Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#241

Post by tmnvdb » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

o999 wrote: post #235

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Because US is not really a free country. It is obviously way better on this matter than China, but in principle, liberties are selectively granted in US and in China. The TikTok ban topic has been stale for long time before it became the main harbor for Pro-Palestine content after it became under censorship by US social media thus depriving anti-Palestine from controling the narrative, effectively becoming a major co…

Every country has "selective liberties", that is not a very meaningful criterion.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#242

Post by lvl155 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Why do we need a good answer? Does US need to be a good guy on some made up rules? Post Soviet collapse, US could have just taken over a bunch of territories. We don’t alway need to be some faithful country when the rest of the world is always messing up asking for millions of Americans to spill blood. I think RoW take US goodwill for granted. We don’t need to play nice. That’s not how competition works.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#243

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

medhir wrote: post #225

In a more functional democracy we would see that mass data collection of any sort, by any company (foreign or domestic), is a national security risk. Have witnessed first-hand the threats by foreign state actors penetrating US-based cloud infrastructure. And it’s not like any of our domestic corporations are practicing the type of security hygiene necessary to prevent those intrusions. So idk, the whole thing feels l…

It's questionable what a more functional democracy would actually do, since there hasn't really been one in history. There's been other forms of democracy, but they've all had their flaws, and none of them so far have acted in the interests of all the people in that country.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#244

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

mrcwinn wrote: post #15

Regardless of one’s view on the outcome, this case is a reminder that textualism as a legal philosophy stands on shaky ground. This case is decided not on some strict analysis of the words written by a legislator, but on the court’s subjective view that there is a compelling national interest (which in turn seems based on speculation about the future, rather than a factual analysis of events). Textualism might give t…

You misapprehend what textualism is. It does not say that every legal case can be decided by interpreting written law. It is merely a philosophy of how to interpret written law when its meaning is what's at issue. What American lawyers call "textualism" is how most continental european courts interpret written laws. It would hardly merit a label, if it wasn't for a long history in the 20th century of jurists departing from written law in making decisions. In this case, there is no dispute about what the written law means. It's about applying a pre-existing legal concept, the freedom of speech, to particular facts.

Another example that highlights the distinction: Justice Gorsuch, one of the Supreme Court's preeminent textualists, is also one of the biggest proponents of criminal rights. Those cases similarly involve defining the contours of pre-existing legal concepts, such as "unreasonable search or seizure." Nobody denies that such questions are subjective--in referring to what's "unreasonable," the text itself calls for a subjective analysis.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#245

Post by legitster » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #178

legitster wrote: post #119

TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive. There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction. Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is…

I don't understand the argument here, Tik Tok would maximize their monetization in US but not in other markets? I don't buy it.

Corporations in China all operate at the behest of "the people" (aka the party). If the government thinks a product is damaging or harmful to society, it can be taken off the market without any legal mechanisms necessary.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#246

Post by CryptoBanker » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

This is essentially a whataboutism argument...

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#247

Post by BlarfMcFlarf » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #111

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Because China is a rival geopolitical power and the US is... us. It's a national security concern. I get that there's a lot of conversation and debate to be had on the topic but the answer here is very straightforward and I don't understand why people are so obtuse about it.

X or Facebook isn’t “us”. If we had any reason to believe there were or were even likely to be strong effective democratic controls over their ability to manipulate public sentiment it might be different. But as it stands, it feels more like local oligarchs kicking out competitors in their market: “the US population is our population to manipulate, go back to your own”.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#248

Post by Eextra953 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #111

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

Because China is a rival geopolitical power and the US is... us. It's a national security concern. I get that there's a lot of conversation and debate to be had on the topic but the answer here is very straightforward and I don't understand why people are so obtuse about it.

Because it's not clear what the national security concern is. With weapons or infrastructure, it's easy to understand how they can be used against the U.S., but with a social media platform, it's harder to see the threat. The concern really seems to lie with the users of TikTok.

So what's the issue? That people living in the U.S. and using TikTok might be influenced to act differently than how the powers that be want us to act?

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#249

Post by EcommerceFlow » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

The sitting president of the United States of America was banned by almost every major AMERICAN company, and even some Canadian companies (Shopify), yet we're going after Tiktok.

No Chinese ever banned the sitting president of the United States.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#250

Post by timcobb » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

briffle wrote: post #21

Still have no good answer on why its bad for a company that is supposedly under Chineese influence to collect this kind of information on us, and adjust and tweak an 'algorith' for displaying content. But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it? Wouldn't the right solution be to protect the citizens from all threats, foreign and domestic?

> But its perfectly fine for a US company to do it?

It's not perfectly fine, but you need to start with companies of foreign adversaries first.