this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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I think most people on here would agree that TikTok is a shitty app, but you can't deny that just deciding to ban something in the manner they're doing with this bill is shady. The bill is very obviously targeted towards TikTok but is worded in a way that it can be used on any software owned by a "Foreign Adversary" as defined by the government.
It's proposed in the frame of national security with concerns of data collection being sent to China, but if that's the case there are far worse offenders of that violation of privacy than TikTok! Most large tech companies collect data from their users and sell it overseas. They may not sell directly to China but the amount of data collected is insane and once it is out of the hands of Meta or Google or whoever, it becomes hard to know for certain where it ends up.
The point I'm trying to make is that if the real concern is national security, their focus should be on regulating data collection instead of banning a singular app which collects the same data every other app in the world does. I don't defend TikTok, I couldn't care less if it was gone, but the grounds on which it is being banned are concerning and somewhat contradictory.
If I have been misinformed of any of this please let me know, this is just what I've gathered from reading sections of the bill myself and from the court hearings.
Oh they also put TikTok's name directly in the legislation. Which is unconstitutional. Not even by interpretation. The Constitution directly, and in plain English, bans the practice.
This entire thing is a giant cesspool of constitutional fuckery.
Wait, what about that is unconstitutional?
It's called a bill of attainder.
Merriam Webster is literally using TikTok as an example definition.
That is interesting, I didn't realize that was how it was being argued.
It does sound like there's some contention about that, and although the national security bit is as cringingly craven as usual, the applicability of the restriction to corporate entities is going to be an interesting decision to see ruled on.
I confess I phrased my intial comment a tad too harshly. There are many, many good reasons to criticize this; the loss of an advertising platform is not one of them.