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By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by pro

By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process. Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, they'd argue about who gets to manipulate the mob. It's just wild to me. If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. Honestly, maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies in the face of the sanctity of voting and "democracy."

dmitrygr 2y ago
> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Was this ever not the case?
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  It was always like that.
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  This is the fundamental problem with American democracy and democracies all over the world. It only works if the voters are well informed, educated, and generally competent. Otherwise it’s just a manipulation game where someone can lie and lie and lie and be elected president. And at that late stage phase of democracy, who gets to manipulate these people better is who holds power.
  - 13415 2y ago
    That shouldn't be a problem, though. All it takes is to make sure that voters are informed, educated, and generally competent. On a side note, the same holds for market economy. Markets only work if consumers are informed, educated, and generally competent.
  - GenerocUsername 2y ago
    I assume you are speaking about establishment politicians over the last 40-2000 years, but I suspect you are actually miming talking points about manipulation aimed at 1 very recent election where the established propaganda cycle failed to manipulate enough people and a different brand of manipulation brought in a different set of manipulators. Evidence of your own manipulated belief structures going without serious enough introspection to be held as a competent free agent
    - saxonww 2y ago
      Allegedly, the biggest concern this time around was the economy. Millions of people complaining about inflation and the cost of goods voted for a guy promising to raise tariffs, and a party that historically caters to big business. The same big business that has moved a lot of jobs overseas, and has lobbied to relax restrictions on visas to hire more foreign workers for onshore jobs. To me, this looks a lot like people voting against their own interests. I think that when people vote against their own interests, it's usually because they don't understand what they're voting for, i.e. it's an education issue. And it's not surprising that other people would be perplexed and frustrated by this. But maybe I've just been misled by the wrong propaganda. I guess we'll find out.
    - YZF 2y ago
      Are you trying to argue that (many) democrats and republicans voters in the recent elections were not generally manipulated by their respective sides? I don't think this holds water. Examples could be democrats control over Biden's health messaging or republicans repeating the message that the democrats are stealing the elections or democrat's messaging about if their side loses it's the end of democracy or republicans messaging about immigration, crime etc. Generally engaging at a shallow level with the goal of influencing people's emotions. I don't think this is a 40-2000 years phenomena. It's certainly become a lot worse since Trump ran for president the first time. I remember turning on TV in my hotel room during a visit to the US maybe 8 years ago and switching between CNN and Fox, each of these channels were basically about endless bashing of the opposite side. I wouldn't call the content anything other than brainwashing and propaganda. CNN didn't use to be like that. With social media since every user gets their own view we don't even know what the "hidden hand" is pushing. It's much worse and a lot more dangerous.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    Isn’t that the premise of the Enlightenment? That’s everyone will be well educated, or, if they’re not, at least they were the ones in control of their destiny? i.e. “You crazy, translating the bible to the plebs? What happens if stupid people get to choose for themselves?”
- hcurtiss 2y ago
  Maybe not, but it strikes me as a really dangerous path. If we don't believe the electorate acts from a position of moral authority, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct ways of controlling populations. And they tend to be a lot more bloody.
  - YZF 2y ago
    It's the path we've been on for a long time and one that is made a lot more dangerous in the era of social media. Today more than ever people live in echo chambers and believe what they want to or what they think they need to so they can conform with their group identity. More than ever a few wealthy people or state actors have direct control over the reality people see without even the pretense of being "unbiased" media or any sort of ethical guidelines which in the past used to semi-exist for the traditional media/news etc. Propaganda's job is to influence those people who think they're acting from a position of moral authority but lack the education, or critical thinking skills, or access to information, to be able to see through the manipulation. I'm not sure what's the answer but I am sure this is not what the proponents of free speech had in mind.
  - layer8 2y ago
    The reason the more direct ways are more bloody is why we want to stick with democracy. Democracy is supposed to be based on an exchange of ideas in an open discourse. This is why it’s important to not let any one party have too much control over the discourse. That is also why freedom of speech exists. Somewhat paradoXically, banning a foreign-controlled platform can serve the same purpose as defending freedom of speech.
- saxonww 2y ago
  Sort of? I think it's definitely the case that the group of voters in 1789 was much smaller and more homogeneous than it is today. I also think the nature of propaganda has changed a little as well. Today, messages can be delivered cheaply to everyone, everywhere, from anywhere, nearly instantaneously. There is far less of a propagation delay, and far less of a natural check on the rate and volume of propaganda.
epcoa 2y ago
> Honestly, maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies in the face of the sanctity of voting and "democracy." Although some choose or have to squawk loudly about it, the sanctity of “democracy” is not universally or even widely accepted. To extend the Winston Churchill quote, it’s mostly a charade but it’s the best one we have (in my opinion).
- lazide 2y ago
  At least someone has to (currently) manipulate the voters into voting a specific way, instead of just ‘voting for them’, or threatening them at gunpoint.
nradov 2y ago
If TikTok was only targeted at voters then I think there would be less of a concern. My issue is more with what it shows to children. Science and law recognize that children aren't yet fully individual agents and are more susceptible to propaganda than most adults. Thus legislators and courts have been more willing to restrict commercial speech targeting children.
- atlintots 2y ago
  If that is truly your primary concern, you should be more worried about Instagram. TikTok is much better in that regard. It has parental controls, a restricted mode, screen time limits, etc.
  - danenania 2y ago
    We should be worried about all of them. But a hostile totalitarian foreign government could have motivations that are a hell of a lot worse than maximizing engagement/profits. If the goal is to cause harm to the population (ala fentanyl distribution) rather than just to make as much money as possible, I’d say parents are right to be correspondingly more concerned.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Your comment made me realize that politicians stopped "think of the children" along with the rise of social media. Before the rise of big tech they would routinely slam their fist on the podium demanding that we think of the children.
- dagss 2y ago
  I feel this is way too optimistic about the typical adult. Adults are most definitely affected by propaganda. Problem is reality is so complex and usually all sides of a topic are right at the same time, in some way. For any viewpoint A, there will be reels made by people in any demographic group who cares deeply about it for excellent and solid reasons. The same will be the case for anti-A. Both of them will be convincing and TikTok can just choose which one of them to subtly nudge.
tims33 2y ago
I agree with everything you're saying, but I also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China. This is about freedom of speech on app built by a country that has no freedom of speech. I realize this point is orthogonal, but is still an important element of the decision.
- marricks 2y ago
  > also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China It's a chance to showcase how we're "more free" or literally just as restrictive
  - talldayo 2y ago
    The United States used to claim we had a laissez-faire market. We don't claim that anymore.
    - tgma 2y ago
      In founding of the United States lies tariff stories. The United States does not reject government and nations as entities at all. It just asserts rights for its citizens which doesn't include everyone on the planet.
  - CryptoBanker 2y ago
    Or it’s a chance to be “fair”
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - Retric 2y ago
    At its core free speech is about the freedom from government influence and the complaint is about government influence. It’s one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants, it’s something else to allow them the ability to manipulate of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more than it helps.
punpunia 2y ago
Really? It is the most base fact that people can be manipulated by the ideas of others. Creatures trying to convince other creatures of one thing over another is just part of being a living animal. But the idea that people want to control who says what is wild to you? It flies in the face of the sanctity of "democracy"? Don't you think that's a bit of a hyperbole?
CryptoBanker 2y ago
You act as if individuals and a mob are mutually exclusive. Who do you think makes up a mob?
Frost1x 2y ago
That’s sort of the ironic bit. IMHO it’s been this way for awhile, but because it was pretty much as you described (“the elite”) with the reigns we pushed the argument that voters were individual agents. The genius in strategies enemies are using are leveraging the exact same levers already being leveraged against be populous: free speech as a roadway for propaganda, misinformation/disinformation, and widespread social manipulation. There was a time when it was more difficult to scale these sorts of strategies so there may have been an illusion of agency. Also, a hundred years ago issues were a bit less complicated/nuanced so your voters could probably wrangle ideas intelligently more independently. I also suspect the corporate undermining of the general population for their own wealth grab has weakened the country as a whole, including the voter base. We want to undermine education at every turn and stability of your average citizen so they can be more easily manipulated. That comes at a cost because once we’re in that position, whose to say youll (the US elite) will be the ones with the reigns? By weakening the population for your own gain, you open up foreign adversaries to do the same and they’re doing just that. We should focus on improving general education and the populations overall stability/livelihood. That has to do with pushing back on some of the power grab the ultra wealthy have taken, at the populations expense. These are of course just my unsubstantiated opinions.
quasse 2y ago
> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Who is even saying this is not true? The United States government is more aware than maybe anyone else that influencing human opinion and action is a statistical problem once you have enough scale. Just look at the history of the USIA [1] and its successor the USICA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agen...
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  There are hundreds of HN users commenting here as if their opinions have meaning and value. Which would be in question if they could all be under various states of “influence”… At the very least the median credibility would be roughly zero.
  - mesh 2y ago
    Just because you share an opinion does not mean that opinion has not been shaped, directed or influenced. "The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
    - XorNot 2y ago
      Also HN absolutely has an Overton window. It has an entire system to enforce it (the voting and points system).
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Did you reply to the correct comment? You don’t need to convince me that is a possibility.
  - puffybunion 2y ago
    You pose this as a mathematical question but stop far short of it's full extent
philipov 2y ago
> a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? This idea goes back to the founding of the nation. It's the very reason we have an electoral college.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  And the reason we didn't have universal suffrage.
olalonde 2y ago
Bingo. I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions. If we truly trust in that, the source of the influence - foreign or domestic - shouldn’t matter. People who advocate for censoring foreign sources of influence are implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population to think critically.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  You could ban every non-ethnically Chinese channel to push Chinese superiority. That would be bad, right? And before you say, “but they’re not doing that”, remember that we’re discussing how this theoretically could be a bad thing.
- hcurtiss 2y ago
  Exactly. To the degree elections are not rooted in a competition of ideas and individual agency, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct means of controlling populations, all of which tend to be a lot bloodier. All of this strikes me as a really dangerous path.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    Are lies ideas? In a competition of "ideas", if one side lies, is it still a fair competition, or are they cheating? Should it be a fair competition?
    - hcurtiss 2y ago
      That angle would work if there wasn't so much disagreement about what constitutes lies. After the last few years, I am definitely not interested in having government actors decide for me what amounts to the truth. Personally, I suppose I much prefer a competition of ideas -- and the ability to decide for myself.
      - luckylion 2y ago
msravi 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yes, it is. Always has been. > threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process > then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power You'd have to have fallen hook, line, and sinker with America's propaganda to actually believe that democracy is NOT a cover for retaining control over a population. The US has been playing this game in other countries for a while now, to keep a check on who comes to power and who does not (always using support for democracy as an excuse). Gautemala, the arab spring, bangladesh - these are just some of the examples. And it's become very blatant of late.
stouset 2y ago
> …aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? …yes? Is that even slightly controversial? If it wasn’t the case, why would propaganda even exist?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Theres an implication that The Internet meant we have a commons connecting the world that no one country can completely restrict. But a commons too important to all modern societies to blanket ban. In theory we should be less susceptible to propoganda than ever since we can see multiple viewpoints and interpretations in minutes. As opposed to being beholden to maybe 3-4 mainstream news programs on television. Human nature proves to fall quite short of that ideal, though.
  - dagss 2y ago
    People CAN see multiple viewpoints in minutes, and some do, problem is hundreds of millions more prefer to let TikTok select what views to see. And TikTok has immense data available about what series of reels sway what subpopulation in what direction. Only question is of they make use of it. My opinion is that if they wanted to sway an election anywhere in the world they definitely could.
shawnz 2y ago
That's the entire reason for representative democracy over direct democracy
- kybernetikos 2y ago
  I'm not sure it is- even if you think the electorate are educated and competent, it still makes sense to delegate the specific decisions to a smaller set of individuals who are given the time and resources to get into the detail. It just scales better.
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rendx 2y ago
Excuse my European ignorance, but in what way is a system a "democracy" where one person can overrule actual democratic structures? The power centralized into one person is unheard of in what I would call "democracies".
johannes1234321 2y ago
Of course propaganda works. That's why companies spent tons of money on ads. Of course it also works on politics, especially if people don't trust "traditional" media, but arbitrary publishers (there's room for a guiding which is more trustworthy) History over and over has shown that a public can be led into their own demise, including brutal war. How much active influence China takes I don't know (and I never used tiktok) but we are certainly in a time of massive disinformation and denial of facts. Globally.
cdrini 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I disagree with this interpretation. It's creating a sort of false dichotomy -- voters can still be individual agents AND ALSO they can be manipulated by propaganda. And the key is that propaganda doesn't have to be wildly successful in order to impact a democratic process. It just has to convince enough people to sway an election. That is, and always has been, one of the trade-offs of democracy. That's why we say "democracy needs an informed electorate to survive" -- because an informed individual is less likely to be easily manipulated.
lolinder 2y ago
Ad-funded social media platforms make money by measurably altering people's opinions and behavior. It's literally their only job—everything else is in service to that goal. Given that this is what they do day in and day out and that the successful ones are by all metrics very good at it, it seems totally reasonable to assume that one could trivially be turned from manipulating people into buying stuff to manipulating people to voting a certain way or holding certain opinions. One person one vote is the guiding principle of democracy and, yes, it assumes that no person is able to actively hijack someone else's vote for their own gain. We have systems in place to prevent voter fraud, and I think that we should have systems in place to prevent systematic individual targeting of individuals for algorithmic manipulation as well. What we don't need is a law that specifically targets foreign companies doing it. Our homegrown manipulators are just as dangerous in their own ways.
motorest 2y ago
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Did you already forgot about the episode about Haitians eating everyone's pets? Based on that episode alone, what's you observation? > I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process. You should take a minute to think about the underlying issue. Propaganda is a massive threat against democracy and freedom in general. If a bad actor invests enough resources pushing lies and false promises that manages to convince enough people to vote on their agent, do you expect to be represented and see your best interests defended by your elected representatives? Also, you should pay attention to the actual problem. Propaganda isn't something that affects the left end of the bell curve. Propaganda determines which information you have access to. You make your decisions based on the information you have, regardless of being facts or fiction. If you are faced with a relentless barrage of bullshit, how can you make an educated decision or even guess on what's the best outcome? You cannot. The one that controls the information you can access will also control to a great degree your decision process. That's the power of disinformation and propaganda, and the risk that China's control of TikTok poses to the US in particular but the free world in general.
mbesto 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? If you want to view it that way, sure. But I could also just say you and I are both sacks of blood filled flesh. > Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, Meta (et al) are just AS guilty as TikTok. The difference is substantial and subtle - the US government could conceivably sanction a US-based entity to the point of them not existing. A chinese based one doesnt have to play by the rules. Fine them? No problem, their gov has an immeasurable amount of money. The only option is to simply not let them play at all.
serbuvlad 2y ago
The advantage of democracy is that the propaganda game gets played every few years and current elites can lose. Under a system of freedom of speech, there is very little stopping a decently (but not massively) funded rag-tag group of competent individuals from running a more efficient propaganda campaign than the powers-that-be (think of Dominic Cummings' Leave campaign in the UK for the perfect example). This is the best system we have found to establish the impermanence of the elite class. Because this is the real beauty of what we in the west call democracy: not the absence of an elite class, for there is no such system, but it's impermanence. And while that is all well and good within a country, the argument is that it would be unwise to allow a foreign hostile power a seat at our propaganda game. Especially one which does not reciprocate this permission.
- hcurtiss 2y ago
  This is a thoughtful reply. But, if it's just propaganda games played by the elites, I suppose another way to ensure informed outcomes might be literacy tests. Or property ownership. I guess more than anything I'm just surprised that it's the "threat to democracy" crowd that would be taking such a cynical view of democracy. They're admitting that Trump's propaganda was just better than theirs. Which is, in some ways, hilarious.
mardifoufs 2y ago
Yep, it basically amounts to agreeing 100% with the Chinese justification for their great firewall, which is that a free internet is subversive to their national interest and to their citizens. But Americans will argue that it's somewhat different, since when they do it it's not dystopian or something
corimaith 2y ago
By resorting to walled gardens that by definition have to provide a filtered experience via algorithms rather than raw experience of older internet forums and image boards, haven't many of these voters already made that choice of being wanting to be manipulated?
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. yeah. They don't necessarily want nor care to inform of the truth. they want that sort of manipulation as much as any other billionaire. Heck there's a good amount of people who simply want to be told what to do so they don't have to worry about the big stuff. There's a reason many almost always choose convinience over anything else when working in practice.
LargeWu 2y ago
Of course voters are subject to propaganda. YOU are subject to propaganda. Yes, you.
samr71 2y ago
I enjoy seeing HN independently rederive much of NRX thought via this situation. In unrelated news, anyone see that NYT interview with Yarvin yesterday?
- layer8 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
- cycrutchfield 2y ago
  The one where Curtis made a fool of himself and his poor understanding of history?
mesh 2y ago
>voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda That has nothing to do with China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
simion314 2y ago
Why is illegal to put false stuff on products label, like food or medicine? Where is the free speech to lie and manipulate the user? With your point of view the EACH user should somehow find the skills to analyze and review each product each time they user or trust some other persons word. The algorithm is not a person to have free speech, my issue is with the algorithm, I am OK with the village drunk to post his faked documents but I am not O with state actors falsifing documents then same state owned actors abusing the algorithm to spread that false stuff. So no free spech for bot farms and algorithms, they are not people (yet)
aredox 2y ago
Yes. This is well known since Antiquity when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death. Read more about the period and you will see that the Democratic cities of yore, Athens first and foremost, often swinged towards taking bad decisions, and that a whole corporation of "sophists" manipulated public opinion without shame (read e.g. Gorgias). The great progress that enabled the restoration, extention and stabilisation of Democracy in the modern era has been indirect, representative democracy and base, written bill of rights/constitutions that aren't asily modified, requiring majorities of 2/3rds or more and constraint what can be voted on.
- regularization 2y ago
  Qhat you doesn't make much sense, starting with your claim Plato was sentenced to death by Athenian democracy, which there is no evidence of that I know of.
  - aredox 2y ago
    Because I mixed them up, as Plato is the one who wrote down Socrates' teachings and his story...
    - defrost 2y ago
      There are worse mixups ... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/aug/19/plutos-republic-peter-medawar-review https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/aug/19/plutos-repub...
- SubGenius 2y ago
  > ...when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death. That was Socrates, not Plato. Socrates was allowed to choose his own punishment too, so he wasn't exactly condemned to death right away. He also had the opportunity to escape prison. He chose not to.
  - aredox 2y ago
    Sorry for the Socrates/Plato mix-up. TikTok has the opportunity to divest. They chose not to.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? That is true, yet it's not incompatible with democracy. In the US Horace Mann established the foundational link between education and democracy. It's why civics and other forms of intellectual self-defence are essential. The problem with social media (and BigTech lazy "convenient" non-thought) is not that it's a propaganda conduit as much as that it's antithetical to critical thinking. It's more complex than simply the content, it's the form too.
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chinathrow 2y ago
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Well, we don't know what was said in the classified meetings, but yes, we know that propaganda works.
cscurmudgeon 2y ago
We do have laws around elections like the equal time rule. Should we remove that too? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
leot 2y ago
If I were the CCP this is perhaps the cleverest talking point I could have possibly come up with, propping up TikTok while simultaneously condemning democracy. But to substantively respond: NO. This is exceptionally naive. Democracy assumes shared fates and aligned incentives among (both voting and communicating) participants. A foreign adversary mainlining their interests into half the population of the US absolutely violates this assumption.
Salgat 2y ago
This sounds like an emotional appeal rather than anything based on science and fact.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
"a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda" Yes, that is correct.
simonsarris 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Like we've been saying since the founding of the country? yeah "The body of people ... do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." -Hamilton The founders did not think that electoral college was a good idea, senators should be appointed and not elected, and only a few citizens should be able to vote generally, because they were feeling mean. They did so because they thought these things and the act of voting itself were simply instruments to produce good government. They rejected a democracy, and favored a republic, for this reason.
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patcon 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yes, exactly. A symbiotic view of life: we have never been individuals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235518850_A_Symbiotic_View_of_Life_We_Have_Never_Been_Individuals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235518850_A_Symbiot... I have it on personal experience that DARPA seems to be enthusiastically funding more digital twin and collective intelligence projects than ever. Simulated virtual publics are going to become more common in both war and politics. Collectives are going to be the driving force of the coming century, and the sooner the American public evolves beyond fetishizing the individual, the better.
soulofmischief 2y ago
The existence of democratic sociopolitical structures does not preclude the existence of targeted mass propaganda, or the weaknesses of the human psyche. Nor vice versa.
ben_w 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I take the view that the reason freedom of speech is important at all, is that people can be convinced to act in certain ways by speech — if it couldn't lead to action, no dictator would fear it. We, all of us, take things on trust. We have to. It's not like anyone, let alone everyone, has the capacity — time or skill — to personally verify every claim we encounter. Everywhere in the world handles this issue differently: the USA is free-speech-maximalism; the UK has rules about what you can say in elections[0] (and in normal ads), was famously a jurisdiction of choice for people who wanted to sue others for libel[1], and has very low campaign spending limits[2]; Germany has laws banning parties that are a threat to the constitution[3]. I doubt there is any perfect solution here, I think all only last for as long as the people themselves are vigilant. [0] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/campaigning-your-vote/claims-made-campaign-material https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism [2] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-spending-and-pre-poll-donations-and-loans-uk-parliamentary-general-election/spending-limit https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-spending-and-pr... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68029232 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68029232
coliveira 2y ago
The US gov has just made the case for banning US owned social networks around the world, because they truly believe that social networks is a way for a foreign agents to interfere in local politics.
- YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
  This is misleading. Most of the places that might want to ban US social networks were already doing so.
pantalaimon 2y ago
> China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy" And has there ever been an example for that or is it just a hypothetical scenario?
- dagss 2y ago
  No one can possibly know. They just have all the power to do it very efficiently, without anyone noticing.
matthewdgreen 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I invite you to consider the possibility that this is true. That at the population level, propaganda actually works. This would support the fact that it's been a key tool used by regimes (including ours) since before the printing press was invented. I don't really know for certain whether this is accurate, but it's hard for me to look around the world at global politics and determine that it isn't.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Part of the reason Western democracies are failing is we forgot that pure democracy doesn’t work. The founders described this amply in the Federalist Papers. Democracy tends towards tearing itself apart with partisanship and mob rule. It’s why successful republics have mechanisms to cool off public sentiment, letting time tax emotions to reveal actual thoughts underneath (see: the Swiss versus Californian referendum models); bodies to protect minorities from the majority (independent courts); et cetera.
mppm 2y ago
I do find people's faith in Democracy, as opposed to Authoritarianism, somewhat exasperating. Two candidates, pre-selected by the powers that be to lead the nation, compete in inane televised debates, wave flags and make promises that everyone knows they are going to break. This everyone debates hotly, and then lines up to register one bit of Holy Democratic Choice, to be averaged with a hundred million similar bits to determine, by a margin of a few percent, the one and only legitimate Government of the People, by the People, for the People. My Ass. In the end, "democracy" is about power and control, just like any other form of government, and the TikTok ban is just another power-play, however it may be justified publicly. Not that I'm overly sorry to see it banned, by the way :)
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Until very recently, "Democracy" was a dirty way to describe a government. It was in the same class of failed government models as tyranny, the rule of the mindless mob.
  - mppm 2y ago
    Maybe, but my point is that democracy is not even the rule of a mindless mob, more like mob rule theater. Ruling implies receiving information and performing complex actions and giving many and nontrivial orders. From a purely information-theoretical perspective, it requires a lot of entropy flowing from the decision maker to subordinates. On the other hand, national elections collect a tiny pool of entropy from the supposed root source of power and legitimacy, the people. This is not enough to rule a country, by many orders of magnitude. The country is instead ruled by ambitious individuals, who seize power in various ways - connections, backroom deals, backstabbing. Some participate in the election theater.
imiric 2y ago
Why is that so hard to believe? For more than a century now the advertising industry has perfected mass psychological manipulation that aims to separate the masses from their dollar. These tactics as pioneered by the likes of Edward Bernays were plucked straight from the propaganda rule books, which has been successfully used for at least a century before that. We know that both propaganda and advertising are highly effective at influencing how people think and which products they consume. It's a small step then to extrapolate those techniques to get vast amounts of people to think and act however one wants. All it requires is sufficient interest, a relatively minor amount of resources, and using the same tools that millions of people already give their undivided attention to, which were designed to be as addictive as possible. We've already seen how this can work in the Cambridge Analytica exposé, which is surely considered legacy tech by now. I'm honestly surprised that people are in desbelief that this can and does happen. These are not some wildly speculative conspiracy theories. People are easily influenceable. When tools that can be used to spread disinformation and gaslight people into believing any version of reality are widely available to anyone, it would be surprising if they were _not_ used for this purpose. > If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. Always has been. It's just that now that we've perfected the tools used to sway public opinion, and made them available to anyone, including our enemies, the effects are much more palpable. I hope Zuckerberg and friends, and everyone who's worked on these platforms, some of which frequent this very forum, realize that they've contributed to the breakdown of civilization. It's past time for these people to stop selling us snake oil promises of a connected world, and start being accountable for their actions.
hinkley 2y ago
Why do you think The Rule of Law exists? Large groups of angry people often make bad decisions with long term consequences. We have known this forever.
astee 2y ago
Yes. But we're talking about children too - not just adult voters. And the app collects every click, every face photo, all contacts, every keypress on external links, everything. The full social graph, shaping the trends of the younger generation.
LZ_Khan 2y ago
The winner of the election is often the party that spent more money on political advertising, so I'm sure this is a well known phenomenon.
Gormo 2y ago
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yep. Same thing as the people arguing to reverse the Citizens United ruling. Lots of lip service is paid to "democracy" by people who have no faith in the electorate to actually exercise democratic sovereignty.
- dbetteridge 2y ago
  I'd argue that Democracy cannot be exercised by the electorate when > 36% of the voting population did not vote (90m / 245m https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...). You're dealing with 64% of the voting population, who inherently lean one way or the other so a small nudge can be the difference between one side or the other winning. e.g. Candidate swapping might bring votes from minority groups or Women. Imagine a scenario when even 5% more people voted, suddenly the margins are much wider and the results hold stronger validity.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    > 36% of the voting population did not vote If those people are eligible to vote but choose not to, than that is their vote. It's not appropriate to second-guess people who abstain any more than it is to second-guess the ballots of those who do vote. There's only a problem if people who want to vote, and are eligible to, are being prevented from doing so. If you're trying to engineer the process to contrive specific outcomes, that itself is anti-democratic.
gnkyfrg 2y ago
[dead]

dmitrygr 2y ago

> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Was this ever not the case?

Cumpiler69 2y ago
It was always like that.
Waterluvian 2y ago
This is the fundamental problem with American democracy and democracies all over the world. It only works if the voters are well informed, educated, and generally competent. Otherwise it’s just a manipulation game where someone can lie and lie and lie and be elected president. And at that late stage phase of democracy, who gets to manipulate these people better is who holds power.
- 13415 2y ago
  That shouldn't be a problem, though. All it takes is to make sure that voters are informed, educated, and generally competent. On a side note, the same holds for market economy. Markets only work if consumers are informed, educated, and generally competent.
- GenerocUsername 2y ago
  I assume you are speaking about establishment politicians over the last 40-2000 years, but I suspect you are actually miming talking points about manipulation aimed at 1 very recent election where the established propaganda cycle failed to manipulate enough people and a different brand of manipulation brought in a different set of manipulators. Evidence of your own manipulated belief structures going without serious enough introspection to be held as a competent free agent
  - saxonww 2y ago
    Allegedly, the biggest concern this time around was the economy. Millions of people complaining about inflation and the cost of goods voted for a guy promising to raise tariffs, and a party that historically caters to big business. The same big business that has moved a lot of jobs overseas, and has lobbied to relax restrictions on visas to hire more foreign workers for onshore jobs. To me, this looks a lot like people voting against their own interests. I think that when people vote against their own interests, it's usually because they don't understand what they're voting for, i.e. it's an education issue. And it's not surprising that other people would be perplexed and frustrated by this. But maybe I've just been misled by the wrong propaganda. I guess we'll find out.
  - YZF 2y ago
    Are you trying to argue that (many) democrats and republicans voters in the recent elections were not generally manipulated by their respective sides? I don't think this holds water. Examples could be democrats control over Biden's health messaging or republicans repeating the message that the democrats are stealing the elections or democrat's messaging about if their side loses it's the end of democracy or republicans messaging about immigration, crime etc. Generally engaging at a shallow level with the goal of influencing people's emotions. I don't think this is a 40-2000 years phenomena. It's certainly become a lot worse since Trump ran for president the first time. I remember turning on TV in my hotel room during a visit to the US maybe 8 years ago and switching between CNN and Fox, each of these channels were basically about endless bashing of the opposite side. I wouldn't call the content anything other than brainwashing and propaganda. CNN didn't use to be like that. With social media since every user gets their own view we don't even know what the "hidden hand" is pushing. It's much worse and a lot more dangerous.
- eastbound 2y ago
  Isn’t that the premise of the Enlightenment? That’s everyone will be well educated, or, if they’re not, at least they were the ones in control of their destiny? i.e. “You crazy, translating the bible to the plebs? What happens if stupid people get to choose for themselves?”
hcurtiss 2y ago
Maybe not, but it strikes me as a really dangerous path. If we don't believe the electorate acts from a position of moral authority, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct ways of controlling populations. And they tend to be a lot more bloody.
- YZF 2y ago
  It's the path we've been on for a long time and one that is made a lot more dangerous in the era of social media. Today more than ever people live in echo chambers and believe what they want to or what they think they need to so they can conform with their group identity. More than ever a few wealthy people or state actors have direct control over the reality people see without even the pretense of being "unbiased" media or any sort of ethical guidelines which in the past used to semi-exist for the traditional media/news etc. Propaganda's job is to influence those people who think they're acting from a position of moral authority but lack the education, or critical thinking skills, or access to information, to be able to see through the manipulation. I'm not sure what's the answer but I am sure this is not what the proponents of free speech had in mind.
- layer8 2y ago
  The reason the more direct ways are more bloody is why we want to stick with democracy. Democracy is supposed to be based on an exchange of ideas in an open discourse. This is why it’s important to not let any one party have too much control over the discourse. That is also why freedom of speech exists. Somewhat paradoXically, banning a foreign-controlled platform can serve the same purpose as defending freedom of speech.
saxonww 2y ago
Sort of? I think it's definitely the case that the group of voters in 1789 was much smaller and more homogeneous than it is today. I also think the nature of propaganda has changed a little as well. Today, messages can be delivered cheaply to everyone, everywhere, from anywhere, nearly instantaneously. There is far less of a propagation delay, and far less of a natural check on the rate and volume of propaganda.

epcoa 2y ago

> Honestly, maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies in the face of the sanctity of voting and "democracy." Although some choose or have to squawk loudly about it, the sanctity of “democracy” is not universally or even widely accepted. To extend the Winston Churchill quote, it’s mostly a charade but it’s the best one we have (in my opinion).

lazide 2y ago
At least someone has to (currently) manipulate the voters into voting a specific way, instead of just ‘voting for them’, or threatening them at gunpoint.

nradov 2y ago

If TikTok was only targeted at voters then I think there would be less of a concern. My issue is more with what it shows to children. Science and law recognize that children aren't yet fully individual agents and are more susceptible to propaganda than most adults. Thus legislators and courts have been more willing to restrict commercial speech targeting children.

atlintots 2y ago
If that is truly your primary concern, you should be more worried about Instagram. TikTok is much better in that regard. It has parental controls, a restricted mode, screen time limits, etc.
- danenania 2y ago
  We should be worried about all of them. But a hostile totalitarian foreign government could have motivations that are a hell of a lot worse than maximizing engagement/profits. If the goal is to cause harm to the population (ala fentanyl distribution) rather than just to make as much money as possible, I’d say parents are right to be correspondingly more concerned.
datavirtue 2y ago
Your comment made me realize that politicians stopped "think of the children" along with the rise of social media. Before the rise of big tech they would routinely slam their fist on the podium demanding that we think of the children.
dagss 2y ago
I feel this is way too optimistic about the typical adult. Adults are most definitely affected by propaganda. Problem is reality is so complex and usually all sides of a topic are right at the same time, in some way. For any viewpoint A, there will be reels made by people in any demographic group who cares deeply about it for excellent and solid reasons. The same will be the case for anti-A. Both of them will be convincing and TikTok can just choose which one of them to subtly nudge.

tims33 2y ago

I agree with everything you're saying, but I also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China. This is about freedom of speech on app built by a country that has no freedom of speech. I realize this point is orthogonal, but is still an important element of the decision.

marricks 2y ago
> also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China It's a chance to showcase how we're "more free" or literally just as restrictive
- talldayo 2y ago
  The United States used to claim we had a laissez-faire market. We don't claim that anymore.
  - tgma 2y ago
    In founding of the United States lies tariff stories. The United States does not reject government and nations as entities at all. It just asserts rights for its citizens which doesn't include everyone on the planet.
- CryptoBanker 2y ago
  Or it’s a chance to be “fair”
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Retric 2y ago
  At its core free speech is about the freedom from government influence and the complaint is about government influence. It’s one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants, it’s something else to allow them the ability to manipulate of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more than it helps.

punpunia 2y ago

Really? It is the most base fact that people can be manipulated by the ideas of others. Creatures trying to convince other creatures of one thing over another is just part of being a living animal. But the idea that people want to control who says what is wild to you? It flies in the face of the sanctity of "democracy"? Don't you think that's a bit of a hyperbole?

CryptoBanker 2y ago

You act as if individuals and a mob are mutually exclusive. Who do you think makes up a mob?

Frost1x 2y ago

That’s sort of the ironic bit. IMHO it’s been this way for awhile, but because it was pretty much as you described (“the elite”) with the reigns we pushed the argument that voters were individual agents. The genius in strategies enemies are using are leveraging the exact same levers already being leveraged against be populous: free speech as a roadway for propaganda, misinformation/disinformation, and widespread social manipulation. There was a time when it was more difficult to scale these sorts of strategies so there may have been an illusion of agency. Also, a hundred years ago issues were a bit less complicated/nuanced so your voters could probably wrangle ideas intelligently more independently. I also suspect the corporate undermining of the general population for their own wealth grab has weakened the country as a whole, including the voter base. We want to undermine education at every turn and stability of your average citizen so they can be more easily manipulated. That comes at a cost because once we’re in that position, whose to say youll (the US elite) will be the ones with the reigns? By weakening the population for your own gain, you open up foreign adversaries to do the same and they’re doing just that. We should focus on improving general education and the populations overall stability/livelihood. That has to do with pushing back on some of the power grab the ultra wealthy have taken, at the populations expense. These are of course just my unsubstantiated opinions.

quasse 2y ago

> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Who is even saying this is not true? The United States government is more aware than maybe anyone else that influencing human opinion and action is a statistical problem once you have enough scale. Just look at the history of the USIA [1] and its successor the USICA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Information_Agen...

MichaelZuo 2y ago
There are hundreds of HN users commenting here as if their opinions have meaning and value. Which would be in question if they could all be under various states of “influence”… At the very least the median credibility would be roughly zero.
- mesh 2y ago
  Just because you share an opinion does not mean that opinion has not been shaped, directed or influenced. "The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
  - XorNot 2y ago
    Also HN absolutely has an Overton window. It has an entire system to enforce it (the voting and points system).
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Did you reply to the correct comment? You don’t need to convince me that is a possibility.
- puffybunion 2y ago
  You pose this as a mathematical question but stop far short of it's full extent

philipov 2y ago

> a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? This idea goes back to the founding of the nation. It's the very reason we have an electoral college.

eikenberry 2y ago
And the reason we didn't have universal suffrage.

olalonde 2y ago

Bingo. I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions. If we truly trust in that, the source of the influence - foreign or domestic - shouldn’t matter. People who advocate for censoring foreign sources of influence are implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population to think critically.

jimbob45 2y ago
You could ban every non-ethnically Chinese channel to push Chinese superiority. That would be bad, right? And before you say, “but they’re not doing that”, remember that we’re discussing how this theoretically could be a bad thing.
hcurtiss 2y ago
Exactly. To the degree elections are not rooted in a competition of ideas and individual agency, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct means of controlling populations, all of which tend to be a lot bloodier. All of this strikes me as a really dangerous path.
- luckylion 2y ago
  Are lies ideas? In a competition of "ideas", if one side lies, is it still a fair competition, or are they cheating? Should it be a fair competition?
  - hcurtiss 2y ago
    That angle would work if there wasn't so much disagreement about what constitutes lies. After the last few years, I am definitely not interested in having government actors decide for me what amounts to the truth. Personally, I suppose I much prefer a competition of ideas -- and the ability to decide for myself.
    - luckylion 2y ago

msravi 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yes, it is. Always has been. > threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process > then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power You'd have to have fallen hook, line, and sinker with America's propaganda to actually believe that democracy is NOT a cover for retaining control over a population. The US has been playing this game in other countries for a while now, to keep a check on who comes to power and who does not (always using support for democracy as an excuse). Gautemala, the arab spring, bangladesh - these are just some of the examples. And it's become very blatant of late.

stouset 2y ago

> …aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? …yes? Is that even slightly controversial? If it wasn’t the case, why would propaganda even exist?

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Theres an implication that The Internet meant we have a commons connecting the world that no one country can completely restrict. But a commons too important to all modern societies to blanket ban. In theory we should be less susceptible to propoganda than ever since we can see multiple viewpoints and interpretations in minutes. As opposed to being beholden to maybe 3-4 mainstream news programs on television. Human nature proves to fall quite short of that ideal, though.
- dagss 2y ago
  People CAN see multiple viewpoints in minutes, and some do, problem is hundreds of millions more prefer to let TikTok select what views to see. And TikTok has immense data available about what series of reels sway what subpopulation in what direction. Only question is of they make use of it. My opinion is that if they wanted to sway an election anywhere in the world they definitely could.

shawnz 2y ago

That's the entire reason for representative democracy over direct democracy

kybernetikos 2y ago
I'm not sure it is- even if you think the electorate are educated and competent, it still makes sense to delegate the specific decisions to a smaller set of individuals who are given the time and resources to get into the detail. It just scales better.

deleted 2y ago

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rendx 2y ago

Excuse my European ignorance, but in what way is a system a "democracy" where one person can overrule actual democratic structures? The power centralized into one person is unheard of in what I would call "democracies".

johannes1234321 2y ago

Of course propaganda works. That's why companies spent tons of money on ads. Of course it also works on politics, especially if people don't trust "traditional" media, but arbitrary publishers (there's room for a guiding which is more trustworthy) History over and over has shown that a public can be led into their own demise, including brutal war. How much active influence China takes I don't know (and I never used tiktok) but we are certainly in a time of massive disinformation and denial of facts. Globally.

cdrini 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I disagree with this interpretation. It's creating a sort of false dichotomy -- voters can still be individual agents AND ALSO they can be manipulated by propaganda. And the key is that propaganda doesn't have to be wildly successful in order to impact a democratic process. It just has to convince enough people to sway an election. That is, and always has been, one of the trade-offs of democracy. That's why we say "democracy needs an informed electorate to survive" -- because an informed individual is less likely to be easily manipulated.

lolinder 2y ago

Ad-funded social media platforms make money by measurably altering people's opinions and behavior. It's literally their only job—everything else is in service to that goal. Given that this is what they do day in and day out and that the successful ones are by all metrics very good at it, it seems totally reasonable to assume that one could trivially be turned from manipulating people into buying stuff to manipulating people to voting a certain way or holding certain opinions. One person one vote is the guiding principle of democracy and, yes, it assumes that no person is able to actively hijack someone else's vote for their own gain. We have systems in place to prevent voter fraud, and I think that we should have systems in place to prevent systematic individual targeting of individuals for algorithmic manipulation as well. What we don't need is a law that specifically targets foreign companies doing it. Our homegrown manipulators are just as dangerous in their own ways.

motorest 2y ago

> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Did you already forgot about the episode about Haitians eating everyone's pets? Based on that episode alone, what's you observation? > I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process. You should take a minute to think about the underlying issue. Propaganda is a massive threat against democracy and freedom in general. If a bad actor invests enough resources pushing lies and false promises that manages to convince enough people to vote on their agent, do you expect to be represented and see your best interests defended by your elected representatives? Also, you should pay attention to the actual problem. Propaganda isn't something that affects the left end of the bell curve. Propaganda determines which information you have access to. You make your decisions based on the information you have, regardless of being facts or fiction. If you are faced with a relentless barrage of bullshit, how can you make an educated decision or even guess on what's the best outcome? You cannot. The one that controls the information you can access will also control to a great degree your decision process. That's the power of disinformation and propaganda, and the risk that China's control of TikTok poses to the US in particular but the free world in general.

mbesto 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? If you want to view it that way, sure. But I could also just say you and I are both sacks of blood filled flesh. > Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, Meta (et al) are just AS guilty as TikTok. The difference is substantial and subtle - the US government could conceivably sanction a US-based entity to the point of them not existing. A chinese based one doesnt have to play by the rules. Fine them? No problem, their gov has an immeasurable amount of money. The only option is to simply not let them play at all.

serbuvlad 2y ago

The advantage of democracy is that the propaganda game gets played every few years and current elites can lose. Under a system of freedom of speech, there is very little stopping a decently (but not massively) funded rag-tag group of competent individuals from running a more efficient propaganda campaign than the powers-that-be (think of Dominic Cummings' Leave campaign in the UK for the perfect example). This is the best system we have found to establish the impermanence of the elite class. Because this is the real beauty of what we in the west call democracy: not the absence of an elite class, for there is no such system, but it's impermanence. And while that is all well and good within a country, the argument is that it would be unwise to allow a foreign hostile power a seat at our propaganda game. Especially one which does not reciprocate this permission.

hcurtiss 2y ago
This is a thoughtful reply. But, if it's just propaganda games played by the elites, I suppose another way to ensure informed outcomes might be literacy tests. Or property ownership. I guess more than anything I'm just surprised that it's the "threat to democracy" crowd that would be taking such a cynical view of democracy. They're admitting that Trump's propaganda was just better than theirs. Which is, in some ways, hilarious.

mardifoufs 2y ago

Yep, it basically amounts to agreeing 100% with the Chinese justification for their great firewall, which is that a free internet is subversive to their national interest and to their citizens. But Americans will argue that it's somewhat different, since when they do it it's not dystopian or something

corimaith 2y ago

By resorting to walled gardens that by definition have to provide a filtered experience via algorithms rather than raw experience of older internet forums and image boards, haven't many of these voters already made that choice of being wanting to be manipulated?

johnnyanmac 2y ago

> If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. yeah. They don't necessarily want nor care to inform of the truth. they want that sort of manipulation as much as any other billionaire. Heck there's a good amount of people who simply want to be told what to do so they don't have to worry about the big stuff. There's a reason many almost always choose convinience over anything else when working in practice.

LargeWu 2y ago

Of course voters are subject to propaganda. YOU are subject to propaganda. Yes, you.

samr71 2y ago

I enjoy seeing HN independently rederive much of NRX thought via this situation. In unrelated news, anyone see that NYT interview with Yarvin yesterday?

layer8 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment
cycrutchfield 2y ago
The one where Curtis made a fool of himself and his poor understanding of history?

mesh 2y ago

>voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda That has nothing to do with China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

simion314 2y ago

Why is illegal to put false stuff on products label, like food or medicine? Where is the free speech to lie and manipulate the user? With your point of view the EACH user should somehow find the skills to analyze and review each product each time they user or trust some other persons word. The algorithm is not a person to have free speech, my issue is with the algorithm, I am OK with the village drunk to post his faked documents but I am not O with state actors falsifing documents then same state owned actors abusing the algorithm to spread that false stuff. So no free spech for bot farms and algorithms, they are not people (yet)

aredox 2y ago

Yes. This is well known since Antiquity when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death. Read more about the period and you will see that the Democratic cities of yore, Athens first and foremost, often swinged towards taking bad decisions, and that a whole corporation of "sophists" manipulated public opinion without shame (read e.g. Gorgias). The great progress that enabled the restoration, extention and stabilisation of Democracy in the modern era has been indirect, representative democracy and base, written bill of rights/constitutions that aren't asily modified, requiring majorities of 2/3rds or more and constraint what can be voted on.

regularization 2y ago
Qhat you doesn't make much sense, starting with your claim Plato was sentenced to death by Athenian democracy, which there is no evidence of that I know of.
- aredox 2y ago
  Because I mixed them up, as Plato is the one who wrote down Socrates' teachings and his story...
  - defrost 2y ago
    There are worse mixups ... https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/aug/19/plutos-republic-peter-medawar-review https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/aug/19/plutos-repub...
SubGenius 2y ago
> ...when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death. That was Socrates, not Plato. Socrates was allowed to choose his own punishment too, so he wasn't exactly condemned to death right away. He also had the opportunity to escape prison. He chose not to.
- aredox 2y ago
  Sorry for the Socrates/Plato mix-up. TikTok has the opportunity to divest. They chose not to.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? That is true, yet it's not incompatible with democracy. In the US Horace Mann established the foundational link between education and democracy. It's why civics and other forms of intellectual self-defence are essential. The problem with social media (and BigTech lazy "convenient" non-thought) is not that it's a propaganda conduit as much as that it's antithetical to critical thinking. It's more complex than simply the content, it's the form too.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

chinathrow 2y ago

> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Well, we don't know what was said in the classified meetings, but yes, we know that propaganda works.

cscurmudgeon 2y ago

We do have laws around elections like the equal time rule. Should we remove that too? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

leot 2y ago

If I were the CCP this is perhaps the cleverest talking point I could have possibly come up with, propping up TikTok while simultaneously condemning democracy. But to substantively respond: NO. This is exceptionally naive. Democracy assumes shared fates and aligned incentives among (both voting and communicating) participants. A foreign adversary mainlining their interests into half the population of the US absolutely violates this assumption.

Salgat 2y ago

This sounds like an emotional appeal rather than anything based on science and fact.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

"a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda" Yes, that is correct.

simonsarris 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Like we've been saying since the founding of the country? yeah "The body of people ... do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." -Hamilton The founders did not think that electoral college was a good idea, senators should be appointed and not elected, and only a few citizens should be able to vote generally, because they were feeling mean. They did so because they thought these things and the act of voting itself were simply instruments to produce good government. They rejected a democracy, and favored a republic, for this reason.

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patcon 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yes, exactly. A symbiotic view of life: we have never been individuals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235518850_A_Symbiotic_View_of_Life_We_Have_Never_Been_Individuals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235518850_A_Symbiot... I have it on personal experience that DARPA seems to be enthusiastically funding more digital twin and collective intelligence projects than ever. Simulated virtual publics are going to become more common in both war and politics. Collectives are going to be the driving force of the coming century, and the sooner the American public evolves beyond fetishizing the individual, the better.

soulofmischief 2y ago

The existence of democratic sociopolitical structures does not preclude the existence of targeted mass propaganda, or the weaknesses of the human psyche. Nor vice versa.

ben_w 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I take the view that the reason freedom of speech is important at all, is that people can be convinced to act in certain ways by speech — if it couldn't lead to action, no dictator would fear it. We, all of us, take things on trust. We have to. It's not like anyone, let alone everyone, has the capacity — time or skill — to personally verify every claim we encounter. Everywhere in the world handles this issue differently: the USA is free-speech-maximalism; the UK has rules about what you can say in elections[0] (and in normal ads), was famously a jurisdiction of choice for people who wanted to sue others for libel[1], and has very low campaign spending limits[2]; Germany has laws banning parties that are a threat to the constitution[3]. I doubt there is any perfect solution here, I think all only last for as long as the people themselves are vigilant. [0] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/campaigning-your-vote/claims-made-campaign-material https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism [2] https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-spending-and-pre-poll-donations-and-loans-uk-parliamentary-general-election/spending-limit https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-spending-and-pr... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68029232 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68029232

coliveira 2y ago

The US gov has just made the case for banning US owned social networks around the world, because they truly believe that social networks is a way for a foreign agents to interfere in local politics.

YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
This is misleading. Most of the places that might want to ban US social networks were already doing so.

pantalaimon 2y ago

> China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy" And has there ever been an example for that or is it just a hypothetical scenario?

dagss 2y ago
No one can possibly know. They just have all the power to do it very efficiently, without anyone noticing.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I invite you to consider the possibility that this is true. That at the population level, propaganda actually works. This would support the fact that it's been a key tool used by regimes (including ours) since before the printing press was invented. I don't really know for certain whether this is accurate, but it's hard for me to look around the world at global politics and determine that it isn't.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda Part of the reason Western democracies are failing is we forgot that pure democracy doesn’t work. The founders described this amply in the Federalist Papers. Democracy tends towards tearing itself apart with partisanship and mob rule. It’s why successful republics have mechanisms to cool off public sentiment, letting time tax emotions to reveal actual thoughts underneath (see: the Swiss versus Californian referendum models); bodies to protect minorities from the majority (independent courts); et cetera.

mppm 2y ago

I do find people's faith in Democracy, as opposed to Authoritarianism, somewhat exasperating. Two candidates, pre-selected by the powers that be to lead the nation, compete in inane televised debates, wave flags and make promises that everyone knows they are going to break. This everyone debates hotly, and then lines up to register one bit of Holy Democratic Choice, to be averaged with a hundred million similar bits to determine, by a margin of a few percent, the one and only legitimate Government of the People, by the People, for the People. My Ass. In the end, "democracy" is about power and control, just like any other form of government, and the TikTok ban is just another power-play, however it may be justified publicly. Not that I'm overly sorry to see it banned, by the way :)

pclmulqdq 2y ago
Until very recently, "Democracy" was a dirty way to describe a government. It was in the same class of failed government models as tyranny, the rule of the mindless mob.
- mppm 2y ago
  Maybe, but my point is that democracy is not even the rule of a mindless mob, more like mob rule theater. Ruling implies receiving information and performing complex actions and giving many and nontrivial orders. From a purely information-theoretical perspective, it requires a lot of entropy flowing from the decision maker to subordinates. On the other hand, national elections collect a tiny pool of entropy from the supposed root source of power and legitimacy, the people. This is not enough to rule a country, by many orders of magnitude. The country is instead ruled by ambitious individuals, who seize power in various ways - connections, backroom deals, backstabbing. Some participate in the election theater.

imiric 2y ago

Why is that so hard to believe? For more than a century now the advertising industry has perfected mass psychological manipulation that aims to separate the masses from their dollar. These tactics as pioneered by the likes of Edward Bernays were plucked straight from the propaganda rule books, which has been successfully used for at least a century before that. We know that both propaganda and advertising are highly effective at influencing how people think and which products they consume. It's a small step then to extrapolate those techniques to get vast amounts of people to think and act however one wants. All it requires is sufficient interest, a relatively minor amount of resources, and using the same tools that millions of people already give their undivided attention to, which were designed to be as addictive as possible. We've already seen how this can work in the Cambridge Analytica exposé, which is surely considered legacy tech by now. I'm honestly surprised that people are in desbelief that this can and does happen. These are not some wildly speculative conspiracy theories. People are easily influenceable. When tools that can be used to spread disinformation and gaslight people into believing any version of reality are widely available to anyone, it would be surprising if they were _not_ used for this purpose. > If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. Always has been. It's just that now that we've perfected the tools used to sway public opinion, and made them available to anyone, including our enemies, the effects are much more palpable. I hope Zuckerberg and friends, and everyone who's worked on these platforms, some of which frequent this very forum, realize that they've contributed to the breakdown of civilization. It's past time for these people to stop selling us snake oil promises of a connected world, and start being accountable for their actions.

hinkley 2y ago

Why do you think The Rule of Law exists? Large groups of angry people often make bad decisions with long term consequences. We have known this forever.

astee 2y ago

Yes. But we're talking about children too - not just adult voters. And the app collects every click, every face photo, all contacts, every keypress on external links, everything. The full social graph, shaping the trends of the younger generation.

LZ_Khan 2y ago

The winner of the election is often the party that spent more money on political advertising, so I'm sure this is a well known phenomenon.

Gormo 2y ago

> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? Yep. Same thing as the people arguing to reverse the Citizens United ruling. Lots of lip service is paid to "democracy" by people who have no faith in the electorate to actually exercise democratic sovereignty.

dbetteridge 2y ago
I'd argue that Democracy cannot be exercised by the electorate when > 36% of the voting population did not vote (90m / 245m https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...). You're dealing with 64% of the voting population, who inherently lean one way or the other so a small nudge can be the difference between one side or the other winning. e.g. Candidate swapping might bring votes from minority groups or Women. Imagine a scenario when even 5% more people voted, suddenly the margins are much wider and the results hold stronger validity.
- Gormo 2y ago
  > 36% of the voting population did not vote If those people are eligible to vote but choose not to, than that is their vote. It's not appropriate to second-guess people who abstain any more than it is to second-guess the ballots of those who do vote. There's only a problem if people who want to vote, and are eligible to, are being prevented from doing so. If you're trying to engineer the process to contrive specific outcomes, that itself is anti-democratic.

gnkyfrg 2y ago

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