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Comment by hypeit | Hacker News Reader

How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.

The humans it feeds content into are the botnet.

For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...

A human is not a bot. In addition to being dehumanizing, it removes agency to say that.

Pretending large groups of humans can't possibly be influenced to do things is lunacy.

We do weird things in crowds even without intentional propaganda at play. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091

That's not a "botnet" though, advertising does the same thing. We don't call the people buying things they've been marketed a "botnet".

It needn't be a perfect comparison to be a useful one.

It's not useful though. I actually think it's very cool that TikTok got a bunch of young people to contact their representatives. If this ban goes through, the political blowback is going to be extreme. It will be like the Streisand effect x100,000,000.

> I actually think it's very cool that TikTok got a bunch of young people to contact their representatives.

I don't think that's the concern.

> If this ban goes through, the political blowback is going to be extreme.

Its not a ban. Whats going to happen is that tiktok will divest.

Kids will continue to have their social media.

> What’s more, divestiture would require Beijing’s approval. Last year, the Chinese government said it opposed a forced sale.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/house-passes-tiktok-...

If tiktok wants to leave the US, that would be their decision.

Blame them for not following the law.

That's no different from anyone else deciding to just leave the app store, or the USA, because they don't want to pay taxes or something.

Companies stop doing business in certain countries for all sorts of reasons.

TikTok's users will know who to blame: the US government. There would have been no problem at all before this bill got pushed through (if passed).

Once again, laws effect companies all the time.

This isn't new or an out there thing.

Some companies leave because they don't want to pay high taxes, or for numerous other reasons.

All tiktok has to do is follow the law and they won't be banned.

But if they don't, well that's their decision as well.

People aren't fools. They know that TikTok is being put into this position by the US government. You can go on any social media platform right now and see how outraged TikTok users are. This is going to have incredible political blowback from the younger generations and there won't be any "lawyering" around that. Even if the ban doesn't go through, a lot of damage has already been done.

Yes I am sure some kids will cry on the internet.

The bill is overwhelmingly bipartisan though. There isn't anyone for some kids to go after, if it's almost a unanimous bi partisan effort.

Those kids lost. It's over.

And if people are this upset, then that is all the more reason to pull the trigger now, instead of giving our foreign adversaries more time to retaliate.

Anyway, tiktok almost divested the last time this happened. Unless they are OK will losing 10s of billions of dollars for nothing, well chances are they'll just divest, despite the current posturing they are doing.

There's definitely areas of advertising that are banned/controlled so that comparison seems more damning than beneficial (e.g. alcohol to minors, medication in any country other than the US

Just capitalism slaves :P

I'm a human, and I identify as a "bot," so there.

Didn't they already, in effect, DDOS the congress telephone system?

No, they did however increase engagement in democracy in a very dramatic fashion. More people making demands from their government is a good thing.

When they're deliberately coordinated by foreign states with malicious intent? When the demands become more and more extreme towards the opposing side?

Opposing this ban isn't "malicious intent" lots of people think it's an infringement upon their rights for the US government to decide what they can and cannot see.

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