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There are a very large number of posts which follow the format of the parent post, each clearly aiming to make TikTok appear equivalent to US-owned social media

by quitit 2y ago

There are a very large number of posts which follow the format of the parent post, each clearly aiming to make TikTok appear equivalent to US-owned social media platforms, while ignoring the actual issue that TikTok is an active propaganda arm of the CCP. TikTok's manipulation of the feed has been proven through extensive public studies: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning The pressing need to ban it on security grounds likely extends further into non-public knowledge - Let us not forget that in the current political landscape it's pretty hard to get both major parties to agree on anything, then to actually also vote that way: but that's what happened with regard to TikTok.

japanification 2y ago
Exactly! The China and Russia supporters are crying and trying all sorts of deflection and false equivalence. never mind that 1.) It's pointless, TikTok is officially banned in US. Even if trump decides to find a US buyer for it, it will go under strict ownership investigation. So there's no way Chinese government has any influence anymore. 2.) This means that any future Chinese apps that get popular will get banned, and no need to go through any court challenges since there's precedent and law 3.) The traffic from the original TikTok will just keep getting split and syphoned, until the magnificent seven claims most of it
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 2y ago
  > The China and Russia supporters are crying except this is not what's happening, the opposite is true: the "manga" (make american nato...) supporters are screaming that China and Russia are finally defeated in the propaganda war, while China and Russia do not care about the tik tok ban. It's already a victory when the enemy castrate itself and goes against the sentiment of their population, especially the young ones, out of fear that something might happen, but there's no evidence it has happened yet not that it is going to happen anytime soon. When you think that tik tok is so dangerous that your democracy could fall because of it, well, you got bigger problems on your hands.
  - Stephen_0xFF 2y ago
    I see Russia not caring, but to say China doesn’t care in the slightest doesn’t make sense. Especially with a company at that scale. There wouldn’t be a push to the Red Book if that was the case. > goes against the sentiment of their population If you read this thread you’ll see that it’s pretty divided. I for one don’t care that it’s gone and even welcome the ban. I dislike that China has a firewall for American companies, but will gladly enter our market.
    - 6P58r3MXJSLi 2y ago
      > There wouldn’t be a push to the Red Book if that was the case. Isn't Red Book pushed by angry titk tok users, just like blue sky was the reaction to Musk buying Twitter? > I dislike that China has a firewall for American companies, but will gladly enter our market. China was invited by the USA in the USA market. In exchange for their cheap and educated labor force and growing market. Ask Apple if it was good or bad for them to exploit the Chinese market and labor. It's the USA that pushed to invite them in the WTO. Is it too much to ask to the USA to reflect a little before acting?
_dark_matter_ 2y ago
Thank you! I can't believe how much defense I see of TikTok on here. Is this website being specifically targeted for astroturfing, or has TikTok been that effective in spreading its propaganda? (And which one is scarier?)
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  > Is this website being specifically targeted for astroturfing Of course
- handity 2y ago
  It is not defense of TikTok to point out that all platforms are practically identical: centralized, closed source networks that collect ridiculously detailed data about millions of people, and are in a position to process that data for all kinds of fun stuff like surveilling people's physical movement, creating recommendation algorithms, performing sentiment analysis, and using those tools to try to manipulate populations, influence public thought, and sway elections. There is no behavior that TikTok exhibits that isn't equally applicable to every major social media. I don't particularly care whether right now, the CCP happens to use that manipulative potential for its own ends more than the US does. It shouldn't be hard to take a principled stand against dystopian surveillance. I don't understand people who correctly point out that TikTok is a "vector for influence of public opinion", but somehow think that's only a bad thing if it's controlled by a "geopolitical adversary".
  - cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    > I don't understand people who correctly point out that TikTok is a "vector for influence of public opinion", but somehow think that's only a bad thing if it's controlled by a "geopolitical adversary". By your implied logic, the US should allow Chinese police to function on US soil as the US already had US police on US soil.
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      As I read more and more comments like GP’s In this thread, I keep getting this vision of a man in France in 1940 welcoming nazi tanks to his town because “well, we have a military too, how is this any different, they’re just a geopolitical adversary” and “well, we had a corrupt politician once last year so our government is just as bad”.
protimewaster 2y ago
When is manipulating the feed sufficient reason to shut down a service, though? It's also known that Twitter selectively amplifies speech based on owner whims, and it's not guaranteed that this amplification is not to the detriment of the USA / enrichment of foreign governments. The idea that we should trust an American owner to manipulate vs. a foreign government seems...well, just stupid. It seems like the manipulation should be disallowed across the board.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Because the US can investigate and regulate a domestic social network as needed. They can't do that with offices that are parties offshore, owned by non-Americans.
  - thlamz 2y ago
    Serious question, why not? Going off recent examples, Brazil seems to haven o trouble doing so.
  - protimewaster 2y ago
    I'm not convinced this accurately reflects the capabilities of law enforcement or the enforcement of laws on international entities. GDPR, for example, is a regulation that applies to non-EU companies when they operate in the EU. I don't believe it's accurate, then, to say that it's impossible for a country to apply regulation to foreign entities running web services. Additionally, I'm not convinced that the US is actively investigating such things, at least formally, on domestic social networks anyway. Twitter's algorithm at some point was tweaked to amplify Musk's posts. Was there a formal investigation or certification process, or were any controls put in place, to ensure that nothing Musk Tweeted would ever be subject to foreign influence, and thus enable amplification of foreign propaganda or ideology? I quite doubt it. I didn't think Twitter was even required to inform the government that his Tweets were being boosted. Researchers discovered it. (And I think there were some leaks from Twitter developers, via journalists.) It just seems weird that we seem to put very minimal effort into verifying that domestic networks aren't pushing foreign propaganda, but then our logic was excluding foreign social networks is that they might push propaganda. We don't even know that the American ones aren't, and we don't even seem to care very much.

by quitit 2y ago

japanification 2y ago

Exactly! The China and Russia supporters are crying and trying all sorts of deflection and false equivalence. never mind that 1.) It's pointless, TikTok is officially banned in US. Even if trump decides to find a US buyer for it, it will go under strict ownership investigation. So there's no way Chinese government has any influence anymore. 2.) This means that any future Chinese apps that get popular will get banned, and no need to go through any court challenges since there's precedent and law 3.) The traffic from the original TikTok will just keep getting split and syphoned, until the magnificent seven claims most of it

6P58r3MXJSLi 2y ago
> The China and Russia supporters are crying except this is not what's happening, the opposite is true: the "manga" (make american nato...) supporters are screaming that China and Russia are finally defeated in the propaganda war, while China and Russia do not care about the tik tok ban. It's already a victory when the enemy castrate itself and goes against the sentiment of their population, especially the young ones, out of fear that something might happen, but there's no evidence it has happened yet not that it is going to happen anytime soon. When you think that tik tok is so dangerous that your democracy could fall because of it, well, you got bigger problems on your hands.
- Stephen_0xFF 2y ago
  I see Russia not caring, but to say China doesn’t care in the slightest doesn’t make sense. Especially with a company at that scale. There wouldn’t be a push to the Red Book if that was the case. > goes against the sentiment of their population If you read this thread you’ll see that it’s pretty divided. I for one don’t care that it’s gone and even welcome the ban. I dislike that China has a firewall for American companies, but will gladly enter our market.
  - 6P58r3MXJSLi 2y ago
    > There wouldn’t be a push to the Red Book if that was the case. Isn't Red Book pushed by angry titk tok users, just like blue sky was the reaction to Musk buying Twitter? > I dislike that China has a firewall for American companies, but will gladly enter our market. China was invited by the USA in the USA market. In exchange for their cheap and educated labor force and growing market. Ask Apple if it was good or bad for them to exploit the Chinese market and labor. It's the USA that pushed to invite them in the WTO. Is it too much to ask to the USA to reflect a little before acting?

_dark_matter_ 2y ago

Thank you! I can't believe how much defense I see of TikTok on here. Is this website being specifically targeted for astroturfing, or has TikTok been that effective in spreading its propaganda? (And which one is scarier?)

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
> Is this website being specifically targeted for astroturfing Of course
handity 2y ago
It is not defense of TikTok to point out that all platforms are practically identical: centralized, closed source networks that collect ridiculously detailed data about millions of people, and are in a position to process that data for all kinds of fun stuff like surveilling people's physical movement, creating recommendation algorithms, performing sentiment analysis, and using those tools to try to manipulate populations, influence public thought, and sway elections. There is no behavior that TikTok exhibits that isn't equally applicable to every major social media. I don't particularly care whether right now, the CCP happens to use that manipulative potential for its own ends more than the US does. It shouldn't be hard to take a principled stand against dystopian surveillance. I don't understand people who correctly point out that TikTok is a "vector for influence of public opinion", but somehow think that's only a bad thing if it's controlled by a "geopolitical adversary".
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  > I don't understand people who correctly point out that TikTok is a "vector for influence of public opinion", but somehow think that's only a bad thing if it's controlled by a "geopolitical adversary". By your implied logic, the US should allow Chinese police to function on US soil as the US already had US police on US soil.
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    As I read more and more comments like GP’s In this thread, I keep getting this vision of a man in France in 1940 welcoming nazi tanks to his town because “well, we have a military too, how is this any different, they’re just a geopolitical adversary” and “well, we had a corrupt politician once last year so our government is just as bad”.

protimewaster 2y ago

When is manipulating the feed sufficient reason to shut down a service, though? It's also known that Twitter selectively amplifies speech based on owner whims, and it's not guaranteed that this amplification is not to the detriment of the USA / enrichment of foreign governments. The idea that we should trust an American owner to manipulate vs. a foreign government seems...well, just stupid. It seems like the manipulation should be disallowed across the board.

crazygringo 2y ago
Because the US can investigate and regulate a domestic social network as needed. They can't do that with offices that are parties offshore, owned by non-Americans.
- thlamz 2y ago
  Serious question, why not? Going off recent examples, Brazil seems to haven o trouble doing so.
- protimewaster 2y ago
  I'm not convinced this accurately reflects the capabilities of law enforcement or the enforcement of laws on international entities. GDPR, for example, is a regulation that applies to non-EU companies when they operate in the EU. I don't believe it's accurate, then, to say that it's impossible for a country to apply regulation to foreign entities running web services. Additionally, I'm not convinced that the US is actively investigating such things, at least formally, on domestic social networks anyway. Twitter's algorithm at some point was tweaked to amplify Musk's posts. Was there a formal investigation or certification process, or were any controls put in place, to ensure that nothing Musk Tweeted would ever be subject to foreign influence, and thus enable amplification of foreign propaganda or ideology? I quite doubt it. I didn't think Twitter was even required to inform the government that his Tweets were being boosted. Researchers discovered it. (And I think there were some leaks from Twitter developers, via journalists.) It just seems weird that we seem to put very minimal effort into verifying that domestic networks aren't pushing foreign propaganda, but then our logic was excluding foreign social networks is that they might push propaganda. We don't even know that the American ones aren't, and we don't even seem to care very much.