4 ms·

Realpolitik reciprocity; China bans American social media so turnabout is fair play.

by ls612 4y ago

rtkwe 4y ago
To me part of having any reasonable claim to being "better" as a country involves having a better reason for doing something than "well they did it to us first".
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Agreed. The US seems to be trying very hard to win the race to the bottom these days though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- labster 4y ago
  Without reciprocity, TikTok is a weapon against which America has no equivalent, and we like to stay even in arms races. Russia has very effectively used the internet to sow dissent in its geopolitical rivals, funding far-left, far-right, and separatist causes in Europe and North America. The Overton window has opened so wide that we don’t even agree on reality in the middle now. TikTok is a way to collect personality profiles, and a way to push adversarial content to take advantage of these profiles. It can be used as a radicalization machine with very little way of detecting it with counterintelligence. Now, whether China ever intends to use it this way is another question, as are the appropriate limits of freedom of speech for foreign actors. But the main reason they want to ban it is: it’s a weapon.
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    I don't think I've seen anything other than yellow scare adjacent innuendo that TikTok actually has any nefarious meddling in their algorithm to push different types of content to American vs Chinese users. Youtube and Facebook have both shown that basic heuristics like showing the user things more likely to keep them on the site and interacting is more than enough to form "radicalization pipelines". As for the current consensus reality split in the US and other parts of the world I think that issue has been present and rotting at the center of mass media long before TikTok came around. There's also a big observational bias in our current issues where everything is easily documented and distributed we're able to know about all our neighbor's crazy beliefs and the same for people around the world, so maybe our consensus has always been a lot looser than we imagined we just see the crazies more these days (and the crazies see more of each other of course letting them build a wonderful little alt-reality bubble). I will agree it's definitely much easier for kooks and grifters willing to indulge them to make a buck to find each other these days which has hypercharged the issue.
    - sacnoradhq 4y ago
      They're coming after your children with communism and critical race theory. They're going to exploit them, kidnap them, sell them into slavery, and eat them. Mark my words: they're cannibals. ^- the prevailing, unhinged tone that hobgoblins of the uninformed American mind invent and their politicians exploit.
  - sacnoradhq 4y ago
    X is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. X = [fluoridation, TikTok, missing IKEA parts]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sacnoradhq 4y ago
  Moralization and childishness create value how?
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Consider the game though. Imagine a basketball game where one team is getting away with fouls. If the other team starts doing it and gets called on it, they can't say "well I know we're doing it, but so is the other team." That exemplifies your point. Now consider "free" trade. There is no referee. There are no rules akin to the rules of basketball that each team agrees to. It is just two parties that are deciding what is in their own best interest. When one party feels like they have been cheated, why should they carry on as if nothing happened? How is that in their best interest? There are no overarching rules or governance which both parties are subject to. So "not stooping to their level" isn't going to be commended or rewarded by some party. It's like if you were playing basketball at the park and your opponent repeatedly fouled you but insisted fouls are legal. If you want to perform well, either you find a different team to play against or you start fouling back.
- mannerheim 4y ago
  If we judge better countries by whether they enact retaliatory trade policies, every country has already lost several times over.
selivanovp 4y ago
The difference is that USA is using its social networks for many years already to overthrow governments in multiple countries by organizing protests, and that's why some countries started to ban them. Tiktok is getting banned because USA is afraid, that China is gonna use it against USA the same way.
- mannerheim 4y ago
  Nobody thinks TikTok is going to be used to overthrow the US government. TikTok is getting banned because doing so is in the interests of American tech companies, particularly Facebook. Why should they have to compete on an uneven playing field, after all?
theknocker 4y ago
[dead]
sacnoradhq 4y ago
More like an uninformed suggestion of engaging in recriminatory, lose-lose brinksmanship. Most top websites are already banned in China. There isn't much American allowed in China except: - Apple - Skype - Zoom - Bing - American Standard plumbing fixtures
thiht 4y ago
Let’s do like the bad guys, that’ll show ´em

Realpolitik reciprocity; China bans American social media so turnabout is fair play.

by ls612 4y ago

Realpolitik reciprocity; China bans American social media so turnabout is fair play.

To me part of having any reasonable claim to being "better" as a country involves having a better reason for doing something than "well they did it to us first".

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Agreed. The US seems to be trying very hard to win the race to the bottom these days though.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
labster 4y ago
Without reciprocity, TikTok is a weapon against which America has no equivalent, and we like to stay even in arms races. Russia has very effectively used the internet to sow dissent in its geopolitical rivals, funding far-left, far-right, and separatist causes in Europe and North America. The Overton window has opened so wide that we don’t even agree on reality in the middle now. TikTok is a way to collect personality profiles, and a way to push adversarial content to take advantage of these profiles. It can be used as a radicalization machine with very little way of detecting it with counterintelligence. Now, whether China ever intends to use it this way is another question, as are the appropriate limits of freedom of speech for foreign actors. But the main reason they want to ban it is: it’s a weapon.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  I don't think I've seen anything other than yellow scare adjacent innuendo that TikTok actually has any nefarious meddling in their algorithm to push different types of content to American vs Chinese users. Youtube and Facebook have both shown that basic heuristics like showing the user things more likely to keep them on the site and interacting is more than enough to form "radicalization pipelines". As for the current consensus reality split in the US and other parts of the world I think that issue has been present and rotting at the center of mass media long before TikTok came around. There's also a big observational bias in our current issues where everything is easily documented and distributed we're able to know about all our neighbor's crazy beliefs and the same for people around the world, so maybe our consensus has always been a lot looser than we imagined we just see the crazies more these days (and the crazies see more of each other of course letting them build a wonderful little alt-reality bubble). I will agree it's definitely much easier for kooks and grifters willing to indulge them to make a buck to find each other these days which has hypercharged the issue.
  - sacnoradhq 4y ago
    They're coming after your children with communism and critical race theory. They're going to exploit them, kidnap them, sell them into slavery, and eat them. Mark my words: they're cannibals. ^- the prevailing, unhinged tone that hobgoblins of the uninformed American mind invent and their politicians exploit.
- sacnoradhq 4y ago
  X is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. X = [fluoridation, TikTok, missing IKEA parts]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Moralization and childishness create value how?
nonethewiser 4y ago
Consider the game though. Imagine a basketball game where one team is getting away with fouls. If the other team starts doing it and gets called on it, they can't say "well I know we're doing it, but so is the other team." That exemplifies your point. Now consider "free" trade. There is no referee. There are no rules akin to the rules of basketball that each team agrees to. It is just two parties that are deciding what is in their own best interest. When one party feels like they have been cheated, why should they carry on as if nothing happened? How is that in their best interest? There are no overarching rules or governance which both parties are subject to. So "not stooping to their level" isn't going to be commended or rewarded by some party. It's like if you were playing basketball at the park and your opponent repeatedly fouled you but insisted fouls are legal. If you want to perform well, either you find a different team to play against or you start fouling back.
mannerheim 4y ago
If we judge better countries by whether they enact retaliatory trade policies, every country has already lost several times over.

selivanovp 4y ago

The difference is that USA is using its social networks for many years already to overthrow governments in multiple countries by organizing protests, and that's why some countries started to ban them. Tiktok is getting banned because USA is afraid, that China is gonna use it against USA the same way.

mannerheim 4y ago
Nobody thinks TikTok is going to be used to overthrow the US government. TikTok is getting banned because doing so is in the interests of American tech companies, particularly Facebook. Why should they have to compete on an uneven playing field, after all?

theknocker 4y ago

[dead]

sacnoradhq 4y ago

More like an uninformed suggestion of engaging in recriminatory, lose-lose brinksmanship. Most top websites are already banned in China. There isn't much American allowed in China except: - Apple - Skype - Zoom - Bing - American Standard plumbing fixtures

thiht 4y ago

Let’s do like the bad guys, that’ll show ´em