The national security threats:
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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It's about palestine.
They’ve even said this out loud: https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content
No, it's not about security.
The US government forced TikTok to use a US state friendly company to handle all its US data as well as have influence in US operations. That company was Oracle, the infamous InQTel (CIA) backed, Washington connected, defense contractor. They hosted, monitored, and managed all US TikTok data in a deal with the government & TikTok worth about $1bn.
This is entirely about two things:
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Anti-competitiveness demands by other US social media companies (who also happen to be defense contractors / key parts of the US surveillance state).
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The inability for the US government to directly censor content via the algorithm, certainly not without that being publicly known. This process escalated as the US struggled to contain its foreign policy narratives in '22 onwards and accelerated again immediately after Israel identified TikTok specifically as being a problem for their genocidal project in Gaza.
everything is a threat when you're this fragile and stupid.
Actually yes. The know for sure that socials they control are definitely national security risk for other countries, as they used them many times to incite color revolutions and generally influence said countries; so they assume tiktok is the same risk for them. Every accusation is a projection, remember.
The campaign to ban TikTok started immediately after Israel blamed TikTok for young people hating genocide.
An article from March 2024 pointing to the leaked phone call as the source of the ban: Leak shows pro-Israel lobby chief blaming TikTok for pro-Palestine youth. Now the US is banning the app.
Think of it like an abusive partner who sees every in interaction their victim has with the outside world as a threat to their position.
The "threat" is they can't purge dissent and promote divide and conquer manufactured consent, and use the platform as a giant warantless secret dragnet, which the government holds leverage over.
I think this is a good time to remind people of Qwest Communications refusal to play along with unwarrented wiretapping of American citizens. It is important Orwellian context along with the pre-post history of 9/11 and inevitable PATRIOT ACT which shredded the constiution to bits. The founder is a rich fuck land oil media yadda. Another exeutive took the fall and eventually the company was bought out / merged wit Citylink. An example had to be made.
But a good write-up on NATOpedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest
** Refusal of NSA surveillance requests**
In May 2006, USA Today reported that millions of telephone calling records had been handed over to the United States National Security Agency by AT&T Corp., Verizon, and BellSouth since September 11, 2001. This data has been used to create a database of all international and domestic calls. Qwest was allegedly the lone holdout, despite threats from the NSA that their refusal to cooperate may jeopardize future government contracts,[11] a decision which has earned them praise from those who oppose the NSA program.[12]
In the case of ACLU v. NSA, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor on August 17, 2006 ruled that the government's domestic eavesdropping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately.[13] The Bush Administration filed an appeal in the case, and Judge Taylor's decision was overturned by the appeals court on the basis of a lack of standing.
Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio alleged in appeal documents that the NSA requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September 11, 2001. Nacchio recalled the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claimed that the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest's refusal to participate in the wiretapping program.[14] On April 14, 2009, Nacchio surrendered to a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, to begin serving a six-year sentence for an insider trading conviction. The United States Supreme Court denied bail pending appeal the same day.[15][16]
A social media experiment and website covering the Qwest holdout, "Thank you Qwest dot Org"[17] built by Netherlands-based webmaster Richard Kastelein and American expatriate journalist Chris Floyd, was covered by the CNN Situation Room,[18] USA Today,[19] New York Times,[20][21] International Herald Tribune,[22] Denver Post,[23][24] News.com,[25] and the Salt Lake Tribune.[26]
** Merger with CenturyLink** On April 22, 2010, CenturyLink announced it would acquire Qwest in a transaction of 0.1664 shares of CenturyLink common stock for each share of Qwest common stock. CenturyLink shareholders would hold a 50.5% share of ownership in the combined company, while Qwest shareholders would own the remaining 49.5%. The valuation of CenturyLink's purchase as of April 21, 2010, was $22.4 billion, including the assumption of $11.8 billion of outstanding debt held by Qwest as of December 31, 2009.[27][28] Qwest started to do business as CenturyLink from August 8, 2011
Similar to what others said, it is about control. The US state has complete control over how the "algorithm" feeds people the narratives that the US wants to feed them when it comes to the major social media platforms. But not with TikTok. It is not a national security threat in the way they want people to think it is, but it is a national security threat in that they can't force their curated propaganda through it as they see fit, like they can with the other platforms. It's a propaganda liability.
No. "National Security" is designed to be a discussion-terminator.
It's so much not a security threat that its board was (probably is now as well but the investigation is years old) to be full of former NATO shills: https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-tiktok-pipeline-why-tiktok-employing-national-security-agents/280336/
yeah it came to them in a dream
There are some legitimate concerns like if someone in the military or DoD has it on their phone it can be used as an attack vector. But so can any Chinese app like Temu and it is mostly handled already by banning them on site. Maybe there were too many grunts posting vids showing off the hardware.
The bulk data they collect can provide all sorts statistical data on the general population but only as a supplement to some other strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if China was collecting this and trying to figure out what to do with it later.
The real reason though - as others have said - is its not subject to the same surveillance and censorship programs as US apps are and that is a very real national security concern for the state. They don't know how many Luigi memes are getting reposted. TikToks data isn't getting fed into prism. If another BLM protest kicks off, TikTok will just let it burn. They could manipulate their algorithm to turn up the heat but its not really necessary.
Your comment makes the most sense to me. Surveillance seems like the bigger issue. Maybe I'm naive, but censorship and State propaganda seems to give the US government too much credit. US politicians can't even protect their own constituents from systems that spread misinformation. The best they can do is exploit those systems to get elected. People can call that propaganda, but it gives me a coordinated central-power vibe and seems to miss a more obvious, individualistic, self-interested, capitalistic framing.
The ban is probably because politicians only want American companies exploiting American data for American profit. Not for increased tax revenue-- as they never pay their fair share-- but increased donations/lobbyist/campaign financing/perks, etc.
A US company can probably participate and benefit more easily than a Chinese company. Hence why they're going after tiktok when they should've been going after meta, google, amazon, etc this whole time. That's my 2 cents anyways. I'd be curious what the donations of each company looked like.
Maybe I'm naive, but censorship and State propaganda seems to give the US government too much credit.
I never said anything about state propaganda. The "state" doesn't spread propaganda directly through social media like it does through mainstream media. US propaganda does exist on these platforms though but it comes from different interest groups, PR firms, etc.
US politicians can't even protect their own constituents from systems that spread misinformation.
They're not really trying to because a lot of that comes from in-house and isn't seen as a threat to the state. Something like ivermectin disinfo isn't perceived as a threat to the state but too many Luigi memes are. "Protecting US citizens" is not a priority. US censorship regimes on social media however, absolutely do exist but they take the form or cooperation of the business with the state to deprioritize certain content.
The ban is probably because politicians only want American companies exploiting American data for American profit.
Yeah that's probably the main reason for the ban but that's not why it's being given the "national security" excuse. If Temu was actually capable of competing with Amazon in the US then there would absolutely be talks about banning it too and probably come up with other excuses.
I never said anything about state propaganda.
Sorry, I mentioned the State as a generalization of other comments, not yours. I agree with what you're saying about PR and interest groups being the dominant form of US propaganda, and politicians not stopping the spread of misinformation because they're benefactors. [edit: formatting]
They're not really trying to because a lot of that comes from in-house and isn't seen as a threat to the state. Something like ivermectin disinfo isn't perceived as a threat to the state but too many Luigi memes are. "Protecting US citizens" is not a priority. US censorship regimes on social media however, absolutely do exist but they take the form or cooperation of the business with the state to deprioritize certain content.
exactly this, a lot of the crystal mom ivermectin flat earth secret chinese training grounds shit juxtaposed with conspiracy theorist as pejorative encourages an ideological years of lead dynamic that contributes to the political incoherence of the average disinterested american which is very much to the benefit of the military-industrial complex. as you said, the only perceived threats in this mind melting discourse are those which accurately point to capital as complicit in the average person's lack of well-being
That makes sense to me. I'm a little fuzzy on "an ideological years of lead dynamic," what do you mean by that?
yeah I stream of consciousnessed that but essentially where the greater political sophistication of the italian blocs during the years of lead required the actual physical manifestation of the strategy of tension in the form consistent low-level violence, the american political landscape requires significantly less effort. the state has already successfully neutralized any nascent organization with any promise. now, a constant conflict between largely incoherent parties is waged across media, and any left-wing attempt to point to the material reality of things is easily dismissed either as fantasy or conspiracy respectively by the predominant "sides" of the captured discourse.
Understood. Thank you for the added context. I was not familiar with the "years of lead" phrase. I agree. It does not take a lot of effort to neutralize opposition. You reminded me of the Steve Bannon quote to “...flood the zone [the media] with shit.” Attention algorithms have only accelerated it. It has made it very difficult for Americans to focus on a core issue and organize around it. A new insane thing is pushed out before the previous one can be digested.
I'm sure it's only seen as a security threat because they can't lean on them the way they can U.S. based companies to control narratives and only push approved propaganda.
In addition to the anticompetitive thing, it's also a suppressing counternarratives thing
Yes but you can’t see it!
My girlfriend (who is totally real) who lives in Canada’s uncle who works for Nintendo told me
Tbh it's all just a result of Facebook lobbying of the same variety that killed Vine. Lawmakers just had an additional sinophobic angle to grandstand on this time but the material origin has nothing to do with natsec.
I feel like this is probably the same justification Australia used to ban Huawei, whatever that was
as far as I understand it is purely speculative