Dan Gillmor
Whatever you think of TikTok -- I don't like it at all -- the ban by the US government, now endorsed by the Supreme Court, is a direct attack on freedom of expression in the United States.
If you think this very, very bad precedent won't be used to block all kinds of free expression going forward, you will find yourself sadly mistaken.
A travesty in every way.
Quinn Norton
@dangillmor "but data and algorithmic manipulation!" Well we could just make those things illegal across the board, but that's not what anyone is after is it? Manipulation and harvesting and selling data is fine as long as American companies are doing it.
Nicole Parsons
It's not just freedom of expression at risk...
It sets a precedent that megadonors get first pick on the pillaging of private companies that fall out of favor with a dictator.
Forced sales to cronies...
Jeff Yass
https://fortune.com/2024/12/09/trump-jeff-yass-tiktok-avoid-ban/
Larry Ellison
https://www.wsj.com/articles/larry-ellisons-tiktok-bid-puts-oracle-chairman-back-in-the-spotlight-11601733600
https://qz.com/1906677/the-tiktok-deals-real-winner-is-oracles-larry-ellison
Mark Zuckerberg
https://www.thewrap.com/tiktok-ceo-to-attend-trump-inauguration/
Steve Mnuchin
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-allys-tiktok-plan-sparks-new-theory-1879409
https://nypost.com/2024/04/25/business/wall-street-and-tech-billionaires-race-to-buy-banned-tiktok/
1/2
kuteboiCoder
@Npars01@mstdn.social @dangillmor@mastodon.social
and Senile Sleepy Joe signed it. All to enable a genocide.
Seppo Helava
@dangillmor Also a reminder that if, for instance, you build a commercially successful business that happens to compete against one of the oligarchs’ businesses, you can expect them to weaponize government and just take whatever you built. Or destroy it to protect their interests.
Rich Felker
@helava @dangillmor Yes, but these shouldn't be able to be businesses to begin with. I really DGAF about it destroying businesses. I care about (1) the much worse businesses still here, and (2) any possible spillover into censoring non capitalist-seized communities.
Quinn Norton
@disappearinjon @dangillmor this statement implicitly assumes that the same kind of manipulation is fine if done by American companies, but those companies are actively, not theoretically, destroying the fabric of America now. Somehow that's become fine if meta does it, but dead is dead no matter who does the killing.
Jon Lasser is Hanging in there
@quinn @dangillmor I mean, maybe a foreign government manipulating the point of view in America’s public conversation is a national interest.
Not sure a ban is the answer but if you believe in nation states it strikes me as a real problem.
Quinn Norton
@disappearinjon @dangillmor (also probably worth noting that i'm not a huge believer in the Westphalian nation-state and I'm kind of amazed that people are still trying to make it work despite all the *gesticulates wildly at the 20th century* and the pile of superseding political structure we're still trying to jam into it.
Quinn Norton
@disappearinjon @dangillmor i think there's a structural sameness though; swap foreign governments for C suites and you not only have the same kind of meddling, but many similar outcomes in terms of destroying society. That's really what the tech companies are doing too, they're setting out to control what they can and destroy anything they can't. China might use some of the same techniques but nowhere near as effectively.
Jon Lasser is Hanging in there
@quinn @dangillmor I don’t think it does, no. It’s just pulling on the thread of national interests as relates to foreign governments. There are potentially other legitimate interests too, but they seem to me to have somewhat different characteristics.
Quinn Norton
@disappearinjon @dangillmor which effectively means we don't have that opportunity. The ban is not just paternalistic, it's sinister in the context of the harm American social media companies do. Tiktok isn't implicated in a single genocide, but Facebook is. It's something they knew about and let go forward. They've never faced any consequences for being genocidaires, much less the damage they've done to America as well.
Jon Lasser is Hanging in there
@quinn @dangillmor and I think they should be stopped! But also we have opportunities to address domestic companies and there seems to be bipartisan consensus that we shouldn’t. :(
Quinn Norton
@disappearinjon @dangillmor I just don't think there's any way to justify this being the one action USG takes on the terrible harms social media companies have done in America and the world.
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