Montana becomes first state to approve a full ban of TikTok | Hacker News Reader

Montana becomes first state to approve a full ban of TikTok

npr.org

46 pointsthm43 comments

This law is a failure waiting to happen.

First off, what about all the folks in Montana who already have TikTok?

Will Montana State Troopers be setting up roadblocks to check people's phones, then going house to house to do the same?

And when it comes to stuff like this, kids aren't stupid. If they can't gain access to a VPN providing an IP address outside Montana, they'll just message someone they know from out of state with something like "email me the .apk for Tiktok" or have someone put it up on some site outside Montana, preferably outside the US.

I'd also expect that numerous scam/malware/other evil sites will pop up offering "the TikTok app," which of course will either be the app laden with malware/backdoors/RATs, or just the latter claiming to be the app.

Nothing good will come of this.

That's not to say I'm a fan of TikTok. I'm not. But the whole premise of laws like this are that the evil Chinese government is going to steal your childrens' souls (okay not their souls, but lots of data and PII) to be used as a weapon to destroy our nation, one short video at a time.

But the truth is that all the spying scumbags^W^W Social media like Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. are doing all of what TikTok is, and maybe even more.

This is performative jingoism masquerading as "safety." Want to stop this hoovering up of data? Pass national legislation blocking all these peeping Toms from collecting this information at all.

Who's running Montana, the Keystone Kops[0]?

Edit: fixed prose. Used the correct term for "social media".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops

Edit: Added link to explain who the "Keystone Kops" might be for those unaware of their (fictional) existence.

> First off, what about all the folks in Montana who already have TikTok?

The ban is silly, but I’d have Apple and Google remove the app for all users with a billing address in Montana.

>The ban is silly, but I’d have Apple and Google remove the app for all users with a billing address in Montana.

I've never heard a better rationale for not using Apple products or a "Googled" Android device[0].

That it's even possible for Apple/Google Play to do something like that (although I'm not so sure they'd do so -- and I'm not so sure they could be forced to either -- but IANAL) is horrific overreach and definitely reason for stabbing people in the eye[3]

I own my device. I paid for it. It is mine.

I will put whatever the hell I want on it.

[0] LineageOS[1] with F-Droid[2]?

[1] https://lineageos.org/

[2] https://f-droid.org/

[3] I'm being (mostly) metaphorical here.

I suggest microg+lineageos with FDroid and Aurora, for the reason many apps need google play services to function

Sorry. General purpose computing is legacy tech now - even your desktop has a second OS install (Minix inside IME) that you don’t have access to. RMS was right, but nobody listened.

Lots of false positives if you do that. What happens if you're on a shared plan, and the only resident of Montana is the primary bill-to person?

Yep, but it’s Google, they won’t care.

If you read the bill it answers all your questions.

The full text of the bill: https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billpdf/SB0419.pdf

IANAL, but the explicit wording of part 1b seems strange. Does this allow the TikTok website to remain in operation? (or would that be covered by 1a still?)

I think politicians, especially GOP, are afraid of TikTok. It has been quite successful in mobilizing young voters.

That doesn’t mean TikTok is innocent, of course. But it is weird to claim all kinds of privacy issues with it, when American social media companies do the same kind of shenanigans.

Would be interesting when the courts get involved.

I'm rather surprised that you can write a law calling out one particular company by name and applying solely to that one company, as the Montana bill does. How common is this?

Practically unheard of. It's usually tiptoed around by wording laws in such a way that they only apply to one company. Compare, for example, the recent Arkansas bill[1] banning some social media services, which effectively exempts TikTok by making an exception for any "social media company that allows a user to generate short video clips of dancing, voice overs, or other acts of entertainment".

For that matter, it's unclear if it's even constitutional. Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution flatly prohibits bills of attainder (laws which declare a specific person guilty of a crime and/or subject them to punishments). It's undecided whether this clause extends to corporations or only to natural persons, but the possibility is enough.

[1]: https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/FTPDocument?path=%2FBil...

Yeah, I understand passing a law that is intentionally designed to apply to only one company. But it's odd for a law to just name the company.

Particularly when the entire intent of the law is to declare the company guilty of a variety of offenses and force them to cease operations. It feels like a massive overstep into the responsibilities of the judicial branch -- and one which isn't even based on any specific laws or legal principles.

Since when is "approval" part of the legislative process? Don't remember that on Schoolhouse Rock. IMO that was totally a click bait headline trying to fool you into thinking it is now law.

This won’t pass. How are you going to enforce this? Are you going to fine Montana residents 10K per TikTok post…?

Republicans keep pushing the most un-american stuff on this country. What happened to “freedom”?

  > This won’t pass.

do you mean to say it wont get signed into law or that it will be struck down by the courts?

Yes

The bill answers your question if you read it. The fine is on an entity providing TikTok. So that would be Apple, Google, ByteDance. It explicitly states no individuals will be fined.

What if an individual hosts the apk on a public facing site hosted within Montana?

Yea, Republicans keep banning books, women's right and now bans Tiktok. I don't understand why people even vote them with all those MAGA stupidity and attacks on freedom. Even rt.com is accessible at the moment.

I dont quite understand, maybe someone can enlighten me: Nobody is forcing people to use TikTok, right? Peer pressure is a thing, but there are other ways for parents to enforce that their child doesnt use TikTok (e.g. like my little sister who just can't install anything on her iphone, and instead has hobbies).

If youre concerned about china's government collecting data, pass a bill similar to GDPR at the very least - but of course that would suck for the domestic (USA) intelligence services, so thats a no-go.

Its some "its only funny when I do it!" kind of shit.

Lol. Don't be upset when your sister cuts all contact from the family, just saying.

Which is part of the reasoning why I prefer the government ban it like this, so I’m not the bad guy.

It's funny. The type of thinking that normalizes or encourages people to cut off contact from their family almost all originate from social media and adjacent online bullshit. From that point of view, it's best to not have kids exposed to any of this shit. Not like people can't learn how to navigate social media when they're adults.

>The type of thinking that normalizes or encourages people to cut off contact from their family almost all originate from social media and adjacent online bullshit.

I'm a little confused. I am unaware of that "type of thinking," perhaps because I don't use mainstream social media?

I DDG'd around a bit, but found only stuff like articles from Psychology Today and advice columns from therapists and the like about "toxic families," child abuse and similar.

But based on the tenor of your post, that doesn't appear to be what you mean.

I seem to be missing something important.

I'm not being coy or snarky here. I really haven't encountered (except in discussions around abusive relationships --- abusers try hard to cut their victims off from family/friends because it makes it easier to control them --- and cults -- generally for the same reasons).

Would you please point me in the right direction here?

Thank you!

Go to pretty much any advice or relationship sub in reddit and you'll find comments giving advice in that vein. Progressive/woke types in tumblr and tiktok are like that too. Generally speaking, online culture is very anti-family, normalizes labeling your family members as toxic etc for minor reasons, normalizes cutting contact, and generally have lower morals compared to people in real life. Hell, the biggest influence in internet zoomer lingo is fucking 4chan. Huge mistake to let kids be exposed to this sort of culture.

You wouldn't believe it, but there is actually a way to restrict what your child does without causing them trauma and harm. Parenting is the word for that, and it would be great if people could actually do more of it.

The government bans many things that you aren’t forced to use. Whether or not that’s a good idea is a different question but in practice it’s quite common.

A more practical approach is to issue large fine(s) to social networks and tech companies like TikTok, instead of a ban. Just like how Facebook, Google, etc have all been fined over privacy violations.

Repeat offenses should climb up to the billions of dollars. Great money for the regulators to force change in user privacy than a complete ban especially those who want to remain in the US market.

>The bill makes it illegal to download TikTok in the state, with penalties of up to $10,000 a day for any entity, such as Apple and Google's app stores or TikTok itself, that makes the popular video-streaming app available.

Not clear to me: is it illegal to download tiktok or to provide a download to tiktok?

The latter:

    An entity violates this prohibition when any of the following OCCURS within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana:
        (a) the operation of tiktok by the company or users; OR
        (b) the option to download the tiktok mobile application by a mobile application store.

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