Freedom of speech includes not being prohibited from listening to other people's speech.
The first amendment in the bill of rights in the US constitution prevents the US government from restricting the speech of US citizens. It doesn’t say anything about foreign nationals with no status in the US. The government also has the authority to deport whomever it likes, impose tariffs and restrict imports. Regardless of moral stance, that is the reality as I see it.
160 million US citizens post/watch those videos on tiktok, tiktok is their platform for expressing themselves, by banning tiktok, they can argue that the government is taking away their platform for expressing themselves.
The arguments I can think of for why you wouldn't support restricting social media owned by foreign adversaries: * You don't believe social media companies can become literal or de facto extensions of the countries they are located in. * You don't believe social media can influence people's beliefs and behaviors. * You believe the above, but think a government cannot (or should not) regulate companies operating in it…
Yeah, you're missing that it's most likely unconstitutional, because it violates the First amendment.
Also related, but somewhat separate, is just that people should have freedom to information.
This is going to be a shit show. I don’t even really know where I stand. On one hand, we have to acknowledge that an adversarial government has massively succeeded in installing a botnet in our population— even if that wasn’t the initial intent of ByteDance, it’s effectively true now. On the other hand, you can’t stop people from installing spyware, donating money to fraudster politicians, surrendering themselves to…
Why is it worse for me to have Tiktok installed on my phone than Google Chrome or Facebook?
I'm a big proponent of free speech and the first amendment, but I agree with the reasonings for banning it or forcing US owners. China most definitely has their hands in the data that TikTok amasses and given its popularity it's not an insignificant risk to U.S. citizens. We all know how easy it is to manipulate users... aka Cambridge Analytica. It'll be interesting to see what legal challenges come up if the bill pa…
Funnily enough, this is why I prefer Chinese devices and apps as a Westerner living in the West. My threat vector is my local security apparatus coercing my data or my devices. Correspondingly, If I were living in China, I'd consider it safer to use Western tech. Meanwhile, I don't really care what China does with my stuff while I'm not in China , I just hope that China doesn't collude with my local authorities.
Would be interesting to know if there is any data regarding the degree of cooperation between hostile countries. If I use two VPNs from countries who hate each other am I completely untrackable?
> If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete fairly in their digital ecosystem, why the hell should we continue to grant Chinese firms unrestricted access to our market? I understand what you're saying and I actually support the ban as tiktok can be used as a giant botnet at-will by Chinas government, but an eye for an eye doesn't end well and the US is supposed to be "free" so this part of the argument I…
How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.
Didn't they already, in effect, DDOS the congress telephone system?
How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.
The humans it feeds content into are the botnet. For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...
A human is not a bot. In addition to being dehumanizing, it removes agency to say that.
> If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete fairly in their digital ecosystem, why the hell should we continue to grant Chinese firms unrestricted access to our market? I understand what you're saying and I actually support the ban as tiktok can be used as a giant botnet at-will by Chinas government, but an eye for an eye doesn't end well and the US is supposed to be "free" so this part of the argument I…
How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.
If you believe that people generally are not dumb, and think rationally, and therefore cannot be influenced by falseful information, foreign propaganda then you wouldn't propose such law.
It's no worse that what Facebook or Twitter does (or has done). I would prefer to have a plurality of options and not be limited to apps that are owned by countries the US deems "allies".
But Tiktok is much worse for US citizens: - Facebook+Twitter are US-based entities and have to follow US laws and regulations in a much more strict way than Tiktok - They are not controlled by a politically-motivated adversarial government You are also conflating apps "from a country" vs apps "under a country's gvmt control". I think most here would agree "apps from a plurality of countries" is a good goal to strive…
TikTok has to adhere to the exact same laws as Facebook and Twitter, foreign ownership doesn't change that.
Adversarial to whom? Not me, I'm far more concerned about the US government who in this case is directly limiting my choices as a US citizen.
> Why shouldn’t Europeans do the same with US social networks then? We’re not your foreign adversary? (If we are, we shouldn’t have an obligation to defend you.) This bill permits TikTok’s sale to a European owner. It just bans its ownership by a foreign adversary country.
You're not a foreign adversary - you're a colonial overlord. If a European or other US 'ally' nation attempts to act against American 'national interest' their government is swiftly toppled - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the... More often they don't get elected at all due to coordinated media campaigns influencing elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_United_K... Th…
You're making some extremely strong claims, with minimal evidence. I don't deny that the CIA can be pretty nasty to 2nd and 3rd world governments, but claiming the US is a "colonial overlord" over our European allies is just not true. The first priority of our European allies is domestic politics; just like us, everyone wants to get re-elected. Sometimes domestic politics push countries towards the US, sometimes they pull them away. Countries like Hungary and Turkey make diplomatic trouble for the US, and we don't launch coups against them. The US would love it if Germany built up a decent military, but Germany isn't because the political will just isn't there. Between the 60s and the 90s, France literally left NATO. Europe in general has been extremely slow to scale up artillery production to support Ukraine (the US has been better, although but not by much); if the US had as much power over Europe as you think we do, we would have just told Europe to up production and they would have. But this did not happen.