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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

#802
post #417

Many people here upset about this. Here's what recently happened in Romania, all through TikTok. Turns out China (or here, Russia) infiltrated the country, waged an enormous disinformation campaign and succeeded by getting their chosen candidate elected. Without TikTok, this would not have happened. I have talked about this with Romanians who concur. In the real world, there are two responses to this. 1. "Tough luck,…

one would think the ranking member on the House Intel Cmte - my very own Rep - would agree with you, given how he'd be way more privy to such things than you, me, talking heads on TV, etc. yet he disagrees and cites free speech concerns [0][1].

in my mind none of these reasons add up. if this were truly about influence ops on social media we would not have blinders on for our own platforms' role in them. remember Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 campaign, or Facebook's role in the Myanmar genocide? or more-recently the ops Israel ran? furthermore if this were really about our data, we would again not have blinders on. the CCP can still purchase our data as we're all up for sale given our lack of data privacy/protection laws.

as such i tend to side with my Rep: this is bunk, and the pretexts flimsy. i believe the answer is to focus on education - critical thought particularly - and enacting data privacy/protection laws. i do not believe that would lead to 1).

now will that happen? i'm doubtful tbh. our own govt loves the fact that we're up for sale, for it allows them to side-step the need for a warrant. have a great weekend.

[0] https://www.ctinsider.com/columnist/article/tiktok-ban-jim-h... [1] https://himes.house.gov/2024/3/himes-statement-on-protecting...

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#803

Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad. Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure categ…

> Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you?

I like living in a country where the government does not get to decide what I'm allowed to read/watch/see. The TikTok ban chips away at that in a meaningful way.

I value this above most other concerns, including vague worries about "Chinese spying".

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#804

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

So, should we also ban Chinese companies Alibaba, Baidu, Haier, Lenovo, Tencent, and ZTE from operating in the United States? Why just TikTok (Who is ironically also banned in China)? And should Israeli companies, like those associated with NSO Group, face similar scrutiny after reports of their tools being used to hack U.S. State Department employee phones?

Yes

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#805

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

Respectfully, I should be able to install whatever the fuck I want on my phone. Regardless of which apps I choose to rot my brain with, neither the US nor Chinese government should have any say in it, period. If a red line is not drawn, websites will be next, then VPNs, then books. And then the Great Firewall of America will be complete.

I think a democratic nation is well within its rights to restrict its citizens access of certain systems.

There is no such thing as unlimited liberty, especially with regards to systems under control of hostile nations such as China and Russia. Would you be comfortable allowing mass release of unrestricted Hamas / ISIS, Russian propaganda content to North American teenagers? National security is a real thing and geopolitics always play a critical role in people's lives.

One could perhaps argue that we must educate our citizens better, however I think rather than being naive, it's better to implement realistic regulations (within _democratic_ means of course) to contain the threats.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#806

This 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…

I presume the US market is the dominant target market for ads / influencing, a quick google search suggests it is 75% of the global spend. So the other issue is not just losing US influencers but all influencers will take a haircut. I don't know how much of popular content is paid for by such revenue but taking a 75% haircut could put a real damper on content producers - especially those who make it a full time job.…

If so, good riddance. The good point of TikTok is that the videos appear genuine and wholesome. Not the hyper-optimized for monetization crap YouTube Shorts show you. I much prefer the videos with kids goofing around on icy streets over the American narrator telling me some bs about some great baseball player.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#808

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

> Yet people are arguing that we should allow the people who did that to continue to install apps on millions of Americans phones

Who are "the people who did that" - Byte Dance or China as a whole? If it's the latter, I'm afraid there are still plenty of apps made by Chinese companies like, DJI, Lenovo, and thousands of IoT apps to control random geegaws via WiFi or BT.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#809

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

> They hacked all of our major telco's

Can I see the evidence?

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#810

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

The TikTok ban is security theater through and through. Chinese spy agencies don't have to make an app that millions of American teens use to harvest data on them. American companies have been doing the job for them. They — just like the FBI, NSA, American police departments and almost every TLA — can just buy the data from a broker, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/nsa-finally-admi... https://www.eff.org/…

Not just about data harvesting though.
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