4 ms·

I really don't understand the panic about Chinese surveillance with TikTok when we have Facebook, which is far worse in the depth of what they collect. This jus

by cultus 6y ago

I really don't understand the panic about Chinese surveillance with TikTok when we have Facebook, which is far worse in the depth of what they collect. This just erodes the confidence in American rule of law for no particular reason.

bogwog 6y ago
The difference is that China is an enemy of democracy. Whether you hate or love the US, I’m sure you’d rather live in a free world.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  John Adams and George Washington believed a two-party system was also an enemy of democracy. It's not really so black and white. Free vs. non-free. Both sides really do have mass surveillance, China's being a bit further along and a bit more omniscient. I don't think TikTok, a collection of six-second clips of teens messing around represents a real, material, meaningful threat to freedom and democracy. Even if they collected all the footage and ran it all through their national security apparatus. The signal to noise ratio on this content is incomprehensibly low. This is grandstanding and showmanship on the part of two strongmen leaders, one totalitarian overlord and one wannabe, and really, I don't think there's a clear right side and wrong side here.
  - dontcarethrow2 6y ago
    Or we could ve underestimating how much influence these social media apps exert especially on the younger crowd(where Tiktok currently reigns) and our IC is looking to limit this soft power from others. It's easier to control the 'world narrative' when you own the channels.
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    >> I don't think TikTok, a collection of six-second clips of teens messing around represents a real, material, meaningful threat to freedom and democracy I guess this is where we agree to disagree. I do think a foreign power with direct and absolute editorial control over the #1 content delivery network of an entire generation of our population is cause for concern. I'm not discounting your skepticism that there is grandstanding involved, but from your comment I see a dramatic difference between a wanna-be totalitarian in a free democracy and an unequivocal one in a single party state. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of better; while domestic surveillance is unacceptable it is most definitely better than the current situation.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      That's fair.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    Please stop with this false equivalence nonsense. In 2020, the USA (for all its many faults) is not running concentration camps to imprison and "re-educate" millions of citizens for having the wrong religion or ethnicity. It's not trying to carry out a slow-motion genocide. I don't love the NSA, or Trump, or the US military-industrial complex, but parroting this "both sides" garbage just makes you sound like a useful idiot for the CCP. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_cam... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-inter...
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      I didn't say they were equivalent, I'm limiting the scope of my commentary to TikTok alone, and not the broader environment. It is my opinion that TikTok in isolation does not pose a national security threat or a threat to democracy, and therefore, this is likely to be grandstanding.
- quantaum_dot 6y ago
  Sure, US is a free world where people are free to loot, burn down buildings, spread qanon conspiracies; and subvert other governments, make false baseless accusations against other countries because they refuse to be the puppets of the US.
mistermann 6y ago
The real concern is propaganda, surveillance is a safe and easy to understand cover story to sell to the public. I don't encounter too much political propaganda on TikTok (lots of BLM stuff though), but the potency of the platform is obvious, and the userbase is overwhelmingly young people who may be more impressionable, idealistic, etc. Just one example of propaganda: https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor Of course, this exists on other sites as well, but bundling ideas/memes into 30 second bite-sized morsels with video seems like a fantastic design for quick propogation throughout a network of human minds.

by cultus 6y ago

bogwog 6y ago

The difference is that China is an enemy of democracy. Whether you hate or love the US, I’m sure you’d rather live in a free world.

arcticbull 6y ago
John Adams and George Washington believed a two-party system was also an enemy of democracy. It's not really so black and white. Free vs. non-free. Both sides really do have mass surveillance, China's being a bit further along and a bit more omniscient. I don't think TikTok, a collection of six-second clips of teens messing around represents a real, material, meaningful threat to freedom and democracy. Even if they collected all the footage and ran it all through their national security apparatus. The signal to noise ratio on this content is incomprehensibly low. This is grandstanding and showmanship on the part of two strongmen leaders, one totalitarian overlord and one wannabe, and really, I don't think there's a clear right side and wrong side here.
- dontcarethrow2 6y ago
  Or we could ve underestimating how much influence these social media apps exert especially on the younger crowd(where Tiktok currently reigns) and our IC is looking to limit this soft power from others. It's easier to control the 'world narrative' when you own the channels.
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  >> I don't think TikTok, a collection of six-second clips of teens messing around represents a real, material, meaningful threat to freedom and democracy I guess this is where we agree to disagree. I do think a foreign power with direct and absolute editorial control over the #1 content delivery network of an entire generation of our population is cause for concern. I'm not discounting your skepticism that there is grandstanding involved, but from your comment I see a dramatic difference between a wanna-be totalitarian in a free democracy and an unequivocal one in a single party state. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of better; while domestic surveillance is unacceptable it is most definitely better than the current situation.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    That's fair.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Please stop with this false equivalence nonsense. In 2020, the USA (for all its many faults) is not running concentration camps to imprison and "re-educate" millions of citizens for having the wrong religion or ethnicity. It's not trying to carry out a slow-motion genocide. I don't love the NSA, or Trump, or the US military-industrial complex, but parroting this "both sides" garbage just makes you sound like a useful idiot for the CCP. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_camps https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/China_hidden_cam... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-inter...
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    I didn't say they were equivalent, I'm limiting the scope of my commentary to TikTok alone, and not the broader environment. It is my opinion that TikTok in isolation does not pose a national security threat or a threat to democracy, and therefore, this is likely to be grandstanding.
quantaum_dot 6y ago
Sure, US is a free world where people are free to loot, burn down buildings, spread qanon conspiracies; and subvert other governments, make false baseless accusations against other countries because they refuse to be the puppets of the US.

mistermann 6y ago

The real concern is propaganda, surveillance is a safe and easy to understand cover story to sell to the public. I don't encounter too much political propaganda on TikTok (lots of BLM stuff though), but the potency of the platform is obvious, and the userbase is overwhelmingly young people who may be more impressionable, idealistic, etc. Just one example of propaganda: https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor https://www.tiktok.com/@jperkinsauthor Of course, this exists on other sites as well, but bundling ideas/memes into 30 second bite-sized morsels with video seems like a fantastic design for quick propogation throughout a network of human minds.