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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

congress.gov

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#411

Post by crazygringo »

withinboredom wrote: post #164

Maybe someone will scroll all the way down to this comment. Probably not. For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me. There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how…

> There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions

That's not how Congress works. We're taught in school that Congress debates bills one at a time, but the reality is that all the real debate and drafting and work happens behind the scenes, massively parallelized.

Time spent during a session of Congress is mostly just the very end of the process, discovering where the votes fall and some last-minute negotiations. Also grandstanding.

There are lots of factors that have been making Congress less "productive" in recent history, depending on how you view it, but the total hours available per year isn't really one of them.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#412

Post by all2 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #330
realce wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that the Chinese government is doing the right thing when they block a Chinese citizen from viewing Twitter? You agree with the usage of the Great Firewall? You agree with the ability for the government to tell you what websites you can visit? If you use a VPN to read a Chinese newspaper article, you agree that the government should be allowed to imprison you and take all of your possessions? That's madn…

There are many things wrong with this comparison. 1) Twitter is not an arm of the US government in the way that Tiktok and most Chinese companies are. 2) The law is not calling for the information on Tiktok to be banned. For instance, an image of a tweet saying "fuck Xi Jinping" could not be viewed in China, but an image/video of a tiktok saying "fuck biden" would be fine to view in America. 3) Tiktok is not benign l…

Re item 1: See [0]. Arguably any corporation involved in government censoring operations (which are by definition extra-judicial) is an active arm of said government. There's a reason people have taken to calling our current state "crony capitalism".

Re item 3: TikTok is worse than that. The recommendation feeds are specifically designed to rot the minds of American citizens. [1]

[0] https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-gop-want...

[1] https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-betwe...

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#413

Post by gonehome »

throwaway4837 wrote: post #176
withinboredom wrote: post #164

Maybe someone will scroll all the way down to this comment. Probably not. For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me. There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how…

Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children. This is really meant to be a punch in the fight against China. US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their qu…

The data isn’t the risk, it’s more the ability for CCP to leverage influence.

https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/

Dialing up things to cause unrest, dialing down stuff critical of the CCP. It’s not an issue about data, or even an issue about speech, it’s an issue of ownership of a media company by an adversary that will weaponize it against you.

Who controls and owns media companies is a reasonable national security question. The CCP knows this risk, they don’t play fair.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#414

Post by [deleted] »

jfk13 wrote: post #383
withinboredom wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a meeting last summer with some Americans and I jokingly said “meh, it’s a free country.” They all quickly pointed out that it wasn’t, any more. I still have family there and still visit for nearly a month out of the year. The number of people running red lights has gone up significantly the last few visits. To the point where I feel like I’m driving in Bali and not the US. People are more rude now than they us…

> I’ve had cops plant evidence in my car, I’ve been hit by trucks running red lights, I’ve gotten in a knife fight with a hobo, I’ve been shot at on the highway, I’ve been fired for no reason, I’ve gotten in a motorcycle accident that fucked me over seven ways to Sunday. While I think I can understand many of your feelings about US culture, I'm a bit lost here. I was married to a US citizen and have lived a significa…

[deleted]

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#415

Post by bioemerl »

The operatives in China's social manipulation groups are laughing while reading this thread because you all are doing their work for free.

I don't think you guys understand here how important a bill like this is, and how much of a threat China is to us. This bill could be modified to restrict its usage more, and that would be good, but at the end of the day we must take action against the fact that China has such a massive social and cultural entry point into our culture, because China has spent the last 10 decades ensuring that they are protected from any social exchange from us to them.

They will use that tool against us. It is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and it's probably already happening.

Do not hand our people's minds to a country that would destroy us. Pay attention to what Russia was able to do with nothing but a couple of troll farms. China won't just have that, they'll have the entire platform and the algorithm which determines everything you see every day.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#416

Post by [deleted] »

withinboredom wrote: post #346
sebzim4500 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that a significant portion of iOS users are going to set up an Apple development account and manually reinstall TikTok every week then I have a bridge to sell you. They will just switch to a different social network, which is equally destructive but not Chinese.

I didn’t do anything special. I just installed Xcode, and bam. Done. We ripped CDs so we didn’t have to buy them. Hell, we sat by boomboxes until the right song came on the radio just to push record on the tape player. Kids will do whatever it takes to get what they want. I’d buy that bridge.

[deleted]

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#418

Post by kelseyfrog »

lazyeye wrote: post #406
kelseyfrog wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer choice is unequivocally good. Besides, the problem is already solvable. People could simply stop using TikTok if they agreed that its disadvantages outweigh its benefits. No one is forcing them. This is a vote with your feet issue, plain and simple.

Ridiculous argument. A lot of people choose meth.

It sounds like your argument is, The government can be a force for good for people who aren't capable of making rational decisions.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#419

Post by all2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #409
all2 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the people who kick off an authoritarian government are typically the ones who die first. The revolution eats its own. See the brown shirts, the multiple rounds of beheadings during the French revolution, the Bolsheviks, and so on. So whoever hopes the government will continue to support them generally hopes in vain. The machine has two goals: continue existing, and expand its power.

> The problem is that the people who kick off an authoritarian government are typically the ones who die first. The revolution eats its own. See the brown shirts, the multiple rounds of beheadings during the French revolution, the Bolsheviks, and so on. But, except for maybe some of those in the French Revolution, those are mostly foot soldiers, or leaders who fell victim to distinct subsequent revolutions, not the p…

> foot soldiers

That's who I was referring to in GGP. Generally the masses don't fare well in revolution.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#420

Post by PurpleRamen »

throwaway4837 wrote: post #176
withinboredom wrote: post #164

Maybe someone will scroll all the way down to this comment. Probably not. For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me. There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how…

Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children. This is really meant to be a punch in the fight against China. US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their qu…

> Sadly, it has nothing to do with "talking about how 'kids' might be influenced by an algorithm", because if it did, they would be trying to ban Facebook, Instagram, and other social media services that have the exact same effect as TikTok on children.

Do they? My Impression is a bit different here. TikTok is much more focused on the automatically selected content, and has fewer options for letting users make their own choices. The format itself (video) also strongly boosts the connection between people. And both combined let TikTok-Trends move much faster and ingrain deeper in the minds of people. It was quite interesting to see how fast and deep the brainwashing on TikTok was spreading after the CEOs appearance in senat, and also kinda concerning.

> US government does not want any possibility of US citizens' data being in the hands of China and their questions to Chew made that clear.

But isn't that legit concern of any country regarding other countries with even less security than you have yourself? I mean in Europe we also have strong concerns against the USA and their poor handling of data.

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