 Under the new Restrict Act ("ban TikTok act") VPN users face 20 years in jail and up to $1million fine if they evade US internet censorship. Compared to this, the great firewall of china looks like a picket fence. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15 60 comments
  @yogthos that's a definition, but the clause that references it in section (a) makes it harder to fit with an individual using a VPN simply to bypass IP range blocks (unless they're doing a lot more, like offering a public proxy)… it's also unclear how the US government would even impose filtering such that a VPN is required for access, unless the service itself (eg TikTok) imposed a country filter @matunos it doesn't appear to be worded in a way that focuses on individual, but it can also be construed that you are providing yourself a service using your own VPN. Also consider any distributed technologies like tor. By using tor you became a node and handle data for others. This is an absolutely draconian law.  @jake4480 @matunos I think the idea isn't that it's going to be enforced universally, instead it'll just be used to target people. That's the really scary part of this kind of a law. Once an individual is targeted then this kind of law can be used to slap a draconian sentence on them for having a vpn, or having visited a website at some point.  @yogthos wow, was diese planlose unbegrenzte Ermächtigung „irgendwas“ gegen „die“ durchzusetzen..  @yogthos Americans need to ask whether they would accept giving Trump or someone like him the power to monitor and censor all internet traffic within the country. Even using a VPN will come with 20 years in jail. That is crazy. That is what this law will do under the guise of banning TikTok. Are people calling their elected leaders to stop it? How can you use VPN to surpass US Internet censorship? There isn't any server of VPN services in China.  @yogthos classic. get the masses riled up about TikTok as a smoke screen to pass draconian shit exactly what they did to pass the Patriot Act way back when, too  @yogthos suprised the act doesn't outright ban VPNs, it feels like American Democracy is dead @yogthos So what happens to Americans who come home from China with VPNs on their computers and phones?   I may be wrong here but I think legally defining that list of "foreign adversaries" is a big step also. @yogthos That's whay they do Point at others for being evil... while being far worse... this is the way of the Western governments @schoolingdiana I think TikTok is largely a distraction, the goal of the bill is clearly much broader than TikTok @yogthos I'd feel a lot more worried about this if the TikTok hearings didn't just reveal that American politicians are fucking idiots about the internet @yogthos censorship on the rise everywhere. China is the blueprint for the west  @yogthos the great USian firewall, perhaps now the population will get mad enough at the shitty Armani wearing third world country the US has become I guess it shows our priorities. Invade the Capitol to overturn an election get six months. Shoot someone with an assault rifle, get thirteen years. Watch cat videos get twenty. @yogthos although this bill delights the authoritarian wing of our governance class, it is also a giant gift to the legacy Silicon Valley companies. The bottom line is that TikTok is beating the pants off those legacy firms and the shift in advertising $ is proof. While "Big Tech" was showcasing their woke'ness and checking DE&I boxes, they forgot that they're actually in the business of business. TikTok built a better product and now the legacies are running to Uncle Sam for help. @yogthos @mmasnick I disagree with your interpretation; the penalties appear to be for subverting _ownership_ by hostile entities not _access_ to hostile services. It is an absurdly broad bill trying to make government able to ban arbitrary tech by deeming it critical or…in broad use, & potentially subject to ‘misinformation’ if owned by entities in hostile nations. I hate it, and it WILL be used by awful people, to do awful things. But…it does not seem to do what you describe. @cypherfox @mmasnick I'm pretty sure it does exactly that, with this law it'll be possible to ban any media that US government finds problematic and prosecute any circumvention of the ban with extreme prejudice   @yogthos @jeffjarvis are they going to start going to all the VPN providers to get their users information now? How are they actually going to enforce this? @mayor @jeffjarvis my guess would be that this law would facilitate selective enforcement, which is likely the intent @yogthos IANAL, so I could only skim the legalese, but isn't this only applicable to classified information and foreign adversaries? It does say the Secretary can remove adversaries from the list - didn't see where they can add new ones. But the Secretary does get to decide who/what poses an "unacceptable risk to the national security". Are you worried this is a blank check to the Commerce Secretary to decide that any particular group or technology is included, and can therefore be banned? @Philomorph right that's precisely the problem, this can be changed unilaterally without any debate or oversight @yogthos Well, it does say the SoC makes decisions "in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads" (i.e. Homeland, FCC, etc) so it's maybe not "unilateral"? Being limited to transactions between "foreign adversaries" and people in the US, adversaries defined as "any foreign government or regime, determined by the Secretary ... to have engaged in a long-term pattern or serious instances of conduct significantly adverse to the national security of the United States". @yogthos So as written, the SoC could only add *foreign governments* with a seriously problematic history. They couldn't, say, ban Twitch, or the BBC Player I access via VPN, right? @yogthos If the US bans tiktok, they should also ban facebook(meta), snapchat and similar services. Products from Facebook and co collect similar data as Tiktok. When it comes to the state that processes the data: Most companies work with third parties from abroad to process the data masses. @yogthos Your spreading disinformation. The bill does not target individuals but companies . This is won't a bill and is NOT the law. Stop spreading bs. @robertburke I encourage you to actually read the bill and think about the implications of how it's worded |
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@yogthos and watch Democrats eat this up