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US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

reuters.com

31–40 of 110 posts

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#31

Is September a fast track though? Outside of IT I feel everything is moving at slow motion. Sure they need armies of lawyers but I assume they already hired a lot? Why not a direct ban but requires the army of lawyers to request an appeal? I bet this would send motions faster -- they won't wait for 4 months.

Because due process. ALso, the bill doesn't ban Tiktok. It forces Bytedance to sell Tiktok to a US controlled entity so the US security state can more easily threaten them and force them to censor their anti-imperialist content.

> It forces Bytedance to sell Tiktok to a US controlled entity

No, it does not. (It requires sale to a non-foreign adversary controlled person. A sale to an Indian, South African or Brazilian company would be fine.)

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment says nothing about ownership of the press.

Sure, the first amendment doesn't say much in general - but ownership of the press laws almost certainly impact on the 1A as interpreted today.

If you want to include the precedents that explicitly include examples of limiting ownership of media and distribution channels then sure

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> requiring that their preferred press must only controlled by the government's preferred owners? By “preferred owners” you mean literally anybody not from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia or Venezuela [1]. Anyone in America, Europe, most of the Americas, most of Asia, and all of Africa. (Oz can come too.) [1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-15/subtitle-A/part-7/subp...

Come on, spend 5 more minutes thinking about this. Phase 1: restricted if from China Phase 2: restricted if influenced by China Phase 3: restricted if sympathetic to China Phase 4: China isn’t the only bad thing for America. If you have the following ideas, those are just as dangerous. “Speech is violence.” Also “silence is violence.” This has been lived out in front of our eyes so many times.

> This has been lived out in front of our eyes so many times

If you’re referring to McCarthyism, note that his House Un-American proceedings lost steam when they were thrown out by the courts [1]. (It was also limited to government employment, where the state has more power.)

Otherwise, this is just a slippery-slope argument that can be used against any regulation, including the First Amendment.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limits of foreign ownership/approval regimes for broadcast services are a thing, no?

Yes, but the law specifically refers to companies that hold a broadcast license. Of course, the law was written in 1934 so they could challenge TikTok based not on the letter of the law but on the spirit of the law. But, case precedence is also not in their favor as they approved a 100% foreign ownership of a media company in 2017.

I didn't mean to say that that law might apply here (no idea there), just that it seems to me possible at least in some situations to put limits on foreign ownership for certain mass media.

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the election is 1 month prior Which means the public can make it an issue if it wants to.

>Which means the public can make it an issue if it wants to. That's what I'm saying, it's highly probable that it will be.

> it's highly probable that it will be

I’m sceptical, but not confidently so. The demo that would have been relevant has significant overlap with voters who will never vote for Trump or Biden. Unless they can mobilise convincingly down ballot, they’re for practical purposes out of the race.

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#36
post #22

> Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, There's an arguable national security angle. Potential surveillance, and, especially, manipulation and dumbing-down. Earlier, I also heard complaints about TikTok implications for individual health. Which, when implying US Big Tech social media as an acceptable alternative, sounds like an abusive parent: "I…

> Potential surveillance, and, especially, manipulation and dumbing-down.

I'm not a TikTok user, but over the long weekend was around people that clearly are. The things they discussed we so outlandish that I was confused on where they got their information. Of course it was a lot of TikTok and YouTube being used as sources.

Personally, I'm much less concerned by any potential surveillance tool. However, the especially part of your sentence is much more worrying to me.

> Outlaw the irresponsible behaviors,

By this do you mean people posting utter nonsense? At that point, you verge on censorship. I recognize that free speech includes speech I don't like, but holy shite batman!, I've never seen such an effective tool for the crazies to find not just a voice with a megaphone but a 30,000w sound system where ever they go. Oh, and they are monetarily rewarded for behaving that way.

So other than slippery slope reasons, I couldn't careless if TikTok were to no longer exist. The net negative of it existing is not worth it in my opinion.

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#37
The claim that this is is about national security is absurd. It's about Palestine, and Blinken and Romney admitted as much.

https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...

> Romney replied, "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#39
post #22

> Driven by worries among U.S. lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, There's an arguable national security angle. Potential surveillance, and, especially, manipulation and dumbing-down. Earlier, I also heard complaints about TikTok implications for individual health. Which, when implying US Big Tech social media as an acceptable alternative, sounds like an abusive parent: "I…

> since all the other valid complaints about TikTok, including intimate surveillance, also apply to TikTok's counterpart US Big Tech products Big Tech aren’t Chinese. There is no public coalition civically engaged against Big Tech’s surveillance. There is a solid bloc concerned about China. If you want to regulate surveillance capitalism—and I do—convince people to care about the issue (and call their electeds and vo…

> If you want to regulate surveillance capitalism—and I do—convince people to care about the issue (and call their electeds and vote).

But the people being targeted by the platform are all watching videos telling them how their votes don't count, the deep state, and other things to encourage people to believe the system does not work. It is the absolute ultimate anti-democratic tool I have ever seen.

Re: US court to hear challenges to potential TikTok ban in September

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, spend 5 more minutes thinking about this. Phase 1: restricted if from China Phase 2: restricted if influenced by China Phase 3: restricted if sympathetic to China Phase 4: China isn’t the only bad thing for America. If you have the following ideas, those are just as dangerous. “Speech is violence.” Also “silence is violence.” This has been lived out in front of our eyes so many times.

> This has been lived out in front of our eyes so many times If you’re referring to McCarthyism, note that his House Un-American proceedings lost steam when they were thrown out by the courts [1]. (It was also limited to government employment, where the state has more power.) Otherwise, this is just a slippery-slope argument that can be used against any regulation, including the First Amendment. [1] https://en.m.wiki…

It sounds like you aren’t old enough to remember life before 9/11.

You used to be able to get on an airplane without scanning your retinas.

You used to be able to walk into a bank and make a transaction without it being immediately reported to the IRS.

Your private correspondence was not scanned and digitized by the post office.

All the above freedoms, and so many more, are not only gone they are illegal.

Slippery slopes exist and the government uses them with great competence.

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