This seems to be the case, but congress is doing an awful job of communicating the danger to the public. There will likely be a lot of people angry at Biden when he signs this if there is no effort to justify the targeted action.
Comment on Biden expected to sign the TikTok ban on Wed.
johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I know that I heard (on the 538 podcast) that before voting on this, congress was given a security briefing about it, and after that there was wide bipartisan support for the ban (and we all know how rare bipartisan support is these days). It sounds like the security briefing was pretty compelling. If it’s not just theoretical that Chinese gocernment could leverage tiktok to spy on Americans and influence them, and there’s evidence that they are already doing it, I think it makes the case for the ban much stronger. But the information has not been made public.
I’ll also note that they set the ban to not go into effect until after the election.
Toribor@corndog.social 6 months ago
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I feel like it isn’t congress’s job to do that. They don’t have to share or repeat information that they are not experts on to the public. They can share their thought process and rationale for supporting legislation, but we shouldn’t expect them to be perceived as technical experts. I bet that fewer than 10 congressional representatives can look at a portion of code and make an educated statement on what’s going on.
It’s the job of the organization(s) that prepare the security briefing, and we’ve already been hearing this kind of thing in the cybersecurity field for years. Those in the know, know. Those not, tend to not believe it. Warnings about the potential for data harvesting and information operations via platforms like (and specifically) Tik Tok aren’t new.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So ban data harvesting? That seems pretty common sense. Instead we’re giving our government autocratic powers pick winners in the market.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So they can’t talk to people about it because they’re not technical experts, but they also have the authority to make decisions despite not being experts.
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
They can talk about it if they want to, but we shouldn’t be using them as our only source of information. Curious on why politicians voted X instead of Y? Look it up! See what experts in the field are saying.
You shouldn’t rely on them to tell you why TikTok is a threat the same way we shouldn’t rely on them to inform us on why weakening EPA standards is good for the environment, why taxing foreign trucks is good for the economy, or why drawing voting maps to concentrate demographics is good for democracy.
The same way you may care about many things but only know a lot about a few subjects, they legislate everything and people act like they are the experts. Why assume they know what they’re talking about for every single topic?
Dark_Arc@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m sure it’s just even more detail about the scope of that influence campaign (and possibly an extrapolation of effectiveness on public opinion).
The major thing is manipulation of the public’s information pipeline by a hostile foreign power. There are already existing laws about foreign owned media (as cited by the New York Times this morning www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/…/677806/).
Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If there is evidence then let’s hear it in court. We are not an Autocracy.
johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Uhh, yeah, we’re a representative democracy. This passed through both houses of congress and is on its way to be signed by the president. You know, the completely normal legislative process.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You can vote yourself out of a democracy at any time.
Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Only way you’re voting yourself out of the US is with your feet. There are no mechanisms to relinquish citizenship (and your vote, barring convictions) while remaining in the country.
johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I mean sure, if you pass a constitutional amendment, I guess? Which this is not.
“I don’t like this law that our democratically elected representatives passed” does not mean that the law threatens democracy. You’re allowed to not like it, of course. That’s actually a big part of democracy.
Buttons@programming.dev 6 months ago
Bipartisan support is only rare when it comes to things like giving healthcare to the poor.
johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That hasn’t been true at all post-2016.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Young people get a lot of their news and information from TikTok. The US government doesn’t have their hands in TikTok like they do domestic social media platforms.
That’s it. That’s the ban.