Hacker News Reader

Comment by Entinel | Hacker News Reader

This bill is so awful it cannot be allowed to pass. It reminds me of the Patriot Act.

It's MUCH WORSE than the Patriot act. This bill is absolutely horrific. And calling it at bill to "ban TikTok" is extremely disingenuous as it egregiously goes well beyond that.

We need a good breakdown of it. I read it, but don't think I really understood.

Jeremy Hambly does a decent job breaking parts of it down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6AynjtnJG8

Thanks! The worst part of this is all the comments about social networking when this bill is about punishing people who want privacy or end to end encrypted communication on their devices with 1 million dollar fine and 20 years of jail time.

I don't need a breakdown, I already hate it.

Why? It seems focused on only applications/products from a few countries of concern

> Why? It seems focused on only applications/products from a few countries of concern

...or any country that the Secretary of Commerce unilaterally decides is a "national security" concern.

That's an incredibly sweeping power to grant.

Sure, but there are natural guardrails within that... for instance if we decided to call the UK a country of national security concern it would trigger massive diplomatic and trade ramifications. Other than China you'll notice everyone else on the list basically has 0 trade volume with the U.S., so there's not much damage to the U.S. economy, but doing it to other countries would be a major escalation with economic consequences.

No it wouldn’t because the decision wouldn’t be publicized.

How would that be possible? I've read the text and didn't see any ability for them to not publish it, but more practically as soon as they ban an app from X country not already on the list, wouldn't it become clear in their justification for doing so that the country of origin would have been added?

You can't read books from Eurasia, it's against the law.

That's silly of course, but what about a Ractive? I think something that actively tries to collect data on you and shape your perception controlled by a geopolitical competitor should be handled carefully and potentially outlawed.

So you agree that the Chinese government is doing the right thing when they block a Chinese citizen from viewing Twitter?

You agree with the usage of the Great Firewall? You agree with the ability for the government to tell you what websites you can visit? If you use a VPN to read a Chinese newspaper article, you agree that the government should be allowed to imprison you and take all of your possessions? That's madness IMO.

We should be making Super-TOR instead of this.

Like I said, things "should be handled carefully and potentially outlawed." Personally I don't think your comparison holds because Twitter for instance isn't controlled by a state actor so the geopolitical issues don't really apply (unless you consider Elon controlled by China because of his dependencies on their critical mineral supply chains and market for Tesla... or by Saudi because of their funds ownership in Twitter).

I don't think the hyperbole here is particularly helpful; there is clearly a national security risk to allowing a foreign competitor unfettered access to your market and control over what amounts to a major media property. Maybe you believe that this doesn't matter and shouldn't be addressed, but if you do believe it should be addressed in some way, you need the legal framework to be able to do so

There are many things wrong with this comparison.

1) Twitter is not an arm of the US government in the way that Tiktok and most Chinese companies are.

2) The law is not calling for the information on Tiktok to be banned. For instance, an image of a tweet saying "fuck Xi Jinping" could not be viewed in China, but an image/video of a tiktok saying "fuck biden" would be fine to view in America.

3) Tiktok is not benign like a book is. It extracts information from the user and sends it to the company servers.

4) It is trivial to use the platform to perform psyops; the company could easily mix subtly pro-china content into the feed from time to time.

Re item 1: See [0]. Arguably any corporation involved in government censoring operations (which are by definition extra-judicial) is an active arm of said government. There's a reason people have taken to calling our current state "crony capitalism".

Re item 3: TikTok is worse than that. The recommendation feeds are specifically designed to rot the minds of American citizens. [1]

[0] https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-gop-want...

[1] https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-betwe...

I'm curious to hear the position of those who are downing here. I'm not averse to opposing opinions or information.

> This bill is absolutely horrific.

In what way? Explain that, and let readers decide if it is horrific.

> In what way? Explain that, and let readers decide if it is horrific.

The bill allows the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally ban products associated with countries of their choosing, with a 20 year prison sentence for any US citizen who attempts to use a VPN to circumvent the access ban.

It’s also worth noting that the Secretary of Commerce is not an elected position.

As if trusting congressmen to ban stuff is a better option.

Better than somebody with zero accountability to the public, with no practical oversight of their actions.

Wow, really? That's crazy!

My wife and I use WeChat because her family lives in China and we want to be able to chat and do video calls with her. If Secretary of Commerce declares that WeChat is illegal that is going to put an enormous strain on my family.

Fuck the US government. There should be mass civil disobedience over this if it somehow passes. Let them try to prosecute millions of citizens. This is no better than what the CCP or Putin's regime does to it's own citizens. I see that the EU and UK have similar designs to control the internet.

Hyper-partisanship has created an army of citizens who are quite ok with the government being authoritarian with no limits on its power as long as they're convinced that their ideology will be the one in control of the monster being created. The monster of course will follow its own path, crushing all that get in its way, not giving a damn about the ideological fantasies of those who allowed it to be created.

The problem is that the people who kick off an authoritarian government are typically the ones who die first. The revolution eats its own. See the brown shirts, the multiple rounds of beheadings during the French revolution, the Bolsheviks, and so on. So whoever hopes the government will continue to support them generally hopes in vain. The machine has two goals: continue existing, and expand its power.

> The problem is that the people who kick off an authoritarian government are typically the ones who die first. The revolution eats its own. See the brown shirts, the multiple rounds of beheadings during the French revolution, the Bolsheviks, and so on.

But, except for maybe some of those in the French Revolution, those are mostly foot soldiers, or leaders who fell victim to distinct subsequent revolutions, not the people who kicked off the resolution getting eaten by it.

> foot soldiers

That's who I was referring to in GGP. Generally the masses don't fare well in revolution.

That have a million or more users and are owned by adversaries of the United States.

Seems reasonable.

> That have a million or more users and are owned by adversaries of the United States.

No, it is not only restricted to services that are owned by adversaries of the United States. The text of the bill is very clear and much broader.

(10) ICTS COVERED HOLDING ENTITY.—The term “ICTS covered holding entity” means any entity that—

(A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and

(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or

(ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.

> are owned by adversaries of the United States

Its not “are owned by”, its “has a current, pending, or potential future controlling interest, direct or indirect, that is, will be, or will come to have been held by an adversary of the united states” (and, yes, the bill itself explicitly and separately refers to both simple future and future perfect, for some reason.)

> a 20 year prison sentence for any US citizen who attempts to use a VPN to circumvent the access ban

That's fucked up and insane. It should also fail a First Amendment test easily, but that all depends on the courts

> ban products

specifically, hardware what sold to >=1MM consumers, or software product >=1MM AAU.

It's also worth noting the rise of authoritarism in so many countries simultaneously.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com