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How this is different from Meta's "reduction" of pro-Palestinian posts exposure and preventing it from spreading too far? Does Meta's (or other similar actors'

How this is different from Meta's "reduction" of pro-Palestinian posts exposure and preventing it from spreading too far? Does Meta's (or other similar actors') actions align with potential countries' geopolitical objectives? Can we look both of them objectively and say both are bad (I think so), or is there us vs. them mentality?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
EDIT: Nvm, misread the Appendix. They’re dampening pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine and anti-Trump content. > Can we look both of them objectively and say both are bad (I think so), or is there us vs. them mentality? Yes. That doesn’t preclude classifying how they are bad, both commonly and uniquely.
- Adverblessly 3y ago
  I think you misread it, the linked study shows that HamasIsIsis is also a suppressed tag. They are suppressing pro-Israel content and promoting pro-Palestine content.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    You’re right. Thank you.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  It was a honest question. I have no TikTok account, and not opening Facebook app more than a year now. I just share some photography I do on Instagram, but it doesn't cross post to Facebook either. So, I just wanted to ask and learn.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    I also have neither. I’m just citing the paper. Reading it might be a good start.
    - bayindirh 3y ago
      It's sitting on my printer's output tray, however I have more pressing matters now. I'll go through it tomorrow.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > however I have more pressing matters now This is rude. You’re implicitly valuing everyone else’s time less than yours. (Not bad. Just rude.)
        bayindirh 3y ago
        Nope. I didn't say I did not open/skimmed it. I looked into it, got a couple of questions and asked it, and you answered it, and I thanked you in a long form. If I didn't value your time or anyone else's, I can write short/snarky answers and/or leave you hanging. Lastly, insinuating that someone didn't read the article is also rude, and against the guidelines, too. > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". Have a nice day, and a nice year.
notjoemama 3y ago
Maybe, but isn’t part of the problem contextual? Multiple US corporations have manipulated their content based on sensitivities that are promoted from specifically the CCP and not based on moral outlook of their population. It seems to me that’s a clear indicator of over bearing authoritarian control. Baring any value statements about political systems, isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another; particularly when an adversarial relationship exists?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another We restrict foreign ownership of media properties to 25 percent (without review) [1]. Expanding that rule to social media would make sense. Beijing requires TikTok run itself differently within China, after all [2]. That’s the difference in care that matters. (Facebook’s lack of care in Myanmar comes to mind as analogous [3].) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14/the-next-rupert-murdoch-wont-have-to-change-his-citizenship-to-rule-the-tv-biz/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-bytedance-china-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-bytedance-... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
  - Kadin 3y ago
    Expanding the foreign ownership rule to include social media platform companies (and, frankly, any strategically-important technology company in general) seems like a no-brainer. Other countries should logically do the same. If Burma/Myanmar doesn't like what Facebook is doing there, they have demonstrated the capability to shut it down on multiple occasions. Setting aside that their government is a basically-illegitimate military junta, if I was them, I sure as fuck wouldn't let a US tech company operate within my country without a significant local presence that I could exert influence on.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  > Baring any value statements about political systems, isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another No, in fact, many international newspapers, particularly those in Europe, report more honestly on the US than outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post. El Pais has far more integrity than either of those and it’s owned by a Spanish media conglomerate.
goalieca 3y ago
Meta is run by billionaires acting in their own self interest and it’s obvious when often in conflict with the USA government. TikTok parent company is accountable to the government of China.
- foverzar 3y ago
  This is a naive reductionism. Also, the fact that Meta employs lots of spooks is commonly perceived as "Meta is accountable to the US government", which is no less reductionist.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - goalieca 3y ago
    It’s not naive at all. Corporate dynamics are widely different in China. In China there is no strong separation between corporations and government.
    - foverzar 3y ago
      Corporate dynamics is different across any culture. > In China there is no strong separation between corporations and government. Is there even a country where that's actually a thing? It's definitely the opposite of "strong separation" in the US, just look at the lobbying institution.
fjoiefj 3y ago
[flagged]
- notjoemama 3y ago
  Following your value statements, somehow we’re just supposed to ignore the CCP policy of US accelerationism? Like I said in another comment (here I will point out the paper says this) the difference is a political party in China manipulating content behind the scenes and Instagram manipulating content based on their publicly available content policy. Additionally the former is specifically geared towards CCP interests, not based on citizens outlook or morality, whereas Instagram attempts to cater to what they believe is the moral perspective of their users.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the difference is a political party in China manipulating content behind the scene It’s also meaningful that it’s China. They’re an adversary. This would be very different if we were talking about France or India.
    - notjoemama 3y ago
      And to underscore that, the CCP has openly said and planned to be the dominate financial, political, and military force on the globe. Their intention and actions are exactly to reduce not just US influence but all other influence. Neither France nor India take that stand point. A country hell bent on global domination has never worked anyway.
      - woooooo 3y ago
        Do you have a quote from anybody you're basing that on?
alexsereno 3y ago
Of course they do, however an important distinction here is that Meta is banned in China and TikTok is not banned here. Both are bad, but Chinese netizens aren’t exposed to one of the two. China is quite good about filtering out which propaganda interests they want their citizens exposed to, and of course are more active in influencing operations globally as well. We can argue if that model of propaganda and control is good or not, but regardless they are smart enough to know that they don’t want to open up their youth to US propaganda machines but are happy to have us open ourselves to their propaganda. It’s asymmetrical, and that causes a lot of consternation. It’s also risky.
- stavros 3y ago
  Meta is banned because China is a dictatorship, not because bans are good.
  - superduty 3y ago
    This.
  - Kadin 3y ago
    "Dictatorships are bad" is not the game-over argument that it once was, maybe 20 years ago. The Chinese aren't just competing against the US for control of some islands and sea lanes here and there, they are putting their political system -- which is de facto a dictatorship selected periodically by a small ruling clique -- as an alternative model to democracy. One that can compete with and defeat democracy, in fact. And to be blunt, it's not clear to me that they are losing. We in the US have put ourselves at a disadvantage w/r/t China over and over again, relying ostensibly on the magical power of democracy to always win the day. As far as I can tell, it's straight-up magical thinking. If we do not take China seriously as a threat to democracy, not just internally to Asia but as an aspirational model of society and the basis for legitimate government, I think we risk losing. Why we would allow a propaganda outlet of what is effectively an enemy state to operate in the US, and why we would allow technology transfers and other advantageous trade arrangements, is mind boggling to me. Sure, the 'marketplace of ideas' sounds great on paper, but not when the other people don't believe in the same things. That sort of treatment -- access to the US market, both economically and that of ideas -- should be reserved for polities that at least have signed-on to the basic concepts that the US is built on.
avalys 3y ago
Speaking as an American, yes, it is most definitely "us vs. them". China is a geopolitical enemy ruled by a communist dictatorship that wants to diminish America's power, standing, and influence in the world to advance their own. American power and the mere threat of bringing it to bear on our adversaries is what enabled the past three decades of peace, prosperity and progress throughout the world, and China is actively working to undermine and diminish it in favor of their own. Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- toyg 3y ago
  Ah yes - peace in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Serbia, Rwanda... Much peace, such prosperity. I wouldn't choose China over the US any day of the week, but over the last 3 decades they've objectively been more pacifist and prosperous than most US client states. Please tone down the jingo.
  - xenospn 3y ago
    I’m not so sure that China is “pacifist and prosperous” compared to the US. What I am sure of is that you just have not heard of many cases where they haven’t been, because it’s China.
    - janalsncm 3y ago
      There’s no question that the average person in any random country has more to worry about from the United States than China. Whether the U.S. or China is a nicer country to live in is a different question.
- Duya-Taksis 3y ago
  "China is a geopolitical enemy ruled by a communist dictatorship that wants to diminish America's power, standing, and influence in the world to advance their own. American power and the mere threat of bringing it to bear on our adversaries is what enabled the past three decades of peace, prosperity and progress throughout the world, and China is actively working to undermine and diminish it in favor of their own." Exactly. Godspeed to China and I hope it stomps the US into the dirt. "Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose." Except it's the other way around. China wins and you lose. Again and again and again.
superduty 3y ago
It’s not. This nonsense was created as fodder for incompetent and dishonest politicians. You’ll now hear the least competent ones exclaim things like “a rutgers study says China bad, China spy, China control of social media not same as US government control of social media ugg ugg fire fire”.
- Zetobal 3y ago
  Pretty much acts like an enemy state since the 60s but maybe we are all hallucinating for decades.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    That's a pretty strong statement covering a long period of time with radically different Chinese governments.
kortilla 3y ago
[flagged]
- peepeepoopoo54 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - abricot 3y ago
    kortilla didn't invent it. It was coined in the 1970s.
    - peepeepoopoo54 3y ago
      It wasn't popularized until the last few years.
      - kortilla 3y ago
        By me?
- foverzar 3y ago
  > Whataboutism Comparisons and distinctions are the most natural way to perceive, learn and reason about stuff. The motivation that drives people to attack attempts of building a frame of reference is always suspicious.
slowhadoken 3y ago
They’re both bad but foreign propaganda is worse.
mvdtnz 3y ago
Both are bad but there is a qualitative difference between the badness of USA's global objectives and China's global objectives, and the means by which they work towards these objectives. The equivalence people draw between western powers and China is really puzzling to me. And no, I'm not American and I am no fan of American foreign policy.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  The United States has a history going back a full century of directly and indirectly forcing extremely violent changes in government when foreign governments are insufficiently deferential to American political/economic interests. Kissinger's state department alone aided and abetted multiple genocides and the deaths of over a million civilians. Not only has the PRC never done this, they take the public stance that they have absolutely no interest in this, and publicly espouse the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The only obvious Chinese global objective is a world where they exist as a non-ideological economic partner willing to profit from trade without strings attached, like America's enforced austerity and privatization "reforms".
ajross 3y ago
> How this is different from Meta's "reduction" of pro-Palestinian posts exposure and preventing it from spreading too far? Presumably because Palestine is one salient issue, being moderated at a time of extreme engagement, while the linked article asserts a pattern of such moderation across the site. It's the difference between "This subreddit doesn't allow political discussion" and "conservative topics are banned on Reddit".
Hnrobert42 3y ago
See also, whataboutism.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

EDIT: Nvm, misread the Appendix. They’re dampening pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine and anti-Trump content. > Can we look both of them objectively and say both are bad (I think so), or is there us vs. them mentality? Yes. That doesn’t preclude classifying how they are bad, both commonly and uniquely.

Adverblessly 3y ago
I think you misread it, the linked study shows that HamasIsIsis is also a suppressed tag. They are suppressing pro-Israel content and promoting pro-Palestine content.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  You’re right. Thank you.
bayindirh 3y ago
It was a honest question. I have no TikTok account, and not opening Facebook app more than a year now. I just share some photography I do on Instagram, but it doesn't cross post to Facebook either. So, I just wanted to ask and learn.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  I also have neither. I’m just citing the paper. Reading it might be a good start.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    It's sitting on my printer's output tray, however I have more pressing matters now. I'll go through it tomorrow.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > however I have more pressing matters now This is rude. You’re implicitly valuing everyone else’s time less than yours. (Not bad. Just rude.)
      - bayindirh 3y ago
        Nope. I didn't say I did not open/skimmed it. I looked into it, got a couple of questions and asked it, and you answered it, and I thanked you in a long form. If I didn't value your time or anyone else's, I can write short/snarky answers and/or leave you hanging. Lastly, insinuating that someone didn't read the article is also rude, and against the guidelines, too. > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". Have a nice day, and a nice year.

notjoemama 3y ago

Maybe, but isn’t part of the problem contextual? Multiple US corporations have manipulated their content based on sensitivities that are promoted from specifically the CCP and not based on moral outlook of their population. It seems to me that’s a clear indicator of over bearing authoritarian control. Baring any value statements about political systems, isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another; particularly when an adversarial relationship exists?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another We restrict foreign ownership of media properties to 25 percent (without review) [1]. Expanding that rule to social media would make sense. Beijing requires TikTok run itself differently within China, after all [2]. That’s the difference in care that matters. (Facebook’s lack of care in Myanmar comes to mind as analogous [3].) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14/the-next-rupert-murdoch-wont-have-to-change-his-citizenship-to-rule-the-tv-biz/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-bytedance-china-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-bytedance-... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
- Kadin 3y ago
  Expanding the foreign ownership rule to include social media platform companies (and, frankly, any strategically-important technology company in general) seems like a no-brainer. Other countries should logically do the same. If Burma/Myanmar doesn't like what Facebook is doing there, they have demonstrated the capability to shut it down on multiple occasions. Setting aside that their government is a basically-illegitimate military junta, if I was them, I sure as fuck wouldn't let a US tech company operate within my country without a significant local presence that I could exert influence on.
bugglebeetle 3y ago
> Baring any value statements about political systems, isn’t there a political problem with a foreign entity controlling the content of another No, in fact, many international newspapers, particularly those in Europe, report more honestly on the US than outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post. El Pais has far more integrity than either of those and it’s owned by a Spanish media conglomerate.

goalieca 3y ago

Meta is run by billionaires acting in their own self interest and it’s obvious when often in conflict with the USA government. TikTok parent company is accountable to the government of China.

foverzar 3y ago
This is a naive reductionism. Also, the fact that Meta employs lots of spooks is commonly perceived as "Meta is accountable to the US government", which is no less reductionist.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- goalieca 3y ago
  It’s not naive at all. Corporate dynamics are widely different in China. In China there is no strong separation between corporations and government.
  - foverzar 3y ago
    Corporate dynamics is different across any culture. > In China there is no strong separation between corporations and government. Is there even a country where that's actually a thing? It's definitely the opposite of "strong separation" in the US, just look at the lobbying institution.

fjoiefj 3y ago

[flagged]

notjoemama 3y ago
Following your value statements, somehow we’re just supposed to ignore the CCP policy of US accelerationism? Like I said in another comment (here I will point out the paper says this) the difference is a political party in China manipulating content behind the scenes and Instagram manipulating content based on their publicly available content policy. Additionally the former is specifically geared towards CCP interests, not based on citizens outlook or morality, whereas Instagram attempts to cater to what they believe is the moral perspective of their users.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > the difference is a political party in China manipulating content behind the scene It’s also meaningful that it’s China. They’re an adversary. This would be very different if we were talking about France or India.
  - notjoemama 3y ago
    And to underscore that, the CCP has openly said and planned to be the dominate financial, political, and military force on the globe. Their intention and actions are exactly to reduce not just US influence but all other influence. Neither France nor India take that stand point. A country hell bent on global domination has never worked anyway.
    - woooooo 3y ago
      Do you have a quote from anybody you're basing that on?

alexsereno 3y ago

Of course they do, however an important distinction here is that Meta is banned in China and TikTok is not banned here. Both are bad, but Chinese netizens aren’t exposed to one of the two. China is quite good about filtering out which propaganda interests they want their citizens exposed to, and of course are more active in influencing operations globally as well. We can argue if that model of propaganda and control is good or not, but regardless they are smart enough to know that they don’t want to open up their youth to US propaganda machines but are happy to have us open ourselves to their propaganda. It’s asymmetrical, and that causes a lot of consternation. It’s also risky.

stavros 3y ago
Meta is banned because China is a dictatorship, not because bans are good.
- superduty 3y ago
  This.
- Kadin 3y ago
  "Dictatorships are bad" is not the game-over argument that it once was, maybe 20 years ago. The Chinese aren't just competing against the US for control of some islands and sea lanes here and there, they are putting their political system -- which is de facto a dictatorship selected periodically by a small ruling clique -- as an alternative model to democracy. One that can compete with and defeat democracy, in fact. And to be blunt, it's not clear to me that they are losing. We in the US have put ourselves at a disadvantage w/r/t China over and over again, relying ostensibly on the magical power of democracy to always win the day. As far as I can tell, it's straight-up magical thinking. If we do not take China seriously as a threat to democracy, not just internally to Asia but as an aspirational model of society and the basis for legitimate government, I think we risk losing. Why we would allow a propaganda outlet of what is effectively an enemy state to operate in the US, and why we would allow technology transfers and other advantageous trade arrangements, is mind boggling to me. Sure, the 'marketplace of ideas' sounds great on paper, but not when the other people don't believe in the same things. That sort of treatment -- access to the US market, both economically and that of ideas -- should be reserved for polities that at least have signed-on to the basic concepts that the US is built on.

avalys 3y ago

Speaking as an American, yes, it is most definitely "us vs. them". China is a geopolitical enemy ruled by a communist dictatorship that wants to diminish America's power, standing, and influence in the world to advance their own. American power and the mere threat of bringing it to bear on our adversaries is what enabled the past three decades of peace, prosperity and progress throughout the world, and China is actively working to undermine and diminish it in favor of their own. Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
toyg 3y ago
Ah yes - peace in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Serbia, Rwanda... Much peace, such prosperity. I wouldn't choose China over the US any day of the week, but over the last 3 decades they've objectively been more pacifist and prosperous than most US client states. Please tone down the jingo.
- xenospn 3y ago
  I’m not so sure that China is “pacifist and prosperous” compared to the US. What I am sure of is that you just have not heard of many cases where they haven’t been, because it’s China.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    There’s no question that the average person in any random country has more to worry about from the United States than China. Whether the U.S. or China is a nicer country to live in is a different question.
Duya-Taksis 3y ago
"China is a geopolitical enemy ruled by a communist dictatorship that wants to diminish America's power, standing, and influence in the world to advance their own. American power and the mere threat of bringing it to bear on our adversaries is what enabled the past three decades of peace, prosperity and progress throughout the world, and China is actively working to undermine and diminish it in favor of their own." Exactly. Godspeed to China and I hope it stomps the US into the dirt. "Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose." Except it's the other way around. China wins and you lose. Again and again and again.

superduty 3y ago

It’s not. This nonsense was created as fodder for incompetent and dishonest politicians. You’ll now hear the least competent ones exclaim things like “a rutgers study says China bad, China spy, China control of social media not same as US government control of social media ugg ugg fire fire”.

Zetobal 3y ago
Pretty much acts like an enemy state since the 60s but maybe we are all hallucinating for decades.
- woooooo 3y ago
  That's a pretty strong statement covering a long period of time with radically different Chinese governments.

kortilla 3y ago

[flagged]

peepeepoopoo54 3y ago
[flagged]
- abricot 3y ago
  kortilla didn't invent it. It was coined in the 1970s.
  - peepeepoopoo54 3y ago
    It wasn't popularized until the last few years.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      By me?
foverzar 3y ago
> Whataboutism Comparisons and distinctions are the most natural way to perceive, learn and reason about stuff. The motivation that drives people to attack attempts of building a frame of reference is always suspicious.

slowhadoken 3y ago

They’re both bad but foreign propaganda is worse.

mvdtnz 3y ago

Both are bad but there is a qualitative difference between the badness of USA's global objectives and China's global objectives, and the means by which they work towards these objectives. The equivalence people draw between western powers and China is really puzzling to me. And no, I'm not American and I am no fan of American foreign policy.

ZoomerCretin 3y ago
The United States has a history going back a full century of directly and indirectly forcing extremely violent changes in government when foreign governments are insufficiently deferential to American political/economic interests. Kissinger's state department alone aided and abetted multiple genocides and the deaths of over a million civilians. Not only has the PRC never done this, they take the public stance that they have absolutely no interest in this, and publicly espouse the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The only obvious Chinese global objective is a world where they exist as a non-ideological economic partner willing to profit from trade without strings attached, like America's enforced austerity and privatization "reforms".

ajross 3y ago

> How this is different from Meta's "reduction" of pro-Palestinian posts exposure and preventing it from spreading too far? Presumably because Palestine is one salient issue, being moderated at a time of extreme engagement, while the linked article asserts a pattern of such moderation across the site. It's the difference between "This subreddit doesn't allow political discussion" and "conservative topics are banned on Reddit".

Hnrobert42 3y ago