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Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

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Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#51
post #2

First, let me preface that I despise TikTok and I think it is mostly garbage content-wise, however this proposal is simply un-American. Concerns about data privacy and foreign influence are legit, but banning an entire communication platform used by 170 million Americans based on hypothetical threats goes against core First Amendment principles especially considering the government's inability to provide concrete evi…

Anyone who receives garbage content on TikTok has likely gotten themselves into a bad set of recommendations. I watched someone yesterday cycling through their feed and it was 100% brainrot. My feed is very enjoyable: mostly neat cinematography tutorials, AI news, and just a little bit of OIIA.

"my feed good, your feed bad"

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#52

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

A very naive and hopeful part of me would wish for Facebook, Twitter, and other vapidness-enhancing platforms be regulated too. But the untrusting, freedom loving red-blooded American in me is also wary of government controls and power consolidation bordering on censorship. No easy answers I suppose; we'll just have to find a way to thrive in spite of platforms that profit from our wasted time.

Hey, one platform is Chinese, the others are American. That's the difference you're looking for

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#53

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

I think that's where we were with seatbelts in the 1950s, tobacco in the 1920s and alcohol in the 1850s. In all of those cases, society ultimately decided that guardrails were needed.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#54
All of these posts keep talking about banning TikTok... The law doesn't ban TikTok. It bans its continued operation in the U.S. under the ownership of a foreign adversary.

The law:

> It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of ) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: ...

In order to take this seriously as speech infringement, you'd have to define software as speech. Precedent holds that the expressive part (source code) is speech, but that the functional part that operates is not speech. This law bans the software function.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#55

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

I think the easier framework is this: China has banned her citizens from using most United States-based social networks. This prevents American companies from accruing profit from Chinese citizens and advertisers, and shrinks their potential pool of user data for refining algorithms or selling. As such, it's effectively a trade policy for us to in turn ban her social networks. Unless and until we are equally able to harvest Chinese data and suck yen out of China, she will not be allowed to harvest American data and suck dollars out of here.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#56

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

> Candies

Starts with an F ends in L

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#57

I just wish they wouldn't stop with tik tok. Facebook, twitter and all the rest present the same danger.

...Explicit CCP control?

The equivalent, for sure. Especially with Zuckerberg and Musk veering hard right recently.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#58
post #36

TikTok is NOT being banned. TikTok can continue unmodified if it transfers ownership to anyone outside China.

That's pointless misdirection. "I'll burn down your house unless you sell it to me for $1" See, that's not arson, because you always had a way out.

This is a terrible analogy:

1/Selling something doesn't destroy it

2/You don't want to destroy it because you want to fetch a high price for it

3/Nobody's offering $1 for TikTok, and nobody expects ByteDance to accept $1 for it

4/A fair market price would make ByteDance whole

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#59

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

> If China sold candies that contained poison and marketed them to Us children, it would be easy, since the FDA prohibits this.

The FDA was created by an act of Congress, as was this ban. These are identical scenarios -- the FDA has a mandate to block certain things, as does the TikTok ban. What's being debated is the constitutionality of it; and there are arguments both ways, but it seems very likely that the ban will hold.

Re: Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Must Step In

#60

If I had children aged 7-17 and felt China was intentionally nudging them via algorithmic suggestions away from STEM and toward vapidness, and if I was unable to control their access to it, I guess I might appreciate that my government had banned it. But, as others have mentioned, it sets a dangerous precedent. If nothing else, this attempted ban has raised national awareness about the negative impacts of TikTok. Wha…

I think the US social media mega corps are kindred spirits and if TikTok is considered harmful/propaganda then so are the US products. The subject draws an uncomfortable amount of heat.
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