441–450 of 1001 posts
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…
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…
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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?
So if TikTok was fully sponsored by the govt and didn't show ads and didn't earn any profit in US, then it can continue operating in US?
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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
Not an expert at all, but does freedom of speech hold for foreigners/foreign entities? Apart from the fact that to me an app is not speech, but that's an entirely different matter.
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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.
Or maybe trying to sway users overtly seems like a 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…
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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…
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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.
We do weird things in crowds even without intentional propaganda at play. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091
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
I'm seeing a lot of "censorship is bad" propaganda coming from the shills. This resonates with liberal minded people who are against censorship. Now, that's not to say that most people here are shills or wrong for being against censorship. However they are unwittingly being coopted just as anti-racists were when China deflected any responsibility for a lab leak.
Show that TikTok causes active harm compared to FB/Twitter, put that on the public record, and clear the obstacles for a bill to ban.
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.