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Imagine an actually-good version of the Russian "influence operations" in the US (where they bought a couple hundred thousand worth of Facebook ads for the 2016
by defen 4y ago
Imagine an actually-good version of the Russian "influence operations" in the US (where they bought a couple hundred thousand worth of Facebook ads for the 2016 election to run shitty memes that didn't even sound like they were written by native speakers).
If TikTok is this good at figuring out your general interests, it can probably figure out your political leanings as well. And tailor your content accordingly, in a way that furthers the interests of China. Whether that be by increasing/decreasing propensity to vote, increasing outrage, planting false narratives, etc.
- cwkoss 4y ago"What if China did what facebook did, but more competently" lol
- defen 4y agoWell, it's undeniable that they are more competent than Facebook in this domain; the proof is in the pudding. So in your terms, you're trading an incompetent domestic influence operation for a competent foreign one. Hard to see how that's a good trade for the US.
- cwkoss 4y agoYeah. The main thing that bothers me is that the media isn't discussing any generalized data protection reforms as a response to this - the story is "data collection is only scary because it's china doing it."
- defen 4y agoIt's not just collection though. If China had access to everyone's credit card purchase info (they probably already do, but whatever), that's "data collection". But with TikTok they also have an obvious mechanism to directly affect behavior using the data they collected. That's not something you could easily do with just demographic or financial info alone.