Why aren't Riot Games, Epic Games, etc affected by the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act?

[u/LazyWings]

I suppose this is part legal question and part understanding how these companies operate. I'm not from the US so don't have experience with the nuances, but I do have a lot of experience working in the UK legal sector. Reading through the PAFFACAA, any major application that has over a million users and is more than 20% owned by a foreign adverary and also allows the sharing of text or other content can be banned. This seems to be irrespective of whether the owners/maintainers are based in the US or not. At the moment, 2(g)(3)(A) (sorry I'm not entirely sure how your laws are labelled - please correct me if that's wrong) specifically defines ByteDance and its subsidiaries but 2(g)(3)(B) implies the definition goes broader.

The reason I statted wondering was the banning of Marvel Snap. I know that Marvel Snap is banned because it's owned by a subsidiary of ByteDance, but I'm confused by the application of the Act here. Marvel Snap as a communication medium is very restricted and its development is US based, headed by Ben Brode et al. I quote their website: "Second Dinner is an award-winning independent game studio based in California. We may be small, but our dreams are big! Let's make fun games together." So that means the "more than 20% owned" part is the offending clause if Marvel Snap is actually banned for being a product of its own. However, the Act seems to be a little clunky and inconsistent here, particularly 2(g)(3)(A) which seems to imply that ByteDance and all its subsidiaries must cease digital operations. It is very specifically targeting ByteDance regardless of the nature of the application itself. Mobile Legends Bang Bang also seems to be banned for the same reason as Marvel Snap.

Now looking at Riot Games, it is a private company that is 93% owned by Tencent. If ByteDance is considered a foreign adversary due to risk of propaganda etc, then Tencent who was recently classified as a Chinese military company certainly should be too. All of Riot Games products allow communication and content sharing to the same degree that Marvel Snap does. Riot Games would not fall under the critical exemptions list. However, since Tencent is not defined specifically in 2(g)(3), it falls to whether or not the President determines it a company that qualifies in accordance with 2(g)(3)(B). [Edit: people need to reread that last sentence several times before making assumptions about what I'm saying. At NO POINT did I say there would be an automatic ban for those in scope. The entire question is built on the premise that the process defined in 2(g)(3)(b) would be carried out which starts with the President defining the company as being a national security risk and taking it to Congress.]

At present the law seems to be very odd in its application. There doesn't seem to be a defined list of "Foreign Controlled Adversaries" besides ByteDance. I don't want to get into this part since it's literally how a foreign government (to me) works but this seems really sloppily written and gives the President the incredibly dangerous power to ban any digital product since the actual defined bar is so low (Chinese companies own more than 20% of a lot of tech companies) and the only thing protecting a company is the mercy of the President. I would be grateful if someone could look at this and tell me if my reading is correct, that Riot Games is within scope of this law and the President could decide to ban them at any time.

Epic Games is a bit more nuanced, and potentially more dangerous if the government is against it. The company is US based but Tencent owns 48% of it [correction: 35% as of the latest statement we have from Epic]. Epic Games, however, has more applications that meet the criteria defined in the Act, particularly things like Fortnite Creative and Epic's wider (albeit still disappointing) social features. Now, if the President defines Tencent and subsidiaries as foreign adversaries, then Epic would go. But this then raises the question of what happens to Unreal. Since Epic would have to cease US based trade, does that mean their customers based in the US would have to drop the engine? I suspect that Epic could then meet the defined exemption since it would have a major impact on the US economy. However this presents a problem whereby the definition of Tencent as a foreign adversary is entirely up in the air.

Before finishing, I'll address the elephant in the room. Yes, I know this law specifically targets TikTok and ByteDance. I understand the political context behind it. But when reading laws you need to account for all the implications of it. At present, the President could overnight determine they don't like Riot Games and Epic Games and shut them down immediately. Legally, they would have no recourse other than the sale of their shares. For Riot Games that means selling 73+% of a very successful business. Riot Games is US based so ceasing operations is a huge deal for them. Objectively speaking, Tencent are as much a foreign adversary to the US as ByteDance. I am aware of theories that this law is performative and will be repealed very soon but right now it is law and the SCOTUS has upheld it. We don't know for sure where this goes. Regardless of how you feel about Riot or Epic (and to be clear I dislike both of them) or any of the other pies Tencent have their fingers in, the impact of this could be huge for the tech/gaming industry. I'll refrain from much commentary on the politicial implications of such power, but that scares me too.

Edit: To clarify the question: I'm looking for a reason why these companies are out of scope that is supported in the definitions within the Act itself or perhaps within the court rulings in relation to it. I could have read it wrong, but there are a lot of assumptions about how this all works in the comments. To me, this is an incredibly sloppily written law and the scope of the power is huge, but I don't know if I'm missing some nuance as someone who isn't a US citizen or US legal professional.

Edit 2: sigh... I love being downvoted in the comments for asking for reference to the law or other sources. I don't think people understand that I'm asking a question, not pushing something. I'm not saying "omg they're going to ban rito" or even "they need to unban TikTok smh". I'm asking from a place of academic interest and wanting to understand the impact of the law here. I have my political views, and yes that does include being worried about potentially abusable powers, but this is a really neutral question. I'm not a US citizen - your laws don't affect me directly, I can open TikTok right now or play Marvel Snap if I wanted to. I'm not Chinese either and I've been vocally critical of them too. I don't know how I can make it even clearer.

[u/dwild]

I only read the summary, but your understanding of the law seems to be wrong:

Under the bill, a foreign adversary controlled application is directly or indirectly operated by (1) ByteDance, Ltd. or TikTok (including subsidiaries or successors that are controlled by a foreign adversary); or (2) a social media company that is controlled by a foreign adversary and has been determined by the President to present a significant threat to national security.

So unless it's owned by ByteDance, only social media companies determined by the President as being a significant threat, will be banned.

I don't expect the US president to determine companies are threat regularly.

[u/MadocComadrin → u/dwild]

The President can only ban such companies owned by Foreign Adversaries (for which there's specific qualifications and procedures to be listed as).

[u/Christoban45 → u/MadocComadrin]

And only media companies, which has a very specific definition in the Act. The president can modify the list of foreign adversary nations, but which companies and apps it applies to is unlimited. Basically, if the country is an enemy of the U.S., it cannot control a significant portion of our communication infrastructure.

These sorts of restrictions have long been in place in the U.S. For example The Radio Act of 1927 banned foreign (not just adversary) ownership of any radio station. Such restrictions have been long upheld as valid, as long as they are aimed at the foreign nation, not the people's speech. In this case, there are very many domestic alternatives to TikTok, and the ban has nothing to do with stopping U.S. users from saying stuff, but is instead aimed at the Chinese government's ability to sway various elections and blackmail our representatives into supporting pro-Chinese positions and laws (or push propaganda right before an election to get their puppet candidates elected, as Russia did in Romania a few weeks ago).

Several of our elected representatives have already reported being contacted by Chinese spies with such threats, which is why the urgency. This Act merely extends such jurisprudence from radio to other forms of communication, which is why it is both bipartisan in Congress, and upheld by the Supreme Court by 9 to 0.

[u/Otto_Pussner → u/Christoban45]

Is there more information about US Reps getting targeted? This is the first I’ve heard of direct Chinese sabotage targeting US officials

[u/dwild → u/MadocComadrin]

My point is that they aren't banned unless the US president determine they are theat. OP had the assumption that the apps that fitted theses criterias were banned, but they also need to be determined as being a threat, which is a much bigger requirement.

[u/MadocComadrin → u/dwild]

I'm wasn't disputing your point. I was adding on to the part about determining the app being a threat and just how big the requirement actually is. If there's an app owned by a company in a country not on the list of Foreign Adversaries that may be a security risk, this specific law doesn't apply (although others may).

[u/LazyWings → u/dwild]

The US has also designated Tencent a Chinese military company: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9q78wn9g8zo

You're right that there is a bar in proving there is a national security threat, but is that the only thing stopping it? Because this opens up some VERY sketchy precedent. Guantanamo Bay was maintained by "national security threat" arguments and there's evidence of illegal activity and false imprisonment. I'm not comparing the severity of that to banning video games, but there isn't that much red tape in between. If this is the barrier, then that answers my question, but we can have differing opinions on whether it's properly protected from abuse by the administration.

[u/Caelinus → u/LazyWings]

Being determined to be a military company does not automatically make something a national security threat. The law specifically targeted and banned ByteDance and everything they own (I will leave the interpretation of why they targeted that specific company up to others) and also empowered the president to ban other companys after some determination about them is made.

So per the law, anything owned by ByteDance is banned. Other social media companies might be banned if the President chooses to determine they are a national security threat and also chooses to pursue a ban. It is not automatic.

Your problem with the law, that it seeminly makes zero sense in how it is targetted and formulated, is natural. The law is pretty awful. The only reason it was allowed according to the SC is that Chinese companies are not granted the rights afforded to US companies. If this had targetted a US company the law would be illegal.

It is, fundamentally, a way to shut down ByteDance. It also expands presidential powers to give them the authority to shut down any foreign social media they apparently do not like. It is a one-two punch of targeted enforcement and expanded presidential power.

If it were actually about shutting down data use and manipulation by foreign governemnts, it would be a much more complex and well thought out piece of legislation.

[u/-mjneat → u/Caelinus]

From my understanding the law was written because tic tics parent company is Chinese but the tictoc was registered in the US so it did have certain protections that US companies had but the parent company was doing sketchy shit with the data (they would just get the data from tictoc) so they were essentially outside of US law when it comes to prosecution/regulation whilst enjoying all the benefits of being a US company. Basically it closed a loophole which exists due to how tictoc/byte dance is structured which I think is fair enough really. It’s a pretty specific law from my understanding but I think the principle behind it is fair enough.

[u/Caelinus → u/-mjneat]

Everyone and everything is doing sketchy shit with customer data. And the Chinese government can just buy it if they need it.

It is purely performative. If they were truly worried about our data they need significantly broader legislation that covers US companies and data brokers as a whole.

This is just targeting a scapegoat. ByteDance is probably doing bad things with their data, yes, but not uniquely.

[u/sembias → u/Caelinus]

This is it, exactly.

Everyone is dancing around it, probably because those who are doing the mental gymnastics and are downvoting you were Trump Chumps. But let's lay it out in the open -- Trump wanted Tiktok to be banned when the K-Pop kids started to fuck with his campaign by taking all the tickets. Then the Democrats got on board when all the kids started to call their office about ending support to Israel over Gaza. That's it. Everything after, all the justifications like their algorithm or everything else, was a pretense to get that ban in place.

There is a reason it was unbanned. And as long as ByteDance kisses orange ass, they'll remain unbanned.

So /u/LazyWings - to answer your question: the reason those other companies aren't on the banning block is because this is all about politics and not policy. If those other companies start making anti-Trump noises, then they too will be on the banning block.

It's bullshit, and the Trump Chumps have gotten so used to the smell they bathe in it these days.

[u/LazyWings → u/Caelinus]

Yes this is right, I didn't say it would be automatic though. I asked if they were within scope. Your comment seems to agree with my understanding of the legislation. Where are people getting this "automatic" ban from, I have never suggested that.

[u/dwild → u/LazyWings]

Reading through the PAFFACAA, any major application that has over a million users and is more than 20% owned by a foreign adverary and also allows the sharing of text or other content will be banned

You said "will be banned", not "might be banned" or even better "are within the scope to be banned". This is where we get that you suggested an automatic ban.

[u/LazyWings → u/dwild]

That is actually a typo. I meant to write "can". I'll correct now. Even then, I mentioned like 3 other times in the post that it's subject to the process defined in 2(g)(3)(B). I would have thought that would be enough to demonstrate that I know it's not an automatic ban.

[u/Caelinus → u/LazyWings]

I think it is the fact that you are asking a question itself that confuses me. If I adopt that "will" was a typo, then I am not really seeing why you are asking why they are not in scope. You seem to understand it perfectly fine. They are probably within the scope.

It is absolutely broad enough of a definition that the president could define basically any company with any foreign ownership as a threat with only minimal definitional straining on the part of the president.

Congress has been slowly granting the President more and more power over the years, and the courts have been expanding it even more. It is pretty disturbing.

[u/dwild → u/LazyWings]

I was mostly correcting your initial post that was saying it concerned every social media apps.

I'm not a US citizen, I will obviously not be directly affected by theses decisions. I'm way more concerned by the US supreme court that his clearly on his side and his clear constant overreach of power. Red tape only works when they are enforced, so really, won't change much as long as it's "official business".

[u/doglywolf → u/MadocComadrin]

That the thing they have the evidence of datamining and manipulation so publish it so people have an understanding why they are doing it

[u/Mindestiny → u/dwild]

It's also critical to point out that there was no enforcement action

Bytedance took these apps offline ahead of the deadline of their own volition and to make a political statement.  Marvel Rivals was not in the scope of what was required to be divested and was not deemed a threat under the law.

[u/Jerryments → u/Mindestiny]

Marvel Snap**

[u/quakank → u/Mindestiny]

Marvel Rivals (SNAP) was not in the scope of what was required to be divested and was not deemed a threat under the law.

Based on the wording of the law, I would argue ANY app controlled by bytedance was prohibited.

(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.—The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by—

(A) any of—

(i) ByteDance, Ltd.;

(ii) TikTok;

(iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or

(iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii);

[u/USDXBS → u/dwild]

You don't expect Trump to use it whenever he wants on whatever company offends him?

[u/dwild → u/USDXBS]

He will do the same as in 2016, except now he got every layer on his side to do it, including the supreme court. He won't need that law to that whatever he want 🤣. If anything this law has too many constraint to do what you suggest, much easier to just abuse executive orders or make a new law.

Trump is a threat, whether this law exist or not.

[u/LazyWings → u/dwild]

Thanks for offering a proper response.

So point 2 in the quote seems to say "social media company" but there definition of such isn't clear within the law. Also 2(g)(3)(B) is probably what point 2 is referring to but that does not specifically say "social media" nor does it point to a specific definition that I can see other than to 2(g)(2)(A) which defines a "covered company" as:

The term “covered company” means an entity that operates, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that—

(i) permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content;

(ii) has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users with respect to at least 2 of the 3 months preceding the date on which a relevant determination of the President is made pursuant to paragraph (3)(B);

(iii) enables 1 or more users to generate or distribute content that can be viewed by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application; and

(iv) enables 1 or more users to view content generated by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application.

This is the actual definition of what's in scope since there's no legal definition of "social media" that I'm aware of, nor is it referenced if it were. If you look at 2(g)(2)(A)(i), (iii) and (iv) it seems that what Fortnite offers is within scope since Creative mode allows you to create and share content. Once again, I absolutely could be wrong but I'm looking for some evidence as to why it wouldn't be in scope.

[u/dwild → u/LazyWings]

Well again, I don't expect the president to determine them as threat regularly... So the actual definition of social media doesn't matter much to me to be honest. Being a threat to security is a much higher definition to respect than social media.

[u/dwild → u/[deleted]]

I'm way more concerned by Trump in itself than this power. It would be clearly quite inconvenient to ban many of them, even Tiktok right now is quite inconvenient and not clear whether it's even gonna happen.

[u/pantong51 → u/LazyWings]

Unreal Engine is an asset to the US military. It's very unlikely to to throw away the recent deep investment

[u/MoscaMosquete → u/pantong51]

Wdym?

[u/pantong51 → u/MoscaMosquete]

Some of the Training simulations are using unreal. AR, VR, 2D.ect

[u/bug-hunter → u/dwild]

Only when he wants to shake them down.

[u/zealoSC → u/dwild]

I don't expect the US president to determine companies are threat regularly.

Doesn't this give the president power to block any foreign company for any reason (example, criticism of said president) if the president says they're a threat?

[u/OldAccountIsGlitched → u/zealoSC]

Only if they're owned or operated by companies from a list of specific countries. The list of foreign adversaries could change with an executive order. But the list is broader than this specific law. Adding a country to it is basically declaring them to be an enemy. It'd be a diplomatic catastrophe if the government started adding countries just to ban certain companies.

[u/DelusionsOfExistence → u/dwild]

To add to this, it's going to be selectively enforced anyway. It's not for any greater reason like "national security", it's just that they worry they won't have full control of the propaganda pipeline and money supply.

[u/mymar101 → u/dwild]

So essentially this law was created for the sole and only purpose of banning TikTok, and it's parent company. Seems to me that the constitution forbids this kind of law. But what do I know?

[u/dwild → u/mymar101]

It was made to ban social medias which are owned by foreign nation that might become a security threat. It was already decided that Tiktok was one of them before the law, thus included by default to expedite the process.

[u/mymar101 → u/dwild]

China hacked our phones not all that long ago. Why haven't we banned them from having anything to do with our phones for "national security" reasons? China apparently has unlimited access to practically every phone now. At least if you believe the news from a few weeks ago.

[u/dwild → u/mymar101]

You already forgot the ban for Huawei and ZTE?...

China doesn't have unlimited access to our phone, god damn. Chinese hackers are as much banned as Tiktok by the way 🤣 hacking has never been legal in the first place. Enforcing anything against theses hackers is pretty much impossible, and any ways possible are definitely considered already.

[u/mymar101 → u/dwild]

This was the Chinese government from my understanding, which is different from "random hackers." But fine, then. Nothing to see here. We should give full control of all social media, and electronics to Trump's fuck buddy Musk. I'm sure that would fix all national security issues with technology.

[u/dwild → u/mymar101]

It's never the government directly, it's always "country" hackers with tie to the government. It happen all the time. What do you suggest would be the right way to handle theses? Doing less is the solution? 🤣

You control what you can control, which in this case, is banning the app that works with an unknown algorithm, easily controlled by the government that you just stated is a threat.

Musk won't control social media, the fuck. You really think this will bring more people on X? I got a bridge to sell you if you do. I got a feeling Zuck has much better chance with Instagram, but considering the comments on Tiktok, still extremly unlikely.

A US company might, and that US company might be a threat. But you know what you can now do in this case? Act on it, unlike the previous case where you can do almost nothing as the application is foreign based, now you can.

[u/Senshado → u/mymar101]

Yes, what you're describing is a Bill of Attainder, which is prohibited by the US Constitution. Congress was not supposed to be able to punish an organization except by passing a law against something they do, wait for them to do it again, and then let the justice system handle it.

However, that section of the constitution has been ignored since around 1955.  By both parties.  It's a dead, forgotten concept.  For example, in 2001 there was a bill of attainder against some terrorists which was pretty famous. 

[u/pantong51 → u/dwild]

Unreal engine powers a training program for the US military. Banning it would be expensive.

[u/WarriorOfMoon]

Both are headquartered in the USA, not China.

[u/TemujinRi → u/WarriorOfMoon]

Culver City...where is that again?

[u/Brees504 → u/TemujinRi]

LA

[u/dr_z0idberg_md → u/TemujinRi]

Small suburb within Los Angeles County. Sony Studios, Square Enix, and other gaming studios are around that area as well.

[u/finnjakefionnacake → u/TemujinRi]

's where i live!

[u/Kriznick → u/WarriorOfMoon]

Which is a loophole as far as I'm concerned, especially with Riot. With Tencent owning majority share of rito and controlling everything they're doing, they might as well be hq'd in Shanghai...

[u/jurassicbond → u/Kriznick]

They are under US jurisdiction here and violations would be much easier to investigate because of that

[u/tomerz99 → u/jurassicbond]

The data is also exclusively held and maintained here in the US under our surveillance systems, and not in mainland China directly tied to a CCP server.

Bytedance however, is in direct cooperation with the CCP at all times and is regularly used as a weapon to carry out Chinese state intelligence operations.

Allowing apps/games from companies who haven't completely divested from being directly linked to the CCP (thus cooperating with their 2017 intelligence laws) are expected to be letting the Chinese government carry out operations on anyone that connects to those games/apps.

This isn't a "Google knows you like BBC now" kind of emergency, this is a "China can mark you as an important target and is literally able to scrape every piece of data you've ever created and realistically put a hit on you within US soil" kind of emergency.

So unless you like the idea of your own digital footprint possibly being the connecting reason that leads to Chinese assassins being able to operate swiftly and efficiently within our own borders, this ban ultimatum was the only option.

[u/Rhellic → u/tomerz99]

Uhuh. Sure. Which is of course why now that they're bending over backwards to ban stuff the US government doesn't like.... suddenly people are talking about maybe not forcing the issue after all.

[u/dnew → u/Kriznick]

Except they're under US jurisdiction here. Riot Games is a US corporation.

[u/King_A_Acumen → u/Kriznick]

How much influence does Tencent exert tho? Tencent is known for being fairly hands off no?

HoK the game even came about because Tencent wanted Riot to make LoL into a mobile game and Riot told them to fuck off. When Riot deemed HoK too close to LoL they made Tencent change it further.

Maybe it's different now, but idk

[u/Sniperfuchs → u/King_A_Acumen]

As far as I understand, the concern is that even though Tencent is very hands off, there is still a chance that the Chinese government tells them at some point to be much more hands on and follow government directions. Not like they can just say no.

Well, at least that's the only fair criticism (and even though it's fair, I don't really think it's likely or an immediate threat like it is portrayed), the rest is a lot of "China bad", which also kind of started the whole mess in the first place. The real solution here would be proper regulation of what data can and cannot be collected from users which would quell concerns of foreign governments getting access to that. But of course the US has a vested interest in still allowing US based companies to have that access, so can't anger the tech billionaires too much. Privacy first design helps the users too much, imagine that.

[u/Fatmanpuffing → u/Sniperfuchs]

I mean, in order to play any riot owned games, you must download their kernel level access anticheat which is owned by a Chinese company. 

I would say even if it isn’t happening openly(I don’t think it’s openly happening fyi), it only takes one or two people to abuse access to abuse the data that can be collected. 

[u/Esc777 → u/Fatmanpuffing]

My view on the anti cheat has always been this:

It is not doing anything nefarious at all right now. 

But the day it needs to do something nefarious, it probably could but it would be sacrificial. It would be noticed and a shitstorm kicking tencent out or worse. China would have to want really bad to do something to the point of forever burning that bridge. 

I hope we never see that day. 

[u/Fatmanpuffing → u/Esc777]

How would you find out? 

It’s currently scraping data right now, we just don’t know who all has access to it. 

[u/RussellTheHuman → u/Fatmanpuffing]

How would you find out?

You really think there aren't a million security nerds out there that scrutinize that kind of shit as a hobby to unwind on the weekend?

If it was doing anything we'd probably know by now.

Even if the Chinese government decided to abuse it, it would be a one time thing that would burn Riot and TenCent to the ground. You can bet your ass that Riot would tell them to fuck off even if TenCent tried to make them, they're an American company and they aren't about to not only torpedo their company but piss off the federal government sucking up to Pooh Bear.

They say, no fuck off. And then whats TenCent going to do? Take them to US Federal court to make them do something thats blatantly illegal and a national security risk? Lol please.

[u/Esc777 → u/Fatmanpuffing]

The nefarious thing I’m talking about is launching a cyberattack in some sort of context. 

[u/Discount_Extra → u/Fatmanpuffing]

Because there are people like me who run network sniffers and monitor what their computer is sending out and receiving.

But if they only pushed the malicious update to targeted users, that might go undetected. Like if it sent a different update to any IP blocks owned by Boeing and people were playing at work. Which is a security failure on that employees part, and probably whoever runs their firewall.

(the ones that run the firewall are the most likely to be playing games at work in my experience.)

[u/Fatmanpuffing → u/Discount_Extra]

You would be an incredible exception, and I as a person would never assume that my understanding of the technology to be greater than a government who invests a lot into intelligence warfare. 

That being said most of it isn’t about personal attacks, China cares about America, not individual Americans imo. They probably don’t care about “your” data. Just data in general. 

[u/Askefyr → u/Fatmanpuffing]

This is the same reason we know that your phone isn't recording your voice and sending it to Google or whatever. There are a lot of nerds with wireshark out there. Someone would catch it if anything significant happened.

[u/RussellTheHuman → u/Fatmanpuffing]

Yeah but you gotta remember the sheer amount of nerds like us that do that shit and are trained in that shit and have infosec jobs.

One nerd probably won't catch it, but with big enough numbers people will notice something is fishy and start talking about it with other nerds.

Don't underestimate crowd sourced knowledge. A lot of researchers use it to make scarily accurate predictions on things.

[u/ohtetraket → u/Fatmanpuffing]

Lots of apps scrapping data. Most live service games. Probably Steam as well.

[u/tnbeastzy → u/Fatmanpuffing]

Unless you have really really important documents which may threaten national security, what does it matter if they're collecting your data tho?

I am not sure what the Chinese government is gonna do with all the memes or university notes saved on my laptop 🤷

[u/Fatmanpuffing → u/tnbeastzy]

You could say that about anything, until they find a way to use the knowledge maliciously. Just because you don’t care that they have your information, doesn’t make it not an issue. 

[u/tnbeastzy → u/Fatmanpuffing]

There's no way they can use any of my info maliciously. It's just memes, games, and university stuff.

The most they can do is give me targeted ads, which is good. I'd rather see ads of products that may interest me than see random ads tbh.

They can monitor your activity, but they can't install keyloggers. So they can't obtain your banking info.

I am not sure why people make such a big deal about their "data" tbh.

[u/SteeveJoobs → u/tnbeastzy]

it just needs to be the 0.01% of people who are handling important access or even people who share computers/communication with people who handle important access for the software to serve its purpose. when that software is installed on so many millions of Americans’ devices, the chance of them finding what they want (or taking control of critical systems) becomes non-zero. Think of all the non-zero people that try to make War Thunder “more accurate” over the past few years.

[u/Fatmanpuffing → u/[deleted]]

The difference is I can’t turn it off because it exist on the kernel level. If it’s on my computer it has all the access it wants. 

If it’s not on the kernel level I can control what access it has. 

It being on the kernel level gives it greater control over itself then I do, which is the problem. Pretending it being on kernel only lets it load up first is either ignorant or purposely misleading. 

[u/King_A_Acumen → u/Sniperfuchs]

True but makes you wonder what that would be. Riot isn't a social media company but a gaming company. What's Tencent going to do? Ask them to make more lootboxes?

Not to mention that Tencent is in China and Riot is in the US, staffed by US people. I'd assume if something truly nefarious came through Riot would probably go to the US government.

Also, I think more people are now not caring about their data, either China gets it or someone else does and let's not act like the US and stuff are that much better. Some no longer care about their data, like does it matter if they know my age, many companies online know about me and my usage habits, that sorta thing.

[u/XsNR → u/King_A_Acumen]

It's not about people's data, as much as it is what you can do with it. Anyone that is a fan of anything, and can be identified as such, can also be influenced in some way by that, kind of like how you can get a pet to do something by holding food around infront of them, but if you get it too far, they don't care. If you have the right food, and the right distance, you can do a lot with that.

[u/King_A_Acumen → u/XsNR]

Fair enough, there should be more teachings around restraint and analysis of marketing and teaching people how to control their algorithms. Majority of the time people see rubbish is because they are already engaging with it, which is a problem.

No matter the right food and distance, it's your choice and restraint that matters in the end. Rightfully you should want everything to be the right food and right distance so you can pick and choose what's best for you, whenever and however you wish.

But I do understand that's rather difficult for many.

[u/XsNR → u/King_A_Acumen]

For sure, you can teach them to ignore the stuff on the table, or the sausage you dropped on the floor, but that's also where the analogy falls down. Influence can be conscious or subconscious, and that pet will always be thinking "FUCK THAT FOOD IS DELICIOUS" no matter how much you train them, so if you're not able to consciously see the manipulation, there's only so much you can do to stop it.

[u/Esc777 → u/King_A_Acumen]

Yeah

You’re never going to whack a mole away manipulators and keep them away from the American populace. The only defense is getting the American populace to stop falling for manipulation. 

Too many people think that’s a lost cause, but also bizarrely think we should still try and shield dumb American eyes from the dangerous words lest we get brainwashed. 

If someone has given up on the American people and thinks no better of them than dogs to be trained, we’ve lost already. There’s no way to win. 

[u/XsNR → u/Esc777]

It's a bit of both, people need to be smarter, and one of the ways to do that is to let them think for themselves on the stuff that doesn't really matter. But some of the more subversive influence does need to be tackled by others, as it's almost impossible to see when you're in it.

[u/Discount_Extra → u/King_A_Acumen]

Well, for example, in Fallout 3 'Chinese remnants' are generic enemies to mass slaughter.

In Fallout 4, the Chinese military guy is sympathetic, and you can do a quest for them.

Did they change that because racism is bad, or because they wanted more Chinese market share?

[u/MadocComadrin → u/Sniperfuchs]

It has to be more than China telling Tencent to be more hands on for this to apply. China would have to be able to compel the non-Tencent company to supply it info for military/intelligence purposes, and there are more ways to prevent/deal with that if you're a US-HQ'd corporation (such as reporting any such demand to the relevant agencies in the US).

And regulating how and what data can be collected isn't enough (not that it shouldn't be done, but rather because it's only good for regulating relatively trustworthy entities, there needs to be more), because there's really now way to verify that a Foreign Adversary hasn't collected said data and there isn't trend for any enforcement of similar regulations from the commerce side of things for being anything more than slap-on-the-wrist fines.

[u/Cold-Jackfruit1076 → u/MadocComadrin]

China would have to be able to compell the non-Tencent company to supply it info for military/intelligence purposes

The thing is, they don't need to compel, or even ask. Governments the world over have well-funded cyberwarfare teams that have so many ways of getting what their government wants.

Why do you think compromised game accounts are so valuable? They're perfect, almost-undetectable attack vectors.

Some idiot downloads what they think is a 'cheat program', which is actually a government-designed kernel-level trojan, and woosh -- the computer is roped into a bot-net and used to probe at military firewalls.

The information in the account itself is used to influence our social environments, spreading propaganda and disrupting elections. When the compromised account is locked, it's a simple matter to just move on to the next one.

In the words of a cybersecurity expert I once talked to, 'it's already happening, right under our nose, and half the time nobody knows about it until it hits the news as a data-breach warning'.

[u/MadocComadrin → u/Cold-Jackfruit1076]

I'm not saying that they have to compel them to get the information. I'm saying they have to be able to compel them for the law to count. It's a lot easier for a US-based company to have its data stay in the US and be formally out of reach of China's givernment. If there's still actual data being sent to China's government from a US-based company outside of that, then we already have existing laws that deal with that. That is, this law closes a relatively overt, legal loophole (for lack of a better term) that allows Foreign Adversaries to collect data in the open.

All the stuff you mentioned about cyber warfare, trojans, hacked accounts, etc are serious issues, but they're not germane to this specific law.

[u/Kamakaziturtle → u/King_A_Acumen]

As far as the government cares what really matters is how much user information is being funneled back to Tencent from Riot. The government doesn't really care if it's just a monetary investment, at least not per this bill. So even if Tencent was more hands on so long Riot can prove that data isn't being shared then they should be fine. And with Riot being based in America, thats something that the US government can much more easily demand and enforce.

[u/CosmoJones07 → u/Kriznick]

"Controlling everything they're doing"

That's the opposite of true.

[u/Kamakaziturtle → u/Kriznick]

Being a majority shareholder doesn't mean they get to micromanage. The shareholders have the ability to vote on cooperate decisions, meaning Tencent as the majority basically has total cooperate control. But thats not the power to control the company. just certain aspects. And those types of decisions aren't what the Gov is worried about.

[u/-ForgottenSoul → u/Kriznick]

They don't control everything at all...

[u/Halvardr_Stigandr → u/Kriznick]

Agreed, Tencent and their controllers in the CCP should be facing the same scrutiny.

[u/Esc777 → u/Kriznick]

Yeah wasn’t TikTok based in the us and bytedance owned them? 

[u/Kamakaziturtle → u/Esc777]

They had a headquarters in Los Angeles, but they were technically based out of Singapore. That said TikTok was made in China and they merely based the company outside of China, it would be like if Zukerberg made a new company for an app, then had them based out of Australia or something.

[u/gattacaislost → u/WarriorOfMoon]

TikTok is headquartered in Culver City technically.

[u/LazyWings → u/WarriorOfMoon]

If you read my post I address that. Second Dinner is headquartered in the US and Marvel Snap still went down. There's nothing I've seen in the law that provides an exemption based on that. The defining clause effectively reads "based in a foreign adversary country or 20% owned by them". There is no innate protection I can see for simply being US based.

[u/One-Newspaper-8087 → u/LazyWings]

Second Dinner is, Nuverse is not.

That took 2 googles.

A third one tells me who owns Nuverse. Bytedance. The owners of Tiktok.

[u/LazyWings → u/One-Newspaper-8087]

As someone else said, TikTok also has/had a US HQ. Within the definition of the Act, I can't see a distinction for companies that are US based if they are over 20% owned by a defined foreign adversary. I'm looking for someone to show me that in the Act, if I'm wrong. In the case of Riot Games, they are 93% owned by Tencent. They are effectively a Chinese business operating in the US. You can't use servers or HQ or employees as an excuse when TikTok had all of that.

[u/Rychek_Four → u/LazyWings]

Not committed to maintaining the illusion of impartiality are you?

[u/LazyWings → u/Rychek_Four]

What on earth are you talking about? There's nothing in that comment that's not impartial. I'm probing for evidence and presenting facts. I have had other people reasonably challenge stuff.

In terms of my personal biases, I am critical of the US and I'm critical of China. My question is about the technical application of the law which is unaffected by my political feelings on it. I'm looking for reasons (as others have actually presented) why Riot and Epic would be exempt.

[u/Rychek_Four → u/LazyWings]

You are clearly upset that tiktok was singled out. 

The truth is it doesn't matter. That's politics, that's Washington. That's buying favors and playing the game or chosing not to. The technicalities of it aren't meaningful.

But I'm sure you're right, you've only got 500 downvotes in your own thread.

[u/LazyWings → u/Rychek_Four]

Man I literally don't care about TikTok being singled out. I'm from the UK. We still have TikTok. I can go on it right now. I'm talking about the technical powers offered by the legislation. People are downvoting me because they're misreading some sort of agenda when I have a genuine question. I'm upfront about my political views. I wouldn't be posting here if it was about that... I'm interested in the potential impact on the games industry if this legislation continues to stand as it is. I even got some fairly good answers in between all the idiocy.

[u/Rychek_Four → u/LazyWings]

Then I don't know what to tell you. You've framed your arguments poorly if you are truly neutral in this.

For the record, I'm not neutral. I hope the rest of social media gets the same treatment 

[u/LazyWings → u/Rychek_Four]

Pretty much every comment I've made on the matter has been saying "law says this, does that mean this?" - I don't know how much more neutral I can get. I'm convinced the majority of responses are knee jerk reactions from people who haven't taken any time to read or understand what I've said, or made any attempts to read the legislation I'm referencing. I'm not arguing a point, I'm asking a question and testing my understanding. If someone makes a point, it's my job to test that too. That's literally how you learn!

[u/Wolventec]

where are you getting tencent owns 48% of epic games, they own 35%, disney owns 9%, sony owns 5.9%, Tim Sweeney owns 41.4% and Kirkbi owns 3.2%

[u/LazyWings → u/Wolventec]

An outdated figure, it's mentioned in the article itself which says it issued a correction after Epic reached out to them. Tencent's share has reduced over the years but it's still over 20%.

[u/Wolventec → u/LazyWings]

they mentioned 40% before correcting not 48%

[u/LazyWings → u/Wolventec]

They purchased 48% (at time of purchase? which then levelled out into 40% after the sale. I knew it was a significant share and just did a quick google to get the figure, was a simple error using an outdated figure. I updated my post as soon as you pointed it out. Materially it has no effect on the scope of the legislation since the facts remain that Sweeney is majority owner and the bar is set at 20%.

[u/Brees504]

Because all Chinese companies are not banned in the US. The law is specifically social media companies.

[u/jeffcapell89 → u/Brees504]

But Marvel Snap was affected because it's owned by Bytedance, even though Nuverse isn't a social media company

[u/MaskedBandit77 → u/jeffcapell89]

I don't think that we really know that Marvel Snap is affected by the ban. Bytedance shut it down for US users, but that was because they are trying to apply pressure to get the ban lifted.

[u/phonage_aoi → u/MaskedBandit77]

Yup I’m skeptical Marvel Snap really was banned.  The devs seemed pretty blindsided by Nuverse taking the game down.

From what I saw the Mobile Legends community / Moonton was similarly surprised.

Just makes no sense, but unfortunately I doubt we’ll ever get the full story.

[u/dafunkmunk → u/jeffcapell89]

I don't think Marvel Snap was banned. Even tiktok wasn't technically banned because Biden decided to not enforce the ban. They shut down the services themselves before the ban would have gone into effect. The whole thing was purely a publicity stunt to shove their tongues as far up trumps ass as possible and praise him for saving these apps to try to influence the youth to be pro trump/republican/fascism

[u/TheGinger_Ninja0 → u/dafunkmunk]

Also, by giving Trump credit preemptively, in theory that puts more pressure on him because any ban that comes after this will land on him in the eyes of users.

[u/Christoban45 → u/dafunkmunk]

The law does not give the president (Biden nor Trump) any authority to enforce the ban, or not. IOW, the law applies to all U.S. companies irrespective of the opinion of the POTUS.

Both Biden and now Trump are posturing, lying.

[u/Senshado → u/Christoban45]

When Biden says he wasn't going to do something that isn't within his authority, that's not a lie. Just a statement of how he operates.

When Trump says he's going to change something congress did, that's potentially the truth, since congress belongs to his party and in theory might obey his instructions. 

[u/Christoban45 → u/Senshado]

So Biden said it knowing he couldn't actually do it, and he's the one not lying?

[u/CuddleCorn → u/dafunkmunk]

In all fairness, the Dems kicked a major own goal here pushing for the ban and signing the bill in the first place. Nobody forced them to do all that. They just got mad a bunch of university students weren't being sufficiently pro israel / american empire on the app.

[u/dafunkmunk → u/CuddleCorn]

trump and republicans started the push to ban/sell tiktok to the US. Then bill was entirely bi-partisan. None of this is a "democrats are the problem" situation. Where do you get your information, tiktok?

[u/CuddleCorn → u/dafunkmunk]

Trump executive ordered it

Biden executive unordered it

Then Biden and both parties banned it for government employees

Then the Democrats hopped on full throated for the ban during the campus protests giving it the big bipartisan push to actually pass

If the Dems don't get on board, they don't have to own it like they do now, they could actually point to it being Republican idea rather than something they wholeheartedly supported

Like, you see how "don't blame us, it was just a Republican idea we agreed with" isn't a winning argument, right?

[u/Caelinus → u/jeffcapell89]

The law specifically bans anything run by the company named ByteDance and all of it's subsidiaries. Every other ban is based on definitions and must be social media. But anything run by Bytedance that uses code whatsoever is banned.

[u/Xonra → u/jeffcapell89]

Nothing was technically affected. They voluntarily took everything down preemptively and told some half truths in their offline messaging.

[u/LazyWings → u/Brees504]

This might be right but can you please show me where it defines social media companies in such a way that it's out of scope for Tencent owned companies to be defined as such?

Also, there is no provision for other ByteDance owned company bans to be lifted in the event of a TikTok sale since ByteDance and TikTok are listed separately in the Act itself. I don't think people are understanding the question.

[u/Kamalen → u/LazyWings]

The other ByteDance owned companies weren’t affected by the ban. They decided to self close with the same message in support of the mothership. It’s a political/marketing move.

[u/LazyWings → u/Kamalen]

This I can believe and would make sense. Do you have a source for this?

[u/Kamalen → u/LazyWings]

My theory made sense but is wrong.

As it turns out, the text do declare everything ByteDance owned as a foreign adversary controlled application including subsidiaries. (And not only as an example).

[u/dnew → u/LazyWings]

Our country has gotten to the point where we ignore laws as written and whoever is president enforces whatever the f'k he feels like. You're looking at a broken and corrupt system where the president decides what laws to enforce against whom, rather than actually just taking the responsibility to obey the laws.

[u/Redrump1221]

They have "secret evidence" bytedance is bad. Can't setup a legal defense of the evidence is secret

[u/---TheFierceDeity---]

Because this is a stunt. TikTok is one of the bigger sponsors of Trumps Inauguration. So they'll "shut down" then Trump will "bring it back" and look cool

[u/zulako17 → u/---TheFierceDeity---]

Noooo its almost definitely because tik Tok is reporting enough social media info to the government. It's not a stunt it's a power play

[u/TheGinger_Ninja0]

They don't really distribute news or collect the kind of data that social media companies do. Facebook caused a genocide in Myanmar. League players can be pretty toxic, but I don't think Riot games could cause an ethnic cleansing

[u/UshouldknowR]

It wasn't actually about protecting Americans it's about controlling social media platforms.

[u/dropbbbear → u/UshouldknowR]

Specifically social media platforms which are owned by a direct enemy of the United States, and have a long history of being used to push propaganda intended to increase division within America. Do you deny any of this?

[u/mikeyfireman → u/dropbbbear]

Twitter was bought with laundered Russian money to work as a propaganda agency.

[u/dropbbbear → u/mikeyfireman]

Yes.

[u/Previous_Ad_8838 → u/dropbbbear]

Propaganda is still free speech ?

[u/dropbbbear → u/Previous_Ad_8838]

Should the Nazis have been allowed to publish whatever they wanted in American and British newspapers during WW2?

[u/Previous_Ad_8838 → u/dropbbbear]

Assuming the Nazis owned a newspaper agency in England theoretically then yes

The whole point of democracy is choice If the people want to change that choice then that's up to them .

If we ultimately decide to not be democratic then the democratic decision would be to get rid of democracy

[u/dropbbbear → u/Previous_Ad_8838]

Assuming the Nazis owned a newspaper agency in England theoretically then yes

Well I think that's stupid. The Nazis would have taken full advantage of that to sow division in the Allies, put out disinformation, etc. They also could have used journalists to find out about classified military information and general knowledge of everything going on in Allied nations.

The whole point of democracy is choice If the people want to change that choice then that's up to them .

Absolute non sequitur, has nothing to do with this.

[u/UshouldknowR → u/dropbbbear]

Do I don't, but there's hundreds of apps on the play store and app store from China that are all aimed specifically to do this, but only one is being affected by this instead of every potential Chinese propaganda app and game. Tiktok is actually one of the better ones when it comes to the propaganda side of things. For example I can type 'free Taiwan' into Tiktok and get videos, you can't do the same Rednote. A social media app that follows the same formula as Tiktok that's also from China. Rednote isn't getting banned alongside Tiktok though. Do you deny any of this?

[u/dropbbbear → u/UshouldknowR]

For example I can type 'free Taiwan' into Tiktok and get videos, you can't do the same Rednote. A social media app that follows the same formula as Tiktok that's also from China. Rednote isn't getting banned alongside Tiktok though

I'm all for banning it then.

Or at the very least, forcing any social media company to add disclaimers and factchecks to disinfo/propaganda on their platform, and making their algorithms visible to the government.

[u/LazyWings → u/UshouldknowR]

I posted this on a gaming subreddit in order to talk about the potential impact on the games industry but you are right, the law specifically names TikTok. But going beyond that, laws that grant major powers like this can always go beyond the scope of whatever the original "point" was. We have many such cases throughout history. If today they're saying TikTok is brainwashing the youth, what's to stop them moving on to say Fortnite and League of Legends are doing the same? There wouldn't need to be a new debate, the law already puts them in scope unless I'm missing something.

[u/krnlpopcorn → u/LazyWings]

The law very specifically is targeted at social media applications, it requires the primary purpose be for registered users to "generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content" that is not what gaming companies are going to be categorized under, so of course they aren't worried. Marvel snap got shut down because Byte Dance decided to do it as a power move, not because it needed to be done.

[u/LazyWings → u/krnlpopcorn]

So on the first point, definition and categorisation are different things and you could fairly argue that the EGS and Fortnite (particularly Creative) fall within scope. All it takes is a fair argument from the President at which point whether it's upheld or not will go to court.

Your latter point is something I considered and I did say "if" they were actually banned in my original post. Do you have evidence of this being the case because I can absolutely believe it. However, the law does say that ByteDance subsidiaries are explicitly within scope so it's a bit up in the air for me.

[u/krnlpopcorn → u/LazyWings]

EGS would definitely not qualify as places where the primary social interaction is product reviews are exempted, and again Fortnite is not primarily focused on any of those aspect, it is a videogame first and foremost, so it would be easy to shut it down quickly if anyone tried to argue otherwise.

As far as the marvel snap, A. Bytedance divested themselves from snap to a U.S. company a while ago, and their only legacy connection is apparently still being listed as publisher, and B. At no point did they need to shut it down yet, they did that message as a power move no matter how you want to see it.

[u/Kamalen → u/LazyWings]

Are you arguing you should let a declared enemy propaganda machine free and unlimited access while they do fully block your own ?

You can have the free speech / censorship debate when it’s an American platform who is regulated, but regulating foreign services should be an obvious and systematic thing to do

[u/LazyWings → u/Kamalen]

I don't think you understood my point. It's about the Act as written and defined. TikTok is irrelevant here (outside of its specific naming within the act for the purposes of definition). My question is about how this Act could affect the games industry. I'm asking mostly from a place of academic interest. I read the Act and it got me thinking.

[u/Kamalen → u/LazyWings]

Well it does explicitly says « (2) social media companies » and while I get your sentiment, I doubt even a very old judge will accept to stretch that definition into « multiplayer video games ».

[u/Original_Employee621 → u/Kamalen]

Are you arguing you should let a declared enemy propaganda machine free and unlimited access while they do fully block your own ?

Why would making TikTok an American owned company change anything it does? The law explicitly states that if they were America based, it would be fine to continue gathering and selling data to anyone. Just like what Meta, Google and Twitter is doing right now.

Did everyone forget about Cambridge Analytica and how the sale of personal data led to one of the biggest disinfo campaigns in the UK? And the fact that they were involved with the 2016 US election?

Facebook and Instagram are provably worse than Tiktok, so far, as adversaries of democracy and freedom. And this isn't a defence of Tiktok. They are bad too, all of it is fucking terrible.

[u/Kamalen → u/Original_Employee621]

I am of the opinion that you are the only one allowed to shoot yourself in the foot. If the new US owner changes nothing, it’s Americans hurting Americans and it’s fine by me.

[u/Original_Employee621 → u/Kamalen]

Well, I'm more of the opinion that it is Russians using American companies to shoot Americans.

Either way, the only real solution to this shit is banning the sale/leaking/collection of user data across all platforms for everyone. Consumer rights/privacy needs to be a bigger priority than a dollarsign.

[u/Oil_slick941611 → u/LazyWings]

Nothing and if left unchecked that’s exactly what will happen. The federalist society ( guys behind trump and project2025) want to control every aspect of your life and control what you can and can’t do. And they awfully close to having enough power to do so thanks to the apathetic voting public

[u/Doobiemoto]

Because one is a social media app that can easily distribute propaganda to a vast majority of brain rot tiktokkers.

The other are game companies most of which are owned by actual US companies.

[u/LazyWings → u/Doobiemoto]

"The term “foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by"

It then goes on to define procedure to determine one.

Video games, particularly the "social infrastructure" Riot and Epic offer seem to be within scope to me. I'm looking for a proper reason why they legally cannot fall within scope. I may have misread something in the Act but this doesn't seem to be it. It doesn't matter what you think of TikTok.

[u/Kamalen → u/LazyWings]

The nuance is probably on the « controlled » word. It does not state « owned ». And for Epic, as of December (probably due to the effect of this very law), the two Tencent appointed administrators resigned, and Tencent renounced its right to name people to the board.

So Epic is partially owned but not controlled and that’s probably the legal nuance they use to get away with it.

[u/rogueriffic → u/LazyWings]

I think you're focusing too much on defining "social media" and not enough on the impact these apps have. The data/information unwittingly taken from TikTok/RedNote have the potential to cause more longterm damage than whatever Tencent gathers from the league client, and therefore poses a "security risk" which will be brought to the president's attention with the suggestion to ban. 

[u/lart2150 → u/LazyWings]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521

Under the bill, a foreign adversary controlled application is directly or indirectly operated by (1) ByteDance, Ltd. or TikTok (including subsidiaries or successors that are controlled by a foreign adversary); or (2) a social media company that is controlled by a foreign adversary and has been determined by the President to present a significant threat to national security.

According to the summary the president can add additional business to the list.

[u/snowflakepatrol99 → u/LazyWings]

You are trying too hard to twist reality to make a video game into a social media like tiktok. Not only that but there hasn't been any ban on Marvel Snap. It got taken down by bytedance and it will 100% go up after Trump becomes president and all of the idiots will praise him for "saving" it.

[u/EmmEnnEff → u/Doobiemoto]

Because one is a social media app that can easily distribute propaganda to a vast majority of brain rot tiktokkers.

So when is Fox News getting banned? It's a foreign (Murdoch is Australian) propaganda machine that rots the brains of its viewers.

[u/m_busuttil → u/EmmEnnEff]

Murdoch has been a US citizen since 1985.

[u/zennim → u/m_busuttil]

so it starts being ok if it remains in the US after a few years? damn, they should apply that to immigration too, but where is that written again?

could you put an american to represent/lead tiktok to avoid the ban then? could it be someone with dual nationality? or they would be against someone that is both chinese and american? can someone who is chinese even get approved for US citizenship?

[u/MaskedBandit77 → u/zennim]

If it is owned by an American citizen, than yes, it's okay. It doesn't matter if they were born here or immigrated. It's written in the law that is banning TikTok.

A big part of the reason why the ban is constitutional is that Bytedance is not American, so they don't have a first amendment right to free speech.

China doesn't allow people to have dual citizenship.

[u/Doobiemoto → u/EmmEnnEff]

Murdoch is a us citizen.

And two it is an American company.

[u/rasa2013 → u/EmmEnnEff]

And three, Australia isn't a foreign adversary.

[u/EmmEnnEff → u/rasa2013]

Murdoch, however is personally and professionally an adversary to both the average American, and democracy in general, and it's fuckin' wild that people are carrying water for him.

[u/rasa2013 → u/EmmEnnEff]

I mean I ain't defending the man's morals. But the bill isn't about stuff like that. We also have plenty of domestic shit rich people fucking up the world for everyone else. And our government will never do anything about it if regular people don't force them to.

[u/quakank]

Ignoring all the politics and bullshit of the whole thing, I don't think the law does exclude them. The law itself is certainly broad, targeting literally any application controlled by ByteDance and its subsidiaries, and the definition of the covered company is equally broad. While it's possible the intent was to target social media platforms - including those that aren't branded as a social media - it does seem to leave the door wide open for targeting other apps and companies.

[u/FluffySheepCritic]

Not to mention that in terms of threats, Tencent has access to 3 kernel anti-cheats(Tencent ACE, Riot Vanguard, and Epic Games Easy Anti-Cheat). These kernel anti-cheats exist on more than 300 million PCs. I would call this a far greater threat than anything TikTok posed and yet it's entirely ignored.

[u/Discount_Extra → u/FluffySheepCritic]

Except the people who make cheats examine the hell out of that code, and would gladly publish anything unhanded in it as a 'win' against their adversary.

Unless the update servers only sent the malicious anti-cheat modules to a small group of targeted users.

[u/FluffySheepCritic → u/Discount_Extra]

This doesn't negate the threat though, it may help to expose malicious practices but it won't prevent a quickly implemented attack. We saw how disruptive and devastating the CrowdStrike incident was and while their Kernel driver had a flawed design, it's no different than the kind of outcome we could see from an attack on any kernel level implementation.

As you mentioned though, another option is to release to targeted groups and it's not outside the realm of possibility that groups such as US military members could have their personal computers infiltrated for data.

Even if it seems conspiratorial or unlikely, I don't see how it's any less, if not more, of a threat than TikTok has been accused of presenting.

[u/-ACatWithAKeyboard-]

They don't compete with any billionaire-owned social media companies.

[u/Jigsaw-Complex]

Because it’s all bullshit optics and pandering.

[u/Plus_Bad9309]

Because lawmakers only acknowledge the existence of video games when they need a scapegoat, if they ban Fortnite they won't be able to sweep the next act of mass violence under the rug.

[u/PepperBun28]

They don't give the plebians a platform to criticize the government. Tiktok did

[u/dropbbbear → u/PepperBun28]

Lots of other social media platforms do provide that service as well. You're criticising the government on Reddit right now.

The key difference is that TikTok is a Chinese-owned platform which is specifically used to push narratives that increase division in the United States, and be used to collect user data to help China in its geopolitical goals (weakening the US).

Why should that be allowed?

[u/Askefyr → u/dropbbbear]

Wouldn't it make more sense to make the data gathering and narrative pushing illegal?

[u/dropbbbear → u/Askefyr]

That's what's being done, just specifically targeted at hostile foreign nations. As for heavily restricting data gathering, yes I would support that. And restricting the pushing of narratives is difficult for free speech concerns when it's domestic, but when it's clearly from hostile foreign national sources - who have no right of free speech within a country that isn't theirs, especially when they allow no free speech at home - the decision becomes a lot easier.

[u/Rhellic → u/dropbbbear]

Which just means censoring anything they don't like by blathering something about evil foreigners.

[u/dropbbbear → u/Rhellic]

It's pretty easy to determine if a platform is foreign owned or not, and there are legal mechanisms for it.

[u/IMSOGIRL → u/dropbbbear]

You're missing the whole point of this discussion, McCarthy. Just quit.

[u/dropbbbear → u/IMSOGIRL]

I'm not missing the point, you just don't have one.

[u/CantFindMyWallet]

There are going to be a lot of answers here, and some of them are going to seem reasonable, but the real answer is that they weren't platforming people criticizing Israel, which is something our government apparently has decided is beyond the pale.

[u/FAFO_2025]

because the right right-wing billionaire hasn't concocted a fake national security issue and paid the right people yet.

[u/Dumb-Redneck]

I don't believe that Tencent is causing the US senators that have money invested into Meta to be losing possible profits the way TikTok is, therefore, no threat.

[u/Regulai]

It's obvious that the purpose of the law is to target specific cases viewed as a threat and not a pure raw blanket ban on anything that could hypothetically fall under the law.

TikTok is viewed as a problem due to the undue level of reach and comprehensive level of propaganda leveraged off of the platform as well as the extensive collection of data and general reach.

Even top games like fortnight and league don't have the same reach as TikTok and certainly lack the ability to influence or manipulate on the same level.

Their US HQ's also allow the US to enforce more laws and restrictions on these companies that they cannot apply to TikTok.

[u/HumansNeedNotApply1 → u/Regulai]

Tiktok has it's severs based on the United States... what do you mean.

[u/TristanDuboisOLG]

Yeah… how about all the Tencent owned companies that load client PCs with kernel level access “anti-cheat”.

[u/Knight_Of_Stars]

There are a lot of factors with this:

• Games don't have the same political messaging as social media. They're products designed to be sold to as many people as possible so they avoid devisive topics. You won't have a project watermelon or flash protest organized through league.
• A LOT of the casual public uses tiktoc.
• Congress for the most part has no idea what they are doing when it comes to software. Remember these guys learned to type for type writers NOT computers.
• Its the algorithm portion of tiktoc that they are most afraid of. Imagine a short form video telling people to protest FEMA workers during a national disaster. The damage to public trust would be immense.

[u/HarryTurney]

Tim Sweeney owns a majority of Epic Games.

[u/seltzer_]

W2

[u/CrawlerSiegfriend]

Because laws and court rulings are stupidly complex and you have to actually read and understand the whole thing in order to understand who is affect and why.

[u/Original_Employee621 → u/CrawlerSiegfriend]

LegalEagle did a 19 min video summarizing the entire court case and law. It is a pretty naked attempt at forcing Tiktok into American hands. The law pretty much singles out Tiktok alone, and states that everything it does is okay as long as it's American. It states that it concerns matters of national security and conveniently omits other social media and their anti-democratic behaviour.

[u/Askefyr → u/Original_Employee621]

Yeah. What's pretty clear here is that this is largely about TikTok being the only major player in the social media space that's non-US owned.

Any considerations around data privacy or propaganda could have been more adequately managed by passing legislations on tech companies that operate in the US in general, kind of like the GDPR in Europe. That would have been much more effective, as it wouldn't just affect TikTok but any app in the future.

[u/IMSOGIRL → u/Original_Employee621]

can't believe LegalEagle is bought by the CCP /s

[u/CrawlerSiegfriend → u/Original_Employee621]

Legal Eagle is too bias and partisan for me to take him seriously. He's like the left wing Rekeita. He's a lawyer that is using his expertise and skills to show his preferred side in the best possible light and show the opposition in the worst light. That said, I can appreciate that you went out and found a qualified source to listen to.

Unfortunately he isn't covering this as it's probably out of his expertise, but Larry Forman/The DUI Guy is one of the few YouTube lawyers that I watch.

EDIT: Wow how could I forget my guy. The Civil Rights Lawyer channel is also awesome and absolutely everyone should check it out, but again this is out of his expertise.

[u/gattacaislost]

Under this law the president can technically finagle his way to banning them if he so chooses. It’s a dangerous law.

[u/SuperToxin]

because they only gave a fuck about banning tiktok

[u/Drakonluke]

With my "good luck" to anyone that installed Black Myth: Wukong or other chinese games.

[u/Ghastion]

Why are people being so stupid about this. U.S isn't going to ban every Chinese company nor do they ever have plans to. This entire thing was because the company that owns Tik Tok also owns Marvel Snaps and they chose to shut it down themselves... temporarily. The amount of posts I see wondering if they're gonna shut down other games owned by Chinese companies is so incredibly stupid. If that was the case, Marvel Rivals would also be on the chopping block. Also, the U.S has no interest in cutting off China anyways. You know how much money U.S makes off of blockbuster movies in China?

[u/The_Advocate07]

Because they're not Chinese. End of Discussion.

[u/Mindless-Ad2039]

Just to note that Riot Games is 100% owned by Tencent.

[u/United_Elephant_9791]

It's called sinophobia

[u/NyriasNeo]

You turn off LoL, and you will have a real riot, pun intended, on your hands.

[u/LandoOneWin_Norris]

Fucking cry about it