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EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

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Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#41

I agree with the ban on security basis, but could this be abused by countries to sabotage companies? China could buy majority shares of a company and force them out of business.

The company would have to be specifically added by the President to a list which currently is just ByteDance, it doesn't kick in automatically.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#42
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “which would’ve led to the inescapable conclusion … had to be rejected as infringing … free speech” When the EFF sounds about as sane as a sovereign citizen… With friends like these, who needs enemies…

I worked at EFF for twenty years, and every iteration or incarnation of EFF would have said that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to prevent Americans from using foreign web sites or software. And that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to compel tech intermediaries to help block foreign sites or software. This would have been a bog-standard EFF position for the organiz…

It required specific legislation to ban TikTok. I would say that's pretty extraordinary. I think even the EFF should admit that allowing the Chinese government to control a major American social media app is an unacceptable security risk.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#43

It is hard to love the notion that banning a third party’s app is infringing upon my own right to free speech. If it were a ban on the Internet then that seems to make more sense. It’s analogous to a ban on paper, pens, or bullhorns. I can be sympathetic to the idea that, for some people, one particular proprietary app is their main tool for expression, even if that’s hardly ideal. A ban on routers made by a specific…

if youtube was being banned instead for the same reason (pretend it was owned by ByteDance), would you feel the same way? what about any other website/platform that you like? what if this was YOUR business getting banned?

What’s interesting about this argument is that the playing field is highly asymmetric between the us and china. China explicitly firewalls out large amounts of the internet from its population. If you want to do business via an e-commerce in china, you cannot do so without explicit permission, license and partial Chinese equity share - for example https://developers.cloudflare.com/china-network/concepts/icp...

On the other hand, we have much more relaxed restrictions going the other way. Why not consider “fairness” from that perspective as well?

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#44
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at EFF for twenty years, and every iteration or incarnation of EFF would have said that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to prevent Americans from using foreign web sites or software. And that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to compel tech intermediaries to help block foreign sites or software. This would have been a bog-standard EFF position for the organiz…

It required specific legislation to ban TikTok. I would say that's pretty extraordinary. I think even the EFF should admit that allowing the Chinese government to control a major American social media app is an unacceptable security risk.

The second paragraph of the EFF statement says the ban provides insufficient protection of US security.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#45
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if youtube was being banned instead for the same reason (pretend it was owned by ByteDance), would you feel the same way? what about any other website/platform that you like? what if this was YOUR business getting banned?

What’s interesting about this argument is that the playing field is highly asymmetric between the us and china. China explicitly firewalls out large amounts of the internet from its population. If you want to do business via an e-commerce in china, you cannot do so without explicit permission, license and partial Chinese equity share - for example https://developers.cloudflare.com/china-network/concepts/icp... On the…

China doesn't pretend to be a democracy, so as they don't are nor pretend to be a democracy the rest of us should abandon democracy? Should be stop begin democratic because China isn't?

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#46
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that this is true for many platforms. Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic. The more people watch content the more it's shown to other people. Anyone's voice could be amplified in a way that was limited to broadcast networking and printing presses in the past. A million small conversations can occur in such a way that they create a chorus of discussion about public intere…

> Now it seems like most platforms seem to be thinly veiled psyops hoping to trade quick dopamine for mindshare. The first step to reform would be to persuade legacy media to stop reporting the opinions trending on X/Twitter as "news". Stop reporting it entirely, it's manipulated, at best unverified, rubbish.

That would require legacy reporters to get out on the streets and do some reporting.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#47
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at EFF for twenty years, and every iteration or incarnation of EFF would have said that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to prevent Americans from using foreign web sites or software. And that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to compel tech intermediaries to help block foreign sites or software. This would have been a bog-standard EFF position for the organiz…

It required specific legislation to ban TikTok. I would say that's pretty extraordinary. I think even the EFF should admit that allowing the Chinese government to control a major American social media app is an unacceptable security risk.

It's amazing that all three arms of the government can come together so quickly to ban an app, but we can't have affordable housing, public healthcare, a higher minimum wage, or send kids to school without bulletproof backpacks.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#48

I don't often disagree with the EFF. Strange times.

Yeah this is a weird one where their m.o. on privacy/security are at odds with their first amendment side of things...sounds like the latter won out. I also disagree with them on this. This isn't something like net neutrality. It's one of many privately-owned social media platforms and one such with deeply privacy-invasive software that has adversarial foreign ties against the US.

There’s a simple, obvious and overwhelmingly popular solution to this problem that respects free speech and privacy. Unlike the current law, it wouldn’t blatantly violate the constitution by targeting a specific group:

Apply reasonable privacy and transparency rules to all social media platforms, regardless of ownership.

I’m not sure the EFF really needs to spell it out at this point.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#49
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It required specific legislation to ban TikTok. I would say that's pretty extraordinary. I think even the EFF should admit that allowing the Chinese government to control a major American social media app is an unacceptable security risk.

The second paragraph of the EFF statement says the ban provides insufficient protection of US security.

> The United States’ foreign foes easily can steal, scrape, or buy Americans’ data by countless other means.

True, but that's not the point.

> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally.

Sorry, that might've been true for old media, but social media is way more insidious.

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