TikTok sued Tuesday to block a US law that could force a nationwide ban of the popular app, following through on legal threats the company issued after President Joe Biden signed the legislation last month.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. In my head this argument is a little shaky, since it seems to be effectively arguing that Americans have the right to access foreign propoganda machines? There is legal precedent here, but the nature of propoganda has massively changed since the 60s.
This is going to be a very interesting court case that has broad reaching implications, but expect no Americans to give a shit because it’s not going to feature a trash fire to gawk at.
Supreme Court ruled that publishing propaganda in America is free speech. You’re not allowed to interfere with an American’s access to propaganda
Justice Brennan made explicit what had been implicit in the majority opinion, declaring that “the right to receive publications is . . . a fundamental right,” the protection of which is “necessary to make the express guarantees [of the First Amendment] fully meaningful.”
I’m aware of the precedent, but there’s a pretty massive difference between being able to receive printed media, and being able to have continual access to post and contribute content to a foreign propoganda tool that uses an algorithm to purposefully suppress subjects the CCP disapproves of. I don’t believe the precedent is going to be applicable here, but IANAL, and maybe ByteDance’s lawyers think this defense will be a slam dunk.
Sure, but if you tried to explain TikTok to the ruling judge on the 1965 case, I think their head would explode. The ruling isn’t some all powerful precedent that shuts down the ban before the suit can begin, it’s old and outdated. Something like TikTok was not even getting theorized at the time, you can’t seriously expect it to be treated the same way.
I don’t think the source of propaganda is relevant to the distinction being made by the precedent. If TikTok can be considered propaganda, then so can Facebook or Twitter or Instagram because they all utilize algorithms subject to the control or manipulation by their owners.
In my head this argument is a little shaky, since it seems to be effectively arguing that Americans have the right to access foreign propoganda machines?
I don’t see why that’s shaky? There a plenty of books written by members of the CPC (Including Xi Jinping himself) on Amazon, in English, should Americans be banned from accessing that foreign propaganda?
I can agree with that, but it becomes muddier when it’s a social media platform where your participation on the platform lends it credibility. As an example, the Hong Kong protests were supressed on TikTok at the behest of the CCP. You could argue that by creating the content that ByteDance’s algorithm used to bury the videos being posted on TikTok, regular unwitting Americans were assisting the CCP in covering up the protests.
It’ll be on ByteDance to prove those kinds of concerns invalid, just as it will be the US’ job to demonstrate the threat posed by TikTok to Americans.
Yeah, except China has been committing a genocide and would gladly commit an atrocity on the scale of Israel x Palestine to Taiwan if the U.S. blinks.
Yes, the U.S. is evil as hell, and yet China is still worse. The U.S. doesn’t have citizen reeducation camps, people don’t get disappeared for talking out against dear leader. If you can’t understand why giving an adversary like that unfettered access to people’s minds is a security risk, I’ve no interest in arguing geopolitics with you.
I’m not making a comparison between china and the us, I’m simply pointing out that banning chinese control over social media doesn’t address the vulnerability of social media being manipulated against users by other parties.
If you have a problem with china owning a social media platform because they could potentially scew public perception through manipulative practices, then I would imagine the core of the issue isn’t chinese ownership but the manipulative potential of social media algorithms generally.
I think most people would much prefer more transparent practices and user choice, such as what federated social media protocols provide. We shouldn’t simply ban the one we fear, we should regulate them all so that users have more choice and control themselves.
Especially for real law, you would have to define propaganda which I don’t think has really been done.
I have thought about it and I don’t see why all information isn’t some form of propaganda because you’re either bias on purpose by trying to persuade or bias by what you’re aware of and know which can’t be all information with our tiny human minds.
How do you measure bias without having some objective physical level model of the truth even?
I think the argument against TikTok and other Chinese companies is probably that you wouldn’t allow Facebook by Chinese Communist Party and this crosses the line into that. To be fair though, you could probably ultimately make the same argument for US companies. Why is there so much money available for ads for VPNs compared to the financials of that market? Only a few answers to that one…
Propoganda does have a legal definition though, it’s not nearly as nebulous as all biased information. It does need to be purposefully distorting, either by falsifying information or by withholding relevant information. It also needs to be produced by an organized group or government, just making up nonsense about yourself doesn’t count.
I think it just got hyper-politicized and segregated along political lines during the reddit migration.
You can pretty well predict the comment sentiment based on how the topic relates to political discourse. It’s not surprising that a liberal-dominated instance would view TikTok through a political lense, even if it’s super disappointing.
Other privacy-focused instances might see this less politically but lemmy.world has become centered around liberal politics.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. In my head this argument is a little shaky, since it seems to be effectively arguing that Americans have the right to access foreign propoganda machines? There is legal precedent here, but the nature of propoganda has massively changed since the 60s.
This is going to be a very interesting court case that has broad reaching implications, but expect no Americans to give a shit because it’s not going to feature a trash fire to gawk at.
Lamont v. Postmaster General(1965)
Supreme Court ruled that publishing propaganda in America is free speech. You’re not allowed to interfere with an American’s access to propaganda
I’m aware of the precedent, but there’s a pretty massive difference between being able to receive printed media, and being able to have continual access to post and contribute content to a foreign propoganda tool that uses an algorithm to purposefully suppress subjects the CCP disapproves of. I don’t believe the precedent is going to be applicable here, but IANAL, and maybe ByteDance’s lawyers think this defense will be a slam dunk.
To me it sounds the exact same. The language doesn’t say “printed propaganda that doesn’t have a lot of nuance” it just says publications.
Sure, but if you tried to explain TikTok to the ruling judge on the 1965 case, I think their head would explode. The ruling isn’t some all powerful precedent that shuts down the ban before the suit can begin, it’s old and outdated. Something like TikTok was not even getting theorized at the time, you can’t seriously expect it to be treated the same way.
I don’t think the source of propaganda is relevant to the distinction being made by the precedent. If TikTok can be considered propaganda, then so can Facebook or Twitter or Instagram because they all utilize algorithms subject to the control or manipulation by their owners.
I don’t see why that’s shaky? There a plenty of books written by members of the CPC (Including Xi Jinping himself) on Amazon, in English, should Americans be banned from accessing that foreign propaganda?
I believe people should have the right to consume the propaganda they choose.
to not would mean someone is controlling the propaganda I.e. all information
I can agree with that, but it becomes muddier when it’s a social media platform where your participation on the platform lends it credibility. As an example, the Hong Kong protests were supressed on TikTok at the behest of the CCP. You could argue that by creating the content that ByteDance’s algorithm used to bury the videos being posted on TikTok, regular unwitting Americans were assisting the CCP in covering up the protests.
It’ll be on ByteDance to prove those kinds of concerns invalid, just as it will be the US’ job to demonstrate the threat posed by TikTok to Americans.
The same can be said of any us based social media company.
Idk this just feels like red scare propaganda
Yeah, except China has been committing a genocide and would gladly commit an atrocity on the scale of Israel x Palestine to Taiwan if the U.S. blinks.
Yes, the U.S. is evil as hell, and yet China is still worse. The U.S. doesn’t have citizen reeducation camps, people don’t get disappeared for talking out against dear leader. If you can’t understand why giving an adversary like that unfettered access to people’s minds is a security risk, I’ve no interest in arguing geopolitics with you.
I’m not making a comparison between china and the us, I’m simply pointing out that banning chinese control over social media doesn’t address the vulnerability of social media being manipulated against users by other parties.
If you have a problem with china owning a social media platform because they could potentially scew public perception through manipulative practices, then I would imagine the core of the issue isn’t chinese ownership but the manipulative potential of social media algorithms generally.
I think most people would much prefer more transparent practices and user choice, such as what federated social media protocols provide. We shouldn’t simply ban the one we fear, we should regulate them all so that users have more choice and control themselves.
Especially for real law, you would have to define propaganda which I don’t think has really been done.
I have thought about it and I don’t see why all information isn’t some form of propaganda because you’re either bias on purpose by trying to persuade or bias by what you’re aware of and know which can’t be all information with our tiny human minds.
How do you measure bias without having some objective physical level model of the truth even?
I think the argument against TikTok and other Chinese companies is probably that you wouldn’t allow Facebook by Chinese Communist Party and this crosses the line into that. To be fair though, you could probably ultimately make the same argument for US companies. Why is there so much money available for ads for VPNs compared to the financials of that market? Only a few answers to that one…
Propoganda does have a legal definition though, it’s not nearly as nebulous as all biased information. It does need to be purposefully distorting, either by falsifying information or by withholding relevant information. It also needs to be produced by an organized group or government, just making up nonsense about yourself doesn’t count.
Yeah, that’s true-- but all the laws where ‘a reasonable person…’ make me feel like the porn definition “I know it when I see it!”
Only Zionist propaganda is allowed in the US
https://truthout.org/articles/romney-and-blinken-admit-tiktok-ban-sought-to-censor-gaza-news/
I wouldn’t trust any organization that has “truth” in its name. It’s like the car salesperson who says “Trust me” way too much.
And according to Media Bias/Fact Check, they’ve got a clear bias and are not classified as factual reporting.
Pretty sure they are referencing a publicly available interview
edit: wild to me that people are downvoting a comment providing an additional source, but whatever I guess
The tiktok hate on this platform is bizarre.
I think it just got hyper-politicized and segregated along political lines during the reddit migration.
You can pretty well predict the comment sentiment based on how the topic relates to political discourse. It’s not surprising that a liberal-dominated instance would view TikTok through a political lense, even if it’s super disappointing.
Other privacy-focused instances might see this less politically but lemmy.world has become centered around liberal politics.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Pretty sure they are referencing a publicly available interview
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It’s literally a video interview of Romney and Blinken talking about why TikTok had to be shut down.
That does seem to be how the article (and Twitter comment) framed it, yes
Yes. I’m not clear on why you went on a tangent about how untrustworthy the site linking the video is.
How the article framed it does not mean that’s what the video was about
This is a really good read about how TikTok regulation fits into the historic skew of legal precedence and past regulation https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/tiktok-bill-foreign-influence/677806/