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Noam Chomsky argues the United States is a leading terrorist state. Does that mean TikTok is going to take down anything related to US foreign policy? Are regu

Noam Chomsky argues the United States is a leading terrorist state. Does that mean TikTok is going to take down anything related to US foreign policy? Are regular people not allowed to read or share content created by anyone the US government doesn’t like? Are people not allowed to form their own opinions? What a joke. The “free” democratic west where communication is limited by a handful of large corporate interests and a murderous government that pressures them to censor content they don’t like. TikTok may be owned by a Chinese company but there is no doubt in my mind they are being pressured by US authorities to control what is disseminated on their platform. I don’t think congress just forgot about wanting to ban TikTok, I think it’s likely they were able to rein in control of the platform. What Osama Bin Laden did in 2001 isn’t justifiable but neither is decades of US interventionist foreign policy that has left millions of innocent people dead or living in poverty and continues to the present day.

alphanullmeric 3y ago
TikTok is a private company and your use of their service is not a right.
- boredpeter 3y ago
  My criticism of there being a few corporate gatekeepers of communication that are bullied by the government to censor content it doesn’t like is valid. You’re free to believe whatever neocon libertarian nonsense you wish.
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    I don’t support any government bullying of private companies, although I’m sure any level of consistency would be unfamiliar to people like you. Should TikTok be allowed to control what goes onto their service? That’s a yes or no question.
    - shove 3y ago
      The government bullying left-leaning foreign governments is chill though, right guys?
      - alphanullmeric 3y ago
        No. The US government should stay out of other countries business’. They should even stay out of NATO. But again, I’m sure you don’t have that level of consistency.
        shove 3y ago
        I’m an anarchist. The US government shouldn’t exist in the first place.
        mensetmanusman 3y ago
        if not them, then you! or roving gun gangs :)
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        Does your anarchism extend to the aforementioned left leaning foreign governments?
    - boredpeter 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - alphanullmeric 3y ago
        Oh this is hilarious. Not only do you confirm that you wouldn't support them doing what they choose to with their service in the absence of government intervention, you would actively support the same government intervention you pretended to be against if it meant you could force them to do something you benefit from. If you wanted to prove that consistency wasn't exclusive to me you've done a pretty poor job. Combing through someone's account to avoid a yes or no question is especially pathetic.
  - junofan 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - boredpeter 3y ago
      I believe that in a free democratic society people should be allowed to read a letter written by an Islamic fundamentalist who orchestrated the largest terrorist attack against the United States. I believe people should be allowed to form their own opinions about his motives beyond what US government propagandists want the US public to believe. Contrary to public belief, I don’t think they did it because they hate our freedom. And I think if you do believe that and you also see no problem with platform after platform trying to scrub the document from public view then you’ve got your head on backwards.
      - flextheruler 3y ago
        People aren’t allowed to read something because it isn’t on TikTok is certainly not a take I’d expect to hear from someone rallying against America. Typically that’s a right wing conservative argument that Trump and Fox News parrot about Alex Jones and what not.
      - flashback2199 3y ago
        I think most would agree that writing shouldn't get banned like 1984 style, but tiktok picks and chooses random videos to shove in people's faces to watch, so it's not like users would have looked up this letter and were prevented from reading it, it sounds like they're trying to prevent videos about it from being shoved in people's faces who weren't looking for it, it's a bit different don't you think?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - abracadaniel 3y ago
    And what if the corporate gatekeepers censor themselves due to market forces instead? Like advertisers threatening to pull funding because they don’t think it’s a good look for them.
    - krapp 3y ago
      Outside of coercion from government, self-censorship is just an expression of personal liberty and freedom of association, isn't it? You can't believe in free speech and also believe platforms should be forced to publish speech they don't want, or advertisers to associate themselves with it.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Similarly, the airspeed of a European swallow is roughly 20.1 miles per hour.
lp0_on_fire 3y ago
Chomsky argues many things but the only things you should take from him without a whole tablespoon of salt has to do with linguistics. Certainly not geopolitics.
- shove 3y ago
  Except for the incredibly inconvenient and annoying coincidence that he happens to be right in his critiques of US foreign policy most of the time.
- defrost 3y ago
  I first read Chomsky in the '80s for his work on grammer, I'm not sold (nor are others) on his ideas of universal grammer or innate syntactic knowledge. Contrariwise his book later that decade Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media seems to be pretty much bang on the money outlining propaganda as an emergent behaviour that doesn't require an excess of particular directed pressure to come about.
- mistermann 3y ago
  ITT: humans who agree with their own opinions. Wow, how rare!
berserk1010 3y ago
[flagged]
- boredpeter 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - berserk1010 3y ago
    Yes, like the peace they've brought to Middle Eastern countries like Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc. Do you enjoy living in the free part of world that you can access hacker news, protected by US? you do realize that by fighting communism and dictatorships, sometimes grey areas appear, and lives are lost. Only naive people sees world as black and white. Again, if you don't like it, move to one of those dictatorship countries where there is no freedom of speech. Yes, if you don't like the US approach to securing freedom and democracy for the free world, go move to a dictatorship. Most of the current free world is enjoying the US's protection.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      I prefer an alternate approach: the enemy of my enemy (deceitful, violent Western culture) is my friend. I believe it is more optimal for Western countries (and their citizens' lifestyles) to be taken down several pegs, and I do not mind so much if it is a net loss for everyone (as opposed to a rebalancing).
    - tdeck 3y ago
      Iraq is on this list after the US invaded, deliberately destroyed a ton of civilian infrastructure, started a war that lasted 8 years, and killed half a million people?
    - 616c 3y ago
      Perhaps having lived close to Saudi Arabia, your comment is asinine and reflects a true a true misunderstanding of the region and the US government and other Western powers influence within it, past and present. I lived there six plus years, why don't you go there and report back what you learned? This is akin to speaking lazily about hardware and software engineering lazily on this site contradicting many available resourced and not expecting to be called out. It is expected though by me here and elsewhere. Studying languages and regional politics is just as much a speciality as computer science, but many in the US write it off, especially for Arab studies. It's why I pivoted from that expertise into IT and security since people with that expertise especially are not in government influencing or implementing sound policy based on that discipline. So this year's news has not been a surprise to me or my colleagues at all.
scarmig 3y ago
The idea that China is hoping for some Islamist radical campaign against the USA is misplaced. China fundamentally wants order within its borders (defined as China defines them), and terrorism against any major state actor doesn't align with its goals. Its vision of a new world order is a collection of states dividing the world into spheres of influence, without individualistic activism, violent or otherwise, disrupting state power within those spheres. More likely than not, the US didn't even need to request anything of TikTok to get this censorship: it arose organically.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > China fundamentally wants order within its borders Aside, I have a pet theory involving how the game Battlefield 4 (2013) was banned in China. The plot does not depict China as some inherently Anti-Freedom Giant Evil Empire, but I think that--in the eyes of Chinese censors--it did something even worse: It suggested that there were cracks in the empire, that it was even possible for a rogue Chinese admiral to (in the then-future year 2020) stage a credible coup against the Chinese establishment.
  - scarmig 3y ago
    I didn't follow that at all, but it seems plausible to me. "China is an evil empire hellbent on world domination" can reasonably be written off as shallow propaganda by a foreign adversary; "China is a fragile coalition of different groups that could easily shatter under stress" is far more dangerous to the CCP's ideology of a unified state, people, and most importantly party to lead them. The former seems like nonsense to anyone who has lived in China, while the latter resonates. The latter also has the shadow of history cast over it: the greatest threats to China have usually been internal division and discord, not external threats.

alphanullmeric 3y ago

TikTok is a private company and your use of their service is not a right.

boredpeter 3y ago
My criticism of there being a few corporate gatekeepers of communication that are bullied by the government to censor content it doesn’t like is valid. You’re free to believe whatever neocon libertarian nonsense you wish.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  I don’t support any government bullying of private companies, although I’m sure any level of consistency would be unfamiliar to people like you. Should TikTok be allowed to control what goes onto their service? That’s a yes or no question.
  - shove 3y ago
    The government bullying left-leaning foreign governments is chill though, right guys?
    - alphanullmeric 3y ago
      No. The US government should stay out of other countries business’. They should even stay out of NATO. But again, I’m sure you don’t have that level of consistency.
      - shove 3y ago
        I’m an anarchist. The US government shouldn’t exist in the first place.
        mensetmanusman 3y ago
        if not them, then you! or roving gun gangs :)
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        Does your anarchism extend to the aforementioned left leaning foreign governments?
  - boredpeter 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - alphanullmeric 3y ago
      Oh this is hilarious. Not only do you confirm that you wouldn't support them doing what they choose to with their service in the absence of government intervention, you would actively support the same government intervention you pretended to be against if it meant you could force them to do something you benefit from. If you wanted to prove that consistency wasn't exclusive to me you've done a pretty poor job. Combing through someone's account to avoid a yes or no question is especially pathetic.
- junofan 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - boredpeter 3y ago
    I believe that in a free democratic society people should be allowed to read a letter written by an Islamic fundamentalist who orchestrated the largest terrorist attack against the United States. I believe people should be allowed to form their own opinions about his motives beyond what US government propagandists want the US public to believe. Contrary to public belief, I don’t think they did it because they hate our freedom. And I think if you do believe that and you also see no problem with platform after platform trying to scrub the document from public view then you’ve got your head on backwards.
    - flextheruler 3y ago
      People aren’t allowed to read something because it isn’t on TikTok is certainly not a take I’d expect to hear from someone rallying against America. Typically that’s a right wing conservative argument that Trump and Fox News parrot about Alex Jones and what not.
    - flashback2199 3y ago
      I think most would agree that writing shouldn't get banned like 1984 style, but tiktok picks and chooses random videos to shove in people's faces to watch, so it's not like users would have looked up this letter and were prevented from reading it, it sounds like they're trying to prevent videos about it from being shoved in people's faces who weren't looking for it, it's a bit different don't you think?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- abracadaniel 3y ago
  And what if the corporate gatekeepers censor themselves due to market forces instead? Like advertisers threatening to pull funding because they don’t think it’s a good look for them.
  - krapp 3y ago
    Outside of coercion from government, self-censorship is just an expression of personal liberty and freedom of association, isn't it? You can't believe in free speech and also believe platforms should be forced to publish speech they don't want, or advertisers to associate themselves with it.
mistermann 3y ago
Similarly, the airspeed of a European swallow is roughly 20.1 miles per hour.

lp0_on_fire 3y ago

Chomsky argues many things but the only things you should take from him without a whole tablespoon of salt has to do with linguistics. Certainly not geopolitics.

shove 3y ago
Except for the incredibly inconvenient and annoying coincidence that he happens to be right in his critiques of US foreign policy most of the time.
defrost 3y ago
I first read Chomsky in the '80s for his work on grammer, I'm not sold (nor are others) on his ideas of universal grammer or innate syntactic knowledge. Contrariwise his book later that decade Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media seems to be pretty much bang on the money outlining propaganda as an emergent behaviour that doesn't require an excess of particular directed pressure to come about.
mistermann 3y ago
ITT: humans who agree with their own opinions. Wow, how rare!

berserk1010 3y ago

[flagged]

boredpeter 3y ago
[flagged]
- berserk1010 3y ago
  Yes, like the peace they've brought to Middle Eastern countries like Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc. Do you enjoy living in the free part of world that you can access hacker news, protected by US? you do realize that by fighting communism and dictatorships, sometimes grey areas appear, and lives are lost. Only naive people sees world as black and white. Again, if you don't like it, move to one of those dictatorship countries where there is no freedom of speech. Yes, if you don't like the US approach to securing freedom and democracy for the free world, go move to a dictatorship. Most of the current free world is enjoying the US's protection.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    I prefer an alternate approach: the enemy of my enemy (deceitful, violent Western culture) is my friend. I believe it is more optimal for Western countries (and their citizens' lifestyles) to be taken down several pegs, and I do not mind so much if it is a net loss for everyone (as opposed to a rebalancing).
  - tdeck 3y ago
    Iraq is on this list after the US invaded, deliberately destroyed a ton of civilian infrastructure, started a war that lasted 8 years, and killed half a million people?
  - 616c 3y ago
    Perhaps having lived close to Saudi Arabia, your comment is asinine and reflects a true a true misunderstanding of the region and the US government and other Western powers influence within it, past and present. I lived there six plus years, why don't you go there and report back what you learned? This is akin to speaking lazily about hardware and software engineering lazily on this site contradicting many available resourced and not expecting to be called out. It is expected though by me here and elsewhere. Studying languages and regional politics is just as much a speciality as computer science, but many in the US write it off, especially for Arab studies. It's why I pivoted from that expertise into IT and security since people with that expertise especially are not in government influencing or implementing sound policy based on that discipline. So this year's news has not been a surprise to me or my colleagues at all.

scarmig 3y ago

The idea that China is hoping for some Islamist radical campaign against the USA is misplaced. China fundamentally wants order within its borders (defined as China defines them), and terrorism against any major state actor doesn't align with its goals. Its vision of a new world order is a collection of states dividing the world into spheres of influence, without individualistic activism, violent or otherwise, disrupting state power within those spheres. More likely than not, the US didn't even need to request anything of TikTok to get this censorship: it arose organically.

Terr_ 3y ago
> China fundamentally wants order within its borders Aside, I have a pet theory involving how the game Battlefield 4 (2013) was banned in China. The plot does not depict China as some inherently Anti-Freedom Giant Evil Empire, but I think that--in the eyes of Chinese censors--it did something even worse: It suggested that there were cracks in the empire, that it was even possible for a rogue Chinese admiral to (in the then-future year 2020) stage a credible coup against the Chinese establishment.
- scarmig 3y ago
  I didn't follow that at all, but it seems plausible to me. "China is an evil empire hellbent on world domination" can reasonably be written off as shallow propaganda by a foreign adversary; "China is a fragile coalition of different groups that could easily shatter under stress" is far more dangerous to the CCP's ideology of a unified state, people, and most importantly party to lead them. The former seems like nonsense to anyone who has lived in China, while the latter resonates. The latter also has the shadow of history cast over it: the greatest threats to China have usually been internal division and discord, not external threats.