Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In • Hacker News Board

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#131

Post by _bin_ » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 11:52 PM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #85

_bin_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the easier framework is this: China has banned her citizens from using most United States-based social networks. This prevents American companies from accruing profit from Chinese citizens and advertisers, and shrinks their potential pool of user data for refining algorithms or selling. As such, it's effectively a trade policy for us to in turn ban her social networks. Unless and until we are equally able to…

[flagged]

i'm not sure how much, if any, game theory you've studied, but an always-cooperate strategy rarely works in repeated, cooperative games.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#132

Post by _bin_ » Wed, Jan 15, 2025, 11:53 PM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #107

computerdork wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it does offer an avenue for inacting some form of ban. And not so sure it's all that morally low. Because what China's ban of US social media might say is that China recognizes social-media's power to influence the populace (think Russia's use of Twitter and FB in the 2016 election). Yeah, am actually in favor of some form of restrictions, because we as a country need to realize that social media is a tool that…

If social media is so bad let's regulate ALL of it, US firms included. Personally I fear US-controlled social media more than Sino-controlled ones. It's not like the CCP can come and arrest me here in the US, or really use my data against me in any way. Both have plenty of reasons to throw propaganda at me, or censor certain viewpoints. At least when it's a foreign country I have a chance of seeing through it, compar…

meta also cannot arrest you here in the US. we should maintain tighter controls on the state's use of data and access thereto because it's the entity we've given a monopoly on violence. that is the appropriate point for controls to be applied.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#133

Post by voisin » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 12:37 AM UTC

Salgat wrote: post #76

ccvannorman wrote: post #31

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

The forced divestment is for national security reasons. Bytedance, as a Chinese company, is required by law (Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China) to provide full data access to the Chinese government on request, and they are compelled not to reveal when this occurs. Since this is done through legitimate channels (on Bytedance's side), this won't even be caught with an audit. So you have a situation wh…

Meta was selling data to Chinese groups and buried a report stating this until recently. This has nothing to do with national defence and everything to do with ensuring American companies control the narrative without competition.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#134

Post by qingcharles » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 1:16 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #64

qingcharles wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All courts are, sadly, political because judges are human.

It highly depends on the design of the judicial system. As individual people obviously everyone has political opinions, but you can shield the judicial system from being politized . Systems like in Israel where judges or judicial committees have a major say in appointment of judges removes a lot of politics from the equation. That's how the Prussian/German bureaucracy was designed too. Lifetime civil service and meri…

I'd definitely love to learn about better designed justice systems. A lot of the systems in the USA work to an extent, but there are better solutions. The fed judges often speak about how the 50-state system in the USA should allow experiments in different areas of law and allow the best ones to win, but it doesn't work as effectively as it should.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#135

Post by cherry_tree » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 1:40 AM UTC

_bin_ wrote: post #55

ccvannorman wrote: post #31

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

I think the easier framework is this: China has banned her citizens from using most United States-based social networks. This prevents American companies from accruing profit from Chinese citizens and advertisers, and shrinks their potential pool of user data for refining algorithms or selling. As such, it's effectively a trade policy for us to in turn ban her social networks. Unless and until we are equally able to…

It’s overly simplistic. It doesn’t take into account the ideals the USA was founded on (including free speech as an inalienable right), nor does it take into account the large shift in US government policy.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#136

Post by computerdork » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

henryfjordan wrote: post #128

computerdork wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment, and in the short term I agree with you (what can a foreign-controlled tik-tok going to do to us?). But think giving influence to our online behavior directly over to an adversarial foreign-power doesn't sound like a good idea. To me, it reminds me of WWII and the codebreakers in England who broke the German codes. They didn't use it to decode messages all time, because they didn't want to…

That's fair. I do think China would probably just omit viewpoints rather than outright lie and it'd be hard to detect. I guess I don't personally fear China as much as Congress does, I view them more as a rival than an enemy. I wish them well, and hope they make more cool apps and games for me to enjoy. And they'd probably love nothing more than for us to overthrow our oligarchs (just like we want to see the fall of…

Ah true that, congress (and the law) definitely isn't very consistent in their enforcement, nor well thought-out.

And actually, didn't fear China, but the invasion of Taiwan is becoming more and more real. A bit scary.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#137

Post by cscurmudgeon » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

voisin wrote: post #133

Salgat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The forced divestment is for national security reasons. Bytedance, as a Chinese company, is required by law (Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China) to provide full data access to the Chinese government on request, and they are compelled not to reveal when this occurs. Since this is done through legitimate channels (on Bytedance's side), this won't even be caught with an audit. So you have a situation wh…

Meta was selling data to Chinese groups and buried a report stating this until recently. This has nothing to do with national defence and everything to do with ensuring American companies control the narrative without competition.

“selling” data is not in the same bucket for risk as CCP using TikTok for propaganda.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#138

Post by emmelaich » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

llamaimperative wrote: post #115

emmelaich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I'll have a read of "23-719 Trump v. Anderson (03/04/2024)"

Cool! Be sure to pay attention to this part: > "Finally, state enforcement of Section 3 with respect to the Presidency would raise heightened concerns... state-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer" That's a political consideration, not a legal one. > "In my judgment, this is not the time to amplif…

Good points. Reading the whole thing is more involved than I expected though! Not surprisingly really.

You might like this commentary: https://www.cato.org/blog/agree-it-or-not-colorado-supreme-c...

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#139

Post by llamaimperative » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 3:29 AM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #138

llamaimperative wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! Be sure to pay attention to this part: > "Finally, state enforcement of Section 3 with respect to the Presidency would raise heightened concerns... state-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer" That's a political consideration, not a legal one. > "In my judgment, this is not the time to amplif…

Good points. Reading the whole thing is more involved than I expected though! Not surprisingly really. You might like this commentary: https://www.cato.org/blog/agree-it-or-not-colorado-supreme-c...

Yes that is an excellent endorsement of Colorado’s Supreme Court decision to remove Trump from the ballot. Essentially all the incredible things about CO’s decision (as the author says, even if you disagree with their conclusion) are notably absent from SCOTUS’s.

For example, SCOTUS took literally every escape hatch possible NOT to decide the case on its merits, which they transparently say is because it would be politically undesirable.

That’s an excellent read though, thank you for sharing.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#140

Post by Salgat » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

redserk wrote: post #110

Salgat wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a ban, it's a forced divestment from Chinese ownership. The real question is why Bytedance isn't willing to take fair market value for Tiktok instead of just losing everything, since that makes no sense if this was just "business" and there weren't ulterior motives involved.

If I owned a business in another country and that other country coerced me to sell against my wishes, I'd be very skeptical about receiving the proceeds from the sale. So TikTok sells to a domestic company, domestic company wants to wire over $40bn to ByteDance but before the transfer goes through the Treasury Department decides a $40bn payment shouldn't be sent to a "foreign adversary". It's my understanding that th…

No company retains ownership if the purchase doesn't go through. They could also simply require payment up front as part of the sale terms before transfer of the platform. They've had nearlt a year to arrange all of this.