Federal judge seems to side with ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation that ban is unenforceable and unconstitutional
A federal judge appeared skeptical about Montana’s TikTok ban in a hearing on Thursday, telling representatives of the state that their argument for restrictions on the app “just confuses me”.
US district judge Donald Molloy heard arguments in a case filed by TikTok and five Montana content creators who want the court to block the state’s ban on the video-sharing app before it takes effect 1 January.
Molloy called the impending ban “paternalistic”, according to the Washington Post. After an hour, Molloy ended the hearing without ruling on the request for an injunction on the digital prohibition.
Since what OP pasted doesn’t actually say what the judge was confused by, and it’s rightfully a confusing argument.
“Your argument just confuses me. You need to protect consumers from having their data stolen. But everybody on TikTok voluntarily gives their personal data. If they want to give that information to whatever the platform is, how is it you can protect them?” he asked.
I’m NOT saying I disagree with the conclusion, but the judge’s reasoning would negate all sorts of consumer protections as paternalistic. You agreed to join Facebook, so you “voluntarily” allow them to track you, manipulate you, and sell your information without any limits. It’s a kind of deeply libertarian argument, just like how you “voluntarily” agreed to work a job, so why would you get worker protections? If you don’t like it, just quit!
Some “paternalistic” laws function under the reasoning that markets don’t always work. Not all consent is informed. Not all choices have sufficient alternatives that allow consumers to choose otherwise. Busy consumers may not have the information or energy to understand all the ways corporations abuse their power.
Well yeah, the ruling would effect all places that take your data then, not just tiktok.
The law only specified apps that share data with foreign governments (as a way to target TikTok by it’s China links) so the ruling would not go beyond that. The judge could rule the law is invalid, but could not expand it to include domestic companies. That would be up to the legislature.
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The lawyers are acting on behalf of the US gov &/or big tech. Their goal is to damage Tick Tock — not to kill the surveillance capitalism that employs them…
Because your suggest requires federal legislation that requires all of the big carriers and cell manufacturers/importers to fundamentally change how their platforms share and control data. All of which are currently monetized by those companies and thousands more. It’s definitely the right direction but that’s not what this court case is about and is too big of an ask. The court case is trying to protect users by disallowing a state from banning entire platforms of expression.
And besides, even if such regulation went through, that doesn’t mean that apps like TikTok couldn’t still weaponize the data you willingly give them: view history, engagement history. To do that you’d need to regulate apps wholesale and when someone like TikTok (and honestly, Google and Apple as well) say “no” the only answer would be to delist them from stores which gets us right back to here. And if something like TikTok were banned across app and play stores? A LOT of people would very quickly learn how to sideload apps, anyways.
The judge’s argument is not particularly compelling. “Everybody voluntarily smokes weed. If they want to give that chemical to their brain, how is it you can protect them.”
uh I think it’s actually quite a good comparison. The only way to “protect” them is to make them the enemy, like smoking weed. Which is a terrible idea and we shouldn’t try to stop them from smoking weed in the first place.
Yes, this is like trying to ban smoking, but just for one brand of cigarette.
And yet, we do exactly that.
it seems to me is that the US os stuck. They have many laws that google, amazon, apple, and other big companies encourage to spy and steal people data. Now another company took a big chunk of the market and using the information against the US. Instead of enforcing new laws to portect the user, they want to keep the ability to spy and steel while banning others from doing so.
