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TikTok's CEO agrees to testify before Congress for the first time in March:
As Congress prepares to vote on a nationwide TikTok ban next month, it looks like that ban may already be doomed to fail. The biggest hurdle likely won't be mustering enough votes, but drafting a ban that doesn't conflict with measures passed in the 1980s to protect the flow of ideas from hostile foreign nations during the Cold War.
These decades-old measures, known as the Berman amendments, were previously invoked by TikTok creators suing to block Donald Trump's attempted TikTok ban in 2020. Now, a spokesperson for Representative Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Ars that these measures are believed to be the biggest obstacle for lawmakers keen on blocking the app from operating in the United States.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that lawmakers' dilemma in enacting a ban would be finding a way to block TikTok without "shutting down global exchanges of content—or inviting retaliation against US platforms and media." Some lawmakers think that's achievable by creating a narrow carve-out for TikTok in new legislation, but others, like McCaul, think a more permanent solution to protect national security interests long-term would require crafting more durable and thoughtful legislation that would allow for bans of TikTok and all apps beholden to hostile foreign countries.
[...] Back in 1977, Congress passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to empower the president to impose sanctions on and oversee trade with hostile nations. The plan was to prevent average American citizens from assisting US enemies, but the law troubled publishers doing business with book authors and movie makers based in hostile nations. Those concerns led Congressman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) to propose an amendment in 1988, which passed, exempting "information and informational materials" from IEEPA and blocking presidents from regulating these materials.
As technology evolved, in 1994, another IEEPA amendment specifically exempted electronic media, leading to today, when everything from a tweet to a TikTok would be free from presidential regulation under the so-called Berman amendments. How this prevents Congress from passing a new law remains unclear, but the WSJ reports that lawmakers are hesitant to draft legislation limiting TikTok if that could threaten those protections.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday February 02, @06:25PM (19 children)
As long as Congress wants to ban TikTok to preserve free speech, then it seems like the uniquely American thing to do!
<no-sarcasm>
While some other countries may do things like this, is it the knee-jerk reaction that might be uniquely American?
Could economic considerations be an underlying, but unspoken motivation?
Ah, maybe if we can learn things, we want that information coming into the country. But can you do this in a fine grained way without banning the entire platform? Maybe just ban those few TikToks that are not of major economic value to our industries.
<really-no-sarcasm>
But maybe the majority of TikTok has no real value, economic or otherwise?
</really-no-sarcasm>
</no-sarcasm>
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02, @07:05PM (13 children)
First Amendment is being misapplied in trying to keep TikTok in place, but simple question: Does First Amendment also guarantee the right to track and spy on people, harvest their personal information, and send it to a politically and militarily hostile nation?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Thursday February 02, @07:34PM (4 children)
Tracking, spying, corporate speech, etc are all the wrong approach and have led, and will continue to lead, nowhere. ByteDance has too easy a time defending the CCP on any of those points. It's not made easier by GAFAM doing the same tracking, spying, advertising, and corporate speech.
The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, pointed out that Tiktok harms the physical and mental health of the young teens [axios.com] which are exposed to it. It's an active public health crisis and needs to be addressed as one, using the means available.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 02, @09:02PM (2 children)
Regulating commercial speech is perfectly fine, and has been upheld over and over by the Supreme Court.
All websites that meet some common threshold need to be held to the SAME standards.
The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on national origin. If the Chinese owners of TikTok are here running their US subsidiary within the laws of the land you don't really get to put extra laws on them just because they're Chinese.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 03, @03:35AM
The Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on national origin. If the Chinese owners of TikTok are here running their US subsidiary within the laws of the land you don't really get to put extra laws on them just because they're Chinese.
That's kind of the point I was trying to make, though there is a difference between ethnicity and nationality which is being ignored and the confusion is being used as a distraction. The whole matter of spying, advertising, and surveillance is also a distraction from the main events of health and mass manipulation.
Instead, the wannabe legislators seem to be objecting to Tiktok not because of the many harms it perpetrates upon a whole generation of non-Chinese, including spying, advertising, and censorship, but mainly because it is the CCP taking those actions. They appear to be setting up a big, theatrical fuss so that they can pretend to have done something while in reality when the dust settles they will have a legal go-ahead for further spying, advertising, and censorship.
Their avoidance of the topic of the many harms Tiktok does to physical and mental health is telling. Physical health is affected, as seen from the constant stream of numerous and severe self-inflicted injuries [nypost.com] goaded on by the app. That is not limited to just eating detergent. The harm to mental health from Tiktok [salon.com] is so severe that even the US Surgeon General has noticed and spoken up. You'd think though that people would get the hint that the harm is weaponized from day one when the CCP prevents Bytedance from doing the same thing in China.
Notice that Bytedance limits teenagers to less than 40 minutes of access per day in China and, furthermore, during those 40 minutes the kids are shown only educational videos, especially science experiments. The information about Bytedance is out there. Yet the wannabe legislators give every appearance of actively avoiding taking the known facts into account. Even the media, both mainstream and fringe, have largely covered for Bytedance by ignoring the problem. So far, only CBS 60 Minutes covered the intentional nature Tiktok [cbs.com] and its harms. The wannabe legislators and media combined can't all be that stupid, but perhaps maybe they are. However, to me, the simplest explanation is that they wish to make a big, theatrical fuss so that they can pretend to have done something while actually creating a legal go-ahead for further spying, advertising, and mass manipulation of behavior and opinion.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by rpnx on Saturday February 04, @08:30AM
Except what you just said isn't true and the Supreme Court held in Reed and other cases the framework for content based speech restrictions. There are limited exceptions but they are much narrower than you believe them to be.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 03, @04:49PM
I understand your points, and somewhat reluctantly agree in the context of what's been happening in society in general. However I'm a strong personal privacy advocate and I'm deeply troubled that privacy as an issue in and of itself, generally gets pushed aside, and far too many people seem to accept the spying, trading our personal private information, and other violations, as "oh well, what are you going to do?" I'm troubled by that.
Our laws and legal system in general are an insanely complex tangled morass. I'm hoping AI will be used to clean up all the overlaps and conflicting laws. One can hope, right?
Many interpret the Fourth Amendment as containing the words "by the government", but it doesn't and I don't. I see it as protecting all of us from any violation of our privacy. Period.
These people do a pretty good job of summarizing the topic. This link's content is brief and worth a glance:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_privacy [cornell.edu]
which is based on:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fourth_amendment [cornell.edu]
and several other Constitution and Amendment clauses.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday February 02, @07:39PM (4 children)
Only the NSA should be doing that.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Friday February 03, @02:50AM (3 children)
Well, them and CCP spy balloons [cnn.com]. Right? Maybe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03, @09:13AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday February 03, @11:45AM
Playbook: Worries balloon over Chinese spying [politico.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 03, @04:58PM
In case you missed the latest news, CCP have admitted it's theirs, but (of course) not admitting it's a spy.
Like far too many things we may never know.
I'm hoping our military and DIA know exactly all about it, and maybe have jammed it or rendered it dead with a nice energy pulse weapon (that we don't really have, right?)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday February 03, @02:41AM
I tell you what it does guarantee. You need more than a vague excuse to destroy public forums.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by rpnx on Friday February 03, @03:14AM
Yes, the First Amendment gives you the right to transmit information, including about your location, to others, including TikTok. As long as people are aware and consent the First Amendment should be a total defense. What the government could do is raise the consent threshold to informed consent instead of constructive knowledge, but more than that I suspect would not pass constitutional muster.
(Score: 2) by rpnx on Saturday February 04, @08:33AM
Yes and no. If people are aware of the tracking, then yes. People have the right to transmit information, including e.g. their location to others. If the tracking is secret than maybe not. Information "collection" is the same as restricting speech in most instances (it just framing it as a restriction on the receiver of speech instead of speaker, but that is mere sophistry) and requires a compelling state interest to regulate.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 02, @08:45PM (3 children)
Yeah, I thought it was funny how they were describing the First Amendment as "decades old." That's a lot of decades!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 02, @09:47PM (2 children)
Old laws wear out and become "egregiously wrong" over time, then they need to be replaced with brand new ones that state the opposite. See e.g. Roe vs Wade.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 02, @10:37PM
Apparently the one where the government isn't allowed to invade your medical privacy just done wore out!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 03, @02:54PM
It's not just old laws that ware out. It is also constitutional rights that wear out. If Roe v Wade rights can wear out then there's no reason doze 2nd amendment rats can't also dun wear out.
While Republicans can get over Trump's sexual assaults, affairs, and vulgarity; they cannot get over Obama being black.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 03, @09:17PM
As long as Congress wants to ban TikTok to preserve free speech
That's not why they want to ban it. Do you enjoy looking stupid?
Could economic considerations be an underlying, but unspoken motivation?
Oh, I see, you're simply parroting a different moron. FYI, "could" < > "is".
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience