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In that post, Ben writes: > It feels like we're talking past each other. I completely agree! I do feel like you and I and Ben (even after reading Ben's post)

In that post, Ben writes: > It feels like we're talking past each other. I completely agree! I do feel like you and I and Ben (even after reading Ben's post) are still talking past each other. I am completely lost at the point where you say "A and B, therefore C, the US should ban TikTok." What is it about the combination of success and external control that means TikTok should be banned? Ben wrote: > This [video-based content-rich algorithmically-controlled feed] both explains why TikTok succeeds, and why it is an app the United States ought to be concerned about. I think that's a jump to conclusions that is illogical it does not follow from the priors. You, Ben, and other advocates of a ban on TikTok try really hard to explain and prove Fact A, that TikTok is a uniquely successful mobile-first semi-social network/information sharing platform. You also describe Fact B, that ByteDance is vulnerable to CCP influence which is ideologically opposed to the US. You do well on both counts, I agree completely with these facts, they're pretty indisputable. I would probably use "different from" instead of "opposed" to frame the philosophical differences in a less antagonistic way, but still, I'm with you on these facts. http://english.www.gov.cn/ http://english.www.gov.cn/ is another platform that's controlled exclusively by the Chinese government. But no one's proposing a book-burning, that the US firewall all information controlled by the CCP or those with ideological differences. Twitter is a popular information-sharing social platform, and there are Chinese actors on it, but this argument isn't extended to suggest that it be banned, either. But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist? I don't get it.

ardy42 6y ago
> Twitter is a popular information-sharing social platform, and there are Chinese actors on it, but this argument isn't extended to suggest that it be banned, either. But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist? I don't get it. Is it that hard to understand? Twitter and Facebook will at least try to make a genuine effort to root out and ban "coordinated inauthentic activity" by the Chinese government (and if they don't they could probably be compelled to do so): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/23/facebook-removes-fake-accounts-with-links-to-china-and-philippines https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/23/facebook-.... A Chinese-owned TikTok won't: either it won't do it at all, or it will make a fake/bad-faith effort. Similarly, Twitter and Facebook may gather a lot of non-public user data, but there's pretty much no chance that any of that data will be willingly handed over to Chinese intelligence. It should be noted that Chinese intelligence is not exclusively after top secret government data: they're also interested in many kinds of mundane information that you might be surprised by that can be leveraged to get it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/politics/trump-china-trade.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/politics/trump-china-t....
- deevolution 6y ago
  Banning/setting up a firewall makes us no different than the CCP! Personally I think all the effort and resources spent policing social media platforms is a complete waste and malinvestment. This looks like an overreach of government power.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Banning/setting up a firewall makes us no different than the CCP! [1] That's pretty clearly not the case. Context matters. For instance: if I shot someone in self defense, and you shot someone to murder them, we're not "no different" because we both performed the action of shooting a gun at someone. In that case, like this one, the context motivating the action is more important than the action itself in determining its meaning. > Personally I think all the effort and resources spent policing social media platforms is a complete waste and malinvestment. This looks like an overreach of government power. Some people say the same thing about having any military at all. [1] Italicizing something like that is a common quote style, but I'm assuming you're italicizing your own statement for emphasis because that isn't anything like what I said.
  - vin047 6y ago
    @localhost’s link has an answer to that: > Perhaps the most powerful argument against taking any sort of action is that we aren’t China, and isn’t blocking TikTok something that China would do? Well yes, we know that is what they would do, because the Chinese government has blocked U.S. social networks for years. Wars, though, are fought not because we lust for battle, but because we pray for peace. If China is on the offensive against liberalism not only within its borders but within ours, it is in liberalism’s interest to cut off a vector that has taken root precisely because it is so brilliantly engineered to give humans exactly what they want.
joenot443 6y ago
There are pretty massive differences in reach and impact between english.gov.cn and TikTok. I don't think that comparison really holds much water.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  OK so we should ban something if it gets popular, but it doesn't matter if it's worse but it's not popular. By extension should we ignore someone who's selling 1 gram of heroin at a time but we should definitely put a guy transporting 1 ton of industrial hemp in prison, on the ground that hemp can be turned into pot, somehow.
  - vin047 6y ago
    You’re comparing Apples to Oranges, or in your case, heroin to hemp; no ones banning the components that make up TikTok (the code, the business, the algorithms etc)... Comparing heroin to heroin though, yes we do ignore someone who’s selling 1 gram of heroin at a time over someone selling 1 ton of heroin at a time.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      So is tiktok full of literal official Chinese propaganda? Or is it full of people doing stupid things? Or is people doing stupid things Chinese propaganda nowadays? You're saying it's comparing heroin to heroin, is it?
      - vin047 6y ago
        For what it's worth, I was only pointing out that a guy transporting 1 gram of heroin would be a lower priority for investigation compared to a guy transporting a larger quantity of the same product. So a social media platform that's worse but less popular would not be on anyones radar for a ban, precisely because its on nobodies radar to begin with. But I see the point you're making. I'd say that, in the case of hemp vs heroin, the guy transporting 1 ton of industrial hemp would be subject to close scrutiny since the product could be used for illicit purposes (turning into heroin). If there was any evidence or suspicion of foul play, his capability to transport industrial hemp would be removed and he would face investigation. I'd apply the same logic to software too. But the difference is that it's hard to scrutinise closed-source software and it's also difficult to "trace" data and know that data isn't being harvested for re-use by the CCP for other nefarious purposes. We do have suspicion of foul play though – TikTok routinely blocks anything anti-China and we're aware of the massive data gathering that the CCP performs to monitor its own citizens. We also know they (and others) are manipulating western social media using the data they've gathered. Your subsequent argument that TikTok is just full of people doing stupid things is, I think, a bit disingenuous to the potential for harm that TikTok is capable of. The top level commenters link (https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/) explains it quite well. It's also worth noting that the same argument could be made for any social media platform when they first got started. Example, facebook = "just a bunch of teens socialising online". Obviously if you're one of the people who doesn't think facebook has become a problem then this debate is pointless. But if you do see the harm that facebook has caused globally, I personally believe that TikTok has even greater potential for harm.
wilde 6y ago
To me, this question is easier to model as a function of some scalar impact metric. Suppose we could quantify influence somehow. What people are arguing over is whether TikTok crosses some line of “too much influence” not “existence of influence” for which there are plenty of sources.
- mistermann 6y ago
  Approaching this from an unemotional, abstract, systems analysis perspective seems like a good way to go about this. If we were debating something like "where shall we go for lunch, Restaurant A or B", most people here likely wouldn't have trouble identifying (or wouldn't deny the existence of) attributes that one might take into consideration (price, location, quality, cleanliness, decor, types and variety of dishes, friendliness of wait staff, etc), and differences in the values of those attributes. If we slightly change the context to one where rather than comparing restaurants, we are instead comparing software applications (excluding code editors and operating systems, let's say: alarm clocks), most people could likely still competently exercise their systems analysis skills. But if we make one more slight context change, from comparing alarm clocks, to comparing TikTok to Twitter/Facebook/etc, some very curious things start to happen. Suddenly, people seems to no longer have the ability to reliably identify attributes of each application, or that the value of those attributes differ. What is the nature of this small context change, such that it seems to have such a remarkably negative effect on the systems analysis capabilities of human beings? On its face, the conversational behavior seems clearly illogical - and yet, based on my 10+ years on HN, I have a rich intuition that the average intelligence level around here is very high. Something seems very paradoxical about this situation.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    My guess is there are two different factors at play. - Marketing and propaganda cloud everything they touch, and that one market is full of both. We can't even be certain of the public features of those platforms, because there are a bunch of incoherent messages controlling the communication channels. - Most of the features of those products are not public. They impact your life, but you have no chance of even knowing they exist. Both platforms apply editorial governance on their contents, what kind and how much is anybody's guess. Both platforms profile their users, who has that profile and what they do with it is anybody's guess. It is hard to discuss some unknowable thing over a noisy channel.
asxd 6y ago
As you pointed out, it seems like he's saying from China's point of view, their survival is predicated on an ideological war: > China is not simply resisting Western ideals of freedom, but seeking to impose their own And that it is likely they would be willing to use TikTok to further their ideology in the US: > China has already demonstrated a willingness to censor speech on a platform banned in China; how much of a leap is it to think that a Party committed to ideological dominance will forever leave a route directly into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans untouched? While no one is proposing banning the other platforms you mentioned that are influenced by China, I feel like that is irrelevant from the TikTok argument. If the two statements above are taken at face value (or the whole article really), then it seems to me that TikTok is indeed a concerning platform when it comes to preserving liberal ideology.
basch 6y ago
There is a much simpler argument to be made, with regard to protectionism. Whether you agree with the morality or not, it it benefits American companies to have their competition banned. They are then free to clone it, without having to fight for users. Considering the isolationist and nationalist tendencies of the current administration, such a decision is consistent and fitting. One could argue, it most benefits the national security of the country to keep its tech giants strong, and free from external threats. And that entire argument can be made without bringing up data.
vin047 6y ago
> I think that’s a jump to conclusions that is illogical it does not follow from the priors. You’re misreading that line. It’s: “This explains why TikTok succeeds, and why it is an app the United States ought to be concerned about. <continue reading post to find out why>”. The author subsequently explains why. You mention that you get Fact A and Fact B. Fact C isn’t, “Therefore, TikTok should be banned”. Fact C, according to that post, is that China has begun ideological warfare. For supporters of a ban, Fact D then, is “The US should respond with defensive manoeuvres”. A ban is a defensive move. Nobody’s advocating for an offensive counter-attack (by running misinformation campaigns on their own social media platforms for instance). It’s perfectly reasonable to defend when under attack from a foreign entity. Whether you think the US is under attack is the real question. But you said you agree with Fact B, so you agree that the possibility for China to use TikTok as a tool for ideological warfare is definitely there. The authors argument is that, combined with the evidence we’ve seen so far (censorship on domestic platforms, censorship on foreign platforms), maybe the US should be taking China’s own words on the matter more seriously.
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  Ah, I think I'm starting to understand. Ideological warfare, IMO, is not real war and should be countered by facts and public education, not by declaring a War on Memes and defense with censorship. If a platform is afraid that an adult might see a particular piece of information or a particular idea, and be radicalized by it, they've not adjusted to the Information Age. We might need a better way to authenticate trustworthy sources, but I don't think the attack from Tiktok is a sharing of authoritative facts, it's at worst a message that the Chinese government is less evil than the US would like to represent them.

ardy42 6y ago

> Twitter is a popular information-sharing social platform, and there are Chinese actors on it, but this argument isn't extended to suggest that it be banned, either. But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist? I don't get it. Is it that hard to understand? Twitter and Facebook will at least try to make a genuine effort to root out and ban "coordinated inauthentic activity" by the Chinese government (and if they don't they could probably be compelled to do so): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/23/facebook-removes-fake-accounts-with-links-to-china-and-philippines https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/23/facebook-.... A Chinese-owned TikTok won't: either it won't do it at all, or it will make a fake/bad-faith effort. Similarly, Twitter and Facebook may gather a lot of non-public user data, but there's pretty much no chance that any of that data will be willingly handed over to Chinese intelligence. It should be noted that Chinese intelligence is not exclusively after top secret government data: they're also interested in many kinds of mundane information that you might be surprised by that can be leveraged to get it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/politics/trump-china-trade.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/us/politics/trump-china-t....

deevolution 6y ago
Banning/setting up a firewall makes us no different than the CCP! Personally I think all the effort and resources spent policing social media platforms is a complete waste and malinvestment. This looks like an overreach of government power.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Banning/setting up a firewall makes us no different than the CCP! [1] That's pretty clearly not the case. Context matters. For instance: if I shot someone in self defense, and you shot someone to murder them, we're not "no different" because we both performed the action of shooting a gun at someone. In that case, like this one, the context motivating the action is more important than the action itself in determining its meaning. > Personally I think all the effort and resources spent policing social media platforms is a complete waste and malinvestment. This looks like an overreach of government power. Some people say the same thing about having any military at all. [1] Italicizing something like that is a common quote style, but I'm assuming you're italicizing your own statement for emphasis because that isn't anything like what I said.
- vin047 6y ago
  @localhost’s link has an answer to that: > Perhaps the most powerful argument against taking any sort of action is that we aren’t China, and isn’t blocking TikTok something that China would do? Well yes, we know that is what they would do, because the Chinese government has blocked U.S. social networks for years. Wars, though, are fought not because we lust for battle, but because we pray for peace. If China is on the offensive against liberalism not only within its borders but within ours, it is in liberalism’s interest to cut off a vector that has taken root precisely because it is so brilliantly engineered to give humans exactly what they want.

joenot443 6y ago

There are pretty massive differences in reach and impact between english.gov.cn and TikTok. I don't think that comparison really holds much water.

Aperocky 6y ago
OK so we should ban something if it gets popular, but it doesn't matter if it's worse but it's not popular. By extension should we ignore someone who's selling 1 gram of heroin at a time but we should definitely put a guy transporting 1 ton of industrial hemp in prison, on the ground that hemp can be turned into pot, somehow.
- vin047 6y ago
  You’re comparing Apples to Oranges, or in your case, heroin to hemp; no ones banning the components that make up TikTok (the code, the business, the algorithms etc)... Comparing heroin to heroin though, yes we do ignore someone who’s selling 1 gram of heroin at a time over someone selling 1 ton of heroin at a time.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    So is tiktok full of literal official Chinese propaganda? Or is it full of people doing stupid things? Or is people doing stupid things Chinese propaganda nowadays? You're saying it's comparing heroin to heroin, is it?
    - vin047 6y ago
      For what it's worth, I was only pointing out that a guy transporting 1 gram of heroin would be a lower priority for investigation compared to a guy transporting a larger quantity of the same product. So a social media platform that's worse but less popular would not be on anyones radar for a ban, precisely because its on nobodies radar to begin with. But I see the point you're making. I'd say that, in the case of hemp vs heroin, the guy transporting 1 ton of industrial hemp would be subject to close scrutiny since the product could be used for illicit purposes (turning into heroin). If there was any evidence or suspicion of foul play, his capability to transport industrial hemp would be removed and he would face investigation. I'd apply the same logic to software too. But the difference is that it's hard to scrutinise closed-source software and it's also difficult to "trace" data and know that data isn't being harvested for re-use by the CCP for other nefarious purposes. We do have suspicion of foul play though – TikTok routinely blocks anything anti-China and we're aware of the massive data gathering that the CCP performs to monitor its own citizens. We also know they (and others) are manipulating western social media using the data they've gathered. Your subsequent argument that TikTok is just full of people doing stupid things is, I think, a bit disingenuous to the potential for harm that TikTok is capable of. The top level commenters link (https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/ https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/) explains it quite well. It's also worth noting that the same argument could be made for any social media platform when they first got started. Example, facebook = "just a bunch of teens socialising online". Obviously if you're one of the people who doesn't think facebook has become a problem then this debate is pointless. But if you do see the harm that facebook has caused globally, I personally believe that TikTok has even greater potential for harm.

wilde 6y ago

To me, this question is easier to model as a function of some scalar impact metric. Suppose we could quantify influence somehow. What people are arguing over is whether TikTok crosses some line of “too much influence” not “existence of influence” for which there are plenty of sources.

mistermann 6y ago
Approaching this from an unemotional, abstract, systems analysis perspective seems like a good way to go about this. If we were debating something like "where shall we go for lunch, Restaurant A or B", most people here likely wouldn't have trouble identifying (or wouldn't deny the existence of) attributes that one might take into consideration (price, location, quality, cleanliness, decor, types and variety of dishes, friendliness of wait staff, etc), and differences in the values of those attributes. If we slightly change the context to one where rather than comparing restaurants, we are instead comparing software applications (excluding code editors and operating systems, let's say: alarm clocks), most people could likely still competently exercise their systems analysis skills. But if we make one more slight context change, from comparing alarm clocks, to comparing TikTok to Twitter/Facebook/etc, some very curious things start to happen. Suddenly, people seems to no longer have the ability to reliably identify attributes of each application, or that the value of those attributes differ. What is the nature of this small context change, such that it seems to have such a remarkably negative effect on the systems analysis capabilities of human beings? On its face, the conversational behavior seems clearly illogical - and yet, based on my 10+ years on HN, I have a rich intuition that the average intelligence level around here is very high. Something seems very paradoxical about this situation.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  My guess is there are two different factors at play. - Marketing and propaganda cloud everything they touch, and that one market is full of both. We can't even be certain of the public features of those platforms, because there are a bunch of incoherent messages controlling the communication channels. - Most of the features of those products are not public. They impact your life, but you have no chance of even knowing they exist. Both platforms apply editorial governance on their contents, what kind and how much is anybody's guess. Both platforms profile their users, who has that profile and what they do with it is anybody's guess. It is hard to discuss some unknowable thing over a noisy channel.

asxd 6y ago

As you pointed out, it seems like he's saying from China's point of view, their survival is predicated on an ideological war: > China is not simply resisting Western ideals of freedom, but seeking to impose their own And that it is likely they would be willing to use TikTok to further their ideology in the US: > China has already demonstrated a willingness to censor speech on a platform banned in China; how much of a leap is it to think that a Party committed to ideological dominance will forever leave a route directly into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans untouched? While no one is proposing banning the other platforms you mentioned that are influenced by China, I feel like that is irrelevant from the TikTok argument. If the two statements above are taken at face value (or the whole article really), then it seems to me that TikTok is indeed a concerning platform when it comes to preserving liberal ideology.

basch 6y ago

There is a much simpler argument to be made, with regard to protectionism. Whether you agree with the morality or not, it it benefits American companies to have their competition banned. They are then free to clone it, without having to fight for users. Considering the isolationist and nationalist tendencies of the current administration, such a decision is consistent and fitting. One could argue, it most benefits the national security of the country to keep its tech giants strong, and free from external threats. And that entire argument can be made without bringing up data.

vin047 6y ago

> I think that’s a jump to conclusions that is illogical it does not follow from the priors. You’re misreading that line. It’s: “This explains why TikTok succeeds, and why it is an app the United States ought to be concerned about. <continue reading post to find out why>”. The author subsequently explains why. You mention that you get Fact A and Fact B. Fact C isn’t, “Therefore, TikTok should be banned”. Fact C, according to that post, is that China has begun ideological warfare. For supporters of a ban, Fact D then, is “The US should respond with defensive manoeuvres”. A ban is a defensive move. Nobody’s advocating for an offensive counter-attack (by running misinformation campaigns on their own social media platforms for instance). It’s perfectly reasonable to defend when under attack from a foreign entity. Whether you think the US is under attack is the real question. But you said you agree with Fact B, so you agree that the possibility for China to use TikTok as a tool for ideological warfare is definitely there. The authors argument is that, combined with the evidence we’ve seen so far (censorship on domestic platforms, censorship on foreign platforms), maybe the US should be taking China’s own words on the matter more seriously.

LeifCarrotson 6y ago
Ah, I think I'm starting to understand. Ideological warfare, IMO, is not real war and should be countered by facts and public education, not by declaring a War on Memes and defense with censorship. If a platform is afraid that an adult might see a particular piece of information or a particular idea, and be radicalized by it, they've not adjusted to the Information Age. We might need a better way to authenticate trustworthy sources, but I don't think the attack from Tiktok is a sharing of authoritative facts, it's at worst a message that the Chinese government is less evil than the US would like to represent them.