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India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

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Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#681

Post by GuiA »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #675
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

Honestly, I don't see the difference between TikTok and other social media apps and the old media. Why not ban Hollywood, the Beatles, and McDonald's then? Aren't they a source of pernicious American influence on this generation's youth?

> Aren't they a source of pernicious American influence on this generation's youth?

Many countries have broadcast laws around a maximum amount of foreign programming (for one example amongst many, private French radios have to play French music for at least 40% of their programming).

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#682

Post by wolco »

simple_phrases wrote: post #632
dsabanin wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that it’s just not as popular as one might think?

Instead of trying to derive the reason for the suppression of LGBT content on YouTube from first principles or hunches, maybe you should dig into the evidence first. https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/6/4/17424472/yout... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/14/youtube... https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-...

In that last story did the suit go anywhere? It was 2017.

The washingtonpost story can be proven false. Whenever I add the word lesbian to a video title traffic goes up 4x the average.

The everage article was interesting. Keywords trans or transgender could put the video into a more mature sexualized context. Most searches with that term probably have a mature/porn intent. It's one of the more popular sexual preferences by keyword search volume so the context of other words matter more.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#683

Post by creato »

HenryBemis wrote: post #512
xmprt wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube's algorithm suppresses LGBTQ content more than usual which is something that most people agree shouldn't be suppressed. At the same time, I don't think it's because advertisers want to suppress the content. I just think it's a bug with YouTube's algorithm.

> YouTube's algorithm suppresses LGBTQ content more than usual Similar story with Tumblr. I had been using Tumblr for a good many years, for non-pornographic use/material (I shoot landscapes and buildings, and I liked the way I could post/group my photos). It pissed me off though when they (Tumblr) clamped down on sexual content, because it really hurt the LGBTQIA+ communities. A similar clamp down on Pinterest also…

I don't get how you can come so close to hitting the nail on the head and still miss it?

Content that is specifically about LGBT issues is almost always going to involve sexuality at some point or another. Advertisers are skittish about their ads running next to such content. Tumblr wanted to become more attractive to advertisers, so they clamped down on sexual content. By clamping down on sexual content, they also incidentally clamped down on LGBT content. They probably also clamped down on people talking about straight sexuality as well, but that doesn't raise censorship alarms because the explanation for "censorship" is just plain typical American prudishness that is generally accepted.

This is almost certainly the same dynamic at play on youtube.

You can call this a "conservative agenda" if you want, but IMHO you are twisting the debate to frame it as a political wedge issue when it really isn't.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#684

Post by [deleted] »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #675
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

Honestly, I don't see the difference between TikTok and other social media apps and the old media. Why not ban Hollywood, the Beatles, and McDonald's then? Aren't they a source of pernicious American influence on this generation's youth?

[deleted]

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#685

Post by [deleted] »

kilroy_jones wrote: post #595
tshaddox wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government propaganda. Those people would be even more shocked by the extent to which this is true in the western world as well.

Not even remotely true. The West has myriad choices to choose from in comparison. I don't think you understand how in sync the media is there. They'll literally run identical stories at the same time on every major network, and publish the same set of stories in their papers day after day.

[deleted]

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#686

Post by zkid18 »

saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

All RS algorithms follows non-trivial logic based on the user’s feedback. They constantly adapt and upgraded. You can add some fuzzy-rules based on your moderation principles — remove porn, videos about flat earth, abusive content, and etc. But the core algorithm hard for interpreting.

Letting government step into this space creates an alternative form of censorship. I would rather ask all content platforms for transparent open-sourced moderation rules.

At the meantime, TikTok has a remarkable traction that put in a row of the greatest product of the decade. Previously ByteDance tried to move HQ away from China, but I now I guess they might even consider selling their product.

I guess it is more political decision rather than Indian government really cares about data security. Seems that US and specifically Facebook become the absolute winner in India.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#687

Post by kinghtown »

ianleeclark wrote: post #161
saltedonion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good point. But TikTok is much more risky, and as as such requires much more scrutiny given existing body of knowledge between how chinese social media / chat companies such as WeChat enforce government censorship and aid in propagating misinformation. This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government p…

> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately No, I get this, but here's the thing: YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of. There are material consequences if YouTube doesn't keep in line. What this means is that a status quo that pleases advertisers will be maintained. It's every bit propaganda as dropping leaflets, but you can't…

The difference is that in Canada, I’m Canadian, I can say practically anything I want about the government and nothing bad would happen to me. If I were to be crazy and slander Trudeau calling him a pedophile or something I’d be ostracized socially by many people but I wouldn’t end up in jail. If you really want to test equivalencies I challenge you to fly to Beijing and accuse Xi Jinping of that in public and that would be the last anyone would see of you. The police would probably plant drugs on you and put you in a hole.

And in Canada, corporations are not exactly actors which perform rigid functions outlined by the government.. the liberals, who are currently in power, don’t have party members sitting at the top of companies whose function is to literally oversee compliance to liberal propaganda.

China isn’t quite as bad as western media makes them out to be, I’d argue that in many ways they have been improving and loosening up, but it’s silly to pretend that YouTube is no different than TikTok or that Amazon is no different than Alibaba.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#688

Post by guerrilla »

BobbyJo wrote: post #656
kanox wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument can be used to ban all foreign press. It's nonsense, but unfortunately common in 2020.

Please tell me how that argument could be applied to the UK's press, or Canada's, or any country in the EU's, or Australia's...

What part are you missing? The hostile part? The EU and US are still in a trade war, a conflict over Nord Stream 2 as well as over Iranian sanctions in case you forgot. [1]

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/trump-ouster-will-not-heal-us-ties-say...

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#689

Post by YarickR2 »

airstrike wrote: post #674
xwolfi wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you forget a detail. Nation state, or any state, are sovereign. If the national community agrees on something, it's all that matter. We don't have to abide by other countries standards on everything especially if we dont like it. Im thinking as a French I had to fight a lot with free speech absolutists abroad, while at home we're quite okay with selective censorship... it sounds scary to an American sometimes…

> Im thinking as a French I had to fight a lot with free speech absolutists abroad, while at home we're quite okay with selective censorship... it sounds scary to an American sometimes, but hell we dont care :D I'm not surprised you're being downvoted as I've tried to make this point with American friends before and gotten the same reaction 10/10 times. To use a very topical example: in other jurisdictions outside of…

Oh. But can I think about something illegal ? Can I write something illegal down on paper ? Say something illegal quietly ? Can I say something illegal loudly in the middle of the forest ? Saying something is just a way to make your thoughts known by others. Thought police, and thought crime are just a tear drop away, it seems.

Re: India bans TikTok, WeChat, and dozens of other Chinese apps

#690

Post by 29athrowaway »

29athrowaway wrote: post #606
saltedonion wrote: post #42

India is absolutely right in banning TikTok as it is a significant national securities threat. As long as the platforms recommendation and ranking algos are a black box, there is no guarantee that China isn’t conducting misinformation campaigns via the platform. At the very least, the government should audit the algos and make sure China can’t arbitrarily alter ranking results.

A reddit user reverse engineered Tiktok and listed some of the information they collect and the extent to which they go to obfuscate their data exfiltration. https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news... See the top comment as the video has now been removed from YouTube.

^ Someone just posted this link and got 100 points. I got downvoted. Feels bad man.
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