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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

#281

Post by bdangubic »

llamaimperative wrote: post #243
ipython wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely do require confirmation in some cases - https://www.facebook.com/help/1090831264320592 Of course that’s not foolproof and there are millions of bot accounts by facebooks own admission. But at the scale of billions of active users across the globe I’m not sure what approach could be 100%

> in some cases some != all therefore, it is not a real-name only network. I'm not asking for Facebook to become a confirmed real-name only network. I am not asking for anyone to be compelled to supply a confirmed real-name only network. I am saying: I wish that one existed and caught on with consumers.

this is the way…

I find absolutely ridiculous every social media / free speech discussion if platform does not have proof of identity. while you and I may have right to free speech the bots etc do not. hence, there is no free speech without proof of identity imo

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

#282

Post by krapp »

bdangubic wrote: post #281
llamaimperative wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in some cases some != all therefore, it is not a real-name only network. I'm not asking for Facebook to become a confirmed real-name only network. I am not asking for anyone to be compelled to supply a confirmed real-name only network. I am saying: I wish that one existed and caught on with consumers.

this is the way… I find absolutely ridiculous every social media / free speech discussion if platform does not have proof of identity. while you and I may have right to free speech the bots etc do not. hence, there is no free speech without proof of identity imo

Of course there is free speech without proof of identity. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects anonymous speech. The right to speak anonymously is fundamental to the right to speak freely.

You haven't proven the identity of "bdangubic" to us yet here you are exercising your right to free speech.

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

#283

Post by russli1993 »

All countries in the world, USA just showed it is perfectly fine to steal a foreign companies' asset. Let's do that to all USA companies, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Boeing, Qualcomn, Intel, all of them. U know how rich you will be if you just got a piece of them? U know you could end homelessness, poverty, balance trade, stabilize your currency, elevate tax revenues, get free education and health care for your citizens, provide great jobs if you just got a piece of USA companies? Now you can! All of them can be Indian, Germany, France, UK, Poland, Brazilian, Mexican, Canadian, Kenyan, Egyptian companies. Everyone gets a piece, everyone gets them equally, everyone will benefit and be happy!

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

#284

Post by TeaBrain »

gunian wrote: post #113
cship2 wrote: post #105

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. Think Binney, Snowden, Assange would probably disagree with you.

It's a cool phenomena tbh if I was rich enough to go to college I would love to do a thesis on it We know both China and the US are nation states with global ambitions so it would be logical for both to use digital platforms to surveil and perform social engineering. We also have had whistleblowers on both sides that have come forward and said this is a common practice. We also know based on simple game theory it is…

>on a site like HN that presents itself as rational and factual the sentiment is the US does not do any surveillance

The impression I have of the sentiment on this site is closer to the opposite.

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

#285

Post by TeaBrain »

cship2 wrote: post #105
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…

>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. Think Binney, Snowden, Assange would probably disagree with you.

Snowden's work doesn't say anything on the matter. The information he released concerned government data collection, not data restriction or manipulation.

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

#286

Post by mystified5016 »

brookst wrote: post #251
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright enforcement is not a form of censorship.

So basically controls on speech that are good are not censorship and therefore good, but ones that are bad are censorship and therefore bad? That doesn’t feel like an especially defensible view.

Copyright violation is not speech.

Copying someone else's work and presenting it as your own is not protected speech, it is fraud. If you want to still consider this speech, someone is using it to actively and intentionally harm others.

If you're so intent on free speech, how would you feel if someone followed you around screaming profanities and abuse? Are you engaging in harmful and immoral censorship by calling the cops to remove this person? Are you suppressing his right to free speech by taking out a restraining order?

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

#287

Post by ipython »

llamaimperative wrote: post #209
ipython wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However forcing TikTok to divest of foreign ownership is not restricting the rights of Americans to express their opinions. Americans are free to widely exercise their first amendment rights- the TikTok order to divest foreign ownership doesn’t affect those users ability to speak. The first amendment does not guarantee you access to a specific platform- it means that the bar for the government to imprison you for spe…

Forcing American companies not to put an app on their marketplace is impinging their speech. And yes, they do have First Amendment protections. No, the First Amendment doesn’t just prevent the government from imprisoning you for speech… that is a ridiculously narrow perspective and really discredits you on the matter. The First Amendment, as a trivial example, prevents the government from fining you for speech. It pr…

Ok so I quickly typed up a response- there is a lot of nuance that’s not going to be captured in a few sentences.

The government has absolutely imprisoned people for speech it doesn’t like. In the Parma case, a citizen put up a parody page satirizing the local police department, he was jailed for several days awaiting trial. And the Supreme Court ruled that the victim was unable to sue the police department for doing so because of qualified immunity: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court.... Parody publications The Onion and The Babylon Bee both filed amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, which are hilarious reads btw. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...

Recently there was also the case of Michael Cohen, where it was found that he was remanded to solitary confinement as retaliation for him refusing to give up his rights to publish a book critical of the sitting us president: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-files-first-amendme... and https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=122506763932389.... This brings up an interesting issue as the administration pointed to an undisclosed nda (assumed to be agreed to as private citizens) was used as an argument for the federal government to intervene as a criminal matter not civil.

I find your argument about forcing the app store providers to remove the TikTok app compelling. I was curious how the Supreme Court handled that issue in its recent opinion on the matter and a quick skim didn’t find any references to app stores. See https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf.

My first thought is that if TikTok is barred from operating in the United States, it may simply be a condition of the store policies to have a legally recognized operating company in the country before your app can be approved for the store. So in this case the government is not directly demanding the store to remove the app, but rather the store itself simply enforcing its own t’s and c’s

Finally, there is plenty of precedent for regulating foreign speech - for example FARA which is very wide reaching. https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara/frequently-asked-questions

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

#288

Post by programjames »

bdangubic wrote: post #281
llamaimperative wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in some cases some != all therefore, it is not a real-name only network. I'm not asking for Facebook to become a confirmed real-name only network. I am not asking for anyone to be compelled to supply a confirmed real-name only network. I am saying: I wish that one existed and caught on with consumers.

this is the way… I find absolutely ridiculous every social media / free speech discussion if platform does not have proof of identity. while you and I may have right to free speech the bots etc do not. hence, there is no free speech without proof of identity imo

I think anonymity is important for some kind of coordination problems (e.g. against an authoritarian government). A better solution is to have a nominal fee, maybe $10/yr to be platformed, that way it's expensive to bot.

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

#289

Post by belorn »

cromka wrote: post #192
glimshe wrote: post #186

I can no longer send money to the EFF due to their obvious misreading of the situation. They will lose $100s/year from me, I hope it was worth it. Clearly, a naive take that doesn't understand the nuances related to Tiktok's situation. Tiktok can still exist and keep showing their garbage to Americans, but it can't do so while being owned by a foreign adversary that attacks us almost continuously. Sure, they can stil…

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…

As a European, I am 100% ok with EU banning Facebook and other large advertisement funded platforms.

When GDPR was created there was a huge wave of people arguing that Facebook and other similar platforms would withdraw from EU. That did not happen, but if it had it would have been perfectly fine. Instead most American companies decided to create EU specific version of their platforms in order to comply with GDPR.

The next wave of privacy protecting regulations will likely recreate similar reactions. Those companies that want to stay in EU will comply, and those who don't will withdraw and give space to new ones. The trend of moving to national platforms/cloud providers has already started and been going on fairly strong in my country, especially from government organization and defense adjacent companies.

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