4 ms·

It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. To me it's more like if newspapers were printed with toxic ink or s

It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. To me it's more like if newspapers were printed with toxic ink or something. The negatives of TikTok have nothing to do with the speech expressed by the "creators" on the platform, but rather with the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose. It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as well, but banning them isn't a matter of suppressing the speech and letting TikTok continue isn't a victory for free speech. It's just a victory for a gross sort of psychological pollution.

wildrhythms 2y ago
>the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose What material effects are those?
- speff 2y ago
  A diminished attention span. Assuming that's still considered a harmful effect.
- dagss 2y ago
  There is by now "free speech" being published for every single combination of personal interests, demographic, and personal opinion and personality traits. If you wanted to push, say, white supremacy, to a trans mountain bike riding sci fi fan -- I am sure the content that will do that job is out there. Not with 100% certainty but enough to control a population. The question about controlling the population is only about picking the right reels to show to whom in what order. If you control the algorithmic firehose and control who sees what, you basically control the minds of the population. Not by explicit propaganda. Only by nudging and bumping content. People can make conscious decisions to not want their worldview defined by traditional sources, whether it is Fox News or The Daily Show or whatever. But with TikTok everyone gets something different and who knows how it is geared or rigged.
  - LinXitoW 2y ago
    As a left-ish person, TikTok is genuinely the only place I feel safe from braindead hate. EVERY OTHER platform I've interacted with has a fuckton of hate. I'm sure it exists in TikTok too, but at least the algorithm keeps those freaks far away from me. Can you establish somehow how a TikTok ban would help this situation?
EcommerceFlow 2y ago
Where's the smoking gun for these privacy issues? Why hasn't the FBI or anyone else investigated and discovered these issues, if they exist?
- secstate 2y ago
  Because the Chinese Communist Part is not stupid enough to just exploit their leverage over sovereign nations for shits and giggles. You don't need a smoking gun to understand how corporations in China operate. They operate with the blessing of the CCP, and regardless of whether they've ever done anything, the scale of what they could do if they wanted to would be some spectacular lessons in modern propaganda.
  - c0nducktr 2y ago
    This is simply more of the same fearmongering we’ve heard before. Not an answer to their question.
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      The fear is justified though. We fix security holes because they are security holes, not because they have been exploited before.
      - remixff2400 2y ago
        Seconding this: you don't try and fix things after the damage has been done, you try and anticipate _where_ and _when_ the damage could be done. In this case, giving a foreign _adversarial_ (<- emphasis) government significant leverage over citizen sentiment is a massive security hole.
- pjc50 2y ago
  The US has very little privacy law.
- ori_b 2y ago
  This isn't about privacy; it's about who gets to promote what ideas to Americans. Do you think that a post about Tienanmen Square, about Uyghur persecution, or about Taiwanese independence, will get nearly as far on a Chinese controlled media platform? They don't. https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
One way the free speech angle might make sense is that TikTok (and other foreign-run social media) normally aren’t as susceptible to domestic pressure to throttle, shadowban, etc certain types of content (like airing of some politician’s dirty laundry). I could absolutely see that being the case. Trump and the Republican Party now have a solid thumb on US-based social media via Musk/Zuck, which makes lack of control of foreign social media more of a pressuring issue than it had been before. It looks bad if the popular discourse taking place on uncontrolled media differs wildly from that on its controlled counterparts.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > TikTok (and other foreign-run social media) normally aren’t as susceptible to domestic pressure TikTok has been uniquely subject to political pressure over the last half decade. They didn’t buddy up with Larry Ellison because Oracle has the best servers.
- anon84873628 2y ago
  At least for the time being, traditional media outlets don't seem to have a problem airing US politicians' dirty laundry.
- dagss 2y ago
  You talk about censorship but if things are happening it will be a lot more subtle than that; more about what you show than what you hide. Peoples opinions are already shifted a lot by what reels they watch. By controlling what people see you control what people think; at least many enough. Censorship is outdated. With the amount of data and reach TikTok has they have something more akin to mind control. Principle being the same as traditional politisized media, but the effectiveness of TikTok is just on another level. You see "people like you" sharing what they honestly believe for good reasons. Only thing TikTok did was decide to show that clip, and not the other clip of a person like you saying the opposite thing, also hearthfeltly and for good reasons...
blahedo 2y ago
> It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as well Or... regulated? I'd be all for privacy regulations and data handling regulations that would affect the algorithms of everyone but as long as the law is targeting TikTok only and not also FB, Insta, Twitter, etc, the idea that this ban is about "the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose" is a total red herring.
- packetlost 2y ago
  It's not about the algorithmic feed, it's about allowing your #1 adversarial state to have control over that algorithms parameters. They don't let Twitter, Google, or Meta operate in China.
- BrenBarn 2y ago
  I'm not saying the ban is about that, but it does accomplish something in that direction, and we need more bans that are explicitly about that. Ultimately though I don't think regulations about privacy and data handling are sufficient. To go just one level deeper, a large proportion of the data in question should not even be collected, regardless of how it's handled or who it's shared with. But many of the problems are even deeper, and have to do with things like how big companies are allowed to get and how much venture capital is allowed to destroy things that work by funding things that don't.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
To me it's more like a newsstand selling only aliens magazines, bigfoot books and sexy (but not yet porn) magazines. Every magazin with a title "bigfoot found!" reveals another "mermaids discovered" magazine, and below that a "tony blair is a reptilian, proof inside", and if people want to stay there and consume all the magazines, why not? In the end, there's more quality content there, than on discovery channels (ancient aliens, mermaids, etc.) not even joking: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/ ...
gklitz 2y ago
> The negatives of ~Tiktok~short form videos have nothing to do with … It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which literally just boils down to “you likely like the same stuff as people who like the same stuff as you”.
- redcobra762 2y ago
  You really can't tell the difference between Americans doing it and a foreign nation doing it?
  - geysersam 2y ago
    It's not like the American companies have their users best interest at heart either! They're literally bound by law to prioritize their shareholders interests.
  - anon84873628 2y ago
    Of course we can. But the hypocrisy shows how the government doesn't actually care about the health of citizens or society. If they did, they would start with regulations on algorithmic feeds as a first principal, then ban companies that don't comply. And that could include writing the regulations in such a way that ByteDance couldn't possibly comply, because of their ties to China. At least we would clean up our own home too in the process.
    - redcobra762 2y ago
      To rephrase my question: can you really not tell the difference to democratic health between Americans doing it and foreign adversaries doing it?
      - anon84873628 2y ago
        To rephrase my response: do you think this action will meaningfully improve democratic health?
nemothekid 2y ago
>It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. The catalyst for the ban was Israel/Palestine. You must consider this - TikTok did not adequately censor pro-Palestine content. This was confirmed as a major problem for Israel by the CEO of the ADL. When an app gets banned because it is not inline with the US military industrial complex you must consider the spirit of free speech laws.

wildrhythms 2y ago

>the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose What material effects are those?

speff 2y ago
A diminished attention span. Assuming that's still considered a harmful effect.
dagss 2y ago
There is by now "free speech" being published for every single combination of personal interests, demographic, and personal opinion and personality traits. If you wanted to push, say, white supremacy, to a trans mountain bike riding sci fi fan -- I am sure the content that will do that job is out there. Not with 100% certainty but enough to control a population. The question about controlling the population is only about picking the right reels to show to whom in what order. If you control the algorithmic firehose and control who sees what, you basically control the minds of the population. Not by explicit propaganda. Only by nudging and bumping content. People can make conscious decisions to not want their worldview defined by traditional sources, whether it is Fox News or The Daily Show or whatever. But with TikTok everyone gets something different and who knows how it is geared or rigged.
- LinXitoW 2y ago
  As a left-ish person, TikTok is genuinely the only place I feel safe from braindead hate. EVERY OTHER platform I've interacted with has a fuckton of hate. I'm sure it exists in TikTok too, but at least the algorithm keeps those freaks far away from me. Can you establish somehow how a TikTok ban would help this situation?

EcommerceFlow 2y ago

Where's the smoking gun for these privacy issues? Why hasn't the FBI or anyone else investigated and discovered these issues, if they exist?

secstate 2y ago
Because the Chinese Communist Part is not stupid enough to just exploit their leverage over sovereign nations for shits and giggles. You don't need a smoking gun to understand how corporations in China operate. They operate with the blessing of the CCP, and regardless of whether they've ever done anything, the scale of what they could do if they wanted to would be some spectacular lessons in modern propaganda.
- c0nducktr 2y ago
  This is simply more of the same fearmongering we’ve heard before. Not an answer to their question.
  - KeplerBoy 2y ago
    The fear is justified though. We fix security holes because they are security holes, not because they have been exploited before.
    - remixff2400 2y ago
      Seconding this: you don't try and fix things after the damage has been done, you try and anticipate _where_ and _when_ the damage could be done. In this case, giving a foreign _adversarial_ (<- emphasis) government significant leverage over citizen sentiment is a massive security hole.
pjc50 2y ago
The US has very little privacy law.
ori_b 2y ago
This isn't about privacy; it's about who gets to promote what ideas to Americans. Do you think that a post about Tienanmen Square, about Uyghur persecution, or about Taiwanese independence, will get nearly as far on a Chinese controlled media platform? They don't. https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

One way the free speech angle might make sense is that TikTok (and other foreign-run social media) normally aren’t as susceptible to domestic pressure to throttle, shadowban, etc certain types of content (like airing of some politician’s dirty laundry). I could absolutely see that being the case. Trump and the Republican Party now have a solid thumb on US-based social media via Musk/Zuck, which makes lack of control of foreign social media more of a pressuring issue than it had been before. It looks bad if the popular discourse taking place on uncontrolled media differs wildly from that on its controlled counterparts.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> TikTok (and other foreign-run social media) normally aren’t as susceptible to domestic pressure TikTok has been uniquely subject to political pressure over the last half decade. They didn’t buddy up with Larry Ellison because Oracle has the best servers.
anon84873628 2y ago
At least for the time being, traditional media outlets don't seem to have a problem airing US politicians' dirty laundry.
dagss 2y ago
You talk about censorship but if things are happening it will be a lot more subtle than that; more about what you show than what you hide. Peoples opinions are already shifted a lot by what reels they watch. By controlling what people see you control what people think; at least many enough. Censorship is outdated. With the amount of data and reach TikTok has they have something more akin to mind control. Principle being the same as traditional politisized media, but the effectiveness of TikTok is just on another level. You see "people like you" sharing what they honestly believe for good reasons. Only thing TikTok did was decide to show that clip, and not the other clip of a person like you saying the opposite thing, also hearthfeltly and for good reasons...

blahedo 2y ago

> It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as well Or... regulated? I'd be all for privacy regulations and data handling regulations that would affect the algorithms of everyone but as long as the law is targeting TikTok only and not also FB, Insta, Twitter, etc, the idea that this ban is about "the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose" is a total red herring.

packetlost 2y ago
It's not about the algorithmic feed, it's about allowing your #1 adversarial state to have control over that algorithms parameters. They don't let Twitter, Google, or Meta operate in China.
BrenBarn 2y ago
I'm not saying the ban is about that, but it does accomplish something in that direction, and we need more bans that are explicitly about that. Ultimately though I don't think regulations about privacy and data handling are sufficient. To go just one level deeper, a large proportion of the data in question should not even be collected, regardless of how it's handled or who it's shared with. But many of the problems are even deeper, and have to do with things like how big companies are allowed to get and how much venture capital is allowed to destroy things that work by funding things that don't.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

To me it's more like a newsstand selling only aliens magazines, bigfoot books and sexy (but not yet porn) magazines. Every magazin with a title "bigfoot found!" reveals another "mermaids discovered" magazine, and below that a "tony blair is a reptilian, proof inside", and if people want to stay there and consume all the magazines, why not? In the end, there's more quality content there, than on discovery channels (ancient aliens, mermaids, etc.) not even joking: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11274284/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1643266/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1816585/ ...

gklitz 2y ago

> The negatives of ~Tiktok~short form videos have nothing to do with … It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which literally just boils down to “you likely like the same stuff as people who like the same stuff as you”.

redcobra762 2y ago
You really can't tell the difference between Americans doing it and a foreign nation doing it?
- geysersam 2y ago
  It's not like the American companies have their users best interest at heart either! They're literally bound by law to prioritize their shareholders interests.
- anon84873628 2y ago
  Of course we can. But the hypocrisy shows how the government doesn't actually care about the health of citizens or society. If they did, they would start with regulations on algorithmic feeds as a first principal, then ban companies that don't comply. And that could include writing the regulations in such a way that ByteDance couldn't possibly comply, because of their ties to China. At least we would clean up our own home too in the process.
  - redcobra762 2y ago
    To rephrase my question: can you really not tell the difference to democratic health between Americans doing it and foreign adversaries doing it?
    - anon84873628 2y ago
      To rephrase my response: do you think this action will meaningfully improve democratic health?

nemothekid 2y ago

>It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. The catalyst for the ban was Israel/Palestine. You must consider this - TikTok did not adequately censor pro-Palestine content. This was confirmed as a major problem for Israel by the CEO of the ADL. When an app gets banned because it is not inline with the US military industrial complex you must consider the spirit of free speech laws.