Man, the current democratic party just does not know how to solve problems in a way that people appreciate.
Absurd that the Republicans are somehow going to swoop in and "Save the day" on an issue they themselves championed.
Absurd that the Republicans are somehow going to swoop in and "Save the day" on an issue they themselves championed.
People always blame Democrats for things that Republicans do.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...
Would we permit a lobby for China to do the same thing?
AIPAC is funded by Israel, and by it's own description AIPAC is an organisation made up of pro-Israel zionists. Oh, and the "I" in AIPAC stands for "Israel".
Nice try hiding your hatred.
Everything they said was true and you did not even attempt to explain why or how they're wrong.
> AIPAC is funded by American Jews.
No shit. Name a single larger demographic with a protracted interest in defending Israel, I'll wait.
> Nice try hiding your hatred.
There are two governments on Earth that deny Israel's violation of international law. They are Israel and the United States. It is not hatred to oppose Zionism, it's global consensus.
I don't care what your global consensus is. Jews are entitled to their homeland, just like any other nationality, like Belguim or Paraguay. To say otherwise is hatred.
> AIPAC is funded by American Jews. >> No shit. Name a single larger demographic with a protracted interest in defending Israel
Exactly - no shit. Jews do have a protracted interest in defending Israel - so that there is a place to go where they can be protected from genocidal maniacs who are creating this "global consensus" with intent of wiping them out.
Evidently. You seem rather incensed that I even mentioned the hundreds of nations that oppose Israel's existence on non-religious grounds. The nations that observe international law, the eminence of criminal justice, the treatment of minorities, the protection of journalists, the (repeated) violation of Syria's border and the displacement of Israel's remaining native population.
Simply put, I agree that Israel's natives are entitled to their homeland. It's unfortunate for the Jews then that they are not the Arabs.
> so that there is a place to go where they can be protected from genocidal maniacs who are creating this "global consensus" with intent of wiping them out.
The Zionists very helpfully showed us that it doesn't take a global (or even religious) consensus to incite genocide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cast_Thy_Bread
For the courtesy of the Jewish people I do not conflate Zionism with Judaism. Anyone examining Israel's history can very easily distinguish for themselves the extremists and the oppressed.
a reply on this comment even accuse the commenter of being Hasbara
HN is the world-upside down. a lot of people here really should just stick to tech
I don't think the US president is exempt from the tendency to avoid hard work on their last day on the job.
Will you allow "climate refugees" into your neighbourhood? Will you be a climate refugee yourself?
The parties are just brands competing against each other to appeal to different segments of the same market, offering essentially the same product in different packaging. Getting your competitor to adopt a market position that you've already prepared a response to is a neat trick.
This is par for the course, and I don't understand why anyone would expect anything different.
What would have been a solution to the problem that people would have appreciated?
There is no "algorithm": the policies of a service like Tiktok are spread throughout its entirety. The only meaningful way to "release the algorithm" would be to release the whole source code.
Furthermore, releasing the source code wouldn't help, since regular people aren't able to understand what it means; and there is no way to verify that the released source code corresponds to what is actually being run.
It would be great if there was some way to verify that a service you're using matches some published code, but we don't have that.
Releasing the code does help. Joe can't open up his car and fix the engine control code, but the local repair shop can and they can also understand it and raise to a journalist "huh this manufacturer pushed a new version that'll make it stop driving if you service it at the workshop of a competitor" or whatever the car equivalent of this tiktok algorithm concern would be
The second problem you mention, I fully agree with: verifying whatever they publish. Client source code, you barely even need because it'll just be a front end for what the servers decide to show you. Verifying that what they say the server code is, is really what the server runs, that's the hard bit. But claiming to be open could be a start; something we can find discrepancies in and push for further openness
Whether this will solve the national security concerns and help with the youth mental health crisis that's often linked to social media, that's all way beyond my expertise and I have no opinion on the matter. Just that, in general, not everyone needs to understand everything in the world for it to be useful to publish
What? Doesn't the opinion itself literally say that the threat of "covert manipulation of the content" was one of the government's justification? Never mind the millions of times that Chinese control over the content people view has been brought up as a rationale both inside of Congress and outside? Haven't these been beaten to death already?
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/17/speaking-with-and-in-fa...
Efforts to save TikTok have been bipartisan (“Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he spoke with Biden on Thursday to advocate for extending the deadline to ban TikTok.”) and efforts to enforce the ban have also been bipartisan (“Democrats had tried on Wednesday to pass legislation that would have extended the deadline, but Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas blocked it. Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that TikTok has had ample time to find a buyer.”)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-wont-enforce-tik...
Edit: wanted to elaborate but wasn't sure how to put it best. Then two comments down there is exactly what I'm looking for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42759761 So many people (in absolute numbers at least, maybe not in relative numbers) seem to just eat it up like kids eat candy
If someone banned youtube or HN, I'd be upset, but I wouldn't be depressed and suicidal over it like some of these people were publicly
Like inflation, this was a problem Trump created and now he’s getting credit for fixing it.
I consider the Chinese oversight a plus. It’s much more sensitive to Asian values for the most part.
If it had values your 12yo wouldn’t be on it as Douyin has an age restriction of 18+, and prenatal consent if 13-17. Under 13 is prohibited. It also has time restriction of 40 minutes per day for 13-14yo and only accessible between 6am till 10pm. Not only that content is highly censored and restricted.
But keep living in a bubble that TikTok is totally fine.
I don't think that means what you think it does.
Kids are people. People have feelings.
Good parenting consistently is hard, very hard and sometimes basically impossible, but the difference between parents who at least try hard to raise kids well and those who sort of gave up on their kids is striking (tiktok and other digital stuff is a good yardstick of overall state of this, when I see kids of other folks using it and clearly addicted I am losing all respect for those folks as parents, and its always a big bag of various failures and neglect coming along). Its heartbreaking to experience, especially the powerlessness.
It doesn't mean the kid is also using the iPad at home for hours on end. Or consuming anything other than Bluey / Paw Patrol / Sing 2...
Going to a restaurant when I was a young kid was considered a treat and special occasion, and if I misbehaved, I was out of there immediately. I quickly learned to sit in my chair, eat my food, and not be disruptive.
I think people in general these days act with a higher sense of entitlement, and that translates to parents believing that it's fine for them to go to restaurants because they want to, ignoring whether or not it's appropriate for their children, somehow also believing that they "deserve a break" and their kids' disruptive behaviors in public aren't their problem. But no, screw that: if your children won't behave at restaurants, don't bring them along. If you can't find a sitter, then you don't get to go either. (If you can't afford a sitter, then you probably can't afford going out to a restaurant either.)
> ...to give them the TV time at the restaurant...
I would have less of a problem with this if the kid was using headphones (I know, risky for their ears at a young age if they also have control of the volume), or if the tablet could be kept quiet enough so I can't hear it at my nearby table. But that's rarely the case.
But hey, sure, if you can give your kid TV time at a restaurant without me having to listen to it, I guess that's fine. I think that's a poor substitute for actually teaching kids how to behave in public, but I'm not that kid's parent, and that's just my opinion.
We had kids in our 20s and my daughter has been glued to her iPad since she was 2. Her grades are better than mine were at her age, she has artistic hobbies (makes jewelry, paints). She’s maybe a tidge slower than I was on reading, but that might be pandemic.
Note that Tik Tok is different than “social media” in that it doesn’t really allow for the gossip and backbiting within enclosed groups that typifies say Facebook. The most emotionally upsetting thing for her seems to be normal girl-girl social conflict, especially through her iMessage group chat.
Life without good or at least normal social skills is pretty miserable in many aspects, almost can't be fixed once adult, and has much larger impact on what I call 'life success' than career can ever have.
But it remains the first time in her life that a politician listened to a concern she had, and acted on it promptly to fix the problem.
Listen to radio or news programs while kids are around?
If your kids asked about these things would you not try to explain?
There isn’t too much teens really feel on a day-to-day basis with politics and this is one of them. I’m not a Trump fan at all but his ability to spin things like this and the stimulus checks will need to be studied.
Aside from that his popularity -- and ability to lie shamelessly and have enough people ignore it and vote for him -- is wrapped up in the entity "Trump". His play book is age old.
I think this overlooks one key detail. The focal points of the new online world -- "influencers" -- rely on TikTok for the lion's share of their income. Taking away a fun toy might not radicalize someone but taking away their livelihood might.
And even if these users are a tiny fraction of a percent, they wield outsized influence (obviously). They are the new media. Risking losing these people, many of whom have been largely apolitical, seems like a huge tactical error in retrospect, and one that Trump would predictably take advantage of if given the chance.
Absurd that when Trump initially proposed this it was considered a stupid and racist idea. Now they’re for it.
Anyone putting any trust into Reddit is fooling themselves. Its not only political subs, other subs are also astroturfed, they are just more subtle about it. There are plenty of examples from places everything like /r/buyitforlife(where you discover the lies after you get burned), to bigger subs like /r/technology(which push certain agendas devoid of facts). You'd have to go sub by sub and piece out the blatant lies, or you could walk away from the platform understanding that the design is fundamentally flawed and was designed for an era of the internet that no longer exists.
Do you care what a cattle or a sheep thinks? Some may, but the majority don't give it a shit.
I think the hard answer is - the Dems need to actually do things that dissatisfy people like me if they want to actually win the masses - working class, blue collar, etc voter back.
Currently they are focussed on everything other than class. Identity politics. Race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, etc. None of this is particularly threatening to people like me and is a moral good, but it should be secondary to actually helping the poor regardless of how they identify.
Left wing parties elsewhere push for more redistributive policies than the Dems ever dream of here. Instead they do hand-outs to constituencies that aren't in dire need, and already vote Dem anyway. Student loan forgiveness, EV tax credits, etc.
Meanwhile in UK & EU, even the vaguely upper end of middle class pay marginal tax rates that would make $1M/year US earners cry. This is where the revenue comes for the depth & breadth of their social programs.
Should the US go that far? Absolutely not. It would stifle innovation, growth, and what makes the US far more successful than our rich peers. But Dems need to break free of the thinking that if we just tax a few billionaires, all our problems will be solved.
Also to be fair they’ve been in power globally for some time and so are seen as the status quo party, and largely ran as such. People are feeling economically squeezed and therefore voting incumbents out.
That's interesting, because it feels like "the right" (in my experience and whatever left and right mean these days) wouldn't recognise or consider catering to anything above the two basic levels (and to be honest, the 'brutal truth' part of my own personality tells me that anything above those two basic levels is 'cream').
People who worry about the price of groceries or basic car repairs to keep their older car on the road don’t want to hear how privileged they are due to their race (they might not be a minority but they aren’t rich) / how they are destroying the planet (they aren’t flying 10x year) / that kids who took out loans for expensive private college deserve free money (they didn’t even go to college or went to state school) / how democracy is at stake / etc.
This is an interesting list that 100% reflects what Republicans in my state ran on and Democrats only mentioned them when on defense (except immigration, which they clearly took point on before trump torpedoed the bipartisan effort to work on it)
> EV tax credits
These were absolutely needed to kickstart the EV market, just like oil subsidies were needed to keep the American economy moving so people and goods could get from place to place.