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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?
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As other commenters have said, the GP's argument is not about free speech but about trade. Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. If someone makes a video of a TikTok video and shares it on Youtube/Whatsapp, that's legal. The actual content is legal, so it's not a free speech/censorship issue. This is the equivalent of "We'v…
Except this is not about commerce. US wants to ban TikTok for the same reason Russia has blocked BBC. Russia believes that information from BBC can harmfully influence people's mind.
I think the primary argument for banning TikTok should be based on reciprocity rather than moral and/or security concerns. We can make similar arguments about the negative effects of Facebook, Instagram, and etc. even from the POVs of other countries, but the key issue here is that China heavily restricts foreign apps and services from operating in their market. If China is unwilling to allow US companies to compete…
> 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…
Usually it's relatively dull stuff, like if country A requires citizens of country B to have a visa to visit, country B will as a matter of course require citizens of country A to have visas to visit too.
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…
It’s going to pass Congress, signed into law. Then a federal judge will issue a preliminary injunction blocking it on first amendment grounds just like what happened both times with the Montana ban in 2023 and trumps executive order in 2020
Apart from the fact that to me an app is not speech, but that's an entirely different matter.
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non-political is political. Do you imagine that there aren't people making political TikToks? Or that non-political themes don't affect politics? Or that bubble control doesn't affect politics?
>Non-political is political Is war also peace and freedom also slavery?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
> freedom also slavery
Total freedom for one includes their ability to enslave others.
My point is, you’re presenting false dichotomies to justify another (the political and the non-political).
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...what 'intelligence' would they be gathering though? What actionable intelligence could be cleaned from someones TikTok viewing habits?
Off the top of my head you could potentially find closeted homosexuals, who could be leveraged. Edit: Not to mention location data alone is valuable. The entire intelligence community runs on information, all of it has some value.
Ignoring everything else TikTok screwed up. They’re m being accused of having the ability to manipulate public opinion and elections. So what did they do? Push alerts to millions of users telling them of a possible ban and helping them call their representatives to change a political issue’s fortunes. Oops. All of a sudden a ton of representatives who were on the fence jumped off and joined the bandwagon.
Apparently some kids were calling crying saying that they will kill themselves if they ban the app. Absolutely crazy. TikTok trying to sway users made a huge mistake.
Could trying to sway users subtly have still been a win in this instance?
I'd think a platform doing manipulation subtly is actually more dangerous, and the bigger potential threat from a platform. Because people being influenced would be less aware of it, and it's much harder for other parties to call out.
(Although, when I look at current TV news and some other outlets, there's such blatant manipulation and dumbing-down, from both political "sides", I wonder how more than a small minority of people can tolerate watching that, much less mimicking it. And calling it out just gets tossed into ineffectual echo-chamber sports-fandom-like noise. So maybe subtle isn't as additionally threatening as I'd been assuming.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As other commenters have said, the GP's argument is not about free speech but about trade. Banning TikTok is not impinging on free speech. People are still free to say whatever they want on so many (unrestricted) platforms. If someone makes a video of a TikTok video and shares it on Youtube/Whatsapp, that's legal. The actual content is legal, so it's not a free speech/censorship issue. This is the equivalent of "We'v…
Except this is not about commerce. US wants to ban TikTok for the same reason Russia has blocked BBC. Russia believes that information from BBC can harmfully influence people's mind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s going to pass Congress, signed into law. Then a federal judge will issue a preliminary injunction blocking it on first amendment grounds just like what happened both times with the Montana ban in 2023 and trumps executive order in 2020
This feels mostly right. Although, it may not make it past the senate, and it might not get signed if it goes by the president. Especially since he's campaigning on TikTok. What amazes me is how people's view in these threads are for a ban. For a counter point, the EFF thinks congress should not ban apps[0] [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-should-give-u...
Why would we not create better data privacy laws and/or ban the sale/transfer of PII to enemy countries if that's the problem we're trying to solve?
Don't be fooled by talk about security or privacy. This is simple Nation State realpolitik. TikTok is a propaganda threat controlled by a non-friendly state to the US. Any other way to look at this is naive.
Another way to look at it is the fact that China does not let American social media in its market. Why should America give China access to it's markets when that's not reciprocated?