Comment by munchler
9 hours ago
It required specific legislation to ban TikTok. I would say that's pretty extraordinary. I think even the EFF should admit that allowing the Chinese government to control a major American social media app is an unacceptable security risk.
It's amazing that all three arms of the government can come together so quickly to ban an app, but we can't have affordable housing, public healthcare, a higher minimum wage, or send kids to school without bulletproof backpacks.
Stop talking about that or they'll ban HN next!
Not only did it require specific legislation, but it had the near unanimous support of all 3 branches of the government (if you exclude the shifts in presidential opinion)
The second paragraph of the EFF statement says the ban provides insufficient protection of US security.
> The United States’ foreign foes easily can steal, scrape, or buy Americans’ data by countless other means.
True, but that's not the point.
> Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the US has previously condemned globally.
Sorry, that might've been true for old media, but social media is way more insidious.