[HN Gopher] TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
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TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users
Author : Leary
Score : 412 points
Date : 2025-01-19 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nbcnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nbcnews.com)
| andrewflnr wrote:
| On today, the 19th, Trump isn't president yet and can't issue
| executive orders.
|
| Ed: to be clear, the original title specifically mentioned an
| executive order.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Timezones are always the doom of programmers.
| ctippett wrote:
| It's not yet the 20th anywhere in North America.
| gpm wrote:
| It is in China though...
| ReptileMan wrote:
| One person got the joke ...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| you might read that as a signal about the quality of the
| 'joke'
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Variants of this have been around for a century.
|
| Russian Prime Minister Medvedev comes to President Putin
| and nervously tells him to abolish these time zones.
|
| - Why, Putin asks him?
|
| - Ah, I can't find myself with these times:
|
| - I fly to another city, call home and everyone is
| asleep,
|
| - I last woke you up at 4 in the morning, but I thought
| it was only evening,
|
| - I call Angela Merkel to congratulate her on her
| birthday and she tells me she had it yesterday,
|
| - I wish the Chinese President a happy New Year, and he
| says it will be tomorrow.
|
| - Well, these are just minor awkwardness, Putin answered
| him
|
| - Do you remember when that Polish plane crashed with the
| president? I called them to express my condolences, but
| the plane hadn't taken off yet !!
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I live in Virginia.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| But developers of TikTok live in Shanghai
| TomK32 wrote:
| Trump still has to do the inauguration. Even a reptile
| should understand the basic procedures of office. https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ina...
| ipsum2 wrote:
| There was no executive order. Turning off Tiktok yesterday was a
| highly successful political stunt.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Bingo, bango, boingo. Just another way to help manipulate
| people into thinking Trump saved the day, once again. TikTok
| played the propaganda just right.
| Xmd5a wrote:
| - The Occupy Wall Street movement.
|
| - A COINTELPRO-inspired diversion undermines the cause:
| during demonstrations, individuals wishing to speak must wait
| in line, while women, minorities, and other groups are
| prioritized.
|
| - This method becomes widespread in media narratives over the
| next 15 years, fueling focus on these topics and deepening
| societal divisions while bankers slip under the radar.
|
| - Initially driven by billionaires, the movement is soon co-
| opted by financial firms, corporations, and government
| entities.
|
| - Ultimately, Trump is reinstated, while Zuckerberg, Gates,
| Bezos, and, to some extent, Altman align with Thiel and Musk,
| reversing their previous stances with a dramatic 180deg
| shift.
|
| The oligarchy endures.
| notfed wrote:
| It's funny to imagine how, very deeply ironically, it turned
| out to be a national security risk after all.
| kj4ips wrote:
| There is, it's a few days old, and it's a non-enforcement from
| the Biden administration, according to the man himself and his
| staffers, he intends to let it be the next administration's
| problem. Whatever the next administration does when it takes
| power is yet to be seen.
|
| The restrict act was written really strangely, and I assume
| Oracle required some assurance from someone to not just delete
| Bytedance's accounts and resources.
| qingcharles wrote:
| That wasn't an executive order, as far as I'm aware it was
| just a statement. It had no legal value, which was why TikTok
| asked for more assurance.
|
| The fine to each company (Apple, Google, Oracle, TikTok) was
| in the order of around $5bn each if they kept the lights on,
| so I would be hesitant to keep it running too without
| something in writing.
| grajaganDev wrote:
| Right. The Legal teams at Apple and Google will follow the
| existing law as written.
|
| No EO from Trump will change that.
| wumeow wrote:
| If TikTok was concerned that Biden's statement wouldn't be
| honored, they wouldn't have turned service back on today
| while Biden is still president. They've had months to work
| out some sort of deal with Trump, this whole show they've
| put on the past couple days is propaganda.
| wumeow wrote:
| Everyone got played by what is effectively joint CCP/Trump
| propaganda and they're cheering about it. Bleak, bleak, bleak.
| jsheard wrote:
| Especially given that Trump initiated the push to ban TikTok
| in the first place.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Until he didn't because a major donor to him has a 15%
| stake in it.
| https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/14/trump-tiktok-
| billio...
| 34679 wrote:
| "Biden just signed a potential TikTok ban into law. Here's what
| happens next" https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-
| tiktok-ban-what...
|
| "Biden Signs a Bill That Could Ban TikTok. Now Comes the Hard
| Part." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/bytedance-
| tikt...
|
| "Biden signed a bill to force a sale of TikTok or ban it.
| What's next?" https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/biden-
| signs-tiktok-...
|
| "Biden signs a bill that could ban TikTok -- after the 2024
| election" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-
| biden-bil...
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| So not an executive order, but signing a bill that passed
| with a veto proof majority, and then saying he won't enforce
| it.
|
| And to prove how much of a stunt this was from TikTok, they
| turned their services back on less than 24 hours later even
| though nothing had changed.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| spin working overtime
| Leary wrote:
| Trump wants 50% US ownership in a joint venture for Tiktok.
| Shouldn't be a problem since 60% of bytedance ownership is
| already non-China (probably a lot of it already US investors -
| General Atlantic/SIG)
|
| https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138556168486...
| whatshisface wrote:
| All this and it was only 40% Chinese-owned???
| thatguymike wrote:
| With the algorithm 100% Chinese-operated
| baq wrote:
| You seem to think percentage of ownership works the same way
| in China as in the West. That's an understandable mistake
| illusive4080 wrote:
| Doesn't matter what he thinks. Executive cannot override
| legislative action.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The law always allowed for divesting to US owners. It didn't
| specify who.
| metabagel wrote:
| The Supreme Court can always say that it can.
| edoceo wrote:
| Executive Order
| thatguymike wrote:
| The ownership of the company is irrelevant, it's who has
| control of the algorithm and where the data flows. If Tiktok US
| licenses the algorithm from China (which seems likely) then
| none of the national security issues are addressed.
| roskelld wrote:
| Chinese government has a golden shares deal with Bytedance
| granting their 1% ownership the ability to nominate a board
| seat.
|
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tiktok-ban-b...
| Leary wrote:
| That 1% golden share is in Douyin, the Chinese subsidiary of
| ByteDance, not ByteDance or Tiktok.
| undersuit wrote:
| Tiktok has been working for the last 40 minutes for me after
| going dark last night.
|
| Some thoughts from Donald Trump:
| https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138556168486...
| chvid wrote:
| Incredible.
|
| Isn't ByteDance already owned 60% by international (mostly
| American) investors?
|
| https://usds.tiktok.com/who-owns-tiktoks-parent-company-byte...
| markus_zhang wrote:
| You need to drill deeper to figure out who really holds the
| money bag. Not to say I know anything, but this page doesn't
| really say much.
|
| But again, I don't really care about the nationality of the
| elites.
| roskelld wrote:
| Have a look at the golden shares part of that, 1% gets you a
| lot.
|
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tiktok-
| ban-b...
| atlintots wrote:
| Per the article, those shares are not in TikTok:
|
| > The ByteDance unit that sold golden shares to China's
| government holds the licenses of Toutiao and Douyin to
| operate under local law.
|
| So those shares don't mean much as far as TikTok's
| operations are concerned.
| shihab wrote:
| Is anyone aware of any opinion poll among US population about
| banning tiktok? This to me feels like one of the issues with
| potentially largest disconnect between voters and politicians
|
| Edit: found one from Pew. "The share of Americans who support the
| U.S. government banning TikTok now stands at 32%." Sept 05, 2024.
| In contrast, 87% US lawmakers voted for the law that caused this.
| aksss wrote:
| You know polls are a rotten way to make policy. Easily
| manipulated. In fact, Hitches said in "Letters..." that any
| time you see a poll just realize it's someone trying to change
| your mind with the bandwagon fallacy - isolating your own
| opinion as wrong and outside the norm or trying to reinforce
| the "right" opinion by confirming that you're part of the cool-
| kid club.
| shihab wrote:
| Yes, polls are an imperfect tool. But I think they remain the
| only tool we have to gauge what decisions coming out of
| Washington are product of broad popular support vs ones
| product of intense lobbying from shadowy powers.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Most policies aren't the sort of thing that is going to
| attract broad popular support (or opposition.) Did you look
| at the opposition numbers? Who are the "shadowy powers?"
| Lawmakers say that China is the shadowy partner here doing
| bad things with Tiktok. I don't necessarily trust the US
| government on this issue, but I was speaking to a Chinese
| national last year, they asked me why the US was banning
| Tiktok. When I said "because China is using it to spy on
| Americans" they replied "Of course they are!" and laughed.
|
| I think there are probably some people who are pushing this
| for self-interested reasons (American social media apps)
| but also I think the stated reason for the ban is probably
| the truthful motivation, and I'm ambivalent about trusting
| the US government and US corporations not to spy on me, but
| I tend to trust the US government when they say they are
| trying to stop China from spying on me. And if zero people
| spying on me is not an option, well, fewer people would
| probably be an improvement.
| Gormo wrote:
| It's not that polls are imperfect, it's that they're often
| entirely misleading and incorrect. And if the only tool you
| have to do a job isn't fit for purpose, then that just
| means that you aren't equipped to do the job properly.
|
| If the only tool we have for measuring Washington's
| behavior against public opinion is one that doesn't
| accurately reflect public opinion, then that means that we
| just don't have a reliable way to measure Washington's
| behavior against public opinion.
| mlekoszek wrote:
| > _It 's not that polls are imperfect, it's that they're
| often entirely misleading and incorrect._
|
| Can you point to the source of your argument? Furthermore
| -- can you point out how _this_ particular poll is one of
| the misleading and incorrect ones?
| Gormo wrote:
| The previous commented made an on-target point about how
| polls can often be manipulated to produce contrived
| results. I've seen plenty of cases that corroborate this:
| differently constructed polls showing wildly different
| breakdowns of opinion on the same issues among the same
| population, surveys full of obviously leading and loaded
| questions, etc.
|
| So given all of that, I think the burden of proof is
| properly the other way around. Why do you think this
| particular poll _is_ reliable?
| ourmandave wrote:
| I wonder if those numbers would change if people read the same
| intel reports and knew how far the Chinese spies are up our
| asses.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Well, those who made the decision decided to keep the intel
| secret, so we'll never know.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| You bring up valid point. Did the legislators lie en masse to
| us about national security to remove a competitive app from
| the American ecosystem or not. If the national security
| issues exist, where is the outrage from our elected
| officials? If not, our government is for sale.
| metabagel wrote:
| People are fickle and will forget about this in a few months.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Days
| lukeschlather wrote:
| 28% oppose the ban, and 32% support it. So a majority are
| either in favor or ambivalent. Two years ago a majority
| supported it: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2024/09/05/support-f...
|
| Support has declined and opposition has increased. I don't
| think there's much of a disconnect here though, since it
| doesn't seem there are many people with strong opinions counter
| to what Congress chose to do.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Anytime there are such large numbers of "undecideds" it's
| likely they are low-information, and an opportunity for Trump
| (or any unscrupulous politician, but really, Trump) to lie to
| them and turn them to whatever side they wish.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| More people supported the ban than opposed it in multiple
| polls. You're leaving out the people who weren't sure when
| polled
| TomK32 wrote:
| I often wonder what value a survey has if those surveyed have
| not enough information and facts at hand.
| nextworddev wrote:
| So you are saying Trump went against 87% of lawmakers?
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Feels like they published this statement a day early as Trump is
| not yet president. Whoops.
| jmholla wrote:
| What statement? This entire article recognizes that Trump is
| not president yet.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| My comment was originally in another thread that was a
| statement from Tiktok on Twitter. It looks like this thread
| was merged with another one so my comment might not make
| sense now.
| robswc wrote:
| The straight up "shout out" in the pop-up, I almost couldn't
| believe my eyes.
|
| I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I also
| don't think an American company would ever do that as it seems
| "unprofessional." Ironically, it probably got them huge bonus
| points so they know what they're doing.
| notahacker wrote:
| I mean, the promise to boosting Trump in the popup is probably
| literally what _got_ them the promise of an executive order,
| possibly with the suggestion that if they wanted to _stay_ on
| Trump 's good side they'd best ensure their algorithm was
| Trump-friendly in future.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Of course, everything he does is quid pro quo. Now he has a
| sword of damocles he can hang over their head to ensure he
| can get anything he wants in the future.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Besides, China doesn't mind propping Trump as they
| correctly see him as a simpleton who is going to delay USA
| development by a decade.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| How remarkable that our major geopolitical enemies (with
| the exception of Iran) support our incoming president. He
| must truly be a great uniter that will usher in a new age
| of global peace.
| bdangubic wrote:
| he will usher new age of global peace as much as my fat
| neighbour will not eat the cake for his birthday
| whimsicalism wrote:
| not only has tiktok done this before, uber & lyft & doordash
| did it in california in the lead up to elections
| pests wrote:
| I have no issue with American companies trying to change
| American policies.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Corporations and their wealthy owners have an outsized
| influence on policies to the near total exclusion of
| everyday people. Not sure what future you're envisioning
| here but you might want to consider where you fall in the
| pecking order before bending the knee to blatant oligarchy.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| You have no issues with corporate influence on US politics?
| intended wrote:
| I think the commenter was choosing between american vs
| non american influence in US politics.
|
| Not between corporate influence and no corporate
| influence.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| I believe the patent was highlighting an additional issue
| and providing a pretty clear follow up question.
|
| Not equating the two questions.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| They literally said
|
| > I have no issue with American companies trying to
| change American policies.
|
| For me that's a naive stance that ignores the problem of
| corporate influence on politics.
|
| Apart from that, how is US corporate influence
| necessarily better than foreign corporate influence?
| Neither care about the US general public. Some US
| companies knowingly harm their own citizens (Philip
| Morris, Exxon, Purdue, etc.)
|
| One can argue the problem with TikTook is that it's
| controlled by the government of an adversary nation (from
| the viewpoint of the US), but it's not just the fact that
| the company resides in a foreign country.
| bdangubic wrote:
| holy crap... wow!!!
| creato wrote:
| > I don't think I've seen anything like it in a long time. I
| also don't think an American company would ever do that as it
| seems "unprofessional."
|
| Have you been paying attention the last few weeks?
|
| NVIDIA: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-policy/ "As the first
| Trump Administration demonstrated, America wins through
| innovation, competition and by sharing our technologies with
| the world -- not by retreating behind a wall of government
| overreach."
|
| Companies aren't stupid. They know that in order to be
| successful in today's world, you have to personally fellate
| Trump. Thanks to the American voters for bringing us this
| reality.
| scotty79 wrote:
| This all reminds German companies about a 100 years ago, so
| much.
| intended wrote:
| "Sucking up" implies there's a meaningful choice--that firms
| or individuals can realistically be expected to show courage
| now. But voters chose this, knowingly. Blaming firms for
| bowing to public will misdiagnoses the issue and wastes
| emotional energy fighting a false battle.
|
| Whats the realistic alternative? Standing up to Trump? The
| president who has explicitly said he will retaliate against
| firms and individuals who oppose him.
|
| The same president who was re-elected even though everyone
| knew this was coming?
|
| If this bothers you, and you want to address it, focus on
| identifying the real root cause and work toward changing
| that.
|
| And if you genuinely believe firms would act differently,
| make the case. But let's be honest--how many rational people
| would stand up to someone who:
|
| - Faces no accountability, - Has the Supreme Court and
| legislature backing him, - Is in power for a second term, -
| Commands an incredibly effective political machine (Fox-GOP),
| - has die-hard voters behind him?
| pjc50 wrote:
| They're Chinese. They know how to handle a shakedown by Party
| officials: it needs both bribes _and_ flattery.
| moshun wrote:
| Damn, this is the simplest, most accurate breakdown on what's
| actually happening that I've come across. The incoming
| administration is pretty transparent in the bend toward
| corruption, and these folks know exactly how to manage that
| as a business challenge.
| undersuit wrote:
| I'd remove the race baiting but yeah it's pretty spot on.
| Aloisius wrote:
| I think they're referring to nationality not ethnicity.
|
| Chinese nationals know how to deal with Party officials
| because necessary to get ahead in China, not because it's
| some racial trait.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, that was my intention.
| raincole wrote:
| You could say that, but if it turns out to be working in the
| US...
| bramhaag wrote:
| The relevant part of the pop-up:
|
| > We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he
| will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he
| takes office.
|
| Additionally, an extract from TikTok's later statement [1]:
|
| > In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the
| process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for
| providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service
| providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to
| over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small
| businesses to thrive.
|
| What the fuck? That's some incredible bootlicking by TikTok.
| They've done a great job making Biden seem like the bad guy for
| banning TikTok, while Trump saves the day by rescuing them.
| This is especially ironic considering Trump was the one who
| wanted to introduce the ban in the first place until he gained
| 15M followers on the platform.
|
| [1] https://xcancel.com/TikTokPolicy/status/1881030712188346459
| kshacker wrote:
| Biden could have easily deferred the penalty phase by 30-90
| days. He did not, even after the blowback this past week.
| nimbius wrote:
| The problem is most readers still think theres a discernable
| difference between the parties. The "90 days" rhetoric is
| exhausting. Tiktok won't sell ans its an obvious attempt to buy
| time to allow Americas oligarchy to find a way to save face and
| walk away from a huge mistake (exiting a platform they need in
| order to spread the propaganda of hegemony and western liberal
| values.)
| Prbeek wrote:
| I love how the US government had exempted US government
| accounts from the ban.. Lmaooo
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > The problem is most readers still think theres a
| discernable difference between the parties.
|
| I will give you excellent odds we're going to immediately see
| a definite difference between presidencies here.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| Are you familiar with Malcolm X's speech about the fox and
| the wolf?
|
| Given the past four years have seen things like shutting
| down labor strikes, support foreign wars, expanding arctic
| drilling at record pace, increased police budgets, erosion
| of women's rights, erosion of lgbtq rights, and a steady
| increase in corporate power... I think the difference we'll
| see is in degree, not in direction.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| So that's a discernable difference. I'm wondering what
| LGBTQ rights were eroded under democratic governments.
| bokoharambe wrote:
| Numerous pieces of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation
| have passed at a state level under the Biden presidency.
| You might argue that that's outside of the purview of the
| federal government, but that certainly wasn't the case in
| the 50s and 60s where federal military force was used to
| enforce civil rights legislation. The federal government
| failing to use its sovereign power is 100% erosion of
| rights.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| You're arguing Biden should have used the military, and
| because he didn't do that he's clearly sympathetic to
| anti-LGBTQ sentiment and that makes it the Dems fault?
| Well, that's certainly a take. It feels like it ignores
| the current government dynamics.
| bokoharambe wrote:
| I'm just saying that inaction is not a neutral act at
| all. It is a form of complicity.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That seems an unreasonable expectation as to what the
| Dems can do. It's sets them up to fail, and make it's
| easy to say they are the same, when you set up an
| unreasonable scale where one is trying to remove the
| rights and the other isn't fighting hard enough become
| the same.
| bokoharambe wrote:
| I'm not the one setting liberalism up to fail, it seems
| to implode catastrophically every few decades. Last time
| was during the interwar period. The failure of liberal
| governments to exercise their sovereign powers in the
| face of social and economic crises is exactly what handed
| electoral victories to fascists in the decades after WWI.
| Their failure was baked in and you were duped from the
| start for thinking that liberal democracy could be a
| sound basis for human emancipation.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| This is the prologue to a potentially dark time in American
| history
| weaksauce wrote:
| world* history
| copperx wrote:
| Ah, the propaganda GUI element. I distinctly remember covering
| it in my HCI class. Right between 'How to Design Intuitive
| Interfaces' and 'How to Influence Favorability Ratings with
| Popups.'
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I agree they know what they are doing by manipulating or
| perhaps secretly enriching Trump. He posted on Truth social
| that he is seeking 50% US ownership. That's very odd. Why not
| 51% so that there is US based voting control? Or full divesture
| from China as the law requires?
|
| And then there's the fact that the conditions for an extension
| aren't met as written in the law. There's no way he can certify
| to Congress that the conditions are met, which is why he's
| trying to use an executive order. But that's illegal.
| addicted wrote:
| They didn't need to turn off in the first place. The Biden
| administration had already said they wouldn't impose any fines.
|
| This was literally nothing but a political play intended to
| give Trump a boost.
| extheat wrote:
| The Biden administration _signed_ the thing into law. Of
| course they need to comply. And people are acting as if
| somehow TikTok decided to self-ban and have now un-banned.
| No, it 's only those with the app already installed that are
| able to continue to use it. It's still blocked on the app
| stores, and will presumably stay that way until tomorrow.
| arandomusername wrote:
| Then why did they sign the law?
| bamboozled wrote:
| When have you ever seen anything like it in the past ?
| Levitz wrote:
| After the ban, Pornhub displayed a message asking people to
| contact their state representatives. I reckon it's a self-
| interest thing.
| richrichie wrote:
| Cope and seethe!
| fassssst wrote:
| It's like America is rapidly turning into 90's Russia and
| people are cheering for it.
| amelius wrote:
| Biden was right about the oligarchs characterization.
| fullshark wrote:
| I'm wondering if it's just the facade has been removed.
| rvz wrote:
| So once again it took the incoming president-elect Trump and for
| Biden to lose to intervene and reverse this ban and give an
| extension to TikTok.
|
| If Biden or Harris won the election, TikTok would have been
| _completely banned_ with zero intervention at all as you have
| seen with how it went and Biden whilst still being president
| would have done nothing and it took Trump to stop it.
|
| Seriously the Democrats made themselves look very bad with this
| situation.
| watwut wrote:
| Trump literally originated it back then.
|
| Trump is not a president yet.
| rvz wrote:
| You realize that is even worse for the Democrats? So why
| didn't Biden stop it? He had plenty of time to do so and he
| did not and signed it.
| pavlov wrote:
| Congress writes laws and the president is supposed to
| implement and enforce them. It's like Americans have
| completely forgotten about this part.
|
| The TikTok ban was upheld by the Supreme Court only days
| ago. If Americans don't want this law, they should elect a
| different Congress.
| curt15 wrote:
| It passed the Senate by the safely veto-proof margin 79-18
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That does not excuse signing a bill into law. If the
| president opposes a bill, he should veto it even if
| Congress will override the veto. To do otherwise is to be
| complicit. So to the extent that you think this bill is
| bad and shouldn't have been passed, Biden is to blame
| regardless of how strong the congressional majority was.
| pell wrote:
| The ban had bi-partisan support. So why should Biden stop
| it if he agrees with it? A major adversary (China) owns a
| main communication network in the US while the US and other
| Western countries are not allowed to operate such networks
| within China. You don't have to agree with this of course
| but it's not unprecedented for the US to restrict the reach
| of foreign governments. In the past radio waves were
| restricted in a similar sense.
| rvz wrote:
| > So why should Biden stop it if he agrees with it?
|
| That is my point. The Democrats made themselves look very
| bad with this situation and Biden did nothing and
| supported the bill anyway and just signed it.
|
| In fact he replaced Trump's original EO with a worse one
| which includes still supporting the TikTok ban and Biden
| signed that last year which made it so that if the
| Democrats won the election, then TikTok would have been
| still completely banned with no reversal whatsoever.
|
| In effect, those who voted for Biden or Harris also were
| voting for a TikTok ban, which that is beyond hilarious
| as everyone saw that he didn't halt the ban.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Trump singed an EO that was reversed. Only one president
| showed interest in a law. Only one president whipped votes
| for that law. Only one president signed the law.
| pell wrote:
| The ban had bi-partisan support. Trump was initially for the
| ban and then changed his mind. On Aug. 6, 2020, Trump signed
| Executive Order 13942, which sought to ban TikTok in response
| to national security concerns. Courts struck it down.
|
| He expressed his changed opinion in 2024. Was it because he met
| with Jeff Yass who holds 7% of ByteDance (which owns TikTok)
| and is a major Republican donor? Who knows.
|
| But what is clear is that this is again morphing into a talking
| point against the Democrats even though all of this started
| with Trump initially.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Amazing stunt: The establishment tried to limit freedom of speech
| and Trump saved the day. Probably a pre-agreed sequence of
| events.
|
| Never mind that it was him who initially trued to ban it.
|
| Nevertheless a positive development.
| airstrike wrote:
| I don't think that's an accurate read. Everyone was playing
| chicken and the US won. TikTok will be up for sale again,
| except this time with way less leverage in negotiating a sale.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| ... I can't even. How did US win? OP effectively nailed all
| the facets in which it is overall the worst of all worlds.
| Few individual political players have won, but it certainly
| was not US or us.
| airstrike wrote:
| The US won because TikTok will sell.
| notfed wrote:
| "The US won because <wild uncited guess about the
| future>."
| airstrike wrote:
| Trump didn't overturn the Supreme Court's decision. He
| only gave TikTok a 90-day lifeline. They need a solution
| to be allowed to operate. Either they will have to cut
| ties with the CCP and operate truly independently--and
| provide assurances for that--or they will sell to someone
| and make billions.
|
| I know which of the two I'd pick, but yeah, I guess you
| can say they might also restructure out of the CCP's
| control, which I think is unlikely because China then
| just gets paid $0.
|
| Another alternative would be for lawmakers in this new
| congress to change the law they _just_ passed but given
| the Republican majority is very narrow and there is
| plenty of support for the ban across the isle, I find it
| hard to believe they will be able to do so. But sure,
| that 's also a possible scenario.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << They need a solution to be allowed to operate.
|
| You are assuming a lot in that one sentence seemingly
| without realizing it.
| mikeweiss wrote:
| There was never a freedom of speech argument here, unless maybe
| you are china. There are endless similar platforms available to
| individuals to express themselves on. Ones that aren't owned
| and controlled by China... America's biggest technological
| rival.
| rzz3 wrote:
| There are people who think similar platforms exist and people
| who have used TikTok, unfortunately.
| atlintots wrote:
| What do you mean? YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels are
| very similar.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << Ones that aren't owned and controlled by China...
| America's biggest technological rival.
|
| And, you forgot to add, do not allow expression of thoughts
| that are not culturally accepted in US.
| patcon wrote:
| You think TikTok is beneficial or even neutral?
| qingcharles wrote:
| Simply, yes.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I think China is not a role model for freedoms, no one should
| follow their steps. Censorship is not going to solve your
| problems and you won't become China in terms of industry by
| by banning apps. You will become China sans industry.
| creato wrote:
| China's trade policies, unreciprocated, guarantees that all
| internet companies will be Chinese eventually, it's just a
| matter of when.
| whoevercares wrote:
| Yes, simply because there are mass number of people making a
| living there. Be a realist
| Airodonack wrote:
| This is such a fallacious, misdirecting argument. The speech
| itself was not targeted by the ban. It was the ownership. If
| the speech stayed the same then regulators would have been
| happy.
| ripped_britches wrote:
| For those saying there's no executive order yet or that Trump is
| not president yet, the point is that they received confirmation
| that there _will be_ an executive order, meaning they can rely on
| a 90 day extension of non-enforcement.
|
| So while there is some irony with Trump having previously
| supported the ban, the practical reality is that he and
| Susquehanna and the Republicans all are winning big on this one,
| from a political/financial lens.
| repeekad wrote:
| The issue is Trump doesn't have legal authority to issue an
| executive order delaying the ban, executive orders "execute"
| the law, delaying would be the opposite of the law, a law that
| was held up 9-0 as constitutional by the Supreme Court _face
| palm_
| whatshisface wrote:
| There is some precedent for doing this. State-level cannabis
| legalization rests on non-enforcement at the federal level,
| at which it remains scheduled.
| repeekad wrote:
| Sure, but there's no executive order saying we promise not
| to enforce it (I assume?), that would be counter to the law
| even if the absence of enforcement is a legal grey area
|
| Either way it feels like there are games being played, and
| the country is watching because tik tok is so heavily used
| by so many people
| whatshisface wrote:
| As far as I can tell, what happened is this law was
| passed in the heat of the moment (Gaza war), but it
| turned out to be massively unpopular and ineffective at
| shoring up US support for the outgoing administration's
| foreign policy, and even after its moment had passed the
| combination of the arguments raised by the lawyers for
| ByteDance and the phrasing of the very unique, very
| specific bill got it through the Supreme Court, so now
| everyone's been stuck with trying to figure out how to
| get rid of it.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| And notice how Marlboro didn't start selling cannabis
| everywhere? Apple and Google(and their legal teams) have to
| decide if not following the law on the nonbinding word of a
| 77yr old man's promise. The law itself allows companies to
| be held liable up to 5 years after each infraction.
| jmholla wrote:
| Yes he does. Form the article:
|
| > The law banning TikTok, which was scheduled to go into
| effect Sunday, allows the president to grant a 90-day
| extension before the ban is enforced, provided certain
| criteria are met.
|
| and
|
| > After the Supreme Court greenlit the law on Friday, the
| Biden administration issued a statement saying it would not
| enforce the ban, leaving that responsibility to Trump.
| pelorat wrote:
| The criteria is; they must have a plan to sell.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| That's following the law. It doesn't require an executive
| order. But the law requires proving to congress that the
| conditions for an extension are met
| ASinclair wrote:
| The chance for the 90 day extension under the law goes away
| before Trump takes office. He can't legally give them a 90
| day extension.
| pjc50 wrote:
| He can just buy a sufficient stake to count as a
| "divestiture" under the law.
| pyridines wrote:
| I was dumbfounded too, but NBC explains in this same article:
|
| > "The law banning TikTok [...] allows the president to grant
| a 90-day extension before the ban is enforced, provided
| certain criteria are met."
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Those criteria have not been met and we are passed the
| deadline in which that extension could be applied.
| bsimpson wrote:
| [meta] why is this the only comment I can't vote on?
| mikeweiss wrote:
| Trump and team may be the biggest public relations masterminds of
| all time. They realize that the populous is fickle and easily won
| over with obvious stunts. Define the villains and play the hero.
| It keeps working for him over and over and over. Truly
| incredible.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| I really hate Trump, but the guy is a media (read: not
| political) genius. I doubt there will ever be someone like him
| in the Republican, or any party again.
| whatshisface wrote:
| A little over 100 years ago the massively popular party enemy
| #1 T.R. was running roughshod over the republican convention.
| jddj wrote:
| Also a fan of executive action over congressional consent.
| And the son of a wealthy father in new york.
|
| And opposed by a Democratic party which was very much
| controlled (to a fault) by its machine.
|
| That's roughly where the similarities end though. I think
| they'd have strongly diverged on key points such as a man's
| duty to his country in war, presidential pardons, and right
| in the *****.
| y33t wrote:
| > Define the villains and play the hero.
|
| There's a quote I can't find right now that goes something
| along the lines of "If you let somebody define the terms of
| your reality, you've made a sorcerer out of them, unless you
| catch the bastard real quick".
|
| Trump to a T.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > There's a quote I can't find right now that goes something
| along the lines of "If you let somebody define the terms of
| your reality, you've made a sorcerer out of them, unless you
| catch the bastard real quick".
|
| Four quotes that capture the essence of not letting others
| define your reality or exert control over your perception:
|
| 1. "He who defines the terms wins the argument." - various
| thinkers.
|
| 2. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
| - Eleanor Roosevelt
|
| 3. "Until lions have their own historians, the history of the
| hunt will always glorify the hunter." - Chinua Achebe
|
| 4. "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the
| world, he is responsible for everything he does." - Jean-Paul
| Sartre
| whimsicalism wrote:
| or on the other side of things, Biden is politically
| incompetent to try banning a popular social media app in an
| election year
| atlintots wrote:
| But Trump started the ban.
| metabagel wrote:
| WWE President
| brisky wrote:
| It is easy to confuse a mastermind with somebody who is simply
| willing to break the law.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Man, the current democratic party just does not know how to solve
| problems in a way that people appreciate.
|
| Absurd that the Republicans are somehow going to swoop in and
| "Save the day" on an issue they themselves championed.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Man, the current democratic party just does not know how to
| solve problems in a way that people appreciate.
|
| What would have been a solution to the problem that people
| would have appreciated?
| silvestrov wrote:
| Publish the algorithm. Allow users to choose which algorithm
| they want to use.
| Hatrix wrote:
| Facebook?
| undersuit wrote:
| Yeah you can choose to use Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp,
| or Threads freely. /s
| hackyhacky wrote:
| What does this even mean?
|
| There is no "algorithm": the policies of a service like
| Tiktok are spread throughout its entirety. The only
| meaningful way to "release the algorithm" would be to
| release the whole source code.
|
| Furthermore, releasing the source code wouldn't help, since
| regular people aren't able to understand what it means; and
| there is no way to verify that the released source code
| corresponds to what is actually being run.
|
| It would be great if there was some way to verify that a
| service you're using matches some published code, but we
| don't have that.
| Aachen wrote:
| > Furthermore, releasing the source code wouldn't help,
| since regular people aren't able to understand what it
| means
|
| Releasing the code does help. Joe can't open up his car
| and fix the engine control code, but the local repair
| shop can and they can also understand it and raise to a
| journalist "huh this manufacturer pushed a new version
| that'll make it stop driving if you service it at the
| workshop of a competitor" or whatever the car equivalent
| of this tiktok algorithm concern would be
|
| The second problem you mention, I fully agree with:
| verifying whatever they publish. Client source code, you
| barely even need because it'll just be a front end for
| what the servers decide to show you. Verifying that what
| they say the server code is, is really what the server
| runs, that's the hard bit. But claiming to be open could
| be a start; something we can find discrepancies in and
| push for further openness
|
| Whether this will solve the national security concerns
| and help with the youth mental health crisis that's often
| linked to social media, that's all way beyond my
| expertise and I have no opinion on the matter. Just that,
| in general, not everyone needs to understand everything
| in the world for it to be useful to publish
| braiamp wrote:
| A privacy law, for starters.
| mfost wrote:
| As if that would even have any effect in that situation. No
| amount of audits and rules would prevent TikTok from
| collecting data and manipulating the public opinion.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Why not monitor it? Create thousands of read-only
| accounts that "prefer" content with all kinds of
| ideological viewpoints and statistically analyze whether
| the algorithm is being biased to promote certain
| viewpoints. I'm not smart enough to implement something
| like that but it sounds like a solvable problem to me.
| accrual wrote:
| I thought about this too. In no way do I suggest it's an
| actual solution, but I wonder if some kind of reporting
| could be used as leverage to help appease US leaders
| towards a solution that doesn't require banning the app
| or handing it over to them.
| metabagel wrote:
| How does that prevent China from using TikTok to inject
| malware?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| [ citation needed ]
| metabagel wrote:
| I don't think I need a citation to say that it's feasible
| for China to inject malware via the TikTok app on
| people's phones. Would it be difficult? I imagine so.
| But, I think the risk is such that the onus is to prove
| that it's not possible, not the other way around. China
| is a hostile power and an authoritarian regime. It's a
| different risk calculus than Facebook, which is not
| controlled by a dangerous foreign adversary.
| dataflow wrote:
| How exactly does that prevent an adversary from spreading
| propaganda? And what makes you think privacy laws would
| prevent foreign spies from spying?
| hackyhacky wrote:
| The alleged national security implications of Tiktok are
| not based on spreading propaganda, but on gaining access
| to information about Americans. A privacy law would
| address that issue, as well as protected Americans'
| privacy from other companies, regardless of where they
| are based.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| Where are you finding 60 Senators for that?
| rayiner wrote:
| My 12 year old daughter was cranky this morning about Tik Tok
| being banned, then walked in ecstatic it was working again. I'm
| like "I wonder if Trump fixed Tik Tok," and sure enough. She
| gave me a high five. My 6 year old son is already MAGA because
| the boys in his class love Trump.
|
| Like inflation, this was a problem Trump created and now he's
| getting credit for fixing it.
| quenix wrote:
| It's probably not a good idea to let a 12 year old use
| tiktok.
| qup wrote:
| Better tell every parent in America
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| do you not remember being 12?
| rayiner wrote:
| She watches videos about ancient Egypt, her friends lip
| syncing to songs, and knitting. The content on Tik Tok is
| way better than the trash on network TV or Hollywood
| movies.
|
| I consider the Chinese oversight a plus. It's much more
| sensitive to Asian values for the most part.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| 12 year olds having mood swings because their digital crack
| was banned for half a day. God help us all.
| zrail wrote:
| I don't have a 12 year old (yet) but my 8 year old has mood
| swings when they're too cold, too hot, have a headache, the
| tv remote doesn't work, their tablet runs out of time,
| their tablet runs out of battery, when they're hungry,
| thirsty, and/or tired (the preceding is non-inclusive,
| sometimes they have a mood swing for no perceptible
| reason).
|
| Kids are people. People have feelings.
| jajko wrote:
| Yeah, but the times I've seen parents actually
| address/redirect bad behavior or of their kids in
| constructive ways are few and far apart, many sort of
| gave up or go to the other extreme. Small kids lack a
| great deal of emotional empathy and can wear a decent
| adult down very fast if right buttons are pushed at right
| time, so thats tricky to say at least. But then again its
| the greatest achievement in most people's lives (to raise
| their kids well just to be clear) so some proper effort
| long term should be spent here.
|
| Good parenting consistently is hard, very hard and
| sometimes basically impossible, but the difference
| between parents who at least try hard to raise kids well
| and those who sort of gave up on their kids is striking
| (tiktok and other digital stuff is a good yardstick of
| overall state of this, when I see kids of other folks
| using it and clearly addicted I am losing all respect for
| those folks as parents, and its always a big bag of
| various failures and neglect coming along). Its
| heartbreaking to experience, especially the
| powerlessness.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Yea if I see a 4 year old with an ipad in a restaurant I
| lose respect for the parents. Parenting is hard, and
| everyone fails at some point but there are certain things
| I have never comprised on and social media/digital crack
| at a young age is one of them.
| driverdan wrote:
| Take this as an opportunity to teach them about why they
| shouldn't trust politicians. Make sure you tell them about
| Trump being the original supporter of the ban
| https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/900019185/trump-signs-
| executi...
| rayiner wrote:
| She already doesn't trust politicians, and knew that. We
| think he changed his mind because he was flattered by the
| girls lip syncing to his funny quips.
|
| But it remains the first time in her life that a politician
| listened to a concern she had, and acted on it promptly to
| fix the problem.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| I'm sorry, your SIX year old is MAGA? I mean maybe this is an
| America thing, but my 6 year old knows literally nothing
| about any politician. How are 6 year olds even aware of
| Trump?
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Trump isn't just a politician, he's a showman. He had a TV
| series for years. He has effectively hijacked US media to
| ensure that there is constant news about him.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| Knowing nothing about politics is on par for being MAGA.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| You want 6 year olds to get involved in politica? You
| sound like a deranged bot who is misconfigured.
| rayiner wrote:
| The presidential election is a public spectacle in America,
| with children's TV networks getting into it:
| https://www.nickelodeonparents.com/nickelodeon-kids-pick-
| the....
| kenjackson wrote:
| Looks like you're getting downvoted, but this exactly matches
| my kids' HS friends who said "now I finally get MAGA - let's
| make America like it was before the Tik Tok ban!"
|
| There isn't too much teens really feel on a day-to-day basis
| with politics and this is one of them. I'm not a Trump fan at
| all but his ability to spin things like this and the stimulus
| checks will need to be studied.
| phatfish wrote:
| I doubt a study would be helpful for anyone else, except
| that he had a good read on when his chances of winning were
| best back before 2016.
|
| Aside from that his popularity -- and ability to lie
| shamelessly and have enough people ignore it and vote for
| him -- is wrapped up in the entity "Trump". His play book
| is age old.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| That is some shitty parenting for letting a 12 year old on
| this platform.
| rayiner wrote:
| Well I think American parenting is shitty (telling kids
| "you can be whatever you want to be," getting divorced,
| etc.)
| Aachen wrote:
| I'm hearing social media limits described like a prisoner's
| dilemma: it only is good parenting if both defect. If your
| parents don't give you tiktok because it's healthier but
| most of the class does, you'll have a much harder time
| being part of the group. I got to be part of many things in
| different schools by being on MSN (~2012), Facebook groups
| (~2014, even met my life partner there due to being in the
| same interest group), and WhatsApp (2018). I don't use
| formerly-known-as-Facebook products anymore today and MSN
| doesn't even exist now, but in a social group you don't
| have a fully individual choice of platform
|
| I agree that current evidence points towards the best
| parenting being where nobody lets their 12-year-old on
| Tiktok, but there's more to it than simply not letting them
| no matter the circumstances
| ronnier wrote:
| I'm just happy TikTok is back. It's a big loss for Reddit
| ruune wrote:
| Am I missing something? How? The users would've went to Meta
| or Google I assume
| ronnier wrote:
| People only have so many hours in the day to consume
| content.
| qwerpy wrote:
| The less people get sucked into the toxic Reddit bubble, the
| better.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| Reddit is a lost cause. They totally got the election wrong
| and the day afterwards they broke their mind trying to
| justify the loss with whatever conspiracy theory they could
| come up with. Combine that with overzealous mods and you'll
| eventually end up in a situation where the majority of
| people left are just bots. Bots talking to other bots.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| What do they, or any elite gain/lose by gaining/losing the
| appreciation of ordinary people.
|
| Do you care what a cattle or a sheep thinks? Some may, but the
| majority don't give it a shit.
| groggo wrote:
| They do still need our votes. But they forgot that, so they
| lost. I voted for democrats but they got what they deserved.
| judahmeek wrote:
| What exactly do you think Democrats should have done that
| they didn't do?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I vote democrat, but then I'm a rich, educated, knowledge
| worker coastal urban elite so I'm supposed to right?
|
| I think the hard answer is - the Dems need to actually do
| things that dissatisfy people like me if they want to
| actually win the masses - working class, blue collar, etc
| voter back.
|
| Currently they are focussed on everything other than
| class. Identity politics. Race, gender, sexuality,
| immigration status, etc. None of this is particularly
| threatening to people like me and is a moral good, but it
| should be secondary to actually helping the poor
| regardless of how they identify.
|
| Left wing parties elsewhere push for more redistributive
| policies than the Dems ever dream of here. Instead they
| do hand-outs to constituencies that aren't in dire need,
| and already vote Dem anyway. Student loan forgiveness, EV
| tax credits, etc.
|
| Meanwhile in UK & EU, even the vaguely upper end of
| middle class pay marginal tax rates that would make
| $1M/year US earners cry. This is where the revenue comes
| for the depth & breadth of their social programs.
|
| Should the US go that far? Absolutely not. It would
| stifle innovation, growth, and what makes the US far more
| successful than our rich peers. But Dems need to break
| free of the thinking that if we just tax a few
| billionaires, all our problems will be solved.
| dralley wrote:
| Left wing parties elsewhere are losing too, mostly
| because of immigration. Meanwhile the welfare states are
| collapsing in the UK, Canada, France and Germany because
| the birthrates and lack of economic growth can't sustain
| it.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think globally a lot of rich world left wing parties
| made similar rhetorical mistakes. Essentially leaning
| into identity stuff without acknowledging working class
| people's challenges.
|
| Also to be fair they've been in power globally for some
| time and so are seen as the status quo party, and largely
| ran as such. People are feeling economically squeezed and
| therefore voting incumbents out.
| lm28469 wrote:
| When the "real problems" are TikTok access and who can enter in
| which public bathroom you know everyone loses, panem et
| circenses
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| But TikTik is an important forum for the people of the world
| to solve our thorny issues! In the days before social media,
| our world was a mess. Today we are awash in sage, well-
| reasoned discourse: a new Age of Enlightenment! What fools
| we'd be to tinker with this valuable information ecosystem.
| /s
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| I'm not certain, but I think there might also be some other
| issues people talk about.
| erentz wrote:
| Looking this up, is this [1] the bill? Cuz it turns out this
| bill was sponsored by a Republican and passed during a
| Republican controlled House in 2023, by a supermajority 352 -
| 65.
|
| People always blame Democrats for things that Republicans do.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-
| bill/7521...
| ok123456 wrote:
| AIPAC made sure it had bipartisan support.
| wcunning wrote:
| It also passed a Democrat controlled Senate and was signed by
| a Democrat president, who then elected to not even attempt to
| enforce the law today, his one day to do so. Either of those
| could have blocked it. It's at the very least bipartisan and
| the talk at the time of passage was that the Dems could
| deliver on Rep promises. Neither side seems to want to be the
| ones holding the unpopular bag.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| And upheld by the the supreme Court in a unanimous decision
| nickthegreek wrote:
| You are correct. Our entire government looks like a clown
| show over this. National security issues that we couldn't
| see banned it and now it's still here. I better see some
| members of the legislature fight this misappropriation of
| power that was upheld by the Supreme Court. If a president
| can come in and hand wave away a law just passed and
| implemented(by a huge majority mind you), then the rule of
| law is gone. I hope that Cook and Pichai stand firm and not
| let these apps back into the store until the government
| fixes this shit show through the proper channels. Those who
| flip flop their votes should have their reasons spread
| across traditional and online media. If our entire
| government will flip flop on an issue so quickly after the
| Supreme Court suppressed the 1A a little further, I feel
| the corpo state has taken us another step towards the
| cyberpunk dystopia that I prefer to cosplay in my games not
| reality.
| divbzero wrote:
| The outgoing Biden administration actually stated that they
| wouldn't enforce the ban for just one day, choosing to leave
| implementation of the law to the incoming Trump administration.
|
| Efforts to save TikTok have been bipartisan ("Senate Democratic
| Leader Chuck Schumer said he spoke with Biden on Thursday to
| advocate for extending the deadline to ban TikTok.") and
| efforts to enforce the ban have also been bipartisan
| ("Democrats had tried on Wednesday to pass legislation that
| would have extended the deadline, but Republican Sen. Tom
| Cotton of Arkansas blocked it. Cotton, chair of the Senate
| Intelligence Committee, said that TikTok has had ample time to
| find a buyer.")
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-wont-enforce-tik...
| Gormo wrote:
| The incentive structures inherent in modern politics encourages
| all politicians to alternately champion or repudiate unworkable
| solutions to problems that themselves are likely exaggerated or
| fabricated from whole cloth.
|
| The parties are just brands competing against each other to
| appeal to different segments of the same market, offering
| essentially the same product in different packaging. Getting
| your competitor to adopt a market position that you've already
| prepared a response to is a neat trick.
|
| This is par for the course, and I don't understand why anyone
| would expect anything different.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| This just seems trivially obviously not true to me.
| Gormo wrote:
| I mean, it seems obviously true to _me_ , which is why I
| posited it here. Do you have a counter-argument you'd like
| to offer in response?
| jimmydoe wrote:
| DEM looks bad now bc they just lost power. DEM did not solve it
| earlier bc an unpopular party can't do hard/unpopular things.
| GOP may have a shot, if they will be as popular as they looked
| in November. End of day it's about popularity and power.
| nfw2 wrote:
| It seems like an oversight to me that all the discussion about
| political impact leading up to this has focused on consumers.
| Statements like "Gen Z likes TikTok, so banning it risks
| alienating them", "Gen Z will forgot about TikTok and move on
| to the next thing in due time", etc.
|
| I think this overlooks one key detail. The focal points of the
| new online world -- "influencers" -- rely on TikTok for the
| lion's share of their income. Taking away a fun toy might not
| radicalize someone but taking away their livelihood might.
|
| And even if these users are a tiny fraction of a percent, they
| wield outsized influence (obviously). They are the new media.
| Risking losing these people, many of whom have been largely
| apolitical, seems like a huge tactical error in retrospect, and
| one that Trump would predictably take advantage of if given the
| chance.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Trump was banging the drum regarding banning TikTok, then
| changes his tune in the 11th hour, and will now use this to
| come out as the hero and savior. Not to mention how many
| republicans supported this.
| portaouflop wrote:
| I gotta hand it to him it's kind of genius
| Aachen wrote:
| But also scary how much people are willing to swallow
|
| Edit: wanted to elaborate but wasn't sure how to put it
| best. Then two comments down there is exactly what I'm
| looking for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42759761
| So many people (in absolute numbers at least, maybe not in
| relative numbers) seem to just eat it up like kids eat
| candy
| colechristensen wrote:
| The bill was cosponsored by 54, 32 of them were Republicans. I
| think the primary author was a Republican.
| xienze wrote:
| > Absurd that the Republicans are somehow going to swoop in and
| "Save the day" on an issue they themselves championed.
|
| Absurd that when Trump initially proposed this it was
| considered a stupid and racist idea. Now they're for it.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _TikTok goes dark in the US_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42753396 - Jan 2025 (2187
| comments)
| Brystephor wrote:
| What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to cause a
| problem and then fix it?
|
| Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop
| so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the
| past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big
| political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut
| down?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Is it a big political statement to shut down a couple hours
| before the deadline of shutting down?
|
| The app stores removed the app in accordance with that timeline
| too.
| TypingOutBugs wrote:
| There was no deadline, the app stores didn't need to remove
| it.
|
| The Biden administration said it would be left to the Trump
| administration to review, they had no reason to shut it down.
| It's purely to force Trumps hand a bit.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Thanks. So that was between friday night and today, that
| means it would also be true that Bytedance could not rely
| on the autonomous aspects of the US government to not
| create liability, unless given an explicit assurance.
|
| I wouldn't say following the law would be purely to force a
| hand, I would say multiple things can be true at once. They
| still had liability.
|
| Other government agencies, like the SEC, has been filing
| court cases all the way till the last minute even though
| they'll likely get dropped tomorrow. It is understandable
| to take a risk averse approach for a company.
| arandomusername wrote:
| > As of January 19, the Protecting Americans from Foreign
| Adversary Controlled Applications Act will make it unlaw-
| ful for companies in the United States to provide services
| to distribute, maintain, or update the social media
| platform TikTok
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/TikTok_
| v...
|
| Please do some research next time before spreading lies.
| Gormo wrote:
| > What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to
| cause a problem and then fix it?
|
| There's too much effort and uncertainty involved in actually
| creating a problem and then actually fixing it.
|
| It's much easier and more reliable to create the _perception_
| of a problem by promulgating lots of FUD, then engage in
| performative theatrics to nullify the FUD and proclaim the
| problem fixed.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly.
|
| Trump was against Tiktok before he was for it.
|
| He was also against crypto currencies before he released his
| own.
| elfbargpt wrote:
| I think it's obvious that US lawmakers were somehow convinced
| ByteDance would absolutely divest from TikTok if threatened
| with an ultimatum. They were never prepared for an actual ban
| and the resulting fallout. Now that it's obvious they won't
| divest (which should have been obvious the entire time), they
| flipped
| appleorchard46 wrote:
| > Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where
| a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political
| statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...
| blahedo wrote:
| > _flip-flop so quickly_
|
| The timing and phrasing make it clear that this was planned and
| negotiated in advance, and the shutdown was just for show in
| order to be able to post a memo about how "President Trump"
| saved it. If actual negotiation had to occur, it would not have
| happened in the twelve hours between midnight and noon on
| Sunday morning.
|
| The point of the stunt was to persuade large numbers of younger
| folks that the Ds are the bad guys and Trump in particular is
| the hero. And it'll work as designed.
| iknowSFR wrote:
| What's the evidence of this? It seems highly plausible but do
| we have any proof besides speculation?
| willis936 wrote:
| My partner uses TikTok and was greeted with a message today
| saying that DJT saved the app. That isn't possible because
| he isn't president yet. It's all very embarrassing.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Also the CEO of TikTok is going to sit directly behind
| Trump at the inauguration. It's not even subtle and half
| the point is that it isn't subtle - bend the knee to
| Trump and you'll be taken care of, is the message. We
| operate just like Russia at this point.
|
| Also, expect to see that Facebook is partnering with
| TikTok on Monday morning. The head of the bill banning
| TikTok just invested 100 million in Meta... so I imagine
| there will be a followup announcement how Trump brokered
| some deal to Americanize TikTok or something.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I got an internal ad on Facebook telling me to connect my
| TikTok account the other day.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/yCOpifC
| mquander wrote:
| It's possible for people who aren't currently the
| president to do things.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "Be President while the other guy still is" is not one of
| them.
| kec wrote:
| If that's the case this was totally bungled, the app was down
| for less than 12 hours, overnight during a weekend. If they
| wanted maximum effect Trump wouldn't have tweeted until 5pm
| eastern to give people a chance to come to terms with the
| shutdown actually happening.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| He who can destroy a thing controls that thing. Expect the new
| administration to have great influence on tiktok policy and
| content.
| ein0p wrote:
| Masterful PR move by Trump. Two ways to win, no way to lose: he
| gets control of the narrative there (if not TikTok itself, via
| one of his cronies), and he shows how totalitarian the
| "democrats" are.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| > and he shows how totalitarian the "democrats" are.
|
| and by that you are including the massive majority of
| republican legislators who also sit on intel committees also
| voted for it with resounding vigor?
| ein0p wrote:
| Yes, they too would like to show how totalitarian the
| "democrats" are. Jokes aside, the buck stops with the guy who
| signs the bill into law. Too bad the guy signing the bill
| didn't even understand what he was signing this time due to
| his profound dementia.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| The TikTok debate has always been about the balance between
| national security and free speech.
|
| We found a compromise. TikTok will remain, all of its national
| security risks will remain. Also, the law that tramples free
| speech is upheld by the court, but will be blantently ignored and
| unenforced.
|
| Everybody loses. This outcome is worse than anyone could have
| conceived.
| vasco wrote:
| Soldiers were already sharing videos of aircraft carriers on
| Rednote which hasn't gone through the whole shenanigans of
| paying Larry Ellison to host it on Oracle Cloud and so on. The
| national security risk is the US military apparently not being
| able to convince its own soldiers to be thoughtful about
| cybersecurity.
| whatshisface wrote:
| How does it matter where those videos were shared? Material
| is either classified or unclassified, it doesn't matter if
| the WarThunder forums (for example) are moderated by US
| nationals or not.
| vasco wrote:
| It's not about where the videos are posted, it's about
| having apps that collect exact GPS position of smartphones
| that soldiers carry while the position of the ships they
| are on is classified. The fact that there's videos is just
| the "proof" that they have installed such apps that
| exfiltrate things like their location, for example.
|
| Famously, soldiers wanted to use strava in secret military
| bases:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-
| tracki...
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you want to secure sailors' phones you are going to
| have to do a lot more, and at the same time much less,
| than ban or transfer the ownership of one single app that
| happens to be used by over a hundred million civilians.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| GasBuddy (and Life360) just sold that same location data
| to brokers, which Allstate bought and used to adjust
| premiums. Practically every app that is given access to
| location info is selling it, and it's widely available to
| anyone with the money to buy.
|
| Maybe we should have some sort of General Data Protection
| Regulation law instead of hand-wringing about social
| media.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| GasBuddy, at least, said that they could (read: would)
| sell the location data that they collected after opt-in.
| It was part of the agreement.
|
| I can't imagine a world where it would be illegal for two
| parties to agree to sell the location data that one of
| them generates.
| woodson wrote:
| That's the world we live in today. Under many countries'
| privacy laws, it's not legal to sell PII to a third party
| that you collected for a specific other purpose (e.g.,
| fulfilling the primary purpose of the app). The problem
| is that they do it anyways.
| Kye wrote:
| Are ship locations classified? I doubt China has
| difficulty keeping track. They have satellites too.
| pjc50 wrote:
| They almost certainly are while on deployment, despite it
| being really obvious where a ship is.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Oceans are vast, sometimes there are clouds and storms.
| echoangle wrote:
| Clouds and storms don't really help you with a SAR
| satellite.
| wcunning wrote:
| The Onion Router was invented by the Navy to make ship
| location tracking hard with visibility of some of the
| network, so it's classified at times. More importantly,
| just because you have satellites doesn't mean that it's
| easy to pick all of that out all the time or to be
| entirely certain of which ship/which mission, etc. Making
| it harder is better even if it can't be made impossible
| outside of subs.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| App usage not only leaks location, but number of troops;
| something which is not readily detectable by satellite.
| echoangle wrote:
| Wouldn't the crew of a ship be pretty constant though,
| for this example?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Generally, no. Specifically, yes.
|
| https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
|
| The more valuable signal from app data would likely be op
| tempo and what phase of a deployment / mission a ship is
| in.
|
| Aside from inferred reasons for changes in patterns of
| behavior, one going emcon and suddenly dropping all users
| off an app means something.
|
| Also, modern satellites are great, but even carrier
| battle groups are _really_ small in the Pacific.
| Gormo wrote:
| Why are soldiers allowed to bring GPS-enable consumer
| smartphones along with them on top-secret deployments in
| the first place?
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| It's not top secret deployments, it's any deployments.
| All deployments need to maintain a level of operational
| security. Also if you expect a bunch of people in the
| 18-29 age range to go without internet for 9 months to 2
| years, you're kidding yourself. The tradeoff is between
| operational security and morale and if you're in military
| leadership, you really don't want unhappy troops on your
| hands.
| Gormo wrote:
| I mean, I _do_ completely expect deployed military
| personnel to adhere to rules and limitations that are
| much more rigorous than those they 'd experience in
| civilian life.
|
| I'd be astonished if I learned that soldiers on duty were
| totally free to do as they please the expense of
| operational security simply because that's what people in
| their broad demographic category are accustomed to.
|
| I'd be equally astonished if I found that military
| recruitment was based on enlisting cross-sectional
| samples of demographic categories, without regard for the
| capacities and attitudes of the specific individuals
| seeking to join. I know for a fact that people are
| rejected for enlistment for all sorts of reasons.
|
| And I'm sure that the military can find ways of enabling
| deployed personnel to use the internet without
| sacrificing security or oversight -- for example by
| requiring them to use secured military-issue computers
| and smartphones, or by having an inspection or vetting
| process for hardware and software when soldiers want to
| use their own devices.
|
| I hope you also acknowledge the absurdity of suggesting
| that the government should apply essentially the same
| restrictions to the whole of society that the military
| couldn't apply within its own sphere of control.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| You're constructing a straw man without being curious
| about the things you yourself are missing.
|
| Or in HNism, you're "Why don't they just..." without
| considering the reasons those solutions might be more
| challenging than they first appear.
|
| I suggest you read parent comment about balance and
| tradeoffs inherent in forward deployment again.
| Gormo wrote:
| > You're constructing a straw man without being curious
| about the things you yourself are missing.
|
| Could you point out the straw man in question? I feel
| like everything I posted above is a direct response to
| arguments I gleaned from your previous comment, and
| certainly didn't intentionally attribute any argument to
| you that I didn't think you were actually making.
|
| > I suggest you read parent comment about balance and
| tradeoffs inherent in forward deployment again.
|
| I've reread it a couple of times, and I'm afraid I'm not
| seeing any hidden propositions in it that I missed the
| first time around. Could you be more explicit about what
| you're getting at?
|
| My comment about finding ways to enable internet access
| in a more controlled way was specifically targeting your
| argument about the security vs. morale tradeoff, and my
| point about the absurdity of trying to make that tradeoff
| for society as a whole in a scenario where you imply the
| military can't make it for its own operations still seems
| to apply here.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| > And I'm sure that the military can find ways of
| enabling deployed personnel to use the internet without
| sacrificing security or oversight -- for example by
| requiring them to use secured military-issue computers
| and smartphones, or by having an inspection or vetting
| process for hardware and software when soldiers want to
| use their own devices.
|
| Of this we are in 100% agreement. It's totally doable,
| but I am observing that today it is not a solved problem
| in the US military.
|
| > I hope you also acknowledge the absurdity of suggesting
| that the government should apply essentially the same
| restrictions to the whole of society that the military
| couldn't apply within its own sphere of control.
|
| I'm a little confused about the wording of this but I am
| reading this as saying that the military should be able
| to apply its own standards that are stricter than what
| civilians are accustomed to. I agree, and it does. But
| I'm suggesting that it doesn't happen in a vacuum and
| that enforcement is never perfect. A blanket ban on
| personal devices (I'm positive this has been tried
| before) would both be unpopular and difficult to enforce.
| It would be a mistake to discount the cost of poor
| morale. And it would be a mistake to ignore the outsized
| effect that poor morale has on middle management -- the
| ones who are responsible for enforcing said rules.
|
| I hope it's clear that my commentary is entirely
| descriptive and not prescriptive. Full disclosure: I'm
| former US military enlisted and also currently working in
| a space adjacent to improving operational security.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Because consumer smartphones are a cheap and logistics-
| light way to improve morale on deployments.
|
| It's not easy to put a McDonald's in the middle of the
| desert.
| Gormo wrote:
| I'm sure there are many other cheap and easy ways to
| improve morale on deployments, but that many of those
| options are eschewed and/or only offered with oversight
| because they would otherwise risk operational security.
|
| I'm not sure what to make of the argument that the
| military is unable to find any alternative to consumer
| smartphones without even RMM implemented as a means of
| providing for troop morale, therefore the government
| should regulate social media for the entirety of society
| as a means to ensure the security of military maneuvers.
| This just sounds _nuts_ to me.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| By that measure they should ban the war thunder forum before
| tiktok
| gscott wrote:
| Plus these apps track you everywhere so the Chinese have your
| GPS and you're on the aircraft carrier. No need for fancy
| satellites they can just have that data and track the
| military and other government employees 24/7. I guarantee you
| no American company can track Chinese military or Chinese
| employees 24/7 wherever they're at this is a one-way deal
| it's not good for the US.
| gazchop wrote:
| This isn't the only risk. There is also the problem of
| radicalising people. This has been a big problem in Europe.
| david_allison wrote:
| It's hopeless to expect every member of the military to be
| thoughtful about cybersecurity. If they'll openly share
| nuclear secrets & base protocols publicly, anything is fair
| game.
|
| https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-
| expos...
| rchaud wrote:
| This is why Blackberry used to sell phones without cameras
| and microphone switches, and enterprise-centric OS images.
| Crazy that regular iOS/Android phones leaking data 24/7 to a
| million 'partners' are freely allowed at military locations.
| Pictures and video uploaded to social media include EXIF data
| with geolocation!
| whoevercares wrote:
| Everybody loses? The fact that TikTok remains available to
| millions of users is a significant benefit, especially for
| those who rely on it for creative expression, community
| building, and small-business promotion.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| He means net loss to the status quo in reference to the
| entire fiasco. I had TikTok before... I still have TikTok...
| what rights were trampled in the process of bringing about
| zero change to me using tiktok?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Tiktok now exists at the whim of the sitting president,
| whoever that may be. This means that the USA is one small
| step closer to a dictatorship.
| LPisGood wrote:
| That's only true if Tik Tok remains operating in
| violation of the law.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| This has nothing to do with tiktok and everything to do
| with shifting power in the US political system towards
| the executive.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's interesting how most commenters seem to forget about
| TikTok users. Every interest is taken into account, China,
| USA, intelligence services, TikTok "competition". Users
| somehow never enter the picture for most people in any other
| way than as gullible idiots getting exploited by the
| aforementioned parties.
| tomrod wrote:
| In this model, users are the consumers and therefore aren't
| under consideration for malfeasance by suppliers.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Are they irrelevant?
| logicchains wrote:
| Because they aren't TikTok users, simple as that. If the
| Trump admin was going to ban Reddit for being partially
| Chinese owned, they'd be up in arms.
| Yoric wrote:
| Aren't we all, to a large extent?
|
| I mean, yeah, I would be slightly annoyed to lose ${social
| network}, but in truth, my life would be hardly impacted.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| That's true. Unfortunately, it is also highly addictive, esp.
| for kids and teens.
| llm_trw wrote:
| The us opium wars:
|
| Where the fights isn't over selling opium to the us masses,
| but about who gets the profits from the sales.
| iTokio wrote:
| Here, have my upvote.
|
| I might not share your views but it is important to defend
| this side of the debate to get the full picture.
|
| It's easy to reduce TikTok to its negatives and forget that
| ton of people do get value from it. Obviously for content
| makers but even for watchers, entertainment and sense of
| community do have values.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| I strongly dislike vertical video and find channel-flipping
| physically uncomfortable, and my life would probably be a
| little bit better if I didn't hear that around me all the
| time, but I will staunchly defend what I believe to be a
| violation of the first amendment.
|
| I'm not sure why people seem to have more narrowly defined
| their idea of freedom of speech to be "the freedom to shout
| futilely into the void," when it's a two-way street. The
| government telling booksellers they can't sell a book to
| people isn't just a violation of the author's rights, but
| the right of other people to seek and acquire that book.
| (Hence the clauses in the amendment about anssociation and
| abridgment of press.)
|
| The whole situation is very Fahrenheit 451. Which is kind
| of ironic, since Bradbury would have probably hated TikTok
| and assumed it would be the television-flavored precipice
| leading to books being destroyed.
|
| Captain Beatty would be proud of all of the would-be
| firemen itching to torch everything they don't like,
| oblivious to the simple corollary that someone else doesn't
| like what they like.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I would say yes, everybody. TikTok is _very bad_ for our
| society. It has had profound negative effects on people 's
| ability to pay attention to things. I don't know that I'd say
| the solution is legalistic in nature, but the continued
| existence of that platform is a cancer on humanity.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" Everybody loses. This outcome is worse than anyone could
| have conceived."_
|
| The outcome is *exactly* as anyone with a modicum of sense
| expected.
|
| _" Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a
| little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"_--
| often paraphrased (sensibly!) as _" deserve neither and *will
| lose both*."_ As you say: we've lost both--who could have
| predicted that? Yeah; well.
|
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
|
| There's nothing really novel about the instant situation. It's
| a classic, on repeat.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| That quote has to do with taxation.
| FFFXXX wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-
| famou...
| Xelbair wrote:
| and is relevant for more than original intent.
|
| censorship, and similar constraints on free speech, just
| hide the problems of society so you are unable to act on
| possible threats as a policymaker.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The liberty in that example being raising enough taxes to
| properly fund our government so people can just go about
| their lives.
| llm_trw wrote:
| You can no more riase taxes to properly fund government
| than you can fill a bucket with no bottom.
|
| One only need to look at the Harris campaign to see that
| the political class in the us is fundamentally innumerate
| as well as incapable of making a cost benefit analysis.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| One only needs look at any administration after 1980.
|
| https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-
| year-3306306#t...
|
| The only presidential administration that produced a non-
| deficit budget was Bill Clinton's second term (~97-00).
|
| Probably because Ross Perot mostly self-funded a third
| party campaign centered around the national debt and had
| received 8% of the vote (and 19% in the previous
| election).
| danieldk wrote:
| You are missing the point. Benjamin Franklin's quote is
| about taxation (well at least some people argue):
|
| https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-
| famou...
|
| People quote it in the wrong context.
| nightski wrote:
| I just took the liberty to delete TikTok and remove it from
| my life regardless if it comes back.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Thats funny, I took a look at publicly available harms from
| various social media apps and deleted Meta apps.
| DougMerritt wrote:
| ?Por Que No Los Dos?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Why stop at two? X seems to just be crazy person x says
| crazy thing y, so no problem adding that to my dns
| blacklist, fb and insta are as you say, just as obvious
| as tiktok. SEO results are dominated by AI vomit blogs,
| nothing to see there so searech engines are useless. LLMs
| seem to be mostly ok for finding things right now, I'm
| sure they will figure out how to mess that up soon enough
| though. YouTube is really useful for figuring out how to
| fix my <insert thing broken in my house>. But other than
| that is just the prototype the other stuff was based on.
| For news I look at news sources that cost money, wsj,
| economist etc. because then there is at least a chance
| that I myself am not the product. For finding music I ask
| local musicians who they like and follow those referrals
| a few deep. For seeing funny pet antics I look at my
| pets. To learn more about tech I come here and follow
| links.
| SCPlayz7000 wrote:
| Unlike TikTok, X is an American social media platform. By
| default, It is protected under free speech rights. TikTok
| is Chinese and doesn't get to play that card. End of
| story.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| That doesn't keep them off my dns blacklist though. Seems
| like whatever card tiktok played was good enough to get
| tomorrow's administration to change course.
| phatfish wrote:
| If the Democrats field a candidate that is willing to
| debase themselves with a stupid dance that goes viral, I
| feel there may be a change of heart. Assuming Trump
| doesn't manage to run for a third term.
| SCPlayz7000 wrote:
| Who needs salt typhoon when we have GeoHotz
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I think that potential EU legislation can and should take
| this as a cautionary tale.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| How so?
| umanwizard wrote:
| Banning foreign tech can be massively unpopular and give
| a huge tailwind to populists who promise to unban it.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I was thinking:
|
| 1. Banning media based on alleged (or real) foreign
| interference is a very thin line
|
| 2. Banning and "unbanning" media based on vague
| accusations can be exploited for self-serving economical
| or political interests, which long-term hurts any kind of
| credibility of media as a whole. And, like it or not: we
| depend on media. We're not living in self-sufficient
| communes, at least most of us don't.
|
| 3. What made TikTok an issue in the first place: foreign
| interference (see 1) and problematic content, the policy
| causes for this probably include insufficient moderation
| and lack of court accountability. Then there's the
| question of algorithmic bias: I think this is not a
| simple question, e.g. is Instagram Reels technically the
| same or if not, what are the most important differences
| between their recommendation algorithms?
| LinXitoW wrote:
| The EU has the advantage that their politicians don't all
| own gigantic shares in any social media companies (because
| the EU doesn't have any), so they are afforded the rare
| luxury of actually voting for the good of the people.
| That's why the EU has decent data privacy laws.
|
| The TikTok ban would've been far less problematic if they
| had created legislation for all companies that curtailed
| data trading and increased user privacy. But that was never
| the goal.
| watwut wrote:
| That quote was about making the state stronger and able to
| demand more from citizends.
| metabagel wrote:
| Different outcome if Harris wins the election though.
|
| Is it possible that TikTok solved their problem by purchasing
| $6 billion worth of Trump's meme coin?
| hbarka wrote:
| B I N G O
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| > Is it possible that TikTok solved their problem by
| purchasing $6 billion worth of Trump's meme coin?
|
| Yep
| ANewFormation wrote:
| He's making tens of millions of Americans (especially
| including those who may not have otherwise been political)
| quite fond of him, bringing back a platform that has
| definitely been a net positive for him overall, undoing one
| of his predecessors 'achievements', and so on.
|
| He came out against a ban on TikTok long ago (after
| initially being in support) and made it clear he'd work to
| reverse it the second the ban bill started gaining
| momentum.
| bink wrote:
| So he can make a call and cancel a border security bill,
| but can't make the same call to cancel the TikTok portion
| of the spending bill before it passed?
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| Did he not start this entire process during his own
| presidency? It's spectacle for the masses and real tv
| scripts being played out in the White House.
| metabagel wrote:
| That could simply be a side benefit and not worth Trump
| making a "deal" to rescue TikTok from an existential
| threat. Icing on the cake.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Not free speech. Amplification of speech and to an extent
| freedom of association. Speech is not being criminalized --
| you can say the exact same things on a different forum. And
| the entity being constrained is a foreign actor [edit] with
| likely state security apparatus ties.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > And the entity being constrained is a foreign actor
|
| Genuine question from a non-American: does the 1st
| amendment only apply to US citizens?
| arcticbull wrote:
| The First Amendment enjoins only the US government.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| By its wording, no, because it applies to "Congress".
| _Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
| of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
| petition the Government for a redress of grievances._
|
| A later amendment is held to have "incorporated" this
| prohibition against the state governments as well, though
| that amendment doesn't actually specify anything in
| particular. _( "No State shall make or enforce any law
| which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
| citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
| deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
| due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
| jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.")_
|
| It is frequently argued that some act of the government
| violates the free speech rights of foreigners living
| abroad, which is to say that whatever it was the
| government did fell into the class of behaviors
| prohibited by the first amendment. People tend to find
| that argument weird; I don't know what its batting
| average is.
|
| Summing up, nothing extends rights to foreigners, but
| since the first amendment is a prohibition on the
| government rather than a grant of rights to certain
| protected people, foreigners arguably enjoy equal
| protection.
| perihelions wrote:
| The 1st Amendment applies to US citizens' freedom to
| read/receive communications from non-US citizens (or i.e.
| read books by non-American authors). That's not under
| dispute: the current SCOTUS ruling both acknowledges, and
| sidesteps, that.
| SCPlayz7000 wrote:
| Emphasis on US citizens
| gpm wrote:
| It's not just US citizens, but per the supreme court
| "foreign organizations operating abroad possess no rights
| under the U. S. Constitution". In USAID v. Alliance for
| Open Society International specifically with regards to
| the first amendment.
|
| ---
|
| However TikTok US here is a domestic organization
| operating domestically merely controlled by a foreign
| organization operating abroad, which complicates matters.
| It has rights.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Courts and laws don't need to stop their analysis at "is
| it a corporation registered in the US." It is a foreign-
| controlled organization, therefore it is treated as a
| foreign organization. If you have ever dealt with the
| defense contracting apparatus, you will know this is how
| it works.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| The US constitution does not apply to citizens - it
| applies to the government.
|
| Citizens in the US are implicitly allowed to do whatever
| they like, subject to laws that the government enacts.
| The constitution describes those areas where the
| government is allowed to pass laws. All other areas are
| off limits to the government, and left for the people to
| do as they like. To emphasize the point, the amendments
| specify certain areas that the government is extra-
| especially-not-allowed to create any laws about, like
| speech.
|
| The extent to which this is observed today is quite
| dubious. There are lots of laws that the US government
| passes which have little to do with anything the
| constitution allows them to do - but they kinda hand-wave
| around that and gesture toward something, like the
| "commerce clause" or whatnot as justification.
|
| But in theory - for any law passed - it is
| unconstitutional unless you can say exactly where in the
| constitution it is explicitly allowed.
|
| * Having written all that, I will add that "government"
| above means the US Federal government, not all the other
| ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make
| whatever laws they want, unless a federal law
| specifically prohibits it.
| nwiswell wrote:
| > * Having written all that, I will add that "government"
| above means the US Federal government, not all the other
| ones. State, local, have a lot of latitude to make
| whatever laws they want, unless a federal law
| specifically prohibits it.
|
| This is not entirely correct. In general many elements of
| the Constitution are incorporated and apply at all levels
| of government. It even outranks state constitutions where
| the two conflict.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_o
| f_R...
| parineum wrote:
| In other words, states have a lot of latitude to make
| whatever laws they want, unless a federal law
| specifically prohibits it?
| cgriswald wrote:
| No, those aren't other words for the GP's statement.
|
| The Constitution, its Amendments, and decisions of the
| Supreme Court are not 'federal laws'.
| nwiswell wrote:
| No, in other words, states and local governments are also
| bound by the Constitution in many of the the same ways
| that the federal government is.
|
| The major difference is the Tenth Amendment, which sets
| the states apart by specifying that any powers not
| "delegated to" the federal government are reserved
| exclusively for the states. (In practice courts have
| found many "implied powers" that are not explicitly
| enumerated).
|
| Federal laws are distinct from the Constitution.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Even if it did, that doesn't matter here, since it's
| American TikTok users whose speech is being suppressed.
| orwin wrote:
| So, usually in a representative democracy (republic or
| not), the judiciary power is supposed to check and limit
| the other two (to avoid a tyranny of the majority). You
| can have that done in two way: with "case law", the only
| way in some countries (like the UK): basically if a law
| is enforced against a minority, it will be enforced
| against the majority. Other countries added a
| consitution. Its use is to limit the executive and
| legislative power of the government: the legislative
| power is supposed to prevent the law/executive order from
| existing or being executed, and base that decision on the
| constitution.
|
| TL:DR: no, it doesn't even apply to US citizen, only to
| US government.
|
| PS: "tyranny of the majority" for some is a definition
| fascism, i disagree, to me it isn't even proto-fascism,
| it lack a weird mythos about internal enemies and a few
| other mythos. It's closer bonapartism, or cesarism at
| worst. To be clear i think it is a precondition to have
| fascism (I.E as long as your case law/consitution is
| enforced for everybody the same way, you aren't a fascist
| state).
| mmooss wrote:
| That may be why freedom of the press is also guaranteed.
| eviks wrote:
| > Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the exact
| same things on a different forum.
|
| Yes, it's being suppressed. Criminalization is just one of
| the many coercive ways to censor something, but states have
| many tools in the box...
| metrix wrote:
| > Speech is not being criminalized -- you can say the
| exact same things on a different forum.
|
| s/criminalized/supressed/ and message still holds true.
| You can still say the exact same things on a different
| forum.
| eviks wrote:
| It only holds true if you ignore the substance of the
| right, the message holds true even if no one can hear you
| in that other forum!
| umanwizard wrote:
| Free speech is satisfied in every country, then, because
| you can sit at home alone and scream whatever you want at
| your wall without consequences.
| umanwizard wrote:
| To respond to a comment which has now been deleted:
|
| I don't care about the First Amendment specifically. The
| US constitution is not magical divinely inspired
| scripture. I care about the underlying principles of
| freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of
| association, regardless of how well or poorly those are
| reflected by a specific written law.
| stouset wrote:
| You can literally go to any other competing platform and
| shout the same thing from the rooftops.
| umanwizard wrote:
| No, you can't. TikTok was the only mainstream platform
| where pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral.
| MisterKent wrote:
| Allowed or encouraged?
|
| This is the problem.
|
| We can't be certain that a foreign actor couldn't
| destabilize our faith in our government by pushing pro-
| palestinian content.
|
| A small push on a platform can snowball since creators
| take the stances that don't get them cancelled or want to
| mimic the popular opinion
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I'm a 50+ average Joe who only watches Australian state
| media (ABC) and I've seen plenty of content that I find
| shocking from both Israel and Hamas and I came away with
| sympathy for the Palestinians caught in the middle.
|
| Does that count as pro-Palestinian?
| motorest wrote:
| > No, you can't. TikTok was the only mainstream platform
| where pro-Palestinian content was allowed to go viral.
|
| Reddit shows pro-palestinian/anti-israel propaganda in
| the front page on a daily basis.
|
| Also, the fact that Israel's invasion of Palestinian
| territories was an anti-Biden propaganda point that was
| boosted pretty hard doesn't exactly prove that the likes
| of China aren't pushing propaganda to destabilize the US.
| There was clearly a coordinated effort to force-fed the
| idea that Biden was pro-genocide and a warmonger, and
| Trump was the only possible candidate to push peace in
| Ukraine and Palestine.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| Code is speech. By saying you can't distribute a particular
| app in the United States you're restricting speech.
| lxgr wrote:
| "Code is speech" is absurdly reductionist in most cases.
|
| Yes, the government censoring Tiktok's source code on
| Github would be a freedom of speech violation, but that's
| not what this is about, is it? See also: Tornado Cash.
| Publishing code facilitating money laundering is fine
| (you'll find the code still on Github!); running said
| code to facilitate money laundering isn't.
|
| Or to go with an even more extreme example: Writing code
| for a self-aiming and firing gun is speech [1], running
| said code on a gun in your driveway isn't.
|
| The fact that we are still debating such basics of the
| First Amendment here is baffling. This is almost as
| trivial as the other well-known limitations in my view
| (shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater etc.)
|
| [1] At least at the moment, and as far as I know; I think
| we might see this type of speech being restricted in the
| same way that some facts about the construction of
| nuclear weapons are "innate state secrets".
| rockemsockem wrote:
| I think it is largely about this.
|
| American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have been
| told by the government that they cannot distribute
| binaries running certain code to Americans. That seems
| like the real 1st amendment issue to me and I was quite
| surprised to learn that ByteDance only claimed that their
| own 1st amendment rights were being infringed on (which
| personally I find to be flimsier).
|
| EDIT: Tornado cash was taken down from GitHub though, so
| you don't have a point here
| lxgr wrote:
| Huh? It's up as a public archive on tornadocash/tornado-
| core as we speak.
|
| > American companies (Google and Apple primarily) have
| been told by the government that they cannot distribute
| binaries running certain code to Americans.
|
| Yes, in the same way that American companies and
| individuals are routinely prohibited by the government
| from distributing other binaries to Americans, most
| notably anything that circumvents DRMs as regulated by
| the DMCA.
|
| I really don't think the people that drafted the First
| Amendment had apps in mind when they thought of "speech",
| and would probably consider them something more like
| machinery (a printing press, a radio (not a radio
| station!) etc.) Interpreting Tiktok as a type of
| newspaper (which are widely protected even in democracies
| without an equivalent to the First Amendment) is much
| less of a leap of faith compared to considering an iOS
| executable speech.
| layer8 wrote:
| The code isn't the main issue here, it's the online
| platform. The apps were only banned as a means to access
| the platform, not fir the code they contain. The code
| would be largely useless without the platform
| infrastructure and data storage behind it.
| tunesmith wrote:
| If your loud agreement with a lie is disseminated far more
| widely than your loud agreement with a truth, does it feel
| like you have free speech?
| jfengel wrote:
| I've never understood that quote. Is it ok to give up
| essential liberty to gain a large, permanent safety? If so,
| how large and how permanent does it have to be to qualify?
|
| I'm also a little unclear on which liberties are essential,
| versus those that are merely nice to have. We all give up the
| liberty of driving on the wrong side of the road, and nobody
| seems to mind.
| csoups14 wrote:
| I also find it comical that banning TikTok is the red line
| for folks when the NSA and other government agencies have
| been acting with impunity when it comes to harvesting data
| for decades now.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| People don't care about most things because there are a
| practically infinite number of things one could care
| about.
|
| But when you ban something 9 figures of people happily
| use, with some small chunk of that even being people
| making a living off of it, people will care about that
| because it directly and visibly affects them.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Bread and circus.
| kaoD wrote:
| If I were an US citizen this would be the most worrying
| aspect to me.
|
| Are the congressmen so incompetent that they didn't see
| this coming? This backfired horribly for them in multiple
| ways... unless this was somehow part of a master plan my
| simple mind can't comprehend?
|
| Did it somehow not backfire and I'm just being led to
| believe so?
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| It's literally pay to play with the new administration
| which is why it doesn't feel coherent. He's being courted
| by Meta to ban and TikTok to not ban.
|
| The elite have always known the value of media and
| propaganda. TikTok could easily sway electorate decision
| making in the same way as Meta, X, and YouTube. The US
| oligarchs have no control over a sizable social media
| platform. The data security and privacy concerns are
| theater. The very same logic we use for TikTok applies to
| our own apps and social media. The only distinction is
| the false premise they have our interests in mind.
|
| Are congressmen this incompetent? Yes. Are they bought by
| adversaries? Yes. Are they just humans who are as equally
| manipulated as you? Yes.
|
| Did Trump get more money? Yes. Plan success.
| SCPlayz7000 wrote:
| Bump
| nozzlegear wrote:
| The assumption (whether right or wrong) is that the NSA
| and other government agencies are at least doing it to
| keep Americans safe. And I think there's an assumption
| (again, whether right or wrong) in the general public
| that the NSA doesn't harvest the data of Americans
| themselves - or if they _are_ harvesting the data of
| Americans, then they 're Americans who are up to no good.
| stouset wrote:
| I would say moreso it's that the NSA is at least on some
| level beholden to the will of the U.S electorate.
|
| Foreign governments not so much.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| That's a great point, I'd agree with that.
| LPisGood wrote:
| The issue isn't data harvesting, and it's unclear to me
| why people getting this wrong.
|
| The issue is a foreign government having access to that
| data, to installed software on millions of phones, and
| foreign control of the primary information source for
| tens of millions of Americans.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _when the NSA and other government agencies_
|
| Because, and I hate to say it, they're _our_ snooping
| government agencies. I 'd rather it be them that have
| access to all my data than the CCP apparatus.
| perihelions wrote:
| You're analogizing the freedom to access the internet to
| driving on the wrong side of the road?
| umanwizard wrote:
| The point of the analogy wasn't to say those two things
| are the same. It was _reductio ad absurdum_ , a totally
| valid proof technique in math and logic.
|
| If person A says "X implies Y", then person B points out
| that X would also imply obvious nonsense Z, it doesn't
| mean that B is saying Y and Z are the same, or even that
| Y isn't true. They're just pointing out that X is too
| general to possibly be true.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The context here was Indian raids. Some rich land owner
| wanted to pay a one time fee. Benjamin Franklin was saying
| a 1 time fee wasn't enough - and it would only offer
| temporary safety rather than ongoing safety higher taxes
| would offer.
|
| This essential liberty was freedom from being killed.
| Pretty fucking essential.
| jfengel wrote:
| That's quite interesting. I'd expect a lot of people to
| say "the freedom to keep my money" is absolutely
| essential.
|
| We give up that right in exchange for the permanent
| safety that a government is supposed to grant. Life is
| presumably more fundamental than money, but if it's the
| only truly essential liberty, there is a lot of room to
| give up others.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| On the broadest strokes it makes sense. We gave up the
| liberty of truly owning the land so the government can
| build houses on them. From there we more or less are rented
| the land and almost everyone pays a tax for it.
|
| Homeowners have some power. But if the government really
| needs to (modern example includes building a new railway),
| They can elect to forcibly pay you and seize it (eminent
| domain).
|
| >We all give up the liberty of driving on the wrong side of
| the road, and nobody seems to mind.
|
| Auto transportation was never a right to begin with. As
| inconvenient as it is, you are free to walk wherever you
| want without trespassing. Even across a road. But there's a
| line when you start to simply endanger others by say,
| walking on a road at 5 mph.
| LPisGood wrote:
| The free speech argument is ridiculous to me. The content
| wasn't at issue; the ownership of the platform was.
|
| You can legally the same content anywhere else, and Tik Tok
| would not be under fire if it were not owned by one of a
| handful of countries.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >The content wasn't at issue
|
| You sure about that one? (https://www.axios.com/local/salt-
| lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...)
|
| Obviously the transfer of ownership was always about the
| content, and implicitly the fact that if a Chinese company
| owns it, the US has no control over it. Opinion making in
| the US is always implicitly enforced, not explicitly.
|
| There's a great bit of an old interview with Noam Chomsky
| talking to an American reporter in which the reporter asks
| Chomsky: "You think I'm lying to you, pushing a US agenda?"
| and he responds: "No I think you're perfectly honest, but
| if you held any other beliefs than you do you wouldn't be
| sitting in that chair talking to me"
|
| this is the platform version of that concept.
| LPisGood wrote:
| Frankly, I'm not taking seriously an Axios article.
|
| The content wasn't not outlawed; the platform was not
| outlawed.
|
| Some aspect of the platform's ownership has been
| outlawedd. That's pretty different.
| umanwizard wrote:
| You didn't respond to the point at all and just repeated
| your original point.
| LPisGood wrote:
| I responded directly to this
|
| > Obviously the transfer of ownership was always about
| the content
|
| Perhaps I should have quoted it so that it was clear.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| You didn't even engage with what I said. You dismiss
| statements of a US senator because of the paper that
| reports them?
|
| Please address the actual argument, namely that in the
| US, when you hand platforms to people like Zuckerberg,
| you don't need to do any actual censoring because
| American business leaders change their political opinions
| in line with the sitting administration the way other
| people change T-Shirts. That is the point of the sale,
| anybody who is not utterly gullible can see it from a
| mile away.
|
| On a Chinese owned TikTok Americans get information
| presented to them, whether intentionally or
| authentically, that the US powers that be do not like.
| There is no other security argument, data was already
| managed by Oracle in the US, the app was technically
| separated from its Chinese equivalent Douyin.
| LPisGood wrote:
| I engaged directly with what you said. Namely,
|
| >Obviously the transfer of ownership was always about the
| content
|
| I'm struggling to see why you say I didn't.
|
| > you don't need to do any actual censoring because
| American business leaders change their political opinions
| in line with the sitting administration
|
| I think this is blatantly not true. Instagram, reddit,
| and others host a TON of anti-current-administration
| content.
|
| Now, I'd like to discuss your assertion that there is no
| other security argument with a series of questions. I do
| not believe even a casual observer can uniformly answer
| "no" to the following;
|
| Do you think it is likely that CCP has access to the data
| obtained by Tik Tok on US phones?
|
| Do you think the US government warnings and security
| audit results were based on real concerns and findings?
|
| Do you think it is a national security risk for millions
| of Americans to run CCP controlled code on their phones?
|
| Do you think CCP is able to control the Tik Tok
| recommendation algorithms to promote their interests,
| possibly at the expense of American interests?
| tunesmith wrote:
| There's a metaculus prediction of whether TikTok will be
| lawfully banned on 1/20, and they were 99.9% confident it
| would be in effect.
| (https://www.metaculus.com/questions/31247/tiktok-ban-in-
| effe...)
|
| I personally picked 40% because I couldn't image a change of
| this sort being consistent with today's political reality.
|
| That said, the fine print of that prediction can be
| interpreted that the ban is "in effect" even if it not
| enforced and has no legal liability. I doubt all the
| predictors were hanging their hat on that fine print when
| they predicted, though.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Except that no one voted to give up this liberty nor purchase
| this "safety". The oligarchs determined that they wanted to
| purchase power and "elected" to take our liberty.
| gregw134 wrote:
| "The law banning TikTok, which was scheduled to go into effect
| Sunday, allows the president to grant a 90-day extension before
| the ban is enforced, provided certain criteria are met"
|
| Sounds like they're operating within the law
| codingdave wrote:
| From the ruling:
|
| "The Act permits the President to grant a one-time extension
| of no more than 90 days with respect to the prohibitions'
| 270-day effective date if the President makes certain
| certifications to Congress regarding progress toward a
| qualified divestiture."
|
| Sounds like he needs to work with Congress on at least a
| basic level for this to be within the law, not just make his
| own decision and declare all is good. And there is the small
| detail that he is not President, at least not today.
| bigtunacan wrote:
| TikTok has already received multiple "interest to acquire"
| letters, including the one from Perplexity that would keep
| all existing investors fully intact.
|
| Having that along with a republican majority in both the
| congress and the senate this isn't going to be difficult
| for Trump to fulfill the requirements of the law.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| That is not enough to satisfy all 3 certification
| requirements as required by this law.
| lazide wrote:
| Do you get the impression that the incoming
| administration cares about the law?
|
| As long as there is a fig leaf/smokescreen, and TikTok
| makes the right noises and contributions, they'll be
| fine.
|
| If anything, Keeping them technically in violation of the
| law is the leverage the administration will want to keep
| so they can squeeze TikTok whenever they want.
| kristjansson wrote:
| He has to kinda gesture towards in-progress plans to comply
| with the law to grant that exception, but that's not a huge
| hurdle.
| gpm wrote:
| The law never required that they shut down, so in a
| tautological sense they are.
|
| However, with regards to the absurd justification. The
| president (still Biden) hasn't granted any extensions, nor is
| the president even able to grant an extension without
|
| > certif[ing] to Congress that-
|
| > "(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been
| identified with respect to such application;
|
| > "(B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such
| qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such
| application; and
|
| > "(C) there are in place the relevant binding legal
| agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture
| during the period of such extension.
|
| There is no evidence that Trump will be able to lawfully do
| any of those, and he has to do all, after he becomes
| president again.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > "(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been
| identified with respect to such application;
|
| > There is no evidence that Trump will be able to lawfully
| do any of those once he becomes president,
|
| He can buy or be gifted a partial ownership stake?
| gpm wrote:
| ByteDance has been rather vocal that they aren't
| interested in divesting like that. He could be, there is
| no evidence he will be, and it's not something he can
| cause to happen.
| Aloisius wrote:
| "Qualified divestiture" means "no longer being controlled
| by a foreign adversary."
|
| Minority or even majority ownership change isn't enough
| as long as the CCP still has control.
| buzer wrote:
| Isn't selective enforcement in general within any law in the
| United States? There are plenty of laws that get broken all
| the time and it's up to police & prosecutors/AGs to decide
| which cases they actually want to enforce.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > This outcome is worse than anyone could have conceived.
|
| This is the maximally stupid outcome, so I suppose we should
| have seen it coming. I guess the conclusion is going to involve
| Trump taking an ownership stake in TikTok, possibly by swapping
| it for $TRUMP cryptocurrency or Truth Social shares something.
| roughly wrote:
| I think people are not quite ready for the level of klept
| we're about to see.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The klept will probably escalate until a fellow billionaire
| gets hit. It's going to get really weird.
|
| We can blame the state of New York for this, who convicted
| Trump of falsifying business records and then handed him a
| sentence of .. nothing.
| xnx wrote:
| > then handed him a sentence of .. nothing.
|
| Nothing yet:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr72m57e1jo
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr72m57e1jo
| lazide wrote:
| Which is why he is never going to voluntarily step down,
| and has made it clear he is never going to voluntarily
| step down.
| foobazgt wrote:
| There would literally be an instant revolution by 50% of
| the US upon such an act. Let's please avoid the
| inflammatory rhetoric.
| lazide wrote:
| Have you not listened to what he has clearly said?
| Including plans to pardon folks for Jan 6th?
|
| Don't worry, I'm sure there will be some kind of
| 'emergency' this time.
|
| There was no 'instant revolution' on Jan 6th. Near as I
| can tell, if that capital police officer hadn't shot the
| woman climbing the barricade...
|
| But then I watched it live on CSPAN, so I got to see it
| for myself instead of being able to be told afterwards
| that I didn't see what I saw.
| wrs wrote:
| This despite the brilliant defense argument of "that
| wasn't fraud because everyone should have known I was
| lying"...which was also the Fox News defense...and is
| presumably how the executive branch officially works as
| of tomorrow.
| rayiner wrote:
| What should be the penalty for mislabeling a payment to a
| pornstar in the records of your own family owned company?
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| Nothing unless you're running for public office. The
| rules are understandably different when you're beholden
| to the people. Personally I'm ok with this distinction.
| Politicians should have to give up some rights that
| private citizens have and be held to a higher bar to
| guard against the tendency towards corruption that comes
| with greater influence and power.
| rayiner wrote:
| He wasn't running for public office at the time.
|
| And _maybe_ we should have a law that punishes
| politicians for paying money to cover up affairs. But we
| don 't have that. Trump's prosecution was, instead, a
| triple bank shot combining _three different_ vaguely
| written laws in a combination that makes the Double Irish
| with Dutch Sandwich look straightforward.[1]
|
| As CNN's head legal analyst Elie Honig explained: "The
| charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely
| unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor -- in New
| York, or Wyoming, or anywhere -- has ever charged federal
| election laws as a direct or predicate state crime,
| against anyone, for anything. None. Ever."
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-
| convicted-...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich
| kemayo wrote:
| Yes he was. The payment in question happened after he
| launched his campaign -- in late October of 2016.
|
| [EDIT to respond a bit to the now-expanded parent, which
| was only a single sentence when I replied]: I do totally
| agree that the hush money prosecution was a bit of a
| stretch, and wouldn't have happened if Trump wasn't
| famous. You're just wrong about it applying to a time
| when he wasn't running for office.
| rayiner wrote:
| Except the charges related to business records dated
| February 14-December 5, 2017.
| kemayo wrote:
| My recollection is that the prosecution was a combination
| of the mis-labeling of the payments, and the mis-labeling
| being in service of concealing a (federal) crime. Said
| different crime being the original hush money payment,
| which happened during the campaign. I.e. if he hadn't
| done something illegal while running for public office,
| there'd be nothing to charge him with.
|
| Now, it'd be better if he simply got prosecuted for the
| initial crime. Absolutely agree there. But I'm not sure
| that "I can avoid prosecution for campaign misdeeds by
| committing them and then waiting to pay people back until
| _after_ the campaign " would be a great precedent.
| roughly wrote:
| > The klept will probably escalate until a fellow
| billionaire gets hit.
|
| The klept will not spare the billionaires. There's a
| reason Meta's entire public posture has changed since Nov
| 6, there's a reason the WaPo didn't publish an
| endorsement. This isn't a class thing - Trump is not a
| billionaire defending his fellow billionaires, he's a mob
| boss in charge of the state.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| He's a jester in a royal court peopled by billionaires.
| llm_trw wrote:
| On the contrary, we've even following the Pelosy trading
| scheme for quite a while.
| OKRainbowKid wrote:
| This would go way above insider trading for mere
| millions.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Try billions. Pelosy alone is worth around half a
| billion.
| roughly wrote:
| If Trump walks away from all this as a single-digits
| billionaire, I'll consider this all to have been business
| as usual.
| parineum wrote:
| I'll go ahead and take the doomsaying with a grain of salt
| and expect, roughly, the exact same thing as last time.
|
| Spare me the, "but this time it's different" without any
| good reason to expect it.
| roughly wrote:
| I genuinely hope you're right.
| chvid wrote:
| Plus Trump got all major social media in his pocket.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| What outcome are you talking about comrade? Oceania has always
| been at war with Eastasia.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| No there's going to be some obvious winners. Trump is going to
| force a 50% sale to a US based JV. That JV will be run by /
| benefit some of his biggest goons.
|
| So Trump & his circle win !
| herval wrote:
| > The TikTok debate has always been about the balance between
| national security and free speech
|
| And now about how the sitting president can profit from
| brokering it
| ck2 wrote:
| Free speech?
|
| Can you talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre on TikTok and
| show the few videos of people who were disappeared?
|
| Are they accessible in the country that owns TikTok?
| extheat wrote:
| If I want to run what someone else has determined as
| "malware" on my computer, as far as I'm concerned, I should
| have the absolute right to do it. Same for spyware. Why?
| Because I don't want the government to make the determination
| for what is right or wrong for me on my own property. If the
| US government wants to block apps on their property, then
| they can go ahead and do that. But the moment it extends to
| my own property, it's quite ridiculous to think people are
| going to bend over backwards and comply with what's good for
| you. Especially in the context of some vague national
| security threat, why am I supposed to be subversive to the
| CIA?
|
| How can you complain about the CCP banning foreign social
| media and censoring when you have your own government willing
| to do the same thing -- in the name of Protecting the
| Democracy?
|
| It's not about privacy or data or whatever the facade is. The
| crime that we are committing is none other than allowing
| ourselves to be fed information that could threaten the
| United States. So, therefore, even according to the SCOTUS,
| if Congress plasters the magical words "national security" in
| their laws, then the Constitution takes a backseat and we too
| can be like China/Russia/Iran. Will we start banning VPNs
| next--which circumvent our new found love for censorship? I'd
| not be surprised.
| zugi wrote:
| > Can you talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre on TikTok
| and show the few videos of people who were disappeared?
|
| Yes, see www.tiktok.com/channel/tiananmen-square . Or read
| https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/tiktok-us-ban-
| congress... . Or just go search for it.
| psychlops wrote:
| That is hilarious! Did you even look at the Tiananmen
| Square channel before posting it? Or do you think that's
| what happened?
| zugi wrote:
| Can you be more specific about what you mean? The search
| summary for that page says:
|
| > The Tiananmen Square Tank Man is an iconic image that
| emerged from the protests and subsequent military
| crackdown that occurred in Beijing, China, in 1989. The
| protests, primarily led by students demanding political
| reforms and greater freedoms, took place in Tiananmen
| Square, a prominent public space in the heart of the
| city.
|
| I'm not a TikTok user, it was down earlier but clicking
| now I see the famous tank man video, an article about
| Chinese censorship of AI, etc. Do you get something
| different?
| psychlops wrote:
| Totally fair point, my results could be different. To me,
| the salient point of Tiananmen Square is the massacre
| (and wider spread protests). That aspect has been
| suppressed. I see video clips talking about how the
| content is available, but no content. I also see many
| clips denying that anything happened.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| >Everybody loses.
|
| Huh? Trump singlehandedly bringing TikTok back for tens of
| millions of malleable voters. Sounds like a pretty huge victory
| for him!
| logicchains wrote:
| It's an absolute win for the content creators who relied on
| TikTok for their livelihoods and the small businesses who
| relied on it for marketing. And for Gen Z, for whom content
| creation is one of the few viable ways to earn a good income
| now that tech grad hiring has completely collapsed.
| epolanski wrote:
| This 4 years gonna be good. Trump #1 was amateur time, this
| time they come prepared to bring havoc.
| andrethegiant wrote:
| The answer is to not use TikTok.
| agilob wrote:
| This is exactly what all Europeans watching US politics
| expected. No more, no less.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| It was never about that balance. It was always about populism.
| pluc wrote:
| Trump wins, everyone loses.
|
| Get used to it.
| xyst wrote:
| "National security" is such a bs term for US govt to avoid
| transparency. It comes from the post 9/11 era of FISA courts,
| PATRIOT act to justify wide net domestic surveillance and
| wiretapping.
|
| To me, the whole banning of TT is political theater aimed to
| divide the US while existing tech oligarchs consolidate power
| and money.
|
| Just look at the message TT broadcasted. Blatant pandering of
| incoming administration.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I agree. This is a forced consolidation that will only
| strengthen American tech oligarchs and the new
| administration. It's also coup on the culture of the younger
| generations similar to what happened to Twitter.
| noqc wrote:
| This isn't about free speech. Tiktok's statement actually
| provides all of the necessary context. China pays influencers.
| The tiktok ban is not about what you are allowed to say, but
| who is allowed to pay you to say it. This is a very different
| question.
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| Chase Hughes:
|
| "Manipulation Playbook: The 20 Indicators of Reality Control"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AN2wY4qAM
| vkou wrote:
| It's worse than that. The platform is now beholden to the
| president for its survival.
|
| If you're wondering how Russia slipped from a flawed democracy
| into an aurocracy, it was because Yeltsin fixed the 1996
| election, by holding an axe over the head of the press. He made
| it very clear that anybody who wants to keep their broadcast
| licenses will need to shill for him.
|
| It's how a drunken autocrat with an 8% approval rating,
| credited for both hyperinflation _and_ mass unemployment, who
| launched a coup (that killed a few hundred people and caused a
| constitutional crisis) ended up getting re-elected.
|
| And then at the eleventh hour, after firing his cabinet, again,
| he declares Putin his successor and resigns over a $10,000
| bribery scandal.
| nickburns wrote:
| This is not an outcome. The legal process is but still well
| underway. In the United States, we abide by the rule of law.[1]
| That's _really_ what separates us from China.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law
| belter wrote:
| "TikTok CEO attending Trump inauguration" -
| https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5089151-tiktok-ceo-don...
| leptons wrote:
| >Also, the law that tramples free speech
|
| I'm not sure how so many people misunderstand the difference
| between "free speech" and "app controlled by hostile foreign
| government".
|
| The people speaking on TikTok have not lost their right to free
| speech, they still are free to use a multitude of other
| channels that amplify their speech. No speech was blocked, only
| the app controlled by a hostile foreign government was blocked,
| and there are no provisions in a any legal framework that says
| we can't stop a hostile foreign government from controlling
| what people in this country see.
| nipponese wrote:
| I just don't get how free speech translates as accessibility to
| post on a commercial platform.
| konschubert wrote:
| Everyone lives and dies by the KING now.
| fny wrote:
| Can someone please explain how the law tramples free speech?
| Isn't it completely legal to shut down a stadium or arena?
|
| Additionally, why have we all forgotten that China does not
| allow any of our social media companies within their borders?
|
| If we're in the business of free trade, there's no reason to
| let them operate a social media company in the US until they've
| opened their market to us.
| gedpeck wrote:
| _... the law that tramples free speech is upheld by the court_
|
| This law does not trample free speech. Your view of what free
| speech means as it pertains to U.S. law is wrong.
| timewizard wrote:
| > balance between national security and free speech.
|
| This is an absurd framing. Free speech cannot implicate
| national security. If a social media platform controlled by a
| foreign government can manipulate the people so easily then you
| have a much larger and ignored problem.
|
| > all of its national security risks
|
| Which are zero. What you actually experience a risk from is the
| shabby way Google, Microsoft and Apple have put their platforms
| together. Designed to earn them money while utterly destroying
| your privacy.
|
| > This outcome is worse
|
| You're already in trouble. This outcome is a symptom of a much
| larger problem. The conversation around this is completely
| detached from reality.
| uludag wrote:
| There's something in this argument about national security,
| that if taken to its logical conclusion, would result in a
| world most people would consider upside-down:
|
| If social media owned by foreign companies is a national
| security threat, then wouldn't that essentially make FB, X,
| YouTube a threat to like every other nation? Why not throw
| wikipedia in too? So now any nation can legitimately see any
| other source or collector of information as a national security
| threat and ban it at will? Taken to the logical conclusion,
| every nation should be enveloped by its own _digital borders_.
|
| To me, it's the popular sentiment alone, for example people
| feeling sad and upset TikTok's gone and feeling happy that it's
| back, that's preventing this dismal future, otherwise
| governments would block apps on a whim. And this I'd say is a
| win.
| theobreuerweil wrote:
| This seems not to be an opinion that other people hold, but I
| never saw social media as "free speech" given that some third
| party can decides which parts of what you say get promoted.
|
| If you sent letters to people via a middleman who decided which
| of those to forward onwards, you'd see that as censorship. I
| appreciate that that's an over-simplified example - it's meant
| to be a reductio ad absurdum. But control of the algorithm
| effectively regulates free speech, IMO.
|
| Also (for clarity) the fact that China happens to be involved
| is not relevant to my point!
| weare138 wrote:
| What also bothers me is there's a simple solution to all this.
| Just pass comprehensive consumer data protection laws and
| regulations _all_ companies operating in the US are required to
| follow. But you don 't see anyone proposing that for some
| reason...
| mrkramer wrote:
| I would like to ask Chinese president Xi Jinping when will Google
| and Facebook be available in China and all the rest of the
| Western social apps. Can I get any clarity and assurance? Thanks.
| Gormo wrote:
| Reminds me of the ultimatum I gave my dog last week: I told him
| that if he didn't stop pooping on the floor, I would punish him
| by pooping on the floor myself.
| BitterCritter wrote:
| I think that's a bad metaphor, though I don't particularly
| know what you're trying to say.
| SOTGO wrote:
| I think they're trying to say that you don't respond to bad
| behavior (China banning apps) with your own bad behavior
| (US banning apps). If America is opposed to the way China
| handles social media then we shouldn't seek to emulate them
| Gormo wrote:
| My dog is a dog. He doesn't see anything wrong with pooping
| on the floor, so he won't be fazed if I do it too:
| threatening to poop on my own floor is not going to get him
| to stop doing it. If I follow through with my threat, not
| only will I be doubling up on the problem of poop on the
| floor, I'll also be behaving in a way that is far more
| improper and unacceptable for a me than it is for my dog,
| because we do not hold human beings to the same standards
| of behavior and hygiene that we expect from dogs.
|
| China is an authoritarian dictatorship. Their government
| does not see anything wrong with violating the rights of
| their citizens, so they won't be fazed if we do it too:
| threatening to restrict access to social media in the US is
| not going to get them to stop doing it in China. If we
| follow through with our threat, not only will we be
| doubling up on the problem of illegitimate political
| restriction on public discourse, we'll also be behaving in
| a way that is far more improper and unacceptable for the US
| than it is for China, because we do not hold constitutional
| republics to the same standards of rule of law and respect
| for individual rights that we expect from authoritarian
| regimes.
| sarchertech wrote:
| And yet you conveniently leave out the part where clearly
| the Chinese government desires that TikTok continue to
| operate in the US (under their control). Denying someone
| something they want is nearly the definition of
| punishment.
|
| The analogy only works if the US response to banning US
| social media was to do something similar like banning
| Russian social media that had no impact on China.
|
| As for whether the ban is legitimate or not, The Supreme
| Court _unanimously_ ruled that it is. We've banned
| foreign governments from owning television stations for
| decades.
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| China isn't your dog. What if you invited your neighbour
| over, and they pooped on your floor, repeatedly. And then
| they said you're not allowed into their house.
| rchaud wrote:
| Zuckerberg already tried in 2015, went on a tour, gave
| obsequious speeches, spoke in Mandarin and asked Xi to give his
| unborn child an honorary Chinese name. Refused on both
| occasions.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S20BoxH8W9g
| timewizard wrote:
| Just as soon as they allow the Chinese government censors to
| control what is and is not available on the platform.
|
| How you see his position as different from ours is an
| astounding result driven by American imperialist propaganda.
|
| None of these entities are on your side. Highlighting a false
| dichotomy does nothing.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Well fifteen years ago Google _was_ available in China. And at
| that time, while the masses simply used Baidu, among the
| educated it was well known that Google delivered better
| results. And that was because Google capitulated to the
| censors. The government had a direct hotline into the Chinese
| offices of Google and could demand the search engine
| immediately ban certain keywords or results. At that time Baidu
| 's censorship was quite a bit more heavy-handed than Google's.
| It was Google that grew tired of this arrangement and decided
| to quit. They first moved the operations to Hong Kong, and then
| later the Chinese government decided to block the Hong Kong
| version of Google.
|
| As a former Google employee, during my employment I found
| plenty of internal blog posts from the China team at that time
| about this arrangement. It was amazing to me that a lot of
| these internal blogs simply weren't deleted because people
| forgot about it and storage was so cheap.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Could you potentially see an issue with both countries
| disconnecting their economies and communication networks? As we
| do this, I worry a war gets easier to start.
| sekai wrote:
| The people pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue are
| ignoring that no one was requiring TikTok to change their content
| at all. The law was written to allow for 0 impact on users if the
| CCP-connected parent company simply divested.
|
| Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of
| billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company. But
| ByteDance's allegiance isn't to their shareholders.
| skizm wrote:
| I'm not defending them here, but the laws in China prevent a
| sale, so technically they have a duty to uphold China's laws
| first before upholding their fiduciary responsibility. Same
| with any American company and following American laws.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > the laws in China prevent a sale
|
| First I've heard of this.
|
| The conflicting legal obligations remind me of the Microsoft
| "safe harbour" case, which is becoming a lot more relevant
| and still isn't really adequately resolved.
| adastra22 wrote:
| They're confusing the US TikTok subsidiary with ByteDance
| parent organization. They were only required to sell the
| subsidiary.
|
| Ironically this would be enforcing the very same law that
| exists in China, where all companies have to be majority
| Chinese owned.
| rfoo wrote:
| I believe the law mentioned here isn't focused on which
| organization it is. The law itself basically said you
| can't export recommendation algorithm. Yes, in the very
| similar wording as in "you can't export certain GPU
| chips".
| adastra22 wrote:
| Which is fine. The whole point of the divestment was to
| NOT use the CCP-controlled recommendation algorithm.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| I think that's a major part of the concern. Their first duty
| is to the Chinese Communist Party. Historically all sources
| of information in communism have to serve the goals of the
| party above all else, and this is tightly controlled.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| The CCP doesn't run a communist nation.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Yeah they're communist like FedEx is federal.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| Yes I'm aware this trope is applied to every communist
| country that's ever existed. I've never been in a
| conversation where it added anything.
|
| It's like saying the Pope isn't Christian. It's really a
| hidden statement about gatekeeping.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| It's not a hidden statement about anything. China is not
| communist; communist means something. North Korea isn't a
| democratic republic; that also means something. We can go
| into definitions if you want, but I think this is trivial
| to observe for China.
|
| Edit: I think the distinction is important because the US
| has a tendency to label things communist before it goes
| to war with them, whether cold or hot.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| But then how can you use it the other way around, to say
| that it is bad?
| corimaith wrote:
| Yeah, worse, the CCP runs a neoauthoritarian state built
| in the exact same vein of Project 2025, only with
| "chinese characteristics".
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China is technically a multi party democracy, however the
| CPC does control the PLA (imagine if Republicans
| controlled the military, and that would be like China).
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| This is well outside my area of expertise, so please
| correct me if I'm wrong. But my understanding was that
| the legal parties are all subservient to the CCP and
| acknowledge their primacy.
|
| So functionally maybe a little like Albertson's is the
| only legal party, but if you prefer your region can have
| a subsidiary of Albertson's like Safeway or Shaw's.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| China is authoritarian no doubt, but clearly there are
| different forms of authoritarianism. Monarchy isn't
| communism either. In principle, communism can't exist
| under an authoritarian state, since that would create two
| classes; you'd be looking at some kind of socialism.
| Either way, I'd just point out that China has a brutal
| capitalist market. I feel like that kinda precludes
| communism.
| dawnerd wrote:
| They're majority owned by non Chinese investors. I don't see
| how china law would have any say.
| skizm wrote:
| Google "Golden Share CCP ByteDance". CCP has direct
| influence over how ByteDance is run.
| acje wrote:
| Shares aren't the sole mechanism for influence though. In
| Russia there are open sixth floor windows one could fall
| out of. In China you could disappear to a camp for a few
| months. Shares are kind of soft in comparison.
| wordofx wrote:
| lol no.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Chinese laws are whatever Xi says they are, so that's where
| Trump negotiating a deal for himself / his rich buddies comes
| into play..
| Supermancho wrote:
| This is correct. His power is effectively absolute. Any
| time his eye focuses on an issue, the issue is resolved to
| his specification or heads roll and another puppet is
| appointed to resolve it so.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I spoke a few years back with a tech analyst who
| specialized in Chinese equities. She herself is a Chinese
| ex-pat living in the states. She, quite exasperatedly
| described investing in Chinese equities as "you basically
| need to guess what Xi is thinking".
|
| One day test prep schools are illegal and immediately
| shut down. Tech CEOs suddenly became pariahs and started
| getting carted off to re-education camps. Etc.
|
| You never know what could happen to an executive,
| company, or sector.
| curt15 wrote:
| Does this mean they would be obligated to censor tank man
| content in the US at the CCP's request?
| enjo wrote:
| When I worked for an American subsidiary of a Chinese
| company (Video Games) we were only required to honor
| censorship requests for Chinese users.
| ikmckenz wrote:
| Except now they get to remain the owners and they don't have to
| sell at fire sale prices, so it turned out to be the best
| possible outcome for their shareholders.
| umanwizard wrote:
| In practice, US social networks usually promote content that is
| aligned with US cultural values and geopolitical interests.
| Whether this is because the government is actively leaning on
| them or just because being run by Americans colors them with
| those values, I don't know. But the fact is, it's not a
| coincidence that TikTok is the main place pro-Palestinian
| content was allowed to go viral, and it's likely that changing
| owners _would_ change the content on TikTok even if the law
| doesn't actually require it to do so.
| djcapelis wrote:
| I'm not arguing it's a restriction on TikTok's speech or
| bytedance's speech.
|
| It's a restriction on _my_ speech. Telling me where I can
| publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling
| my software vendor what software they're allowed to let me get?
| Telling internet providers what servers they're allowed to let
| my device access?
|
| The law doesn't fine TikTok. The law fines the people who let
| me download an application I've chosen to use. At $5,000 per
| instance.
|
| It's not about TikTok's rights being violated. It's about mine,
| and yours.
| abigail95 wrote:
| There isn't this much fuss about the foreign ownership of
| physical and broadcast media laws.
|
| Is the difference _really_ about whether you can post on the
| platform or not?
| djcapelis wrote:
| I think that's a huge difference, yes. And about what apps
| my phone is able to download, and what servers it is able
| to access.
|
| Another huge difference is broadcasting is about usage of a
| shared resource and has always had regulations on who is
| allowed to do what. They don't ban RT from setting up their
| own venue or printing a newspaper. RT and other outlets are
| able to operate in the US and people are able to chose to
| watch them.
| corimaith wrote:
| Why is it a huge difference? If you want absolute free
| speech places like 4chan will offer far more freedom than
| even TikTok ever would.
| threeseed wrote:
| > It's a restriction on my speech. Telling me where I can
| publish a video? Telling me what apps I can download? Telling
| my software vendor what software they're allowed to let me
| get? Telling internet providers what servers they're allowed
| to let my device access?
|
| You are being ridiculous now. None of those are forms of
| speech.
|
| And restrictions on your ability to perform certain actions
| is literally what being in a society is about. If you don't
| like it then find another society. Just like you can find
| another ISP, place to publish your video or platform to use
| apps you want to use.
| djcapelis wrote:
| Whether you think it's ridiculous or not, restrictions on
| distribution of software being a violation of US free
| speech rights has been an established part of US case law
| for around three decades now:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-
| estab...
| patcon wrote:
| I also feel you are being a bit absurdist fwiw. I am know
| the be a principled devils advocate sometimes, so I'm
| reading you as that, otherwise your position as an
| American makes very little sense to me
| djcapelis wrote:
| The justices on the Supreme Court analyzed the
| constitutionality of this law under a free speech basis.
| The Per Curiam opinion of the court suggested the correct
| standard was intermediate scrutiny as an abridgment of
| free speech. Justice Sotomayor suggested in her
| concurrence that strict scrutiny (the highest standard)
| was appropriate.
|
| They concluded that these regulations were okay at those
| levels of scrutiny, but it is not absurd or ridiculous to
| analyze these as forms of speech, and indeed, our courts
| _do so_.
|
| That said, just because there is a conflict with freedom
| of speech doesn't prevent all government regulation, it
| just means the laws involved must pass an elevated level
| of scrutiny. That applies here, for multiple reasons, and
| with multiple parties.
| harshreality wrote:
| I'm skeptical that Bernstein vs DOJ would apply, to a
| [foreign-controlled] company that is _not_ publishing
| their algorithm, on the idea that allowing their [trade-
| secret] code to control how hundreds of millions of
| people interact with each other is somehow free speech on
| ByteDance 's part.
|
| The foreign-controlled part in particular implicates
| Congress's obvious and explicit power to regulate
| international trade, and it seems obvious to me that
| there would be something less than strict scrutiny
| applied to alleged violations of the 1A when that
| Congressional power is in play.
| threeseed wrote:
| Source code you can argue is a form of speech versus a
| packaged product.
|
| Not that the case is relevant because restrictions on the
| availability of products is well established under the
| law. I can't just buy nuclear weapons for example.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"If you don't like it then find another society. "
|
| Isn't use of any non-violent means to advocate one's belief
| to change the society is the whole point of the democracy?
| Your point is rather very totalitarian.
| threeseed wrote:
| They are arguing that _any_ infringement on _any_ action
| they don 't like is unacceptable.
|
| This is incompatible with living in a society.
| marsten wrote:
| No court in the land will agree with your interpretation. The
| first amendment protects speech, but it doesn't grant you the
| right to publish that speech wherever you want. If it did
| then Facebook couldn't ban people from its platform, for
| example.
| djcapelis wrote:
| The first amendment enjoins the government from actions.
| Private companies are welcome to ban or regulate their own
| venues as they see fit.
| moussess wrote:
| The Supreme Court with its unanimous decision made it very
| very clear it's not about freedom of speech, but about
| foreign adversary having access to data profile of 180
| million US citizens. And believe in lawmakers argument of
| foreign adversary propaganda to those citizens.
|
| Why do people on hacker news keep drudging up freedom of
| speech ad nauseum??
| djcapelis wrote:
| Did you read the opinion? It did its analysis as requiring
| some level of scrutiny because of the free speech
| implications under intermediate (and in Sofomayor's
| concurrence strict) scrutiny. It held the national security
| concern outweighed the free speech concern but it
| absolutely did not say it was relevant in the analysis.
| moussess wrote:
| Of course I read it, opinion said
|
| " At the same time, a law targeting a foreign adversary's
| control over a communications platform is in many ways
| different in kind from the regulations of non-expressive
| activity that we have subjected to First Amendment
| scrutiny"
|
| And the opinion talks about foreign adversary, those
| exact words, at least 30 times. It mentioned freedom of
| speech twice
| jmye wrote:
| Because they read random crap on X they thought sounded
| smart and are now simply regurgitating it with no further
| thought or consideration.
|
| And "free speech absolutism (for me, not for you or anyone
| else)" is the current right-wing cause celebre.
| etc-hosts wrote:
| It's really about how the US gov is concerned that an app
| installed on half of all US cell phones is controlled by a
| company that is not 100 percent beholden to the US gov and
| stock market regulation, by a company that doesn't have to
| instantly respond to pressure from the Executive branch,
| could possibly refuse to instantly comply from pressure
| from US intelligence agencies, could refuse to comply with
| search requests from US law enforcement, and extensive
| lobbying from Facebook to cripple a competitor that
| Facebook ignored until it was too late.
|
| It's not a free speech issue.
|
| Given that the infra for serving US tiktok customers is in
| the United States(inside of Oracle Cloud), I am curious if
| Tiktok/bytedance responds to US law enforcement requests.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Telling me where I can publish a video?_
|
| This is like arguing graffiti laws are censorship.
| djcapelis wrote:
| Graffiti laws _are_ also evaluated under heightened
| scrutiny due to free speech implications. A law having an
| impact on free speech does not mean it never holds, but it
| must be analyzed in that context. Here's an example:
| https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Graffiti laws are also evaluated under heightened
| scrutiny due to free speech implications_
|
| Graffiti bans are unquestionably constitutional. Graffiti
| _laws_ that regulate the content are not.
|
| Telling people where they can speak is precedented, legal
| and necessary. Telling people what they can say is
| against the principles of free speech; the government
| doing so is illegal.
| mckenzba wrote:
| Show me where it is an infringement of your 1st amendment
| right to a private platform? You're free to criticize the
| government however you see fit, but you're not guaranteed the
| right to a microphone and stage that isn't yours. There are
| plenty of other communication channels you can use to express
| yourself. Your 1st amendment rights are not being infringed
| by being denied access to TikTok, just as the far right isn't
| having their 1st amendment rights being infringed by being
| denied to use BlueSky as their platform.
| echoangle wrote:
| > You're free to criticize the government however you see
| fit, but you're not guaranteed the right to a microphone
| and stage that isn't yours.
|
| So if I wanted to hold a speech how corrupt the government
| is and then the government passed a law that a PA supplier
| isn't allowed to sell me a Microphone or speakers, that
| wouldn't infringe my first amendment right because I don't
| have a right to a microphone or a stage? (Im not American
| so I don't have any first amendment rights anyways but for
| arguments sake.)
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Yes, a court could reach that conclusion.
|
| It's the PA supplier would be in a better position to
| argue that their rights are being violated. Especially if
| a single customer was targeted because of their political
| views / protected characteristics etc.
|
| The problem with the TikTok scenario is that no specific
| group is being targeted for restraint. And the government
| does have the right to regulate trade. E.g. there are
| embargoed countries, export controls, etc. The fact that
| you can't sell raw milk across state lines is different
| from a hypothetical restriction on selling raw milk to,
| say, people named Todd.
| imgabe wrote:
| No, it wouldn't. Congress could pass a law that we're not
| going to import microphones and speakers from China. The
| Constitution explicitly gives them the power to do that.
| You could then purchase them from any one of a number of
| other companies and your speech is unaffected.
| yibg wrote:
| I keep seeing this type of comment here, like a sell is the
| obvious thing to do. Why? Selling / divesting TikTok US under
| these circumstances would surely not fetch the best price. In
| addition they would immediately create a global competitor that
| have the same product. Why would ByteDance the company or its
| investors want that?
| rchaud wrote:
| Not to mention, why would they trust the US to pay tens of
| billions of dollars after this rigmarole? The incoming head
| of state doesn't exactly have a great track record of seeing
| through on promises to pay and is threatening tariffs against
| all and sundry.
|
| Anybody with that kind of financing readily available is
| throwing it at AI and not another social network, no matter
| how useful it might be for domestic propaganda.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Not to mention, why would they trust the US to pay tens
| of billions of dollars
|
| Why would the US government be involved in paying tens of
| billions ?
|
| The idea is that ByteDance would sell it to Meta, X, etc
| and would be a private transaction.
| baobun wrote:
| How separate is Twitter and the government really from
| today?
| None4U wrote:
| Today? Quite. Tomorrow?
| FpUser wrote:
| Ask the same question when the person that owns it
| finally buys the government.
| yibg wrote:
| Which makes no sense. Meta wouldn't sell "meta Uk", data
| product, algo and all to a competitor for 20 billion or
| whatever the number floating around is.
| threeseed wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a competitor. They simply have to
| divest the US operation.
|
| Just like happens in China and in many other countries.
| yibg wrote:
| Whoever they sell to becomes an immediate competitor
| though no? They'd get the software, US users and algo.
| cbzbc wrote:
| Sanctions regimes still exist.
| Agentus wrote:
| > Not to mention, why would they trust the US to pay tens
| of billions of dollars after this rigmarole?
|
| Don't need trust when you have the second most powerful
| state entity backing you. Corporate America has a complete
| jammed full history of its interests getting screwed over
| by foreign entities only for the US government to step in
| either with military force or some coercive measure
| resulting in a corrective action. Im sure China is well
| aware of this playbook and are probably apt to copy it too.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Well yeah, of course Tiktok isn't going to get the best price
| now that it has tried and failed to play chicken against the
| US government.
|
| They should have seen a law like this being passed coming
| years ago. That is more than enough time to divest.
|
| Too late now for them, I guess. They can take the financial
| hit for being so bad faith.
| hollerith wrote:
| Why is Tiktok US no longer worth $10 billion or so?
|
| Why wouldn't American investors still want to buy it?
|
| My guess is that American investors would want to buy it,
| but want the algorithm, but ByteDance is not willing to
| sell the algorithm out of fear that sharing it would
| degrade its competitive position outside the US.
| stale2002 wrote:
| If a 100-200 billion dollar valuation company gets sold
| for 10 billion dollars then they would be agreeing with
| my point, not disagreeing with it.
| jeff4f5da2 wrote:
| > Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of
| billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company.
|
| It is not. A company would be (financially) punished if it
| didn't follow regulations. DiDi was an example.
| https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/23/investing/didi-us-delisti...
| bjourne wrote:
| Many American civil liberties organizations think that the the
| ban is a free speech issue:
|
| https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...
| https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-scotus-tiktok-ban-violates...
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-statement-us-supre...
|
| It seems to me that they aren't "pretending" they honestly
| believe the issue is about free speech. Laws that does not
| explicitly curtail free speech but effectively still does just
| that can certainly be created.
| richwater wrote:
| ACLU is a biased organization and only supports the bill of
| rights when it suits their political alignment.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Unfortunately so. It didn't _use_ to be that way - the ACLU
| used to be so principled that they would defend literal
| Nazis ' rights. But they've fallen a long way since then.
| digismack wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| BitterCritter wrote:
| This applies to TikTok. We can't be tolerant of any
| social media that disallows specific words or groups.
| knome wrote:
| The paradox of tolerance specifically states that one
| must not be tolerant of intolerance. Hence, a paradox.
|
| Tolerance is a social contract of leaving alone others
| whose ways differ from your own so long as they do the
| same for you.
|
| One must not tolerate those that call for violence and
| subjugation of differing groups, which is almost the
| exact opposite meaning your comment seems to be implying
| in my reading of it, instead calling for wholly
| unfiltered speech by whosoever should deem to speak.
|
| Racists and similar hatemongers calling for others to
| tolerate them while they are screaming for those they
| disparage to be caste down and out cannot be tolerated in
| any reasonable forum.
|
| As such, any reasonable forum must ban some facets of
| free speech.
|
| That we disallow this power for governments is a
| reasonable limit on the powers of the elected to rule,
| lest those powers be abused.
| SSilver2k2 wrote:
| This is probably the best summary / example I have read
| on how to explain the paradox of tolerance.
|
| Thank you!
| jahewson wrote:
| No that would contradict freedom of association. People
| are free to form closed, self-censoring groups if they
| choose to. What we want to avoid is the government
| forcing it on people.
| mingus88 wrote:
| There is no paradox. Tolerance is a social contract. If
| you break the contract you are no longer covered by it.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Well but that's not how a lot of people interpret it
|
| I would very much agree this is the case. But it's not
| how a lot of people think
| axus wrote:
| Tolerance for behavior, as long as we don't disagree with
| it
| flir wrote:
| Assuming that behaviour is intolerance: Yup. It's a peace
| treaty. Break the peace treaty, and you no longer benefit
| from the peace treaty.
| jahewson wrote:
| I disagree with that analysis.
| Lammy wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-
| terminating_clich%C3%A...
| Aloisius wrote:
| Uh. They still defend the civil rights of neo-Nazis
| (aren't any actual nazis left), white supremacists, etc.
| echoangle wrote:
| > neo-Nazis (aren't any actual nazis left)
|
| Neo-Nazis are a subset of Nazis though, no?
| Aloisius wrote:
| In the sense of an adherent to Nazism, yes, neo-Nazis are
| Nazis.
|
| In the context of "literal Nazis" the ACLU had argued for
| the rights of - like the German American Bund, which
| contained actual members of the National Socialist German
| Workers' Party, not exactly.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Agree, but (and yes, whataboutism ahoy!) one can make
| observations about a similar lack or principle on the
| right.
|
| It always seemed to me that the US was fuzzy when the
| very clear text of the Constitution rubbed up against the
| realities of a complex State. For example,
|
| - the 1st Amendment doesnt say the speech can be
| overridden by a compelling national security interest,
| which is the argument here. But the US has security
| services, and legitimately there are cases where to allow
| speech does harm. But if you are going to be honest,
| shouldnt there be an amendment giving the State an
| override of 1A?
|
| - 2A is infamous, of course, and for the love of $deity
| lets not discuss it here, but why does "not abridged" get
| overriden by bans in, say, machine guns, which have been
| on the books since the Chicago gangster era? Either you
| abridge or not. Or at least be honest about it .
|
| - Some speakers in the covid era made a very strong
| appeal to personal bodily autonomy when it came to
| vaccine mandates. Ok, let's follow that. Does it not then
| also follow that a woman cannot be forced to carry a baby
| to term? That would seem logical, but the connection is
| not made. Conversely there is no "commonweal" override
| written into the Constitution and we are left with random
| SCOTUS decisions over the last 240 years.
| tom_ wrote:
| "for the love of $deity lets not discuss it here" - good
| idea, and why not take your own advice.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > the 1st Amendment doesnt say the speech can be
| overridden by a compelling national security interest,
| which is the argument here.
|
| No it isn't. The argument here is that it isn't a
| restriction on speech at all.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| The government can fine American companies for carrying
| certain content but it's not a 1st Amendment issue? Why
| are people buying this lame argument?
| addicted wrote:
| They would defend the Nazi right to free speech.
|
| You seem to be confused between principally defending
| everyone having the same rights vs defending everything
| anyone can do.
|
| The ACLU defends Nazi's rights because they believe Nazis
| should have the same rights as everyone else irrespective
| of who they are.
|
| That doesn't mean they defend every possible action that
| can be considered a civil liberty.
| bko wrote:
| For those unaware of ACLU's change over the last 10 or so
| years, here is an example:
|
| In September 2021, the ACLU wrote a New York Times op-ed
| defending vaccine requirements, arguing they actually
| advance civil liberties by protecting the most vulnerable
| and allowing more people to safely participate in public
| life. David Cole and Daniel Mach, the authors, wrote that
| individual liberty isn't absolute when it puts others at
| risk.
|
| Surely, one can be pro vaccine mandates. But I would not
| expect a civil liberties organization to hold this
| position.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/covid-
| vaccine-man...
| stuaxo wrote:
| Well, whose rights are we talking about.
|
| There is "freedom to" and "Freedom from" lots of people
| not getting vaccinated affects people's freedom from
| getting infected.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You wouldn't expect a civil liberties organization to
| have an opinion on containing a dangerous pandemic? In
| addition to working at the ACLU the people doing their
| work are also humans.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| When "containing a dangerous pandemic" means a
| restriction on civil liberties, I would expect the ACLU
| to comment on that matter.
|
| I am personally happy with vaccine requirements, but IMO
| the ACLU should have been defending the people who
| weren't.
| vharuck wrote:
| Advocacy organizations shouldn't aspire to extremes. The
| ACLU should offer reasonable and practical help and
| commentary on civil liberties. Otherwise, you get the
| modern NRA that fights every law about firearms.
| addicted wrote:
| Should the ACLU defend the rights of someone to blow up
| nuclear bombs in their backyard?
|
| That's a clear curtailment of their civil liberties. And
| assuming they're in a rural area may not harm anyone else
| either.
|
| This is an obviously extreme example but the point still
| stands. Any civil liberties organization cannot focus
| absolutely narrowly on that question in every situation
| but has to apply a broader approach.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Surely you see the difference between someone having
| Strategic weapons in their garage, and the government
| forcing someone to take a medicine that they don't want
| to take, right?
|
| >but the point still stands
|
| On what, exactly?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| > Should the ACLU defend the rights of someone to blow up
| nuclear bombs in their backyard?
|
| If someone actually went to court over this, I would
| hope/expect that the NRA would send some lawyers. The
| ACLU isn't that into the second amendment and has never
| been. However, nobody has gone to court over this. They
| did go to court over vaccine mandates.
|
| By the way, the only grounds the government would have to
| stand on here are radiation-related. It is broadly legal
| to use explosives on your own property unless you're too
| close to someone else's property.
| tzs wrote:
| Pretty much every measure taken against COVID had been
| taken many times before during the numerous epidemics of
| cholera, typhus, yellow fever, bubonic plague, smallpox,
| and influenza that plagued (no pun intended!) the US
| since its founding.
|
| Requiring inoculation/vaccination, shut downs, masks, and
| quarantines was generally considered a legitimate use of
| state power to prevent the spread of deadly diseases and
| not an infringement of civil liberties.
|
| Actually this goes back to even before the US was
| founded. George Washington imposed mandatory smallpox
| inoculation on his army during the revolution. This
| probably contributed significantly to his victory because
| both the British army and native tribes that had sided
| with the British were heavily weakened by smallpox but
| Washington's was not due to that inoculation requirement.
| freehorse wrote:
| And what is their political alignment in this case (and in
| general)? Considering that banning tiktok got voted with
| bipartisan support.
| michaelt wrote:
| As I understand things, they tend to leave gun rights
| stuff to the enormous and well-funded NRA.
|
| In cases from "Roe vs Wade" to "Masterpiece Cakeshop" and
| "Hobby Lobby" the ACLU came out against things supported
| by the religious right. And although the ACLU regularly
| supports the free speech rights of swastika-tattoed nazis
| - Republicans don't see that as supporting their side,
| because no reasonable person wants to think people with
| swastika tattoos are on their side.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This issue is not about freedom of speech to any of the
| players. Its geopolitics. The ACLU and the EFF care about the
| precedent it sets.
|
| Shocking news: different players have different motivations.
| vivekd wrote:
| I don't know if it's a free speech issue but legally speaking
| it's definitely not a first amendment issue because the law
| targets foreign corporations and the Constitution doesn't
| apply to foreign entities
| echoangle wrote:
| But wouldn't you be infringing the rights of the US users
| if you ban the platform they want to message other US users
| over? Isn't that indirectly infringing their free speech?
| Or does the first amendment not protect stuff like this?
| Bjartr wrote:
| That indirectness is exactly why it's not. The first
| amendment ensures you can express what you want, but
| you're not owed a platform.
| echoangle wrote:
| But can the government actively interfere with my
| communication by banning the platform? If the government
| notices that a lot of critics are organizing over
| Discord, can they ban Discord, because they're not
| banning speech specifically, only a platform used to
| spread the speech?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _can the government actively interfere with my
| communication by banning the platform?_
|
| Yes. Foreign-ownership rules have been a thing in America
| for almost a century [1].
|
| [1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-
| and-poli...
| vivekd wrote:
| I think what you raise is something the courts should
| consider if the government were trying to shut down a
| platform because of what it's users were doing on it. But
| it's not a live issue in this case. There is no
| allegation that the US seeks to suppress TikTok because
| of what Americans are posting on it. TikTok isn't saying
| the government is doing that and I don't believe the
| government is seeking to control the speech of TikTok
| users. The consern seems to be more about who controls
| the algorithm and data collection (a foreign state with
| adversarial interests) and it seems to me that it has
| nothing to do with anything Americans are posting on
| TikTok. I mean the content on TikTok isn't all that
| political or revolutionary
| umanwizard wrote:
| > There is no allegation that the US seeks to suppress
| TikTok because of what Americans are posting on it.
|
| Of course there is. It's obvious that a huge chunk of the
| momentum behind the TikTok ban stems from a desire to
| suppress anti-Israel content.
| wonnage wrote:
| Welcome to the religious fallacy of strict textualism,
| currently worshipped by the Supreme Court majority
| stale2002 wrote:
| By your very broad definition of infringement if a
| newspaper refuses to pay it's taxes, and then the
| government shuts down the newspaper down for that, this
| would be infringement.
|
| Clearly it's not.
|
| Yes, the government can make laws that effect speech
| platforms just like we can make them pay taxes.
| wongarsu wrote:
| But there are American users making and viewing content on
| that platform.
|
| The physical equivalent would be if China was hosting a
| TED-talk-like conference where anyone can come and hold a
| presentation, and after certain kinds of talks became
| popular congress would tell them that they are no longer
| allowed to let Americans in, neither to hold presentations
| nor to listen to them.
|
| Technically that doesn't violate the constitution, but it's
| not difficult to argue that it does violate the spirit of
| the constitution
| NLPaep wrote:
| An issue arises when popularity is manipulated through
| artificial boosting by an adversarial government.
|
| At some point, it becomes State Propaganda masquerading
| as grassroots activists.
|
| Control over content can influence and distort public
| discourse and understanding. This is also against the
| spirit of free expression envisioned in the constitution
| and instead injecting an intentionally divisive voice.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The physical equivalent would be if the Chinese
| intelligence apparatus opened an auditorium where they
| said "come sit here and let us read your mind and we will
| feed you what advances our national interest".
| Jensson wrote:
| > But there are American users making and viewing content
| on that platform.
|
| Those Americans can host the exact same content on
| youtube or any of the many other video hosting sites.
|
| This is not a free speech issue, it is a megaphone issue.
| Spivak wrote:
| Just as a thought experiment, take your reasoning and try
| to ban as much speech with as much specificity as you
| can. You can't ban the content of the speech but you can
| ban venues where speech takes place and and means of
| transmitting speech so long as at least one venue and
| means remains.
| vivekd wrote:
| > after certain kinds of talks became popular congress
| would tell them that they are no longer allowed to let
| Americans in,
|
| I think if that were the situation then yes the first
| amendment would be in issue. But I don't think anyone is
| saying that this is happening here. As I understand it
| this has nothing to do with what anyone is saying on
| TikTok and there are no social or protest movements
| gaining ground on TikTok that the government is trying to
| suppress. The only issue here is the foreign ownership
| and how that ownership is used. I don't think anyone is
| saying the government is doing this to silence any TikTok
| users
| umanwizard wrote:
| So if a particular book were published by a French company,
| the government could ban it from being sold in the US? I'm
| sure that's not true.
| josephcsible wrote:
| No, they couldn't ban just one book from a French
| publisher. They'd have to ban the publisher entirely. And
| that's what happened here too. It's not just TikTok that
| got banned, but all of ByteDance's other apps too, e.g.,
| Marvel Snap and CapCut.
|
| And it's also important that divesting was an option
| instead. In your analogy, they couldn't ban the books
| outright, but could demand they be published by a
| different publisher.
| lokar wrote:
| And we have a long history of restricting foreign media
| ownership
| Zanni wrote:
| The ACLU hasn't been a credible defender of free speech in
| some time. (FIRE and EFF still credible.)
| yellow_postit wrote:
| I started having issues when they supported Citizens United
| Aunche wrote:
| > Laws that does not explicitly curtail free speech but
| effectively still does
|
| You can say the same thing about an antitrust law that forces
| Alphabet to sell Youtube.
| addicted wrote:
| Well they're clearly wrong.
|
| Go read the SC unanimous judgment. It's very clear and lays
| out exactly why they're wrong.
|
| In fact they do a lot more than that because they state off
| the bat that there isn't even a first amendment question (a
| Chinese corporation doesn't have first amendment rights in
| the U.S.), but they go beyond, assume the first amendment
| does apply, and still explain why that isn't valid.
| michaelt wrote:
| Yeah, I can't believe all these people are talking
| "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of
| speech, or of the press" so literally.
|
| Haven't these people heard of Wickard v. Filburn?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Tiktok definitely isn't press and algorithm-powered
| social media feeds can hardly be considered free speech.
| It's not even speech - it's broadcast! We've regulated
| broadcast since its' inception.
| michaelt wrote:
| While Tiktok doesn't have literal printing presses,
| neither do TV networks.
|
| How can the first amendment be interpreted so broadly
| that large multinational corporations financially
| supporting politicians is considered free speech, yet so
| narrowly that social media isn't part of the media?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| SCOTUS, as they've done in many recent cases, is artfully
| skirting the substance of the issue.
|
| How is this ban actually enforced? By fining American
| companies for serving specific content. _That_ is the First
| Amendment issue. SCOTUS simply asserting that it 's not in
| order to make their ruling convenient does not actually
| make it so.
| gsibble wrote:
| There's all kinds of content that you can get fined for
| hosting. Pirated movies for instance.
|
| Is that also free speech? Again, it's just the law and
| how it is enforced.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Copyright (in the US) was literally created by the same
| people who wrote the 1st Amendment. Copyright is _in the
| Constitution itself_. It was very obviously an exception
| from the start.
|
| "Foreign governments saying things" _also_ existed at the
| same time the 1st Amendment was written, and there were
| no carveouts from 1st Amendment in light of that.
|
| In any case: If SCOTUS during its early cases on
| copyright law (or copyright on the Internet) simply
| asserted "this has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment,"
| they'd also be wrong. That would be a clear avoidance
| tactic not to wrangle with the substantive issue. In
| reality, the big cases on copyright are riddled with 1st
| Amendment questions, considerations, and constraints.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| Personally, I am more concerned about people pretend it is not.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| You should talk to the ACLU. Get them straighten out.
|
| https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...
| https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
| stuaxo wrote:
| Fifuciary duty to shareholders is one of the most pernicious
| forces against progress there is.
|
| The short term "number go up" mentality is breeds is a cancer.
| roboror wrote:
| That's somewhat of a myth that lets these companies off easy,
| there's no ruling that says you have to maximize profit at
| all costs, or at all to an extent. The sole motivator is
| greed.
| jahewson wrote:
| The former does not imply the latter. Look at Bezos, he spent
| years re-investing in Amazon to provide long-term financial
| benefits to his shareholders. Pressure for short-term gains
| comes from shareholders on Wall St, it's not a fundamental
| property of shareholders.
| freehorse wrote:
| I do not understand this line of argument. On the one hand
| there is a political decision to ban-or-annex a foreign
| company, on the other hand the reaction should not be political
| and in general political implications should not be discussed?
|
| And if anything, if tiktok US is sold it will be way below its
| actual value, so there are many reasons to resist this apart
| from the political ones. And I assume they expect they will
| come to a concession in the first place.
| sethammons wrote:
| Another free speech interpretation: the right to assemble. I
| cannot assemble with the group of people I once was with TikTok
| gone
| Aloisius wrote:
| There's no government restrictions preventing you from
| assembling elsewhere.
|
| Your interpretation would make shutting down any place where
| people assembled unconstitutional which was clearly never the
| intent.
| curt15 wrote:
| Of course you can. Nothing stops the same group of people
| from congregating on Discord, Rumble, or even in real life.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If you used to assemble at a public park, and the city closes
| the park entirely to turn it into something else, does that
| violate your right to assemble too?
| slt2021 wrote:
| This is a shakedown and violation of property rights.
| flir wrote:
| Interesting position. I wonder if another country could just
| force Musk to divest himself of Twitter in the same way. Could
| solve a lot of headaches that way. Maybe the EU could force the
| issue.
| imgabe wrote:
| Possibly they could force him to divest from whatever legal
| entity Twitter operates under in that country, or force
| Twitter to stop operating in that country, but they would
| have no authority over the US corporation.
| pjmlp wrote:
| That would be if they were American, even if they were not
| Chinese, not every country puts shareholders capitalism above
| everything else a company is suppose to decide upon.
| ryan_j_naughton wrote:
| But those running corporations are fiduciaries - the have a
| legal and ethical obligation to their shareholders. If those
| shareholders want to not maximize profits and have other
| objectives, then that's totally fine and then the managements
| obligations are to those aims of the shareholders.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As per US law....
| blahedo wrote:
| > _pretending that the TikTok law is a speech issue_
|
| A lot of folks here are saying that the TT ban had nothing to
| do with free speech. A couple of indirect rhetorical questions
| that might be relevant to help illuminate opinions about TT:
|
| 1. If there were a single newspaper (in the pre-internet era)
| that developed and printed a lot of reporting with a particular
| political outlook and was the home of many columnists known for
| being the premier thinkers with that outlook, and a law were
| passed that had nothing to do with the content but had the
| effect of shutting down that paper, and only that paper, would
| this be a speech issue?
|
| 2. If a political rally were assembling to petition for redress
| of their grievances, and a law were passed that told them they
| could say what they wanted but the rally was only allowed to
| occur in a specific field 30 miles outside the city and 3 miles
| from the nearest paved road, would this be a speech issue?
|
| 3. Given that deadtree-books-in-physical-libraries are not the
| primary point of reference for most people anymore, if you
| wanted to block access to certain kinds of information and/or
| make a statement about doing so, what action would you take in
| the 21st century to do the equivalent of a book burning? And
| would this be a speech issue?
|
| There are obvious and easy things you can point out about how
| the TT law is different from each of those three scenarios,
| don't @ me about that. But it seems to me that most people who
| are serious (or, publicly serious, which is a little different)
| about supporting the TT ban give reasons for it that would be
| inconsistent with their answers to one or more of those three
| questions.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Which of these examples includes the parts about foreign
| control? This is the primary issue as far I was aware. The
| chinese state does not have first amendment protections
| because they are not american citizens.
| emidoots wrote:
| (1) Doesn't match the situation at all, because the law
| didn't require the paper to shutdown - it required a foreign
| company to divest so that it is US-owned, and the paper could
| continue operations as normal.
|
| That's a pretty substantial difference.
|
| (2) Also doesn't match the situation, there is no requirement
| that TikTok restrict the reach or audience of their content
| in any way AFAIK.
|
| (3) The situation is more akin to "foreign government owns
| the local library, and can decide based on the identity of
| the person walking in which books the person is allowed to
| see and check out" - seems obviously problematic at least /if
| they do that/
| rangerelf wrote:
| All your examples miss the part about the company being a
| foreign government's psy-ops vehicle.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of
| billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders"
|
| I am shedding tears for those poor shareholders.
| wongarsu wrote:
| > Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of
| billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company
|
| This is only true if you assume the US is the only market that
| matters. But TikTok is very much an international phenomenon,
| and selling would likely harm the company far more than a
| couple billion. Firstly it would give another company
| everything they need to run a global competitor to TikTok,
| including software, infrastructure and userbase. Secondly it
| might encourage other countries to also force TikTok to sell.
|
| Giving in here would be the beginning of the end of TikTok and
| could well be argued to be a violation of the company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders. It would be the ultimate
| version of chasing short-term gains by selling the long-term
| future.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Secondly it might encourage other countries to also force
| TikTok to sell.
|
| Wouldn't that be a no-op if they already did so?
| aimanbenbaha wrote:
| Bytedance is privately held. With a 20% stake by founders and
| employees. Divesting according to the bill terms would have
| them giving away portion of their most precious IP that is the
| fyp recommendation system. Any reasonable company would refuse
| to totally divest and create a competitor just because a
| government said so. Also TikTok makes money for advertizing to
| the entire world not just the US.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not "give away" when they get to charge the market price
| for it. They presumably also wouldn't inherently even have to
| split up the company, rather than e.g. do an IPO for the
| entire global enterprise.
| aimanbenbaha wrote:
| The valuation and acquisition process of the US branch of
| TikTok would take more than 8 months as outlined by the
| language of the bill. So it's already forcing them to
| receive chump change for it. Besides I don't think any
| company's strategic decisions like this should be solicited
| by a government. That goes against the free enterprise.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Yes now that they have played chicken with the US
| government, and lost, they are going to get chump change.
|
| They should have thought of that earlier. They easily
| could have received a fair price if they didn't delay as
| they did.
|
| > That goes against the free enterprise.
|
| No, we have laws of on foreign ownership on all sorts of
| communication platforms already. Foreign entities can't
| own major telephone systems in the US.
|
| But you probably weren't complaining about that.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Their preference to shut down instead of receiving tens of
| billions of dollars would be a clear violation of a company's
| fiduciary duty to shareholders for any normal company.
|
| This is not strictly true - when a company leaves a huge
| market, it is imprudent to leave behind a well-resourced
| competitor in place. If I were a ByteDance shareholder, I'd
| hate if it spun off TikTok America LLC, and then having TikTok
| America compete against ByteDance in Europe and the Rest of the
| world on an equal technological footing, but perhaps even
| deeper pockets from American markets.
| vitorgrs wrote:
| What would happen if Brazil says they would ban X if Elon Musk
| didn't divest from it?
| rcstank wrote:
| What does this have to do with X, Brazil, or Musk?
| airstrike wrote:
| My read is that the US government originally wanted to try to
| force TikTok to restructure its relationship with China so it
| wouldn't be under control of the party, either by leaving the
| country or more likely selling to a US-friendly owner. This was
| the argument when Trump toyed with the idea during his first
| mandate.
|
| Occam's Razor suggests this was due to _both_ a matter of
| national security from the perspective of the intelligence
| community _and_ pressure from US companies who have struggled to
| outcompete TikTok. Basically an "everybody wins" move for the
| powers that be.[1]
|
| China understandably didn't want to lose its influence, and
| ByteDance didn't want to give up this incredibly valuable asset,
| so they said "We'll call your bluff and fight you on the basis of
| the freedom of speech".
|
| The US government then moved to get a law signed that carves out
| a very specific way to force ByteDance's hand. I'm sure there
| were lots of lawyers involved and maybe some back channel with
| the SCOTUS to make sure this was done in a constitutional manner
| so that it would survive a suit from TikTok which was all but
| guaranteed.[2]
|
| That plan worked, so now ByteDance/TikTok/CCP are again forced to
| sell, except they come to this round of negotiations in a much
| worse position than they were originally. This makes it better
| for the many, many buyers that have come out of the woodwork and
| made public and private bids for the asset.
|
| But these buyers don't want the actual value of TikTok to drop to
| zero, so they must also be pressuring president-elect Trump to
| reinstate the app so that it can continue to be used by Americans
| and therefore remain valuable, so that when they actually get
| their money's worth when it inevitably changes hands.
|
| Trump isn't restoring TikTok so that it can continue to operate
| as in the "status quo ante bellum negotii". He's restoring it so
| that {insert buyer} can claim the spoils in a few weeks.
|
| ---
|
| [1]: We can debate whether "everybody wins" includes the US
| population, but I think they do, because Chinese influence over
| US culture is strictly worse than US influence over US culture,
| seeing as incentives are by definition irreconcilable and
| therefore always worse if under control of the CCP.
|
| [2]: It stands to reason that all of the US government and the
| top echelons of business and finance is operating in concert here
| to drive the outcome they want, which is to remove the influence
| of the CCP over young American minds and to benefit from forcing
| the asset to be controlled by a US entity.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << That plan worked, so now ByteDance/TikTok/CCP are again
| forced to sell, except they come to this round of negotiations
| in a much worse position than they were originally.
|
| I appreciate the analysis even if I disagree with it.
|
| << many buyers that have come out of the woodwork and made
| public and private bids for the asset.
|
| It is mildly funny given that China is not selling it. It was
| defacto made a real geopolitical issue with 170m US users as
| pawns. They may well be buyers, but China is not in a position
| of weakness here. If anything, the past 48h showed that users
| can simply say 'fuck it' out of spite.
|
| In short, from game theory perspective, even if they decided to
| sell, they can now extract heavy concessions. Yeah, US won so
| hard on this one.
|
| As I may have mentioned in another post, individual players may
| have gained some ground, but that is it. US lost a lot in this
| exchange alone.
| airstrike wrote:
| The extension is for 90 days. If they don't sell, they are
| worth very little after those three months elapse. It's a
| life line and a fire sale.
|
| Everyone already knew TikTok was valuable. This isn't new
| information. They have no concessions to extract here.
|
| Users haven't said anything out of spite. Some people signing
| up for some other services was _not_ what drove Trump to
| announce this executive action.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I am willing to put cash money in escrow on this bet,
| because I do not think it is about the money at this point;
| not anymore.
| metabagel wrote:
| > Some people signing up for some other services was not
| what drove Trump to announce this executive action.
|
| To me, there is a strong appearance of quid pro quo between
| ByteDance and Trump. In that case, there doesn't need to be
| a sale. Trump likely will require a simulation of
| restructuring which enables him to declare ByteDance in
| compliance, and the whole things goes away.
| moussess wrote:
| US came out way ahead here. They gain full control of TikTok.
| They have a precedent now to ban apps from hostile power.
| They gained even more respect from countries that hate
| China/russia/iran, such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India,
| etc. they now project power over countries that were trying
| to play both sides of US and China, such as Singapore,
| Malaysia. And of course, Chinese government took this
| takedown with a whimper, signaling it is really powerless
| against US
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << They gain full control of TikTok.
|
| Well, did they? So far it is not that clear.
|
| << They have a precedent now to ban apps from hostile
| power.
|
| Is that a good thing? If so, why?
|
| << They gained even more respect from countries
|
| Heh, you honestly may want to reconsider this statement. It
| is not respect, when China openly effectively says 'nah' to
| sale and shutters the app instead..
|
| << Chinese government took this takedown with a whimper
|
| Huh? Dude... where did you see a whimper. Allow me to
| revisit events.
|
| 1. Congress passes a law effectively banning TikTok 2.
| TikTok sues over free speech and loses appeal with SCOTUS
| 3. Rather than selling, it shuts down the app 4. Users go
| everywhere, but ( apparently ) US apps 5. Incoming
| administration gives assurances it won't actually enforce
| anything for now
|
| I accept there are ways of looking at things, but this is
| something else.
| airstrike wrote:
| Users didn't go anywhere. 500-700k of users downloading
| some app to protest because it's cool is hardly
| pressuring the government.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| You know what? Lets agree to disagree. I am sure we will
| see the exciting conclusion of this saga 90 days from
| now.
| metabagel wrote:
| What makes you think Trump will require anything meaningful of
| TikTok? What's important is what TikTok can do for him, not
| anything related to national security or ownership concerns.
| airstrike wrote:
| _> What makes you think Trump will require anything
| meaningful of TikTok?_
|
| I'm not sure I follow as I didn't say Trump will require
| anything and I don't know what "meaningful" means in this
| sentence.
|
| _> What's important is what TikTok can do for him, not
| anything related to national security or ownership concerns._
|
| You're neglecting what the _sale_ of TikTok can do for him,
| which is to curry an immense amount of favor with Big Tech,
| Wall Street and the intelligence community, and possibly one
| or several unnamed players in this negotiation.
| metabagel wrote:
| > I'm not sure I follow as I didn't say Trump will require
| anything and I don't know what "meaningful" means in this
| sentence.
|
| I thought you said that Trump would require TikTok to be
| sold. Did I misread? I was asking why you think Trump will
| require _anything_ meaningful of TikTok. More specifically,
| why do you think Trump would require TikTok to sell?
|
| > You're neglecting what the _sale_ of TikTok can do for
| him, which is to curry an immense amount of favor with Big
| Tech, Wall Street and the intelligence community, and
| possibly one or several unnamed players in this
| negotiation.
|
| Is that any more valuable than the things which TikTok can
| give him?
|
| 1) Cash (purchase Trump's meme coin, stock grant, etc.)
|
| 2) Prominence on TikTok
| whatthesmack wrote:
| I had to scroll past too many "free speech" takes to finally
| get to this well-thought analysis of the saga.
|
| It has nothing to do with free speech. The US was always going
| to wind up owning TikTok and influencing speech on the
| platform. The key issue was price, which is affected by
| leverage. The strict top-down, centralized control ideals
| behind CCP/ByteDance/TikTok (they're all the same) were once
| again outdone by the aforementioned "powers that be".
| moussess wrote:
| Great analysis! This comment should be the top post
| rfoo wrote:
| > But these buyers don't want the actual value of TikTok to
| drop to zero
|
| Quick reminder: TikTok is available for most of the planet
| (except China), so a US ban does not make the actual value of
| TikTok to drop to zero.
|
| It makes a sell-off very unlikely, but I doubt it's going to
| happen no matter what.
|
| It's quite puzzling why ByteDance didn't bring up the idea of
| making a TikTok US in the same way TikTok CN (a.k.a. Douyin)
| works.
| unangst wrote:
| Another opportunistic nothing burger victory and reason for
| further tech billionaire fealty. Sigh.
| ein0p wrote:
| Do you mean the ban, or the removal of the ban? I'm confused.
| Because I'm pretty sure the ban is at least in part supported
| by Zuck, and that's why he gave $300M+ to elect a vegetable in
| 2020, and that's why Meta is spending more than ever on
| lobbying: https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-
| lobbying-rec...
| Finnucane wrote:
| Dr. T's reversal was at least partly due to the influence of
| David Yass, who owns a chunk of ByteDance and saved the
| TruthSocial IPO, making Trump's holding actually worth
| something. So he owes Yass bigly.
|
| Presumably other wealthy friends stand to win. Steve Mnuchin
| wanted to buy it.
| etblg wrote:
| Jeff Yass?
| ein0p wrote:
| Word is Musk is offering to buy a controlling stake as
| well. The whole thing is a racket though: ByteDance is
| already 60% owned by global institutional investors,
| including firms such as Blackrock, Susquehanna
| International Group, Carlyle Group, and General Atlantic.
| Another 20% are owned by employees, and another 20% by co-
| founders. Given this, I'm not sure how ByteDance could
| "sell TikTok" to an US investor - they don't own 50% of it
| themselves.
| r0ckarong wrote:
| We're watching the downfall live on stream. They were wrong, the
| revolution will not be televised is right, the fascist uprising
| happened in your social media instead.
| righthand wrote:
| People seem to misunderstand this metaphor. It's not about what
| type of tech the revolution is broadcasted on, it's about the
| fact that you'll be sitting there watching the revolution from
| the comfort of wherever you are. You will not be doing anything
| to actually be apart of the revolution, making the revolution
| more for your entertainment than your detriment/benefit.
| thrance wrote:
| It's not really a revolution, moreso a slow downfall into
| mediocrity, irrationalism and hatred, wrapped in stars and
| stripes.
| jackjeff wrote:
| As long as this is the only place the fascist upraising
| happens... better than being forced out of your job, making all
| other political parties illegal, being beaten by mobs
| patrolling the streets while the police looks the other way,
| canceling elections ad vitam eternam on national security
| grounds, I mean stuff that proper fascists used to do back in
| the days.
|
| In the mean time, if I wanted 30 seconds clips of cat videos
| I'm sure I could use a VPN. Let's ban it. Teach people
| censorship is utter BS like every Chinese person knows by now.
| Sadly my attention span is slightly longer than 30s so I'm not
| even gonna bother
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| I think it's funny that it's going online because the new
| President told people to just ignore the law. Interestingly, he
| is a convicted criminal so it kinda makes sense he would just
| tell folk to ignore the law. And even more interestingly, the
| back the blue/law and order type folks will be thinking this is a
| great move.
| exogeny wrote:
| That is so embarrassing for the Democrats. Trump comes out that
| he wants to ban it, Biden finally does on like, the last week of
| his presidency, just so Trump can come in and save it. Now the
| millions of people who make their living on TikTok and everyone
| else who simply likes the app are now thanking Trump for bringing
| back the app he wanted to ban in the first place.
|
| Just staggering incompetence.
| plutoh28 wrote:
| Trump's proposed executive order just gives TikTok more time "so
| that a deal could be made." Honestly I don't understand how
| TikTok is able to restore service now before the executive order
| or even the inaugaration has occured.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| It's back so couldn't have been that hard.
| kristjansson wrote:
| There was no legal requirement they block service at all, only
| that other companies stop doing business with them (i.e. App
| Stores stop distributing, etc.)
| pockmarked19 wrote:
| This. It is _not_ back in stores.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Pretty sure Oracle had to turn off the servers. I feel like
| Oracle is now not complying with the law. Apple and Google
| appear to be as of writing this.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Is it too conspiracy-theorist to notice that the timeline for
| this matches the $TRUMP grift that added significant $billions to
| our new president's net worth?
| metabagel wrote:
| Somebody invested $6 billion in Trump's meme coin. There should
| be an investigation.
| nextworddev wrote:
| This whole theater from the start was designed to flex just how
| much influence China has on the U.S.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| No matter what happens now, china was the real winner here.
| jcstryker wrote:
| Curious to see if this ends up increasing the userbase and
| TikTok's foothold in American culture.
| thepace wrote:
| Congress looking towards an enforcement while the President
| trying to make a deal. It is going to be interesting how this
| plays out.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-johnson-2-...
| zrail wrote:
| I wonder how Mr. Johnson is proposing to do his enforcement,
| seeing as how the executive is the branch of government charged
| with enforcing the laws.
| almog wrote:
| Exactly. We could have had a discussion about whether a
| executive order can override house of representatives had such
| order be issued by Trump post inauguration yet overriding it
| prior to that should be the bigger deal here.
| greycol wrote:
| It's unfortunately not news that a Trump presidency doesn't
| respect the mores of the office.
|
| The president can pardon people for breaking federal law and
| can stop the enforcement of federal law[1] so as president
| elect it makes sense that he can effectively neuter any
| federal law short of congress deciding he has gone to far and
| impeaching and removing him.
|
| [1]i.e. federal agencies no longer prosecute personal
| marijuana use by executive order
| kouru225 wrote:
| Completely unrelated but here's the Wikipedia for an interesting
| book called The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Image:_A_Guide_to_Pseudo...
| TomK32 wrote:
| (1962) is shockingy relevant. I have to read more dystopian sci
| fi from that era just to keep up with current event
| idhegeu wrote:
| Trump should launch a Tiktok clone on Truth Social in 90 days
| when the reprieve expires. I'm surprised there wasn't a new
| platform ready to pounce on new users. Absolutely nuts that one
| of the biggest refugee destinations is literally named after a
| Mao-era propaganda tool.
|
| But in all seriousness, there's 3 branches of government and 2 of
| spoken. Trump's voice should be moot. Hopefully he's put in his
| place by our institutions and shamed for attempting to subvert
| the system of checks and balances described by our constitution.
| notfed wrote:
| He for sure pitched this, but his team does _not_ have the
| skills to create this.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Least surprising outcome of 2025.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Truth be told, I did expect Trump to suck up to Putin first...
| axegon_ wrote:
| Seems I spoke too soon about the US taking a good decision for
| once when it comes to cyber and civil security. Well... I wonder
| what muskov will come up with now that twitter is still at large
| inaccessible in China but tiktok is welcome in the US.
| TomK32 wrote:
| TikTok is still blocked in China.
| SOTGO wrote:
| Douyin is the Chinese TikTok equivalent. China isn't opposed
| to the concept of short form video, they just want to
| segregate Chinese users into their own app
| sensanaty wrote:
| Douyin also doesn't allow nearly as much brainrot as you
| see on tiktok, and definitely doesn't allow anything that
| challenges the CCP.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Strange to see the ACLU and Trump having common cause.
|
| https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/banning-tiktok-i...
| https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-no-tiktok...
|
| TikTok is coming back online after Trump pledged to restore it
| https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/19/tech/tiktok-ban/index.htm...
| drewbeck wrote:
| The ACLU tends to take pretty hard line civil liberty
| positions, including defending hateful folks if their civil
| liberties are impinged. They're not strictly a progressive
| organization.
| ImJamal wrote:
| They don't really hold hard-line positions anymore. The ACLU
| would no longer defend the speech of a neo-nazi, for example.
| drooby wrote:
| What does the ACLU not understand..
|
| The law does not ban TikTok.. it requires divestment from a
| foreign adversary..
|
| Said foreign adversary refuses to divest, thus the company is
| _shutting itself down_
| rocmcd wrote:
| Classic "Bootleggers and Baptists" situation [0], where both
| parties are in favor for self-serving reasons.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| This is a disgusting betrayal of America and a violation of our
| process, given Congress passed a law and it was then unanimously
| upheld by the Supreme Court. Unless Trump can show that Bytedance
| met the three conditions that permit an extension, this will
| backfire and alienate a portion of his base.
| metabagel wrote:
| It's a cult of personality. By definition it's him they support
| and who informs their thinking. He can't alienate his
| supporters, because they don't have any framework to fall back
| on.
| fatfox wrote:
| So to put it bluntly, sweet talking a president-elect can
| overturn a Supreme Court decision? Interesting political culture.
| airstrike wrote:
| Hardly. A delay on the ban isn't tantamount to undoing the
| Supreme Court's decision.
|
| It's good to be precise with terminology and facts, especially
| in legal matters.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| explain how he (a private citizen) can give a 90 day
| extension on a deadline that is passed with criteria that can
| not be certified and had to have been already given to
| congress? Please be precise with terminology and facts in
| these legal matters.
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| It's in the bill
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The bill does not give the private citizen the authority
| to do this.
| airstrike wrote:
| He's not just any private citizen, he's the president elect
| who will be inaugurated in a day. I'm sure his word carries
| way more weight than mine.
|
| I'm not privy to the specific words that were exchanged, so
| it's hard to be precise. But I imagine it was some form of
| Trump saying "by tomorrow, I will give you a 90-day
| extension. I have a gentleman's agreement with the current
| government that if you do _not_ stop your services in the
| 24 hours between now and my inauguration, you won 't face
| any issues, so please carry on and we will clean this mess
| up later".
|
| If you want a private citizen analogy, it's similar to
| someone saying they won't press charges despite a third-
| party being in flagrant illegal behavior. In this case,
| it's the US government saying they won't press charges.
| Both Biden and Trump have said as much, if my understanding
| of the case is correct, and one can assume they have
| discussed this with the appropriate branches of government.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Trump does not have the authority to give a 90 day
| extension by the language in the law from my
| understanding. There was a provision for a single use 90
| day extension that would require the president to certify
| 3 things (which currently has not been met and can not be
| met within days) and have that delivered to congress
| prior to the ban taking affect. The law gives no
| mechanism to provide an extension after the ban according
| to republican legislators.
| maxcruer wrote:
| this is on the edge of becoming a shitshow...
| nvarsj wrote:
| The US has already jumped head first into the shit can.
|
| All those ideals of democracy I learned about growing up in the
| US - checks and balances, the rule of law, land of opportunity.
| It's all become a massive joke.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Well it needed people to enforce those things and it needed
| people to vote. Both those things didn't happen.
| _heimdall wrote:
| That didn't take long. Can we now roll back the bill that gave
| presidents the authority to unilaterally ban a service in the
| first place?
| spencerflem wrote:
| The president didn't ban it. Congress did, and the Supreme
| Court upheld their right to.
|
| I am opposed to the ban fwiw, but being able to overrule it is
| a pretty big power grab for the president
| _heimdall wrote:
| Didn't the law passed by Congress give the president the
| power to deem a service owned in part by foreign entities as
| a national security threat?
|
| I may very well have horribly misunderstood the situation,
| but I though Congress here only allowed the president to
| decide.
| spencerflem wrote:
| No, there was a similar one letting the president declare
| nonprofits a terrorist organization though.
|
| The TikTok one doesn't have input from the president, its
| all apps of a certain size owned by a country we dont like.
| Hence, Marvel Snap got banned too in the crossfire
| spencerflem wrote:
| My bad, its both actually. The law lists some criteria,
| unambiguously including TikTok and Bytedance by name, and
| then says the president can add more if they want, though
| this power has not been used yet.
|
| It sucks so hard how the Dems keep expanding the powers of
| the Pres right before handing it to Trump
| _heimdall wrote:
| It sucks that they're expanding the powers at all. It
| doesn't matter who has the power today, it matters what
| the next person may do. Both parties are bad about
| expanding federal powers, it isn't the fault of one side.
| jason2323 wrote:
| Embarrassing.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Entertaining. But then, I'm European far away from this orange
| man.
| jajko wrote:
| Nobody is far enough, not with that actual power. Everything
| is connected and ripple effects travel far.
|
| Plus our european politicians are weak and largely clueless,
| we will fold in front of China and let them roll over our
| automotive industry. There is war at our doorstep and enemy
| who repeatedly claimed he will wipe out half of our
| population, yet our reaction is next to 0, both immediate and
| long term.
| hbarka wrote:
| "Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX), the author of the bill to ban
| TikTok, owns hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Meta,
| one of TikTok's chief rivals. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
| bought up to $50,000 worth of Meta stock last January before
| voting to ban TikTok in April."
|
| Exhibit 1. https://www.capitoltrades.com/issuers/431610?page=2
| lm28469 wrote:
| To be fair they're all inside trading and most of them are
| corrupt. Time to wake up America
| mmooss wrote:
| That kind of comment has the opposite effect, it keeps people
| asleep with lazy (and corrupt) misinformation. Whenever
| people say 'they are all the same', they help cover for the
| actual bad behavior - it's now hidden among all the other
| behavior and not worth examining or pursuing, and
| rationalized.
|
| They are certainly not all the same. If you don't distinguish
| them, you cut down the people actually fighting on the front
| lines. It's friendly fire. They are shot in the back.
| lm28469 wrote:
| At some point you have to wonder if they're just not
| allowed to exist to allow plausible deniability...
|
| Either way it's clearly not going in the right direction
| when you have a guy selling cans of fucking beans from the
| oval office and launching crypto rug pulls
| MichaelDickens wrote:
| Suppose I wake up and discover that all congresspeople are
| insider trading. What do I do next?
| dymk wrote:
| Tell everybody else about it, because most Americans are
| simply unaware at how blatant the insider trading is and
| how it works.
| mft_ wrote:
| Well, you either join them [0, 1] (no affiliation to
| either) or support people trying to fight them? [2]
|
| [0] https://www.joinautopilot.com/
|
| [1] https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/
|
| [2] https://www.msn.com/en-
| us/politics/government/pennsylvania-l...
| woodson wrote:
| Shame that there's often a delay of 1-2 months between
| the trades and when they're disclosed, so the first
| option likely isn't going to work.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Pray for something very destructive to happen to Capitol
| Hill during a full session of Congress.
| jjeaff wrote:
| they aren't all corrupt. and for those that are insider
| trading, few are beating the market.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| That is a good point, the nance and kruz etfs aren't doing
| badly, but they aren't rockstars either.
| nextworddev wrote:
| that's like 300 shares at most.
| accrual wrote:
| Another:
|
| - Markwayne Mullin (R Oklahoma) purchased $15-$50k Meta stock
| on 01/02/2024 [0]
|
| A nice list: https://www.capitoltrades.com/issuers/431610
|
| [0]
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/3-politician...
| thrance wrote:
| Surely they are doing this to preserve free speech and for the
| security of hard-working freedom-loving god-fearing americans,
| and not for their own selfish interests.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I think they are doing it so the CCP doesn't have direct
| propaganda line into the home of most Americans. imagine how
| easy it would be to tip the algorithm scales to show, for
| example, stolen election conspiracy videos.
| airstrike wrote:
| A lot of people have some Meta shares. It's a widely owned
| stock.
|
| You may believe no member of congress should own equity in any
| company, but that's a separate issue
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| I think it's the 'bought shares', then _voted_ to ban a
| competitor that may be the issue.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| But you could also make money on Meta tanking if you had
| prior knowledge.
| gdhkgdhkvff wrote:
| Couldn't find recent info but back in 2014, Michael McCaul's
| net worth was in the hundreds of millions. Hundreds of
| thousands of dollars in meta stock doesn't seem like much for
| someone worth 1000 times that amount over a decade ago...
|
| Markeayne Mullin's net worth was ~$50 million a few years ago.
| $50k is 1/1000th of that networth also...
|
| That's not to say congress shouldn't be banned from trading
| stocks like every other profession that might potentially have
| insider info. They absolutely should.
| gdhkgdhkvff wrote:
| And in fact, currently 2.5% of the sp500 is meta. So if these
| guys just have 100% of their net worth in the sp500, they'd
| have more META than these two transactions.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Hundreds of thousands of dollars in meta stock doesn't seem
| like much for someone worth 1000 times that amount over a
| decade ago...
|
| That fact that it was a drop in the bucket for them makes it
| that much more outrageous, not less. It would have cost
| virtually nothing for them to avoid the appearance of
| impropriety, and yet they didn't. And why should they? There
| was no consequence. They are taunting us.
|
| If you or I trade off anything close to insider information,
| we'd be in jail and lose most of our (ostensibly much more
| limited) assets.
| gdhkgdhkvff wrote:
| "That fact that it was a drop in the bucket for them makes
| it that much more outrageous, not less"
|
| I disagree. I get the point that you're making. That they
| could have more easily NOT done it. But I would be a lot
| more ensconced if these people were putting up 50% of their
| net worth on these bets.
|
| And again, I fully agree that they shouldn't be able to
| trade individual stocks. In my past I was a dev at a
| private wealth management company. While working there I
| was completely barred from trading individual stocks
| because it's possible that I could have come across
| nonpublic info in the company because they would do
| internal audits for some entities. It made sense. Congress
| is an even bigger deal because they literally write the
| rules of companies that can affect stock prices. I was
| barred because I could have passively found nonpublic info,
| but they can actively cause the situations that cause price
| movement.
| nickvec wrote:
| It's still mind-boggling to me that those in Congress can be
| shareholders.
| simonsarris wrote:
| McCaul's net worth is estimated $294 million. His positions are
| a rounding error. That he owns so _little_ Meta is impressive.
|
| Mullin's net worth is 20-75 million. So up to 0.25% of his net
| worth if we use the low estimate is a Meta acquisition? Who
| cares?
| timewizard wrote:
| > His net worth was estimated at $294 million, up from $74
| million the previous year. In 2004, the same publication
| estimated his net worth at $12 million. His wealth increase
| was due to large monetary transfers from his wife's family.
|
| You do realize these people have friends and family.
|
| > Who cares?
|
| Insider trading deprives _all other_ legitimate participants
| of the market. That the trade is small relative to this
| individual net worth is meaningless. That is value that
| should have been captured by someone else taking a genuine
| risk. It's a thumb on the scale of the market and it is
| morally repugnant.
| simonsarris wrote:
| But it's not insider trading at this level, that's the
| whole point. This is a freakishly small amount of stock. At
| these levels he would own a lot more META if he just bought
| QQQ (META is 3.3% of composition) with a fraction of his
| net worth
| zackmorris wrote:
| Here's a video from March 14, 2024 on how Mike Gallagher
| (R-WI), who sponsored the H.R.7521 - Protecting Americans from
| Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, accepted his
| largest campaign contributions from Palantir, Google, and the
| American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC):
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@iancarrollshow/video/734642717587849...
|
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4jA_k8Pn12 (in case of
| censorship)
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/mike-gallagh...
|
| Looks like Steven Mnuchin, David Friedman and Yossi Cohen were
| also involved. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation
| League (ADL), said that "we really have a TikTok problem",
| since it's acting to alchemize the left-right political divide
| into a young-old one.
|
| The video says that pro-Palestine content is some of the most
| censored content there is, but despite that, a large number of
| TikTok users are supporting Palestine and questioning Israel's
| authority to continue hostilities. It suggests that silencing
| these objections to the Israel-Palestine conflict by preventing
| their discussion and spread is one of the primary motives for
| banning TikTok.
|
| I'm deeply disappointed in members of the Democratic Party who
| voted for the TikTok ban, whose actions call into question the
| integrity of their party and its priorities. I'm not as
| surprised by the actions of the Republican Party, which
| historically has sided with the establishment (Meta and other
| social networks under US jurisdiction), but openly voting for
| censorship in the face of calls to protect free speech from
| Donald Trump and Elon Musk is suspect.
|
| And I'm profoundly troubled by antisemitism and how
| whataboutism is clouding journalistic integrity. With
| derogatory comments about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
| (DEI) and wokeism becoming more prevalent, we should be mindful
| of the slippery slope from oppressed to oppressor. This is why
| we must always call out injustice in all forms, even when it's
| inconvenient to do so, or risk sacrificing our principles and
| eventually our freedoms.
|
| I'm reminded of the Paradox of Intolerance, that if a society
| extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks
| enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby
| undermining the very principle of tolerance:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Anyone that didn't see this coming is so naive- Trump only cares
| about optics. Look at the message when opening tiktok "Thanks to
| President Trump"... there is no way he didn't say "look, you HAVE
| TO PUT MY NAME OUT THERE or you are being banned".
|
| But yet morons will be like "trump saved tiktok!!!"
| IvyMike wrote:
| Big 1984 energy coming from this story.
|
| "It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big
| Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a
| week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced
| that the ration was to be REDUCED to twenty grammes a week. Was
| it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four
| hours? Yes, they swallowed it."
| ijidak wrote:
| Human society is collapsing.
|
| The stuff playing out on right now was science fiction when
| 1984 was written.
|
| This whole charade has had me laughing since yesterday.
|
| The Caesars of Rome often played these public games to make
| themselves look magnanimous, while at the same time
| consolidating power and control.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Sadly, Orwell was not hugely imaginative, he was just aware
| of things that happened in the Soviet Union.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| It's worth remembering that Orwell was a socialist, a
| leftist, and was anti authoritarian not anti communist.
| (Which isn't opposed to your comment, the Soviet Union was
| authoritarian.)
|
| It just gets brought up so often that because he was anti
| Soviet, he must be anti communist, which wasn't the case.
| pjc50 wrote:
| He was always socialist, but ended up as anti-communist
| after the Spanish civil war, during which while fighting
| for the Marxist POUM he had to flee a Stalinist purge.
|
| (Americans love to flatten all left parties into
| "communist", ignoring the rich history of ideological
| differences and occasionally violent purges)
|
| Huge fan of Orwell myself.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| See: his memoir "Homage to Catalonia," wherein he worked
| with the Communist Party of Great Britain to get him into
| Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where he fought with
| the POUM, a Spanish anti-Stalinist communist party
| (though he would admit that this was mostly by chance,
| and he himself was more aligned with the anarchists).
|
| He would say later, "Every line of serious work that I
| have written since 1936 has been written, directly or
| indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic
| socialism, as I understand it."
| (https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
| foundation/orwel...)
| gherkinnn wrote:
| So human society has been collapsing since Roman times?
| philjohn wrote:
| That's a particularly uncharitable take.
|
| If we assume good intent, what OP was getting at is that we
| had that form of governance, it failed, we then slowly
| marched towards democracy, and now it looks like a
| backslide.
| timeon wrote:
| Many certainly collapsed, Romans including.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| Distractions as usual for the minions.
| dailykoder wrote:
| >supreme court says that tiktok might be a threat to national
| security
|
| >yeah, let's just ignore that. Dance videos on tiktok are more
| important than security
|
| That's so f-in absurd. I can't even wrap my head around why
| anyone would literally protest against the ban. I just hope that
| germany, or rather europe, will have such a ban, too, and that it
| get enforced properly.
| logicchains wrote:
| National security is a load of crap. How can you still believe
| anything they say when the entire security establishment
| literally bold-faced lied about Iraq having weapons of mass
| destruction to justify a completely unnecessary war?
| baq wrote:
| Right out of the KGB and FSB playbook: feed them so much lies
| from all directions they stop trusting anything at all.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The legislators who voted to ban it based on national
| security better stand up next week. Biden and Trump both
| look incredibly weak. America looks weak. Democracy looks
| weak.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Between this and the Gaza ceasefire the outgoing administration
| is laying up political wins for Trump before he even takes
| office. An embarrassment for an administration that has
| completely failed to play the political game properly for years.
| And Biden was such a savvy operator before.
| mmooss wrote:
| Through this law, Trump will consolidate control over social
| media.
|
| Facebook and Instagram, via Mark Zuckerberg, and X/Twitter via
| Elon Musk, are already in Trump's camp and are helping him.
|
| This law gives Trump leverage over TikTok - their access to the
| US market will likely depend on serving Trump's interests. Like X
| and Meta (and other SV companies) operating in other countries,
| they will comply with local oppression. It's incredible that the
| Democrats keep handing victory after victory to their opponents.
|
| (Trump also is gaining extreme influence over professional news
| media, including Fox News and the WSJ, of course, but also ABC
| News, possibly CBS News, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, the LA
| Times, and many more. It may be time to stop the lazy criticism
| of the NY Times and start taking them seriously; they could be
| the only island left in the storm, and will be subject to extreme
| attacks.)
| hcurtiss wrote:
| By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we
| really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob
| subject to manipulation by propaganda? I sometimes cannot believe
| it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that
| simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic
| process. Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, they'd
| argue about _who_ gets to manipulate the mob. It 's just wild to
| me. If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole
| "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. Honestly,
| maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies in the face
| of the sanctity of voting and "democracy."
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to
| manipulation by propaganda
|
| Was this ever not the case?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| It was always like that.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This is the fundamental problem with American democracy and
| democracies all over the world.
|
| It only works if the voters are well informed, educated, and
| generally competent. Otherwise it's just a manipulation game
| where someone can lie and lie and lie and be elected
| president. And at that late stage phase of democracy, who
| gets to manipulate these people better is who holds power.
| 13415 wrote:
| That shouldn't be a problem, though. All it takes is to
| make sure that voters are informed, educated, and generally
| competent.
|
| On a side note, the same holds for market economy. Markets
| only work if consumers are informed, educated, and
| generally competent.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| I assume you are speaking about establishment politicians
| over the last 40-2000 years, but I suspect you are actually
| miming talking points about manipulation aimed at 1 very
| recent election where the established propaganda cycle
| failed to manipulate enough people and a different brand of
| manipulation brought in a different set of manipulators.
| Evidence of your own manipulated belief structures going
| without serious enough introspection to be held as a
| competent free agent
| saxonww wrote:
| Allegedly, the biggest concern this time around was the
| economy. Millions of people complaining about inflation
| and the cost of goods voted for a guy promising to raise
| tariffs, and a party that historically caters to big
| business. The same big business that has moved a lot of
| jobs overseas, and has lobbied to relax restrictions on
| visas to hire more foreign workers for onshore jobs.
|
| To me, this looks a lot like people voting against their
| own interests. I think that when people vote against
| their own interests, it's usually because they don't
| understand what they're voting for, i.e. it's an
| education issue. And it's not surprising that other
| people would be perplexed and frustrated by this.
|
| But maybe I've just been misled by the wrong propaganda.
| I guess we'll find out.
| YZF wrote:
| Are you trying to argue that (many) democrats and
| republicans voters in the recent elections were not
| generally manipulated by their respective sides? I don't
| think this holds water.
|
| Examples could be democrats control over Biden's health
| messaging or republicans repeating the message that the
| democrats are stealing the elections or democrat's
| messaging about if their side loses it's the end of
| democracy or republicans messaging about immigration,
| crime etc. Generally engaging at a shallow level with the
| goal of influencing people's emotions.
|
| I don't think this is a 40-2000 years phenomena. It's
| certainly become a lot worse since Trump ran for
| president the first time. I remember turning on TV in my
| hotel room during a visit to the US maybe 8 years ago and
| switching between CNN and Fox, each of these channels
| were basically about endless bashing of the opposite
| side. I wouldn't call the content anything other than
| brainwashing and propaganda. CNN didn't use to be like
| that. With social media since every user gets their own
| view we don't even know what the "hidden hand" is
| pushing. It's much worse and a lot more dangerous.
| eastbound wrote:
| Isn't that the premise of the Enlightenment? That's
| everyone will be well educated, or, if they're not, at
| least _they_ were the ones in control of their destiny?
|
| i.e. "You crazy, translating the bible to the plebs? What
| happens if stupid people get to choose for themselves?"
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Maybe not, but it strikes me as a really dangerous path. If
| we don't believe the electorate acts from a position of moral
| authority, but rather are downstream of elite power and
| influence, then there are other more direct ways of
| controlling populations. And they tend to be a lot more
| bloody.
| YZF wrote:
| It's the path we've been on for a long time and one that is
| made a lot more dangerous in the era of social media. Today
| more than ever people live in echo chambers and believe
| what they want to or what they think they need to so they
| can conform with their group identity. More than ever a few
| wealthy people or state actors have direct control over the
| reality people see without even the pretense of being
| "unbiased" media or any sort of ethical guidelines which in
| the past used to semi-exist for the traditional media/news
| etc.
|
| Propaganda's job is to influence those people who think
| they're acting from a position of moral authority but lack
| the education, or critical thinking skills, or access to
| information, to be able to see through the manipulation.
|
| I'm not sure what's the answer but I am sure this is not
| what the proponents of free speech had in mind.
| layer8 wrote:
| The reason the more direct ways are more bloody is why we
| want to stick with democracy. Democracy is supposed to be
| based on an exchange of ideas in an open discourse. This is
| why it's important to not let any one party have too much
| control over the discourse. That is also why freedom of
| speech exists. Somewhat paradoXically, banning a foreign-
| controlled platform can serve the same purpose as defending
| freedom of speech.
| saxonww wrote:
| Sort of?
|
| I think it's definitely the case that the group of voters in
| 1789 was much smaller and more homogeneous than it is today.
|
| I also think the nature of propaganda has changed a little as
| well. Today, messages can be delivered cheaply to everyone,
| everywhere, from anywhere, nearly instantaneously. There is
| far less of a propagation delay, and far less of a natural
| check on the rate and volume of propaganda.
| epcoa wrote:
| > Honestly, maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies
| in the face of the sanctity of voting and "democracy."
|
| Although some choose or have to squawk loudly about it, the
| sanctity of "democracy" is not universally or even widely
| accepted.
|
| To extend the Winston Churchill quote, it's mostly a charade
| but it's the best one we have (in my opinion).
| lazide wrote:
| At least someone has to (currently) manipulate the voters
| into voting a specific way, instead of just 'voting for
| them', or threatening them at gunpoint.
| nradov wrote:
| If TikTok was only targeted at _voters_ then I think there
| would be less of a concern. My issue is more with what it shows
| to children. Science and law recognize that children aren 't
| yet fully individual agents and are more susceptible to
| propaganda than most adults. Thus legislators and courts have
| been more willing to restrict commercial speech targeting
| children.
| atlintots wrote:
| If that is truly your primary concern, you should be more
| worried about Instagram. TikTok is much better in that
| regard. It has parental controls, a restricted mode, screen
| time limits, etc.
| danenania wrote:
| We should be worried about all of them. But a hostile
| totalitarian foreign government could have motivations that
| are a hell of a lot worse than maximizing
| engagement/profits.
|
| If the goal is to cause harm to the population (ala
| fentanyl distribution) rather than just to make as much
| money as possible, I'd say parents are right to be
| correspondingly more concerned.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Your comment made me realize that politicians stopped "think
| of the children" along with the rise of social media. Before
| the rise of big tech they would routinely slam their fist on
| the podium demanding that we think of the children.
| tims33 wrote:
| I agree with everything you're saying, but I also can't fully
| square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in
| China. This is about freedom of speech on app built by a
| country that has no freedom of speech. I realize this point is
| orthogonal, but is still an important element of the decision.
| marricks wrote:
| > also can't fully square up that the equivalent American
| apps aren't allowed in China
|
| It's a chance to showcase how we're "more free" or literally
| just as restrictive
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Or it's a chance to be "fair"
| talldayo wrote:
| The United States used to claim we had a laissez-faire
| market. We don't claim that anymore.
| tgma wrote:
| In founding of the United States lies tariff stories. The
| United States does not reject government and nations as
| entities at all. It just asserts rights for its citizens
| which doesn't include everyone on the planet.
| Retric wrote:
| At its core free speech is about the freedom from
| government influence and the complaint is about government
| influence.
|
| It's one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants,
| it's something else to allow them the ability to manipulate
| of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly
| restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more
| than it helps.
| logicchains wrote:
| It's not a highly restricted platform at all, there were
| literally videos of translated Hitler speeches trending
| with hundreds of thousands of likes, even though the CCP
| absolutely hates western nationalism.
| Retric wrote:
| Restrictions become more effective when they are less
| obvious.
|
| When as has been demonstrated their algorithm ignores the
| number of upvotes in favor of massively promoting
| viewpoints it cares about, that's also vast suppression
| of opposing viewpoints but in a way o get creators to
| quietly comply rather than try and push the boundaries.
| philipov wrote:
| China probably doesn't care about Hitler. How about
| Tiananmen Square? Do you see a lot of trending coverage
| on Hong Kong protests?
| robgibbons wrote:
| This is the platform that led to the proliferation of
| newspeak terms like "unalive" to circumvent content
| restrictions. Such speech restrictions were never a thing
| on FB, IG, X, or YT, yet this form of self-censorship has
| spread to those platforms anyway, because TikTok users
| have become so used to it.
| Timon3 wrote:
| While there aren't direct speech restrictions in
| platforms like YouTube, you're leaving out the crucial
| detail that mentioning words like "suicide" gets your
| video demonetized, which directly causes similar self-
| censorship.
| Retric wrote:
| YouTube pays creators based on advertising deals making
| some topics far more valuable, while other topics have
| become very sensitive to advertisers. That's related, but
| different from censorship.
|
| Creators are still free to use YouTube as a platform to
| discuss sensitive topics with a very large audience
| without paying per viewer, unlike say advertising or
| standing at a street corner talking to passersby. As such
| YouTube is still supporting the discussion and
| distribution of said content.
| marricks wrote:
| > https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/24/shadowban
| ning-...
|
| Maybe you disagree with the viewpoint or message, but it
| seems awfully paternal for such wide spread censorship.
|
| This is why we can't trust _only the US_ to provide us
| our social media and even if we don 't like who is
| offering it.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Allowing such a highly restricted platform
|
| Tiktok was and still is banned in China by the way.
| Retric wrote:
| Yea it's banned in India, Afghanistan, China and a few
| others. It's kind of an odd list, including democracies
| and autocratic governments.
| roca wrote:
| With or without Tiktok, the USA is nowhere near as
| restrictive as the CCP. The users who tried RedNote
| discovered that very quickly.
| VectorLock wrote:
| People trying to act like this Chinese controlled vehicle
| supports free speech is so weird to me. They're not
| "censoring" anything - they're using it as a straight
| unimpeded funnel to subvert the west.
| infecto wrote:
| The US does not need to showcase anything, they are
| magnitudes more free in speech than mainland China. To
| suggest otherwise is strange.
| moussess wrote:
| Here is a list on what restrictions Chinese citizens live
| with
|
| - Workers in state sectors can be banned from traveling out
| of China https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3265503/chinas-
| expanding-t.... Also, non 1st tier city citizens can have a
| hard time getting passports, essentially a ban of
| travelling
|
| - banned from using trains or airline if they are on the
| social credit score ban
|
| - banned from moving money out of China for more than $50k
| a year
|
| - banned from accessing foreign websites. VPN is
| technically illegal, and using it can get you into trouble
|
| - banned from accessing porn
|
| - banned from using a long list of restricted words on
| social media, from Winnie the Pooh, to "support Xinjiang
| people"
|
| - banned from using TikTok
|
| - banned from protesting against lost wages from state
| enterprises
|
| - banned from group protesting
|
| the list goes on and on and on
| marricks wrote:
| Ok, that's their country what does it have to do with us?
| Also why do we do this:
|
| > https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/24/shadowban
| ning-...
|
| This is why it's good to have a social media company free
| of US control.
| talldayo wrote:
| > Ok, that's their country what does it have to do with
| us?
|
| I mean, nothing really. You could say the same about
| Israel and Palestine, or Saudi Arabia and Iran, or China
| and Hong Kong. Human rights abuses are perfectly
| acceptable in today's society, as long as they're out of
| sight and out of mind. He who controls visibility into
| human suffering controls the way people perceive his
| control. _Hasbara_ , in Israeli vernacular.
|
| > Also why do we do this:
|
| Because Zionist lobbying exerts disproportionate control
| over both the US tech industry and the legislative
| apparatus regulating it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
|
| You're not going to drive a wedge between people by
| repeating the Israel stance, though. If you tried to
| expose China's same abuses for working slave labor to
| death or suicide, you'd be suppressed in exactly the same
| way America suppresses your anti-Israel content. From a
| national security perspective, TikTok's existence is
| about whether another country can impose their own
| double-standard on top of America's own populist opinion.
| Today it's the war in Gaza, but tomorrow it will be about
| suppressing democracy in Taiwan for the "betterment of
| global peace" et. al. You can't deny China's plans to use
| TikTok for war with a straight face - by many accounts
| it's already started.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| If stooping down to their level is the move we make, then we
| should immediately stop acting as if we are more "free" or
| democratic than China. You can't have it both ways.
| talldayo wrote:
| > then we should immediately stop acting as if we are more
| "free" or democratic than China.
|
| This is a histrionic response. America can still be more
| free and democratic than China while also enforcing a ban
| on their businesses.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Blanket censorship of this kind is not the hallmark of a
| healthy democracy.
|
| This ban is the definition of a slippery slope - this ban
| may be in your interests, but eventually one will not.
| What then?
| talldayo wrote:
| This isn't blanket censorship, period. Every single user
| that currently voices their stance, values or opinions
| can continue to do the exact same thing on any other
| platform they choose. Just not TikTok, because they are a
| business owned by an adversarial government that
| deliberately uses their soapbox to manipulate democratic
| audiences: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-
| rigged-romania...
|
| Also don't forget - TikTok has remediation options where
| they continue to operate in America as an American
| business instead. _They_ are the ones that refused that
| and chose censorship. America just forced the choice
| between eating the cake and having it.
|
| Edit: Correct, it is not. The part that is censorship on
| China's behalf is the enforcement of the Great Firewall
| and enaction of laws prohibiting citizens from owning or
| consuming foreign news or entertainment. China's ban on
| foreign apps could just as well be explained by a desire
| for better domestic software markets - the same cannot be
| said for the Firewall.
|
| Edit 2: Yes, secession would settle this. China has
| proven that they cannot be trusted to disseminate
| information through a state-owned apparatus. If the owner
| continues to be a government entity, then continuing to
| let them do "business" is like letting the Trojans wheel
| in their horse so the citizens can marvel at it.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| By the same token, the Chinese ban on US apps is not
| censorship, correct?
|
| So if you accept to cede control we will leave you alone.
| Blackmail, in other words, exactly like China does it.
| baq wrote:
| Feel free to record a 30s video on the topic of Tiananmen
| Square and post it on X, Facebook and Chinese TikTok.
| Report back with results in 24h. In the conclusions
| section, point out the difference between censorship and
| moderation.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| How about you record a 30s clip of atrocities committed
| by the IDF in Gaza and watch how quickly it will be
| "moderated" into oblivion.
| baq wrote:
| see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Not at all. I know that Chinese censorship exists. You -
| or others, lost track since multiple people are involved
| here - are the one who's trying to argue that US
| censorship does not exist, even in light of this TikTok
| ban.
|
| Also, you probably don't realize this, but censorship and
| moderation are many times two sides of the same coin -
| depending on the incentives and factors at play.
| baq wrote:
| Censorship is very strictly defined as government's
| doing. If this isn't your definition, we aren't even
| talking about the same things. I gave you a very concrete
| example with potentially serious consequences if you're a
| Chinese national posting in China vs somebody getting
| deprioritized on one platform in yours.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Here's a graphic one (it has a sensitive content
| warning):
|
| https://www.instagram.com/ajplus/reel/C0SHLYlSynD/
|
| Some others that aren't graphic:
|
| https://www.instagram.com/middleeasteye/reel/C6RA3X0v1-y/
|
| https://www.instagram.com/middleeastmonitor/reel/C4qXD7nv
| CLV...
|
| https://www.instagram.com/katiecouric/p/CyW65klxgjA/
|
| I'm not very familiar with Instagram, you'll have to tell
| me if those posts have been moderated to oblivion.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| I will try to reiterate my initial point since people
| keep losing track: banning TikTok is a slippery slope
| that moves us in the direction of China's GFW, and we can
| longer claim a moral highground once we do.
|
| As far as this ban goes, there is in fact a less
| emphasized angle that explains the strong bipartisan
| support for this ban (related to Gaza):
| https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-
| city/2024/05/06/senato...
| talldayo wrote:
| You seem to be unable to reconcile that China can use a
| platform with some positive aspects for ill. I abhor
| Israel's actions and the role of their extremist sects in
| rejecting international oversight. But I also abhor China
| for using prisoners, slaves and North Korean indentures
| to harvest Xinxiang cotton. These topics won't be given a
| fair shake on TikTok because China's focus is on which
| destabilizes America fastest, not which is the most
| popular among bleeding-heart liberals. Of course they
| selectively provide moderation support for offensive
| topics that makes America look bad - do the same thing
| for China or Bytedance and the double standard rears it's
| ugly head. It was never about free speech, just creating
| a cycle of dependency on China for news and opinions.
|
| On this basis alone, American consumer protections should
| have banned TikTok from the start. There is no tangible
| outcome where state-owned social media is given a
| holistic directive, especially not when China is the
| owner. I pity you for not keeping up with modern
| geopolitical tensions, but this is just the beginning of
| the "censorship" if you're reliant on China to voice your
| opinion. They had their chance to demonstrate detente,
| but they chose to fight instead.
| tgma wrote:
| You realize it was a representative-democratic process
| chose to enact TikTok ban, so your statement is _literally_
| false on that dimension alone.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| you're implying that these elections are on equal grounds
| with truthful candidates. I think that's a small part why
| America has become decreaingly distrustgul of politicians
| but still vote. Many people on both sides of the aisle
| have admitted 2024 felt like choosing the least bad
| candidate.
| tgma wrote:
| The root cause of this sort of comment is people often
| equate the outcome of democracy == good or desirable to
| them or even the majority, which is not necessarily the
| case. People can whine about the outcome of a democratic
| process all they want, which even if done perfectly could
| be a compromise that is distasteful to all parties but
| still democratic.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| You'd normally be right. But the US did just have the
| richest man in the world setup a lottery to buy votes,
| and walked it back to "oh it was rigged anyway" when
| called out on it. Any lawsuits is pennies compared to the
| results.
|
| It was subtle before with stuff like Gerrymandering that
| the layman would never notice. But it's so blatant now
| that the democratic process is compromised.
| VectorLock wrote:
| When he got away with calling the Thai diver "pedo guy"
| using the "lol jk" defense then he knew he could get away
| with anything.
| wavemode wrote:
| > you're implying that these elections are on equal
| grounds with truthful candidates
|
| Where exactly is the commenter implying this?
|
| No political process on Earth, democratic or otherwise,
| has ever met this standard.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| But is it the Will of the People?
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Yes. I also realize that a democratic system allows for
| making decisions that do not align with such a system,
| and can in fact destroy such a system from within.
|
| Is this not what we have all been saying about Trump? Or
| are you saying that is OK because his moves have been
| made within the framework of a democratic system?
| tims33 wrote:
| Is allowing them to impose the same kind of restrictions in
| their US app as they do for their own citizens good for
| free speech?
| robterrell wrote:
| This is an incredible point. Instead of using this crisis to
| pressure Beijing to crack open the China market to US
| companies or even just get some concessions, Trump just
| folded to look like a champ.
| punpunia wrote:
| Really? It is the most base fact that people can be manipulated
| by the ideas of others. Creatures trying to convince other
| creatures of one thing over another is just part of being a
| living animal. But the idea that people want to control who
| says what is wild to you? It flies in the face of the sanctity
| of "democracy"? Don't you think that's a bit of a hyperbole?
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| You act as if individuals and a mob are mutually exclusive. Who
| do you think makes up a mob?
| Frost1x wrote:
| That's sort of the ironic bit. IMHO it's been this way for
| awhile, but because it was pretty much as you described ("the
| elite") with the reigns we pushed the argument that voters were
| individual agents.
|
| The genius in strategies enemies are using are leveraging the
| exact same levers already being leveraged against be populous:
| free speech as a roadway for propaganda,
| misinformation/disinformation, and widespread social
| manipulation.
|
| There was a time when it was more difficult to scale these
| sorts of strategies so there may have been an illusion of
| agency. Also, a hundred years ago issues were a bit less
| complicated/nuanced so your voters could probably wrangle ideas
| intelligently more independently.
|
| I also suspect the corporate undermining of the general
| population for their own wealth grab has weakened the country
| as a whole, including the voter base. We want to undermine
| education at every turn and stability of your average citizen
| so they can be more easily manipulated. That comes at a cost
| because once we're in that position, whose to say youll (the US
| elite) will be the ones with the reigns? By weakening the
| population for your own gain, you open up foreign adversaries
| to do the same and they're doing just that.
|
| We should focus on improving general education and the
| populations overall stability/livelihood. That has to do with
| pushing back on some of the power grab the ultra wealthy have
| taken, at the populations expense. These are of course just my
| unsubstantiated opinions.
| quasse wrote:
| > voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to
| manipulation by propaganda
|
| Who is even saying this is _not_ true? The United States
| government is more aware than maybe anyone else that
| influencing human opinion and action is a statistical problem
| once you have enough scale.
|
| Just look at the history of the USIA [1] and its successor the
| USICA.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agen...
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| There are hundreds of HN users commenting here as if their
| opinions have meaning and value.
|
| Which would be in question if they could all be under various
| states of "influence"...
|
| At the very least the median credibility would be roughly
| zero.
| mesh wrote:
| Just because you share an opinion does not mean that
| opinion has not been shaped, directed or influenced.
|
| "The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments
| politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a
| given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse.
| "
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
|
| and
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
| XorNot wrote:
| Also HN absolutely has an Overton window. It has an
| entire system to enforce it (the voting and points
| system).
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Did you reply to the correct comment?
|
| You don't need to convince me that is a possibility.
| puffybunion wrote:
| You pose this as a mathematical question but stop far short
| of it's full extent
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| And today's Bureau of Global Public Affairs[1]. Which
| "engages media to shape the global narrative on American
| foreign policy and values [and] communicates U.S. foreign
| policy objectives to the American public." Of course, it's
| difficult to pierce the veil and determine exactly _how_ they
| go about doing this. Narratives are propaganda.
|
| https://www.state.gov/about-us-bureau-of-global-public-
| affai...
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| Chase Hughes:
|
| "Manipulation Playbook: The 20 Indicators of Reality Control"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AN2wY4qAM
| lucianbr wrote:
| I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the
| people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not
| true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not
| a mob.
|
| Otherwise, if democracy is good and votes should matter and
| at the same time voters are a mob subject to manipulation...
| democracy is what? A system of government by whoever can do
| better propaganda? Why would that be good for anyone except
| those who do propaganda?
|
| So yeah, I think many people are claiming that is not true.
|
| One question I would ask if people are just a mob, who is
| actually pushing the buttons? Owners of media, political
| leaders, are also humans, no? They have the same weaknesses,
| at least in principle.
|
| If you accept some people are different (those who command
| and control propaganda) then we must conclude that not all
| people are vulnerable to it, so maybe it's a spectrum. But
| still democracy sounds like a bad idea, as a majority are
| probably on the low end of the spectrum, and the majority
| rules.
| aydyn wrote:
| > I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of
| the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is
| not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents
| and not a mob.
|
| I think that is a pretty hardline interpretation, but
| there's another way of thinking about it:
|
| democracy has worked pretty well up to now and there hasn't
| been a better replacement.
|
| That doesn't mean it will continue being a good solution as
| technology and society change.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| > That doesn't mean it will continue being a good
| solution as technology and society change.
|
| Yea neo-feudalism seems to be all the rage these days.
|
| Democracy is not a given, people with power want more
| power and less checks - historically that's what things
| converged to typically.
| lossolo wrote:
| Democracy is not a new concept, just current
| implementation is different. Democracy, in some form,
| dates back over 2500 years to ancient Athens (circa 5th
| century BCE). Around 1500 years ago (~500 CE), formal
| democracy as it existed in Athens had largely faded,
| particularly with the decline of the Roman Republic (509
| BCE - 27 BCE), which had elements of representative
| governance. It struggled with corruption, inequality and
| power struggles, so all the problems that are getting
| stronger with time in our democratic systems. The idea of
| democracy reemerged during the Enlightenment (17th-18th
| centuries) and became formalized in modern political
| systems - United States (1776) and revolutionary France.
| We live in cycles, democracy probably will fade again,
| and again it will be considered anarchic and unstable
| until the cycle repeats itself.
| Swizec wrote:
| > I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of
| the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is
| not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents
| and not a mob.
|
| Both are true. We are individual agents _and_ a mob.
|
| Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system
| except for all the others. At scale people on average
| behave about average and make decisions perfectly aligned
| with their systemic incentives and available information.
|
| You (and me) are not immune to propaganda.
|
| Strong recommend watching/readingupon Manufacturing Consent
| and Chomsky's life work in general.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I have a hard time taking Chomsky seriously after he felt
| his need to make his uninformed opinions on Russia's
| aggression and AI public.
|
| Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know
| because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon. But
| that he wrote so poorly on two topics he has little
| experience with does him no favors.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know
| because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon.
|
| My entire life anything I hear from him has been
| misinformed and anything I hear about him is "Chomsky
| disproven". I have to imagine whatever he was known for
| happened before I was born - which I've never been
| exposed to. Granted I've never sought it out either.
|
| To me he feels like an academic Kardashian: Famous for
| being famous, and it's not really clear how it started.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| I think he just went a little loopy with old age
| corimaith wrote:
| >Was Chomsky ever an expert?
|
| Chomsky is a Linguistics Professor, he has no formal
| training in media or political theory. So yes, he is not
| an expert, and funnily enough he's the kind of leftist
| who straight up admits he is biased and selectively picks
| facts to support this arguments.
| ossobuco wrote:
| > Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political
| system except for all the others.
|
| Honestly it would be about time we stop repeating this
| Churchill's quote as if it's one of the ten commandments.
| The man wasn't certainly a god and humans are often
| mistaken.
|
| The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the
| people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral
| system.
|
| I'd argue in your average western democracy the people
| have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes
| to reinforce the illusion.
| Swizec wrote:
| > The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the
| people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral
| system.
|
| Correct. "we" used to do it simply by killing the leaders
| that were disliked. Elections are a bit friendlier than
| that :)
|
| You might enjoy this Zizek video on the border between
| the west and the balkans: https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo .
| I think he captures the sentiment well.
|
| > I'd argue in your average western democracy the people
| have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes
| to reinforce the illusion.
|
| This was Chomsky's whole point in Manufacturing Consent.
| ossobuco wrote:
| I think then we can agree that if the people hold very
| little power, what we have today in the west is
| definitely not democracy.
|
| A study[0] came to the conclusion that the US is in fact
| closer to an oligarchy, and I'd extend that to most other
| so-called democratic countries. The interests of a few
| always trump the interests of the many.
|
| In this context, that Churchill's quote seems out of
| place and mostly serves the purpose of shutting down the
| discussion.
|
| And thanks, I very much enjoy that Zizek video.
|
| - [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-
| echochambers-27074746
| jaredklewis wrote:
| > I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of
| the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is
| not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents
| and not a mob.
|
| Disagree. Democracy can basically be mob rule and still be
| "good" if mob rule is better than alternatives like "divine
| right of kings," "rule by military despot" and so on.
| jorvi wrote:
| You are so close to breaking through..
|
| > Otherwise, if democracy is good and votes should matter
| and at the same time voters are a mob subject to
| manipulation... democracy is what? A system of government
| by whoever can do better propaganda? Why would that be good
| for anyone except those who do propaganda?
|
| Yes. And you are already waking up to that in your next
| question.
|
| > One question I would ask if people are just a mob, who is
| actually pushing the buttons? Owners of media, political
| leaders, are also humans, no? They have the same
| weaknesses, at least in principle.
|
| > If you accept some people are different (those who
| command and control propaganda) then we must conclude that
| not all people are vulnerable to it
|
| Why would those who do propaganda not be susceptible to
| disinformation, or the Dunning-Kruger or Gell-mann Amnesia
| effects? Every person is susceptible to disinformation. The
| difference is that those in power can disseminate
| disinformation at scale.
|
| > so maybe it's a spectrum. But still democracy sounds like
| a bad idea, as a majority are probably on the low end of
| the spectrum, and the majority rules.
|
| Hence "tyranny of democracy". Many places in the First
| world are now experiencing this, where 'green' programs and
| and social progress are being dismantled en masse because
| of a slight majority. Worst of it is, long term these
| decisions will carry a massive financial burden. The LA
| fires with $250 billion+ in damages are a herald of that.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I think Democracy is critically important. However, the
| main reason I believe this is because Democracy allows for
| the transfer of power without violence. That's THE value
| prop.
| cakealert wrote:
| And corruption carries a tax. On balance, it's difficult
| to win a popularity contest if the press exposed you as
| corrupt.
|
| Anyone who thinks democracy is good because individuals
| are good at making decisions is naive or worse.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Anti-populists don't realize the danger they pose to the
| order they claim to protect. The foundation of Western
| political order is the idea that the only legitimate
| government is one run _by_ the people and therefore _for_ the
| benefit of the people. Even if this model is, to some degree,
| merely aspirational, it provides a source of legitimacy and
| an outlet for frustrations.
|
| When anti-populists treat the public with naked contempt and
| divorce government policy from the preferences of the people,
| they're demolishing load-bearing pillars of the order that's
| allowed the West to prosper.
|
| What do you think happens when people realize that
| "democracy" is a sham in the sense that their preferences
| don't translate into the rules they follow in daily life?
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Exactly. They murder the elites.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| The word populist has ended up with a confused set of
| meanings (intentionally). What we have now is a war between
| different groups of elites, both sides co-opting populist
| ideals and language, and blaming the people for the other
| side's efforts to destroy democracy.
|
| Realistically we do not have a single group running in the
| US with the intention of delivering on the people's
| preferences or with an intent to deliver a government that
| functions more democratically. Both are increasingly
| authoritarian in the name of populism.
| quotemstr wrote:
| > The word populist has ended up with a confused set of
| meanings (intentionally). What we have now is a war
| between different groups of elites
|
| Of course. The masses never exercise political power
| directly. As you point out, it's disaffected factions of
| the elite that claim and wield the moral authority of the
| masses to defeat other elites. It's been this way since
| the Optimates and Populares persecuted each other in a
| centuries-long spiral of escalating stupidity culminating
| in political upheavel.
|
| Nevertheless, disaffected elites can't swing the club of
| popular opinion against other elites with any effect
| unless there is some non-zero dot-product alignment
| between their governance and popular opinion. In exchange
| for at least partially enacting popular policy, upstart
| elites get a tool for deposing other elites. The people
| win in the end.
|
| Fantastic book: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Order-
| Decay-Industrial-Glob...
|
| (Yes, Fukuyama was wrong about the end of history. He's
| atoned for it and more.)
| philipov wrote:
| > _a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?_
|
| This idea goes back to the founding of the nation. It's the
| very reason we have an electoral college.
| eikenberry wrote:
| And the reason we didn't have universal suffrage.
| olalonde wrote:
| Bingo. I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed
| to be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that
| people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions.
| If we truly trust in that, the source of the influence -
| foreign or domestic - shouldn't matter. People who advocate for
| censoring foreign sources of influence are implicitly admitting
| that they don't trust their population to think critically.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| You could ban every non-ethnically Chinese channel to push
| Chinese superiority. That would be bad, right?
|
| And before you say, "but they're not doing that", remember
| that we're discussing how this _theoretically_ could be a bad
| thing.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Exactly. To the degree elections are not rooted in a
| competition of ideas and individual agency, but rather are
| downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other
| more direct means of controlling populations, all of which
| tend to be a lot bloodier. All of this strikes me as a really
| dangerous path.
| luckylion wrote:
| Are lies ideas? In a competition of "ideas", if one side
| lies, is it still a fair competition, or are they cheating?
| Should it be a fair competition?
| hcurtiss wrote:
| That angle would work if there wasn't so much
| disagreement about what constitutes lies. After the last
| few years, I am definitely not interested in having
| government actors decide for me what amounts to the
| truth. Personally, I suppose I much prefer a competition
| of ideas -- and the ability to decide for myself.
| luckylion wrote:
| I think there's a reasonable argument that part of that
| disagreement is a result of the hybrid warfare that is
| being fought over the information and opinions of
| citizens in many countries. We know about a few of these
| where hyper-partisan influencers were paid by Russia (or
| entities closely connected to the Russian government, if
| you insist on nuances) to spread Russia's viewpoints and
| attack social cohesion in the US. Is that a competition
| of ideas?
|
| Facebook and Twitter have in the past banned networks of
| account for inauthentic behavior. In other words:
| individuals (and you can probably narrows this to
| residents or citizens) are allowed to speak their mind
| and try to convince others of whatever they believe, but
| it has to be them, they cannot use bots, multiple
| accounts etc. It's not an easy thing to filter, of
| course. But pretend that it was, would you agree with
| that approach?
| threeseed wrote:
| > I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to
| be a bad thing
|
| Because people are not capable of being informed on every
| topic in the world.
|
| Especially in a world that is increasingly more complex and
| nuanced.
|
| And this ignorance has been demonstrated to be exploitable in
| order to tear apart societies.
| baq wrote:
| Read some books. 1984 would be a good start.
| datavirtue wrote:
| That was a story to reach simple minds. No one in this
| forum needs 1984 to inform them of the methods and outcomes
| of propaganda.
| photonthug wrote:
| Don't worry, chomskys manufacturing consent is also
| mentioned as relevant reading elsewhere in this thread,
| and then rejected, naturally on the grounds that learning
| stuff about propaganda might be propaganda
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| > implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population
| to think critically
|
| I think that is the case though. I will come off as arrogant
| and my lack of vocabulary might make it sound less elaborate,
| but a huge chunk of the population is not able or willing to
| so. This is why every time a country is facing a crysis, the
| populist politicians gain in popularity. People are already
| stressed out by their jobs, paying the bills, rising cost of
| living, so who wants to spend time and effort to research the
| causes of this, evaluate which proposed solution seems most
| realistic, what the tradeoffs are, compared to the dude who
| tells them that the problem is very simple and that he has
| the solution that is equally simple. It's the immigrants
| stealing the jobs, or the heat pumps forced upon them, or
| solar cells.
|
| And it doesn't even need foreign social media to come to
| that.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Easy: reach the future electorate when they're pre-teens and
| feed them influences that eschew critical thinking as a core
| value.
|
| If you can believe that lead pipes contributed to the
| collapse of the Roman Empire... well, let's just say the
| Internet is a series of tubes.
|
| The concerns about TikTok merely as a _propaganda_ platform
| are naive and almost quaint when considering what might
| actually be happening.
| datavirtue wrote:
| You just described the corporate propaganda that
| generations of Americans have been bathed in.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| You make a good point. A crucial difference, however, is
| the types of entities and their motives.
|
| A conventional U.S. corporation's motive is to generate
| profits. Efforts stemming from that motive have not
| always been in the public interest, and such cases are
| worthy of regulatory attention, but they typically do not
| present national security risks. In odd cases where
| pursuing profits could create national security risks,
| Congress has sometimes intervened, such as when Nvidia
| was banned from selling certain processors to certain
| countries.
|
| A geopolitical entity is not a profit-motivated
| corporation, so the risk model is different, with
| national security factors being more salient.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable
| of reasoning and forming their own opinions. If we truly
| trust in that, the source of the influence - foreign or
| domestic - shouldn't matter.
|
| Sure, but then why is electioneering banned by polling
| places? Or why is voter intimidation illegal? You have the
| draw the line somewhere.
|
| > are implicitly admitting that they don't trust their
| population to think critically.
|
| A democracy that is NOT a direct democracy is already
| admitting this. This is exactly the reason we have proxies in
| a representative democracy.
| sdwr wrote:
| You got it, it's about playing by the rules. A robust
| culture of propriety is one line of defense against _the
| bad times_ , and we're losing it.
| drdaeman wrote:
| > people are capable of reasoning and forming their own
| opinions
|
| The problem is that people aren't ideal rational agents. Our
| collective reasoning tends to be heavily biased by the
| environment, and that there are actors who abuse this (by
| injecting ideas that indirectly help their agendas) for their
| personal gains. And in China's case, they want to undermine
| freedoms, including freedom of speech.
|
| We can consider ourselves as "rational, critical thinkers"
| all we want, but we aren't as there are myriads of ways we're
| gullible in one way or another. Plenty of examples in our
| history books.
|
| Still, I think that free speech is still more important, as
| it's the only way for a society to recover. With freedom of
| speech, an antidote (for a lack of better term) can
| eventually be found and injected into the public discourse,
| without it the future looks bleak.
|
| The way I see it, we need to encourage improvement of
| education on social sciences, human psychology, game theory
| and so on, encourage critical thinking but forewarn of all
| possible fallacies, and hope that it will be enough and that
| the inevitable counter-reaction won't prevail and undermine
| the effort.
| vkou wrote:
| Okay, but why is Chinese influence any worse than that of
| some Australian billionaire who owns the biggest right-wing
| media conglomerate that broadcasts an absolute firehouse of
| damaging, divisive, and self-serving lies?
|
| If TikTok is harmful to democracy, Fox News is more than an
| order of magnitude worse. A large portion of the electorate
| watches its insanity like a full-time job.
|
| Most enemies of democracy, when measured by impact are
| 'domestic' and 'western', not some Chinese boogieman.
| drdaeman wrote:
| My personal opinion? It's not significantly different. Or
| maybe it is, but, at least, I don't see a need (and a
| meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness.
|
| Malicious agents have no nationality, race or some single
| origin. All they share is the mindset and some values,
| willing to abuse the system for personal gains or flawed
| misbeliefs (for a lack of better word - beliefs that are
| known to contradict our collective scientific
| understanding of the world).
| photonthug wrote:
| > I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a
| scale of maliciousness.
|
| I'm constantly amazed by how easily even smart people
| will retreat into whataboutism, and this is the most
| polite way I've ever seen to call them on it.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I can see how my poor choice
| of words possibly led to this interpretation.
|
| I wanted to say that I believe it doesn't matter who does
| something, only what they're doing. So the same standards
| should be applied uniformly, irregardless of the actors'
| identity.
|
| Ideally, by no means entity X doing something we consider
| negative should absolve or justify entity Y's negative
| (similarly or different) actions.
| photonthug wrote:
| Certainly. I get that, I'm just saying you are remarkably
| patient to be willing to actually explain this to other
| people. Maybe you're not familiar with the term:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
|
| Personally I'm inclined to be more blunt and impatient.
| Whataboutism is intellectually lazy in the best case, in
| the worst case it means the interlocuter is manipulative
| or just actually operating at the emotional level of a 5
| year old. Good people just don't like bad behaviour..
| they won't wait around to find out which team committed
| the bad behaviour, and they won't refuse to fix 1 evil
| until another 2nd evil is addressed first, etc. Also
| relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_t
| he_Poisoned_Arrow
| VectorLock wrote:
| One is the sworn enemy of the western democratic system,
| and one depends on it.
| vkou wrote:
| Alt-right billionaires don't depend on democracy, all
| other things being equal, they'd much prefer an oligarchy
| with them and their friends at the top, and it's why many
| of them want to steer towards it.
|
| Throughout history, big business and the mega-rich have
| regularly backed coups and authoritarians, compared to
| their democratic alternatives. It's a much better system
| for them than one where each person gets one vote,
| because there's a lot more of us than there are of
| them[1].
|
| ---
|
| [1] When times get tough, in a democracy, it becomes
| difficult for them to justify why they get to take three
| quarters of the pie, while the rest of us fight over
| scraps.
| xphos wrote:
| I think there is also a lot to say that your speech is
| hardly free if you are drowning in tons of bot created
| content regardless of who is generating that content. I
| feel there is not to many good compromises that can be made
| it :*(
| drdaeman wrote:
| Sowing discord is the well-known age-tested strategy. It
| doesn't remove freedom of speech per se, but it drowns it
| in the noise.
|
| The very goal of this attack on the freedom of speech is
| to make people lean towards the easiest and "naturally
| occurring" pseudo-solution to make those bots shut up.
| Then abuse the same censorship mechanisms to control the
| discourse.
|
| Sadly, I don't know how to solve this. Censoring speech
| is a non-solution. Building web of trusts will inevitably
| create even stronger information bubbles (making it
| easier to divide and conquer - we're seeing this
| happening).
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| plenty of dangers, but considering what people actually do
| and care about on TikTok, I wouldn't really compare this to
| Facebook.
|
| >People who advocate for censoring foreign sources of
| influence are implicitly admitting that they don't trust
| their population to think critically.
|
| Tbf, America did spend decades tearing down education to help
| support that conclusion.
| motorest wrote:
| > I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to
| be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that
| people are capable of reasoning and forming their own
| opinions.
|
| You should invest a minute thinking about the problem. Pay
| attention to your own opinion: people are capable of
| reasoning and forming their own opinions. Focus on that. Now,
| consider that propaganda feeds false and deceiving
| information to the public. In some cases, the decision-maker
| is only exposed to propaganda. Even if that decision-maker is
| the most rational of actors, what kind of decisions can he do
| if they are only exposed to false and deceiving information?
|
| There are plenty of reasons why libel and slander are
| punishable by law. Why do you think they are?
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| >There are plenty of reasons why libel and slander are
| punishable by law. Why do you think they are?
|
| Also note: nobody is cracking down on libel and slander on
| social media because we consider internet publishers
| "common carriers" when infarct the should be held
| accountable for the things they promote.
| motorest wrote:
| > Also note: nobody is cracking down on libel and slander
| on social media because we consider internet publishers
| "common carriers" when infarct the should be held
| accountable for the things they promote.
|
| The "common carrier" status of services which hold
| editorial control over the content that's pushed and
| promoted is highly dubious.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Truth is subjective.
| motorest wrote:
| > Truth is subjective.
|
| Any belief supported by lies and falsehoods cannot be
| described as truth. It's something else.
| bdangubic wrote:
| opinion is subjective, truth means (can't believe I have
| to write this) _that which is true or in accordance with
| fact or reality._ and it is not objective unless you live
| in a fantasy world half+ of this country lives in
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to
| be a bad thing.
|
| It would be less of a problem if US platforms were allowed
| into China to influence the Chinese too.
| phatfish wrote:
| Does everyone think critically and rationally? If not how
| many don't (especially during key election periods) and can
| this group cast an oversized influence on election results or
| public opinion?
|
| Having the choice of two options at the ballot box, and
| social media meaning many people now form political opinions
| from anonymous accounts online does not fill me with
| confidence.
| msravi wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| Yes, it is. Always has been.
|
| > threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a
| cynical view of the democratic process
|
| > then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite
| power
|
| You'd have to have fallen hook, line, and sinker with America's
| propaganda to actually believe that democracy is NOT a cover
| for retaining control over a population.
|
| The US has been playing this game in other countries for a
| while now, to keep a check on who comes to power and who does
| not (always using support for democracy as an excuse).
| Gautemala, the arab spring, bangladesh - these are just some of
| the examples. And it's become very blatant of late.
| stouset wrote:
| > ...aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents
| but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| ...yes? Is that even slightly controversial? If it wasn't the
| case, why would propaganda even exist?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Theres an implication that The Internet meant we have a
| commons connecting the world that no one country can
| completely restrict. But a commons too important to all
| modern societies to blanket ban. In theory we should be less
| susceptible to propoganda than ever since we can see multiple
| viewpoints and interpretations in minutes. As opposed to
| being beholden to maybe 3-4 mainstream news programs on
| television.
|
| Human nature proves to fall quite short of that ideal,
| though.
| shawnz wrote:
| That's the entire reason for representative democracy over
| direct democracy
| kybernetikos wrote:
| I'm not sure it is- even if you think the electorate are
| educated and competent, it still makes sense to delegate the
| specific decisions to a smaller set of individuals who are
| given the time and resources to get into the detail. It just
| scales better.
| rendx wrote:
| Excuse my European ignorance, but in what way is a system a
| "democracy" where one person can overrule actual democratic
| structures? The power centralized into one person is unheard of
| in what I would call "democracies".
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Of course propaganda works. That's why companies spent tons of
| money on ads.
|
| Of course it also works on politics, especially if people don't
| trust "traditional" media, but arbitrary publishers (there's
| room for a guiding which is more trustworthy)
|
| History over and over has shown that a public can be led into
| their own demise, including brutal war.
|
| How much active influence China takes I don't know (and I never
| used tiktok) but we are certainly in a time of massive
| disinformation and denial of facts. Globally.
| cdrini wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| I disagree with this interpretation. It's creating a sort of
| false dichotomy -- voters can still be individual agents AND
| ALSO they can be manipulated by propaganda. And the key is that
| propaganda doesn't have to be wildly successful in order to
| impact a democratic process. It just has to convince enough
| people to sway an election. That is, and always has been, one
| of the trade-offs of democracy. That's why we say "democracy
| needs an informed electorate to survive" -- because an informed
| individual is less likely to be easily manipulated.
| lolinder wrote:
| Ad-funded social media platforms make money by measurably
| altering people's opinions and behavior. It's literally their
| only job--everything else is in service to that goal.
|
| Given that this is what they do day in and day out and that the
| successful ones are by all metrics very good at it, it seems
| totally reasonable to assume that one could trivially be turned
| from manipulating people into buying stuff to manipulating
| people to voting a certain way or holding certain opinions.
|
| One person one vote is the guiding principle of democracy and,
| yes, it assumes that no person is able to actively hijack
| someone else's vote for their own gain. We have systems in
| place to prevent voter fraud, and I think that we should have
| systems in place to prevent systematic individual targeting of
| individuals for algorithmic manipulation as well.
|
| What we don't need is a law that specifically targets foreign
| companies doing it. Our homegrown manipulators are just as
| dangerous in their own ways.
| motorest wrote:
| > By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy,"
| aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| Did you already forgot about the episode about Haitians eating
| everyone's pets? Based on that episode alone, what's you
| observation?
|
| > I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about
| threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical
| view of the democratic process.
|
| You should take a minute to think about the underlying issue.
|
| Propaganda is a massive threat against democracy and freedom in
| general. If a bad actor invests enough resources pushing lies
| and false promises that manages to convince enough people to
| vote on their agent, do you expect to be represented and see
| your best interests defended by your elected representatives?
|
| Also, you should pay attention to the actual problem.
| Propaganda isn't something that affects the left end of the
| bell curve. Propaganda determines which information you have
| access to. You make your decisions based on the information you
| have, regardless of being facts or fiction. If you are faced
| with a relentless barrage of bullshit, how can you make an
| educated decision or even guess on what's the best outcome? You
| cannot. The one that controls the information you can access
| will also control to a great degree your decision process.
| That's the power of disinformation and propaganda, and the risk
| that China's control of TikTok poses to the US in particular
| but the free world in general.
| mbesto wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| If you want to view it that way, sure. But I could also just
| say you and I are both sacks of blood filled flesh.
|
| > Rather than tackle the narratives substantively,
|
| Meta (et al) are just AS guilty as TikTok. The difference is
| substantial and subtle - the US government could conceivably
| sanction a US-based entity to the point of them not existing. A
| chinese based one doesnt have to play by the rules. Fine them?
| No problem, their gov has an immeasurable amount of money. The
| only option is to simply not let them play at all.
| serbuvlad wrote:
| The advantage of democracy is that the propaganda game gets
| played every few years and current elites can lose. Under a
| system of freedom of speech, there is very little stopping a
| decently (but not massively) funded rag-tag group of competent
| individuals from running a more efficient propaganda campaign
| than the powers-that-be (think of Dominic Cummings' Leave
| campaign in the UK for the perfect example).
|
| This is the best system we have found to establish the
| impermanence of the elite class. Because this is the real
| beauty of what we in the west call democracy: not the absence
| of an elite class, for there is no such system, but it's
| impermanence.
|
| And while that is all well and good within a country, the
| argument is that it would be unwise to allow a foreign hostile
| power a seat at our propaganda game. Especially one which does
| not reciprocate this permission.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| This is a thoughtful reply. But, if it's just propaganda
| games played by the elites, I suppose another way to ensure
| informed outcomes might be literacy tests. Or property
| ownership.
|
| I guess more than anything I'm just surprised that it's the
| "threat to democracy" crowd that would be taking such a
| cynical view of democracy. They're admitting that Trump's
| propaganda was just better than theirs. Which is, in some
| ways, hilarious.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yep, it basically amounts to agreeing 100% with the Chinese
| justification for their great firewall, which is that a free
| internet is subversive to their national interest and to their
| citizens. But Americans will argue that it's somewhat
| different, since when they do it it's not dystopian or
| something
| corimaith wrote:
| By resorting to walled gardens that by definition have to
| provide a filtered experience via algorithms rather than raw
| experience of older internet forums and image boards, haven't
| many of these voters already made that choice of being wanting
| to be manipulated?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole
| "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power.
|
| yeah. They don't necessarily want nor care to inform of the
| truth. they want that sort of manipulation as much as any other
| billionaire. Heck there's a good amount of people who simply
| want to be told what to do so they don't have to worry about
| the big stuff.
|
| There's a reason many almost always choose convinience over
| anything else when working in practice.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Of course voters are subject to propaganda.
|
| YOU are subject to propaganda. Yes, you.
| samr71 wrote:
| I enjoy seeing HN independently rederive much of NRX thought
| via this situation.
|
| In unrelated news, anyone see that NYT interview with Yarvin
| yesterday?
| layer8 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| The one where Curtis made a fool of himself and his poor
| understanding of history?
| mesh wrote:
| >voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to
| manipulation by propaganda
|
| That has nothing to do with China.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
| simion314 wrote:
| Why is illegal to put false stuff on products label, like food
| or medicine? Where is the free speech to lie and manipulate the
| user? With your point of view the EACH user should somehow find
| the skills to analyze and review each product each time they
| user or trust some other persons word.
|
| The algorithm is not a person to have free speech, my issue is
| with the algorithm, I am OK with the village drunk to post his
| faked documents but I am not O with state actors falsifing
| documents then same state owned actors abusing the algorithm to
| spread that false stuff. So no free spech for bot farms and
| algorithms, they are not people (yet)
| aredox wrote:
| Yes. This is well known since Antiquity when the Athenian
| Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death.
|
| Read more about the period and you will see that the Democratic
| cities of yore, Athens first and foremost, often swinged
| towards taking bad decisions, and that a whole corporation of
| "sophists" manipulated public opinion without shame (read e.g.
| _Gorgias_ ).
|
| The great progress that enabled the restoration, extention and
| stabilisation of Democracy in the modern era has been indirect,
| representative democracy and base, written bill of
| rights/constitutions that aren't asily modified, requiring
| majorities of 2/3rds or more and constraint what can be voted
| on.
| regularization wrote:
| Qhat you doesn't make much sense, starting with your claim
| Plato was sentenced to death by Athenian democracy, which
| there is no evidence of that I know of.
| SubGenius wrote:
| > ...when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to
| death.
|
| That was Socrates, not Plato.
|
| Socrates was allowed to choose his own punishment too, so he
| wasn't exactly condemned to death right away. He also had the
| opportunity to escape prison. He chose not to.
| philipov wrote:
| The one condemned to death was Socrates. Kind of weird for
| that to be the detail you get wrong...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to
| manipulation by propaganda?
|
| That is true, yet it's not incompatible with democracy. In the
| US Horace Mann established the foundational link between
| education and democracy. It's why civics and other forms of
| intellectual self-defence are essential.
|
| The problem with social media (and BigTech lazy "convenient"
| non-thought) is not that it's a propaganda conduit as much as
| that it's antithetical to critical thinking. It's more complex
| than simply the content, it's the form too.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy,"
| aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| Well, we don't know what was said in the classified meetings,
| but yes, we know that propaganda works.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| We do have laws around elections like the equal time rule.
| Should we remove that too?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
| leot wrote:
| If I were the CCP this is perhaps the cleverest talking point I
| could have possibly come up with, propping up TikTok while
| simultaneously condemning democracy.
|
| But to substantively respond: NO. This is exceptionally naive.
| Democracy assumes shared fates and aligned incentives among
| (both voting and communicating) participants. A foreign
| adversary mainlining their interests into half the population
| of the US absolutely violates this assumption.
| Salgat wrote:
| This sounds like an emotional appeal rather than anything based
| on science and fact.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda"
|
| Yes, that is correct.
| simonsarris wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| Like we've been saying since the founding of the country? yeah
|
| "The body of people ... do not possess the discernment and
| stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that
| they are frequently led into the grossest errors by
| misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own
| good sense must despise." -Hamilton
|
| The founders did not think that electoral college was a good
| idea, senators should be appointed and not elected, and only a
| few citizens should be able to vote generally, because they
| were feeling mean. They did so because they thought these
| things and the act of voting itself were simply instruments to
| produce good government. They rejected a democracy, and favored
| a republic, for this reason.
| patcon wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| Yes, exactly.
|
| A symbiotic view of life: we have never been individuals
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235518850_A_Symbiot...
|
| I have it on personal experience that DARPA seems to be
| enthusiastically funding more digital twin and collective
| intelligence projects than ever. Simulated virtual publics are
| going to become more common in both war and politics.
| Collectives are going to be the driving force of the coming
| century, and the sooner the American public evolves beyond
| fetishizing the individual, the better.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| The existence of democratic sociopolitical structures does not
| preclude the existence of targeted mass propaganda, or the
| weaknesses of the human psyche. Nor vice versa.
| ben_w wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| I take the view that the reason freedom of speech is important
| at all, is that people can be convinced to act in certain ways
| by speech -- if it couldn't lead to action, no dictator would
| fear it.
|
| We, all of us, take things on trust. We have to. It's not like
| anyone, let alone everyone, has the capacity -- time or skill
| -- to personally verify every claim we encounter.
|
| Everywhere in the world handles this issue differently: the USA
| is free-speech-maximalism; the UK has rules about what you can
| say in elections[0] (and in normal ads), was famously a
| jurisdiction of choice for people who wanted to sue others for
| libel[1], and has very low campaign spending limits[2]; Germany
| has laws banning parties that are a threat to the
| constitution[3].
|
| I doubt there is any perfect solution here, I think all only
| last for as long as the people themselves are vigilant.
|
| [0] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-
| elections/...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism
|
| [2] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-spending-and-
| pr...
|
| [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68029232
| coliveira wrote:
| The US gov has just made the case for banning US owned social
| networks around the world, because they truly believe that
| social networks is a way for a foreign agents to interfere in
| local politics.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| > China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy"
|
| And has there ever been an example for that or is it just a
| hypothetical scenario?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| > aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but
| rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
|
| I invite you to consider the possibility that this is true.
| That at the population level, propaganda actually works. This
| would support the fact that it's been a key tool used by
| regimes (including ours) since before the printing press was
| invented.
|
| I don't really know for certain whether this is accurate, but
| it's hard for me to look around the world at global politics
| and determine that it isn't.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _aren 't we really saying voters are not individual agents
| but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda_
|
| Part of the reason Western democracies are failing is we forgot
| that pure democracy _doesn't_ work. The founders described this
| amply in the Federalist Papers. Democracy tends towards tearing
| itself apart with partisanship and mob rule.
|
| It's why successful republics have mechanisms to cool off
| public sentiment, letting time tax emotions to reveal actual
| thoughts underneath (see: the Swiss versus Californian
| referendum models); bodies to protect minorities from the
| majority (independent courts); _et cetera_.
| mppm wrote:
| I do find people's faith in Democracy, as opposed to
| Authoritarianism, somewhat exasperating. Two candidates, pre-
| selected by the powers that be to lead the nation, compete in
| inane televised debates, wave flags and make promises that
| everyone knows they are going to break. This everyone debates
| hotly, and then lines up to register one bit of Holy Democratic
| Choice, to be averaged with a hundred million similar bits to
| determine, by a margin of a few percent, the one and only
| legitimate Government of the People, by the People, for the
| People. My Ass.
|
| In the end, "democracy" is about power and control, just like
| any other form of government, and the TikTok ban is just
| another power-play, however it may be justified publicly. Not
| that I'm overly sorry to see it banned, by the way :)
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Until very recently, "Democracy" was a dirty way to describe
| a government. It was in the same class of failed government
| models as tyranny, the rule of the mindless mob.
| mppm wrote:
| Maybe, but my point is that democracy is not even the rule
| of a mindless mob, more like mob rule theater. Ruling
| implies receiving information and performing complex
| actions and giving many and nontrivial orders. From a
| purely information-theoretical perspective, it requires _a
| lot_ of entropy flowing from the decision maker to
| subordinates. On the other hand, national elections collect
| a tiny pool of entropy from the supposed root source of
| power and legitimacy, the people. This is not enough to
| rule a country, by many orders of magnitude. The country is
| instead ruled by ambitious individuals, who seize power in
| various ways - connections, backroom deals, backstabbing.
| Some participate in the election theater.
| imiric wrote:
| Why is that so hard to believe?
|
| For more than a century now the advertising industry has
| perfected mass psychological manipulation that aims to separate
| the masses from their dollar. These tactics as pioneered by the
| likes of Edward Bernays were plucked straight from the
| propaganda rule books, which has been successfully used for at
| least a century before that. We know that both propaganda and
| advertising are highly effective at influencing how people
| think and which products they consume. It's a small step then
| to extrapolate those techniques to get vast amounts of people
| to think and act however one wants. All it requires is
| sufficient interest, a relatively minor amount of resources,
| and using the same tools that millions of people already give
| their undivided attention to, which were designed to be as
| addictive as possible. We've already seen how this can work in
| the Cambridge Analytica expose, which is surely considered
| legacy tech by now.
|
| I'm honestly surprised that people are in desbelief that this
| can and does happen. These are not some wildly speculative
| conspiracy theories. People are easily influenceable. When
| tools that can be used to spread disinformation and gaslight
| people into believing any version of reality are widely
| available to anyone, it would be surprising if they were _not_
| used for this purpose.
|
| > If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole
| "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power.
|
| Always has been. It's just that now that we've perfected the
| tools used to sway public opinion, and made them available to
| anyone, including our enemies, the effects are much more
| palpable.
|
| I hope Zuckerberg and friends, and everyone who's worked on
| these platforms, some of which frequent this very forum,
| realize that they've contributed to the breakdown of
| civilization. It's past time for these people to stop selling
| us snake oil promises of a connected world, and start being
| accountable for their actions.
| hinkley wrote:
| Why do you think The Rule of Law exists? Large groups of angry
| people often make bad decisions with long term consequences. We
| have known this forever.
| astee wrote:
| Yes. But we're talking about children too - not just adult
| voters.
|
| And the app collects every click, every face photo, all
| contacts, every keypress on external links, everything. The
| full social graph, shaping the trends of the younger
| generation.
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| The winner of the election is often the party that spent more
| money on political advertising, so I'm sure this is a well
| known phenomenon.
| sega_sai wrote:
| For the record -- the law for TikTok divestment was not passed on
| its own, but was instead included in the foreign aid (including
| Ukraine) package
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-...
|
| It is not clear if it would have passed if not that procedural
| trick... So one has to take this into account when considering
| 'bipartisan support' of the thing.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| >so one has to take this into account when considering
| 'bipartisan support' of the thing.
|
| I do not. I can hold a person accountable to their vote on this
| legislation. Their vote on this legislation caused the Supreme
| Court to release an opinion that affects every citizens 1st
| amendment rights. Now if they released a statement at the time
| condemning this while also talking about the importance of the
| aid they might have some leeway.
| yreg wrote:
| Accountable for sure, but it's less clear who was in favour
| and who was against the bill compared to if it wasn't bundled
| together.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Thanks for this. It's the first I've heard of it.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Yes it was included in a foreign aid package to make it more
| palatable to Congress. Advocates of the bill on this site are
| not bringing that up because they support the bill.
| kristjansson wrote:
| Standalone vote in the house was pretty supportive and
| bipartisan too https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| This is a misleading view of history. It is true that it was
| included in the foreign aid package, but it was also passed
| overwhelming in a bipartisan manner before that for the bill
| alone.
|
| 90% of Republicans in the House voted for it. 73% of Democrats.
|
| https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202486
|
| It is very clear that it would have passed without that
| procedural trick, because it already did.
| dluan wrote:
| Now post the lobbying money received by lawmakers, as well as
| their history of trades of Meta stock.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| > but was instead included in the foreign aid (including
| Ukraine) package
|
| I don't know why these kinds of shenanigans are still possible.
| It makes a complete joke of politics and legislation (and by
| extension: law).
|
| I know I'm shouting at clouds here, and I know the reason is:
| the sheeple don't care enough to change this thing for the
| better. But I still feel the need to point it out.
| mixxit wrote:
| what about all the american apps that have no service in china
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Interested. What about them?
| bamboozled wrote:
| I think the criticism is that China can buy a seat at our
| table through flattery, and likely other favours , but we
| can't? So we're potentially corrupted / compromised, and they
| aren't.
| xyst wrote:
| TT playing both the public and politicians for their gain. Well
| played.
|
| Biden admin wasn't going to enforce ban but TT soft shutdown
| yesterday with message pandering to incoming admin (broadcasted
| to hundred millions of users).
|
| High suspicion of political theater.
|
| I wish ppl would see through this and realize this is yet another
| distraction to divide us via culture war.
| SCPlayz7000 wrote:
| TikTok has no say in our government due to Chinese equals Chinese
| and America equals America. It's our app store. 1st amendment
| applies to Our country.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| The security concerns about TikTok has merit but I'm surprised
| given the reputation of HN, nobody is connecting the dots to
| lobbying from Israel as a legitimate reason. In fact in all the
| past few threads about TikTok ban there is almost no mention of
| it. There have been numerous strides to push China as the sole
| reason but there is almost no real risk other than China
| knowing what you are into to show you more of the same content
| exactly how social medias are designed to work in America.
|
| Tiktok views with #freepalestine tags eclipsed
| #istandwithisrael by nearly 200 to 1 (videos with pro-Israel
| views got low single digit millions while videos with pro-
| Palestine views got nearly 200 times that) and THIS is a better
| explanation for the panic and why essentially lobbying for the
| ban of TikTok using China isn't a conspiracy theory (especially
| since it was discussed by a few US media outlets) and that this
| really in an attempt to keep young people exposed to an
| uncensored and unfiltered platform which inevitably causes them
| to grow more sympathetic with Palestine.
|
| It's censorship disguised as a national security threat for a
| totally unrelated motivator and once again, I'm disappointed
| more HN users especially those that have been on this website
| far longer than me were able to connect with all their wisdom
| they exude in other areas.
|
| https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1880888299080098163
| alt227 wrote:
| > there is almost no real risk other than China knowing what
| you are into to show you more of the same content
|
| The risk here is China having the ability to sway and
| manipulate opinions of young minds in US over years by
| controlling what information they see on a daily basis. That
| is an extraordinary power which should not be underestimated.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| The algorithm simply shows you more of what people end up
| seeing and footages that otherwise would never be aired or
| shared on mainstream media and other US platforms (even X)
| is what is causing young minds to shift.
| alt227 wrote:
| I think you are misunderstanding the dangers of 'the
| algorithm'. It does not simply show you more in the same
| vein as what you have already watched, it is designed to
| provoke a reaction in you. To make you watch more
| content, or to post comments, engage in arguments and
| debates, all to keep you on the platform to make you
| watch more adverts.
|
| The way it does this is to not show you more of what you
| have already seen, it is to identify what gets you worked
| up, and to exploit that by showing you progressively more
| and more extreme content. It highlights more provocative
| comments to you that are more likely to make you post an
| emotional response and engage in a long intense debate
| that causes more clicks and posts, and feeds more of your
| emotion back into 'the algorithm'. This is a dangerous
| spiral which can easily turn somebody who might have a
| weak opinion on something, into a mouth frothing raged
| keyboard warrior.
|
| This is very powerful and dangerous, and it is purposely
| designed like this.
|
| Allowing the Chinese government to have this power over
| young US minds? Thats what this is all about.
| GordonS wrote:
| I think many people are aware that Israel is the real reason
| behind the ban - the don't want the world to see how truly
| grotesque the apartheid state of Israel really is. I mean,
| some of what's happened is so utterly vile I'm not sure I'd
| have believed it if I hadn't seen/read/heard in on social
| media with my own eyes - especially when the MSM is so
| incredibly, overtly pro-Israel.
|
| I think people who know about Israel's involvement in the ban
| don't mention it here on HN, because many Hasbara are here
| with the same tired lies, deflection, hatred, racism, and
| accusations of antisemitism.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >It's our app store.
|
| Who is 'our' referring to?
|
| Alphabet and Apple? Then its their app store.
|
| TikTok has never been open source.
| lumost wrote:
| This seems to imply that the president elect can make unilateral
| guarantees contravening US law. That's a surprising outcome.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| If this stands, it certainly is. It's a mockery of the whole of
| the system. Congress better act on overturning it post haste or
| enforcing it post haste.
| samr71 wrote:
| They only have one option for the next two years: Impeach and
| remove. GOOD LUCK LMAO
| HaZeust wrote:
| To be fair, he's already been impeached twice; this
| wouldn't be anything new to anybody.
| LastTrain wrote:
| "and remove"
| HaZeust wrote:
| Third time is the charm!
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yes, the republican dominated congress and senate are
| certain to do that. It's very clear this puppy has no
| bottom.
| kristjansson wrote:
| The law gives him some power to grant a 90-day reprieve, iff he
| makes some 'certifications' to congress w.r.t. progress toward
| compliance.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| Why is it surprising? He's a convicted felon and a grifter.
| nottorp wrote:
| Are they going to do this daily from now on? Turn off turn on,
| turn off turn on...
| TomK32 wrote:
| Just a quick reminder: Tik Tok (a service by a Chinese company)
| is still blocked in China.
| 13415 wrote:
| That's very sad news.
| kittikitti wrote:
| The only thing I would have respected Trump for was the TikTok
| ban and now I don't have any. Trump loves fake news and brain
| rot, I was naive to think he would keep TikTok banned.
| afinlayson wrote:
| So the person who's not currently president saved a service
| turning off that didn't need to be turned off... sounds like
| marketing more than anything.
| randerson wrote:
| From China's perspective, I wonder if there's a workaround to
| sell 50% of TikTok to a US public company, and then through a few
| intermediaries purchase a large enough holding in _that_ company
| to give them a board seat or two.
| SOTGO wrote:
| I believe that they are required to have no more than 20%
| ownership by "foreign adversaries"
| wnevets wrote:
| I'm curious to know how all of those pearl clutchers who got
| super mad about Twitter removing dick pics of Hunter Biden are
| doing.
| whoitwas wrote:
| Alright. Hundreds or thousands of Chinese trackers on every
| military base in the world. Perfect.
| mpalmer wrote:
| The US military independently banned Tiktok on all personnel
| devices half a decade ago.
| layer8 wrote:
| How do they enforce the ban?
| bdangubic wrote:
| by dishonorably discharging :)
| whoitwas wrote:
| That's good. So it should be banned on military bases, why
| not elsewhere?
| rwietter wrote:
| But what about national security?? LMAO, political populism for
| the manipulable idiots.
| submeta wrote:
| > ,,China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy,"
|
| This is grotesque. Israel is massively influencing US foreign and
| domestic policy via AIPAC and other lobby groups. AIPAC pays US
| politicians significant amounts of money, practically buys them.
| And they are not even registered as foreign entities, something
| JFK wanted to enforce before he was assassinated.
|
| So who is really manipulating US policy.
|
| And this is the exact group that put pressure on US universities
| to suppress free speech and on US policy makers to sent Israel
| weapons worth billions to kill thousands of Palestinian
| civilians.
|
| Now start your downvotes.
| nikkwong wrote:
| The level of naivete in this discussion is absolutely astonishing
| to me. People are seeming to forget that dysfunctional states
| (totalitarian, facist, the like) all are sprung from one common
| thread: control of the mind through propaganda. We already have
| evidence that the CCP or otherwise is manipulating Tiktok's
| algorithm to influence American minds [1]. This was one study, by
| one relatively small and underpowered organization. That's to
| say, there's probably a lot that we've yet to unearth about how
| the algorithm is manipulated; or how the CCP is planning to
| manipulate it to further their agenda at the expense of an
| American one.
|
| It's simply unbelievable to me that a sophisticated community
| like HN is against a ban in the context of all of the meddling
| our biggest rival, China, has done in our country to our direct
| disadvantage. Russia and China's main M.O. has been to divide us;
| to sow discontent. And they've been pretty successful. Who knows
| if Trump would have been elected without the Russian election
| interference. Trump has been a divisive figure who has reveled in
| destroying social order and he has done so successfully; the
| amount of hate and distrust for one's opposing political party is
| at an all-time high in the US, and it shows. This is to say that
| China and Russia have already been very successful in their
| attempts. In China Xi likes to say that "The East is rising, the
| West is falling". This is completely his M.O. and part of his
| plan.
|
| And now Trump, aware of all of this, is attempting to bring
| Tiktok back. Knowing everything he knows about it's use and
| potential future use of a propaganda machine. And knowing full-
| well that this is good for the East, and bad for domestic civil
| peace of mind and social order. And in the most Trumpian way
| possible, _he doesn 't care_. And he's doing it for the most
| selfish reason possible--to feed his hero complex. Full. Fucking.
| Stop. This is such a glaring advertisement that he will do
| whatever he can to put his interests and reputation first over
| our country's and it's absolutely sickening.
|
| And the fact that there is actual debate and discussion around
| this issue on HN is just such a shocker. Again, this community
| should know better about how dangerous propaganda is, amplified
| by the fact that it's propaganda from our most rapacious,
| unethical and conniving enemy. An enemy that is planning wars of
| conquest, who's starving and torturing parts of its population.
| You want that enemy deciding what your kid spends an hour a day
| watching on their phone, while you're not paying attention? Yeah,
| good luck with that.
|
| https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o...
| imiric wrote:
| Hear, hear.
|
| > this community should know better about how dangerous
| propaganda is
|
| Bear in mind that a large part of this community is employed by
| the same companies that built the tools used to spread
| propaganda and disinformation. It wouldn't be in their interest
| to disclose that they're part of the problem, so it's easier to
| ignore that the problem even exists.
| nikkwong wrote:
| People seem to discount the way they are influenced by the
| media they are served. I'm seeing a lot of comments about
| "free agency" and how "people make up their own minds" rather
| than 1 to 1 believing what they read. This argument just
| ignores human nature. We evolved to catch onto ideas, good
| and bad, and be able to rationalize them in ways that often
| ignore the true outside state of the world. In this light we
| should strongly critique those who are the purveyors of
| information. Although I have many criticisms of even those
| who are serving information domestically, the idea that we're
| going to trust a malicious foreign actor with molding the
| shape of our minds is just nonsensical.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| excuse my ignorance..
|
| AFAI-remember years ago Trump was "fired" out of presidency
| before end of mandate, AND banned in biggest social networks.
|
| Now he is playing president before officially entering a mandate,
| AND around that those same social networks bosses are cringeing -
| just in case?
|
| That's two things, one that the exact boundaries of period of the
| mandate doesn't seem to matter, and second, the social-media BS-
| dancing thing..
|
| so who's in charge ?
| samr71 wrote:
| The American People
|
| Source: US Presidential Election 2024 - Trump: 77,302,580, 312
| EC - Harris: 75,017,613, 226 EC
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Anyway, how many TRUMP coins did this cost them?
| czhu12 wrote:
| Whether you support trump or not, the level of patronage that
| corporations seem to think is needed is disturbing. I've never
| seen companies stoking a presidents ego so publicly.
|
| If there comes a day in the future where the header of every
| major website starts says "Long Live Donald Trump", we will all
| be worse off for it.
|
| I've been extremely surprised how eagerly people have accepted
| this as a new normal. I can't imagine it's in the long term
| interest of billionaires to be labeled as oligarchs by half the
| country.
| ericyd wrote:
| I'm not clear how Trump's assurances mean much in the face of a
| law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. I guess
| we're already in an autocracy controlled by a person not even
| formally in power yet?
| elfbargpt wrote:
| Clearly US lawmakers were convinced they could easily force
| ByteDance to divest by issuing an ultimatum. They were never
| prepared to actually see a ban of TikTok
| siliconunit wrote:
| when the state if the nation is so bad that you have homeless
| everywhere, healthcare, housing and education are something you
| have to fight for, prisons are a business, suddenly another
| perspective seems more alluring, a modern Nordic socialism?
| putting a brake to unhinged late stage capitalism? or on the
| darker side, a promise of better conditions in 'some ways'...this
| is no national security risk, people are getting simply fed up
| with appalling state of the nation.
| jdlyga wrote:
| The TikTok ban is worse for national security. It's trading in an
| imagined threat for a real threat. Though Xiaohongshu is having a
| cute little cultural exchange between Chinese people and
| Americans, there's so much more Chinese propaganda on that
| platform. I got recommended a few videos talking about
| Chinese/American wargames and how Americans were done for due to
| ultrasonic missiles and naval capabilities. You never see
| anything like that on TikTok. And the only reason Americans are
| exploring that platform is because of the TikTok ban.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| "But what about!?!?"
|
| If a significant number of users were to join another foreign-
| owned platform with similar issues, it is likely that such
| platform would be banned as well, if it is not already banned
| under FACAA.
|
| TikTok is an issue in large part due to its popularity.
| cbzbc wrote:
| > I got recommended a few videos talking about Chinese/American
| wargames and how Americans were done for due to ultrasonic
| missiles and naval capabilities.
|
| You get those on youtube as well, for every combination of
| large power, I'm not sure why that its own should be a red
| flag.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Trump just issued a personal statement. Not even as president.
|
| It is still a Law.
|
| TikTok is still banned, the Supreme Court upheld it.
| nico wrote:
| Not worth it going back to TT. Will just stay on RedNote
| BrenBarn wrote:
| It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a
| free speech/democracy issue. To me it's more like if newspapers
| were printed with toxic ink or something. The negatives of TikTok
| have nothing to do with the speech expressed by the "creators" on
| the platform, but rather with the overall harmful effects of the
| algorithmic firehose.
|
| It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be
| banned as well, but banning them isn't a matter of suppressing
| the speech and letting TikTok continue isn't a victory for free
| speech. It's just a victory for a gross sort of psychological
| pollution.
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| Where's the smoking gun for these privacy issues? Why hasn't
| the FBI or anyone else investigated and discovered these
| issues, if they exist?
| secstate wrote:
| Because the Chinese Communist Part is not stupid enough to
| just exploit their leverage over sovereign nations for shits
| and giggles. You don't need a smoking gun to understand how
| corporations in China operate. They operate with the blessing
| of the CCP, and regardless of whether they've ever done
| anything, the scale of what they could do if they wanted to
| would be some spectacular lessons in modern propaganda.
| c0nducktr wrote:
| This is simply more of the same fearmongering we've heard
| before. Not an answer to their question.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| The fear is justified though. We fix security holes
| because they are security holes, not because they have
| been exploited before.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The US has very little privacy law.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| >the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose
|
| What material effects are those?
| speff wrote:
| A diminished attention span. Assuming that's still considered
| a harmful effect.
| dagss wrote:
| There is by now "free speech" being published for every
| single combination of personal interests, demographic, and
| personal opinion and personality traits.
|
| If you wanted to push, say, white supremacy, to a trans
| mountain bike riding sci fi fan -- I am sure the content that
| will do that job is out there. Not with 100% certainty but
| enough to control a population. The question about
| controlling the population is only about picking the right
| reels to show to whom in what order.
|
| If you control the algorithmic firehose and control who sees
| what, you basically control the minds of the population.
|
| Not by explicit propaganda. Only by nudging and bumping
| content.
|
| People can make conscious decisions to not want their
| worldview defined by traditional sources, whether it is Fox
| News or The Daily Show or whatever. But with TikTok everyone
| gets something different and who knows how it is geared or
| rigged.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| One way the free speech angle might make sense is that TikTok
| (and other foreign-run social media) normally aren't as
| susceptible to domestic pressure to throttle, shadowban, etc
| certain types of content (like airing of some politician's
| dirty laundry).
|
| I could absolutely see that being the case. Trump and the
| Republican Party now have a solid thumb on US-based social
| media via Musk/Zuck, which makes lack of control of foreign
| social media more of a pressuring issue than it had been
| before. It looks bad if the popular discourse taking place on
| uncontrolled media differs wildly from that on its controlled
| counterparts.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _TikTok (and other foreign-run social media) normally
| aren't as susceptible to domestic pressure_
|
| TikTok has been uniquely subject to political pressure over
| the last half decade. They didn't buddy up with Larry Ellison
| because Oracle has the best servers.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| At least for the time being, traditional media outlets don't
| seem to have a problem airing US politicians' dirty laundry.
| blahedo wrote:
| > _It 's true that this means all similar US-based things
| should be banned as well_
|
| Or... regulated? I'd be all for privacy regulations and data
| handling regulations that would affect the algorithms of
| _everyone_ but as long as the law is targeting TikTok only and
| not also FB, Insta, Twitter, etc, the idea that this ban is
| about "the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic
| firehose" is a total red herring.
| packetlost wrote:
| It's not about the algorithmic feed, it's about allowing your
| #1 adversarial state to have control over that algorithms
| parameters. They don't let Twitter, Google, or Meta operate
| in China.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| To me it's more like a newsstand selling only aliens magazines,
| bigfoot books and sexy (but not yet porn) magazines.
|
| Every magazin with a title "bigfoot found!" reveals another
| "mermaids discovered" magazine, and below that a "tony blair is
| a reptilian, proof inside", and if people want to stay there
| and consume all the magazines, why not? In the end, there's
| more quality content there, than on discovery channels (ancient
| aliens, mermaids, etc.)
|
| not even joking:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/
|
| ...
| gklitz wrote:
| > The negatives of ~Tiktok~short form videos have nothing to do
| with ...
|
| It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when
| meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the
| same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and
| corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which
| literally just boils down to "you likely like the same stuff as
| people who like the same stuff as you".
| redcobra762 wrote:
| You really can't tell the difference between Americans doing
| it and a foreign nation doing it?
| geysersam wrote:
| It's not like the American companies have their users best
| interest at heart either! They're literally bound by law to
| prioritize their shareholders interests.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Of course we can. But the hypocrisy shows how the
| government doesn't actually care about the health of
| citizens or society. If they did, they would start with
| regulations on algorithmic feeds as a first principal, then
| ban companies that don't comply.
|
| And that could include writing the regulations in such a
| way that ByteDance couldn't possibly comply, because of
| their ties to China. At least we would clean up our own
| home too in the process.
| redcobra762 wrote:
| To rephrase my question: can you really not tell the
| difference to democratic health between Americans doing
| it and foreign adversaries doing it?
| og_kalu wrote:
| Well you should be far more wary of what your government
| will do with such data than a foreign one continents away
| but i don't think that's the difference you were looing
| for.
| jmye wrote:
| "Intentionally trying to destabilize the country and trying
| to sell you things are literally identical issues."
| geysersam wrote:
| As if America needs foreign influence to destabilize...
|
| I'd sooner blame viciously profiteering corporations and
| blatant disregard for democratic values among a significant
| fraction of American politicians.
| dagss wrote:
| The odds are just lower that Google and Meta would rig the
| algorithm to subtly color peoples opinion in favor of China
| and Russia.
|
| If TikTok is doing propaganda by subtly promoting some reels
| over others -- who would know? Why would they not be doing it
| and how can anyone know they are not already doing it?
|
| Not anything blatant of course. Blatant stuff does not change
| peoples opinions anyway. Just subtly bump some reels that has
| been proven to shift a demography in a certain direction.
|
| TikTok has all the data it needs to work with the minds of
| people and also all the ability. And China has the
| motiviation..
|
| Of course Google and Meta might promote other goals in their
| algorithms, but the chances of a leak of that happening is
| definitely higher in current American companies
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong but TikTok was never forced to shut down
| for US users, it was just going to be removed from the stores and
| unable to be updated.
|
| Is it back on the stores or not? Because if not, nothing about
| the ban has changed, it's only that TikTok undid the decision
| that THEY took to shut down.
| tempeler wrote:
| This operation seems a bargain for buying Tiktok, nothing more.
| The main contradiction is preventing competition and being a
| monopoly. The government is trying to prevent more competition
| and create more confort zones for monopolies. They don't care
| about free speech. Finally, they are part of this business.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I guess we know now why TikTok voluntarily went dark.
|
| Wonder which companies will be assured by TikTok's assurances
| there will be no consequences for helping them break the law.
|
| I just hope this causes congress to dig their heels in again.
| Almost can't believe what I'm seeing.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| In a sane world Congress would be furious at the executive
| overreach.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I don't remember the last time either party called out their
| colleagues for questionable use of executive orders, but to
| do so would require principles, and we haven't seen those in
| decades either.
| ijidak wrote:
| This whole charade has had me laughing since yesterday.
|
| The Caesars of Rome often played these public games to make
| themselves look magnanimous, while at the same time consolidating
| power and control.
|
| Julius Caesar's rise to power is one example.
| phatfish wrote:
| So Tiktok is the slave that got the thumbs up?
| polalavik wrote:
| sources?
| Havoc wrote:
| Sounds like a great PR success.
|
| People love being on the in circle of something "naughty".
| yreg wrote:
| Is TikTok currently available in the US App Store and PlayStore?
|
| I can maybe understand ByteDance breaking the rules on a promise
| from the president elect that it will be alright.
|
| I would, however, never expect Apple or Google to take that
| liability (while not getting much out of it).
|
| edit: It seems that the TikTok app has indeed not been reinstated
| in the stores yet.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| Not only that but will American advertisers take the risk of
| allowing their ads to continue showing to American audiences,
| or for us based payment processors handle in app payments
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against
| arbitrary censorship."
|
| That hit's different from Chinese company. lol
| fullshark wrote:
| Words don't mean anything, they are just tools to win PR
| battles.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| Couldn't agree more
| dankle wrote:
| Sad
| spacecadet wrote:
| I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I tend to believe most
| can be boiled down to power and/or stupidity. Which is what I see
| going on here, but if I were to attach a conspiracy theory to it-
| this was always the plan and now a portion of the voter base has
| been flipped. Well played by the Thiel, Musk, Zuck circle jerk.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| It blows my mind how easily people are swayed and how ByteDance
| is playing everyone like a fiddle. I need to walk into the ocean
| because this life ain't for me.
| khazhoux wrote:
| After being a non-stop news and politics junkie the last 15+
| years, I've gone beyond cold turkey.
|
| I stopped reading all political, U.S., and even world news the
| day after the election. Zero. Dropped reddit politics. I don't
| know who are Trump's cabinet picks. I assume Hulk Hogan and Kid
| Rock will be on the cabinet, but I don't know and don't care.
|
| On Nov 7 when I saw that not only did Trump win, but he won
| decisively, and I saw this is what the country wants, I decided
| that since I can't get rid of Trump's bullshit, I actually have
| full power to keep that bullshit from entering my personal
| reality. Whatever daily outrage and anger I would have felt
| since Nov 7, I don't have. My mind is relatively clear, and
| --surprise, surprise-- my life is unaffected.
|
| I plan to keep this up for 4 years. I assume at some point,
| I'll go to get a flu shot and be told vaccines are illegal. And
| if I notice suddenly a bunch of ads for iodine pills, I'll
| withdraw as much cash I can and get canned food and water and
| gasoline. I'll deal with it then.
|
| And in 2 years and 4 years I _will_ go to the voting booth. But
| I 'm powerless until then, except for what I allow into my
| life.
| SGML_ROCKSTAR wrote:
| Is there any way to still read all the political and world
| news while keeping your self from over-entertaining or
| internalizing it?
| khazhoux wrote:
| Even 5 seconds of Trump is enough to cause rage. I'm
| powerless to change what he says and does, but I'm only
| empowered to keep it away from me.
|
| My friend's house (and entire town) burned down, so I'm
| following that news. But even 2 minutes of reading Trump +
| Republicans saying the fires happened because the LAPD
| chief is a gay woman, and I had enough for the month.
| foretop_yardarm wrote:
| I've not followed the news for about 7 years now. A niche
| benefit of WFH is that I don't have to accidentally hear
| coworkers talking about it either.
| warner25 wrote:
| I'm debating trying to do this. I've seen it recommended by
| other people who I think are smart. Honestly, I tuned out
| most of the 2010s after being a political news junkie in the
| 2000s, and it was probably good for me. I couldn't sleep or
| concentrate on work for a couple days after this election.
|
| > And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth.
| But I'm powerless until then
|
| What's really depressing is that I'm already happy with my
| representation in congress, and they'll probably win again
| comfortably in 2026 and 2028, but _they 're_ powerless too.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I've wanted to do this since 2016. It was November of 2015
| when I first thought, "How long could I go not knowing if
| Hillary won or lost?" Eight years later, I've put it into
| effect, and my mind is so much clearer for it.
|
| My whole life I've believed that "it's important to be
| informed." I now challenge that. I mean: yes, obviously
| before the next election I will read up on the candidates
| and propositions. But apart from that, me being informed
| has zero effect on the world.
| dingosity wrote:
| meh. i always thought the real reason for the ban was EVERYONE in
| the states who has had to deal with ByteDance walks away from the
| experience thinking they've been dicked. Or at least everyone
| I've talked with. In my own experience, we signed a deal with
| US/TikTok and started spending money on things to uphold our part
| of the bargain. Then ByteDance steps in and says "no. we're
| canceling this contract," and we point out, "uh... hey bevis...
| we just spent money on your behalf," and their response is "sucks
| to be you." The case has been in California courts for about 5
| years. We may get our money back before TikTok/US goes out of
| business.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Oh man. So much fuzz over a site that shares video snippets. Is
| it just me? I feel like I am witnessing some kind of end of US
| society.
|
| Fear disseminated by politicians and social media (pick whatever
| we are supposed to be afraid of this week.) Paired with an
| addictive desire to be relieved and distracted from this fear, in
| part from the same politicians/social media.
| bearcobra wrote:
| Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court
| politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that
| was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the
| president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start
| of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial
| discretion may be creating massive liability that the new
| administration could use to extract favors from some of our
| largest tech companies.
| slg wrote:
| >Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority,
| signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme
| courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path
|
| I don't understand why this is not the primary takeaway.
| Regardless of the specifics of this issue, it is objectively a
| huge power grab for a president to vow to not enforce a law
| that had bipartisan approval of both the legislative and
| judiciary branches.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| The law has a provision permitting the President to grant 90
| day exceptions. Trump has indicated he'll sign one tomorrow.
| This isn't going around the law, it's just the law as
| written. We can debate whether the law was good or bad, but
| this is an outcome the law directly supports.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _law has a provision permitting the President to grant 90
| day exceptions_
|
| "A 1-time extension of not more than 90 days," SS 2(A)(3)
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-17758/pdf/COM
| PS-17...
| ternnoburn wrote:
| Yep! Thanks for finding the source. I was on my phone,
| couldn't get the actual text.
| rayiner wrote:
| That requires a legal agreement to divest to be in place,
| which I suspect isn't the case yet.
|
| That being said, the law is enforceable today and Biden
| said he won't enforce it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > That requires a legal agreement to divest to be in
| place, which I suspect isn't the case yet.
|
| Nope, it merely requires that the president certifies
| that it is in place, and that's something entirely
| different given who the president will be.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Except it doesn't sound like he's satisfied any of the
| criteria, unless he's promising to buy it himself:
|
| (A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been
| identified with respect to such application; (B) evidence
| of significant progress toward executing such qualified
| divestiture has been produced with respect to such
| application; and (C) there are in place the relevant
| binding legal agree- ments to enable execution of such
| qualified divestiture during the period of such extension
| redcobra762 wrote:
| Those are criteria the President has to certify are the
| case, not criteria that have to be the case.
|
| Zero clue how that would play out in the courts, but it
| wouldn't resolve in anything resembling a timely manner.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| His administration will lie, because TikTok has made it
| clear they will not divest in order to stay in the USA.
|
| But so what? His administration, and he himself, lied
| about a bunch of stuff during his previous term, and what
| happened? Nothing. Never tried, never convicted (he was
| impeached, but so what?)
|
| We do not have a mechanism for dealing with a president
| or administration that is willing to just lie. Even if
| the SCOTUS were to determine that the administration did
| in fact lie about certifying those things, so what?
| Nothing will happen.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| (A) is intentionally vague and deferential. The
| possibility of a Trump Presidency was in everyone's mind
| in drafting; he's not a guy you tell what to do, he's a
| guy you give discretion to with an opportunity to blame
| unsatisfactorily deferential third parties.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| It says the conditions of the extension must be certified
| to Congress. That means the deal is identified, has been
| significantly executed, and legally binding. I doubt
| Trump has any of that, which is probably why he's
| resorting to an executive order.
|
| More worryingly he stated in his Truth social post that
| he's seeking 50% ownership. That doesn't meet the
| definition of divestiture in this bill, since China would
| still effectively steer operations, including content
| recommendations.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| He's not resorting to an executive order to ignore the
| law. He's using the loophole in the law that allows him
| to grant a 1-time 90 day lift of the ban, given that he
| certifies that certain conditions have been met.
|
| The conditions have not been met, but he will lie and
| state that to his satisfaction, they have. Nothing will
| happen to challenge that except some noise from a couple
| of Democratic senators.
|
| What happens 90 days later is anyone's guess.
| sethammons wrote:
| My read says the law itself is a presidential power, doesn't
| have to be pushed unless the President wants it
| llamaimperative wrote:
| There is no way the President can commit that these
| services will not accrue massive fines throughout his non-
| enforcement period.
|
| And actually your read is wrong: the President does have an
| obligation to enforce laws, it's just _in practice_ there
| are all sorts of ways one can effectively bury this
| obligation under claims of different prioritization. They
| are not really allowed to come out and just say: "I am
| choosing not to enforce this law because I disagree with
| it."
| bokoharambe wrote:
| Still not quite right, not in a modern state. Law has
| always been sovereign power, and in the modern period the
| entire state is the sovereign (think Leviathan.) It is
| strange that Americans seem to think these are personal
| powers.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Well, the law as agreed upon by Congress designates it as
| a personal power.
| bokoharambe wrote:
| This is kind of the point, the text of the law is totally
| ephemeral because the power to violate it is entrusted in
| the state itself.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the law as agreed upon by Congress designates it as a
| personal power_
|
| No, it does not.
|
| The extension is discretionary, the liability is not.
| (And the liability specifically accrues to the operators
| of the app stores and hosting companies.)
| gsibble wrote:
| The law gives the President discretion to decide what apps
| to ban essentially. It didn't specifically target TikTok.
|
| So Biden decided to ban it and Trump decided to unban it.
| It's all perfectly within the law.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _law gives the President discretion to decide what apps
| to ban essentially. It didn 't specifically target
| TikTok_
|
| Wrong.
|
| SS 2(G)(3)(A)(i) and (ii) name Bytedance and TikTok [1].
|
| [1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-17758/pdf/C
| OMPS-17...
| Spivak wrote:
| Yep, that being said I'm not mad at ignoring this part.
|
| Of all the shittyness of this bill, least of which giving
| the president pretty much unchecked power to ban foreign
| social media, the fact that it named a specific entity is
| to me just bad form. Law shouldn't ever include "fuck you
| in particular" even if the effect of the law when applied
| will be that.
| bmelton wrote:
| In context, you're both wrong. You're correct that SS
| 2(G)(3)(A)(i) and (ii) explicitly name Bytedance and
| TikTok [1], so it is not up to presidential discretion to
| add more apps, but SS 2(G)(3)(B)(ii) indicates that it is
| within the president's discretion to not enforce.
|
| There are some paperwork qualifiers that for certain have
| not been met (the not-yet president almost certainly
| could not have briefed Congress as president 30 days
| prior) -- but they seem trivial _to_ satisfy, and it
| would be pointless to initiate enforcement actions for an
| event nobody intends to follow through on
| rayiner wrote:
| > I don't understand why this is not the primary takeaway.
| Regardless of the specifics of this issue, it is objectively
| a huge power grab for a president to vow to not enforce a law
| that had bipartisan approval of both the legislative and
| judiciary branches.
|
| The executive branch hasn't enforced immigration laws for
| decades. The H1B system was supposed to be for "temporary"
| workers, yet executive non-enforcement turned it into a _de
| facto_ permanent immigration pathway Congress never enacted.
| Similarly, President Biden refused to collect on a bunch of
| student loans the law provided should have been repaired.
| This doesn't come close to a "power grab" under existing
| norms.
|
| Someone should sue Trump over this, and we can use that
| precedent to force the executive to deport the million+
| people who are here illegally have already exhausted their
| judicial process.
| wonnage wrote:
| That would likely be a breach of separation of powers.
| Relevant reading:
| https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43708
|
| The executive branch tends to have power of discretion in
| what to enforce and how.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _executive branch tends to have power of discretion in
| what to enforce and how_
|
| No, it doesn't. Plenty of lawsuits are around laws not
| being adequately enforced (and courts forcing such
| enforcement).
| lokar wrote:
| The president takes an oath to see that the laws are
| enforced
| tzs wrote:
| > The executive branch hasn't enforced immigration laws for
| decades
|
| Then who is deporting all the people listed in this table
| [1]?
|
| [1] https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/yearbook/2019/t
| able3...
| rayiner wrote:
| That's a reaction of the level of illegal immigration.
| Yale estimates we have over 20 million illegal
| immigrants, and that estimate was before the Biden
| administration:
| https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/snapshots-of-
| migrants...
| remarkEon wrote:
| >I don't understand why this is not the primary takeaway.
|
| Because this takeaway is wrong.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Yeah, Trump himself signed the executive order to ban
| TikTok.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Trump is not in power now.
| rvense wrote:
| Power is when people do what you say.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > Regardless of the specifics of this issue, it is
| objectively a huge power grab for a president to vow to not
| enforce a law that had bipartisan approval of both the
| legislative and judiciary branches.
|
| Isn't that the road we've been walking down for a while now
| with the proliferation of executive orders?
|
| I'm not a fan of this outcome either, but it doesn't strike
| me as a revolutionary departure from current norms.
| bearcobra wrote:
| I think this is different. I generally feel like executive
| orders are 1) used to take some kind of affirmative step
| that the dysfunction in congress is blocking 2) have some
| level of defensible legal theory. This feels like the
| opposite. My understanding of the 90 day extension is that
| it's supposed to be there to allow a deal to close, but
| there is no evidence I've seen of a deal being worked on so
| the legal theory seems to be really flimsy. Disregarding a
| law, while not unprecedented, is not a great sign given
| some of the incoming administration statements on a ton of
| other topics.
| slg wrote:
| >My understanding of the 90 day extension is that it's
| supposed to be there to allow a deal to close
|
| It is also important to recognize that Trump isn't just
| talking about invoking the 90 day extension. He is
| promising companies they won't be held responsible for
| the fines they should be accruing for violating the law
| before he even takes office.
| rayiner wrote:
| Biden is still the president and he's not enforcing the
| law. It's not clear to me that the president can't grant
| an extension later once all the statutory requirements
| are met. What's the difference between one day and say 10
| days?
|
| Putting that aside, the legal theory here--where an
| exception is there for this purpose and we're quibbling
| about its application--is nowhere close to "flimsy" when
| it comes to constraints on executive prosecutorial
| discretion.
| bearcobra wrote:
| Biden's ability to enforce the law seems to be pretty
| constrained given the amount of time left in his term.
| Like asking Garland to start a prosecution isn't exactly
| practical. I think it's also worth noting that TikTok was
| complying with the ban until they were given a signal by
| the incoming administration that they weren't planning on
| enforcing it.
|
| The text of the law isn't totally unambiguous, but I
| still think it's quite clear that the conditions where a
| 90 day extension could be granted aren't being met, so
| we'll have to agree to disagree on how flimsy it is.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| The number of executive orders has decreased every
| president since Bill Clinton.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125024/us-presidents-
| ex...
| yellowapple wrote:
| If you look at the "per year" it increased again under
| Trump.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. Each incoming administration since
| Bush has only expanded executive power, despite decrying
| its usage in the admin they replaced. This is a very
| predictable outcome even when looking ahead from 20 years
| ago, and its easy to see where things will stand in another
| 20 years.
| incognition wrote:
| Let me introduce you to Andrew Jackson
| ikiris wrote:
| How do you figure? The explicit domain of enforcement is the
| executive branch, so if the new guy coming in says something
| akin to "They've made their decision, let them enforce it"
| that's somewhat by design even if you may not agree with it.
|
| The system was designed with these checks and balances in mind
| explicitly.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if the new guy coming in says something akin to "They've
| made their decision, let them enforce it" that's somewhat by
| design even if you may not agree with it_
|
| It's absolutely not. Which is why non-enforcement doesn't
| release liability; if you break a law that the President
| declines to enforce, people can sue the government to force
| enforcement today and the next President can enforce
| tomorrow.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| And in this case they'll just accrue (massive) fines.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The ultimate consequence of that interpretation would need
| that the executive does whatever it wants since all
| enforcement of court rulings or laws fall to the executive.
| ikiris wrote:
| Yes, this is how government works if the judicial +
| legislative branches have no enforcement power. That is not
| at all how this government works however. I suggest taking
| an American civics course if you want to learn more.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > how this government works however.
|
| I mean, with some of the decisions by SCOTUS in the last
| few years we should really be at the point of "This
| government works?"
| bearcobra wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's bad. Some level of prosecutorial
| discretion is obviously needed but furthering a state of
| affairs where laws are meaningless depending on if you have
| the favor of the executive is dangerous. The checks and
| balances in the passing of the law make sense but there
| should be a strong norm towards actually enforcing things and
| pushing the legislative branch to change the law if there is
| something wrong with it or the judiciary to rule on if it is
| actually legal.
| intended wrote:
| >feels like the start of a very dangerous path
|
| Start?
| davidw wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember how things used to be and it sure
| wasn't perfect, but JFC is it bad now.
| hot_gril wrote:
| The actual bad precedent set here is that the US executive
| branch has the authority to censor the media.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Mechanistically, the law applies to the app, not the service.
| It's not clear to me that serving videos to users that already
| have the app is a violation of the law.
| lokar wrote:
| It also applies to their cloud providers
| warner25 wrote:
| Yes, and what's even worse to me is Trump's explicit motivation
| for supporting TikTok now. Like there are some interesting
| philosophical, moral, and maybe legal arguments against the
| TikTok ban _but what he 's seized on_ is simply that TikTok was
| a useful tool (as far as he's been told) for gaining votes.
| Keeping it around just benefits him politically and personally,
| so that's it.
| konschubert wrote:
| That's how all dictatorships work.
|
| Everything is illegal.
|
| You live by the KING.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority
|
| It was a rider tacked onto a must-pass bill. There's nothing
| about the manner it was passed that makes it special or
| particularly blessed. This was classic congressional sausage-
| making.
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| And yet the law is the law. There's no premise that says the
| manner in which a law is passed determines its
| enforceability.
| tim333 wrote:
| Only four more years of this stuff to go. In other news Trump
| coin has plummeted by a few billion as Melania launched her own
| meme coin with a ~4bn market cap.
| tzs wrote:
| > Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority
|
| I wonder if there was actually a bipartisan majority in favor
| of getting rid of TikTok?
|
| Yes, the _bill_ passed by a bipartisan majority, but TikTok was
| not the only thing in that bill. Previous attempts to advance a
| standalone TikTok bill had failed to get majority support.
|
| This time it got attached to a bill that provided $60 billion
| in aid for Ukraine, $26 billion in aid for Israel, and $1
| billion of additional humanitarian assistance for food, medical
| supplies, and clean water for Gaza. There was also $8 billion
| for security in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
|
| A lot of Congress considered that aid (or parts of it) to be
| critical, and it had taken a lot of time to get there. I bet as
| a result of that a lot of Congress members would vote "yes"
| even if they disagreed with the TikTok part.
|
| When Biden signed it he spoke about the importance of all the
| aid provisions and didn't mention TikTok at all.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| Dang. Comments seem to be accumulating on this thread faster than
| they can be moderated. I'm not trying to call anyone names, but
| there seem to be A LOT of different political opinions and more
| than a few conspiracy theories. But who knows... maybe the
| conspiracy theorists are right... Just wanted to say thanks to
| the community for not being as flamey as one might expect for a
| comments section on the internet.
| _nickwhite wrote:
| This is Trump playing chess. ByteDance, Greenland, The Gulf of
| Mexico, Panama Canal- All this, and he's not even President yet.
| It's all part of a bigger picture and a bigger plan with sizable
| levers. Some love this, others find it terrifying.
| gcanyon wrote:
| Trump has clearly neutered both houses of Congress and the
| Supreme Court. Welcome to a unitary government, with one god-
| emperor and no checks nor balances. It's going to be a wild two
| (few?) years.
| bamboozled wrote:
| If what you're saying is true, why would there be a term limit
| at all?
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Executive orders cannot supersede or go against the law. The
| courts would quite rightly shut him down.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| The average Maga got the attention span of a braindamaged
| goldfish so obviously this is long forgotten.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| How does an executive order just pause a law passed by Congress?
| Does Trump think he really has that kind of authority?
| kgeist wrote:
| >The law banning TikTok, which was scheduled to go into effect
| Sunday, allows the president to grant a 90-day extension before
| the ban is enforced, provided certain criteria are met.
| FpUser wrote:
| The whole thing is starting to look like a circus.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Nothing is real anymore.
| junto wrote:
| > Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the
| People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a
| time handed out military command, high civil office, legions --
| everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two
| things: bread and circuses
|
| "panem et circenses", Juvenal 100AD
| gradus_ad wrote:
| The CCP has a propaganda and spying tool in the hands of 170M
| Americans. Yet the new Administration is more interested in
| playing politics than taking necessary steps to secure us against
| our primary adversary.
|
| It's not just Trump though. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats
| are taking the China threat seriously enough. The CCP must be
| destroyed.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| We've been saying for quite some time that large multi-national
| companies have more power than entire democracies. I guess now we
| have proof.
|
| Republicans will see this as a political stunt that glorifies
| Donald Trump
|
| Democrats will see this as a political stunt that glorifies
| Donald Trump.
|
| China will see this as proof they have some control over the US
| citizenry.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| So laws don't matter now. That's a great trend to start on day 1.
| duxup wrote:
| That shoutout has the vibe of some Banana Republic corruption...
|
| GOP in the US has constantly been fear mongering about social
| media bias, but what they really mean is they want their own
| ideas / bias and nobody else.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| > We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity
| and assurance to our service providers that they will face no
| penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans
|
| These are literally just promises from Trump that these companies
| are relying on, not an actual change to the law, just a promise
| that he won't enforce it against them? Sounds like an utterly
| insane business decision that they'll regret as soon as they fall
| out with him. Each to their own I suppose.
|
| > The app was still unavailable for download from Apple's and
| Google's app stores.
|
| I guess I wonder if that's going to change specifically. They
| strike me as the two companies that would be most insane to take
| Trump at his word here.
| dagss wrote:
| I feel like the free speech enthusiasts are missing some
| imagination and failing to see the situation we are in post-
| algorithms.
|
| By now -- people have used their free speech to make reels for
| every possibly viewpoint convincing any possible demography about
| anything. The trail of reels needed to convert a mountain biker
| to a racist, or a Lego builder to an LBTQ ally, is out there.
| Making the free speech isn't the issue in 2025.
|
| The question is: Who sees what, and whose opinions are shifted in
| what direction.
|
| The big social networks controls the algorithms. Controlling who
| sees what is the new "speak", where you directly influence
| peoples minds simply by showing the right reels at the right
| moments.
|
| We have always had propaganda and media leaning in different
| directions. But people would _know_ they are looking at Fox News
| or The Daily Show or Pravda. With TikTo... you find that people
| 's opinion change very gradually and without perception over the
| course of half a year. Never seeing "TikTok" -- only seeing
| "people like you" (which can be a function of time, and evolve)
| sharing their heartfelt opinions.
|
| Not anything blatant of course. Blatant stuff does not change
| peoples opinions anyway. Just subtly bump some reels that has
| been proven to shift a demography in a certain direction.
|
| TikTok has the means to do it -- all the data about what reels
| cause what effect on what demographic, if they just wanted to.
|
| If TikTok is doing propaganda by subtly promoting some reels over
| others -- who would know? Why would they not be doing it and how
| can anyone know they are not already doing it?
|
| I am not saying this is definitely happening. But any discussion
| that isn't treating all the social networks as weapons of mass
| propaganda that CAN be used is awfully naive.
|
| And focusing on the "speech" thing seems so misplaced. It's all
| about who is heard and seen, and that is today all about power
| and algorithms.
| sensanaty wrote:
| This was basically a 12 year old's plan for making Trump seem
| like a "champion" - and it somehow seems to be working, even in
| this comment section (assuming half the comments aren't just bots
| which I wouldn't discount personally).
|
| And then people in this thread apparently unironically don't see
| why banning foreign propaganda is a bad thing lol
|
| It's quite fascinating to see a nation's televised descent into
| absurd cronyism and corruption like this. You've got the prez-
| elect singlehandedly overturning laws that have just been passed
| a mere 24 hours ago, making shitcoin scams and getting rich off
| it, aligning all the psychotic techbros into his corner because
| they fear what kind of insane bullshit he's gonna pull off on
| them...
| ourmandave wrote:
| Just google Salt Typhoon, (I'll wait), and then tell me you want
| the TikTok app on 102M+ US citizens devices.
| ralfhn wrote:
| I see nothing Israel hasn't done yet we give them billions of
| dollars in aid.
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