Advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have called the bill "censorship plain and simple," arguing that "jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression."

At 27 years old, Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost is the youngest member of Congress, and he opposes the bill.

"I think that it is a violation of people's First Amendment rights," he said. "TikTok is a place for people to express ideas. I have many small businesses in my district and content creators in my district, and I think it's going to drastically impact them too."

The fact that Republicans started it is enough for me to be at least suspicious of why its even being considered.

EDIT: Also lol at "strong first amendment rights" when redneck states ban any books with queer or black characters. And lmao at "Strong first amendment rights" when people get fired for talking about forming a union, let alone even trying to make one.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Lol comment removed for (I guess?) linking to a Wikipedia article on Chinese dissidents...

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think the comment shouldn't have been removed, but principally because it is trivial to refute. The US is well aware of the fact that people calling for revolution have no teeth, while the people who actually did substantial law-breaking on Jan 6 (which itself had no teeth, but I digress) were indeed arrested.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia's list of Chinese"dissidents" includes blatant fraudsters like Miles Guo, who fled China to evade capture for financial crimes before being imprisoned in the US for continuing to commit financial crimes, to say nothing of the "dissidents" involved in actual insurrectionary activity that killed PLA soldiers.

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 11 points 8 months ago

If all you did was drop a wiki link that's a pretty worthless comment. Do you think China is the only country where dissidents get in trouble with the government? Do you think the U.S. doesn't harass (or worse) dissidents?

Who knows, use your words