Paranoia about the RESTRICT Act is not unique to me and a few stragglers online. LTT (admittedly a blog) and Louis Rossman are even mentioning it. I'm not sure about the fine and jailtime for VPNs but it might be possible. The phrasing is so vague, but if it's true, China's great firewall will look like a picket fence by comparison. I've used a VPN in China and so have my friends. Every day the freeest country seems a bit less free. Russia and China (while still worse) feel better every day.
Louis Rossman has reverted on his opinion on banning TikTok. Now he is fine with not banning it since every other company already spies on it. "You cannot simply ban TikTok without coming up with a framework." I agree with this, it shouldn't be "I don't like X company, you're banned." The RESTRICT act however, goes 10 steps too far. He claims that it is cognitive dissonance to say ban TikTok but don't ban Facebook or NSA Prism/Patriot Act that spies on us when we already do that all the time. All governments propagandize their citizens, but is it not better we are propagandized by our own government? It is wishful thinking to say we shouldn't be propagandzied by anyone.
A comment from his Youtube channel catalyzed his change and is quoted verbatim below (with commentary from me in parentheses):
TikTok does to kids what every social media platform does to them, by the same means, algorithmic content delivery (yes but more so but again as I mentioned earlier, that is not the grounds I would be ok with a ban for it and I would prefer if companies did not do taht and there was an option to pay for an ad free experience). If it was actually about the children, or data, they would be pushing for laws restricting algorithms and data gathering, or creating age limits to social use (this would be good). The real reason TikTok was singled out was because being created in China meant it was an ideal target for Cold War 2.0 propaganda, providing an excuse to pass this law, which is essentially aimed at creating an American equivalent to China's Firewall and internet censorship infrastructure. It was never about the psychological wellbeing of kids or privacy. (True)
The other pretext for this law is also bullshit. The "foreign interference" which turned out to be a nothingburger, and mostly lies, as shown by formal investigations by Congress, investigation by social media companies themselves, and the Twitter files stories (the Russiagate stuff was bs no one is denying that). It was deliberate hoax to create a pretext for legislation like this, destroying digital freedom was the whole point (I agree). The election interference angle was directed at liberals and the TikTok-China hysterics directed at the right, all by the uniparty in order to manufacture consent for digital totalitarianism (yes but this all doesn't touch on the manipulation and brainwashing of US Citizens by a foreign adversary that is hellbent on world domination).
Paranoia about the RESTRICT Act is not unique to me and a few stragglers online. LTT (admittedly a blog) and Louis Rossman are even mentioning it. I'm not sure about the fine and jailtime for VPNs but it might be possible. The phrasing is so vague, but if it's true, China's great firewall will look like a picket fence by comparison. I've used a VPN in China and so have my friends. Every day the freeest country seems a bit less free. Russia and China (while still worse) feel better every day.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1497307-the-restrict-act-supposedly-to-ban-tik-tok-will-probably-not-put-you-in-jail-for-using-a-vpn-it-mentions-even-very-futuristic-technologies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8
Louis Rossman has reverted on his opinion on banning TikTok. Now he is fine with not banning it since every other company already spies on it. "You cannot simply ban TikTok without coming up with a framework." I agree with this, it shouldn't be "I don't like X company, you're banned." The RESTRICT act however, goes 10 steps too far. He claims that it is cognitive dissonance to say ban TikTok but don't ban Facebook or NSA Prism/Patriot Act that spies on us when we already do that all the time. All governments propagandize their citizens, but is it not better we are propagandized by our own government? It is wishful thinking to say we shouldn't be propagandzied by anyone.
A comment from his Youtube channel catalyzed his change and is quoted verbatim below (with commentary from me in parentheses):
TikTok does to kids what every social media platform does to them, by the same means, algorithmic content delivery (yes but more so but again as I mentioned earlier, that is not the grounds I would be ok with a ban for it and I would prefer if companies did not do taht and there was an option to pay for an ad free experience). If it was actually about the children, or data, they would be pushing for laws restricting algorithms and data gathering, or creating age limits to social use (this would be good). The real reason TikTok was singled out was because being created in China meant it was an ideal target for Cold War 2.0 propaganda, providing an excuse to pass this law, which is essentially aimed at creating an American equivalent to China's Firewall and internet censorship infrastructure. It was never about the psychological wellbeing of kids or privacy. (True)
The other pretext for this law is also bullshit. The "foreign interference" which turned out to be a nothingburger, and mostly lies, as shown by formal investigations by Congress, investigation by social media companies themselves, and the Twitter files stories (the Russiagate stuff was bs no one is denying that). It was deliberate hoax to create a pretext for legislation like this, destroying digital freedom was the whole point (I agree). The election interference angle was directed at liberals and the TikTok-China hysterics directed at the right, all by the uniparty in order to manufacture consent for digital totalitarianism (yes but this all doesn't touch on the manipulation and brainwashing of US Citizens by a foreign adversary that is hellbent on world domination).