In the end, it's a security and sovereignty issue. A country can restrict foreign business, full stop.
That said, I don't think banning tiktok will have the desired results.
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
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the question is actually asked incorrectly in the reverse. Maybe start with the not at all controversial position that China is effectively an authoritarian dictatorship who is well known to use censorship and public manipulation as one of its key levers of control and then ask if you have any evidence whatsoever that for some reason they wouldn’t include TikTok in that mix? The way actual professionals in th…
I agree overall with your analysis. Nonetheless when one says that there is good evidence for something, rather than that there is good circumstantial evidence or that there are very reasonable grounds to assume something, one is making a different claim. We must also ask whether circumstantial evidence or reasonable assumptions alone should be enough to force a company to divest its assets.
The thing about nation state level conspiracies is that they rarely are kind enough to write down all of the details about their intents in any format you’re going to see. That is the very nature of a conspiracy.
And so knowing this you are going to need some kind of framework in order to make decisions off in the absence of perfect information.
The one I outlined above is the same one that was used in this case and is really at the foundation of everything to do with threat modelling, this isn’t some kooky thing I just made up.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you expand and on this? Do you think EU should force every successful US company to divest their EU branches. I do not know where I stand on this but you seem to have a clear idea on this..
I think the EU should do whatever the EU wants to do and accept the consequences of their actions. As an American, I might have opinions but no say in EU's matters. Europe has plenty of very smart people to figure out what's best for them. I say this because I feel the reply to my top post was unnecessarily aggressive. I have friends in Europe and respect their independence. I don't know why an opinion on a purely US…
Honestly this was not a question about the US vs. EU more about how one view things that has a global effect on things. Sometimes when I use US services I send some love to the legislative branches in EU, because of the good has been adopted because of it.
My point is that TikTok going dark is a real problem for the US, to solve the issue so heavy handedly is troublesome path to tread. For international relations I am not sure this is for the greater good.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#334Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
McCarthyism wasn't a very credible threat. There are reams of evidence that CCP is trying to destroy democracy and attacking all of our critical infrastructure (electronic especially) looking for weak points. There is nothing imagined about it like there was with McCarthyism
Overall I agree with you. I was merely speculating on why there is so much pushback against the TikTok ban -- that people (erroneously) pattern-match this decision to McCarthyism.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh brilliant. So all we need to curtail someone's speech is assert they are "a foreign adversary hoping to decimate the USA?" 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…
THen you should go read the SCOTUS final decision, it's pretty succinct for a law document.
It’s pretty clear you haven’t read it (or the original law).
It allows US POTUS to force American companies not to serve content that POTUS says is 1) under foreign control and 2) a national security concern.
Note that (1) can be satisfied by POTUS simply saying the company is under the influence of foreign entities.
I.e., there is nothing in the law or the ruling that prevents POTUS from saying “Bluesky is under China’s influence” and banning it.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You’re very quick to accuse someone of being “confused” and that their arguments can be discarded out of hand but show no credentials yourself. 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 e…
> 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.
No, it’s really not established. I agree the consequences should have been more severe for both instances, but no, this does not mean the government is allowed to imprison people for their speech.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) I don't have interest in at global scale 2) I'm not discussing the practicality of it
You mentioned that you want this theoretical social network to “catch on” to consumers. Therefore - it kind of has to be practical to do so.
Doing it practically in the US is relatively trivial. ID.me does exactly that already.
Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#339Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is solid but if I am China what is $400,000,000 to spend on 40,000,000 bots that now we think are real people…
That's about as much as United States Presidents spend on their campaigns, so it's actually quite a lot. Especially if it gets noticed and shut down.
one candidate alone spent 4x that so it is not even close :)