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Comment by maeil | Hacker News Reader

To an extent, yes, some of the arguments absolutely apply to other platforms as well. But others don't. You never saw such platforms directly impact elections as much, having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe. Of course they tried running campaigns in the past on Facebook as well, but not with as high of an impact, and after they got caught the platforms have put in a reasonable amount of effort to crack down on them. TikTok knowingly turns a blind eye, and unlike with the US platforms, Russia can be much more blatant.

Think it would be pretty reasonable for other countries to ban such platforms too though, as China has understandably already been doing for over a decade. Facebook of course played a big role in genocide in Myanmar, so I wouldn't dare say the US platforms are necessarily better.

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But Russia was using a platform that they don't control for all of these.

Meanwhile we have a member of the inner circle of the US President-elect using the social network that he owns to explicitly attempt to depose the leader of the UK, to support violent extremists, and to support far right parties across Europe. TikTok never did any of that.

> https://www.reuters.com/world/musk-examines-how-oust-starmer...

The argument that an adversary should not have access to radio waves is definitely sound reasoning to me should the UK or the EU ever decide to ban Twitter/X.

I would fully support the EU banning X! Even though unlike TikTok it has not yet decided elections in the EU, it's clear that its owner is actively trying to do so.

Not sure why you think I wouldn't be in favor of it. With TikTok it's even more clearcut though as it has already happened beyond reasonable doubt.

>> having Russian operations have as big as an impact as they have had on TikTok in e.g. Eastern Europe

I suppose you refer to this: https://theconversation.com/why-romanias-election-was-annull...

"The Romanian constitutional court annulled the country’s presidential election on December 6.

This decision is unprecedented in Romanian history. It followed the declassification of documents by Romanian intelligence services that exposed evidence of voting manipulation through social media platforms, illegal campaign financing on TikTok, cyber-attacks orchestrated by external forces and suspected Russian interference."

This goes to European Court of Human Rights. It may find out that cancelling election results was unnecessary.

https://www.ejiltalk.org/electoral-dysfunction-romanias-elec...

> Here, the opposite could be alleged- that Romania took action, but the action was too immediate and drastic than was called for in the circumstances. Considering how the Court expressed a critical view of overly drastic measures in cases such as the above-mentioned Kermiova v Azerbaijan, it is possible that the Court could similarly show a disdain for the expeditious actions taken by the domestic judiciary in Romania.

Also apparently most voters voted this candidate because of economic reasos, not due to Russian proximity.

Most voters didn’t vote for that candidate though. They voted for a more moderate and not pro-Russia independent who was effectively guaranteed to win in the next round.

Establishment parties obviously didn’t like that outcome.

There is still no proof that the powers that be have come up with, to the contrary, it was proven that one of the governing parties (PNL) was paying money for the online campaign of mr. Georgescu (supposedly the “extremist” candidate who had made use of TikTok). It is all a farce and it has helped kill democracy (or what had been left of it, anyway) in this country.

>Of course they tried running campaigns in the past on Facebook as well,

So we downplaying how Russia had a big hand in getting the US President elected? Twice?

Meanwhile, domestic spending on corrupting elections is like comparing an ocean to a raindrop. Mike Bloomberg spent $300 million on ads/influencing elections in 2020.

Americans convincing their fellow citizens to do things is a very different proposition to foreign governments convincing American citizens to do things.

True. Clearly your billionaire ruling class has your best interest at heart, so this is fine. /s

let's be honest here. billionaires are the ruling class wherever they exist.

Sure. But other places at least pretend to fight back, though. EU is actually trying to resist these notions as of late.

Could it be that both allowing American billionaires to use their hordes of gold to influence elections is also bad, but we don’t have the tools to stop them as readily as foreign adversaries? Must every solution be perfect from the outset? Must we do everything at once?

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