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What justifies the strength of your confidence? From game-theoretic point of view: is China a geopolitical adversary? Yes. Does China control TikTok? Yes. Is T

What justifies the strength of your confidence? From game-theoretic point of view: is China a geopolitical adversary? Yes. Does China control TikTok? Yes. Is TikTok a tool to tweak how citizens of your adversary think? Yes. Is that powerful? Yes. So the facts our - our adversary is in control of a tool which can influence how we think, which is valuable to them. We don't know for sure that they use the tool but... why wouldn't they?

hwillis 3y ago
> Does China control TikTok? Yes. No. Not in any meaningful way. The data and employees are in the US. Every intelligence agency in the US is watching those buildings and reading their data. The US has no laws against inspecting every single packet sent internationally, the employees are subject to US laws, and tiktok has distanced itself from china. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/tech/tiktok-leaving-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/tech/tiktok-leaving-hong-kong... They are not meaningfully different from any other US company. It's not like they don't give data to china: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-gave-user-data-to-hong-kong-authorities-last-year-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-gave-user-data-to-hon... Tiktok is just the new banana republic, the new gulf war, etc. The US government is aggressively anti-competitive with non-domestic corporate threats to its largest industries. It has always attempted to destroy competition and maximize domestic control of furs, then produce, then oil, and now social media and advertising.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Do you even read your own links? Google answered 44 police requests for user data. That's not the same as the TikTik firehose.
- nikkwong 3y ago
  There are at least several credible reports from several Bytedance employees who claim that the CCP has a much stronger influence on TikTok than is publicly stated; as recently as a year ago. Even if those claims are not true for whatever reason—why is the claim that they want to polarize the west through TikTok hard to believe? We're currently in a zero sum ideological war with them in which they have meddled in at least two of our last elections, they have spyware in internationally exported Huawei equipment, etc. Their recommendation algorithm is a black box, and if they weren't doing anything heinous they could possibly provide some audit trail for US regulators or US employees to inspect. As far as I know they haven't provided much here to improve public perception or lower their risk of getting shut down.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    > We're currently in a zero sum ideological war with them in which they have meddled in at least two of our last elections Oh come on stop with this. People need to chill.
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      Without taking sides on the content, your response to him sounds like what one would say after they ran out of actual argument.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        No, it is the response of someone about to become psychotic from all the war mongering that got into fashion lately.
        xyzelement 3y ago
        Just to reflect that back to you - you're responding to some folks (including myself) who are presenting a game-theoretic argument, and your response stems from "I am about to become psychotic." If your goal is to persuade others to think more like you, "coming from a crazy place" isn't a good way to do that. If you think that people are making an illogical argument, then either present a parallel argument or better yet find the flaw in their logic. The way you're engaging makes it seem like "logic" is on one side and "psychosis" is on the other side - so someone reading this who could be persuaded one way or the other, has zero reason to go with you.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        I am referring to myself, as the one about to get psychotic. Sorry if I was unclear. Otherwise I agree with your points.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
blackoil 3y ago
> What justifies the strength of your confidence? Not OP but have a similar view. Behavior of TikTok isn't any different from other social media companies like FB and YouTube. The algos everywhere push higher engagement content and that is mostly dumb or polarising in nature. TikTok is in general averse to political content. It is full of misinformation but so is Youtube and Facebook. Short video is in general a worse format for nuanced content but great for engagement and AI. Now FB and Google have copied that. We should look at harms of social media in collective and not trying to find some political scapegoats ignoring the root cause.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I find your view true and naive at the same time. It’s true in the sense that all of these things are powerful and destructive. The naive thing is to ignore the added danger of the powerful and destructive thing being controlled by your adversary.

hwillis 3y ago

> Does China control TikTok? Yes. No. Not in any meaningful way. The data and employees are in the US. Every intelligence agency in the US is watching those buildings and reading their data. The US has no laws against inspecting every single packet sent internationally, the employees are subject to US laws, and tiktok has distanced itself from china. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/tech/tiktok-leaving-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/tech/tiktok-leaving-hong-kong... They are not meaningfully different from any other US company. It's not like they don't give data to china: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-gave-user-data-to-hong-kong-authorities-last-year-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-gave-user-data-to-hon... Tiktok is just the new banana republic, the new gulf war, etc. The US government is aggressively anti-competitive with non-domestic corporate threats to its largest industries. It has always attempted to destroy competition and maximize domestic control of furs, then produce, then oil, and now social media and advertising.

justrealist 3y ago
Do you even read your own links? Google answered 44 police requests for user data. That's not the same as the TikTik firehose.
nikkwong 3y ago
There are at least several credible reports from several Bytedance employees who claim that the CCP has a much stronger influence on TikTok than is publicly stated; as recently as a year ago. Even if those claims are not true for whatever reason—why is the claim that they want to polarize the west through TikTok hard to believe? We're currently in a zero sum ideological war with them in which they have meddled in at least two of our last elections, they have spyware in internationally exported Huawei equipment, etc. Their recommendation algorithm is a black box, and if they weren't doing anything heinous they could possibly provide some audit trail for US regulators or US employees to inspect. As far as I know they haven't provided much here to improve public perception or lower their risk of getting shut down.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  > We're currently in a zero sum ideological war with them in which they have meddled in at least two of our last elections Oh come on stop with this. People need to chill.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    Without taking sides on the content, your response to him sounds like what one would say after they ran out of actual argument.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      No, it is the response of someone about to become psychotic from all the war mongering that got into fashion lately.
      - xyzelement 3y ago
        Just to reflect that back to you - you're responding to some folks (including myself) who are presenting a game-theoretic argument, and your response stems from "I am about to become psychotic." If your goal is to persuade others to think more like you, "coming from a crazy place" isn't a good way to do that. If you think that people are making an illogical argument, then either present a parallel argument or better yet find the flaw in their logic. The way you're engaging makes it seem like "logic" is on one side and "psychosis" is on the other side - so someone reading this who could be persuaded one way or the other, has zero reason to go with you.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        I am referring to myself, as the one about to get psychotic. Sorry if I was unclear. Otherwise I agree with your points.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

blackoil 3y ago

> What justifies the strength of your confidence? Not OP but have a similar view. Behavior of TikTok isn't any different from other social media companies like FB and YouTube. The algos everywhere push higher engagement content and that is mostly dumb or polarising in nature. TikTok is in general averse to political content. It is full of misinformation but so is Youtube and Facebook. Short video is in general a worse format for nuanced content but great for engagement and AI. Now FB and Google have copied that. We should look at harms of social media in collective and not trying to find some political scapegoats ignoring the root cause.

xyzelement 3y ago
I find your view true and naive at the same time. It’s true in the sense that all of these things are powerful and destructive. The naive thing is to ignore the added danger of the powerful and destructive thing being controlled by your adversary.