> If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing
Most likely, the rationale will be similar to Huawei and Kaspersky.
Not based on actual historical misbehaviour, but rather the amount of power you’re allowing their respective governments to have over US citizens / infrastructure.
There are very few “from first principals” thinkers in the world, especially amongst TikTok’s younger audience. Most people take their beliefs from others, in the same way a llm’s output reflects its training data. If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume, then they can influence the narrative of the country.
China has long banned US social media for likely the same reason.
I understand that people who don't work in intelligence can have a difficult time recognizing risk, and often don't really understand the war other countries don't work the way the US does with the rule of law, but these are very much not baseless allegations. These are not even historical misbehavior. These companies explicitly and intentionally support and perform intelligence actions on behalf of their countries' intelligence services. Facebook and Google absolutely do not.
Kaspersky has been very credibly linked to Russian intelligence:
This is actually a really great example, I wish I had included it in my original post.
Here, in response to a very public failure of our security apparatus, the US Congress passed a draconian law allowing the US government to do the kinds of bad things that Russia and China do routinely. When the public realized this, they made it clear that there is a limit to the power of the government, and that behavior was very quickly stopped. Forever.
The idea that there is a limit to the power of the government, and that the general public can enforce that limit, is what makes America different than China and Russia. That difference is foundational to our Constitution, and I think it is a very good thing.
> When the public realized this, they made it clear that there is a limit to the power of the government, and that behavior was very quickly stopped. Forever.
My memory is hazy on the details and Wikipedia might be wrong, but (1) didn't the lawsuits against the perceived perpetrators (NSA, AT&T, etc) fail and (2) is it also not true, that not only was "Patriot Act" not quickly repealed, the sunset provisions were extended throughout the 2000s and 2010s?
I'm all for the TikTok ban but listening to your last argument a reasonable opponent might notice that:
1. You assume others play dirty by default, even though we never caught them red-handed. Not necessarily unreasonable, but see 2.
2. You assume we play fair even when we are caught red-handed. You rationalize it with "it only goes to show this was the exception and look what happened after". Spoiler alert, nothing happened after, neither the courts nor public opinion shit it down.
You have to admit these two are a little inconsistent to say the least.
I will say the one problem with it from the perspective of young people is they always get the dick.
* Young people suffer the hardest from the housing crisis
* Young people suffer the most in any kind of job market challenges
* Young people have the least say in elections
* Young people now give up the app they use that actually makes them happy and helps to forget about how shit the world has become for them. Also an app that makes some of them real money.
Basically, the youth have no real legislation in their favour while their quality of life continues to degrade. I imagine that gets old.
This is a rant from someone who supports the tiktok ban.. but I'd extend it to all social media.
While this is true from the perspective of voting laws (you can vote after 18 but you don’t need to be 18 to see how f’d ip things are…), it’s also true that the age bracket 18-29 has the lowest participation in elections. I didn’t do the math but I would not be surprised if the last elections turned differently if this bracket increased to percentage levels seen amongst older ages.
Young people (and really any working age people) just really don't have that much time, energy, and (mostly importantly) money to dedicate to impacting election and legislative results. When you're working age you have more imminent things to worry about, but the matter of fact is that it's mostly retired people who think the world is going to s*t whose voices are heard the loudest.
Of course you can say it's a question of priorities and it's "their fault" for not being politically active, but I would argue the system is stacked against young people's political participation.
Also, most places in the US have minimum age limits for elected positions.
What are the demographics that don't vote and how do they compare to your current status (financials, privileges, etc) in life? Be data driven and get back to me.
It’s also true that age 18-29 bracket is less likely to have historically been registered to vote and that they are typically working in precarious positions with less ability to take time off to vote.
If voting registration was automatic, and election day was a holiday, I’d expect the participation across age brackets to be much closer.
I don’t know much about voting in other states, but Texas does have it. In a way. I never had to go anywhere to register to vote. It was a part of my DL application, and it got updated with each change of address. You don’t need the mail voter registration to vote either— just your DL. From my understanding there are some states where it’s still not that easy but many do have this integrated with DL renewals, issues or similar.
I agree that Election Day should be a holiday. There’s a slight issue with Federal Holidays being applying only to federal employees and not necessarily to independent businesses, which can choose to observe it or not… but it’s a start.
Also in Texas, the polls are open for early elections for like two weeks ahead of Election Day. I always take advantage of that. No wait, no hassle, in and out. Most states offer either that or mail-in voting.
> Citation needed - social media seems to be very bad for young people's health, if anything.
One would need citation for either claim honestly, there's plenty studies around the idea that social media actually doesn't have as much of an impact on mental health as people seem to believe, as well as the other way around. If we get more specific, people who have or are prone to certain psychological conditions do get aggravated by social media, but the same way that's true, it could be for anything else would there not be social media. In the end, what the comment says holds true regardless of how it may affect their long-term mental health
My own claim is more like a dopamine high. Like smoking. Both bad things in the long run, but makes them happu in the moment. Video games probably up there too in their current manifestation.
Anywho, main point is more about giving this already vulnerable demographic more tools to succeed. Especially if, from their perspective, all we keep doing is making their lives worse.
That's like telling a drug addict that it's bad for his/her health. Sure you're staying facts, but they're not going to take it up. Might as well preach to the wind.
From a young one's perspective, it's natural they're going to take it as one more incursion into their lives, else Red Note, an app made for a largely Chinese audience by an unrelated company would not have seen so much uptake over the past few days.
Do we have actual numbers on signups for RedNote though? I feel that if I’ve learned anything in the past ten years of social media, a lot of noise is made by a very small percentage of users (not necessarily even people).
I don't disagree with you that it's probably bad for them, much like smoking. But it makes them FEEL temporarily happy. Much like smoking.
Do you see my point? We're just taking random shit from them without giving anything back. Also, objectively, Meta's platform is just as bad for them as tiktok, so it's obvious to them that it's not being taken away because we actually care about their mental health lol.
I agree that young folks feel the pain more acutely - inflation, education and housing costs hurt the most as they have the least amount of income/savings.
I’m not sure I would elevate TikTok to that degree though - we have some serious issues especially for young men. Not sure that scrolling through TikTok videos is actually fixing any of that- it’s like saying “don’t take away the heroin, it’s the only thing that makes me feel happy”
We're aligned on your second paragraph. It just doesn't change how these demographics *feel*.
Maybe if we're going to cancel tiktok or whatever, offer them some tax credits to cover the cost of registration for a coed sport or other such things that might enable them to be happier. Do more to help them get their first house and get their life going.
Just taking things from this demographic, without giving back, is a surefire way keep them disenfranchised. Even if we're taking something away that is objectively harmful to them (but still keeping instagram around lol).
Thanks for pointing their position out. I work with and have these kids they have a lot to offer. They manage a lot of complexity - thus practicing for the always increasingly complex world.
I know it’s cliche for prev generations to be down on the next. I have seen such an uptick in talking heads blaming them for {something}. e.g. Bill Maher
They have little power! Lacking enough to execute what they are supposedly the cause of. Those who do should wield theirs to improve their education system or whatever deficit they believe the “kids” have instead of blaming.
Deck is stacked against them from birth. The entire system discourages from a young age what you're proposing. So if these kids feel so disenfranchised (and often filled with misinformation) from a young age, it's entirely unreasonable for us to expect them to "step up" in a vacuum.
You need better systems in place from the beginning to help someone become a better person.
It's like asking pigs to rebel buddy. If you want people to energize, you've got to give them more the a pulse. You've gotta at least let them think they've got a chance at the American dream of they energize.
Reality is the American dream is dead for most young people not born with a spoon up their ass. And that seems more and more by design. When you experience this reality your whole life, you carry a level of apathy that "get out and vote" is meaningless to hear.
Lives need to get better from a young age. People need to believe in the American dream again. But the policies set in place over the last 30 years are heavy.
1. Participate in the system
2. Violently overthrow the system
3. Do nothing
Sitting on the internet and whinging about how the deck is stacked against you is choosing option 3.
Fact of the matter is that a lot of people picked option 3 because of whatever reasons they had and now a bunch of oligarchs and criminals are running the joint now.
Voting is the least you can do if actually running for an elected position is not an option.
Just because I think it’s interesting to mention given your perspective about how the youth feel, here is how they’ve changed voting patterns [1]:
In past years, voters under 30 have proved essential on the margins, especially for Democrats, where even minimal shifts in support can decide an election.
It was a group that Vice President Harris had hoped would be part of her winning coalition this year. Instead, she underperformed, and President-elect Trump made gains.
Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters, but Harris did not meet that threshold, getting 54%, according to early exit polls.
Gen Z is interesting. My brother and sister in law are Gen Z (my wife and I are older millennials). My brother in law and his girlfriend are openly Trump supporters (both happen to be non-white). They went to the rallies and stuff. So are a lot of his friends at work in a blue city (tech sales). My sister in law is liberalish, does the pronoun sharing before group meetings for school, but doesn’t feel strongly about the issue compared to virtually all the millenial women I know.
Over the last 16 years Democrats have occupied the White House 75% of the time, so for younger folk Democrats are the establishment and Republicans the underdog.
I think it’s more specific than that. The 2008 surge of young people to democrats was driven by rage at the failures of two institutions: the banks (the Great Recession), and the intelligence apparatus (Iraq war). But those institutions never were reformed, and today the Democratic Party has become the staunchest defenders of the banks and the intelligence apparatus.
But for Gen Z folks, that stuff is ancient history, isn't it? Even the oldest members (using 1997 as a starting point, but some definitions use 2000) were too young to protest or serve in Iraq[1]. By the time the youngest Gen Z folks were starting school in the mid-2010s, the US stock market and unemployment rate had reached pre-recession levels too.
[1] I mean when people cared about Iraq, 2003 to circa 2008. We still have troops there, but I don't think most of America is even aware of that.
Both of those institutions were, in fact, heavily reformed.
What you actually mean is that there was little personal legal accountability for past actions, which I don't disagree with. The legal and political frameworks they operate under has changed quite a bit though.
I'm pretty sure that only a small minority of Americans, let alone those in the 18-29 age group, can name their senators and representative and anyone on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, most Americans instead seem to imagine this country as an autocracy in which they get to vote for a new ruler every four years.
Probably the most impactful to your own life vote you can cast is the local municipal one. And that has such poor turnout among the youth it is crazy. Even in places where they mail you a ballot automatically and you have two weeks to vote at polls. People just don’t care to be engaged.
I've been fascinated by the shift towards Trump by 18-29 voters in this past election, and I think this is a good explanation that I haven't heard before. Yeah, and Bush 43 was so long ago that his popular image has turned from kind of a villainous "worst president ever" to a favorably remembered elder statesman according to some polls.
Note that it was a shift for Trump, still not a majority voting for him. Exit polls that I've seen still indicated an 11-point lead for Harris[1], but that's much more narrow than the 24-point lead that Biden had in 2020[2]. Anyway, I've been fascinated by this because it kind of broke my mental model imagining that the Republican party would eventually be marginalized as its voters died of old age. I definitely thought Trump was going to lose this age group in 2024 by the widest margin ever.
Racism and mysogeny is still very much alive among the youth and quite a lot of the US lacks any diversity to combat those notions. Or if they do have diversity on paper it might still be somewhat segregated where these communities might be neighbors but don’t overlap in activities. Less a melting pot, more a punchbowl filled with different fruits bumping into eachother.
The problem may not even be that China can control these narratives as much, but just that they (US as in the government/state institution) can't in the first place. Eg there had been complains about pro-palestine narratives dominating tictoc, even if there was no actual evidence this was manipulated (and I doubt it was). This is why i think that this is a case where the interests of the american people may not necessarily align with the "national" interests of wanting to ban tictoc (while the other cases are more about basic infrastructure or access to that), though i think eventually it will not matter much (if tictoc stays the grip for the US part of it by the US government is probably gonna be firmer).
This also can explain bytedance's approach of support and reassurance towards the incoming administration. I bet they care more about their company and not having to choose between two loss scenarios than about politics/international relations, just like most of big corporations in the world.
> This is why i think that this is a case where the interests of the american people may not necessarily align with the "national" interests of wanting to ban tictoc
Your home country at least has some incentive to work towards your interest. No matter how evil they are because they have to pay the consequences of these actions. Even in autocratic China, for example, anti-lockdown censorship during Covid in China eventually caused even more resentment against the CCP.
On the other hand, look at examples of Russian election interference in 2016 [1]. One of the posts is "Satan: If I win Clinton wins. Jesus: Not if I can help it. Press like to help Jesus win." The entire goal is to get Americans to distrust and hate each other. Nobody in America has anything to gain from posting this, but China and Russia have nothing but to gain from a more fractured America. We only found out about this because Facebook cooperated with American intelligence to find this foreign propaganda. At best, you can't expect the same cooperation from TikTok they are accountable to the CCP. At worst, TikTok would actively be working with China to disguise this propaganda as genuine content.
> Your home country at least has some incentive to work towards your interest
It's the opposite: if they can block any alternative to the "hive mind" they can easily pursue any interest they like and make you believe that they align with your interests. And if you keep having doubts, they can easily label you as a dissident or a foreign agent, because no one will take your side, mostly for lack of tools and platforms to expose fabricated evidence.
> It's the opposite: if they can block any alternative to the "hive mind" they can easily pursue any interest they like and make you believe that they align with your interests.
It is definitely not the opposite. You have very recent cases where Russia has been caught financing US right-wing hate-speech "influencers" to spread extremist talking points fed by Russia's propaganda effort. Their purpose is to sow divisiveness and turn Americans on each other.
> You have very recent cases where Russia has been caught financing US right-wing hate-speech "influencers"
So what?
You also have the same kind of "influcence" from the US, on a total different level though, given the disproportion of available budgets between the two.
OTOH that wasn't my assumption, I simply said that single minded propaganda will harm free people more than those who are not free.
Russia or not Russia (it is honestly ridiculous to compare Russia to the USA at this point of history).
> In 2016 Russia was caught actively trying to spark a race war in the US.
And you don't know what the US has done exactly because they do not allow platforms to speak about it, the "fact checking" was simply state censorship disguised as "war on fake news".
No one can seriously believe that Russia can outsmart US intelligence or outmaneuver them, unless you don't really think that the US are collapsing and are no longer the more powerful country in the World, with the more powerful military, with the more powerful and pervasive intelligence.
Which is frankly not credible.
But there are still people out there that with a straight face will tell you that the US elections have been rigged by Russia (or at least they tried).
Which would put the US behind even some small country like Luxembourg or The Vatican.
If you can't or refuse to understand the danger of having totalitarian regimes destabilize your country, including calls for extreme violence against minorities, then no wonder you're trying to argue there is nothing wrong with having the likes of Russia and China screw you over.
This is a nice narrative, but has not been consistent with how counter-disinformation has been applied in the contemporary US. It matters less what you say than who is making you say this. For example the founders of Tenet Media were indicted for allegedly conspiring with Russia. Those featured on the channel, such as Tim Pool and Dave Rubin, received millions of dollars from Russia sources for spreading narratives that happened to align exactly with Russian propaganda. This should have raised major red flags as their videos typically received modest viewership (in the order of 10k). The DOJ had every opportunity to indict them as well. However, because it's unlikely that it could be proven that they were knowingly conspiring with Russia, so they were free to go.
> because it's unlikely that it could be proven that they were knowingly conspiring with Russia
it's called innocent until prove guilty for a reason, it's the system working as intended.
And the US have exploited it too and are still doing it.
As an example, read the transcript of Victoria Nuland conversation about the future of Ukraine during the time President was someone NATO disliked for not being anti Russian enough.
Nuland: OK. He's now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, *Fuck the EU*.
Did Nuland pay for saying it? Of course not. On the contrary, she was awesomely compensated for her work.
Why should one be surprised that the US Department of State is involved in geopolitics?
Your example further reinforces my point that content matters less than who is saying this content. You quoted a phone call that was very likely to be have intercepted by Russian intelligence and quickly disseminated on Russian-owned media, yet you're freely posting this on an American website.
> Why should one be surprised that the US Department of State is involved in geopolitics?
It is absolutely not!
It is surprising to me that people believe the USA are victims and not the greatest instigators of geopolitical unrest of the past 80 years (at least).
> You quoted a phone call that was very likely to be have intercepted by Russian intelligence
Nahhh
The Russian intelligence simply put it in the open, but who actually intercepted Nuland is unknown.
The point is we perfectly know that the USA are waging wars to also punish Europe, but it cannot be said, because platforms are all from the US and follow US directives.
That's why people also followed in love with tik tok, it was a breath of fresh air, finally few things that we all know are true (Nuland transcription just prove it) could finally be said (again: never used the platform, that's what people I know have said to me and I know a lot of regular people, white collars, regular jobs, kids and all the rest. They simply understand that American social networks and American propaganda have become so unbelievably false that it's baffling)
> yet you're freely posting this on an American website.
Am I?
Have you noticed my name is a generated random string?
> it's called innocent until prove guilty for a reason, it's the system working as intended.
That principle applies to laws, in order to minimize the chance of abuse when investigating criminal and civil charges.
This is not the same. This is about national security, and specifically enforcing national security policies. You do not need presumption of innocence to determine if you should embargo a country, expell a diplomat, and ban a suspicious supplier from your critical infrastructure.
Being conservative, marrying, raising children and being nationalistic does not align with Russian propaganda.
Similarly, all so called "far-right" parties that are supposedly financed by Russia in the EU ultimately are in favor of national interests.
Similarly, Ukrainian nationalists are in favor of Ukrainian interests.
If it came to a war between Russia and the EU, who would fight? Not the chicken hawks of the Green Party, but the "Deplorables" who vote "far-right".
The entire Russian influence narrative was concocted by the Neocons who had moved from the Bush era Republicans to the Democrat party. Now everyone realizes that perhaps China and Russia had financed culturally left organizations all along, which is entirely in line with the historic behavior of the Soviet Union. So everyone abandons ship now and pledges allegiance to Trump.
Regarding the division to the US population: That is in the interests of the established two parties, so no one looks too closely what is actually happening.
Yes! exactly. Post JFK and MLK assassination, there is no need to physically kill a physical being or movement. You just need to do character assassination of the person/idea. And with the fast moving nature of internet disinformation, once you kill the person's reputation that person is effectively neutered.
Post trump win people in elite circles started to realize and actually discuss (to my amazement) that maybe they should not have played all those games to derail Bernie Sanders. TikTok served as an interesting counterweight to the national narrative on many topics. What does not directly affect China negatively may also pose a threat to the US and that seemed to bubble to the top on TikTok from time to time.
Is it because he his a collaborator of the CCP or because the accusation against China where just a ruse to move the attention away from the Dem losing the elections on their own incompetence? (I am in no way a Trump supporter, but honestly the Dems did everything in their power tho lose the elections)
This is 100% what it is. The establishment types are upset that they can’t just lean on a handful of major media organizations anymore to maintain a uniform narrative (e.g. Iraq having WMDs).
You are trusting your “freedom of speech” to an entity controlled by a government which blocks US companies from penetrating the great firewall? Try googling tank man in China…you can’t because google is blocked and tank man is prohibited content.
> The establishment types are upset that they can’t just lean on a handful of major media organizations to maintain a uniform narrative (e.g. Iraq having WMDs).
This is obviously false.
Go check TikTok to see what shows up in searches for Tiananmen square or Uighur genocide, or even anyone of the many small catastrophes that go against the CCP's narrative.
You're claiming that consuming propaganda from a totalitarian regime that actively engages against your security, stability, and best interests is somehow better than consuming hypothetical propaganda from your own democratically elected government. Make it make sense.
Americans have no reason to care what happened in Tiananmen Square. That’s Chinese domestic politics. But whether Iraq actually had WMDs does affect Americans, as the people who financed that war based on the failures of the U.S. government.
Foreign propaganda is much less dangerous than domestic propaganda because domestic propaganda is more likely to relate to issues that actually matter to citizens.
> Americans have no reason to care what happened in Tiananmen Square.
It's not about what you care or don't care. It's about using China's social media service to discuss the very topics that China wants to censor. Again, go to TikTok or whatever alternative service provided by China and try to refer to the Tiananmen massacre or Uighur genocide. See what your paragons of free speech treat that.
Some weapons are "NOBUS" (nobody but us). Imho you nailed it. When in Facebook and Twitter the content was manipulated, the US government did not complain, as they were (again, imho) manipulating the content (e.g. Hunter Biden laptop)(don't involve me in the politics, I don't have a care in the world on the subject, I merely find this very Stasi-ist that unnamed, faceless, unelected people lurking in the shadows, wearing black uniforms and black hoods, control what civilians are 'allowed' to watch).
Since TikTok became massive, US gov & agencies lost that oligopoly/monopoly and now China (or any other country for that matter) could define the narrative, form and destroy opinions.
Simple Porter's Five Forces model of analysis. People despised censorship (I will not debate whether this 'content moderation' and/or 'censorship' was good or bad). The "New Entrants" took over. And since it is clear that TikTok cannot be defeated in the foreseeable future, and it cannot be purchased, then it must die.
Therefore, this power to influence younger generations should be restricted to US government and US big tech Corporation. They know what is best for them.
And China propaganda is so powerful that US propaganda cannot counter this, even within US borders, following rules chosen by their own country, US propaganda is losing.
What makes Chinese propaganda so powerful, even in the form of silly 30 seconds dancing? Or perhaps the real problem is not this? But the existance of a single non western source of consent manufacturing?
Strange take. Some kind of philosophical purity says that we should allow foreign adversaries to influence domestic audiences because we should be able to counter that influence with out own?
It’s like saying you should allow someone to punch you because you “should” be able to punch yourself harder.
Consider how this spat looks from the perspective of a European.
The US controls Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Snapchat, Whatsapp.
Owner of Twitter has office space in the white house, and is calling for the overthrow of elected European governments and deliberately spreading misinformation.
Then the US sees one non-american-owned social media network and decides it's got to be banned.
Perhaps those Europeans should consider whether they want foreigners influencing domestic audiences?
The mistake here is seeing the US action as a universal moral statement and therefore hypocritical.
The US action was simply pragmatic. There is no claim of universality or morality.
I very much agree other countries should also look at US hegemony through a pragmatic lens: is this a net harm? It’s kind of funny that you raise it as a gotcha.
So, letting divergent opinions from other countries and from different entities is like being punched? You know that most world uses social media from foreign entities, right? Curious how until few years ago, when there were no relevant competitors outside US, the dominant discourse was that only tyranical countries would do this.
> What makes Chinese propaganda so powerful, even in the form of silly 30 seconds dancing?
TikTok is as much about silly 30 seconds dancing as Twitter was about posting 144 character messages or a prime time news program is about 2 minute clips with a voiceover.
The way you fail to even frame the problem suggests you either are oblivious about the problem or you're doing your best to avoid discussing it.
Because it will not happen. And cannot be enforced.
No, im not arguing this because US already uses more propaganda than China. I was asking why americans are so afraid that chinese propaganda will be so more powerful than the Inês that they already have.
How? US propaganda, propaganda from big techs from US oligopolies will continue unchallenged and strenghtned, as they blocked a source that they apparently do not control.
The West does not have to tolerate the intolerant. When China opens its Internet to the world like it always should have, they can continue to play their little CCP “China good, Collective West bad” game in the West.
To really be fair, we should lock our Internet from China for 30 years and let the Chinese people have the full wide un-CCP-censored Western consent Internet you’re talking about. We can start with old favorite topics like T-square, Winnie the Pooh, that COVID doctor the CCP suppressed and then martyred.
Then we can sit down and have a frank discussion on what the terms of Internet use should be.
Until then, China should be grateful their State enterprises were allowed in at all.
But to answer your question, US propaganda isn’t countering because it just doesn’t exist. We have a free press. It can criticize the government, and does it every single day. The U.S. doesn’t do military parades, and its self marketing sucks because it’s not an imperative, unlike China.
Furthermore, China clearly thinks propaganda and intense censorship is the way to go. What else can explain the efforts to A. Block Winnie the Pooh B. Block the sale of TikTok? Profit clearly isn’t the motive now, which is very suspicious of such a large ostensibly for profit company.
The fact that the consideration to sell it to Trump/Musk in particular is floating around points to the political value of TikTok in the first place. Bribe the incoming admin, extract some favor in return, I.E. back down on Taiwan or relieve semiconductor tariffs.
Sure, US propaganda do not exist. Not in Hollywood. Not in games. Not in social media and news sources. Makes one wonder then how people got so propagandized.
Why do you trust that an app based in China would actually comply with American rules? Facebook voluntarily disclosed that misinformation was spread on their platform. They cooperated with the DOJ to connect this misinformation campaign to thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian nationals. Would you expect the same cooperation from TikTok?
It might come off as a "weak analogy" because it sounds weak to you ... to make the point that there are valid grounds (the epidemic of obesity & diabetes) for Xenophobic Asians to think addictive Coke / McDonald's are part of some sinister plot by the Americans to impoverish them. And that line of reasoning is ludicrous, or "weak" as you put it because it is (unless we are Xenophobic ourselves, then it isn't)!
If you desire a strong analogy, do Hollywood, YouTube, Netflix etc, which are banned by the other side citing similar reasons to TikTok, I am sure. But the other side is totally authoritarian and we aren't, right?
Aspirationally yes. In practice US can't even rid itself of civil forfeiture or federal weed laws despite consistent majority against them. We can't get rid of overbearing housing regulations despite it destroying our youth. Hell the democratic party presidential candidate wasn't even chosen in a primary, just installed in without a public vote to ensure viability, handing a default.
We do have a giant problem with the policymaking community being very narrow, but the only way to solve it is by having communication platforms that aren't being influenced by that same community.
When I say narrow, I mean narrow. The toppling of the Guatemalan liberal democracy and subsequent replacement by a dictator was performed at the behest of a handful of people who wanted to and did retire to a sinecure at United Fruit, and without the full knowledge of the president.
And somehow a majority votes for the candidate that puts an oligarch in power of an 'unofficial' position/department. It was clearly vote for people with a lot of money.
Something about The government you elect is the government you deserve.?
"Vote for people with a lot of money" describes both parties for I don't even know how long. It's obscenely disingenuous to pretend that's new. Both parties have been bankrolled by corporate interests for longer than I've been alive for.
The Elon thing is way more brazen, yes. I also think many people would rather have than instead of two dozen faceless lobbyists sitting behind superPACs, at least you can point to the guy when he pushes for policy. If it was the norm that companies were completely public about showing up to influence politics that might make a better world, really.
Not a fan of the whole thing mind you, but if it's going to go down, I'm not sure this is actually worse.
Both parties have been bankrolled by corporate interests for longer than I've been alive for.
Sure, but this is quite a different scale. Apparently the net worth of Trumps (official) cabinet, so excluding Musk, is 7 billion. For comparison, the net worth of Biden's cabinet was 118 million dollar.
(Sorry for the Dutch source, searching the numbers gives English sources as well.)
The Elon thing is way more brazen, yes. I also think many people would rather have than instead of two dozen faceless lobbyists sitting behind superPACs,
The super PACs will continue to exist as well. I am pretty sure this will give some of the PACs only more influence/power.
at least you can point to the guy when he pushes for policy
In the same way you can point to the guy when he tries to interrupts peaceful transition?
Which brings me back me to my original point, the majority of Americans voted for a crook (interrupting peaceful transition amongst other things) and oligarchs. We'll see where it ends.
The votes are following the propaganda, and Trump won the public opinion war. Democrats have been slow to learn this lesson and get their messaging and public relations under control.
If only we trusted in people to make their own decisions, but that's crazy talk.
Its widely known at this point that TikTok is a Chinese owned business and that the CCP has a history if forcibly influencing companies to do their bidding. If people still want to use TikTok I don't see what the real problem is.
> If only we trusted in people to make their own decisions, but that's crazy talk.
You're talking about people who say Haitians are eating pets and having the CCP dictate what content you consume is preferable than not having the CCP dictate what content you consume. Make it make sense.
Yes, plenty of people say crazy things. So what? If we want to uphold free speech we have to take the good with the bad. If we don't, Congress can cross the aisle and write a new amendment.
I don't want the CCP, or any government, dictating what I see. Thankfully they really can't. They can dictate what is online on various sites and apps, but they can't dictate what I consume. I've never used TikTok personally, the CCP hasn't dictated anything to me at least on that front because I can choose what I look at.
The fact that we allow advertisement is a choice. Some countries choose to forbid advertisement for cigarettes, for example.
And yes, there is big difference between the US advertisement industry, which is at least in principle regulated by the US legal/government system and thus, US citizens, vs. the essentially unregulated propaganda-machine that is Tik Tok.
This is not to say that a ban is the only option here. But I am not convinced that other control options are effective, or less of a danger.
> This is not to say that a ban is the only option here. But I am not convinced that other control options are effective, or less of a danger.
We're definitely in agreement here, there are other options and all have their pros and cons.
The major risk I see with the TikTok ban is that it wasn't actually a TikTok ban, it gave the president new powers to unilaterally ban services in certain situations.
As far as TikTok goes the ban may be more effective. At a minimum I wish the law was specific to them though, and I can't support it simply for the new executive powers created.
It's widely known by Hacker News audience. A quick poll of 16 to 22 year old nephews, nieces and their friends around me is met with blank, completely uncaring faces.
(Not saying one way or another about banning the app, but discussion should start from a realistic assessment)
If it isn't well known that's a great reason for the government to focus on making that clear. Banning the app really doesn't help anyone long term, and giving the president even more power is always a risky game.
It's the same with the US, haven't you seen how some topics were encouraged with the Biden administration and supported by our Californian "neutral" friends in LLMs and medias ? and suddenly there is Trump, and they all start to switch sides ?
It's the direct effect of political pressure.
You nicer you behave to the government, the more carrots you get.
Yeah, I totally expect a 14 y.o. girl who joins TikTok to check trendy dance move to be aware of dangers of CCP propaganda.
What percentage of population understands that propaganda can be subtle? Sneak some ragebait here and there to make it look like situation is worse than it is, exaggerate, radicalize people...
America is handing this opportunity on a platter by practically outlawing child independence.
A kid should be out exploring on their own, shooting squirrels, riding their bike to the next town, bailing hay for cash at the farm at the edge of town. I didn't become a staunch supporter of most American classical liberal principles because an app told me to, it's because it's how I lived when I grew up. If you shut me in or chained me to a parent all day, well maybe you grow up with whatever tiktok tells you since you see it as the only way to stretch your legs.
Well, it sounds like you may have grown up in the country. Personally i think it's a bad idea for children to have guns in densely populated cities, searching for small animals to kill in the one park within "dangerous but still walking" distance. Regardless of what you believe or how you grew up, it's simply impossible to replicate that kind of freedom and safety for a large majority of American children.
Our cities are run by cars, children are notoriously bad at sensing them. I'm sure there's things that could be done but nothing, nothing can give a kid in Brooklyn the opportunity to "bail hay at the farm on the edge of town".
The big city equivalent is closer to a bus pass, $5 for a hot dog, and see you at dusk. The danger of dodging cars arguably is less than being locked in with TikTok. Maybe kids hawk chicharones in the city instead of bailing hay, obviously it won't be a direct translation.
Well they can believe that if they want, it won't hurt anyone. For better or worse, free speech means anyone can say what they want and free thought in general means people can happily be wrong about a fact that seems very easy to check.
> a Chinese company, yes, but backed by some of the major investment funds in the west, the Chinese own 20%, Chinese government is under 1%.
ByteDance not only blocked the sale of TikTok to a US company but also TikTok unilaterally decided to shut down operations in the US to strongarm the US government to prevent it's sale.
If the CCP actually had no control over TikTok and at most they only held a residual non-controlling position, then how do you explain the scorched earth strategy that is only aligned with the CCP's strategy and throws all other shareholders under the bus?
The Chinese government has a majority of the voting stock.
More importantly, the company based in China, and the engineers working on it's recommendation system are based in China, and both are subject to the laws of China.
From a national security perspective, it's controlled by the Chinese government.
> There is quite a bit of naivete regarding how the Chinese government controls Chinese companies.
I happen to know how China works, have you got some example to present?
> It is very different from the US.
Actually, not really.
Can Facebook keep alive their "fact checking" program, now that Trump is president and not Biden, whose administration ordered it, probably more against Trump himself, than any other adversary of the USA?
Are Vanguard and BlackRock free to invest in whatever company they want?
For example: why are Vanguard and BlackRock backing Unicredit to buy Commerzbank, one of the few European banks not owned or heavily funded by American funds?
A Chinese company cannot take the CCP to court and win. There is no separation of powers in China. There is no constitutional protection held on place by a group outside the ruling party.
China has a faux free capitalist society. Chinese companies are the way they are because the government lets them be that way, not because they have the right to be that way.
That sounds like a reasonable argument to create an age limit for social media.
It also sounds like an argument for parents to step in - every child is different and a parent should be doing the parenting rather than Congress and the White House.
Sure, I'm not arguing that propaganda is ineffective. I'm arguing that people should at least have access to the facts and be allowed to make their own decisions. In this case the important facts are simply that TikTok is a Chinese app and the CCP almost certainly influences them.
When it comes to children that is a different story, but the debate should be whether we enforce an age limit on social media. There is at least precedent (for better or worse) for an age limit on things we think children aren't ready or able to consume.
In the long run it's better that both China and US have deep tentacles wrapped around each other. The more culture and dependencies merge and intertwine the more cooperation looks attractive over war.
The cost of free speech, including commercial or propaganda, is people get manipulated by it. Some including myself argue is you end up with even more nefarious control when censored, rather than having the option of which if any propaganda apps you want to consume.
There are some controls like certain pornography, but if these exist they should apply uniformly, not based on whether we like the person publishing it.
China can't directly influence US policy, and they mostly don't have any interest in doing so outside how it influences our trade relations. Sure, it's bad if they're doing that. But Musk, Zuckerberg, and the rest of the ultra-wealthy are directly creating US policy, both by serving in unelected advisory positions and by outright buying US politicians. Just like China, they are not working for America's interests, they are working for their own interests. They are removing hard-won safeguards for their employees, their customers, and Americans in general; and they are removing accountability for themselves so they can exercise that power over the people who live in the US with impunity.
US billionaires are far more dangerous to US residents than China is, and this law gives them even more influence than they already had by removing the only significant competitor that was not owned by a US billionaire. If this law had impacted all social media equally, I would be a huge advocate. But as it is, it's just another handout to the US's richest and most influential people. It's a bad law, and will make life worse for the people who live in the US.
You are basically saying American adults are impressionable children hence cannot be trusted to participate in elections held by US electoral institutions.
And you are basically saying that despite decades of focused high-stakes research into the matter, propaganda doesn't work at all on the masses, and that algorithmic manipulation of people is simply impossible? How could anyone take that idea seriously.. global advertising spend is approaching like a trillion dollars every year.
Why not call for the dismantling of the global advertising networks in the US rather than Tiktok since you think it is a giant propaganda machine?
Saying a foreign nation has the capability to brainwash your citizens into making a vote is propaganda by itself. It's not only cheap and imbecilic, it's a waste of everybody's time.
It’s not cheap, that’s the point.. ads as an industry moves more money every year than the pentagon. That’s a lot of people betting that algorithmic influence campaigns work. Are you saying everyone is wrong about this but you, or is your position is that influence campaigns work for brands but not for nation states? Or nation states would not try? Or what?
I am saying that but would prefer to state it this way:
Individuals are not equipped to recognized and counter the effects of highly sophisticated influence operations run by adversaries with enormous resources.
The US could have just built a regulator and laws like we have for alcohol and drugs. It's not difficult. But banning the creepy Chinese thing is far easier.
The easiest real example I'm aware of is that there was a scandal around the Houston rockets and China (years ago) and you could not find their content or content related to them on TikTok. (You could for every other NBA team)
In this example: who cares? But the problem is how implicit everything is.
Imagine that a major US ally (like Israel) were attacked by a globally recognized terrorist organization. Imagine if, for some reason, a high percentage of people on TikTok ended up being opposed to the US government's support of their ally. Imagine if there were protests across college campuses. And counter protests.
Would we know whether TikTok was behind the scenes, sowing discord? This is the kind of thing - weakening our alliances - that china would love to do. If china can reduce our willingness to defend our allies (think the Philippines in the south china sea, or Taiwan which.... there's explicitly a project 2027 in China to be ready to invade Taiwan)
Do we want the Chinese government to have the ability to do this?
Sorry I'm confused by your comment. The American voter voted for Congress. A bipartisan majority passed this bill easily. The executive branch signed it. The judiciary branch confirmed it.
Congress has a "strained" relationship with the voter. On one hand, the voter put them in that position. On the other hand, the voter is a greater danger to the individual in Congress than any foreign adversary. As a result, politicians try to control the voter, the way an employee would try to manage their manager.
This is done in a number of ways. For example, because the media has a great influence on the voter, politicians seek to influence the media. Journalists who publish unfavorable information are denied valuable interviews, incentivizing them to stay close to the administration. Lobbyists with connections to major advertisers, which have a great influence on the media, are attended to with high priority.
Another method is to close off the voter's access to information that originates outside a politician's sphere of influence. This can be done by encouraging nationalist jingoism and a distrust of outside influence, by outright bans on foreign press, or in this case, by either banning or causing a transfer of ownership of a social media platform that had proven unhelpful to a past administration's intent for the media landscape. For TikTok, this was hosting middle east peace activism.
The American voter is sidelined the second their elected official is sworn in, and immediately reneges on everything they said they stood for in favor of their moneyed interests. 90% of politicians have no intent whatsoever of fixing problems, after all those problems are what got them elected.
It's obviously fine to be this cynical, but I think the particular shape your cynicism takes is incorrect^ and I also tend to think people who are overly cynical willingly reduce their ability to affect change
^ the description of campaign promises feels very 90s to me. We tend to have a lot of information about how our elected officials act. I think most of them believe more of what they're saying or advocating for (although the reasons why they believe those things are fairly widely varied)
Some people think Elizabeth Warren is pure evil incarnate, and I think she considers herself as a policy wonk who loves nuance and is trying to protect citizens from ruthless capitalist entities.
The same is more or less true on the other side (I'm not sure who the analog is exactly, but a republican Elizabeth Warren would imagine she is protecting companies and citizens from government overreach)
I agree they're different, but IMO they're on the same spectrum - "a difference in degree, not in kind". Where would you draw the line?
Bad - quietly manipulating social media recommendations for millions of Americans
...
- a chinese company launches a Netflix competitor in the US. They don't create content but they can choose which shows and movies are "recommended"
- a Chinese TV show series becomes popular in the US. They know it's popular in the US and not China. It slowly and subtly starts injecting plot points that are pro-China
...
OK - foreign news sources
This specific law draws the line at social media. That seems reasonable!
As a rough heuristic, compare advertising on social media vs on traditional tv. Note: we've actually (intentionally) reduced the effectiveness of online advertising (you can no longer target as narrowly)
Imagine being able to make sure that a very specific person receives a very specific type of propaganda. These are power tools. It is not in the United States' interest to allow foreign adversaries (countries that specifically view the relationship as adversarial) to wield them
You can be cynical. You should say the power tools shouldn't exist. But given that they do exist and given that we have a very limited amount of agreement in the US, is it better to ban TikTok? Or not? We do not get to say "don't do it because there are better approaches." This is the approach we have. It's the first time in four years the political will had almost enabled something that was genuinely better for America.
It seems that [the executive branches of] both parties are happy throwing that away though
Most geopolitical rivals already blocked US social media - Russia, Iran, China. Brazil blocked and forced X to censor opposition Brazilian politicians. It's already happening.
EU/NATO members can't outright block US social media for obvious reasons (military protection is not free). They try to do sneaky things to control social media with DSA, etc.
India/Indonesia and a few other countries are already debating banning foreign social media companies. India was the first to ban TikTok (for the same reason that US is banning TikTok now). US and India are not really rivals and US can retaliate against India if US companies are blocked so math is that it's not worth it to block for now but it can change in future.
Most other countries are not capable/do not have economy and critical number of people to have viable clone of social media. They block social media from time to time during elections, etc.
To me, this whole thing just comes across as craven and excessively politically motivated by the US government. If they were really concerned with apps (whether or not they're owned by the Chinese government) collecting and selling user data, they would pass adequate and enforceable privacy laws. Banning one specific app is addressing a symptom rather than a root cause, and any solution to an issue like this ought to apply to the entire field more broadly. I don't necessarily think that banning TikTok is a bad thing, but to do so in such an obviously politically motivated way belies a lack of concern about the underlying issue (i.e. the mass harvesting of user data).
> If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume, then they can influence the narrative of the country.
From Noah Smith:
> Second, the refusal to sell the app tells us that the Chinese government would rather see TikTok destroyed than see it fall into American hands. Notably, that same government put up little fuss back in 2020 when the U.S. forced a Chinese company to sell the gay dating app Grindr to an American company. Why shut down TikTok and leave untold billions of dollars on the table, instead of just selling the thing like Grindr was sold?
> One possibility is that it’s an attempt to make young Americans angry, in the hopes that they’ll demand that Trump and Congress repeal the 2024 law. But a simpler explanation is that Chinese leaders simply think that TikTok, unlike other apps, is so important that they would rather destroy it than see it escape their control.
> Why? Some supporters of the divestiture bill argue that TikTok will transfer Americans’ personal data to the Chinese government — something it has already admitted to doing in a few cases. Others are concerned with TikTok’s social harms. But the biggest concern is that by controlling the TikTok algorithm, the Chinese government might be able to propagandize America’s young people — and to silence Americans who say things it doesn’t like.
> In fact, there’s some pretty strong evidence that TikTok already does exactly this. Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute has produced a number of papers about TikTok’s manipulation of information to suit Chinese government desires. The standard methodology is to compare topics on TikTok to similar topics on Instagram and YouTube. The NCRI people find that content on the different platforms is broadly similar, except where China-related issues are concerned. […]
The argument seems a bit hysterical, it's not like everyone is forced to use TikTok, they can get hair tips, learn about Gaza, or get whatever views from TikTok, or Facebook, or Twitter, or Twitch or...
American's would have the freedom to choose what social media they want to consume, now they are forced to only have one controlled by a US billionaire.
the point is that US has clear and direct influence to twitter/facebook/instagram algorithms and recommendations and they can suppress one topic or another. it is not the case with tiktok, and this is primary reason for this ban
If that is the what happened, they made the best case for shutting down US owned social networks across the world. It is not a specific case of misbehaving, but the power they give to the American government that can collude with these oligarchs such as Elon Musk.
Most likely, the rationale will be similar to Huawei and Kaspersky.
Not based on actual historical misbehaviour, but rather the amount of power you’re allowing their respective governments to have over US citizens / infrastructure.
There are very few “from first principals” thinkers in the world, especially amongst TikTok’s younger audience. Most people take their beliefs from others, in the same way a llm’s output reflects its training data. If China controls the recommendation system that decides what content people consume, then they can influence the narrative of the country.
China has long banned US social media for likely the same reason.