151–160 of 273 posts
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OK. How about “they’re using the app to spy on us for a Foreign Hostile Government ”
Is "Foreign Hostile Government" an official legal distinction? I thought the US was still on good terms with China as a trade partner.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...
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> (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...
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You still didn't explain the risks too clearly. Let's grant that TikTok is under direct CCP control, and specifically targets kids. Targets them for what? Mind control?
> Targets them for what? Mind control? Attempts to change/form their views to be favourable towards dictatorships and antagonistic to democracies.
If that's the claim, the reality is they are doing the opposite.
You need to provide proof, not speculation.
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> (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...
I don't think it is just about TikTok being capable of spying on foreign users; my opinion is that it is more about TikTok's propaganda potential, i.e. how it can be used to manipulate narratives in the most subtle way against U.S.'s national interest. Imagine the case where the U.S. government would like the (western) world to form certain sentiments on the current regional conflicts that are aligned with its own in…
This argument always strikes me as weird given that we know domestic social networks are doing precisely this, adjusting their algorithms to promote or suppress things for political reasons, but I have yet to see any claim that TikTok has ever done this, only that they could .
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> (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…
"A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both." The lawmakers behind the bill assure us it will only be used against "corporations and executives who…
It's slightly more complicated than that. As it stands right now it's unclear whether personal use of tiktok would violate the proposed law, because it only bans US companies from dealing with chinese companies. That said the bill also allow the commence department to enact "mitigation measures", which if you tried to bypass them could get you in trouble.
>This bill is not a “ban” on personal use, or even on a technology directly. The bill may result in a ban on TikTok because it grants the Commerce Department such broad authority. That ban may take the form of removing it from app stores or a forced sale, or other mitigation measures imposed against the owners of the technologies.
>[...]
>The bill authorizes the Department of Commerce to impose “mitigation measures” without any restrictions on what those measures might be. Couple that with a vague enforcement provision that grants the power to broadly punish any person who “evades” these undefined “mitigation measures,” and the result is a law that can be read as criminalizing common practices like using a VPN to get a prohibited app, side-loaded installations, or using an app that was lawfully downloaded somewhere else.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/broad-vague-restrict-a...
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>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...
Just like the MPAA and RIAA never would go after little old grandmas for their love savings just for downloading an mp3.....
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On the longer horizon it's probably more useful: Rotting minds, sowing discord, making users depressed, addicted and stupid, derailing culture and public discourse. Not unlike the companies who are in that game already (but for different reasons).
> Rotting minds, sowing discord, making users depressed, Nothing that Hollywood and the Western music industry haven't already done to our young minds here Eastern European back in the '80s. It's not Reagan's StarWars madness that made the communist governments fall, but Star Wars the movie itself, and Michael Jackson, and Madonna, and countless other such Western propaganda (because that's what it was, even though I…
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I'm not sure that the 1A can scale properly for modernity, though. It was written two hundred years ago by men in a different world, without broadcast propaganda that can reach billions in seconds, dark money financing every major politician, a corrupt Supreme Court, and capitalists able to freely convert billions into political speech. Put it all together and what you have isn't a vibrant democracy with a bunch of d…
> 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 to petition the governement for a redress of grievances The founding fathers were documented as being MUCH more forward-thinking than most people assume. The thought bubbles you mention and mass-manipulation…
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.
I have no problem as far as handling it like a trade issue. China doesn't allow such social media networks from the US. I got no problem banning theirs.