We actually don't have to shrug and say "oh well, first amendment" with respect to propaganda outlets of foreign countries.
We actually don't have to shrug and say "oh well, first amendment" with respect to propaganda outlets of foreign countries.
Why should we be a nanny state that should dictate which apps one can or cannot use on one's device.
Also even at the hight of cold war, Soviet Life magazine was published and disseminated widely in the US.
The US is widely against even having its own government own communication platforms.
The comment I originally replied to likened tiktok to a printing press, but that's not quite right.
Imagine a printing press owned by an enemy that would subtly manipulate the text of whatever you tried to print. Or maybe it would omit entire articles from certain recipients of the newspaper, or reorganize the page layout to emphasize different things than the editor intended.
We wouldn't allow this hypothetical printing press controlled by a hostile foreign government to be sold in the US, we would be crazy to.
So if you want to make the same argument, you will have to declare china's CCP to be a terrorist organization - and all of the legal implications that entails.
When one country tries to cause chaos in another, they use a two pronged approach. (1) they offer a country's aristocracy the ability to enrich themselves at the cost of their people. This could be things like cheap labor, gas pipelines, or being the guarantor of loans. (2) They tell a countries peasantry that the worlds problems are simple and that their government is their enemy and failing them. This is only empowered by having compromised their aristocracy, so their government is failing them.
Then they put their fingers on the scale by providing resources (weapons, funding, press, intelligence, etc.) to an aligned entity capable of promoting their interests.
It's worth considering that the great firewall of china exists explicitly because the Chinese government (rationally) thinks it's risky to subject people who were subsistence farming a generation ago to foreign influence.
The cost of freedom is responsibility, and if you have an irresponsible (read: poorly educated/non critical thinking) populace, then people will unwittingly surrender their freedom. Freedom means the freedom to do the wrong thing, but that can result in bending or breaking.
Foreign companies shouldn't have the same protections.
And in many countries, locally-operating subsidiaries are required to have majority ownership by citizens, partly to prevent foreign influence.
I would characterise our lack of rights as complete. Some years ago Americans began torturing people who had been handed over to them on the promise that they would not be tortured already at Bromma airport, so here in Sweden, and this was presumably legal. I assume that if it had been done to me, it would have been legal as well.
Data rights are not embedded in the constitution and so the US is currently in the process of creating a patchwork of (mostly state driven) legislation to define how user data can be treated. Hopefully, the Federal government will step in at some point and create some consistency and clarity with rules that are both practical and efficacious.
[1] Source: 8th Amendment
There is an inferred right to privacy though, and that is for this same reason not something applicable in cases of non-Americans and non-US residents when outside of the US.
There are already rules, there's the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, but it's implemented by an executive order, so there's nothing preventing there existing some other executive order secretly negating it.
Nope. The first amendment protects the speech of US citizens and only to a certain extent. This is why the US has a torture center in Guantanamo. To avoid issues of constitutional rights.
This is also, btw, what allows the CIA and NSA to spy on data you send overseas in violation of the 4th amendment.
US laws are geographically bound.
People need to stop being so naive and realize that it's the aligned democratic countries (Ukraine, Europe, US, Australia, Canada, UK, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) fighting against the last survival of dictatorships (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea). If you wish the dictatorships to win, please by all means, move there.
[1] However, since 2022, China has amplified its purchase of cheaper Russian oil after the West hit Moscow with unprecedented sanctions https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/22/business/china-top-oil-suppli...
[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/03/02/world/politics/...
[3] https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-russia-alignment-co...
Imagine trying to suspend the 2nd amendment because of school shootings. The reason kinda doesn't matter when rights are on the line.
[1]https://www.military.com/history/6-times-martial-law-was-dec...
[2]https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1703503427818
[3] https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/analysis-killing-...
[3]
I mean, there's no way China would release a covid 2, right?
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/02/ch...
> can freely operate the most powerful propaganda weapon humankind has known against the democracy.
if we think is a true, accurate and non-hyperbolic description of tik-tok (and by extension social media) i don’t want anyone with power to operate them. whether it’s a billionaire from any country or any government.
it isn’t clear to me why we would treat a billionaire, a mega corporation, or a government any different with anything this powerful. again, if we were to agree this description is accurate no organization or person should have this kind of influence.
This has a feeling of paternalism that rubs me the wrong way. I'd be happy to hear of a case where large scale paternalism worked out, but so far it seems like paternalism is a failed ideology whose proponents continue to not realize that, "just one more try; it will work."
What I'm hearing is an argument for cultural-Sakokuism and I have to remind the reader that it never works.
2A is for well regulated militias, from an era when the government struggled to raise and maintain a standing army, and wasn't sure an army could even be trusted. 2A was antiquated long before schools started having to teach toddlers survival tactics.
Does this mean China is effectively at war with Russia too?
That said, the CCP is not hoping for the United States to suddenly become politically stabilized. They are not hoping for the US populace to embrace the current social and economic order which stands at odds to Chinese goals. The CCP is an extremely disciplined predator organization with a long-term outlook, and should be dealt with appropriately.
On the other hand, perhaps the first amendment doesn't block this. In that case, that relevant consideration would seems to be rare broad bipartisan support (as evidenced by a very lopsided 352-65 vote, but we'll see what happens in the Senate) to limit the potential harm that can be done by the information warfare capabilities of a genocidal authoritarian regime with whom it is certainly plausible that the US will be at war with in the next decade.
It is really unclear, absent a successful constitutional challenge, why the free speech maximalism preferences of a throwaway account on HN should hold more weight than lopsided bipartisan vote by democratically elected legislators.
-Justice Roberth H. Jackson
What the American owned social networks have done to my countries populace, including its youth, is nothing short of a disaster. It’s induced complete brain rot.
Are they "pro-CCP"? Honestly, you think anyone who disagrees with the regime are tankies?
I recommend that you sit down in front of your computer with your beverage of choice and do a deep dive into psyops.
To address your comment, there are psyops actors in every significant (and some less significant) social media platform, even our own Hacker News. Whether you want to call their work “propaganda” or something else is mostly semantics — they are operating with an agenda, sometimes/often one that conflicts with the will and/or best interest of our nation (in my case, the US).
"What's water?"
But you should do a deep dive on tiktok if you aren't already on it! It's almost all fun/bizarre/educational videos. When you have so many people (lawmakers) critiquing it who don't use it regularly, it all just comes across as McCarthyism.
(edited to remove a sentence I started and didn't finish)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Rus...
There’s a similar operational and data island for UK TikTok users as part of project Clover. Share your data on how the CCP is manipulating content shown to UK users while you’re at it.
At the end of the day, my opinion is that after all the changes made to segregate and protect US users this is now all political theater and posturing, and potentially setting a very dangerous precedent.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinpings-subtle-strategy-to-...
All governments have their hand in the cook jar.
You know, the obvious explanation that doesn’t require an unseen CCP bogeyman.
The reverse has occasionally been the case.
https://www.insidevoa.com/a/despite-taliban-s-censorship-voa...
TikTok is less censored compared to FB, Instagram, X.com etc.. Look how many Israel supporter funded this action (banning/buying Tiktok) Always look for the one with most interest in having Tiktok controlled, you will know who are are the lobbyistes behind. (Follow the money)
I could be convinced that banning both would be good.
USA in terminal decline and, in typical fashion, it flatly refuses to look at itself and wonder why. American power elite has no one to blame but itself.