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Counter point, how is letting the primary adversarial power (which happens to be an authoritarian regime) massively influence the political views of the future

Counter point, how is letting the primary adversarial power (which happens to be an authoritarian regime) massively influence the political views of the future generation a good idea? It sounds to me like the federal government is doing its job here.

disqard 2y ago
I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I'm baffled at folks wanting to overlook that a Chinese-controlled brainworm is even more dangerous than a US-operated brainworm. Yes, we should steer clear of all brainworms, but we should be exterminating the brainworms run by adversaries ASAP.
- latentcall 2y ago
  Who’s the adversary? China? China is not my adversary even if the United States government thinks so. I believe many Americans would agree with that. To me it seems China made a superior app that the American youth wanted to use and the American social media apparatus was jealous so lobbied to have it banned.
  - OhioMan2943 2y ago
    China was supporting russian bot accounts in the recent us election. Sounds pretty adversarial to me
    - badestrand 2y ago
      Any evidence and/or links for this? My Google search didn't result in anything substantial.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    > China is not my adversary even if the United States government thinks so. I believe many Americans would agree with that. I (a US citizen) do think of the Chinese government as an adversary. I believe many Americans would agree with me. (See, I can make the same assertion without evidence.) > To me it seems China made a superior app that the American youth wanted to use and the American social media apparatus was jealous so lobbied to have it banned. Sure, that's certainly part of it. It's economic protectionism. Which, honestly, when it's protectionism against a nation with a fairly closed market, where US companies and capital have much less access (and access comes with strict restrictions and censorship requirements) than Chinese companies (and their government), I'm having a hard time getting all up in arms about it.
  - lm28469 2y ago
    China is not my enemy hence everything china does is good and everything my government does against any chinese action is bad Sheesh, I'll never understand people smart enough to see their local government as bad but dumb enough to idolise every other foreign power
    - latentcall 2y ago
      I don’t idolize any government national or foreign, that would be silly.
  - 71bw 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - greenie_beans 2y ago
      i'm not on tiktok and have never seen a tiktok about this issue but i care about it. same with a lot of my friends who are not on tiktok. same with hn god paul graham.
    - latentcall 2y ago
      What lies about Israel-Hamas? Pro-Palestinian support isn’t a Chinese psyop, people can see the videos coming from Gaza plainly and make up their own opinion. I never bought the idea that the American people are super gun ho about Israel. My family are all conservative Midwest folks and they don’t see why we give them so much money when Americans at home suffer. It’s not just the “left” that thinks this.
- suraci 2y ago
  That's funny - There's a Chinese-controlled brainworm which is more harmful than a US-operated brainworm - How you know this - The US-operated brainworm told me * and why use '-controlled' vs '-operated', I'm not a native English speeker and I'm very curious about it
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I'm so tired of arguments like this. They seem ill-informed at best, actively bad-faith at worst. The US government has faults. A lot of them. And I (a US citizen) can't claim to be perfectly objective and unbiased. But I don't think you're going to be able to convince me that I should prefer Chinese propaganda and election interference over US propaganda. Or that US propaganda is as effective and all-encompassing within US borders as Chinese propaganda is within Chinese borders.
    - suraci 2y ago
      I can tell you something about Chinese propaganda: 1. How it works a) Chinese propaganda within borders, is mostly about: "We serve the people, and we're doing it good", "We are on the road to greatness", with content cencorship and State medias, it's not quite efficient, since everyone are aware about it for example, if you question the CPC's leadership, you'll be censored This part is handled by Publicity Department and Cyberspace Administration. b) Chinese propaganda in the US, is by 'sponsored' influencers and some official accounts, you can identify them easily. and, these influencers are not sponsored with cashes directly, it's like if you have influence, and you show kindness to China, certain people may come to you, to award you with some titles, to invite you to attend some meetings and write articles in newspaper whichi nobody reads This part is handled mostly by 'united front work department', MOFA, and Publicity Department, you can see how chaos it is by its organization 2. What it does a) see 1.a b) Chinese propaganda abroad is mostly defensive, it has a guideline, "Tell the Chinese story well", it's quite descriptively, for example, there're some topics with most efforts: 'Taiwan', 'Xinjiang', 'South China Sea', 'China threats', 'commodity dumping', and, 'election interference' The US/West set the agenda, CPC dispute it One topic is the exception, '89/64', there's some disciplines about it so that they never mention it, so if you saw someone defend CPC about this, it's 100% not an official behavior c) It never describes the US as an enemy, both at home and abroad, and it never exaggerates threats from the US, on the contrary, it downplays these threats. - which may come as a surprise to some people. For everyone who think CPC is good at propagandizing, or CPC has some super power of propaganda, you overestimate it, it's just positive about propaganda I don't know how the US propaganda works, I think that's the most impressive part 99% Chinese know CPC blocks Google is about censorship, but many Americans will say the Tiktok ban is different, it's about national security and children protection, it's justice of the procedure, it's part of democracy, blah blah
mock-possum 2y ago
I guess because there will always be avenues for powers to influence people - rather than slapping a bandaid over the problem, we should address the root cause - a credulous population that refuses to think critically about the media it consumes.
- macintux 2y ago
  That’s a project that would take generations, and meanwhile, the federal Department of Education that could coordinate such a project is on the chopping block.
xbmcuser 2y ago
Being authoritarian is the excuse though the only real reason is that it's threat to US economic and political supremacy in the world.
paganel 2y ago
The West was throwing all shorts of shades at political powers here in Eastern Europe back in the day for not letting the free flow of information do its thing. So, saying that the US is doing the right thing now to ban TikTok based on ideological grounds is saying that it was right sending people to prison back then for listening to Radio Free Europe and similar.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - RONROC 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - wiseowise 2y ago
      It wasn’t ironic.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I keep seeing this style of argument, but it's completely irrelevant and ignores nuance and the specific circumstances. Banning TikTok is not going to impact the free flow of information. That traffic will just move (back?) to other social media platforms. "Back in the day", the Soviets didn't want their people to know what life was like outside the USSR. Banning TikTok will not reduce anyone's knowledge about what's going on outside the US. As a US citizen, I am absolutely fine with my government taking steps to prevent a totalitarian foreign adversary from influencing political thought in my country. The US is far (far!) from perfect, but moves like this don't affect freedom of speech or access to different viewpoints.
  - paganel 2y ago
    What nuance is there? > Banning TikTok is not going to impact the free flow of information. That traffic will just move (back?) to other social media platforms. It's like saying people should have switched back to reading Pravda, instead of listening to Radio Free Europe.
greenie_beans 2y ago
oh wait do you think this is because the youth on tiktok is (correctly) against the US's role in the genocide in palestine?
exabrial 2y ago
I totally understand that point too actually.

disqard 2y ago

I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I'm baffled at folks wanting to overlook that a Chinese-controlled brainworm is even more dangerous than a US-operated brainworm. Yes, we should steer clear of all brainworms, but we should be exterminating the brainworms run by adversaries ASAP.

latentcall 2y ago
Who’s the adversary? China? China is not my adversary even if the United States government thinks so. I believe many Americans would agree with that. To me it seems China made a superior app that the American youth wanted to use and the American social media apparatus was jealous so lobbied to have it banned.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  China was supporting russian bot accounts in the recent us election. Sounds pretty adversarial to me
  - badestrand 2y ago
    Any evidence and/or links for this? My Google search didn't result in anything substantial.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > China is not my adversary even if the United States government thinks so. I believe many Americans would agree with that. I (a US citizen) do think of the Chinese government as an adversary. I believe many Americans would agree with me. (See, I can make the same assertion without evidence.) > To me it seems China made a superior app that the American youth wanted to use and the American social media apparatus was jealous so lobbied to have it banned. Sure, that's certainly part of it. It's economic protectionism. Which, honestly, when it's protectionism against a nation with a fairly closed market, where US companies and capital have much less access (and access comes with strict restrictions and censorship requirements) than Chinese companies (and their government), I'm having a hard time getting all up in arms about it.
- lm28469 2y ago
  China is not my enemy hence everything china does is good and everything my government does against any chinese action is bad Sheesh, I'll never understand people smart enough to see their local government as bad but dumb enough to idolise every other foreign power
  - latentcall 2y ago
    I don’t idolize any government national or foreign, that would be silly.
- 71bw 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - greenie_beans 2y ago
    i'm not on tiktok and have never seen a tiktok about this issue but i care about it. same with a lot of my friends who are not on tiktok. same with hn god paul graham.
  - latentcall 2y ago
    What lies about Israel-Hamas? Pro-Palestinian support isn’t a Chinese psyop, people can see the videos coming from Gaza plainly and make up their own opinion. I never bought the idea that the American people are super gun ho about Israel. My family are all conservative Midwest folks and they don’t see why we give them so much money when Americans at home suffer. It’s not just the “left” that thinks this.
suraci 2y ago
That's funny - There's a Chinese-controlled brainworm which is more harmful than a US-operated brainworm - How you know this - The US-operated brainworm told me * and why use '-controlled' vs '-operated', I'm not a native English speeker and I'm very curious about it
- kelnos 2y ago
  I'm so tired of arguments like this. They seem ill-informed at best, actively bad-faith at worst. The US government has faults. A lot of them. And I (a US citizen) can't claim to be perfectly objective and unbiased. But I don't think you're going to be able to convince me that I should prefer Chinese propaganda and election interference over US propaganda. Or that US propaganda is as effective and all-encompassing within US borders as Chinese propaganda is within Chinese borders.
  - suraci 2y ago
    I can tell you something about Chinese propaganda: 1. How it works a) Chinese propaganda within borders, is mostly about: "We serve the people, and we're doing it good", "We are on the road to greatness", with content cencorship and State medias, it's not quite efficient, since everyone are aware about it for example, if you question the CPC's leadership, you'll be censored This part is handled by Publicity Department and Cyberspace Administration. b) Chinese propaganda in the US, is by 'sponsored' influencers and some official accounts, you can identify them easily. and, these influencers are not sponsored with cashes directly, it's like if you have influence, and you show kindness to China, certain people may come to you, to award you with some titles, to invite you to attend some meetings and write articles in newspaper whichi nobody reads This part is handled mostly by 'united front work department', MOFA, and Publicity Department, you can see how chaos it is by its organization 2. What it does a) see 1.a b) Chinese propaganda abroad is mostly defensive, it has a guideline, "Tell the Chinese story well", it's quite descriptively, for example, there're some topics with most efforts: 'Taiwan', 'Xinjiang', 'South China Sea', 'China threats', 'commodity dumping', and, 'election interference' The US/West set the agenda, CPC dispute it One topic is the exception, '89/64', there's some disciplines about it so that they never mention it, so if you saw someone defend CPC about this, it's 100% not an official behavior c) It never describes the US as an enemy, both at home and abroad, and it never exaggerates threats from the US, on the contrary, it downplays these threats. - which may come as a surprise to some people. For everyone who think CPC is good at propagandizing, or CPC has some super power of propaganda, you overestimate it, it's just positive about propaganda I don't know how the US propaganda works, I think that's the most impressive part 99% Chinese know CPC blocks Google is about censorship, but many Americans will say the Tiktok ban is different, it's about national security and children protection, it's justice of the procedure, it's part of democracy, blah blah

mock-possum 2y ago

I guess because there will always be avenues for powers to influence people - rather than slapping a bandaid over the problem, we should address the root cause - a credulous population that refuses to think critically about the media it consumes.

macintux 2y ago
That’s a project that would take generations, and meanwhile, the federal Department of Education that could coordinate such a project is on the chopping block.

xbmcuser 2y ago

Being authoritarian is the excuse though the only real reason is that it's threat to US economic and political supremacy in the world.

paganel 2y ago

The West was throwing all shorts of shades at political powers here in Eastern Europe back in the day for not letting the free flow of information do its thing. So, saying that the US is doing the right thing now to ban TikTok based on ideological grounds is saying that it was right sending people to prison back then for listening to Radio Free Europe and similar.

wiseowise 2y ago
[flagged]
- RONROC 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    It wasn’t ironic.
kelnos 2y ago
I keep seeing this style of argument, but it's completely irrelevant and ignores nuance and the specific circumstances. Banning TikTok is not going to impact the free flow of information. That traffic will just move (back?) to other social media platforms. "Back in the day", the Soviets didn't want their people to know what life was like outside the USSR. Banning TikTok will not reduce anyone's knowledge about what's going on outside the US. As a US citizen, I am absolutely fine with my government taking steps to prevent a totalitarian foreign adversary from influencing political thought in my country. The US is far (far!) from perfect, but moves like this don't affect freedom of speech or access to different viewpoints.
- paganel 2y ago
  What nuance is there? > Banning TikTok is not going to impact the free flow of information. That traffic will just move (back?) to other social media platforms. It's like saying people should have switched back to reading Pravda, instead of listening to Radio Free Europe.

greenie_beans 2y ago

oh wait do you think this is because the youth on tiktok is (correctly) against the US's role in the genocide in palestine?

exabrial 2y ago

I totally understand that point too actually.