The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns • Hacker News Board

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#331

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

The Chinese government is hilariously bad at foreign propaganda. Seriously, just look at any of their official media channels. The US has a million times more experience in this business - it has Hollywood, it funds thousands of "non-governmental organizations" all over the world, it knows how to advertise.

The people who are worried that 15-second videos on TikTok are somehow part of a long-term plan by the Chinese government to subtly change Americans' opinions are giving the Chinese government far too much credit.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#332

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #192

thesuitonym wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your response to the Great Firewall being bad is to... implement one of our own?

I see a sharp difference between preventing Chinese IP addresses from accessing whatever they would like, and allowing Chinese corporations to profit from the West's liberty while denying it to their subjects. So, no, that is not my response at all. There is no technology involved in kicking these corporations out of the civilized world, just political will.

That's because there is one.

> preventing Chinese IP addresses from accessing whatever they would like

is a technical thing that you can do with computers, and

> allowing Chinese corporations to profit from the West's liberty while denying it to their subjects.

is nationalistic nonsense that lacks any reference to anything material.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#333

Post by gravitate » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

How does watching fail videos and memes radicalize people and make them politically polarized? Would it not be obvious to TikTokers that they are being manipulated in some way, even subtly? If I want to control narratives and shape opinion, TV is how I would do it. Fox News is basically a propaganda machine, and isn't questioned, because, hey, 'merica.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#334

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:52 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #286

shkkmo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese government owns tiktok Only figuratively in the hacker/gamer sense. TikTok is owned by ByteSense. The "TikTok can be used to spy on americans" is much like "Russians interfered in our elections". Both are true, both are legitimately very concerning, but both are also things that the USA has been doing for decades with minimal domestic outcry. So implicit in our attempts to reign in other countries behav…

>Only figuratively in the hacker/gamer sense. TikTok is owned by ByteSense. No, in the very literal sense that Bytedance has a board of directors, and on that board is a CCP member who has the real final say on everything the company does. When you are a business in China, you defacto work for the government. China isn't America with a red flag, it's a fundamentally different system. Too many people think they know C…

> No, in the very literal sense that Bytedance has a board of directors, and on that board is a CCP member who has the real final say on everything the company does. When you are a business in China, you defacto work for the government.

Would you say the same thing if they employed CIA and NSA people in executive positions, and had ex-generals and ex-spooks on the board?

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#335

Post by UberFly » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

gravitate wrote: post #333

How does watching fail videos and memes radicalize people and make them politically polarized? Would it not be obvious to TikTokers that they are being manipulated in some way, even subtly? If I want to control narratives and shape opinion, TV is how I would do it. Fox News is basically a propaganda machine, and isn't questioned, because, hey, 'merica.

Maybe you should just read the NPR article.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#336

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #200

max51 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like the chinese government, why do you want yours to imitate them?!

In this thread: people who don't understand the value of free trade agreements. We should just open up everything and hope everyone plays fair!

"Free trade agreement" is a propaganda term for "trade agreement." It doesn't have a separate definition.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#337

Post by kube-system » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #331

The Chinese government is hilariously bad at foreign propaganda. Seriously, just look at any of their official media channels. The US has a million times more experience in this business - it has Hollywood, it funds thousands of "non-governmental organizations" all over the world, it knows how to advertise. The people who are worried that 15-second videos on TikTok are somehow part of a long-term plan by the Chinese…

Or is it genius? If your content sucks, let others generate it, measure traction, then influence what voices you want heard.

Now, it likely wasn’t planned out this way, but the benefits to manipulation now are obvious.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#338

Post by ibejoeb » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

plgonzalezrx8 wrote: post #84

hnrodey wrote: post #65

Trump: TikTok is a national security threat! America: XENOPHOBE! Biden: TikTok is a national security threat. America: SHUT IT DOWN!

Call me whatever you want, but Trump had a LOT of things right. He was just massively inarticulate and his persona made it easy for people to disagree with him. But yeah, he tried to shut it down and the democrats just reverted everything just to say they reverted something trump did. This report is nothing new and it has been known for a long time. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-reverses-...

Collective madness. Also, it's hysterical that there are literally bleach-drinking challenges on TikTok.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#339

Post by yamazakiwi » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

somedude895 wrote: post #46

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their strategy is more insidious than that. Chinese social media inside China is actively directing youth towards vigorous / productive / pedagogical endeavours, whereas ticktock outside China heavily promotes pointless endless innane naval gazing such as pranking, gaming, influencers etc. They seek to create a generation of feckless know nothings in The West.

> ticktock outside China heavily promotes pointless endless innane naval gazing such as pranking, gaming, influencers etc. Have you ever seen the type of content that's popular on Instagram and Youtube? The CCP doesn't need some "insidious plan" to push that to the top.

"Hey guys, it's Mr. Beast about to fight Jake Paul in a boxing ring made of ferraris!"

The YT Algorithm is much more spammy when it comes to influencer content that I never click on.

Whereas my Tiktok is chock full of interesting art, design, music, and programming.

Re: The FBI alleges TikTok poses national security concerns

#340

Post by spookie » Fri, Nov 18, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #301

ZainRiz wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the first paragraph of the article, the primary concern mentioned is not surveillance, it's influencing the American public in ways that benefits China and harms the US. Psy-ops effectively Here's a segment by 60 Minutes explaining how they show their own citizens educational, beneficial content inspiring them to be better citizens, while the rest of the world gets the degenerative content we usually asso…

Don't know why you're being downvoted without explanation, this is absolutely the case, among others. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33657429

The bots be crazy, y'know?

But in all honesty, I have noticed among fellow colleagues that this is the case. Even outside of the country, you can tell that people are afraid to speak about politics.

I would be too.