US House Passes Bill To Force ByteDance To Divest TikTok or Face Ban (reuters.com) 233
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Wednesday that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app used by about 170 million Americans or face a ban. From a report: The bill passed 352-65, with bipartisan support, but it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate where some favor a different approach to regulating foreign-owned apps that could pose security concerns. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not indicated how he plans to proceed.
TikTok's fate has become a major issue in Washington. Democratic and Republican lawmakers said their offices had received large volumes of calls from teenaged TikTok users who oppose the legislation, with the volume of complaints at times exceeding the number of calls seeking a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The measure is also the latest in a series of moves in Washington to respond to U.S. national security concerns about China, from connected vehicles to advanced artificial intelligence chips to cranes at U.S. ports. The vote comes just over a week since the bill was proposed following one public hearing with little debate, and after action in Congress had stalled for more than a year. Last month, President Joe Biden's re-election campaign joined TikTok, raising hopes among TikTok officials that legislation was unlikely this year.
TikTok's fate has become a major issue in Washington. Democratic and Republican lawmakers said their offices had received large volumes of calls from teenaged TikTok users who oppose the legislation, with the volume of complaints at times exceeding the number of calls seeking a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The measure is also the latest in a series of moves in Washington to respond to U.S. national security concerns about China, from connected vehicles to advanced artificial intelligence chips to cranes at U.S. ports. The vote comes just over a week since the bill was proposed following one public hearing with little debate, and after action in Congress had stalled for more than a year. Last month, President Joe Biden's re-election campaign joined TikTok, raising hopes among TikTok officials that legislation was unlikely this year.
This Is The Straw? (Score:3, Interesting)
That broke the camel's back? So putting all of our manufacturing out of work so China could make all of our crap so some fat fucks could make a profit and now some video hosting channel is what pisses you off?
Mother fuck this government.
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Ah, the old "we can't do one thing so we shouldn't do anything" argument. Fuck off, CCP shill.
Re: This Is The Straw? (Score:3)
I don't think banning tiktok is the solution.
I think forcing major phone OSes to have granular permission controls, and possibly banning/regulating what permissions high risk apps can have, is the solution.
US could ban tiktok from having location access. Or force transparency on telemetry and location collection. Or any number of privacy protections that protect users from all apps, including Instagram.
Banning a communication platform outright, well, I agree that Instagram is the US government preference fo
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It's not a ban, it's a forced sale from Chinese nationals to American citizens.
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It's not a ban, it's a forced sale from Chinese nationals to American citizens.
And how would you feel if China did the same thing to Elon Musk with Tesla's Chinese division? That's a nice electric car company you have there in China, pity if something happened to it...
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China famously have just chosen to copy cars that were manufactured there. If you want your IP stolen and used for China's purposes having them manufacture anything is the way to do it. Corporate America still hasn't learned this lesson even though Top Gear even did an episode about it more than a decade ago. Showing off the Chinese version of a BMW X5 and several other cars they straight up copied.
The TPP with all of its flaws was the only real way to address it, when you create competition in countries t
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When the GOP (and sometime alternately the Dems) block any serious legislation, what are you supposed to do?
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Vote.
That's what you're supposed to be doing all along. As of late, not real sure
Re:This Is The Straw? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fucking. Vote.
Like that matters. Have you seen our options this election? Its the same idiots as last time.
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Early and often, if you're a Democrat. :D
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Then Florida decide I wasn't allowed to be in that party. So now they put me in NPA.
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Then vote for the least stupid! Abdicating from elections also means giving up any credibility when complaining about the result. The voting turnout is always small, so the results _can_ change tremendously if a demographic decides to wake up. Right now, the elderly are the most likely to vote which gives them an outsized influence compared to the twenty-somethings.
Trump who was very opposed to tiktok is now against the ban (Bill can loan him his pair of flip-flops). Possibly advisors told Trump that a
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When the GOP (and sometime alternately the Dems) block any serious legislation, what are you supposed to do?
Send the whole lot of them home on a paid vacation. They'd do less damage that way. The fact that the most pressing thing on their current agenda is banning a social media app for the crime of being Chinese truly brings to mind that old joke: If "con" is the opposite of "pro", then what's the opposite of progress?
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Blah blah blah restating the same stupid argument doesn't make it a better one.
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Blah blah blah restating the same stupid argument doesn't make it a better one.
We get it, you hate TikTok. Uninstall the app or learn to use the parental controls on your kid's phone.
Re:This Is The Straw? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this suprising? Politicians want their pound of flesh. Because there's no money for them in TikTok, what is valuable to them is the generation of alarm and angst. Fearmongering. If you can't extract dollars, extract political value.
I don't give a good god damn about TikTok. I've never looked at it. I have no dog in the race. But none of this surprises me in the least.
When I look at the vast array of things I trust my life to daily that are of Chinese origin, TikTok concerns me not at all.
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I don't give a good god damn about TikTok. I've never looked at it. I have no dog in the race.
I downloaded the app back when the former president wanted to ban it. If you don't like short format videos on any other platform that is or has done them in the past, TikTok isn't really any better. I've personally never been a fan of shot format videos.
Even though it's not my cup of tea, I strongly oppose a ban on the principle that it amounts to a deplatforming of their entire US user base, which is a lot of Americans having their free speech rights being stifled. Yes, they can technically move on to
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Even though I think the alleged threat is way overblown (what, exactly, would the Chinese government do with all the data that Johnny watches videos on underwater checkers matches), I don't buy the 1st amendment argument since, as you noted, there are alternatives.
Few rights are absolute. For example, just because the 2nd amendment says you can bear arms (
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I don't buy the 1st amendment argument since, as you noted, there are alternatives.
And if all social media platforms were all equivalent, as I said before, Musk wouldn't have needed to purchase Twitter. It demonstrates that being on a specific platform does have a perceived value to which an actual dollar amount can be attached.
It's like if the government seized your house and in return gave you a pop-up camper. It's technically still something you can live in, but it's nowhere near equivalent in value or function.
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are you saying we should do nothing
No, you take reasonable precautions, such as not allowing the app to be used by government workers and government subcontractors while they're on the clock, and obviously not allowing it to be installed on any government-owned hardware.
For the general public, there's always good old fashioned public education campaigns to let people know the risks and decide for themselves. That's how freedom is supposed to work.
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Johnny visited hookers, just clicked through the location data permission and is in congress.
Re:This Is The Straw? (Score:4, Insightful)
"...which is a lot of Americans having their free speech rights being stifled."
I don't think Americans really care all that much about freedom of speech. Near as I can tell, most of them believe that you are free to your speech, provided your speech is in agreement with their views. Otherwise, not so much.
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"Potential harms", as in like when parents don't actually do their job and allow their kids to spend every waking moment on social media?
If you think a few teens exit bagging themselves because they can't handle social media is a major issue worthy of a ban by Congress, just wait until you hear how many people cars kill every year...
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The bigger question is what will happen if Bytedance refuse. Banning Tiktok will lose Biden votes just ahead of the election.
There are many legal blocks too. From the article:
"It is unclear whether China would approve any sale or if TikTok's U.S. assets could be divested in six months.
If ByteDance failed to do so, app stores operated by Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google and others could not legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled
Re: This Is The Straw? (Score:5, Insightful)
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This. Whilst TikTok has done nothing particularly suspicious yet, it could, literally any day from now. All the main social media platforms are far too powerful to be left in the hands of enemy powers, private individuals or even corporations. Individual govts shouldn't be able to control them either.
You can set up independent bodies. Most countries have an independent judiciary. Govts do try to interfere from time to time, but if you make the members of that body able to complain about it, it can limi
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You think our government is bad. Try using google or FB in china. You canÃ(TM)t because æ. They are banned.
No Facebook? No Google??? Sir, are you describing China or are you describing Hell?
BTW, if you really want your mind blown, try using Slashdot in the USA. They cannot even process unicode.
To be fair, this only affects iPhone and iPad users. It is not like anyone actually uses those devices.
Trying using their search platforms and enter democracy. Nothing shows up
Kinda of makes s
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Manufacturing is a different animal and much easier to police. TikTok is probably spying on the american public AND our government at the same time. They are spying with active data collection techniques as well as negative information spying. The negative spying is the really interesting methods they are using. They are aware that government devices are not allowed to have TikTok installed and via comparing aggregate location data from thousands or hundreds of thousands of devices, they can pick out places
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if this service were done by Google
Google does have a TikTok competitor, it's called YouTube Shorts. It consists mostly of content reposted from TikTok.
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Try sucking Xi's dick directly. I hear it tastes like honey.
Teenagers (Score:5, Insightful)
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I get that *you* don't think you do anything worth spying on, but there's been lots of cases of young people in the armed forces or national security jobs using apps like this while on duty or at work.
So don't let those people use TikTok, problem solved. The rest of us who have no plans to visit China have nothing to worry about. Hell, there are still countries that would put me to death for visiting them because I'm gay. You know what I do about that? I keep my fat happy American self here in the good ol' USA, that's what.
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If you think that's funny you must've missed the Log Cabin Republicans being banned from a GOP convention. [vice.com] If anything it just proves that voting for candidates and/or supporting causes which are against your own best interests aren't exclusively heterosexual traits.
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completely under the control of a hostile nation's government
Since when is China a 'hostile nation'? What did/does it do that makes it hostile? It's not at war with the US. OK, it's not a democracy, and it does some pretty horrible things to its people, but does it mean every non-democracy is considered a 'hostile nation'? Why is Saudi Arabia not a hostile nation then? Or one of the Central Asian dictatorships? Soviet Union during the Cold War could be considered a 'hostile nation' but that would be because of clashing ideologies. China isn't even communist, not in r
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Since Taiwan is a defacto ally.
The One China policy was always appeasement, not honesty.
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Also, they're illicitly insinuating themselves into territorial wasters around the Spratly islands that belong to the Philippines (An actual, not de facto, ally.) and Vietnam (I'm not sure if that can actually be called an ally yet. But they've been getting nothing but friendlier, especially in the last decade or so.). Hell, a while back, they mounted an actual (land) invasion and war against Vietnam (And were repelled even more quickly than we were... but still.). They're also trying to muscle in on Jap
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Teenagers fail to lobby. Seniors are more or less all on board with lobbying. AARP, anyone? This is why seniors are never threatened, and the Ponzi scheme of Social Security is sacrosanct.
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Interesting that teenagers are calling Congress. Most teenagers can't vote, but they certainly have a valid opinion even if we think it is wrong. (Strangely, senior citizens are allowed to vote.)
I am surprised those teenagers could even figure out how to dial a phone since TikTok, FB, IG, (and whatever else) and TXT messages are so prevalent in that age group.
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Two presidential terms is enough time for a 10-year-old to legally be old enough to vote. It goes faster than you think.
What happened to (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump’s deal with Oracle and Walmart? https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/... [cnbc.com]
Sounds like (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah - this isn't a bill of attainder (Score:2)
A bill of attainder is the confiscation of the assets of a person - which may include their life(!) - for the benefit of the state. This merely require the divestment of a foreigners' assets, and remember that foreigners have no rights under the constitution, at full value.
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A bill of attainder is the confiscation of the assets of a person - which may include their life(!) - for the benefit of the state. This merely require the divestment of a foreigners' assets, and remember that foreigners have no rights under the constitution, at full value.
Right, and more to the point, TikTok is not being banned under this legislation. For what it's worth, I think the cat is already out of the bag, so this law won't really fix what is a much larger problem. What the US needs is something more like GDPR, but is actually possible to comply with in the modern world.
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A bill of attainder is the confiscation of the assets of a person - which may include their life(!) - for the benefit of the state. This merely require the divestment of a foreigners' assets, and remember that foreigners have no rights under the constitution, at full value.
Right, and more to the point, TikTok is not being banned under this legislation. For what it's worth, I think the cat is already out of the bag, so this law won't really fix what is a much larger problem. What the US needs is something more like GDPR, but is actually impossible to comply with in the modern world.
FTFY
Re:Nah - this isn't a bill of attainder (Score:5, Informative)
Person you replied to is correct, and you are wrong.
This is defined through ~160 years of SCOTUS precedent, most recently in Selective Service Sys. v. MPIRG.
On top of that, foreign nationals are in fact afforded constitutional protections when dealt with in US jurisdictions.
Also supported by almost 100 years of SCOTUS precedent.
Can I ask a question? How did you (mis)learn these things?
It seems to me that a lot of today's problems are due to the absolutely terrible civics educations people like you have.
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The issue about the definition of a bill of attainder is that is a punishment. Being required to ensure onshore ownership is by no means inevitably a punishment.
The reality of foreigners not being fully eligible for rights under the US constitution is most obviously seen in the persistence of Guantanamo Bay. The fact that people are being held there without trial for decades only works because the courts are, in practice, refusing to grant them their human rights. At a more trivial level, the fact that fore
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Every significant press entity in the world is multinationally owned.
If Congress can pass a law to ban the distribution of their news, then Congress has in fact abridged the freedom of speech, and the press.
Presidents have gotten away with this under the "national security" umbrella, in times of war, but for Congress- it's literally specifically verboten.
I'm curious why you even asked this. My comment was about bills of attainder, and constitutional protections for foreign national
Privacy Theatre (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there anything in USA law that would keep a USA-owned company that became the new owner of TikTok from selling the same data that USA legislators seem so concerned about to data brokers that would then resell it to Chinese-owned data consumers? I think not. Do USA-owned companies have a record of preventing harms to USA consumers in service of foreign governments? Again, no. To me, it seems like this legislation is all about creating the appearance of protecting USA interests without materially doing so.
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To me, it seems like this legislation is all about creating the appearance of protecting USA interests without materially doing so.
I think it's about even less than that.
The people these folks are pandering to want points scored. They're not looking for protection.
Re:Privacy Theatre (Score:4, Interesting)
As much as anything this bill is about only allowing major apps that the PTB can control. Google, Farcebook, Bing, Twitter, etc. are all heavily staffed with veterans of the intel agencies, and their algorithms present the items that you're supposed to see. Our competitive 'free press' has become the 'corporate media', 6 companies staffed and managed by and for the offspring of the rich and powerful who manage the narrative of what we're supposed to think the world is like.
Tik Tok has done an end run around this model with a much more freewheeling set of algorithms which reflect more towards the origins of the Internet than its modern incarnation. I certainly don't think it will last, but it's interesting to view the panic in the movers and shakers at an information source that they can't manage or outright control. That's what the fuss is about, not the selling of data. For example Biden's approval among young liberal voters went into free fall when vids began to pour out of Gaza, (Abundant examples are available pissing off the right wing, as well.) Kids in Africa and India are creating videos that show their homes aren't the hopeless criminal hell holes we're supposed to believe, and people are starting to have empathy for (gasp!) foreigners. Most dangerous, viewers are being exposed to news sources from other countries that they would never have found otherwise, sources the PTB can't control.
Banning Tik Tok will be the largest act of censorship in our history, and it's being done almost without debate because they all KNOW why Tik Tok is dangerous to their hold on power.
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Oh, cripes, you don't think they already have that data? For that matter I'm sure the alphabet soup of 3-letter US intel agencies also do. The telephony companies sell all that data 24/7/365, there's really no ability to use a cell phone and stay anonymous unless you're changing phones constantly (and even that's of marginal utility). It just depends on how much effort someone is willing to go to to drill down to the data.
Re:Privacy Theatre (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there anything in USA law that would keep a USA-owned company that became the new owner of TikTok from selling the same data that USA legislators seem so concerned about to data brokers that would then resell it to Chinese-owned data consumers?
Actually, yes. The FTC can prevent companies from selling certain types of information.
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
This measure in question doesn't do nearly enough to protect citizens but it is better than nothing at all.
No it isn't (Score:2, Troll)
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why not go after all social media (Score:3)
Why just single out TIKTOK, when their practices aren't very different from any other social media company? To me, it seems lobbying from facebook, X, google, and the rest are probably a greater factor in this. Using government to snuff out a competitor.
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That's the official press on the bill. US Laws don't name specific corporations. They describe the pattern of behavior and outlaw that.
I believe there's a lot of case law regarding a principle of neutrality with regard to individual people or corporations but I'm not a lawyer and I can't seem to craft the right Google search.
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The bill mentions TikTok and ByteDance in the preamble as examples. This bill is still not specific to TikTok. While the initial impact is certainly geared towards TikTok, this legislation would also ban any similar future apps that fall into the same category of 20% ownership in a foreign adversary country.
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Short titles are just nicknames so that's not really a thing. But this version was introduced to the house and hasn't had any changes made. They might even include wording they know they'll have to change just to make it more provocative and get more press. But it won't be what actually passes. And even if it did, it's highly unlikely to stand.
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Why just single out TIKTOK, when their practices aren't very different from any other social media company?
Because it's owned and controlled by a foreign nation that is hostile to the US. This makes it a national security threat to the US.
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That could be a claim of any non US based app. This is really just following the lead of China. If you don't like something that competes with the interests of companies in your country, just ban it or block it.
I've been in China recently, and there is no overt hostility toward the US. It is pretty obvious that they think our president is weak. While I was there Biden gave some speech that got headlines in china of "Biden forgets everything, Again!", but outside of that, nothing stands out as hostile for y
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how is this any different from selling all your data to anyone and everyone willing to pay for it?
isn't this what every other one is doing?
I'm not advocating TIKTOK, I'm saying they all have similar issues. Rather than honing in on TIKTOK, the issue of user data where it's stored and how it's handled should be addressed.
if you'd ever been on TIKTOK, you'd reallize that most of the content is identical to what you see on youtube, facebook, X, and I'm sure plenty of other platforms. The exact same videos.
This
US ought to have a reciprocity requirement (Score:5, Interesting)
If a foreign company wants to do business in the US then US companies should be able to do equivalent business in that foreign country.
Google and Facebook are banned in China.
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that isn't a bad idea, though the US leads in some areas like AI, probably a few other areas too.
China already has most US based AI sites blocked, along with social media, including TIKTOK.
having a reciprocity agreement, might be good for some things though.
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They are banned because they don't comply with the law. Google and Facebook has to censor in China and they don't want to. What laws is Tiktok breaking in the US?
I mean, I think it's pretty clear that they're working on the answer to that as we speak.
Opinion (Score:3)
Wrong approach (Score:2)
Where are the millions in funding for psychological resiliance training? Media literacy? Scientific investigation on how these services impact the brain (especially developing ones!)?
And the "our children's eyeballs are/could be indirectly being bombarded by the Comunist Party of China!!!" argument is silly. Russian (and chinese) propaganada has more tha
Apple is Allowed to Make Computers in China (Score:2)
Probably most other computer manufacturers as well.
Is China bad or not?
Or is TikTok failing to bribe the right people?
Absolute utter madness and hypocracy (Score:3)
Re:Worthless Twitter Government (Score:4)
So, because you have an issue with a House vote, you have decided that mere death is too good for them, eh? Have you investigated anger management classes, I think they could help you.
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Republicans suddenly liking government regulation because people on tiktok call them names.
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True. And bringing the ownership over to the US ticks their boxes too.
Re:But the Biden-dance (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Biden is on record as willing to sign legislation that severed Tik-Tok from ByteDance. Please try to keep up, I know it is hard reading news stories but we even print them in English for people like you.
And now that Tik-Tok has had its Streisand Moment, they'll be even more popular amongst teenagers with adolescent angst to exchange. The Chinese are salivating at the thought....oh, the humanity!!
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I really hate the slippery slope on free speech but it's bizarre that both Trump and Biden agree on a ban. It's like there's something classified that they know and we don't and they instead have different "reasons" for a ban. I feel like going public with whatever that is and all the fallout would be less damaging than legislation like this.
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I really hate the slippery slope on free speech but it's bizarre that both Trump and Biden agree on a ban.
Actually, Trump flipped positions on it after he lost his bid for reelection. His reasoning is that he feels a ban would benefit Facebook too much.
It's not often this happens, but I agree with him on that.
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As an AC said, the kids like TikTok and they mostly vote liberal.
It is also a genuine risk. It's like letting the CCP control PBS.
Re:But the Biden-dance (Score:4, Interesting)
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When you don't have a witty comeback, nor a rational rebuttal, but you don't want to lose your democrat national socialist party card.
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You can post your dumb videos any other platforms, nothing stopping you.
And Truth Social is just as good as X, right? Heck, a Raspberry Pi connected to your home broadband is just as good as AWS, so who needs that either - all speech is magically equal on the internet!
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Put down the phone, and go ride a bike and/or run.
Sorry, when speaking ill of modern trends you must answer in the form of an Oompa Loompa song. [pastebin.com]
Re: But the Biden-dance (Score:2, Insightful)
Overton window (Score:2)
You're absolutely right and that's cleary terrible, partisan moderation.
Universities generally aren't MAGA people, and the more the GOP swing to the far right, I don't know where you put the centre any more. You shoudn't be able to claim the powers of an emperor & talk about the pollution of 'white bloodlines' and have that move the Overton window.
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People can have opinions, but now it seems to have been normalized to falsify facts. For example OP strawmans Harvard into an enemy he can argue against, this "far-left" Harvard crowd..when in reality, they're m
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Slashdot has an aging userbase (all the Zoomers are over on Reddit) and with advancing age usually comes a desire to not have your boat rocked. It's not surprising there's been a bit of a shift to the right.
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There was a time a few years ago when the right dominated /. Any sane left-wing comment was incredibly likely to be modded down. I wrote to the owners to sort it out, not expecting anything to come of it. I probably wasn't the only one but 6 months later when I checked back, the balance was restored.
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Yeah, cuz "Trumptards," "Trumpsters," "far right," and "Nazi" are totally unheard of around here.
Blah, blah blah.
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I label things "far right," too. Depends on which brand of idiocy you espouse.
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Re:But the Biden-dance (Score:4, Informative)
A university sitting on billions of dollars that churns out plenty of lawyers and republican politicians can hardly be leftist.
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You are delusional if you think Harvard churns out a lot of Republicans.
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I doubt ByteDance invented some proprietary network protocol in place of the usual IP/TCP/HTTPS stack.
There are layers of abstraction above HTTPS. Look at OAuth 2.0 for example. That is absolutely a protocol, but it runs on same standard stack. A protocol is any agreed back and forth method for exchanging data.