Just curious: how is TikTok any worse than Instagram or YouTube Shorts ? I don’t get it
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
TikTok Still On Track for January Ban as Appeals Court Upholds Ruling
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Banning Tik Tok has nothing to do with violating the First Amendment. I guess technically it could since a lot of people made political comments, BUT they aren't arresting these people for their opinions.
Also, their basis for banning it is because of privacy and security, not the actual content on it.
Because it is from China and they are apparently evil.
Tell me you don't understand John Oliver's comedy without telling you don't understand John Oliver's comedy.Oliver's show shares a lot with TikTok - share a 'fact' and then follow it up with a 'joke' before the viewer has even had time to process the 'fact'. It's designed to subconsciously build mental associations that the positions of people Oliver disagrees with are to be laughed at or derided - all while not actually caring about the facts.
It's sort of like the joke of how a shark won't eat a lawyer out of professional courtesy.
So looking into it...
"
The issue came to a head in two recent defamation cases in the past month. The Virginia Court of Appeals ordered Yelp to disclose the identities of seven users who wrote negative reviews of an Alexandria, Va. carpet cleaning company. Because the carpet cleaning company suggested that the reviewers were not actually customers, the court held that the reviewers’ identities were not protected under the First Amendment or state law. The Court acknowledged that customers’ opinions on Yelp are generally protected opinion under the First Amendment, but reasoned that if “the reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead, the review is based on a false statement of fact—that the reviewer is writing his review based on personal experience.”
If one thing is clear, it is that there is no clarity. State and federal courts will continue to issue a mish-mash of conflicting opinions that provide little consistency or certainty for online speech. The U.S. Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of all things constitutional, has not ruled the right to anonymous online speech. The lower courts have been forced to guess the proper constitutional outcome based on the Supreme Court’s most recent opinion on anonymous speech, a 2002 case involving a municipal requirement for door-to-door solicitors to display a permit that lists their name.
Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court will have no choice but to provide a concrete guidance on whether the First Amendment protects anonymous online speech. When it does, the justices should ensure that plaintiffs cannot use the court system to chill speech and suppress unpopular viewpoints."
This isnt about chilling speech or suppressing unpopular viewpoints.
It's about people stating stuff anonymously with the intent to defame them.
That's why it's a grey area. And if the person posting isnt telling the truth and misrepresenting their own interests it makes a very grey area indeed that faces challenges.
Perhaps people should just think before they post something malicious...
Does the feeling writing something negative about someone else really make it worthwhile risking their own reputation if someone was forced to identify them?
But it's not that it's just China-based.
It's the amount of unnecessary data you are consenting to send them.
Why do they need all you purchase and location information just to show you a video?
You are consuming media only. Watching a DVD doesnt require that information so why does TikTok (or any app)?
Somewhere, sometime, the aggregated data on you can be weaponised, that's why...
Well, to some extent they probably are (as a Government), but I still don’t get why the app 🤷🏻♂️
TikTok is banned in China, Douyin is the heavily monitored and censored version inside China. TikTok is infested with "The 50 cent Army" or wumao. These are paid, or volunteer people in their many 1000's who will post according to what the CCP wants. Post anything about the Falun Gong on TikTok and it will be buried in negative comments from the wumao.
I'm sure live streaming has been going on for years. But around that time is when I was looking through TikTok (everyone was talking about it, I was bored) and came across those live streams. I never saw that on my Facebook while scrolling.
I don't use the app now. I know kids do dances on there. And people at work have told me you can learn how to make food, build a fence, lots of things. It doesn't interest me.
What I don't like about all this is allowing the government to have the power to choose what my family can and can't view. If they can do that because they don't like Chinese, what else can they limit? Would they give preference towards apps or videos from other countries? Could they block local apps they don't agree with?
Pretty much. Yet if Trump or Musk want people's data then it's fair play...
TBH as an Aussie it is sorta a fear. You spend all this time believing that the CCP's the danger. Then the USA has yhia weird 'MATA MAGA MAGA' cult run by the quirky son of a property billionaire (who has links to Russia). And you're like... who do I trust my data with... a strategic ally or our biggest trade partner? Or. Neither... can people just stop hoarding bulk data?
Ding, ding, ding! Young people believe what they see live on TikTok, not what they hear from official news sources, which most times paint very different pictures of the same events. Question everything.
Tik Tok didn't even exist during the Arab Spring. 👀
You have your world events mixed up and this is exactly why it's dangerous to have Americans, particularly American youth, "educated" or "informed" by an algorithm dictated by a hostile adversary.
If it gets banned in the US, I think it'll cascade to other western countries. Canada is already tightening the vice. Tik Tok's offices were shut down by order of the government and banning the app is probably on the horizon.
I see your point, and I didn’t mean to make a straw man argument. My intention was to highlight that society already establishes norms for what is safe for minors to access. While I agree there’s no direct parallel between social media (tell me what is a direct parallel) and something like hard drugs, the comparison was meant to emphasize how we regulate potentially harmful things. Social media, unlike hard drugs, does have some benefits, but its risks—like compulsive use and mental health effects—are significant enough that they may warrant similar scrutiny.
I think it’s worth discussing where we draw the line as a society, especially when it comes to minors.
United States racial unrest (2020–2023) - Wikipedia
There surely were riots in the last few years. I rarely saw anything on the news about this other than small clips but you could see in real time what was happening live.
And I'm not worried about Spring time in Arabia.
Just delete it and move on with your life. I've done that.
There is no need to have your government force others, at the point of a gun, do what you want them to do.
And don't say it's ruining society. There are plenty of great people between 18 and 30 and there are plenty of turkeys. I'm sure the proportions are similar to how they were over the last several decades.
The answer is "addiction".
The constant novelty of seeing new things each 2 seconds; it's more addicting than drugs.
I never installed TikTok, and I stopped using Instagram.
I feel much better.
I have noticed the addictive potential of such apps, first hand, with my parents.
When I visit them, my father in law (in his 80s) is glued to the screen watching youtube shorts for hours, hours, hours and hours at all volume, and he becomes very annoyed if you interrupt him or try to make him understand he's watching too much.
The videos he watches are utter trash, like annoying pranks, or stupid reels with obnoxious music, and I have noticed they numb him down even further than he is; he sufers from some Dementia, but this has made things very much worse.
We tried blocking youtube shorts on the computer, but he was furious.
And he was the one telling me "kids these days fry their brains on such apps", 10 years ago.
These things need to be treated like drug addiction is.
I dream of social media being made available only for adults, as I can't imagine how this reel mania will create chaos in future generations.
But, Orange Donny has vowed to save TikTok. I wonder if he will. And how.
Popular social network TikTok did not receive a reprieve from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and it is still facing a ban that is set to be enacted in January, reports The Wall Street Journal.
TikTok and several of the social network's users challenged an April bill that is forcing Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok. The bill provided ByteDance with a nine-month period to sell TikTok to a company outside of China, and if the sale doesn't happen, TikTok won't be able to be distributed in the United States.
TikTok claimed that the bill was unconstitutional because it infringes on free speech, but the court rejected that claim.
While the ban is set to go into effect in January, TikTok is likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking an emergency stay. From there, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case.
If TikTok is banned, Google, Apple, and other app distributors will not be able to provide the app for download, nor offer updates to the app. Internet hosting services will also be blocked from supporting the app, giving U.S. users no way to download it. TikTok users will, however, be able to keep using the app so long as it functions.
ByteDance does not plan to sell TikTok, and even if the company complied and did so, China would need to approve the sale. The Chinese government has made it clear that it will firmly oppose any sale of the TikTok app. ByteDance says that it would be impossible to give the TikTok source code to a new owner because it would take years for new engineers to become familiar enough with it to perform routine maintenance.
U.S. lawmakers want TikTok sold to a non-China company over concerns that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over data from users in the United States, and there have also been suggestions that China could use TikTok to spread political propaganda.
Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Article Link: TikTok Still On Track for January Ban as Appeals Court Upholds Ruling
But previously he was the leading proponent for banning TikTok too. And China is one of his favorite bogeyman
Very toxic algo and content in comparison and designed to be much more addictive.
It's so bad that they won't even allow it in China. The Chinese version of the app is far safer.
Well, I’m not addicted at all, but I used it a bunch of times and it seems like YouTube shorts to me