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Tiktok isn't "some website", it is partially owned and controlled by the CCP, which influences what content gets shown to Americans. A majority of zoomers get m
by zachmu 3y ago
Tiktok isn't "some website", it is partially owned and controlled by the CCP, which influences what content gets shown to Americans. A majority of zoomers get most of their news and information primarily from this platform, which again is under the influence of a hostile foreign government. (TikTok also spies on US citizens for the CCP, but let's keep this restricted to the free speech argument about the ban).
We actually don't have to shrug and say "oh well, first amendment" with respect to propaganda outlets of foreign countries.
- felixgallo 3y agowould the same argument apply to Fox News? If not, why not?
- squigz 3y agoOf course not. He said "foreign countries". The propaganda outlets at home are harmless.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago[flagged]
- squigz 3y agoI was being sarcastic :)
- thomastjeffery 3y agoI wish I was...
- mlrtime 3y agoSigh, this is tiresome.... Incredibly harmful because you don't agree with conservative politics. The same exact political opinion nonsense happens on the far left from other outlets and are just as "harmful".
- thomastjeffery 3y agoBullshit. This isn't "conservative politics". This is right-wing hate behind the thinnest veil of "political entertainment". They don't really talk about small government or fiscal conservatism anymore. They talk about the "threat" that is posed by LGBTQ+ people and immigrants. I can't even talk to my own father anymore without him getting angry. Angry about nothing. That's one of millions of very real relationships that have been very directly damaged by Fox News. They don't get to do that, then just shrug it off as it it's an accident, and not their primary business model.
- mlrtime 3y agoDude, you are very angry and I'd suggest you readjust. My father watches fox news 24/7. I used to be angry like you anytime we touched close to politics. Now, I just don't talk about it, it's not worth it and doesn't add any value to the relationship, and never did before. Hopefully you'll see this as you get older. Fox news didn't damage your relationship, sorry.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoI don't talk about it either. He insists we talk about it, or he silently stews over the lack of engagement, while disengaging from everyone else in the room. Sure, it didn't destroy our relationship, but I'm not going to pretend everything is just as good as it was 6 years ago: it's not. That's just one personal example, too. You would be hard-pressed to find a random 20-minute span of the Fox News network where the primary subject of discussion isn't hate or fear. Very rarely is the primary subject actually a political position. Fox News is a constant barrage of why you should be afraid of and angry at the very existence of every person who has interests or goals that don't match the interests and goals of a right-wing transphobic christian nationalist. Even if it were about presenting and supporting the political position of right-wing transphobic christian nationalism, it would be better. Fox News does not focus on any political position. Instead, they focus on the engagement of fear and hate that implies that position.
- 3y ago
- zachmu 3y agoWhatever you think of our home-grown propaganda outlets, the US govt taking different approaches to foreign outlets should be uncontroversial. Unlike the CCP, US citizens have first amendment rights.
- rKarpinski 3y agoNo, it's owned & controlled by an American family (from Australia), has its headquarters in New York City and is not beholden to any foreign governments.
- phs318u 3y ago> is not beholden to any foreign governments. The reverse has occasionally been the case.
- bdw5204 3y agoFox News and MSNBC are propaganda for American political parties not foreign governments. They have a much stronger constitutional argument for 1st Amendment protection than Russia Today or China Central TV would.
- wslh 3y agoIt seems you are not looking to American history: CIA and dictatorships in Latin America?
- true_religion 3y agoWhat’s the argument here? Because the US does harm to others, they should permit others to harm them?
- wslh 3y agoNo, it is to talk apples vs. apples about the upper argument on USA having propaganda only internally.
- bdw5204 3y agoThe US government absolutely has its own government run media outlets such as Voice of America and foreign governments do ban them. For example, the Taliban has attempted to ban VOA in Afghanistan: https://www.insidevoa.com/a/despite-taliban-s-censorship-voa-continues-broadcasting-to-millions-in-afghanistan-/7226001.html https://www.insidevoa.com/a/despite-taliban-s-censorship-voa...
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoFoxNews and MSNCB are directed internally. An example of American propaganda directed externally would be Voice of America.
- aunty_helen 3y agoI feel like the twitter files weren’t sufficiently long enough ago to make this one sided argument. All governments have their hand in the cook jar.
- zachmu 3y agoThe US government working with social media companies to censor Americans (and other people) on those platforms is also pretty bad, yes. My impression is that their influence is much weaker and more marginal than is the case with the CCP and tiktok, though. But I would be sympathetic to other countries banning US social media on the ground of US govt influence.
- neetdeth 3y agoHow can you acknowledge that the USG colludes with domestic platforms to censor Americans and not think that it is targeting foreign platforms because they make that censorship more difficult? You know, the obvious explanation that doesn’t require an unseen CCP bogeyman.
- butlike 3y agoOn the one hand, leaving the potential for CCP propaganda to reach citizen's eyes can be a threat model for insurgency. On the other hand, leaving it monitoring the data coming in, then earmarking when there's an uptick in "flagged" packets or whatever could be a valuable heuristic. It all depends on the point of view.
- lumb63 3y agoIf someone wants to subject themselves to CCP propaganda, why stop them? If they’re that lacking in critical thinking, then maybe they’re getting what they deserve. It’s not like anyone is forcing people to use TikTok.
- groggo 3y agoThe funny thing is there's not really that much propaganda on TikTok, much less pro-CCP. Sure there's the potential, but it's really not even much of a thing IRL.
- ProcNetDev 3y agoGo make some videos about Taiwan, Tiananmen, or Tibet and see what the algo does to you.
- ta_9390 3y agohttps://www.tiktok.com/tag/tiananmensquare https://www.tiktok.com/tag/tiananmensquare
- ProcNetDev 3y agohttps://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1737948525340615118 https://twitter.com/ncri_io/status/1737948525340615118
- eppp 3y agoIt doesnt have to be pro CCP. All they have to do is slightly boost anti US or anti Israel or anti Ukraine and it is the same thing. Slowly boiling the frog by boosting fringe voices and promoting them as common views.
- theshackleford 3y agoYes and for this reason I support a similar ban in my country of large scale American owned social media. Given they are all guilty of the above claims. What the American owned social networks have done to my countries populace, including its youth, is nothing short of a disaster. It’s induced complete brain rot.
- throwaway199956 3y agoDoesn't first ammendment protect even that. Propaganda of other countries are legal under first ammendment. Why should we be a nanny state that should dictate which apps one can or cannot use on one's device. Also even at the hight of cold war, Soviet Life magazine was published and disseminated widely in the US.
- zachmu 3y agoA US citizen distributing foreign media themselves is quite different than what is effectively a directly controlled broadcast owned by a foreign government.
- throwaway199956 3y agoListening to foreign radio stations on shortwave and listening their propaganda is also not illegal in the US.
- brookst 3y agoI’m not usually a slippery slope person, but if we’re outlawing content based on who owns the creator or transmitter, things get ugly quick.
- true_religion 3y agoA rule that hostile nations can’t own communication platforms in your country isn’t a slippery slope. The US is widely against even having its own government own communication platforms.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- philwelch 3y ago“On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Activities_in...)
- maybelsyrup 3y agoBuddy if some meaningful proportion of your population is finding foreign propaganda convincing, your problem isn’t foreign propaganda. USA in terminal decline and, in typical fashion, it flatly refuses to look at itself and wonder why. American power elite has no one to blame but itself.
- zingababba 3y agoThat and political reasoning is impotent in the age of internet connectivity.
- badrequest 3y agoYeah, we should only tolerate domestic propaganda outlets.
- Sabinus 3y agoYou jest, but personally I prefer democratic self-origin propaganda to foreign authoritarian state propaganda.
- cutemonster 3y agoAn interesting phenomenon is people in the US who already got manipulated, and then spread the manipulation from within the US, eagerly and voluntarily, as US citizens
- yencabulator 3y agoForeign money to "domestic" lobbyists blurs that boundary a lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Russian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Rus...
- kelseyfrog 3y agoLike beer, consumers of propaganda should have a choice in foreign or domestic.
- parthianshotgun 3y agoThis made me giggle
- graybeardhacker 3y agoA majority of right-wing Boomers get their news from sources controlled by corporation and politicians interested in overthrowing a legit government and could therefore be considered a threat to national security. I could be convinced that banning both would be good.
- AniseAbyss 3y ago[dead]
- yowzadave 3y agoIt's a peeve of mine when people talk about the "CCP" like this, almost universally in a negative context--like they're trying to invoke the specter of communism in a scary way. Maybe you didn't mean it that way? Why say "CCP" rather than just "China"?
- prewett 3y agoMaybe because not all of China supports the CCP's goals, means, and ideology? Substantial numbers of people disagree with some or all of those, and nobody gets to influence the CCP so it hardly represents anyone besides Party members. (And even some of those have serious disagreements.)
- blowsand 3y agoWhile you lost cred at “partially owned and controlled by the CCP”, I’ll bite. You seem to have knowledge that those at TikTok USDS (and TikTok Inc.) do not. Please share your data/sources on how the “CCP influences the content shown to American “zoomers””. There’s a similar operational and data island for UK TikTok users as part of project Clover. Share your data on how the CCP is manipulating content shown to UK users while you’re at it. At the end of the day, my opinion is that after all the changes made to segregate and protect US users this is now all political theater and posturing, and potentially setting a very dangerous precedent.
- zachmu 3y agoThe CCP owns 1% of Bytedance and gets to appoint a board seat https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinpings-subtle-strategy-to-control-chinas-biggest-companies-ad001a63 https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinpings-subtle-strategy-to-...
- Leary 3y agoWrong, it owns 1% of a subsidiary of Bytedance that has nothing to do with TikTok
- ecoquant 3y ago[flagged]
- minosdz 3y agoIf you really care about who spies on who, check with AIPAC and similar groups that said that openly, and no one gave a dime. TikTok is less censored compared to FB, Instagram, X.com etc.. Look how many Israel supporter funded this action (banning/buying Tiktok) Always look for the one with most interest in having Tiktok controlled, you will know who are are the lobbyistes behind. (Follow the money)