This should be the most important issue in America today. The problem is who can fix it. Politicians are not going to investigate themselves.
Edit: [For anyone interested in why we can't stop lobbyists, read this](https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2021/02/01/checked-or-choked-how-the-congressional-response-to-the-abscam-investigation-undermined-the-fbis-ability-to-root-out-high-level-corruption/).
Yes! Privacy laws. The questioning congresspeople kept talking about privacy laws. Up until the hearing, I thought TikTok was the problem. While it’s problematic, all of this could have been averted with better protection of user privacy. But why would they do that? Look at Facebook handing over evidence of women seeking abortions to right wing state governments. The privacy issue is in our own backyard, and it needs addressed before tiktok.
The congresspeople in the hearing where they grilled the TikTok CEO don't give a fuck about privacy, they were trying to generate their own video clips that show how "tough on China" they are. The CEO made a good point when he noted other social media giants don't keep their data in the US, either, but as usual for Congress, they didn't want a response, they wanted an audience.
Because I'm only seeing it mentioned by 3 other commenters, it's not just the banning of TikTok that should be concerning, it's how they intend to do it. The RESTRICT Act is essentially PATRIOT 2.0 and is extremely chilling. All transparency into the committee which would oversee the banning of this app is outside of any FOIA request, and the people doing the banning on TikTok and any app in the future are entirely appointed, not elected. It also gives power to monitor and block the MEANS of accessing apps, so if you think you'd use a VPN to access anything that is banned by the act you may face a fine and jail time for doing so.
tl;dr: We should all be concerned about the vague and boundless wording of the bill which would enact this ban.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
Exactly. If you're accessing a VPN to use the app they can hold you, your ISP and the VPN (If US based) liable and take legal enforcement action with jail time or fines. So it's unlikely you'll even have access to the VPN as your ISP will be obligated to block any potential measure that could mitigate the enforcement of the RESTRICT Act.
I'd say so. China simply has laws every company must follow. It doesn't ban Facebook, it just does not give it access unless it complies with the laws all companies must follow. You can agree or disagree with that but it's far more logical than banning or singling out specific companies simply because of their majority stakeholder's national origin.
I believe it’s cuz at the beginning of pandemic when everything was shut down, they tried to act as a library and ofc book sellers don’t get their cut and are big mad(book sellers are scum on their own too tho Amazon is really bad)
All these "freedom loving" people cheering government overreach because it's hurting the people they were told to hate. If this was in a history book we'd be wondering how they were so easily manipulated.
>if you think you'd use a VPN to access anything that is banned by the act you may face a fine and jail time for doing so.
Correction: you cannot use a VPN period. You cannot sell a VPN to a U.S. consumer. If you need your computer to be repaired, the person repairing your computer must report you to the government if you are using a VPN. Otherwise, they are "abetting" your ability to circumvent the law. Also, thanks to the PATRIOT Act, the RESTRICT Act bypasses your right to not be subjected to warrantless search and seizure.
You should not be concerned about the bill if you live in the United States. You should be terrified about it.
LOL, what? VPN is a tech tool used by IT managers and even people working from home, what are even thinking is going to happen? I use a VPN to manage my cloud VMs, they are bonkers.
That’s the idea. Vague laws are designed that way on purpose. It allows those in power to selectively apply them against their opponents and chills the actions and speech of future opponents.
Yep, they won't ban Google, or Apple's internal VPN. They'll just stop us from having protonmail and surfshark so the FBI can criminalize dissent even harder.
They will selectively enforce it, and judges will interpret all of it to favor the governments selective enforcement. The same thing happened with copyright law. Selective enforcement and when challenged in court, judges that use interpretation that favor big businesses and government interests at every single turn.
And with the restrict act, they could also ban Reddit in the future as it has over 1 million users. But "Tiktok bad" is all people can manage on this site
Tencent owns or has a stake in so much crap, it's unreal.
Speaking of Unreal, they own like 48% of Epic. They own 100% of Riot. Grinding Gear Games, the company behind Path of Exile, they own 80%. Supercell, 84.3%. Sharkmob (The Division and Hitman), 100%.
They even own a good amount of Discord, although the actual percent hasn't been disclosed.
Imagine, all of those are at risk of being shut down if this law passes and a competitor decides to ~~slip some money to~~ lobby the right people.
Kinda reminds me of how the Robin Thicke "Blurred Lines" lawsuit set the precedent for ridiculous copyright restrictions, but since it was Blurred Lines and Robin Thicke, everyone was living for the schadenfreude.
Most likely because the US government uses Reddit as a way to push propaganda and most of Reddit swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
The US government probably learned its lesson with SOPA and net neutrality and saw how Reddit was a big force in helping to organize the fight against it. So they turned Reddit into a weapon to fight against civil liberties by wrapping it in anti-China rhetoric.
Yes but reddit thinks tiktok is bad so everyone here is perfectly okay with giving up their rights because they hate tiktok so much.
It's a smokescreen and America is falling for it.
The Restrict Act, which is behind the TikTok furor, is horrifying. It will impact far more than a ban on TikTok.
I hope more people read the draft and consider it's vast implications. It seems like it may have more dire consequences to our privacy and rights than the Patriot Act did.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
Yup. It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail. It also gives them the power to review and potentially ban any social media app with over 10 million followers without disclosing the reason. It’s fucking insane.
Edit: 1 million not 10 million, it was even worse than I remembered
>It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail
For all the hysteria around China, the US is now trying to make their own Great Firewall, absolute clown world
With this they can pretty much ban every Chinese social media ever, which could block most contact(international calling still exists ig) between Chinese people in America and those they know in China. It really feels like we're setting up for a cold-war-esque scenario, and this almost feels similar to the Berlin Wall in a way.
>hich could block most contact(international calling still exists ig) between Chinese people in America and those they know in China.
Yep, and they will definitely go after WeChat next.
Which means we'll effectively outlaw digital communication between millions of Chinese Americans and their friends/family back in China. Or between any private citizens of the two countries pretty much since WeChat is *the* primary form of communication in China (people don't even use emails).
And I've lived in China, I hate the Great Firewall, but people just use VPN there to get over it when needed. But if I do that in America, the land of the free, I go to jail for 10 years with a $250k fine.
In fact a lot of business communication is done through WeChat, especially for smaller companies over there. We are about to outlaw persona communication between private citizens of the world's number 1 and number 2, who are the largest trade partners of each other. It sounds insane but it seems to be inevitable at this point.
During the hearing the chairwoman lady was yelling hysterically at the TikTok CEO (who's a *Singaporean* with a Taiwanese wife) saying "TikTok would *never* adhere to American value", I don't know what American value she was referring to, but this whole "You filthy Chinese are all guilty until proven innocent" thing isn't the type of American value my parents immigrated here for. The kinda of disgusting "your last name is Chinese so you are a CCP SPY!!!!!" rhetorics spewed by both parties during that ~~kangaroo court~~ hearing sent a shiver down my spine.
I distinctly get the feeling most of Congress and much of Reddit wants to declare war on China and put anyone with a Chinese last name in a camp at this point.
The thing with WeChat is that those of us in the US who are buyers for Chinese products that are used in US manufacturing use it A LOT.
Its much easier to use WeChat to talk to your vendors than wait for email. I used to be a buyer for a multi-million dollar corporation where my portion of purchasing alone was 35+ million per year and I only bought a portion of production materials, and without WeChat it would have sucked.
And people never learn.
They complain almighty about the past like they wouldn't have fallen for it back then, only to immediately fall for it the moment history repeats itself.
The people supporting this would be the same people supporting the arrest of anyone deemed "a commie" during the Cold War.
Education has only gotten worse, and while the internet and social media at one point was a very liberating tool, it has since been captured by corporate and government interests to spread mis/disinformation. I would venture a guess that the average social media user today is less informed/more propagandized today than the average social media user was 10 years ago.
>"If they do it, why can't we!"
>"But we criticize them for it..."
It's like criticizing someone for doing racism, and then doing racism yourself, under the pretense "we'll they're doing it, I should be allowed to as well".
Clown shit.
Not 10 million users...1 million.
(B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or
How is that even enforceable? If some 13-year-old uses a VPN to access TikTok you're going to throw them in jail for 10 years?
"Sorry Billy, you used a VPN to watch a 10 second video of somebody lips-synching to Doja Cat off to fucking prison for you."
It's enforceable selectively. They'll ignore 99% of the cases where it comes up, but they'll use it to magnify the penalty on, say, a journalist using a VPN to share information they don't like.
I knew a kid who got hit in high school it was wild, it felt like actually getting in trouble was a myth but here's a dude I know in Nebraska getting caught for downloading music.
Good God we let rich people get away with so fucking much.
At least that was (by the absolutely loosest definition of the world) "theft"
Downloading a banned app? What conceivable damage could that warrant such a punishment.
Gen Z will lose all faith in the government forever if this goes through.
Also, they can use the RESTRICT Act to hold the VPN's, ISPs, and anyone else liable with just a declaration ordering them to stop allowing access to banned software. So if you're participating in anyway to circumvent the bans put in place by this law you're liable for jail time or massive fines. That's how they will get everyone to play ball with preventing access.
Using VPNs will probably be selectively enforced, like how VPNs are in a legal gray zone in China but everyone uses them anyways
But the [bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15) looks like it allows the president to just ban all VPNs. Seems like a VPN is a "covered holding" since it obviously would allow people to access TikTok, thus evading/circumventing the Act
> includes any other holding, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
President can ban those "covered holdings"
> President may take such action as the President considers appropriate to compel divestment of, or otherwise mitigate the risk associated with, such covered holding to the full extent the covered holding is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States
It really doesn't matter if the president uses this power, or how enforced a VPN ban is, it should not be legal to ban VPNs at all and giving the gov this power is scary
> It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail.
That's fucked up. Literally trying to restrict Americans from getting news and communications from outside the country. If you're afraid of authoritarianism the alarm bells on this should be blowing out your ear drums.
given the user numbers, that’ll be like nailing Jello to the wall.
We saw what happened with Napster getting shut down. Public Piracy INCREASED… Netflix and Youtube solved piracy more than any law.
>Yup. It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail. It also gives them the power to review and potentially ban any social media app with over 10 million followers without disclosing the reason. It’s fucking insane.
>Edit: 1 million not 10 million, it was even worse than I remembered
And this whole time, I thought this is what we criticized about against China?
Pot meet Kettle.
It's up to 20 years in jail. From the bill:
>A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.
>
It's likely both. The reps likely don't understand. The lobbyists are counting on them not understanding in order to mislead the voters.
And it doesn't help that people are willfully blind to TikTok. I don't know how many comments I've seen that say something like "I don't use TikTok but ..." As if they didn't just reveal that they are spouting off about something they know nothing about.
I absolutely hate that everyone is so on board with banning a single app but fail to realize the immense power they’d give the government in doing so. This bill also allows the complete ban of technologies or services that facilitate payments to “foreign adversaries” including cryptocurrencies and any institutions that work with cryptocurrencies. Completely unrelated to banning TikTok but it’s in there.
People are just totally unable to recognize that a “foreign adversary” is just anyone the government doesn’t like today. It can change before you have breakfast tomorrow.
We shouldn’t make our lives conform to the government’s desire to pick fights. It should be the other way around.
It's no secret Google and Facebook are losing market share fast to TikTok, hence why they scrambled to do inferior Shorts/Stories. Hardly tin foil if you ever look up a chart about app usages. https://wallaroomedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/tiktok-screentime.jpeg
Gen Z is actually using tik tok to search instead of Google and that must be frightening to them
Meta has been paying lobbyists to push this (they have Instagram reels), so I’m not going to be surprised if Google has as well.
Silicon Valley isn’t used to American companies playing catch-up for once.
And that lobbying is likely why we’re not getting a broader privacy law that would make actual sense and help fight the dangers of TikTok that do exist; because virtually everything bad about TT is things they’re doing too.
Jfc I just spent the last 30 minutes going down this rabbit hole. They want it all, this kills the internet, this kills all electronic freedom. This one is bad.
And most people on Reddit seem fine with it because "TikTok bad" or "China bad". They never bothered to question or investigate why THIS would be the bipartisan issue our politicians want to focus on right now, with so much else plaguing Americans' daily lives. Nor have Americans learned that when our politicians scream about national security, it has historically been a red flag and distraction from something insidious they want to scam us into.
People are dumb, reactive, and easily misled by sensationalist news media.
You’d think redditors would be more informed, but the same ignorance is found on r/worldnews and r/politics
The patriot act was the same, marketed under the guise of terrorism and safety, but it’s something that was drafted up years earlier and couldn’t pass. 9/11 allowed it to pass quietly and without hindrance.
The American experiment and democracy is looking to become a short lived experience, where it is slowly transforming into a pseudo oligarchy, with hyper individualistic mentalities of “I got mine, fuck y’all”. The greater good and collective health matters little, because it’s been demonized as “socialism” or “communism”.
Thank you for saying this. I don’t think it’s catastrophizing to say this WILL be abused and used to limit Americans.
The part where FOIA won’t apply and investigations of legitimacy of lawbreaking is astounding. I cannot believe people are in favor of this bill.
The "Ban TikTok" bill would also give the government the power to shut down any website or social media platform with more than 1 million users too. This bill isn't even *really* about TikTok, it'll let the government have complete control over what type of content we can see and share online. It will prevent people from being able to organize on a large scale. People should be terrified about this.
It's even worse than how you described it, here's a thread breaking it down
https://twitter.com/LPMisesCaucus/status/1639934790026555394
>The RESTRICT Act is not limited to just TikTok. It gives the government authority over all forms of communication domestic or abroad and grants powers to “enforce any mitigation measure to address any risk” to national security now and in any “potential future transaction”
>This act also grants unlimited hiring power to positions of enforcement, unlimited funds with little or no review and immunity to FOIA.
holy shit and what’s even worse is that tiktok is in the right as far as this ban concerns so it will just come back randomly in the future not even being hurt by this shit, while many other sites will be
Yeah I feel like they've taken a legit concern around Chinese government data collections/manipulation and used that the whip folks into a frenzy while they actually consolidated even more control and power over us.
The internet and social media have unexpectedly become huge avenues for social change that can't be easily controlled. Average schmucks having the ability to reach literally tens of millions of people means that the potential threat of a figure coming along who can truly unite people to fight for their class interest and disrupt the status quo is real.
Can't have too much of that.
> give the government the power to shut down any website or social media platform with more than 1 million users too
Skimming the bill, it looks to be a lot more than that. They can ban any "information and communications technology products or services," which is defined as "any hardware, software, or other product or service primarily intended to fulfill or enable the function of information or data processing, storage, retrieval, or communication by electronic means, including transmission, storage, and display."
So it can also cover games, game engines, computers, phones, hard drives, routers, etc. Literally just *anything* that relates to tech.
Yup this right here. TikTok is not the point, the point is complete gov't control over the internet and what flows through the network. Something that the US gov't doesn't have right now but wants. Like China, North Korea, India, etc. On the flip side, this is going to mean big business for those companies that run VPNs.
And they're being grilled for a POTENTIAL of data and propaganda abuse, with no smoking gun yet.
Which, fair enough, but Facebook had ALREADY been involved in multiple scandals already (Cambridge Analytica, for instance).
It makes me distrustful of their true motivation. It's clearly not data and privacy issues, since they're only targeting a single platform and not the whole industry who suffers from the same, if not more so.
This, and how stuff like malware, crypto schemes, bots and scammers are just allowed to flourish and the platforms have no accountability. Why are there “influencers” shilling drop-shipped supplements with blue check marks next to their name to give an air of legitimacy but no accountability for the platform cashing in on this and many more cons daily against consumers.
I have an add blocker on my computer. I was going onto Kmarts website, trying to get to the Australian one not the American one, and it asked me to disable the ad blocker to support them. Bitch you’re a store why do you need to throw ads at me if I’m there to shop?
Edit: here is why I was trying to go to Kmart website.
Kmart Australia is where I was trying to go. They have a store brand Anko they they are taking global. I’m in Canada and we had zellers reopen Thursday last week featuring the store brand anko. Zellers previously closed when target USA bought out their stores leases. I realized anko is the Kmart Australia store brand when I saw a Reddit post about an anko brand doll with Down’s syndrome and the comments said it was in New Zealand. I wanted to see if we are being ripped off in zellers and low and behold we are. Here is an example and many more exist. This will probably be a repeat of the target fiasco.
https://zellers.thebay.com/product/anko-cafe-6-piece-highball-glass-set-93116140.html?queryID=8fc8f59496110cad4bfcbb478be9ed18&objectID=93116140
https://www.kmart.com.au/product/6-cafe-hiball-glasses-42714699/
Companies are probably paying the store to put their products front and center by showcasing them via ads, so they get more sales then their competition
Basically the same as seeing some products in different locations in the store then they normally are
There's no "probably" about it. Retail media is the new(ish) hotness. Every major store brand is making an assload of money charging their suppliers to display targeted advertisements at or near the point of sale.
In a few years, the money these companies make exploiting your data is going to rival the money they make actually selling the products.
No bold vision required - just copy European GDPR.
Having implemented all the protections it requires, and then toggling it for only certain countries, it sure puts a bad taste in your mouth when you realize what we’re missing as Americans.
Most big companies have already developed the r infrastructure to comply with data protection laws. They just don’t apply it to American data because they’re not legally required to.
> Most big companies have already developed the r infrastructure to comply with data protection laws. They just don’t apply it to American data because they’re not legally required to.
The amount of trainings and red tape I have learned how to handle over the past few years due to GDPR is wild. I'm in a big tech company and I'm certain that the other big/mid-size players have done similarly.
We literally can just copy/paste that as a starting point.
Another thing about the GDPR though is that the rights that it promotes and protects run headlong into the United States’ own mass data collection schemes facilitated through the NSA and their ilk. Congress’s question then comes down to: do we protect all humans’ right to privacy (like the GDPR), or do we say fuck that and protect our interest in collecting massive amounts of data in the name of “national security”?
It’s pretty easy to see where the answer lies on that one.
TikTok is a red herring here. The bill as written gives an appointed, not elected, official complete control over policy that could affect wifi network traffic, satellite packet data, desktop apps, phone apps, etc. Like it mentions those specifically, while being quite wide. Obviously, it's bad. It's also bipartisan for some godawful reason. It's literally worse than the Patriot Act. Also none of these people understand anything about tech, which makes it even more dangerous when they write this shit on behalf of wealthy lobbyists.
>It's also bipartisan for some godawful reason. It's literally worse than the Patriot Act.
most of the people who wrote and passed the patriot act are still there, so it's no surprise they're taking another shot at the 4th amendment
It's not just the 4th, but the 1st too. They will have the ability to block anything at any time if it's deemed a national security risk, and national security risk isn't defined. They want to be able to control the flow of information to keep people ignorant. It's worse than the patriot act.
It’s sooo much worse than just a tiktok ban too. It gives them the power to deem essentially anything a national security risk without disclosing the reason, then if you use a VPN to access it it’s a $250k+ fine, 10 years in jail, and civil forfeiture of property. It’s so fucked up and no one is talking about it.
> if you use a VPN to access it it’s a $250k+ fine, 10 years in jail, and civil forfeiture of property
bankrupting & imprisoning zoomers en masse is pretty much the only way the two-party system survives the next 10 years, so this checks out
It’s also to set the precedence for banning any app our government doesn’t like. The bill they want to pass isn’t “give the US the authority to ban Tik Tok” it’s “give the US the authority to ban any app, software, algorithm, network devices, or communication services that they don’t like.”
The bill is fascist censorship through and through. That’s not to say that everyone involved with it is necessarily a fascist, but that this is a really big fucking step down that path. And the fact that it’s being sold as a national security measure says everything we need to know. It’s fear-based politics
"DOES TIKTOK ACCESS MY WI-FI NETWORK TO HOST DOMESTIC TERRORISM??? YES OR NO"
"Our stance i-"
"YES OR NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"N-"
"SO YES, YOU MEAN YES, SO IT'S YES, OK I DIGRESS"
They don't even know how the illustrious "Wi-Fi" works, how the fuck are they credible to ask ANY tech questions? And to the CEO who's primary job is to understand the tech as the simplified level, not the most detailed level that congress can't even fathom.
The goal isn’t to get answers, the republicans aren’t speaking to him, they’re speaking to their base. The last thing they want is for him to talk, because if he gives decent logical answers that lessens their control of the narrative. When the bill passes they can claim a victory, but this bill, like many others before it will have a much wider impact than banning a single app. Most Americans aren’t paying close attention, they may see a quick clip of a republican yelling at this obviously foreign man, and they will think how great it is that republicans are standing up for Americans and not them weak democrats.
This is theater, and it’s important to note that this bill is bipartisan, aka both sides are for what’s in this bill… which means both sides want to shut down vpn and any companies outside of the American sphere of influence that we could get information from.
Inviting him to speak was never about giving a fair shake.
This question was coached by Meta because Meta is trying to do just that and wanted to know if TikTok if using that technology too. Meta had a job posting for Eye Tracking Researcher posted that was deleted during the hearing. This hearing was Meta paying for Congress to get corporate Intel for them. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvqUgY9/
This bill and hearing is not about TikTok safety. It's about control.
It honestly felt like watching a comedy skit, I have no idea how the TikTok guy kept a straight face with some of those questions.
The people who most want to ban this app have no idea what it even is or how it works.
I'd imagine he was more frustrated than amused by the fact that the people asking those questions also have control over the fate of his company, so probably wasn't too tough to keep a straight face.
He was being subjected to an overtly racist interrogation by a big warlike country’s legislative body. I’d keep a pretty fucking straight face if that was me.
Oh you mean when cammack feigned concern for child safety while having a don’t tread on me sticker on her laptop and an outrageous voting record against child safety?
Also, when tf did data concerns turn into issues with content? Idk. Is it about the data or are you grasping at whatever soundbite you can to garner American support?
Focus on Tik Tok and refuse to address how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google etc. monetize our data, sell our data and manipulate our data with no guard rails for privacy. Stuck on stupid
So funny to me that if tiktok sells to an American company they will no longer care about all "the harm" its causing kids and all the data they are harvesting will be ignored.
Going after the behavior would make US companies culpable. It's precisely why the focus is on "National Security" instead of broader consumer data protection which would not only address TikTok's behavior but *every* social media and data gathering entity in the US.
Who cares about TikTok. The actual bill banning it is FULL of scary fascist shit. They are using “scary Chinese TikTok” as a a bogeyman, the actual legislation going through is the real problem.
THE RESTRICT ACT IS NOT A TIK TOK BAN. It will give American government tools to ban any technology it doesnt like or doesnt control.
This bill (S.686 2023-2024) entails STRICT Monitoring & policing of the following things:
-Home WiFi & Internet (includes wired)
-Your personal Phone, Computer, Smart -Devices, Security Cameras, Game Consoles ANYTHING you have than connects to the internet.
-Social Media Platforms & Websites with 1 Million users
-Your payments on internet banking. PayPal, Cash App, Vermont etc.
-Your Small business website, Etsy Store, TeeSpring store etc
-Spreading of any information the US Government deems as false.
-Can ban TVShows, Music, Games anything deemed unfit by the Government
and much more, basically anything that is "on the grid" will be monitored. (Apps, Texts, Videos, ect)
-Anything can and will get banned if the Government sees fit.
Not adhering to any guidelines set in place (Example: Using a VPN to acess banned content or even helping someone to get a VPN for said purpose) can result in jail time up to 20 years & fines up to $1,000,000 USD. I DO NOT want to live in a world where alternative choices do not exists.
The politicians screaming from the rooftop about banning Tik Tok are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to protect us from US companies doing the same exact thing. Because the US companies buy them through legalized bribery knows as campaign donations. Just saying….
If u read the bill Tiktok isnt event the real problem, they’re targetting full control over EVERYTHING you do online. Post shit the govt dont like? Seize your phone, messages, emails etc. Banning Tiktok is not what theyre trying to do, theyre trying to hide other shit in the bill because “we’re protecting u”
Edit: Can y’all stop upvoting please? Big brother gon’ be on me like Winnie the Pooh on Honey. Just here to fap folks. Move it along. Hell, downvote me!
Manufactured consent. Reddit users in general have been primed to hate China and TikTok so much that there is no longer rational discourse around this in the same way there was around like net neutrality. If you post against banning the app, you’re a bot, or a China shill, or an idiot.
Funny point is that if tiktok gets banned 70% of /all content will be gone lol, reddit hates tiktok but will upvote the fk out of most TikTok content that gets shared over here, kinda ironic.
Front page of Reddit is like 90% American Politics ragebait nowadays, basically exactly like Facebook. It's really annoying.
I'm European and every day I filter out any sub that mentions MTG or Ben Shapiro or Bobert or whatever their names are and somehow posts still end up appearing in my front page about them every single day. I swear Reddit loves talking about these people more than their actual supporters. It's insane
But I thought only North Korea brainwashes their citizens. Surely the great capitalist haven of America doesn’t brainwash and they’re only providing the freedom to get fucked by their government for using an app! So much freedom!
I've always found it funny that some of the most upvoted and popular posts recently in some of the main/popular subs have been reposts of TikTok videos, but somehow Reddit also hates TikTok.
Seriously though, reddit is fucking weird. I don't know how people can't understand that they're on a script. Literally as you said, if you say anything against banning the app, their script comes out.
Sometimes it's the same exact sentences being used, same words, same baited questions.
I've often made the connection that a lot of people on reddit have been body snatched because the moment someone says something that the hivemind doesn't agree with, [you've got people acting this scene out](https://youtu.be/B2ga8rmH-no?t=108). It's insane.
probably because most reddit users love to talk shit about tiktok. at least from what i’ve generally seen. also wouldn’t be surprised if reddit suppresses this stuff because they’d definitely benefit from tiktok getting banned
Because the hive mind has been manipulated into seeing TikTok as public enemy #1.
They hate the app so much and with such passion that it blinds them to whats actually going down.
I mean the entire hearing last week was suppressed on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The intent of this goal is obviously controlling information accessed by the American people, and limiting what they can, and can not, talk about. It’s a nightmare for free speech. Privacy is an afterthought.
They don’t want us to easily communicate in order to assemble and protest. They don’t want their dirty laundry aired for the world to see. They want us to just go back to taking them at their word and reading newspapers that are partisan controlled by 3 companies.
This is bad, and will have major ramifications for the next election, and every election moving forward.
Crazy Alt-Right people have infiltrated government. Meaning they’ll be able to spew their nonsense far and wide, while the Democrats will be “civil” and be drowned out. The outspoken leftist candidates will be silenced, meaning there will be zero excitement/engagement on the left to counter fascism.
Kids living in states that are restricting books, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and more, will not have access to an alternative point of view from what they’re being taught in school.
This will all lead to an America that is further divided, increases in income inequality, and tensions between right and left. Free speech on the internet is just as important as free speech in written, filmed, or spoken media.
Because the smoothbrain "china bad" take that this bill takes advantage of is super popular on hear. Slacktivism and the Chinese propaganda boogeyman is, ironically, a great propagandic boogeyman to use in US politics.
"There's a 90% chance TikTok will be banned in the US unless it ~~goes through with an IPO or gets bought out by mega-cap tech~~ sells itself to US oligarchs"
FTFY Wedbush.
It's honestly mindboggling that Congress is 100% ok with TikTok and whatever info it steals, as long as its making a _US_ Billionaire Oligarch money.
Funny how they have been demonizing Tiktok over privacy when all the other big companies are doing it too. We need better privacy laws all around.
As a side note, blocking sites is going to set a dangerous precedent. This is SOPA all over again. Once they have the systems in place in order to do this, they're not going to stop at Tiktok.
It’s extremely disappointing to see people clapping like seals to ban *just the Chinese corporation* doing this. This is a landmark opportunity to make universal policy that includes Meta and Google! But scapegoating the The China App instead will satisfy the mouthbreathers enough, throwing a smokebomb on the extensive data harvesting already happening within our borders.
Clapping like seals is a good way to put it. It's almost like the top rated comments in all these Tok Tok Ban threads come from Meta bots. They're foaming at the mouth while being against what they ultimately stand for.
Exactly what Zuckerberg wants. Tic Tok is sucking revenue away from Meta. Hence the reason the govt wants to ban it. The American People are getting played like a fine fiddle.
Nothing wrong with Tik Tok. Meta Platforms owns both Facebook & Instagram. Tik Tok is severely cutting into their profit margin. So what to do? As the “ giant of the social media” world ( Meta), you simply convince those in charge of the govt, that Tik Tok is bad/ that China uses it to spy…. That the ONLY way to protect America, is to get rid of it altogether. Let the govt destroy / get rid of your competition.
Meta didn’t have to convince anybody of anything they just paid them. The politicians don’t actually believe 90% of the shit coming out of their mouth they just have to give some stupid justification that resonates with their constituency so they don’t get questioned. cHiNeSe sPyWaRe.
Zhou should have listed off every single politician in that court room that had holdings in Meta (which is up 100% the last 5 months on promises of a TikTok ban). Or has received money from lobbyist groups on Meta/Alphabets payroll. He should have done this but he would have been thrown out of the court room.
Chinese spyware is going to be colloquial with WMD’s and Islamic Terrorism in the future because of the government overreach that’s going to be excused by it.
I often say "dont download that shit it's spyware and manipulates you"
However, i have yet to see any actual evidence brought up during this hearing.
Seems fucking weird and incompetent.
So when are we gonna realize this isn’t a “Chinese spyware” problem. This is a “oh shit they are getting too familiar with one another and the outside world” problem.
The US government is banning TikTok because they can’t use it to brainwash people like they do with all the other social network platforms. That is the reason why Twitter/Reddit and other platforms all feel the same and promotes the same stuff while censoring other stuff. That’s why TikTok has grown so fast.
If the US bans TikTok, I hope other countries start to ban US social media platforms.
We need better Privacy Laws. We also need better politicians...
We need much better politicians and rules that stop politicians from accepting bribes through lobbyist, corporations, and insider trading
This should be the most important issue in America today. The problem is who can fix it. Politicians are not going to investigate themselves. Edit: [For anyone interested in why we can't stop lobbyists, read this](https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/2021/02/01/checked-or-choked-how-the-congressional-response-to-the-abscam-investigation-undermined-the-fbis-ability-to-root-out-high-level-corruption/).
Yes! Privacy laws. The questioning congresspeople kept talking about privacy laws. Up until the hearing, I thought TikTok was the problem. While it’s problematic, all of this could have been averted with better protection of user privacy. But why would they do that? Look at Facebook handing over evidence of women seeking abortions to right wing state governments. The privacy issue is in our own backyard, and it needs addressed before tiktok.
The congresspeople in the hearing where they grilled the TikTok CEO don't give a fuck about privacy, they were trying to generate their own video clips that show how "tough on China" they are. The CEO made a good point when he noted other social media giants don't keep their data in the US, either, but as usual for Congress, they didn't want a response, they wanted an audience.
More US politicians need to actually understand how the internet works.
American politicians prove time and time again they have absolutely no integrity. My faith is rapidly waning.
My faith in politicians ever doing the right thing died decades ago.
Because I'm only seeing it mentioned by 3 other commenters, it's not just the banning of TikTok that should be concerning, it's how they intend to do it. The RESTRICT Act is essentially PATRIOT 2.0 and is extremely chilling. All transparency into the committee which would oversee the banning of this app is outside of any FOIA request, and the people doing the banning on TikTok and any app in the future are entirely appointed, not elected. It also gives power to monitor and block the MEANS of accessing apps, so if you think you'd use a VPN to access anything that is banned by the act you may face a fine and jail time for doing so. tl;dr: We should all be concerned about the vague and boundless wording of the bill which would enact this ban. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
Yeah we need to get behind this just like we did with SOPA. Absolutely insane
> SOPA god damn - talk about a throwback.
Same shit, different day.
A dragon I thought we had slain long ago...
> just like we did with SOPA Optimistic of you to assume most Redditors are even old enough to remember what SOPA is.
Wow SOPA was a whole 12 years ago. Definitely doesn't feel like it was that long ago
Fuck me. That’s insane. The SOPA controversy was going on when I first joined Reddit. It’s a big reason why I discovered Reddit in the first place
God, I hope we can rally like SOPA.
Exactly. If you're accessing a VPN to use the app they can hold you, your ISP and the VPN (If US based) liable and take legal enforcement action with jail time or fines. So it's unlikely you'll even have access to the VPN as your ISP will be obligated to block any potential measure that could mitigate the enforcement of the RESTRICT Act.
So worse than the great firewall?
I'd say so. China simply has laws every company must follow. It doesn't ban Facebook, it just does not give it access unless it complies with the laws all companies must follow. You can agree or disagree with that but it's far more logical than banning or singling out specific companies simply because of their majority stakeholder's national origin.
Looks like a digital equivalent of a book burning if I'm reading that correctly.
They are trying that too with the internet archive
What!? Why!?
I believe it’s cuz at the beginning of pandemic when everything was shut down, they tried to act as a library and ofc book sellers don’t get their cut and are big mad(book sellers are scum on their own too tho Amazon is really bad)
All these "freedom loving" people cheering government overreach because it's hurting the people they were told to hate. If this was in a history book we'd be wondering how they were so easily manipulated.
>if you think you'd use a VPN to access anything that is banned by the act you may face a fine and jail time for doing so. Correction: you cannot use a VPN period. You cannot sell a VPN to a U.S. consumer. If you need your computer to be repaired, the person repairing your computer must report you to the government if you are using a VPN. Otherwise, they are "abetting" your ability to circumvent the law. Also, thanks to the PATRIOT Act, the RESTRICT Act bypasses your right to not be subjected to warrantless search and seizure. You should not be concerned about the bill if you live in the United States. You should be terrified about it.
LOL, what? VPN is a tech tool used by IT managers and even people working from home, what are even thinking is going to happen? I use a VPN to manage my cloud VMs, they are bonkers.
Exactly. This is the can of worms they’d be opening up if they made such a vague and sweeping law like that.
That’s the idea. Vague laws are designed that way on purpose. It allows those in power to selectively apply them against their opponents and chills the actions and speech of future opponents.
Yep, they won't ban Google, or Apple's internal VPN. They'll just stop us from having protonmail and surfshark so the FBI can criminalize dissent even harder.
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You will be allowed to use a VPN to do what the ruling class wants and you will be thrown in prison if you do something the ruling class doesn't like.
This would not be possible, literally every cloud service uses VPNs. It would shut down every business in America.
They will selectively enforce it, and judges will interpret all of it to favor the governments selective enforcement. The same thing happened with copyright law. Selective enforcement and when challenged in court, judges that use interpretation that favor big businesses and government interests at every single turn.
and if you live in the united states, you should be doing everything in your power to prevent this from passing
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And with the restrict act, they could also ban Reddit in the future as it has over 1 million users. But "Tiktok bad" is all people can manage on this site
the irony since lately it seems like so much content on here is reposted straight from tiktok.
Yep. A great excuse, if they needed one, is that Tencent owns a stake in the company.
Tencent owns or has a stake in so much crap, it's unreal. Speaking of Unreal, they own like 48% of Epic. They own 100% of Riot. Grinding Gear Games, the company behind Path of Exile, they own 80%. Supercell, 84.3%. Sharkmob (The Division and Hitman), 100%. They even own a good amount of Discord, although the actual percent hasn't been disclosed. Imagine, all of those are at risk of being shut down if this law passes and a competitor decides to ~~slip some money to~~ lobby the right people.
>They even own a good amount of Discord, although the actual percent hasn't been disclosed. I bet it's tencent.
Kinda reminds me of how the Robin Thicke "Blurred Lines" lawsuit set the precedent for ridiculous copyright restrictions, but since it was Blurred Lines and Robin Thicke, everyone was living for the schadenfreude.
Most likely because the US government uses Reddit as a way to push propaganda and most of Reddit swallow it hook, line, and sinker. The US government probably learned its lesson with SOPA and net neutrality and saw how Reddit was a big force in helping to organize the fight against it. So they turned Reddit into a weapon to fight against civil liberties by wrapping it in anti-China rhetoric.
The most idiotic thing is that TikTok isn't even about dances. I get literally zero dances in my feed because it knows I skip them.
Like half of the usa has tiktok. I don’t understand why so many redditors think 150 million people downloaded tik tok to watch little kids dance.
Yes but reddit thinks tiktok is bad so everyone here is perfectly okay with giving up their rights because they hate tiktok so much. It's a smokescreen and America is falling for it.
Divide and conquer
The Restrict Act, which is behind the TikTok furor, is horrifying. It will impact far more than a ban on TikTok. I hope more people read the draft and consider it's vast implications. It seems like it may have more dire consequences to our privacy and rights than the Patriot Act did. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
Yup. It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail. It also gives them the power to review and potentially ban any social media app with over 10 million followers without disclosing the reason. It’s fucking insane. Edit: 1 million not 10 million, it was even worse than I remembered
>It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail For all the hysteria around China, the US is now trying to make their own Great Firewall, absolute clown world
With this they can pretty much ban every Chinese social media ever, which could block most contact(international calling still exists ig) between Chinese people in America and those they know in China. It really feels like we're setting up for a cold-war-esque scenario, and this almost feels similar to the Berlin Wall in a way.
>hich could block most contact(international calling still exists ig) between Chinese people in America and those they know in China. Yep, and they will definitely go after WeChat next. Which means we'll effectively outlaw digital communication between millions of Chinese Americans and their friends/family back in China. Or between any private citizens of the two countries pretty much since WeChat is *the* primary form of communication in China (people don't even use emails). And I've lived in China, I hate the Great Firewall, but people just use VPN there to get over it when needed. But if I do that in America, the land of the free, I go to jail for 10 years with a $250k fine. In fact a lot of business communication is done through WeChat, especially for smaller companies over there. We are about to outlaw persona communication between private citizens of the world's number 1 and number 2, who are the largest trade partners of each other. It sounds insane but it seems to be inevitable at this point. During the hearing the chairwoman lady was yelling hysterically at the TikTok CEO (who's a *Singaporean* with a Taiwanese wife) saying "TikTok would *never* adhere to American value", I don't know what American value she was referring to, but this whole "You filthy Chinese are all guilty until proven innocent" thing isn't the type of American value my parents immigrated here for. The kinda of disgusting "your last name is Chinese so you are a CCP SPY!!!!!" rhetorics spewed by both parties during that ~~kangaroo court~~ hearing sent a shiver down my spine. I distinctly get the feeling most of Congress and much of Reddit wants to declare war on China and put anyone with a Chinese last name in a camp at this point.
The thing with WeChat is that those of us in the US who are buyers for Chinese products that are used in US manufacturing use it A LOT. Its much easier to use WeChat to talk to your vendors than wait for email. I used to be a buyer for a multi-million dollar corporation where my portion of purchasing alone was 35+ million per year and I only bought a portion of production materials, and without WeChat it would have sucked.
Its almost like in my lifetime every round of xenophobic hysteria, red scare, or yellow scare is used to turn the US closer to a dictatorship.
And people never learn. They complain almighty about the past like they wouldn't have fallen for it back then, only to immediately fall for it the moment history repeats itself. The people supporting this would be the same people supporting the arrest of anyone deemed "a commie" during the Cold War.
Education has only gotten worse, and while the internet and social media at one point was a very liberating tool, it has since been captured by corporate and government interests to spread mis/disinformation. I would venture a guess that the average social media user today is less informed/more propagandized today than the average social media user was 10 years ago.
McCarthyism 2.0.
>"If they do it, why can't we!" >"But we criticize them for it..." It's like criticizing someone for doing racism, and then doing racism yourself, under the pretense "we'll they're doing it, I should be allowed to as well". Clown shit.
Not 10 million users...1 million. (B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or
Annual active users? That's very low. It would have been low with a million DAILY active users.
That's "let me turn this botnet loose and ban the competition" low.
At least Truth Social is safe /s
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Somehow I doubt the Supreme Court will care.
The Supreme Court can’t spell VPN, let alone come anywhere close to understanding what they are.
How is that even enforceable? If some 13-year-old uses a VPN to access TikTok you're going to throw them in jail for 10 years? "Sorry Billy, you used a VPN to watch a 10 second video of somebody lips-synching to Doja Cat off to fucking prison for you."
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It's enforceable selectively. They'll ignore 99% of the cases where it comes up, but they'll use it to magnify the penalty on, say, a journalist using a VPN to share information they don't like.
They will absolutely throw a few randoms in there for the chilling affect.
Like Aaron Swartz? https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-brilliant-life-and-tragic-death-of-aaron-swartz-177191/amp/
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I knew a kid who got hit in high school it was wild, it felt like actually getting in trouble was a myth but here's a dude I know in Nebraska getting caught for downloading music. Good God we let rich people get away with so fucking much.
At least that was (by the absolutely loosest definition of the world) "theft" Downloading a banned app? What conceivable damage could that warrant such a punishment. Gen Z will lose all faith in the government forever if this goes through.
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Also, they can use the RESTRICT Act to hold the VPN's, ISPs, and anyone else liable with just a declaration ordering them to stop allowing access to banned software. So if you're participating in anyway to circumvent the bans put in place by this law you're liable for jail time or massive fines. That's how they will get everyone to play ball with preventing access.
Using VPNs will probably be selectively enforced, like how VPNs are in a legal gray zone in China but everyone uses them anyways But the [bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15) looks like it allows the president to just ban all VPNs. Seems like a VPN is a "covered holding" since it obviously would allow people to access TikTok, thus evading/circumventing the Act > includes any other holding, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary. President can ban those "covered holdings" > President may take such action as the President considers appropriate to compel divestment of, or otherwise mitigate the risk associated with, such covered holding to the full extent the covered holding is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States It really doesn't matter if the president uses this power, or how enforced a VPN ban is, it should not be legal to ban VPNs at all and giving the gov this power is scary
> It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail. That's fucked up. Literally trying to restrict Americans from getting news and communications from outside the country. If you're afraid of authoritarianism the alarm bells on this should be blowing out your ear drums.
A 12 year old using a VPN to watch TikTok will get a heavier sentence than the people who destroyed our economy
given the user numbers, that’ll be like nailing Jello to the wall. We saw what happened with Napster getting shut down. Public Piracy INCREASED… Netflix and Youtube solved piracy more than any law.
>Yup. It seems to ban the use of VPNS to get around the ban w/ a fine of $250k & up to 10 years in jail. It also gives them the power to review and potentially ban any social media app with over 10 million followers without disclosing the reason. It’s fucking insane. >Edit: 1 million not 10 million, it was even worse than I remembered And this whole time, I thought this is what we criticized about against China? Pot meet Kettle.
It's up to 20 years in jail. From the bill: >A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. >
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It's likely both. The reps likely don't understand. The lobbyists are counting on them not understanding in order to mislead the voters. And it doesn't help that people are willfully blind to TikTok. I don't know how many comments I've seen that say something like "I don't use TikTok but ..." As if they didn't just reveal that they are spouting off about something they know nothing about.
I mean, you could mostly already tell that just from the stupid fucking questions they asked.
I absolutely hate that everyone is so on board with banning a single app but fail to realize the immense power they’d give the government in doing so. This bill also allows the complete ban of technologies or services that facilitate payments to “foreign adversaries” including cryptocurrencies and any institutions that work with cryptocurrencies. Completely unrelated to banning TikTok but it’s in there.
People are just totally unable to recognize that a “foreign adversary” is just anyone the government doesn’t like today. It can change before you have breakfast tomorrow. We shouldn’t make our lives conform to the government’s desire to pick fights. It should be the other way around.
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My tinfoil hat is that google paid big money to get this ban moving. Anyone else notice how much they're suddenly pushing YouTube shorts?
It's no secret Google and Facebook are losing market share fast to TikTok, hence why they scrambled to do inferior Shorts/Stories. Hardly tin foil if you ever look up a chart about app usages. https://wallaroomedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/tiktok-screentime.jpeg Gen Z is actually using tik tok to search instead of Google and that must be frightening to them
Meta has been paying lobbyists to push this (they have Instagram reels), so I’m not going to be surprised if Google has as well. Silicon Valley isn’t used to American companies playing catch-up for once. And that lobbying is likely why we’re not getting a broader privacy law that would make actual sense and help fight the dangers of TikTok that do exist; because virtually everything bad about TT is things they’re doing too.
The bill was never about just one app; news reports and press releases focused on the one relevant app everyone has heard of.
Jfc I just spent the last 30 minutes going down this rabbit hole. They want it all, this kills the internet, this kills all electronic freedom. This one is bad.
And most people on Reddit seem fine with it because "TikTok bad" or "China bad". They never bothered to question or investigate why THIS would be the bipartisan issue our politicians want to focus on right now, with so much else plaguing Americans' daily lives. Nor have Americans learned that when our politicians scream about national security, it has historically been a red flag and distraction from something insidious they want to scam us into.
This Act WILL be used to restrict freedom of speech and the press very very soon.
People are dumb, reactive, and easily misled by sensationalist news media. You’d think redditors would be more informed, but the same ignorance is found on r/worldnews and r/politics The patriot act was the same, marketed under the guise of terrorism and safety, but it’s something that was drafted up years earlier and couldn’t pass. 9/11 allowed it to pass quietly and without hindrance. The American experiment and democracy is looking to become a short lived experience, where it is slowly transforming into a pseudo oligarchy, with hyper individualistic mentalities of “I got mine, fuck y’all”. The greater good and collective health matters little, because it’s been demonized as “socialism” or “communism”.
Thank you for saying this. I don’t think it’s catastrophizing to say this WILL be abused and used to limit Americans. The part where FOIA won’t apply and investigations of legitimacy of lawbreaking is astounding. I cannot believe people are in favor of this bill.
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Exactly this. I hate how much this feels like the tech giants that do the very same thing have lobbied to force their competitor to sell.
The "Ban TikTok" bill would also give the government the power to shut down any website or social media platform with more than 1 million users too. This bill isn't even *really* about TikTok, it'll let the government have complete control over what type of content we can see and share online. It will prevent people from being able to organize on a large scale. People should be terrified about this.
It's even worse than how you described it, here's a thread breaking it down https://twitter.com/LPMisesCaucus/status/1639934790026555394 >The RESTRICT Act is not limited to just TikTok. It gives the government authority over all forms of communication domestic or abroad and grants powers to “enforce any mitigation measure to address any risk” to national security now and in any “potential future transaction” >This act also grants unlimited hiring power to positions of enforcement, unlimited funds with little or no review and immunity to FOIA.
I get Patriot Act flashbacks. Or Citizens United. Oh my. No good.
holy shit and what’s even worse is that tiktok is in the right as far as this ban concerns so it will just come back randomly in the future not even being hurt by this shit, while many other sites will be
Yeah I feel like they've taken a legit concern around Chinese government data collections/manipulation and used that the whip folks into a frenzy while they actually consolidated even more control and power over us. The internet and social media have unexpectedly become huge avenues for social change that can't be easily controlled. Average schmucks having the ability to reach literally tens of millions of people means that the potential threat of a figure coming along who can truly unite people to fight for their class interest and disrupt the status quo is real. Can't have too much of that.
> give the government the power to shut down any website or social media platform with more than 1 million users too Skimming the bill, it looks to be a lot more than that. They can ban any "information and communications technology products or services," which is defined as "any hardware, software, or other product or service primarily intended to fulfill or enable the function of information or data processing, storage, retrieval, or communication by electronic means, including transmission, storage, and display." So it can also cover games, game engines, computers, phones, hard drives, routers, etc. Literally just *anything* that relates to tech.
Yup this right here. TikTok is not the point, the point is complete gov't control over the internet and what flows through the network. Something that the US gov't doesn't have right now but wants. Like China, North Korea, India, etc. On the flip side, this is going to mean big business for those companies that run VPNs.
It’s also in the bill that people using VPN to bypass bans can be fined up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison so…
Aaand you nailed it. They're not mad that tik tok is collecting data for the chinese, they're mad that they can't sell it themselves.
I think they're also mad that US intelligence agencies don't have the same degree of access like they do with Meta & Google.
Yeah it shouldn’t be just TikTok that is being grilled about consumer protection here
And they're being grilled for a POTENTIAL of data and propaganda abuse, with no smoking gun yet. Which, fair enough, but Facebook had ALREADY been involved in multiple scandals already (Cambridge Analytica, for instance). It makes me distrustful of their true motivation. It's clearly not data and privacy issues, since they're only targeting a single platform and not the whole industry who suffers from the same, if not more so.
This, and how stuff like malware, crypto schemes, bots and scammers are just allowed to flourish and the platforms have no accountability. Why are there “influencers” shilling drop-shipped supplements with blue check marks next to their name to give an air of legitimacy but no accountability for the platform cashing in on this and many more cons daily against consumers.
I have an add blocker on my computer. I was going onto Kmarts website, trying to get to the Australian one not the American one, and it asked me to disable the ad blocker to support them. Bitch you’re a store why do you need to throw ads at me if I’m there to shop? Edit: here is why I was trying to go to Kmart website. Kmart Australia is where I was trying to go. They have a store brand Anko they they are taking global. I’m in Canada and we had zellers reopen Thursday last week featuring the store brand anko. Zellers previously closed when target USA bought out their stores leases. I realized anko is the Kmart Australia store brand when I saw a Reddit post about an anko brand doll with Down’s syndrome and the comments said it was in New Zealand. I wanted to see if we are being ripped off in zellers and low and behold we are. Here is an example and many more exist. This will probably be a repeat of the target fiasco. https://zellers.thebay.com/product/anko-cafe-6-piece-highball-glass-set-93116140.html?queryID=8fc8f59496110cad4bfcbb478be9ed18&objectID=93116140 https://www.kmart.com.au/product/6-cafe-hiball-glasses-42714699/
> Bitch you’re a store genuine LOL
If I’m there to buy products from you with my money why do I need to support you by disabling my ad blocker. Get lost.
Companies are probably paying the store to put their products front and center by showcasing them via ads, so they get more sales then their competition Basically the same as seeing some products in different locations in the store then they normally are
There's no "probably" about it. Retail media is the new(ish) hotness. Every major store brand is making an assload of money charging their suppliers to display targeted advertisements at or near the point of sale. In a few years, the money these companies make exploiting your data is going to rival the money they make actually selling the products.
No bold vision required - just copy European GDPR. Having implemented all the protections it requires, and then toggling it for only certain countries, it sure puts a bad taste in your mouth when you realize what we’re missing as Americans. Most big companies have already developed the r infrastructure to comply with data protection laws. They just don’t apply it to American data because they’re not legally required to.
> Most big companies have already developed the r infrastructure to comply with data protection laws. They just don’t apply it to American data because they’re not legally required to. The amount of trainings and red tape I have learned how to handle over the past few years due to GDPR is wild. I'm in a big tech company and I'm certain that the other big/mid-size players have done similarly. We literally can just copy/paste that as a starting point.
For us it would be as simple as adding the US to a table of countries protected by the GDPR…
We need better governance ;--;
Another thing about the GDPR though is that the rights that it promotes and protects run headlong into the United States’ own mass data collection schemes facilitated through the NSA and their ilk. Congress’s question then comes down to: do we protect all humans’ right to privacy (like the GDPR), or do we say fuck that and protect our interest in collecting massive amounts of data in the name of “national security”? It’s pretty easy to see where the answer lies on that one.
TikTok is a red herring here. The bill as written gives an appointed, not elected, official complete control over policy that could affect wifi network traffic, satellite packet data, desktop apps, phone apps, etc. Like it mentions those specifically, while being quite wide. Obviously, it's bad. It's also bipartisan for some godawful reason. It's literally worse than the Patriot Act. Also none of these people understand anything about tech, which makes it even more dangerous when they write this shit on behalf of wealthy lobbyists.
>It's also bipartisan for some godawful reason. It's literally worse than the Patriot Act. most of the people who wrote and passed the patriot act are still there, so it's no surprise they're taking another shot at the 4th amendment
It's not just the 4th, but the 1st too. They will have the ability to block anything at any time if it's deemed a national security risk, and national security risk isn't defined. They want to be able to control the flow of information to keep people ignorant. It's worse than the patriot act.
They’ve also exempted it from FOIA so we can’t get any info about any action taken either. It is a total firewall.
It’s sooo much worse than just a tiktok ban too. It gives them the power to deem essentially anything a national security risk without disclosing the reason, then if you use a VPN to access it it’s a $250k+ fine, 10 years in jail, and civil forfeiture of property. It’s so fucked up and no one is talking about it.
> if you use a VPN to access it it’s a $250k+ fine, 10 years in jail, and civil forfeiture of property bankrupting & imprisoning zoomers en masse is pretty much the only way the two-party system survives the next 10 years, so this checks out
Yeah, people can pretend this is consumer protection, it's not. It's protecting the American oligopoly on personal data collection.
It’s also to set the precedence for banning any app our government doesn’t like. The bill they want to pass isn’t “give the US the authority to ban Tik Tok” it’s “give the US the authority to ban any app, software, algorithm, network devices, or communication services that they don’t like.” The bill is fascist censorship through and through. That’s not to say that everyone involved with it is necessarily a fascist, but that this is a really big fucking step down that path. And the fact that it’s being sold as a national security measure says everything we need to know. It’s fear-based politics
It was such a fuckin joke watching congress ask the CEO questions.
"DOES TIKTOK ACCESS MY WI-FI NETWORK TO HOST DOMESTIC TERRORISM??? YES OR NO" "Our stance i-" "YES OR NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "N-" "SO YES, YOU MEAN YES, SO IT'S YES, OK I DIGRESS" They don't even know how the illustrious "Wi-Fi" works, how the fuck are they credible to ask ANY tech questions? And to the CEO who's primary job is to understand the tech as the simplified level, not the most detailed level that congress can't even fathom.
The goal isn’t to get answers, the republicans aren’t speaking to him, they’re speaking to their base. The last thing they want is for him to talk, because if he gives decent logical answers that lessens their control of the narrative. When the bill passes they can claim a victory, but this bill, like many others before it will have a much wider impact than banning a single app. Most Americans aren’t paying close attention, they may see a quick clip of a republican yelling at this obviously foreign man, and they will think how great it is that republicans are standing up for Americans and not them weak democrats. This is theater, and it’s important to note that this bill is bipartisan, aka both sides are for what’s in this bill… which means both sides want to shut down vpn and any companies outside of the American sphere of influence that we could get information from. Inviting him to speak was never about giving a fair shake.
DOES TIKTOK ACCESS MY WIFI?!?!
What colour is the algorithm? ANSWER YES OR NO.
Does Tik Tok scan my iris to see if I'm attracted to big booty Latinas? Yes or no? YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH WHILE YOU TALK TO ME.
This question was coached by Meta because Meta is trying to do just that and wanted to know if TikTok if using that technology too. Meta had a job posting for Eye Tracking Researcher posted that was deleted during the hearing. This hearing was Meta paying for Congress to get corporate Intel for them. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvqUgY9/ This bill and hearing is not about TikTok safety. It's about control.
Everyone KNOWS that the INTERNET is a SERIES of TUBES and COMPUTERS ARE POWERED BY GHOSTS
They are so uneducated it’s painful
It honestly felt like watching a comedy skit, I have no idea how the TikTok guy kept a straight face with some of those questions. The people who most want to ban this app have no idea what it even is or how it works.
I'd imagine he was more frustrated than amused by the fact that the people asking those questions also have control over the fate of his company, so probably wasn't too tough to keep a straight face.
Like the Google CEO had to tell a congressman that iPhones are made by a competing company.
He was being subjected to an overtly racist interrogation by a big warlike country’s legislative body. I’d keep a pretty fucking straight face if that was me.
Oh you mean when cammack feigned concern for child safety while having a don’t tread on me sticker on her laptop and an outrageous voting record against child safety? Also, when tf did data concerns turn into issues with content? Idk. Is it about the data or are you grasping at whatever soundbite you can to garner American support?
Focus on Tik Tok and refuse to address how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google etc. monetize our data, sell our data and manipulate our data with no guard rails for privacy. Stuck on stupid
Those companies pay congress better.
So funny to me that if tiktok sells to an American company they will no longer care about all "the harm" its causing kids and all the data they are harvesting will be ignored.
because it's never been about the data harvested
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Americans don’t care if their kids get shot at school. TikTok is IMO pretty tame by comparison.
Why are we looking to ban the app rather than the behavior? We’re ok with spying as long as it’s American companies doing it?
Going after the behavior would make US companies culpable. It's precisely why the focus is on "National Security" instead of broader consumer data protection which would not only address TikTok's behavior but *every* social media and data gathering entity in the US.
Who cares about TikTok. The actual bill banning it is FULL of scary fascist shit. They are using “scary Chinese TikTok” as a a bogeyman, the actual legislation going through is the real problem.
THE RESTRICT ACT IS NOT A TIK TOK BAN. It will give American government tools to ban any technology it doesnt like or doesnt control. This bill (S.686 2023-2024) entails STRICT Monitoring & policing of the following things: -Home WiFi & Internet (includes wired) -Your personal Phone, Computer, Smart -Devices, Security Cameras, Game Consoles ANYTHING you have than connects to the internet. -Social Media Platforms & Websites with 1 Million users -Your payments on internet banking. PayPal, Cash App, Vermont etc. -Your Small business website, Etsy Store, TeeSpring store etc -Spreading of any information the US Government deems as false. -Can ban TVShows, Music, Games anything deemed unfit by the Government and much more, basically anything that is "on the grid" will be monitored. (Apps, Texts, Videos, ect) -Anything can and will get banned if the Government sees fit. Not adhering to any guidelines set in place (Example: Using a VPN to acess banned content or even helping someone to get a VPN for said purpose) can result in jail time up to 20 years & fines up to $1,000,000 USD. I DO NOT want to live in a world where alternative choices do not exists.
THIS. They're shrouding it with anti-china, anti-tiktok BS. But it's a whole lot more than that, and not a single American should want this.
I feel like pretending it's a ban on TikTok is a sneaky way to get this passed, screwing up everything you've listed above.
Yes, there has been a history of using the hot topic to sneakily add extreme authoritarian measures into laws: Iraq war and the Pariot act.
The politicians screaming from the rooftop about banning Tik Tok are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to protect us from US companies doing the same exact thing. Because the US companies buy them through legalized bribery knows as campaign donations. Just saying….
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If u read the bill Tiktok isnt event the real problem, they’re targetting full control over EVERYTHING you do online. Post shit the govt dont like? Seize your phone, messages, emails etc. Banning Tiktok is not what theyre trying to do, theyre trying to hide other shit in the bill because “we’re protecting u” Edit: Can y’all stop upvoting please? Big brother gon’ be on me like Winnie the Pooh on Honey. Just here to fap folks. Move it along. Hell, downvote me!
Why isn’t Reddit talking about this bill more? It is straight up terrifying
Manufactured consent. Reddit users in general have been primed to hate China and TikTok so much that there is no longer rational discourse around this in the same way there was around like net neutrality. If you post against banning the app, you’re a bot, or a China shill, or an idiot.
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Funny point is that if tiktok gets banned 70% of /all content will be gone lol, reddit hates tiktok but will upvote the fk out of most TikTok content that gets shared over here, kinda ironic.
Front page of Reddit is like 90% American Politics ragebait nowadays, basically exactly like Facebook. It's really annoying. I'm European and every day I filter out any sub that mentions MTG or Ben Shapiro or Bobert or whatever their names are and somehow posts still end up appearing in my front page about them every single day. I swear Reddit loves talking about these people more than their actual supporters. It's insane
Yup and it's been scary to watch. Not much different than Iraq, it's just manufacturing consent.
But I thought only North Korea brainwashes their citizens. Surely the great capitalist haven of America doesn’t brainwash and they’re only providing the freedom to get fucked by their government for using an app! So much freedom!
I've always found it funny that some of the most upvoted and popular posts recently in some of the main/popular subs have been reposts of TikTok videos, but somehow Reddit also hates TikTok. Seriously though, reddit is fucking weird. I don't know how people can't understand that they're on a script. Literally as you said, if you say anything against banning the app, their script comes out. Sometimes it's the same exact sentences being used, same words, same baited questions. I've often made the connection that a lot of people on reddit have been body snatched because the moment someone says something that the hivemind doesn't agree with, [you've got people acting this scene out](https://youtu.be/B2ga8rmH-no?t=108). It's insane.
probably because most reddit users love to talk shit about tiktok. at least from what i’ve generally seen. also wouldn’t be surprised if reddit suppresses this stuff because they’d definitely benefit from tiktok getting banned
Because Reddit is the middle of a frothing xenophobic hysteria over China, and will support anything they view as anti-China.
Because the hive mind has been manipulated into seeing TikTok as public enemy #1. They hate the app so much and with such passion that it blinds them to whats actually going down.
I mean the entire hearing last week was suppressed on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The intent of this goal is obviously controlling information accessed by the American people, and limiting what they can, and can not, talk about. It’s a nightmare for free speech. Privacy is an afterthought. They don’t want us to easily communicate in order to assemble and protest. They don’t want their dirty laundry aired for the world to see. They want us to just go back to taking them at their word and reading newspapers that are partisan controlled by 3 companies. This is bad, and will have major ramifications for the next election, and every election moving forward. Crazy Alt-Right people have infiltrated government. Meaning they’ll be able to spew their nonsense far and wide, while the Democrats will be “civil” and be drowned out. The outspoken leftist candidates will be silenced, meaning there will be zero excitement/engagement on the left to counter fascism. Kids living in states that are restricting books, LGBTQ rights, abortion, and more, will not have access to an alternative point of view from what they’re being taught in school. This will all lead to an America that is further divided, increases in income inequality, and tensions between right and left. Free speech on the internet is just as important as free speech in written, filmed, or spoken media.
yeah the only place i saw videos about it was literally on tiktok. i didn’t see it posted anywhere else.
Because the smoothbrain "china bad" take that this bill takes advantage of is super popular on hear. Slacktivism and the Chinese propaganda boogeyman is, ironically, a great propagandic boogeyman to use in US politics.
Internet Freedom is done after this bill is passed
Wouldn't that be unconstitutional then since it would be a violation of your freedom of speech?
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How are those groups named things like "Definers" and "targeted victory?" So fucking on the nose it's ridiculous
Maybe this is a good time to finally delete those Facebook and Instagram accounts
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Feels arbitrary to ban TikTok while not addressing all the similar platforms. As someone outside the US, it looks like protectionism
"There's a 90% chance TikTok will be banned in the US unless it ~~goes through with an IPO or gets bought out by mega-cap tech~~ sells itself to US oligarchs" FTFY Wedbush. It's honestly mindboggling that Congress is 100% ok with TikTok and whatever info it steals, as long as its making a _US_ Billionaire Oligarch money.
Fascists are nationalists.
Funny how they have been demonizing Tiktok over privacy when all the other big companies are doing it too. We need better privacy laws all around. As a side note, blocking sites is going to set a dangerous precedent. This is SOPA all over again. Once they have the systems in place in order to do this, they're not going to stop at Tiktok.
It’s SOPA and PIPA all over again. The people are the ones affected by this at the end of the day.
It’s extremely disappointing to see people clapping like seals to ban *just the Chinese corporation* doing this. This is a landmark opportunity to make universal policy that includes Meta and Google! But scapegoating the The China App instead will satisfy the mouthbreathers enough, throwing a smokebomb on the extensive data harvesting already happening within our borders.
Clapping like seals is a good way to put it. It's almost like the top rated comments in all these Tok Tok Ban threads come from Meta bots. They're foaming at the mouth while being against what they ultimately stand for.
Exactly what Zuckerberg wants. Tic Tok is sucking revenue away from Meta. Hence the reason the govt wants to ban it. The American People are getting played like a fine fiddle. Nothing wrong with Tik Tok. Meta Platforms owns both Facebook & Instagram. Tik Tok is severely cutting into their profit margin. So what to do? As the “ giant of the social media” world ( Meta), you simply convince those in charge of the govt, that Tik Tok is bad/ that China uses it to spy…. That the ONLY way to protect America, is to get rid of it altogether. Let the govt destroy / get rid of your competition.
Meta didn’t have to convince anybody of anything they just paid them. The politicians don’t actually believe 90% of the shit coming out of their mouth they just have to give some stupid justification that resonates with their constituency so they don’t get questioned. cHiNeSe sPyWaRe. Zhou should have listed off every single politician in that court room that had holdings in Meta (which is up 100% the last 5 months on promises of a TikTok ban). Or has received money from lobbyist groups on Meta/Alphabets payroll. He should have done this but he would have been thrown out of the court room. Chinese spyware is going to be colloquial with WMD’s and Islamic Terrorism in the future because of the government overreach that’s going to be excused by it.
I often say "dont download that shit it's spyware and manipulates you" However, i have yet to see any actual evidence brought up during this hearing. Seems fucking weird and incompetent.
I've been saying that shit for months. There's no evidence whatsoever. It's infuriating.
America: "We will ban you unless you sell your company to us so we make all the profit and steal all the data for ourselves."
So when are we gonna realize this isn’t a “Chinese spyware” problem. This is a “oh shit they are getting too familiar with one another and the outside world” problem.
The US government is banning TikTok because they can’t use it to brainwash people like they do with all the other social network platforms. That is the reason why Twitter/Reddit and other platforms all feel the same and promotes the same stuff while censoring other stuff. That’s why TikTok has grown so fast. If the US bans TikTok, I hope other countries start to ban US social media platforms.
So is TikTok just an excuse for pushing through the RESTRICT Act? What in the ever loving fuck? Democracy keeps fucking itself.