A new measure attempts to force the Senate’s hand on passing legislation to ban TikTok or mandate the app’s sale.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    American politics really is one of the dumbest, most corrupt things out there. Good god.

    This feels like trying to trick your dog into taking his medicine, by hiding it in its food. So apparently your average US Senator is as dumb as a Golden Retriever if they need this tactic to actually get shit done.

    It’s insane that Americans still tolerate this. Clearly they don’t have your best interests as their main focus.

    • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      None of the fuckers want to change the voting system either. They just blame the other guys.

      Wish someone would take STV and everyone woukd follow

    • FrostKing@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s insane that Americans still tolerate this.

      A consistent viewpoint I see on America, is the assumption that if we don’t like a politician we can simply say so and they’re out of office. One of the biggest problems here is actually that most people feel lacking in their personal control on the government, even local. Everything is such a large scale, that ‘speaking up’ not only feels like it does nothing—it really does nothing, unless you’re famous or something. No one here is happy about how our government works, we just don’t have control over it. It’s an illusion of control, while the people at the top make the actual choices.

      • sugar_in_your_tea
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        8 months ago

        My state has a rule restricting bills to one thing, and it seems to work pretty well.

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          8 months ago

          Well I don’t know which state you mean but a lot of them are not divided the way then federal government is.

          • sugar_in_your_tea
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            8 months ago

            Sure, and mine is definitely not divided. But there have been contentious issues despite being predominantly one party.

            I’d honestly rather a bill take much longer to pass than have a bunch of nonsense thrown in.

            • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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              8 months ago

              I think it’s a good method for achieving compromise. If the various factions perceive more benefit than cost, the bill passes. Obviously some bad things get snuck in, but you get good things out of it as well.

              Even if your personal calculus is that this bill does more harm then good, I don’t think banning this method is a good idea.

              • sugar_in_your_tea
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                8 months ago

                I’d be okay with a Congressional rule that makes passage of one bill contingent on another bill to allow for compromise, but each bill should be tracked separately so it’s transparent to voters what’s being passed. There should also be a requirement that the title of the bill sufficiently describes the purchase of the bill.

                That way we could still have bundles of bills, but the content of that bundle would be a lot more transparent. Seeing something like “Aid to Ukraine and Israel” also allowing the government to ban adversarial apps does not give constituents the appropriate information to contact their representative, and it’s quite possible the representatives themselves haven’t actually read the full bill if it’s large (but might read relevant portions if they were broken up into reasonably-titled bills).

                • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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                  8 months ago

                  I could see that being an improvement, although it’s not terribly different from the current system. It might be clearer for the public to understand.

                  On the other hand, reps would have to explain to their constituents why they voted for the kicking puppies act which people might have trouble grasping.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Package a TikTok bill along with aid for Ukraine, Israel AND Taiwan? Even lumping the aid bills together for 3 different countries is odd but the hell does TikTok now have to do with any of it? This is a weird system you guys got there.

    • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
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      8 months ago

      Bernie Sanders has been saying for 30 years that the bill is too damn long! Representatives get very limited time to read bills so they usually don’t and just vote along party lines. This is a form of deception and it’s intentional.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      They’re taking clues from Hungary. Our “child protection” (sic!) law bundled a pedophile registry (which is useless at best) alongside the censorship and de facto ban of sex education in schools, so Fidesz and Mi Hazánk (Fidesz satellite party which is a bit more honest about it being far-right) called the opposition pedo-defenders for not voting yes for it.

    • Bakkoda
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      8 months ago

      It’s not a system so much anymore. It’s more of a death spasm.

    • locuester@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      Hahaha you should see our omnibus bills. They’re THOUSANDS of things bundled. It’s a complete joke.

      Even this one will likely have little things unrelated added. It’s wild how much is in these bills.

    • Buttons@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      the hell does TikTok now have to do with any of it?

      Military spending bills will benefit the military industrial complex, and banning TikTok will benefit the military industrial complex.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      It sucks I know, but if it gets Ukraine aid passed, lump in everything together. That’s the most important piece of legislation needed right now and we need it to pass.

      • small44@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Ukraine at least has an army to defend itself, so i would rather see neither have aid than bith Israel and ukraine having aid

        • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          It doesn’t because you not being able to afford a studio apartment doesn’t plunge NATO into a war.

          I gotta be honest, this is probably the stupidest comparison I’ve ever heard.

            • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Ukraine is a major global food supplier. The war has directly impacted food prices. And if Russia succeeds, it will only encourage more conflict of this kind. And that’s ignoring the possibility that this will escalate into an even larger conflict because Putin decides that NATO’s resolve is weak enough that article 5 is no longer a plausible threat.

              Also, that stupid argument applies just as much to funding schools, cancer research, fighting climate change and basically all other functions of government that serve the public good. We should do more to address economic issues, but that doesn’t mean we should stop doing everything else.

            • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Have you tried turning your job off and turning it back on again after 15 seconds? Worked for my wifi.

    • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      TikTok is controlled by the CCP which will happily push propaganda that impacts all three countries.

    • DdCno1@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      China is the one aspect that unites all three. They are supporting Russia in their invasion of Ukraine, they are running a massive pro-Hamas disinformation campaign on social media, they are ramping up for an invasion of Taiwan and TikTok is their most effective propaganda and espionage tool to date.

  • Mazoku@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Real shit, how can I bypass article paywalls/sign up requests? I click the link, paywall. I find an alternative link: paywall. The internet is so shit

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that he intends to package the measure, a modified version of a stand-alone bill that the House passed last month, with foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

    The move “to package TikTok is definitely unusual, but it could succeed,” said Paul Gallant, a policy analyst for the financial services firm TD Cowen.

    TikTok has said that the national security concerns are unfair and that it has spent more than $1 billion on a detailed plan for its U.S. operations that would wall off user data and offer third-party oversight of its content recommendations.

    “It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill,” Alex Haurek, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Last year, a federal judge temporarily blocked a statewide ban of TikTok from taking effect in Montana, preventing the nation’s first such prohibition.

    Officials from the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed lawmakers in the House and Senate about their concerns, adding fuel to the effort to pass the bill.


    The original article contains 765 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 months ago

      Honestly did for me. I love TikTok, and it feels like the social media app with the best news and conversations. Seriously.

      • Corkyskog
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        8 months ago

        I say this on Lemmy a lot and welcome the down votes. Although it seems more and more tame lately. I really think people are understanding the value of tiktok. I find out news on tiktok quicker than anywhere else, I don’t ever trust the details, but the events are always actually happening and usually they even have a relatively factual take on it.

        Also, if anyone hasn’t tried out Donghua Jinlong food grade glycine, they really must.

        • whoreticulture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 months ago

          It’s pretty good but lately I’ve been looking for some organic fair trade food grade glycine.

          It’s so frustrating, people are saying the same lines as the Senate trying to get the tiktok ban through.

          • Corkyskog
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            8 months ago

            I got into a Tiktok algorithm bubble for a while where it was just constantly people reporting on congress critter trades in almost near real time… no idea how they did it, but like a week or a month later I would see some publication reporting on it after. So I could definitely see why politicians want to ban it.

            Wish I could find that again… I liked to many comedians and now my feed went into another direction