<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/15/a-tiktok-ban-is-a-pointless-political-turd-for-democrats/>
"As you probably noticed, the House just passed the controversial ban on
TikTok, with 352 Representatives in favor, and 65 opposed. The bill is now
likely to be slow-walked to the Senate where its chance of passing is murky,
but possible. Biden (which has been using the purportedly “dangerous national
security threat” to campaign with) has stated he’ll sign the bill should it
survive the trip.
The ban (technically a forced divestment, followed by a ban after ByteDance
inevitably refuses to sell) passed through the house with more than a little
help from Democrats:
https://i0.wp.com/www.techdirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/5.jpg
Not talked much about in press coverage is the fact that the majority of
constituents don’t actually support a ban (you know, the whole representative
democracy thing). Support for a ban has been dropping for months, even among
Republicans, and especially among the younger voters Democrats have already
been struggling to connect with in the wake of the bloody shitshow in Gaza:
https://i0.wp.com/www.techdirt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6.jpg
As the underlying Pew data makes clear, a lot of Americans aren’t sure what to
think about the hysteria surrounding TikTok. And they’re not sure what to
think, in part, because the collapsing U.S. tech press has done a largely
abysmal job covering the story, either by parroting bad faith politician claims
about the proposal and app, or omitting key important context.
Context like the fact the U.S. has been too corrupt to pass an internet privacy
law, resulting in years of repeated scandal (with TikTok being arguably among
the least of them). Congress has been lobbied into apathy by a massive
coalition of cross-industry lobbyists with unlimited budgets. But the U.S.
government is also disincentivized to act because it abuses the dysfunction to
avoid having to get traditional warrants.
The press has also been generally terrible at explaining to the public that the
ban doesn’t actually do what it claims to do."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
