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Trump tried to ban it in 2020 out of "national security concerns" similar to Huawei. The ACLU and media painted it as anti free speech and xenophobia and never

by cronix 4y ago

Trump tried to ban it in 2020 out of "national security concerns" similar to Huawei. The ACLU and media painted it as anti free speech and xenophobia and never gave the claims any serious scrutiny. > On July 7, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the government was considering banning TikTok.[26] In response, experts[weasel words] suggested that Trump's proposed TikTok ban may threaten free speech and "set a very problematic precedent" for banning apps in the United States.[27] Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer of privacy company Disconnect, said the app sends an abnormal amount of data—mostly information about the phone—to its server, but there is limited evidence that TikTok is sharing these data with the Chinese government. He also noted that the amount of collected data was similar to that collected by American-originated social media platforms and was less than that collected by Facebook.[28] > After Trump proposed to ban TikTok in the U.S on July 31, 2020, security researchers expressed their concern about limitations of freedom. In one article, PCMag quoted Jennifer Granick of the American Civil Liberties Union Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel who said that "banning an app that millions of Americans use to communicate with each other is a danger to free expression and is technologically impractical."[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok_co...

generj 4y ago
Sort of a fruit of a poisoned well - if prior trade action hadn’t been transparently lying about a national security pretext warning about TikTok would have been received better.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Oh please. The people who complained didn't care about that. They didn't like Trump, and would complain about anything he did regardless of the merit. They are nakedly partisan.
  - generj 4y ago
    The ACLU dislikes any restriction based on national security. I imagine they’d make the same arguments regardless of which party removed TikTok. But the broader public, reporters, and experts absolutely base their decisions on how trustworthy they find rationales. National security arguments often boil down to “we are correct but can’t tell you why, trust us.” Mixing trade wars into that certainly helps skepticism.
  - heretogetout 4y ago
    I didn't like Trump but that wasn't why I was opposed to the TikTok ban. I was opposed because it was pointless and stupid. If we want to ban Chinese businesses because of human rights abuses, fine, let's start banning imports -- hit 'em where it counts! Let's not waste people's limited time and money banning a silly mobile app.
nova22033 4y ago
Yes Trump would totally have banned TikTok but he didn't because he cares about criticism from the media and...the ACLU.. It definitely wasn't because he was worried about the backlash from young voters...
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Trump had a sale lined up, Biden won the election, and then Biden promptly canceled the sale[0]. It's a shame that Trump doesn't get more appreciation for his politically unpopular yet noble moves. Nobody was talking about China before Trump but you can be sure they were content to make fun of Trump for doing so[1]. [0]https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/tiktok-sale-to-walmart-oracle-takes-back-seat-as-biden-reviews-security-wsj-reports.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/tiktok-sale-to-walmart-oracl... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrfE9I8_hs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrfE9I8_hs
beej71 4y ago
If we're deciding the government has the ability to shut down social media apps for "national security", I want some seriously beefy protections in there to prevent abuse. That slope is genuinely for-real dangerously slippery, and scares me 100x more than the scary stuff TikTok is doing now. The ban was right to be challenged--if Trump could legally justify it, let him do that in court. And if he couldn't, there's probably a damned good reason for that.
- akomtu 4y ago
  It's not a slippery slope to ban a foreign survelliance app made by an adversary. Freedom of speech in the US applies only to the US citizens.
  - beej71 4y ago
    Then there should be no problem getting this through the courts, right? All I'm asking for here is some guarantee that this won't be used to shut down social networks that some government entity dislikes for personal reasons. Because I know for a fact that some people who have been in power wanted to do exactly that. We should all be demanding this. Ban TikTok, but do it narrowly with a lot of protections.

by cronix 4y ago

generj 4y ago

Sort of a fruit of a poisoned well - if prior trade action hadn’t been transparently lying about a national security pretext warning about TikTok would have been received better.

jaywalk 4y ago
Oh please. The people who complained didn't care about that. They didn't like Trump, and would complain about anything he did regardless of the merit. They are nakedly partisan.
- generj 4y ago
  The ACLU dislikes any restriction based on national security. I imagine they’d make the same arguments regardless of which party removed TikTok. But the broader public, reporters, and experts absolutely base their decisions on how trustworthy they find rationales. National security arguments often boil down to “we are correct but can’t tell you why, trust us.” Mixing trade wars into that certainly helps skepticism.
- heretogetout 4y ago
  I didn't like Trump but that wasn't why I was opposed to the TikTok ban. I was opposed because it was pointless and stupid. If we want to ban Chinese businesses because of human rights abuses, fine, let's start banning imports -- hit 'em where it counts! Let's not waste people's limited time and money banning a silly mobile app.

nova22033 4y ago

Yes Trump would totally have banned TikTok but he didn't because he cares about criticism from the media and...the ACLU.. It definitely wasn't because he was worried about the backlash from young voters...

jimbob45 4y ago
Trump had a sale lined up, Biden won the election, and then Biden promptly canceled the sale[0]. It's a shame that Trump doesn't get more appreciation for his politically unpopular yet noble moves. Nobody was talking about China before Trump but you can be sure they were content to make fun of Trump for doing so[1]. [0]https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/tiktok-sale-to-walmart-oracle-takes-back-seat-as-biden-reviews-security-wsj-reports.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/tiktok-sale-to-walmart-oracl... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrfE9I8_hs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDrfE9I8_hs

beej71 4y ago

If we're deciding the government has the ability to shut down social media apps for "national security", I want some seriously beefy protections in there to prevent abuse. That slope is genuinely for-real dangerously slippery, and scares me 100x more than the scary stuff TikTok is doing now. The ban was right to be challenged--if Trump could legally justify it, let him do that in court. And if he couldn't, there's probably a damned good reason for that.

akomtu 4y ago
It's not a slippery slope to ban a foreign survelliance app made by an adversary. Freedom of speech in the US applies only to the US citizens.
- beej71 4y ago
  Then there should be no problem getting this through the courts, right? All I'm asking for here is some guarantee that this won't be used to shut down social networks that some government entity dislikes for personal reasons. Because I know for a fact that some people who have been in power wanted to do exactly that. We should all be demanding this. Ban TikTok, but do it narrowly with a lot of protections.