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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

congress.gov

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#501

Post by krapp »

varunjain99 wrote: post #493
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…

Hm, I think the national security concerns are far heftier here than kids being influenced. ByteDance can be forced to do almost anything by the CCP. Sure, American tech companies might be forced to do things by the American govt but theoretically there are checks / balances / rule of law to prevent misuse. On the kids' manipulation -- even though that's not the main intent and American social media co's influence ki…

If you think China controlling the minds of Americans through Tik-Tok is a legitimate threat, do you think American minds aren't already controlled by the US government through every other form of media? And which is the bigger threat?

I mean, at least China might actually criticize American government and policy, which is something America's so-called "free press" is no longer capable of. I say give Americans a healthy dose of propaganda from all sides and let the market decide!

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#502

Post by stametseater »

withinboredom wrote: post #337
throwaway29812 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. Then you no longer know the place. According to media the US is nothing but school shootings and government censorship.

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.

Are you quite sure you're not misremembering an action movie for your own experiences? Living in America is not even remotely this exciting for most people. T-boned in intersections not just by a truck, but multiple trucks? Shootouts on the highway and knife fights with bums? Are you Neo from the Matrix?

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#503

Post by di456 »

Yet congress won't do a fucking thing to keep guns away from child killers. Childhood education is one remaining basic social safety net and is more and more at risk with every school massacre.

The mental health impact of kids, parents, and teachers having to worry about STAYING THE FUCK ALIVE IN SCHOOL EVERYDAY cannot be understated.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#504

Post by subpixel »

n0tahacker wrote: post #442
gonehome wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think this attitude is wrong. A strong democracy doesn't need to fight "fake news" legally and doesn't need their own propaganda op in foreign states like Radio Free Asia etc. If you are banning foreign media in your own country, you are doing the same as China in the end. Why not establish a great firewall?

We are starting from a place of weak democracy. I don’t think the tea leaves can be read otherwise. We aren’t alone - but that’s not much succor.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#505

Post by gonehome »

Hilarity1 wrote: post #486
gonehome wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New accounts on issues like this always make me wary of the 50cent party (kind of a case-in-point example of the kind of nation state influence operations and risk). [0] It shouldn’t have gotten to this level, but it’s where we are. Users will move to reels or something else that takes its place without the national security risk. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

I don’t even know what “reels” is. TikTok clone? And, yeah, I can see the apprehension regarding the new account.

It's it's the meta/instagram tiktok clone.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#506

Post by libpcap »

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…

It's more about levelling the playing field. While FB, IG, YouTube, New York Times, etc. are blocked in the PRC, TikTok are allowed to operate freely in the U.S.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#507

Post by bandyaboot »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #298
eganist wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking at least with my background: Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of their awareness of the da…

Yes, telling parents (who are the voters) that actually they should just be doing a better job monitoring their kids activities online seems like a losing political strategy!

Yes, I think you’re right. Might not be a great strategy for the geriatric politicians to tell a generation of parents who are the first generation of parents who have ever had to navigate anything like this, that they just need to do better.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#508

Post by tuxpenguine »

di456 wrote: post #503

Yet congress won't do a fucking thing to keep guns away from child killers. Childhood education is one remaining basic social safety net and is more and more at risk with every school massacre. The mental health impact of kids, parents, and teachers having to worry about STAYING THE FUCK ALIVE IN SCHOOL EVERYDAY cannot be understated.

I think TikTok might cause many more deaths because of teen suicide, much more dangerous than guns.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#509

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#510

Post by akomtu »

djha-skin wrote: post #408
gorwell wrote: post #214

Did anyone notice that the bill doesn't even mention Tiktok??? If it's a "bill to ban TikTok" why doesn't it name the target? It's a red herring. This is the Patriot Act for the Internet. Ironically they're copying the CCP playbook and want the same level of sweeping control with the implementation of a Great Firewall. It's extremely broad and includes everything connected to the internet that has >1M users in a year…

Interesting that the senator from Virginia introduced the bill. After all how many of us have a great portion of our traffic being served out of us-east-1?

It must be proximity to Langley that makes Virginia politicians so creatively authoritarian.
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