TikTok is bad because reasons, including China is bad and also Nyquil chicken (no seriously)
TikTok is hereby banned from MT
Every "access" to TikTok (defined as "user uses TikTok, or is offered to use TikTok, or offered to download TikTok") in MT comes with a $10k per day fine.
Fines apply to TikTok or to any appstore operator
There's about 200k TikTok users in MT, so that's notionally a $2bn a day fine for Google, Apple, and TikTok
Lots of problems with the bill. But, first amendment questions aside, it just falls apart immediately on Article I Section 9 grounds as a Bill of Attainder: it accuses TikTok directly of badness, and then seeks to punish them directly for that badness.
So, alas, MT isn't going to collect its $2bn a day from TikTok, Google, or Apple. But we get to watch an expensive and stupid fight through the courts to prove it.
I mean, there's a whole lot of reasons I'm not the MT AG, but if I was and I wanted my stupid TikTok ban to survive the many first amendment (and other) challenges, I probably wouldn't go on record in the NYT and say the problem I'm trying to solve is I don't like users in my state going on TikTok and using it to do well-established first amendment protected activities ¯_(ツ)_/¯
@Pwnallthethings Citizens United citation! 😆 "As a U.S. corporation, Plaintiff TikTok Inc. is entitled to First
Amendment protections. See Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S.
310, 342 (2010) (“The Court has recognized that First Amendment protection
extends to corporations.”)"
@jerry@Pwnallthethings i would normally say 'asshats gonna asshat' but this is the governor of an entire state so i think the context is a bit more concerning.
@Viss@Pwnallthethings I am seeing signs of the right starting to splinter. My in-laws, for example, are super staunch bible is the literal truth republicans, and they all voted for Biden because they could see what was going on. (That doesn’t excuse anything but it’s a data point)
@jerry@Viss@Pwnallthethings I’m not convinced that actual, Jesus-fearing Christians really constitute the “right”. They’ve been tricked into believing abortion and gay rights are the only two issues that matter, but inevitably they’re starting to see the disconnect between GOP actions, and the Love Your Neighbor model that Jesus preached.
The Christian-as-a-political-party folks, drawn to the moral superiority Christian legalism offers them, are more interested in power than religion. They’re also the most likely to lean into authoritarianism if it supports their moral world view.
The split you’re seeing is the true believers distancing themselves from the Christofascists… at least the ones that are paying attention.
@mathaetaes@Viss@Pwnallthethings I think that is spot on. I watched them (and perhaps helped with some strategic nudges) as they came to that conclusion in the last presidential election. The DO feel deeply aligned to the political right, but not that far right. The question Viss posed was “what will stop this?” and my answer is that it may start to stop itself - if a more moderate republican enters the fray, it’s going to split the party, like Bernie did to the left in 2016. People like my in-laws are not ever going to see themselves as aligned to the left.
@jerry@Viss@Pwnallthethings I’m seeing the same trend. My partner was raised thinking that Christians were Republican, full stop. Now even their hardcore Catholic, mass-every-morning grandparents are voting democrat.
Turns out, nobody likes a bully but a bully, and there are far fewer bullies in the “right” than they realized.
I agree that it may slow itself. The question is, will it turn around before the GOP can gerrymander and court-stack so much that it doesn’t matter? That’s what I’m really concerned about, and I honestly don’t know.
SCOTUS bribery, extremists in the senate, an extremist buffoon in the White House… extremist governors implementing blatantly unconstitutional laws virtually unchecked… it does seem like there’s a lot of momentum in the wrong direction, and a lot of power being consolidated into very few hands. Every time that has happened in history, the result has eventually been a popular uprising. I sincerely hope we hit the brakes before the general population gets desperate; I have a young kid, and don’t want them to have to live through something like that. :(
@Pwnallthethings I cannot believe they actually put that in there. 🤦🏼♀️ I am so jealous of whoever gets to argue the other side. It's like screaming, "Hey this is an absurdly unserious lawsuit aka we need to ban TikTok to stop NyQuil Chicken videos. Yes, we feel we've overcome those pesky 1st amendment issues."
@mattblaze@Pwnallthethings Also, is it a bill of attainder if they never actually fine TikTok but they do fine Apple or Google, companies that are not named?
@donw@Pwnallthethings I think that probably makes it MORE of a bill of attainder. They're punishing TicTok legislatively by making it impossible for other entities to do business with them, without giving TicTok the benefit of a trial. But the corporation question is still there.
Add comment