Comment on Biden expected to sign the TikTok ban on Wed.
Toribor@corndog.social 6 months agoThis 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.
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?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Because I would hope they know what they’re talking about when they write the legislation. Or at least can explain their reasoning for voting a certain way. Especially when nobody has made the case that TikTok is any less dangerous than Facebook or Twitter.