6 ms·

The fact that TikTok is still allowed to run amok when the PRC has their hands all over it and also shows completely different content to Chinese users is the g

The fact that TikTok is still allowed to run amok when the PRC has their hands all over it and also shows completely different content to Chinese users is the greatest irony and crime here

dhdudbd 3y ago
most Americans can't speak chinese
- Wingman4l7 3y ago
  You don't need to speak Chinese to know that any large corporation that exists in the PRC does so at the behest of their government, and must kowtow to their surveillance demands accordingly.
  - krapp 3y ago
    Every American social media company is a front for NSA surveillance and CIA propaganda, what's your point? I thought we were supposed to believe in free markets and competition around here.
    - Wingman4l7 3y ago
      Alternatives that exist openly in the US would not be suffered to exist in the PRC -- for instance, Signal.
      - krapp 3y ago
        Again, I see little difference between the PRC and USA in this regard. As an American, I couldn't care less about Chinese surveillance. But my own government has an active interest in monitoring my politics for thoughtcrime and influencing my thoughts and actions. Making a moral panic only about the foreign platform seems, itself, like propaganda.
        BeFlatXIII 3y ago
        Thank you. I cannot understand people who are more frightened by foreigners knowing about their penchant for horse porn than by their local cops knowing the same embarrassing facts.
        aegypti 3y ago
        The moral panic isn’t remotely limited to foreign platforms, not even 24 hours ago the Senate Judiciary Committee publicly hung online sexual abuse of children around the CEO of Facebook’s neck, complete with a broadcasted apology before asking the TikTok CEO if they’re a member of the CCP in the same hearing. Countries other than the USA have agency and interests, and are entirely capable of seeking to influence your thoughts and actions to affect change if it furthers their goals (it is literally an election year).
        hgh568fn548 3y ago
        [dead]
        octacat 3y ago
        Tiktok has a superpower of injecting random people into your feed, which could be and would be used for manipulation. Or suppressing specific posts. Probably that is why meta did the same (before they could only do it with ads, but nobody watches ads anyway).
        Caligatio 3y ago
        Having a foreign government covertly influence your thoughts and actions should be of concern. It's one thing to have your thoughts and actions be changed by a logical process; it's a whole other concern when an agonistic foreign power is expending non-trivial amounts of resources to bend your opinion. This isn't mutually exclusive to being concerned about the US government actions in this space but the risks are completely different.
        hgh568fn548 3y ago
        [dead]
      - itishappy 3y ago
        And this is a model you feel should be implemented here?
      - autoexec 3y ago
        Signal isn't exactly trustworthy here either. Signal still likes to brag about the times when they told the government they couldn't hand over the data the feds wanted because they never collect/store it in the first place, but a long time ago they started collecting and permanently storing in the cloud exactly that same data. Worse, they refuse to update their privacy policy to reflect what they've started doing, meaning that the very first sentence of that policy is an outright lie. Personally, I take that as a massive dead canary and assume that signal has been completely compromised. There are alternatives out there which I hope still deliver on the promise of allowing secure communications, and we're free to roll our own, but I strongly suspect that the US gov will move in on anything that gains enough of a following. I think that we're still far better off than the Chinese, but we're not as free as we pretend that we are.
    - salawat 3y ago
      Every American social media|insurance|telecom|financial|tech company are a surveillance endpoint for the FBI or LE in general and/or a foreign policy endpoint in terms of being an effector for economic warfare. No legal fiction is inured to the machinations of its host state.
      - ithkuil 3y ago
        Endpoint != Front Social media companies have also their own nefarious goals so you don't have only to worry about your government but also about the (un)intended consequences of attention capitalism
kingwill101 3y ago
The fact that *insert American tech company * is still allowed to run amok when the *insert 3 letter agency* has their hands all over it and openly flaunts it is the greatest irony and crime here
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Except, in this bilateral relationship, those firms aren’t allowed to run amok in China for basically the same reasons as highlighted. I’m not taking a side fwiw. I think it’s all sad and nation states, nationalism, etc, are the cause of almost all ills.
  - snehk 3y ago
    No, they're not allowed because they don't want to follow the same laws that Chinese companies have to follow. The rules are the same for Chinese companies and those from other countries.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
The divide is largely due to the fact the Chinese government has regulations about the quality and kind of social media content platforms are allowed to distribute, including emphasizing educational content for kids etc. Possibly other nefarious reasons you allude to, but those content standard regulations are sufficient enough to explain why Chinese content is segregated - they literally can’t share the same content selection inside China, so otherwise would have to conform to Chinese regulations outside China as well. Those regulations would make TikTok much less profitable outside China, and they’re not required to do absolutely anything to “improve” the content quality outside China, so they naturally optimize towards engagement and stickiness. That incentive is shared by all social media companies, and is why the Chinese regulations exist to begin with - because what’s engaging and sticky is likely really the absolute worst crap ever.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > because what’s engaging and sticky is likely really the absolute worst crap ever I looked up the most popular/viewed youtube channels not long ago and it was either corporate advertising (music mainly) or largely trash. Out of all the great content on youtube what rises to the top seems to be ads and garbage.
- octacat 3y ago
  And even in the western world companies would do self-censorship, so they would pass rules of the apple store (reddit case), pass "rules" of payment providers (mastercard/visa for OF) or please the advertisers (youtube/ig rules). Just recently, one chinese game company extra content for western audience and pissed of the local chinese users.
hulitu 3y ago
Youtube, Facebook, Microsoft.

The fact that TikTok is still allowed to run amok when the PRC has their hands all over it and also shows completely different content to Chinese users is the greatest irony and crime here

dhdudbd 3y ago

most Americans can't speak chinese

Wingman4l7 3y ago
You don't need to speak Chinese to know that any large corporation that exists in the PRC does so at the behest of their government, and must kowtow to their surveillance demands accordingly.
- krapp 3y ago
  Every American social media company is a front for NSA surveillance and CIA propaganda, what's your point? I thought we were supposed to believe in free markets and competition around here.
  - Wingman4l7 3y ago
    Alternatives that exist openly in the US would not be suffered to exist in the PRC -- for instance, Signal.
    - krapp 3y ago
      Again, I see little difference between the PRC and USA in this regard. As an American, I couldn't care less about Chinese surveillance. But my own government has an active interest in monitoring my politics for thoughtcrime and influencing my thoughts and actions. Making a moral panic only about the foreign platform seems, itself, like propaganda.
      - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
        Thank you. I cannot understand people who are more frightened by foreigners knowing about their penchant for horse porn than by their local cops knowing the same embarrassing facts.
      - aegypti 3y ago
        The moral panic isn’t remotely limited to foreign platforms, not even 24 hours ago the Senate Judiciary Committee publicly hung online sexual abuse of children around the CEO of Facebook’s neck, complete with a broadcasted apology before asking the TikTok CEO if they’re a member of the CCP in the same hearing. Countries other than the USA have agency and interests, and are entirely capable of seeking to influence your thoughts and actions to affect change if it furthers their goals (it is literally an election year).
        hgh568fn548 3y ago
        [dead]
        octacat 3y ago
        Tiktok has a superpower of injecting random people into your feed, which could be and would be used for manipulation. Or suppressing specific posts. Probably that is why meta did the same (before they could only do it with ads, but nobody watches ads anyway).
      - Caligatio 3y ago
        Having a foreign government covertly influence your thoughts and actions should be of concern. It's one thing to have your thoughts and actions be changed by a logical process; it's a whole other concern when an agonistic foreign power is expending non-trivial amounts of resources to bend your opinion. This isn't mutually exclusive to being concerned about the US government actions in this space but the risks are completely different.
        hgh568fn548 3y ago
        [dead]
    - itishappy 3y ago
      And this is a model you feel should be implemented here?
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Signal isn't exactly trustworthy here either. Signal still likes to brag about the times when they told the government they couldn't hand over the data the feds wanted because they never collect/store it in the first place, but a long time ago they started collecting and permanently storing in the cloud exactly that same data. Worse, they refuse to update their privacy policy to reflect what they've started doing, meaning that the very first sentence of that policy is an outright lie. Personally, I take that as a massive dead canary and assume that signal has been completely compromised. There are alternatives out there which I hope still deliver on the promise of allowing secure communications, and we're free to roll our own, but I strongly suspect that the US gov will move in on anything that gains enough of a following. I think that we're still far better off than the Chinese, but we're not as free as we pretend that we are.
  - salawat 3y ago
    Every American social media|insurance|telecom|financial|tech company are a surveillance endpoint for the FBI or LE in general and/or a foreign policy endpoint in terms of being an effector for economic warfare. No legal fiction is inured to the machinations of its host state.
    - ithkuil 3y ago
      Endpoint != Front Social media companies have also their own nefarious goals so you don't have only to worry about your government but also about the (un)intended consequences of attention capitalism

kingwill101 3y ago

The fact that *insert American tech company * is still allowed to run amok when the *insert 3 letter agency* has their hands all over it and openly flaunts it is the greatest irony and crime here

fnordpiglet 3y ago
Except, in this bilateral relationship, those firms aren’t allowed to run amok in China for basically the same reasons as highlighted. I’m not taking a side fwiw. I think it’s all sad and nation states, nationalism, etc, are the cause of almost all ills.
- snehk 3y ago
  No, they're not allowed because they don't want to follow the same laws that Chinese companies have to follow. The rules are the same for Chinese companies and those from other countries.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

The divide is largely due to the fact the Chinese government has regulations about the quality and kind of social media content platforms are allowed to distribute, including emphasizing educational content for kids etc. Possibly other nefarious reasons you allude to, but those content standard regulations are sufficient enough to explain why Chinese content is segregated - they literally can’t share the same content selection inside China, so otherwise would have to conform to Chinese regulations outside China as well. Those regulations would make TikTok much less profitable outside China, and they’re not required to do absolutely anything to “improve” the content quality outside China, so they naturally optimize towards engagement and stickiness. That incentive is shared by all social media companies, and is why the Chinese regulations exist to begin with - because what’s engaging and sticky is likely really the absolute worst crap ever.

autoexec 3y ago
> because what’s engaging and sticky is likely really the absolute worst crap ever I looked up the most popular/viewed youtube channels not long ago and it was either corporate advertising (music mainly) or largely trash. Out of all the great content on youtube what rises to the top seems to be ads and garbage.
octacat 3y ago
And even in the western world companies would do self-censorship, so they would pass rules of the apple store (reddit case), pass "rules" of payment providers (mastercard/visa for OF) or please the advertisers (youtube/ig rules). Just recently, one chinese game company extra content for western audience and pissed of the local chinese users.

hulitu 3y ago

Youtube, Facebook, Microsoft.