Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put the whole thing on hold so he can negotiate a deal for its sale. It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will overlook the concern that he has no legal authority to do this.
This Supreme Court doesn't seem super concerned about what legal authority Trump does or doesn't have to do anything.
I thought Trump wasn't legally king yet, but next month it will be ok.
The whole thing was so fucking stupid I refuse to think about it.
Dem disaster from the get go. Played all the way. Gerontocracy fail.
Trumpism really is quite similar to seventeenth-century concepts of absolute monarchy. I recently read G. M. Trevelyan's book on the Glorious Revolution and the descriptions of James II were eerily familiar.
Was there a legitimate concern that the app is basically spyware? Given how much of the US government digital infrastructure seems to have been pwned lately, maybe it was a real problem (although no word on whether security breaches were app-related)
Was there a legitimate concern that the app is basically spyware?
Sure, the app is spyware. But Facebook and Google are also spyware. The only difference is the ownership being communists vs. billionaires.
It's a social media app. It's basically spyware by definition, except this particular app can also be controlled at will by a hostile totalitarian empire.
The recent US breaches I'm aware of weren't related to apps, but were related to telco backdoors required by US law enforcement. In which context, consider the vulnerabilities introduced by the backdoors required by, again, a totalitarian empire.
Speaking of totalitarian empires, as apparently none of you noticed, Russia just tried to steal Romania's presidential election, very nearly succeeded, may yet succeed, and did it all on Tiktok.
It's a depth of solipsism to assume as a matter of course that US tech companies are the scum of the earth, and at the same time think a foreign tech company owned body and soul BY A TOTALITARIAN EMPIRE must be okay because...what? People you don't like don't like Tiktok?
(None of the above implies Trump would actually address the problem. IIRC what he did first time was pretend to address the problem while handing a sweetheart deal to Ellison.)
Spike, it's 2024. The communists *are* billionaires.
All I'm saying is that its a bit rich to single out TikTok for behavior that is grotesquely common in the industry. Maybe lay down some data protection rules before you start choosing which companies they do or do not apply to.
Who is a bigger threat to the United States of America right now, the Chinese Communist Party or Elon Musk?
they're the same picture meme
China is an ocean away. Elon Musk is inside the building.
"who wants this ban to go forward"
At least one of the drivers is that the content on Tik Tok is more pro Palestinian that any other social media platform.
I think that's the main driver, or at least it was when the ban went through, which was around the same time a lot of the campus crackdowns were happening.
Who is a bigger threat to the United States of America right now, the Chinese Communist Party or Elon Musk?
Dude, this is not an actual dichotomy. They are in many ways on the same side. Musk has immense business interests in China and many people have been expressing serious worries about what this means for US national security, given his interests in SpaceX, Starlink and Twitter. Find it, I beg you, possible in your heart to think that the genocidal totalitarian empire that is busy sterilising its subject populations might not be the good guy here.
But nooooo it must always be something to do with Gaza and therefore TikTok must be good and the US government must be bad. Never mind that Biden banned TikTok from all government IT in 2022 and Trump tried to ban it in 2020 and the DOD actually did ban it in 2020.
This stuff is on Wikipedia, you know. You don't just have to fly by the seat of your pants here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_TikTok_in_the_United_States
It just feels like a Fox News hallucination to worry about TikTok, whereas with Musk, his evilness is very immediate to my life. China is awful to its citizens, but still seems very far away.
The great divide in American politics: should we worry more about this thing on my little screen, or that thing on my little screen?
Which side of the divide you are on depends heavily on what things you watch on your big screen.
You're not a thing on my little screen that causes me stress!
I do think that the focus on TikTok is dishonestly motivated. Sure, it's bad that a totalitarian-state-linked organization is hoovering up so much personal information and is present on a gazillion phones, but it is *also* bad, and only *slightly* less bad, that similar amounts of information are hoovered up by US-based companies. An honest approach would focus on the hoovering-up rather than the totalitarian-state part.
Even if your specific fear is "China gets the data", you have to prevent the data collection in the first place to do anything about that. There's lots of reason to believe that China is trying hard to infiltrate said US corporations - Operation Aurora at Google was fifteen years ago, and I doubt things have gotten a lot better, as the recent Treasury and telco issues illustrate.
Ban TikTok, then use the same arguments and the precedent to ban Facebook.
Out of an abundance of caution, we should destroy them all.
Seems like Facebook is on its way to banning itself. Every time I go there my feed is more and more dead. Even the racist troll accounts have been taken over by AI slop.
The racists used to care enough to craft trolls by hand.
Even if your specific fear is "China gets the data"
This has literally already happened with Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and "Russia gets the data." The consequence was that Russia got its guy elected as President of the United States.
Its bad no matter who gets the data. That shit is toxic waste and needs to be regulated. But the rules need to apply to all the social media companies, not just the ones that are politically out of favor.
Sure, it's bad that a totalitarian-state-linked organization is hoovering up so much personal information and is present on a gazillion phones, but
Absolutely unbeatable sentence opening.
It is debatable how much Cambridge Analytica's data misuse actually affected the election, though I appreciate that the expert quoted in this particular link is not perhaps the sort of person Spike will find most convincing. https://now.tufts.edu/2018/05/17/did-cambridge-analytica-sway-election
The gym keeps playing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." I think instead of sociology, they should make kids listen to that. Explains the olds views on gender and cars.
I don't think I know enough tu get the specifics of it, but I now understand that much of the internet is hostile or unfriendly territory. It's like the airport. I can't avoid it, but I can minimize it and be on edge when I'm there.
I bought a paper calendar because Google's AI shit is leaving me concerned they might start to fuck with my schedule.
China is trying hard to infiltrate said US corporations
Of course it is, and will continue to do so. But Tiktok gives them another attack vector, entirely under their control. There's no reason to make their lives easier.
But the rules need to apply to all the social media companies, not just the ones that are politically out of favor.
Perfect enemy of good. If all the data-suckers get banned, that's good. If just one of them gets banned, that's also good.
(A perfect little demonstration of deontology versus consequentialism developing here.)
33: Yes, it's a great opening, that's why I used it.
It made a point. Do you disagree?
Seems like Facebook is on its way to banning itself
Sounds fair to me. Over Christmas my father-in-law asked me, as an expert by virtue of being 30+ years younger than him, how to get rid of a certain annoying kind ad. I told him offhandedly that my solution was to remove the Facebook app from my phone. In hindsight I might elaborate with more details.
Season Four is really starting strong.
I had to take Facebook off my phone because the ads were getting too targeted.
I'm really glad she keeps getting work as improbable as that seems that her character is still playing a role.
The communists *are* billionaires.
[old joke about Brezhnev's mother, upon seeing him living in opulence, exclaiming: what's going to happen to you when the Communists are back in power?]
much of the internet is hostile or unfriendly territory. It's like the airport.
On the internet, "duty free" means you are relieved of the obligation to be kind to others.
There's a whole Mr. Snuffalufagus thing going.
This is the first thing I've ever seen Zach Galifianakis in. He's pretty good.
I haven't seen this much of Richard Kind since that show with Paul Riser.
I was not expecting to see that guy again.
Are those twins supposed to be the Olsons?
Also, it just occurred to me to look up how old Molly Shannon is. She looks really good for 60.
Sure, it's bad that a totalitarian-state-linked organization is hoovering up so much personal information and is present on a gazillion phones, but it is *also* bad, and only *slightly* less bad, that similar amounts of information are hoovered up by US-based companies. An honest approach would focus on the hoovering-up rather than the totalitarian-state part.
This does seem like an example where it is not the right heuristic to focus on the act without reference to the actor. A totalitarian state is going to make a lot worse use of the data!
I've only seen him once, so I don't want to generalize.
Moby, I am no giant, but you are still welcome to stand on my shoulders.
You'll get athletes shoulders from me. My feet are just awful.
Then go after any and all concentrations of data, that's the actual risk factor here.
No, the actual risk factor is the hostile totalitarian empire.
Then go after any and all concentrations of data, that's the actual risk factor here.
The Social Security database is a menace!
This does seem like an example where it is not the right heuristic to focus on the act without reference to the actor. A totalitarian state is going to make a lot worse use of the data!
I'm honestly not clear on what China can do with the data. Companies just want to market stuff more effectively to us, I get that. And I can get why China would want to better sell us shit. But what do they get from TikTok beyond that? Knowledge of our teenagers?
Or is it more about algorithms and shaping exposure than hoovering up data? They can certainly influence elections, but then we get into territory where Elon Musk is also essentially an independent state of some sort that influences elections, etc.
Easier to get blackmail or other ins on young dumbasses with clearances, like Jack Teixeira?
A totalitarian state is going to make a lot worse use of the data!
Yes, and I'm much more concerned about the use of the data as part of a local, Trumpist totalitarian state than I am concerned about how the Chinese are going to use it from afar. What is Mark Zuckerberg going to say when Kash Patel asks to go fishing in Facebook's data archives?
"They can certainly influence elections"
Can they? The evidence that CA did anything in particular is fairly slim at this point.
"Easier to get blackmail or other ins on young dumbasses with clearances, like Jack Teixeira?"
Which is clearly the reason for the original DoD ban (that and possible subversion on official devices - and for the same reason I expect every nation's DoD analogue has an equivalent app/website blacklist).
71: I'm not saying they did, but they certainly could.
71: CA was on Facebook, 8 years ago. Romania was on Tiktok, today.
"Yes, and I'm much more concerned about the use of the data as part of a local, Trumpist totalitarian state than I am concerned about how the Chinese are going to use it from afar. "
I would be fascinated to know if there is an circumstance in which Spike would admit, even theoretically, that a foreign state* might be worse than the US government.
*obviously excluding that one
What is Mark Zuckerberg going to say when Kash Patel asks to go fishing in Facebook's data archives before Tiktok is banned?
What his lawyers tell him to.
What is Mark Zuckerberg going to say when Kash Patel asks to go fishing in Facebook's data archives after Tiktok is banned?
What his lawyers tell him to.
The issues are independent.
75: I also haven't gotten a satisfactory answer about what I should be worried about! The Trump administration has a bigger range of potential horrorshows than China being able to leverage some Gen Z spies (because we didn't get all their TikTok passwords when we vetted them? I'm still not clear.)
that a foreign state* might be worse than the US government.
There are plenty of foreign states that are "worse" than the US government, but none is as threatening to *me* as a US citizen.
What his lawyers tell him to.
What did ABC's lawyers tell them to do about the George Stephanopolis lawsuit? This is a post rule-of-law era we are going into, the old traditions cannot be expected to hold.
I thought there would eventually be a forced sale of a spinoff of TikTok to a US based owner but I guess that won't happen.
80: I believe TikTok said in their court filings they had no intention of doing this, would shut down (or lock out the US) first. I guess under US corporate law the prospect of shareholder lawsuit (for forgoing continued profits without a good reason) would dissuade that, but probably not in China.
I have a question! So I have this local politics blog. I just got an email from someone who was inspired to do something similar in a different Texas town. Their council is angry and is threatening to sue them, if they don't take the site down. They asked me if they should add a disclaimer to the site.
I told them to find a lawyer to send a fuck-off letter to the city council, and maybe to recommend some language for a disclaimer. But consulting a lawyer costs money, of course. Is there anything else that I can recommend they do?
Maybe just have them mail the council a copy of the First Amendment.
Texas doesn't have an anti-SLAPP law so the cost of defending the suit may be the intended punishment.
In general this seems like a tactic adopted most recently by the right but I won't speculate in this case.
Does that town have an in-house lawyer or would they be spending money on outside council? Because it would amaze me if a lawsuit is actually something they would want to budget money for.
Obviously your fellow blogger can't be certain, but when she was in New Mexico last year, buying chilies, she happened to see a pregnant woman in the passenger seat of a vehicle in the parking lot of a health clinic and the driver of that vehicle looked like one of the city council members.
I'm not a lawyer and that was not legal advice. In more ways than one.
Texans don't go to NM to buy chiles. They go there to ski.
Well, they should. The chiles are obviously better in New Mexico.
Vaguely OP related, I just upgraded my phone and noticed I still have the MeWe app the last time we talked about finding a non-evil FB alternative. I think I never got past figuring out the login page.
88: pregnant Texans should not be skiing!
My in-laws go from El Paso to Las Cruces for the farmers market, which sorta counts as Texans going to NM for chiles.
Why did I say in-laws, that was weird? My brother and sister-and-law.
At weddings, they say you aren't gaining a sister, but losing a brother.
82: Lawyers do cost money, and I don't know your correspondent's financial situation. But an initial consultation and the sending of a fuck-off letter shouldn't be very expensive as legal services go, if that is the end of the matter. My gut says that should run somewhere in the low hundreds of dollars, based on past legal interactions. (Of course, it is possible that legal fees have inflated in the intervening years since my personal experience, but a lawyer should be able to give them a quote for that kind of thing before they commit.)
Actually defending a lawsuit for defamation in the absence of a relevant anti-SLAPP law, on the other hand, is likely to be very expensive, even if you have a strong case. I know some folks who got sued for defamation, had all but one of the plaintiff's claims tossed at a preliminary stage, but were still advised by their attorney to settle the remaining claim for something like five or low six figures because it was going to cost more than that to successfully defend their case at trial.
Texas does appear to have an anti-SLAPP law!
96: My understanding is it exists on paper but is not as protective in practice as, say, California's.
California's is written on an iPad.
I hope the screen writer doesn't kill Mabel.
Now I'm all caught up. Maybe I'll watch The Wire.
So, Portugal is paying for ads suggesting I should try for a Golden Visa to get away from Trump. Which hits harder, because of Milton Dudenoff.
Back on the topic of companies misbehaving with data, it turns out Siri was listening to people's conversations all along and everyone who was dismissed as paranoid for saying that they were seeing ads for ski boots after having a private conversation about skiing deserves an apology.
I have an Android phone, but I deleted Facebook from my phone because the ads were too closely related to things I discussed except in speech.
There are plenty of foreign states that are "worse" than the US government, but none is as threatening to *me* as a US citizen.
Spike lives in a very special bit of America that is not threatened with nuclear attack on a regular basis by the three foreign states that have thermonuclear warheads targeted at the rest of America.
In fairness, I doubt New Hampshire is on the DPRK's list.
I mean, yes, but Spike isn't about to get dragged off to the FEMA camp or shot by a Chicago police hit squad or forcibly deported either.
95.1 It seems to me that this end of the legal marketplace is grossly understaffed. I'm not saying you can't find someone willing to take a nominal fee for hearing all the facts, doing some quick research on the latest cases on the question, then writing and sending a letter, but it's not exactly going to be easy. They have to put you and the city council in their conflicts system, and also they're identifying themselves, in a small town community, with the blogger and against the city council members. The latter may be in social circles, and perhaps also in professional circles.
95.2 It's going to be harder to find a lawyer if you get sued, unless you have insurance that's actually covering this kind of claim. Maybe the claims are going to get dismissed after incurring 5k in legal fees, but maybe they won't be, and if they aren't the lawyer is stuck defending the claim as fees escalate. You're going to have 21 days after you get served with the papers to hire a lawyer (maybe you can get another 30) and that's not actually very long, with the first 10 lawyers you call telling you they're either too busy just right now or have done something for the town or one of the councilmembers.
Insurance companies are awful, but you're going to want one, because they, not you, have a prequalified stable of lawyers in/near your town who are willing to take a (hopefully) little case, knowing that there will be always more to come from the carrier.
Wait, you're saying my advice to her should be to get insurance?
Yes. I hate to say it, but if lawsuits are at all likely, insurance is better than going it alone.
She should price it, anyway, making sure that it'll cover defamation (an intentional tort).
If it's too expensive, then she has to decide whether to gamble. In either case, being extra scrupulous about every fact she writes is going to be a good idea. If a lawyer has to write a letter, it'd be good to have the attachments to that letter showing that the statements in the post are perfectly correct already in hand is a good thing.
I still don't have Siri!
Will she be able to get insurance if she's already had the threat of a lawsuit?
It's really not clear to me that China's ownership of TikTok is going to cause them to shoot a nuke at us.
Well, the internet in general isn't good for maintaining my views on the sanctity of life.
Should I be afraid of immigrant caravans too?
It's been six years since there was a mass murder near me that was committed by someone trying to stop those caravans.
Sorry, are you under the impression that the Chinese, North Korean, and Russian nuclear arsenals do not exist, and are merely an invention of Fox News? Or do you think they exist but don't present any threat to the US?
Tourist caravans are worse. You get stuck behind them on narrow roads and it takes you forever to get past.
114 It'll have to be disclosed, and suits arising from a specific post that's already been published would likely be excluded. It might be that the premium quotes are pretty steep.
I think the Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals have been around for years and I'm not glowing yet, and that North Korea's nuclear arsenal is primarily meant for South Korea.
They have to put you and the city council in their conflicts system, and also they're identifying themselves, in a small town community, with the blogger and against the city council members.
Isn't this tailor-made for an out-of-town lawyer? It's a big state.
You could probably find a lawyer who drives a Cadillac with bull horns mounted on the front.
123.last DPRK has been steadily working on missiles capable of reaching all of the continental United States and testing MIRV capabilities as well. That said I'm really not concerned with nuclear Russia or China, they want to live too and I remember what it was like during the Cold War.
126: Yeah, I've heard they love their children too.
120: I really don't understand what that has to do with Tik Tok.
I remember what it was like during the Cold War.
I remember it too! I was so worried about nuclear holocaust, it was really hard to focus on driving.
Russia is pretty effectively contributing to the destabilization of America and I'm very concerned about them. China doesn't seem to be as capable of that kind of thing, but China is still a world power and Russia is not, so I worry about China more than I worry about Russia. China is very clearly looking for a chance to grab the ROC and I guess I'm old fashioned, but I see that as a big threat to the United States.
127.2: Spike, having realised that his statement "There are plenty of foreign states that are "worse" than the US government, but none is as threatening to *me* as a US citizen" was very silly indeed, is now trying a strategy of deliberate misunderstanding. He also doesn't know what ICBM stands for (because he thinks that North Korean ICBMs are part of an arsenal that is primarily meant for South Korea).
Yeah, I don't think Spike's statement there is very silly and I remember nuclear weapons quite well. Elected officials and very wealthy people are threatening legal and extralegal measures against people who hold basically the same views as I do and I feel more threatened by them than I do by China too. I'm fine with banning TikTok though.
It only matters if the mothers love their children. Apparently, the fathers aren't important.
If I am worried about Chinese use of my information, I am as worried about their use of Facebook's information as I am about their use of TikTok's information. The fact that Facebook is not literally part of the Chinese state does not make their data secure from the Chinese state, and as Spike said, the only prevention is to not collect the data in the first place, which means across-the-board controls are what matters. Stopping TikTok without stopping Facebook isn't nothing, but it strikes me as a 5% solution, barely worth the trouble.
135: THE CAPITALISTS WILL SELL US THE ROPE WITH WHICH WE WILL HANG THEM.
Hi all! I'm having trouble getting on my laptop for various travel-related reasons. 50-50 chance of getting a post up today.
DPRK has been steadily working on missiles capable of reaching all of the continental United States and testing MIRV capabilities as well.
I'm aware of this, as the work I've been doing for years directly supports people working in the field of nuclear disarmament.
I do not think that DPRK strategic doctrine take seriously the idea of nuking Los Angeles as a means of preserving their regime. I do think that the DPRK recognizes a huge global market for their missile technology, and appreciates having a hook to demonstrate their offerings to potential customers.
The actual nukes it has are for deterring a South Korean invasion. And no, it doesn't need ICBMs for that.
Is ajay seriously arguing that nuclear war with China is a likely outcome of this TikTok thing? That seems implausible.
The 2017 equifax data breach was by Chinese hackers. So anyone with US accounts who speaks against China should understand that any financial problems are not private.
TikTok is famous for its app sending a lot of user information back home for the benefit of their early-acting AI team-- the bits of information I got about this were from someone who started working for them in 2018. I'm pretty sure that meta, google, and Palantir are equally or more aggressive by now. The apps need to try to detect bot activity, whether the device is being controlled by a person or a program-- so keystroke rates, aggregate image characteristics, and the like are useful to them for legitimate reasons. I think others have expresssed the sentiment above, but TikTok is receiving selective enforcement because they're Chinese-owned.
Let's all list our SAT scores and Chinese-made products that we think should be banned from the US.
I think the context for ajay's comments is his longstanding trolling campaign against Spike.
Chinese-made products that we think should be banned from the US
I propose a ban on all plastic children's toys that make electronic noise.
Okay, a prediction for 2028, if Tiktok doesn't get banned: at least one presidential hopeful (any party, primary or national) will have their teeth kicked out by a foreign-organized Tiktok campaign.
Currently I'm in a room with Jake Sullivan, Merrik Garland, and Justice Bryer. 1 for 3, I suppose.
Who are three men who have never been in my kitchen?
TikTok's recommender system is now open source,
https://github.com/bytedance/monolith?tab=readme-ov-file
theres a 2022 paper
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_18802.html#2203901