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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

#191
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, and they do. Even the US allies in Europe don't completely trust the US with their citizens data, hence the on-shore data requirements. This is despite the US is footing the bill for Ukraine and, by extension, defending Europe right now.

European nations have provided more aid to Ukraine in total in both absolute and relative terms than the US. Hopefully the irony isn't lost on you when we're talking about controlling the narrative here.

this is what happens when people (in the USA) largely get their information from the TikTok :)

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

#192

I can no longer send money to the EFF due to their obvious misreading of the situation. They will lose $100s/year from me, I hope it was worth it. Clearly, a naive take that doesn't understand the nuances related to Tiktok's situation. Tiktok can still exist and keep showing their garbage to Americans, but it can't do so while being owned by a foreign adversary that attacks us almost continuously. Sure, they can stil…

Yet when Europeans feel the same way about American manipulative social media and the US sees it as targeting its tech industry, you don’t see a bias? Are you OK with EU banning Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, too, because it goes against its own citizens rights and safety? Or, following your logic, should we demand they are sold to European owners?

Why do you think it’s YOU who decides to be the gatekeeper on all that data and no one else?

You see the double standards here? The hypocrisy?

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

#193
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.

It's their legal out against having to research stuff to prevent libel liability. And they can embed social media photos and videos that weren't even from the rights holder to avoid having to clear rights to anything.

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

#194
post #192

I can no longer send money to the EFF due to their obvious misreading of the situation. They will lose $100s/year from me, I hope it was worth it. Clearly, a naive take that doesn't understand the nuances related to Tiktok's situation. Tiktok can still exist and keep showing their garbage to Americans, but it can't do so while being owned by a foreign adversary that attacks us almost continuously. Sure, they can stil…

Yet when Europeans feel the same way about American manipulative social media and the US sees it as targeting its tech industry, you don’t see a bias? Are you OK with EU banning Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, too, because it goes against its own citizens rights and safety? Or, following your logic, should we demand they are sold to European owners? Why do you think it’s YOU who decides to be the gatekeeper on al…

You can demand whatever you desire from your government. It's your country.

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

#195
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal of belief in an excessively strong state? Clarence Thomas is not actually conservative in the small government sense.

Neil Gorsuch is though and he signed on too. He even said that while he thought the government had to prove a higher standard than the opinion required, it didn’t matter to the decision because the government in his mind had met that even higher standard anyway.

Neil “the President can use SEAL Team 6 to eliminate his political opponents” Gorsuch?

He’s not a small government conservative, lol.

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

#196
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of why I think there should exist a popular real-name-only network. It'd go far to prevent these types of attacks on the megaphone.

Isn’t that what Facebook is supposed to provide? From anecdotal evidence, people are happy to engage in vitriol online that they would never do face to face, real name or not.

1) No, Facebook does not confirm people’s real names

2) This isn’t a solution to vitriol, it’s a solution to inorganic amplification

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

#197
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You're musing that a fucking trade war could possibly be placed above freedom of speech? The answer of which "values" should win is 110% clear.

Just out of curiosity, do you think the 2nd amendment obligates the USA to sell foreign enemies any and all weapons?

You’re going to have to work on that analogy a little more and come back to me

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

#198
post #88
post #3

> 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. These platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in their very nature, increasingly so in the age of LLMs. They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astrot…

Ironically this is exactly why I think TikTok is so important. Obviously every media site is used for manufacturing content, from NYT to Facebook. Also, obviously the US government has a say in what gets published and promoted. Wouldn't it be good then to have checks and balances to this, by having media not under the US government supervision? Unless are you suggesting that the US government doesn't misinform the pu…

As someone not living the us but regularly reading news from both sides of your media landscape, I can tell you that it's not regulated what they can write or say or what's promoted. Your media is all over the place. There are differences in how far they go on the spectrum and some are definitely insane on what they publish to the level of leaving out all the important details about certain situations to push their agenda. How do you think that there is any regulation at all?

Also for tiktok, the algorithm needs less than an hour to almost fully understand you and it will then push a mix of what you already like and agree with, things that you don't like and absolutely disagree with but in a way that makes it look bad so in the end you also agree with that, and some funny videos to keep you entertained. This way they are maximizing the time you stay in the app to increase their revenue. It polarizes your world view further and further and without people to talk to and discuss, your ideas and beliefs will be turned into religious level thinking, radicalizing you and making it more and more difficult to accept different opinions. If you only consume what you already believe, things will go downhill very quickly. That's the reason people can't talk to each other anymore, the truth in most if not all cases is somewhere in the middle.

What we need is social media that is not algorithm driven, not optimized to keep you at the device for as long as possible but to show you a multitude of opinions to a topic from different angles, not just the one you have already chosen as your truth. We need to talk again, accept that other people can have different opinions without shouting them down. We need to try to look at things from different perspectives not just our own.

And most importantly, we need to accept that we can't have an opinion about facts. We need to listen to people that actually have professional knowledge about a topic. The guy that used to be a fitness trainer but now has a telegram channel to spread some important truths about climate change actually knows shit about how the world works. They want to make money selling you any truth that works for you.

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

#199
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that what Facebook is supposed to provide? From anecdotal evidence, people are happy to engage in vitriol online that they would never do face to face, real name or not.

1) No, Facebook does not confirm people’s real names 2) This isn’t a solution to vitriol, it’s a solution to inorganic amplification

They absolutely do require confirmation in some cases - https://www.facebook.com/help/1090831264320592

Of course that’s not foolproof and there are millions of bot accounts by facebooks own admission. But at the scale of billions of active users across the globe I’m not sure what approach could be 100%

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

#200
post #63

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.

We've just seen an example of the US blocking a sale on national security grounds -- we can block sales to China, too: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/us/politics/us-steel-nipp...

Right, but an entity or a number of entities could buy shares in a small cap company to own a majority stake without scrutiny. Seems like a good way to do espionage since corporations are global and have protected status.
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