TikTok is taking the US government to court.
You must log in or register to comment.
TikTok blocks all access from Hong Kong. Can I sue them?
Not as a foreign national.
And not as a Hong-Konger, if you don’t want your family on a blacklist.
Read that as family in a basket. Close enough.
Wait, I’m in HK right now for business and can open it just fine from my hotel wifi. The website that is, I don’t care about the platform and wouldn’t use the app.
I could play videos just fine without login though. Anything I’m missing?
Really? It just redirects me to https://www.tiktok.com/hk/notfound
Removed by mod
Good. The ban is censorship dressed up as national security.
TikTok is state sponsored spyware dressed up as fUnNy ViDeOs
And Facebook isn’t?
Shit I forgot the us government owns 50% of Facebook
Access to the data it’s what matters, ownership is just one method of access.
If this were true, it wouldn’t matter that the US set up the social security number system, because Experian leaked millions of Americans’ SSNs.
It obviously matters who owns a service that millions of citizens use from a country that is a political rival. You’re just hoping to shut down any conversation against TikTok with a whataboutism
We’re talking about individuals’ personal data stored by social media companies being accessible to others (governments, in this case). This has nothing to do with social security.
The problem is that the data is accessable, but that’s not being addressed. This is an improper fix to an actual problem, just facts.
When signing up for a tik-tok account, I put in a birth date, a username, an email address for verifcation and that was it. I didn’t need to provide a drivers license, verify that the name I put in was my actual name, that the birth date was my actual birth date. Location isn’t allowed nor was it requested and neither was Nearby devices. It’s actually been a much better behaved application than any American social media app.
Removed by mod
So Americans having access to American’s Data is bad but you think China having access to American’s Data is good?
No, they’re both bad.
Alright, thank you for clarifying that you want more restrictions and laws against these companies, it just seemed odd for you to bring up those other businesses in a post talking about the TikTok forced sale and resulting lawsuit.
I’m just happy about them restricting US Citizen data being brokered to adversarial nations including Iran, Russia, China, and others.
They don’t need to. Facebook plays ball.
“if one authoritarian government does surveillance even across borders, why can’t all? Anything less than ‘i agree’ here is hypocrisy!”
Noone is saying that. The argument is pretty much that people want more scrutiny applied to other companies beyond tiktok, and ideally not be under constant surveillance by any of them, not that people want to be monitored by all police states equally.
It’s a whataboutist cop out. People who like tiktok just wanna point out how supposedly since tiktok was targeted, then it’s all in bad faith and therefore there could never possibly be a legit concern with tiktok in particular. Any argument to be addressed with “ChInA bAd”
It doesn’t matter who owns it. It’s the data that the US government is accessing.
I couldn’t give a shit about TikTok, I’ve never used it in my life. I just think the US should be open and say we are banning this as we don’t have control over it. Sure China is only doing what we are doing but fuck em. I’d respect that.
Also, it’s got to be about silencing pro-Palestinian rhetoric too.
If they ban TikTok they should ban FaceBook and Instagram too.
Also, it’s got to be about silencing pro-Palestinian rhetoric too.
Yeah trump was talking about banning it in 2020 because he used his time machine to find out what it would be used for in the future. After his harrowing story from the future, I agreed with the effort to ban it because I lOvE gEnOcIdE
…of fucking course it matters who owns it
I refuse to converse with someone who conveys themselves in this manner.
Be better dude. Manners cost nothing.
Have a wonderful day!
Whataboutism isn’t the elevated level of discourse you’re pretending it to be
You’re actually just mad you don’t have an actual response to the fact that you making the about Israel/Palestine makes zero sense
I have a question for you. What is the difference between Google being banned in China and Tik Tok being banned in the US?
There really isn’t, but perhaps they should be honest about that.
Also, is Google banned or Google won’t do what China wants so left? I don’t know the answer.
*crickets chirping*
Mans gotta sleep bro. Christ. I’ll reply after work.
Can I ban NSA from spying on me? I’m not even on fReEeDoOoOoM land, I should be entitled to some amount of privacy
Whatabout! Whatabout!
This is not whataboutism - it’s looking at the bigger picture. The point is that you should want to prevent all mass surveillance by social media companies. Not force them to sell so that the government can get its greedy paws on the data.
The government can already access the data with a warrant. The ownership of TikTok has literally 0 effect on the government’s ability to access user data. Not being owned by the Chinese government has a huge impact on China’s ability to access that data.
I can want both.
And if someone chooses to watch that, that’s their business. Not nanny government’s. Not saying I do. But none of us have any business telling someone else what they can and cannot watch. That’s part of living in a supposedly “free” country. We aren’t China. You want a “great firewall”, then move there.
In our zeal to shun everything China-related, we must not become them.
Removed by mod
Yes I need my government to tell me obvious facts like foreign surveillance is bad. I’m just that stupid /s
I thought the worst censorship is on facebook… then i started using tiktok…
What would give them standing? They’d have to be an entity protected by the constitution to claim that protection was harmed. Is it this (Wikipedia)?
TikTok Ltd was incorporated in the Cayman Islands and is based in both Singapore and Los Angeles. source
I guess I’ve never thought about what makes an entity have rights here. Buckingham Palace couldn’t just open shop here and start suing our government, right?
The case is essentially “hey you kinda passed a bill that’s against your own constitution? You’re kinda supposed to follow that…”
Does the US constitution apply for rights of businesses, or is it just people?
Not being snarky I actually don’t know
Corporations are people. Thanks to Citizens United. Though I’d gladly give up TikTok for the court to reverse this decision.
Important rights of businesses in the US constitution include
Important note regarding a business’s right to regulate free speech: The rules of the Constitution are meant to regulate Congress, not businesses or citizens. Therefore, the right to free speech means Congress cannot restrict someone from speaking his or her mind, but a business may be able to.
For example, a radio show has the right to not allow a certain person to speak on its program or to say certain things. Ultimately, such issues are decided by the Supreme Court, and there may be some exceptions, depending on the circumstances.
The constitution applies to the government, not the American (or other) people. “Government shall pass no law…”
List of companies incorporated in the Cayman Islands: https://capedge.com/company/by/incState/E9/active/true?sort=latestQuote.marketCap
Mostly obscure to me, but I looked up GlobalFoundries. Originally divested from AMD, bought IBM’s chip business, got a contract from US Department of Defense in 2023 for manufacturing military chips
I imagine you wouldn’t object to GlobalFoundries suing the US government
Of course, corporations are people and this is bigotry. Check mate.
We decided a while ago that the Constitution protects everyone and every thing in the US because the loophole of declaring people and companies to not be protected was too dystopian even for conservatives at the time.
Something important to note here is that there are various exceptions to freedom of speech protections from various time periods, one such exception is Incitement – If a person has the intention of inciting the violations of laws that is imminent and likely, while directing this incitement at a person or groups of persons, their speech will not be protected under the First Amendment. This test was created by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio.
This is relevant because alongside the TikTok forced sale they also passed a law against sending sensitive data including personal details and photographs to adversarial nations including Russia, China, Iran, etc. That means that Incitement could be used to describe TikTok operating in any capacity without completely centralizing to the USA, and therefor they would have no protections by the first amendment.
At this point, I’d like to ask: If a foreign company threatens democracy in a country, is it legal for the executive to ban business with that company?
No? Then that doesn’t make sense. It’s a FOREIGN company, the government should have the right to do whatever it needs to protect its citizens in that regard.
This is the real question. Is there a loophole that allows foreign governments to freely exercise mass surveillance and psyops if they allow US citizens to post on a blackboard outside their offices?
Especially since it was a bonified Military Operation.
If tiktok were a serious threat, the executive branch would have already banned it by now via an executive order.
That’s not what happend, instead a whole bill went through congress and got passed with the explanation being “foreign influence” as if American social media platforms don’t already do the same thing
This is more about removing foreign competition and not about saving democracy or ensuring security.
DoD already banned it 4 years ago for military because of the actual security threat of data collection.
TikTok pushed a notifications to all US users with the phone numbers of their local congressmen to oppose the bill. So many calls came in that the phone lines were jammed.
Let me distill that for you: China attempted to directly influence legislation with a mass propaganda campaign targeted at its US user base.
Please explain to me why that isn’t a threat and why the US should allow hostile foreign powers to directly influence internal politics?
We’ve already established that Tiktok Tok is not the CCP. That’s what the whole first “gonna ban TikTok” fiasco was over. It’s why they don’t store US data in China but continue to do business in the US.
That would be a business using the 1st amendment right (which everyone gets, not just citizens) to free speech to use it’s platform to ask it’s users to do something directly beneficial to them. Nothing illegal about it unless you want to reevaluate that “TikTok is the CCP” claim again.
The government certainly does have the right to protect citizens and make whatever laws are necessary. In this case, the government can do so by amending the constitution. Until then, the 1st Amendment applies to all citizens, non-citizens, and business entities operating in the United States.
This is just blatantly false, if an organization is committing crimes or doing something the government dislikes then the government will sanction it, like it has done with almost every Russian Oligarch’s business, or front businesses for terrorist groups.
I’m pretty sure the whole point of banning TikTok is that the government is alleging that TikTok has engaged/can be forced to engage in abusive or illegal practices.
Mitt Romney actually said the main reason everyone was on board for the ban was due to the sheer amount of Palestinian support on the app
I allege that our government engages in abusive or illegal practices.
While that is true, it is also a whataboutism. What does your comment have to do with the conversation? What did it contribute to the conversation?
There are already exceptions to the First Amendment that did not require updating the US Constitution, such as the Supreme Court ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio 1969 which excludes Incitement as protected speech, Incitement being the advocacy of or in any way leading to the breaking of US laws which *checks notes includes sending personal data to adversarial nations including China and therefor TikTok’s operations are not protected.
When does a company care about the constitution? When it’s profits are threatened and the constitution suits their argument.
Down with vertical videos, down with short form content!
PS, China already bought all your personal data from Facebook.
I do not care.
Well, you do care enough to feel the need to let everyone know your opinion on the subject.
Oh shut the fuck up. Can we please not devolve every online argument into circular “well you cared enough to post this” bullshit? It’s exhausting.
The ironic thing is that if the US government wanted people to stop using it because of the PRC, they should have just leaked some fake Snowden style documents saying that the NSA was using it. Everyone would drop it like a hot potato then.
No they wouldn’t. “I don’t care, I’ve got nothing to hide”
Not a fan of tiktok content but I do see that it was banned obviously for censorship. A good move.
