6 ms·
Where I'm at in Europe, the app is rife with anti-American & pro-Chinese & Russian propaganda. I think that even if the Americans ban the app, it's too late, th
by gman83 2y ago
Where I'm at in Europe, the app is rife with anti-American & pro-Chinese & Russian propaganda. I think that even if the Americans ban the app, it's too late, the entire world is now addicted to this app and it'll have negative consequences for the U.S. for many years to come.
- BLKNSLVR 2y agoBut it was really too late when nothing was done about Facebook or any of the other US malvertising companies.
- dqv 2y agoLike what? What are some examples of things you've heard from these propaganda videos?
- gman83 2y agoOne example is loads of videos from John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs about how what's happening in Ukraine is really NATO's fault. I don't get why these rather niche academics are all over. Also loads of videos about how democracy in general is just really inefficient and we'd be better of copying China's model. Things like that. I never engage with such videos, actively click things like "don't show me content like this" but it's never ending.
- dqv 2y agoOh. I thought it would be more like the Chinese or Russian version of these US military edits which are widely popular: https://www.tiktok.com/@penerabread/video/7219443593096858922 https://www.tiktok.com/@penerabread/video/721944359309685892... https://www.tiktok.com/@optimusprimegaming/video/7374733967506935046 https://www.tiktok.com/@optimusprimegaming/video/73747339675... https://www.tiktok.com/@._military.edits._/video/7308883732151242027 https://www.tiktok.com/@._military.edits._/video/73088837321... https://www.tiktok.com/@cloakedshadow71/video/7360797286894505258 https://www.tiktok.com/@cloakedshadow71/video/73607972868945... https://www.tiktok.com/@.nightgoons/video/7200591051797597483 https://www.tiktok.com/@.nightgoons/video/720059105179759748... https://www.tiktok.com/@tripdownbritishtown/video/7373237565308161312 https://www.tiktok.com/@tripdownbritishtown/video/7373237565... https://www.tiktok.com/@blake_ola/video/7302581313804995882 https://www.tiktok.com/@blake_ola/video/7302581313804995882 https://www.tiktok.com/@minimalmilitary/photo/7195723559736675630 https://www.tiktok.com/@minimalmilitary/photo/71957235597366... https://www.tiktok.com/@military.ee/video/7361913166873316640 https://www.tiktok.com/@military.ee/video/736191316687331664... https://www.tiktok.com/@military.ee/video/7360805294047366433 https://www.tiktok.com/@military.ee/video/736080529404736643... https://www.tiktok.com/@militaryvids123/video/7189898837425786117 https://www.tiktok.com/@militaryvids123/video/71898988374257... Pretty surprising to have so much content like this and it not be suppressed with TikTok being so anti-US and all.
- boffinAudio 2y ago[flagged]
- WitCanStain 2y agoI think turning a fledgling democracy into a kleptocratic dictatorship and starting an unjust war that has caused 500k casualties is at least on par with the worst the US has done in recent history like Iraq.
- blitzar 2y agoThe United States and its allies have dropped at least 326,000 bombs and missiles on countries in the greater Middle East/ North Africa region since 2001. People 30 and under in the region have barely known a day when the US were not bombing them or their neighbouring countries - that is bound to have a pretty strong effect on how you view a country.
- mopsi 2y ago326 000 is 5 days' worth in terms of Russian invasion of Ukraine at its peak intensity. Those who are 30 and under have seen only a one year when Russia has not been at war - during the economic crisis that followed Asian financial crisis of 1997. But this does not get even remotely as much attention as wars involving the US, because there are no paid shills flooding every imaginable place with stale copypastas about foreign wars, skewing people's sense of proportion.
- vrc 2y agoAnd I don’t think Ukrainians have fond feelings about Russia either.. Both things can be objectively bad for the people being bombed.
- boffinAudio 2y agoThere is an unheard population of Ukrainians who want the war to stop and for there to be peace with their Russian cousins. It is the Western powers who are sacrificing Ukraine in order to put Western weapons systems on Russias borders. Not the Ukrainian people. And, in the context of what was done to Iraq (5% of its population murdered for the purposes of the USA's racist, elitist ruling classes), it is no wonder that this silence is perpetuated.
- raxxorraxor 2y agoI think the popularity of TikTok is already declining and I always question the effectiveness of such propaganda attempts. Investing in education is the best antidote in my opinion, state level blocking of services just opens a few cans of worms. To make TikTok unpopular more quickly, governments should probably mandate that parents make an account too.
- torginus 2y agoDo we know what comes after Tiktok?
- Loughla 2y agoNo, the teens/college kids are still all over tiktok. It's not dying yet
- cma 2y agoA constant AI generated feed, in and out of fully immersive, no swiping, just eye tracking (incl. pupil dilation) and face tracking to guide. Though some in congress who promoted the ban thought it already worked kind like that.
- candiddevmike 2y agoOw! My balls!
- hypeatei 2y ago> mandate that parents make an account too. Guarantee higher monthly active users and the chance they get addicted too. Nice. I don't know why everyone thinks that: 1) parents are infallible 2) the problem is individuals/families and not the thing itself (infinite scroll feeds)
- raxxorraxor 2y agoIt was a joke suggesting that young people tend to think a platform becomes less cool if their parents are on it too. Not that parents can stalk the online life of their kids or other things that actually do make them uncool.
- Rinzler89 2y ago>it's too late, the entire world is now addicted Just like how the world is also addicted to Instagram and Facebook before that?
- j_maffe 2y agoTo be fair the world is still as addicted to IG and FB as before, it's just been normalized at this point and FB is having an aging demographic.
- blitzar 2y agoDon't forget MySpace, people loved that site.
- CalRobert 2y agoIt looks like a clone of it is doing all right https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41422311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41422311
- clbrmbr 2y agoThat’s a problem for Europe but not so much the USA. We should not have a Chinese company controlling our information infrastructure to this degree. It’s divestiture or ban, not just a ban.
- thomassmith65 2y agoYes, it's wise to be aware of how fickle the public's attention can be. TikTok will not be around forever, and likely won't be prominent enough to bother discussing a decade from now. The parent comment also has a point, though, because stale trends generally manage to limp along around 60 years or so. Ideas tend really to win out conclusively once the opposing side has died off. So the "culture" that, at Facebook's height of popularity, Facebook fostered, in fact will live on in a certain generation. And all the nonsense that TikTok seems to foster today will, sadly, affect the world for decades after TikTok turns into a nonentity.
- ziggyzecat 2y agoGerman here: plenty of pro America, anti Chinese and pro Ukraine propaganda in my feeds. Lot's of it full of AI bits, mixed videos with AI and real footage, partially from other wars and or years old mixed into current, potentially staged bits (it's mostly clusters of facial expressions and gestures that make me doubt but also environment, intensity and location of sweat and dirt and positioning of items and vehicles and stuff, in 'artificial(learned actually, semi-professional) relation' to buildings). It's horrible.
- bilbo0s 2y agoMeh. Probably the reality is that the internet is filled with propaganda. Every site. Every forum. Even HN is filled with anti-(put pretty much anything here) propaganda. Try to ignore the noise and tune in more of the signal. That's about all you can do really. I'm not sure banning websites will do much for you, as you two are rightfully pointing out. You ban a website in Brazil? Well, OK. You get to broadcast most of the propaganda in Brazil, but the rest of the world keeps getting the anti-Brazil propaganda. You ban a website in China? Well, OK. You get to broadcast most of the propaganda in China, but the rest of the world keeps getting plenty of anti-Chinese propaganda. You ban a website in the US? Same thing. You get to broadcast most of the propaganda in the US, but the rest of the world keeps getting plenty of anti-US propaganda.
- keiferski 2y agoThe word propaganda itself has been a bit bent out of shape in the last century. It just means to spread information. Information itself is more-or-less inherently biased (as in, not objectively neutral in an omniscient way) and so everything is basically propaganda, although not in the scary obvious way that word usually implies.
- roenxi 2y agoThe problem with banning things is actually a bit more subtle than just that. Propaganda in isolation isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing. If Big Vegetable embarks on a multi-billion dollar campaign to push pro-vegetable propaganda, that is probably a win for the rest of us. But if Big Tobacco does something similar it is more of a loss. So we need a mechanism to decide if a specific type of propaganda is acceptable or not. And, if governments get involved, typically they will start restricting propaganda that is truthful but threatening to their chances of holding power (ie, people pointing out the flawed nature of the powers that be). It is better force people to fight propaganda with counter-propaganda and let individuals make their own mistakes.
- nope1000 2y agoFor me it's videos about working out and climbing. You can train the algorithm pretty well what you don't want to see.
- Garvi 2y agoThat's just a glimpse of reality you're witnessing for the first time. It can be quite disorienting after decades of indoctrination on US social media. I'm just so sick of all the pro-war propaganda we're getting here in the EU from the US.
- slightwinder 2y agoThat's more likely just your algorithm, personalized to whatever TikTok considers the best for engagement-farming from you.
- blitzar 2y agoThe tiktok algorithm famously feeds people what they want and what they most engage with. If all you are seeing anti-American & pro-Chinese & Russian propaganda, it is on you. If all you are seeing is teenage girls doing provocative dances, it is on you.