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As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

economist.com

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Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#181

Post by [deleted] »

dijit wrote: post #60
crmd wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#182

Post by galaktus »

crmd wrote: 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…

> That's 85% of the future generation of US senators [...]

That is false. Many young people who are material for such position, don't care about tiktok.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#183

Post by aparticulate »

8bitsrule wrote: post #174

> Users’ ... viewing could be moulded by Chinese propagandists. Not a problem during the decades of Voice of America broadcasts, of course.

Strawpoll literally any sample of people in the world if they've heard of VoA, indeed, have ever listened to the radio. Now do the same for TikTok…

You could maybe make a better case for something like Western cultural exports like music and movies. e.g. Like The Beatles with impressive centralised data gathering. Marvel movies, but more addictive.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#184

Post by nonrandomstring »

crmd wrote: 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…

> huge national security risk

National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, no more or less.

The distortion occurs when "national security" becomes the interests of a business elite, or a political party, or the job security of the security services themselves. We lose focus about what "security" really is.

I agree with your point (as I understand it), but to my knowledge there isn't and never has been a division of national apparatus dedicated to defence of culture, national values, and the sanity of our children from insidious foreign propaganda. And as for direct counter-propaganda we are not allowed to direct psyops internally, at least not with a taxpayer's dollar.

The "disappearance of the perimeter", as understood through the lens of the Huawei debacle is an example of how fast this has materialised and ambushed us in the social media age. But to be honest, I see the same problems with Facebook or US companies filtering and amplifying values.

There isn't an easy answer. There are not enough human resources. There is very little common agreement. Nobody wants to open that can of worms. Doing so would mean going up against powerful businesses and I don't think the IC has the stomach for it or can adapt to the changing threats fast enough.

So we just keep pretending "national security" is limited to industrial espionage by the Chinese or hacking by the Russians and so on.

That's why I think individual Digital Self Defence via education is the only option. It needs baking into the curriculum for age 6 upwards.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#185

Post by ipython »

throwaway4good wrote: post #92
dijit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anythi…

> 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.

Citation needed.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#186

Post by [deleted] »

voisin wrote: post #58
mantas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US social media amplifies human nature which isn't pretty. Meanwhile CCP's love to building facades of utopias produces this... Utopias are nice till you step out of line and it becomes dystopia, eh?

> US social media amplifies human nature which isn't pretty. If you only consume western media and social networks, this is certainly the conclusion you are led to. But if you observe your surroundings with your own eyes, my experience is that there is a stark contrast with the above quote. I have travelled continuously all over the west for the last five years and I have found people to be kind, generous, and friend…

[deleted]

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#187

Post by stjohnswarts »

Hard to believe that the US government just doesn't cut them off unless they sever all ties with China. Again Trump was a garbage President and dumpster fire of a human being, but he definitely got that right. It's a national security matter at this point.

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#188

Post by stjohnswarts »

ectopod wrote: post #21

China passed a law a couple of years ago requiring all Chinese companies to give the government live access to their databases. Is TikTok exempt? If not, statements that the government hasn't requested any data are misleading. They don't need to.

The FCC commissioner just point out there is no firewall between Chinese engineers from rifling through and copying all the data from the “USA based” servers. It defies belief that anyone thinks that the CCP isn't doing exactly that lol and building up dossiers on every TikTok member. For example just find all the MAGA leaning people and try to convert them over to CCP terrorist cells. I mean I'm not a CIA analyst, but this is global espionage 101

Re: As TikTok grows, so does suspicion

#189

Post by joeman1000 »

It’s a subversive platform. It quickly profiles someone and begins serving them mind-altering content. Content which will change someone’s perception, behaviour and world-view. Part of its power is our new belief in the transcendental nature of ‘the algorithm’. People believe they ‘should’ be viewing the content that TikTok serves to them, so the messages in the content are more potent.

When you put this limbic weapon in the hands of a communist regime, incredibly bad things will happen. Facebook at least had some backlash over manipulating their users mood using their platform. It’s not hard to imagine China attempting some fairly subversive things with TikTok. I would never sign up for it.

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