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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28507 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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It seems to me there's a non-trivial distinction between shutting down a network to try to prevent influence and data gathering by a semi-hostile foreign government, and shutting down a network to try to silence domestic political speech.

I don't think you could openly do the latter in the US. Though if Harris is elected, I won't be shocked if Musk is indicted on some tenuous securities charge to try to force him out of his companies in favor of more accommodating leadership.

All the big social media companies almost certainly employ spies that are exfiltrating data.

If I were running Chinese intelligence I'd think it smart to Br'er Rabbit the Americans about banning Tik Tok. If they actually do it then maybe they'll rest on their laurels a bit thinking they've actually accomplished something. It also provides a blow to their supposed principled stance on free speech, and the debate itself is a good distraction from my lesser known methods of collecting data.

It seems to me there's a non-trivial distinction between shutting down a network to try to prevent influence and data gathering by a semi-hostile foreign government, and shutting down a network to try to silence domestic political speech.

I'm pro free speech, but the distinction seems pretty blurry. Twitter is also gathering data, for sure, and I'm pretty sure you could also portray what they're doing as "influence". I guess it all depends on your relationship to the United States.

I justify my anti-TokTok stance by it being an ADHD-inducing brainrot machine, not by any political influence it has.

But of course, any domestic political speech you don't like can always be easily painted as influence of a (semi-)hostile foreign government. What's more, any hostile foreign government worth their chops will try to influence your domestic political speech.

But of course, any domestic political speech you don't like can always be easily painted as influence of a (semi-)hostile foreign government.

Under US law, I think this would also be fairly distinct from the TikTok ban. Allegations of foreign influence don't get you past prohibitions on viewpoint discrimination here. The TikTok ban is (probably) legal only because it hinges on a structural fact about TikTok (foreign ownership) rather than targeting any particular viewpoint.

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