Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 350 posts

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

#81

Post by unethical_ban »

logicchains wrote: post #75
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.

Social media algorithms are nuclear bombs for the mind. And they are beholden to whoever holds the detonator. It just happens that a lot of people are happy with China holding it.

When the mind-reading algorithm provides each user with their own reality to live in, then we are talking about editorializing. And allowing a communist, anti-Western government direct control over that power does not seem reasonable.

inb4 "better than my own government" - great, we agree that social media algorithms are a net negative to all society.

Communications is great. Video is great. Social media algorithms controlled by rage-inducing profit seekers and governments is not great.

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

#82

Post by Animats »

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…

There's a good argument for separating content from discovery. Originally, Google was pure discovery - all you got was the page's link and maybe a line of description. If antitrust law was used to separate discovery from content, transmission, and aggregation, Google would be forced back into their original niche. They'd be a much smaller company, of course.

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

#83

Post by TheCleric »

ipython wrote: post #29
llamaimperative wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is part of why I think there should exist a popular real-name-only network. It'd go far to prevent these types of attacks on the megaphone.

Isn’t that what Facebook is supposed to provide? From anecdotal evidence, people are happy to engage in vitriol online that they would never do face to face, real name or not.

Heck I’ve seen some nastiness on LinkedIn with people’s government name and employer right next to it.

Real names don’t do much to prevent online assholery.

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

#84

Post by axus »

lolinder wrote: post #37
Barrin92 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only sense in which banning one is anti-democratic is that it's selectively applied to tiktok instead of to all such platforms. This logic applies to all media publications, not just internet platforms in the United States. When people say "anti-democratic" in the US I'm pretty certain they take it to mean "the government interfering in the speech of a private entity", not failing to uphold the principle of "1 t…

There's a major difference with the modern social media platforms, which is that the way in which they manufacture consent gives the illusion of popular consensus. That illusion makes them much more powerful than anything that came before, to the point where they are different in kind, not just in degree. When a mainstream media outlet takes a position, most people are able to distinguish between that outlet's positi…

I hate advertising too, but I'd be troubled if it were banned.

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

#85

Post by logifail »

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…

> They're places where people buy a voice and the illusion of support by astroturfing the platform and/or manipulating the algorithm (either through paid advertisements or by owning a platform and controlling the algorithm outright)

Anyone willing to take a good-faith stab at why this couldn't equally well be a description of traditional media too - say - the WaPo?

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

#86

Post by phito »

logicchains wrote: post #75
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.

Wait, since when is TikTok decentralised?

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

#87

Post by riffraff »

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…

I mean, so are newspapers, but you don't want to ban those either.

(I don't like TikTok and I agree it is damaging, but this is just reasoning I can't get behind)

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

#88

Post by uludag »

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…

Ironically this is exactly why I think TikTok is so important. Obviously every media site is used for manufacturing content, from NYT to Facebook. Also, obviously the US government has a say in what gets published and promoted. Wouldn't it be good then to have checks and balances to this, by having media not under the US government supervision?

Unless are you suggesting that the US government doesn't misinform the public in harmful ways?

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

#89

Post by User23 »

llamaimperative wrote: post #25
threatofrain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a trade war any company is fair game. A trade war thus naturally reaches across multiple values that a nation may hold, bringing them simultaneously under tension. Free speech is just a coincidence to the nature of TikTok, but what about cars, drones, phones, or even soybeans? When values are in conflict, which should win? In the hierarchy of values, where does economic world position stand in terms of national co…

What? You're musing that a fucking trade war could possibly be placed above freedom of speech? The answer of which "values" should win is 110% clear.

Just out of curiosity, do you think the 2nd amendment obligates the USA to sell foreign enemies any and all weapons?

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

#90

Post by User23 »

suraci wrote: post #57
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]

This is nothing new. Google's instrumental role in the "Arab Spring" is old hat by now.
Post reply on HN