Tag: TikTok

South Dakota Bans Government Employees From Using TikTok. The Countless Other Apps And Services That Hoover Up And Sell Sensitive Data Are Fine, Though

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem put on a bit of a performance this week by announcing that the state would be banning government employees from installing TikTok on their phones. The effort, according to the Governor, is supposed to counter the national security risk of TikTok sharing consumer data with the Chinese government:

South Dakota Bans Government Employees From Using TikTok. The Countless Other Apps And Services That Hoover Up And Sell Sensitive Data Are Fine, Though

Related:

Oracle Cloud Data Center Locations

Oracle’s coziness with [US] government goes back to its founding

TikTok is such a danger, to national security, that US politicians have used it for campaigning, a tool of war propaganda, and former NATO employees work for them! Besides, TikTok stores user data with Oracle! This moral panic, over TikTok, is all about competition!

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Over the last week or so, I keep hearing about a big push among activists and lawmakers to try to get the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) into the year-end “must pass” omnibus bill. Earlier this week, one of the main parents pushing for the bill went on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and stumped for it. And, the latest report from Axios confirms that lawmakers are looking to include it in the lameduck omnibus, or possibly the NDAA (despite it having absolutely nothing to do with defense spending).

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Related:

KOSA Would Let the Government Control What Young People See Online

Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working In Top Jobs At Google, Facebook And Microsoft

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

A MintPress study has found that hundreds of former agents of the notorious Israeli spying organization, Unit 8200, have attained positions of influence in many of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.

Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working In Top Jobs At Google, Facebook And Microsoft

H/T: Alan MacLeod on the Former Israeli Spies in Top Social Media Jobs

Disinformation, Absolutely + Sharp wind from the Bundestag

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

1. Everything you will read in this commentary is disinformation.

2. To say that this commentary contains disinformation is disinformation.

3. To say statements calling this commentary disinformation are disinformation is disinformation.

Disinformation, Absolutely

Related:

Sharp wind from the Bundestag

People who try to report on the war in Ukraine from the Russian side or who try to provide humanitarian aid to those in need in the new Russian territories are excluded from public discourse. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are becoming hollow concepts. In the future, anyone who says something that looks like a “playing down of Russian war crimes” can be punished for “incitement of the people” according to a legislative amendment passed by the Bundestag in summary proceedings on Thursday. By Ulrich Heyden.

Elon Musk’s First Move Is To Fire The Person Most Responsible For Twitter’s Strong Free Speech Stance

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Elon Musk’s First Move Is To Fire The Person Most Responsible For Twitter’s Strong Free Speech Stance

And, that wasn’t just in the US. Twitter was among the most vocal companies pushing back on foreign governments and their demands for information or their demands to censor people. Just as one example, in India, the government demanded that Twitter remove users critical of the government, and Twitter fought back, even as the government threatened to jail Twitter employees. And when India passed a law to give the government more control over internet censorship, Twitter sued the Indian government. In fact, this lawsuit was something that Elon Musk complained about, suggesting that he’s way more willing to go along with government demands. Indeed, Musk also praised the EU’s new Digital Services Act, which is a highly censorial bill that demands all sorts of content takedowns and other censorial actions. Twitter, under [Vijaya] Gadde’s leadership, was one of the most vocal companies in calling out how the Digital Services Act could harm speech online.

Related:

Elon Musk’s plan to turn Twitter into a super app is a step closer now that he owns the platform

Don’t Expect The US Government To Actually Stop Elon From Buying Twitter

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Honestly, the only thing one can say about the whole Elon Musk buying Twitter situation is that you should expect the unexpected to happen. Nothing about this deal has been normal, even though some moves (like Musk coming up with laughably ridiculous pretextual excuses to try to get out of the deal) were telegraphed way in advance. The Delaware Court of Chancery has said that the deal needs to be completed by Friday October 28th or there will be hell to pay (if you’re Elon Musk), and in all likelihood that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I know a lot of people insist he doesn’t intend to close the deal, or that he doesn’t have the money, or that something else will happen to stop it, and I find all of those claims to be unlikely at best. The most likely scenario is that in a week, Twitter will be owned by Elon Musk.

Don’t Expect The US Government To Actually Stop Elon From Buying Twitter

Previously:

Biden Admin Weighs Blocking Twitter Deal On “National Security” Grounds… Just As Musk Wanted