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The TikTok War

stratechery.com

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Re: The TikTok War

#101

Post by babesh »

There seems to be a concerted effort from both China and the US to create sides. It feels like a new Cold War is looming.

Stratechery is playing on one side. The reality is that US companies are quite willing to censor and manipulate information as well.

Facebook and YouTube censored coronavirus information for the US government. Facebook is fine with right wing manipulation. These propaganda efforts by US companies affect people from other countries.

Both sides are just trying to amass and maintain power. The CCP needs to control information to maintain power. The US is a consortium of entities amassing money and power and likewise tries to destroy institutions preventing that. I bet if you look inside the CCP, you would likewise see multiple groups vying for power.

If you follow Stratechery’s logic, then non US countries should likewise ban Facebook and YouTube.

The more ethical solution would be worldwide standards on censorship.

Re: The TikTok War

#102

Post by msbarnett »

addison-lee wrote: post #93
msbarnett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I consider Chinese spyware any worse than the US spyware of Facebook, as a resident of neither country. Hand wringing about TikTok seems more rooted in sinophobia than genuine privacy concerns, from where I’m sitting.

No doubt spyware is bad from either country, but TikTok was caught trying to suppress content from "ugly, poor, or disabled" users. Do you still support the app knowing that? https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...

I didn’t say I supported it at all.

I merely said I don’t see how it’s worse than the major US social networks. Like say Facebook, which has been caught multiple times allowing employers and housing advertisers to illegally exclude groups like Black people, from seeing job postings and apartment listings.

Again, I don’t know that what TikTok has been shown to be doing is any worse.

Re: The TikTok War

#103

Post by indymike »

actuator wrote: post #12

Ben is absolutely right and something needs to be done to fight for the values of liberalism, democracy etc we hold dear but I don't see how this will happen. The world seems more divided than ever. Just 2-3 countries unilaterally acting on these issues isn't going to make a difference, how I wish there were strong leaders in some of the nations who knew how to work well for those ideals in the long term together wit…

Everyone forgets that Tiktok bought Musical.ly which was an American product to get the market traction they have. The issue that seems more real than political speech is that US social media / internet companies are denied access to the Chinese market while we allow Chinese owned companies complete access to the US market. Seems like that is unjust.

Re: The TikTok War

#104

Post by jes5199 »

mochialex wrote: post #100
analyte123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to do stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just be (or pretend to be) someone. I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values l…

[flagged]

in that case, using Facebook means you’re helping perpetuate white supremacy through the mass incarceration of Black Americans

Re: The TikTok War

#105

Post by eclipsetheworld »

Why is TikTok allowed to gain market share in Western countries? China banned Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. while Chinese companies such as Baidu, Sina Weibo, WeChat were able to capture the entire Chinese market share.

It seems that companies not adhering to censorship cannot expand into China, however, Chinese companies adhering to censorship (e.g. TikTok) are able to expand into Western countries. Isn't this anti-competitive?

Re: The TikTok War

#106

Post by magnio »

mochialex wrote: post #100
analyte123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to do stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just be (or pretend to be) someone. I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values l…

[flagged]

How exactly does using TikTok help China silence millions of camped Uyghurs? If we all switched to Facebook would their voices be heard?

Re: The TikTok War

#107

Post by msbarnett »

cameronbrown wrote: post #97
msbarnett wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah yes, because the US is well known for its Muslim concentration camps, social credit scores and surveillance panopticon. Perhaps I simply don’t consider the Hispanic concentration camps, private credit scores that still gate hiring, access to healthcare (via hiring) and renting and apartment, and surveillance panopticon powered by Google, better?

Are you serious? The US does not have Hispanic concentration camps. It DOES have a private prison problem, but not death camps.

I guess we’ll see how well the detainees in those ICE camps fare in the face of an out of control COVID outbreak.

I wouldn’t care to try to parse any moral superiority between how apologists want to characterize the ICE camps and how Chinese apologists want to characterize the Uighur camps, myself. Neither strikes me as terribly deserving of our defense.

Re: The TikTok War

#108

Post by zzzcpan »

cj wrote: post #62
bstar77 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the copy/paste exploit was addressed (in ios) I'm not sure what useful information "chinese spyware" can gather from this app. As long as it's being used for goofy dance and lip sync videos, I don't see the harm.

I see the risk being less about spyware, and more about giving CCP the ability to push its agenda at the flick of an algorithm tweak. A lot of people in comments are talking about how great the feed algorithm is out weeding out teenage dance videos and showing interesting content. You can easily imagine a scenario where CCP tweaks its algorithms to favor content relating to one party or candidate vs. the other. The s…

It's a private company, it's very unlikely for them to outright push government propaganda. They'll probably just censor "political activism" on the platform altogether and someday if government establishes tighter control of the platform they might be forced not to censor some of it, like things that undermine the US government.

Re: The TikTok War

#109

Post by moron4hire »

hugh4life wrote: post #96
kpennell wrote: post #11

I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't…

"I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked." All these apps use behavioral design to get you hooked. Tiktok is oversocialization on steroids. You have people not only acting out the behavioral scripts embedded and triggered in some meme music or voice you have people mimetically acting out what others are acting out. The psychological manipulation possible though TikTok is immense.

Behavioral Psychology really needs to be a general studies topic, introduced to secondary education.

I remember my local high school's motto when I was growing up was something like, "we're not here to teach, we're here to create good, informed consumers".

Never mind the obvious problems with that statement, but just considering it on face-value: how can people become good, informed consumers without having some kind of exposure to the concepts of how easily information can be collected about and used to manipulate people?

I don't expect most high school students to inculcate the full breadth of the topic, just as so few seem to actually learn and retain anything about history, social studies, or even the freaking alphabet (I've met way too many people who think the English alphabet has 25 letters). But currently, the general populace has no idea the extent to which they and their data can be manipulated. It would be enough if all they learned was "you and your data can be manipulated".

Re: The TikTok War

#110

Post by giancarlostoro »

kpennell wrote: post #11

I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't…

Btw IG discovery is mainly based on people you follow and things you like. For example I see more memes and tech stuff on IG than I ever do of yoga pants. If I see something I dont like I mark it as not interested.
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