41–50 of 741 posts
If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally to all social media platforms, regardless of who currently owns it or may own it in the future?
If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally to all social media platforms, regardless of who currently owns it or may own it in the future?
That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in th…
How do you square this circle with the first amendment?
It's authorizing the President to ban certain classes of transactions. Not behavior let alone speech.
If the concern is privacy and security, which apply to all social media platforms, then why not pass actual privacy and security laws that would apply equally to all social media platforms, regardless of who currently owns it or may own it in the future?
That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in th…
I'm so cynical, I bet even that is a lie.
Diving in, the list of "foreign adversaries" is amusing. China and Russia have to be on there. Iran and North Korea I guess. Cuba and specifically a Maduro led Venezuela are a stretch.
What this bill actually seems to do is allow the Secretary of Commerce to review any communication technology, including both apps and hardware, used by a million Americans, and then suggest the president punish it if it poses an "unacceptable risk" of stealing IP, damaging infrastructure, interfering with elections, extorts a person in power, or just "otherwise poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the safety of United States persons."
Then it discusses what penalties the President can enact, which are banning the thing, confiscating their assets, and confiscating their collected data (and code? not 100% on this.)
Next, how to designate a communication device needing review or foreign adversary, basically someone high up says so. Then how to remove a foreign adversary, which seems much more difficult though it may just have more possible methods.
The rest seems to deal with the minutia of enforcement. I also can't be bothered to read this once, let alone twice, but it also means I'm not quite sure what investigative powers the Secretary of Commerce has without getting a warrant.
So it's called a bill to ban TikTok, but it seems to give the government a fairly clear path to banning any foreign communication technology widely used. The adversary part doesn't even seem necessary, the only time the foreign adversary comes up is if they are undermining the democratic process. Which means Russia can't interfere in elections, Israel and Saudi Arabia can.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in th…
The real concerns, in order of importance, are: 1. This is a way of getting memes to the masses that we (the US political establishment) can't fully control. 2. Meta and others are getting their asses kicked revenue-wise by Tik Tok. Like any business, they'd use anything they could to fight back. Turns out they can use China fear mongering, so they are. 3. (Added) Believe it or not, there's nationalistic pride here.…
I'm fine if TikTok gets banned, but I feel like Facebook and all the other social media incumbents owe Americans a bunch of money for their biggest competition being banned.
How are so many people (especially on HN) fine with this? Haven't we criticized "The Great Firewall of China" for literally decades? How is this not the start of that? Genuine question. This ban seems to set horrible precedent to me. Bet everyones "coolness" with it makes me think I'm not understanding something.
I heard on a podcast yesterday a suggestion that the reason the intelligence community doesn't like TikTok is that, unlike with Twitter, Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc, they can't just hand a warrant over to ByteDance get the data they want. If there's one thing the intelligence community hates, it's not getting the data they want. Back in the previous administration, I figured this was all a temper-tantrum being t…
> they can't just hand a warrant over to ByteDance get the data they want Are there any examples of ByteDance refusing to hand over data in response to a warrant?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what the concern of the bill is and it's completely transparent. Just read the first 2 pages of the bill and you can see the concern is, in the words of the bill, a "foreign adversary" and their ability to "sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in th…
China has banned nearly all US social networks already so is this really surprising given the current status quo?
Pack it up, folks, as it turns out, there are some things that are too dangerous to let the public hear.