this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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It was a 50-0 to pass the commission and then go to the House floor for a vote and then the Senate for a vote and finally signed into law by the president unless he vetoes it, which is possible imo.
Honestly, teenagers and old people are the sorts of folks that need to be protected from themselves, I might just call in to my local representative to voice my support of forced sale, operating restrictions, or even outright ban.
EDIT: I sent him an email.
Now do Facebook.
Love to, I think the 5 Bn USD FTC fine was a little light considering no jailtime was given. I hope their recent lawsuits lead to breaking the company up again.
what are you even trying to say here? that it’s okay for politicians to ignore entire demographics? or that it’s only okay for them to ignore entire demographics if, ultimately, it’s left up to a different group of politicians to pass the law?
i don’t use tiktok or have any interest in the app itself, but it’s still very alarming to see a vote go through 50-0 despite a “nonstop” flood of calls opposing it.
Ignore them? Gosh no. Protect them. Literally what I said.
“protect them from themselves” is what you said. which carries the connotation that they don’t know what’s best for themselves and aren’t qualified to make judgments about those things. this is different from simply “protecting them”.
To be fair, a big part of a functioning society is a government with proper regulations in place so that people are not expected to be experts in literally every field before making a purchase or performing some kind of action. Obviously, calling it "protect[ing] them from themselves," is dismissive and patronizing, but it's pretty much why we need government in the first place.
For example, the EPA recently issued a recall for ground cinnamon from certain specific (dollar store) brands due to unacceptably high levels of lead. Without the career scientists (and yes, bureaucrats) working for that regulatory agency, millions of people would have continued consuming the product and feeding it to their kids (low-income folks too in this case, given the brands) literally indefinitely.
Without the EPA, every person who buys cinnamon is what, expected to use mass spectrometry to determine the exact molecular make-up of every spice (or in the case of the EPA, literally any food or prescription drugs you may ever consume) before using?
If they didn't do their cinnamon research, then they deserved it, and the government should have no involvement? What happens in cases where companies hide dangerous issues in their products to avoid losing profits?
What if there's literally no way for anyone but a scientist, with extensive lab access and at least 4+ years of university to know that there is an issue with a product (or a construction site, or a drug, or water treatment, etc)? They're the only ones who should be able to properly avoid using a product that may kill them and their children? And even then, only when it's a product they're an expert in?
Not saying you're a libertarian, just like pointing out the obvious things that make it so so stupid.
i agree with everything you’ve said here. and i liked the EPA example. sorry if what i said came across as libertarian, that was not my intention.
i was just trying to push back against the “young people don’t know what’s best for themselves” mentality in the other post.
although, to be clear, i think the current state of social media does have quite a few problems that need addressing, and more regulation on that would certainly be welcome.
Ok, sure. Show me what research you or they have done to justify "protecting them from themselves". Already they're telling lies by insinuating that only teenagers and old people are calling. And you all just believe it? Wild how biased people can be when presented with information they want to believe.
Would love to see the science or other expert opinions that is being used to justify this ban then.
I haven't heard anything except politicians making vague references to spying or other things we allow from domestic services.
It's just politics.
TikTok Data Harvests: Report by AU Cybersecurity Firm or if you can't be bothered to get past the paywall the news coverage of the event.
Misinformation on TikTok: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpurol.2022.03.001
Adolescents more susceptible to product placement on TikTok: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107723
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
news coverage
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Those things are exactly the same and it is indeed what I just said. Problem?
You're not doing it to protect people. It's ridiculous that you'd even pretend to be.
What other reason could I possibly have? You think there is some massive anti-tiktok cabal out there trying to profit by... uh... fucking how?
By banning anything except the few 'murican tech giants doing the exact same shit as TikTok. Even a blind person can see how cancerous american companies are, yet this does nothing to address that.
Actually, they're not doing that at all, they're forcing a compromised unethical American to sell to a different unethical American to do exactly the same thing. At no point was a ban even discussed. So, literally everything you just said was wrong.
Are you literally incapable of textual interpretation?
Are you literally illiterate?
Yeah honestly if a bunch of addicted teens and old people were calling me screaming that I can't take away their drug of choice when that's not even what's happening, and it's not being taken away just moved to where there can be more control on quality.... Then I would be really considering the damage this is doing to them.
I don't know if supporting the junkies being taken advantage of is the altruistic take that these "absolute freedom" supporters think it is.
The fact that you guys just ate up that rhetoric without any hesitation... Like, you just happily believe it's a bunch of "addicted old people and teenagers"? Is this reddit? Did I make a wrong turn at common sense and critical thinking?
Uh dude... I know people addicted that got the email to message their representative. They will stop talking in a conversation and pull out their phone and just scroll through a few videos.
I struggle to believe so many would be messaging just out of laziness but don't question that being the age groups that would respond most to that kind of targeted messaging into action.
Nobody got an email. You don't know shit.
I never denied they sent a notification to people in the app. It offered to help get in touch with local reps. Why would people exercising their rights to communicate with politicians bother you in any way? That's weird.
Messaging out of laziness? What does that even mean? They were calling their local reps to voice their discontent.
The people addicted comment just makes you look petty and ignorant. It might be time for you to graduate to Facebook.
It's not just teenagers and old people. That's just some bullshit rhetoric that you ate right up without question. Because of course you did. Millennials/middle age folk are abundant on TikTok as well as young adults.
The audacity of some of you to jump into action just to spite "teenagers and old people" is shameful. So easily manipulated.
Right, sorry, it's fine to let teenagers and old people be harmed as long as the company can continue to profit off consenting adults as well. /sarcasm
How are they being harmed? Why was it so easy for them to make you believe this? Also, who asked you to protect anyone with your one petty little email lmao
A foreign dictatorship gathering face and voice id, entiry photo library and message history, contacts, and location tracking precise enough to pinpoint nearby devices and tell which floor of a building you're on regardless of if the app is in use, to me equates to harm. If you disagree, well, I don't give a fuck what you think tbh.
Please, big daddy government, protect me from the freedom of choice. I cannot be trusted to consume without your permission.
LMAO pay attention in school, kid, you seem like the type who is going to need it.
They should really educate people about foreign threats like the CCP and Kremlin.
Me when I find out that it's illegal to sell your organs for profit
Nanny State.
"Mr. Legislator I am 84 and I need my Heroin but the federal government keeps cracking down on my supplier, please stop taking away all my Heroin Mr. Legislator. Also, force my bank to let me transfer 85,000 USD to India, it's really important that I do that before the 27th."
Yes. This is called Nanny State.
Rather than educate the populace, take away the tools. Of course, another tool will just rise to the surface but it will make a lot of people feel really good that they did something.
I do appreciate all of the reactionary statements. I don't use TikTok but I do believe in freedom. Reducing freedoms, no matter how well intentioned does not solve societies problems.
You can't educate dementia away. You can educate youth away, but that takes years, which would effectively be a ban for them. TikTok is not a tool for its users, it is a tool for a for profit corporation and by extension their associated foreign dictatorship.
Absolute freedom should not extend to harming each other.
That pretty much describes every corporation in existence.
Some of them provide utility and some don't, which is why we don't allow children to drink, smoke, or gamble. If a company providing those goods and services targets those demographics it gets political action.
Welcome to the nuance of society and the modern world.
But they're not disallowing children smoking, drinking, or gambling here. It's more akin to disallowing children from drinking Smirnoff, smoking Marlboros, or playing blackjack and nothing else.
Reigning any of them in is a step in the right direction.
If this had anything to do with children, they'd be reigning them all in at once instead of wasting time singling one of many out.
Even equating the arm of a militaristic expansionist dictatorship to a tech giant is disingenuous to its core, Google collects a shit ton of data but even that pales in comparison to TikTok's absurd collection. But all of that aside, your argument is shit. Reign in every tech giant at once? Why? Why the hell is it all or none? I don't even think the US Federal Government in its current state has enough authority to try that, at this point.
That's like choosing not to take a doctor's license away unless you can take away every bad doctor's license in the USA at one time.
How do you suddenly go from comparing these platforms to alcohol and gambling, saying they have no actual utility, and saying 'every little bit helps' when it comes to regulation to asking why these companies actions should even be regulated and why the law should apply to them all equally, even going as far as comparing them to the role doctors play in society?
That's honestly one of the most abrupt 180-degree spins I've ever seen.
Fuck equal rights of a corporation to fuck people over with an addictive product that has no utility. Thats an equal right I cannot stand behind.
Are you drunk or something? That's literally what you're arguing for here.
No it's not, you absolute buffoon. It's a step in the direction of narrative control.
If punishing corporations more and more as time goes on is part of narrative control then I want narrative control's dick deep inside of me.
TikTok is one of hundreds of vectors to swindle the senile and I doubt it's even in the top 10.
Grandpa needs to have someone else handling his finances. It's not the governments job and let's not pretend this bill is about keeping grandpas money safe.