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US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

reuters.com

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Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#291

Post by kelnos »

suraci wrote: post #222
disqard wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I'm baffled at folks wanting to overlook that a Chinese-controlled brainworm is even more dangerous than a US-operated brainworm. Yes, we should steer clear of all brainworms, but we should be exterminating the brainworms run by adversaries ASAP.

That's funny - There's a Chinese-controlled brainworm which is more harmful than a US-operated brainworm - How you know this - The US-operated brainworm told me * and why use '-controlled' vs '-operated', I'm not a native English speeker and I'm very curious about it

I'm so tired of arguments like this. They seem ill-informed at best, actively bad-faith at worst.

The US government has faults. A lot of them. And I (a US citizen) can't claim to be perfectly objective and unbiased. But I don't think you're going to be able to convince me that I should prefer Chinese propaganda and election interference over US propaganda. Or that US propaganda is as effective and all-encompassing within US borders as Chinese propaganda is within Chinese borders.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#292

Post by andrepd »

endgame wrote: post #199
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #167

This is one of the things in my lifetime that gives me the most optimism, alongisde the IRA Bill. as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. I know t…

The problem with AU's U16 ban is that it's going to end up being a de facto real ID requirement for any Australian to communicate online. And also, how many of us on this site were able to learn and grow because they got online as teenagers and learned things? It would have been much, much better to regulate out the worst features of social media platforms for everyone than to pass a Bill that nobody knows how to imp…

Internet != social media. The former is likely a net good, the latter is definitely a net negative.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#293

Post by cmeacham98 »

oefrha wrote: post #286
omnimus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This move unfortunately has nothing to do with harm of social media. Its purely about economical war with china. US is simply protecting its interests. So not only the ruling class in US doesnt care about the harms of social media. They are actively protecting the results - the profits and data/spying/control facebook brings. They will surely not limit or break up facebook unless it would result in getting more resul…

It’s definitely not “purely about economical war”. A large part of it was public support for Palestine and the perceived role of TikTok in it, which explains the timing of the ban and why it succeeded this time around. Evidence? Well, many congresscritters were very open about this motive, e.g. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmaker... But yes, of course “social media is bad for children” had no…

"A large part of it"

However, the evidence is that "at least two" Congressmen mentioned it as a reason a single time each.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#294

Post by hbs18 »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #194
omnimus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This move unfortunately has nothing to do with harm of social media. Its purely about economical war with china. US is simply protecting its interests. So not only the ruling class in US doesnt care about the harms of social media. They are actively protecting the results - the profits and data/spying/control facebook brings. They will surely not limit or break up facebook unless it would result in getting more resul…

I know this, but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny. People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds

> but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth

No, there isn't. The youth will just switch to Instagram Reels.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#295

Post by mupuff1234 »

endgame wrote: post #277
mupuff1234 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're acting as if they're banning the Internet for U16, they're not, it's just social media (and not even YouTube, and probably not something like reddit either, at least for viewing). How many things did you actually learn from Facebook? I'm guessing not a lot. The problem with banning specific features etc is that it will most likely just leave giant loopholes and will be extremely hard to actually enforce.

> The problem with banning specific features etc is that it will most likely just leave giant loopholes and will be extremely hard to actually enforce. I invite you to read the Bill^WAct and look at how it defines an "age-restricted social media platform".

Not thrilled by the definition, but still think a more general ban is better than trying to ban specific features, but I would probably just ban account creation for U16 - seems like the "cleanest" solution.

I think it will also bring major positive side effects to the web - social media sites will be forced to open up their walled gardens and smaller sites might thrive again.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#296

Post by rdm_blackhole »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #201
endgame wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with AU's U16 ban is that it's going to end up being a de facto real ID requirement for any Australian to communicate online. And also, how many of us on this site were able to learn and grow because they got online as teenagers and learned things? It would have been much, much better to regulate out the worst features of social media platforms for everyone than to pass a Bill that nobody knows how to imp…

I'm hoping it's a government or licensed third party provided anonymous token login system, or an email with a protected top level domain like anonymous@citizenverification.au or something. De facto id will be a massive step backwards, if they move forward despite saying they most likely wouldn't, but not as far backwards as raising a generation on reactionary and divisive social media

> De facto id will be a massive step backwards, if they move forward despite saying they most likely wouldn't

Ah, yes, I too trust government to keep their words. Pinky promises and all that.

> but not as far backwards as raising a generation on reactionary and divisive social media

This is your opinion. You use of "reactionary" in this context implies that whatever views are being shared, you are against them. Instead of winning over people, you prefer the easy solution which is to silence them.

That is not very democratic of you.

Finally if you think that the "division" that most western societies are experiencing currently is only due to social media, then you haven't bothered researching theses topics.

These problems that are coming to light now have been a long time in the making. In reality decades, but before the governing powers could simply pretend that they did not exist whereas now, it is plain sight.

Silencing opposing voices is not moral and it is delusional to think that this will fix the broken state of western democracies just like sweeping the dust under the carpet doesn't mean that your apartment is clean.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#297

Post by OhioMan2943 »

0xy wrote: post #245
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty aware of how inept our government is at these policies, and their surveillance state tendencies (eg undisclosed facial recognition testing at flinder street station). But at this point i think a malicious australian government is less of a threat to the public and our way of life and emotional prosperity than social media.

The Australian Government has been hacked repeatedly, including the time Centrelink was hacked and they didn't even know they had been infiltrated (and attempted to cover it up). Not to mention their KYC regulations led to the Optus disaster, by forcing telecoms to store PII longer than necessary. Your position is that everyone in Australia should have their PII exposed because parental responsibility belongs with th…

My point is that social media is an active threat to society that is doing vast magnitudes of harm right now, where as authoritarian creep is also a great threat, but it isn't currently eroding our self of self and the sanctity of the individual, and deliberately de-training us to be reactionary animals with no regard for emotional intimacy or others, and nosediving our quality of public discourse. I'm worried of a world where people raised on social media their entire lives that teaches them to think a certain way win their careers through what are increasingly popularity contests in the 21stc, run our institutions and have their hand on our metaphorical red buttons. I don't think our society will have the discipline or the patience or maturity to stay out of unnecessary conflicts or make decisions that are in our long term interests if we keep social media as a formative part of peoples youth.

ID's can be reissued like we saw with optus and while there's a lot of pain and misfortune from insecurity of assets etc we can reverse that, mostly. You can't reverse the childhood of an entire guinea pig generation once you find out that social media mentally broke them. Obviously, assets and security aren't a concern at my age so my perspective might be a little different.

If you have anything about a global ID mandate i'd be interested, because it definitely hasn't been publicised in the media, though that doesn't always count for much.

I have a lot of conflicting views on this, but I think overall we are better off addressing the threat from social media right now.

You might view the current generation of younger people with the notion of at least a warm childhood like your own, and regular life milestones and rite of passages behind whatever struggle they're currently facing as slightly older people. That's increasingly not the case.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#298

Post by kelnos »

throwaway17_17 wrote: post #243
bryan_w wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe taking over the recommendations algorithm (or banning any kind of algorithmic feed other than chronogical) would have sparked less concerns. Literally all they had to do was sell the CCPs stake in the company to anybody not in the CCP and they were unwilling to do that, opting to burn the whole company down instead. If they did that one thing all this would be avoided.

I find your phrasing funny, the ‘they’ in ‘all they had to do was sell the CCPs stake’ is the CCP (under the operative theory that the CCP completely controls ByteDance). So it seems rather odd to say that the CCP was unwilling to sell their ‘stake’. Obviously the CCP is not going to willing give up their massively influential, culture destroying app (I don’t support this version of reality, but it is how politicians…

You say you don't "support this version of reality", and yet you've put up a compelling argument for it.

If the Chinese government benefits from TikTok's ability to influence Western minds, then right, they may prefer the company dies than lose that capability.

If they aren't running influence campaigns on TikTok that targets Americans, then they should be fine with a sale to a fully-non-Chinese owner. Sure, they lose future revenue, but I'm sure they could sell it for a pretty nice sum.

(Honestly, if the Chinese government is not using TikTok to spread propaganda to the West, they are wildly incompetent to pass up such a fantastic opportunity.)

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#299

Post by WA »

submeta wrote: post #269

Media & social media is a tool in the Western World to manufacture consent. Ain't no room for alternative narratives or wordings. That's why the ruling class needs to either have full control over (social) media or ban it altogether. So much is clear after one year of genocide in the ME.

That is observable untrue. Social media thrives because of the lack of consent in the population. Social media amplifies dissent. That is why many people find these places so toxic.

Re: US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from stores Jan. 19

#300

Post by kelnos »

drukenemo wrote: post #68

“Free market”. Such a thing doesn’t really exist.

Sure, I don't think it ever has, and that's fine. I'm of the opinion that truly free markets end in massive consolidation, monopolistic behaviors, and rent-seeking.

We've been seeing some of this already in recent decades. The current administration in the US was starting to really think about what to do about that, but I expect the next one will allow businesses to do whatever they please.

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