91–100 of 116 posts
Just like last time this came up, what actual law is the executive branch accusing TikTok of breaking? I'm no fan of TikTok nor of the CCP and its asymmetric corporate warfare, but the executive branch must not be allowed to invent its own laws.
I think preventing the CCP from accessing private data of American citizens probably falls under normal statecraft actions
Duh. No reasonable adult (in any country) would go on the record to propose that a hostile foreign government should run any part of their internal communication infrastructure. It's well documented that all companies in China are beholden to the political whims of the Chinese Communist Party; when national security is at issue, Chinese companies and the Chinese government are one entity, sadly. I'm squinting skeptic…
Lots of responses about 'I only see funny comedians' or 'Tik Tok is only about dumb entertaining videos', etc.
This misses the forest through the trees. The dumb videos are the mechanism through which a foreign and often hostile world power is able to create a profile on millions of americans and learn everything about them.
All this data is fed back into other Chinese government groups and organizations which leverage it to determine how to best spread divisiveness, propaganda, misinformation and more through all the other platforms (FB, Twitter, News, etc).
The funny videos is the honey pot trap to collect all the data to create profiles, it may or may not be the primary way the Chinese government then uses that information to influence or nudge people but it informs and empowers all of that.
Also, TikTok's algorithm is specific and targeted. Just because your feed is only funny videos doesn't mean everyone else's are too. Even if everyone in your 'group' sees the same funny videos, there are many other groups that have entirely different feeds and many other variants.
This has nothing to do with free speech, no one is saying you can't say this but not that on TikTok. This is about the existence and allowance of it in the first place. Plenty of other forums for the speech.
I wonder how people would react to this issue if TikTok had come from Iran or North Korea rather than China.
The whole emergence of TikTok in the US was an almost hilariously slow moving policy crisis. We know it's nefarious, but no one has really figured out a coherent reason of why . Like, even before it really took off in the states you could read reports of this highly addictive, nefarious platform that the CCP had their fingers all over getting ready to be bottled up and shipped over to the US. So now that it's here, w…
Do we know it's nefarious? I don't think we've seen any proof or as you pointed out we would know why
TikTok is the new anodyne entertainment that is worse for youth than stale TV was for previous generations because it encourages harmful behavior. If it were only the time wasting aspect it would not be so bad --the bad part is propagating harmful behavior to unrealized adults, specifically wrong self-help information.
Every generation has its hysterics about the thing ruining the children. No matter how much you ban things, teenagers aren’t going to have the mindset of people in their 30s, but for some reason some folks just can’t see this and will keep trying over and over and over. TikTok, Rap, MTV, Rock Music, Jazz, marijuana… etc. etc. etc. are not the reason your teenager doesn’t think like you.
If we used the logic you used above, then the FDA should not function as it does today and we should allow "snakeoil" and elixirs to be marketed because, you know, people can decide for themselves. [yes I understand the loophole of "herbal medicines"]
Let teenagers publish but don't trend the things that lead to unwitting self-harm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> only real difference is that it puts control of a majority of social media young people use in the hands of a foreign power An adversary. Different discussion. National security versus public health / competition. We don't need to justify enforcement on Tik Tok against our lenience with Facebook because they're separate conversations. To my knowledge, regulators haven't raised anti-trust concerns with Tik Tok the w…
> National security what does national security mean to you? to me it means there is a threat to the safety of people living inside the borders of the united states. by that definition, how is china--let alone tiktok--a national security threat?
How China is or isn't a threat to America is a big question. That it's perceived as an adversary, almost universally, by not only the U.S. [1][2] but most of the West [3] and its neighbors, is pretty well documented. It's probably the crowning strategic failure of Xi's.
[1] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/29...
[2] https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin...
[3] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-slams-china-as-systemic-r...
The whole emergence of TikTok in the US was an almost hilariously slow moving policy crisis. We know it's nefarious, but no one has really figured out a coherent reason of why . Like, even before it really took off in the states you could read reports of this highly addictive, nefarious platform that the CCP had their fingers all over getting ready to be bottled up and shipped over to the US. So now that it's here, w…
Do we know it's nefarious? I don't think we've seen any proof or as you pointed out we would know why
it reminds me of this event: https://www.nytimes.com/1950/08/15/archives/dock-workers-ref...
personally, i don't think there will be much success whipping up a new red scare. people are too checked out. though maybe i'm just hoping.
Duh. No reasonable adult (in any country) would go on the record to propose that a hostile foreign government should run any part of their internal communication infrastructure. It's well documented that all companies in China are beholden to the political whims of the Chinese Communist Party; when national security is at issue, Chinese companies and the Chinese government are one entity, sadly. I'm squinting skeptic…
Couldn't agree more. Lots of responses about 'I only see funny comedians' or 'Tik Tok is only about dumb entertaining videos', etc. This misses the forest through the trees. The dumb videos are the mechanism through which a foreign and often hostile world power is able to create a profile on millions of americans and learn everything about them. All this data is fed back into other Chinese government groups and organ…
So you're implying that their future influence operations could be enhanced and better targeted by using profile-level viewing history on TikTok, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used FB profile data to target political advertising?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, and "espionage" is a fine answer, but that raises the question of why they haven't gone as far as explicitly saying "espionage".
I think this is a bigger problem, from the article: > Carr highlighted concerns about U.S. data flowing back to China and the risk of a state actor using TikTok to covertly influence political processes in the United States.
This is so asinine. If you ban TikTok, another one will just be created in its place.