4 ms·

This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is due to regulations/laws in China. If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would

This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is due to regulations/laws in China. If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply.

hammock 4y ago
>This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is...China Perhaps a distinction without a difference
- patrickthebold 4y ago
  I actually think it's a good point. There's no way in the US we'd tolerate the government regulating the content on the platform.
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    The US government have regulating contents on broadcasters since forever.
  - yibg 4y ago
    Lots of countries have regulations on broadcasting. Percent of locally produced content, what age people can see what etc.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  It is a difference, if TikTok would activly try to make the west dumber and china smarter vs. just different rules of those states. The first could be viewed as a attack vs. the latter is a mere choice of the states involved.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Right, and I think it depends on what the intent is. If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine. I mean, I don't agree with the level of interference the Chinese government has empowered itself with, but that's their business. If the Chinese government were forcing TikTok to promote "dumb" content to citizens of adversary countries, then that would be a bit more nefarious.
    - nemothekid 4y ago
      >If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine. But that is what happened. The CCP went on a huge clampdown on the newer internet companies around that time that Jack Ma was abducted and passed numerous laws censoring and limiting what people could do online, such as how long teenagers could play video games.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
No, it is almost certainly deliberate. In China, all companies with more than 50 employees are legally obligated to have dedicated Chinese Communist Party representatives overseeing, according to Harvard Business Publishing (https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/R1403J-HCB-ENG https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/R1403J-HCB-ENG). Social media companies? They probably have tons of mandatory representatives guiding the system. ByteDance also had a "nominal" 1% ownership taken by the Chinese government, which then got 1 of 3 board seats supposedly from that investment (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/17/chinese-government-bytedance-tiktok/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/17/chinese...). So you have a company which is absolutely at the size where dedicated CCP representatives are mandatory, with a board seat possessed by a representative of a state-owned enterprise. How much separation is there, really? Add to that, TikTok has been censoring the Uighur genocide, Tiananmen Square riots, Falun Gong, so forth despite not operating in China, as well documented (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...) and (https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/xinjiang-china-tiktok-uyghur/ https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/xinjiang-china-...). If you censor things in non-Chinese nations to please the Chinese government, plus the earlier facts, you're controlled. Finally... putting that together, it is safe to say TikTok is under substantial control of the CCP. What does every Chinese student, and almost every Communist Party leader, learn in their schools (for being a communist leader has mandatory education in many things, including lessons taken from the fall of the USSR, to avoid such a fate)? "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu
- hello_friendos 4y ago
- dv_dt 4y ago
  I’m not sure it’s so different from the club being a political party or the club being from the Ivy League for top end business and political roles. I think a narrow set of outlooks is bad for the general population. If you think TikTok deliberately prioritizes dumbed down content then why does Facebook or Fox news also do it?
kelnos 4y ago
> If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply. Except for the part where that law would end up being declared unconstitutional, and rightly so. Then again, if TikTok has no US ownership, perhaps it would pass constitutional muster. 1A doesn't specifically mention US citizens or US-owned corporations, though, just that that government shall pass no laws abridging the freedom of speech, so maybe not.
- safog 4y ago
  Curious - why would it be unconstitutional? There are plenty of laws forcing companies to engage in certain kinds of behavior. The latest I've seen is the beer manufacturing / distribution / sales breakup as a result of the post-prohibition policies. Manufacturers can't distribute, distributors can't sell to consumers and so-on. I think people might not tolerate such govt interference, but assuming it's law I don't think it'll be unconstitutional.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The Constitutional bar is pretty high for requiring anyone to engage in forced speech, even if it's purely commercial. Laws requiring broadcasters to transmit a certain amount of public interest or educational programming were generally upheld by the courts because spectrum is a limited public resource, and radio waves reach into everyone's home whether they want it or not. But cable TV and streaming video services have effectively unlimited capacity, so those old rules never applied to them. Alcohol is a separate issue entirely. The 21st Amendment gives states broad authority to control distribution.
- sofixa 4y ago
  Is a recommendation algorithm "speech"? Applying vague 18th century wording and logic to something it's writers couldn't even dream of is so weird.

This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is due to regulations/laws in China. If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply.

hammock 4y ago

>This isn't a choice being made by TikTok, this is...China Perhaps a distinction without a difference

patrickthebold 4y ago
I actually think it's a good point. There's no way in the US we'd tolerate the government regulating the content on the platform.
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  The US government have regulating contents on broadcasters since forever.
- yibg 4y ago
  Lots of countries have regulations on broadcasting. Percent of locally produced content, what age people can see what etc.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
hutzlibu 4y ago
It is a difference, if TikTok would activly try to make the west dumber and china smarter vs. just different rules of those states. The first could be viewed as a attack vs. the latter is a mere choice of the states involved.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Right, and I think it depends on what the intent is. If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine. I mean, I don't agree with the level of interference the Chinese government has empowered itself with, but that's their business. If the Chinese government were forcing TikTok to promote "dumb" content to citizens of adversary countries, then that would be a bit more nefarious.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    >If TikTok's default would be to just promote "dumb" content everywhere (because that's what increases engagement and sells ads or whatever), but the Chinese government is like "no, you're making our citizens dumber; you have to promote 'smart' content in the China market", then that's totally fine. But that is what happened. The CCP went on a huge clampdown on the newer internet companies around that time that Jack Ma was abducted and passed numerous laws censoring and limiting what people could do online, such as how long teenagers could play video games.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

No, it is almost certainly deliberate. In China, all companies with more than 50 employees are legally obligated to have dedicated Chinese Communist Party representatives overseeing, according to Harvard Business Publishing (https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/R1403J-HCB-ENG https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/R1403J-HCB-ENG). Social media companies? They probably have tons of mandatory representatives guiding the system. ByteDance also had a "nominal" 1% ownership taken by the Chinese government, which then got 1 of 3 board seats supposedly from that investment (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/17/chinese-government-bytedance-tiktok/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/17/chinese...). So you have a company which is absolutely at the size where dedicated CCP representatives are mandatory, with a board seat possessed by a representative of a state-owned enterprise. How much separation is there, really? Add to that, TikTok has been censoring the Uighur genocide, Tiananmen Square riots, Falun Gong, so forth despite not operating in China, as well documented (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...) and (https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/xinjiang-china-tiktok-uyghur/ https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/xinjiang-china-...). If you censor things in non-Chinese nations to please the Chinese government, plus the earlier facts, you're controlled. Finally... putting that together, it is safe to say TikTok is under substantial control of the CCP. What does every Chinese student, and almost every Communist Party leader, learn in their schools (for being a communist leader has mandatory education in many things, including lessons taken from the fall of the USSR, to avoid such a fate)? "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tzu

hello_friendos 4y ago
dv_dt 4y ago
I’m not sure it’s so different from the club being a political party or the club being from the Ivy League for top end business and political roles. I think a narrow set of outlooks is bad for the general population. If you think TikTok deliberately prioritizes dumbed down content then why does Facebook or Fox news also do it?

kelnos 4y ago

> If the US passed laws requiring TikTok to do the same in the US, they would obviously comply. Except for the part where that law would end up being declared unconstitutional, and rightly so. Then again, if TikTok has no US ownership, perhaps it would pass constitutional muster. 1A doesn't specifically mention US citizens or US-owned corporations, though, just that that government shall pass no laws abridging the freedom of speech, so maybe not.

safog 4y ago
Curious - why would it be unconstitutional? There are plenty of laws forcing companies to engage in certain kinds of behavior. The latest I've seen is the beer manufacturing / distribution / sales breakup as a result of the post-prohibition policies. Manufacturers can't distribute, distributors can't sell to consumers and so-on. I think people might not tolerate such govt interference, but assuming it's law I don't think it'll be unconstitutional.
- nradov 4y ago
  The Constitutional bar is pretty high for requiring anyone to engage in forced speech, even if it's purely commercial. Laws requiring broadcasters to transmit a certain amount of public interest or educational programming were generally upheld by the courts because spectrum is a limited public resource, and radio waves reach into everyone's home whether they want it or not. But cable TV and streaming video services have effectively unlimited capacity, so those old rules never applied to them. Alcohol is a separate issue entirely. The 21st Amendment gives states broad authority to control distribution.
sofixa 4y ago
Is a recommendation algorithm "speech"? Applying vague 18th century wording and logic to something it's writers couldn't even dream of is so weird.