[abeppu]

> The real issue is our adversary controlling the content the masses in the US see can sway opinions via propaganda

... but during the 2016 election we saw that Russian-funded interference efforts using FB and Twitter were pretty effective despite those being public, US-based companies. If you're concerned about propaganda, then policies should be concerned with stuff like "is this poster a real human", "does this post make factually untrue assertions", "is this poster paid to say this without it being marked as an ad", along with "is the platform doing view-point-based amplification or suppression".

Further, in Citizens United, the court effectively invited companies, including subsidiaries of foreign companies, to contribute to political campaigns as part of their free-speech rights. And there was press about foreign companies exercising those rights. So it seems inane to me to say that foreign companies have a first amendment right to pay for political ads and statements, but not to operate a service that lets users create and view posts. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/citizens-united-for...

[scarface_74]

Let’s be honest, Trump supporters were going to support Trump even if he “shot someone in the middle of Times Square”.

Even when places like Fox News called the election fairly in 2020, they were roundly criticized by Trump supporters and places like Redstate kicked out life long anti-Trump conservatives.

The Wall Street Journal of all things was being called part of the “liberal media” of all things.

But in 2024, the Democrats lost fair and square. They lied and covered up Biden’s mental decline until it became more than apparent and lost any credibility with the public. They have given up on the “50 state strategy”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-state_strategy

[abeppu]

I agree with you that Trump-supporters are both loyal and ruthless. And I think that's mostly a US-internal matter. I agree with you that in 2024 the Democrats lost fair and square in the sense of not convincing people they were worth voting for.

However, Russia has continued to interfere in US elections including 2020 and 2024.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

I'm not pretending foreign interference only happened in 2016, or only happened when Trump won -- foreign and especially Russian interference has been non-stop because we haven't done anything systematically to stop it. The claimed threat about TikTok is always some vague opportunity for "propaganda". But we can point to many specific cases of Russian interference and misinformation on US-based platforms. The TikTok ban is just not a serious attempt at addressing the "foreign propaganda" problem, and people that make non-specific allegations about propaganda on it without mentioning the very real issues on US-based platforms are being disingenuous.

[scarface_74]

I don’t disagree with you. But as far as disinformation, why does it matter especially on the national level? How many people’s minds were changed?

We both agree that the Democrats didn’t give the non rabid Trump supporters a reason to vote for them and the rabid Trump voters were going to vote for him no matter what came out for or against him.

[abeppu]

We have no idea how many minds were changed. But everything public says that the foreign interference operations that are actually known to be happening are using FB, twitter, reddit, youtube and everything else, are mostly Russian, and we're shutting down TikTok b/c its Chinese owners pose some vague propaganda-related threat, which no lawmaker has described in detail.

Russian disinformation on US-based social media networks is clearly happening, is aggressive and persistent, and perhaps did swing things in 2016. If you think that's doesn't "matter ... on the national level", then surely the TikTok propaganda threat isn't worth shutting down a popular service for?

[scarface_74]

No TikTok isn’t worth shutting down. As for as Twitter, do you really need foreign interfere and propaganda when it’s American owner is putting its thumb on the scale?