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by wilg 521 days ago
it is not an exaggeration at all. it's a different layer of infrastructure, but it's still infrastructure. the mention of ITAR is an analogy, which I know you understand.

if "we were serious" about what? the issue of foreign control is not relevant to domestic companies. we could have some other regulations too, sure, but this one is reasonable.
2 comments
hypeatei 521 days ago
Serious, meaning we wouldn't play whack-a-mole and instead place rules on all of them then let the free market decide. I'll repeat, disclosures could be added for foreign controlled apps. I take issue with the fact that we're making a Chinese app the boogeyman but foreign influence campaigns can happen on any platform as seen in recent U.S. elections on Facebook et. al

I think people should be able to decide which social media apps they want to use. They're not even close to reaching the levels of the "infrastructure" box you're forcing them into to justify this decision.

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wilg 521 days ago
i dont want to argue about the definition of infrastructure. concretely, tiktok crosses the threshold of influence and risk where it is reasonable to require them to divest or close. no brainer.
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leptons 521 days ago
>it's a different layer of infrastructure, but it's still infrastructure.

TikTok isn't "infrastructure", TikTok is software. TikTok exploits the infrastructure of the internet across the world, it is not infrastructure itself. The servers TikTok runs on is technically "infrastrucutre", but those same servers could run anything else, the hardware is not "TikTok". I could run "TikTok" the software on any hardware, even if it isn't connected to the public internet, and that would not qualify it as "infrastructure", at least not in the sense that it's servicing any population.

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