Is smoothbrain understanding of criminal investigations
Is smoothbrain understanding of due process
I'm starting to fly down some 'conspiracy hole' about this shit: I can't trust or even hope that the avalanche of memes like these aren't Chinese (or Russian? they love stirring our shit up for the lulz) in origin. This paranoia reinforces itself in a loop
Cna you believe that they haven't arrested every single person who ever made social contact with epstein and arrested them for rape, despite a lack of any supporting evidence that they committed a crime?
I mean i am sure that rich people get away with lots of stuff that normal people wont. But this whole "pedophile elite" thing smells very similar to the "elite jews control everything" and is simplistic bs at best. I am not even sure what people are on about. I would be happy if we finally fought for more equality and better distrubution of wealth but that seems "too simple" to most or something.
This is what a lot of power does to humans, it corrupts, makes one view those with less power as less of a human being.
There shouldnt be any absurdly powerful people.
Besides, I'd much rather have the CCP collect my data than the US, simply cause the CCP doesn't care about you if you don't go to China, but the US could hand over stuff to your government.
How did you suddenly go from spyware to propaganda and are even accusing me of beeing fooled by them? I don't even have Tiktok on my phone, I just fiddled with the algorithm in a containerised emulator.
All I said is that I'd rather have China have my data than the US cause China is a much smaller potential threat to anyone outside their country.
The way .ml cries everyday about TikTok being banned you'd think it was an actual real life crises for all of you.
Multiple counties have already banned the app (as well as other ccp government apps) years before the US started trying to. Where was all the out cry then?
Yeah that's true, while it's being debated in a lot of places the only current bans I can find any news on are for government officials and employees. Now that I think about it, doesn't that make Biden's TikTok illegal?
Afghanistan.
Australia.
Belgium.
Canada.
Denmark.
European Union.
France.
India.
Lativa.
Netherlands.
New Zealand.
Norway.
Pakistan.
Taiwan.
United Kingdom.
All have banned the app either from government employees to a nationwide ban.
This is a bit dishonest. Only Afghanistan and India have banned TikTok from citizens and neither of them are western countires. In every other country you listed it's just about government devices.
Most governments even semi big companies don't allow whatsapp or other meta products on their hardware, is that precedent enough to ban meta too? Very few apps comply with the GDPR requirements needed on company/government hardware.
Look, I despise Tiktok too, but most arguments on here are just "muh China bad" or "look at these other people doing something"
Man people really set up the strawmen here. Congress has literally said it’s about foreign influence, not about protecting children. It has absolutely nothing to do with kids. It has to do with China influencing the citizens of the United States to do things that are beneficial to China, against the interests of the US government.
It’s not a ban, if China gives up control of the app to a United States entity then there’s no problem. It has absolutely nothing to do with protecting children.
Who are they worried China is going to influence? Children, right? If it's adults, that's almost more insulting, they think we don't deserve to be able to see all sides of an argument and are too stupid to discern fact from fiction. We may as well dispense with free expression entirely at that point because the government can just say "you're too stupid to read this and we're worried you'll be influenced, so you can only read the books we've pre-approved for you"
It is every American's right to think freely, to speak those thoughts to others, and to have others have the opportunity to hear those thoughts whether or not they are "good influences" according to govt. It is wild how easily people are willing to throw that right away for fears of "foreign influence". What's next, banning TV shows from foreign countries because they might "corrupt our culture"? Banning books with subversive topics because they will "give people bad ideas"?. This is how the road to fascism begins.
Who are they worried China is going to influence? Children, right? If it's adults, that's almost more insulting, they think we don't deserve to be able to see all sides of an argument and are too stupid to discern fact from fiction.
Yeah fam, you and me are definitely way too smart to ever be manipulated by military units whose sole job is to effectively manipulate large swaths of the population.
The answer is everyone. They’re worried about anyone and everyone, because they do it also.
Good point. We are all vulnerable to manipulation and should only read content that is approved by the US Govt. Anybody who breaks this rule should go to jail. That is for our safety ✅
Yeah they’re clearly here because they think they have no chance of getting manipulated, that they’re better than others, or even that they think this is some sort of free speech thing. Sorry bud, that’s not how it works. The government routinely bans things that cause foreign influence, it’s just usually not at this scale and not something people are addicted to and use as their news.
Is there any chance that the fact you're lemmy.ml user might be an indication that you're not looking at this completely objectionally? I'm not for the ban either but that doesn't mean I can't be honest about the reasons for it.
You shouldn’t have to personally defend yourself or this post. They want to censor your speech the same way the government wants to censor Tik Tok. So much for liberal personal freedoms.
The problem that many people have with this argument that "China is going to influence us" isn't that we are immune to influence, its that the argument sounds extremely hallow when our own native social media manipulates the absolute shit out of us already... like what is China going to do that our own country isn't already doing.
This is the argument you hear from people on tiktok about why they don't care about the governments concern.
Well that and how its kind of disgusting how completely unified the house is in this bill, but couldn't give a shit about wealth inequality, corporate ownership of residential housing, rampant inflation, rising homelessness, school shootings.
Yep. Unfortunately both the left and right in the US seem to have free speech in their crosshairs one way or another. The right with "don't say gay", their book bans, and war on drag, the left with the TikTok ban, wanting the government to be able to define and regulate "misinformation" on social media, etc. The long-term protectors of free speech like the ACLU have even done a pivot away from free speech cases because they perceive them as unpopular.
Congress has literally said it’s about foreign influence
Which is also a lie. The likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google are just as beholden to foreign governments such as the fascist regimes of India, Israel, Myanmar and others. They pay the people in Congress a lot more in legal bribes, though, so they can basically get away with anything.
It’s not a ban, if China gives up control of the app to a United States entity then there’s no problem.
Imagine the uproar if China demanded that Google stopped being a US military contractor..
What the whole thing is about is empty symbolic rhetoric and xenophobia in an election year and oppressive measures to go with it.
Google was blocked in China in 2014 for refusing to censor search results. Now search results are censored and must go through their Hong Kong subsiduary. The last part is what the US Government is asking for TikTok to do right?
China already bans and censors loads of apps and websites already so I don't think looking at what they do in this instance is a good idea.
China did that. We criticized them for it. Now we're turning around and doing it. "We should get to do it because insert dictator here does it" isn't a great argument.
Okay. Which part of what I written makes you think that? I thought my second paragraph was enough to say China doing things is not a reason to do things.
Imagine the uproar if China demanded that Google stopped being a US military contractor.
China is actively demanding that all Chinese companies excise American hardware and software from their technology stacks. They know that they can’t divorce a US tech company headquartered in the US from the US intelligence agencies, so it is the next best option. This is colloquially known in China as “Delete A” or “Delete America”. Who is being xenophobic again?
Ok, China is a bad example, except as what not to do.
As you pointed out yourself, this bill is Congress acting like the oppressive Chinese government rather than the liberal democracy the US likes to pretend to be.
If Facebook could be considered a nefarious conspiracy (or at least subservient to the powers engaging in said conspiracy), why is it unbelievable that TikTok could also be?
Because Facebook has been PROVEN to knowingly allow widespread coordinated election tampering (Cambridge Analytica, for example) and steering users towards far right pages and groups,
Tiktok is only SUSPECTED based on association with China and furthermore has a much smaller user base and therefore less impact if they DO run election influence campaigns like Facebook does.
The US could, if there was the political will, hold Facebook accountable for this because Meta is an American company. The US would not be able to hold a non-American company accountable in the same way. I do not see a conflict between wanting Meta held accountable for allowing things like Cambridge Analytica to occur and not minding the US taking proactive action on TikTok.
Is the US unable to hold Tiktok accountable or is it/should it be allowed to dictate the ownership of Tiktok?
I'd argue it's neither. The US is perfectly within their rights to enforce US laws within the US, including towards companies not based in the US. That's literally what being a sovereign nation means.
As for forcing the change of ownership of a company that hasn't been found guilty of anything but SUSPICION based on ASSOCIATION, that's some banana republic demagoguery nonsense designed to make right wing voters think that politicians up for re-election are "tough on China" and centrists think they're "standing up for democracy".
It's not "proactive", it's oppressive and unjustified.
Is the US unable to hold Tiktok accountable or is it/should it be allowed to dictate the ownership of Tiktok?
I was wrong, TikTok has a US subsidiary, so accountability can been enforced. I was under the mistaken impression they didn’t, so operating on the assumption that any accountability action would be functionally unenforceable.
The difference being that this is about protecting sensitive data like trade secrets, in a complex ecosystem that is impossible to fully oversee.
Many western governments have banned Huawei from 5g network components for the same reason and that is solid reasoning.
But with TikTok it is a very different story. Nobody needs to use it. People are using it voluntarily. In regards to steering people to bad content through its algorithm, it is no different from Facebook or Instagram. The argument @Viking_Hippie made is valid.
It is not about preventing foreign or private influence that his harmful to the citizens. It is about controling that influence.
It is not about preventing foreign or private influence that his harmful to the citizens. It is about controling that influence.
No, it is about preventing foreign influence on citizens. The fact that some level of control (or more accurately accountability) can be exerted by the US government on companies like Meta is true but unrelated. If ByteDance was a company in the EU we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Its worth adding, TikTok in China (it's called something else, I'm blanking) is entirely controlled on the state and there is absolutely no way that it would be permitted to host any political discussion or advocate mass action not approved by the state. Their "Hey call your congressman" stunt was the most idiotic PR move ever, because they demonstrated that this company is willing and able to leverage the userbase in the US in ways that would never be permitted in "West Taiwan".
I was with you until you childishly suggested that the rightful rulers of China are an imperial dynasty rather than the will of the people. It's like calling America West England and claiming Charles is the rightful ruler because you disagree with the Vietnam War.
But yeah china would never allow free expression on their version of tiktok but let's ban free expression because china does is a bad argument. Let's make choices based entirely on merit and circumstance.
No. But that’s not the point. America’s government allows foreign aid interests to buy land and other property in America. Should they ban all of it, even if it crashes the economy?
Damn straight they should. No foreign entity should own any American land. Same goes for Canada too, with the obvious problem being their housing crisis caused by foreign real estate investment.
The arguments in support of tick-tock are a bizarre amalgamation of just about every category of bad faith argument. I haven't seen one that suggests tick-tock it's actually a net benefit.
That's a much better argument than what's presented in this meme. There's at least an argument to claim that the difference is about curtailing foreign interest through ownership. Ownership does heavily influence a platform. Unfortunately that hasn't prevented Murdock from owning more formal messaging platforms.
On a side note, how do you feel about a handful of corporations controlling and censoring the Internet?
If there was some negative that outweighed that you'd think the bill would be banning that practice but the thing they don't like is its partially owned by Chinese companies so they're just trying to force it to be sold so it can cobtinye to operate in the exact same way but just for the benefit of an American billionaire instead.
Cocaine is something that people enjoy, same with driving drunk or drinking while pregnant. Enjoyment shouldn't factor into any policy related discussions/ decisions.
I'm not arguing for or against the app, I do not use it. Enjoyment shouldn't affect policy.
Ok, I agree there's a reasonable argument in there.
On the one side of the scale is people enjoy it. Maybe that's enough. I feel similarly about drug policies (that is, people want to use it, consequences are on them, not something that should be forced on them by the state).
I also think it's legitimate to say if there's a problem, policy should reflect that problem. The idea that it's about protecting American money is probably fair too. But those aren't really arguments in support of tick-tock. Those are arguments that others should be included if there's legislation. I would love to see something passed that actually protected privacy universally. A hope for constitutional protection there was one of the casualties of the Roe v Wade overturn.
Last thing... a nation protecting it's interests is pretty legit in terms of legislative justification. One country protecting it's industry is very common and something both countries in question do all the time. Protecting from foreign interference is a pretty standard requisite for sovereignty. If you want to criticize US for not respecting others, I think you've got plenty of evidence. That's still different than saying a county shouldn't take steps to protect themselves.
Whataboutism means nothing at this point. Risk analysis? Whataboutism. Considering consequences? Whataboutism.
"Informal" means it's not actually a fallacy. Prooooobably because people use it way outside of its definition to dismiss arguments they don't like because they have not thought through whatever they are arguing about.
Guys, have you ever been screwed by chinese seller on Aliexpress? Or missleaded by chinese ad? Lie and cheating is a part of chinese culture. So I think, that China is really a security threat.
I've had very little issues with chinese sellers personally. The two times I did they quickly resolved the issue to my satisfaction. That's more than I can say for all the times I had issues with American sellers.
Same. I've had several refunds. No request to return. Just full money back.
I don't think people recognize how often a purchase made to Amazon or some similar seller platform is actually coming straight from China; always with a 2x or more mark up.
I've taken to always searching on ali to see if I can get the same thing for 1/10 the price. They don't try to hide the shipping information like Amazon does. Where as Amazon won't report anything until it's in country and passed customs.
That's because Aliexpress refund system works good. But some time ago, several chinese seller tried to fool me in direct messaging saying "close the appelation and I'll return money to your PayPal". Also I had bad expirience with chinese software. It's always proprietary, contain bugs and rarely get fixes.
But some time ago, several chinese seller tried to fool me in direct messaging saying “close the appelation and I’ll return money to your PayPal”
I've had American sellers do the same thing on Amazon. I've had them lie about a product being new on their listing and refuse to correct the mistake only to try to bribe me to take my bad review of them down (even then their offer wasn't sufficient to fix my problem). It's not about nationality, it's just scumbags being scumbags and those come from all nations.
I have been screwed a time or two, but honestly, most of the time I've had a pretty good experience dealing with Chinese sellers. Of course that's partly because I choose who I buy from carefully, as yeah there are a lot of scanners out there. I've also been scammed by local people and I think it's important to not immediately judge people based on where they are from.
I'm pretty sure the reason there are so many scammers in china, is because of the amount of poor and desperate people there, and the fact that the situation has been like that for so long, is the reason it seems to have now been ingrained in their culture. There's a huge amount of scammers in other poor countries like india as well.
Why does AliExpress and Chinese ads signify all of Chinese culture? They have the second largest population in the world. You've chosen scams run by fractions of a percent of the population of China and decided that the entire culture is defined by lying and cheating?
This place is not only for people wanting to get away from Reddit because of their poor policies. This apparently is also a place for people who got away from reddit because they have shitty opinions that weren't tolerated even there.
Of course the island was a honeypot trap. How else did Epstein create all his compact discs with handwritten labels including: “‘Young [Name] + [Name],’