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How the House revived the TikTok ban bill before most of us noticed (www.theverge.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Interesting to note here: getting preteens to confusedly call Congress with threats of self harm and questions like "what is Congress" with a push notification is not the best plan

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

We will eventually scientifically determine the neurological impact of social media is both damaging long term and requires health treatment.

This isn't about the content itself, it's the addictive nature of how it's delivered and the ability to rapidly manipulate people.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

And this isn’t even about social media. This bill is to prevent the external data collection and manipulation of a group of people by an external to the US organization. If this was about with of those in general, then I’d be all about it. We need better data protections here in the US and we need social media platforms to be held accountable on that charge, but this isn’t that bill. This doesn’t affect Meta, or X or any other domestic site which are just as bad at both manipulation and data gathering/selling.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I totally agree that it's bad for us but so are a thousand other things aswell. I wouldn't want the government mandating what I can eat and drink, how much I have to sleep and exercise, what substances I'm allowed to smoke, which risky activities I can to partake in etc. I should be allowed to live an unhealthy lifestyle if I so decide.

If we're going to ban TikTok based on the negative health effects then it seems a bit hypocritical to me that we're ignoring things like sugar, tobacco and alcohol or if we're strictly speaking of media content then porn should be the first thing to go. I don't understand how one can be for banning one but not the another.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

But the government literally already does that. There's a whole food and drug administration. Weed isn't completely de-scheduled yet despite the number of states that have legalized it. You literally can't go to a shooting range without following the rules of the range, or go skydiving without signing a waiver, you can't buy alcohol until you're 21, and in some states can't even buy cigarettes until then either. Want to rent a car? Can't at 19. The government interferes in cases of public safety all the time.

That being said they aren't attempting to ban tik tok because of the effects on the public's mental health. That's BS. They are trying to force the sale of tik tok to a US friendly tech company because they don't like how much power the CCP has over it. The purpose isn't to protect privacy or mental health. It's to only allow companies friendly to the US to affect the mental health of its residents and collect their private data.