T.L. 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (183)

• On the post: The House Ban On DJI Drones Is Mindless Anticompetitive Fear Mongering

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2024 @ 03:06pm

  No, that’s not how it works. You’re supposed to base national security risks on evidence, not feelings. To bar a company from doing business in the U.S. based on national security concerns that lack evidentiary basis is the equivalent of arresting someone for a crime they hadn’t committed without specifying what the crime is. The government’s foreign trade powers were not meant to be used that way. That’s why TikTok’s suing the government for passing a law trying to ban it while refusing to specify any national security concerns that aren’t hypothetical in nature. In fact, Trump’s attempted TikTok ban in 2020 was blocked in part for lack of evidence of a credible security threat (on top of the implied First Amendment violations for using regulatory powers that didn’t allow the President to embargo First Amendment-protected materials, like Internet platforms).

• On the post: ‘Today We Save Our Children’ Says Governor Hochul, Signing Bill That Will Not Save Anyone

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2024 @ 02:34am

  There’s an episode of “Will & Grace”, in which Will talks to Grace about her poker playing style, saying to her, “You have a "tell" when you're bluffing… you tell everybody you're NOT bluffing.” When it comes to these Internet laws, politicians have a similar tell that the bills they back are (likely) unconstitutional, they tell everybody that it IS constitutional. There should be a presumption of unconstitutionality to any government Internet regulation that has a substantial impact on speech and expression or a platform’s editorial conduct that goes against the First Amendment principles extended to the Internet through the landmark Reno v. ACLU case, until and unless a court decides otherwise.

• On the post: 500,000 Books Have Been Deleted From The Internet Archive’s Lending Library

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 20 Jun, 2024 @ 03:48pm

  He must’ve thought you were a one-eyed green Pixar monster.

• On the post: Belgian Court Penalizes Meta For Failing To Boost & Promote Far-Right Politician

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2024 @ 11:06am

  What Mike illustrated in the opening paragraphs about how shadowbanning came to its current definition is something I didn’t know (kudos for the Vice link illustrating the evolution), ‘cause that definition has been mainstreamed across political lines. The definition I’ve understood it as is the one used among content creators to describe long periods of time where posts and videos don’t perform well with a broad audience, compared to previous posts.

• On the post: Donald Trump, Who Initially Pushed To Ban TikTok, Now Campaigning On TikTok

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2024 @ 07:51pm

  Actually, Congress pulled the trigger, using the same structure as the attempted ban that failed in the courts under Trump. Like that one, it’s subject to a lawsuit where the justification and reasoning is going to be scrutinized, especially with (mostly GOP) lawmakers stupidly admitting the basis of support for the PAFACA was because of (constitutionally protected) speech they don’t like (like content critical of or highlighting the horrors of the war in Gaza, along with foreign propaganda, which the “right to receive” concept applied in Lamont v. Postmaster General—a case dealing with a Postal Service statute requiring mail recipients to opt into receiving Communist propaganda, lest it be detained and destroyed by USPS before reaching the recipient otherwise—also prevents the government from restricting). Unless the government can prove that the law is the only way to address the issue (they likely can’t, especially when mitigative measures like privacy reforms, including one built into the divest-or-ban law itself that prohibits data brokers from selling data to adversary countries, exist and the government can’t prohibit access to propaganda, especially without ensnaring other kinds of protected speech, as the First Amendment doesn’t exempt disinformation), the D.C. Court of Appeals may well reduce the PAFACA to just the data broker provision (a la how the courts left Section 230 as the only constitutional provision in the Communications Decency Act, while striking down the unconstitutional “indecent material” regulations).

• On the post: Donald Trump, Who Initially Pushed To Ban TikTok, Now Campaigning On TikTok

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2024 @ 02:36pm

  The Jeff Yass thing aside, we know Trump holds grudges against anyone who he believes wronged him, including social media platforms that banned him as a result of J6 for understandable reasons. The fact is he (and his campaign) has barely posted on X/Twitter and YouTube, and hasn’t posted on Facebook since his accounts were reinstated. TikTok is the only major mainstream social media platform left that hasn’t blocked him, since he wasn’t using it before this past Saturday, and he is running for president to stay out of prison, so he figures reaching a broader base (not that he’s done a good job at expanding his voter base, despite what polls suggest) will help him win, even if he’s branded a hypocrite for using the very platform he tried to illegally shut down (under the same forced sale rationale that the law Biden signed is purportedly based on, even though several aspects in that provision seem like an attempt at a backdoor attempt at a ban by putting unworkable demands that would actually hinder a sale, rather than facilitate one) to campaign.

• On the post: Donald Trump, Who Initially Pushed To Ban TikTok, Now Campaigning On TikTok

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 04 Jun, 2024 @ 01:03pm

  Most Republican politicians don’t use it. The irony is that there has been conservatives and libertarians on TikTok for years, but because of the “China bad” posturing in targeting the platform, the right’s presence is limited to random everyday people (many spouting bad political takes easily roasted by anyone with a functioning thought process), and a handful of influencers (some who grew through TikTok, and a few who developed their presence on other platforms). Vivek Ramaswamy fits the hypocrite description in the same way as Trump, as he railed against TikTok during his campaign, only to join it after dropping out of the Republican presidential primaries. That said, in Trump World, now that TFG’s using it, anyone who rails against TikTok now will face his wrath, and either be forced to flip-flop in support of the platform or get targeted by Trump and his inner circle (Marco Rubio, who was railing against TikTok on the day of this post, hasn’t gotten the memo, and that may mean bye-bye to his hope of being Trump’s sycophant VP).

• On the post: More Sprint Merger ‘Synergies’ As T-Mobile Raises Wireless Rates

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 28 May, 2024 @ 05:40am

  Note this was published the same day that T-Mobile announced plans to acquire most of U.S. Cellular.

• On the post: The First Amendment Gives You The Right To Lie, Even With AI

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 23 May, 2024 @ 04:13pm

  Great point. Also, while some in Washington (and several states) seem to think otherwise, the “answer to bad speech is counterspeech” principle still stands in the social media era. You can’t censor propaganda, but you can give people a different perspective to counter it, particularly perspectives grounded in fact.

• On the post: The First Amendment Gives You The Right To Lie, Even With AI

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 23 May, 2024 @ 01:00pm

  As Lamont v. Postmaster General established, the First Amendment protects propaganda of all kinds, whether it’s in the vein of receiving Communist publications through the mail (the issue said case affirmed the right to receive), social media disinformation, AI deepfakes or right-wing media. Propaganda actually can take on two forms: 1) the conventional definition of actual disinformation and 2) a concept in which statements that have at least remote factual basis are rejected as invalid because it doesn’t suit a person’s belief system, which autocratic governments and backsliding democracies all too often invoke to freely infringe on speech rights. Hence, why it’s not possible to even regulate exposure to propaganda without creating a slippery slope that broadly inhibits protected speech.

• On the post: Another Billionaire Pushes A Bid For TikTok, But To Decentralize It

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 16 May, 2024 @ 08:31pm

  BTW, McCourt’s Project Liberty is actually one of the proponents for the Kids Online Safety Act. I remember they bought ads last Summer pushing for the laws passage. Funny enough, considering the criticism of KOSA stems from the concern that it will be used by government officials (either Republican AGs or the FTC under a Republican president like Trump) to censor certain types of Internet content they disfavor in the name of “protecting the children”, almost every time I saw the ads was during (I kid you not) “Big Brother”.

• On the post: Former FCC Chair Pai Stumbles Over First Amendment, And Text Of The Law, In Supporting TikTok Ban

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 15 May, 2024 @ 09:33am

  Not sure how that works. The First Amendment limits what the government can do as it relates to regulating speech. So, if ByteDance won, it would only impact content moderation as requested by the government, not that imposed by social media platforms themselves, since they’re not the government. (Granted, there are a lot of people who don’t understand the First Amendment doesn’t prohibit private companies from regulating speech, so some of those people might try to file vexatious lawsuits against social media companies based on that needle thread failure.)

• On the post: Streaming Sector Continues Its Steady Transformation Into Boring Old Cable TV

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 15 May, 2024 @ 09:23am

  Where is “Barbie” available on Netflix? Here in the States, Max currently has the streaming rights (along with HBO holding the linear rights, both as a result of sister studio Warner Bros. being the film’s distributor).

• On the post: Former FCC Chair Pai Stumbles Over First Amendment, And Text Of The Law, In Supporting TikTok Ban

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 14 May, 2024 @ 04:11pm

  It’s frightening how many people misunderstand the First Amendment, considering how many people seem to believe, unaware of the substantial amount of case law that’s established the opposite, that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to foreign citizens living in the U.S. Yes, there have been certain limits applied in a handful of cases, but foreigners have a substantial amount of 1A liberties that American-born citizens enjoy. This logically should extend to companies doing business in the U.S., regardless of their country of origin, constraining the government from restricting corporate First Amendment protections in other ways (as other case law has established with the corporate press like with New York Times v. Sullivan and New York Times Co. v. United States, and which Reno v. ACLU more or less established with regulating content hosted by Internet companies). The problem with the logic regarding TikTok is that it’s functionally similar in structure to other multinational corporations. ByteDance is based in China and less than one-third of its ownership is held by Chinese citizens (employees, investors and the company’s founder), while the remainder of the company’s ownership is held by investors outside of China (including ~5 U.S. investment firms, like General Atlantic and Susquehanna International) and employees in the U.S., Europe and Singapore. TikTok Inc. (the U.S.-based international subsidiary) was originally founded as Musical.ly, and is incorporated in Delaware and California (the latter being where the platform’s North American headquarters are based), along with Singapore and the Cayman Islands. This conceivably makes what the government is trying to do legally problematic, especially considering the platform reaches half the country, is of a valuation that limits the pool of buyers and is subject to export controls much like what the U.S. employs (people who act like China’s willingness to block the sale of certain IP like it’s algorithm is “proof” that TikTok is under the thumb of the Chinese government fail to understand most countries have export controls), making it a ban in practice, not a divestiture.

• On the post: Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 12 May, 2024 @ 11:04am

  …and that which ultimately resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act.

• On the post: Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 10 May, 2024 @ 01:41pm

  Scalise wouldn't have done that if he was the minority leader. In fact, the select committee on the Chinese Communist Party only came into existence because Republicans wanted to start it when they took control of the House. Usually, GOP threats to weaponize investigatory powers against political foes don't work out the way they want to. NetChoice idiotically showed Republicans that they can use such threats to intimidate opponents, which should worry us all. The group and Carl Szabo need to be condemned for abdicating their duty to protect the digital rights of Americans, just because lawmakers want to punish China (which they fail to realize will come back to haunt us, since we still have a substantial economic relationship with China and they can damage our economy as retaliation; remember, they own $859 billion in U.S. debt that they can dump on us and sink our economy if we're not careful).

• On the post: Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 10 May, 2024 @ 01:19pm

  TikTok's case was already strengthened when Mike Lawler and Mitt Romney admitted the week before Scalise's strongarming of NetChoice that the reason why many lawmakers (GOP and Dem) supported the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was because of content highlighting what's going on on the ground in Gaza and criticizing the war (including the U.S.'s involvement). Notably, few Democrats supported a ban on TikTok until the war in Gaza happened (outside of a few like Krishnamoorthi and Mark Warner, most favored a divestiture or outright opposed any action that imposed some form of First Amendment issue); come Gaza, the vast majority of them backed the PAFACA. In fact, some lawmakers on both sides engaged in similar practices to force TikTok to take down content critical of the war, so there's a strong case that the merits of the GOP attorney general plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri actually apply here. Threatening to shut down a speech platform for content you don't like, after pressuring the same platform to take down content for the same reason, or because you distrust the country it's parent company is based in, especially knowing that the evidence of the national security risks claimed regarding the platform is largely hypothetical (and in a lot of ways indistinguishable from those that would apply to other social media platforms), and threatening any lobbying group who defends the platform (ignoring the basis of Citizens United is that companies have First Amendment rights), is the type of unlawful jawboning that the claimants in Murthy think the Biden administration is engaging in.

• On the post: Congressional Committee Threatens To Investigate Any Company Helping TikTok Defend Its Rights

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 10 May, 2024 @ 10:19am

  This shouldn't be a surprise, but makes it easy for TikTok's case

  This only adds to the evidence that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed under blatantly devious circumstances, and probably wouldn't have happened if the House wasn't Republican-controlled (not that Democrats are absolved, since most of them voted for the bill). It makes it clear that the intent of the law is to ban TikTok, in violation of the First Amendment, buttressing TikTok's case. Masnick needs to write about the fact that several lawmakers were dumb enough to say the quite part out loud, and admit support for the PAFACA was based on the desire to censor pro-Palestinian/anti-war content, a flagrant act of viewpoint discrimination barred under the First Amendment. Mitt Romney (in a symposium with Secretary of State Antony Blinken) and Mike Lawler (in a conference call with No Labels) admitted as much last week, giving TikTok ammo to strengthen their case, not to mention the fact that many of the lawmakers who supported the PAFACA also criticized the app for protected speech critical of the war, even suggesting a ban would be justified for that reason. This pretty much illustrates the U.S.’s targeting of TikTok (from Trump’s failed EO to Montana’s blocked ban law to the PAFACA) is solely political and not based on actual evidence of security, which would make the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (who said in the Pentagon Papers that “security is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment”) roll over in his grave. Some articles for basis… https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmakers-tiktok-ban-pro-palestinian-content-1235016101/ https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/tiktok-ban-protests-gaza-israel-houston-flooding-climate-change-20240507.html https://theintercept.com/2024/05/04/josh-gottheimer-mike-lawler-campus-protests/ https://truthout.org/articles/tiktok-exposed-youth-to-genocide-in-gaza-is-that-why-electeds-want-it-banned/ That and the fact that House Republicans are trying to target anyone who defends the company's constitutional rights to where NetChoice caved and dumped them from their membership helps TikTok's messaging that it is a ban, not a divestment, so they're literally making a case that the merits of Murthy v. Missouri actually apply here.

• On the post: Politicians Scapegoat Social Media While Ignoring Real Solutions

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 09 May, 2024 @ 12:01pm

  "I recognize it’s convenient to claim that it’s just “big tech” that pointed out the constitutional flaws of the AADC, but they were just the only ones that could afford the lawsuit." Jennifer Seibel Newsom conflated the idea that Big Tech was behind the suit, with the fact that NetChoice (a trade organization that represents the major social media companies as well as many e-commerce firms) filed the lawsuit. NetChoice recognizes the constitutional problems with most of these Internet laws, generally those where the laws conflict with the First Amendment, and challenges them where appropriate. The Free Speech Coalition (another trade group representing the adult entertainment industry) is of the same mindset, that regulation of the Internet should not abridge First Amendment freedoms (their challenges to age verification laws, which NetChoice also challenges with regard to social media and other non-adult sites, is based on the principle that parents should be the ones keeping their kids from accessing adult content online and any age verification to access such content should be device-based, not site-based).

• On the post: Colorado Passes Its Third ‘Right To Repair’ Bill

  

  T.L. ( profile ), 09 May, 2024 @ 12:17am

  Why has Colorado pass three "right to repair" bills anyway, instead of just passing one and then making amendments to the initial legislation to broaden its scope?

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