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EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

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Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#71

Post by nceqs3 »

nialv7 wrote: post #50

Never expected to see the EFF siding with a big tech company, and fighting for its right to profit from its users. Never expected to see the EFF dismiss an argument for user's data privacy as "shaky". Quite disappointed honestly.

>Never expected to see the EFF siding with a big tech company, and fighting for its right to profit from its users.

The EFF routinely sides with big tech companies. See their work on copyrights, patents, etc. Tech figures fund them. See https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#72

Post by logicchains »

lolinder wrote: post #3

> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally. These platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in their very nature, increasingly so in the age of LLMs. They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astrot…

[flagged]

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#73

Post by creato »

mindslight wrote: post #55
lolinder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy laws don't solve the real problem, they would only solve the fig leaf that politicians are hiding behind when it comes to tiktok. The actual problem is and always has been control over the content being fed to users. It's not an issue of privacy, it's an issue of voter manipulation. It's just that the US has decided that it's okay with its own plutocrats manipulating voters while it's not okay with the CCP do…

The solution for the other half of the problem is anti-trust divestment of client apps from hosted services. Let TikTok (and Faceboot, and so on) keep their own assortments of services. But the mobile and web apps should be spun out into different companies, only communicating with openly documented APIs that are available for every other developer/user. This won't solve the issue with propaganda that still manages t…

This doesn't make any technical sense. The key part of what is at issue with TikTok and other social media companies is editorial control over the ranking algorithm. The ranking algorithm is not done on the client, and I don't see how it can be.

And even if you could do it somehow, that is in direct conflict with the other main complaint people have about social media apps ("selling your data"). FB had an API that they opened up to some degree, then Cambridge Analytica happened.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#75

Post by logicchains »

delichon wrote: post #6

Given that the decision is unanimous just maybe it is in alignment with the constitution. If Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Jackson agree on something, that's some kind of signal.

For most of US history people's access to information was controlled by a few powerful news/media corporations and the Supreme Court did nothing to stop that. It's no surprise that when we finally get a decentralised information transmission system not beholden to the elites, the Supreme Court doesn't want to lend it a hand.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#76

Post by monero-xmr »

isodev wrote: post #58

It’s funny how they’re shutting down TikTok because it’s “manipulative and anti-democratic” while that’s a core trait of every algorithmic/engagement social media. Twitter and Threads should be banned as well then.

If the government can’t ban a business entity then doesn’t that say something about control? We have an app controlled by a communist dictatorship. They can keep the app running by selling it, but they won’t.

What’s perplexing to me is leftists love how companies in America can be forced to sell and broken if they are declared monopolies. But if an app is declared an agent of foreign powers suddenly forcing a sale is wrong? It makes me feel even more certain that HN is astroturfed by Chinese bots because who cares

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#77

Post by unethical_ban »

dralley wrote: post #67
error_logic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voting algorithm needs to change so that destructive (negative) campaigning is not so effective. Duverger's law makes campaigns devolve into undermining and destroying the competition, with the two parties hosting primaries to see which of them can "turn the wheel" the hardest before the general election where they claim "don't worry I won't crash the car!" despite their prior incentives. If we used plurality vot…

>The voting algorithm needs to change so that destructive (negative) campaigning is not so effective. No algorithm is going to fix this, it's human nature. Negative campaigning has been a constant of elections since elections were invented. At best you can tamp down on the aggressive engagement feedback loops. We should probably do that, but it's good to stay realistic about outcomes.

error_logic was referring to the "Voting system" meaning the way we elect politicians: plurality voting vs. ranked choice/approval voting. Not an algorithm in the social media feed sense.

Other voting systems do promote less negativity, among many other benefits such as giving us real choice and a true multiparty system.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#78

Post by logicchains »

lolinder wrote: post #3

> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally. These platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in their very nature, increasingly so in the age of LLMs. They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astrot…

>In short, these platforms are places for manufacturing consent

These platforms are much less subject to manufactured consent than the traditional news media, which was controlled by a small number of entities aligned with the elites of the day. Decentralised information transmission is fundamentally better for the people than centralised information transmission controlled by a few gatekeepers who suppress anything not in their interests.

Look at how homogenous in views the baby boomers are relatively to the younger generations, as evidence of how much more effective at manufacturing consent the traditional media are.

Re: EFF statement on U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold TikTok ban

#79

Post by idle_zealot »

hx8 wrote: post #17
lolinder wrote: post #3

> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally. These platforms are fundamentally anti-democratic in their very nature, increasingly so in the age of LLMs. They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astrot…

It's a shame that this is true for many platforms. Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic. The more people watch content the more it's shown to other people. Anyone's voice could be amplified in a way that was limited to broadcast networking and printing presses in the past. A million small conversations can occur in such a way that they create a chorus of discussion about public intere…

> Social media platforms have the potential to be incredibly democratic.

> Now it seems like most platforms seem to be thinly veiled psyops hoping to trade quick dopamine for mindshare.

It's a matter of incentives. The profit motive is fundamentally opposed to a low-intervention platform for democratic communication. For a brief period we had some social media platforms that made gestures in the direction of free communication. Then the investor capital came rolling in, and they were expected to increase revenue. How do you increase revenue of your free communication platform? You sell the messaging. Call it promotion, advertising, whatever. The only thing of value you have at your disposal are people's eyeball, you're going to sell what they see. You could ask your users to pay for the service... but then 80% of them will flake to a rival service that's still free. If there's a way to marry the profit motive and a truly democratic social media platform then our best and brightest have yet to find it. I suspect it doesn't exist.

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