5 ms·

Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP? I could never quite tell if that was merely scaremongering and hypothesising by American politicians, or based on ev

by onei 2y ago

Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP? I could never quite tell if that was merely scaremongering and hypothesising by American politicians, or based on evidence of past transgressions.

tmnvdb 2y ago
There is good evidence that topics the CCP does not like are significantly underrepresented compared to other social media platforms. I would add that if you know the CCP you would be extremely surprised if they did not take such an opportunity for information warfare.
- dqv 2y ago
  You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-misleading-study-compares-tiktok-instagram https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...
  - gunian 2y ago
    This is actually so cool it's the first study I have seen that tries to use numbers kind of hilarious they did not filter scrapped posts by date to account for TikTok being a newer platform. Some data engineer got a promotion off that study too probably :) Another thing they did not take into account is the presence of social engineering botnets that can be used by both sides (if record labels have them I'm sure anyone rlse can too)
  - _t9ow 2y ago
    > You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence Unfortunately very common these days; people who say this probably hope that they won't ever be asked to provide receipts.
    - mdhb 2y ago
      I think the question is actually asked incorrectly in the reverse. Maybe start with the not at all controversial position that China is effectively an authoritarian dictatorship who is well known to use censorship and public manipulation as one of its key levers of control and then ask if you have any evidence whatsoever that for some reason they wouldn’t include TikTok in that mix? The way actual professionals in the field look at this problem is through a lens of: 1. Do they have the capabily to take this specific action? (A resounding yes) 2. Do they have the intent to take this action? I mean this is where you would look at literally all of the other instances where they did choose censorship over free expression and also come to a resounding yes. 3. Do they have the opportunity to take this action? Which is also a clear yes as defined by their own national security laws and other methods of control over what TikTok does. Thats how people have come to the conclusion that it’s a legitimate threat even in the absence of some smoking gun where people wrote everything down and then conveniently leaked it for you. At some point you have to be able to make decisions in the absence of perfect information and this is specifically how threat modelling works just to provide some context because some of the comments here are incredibly low quality.
      - _t9ow 2y ago
        I agree overall with your analysis. Nonetheless when one says that there is good evidence for something, rather than that there is good circumstantial evidence or that there are very reasonable grounds to assume something, one is making a different claim. We must also ask whether circumstantial evidence or reasonable assumptions alone should be enough to force a company to divest its assets.
        lsaferite 2y ago
        Divest the assets or leave the foreign market they are in that's regulated them out.
        mdhb 2y ago
        The thing about nation state level conspiracies is that they rarely are kind enough to write down all of the details about their intents in any format you’re going to see. That is the very nature of a conspiracy. And so knowing this you are going to need some kind of framework in order to make decisions off in the absence of perfect information. The one I outlined above is the same one that was used in this case and is really at the foundation of everything to do with threat modelling, this isn’t some kooky thing I just made up.
alisonatwork 2y ago
I can't speak for Tiktok, but the CCP did explicitly shut down Bytedance's very popular Neihuan Duanzi humor app, and put pressure on them to change the Toutiao algorithm because it was promoting inappropriate content. It's not much of a leap to think that by the time Douyin started getting popular Bytedance had learned their lesson and would proactively moderate their platforms to stay well within the party lines. In theory Tiktok should be independent of that since it targets foreign users, but in practice any media product coming out of a Chinese-owned company is going to be influenced whether explicitly or incidentally by CCP policy. Of course Americans have the freedom to access thousands of other media outlets not influenced by the CCP, so it seems pretty silly to just restrict this one.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Yes, read about the kind of things employees of TikTok have to agree to. The summary is that they essentially have to uphold the goals of the Chinese government. They also have two different managers, one in America and a second handler from mainland China. https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths-china-socialist-system-court-documents/ https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...
suraci 2y ago
> Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP I can't say it's not at all But I can say it's far beyond CPC's capability, Americans like talking abt CPC like it's some kind of secret darkness powerful villain in Gotham City, no, it's not that good. If CPC executed any order to a company operated in US by Americans, there'll be clear and strong evidence about it, CPC is not good at hiding schemes, if you didn't see such evidence, it means there's no such thing, at least for now I've talked abt how CPC doing propaganda, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42429769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42429769
froh 2y ago
ccp bans certain brain rot contents which the algorithms hm happily spreads in the west. the biggest problem for western competition (insta & co) is the dramatically "better" (more addictive) algorithm. But trump and Co happily use tiktok to grab power, see the most recent Romanian elections.

by onei 2y ago

Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP? I could never quite tell if that was merely scaremongering and hypothesising by American politicians, or based on evidence of past transgressions.

tmnvdb 2y ago

There is good evidence that topics the CCP does not like are significantly underrepresented compared to other social media platforms. I would add that if you know the CCP you would be extremely surprised if they did not take such an opportunity for information warfare.

dqv 2y ago
You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence. If you're talking about the study about hash tag counts, that's not good evidence. https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-misleading-study-compares-tiktok-instagram https://www.cato.org/blog/lies-damned-lies-statistics-mislea...
- gunian 2y ago
  This is actually so cool it's the first study I have seen that tries to use numbers kind of hilarious they did not filter scrapped posts by date to account for TikTok being a newer platform. Some data engineer got a promotion off that study too probably :) Another thing they did not take into account is the presence of social engineering botnets that can be used by both sides (if record labels have them I'm sure anyone rlse can too)
- _t9ow 2y ago
  > You can't say "there is good evidence" and then not provide the evidence Unfortunately very common these days; people who say this probably hope that they won't ever be asked to provide receipts.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    I think the question is actually asked incorrectly in the reverse. Maybe start with the not at all controversial position that China is effectively an authoritarian dictatorship who is well known to use censorship and public manipulation as one of its key levers of control and then ask if you have any evidence whatsoever that for some reason they wouldn’t include TikTok in that mix? The way actual professionals in the field look at this problem is through a lens of: 1. Do they have the capabily to take this specific action? (A resounding yes) 2. Do they have the intent to take this action? I mean this is where you would look at literally all of the other instances where they did choose censorship over free expression and also come to a resounding yes. 3. Do they have the opportunity to take this action? Which is also a clear yes as defined by their own national security laws and other methods of control over what TikTok does. Thats how people have come to the conclusion that it’s a legitimate threat even in the absence of some smoking gun where people wrote everything down and then conveniently leaked it for you. At some point you have to be able to make decisions in the absence of perfect information and this is specifically how threat modelling works just to provide some context because some of the comments here are incredibly low quality.
    - _t9ow 2y ago
      I agree overall with your analysis. Nonetheless when one says that there is good evidence for something, rather than that there is good circumstantial evidence or that there are very reasonable grounds to assume something, one is making a different claim. We must also ask whether circumstantial evidence or reasonable assumptions alone should be enough to force a company to divest its assets.
      - lsaferite 2y ago
        Divest the assets or leave the foreign market they are in that's regulated them out.
      - mdhb 2y ago
        The thing about nation state level conspiracies is that they rarely are kind enough to write down all of the details about their intents in any format you’re going to see. That is the very nature of a conspiracy. And so knowing this you are going to need some kind of framework in order to make decisions off in the absence of perfect information. The one I outlined above is the same one that was used in this case and is really at the foundation of everything to do with threat modelling, this isn’t some kooky thing I just made up.

alisonatwork 2y ago

I can't speak for Tiktok, but the CCP did explicitly shut down Bytedance's very popular Neihuan Duanzi humor app, and put pressure on them to change the Toutiao algorithm because it was promoting inappropriate content. It's not much of a leap to think that by the time Douyin started getting popular Bytedance had learned their lesson and would proactively moderate their platforms to stay well within the party lines. In theory Tiktok should be independent of that since it targets foreign users, but in practice any media product coming out of a Chinese-owned company is going to be influenced whether explicitly or incidentally by CCP policy. Of course Americans have the freedom to access thousands of other media outlets not influenced by the CCP, so it seems pretty silly to just restrict this one.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Yes, read about the kind of things employees of TikTok have to agree to. The summary is that they essentially have to uphold the goals of the Chinese government. They also have two different managers, one in America and a second handler from mainland China. https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths-china-socialist-system-court-documents/ https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...

suraci 2y ago

> Is Tiktok genuinely manipulated by the CCP I can't say it's not at all But I can say it's far beyond CPC's capability, Americans like talking abt CPC like it's some kind of secret darkness powerful villain in Gotham City, no, it's not that good. If CPC executed any order to a company operated in US by Americans, there'll be clear and strong evidence about it, CPC is not good at hiding schemes, if you didn't see such evidence, it means there's no such thing, at least for now I've talked abt how CPC doing propaganda, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42429769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42429769

froh 2y ago

ccp bans certain brain rot contents which the algorithms hm happily spreads in the west. the biggest problem for western competition (insta & co) is the dramatically "better" (more addictive) algorithm. But trump and Co happily use tiktok to grab power, see the most recent Romanian elections.