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What if no one misses TikTok?

nytimes.com

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Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#111

Post by ericmay »

redwall_hp wrote: post #103
keybored wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders. The “personal freedom” part would be most immediately salient here. Free speech wouldn’t apply if the app wasn’…

I can't get over how widely accepted this paternalistic thinking is. "People might be viewing and think in the wrong things and must be stopped!" It's textbook censorship, with a bunch of legal tap dancing to attempt to justify it against the obvious unconstitutionality. We can hardly claim to have a democracy while acting like the population at large needs to be controlled in such a way. It's contradictory.

As a society we just get to decide that. We can simultaneously be a democracy and also prohibit people from doing things. We can even be hypocritical. It's great!

There's nothing contradictory about it because living in a democratic society doesn't mean that you have free reign to do anything that you want.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#112

Post by ericmay »

keybored wrote: post #97
ericmay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but what would that have to do with this action here? TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders. Likewise the United States has recognized that this is…

> TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders. The “personal freedom” part would be most immediately salient here. Free speech wouldn’t apply if the app wasn’…

The problem with this argument is that you are putting TikTok on a pedestal.

The US (and every country on the planet) has rules and regulations around who can do business in their country and who their citizens may do business with.

If you want to argue that the U.S. shouldn't be able to prohibit its citizens from doing business with TikTok you should spend some time generalizing that argument and figuring out a good reason we shouldn't be able to prohibit Americans from selling weapons to Russia, or allowing Russian companies to set up manufacturing facilities in the United States to build weapons to send back to Russia. (or any other scenario you want to make up)

"Free speech" is not a good argument here. TikTok isn't a "free speech" platform. It's just a random company selling products and services in the United States.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#113

Post by aleph_minus_one »

zht wrote: post #4
seo-speedwagon wrote: post #2

TikTok is old news now. Everyone’s joining 小紅書 and getting fully Xi-pilled.

why write the name in traditional? if you're going to refer to it in another language, why not just write it as 小红书？

> why not just write it as 小红书？

seo-speedwagon wrote (emphasis mine):

"Everyone’s joining 小紅書 and getting fully Xi-pilled."

This shows that seo-speedwagon is opposed to mainland China. Writing the name in traditional characters, which are used in Taiwan, is another barb of seo-speedwagon against mainland China and its government.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#114

Post by etblg »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #71

I think TikTok is a negative influence on society, but not for any reasons that have to do with China really. I'd be much happier if the gov took strict actions on social media generally. It doesn't really make much "sense," of course. I'm just day dreaming. I find the USA gov and the Chinese gov to both be pretty evil. The other social media gets to stay, though, because they are all in the USA. Obviously banning Ti…

> The other social media gets to stay, though, because they are all in the USA.

And for two of the biggest social media companies specifically, they'd get to stay anyway because they're paying off the POTUS.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#115

Post by ch4s3 »

ericmay wrote: post #75
ch4s3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also has an enshrined freedom of association, and I personally believe the association rights of those users is being violated. Moreover it seems like security theater.

No we don't - and we stop free associations all the time. I can't call up my non-existent buddies in Russia and say hey you guys need weapons? Well I'll sell them to you. We ban NVIDIA from selling advanced chips to China or North Korea. We prohibit US citizens from bribing officials in countries like Mexico for permits. > Moreover it seems like security theater. Meh. At a minimum it's just an economic reciprocation.…

You can call them up and just chat or go have tea with them. The crime there is evading a weapons sanction. Controlling weapons sales isn’t an infringement on 1a association rights.

That’s a stupid trade policy.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#116

Post by ericmay »

ch4s3 wrote: post #115
ericmay wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we don't - and we stop free associations all the time. I can't call up my non-existent buddies in Russia and say hey you guys need weapons? Well I'll sell them to you. We ban NVIDIA from selling advanced chips to China or North Korea. We prohibit US citizens from bribing officials in countries like Mexico for permits. > Moreover it seems like security theater. Meh. At a minimum it's just an economic reciprocation.…

You can call them up and just chat or go have tea with them. The crime there is evading a weapons sanction. Controlling weapons sales isn’t an infringement on 1a association rights. That’s a stupid trade policy.

What are First Amendment Association rights?

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#117

Post by tveita »

ericmay wrote: post #42
wongarsu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't claim that free speech and personal freedom are part of their core values

Sure but what would that have to do with this action here? TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders. Likewise the United States has recognized that this is…

> the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues.

Yes, speech does that. "The algorithm" is curation but the content we are talking about is mostly Americans talking to other Americans. The goal is to control and suppress that communication.

There are perfectly valid arguments to ban TikTok. And hey, there are arguments to be made that free speech shouldn't be absolute. But that doesn't fit into the American self image, so the argument must be obscured to reduce the dissonance. Your argument in particular maps perfectly to "Some kinds of speech are dangerous and people must be protected from them."

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#118

Post by _lvbh »

daft_pink wrote: post #8

It’s totally insane that China can ban all American social networks on security concerns and ban all kinds of just basic speech on their apps, but banning a Chinese social network is so controversial.

"It's insane that China can engage in genocide but engaging in genocide ourselves is so controversial"

This isn't really a good argument. Someone else being horrible isn't grounds to be horrible yourself. There are better arguments for banning TikTok, like protecting the youth from having their brains rotted out.

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#119

Post by TulliusCicero »

ritcgab wrote: post #106
TulliusCicero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a trade issue. If Country A bans imports from Country B, it's entirely reasonable to respond in kind.

Then the US acts like China.

Right now the issue is that the US mostly doesn't. The US market is far more open to China than the reverse, everyone knows this.

Free trade should also be fair trade.

Personally I wouldn't really give a shit about TikTok if the Chinese market was actually at all open to US companies for this area (and if there were reasonable protections about personal data in the US overall).

Re: What if no one misses TikTok?

#120

Post by dragonwriter »

ericmay wrote: post #112
keybored wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok isn’t being banned because of free speech or not but because the usage of their algorithms allows the app to influence how Americans think about different issues. China has recognized this as a threat and as such has banned foreign adversary social media companies from operating within its borders. The “personal freedom” part would be most immediately salient here. Free speech wouldn’t apply if the app wasn’…

The problem with this argument is that you are putting TikTok on a pedestal. The US (and every country on the planet) has rules and regulations around who can do business in their country and who their citizens may do business with. If you want to argue that the U.S. shouldn't be able to prohibit its citizens from doing business with TikTok you should spend some time generalizing that argument and figuring out a good…

> "Free speech" is not a good argument here. TikTok isn't a "free speech" platform.

Free speech doesn't protect free speech platforms: free speech protects every speaker, platform, and listener against regulations targeted on the basis of content/viewpoint.

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