Re:TikTok ban bill in US faces changes after ByteDance spent...
by hayst4ck on Thursday July 13, 2023 @02:38PM
(#36714036)
It is a libertarian argument. The weaker the government, the stronger individual power, and therefore freedom is.
We had some founding fathers who were libertarian in nature, but today's crop of libertarians don't have the same education level, class, or philosophical understanding that our founding fathers did, so they don't focus on key distinctions.
Protection from foreign interests is a government concern, while controlling individuals is not a government concern.
They frame the conversation around them being controlled rather than a foreign interest being fought for mindshare. The framing determines the assessment.
edit: I'm not from US but it seems pretty obviously a thing a country that cares about security in the information age should be able to do. It does not mean banning apps left and right, but if a viral app is owned by a country that has open animosity to you and the app clearly does shady things (remember injected keyloggers in tiktok's webview?) it may be critical to be able to ban it quickly. If it's not possible, that's just a massive security hole. This seems like all there is to it