7 ms·

The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Douyin is happy show low brow garbage to Chines

The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Douyin is happy show low brow garbage to Chinese netizens, just like chinese gaming companies were happy to let teens play video games 24/7. The difference is the Chinese government won't let them. America could easily do what China did here: enforce regulations on what kind of content social media companies can show minors. Just banning TikTok won't prevent Instagram from running the same playbook on Reels, it's not like Instagram has been the standard for teen mental health in the past 10 years. Douyin isn't educational in China due to the goodness of their hearts, it came from regulation. The issue is, good luck trying to enforce any sort of corporate regulation in the US.

babypuncher 4y ago
Exactlty. Everyone's freaking out over TikTok while conveniently ignoring the fact that our own social media companies have been doing the exact same shit for over a decade now. This is why I reject any talk of regulating TikTok that doesn't apply equally to all social media.
Firebrand 4y ago
Bytedance even publicly denounced Tencent last year after a VP compared Douyin’s content to pig feed: https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3136168/tiktok-owner-bytedance-blasts-tencent-over-comments-pig-feed-short https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3136168/tiktok-ow... It’s all the same crap being served.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
> sinophobic How?
- babypuncher 4y ago
  For some reason, everyone wants to hold TikTok to a higher standard than our own social media companies. Facebook, Instagram, et al have been running by the same playbook as TikTok for over a decade, but somehow the impact this has on adolescents only became a concern when the company doing it is Chinese. If you want to lessen the impact of this crap on your kids, then you need to pass regulations that prevent all social media companies from doing it. Just banning the foreign ones does nothing but artificially prop up Facebook.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  If you are concerned about the content that American's consume, there is no reason to single out TikTok. Instagram has been shoving the same garbage into the feeds of teenagers for nearly a decade and Reels is nearly exact clone of TikTok. There is little "educational" content on Instagram Reels. The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does. If the problem is solely TikTok, then it most likely stems from the fact you don't like TikTok is owned by the Chinese (and you are more likely to believe nefarious claims that Xi Jinping personally told the TikTok CEO to make America dumber) which is sinophobic. You don't like TikTok just because it's a chinese company serving you the same garbage as an American one. I believe there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, especially on state-owned devices, given the amount of data they exfiltrate, but "they are poisoning the American youth" is not a good one.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    I live in Taiwan. I sometimes look at Facebook reels and Instagram. I never come across anti China or anti US content. I tried tiktok for a day and was bombarded with anti US content. Videos blaming the US for covid. Videos saying that covid started in the US, created by the US, etc. Videos that the US is using Taiwan to start a war with China. I deleted tiktok and have it blocked. You can defend China all you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that the CCP is using it to spread propaganda.
    - b345 4y ago
      Anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's what you were recommended based on your watch history or other data points. YouTube recommends me anti-China content all the time.
      - philliphaydon 4y ago
        YouTube has a lot of anti China and anti US content. But you can block channels and subjects and clean it up. But the difference is anti. US content tends to be fake propaganda. Like claiming covid started in the US and was designed to kill people in China? That’s blatant propaganda. That’s anti US. Talking about the US spending money on gain of function research in Wuhan? That’s just reporting on facts. But I don’t consider that anti US. Anti China content is just facts. If a video comes out saying there’s protesting in China due to zero covid. That’s not fake news. It’s not propaganda. It’s just something happening and CCP bots will scream “anti China anti China” You can’t do that on tiktok. I specifically called out Facebook and Instagram. It’s not flooded to death with propaganda.
musk_micropenis 4y ago
Please don't resort to conflating criticism of China (however speculative) with Sinophobia. It lowers the tone of the discussion and imputes a motive onto your peers which isn't warranted. If you have a problem with the facts of the discussion then address them directly.
- chrischen 4y ago
  He did address the facts of the discussion... The fact is jumping to some ridiculous conclusion that there must be some conspiracy to feed dumb content to Americans is Sinophobic because there is no evidence to suggest such a ridiculous thing, when the obvious answer, as pointed out by grandparent, is much more reasonable of an explanation.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  Repeating a previous comment: If you want TikTok banned in the US because they don't have proper data hygiene and you believe that data could be used by the CCP in the future that is fair. If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese). >imputes a motive onto your peers If my peers don't realize they are are repeating sinophobic talking points, they should be made aware of them. My concern is chiefly that sinophobia is simply a vector that allows American social media giants to get rid of competition without being forced to clean up their own backyards. If your concern is "algorithmic dumb content", then just banning tiktok is the wrong solution. Secondly, the reason why China has different content on TikTok is through government regulation, and we could do the same thing here! It's not a Chinese conspiracy that keeps Americans from regulating corporations.
  - causi 4y ago
    I think Sinophobia is the wrong word. If you're playing for the blue team against the red team you're not red-team-phobic.
heavyset_go 4y ago
> The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Oh please, all countries do it. The US uses Twitter and other social media to instigate civil unrest all over the world. Literal revolutions and genocides have been instigated over US-run social media platforms. I don't know of a superpower that doesn't use the internet as a vector to sow discord and propagate misinformation.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  I think you are generalizing my claim. My claim is specifically that the claim that the Chinese is using TikTok as some American programming vector is sinophobic. The CCP could be tracking the location of government officials through tiktok; that is a legitimate concern. If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese). If you want to ban TikTok for another reason (such as their incredibly poor data hygiene, such as tracking every action you do within their app browser), then that is fair and you can reasonably argue that point from the grounds of privacy and national defense. My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all.
  - revolvingocelot 4y ago
    >It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese) If the Chinese and the Americans behaved identically in all other respects, this would be excellent logic. As they do not, it is spurious logic. I don't think you really believe that the Chinese style of governance and Chinese culture are the same as the American style of governance and American culture. Put another way, there's an Australian law that can literally compel Australian coders to become secret agents and implant government backdoors into products they work on at their government's whim [0, 1]. It is not, and would not be, "aussiephobia" to not want to hire a person for whom this is a possibility, or to avoid products that Australian forced-backdoors are likely to be present in. Individual Australians are unlikely to support this, and shouldn't be individually blamed, but does that change the reality of the law? >My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all I've heard it said that politics is the "art of the possible". From a fairness perspective, I'd love to see Western social media get a little regulated. From a harm-reduction perspective, sanctioning the Other social media is, at best, the first step to regulating everything else, and at worst, the only thing we're ever going to get. [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australian_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australia... [1] https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00148 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00148

babypuncher 4y ago

Exactlty. Everyone's freaking out over TikTok while conveniently ignoring the fact that our own social media companies have been doing the exact same shit for over a decade now. This is why I reject any talk of regulating TikTok that doesn't apply equally to all social media.

Firebrand 4y ago

Bytedance even publicly denounced Tencent last year after a VP compared Douyin’s content to pig feed: https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3136168/tiktok-owner-bytedance-blasts-tencent-over-comments-pig-feed-short https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3136168/tiktok-ow... It’s all the same crap being served.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

> sinophobic How?

babypuncher 4y ago
For some reason, everyone wants to hold TikTok to a higher standard than our own social media companies. Facebook, Instagram, et al have been running by the same playbook as TikTok for over a decade, but somehow the impact this has on adolescents only became a concern when the company doing it is Chinese. If you want to lessen the impact of this crap on your kids, then you need to pass regulations that prevent all social media companies from doing it. Just banning the foreign ones does nothing but artificially prop up Facebook.
nemothekid 4y ago
If you are concerned about the content that American's consume, there is no reason to single out TikTok. Instagram has been shoving the same garbage into the feeds of teenagers for nearly a decade and Reels is nearly exact clone of TikTok. There is little "educational" content on Instagram Reels. The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does. If the problem is solely TikTok, then it most likely stems from the fact you don't like TikTok is owned by the Chinese (and you are more likely to believe nefarious claims that Xi Jinping personally told the TikTok CEO to make America dumber) which is sinophobic. You don't like TikTok just because it's a chinese company serving you the same garbage as an American one. I believe there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, especially on state-owned devices, given the amount of data they exfiltrate, but "they are poisoning the American youth" is not a good one.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I live in Taiwan. I sometimes look at Facebook reels and Instagram. I never come across anti China or anti US content. I tried tiktok for a day and was bombarded with anti US content. Videos blaming the US for covid. Videos saying that covid started in the US, created by the US, etc. Videos that the US is using Taiwan to start a war with China. I deleted tiktok and have it blocked. You can defend China all you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that the CCP is using it to spread propaganda.
  - b345 4y ago
    Anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's what you were recommended based on your watch history or other data points. YouTube recommends me anti-China content all the time.
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      YouTube has a lot of anti China and anti US content. But you can block channels and subjects and clean it up. But the difference is anti. US content tends to be fake propaganda. Like claiming covid started in the US and was designed to kill people in China? That’s blatant propaganda. That’s anti US. Talking about the US spending money on gain of function research in Wuhan? That’s just reporting on facts. But I don’t consider that anti US. Anti China content is just facts. If a video comes out saying there’s protesting in China due to zero covid. That’s not fake news. It’s not propaganda. It’s just something happening and CCP bots will scream “anti China anti China” You can’t do that on tiktok. I specifically called out Facebook and Instagram. It’s not flooded to death with propaganda.

musk_micropenis 4y ago

Please don't resort to conflating criticism of China (however speculative) with Sinophobia. It lowers the tone of the discussion and imputes a motive onto your peers which isn't warranted. If you have a problem with the facts of the discussion then address them directly.

chrischen 4y ago
He did address the facts of the discussion... The fact is jumping to some ridiculous conclusion that there must be some conspiracy to feed dumb content to Americans is Sinophobic because there is no evidence to suggest such a ridiculous thing, when the obvious answer, as pointed out by grandparent, is much more reasonable of an explanation.
nemothekid 4y ago
Repeating a previous comment: If you want TikTok banned in the US because they don't have proper data hygiene and you believe that data could be used by the CCP in the future that is fair. If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese). >imputes a motive onto your peers If my peers don't realize they are are repeating sinophobic talking points, they should be made aware of them. My concern is chiefly that sinophobia is simply a vector that allows American social media giants to get rid of competition without being forced to clean up their own backyards. If your concern is "algorithmic dumb content", then just banning tiktok is the wrong solution. Secondly, the reason why China has different content on TikTok is through government regulation, and we could do the same thing here! It's not a Chinese conspiracy that keeps Americans from regulating corporations.
- causi 4y ago
  I think Sinophobia is the wrong word. If you're playing for the blue team against the red team you're not red-team-phobic.

heavyset_go 4y ago

> The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Oh please, all countries do it. The US uses Twitter and other social media to instigate civil unrest all over the world. Literal revolutions and genocides have been instigated over US-run social media platforms. I don't know of a superpower that doesn't use the internet as a vector to sow discord and propagate misinformation.

nemothekid 4y ago
I think you are generalizing my claim. My claim is specifically that the claim that the Chinese is using TikTok as some American programming vector is sinophobic. The CCP could be tracking the location of government officials through tiktok; that is a legitimate concern. If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese). If you want to ban TikTok for another reason (such as their incredibly poor data hygiene, such as tracking every action you do within their app browser), then that is fair and you can reasonably argue that point from the grounds of privacy and national defense. My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all.
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  >It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese) If the Chinese and the Americans behaved identically in all other respects, this would be excellent logic. As they do not, it is spurious logic. I don't think you really believe that the Chinese style of governance and Chinese culture are the same as the American style of governance and American culture. Put another way, there's an Australian law that can literally compel Australian coders to become secret agents and implant government backdoors into products they work on at their government's whim [0, 1]. It is not, and would not be, "aussiephobia" to not want to hire a person for whom this is a possibility, or to avoid products that Australian forced-backdoors are likely to be present in. Individual Australians are unlikely to support this, and shouldn't be individually blamed, but does that change the reality of the law? >My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all I've heard it said that politics is the "art of the possible". From a fairness perspective, I'd love to see Western social media get a little regulated. From a harm-reduction perspective, sanctioning the Other social media is, at best, the first step to regulating everything else, and at worst, the only thing we're ever going to get. [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australian_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australia... [1] https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00148 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00148