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by Jaxkr 815 days ago
Because the U.S. is not a country that censors its internet. Free access to the entire internet is a right Americans have always enjoyed.

In my opinion, banning foreign websites/apps is just as bad as banning foreign literature.

9 comments

You aren't allowed to access many websites in the US. Many of whom went to the dark web (.onion). Many of whom are perfectly legal in other countries and even operate on the clear web in those countries.

Why is it different now?

Unless there is csam, it’s not illegal to visit a website.
there's gambling and sports betting and copyright violations (aka Netflix of everything for free) websites, not just CSAM thats a problem. And "visiting" makes it sound benign. Using a website you can do all sorts of stuff. Anywhere there's user created content, you can do all kinds of illegal things and break all sorts of laws. Send death threats, drug deals, money laundering.
IANAL but many sites that sell illegal drugs can get you in serious trouble. And I'm pretty sure the same goes for terrorism related searches and even searching for illegal downloads.
However many websites that would be legal to view are blocked.
That’s an unusual stance.

Trade restrictions are usually levied reciprocally, and trade agreements made to enforce equal market access or even outcomes. (E.g. you can sell Japanese cars in the US if Japan makes those cars with US steel ).

Even the US views certain content as illegal, so I'd say that right you stipulate is already limited.
Tiktok is not censored in India as well. They just show that it is not available in your country due to government order.

Even without blocking, countries could ask to seize operation and block them from accepting payment effectively killing it.

Ehe who is the 'They' in your statement?
Tiktok.
Ah ok, so TikTok has voluntarily disabled across to Indian users due to a government order which is not a ban. Interesting.
>Free access to the entire internet is a right Americans have always enjoyed.

Unless you're freeloading off of public and open wifi networks, every single person in America is paying someone (who reserves the right to refuse service to anyone) for the privilege of accessing the internet.

Free as in freedom
Yes, free as in freedom.

Unless you're freeloading off of public or open wifi networks, you are paying someone for the privilege to access the internet on their terms. The US government couldn't care less one way or another whether you have internet.

Internet access is not a right. It could be in another century or two like how the telephone turned out, but we aren't there yet and we shouldn't speak of it as such.

We're not in the era of "the internet" anymore. It's a bunch of firewalled devolved internets that are entirely within a single corporation. For example if the US banned access to all Chinese websites I think that would be bad. However explicitly banning major Chinese companies from selling directly to US consumers with an intention to mislead them I think is beneficial.

Just pass a law of automatic recipricol action for any country. If any country bans "X category" then ban anything coming FROM that country with the same category. If China wants tiktok to operate in the US then they must allow twitter, facebook, and all of the other applications to operate within China. That's the entire point of globalism. It's not a one way street.

This is not true. There are several websites not reachable from either the US or Europe.

South Front and Strategic Culture are two such examples.

Russia Today etc are not reachable from most EU countries.

> cue presstv.com
> Because the U.S. is not a country that censors its internet. Free access to the entire internet is a right Americans have always enjoyed.

That's total bullshit, and if you don't know it you have your head stuck in the sand. There are all kinds of things that are censored, usually for legitimate reasons.

Nothing will happen to your TikTok access if it's sold to an acceptable buyer. It's fine for the US to ban it if that doesn't happen, just like it's fine for the US to ban some Chinese company per-positioning antiaircraft missiles and tanks on US property that it happens to own.

I suggest you focus your efforts on ByteDance to encourage a sale.