this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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The bill isn't nearly as bad as they want you to think. It bans companies in Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran from operating social media apps in US markets, forcing them to sell if they already do. These four countries are already restricted from accessing sensitive parts of the US economy, with forced sale being a legal option. Really, the only novel part of the bill is applying these kinds of restrictions to software.
And the bill doesn't actually punish or restrain users' speech. It does restrain the social media company's speech, but that may not be enough to overturn the bill on 1st amendment grounds. If you understand that social media exists to collect vast amounts of user data then you must also understand how the government has a legitimate interest in keeping that data out of an adversary's hands. The only real question is whether the government has a compelling interest, because that's the standard that a court would apply to this bill. And I daresay it might.
I hate the amount of data American social media companies collect and what they do with it
I REALLY hate having Chinese or Russian or [Insert Authoritarian Hostile Country] doing it.
American companies do it for the pursuit of profits, Companies from these countries are doing it to topple our government or whatever.
Something something the devil you know...
It's profitable for the companies to sell it to the government... Basically just adds a step to the government getting it
What if it becomes profitable to overthrow the government?
Then you have the failed “Business Plot” of the 30’s meant to overthrow FDR
redacted
this but the opposite, Chinese social media companies are taking my data for profit, American social media is doing it to topple the US government (also for profit)
You do know that those mere profits are used to purchase whatever they want from the government, right?
Yeah, it's very clearly not unconstitutional.
The constitution doesn't grant jack shit for rights to enemy states.
So they are going to put in place some hard data collection and selling regulation, right? Right?
The question is irrelevant to whether this bill is a good idea.
What are your sources saying the reasoning for the bill is?
https://archive.is/Iu8yu
https://archive.is/hu22e
I read the bill.
Which forces Tiktok to sell or be banned, correct? The issue I see is: why not just create regulation for the root problems instead of just focusing on that app? The only reason I can see, is that their priorities do not lay with protecting people, but forcing a foreign business to sell it's IP to strictly American companies. Wether that decision has to do with the intentional or unintentional promotion of the US's direct involvement in the genocide in Gaza or just Big social media companies lobbying for the removal of a competitor, we can only speculate. Both sides are doing their best to push this bill, when have the (R)s collectively banded together to create positive change? The point being, reading the bill is cool and all, but you do have to ask, "Why target a specific company instead of the alleged problems of foreign adversaries getting their hands on our data?" If we had hard data collection and selling regulations, it would not only allow them to ban predatory apps (foreign or domestic) but also ensure sensitive data cannot even reach our enemy's hands.
Meanwhile the biggest nazi platform on earth is being run by a south african who is getting top secret defense contracts. Make it make sense.
Musk's companies are already based in the US. The issues you raise, however valid, are not really relevant to a discussion of this bill.
While I agree - the part you're missing is the vast majority of TikTok users are outside the United States.
TikTok doesn't want to sell. They want some sort of "independent" subsidiary where ByteDance still profits from (and controls) TikTok and the subsidiary worries about compliance with US law. But the thing is, that's already the current structure.
I wouldn't be surprised if they refuse to sell and wind up being banned. ByteDance doesn't want to lose all their US customers, but they'd likely prefer that to selling.
Then they can decide that it would be better to not serve the United States users and keep the "vast majority" of their userbase as-is