Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 769 posts

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

#211

Post by lukan »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #194
omnimus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This move unfortunately has nothing to do with harm of social media. Its purely about economical war with china. US is simply protecting its interests. So not only the ruling class in US doesnt care about the harms of social media. They are actively protecting the results - the profits and data/spying/control facebook brings. They will surely not limit or break up facebook unless it would result in getting more resul…

I know this, but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny. People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds

"People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds"

But that has been a thing since quite a while and unless you ban smartphones, won't go away. Not in general at least, but smartphone free areas (in school) are likely beneficial.

On the other hand, we can also make it illegal and enforce it in an easy way to upload pictures of other people against their will. I guess in most areas it is already illegal, but what teen would go to the police over a ridiculous video?

We all could also just accept, that everyone acts embarrassing from time to time.

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

#212

Post by codedokode »

Every time you hear about freedom of speech in US, let's not forget that this is the country that gave 10 years prison term for anti-war speech (and for being a socialist) to Eugene Debs [1]. For comparison, in Russia the maximum term for anti-war speech now is 7 years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs#Sedition_convic...

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

#213

Post by lazyeye »

brookst wrote: post #172
mavelikara wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don’t fight censorship with censorship. That doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory thought. You fight censorship with openness. Can you explain this better without the assumption that it is self-evident?

Sure. If censorship is wrong, then it is wrong. If censorship is just fine, the n it is just fine. It is the height of hypocrisy to engage in censorship in the name of stamping out censorship. It feels like a tautology because the opposing viewpoint is a very simple hypocrisy. If you don’t like something, don’t do it.

Adding Chinese censorship to the mix doesnt improve freedom of speech. At some point we have to stop being naive and operating in the realm of frictionless theory.

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

#214

Post by throwaway2037 »

supernetworks_ wrote: post #42

Americans can’t invest directly in Chinese companies and shouldn’t be obligated to host Chinese companies in their markets or be surprised when political whims ban them, since the lack of shared investment is political too. People clearly enjoy the content on there so the outcome is sad but it’s a complicated economic dynamic that is hard to grasp

    > Americans can’t invest directly in Chinese companies
This is not true. You can trade onshore Mainland China stocks through the Hongkong Stock Exchange. There is a special programmed called "Northbound" and "Southbound" in the broker-dealer industry. (This also allows investors from Mainland China to trades Hongkong stocks.) Any big brokerage should offer access to the Hongkong Stock Exchange. There is even a weird special currency called "CNH" that is the Chinese RMB that is allowed to settled in Hongkong, so you don't need a brokerage account in Mainland China to trade.

Read more here: https://www.hkex.com.hk/Mutual-Market/Connect-Hub/Stock-Conn...

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

#215

Post by wiseowise »

paganel wrote: post #183
soramimo wrote: post #65

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.

The West was throwing all shorts of shades at political powers here in Eastern Europe back in the day for not letting the free flow of information do its thing. So, saying that the US is doing the right thing now to ban TikTok based on ideological grounds is saying that it was right sending people to prison back then for listening to Radio Free Europe and similar.

[flagged]

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

#216

Post by ptek »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #167

This is one of the things in my lifetime that gives me the most optimism, alongisde the IRA Bill. as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. I know t…

> I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species.

Haha so that when you ring the girl's house her father would answer the phone and ask why you are calling his daughter.

I don't use social media except for this site, still need to get on the github.

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

#217

Post by _1tem »

skwee357 wrote: post #209

I'm surprised it doesn't come from the EU. On the other hand, I'm not sure if this move is against short form content in general, but rather against China. I wish the entire world would agree to ban short form content and influencer content in general. Things I saw on reels/shorts range from mild pornography, conspiracy theories, medical advice, promoting overconsumption, financial advice, etc. Nothing useful comes o…

The problem is not with the short-form content medium. The problem is with the culture you live in. As a speaker of multiple languages, I see many different faces of TikTok in different countries. In most Western countries, the content I get is absolute trash, basically OnlyFans promoters and various stupid jokes. In another country I live in (not English-speaking), I get interesting political commentary, everyday useful tips/hacks, interesting views on my city, and of course comedy and dancing.

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

#218

Post by suraci »

xwowsersx wrote: post #178
incahoots wrote: post #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 a…

[flagged]

I like your comment

A good example of "I know it's B_S_, but I pretend I don't know"

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

#219

Post by wiseowise »

badestrand wrote: post #85
exabrial wrote: post #55

As grating as this is to freedom of expression, I’ve been annoyed enough times by ‘tok’ers doing crap like I dunno, licking ice cream buckets in supermarkets, I’m also looking forward to that going away for a few months till the next thing replaces it. Unfortunately, this is pretty bad precedent. While I love my country, these sorts of decisions are as federal level are pretty scary and I question whether the governm…

> I’ve been annoyed enough times by ‘tok’ers doing crap like I dunno, licking ice cream buckets in supermarkets, Did you ever see that in person? I feel like this is just typical outrage about something that maybe a total of 5 people did, so basically irrelevant.

How many people originally done it is irrelevant, the platform gave them opportunity to reach millions of people.

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

#220

Post by afiori »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #167

This is one of the things in my lifetime that gives me the most optimism, alongisde the IRA Bill. as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. I know t…

I can empathize with this view, but this move is about reinforcing the current oligopoly of us-based internet giants, this is going to protect Meta's interests.
Post reply on HN