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> If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing Most likely, the rationale will be similar to Huawei and Kaspersky. Not based on actual historical
by scarab92 2y ago
> If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing
Most likely, the rationale will be similar to Huawei and Kaspersky.
Not based on actual historical misbehaviour, but rather the amount of power you’re allowing their respective governments to have over US citizens / infrastructure.
There are very few “from first principals” thinkers in the world, especially amongst TikTok’s younger audience. Most people take their beliefs from others, in the same way a llm’s output reflects its training data. If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume, then they can influence the narrative of the country.
China has long banned US social media for likely the same reason.
- thiagoharry 2y agoTherefore, this power to influence younger generations should be restricted to US government and US big tech Corporation. They know what is best for them.
- grajaganDev 2y agoNothing in your comment changes this: "If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume that, then they can influence the narrative of the country."
- cluckindan 2y agoAnyone can influence those narratives. Owning the system just makes it more efficient than astroturfing, puppeteering and trolling.
- grajaganDev 2y agoAgreed. But owning the platform makes influence far, far more efficient and that is why we should not allow our adversaries to do so.
- thiagoharry 2y agoAnd China propaganda is so powerful that US propaganda cannot counter this, even within US borders, following rules chosen by their own country, US propaganda is losing. What makes Chinese propaganda so powerful, even in the form of silly 30 seconds dancing? Or perhaps the real problem is not this? But the existance of a single non western source of consent manufacturing?
- tester756 2y agoYou are really arguing that US should improve on its propaganda game? wtf How about as little propaganda as possible?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thiagoharry 2y agoBecause it will not happen. And cannot be enforced. No, im not arguing this because US already uses more propaganda than China. I was asking why americans are so afraid that chinese propaganda will be so more powerful than the Inês that they already have.
- grajaganDev 2y agoIt got enforced today.
- thiagoharry 2y agoHow? US propaganda, propaganda from big techs from US oligopolies will continue unchallenged and strenghtned, as they blocked a source that they apparently do not control.
- brookst 2y agoStrange take. Some kind of philosophical purity says that we should allow foreign adversaries to influence domestic audiences because we should be able to counter that influence with out own? It’s like saying you should allow someone to punch you because you “should” be able to punch yourself harder.
- ignoramous 2y ago"If the US controls the food system that decides what content people consume, then they can kill an entire country." Hysteria or ban McDonald's/Pepsi/Coke/Subway/etc?
- grajaganDev 2y agoI think that this is an example of the Weak Analogy Fallacy.
- ignoramous 2y agoIt might come off as a "weak analogy" because it sounds weak to you ... to make the point that there are valid grounds (the epidemic of obesity & diabetes) for Xenophobic Asians to think addictive Coke / McDonald's are part of some sinister plot by the Americans to impoverish them. And that line of reasoning is ludicrous, or "weak" as you put it because it is (unless we are Xenophobic ourselves, then it isn't)! If you desire a strong analogy, do Hollywood, YouTube, Netflix etc, which are banned by the other side citing similar reasons to TikTok, I am sure. But the other side is totally authoritarian and we aren't, right?
- _heimdall 2y agoIf only we trusted in people to make their own decisions, but that's crazy talk. Its widely known at this point that TikTok is a Chinese owned business and that the CCP has a history if forcibly influencing companies to do their bidding. If people still want to use TikTok I don't see what the real problem is.
- killerstorm 2y agoYeah, I totally expect a 14 y.o. girl who joins TikTok to check trendy dance move to be aware of dangers of CCP propaganda. What percentage of population understands that propaganda can be subtle? Sneak some ragebait here and there to make it look like situation is worse than it is, exaggerate, radicalize people...
- grajaganDev 2y agoI had a CS grad student very confidently tell me that TikTok was not owned by a Chinese company.
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 2y agoa Chinese company, yes, but backed by some of the major investment funds in the west, the Chinese own 20%, Chinese government is under 1%.
- grajaganDev 2y agoThis seems a bit like splitting hairs. There is quite a bit of naivete regarding how the Chinese government controls Chinese companies. It is very different from the US.
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 2y ago> There is quite a bit of naivete regarding how the Chinese government controls Chinese companies. I happen to know how China works, have you got some example to present? > It is very different from the US. Actually, not really. Can Facebook keep alive their "fact checking" program, now that Trump is president and not Biden, whose administration ordered it, probably more against Trump himself, than any other adversary of the USA? Are Vanguard and BlackRock free to invest in whatever company they want? For example: why are Vanguard and BlackRock backing Unicredit to buy Commerzbank, one of the few European banks not owned or heavily funded by American funds?
- killerstorm 2y agoUS government is literally accountable to US citizens. If it is not, you have a bigger problem.
- ty6853 2y agoAspirationally yes. In practice US can't even rid itself of civil forfeiture or federal weed laws despite consistent majority against them. We can't get rid of overbearing housing regulations despite it destroying our youth. Hell the democratic party presidential candidate wasn't even chosen in a primary, just installed in without a public vote to ensure viability, handing a default.
- whatshisface 2y agoWe do have a giant problem with the policymaking community being very narrow, but the only way to solve it is by having communication platforms that aren't being influenced by that same community. When I say narrow, I mean narrow. The toppling of the Guatemalan liberal democracy and subsequent replacement by a dictator was performed at the behest of a handful of people who wanted to and did retire to a sinecure at United Fruit, and without the full knowledge of the president.
- Geezus_42 2y agoHasn't been for a while now. Our government is only held to account by the Oligarchs that own our politicians.
- microtonal 2y agoAnd somehow a majority votes for the candidate that puts an oligarch in power of an 'unofficial' position/department. It was clearly vote for people with a lot of money. Something about The government you elect is the government you deserve.?
- codechicago277 2y agoThe votes are following the propaganda, and Trump won the public opinion war. Democrats have been slow to learn this lesson and get their messaging and public relations under control.
- bill_joy_fanboy 2y agoU.S. government isn't perfect, therefore we should let some other government just run wild in our country. I follow your logic.
- jappgar 2y agoThe propaganda has worked perfectly.
- ty6853 2y agoIn the long run it's better that both China and US have deep tentacles wrapped around each other. The more culture and dependencies merge and intertwine the more cooperation looks attractive over war.
- drawkward 2y agoBetter for everyone but american labor, you mean.
- ty6853 2y agoI think American labor is not so infantile they need paternal oversight over what apps they download, for one.
- drawkward 2y agoI see, you prefer jobs outsourced to a deeply intertwined china.
- Geezus_42 2y agoBillionaires chose to move our manufacturing overseas so they could make more money. The working class didn't stop them when we had the chance.
- grajaganDev 2y agoAt the cost of China controlling the recommendation system that decides what content US people consume?
- ty6853 2y agoThe cost of free speech, including commercial or propaganda, is people get manipulated by it. Some including myself argue is you end up with even more nefarious control when censored, rather than having the option of which if any propaganda apps you want to consume. There are some controls like certain pornography, but if these exist they should apply uniformly, not based on whether we like the person publishing it.
- alex_smart 2y ago> China has long banned US social media for likely the same reason. Sure, but most other countries haven't. Perhaps they should learn from these developments and start considering their options.
- dfadsadsf 2y agoMost geopolitical rivals already blocked US social media - Russia, Iran, China. Brazil blocked and forced X to censor opposition Brazilian politicians. It's already happening. EU/NATO members can't outright block US social media for obvious reasons (military protection is not free). They try to do sneaky things to control social media with DSA, etc. India/Indonesia and a few other countries are already debating banning foreign social media companies. India was the first to ban TikTok (for the same reason that US is banning TikTok now). US and India are not really rivals and US can retaliate against India if US companies are blocked so math is that it's not worth it to block for now but it can change in future. Most other countries are not capable/do not have economy and critical number of people to have viable clone of social media. They block social media from time to time during elections, etc.
- freehorse 2y agoThe problem may not even be that China can control these narratives as much, but just that they (US as in the government/state institution) can't in the first place. Eg there had been complains about pro-palestine narratives dominating tictoc, even if there was no actual evidence this was manipulated (and I doubt it was). This is why i think that this is a case where the interests of the american people may not necessarily align with the "national" interests of wanting to ban tictoc (while the other cases are more about basic infrastructure or access to that), though i think eventually it will not matter much (if tictoc stays the grip for the US part of it by the US government is probably gonna be firmer). This also can explain bytedance's approach of support and reassurance towards the incoming administration. I bet they care more about their company and not having to choose between two loss scenarios than about politics/international relations, just like most of big corporations in the world.
- HenryBemis 2y agoSome weapons are "NOBUS" (nobody but us). Imho you nailed it. When in Facebook and Twitter the content was manipulated, the US government did not complain, as they were (again, imho) manipulating the content (e.g. Hunter Biden laptop)(don't involve me in the politics, I don't have a care in the world on the subject, I merely find this very Stasi-ist that unnamed, faceless, unelected people lurking in the shadows, wearing black uniforms and black hoods, control what civilians are 'allowed' to watch). Since TikTok became massive, US gov & agencies lost that oligopoly/monopoly and now China (or any other country for that matter) could define the narrative, form and destroy opinions. Simple Porter's Five Forces model of analysis. People despised censorship (I will not debate whether this 'content moderation' and/or 'censorship' was good or bad). The "New Entrants" took over. And since it is clear that TikTok cannot be defeated in the foreseeable future, and it cannot be purchased, then it must die. (q.e.d.)
- rayiner 2y agoThis is 100% what it is. The establishment types are upset that they can’t just lean on a handful of major media organizations anymore to maintain a uniform narrative (e.g. Iraq having WMDs).
- SecretDreams 2y agoI will say the one problem with it from the perspective of young people is they always get the dick. * Young people suffer the hardest from the housing crisis * Young people suffer the most in any kind of job market challenges * Young people have the least say in elections * Young people now give up the app they use that actually makes them happy and helps to forget about how shit the world has become for them. Also an app that makes some of them real money. Basically, the youth have no real legislation in their favour while their quality of life continues to degrade. I imagine that gets old. This is a rant from someone who supports the tiktok ban.. but I'd extend it to all social media.
- ericmay 2y agoJust because I think it’s interesting to mention given your perspective about how the youth feel, here is how they’ve changed voting patterns [1]: In past years, voters under 30 have proved essential on the margins, especially for Democrats, where even minimal shifts in support can decide an election. It was a group that Vice President Harris had hoped would be part of her winning coalition this year. Instead, she underperformed, and President-elect Trump made gains. Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters, but Harris did not meet that threshold, getting 54%, according to early exit polls. [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/g-s1-33331/unpacking-the-2024-youth-vote-heres-what-we-know-so-far https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/g-s1-33331/unpacking-the-2024...
- rayiner 2y agoGen Z is interesting. My brother and sister in law are Gen Z (my wife and I are older millennials). My brother in law and his girlfriend are openly Trump supporters (both happen to be non-white). They went to the rallies and stuff. So are a lot of his friends at work in a blue city (tech sales). My sister in law is liberalish, does the pronoun sharing before group meetings for school, but doesn’t feel strongly about the issue compared to virtually all the millenial women I know.
- everfrustrated 2y ago
- marricks 2y agoThe argument seems a bit hysterical, it's not like everyone is forced to use TikTok, they can get hair tips, learn about Gaza, or get whatever views from TikTok, or Facebook, or Twitter, or Twitch or... American's would have the freedom to choose what social media they want to consume, now they are forced to only have one controlled by a US billionaire.
- akoncius 2y agothe point is that US has clear and direct influence to twitter/facebook/instagram algorithms and recommendations and they can suppress one topic or another. it is not the case with tiktok, and this is primary reason for this ban
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- coliveira 2y agoIf that is the what happened, they made the best case for shutting down US owned social networks across the world. It is not a specific case of misbehaving, but the power they give to the American government that can collude with these oligarchs such as Elon Musk.
- thisisnotauser 2y agoI understand that people who don't work in intelligence can have a difficult time recognizing risk, and often don't really understand the war other countries don't work the way the US does with the rule of law, but these are very much not baseless allegations. These are not even historical misbehavior. These companies explicitly and intentionally support and perform intelligence actions on behalf of their countries' intelligence services. Facebook and Google absolutely do not. Kaspersky has been very credibly linked to Russian intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_and_the_Russian_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_and_the_Russian_gove... And Huawei has been very credibly linked to Chinese intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei There is often an attempt to equate these behaviors with compliance with court-order subpoenas, but they are not the same.
- niij 2y agoAmerican companies absolutely do aid in intelligence gathering. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A for an example
- Workaccount2 2y agoI swear, people would equivocate bicycle accidents to plane crashes if it suited their narrative.
- wombatpm 2y agoIn 2022: 1,105 deaths related to bicycles vs 357 airplane related deaths. Depending on the metric you choose you can argue that either one is more deadly. So yes, people here would do that.
- thisisnotauser 2y agoThis is actually a really great example, I wish I had included it in my original post. Here, in response to a very public failure of our security apparatus, the US Congress passed a draconian law allowing the US government to do the kinds of bad things that Russia and China do routinely. When the public realized this, they made it clear that there is a limit to the power of the government, and that behavior was very quickly stopped. Forever. The idea that there is a limit to the power of the government, and that the general public can enforce that limit, is what makes America different than China and Russia. That difference is foundational to our Constitution, and I think it is a very good thing.
- throw0101a 2y ago> If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume, then they can influence the narrative of the country. From Noah Smith: > Second, the refusal to sell the app tells us that the Chinese government would rather see TikTok destroyed than see it fall into American hands. Notably, that same government put up little fuss back in 2020 when the U.S. forced a Chinese company to sell the gay dating app Grindr to an American company. Why shut down TikTok and leave untold billions of dollars on the table, instead of just selling the thing like Grindr was sold? > One possibility is that it’s an attempt to make young Americans angry, in the hopes that they’ll demand that Trump and Congress repeal the 2024 law. But a simpler explanation is that Chinese leaders simply think that TikTok, unlike other apps, is so important that they would rather destroy it than see it escape their control. > Why? Some supporters of the divestiture bill argue that TikTok will transfer Americans’ personal data to the Chinese government — something it has already admitted to doing in a few cases. Others are concerned with TikTok’s social harms. But the biggest concern is that by controlling the TikTok algorithm, the Chinese government might be able to propagandize America’s young people — and to silence Americans who say things it doesn’t like. > In fact, there’s some pretty strong evidence that TikTok already does exactly this. Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute has produced a number of papers about TikTok’s manipulation of information to suit Chinese government desires. The standard methodology is to compare topics on TikTok to similar topics on Instagram and YouTube. The NCRI people find that content on the different platforms is broadly similar, except where China-related issues are concerned. […] * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning
- wrsh07 2y agoThe easiest real example I'm aware of is that there was a scandal around the Houston rockets and China (years ago) and you could not find their content or content related to them on TikTok. (You could for every other NBA team) In this example: who cares? But the problem is how implicit everything is. Imagine that a major US ally (like Israel) were attacked by a globally recognized terrorist organization. Imagine if, for some reason, a high percentage of people on TikTok ended up being opposed to the US government's support of their ally. Imagine if there were protests across college campuses. And counter protests. Would we know whether TikTok was behind the scenes, sowing discord? This is the kind of thing - weakening our alliances - that china would love to do. If china can reduce our willingness to defend our allies (think the Philippines in the south china sea, or Taiwan which.... there's explicitly a project 2027 in China to be ready to invade Taiwan) Do we want the Chinese government to have the ability to do this?
- whatshisface 2y agoThe American voter shouldn't be treated like a mere link in a strategic chain of cause and effect. They're the legitimate authority in the US.
- wrsh07 2y agoSorry I'm confused by your comment. The American voter voted for Congress. A bipartisan majority passed this bill easily. The executive branch signed it. The judiciary branch confirmed it. Where is the American voter being sidelined?
- whatshisface 2y agoCongress has a "strained" relationship with the voter. On one hand, the voter put them in that position. On the other hand, the voter is a greater danger to the individual in Congress than any foreign adversary. As a result, politicians try to control the voter, the way an employee would try to manage their manager. This is done in a number of ways. For example, because the media has a great influence on the voter, politicians seek to influence the media. Journalists who publish unfavorable information are denied valuable interviews, incentivizing them to stay close to the administration. Lobbyists with connections to major advertisers, which have a great influence on the media, are attended to with high priority. Another method is to close off the voter's access to information that originates outside a politician's sphere of influence. This can be done by encouraging nationalist jingoism and a distrust of outside influence, by outright bans on foreign press, or in this case, by either banning or causing a transfer of ownership of a social media platform that had proven unhelpful to a past administration's intent for the media landscape. For TikTok, this was hosting middle east peace activism.
- xnx 2y agoSo you're telling me the US can't compete in the marketplace of things or the marketplace of ideas?
- arsco 2y agoTo me, this whole thing just comes across as craven and excessively politically motivated by the US government. If they were really concerned with apps (whether or not they're owned by the Chinese government) collecting and selling user data, they would pass adequate and enforceable privacy laws. Banning one specific app is addressing a symptom rather than a root cause, and any solution to an issue like this ought to apply to the entire field more broadly. I don't necessarily think that banning TikTok is a bad thing, but to do so in such an obviously politically motivated way belies a lack of concern about the underlying issue (i.e. the mass harvesting of user data).