Plenty of good answers have already been put forward. But in case you're asking in good faith, here are the two main ones:

1- It's in the interest of the US government to protect its interests and citizens from governments that are considered adversarial, which China is. And unlike other countries, the Chinese government exercises a great deal of direct control over major companies (like ByteDance). If TikTok was controlled by the Russian government would we even be having this conversation? (Ironically most Americans are freaked out about Russia, but when it comes to global politics, China is the much greater threat to the U.S.)

I think social media in general - including by US companies - does more harm than good to society and concentrates too much power and influence in the hands of a few (Musk, Zuck, etc.) So this isn't to say that "US social media is good". But from a national security standpoint, Congress' decision makes sense.

2- If China allowed free access to US social media apps to its citizens then it might have a leg to stand on. But those are blocked (along with much of the Western internet) or heavily filtered/censored. TikTok itself is banned in China. So there's a strong tit-for-tat element here, which also is reasonable.

1) You can not protect users from being influenced by the media they consume-- that is basically the very nature of the thing.

2) This is not about protecting users of the app, this is about preventing a foreign state from having direct influence on public opinion.

It is obvious to me why this is necessary. If you allow significant foreign influence on public opinion, then this can be leveraged. Just imagine Russia being in control of a lot of US media in 2022. Or 1940's Japan. That is a very serious problem, because it can easily lead to outcomes that are against the interests of ALL US citizens in the longer term...

The whole case turns on foreign adversary control of the data.

It’s bad because China has different interests than the US. Imagine if a war breaks out in Taiwan and they send targeted propaganda to members of the US military.

Indeed - if the US is this afraid of a popular social network under foreign control then every country outside the US should be petrified.

And domestically in the US - citizens should be demanding the dismantling of the big powerful players - which ironically the US government is against because of it's usefulness abroad..... ( let's assume for one moment, despite evidence to the contrary, that the US government doesn't use these tools of persuasion on it's own population ).

For the same reason you're okay with the US military being present in the US and not the Chinese one.

Check out the scandal in Romania, some guy that had less than 5% in polls got 30% because of tiktok. Other candidates had tiktok campaigns too but probably didn't use bots.

Social media is a legitimate threat to any countries democracy if used wisely. It is dangerous to have one of the biggest ones in the hands of your enemy when they can influence your own countries narrative to such an extent.

I thought it was less about the data and more about the control China had on what Americans saw, and how that could influence Americans.

If China could effectively influence the American populations opinions, how would that not be bad?

This is being positioned as a national security issue that a foreign government has so much influence over the US public (and data on people if they want, like geolocation, interests, your contacts, etc).

Note: I'm not saying I either agree or disagree ... just pointing out the dynamics in the case being made.

The concern isn't broadly that "social media companies have data". The concern is the governing environment that those companies operate in, which can be coopted for competing national security purposes.

This isn't a consumer data privacy protection.

The concerns here are obvious: For example, it would be trivial for the Chinese military to use TikTok data to find US service members, and serve them propaganda. Or track their locations, etc.

Two extremely obvious reasons:

First, it's a national security issue for a company controlled by the CCP to have intimate data access for hundreds of millions of US citizens. Not only can they glean a great deal of sensitive information, but they have the ability to control the algorithm in ways that benefit the CCP.

Second, China does not reciprocate this level of vulnerability. US companies do not have the same access or control over Chinese users. If you want to allow nation states to diddle around with your citizens, then it ought to be a reciprocal arrangement and then it all averages out.

Because for all of Mark Zuckerburg's flaws (or Elon, or whoever), America is unlikely to go to war with him?

In addition:

• US data brokers can still sell data to foreign companies (out of control of US and thus indirectly to Chinese companies).

• Chinese companies can buy US companies (thereby obtaining lots of data).

If we killed user-tracking, then that would solve a LOT of problems.

Because US is not really a free country.

It is obviously way better on this matter than China, but in principle, liberties are selectively granted in US and in China.

The TikTok ban topic has been stale for long time before it became the main harbor for Pro-Palestine content after it became under censorship by US social media thus depriving anti-Palestine from controling the narrative, effectively becoming a major concern for AIPAC et al.

Data collection is more of a plausible pretext at this point.

Why do we need a good answer? Does US need to be a good guy on some made up rules? Post Soviet collapse, US could have just taken over a bunch of territories. We don’t alway need to be some faithful country when the rest of the world is always messing up asking for millions of Americans to spill blood. I think RoW take US goodwill for granted. We don’t need to play nice. That’s not how competition works.

> But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it?

China blocks facebook/twitter/instagram/pinterest/gmail/wikipedia/twitch and even US newspapers.

So clearly they don't think it's okay for a US-company to do it (and are at least an order magnitude stricter about it)...

There is a rule of law issue here.

Say, for example, congress passes and the president signs a law that says that product sponsorships in videos need to be disclosed. If a US company (or a European, Australian, Japanese, etc) country violates that law, we're pretty sure that a judgement against them can change that behavior.

China? Not so much, given their history.

It sounds like you have ignored all the answers and then you're saying there's no good answers?

If you want to convince someone they're not good answers you would have to at least engage with them and show how they fail to be correct/moral/legal or something. Pretending they don't exist does nothing.

Yes, all of them should be stopped from doing it. And end Third Party Doctrine. I 100% agree.

Why would you want an outside nation to have an outsized influence America's social fabric? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXsPU25B60 Chomsky laid out manufacturing consent decades ago and while his thesis revolves around traditional media heavily influencing thought-in-America, the influencing now happens from algorithmic based feeds. Tik Tok controls the feed for many young American minds.

> But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it?

It's not perfectly fine, but you need to start with companies of foreign adversaries first.

While I agree with you about domestic policy, I'm not sure why it's inconsistent or hypocritical to deal with an external threat posed from those who want to destroy or harm you.

The details specific to China and TikTok are kind of moot when talking about broad principles. And there is a valid discussion to be had regarding whether or not it does pose a legitimate national security threat. You would be absolutely correct in pointing out all of the trade that happens between China and the USA as a rebuttal to what I'm about to offer.

To put where I'm coming from into perspective, I'm one of those whacko Ayn Rand loving objectivists who wants a complete separation between state and economy just like we have been state and church and for the same reasons. This means that I want nothing shy of absolute laissez-faire capitalism.

But that actually doesn't mean that blockades, sanctions and trade prohibitions are necessarily inconsistent with this world view. It depends on the context.

An ideal trade is one in which both parties to that trade benefit. The idea being that both are better off than they were before the trade.

This means that it is a really stupid idea to trade anything at all at any level with those who want to either destroy or harm you.

National security is one of the proper roles of government.

And I don't think you necessarily disagree with me, because you're saying "we should also be protected our citizens from spying and intrusions into our privacy" and yes! Yes we absolutely should be!

But that's a different role than protecting the nation from external threats. You can do your job with respects to one, and fail at your job with respects to the other, and then it is certainly appropriate to call out that one of the important jobs is not being fulfilled. Does that make it hypocritical? Does it suddenly make it acceptable for enemy states to start spying?

By all means criticize your government always. That's healthy. But one wrong does not excuse another. We can, and should, debate whether TikTok really represents a national security threat, or whether we should be trading with China at all (my opinion is we shouldn't be). It's just that the answer to "why its bad when China does it but it's right when it's done domestically" is "it's wrong in both cases and each can be dealt with independently from the other without contradiction"

optimistically, this is the first step towards banning or at least forcing more transparency for all algorithmic feeds. there's absolutely similar concerns about the leadership of American companies being able to sway public opinion in whatever direction they choose via promotion or demotion of viewpoints. but it's only been possible to convince those with the power to stop them of the danger from China, because while probably none of the companies have "America's best interests" at heart when tuning their algorithms, it's much clearer that China has reason to actively work against American national interests (even just demoting honest critique of China is something to be wary of)

It's about psychological manipulation of Americans. TikTok is a completely different experience in China. Social media influences us in negative ways. And the Chinese government can and does take advantage of that.

Judging by your karma and registration date, you spend some time here on HN. There have been lots of good answers why; they are the many prior discussions of this topic.

You are just seeming to ignore them for whatever reason.

Where in that CNBC article does it say that it's fine for US companies to do that? I don't see that anywhere, yet that's the point you're claiming is being made.

It is, and if this a stepping stone to that conversation, that’s a good thing. Great even. If you expect to have everything at once, you’ll make no progress.

The comparison isn't even close. TikTok's relationship with the Chinese government is well-documented, not "supposed". They are legally required to share data under China's National Intelligence Law. The Chinese government has also a track record of pushing disinformation and find any way to destabilize Western democracies.

Douyin (The Chinese Tiktok version) limits users under 14 to 40 minutes per day and primarily serves educational content, while TikTok's algorithm outside China optimizes for maximum engagement regardless of content quality or user wellbeing.

US tech companies pursuing profit at the expense of user wellbeing is concerning and deserves its own topic. However, there is a fundamental difference between a profit driven company operating under US legal constraints and oversight, versus a platform forced to serve the strategic interests of a foreign government that keeps acting in bad faith.

It's perfectly fine for a South African immigrant to do it, I really don't understand the problem either.

same reason China forbids or controls US companies operating in China. This is just tit-for-tat.

> Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Maybe. But there is a huge constitutional distinction between foreign and domestic threats. And the supreme court was pretty clear that the decision would be different if it didn't reside with a "foreign adversary".

The rational for why TikTok should be banned in the United States is precisely the same rational why Xitter, Facebook, Instagram, et al, should be banned in other countries.

Meta, Musk, and others have no right or grant to operate in the EU, Canada or elsewhere. They should be banned.

Action against Tiktok doesn't preclude action against US companies

There's no room for equality and fairness when it comes to global political rivals especially when there's stone cold evidence of mischief.

Clearly the US government would like only US companies to collect this kind of data. Eliminating the biggest competitors for companies like Google, X and Meta is likely just the icing on the cake.

Because it's not the TWEAKING of the content tho tis the problem. It's the ability to manipulate individuals using fake or altered content.

Not sure why this is a hard one to understand but with the ability to individualized media, you can easily feed people propaganda and they'd never know. Add in AI and deep fakes, and you have the ability to manipulate the entire discourse in a matter of minutes.

How do you think Trump was elected? Do you really think the average 20 something would vote for a Republican, let alone a 78 year old charlatan? They were manipulated into the vote. And that is the most innocuous possible use of such a tech.

I don't think any big business sees protection of its users as a solution to anything.

Not only that, but there's no evidence at all that Tik Tok's been feeding China any data. None.

Whereas we have proof and evidence that US agencies can access data about citizens from anywhere else in the world without even needing a court order.

Everybody forgot already US spying on Merkel's phone?

But that's okay, because America is not bound to any rules I guess. Disgusting foreign policy with a disgusting exceptionalism mentality.

ever hear of election tampering?

Why do you care if a chinese company is banned from business in the US? All sorts of american companies are banned from doing business in China

I think you have no good answer to this, you should do some soul searching.

The problem is framing information access as a threat. It is not and that's fundamentally not a First Amendment positive stance. If I want to gorge myself on Chinese propaganda it's my right as an American.

Because the Chinese are openly hostile towards the United States and its interests, whereas American companies have a vested interest in the U.S. and are beholden to its laws.

I don't know why realpolitik is so hard for technologists to understand, perhaps too much utopian fantasy scifi?

Data = Money, the rest is capitalism

my wife can yell at me and spend my money and my neighbour can't, because you know different case

This is essentially a whataboutism argument...

> Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Indeed, but at the point we are in history the steps to get that done - aka, copy the EU GDPR and roll it out federally - would take far too long, all while China has a direct path to the brains of our children.

Because China is a rival geopolitical power and the US is... us.

It's a national security concern. I get that there's a lot of conversation and debate to be had on the topic but the answer here is very straightforward and I don't understand why people are so obtuse about it.

Domestic governments shouldn't let hostile foreign governments the ability to exert soft power over 1/2 of their population. Hence why China banned all USA based tech companies from operating there.