7 ms·

India's TikTok Ban Is a Cautionary Tale for the U.S.

32 points by Leary 3y ago

sschueller 3y ago
https://archive.ph/JOSBj https://archive.ph/JOSBj
perihelions 3y ago
They're right to be angry at their government: freedom of communication is a human right they've had taken away from them. I'd be angry too if a US president made it illegal for me to read HN. I'd be very mad if TikTok pundits were making influential videos advocating HN be shut down—so I can't imagine writing HN comments arguing the reverse, that's the symmetry principle that underpins civics, equality. The right of a TikTok viewer to watch content I dislike is equal to my right to read HN—their anger is the same as my anger. In the Indian context, their TikTok ban is adjacent to a wide variety of internet censorship targeting the incumbent government's political detractors. It's gone to the extent of even regional internet shutdowns. I can't help but thinking this all functions as a slippery slope: the more people tolerate temporary emergency measures, the more they become permanent, and pervasive—like India today. Censorship is an attractively abusable power. It's a cautionary tale from more angles than the WSJ article considers.
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  In the Indian context, Tiktok was merely one of dozens of Chinese apps which were banned following an attack by the Chinese military on our borders.
  - ramshanker 3y ago
    This. Plane and simple. And from my limited interactions with teenagers, no one is missing it. YouTube and Instagram now offer everything needed. Nothing like freedom of a speech, government oversight etc. etc. the article is trying to portray.
    - devnonymous 3y ago
      There's a difference between the officially stated reason and the real one. The government still tries to keep up the pretence of a functional democracy, so it can't outright say they are banning things that they don't like. You're free to buy the party line but at least question whether the reasoning makes any sense. Does banning a handful of apps while increasing Chinese investments and imports really aling with the official stand that this was a retaliatory action?
      - exceptione 3y ago
        Even a pretending government sometimes make the right decision, even if the motivation is at best questionable. The nasty influence of TikTok outside China has been very clear for a long time. This is part of modern warfare, establishment is only really slow to process this fact. Also because of the misplaced idea that a democratic constitution with a rule of law is something that magically was always there and will forever be there, even if we sit passively down and see people rising that promise to break that constitution down.
    - ignoramous 3y ago
      > YouTube and Instagram now offer everything needed. Both Google and Meta are in cahoots (tacit compliance) with the Government after they were put through the ban hammer: https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-oks-censoring-facebook-google-microsoft-youtube/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-oks-censoring-facebook-g... Same for Blackberry: https://theworld.org/dispatch/india/100831/blackberry-research-in-motion-ban https://theworld.org/dispatch/india/100831/blackberry-resear... > Nothing like freedom of a speech, government oversight etc. etc. the article is trying to portray. There's not much freedom of speech in India: Only to an extent you don't ruffle any features and/or aren't influential enough to effect any outcome. Besides, the society itself enforces a crude form of censorship on whatever is taboo or controversial or fringe.
- exceptione 3y ago
  > They're right to be angry at their government: freedom of communication is a human right they've had taken away from them. Freedom of communication is freedom to express oneself for individual humans. It is not the right for a totalitarian state to promote itself and weaken democracies. TikTok works completely different in China vs other countries. Outside of China we have to deal with a highly addictive algo that promotes content of extreme right nuts, anti-vaccination hustlers, and content that over paints any negative information about China. --- Totalitarian states fear their constituents, as they could rise to take their destiny in their own hands. A rule based order and the existence of successful democracies are always a threat to any dictator circle, because their iron fist is fragile.
  - ignoramous 3y ago
    > because their iron fist is fragile Authoritarians have been relentlessly strengthening their fists as technology (dogs) gets increasingly good at herding the masses (sheeps).
    - exceptione 3y ago
      Sure. On the other hand, the China and Russia regimes have to invest a lot in firewalls to close of the masses to information. And with all surveillance tech they still fear the masses. During the very rigid covid lockdowns in China people started to become more actively frustrated, prompting Xi to finally reverse his policies. But the biggest threat to dictatorships is their own organization, as power transfer is often chaotic and violent. The workings of those states are best compared to maffia power dynamics.
  - SanjayMehta 3y ago
    It’s my understanding that Tiktok does not work in China. There’s an equivalent called Douyin. Having used neither, I don’t know what’s the difference, if any.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > There’s an equivalent called Douyin. Having used neither, I don’t know what’s the difference, if any. Here's a video about the differences: TikTok in China versus the United States | 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY Douyin is much healthier. Chinese children cannot use Douyin for more than 40 min a day, and it promotes positive content like science experiments you can do at home. American kids can use TikTok as much as they want, and so are addicted. I don't use it, but I'm almost certain it doesn't just show prosocial educational content to kids, but mostly mindless entertainment and influencer ads. The result is the most popular career Chinese kids saw they want to grow up to be astronauts, but American kids want to be social media influences.
- fragmede 3y ago
  It's an interesting thought experiment to look at if the government were trying to ban HN, but the underlying issue is the ownership of TikTok by China and not a ban of the app itself. If YC and HN was officially owned and operated by CCP party members, I imagine there would be similar concerns. it's the substance of the content on TikTok that's the issue. If TikTok was seen as wholesome and promoting education in children, which it could, then we'd be having a different discussion, but the underlying belief, that there's a guiding hand on their content algorithm to make the United States dumber and more divided is the problem. Of course, capitalism's job is to sell you more crap, so Facebook's algorithm is "benign" in comparison.
- a_random_canuck 3y ago
  This has nothing to do with your right to view content. Your right to view whatever content you like does not give foreign dictatorships the right to manipulate and attack our societies. If HN was under the control of the Chinese Communist Party and its algorithms and moderation were manipulated in order to influence the narrative on China, then absolutely yes HN should be banned completely. Hostile foreign powers do not have any right to publish content within our borders. Fuck them.
bhoops 3y ago
I dont understand. If China does not allow foreign internet companies to operate on its soil, why should India or US or any western country allow chinese internet companies to operate within their jurisdiction ?
- perihelions 3y ago
  China blocks the world-wide internet because it follows a totalitarian ideology. The US has a free and open internet because we're a liberal democracy.
  - nindalf 3y ago
    Don’t know why it’s so difficult for some people to understand the paradox of tolerance. Allowing your media to be controlled by a foreign totalitarian adversary is a quick way to having your institutions and society undermined by them.
    - perihelions 3y ago
      That is the standard argument for totalitarianism: safety and stability of society, at the expense of freedom. The US is doing something different.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        Did the USSR have radio and TV stations in the US during the cold war? During WWII the US had a censorship operation - was that totalitarian?
        defrost 3y ago
        Interestingly, this very question was asked and addressed here on HN 32 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39428141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39428141
        3y ago
smitty1e 3y ago
The great lesson of Prohibition was that minorities trying to boss around a majority are always a dodgy play. Minorities wielding power, like teens exploring sexuality, excel at not learning such lessons. The correct answer to a perceived threat such as TikTok is to provide a superior TikTok.
- MezzoDelCammin 3y ago
  Could You please be more clear on how the last sentence relates to the first? If You think Prohibition (of alcohol) is somehow related to prohibition of TikTok, then corollary would be "correct answer to alcohol threat is better alcohol".
  - cylemons 3y ago
    I guess you could argue that the "better alcohol" would be something that is as pleasant but without the intoxication, whatever that would be
  - smitty1e 3y ago
    Restated: don't outlaw; offer better.
idiot-savant 3y ago
Here it comes... the great dancer recession!
DataDaemon 3y ago
People are wasting time on stupid content... Why don't you see it's killing American society? Algos are made to make Wests stupid. Like drugs.
- Broken_Hippo 3y ago
  Obviously, you don't know much about folks that use drugs. Sure, some people will act dumb when they are addicted. For so many others, you can't tell and you've never been able to - and these folks are peppered throughout society. Most aren't addicted. Which basically means that I can dismiss the comparison, unless you meant that for most folks, it's not an issue.
Jedd 3y ago
The 'but then we're as bad as ..' argument will be presented, and maybe a reference to the Paradox of Tolerance (aka the Popper Paradox). I read a nice(r) interpretation of the paradox a while ago - loosely the claim was made that it's not an ethical standard that you (your nation state, etc) have to apply to yourself in order to maintain a moral high-ground, but works better once you think of it as a social contract. That is, if someone / another nation state is not willing to follow the same basic rule, then they don't get the benefit of it.
- doktrin 3y ago
  > I read a nice(r) interpretation of the paradox a while ago - loosely the claim was made that it's not an ethical standard that you (your nation state, etc) have to apply to yourself in order to maintain a moral high-ground, but works better once you think of it as a social contract. > That is, if someone / another nation state is not willing to follow the same basic rule, then they don't get the benefit of it. I agree, but is a 3rd party interpretation even necessary in this context? The original text is minimal, as in literally a one-paragraph plain language footnote copied here in its entirety : > "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. " -- The Open Society & Its Enemies
hayst4ck 3y ago
Few Americans have considered the rationality of the GFWC without the context of authoritarianism. China blocks the internet because 50 years ago the vast majority of the country was illiterate and subsistence farming. You don't wake up one day equipped to critically think about statements that sound good but aren't true. You don't wake up understanding the tragedy of the commons. You don't suddenly have a historical understanding of how your country came to be and the values it was founded upon. You don't wake up having thought about the golden rule or "equality" and matched that to various situations in the zeitgeist. You don't wake up having fully contemplated that others might treat you the same way you treat them. These things come from major investments in public education. Americans have huge amounts of privilege they aren't even aware they have. We grew up with public education, and don't understand what it means to not have public education, or have a poor literacy rate. It might surprise many to know that while china does have great power over the GFW they choose not to enforce it for many of their educated and more well off citizens, which is why you can use VPN services to get pretty unfiltered internet within China. The US is facing a crisis where half the population doesn't understand that in November they are going to vote to lose the right to have a meaningful vote, and so many people here haven't fully contemplated not taking that very very real possibility seriously. "Hoping" that Americans will arrive at the right conclusion is a poor strategy to continue living in a "liberal democracy." Living in a liberal democracy requires more than hope. We are in the "if you can keep it stage" of "a republic if, you can keep it." Letting a hostile genocidal foreign power have direct access to our countries most vulnerable and impressionable people, our children, is not good policy, especially when that foreign power has gone to great effort to make sure that what they are doing to us, is not done to them.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  What does any of this have to do with TikTok? I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically?
  - doktrin 3y ago
    > I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically? Your last question is perfectly reasonable, and I'm interested in hearing more specifics to this point as well. However, your primary stated basis for skepticism seems flawed. One child's usage pattern under parental surveillance is almost certainly not reflective of the platform as a whole.
srvmshr 3y ago
TikTok bans in India and US are very different. India did it as a kneejerk response to the Doklam border incident of 2020. When you don't intend a full scale war,the other recourse is to hurt China economically. I distinctly remember the wave that followed of boycotting Chinese goods as much as possible. TikTok is the outcome of that. While it doesn't do much politically, the ban was to hurt Bytedance. When 80-100 million people go dark on a certain social media platform, those numbers don't look good. When Bytedance wants MAU stats to leverage against the next expansion loans or merger (possibly), this could hurt them. Or simply revenue from ads. With the US it is pure political influence on the sly which the government is afraid of. Indians are tough audience to sway that way from my experience.
- devnonymous 3y ago
  > Indians are tough audience to sway that way from my experience. You underestimate the power of propoganda. The fact that you think the tiktok ban was in anyway related to the attack or even if was, it served as an commensurate retaliation for the attack just proves this.
  - srvmshr 3y ago
    Your experience could vary from mine, but the average boomer in India loves having political discussion on dinner tables, stemming from what they probably read in the papers or from channel switching over the day. TikTok hardly scratches their surface. While I understand Mr. Modi has been pretty influential on media houses, there are plenty of publishers like Indian Express or Dainik Jagran (in Hindi), or TV broadcasters like NDTV, The Wire etc., who don't mind calling Modi's spade a spade. TikTok isn't the main medium of influence in India. Facebook is, and the news & views is primarily still shared there Let me show the political influencing landscape in brief: I have lived in both the aforementioned countries and I could unequivocally feel that the average Indian is more aware of political current affairs. Even if final choices could be biased on the Hinduist/nationalist leanings (which is unfortunately a relatively new dynamics), they are not blind to what is happening. Many would call Modi a crook but do not want the alternative posed by Congress and still vote for him. Religious minority appeasing and Reservation biases have been abused so badly in last 3 decades by the opposition (which was in power) that people are now blind to the agenda people like Mr. Modi exort. Their responses are mostly reactionary to lost opportunities of work/social mobility. BJP in India has been projecting itself as savior of masses by bringing in measures, which would have been undemocratic 2 decades ago (e.g Article 370 abrogation or CAA recently). This is in stark contrast to people in US growing up leaning Blue or Red all through their lives, because their family or county has always voted that. If you ask why they chose to, the answer is almost always political party loyalty (and not the agenda). Coming November we will see this again when despite of so many legal predicaments, Donald Trump might still competing hard for presidency based on traditional loyalties. TikTok is aimed at the fence-sitters in US with dramatic immigration, crime or socioeconomic shock videos. When you have a crowd that is not in know-how of current political affairs, TikTok is enough to create disruption. If you had to do that in India, probably Facebook is the weapon of choice.

32 points by Leary 3y ago

https://archive.ph/JOSBj https://archive.ph/JOSBj

They're right to be angry at their government: freedom of communication is a human right they've had taken away from them. I'd be angry too if a US president made it illegal for me to read HN. I'd be very mad if TikTok pundits were making influential videos advocating HN be shut down—so I can't imagine writing HN comments arguing the reverse, that's the symmetry principle that underpins civics, equality. The right of a TikTok viewer to watch content I dislike is equal to my right to read HN—their anger is the same as my anger. In the Indian context, their TikTok ban is adjacent to a wide variety of internet censorship targeting the incumbent government's political detractors. It's gone to the extent of even regional internet shutdowns. I can't help but thinking this all functions as a slippery slope: the more people tolerate temporary emergency measures, the more they become permanent, and pervasive—like India today. Censorship is an attractively abusable power. It's a cautionary tale from more angles than the WSJ article considers.

SanjayMehta 3y ago
In the Indian context, Tiktok was merely one of dozens of Chinese apps which were banned following an attack by the Chinese military on our borders.
- ramshanker 3y ago
  This. Plane and simple. And from my limited interactions with teenagers, no one is missing it. YouTube and Instagram now offer everything needed. Nothing like freedom of a speech, government oversight etc. etc. the article is trying to portray.
  - devnonymous 3y ago
    There's a difference between the officially stated reason and the real one. The government still tries to keep up the pretence of a functional democracy, so it can't outright say they are banning things that they don't like. You're free to buy the party line but at least question whether the reasoning makes any sense. Does banning a handful of apps while increasing Chinese investments and imports really aling with the official stand that this was a retaliatory action?
    - exceptione 3y ago
      Even a pretending government sometimes make the right decision, even if the motivation is at best questionable. The nasty influence of TikTok outside China has been very clear for a long time. This is part of modern warfare, establishment is only really slow to process this fact. Also because of the misplaced idea that a democratic constitution with a rule of law is something that magically was always there and will forever be there, even if we sit passively down and see people rising that promise to break that constitution down.
  - ignoramous 3y ago
    > YouTube and Instagram now offer everything needed. Both Google and Meta are in cahoots (tacit compliance) with the Government after they were put through the ban hammer: https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-oks-censoring-facebook-google-microsoft-youtube/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/india-oks-censoring-facebook-g... Same for Blackberry: https://theworld.org/dispatch/india/100831/blackberry-research-in-motion-ban https://theworld.org/dispatch/india/100831/blackberry-resear... > Nothing like freedom of a speech, government oversight etc. etc. the article is trying to portray. There's not much freedom of speech in India: Only to an extent you don't ruffle any features and/or aren't influential enough to effect any outcome. Besides, the society itself enforces a crude form of censorship on whatever is taboo or controversial or fringe.
exceptione 3y ago
> They're right to be angry at their government: freedom of communication is a human right they've had taken away from them. Freedom of communication is freedom to express oneself for individual humans. It is not the right for a totalitarian state to promote itself and weaken democracies. TikTok works completely different in China vs other countries. Outside of China we have to deal with a highly addictive algo that promotes content of extreme right nuts, anti-vaccination hustlers, and content that over paints any negative information about China. --- Totalitarian states fear their constituents, as they could rise to take their destiny in their own hands. A rule based order and the existence of successful democracies are always a threat to any dictator circle, because their iron fist is fragile.
- ignoramous 3y ago
  > because their iron fist is fragile Authoritarians have been relentlessly strengthening their fists as technology (dogs) gets increasingly good at herding the masses (sheeps).
  - exceptione 3y ago
    Sure. On the other hand, the China and Russia regimes have to invest a lot in firewalls to close of the masses to information. And with all surveillance tech they still fear the masses. During the very rigid covid lockdowns in China people started to become more actively frustrated, prompting Xi to finally reverse his policies. But the biggest threat to dictatorships is their own organization, as power transfer is often chaotic and violent. The workings of those states are best compared to maffia power dynamics.
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  It’s my understanding that Tiktok does not work in China. There’s an equivalent called Douyin. Having used neither, I don’t know what’s the difference, if any.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > There’s an equivalent called Douyin. Having used neither, I don’t know what’s the difference, if any. Here's a video about the differences: TikTok in China versus the United States | 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY Douyin is much healthier. Chinese children cannot use Douyin for more than 40 min a day, and it promotes positive content like science experiments you can do at home. American kids can use TikTok as much as they want, and so are addicted. I don't use it, but I'm almost certain it doesn't just show prosocial educational content to kids, but mostly mindless entertainment and influencer ads. The result is the most popular career Chinese kids saw they want to grow up to be astronauts, but American kids want to be social media influences.
fragmede 3y ago
It's an interesting thought experiment to look at if the government were trying to ban HN, but the underlying issue is the ownership of TikTok by China and not a ban of the app itself. If YC and HN was officially owned and operated by CCP party members, I imagine there would be similar concerns. it's the substance of the content on TikTok that's the issue. If TikTok was seen as wholesome and promoting education in children, which it could, then we'd be having a different discussion, but the underlying belief, that there's a guiding hand on their content algorithm to make the United States dumber and more divided is the problem. Of course, capitalism's job is to sell you more crap, so Facebook's algorithm is "benign" in comparison.
a_random_canuck 3y ago
This has nothing to do with your right to view content. Your right to view whatever content you like does not give foreign dictatorships the right to manipulate and attack our societies. If HN was under the control of the Chinese Communist Party and its algorithms and moderation were manipulated in order to influence the narrative on China, then absolutely yes HN should be banned completely. Hostile foreign powers do not have any right to publish content within our borders. Fuck them.

bhoops 3y ago

I dont understand. If China does not allow foreign internet companies to operate on its soil, why should India or US or any western country allow chinese internet companies to operate within their jurisdiction ?

perihelions 3y ago
China blocks the world-wide internet because it follows a totalitarian ideology. The US has a free and open internet because we're a liberal democracy.
- nindalf 3y ago
  Don’t know why it’s so difficult for some people to understand the paradox of tolerance. Allowing your media to be controlled by a foreign totalitarian adversary is a quick way to having your institutions and society undermined by them.
  - perihelions 3y ago
    That is the standard argument for totalitarianism: safety and stability of society, at the expense of freedom. The US is doing something different.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Did the USSR have radio and TV stations in the US during the cold war? During WWII the US had a censorship operation - was that totalitarian?
      - defrost 3y ago
        Interestingly, this very question was asked and addressed here on HN 32 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39428141 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39428141
        3y ago

smitty1e 3y ago

The great lesson of Prohibition was that minorities trying to boss around a majority are always a dodgy play. Minorities wielding power, like teens exploring sexuality, excel at not learning such lessons. The correct answer to a perceived threat such as TikTok is to provide a superior TikTok.

MezzoDelCammin 3y ago
Could You please be more clear on how the last sentence relates to the first? If You think Prohibition (of alcohol) is somehow related to prohibition of TikTok, then corollary would be "correct answer to alcohol threat is better alcohol".
- cylemons 3y ago
  I guess you could argue that the "better alcohol" would be something that is as pleasant but without the intoxication, whatever that would be
- smitty1e 3y ago
  Restated: don't outlaw; offer better.

idiot-savant 3y ago

Here it comes... the great dancer recession!

DataDaemon 3y ago

People are wasting time on stupid content... Why don't you see it's killing American society? Algos are made to make Wests stupid. Like drugs.

Broken_Hippo 3y ago
Obviously, you don't know much about folks that use drugs. Sure, some people will act dumb when they are addicted. For so many others, you can't tell and you've never been able to - and these folks are peppered throughout society. Most aren't addicted. Which basically means that I can dismiss the comparison, unless you meant that for most folks, it's not an issue.

Jedd 3y ago

The 'but then we're as bad as ..' argument will be presented, and maybe a reference to the Paradox of Tolerance (aka the Popper Paradox). I read a nice(r) interpretation of the paradox a while ago - loosely the claim was made that it's not an ethical standard that you (your nation state, etc) have to apply to yourself in order to maintain a moral high-ground, but works better once you think of it as a social contract. That is, if someone / another nation state is not willing to follow the same basic rule, then they don't get the benefit of it.

doktrin 3y ago
> I read a nice(r) interpretation of the paradox a while ago - loosely the claim was made that it's not an ethical standard that you (your nation state, etc) have to apply to yourself in order to maintain a moral high-ground, but works better once you think of it as a social contract. > That is, if someone / another nation state is not willing to follow the same basic rule, then they don't get the benefit of it. I agree, but is a 3rd party interpretation even necessary in this context? The original text is minimal, as in literally a one-paragraph plain language footnote copied here in its entirety : > "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. " -- The Open Society & Its Enemies

hayst4ck 3y ago

Few Americans have considered the rationality of the GFWC without the context of authoritarianism. China blocks the internet because 50 years ago the vast majority of the country was illiterate and subsistence farming. You don't wake up one day equipped to critically think about statements that sound good but aren't true. You don't wake up understanding the tragedy of the commons. You don't suddenly have a historical understanding of how your country came to be and the values it was founded upon. You don't wake up having thought about the golden rule or "equality" and matched that to various situations in the zeitgeist. You don't wake up having fully contemplated that others might treat you the same way you treat them. These things come from major investments in public education. Americans have huge amounts of privilege they aren't even aware they have. We grew up with public education, and don't understand what it means to not have public education, or have a poor literacy rate. It might surprise many to know that while china does have great power over the GFW they choose not to enforce it for many of their educated and more well off citizens, which is why you can use VPN services to get pretty unfiltered internet within China. The US is facing a crisis where half the population doesn't understand that in November they are going to vote to lose the right to have a meaningful vote, and so many people here haven't fully contemplated not taking that very very real possibility seriously. "Hoping" that Americans will arrive at the right conclusion is a poor strategy to continue living in a "liberal democracy." Living in a liberal democracy requires more than hope. We are in the "if you can keep it stage" of "a republic if, you can keep it." Letting a hostile genocidal foreign power have direct access to our countries most vulnerable and impressionable people, our children, is not good policy, especially when that foreign power has gone to great effort to make sure that what they are doing to us, is not done to them.

ryandrake 3y ago
What does any of this have to do with TikTok? I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically?
- doktrin 3y ago
  > I've looked over my daughter's shoulder at what she's watching on TikTok. It's mostly silly kids doing silly dances to silly music. Not my cup of tea, but not exactly election-manipulation. What are they "doing to us" specifically? Your last question is perfectly reasonable, and I'm interested in hearing more specifics to this point as well. However, your primary stated basis for skepticism seems flawed. One child's usage pattern under parental surveillance is almost certainly not reflective of the platform as a whole.

srvmshr 3y ago

TikTok bans in India and US are very different. India did it as a kneejerk response to the Doklam border incident of 2020. When you don't intend a full scale war,the other recourse is to hurt China economically. I distinctly remember the wave that followed of boycotting Chinese goods as much as possible. TikTok is the outcome of that. While it doesn't do much politically, the ban was to hurt Bytedance. When 80-100 million people go dark on a certain social media platform, those numbers don't look good. When Bytedance wants MAU stats to leverage against the next expansion loans or merger (possibly), this could hurt them. Or simply revenue from ads. With the US it is pure political influence on the sly which the government is afraid of. Indians are tough audience to sway that way from my experience.

devnonymous 3y ago
> Indians are tough audience to sway that way from my experience. You underestimate the power of propoganda. The fact that you think the tiktok ban was in anyway related to the attack or even if was, it served as an commensurate retaliation for the attack just proves this.
- srvmshr 3y ago
  Your experience could vary from mine, but the average boomer in India loves having political discussion on dinner tables, stemming from what they probably read in the papers or from channel switching over the day. TikTok hardly scratches their surface. While I understand Mr. Modi has been pretty influential on media houses, there are plenty of publishers like Indian Express or Dainik Jagran (in Hindi), or TV broadcasters like NDTV, The Wire etc., who don't mind calling Modi's spade a spade. TikTok isn't the main medium of influence in India. Facebook is, and the news & views is primarily still shared there Let me show the political influencing landscape in brief: I have lived in both the aforementioned countries and I could unequivocally feel that the average Indian is more aware of political current affairs. Even if final choices could be biased on the Hinduist/nationalist leanings (which is unfortunately a relatively new dynamics), they are not blind to what is happening. Many would call Modi a crook but do not want the alternative posed by Congress and still vote for him. Religious minority appeasing and Reservation biases have been abused so badly in last 3 decades by the opposition (which was in power) that people are now blind to the agenda people like Mr. Modi exort. Their responses are mostly reactionary to lost opportunities of work/social mobility. BJP in India has been projecting itself as savior of masses by bringing in measures, which would have been undemocratic 2 decades ago (e.g Article 370 abrogation or CAA recently). This is in stark contrast to people in US growing up leaning Blue or Red all through their lives, because their family or county has always voted that. If you ask why they chose to, the answer is almost always political party loyalty (and not the agenda). Coming November we will see this again when despite of so many legal predicaments, Donald Trump might still competing hard for presidency based on traditional loyalties. TikTok is aimed at the fence-sitters in US with dramatic immigration, crime or socioeconomic shock videos. When you have a crowd that is not in know-how of current political affairs, TikTok is enough to create disruption. If you had to do that in India, probably Facebook is the weapon of choice.