[ZoomerCretin]

The "national security" argument was BS in 2018, and it's BS now. The only difference is now it's a real thorn in the side of the establishment in the US, because it's the only source of news and videos of Gaza that is not actively censored in the United States.

We have Russia Today in the US. We have CGTN. Both are okay because their viewership isn't sufficient to challenge the pro-Israeli propaganda put out by the MSM.

Even Mitt Romney admitted a lot of the pressure to ban TikTok came from the pro-Israel lobbyists: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/tiktok-ban-china...

[jcranmer]

> Both are okay because their viewership isn't sufficient to challenge the pro-Israeli propaganda put out by the MSM.

What pro-Israeli propaganda is the "MSM" putting out? Because all the pieces on the current invasion of Gaza I've been seeing have had a strong undercurrent of "what the fuck are you doing Israel?"

[GordonS]

Since one of the most recent massacres a day or two ago, there has been a noticeable shift away from Israeli apologism. But the MSM has absolutely been staunchly Pro-Israel throughout the genocide.

[jcranmer]

All of the media I've been following have been consistently skeptical of Israel's actions since at least November. In particular, I've noticed that the IDF's press events at the big hospital they cleared out (multiple times!) have consistently fallen flat, with all the journalists expressing extreme skepticism of the military's claims in their articles about it.

[shihab]

Bias more often hides in the news you don’t see, not the ones you do.

For example, many people have heard about 40 beheaded babies. How many have actually heard of Zaka? An ultra-right first responder volunteer group that made up this and several other stories that were plastered all over western media with zero attempt to verify it. Even Israeli media extensively reported on this group’s activities, but NYTimes and WSJ has been weirdly silent about all this up until very recently.

You all saw Nytimes’ investigation into hamas’ systematic use of rape. How many of you saw the news from NYTimes that both the parents and kibbutz of one of the central victims of the story said there was no sexual assault. And this also is a fabrication of Zaka.

Again, these facts are extensively reported in even Israeli media, several months ago. US media have recently started talking about this, and even now barely scratched the surface.

[GordonS]

I don't know what you've been reading/viewing, but every MSM outlet in the UK has been very obviously pro-Israel (as well as every story I've seen coming out the US, in the likes of the NYT etc) - to the point where it'd be comical, if what they were doing wasn't so deadly.

In their stories they usually have a tiny bit of criticism of Israel's actions, but even then always with caveats - I suspect this is to give the appearance of balance, and possibly to allow pro-Israelis to complain about how the press is against them. (to be clear, I'm not saying anything against yourself, it's a general observation!)

[JumpCrisscross]

> We have Russia Today in the US. We have CGTN.

We’ll still have TikTok.com even if Bytedance refuses to sell.

[somenameforme]

Not necessarily. The bill [1] very much leaves room for the creation of the 'Great Firewall of America.' Two of the top things it prohibits are:

---

(A) Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application.

(B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States.

---

That is strongly suggestive of the creation of a national firewall, or a defacto national firewall where internet service providers have to abide a Federal censorship list or face legal consequences. This is one of the many things, like the Patriot Act, that people are going to look back in a decade wondering why they ever thought this was a good idea. Well actually they'll probably just convince themselves that they never supported it - much easier.

[1] - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521...

[JumpCrisscross]

> strongly suggestive of the creation of a national firewall

Not really. It means TikTok can’t be distributed through app stores and that Oracle can fuck right off [1]. (“By means of a marketplace” and “hosting,” not accessing.)

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/19/23174775/tiktok-oracle-te...

[ZoomerCretin]

And what's the next sentence you didn't quote?