5 ms·

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

by 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.
    - 7speter 2y ago
      Facebook only started cooking those after they saw what tiktok posts were doing and how popular they were.
      - FpUser 2y ago
        Doe it make FB any better? The asshole is an asshole.
- _ache_ 2y ago
  That's is an interesting question. Actually, there is a lot more. About 30% people (of USA) use TT, ~60% under 30. You guess it, they don't to look only at dance videos. Social media had become a huge source of information for a big chunk of the population. On TT, and on most social media (SM), what you watch is mainly determined by the recommendation algorithm. This algo can hide subjects the SM can't put ad on but also subjects the they don't like and boost the one they do (shadow ban). That how you politicize SM. That about, the first thing Musk did with Twitter (after firing people). When it's a state controlled SM, it's more like foreign interference. There is a lot of books about that. It's documented, not a secret of something. Uyghurs for example, have been a subject of ban on TikTok, shadowing it heavily.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    But it's not foreign interference, it's foreign media. Foreign media is permissible for Americans to choose to consume and guess what, young people lap it up. That's their right
    - _ache_ 2y ago
      It could have been if ByteDance wasn't totally state controlled. Also, since TikTok is banned on China, it's not like it exists in China as a media (the Chinese version is called Douyin and basically it's the same as TikTok but with contents from within China only, to not interfere with the Great Firewall). Also, the concept of "choose to consume" is blurring with algorithm recommendation and optimizing dopamine reward to maximize screen time. The CCP didn't control of ByteDance to interference with other countries but to be able to control what happens inside China. But now, it's different.
      - aprilthird2021 2y ago
        But none of that changes the fact that Americans have the right to consume foreign controlled media. Totally state controlled media is legal to consume and spread and even become super popular in the US. I really dislike the idea that if some content is popular in the US and the government thinks the content is bad, they can just ban it. "Algorithmic manipulation" is a red herring. If people like it, they can watch it. If they don't they don't have to. Doesn't matter who makes it or for what reason
- spacechild1 2y ago
  For example, islamistic propaganda. It's a serious problem, at least here in Europe. You literally see 10-year-olds watching videos of beheadings in the subway. Oh, and I wouldn't say that FB is much better. The EU should probably ban both.
- kortilla 2y ago
  TikTok is packed full of political propaganda. Controlling which narratives people think are popular is super powerful. It’s called manufacturing consent.
  - ajrehg 2y ago
    So is the Canadian government, especially under Trudeau, which indirectly controls the media organizations through funding. All mainstream articles about the trucker protests were horrific lies (except for the honking, which was indeed disruptive and stupid). I don't care about TikTok, since there is nothing of value there. But will Canada also ban globaltimes.cn now? (The value of the Global Times is to find out what the party in China thinks, not that it is unbiased.)
    - kortilla 2y ago
      Both the Canadian media and globaltimes.cn don’t have nearly the screentime or intimate targeting TikTok has. It’s like billboard on the highway vs someone whispering things to you for 2 hours every day.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Well, yeah actually. If anyone is going to control it, it's best to be us controlling our own messaging. As a citizen of a country, as much as I would love to believe in free exchange of information, it's better to limit what enemies are able to broadcast directly to our phones. that's a commons with a lot of tragedies in it.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  That's fair, as long as you (as in country) won't cry foul when somebody blocks your outlet because they want to control your messaging. If you're going to cry foul, maybe you shouldn't block the other party in the first place.
- vivekd 2y ago
  This sounds good in theory but as a Canadian I often wonder how much our government's actions are on behalf of us the people as opposed to well financed or politically powerful special interests. It looks to me like many Canadians other are wondering that as well. However, that said, I do agree with your broader point. I'm suspicious of Tik Tok and the Chinese government's intentions and I think banning it was a good move.
  - octacat 2y ago
    I am afraid that banning tiktok would make facebook a monopoly in this area. And facebook has a long story of disregarding privacy, mental health and rights of their users.
    - 7speter 2y ago
      Facebook should also be regulated by western governments as they see fit
      - octacat 2y ago
        Facebook/youtube imposes enough censorship, more than any democratic government can possibly ask for, without looking too weird to the voters. So, gov does not see the reason to regulate, if platforms already proactively implemented all their most wild dreams.
macNchz 2y ago
If you live in a democracy you have a vote and a voice to bring to the table. It’s wild to me that on this topic people seem to see their own governments as largely equivalent to an outwardly adversarial if not explicitly hostile foreign power. I think it has been so long since the Pax-Americana West has dealt with an overtly hostile major power that we’ve collectively lost the concept that there can be real enemies with goals that run explicitly counter to our own.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - tyre 2y ago
    The Succession quote, “ I love you, but you are not serious people” comes to mind
  - macNchz 2y ago
    I have plenty of beef with the American political system, but a loud group of motivated Americans absolutely has the ability to influence government decisions. If you, a citizen, decided you really cared about something, and gathered your like-minded fellow citizens to amplify your voice, you have a real chance at making an impact. That cannot be said in any way, shape, or form for a foreign power.
    - adamsb6 2y ago
      Lots of things change in China because people make a big stink about it. Probably the most notable are the lockdown protests, but there are countless examples of someone complaining about bad local governance and the national government coming in to fix it. Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
8note 2y ago
From a Canadian perspective, the CBC should have a social media equivalent that is publicly run, and all social media companies should be regulated under the CRTC
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  I don't think having a state run equivalent is much better from a users perspective. The ability to snoop without warrants would be too great.
- tonyarkles 2y ago
  My gut reaction, also as a Canadian, is quite negative to this idea. Are you interested in expanding on the idea? I'm always looking for new perspectives and to understand how my fellow Canadians are looking at issues like this.
  - FpUser 2y ago
    One of your fellow Canadians really dislikes the idea of control. I also do dislike media being owned by few rich bastards.
    - tonyarkles 2y ago
      In a lot of ways I think the CRTC is fundamentally ensuring that the "media being owned by a few rich bastards" remains true?
- m00x 2y ago
  Social media is already regulated by the CRTC. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/2024-121.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/2024-121.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/industr/info.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/industr/info.htm If you're pro C-11, you really don't realize how bad this would be to give the government to determine what is "hate speech" and command companies to take it down.
plandis 2y ago
I think most people in western society trust their own government to care for their welfare way more that they trust the Chinese government.
- verisimi 2y ago
  'Government' can't care. It's just an agreed upon idea, not a thing with feelings. It is a form of anthropomorphising to say it cares. 'Government' is the idea of a structure that many people believe and act as if it is true. This belief and consequent effort by so many allows it to take a material expression in our lives. Like a group of software engineers might envisage a game or solution, so for government - except way more people are involved. Neither government nor software cares though - they're not that type.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "'Government' can't care. It's just an agreed upon idea, not a thing with feelings." But it consists of people with feelings - and they can have feelings of care towards the governed, or just feelings of care for themself.
    - verisimi 2y ago
      Yes, people can care, like software developers can care, in my example. But the thing that is created (government, software) does not.
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  Arguably the American government has killed more Americans than the Chinese government...

by 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.
  - 7speter 2y ago
    Facebook only started cooking those after they saw what tiktok posts were doing and how popular they were.
    - FpUser 2y ago
      Doe it make FB any better? The asshole is an asshole.
_ache_ 2y ago
That's is an interesting question. Actually, there is a lot more. About 30% people (of USA) use TT, ~60% under 30. You guess it, they don't to look only at dance videos. Social media had become a huge source of information for a big chunk of the population. On TT, and on most social media (SM), what you watch is mainly determined by the recommendation algorithm. This algo can hide subjects the SM can't put ad on but also subjects the they don't like and boost the one they do (shadow ban). That how you politicize SM. That about, the first thing Musk did with Twitter (after firing people). When it's a state controlled SM, it's more like foreign interference. There is a lot of books about that. It's documented, not a secret of something. Uyghurs for example, have been a subject of ban on TikTok, shadowing it heavily.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  But it's not foreign interference, it's foreign media. Foreign media is permissible for Americans to choose to consume and guess what, young people lap it up. That's their right
  - _ache_ 2y ago
    It could have been if ByteDance wasn't totally state controlled. Also, since TikTok is banned on China, it's not like it exists in China as a media (the Chinese version is called Douyin and basically it's the same as TikTok but with contents from within China only, to not interfere with the Great Firewall). Also, the concept of "choose to consume" is blurring with algorithm recommendation and optimizing dopamine reward to maximize screen time. The CCP didn't control of ByteDance to interference with other countries but to be able to control what happens inside China. But now, it's different.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      But none of that changes the fact that Americans have the right to consume foreign controlled media. Totally state controlled media is legal to consume and spread and even become super popular in the US. I really dislike the idea that if some content is popular in the US and the government thinks the content is bad, they can just ban it. "Algorithmic manipulation" is a red herring. If people like it, they can watch it. If they don't they don't have to. Doesn't matter who makes it or for what reason
spacechild1 2y ago
For example, islamistic propaganda. It's a serious problem, at least here in Europe. You literally see 10-year-olds watching videos of beheadings in the subway. Oh, and I wouldn't say that FB is much better. The EU should probably ban both.
kortilla 2y ago
TikTok is packed full of political propaganda. Controlling which narratives people think are popular is super powerful. It’s called manufacturing consent.
- ajrehg 2y ago
  So is the Canadian government, especially under Trudeau, which indirectly controls the media organizations through funding. All mainstream articles about the trucker protests were horrific lies (except for the honking, which was indeed disruptive and stupid). I don't care about TikTok, since there is nothing of value there. But will Canada also ban globaltimes.cn now? (The value of the Global Times is to find out what the party in China thinks, not that it is unbiased.)
  - kortilla 2y ago
    Both the Canadian media and globaltimes.cn don’t have nearly the screentime or intimate targeting TikTok has. It’s like billboard on the highway vs someone whispering things to you for 2 hours every day.

jvanderbot 2y ago

Well, yeah actually. If anyone is going to control it, it's best to be us controlling our own messaging. As a citizen of a country, as much as I would love to believe in free exchange of information, it's better to limit what enemies are able to broadcast directly to our phones. that's a commons with a lot of tragedies in it.

bayindirh 2y ago
That's fair, as long as you (as in country) won't cry foul when somebody blocks your outlet because they want to control your messaging. If you're going to cry foul, maybe you shouldn't block the other party in the first place.
vivekd 2y ago
This sounds good in theory but as a Canadian I often wonder how much our government's actions are on behalf of us the people as opposed to well financed or politically powerful special interests. It looks to me like many Canadians other are wondering that as well. However, that said, I do agree with your broader point. I'm suspicious of Tik Tok and the Chinese government's intentions and I think banning it was a good move.
- octacat 2y ago
  I am afraid that banning tiktok would make facebook a monopoly in this area. And facebook has a long story of disregarding privacy, mental health and rights of their users.
  - 7speter 2y ago
    Facebook should also be regulated by western governments as they see fit
    - octacat 2y ago
      Facebook/youtube imposes enough censorship, more than any democratic government can possibly ask for, without looking too weird to the voters. So, gov does not see the reason to regulate, if platforms already proactively implemented all their most wild dreams.

macNchz 2y ago

If you live in a democracy you have a vote and a voice to bring to the table. It’s wild to me that on this topic people seem to see their own governments as largely equivalent to an outwardly adversarial if not explicitly hostile foreign power. I think it has been so long since the Pax-Americana West has dealt with an overtly hostile major power that we’ve collectively lost the concept that there can be real enemies with goals that run explicitly counter to our own.

School-Cotton 2y ago
[flagged]
- tyre 2y ago
  The Succession quote, “ I love you, but you are not serious people” comes to mind
- macNchz 2y ago
  I have plenty of beef with the American political system, but a loud group of motivated Americans absolutely has the ability to influence government decisions. If you, a citizen, decided you really cared about something, and gathered your like-minded fellow citizens to amplify your voice, you have a real chance at making an impact. That cannot be said in any way, shape, or form for a foreign power.
  - adamsb6 2y ago
    Lots of things change in China because people make a big stink about it. Probably the most notable are the lockdown protests, but there are countless examples of someone complaining about bad local governance and the national government coming in to fix it. Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

8note 2y ago

From a Canadian perspective, the CBC should have a social media equivalent that is publicly run, and all social media companies should be regulated under the CRTC

ruthmarx 2y ago
I don't think having a state run equivalent is much better from a users perspective. The ability to snoop without warrants would be too great.
tonyarkles 2y ago
My gut reaction, also as a Canadian, is quite negative to this idea. Are you interested in expanding on the idea? I'm always looking for new perspectives and to understand how my fellow Canadians are looking at issues like this.
- FpUser 2y ago
  One of your fellow Canadians really dislikes the idea of control. I also do dislike media being owned by few rich bastards.
  - tonyarkles 2y ago
    In a lot of ways I think the CRTC is fundamentally ensuring that the "media being owned by a few rich bastards" remains true?
m00x 2y ago
Social media is already regulated by the CRTC. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/2024-121.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2024/2024-121.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/industr/info.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/industr/info.htm If you're pro C-11, you really don't realize how bad this would be to give the government to determine what is "hate speech" and command companies to take it down.

plandis 2y ago

I think most people in western society trust their own government to care for their welfare way more that they trust the Chinese government.

verisimi 2y ago
'Government' can't care. It's just an agreed upon idea, not a thing with feelings. It is a form of anthropomorphising to say it cares. 'Government' is the idea of a structure that many people believe and act as if it is true. This belief and consequent effort by so many allows it to take a material expression in our lives. Like a group of software engineers might envisage a game or solution, so for government - except way more people are involved. Neither government nor software cares though - they're not that type.
- lukan 2y ago
  "'Government' can't care. It's just an agreed upon idea, not a thing with feelings." But it consists of people with feelings - and they can have feelings of care towards the governed, or just feelings of care for themself.
  - verisimi 2y ago
    Yes, people can care, like software developers can care, in my example. But the thing that is created (government, software) does not.
RobotToaster 2y ago
Arguably the American government has killed more Americans than the Chinese government...