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A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

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Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#71
post #62

Let me rephrase this as what will probably happen: the TikTok ban will be barely felt and will likely add to the American Economy as competitors that aren't tied to China appear. And if TikTok can't be perfectly emulated, it will actually increase the productivity of Americans who are now being held captive by a foreign-controlled algorithm which is fine-tuned to exploit physiological weaknesses.

> the TikTok ban will be barely felt

Banning TikTok will cause an entire generation of Americans to lose all trust in their institutions. Whatever vanishingly small influence China may or may not have through TikTok---still completely unproven innuendo---pales compared to the absolute public relations coup that would win were it banned. If you think cynicism is bad now, there will be zero trust in the democratic process and the rules-based order were this to happen.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They certainly won't disappear overnight. In fact, they will be very, very upset with those that took their platform away. Millions of upset people, and, if you're worried about the CCP, well, they'll have plenty of time to tell those millions of very upset people anything they'd like. So really on either end of this, well, you have potentially bad outcomes. What's worse, people watching cat dance videos, or, people…

Every US publicly traded company of course has to kowtow [0] to the US national agenda. How else could it work? The cold war with China is here to stay. Trump started it, Biden continued it, and now it's on the agenda for good. China is openly striving to supplant the US as the premier power. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowtow [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-26/xi-s-vow-...

> Trump started it

It was the OPM breach [0] and the brutal eradication of the CIA network within China [1] that tipped the scales

Mutual US-China espionage has been common for decades, but these two actions were a step too far.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme...

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932012_killing_of...

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the CCP can dish it out but can’t take it. Until the CCP decides to allow a level playing field for US companies operating in China they can go pound sand as far as I’m concerned.

Not sure how this is "dishing it out and not taking it". They intend to "take it"; they will force Bytedance not to sell, and thereby lose its US business with no compensation.

Whether they want to sell or not is moot. As far as I’m concerned we should offer the following options to any business with ties to the CCP:

Divest completely, sell it to a US based company, or exit the company from US markets.

They are not our ally.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#75
post #67
post #62

Let me rephrase this as what will probably happen: the TikTok ban will be barely felt and will likely add to the American Economy as competitors that aren't tied to China appear. And if TikTok can't be perfectly emulated, it will actually increase the productivity of Americans who are now being held captive by a foreign-controlled algorithm which is fine-tuned to exploit physiological weaknesses.

Why does HN and other Tech elitists treat creator/influencers with disdain that they don't show the same sympathy as they would to other professions?. This is akin to saying "Mom and Shop Retail closes? who cares, the workers can go work at Walmart" "Coal Industry shut down? who cares, they can learn to code" It's not easy for someone to easily rebuild audience from one platform to another or easily transfer the skil…

Well, there are many types of work harmful to society that people partake in. Coal, content makers for abusive social media, there have even been some organizations in history which have committed atrocious war crimes in which people had jobs, and they would have needed to re-specialize had they lost those jobs. It's not that there is a lack of sympathy for anyone who loses their job, but some organizations and efforts are harmful to the broader public.

The "HN and other Tech elitists" don't like social media because it's harmful to society. In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant already brought forward the notion that it is immoral to use a rational human as means to an end. We have broadly accepted this philosophy in life. So when social media companies exploit human attention and cause significant harm to their mental health as means to achieve advertising income and towards mercenary surveillance (surveilling the public for the highest bidder), that is broadly considered questionable. And not only by HN, but by psychiatrists, psychologists, other health care workers, teachers, social sciences researchers, and so on.

There is a national security argument to be made for TikTok as well, which is why governments have taken an interest in it recently. So the ends may be more insidious than advertisement and mercenary surveillance like we see across all social media.

We know that the content on TikTok changed a lot the day Russian invaded Ukraine, there has been a flood of misleading information about the war, including a wave of glorifying the "Z" armed forces and the "special operation", not to mention the "denazifying" stuff. People are being used as means to information warfare ends, too. And by both sides of various conflicts. This is also, arguably, immoral. Although I doubt there's much of an argument to be had.

The mental health and the national security arguments are separate, but given their context, characterizing this as a hate for mom and pop shop closures in some way or form is inappropriate. I think this comparison is a bit of a low effort troll. It's clear you want to rile people up as I don't think anyone starts a serious discussion by calling the other party an elitist or any -ist. But still, above are the reasons why very many people dislike social media and TikTok.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every US publicly traded company of course has to kowtow [0] to the US national agenda. How else could it work? The cold war with China is here to stay. Trump started it, Biden continued it, and now it's on the agenda for good. China is openly striving to supplant the US as the premier power. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowtow [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-26/xi-s-vow-...

There's a difference between playing along with what the US government wants and having to have a parallel chain of command with CCP "party cells" in your company. And there's more than enough US companies actively opposing what the US government want, most notably Google who went and encrypted all their internal traffic so that it couldn't be tapped any more.

> There's a difference between playing along with what the US government wants and having to have a parallel chain of command with CCP "party cells" in your company.

That's exactly what I'm saying. TikTok needs to play ball (be sold in the US) or get banned.

It's one thing to fight against various regulations like Google did in your example, but when you're actively seeking to undermine the nation, that's a whole different ballgame.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every US publicly traded company of course has to kowtow [0] to the US national agenda. How else could it work? The cold war with China is here to stay. Trump started it, Biden continued it, and now it's on the agenda for good. China is openly striving to supplant the US as the premier power. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowtow [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-26/xi-s-vow-...

> Trump started it It was the OPM breach [0] and the brutal eradication of the CIA network within China [1] that tipped the scales Mutual US-China espionage has been common for decades, but these two actions were a step too far. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme... [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%932012_killing_of...

I did not know about [0]. All I heard from up here in Canada was when Trump starting saying "China" a lot.

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#79
post #62

Let me rephrase this as what will probably happen: the TikTok ban will be barely felt and will likely add to the American Economy as competitors that aren't tied to China appear. And if TikTok can't be perfectly emulated, it will actually increase the productivity of Americans who are now being held captive by a foreign-controlled algorithm which is fine-tuned to exploit physiological weaknesses.

Why have all the TikTok competitors launched by US social media companies been total flops, then?

Have they been flops? Instagram reels and YouTube shorts and Snapchat all seem to be doing fine

Re: A TikTok ban would deal a blow to creators, businesses and the American economy

#80
post #62

Let me rephrase this as what will probably happen: the TikTok ban will be barely felt and will likely add to the American Economy as competitors that aren't tied to China appear. And if TikTok can't be perfectly emulated, it will actually increase the productivity of Americans who are now being held captive by a foreign-controlled algorithm which is fine-tuned to exploit physiological weaknesses.

Why have all the TikTok competitors launched by US social media companies been total flops, then?

Because TikTok has other goals than capitalistic, and other measures of success. It is a media company that parrots a China's Communist Party line and by virtue of that, receives monopoly benefits in China, which is a substantial market.

The company which owns TikTok, ByteDance, has had employees speak about this. The VP and ByteDance's internal CPP committee secretary has stated that their intent is for ByteDance to "transmit the correct political direction, public opinion guidance and value orientation into every business and product line." While employees of a subsidiary company TopBuzz have spoken out about its intent to push CCP sympathizer content to foreign users.

ByteDance's history is mired by CCP interventions, it is a company heavily managed by the communist party, with multiple branches closed for non-compliance. It is allowed to exist by the CCP because, so it has been claimed very publicly, it toes the CCP's political line. That's how it measures success. Its success comes from this compliance.

TikTok may very well be a commercial flop in the West and still be in business, operating very well.

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