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TikTok divestment law upheld by federal appeals court

298 points by belter 2y ago

Leary 2y ago
Surprisingly, the court (2/3) thinks the law both requires strict scrutiny and satisfies it. Strict Scrutiny has two tests: 1. Compelling Government Interest 2. Narrowly Tailored (least restrictive means) Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights.
- granzymes 2y ago
  The Court did not say that the law is subject to strict scrutiny. The majority holds that they need not decide whether strict or intermediate scrutiny applies because the law satisfies the more stringent test. The concurrence by Judge Srinivasan would instead hold that the law is subject to only intermediate scrutiny and uphold the law on that basis. Why do it this way? It takes away a potential avenue of appeal for TikTok. They can’t ask the Supreme Court to hold that the law is subject to strict scrutiny, because that issue wouldn’t help them overturn this ruling. If you had forced the rest of the panel to choose, I think they would have landed on intermediate scrutiny.
  - gpm 2y ago
    I'd guess that at least one of the panel members thought strict scrutiny applies. Otherwise I think they would have ruled both that intermediate scrutiny applies, and that even if it doesn't the law passes strict scrutiny.
    - granzymes 2y ago
      The only thing the Court says on the matter is: >There are reasonable bases to conclude that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate even under these circumstances. We need not, however, definitively decide that question because we conclude the Act “passes muster even under the more demanding standard.” It's possible that either Judge Ginsburg or Judge Rao think the strict scrutiny should apply, but if forced to put money on it I would say they both land on intermediate scrutiny.
      - gpm 2y ago
        Eh, all of pages 28, 29, 30, and 31 are dedicated to the question, they just choose not to come to a definite answer. It's not like they didn't think about it. Not to say that you couldn't be right, them both landing on intermediate scrutiny is just not how I read the tea leaves.
- mportela 2y ago
  > Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights. Is there a precedence on foreign actors (either inside or outside the US) having First Amendment rights?
  - p_j_w 2y ago
    The first amendment doesn't carve out an exception for non-citizens, so you should be asking if there's precedence on foreigners inside the US NOT having First Amendment rights. Outside of the US your question is moot, as the US constitution is only binding in the US.
next_xibalba 2y ago
TLDR: The ban is set to take effect on January 19, 2025. It can be postponed once for a duration of 90 days by a presidential act. This appeals court upheld the law.
- cperciva 2y ago
  Is it a coincidence that the deadline expires the day before Trump takes office?
  - grajaganDev 2y ago
    The deadline was established long before the election.
    - cperciva 2y ago
      Sure, but we've known for decades when inauguration day was going to be.
      - Nasrudith 2y ago
        We didn't know the outcome for certain. It could have equally been. "Why the start of Joe Biden's second term?" if you go back early enough on the timeline.
        cperciva 2y ago
        I would say that it's still inauguration day even if it's the start of the second term?
  - chvid 2y ago
    It was very deliberate.
  - next_xibalba 2y ago
    Yes, I think it's a coincidence. The language of the law specifies the ban will go into effect 270 days after the law's passage. I don't think any one law maker can perfectly predict how long it will take for a law to make it through the House, Senate, and Presidential signature. This law was introduced on March 5, 2024 and signed by Biden on April 24, 2024.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
It's a global company right? What if they just don't respond. How does it get banned.
- Leary 2y ago
  1. Apps stores remove them. 2. Any transactions paying the creators are banned. Any Tiktok shopping stuff banned. 3. ISPs?
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    App Stores maybe. But US doesn't have a national Fire Wall like China. So on one hand we don't have the ability to block content/internet like China, but we seem to want to be more like China and be able to?
  - wruza 2y ago
    Creators start begging for patreon support, tiktok operates at its own expense as a webapp, users set up vpn in case it gets banned at isp. Domestic alternatives continue to suck and fail to attract users. Nothing new under the sun.
    - codedokode 2y ago
      > users set up vpn You'll lose most audience to a competitor that doesn't require VPN at this step.
      - wruza 2y ago
        Not with tiktok, and “we have tiktok at home” doesn’t work on teens. I have a <10yo niece, guess what I find on my grandmas tablet every time she visits? Right, a new vpn app. We are in Russia, and no one watches rutube. Even my grandma said it’s useless crap with no content and turns her personal ovpn profile on and off to visit differently banned services. Everyone is still on youtube, both viewers and creators. It’s only hard for a week, then you get used to it and it gets normalized in the society. You US just have to live through your first real-sized ban, then that rule stops working. Bans are snakeoil, except for North Korean style. You actually do have a chance iff someone manages to catch the essence of tiktok and implement it at home without screwing everything up, so better do not.
russli1993 2y ago
[flagged]
- Supermancho 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - grecy 2y ago
    Haha, careful. You might soon be saying the same about free speech or abortion rights - “just go to another country if you want those”
    - Supermancho 2y ago
      I can't afford to buy a car made out of diamonds or play exclusive japanese console games outside of japan (depending on the game, ofc). It does not worry me that it's a slippery slope to losing free speech (as it is defined) in the USA.
      - grecy 2y ago
        I couldn't help notice how you avoided abortion rights....
        Supermancho 2y ago
        Abortion isn't a codified right (yet). I don't need to go through every possible related fact to make a point to satisfy your niche complaints that are leading to more whataboutism. I noticed you didn't mention the right to have beer. How is this constructive?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > spend the money to fly to another country and come back when you like Just go to TikTok.com. The bill doesn’t ban TikTok. It just says if it doesn’t find non-Chinese investors it’s kicked out of app stores. The speech isn’t being censored, the distribution is being curtailed.
xnx 2y ago
The hypothetical risks of a Chinese owned TikTok seem a smaller concern than the Chinese having hacked into and still having access(!) to US telecom networks: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/03/chinese-hack-global-telecom-ongoing-00192410 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/03/chinese-hack-global...
- jonnycomputer 2y ago
  Different kinds of risks.
- tgv 2y ago
  In summary: China is a threat to the West (also to Africa, but they are still in denial). But you can't get rid of hacking through a bit of legislature, so fixing telcos is another process.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > you can't get rid of hacking through a bit of legislature We can make it harder. Switch our telecoms to E2E by default. We’ve shown the current set-up can be exploited by adversaries. It’s not a huge leap given the prevalence of encrypted messaging apps. And you can market it as a finger to the deep state on one side and a limit on the executive to the other.
    - daniel_reetz 2y ago
      E2E doesn't fix the government mandated backdoors, which were implicated in this attack. Check out the last line of this article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/us-telecom-providers-chinese-hack/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/us-telecom-providers...
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > E2E doesn't fix the government mandated backdoors, which were implicated in this attack Of course it does. It removes them. This problem can be solved with a bit of legislation.
kccqzy 2y ago
This is "only" from an appeals court. I expect TikTok will take it to the Supreme Court and they may well reach different conclusions there.
- Quillbert182 2y ago
  I honestly would be surprised if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, there does not seem to be a huge amount of controversy here from a legal standpoint.
  - cycrutchfield 2y ago
    Does the Supreme Court still make decisions based on legal principles or is it just a thin veneer for their political opinions? Genuinely asking because I’m not so sure these days.
    - dleeftink 2y ago
      Is it wishful thinking there was a time those were ever separate?
      - cycrutchfield 2y ago
        The selection, nomination, and confirmation processes have certainly become significantly more ideologically-driven over time, so I would expect that to have an impact on the composition of the court and the way they make decisions.
    - yyuugg 2y ago
      The latter, but it's always been the latter. But usually they've been better at using the former to hide the latter. Recently, there's been a much thinner veneer of "legal principles".
      - telotortium 2y ago
        Lol, that's what conservatives think about Sotomayor and Jackson, and looking at their comments during oral arguments as well as their opinions, I think they have a point. (Kagan is generally a more rigorous thinker.) Actually most cases argued before the Supreme Court still have a unanimous or almost unanimous outcome, or are denied cert (which would often indicate a unanimous opinion were it to be ruled upon). It's only in the more controversial cases where you're more likely to read the more blatantly political arguments.
TrackerFF 2y ago
I think it's just a mater of time before TikTok starts seeing bans (or threats of bans) all over in the west. Countries are starting to view it as a _serious_ national threat, due to the disinformation risk. Just look at the Romanian election: A couple of hours ago they annulled the first election round, after a coordinated Russian campaign managed to propel a rather unknown pro-Russian candidate to the top, where they used platforms like TikTok to influence voters. Not that platforms like Facebook, Snap, etc. are much better, but this comes down to having some control.
- nextworddev 2y ago
  Even if the app got banned abruptly today, the damage has already been done in the sense that it leaked a lot of training data and PII data to China
  - swatcoder 2y ago
    > the damage has already been done in the sense that it leaked a lot of training data and PII data to China That's not nearly the damage that people are organizing against. It's hard to imagine China really gains much simply be holding some trove of old details about some subset of US consumers, no matter how large. Vanishingly few users are individually interesting from halfway around the world, and the aggregate data grows stale quickly. The pressing concerns are in them being able to (a) advance their global political agenda by dynamically manipulating what people see and how its presented to them in a way that almost nobody can monitor, and (b) intercept ostensibly private messaging between select users. From the national security perspective of a foreign government, both of these are huge vulnerabilities in a hot or even mildly warm conflict with China as most of the globe seems to be anticipating. And the fact that pushing back against these strategic threats raises ideological conflicts with Western celebration of free speech and free trade -- making it hard for the government to do anything about the threats and stoking internal conflict when they try -- is gravy on top of it.
    - inahga 2y ago
      > The pressing concerns are in them being able to (a) advance their global political agenda by dynamically manipulating what people see and how its presented to them in a way that almost nobody can monitor, and (b) intercept ostensibly private messaging between select users. It's interesting that these are only actionable threats when they apply to [insert foreign boogeyman here]. That is, there's been lots of lip service paid about misinformation and privacy violations on/by U.S. companies. But it feels like the only meaningful action is being taken when it's some hypothetical foreign adversary. The further away they are, the more insidious. I've always felt the most tangible threat is in my backyard, instead of on the other side of the planet.
howmayiannoyyou 2y ago
Cannot happen fast enough. The barn door has been left wide open. If we cannot take social engineering and data security seriously - and we do not - then we're not serious about our continued survival as a country. Sound overly dramatic? Erosion of a common national identity, more than any other factor, has heralded the fall of nations throughout history. On the data security side, a failure to maintain a stable & secure transactional system is almost an equal threat given US dependency on finance, lending & commerce as a key pillar of overall stability. Doing 3 things at once, so above is best I can do in trying to describe an underreported and poorly appreciated threat to our nation.
- drawkward 2y ago
  Good luck getting past the advertising lobby, and all that it supports, including the mostly free internet.
  - grajaganDev 2y ago
    The TikTok ban appears to have made it past the ads lobby.
    - drawkward 2y ago
      Yes, but it also has nothing to do with the security of personal data.
Mathnerd314 2y ago
Full opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10289420/an-opinion-was-released-in-case-24-1113-tiktok-inc-v-merrick-garland/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10289420/an-opinion-wa...
oldgregg 2y ago
[flagged]
- Permit 2y ago
  What a bizarre take. You think people are being paid to post here? Can you point to any examples?
  - luzojeda 2y ago
    It is something impossible to prove that people are paid to post anything so what's the point on arguing about that? I agree with him, there is enough proof already of non-western countries spreading misinformation and propaganda online. And if you want to find about it there's Google and many other search engines.
    - Permit 2y ago
      It would help to see like, a single example of this being uncovered on the site. Failing that, it would help if he/she could point out a specific account they believe to be astroturfing here. I agree that there have been examples of non-western countries spreading misinformation online. I have not seen any evidence that they do so on HackerNews. What I do see frequently is posters upset/surprised that the crowd here disagrees with them and then concluding that everyone else must be paid to hold such opinions.
  - booleandilemma 2y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised, tbh. HN is the go-to website for the tech scene, for better or worse.
  - ramses0 2y ago
    https://wondermark.com/c/1062/ https://wondermark.com/c/1062/
  - simoncion 2y ago
    > You think people are being paid to post here? Yes. Paid astroturfers posted in Slashdot discussions back when Microsoft was bankrolling the SCO lawsuit. Much like Slashdot back in the day, HN is a popular gossip site. I'd relinquish several vital organs if it turned out there were never any paid posters (whether meat or machine [0]) who had posted on this site (and others like it). > Can you point to any examples? Proving that is a ton of legwork that no not-particularly-motivated user is going to do. Unless someone is especially motivated to investigate, the best you're ever going to get is an indication of how plausible it is. [0] And no, you can't get cute and say that the bot posters can't get paid. Someone's getting paid to operate the bot, so (for the purposes of this bet) that counts as the bot being paid.
scarecrowbob 2y ago
I am always curious how many people who are in favor of this have actually used tictok. I have found it very helpful for finding voices pretty far to the left. I also have found it very helpful for finding voices among marginalized communities, specifically indigenous folks, black women, anarchists, and queer folks- especially making fairly rational, well informed critiques of the US. And especially as that relates to things like Palestine or the Democrats failures in marketing Harri. I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there. However, the TT algo surfaces these things quite quickly and satisfactorally for me. I can see how that really is a threat to US powers. I have a pretty good understanding of the various US oppressive actions against subversives, including the all-out war to demonize folks starting with anarchists/trade unionists/communists in the late 1800s to the use of COINTELPRO against folks like the black panthers, AIM, and the anti-war movement. So from my standpoint, as someone who has gotten legitiamte "free-speech" value from the app, this move seems like just another step in a long history of US repression of political dissent. If you start from the assumption that everyone who has different politics than you has been brainwashed or manipulated into that differing position, then sure TT seems like a great tool to do that. But if you think that it really takes immense amounts of capital and effort to get people to "form" opinions, you might take the position that the effort could only be done by folks who, say, have control of the "history" curriculum in Texas public schools ot, for instance, the power to have their press releases uncritically published by the New York Times. Anyhow. It will be interesting to see the US set up its own version of the Great Firewall, I guess.
- forth_throwaway 2y ago
  Maybe all of the people downvoting could try and make a coherent argument against this post instead. Although it's pretty hard to argue against objective facts. The US can ban TikTok all they want, but the worms aren't going back into the can.
  - charonn0 2y ago
    As the grandparent comment points out: > I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there. The law doesn't ban the discussion of any particular topics, it bans social media platforms that are subject to the laws and control of adversarial governments. Specifically, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, who are already prohibited from participating in sensitive parts of the US economy. If social media exists to collect vast amounts of information about its users--and it does--then it's reasonable for the government to be concerned about whether that information can fall into the hands of an adversary. If social media exists to manipulate its users into believing and doing things that benefit the platform--and it does--then likewise the government has good reason to be concerned about how an adversary might use that. Framing the law as a ban on particular viewpoints is misguided at best, misinformation at worst. And, as you and the GP comment both point out, it wouldn't work since other platforms and venues are still wide open. The can of worms being left open is a feature not a bug. It's one reason why the law can survive a strict scrutiny review.
yyuugg 2y ago
This ban has always felt so silly. If it's privacy and data harvesting as a concern, don't a million apps do that? If it's anti-China sentiment, why TikTok and not a million other things? If it's about protecting elections and propaganda, why not X and Meta and YouTube? It's so weirdly targeted to me. Why TikTok only?
- sethammons 2y ago
  because tiktok was doing FB stuff better and FB got scared and lobbied. I think that about sums it up.
- logicchains 2y ago
  Because the AIPAC lobby explicitly called TikTok out for exposing young Americans to footage of the Gaza genocide (causing support for Israel among US youth to reach and all-time low), and pushed for the ban. The US politicians who initially pushed it had received hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from AIPAC. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/tiktok-accusations-anti-israel-content.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/tiktok-accusatio...
  - banku_brougham 2y ago
    Its a straight line, openly conceived.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  > If it's about protecting elections and propaganda, why not X and Meta and YouTube? Because the government is not threatened by X, Meta, or YouTube. In many ways, it exists in their pocket. There's not a lot of looming dissonance between what those parties are interested in seeing happen and what the modern federal government (as run by either party) is pursuing, and at this point, those each provide far more value as an allied propaganda arm than as a hostile propaganda risk. But China and the US have directly competing interests in many places around the world, and the radical changes that both countries have undergone in the last 80 years have set the stage of a fresh contest of power. Obviously, both parties would like to navigate that contest in the best position possible. Allowing your anticipated opponent access to unmediated, private communications with hundreds of millions of citizens in an already vulnerable democracy is not a great position to be in during that contest.
sethammons 2y ago
the quality of dialog on this site plummets to reddit levels when talking about TikTok. TikTok was stopped because it was eating FB's lunch. That's it. There is not a single argument that applies to TikTok that doesn't apply to FB or some other company
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  Heckin' wholesome news: Eglin Air Force Base revealed as the most HN addicted city!
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  It seems like the primary argument is that it is owned by China. I don’t see how applies to FB or other companies.
- floatingtorch 2y ago
  Your analysis is low quality as it focuses too narrowly and ignores the wider geopolitical tensions between the US and China. See: - CHIPs act - Ban of sale of many nvidia GPUs to China - Ban of export of ASML euv tech - Huawei ban - Chinese EV tariffs (ban?) - whole host of tariffs - China south sea tensions - Chinese support of Russia who is a threat to NATO allies (and invaded a sovereign country) - Ban of most US tech companies in China - Chinas mutual aid treaty with North Korea
granzymes 2y ago
While the Court based this decision solely on the non-classified portion of the record, I found this quote to be very interesting: >Notably, TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC. The Court held that the law could satisfy strict scrutiny (regardless of whether or not it applies), which requires that the Government prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and less restrictive alternatives would not accomplish the Government's goals. That's a high, high bar, and most laws subject to it are found wanting. I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to want to hear this case. The most interesting legal question for them to decide was whether the law is subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny, but that is off the table now that the D.C. Circuit says it doesn't matter because the law could satisfy either standard. Direct link to the opinion: https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-1113-2088317.pdf https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111...
- rfw300 2y ago
  I don’t agree with that analysis. The modern Supreme Court loves to wade into high-profile First Amendment issues, all the more when it’s actually a relatively novel application. They’ll take this case either to be argued at the end of this term or next term, and it will be subject to their analysis and whatever Trump decides to do with his discretion.
  - brookst 2y ago
    Agreed. This would be the perfect vehicle for a very broad ruling that the government can ban media in the name of national security, the precedent of which could be used in an ad hoc manner.
    - EasyMark 2y ago
      Oooof I don’t think it will, but that bogey man is always in the back of the mind after SCOTUS essentially made the office of the President a 4 year kingship where you are immune to all but the most heinous crimes as president as long as you can cross the I’s and dot the T’s of “official business”
BadHumans 2y ago
Tiktok ban is a farce because FAANG companies don't like that a Chinese company is doing what they do better and taking their market share. If they actually cared about the privacy and misinformation risk they would pass privacy laws that affect all social media companies.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  This was not about privacy. This is about CCP using disinformation to sway populations in a democratic country.
  - gpm 2y ago
    The ruling actually spends quite a bit of time talking about the privacy justification as well.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      Yeah, but it's still a distraction from the real issue.
      - BadHumans 2y ago
        The excuse of misinformation is also fud. Facebook help Trump get elected in 2016 through the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Facebook paid a paltry fine and the executives from Cambridge Analytica formed another company named Emerdata. There would be no need to take action specifically against Tiktok if legislation was the stick given to all companies but lobbyist don't want to crack down domestically.
        sanderjd 2y ago
        It's not about misinformation either. It's about control over the algorithm that chooses what people see.
        cscurmudgeon 2y ago
logicchains 2y ago
Trump explicitly promised to stop the TikTok ban so it'll be interesting to see if he follows through.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Right after they finally repeal Obamacare, one presumes.
  - reaperducer 2y ago
    He promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of being elected. Not being sworn-in, but 24 hours of being elected. We see how well that promise worked out.
- susixbcjbc 2y ago
  [flagged]
- burkaman 2y ago
  No he didn't. The most he said is that he would "SAVE TIKTOK" (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113081258242253706 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1130812582422...), which can mean anything you want. If you think the ban should be repealed, then that's what he meant. If you think the ban should be upheld and TikTok should be taken over by an American company, then that's what he meant. As usual, he has also made every other possible contradictory statement on this issue. "When I wanted to disable TIKTOK 3 years ago [...] I was right": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109989698845280746 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1099896988452... "A national ban on TikTok is long overdue": https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/18212 https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/18212 "Trump was RIGHT on TikTok": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110075348432207620 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1100753484322... "FACEBOOK IS A GREAT THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, AND IT WILL ONLY GET BIGGER AND STRONGER IF TIKTOK IS TAKEN OUT. DO THEM BOTH?": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112095702057229625 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1120957020572... And of course, his own executive order to ban TikTok: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
[flagged]
- sanderjd 2y ago
  Nope. This issue was being bandied about prior to the war in Gaza.
  - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    All previous attempts to pass laws banning the app failed. Then, during the war in Gaza, American politicians started complaining that TikTok users were posting too much pro-Palestinian content,[0] and there was suddenly majority support in the US Congress for banning the app. Here's what Mitt Romney said about the reason why Congress suddenly supported a ban: > Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. Ironically, a big reason why TikTok has more pro-Palestinian content than Facebook is because Facebook suppresses circulation of pro-Palestinian posts. TikTok, as a non-American platform, is less heavily politically censored on this topic. 0. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renewed-calls-for-a-ban-amid-pro-hamas-anti-israel-claims https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renew...
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      Your timeline doesn't work. The timeline wasn't: Gaza war starts -> lots of TikTok posts about it -> people suddenly want to ban TikTok. The timeline was: people in the US realize it's a big problem that the country's primary geopolitical rival controls the algorithm that serves information to the majority of its young people -> policymakers in the US start working on banning TikTok or forcing divestment -> the Gaza war starts -> policymakers see it as an example of the problem (which may or may not be accurate!) -> they continue pushing to ban TikTok and eventually succeed. It's hard to suss out cause and effect in any case, but it's pretty easy to reject a hypothesized cause when the effect predates it.
thrance 2y ago
I think the fear of foreign influences poisoning our democracies through social media is a very legitimate one. But then, why limit the debate to PCR-owned TikTok? Arguably, Twitter/X was way more instrumental in the election of Donald Trump, a man who has repeatedly praised Xi Jinping [1], Putin [2] and other despots. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/jul/21/trump-praises-xi-jinping-and-kim-jong-un-in-michigan-rally-speech-video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/jul/21/trump-... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-praises-putin-kim-jong-un-bashes-obama/2024/10/22/193af7e7-7659-43d6-bd7c-b9f233300e5e_video.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-praises-...
- plagiarist 2y ago
  Legally it turns out it is perfectly fine if propaganda and disinformation machines are run by domestic billionaires.
Footnote7341 2y ago
We aren't used to draconian internet control in the west yet, in China and Russia the population is. Everyone who's anyone just uses a VPN and uses western internet when they like. China banned western social media for the exact same reason that the US wanted to, they were just ready to do it earlier.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
internetter 2y ago
I don't like this. TikTok is certainly a national security threat and it should absolutely be heavily restricted via sweeping privacy regulation that applies to all US tech companies, however the government has failed to implement privacy regulation while allowing TikTok's unfettered growth. Consequently, it has allowed the platform to become the place for free speech and exchange of ideas by the country's youth, and hence this cold turkey removal is a direct assault on their freedom. This decision could set a dangerous president, pulling us towards a future of authoritarianism where only government approved communication channels are permitted.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  U.S. courts are not "the government." They are a part of the government. It's not the court's job to "implement privacy regulation." That's the legislative branch's job. The U.S. government is designed this way on purpose -- so that no one part of the government is more powerful than the other. I assume you're not an American, because this is generally taught in elementary school.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  The job of the court is not to decide if this law is the best possible solution.
  - hn_acker 2y ago
    When strict scrutiny is involved, (which it is, because there are many US users of TikTok using their First Amendment rights) it IS the court's job to decide whether the law is the "least restrictive means" [1] of solving the problem that the legislators claim to be solving. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
dtquad 2y ago
Discussions about Tiktok are always dominated by the focus on privacy which is a joke. The real problem is the algorithmic control this gives China to influence the populations of Western countries. But Meta was found to outsource content moderation to a Canadian company that outsourced Instagram content moderation to Iran. This is not about privacy. These platforms have become the new media. Getting your news from profit-seeking American and Chinese companies is not ideal in the long run.
- bbqfog 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - spacemanspiff01 2y ago
    Young people spend alot of time on tick tock. At the level of detail that social media companies can get, they can estimate fairly accurately what issues that people get concerned by, and their opinions. Then they can micro target individual subpopulations with messaging that particularly works at influencing them. This is very different than historical propaganda efforts, were one had to target the largest common denominator. Now you can send individualized messaging towards individual subgroups. You see some of this with politicians in the US saying one thing in a set of Facebook adds, while saying the opposite in another set. Because the ads are targeted, neither group sees the ads meant for the other group, Which allows for better tailoring of message. On top of this the goal of a theoretical Chinese propaganda campaign is not necessarily to send a particular message, but to polarize and divide the country to make it even more disfunctional.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Exactly. That's the fundamental difference between historical influence and modern social media influence. Historically, the same entity didn't have profiles, the ability to microtarget, and content. Can you imagine a newspaper company that kept a profile on every household? And also repasted together a unique paper for each one? Now the largest social media companies can do that trivially.
booleandilemma 2y ago
I never signed up for instagram, snapchat, or threads, but I am a tiktok user. If tiktok is banned, it might very well be the last social media app of its kind that I ever use.
- klysm 2y ago
  That sounds like a good thing
quantum_state 2y ago
Any intervention from the government on our choice of media is unconstitutional … hope this is a self evident truth.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Who are you? Courts think otherwise.
- evanfrommaxar 2y ago
  The FCC is allowed to issue radio broadcasting licenses that prevent pirate radio stations, thereby "intervening" on my choice of media. Learn some law.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    They specifically only have that because of limits of the commons though.
- brink 2y ago
  I get where your heart is at, but this is decisively not true.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  That's either a silly throw-away comment, or you're not a serious person.
jmward01 2y ago
Does this matter without meaningful US privacy laws? Can't China just buy metrics and ads to get the same access?
hn_acker 2y ago
Related: DC Circuit Upholds TikTok Ban In Alarming Ruling, Claiming It Actually Enhances Free Speech https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/06/dc-circuit-upholds-tiktok-ban-in-alarming-ruling-claiming-it-actually-enhances-free-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/06/dc-circuit-upholds-tikto... > There is a fair bit of hand-waving, in which they note that the government presented no actual evidence of China doing anything nefarious with TikTok, but because government officials said “but they could!” that was enough. This sets an extremely low and dangerous bar. Mere speculation about what a foreign government might hypothetically do in the future should not be enough to override the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans. > In many ways, this is a continuation of the way the courts often view Fourth Amendment cases, where if the government just yells “national security” loud enough, courts will ignore the plain text of the Fourth Amendment. ... > The court’s reasoning here is Orwellian. It claims that banning TikTok, and the speech of millions of Americans on the platform, somehow enhances free speech. This is a complete inversion of First Amendment values. The First Amendment protects against government censorship and control of private speech, it doesn’t justify such censorship in the name of preventing foreign influence. The court is essentially arguing that violating the First Amendment is necessary to save it, which is absurd. ... > The ruling also rejects the idea that this was a Bill of Attainder, by saying that while it does “target” TikTok directly, its remedy is not a “punishment” and therefore that prohibition doesn’t apply. But banning TikTok from operating in the US unless it is sold certainly seems like a punishment. The court’s analysis on this point is not persuasive. > The court also claims that this bill is, in fact, the least restrictive means of achieving this outcome, rejecting ByteDance’s long-negotiated alternative of having all the data stored in the US on Oracle hardware, and giving Oracle the ability to audit the code. This plan was originally cooked up deliberately under the first Trump administration to support Trump donor Larry Ellison.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwawaymanbot 2y ago
Excellent news. And all social media should be blocked until you are 16+
- vkou 2y ago
  Social networks in general should be nation-specific, to ensure that only domestic enemies of the people and similar bad actors can take advantage of them. Allowing foreigners to broadcast speech into your country, or harvest data from it invites nothing but trouble.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    Allowing foreigners to broadcast speech into your country is protected by the First Amendment. It's exactly why every American can consume 24/7 PressTV if they choose to
    - wk_end 2y ago
      IANAL but I'm not sure if this is accurate. You're, of course, allowed to consume PressTV but AFAIK I don't think there's any First Amendment protections for non-citizens outside of the US.
      - dartos 2y ago
        Idk if that’s the case either, but a shell corp which is incorporated in the US easily gets around it. Though the first amendment does not protect calls to action. Especially if that call includes violence or treason. (Unless you’re specifically Donald Trump)
        vkou 2y ago
        Shell corps would have to register as foreign agents, and be surveilled and regulated as such. In the United States, and in most countries around the world, the speech and spending power of such agents is carefully monitored and curtailed. Any social network should be assumed to be an agent of the government in which it operates from. Facebook, for instance, has a special relationship with the Pentagon, VKontakte with the Kremlin, TikTok with Beijing, etc. If a foreign rabble-rouser, seeking to disrupt our harmonious society can be banned from entry into the country, why should their ideas be let in through a social network?
hn_acker 2y ago
Related: DC Circuit Says the TikTok Ban Is Censorship, But Upholds It Anyway–TikTok v. Garland https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2024/12/dc-circuit-says-the-tiktok-ban-is-censorship-but-upholds-it-anway-tiktok-v-garland.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2024/12/dc-circuit-say... >> the Government acknowledges that it lacks specific intelligence that shows the PRC has in the past or is now coercing TikTok into manipulating content in the United States > (Note 1: the court then shifts the burden back on TikTok: “TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC.”) ... >> At bottom, the Government lacks confidence that it has sufficient visibility and resources to monitor TikTok’s promised measures, nor does it have “the requisite trust” that “ByteDance and TTUSDS would comply in good faith.” The court can neither fault nor second guess the Government on these crucial points… >> The Government “need not wait for a risk to materialize” before acting; its national security decisions often must be “based on informed judgment.” Here the Government has drawn reasonable inferences based upon the evidence it has > The court can’t second-guess possibly pretextual arguments? The government has “drawn reasonable inferences” about conjectural risks? Those words don’t sound like the rigorous judicial review we expect from strict scrutiny. ... > Third, the majority repeatedly indicates that the ban won’t necessarily change the content available on TikTok, given that the PRC hasn’t yet engaged in its conjectural influence operation. But which way does this cut? As mentioned above, changing the ownership will change the editorial policies and practices, so inevitably the content would change from the forced divestment. More importantly, doesn’t this raise serious questions about the ban’s efficacy if it doesn’t actually change the content? In other words, if the content stays the same, then means-fit analysis seems potentially undermined. > (Yes, I would also argue the contrary position–that if the speech were to change, that would be reason to strike down the ban. From my perspective, legislatively picking and choosing owners of speech venues is always constitutionally problematic, regardless of the effects on editorial content).
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
[flagged]
deadbabe 2y ago
Trump said he won’t ban it.
- kibwen 2y ago
  Unfortunately for our collective sanity, Trump's promises have the predictive power of /dev/random. He was all aboard the original train to ban TikTok, so he'll just as easily flip-flop back and forth based on whatever his cadre of puppeteers whisper into his ear today. And also the bill already passed and was signed into law in April: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...
  - delfinom 2y ago
    Given that Zuckerberg is now trying to get in the Trump swamp, and Meta was behind some of the initial lobbying to ban Tiktok. It'll be some funny back and forth.
    - vkou 2y ago
      It would be funny if all the people and institutions with power in the country weren't tripping over each other to kiss the ring.
    - cscurmudgeon 2y ago
      Is there any evidence that Meta directly lobbied for the ban?
      - IAmGraydon 2y ago
        Meta spent a record $7.6 million on lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of 2024, which is the same time Congress was advancing legislation that could ban TikTok. Although Meta's disclosure doesn't explicitly mention the TikTok ban, it does mention lobbying on topics like cybersecurity, data security, and platform integrity, which are all relevant to the concerns surrounding TikTok. So...yeah. https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-lobbying-record-as-house-passes-tiktok-ban/ https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-lobbying-rec...
mjfl 2y ago
mixed feelings about this. Tiktok was highly addictive and destructive to the brains of young teenagers, but at the same time it was one of the few media platforms that allowed criticism of Israel to go viral. Instagram is similarly addictive and destructive. There are charts showing the rise of depression in female teens that coincides directly with the rise of Instagram. But Instagram also actively censors criticism of Israel. The government wants to redirect young people towards these enclosed pastures to better herd them.
- 2c2c2c 2y ago
  > But Instagram also actively censors criticism of Israel I have friends working for nonprofits in this space, and I can assure you the 25 stories a day they blast out are not being censored
- epgui 2y ago
  > allowed criticism of Israel to go viral Typically the things that get deplatformed are not well-reasoned criticism so much as emotional outbursts full of barely coherent rhetoric anyway... (this comment should not be interpreted as taking a position on the issue).
  - mjfl 2y ago
    Even if that were true - is that a valid excuse for censorship? Certainly not. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. Period. It doesn't mean freedom of speech that you personally agree with or that passes some arbitrary bar of rhetorical quality.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    With Israel coverage, companies have had leaked moderation guidelines to remove practically anything critical of Israel.
  - birksherty 2y ago
    No. It's not criticism but more about able to broadcast directly what is going on in gaza. Western media were not showing that at the beginning or they were only showing what Israel allowed them to. Politicians were not happy that tiktok had those raw footage. It's not criticism but trying to hide reality.
hobo_mark 2y ago
What I find funny is that the first country that banned TikTok, was China! (Yes, you can't access it from there)
- molave 2y ago
  I mean it's similar to banning Monegasque locals from gambling in Monte Carlo
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  Don't they just have Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
boredpeter 2y ago
[dead]
known 2y ago
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diebeforei485 2y ago
If SCOTUS takes it up, it will almost certainly overturn the ruling.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  too funny. SCOTUS will do whatever the ruling political party tells it to do. funny people still think SCOTUS is anything more that that these days…
slantaclaus 2y ago
Headline should have been: “Sell or Die: TikTok set to be banned in the US after losing appeal”
Frederation 2y ago
US laws are US laws, and PRC laws are thiers. US constitution is for US companies, not for China. China's gonna block our media, we can do so to them. Full stop.
- Frederation 2y ago
  Downvote away. Chinese companies have no rights in the US. So, take your bag of tricks and spyware and scurry off to Beijing.
exabrial 2y ago
After arguing with a few tiktokers about the murder of the UHC ceo, I’m ok with the ban now. Something is not right.
Johndavid20224 2y ago
[dead]
metalman 2y ago
maybe they can work out a deal, where they give control of the US phone networks back and then get to keep running tick tok
Frederation 2y ago
TicToc stay in your bloc

298 points by belter 2y ago

Surprisingly, the court (2/3) thinks the law both requires strict scrutiny and satisfies it. Strict Scrutiny has two tests: 1. Compelling Government Interest 2. Narrowly Tailored (least restrictive means) Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights.

granzymes 2y ago
The Court did not say that the law is subject to strict scrutiny. The majority holds that they need not decide whether strict or intermediate scrutiny applies because the law satisfies the more stringent test. The concurrence by Judge Srinivasan would instead hold that the law is subject to only intermediate scrutiny and uphold the law on that basis. Why do it this way? It takes away a potential avenue of appeal for TikTok. They can’t ask the Supreme Court to hold that the law is subject to strict scrutiny, because that issue wouldn’t help them overturn this ruling. If you had forced the rest of the panel to choose, I think they would have landed on intermediate scrutiny.
- gpm 2y ago
  I'd guess that at least one of the panel members thought strict scrutiny applies. Otherwise I think they would have ruled both that intermediate scrutiny applies, and that even if it doesn't the law passes strict scrutiny.
  - granzymes 2y ago
    The only thing the Court says on the matter is: >There are reasonable bases to conclude that intermediate scrutiny is appropriate even under these circumstances. We need not, however, definitively decide that question because we conclude the Act “passes muster even under the more demanding standard.” It's possible that either Judge Ginsburg or Judge Rao think the strict scrutiny should apply, but if forced to put money on it I would say they both land on intermediate scrutiny.
    - gpm 2y ago
      Eh, all of pages 28, 29, 30, and 31 are dedicated to the question, they just choose not to come to a definite answer. It's not like they didn't think about it. Not to say that you couldn't be right, them both landing on intermediate scrutiny is just not how I read the tea leaves.
mportela 2y ago
> Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights. Is there a precedence on foreign actors (either inside or outside the US) having First Amendment rights?
- p_j_w 2y ago
  The first amendment doesn't carve out an exception for non-citizens, so you should be asking if there's precedence on foreigners inside the US NOT having First Amendment rights. Outside of the US your question is moot, as the US constitution is only binding in the US.

next_xibalba 2y ago

TLDR: The ban is set to take effect on January 19, 2025. It can be postponed once for a duration of 90 days by a presidential act. This appeals court upheld the law.

cperciva 2y ago
Is it a coincidence that the deadline expires the day before Trump takes office?
- grajaganDev 2y ago
  The deadline was established long before the election.
  - cperciva 2y ago
    Sure, but we've known for decades when inauguration day was going to be.
    - Nasrudith 2y ago
      We didn't know the outcome for certain. It could have equally been. "Why the start of Joe Biden's second term?" if you go back early enough on the timeline.
      - cperciva 2y ago
        I would say that it's still inauguration day even if it's the start of the second term?
- chvid 2y ago
  It was very deliberate.
- next_xibalba 2y ago
  Yes, I think it's a coincidence. The language of the law specifies the ban will go into effect 270 days after the law's passage. I don't think any one law maker can perfectly predict how long it will take for a law to make it through the House, Senate, and Presidential signature. This law was introduced on March 5, 2024 and signed by Biden on April 24, 2024.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

It's a global company right? What if they just don't respond. How does it get banned.

Leary 2y ago
1. Apps stores remove them. 2. Any transactions paying the creators are banned. Any Tiktok shopping stuff banned. 3. ISPs?
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  App Stores maybe. But US doesn't have a national Fire Wall like China. So on one hand we don't have the ability to block content/internet like China, but we seem to want to be more like China and be able to?
- wruza 2y ago
  Creators start begging for patreon support, tiktok operates at its own expense as a webapp, users set up vpn in case it gets banned at isp. Domestic alternatives continue to suck and fail to attract users. Nothing new under the sun.
  - codedokode 2y ago
    > users set up vpn You'll lose most audience to a competitor that doesn't require VPN at this step.
    - wruza 2y ago
      Not with tiktok, and “we have tiktok at home” doesn’t work on teens. I have a <10yo niece, guess what I find on my grandmas tablet every time she visits? Right, a new vpn app. We are in Russia, and no one watches rutube. Even my grandma said it’s useless crap with no content and turns her personal ovpn profile on and off to visit differently banned services. Everyone is still on youtube, both viewers and creators. It’s only hard for a week, then you get used to it and it gets normalized in the society. You US just have to live through your first real-sized ban, then that rule stops working. Bans are snakeoil, except for North Korean style. You actually do have a chance iff someone manages to catch the essence of tiktok and implement it at home without screwing everything up, so better do not.

russli1993 2y ago

[flagged]

Supermancho 2y ago
[flagged]
- grecy 2y ago
  Haha, careful. You might soon be saying the same about free speech or abortion rights - “just go to another country if you want those”
  - Supermancho 2y ago
    I can't afford to buy a car made out of diamonds or play exclusive japanese console games outside of japan (depending on the game, ofc). It does not worry me that it's a slippery slope to losing free speech (as it is defined) in the USA.
    - grecy 2y ago
      I couldn't help notice how you avoided abortion rights....
      - Supermancho 2y ago
        Abortion isn't a codified right (yet). I don't need to go through every possible related fact to make a point to satisfy your niche complaints that are leading to more whataboutism. I noticed you didn't mention the right to have beer. How is this constructive?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > spend the money to fly to another country and come back when you like Just go to TikTok.com. The bill doesn’t ban TikTok. It just says if it doesn’t find non-Chinese investors it’s kicked out of app stores. The speech isn’t being censored, the distribution is being curtailed.

xnx 2y ago

The hypothetical risks of a Chinese owned TikTok seem a smaller concern than the Chinese having hacked into and still having access(!) to US telecom networks: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/03/chinese-hack-global-telecom-ongoing-00192410 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/03/chinese-hack-global...

jonnycomputer 2y ago
Different kinds of risks.
tgv 2y ago
In summary: China is a threat to the West (also to Africa, but they are still in denial). But you can't get rid of hacking through a bit of legislature, so fixing telcos is another process.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > you can't get rid of hacking through a bit of legislature We can make it harder. Switch our telecoms to E2E by default. We’ve shown the current set-up can be exploited by adversaries. It’s not a huge leap given the prevalence of encrypted messaging apps. And you can market it as a finger to the deep state on one side and a limit on the executive to the other.
  - daniel_reetz 2y ago
    E2E doesn't fix the government mandated backdoors, which were implicated in this attack. Check out the last line of this article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/us-telecom-providers-chinese-hack/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/politics/us-telecom-providers...
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > E2E doesn't fix the government mandated backdoors, which were implicated in this attack Of course it does. It removes them. This problem can be solved with a bit of legislation.

kccqzy 2y ago

This is "only" from an appeals court. I expect TikTok will take it to the Supreme Court and they may well reach different conclusions there.

Quillbert182 2y ago
I honestly would be surprised if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, there does not seem to be a huge amount of controversy here from a legal standpoint.
- cycrutchfield 2y ago
  Does the Supreme Court still make decisions based on legal principles or is it just a thin veneer for their political opinions? Genuinely asking because I’m not so sure these days.
  - dleeftink 2y ago
    Is it wishful thinking there was a time those were ever separate?
    - cycrutchfield 2y ago
      The selection, nomination, and confirmation processes have certainly become significantly more ideologically-driven over time, so I would expect that to have an impact on the composition of the court and the way they make decisions.
  - yyuugg 2y ago
    The latter, but it's always been the latter. But usually they've been better at using the former to hide the latter. Recently, there's been a much thinner veneer of "legal principles".
    - telotortium 2y ago
      Lol, that's what conservatives think about Sotomayor and Jackson, and looking at their comments during oral arguments as well as their opinions, I think they have a point. (Kagan is generally a more rigorous thinker.) Actually most cases argued before the Supreme Court still have a unanimous or almost unanimous outcome, or are denied cert (which would often indicate a unanimous opinion were it to be ruled upon). It's only in the more controversial cases where you're more likely to read the more blatantly political arguments.

TrackerFF 2y ago

I think it's just a mater of time before TikTok starts seeing bans (or threats of bans) all over in the west. Countries are starting to view it as a _serious_ national threat, due to the disinformation risk. Just look at the Romanian election: A couple of hours ago they annulled the first election round, after a coordinated Russian campaign managed to propel a rather unknown pro-Russian candidate to the top, where they used platforms like TikTok to influence voters. Not that platforms like Facebook, Snap, etc. are much better, but this comes down to having some control.

nextworddev 2y ago
Even if the app got banned abruptly today, the damage has already been done in the sense that it leaked a lot of training data and PII data to China
- swatcoder 2y ago
  > the damage has already been done in the sense that it leaked a lot of training data and PII data to China That's not nearly the damage that people are organizing against. It's hard to imagine China really gains much simply be holding some trove of old details about some subset of US consumers, no matter how large. Vanishingly few users are individually interesting from halfway around the world, and the aggregate data grows stale quickly. The pressing concerns are in them being able to (a) advance their global political agenda by dynamically manipulating what people see and how its presented to them in a way that almost nobody can monitor, and (b) intercept ostensibly private messaging between select users. From the national security perspective of a foreign government, both of these are huge vulnerabilities in a hot or even mildly warm conflict with China as most of the globe seems to be anticipating. And the fact that pushing back against these strategic threats raises ideological conflicts with Western celebration of free speech and free trade -- making it hard for the government to do anything about the threats and stoking internal conflict when they try -- is gravy on top of it.
  - inahga 2y ago
    > The pressing concerns are in them being able to (a) advance their global political agenda by dynamically manipulating what people see and how its presented to them in a way that almost nobody can monitor, and (b) intercept ostensibly private messaging between select users. It's interesting that these are only actionable threats when they apply to [insert foreign boogeyman here]. That is, there's been lots of lip service paid about misinformation and privacy violations on/by U.S. companies. But it feels like the only meaningful action is being taken when it's some hypothetical foreign adversary. The further away they are, the more insidious. I've always felt the most tangible threat is in my backyard, instead of on the other side of the planet.

howmayiannoyyou 2y ago

Cannot happen fast enough. The barn door has been left wide open. If we cannot take social engineering and data security seriously - and we do not - then we're not serious about our continued survival as a country. Sound overly dramatic? Erosion of a common national identity, more than any other factor, has heralded the fall of nations throughout history. On the data security side, a failure to maintain a stable & secure transactional system is almost an equal threat given US dependency on finance, lending & commerce as a key pillar of overall stability. Doing 3 things at once, so above is best I can do in trying to describe an underreported and poorly appreciated threat to our nation.

drawkward 2y ago
Good luck getting past the advertising lobby, and all that it supports, including the mostly free internet.
- grajaganDev 2y ago
  The TikTok ban appears to have made it past the ads lobby.
  - drawkward 2y ago
    Yes, but it also has nothing to do with the security of personal data.

Mathnerd314 2y ago

Full opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10289420/an-opinion-was-released-in-case-24-1113-tiktok-inc-v-merrick-garland/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10289420/an-opinion-wa...

oldgregg 2y ago

[flagged]

Permit 2y ago
What a bizarre take. You think people are being paid to post here? Can you point to any examples?
- luzojeda 2y ago
  It is something impossible to prove that people are paid to post anything so what's the point on arguing about that? I agree with him, there is enough proof already of non-western countries spreading misinformation and propaganda online. And if you want to find about it there's Google and many other search engines.
  - Permit 2y ago
    It would help to see like, a single example of this being uncovered on the site. Failing that, it would help if he/she could point out a specific account they believe to be astroturfing here. I agree that there have been examples of non-western countries spreading misinformation online. I have not seen any evidence that they do so on HackerNews. What I do see frequently is posters upset/surprised that the crowd here disagrees with them and then concluding that everyone else must be paid to hold such opinions.
- booleandilemma 2y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised, tbh. HN is the go-to website for the tech scene, for better or worse.
- ramses0 2y ago
  https://wondermark.com/c/1062/ https://wondermark.com/c/1062/
- simoncion 2y ago
  > You think people are being paid to post here? Yes. Paid astroturfers posted in Slashdot discussions back when Microsoft was bankrolling the SCO lawsuit. Much like Slashdot back in the day, HN is a popular gossip site. I'd relinquish several vital organs if it turned out there were never any paid posters (whether meat or machine [0]) who had posted on this site (and others like it). > Can you point to any examples? Proving that is a ton of legwork that no not-particularly-motivated user is going to do. Unless someone is especially motivated to investigate, the best you're ever going to get is an indication of how plausible it is. [0] And no, you can't get cute and say that the bot posters can't get paid. Someone's getting paid to operate the bot, so (for the purposes of this bet) that counts as the bot being paid.

scarecrowbob 2y ago

I am always curious how many people who are in favor of this have actually used tictok. I have found it very helpful for finding voices pretty far to the left. I also have found it very helpful for finding voices among marginalized communities, specifically indigenous folks, black women, anarchists, and queer folks- especially making fairly rational, well informed critiques of the US. And especially as that relates to things like Palestine or the Democrats failures in marketing Harri. I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there. However, the TT algo surfaces these things quite quickly and satisfactorally for me. I can see how that really is a threat to US powers. I have a pretty good understanding of the various US oppressive actions against subversives, including the all-out war to demonize folks starting with anarchists/trade unionists/communists in the late 1800s to the use of COINTELPRO against folks like the black panthers, AIM, and the anti-war movement. So from my standpoint, as someone who has gotten legitiamte "free-speech" value from the app, this move seems like just another step in a long history of US repression of political dissent. If you start from the assumption that everyone who has different politics than you has been brainwashed or manipulated into that differing position, then sure TT seems like a great tool to do that. But if you think that it really takes immense amounts of capital and effort to get people to "form" opinions, you might take the position that the effort could only be done by folks who, say, have control of the "history" curriculum in Texas public schools ot, for instance, the power to have their press releases uncritically published by the New York Times. Anyhow. It will be interesting to see the US set up its own version of the Great Firewall, I guess.

forth_throwaway 2y ago
Maybe all of the people downvoting could try and make a coherent argument against this post instead. Although it's pretty hard to argue against objective facts. The US can ban TikTok all they want, but the worms aren't going back into the can.
- charonn0 2y ago
  As the grandparent comment points out: > I can get a lot of that kind of content through other channels- there are plenty of podcasts out there. The law doesn't ban the discussion of any particular topics, it bans social media platforms that are subject to the laws and control of adversarial governments. Specifically, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, who are already prohibited from participating in sensitive parts of the US economy. If social media exists to collect vast amounts of information about its users--and it does--then it's reasonable for the government to be concerned about whether that information can fall into the hands of an adversary. If social media exists to manipulate its users into believing and doing things that benefit the platform--and it does--then likewise the government has good reason to be concerned about how an adversary might use that. Framing the law as a ban on particular viewpoints is misguided at best, misinformation at worst. And, as you and the GP comment both point out, it wouldn't work since other platforms and venues are still wide open. The can of worms being left open is a feature not a bug. It's one reason why the law can survive a strict scrutiny review.

yyuugg 2y ago

This ban has always felt so silly. If it's privacy and data harvesting as a concern, don't a million apps do that? If it's anti-China sentiment, why TikTok and not a million other things? If it's about protecting elections and propaganda, why not X and Meta and YouTube? It's so weirdly targeted to me. Why TikTok only?

sethammons 2y ago
because tiktok was doing FB stuff better and FB got scared and lobbied. I think that about sums it up.
logicchains 2y ago
Because the AIPAC lobby explicitly called TikTok out for exposing young Americans to footage of the Gaza genocide (causing support for Israel among US youth to reach and all-time low), and pushed for the ban. The US politicians who initially pushed it had received hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from AIPAC. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/tiktok-accusations-anti-israel-content.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/business/tiktok-accusatio...
- banku_brougham 2y ago
  Its a straight line, openly conceived.
swatcoder 2y ago
> If it's about protecting elections and propaganda, why not X and Meta and YouTube? Because the government is not threatened by X, Meta, or YouTube. In many ways, it exists in their pocket. There's not a lot of looming dissonance between what those parties are interested in seeing happen and what the modern federal government (as run by either party) is pursuing, and at this point, those each provide far more value as an allied propaganda arm than as a hostile propaganda risk. But China and the US have directly competing interests in many places around the world, and the radical changes that both countries have undergone in the last 80 years have set the stage of a fresh contest of power. Obviously, both parties would like to navigate that contest in the best position possible. Allowing your anticipated opponent access to unmediated, private communications with hundreds of millions of citizens in an already vulnerable democracy is not a great position to be in during that contest.

sethammons 2y ago

the quality of dialog on this site plummets to reddit levels when talking about TikTok. TikTok was stopped because it was eating FB's lunch. That's it. There is not a single argument that applies to TikTok that doesn't apply to FB or some other company

FactKnower69 2y ago
Heckin' wholesome news: Eglin Air Force Base revealed as the most HN addicted city!
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
It seems like the primary argument is that it is owned by China. I don’t see how applies to FB or other companies.
floatingtorch 2y ago
Your analysis is low quality as it focuses too narrowly and ignores the wider geopolitical tensions between the US and China. See: - CHIPs act - Ban of sale of many nvidia GPUs to China - Ban of export of ASML euv tech - Huawei ban - Chinese EV tariffs (ban?) - whole host of tariffs - China south sea tensions - Chinese support of Russia who is a threat to NATO allies (and invaded a sovereign country) - Ban of most US tech companies in China - Chinas mutual aid treaty with North Korea

granzymes 2y ago

While the Court based this decision solely on the non-classified portion of the record, I found this quote to be very interesting: >Notably, TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC. The Court held that the law could satisfy strict scrutiny (regardless of whether or not it applies), which requires that the Government prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and less restrictive alternatives would not accomplish the Government's goals. That's a high, high bar, and most laws subject to it are found wanting. I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to want to hear this case. The most interesting legal question for them to decide was whether the law is subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny, but that is off the table now that the D.C. Circuit says it doesn't matter because the law could satisfy either standard. Direct link to the opinion: https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-1113-2088317.pdf https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111...

rfw300 2y ago
I don’t agree with that analysis. The modern Supreme Court loves to wade into high-profile First Amendment issues, all the more when it’s actually a relatively novel application. They’ll take this case either to be argued at the end of this term or next term, and it will be subject to their analysis and whatever Trump decides to do with his discretion.
- brookst 2y ago
  Agreed. This would be the perfect vehicle for a very broad ruling that the government can ban media in the name of national security, the precedent of which could be used in an ad hoc manner.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    Oooof I don’t think it will, but that bogey man is always in the back of the mind after SCOTUS essentially made the office of the President a 4 year kingship where you are immune to all but the most heinous crimes as president as long as you can cross the I’s and dot the T’s of “official business”

BadHumans 2y ago

Tiktok ban is a farce because FAANG companies don't like that a Chinese company is doing what they do better and taking their market share. If they actually cared about the privacy and misinformation risk they would pass privacy laws that affect all social media companies.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago
This was not about privacy. This is about CCP using disinformation to sway populations in a democratic country.
- gpm 2y ago
  The ruling actually spends quite a bit of time talking about the privacy justification as well.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    Yeah, but it's still a distraction from the real issue.
    - BadHumans 2y ago
      The excuse of misinformation is also fud. Facebook help Trump get elected in 2016 through the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Facebook paid a paltry fine and the executives from Cambridge Analytica formed another company named Emerdata. There would be no need to take action specifically against Tiktok if legislation was the stick given to all companies but lobbyist don't want to crack down domestically.
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        It's not about misinformation either. It's about control over the algorithm that chooses what people see.
      - cscurmudgeon 2y ago

logicchains 2y ago

Trump explicitly promised to stop the TikTok ban so it'll be interesting to see if he follows through.

ceejayoz 2y ago
Right after they finally repeal Obamacare, one presumes.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  He promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of being elected. Not being sworn-in, but 24 hours of being elected. We see how well that promise worked out.
susixbcjbc 2y ago
[flagged]
burkaman 2y ago
No he didn't. The most he said is that he would "SAVE TIKTOK" (https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113081258242253706 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1130812582422...), which can mean anything you want. If you think the ban should be repealed, then that's what he meant. If you think the ban should be upheld and TikTok should be taken over by an American company, then that's what he meant. As usual, he has also made every other possible contradictory statement on this issue. "When I wanted to disable TIKTOK 3 years ago [...] I was right": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109989698845280746 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1099896988452... "A national ban on TikTok is long overdue": https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/18212 https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/18212 "Trump was RIGHT on TikTok": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/110075348432207620 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1100753484322... "FACEBOOK IS A GREAT THREAT TO DEMOCRACY, AND IT WILL ONLY GET BIGGER AND STRONGER IF TIKTOK IS TAKEN OUT. DO THEM BOTH?": https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112095702057229625 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1120957020572... And of course, his own executive order to ban TikTok: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

[flagged]

sanderjd 2y ago
Nope. This issue was being bandied about prior to the war in Gaza.
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  All previous attempts to pass laws banning the app failed. Then, during the war in Gaza, American politicians started complaining that TikTok users were posting too much pro-Palestinian content,[0] and there was suddenly majority support in the US Congress for banning the app. Here's what Mitt Romney said about the reason why Congress suddenly supported a ban: > Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. Ironically, a big reason why TikTok has more pro-Palestinian content than Facebook is because Facebook suppresses circulation of pro-Palestinian posts. TikTok, as a non-American platform, is less heavily politically censored on this topic. 0. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renewed-calls-for-a-ban-amid-pro-hamas-anti-israel-claims https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/10/tiktok-faces-renew...
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    Your timeline doesn't work. The timeline wasn't: Gaza war starts -> lots of TikTok posts about it -> people suddenly want to ban TikTok. The timeline was: people in the US realize it's a big problem that the country's primary geopolitical rival controls the algorithm that serves information to the majority of its young people -> policymakers in the US start working on banning TikTok or forcing divestment -> the Gaza war starts -> policymakers see it as an example of the problem (which may or may not be accurate!) -> they continue pushing to ban TikTok and eventually succeed. It's hard to suss out cause and effect in any case, but it's pretty easy to reject a hypothesized cause when the effect predates it.

thrance 2y ago

I think the fear of foreign influences poisoning our democracies through social media is a very legitimate one. But then, why limit the debate to PCR-owned TikTok? Arguably, Twitter/X was way more instrumental in the election of Donald Trump, a man who has repeatedly praised Xi Jinping [1], Putin [2] and other despots. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/jul/21/trump-praises-xi-jinping-and-kim-jong-un-in-michigan-rally-speech-video https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2024/jul/21/trump-... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-praises-putin-kim-jong-un-bashes-obama/2024/10/22/193af7e7-7659-43d6-bd7c-b9f233300e5e_video.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-praises-...

plagiarist 2y ago
Legally it turns out it is perfectly fine if propaganda and disinformation machines are run by domestic billionaires.

Footnote7341 2y ago

We aren't used to draconian internet control in the west yet, in China and Russia the population is. Everyone who's anyone just uses a VPN and uses western internet when they like. China banned western social media for the exact same reason that the US wanted to, they were just ready to do it earlier.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

internetter 2y ago

I don't like this. TikTok is certainly a national security threat and it should absolutely be heavily restricted via sweeping privacy regulation that applies to all US tech companies, however the government has failed to implement privacy regulation while allowing TikTok's unfettered growth. Consequently, it has allowed the platform to become the place for free speech and exchange of ideas by the country's youth, and hence this cold turkey removal is a direct assault on their freedom. This decision could set a dangerous president, pulling us towards a future of authoritarianism where only government approved communication channels are permitted.

reaperducer 2y ago
U.S. courts are not "the government." They are a part of the government. It's not the court's job to "implement privacy regulation." That's the legislative branch's job. The U.S. government is designed this way on purpose -- so that no one part of the government is more powerful than the other. I assume you're not an American, because this is generally taught in elementary school.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
The job of the court is not to decide if this law is the best possible solution.
- hn_acker 2y ago
  When strict scrutiny is involved, (which it is, because there are many US users of TikTok using their First Amendment rights) it IS the court's job to decide whether the law is the "least restrictive means" [1] of solving the problem that the legislators claim to be solving. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

dtquad 2y ago

Discussions about Tiktok are always dominated by the focus on privacy which is a joke. The real problem is the algorithmic control this gives China to influence the populations of Western countries. But Meta was found to outsource content moderation to a Canadian company that outsourced Instagram content moderation to Iran. This is not about privacy. These platforms have become the new media. Getting your news from profit-seeking American and Chinese companies is not ideal in the long run.

bbqfog 2y ago
[flagged]
- spacemanspiff01 2y ago
  Young people spend alot of time on tick tock. At the level of detail that social media companies can get, they can estimate fairly accurately what issues that people get concerned by, and their opinions. Then they can micro target individual subpopulations with messaging that particularly works at influencing them. This is very different than historical propaganda efforts, were one had to target the largest common denominator. Now you can send individualized messaging towards individual subgroups. You see some of this with politicians in the US saying one thing in a set of Facebook adds, while saying the opposite in another set. Because the ads are targeted, neither group sees the ads meant for the other group, Which allows for better tailoring of message. On top of this the goal of a theoretical Chinese propaganda campaign is not necessarily to send a particular message, but to polarize and divide the country to make it even more disfunctional.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Exactly. That's the fundamental difference between historical influence and modern social media influence. Historically, the same entity didn't have profiles, the ability to microtarget, and content. Can you imagine a newspaper company that kept a profile on every household? And also repasted together a unique paper for each one? Now the largest social media companies can do that trivially.

booleandilemma 2y ago

I never signed up for instagram, snapchat, or threads, but I am a tiktok user. If tiktok is banned, it might very well be the last social media app of its kind that I ever use.

klysm 2y ago
That sounds like a good thing

quantum_state 2y ago

Any intervention from the government on our choice of media is unconstitutional … hope this is a self evident truth.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Who are you? Courts think otherwise.
evanfrommaxar 2y ago
The FCC is allowed to issue radio broadcasting licenses that prevent pirate radio stations, thereby "intervening" on my choice of media. Learn some law.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  They specifically only have that because of limits of the commons though.
brink 2y ago
I get where your heart is at, but this is decisively not true.
asadotzler 2y ago
That's either a silly throw-away comment, or you're not a serious person.

jmward01 2y ago

Does this matter without meaningful US privacy laws? Can't China just buy metrics and ads to get the same access?

hn_acker 2y ago

Related: DC Circuit Upholds TikTok Ban In Alarming Ruling, Claiming It Actually Enhances Free Speech https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/06/dc-circuit-upholds-tiktok-ban-in-alarming-ruling-claiming-it-actually-enhances-free-speech/ https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/06/dc-circuit-upholds-tikto... > There is a fair bit of hand-waving, in which they note that the government presented no actual evidence of China doing anything nefarious with TikTok, but because government officials said “but they could!” that was enough. This sets an extremely low and dangerous bar. Mere speculation about what a foreign government might hypothetically do in the future should not be enough to override the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans. > In many ways, this is a continuation of the way the courts often view Fourth Amendment cases, where if the government just yells “national security” loud enough, courts will ignore the plain text of the Fourth Amendment. ... > The court’s reasoning here is Orwellian. It claims that banning TikTok, and the speech of millions of Americans on the platform, somehow enhances free speech. This is a complete inversion of First Amendment values. The First Amendment protects against government censorship and control of private speech, it doesn’t justify such censorship in the name of preventing foreign influence. The court is essentially arguing that violating the First Amendment is necessary to save it, which is absurd. ... > The ruling also rejects the idea that this was a Bill of Attainder, by saying that while it does “target” TikTok directly, its remedy is not a “punishment” and therefore that prohibition doesn’t apply. But banning TikTok from operating in the US unless it is sold certainly seems like a punishment. The court’s analysis on this point is not persuasive. > The court also claims that this bill is, in fact, the least restrictive means of achieving this outcome, rejecting ByteDance’s long-negotiated alternative of having all the data stored in the US on Oracle hardware, and giving Oracle the ability to audit the code. This plan was originally cooked up deliberately under the first Trump administration to support Trump donor Larry Ellison.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

throwawaymanbot 2y ago

Excellent news. And all social media should be blocked until you are 16+

vkou 2y ago
Social networks in general should be nation-specific, to ensure that only domestic enemies of the people and similar bad actors can take advantage of them. Allowing foreigners to broadcast speech into your country, or harvest data from it invites nothing but trouble.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  Allowing foreigners to broadcast speech into your country is protected by the First Amendment. It's exactly why every American can consume 24/7 PressTV if they choose to
  - wk_end 2y ago
    IANAL but I'm not sure if this is accurate. You're, of course, allowed to consume PressTV but AFAIK I don't think there's any First Amendment protections for non-citizens outside of the US.
    - dartos 2y ago
      Idk if that’s the case either, but a shell corp which is incorporated in the US easily gets around it. Though the first amendment does not protect calls to action. Especially if that call includes violence or treason. (Unless you’re specifically Donald Trump)
      - vkou 2y ago
        Shell corps would have to register as foreign agents, and be surveilled and regulated as such. In the United States, and in most countries around the world, the speech and spending power of such agents is carefully monitored and curtailed. Any social network should be assumed to be an agent of the government in which it operates from. Facebook, for instance, has a special relationship with the Pentagon, VKontakte with the Kremlin, TikTok with Beijing, etc. If a foreign rabble-rouser, seeking to disrupt our harmonious society can be banned from entry into the country, why should their ideas be let in through a social network?

hn_acker 2y ago

Related: DC Circuit Says the TikTok Ban Is Censorship, But Upholds It Anyway–TikTok v. Garland https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2024/12/dc-circuit-says-the-tiktok-ban-is-censorship-but-upholds-it-anway-tiktok-v-garland.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2024/12/dc-circuit-say... >> the Government acknowledges that it lacks specific intelligence that shows the PRC has in the past or is now coercing TikTok into manipulating content in the United States > (Note 1: the court then shifts the burden back on TikTok: “TikTok never squarely denies that it has ever manipulated content on the TikTok platform at the direction of the PRC.”) ... >> At bottom, the Government lacks confidence that it has sufficient visibility and resources to monitor TikTok’s promised measures, nor does it have “the requisite trust” that “ByteDance and TTUSDS would comply in good faith.” The court can neither fault nor second guess the Government on these crucial points… >> The Government “need not wait for a risk to materialize” before acting; its national security decisions often must be “based on informed judgment.” Here the Government has drawn reasonable inferences based upon the evidence it has > The court can’t second-guess possibly pretextual arguments? The government has “drawn reasonable inferences” about conjectural risks? Those words don’t sound like the rigorous judicial review we expect from strict scrutiny. ... > Third, the majority repeatedly indicates that the ban won’t necessarily change the content available on TikTok, given that the PRC hasn’t yet engaged in its conjectural influence operation. But which way does this cut? As mentioned above, changing the ownership will change the editorial policies and practices, so inevitably the content would change from the forced divestment. More importantly, doesn’t this raise serious questions about the ban’s efficacy if it doesn’t actually change the content? In other words, if the content stays the same, then means-fit analysis seems potentially undermined. > (Yes, I would also argue the contrary position–that if the speech were to change, that would be reason to strike down the ban. From my perspective, legislatively picking and choosing owners of speech venues is always constitutionally problematic, regardless of the effects on editorial content).

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

[flagged]

deadbabe 2y ago

Trump said he won’t ban it.

kibwen 2y ago
Unfortunately for our collective sanity, Trump's promises have the predictive power of /dev/random. He was all aboard the original train to ban TikTok, so he'll just as easily flip-flop back and forth based on whatever his cadre of puppeteers whisper into his ear today. And also the bill already passed and was signed into law in April: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreign_Adversary_Controlled_Applications_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...
- delfinom 2y ago
  Given that Zuckerberg is now trying to get in the Trump swamp, and Meta was behind some of the initial lobbying to ban Tiktok. It'll be some funny back and forth.
  - vkou 2y ago
    It would be funny if all the people and institutions with power in the country weren't tripping over each other to kiss the ring.
  - cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    Is there any evidence that Meta directly lobbied for the ban?
    - IAmGraydon 2y ago
      Meta spent a record $7.6 million on lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of 2024, which is the same time Congress was advancing legislation that could ban TikTok. Although Meta's disclosure doesn't explicitly mention the TikTok ban, it does mention lobbying on topics like cybersecurity, data security, and platform integrity, which are all relevant to the concerns surrounding TikTok. So...yeah. https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-lobbying-record-as-house-passes-tiktok-ban/ https://readsludge.com/2024/04/23/meta-shatters-lobbying-rec...

mjfl 2y ago

mixed feelings about this. Tiktok was highly addictive and destructive to the brains of young teenagers, but at the same time it was one of the few media platforms that allowed criticism of Israel to go viral. Instagram is similarly addictive and destructive. There are charts showing the rise of depression in female teens that coincides directly with the rise of Instagram. But Instagram also actively censors criticism of Israel. The government wants to redirect young people towards these enclosed pastures to better herd them.

2c2c2c 2y ago
> But Instagram also actively censors criticism of Israel I have friends working for nonprofits in this space, and I can assure you the 25 stories a day they blast out are not being censored
epgui 2y ago
> allowed criticism of Israel to go viral Typically the things that get deplatformed are not well-reasoned criticism so much as emotional outbursts full of barely coherent rhetoric anyway... (this comment should not be interpreted as taking a position on the issue).
- mjfl 2y ago
  Even if that were true - is that a valid excuse for censorship? Certainly not. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. Period. It doesn't mean freedom of speech that you personally agree with or that passes some arbitrary bar of rhetorical quality.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  With Israel coverage, companies have had leaked moderation guidelines to remove practically anything critical of Israel.
- birksherty 2y ago
  No. It's not criticism but more about able to broadcast directly what is going on in gaza. Western media were not showing that at the beginning or they were only showing what Israel allowed them to. Politicians were not happy that tiktok had those raw footage. It's not criticism but trying to hide reality.

hobo_mark 2y ago

What I find funny is that the first country that banned TikTok, was China! (Yes, you can't access it from there)

molave 2y ago
I mean it's similar to banning Monegasque locals from gambling in Monte Carlo
mcmcmc 2y ago
Don't they just have Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok?
- deleted 2y ago
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boredpeter 2y ago

[dead]

known 2y ago

[dead]

diebeforei485 2y ago

If SCOTUS takes it up, it will almost certainly overturn the ruling.

bdangubic 2y ago
too funny. SCOTUS will do whatever the ruling political party tells it to do. funny people still think SCOTUS is anything more that that these days…

slantaclaus 2y ago

Headline should have been: “Sell or Die: TikTok set to be banned in the US after losing appeal”

Frederation 2y ago

US laws are US laws, and PRC laws are thiers. US constitution is for US companies, not for China. China's gonna block our media, we can do so to them. Full stop.

Frederation 2y ago
Downvote away. Chinese companies have no rights in the US. So, take your bag of tricks and spyware and scurry off to Beijing.

exabrial 2y ago

After arguing with a few tiktokers about the murder of the UHC ceo, I’m ok with the ban now. Something is not right.

Johndavid20224 2y ago

[dead]

metalman 2y ago

maybe they can work out a deal, where they give control of the US phone networks back and then get to keep running tick tok

Frederation 2y ago

TicToc stay in your bloc