Retaliation is not emulation. If they did that domestically and the US also did that domestically it would be emulation. This is similar to tariff wars, if they impose a tariff on something then you retaliate proportionally.
We have an unequal trade with China where they ban western companies but their companies do what they want even while being state controlled under a hostile regime. This alone is a good reason to ban any Chinese social media company
It's silly for the same reason tariffs are. The benefit of the freedom and the cheap goods is with the consumer of them more than the producer.
You have unequal trade - china gives you stuff for free, to your benefit. It's nice that you're worried about the Chinese consumer getting to benefit from access to US social media, but the benefit of that access is to the Chinese customer
No, it is a response to a hostile act, it is not emulation because the scope is limited to that country.
> State-level censorship of apps the public can use should not be entertained in a free and open society.
Yes it should. The government is reponsible for regulating commerce, especially by foreigners. The whole point of the ban is that tiktok's owners are not in a free society and cannot take advantange of the benefits of a free society while escaping its responsibilities and their country being openly hostile/
Even within the US the government can block and ban facebook if facebook is in violation of any laws or is acting in aid of a foreign hostile government.
You don't understand free speech or liberty. They both come with responsibility and commerce is a regulated privilege. Tiktok can become a non-profit app and sniff all your data all it wants. In a free society, a hostile foreign government has exactly zero rights.
A free and open society gives people the choice to use whatever they want within sensible bounds. I don't think you appreciate the nuances between a totalitarian regime like China, a nanny state like the UK, and an open society like the US.
In an open society, people are free to use apps regardless of who may or may not be behind them. That's the price of freedom: bad actors, unpleasant words, unpopular views, and the freedom to be a jerk.
> A free and open society gives people the choice to use whatever they want within sensible bounds
Right. It's people not China and the CCP. Tiktok can still exist outside of the US and serve content to US visitors. ISPs will not block it. But the company itself which is operated by people associated with the CCP cannot operate and make profit in the US.
If you like tiktok you can still use it.
But even if ISPs banned tiktok, the restriction is intended to harm tiktok, you can't reasonably argue that the US is trying to prevent its people from accessing legitimate tiktok content. Matter of fact, tiktok's chinese owners have been advised to divest their stake in the US arm of tiktok so it can continue to operate in the US and you can enjoy tiktok.
The choice if it comes down to it is made by tiktok's chinese owners refusing divest their stakes with fair compensation (even above market some would say)
> In an open society, people are free to use apps regardless of who may or may not be behind them. That's the price of freedom: bad actors, unpleasant words, unpopular views, and the freedom to be a jerk.
No, free does not meen freedom to harm or harass others or as you probably know "yell fire in a crowd". There are no protections against malicious and provable intent in any society, free or not. It could be a speech or even your thought, if it can be proven that your intent was malice then you acted in abuse of the liberites granted to you and forfeited their protections. Moreover, you cannot argue that an act against a company (not a person with rights) is an act against its users without proving that the government was intending to restrict or harm the company's users.
In a free society, you do not have the freedom to access tiktok, you have the freedom to become tiktok or use many of the alternate competing services.
Companies are denied license to operate in the US all the time, a free society is free for people not random foreign corporations.
I'm sure it's fueled by xenophobia, but if we think of China / US as competing technology firms, the decision makes even more sense. What tech firm would want a one-sided relationship where their employees share information using a competitors platform, when you have no guarantee of privacy?
I don't think the walled isolation claim sticks - the US would not be seeking to isolate itself. Instead, it would be requiring both countries to operate on the same playing field. Why would anyone want to play a game when the other side won't agree to the same rules?
I agree, so stop letting TikTok advertise to young adults and reward certain views with attention.
Pushing a China-centric view on the populace and allowing the option for data gathering to influence TikTok rewards, can end up with a political outcome at the ballot box.
Facebook did sway votes in the 2010s. Let's not emulate China's authoritarian state policies and close the option for that to happen.
Laying the groundwork now to keep westerners separate from the social credit system, will likely be useful to prevent behavioural capture of economic activity.
