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(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Ther

• ok123456 2y ago
  I'm an American too, and I trust an app that has "china" somewhere in it's org chart more than Zuckerberg or any meta product.
  • aborochoff 2y ago
    Because youre ignorant of what china somewhere in the org chart means?
    • ok123456 2y ago
      Please share a source that's not a CIA funded NGO or think tank.
      • sanderjd 2y ago
        "Please share a source" is an incredibly dumb retort in the realm of geopolitics. "Please share a source that the allied powers are going to invade the beaches of Normandy". You can't, because people are working incredibly hard to keep that secret.
        • ok123456 2y ago
          So you don't have any? ok.
          • sanderjd 2y ago
            Yes, there is very little public sourcing for what hostile powers plan to do in a geopolitical struggle. That's how it goes. It is perfectly reasonable to infer what might happen based on past actions by the specific powers, and on world history. Attempting to gain geopolitical influence through propaganda is nothing new.
            • ok123456 2y ago
              So we should "just trust" the same people who said that Saddam had WMDs?
              • sanderjd 2y ago
                No. But these are two very different fact patterns. In one case it was "we have specific evidence of something that should cause us to go to war". In this case it is "we can infer that a hostile foreign power will use a straightforward conduit to push propaganda to our populace if we come into conflict". It's defense, not offense.
    • jkubicek 2y ago
      What can China do to our social networks that is materially different than what American tech companies are already doing today? Maybe I'm being naive because I don't use TikTok, but all the partisan misinformation I see is being spread by either Americans on American social networks or maybe Russian disinformation bots operating on American social networks.
      • varsketiz 2y ago
        Given enough time - subvert your government. Take control of your country :))
        • nthingtohide 2y ago
          [flagged]
          • varsketiz 2y ago
            Just say what you came to say, instead of asking these questions.
            • nthingtohide 2y ago
              The only reason anything America ever does is to make sure others don't ever have the power to stand up to stop the shenanigans it plans for the world. i.e. so called Rules Based Order.
  • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    I'm an American too, and I DON’T trust an app that has "china" somewhere in it's org chart. Answer this: who has genocided 10s of millions? Who has crushed Tibet and threatens Taiwan? CCP or Zuckerberg?
    • ok123456 2y ago
      Then don't use it.
      • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
        Yeah, and it is within my rights to call for controls over its ownership. After all, we are a free country. Just like one person getting vaccinated is useless, I want the country to be inoculated from insidious propaganda outside of democratic control and review. And it is within my rights to point out the hypocrisy of those who cry freedom https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-china-censorship-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-...
        • ok123456 2y ago
          No it's not.
          • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
            Yes, it is. I am doing it right here though, lol.
          • sanderjd 2y ago
            Of course it is. What point are you even trying to make?
    • anon84873628 2y ago
      Well if you want to talk about genocide & Facebook... https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-how-facebook-contributed-to-genocide-in-myanmar-and-why-it-will-not-be-held-accountable/ https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-ho...
  • feyman_r 2y ago
    Can you recommend some social apps from China that we may have not paid attention to? I’m assuming there’s a list more than ‘RedNote’. I tried using WeChat but it’s not where my network hangs, unfortunately. You probably know some that have enough non-China presence.
    • cscurmudgeon 2y ago
      Why not just use RedNote? It has all the freedom that is deprived in the US [1]. /s [1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-china-censorship-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/tech/tiktok-refugees-rednote-...
      • infecto 2y ago
        You almost fooled me with the sarcasm. I am concerned with how many folks in this thread have massive sympathy for China. No doubt the West has had many issues and continues to do so but China is getting painted here as the bastion of freedom and openness. That they trust a Chinese app more than Meta when it’s absolutely worse in mainland then the lives they have in the West.
        • bdangubic 2y ago
          with china wysiwyg, with USA you believe you have freedom of ____ (you don’t) and you believe “US-owned” (X is not, hence the quotes) social media is in any way “net positive” for its citizens…
          • infecto 2y ago
            Not sure what your point is? Why are you using quotes on something I did not even say? Weird.
            • bdangubic 2y ago
              No doubt the West has had many issues and continues to do so This … you are right in that West has issue … where you are wrong is that the issues are just as dangerous (if not A LOT more) than China. I quoted “US-owned” cause one of the biggest social media platforms that everyone considers “West” is owned by an African
  • infecto 2y ago
    Is the hate for Meta so great that you actually trust a Chinese app more? China absolutely has zero privacy protection and everything explicitly runs through the great censor wall. Don’t mince words. Meta absolutely has issues with data collection but it’s comical to think they somehow China is better.
    • cameronh90 2y ago
      What are China going to do to with my data that US companies haven't already done?
      • brandonmenc 2y ago
        Help China's military.
      • sanderjd 2y ago
        It has nothing to do with your data. That whole thing is a red herring. The risk with TikTok is that it presents media entirely algorithmically, and that algorithm is controllable by the Chinese government and is opaque to everyone else.
    • jpgvm 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • infecto 2y ago
        Yes retribution against Jack Ma is most certainly evidence that China is better. If you have a better example that this retribution case I am all ears. Comical you pick the first and single case that is directly tied to the Jack Ma incident.
      • juliusgeo 2y ago
        I'm curious about your third assertion--I am definitely not a fan of the US government's current laissez-faire approach to regulation, but I was able to find a few examples of the US levying larger fines: British Petroleum (total settlement was 20b, but the Clean Water Act penalty was only 5.5b): https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-and-five-gulf-states-reach-historic-settlement-bp-resolve-civil-lawsuit-over-deepwater https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-and-five-gulf-states-reach... Wells Fargo: has had so many scandals, some of which were over 3b: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations-sales-practices https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wells-fargo-agrees-pay-3-bill... In the article you linked, it mentions that this fine was 2.75b, or, 4% of Alibaba's 2019 revenue. I'm not knowledgeable enough in finance to state this as fact, but it looks like BP had a total revenue of 222B in 2015 [1]. 5.5b/222b = 2.47%. The total settlement would be 20b/222b = 9.01% Now, obviously there are many examples of companies being fined paltry amounts for massive violations in the US, and I'm not sure how to reconcile 5.5b for destroying an entire ocean ecosystem vs roughly the same fine for anti-trust violations. But I don't think it's true that the US never enforces its laws against large and valuable companies. Do you know of any good sources that compare the history of corporate fines in China vs the US in more detail? [1] https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/investors/bp-annual-report-and-form-20f-2015.pdf https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...
  • sanderjd 2y ago
    Well that's very naive. It sounds like reverse polarization. Thing A is so bad that Thing B is less bad just because it isn't Thing A.
  • lqstuart 2y ago
    I'm an American, and I have worked for both Zuck-owned and Chinese-owned companies, and you really, REALLY might want to re-think your stance. It's extremely ironic that we as Americans have this "question authority" thing so deeply ingrained in our DNA that it pushes us towards authoritarianism just to be contrarian.
• whatshisface 2y ago
  We should have consumer freedom under equal protections. Imagine if the FDA only regulated imported food and drugs, and if those regulations were only related to trade wars.
  • Etherlord87 2y ago
    In Europe it's currently in reverse. We have harsh regulations for food produced in Europe and import food not satisfying those regulations.
    • lentil_soup 2y ago
      First time I hear about this, have you got anything to read about it?
      • Etherlord87 2y ago
        https://www.foodwatch.org/en/foodwatch-calls-on-european-leaders-to-stop-mercosur-trade-agreement https://www.foodwatch.org/en/foodwatch-calls-on-european-lea... There's also a problem of food coming from Ukraine - initially Poland allowed Ukrainian trucks to enter Poland as a transit through EU, as the sea passage was blocked by russians. That passage is no longer blocked, however, and there were incidents where it was detected the food was actually bought and processed in Poland.
• katamari-damacy 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • luma 2y ago
    Alternately, more Americans are aware of the threat than you give us credit for.
    • wruza 2y ago
      Threads like this are always heavily moderated though. There’s no such thing as free’s peach, only big pretense.
  • ncr100 2y ago
    I wonder how much foreign disinformation misinformation campaigning is gaming the priority here. It's in China's interest -- not a small population -- for tiktok to continue to influence American thought. So I speculate we are witnessing HN being influenced by mis/disinfo. Eg I see here many repeated "Free Speech" being a corporate mandate claims, and other easily discounted factually unsound claims, misleading the conversation.
  • dang 2y ago
    The comment looks to me to have been quite organically upvoted. The upvoters are mostly users who've been here for years (in many cases, a lot of years) and have posted and voted on all kinds of topics in the past. While I have you, could I ask you to please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? Note these two of the guidelines: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."
• crandycodes 2y ago
  If the government was also addressing the concentration of power in the American social media apps, I’d buy it. If this was about making laws on what info phones could record about you, I’d buy it. If this was about establishing transparency laws to allow the government to better enforce the privacy laws it has, I’d buy it. If it was a law saying recommendation algorithms can’t be used for political content, I’d buy it (though not sure that’d be constitutional). Instead this says it’s fine to spy on and manipulate US citizens and concentrate media power, so long as you’re “American”.
  • seandoe 2y ago
    You're right. This is what it says. I don't think you have to buy anything outside of that. I think most Americans are more comfortable with American entities spying and manipulating them than a Chinese entity.
    • QuesnayJr 2y ago
      The law would literally allow an EU entity to own it, or a Brazilian entity, or a South African entity.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • antifa 2y ago
      China isn't going to send me to death camps for posting an authorized opinion. Most Americans don't care if China has any of our data and would prefer to be protected from US corporations than random far away countries with no physical reach.
  • j2bax 2y ago
    No it’s fine to spy on US citizens as long as we (NSA) have the access and control that we want to the greater world population data. They aren’t okay with China taking that role/opportunity from them.
• arczyx 2y ago
  > But China ultimately having that power scares me more than an American company having it. Well for people not from US, China having that power is absolutely better. After all, unlike the US, China hadn't invaded another country or instigated coup for the past 40+ years.
  • moviet 2y ago
    The U.S. makes mistakes. Everyone is free talk about them and try to correct them. Sometimes, we overcorrect or under-correct - or are slow to address things. But we admit them. I think that counts for a lot. I think it is unfair to point to military mistakes as undermining all of U.S. credibility.
    • kmbfjr 2y ago
      It took forty years for the country to begin atonement for the hardships inflicted on its own citizens during WWII, and forty years after that discussion began, we’re again talking about interment camps. We make mistakes and learn nothing from them.
    • arczyx 2y ago
      > I think it is unfair to point to military mistakes as undermining all of U.S. credibility. US didn't invade Iraq and other countries "by mistake". Same with all the coups and regime change operations. If you think these many instances are mistake, well then I have a bridge to sell to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
    • theossuary 2y ago
      We're actually not allowed to talk about them, see the Palestine genocide content being suppressed in US public spaces and social media platforms, but not on Tiktok.
      • filoleg 2y ago
        Oh yeah? Because in the first half of last year, pro-Palestine discourse has been occupying heavy majority of my social media feeds (twitter, reddit, ig, etc.) without me even engaging with any of that content. Not even mentioning all the pro-Palestine protests outside that I got to witness myself. And I had a chance to witness plenty of anti-Trump protests (both irl and in the media of all kinds) during his first presidency as well. Open any social media, and you will see tons and tons of people talking plenty of very strong anti-Trump and anti-Biden rhetoric. How well would any of that fly in China? P.S. If pro-Palestine content was “suppressed in US public spaces and social media platforms,” they were doing a really poor job of it. My IG and twitter feeds were just filled with it, despite me hitting “not interested” on most of it. Meanwhile, TikTok algorithm was actually respecting my preferences, and my feed there was filled with stuff I actually cared to see (like 3d printing projects).
• nimbius 2y ago
  Bytedance already won. Biden flat-out admitted he was not going to enforce the law once it passed, and Trump is pushing for a 90 day "Extension" because "finding a buyer" has proven more difficult than initially expected. this statement is intended to save face as bytedance has repeatedly refused to sell. What we are watching now is US leaders in both houses of the oligarchy (democratic and republican) scramble to undo policy that was written by people who think the US still has the type of pull it had in the sixties. banning Tiktok in the USA would mean one of the largest social platforms of more than 150 nations combined would have zero US presence. the US must constantly and vehemently evangelize western values and hegemony in order to protect and maintain the international neoliberal hegemony it has come to enjoy. Washington realizes they have effectively and accidentally cut themselves off from a system of propaganda they benefit from domestically (election rhetoric and stumping) as well as internationally (hearts and minds doctrine of diplomacy and soft power.) Its bad to operate in a contested environment with china, but its worse to endure a denied environment where the only voices are not yours.
  • galangalalgol 2y ago
    The reason Trump will reverse it is that it helped him get elected. He said this in interviews already. "It is hard to hate it when...". It also helped that Hungarian candidate when tiktok was used by Russia to push him... It should be gone. I wish we would ditch FB too. And SEO. Kill all the algos and let me find stuff via regex.
    • dfadsadsf 2y ago
      > It also helped that Hungarian candidate when tiktok was used by Russia to push him... That's actually misinformation and narrative invented to support coup by Romanian security services/supreme court to cancel elections. No Russians were involved. TikTok campaign was financed by center-right party but backfired in unexpected ways. https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-liberals-tiktok-campaign-pro-russia-candidate-calin-georgescu/ https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
      • 2y ago
• School-Cotton 2y ago
  > But China ultimately having that power scares me more than an American company having it. Why?
  • moviet 2y ago
    As an American, support for democracy and (small-l) liberal values is the best type of government. These liberties are built into the U.S. Constitution. And, while the U.S. government makes mistakes, this is the ideal we strive towards.
    • School-Cotton 2y ago
      “If people criticize Israel on your app we will ban it” is the antithesis of liberal values. Btw, lots of nice stuff is in the Chinese constitution too. Doesn’t really matter if it’s not followed in practice.
      • zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
        People were trying to get tik tok sold before the current war in Israel
        • School-Cotton 2y ago
          China hawk republicans, yes. Not enough people to matter. The democrats only got on board, giving it enough support to actually pass, once it became the main place pro-Palestinian content was spreading.
      • titanomachy 2y ago
        I just went on instagram reels to disprove your point by finding posts critical of Israel. They certainly exist, under the search term "gaza". But the search term "Israel" is straight-up blocked, so obviously the censorship is real. EDIT: example critical post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYK037S2N-/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DEYK037S2N-/
    • 2y ago
• ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  More perspective as another American: ridiculous inflation, staggering economic inequality, pathetic education standards, ridiculous emissions regulations, ensuring women's access to healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, the housing market, school shootings, student and medical debt, and of course, healthcare, are all issues that are actively demolishing our society right now, and the Government won't do a fucking thing. They did however manage to ban one of the brain-rotting apps. Not even remotely a majority, but one. I don't need one line of CCP propaganda to know the American government is a fucking joke.
• scarab92 2y ago
  I doubt this has anything to do with "data". I generally view "data is the new oil" arguments as a sign that the journalist doesn't know what they are talking about, especially if they can't characterise what data they are referring to or why it is valuable. More likely, this is about control of the recommendation algorithm, and therefore control of the narrative.
  • infecto 2y ago
    Absolutely but I do think there is a slice of data. Unlike meta selling its data, we have no idea the full scope of what bytedance collects and sends home. My one thorn is we are so consumed with China but somehow it ignore Russia.
  • tehjoker 2y ago
    They specifically said it was in part about preventing ppl from learning too much about the US backed Israeli gaza genocide. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-people-think-us-effort-ban-tiktok-linked-pro-palestine-content https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-people-think-us-effor...
    • sanderjd 2y ago
      This article is just reporting that people on social media believe it to be about Gaza, it adds zero information on the veracity of that belief.
      • tehjoker 2y ago
        "Still, TikTok’s opponents hadn’t relented. Jacob Helberg, a member of a congressional research and advisory panel called the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, has been working on building a bipartisan, bicoastal alliance of China hawks, united in part by their desire to ban TikTok. Over the past year, he says, he has met with more than 100 members of Congress, and brought up TikTok with all of them. Some lawmakers built momentum for the bill by holding hearings to introduce their colleagues to arguments against TikTok, Helberg said. He also co-hosted a hearing that focused in part on TikTok. It was slow going until Oct. 7. The attack that day in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing conflict in Gaza became a turning point in the push against TikTok, Helberg said. People who historically hadn’t taken a position on TikTok became concerned with how Israel was portrayed in the videos and what they saw as an increase in antisemitic content posted to the app. Anthony Goldbloom, a San Francisco-based data scientist and tech executive, started analyzing data TikTok published in its dashboard for ad buyers showing the number of times users watched videos with certain hashtags. He found far more views for videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags than those with pro-Israel hashtags. While the ratio fluctuated, he found that at times it ran 69 to 1 in favor of videos with pro-Palestinian hashtags." linked in the article https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-bill-that-could-ban-it-7201ac8b https://www.wsj.com/tech/how-tiktok-was-blindsided-by-a-u-s-...
• jmyeet 2y ago
  3 comments total from this account totaling 28 karma at the time of writing and this of the top comment on a 1500+ comment thread about a major issue? Ok. That fact is relevant to the issue. This comment is the most “State Department talking points” comment you could make and the finger is put on the scales to elevate it. That’s exactly what Google and Meta do with content via recommendation algorithms and comments. And it’s what TikTok doesn’t do, which is the exact reason it was banned. Oldheads will remember when comment karma was public. Its hidden now basically to hide just how manipulated comment rankings are.
  • moviet 2y ago
    Lol. I lurk on Hacker News. I am not a U.S. government employee. I just felt compelled to state what I thought was missing from the conversation.
    • jmyeet 2y ago
      The issue isn’t about you per se. it’s about what HN promotes. Since we can’t see comment karma anymore, we usually can’t tell. But your case gives us a window into that. 28 karma from 3 comments, none of them grey, puts a really low ceiling on the karma this comment has. Again, nothing against you personally.
  • infecto 2y ago
    You do realize that comment weight it’s time and point based? 0min comment will show up at the top. Get out of here with your conspiracies.
  • dleeftink 2y ago
    Maybe an oldhead can shed some more light on this: hasn't it always been the case that comments are ranked by a combination of timeliness and votes, as to prevent any single comment to dominate the top of the page for the duration of a story's frontpage time?
    • jmyeet 2y ago
      Comments will absolutely get rotated so the same comment generally doesn’t dominate. My understanding was there was a lot of manual intervention in this process. I could be wrong. It’s also true it’s never been a strict ranking by net votes either. Getting a lot of upvotes quickly will elevate a comment. It’s also suspected that certain users will have their comments upranked or downranked based on their history as well as manual intervention. Organic ranking still exists but there are many, many thumbs on the scale. Hiding comment karma just makes that less obvious. I don’t normally engage in HN meta-commentary. In fact, it’s highly discouraged. It’s somewhat ironic that an obvious, egregious case of content manipulation here is directly relevant to the issue at hand: the TikTok ban.
• calculatte 2y ago
  I'm willing to bet Americans are the most propagandized people on Earth. And it's done by our government with the "public/private partnership" aka "unconstitutional workarounds" of all legacy media and social media outlets. Facebook has admitted as much, and the Twitter files proves it. China controlling the flow of information is the same. The only difference is China is upfront about what information they are feeding everyone.
  • jewelry 2y ago
    You guess? As a Chinese I can tell you you are wrong by 10x if not more.
    • calculatte 2y ago
      As a Chinese, you know what you can't talk about. As an American we are "surprised" when our "free speech" results in overt government-sponsored censorship. You are very wrong.
      • titanomachy 2y ago
        You can still say whatever the hell you want, unless you're actively inciting violence against protected minorities. You just have to do it on one of the many social media platforms that aren't owned by China.
  • Clubber 2y ago
    >I'm willing to bet Americans are the most propagandized people on Earth. Perhaps. It might feel that way because we have multiple sources of propaganda and interests trying to sway us while places like China only have one. We have political party propaganda, government propaganda, corporate propaganda, special interest group propaganda, religious propaganda, grass roots propaganda, etc. China has government propaganda that encompasses all of that. I also think the US apparatus' are just better at hiding which information is propaganda and which isn't; this makes it harder to spot. China has full control so it doesn't really matter if its propaganda is believable. Once you bring up a generation on it, the propaganda turns into reality.
• Spooky23 2y ago
  It’s offensive to the notion of free speech as Americans profess to respect. If the capabilities of these services are so dangerous, we should have laws and rules to control the danger. Instead we’ve done some nationalist cowing to send a message, and we’re arm-twisting Zuck to adapt Facebook to the political expediency of the moment.
  • ncr100 2y ago
    That's a misread, tiktok speech .. eg eating toxic Tide Pods for competition .. can be gotten and made in the USA still.
    • Spooky23 2y ago
      That’s not the point. Where does it stop? Should my company by eyeing a switch to Oracle services because SAP is German?
      • ncr100 2y ago
        The questions in the message I responded to were: > offensive to the notion of free speech And, something about New Law (vs Policy enforcement by administrator of agencies or political elected leadership positions), to prevent damage from speech .. via Facebook. I wanted to fast-forward past this second question, as I think it's a red herring here -- Facebook Management and their operation in the USA is not legally beholden to the government of China. Tiktok is, so it's different. So I rejected the second question. Then back to the first, the notion of free speech and taking offense. I recognize free speech is not total, as I understand my rights here in the USA. And I see corporations as existing Only by sanction of government. Therefore the authority still rests within the State to moderate corporate behavior. Tah dah .. that's why I think it's the correct point. What am I overlooking? Then, the hypothetical (?) about Oracle and Germany, yes. If your company reasonably can expect to be seen to be working with a partner, that's offering services similar to Oracle, and which is legally obligated to the worldwide operation constraints of an enemy of the state of your company's incorporation (USA), like China, then yes.
• katamari-damacy 2y ago
  All that talk about Israel and genocide is what got TikTok banned, even as TikTok was heavily demoting such truthful content. AIPAC couldn't take it. A lot of issues that are Israel first are disguised as America First by the Deep Christian State. Whatever dude.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• quotemstr 2y ago
  > Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power Control of information is not a legitimate function of the state. The only real reason to ban TikTok or any other platform is establishing control over narratives, and the government must never in a free society put a thumb on the scale of ideas. So what if the Chinese can boost this message or that message? Is our society so fragile it'll fall apart if people are exposed to the wrong ideas? The TikTok ban is awful not because TikTok is great, but because it's the state arrogating power to control what's in people's minds. It was no right to do that!
  • elsonrodriguez 2y ago
    > Is our society so fragile it'll fall apart if people are exposed to the wrong ideas? Yes.
  • chrisco255 2y ago
    The ban is great because TikTok is a foreign company that is operating with asymmetric privilege given that American social media companies are banned in China. It's unacceptable for a foreign company to be given network privileges without American companies getting the same level playing field in China. > So what if the Chinese can boost this message or that message Propaganda is effective. Let's not pretend it isn't. This isn't freedom of speech from an American citizen being censored. This is a militarized, industrial, foreign nation exerting influence over the people of its chief rival while it actively blocks American companies from doing the same within its borders.
  • giantrobot 2y ago
    > Is our society so fragile it'll fall apart if people are exposed to the wrong ideas? This reductionism to "exposure to ideas" is absolutely absurd. TikTok and any other algorithmic feed isn't problematic because it exposes anyone to anything. They're problematic because those feeds can be used to actively shape behavior. Shaping behavior is not very difficult if you have a lot of information about someone and control of what they see for hours a day. If shaping behavior didn't work no social media company would make the billions of dollars that they do. TikTok fads wouldn't exist if it was just a simple exposure to ideas. TikTok in particular is worth targeting because of the way state security laws work in China. There's no legal issues with the state apparatus accessing company data. There's no judicial review. The state just has access to companies' back ends. Since we know social media feeds can shape personal behavior and China can exert any control they want over Chinese companies, it's not a logical leap to realize a state hostile to interests of the North America and Europe having control over something people use for hours a day is a bad thing. There's a whole cohort of the population for who TikTok is their primary source of "news". Their world view is shaped by what's presented to them. They're not "exposed to ideas" but targeted with specific narratives. Because all users have different targeting you may never see the same sort of feed as the person sitting next to you.
• banku_brougham 2y ago
  I fear our govt more than Chinas. Just put CSPAN on in the background for a while. Our government's north star is war.
  • ncr100 2y ago
    Our government is more than that simplistic reduction.
• ridhwanh 2y ago
  I don't think this is a data issue, but more of control over media in a sovereign nation. In a free market, can another sovereign nation hold a chunk of the market share in media? I don't know. All I can think of is the impact on regular everyday Americans who use TikTok to make a living.
• gchamonlive 2y ago
  So why not break down Meta and Google first? Too convenient. A better read I think is just Trump paving the way for Musk and his supporters to monopolize control of data and attention. First step for a silent oligopoly of democracy.
• __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  What we're seeing here is American tech companies making America more like China--I'd rather tolerate both online and find a different way to mitigate the threat of anyone having this kind of influence.
• pbsds 2y ago
  If concentration of control over concentration scares you then a social media not owned by the US should be welcome. Now you have an all-american echo chamber.
• ramoz 2y ago
  We’ve arguably been a better society with TikTok than with any other large-scale American platform. The moderation policies on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or any media outlet have been egregious, and more detrimental to the cultural health of the United States. At the same time, we’re still not equipped to fully understand the complex and often hidden ways that information can influence people online. Some critics go as far as attributing mind-control capabilities to TikTok, yet everyone’s “For You” page is different—driven largely by a user-led algorithm rather than top-down editorial control. So we've stripped back a genuine outlet for the masses. And now must accept prescription/participation for any similar digital experience or large-scale information sharing in our country.
  • titanomachy 2y ago
    > everyone’s “For You” page is different—driven largely by a user-led algorithm rather than top-down editorial control. But do you really know this? Just because your homepage is different from other people, doesn't mean there isn't a thumb on the scale. Of course, Meta and the like also tweak their algorithms, in their case to maximize engagement and profit. Who knows what TikTok might be optimizing for? I personally think we should regulate the shit out of all these things, especially the hyper-addictive short-form video brain rot, and especially for children.
• datavirtue 2y ago
  I have started to change my stance on China. Is it worse than the US if you hold them both up to the light? Sure, all of us can cite Chinese ills that we don't have, especially in regard to individual freedoms and democracy. But those things can be fixed. China has never in its history practiced imperialism. They don't have a burgeoning and entrenched oligarchy. What good is democracy when popular initiatives never see the light of day? What good is it when political parties ignore court ruling and continue to hold elections on Gerry meandered maps? What good is it when people are continually enslaved by debt and taken advantage of? I'm not arguing for China here but we have a handful of social media properties controlled by one man who can change the narrative on anything with the drop of a hat. We don't even really promote the individual (liberal democracy) anymore. The rich and powerful leverage ignorance to hold power. It is disgusting. And for the record, I still hold onto American exceptionalism as principal and believe America is the light of the world. This experiment has allowed many to ascend from poverty and make something of themselves despite what they were born into many, many times over.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• locallost 2y ago
  It's a fine point of view, except we've been exposed to decades of propaganda how the Chinese Government is awful for controlling the flow of information, especially from the outside. I have a feeling the West is in a trap of its own making, it will either be consistent and allow what it asks others to allow, or will lose face because everything it allegedly stood for turned out to be BS.
• d_burfoot 2y ago
  I'm also an American - I think this action makes us look weak and scared. Like our tech can't compete with Chinese tech. Strong nations act according to a set of principles, even if doing so is sometimes inconvenient or dangerous. Weak nations are constantly compromising their principles in order to survive.