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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

congress.gov

541–550 of 741 posts

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#541
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.

Your country is under attack by a foreign aggressor, is progressively crumbling around you, and all you can say is "think of the kids"?

Yes, of course, gun safety must be addressed, and the government should have resources to do this concurrently, but the foreign influence issue is an existential threat to your nation, and should be the highest priority.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#542

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…

You underestimate the affect of Tiktok (and other social media) on the mental health of kids, not to mention how easily it can spread ideology. The relationship between those things and school shootings shouldn't need any explanation. I think your view on this is extremely narrow.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#543
The game plan is to twist TikToks arm to the point where they sell to a US company. This bill might pass but let's hope it reaches it's objective before it does, in which case support for the bill may shift away.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#544

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?

Because like with the GPRD, this is primarily about a trade dispute.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is S.85 likely to be unwound by the courts? It's with a different committee and cites a different act for its legal authority.

Courts (especially the current SCOTUS) seem pretty wary of expanding executive authority granted ambiguously under acts like the "International Emergency Economic Powers Act." Just my 2c.

I agree with the sentiment but just wanted to note that this is a legislative bill. often the courts strike down executive action saying that they should get help from Congress, which they're doing here

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can say that until they’re blue in the face, but if those conditions are not in the law, it’s up to prosecutors discretion.

They can amend it before it gets passed into law. And this bill without question needs to be passed into law in some form.

150 million Americans and 5 million small businesses will probably disagree with your assertion.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, ByteDance directly takes orders from the Chinese government. Big Tech can also take orders from the American government, but America is bound by the rule of law and isn't actively imprisoning millions in concentration camps so it's way better

America’s political system also has plenty of problems, so any absolute comparison is easy to pick at or "what-about", as other commenters are doing. But more to the point here, the American government responds to pressure from the electorate and U.S.-based stakeholders, which the Chinese government by and large does not.

End of the covid lockdowns say otherwise.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A well informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy. Fake news and undue outside influence absolutely must be protected against.

A well-informed electorate isn’t a prerequisite to democracy. This is precisely why fake news proliferates - it’s relatively easy to elicit an emotional response, and that tends to win over critical thinking.

While fake news and undue outside influence absolutely must be protected against, the line is hard to draw. For instance, would Snowden have been considered undue influence, would Wikileaks have been considered fake news, at least sufficiently enough to cross the ban threshold?

There are pros and cons to both approaches, and it really doesn’t come down to whether or not people agree with a statement that contains such vague terms. It comes down to interpretation of those terms.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#549

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…

Honest question,did the Patriot act ever get misused intentionally in a grossly negligent way?

The TSA violates the 4th amendment millions of times a day. I think that covers both grossly, and negligent.

Here's the full text of 4a, see for yourself:

>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There are no exceptions in there for air travel! It's incredibly firmly worded, and is obviously deliberately meant to be very restrictive on government power.

They don't have probable cause to search every single person, let alone a warrant to do so. And their holding people's freedom to travel hostage to do so, and conditioning Americans to a lack of rights that were supposedly enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

The notion that they need to search every single person flying is not remotely "reasonable". It's one more step towards a police state. It's a shame that the 4th amendment isn't defended as strongly as the 1st & 2nd. The patriot act is the reason why flying sucks now when it used to be fantastical.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#550

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?

Hasn’t America traditionally regulated foreign press ownership?

It’s not like we would let the Soviets, Nazis, British, Prussians, etc just buy the New York Times.

And non-news media has been protectionist too.

We allow foreign news distribution - but there are limits.

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