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There's also like a massive amount of false news, hate and vitriol being spewn. No joke, 4chan on average is milder with its "fg" and "n", than what I've seen o

There's also like a massive amount of false news, hate and vitriol being spewn. No joke, 4chan on average is milder with its "fg" and "n", than what I've seen on local TikTok. Kids can't recognize that, I am quite convinced it could be influencing someone to be worse, especially someone young.

andrepd 6y ago
I think the argument is that that's not a problem specific to tiktok, it's a problem of social media in general...
- ericmay 6y ago
  Which is 100% true! But the key difference here is... we’re sitting here talking about regulating Facebook and Google, and I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States.
  - willis936 6y ago
    I agree, but what matters is the power structure and who’s in charge. I wish I could say I honestly believe Zuckerburg cared about anything. Because I can’t, and maybe just because the world can burn because of one person’s disposition, regulation is needed.
  - AnHonestComment 6y ago
    There’s many good people there, but it’s important to understand the FAANG cultural bias: 1. A significant portion of their staff live in just a few extremely left wing cities — two of which (SEA + NYC) are currently listed as special “zones” because of the multiple months of rioting (supported by DAs who refuse to prosecute). 2. Large amounts of their staff come from other countries who could better be described as ambivalent about the US. That said, I agree that US companies are inherently easier for the US to regulate.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    > I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States. What makes this "the key difference"? I think you can safely say the same about Chinese tech companies. VPN usage is higher among tech-literate people for obvious reasons, and while having access to uncensored information doesn't necessarily instill love for the US, wanting "bad things to happen to the United States" is a pretty extreme level of nationalism. I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese tech employees in China had a more positive attitude with respect to the US than Chinese tech employees in the US, due to "the grass is greener on the other side"-type effects.
  - shalmanese 6y ago
    But if we assume that employees at FANG don't want bad things to happen to the US and verifiably bad things are happening to the US on those platforms, then the null hypothesis is that a Tiktok that also doesn't want bad things to happen to the US will also have an equally large number of bad things happening to the US regardless. To disprove the null hypothesis, you would have to demonstrate that Tiktok has a statistically significant increase in the amount of badness it's causing to the US per unit of attention which is difficult to do when the baseline amount of badness is already so high. Maybe we should focus more on decreasing that baseline so we can actually figure out if foreign companies are doing bad things to the US out of malice or indifference?
    - ericmay 6y ago
      With respect to China and Chinese social media companies I'd rather be much more careful. There's a reason they don't let US social media companies operate in China.
      - shalmanese 6y ago
        Yeah, but many of the reasons why China doesn't want US social media companies in China are also the same reasons why the US shouldn't want those same companies in America, namely that they're unregulated loose cannons who are fine with causing social division and strife if it only increases their bottom line. Why would Tiktok need to maliciously harm the US when just their simple act of seeking profit is already doing enough work to harm the US without the need for any malintent? It's like wondering if the open sewer dumping into your town's water supply might also have gluten in it when you're gluten free.
        ericmay 6y ago
        Well then why should the US have yet another social media app coming into the country and causing harm?
        shalmanese 6y ago

andrepd 6y ago

I think the argument is that that's not a problem specific to tiktok, it's a problem of social media in general...

ericmay 6y ago
Which is 100% true! But the key difference here is... we’re sitting here talking about regulating Facebook and Google, and I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States.
- willis936 6y ago
  I agree, but what matters is the power structure and who’s in charge. I wish I could say I honestly believe Zuckerburg cared about anything. Because I can’t, and maybe just because the world can burn because of one person’s disposition, regulation is needed.
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  There’s many good people there, but it’s important to understand the FAANG cultural bias: 1. A significant portion of their staff live in just a few extremely left wing cities — two of which (SEA + NYC) are currently listed as special “zones” because of the multiple months of rioting (supported by DAs who refuse to prosecute). 2. Large amounts of their staff come from other countries who could better be described as ambivalent about the US. That said, I agree that US companies are inherently easier for the US to regulate.
- yorwba 6y ago
  > I think you can safely say the vast majority of people working at those companies don’t want to see bad things happen to the United States. What makes this "the key difference"? I think you can safely say the same about Chinese tech companies. VPN usage is higher among tech-literate people for obvious reasons, and while having access to uncensored information doesn't necessarily instill love for the US, wanting "bad things to happen to the United States" is a pretty extreme level of nationalism. I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese tech employees in China had a more positive attitude with respect to the US than Chinese tech employees in the US, due to "the grass is greener on the other side"-type effects.
- shalmanese 6y ago
  But if we assume that employees at FANG don't want bad things to happen to the US and verifiably bad things are happening to the US on those platforms, then the null hypothesis is that a Tiktok that also doesn't want bad things to happen to the US will also have an equally large number of bad things happening to the US regardless. To disprove the null hypothesis, you would have to demonstrate that Tiktok has a statistically significant increase in the amount of badness it's causing to the US per unit of attention which is difficult to do when the baseline amount of badness is already so high. Maybe we should focus more on decreasing that baseline so we can actually figure out if foreign companies are doing bad things to the US out of malice or indifference?
  - ericmay 6y ago
    With respect to China and Chinese social media companies I'd rather be much more careful. There's a reason they don't let US social media companies operate in China.
    - shalmanese 6y ago
      Yeah, but many of the reasons why China doesn't want US social media companies in China are also the same reasons why the US shouldn't want those same companies in America, namely that they're unregulated loose cannons who are fine with causing social division and strife if it only increases their bottom line. Why would Tiktok need to maliciously harm the US when just their simple act of seeking profit is already doing enough work to harm the US without the need for any malintent? It's like wondering if the open sewer dumping into your town's water supply might also have gluten in it when you're gluten free.
      - ericmay 6y ago
        Well then why should the US have yet another social media app coming into the country and causing harm?
        shalmanese 6y ago