this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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They largely don’t write the legislation. Lobby groups draft the materials and if we’re lucky, the congressional aides make a pass and clean things up.
You can search for why TikTok is dangerous. There are plenty of examples of how the application and platform are not being forthright with how they collect your identifiers and weaponize them for information operations campaigns.
As I mentioned earlier, the powers that be aren’t as worried about Facebook and the like because they’re US-based and have working relationships with law enforcement. Facebook has been used for the very campaigns that TikTok is being used for now, but a large difference is that another nation has near complete control over the platform.
Yes but they should at least be able to explain why they voted a certain way on that legislation, right?
I agree that social media is dangerous for all the reasons mentioned, but I don't see why Zuckerberg and Musk still get to do all those things.
I'm not arguing against them explaining their rationale. I originally argued that they shouldn't be taken as experts.
Zuckerberg and Musk "get" to do these things because they are in the US, with majority US-based workers, running off US-based infrastructure. If any of these platforms are being used to facilitate attacks against the US, the government can choose any number of methods to step in and enforce compliance to mitigate the threat. That's it. This is about free speech in that not all speech is protected. If somebody uses TikTok to perform the digital equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater, the government sees a need to control it.
If Facebook was run and operated out of Tunisia, I'd expect these same conversations to be happening with them as well.
Except Facebook and Twitter are being used to attack the US and spread disinformation and the government isn't doing anything.
But I guess that's what I should expect from a government that cares more about national security than the privacy of its citizens.
The US government has been caught doing the same thing... poorly. You probably aren't going to find a lot of sources showing that the US is fighting these fights on Facebook and twitter, but you can read between the lines with interviews. In general, these kinds of things aren't performed out in the open.
Agree with you though. National security has trumped privacy. 9/11 changed a lot of things in a bad way.