90 Miles From Tyranny

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Monday, May 15, 2023

Visage à trois #1437

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TikTok Under Control of Team to Advance “Core Communist Values”


"The Committee maintained supreme access to all the company data"

The push to ban TikTok had stalled after the company recruited half the Left and a few portions of the Right to defend it. Ban TikTok and you’ll alienate Gen Z, we’re told and it’s a violation of “free market principles”.

Here’s what TikTok’s free market principles look like.

A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has accused the technology giant of a “culture of lawlessness,” including stealing content from rival platforms Snapchat and Instagram in its early years, and called the company a “useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.”…

Among the most striking claims in Mr. Yu’s lawsuit is that ByteDance’s offices in Beijing had a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members sometimes referred to as the Committee, which monitored the company’s apps, “guided how the company advanced core Communist values” and possessed a “death switch” that could turn off the Chinese apps entirely.

“The Committee maintained supreme access to all the company data, even data stored in the United States,” the complaint said.

Of course, they did. It’s a Chinese company operating under a Communist dictatorship. It’s a given that every company ultimately owes its allegiance to its police state and is used to conduct operations against the rest of the world.

Especially America.

Yet we keep getting these nonsensical arguments.

“If the government banned TikTok, it would undermine the free speech and association of millions of users,” EFF

A TikTok ban would “limit Americans’ political discussion, artistic expression, free exchange of ideas,” ACLU

“While its enemies paint it as nothing but a tool of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), TikTok is a private, commercial business with multinational ownership. The app has attracted an enormous community outside of China who enjoy using it to watch and exchange videos, comments, and live sessions.” Reason Magazine

“TikTok’s mission appears to be, like most other companies, to make money and lots of it. TikTok is cooperating through Committee on Foreign Investment in the US to make sure all data on Americans is protected from any Chinese government snooping. TikTok has agreed to house all the data on Oracle’s Cloud with access to US government oversight.” Senator Rand Paul

TikTok is dedicated to advancing Communist principles. Everything its executives promised about data use was already shown to be a lie. And if Senator Paul seriously believes that ByteDance would deny its own government access to anything it wanted, he clearly doesn’t have the faintest idea how China works.

Neither it seems do most leftists or libertarians.

It’s one thing to oppose a TikTok ban on grounds of precedent (literally the only conceivable reason to oppose it), but TikTok’s defenders keep acting like...

Morning Mistress

 

The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1386


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Combine These Three Lines:
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Are You Digging The Mystery Vtext-align: center;">
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.

If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.  

Please Leave Silently Into The Night......

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2081


You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside? 
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific, 
from the beautiful to the repugnant, 
from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed, 
you could be inspired, you could be appalled. 

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. 
You have been warned.

Hot Pick Of The Late Night

 

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Girls With Guns

Revealed! Blinken wanted to protect China as spy balloons were flying overhead


Held back on human rights-related sanctions and more

When Chinese balloons started floating over the United States a few weeks back, apparently spying on infrastructure and dispatching secret information back to Beijing, a top Biden official actually was working to protect China, according to a new report.

Reuters documented that while some officials "were confident" the episode would trigger a slate of actions, "Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship."

The report cited sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.

"The delays to items on the department's 'competitive actions' calendar, a classified rolling list of steps the Biden administration has planned related to China, have alarmed some U.S. officials and revealed a divide between those in the U.S. government pushing for tougher action against China and others advocating a more restrained approach," the report said.

While the State Department publicly was expressing unhappiness over the spy balloons spotted above some of America's military installations, it also did postpone Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing.

But, the report said, U.S. officials actually were pushing...

Visage à trois #1437

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Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1093

 










Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1091

Visage à trois #1436

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Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1092


 








Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #1089