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Was it used by China, by the candidate, or by romainians? The national security arguments about speech on tiktok always avoid this question. See also: is China

Was it used by China, by the candidate, or by romainians? The national security arguments about speech on tiktok always avoid this question. See also: is China suddenly a center of human rights activism, or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians?

alwa 2y ago
The allegation [0] is that a Russian influence campaign used TikTok as at least one of its platforms, to major effect. The subtext is that TikTok was at the very least complicit, in that, at a minimum, it tolerated what I believe Facebook calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” If you think of TikTok as an instrument of the Chinese state, this could look consistent with the phenomenon Anne Applebaum has been talking about lately: a pattern of loose alliances-of-convenience between autocratic nations in service of specific disruptive missions [1]. A less spooky reading might be that Chinese norms don’t align with American ones as far as proactively stopping this kind of thing—that they just don’t care about this kind of Russian caper on the other side of the world. They sure do think carefully about their domestic information environment, though; and they’re probably the best in the world at policing mass thinking when they feel like it. Where are the lines between mere negligence, complicity, and active participation? That seems a little more delicate than a couple news cycles’ work. The Europeans have asked TikTok to preserve records to find out. I suspect the light and fire seems to be around whether a nation wants any tool like this to just be lying around, ready to disrupt the nation’s politics at a moment’s notice. Social media may be new in the scheme of things, but in the years since the UN studied Facebook’s genocides [2], governments have at least tried to get a handle on the kinds of monitoring and moderation tools and tactics that can help counter this kind of campaign (some with more deference than others to authentic speech). As far as I’ve heard, the allegation had never been that Chinese government villains cackled and rubbed their hands together and said “today we take Romania!” Rather, it’s that the tools are powerful enough that we don’t want to leave them lying around unchecked—especially since, at least from the perspective of American and European policy professionals, Chinese thinking doesn’t really recognize a distinction between commercial and national security interests. Others may have better sourcing than I do for this specific instance, but I think it’s fair to point to Western thinking about China’s Military-Civil Fusion policy [3] to think about dual-use idea-disseminating technologies like TikTok. [0] https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference-tiktok/33227010.html https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference... [1] e.g., https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-r... and https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/russia-china-nato-axis-resistance/678831/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/russia-chi... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... , https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/myanmar-ffm/reportofthe-myanmar-ffm https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/myanmar-ffm/reportoft... , https://iimm.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Hate-Speech-Report_EN.pdf https://iimm.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Hate-Speech-R... [PDF, large] [3] https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/12/chinas-military-civil-fusion-strategy-a-blueprint-for-technological-superiority/ https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/12/chinas-military-civil-f...
deleted 2y ago
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tivert 2y ago
> See also: is China suddenly a center of human rights activism, China is, when it serves their primary interest of deflecting criticism from the operation of their very extensive totalitarian/authoritarian system. IIRC, they put out "human rights" reports all the time to that end that do stuff like criticize American prison conditions. > or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians? It's worth noting that TikTok could (and probably would) be used by the PRC in very subtle ways, that would be missed in a distinction of "is it Chinese people speaking or is it Americans." I think the influence mechanism would almost certainly consist of giving artificial boosts to American voices that unwittingly serve PRC goals, e.g. anti-war activists if China invades Taiwan. They could even strongly condemn China as a warmonger, but their elevation would still serve Chinese goals if they spread the message that the US should stay out. And given that the PRC has access to all the TikTok data (I believe no claims the could not access it), they can probably very effectively figure out exactly the voices to elevate that would do their job effectively.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  I know that's the conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we be asking for evidence?
  - tivert 2y ago
    > I know that's the conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we be asking for evidence? No. This is about using reason to anticipate and prevent problems, not dumbly waiting around until the actualized problem stares you in the face and it's too late to do anything about it. But if you want evidence, all that is needed is the evidence that China and the US are adversaries.
    - j_maffe 2y ago
      That's not sufficient evidence.
      - tivert 2y ago
wyldberry 2y ago
At best this comment implies there's actual an actual smoking gun related to what functionally are nation-state capability and operations to influence populations external to their own, specifically related to TikTok/ByteDance. If you have an AP government level understanding of how China and the USA work, then you can probably understand that this is an intersection of: government laws, great power competition, and wealth seeking behaviors. When you control the algorithm, everyone downstream of it is at the mercy of the power structures and incentives of your top level leadership [0]. Consider the following: 1.) How Chinese companies interact with the CCP: they are 100% subservient with a CCP party member who can pull the CEO in at anytime and assign them tasks related to studying Xi thought and other party material, as well as demand the company do anything for the state. 2.) What great power competition looks like including economic warfare (tariffs, massive state subsidies to protect national defense, influence operations for allies, securing raw materials, reducing reliance on rivals, etc). 3.) How espionage in general works in support of political aims, and especially how each nation uses it to further their goals. For China, it's always been about vacuuming up as much data as possible, and then later on finding use cases for it. The disruption side of their practices are successful if they make chaos in an adversary that forces them to spend time on dealing with that instead of confronting them. Each nation acts in their own interest and are absolutely ruthless here in a way the average person rarely can comprehend. 4.) The free pass given to China related to tech and social media industries. American Social Media is banned in China[1]. Why do you think that is? There are many reports/cases of American intel/military use cases of social media to influence outcomes worldwide[2]. China wasn't going to allow this. But we are supposed to allow them access to us? We know this is the case because we would do the same in their position[3]. There's a reason it's banned in India[4]. 5.) We know China influences the Douyin algorithm[5] locally to promote behaviors the government perceives as healthy or important to state interests. This often manifests in pushing more STEM related content and suppressing the ragebait content that flourishes in other nations[6]. Even if the leadership of Bytedance were 100% on board with not pushing CCP interests to the USA and world, there's no mechanism of protection or redress from them. The CCP can, and will, disappear high profile people at will with no repercussion, and replace you with someone who will listen. Any smart nation who wants to protect the minds of their citizens would do well to extremely regulate social media in their country. In your case for "Americans upset over Israeli treatment of civilians". Assuming that the American outrage is 100% organic on it's own: It is in the best interest of China to amplify that outrage and make it seem stronger than it is for a variety of reasons: A. This will have knock on effects for policy makers and their aides who are hyper-tuned in because if their constituents want something, voting for that is how B. Anything that disrupts American foreign policy and allies is an asset at weakening the grip the dollar has on international markets C. Israel is an extremely talented producer of technical people. If the relationship between the USA and Israel sours, then suddenly a pathway opens for China to get access to the incredible tech that Israel develops for various US programs. (This is also ignoring their incredibly advanced spyware capabilities in their private sector, which is morally repugnant, but it does exist). [0] - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.reddit... (look at the most addicted cities) [3] - https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/ https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-... [4] - https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-376f32d78861e14e65ec4bc78e808a0d https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY [6] - https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-offensive/ https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o... [7] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-list-of-chinese-elites-who-disappear-but-later-resurface-subdued https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-li...
lukan 2y ago
"or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians?" Nobody in the open knows, that is the problem. But also russian millitary bloggers are outraged by the IDF. Simply because it is war in the information sphere, not that they care about the people there. Just like China don't give a damn about them - but they can and do use it to weaken the self declared western moral leadership.
- deleted 2y ago
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- whatshisface 2y ago
  Is there really any question that Americans have reacted negatively to Israeli war tactics? I think there is also a comment from an actual Romanian somewhere in this threat observing that their fellow citizens are legitimately frustrated with the two major parties.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "Is there really any question that Americans have reacted negatively to Israeli war tactics?" No, but is there a question that china still might try to influence and leverage it?
    - whatshisface 2y ago
      The international marketplace of ideas may pose some risk of allowing the American system of government to fufill its potential as a representative democracy, but the officials in Washington face no hazard greater than that. :-)
      - lukan 2y ago
        "The international marketplace of ideas " Market place implies transparent exchange of ideas. But if the TikTok algorithm is political biased, it is not a honest exchange of ideas anymore. (same goes for X's or FB, or whatever). But personally I am cool with not using those services.
lancesells 2y ago
I don't have an answer to this, but why if the algorithm can manipulate people, regardless of who directed it, why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms? I'm not much of a social media user but a lot of the argument here is the algorithm can feed propoganda that people will succumb to. Why is it ok then for Youtube to feed violence and awful behavior to people (probably to lots of kids) in the US if it's able to influence people? Is the thought that Meta and Google (both without ethics or morals) are just trying to get us to buy shit we don't need, but Tiktok is trying to get us to agree (or not agree) with their stance on x?
- cogman10 2y ago
  > why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms? What's the alternative? Even HN has "algorithmic content" the algorithm is based on voting and time.
  - ImJamal 2y ago
    While still algorithmic, a strictly chronological timeline is not really manipulatable, at least not in the same way
    - Nasrudith 2y ago
      Spamming is the trivial way to manipulate chronological feeds. It is so bad that they need active moderation or ranking to prevent a board from going into a state of absolute uselessness.
      - ImJamal 2y ago
        I haven't used Facebook in 15 years, but I don't recall spam being a problem. I saw my friend's posts and replies by people who are friends with my friend. That model may not work with all social media, but as far as I remember it worked for Facebook.
        2y ago
glenstein 2y ago
>Was it used by China, by the candidate, or by romainians? I think the allegation, implied rather than stated in this case, is that it is not predominantly any of those, but that it is predominantly the Russian state. Which would serve as an example that it's able to be mobilized, even weaponized, at the behest of state actors. China would not necessarily be culpable under this interpretation of this particular example, but it illustrates that they could exercise that same mechanism.

alwa 2y ago

The allegation [0] is that a Russian influence campaign used TikTok as at least one of its platforms, to major effect. The subtext is that TikTok was at the very least complicit, in that, at a minimum, it tolerated what I believe Facebook calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” If you think of TikTok as an instrument of the Chinese state, this could look consistent with the phenomenon Anne Applebaum has been talking about lately: a pattern of loose alliances-of-convenience between autocratic nations in service of specific disruptive missions [1]. A less spooky reading might be that Chinese norms don’t align with American ones as far as proactively stopping this kind of thing—that they just don’t care about this kind of Russian caper on the other side of the world. They sure do think carefully about their domestic information environment, though; and they’re probably the best in the world at policing mass thinking when they feel like it. Where are the lines between mere negligence, complicity, and active participation? That seems a little more delicate than a couple news cycles’ work. The Europeans have asked TikTok to preserve records to find out. I suspect the light and fire seems to be around whether a nation wants any tool like this to just be lying around, ready to disrupt the nation’s politics at a moment’s notice. Social media may be new in the scheme of things, but in the years since the UN studied Facebook’s genocides [2], governments have at least tried to get a handle on the kinds of monitoring and moderation tools and tactics that can help counter this kind of campaign (some with more deference than others to authentic speech). As far as I’ve heard, the allegation had never been that Chinese government villains cackled and rubbed their hands together and said “today we take Romania!” Rather, it’s that the tools are powerful enough that we don’t want to leave them lying around unchecked—especially since, at least from the perspective of American and European policy professionals, Chinese thinking doesn’t really recognize a distinction between commercial and national security interests. Others may have better sourcing than I do for this specific instance, but I think it’s fair to point to Western thinking about China’s Military-Civil Fusion policy [3] to think about dual-use idea-disseminating technologies like TikTok. [0] https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference-tiktok/33227010.html https://www.rferl.org/a/romania-russia-election-interference... [1] e.g., https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-r... and https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/russia-china-nato-axis-resistance/678831/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/russia-chi... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... , https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/myanmar-ffm/reportofthe-myanmar-ffm https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/myanmar-ffm/reportoft... , https://iimm.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Hate-Speech-Report_EN.pdf https://iimm.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Hate-Speech-R... [PDF, large] [3] https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/12/chinas-military-civil-fusion-strategy-a-blueprint-for-technological-superiority/ https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/12/chinas-military-civil-f...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tivert 2y ago

> See also: is China suddenly a center of human rights activism, China is, when it serves their primary interest of deflecting criticism from the operation of their very extensive totalitarian/authoritarian system. IIRC, they put out "human rights" reports all the time to that end that do stuff like criticize American prison conditions. > or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians? It's worth noting that TikTok could (and probably would) be used by the PRC in very subtle ways, that would be missed in a distinction of "is it Chinese people speaking or is it Americans." I think the influence mechanism would almost certainly consist of giving artificial boosts to American voices that unwittingly serve PRC goals, e.g. anti-war activists if China invades Taiwan. They could even strongly condemn China as a warmonger, but their elevation would still serve Chinese goals if they spread the message that the US should stay out. And given that the PRC has access to all the TikTok data (I believe no claims the could not access it), they can probably very effectively figure out exactly the voices to elevate that would do their job effectively.

whatshisface 2y ago
I know that's the conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we be asking for evidence?
- tivert 2y ago
  > I know that's the conspiracy theory, but shouldn't we be asking for evidence? No. This is about using reason to anticipate and prevent problems, not dumbly waiting around until the actualized problem stares you in the face and it's too late to do anything about it. But if you want evidence, all that is needed is the evidence that China and the US are adversaries.
  - j_maffe 2y ago
    That's not sufficient evidence.
    - tivert 2y ago

wyldberry 2y ago

At best this comment implies there's actual an actual smoking gun related to what functionally are nation-state capability and operations to influence populations external to their own, specifically related to TikTok/ByteDance. If you have an AP government level understanding of how China and the USA work, then you can probably understand that this is an intersection of: government laws, great power competition, and wealth seeking behaviors. When you control the algorithm, everyone downstream of it is at the mercy of the power structures and incentives of your top level leadership [0]. Consider the following: 1.) How Chinese companies interact with the CCP: they are 100% subservient with a CCP party member who can pull the CEO in at anytime and assign them tasks related to studying Xi thought and other party material, as well as demand the company do anything for the state. 2.) What great power competition looks like including economic warfare (tariffs, massive state subsidies to protect national defense, influence operations for allies, securing raw materials, reducing reliance on rivals, etc). 3.) How espionage in general works in support of political aims, and especially how each nation uses it to further their goals. For China, it's always been about vacuuming up as much data as possible, and then later on finding use cases for it. The disruption side of their practices are successful if they make chaos in an adversary that forces them to spend time on dealing with that instead of confronting them. Each nation acts in their own interest and are absolutely ruthless here in a way the average person rarely can comprehend. 4.) The free pass given to China related to tech and social media industries. American Social Media is banned in China[1]. Why do you think that is? There are many reports/cases of American intel/military use cases of social media to influence outcomes worldwide[2]. China wasn't going to allow this. But we are supposed to allow them access to us? We know this is the case because we would do the same in their position[3]. There's a reason it's banned in India[4]. 5.) We know China influences the Douyin algorithm[5] locally to promote behaviors the government perceives as healthy or important to state interests. This often manifests in pushing more STEM related content and suppressing the ragebait content that flourishes in other nations[6]. Even if the leadership of Bytedance were 100% on board with not pushing CCP interests to the USA and world, there's no mechanism of protection or redress from them. The CCP can, and will, disappear high profile people at will with no repercussion, and replace you with someone who will listen. Any smart nation who wants to protect the minds of their citizens would do well to extremely regulate social media in their country. In your case for "Americans upset over Israeli treatment of civilians". Assuming that the American outrage is 100% organic on it's own: It is in the best interest of China to amplify that outrage and make it seem stronger than it is for a variety of reasons: A. This will have knock on effects for policy makers and their aides who are hyper-tuned in because if their constituents want something, voting for that is how B. Anything that disrupts American foreign policy and allies is an asset at weakening the grip the dollar has on international markets C. Israel is an extremely talented producer of technical people. If the relationship between the USA and Israel sours, then suddenly a pathway opens for China to get access to the incredible tech that Israel develops for various US programs. (This is also ignoring their incredibly advanced spyware capabilities in their private sector, which is morally repugnant, but it does exist). [0] - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... [2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.reddit... (look at the most addicted cities) [3] - https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/ https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-... [4] - https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-376f32d78861e14e65ec4bc78e808a0d https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-bytedance-ban-china-india-... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY [6] - https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-offensive/ https://networkcontagion.us/reports/the-ccps-digital-charm-o... [7] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-list-of-chinese-elites-who-disappear-but-later-resurface-subdued https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/25/the-growing-li...

lukan 2y ago

"or was it Americans who got upset about Israeli treatment of civilians?" Nobody in the open knows, that is the problem. But also russian millitary bloggers are outraged by the IDF. Simply because it is war in the information sphere, not that they care about the people there. Just like China don't give a damn about them - but they can and do use it to weaken the self declared western moral leadership.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
whatshisface 2y ago
Is there really any question that Americans have reacted negatively to Israeli war tactics? I think there is also a comment from an actual Romanian somewhere in this threat observing that their fellow citizens are legitimately frustrated with the two major parties.
- lukan 2y ago
  "Is there really any question that Americans have reacted negatively to Israeli war tactics?" No, but is there a question that china still might try to influence and leverage it?
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    The international marketplace of ideas may pose some risk of allowing the American system of government to fufill its potential as a representative democracy, but the officials in Washington face no hazard greater than that. :-)
    - lukan 2y ago
      "The international marketplace of ideas " Market place implies transparent exchange of ideas. But if the TikTok algorithm is political biased, it is not a honest exchange of ideas anymore. (same goes for X's or FB, or whatever). But personally I am cool with not using those services.

lancesells 2y ago

I don't have an answer to this, but why if the algorithm can manipulate people, regardless of who directed it, why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms? I'm not much of a social media user but a lot of the argument here is the algorithm can feed propoganda that people will succumb to. Why is it ok then for Youtube to feed violence and awful behavior to people (probably to lots of kids) in the US if it's able to influence people? Is the thought that Meta and Google (both without ethics or morals) are just trying to get us to buy shit we don't need, but Tiktok is trying to get us to agree (or not agree) with their stance on x?

cogman10 2y ago
> why are we ok with the algorithmic content of all the platforms? What's the alternative? Even HN has "algorithmic content" the algorithm is based on voting and time.
- ImJamal 2y ago
  While still algorithmic, a strictly chronological timeline is not really manipulatable, at least not in the same way
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    Spamming is the trivial way to manipulate chronological feeds. It is so bad that they need active moderation or ranking to prevent a board from going into a state of absolute uselessness.
    - ImJamal 2y ago
      I haven't used Facebook in 15 years, but I don't recall spam being a problem. I saw my friend's posts and replies by people who are friends with my friend. That model may not work with all social media, but as far as I remember it worked for Facebook.
      - 2y ago

glenstein 2y ago

>Was it used by China, by the candidate, or by romainians? I think the allegation, implied rather than stated in this case, is that it is not predominantly any of those, but that it is predominantly the Russian state. Which would serve as an example that it's able to be mobilized, even weaponized, at the behest of state actors. China would not necessarily be culpable under this interpretation of this particular example, but it illustrates that they could exercise that same mechanism.