Summary

Donald Trump submitted a Supreme Court filing opposing a TikTok ban, citing his “dealmaking expertise” and promising to resolve national security concerns.

The brief advocates delaying the case to allow Trump to address it politically.

Legal experts criticized the filing for being overly self-promotional and unprecedented, with some mistaking it for satire.

Critics noted its unusual tone and highlighted the involvement of Trump’s potential solicitor general pick, D. John Sauer, in drafting the document.

The case concerns TikTok’s alleged violations of privacy laws and ties to China.

    • hark@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      If that’s sufficient for a ban, then most or all the rest of social and mass media would qualify as well.

        • hark@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          2 months ago

          I don’t know about time limits, but social media does get censored on a per-country basis depending on the government of each country. Also, each person has their own tailored content based on the algorithm that it might as well be considered a different version.

          We could just as easily mandate restrictions on data or require timers for children on social media instead of doing a full ban. Note that the US was fine with keeping tiktok if they sold to an American company. Something tells me the brain rot would not be lessened and no special timer would be implemented by the new ownership if it were to have gone through.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        2 months ago

        I think part of the argument here is the very asymmetric nature of Chinese social media that makes their intentions rather obvious. They banned almost every foreign website/app or heavily restricted them like almost no other country did. They aren’t even allowing their own apps when they’re not primarily made for domestic use. It’s a tool to control people and that’s how the Chinese government uses it. It’s not just another corporation trying to turn a profit by wasting our time with nonsense and only destroying democracy as a byproduct like Facebook. Destroying Democracy is the point of TikTok as we’re seeing all around the world where it aggressively pushes anti-democratic content.

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      What does it tell you that the Chinese government itself wants to protect their people from the influence of TikTok?

      Absolutely nothing?

      This is a country that has incredibly authoritarian laws on the books regarding the internet because it doesn’t want it’s people reading “”“”“western propaganda”“”", why would we assume it’s reason for continuing that behaviour isn’t the same as it’s always been: bullshit

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      Douyin content is very similar to TikTok content. There are many popular douyin creators whose content gets copied to TikTok. There’s loads of makeup, cosplay, cooking, skit, DIY, etc. Mukbang style content is very popular there as well. Their makeup and fashion content, like on TikTok, is sponsored by huge international brands like Mac and Gucci and others along those lines. Also super popular is pet content, like people who run cat shelters and dog walkers and stuff. There is also no age verification to use the app unless you want to post or comment yourself, and there is no time limit to use it. Some TikTok creators get reposted to douyin as well, but the overwhelming majority of people in china do not speak English, and to post on it, you need to be a citizen of China. Not that there aren’t ways around it, but it’s harder than it’s worth.

      I get that you’re paranoid about Chinese international political interference, rightfully so in some ways. But this is just blatant lies and fear mongering. I’ve used the app extensively myself to follow some makeup content creators from China. It’s functionally identical to TikTok. Censorship does exist, but it’s based around specific events, mostly from what i can tell. I don’t use to find political content, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they censored content based on stuff like the Honk Kong protests. Propaganda is also on there, most likely, but I never encounter it in my feed.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      2 months ago

      it limits the content to educational instead of entertainment and the time spent to maximum 2 hours for people under 18

      That sounds WAY too nanny state restrictive to me and I’m SCANDINAVIAN!

      the Chinese government itself wants to protect their people

      Good one 😆

      It’s simply a propaganda tool to influence people and it keeps them addicted using an algorithm. It’s a highly specialized psy ops tool. It makes the world dumber

      Same has been truthfully said about Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The behavior of Meta and Musk aren’t any better and your data isn’t any more safe from ending up in the hands of hostile and/or totalitarian governments such as those of India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or Israel.

      The REAL reason why politician want to ban Tiktok is that it’s the only serious competitor to the other radicalization machines whose parent companies and key people “just happen to” donate a lot more money to those same politicians than ByteDance does. The official reasons are just a smoke screen.

      I’d be fine with it if they were actually honest about it and banned the aforementioned American competitors too, though. Short of that, banning Tiktok doesn’t really solve any problems without exacerbating others.

      Oh, and for all its censorship on behalf of the Chinese government, Tiktok is also the only major social media platform that doesn’t heavily censor legitimate protest against the fascist apartheid regime of Israel.

      I’m sure that the push has NOTHING to do with the fact that most if not all of the politicians in favor are taking a ton of blood money from AIPAC and other de facto Israeli government entities badly disguised as American nonprofits either! 🙄

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      Oh yeah my brother loves his TikTok and so does my dad. I watched my brother he will just endlessly scroll and watch the dumbest shit you can imagine. That not even all the alt right shit he consumes on there. Hell I had to do a quick google search to prove a post as fake. Some rando says the tiger king was pardon or Biden was rounding up trump supporters and my brother bought it. I prove both post wrong and tried to explain that it was a propaganda tool to keep him stupid and in the dark. Still uses it.

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    2 months ago

    promising to resolve national security concerns

    The guy with boxes of TS documents in his bathroom suddenly cares about national security? I don’t think so.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    2 months ago

    We’ll see how idiotic and servile the Supreme Court will be under Trump. Good to know early on.

    • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yeah the outcome of this will be telling. From a legal standpoint it should be clear - Congress has passed a law and the president has signed it into law.

      Trumps plans and intentions are irrelevant - he should need congress to pass a new law to undo this one. It’d be bizarre for the Supreme Court to undermine the law based on a whim of the president elect.

      But if the Supreme Court do go along with trumps whims then we’ll have a very clear idea how bad things have already gotten. However it’s clear things are already pretty fucking bad as the US constitution and infrastructure failed to stop an insurrectionist getting power.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        But if the Supreme Court do go along with trumps whims then we’ll have a very clear idea how bad things have already gotten. However it’s clear things are already pretty fucking bad as the US constitution and infrastructure failed to stop an insurrectionist getting power.

        part of me is wondering if this isn’t a sounding board by trump to see if they’ll toe the line. (They’ll toe the line because they’re cucks who like to watch.)

  • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    2 months ago

    Everyone needs to stop thinking Trump is some master of satire, or that he is gasp unprecedented. Yeah, we fucking know, pay attention! He’s been beyond the pale and indistinguishable from a sketch comedy dropout for decades now. These “legal experts” need to either learn a goddamn lesson for once, or just shut the fuck up about him, you’re not helping by being too unimaginative to recognize reality.

      • jackeryjoo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        man, I cannot stand listening to that asshat talk. It’s just word gibberish and always about himself.

        But if he renounced his presidency and started a morning talkshow? I’d probably watch it. Just for the schadenfreude.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    This was always the tactic. gop attacked tiktok, which is extremely popular, if trump lost they’d insist on the “ban” and try to hang the unpopularity of the move that they demanded on Biden. If trump won, they’d chicken shit away from the move, claim trump “saved” something to try to grab opportunistic popularity moment as fuel for the next ghoulish move they need to make publicly that will lose them goodwill.

    America is decidedly fucked. The general public isn’t equipped to see below the surface layer of this shit.

  • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    2 months ago

    I feel like we used to refer to future executives as “President-elect” in the period before they took office. But then I’m an American, what the fuck do I know?

      • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yes, former presidents retain the title. Obama is still respectfully addressed as “President Obama” by non-racists.

    • dreugeworst@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      doesn’t matter to him anymore. either he gets his way and elections will be rigged, or he won’t be have another term