Nepal To Ban TikTok (kathmandupost.com) 40
The Nepal government has decided to impose a ban on TikTok. From a report on the local newspaper Kathmandu Post: A Cabinet meeting on Monday took the decision to ban the Chinese-owned app, citing its negative effects on social harmony. However, when the decision will be brought into force is yet to be ascertained. Although freedom of expression is a basic right, a large section of society has criticised TikTok for encouraging a tendency of hate speech, the government said. In the past four years, 1,647 cases of cyber crime have been reported on the video sharing app.
The Cyber Bureau of the Nepal Police, Ministry of Home Affairs, and representatives of TikTok discussed the issue earlier last week. Monday's decision is expected to be enforced following the completion of technical preparations. The latest decision has come within days after the government introduced the 'Directives on the Operation of Social Networking 2023.' As per the new rule, social media platforms operating in Nepal required to set up their offices in the country.
The Cyber Bureau of the Nepal Police, Ministry of Home Affairs, and representatives of TikTok discussed the issue earlier last week. Monday's decision is expected to be enforced following the completion of technical preparations. The latest decision has come within days after the government introduced the 'Directives on the Operation of Social Networking 2023.' As per the new rule, social media platforms operating in Nepal required to set up their offices in the country.
expression is a basic right (Score:2, Insightful)
you can crow about free speech all you like but once any speech is banned, there goes your basic right. you can’t have basic rights and bans.
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The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:5, Insightful)
you can crow about free speech all you like but once any speech is banned, there goes your basic right. you can’t have basic rights and bans.
"citing its negative effects on social harmony"
One could express themselves with free speech just fine for the many centuries before the brutality of a planet being capable of bullying your children anonymously from a continent away was invented.
Nepal realized this. All Common F. Sense can say to that is...good.
"Social" media is one hell of an oxymoron considering the mental health of those most addicted to it.
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Re:The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. This is the justification made by the right when banning books.
What were we saying about censorship never works?
Re:The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's not censorship when I do it" --Every free-speech absolutist
Re:The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are those on the left who feel LGBTQ+ youths should have the freedom to discover their sexuality free from reprisal by their potentially homophobic parents. The reasoning behind this belief is that there have been cases of parents abusing their LGBTQ+ children upon the discovery that they aren't straight.
The logical counterpoint to the belief that children should have autonomy to discover their own sexuality would be that parents have absolute control over their children until they reach the age of majority. The problem is though, these parents aren't satisfied with control solely over their own children, which is evidenced by their unwillingness to accept solutions such as requiring permission slips to check out books with content certain parents might find offensive. They don't want the material available, period, because they simply hate the idea of perpetuating the belief that LGBTQ+ people should be treated as equals.
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There are those on the left who feel LGBTQ+ youths should have the freedom to discover their sexuality free from reprisal by their potentially homophobic parents. The reasoning behind this belief is that there have been cases of parents abusing their LGBTQ+ children upon the discovery that they aren't straight.
I agree with this to some extent, but there have been a hell of a lot more cases of toddlers wanting to grow up to be a mermaid too, proving THAT is not the age to start discussing sexual preference. Re-define "youths" and you might actually stand a chance of having a valid point here, because the current situation of exposing that kind of thing to the very young is dead wrong. For all the same reasons we segregate the concept of children and adults.
The logical counterpoint to the belief that children should have autonomy to discover their own sexuality would be that parents have absolute control over their children until they reach the age of majority. The problem is though, these parents aren't satisfied with control solely over their own children, which is evidenced by their unwillingness to accept solutions such as requiring permission slips to check out books with content certain parents might find offensive. They don't want the material available, period, because they simply hate the idea of perpetuating the belief that LGBTQ+ people should be treated as equals.
They don't want the material available in school, which
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Ah yes. Those harmful materials such as a picture of children of different colors holding hands [yahoo.com]. Or the book about Ruby Bridges trying to attend school because it made kids uncomfortable [cnn.com] to read about the endemic racism of that time.
Clearly kids must be protected from such harmful material until they're adults. Wouldn't want them to face reality or learn about life in general.
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And yet every parent that attempts to stand up and read aloud in a school board meeting the actual content I'm talking about, is quickly silenced and hushed because it's considered lewd or offensive. To grown-ass adults.
Sorry, but your point is lost in the hardcore reality. Conservatives aren't that conservative and certainly aren't that racist.
Re:The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:5, Interesting)
"it's for the children", it's always for the children.
Perhaps. But how high does the child suicide rate due to online bullying have to get before anyone realizes that "for the children" DOES have merit? Just how bad does mental health have to get among teenagers high on legal speed? How bad does the death statistics caused by distracted driving have to get? All because of massive social media addiction that prevents a not-so-smart driver from putting down their 'smart' device for more than 30 seconds to NOT kill others? If we're not going to protect them from their own ignorance (something that adults grew to realize), then might as well get rid of all laws that differentiate children from adults. Either that or realize social media is not place for children.
Forget the children for a moment....just how bad does 'modern' dating (via app, app, or app) need to get before both men and women realize it's toxic as hell? Is a nation full of 'powerful' single depressed people addicted to excuses really all that powerful, considering the next generation barely exists? Thank fuck I'm not having to deal with that stupidity today. I feel for anyone that does.
Take a good hard look around you when in a pubic setting full of 'modern' humans next time. Not exactly a 'social' group, observing mass addiction staring at screens unwilling to use voice to communicate anymore. History is going to have one hell of a laugh over this. Don't argue with me. Argue against the factual reality instead.
Re:The ultimate oxymoron. (Score:4, Insightful)
One could express themselves with free speech just fine for the many centuries before the brutality of a planet being capable of bullying your children anonymously from a continent away was invented.
Nepal realized this. All Common F. Sense can say to that is...good.
"Social" media is one hell of an oxymoron considering the mental health of those most addicted to it.
As a child, I was bullied and beat up by bullies right nearby. But yes, today's children have it 100 times worse.
If you are fearful that your children will be traumatized by some bully in another country - prehaps you need to not allow your child on Social media, and protect them from everything, until they become adults at 50 years old. If then.
The world is what it is. there will always be adversity. In my academic environment, I've seen the results of protecting children from any and all adversity. So mommy and daddy try to protect them in college as well - and some even afterwards when they enter the workforce.
There will always be bullies. And they are in the workforce as well as other places. And we try to de-stress the adult children with non-threatening terms like "feedforward" replacing the triggering term feedback. Should I have added a trigger alert?
I'm not surprised about all this. Most of our millennials could not handle any criticism period.
Handling online bullies is a very important life skill.
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Handling online bullies is a very important life skill.
I've had to deal with bullies (both IRL and the online sort) since even before I came out as gay. Eventually you just get used to the idea that you live rent free in the heads of people who hate you simply for existing, and you realize that's their problem, not yours.
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If you are fearful that your children will be traumatized by some bully in another country - prehaps you need to not allow your child on Social media
You're not a parent, are you?
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If you are fearful that your children will be traumatized by some bully in another country - prehaps you need to not allow your child on Social media
You're not a parent, are you?
Yes, I am. I raised a son that I taught how to handle bullies. But seriously, what is your plan, hunt down and execute anyone that anyone decides is a bully, or imprison anyone that anyone else thinks is a bully? Bully those bullies!
The problem is that there are people who wholly believe that anyone that disagrees with them or offers any criticism is bullying them. And bullies are around in adult life as well.
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Nonsense. We ban a ton of speech and you're not only completely silent, you're glad for it. If you'd stop and think for just a second before copy/pasting, you'd realize this.
Re:expression is a basic right (Score:5, Insightful)
Tik Tok is not free speech. If you don't believe me, try to post a video critical of China.
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For me the China connection is the biggest problem/fear I have with TikTok. I really don't mind the "free speech" it may/may not promote. But just the specter of all the data being made available to the Chinese government makes me uneasy.
Re: expression is a basic right (Score:3)
China getting the data is not a big deal.
China controlling the algorithms that decide which users see what is a big deal when they are an adversary.
China controls what content is permitted and how it is displayed, and they ban TikTok in China. Clearly they know it is harmful. That in itself should be all we need to know to justify banning it, even without getting into all the reasons a Chinese propaganda machine is worrisome.
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The left wing activists on US college campuses would like a word with you.
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you can crow about free speech all you like but once any speech is banned, there goes your basic right. you can’t have basic rights and bans.
What we have is a bit of a conundrum though. Because some people believe that free speech means you can threaten to kill someone, and no one is permitted to respond to that in any form.
It is an issue that needs discussion, many who think that way only desire that freedom of speech for the person threatening death to others, and that others do not have the free speech to respond.
Now I don't know where you are on that spectrum, but I had an acquaintance one time, a real kook, who took it upon himself to
Re:expression is a basic right (Score:4, Insightful)
you can crow about free speech all you like but once any speech is banned, there goes your basic right. you canâ(TM)t have basic rights and bans.
That seems overly black-and-white. We ban (prohibit) various kinds of speech, for good reasons; for example, it's not ok for me to go express myself by marching up to my neighbor and saying I'm going to kill him (even if I never intended to). We judge things on a case by case basis.
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It's cute that you think you have expression on social media. You might as well be shouting into the void unless:
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It's true, but there's a huge difference between the platform you're using to disseminate your speech kind of sucking and the government yanking that platform away from you.
Ironically, even IRL we corral protestors into designated "free speech zones" where they're less likely to be a nuisance (and consequently, also less likely to be heard). How that's not considered a bona fide 1A violation is a real head scratcher if you ask me. But basically my point is that we collectively still consider it meeting th
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The US Government can't "yank" TikTok away from anyone. Worst it can do is ban the app and whether it can do that is questionable. The US Government doesn't ban websites, this isn't the PRC, so TikTok's worst case outcome in the US is to become a website instead of an app.
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The US Government doesn't ban websites.
Actually, they do. [royalstresser.com]
Nepal: Making Eye Contact Great Again (Score:4, Funny)
Full Send (Score:3)
Hard to argue with the "negative effects on social harmony" part... Why not take it a step further and just ban smartphones entirely.
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Hard to argue with the "negative effects on social harmony" part... Why not take it a step further and just ban smartphones entirely.
Exactly. The medium is the message. TikTok is just one company that has arisen to monetize the existing usage patterns and capabilities of handheld devices. Banning a single piece of software like TikTok due to disharmony, disinformation, and distorted mental health, is like an alcoholic trying to go sober by throwing out that keg of IPA, while keeping the tequila and whiskey and gin and vodka and wine and...
In related news... (Score:2)
Hate speech as "engagement" (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate speech is engagement, and engagement is good; therefore, hate speech is good, right?
This is why misinformation is tolerated in social media, but truthfully calling those who spread it "liars" is considered an uncivil, bannable offense. We've taken political correctness too far.
"social" media (Score:1)