the same - this is essentially the launch of a “Great Firewall of America”, just enforced a bit differently.

[tims33]

Is allowing them to impose the same kind of restrictions in their US app as they do for their own citizens good for free speech?

[talldayo]

> then we should immediately stop acting as if we are more “free” or democratic than China.

This is a histrionic response. America can still be more free and democratic than China while also enforcing a ban on their businesses.

[Cyph0n]

Blanket censorship of this kind is not the hallmark of a healthy democracy.

This ban is the definition of a slippery slope - this ban may be in your interests, but eventually one will not. What then?

[talldayo]

This isn't blanket censorship, period. Every single user that currently voices their stance, values or opinions can continue to do the exact same thing on any other platform they choose. Just not TikTok, because they are a business owned by an adversarial government that deliberately uses their soapbox to manipulate democratic audiences: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...

Also don't forget - TikTok has remediation options where they continue to operate in America as an American business instead. They are the ones that refused that and chose censorship. America just forced the choice between eating the cake and having it.

Edit: Correct, it is not. The part that is censorship on China's behalf is the enforcement of the Great Firewall and enaction of laws prohibiting citizens from owning or consuming foreign news or entertainment. China's ban on foreign apps could just as well be explained by a desire for better domestic software markets - the same cannot be said for the Firewall.

Edit 2: Yes, secession would settle this. China has proven that they cannot be trusted to disseminate information through a state-owned apparatus. If the owner continues to be a government entity, then continuing to let them do "business" is like letting the Trojans wheel in their horse so the citizens can marvel at it.

[Cyph0n]

By the same token, the Chinese ban on US apps is not censorship, correct?

So if you accept to cede control we will leave you alone. Blackmail, in other words, exactly like China does it.

[baq]

Feel free to record a 30s video on the topic of Tiananmen Square and post it on X, Facebook and Chinese TikTok. Report back with results in 24h. In the conclusions section, point out the difference between censorship and moderation.

[robterrell]

This is an incredible point. Instead of using this crisis to pressure Beijing to crack open the China market to US companies or even just get some concessions, Trump just folded to look like a champ.