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Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

politico.com

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Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#131

Post by rchaud »

RyEgswuCsn wrote: post #123
wolverine876 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda is widely used on social media. Why focus on TikTok? Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I doubt the propaganda concern is driving political will.

> Propaganda is widely used on social media. Why focus on TikTok? Because TikTok is a "rogue" social media (from the U.S.'s perspective, of course)? > Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I am not sure I follow your point here; could you elaborate?

If TikTok is a rouge agent, but hasn't faced any actual prosecution, where does that leave Facebook, which has been fined the largest amount in FTC history for privacy breaches?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#132

Post by kurthr »

standardUser wrote: post #101
kurthr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty funny. TikTok is literally banned in China, along with Facebook, YouTube and all Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, and even Github. There is an actual firewall blocking access, the use of a non-government controlled VPN is a crime. Your iCloud must be stored in China. If you see a post on any social media outlet other than Weibo/WeChat/DouYen/TenCent (which are heavily censored), they are under gov control. T…

Yes, China is a nation that bans thing and censors things, something that in America we at least used to pretend was un-American. Are you taking them for a role model? Or just pointing out the hypocrisy? Either way, I do not intend to learn lessons on governance from the CCP.

Are you a "free speech absolutist" with all the connotations that has? The users of TikTok seem to be learning from the same group you intend to avoid. If controlling narrative through disinfo and agitprop have no effect, why is advertising so profitable? Do you not think social media can be tuned to optimize viewing time?

Why would you want people learning that censorship or misinformation from an authoritarian foreign power is good? What fraction of total media time do you think 12-18yo spend on TikTok? Should the goal be to create a repressive dictatorship here?

In any case, comparing the level of control of "major commercial actors often work in conjecture with their government" sounds awfully stretched.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#133

Post by [deleted] »

lukev wrote: post #23

I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.

[deleted]

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#134

Post by AlexandrB »

zknow wrote: post #55
Hizonner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second difference/risk comes with looking whom these apps target: kids. [...] kids are sponges So far as I can tell, the people most vulnerable to Internet propaganda, manipulation, and general bullshit, aren't kids. They're old people. And maybe younger people who've been raised in bubbles that were a bit overprotective. TikTok users are mostly teenagers, not little children. By the time you hit your teens, wh…

I'm not sure if the concern is really blatant disinformation ( which as you point out is easier to smell test ) or if its really more of the thought that the Chinese have a cambridge analytica level style access to American social data. Sure teenagers can parse bias in the media they are consuming, but is it that effective when the media company can tailor content based on the user's preferences + the preferred polit…

> cambridge analytica level style access to American social data.

Have you read/seen any of the follow up[1] on the CA scandal? Basically CA couldn't do most of the things they promised they could do with the data they collected. Their supposed ability to manipulate the public was effectively a "fake it till you make it" startup pitch. I find it funny that it keeps getting brought up as a worst case scenario when it seems like it was a nothingburger.

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-213-rewriting-...

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#135

Post by RyEgswuCsn »

wolverine876 wrote: post #125
RyEgswuCsn wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Propaganda is widely used on social media. Why focus on TikTok? Because TikTok is a "rogue" social media (from the U.S.'s perspective, of course)? > Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. I am not sure I follow your point here; could you elaborate?

>> Other countries have laws and agencies to protect against propaganda; the US doesn't bother. > I am not sure I follow your point here; could you elaborate? My point is, the US government doesn't otherwise care much about propaganda, so I doubt that's a motivation here.

I think they do care. People thinking the U.S. government doesn't care may as well be an indication that their efforts on propaganda are highly effective and successful.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#136

Post by rchaud »

AlexandrB wrote: post #117
newsclues wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like how Twitter was used?

Why past tense?

Twitter isn't as universal as it used to be. Even people who didn't have a Twitter account would see Twitter embeds on every news page for the past decade. That's gone down a lot over the past year.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#137

Post by gruez »

paganel wrote: post #129
calibas wrote: post #113

The problem with the RESTRICT act isn't that it punishes China or bans TikTok, the problem is the harsh penalties (up to $1 million USD and 20 years in prison) for US citizens who try to bypass government censorship. Even calling it the "TikTok ban" is rather misleading.

> (up to $1 million USD and 20 years in prison) Is that really on the table? If yes, then it's bat-s*it insane, it's maybe rude to call it that but there's no better word to describe it. To put it in perspective, throughout the '80s people were not getting sent to 20 years in prison for listening to Radio Free Europe here in Eastern Europe. There were still some political prisoners left, put in prison under different…

>Is that really on the table? If yes, then it's bat-s*it insane, it's maybe rude to call it that but there's no better word to describe it.

Not really. That might be the maximum sentence but the chance that a kid who's downloaded tiktok using a vpn of getting anywhere near that is near zero. See: https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#138

Post by paganel »

standardUser wrote: post #73
mschuster91 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…

> First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. Statements like that really make me question people's knowledge of basic history and international politics. Yes, a nation's major commercial actors often work in conjecture with their government. Is this news to anyone? This is not unique to China in the least. > The second difference/risk comes with…

On top of that, I think that Alphabet-owned YouTube is just as bad for kids as TikTok is, if not worse, I haven't heard a serious proposal coming from any Western government to ban YT for that reason.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#139

Post by soylentcola »

Wisdom of any legislation aside, I'm curious how you can effectively "ban" a program or a website.

It seems futile to ban the distribution of software, and while you can get ISPs to block access to an IP/range, there are easy ways around this. See also: torrents of unlicensed-everything and the use of mirrors, proxies, etc. to access the sites that index them.

Not saying it wouldn't put a dent in use, but if all I had to do was get a copy of the installer I'd hardly consider that "banned". All sorts of software is technically illegal to distribute or acquire but it doesn't exactly seem to stop people who want it. In this case there wouldn't even be DRM to crack (like on a game or Photoshop or whatever).

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#140

Post by [deleted] »

calibas wrote: post #113

The problem with the RESTRICT act isn't that it punishes China or bans TikTok, the problem is the harsh penalties (up to $1 million USD and 20 years in prison) for US citizens who try to bypass government censorship. Even calling it the "TikTok ban" is rather misleading.

[deleted]
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