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US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

reuters.com

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Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#151
post #122
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are blocked because they don’t censor content. These platforms certainly do censor content. They have large teams globally that do just that.

> They have large teams globally that do just that. You are spreading the misinformation. Google can't keep up with the censorship shit and gave up as stated in their official blog https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... > a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results > We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn P…

In China. They obviously run censorship globally in every country that demands it, it's just that China's demands were worse than everyone else's and they decided it's not worth the effort.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#152
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China will not only ban American companies or services next, Xi will probably ban the US dollar.

The funny thing is. China can talk about removing the U.S. dollar and trade when Yen. But they need a stable currency to convert between and so conversion is still done with the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar won’t be removed from trade in our life time.

China doesn’t let the RMB float freely, so trade still happens in dollars. Also, the American government buys a lot of treasuries, so it’s easy to save a few billion quickly when you need to, which isn’t really supported by any other currency…saving money by lending it to the USG conversely prevents it from re-entering your own economy and stoking inflation (China isn’t the only country to use the USA like that, Japan buys more treasuries than China usually).

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#153
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point, how is letting the primary adversarial power (which happens to be an authoritarian regime) massively influence the political views of the future generation a good idea? It sounds to me like the federal government is doing its job here.

I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I'm baffled at folks wanting to overlook that a Chinese-controlled brainworm is even more dangerous than a US-operated brainworm. Yes, we should steer clear of all brainworms, but we should be exterminating the brainworms run by adversaries ASAP.

Who’s the adversary? China? China is not my adversary even if the United States government thinks so. I believe many Americans would agree with that.

To me it seems China made a superior app that the American youth wanted to use and the American social media apparatus was jealous so lobbied to have it banned.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#154
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Using TikTok is not a right. b) Removing the platform entirely is not censorship. Especially when everyone will just shift to Instagram, Youtube etc. c) This was a decision made by the US Congress. It is by definition not authoritarian.

> This was a decision made by the US Congress. It is by definition not authoritarian. Clearly the US Congress represents the will of the majority...

Not how US “democracy” works. The majority in Congress represent a minority of the population.

Montana has one member of the house per 540,000 people. Delaware has one per 990,000 people. Source: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data...

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#155
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both founders having grown up in communist block countries supposedly had something to do with their aversion. At least that’s what I heard (was working for MS china back then).

And the worst part of a Communism is "planned economy", e.g. the state decides which app/service is good or not.

There was the PLA hacking gmail accounts in Hong Kong also, which supposedly was why Google stopped playing nice in the first place.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#156
post #76

I'm not sure how exactly the First Amendment works, so someone please correct me, but does banning a platform constitute a violation if individuals can choose other platforms?

"It depends" (like every legal question). It's possible to violate free speech rights by banning a platform even when their are alternatives. Most relevantly to this situation, the platform itself is most likely engaging in speech of its own by choosing what to repeat of what other people have said (i.e. it's choice of algorithm). If the platform was being banned for that speech (and that speech didn't happen to fall…

Thanks for the pointer - I'll definitely read it

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#157
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a public square. They ban people from their private square all the time.

The Court held that social media—defined broadly to include Facebook, Amazon.com, The Washington Post, and WebMD—is a "protected space" under the First Amendment for lawful speech

The court also held that forcing tik tok to sell or be banned is lawful.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#158
post #125
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a stupid argument. This is about censorship to American citizens and a conversation about losing their rights as an authoritarian state's victims.

American citizens can use the multitude of copy cat apps for their freedom of speech. If it was about freedom of speech the gov would have requested all the apps to censor the topics, not banning one app.

Part of what constitutes freedom of speech is freedom to hear what someone has to state which is constitutionally protected. The fact that there might be other venues where someone can produce speech, does not mean that the right to hear what someone has to say has not been denied.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#159
This was always about running defense for the likes of Israel and it’s ongoing televised genocide….

This isn’t about national security, if it had been this would’ve never gotten as far as it has been, the door would’ve been closed long ago.

TikTok and its algorithm isn’t beholden to the US’s government mandate like the other social media platforms. It also just happens to be the one with the largest amount of users and engagement, compared to the others..

Anyone who’s been paying attention to the numerous times TikTok has been on the chopping block (nearly every year it’s existed) understand what’s at play here.

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