The thing is, doing it domestically is also a national security concern. We know that data leaks and breaches don't only happen, they are commonplace. Banning TikTok but continuing to allow domestic social media companies to amass hoards of the same kind of data without any real oversight is like saying, "Sorry, you can't have this on a golden platter, the best we can do is silver."

I'm still not sure I understand the national security concerns around 17-year old nobodies publishing videos of themselves doing silly dances. Or the "metadata" those 17 year olds produce. Are people sharing nuclear secrets on TikTok or something (and not doing the same on US services)?

I don’t understand why people are so obtuse about national security being an excuse. Do we really believe the Chinese are going to infiltrate by way of tiktok when they can hack into our telecom networks or any significant figures individual machines? This is about neutering our biggest global economic threat.

This law is dumb, because in no way does it prevent the exact same data to be collected, processed by a US entity and then transferred to China.

I suspect that it's not about data being transferred, but the fact that TikTok can shape opinions of Americans... which US companies do a lot, without any oversight.

Because they're trying to ignore the national security aspect to talk about tracking generically. Which is a valid argument and a good discussion to be had, but it's irrelevant in this context.

If the US was going to get into a legitimate hot "soldiers shooting at soldiers" type of war with any country, China is extremely high on that list. Maybe even #1. Pumping data on tens of millions of Americans directly into the CCP is bad. Putting a CCP-controlled algorithm in front of those tens of millions of Americans is so pants-on-head-retarded in that context it seems crazy to even try to talk about anything more general than that.

Foreign propaganda bots are just as present on US social media, and US social media amplify them just as much.

So where exactly is the meaningful difference here? I don't see it.

The actual difference is that US does not see the money from Tiktok, and blocking tiktok is a convenient excuse to give their propaganda platforms a competetive edge.

Actually doing something about the fundamental problem of foreign influence through the internet would basically destroy sillicon valley, and no politician wants to be responsible for that.

Because it's not clear what the national security concern is. With weapons or infrastructure, it's easy to understand how they can be used against the U.S., but with a social media platform, it's harder to see the threat. The concern really seems to lie with the users of TikTok.

So what's the issue? That people living in the U.S. and using TikTok might be influenced to act differently than how the powers that be want us to act?

I think one of the issues is the details of the national security risk hasn't been articulated well. I haven't followed this in detail, but from what I've seen in summaries, news articles etc is just a vague notion of a theoretical risk from an adversary, with no details on exactly what the risk is, or if there is an actual issue here (vs just a theoretical issue that can happen at some point).

Because personal data about US citizens is up for sale to more or less whoever wants it, and the US government doesn’t seem to have a problem with this otherwise.

Which makes it seem far more plausible that the real national security capability that is being defended is that of the US gov to influence narratives on social media. And while even that might be constitutional, it’s a lot less compelling.

But US companys sale all info about users anyway to anyone (just see today GM) and you accept in between often to over 800 cookies on websites. If thats ok, whats the difference. Why is it ok a website does include over 800 cokies?

X or Facebook isn’t “us”. If we had any reason to believe there were or were even likely to be strong effective democratic controls over their ability to manipulate public sentiment it might be different. But as it stands, it feels more like local oligarchs kicking out competitors in their market: “the US population is our population to manipulate, go back to your own”.

Because US social media companies have sold data to foreign adversaries when then used it to attempt to influence domestic matters

Surely China can just buy all the data that's being collected by US companies and sold. So whats the difference here?

Not only is it straight forward it has long precedent. We’ve long limited broadcast licenses for instance.

Yeah it's not even a point of view that requires nuance; it's pretty clearly a matter of US interests v. adversarial interests. Anecdotally, a lot of people that struggle to understand this are also squarely in the camp of assuming that the US is doing data collection solely for nefarious purposes.

Except:

• the US performs these activities (data collection, algorithm manipulation allegedly, etc) for US interests, which may not always align with the interests of individuals in the US, whereas

• adversarial foreign governments perform these activities for their own interests, which a US person would be wise to assume does not align with US interests and thus very likely doesn't align with the interests of US persons.

If a person's main concern is living in a better United States, start with ensuring that the United States is sticking around for the long run first. Then we can work on improving it.

Not everyone on HN is a U.S. national. Many are Chinese nationals. So the discussion here has conflict of interest depending on one’s allegiance

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Right, its because a law should be passed regulating this sort of data for the good of all citizens, but our congress can't / won't pass that, so they only stepped in when it became an obvious national security concern.

It'll come back as an issue in a less obvious manner next time, and every time until they pass such a law.

Which, imho, won't happen while our overall political environment remains conservatively dominant.