Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

(cnbc.com)

Comments

elzbardico 12 hours ago
This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content.

Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking countries.

Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a social network has global reach but without american content.

Will it keep being a english first space? Will it survive/thrive? How the content is going to evolve? What does this means in terms of global cultural influence? Will we see internationalized Chinese content dominating it? Will this backfire for the US?

toddmorey 9 hours ago
Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad. Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure category perhaps.

(I'm asking about the lived experience outside of the political questions around who should decide what we see / access online.)

EDIT: Thank you for the replies! Interesting. I'm still wondering if most people use TikTok just for passive entertainment? I don't love Youtube, but it's been a huge learning and music discovery resource for me.

The only thing I get sent from TikTok are dances and silly memes but I don't have an account.

joshfee 10 hours ago
I think the easiest answer to follow for "why is this not prevented by free speech protection" is "the fact that petitioners “cannot avoid or mitigate” the effects of the Act by altering their speech." (page 10 of this ruling, but is a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Broadcasting_System,_In...)
throwaway199956 12 hours ago
But why didn't Supreme Court find the first ammendment arguments compelling? As per first ammendment it is legal and protected to print/distribute/disseminate even enemy propaganda in the USA.

Even at the height of cold war for example Soviet Publications were legal to publish, print and distribute in the USA.

What changed now?

Even a judge, Sotomayer said during this case that yes, the Government can say to someone that their speech is not allowed.

Looks like a major erosion of first amendment protections.

stevenAthompson 7 hours ago
The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China.

They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities.

Yet people are arguing that we should allow the people who did that to continue to install apps on millions of Americans phones.

I can't tell if people just don't know that this is happening, or if they take their memes way too seriously. I sort of wonder if they don't know it's happening because they get their news from Tiktok and Tiktok is actively suppressing the stories.

qingcharles 4 hours ago
Nobody is talking about music?

For the last 4 years, TikTok has been my primary music discovery engine. Probably is for a large chunk of users.

What effect will this have on the music industry?

aunterste 9 hours ago
This would have been a great opportunity to regulate and prohibit massive data collection on mobile phones, by writing a law that requires the platforms (iOS,android) to architect differently and police this aggressively. Takes care of a lot of the TikTok worry and cleans up ecosystems from location tracking/selling weather apps as well.
legitster 13 hours ago
TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.

There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.

Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.

shahzaibmushtaq 12 hours ago
TikTok is also banned in China. For the Chinese market, Douyin is there from the same company ByteDance. Americans need to understand this decision is not an emotional one but for the nation, just like the opposite party does for its nation.
fngjdflmdflg 13 hours ago
No matter what you think of this ban, the court is obviously not the right place to solve it. It is completely unsurprising that this is a unanimous decision because foreign trade is one of the few powers expressly given to the federal government in the constitution:

>[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;[0]

(The actual law may not have relied exclusively on the Commerce Clause, you would have to read it to find out. But from a high level there is nothing stopping congress from regulating any instance foreign trade.)

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8...

account266928 10 hours ago
Surprised not more people are tying this to the Uber-Didi situation. IIRC it was a big complicated mess, but e.g. (this)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersecurity_Law_of_the_Peopl...] seems to imply that e.g. Uber would have to use Chinese domestic servers subject to auditing, etc. Upshot is eventually Uber stopped dumping billions to try to get a foothold, and eventually divested their Chinese operations.

(Also later Didi got kinda screwed imo right after their IPO in IMO a retaliatory move by the Chinese gov). So, is this TikTok ban one more shot in a new form of economic warfare? Is this type of war even new? Again, IMO, I think in instituting this law, this kind of stuff was on at least some of congress' minds.

medhir 12 hours ago
In a more functional democracy we would see that mass data collection of any sort, by any company (foreign or domestic), is a national security risk.

Have witnessed first-hand the threats by foreign state actors penetrating US-based cloud infrastructure. And it’s not like any of our domestic corporations are practicing the type of security hygiene necessary to prevent those intrusions.

So idk, the whole thing feels like a farce that will mainly benefit Zuck and co while doing very little to ultimately protect our interests.

We would be much better off actually addressing data privacy and passing legislation that regulates every company in a consistent manner.

mrcwinn 13 hours ago
Regardless of one’s view on the outcome, this case is a reminder that textualism as a legal philosophy stands on shaky ground. This case is decided not on some strict analysis of the words written by a legislator, but on the court’s subjective view that there is a compelling national interest (which in turn seems based on speculation about the future, rather than a factual analysis of events).

Textualism might give the court some useful definitions, but it is after all still called, quite literally, an opinion.

vondur 9 hours ago
Well, India has already banned Tik-Tok, now the US is. It looks like some European countries are giving it the side eye. This may be the beginning of the end for it.
agosz 6 hours ago
This will ultimately benefit the current Big Tech incumbents. Tiktok was gaining ground rapidly on advertising money and I wouldn't be surprised if there was lobbying that stifled the competition.

Instead of banning TikTok, we should be trying to compete with them and make a better product that wins customers over. It's sad to see the US becoming more authoritarian and follow China's example.

gregopet 13 hours ago
I'm sure the other countries are watching this and considering what the US is doing with their data in its apps.
wnevets 13 hours ago
Where is reels, reddit and shorts gonna get all of its most popular content from now?
Zak 12 hours ago
I'm surprised TikTok isn't trying to push a web version, hosted outside the USA as an alternative to shutting down. While it would be difficult for a new social media service to gain traction that way, TikTok has a huge established audience.
ddoolin 13 hours ago
FWIW, this has driven many users to RedNote, which is even more Chinese in every way, regardless of whether it's even the same kind of platform. I doubt it would ever be anywhere near the same numbers as TikTok (assuming ByteDance didn't sell off) but it does illustrate the trouble with this i.e. cat-and-mouse game.

Edited for word choice.

Prbeek 11 hours ago
A globally used social media app without American narrative and propaganda. A huge loss for American soft power.
sircastor 10 hours ago
My wife and I are split on this, though neither of us are regular TikTok users.

I keep coming across elected officials who are apparently briefed on something about TikTok, and they decide there’s a reasonable threat regarding the CCP or some such. The idea that the CCP could drive our national conversation somehow (still murky) bothers me.

My wife feels like this is the US Government trying to shut down a communication and news delivery tool.

While I don’t agree with her, I don’t think she’s wrong. It seems all the folks who “have it on good authority” that this is a dangerous propaganda tool, can’t share what “it” is.

brailsafe 3 hours ago
I'd like to see less pervasive chronic use of media, so would hope Canada follows suit, but I don't think banning specific services for political reasons is necessarily a good way to get there. Along with other toxic outlets like gambling, we should be able to make coherent judgements about what belongs and what doesn't based on assessments of well-being indicators that evolve over time. I know it's a fairly conservative take, but it's one I'm happy with, and have a hard time seeing how we're better off with the existence of things like TikTok that provide such an easy way to siphon off human hours in a way that few things other than TV before.

Incidentally, I feel almost controversial for seeing more ads for alcohol and gambling than anything else, and thinking "when did we agree it was a good thing to be more permissive about encouraging objectively addicting risky behavior?".

mmmmmbop 13 hours ago
It's really quite funny to read the timeline in the opinion.

Essentially, Trump started the TikTok ban, Biden continued it, and Congress finally put it into law. And now both Trump and Biden, as well as Congress, are shying away from actually enforcing the ban.

• In August 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order finding that “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in [China] continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

• President Trump determined that TikTok raised particular concerns, noting that the platform “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users” and is susceptible to being used to further the interests of the Chinese Government.

• Just days after issuing his initial Executive Order, President Trump ordered ByteDance Ltd. to divest all interests and rights in any property “used to enable or support ByteDance’s operation of the TikTok application in the United States,” along with “any data obtained or derived from” U. S. TikTok users.

• Throughout 2021 and 2022, ByteDance Ltd. negotiated with Executive Branch officials to develop a national security agreement that would resolve those concerns. Executive Branch officials ultimately determined, however, that ByteDance Ltd.’s proposed agreement did not adequately “mitigate the risks posed to U. S. national security interests.” 2 App. 686. Negotiations stalled, and the parties never finalized an agreement.

• Against this backdrop, Congress enacted the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

zeroonetwothree 13 hours ago
keiferski 9 hours ago
An interesting angle to this whole drama that I haven’t seen discussed much: in the creator industry, TikTok is known for being significantly harder to make money from your content, as compared to YouTube. For various reasons, content just makes much more money on YouTube than it does on TikTok.

I do wonder what will happen if TikTok users migrate to YouTube shorts, and if that will change this.

MollyRealized 2 hours ago
Just as an aside, I'm surprised that Instagram has done nothing to facilitate the migration it wants. I've been hitting the same old rate limits while trying to "migrate" by subscribing to creators who have IG accounts as well. It's now got me down to one or two a day. Not only have they not made it easier ("import your export data file here, we'll subscribe you to everyone with the same handle"), they are making it quite hard.
WesleyJohnson 54 minutes ago
I don't have a list of factors or research in front of me, so let me just state that upfront.

It's widely understood that Meta, X, and plenty of other companies are collecting, and selling massive amounts of data. Meta builds profiles on people that have never even used Facebook, simply by monitoring their activity across the web through Ads, Embeds and Sign-Up w/ Facebook widgets, etc. This data, if I recall, has been sold many times over, and likely stolen, many times over, in data breaches - both disclosed and undisclosed. Which almost assures that China has it already.

Where is the outrage there? The laws, and fines, there? Why not ban that kind of pervasive data collection and digital finger printing, regardless of where it originates, to avoid the potential misuse of that data?

Obviously a company, like ByteDance, running businesses and Apps inside the US, while also being legally bound to helping the CCP - is cause for concern. But clearly we have our concerns right at our front door - and - nothing? Either or government believes access to this kind of data to be a threat, or they don't.

I know that's a gross over simplification, probably misses some key points, and probably falls under the dreaded "whataboutisms"... but it just seems like, its okay of US companies do it, as long as they give that data to OUR government, and losing that data is a just cost of doing business.

I'll take my tinfoil hat off now. :P

the_arun 12 hours ago
Thousands of US content creators were earning on TikTok. Now they need to migrate over to other alternatives. Also this is a reminder for all content creators to always plan for failovers. Though I would assume most them already are on multiple platforms.
belorn 13 hours ago
An implementation detail that might be interesting is that the discussed method of the ban is to use the same ISP block that is used for torrent sites (and other websites).

This may be a bit of relevance when talking about how banning a website get applied through the legal system.

bitcurious 3 hours ago
The United States, through its influence over Facebook, instagram, and twitter, facilitated the Arab Spring. Of course we don’t want an adversary to have the same influence over our domestic political conversation.
hellojesus 1 hour ago
This won't ban anything. It's on the web. Just sideload the app and enjoy.
hotstickyballs 10 hours ago
If TikTok is just in the business of earning money they would've sold.
briffle 13 hours ago
Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?
toephu2 10 hours ago
Remember, TikTok has also been banned in the largest country in the world by population for years now..
dluan 11 hours ago
rumors are that XHS wont region split, in which case this is setting up to a monumental event in the evolution and future of the internet. words can't really describe how big of a decision this is going to be.
julienb_sea 9 hours ago
Biden has said he won't enforce the ban and Trump has said he will keep TikTok from going dark. Shou is attending the inauguration. Ivanka and Kai are posting actively on TikTok. It is not going anywhere.
JimmaDaRustla 8 hours ago
How very "land of the free" of America
curvaturearth 7 hours ago
Good news for everyone. Get off these endless scrolling trash providers
portaouflop 8 hours ago
Ah the land of free speech and freedom of the press.

Not even in Europe we have such crackdown on freedom while Americans scream censorship because nazi symbols and certain phrases are illegal in Germany.

UniverseHacker 10 hours ago
It sounds like they are just banning it from new installs on app stores, won't people just browse to the URL to use it?

The distinction between apps and websites seems arbitrary to me... especially since a huge fraction of apps seem to be effectively just a browser window with a single website locked in full screen.

I have never before used tiktok, but just now as an experiment I opened it in a browser and scrolled for a minute- I had no problem accessing an apparently endless stream of mostly young women jumping up and down without bras, and young men vandalizing automobiles.

ellisv 13 hours ago
The ruling isn't surprising, although I almost expected Alito or Thomas to dissent.
65 12 hours ago
Does this only apply to TikTok or any other "foreign adversary" application that collects user data?

What's stopping another version of TikTok from being created, effectively defeating the purpose of banning a single app?

null0pointer 11 hours ago
What does this shutdown mean for US employees of Bytedance? Will they shut down their US offices or continue business as usual working from the US but only serving users outside?
redler 9 hours ago
Prediction: We'll hear that magically Truth Social has sourced sufficient funds that will enable it to make an offer for TikTok.
chaseadam17 10 hours ago
If US users continue to use the app via VPN, will that hinder the CCPs ability to weaponize it? If so, this outcome may be a good middle ground.
999900000999 12 hours ago
>In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration, upholding the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act which President Joe Biden signed in April.

Glad to see when it comes to protecting tech monopolies the wisest among us are in full agreement.

Silly things like a right to a speedy trial are up for debate though.

I think this is a massive over reach. You can argue to restrict social media to those over 18, but Americans should have a right to consume content they choose.

What's next, banning books by Chinese authors? Banning Chinese Americans from holding key positions in social media companies, after all they might have uncles in the CCP!

Follow the money. TikTok is an issue for Facebook, BYD cars are an issue for Tesla.

hunglee2 11 hours ago
China's vision of the Internet turned out to be more prescient than we realised at the time. Everyone is going to their own Great Firewall. In hindsight, it will seem crazy that we ever allowed media platforms to be controlled by foreign governments - especially ones which like to seed revolution, social unrest and regime change
svara 6 hours ago
Good riddance, do the other social networks next!
stevenhubertron 13 hours ago
This makes it easier for those 170M users to find new homes with President Musk's X or any of Zuck's advertising products.
dralley 13 hours ago
It isn't a "ban" except that TikTok would rather shut down than sell, forgoing billions of dollars in the process.
atlasunshrugged 13 hours ago
Great twitter thread analyzing the Supreme Court decision from a former Congressional Staffer who now leads a think tank doing tech-focused policy work: https://x.com/marcidale/status/1880274466619691247
Funes- 12 hours ago
I'd love to see what a global ban for TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, and X would look like. Even better: massive breakdown of iOS and Android installations. Just for a couple of weeks, then revert to the nightmarish status quo we live in. Now that would be an interesting experiment. The change in people's behavior would be palpable for those fourteen days, I bet. It'd be so much fun.
xnx 13 hours ago
I'm not sure how many dimensions this chess game is being played in, but if I were a lawmaker I would be wary of unintended consequences.

Overall, I view this is as an admission to US populace and the world that the US is a weak-minded country that can easily be influenced by propaganda.

MrPapz 11 hours ago
If the youth of the rest of the world keeps using it, the US culture attention will be replaced by something else.

This might be another step in the US journey of losing their role as a superpower nation to become just another country.

duxup 12 hours ago
I’d be fine with a general rule that if China (or anyone) places limits on US social media that effectively limits / bans them… same goes for Chinese social media platforms. Done.
maeil 12 hours ago
Many people here upset about this.

Here's what recently happened in Romania, all through TikTok.

Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country, waged an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by getting their chosen candidate elected. Without TikTok, this would not have happened. I have talked about this with Romanians who concur.

In the real world, there are two responses to this.

1. "Tough luck, it's too late now, should just stand by and watch the country get taken over".

2. "Ban it and future popular big platforms controlled by a foreign adversary".

That's it. We'd all love for something inbetween. It's not happening, all such options would end up becoming 1). That's the state of the modern day world.

The facts that

A. They seem to rather abandon the app rather than receive tens of billions by selling it

B. "The Chinese government also weighed a contingency plan that would have X owner Elon Musk acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations"

C. The remaining mountains of evidence that it is a CCP tool

Mean that the arguments of Congress here are valid and this is the right decision. It is a tool directly controlled by a foreign adversary, for geopolitical, not profit-oriented, purposes. This is nothing like the PATRIOT act or other moves by governments that claim "protect the children" or "protect against terrorism" for some ulterior motive of surveillance or worse. It might be a rarity, but in this case the claims by Congress are factual and a sufficiently good reason.

xnx 11 hours ago
It would be interesting to see TikTok go full scorched earth and become a mega pirate movie, music, TV, streaming sports site.
atarian 9 hours ago
TikTok should just build out a PWA. That would be a huge fuck you to this whole situation.
xnx 11 hours ago
What happens to the copyright on these videos?
tuan 12 hours ago
This seems like a bandaid, maybe the real national security is that US companies cannot build a product that can compete with TikTok.
MaxHoppersGhost 13 hours ago
Thank goodness! I don’t know how anyone thinks this isn’t a good idea for America.
baggachipz 9 hours ago
> but Trump might offer lifeline

Is this the same guy who wanted to ban TikTok 4.5 years ago? Just asking.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-executi...

Buttons840 8 hours ago
This outcome is worse than I could have ever conceived:

1) People have valid concerns about TikTok. TikTok will remain, and those concerns will remain.

2) People have valid concerns about free speech. The law that tramples free speech stands and is upheld by the court.

3) People have valid concerns about unfair and unequal enforcement of laws. The law will be blatantly and openly ignored for political reasons.

Literally everyone loses. What a clown show.

reverendsteveii 11 hours ago
If what TikTok is doing is dangerous when TikTok does it why is it safe when everyone else does it?

This is theft, pure and simple. The government-industrial complex is trying to steal this app. The private side wants to make money and the public side wants yet another way to control narratives on social media much the way President Musk does on twitter.

siliconc0w 10 hours ago
Yeah! If China wants our data they'll have to buy it from data brokers like everyone else!
DudeOpotomus 12 hours ago
TikTok is fun but it has degraded into a commercialized mess of copycats, IP theft and scams.

Like everything else that is commercialized on the internet. It has a lifespan of a few years before it becomes unusable to all but the meek and the ignorant.

A new service will emerge and replace it within months. The truth is their algorithm is about as complicated as a HS algebra test.

hshshshshsh 13 hours ago
Looks like India set the way here. Wonder what it holds for US India relations.
Pete-Codes 12 hours ago
Everyone has been in denial - this was always the most likely outcome.
commandlinefan 11 hours ago
As a free speech absolutist, I hope that what comes out of this is a completely anonymized, uncensorable alternative. We've gotten the arbitrary censorship walled garden social media sites mostly because until now there hasn't been any particular reason for most users to step outside of them.
ezfe 10 hours ago
Could TikTok develop a web app and direct users to it?
hintymad 10 hours ago
Since the ban is about not allowing app stores to host TT, can TT build its own App Store to offer the download of its app, given that Apple has to allow other app stores?
lopkeny12ko 3 hours ago
Can someone explain in unambiguous terms why people are so drawn specifically to TikTok? I have tried TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, and they are all basically the same--algorithmically-driven feeds of short videos. I don't see how banning TikTok is such a big problem, just use one of the other apps.
adriand 12 hours ago
What I love is that apparently tons of Americans are signing up for a different Chinese social video app whose name is being translated as “Red Note”. I would love if the end result of this was another several years of congressional drama about a different Chinese app.
shmatt 13 hours ago
Maybe someone smarter than me can explain - how both Biden and Trump can hint or announce they wont enforce the law. Signed laws upheld by the Supreme Court can be filtered out by the President? News to me.
submeta 12 hours ago
We all know the Elephant in the room, that Israel‘s genocide in Palestine led to lots of criticism on Tik Tok, and that led the Israel lobby to push a Tik Tok ban.
squarefoot 10 hours ago
You don't destroy what can give you even more power by controlling it. Trump/Musk/Zuck plan is to control it, not destroy it: the army of teens willing to be inundated by propaganda just to keep using it is too appealing to ignore, and China will happily trade that control for something (less/no tariffs?).
2OEH8eoCRo0 11 hours ago
I love all the comments saying that the Supreme Court doesn't understand the first amendment.
zombiwoof 10 hours ago
Kinda funny we have a president that can and will just ignore the Supreme Court and laws
the_real_cher 12 hours ago
I think in the future people will look back at kids on social media, like we look back at kids smoking cigarettes.
Flatcircle 12 hours ago
Surprised some American billionaire hasn't thrown 50 Milly into like 5 clones of tik Tok to see which one takes off?

there should be an easy pivot to an American equivalent but there hasn't been?

Or has there?

Workaccount2 13 hours ago
I believe Biden says his admin won't enforce the ban, as they only have 1 day left in office after it goes into effect.

Trump has signaled he doesn't support the ban, and wants tiktok under american ownership. The legislation allows the president to put a 90 day hold on the ban too.

So my guess is that this isn't over yet.

nashashmi 8 hours ago
Here is what Chairman McCaul said: “I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”[1]

The U.S. national security angle identified is "mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions". And give me a break that they actually care about "young Americans’ mental health". This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized by CCP" that was harming "young people's health".

The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent. I went through the testimonies given and it was DAMMMMMNNNN weak. Three issues were identified by me: The Bill suddenly declares "non-aligned countries" to be "foreign adversaries" but there is no declared war so how can they be adversaries already; The Bill declares anyone facilitating the company including through the transfer of communication is in violation of the bill but that is a freedom of speech issue which they did not bring up but instead brought the ban as a FoS issue; The Bill labels TikTok and ByteDance as companies to be sold [to an aligned state] or banned entirely but that is the only company being single-handedly called out and I don't know how to say this but that sounds like some form of discrimination and unsubstantiated claim of threat. They could have done a better job at the SCOTUS.

[1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...

pessimizer 8 hours ago
The next Supreme Court decision will be them deciding if disagreeing with the TikTok decision is sufficient grounds for being censored.

Public disagreement with the TikTok decision could lead to legislative pressure, which would add support to the pressure campaigns of Chinese lobbyists and diplomats, or of other organizations that are funded or donated to by Chinese people or people of Chinese descent. This could either result in new legislation being passed that nullifies the ban, or pressure the Executive into failing to enforce the ban.

Either of those outcomes would, in effect, allow the user data of Americans to be accessed by the government of China. Disagreement with the TikTok ban would in and of itself aid America's adversaries.

Besides, disagreement with it implies that America unduly restricts speech, when we're supposed to hate China because China unduly restricts speech. That's a clear case of creating a false equivalence in order to foment discord, which again is material support to China's goal to monitor American's communications and corrupt the minds of America's children.

sergiotapia 10 hours ago
Very sad moment for the united states. Banning an app because the users are too critical of israel/support palestine, and they cannot control it.
Plasmoid 12 hours ago
Can someone ELI5 how/why this is legal?
AndrewKemendo 12 hours ago
Everybody already moved to red book and are starting to recognize that the US is just an aging colonialist with nothing to offer the future

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/hXe9HsWslW

The GenZ folks (including my kids) that I interact with on a day-to-day basis are much happier on that application and they’re starting to realize that the US is not what it pretends to be

That doesn’t mean any place is better (though possible) it simply means people started finally realizing the truth of the United States

misiti3780 12 hours ago
This is great news!
Fischgericht 11 hours ago
The key issue here now is: The future, freedom, international policy etc of you US guys no longer depends on democratic structures in ANY way whatsoever.

Who pays Trump most, wins. Who does what Musk wants, wins.

From what I know, there is no second Oligarch-run corrupt country that would come close to this. This is worse than China and Russia combined.

Sorry, not meant to bash our US HN friends at all, just an observation from another western country targeted by MuskTrump that has yet to follow the US lead (which they will), so we still have some time left to be in shock and awe about what is going on on your side of the pond for a while.

FFS.

mips_avatar 9 hours ago
It's a bit disingenuous for Mark Zuckerberg to go on Joe Rogan and say that the Biden administration is anti Meta/anti America, when congress passed this bill to shut down TikTok.

I don't love that TikTok is run by a Chinese company (thus giving way too much control to the Chinese government), but Meta builds such garbage experiences in their apps. There really needs to be a real competitor to Meta.

zombiwoof 10 hours ago
This is just a roundabout way for Trump to get bribed
throwkja 13 hours ago
America has the right to ban since china banned all American tech companies from operating in their nation but this means America could never ever talk about freedom of doing business bs
computerex 10 hours ago
Free speech.
jrockway 12 hours ago
I have mixed feelings. The Supreme Court did the right thing; the democratically elected government did decide upon a ban, so it should likely continue as was made law.

I am not sure that banning forms of media feels good. The point of free speech is to let everyone say their thing and for people to be smart enough to ignore the bad ideas.

I am not sure the general population of vertical video viewers does part 2, however, so I get the desire to force people to not engage. The algorithmic boosting has had lots of weird side effects; increased political polarization, people being constantly inundated with rage bait, and even "trends" that get kids to vandalize their school. (My favorite was when I asked why ice cream is locked up in the freezer at CVS. Apparently it was a TikTok "trend" to lick the ice cream and then put it back in the freezer, so now an employee has to escort you from the ice cream area to the cashier to ensure that you pay for it before you lick it. Not sure how much of this actually happened versus how companies were afraid of it happening, however.)

With all this in mind, it's unclear to me whether TikTok is uniquely responsible for this effect. I feel like Instagram, YouTube Shorts, etc. have the potential to cause the exact same problems (and perhaps already have). Even the legacy media is not guilt free here. Traditional newspapers ownership has changed over the years and they all seem pretty biased in a certain direction, and I am pretty sure that the local news is responsible for a lot of reactionary poor public policy making. (Do I dare mention that I think the whole New Jersy drone thing was just mass hysteria?)

Now, everyone is saying that regulating TikTok has nothing to do with its content, but I'm pretty sure that's just a flat-out lie. First, Trump wanted to ban it because everything on there was negative towards him. Then right-wing influencers got a lot of traction on the platform, and suddenly Democrats want to ban it and Trump wants to reverse the ban. It's pretty transparent what's going on there.

I agree with the other comments that say if data collection is the issue, we shouldn't let American companies do it either. That seems very fair to regulate and I'm in favor of that.

The best effect will be someone with a lot of money and media reach standing up against app stores. I can live with that.

CodeWriter23 3 hours ago
NBC is delusional, thinking Trump who ran on a law and order platform is going to disregard the law.
wslh 11 hours ago
I only take this as a geopolitical decision. Not saying that the US couldn't do that (like any other country) but adding arguments that also apply to other social media apps as well is, IMHO, FUD.
smm11 8 hours ago
Wasn't the idea Trump's in the first place?
outside1234 9 hours ago
Not hard to see how this will play out.

Trump will get a bribe from them and it will be opened.

4ndrewl 7 hours ago
I mean this won't happen. The TikTok CEO is invited to Trump's inauguration.
jrflowers 9 hours ago
The silliness of the ban itself aside, it is wild how casually the whole “both chambers of congress passed a law and that law was upheld by the highest federal court but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it” thing is being treated by the media.

It is like “Does America have laws?” is a 3 minute section of Good Morning America between low-carb breakfast recipes and the memoir of a skateboarding dog.

russdpale 13 hours ago
Good, now do it for the rest of them, from linkd-in to facebook.
jmyeet 13 hours ago
This whole thing is both silly and unsurprising.

Everybody knows the fearmongering about Chinese control and manipulation is a smokescreen. The real reason is that Tiktok doesn't fall in line with State Department propaganda [1].

It's noteworthy that SCOTUS sidestepped this issue entirely by not even considering the secret evidence the government brought.

That being said, it's unsurprising because you can make a strictly commerce-based argument that has nothing to do with speech and the First Amendment. Personally, I think reciprocity would've been a far more defensible position, in that US apps like Google, FB, Youtube and IG are restricted from the Chinese market so you could demand recipricol access on strictly commerce grounds.

The best analogy is the restriction on foreign ownership of media outlets, which used to be a big deal. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, US companies would defend themselves from foreign takeovers by buying TV stations, for example. That's basically the premise of the movie Working Girl, as one (fictional) example.

Politically, the big loser here is Biden and the Democratic Party because they will be (rightly) blamed for banning a highly popular app (even though the Congressional vote was hugely bipartisan) and Trump will likely get credit for saving Tiktok.

[1]: https://x.com/Roots_Action/status/1767941861866348615

hb-robo 13 hours ago
The kids flocking to another Chinese app just to avoid using Reels, Shorts, or whatever abomination is on X continues to be so funny to me. Looks like a long game of whack a mole starting.
mrkramer 13 hours ago
US should ban all Chinese software apps and services as long as CCP does not allow Google and Facebook to operate in China. As a matter of fact not only Google and Facebook but all the Western internet social apps and services should be allowed in China. We want equal opportunity and equal rights for business. This way it is not fair play, it is botched market economy.
iugtmkbdfil834 13 hours ago
<< Second, I am pleased that the Court declines to consider the classified evidence the government has submitted to us but shielded from petitioners and their counsel. Ante, at 13, n. 3. Efforts to inject secret evidence into judicial proceedings present obvious constitutional concerns. Usually, “the evidence used to prove the Government’s case must be disclosed to the individual so that he has an opportunity to show that it is untrue.”

Good grief.. I clearly wasn't following it closely, but even the fact that this could have become a thing ( SCOTUS ruling using 'redacted' as evidence ) is severely disheartening.

fidotron 13 hours ago
By the given reasoning every official at the EU wonders why they ever allowed Google, Facebook or Twitter to exist.

This is balkanization.

jdlyga 13 hours ago
People don't fully understand what is at risk of being lost here. Science, history, and technology tutorials, practical life skills like cooking, budgeting, mental health, chronic illness, trauma recovery, creative expression, small businesses, home repair, friend groups, communities, and many people who make their living on TikTok. Losing TikTok means losing a massive ecosystem and all of its connections, knowledge, and content. It's like a library of books vanishing, or a large city disappearing off of a map.
xbmcuser 12 hours ago
This is ban is only because US has no control over the content and organic anti Israel content was not censored like it was in all other us social platforms.
trinsic2 12 hours ago
Wait, where's the Facebook/Meta ban? Is unlawful data collection only unlawful if it's done under a foreign adversary? I guess not to the US Government where their interests align with adversarial data collection practices against its own people.
ttrgsafs 12 hours ago
So what are the real dangers?

- Frying teenagers' brains with short attention deficit videos. That one seems logical, but others are doing it, too.

- Political indoctrination.

- Compromised politicians who can be blackmailed: The big one, but a certain island run by the daughter of a certain intelligence agency operative was largely ignored.

- Corporate espionage: Probably not happening on TikTok. Certainly happening in the EU using US products.

xyst 12 hours ago
I can agree to an extent that TT (and social media in general) is an addictive app and harmful to youth and society in general. Spend enough time on these types of apps and suddenly your worldview is just whatever the TT algorithm pushes to you.

It’s not entirely unprecedented either. There was the case of FB and Myanmar/Burma which strongly promoted military propaganda. This unfortunately lead to violence against Rohingya.

But the argument is very weak in my opinion, and wouldn’t be a reason to outright ban it. Prohibition never works.

The only thing that does work is fixing our society. In the USA, we have increasing wage disparity, increasing homelessness, increasing poverty, food scarcity, water scarcity, worsening climate change related events (see Palisades fire…), and a shit ton of other issues that will remain unsolved for at least the next 4 years.

Yet leadership is doing almost nothing to address this. Neoclassical economics and neoliberalism have outright ruined this country. Fuck the culture war the billionaire class is trying to initiate.

h1fra 13 hours ago
Supreme Court only likes when data is stolen locally by good US-based corporations
btbuildem 11 hours ago
It's hard not to see this as a continuation of the American corporate interests controlling the media their population consumes. TikTok I think has the largest share of American's attention out of all the social media?

Doesn't seem to matter which clown flaps about in the wind at the oval office, control of the narrative holds a steady keel for decades. This is the same story, in a new medium. Sure, as the "sides" in culture wars take turns "ruling", certain things are allowed or disallowed. The real consequential stuff, ideas and patterns that would lead to the empowerment of the working class vs hoarders of capital -- all the back to basic education, critical thinking, civic engagement, and the implicit/explicit deprioritization of any and all that in favour of obedient consumerism.

With the "new" tech they've discovered they can really shape people's opinions, tweak the emotional charge to make people act in such unconsidered ways, en masse, against each others' and their own best interest -- of course they'll hold on to that at any cost. It's unprecedented, though not unimagined.

I wonder what will fill this space. Over all the rises and falls of the various blinking nonsense, I've never really seen people go -back- to an app / service / etc. They all just wither away as the next new things comes up.

diggan 13 hours ago
> Although Trump could choose to not enforce the law

Ah, clever to leave it up for bribes from ByteDance.

> The nation’s highest court said in the opinion that while “data collection and analysis is a common practice in this digital age,” the sheer size of TikTok and its “susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects” poses a national security concern

What is the point of these "rules and regulations" and "the nation's highest court" when the president could decide just not to enforce them?

msie 10 hours ago
Somehow people shilling for Russia can operate unimpeded in this country.
ritcgab 12 hours ago
Banning an app because of China's threat only makes you resemble China itself.
EcommerceFlow 12 hours ago
The sitting president of the United States of America was banned by almost every major AMERICAN company, and even some Canadian companies (Shopify), yet we're going after Tiktok.

No Chinese ever banned the sitting president of the United States.

Frederation 12 hours ago
Good riddance.
rvz 13 hours ago
The clock is still "tiking" for TikTok.

As usual, the digital crack / cocaine addicts of this generation are now running to Red note for their next fresh hit in less than 48 hours.

Nothing's changed. Just a new brand of digital crack / cocaine has overtaken another one who's supply is getting cut off by the US.

Although a fine would be better than an outright ban as I said before.

aucisson_masque 5 hours ago
In a developed country, government would ensure its citizens receive top notch education so that they are able by themselves to understand that using a Chinese owned app is just as bad as using Facebook for instance and so these app would be dead, no one would use them.

Instead when you cut so hard on education that you get millions of flat earth believers, you got to protect them from their own behavior with law. But as far as I know, no law can prevent little Jimmy from putting crayons up his nose.

Blocking TikTok won't just make its user look for better privacy, or at least more independent alternative. They will use something else just as bad or worst.. little red book for instance.