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The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns
- Reason077 4y agoBesides the obvious concerns about tracking/spying, TikTok has great potential as a propaganda tool to gain subtle influence over America's youth. For example, its algorithm could be tweaked to elevate content that is favourable to the Chinese Communist Party.
- scottmcleod 4y agoThis is the biggest issue; they are already controlling the media for large population of young Americans.
- vachina 4y agoI wonder why when China does this it’s always a bad thing. Isn’t the inverse also true i.e. western media influencing and nudging narratives, except that we can actually observe this happening right now. Where do you stand in that case?
- uniqueuid 4y agoThis one's pretty simple: China is a totalitarian regime that is in direct conflict with western constitutional values. So if influence is aimed at democratic foundations, of course it's a bad thing.
- mromanuk 4y agoDoesn't banning a social network undermine the democratic principles you mention?
- dd36 4y agoNot if it’s a psy op tool of an adversary.
- uniqueuid 4y agoNot in principle. Practically all democratic systems have provisions to defend against subversion of their core principles. Those provisions may be designed to safeguard institutions, processes such as elections and regulate information flow. It's important to remember that the US concept of "free speech" as an absolute right is very untypical, and that it also has limits due to being narrow in its scope. Of course, banning a social network due to arbitrary or without reasons would be against democratic principles. But following democratic and legal principles to openly apply laws and procedures designed to safeguard the state - that's not undermining at all, to the contrary!
- superfist 4y agoCollapse of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in XVIII as form of proto-democracy can be here good case study. It show us how authoritarian systems can exploit democratic system.
- devilbunny 4y agoNo. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
- uniqueuid 4y agoWow, thanks! I didn't know this phrase [1], but it really nails the concept of self-balance in constitutional democracies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic...
- TinkersW 4y agoI don't see why those principles should apply to a foreign country with malign intentions, they aren't a person nor do they represent a populace given that China is authoritarian. The spying seems secondary to the influence they can wield by pushing certain stories while burying others.
- laputan_machine 4y agoChina is under the rule of the CCP, an authortarian party to which you cannot challenge. For all democracy's failings, for the mess the US is in, and rise of populist parties in Europe, it is still freedom.
- mistermann 4y agoDoes the US public have any genuine, identifiable democratic power over the FBI?
- dd36 4y agoAbsolutely. The FBI head must be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. Oversight is performed by Congress. He can be fired.
- mistermann 4y agoI don't disagree that it is possible in theory, but are there any substantial examples of initiatives genuinely spawned at the general public level changing policy of the FBI? This would be required to upgrade the binary (True/False) proposition from a belief to a fact...but then only as a binary (the FBI could still be 99% beyond the will of the people).
- sdsd 4y agoThis is technically true, but I wonder in practice. Like, the King of England absolutely has the power to withhold consent on acts of parliament. How accountable is parliament to the King? But replace the King with Congress, and parliament with the FBI.
- angio 4y agoIronically, right wing parties in the EU rose thanks to disinformation on american social media. Following this discussion's logic, Facebook and Twitter should have been banned in the EU a long time ago.
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- mc32 4y agoIf China were pushing a WEF narrative, everything would be okay. Instead they have their own separate agenda that does not dovetail. Look at it this way, if it were Japan or SKorea, we would not be hearing about this from that PoV. That said, even if it were a purely American company, setting aside tracking and all that, it is not a psychological net-positive. It's manipulative and induces poor choices on some. That some is on this side of too much.
- uniqueuid 4y agoFor the record, I also think nudging in and of itself is a bad thing and incompatible with democracy. Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi have a great essay on that [1]. [1] https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/23/cognitive-democracy/ https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/23/cognitive-democracy/
- dclowd9901 4y agoI mean, yes, but there’s no communist bogeyman to blame, just our own vanities.
- rafale 4y agoOr to shape what the youth value: science or twerking/vaping.
- lm28469 4y agoWhat is this ? China ? This is a free country, twerking and vaping are valid life plans !!! /s
- mc32 4y agoIt would not be that blatant. They look more to add ambiguity and instability. They may be interested in amplifying police brutality in the eyes of users as well as lawlessness and looting simultaneously to sew discord, as an example. Or, spying isn't so bad, the US does it, why shouldn't China, etc.
- HlessClaudesman 4y agoI think their strategy is more insidious than that. Chinese social media inside China is actively directing youth towards vigorous / productive / pedagogical endeavours, whereas ticktock outside China heavily promotes pointless endless innane naval gazing such as pranking, gaming, influencers etc. They seek to create a generation of feckless know nothings in The West.
- mc32 4y agoYep, shore up your own and undermine your enemy. Promote strength, work ethic, and achievement at home and promote idleness, listlessness and parasitic attitudes for the enemy.
- dbsmith83 4y ago> Chinese social media inside China is actively directing youth towards vigorous / productive / pedagogical endeavours, whereas ticktock outside China heavily promotes pointless endless innane naval gazing such as pranking, gaming, influencers etc. This would be interesting if true. Do you have any sources for this or is it just an observation?
- nemothekid 4y agoIt's hard to call this a strategy when the reason TikTok operates the way it does in China is due to regulation. Instagram reels promotes the same garbage, does the CCP direct Meta as well? If you tried to push for the same kind of social media regulation in the US, the internet would shut down in protest.
- PheonixPharts 4y ago> social media inside China is actively directing youth towards vigorous / productive / pedagogical I have a fair number of friends/relatives living in China and at least from what I've seen this is a pretty laughable claim. Very curious where you heard this from? TikTok in China is different than the US in that it is increasingly inundated with various "get rich quick" schemes. It's essentially turned into large scale social advertising platform where everyone is trying to pitch some angle to make a quick RBM. I'm sure there exist some "vigorous / productive / pedagogical" accounts, but there are plenty of this in the US as well. There are a lot of accounts in the US that focus on learning, exercise, getting a software job etc. Again, would love to hear your source of this information, especially if it's first hand experience, because based on the people I talk with in mainland China this comment sounds like a very off the mark hot take.
- tenebrisalietum 4y agoTikTok can't do anything worse than domestic advertising/marketing firms already do. The idea that the CCP wants American youth for any purpose that doesn't already align with American businesses--who depend on the slave-labor priced cheap stuff from China to sell to them--is ridiculous.
- dd36 4y agoChina wants internal conflict that weakens the country or destroys democracy. Social media can be weaponized to do this. Foreign media ownership limits are not novel.
- computerfriend 4y ago> TikTok can't do anything worse than domestic advertising/marketing firms already do. Can't it?
- dd36 4y agoOr by radicalizing people to try to destroy democracy.
- bdcravens 4y agoIs there concern that other platforms could do the same thing? Or is biased propaganda acceptable so long as it's American in origin?
- zug_zug 4y agoI mean yes, that's a scary made-up scenario. I'd be in favor of banning the app if that made-up scenario ever becomes a non-made-up scenario.
- Reason077 4y agoSure, but so long as any manipulations are kept subtle, it's hard to prove whether or not they're actually happening.
- scottmcleod 4y agoNo kidding...
- darkteflon 4y agoUtterly ridiculous to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the current geopolitical climate. China is a surveillance autocracy and has been engaged in adversarial conduct against the West for years - including extensive psyops. Shut it down, yesterday. Build a local clone so that people can get their fix or whatever. China sure as shit doesn’t allow its citizens to cough up their personal information for algorithmic consumption to Twitter et al.
- Tenoke 4y agoI don't think it's that ridiculous. The default should be not to ban entertainment, and it's not so clearcut whether the danger outweighs the benefits much more than for many other legal forms of entertainment.
- lm28469 4y ago> The default should be not to ban entertainment It's only entertainment if you're completely blind. They're using our tolerance as a weakness, while themselves having absolutely 0 tolerance for western bs/propaganda in their home country This is next level "turning the other cheek"
- Tenoke 4y agoIt's obviously entertainment. It could additionally be other things, how Top Gun is both entertainment and propaganda or bar drinking is both entertainment and has health risks. The math might come to the risks being higher than the benefits but pretending people aren't entertained by it ironically suggests that you might be more radicalized or brainwashed than TikTok users supposedly are.
- karp773 4y agoThe very fact that not a single western social network is permitted to operate in China is a sufficient reason to ban TikTok in America.
- not1ofU 4y agoI've heard an apt anology; "its a reverse opium war"
- computerfriend 4y agoNot really reverse, since the US didn't participate in the first one.
- not1ofU 4y agoOh, I didnt realise Tik Tok was US only.
- computerfriend 4y agoWell funnily enough the only place where it's not is Hong Kong. But to the opium war analogy, most of the world was not involved.
- nateburke 4y agoRemember when we tried? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/world/asia/mark-zuckerberg-jogging-beijing-smog.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/world/asia/mark-zuckerber...
- est 4y ago> not a single western social network You are wrong. Myspace works fine in China.
- samatman 4y agoThis is, rather, evidence (as though we needed it) that Myspace isn't a social network.
- ok123456 4y agoDo the opposite thing the FBI wants.
- dclowd9901 4y agoWhile my knee jerk reaction is to agree, I also would want to do the opposite thing China wants, so I’m in a bit of a pickle here.
- plgonzalezrx8 4y agoSo basically what the democrats did when Trump was the one who said that TikTok was a national security concern.
- Kukumber 4y ago"When we look at all of these wide-ranging apps that are connected to Chinese firms, it's actually almost nonsensical to ban just one when we see platforms in areas like precision agriculture, communications, gaming, all connected to Chinese firms," she says. "So what's really important is to develop more robust data privacy regulations in the United States to protect users. TLDR: It has nothing to do with "national security concerns", it's just they are great competition, and the US is lagging behind, so banning it would mean having a chance to catchup Hence why they tried to lure them to move to their US based servers, so they could peek at the source code ;) ;) Because US firms are lagging behind, some stagnating and are greedy, therefore no competitors is allowed to do better until they wake up The plan is clear, another confession of defeat
- RadixDLT 4y agothis is laughable, it's more about data collection
- Kukumber 4y agoit's nothing about data collection a law and data collection problem is fixed the problem is: it's a Chinese company, and they do better than US companies it happened in the past with European companies and Japanese ones, also with Samsung and their chip
- nivenkos 4y agoI hope the EU bans Facebook, etc. in response.
- luckylion 4y agoThe US can probably replace TikTok with something "homegrown" that's sufficiently like TikTok that people will be happy to use it once it becomes widely adopted. What could replace Facebook, TikTok etc in Europe? Do we just shut down the internet because it's run by third parties who don't have our best interests at heart?
- deely3 4y agoStrange arguments. Why do we need to replace Facebook, TikTok? No need to shut down, just block malicious sites, thats all.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago> The US can probably replace TikTok with something "homegrown" You say that, yet Instagram, Twitter(1), YouTube who have all tried so far have all failed. (1): You're probably reading this and saying "What? not they haven't", well open a video on Twitter then swipe it up off the screen, you're now in TwitTok.
- luckylion 4y agoSure, but that's with TikTok still around. Outlaw TikTok (essentially killing it), and there's no more stickyness keeping people from doing their dances on YT Shorts or whatever alternative would win.
- sdsd 4y ago>You say that, yet Instagram, Twitter(1), YouTube who have all tried so far have all failed. Youtube Shorts didn't fail, they're actually way better than TikTok and are doing well. Instagram Reels are basically a flop, but Shorts are freaking addictive. I tried using TikTok a while ago after all the praise on HN for its magical recommendation algorithm. After trying to get the algorithm to give me anything interesting for an hour, I gave up. Youtube Shorts on the other hand is like crack. It's way better than YT's "normal" recommendation algorithm. I recommend it if you haven't tried
- squarefoot 4y agoI can't imagine their reaction when they discover that so many IP cameras/NVR/DVR have been and still are being used as surveillance devices, and in some cases they have been hacked to either phone home (China?) video feeds, or as botnet hosts. https://hacked.camera/ https://hacked.camera/ http://www.insecam.org/en/ http://www.insecam.org/en/
- encryptluks2 4y agoOr when they discover most of the technology equipment and chips they buy are made in China, including common networking equipment like routers that require cloud login to manage.
- p0pcult 4y agoThis is a very different threat vector. None of the examples you or the parent commenter have cited enable influence/propaganda/mis- or dis-info/psyops.
- hnrodey 4y agoTrump: TikTok is a national security threat! America: XENOPHOBE! Biden: TikTok is a national security threat. America: SHUT IT DOWN!
- plgonzalezrx8 4y agoCall me whatever you want, but Trump had a LOT of things right. He was just massively inarticulate and his persona made it easy for people to disagree with him. But yeah, he tried to shut it down and the democrats just reverted everything just to say they reverted something trump did. This report is nothing new and it has been known for a long time. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-reverses-trump-s-effort-ban-tiktok-orders-broader-review-n1270133 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-reverses-...
- wollsmoth 4y agoI wasn't necessarily opposed to his call for that. But the whole idea of somehow segmenting the app in a way that would somehow make tiktok better for us seemed kinda impractical. Just ban it or don't. If we ban it someone will make a clone in the west, or IG reels will just take over.
- ibejoeb 4y agoCollective madness. Also, it's hysterical that there are literally bleach-drinking challenges on TikTok.
- bbzealot 4y agoYou’re claiming that a relevant amount of Americans accused Trump of being Xenophobe due to his remarks on TikTok. Do you have any source to back that claim?
- zthrowaway 4y ago- https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/trump-tiktok-ban-china-microsoft-20200804.html https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/trump-tiktok-ban... - https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/7/23/21334871/tiktok-ban-us-trump-china https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/7/23/21334871/tiktok-ban-... - https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/10/banning-tiktok-stoking-sinophobia-isnt-likely-reelect-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/10/banning-ti... - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/can-the-trump-administration-really-ban-tiktok.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/can-the-trump-admini... - https://www.wired.com/story/trump-tiktok-drama-security-distraction/ https://www.wired.com/story/trump-tiktok-drama-security-dist... There's plenty more. Look at previous threads about Trump wanting to ban TikTok on hackernews and reddit. Source: Being online and/or watching TV for the past 4 years...
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- II2II 4y agoThere are a couple of things we have to be careful of in these discussions: one is that the US has strong motivations for (economic) protectionism. We should be focussing on evidence of wrongdoing, not innuendo. The second is how the accusations are being made. Too much of it reeks of borderline racism and there seems to be an uptick in outright racism against Chinese people. Remember, it is acts of the Chinese government at issue here not the acts of people who have no ties to the Chinese government.
- computerfriend 4y agoThere is absolutely no hint of racism.
- 63 4y agoI don't think it's racism for the most part, but I do agree that some people seem to have some incredibly strong feelings about China without great justification. I wonder how much of it is caused by the US's anticommunist history. Maybe it's right to dislike China for ideological reasons. But even if that is the case, isn't banning Tiktok hypocritical? If you dislike China because they censor information coming from other countries, don't follow the will of their citizens, and regulate speech, it appears to me that urging an executive agency to ban Tiktok is doing those same things in the US. I genuinely don't see much harm in Tiktok but plenty of people on HN seem to hate it just because it's from China and that doesn't seem like a valid reason to me.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoI think economic protectionism is generally bad, but might be a reasonable response to similar moves on the part of other nations. I think this should not be conflated with the national security arguments (which aren't totally invalid, but may be overhyped to achieve a policy goal.)
- scohesc 4y agoThere's no racism to be found - why do people conflate issues with the way the Chinese _government_ chooses to operate with the Chinese _people_ themselves? The Chinese government technically owns TikTok - No doubt in my mind profile/algorithm data is being sent overseas for processing and manipulation by the Chinese government. The Chinese government uses strategies that span _decades/centuries_ to influence countries. They can do that because they don't have to rip and replace governments/officials on regular election cycles - that's the way their government works and why some people consider Democracy to not be a great government structure - a separate tangent to go down. The Chinese government creates/purchases a social media app that happens to attract easily influenced children/teenagers/adults, cater content directly for them to keep them on the platform for as long as possible, with the _very real_ potential for the Chinese government to influence people through algorithm manipulation, which app users don't even realize. Don't get me wrong, it's equally as harmful when Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat does it - it's just that China studied this formula and has likely adapted it to be used as a form of cultural/government warfare against enemy countries - without even putting boots on their soil. Distract as many minds as possible, feed them information that tells them the US/Canada/Europe isn't as "free as people say", deliberately promote key cultural "wedge" issues to emotionally enrage/depress people and eventually you have a population in 50-100 years that welcomes the Chinese government into their country because there is no cohesive American identity anymore able to stand against aggressive foreign influence/interference. I'm not saying this is the sole purpose and goal of TikTok, and I'm not saying it's the _sole_ thing China is doing to "take over America!" - but it's a multi-faceted approach to foreign interference that nobody seems to even consider or think about. See - Belt and Road initiatives, foreign spies in high political positions influencing US politics, committing corporate espionage to steal trade secrets and technologies... Yes, I'm also sure the USA does all of these things - personally, I'd rather have the USA doing these things instead of China, since I have more of a chance of influencing what the US is doing with our data rather than a country on the opposite side of the globe operating without recourse to western law.
- howmayiannoyyou 4y agoBriefest of case studies: Anyone whose watched the rapid growth of antisemitic propaganda and disinformation since the 2016 election may note 4chan/pol/ took the lead in dissemination of stereotypes and tropes intended to influence user thinking. Because there was widespread distrust of other media sources, and b/c /pol/ appealed to younger audiences, and b/c /pol/ developed a reputation for aggregating breaking news (often untrue but thrilling), its audience grew dramatically, to over 11m unique visitors per month. Fast forward to today and Kanye, Irving and others repeat and show /pol/ meme's as their "proof" of antisemetic conspiracies. Antisemetic propaganda has gone mainstream to the point the Jewish community is viewed by one of favorite comedians on SNL as a cabal suppressing AA aspirations, when the opposite has been true since the civil rights movement and the two are actually more in alignment on issues than apart. Tearing groups apart is geopolitics 101 and the US is losing this battle. ** Now multiply that by 50m daily users fed disinformation on whatever topic roils you and you have an idea of the scale of threat posed by TikTok. **
- TMWNN 4y ago>b/c /pol/ developed a reputation for aggregating breaking news (often untrue but thrilling) On New Year's Eve 2015 I saw mention of the Cologne mass attacks on women by refugees *as they were occurring* on, yes, 4chan/pol/, and checked /r/worldnews and /r/europe to find out more. I didn't see anything and—naively, I soon realized—assumed that it was another /pol/ "it's happening" dank maymayism. (Cue "/pol/ was right" couplet)
- p0pcult 4y agoA recent tiktok trend hitting my city and others seems to be calling in/airdropping/swatting/posting active shooter threats at local schools. So far, this has shut down my kid's school several times this year. TikTok gets to be the vector for this new scale of virality, America loses future economic competitiveness. Who is the winner in this scenario? https://www.spieltimes.com/news/what-is-tiktoks-active-shooter-challenge/ https://www.spieltimes.com/news/what-is-tiktoks-active-shoot... https://www.thedailybeast.com/tiktok-shooting-challenge-seen-as-not-credible-schools-ramp-up-security-anyway https://www.thedailybeast.com/tiktok-shooting-challenge-seen... https://wpde.com/news/local/rcsd-at-blythewood-high-school-after-report-of-shots-fired https://wpde.com/news/local/rcsd-at-blythewood-high-school-a...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zug_zug 4y agoWhat's the connection to China? Is there a belief that China was slower at removing these videos that an American firm would be? Because that's the substantive question.
- p0pcult 4y agoWell, aside from: The opacity of the algorithm, plus the degree to which the content is auto-curated; the asymmetrical content optimization in exported and domestic versions; the time-limits imposed on domestic, but not international youth users; the government-business-CCP nexus in china, partial government ownership of TT, and the human rights record of the CCP; the refusal to allow western social media and news into China; I dunno, not much?
- Workaccount2 4y agoThe Chinese government owns tiktok. The algorithm that decides what videos americans will consume is signed off on by the Chinese government. That is an enormous national security threat.
- 4y ago
- liminal 4y agoI'm much more concerned about WeChat.
- bobcattz 4y agoinfluence peoples mind and hack their brains
- theknocker 4y ago[dead]
- 404mm 4y agoTikTok is only a part of a much larger problem that US was not ready to deal with. Sure, TikTok having “coarse location” permissions seems like a very bad idea, give the fact it’s Chinese owned app. This is the obvious one and I personally absolutely cannot understand how this is allowed to happen. (And there is more… Russian owned family tracking apps for example) But the larger and harder problem to solve is social media and their involvement in targeted advertising, potentially having a significant impact on election results. This applies equally to all platforms. Where do we draw the line? Should amount of money determine who gets elected? How do we know the money even comes from the parties and not from other governments? Or a new problem we have- should the richest person be able to own very influential social media? This is no longer a democracy.
- judge2020 4y ago> How do we know the money even comes from the parties and not from other governments? I'm sure Canada would say that this isn't important..
- RadixDLT 4y agojust in time for twitter to resurrect vine
- computerfriend 4y agoBet they regretted shutting it down.
- sylware 4y agolinkedin database too pal.
- thepasswordis 4y agoRemember when the previous administration tried to do this and was called racist and stupid for it? What changed?
- deeblering4 4y agoTikTok as-is presents a massive attack surface for (d|m)information and worse. And the version available in the US is highly addictive with numerous bubble creating feedback loops. The amount of engagement and time spent on the app is incredible. The creators know this and provide an alternate version called Douyin used domestically which optimizes for educational content and has additional rules/safeguards https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58625934 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58625934 I don't want to harp on which country has which political motive, but it's pretty cut and dry to see that the service owners export something very different than what is presented domestically.
- p0pcult 4y agoCompelling news story, but is there a less-tabloid source? In my cursory Googling, I haven't been able to find anything. Murdoch-owned media is pretty low in my trustworthiness/objectivity rankings.
- bruckie 4y agoWas the original edited? It currently points to BBC, which is not Murdoch-owned.
- p0pcult 4y agoThe original pointed to the NY Post.
- rasz 4y agoHere you go https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-war-in-ukraine-to-russian-users-1.15921522 https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/xl/tiktok-doesn_t-show-the-wa...
- erklik 4y ago> The creators know this and provide an alternate version called Douyin used domestically which optimizes for educational content and has additional rules/safeguards ... Douyin is edited like that out of the goodness of Bytedance's hearts to reduce addiction or is it regulatory pressure? Reading the article: > Douyin, much like TikTok, is particularly popular with young audiences, and so China's top regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, has urged it to "create a good cyberspace environment for the healthy development of young people". > Last month, under-18s in China were banned from playing video games during the week, and their play was restricted to just one hour on Fridays, weekends and holidays. It seems awfully like the China's version of the FTC decided that this ain't cool anymore, and Bytedance saw the hammer of legislation coming so they made changes.. The easiest answer here, is get the US government to not ban TikTok, but make it a rule that under-18s cannot access these applications, content must be educational, and limit screen time by banning these apps during school times, maybe only allowed for 2 hrs on the weekend etc. However, I do remember hearing a lot that China is a facist dictatorship when these rules were made. I wonder if the same will be said for the US if they decide to make such rules.
- 1995moz 4y agoonce center-left news orgs start echoing this line as well, time to buy Meta stock, because you know the ban is closing in.
- Workaccount2 4y agoGod the whataboutism that pops up everytime tiktok is discussed is suffocating. Some people are just so desperately trying to divert attention away from it and others are trying to hijack the movement to make it into some kind of constitutional level privacy reform. Tiktok can die, everything will be fine, and then we can focus on our own issues here.
- allisdust 4y agoI just don't understand how people can't see the threat. All you have to do is keep showing bad news videos about inflation, crime rate, illegal immigration to turn population against the government subtly mixed with normal videos. They can also pacify people by subtly mixing good news videos. And anyone who thinks people aren't so easily gamed don't understand people. This is like cnn and fox news on steroids. One continuous drip of emotions fed by a foreign adversary.
- allisdust 4y agoIt's banned overnight in India along with a lot of other Chinese apps. I don't see why that can't be done in USA under national security policies. It's ridiculous to let an app from foreign adversary which can manipulate citizen behaviour through its algorithms while being able to keep track of what interests whom is allowed to operate freely. Its frankly surprising they are even having this debate. Yes meta, Google and God knows what other companies are also in a position to do this. But then the government can always drag the executives to trial legally. They can't do any of that with a foreign company.
- aeze 4y agoI have a couple questions: 1) How is TikTok worse than other social media apps? Both in terms of privacy and "the algorithm". 2) What another country's government does with my data is far less important to me than what my government is doing with my data. Am I wrong for thinking that?
- tenpies 4y agoExactly. The scariest part to me is that an unelected, partisan, US intelligence agency literally moderates the content on social media through their own purpose-made moderation portals[1], than anything China is doing. --- [1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23129270-fb-portal https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23129270-fb-portal
- krolden 4y agoPeople here worried about tiktok seem to be in denial about how the USA has treated the internet (not to mention our constitutional rights, specifically the fourth amendment) for the last 20+ years. There are no privacy laws of consequence when the people running the show report to no one and have zero oversight, yet they want us to worry about tiktok and China instead of pay attention to the gross violation of our rights by our own government.
- spacemadness 4y agoI’m not making strong claims, but I think it’s a fairly simple formula. 1) Do you believe social media algorithms can have large negative outcomes concerning human social behavior? 2) Does the entity controlling those algorithms then matter assuming 1 is true?
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- sliq 4y agoWow, here in Germany this concern was always called a "right wing conspiracy theory" by literally every mainstream media outlet. Headlines like "Is Trump afraid of dancing teens?" were quite popular (even when it was clear that it's a technical problem). We live in bizarre times.
- realgeniushere 4y agoIf only a previous president had said so and banned it. Oh, that did happen. And then Biden unbanned it because a bunch of liberal journalists told him to.
- NickC25 4y agoI have no idea if it's a legitimate security risk, but regardless, if China wants to play the game with us that they are currently playing (banning non-Chinese apps from their country) we have to play that game, too. It makes no sense to play the "we'll take the high road" approach with them. If they ban our applications and services in their country, we need to ban their applications and services in our country. Full stop. The surveillance aspect isn't even a starter here, it's larger than that. If we have to play by their rules in their country, they have to play by our rules in our country. I don't give a shit if it pisses off GenZ. GenZ's ability to share stupid videos of themselves dancing to crappy music is completely irrelevant to the wider geopolitical threats that China poses. In full disclaimer: I helped build a service that was partially aimed at Chinese users, and had Tsinghua University as a client. When the trade wars started, our relationship was "ended" and Tsinghua took our idea & software and essentially cut us out of the equation completely. (Yes, their copycat version of our software and idea was completely useless and didn't work, but that's besides the point)
- standardUser 4y ago"if China wants to play the game with us that they are currently playing (banning non-Chinese apps from their country) we have to play that game, too" That's not the American way. The United States became the center of the modern global economy because it said "you can sell your goods here, and we're gonna push really hard to make you let us sell our goods there, too. But if you don't, fine, you can still sell your goods here". It's basically the opposite approach of a trade war.
- NickC25 4y agoI don't care if it isn't the American way. This is an economic cold war. China views all trade as a zero-sum-game war, and currently, we've ceded the fight completely. They can collect info and revenue in our markets, but we can't in theirs. If appeasing them is how we decide to continue, we've lost the fight and will continue to lose the fight. Remember, to the Chinese government, a Win-Win situation is not when both parties walk away happy, it's when the Chinese side wins twice.
- night-rider 4y agoZuckerberg wants TikT0k banned in the US so badly
- yesSoTho 4y ago
- advisedwang 4y agoTikTok is hitting a much broader slice of the US population, and getting a much broader slice of political opinions. And it's connecting all these people and all these opinions. You can find communists and nazi's on TikTok, building communities, and getting their voice out. The administration hates TikTok because it is potentially destabilizing. The FBI's concern is not that it's foreign influence, but that it's allowing internal movements to gain traction. Just as the FBI suppressed internal movements throughout the 20th century they want to suppress this new medium that may threaten the status quo. Now I don't want to see the US fall into chaos, but neither do I want to see a world where political change is stifled, which is what the FBI wants to do here.
- rosmax_1337 4y agoCan you actually find nazis on Tiktok? I believe they have a pretty clear policy against hate in general which they apply just as liberally as for example facebook and youtube does.
- advisedwang 4y agoTikTok's policy enforcement is pretty unreliable - sometimes it's very overzealous and sometimes it leaves bafflingly obvious stuff up. Folks on TikTok are pretty good at gaming it, there's lots of substitute words used and so on. You won't see people saying "I love Hitler" or something, but you will hear Nazi ideology rephrased.
- p0pcult 4y agoEver heard of "The Foundations of Geopolitics"? According to Wikipedia, the prescription for destabilizing America is: "Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
- andrewclunn 4y agoOh so our current owners are concerned that they might lose control of the culture to some new foreign owners? If I believed that the US security state was there to protect the American people I might be more concerned, as it stands this is just a changing of the guard for who will be our technocratic authoritarian overlords, and I can't be plotzed to care.
- yur3i__ 4y agoThinking this change of "technocratic authoritarian overlords" is as much of a non-event as you seem to or that the Chinese level of control over the citzenry is equivalent to that of the USA is a crazy level of naivety that I can't even begin to unpack
- andrewclunn 4y agoOh the Chinese are far worse at oppressing their own people, but the US seems to do a much better job of abusing foreign nations. It's not an apples to apples comparison.
- lizardactivist 4y agoBut the US was happy to force TikTok to share all that juicy data for the last few years. They simply cannot accept that TikTok is the biggest wonder in the history of apps, and it's not theirs.
- par 4y agoI agree with the feds on this, but will they actually do anything?
- DiogenesKynikos 4y agoThe Chinese government is hilariously bad at foreign propaganda. Seriously, just look at any of their official media channels. The US has a million times more experience in this business - it has Hollywood, it funds thousands of "non-governmental organizations" all over the world, it knows how to advertise. The people who are worried that 15-second videos on TikTok are somehow part of a long-term plan by the Chinese government to subtly change Americans' opinions are giving the Chinese government far too much credit.
- kube-system 4y agoOr is it genius? If your content sucks, let others generate it, measure traction, then influence what voices you want heard. Now, it likely wasn’t planned out this way, but the benefits to manipulation now are obvious.
- gravitate 4y agoHow does watching fail videos and memes radicalize people and make them politically polarized? Would it not be obvious to TikTokers that they are being manipulated in some way, even subtly? If I want to control narratives and shape opinion, TV is how I would do it. Fox News is basically a propaganda machine, and isn't questioned, because, hey, 'merica.
- UberFly 4y agoMaybe you should just read the NPR article.
- rubyist5eva 4y agoI remember when Trump was racist for saying this.