I believe that a flying unicorn orbits the moon. When no unicorn is found, does that prove that a unicorn may exist?
You can't use a negative to prove a point. Either the point is proven and supported by evidence or it is just speculation. If it is speculation, then it can be dismissed since it has no basis in reality.
In this particular case, if an audit was done and found no backdoors then as far as we know and until such a time as we find a backdoor, then there are no backdoors.
If you want to continue to believe that there is a backdoor, then this is an opinion which does not constitute proof of any sort and certainly should not be used to come up with policies such as banning a company from operating in the US in case of a mythical backdoor which has so far eluded everyone.
Russell’s teapot is not a logical proposition as to what’s true and what is not. It is philosophizing about burden of proof in a low information context in a debate. It is a persuasion tactic, an exercise in philosophy, not at all a logical proposition.
Also its context (religious belief in a deity) is not at all like a scenario where a history of adversarial motives are established. There would be reason to believe the adversary would do certain things if they could, simply because the incentive is so strong and their history of behavior suggests that.
Simply the line that was suggested “there is no backdoor until we find one” is logically self-defeating. The logical proposition of the existence of backdoor cannot be a function of us finding one or not. You can discuss what the policy should be as a risk analysis question, not as a logical “there is no backdoor” from Iraqi Information Officer meme template.
So your entire argument for supporting U16 ban is that despite knowing that:
- it will put every Australian's PII in the hands of people who have a bad track record on security
- de anonymize the internet as we know it
- make it easy for a foreign actor to break in (remember if there is a backdoor, it will be exploited)
- increase the state's surveillance capabilities on their own citizens
All of this to do what exactly? Save democracy? Save the children? Can you prove that if we do that the outcome would be better than if we did nothing?
Do you have anything tangible in terms of proofs as to what outcome will be achieved?
My take is you don't because if you did, we would not be having this conversation.
My hope is that maybe people will stop viewing life from such a productised and artificial lens that's so far removed from the natural human experience.
Tiktok being not from the US has differently tuned algorithms. That’s why it’s being banned. Now you have the right to be brainwashed only by US-approved algorithms. Don’t be a fool, tolo.
I think you are trolling and your response is just a bunch of word salad without much meaning.
You agree with the ban because you agree with the ban because you think the ban is good. There seem to be no critical analysis as to why this is good besides some supposed good intentions.
> De facto id will be a massive step backwards, if they move forward despite saying they most likely wouldn't
Ah, yes, I too trust government to keep their words. Pinky promises and all that.
> but not as far backwards as raising a generation on reactionary and divisive social media
This is your opinion. You use of "reactionary" in this context implies that whatever views are being shared, you are against them. Instead of winning over people, you prefer the easy solution which is to silence them.
That is not very democratic of you.
Finally if you think that the "division" that most western societies are experiencing currently is only due to social media, then you haven't bothered researching theses topics.
These problems that are coming to light now have been a long time in the making. In reality decades, but before the governing powers could simply pretend that they did not exist whereas now, it is plain sight.
Silencing opposing voices is not moral and it is delusional to think that this will fix the broken state of western democracies just like sweeping the dust under the carpet doesn't mean that your apartment is clean.
Just wait until they ban something you care about and then see if you are still in favor of governments deciding what apps you should have or not have.
You think this is a win for now and then in the future based on this same precedent, the Australian government will ban an app that you use regularly because they can and there will be nothing you can do.
When that happens, you'll go protest in the street against the big fascist Australian government, am I right?
> I know the Tit for Tat and privacy optics, and the shutdown of dissenting views on certain provable crimes in the ME may be bad sometimes
If you are going down that road, maybe you can explain when it's ok to ban dissenting views. Apparently, censorship is ok in some cases but not others? Who decides what should be talked about? You?
If censorship is fine in some cases but not in others how do you differentiate between good censorship and bad censorship?
After all, when China removes comments and articles about Tiananmen from the web, they are simply doing what is best for them. But in the west, we call them authoritarians, So what does that make us?
> the destruction of the social fabric of a society and the loss of development and inculcation of values of entire generations.
This vague statement is fear mongering and and a complete hyperbole and gross exaggeration. The same thing was said about newspapers then it was TV, then it was video games and now TikTok/social media.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Since not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of social media on multiple generations, then your argument is invalid.
Are there some downsides to social media? Sure. But it also enables marginalized people to connect with each other whereas in the past they would not have had a space to congregate.
It also helps uncover stories that people in power would prefer to not see the light of day. It also helps coordinate push back against new laws that in the past would have been approved without as much of a peep.
Your argument is basically, that we should throw the baby with the bath water.
It's not different than the populists parties who take complex issues and promise to solve everything with a simple solution when in fact most problems can't be fixed that way.
Appealing to libertarian principles here but I'd be hard pressed this is really about libertarian principles or if one is just mad of an action is going against a certain country's interests and is using whatever principle they can find to demean it irrespective of their actual beliefs.
> Countries are starting to view it as a _serious_ national threat, due to the disinformation risk.
You mean disinformation that the West does not control. If i want to hear disinformation, I don't need TikTok. I can just watch the public TV channels that are just parroting whatever the government says.
> Just look at the Romanian election: A couple of hours ago they annulled the first election round, after a coordinated Russian campaign managed to propel a rather unknown pro-Russian candidate to the top, where they used platforms like TikTok to influence voters.
Yes, these people are so brain dead that a few videos on TikTok changed their minds. It absolutely not because the governments of the EU have stopped listening to their people. No, it's the Chinese and the Russians.
> More that the west has a better understanding of exploitation (from experience) and is generally against it now.
You must no be aware of the CFA francs that is used in some parts of Africa and de facto controlled by France. Control that in turn has been proven to actually channel money out of Africa towards France. I guess the end of exploitation memo must not have reached Paris.
The West doesn't like that China is going to Africa because it creates competition for them. Before France et al could just call the shots and the African continent was simply supposed to shut up and take it.
Now China is there and is trying to offer something better potentially. The West doesn't want to up it's offers so the complaining starts and with it comes the moralizing.
As if the West has any lessons to give to someone else regarding anything moral.
> It’s not jealousy, it’s a warning of lessons learned.
Maybe the West should just let these people live and choose for themselves instead of whining about unfair the competition is.
> I'm not denying the West has been quite bad to the Africans, but China isn't any better.
If the western countries want to clean up their acts and offer something better than what China is doing, I am sure the doors of the African governments are open.
The problem is that the West has abandoned Africa, destabilized the region and then complains that Africa is looking for new partners.
What is the West doing to make amends? What are they offering? If those questions cannot be answered then it's no wonder that China is making gains in Africa.
> They're in it for themselves.
As opposed to the West who does things out of the goodwill of it's heart, I am sure. Do we live in the same world?
This is the lazy explanation peddled by the elites who can't be bothered to look outside their own little bubble.
The far right is rising => everybody is racist.
The cost of living is rising too quickly and people are complaining => you are too stupid to see that the economy is doing extremely well and if that doesnt make sense to you then you must be Chinese or Russian puppet.
I believe that a flying unicorn orbits the moon. When no unicorn is found, does that prove that a unicorn may exist?
You can't use a negative to prove a point. Either the point is proven and supported by evidence or it is just speculation. If it is speculation, then it can be dismissed since it has no basis in reality.
In this particular case, if an audit was done and found no backdoors then as far as we know and until such a time as we find a backdoor, then there are no backdoors.
If you want to continue to believe that there is a backdoor, then this is an opinion which does not constitute proof of any sort and certainly should not be used to come up with policies such as banning a company from operating in the US in case of a mythical backdoor which has so far eluded everyone.