4 ms·

We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China. The CCP got wise to crappy addictive content, and made sure that Byte

We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China. The CCP got wise to crappy addictive content, and made sure that ByteDance (TikTok's owner) only displays legitimate educational content (languages, maths, physics, etc). If you're going to get people addicted to short-form content, at least teach them something useful. Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us. To those who think that would be unfair - get a grip. China does this shit all the time. China also freely admits they are in an economic competition with the US and wants to overtake the US in terms of economic power. A good analogy to this is steroids in an athletic competition. The US won't use them, but won't stop their competition from using them, but acts surprised when their competition (China) beats them. Either the playing field is level and everyone acts as such (quid-pro-quo in terms of banning tech products), or the playing field is not level (acknowledging that one side is playing by a different set of rules and gets to continue doing so) and one party is objectively playing a different game, one that it will win every time when its competition is stuck claiming moral superiority. China doesn't give a fuck about your morals, and China will stop at nothing to win.

gizmo686 3y ago
We don't want to outsource our regulations to China. We should implement our own regulations for how media apps must behave, and apply those rules across the board (on both foreign and domestic companies).
ssabev 3y ago
Absolutely agree here. We should be intolerant of intolerance in democratic societies and reciprocate with the more questionable counter parties from countries with .. shall we say different moral norms.
AlexandrB 3y ago
It is unfair, but not to China or even TikTok. It's unfair to TikTok's users. Why are we advocating that China-style censorship should be applied to apps we use in the west just because the parent company is in China? And where does this stop? Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it?
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it? Yes. I say that as a gay person, too; if China wants to enforce their policy, the US should demand they do it in the ugliest way possible. Their anachronistic decisions will become a lot more obvious if they're forced to pick one side in the game of public perception.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  It's basically called not being a sucker. They ban all our apps, so we should ban their apps. It's tit for tat. If they want to sell in our market, they should open up their market! It's totally unfair to allow them to operate in our market while they ban and restrict every single large american tech platform in their own.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it? Most movie studios literally cut a different movie for Chinese audiences to downplay the surface level faux "look we care about gay people, give us money" they do for western audiences. Nearby, Target literally pulled LBGTQ merchandise because some people hate the mere existence of LGBTQ people, and Bud light lost 10% of their damn value for throwing a token ad at someone who is Trans.
lukeschlather 3y ago
I think you're confusing winning a game with living life. The reason we don't use steroids is we institutionally value living a healthy life more highly than winning a game. China-TikTok is unhealthy in a different way than USA-TikTok but it's still unhealthy. And while USA-TikTok has issues I'm not sure Facebook is any better, so the question is how we come up with generally protective rules. Really I think the EU has a good approach with GDPR and we need to copy that. Banning TikTok or putting special rules on them is maybe a better reaction than doing nothing whatsoever but it's kneejerk and does very little to solve the fundamental problems.
- mantas 3y ago
  GDPR does not help with TikTok. It’s same cancer over here.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  I think the steroid ban is not for the benefit of the professional competitors, but for the impressionable public. It is a tragedy when our young people are harmed by PEDs because most of them do not go on to become super-atheletes and are left maimed by the experience. But I am just guessing. China may also have an official public statement that they do not use PEDs, while wink wink nod nod anything to gain attention and glory for CCP on the international stage is worth the sacrifice. These games we play are strange indeed.
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
I agree with you overall but I would crop a major part of your argument: > Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us. You don't actually want TikTok in the US to ban all mention of LGBTQ rights, Taiwan, and Whiney The Poo, do you? Those are the rules for TikTok in China; applying them the US would not be a good thing. But I think the rest of your point is spot on. I don't see why the US should allow TikTok in its country if China doesn't allow Facebook in their country, just on pure economic/free-trade grounds.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  Sure, ban that stuff. People will appropriately stop using the app
bdangubic 3y ago
The most remarkable thing about your comment is that if US does a single thing you suggested we loose what we are about and what separates us from countries like China…
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  If you think the US has ever been serious about free trade then you need a history lesson.
  - bdangubic 3y ago
    Not sure I understand what does "free trade" have to do with anything here? I was commenting on: 1. "We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China." I and hopefully 99.999% Americans do not want to live in a country that 'legally mandates' what content is available for consumption 2. "Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us." Again - WUT?! Not even going to elaborate on this silliness... 3. "China does this shit all the time." Happy to NOT do what China does :) etc etc...
- paulmd 3y ago
  Well, yes. Open societies are vulnerable in a way that authoritarian ones are not. Absolute free speech is a weakness, adversaries will take advantage of the openness of your mind and the leverage that fake news will provide them. And that’s even with some of the most disagreeable speech (active threats etc) still banned. Like we’re not even absolute free speech and it still sucks just how easy it is to ride the line with vague threats, knowing mistruths (Fox News etc), and other “valid” speech. It’s better to take stricter approaches like Germany etc and have the lines drawn a bit broader and have nazis banned entirely etc. The “discourse banishes bad ideas” thing is a wishful fairy tale. Adversarial actors will parasitize your openness and use it to spread their message, and rebutting it only spreads the “debate” and gives it legitimacy. It’s better to stamp that shit out and force it out of mainstream channels and into separate “racist services” like gab, truth social, voat, etc. It is what divides us from china but it’s also what’s tearing down our political system from the inside, because propaganda still works regardless of what you think about it. It’s marketing for ideology, nobody thinks marketing works either but companies aren’t spending billions of dollars for nothing. And the open western dialogue and interchange of information makes the propaganda more effective and propagate quicker. An open mind is like a fortress with its gates undefended. There are some things you shouldn’t be open to even rebutting because they are simply so far out of the window of acceptability. We don’t debate people’s right to exist, for example.
tenebrisalietum 3y ago
When I put "tiktok bytedance ownership" in Google, I get this: "ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan's SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%. Some details of the relationship between TikTok and ByteDance remain unclear to outsiders.Mar 24, 2023"
fasterik 3y ago
"Crappy addictive content" shouldn't be illegal just like junk food shouldn't be illegal. People can make their own choices about what they consume without the government making decisions for them.
oefrha 3y ago
> made sure that ByteDance (TikTok's owner) only displays legitimate educational content (languages, maths, physics, etc) Can't believe that laughable bullshit keeps being repeated. Anyone who spent a minute on Douyin will tell you that's false. Approximately no one would be using it otherwise, instead of approximately everyone. Society addicted to an education platform… Does that sound possible to you in this universe? It's interesting how people here call right wing media fake news, but then regurgitate their outright lies that are easily seen through if you actually think about it when it comes to certain topics.
- NickC25 3y ago
  I don't know how accurate it is - but I used to do business directly with Tsinghua University, and through that I got to know an executive who was pretty high up the food chain at ByteDance, and I'm regurgitating what he told me verbatim in terms of content "requested" on them by The Party. The Party had been quite worried about how much bullshit and useless information can be conveyed through short-form video, and wanted to be sure that if kids were going to be addicted to it, they might as well learn something useful.
  - oefrha 3y ago
    Kids or adults simply don’t get addicted to educational content. An amazing human species for which the most popular app is an educational app doesn’t walk this earth. I have no way to verify who you’re regurgitating, but I can open the Douyin website/app, which I just did, to verify that 99.9% of it is not educational, and the “crappy addictive content” are getting millions of likes as ever. And the very popular livestreams which are a major source of their income have exactly nothing to do with education. Edit: Here's a screenshot of some of the most popular livestreams recommended to a visitor of live.douyin.com: https://0x0.st/HL9e.png https://0x0.st/HL9e.png Does any of these look educational to you?

gizmo686 3y ago

We don't want to outsource our regulations to China. We should implement our own regulations for how media apps must behave, and apply those rules across the board (on both foreign and domestic companies).

ssabev 3y ago

Absolutely agree here. We should be intolerant of intolerance in democratic societies and reciprocate with the more questionable counter parties from countries with .. shall we say different moral norms.

AlexandrB 3y ago

It is unfair, but not to China or even TikTok. It's unfair to TikTok's users. Why are we advocating that China-style censorship should be applied to apps we use in the west just because the parent company is in China? And where does this stop? Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it?

smoldesu 3y ago
> Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it? Yes. I say that as a gay person, too; if China wants to enforce their policy, the US should demand they do it in the ugliest way possible. Their anachronistic decisions will become a lot more obvious if they're forced to pick one side in the game of public perception.
daft_pink 3y ago
It's basically called not being a sucker. They ban all our apps, so we should ban their apps. It's tit for tat. If they want to sell in our market, they should open up their market! It's totally unfair to allow them to operate in our market while they ban and restrict every single large american tech platform in their own.
mrguyorama 3y ago
>Do we restrict LGBTQ content in TikTok because China does it? Most movie studios literally cut a different movie for Chinese audiences to downplay the surface level faux "look we care about gay people, give us money" they do for western audiences. Nearby, Target literally pulled LBGTQ merchandise because some people hate the mere existence of LGBTQ people, and Bud light lost 10% of their damn value for throwing a token ad at someone who is Trans.

lukeschlather 3y ago

I think you're confusing winning a game with living life. The reason we don't use steroids is we institutionally value living a healthy life more highly than winning a game. China-TikTok is unhealthy in a different way than USA-TikTok but it's still unhealthy. And while USA-TikTok has issues I'm not sure Facebook is any better, so the question is how we come up with generally protective rules. Really I think the EU has a good approach with GDPR and we need to copy that. Banning TikTok or putting special rules on them is maybe a better reaction than doing nothing whatsoever but it's kneejerk and does very little to solve the fundamental problems.

mantas 3y ago
GDPR does not help with TikTok. It’s same cancer over here.
engineer_22 3y ago
I think the steroid ban is not for the benefit of the professional competitors, but for the impressionable public. It is a tragedy when our young people are harmed by PEDs because most of them do not go on to become super-atheletes and are left maimed by the experience. But I am just guessing. China may also have an official public statement that they do not use PEDs, while wink wink nod nod anything to gain attention and glory for CCP on the international stage is worth the sacrifice. These games we play are strange indeed.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

I agree with you overall but I would crop a major part of your argument: > Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us. You don't actually want TikTok in the US to ban all mention of LGBTQ rights, Taiwan, and Whiney The Poo, do you? Those are the rules for TikTok in China; applying them the US would not be a good thing. But I think the rest of your point is spot on. I don't see why the US should allow TikTok in its country if China doesn't allow Facebook in their country, just on pure economic/free-trade grounds.

dmonitor 3y ago
Sure, ban that stuff. People will appropriately stop using the app

bdangubic 3y ago

The most remarkable thing about your comment is that if US does a single thing you suggested we loose what we are about and what separates us from countries like China…

mrguyorama 3y ago
If you think the US has ever been serious about free trade then you need a history lesson.
- bdangubic 3y ago
  Not sure I understand what does "free trade" have to do with anything here? I was commenting on: 1. "We should insist that TikTok display the same content it is legally mandated to in China." I and hopefully 99.999% Americans do not want to live in a country that 'legally mandates' what content is available for consumption 2. "Also we should insist that quid-pro-quo policies be implemented - if China wants to ban our tech companies and control anything and everything on their shores, we need to treat them the same way they treat us." Again - WUT?! Not even going to elaborate on this silliness... 3. "China does this shit all the time." Happy to NOT do what China does :) etc etc...
paulmd 3y ago
Well, yes. Open societies are vulnerable in a way that authoritarian ones are not. Absolute free speech is a weakness, adversaries will take advantage of the openness of your mind and the leverage that fake news will provide them. And that’s even with some of the most disagreeable speech (active threats etc) still banned. Like we’re not even absolute free speech and it still sucks just how easy it is to ride the line with vague threats, knowing mistruths (Fox News etc), and other “valid” speech. It’s better to take stricter approaches like Germany etc and have the lines drawn a bit broader and have nazis banned entirely etc. The “discourse banishes bad ideas” thing is a wishful fairy tale. Adversarial actors will parasitize your openness and use it to spread their message, and rebutting it only spreads the “debate” and gives it legitimacy. It’s better to stamp that shit out and force it out of mainstream channels and into separate “racist services” like gab, truth social, voat, etc. It is what divides us from china but it’s also what’s tearing down our political system from the inside, because propaganda still works regardless of what you think about it. It’s marketing for ideology, nobody thinks marketing works either but companies aren’t spending billions of dollars for nothing. And the open western dialogue and interchange of information makes the propaganda more effective and propagate quicker. An open mind is like a fortress with its gates undefended. There are some things you shouldn’t be open to even rebutting because they are simply so far out of the window of acceptability. We don’t debate people’s right to exist, for example.

tenebrisalietum 3y ago

When I put "tiktok bytedance ownership" in Google, I get this: "ByteDance says 60% of its shares are owned by non-Chinese investors such as U.S investment firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Japan's SoftBank Group. Employees own 20% and its founders the remaining 20%. Some details of the relationship between TikTok and ByteDance remain unclear to outsiders.Mar 24, 2023"

fasterik 3y ago

"Crappy addictive content" shouldn't be illegal just like junk food shouldn't be illegal. People can make their own choices about what they consume without the government making decisions for them.

oefrha 3y ago

> made sure that ByteDance (TikTok's owner) only displays legitimate educational content (languages, maths, physics, etc) Can't believe that laughable bullshit keeps being repeated. Anyone who spent a minute on Douyin will tell you that's false. Approximately no one would be using it otherwise, instead of approximately everyone. Society addicted to an education platform… Does that sound possible to you in this universe? It's interesting how people here call right wing media fake news, but then regurgitate their outright lies that are easily seen through if you actually think about it when it comes to certain topics.

NickC25 3y ago
I don't know how accurate it is - but I used to do business directly with Tsinghua University, and through that I got to know an executive who was pretty high up the food chain at ByteDance, and I'm regurgitating what he told me verbatim in terms of content "requested" on them by The Party. The Party had been quite worried about how much bullshit and useless information can be conveyed through short-form video, and wanted to be sure that if kids were going to be addicted to it, they might as well learn something useful.
- oefrha 3y ago
  Kids or adults simply don’t get addicted to educational content. An amazing human species for which the most popular app is an educational app doesn’t walk this earth. I have no way to verify who you’re regurgitating, but I can open the Douyin website/app, which I just did, to verify that 99.9% of it is not educational, and the “crappy addictive content” are getting millions of likes as ever. And the very popular livestreams which are a major source of their income have exactly nothing to do with education. Edit: Here's a screenshot of some of the most popular livestreams recommended to a visitor of live.douyin.com: https://0x0.st/HL9e.png https://0x0.st/HL9e.png Does any of these look educational to you?