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It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public

• not2b 2y ago
  That can be a threat, but a billionaire American or South African with similar power and motivation is also a threat.
  • mc32 2y ago
    And also the guy who bought a bankrupt radio network, right? Or is that one okay?
    • ahartmetz 2y ago
      What about that African weirdo who bought the #1 political announcements channel on the internet? /s
  • imgabe 2y ago
    A billionaire American lives in America and generally benefits if America benefits. A foreign country is not aligned to America’s interests and may be outright hostile to them.
    • MPSFounder 2y ago
      This right here is incredibly stupid. One of the stupidest takes and a rampid and dangerous misconception among mostly young men I see as of late. Elon avoids taxes not because he likes this country, but because he benefits from it. Anything that maximizes his personal wealth could very well be hostile to the well being of the country. You should see how he treated his own children. Incredibly naive. Many rich men end up giving back to the communities that made them (Gates and others for instance). Elon, a child of parents that cashed in on apartheid, is certainly an exception.
      • octacat 2y ago
        Many rick men are giving back for the soft power (i.e. the politics play). Or indirectly investing into their new ventures (like giving money to buy vaccines and also making the vaccines by their other company). Plus some interesting tax write-offs. So, thanks for the charity, but I would rather prefer them to pay that as taxes.
      • imgabe 2y ago
        Elon has literally paid billions of dollars in taxes. Yes, he "avoids" taxes by using every legal strategy available to him, as does every single person who pays taxes. This is called "paying the correct amount of taxes you legally owe". > Anything that maximizes his personal wealth could very well be hostile to the well being of the country. Let's look at the things that have maximized his personal wealth: Paypal - made online payments popular and safe. Enabled millions of people to start online business. Tesla - made electric cars popular. Reduced C02 emissions. Gave thousands of Americans good jobs. Made many employees and investors rich. SpaceX - re-ignited space exploration. pioneered re-usable rockets. Dramatically reduced the cost of launching satellites. Starlink - brought Internet access to rural areas. Please tell me, which of these personal wealth maximizing activities has been hostile to the US?
        • grahamj 2y ago
          All of them because now he's using those funds to help Trump.
    • Teever 2y ago
      This is a post about Canada.
      • sabbaticaldev 2y ago
        Canada is America, literally but also figuratively
        • alext5 2y ago
          Canada is in North America. It is not America. Yes the two countries are adjacent and the US has a strong influence on Canada, but you cannot equate one with the other figuratively or literally. Despite the influence they are very much distinct in many regards.
        • Teever 2y ago
          This is a needlessly antagonistic thing to say.
    • deleted 2y ago
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  • BurningFrog 2y ago
    China's motivation, as a geopolitical adversary to the US, is to tilt the geopolitical power balance in its favor. Our local billionaires goals are not in the same category.
    • filleduchaos 2y ago
      It's extremely telling that so many Americans in this thread are comfortably talking about "our local" companies and adversaries to the US, when the article is about a ban in...Canada.
      • shiroiushi 2y ago
        The US and Canada are two of the closest allies in the world, and have been for a very long time. To many Americans, Canadians are also part of "us", at least when discussing global issues or adversaries.
  • boringg 2y ago
    Not even comparable.
• wruza 2y ago
  It’s your people who decide to see it, not a foreign govt. Chinese media like cnn and nyt exist, no need to imagine either that or the situation where China buys cnn and nyt and gosh now you have to watch their propaganda. The essence is, by denying agency of your country’s users, you deny the whole set of ideas it bases on. If that’s a natural vulnerability of the ideology, addressing it by banning media is a patch over a bleeding wound. Canadian teens will simply learn about VPN, like they always do in other countries which ban internet resources. Not a single one of them will leave tiktok.
  • a123b456c 2y ago
    You might reasonably be describing the current TikTok algorithm, but companies often modify algorithms over time.
    • octacat 2y ago
      Sure, so ban when they change the algorithm. But for some political powers even a current algorithm is a threat, because they cannot control it (like they could do with the local media).
      • throw-the-towel 2y ago
        But how would the gov't know they changed the algorithm? It's not like TikTok sends newsletters to the House of Commons.
        • octacat 2y ago
          They could request an audit (and ban if tiktok refuses). They could monitor the results they are getting in the recommendations based on specific list of criteria. They could propose moderation rules tiktok would have to follow (kinda similar to how it operates in China - they have a different algorithm there). They could request tiktok servers to be in Canada.
    • wruza 2y ago
• kaliqt 2y ago
  As opposed to the domestic government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.
  • Synaesthesia 2y ago
    But what is out there on TikTok that's so dangerous to the state? Dance videos?
    • kelseyfrog 2y ago
      The clearest way to look at this is through the lens of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus(ISK). Media is one of the arms of the ISK. It's not necessarily that TikTok is foreign owned, it's that China's dominant ideology is incompatible with the western hegemony. The western ISK sees alternative ideologies as a threat and control over the arm of mass media is a concrete form of that threat. The ISK must have control over dominant forms of media in order to maintain ideological hegemony.
    • usr1106 2y ago
      Making a whole generation unfit for qualified work is a serious threat for every nation. Many of the Tiktok generation live in a world where reading for 3 minutes is a heavy effort they are unwilling to do. All information is supposed to be presented in short entertaining video clips. In China online time for the youth has been strictly regulated years ago. But harming other nations is only in their interest.
      • hooverd 2y ago
        How is that fundamentally different from Reels and Shorts and whatever Facebook has cooking?
        • usr1106 2y ago
          Meta is not fundamentally better than Bytedance. Their business model is addiction combined with accumulating and misusing user data.
• nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
  Imagine if Russia owned Fox News. Oh wait
  • homebrewer 2y ago
    Now you know what the rest of the world (not all of it obviously) feels about Radio Liberty and friends.
• cool_dude85 2y ago
  Let's take this one step further, then, and ask why we should allow private media ownership if it's this important. Why should some malevolent billionaire be able to own CNN or NYT and decide what stories they could publish? Does it matter if the billionaire has a US passport or not?
  • rgrieselhuber 2y ago
    This is one of the main reasons we're seeing the legacy media lose legitimacy. People want to hear authentic voices and go to where the new ideas are.
    • UncleOxidant 2y ago
      "authentic" voices are sometimes not so authentic. And sometimes they start out authentic and end up being paid by foreign interests (some high profile cases of this earlier this year - "we didn't know the $100,000/week was coming from Russia")
      • rgrieselhuber 2y ago
        Sure, but at least you have options and get to choose. Long form content, unrestricted by executives telling people how to run their show, all that makes a big difference. There is no need for corporate bureaucrats to try to run things.
        • UncleOxidant 2y ago
          I'm an old-ish person (61). I started watching the news when I was about 12. I think we were better off as a society when there were basically 3 TV/radio networks (ABC,CBS and NBC) each dispensing basically the same dull, boring (by today's standards) newscast. There were newspapers, of course, and they tended to be where you'd find the more opinionated stuff, but there were limits on how many newspapers an entity could own in any particular market. The fairness doctrine reigned over broadcast news, so you wouldn't have stuff like Fox news and probably not even a lot of what's on MSNBC. It just feels to me like we had a more cohesive national vision and weren't nearly as divided as we are now. I'm sure this will be unpopular here, but I'm not sure more options has helped us in terms of being able to live together. So many families can't even meet for Thanksgiving dinner anymore, for example, because of the arguments that break out. People are living in completely different truth bubbles now which makes it almost impossible to communicate. I'm don't want to be completely pollyannish about the past - there were probably things we weren't hearing about from those fewer outlets. But I'm also not sure how we move forward as a society in a situation where there are so many different shattered views of what is true.
• deleted 2y ago
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• cpursley 2y ago
  What’s crazy is few people even talk about who currently owns major US news networks and what their motives might be. People don’t like Musk owning Twitter/X, that’s a start - but start reading about who owns the rest (especially traditional media).
  • wilg 2y ago
    I would argue that has been a persistent topic of conversation for my entire life!
    • gchamonlive 2y ago
      I'd love to hear what you have to say about this discussion
      • cpursley 2y ago
        The book is pretty dated so some of the specific examples might be boring, but this is a good book on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent You could probably get by with the cliff notes version.
  • idopmstuff 2y ago
    To be fair, as it relates to this topic there isn't really a need to discuss because foreign entities have been banned from owning controlling stakes in TV and radio networks without approval. A Chinese organization would never be allowed to control a news network in the way they control TikTok.
    • nine_k 2y ago
      But the news networks are on the way out, and tiktoks are in. Do you remember the joyous declarations from 1990s that meatspace state borders do not apply to cyberspace? That was not entirely wishful thinking. The same properties that allow information from "free world" to make way into the "world of oppression" work for different definitions of "free" (democratic, communist, fundamentalist, etc) and "oppressed" (communist brainwashed, capitalist exploitative, sinful and godless, etc). A very similar situation enmeshes cryptography.
• bhouston 2y ago
  > Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish. It is happening on our local platforms here. Meta, based in the US, is systematically censoring Palestinian content that would otherwise be available here in Canada. Details: * https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/... * https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palestine-censorship-sjp/ https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti... For a very recent example, one of the few remaining prominent Palestinian journalists, with a following of over 1M on Meta, was banned today: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jazeeras-anas-al-sharif-returns-to-instagram-despite-suppression https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jaze...
  • epolanski 2y ago
    [flagged]
  • sattoshi 2y ago
    Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook
    • bhouston 2y ago
      > Moot point because Trudeau basically banned all news from being shared on Facebook You can still follow individual reporters posting their own content. For example I can access both https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/ or https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/ https://www.instagram.com/clarissawardcnn/, etc. But I can not access the organization pages like https://www.instagram.com/cnn/ https://www.instagram.com/cnn/
    • throw1230 2y ago
      Trudeau didn't ban news on FB, FB banned news posted to Canada because they don't want to pay publishers.
• beloch 2y ago
  Canadian users can still access Tiktok and are still subject to Tiktok's algorithms. They're also still subject to Meta's algorithms that, unlike Tiktok, have already helped cause at least one genocide[1]. Tiktok's Canada-based offices must have been up to some other form of skulduggery for them to have been shuttered while leaving Canadian use of the platform completely status quo. [1]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
• b3ing 2y ago
  We have foreign born billionaires that own mainstream media outlets in the US so not sure it’s that much different
• cyanydeez 2y ago
  Yes, better to let american corporations to propahandize americans
• mountainb 2y ago
  The difficulty here is that it has long been US policy to promote the exports of its intellectual property (such as its movies) and communications networks (such as the internet). Trade policy is almost always a two way street, particularly in the modern era in which arrangements like the "unequal treaties" that choked the Qing dynasty are highly unusual. So banning Tiktok necessarily results in reciprocal bans. Canada does not have similar concerns as the US does because it is our little gas station whose pretensions to independence we humor and they do not export IP or communications technologies at the same scale as we do.
  • imgabe 2y ago
    American social networks are already banned in China and have been for a long time. Even TikTok doesn't operate in China because they have a different message they want for their own citizens. Douyin - the Chinese version of Tiktok - promotes learning about science and technology, shuts down at night, and limits how much children are allowed to use it.
    • xarope 2y ago
      That first part about Douyin, sounds exactly like what the internet should be, a public resource for learning about hard things. The second part, well, I guess I can read a book, and maybe children should, too.
    • deleted 2y ago
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    • gs17 2y ago
      Maybe there's child accounts that has those limits, but normal accounts don't match that description. I've watched my girlfriend use Douyin and the content was lower brow than what e.g. Instagram shows her. It was mostly dumb skits and people doing silly dances. Due to time zones, I have no clue if it shut down at night, but it never seemed to be an issue. We get a lot of propaganda about Chinese social media apps that's just wrong. I was told Xiaohongshu is a propaganda app that sends quotes from Mao's little red book, and it's Chinese Instagram.
    • deleted 2y ago
• ramblenode 2y ago
  > It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that. Well, this is Canada we are talking about. All of the countries in OP's list are foreign.
  • BadHumans 2y ago
    Canada is a member of Five Eyes so they might as well be the US as far as data control and intelligence goes.
  • m00x 2y ago
    As a Canadian, the US already controls Canada in almost every way. We get US media, technology, gas, trade, etc. If the US wanted Canada to do something, they wouldn't have to use subtle techniques to do it, they could just demand it.
    • neither_color 2y ago
      I don't think the US tries to control Canada like a vassal. It's an unfair portrayal of their common history. Canada is basically the parts of British interest in North America that that revolutionary war failed to reach or aquire in post war negotiations. Benedict Arnold, following Washingtons plan, was defeated in Quebec after all. The US influences Canada more than Canada influences the US because its population is 10x. If the situation were reversed and Canada had all the northern states of the US their relationship would be the same.
      • deleted 2y ago
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• alistairSH 2y ago
  Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish. Not foreign, but we already have that problem with Sinclair and local TV affiliate stations.
• vcryan 2y ago
  I know this is shocking, but people don't have to look at TikToc or CNN no matter who owns it. Personally, I welcome the stat of Iran purchasing CNN and Putin buying TikToc. If the public doesn't like the apps/network they can use something different.
• IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  This sounds reasonable but I feel just like OP, its still missing the forest from the trees Its not about who has the data, although that is important. Its not about subversion of a population by a foreign state, although that is important too. The crux of the issue is reciprocity. China does not let any CAN or US companies into China markets, without first demanding local factories, forcing local production, requiring equity control and even IP. And if you dont share it, bohoo they will steal it anyway. And, there's no recourse. The chinese govt has abused free trade for so long. Its time to demand fairness. They dont give us access into their markets? OK! We close our markets to their corporations. Its as simple as that. The golden rule.
  • russli1993 2y ago
    What are you talking about? You can import stuff to China right now, most stuff import tax is 10%, much lower than USA's tariff on Chinese goods at 25%. Apple has been selling made in India iphone in China, Nike selling made in Vietnam shoes in China. Apple, Tesla have very large market share in China. Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Amazon sell software, networking equipment, Cloud computing, databases, the stuff that is security sensitive to China and Chinese government. Where is the reciprocal access for Chinese companies to US market? Can BYD, Huawei sell to US? Can companies like Wuxi apptec, CATL, Gotion, DJI do business with US partners without absurd political witch hunting, discrimination, bans, sanctions? Mind you these companies are wanted by US companies, and they hire American workers with American offices. Tiktok pays a lot to US employees right? China also hosted a lot of trade shows year around and American companies can freely participate in them, sell and importing stuff to China. Where is the non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese firms? China imported $2.8 trillion of goods in 2023, 2nd highest in the world, China has 0% tariffs with many countries as part of free trade agreement, what is this? Isn't this not market access? What are you talking about. Apple, Tesla, Nike, GE, cisco all get non-biased if not halo marketing in China. Please proof where Chinese government is attacking them like US government is attacking Huawei, Wuxi apptec, DJI, and huge number of Chinese companies too long to list.
    • IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
• kaonashi 2y ago
  It's about the western gov'ts NOT being able to control the feed, what evidence is there that Chinese gov't is actively involved in curating the TikTok feed?
• raydev 2y ago
  > Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish Okay. Now imagine CNN and NYTimes and Fox News being coerced into publishing or not publishing info because a US gov agency demands it. Or how about the US gov pressuring Meta and Twitter to change their algos around very specific topics? You don't need to imagine it actually. So why is that less of a concern than China controlling a media delivery service?
  • darknavi 2y ago
    From the US government's perspective? Because they are the ones in control of those US-based scenarios.
    • raydev 2y ago
      No, from yours/commenters' perspectives. What about US-governed control is functionally better for consumers?
  • temporalparts 2y ago
    This can't be a serious question. US Government likes US Government control because it's themselves. They don't want an adversary to have control. Is the distinction not obvious??
    • raydev 2y ago
      I'm very serious. > US Government likes US Government control because it's themselves. I know. That doesn't tell me why China controlling a social media algorithm is inherently any worse from yours or my perspective. > They don't want an adversary to have control. Is the "adversary" claim not undermined by them being a primary trade partner?
      • kelnos 2y ago
        > Is the "adversary" claim not undermined by them being a primary trade partner? No, because there's more nuance in the world than you seem to suggest.
• BobbyTables2 2y ago
  What about other cases in which domestic companies are fully bending to the will of China and other hostile governments? Or simpler, domestic companies having foreign workers developing and implementing the algorithm itself???
• deleted 2y ago
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• PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  I don't see how a foreign government or any foreign interest is worse than domestic interests (or governments). The us is already one of the most propagandized nations on earth and our own government only benefits from this, despite ostensibly being criticized from sanitized angles. I don't know what life is like in canada, but what i surmise from friends is that the experience is similar.
  • prawn 2y ago
    In theory, you can vote to influence your own government, but not the foreign interest.
    • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
      Ok, but none of the domestic interests are (theoretically) controlled by the government and yet all are (evidently) at least as malicious. I suppose this would be easier to rationalize if domestic interests were democratically controllable.... but they're not. And they certainly aren't by canadians, which makes this action doubly confusing.
      • prawn 2y ago
        People throughout this thread seem to disagree with your first point.
        • PittleyDunkin 2y ago
          Hence the "(theoretically)" hedge. The theory for how control is maintained has been well-established for at least three decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent Nonetheless, this underlines the hypocrisy of punishing TikTok but not western corporations. By any standard (except for foreign control, which is of dubious merit when domestic control is equally harmful) Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc are equally of deserving of restriction as TikTok is.
• mindslight 2y ago
  Data protection regulation addresses the abuses of reading information from databases. An analog to address the abuses of controlling how users read information from databases would be anti-trust regulation that unbundles client software from hosted services. "The algorithm" should be under control of the client software, for which there should be a competitive market, based on well-documented APIs for communication between the two. Then everyone can choose what "algorithm" they want, rather than having one singular one pushed on them by the service provider abusing its captive audience.
• macinjosh 2y ago
  I tried TikTok out earlier this year. It was enjoyable but at least once a day when I was using the app heavily I would be served a video that was mildly pro China. Like a clearly western person living there showing off how great it is. It wasn’t offensive or even off the mark but it felt like I was being served low grade propaganda.
• huimang 2y ago
  Realistically speaking, it'd probably be no different than $random_billionare pushing for whatever makes them the most profit.
• aprilthird2021 2y ago
  But foreign news media are legal for people to consume in the US, at least. If every American wanted to read and watch Al Jazeera and put it on in every store and bar and restaurant, that wouldn't justify banning it
• seanvelasco 2y ago
  SO THIS! it's not about data protection, it's about the platform allowing misinformation and hate speech to thrive there. i've reported hundreds of videos, comments, and accounts - TikTok said they don't violate the community standards. the worst was yesterday - someone commented he was sad Hitler failed on a TikTok video about the Israeli hostages held by Hamas - and TikTok, after 30 minutes, said this doesn't violate community standards. before anyone says "free speech" - views or comments that are not aligned with the CCP and its allies get taken down when reported. several of mine were taken down. i owe the rising antisemitism among young people to TikTok and its lack of action towards misinformation and hate speech.
• cwillu 2y ago
  Then they would be restricting the app, not just shutting down the Canadian offices.
• anonzzzies 2y ago
  Only foreign? Zuck during elections, Musk during elections. etc. Living in the EU, if I am gullible, when I open X, I have to believe that all Americans are mentally challenged. Being raised as a kid or gullible reading all that crap every day cannot be good for you right? Without foreign influence that is.
• freehorse 2y ago
  So other countries should ban facebook, twitter/x and other US-based social media for the same reason? I love how this is not censorship but when non-western countries do it, then it is.
• ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  For most of the world, that "foreign government" is the US that pushes its propaganda via facebook, twitter and also by buying up local tv/news stations, newspapers, etc. I know this is a US-centric site, but globally, you're a minority that pushes the most propaganda around. ...especially since the article is about canada, so US is a foreign government, and meta/x are foreign companies.
• TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish. I don't know about others but to me the NYT and CNN are quite the propaganda machines already. There's nothing resembling actual journalism ongoing at these places.
• p0w3n3d 2y ago
  how did we get from PhpBB to algorithms that influence whole societies
• shubb 2y ago
  One of the big controversies is that Chinese "tiktok" runs a much less socially disruptive algorithm. You know, China hit a lot of these problems before we did and the ir platforms are "nicer" because they are more regulated. Rather than ban tiktok and suffer the same problems with meta's Reels, what if we borrowed some of thier regulation?
• quotemstr 2y ago
  > It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm The right way to stop bad behavior is to write a specific description of the bad actions and the penalty for doing them into the code of law. The wrong way is to declare specific entities guilty of bad behavior you can only vaguely describe. There is a very good reason the US constitution bans bills of attainder: they become a way of going after individuals for reasons that if properly articulated could not withstand public scrutiny. Canada would do well to uphold the same taboo. Note that I'm not registering a position on TikTok itself. It could be run by turbosatan for all I care. I object to the lawless mechanism through which western governments are trying to go after TikTok in particular.
• Clubber 2y ago
  >It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that. Adam Curry opined that this was the excuse and it's really about protecting domestic (or at least Western in the case of Canada) social media companies. Seems plausible. I don't use TikTok so I'm not sure what the feed looks like, but it seems like a bunch of people doing silly stuff and mugging for the camera.
• JohnMakin 2y ago
  You were so close and nearly got there. It's not about fear of China controlling the narrative, it's about not being able to control the narrative on Tiktok like they are doing on other (American) platforms.
• _silicon 2y ago
  Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris from the New York Times causing the resignations of many within the organization and a similar situation occurred with Bezos and the Washington Post . We have internal issues as well. I agree with what you are saying though. I don’t know what can remedy the apparent degraded integrity of social platforms and major news outlets, but I’m all ears. Federated platforms are compelling but no holy grail and such things founded on ideological extremes like Lemmy (developed by self professed Leninist Marxists) and the stigma around decentralized technologies make them less attractive.
• lbschenkel 2y ago
  And yet if some other country bans US-controlled social media exactly for the same reasons, this works as a data point to label them as "lacking freedom of speech", "axis of evil", "undemocratic", etc. But I do appreciate the honesty of at least admitting the hypocrisy.