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President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes a bill that would ban TikTok if China-based parent company ByteDance fails to divest the app within a year.
The divest-or-ban bill is now law, starting the clock for ByteDance to make its move.
While just recently the legislation seemed like it would stall out in the Senate after being passed as a standalone bill in the House, political maneuvering helped usher it through to Biden’s desk.
The House packaged the TikTok bill — which upped the timeline for divestment from the six months allowed in the earlier version — with foreign aid to US allies, which effectively forced the Senate to consider the measures together.
There also remains the question of how China will respond and whether it would let ByteDance sell TikTok and, most importantly, its coveted algorithm that keeps users coming back to the app.
“As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired,” Haurek said.
Oh please. The anti-TikTok hysteria has been going on much longer than the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the narrative has largely been about national security concerns, particularly as they relate to election misinformation.
Agree or not with the anti-China rhetoric about TikTok, but at least argue about the facts and not inane conspiracy theories.
But tiktok the company is? And there are certainly also people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and even Lemmy rallying to support Palestine. And that’s what you tried to avoid with your “argument” in the first place, that many us companies are far worse in spreading misinformation. How does your one very specific point prove anything? And why focus on this one at all? Meanwhile fox news especially has been rallying against all kinds of minorities since forever in the US. You have very weak arguments here, maybe you just want to have tiktok banned? But then just say so outright.
If I’m reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It’s just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.
For starters there’s different demographics on each one, but I’m sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don’t think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don’t believe for an instant that some US agency isn’t manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.
Hm… I agree that Instagram is not a neutral source. I also agree that there are going to be some biases imposed by the user base.
I don’t believe the US government plays a major role in Meta’s content moderation behavior. Meta if anything has shown a reluctance towards any political or news content in recent years. That’s not to say the US government doesn’t have influence but their influence is (from what I’ve seen) oriented around fighting disinformation and threats of violence … not cherry-picking the discussion of subject matter. I think there would’ve been a pretty significant leak out of Meta by now if there really was a strong political bias or government influence in content moderation.
I don’t think any of these lines particularly fall along political lines within the US either. There are people on the left and right taking different sides on virtually all of the topics with statistical divergence; many of them are unusually bipartisan within the US.
And the weapon is ideas? If a society has to shield itself from ideas to prevent revolt, then perhaps that society has bigger problems. Patching the hole as a united bipartisan front, when the ONLY things that receives united bipartisan support is corporate interests, kinda gives their hand away. They’re doing this as a desperation move to prevent societal erosion and more importantly, loss of power in media. I think it’s too late.
Seems like an upheaval, electorally or otherwise, is at hand and this is a desperation move. I don’t expect the patching to prevent the rain, but who knows.
Its not helping Biden not being able to censor information on his part genocide. None of them gave a fuck about tiktok until they told em to take down pro Palestinian content and got told “lulnope”
Because executive order was the only way to get it done - other methods would have required evidence that doesn’t exist. You’re only backing my argument lmao.
They claimed that the government was focusing on this one issue when really it was a small part of a much larger legislation. Whether it’s good or bad is a separate judgement.
Hahaha yeah tell that to every other country that has Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and every other American social media company serving it’s citizens emotionally charged content. Facebook was even implicated in inciting a genocide. The US isn’t any better than the CCP here. Though it very much falls into capitalist rather than state control, the end result isn’t much different.
I never said the us was any better. im very aware of the us influence on the internet. But there is a big difference between the us and China and say the us and britan or the us and (any small country that isn’t allied with the us but is to small to go independent).
Adversarial nations that are big enough to break free of FAANG company already have. Russia and China do not what the us dominating their social media landscapes. Why would the us allow China to dominates its social media landscape when they can ban it and supplement it with companies that are within their governments arms reach.
To play devil’s advocate here, I think it’s necessary for a social media platform to exist that’s outside the control of the US government. Just because we have the first amendment here that doesn’t mean our speech is protected, just look at what happens when protesters do it the “wrong” way.
Does that mean China gives a shit about our freedoms? No. They just won’t be forced into censoring things the US would want though, and the gap between their opposing hegemonic ambitions is where people can truly say what they want about the US in certain topics. While it’s true the CCP is data mining American citizens, their reach to compromise individuals is dwarfed by what US companies can do already.
I don’t think it would be okay. Are you happy with almost all American media being controlled by a handful of mega corporations who are beholden to US hegemonic interests?
It is creepy on a personal level. But it makes sense for an influential nation like America to own their own media. From a national security point it makes sense because American corporations have to comply with the American government. This also extends to America’s allies who also operate in the space by as much smaller players.
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gonna kiss myself with a cement brick if they let zuckerberg buy it and turn it into the same UX nightmare that reels is
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes a bill that would ban TikTok if China-based parent company ByteDance fails to divest the app within a year.
The divest-or-ban bill is now law, starting the clock for ByteDance to make its move.
While just recently the legislation seemed like it would stall out in the Senate after being passed as a standalone bill in the House, political maneuvering helped usher it through to Biden’s desk.
The House packaged the TikTok bill — which upped the timeline for divestment from the six months allowed in the earlier version — with foreign aid to US allies, which effectively forced the Senate to consider the measures together.
There also remains the question of how China will respond and whether it would let ByteDance sell TikTok and, most importantly, its coveted algorithm that keeps users coming back to the app.
“As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired,” Haurek said.
Saved 43% of original text.
Thanks AIPAC, for protecting Americans from foreign misinformation campaigns.
Oh please. The anti-TikTok hysteria has been going on much longer than the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the narrative has largely been about national security concerns, particularly as they relate to election misinformation.
Agree or not with the anti-China rhetoric about TikTok, but at least argue about the facts and not inane conspiracy theories.
So they banned facebook and twitter too? 'Cause…
https://www.wired.com/story/russian-facebook-ads-targeted-us-voters-before-2016-election/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/03/06/pro-trump-twitter-bot-campaign-already-spreading-propaganda-about-gop-rivals-report-says/?sh=c3f5e6bfe701
No, Facebook and Twitter are still useful for the status quo.
Ah, I missed the sarcasm in the original comment. Carry in
They outlawed Fox News?
Don’t pretend this is about disinformation.
Fox News is disinformation peddler numero uno.
This is about the seizure of media outlets that don’t parrot pro-capitalist propaganda.
But it’s too late, the majority of each generation millennial and later is anti-capitalist. The critique media will simply change form.
Fox News isn’t rallying people to support Palestine.
No misinformation is needed for that.
But tiktok the company is? And there are certainly also people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and even Lemmy rallying to support Palestine. And that’s what you tried to avoid with your “argument” in the first place, that many us companies are far worse in spreading misinformation. How does your one very specific point prove anything? And why focus on this one at all? Meanwhile fox news especially has been rallying against all kinds of minorities since forever in the US. You have very weak arguments here, maybe you just want to have tiktok banned? But then just say so outright.
Yes, among other things they’re also explicitly suppressing pro-Isreal content https://lemmy.world/post/14643617
If I’m reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It’s just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.
For starters there’s different demographics on each one, but I’m sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don’t think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don’t believe for an instant that some US agency isn’t manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.
So, I took another look at the report, they did do this sort of statistical bias correction. See “U.S. Politics” page 8 https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf
Hm… I agree that Instagram is not a neutral source. I also agree that there are going to be some biases imposed by the user base.
I don’t believe the US government plays a major role in Meta’s content moderation behavior. Meta if anything has shown a reluctance towards any political or news content in recent years. That’s not to say the US government doesn’t have influence but their influence is (from what I’ve seen) oriented around fighting disinformation and threats of violence … not cherry-picking the discussion of subject matter. I think there would’ve been a pretty significant leak out of Meta by now if there really was a strong political bias or government influence in content moderation.
I don’t think any of these lines particularly fall along political lines within the US either. There are people on the left and right taking different sides on virtually all of the topics with statistical divergence; many of them are unusually bipartisan within the US.
No, only boomers watch Fox News, young people watch TikTok making it a way more potent weapon.
And the weapon is ideas? If a society has to shield itself from ideas to prevent revolt, then perhaps that society has bigger problems. Patching the hole as a united bipartisan front, when the ONLY things that receives united bipartisan support is corporate interests, kinda gives their hand away. They’re doing this as a desperation move to prevent societal erosion and more importantly, loss of power in media. I think it’s too late.
Seems like an upheaval, electorally or otherwise, is at hand and this is a desperation move. I don’t expect the patching to prevent the rain, but who knows.
My interpretation, open to being wrong.
So much for the land of the free.🤦🏻♂️
Al the problems in America and this is what the federal government decides to focus on
Its not helping Biden not being able to censor information on his part genocide. None of them gave a fuck about tiktok until they told em to take down pro Palestinian content and got told “lulnope”
Tiktok has been a subject of national security concerns since at least 2020.
With absolutely zero tangible evidence, which is why it was a complete non-starter for four years until Biden lost control of the narrative.
Well, no. The courts struck down Trump’s Tiktok ban because he used an executive order that overstepped his authority.
Because executive order was the only way to get it done - other methods would have required evidence that doesn’t exist. You’re only backing my argument lmao.
That’s the opposite of what the court said.
This was part of an overall package including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.
Is that supposed to make it better?
They claimed that the government was focusing on this one issue when really it was a small part of a much larger legislation. Whether it’s good or bad is a separate judgement.
Makes sense. There is no way you let a foreign adversary control an app that serves 100m of your citizens emotionally charged shortform content.
That would similar to the ccp owning every major American news network combined.
Hahaha yeah tell that to every other country that has Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and every other American social media company serving it’s citizens emotionally charged content. Facebook was even implicated in inciting a genocide. The US isn’t any better than the CCP here. Though it very much falls into capitalist rather than state control, the end result isn’t much different.
I never said the us was any better. im very aware of the us influence on the internet. But there is a big difference between the us and China and say the us and britan or the us and (any small country that isn’t allied with the us but is to small to go independent).
Adversarial nations that are big enough to break free of FAANG company already have. Russia and China do not what the us dominating their social media landscapes. Why would the us allow China to dominates its social media landscape when they can ban it and supplement it with companies that are within their governments arms reach.
To play devil’s advocate here, I think it’s necessary for a social media platform to exist that’s outside the control of the US government. Just because we have the first amendment here that doesn’t mean our speech is protected, just look at what happens when protesters do it the “wrong” way.
Does that mean China gives a shit about our freedoms? No. They just won’t be forced into censoring things the US would want though, and the gap between their opposing hegemonic ambitions is where people can truly say what they want about the US in certain topics. While it’s true the CCP is data mining American citizens, their reach to compromise individuals is dwarfed by what US companies can do already.
Im curious if you think it would be OK for ccp to own to own CNN and fox news and control broadcasting for hundreds of millions of Americans.
I don’t think it would be okay. Are you happy with almost all American media being controlled by a handful of mega corporations who are beholden to US hegemonic interests?
If I was American or the American government I would be.
I’m American and I find it kind of creepy.
It is creepy on a personal level. But it makes sense for an influential nation like America to own their own media. From a national security point it makes sense because American corporations have to comply with the American government. This also extends to America’s allies who also operate in the space by as much smaller players.
I believe most people in this thread are missing your point in which I agree.