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TikTok is now banned in Montana

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Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#271

Post by krapp »

dragonwriter wrote: post #264
krapp wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is nothing there that explicitly grants private enterprises the right to store, sell, and manipulate your free speech. ... because the Constitution limits the government. It doesn't grant rights to private enterprise or the people (of which private enterprise is a superset.) Note the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which explicitly state that the rights listed in the Constitution are not exhaustive, and that all s…

> Note the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which explicitly state that the rights listed in the Constitution are not exhaustive, and that all such rights not enumerated in the Constitution are granted to the states and the people. That’s wrong on the Ninth and Tenth: the Ninth Amendment says that enumerated rights don’t limit other rights of the people that exist (the purpose of this was that the Constitution wasn’t a “b…

I mean, even given how badly the Commerce Clause has been abused at this point, I'm incredulous that it should allow the government to ban social media platforms at will simply because bits travel through the series of tubes across state lines.

Particularly since, if that were the case, porn would have been banned under that rationale ages ago. If free speech protects the likes of Larry Flynt and Vice it obviously protects Facebook and Twitter.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#272

Post by groggo »

asynchronous wrote: post #268
groggo wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the data? Doesn't iOS limit access to anything outside of the app? It has to ask to access contacts, photos, location. If you just use it to scroll through stupid videos, what does it even have access to?

IIRC the traffic is encrypted, all TCP/IP packets but going to bytedance servers. Without interacting with the app I have no idea what it could be sending but scary to speculate.

please speculate. I just don't understand what it would even have access to. Are you worried about it exploiting iOS bugs? Otherwise it should only have explicit access to what I grant, right? No audio, video, files, photos, contacts, location.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#273

Post by anonymouskimmer »

DanAtC wrote: post #269

Is there a precedent of app stores needing to enforce app restrictions on a state-by-state basis? What if Apple protests and just disables their store in MT? It would only impact at _most_ 500k people (population 1mm at 50% market share, not accounting for demographics) A huge number of angry Montanians who might vote their representatives out, but a rounding error for Apple.

Why would Apple do this to help a foreign company? They have nothing to gain except a small amount of app store fees. And they'd piss off a ton of Republican and some Democrat lawmakers, not to mention the 80% of their customers who don't use TikTok.

If Apple did do this to help a foreign company (or any company), it would probably fall afoul of the law: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

> A firm's refusal to deal with any other person or company is lawful so long as the refusal is not the product of an anticompetitive agreement with other firms or part of a predatory or exclusionary strategy to acquire or maintain a monopoly. (emphasis mine)

IANAL, so I'm sure there are other laws I am not aware of that would squelch such a move.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#274

Post by zanellato19 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #263
drekk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the grasp and reach to punish me based on things about my privately generated data. The CCP has the grasp but not the reach. They are entirely different threat models. Neither one is excusable, but the US spying on me is a lot more immediately applicable. Also I find it funny to the point of parody that China is the country under an unaccountable regime when they are signatories to the Hague System. The Un…

> The CCP has the grasp but not the reach. CCP has extraterritorial police stations that regularly surveil the Chinese diaspora and have sent agents to assault individuals. It's particularly bad for expats with domestic families, expats are known to be challenged or coerced using the threat of harm to family members. It's especially bad for uighur and tibetan expats. Here's the thing. The US has certainly done bad sh…

> By and large it reckons with it and is subject to corrective action.

What kind of corrective action? The US has never faced any backlash for helping Brazil (my country) to maintain a dictatorship because of communism fears, for example.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#275

Post by anonymouskimmer »

falcolas wrote: post #220
jameshart wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An entity" is defined as either TikTok, or an app store. Individuals can not violate this statute.

The entity is Apple/Google. But an end user using ticktok constitutes a violation for which Apple/Google is liable.

> (a) the operation of tiktok by the company or users; or

I don't see how owners of iOS or Android phones can be in any way said to be users of Apple or Google. At best this would apply to TikTok itself, or to companies which supply phones to employees.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#277

Post by hax0ron3 »

marianatom wrote: post #231
radpanda wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are often a lot of weasel words used instead. In US Defense circles China has been described as a "pacing threat" over the past few years: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/26... I guess that's one way to describe the tense rivalry without completely calling your most important trade partner an "adversary".

After narrowly lagging behind China in 2022, Mexico officially became the US’s largest trading partner at the start of 2023, according to new US Census Bureau figures. https://www.gfmag.com/magazine/may-2023/mexico-overtakes-chi... China should fall pretty quickly behind Europe as well this year. China's economy has fallen off the cliff - 80% decrease in foreign orders, 20% official youth unemployment rate, 50% reduc…

>80% decrease in foreign orders, 20% official youth unemployment rate, 50% reduction in home prices, 80% decrease in government land sales

I do not find these figures to be credible. They would an indicate a cataclysmic, wartime level sort of economic collapse that I see no evidence of.

Since you post this kind of stuff all the time, I can't help but feel that you have an axe to grind. Not that I would blame you for hating the Chinese government, but still... are you sure that you are not being irrational about its prospects?

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#279

Post by oh_sigh »

runarberg wrote: post #177
oh_sigh wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $5/dozen t-shirt has little possibility of collecting private data and sending it to the mother ship

How does a hypothetical data collection warrant a ban, while a real illegal data collection associated with illegal voter manipulation and illegal campaign financing, like the Cambridge Analytica—a British company—scandal, doesn’t?

Well, Cambridge Analytica has been disbanded since 2018 so there would be little use in banning it.

Re: TikTok is now banned in Montana

#280

Post by jameshart »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #275
falcolas wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entity is Apple/Google. But an end user using ticktok constitutes a violation for which Apple/Google is liable.

> (a) the operation of tiktok by the company or users; or I don't see how owners of iOS or Android phones can be in any way said to be users of Apple or Google. At best this would apply to TikTok itself, or to companies which supply phones to employees.

If ‘the company’ (unclear who that refers to. Bad statute-writing. Assume it means the same thing as entity but a court could interpret it however it chooses) or a ‘user’ (whoever that is) ‘operates’ the TikTok app in the territorial jurisdiction of Montana (insert your own interpretation of ‘operate’ and ‘in’) then a violation occurs for which ‘an entity’ is liable.

So if someone inside Montana launches the TikTok app on an iPhone either an App Store (presumably Apple’s) or TikTok itself is liable for that violation.

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