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Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

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Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#251

Post by wolverine876 »

RyEgswuCsn wrote: post #135
wolverine876 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Do you have evidence for any of that?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#252

Post by wolverine876 »

usernomdeguerre wrote: post #165
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.

The US did not have to worry overmuch about propaganda in the past because they knew they could throw the most amount of money at the problem whenever they needed to. They were the richest. That's not true anymore. Both technical advances (machine learning) and economic advances by other nations (China) put us closer to an even playing field. I would even go so far as to say we're at a disadvantage here relative to C…

During the Cold War, the US worried very much about propaganda from the Soviet Union. I think various elements of the power structure don't want it stopped:

* A large part of the power structure, one of the major political parties, uses and relies on propaganda extenstively. Yes, both parties do it to some degree, but one relies on revving up its supporters with unending, absolute nonsense.

* Big tech doesn't want to be regulated.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#253

Post by fomine3 »

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.

For China relationship, there should be reciprocity principle.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#254

Post by mschuster91 »

beachy wrote: post #199
mschuster91 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, yes we should , it's time to show Big Capital that yes, they can't run rampant and fuck up our society. But at least we can , in contrast to TikTok whose operations run outside of our reach.

You say we can, but history shows we can't. If there was an easy way to reign in big oil then we would have found it by now. Whereas we (democracies) would have a fighting chance (literally) of seeing off a malevolant dictatorship.

> If there was an easy way to reign in big oil then we would have found it by now.

Shell for example was held responsible in Dutch courts for environmental contamination in Nigeria [1] and ordered to massively cut CO2 emissions [2].

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/africa/shell-oil-spills-n...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57257982

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#255

Post by mschuster91 »

jkubicek wrote: post #228
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop arguing in bad faith. It doesn't matter if Shell is worse it doesn't matter if a million other fucking things in the USA are worse. They are all accountable to the USA government. TikTok is not that is the issue.

I'm not arguing in bad faith here, every nefarious action that people in these comments suspect TikTok may do someday, is currently being done today, by American companies, in service of foreign interests and corporate interests.

> every nefarious action that people in these comments suspect TikTok may do someday

We already didn't prepare for Russia invading Ukraine despite obvious signs, we didn't prepare for wide parts of Africa and the Middle East to break down into civil war or climate change-caused mass emigration, we didn't prepare for Iran/Hamas massacring entire kibbutzim in Israel, we didn't prepare for the scenario of a global pandemic (despite multiple scares/near-misses), we didn't prepare for all of the multiple crises currently ongoing in this world that currently impact our population.

We have to prepare for the possibility that China is going to be at war with us very, very soon and will do anything they can to disrupt our lives - including spreading propaganda. Or otherwise it will go down just as bad as all the crises I listed.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#256

Post by mschuster91 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #153
beachy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Targets them for what? Mind control? Attempts to change/form their views to be favourable towards dictatorships and antagonistic to democracies.

> 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.

> You need to provide proof, not speculation.

There won't be proof of war until the war happens, but it makes sense to prepare for war. And there will be war, make no mistake on that - tensions in the entire APAC regions are growing every day.

Or to quote an old Latin proverb: si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#257

Post by gotimo »

0xParlay wrote: post #166
gruez wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

Thank you. 20 years would be for the VPN provider.

...that still basically means commercial VPNs are outlawed

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#258

Post by Tangurena2 »

lilyball wrote: post #130
RyEgswuCsn wrote: post #104

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 .

TikTok is owned by the "wrong" race of people. Cambridge Analytica, FaceBook and Twitter are owned by the "correct" race of people. That's where the legislator's goals are headed - control of social media by politically acceptable people.

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#259

Post by pests »

deprecative wrote: post #247
pests wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are looking too deeply into this. 1. When the comparison I'm trying to draw is "huge powerful entity using its power", what exactly is the difference? 2. I don't think there needs to be a specific case - it was in the news often enough for it to be a common thing. Here is an EFF article reviewing what happened years later: https://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-five-years-later "Five years later, the record…

You're comparing apples to floor tiles as though the comparison is relevant in the least. I think that's the issue you and the others are having in these discussions.

Yet I have over 25+ karma in this one thread so maybe people agree with me?

Floor tiles and apples can't be compared? They are both are shiny. You can walk on both of them. You can find them both in a kitchen. You can eat one, you can't eat the other. This is besides the point.

I've asked before upthread: Tell me the difference between the RIAA/MPAA and the US DOJ. Everyone keeps telling me they are different but then no one actually explains how.

I am trying to invoke this comparison: "powerful entity" "group of people with power" "The Powers That Be"

I don't care one is private or one is public. My entire point of making the comparison is "big guy fucks the little guy" - if you can't tell me how the RIAA/MPAA&DOJ are different in this regard - then you are completely off topic and don't understand my point.

Can you tell me, how comparing the MPAA/RIAA to the USDoJ does NOT have any relevance?

Re: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban

#260

Post by pests »

tzs wrote: post #243
pests wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an example of an entity using laws to punish everyday people we thought might otherwise go unpunished.

The RIAA generally only threatened to sue people who were infringing thousands of songs, and generally offered to settle for around $2-3 per song.

"generally"

I have first hand experience that that is not true in all cases. Less than 200 songs & movies. The RIAA was asking for $7-$10 per song and the MPAA about $17 per movie.

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