ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
A TikTok ban would probably also take down CapCut, Lemon8, and more
If the U.S. bans TikTok, quite a few apps are going to be affected.
mashable.com
Tick tock!
TikTok is one step closer to being banned in the USA
- Thread starter Hood Critic
- Start date
mashable.com
Tick tock!
A TikTok ban would probably also take down CapCut, Lemon8, and more
If the U.S. bans TikTok, quite a few apps are going to be affected.
Tick tock!
i only heard of capcut before didn't even know about Best AI Homework Helper for All School Subjects(Formerly Gauthmath)
AquaCityBoy
Veteran
Biden is a hoe 
This bill is nothingBiden is a hoe
choc_cardigan
Squad
The misinformation on the Internet is being spread rapidly
TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US
The video sharing app faces being banned in the US unless it severs ties with its China's ByteDance.
www.bbc.com
TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent tells US
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Image caption,ByteDance says a report it plans to sell TikTok "are not true"Article information
- Author,João da Silva
- Role,Business reporter
- 26 April 2024
TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America.
"ByteDance doesn't have any plans to sell TikTok," the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.
Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the "unconstitutional" law.
The statement from ByteDance came in response to an article by the technology industry website The Information that said it was exploring the potential sale of TikTok’s operation in the US without the algorithm that powers it.
"Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true," the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning "false rumour" stamped on it.
IMAGE SOURCE,BYTEDANCE
Image caption,ByteDance denied the report on a social media site it owns
The sell-or-ban measure was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Beijing's tightening grip on private companies has raised concerns in the US, and other Western countries, about how much control the Chinese Communist Party has over ByteDance, and the data it holds.
TikTok has repeatedly denied claims the Chinese government has control over ByteDance.
"We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts," said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week.
"The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side... rest assured, we aren't going anywhere."
According to TikTok, ByteDance's Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company.
About 60% is owned by institutional investors, including major US investment firms Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.
The remaining 20% is owned by its employees around the world and three of ByteDance's five board members are American.
The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would "inevitably come back to bite the US".
However, TikTok is not facing an immediate ban in the US.
The new law gives ByteDance nine months to sell the business, and an additional three-month grace period, before a potential ban can be enforced.
That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office.
TikTok owner has strong First Amendment case against US ban, professors say
Professor: US faces "uphill battle" justifying law against First Amendment suit.
arstechnica.com
TikTok owner has strong First Amendment case against US ban, professors say
Professor: US faces "uphill battle" justifying law against First Amendment suit.
JON BRODKIN - 4/26/2024, 1:49 PM
Enlarge
Getty Images | NurPhoto
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TikTok owner ByteDance is preparing to sue the US government now that President Biden has signed into law a bill that will ban TikTok in the US if its Chinese owner doesn't sell the company within 270 days. While it's impossible to predict the outcome with certainty, law professors speaking to Ars believe that ByteDance will have a strong First Amendment case in its lawsuit against the US.
One reason for this belief is that just a few months ago, a US District Court judge blocked a Montana state law that attempted to ban TikTok. In October 2020, another federal judge in Pennsylvania blocked a Trump administration order that would have banned TikTok from operating inside the US. TikTok also won a preliminary injunction against Trump in US District Court for the District of Columbia in September 2020.
"Courts have said that a TikTok ban is a First Amendment problem," Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, who writes frequent analysis of legal cases involving technology, told Ars this week. "And Congress didn't really try to navigate away from that. They just went ahead and disregarded the court rulings to date."
The fact that previous attempts to ban TikTok have failed is "pretty good evidence that the government has an uphill battle justifying the ban," Goldman said.
TikTok users engage in protected speech
The Montana law "bans TikTok outright and, in doing so, it limits constitutionally protected First Amendment speech," US District Judge Donald Molloy wrote in November 2023 when he granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the state law."The Montana court concluded that the First Amendment challenge would be likely to succeed. This will give TikTok some hope that other courts will follow suit with respect to a national order," Georgetown Law Professor Anupam Chander told Ars.
Molloy's ruling said that without TikTok, "User Plaintiffs are deprived of communicating by their preferred means of speech, and thus First Amendment scrutiny is appropriate." TikTok's speech interests must be considered "because the application's decisions related to how it selects, curates, and arranges content are also protected by the First Amendment," the ruling said.
Banning apps that let people talk to each other "is categorically impermissible," Goldman said. While the Chinese government engaging in propaganda is a problem, "we need to address that as a government propaganda problem, and not just limited to China," he said. In Goldman's view, a broader approach should also be used to stop governments from siphoning user data.
TikTok and opponents of bans haven't won every case. A federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of Texas Governor Greg Abbott in December 2023. But that ruling only concerned a ban on state employees using TikTok on government-issued devices rather than a law that potentially affects all users of TikTok.
Weighing national security vs. First Amendment
US lawmakers have alleged that the Chinese Communist Party can weaponize TikTok to manipulate public opinion and access user data. But Chander was skeptical of whether the US government could convincingly justify its new law in court on national security grounds."Thus far, the government has refused to make public its evidence of a national security threat," he told Ars. "TikTok put in an elaborate set of controls to insulate the app from malign foreign influence, and the government hasn't shown why those controls are insufficient."
The ruling against Trump by a federal judge in Pennsylvania noted that "the Government's own descriptions of the national security threat posed by the TikTok app are phrased in the hypothetical."
Chander stressed that the outcome of ByteDance's planned case against the US is difficult to predict, however. "I would vote against the law if I were a judge, but it's unclear how judges will weigh the alleged national security risks against the real free expression incursions," he said.
Montana case may be “bellwether”
There are at least three types of potential plaintiffs that could lodge constitutional challenges to a TikTok ban, Goldman said. There's TikTok itself, the users of TikTok who would no longer be able to post on the platform, and app stores that would be ordered not to carry the TikTok app.Montana was sued by TikTok and users. Lead plaintiff Samantha Alario runs a local swimwear business and uses TikTok to market her products.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen appealed the ruling against his state to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The Montana case could make it to the Supreme Court before there is any resolution on the enforceability of the US law, Goldman said.
"It's possible that the Montana ban is actually going to be the bellwether that's going to set the template for the constitutional review of the Congressional action," Goldman said.
Case goes beyond First Amendment
Court challenges may involve more than just the First Amendment. ByteDance could argue that it is being deprived of property under the takings clause, for example.ByteDance could also argue that the law is a bill of attainder, which is legislation that punishes a specific person or group of people without a trial. The new US law allows for other applications to be designated as being controlled by foreign adversaries, but singles out TikTok and ByteDance by name.
"The fact that TikTok is named by name in the bill is a potential problem. It looks a little bit like a bill of attainder type of problem," Goldman said.
Law’s bipartisan support makes predictions tricky
The TikTok ban-or-sale bill had support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The House Commerce Committee voted 50-0 to approve it in March. The TikTok legislation was later included in a larger appropriations bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The Senate voted 79-18 in favor of the legislation package.Opponents of the TikTok ban-or-sale bill also included both Republicans and Democrats. "This bill cuts across partisan lines, and so I don't think we can easily assume a partisan outcome from the Supreme Court," Goldman said.
"Some justices seem to be disposed against technology companies, other justices may be more willing to defer to national security claims, and most of the justices are strongly inclined to protect free expression online," Chander said. "It is hard to predict if there is a coalition of five justices for or against such a law."
When asked if any precedents might indicate whether ByteDance is likely to win or lose, Chander pointed to a 1965 ruling that invalidated a US law that imposed restrictions on mailings of "communist political propaganda." The court challenge involved mail delivery of a Chinese magazine, the Peking Review.
"In Lamont v. PostMaster General, at the height of the Cold War, the Supreme Court sided with free speech against a law seeking to hamper the flow of Chinese propaganda into the United States," Chander said.
Actions against Huawei not quite the same
The US has previously imposed strict limits on networking and hardware products from Chinese companies such as Huawei. But Goldman and Chander say that justifying the TikTok restriction is more difficult because of the free speech implications."The national security interest has to be balanced against the speech interest, which isn't always at play as obviously with other types of bans of goods or services based on national security grounds. This [TikTok] is a speech product that's being targeted and it has special considerations that other types of goods and services don't have," Goldman said.
As Chander said, "Huawei couldn't claim that its First Amendment rights were at stake, or the rights of its users. A change in ownership or a ban will have dramatic effect on the speech of both TikTok and its users."
A court could block the TikTok ban-or-sale provision while upholding laws that address national security problems more broadly. The same bill that requires a sale or ban on TikTok includes another section making it illegal for a data broker to sell or transfer sensitive data to foreign adversaries or entities controlled by foreign adversaries.
"One possibility is a court could uphold the data broker ban and strike down the outright ban of TikTok, saying there was a less restrictive alternative for you to use—and you actually literally used it," Goldman said.
That is what happened in the Montana case. Judge Molloy's ruling said "the current record leaves little doubt that Montana's legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China's ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers. This is especially apparent in that the same legislature enacted an entirely separate law that purports to broadly protect consumers' digital data and privacy."
ByteDance reportedly prefers leaving US over selling
While TikTok's case against the US will likely take many months, Goldman said we may get a better sense of the Supreme Court's views on social media much sooner. The court in February heard oral arguments on Florida and Texas state laws that limit how social media companies can moderate user-generated content."It remains unclear how vigorously the Supreme Court will protect users' First Amendment rights online, and that's the part I can't guess," Goldman said. "But we're going to get some data about that before we have any court rulings on the congressional TikTok ban."
If ByteDance loses in court, early indications suggest the company will pull TikTok out of the US instead of selling. ByteDance said this week that reports of it exploring a sale "are untrue," The Wall Street Journal reported.
A Reuters report says that sources indicate "TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the US."
choc_cardigan
Squad
I'm going to bite on this one breh, could you please interpret what this young man is trying to express?
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Your pops gonna be in trouble
Billionaire Real Estate Mogul Hopes to Turn TikTok Into His Utopian Internet Dream
Frank McCourt says he wants to buy TikTok to make a "new and better version of the internet."
gizmodo.com
Billionaire Real Estate Mogul Hopes to Turn TikTok Into His Utopian Internet Dream
Frank McCourt says he wants to buy TikTok to make a "new and better version of the internet."
ByMatt Novak
Published Wednesday 12:25PM
Comments (26)
Frank McCourt speaks onstage during Unfinished Live at The Shed on September 22, 2022, in New York City. Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Unfinished Live (Getty Images)
Frank McCourt, the billionaire real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is currently working on a bid to buy TikTok, according to reports from several reputable news outlets. And while it remains to be seen whether TikTok’s parent company ByteDance will agree to a sale to anyone, McCourt’s background in utopian tech advocacy makes him an interesting figure to enter the race.
The U.S. Congress passed legislation in March that will force TikTok to be sold or face a total ban in the U.S., ostensibly over national security concerns. ByteDance is based in China and bipartisan hawks of the New Cold War insist Beijing is capable of monitoring and manipulating data on TikTok, supposedly brainwashing the 170 million Americans who currently use the app.
And that’s where potential buyers now come in, including investor groups led by people like former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, reality show host Kevin O’Leary, and now Frank McCourt.
“We want all the capital to be values-aligned [around] a new and better version of the internet, where individuals are respected and they own and control their identity and their data,” McCourt told Semafor.
McCourt’s rather utopian vision of the internet isn’t just the ramblings of a billionaire kook. He created an initiative in 2021 called Project Liberty that advocates for open internet protocols and has the backing of some big names in the world of technology. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the web, is quoted in Semafor’s latest article praising McCourt, saying that he will, “embrace the critical values of privacy, data sovereignty, and user mental health.”
McCourt has also written a book, titled Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age, released in March, laying out his case for humanizing the internet. It starts, McCourt insists, by reimagining the infrastructure of the web with new open protocols.
But the big question among all of this: Will ByteDance even sell TikTok to American investors? At this point, it seems unlikely. TikTok filed a lawsuit last week to block the legislation on First Amendment grounds and the tech company makes a pretty compelling case. With roughly half the U.S. population currently using the app, it would indeed be chilling to the speech of millions if TikTok was suddenly taken away.
But as we all know, laws are fake and any court in the country can rationalize the most hypocritical ruling as being a matter of principle. The U.S. spent the past two decades shaming other countries for banning American websites when other nations said they had national security concerns. Now it’s our turn to ban apps we don’t like, simply because we got outplayed at our own game. Whether guys like McCourt can snap up TikTok amid all this confusion remains to be seen.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
France's move to block TikTok in New Caledonia sparks backlash
Access to the social media platform in the French territory was blocked following the violent clashes this week that led to the death of five people.
www.euronews.com
backstory is France won’t let them have a fair independence vote because the colony has nickel.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
Wanna see something wilder that’s gotten no coverage since it came out:
‘Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed By Mozilla — Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota — Flunks Privacy Test
Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information.
foundation.mozilla.org