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TikTok set to be banned in the US after losing appeal (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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TikTok's bid to overturn a law which would see it banned or sold in the US from early 2025 has been rejected.

The social media company had hoped a federal appeals court would agree with its argument that the law was unconstitutional because it represented a "staggering" impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users.

But the court upheld the law, which it said "was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents".

[...]

The court agreed the law was "carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People's Republic of China)."

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Which is no different from any of the US social media companies tweaking their algorithms against criticism of all number of political things.

Twitter blatantly forced right wing radical propaganda down their entire user bases through a for months. Facebook was selling user data to foreign influence groups to assist with political message targeting. They're all the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Lots of people think the US social media platforms do that. But none of the scientific studies have been able to show it.
The US companies are all purely driven by engagement, to maximize profit. The most effective source of that engagement, changes from person to person. But it's most commonly what you might call "Rage Bait".

Twiter's recent bend toward the right, is primarily self selection of it's users. As the left... left... the platform, the pool of available content shifted right; Causing even more to leave. Unless you have some paper I haven't seen.

And Facebook selling data, is entirely different and unrelated. Nobody (no lawmakers) care about that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No, Twitter changed its algorithms leading up to the election. That was not self selection. They were actively pushing right wing bullshit down everyone's throats because the owner spent $200 million trying to get the dipshit elected.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That could be. It sounds plausible. Do you have any studies?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think you're going to find peer reviewed studies on something that happened a month ago, but I would be very sure to say someone is working on it.

But if you've used Twitter you can recognize when something changes. I haven't used it for years, but secondhand I've heard it was pretty egregious. Obviously this could be due to external parties heightening a disinformation campaign, but I'm not sure that really matters.

American social media platforms creating an environment where propaganda and misinformation flourish and refusing to take action against it has the same net effect as TikTok altering internal algorithm. Arguing that somehow TikTok is worse because it's a foreign government is nonsense when every social media platform is manipulated by foreign governments to the same effect.

Doesn't help the US government just keeps saying "trust us bro, we have reports that say China is spying on us" while they threaten to ban one platform. Nobody trusts that, it looks like a witch hunt, and sounds racist when they single them out this way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

American social media platforms creating an environment where propaganda and misinformation flourish and refusing to take action against it has the same net effect as TikTok altering internal algorithm.

Targeted intent vs general apathy is a massive difference.