Bi-Partisan Senate report calls for sweeping effort to stop Russian trolls on social media platforms.

[Grandpapy]

 

[Fogdog]

Gives stochastic parrots too much credit.

 

[cannabineer]

Gives stochastic parrots too much credit.

I sense a good band name

 

[cannabineer]

The same could have been said about the director of the FBI, until you couldn't. The President has the ability to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board, including the Fed chairman - "for cause". Previous to the last administration, it was relatively easy to believe in keeping political pressure to a minimum in policy decisions that are not intended to be partisan/biased for the most part. We now live in a world where tariffs on aluminum and steel based on national-security grounds is justified; point being that giving control over what is essentially speech while thinking it is possible to insulate from nefarious actors such as TFFG is (IMO) reckless.




I don't disagree, but at the same time I see lots of potential danger in it as well. Getting rid of trolls and bots that push misinformation or disinformation would be great, but even that goes back to defining what that means in an alternative fact world. I think of people that don't have the same privilege that I do when it comes to speaking with other people in real life, I can go birding in a park and not worry about police brutality when asking a white lady to leash her dog. Does having an entity that has the ability to connect a persons online presence with offline/in person presence silence/suppress people that don't have the ability to openly voice their opinions in their communities right now?




I hear ya, but then look towards the US Supreme Court - and shudder (I know it's slightly different as it's a lifetime appointment). Knowing that the President has the ability to remove the chairman of the Federal Reserve for cause, are you confident that if TFFG gets elected again - that it will still be protected from political interference?

Getting rid of bad actors would be great, until I am labeled the bad actor. I think of freedom of speech (including online speech) with the same view as freedom of religion; I will fight for peoples rights even when I vehemently disagree and abhor with what they are saying or believe as long it doesn't cross established laws against hate speech etc. At the same time I will use that same freedom to push back (and mock) when I think it's necessary.

With the advances in LLM's and whatever is next in AI, there really will be nothing you will be able to believe that is online. Very soon we'll have to assume it's all bullshit, maybe it already is.

If you haven’t read Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, you’re in for a treat. Imagine a world that’s been cycling in and out of advanced society for millennia, with the wardens of technology stabilized into something monastic, and the IT subclass even more withdrawn.

As a result, their version of the internet has turned into an odd ecology dominated by pathogens and requiring users to develop unique skills. Coupla excerpts about a discussion between a nerd and a geek, whom extraordinary events have combined in violation of a core taboo.

Excerpts and comments from a Ycombinator link. Syndev = network computer/server.

I'm reminded of a throwaway line from the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson (well worth reading by the way)
“If you must know, they probably ran an asamocra on me.” “Asamocra?” “Asynchronous, symmetrically anonymized, moderated open-cry repute auction."

I'll bet that Stephenson was probably inspired by the way auctions for Google AdWords work. In any case, the idea of conducting an auction to determine reputation of a data source is intriguing.

—

For those who have not read Anathen, some context may be interesting.
> “Early in the Reticulum-thousands of years ago-it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information,” Sammann said.

> “Crap, you once called it,” I reminded him.

> “Yes-a technical term. So crap filtering became important. Businesses were built around it. Some of those businesses came up with a clever plan to make more money: they poisoned the well. They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum. But it had to be good crap.”

> “What is good crap?” Arsibalt asked in a politely incredulous tone.

> “Well, bad crap would be an unformatted document consisting of random letters. Good crap would be a beautifully typeset, well-written document that contained a hundred correct, verifiable sentences and one that was subtly false. It’s a lot harder to generate good crap. At first they had to hire humans to churn it out. They mostly did it by taking legitimate documents and inserting errors-swapping one name for another, say. But it didn’t really take off until the military got interested.”

> “As a tactic for planting misinformation in the enemy’s reticules, you mean,” Osa said. “This I know about. You are referring to the Artificial Inanity programs of the mid-First Millennium A.R.”

> “Exactly!” Sammann said. “Artificial Inanity systems of enormous sophistication and power were built for exactly the purpose Fraa Osa has mentioned. In no time at all, the praxis leaked to the commercial sector and spread to the Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies. Never mind. The point is that there was a sort of Dark Age on the Reticulum that lasted until my Ita forerunners were able to bring matters in hand.”

 

[hanimmal]

The same could have been said about the director of the FBI, until you couldn't.

True, but the FBI is also part of the executive branch, which is why something dealing with the internet IMO would be best left to a quasi-government system like the Fed is. Appointing people, senate confirming them, term limits that last longer than the current POTUS and then also have checks inside the institutions that they are working within so that they are not beholden to the person who is appointing them, and allows the American public time to get a different POTUS into office to offset any trolls that may be appointed.

The President has the ability to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board, including the Fed chairman - "for cause".

This is a bit muddy, because the POTUS would have to actually have cause to do it, and then may face a court challenge if they disagreed and have to prove it wasn't just a policy difference. But let's say they pulled a DeSantis and just came up with some bullshit reason and had stuffed the courts with people they have enough dirt on to get them to find the cases in the way that they want and it held up. The other board members would have been voted in and approved by the senate would still be in control over the policy, and could even outvote a troll appointment if the senate allowed that POTUS to appoint them.

And again, with the Fed system, they still have banks that are buying into the system in place, so assuming that there was some real nazi shit going on, there is another check on the decisions being made. And even on top of that, 'we the people', still have another check with our money being in those banks, and could just withdraw it if shit was going down.

Previous to the last administration, it was relatively easy to believe in keeping political pressure to a minimum in policy decisions that are not intended to be partisan/biased for the most part. We now live in a world where tariffs on aluminum and steel based on national-security grounds is justified; point being that giving control over what is essentially speech while thinking it is possible to insulate from nefarious actors such as TFFG is (IMO) reckless.

Those are things that the POTUS are able to actually do by themselves though (I do think they should be taken back a bit since he proved that it is dangerous to have it in one person's hands when he burned our (albeit a struggling one) relationship with China and Iran and tried with all of our other trading partners (EU/NAFTA).

But again the Fed, being outside of his control, held up against his pressure and was a big reason why we were able to move out of the recession Trump's shit handling of the pandemic deepened.

I don't disagree, but at the same time I see lots of potential danger in it as well. Getting rid of trolls and bots that push misinformation or disinformation would be great, but even that goes back to defining what that means in an alternative fact world. I think of people that don't have the same privilege that I do when it comes to speaking with other people in real life, I can go birding in a park and not worry about police brutality when asking a white lady to leash her dog. Does having an entity that has the ability to connect a persons online presence with offline/in person presence silence/suppress people that don't have the ability to openly voice their opinions in their communities right now?

I'd argue that this is already the case, except it is foreign governments downloading spyware and everything having cookies that is tracking everything we are doing, and only our own government/us users are blind to what is going on when we log into anything.

As for having (in my bullshit example) Google given the ability to make the internet safer/less sketchy for us citizens with 'safe zones' for schools/people to know that they are looking at actual people's accounts, and not foreign propaganda trolls, and have a way to hold Google's chair accountable if they were messing up the mission or suppressing people (not that it is not already occurring too but in this case by anyone who is hosting the sites, which we really have no clue about) with our votes/ability to use other sites not being monitored by google.

I hear ya, but then look towards the US Supreme Court - and shudder (I know it's slightly different as it's a lifetime appointment).

The SCOTUS is a pretty good example though. Because as screwed as it is atm, it has taken about what 50 years of Republican fuckery to get it to where it is now. The Democrats have been too busy trying to legislate with next to nothing on their side (white flight/gerrymandering/defunding cities kept power out of Dem's hands on the local/state level) while building up the very first actual political party to truly be represented by the entirety of the people they govern.

It has been a slow long lift, because at every turn there have been left trolls in the Democratic Party helping to pull-up the ladder after the white men were able to take advantage of it and writing in laws to hurt the ability for others to gain power in our system, and the Republicans have taken advantage of the lag by doing things like stacking the courts for decades.

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

Knowing that the President has the ability to remove the chairman of the Federal Reserve for cause, are you confident that if TFFG gets elected again - that it will still be protected from political interference?

I don't think I can agree with the way you worded this. Political interference is kind of vague, sure they will try, Trump did, but it was very limited in its impact.

Can it happen over a longer term, sure. But in the shorter term, with the Fed still having all the other board members, and the American people being the ones that ultimately will or will not be putting Trump's dumbass back into power along with the senators (who are also gerrymandered by our current state makeup) voting for them having the people investing their money in those banks up their asses, I do.

Getting rid of bad actors would be great, until I am labeled the bad actor.

People catfishing others, scams trying to download malware, attacking things like our power grids or hospital computers to hold those patents hostage, and being nimble enough to help mitigate their impacts are things that if labeled a bad actor get you, then there should be a way to do it.

People getting a warning label slapped on them because they are pushing death cult troll information is not hurting their free speech, nor would it stop their ability to just log into a different website that is not under control of a quasi-governemnt backed site. Just like I could turn around and stupidly dump all my money into some cryptocurrency scam and avoid the Federal Reserve system.

I think of freedom of speech (including online speech) with the same view as freedom of religion; I will fight for peoples rights even when I vehemently disagree and abhor with what they are saying or believe as long it doesn't cross established laws against hate speech etc. At the same time I will use that same freedom to push back (and mock) when I think it's necessary.

There is no reason why I would disagree with you, and no reason to think that would happen.

With the advances in LLM's and whatever is next in AI, there really will be nothing you will be able to believe that is online. Very soon we'll have to assume it's all bullshit, maybe it already is.

This is why I have my bullshit Schrödinger's cat theory of the internet. I just assume everything has two states when online, it is either a troll or real and unless I know, which is impossible, I try to keep in mind that I don't know, and should always keep that in mind when I start to feel one way or another about whatever it is that I am feeling.

It is really scary how crisp this is all starting to get.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/germany-russia-missiles-taurus-8acc3ca7c858ff07085f643ec2da20ff

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius addresses the media during a press statement in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, March 3, 2024. German authorities say they are investigating after an audio recording was published in Russia in which German military officers purportedly discussed support for Ukraine, including the potential use of Taurus long-range cruise missiles. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Germany’s defense minister on Sunday described Russia’s leak of a conversation by ranking German military officers to be part of Russia’s “information war” against the West, and that the aim was to create discord within Germany.

In the audio recording leaked by Russian state media on Friday, German military officers can be heard discussing support for Ukraine, including the potential use of Taurus missiles.

The audio was leaked on the same day that late opposition politician Alexei Navalny was laid to rest after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the timing was not a coincidence.

“It is part of an information war that Putin is waging. There is absolutely no doubt about that,” he said. “It is a hybrid attack aimed at disinformation. It is about division. It is about undermining our resolve.”

Speaking at a news briefing in Berlin, Pistorius added: “Accordingly, we should react in a particularly level-headed manner, but no less resolutely.”

In the 38-minute recording, military officers discuss the question of how the Taurus long-range cruise missiles could be used by Ukraine. The audio was leaked as a debate has been taking place in Germany over whether to supply the missiles.

“This is clearly about undermining our unity,” Pistorius said.

Ukraine has been asking for them as it faces setbacks on the battlefield after two years of war, and with military aid from the United States being held up in Congress.

Earlier this week, Scholz said he remains reluctant to send the Taurus missiles to Ukraine, pointing to a risk of Germany becoming directly involved in the war. His hesitancy is a source of friction in his three-party coalition and also annoyed Germany’s conservative opposition.

But in the purported audio recording, German officers discuss the theoretical possibility of the missiles being used in Ukraine.

Pistorius said the officers made clear at all times in the recording that “the line of war participation ... would not be crossed.”

 

[cannabineer]

https://apnews.com/article/germany-russia-missiles-taurus-8acc3ca7c858ff07085f643ec2da20ff
View attachment 5375094

It’s easy to deep-fake audio.

Unfortunately, in this day and age where the intellectually lazy consider themselves anointed graduates of Youtube University (!) —
crap like this can have political consequences.

I point to Republican voters for the last 15+ years as a particularly detrimental example.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/air-force-classified-information-russia-ukraine-e5dd7d2e7838125a6f57d7c0cd3010b8

WASHINGTON (AP) — A civilian U.S. Air Force employee has been charged in federal court in Nebraska with transmitting classified information about Russia’s war with Ukraine on a foreign online dating platform, the Justice Department said Monday.

David Franklin Slater, 63, who authorities say retired as an Army lieutenant colonel and was assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, was arrested Saturday on charges of illegally disclosing national defense information and conspiring to do so.

Prosecutors say Slater attended briefings between February and April 2022 about Russia’s war with Ukraine and, despite having signed paperwork pledging not to disclose classified information, shared details about military targets and Russian capabilities on an online messaging platform with an unindicted co-conspirator who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine.

According to an indictment, that alleged co-conspirator, who is not identified by prosecutors, repeatedly asked Slater for information and described him as “my secret informant love.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if Slater had a lawyer. He is due to make his first court appearance Tuesday.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/russia-election-trump-immigration-disinformation-tiktok-youtube-ce518c6cd101048f896025179ef19997

WASHINGTON (AP) — For Vladimir Putin, victory in Ukraine may run through Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Putin looks to weaken support for Ukraine and cut off a vital supply of aid.

In social media posts, online videos and stories on websites, these accounts misstate the impact of immigration, highlight stories about crimes committed by immigrants, and warn of dire consequences if the U.S. doesn’t crack down at its border with Mexico. Many are misleading, filled with cherry-picked data or debunked rumors.

The pivot toward the United States comes after two years in which Russia’s vast disinformation apparatus was busy pushing propaganda and disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine. Experts who study how authoritarian states use the internet to spread disinformation say eroding support for Ukraine remains Russia’s top priority — and that the Kremlin is just finding new ways to do it.

“Things have shifted, even in the last few days,” said Kyle Walter, head of research at Logically, a tech company that tracks disinformation campaigns. While experts and government officials have long warned of Russia’s intentions, Walter said the content spotted so far this year “is the first indication that I’ve seen that Russia is actually going to focus on U.S. elections.”

This month Logically identified dozens of pro-Russian accounts posting about immigration in the U.S., with a particular interest in promoting recent anti-immigration rallies in Texas. A recent Logically assessment concluded that after two years spent largely dedicated to the war in Ukraine, Russia’s disinformation apparatus has “started 2024 with a focus on the U.S.”

Many posts highlight crimes allegedly committed by recent immigrants or suggest migrants are a burden on local communities. Some claims were posted by accounts with tiny audiences; others were made by state media sites with millions of followers.

This week the accounts seized on the recent death of a Georgia nursing student and the arrest of a Venezuelan man who had entered the U.S. illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case. The killing that quickly became a rallying cry for former President Donald Trump and other Republicans who suggest that migrants commit crimes more often than do U.S. citizens. The evidence does not support those claims.

The content, crafted in English, has quickly found its way to websites and platforms popular with American voters. Footage of a recent anti-immigration protest broadcast by Russian outlet RT, for example, was racking up thousands of views this week on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and prompting angry replies from other users.

The Russian outlet Sputnik ran a story this week about growing calls to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, a priority for Trump, who failed to complete the job as president. An analysis of other sites that later linked to the Sputnik piece shows than half were in the U.S., according to data from the online analytics firm Semrush.com. Overall, Americans make up the English-language Sputnik’s largest audience.

U.S. officials have warned that Russia could seek to meddle in the elections of dozens of countries in 2024, when more than 50 nations accounting for half of the world’s population are scheduled to hold national votes. While Russia has a strategic interest in the outcome of many of them — the European Parliament, for one — few offer the opportunity and the prize that America does.

For Russia’s bid to conquer Ukraine, this year’s U.S. election stakes couldn’t be higher. President Joe Biden has pledged to fully back Ukraine. Republicans have been far less supportive. Trump has openly praised Putin and the former president has suggested he would encourage Russia to attack America’s NATO allies if they don’t pay their fair share for the military alliance.

More than half of Republicans believe the U.S. is spending too much on Ukraine, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that found Democrats to be much more supportive of additional aid.

Soon after the war started, Russia mounted a disinformation campaign designed to cut into support for Ukraine. Claims included wild stories about secret U.S. germ warfare labs or Nazi conspiracies or that Ukrainian refugees were committing crimes and taking jobs from people who had welcomed them.

That effort continues, but Russia also has shifted its attention to issues with no obvious tie to Moscow that are more likely to create cracks in the unity of its adversaries — for example immigration, or inflation, high-profile topics in the U.S. and Europe.

“They’re very savvy and understand the right buttons to push,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow and head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit. “If your ultimate objective is to reduce support for Ukraine, your inroad might be talking about how bad things are on the southern border. Their path to win this thing is to get the U.S. and the E.U. to stop sending weapons and aid to Ukraine.”

A message left with the Russian Embassy in Washington wasn’t immediately returned.

America’s election may also be a tempting target for other authoritarian nations such as China and Iran that, like Russia, have shown a willingness to use online propaganda and disinformation to further their objectives.

The online landscape has dramatically shifted since Russia sought to meddle in America’s 2016 presidential race won by Trump. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have banned many Russian state accounts and built new safeguards aimed at preventing anyone from exploiting their sites. In one recent example, Meta, the owner of Facebook, announced last fall that it had identified and stopped a network of thousands of fake accounts created in China in an apparent effort to fool American voters.

Other platforms, including X, have taken a different approach, rolling back or even eliminating content moderation and rules designed to stop disinformation. Then there is TikTok, whose ties to China and popularity with young people have set off alarms in several state capitals and Washington.

Artificial intelligence is another concern. The technology now makes it easier than ever to create audio or video that is lifelike enough to fool voters.

Social media is no longer the only battleground either. Increasingly, Russia and other disinformation spreaders use encrypted messaging sites or websites that masquerade as legitimate news outlets.

“A lot of their activity has moved off the major platforms to places were they can operate more freely,” said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Mandiant Intelligence, a cybersecurity firm monitoring Russian disinformation.

Walter, Logically’s research director, said he is most concerned about disinformaton on X and TikTok this year, given their lack of controls and their popularity, especially with young voters. TikTok’s ties to China have raised national security concerns.

He said that while election years tend to highlight the dangers of disinformation, the most effective information operations are launched years in advance. America’s adversaries have spent a long time studying its politics, building online networks and cultivating domestic divisions.

Now comes the payoff.

“They don’t need to put a ton of effort into causing disinformation,” Walter said. “They’ve already laid the groundwork leading up to 2024.”

 

[Nugnewbie]

Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.

The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.

www.nytimes.com

 

[hanimmal]

Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.

The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.

www.nytimes.com

The good news is it seems that someone with the ability to do something about it is paying attention and exposing it.

I hope they do some very very deep digging on it and expose the scam that has been building for a long time.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/michigans-new-local-news-website-scam-1000s-more-coming-to-other-states.998898/

The issue will be that the Republicans are Americans doing it are likely not very different at all.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-russian-hack-email-svr-breach-edc1acfc23827e5ae24cce69b95dde4d

BOSTON (AP) — Microsoft said Friday it’s still trying to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into the email accounts of senior company executives in November and who it said have been trying to breach customer networks with stolen access data.

The hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data obtained in the intrusion, which it disclosed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems, the software giant said in a blog and a regulatory filing.

A company spokesman would not characterize what source code was accessed and what capability the hackers gained to further compromise customer and Microsoft systems. Microsoft said Friday that the hackers stole “secrets” from email communications between the company and unspecified customers — cryptographic secrets such as passwords, certificates and authentication keys —and that it was reaching out to them “to assist in taking mitigating measures.”

Cloud-computing company Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed on Jan. 24 that it, too, was an SVR hacking victim and that it had been informed of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with Microsoft’s discovery it had been hacked.

“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus,” Microsoft said Friday, adding that it could be using obtained data “to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so.” Cybersecurity experts said Microsoft’s admission that the SVR hack had not been contained exposes the perils of the heavy reliance by government and business on the Redmond, Washington, company’s software monoculture — and the fact that so many of its customers are linked through its global cloud network.

“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security. “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.”

Amit Yoran, the CEO of Tenable, also issued a statement, expressing both alarm and dismay. He is among security professionals who find Microsoft overly secretive about its vulnerabilities and how it handles hacks.

“We should all be furious that this keeps happening,” Yoran said. “These breaches aren’t isolated from each other and Microsoft’s shady security practices and misleading statements purposely obfuscate the whole truth.”

Microsoft said it had not yet determined whether the incident is likely to materially impact its finances. It also said the intrusion’s stubbornness “reflects what has become more broadly an unprecedented global threat landscape, especially in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks.”

The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same hacking team behind the SolarWinds breach.

When it initially announced the hack, Microsoft said the SVR unit broke into its corporate email system and accessed accounts of some senior executives as well as employees on its cybersecurity and legal teams. It would not say how many accounts were compromised.

At the time, Microsoft said it was able to remove the hackers’ access from the compromised accounts on or about Jan. 13. But by then, they clearly had a foothold.

It said they got in by compromising credentials on a “legacy” test account but never elaborated.

Microsoft’s latest disclosure comes three months after a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule took effect that compels publicly traded companies to disclose breaches that could negatively impact their business.

 

[hanimmal]

Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.

The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.

www.nytimes.com

Maddow did a piece on this last night where she shows the catfishing troll to Republicans senator chain that these troll news sites are used that was pretty good. The professor she had on after has the same overwhelming dread I have about the overwhelming nature of this attack.

Again though the only thing that I wish they would do, is point out that this is not a 'one-side' thing, and that it is happening to everyone from every political angle, nudging people into not voting if they can't get them to vote for their fascist of choice.

 

[Nugnewbie]

Maddow did a piece on this last night where she shows the catfishing troll to Republicans senator chain that these troll news sites are used that was pretty good. The professor she had on after has the same overwhelming dread I have about the overwhelming nature of this attack.

Again though the only thing that I wish they would do, is point out that this is not a 'one-side' thing, and that it is happening to everyone from every political angle, nudging people into not voting if they can't get them to vote for their fascist of choice.

I missed her show unfortunately, and can't open the video you posted.

 

[hanimmal]

I missed her show unfortunately, and can't open the video you posted.

All the other clips I can find on it (that are not the full show from last night), cut out the lead up on the catfishing account and the professor who wrote it.

 

[hanimmal]

I know China, not Russia, but still.... My other thread against online disinformation got locked.....

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-house-vote-china-national-security-8fa7258fae1a4902d344c9d978d58a37

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake, as lawmakers acted on concerns that the company’s current ownership structure is a national security threat.

The bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.

TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. any time it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.

“We have given TikTok a clear choice,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences. The choice is TikTok’s.”

House passage of the bill is only the first step. The Senate would also need to pass the measure for it to become law, and lawmakers in that chamber indicated it would undergo a thorough review. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’ll have to consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.

House passes a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban if Chinese owner refuses to sell

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban in the U.S. has easily passed the House -- but its path forward is unclear.

President Joe Biden has said if Congress passes the measure, he will sign it.

The House vote is the latest example of increased tensions between China and the U.S. By targeting TikTok, lawmakers are tackling what they see as a grave threat to America’s national security — but also singling out a platform popular with millions of people, many of whom skew younger, just months before an election.

A TikTok spokesperson, Alex Haurek, said in a statement after the vote that the bill was jammed through as part of a secretive process.

“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service,” Haurek said.

In anticipation of the vote, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, accused Washington of resorting to political tools when U.S. businesses fail to compete. He said the effort would disrupt normal business operations and undermine investor confidence “and will eventually backfire on the U.S. itself.”

Overall, 197 Republican lawmakers voted for the measure and 15 against. On the Democratic side, 155 voted for the bill and 50 against.

Some Republican opponents of the bill said the U.S. should warn consumers if there are data privacy and propaganda concerns, but the final choice should be left with consumers.

“The answer to authoritarianism is not more authoritarianism,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. “The answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope.”

“We have a national security obligation to prevent America’s most strategic adversary from being so involved in our lives.”

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.

Democrats also warned of the impact a ban would have on users in the U.S., including entrepreneurs and business owners. One of the no votes came from Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee.

“One of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We do not,” Himes said. “We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they may or may not see.”

The day before the House vote, top national security officials in the Biden administration held a closed-door briefing with lawmakers to discuss TikTok and the national security implications. Lawmakers are balancing those security concerns against a desire not to limit free speech online.

“What we’ve tried to do here is be very thoughtful and deliberate about the need to force a divestiture of TikTok without granting any authority to the executive branch to regulate content or go after any American company,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, the bill’s author, as he emerged from the briefing.

“Not a single thing that we heard in today’s classified briefing was unique to TikTok. It was things that happen on every single social media platform.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.

TikTok has long denied that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government. The company has said it has never shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities and won’t do so if it is asked. To date, the U.S. government also has not provided evidence that shows TikTok shared such information with Chinese authorities.

Republican leaders moved quickly to bring up the bill after its introduction last week by Gallagher and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. A House committee approved the legislation unanimously, on a 50-0 vote, even after their offices were inundated with calls from TikTok users demanding they drop the effort. Some offices even shut off their phones because of the onslaught. Supporters of the bill said the effort backfired.

“(It) provided members a preview of how the platform could be weaponized to inject disinformation into our system,” Gallagher said.



“I’m actually appalled for many reasons,” Salinger said. “The speed with which they’re pushing this bill through does not give enough time for Americans to voice their concerns and opinions.”

Former President Donald Trump has spoken out against the House effort, but his vice president, Mike Pence, is urging Schumer to bring the House bill to a vote.


“There can be no doubt that this app is Chinese spyware and that a sale to a non-foreign adversary company is in the best interests of the American people,” Pence said in a letter to Schumer.

Lol got to give it up to Katy Tur, she just called out her staff on having Tik Tok on their phones, because every single thing they are doing is being 'tracked'*. Which considering that she is a famous tv personality with respect to cable news would make all her employees marks, is almost a certainty that they are being targeted to radicalization is a very very good idea.



*every bit of data on who they are, who they know that is watching them, how their repossess/viewing of news/triggereed enough to 'like'/how much time is spent on /website or story/etc are being given, and then used with basic data analuysis software to score them into some estimated radicalization scale to use another program/rl trolls to have the most impact on our society (from small scale (say 5 family memebers friends that give a shit what they have to say to whatever number of actual human beings it is that actual celebrities have following what they decide is important) have posted/reposted to other actual humans) to try to get some outcome that they are looking to do. So by having any sort of possible 'input' into someone like Tur's ear would make them a cheap (since social media is free outside of the couple cents /per period of time ((after whatever it was for them to build the platform they are on))) it is to pay a troll to attempt to brainwash that mark ((ass bitch)) would cost the dictators of our planet, it really is a virtual certainty that she is right to call them out on air.

 

[cannabineer]

I know China, not Russia, but still.... My other thread against online disinformation got locked.....

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-house-vote-china-national-security-8fa7258fae1a4902d344c9d978d58a37
View attachment 5377439

Lol got to give it up to Katy Tur, she just called out her staff on having Tik Tok on their phones, because every single thing they are doing is being 'tracked'*. Which considering that she is a famous tv personality with respect to cable news would make all her employees marks, is almost a certainty that they are being targeted to radicalization is a very very good idea.



*every bit of data on who they are, who they know that is watching them, how their repossess/viewing of news/triggereed enough to 'like'/how much time is spent on /website or story/etc are being given, and then used with basic data analuysis software to score them into some estimated radicalization scale to use another program/rl trolls to have the most impact on our society (from small scale (say 5 family memebers friends that give a shit what they have to say to whatever number of actual human beings it is that actual celebrities have following what they decide is important) have posted/reposted to other actual humans) to try to get some outcome that they are looking to do. So by having any sort of possible 'input' into someone like Tur's ear would make them a cheap (since social media is free outside of the couple cents /per period of time ((after whatever it was for them to build the platform they are on))) it is to pay a troll to attempt to brainwash that mark ((ass bitch)) would cost the dictators of our planet, it really is a virtual certainty that she is right to call them out on air.

Tiktok or Temu, just no.

Though I find myself wondering just what I’m looking at in some of those ads.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-mnuchin-house-senate-ffdf37776e63a09bb6966d741df7093b

FILE - Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin speaks with reporters outside the White House, March 29, 2020, in Washington. Mnuchin says he’s going to put together an investor group to buy TikTok, a day after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the popular video app in the U.S. if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake.(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he’s going to put together an investor group to buy TikTok, a day after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the popular video app in the U.S. if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake.

TikTok, which has more than 170 million American users, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Mnuchin said Thursday that he believes TikTok should be sold.

“This should be owned by U.S. businesses. There’s no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China,” said Mnuchin.

Mnuchin, the U.S. Treasury secretary under President Donald Trump, didn’t provide details on who else may be included in the investor group he plans on forming or TikTok’s possible valuation.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The House bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear. House lawmakers had acted on concerns that TikTok’s current ownership structure is a national security threat.

Lawmakers in the Senate have indicated that the measure will undergo a thorough review. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said that he’ll have to consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.

President Joe Biden has said if Congress passes the measure, he will sign it.

TikTok has long denied that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government. The company has said it has never shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities and won’t do so if it is asked. To date, the U.S. government also has not provided evidence that shows TikTok shared such information with Chinese authorities.

WHO ELSE COULD BUY TIKTOK?
While some others have voiced an interest in buying TikTok’s U.S. business — among them “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary — there are a number of challenges including a 6-month deadline to get it done.

“Somebody would have to actually be ready to shell out the large amount of money that this product and system is worth,” said Stanford University researcher Graham Webster, who studies Chinese technology policy and U.S.-China relations. “But even if somebody has deep enough pockets and is ready to go into negotiating to purchase, this sort of matchmaking on acquisitions is not quick.”

Big tech companies could afford it but would likely face intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators in both the U.S. and China. Then again, if the bill actually becomes law and survives First Amendment court challenges, it could make TikTok cheaper to buy.

“One of the main effects of the legislation would be to decrease the sale price,” said Matt Perault, director of the University of North Carolina’s Center on Technology Policy, which gets funding from TikTok and other tech companies. “As you approach that 180-day clock, the pressure on the company to sell or risk being banned entirely would be high, which would mean probably the acquirers could get it at a lower price.”

HASN’T SOMEONE TRIED TO BUY TIKTOK BEFORE?
Yes. The Trump administration — Mnuchin was Treasury secretary at the time — brokered a deal in 2020 that would have had U.S. corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.

The deal would have also made Oracle responsible for hosting all TikTok’s U.S. user data and securing computer systems to ensure national security requirements are satisfied. Microsoft also made a failed bid for TikTok that its CEO Satya Nadella later described as the “strangest thing I’ve ever worked on.”

Instead of congressional action, the 2020 arrangement was in response to then-President Trump’s series of executive actions targeting TikTok.

But the sale never went through for a number of reasons. Trump’s executive orders got held up in court as the 2020 presidential election loomed. China also had imposed stricter export controls on its technology providers.

 

[cannabineer]

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-mnuchin-house-senate-ffdf37776e63a09bb6966d741df7093b
View attachment 5377676

Paging Mr. Bezos …

autocorrect decided it was Mr. Benzos

 

[BudmanTX]

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-mnuchin-house-senate-ffdf37776e63a09bb6966d741df7093b
View attachment 5377676

some people are saying this is a Trojan Horse bill