Sept 18 (Reuters) - A group of 18 state attorneys general said on Monday they backed Montana's effort to ban Chinese-owned short video app TikTok, urging a U.S. judge to reject legal challenges ahead of the Jan. 1 effective date.
Idk if it’s just my algorithm but I get fed a lot of videos about small time corruption. And even some interesting theories about congress critters trades, that end up being accurate weeks before they are disclosed. I can see why they want this shut down. I can also see why China is laughing. “Oh you wanted free press, and the first amendment… well look how easy we can make it for your citizens to call you out in real time”
I could see why they want to ban it. There are a bunch of tiktokers who are somehow guessing their trades days after they make them. Like weeks before they are publicly disclosed within the arbitrary 30 day period. Kind of crazy.
Didn’t US use to condemn countries when they get authoritarian and ban Facebook, whatsapp or Twitter during political unrest citing freedom of speech, communication is human rights or some bs. Now that Tiktok reigns, yanks can’t wait to ban it citing political unrest cough cough national security concerns.
oh, how the table… hypocrites.
Also CCP bans any international apps from running in their country so fuck em too.
It will be fun to watch these lying propagandist assholes fight each other.
I couldn’t find the full list of state attorney generals who did this, but here’s a partial one. Write your reps if you think the government has no business telling you how and with what apps you are free to speak. Georgia, Alaska, Utah, Indiana, Nebraska, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and South Dakota
They do actually care about getting re-elected. The more they hear from constituents about issue A, the more likely they are to vote some way on issue A. Do they ignore many of their constituents concerns? Of course. But if we never make them heard, they will certainly be ignored. It’s an imperfect system but apathy is an even worse one.
The ruling class can ask for whatever they want. Votes, and the money to buy enough advertising to get them votes, are what actually get them into office. Those are levers of power everyday people can control if they don’t let apathy or defeatism win.
You live in the country with the most resilient system serving ruling class interests. There’s so many levels to keep you occupied trying to penetrate, but you will never win this game if you play it like that.
It is quite rare for an election as major as a senator’s not be won by someone backed by money interests. Even their opponents are usually backed by interests. The mere prospect of running requires funds that most people don’t qualify for. Just check the wealth of the poorest senator.
But even if you manage to penetrate this, you’ve only won one seat. Is that enough to make meaningful change? I’m yet to see that in action.
But even if your party of choice wins the Senate. If you’re anything older than a teen, you’ll remember the “ahh, darn! We only have the house but not the Senate!”. But when you win both, “ahh, we have Congress but not the president! This maniac just throws executive orders left and right! We’re so powerless”. But then you win the presidency and suddenly we all forgot about executive orders. Oh wait, you forgot about the supreme court! Guys we just have to wait until they die. Don’t worry, it’ll happen any minute now. Oh no don’t die during trump! Should’ve died during Obama. Oh wait one of them did. Wait what?
Yeah if you want meaningful change, this ain’t it.
If only the Dems had a Super Majority in both houses, plus the President, Plus the Parlimentarian, then they would certainly stop being Capitalist and supporting their class-allies.
It’s wild to me how many people with seemingly liberal values are cheering on the US government telling them what apps they can and can’t use to get and share information. Banning it on government devices is fine, banning it outright seems like a huge 1st amendment violation and assault on democratic values. The government has no business telling you what you can listen to or say, many people have died for us to have that right and we shouldn’t give it away just because we’re scared of election interference or spying or whatever it is.
I’m trying to think of another example where a US government entity prevented a private US company (Apple or Google) from distributing software within the US.
Yes but the owners of the OS and app stores are, which is I believe the original commenter’s point. And the text of the bill is not “TikTok you shall pull your app”, it’s “Apple you shall disable the App Store listing”.
But not only do they have an argument on first amendment grounds, given that the company and product are specifically named and targeted, I think this would be considered a bill of a attainder, and explicitly unconstitutional.
If you’re concerned about stores, we have plenty of regulations around certain types of content. For example, if something infringes copyright, it must be pulled. I think there’s something in the law about porn as well. Some states disallow gambling apps.
All of those hit Apple and Google Play, as well as other app stores.
That’s an entirely different thing though, and it’s like saying the government should block the Play Store because you can use it to download TikTok. The Russian website example is more like the government requiring ISPs to block certain domains, or requiring DNS services to change their nameservers, and we already do that with DMCA takedowns.
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