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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

#221

Post by Thorrez »

pastage wrote: post #206
eastbound wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Easiest way to spot an authorian is the complaining something is not democratic while also spending time promoting antidemocratic messages. It is a cop out. I do not believe everyone who argue against some of my views are against everyone of them. I have no idea of what part of the far right pleases you, but the point about a democracy is that nothing is fixed everything ebbs and flows. This is something conservative…

NYT does have a left leaning bias. Here's an example where a conservative person and a liberal person each did the same donation tax avoidance strategy, and the NYT said the conservative got "an enormous personal tax windfall", but the liberal got "no tax benefit". In reality they both got the same benefit. NYT describes the conservative person as greedy and the liberal person as selfless, for doing the same thing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32847961

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

#222

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #112
mmooss wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obviously the US government has a say in what gets published and promoted That's not at all obvious to me. On what grounds, moral or legal, should the US government tell anyone what to publish or promote?

I read what you quoted as a matter of fact statement, not an assertion of what is ethically righteous But with that, I don't agree that it's a fact, maybe the FCC regulates what you broadcast on radio and TV, but if you don't take federal funding, the government doesn't really have a pull in what is created or prompted AFAIK. Journalists in the press pool may trade subservience for access but that's about it.

FCC is a special cause because private entities are using a public resource that must be managed. The content controls were a way to prevent Hearst style journalism spreading to radio and television. It worked well until the era of entertainment news developed.

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

#223

Post by grumple »

uludag wrote: post #185
tmnvdb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are glancing over the fact that American media platforms are not really controlled by the US government except for legal restrictions on hate speech and violence, and that there is an extremely diverse set of voices that can be heard on the 'American' (or rather non-Chinese) internet. It is also not clear to me how TikTok is supposed to provide better "checks and balances" just because it is owned and manipulated…

So I'm definitely not saying that TikTok itself provides better checks and balances, but TikTok, in an ecosystem of other media providers under different governments, would be a much healthier for civil society. For example, US social media companies were vital in kicking off the Arab spring. How different would such movements be if they only had access to a media monoculture controlled by their respective regimes?

US social media companies contributing to widespread social unrest that ultimately led nowhere[0] or created more oppressive Islamic regimes and sectarian violence - well, this seems like an argument against TikTok, not for it.

Despite any personal romanticism towards violent revolution you may have, that is not something that societies actually want against democracies. Even against authoritarian regimes, society often goes from bad to worse (see Iran, Lebanon). You want violent revolution against actual oppressive regimes, not democracies where you can change the society with a vote, but even then, you want it led by pro-democratic factions.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring#Long-term_aftermat...

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

#224

Post by paganel »

lolinder wrote: 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…

> In short, these platforms are places for manufacturing consent.

Like Hollywood, then.

In other words, some of the Westerners’ hypocrisy when it comes to the views they hold on their socio-economic system never ceases to amaze me, especially now, as we’re in the middle of a new translatio imperii phase.

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

#225

Post by pastage »

glimshe wrote: post #194
cromka wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you expand and on this? Do you think EU should force every successful US company to divest their EU branches. I do not know where I stand on this but you seem to have a clear idea on this..

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

#226

Post by [deleted] »

paganel wrote: post #224
lolinder wrote: 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…

> In short, these platforms are places for manufacturing consent. Like Hollywood, then. In other words, some of the Westerners’ hypocrisy when it comes to the views they hold on their socio-economic system never ceases to amaze me, especially now, as we’re in the middle of a new translatio imperii phase.

[deleted]

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

#227

Post by munchler »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #210
munchler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So is it that it's not antidemocratic now because of new media, or is it antidemocratic but thats ok because of new media?

Probably the latter, if viewed narrowly, but the whole point is to preserve democracy in the end. This ban is the lesser of two evils.

Is chemotherapy not unhealthy now because of cancer, or is it unhealthy but that’s OK because of cancer?

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

#228

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

_t9ow wrote: post #118
dqv wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...

> You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence Unfortunately very common these days; people who say this probably hope that they won't ever be asked to provide receipts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok

All the usual trigger topics like Tiananmen and Tibet are suppressed on Tiktok at the behest of the CCP.

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

#229

Post by mantas »

Etheryte wrote: post #170
quanto wrote: 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.

More aid in general - yes. But in the battlefield US was much bigger part. While non-lethal aid is important too, without lethal aid there may be no need for non-lethal support anymore.

And even talking about lethal aid, some European countries loved to play the numbers (hi Estonia).

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

#230

Post by lolinder »

uludag wrote: post #88
lolinder wrote: 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…

I think you misunderstand me: I'm not in favor of banning tiktok on its own. I think you're right that that misweights things, further consolidating power in the hands of those who hold the remaining platforms.

What I'm saying is that all of these platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in that they exist to predictably change individual behavior with a high degree of precision, through custom tailored information feeds that can be shaped to alter someone's perspectives on the world in the interests of whoever controls the feed.

I don't think it's better for that power to be in the hands of Elon Musk or of Mark Zuckerberg. I think that that power needs to be banned worldwide if democracy is to survive. Democracy hinges on the idea that voters will in general vote in their own interest, and the ability to individually manipulate voters into measurably changing their behavior breaks that assumption.

And note that this is fundamentally different than traditional media sources, which have a harder time shaping someone's entire life and worldview. WaPo can control what someone perceives the WaPo editorial board as believing. Only a social media platform can control their perspective of what their friends think.

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