Day: April 22, 2024

TikTok–A Step Closer

In the past few months as a diversion the Biden people have been thumping their chest about TikTok….and it looks like the ban is a step closer….

The House passed legislation Saturday that would ban TikTok in the US if the popular social media platform’s China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year. That doesn’t mean the app will go away anytime soon, the AP reports. The decision by House Republicans to include TikTok as part of a larger foreign aid package fast-tracked the ban after an earlier version had stalled in the Senate. A standalone bill with a six-month selling deadline passed the House in March as both Democrats and Republicans voiced national security concerns about the app’s owner, the Chinese technology firm ByteDance.

But the maneuver could speed up the TikTok crackdown’s route through Congress, per the Washington Post, while putting pressure on the Senate. Negotiations between the chambers had produced a compromise measure, and the Post finds support increasing in the Senate. TikTok is “a spy balloon in Americans’ phones” used to “surveil and exploit America’s personal information,” Republican Rep. Michael McCaul told the House in introducing the provision for debate on Saturday. The company could challenge the law in court, per the AP, possibly arguing that it deprives millions of TikTok users of their First Amendment rights. President Biden said last month that he would sign the TikTok bill if Congress passes it.

Is TikTok truly dangerous?

Researchers studied the app’s source code and reported it carries out “excessive data harvesting”. Analysts said TikTok collects details such as location, what specific device is being used and which other apps are on it.

However, a similar test carried out by Citizen Lab concluded “in comparison to other popular social media platforms, TikTok collects similar types of data to track user behaviour”.

Similarly, a report by the Georgia Institute of Technology last year stated: “The key fact here is that most other social media and mobile apps do the same things.”

If TikTok does nothing different than other social media sights why then is TikTok the only danger?

What do you think this proposed ban is all about?

Is this truly a freedom of speech thing?

How will the Supreme Court rule on this for we know it will make it there for their ruling?

Do we really want to start down this road of banning social media?

Is this a made up ‘crisis’ or is it an accusation with some teeth?

All good questions that deserve good answers….

Your thoughts included.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Remember Terrorism?

First of all….I would like to wish everyone a ‘Happy Earth Day’….

Now he is a subject that has taken a backseat in the media….and because it is under reported the American people have moved on to the point of blocking this out of their minds.

AQ is a mere shadow of its former self and ISIS, well ISIS is still there and still performing acts of terror and mayhem.

Then just recently the world got another wake up call….the attack in Moscow.

With its “war on terrorism,” the United States launched a global campaign against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks as well as a number of other targets. The campaign probably created more terrorists than it killed. Moreover, U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq—the first with only a tangential relationship to al-Qaeda, the second with no connection whatsoever—killed a huge number of civilians as well.

Having failed to accomplish its poorly defined objectives, the United States eventually refocused on other national security threats. The “war on terrorism” disappeared from the headlines. Today, the world is more worried about the wars conducted by states: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s attack on Gaza, and the potential conflict between China and Taiwan.

But as the latest attack in Moscow demonstrates, some terrorist organizations are still going strong. On May 22, militants associated with the Islamic State chapter in Afghanistan attacked concertgoers at a Moscow venue, killing more than a 100 people. It was a shocking reminder of how vulnerable states can be in the face of determined non-state actors.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or Daesh according to the Arabic acronym) is perhaps the most prominent terrorist organization operating in the world today. It emerged from the wreckage of the U.S. war in Iraq and the civic uprising against Bashar al-Assad in Syria. For several years beginning in 2014, these radical Islamists managed to govern a vast swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria. Though it attracted recruits from around the world, ISIS also attracted the enmity of a range of states that otherwise didn’t agree on anything else. After repeated attacks by these diverse states—the United States, Russia, Syria, Iraq—the self-declared caliphate collapsed in 2019.

Even without its mini-caliphate, the Islamic State persists. It still launches attacks within Syria and wields considerable influencein the huge al-Hol facility in eastern Syria for detained ISIS fighters and their families (along with many unfortunates who have no connection to ISIS).  It still has something of a foothold in Southeast Asia. Several groups in both the Sahel and in sub-Saharan Africa are still operating.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/09/the-return-of-terrorism/

Terrorism did not go away nor was it defeated….however the importance in the media did go away….but now with this attack there should be a renewed interest in the happenings around ISIS and other groups bent on destruction and death.

But after all how important can it be when we have an election to fret over?

How will this play out?

Your thoughts, please.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”