311–320 of 350 posts
It’s funny how they’re shutting down TikTok because it’s “manipulative and anti-democratic” while that’s a core trait of every algorithmic/engagement social media. Twitter and Threads should be banned as well then.
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If the government can’t ban a business entity then doesn’t that say something about control? We have an app controlled by a communist dictatorship. They can keep the app running by selling it, but they won’t. What’s perplexing to me is leftists love how companies in America can be forced to sell and broken if they are declared monopolies. But if an app is declared an agent of foreign powers suddenly forcing a sale is…
> if an app is declared an agent of foreign powers I suspect that people pattern-match this declaration to McCarthyism. Additionally, the US has been invoking national security for a series of extremely dubious moves recently as well -- e.g. Biden's latest decision to block the sale of US Steel to Nippon on shaky grounds of national security, and his administration's recent policy to introduce export limits on GPUs t…
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…
I don't often disagree with the EFF. Strange times.
Urgh sorry EFF but you’ve lost me on this one. There is actual harm done to democracy on these platforms. A democracy requires informed voters to function and the platform does the diametric opposite by misinforming them. Any attempt to regulate this or promote or moderate has failed simply because an actual structured funding source is misinformation. The only option to keep democracy standing is to kill it. I’d exp…
Democracy is when people are only allowed to speak truths.
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I would disagree, the first amendment in fact does protect platforms for speech. If the government tried to ban the New York Times through an act of Congress, the Supreme Court would strike that down. In this case, the fact that the platform is foreign and that the foreign owner is considered hostile to the US carves out an exception.
Banning foreign ownership of broadcast media companies is not new. It’s just that the laws have lagged the shift from broadcast linear mediums to the internet. Source: the FCC specifically prohibits certain ownership of broadcast stations by foreign entities: “Section 310(a) prohibits a foreign government or its representative from holding any radio license. Section 310(b)(3) prohibits foreign individuals, government…
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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…
* The Parma ruling was not that the government was allowed to detain him, it is that the police could not be punished for their mistake. The entire thing is predicated on the police having made a mistake, i.e. this case shows they cannot jail you for speech.
* Cohen vs Barr: the courts ruled that the government overstepped, i.e. the First Amendment offered the protection I am claiming it does, and you are wrong
* TikTok ban mechanics: The government will fine app stores and web hosts that serve TikTok. This is a clear violation of First Amendment rights. It is not a condition of the app store ToS's by any weird mechanism like the one you describe.
* We're not talking about preventing foreign speech. We're talking about preventing American companies from serving the websites, applications, and content they wish to serve.
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Signal of belief in an excessively strong state? Clarence Thomas is not actually conservative in the small government sense.
signal in belief that freedom of speech has limits, and it doesn't extend to a foreign adversary hoping to decimate the USA has been my conclusion from the 9-0 decision of SCOTUS
That clarifies things!
What about the speech of "the enemy from within" who is "more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these other countries"?
(And to be clear: I think TikTok is awful and should be banned, but I want much, much clearer arguments than this as to why it is able to be banned under our Constitution)
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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…
You are very confused and I really don't have the time to unwind all of this. A few scattered bullets: * The Parma ruling was not that the government was allowed to detain him, it is that the police could not be punished for their mistake. The entire thing is predicated on the police having made a mistake, i.e. this case shows they cannot jail you for speech. * Cohen vs Barr: the courts ruled that the government over…
Ultimately, Novak was jailed for his speech no? And cohen was remanded to solitary confinement for his refusal to waive his first amendment rights? If a police department or the federal government decides to overstep in the future what exactly keeps them from doing so? It’s established from these cases that through 1/ qualified immunity and potentially (granted this happened after the case, and rank and file would not qualify…) 2/ presidential immunity for official acts, that any citizen could be detained for speech the reigning administration or local officials do not like, without consequence.
If TikTok is denied its ability to operate in the United States, how can an App Store who operates within the bounds of the law allow it on its platform? I admit this is an interesting issue to consider - unlike the radio spectrum the government doesn’t “own” the internet.
It wouldn’t be too crazy to consider that an App Store would require apps to register using a legal entity in the country that it operates within - you need a way to bill the entity, resolve disputes within that country etc.
I think the more interesting question is denying access to the web site inside the US. There’s no single gatekeeper in that case.
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> The Washington Post has changed considerably in the last few months, specifically from being fiercely free to being bought. I read it every day and hadn't noticed. Can you give examples, beyond having heard of the Presidential Endorsement saga?
> Can you give examples Here are comments from many leading journalists at the Washington Post, many of whom have left. For example recently: Jennifer Rubin resigned: "The Washington Post's billionaire owner and enlisted management" "betrayed their audiences' loyalty and sabotaged journalism's sacred mission - defending, protecting and advancing democracy. ... They have undercut the values central to ... all journali…
You understand that not everyone here is American, right?
> playing with picayune arguments
Am I? Could you give an example?
The rest seems to be rehashing the editorial cartoon, the endorsement debacle, and some internal newspaper politics.