I'm not sure if this claim is true or not, but the person in your first reference is Andrew Schulz. He's a comedian who has already come out to say that he made all that up, and the media just ran with it [0].
So he made it up thinking it was fake - but now it has been independently shown to be likely true. In which case he made up a conspiracy theory then demonstrated to be accurate when he thought it was a joke.
One note on that sourcing: I would not generally find Deseret News (i.e. Mormon cultural-industrial-habits-porn outlet) a credible source in this context.
I also design productivity systems as part of my job, and found that watching TikTok in the laziest way possible can be an outstanding part of such a system.
We are long past the Horatio Alger bootstrapping days where we condemn procrastination and laziness out of hand. And yet Chinese government culture continues to try to speak with that always-on productivity-porn voice--fine, let them do it, see how it works out. They love to wax poetic about theoretical human machinery without giving attention to a reasonable duty cycle concept.
And keep in mind that they are simultaneously blocking a lot of that E-word they hate: Expression.
We now have much more deep, nuanced experience with productivity that exists and outperforms outside of that context.
IMO TikTok is better feared (if that's the lens) for the more rational, non-propagandistic reasons.
A combination of factors. History, ownership, culture & region, other personal experiences with contributors.
Those of us who were raised with this publication held over our heads grew up, checked it out, and do not hold it lightly in our considerations...in the right context it may be fine at face value but this is not one of those.
(Look up the name too. It has "old school industry/productivity concept" in its blood, even just as a general point of interest)
You want to spread fault, fine but at least make a quality argument. Keep in mind that some of us may be more resilient to casual gaslighting than you are used to, and for good reason.
The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic. Douyin is happy show low brow garbage to Chinese netizens, just like chinese gaming companies were happy to let teens play video games 24/7. The difference is the Chinese government won't let them.
America could easily do what China did here: enforce regulations on what kind of content social media companies can show minors. Just banning TikTok won't prevent Instagram from running the same playbook on Reels, it's not like Instagram has been the standard for teen mental health in the past 10 years. Douyin isn't educational in China due to the goodness of their hearts, it came from regulation.
The issue is, good luck trying to enforce any sort of corporate regulation in the US.
If you are concerned about the content that American's consume, there is no reason to single out TikTok. Instagram has been shoving the same garbage into the feeds of teenagers for nearly a decade and Reels is nearly exact clone of TikTok. There is little "educational" content on Instagram Reels. The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does.
If the problem is solely TikTok, then it most likely stems from the fact you don't like TikTok is owned by the Chinese (and you are more likely to believe nefarious claims that Xi Jinping personally told the TikTok CEO to make America dumber) which is sinophobic. You don't like TikTok just because it's a chinese company serving you the same garbage as an American one.
I believe there are valid reasons to ban TikTok, especially on state-owned devices, given the amount of data they exfiltrate, but "they are poisoning the American youth" is not a good one.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because they don't have proper data hygiene and you believe that data could be used by the CCP in the future that is fair.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese).
Trying to single out the government from the people is a convenient way to justify an anti-China stance. Have you even considered the fact that even if the majority of Chinese may not like their own government, that doesn't mean they support yours?
It's perfectly fine to separate the government from the people. That is why it is fine to hate the Chinese, Israeli, Iranian, Russian, and Saudi Arabian regimes.
You can but I don’t think it’s possible to without at least some blame by association. Even if I didn’t support the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan, I am still culpable as an American, and as a benefiter of American government policies (in general).
Yes, in Democracies people are culpable for the actions of their government. But I think the obligations of the Americans, Israelis, Russians, Chinese, etc is limited to consent to paying reparations to people their state has committed atrocities against. For example by paying a special tax which goes to the wronged people.
At the end of the day calling everything anti China and racist is just a way of deflecting and trying to justify what the government is doing.
No one is here defending their own government. Most people in most countries will freely admit when their governments do stuff that’s wrong.
But only CCP shills are here defending the CCP and trying to justify genocide, cross border arrests, mass censorship, etc etc.
For the record. Do I support my government being the NZ government. Nope. They are trying to pass some laws to prevent the next government from being able to roll anything back. Cement the things they implement even if the citizens disagree.
It's funny how in order to criticize another government we must first criticize our own. It should go without saying that nobody fully supports everything their government does. It's obvious and doesn't really need to be stated.
Yes so you don’t fully support the NZ government, but you are still a subject of and supporter of (through taxes or even maybe just plain apathy even) of the New Zealand government. And so in this way you can’t say the Chinese people are completely separate from their government, because at the end of the day they are paying taxes and letting their government do these things you object to.
So what? He doesn’t call everyone racist who criticizes the actions of the NZ government. It seems to only be CCP shills that struggle with this concept.
Nobody in the US gets confused when someone from Europe complains about US government military actions and calls them racist. Perhaps you too can learn that criticisms of the CCP have nothing to do with the Chinese citizens?
> So what? He doesn’t call everyone racist who criticizes the actions of the NZ government. It seems to only be CCP shills that struggle with this concept.
You’ve subtly insinuated that anyone pointing out some criticism of China must be calling everyone racist.
Has it occurred to you that some are indeed racist? In fact it is not OP pointing out the poster is racist, but they explained why such random allegations can be construed as racist. It is in fact his detractors who are attacking his motivation at a personal level (calling him a CCP shill) and trying to discredit his valid viewpoint without offering any reasoning.
There’s no evidence—nor is it even a good hypothesis—that somehow Tiktok is actively trying to subvert American society by feeding it garbage content. Such a conclusion is only reachable if you have an inherent bias that the motives in China towards the West are always evil. As others pointed out America produces and consumes garbage content well before TikTok… as well as companies like Meta literally copying tiktok features in shoveling garbage content… so twisting this narrative to antagonize and reframe China as the bad actor—at least in this specific case—is one rooted in inherent bias and laziness. Have you considered that the difference is simply because the Chinese government, with their well known heavy handed authoritarianism, simply not allowing TikTok to do that within China? Is western society so flawless that it is unwilling to accept its own failures that it must accuse others of active subterfuge instead?
I won’t argue with you about this anymore at a fundamental level because the issue at hand is that you are among many blindly discrediting and disregarding opposition. So I’ll ask you this for your own contemplation: is it even possible to say something or make an argument that just coincidentally isn’t anti CCP that doesn’t get us labeled as a CCP shill? If you’re going to answer avoid personal attacks and avoid “CCP shill” because that is not using any “facts” and is just a blind attempt to discredit the arguments being made. No one called anyone a racist. Some arguments and ideas were labeled sinophobic but no one made the accusation that a person must be sinophobic and therefore their ideas must be as well. But you are doing exactly that, but instead calling us CCP shills…
When people are criticizing the actions of the Chinese government and someone labels them as racist or sinophobic, the accuser is not necessarily a CCP shill but they are repeating CCP propaganda.
The CCP uses pretty strong disinformation campaigns against any criticism of them with whataboutism and false equivalences of the Chinese people with the government to claim it is “racist”.
A flood of commenters crying “Sinophobia” every time there is an article about Muslim concentration camps, zero covid failures, etc gets quite old.
Even now, your comment is prattling on trying to equivocate the comments with racism despite it being very clearly about the CCP’s policies on TikTok.
It’s not even compatible. I can criticise my government safely. You cannot say anything negative about the CCP without repercussions.
So it’s probably better you stop trying to defend and justify the CCP. It just makes you look like a supporter of an authoritarian regime that commits genocide to its own people.
Philip you’ve already showed your hand and revealed your biases by assuming things about my background… sorry but wholly unrelated as I am a US citizen and I can in fact freely criticize the CCP and I often do. But here in this thread we were talking about something specific. Since it’s not even possible to say something that doesn’t criticize the CCP that doesn’t get you labeled as “a supporter of the regime” there’s no point arguing with you. As you pointed out, you can disagree with your own government (assuming the CCP were my own government) but it doesn’t mean your government only does bad things. Rather than worrying about if I can criticize my own government, or anything about me or what I look like I am doing, why not focus on my arguments like a civilized democratic freedom of speech supporting society? Free discourse only works if you listen.
It's not like they can (short of an armed rebellion) demand to have another political party or government.
It's like saying a thug is robbing me at gunpoint so I give him my wallet. You only observe that I give my wallet therefore giving that guy my wallet was good for me and fail to observe the gun.
I agree with both of your points. This reminds me while visiting the holocaust museum. The guide explained similar conspiracy popular believe that Jews have a great secret plan to poison European society. I assumed this kind of thinking is commons in Xenophobic situations either subconsciously or un subconsciously.
People criticize Israel all the time. Criticizing the state (Israel) is unrelated to criticizing the people (Jewish). Similiarly for China, criticizing the state is not the same as criticizing the Chinese. And adding on, there's multiple types of Chinese people. There's Chinese in America, Chinese in Taiwan and Chinese in many other countries. No one fears "the Chinese" that's just CCP government brainwashing to try to trick innocent people such as yourself that any criticism of the party is xenophobia/sinophobia.
The Russian government has been actively doing it during the war in Ukraine, trying to accuse all of Europe and the US for having "Russophobia". Turns out autocrats rhyme with each other.
How can you tell whether they hate the govt or xonophobe? Some
racists use the same excuse to justify their behavior.
There is some CCP scheme to use TikTok to turn American society lazyand teach some Stems sounds very conspiracy to me.
Paranoia and conspiracy thinking are the symptoms of xenophobia.
In my home country, Youtube recommendations are mostly related to porn and I have to use VPN to access good-quality content on Netflix.
Should I assume the US want to turn my countrymen stupid and horny.
Or should I use my critical thinking youtube recomend things that are popular in my Country.
> How can you tell whether they hate the govt or xonophobe? Some racists use the same excuse to justify their behavior.
Most xenophobes tend to be pretty clear what their opinions are and rarely deny them. Also occam's razor applies. Why assume that they're xenophobic when they repeatedly deny being xenophobic and say that they don't like the chinese government (which is the more rational opinion to take)? Ask such people what they think about Chinese people and it'll become rather clear whether their viewpoints come from xenophobia or not.
> In my home country, Youtube recommendations are mostly related to porn and I have to use VPN to access good-quality content on Netflix. Should I assume the US want to turn my countrymen stupid and horny. Or should I use my critical thinking youtube recomend things that are popular in my Country.
That sounds like a "you problem". Youtube in general does not have much porn. If you're being recommended it somehow then you or someone who shares an ip address with you has been actively searching it and it has narrowed it's suggestions to suit your "interests".
Also this tiktok issue is a reverse situation. Tiktok shows one thing to China and something else to every other country. It's not just the US.
Based on my personal experience with racism. There are different type of racism. Some are extreme, some are conscious and some are unconscious. Some are in denial.
Other social media, western news, etc also show different things from country to Based on my personal experience with racism. There are different type of racism: some are extreme, some are conscious, some are unconscious, and some are in denial. Just
YouTube recommends different things from one country to another. It is the same for news and other entertainment site. For some content I have to use VPN. I think it is either due to legal issue or recommendation algorithm not brainwashing.
I was recommended porn-related stuff maybe it is because of my usage pattern or my geo locations , and maybe it is the same things with Tiktok, American like to see stupid things.
Are you Chinese? Racism against various groups of people tends to vary drastically. You can't take one sort and apply it to another.
> I was recommended porn-related stuff maybe it is because of my usage pattern or my geo locations , and maybe it is the same things with Tiktok, American like to see stupid things.
You accuse of people of racist conspiracies, but then you act racist right here.
There is a difference between people who criticize Israel based on real, factual issues (e.g., the occupation of the West Bank), and people who spin conspiracy theories about vast Israeli conspiracies to poison the minds of Americans. The former criticisms are legitimate. The latter criticisms are almost certainly antisemitism.
This TikTok conspiracy theory (it's an operation designed by the Chinese government to dumb down American youth) is exactly like the sorts of antisemitic conspiracy theories one hears about Israel. It is not like the legitimate criticisms of Israel's actions in the West Bank.
I live in Taiwan. I sometimes look at Facebook reels and Instagram.
I never come across anti China or anti US content.
I tried tiktok for a day and was bombarded with anti US content. Videos blaming the US for covid. Videos saying that covid started in the US, created by the US, etc. Videos that the US is using Taiwan to start a war with China.
I deleted tiktok and have it blocked.
You can defend China all you want. But it doesn’t change the fact that the CCP is using it to spread propaganda.
I just tried it using a VM and a VPN and I cannot reproduce your claim. Searching for "covid" and "corona", for example, literally shows me the current videos about China's crackdown on recent protests from Vice, FlashNews Australia and Sky News (as well as citizen videos from those events) as the top result. Nothing that would paint China in a positive light in any way.
I tried in… October 2021 just after I moved to Taiwan. Friend sent me some video of food fuckup (someone cooking turkey in oil annd setting everything on fire) and so I signed up. Scrolling through i had random videos of one (Chinese) person saying covid originated at fort detrick and blaming China was a US coverup. Another video (Chinese) person saying it originated in deer in the US. Another (Chinese) person saying it started in the US in august 2019 and they took it to China to try kill the Chinese.
I deleted tiktok about an hour after signing up so obviously my claim isn’t based on any significant data. And I also don’t claim to say this is prevalent.
But I never searched anything. I’m not from the US. And while on YouTube I do watch some content in relation to what’s happening in the US, China, Ukraine, Iran. It’s not a playlist. 98% of what I watch is movie trailers and tech videos.
Even on Instagram and Facebook 99% of what I watch is food related.
So I don’t expect my experience to be taken as absolute fact that China is spreading a propaganda through tiktok. But it’s my experience and based on the propaganda on YouTube (videos of YouTubers being escorted around the exact same areas in Xinjiang as “proof” there’s no genocide) I think it’s likely that there is some propaganda to paint the US in bad light.
Anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's what you were recommended based on your watch history or other data points. YouTube recommends me anti-China content all the time.
YouTube has a lot of anti China and anti US content. But you can block channels and subjects and clean it up. But the difference is anti. US content tends to be fake propaganda. Like claiming covid started in the US and was designed to kill people in China? That’s blatant propaganda. That’s anti US. Talking about the US spending money on gain of function research in Wuhan? That’s just reporting on facts. But I don’t consider that anti US.
Anti China content is just facts. If a video comes out saying there’s protesting in China due to zero covid. That’s not fake news. It’s not propaganda. It’s just something happening and CCP bots will scream “anti China anti China”
You can’t do that on tiktok.
I specifically called out Facebook and Instagram. It’s not flooded to death with propaganda.
> The solution would be regulate all the social media companies, like how China does.
Twitter and Facebook are both banned in China, isn’t it? Is that because the CCP is afraid of western ideals if freedom? Or is it protectionism? Put differently, is it because of ideological or because if commercial reasons or perhaps both?
Because, to follow your thinking, why does the CCP not simply regulate them using the same rules as is uses for homegrown companies like TikTok?
> why does the CCP not simply regulate them using the same rules as is uses for homegrown companies like TikTok?
They do, which is why TikTok is blocked. Only Douyin, a separate content silo with shared codebase, is allowed to operate. Products by American companies like Facebook or Google Search that are now blocked used to censor the content they made available in China, but then stopped.
Other products by American companies, like Microsoft's Bing and Google Ads, continue to censor and continue to operate.
People on the English-speaking internet often seem to think that American companies' difficulties operating in China stem from them being specially and unfairly singled out, but the thing is that Chinese companies operating in China have to fight the same obstacles. And the majority of companies trying to make it big in China are Chinese, so they bear the brunt of the burden.
When a company building a platform for user-generated content gets more users and more content, that would usually be something for them to celebrate, but in China it also means they need to spend more resources censoring content to remove everything that might displease the government.
E.g. HelloTalk, a language-exchange app made by a Chinese company, restricted their Chinese users' accounts in 2020, most likely because some were using the app to talk about censored topics: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/glf14q/wh...
Other Chinese companies abandon the Chinese market completely and focus on the rest of the world while blocking Chinese users from accessing their product so they don't have to fear getting shut down by the government over lacking censorship.
For some reason, everyone wants to hold TikTok to a higher standard than our own social media companies. Facebook, Instagram, et al have been running by the same playbook as TikTok for over a decade, but somehow the impact this has on adolescents only became a concern when the company doing it is Chinese.
If you want to lessen the impact of this crap on your kids, then you need to pass regulations that prevent all social media companies from doing it. Just banning the foreign ones does nothing but artificially prop up Facebook.
Exactlty. Everyone's freaking out over TikTok while conveniently ignoring the fact that our own social media companies have been doing the exact same shit for over a decade now.
This is why I reject any talk of regulating TikTok that doesn't apply equally to all social media.
> The claim isn't fake. But the idea that this is some TikTok plot to poison America is ridiculous and sinophobic.
Oh please, all countries do it. The US uses Twitter and other social media to instigate civil unrest all over the world. Literal revolutions and genocides have been instigated over US-run social media platforms.
I don't know of a superpower that doesn't use the internet as a vector to sow discord and propagate misinformation.
I think you are generalizing my claim. My claim is specifically that the claim that the Chinese is using TikTok as some American programming vector is sinophobic. The CCP could be tracking the location of government officials through tiktok; that is a legitimate concern. If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese).
If you want to ban TikTok for another reason (such as their incredibly poor data hygiene, such as tracking every action you do within their app browser), then that is fair and you can reasonably argue that point from the grounds of privacy and national defense.
My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all.
>It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese)
If the Chinese and the Americans behaved identically in all other respects, this would be excellent logic. As they do not, it is spurious logic. I don't think you really believe that the Chinese style of governance and Chinese culture are the same as the American style of governance and American culture.
Put another way, there's an Australian law that can literally compel Australian coders to become secret agents and implant government backdoors into products they work on at their government's whim [0, 1]. It is not, and would not be, "aussiephobia" to not want to hire a person for whom this is a possibility, or to avoid products that Australian forced-backdoors are likely to be present in. Individual Australians are unlikely to support this, and shouldn't be individually blamed, but does that change the reality of the law?
>My reasoning in calling it sinophobia is because if you actually care about "dumb content" the proper solution is REGULATION for ALL the social media companies. Singling out TikTok makes no sense at all
I've heard it said that politics is the "art of the possible". From a fairness perspective, I'd love to see Western social media get a little regulated. From a harm-reduction perspective, sanctioning the Other social media is, at best, the first step to regulating everything else, and at worst, the only thing we're ever going to get.
> The CCP could be tracking the location of government officials through tiktok; that is a legitimate concern
Are you claiming that TikTok is able to track users and bypass mobile phones opt in requirements for location data ? Yes I know they can do course tracking based on IP address.
Please don't resort to conflating criticism of China (however speculative) with Sinophobia. It lowers the tone of the discussion and imputes a motive onto your peers which isn't warranted. If you have a problem with the facts of the discussion then address them directly.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because they don't have proper data hygiene and you believe that data could be used by the CCP in the future that is fair.
If you want TikTok banned in the US because you believe that they promote dumb content as part of some strategic Chinese plot and you conveniently ignore Meta and Google, I'm going to assume that your reasoning comes from irrational fear of the Chinese. It doesn't make sense to distrust the Chinese when they are doing the same thing as Americans (unless you don't like them just because they are Chinese).
>imputes a motive onto your peers
If my peers don't realize they are are repeating sinophobic talking points, they should be made aware of them. My concern is chiefly that sinophobia is simply a vector that allows American social media giants to get rid of competition without being forced to clean up their own backyards. If your concern is "algorithmic dumb content", then just banning tiktok is the wrong solution. Secondly, the reason why China has different content on TikTok is through government regulation, and we could do the same thing here! It's not a Chinese conspiracy that keeps Americans from regulating corporations.
The CCP is not a race. Working against companies under the control or influence of the CCP is no more "Sinophobic" than working against companies under the control or influence of the Nazi government was "Germanophobic".
To think everything a company does is from CCP just because there are ties to the CCP is sinophobic.
That chinese users get STEM content is because of the enforcement by the CCP, that US users get stupid content is because of their freedom of choice. People loved stupid stuff on FB and YT way before TikTok.
You realize the CCP forces companies to accept CCP members into their board and leadership, right? It’s even affecting foreign companies operating in China. It’s not “sinophobia”, it’s just facts.
> CCP forces companies to accept CCP members into their board and leadership
Except they don't?
1993 company law stipulates party committees are formed in any org with 3 or more CCP members... Trivial conditions to meet when party membership is like 1/8 of workforce and committees have been limited to dumb shit like organizing staff picnics not influence operations. Many chinese high up enough in company leadership/board will naturally be CCP members as you'll find democrats/republicans in a US board who has political affliation for upward mobility. And with respect to Chinese leadership / board members, they're not wasting their time doing party committee duties. Committee chores gets pawned off to nobodies, who more often then not don't do shit outside of keeners advocating for benefits and better working conditions, which was why these committees were conceived in the first place. Recent Euro chamber of commerce surveys concluded there's no push to strengthen party influence in foreign companies.
"Party committees" is a non issue and hasn't been for 30 years, thinking otherwise, because bloomberg, known for pushing anti-PRC hitpiece is more or less eating "sinophobia" bait. Misattributing said reporting to insinuate CCP is forcing members onto board and leadership even more so. It's just facts.
It's jingoistic and sinophobic since the purpose of the "work against" is to strengthen your own team's position. By and large, Chinese human rights activists do not think banning TikTok strengthens human rights in China.
I think for the most part, people are annoyed about TikTok doing good things in its home country and yet doing 'bad' things in foreign countries.
Yes, it's true the good things it does at home are mandated by the government.
Yes, it's true that in foreign countries those same mandates would be difficult and in some cases (maybe the US?) unconstitutional.
However, that's a logical argument which doesn't speak to the heart of the disagreement: TikTok could do good in foreign nations, but it explicitly chooses not to. It'd be easy for them to copy and paste their policies from China into other countries, but they work very hard to fill the feed with entertainment because it makes more money.
You’re right. It’s very racist and bad to not support the government enslaving, neutering, force aborting, and imprisoning Muslims, supporting a government currently invading your allies, one that said it wants to make a new world order without you, take taiwan by force if needed, heavily censors content, etc…
It can’t be any of that! No! It must be sinophobia!
> Chinese human rights activists do not think banning TikTok strengthens human rights in China.
While I agree with you. On the face, it doesn't seem logical that banning TikTok in a foreign country would make things better in China. Even if TikTok were a pure propaganda arm ala Voice of America, it still doesn't have much to do with the treatment of people at home (where by the way it has 'good' policies to foster the development of the youth).
He did address the facts of the discussion... The fact is jumping to some ridiculous conclusion that there must be some conspiracy to feed dumb content to Americans is Sinophobic because there is no evidence to suggest such a ridiculous thing, when the obvious answer, as pointed out by grandparent, is much more reasonable of an explanation.
Sounds more like the west gets the standard social media version. Just like YouTube and FB algorithms do serve you more of the same no matter how stupid it is.
The Chinese get the version with government enforcement of science and patriotism.
So in China the algorithm is partially regulated, but in the rest of the world the algorithm (asia, europe, africa, americas) is just showing people what they want? Instead of what they government thinks is best for them?
As US confrontation with China has become more open, the evidentiary standard for any stories about China has headed toward North Korea levels, where we constantly read about people being executed in baroque ways before a couple months before they make new public appearances, apparently risen from the dead.
Oh come on. China has basically been getting a pass from Western media for their concentration camps for Muslims. Probably because nobody on the west wants to look "racist"
[0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/tAV3QkzHC5E