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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

#231

Post by petre »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #178
petre wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely how Russia tainted the Romanian presidential elections using Tiktok dormant accounts to hijack another PR campaign. I'm with the SCotUS on this.

Hasn't the Russia story been already debunked? https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/12/23/romanian-centre-rig...

That's the campaign that was hijacked by Russia. The PR company tried (and failed) to use a teasing campaign to promote another candidate without naming him. The Russian bots were commenting with the far-right ultranationalist's candidate name the day before the election under the unsuspecting influencers' videos paid for by the PR company.

In parallel there were other campaigns in the ultranationalist's favour, paid for with crypto.

He's also linked to a former secret service figure¹ who betrayed NATO to the KGB in the '60s, so he's either a FSB trojan, an useful idiot, or both.

1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihai_Caraman

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

#232

Post by mantas »

ReptileMan wrote: post #137
gorgoiler wrote: post #32

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…

The first amendment at its core is - if someone wants to say something and someone wants to listen to the first one saying it - the government has no right to prevent or interfere with the process. Banning the app trough which information flows is interference. And the government doesn't offer any kind of remedy - you can't pick up your whole social cluster and move to another platform. tiktok didn't had its 1A right…

What’s next, pitting a fence around some field is also freedom-of-speech issue since some people may want to talk in that field?

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

#233

Post by phatfish »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #178
petre wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely how Russia tainted the Romanian presidential elections using Tiktok dormant accounts to hijack another PR campaign. I'm with the SCotUS on this.

Hasn't the Russia story been already debunked? https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/12/23/romanian-centre-rig...

Debunked? That article says the election was annulled after evidence of Russian interference was provided.

Anyway Russian interference doesn't usually involve the Kremlin giving money to voters directly (unless you are a citizen of Moldova), but through people in the country willing to sell themselves to Russia. Like "Bogdan Peșchir" in the article who donated €1 million to Tiktok users who promoted Georgescu.

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

#234

Post by monocularvision »

llamaimperative wrote: post #195
ls612 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you quote the extreme interpretation of the decision by the dissenters to describe what he believes as opposed to using his own words? Seems unfair.

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

#235

Post by brookst »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #222
jazzyjackson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How about copyright infringement, false advertising, sharing classified documents, tobacco advertising? There are a LOT of special cases.

Maybe there shouldn’t be and all of those things should be free from government interference, but the status quo is that plenty of speech is regulated.

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

#236

Post by arizen »

nextaccountic wrote: post #145
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…

How exactly does this differ from Facebook and Instagram?

Owners residency/citizenship

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

#237

Post by ab5tract »

Thorrez wrote: post #221
pastage wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. h…

A few scattered examples of this does nothing to counterbalance the neoliberalism and outright cronyism of NYT. They are probably a big reason why you might even (wrongly) associate neoliberalism with leftist ideology.

Back in 2004 they withheld publishing the fact that the NSA had spliced themselves into every internet backbone. (RIP Qwest).

Back in 2002/2003, they drummed for war like all the good sycophants.

A few examples of them painting some of their toadies in a good light while trashing some of their enemies is hardly evidence of “leftism”.

If the NYT were even moderately leftist, they would have endorsed Bernie Sanders.

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

#238

Post by sampullman »

pastage wrote: post #225
glimshe wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

I think the point is that it's not hypocritical to support the TikTok ban, since they don't care and/or can't influence what the EU does with respect to American social media.

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

#239

Post by sampullman »

herbst wrote: post #215
mshroyer wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because this isn't a content restriction. Anything that was speakable on TikTok remains speakable on platforms that aren't owned by U.S. adversaries. The distinction between this and China's "great firewall" and speech restrictions should be obvious.

The distinction between an US firewall and a Chinese firewall?

Yes, there's currently a very clear distinction.

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

#240

Post by lsaferite »

_t9ow wrote: post #144
mdhb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question is actually asked incorrectly in the reverse. Maybe start with the not at all controversial position that China is effectively an authoritarian dictatorship who is well known to use censorship and public manipulation as one of its key levers of control and then ask if you have any evidence whatsoever that for some reason they wouldn’t include TikTok in that mix? The way actual professionals in th…

I agree overall with your analysis. Nonetheless when one says that there is good evidence for something, rather than that there is good circumstantial evidence or that there are very reasonable grounds to assume something, one is making a different claim. We must also ask whether circumstantial evidence or reasonable assumptions alone should be enough to force a company to divest its assets.

Divest the assets or leave the foreign market they are in that's regulated them out.
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