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Senator Rand Paul Opposes TikTok Ban Push in Congress (reuters.com) 138

Republican Senator Rand Paul on Wednesday opposed efforts in Congress to ban popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, which is used by more than 150 million Americans. From a report: A small but growing number of Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns, citing free speech and other issues and have objected to legislation targeting TikTok as overly broad. Republican Senator Josh Hawley said this week he hoped to get unanimous consent for a TikTok ban bill. "Congressional Republicans have come up with a national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation: Ban a social media app called TikTok that 94 million, primarily young Americans, use," Paul said in an opinion piece published Wednesday in Louisville, Kentucky's Courier-Journal. "Before banning TikTok, these censors might want to discover that China's government already bans TikTok. Hmmm ... do we really want to emulate China's speech bans?" Paul added: "If you don't like TikTok or Facebook or YouTube, don't use them. But don't think any interpretation of the Constitution gives you the right to ban them."
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Senator Rand Paul Opposes TikTok Ban Push in Congress

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  • I am just wondering whether better sandboxing of Tik Tok and social apps would be a better option? Maybe better IP and location masking could be an option, for a specific category of apps?

    • by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @01:52PM (#63409530)

      That is a technical issue for platforms the app runs on.

      The job Congress should be doing is passing a data privacy law similar to the GPDR.

      • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:48PM (#63409952)

        GDPR probably doesn't do enough. I like the idea where data collection ends up being such a liability that recommendation algorithms themselves become useless. And to address the spying concerns in particular, add ITAR style controls, fines, criminal penalties, etc, if any person's data is transferred to any ITAR embargoed country, or any individual who isn't a US citizen (in order to guarantee accountability.) Provide big whistleblower incentives for violations of this rule.

        There, no ban necessary, nor is any kind of forced sale necessary.

        • by GargamelSpaceman ( 992546 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @04:31PM (#63410064) Homepage Journal

          Those with control over social media can with the push of a button make something go viral or stop things from spreading. They can push ideas perspectives and encourage behaviors.

          This is terrifying power in the hands of domestic social media. Allowing enemies to wield it directly is stupid.

          But this bill won't do anything because it's obviously unconstitutional and would be struck down. It allows people to posture against TikTok without actually passing a legal law.

          Privacy concerns are the least of the concerns.

          Instead of sending users to jail for speaking to foreign adversaries or attempting to get around it using VPN or TOR they could make China divest itself of TikTok or (narrowly addressing privacy concerns) they could bar foreign adversaries from collecting any more personal data than is allowed for under 13 year olds ( which is apparently possible as it's been done for a while now ). This would have the side effect of killing TikTok.

          'Foreign Adversaries' are why we can easily pirate things, and why there are search engines that haven't been captured by the woke censorship apparatus.

          But they *ARE* adversaries intent on wreaking destruction. So they need to be prevented from making money to use to build up an information warfare arsenal and armies of vulnerable lemmings that can be activated at a moments notice, or groomed to destroy society.

          Let people seek out opposing views but don't let adversaries make a dime in the US.

        • Recommendation algorithms are already useless. Never found anything useful in them. Often they waste screen space that can be used for good stuff.

        • GDPR probably doesn't do enough. I like the idea where data collection ends up being such a liability that recommendation algorithms themselves become useless.

          It's not just data collection, it's the power to sway elections.

          Of course only a Chinese company would do that. A square-jawed American company never would. Nope. Definitely not. It's unthinkable.

          It's not either-or though. We can still ban the data collection. Society doesn't need "targeted advertising" so badly that we should let assholes track everything everybody ever does.

          (it would be worth it just to get rid of all the "we respect your privacy" notices...)

          • by mysidia ( 191772 )

            It's not just data collection, it's the power to sway elections.

            What this amounts to is some fear that the people will be persuaded by speech to change their voting patterns. Changing peoples' opinions is Not interference with elections - that is how Free speech is designed to work. It is Not elections interference, until and unless you are talking about someone making a co-ordinated effort to prevent elections from being taken place, Or disrupt the process of counting votes or implementing res

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          GDPR probably doesn't do enough. I like the idea...

          The GPDR does plenty. And adopting the same rules would be much more highly beneficial than targetting one large company.

          Remember the data Soverignty requirements within the GPDR?

      • The solutions here are both technical and regulatory. Neither one will fully address the issues on their own.

        I agree we need to have something like GDPR and better transparency on what data is being collected. At the same time we need to encourage our phone manufacturers to make it harder to collect some of this data.

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          At the same time we need to encourage our phone manufacturers to make it harder to collect some of this data.

          Oh. For sure.. but by the same token it's not really for the Congress to try to address weaknesses in technical designs themself.

          Apple/Android especially already put forth significant obstacles in the form of app permissions - and Approval of apps for their platforms.

          I'm pretty sure they would go rest of the way if the Laws would enable and empower them to do so.

          What I'm talking about here is: Ci

          • Apple/Android especially already put forth significant obstacles in the form of app permissions

            Can't speak for Apple, but Android has a built-in end-run around restrictions thanks to Play Services.

            • by mysidia ( 191772 )

              This is just for Google's own apps, isn't it?

              Obviously system software can technically circumvent App restrictions.

              In this particular manner.. technically Google seems like a bigger threat than TikTok. That's just even more reason for a stronger federal privacy rule.

    • by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      The problem is the phone manufacturers, 100%.
      But data collection is a value based business that generates fake money for companies, allows the government to get around the 4th amendment, and other things that benefit everyone else but the people.
    • by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @02:07PM (#63409574)

      I will be so impolite as to paste my comment from down below here. This is serious and needs to be in top, as nobody commenting here so far has shown a knowledge of what the bill is actually about.

      Rossmann has a couple of videos out on this. While he is quite restrained in his choice of words, I will not be so. The bill has nothing to do with TikTok. It's an extremely broad bill of pure evil. The government will command a right to know and decide everything you do on your devices. If you even try as to not obey, they will take your stuff and put you away for 20 years. Any methods of public oversight into what will be going on, like FOIA, are written out of the bill. To say that there is opportunity for abuse here would be an epic understatement. There is nothing else but abuse in the bill, unrestrained. If you let this pass, there will be no turning back for the country.

      • by ThurstonMoore ( 605470 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:04PM (#63409784)

        What is Rossmann? The German drug store chain? That's what I get when I search the name on Google.

      • by thomn8r ( 635504 )

        The bill has nothing to do with TikTok. It's an extremely broad bill of pure evil. The government will command a right to know and decide everything you do on your devices. If you even try as to not obey, they will take your stuff and put you away for 20 years. Any methods of public oversight into what will be going on, like FOIA, are written out of the bill. To say that there is opportunity for abuse here would be an epic understatement. There is nothing else but abuse in the bill, unrestrained. If you let this pass, there will be no turning back for the country.

        Citation(s) needed.

      • Huh. I had no idea. But I've learned when Rand Paul says something opposite of what I think, I should listen. Your post confirms it.

      • FOIA requests will be denied, and there is a line in there about "no congressional or judicial oversight". This bill is absolutely CHILLING in what it attempts to do. This is about the US giving the president MASSIVE no-oversight powers that could be used for destroying just about anything on the internet. The only recourse would be a direct-to-supreme court case.

        This bill MUST be defeated or we will suffer the consequences for decades to come. This has almost NOTHING to do with TikTok and everythin

    • by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:09PM (#63409806) Journal

      I am just wondering whether better sandboxing of Tik Tok and social apps would be a better option? Maybe better IP and location masking could be an option, for a specific category of apps?

      TikTok is basically a widespread, sophisticated data gathering app for Red China. You may as well call it an intelligence operation, because in the end, that's what they're looking for. There's really no way to fix that with technical policies. You either live with it, or ban it.

    • by x0ra ( 1249540 )
      You making the wrong assumption, the goal is not to go after TT, the goal is to sneak in a power-grab bills.
    • by snowshovelboy ( 242280 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:40PM (#63409920)

      Better option would be making in-app browsers illegal. I could really care less about getting data about what videos I watch, but tiktok has an in-app browser so it technically possible for it to add password scraping to a phishing attack that sends you to a legitimate website, and you'd never know.

    • I am just wondering whether better sandboxing of Tik Tok and social apps would be a better option? Maybe better IP and location masking could be an option, for a specific category of apps?

      How do you sandbox a social media app? The whole point is to communicate between apps and servers. One could block messages among the apps and servers, but that unavoidably cripples the entire system. The goal is to ensure that the required social media communications is not sent to China, but there are only two ways to do that: (1) Block communications and effectively kill the app or (2) ensure the required non-compromised operation of the software. The latter is impossible because (1) asking TikTok t

      • It really comes down to what data is being collected and what way. For example IP address, which can give a general location, GPS data that can give specific location. I rarely use Tik Tok, so I don’t know what information it is collecting outside of my in session activities. I am now tempted to see if anyone has done a proper investigation?

        The location data can tip off certain actors on where said person is.

        BTW business owned phones could probably include VPNs, to mask some of this data, along with r

  • Amazing. (Score:4, Funny)

    by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @01:50PM (#63409520) Homepage Journal

    Blind squirrel:nut::Rand Paul:sanity

    It happened

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Paul added: "If you don't like TikTok or Facebook or YouTube, don't use them. But don't think any interpretation of the Constitution gives you the right to ban them."

      Wish he will extend this to abortion rights too.

      • Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Zak3056 ( 69287 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @02:44PM (#63409728) Journal

        I think that you'll find that most libertarians (as Paul is) have difficulty here because of the balance between "autonomy over one's body" vs "ending a life."

        The "life begins at conception" crowd are in an untenable position--but then again, so are the "abortion up until birth" crowd. I'm nominally conservative and pro-life, but I think there is absolutely a place for "abortion" as "health care"--health of the mother, concerns about the viability of the pregnancy, etc certainly fall into this realm. As "emergency birth control" I'm generally opposed, but even then, there is surely a place where "clump of cells" turns into "unborn baby" prior to birth, and reasonable people can debate when that happens... but abortion needs to be firmly on the left side of wherever that line on the axis appears. Killing someone in the name of convenience isn't ok.

        • Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @04:19PM (#63410044) Journal

          so are the "abortion up until birth" crowd.

          I hear there are a lot of straw men arguing vociferously for abortion up to birth.

          • Some of us are in favour of abortion well after birth...

            "Sorry Adolf, your mom has decided to have an abortion now.."

            • by nagora ( 177841 )

              Some of us are in favour of abortion well after birth...

              Many US states do in fact allow legal abortion after birth.

              • As long as it is done is done by law abiding men exercising their second amendment rights. Even the mass school shooter was law abiding till the first toddler is killed, and has full secondment rights upto that second. Remember that child too has second amendment rights, and should have been armed for self defense. We dont want a nanny state trampling on the rights of men, when the simple solution, consitutional solution is to arm the toddler.
          • There are highly respected people arguing for infanticide: https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-l... [aeon.co]

            I don't think it's a common opinion, but it does exist.
        • Woman has absolute authority in that decision in the first trimester. Next trimester need some justification to get an abortion. Last trimester abortion must have super serious reason.

          "But people mention abortion-till-birth in unreasonable, so let us ban even contraceptive pills that could be abortifacient. " argument gets votes, so the politicians are pushing it. Now it might actually be losing votes. In the ballot initiatives and 2022 were the indicators, you would see lots of Republicans run away from

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          there is surely a place where "clump of cells" turns into "unborn baby" prior to birth

          Biologically speaking, there is no. It's a continuous change without discrete stages. Things like consciousness are difficult to measure in the womb, but certainly don't begin on a particular day. Even plants react to damage, which could be interpreted as pain.

          If you want to reduce the number of abortions, education and availability of contraception is key.

          As for killing someone for "convenience", here's an interesting thought experiment for you. Imagine you were in a car accident. You wake up in a hospital

          • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

            Biologically speaking, there is no.

            Horseshit.

            It's a continuous change without discrete stages. Things like consciousness are difficult to measure in the womb, but certainly don't begin on a particular day.

            To the first part, sure. To the second part, also, sure. This does not invalidate what I said: at some point, regardless of where that point is, we have gone from "clump of cells" to "unborn baby." I didn't offer any specific point in my post, and I acknowledged that reasonable people can disagree where that point is. Historically, in the abortion debate (at least in the US) we have drawn that line, at least legally, at "viability."

            If you want to reduce the number of abortions, education and availability of contraception is key.

            I never suggested otherwise. Surely, my reference to abortion a

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Here's another example. Your distant ancestor was a fish. At some point between him and you, your ancestors evolved into humans. Was there a definite point at which you could say a particular individual was a human, and their parents were not? No, it was a continuous process.

              By the way, it wasn't a rape analogy. It was an unintentional pregnancy anecdote. Hence the accident.

              • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                Your distant ancestor was a fish. At some point between him and you, your ancestors evolved into humans. Was there a definite point at which you could say a particular individual was a human, and their parents were not? No, it was a continuous process.

                This, again, does not invalidate what I said. The line may be "fuzzy" but it exists. I can point at you and say "you are a human" and I can point at your 10^6 great grandparent and say "they were not human" and realize that the start of "human" exists somewhere in that range. Maybe it's around 10^4. Maybe it's around 10^5. But somewhere in there, there is a point where you can definitely, unequivocally say $ANCESTOR was a human.

                There is a point at which you can say "this is an unborn baby" rather than "

    • Nah. The check cleared.

      His only care is remaining in power.

  • by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @02:04PM (#63409560)
    Rossmann has a couple of videos out on this. While he is quite restrained in his choice of words, I will not be so. The bill has nothing to do with TikTok. It's an extremely broad bill of pure evil. The government will command a right to know and decide everything you do on your devices. If you even try as to not obey, they will take your stuff and put you away for 20 years. Any methods of public oversight into what will be going on, like FOIA, are written out of the bill. To say that there is opportunity for abuse here would be an epic understatement. There is nothing else but abuse in the bill, unrestrained. If you let this pass, there will be no turning back for the country.
    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      The bill has nothing to do with TikTok. It's an extremely broad bill of pure evil. The government will command a right to know and decide everything you do on your devices.

      Pretty much this. Think Patriot act but for Internet. I would rather take my chances with Chinese brainwashing.

      • The thing with Chinese brainwashing... You can actually find examples of it here and there. It's cringe. The most obvious, awkward and futile attempts that sound like they were written by children against their own will. It's not just that the Chinese lack the experience in building public consensus without the threat of physical force. It's also that they lack enough competence in Western culture to create something that could actually get some traction here. Compare that to the Three-Body series for examp

        • by sinij ( 911942 )
          I think using LLM AI will enable almost anyone to get around cultural barriers. So we shouldn't underestimate Chinese brainwashing attempts. More so, algorithmic attacks, such as promoting videos of suicides to teenagers in Western countries, does not require deep cultural understanding.

          Still, all of that is the lesser evil.
    • by presidenteloco ( 659168 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @05:22PM (#63410172)
      I've read the bill, and its anti-circumvention clauses do seem to imply that offering or using a VPN or other means of attempting to circumvent a restriction on use of a restricted app or service could get you in the slammer for up to 20 years, or fined up to $1,000,000.

      So there's that.
  • "Congressional Republicans have come up with a national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation: Ban a social media app called TikTok that 94 million, primarily young Americans, use," Paul said in an opinion piece published Wednesday in Louisville, Kentucky's Courier-Journal.

    If there was ever a statement that an elected official’s only interest is in themselves, this is it.

    "Before banning TikTok, these censors might want to discover that China's government already bans TikTok. Hmmm ... do we really want to emulate China's speech bans?"

    So even China knows it needs to go. What does this guy use for brains??

  • If the servers aren't under your control, the data isn't under your control. We've had at least a decade of watching social media used to wage agitprop-based warfare on the West, having any social media that isn't subject to the government of a Western government is a bad idea.

    Hell, the home-grown / hosted stuff is already dangerously unregulated, because looking the other way for the people stirring shit up is more profitable than selling user data to advertisers and nobody seems to care much about that

  • A small but growing number of Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns, citing free speech and other issues and have objected to legislation targeting TikTok as overly broad.

    A small but growing number of Democrats and Republicans have received large campaign contributions from donors raising concerns, citing free speech and other issues and have objected to legislation targeting TikTok as overly broad.

  • Well (Score:2, Informative)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 )

    He's also a fucking idiot ghoul so what does it matter what he thinks

    • Honestly? It matters because he is a US Senator.

      He gets a vote that counts -while the rest of us do not.

      With a single word he can stop legislation in it's tracks: "Filibuster"

      He has power.

  • by NewOrder ( 103784 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:14PM (#63409818) Homepage Journal

    See this guys post. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]

    This is more than Tik-Cok, this is Patriot Act version 2.0, with more infringement, where a VPN connection can get your 20 years and a $1m fine.,

    • by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @04:47PM (#63410114)

      Exactly!!! This is so much worse then the Patriot Act, and that was pretty terrible. I remember doing a bunch of research on it for a speech I gave on it in my public speaking course. Sadly, I doubt a single person in the class gave two shits about what I was saying.

      While it doesn't really matter what any one of us thinks, you really should read the bill. https://www.congress.gov/bill/... [congress.gov]

      It's horribly broad and not good for America.

    • Its important we stop referring to this as a TikTok bill. I admit, I fell for that trap, and generally ignored this because who the fuck cares. Then I saw a great summary of this on Reddit, and holy shit this bill MUST be stopped. There are provisions to disallow any FOIA requests, remove judicial and committee/congressional oversight! I dont care what else is in the bill, any bill that says that is up to NO good.

      The VPN issue has been mentioned before, but this also gives whoever the President is u

  • by Your Anus ( 308149 ) on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @03:33PM (#63409892) Journal
    And SCROTUS will genuflect
  • Translation: Rand Paul is taking money from TikTok
  • Let's make sure our elected representatives' priorities are straight.

    They want to ban a phone app that they can't prove does anything negative beyond creating hyper-localized noise pollution and wasting users' time, but are vehemently opposed to banning rifles that are designed with the express purpose of causing maximum trauma to the human body, and get used in basically every mass shooting of the last 3+ years.

    Seems about right.

  • I put out the idea that the government banning apps, is effectively censorship when I first heard about trends toward censorship.

    Finally it seems some people are beginning to get a clue.

  • Section 12: Judicial Review
    (b) Administrative and judicial review.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, actions taken by the President and the Secretary, and the findings of the President and the Secretary, under this Act shall not be subject to administrative review or judicial review in any Federal court, except as otherwise provided in this section. Actions taken by the Secretary under this Act shall not be subject to sections 551, 553 through 559, and 701 through 707 of title 5, United Sta

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