Comment by legitster

> Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have clear direct access to [...] americans

Apparently, American users want this? Approximately 700k users have joined RedNote, a Chinese platform. It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for Americans.

> Does the US really want a (hostile?) foreign govt to have clear direct access to influence 170m americans, an entire generation - completely unfettered?

As the SCOTUS said itself:

“At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for himself or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence.” Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC

Russia illegally spent something like $100,000 on political ads. Thats basically nothing compared to aggregate political spending.

1. This was a scandal for FB, not a feature.

Cambridge Analytica had zero effect on the 2016 elections. It was the mother of all nothingburgers. I encourage all who see this comment to dig into the truth of that case.

The huge difference is that while foreign adversaries run influence networks on other social media platforms (and are opposed and combatted by those platforms) TikTok (the platform itself) is controlled by the foreign adversary (the CCP).

Americans are already quite free to seek a broad range of domestic and foreign viewpoints. Chinese citizens, on the other hand, are not. At all.

The key point here is that an algorithm can invisibly nudge those viewpoints, and a foreign adversary controls the algorithm.

Insofar as your claim is that powerful people and institutions care most about power, I agree. It’s very telling that TikTok would shutdown instead of divest. (Meanwhile, U.S. companies have routinely taken the other side of the deal in China: minority stake joint ventures in which “technology transfer” is mandated. AKA intellectual property plundering.)

> More to the point: it removes the ability of the existing American establishment to monopolise the viewpoints presented to Americans.

There is no evidence this exists.

It doesn't have to be either /or. You should be skeptical of US spy agency behavior, and still recognize the threat of Chinese influence via psyops algorithm to the United States.

Much like Google was eating the lunch of everything in China and the CCP, in response, made it essentially impossible for them to operate.

This is not new behavior between the two countries, the only thing new is the direction. US is finally waking up to the foreign soft power being exercised inside our own country, and it isn't benefiting us.

This is just a different bias on point 3, reciprocity. BYD benefits from state subsidies and state sponsored intellectual property theft on an industrial scale. See again, point 3.

That certainly plays some role in why domestic social media companies haven't stirred up resistance to the ban, but is more like #50 in terms of geopolitical strategy.

The domestic companies lost some attention share to TikTok sure, and a ban or domestic sale would generally be in their interests, but it's not like they were about to be Myspaced. They've remained among the most valued companies -- presently and in forecasts -- even while it was "eating their lunch"

I won’t say that isn’t relevant; when you’re building a coalition you don’t say no to allies. But it was a cherry on top of a well-baked pie. Not a foundational motivation.

>Meta can't make a psyop as dangerous

We should treat social media as the addictive, mind altering drug it is, and stop acting like a free market saturation of them is a good thing.

China having their more potent mind control app pointed at the brains of hundreds of millions of people is not something to celebrate.

It's not even about them:

> If, for example, a user allows TikTok access to the user’s phone contact list to connect with others on the platform, TikTok can access “any data stored in the user’s contact list,” including names, contact information, contact photos, job titles, and notes. 2 id., at 659. Access to such detailed information about U. S. users, the Government worries, may enable “China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-656_ca7d.pdf

It seems farcically ridiculous to me to ban the app because it somehow could let china blackmail CEOs.

In response, Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, 80% civilians, 70% women and children, have destroyed more than half of their buildings residential or otherwise, displaced millions, refuse aid. Disproportionate does not begin to cover it

to say it started on October 7th is beyond being misinformed or a misrepresentation.

>that the side that brutalized innocent young people

…

It looks like you are comparing a specific terrorist group to Israel as a society. Be aware that there is a large propaganda machine which uses this tactic to dehumanize Palestinians in order to justify a genocide against them.

Now if you wanted to compare atrocities—which honestly you shouldn’t—you would compare the Palestinian children that were brutalized both in the Gaza genocide, and in any one of the number of IDF incursions into Gaza and the West Bank before and after oct 7. That is compare victims to one side, to the victims of the other side.

But people generally don’t pick sides like that. They don‘t evaluate the atrocities committed by one armed group to the atrocities committed by the other and favor one over the other. And they certainly don‘t favor one civilian group over another based on the actions of their armed groups. People much more simply react to atrocities as they happen. And Israel has committed enough atrocities during the Gaza genocide that social media will be reacting—both in anger and horror—for a long time to come.

That’s not at all the same as banning the algorithm.

That limit is independent of the used algorithm.

The whole country had a shift though, they implemented gaming and entertainment regulations and video sites like bilibili went from $153 to a low of $8 a share.

I dont think tiktok app is banned because of algorithm, because bytedance created and maintains both Doyin and Tiktok.

I think it is form of compartmentalizing Internet and social networks, to keep Chinese internet and social media separate from the US.

the red book app, where tiktok refugees are flocking to right now, also want to introduce geofence and compartmentalize Chinese users and US users separately

> The actual senators that created the ban

I worked on some language in the bill for my Senator. The unifying concern—and my and their concern—was China.

I know when you have a pet war you tend to see everything through its lens, but most Americans—including electeds—couldn’t care less about what’s going on in Gaza or Ukraine.

They’re talking about the algorithm that’s used outside of China being banned in China, not TikTok being banned in the US.

> Israel is why we can’t have nice things in America.

I wouldn't say TikTok is a "nice thing" ..

This is a conspiracy theory. The banning of TikTok was discussed prior to the Hamas Israel war.

EU is always slow. They felt browser choice was an issue 0 years after it stopped being one, and then freaked out about cookies also 10 more more years later when it wasn't really an issue. Data tracking is an issue, sure. Not cookies though, not anymore.

You mean people are waking up to these atrocities and are displeased? Sounds like freedom of press to me...

I'd be interested in a source for that.

> Trust me, bro.

Are you referring to the completely scientifically-untrained "bros" who were touting ivermectin and other treatments or cures with little to no scientific evidence of efficacy?

So is Wikipedia. Otherwise Chinese people just cannot stop reading all those wiki pages about that fungi that only grow on a certain volcano in French New Guinea. How addictive!

Isn't this comment quite reductive?

There are many reasons why there are two separate apps and not necessarily related to how addictive the algorithm is. The "source" you linked gives one such reason:

> Like other social media services in China, Douyin follows the censorship rules of the Chinese Communist Party. It conscientiously removes video pertaining to topics deemed sensitive or inflammatory by the party, although it has proved a little harder than text-based social media to control.

Also have you used Douyin? It's really feels like basically the same thing.

Good points. I would welcome a discussion on ways social media (however defined) should be regulated to mitigate harms. Hopefully, that would put the perceived harms in context of other harms we regulate.

“ Gambling, alcohol, and gacha games are clearly addictive “

There are billions of casual drinkers / gamblers / gamers who do not show any sign of addiction. I’m really tired to hear the same nonsense repeated again and again. Do a pyschology study of any casino employee that spends 40 hours a week in a gaming venue, or any manufacturer of gaming devices that professionally play games 40 hours a week, and none of these employees exposed to so much gambling / drinking are addicted.

Psychology studies have not established that these items are “addictive”, because if they were, they would be banned all over the world. Nowhere in the western world are they banned, ghey are regulated for “fairness”. There are some individuals that throw the word addiction around without justification, please dont be one of them.

> doesn't work with reality TV or televised sports. Both of those are produced with a lot of human effort

Those two types of content are about the cheapest TV to produce. Per second of video produced (counting all the unpopular content), short videos might be more expensive, but the costs are very distributed.

The comparison here is a slot machine: you pay a a few to play, you pull the lever to play, you win a prize.

Here, the payment is your attention, you swipe to the next video to play the game, and the prize if you land on a good video is a small hit of dopamine.

Everyone's losing their collective mind about people watching videos on a platform not approved by our oligarchs, while there's an epidemic of people racking up gambling debt from the sudden prevalence of DraftKings and other mobile sports betting apps.

It's a variable reward dopamine hit generator.

I get you. The techies in here won't, they think it's fun to drink liquified cereal waste.

This is a vibe and I'm here for it.

> Gacha games are also being recognized as thinly veiled gambling and regulated as such.

Where are they being regulated at all?

I don't buy it either. Entire generations are growing up without expectations of digital privacy. Our data leaks everywhere, all the time, intentionally and otherwise.

I think it's more about the fact that users of platform are able to connect and share their experiences and potential action for resolving class inequality. There's an entire narrative that is outside of US govt/corp/media control, and that's a problem (to them).

What about America's role in the fentanyl issue? It's available all over Europe as well, but people still decide against it and so far it stays a very small mostly regional niche issue.

Who is we, though? I can't do anything about it. Can you?

The people who can do something about it are the people who are already in power in the US. They understandably don't want to share with the CCP, but most of them came to power by manipulating enough voters into voting for them. They stay in power by ensuring that enough voters continue to want to vote for them. Which means that someone like Zuckerberg or Musk has an insanely inordinate amount of influence over whether these people who are in power stay in power.

Yes, I think it's marginally better that that influence remain out of the hands of the CCP, but I would rather that that influence not exist at all. It's too dangerous and too prone to corruption.

>Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their propaganda

But they're about to have all three branches of government to back it up.

> Because if Zuck or Musk does something bad with said power, we can do something about it.

We can? Like what? What's the chance of that happening?

> Zuck and Musk don't have armies to back up their propaganda.

I'd like to note the seating arrangements published for the upcoming presidentia inauguration ceremony.

So what you're saying is, freedom of speech doesn't really work?

Zuck and Musk already have done bad things with their power, and continue to do so. No real consequences so far.

Well, Nigeria is or can be controlled by the USA. China is an independent country.

If it was owned by a Nigerian tomorrow and kept the same CEO, board, employees and algorithm, do you honestly think it wouldn't immediately be banned again?

Just on Facebook I can see what all of my old high school friends are up to. I can instantly send anyone a message. I can find things buy that people are selling. I have a community of people who are into the same obscure hobby. That's just off the top of my head.

even harder is finding a payment system that is not US-based and broadly accepted (no, not crypto).

I do have some hopes for a digital euro and, maybe, maybe, even Wero. But i fear it will never take off because too many players are involved and there is no clear marketing strategy to get it to people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)

The is a completely legitimate and not uncommon viewpoint. But is it relevant in the context of this thread?

> The hard part is de-googling.

But it's worth the effort.

This may in some ways be technically correct, but it is also true that in a democracy, the elite make decisions with the support of the people through manufactured consent. This process involves the manipulation of the populace through mass media, to intentionally misinform and influence them.

One could take the position that this process is so flawed as to be illegitimate. In this case it would be a valid position to believe that society had not fairly decided these things, and they were instead decided by a certain class of people and pushed on to the rest of us.

See: A Propaganda Model, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky: https://chomsky.info/consent01/

100% agreed, unfortunately. There is truth in sayings like "the customer doesn't know what's best for them"... I think because they are often simply not informed or intelligent enough.

These bans done for political purposes toward public consent for genocide (ie see ADL/AIPAC's "We have a big TikTok problem" leaked audio, and members of our own congress stating that this is what motivates the regulations) won't lead to greater freedoms over algorithms. It is the opposite direction - more state control over which algorithms its citizens are allowed to see

The mental health angle of support for the bans is a way the change gets accepted by the public, which posters here are doing free work toward generating, not a motivating goal or direction for these or next regulations

While data privacy laws would be good, I don’t see how it would help with TikTok since they have no reason to actually follow the laws when CCP comes calling.

Many other platforms have been used for that for even longer, and none of them are in danger of being banned. I don't think this is the real reason, if there is even a singular reason.

Why would it be sold at a deep discount?

About 45% of the US population uses TikTok and 63% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using TikTok, with 57% of them using the app daily

Hell of a product, there would be a crazy bidding war for that kind of engagement

I don't know about Shorts but Instagram has solved the addiction problem by ignoring signals like the user tapping "not interested" or scrolling past videos quickly. They just show junk.

They copied TikTok.

I am a customer. I eat tomatoes. I choose which tomatoes to buy on my personal preferences.

Unlike in America where... they say it's a national security threat and vote to remove it?