Comment by schoen

Comment by schoen 3 hours ago

5 replies

I worked at EFF for twenty years, and every iteration or incarnation of EFF would have said that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to prevent Americans from using foreign web sites or software. And that it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to compel tech intermediaries to help block foreign sites or software. This would have been a bog-standard EFF position for the organization's entire existence.

(I would say something even stronger than "extraordinarily difficult", but then I'd be on thinner ice.)

munchler 2 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.

  • packetlost 21 minutes ago

    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)

  • accrual 2 hours ago

    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.

  • hedora 2 hours ago

    The second paragraph of the EFF statement says the ban provides insufficient protection of US security.

    • munchler 2 hours ago

      > 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.