If TikTok is just in the business of earning money they would've sold.
TikTok cannot be sold because the algorithm cannot be sold under the export control laws enacted by China.
Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
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Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#692Here is what Chairman McCaul said: “I was proud to join 352 of my Republican and Democrat colleagues and pass H.R. 7521 today. CCP-controlled TikTok is an enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”[1]
The U.S. national security angle identified is "mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions". And give me a break that they actually care about "young Americans’ mental health". This bill was about pro-Palestine content ... "being mobilized by CCP" that was harming "young people's health".
The fact that none of this was put forward by the lawyers makes me think the tiktok lawyers were incompetent. I went through the testimonies given and it was DAMMMMMNNNN weak. Three issues were identified by me: The Bill suddenly declares "non-aligned countries" to be "foreign adversaries" but there is no declared war so how can they be adversaries already; The Bill declares anyone facilitating the company including through the transfer of communication is in violation of the bill but that is a freedom of speech issue which they did not bring up but instead brought the ban as a FoS issue; The Bill labels TikTok and ByteDance as companies to be sold [to an aligned state] or banned entirely but that is the only company being single-handedly called out and I don't know how to say this but that sounds like some form of discrimination and unsubstantiated claim of threat. They could have done a better job at the SCOTUS.
[1] https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#693This would have been a great opportunity to regulate and prohibit massive data collection on mobile phones, by writing a law that requires the platforms (iOS,android) to architect differently and police this aggressively. Takes care of a lot of the TikTok worry and cleans up ecosystems from location tracking/selling weather apps as well.
There's no compelling argument or evidence of data collection with TikTok, to my knowledge. Theres more evidence of data collection and aggregation with American platforms than TikTok. Additionally, TikTok is operated independently within the USA and hosted on American servers. I think if there's any opportunity to regulate data collection, TikTok seems to have positioned itself defensively and seems to be distant from being used as an example. The only thing that seems to matter with this ban is that TikTok is mostly owned by a Chinese company.
I'd love to be corrected, but I haven't been provided any evidence or information that suggests this ban was justified at all.
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#694My wife and I are split on this, though neither of us are regular TikTok users. I keep coming across elected officials who are apparently briefed on something about TikTok, and they decide there’s a reasonable threat regarding the CCP or some such. The idea that the CCP could drive our national conversation somehow (still murky) bothers me. My wife feels like this is the US Government trying to shut down a communicat…
> It seems all the folks who “have it on good authority” that this is a dangerous propaganda tool, can’t share what “it” is. No need to speculate too hard here, there are plenty of examples of censorship on TikTok: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok Censorship is a form of propaganda, and even the very obvious/reported examples we've seen reported over the years are pretty bad. And you have to assume…
I tried to find a "Censorship by Youtube" wiki but couldn't find one. Only one documenting the censorship OF youtube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube.
I don't see a section on their main wiki either, even though YT is pretty notorious for deleting stuff, even political stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#695TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive. There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction. Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is…
"Too addictive" is such a nonsensical way of saying "accurate".
Nicotine being legal but TikTok is not tells you everything you need to know about government wanting to control the "addictiveness" of social media.
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#696This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content. Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking countries. Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a social network has global reach but without american content. Will it…
Tiktok is actually surprisingly national in how it serves its content. If you're outside the US you don't see most American accounts except the ones that go very viral. Edit: I should clarify. This might mean most content you see is English, if you're interested in English content. However it matters where the video was geographically uploaded from. If you upload a tiktok video and check the stats you'll see most vie…
My experience is that it serves you the content that you spent time watching and engaging with.
And it's quite easy to steer it towards a certain topic if you want to
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#697TikTok is also banned in China. For the Chinese market, Douyin is there from the same company ByteDance. Americans need to understand this decision is not an emotional one but for the nation, just like the opposite party does for its nation.
Direct from the horse's mouth: https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/chairman-mcca...
"enormous threat to U.S. national security and young Americans’ mental health. This past week demonstrated the Chinese Communist Party is capable of mobilizing the platform’s users to a range of dangerous, destabilizing actions. The Senate must pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk immediately.”
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#698The next Supreme Court decision will be them deciding if disagreeing with the TikTok decision is sufficient grounds for being censored.
Public disagreement with the TikTok decision could lead to legislative pressure, which would add support to the pressure campaigns of Chinese lobbyists and diplomats, or of other organizations that are funded or donated to by Chinese people or people of Chinese descent. This could either result in new legislation being passed that nullifies the ban, or pressure the Executive into failing to enforce the ban.
Either of those outcomes would, in effect, allow the user data of Americans to be accessed by the government of China. Disagreement with the TikTok ban would in and of itself aid America's adversaries.
Besides, disagreement with it implies that America unduly restricts speech, when we're supposed to hate China because China unduly restricts speech. That's a clear case of creating a false equivalence in order to foment discord, which again is material support to China's goal to monitor American's communications and corrupt the minds of America's children.
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#699This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content. Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking countries. Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a social network has global reach but without american content. Will it…
> This is going to be an interesting experiment:
Unclear. Biden and Trump both have stated that they will decline to enforce this law.
Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
#700The silliness of the ban itself aside, it is wild how casually the whole “both chambers of congress passed a law and that law was upheld by the highest federal court but maybe it won’t be a law if one guy decides he doesn’t like it” thing is being treated by the media. It is like “Does America have laws?” is a 3 minute section of Good Morning America between low-carb breakfast recipes and the memoir of a skateboardin…
Both Biden and Trump have said that they will not enforce this law. So not just "one guy", but two :)