Yep. Unfortunately both the left and right in the US seem to have free speech in their crosshairs one way or another. The right with “don’t say gay”, their book bans, and war on drag, the left with the TikTok ban, wanting the government to be able to define and regulate “misinformation” on social media, etc. The long-term protectors of free speech like the ACLU have even done a pivot away from free speech cases because they perceive them as unpopular.

China did that. We criticized them for it. Now we’re turning around and doing it. “We should get to do it because insert dictator here does it” isn’t a great argument.

I joined this instance at random, look at my history if you think I’m a tankie.

“You can’t use this at work” and “You can’t use this ever” are very different things.

Except it’s not, it’s an ad platform.

Right. So if they sell ads on it, it’s not a speech platform right? Reddit, not a speech platform? The Washington Post? The Guardian? Lemmy, when lemmy instances start running ads, Not a speech platform? Gmail? Not a speech platform?

Nope, absolutely incorrect, it is indeed just a company being banned.

It’s not. This isn’t a company that sells cars, they provide an online speech platform. It’s my ability to use the speech platform that gets banned in the process. They can ban TikTok from being able to “do business” in the US, that is different from pulling it from the app store or installing a great firewall to prevent US citizens from accessing their site. And frankly, “doing business” has been an inherent part of speech platforms for decades, selling advertising on speech platforms is how they can exist, all the way back to the days of newspapers and radio.

Except they already made Oracle handle all that and they can easily legislate privacy protections without banning TikTok entirely. And, again, it is my right as a citizen to install whatever app I want even if it is spying on me, just like the rest of my apps do. I could film every second of my life and put it up on Facebook or a personal website and the Chinese government could watch it and there’s not a damned thing the US government can do about it.

Rules for thee not for me

Good point. We are all vulnerable to manipulation and should only read content that is approved by the US Govt. Anybody who breaks this rule should go to jail. That is for our safety ✅

If China is going prevent US companies from doing profitable business within its economic borders I don’t see why the US should allow Chinese companies to engage in profitable businesses ventures within its country.

1. They get to do whatever they want because they’re a dicatorship. Saying the US government should be allowed to do something “because China does it” is a real slippery slope. 2. We aren’t talking about oil extraction or car sales here, we’re talking about something which is explicitly a speech platform. They are different.

It’s not just a “company” being banned, it’s the government telling you that you can’t use that companies services for your speech. Imaging the US government banning the The Guardian because it’s not owned by US citizens. That’s the same thing as banning TikTok because it’s not owned by US Citizens. The government has no right to ban newspapers or websites which are otherwise engaging in legally-protected speech. You have a right to hear what they have to say.

They are all examples of speech platforms the government targeted because they disagreed with what they were publishing. Because of the precedent set in those situations, the government has even more latitude to prosecute even more speech they don’t agree with. The basis of the TikTok ban is literally it’s “foreign propaganda”. Propaganda is just “stuff the government doesn’t want you to hear”. The right to hear things the government doesn’t want you to hear is one of the most basic rights of human expression. Not just in the US, but in the UN Charter on human rights as well.

Fear of “foreign influence”? You would find that exact argument being made by the Soviet Union to block US films and books in their country. You would find that exact argument being used in China to block internet access. You would find that exact argument being made in Iran to stop the discussion of homosexuality.

The govt can do anything it wants to punch back so long as it’s not infringing on the rights of its citizens. Our plan to stop China from “influencing us” is to… become more like China?

Who are they worried China is going to influence? Children, right? If it’s adults, that’s almost more insulting, they think we don’t deserve to be able to see all sides of an argument and are too stupid to discern fact from fiction. We may as well dispense with free expression entirely at that point because the government can just say “you’re too stupid to read this and we’re worried you’ll be influenced, so you can only read the books we’ve pre-approved for you”

It is every American’s right to think freely, to speak those thoughts to others, and to have others have the opportunity to hear those thoughts whether or not they are “good influences” according to govt. It is wild how easily people are willing to throw that right away for fears of “foreign influence”. What’s next, banning TV shows from foreign countries because they might “corrupt our culture”? Banning books with subversive topics because they will “give people bad ideas”?. This is how the road to fascism begins.

Since when is reading newspapers your government doesn’t agree with a right? Since when is communicating with people your government doesn’t like a right? Since when is publishing whatever you want a right? Since approximately 1776. It’s such an important right that it’s literally the first one in the constitution. Because our ability to speak freely and criticize the government is one of the rights that underpins all others. The medium shouldn’t matter, speech is speech whether it’s an app, website, chat server, newspaper, bulletin board, code, painting, drawing, whatever. If the government can just shut down any medium or venue they don’t like because “it’s propaganda”, that basically closes the door to any open criticism of the government.

We’ve tried not having those rights for the sake of convenience, expediency, or social pleasantness. Tends to not end well. Ask people in Russia or Iran how that “government gets to dictate where and how you speak” thing is going for them. Insane bootlicking going on in this thread.

How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.

Nostr vs Mastodon on Privacy & Autonomy:

• Relay/instance admins can choose which content goes through their relay on either platform
• On nostr, your DMs are encrypted. In Mastodon, the admin of the sender and receiver can read them, as can anybody else who breaks into their server
• On nostr, a relay admin can control what goes through their relay, but they can’t stop you from following/DMing/being followed by whoever you want since you are typically connected to multiple relays at once. As long as one relay allows it, signal flows. Nostr provides the best of both worlds: moderated “public squares” according to your moderation preferences, autonomy to follow/dm/be followed by anybody you want (assuming that individual user hasn’t blocked you).
• On mastodon, your identity is tied to your instance. If your instance goes down, you lose your follow/followee list, DMs, etc. On Nostr, it’s not, so this doesn’t happen. Mastodon provides some functionality to migrate identity between instances but it’s clunky and generally requires to have some form of advanced notice.
• Both have all the same functions as twitter: tweet, reply, re-tweet, DM, like, etc.

Why I think nostr will win https://lemmy.ml/post/11570081

Let’s goooo!