4 ms·

A US citizen distributing foreign media themselves is quite different than what is effectively a directly controlled broadcast owned by a foreign government.

by zachmu 3y ago

throwaway199956 3y ago
Listening to foreign radio stations on shortwave and listening their propaganda is also not illegal in the US.
brookst 3y ago
I’m not usually a slippery slope person, but if we’re outlawing content based on who owns the creator or transmitter, things get ugly quick.
- true_religion 3y ago
  A rule that hostile nations can’t own communication platforms in your country isn’t a slippery slope. The US is widely against even having its own government own communication platforms.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- philwelch 3y ago
  “On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in...)
- zachmu 3y ago
  It's not even content per se, it's much more insidious than that. The comment I originally replied to likened tiktok to a printing press, but that's not quite right. Imagine a printing press owned by an enemy that would subtly manipulate the text of whatever you tried to print. Or maybe it would omit entire articles from certain recipients of the newspaper, or reorganize the page layout to emphasize different things than the editor intended. We wouldn't allow this hypothetical printing press controlled by a hostile foreign government to be sold in the US, we would be crazy to.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Actually, yes, we would allow such a thing. Plenty of our news organizations are foreign – owned, and many of them are very elegant to your hypothetical printing press. The US simply doesn’t have the constitutional or legal framework to regulate content reproduction for ideological reasons.
- mannerheim 3y ago
  The content is not what is being outlawed, only the distribution mechanism. ISIS wouldn't be allowed to own a publishing company in America; nobody thinks that somehow curtails freedom of speech. If somebody so chooses, they could distribute content from ISIS, and restrictions on that would indeed be a restriction on speech. But it wouldn't be a restriction to make it illegal to give money to ISIS.
  - chii 3y ago
    that's because ISIS is a terrorist organization. So if you want to make the same argument, you will have to declare china's CCP to be a terrorist organization - and all of the legal implications that entails.
    - mannerheim 3y ago
      That's not a constitutional requirement. There's no law that says the government can only do this to terrorists. In fact, even if somebody is a terrorist, if they're American, it would still be unconstitutional to deprive their freedom of speech. ByteDance, as a foreign entity, enjoys no such protection.
hayst4ck 3y ago
Is it? When you're saying that, I think you're imagining your neighbor, not your oligarch. When one country tries to cause chaos in another, they use a two pronged approach. (1) they offer a country's aristocracy the ability to enrich themselves at the cost of their people. This could be things like cheap labor, gas pipelines, or being the guarantor of loans. (2) They tell a countries peasantry that the worlds problems are simple and that their government is their enemy and failing them. This is only empowered by having compromised their aristocracy, so their government is failing them. Then they put their fingers on the scale by providing resources (weapons, funding, press, intelligence, etc.) to an aligned entity capable of promoting their interests. It's worth considering that the great firewall of china exists explicitly because the Chinese government (rationally) thinks it's risky to subject people who were subsistence farming a generation ago to foreign influence. The cost of freedom is responsibility, and if you have an irresponsible (read: poorly educated/non critical thinking) populace, then people will unwittingly surrender their freedom. Freedom means the freedom to do the wrong thing, but that can result in bending or breaking.
- parthianshotgun 3y ago
  Rationally...I don't find that that is implied. China is doing that rationally from a completely self interested, in the animal sense, way. The point of freedom is freedom, it's an end unto itself, if people are fooled or liable to control given such freedom, let them be. Control hardly ever "works" (in the ultimate sense), maybe in children, but we're not talking about children. Children also grow old.
murderfs 3y ago
Well, we do that too: https://www.usagm.gov/2022/03/05/usagm-condemns-kremlins-increasing-censorship-responds-to-a-surge-in-demand-for-reporting-from-its-networks/ https://www.usagm.gov/2022/03/05/usagm-condemns-kremlins-inc...

A US citizen distributing foreign media themselves is quite different than what is effectively a directly controlled broadcast owned by a foreign government.

by zachmu 3y ago

A US citizen distributing foreign media themselves is quite different than what is effectively a directly controlled broadcast owned by a foreign government.

throwaway199956 3y ago

Listening to foreign radio stations on shortwave and listening their propaganda is also not illegal in the US.

brookst 3y ago

I’m not usually a slippery slope person, but if we’re outlawing content based on who owns the creator or transmitter, things get ugly quick.

true_religion 3y ago
A rule that hostile nations can’t own communication platforms in your country isn’t a slippery slope. The US is widely against even having its own government own communication platforms.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 3y ago
“On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in...)
zachmu 3y ago
It's not even content per se, it's much more insidious than that. The comment I originally replied to likened tiktok to a printing press, but that's not quite right. Imagine a printing press owned by an enemy that would subtly manipulate the text of whatever you tried to print. Or maybe it would omit entire articles from certain recipients of the newspaper, or reorganize the page layout to emphasize different things than the editor intended. We wouldn't allow this hypothetical printing press controlled by a hostile foreign government to be sold in the US, we would be crazy to.
- brookst 3y ago
  Actually, yes, we would allow such a thing. Plenty of our news organizations are foreign – owned, and many of them are very elegant to your hypothetical printing press. The US simply doesn’t have the constitutional or legal framework to regulate content reproduction for ideological reasons.
mannerheim 3y ago
The content is not what is being outlawed, only the distribution mechanism. ISIS wouldn't be allowed to own a publishing company in America; nobody thinks that somehow curtails freedom of speech. If somebody so chooses, they could distribute content from ISIS, and restrictions on that would indeed be a restriction on speech. But it wouldn't be a restriction to make it illegal to give money to ISIS.
- chii 3y ago
  that's because ISIS is a terrorist organization. So if you want to make the same argument, you will have to declare china's CCP to be a terrorist organization - and all of the legal implications that entails.
  - mannerheim 3y ago
    That's not a constitutional requirement. There's no law that says the government can only do this to terrorists. In fact, even if somebody is a terrorist, if they're American, it would still be unconstitutional to deprive their freedom of speech. ByteDance, as a foreign entity, enjoys no such protection.

hayst4ck 3y ago

Is it? When you're saying that, I think you're imagining your neighbor, not your oligarch. When one country tries to cause chaos in another, they use a two pronged approach. (1) they offer a country's aristocracy the ability to enrich themselves at the cost of their people. This could be things like cheap labor, gas pipelines, or being the guarantor of loans. (2) They tell a countries peasantry that the worlds problems are simple and that their government is their enemy and failing them. This is only empowered by having compromised their aristocracy, so their government is failing them. Then they put their fingers on the scale by providing resources (weapons, funding, press, intelligence, etc.) to an aligned entity capable of promoting their interests. It's worth considering that the great firewall of china exists explicitly because the Chinese government (rationally) thinks it's risky to subject people who were subsistence farming a generation ago to foreign influence. The cost of freedom is responsibility, and if you have an irresponsible (read: poorly educated/non critical thinking) populace, then people will unwittingly surrender their freedom. Freedom means the freedom to do the wrong thing, but that can result in bending or breaking.

parthianshotgun 3y ago
Rationally...I don't find that that is implied. China is doing that rationally from a completely self interested, in the animal sense, way. The point of freedom is freedom, it's an end unto itself, if people are fooled or liable to control given such freedom, let them be. Control hardly ever "works" (in the ultimate sense), maybe in children, but we're not talking about children. Children also grow old.

murderfs 3y ago

Well, we do that too: https://www.usagm.gov/2022/03/05/usagm-condemns-kremlins-increasing-censorship-responds-to-a-surge-in-demand-for-reporting-from-its-networks/ https://www.usagm.gov/2022/03/05/usagm-condemns-kremlins-inc...