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As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

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Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#91
post #45
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the US and PRC are equally authoritarian" isn't particularly compelling either

Indeed, abortion is legal in China[1], the last time a police officer killed someone was in 2019[2] and their incarceration rate is 5x lower[3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_China [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

It's ironic you even mention abortion, given that abortions were forced to maintain the one child policy until 2015, and then 3 child policy until 2021. Is not the government's absolute power to control family size the most blaring example of authoritarianism?

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#92
post #60
post #28

85% of US teenagers use tiktok. That's 85% of the future generation of US senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, of police chiefs, civil rights activists, mayors, CEOs, etc. in their bedrooms right now consuming content curated by, and filming their lives and that of their friends, and uploading the video to data centers, that are controlled by a strategic adversary of the United States. This is, to p…

This might sound like a fallacious argument; but do you think the same about Europeans who consume almost exclusively US media and interact almost exclusively with US social media platforms? The US (famously) does not have Allies, only temporary allegiances. If you're discussing ties to government, Twitter and Facebook have members on their boards publicly who are sitting and/or former members of government including…

The US interference and surveillance in the EU is well-documented and at a massive scale. The Chinese ditto is much smaller though the media attention much bigger.

Hopefully non-US tech finally will lead to reasonable regulation: Storage of citizen's data on national ground and protection against arbitrary surveillance by foreign governments whether perceived friend or for.

Unfortunately the push to simply ban anything Chinese is strong as it has massive commercial interest of old US-tech (Facebook, Google) behind it. But it is not in our (Europeans) interest and I hope our politicians can resist.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#93

I am really annoyed at how we (EU) and the US treat chinese companies and citizens. We (europeans and americans) cant do really anything in China, we have essentially no rights and cant really conduct business. Unlike chinese who are pretty much granted all of that when they want to immigrate or conduct business in EU/US.

That arrangement seems to be almost entirely to the benefit of the EU/US, as there's little incentive for bright/ motivated Europeans or Americans to move to China, vs significant incentive in the opposite direction.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#94
post #34

Eventually something China made had to stick, surprising it took this long really.

A lot of the other Chinese apps were clones. TikTock was a novel improvement to the crap of Twitter and Facebook, etc. And it's algo is(was?) very "good"

I would put TikTok in a different category than Twitter/Facebook. I see it as an improvement of Vine.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#95
post #60
post #28

85% of US teenagers use tiktok. That's 85% of the future generation of US senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, of police chiefs, civil rights activists, mayors, CEOs, etc. in their bedrooms right now consuming content curated by, and filming their lives and that of their friends, and uploading the video to data centers, that are controlled by a strategic adversary of the United States. This is, to p…

This might sound like a fallacious argument; but do you think the same about Europeans who consume almost exclusively US media and interact almost exclusively with US social media platforms? The US (famously) does not have Allies, only temporary allegiances. If you're discussing ties to government, Twitter and Facebook have members on their boards publicly who are sitting and/or former members of government including…

Not the person you are asking, but I think I have a point that can help shed some light on the matter. I'm going to be speaking from the Canadian side of things, and so I'll be saying 'We' a lot due to the US and Canada tending to trade alike in a lot of ways AFAIK.

Ultimately, it all boils down to known trajectories. The EU and other places in the general area such as the UK, are all known to have histories of their own no doubt. Not just good histories, but bad as well. We trade with Germany, despite WWII. We trade with middle eastern countries, despite having many beliefs and ideologies and laws that are not exactly loved by all to put it lightly. We trade with even out economic adversaries because why not. Cheap labor, etc.

In all of these cases where we trade with any one of these places that someone could make some argument or another that they would be undesirable trade partners for; the future trajectory of that nation is what is the key point of where the decision is based off of to keep trading, or go with sanctions, etc and so forth.

The key to understanding this as I do, is the basis of Canada still trading with China when USA decides not to, or to restrict trade, etc and so forth. This is because our government for the past while now has decided that they wanted to help China get out of its economic slump from the past decades. And so of course since America tends to be a bit hawkish around working with communism in any form, while Canada has more socialist roots established; we tend to be more willing to work with such nations than America tends to. (And this absolutely sometimes pisses them off, government wise so to speak. And the nationalist types...)

Now in the past, most of this would have been water under the bridge, and nothing to be concerned about. Trade is trade, nothing more, nothing less; usually.

But with the advent of all of this digital revolution we are going through, and politics being stuck into everything that has a usable screen; the end result is stuff like this where countries with histories of X thing that Y government doesn't like automatically get extra scrutinized.

Especially when those countries have active militaries that support that kind of regime in said country. Doubly so when that country is in support of those militaries. One might say militia instead, but I fail to see the difference once they own navy vessels. I think this should be a fair opinion on the matter.

Anyways, right or wrong on the military/militia part as I may be, the end point is that we are seeing a rise in more extreme behavior in that country, in this case China and Russia lately; and so it only makes sense to be even more scrutinizing of anything to do with them.

Literally anything, since again; politics is in everything now.

Even us in Canada are starting to pull back from China, even though we are doing it at a slower rate. Our government is trying very hard to basically only enact these kinds of retracting changes only when it is going to hurt their future election outlook the least; or hurts their opponents outlook the most.

As for an example of this in action; Huawei 5G networks are effectively banned in Canada now. It took a while to come into fruition, but it finally happened. Whether or not they were right or wrong to do so is not my hill to fight on right now, but it is a great example of them biding their time til the last moment.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#96
post #2

excellent article, surprisingly nuanced and - I think - fair in its analysis. The main fear is not that it is a foreign owned app - after all, most people in the countries all over the world are using foreign owned (US) apps - it is because it is the first non-US app used by US citizens which unnerves both the US government and US commentariat. Whether those fears are justified or not, I suspect US will follow the Ch…

I hope that the US doesn’t ban TikTok. That would be a very bad outcome for the concept of an open internet. I do think more regulation are likely in order. There are some very good arguments for not letting children under a certain age to be allowed on the social media platforms. However, the enforcement of those laws is spotty and is left to parental controls. What we need is an outbreak of social media literacy am…

Is that not already technically the case? It certainly is/was in the UK. And I assure you everyone was using whatever they wanted, including e.g. eBay which probably has more stringently regulated rules.

It's a lot easier to lie about your age on a Facebook sign-up form than to buy drugs or alcohol, and teens will find a way to do the latter if they want to.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#97
post #28

85% of US teenagers use tiktok. That's 85% of the future generation of US senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, of police chiefs, civil rights activists, mayors, CEOs, etc. in their bedrooms right now consuming content curated by, and filming their lives and that of their friends, and uploading the video to data centers, that are controlled by a strategic adversary of the United States. This is, to p…

The data centers are running on Oracle cloud - which last I checked was a 100% US company, your entire argument is moot.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#98
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for reposting copies of original content?

Most of the content I get is original. The reality is, Facebook is where content goes to die.

How can you possibly know that?

I'm not even saying it isn't, I just think it's basically unknowable.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#99
post #60
post #28

85% of US teenagers use tiktok. That's 85% of the future generation of US senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, of police chiefs, civil rights activists, mayors, CEOs, etc. in their bedrooms right now consuming content curated by, and filming their lives and that of their friends, and uploading the video to data centers, that are controlled by a strategic adversary of the United States. This is, to p…

This might sound like a fallacious argument; but do you think the same about Europeans who consume almost exclusively US media and interact almost exclusively with US social media platforms? The US (famously) does not have Allies, only temporary allegiances. If you're discussing ties to government, Twitter and Facebook have members on their boards publicly who are sitting and/or former members of government including…

The Chinese government owns all of its businesses. In the US/EU, businesses are independently owned by private individuals.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#100
post #28

85% of US teenagers use tiktok. That's 85% of the future generation of US senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices, of police chiefs, civil rights activists, mayors, CEOs, etc. in their bedrooms right now consuming content curated by, and filming their lives and that of their friends, and uploading the video to data centers, that are controlled by a strategic adversary of the United States. This is, to p…

Or it will be the 15% that takes those positions while the 85% stay glued to TikTok…
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