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• OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Or instead of targeting tiktok specifically, they could have chosen to pass a data privacy law and actually did something worthwhile instead of pointless, unpopular grandstanding. Haha just kidding, they would never do anything to reduce even slightly shareholder value.

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  • themurphy@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s never been about data privacy. Never.

    It’s always been about control. Always?

    Snape: “Always.”

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  • ryper@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Apparently the law is written so that it would also be applicable to other apps like RedNote, if a president were interested in applying it.

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    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      As long as it’s completely legal for American companies to sell the data that’s allegedly so sensitive to anyone they please, the law does nothing except allow the president to target apps selectively. If it’s the propagandizing via the algorithm that’s such a huge concern, that’s still completely legal too.

      Democrats shutting down TikTok over a do nothing bill is probably the stupidest shit they could have done with Biden’s last year in office.

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• sonori@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  As is traditional, the Republicans drafted a law, got bipartisan support to push it through congress, and then after it passed publicly flip flopped their support for the law they just wrote when they realized they could score political points by complaining about it while the Democrats would hold to their agreed support.

  This way the Republicans get the law they want, get to claim any benefits of said law by pointing to their voting record, and get to blame anything people don’t like about it on Democrats, all at the same time.

  Meanwhile there are no consequences to their bad faith actions because the Democrats will just bend over and take it in the name of bipartisanship and working across the aisle because half of them are Republicans, they just don’t want to call themselves Republicans and leadership is willing to fight tooth and nail to protect said members.

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• webghost0101@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Accurate perspective but another one is this was a very successful social engineering of US politics by its global adversaries.

  Dems have been been trying to pull back the moment they released they got played but its to late. Above messaging is additional salt in the wound.

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  • princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How did the “[get] played”? Like the poster you replied too said, it was a completely unforced error on their part. It feels like they tried to jump on the right-wing “China bad” bandwagon and it bit them in the arse.

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    • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Its pure speculation but i suspect china may have purposely pushed for the tiktok is spyware narrative and fueled the china bad bandwagon themselves.

      They mad it a real privacy nightmare but also by made sure western leaders know it is a privacy nightmare.

      Something i noted is that European parlement and many individual European govs have in recent years put up laws banning tiktok for gov officials and all staff but not the general public/citizens.

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      • spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Its pure speculation but

        you know you can just…stop typing after that, right?

        i suspect china may have purposely pushed for the tiktok is spyware narrative and fueled the china bad bandwagon themselves.

        you’re making the same racist assumption that underlies the TikTok ban itself - that Chinese people are inherently nefarious, untrustworthy, always hatching schemes and plots and subterfuge.

        the US does not need to be “tricked” into passing laws that are rooted in anti-Chinese bigotry. it’s basically a national pastime.

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      • princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Honestly this just sounds like more conspiracy theory than fact. Remember Occam’s Razor, the simplest solution is usually correct.

        Like don’t get me wrong, TikTok is absolutely an extension of soft power, and it’s likely that the Chinese government has access to the huge amount of data the platform collects. But I think anything beyond that is just not likely.

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• Commiunism@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’ll get a bit conspiratorial here, but if what Bernie has said is to be trusted in his video about oligarchy, up on his youtube channel, then Democrats are largely owned/influenced by billionaires who would benefit from the increased Trump support. It would make sense to do this, but yeah it could also just be a blunder, given how Trump was the first one to propose the ban and Democrats could take it as “hey if we do this, we’ll win the moderate right support again!!”, though who knows.

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  • yozul@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s important to remember that politicians are still people, too. Some of them might just not have realized what would happen, some of them might just be corrupt, some of them might have known this was a bad idea but played along anyway to try and get support for things they thought were more important. There isn’t actually a single motivator for all of the Democratic Party. That’s just not how people work.

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