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.

[Brooksie359]

16 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

This bill is super detailed and does go into that. I speaks of Controlling Holding and covered holding.   

 

Then it talks about what holdings are covered. In short anything owned in any way shape or form in whole or in part by a foreighn entity and subject to the jusrisction of or organized under the laws of a foreign adversarial power.   It's not a super SUPER long law read it, takes 5-10 minutes and it answers this in detail.  Like every kind of service Tencent or any company like it would own is covered. 

When it talks about companies owned by people subject to the jurisdiction of forieghn countries. 

It seems to imply that a national of another country that sets up a company in the US might even be subject to this law. 

 

Given how this law states that the own it in whole or in part would seem to imply that even a minority stake would be too much.  VERY informative post by the way.  I mean.  This is basically the US government making Tencent either get out of the US without it's shirt or sell out at rock bottom prices to a US company. 

 

True.  Something technologically superior might even have a problem.  I've got so many people and places on Discord and getting all of that losslessly back on a new platform would not be possible. 

 

100% agree.   I am not a lawyer but ... the thing about this law is it' deals with foreighn relations.  It is often said here that 1A does not apply.  (it does not and the forum is not based in the USA so its not baked in on a cultural level either etc).  

That's the thing here... there does not exist a free speech right to communicate with a company held by , or by a national of, a hostile foreign power.  There isn't.  So the federal government would have absolute power to do this.  In the US ratified treaties, which are treated as basically part of the constitution, can change that.  Absent a treaty with China on this we might loose access to everything Tencent owns, controls, in whole or in part IF this law passes. 

Our best bet is that it gets amended in the process into something far less onerous but that rarely happens.  RARELY. Usually a bill that is sure to pass gets not only made more stringent, but also gets funds for this or that tacked on to it. 

I found an article that gives what seems to be a definitive list of all companies owned by tencent in whole or in part. What Companies Does Tencent Own 【In 2023】 - DATAROMA (dataromas.com)  

Much of the online gaming infrastructure used in mobile, console, and PC will be effected by this law. 

Honestly I think you overestimate the US's power. While the US market is big the Chinese market is by no means small and I have even heard that in some areas its bigger so it might be the case that tencent just forces the company to leave the US market or migrate the majority of it to China and cut off the rest. Think the softbank incident comes to mind. Also I find this law incredibly stupid imo as it really shouldn't apply to everyone. If you work for a goverment agency or anyone who has security clearances then yeah it makes sense to not want them to have Tiktok but to think the average citizen using Tiktok is a national security risk is actually crazy. 

[Mark Kaine]

things like discord etc should not be allowed anyways,  but whats kinda funny this is only for "adversaries"? So google fb etc is still a go...

 

 

who owns discord btw?

 

So this also means no more Genshin [insert generic subtitle here] good. 

 

 

Spoiler

yes this is mostly sarcasm because almost none of this wishy washy law will be enforced ever, as usual 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly I think you overestimate the US's power. 

The "market" is bigger in the sense of having more people than the US but smaller in the sense that the US has more GDP both nominally and per capita.  Tencent leaving the US market is also exactly what this law wants.  The question is Tencent going to just forget about BILLIONS of dollars in assets they have here?  No.  They'd have to sell them even at a loss it would be oodles of money. 

As for us influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC_in_China 

 

36 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

things like discord etc should not be allowed anyways,  but whats kinda funny this is only for "adversaries"? So google fb etc is still a go...

 

 

who owns discord btw?

Tencent same company as TikTok.  Then the CCP owns stock in Tencent.    By this law anything owned by Tencent would be toast. 

 

36 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

yes this is mostly sarcasm because almost none of this wishy washy law will be enforced ever, as usual 

 

I hope you are right. 

I just don't think you are right. 

 

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

This going to be abused to high heavens.......

Of course.  Any law that says vague things like "anything that represents a threat to the United States or any citizens of the United States."  That's just a license to declare a mobile game to be a threat, or a messaging app used by this or that group.   Even if the app is nothing like tik tok and has no backdoors and spyware like it does.  

There is another bill by another senator that is a clean and specific ban but he did not file it.  Everyone is behind this sweeping bill that refers to everything from the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to "Synthetic Biology" and "Post Quantum Cryptography".   It's like they went through a novel by Asimov and wanted to ban things they saw in it. 

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, Kisai said:

But the government is more concerned that the Chinese government is using Tiktok to spy on foreign governments via the social media app. I think the concern is misplaced.

but its not misplaced in my opinion, when that is the biggest threat, chinese gouv is not interested in monitoring the american joe shmoey,they want government officials,  miltiary people,  heck the president if they can. So i don't really understand your concern here. but i agree that if x country's company cant do it then it should be regulated the same for "every" country.  of course the reality is the us gouv doesn't mind if google has delicate data about *other countries* government officials etc ; )

 

 

[Kisai]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

but its not misplaced in my opinion, when that is the biggest threat, chinese gouv is not interested in monitoring the american joe shmoey,they want government officials,  miltiary people,  heck the president if they can. So i don't really understand your concern here. but i agree that if x country's company cant do it then it should be regulated the same for "every" country.  of course the reality is the us gouv doesn't mind if google has delicate data about *other countries* government officials etc ; )

 

 

 

I'll rephrase this, because the sentiment on social media appears to be misreading the situation as well.

 

I don't believe the Chinese Government or the US government gives a care about the average person. They are interested in espionage and counter-espionage purposes of apps. This doubly applies to apps on Google Play since people may enable side-loading and then a "safe" app might allow something via that back door.

 

The countries the US considers adversarial are China, Russia, DPRK, Iran, and probably some other countries that are a legacy of the cold war like Cuba, but ultimately don't make a show of being such. 

 

Which is why, bans like this will eventually creep into full on bans on the app entirely. Access to the app and the site itself will be blocked by all US-based (and others like Canada, Australia, UK, etc) corporations because of the risk of espionage, be that by a foreign government or the local one.

 

Like, I kid you not, Facebook used to be banned when I worked for (auction site), because people would waste a lot of time on it, and likewise people visiting the WoW forums back when WoW was in it's prime when I worked at another big company. 

 

It's just standard practice to treat your employees as potential leaks if they bring their own devices in, it's even worse if you let them use the company hardware/network.

 

Like if there is anything I can agree with in corporate idiocy, it is the preventing of staff from installing things on their company computers. Not so much I don't trust the employees, I don't trust the damn software.

[Uttamattamakin]

16 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

they want government officials,  miltiary people,  heck the president if they can. So i don't really understand your concern here. but i agree that if x country's company cant do it then it should be regulated the same for "every" country.  of course the reality is the us gouv doesn't mind if google has delicate data about *other countries* government officials etc ; )

 

 

This is true to an extent.  Clearly they'd really want to get Tik Tok being posted by sailors on our air craft carriers or by pilots in our planes or by soldiers in various locations.  Of course they'd love to get Tik Tok on the cell phones of people in the House and Senate intelligence committees.  Even if they never take that phone into a hearing or turn it off ... they can get in intelligence by noticing when such people deactivate their phone.  

 

i.e. if they see the phones go off in the House, Senate, and key parts of the military they know something is up. 

 

This sort of analysis of such people is not new.  It's at least as old as radio. (A really cool video about an incident called Able Archer 83 ... talks about intelligence and a close call with nuclear war. Many of the ... principles that they discuss would also apply to TikTok and other potential spyware.  One thing that cool video mentions as part of the KGB's operation RYaN was they would monitor the UK MOD to see if lights were on or not late at night. ) 

 

Quote

but its not misplaced in my opinion, when that is the biggest threat, chinese gouv is not interested in monitoring the american joe shmoey,

That said if they monitor all 350 million US Americans they could perhaps infer indirect intelligence on US national mood, and intentions, and goings on via TikTok. Then apply subtle influence on those events by choosing to amplify messages that would cause discord and demphasizing messages and videos that would calm things down. 

 

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

I don't believe the Chinese Government or the US government gives a care about the average person. They are interested in espionage and counter-espionage purposes of apps.

Agree with 99% of this.  It's not so much "spying" on Joe six pack as trying to make sure Joe six pack is outraged as much as possible.  You know using Tik Tok to drive wedges into the cracks of our society... making super rare outrages seem common... making our youth focus on stupid if not dangerous challenges.  

While the equivalent app in the PRC Douyin is serving them up science experiments. 
 

This is part of it.  

IF we are soon not able to use Discord which is as far as I can tell utterly benign (Unless one thinks people communicating is bad) it will be because of this.  If we loose Epic games, Riot games, etc etc... it will be because of this. 

[Senzelian]

22 hours ago, WereCat said:

Discord

Finally my beloved Teamspeak might make a comeback 

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I hope you are right. 

well i said most "infractions" won't be sanctioned... its usually what happens,  that's why the wording is mostly vague. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

That said if they monitor all 350 million US Americans they could perhaps infer indirect intelligence on US national mood, and intentions, and goings on via TikTok. Then apply subtle influence on those events by choosing to amplify messages

i mean yeah, its a multi factor attack surface, but i think the biggest concern would still be classic "spying" on government organizations, etc (i mean they all have phones and probably tik tok )

[TuxMint]

I'm not here to talk politics, I hate politics. What I want to do with this post is raise awareness, and act as a plea for help. Help in spreading the word, and hopefully stopping one of the biggest threats to a free internet in the United States. I'm talking about the recent bill introduced to congress called the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, aka the RESTRICT Act. This bill was written for the use of banning Tik Tok in the United States, but it so much more than that and very dangerous! The problem is the very broad and confusing language the bill uses, Tik Tok isn't even mentioned in the bill. If passed, this gives the U.S. government the authority to ban any technology they want, and to go after anyone who they deem a "threat", at which point they can access your computer, phone, video games, cameras etc. Basically anything with an internet connection. It could also criminalize cryptocurrency, and VPN's. In fact, if criminalized, using a VPN to access a banned app for example, carries with it a $1million fine and/or up to 20 years of jail time and/or the forfeit of property to the U.S. government.  Now I said I don't want to talk politics and I still don't, but no matter which way you lean or how you vote, you know this power can and will be abused no matter who is in charge. Even if you don't care because you're not in the United States, I believe if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. I'm leaving some links below to articles who probably can explain it better than I can, and the bottom link is the bill in full as far as I'm aware, with the number S.686 near the top of the bill. Please, spread the word and raise awareness as fast as possible, and encourage others to fight this! If someone from LTT happens to see this, please, make a video on it if nothing else to just raise awareness for your viewers in the U.S.

 

https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/

 

https://hothardware.com/news/us-restrict-act-end-the-internet-and-freedom-as-we-know-it

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-bill-making-its-way-through-congress-is-so-much-more-than-just-a-tiktok-ban/ar-AA19ewAj

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/2c34efc7-205a-3028-951a-dd5459a41762/coin-center-says-restrict-act.html

 

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15

[DrMacintosh]

I'm reasonably confident the bill won't make it out of the House. The House comity can bang their CHINA war drum all they like, there are still two branches of government that their proposed bill needs to go through.

[TylerD321]

55 minutes ago, TechlessBro said:

You know this apply to only a set of countries deemed foreign adversaries right or did you just read the speculations?

The only reason it might could EVER pass is if the government feels the need to force the app to be sold to an American owned company.

[Brooksie359]

9 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The "market" is bigger in the sense of having more people than the US but smaller in the sense that the US has more GDP both nominally and per capita.  Tencent leaving the US market is also exactly what this law wants.  The question is Tencent going to just forget about BILLIONS of dollars in assets they have here?  No.  They'd have to sell them even at a loss it would be oodles of money. 

As for us influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFC_in_China 

 

Tencent same company as TikTok.  Then the CCP owns stock in Tencent.    By this law anything owned by Tencent would be toast. 

 

I hope you are right. 

I just don't think you are right. 

 

Of course.  Any law that says vague things like "anything that represents a threat to the United States or any citizens of the United States."  That's just a license to declare a mobile game to be a threat, or a messaging app used by this or that group.   Even if the app is nothing like tik tok and has no backdoors and spyware like it does.  

There is another bill by another senator that is a clean and specific ban but he did not file it.  Everyone is behind this sweeping bill that refers to everything from the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to "Synthetic Biology" and "Post Quantum Cryptography".   It's like they went through a novel by Asimov and wanted to ban things they saw in it. 

Honestly gdp per capita is a crap way to measure wealth of the average person. Median income is way better representation because unfortunately for the US the majority of the wealth is in a select few hands and those people have very different spending habits than say the average Joe. Granted it's not like China does not suffer from some similar wealth inequality issues but still median is what you want to look at when determining the average consumer spending power. 

[williamcll]

Talk about double standard eh?

[suicidalfranco]

On 3/29/2023 at 12:59 AM, ouroesa said:

Some game studios that Tencent has majority stake in:
Fatshark (Warhammer Vermintide and Darktide)
Klei (Don't Starve, Oxygen not included)
Grinding Gear (Path of Exile)
Funcom (Conan Exiles, Dune Awakening, Dune Spice Wars, Metal: Hellsinger)
Turtle Rock Studios (Back 4 Blood)

Riot Games (LOL)

 

I cant see how much stake Tencent owns in Discord but seems to be minority stake i.e. <50%, likely quite a bit less.

Still:

Nothing of value would be lost.

 

I play PoE, bu if i became unavailable i wouldn't cry over it, I'd just go "meh, doesn't work anymore. Time to try another dungeon crawler i guess"

[suicidalfranco]

5 hours ago, TuxMint said:

I'm not here to talk politics, I hate politics. What I want to do with this post is raise awareness, and act as a plea for help. Help in spreading the word, and hopefully stopping one of the biggest threats to a free internet in the United States. I'm talking about the recent bill introduced to congress called the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, aka the RESTRICT Act. This bill was written for the use of banning Tik Tok in the United States, but it so much more than that and very dangerous! The problem is the very broad and confusing language the bill uses, Tik Tok isn't even mentioned in the bill. If passed, this gives the U.S. government the authority to ban any technology they want, and to go after anyone who they deem a "threat", at which point they can access your computer, phone, video games, cameras etc. Basically anything with an internet connection. It could also criminalize cryptocurrency, and VPN's. In fact, if criminalized, using a VPN to access a banned app for example, carries with it a $1million fine and/or up to 20 years of jail time and/or the forfeit of property to the U.S. government.  Now I said I don't want to talk politics and I still don't, but no matter which way you lean or how you vote, you know this power can and will be abused no matter who is in charge. Even if you don't care because you're not in the United States, I believe if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. I'm leaving some links below to articles who probably can explain it better than I can, and the bottom link is the bill in full as far as I'm aware, with the number S.686 near the top of the bill. Please, spread the word and raise awareness as fast as possible, and encourage others to fight this! If someone from LTT happens to see this, please, make a video on it if nothing else to just raise awareness for your viewers in the U.S.

 

https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/

 

https://hothardware.com/news/us-restrict-act-end-the-internet-and-freedom-as-we-know-it

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-bill-making-its-way-through-congress-is-so-much-more-than-just-a-tiktok-ban/ar-AA19ewAj

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/2c34efc7-205a-3028-951a-dd5459a41762/coin-center-says-restrict-act.html

 

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15

laughable that cocerns rises now, but nobody stood up when they introduced the patriot act. Which is far worse than this

[Uttamattamakin]

6 hours ago, TuxMint said:

I'm not here to talk politics, I hate politics. What I want to do with this post is raise awareness, and act as a plea for help. Help in spreading the word, and hopefully stopping one of the biggest threats to a free internet in the United States. I'm talking about the recent bill introduced to congress

Your post is full of good information. I would argue we are not talking politics here. That governments exist and take actions that effect technology or use technology to effect peoples lives is not politics.   This bill stands to wreck the very structure of online communication.   People need to know about it.   My motive in starting this thread is and was a bit of rumor control. 

 

It is simply and sadly the facts.
 

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly gdp per capita is a crap way to measure wealth of the average person. Median income is way better representation because unfortunately for the US the majority of the wealth is in a select few hands and those people have very different spending habits than say the average Joe. Granted it's not like China does not suffer from some similar wealth inequality issues but still median is what you want to look at when determining the average consumer spending power. 

China has a median income of less than 5000 USD across multiple sources.  If we look at just their middle class according to Pew research they top out at 18,500 USD per year. 

The median income in the US is 31,000 USD , while in the US the poverty level is 12,000 USD.  In other words in the US Poverty is like being middle class in China.   Listed by GDP PPP Per capita the US is 6th and China is 72nd.   So yeah no Tencent really will not want to just abandon the value of it's US assets.  It will sell them at fire sale prices. 

SO  we might not loose TikTok forever, but instead see at least the brand and source code to run it sold off to US companies and or groups of US investors.  Tencent might try to auction off their assets before the ban goes into effect.  

 

 

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

Still:

Nothing of value would be lost.

A single game is no loss.  Having whole platforms and game studios perhaps cease to exist would be.  

The VPN provision is of concern because it would apply to even things like Tor.  Basically this means the infrastructure of the Dark Web is now illegal in the USA IF that law goes through.   What is at stake are the means and methods of online communication that ensure privacy and anonymity for the average person. 

[jagdtigger]

19 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Any law that says vague things like "anything that represents a threat to the United States or any citizens of the United States."

Law? More like a carpet bomber.......

[Brooksie359]

4 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Your post is full of good information. I would argue we are not talking politics here. That governments exist and take actions that effect technology or use technology to effect peoples lives is not politics.   This bill stands to wreck the very structure of online communication.   People need to know about it.   My motive in starting this thread is and was a bit of rumor control. 

 

It is simply and sadly the facts.
 

China has a median income of less than 5000 USD across multiple sources.  If we look at just their middle class according to Pew research they top out at 18,500 USD per year. 

The median income in the US is 31,000 USD , while in the US the poverty level is 12,000 USD.  In other words in the US Poverty is like being middle class in China.   Listed by GDP PPP Per capita the US is 6th and China is 72nd.   So yeah no Tencent really will not want to just abandon the value of it's US assets.  It will sell them at fire sale prices. 

SO  we might not loose TikTok forever, but instead see at least the brand and source code to run it sold off to US companies and or groups of US investors.  Tencent might try to auction off their assets before the ban goes into effect.  

 

 

A single game is no loss.  Having whole platforms and game studios perhaps cease to exist would be.  

The VPN provision is of concern because it would apply to even things like Tor.  Basically this means the infrastructure of the Dark Web is now illegal in the USA IF that law goes through.   What is at stake are the means and methods of online communication that ensure privacy and anonymity for the average person. 

You can't really compare income like that. 12000 in the US vs China is likely very different. I can easily live off of 40k a year in some rural areas of the US but try doing that in LA and its just not possible. I would imagine the same could be said about China so it really depends on how much money they have after necessary expenses like rent/mortgages and food. It should also be noted that a ton of companies have bent over backwards to get access to the Chinese market because it's so big. I would even argue that for gaming related stuff the market is China is bigger due to cultural reasons. 

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

You can't really compare income like that. 12000 in the US vs China is likely very different. I can easily live off of 40k a year in some rural areas of the US but try doing that in LA and its just not possible. I would imagine the same could be said about China so it really depends on how much money they have after necessary expenses like rent/mortgages and food. It should also be noted that a ton of companies have bent over backwards to get access to the Chinese market because it's so big. I would even argue that for gaming related stuff the market is China is bigger due to cultural reasons. 

This is why we have GPD per capita PPP.  PPP Purchasing Power Parity.  So it accounts for all of that.  Yes things vary a lot from place to place in any country.  The fact remains Tencent's business within the US is very valueable to them.  To have to shut it down or more likely totally divest of it will not be good for them.  

That is if the government even allows that.  The way this law is worded they could just thow the apps and services provided by them out of our market.  Not even given Tencent a chance to cash out. 

[StDragon]

On 3/28/2023 at 5:20 PM, Uttamattamakin said:

I mean JFC "Synthetic biology"  and Post quantum cryptography etc  really? 

I'm not for sweeping laws of this type (it's totalitarian). But with regards to "Synthetic Biology", AI (from now till next 5 years with enough hardware thrown at it) could create a new genesis of life never seen before on Earth. Maybe it will be DNA based, maybe not. But it could be modified plagues that wipe out entire populations, or some new virus as a deliverable weapon.

Point is, it's not a laughing matter. The potential for a neo-genesis form of life is theoretically doable.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

This is why we have GPD per capita PPP.  PPP Purchasing Power Parity.  So it accounts for all of that.  Yes things vary a lot from place to place in any country.  The fact remains Tencent's business within the US is very valueable to them.  To have to shut it down or more likely totally divest of it will not be good for them.  

That is if the government even allows that.  The way this law is worded they could just thow the apps and services provided by them out of our market.  Not even given Tencent a chance to cash out. 

While somewhat true I think this wouldn't be good. I doubt China wouldn't do something in retaliation. This seems way to shortsighted tbh especially because we all know that it's not like the US doesn't spy on everyone too lol. This would be devastating for relations with China and trade with them which tbh we rely alot on China. Imagine if China banned all US companies from China and simply took over US companies assets in China? This is playing with fire tbh. 

[Birblover12]

On 3/29/2023 at 10:35 PM, DrMacintosh said:

I'm reasonably confident the bill won't make it out of the House. The House comity can bang their CHINA war drum all they like, there are still two branches of government that their proposed bill needs to go through.

This. By the time it actually gets to the Senate (if it even does) it may be changed so much that it won't even be of concern anymore. It's obvious that they're mainly just trying a second attempt at banning TikTok after their first failed miserably, though personally I absolutely hate how vaguely worded the whole thing is. It's pretty obvious that they want to have the ability to go further then TikTok without having to pass more laws. If it does ever get to the Senate, THEN that's when we start sending very, VERY strongly worded emails to our respective senators.

 

I was also thinking about the fact that, realistically, what would actually happen if the US Government banned TikTok? Literally half the country would go ballistic because they can't get their funny dance app, which (because I'm guessing they'd have to ban servers since they can't just "remove" the app off people's phones) would mean said half of country would begin using VPNs to access said app. At which point what's the government going to do, arrest tens of millions of people? Start shutting down VPN Providers? The public outcry that'd cause FAR outwighs any "security violation" the app or people would have caused lol.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, Birblover12 said:

This. By the time it actually gets to the Senate (if it even does) it may be changed so much that it won't even be of concern anymore.

I hope you are right about everything in your post.  However, the president supports this bill and has said he would sign any such legislation passed by the house and senate.  Hopefully they will declaw and defang the bill as far as ... anything that could put an American in jail for accessing these services. 

 

IF not though, then this bill taken with bills at the state and federal level that try to limit use of things like Tik Tok based on age, will make Web 3.0 a less open place than web 2.0. 

2 hours ago, Birblover12 said:

 

I was also thinking about the fact that, realistically, what would actually happen if the US Government banned TikTok? Literally half the country would go ballistic because they can't get their funny dance app, which (because I'm guessing they'd have to ban servers since they can't just "remove" the app off people's phones) would mean said half of country would begin using VPNs to access said app. At which point what's the government going to do, arrest tens of millions of people? Start shutting down VPN Providers? The public outcry that'd cause FAR outwighs any "security violation" the app or people would have caused lol.

I don't think so.  Young people Zoomer age people would care but older Millennial and Gen X and Boomer age people would not care.  Besides some other app will take it's place.  Maybe YouTube shorts will be a thing.  (I'm surprised there isn't a "Linus Tech Shorts" channel that just makes specific shorts, with accompanying merch, for that yet.)

[StDragon]

9 hours ago, Birblover12 said:

Literally half the country would go ballistic because they can't get their funny dance app, which (because I'm guessing they'd have to ban servers since they can't just "remove" the app off people's phones) would mean said half of country would begin using VPNs to access said app. At which point what's the government going to do, arrest tens of millions of people? Start shutting down VPN Providers? The public outcry that'd cause FAR outwighs any "security violation" the app or people would have caused lol.

Let's not get melodramatic here. If what you said was truly the mood of America, then that nation is finished, and frankly, deserves to fail under the weight of such mass-stupidity of the population.

Idiocracy was was supposed to be a comedy, not a warning.

 

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Young people Zoomer age people would care but older Millennial and Gen X and Boomer age people would not care.

As a Gen-X-er, I would be ashamed of any fellow Gen-X-er that fails in their parental responsibilities. I expect this generation to have learned a thing or two by now. Left to their own devices, adolescents will fail to varying degrees. I was a kid once, so I know. At heart, I still am, but I'm also an adult with the wisdom of age and the life experiences that go along with it. In fact, even adults fail if left to their own vices too.

We don't need big-brother calling the shots. What we need is responsible parents and mentors telling children that TikTok is brain-rot material. The fact the Gov is stepping in is further evidence of adults not doing the responsible things too. It's sad!

[cafe]

honestly i think the us should disconnect from the WWW and make our own, cause everything else is inferior.