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TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool right? Honest question. Truly not attempting to make an unfair statement implying other parts of the world including the US

TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool right? Honest question. Truly not attempting to make an unfair statement implying other parts of the world including the US don't have plenty of propaganda tools of their our own. But isn't it?

jrochkind1 3y ago
I don't think so. But I guess it depends on what it means to say something "is a Chinese propaganda tool." Is facebook "is a USA propaganda tool"? I'm not sure what people mean when they say this.
- cupcakecommons 3y ago
  I tried to make the original statement very fair. I think facebook is definitely a propaganda tool. It's a propaganda tool of its high-level employees and moderators, founders and, more recently, US government agencies. The twitter files [1] document pressure from employee culture and various government agencies on twitter, I assume the US government puts the same kind of pressure on facebook. There is absolutely bias. That isn't to say that the bias is bad necessarily, just that it obviously exists and this is isomorphic with it being propaganda. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files (I know linking wik as a source is lame but lots of additional links here)
  - RhodesianHunter 3y ago
    The only thing the twitter files showed is that the US government sends requests to Twitter to take down illegal content and misinformation, and sends them "scoops" or other information as they would a news outlet or journalist. You can certainly argue that in this day and age what is "misinformation" has become politicized, but at the end of the day they were only requests. That that has become a conspiracy theory is a testament to the modern right's understanding of events and facts, as seen through the lens of the media they consume.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    I agree your original statement was fair and open, btw, my question was meant to be honest too. (And I didn't downvote you!) I think every single institution that exists will have bias, so if we say having bias is isomorphic with being "a propaganda tool", then the term "propaganda tool" isn't very useful anymore, covering too much, and not what people think you are suggesting when you say the term. I guess the interesting thing with tik-tok might be how much influence the Chinese government specifically as an entity has over it's various policies that effect what people see there; but then, I think people discount the influence the US government has over similar US companies too, from overt and more implicit pressure both -- but to literally any company operating in the USA, this isn't meant to be a "conspiracy theory" about say Facebook specifically either. I appreciate you saying FB might indeed be similar... but generally if we say "TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool" people think we are saying something different than "not too different from Facebook," and also something much more than "there are biases and interests of the people and organizations involved in decision-making, that necessarily effect what they do." Which I don't know, it's not obvious to me anyway, or clear to me that the people who think it's obvious actually know what they're talking about. That there's something much more than this, in any of those cases.
someotherperson 3y ago
The only people who call it a propaganda tool are the ones who can't utilize it for propaganda. It's a US-based company with insane oversight. Older people can't grasp that youth have different interests and have different political views so they call it propaganda.
- cupcakecommons 3y ago
  This is an interesting take and I think it's a fairly common one. Is it possible that your first two sentences contradict one another? If, in this example, the US government can't repurpose it or use it for propaganda, can it really have insane oversight over it? What does oversight mean here by your definition? Are youth always correct in their worldview and never put at odds with their own societies by external or internal propaganda tools? I can think of a few examples of this in world history, some in the US, Europe and also China - so your statement here seems particularly interesting.
  - someotherperson 3y ago
    > If, in this example, the US government can't repurpose it or use it for propaganda, can it really have insane oversight over it? Yes. Much in the same way that the IRS has oversight over a company's financial records but doesn't have much of a say in how the company carries out its business. > What does oversight mean here by your definition? Having access to the data, having access to the content moderation policies, as well as having legal jurisdiction over TikTok's executive team. > Are youth always correct in their worldview and never put at odds with their own societies by external or internal propaganda tools? Their political positions are usually a lot more extremely conservative or extremely liberal. Although some of their opinions might be formed in the shape intended by propaganda, a lot of the opinions are exclusively rebellion (see: young people drinking, smoking, whatever). Ultimately youth on TikTok don't think Tiananmen square was a hoax or have deluded views about China's social policies. In fact they meme about China's social credit concept and would rather visit Japan or Korea. This on its own ends the idea of it being a Chinese propaganda tool -- if it really is, the Chinese are failing as miserably as the US at trying to weaponize it. Beyond this, however, TikTok is essentially giving itself up to the full control of the US government[0] so we might be on the verge on having Twitter-esque style[1] controls. But pretending that China is the reason that TikTok isn't enough pro-Israeli, or the reason why conservative views are making a resurgence in the younger demographics, or that it's 'dumbing down the Western world' (just as the radio, TV and video games did before) is just a mixture of old people yelling at clouds and propagandists not being able to manipulate a new generation. It's actually funny how the same voices complaining about it now weren't complaining when TikTok was pushing covid vaccine conspiracies a couple of years ago -- it might have something to do with their viewpoint no longer being represented. The real solution for TikTok might be to add an age limit. That is, no old people. Let kids be kids -- which is how it started when they were just singing and dancing before it was politicized. Something that republicans take issue with, of course, who want TikTok to push nationalist propaganda instead like they do on the Chinese version. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/08/21/draft-tiktok-cfius-agreement/?sh=13b780eb112a https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/08/21/dra... [1] https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/ https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-...
ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago
It is https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us... https://archive.is/VqSne https://archive.is/VqSne

jrochkind1 3y ago

I don't think so. But I guess it depends on what it means to say something "is a Chinese propaganda tool." Is facebook "is a USA propaganda tool"? I'm not sure what people mean when they say this.

cupcakecommons 3y ago
I tried to make the original statement very fair. I think facebook is definitely a propaganda tool. It's a propaganda tool of its high-level employees and moderators, founders and, more recently, US government agencies. The twitter files [1] document pressure from employee culture and various government agencies on twitter, I assume the US government puts the same kind of pressure on facebook. There is absolutely bias. That isn't to say that the bias is bad necessarily, just that it obviously exists and this is isomorphic with it being propaganda. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files (I know linking wik as a source is lame but lots of additional links here)
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago
  The only thing the twitter files showed is that the US government sends requests to Twitter to take down illegal content and misinformation, and sends them "scoops" or other information as they would a news outlet or journalist. You can certainly argue that in this day and age what is "misinformation" has become politicized, but at the end of the day they were only requests. That that has become a conspiracy theory is a testament to the modern right's understanding of events and facts, as seen through the lens of the media they consume.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  I agree your original statement was fair and open, btw, my question was meant to be honest too. (And I didn't downvote you!) I think every single institution that exists will have bias, so if we say having bias is isomorphic with being "a propaganda tool", then the term "propaganda tool" isn't very useful anymore, covering too much, and not what people think you are suggesting when you say the term. I guess the interesting thing with tik-tok might be how much influence the Chinese government specifically as an entity has over it's various policies that effect what people see there; but then, I think people discount the influence the US government has over similar US companies too, from overt and more implicit pressure both -- but to literally any company operating in the USA, this isn't meant to be a "conspiracy theory" about say Facebook specifically either. I appreciate you saying FB might indeed be similar... but generally if we say "TikTok is a Chinese propaganda tool" people think we are saying something different than "not too different from Facebook," and also something much more than "there are biases and interests of the people and organizations involved in decision-making, that necessarily effect what they do." Which I don't know, it's not obvious to me anyway, or clear to me that the people who think it's obvious actually know what they're talking about. That there's something much more than this, in any of those cases.

someotherperson 3y ago

The only people who call it a propaganda tool are the ones who can't utilize it for propaganda. It's a US-based company with insane oversight. Older people can't grasp that youth have different interests and have different political views so they call it propaganda.

cupcakecommons 3y ago
This is an interesting take and I think it's a fairly common one. Is it possible that your first two sentences contradict one another? If, in this example, the US government can't repurpose it or use it for propaganda, can it really have insane oversight over it? What does oversight mean here by your definition? Are youth always correct in their worldview and never put at odds with their own societies by external or internal propaganda tools? I can think of a few examples of this in world history, some in the US, Europe and also China - so your statement here seems particularly interesting.
- someotherperson 3y ago
  > If, in this example, the US government can't repurpose it or use it for propaganda, can it really have insane oversight over it? Yes. Much in the same way that the IRS has oversight over a company's financial records but doesn't have much of a say in how the company carries out its business. > What does oversight mean here by your definition? Having access to the data, having access to the content moderation policies, as well as having legal jurisdiction over TikTok's executive team. > Are youth always correct in their worldview and never put at odds with their own societies by external or internal propaganda tools? Their political positions are usually a lot more extremely conservative or extremely liberal. Although some of their opinions might be formed in the shape intended by propaganda, a lot of the opinions are exclusively rebellion (see: young people drinking, smoking, whatever). Ultimately youth on TikTok don't think Tiananmen square was a hoax or have deluded views about China's social policies. In fact they meme about China's social credit concept and would rather visit Japan or Korea. This on its own ends the idea of it being a Chinese propaganda tool -- if it really is, the Chinese are failing as miserably as the US at trying to weaponize it. Beyond this, however, TikTok is essentially giving itself up to the full control of the US government[0] so we might be on the verge on having Twitter-esque style[1] controls. But pretending that China is the reason that TikTok isn't enough pro-Israeli, or the reason why conservative views are making a resurgence in the younger demographics, or that it's 'dumbing down the Western world' (just as the radio, TV and video games did before) is just a mixture of old people yelling at clouds and propagandists not being able to manipulate a new generation. It's actually funny how the same voices complaining about it now weren't complaining when TikTok was pushing covid vaccine conspiracies a couple of years ago -- it might have something to do with their viewpoint no longer being represented. The real solution for TikTok might be to add an age limit. That is, no old people. Let kids be kids -- which is how it started when they were just singing and dancing before it was politicized. Something that republicans take issue with, of course, who want TikTok to push nationalist propaganda instead like they do on the Chinese version. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/08/21/draft-tiktok-cfius-agreement/?sh=13b780eb112a https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/08/21/dra... [1] https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/ https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-...

ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago

It is https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/ https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us... https://archive.is/VqSne https://archive.is/VqSne