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Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

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Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#241

Post by lostmsu »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #169
rglover wrote: post #109

Tangentially related. A friend of mine's wife is a paramedic/firefighter and I always ask her about crazy stories from when she's on duty. This past weekend, she told me about one where a teenager saw a challenge/trend on TikTok to report a fake fire. She said they showed up with multiple fire engines, ambulances, and a squad car to no fire. The girl who called it in just said she saw it as a trend on TikTok and want…

> it's a covert foreign state attack—ideological subversion—by the CCP Have you actually used TikTok? I've heard this claim several times but I'm just not seeing it in my feed.

You might as well be right and TikTok could just be ByteDance's Facebook, only reason for it being separated from its Chinese version is the desire to capture market with content which China would ban otherwise.

However, as a user of VK, I can tell you it went totalitarian rather quickly after the Russian government decided it is time to exercise its power as the indirect owner of the company.

Hell, even Yandex, formerly famous search engine was forced to sell user facing bits out when puilo ramped up repressions. Can you imagine having a search engine like Google where the side news feed were forced to be sold and now belongs to a separate company wholly owned by pro-government or state entities, and they still had to continue showing it exactly where it were on their search page?

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#242

Post by mkoryak »

I am not under 30 by a decade.

I installed tiktok and it was all videos of people getting gross ear wax out and popping giant zits. Maybe I swiped the wrong way or something.

This is not digital fentanyl, its more like digital Ipecac syrup.

I uninstalled tiktok

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#243

Post by three_seagrass »

elmomle wrote: post #24
mrtksn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is known for involvement in the policies of other nations and even organising coups etc. With documented access of the American government into the American tech giants, I don't have reason to believe that Instagram is any different than TikTok. What makes you think that CIA didn't infiltrate Meta or made a deal to manipulate political situation in its friends and foes? What makes you believe that they won't w…

Yes, and the CCP has banned Instagram and Facebook because they understand that those are ultimately tools for subtly shaping mass opinion, regardless of whether it's clear that they're used for that purpose. Why would the US not do the same with TikTok?

Facebook and Instagram were banned because they wouldn't obey China's censorship and surveillance laws, not because they were western tools of influence or whatever.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#244

Post by tedunangst »

rglover wrote: post #109

Tangentially related. A friend of mine's wife is a paramedic/firefighter and I always ask her about crazy stories from when she's on duty. This past weekend, she told me about one where a teenager saw a challenge/trend on TikTok to report a fake fire. She said they showed up with multiple fire engines, ambulances, and a squad car to no fire. The girl who called it in just said she saw it as a trend on TikTok and want…

How many tide pods did the girl eat?

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#245

Post by AlexandrB »

hereme888 wrote: post #207
mikrl wrote: post #171

Technical and security issues aside, I wonder how the users are going to take it. My generation (1992) didn’t have a major cultural phenomenon being attacked in this way, though there was still the moral panic around things like social media and research chems. The closest comparison I can draw is the crackdown on raves which affected western Gen X youth, but TikTok is more pervasive and more heterogeneous as a form…

The "attack" is equivalent of trying to rescue opioid addicts from heroin. Or like you said, cracking down on raves (because we all know what really fuels and motivates those parties. I hope more ethical companies take over the void. In fact, I see YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in a position to fill the void since they've introduced "shorts" and some things similar to tik tok.

There are no ethical companies in the social media space - they're all trying to maximize engagement and manipulate you for economic gain. This is more like telling opioid addicts: "don't take that Chinese heroin, use our home-grown stuff instead".

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#246

Post by _michaelll »

hereme888 wrote: post #207
mikrl wrote: post #171

Technical and security issues aside, I wonder how the users are going to take it. My generation (1992) didn’t have a major cultural phenomenon being attacked in this way, though there was still the moral panic around things like social media and research chems. The closest comparison I can draw is the crackdown on raves which affected western Gen X youth, but TikTok is more pervasive and more heterogeneous as a form…

The "attack" is equivalent of trying to rescue opioid addicts from heroin. Or like you said, cracking down on raves (because we all know what really fuels and motivates those parties. I hope more ethical companies take over the void. In fact, I see YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in a position to fill the void since they've introduced "shorts" and some things similar to tik tok.

> more ethical companies... YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter

What do you use as the measurement for more ethical in this case? I see the companies you mentioned completely equivalent(all pretty bad) in terms of making choices that are best for our shared society.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#247

Post by three_seagrass »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
throwaway4good wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok already stores its data in the US and gives the US authorities full access to it.

> TikTok already stores its data in the US and gives the US authorities full access to it A courtesy also extended to Beijing [1]. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...

Did you read the article? ByteDance's headquarters is in Beijing and these leaked audio tapes are talking about engineers in the headquarters logging into U.S. servers.

This isn't some smoking gun about CCP surveillance, but more about how the sausage is made for a global app.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#248

Post by spiderice »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #140
rayiner wrote: post #100

I don’t understand the bi-partisan dislike of Tik Tok. As far as content goes, it’s pretty wholesome compared to what you see on movies and TV these days. It’s much better at giving kids age appropriate content than other sites. There is also a lot less commercialized stuff. Way better than cartoons that peddle toys and junk.

When I first signed up for TikTok it showed me stuff to figure out what I would like. It showed me some of the most racist humor I'd heard since I was a boy in the deep south. If I'd liked it, it would have shown me more and more and more of it. As it is, I don't see it now because the algo feeds me stuff I actually like. I do think there's a content problem on TikTok, but I think it's hidden away from the people who…

I don't see the problem you're trying to allude to. Sounds like the algorithm worked as intended. TikTok quickly learned what you like and stopped showing you stuff you didn't.

Unless you're implying (not saying you are, just asking for clarification) that we should limit free speech based on words you (or some government official) find objectionable. Isn't that what China already does and what the US wants to avoid?

Should Andrew Shulz be banned because a lot of his jokes are racial? I'm guessing you'd be offended by a number of them, but I don't think that means Netflix/Youtube have a "content problem".

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#249

Post by defen »

rayiner wrote: post #100

I don’t understand the bi-partisan dislike of Tik Tok. As far as content goes, it’s pretty wholesome compared to what you see on movies and TV these days. It’s much better at giving kids age appropriate content than other sites. There is also a lot less commercialized stuff. Way better than cartoons that peddle toys and junk.

There's nothing necessarily inherently wrong with TikTok, we as a society just aren't ready for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Street_and_Gin_Lane

I'm sure some people can use TikTok responsibly but many can't. I also wouldn't want a foreign government (any foreign government) to have such a powerful psyop tool under their control. The extremely rapid feedback loops allow beliefs to coalesce so quickly that I imagine many people will get stuck in harmful local minima.

Re: Bipartisan Legislation to Ban TikTok

#250

Post by wavesounds »

mikrl wrote: post #171

Technical and security issues aside, I wonder how the users are going to take it. My generation (1992) didn’t have a major cultural phenomenon being attacked in this way, though there was still the moral panic around things like social media and research chems. The closest comparison I can draw is the crackdown on raves which affected western Gen X youth, but TikTok is more pervasive and more heterogeneous as a form…

Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram already provide alternatives that are nearly identical in functionality.
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