this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 268 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Can the US Lawmakers do anything about the US companies harvesting my data and selling it off… please?

[–] [email protected] 113 points 8 months ago

Yes, they can make more money from it.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Can they? Completely wrong question.

"Will they" is what you wanted to ask but the answer is still firmly no

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[–] [email protected] 207 points 8 months ago (19 children)

So when do they plan to do something about those domestic businesses trying to manipulate citizens of America?

[–] [email protected] 117 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Capitalism abusing citizens? Just fine.

"Communism" abusing citizens? Avengers, assemble!

[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

They're prospective communists. Supposedly they're going to get there by 2050, but they just built a new massive luxury tower for their ultra wealthy so...

[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's just like Marx said: "If you do an oppressive oligarchy for 100 years, it magically transforms into communism"

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

I think they're more worried that it's a foreign corporation going after their citizens and not a domestic corporation.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, the domestic businesses are the ones who own Congress and are using it to get rid of a competitor.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

After the thousands of years of human history I've read about, getting rid of competitors seems to have been the primary concern of most of the ruling classes all over the world. Way back to Ur.

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[–] [email protected] 151 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Whatever Tiktok is doing, the correct response is to write enforcable laws to prevent ANY company from doing what Tiktok is doing.

This is bad governance.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 8 months ago (5 children)

This was a committee vote. The bill now must advance to the floor, pass a vote there, then go through the same process in the Senate.

Many bills are passed out of committee but are never given an actual vote.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I wonder if this could also be applied to games owned in whole or part by Tencent...

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 8 months ago (16 children)

Many users called lawmakers' offices to complain, congressional staffers told Politico. "It's so so bad. Our phones have not stopped ringing. They're teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we can't take it away," one House GOP staffer was quoted as saying.

and they still voted 50-0. really tells you something about how much these politicians are willing to listen to their constituents.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (31 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (15 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Tik Tok pushes so much toxic content towards children and teenagers it should be shut down in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 8 months ago (55 children)

The can very easily apply to every single social media.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Good. Fuck them and all social media controlled by any big mega corp. But fuck the CCP especially.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The fucked up thing is they don’t seem to have a problem with rich 1%ers owning and manipulating millions of people. Only when it’s the Chinese. Facebook, Twitter, instagram are just as harmful. Although the delivery method of the content isn’t exactly “tailored” on those services like TikTok. I dunno how I feel about this. I mean, I think all social media services should die out. This just seems like an uneven hand.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

I dislike TikTok as much as the next guy, but I think there are several issues with this bill:

  • It specifically mentions TikTok and ByteDance. While none of the provisions seem to apply exclusively to them, the way they are included would give them no recourse to petition this, the way other companies would be able to (ie, other companies could argue in court that they aren't controlled by a foreign adversary, but TikTok can't. The bill literally defines "foreign adversary controlled application" as "TikTok, or ..." (g.3.A)). It also gives the appearance that this law is only supposed to apply to them, which isn't what it says but it might be treated that way anyway.

  • It leaves the determination of whether or not a company is "controlled by a foreign adversary" entirely up to the president. He has to explain himself to Congress, but doesn't need their approval. That seems ripe for exploitation. I think it should require Congress to approve, either in a addition to or instead of the president.

  • According to g.2.A.ii (in the definition of "covered company"), the law only applies to social media with more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. Not sure why that's included.

  • There is a specific exemption for any app that's for posting reviews (g.2.B). I'm guessing one such company paid a whole lot to just not have this apply to them.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

According to g.2.A.ii (in the definition of “covered company”), the law only applies to social media with more than 1,000,000 monthly active users. Not sure why that’s included.

I'm glad clauses like this are common. We don't want some teenager who wants to experiment with creating a "social media" website for his friends to have the full weight of the law immediately fall on their shoulders. People should be free to create website with minimal legal requirements, especially if it's a small website.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So TikTok is sending out app notifications that they are at risk of being shut down and urging their users to call their representatives right now. They are not going down without a fight.

The 165 days time limit would land the deadline in August-ish, right before the most intense phase of election season in the States, and I do think TikTok would be a very influential part of the election strategy this year.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Bytedance needs to figure out which congresspeople Meta has been bribing.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Bold move. Who are they going to blame all the online privacy issues once they cant yell about the Chinese? Or are we going to start pretending everythings fine then?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why do you think that they give a shit about online privacy? This isn't a privacy bill, it's a bill stopping another government from doing exactly the same shit that the US government does through domestic apps. They aren't looking out for people, they're afraid of the competition.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago (15 children)

So NSA backdoors are mandatory but Chinese ones are bad.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Sooo... How do Republican's square being the party of "Small Govt" and then interfering in a private business?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Is it a private business if it's owned by the Chinese government?

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (3 children)

...TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn't sell. It also would lose access to US-based web hosting services.

Oh no. Where would children act out jokes they stole from old tweets?

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[–] JasonDJ 24 points 8 months ago (10 children)

High school nerds pay attention. This is how you can make some money and have an excuse to talk to the hot girls…by installing a vpn on their phones so they can still have their tik tok.

Get one popular girls phone set up and every girl in the school will be hitting you up within a week.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

And the cycle of infantalizing women continues...

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Highschooler here, everyone already uses vpn's to bypass the school firewall to view blocked sites and stuff while on school wifi.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (10 children)

I don't see why users would even have a problem with this. Same services, more competitive market, and with less ties to an evil dictatorship should be celebrated, right?

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